NEW BOOKS

Evening Star, Issue 23687, 21 September 1940, Page 4

NEW BOOKS

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH CENTENNIAL HISTORY _____ - » It was a fortunate thing that Dr J. R. Elder, professor of history in the University of Otago, was able to undertake the authorship of the Centennial history of the Presbyterian Church in New Zealand. Dr Elder has high qualifications for the task by reason of his encyclopaedic knowledge of the course of events in New Zealand in the last hundred years as revealed in his previous writings, his understanding because of his professional status of how history should be presented, and his easy, flowing literary style. This large and comprehensive book entailed close research, and this is indicated in the number of authorities Dr Elder quotes as having helped him in his work. The Presbyterian Church is intimately connected with the development of New Zealand. Its influence runs like a thread through every phase of the national life, and its efforts have been consistently devoted to the service of the Master Who is its Head. It was in March, 1840, that the Rev. John Macfarlane, a minister of the Established Church of Scotland, preached his first sermon on Petone Beach, and this spot is now marked by the lona Cross.

As congregations were -gradually formed, however, says Dr Elder, they turned, almost without exception, not to the Established, but to the Free Church of Scotland for their ministers, and thus the church became evangelical in tone, while united in essentials with the whole body of Scottish Presbyterianism. The first chapter in the boob is entitled ‘ The Rock From Which They Were Hewn,’ in which vital developments in the church are sketched. “ The memory of the church,” says the author, “ extends over the Scottish religious controversies of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to the great fight against patronage which culminated in the unhappy Disruption of 1843, when, under the leadership 6f Dr Thomas Chalmers, the momentous decision,was made which led to the foundation of the Free Church of Scotland, from which the main stream of New Zealand Presbyterianism was to flow. Recent and more happy memories embrace the union of Scottish Presbyterianism in October, 1929, and the welcome healing of a breach which had divided two kindred bodies for nearly a century.” Seen in the perspective of a century of high endeavour, the tale of the work of the Presbyterian Church in New Zealand is a straightforward narrative. From that historic day on Petone Beach the Scottish pioneers began to build their churches, and received in the first years the ministry of men ordained in’ the Mother Country. Gradually as the cities and towns grew the accessories which now form so important a part of the operations of the church developed. Devotion to education, missionary zeal, theological training, and social work in the foundation of homes and orphanages have rendered conspicuous service to the church and the state. Special interest is attached to the Otago settlement because of the nature of its founding under the leadership of Captain Cargill and Dr Thomas Burns, and Dr Elder describes the work in this connection with a wealth of historical detail, in which the labours of those stalwart pioneer ministers, Dr Bannerman and Dr Will are vividly described. Tributes are_ naturally paid to their contemporaries and successors, for Otago has been fortunate in having such leaders and church statesmen as Dr Stuart, Dr Rutherford Waddell, Dr Gibb. Dr Andrew Cameron, and Rev. William Hewitson, to name a few. Among the lay members, too, men of ability rendered conspicuous help, by financial _ gifts and varirfbs services, in building the church up to the influential organisation existing to-day. It will be remembered that the Presbvterian Church in New Zealand, consisted of two sections —the Northern Church and the Southern Church. The former covered the whole of New Zealand to the north of the Waitaki River in the South Island; the latter Otago and Southland, which always have been a stronghold of Presbyterianism. At last, after nranv years of negotiation, the happy day ' came when union was

consummated. The first General Assembly met in Knox Church. Dunedin, on October 31, 19C1, when the Rev. J. I’ateraon gave in the report of the Union Committee, which stated that the members of the two committees directly concerned had appeared before the Parliamentary Committee, in Wellington, in August, to make necessary arrangements in view of the consummation of the union, and to prepare a programme of business for the first meeting of the General Assembly. In writing this book, Dr Elder has rendered conspicuous service not only to the Presbyterian Church, but to this

Dominion as a whole, because of the many and diverse incidents related having a bearing on developments from the pioneer days. Every department of the life of the church is covered. It is no dry and formal record, but a graphic story of the work of a host of men whose lives were dedicated to the service of their Master.

The book is well printed and has numerous fine illustrations, including some notable etchings by Mr A. H. M'Lintock. Our copy is from the Presbyterian Book Room, Christchurch.