Eminent Scottish Churchman To Visit Whakatane This Month

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 36, 9 April 1948, Page 5

Eminent Scottish Churchman To Visit Whakatane This Month

The Very Rev. .Professor John Baillie, D.D., D.Litt, S.T.D., representative of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland to the centenary celebrations of the Synod of Otago and Southland just recently concluded in Dunedin, is to pay a brief visit to a portion of the. Maori Mission Field of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. He will be accompanied by Mrs Baillie and in company with the Superintendent of Presbyterian Maori Missions will visit Nukaha and Waikaremoana on Monday, April 26. On Tuesday, April 27, a stop -will be made at Ruatahuna and a visit made to the historic Matatua Meeting House. The party will lunch at the Te'Whaiti Maori Boys’ Training Farm, after which the visitors will inspect the farm and the •carpentry training school. On Tuesday evening Dr. and Mrs Baillie will stay at Whakatane. A full scale Maori welcome will be extended to the distinguished Scottish visitor on Wednesday morning, April 28, at Taneatua, Waimana, when they will visit the Mission School there, and meet the Maori members of the Church and ■community. At 11 a.m. a service .is. to be held in the Maori Church when a Memorial Plaque to the memory of the late J. B. Gow will be unveiled. Mr Gow was an honoured and loyal friend of the Maori people. After the service the school children will enter.tajn ..tlxe-,visitors, at a Maori Concert, and later they will be the guests of the local Maoris at lunch. En route to Rotorua that afternoon, if time permits, Dr. and Mrs Baillie will also pay a visit to the Kawerau Mission School.