PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 970, 10 November 1910, Page 4

PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLY.

■ MODERATOB'S ADDKESS. "THE RULING ELDER." . (By Telcgraph.-Press Association.) Auckland, November 9. The General Assembly of the Presby* terian Church of New Zealand was. opened to-night in St. Andrew's HalL The retiring moderator, the Rev. I. Jolly, M.A., . pastor of St. Stephen's Church, Auckland, conducted the. service. After the service the assembly was constituted and moderator-elect, the Rev. J. H. Mackenzie, of Nelson, installed in office. The new moderator, in his inaugural address, dealt at length with' the subject of "The Ruling Eider,", being a plea for the better recognition of the. position and functions of the ruling elder. The speaker's treatment of his subject consisted in a historical study of the evolution of Presbyterian government by elders, ,and a dissertation upon the qualifications for, and duties of eldership. The subject, he said, merited attention from the fact that last year it had been reported to the assembly that the numbers of the ruling ciders in the Church had decreased by 68, the principal fall-ing-off being in the south. Not a decrease, but an increase was much to be desired in tho present age. In • conclusion the moderator said the Church had nothing cither to learn or to fear from the modern spirit of democracy. In-its representative government it already had what every nation, aspiring to be free, demanded. Progress and change ot form were necessary in many directions outside the Church. While it might be expedient, it would never be necessary to change a simple form of worship for ono more ornate, but it was neither necessary nor expedient to depart from the constitution of the Presbyterian Church built upon the representative principle as embodied in the ruling elder, and buttressed by tho example of tho apostles.