BISHOP STUART OF WAIAPU

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3046, 5 April 1917, Page 9

BISHOP STUART OF WAIAPU

A UNIQUE INCIDENT.

The missionary comradeship between Bishop;Stewart, of Waiapu, i New Zealand, and Bishop French) one of the greatest missionaries of modern times, is referred to by Dr. .Enggne Stock in the course of a very interesting article in tho "Constructive Quarterly" (Oxford University Press). In describing how Bishop Frenoh's work in Persia was carried on for many years by a veteran like himself, Dr. Stock states:

"When he (Dr. French) wont to India on his first pioneer service in 1850, he was accompanied by a young graduate of Dublin University, Edward Craig Stuart. After a quarter of a century of excellent service, in India, Stewart went to New Zealand/ and joined the C.M.B. Maori Mission. Presently he was elected by" the diocese of Waiapu to bo its second bishop, and he. was actually consecrated there in December, 1877, ten days before French wasiconsecrated bishop in Westminster Abbey.. Fifteen years of exemplary work as a missionary bishop passed away, and then he was visited'by a.friend from England sent out to stir iip the Australians and New Zenlahders to take' a share in tho evangelisation of Africa and writer of this present article. To him Bishop Stuart opened his heart: should he not_ follow hie old comrade's example,, give , up _his bishopric,, and go -as a simple missionary to some Mohammedan land? A letter from Persia decided him, and in .1894 he resigned his see, and dedicatod himself to tho work of preachingthe Gospel in,that same country of Cyrua and Queen Esther .'where French had done temporary service ten years before. There, with short intervals, he was permitted by the grace of God to labour fifteen years; .but not,, like French, to lay his bones in the field of his.service, for in his eighty-fourth year he was brought to England to die, and entered into rest on March 15, 1911, eighteen years after the brother with whom ho had' started his missionary career sixty years before. Is there any case quite like this in all: Church history?" :' ' • The December number of the "Constructive Quarterly" . also contains a number of other timely and interesting articles by writers of high '■ standing, including Professor W; P. Paterson ("The Crisis in the Church"), Dr. Dugald Mncfadyen ("Catbohc Protestanism"), and 'T. R. Glover (VJesus and Man").