WAYSIDE ALTARS

Hokitika Guardian, 25 May 1931, Page 5

WAYSIDE ALTARS

A CHURCH IN WESTLAND.

(Bv Elsie K. Morton in Auckland Star)

Ear away on a lonely beach on the West Coast of the South Island, one hundred and forty miles from the nearest township, stands the last memorial to the faith and Christian zeal of an old-time settlement of Westland pioneers. It is the ruin of a little Catholic church at Gillespie’s Beach, set in the sandhills beside the Ocean. The old •building is tottering to the last stages of decay; the little cross has fallen awry, the weather-boarding is cracked and broken, empty windows stare out to sunset across the surging Tasman. Fifty years ago Gillespie’s was a busy, populous mining settlement, with several thousand inhabitants. Little homes stood all along tlie ridge of the sandhills, men and women toiled, loved, and sorrowed, children played happily on the beach. Soon these pilgrims of the wilds set up a shrine to their God, as men have ever done when they have paused awhile in the lonely places beyond the frontiers of civilisation, Another link was forged in the chain that binds the hearts to men and women to the great heart of the Father, and here for years the fathers and mothers of Gillespie’s, with their children, offered prayers and praise before the altar of that little church beside the sea.

Then once again the old story of the West Coast, was told. The grey sands yielded up the last of their golden treasure, One by one the little homes were deserted j tho Gillespie families turned their faces from the ocean, the buildings themselves gradually disappearing from the landscape. • To-day there is just one point of habitation on the ridge behind the beach, the home of the Bagley brothers, two pioneer gold seekers who still maintain the quest. Their cottage *b « centre of hospitality for all visitors to Gillespie’s; here is: kindness, a ready welcome for the wayfarer, and many ride nowadays along the beautiful fourteen-mile bush track from the Fox Glacier Hostel to a comfort able little hut on the rim of the beach.

Gillespie’s is deserted, its church inruins, hut it is only the outward visible sign thait has been lost awhile. The inward spiritual grace still burns in strong, steady flame in the hearts of these staunch Westlanders. , Still farther south, at Bruce Bay, the settlers even now are planning to biffid a church. The vicar of South Westland visits them four times a year to hold service in a little schoolroom. Over one hundred mil&s further south at lonely Okura a few scattered families assemble twice a year ia one ol the settlers’ homes for divine service and communion' Think what the celebration to those isolated men and women of the bankbooks you Christians of the cities, where the church bells penl every Sabbath morning, summoning to the Holy Sacrament the slothful, the unwilling, those who have grown careless in their easy sojourning along the ways of life!

Once a year the Bishop of Christchurch Journeys westward, and rides a hundred miles over unroaded mountains, unbridged rivers, through the lonely Westland forests, to give these far-scattered members of his flock the comfort of their Church’s benediction. And now, within the last few weeks, another altar has been erected to the glory of God in the wilderness, the beautiful little church of St. James’s at Fran/, Joset Glacier, W aiho •Gorge, dedicated by the Bishop of Christchurch the d a y after Anzae Day. No other church in all New Zealand is so beautifully situated as St. James’. It stands on rising ground above the Wniho River, hi a little.clearing in the heart of the forest that borders the Main South Hoad. The pathway from the road lies between two stately ponga ferns, and the shadows of splendid forest trees fall across the sunlit entianco The murmur of the river and music of hell-birds fall most sweetly on the ear as the hush of prayer deepens in the little church. Above the altar is set a wide plate glass window—no dim stained glass here, no minutely-wrought patterning of saints and martyrs, nut one of God’s own pictures whose beauty can never fade—the sunlit vista of a glacier shining white, descending between dark, forest clad mountain heights crowned with gleaming snow peaks,

Much loving service has gone to the erection and furnishing of St. James The site, one of the finest in Waiho, was donated, the communion plate, the bell than summons worshippers to prayer, the organ and the font, while me* Waiho Mothers’ Union, just nine mothers, have raised l the sum of no less than eighty pounds for the furnishing. All the beautilul cm taina, the altar frontals. are the work of their patient hands. those mothers whose zeal and devoted service have helped to raise yet one more altar in the wilderness. where their children and their children’s children may learn to worship the God whose hand is ever leading His people from darkness into the Light. The service is over, the people of Waiho have gone back to their homes glad of heart because of the spiritual strength and beauty that has been added to their lives

The .setting sun strikes through the empty windows of the ruined church beside the ocean, gilds the little fallen cross ; sea wind and surging breakers sound a requiem for the vanished hopes, the broken dream that was once Gillespie’s. But at Waiho the

mothers and fathers are working still with willing hands and glad hearts for tlxeir beautiful wayside temple, the children are singing . . . .