THE CHURCH'S INGRATITUDE. Another Snub for Lovely Woman.

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 189, 13 February 1904, Page 6

THE CHURCH'S INGRATITUDE. Another Snub for Lovely Woman.

TIME after time the General Synod of the Anglican Church in New Zealand is brought face to face with the question of admitting the women to a say in. Church affairs. But, it never gets any forrarder. Last week the question was trotted out again, and received a fresh airing. A mild little bill was introduced merely to enable female church members twenty-one years and upwards to vote at parish meetings, and for the election of synodsmen. Only that and nothing more. The daring innovator who proposed SO' much was careful to insert a clause declaring that no woman should be entitled to hold the holy office and be invested with the awful dignity of churchwarden or vestryman. *• * *• Well, they discussed it for a whole night, and then they adjourned the debate, which probably is the approved synodical method of quietly shelving it for another three years. The lay opinion seemed to favour the change, but the parsons were not ripe for it. True, there were some bright exceptions. The Rev. Mr. Coffey, of St Mark's, urged that this recognition of woman's rights was not an innovation, but a revival of the old custom which allowed women m Anglo-Saxon times to exercise a voice in parochial affairs. The Bishop of Melanesia thought the women should enjoy the same rights in the Church as the men, and pointed out that in

England and some dioceses of Australia they had the power to serve as churchwardens, and the right to vote on vestries. Dean Hovell said the subjection of women was a relic of the bad old times when woman was a slave. * * * It was reserved for Bishop Neligan, of Auckland, to expose the hollowness of the> case against the women. As a reason for opposing the bill, he said the sentiment of the British Empire would always be against bringing women down to the level of men. In other words, it would be dragging woman down to a lower level to allow her to serve as a churchwarden or vote for the fittest men to serve on a vestry. Cheerful admission What do the male churchwardens and vestrymen think about it? Women mustn't be allowed to run the risk of being brought dawn to their level by sharing their church duties. * * * And yet the Bishop has a word to say also on the logic of the thing. If logic ruled, he wanted to know what could be said against women walking down streets with pipes in their mouths? Well, so far as we know, there is nothing to prevent them if they chose to adopt that fashion. Is His Lordship afraid that that might be the effect of enabling them to get on church vestries and associate with churchwardens? Seems a bit rough on the vestrymen and churchwardens. * * # Who are the mainstay of the Church, and from whom does the average parson receive most help — the men or the women ? Tiie women unquestionably. They account for the presence of the other sex at the usual Sunday services. As maidens they attract the young manhood there. As mothers they drill their hopeful progeny into the habit of church-going. And, as wives, they see to it that the head of the family every Sunday clothes himself in the respectable bell-topper and the solemn black coat and marches forth with his household at the summons of the church bell. *■ *■ * When the parson requires a stain-ed-glass window, a steeple, an organ, a school-house, or a vicarage, who raises the wherewithal for him ? The women, of course. They decorate the church for Christmas and Easter services, they work slippers and cassocks, and smoking caps for the incumbent (when he is a bachelor), they get up bazaars and concerts to help the funds, and they perform a thousand and one other offices for church and parson. ■/• ■* * To say, therefore, that they are unfitted to serve on vestries, and to forbid them the right to exercise a vote in the election of church officers or synodsmen, is base ingratitude. The fact that they are not clamouring for it is no answer. The Church cannot do without their help. And, that being the case, they are entitled to an equal say with their lay relatives in church affairs. The State has been gallant enough to recognise woman's equality with man. How much longer is the Church going to perpetuate the absurd old custom of keeping her in a subordinate position?