SHORT OF CLERGY.

Hokitika Guardian, 30 December 1925, Page 4

SHORT OF CLERGY.

y— ® o e»—< BISHOP RICHARD’S APPEAL. RCNF.DIX. Dee. 28. In Hie course or his .sermon at St. Paul's Cathedral, Bishop Richards referred to the shortage of clergy, and made an elocpieut appeal for help.. ‘‘At present,” lie said, “through no fault of theirs, many of our people are in a state of spirilla! destitution, and we do pray earnestly that we may ire enabled to full'd our ministry, so that the children of the Church may he brought up in knowledge of the love of God, and that grown-up people with their families, who are in remote and scattered districts, may have the means ef grace within their reach, that tne message of the Gospel may be so

brought home to the I'iulion that our social and political life may be enobbled and purified. And for this we need more clergy, and the means to support them. “Rear with me while I say a word about the training of candidates for ordination. From a worldly, material, point of view it is difficult to imagine why there should he any candidates at all, but there are other and higher cujnsidera turns t-ha-n this. There are young men id promise who would be likely to do well in almost any business or profession win) have heard the call of the Master, and are offering themselves for the Ministry of the Church, but in this diocese we have not sufficient means to train them. We have some means for one or two. candidates, but not for more. Oar Diocesan College, excellent as it is as an institution, is starving. Already a young man, a university student of promise, has left Dunedin for Auckland. lost both to-the Cniversity and to the Clmi-cli here, simply because we had not the means to keep him. And now others are ottering, and are wo to lose them too- Or would it be possible for this Cathedral eongregatiion to- start an Ordination Candidates’ Fund? To raise £l2O a year to meet our present reriuirewents i It would he a noble service to the Church, and where better could an example ho -set than here ?”