PRESENT STATE OF THE COORDINATED MISSIONS.

Waiapu Church Gazette, 1 June 1933, Page 4

PRESENT STATE OF THE COORDINATED MISSIONS.

This is precarious m the extreme. Melanesia has been heavily reduced

m staff, trainees and scholars. Bishop Baddeley is endeavouring to obtain recruits to bring the staff up to its former strength — not m any way to increase or advance — but just to "hold the fort' m its minimum requirements for the maintenance of the work m those lonely islands, and he is looking with confidence to New Zealand to supply our share of his minimum needs. Our doing so depends entirely on our reaching this year's quota. Hence the precariousness of the position. We are so many hundreds "down" at the moment of writing that the Bishop's trust — indeed his peace of mmd — is, as it were, trembling m the balance. It is so with the S.P.G. work m North China and with the C.M.S. work m various countries. Both societies have recently had emergency calls made upon them to which they have had to turn a deaf ear, not knowing whether the end of the year (June 30th) will see them m a position even to pay their present workers. "It all depends," they say, "on the Board' of Missions." The same may be said of Polynesia and the Jerusalem and the East Mission. All their eyes are on the Board at this time, and they will remain so until the end of the year, each wondering what its fate will be. Can we let them down?