PASTORAL LETTER

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3581, 3 January 1883, Page 2

PASTORAL LETTER

The following pastoral letter has been aeldresscd by the Bishop of Waiapu to the clergy and laity of his diocese :— - Dear Brethren- in the Lord.—By a resolution of the Diocesan Synod it is incited that offertories be made throughout the diocese on the first Sunday- of the year in aid of a General Diocesan Church Fund. I now invito your cordial co-operation in giving effect to this resolution. The object of tho fund may be described as the work of Home Missions and Church Extension in the etioecse, i.e., to assist in supporting clergymen and churches in necessitous districts. Such a fund wa.s proposed hy a resolution of the Synod some years ago ; and certaiuly whatever was the need then, it is much greater now, seeing- the increase in the number of our parishes, clergy and churches, has by no means kept pace with the growth of the population. A vigorous, united, and sustained effort on the part of all loyal churchmen in tho diocese is therefore urgently needed. We may well be stirred up to this work hy the example of other dioceses both in New Zealand ami in the sister Colonial Church of Australia, where such funds are hi active operation. The Diocesan Fund is administered by the Standing Committee, which consists of three clergymen and five hvymen, elected annually by the Synod, with the Bishop as president. It is thus a. work of the church, as such, which all its members should support, uniting in contributing to it in recognition of their common interests as churchmen. Nay, dear brethren in the Lord, I appeal to you not merely on such grounds of community of interests as one might m-ge in tho case of any ordinary society in which men arc associated. I would urge the unspeakably higher motives that should influence those, who hy God's great love, have been made one body in Christ. Let us heartily accept this our spiritual citizenship with its privileges and responsibilities, anel then, freed from the bondage of selfishness, wo sluill jrlacUj- bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. The cheerful offering of our contributions to a common Church Fund, according- to the abiHty which God lias given to each, on the first Sunday of the new year, will be an appropriate acknowledgment of our dependence on Him for life and all its blessings, and may help us, for the future, to live more in the spirit of our Divine Master, to look not every man on his own things, but ever)/ man also on the tilings of others. That God may make all (/race to ((bound toward you, that ye, having all sufficiency in all tilings, may abound to every good work is the prayer of your faithful servant in Christ, Edward C. Waiatu. Napier, New Year's Day, 18S3.