BAPTIST CONFERENCE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2054, 23 September 1880, Page 2

BAPTIST CONFERENCE.

A public meeting in connection ■with the above was held last Wednesday evening in the Baptist Church, Oxford terrace, Mr E. G. lewis in the chair. There was a very large attendance. The chairman congratulated the meeting that a Baptist Union in New Zealand waa now an accomplished fact. The movement was not intended to interfere with their congregational principle of government, but to secure strength by united action in tho future. The Rev. O. Dalluston said that he desired to accord a hearty weloome to the ministers from other parts of New Zealand, and it was an honour to the Baptist Church in Cbristchurch that the Baptist Union was inaugurated here. The Church they represented waa founded not in the sixteenth century, but in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Csejar, by Jesus Christ. The Rev. J. Upton Davis, of Donedin, congratulated them on the strong hold that Baptist principles had attained in the country districts of Canterbury, and spoke vigorously in defence of tho tenets of the Baptists, tracing the progress and present status of the denomination in New Zealand. They numbered about 6000 adherents in the colony. The Rev. Alan Webb, of Auckland, delineated at great length the distinctive features held by tho Baptist Church. The Bev. J. Hinton, of Wellirgton, spoke briefly on the same subject, and the meeting was closed by the usual devotional exercises. Several musical selections were ably given by the choir during tho evening.