A STEP in the RIGHT DIRECTION.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 187, 4 October 1872, Page 3

A STEP in the RIGHT DIRECTION.

It is sati.siacror.y- to record that- an important religious' movement long, advocated in these columns in the interests of our scattered 'population, and of ministers of religion in outlying districts, has during the last few days culminated in a successful issue. A society has been formed oil an\jtipis. r ' copalian and Presbyterian basis for' the joint supply of ministers to poor and sparsely populated country districts . wher i• at present there is often either no, Sunday service at all, or where the clergyman, Episcopalian or Presbyterian receives so' 'miserable a stipend that it sometimes does hot equU the pay of a railway pur. er. The neW society' propose to -collect from the generaLpubhcsubsciptipns to cany out this moveuleu'cV"'and its'management is to ue vested ppincipallv in tue Bishop of Melbourne arid the Greiieral Presbyterian Assembly, • assisted by clerical and lay members of both denominations.. vYhere in any; district "there is one church and one minister only arrangements ,twSil be made for one service in three to be given in the building by a minister, of! the other denomination, the visiting minister being ''according to, the duties he performs. Where there are two churches in-a district containing-but a" limited population, the society will support two clergymen conditionally on the services being given alternately. It is further provided thab,'where ;"atpresent there is no Sunday service in a district, one shall be given out under" the auspices of the society once a. montta -The minimum'stipend to be paid; to clergymen employed by -the society is fixed at £3OO per annum. Though 'in this movement we Jhave primarily > great and crying want supplied, there is in it also " the germ of a more comprehensive liberal organisation between two large . Protestant bodies in this country., If the plan now adopted should succeed, it wiil loosen and in time utterly break down the sectarian barrier which' prevents a regular exchange,. of pulpits between clergymen of the two churches. Sectarianism will in fact' exist,but in name and in the ; course of a few years the distinctive terms that - now separate" men who agree on. majors points of doctrine wiirtecpme obsblete:^