MELANESIAN MISSION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 365, 31 May 1911, Page 5

MELANESIAN MISSION.

Next Sunday in all Anglican Churches throughout the province of Auckland the offerings will be given to help the Melanesian Mission. This mission was begun by Bishop Selwyn in 1 y -19, when after visiting the islands in his live-ton schooner the Undine, he brought back with him live little savage hoys to Auckland, where they were taught with the Maori scholars at St. John's College. No mission of the last century is of greater interest than this. The coral islands, the many languages spoken in the different groups of isalnds—the haunts of the wildest savages of the Pacific, the cannibal, and the headhunter. Of special interest are the distinctive characterises of the past and present leaders of the mission: Bishop Selwyn, the founder; Bishop Patterson, who was killed in the work, after seventeen years of untiring service; Bishop John Selwyn, who had to retire, broken in health and crippled for the rest of his life; Bishop Wilson, whose preaching and lectures are now particularly interesting to many in the work. A steady decline of many of the evils, a growing power of Christianity have been the result of the mission, and migration of Europeans to the islands. At Otorohanga, at 11 a.m., and at Te Kuiti at 7 p.m, the Rev. E. S. Wayne will preach on the mission. In IS9S, when he first joined the mission, one who gave him great help in the native language was born in an island where a white man had never been seen or beard of tiil Bishop Patterson went there, which visit he well remembered. Mr Wayne's years of teaching at the chief training school for Melanesian Islanders, and continued interest in the mission enable him to speak with true knowledge of the subject.