THE CENTENNIAL

Lake County Mail, Issue 18, 24 September 1947, Page 1

THE CENTENNIAL

By the Rev. P. Anderson

A centennial history of the Church in Otago and Southland is being produced to mark Centennial year, and our Lake District should be especially interested in it, as it is chiefly the product of the work of Professor John Collie, a well-known and much-beloved figure in Queenstown and the surrounding district. Mr Collie had a distinguished academic career and proved himself a fine scholar. He came to Queenstown in December, 1925, as successor to Rev. J. H. Robertson, and served altogether a period of six years. Mr Collie’s pulpit ministrations showed to a marked degree the qualities of mind and heart, producing a gracious impression and diffusing a wholesome influence. The traits of manliness and humility, of friendliness and tenderness, made him an outstanding spiritual guide. The more his sterling Christian character is tested by every achievement in his onward career, the more it reveals him as a truly accomplished humble, consecrated Christian gentleman.” (Golden Road.) During Mr Collie’s time, Queenstown was transferred from the Southland Presbytery to that of Central Otago, in May, 1929. Professor Collie has a further link with Queenstown in that the writer had the privilege of sitting under him as a student at the Theological Hall .for a year. In speaking of Queenstown he has told how much he loved his time here, and the people among whom he He was a gardener and he did much toward making the old manse garden a lovely old-world place and a delightful retreat. He spoke, too, of the delight he and Mrs Collie derived from their camping adventures when visiting up the Lake. It must have been a splendid way of making pastoral calls. As with Mr Collie, so also with the people of the parish. There arc many here who cherish his memory for the fragrance of their experiences of his ministry, and there are many here who feel

the loss of a personal friend in his death.

The quality of his ministry must have been outstanding for the double honour to come to him iq 1931. First, he was designated Moderator of Assembly, and three days later, Synod appointed him to the position of Professor of New Testament Studies in the Theological Hall of the Presbyterian Church, the first New Zealand-trained minister to this appointment, and he was called to receive it without applications having been called for—he was so obviously the choice. Queenstown must have felt proud of her minister.

And then for Centennial year, Synod did him the honour of asking him to write the Centennial History. He passed on to the higher life before the task was quite completed. He would regret to leave it uncompleted, and yet it would be his joy to be taken while still “in harness,” doing a task for his Lord. Thus this outpost, the Lakes District, finds itself bound up in the one bundle of life with the whole church of the province. May we, too, play our part, like John Collie, to make Centennial year a notable one, and to show ourselves worthy pioneers of the second century.