THE CENTENNIAL

Lake County Mail, Issue 7, 9 July 1947, Page 3

THE CENTENNIAL

This article is the first of a series written by the Rev. P» Anderson, B.Sc., portraying the part played by the Presbyterian Church in the early and latter' years of the province.

OTAGO! To those who know it, a name to conjure with. Within a year Otago will celebrate its centenary. It is still a young and undeveloped land, as those who dwell in its back-blocks know. And yet it has seen economic systems come and go. The enormous holdings of the first farmers have vanished; there are derelict and deserted townships and torn-up countryside, eloquent witness of the gold-rush; and the steadier and more thorough-going settling of the land. A province to be proud of, with its agriculture, its fruit-growing, the wonderful climate of Central and the unsurpassed scenery of the Lake District. How has the province been biiilt up? On what foundation was it established? And what part has this corner of the province played in its history and how much does it owe to the rest and to. its founders?

Many of our British migrations have had a religious impulse; the Pilgrim Fathers -went to America to seek religious and political freedom; thus also the Quakers of William Penn’s day. Otago also had its origin in the twin troubles of Scotland of the 1840’s, the Disruption of the Church, and economic distress. Otago, and its partner Southland, were chosen to be Scottish Free Church settlements and we owe to-day an incalculable debt to that newly-born Free Church of Scotland. We owe, not merely for the men and materials that she supplied, and she gave these generously and of fine quality, but also for the skill and wisdom with which these men built and planned. The story has often been told of the journey of those first two ships, the John Wickliffe and the Philip Laing. It is hard for us to picture the heroism of that journey, in sailing ships, lasting for four months, with women and children and all the stores aiid gear needed for a new life, with all the ordinary hazards of life added to the dangers and difficulties of a voyage in close and cramped quarters. The composition of their complements marked the character of the province to be. The men of first importance on the ships were the Captain, the Minister, ‘the Doctor and the Teacher, and their impression was deep and permanent on the community. Yes. “ They came in ships,” as is so delightfully told by “Ann Allan,” especially for children, including grown-up ones. We find in the shipboard routine Divine Service twice daily and three times on Sundays, school lessons five days a week, and Sunday School on Sundays, and strict obedience to the doctor’s orders always. It is in this that we discover the foundation upon which our province has been built. This splendid structure we call Otago, still in the building, solid and sound, hath a foundation “ not made with hands, invisible in the heavens, whose maker and builder is God.” These pioneers knew that physical veil-being and prosperity did not depend alone upon hard mainspring of action was to be found in their Faith. So too, mwfle obviously, wa » the qnality of moral life maintained through the character of the faith they lived. They were clearly conscious of this, and made due provision for the maintenance of religious life; and because religion and ignorance breed superstition, they provided also for education. Land, and the income to be derived from it were set aside as an endowment for the Church and for education. But these endowments were not the only means they employed for building np the present and ensuring the fntnrc. The first pnblic building the pioneers built was a hall to serve os - school and church until special buildings could be erected, and the present Pirsh Church of Dunedin stands en the site of that hall. As the province developed and the isolated quarters were opened up, church and school followed. Educa-