NEW ZEALAND WESLEYAN CONFERENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 30, 4 February 1874, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND WESLEYAN CONFERENCE.

The following is an extract from the address delivered by the Rev T. Buddie at the opening of the Conference: — My next words are words.of congratulation. I congratulate you, my brethren in the Ministry, that a New Zealand Conference is at length an accomplished fact. Some of us have for several years labored earnestly to secure this, and to see our labors this day crowned with success is matter for congratulation. We have long felt the need of greater freedom in the administration of our local affairs. Great inconvenience on tbe subject of appointments, and in the application of funds, has often been felt, and sometimes, though not often, unpleasant collisions have occurred, and the representatives to Australia have often had to feel that they could not please everybody. And to be able to discuss and determine tbe affairs of the New Zealand churches in New Zealand by tbe representatives of the churches, is a consummation that was devoutly to be wished, and that is now realised. At the same time we are bound to record our gratitude to the Australasian Conference for ail tbe consideration and assistance we bave received. It will be our most sacred duty to give them all the aid we can in their missionary operations among the islands of the sea. I congratulate the Wesleyan chnrches in New Zealand on this important change. Our respected laymen have hitherto been prevented by distance from taking part in conference business. Never but once has the New Zealand laity been represented in an Australian Conference. Now we hope to see our laymen occupying their places on all our financial committees, and before long representing tbe churches in conference proper. The subject of lay representation is one of some difficulty The matter was discussed in the last general Conference, and the principle was unanimously approved and affirmed; the only question remaining for solution is the form it can legally take. The poll deed made by our founder may raise some legal questions that will require to be settled, and possibly fresh legislation will have to be sought; but I may say all the Methodist Conferences in the world are feeling the importance of the subject, and are recognising the necessity for such a change, and the matter cannot be allowed to sleep. I congratulate our Wesleyan churches that easy access to the Church Court will now be afforded them on all matters affecting their interests. I congratulate the Canterbury churches that the honor has fallen to thera to have the first Conference held in the capital of this province. In point of seniority perhaps Auckland had a prior claim, but then Christchurch was first to send a cordial and hearty invitation to the Conference to hold its first session here, and to secure tbis local management thp circuits in this district have labored with more zeal thau other districts, and perhaps Methodism occupies a more influential position in this province tban in some others — its progress here has been greater, and its energy and liberality are recognised in all the land. Of these matters I have personal knowledge, having spent four happy years of ministerial labor amongst you. Ihave no doubt but we are beginning in the right place. I congratulate you on the form the New Zealand Conference has taken. We are not severed from the JVfethodist world. We retain our connection with the Australasian Churches as one member of the general confederation. In all the more important financial matters we remain as before. The supernumer? ary and widows' fund, tho ohildren's funds, are still connectional funds, on which we have equal claims with the other conferences. In doctrine, discipline, and forms of worship we are Btill one; preaching the same old truths, using the same hymn book, governed by the same laws, and for legislative purposes meeting in general conference once in three years, ihe general conference being purely representative. In this, general connection we greatly rejoice, apd hope the time is far distant when it shall be found necessary to dissolve if. Our functions wiil be chiefly administrative. We shall have full power to ordain and appoint ministers, to maintain the discipline of the church over both ministers aod members, and to manage our own finance. I congratulate you on the progress of our churches which has necesstated this change. Twenty years ago our churches were all more or less dependent on aid received from our Missionary Sooiety in London, New South Wales then had only 32 ministers, now 109; Victoria 17, now 81; South Australia 12, now 35; Tasmania 8, now 15; New Zealand 21, now 47. Our church members, then numbered 19,897, now 59,819. New Zealand numbered then 500 European church members, now nearly 3000. This progress has rendered necessary the organic change we have made, and it is pleasing to look back from this advanced past and see how the church wtyfj whicli we are fndenlifted has grown in these colonies. The work was becoming too heavy and too widely extended to be reviewed and superintended by a conference meeting Jhoußandß of miles distant from many of itp churches. F ears haye been entertained lest the smallness pf our number, and the youth and inexperience of the giajprity of pnr ministers, should not command the respect of tbe

churches, or make our administrative power weak ,and inefficient; but we shall be quita equal in numbers to some of the early conferences. We only numbered forty the first conference in Sydney, when the strength of the colonies was brought together, and but twenty-seven at the Melbou-ne, and under twenty at Hobart Town; and the French Conference does not number more than twenty. I trust by the good hand of God upon us for gooi, we be found equal to the work that is given us to do.