MANNERS-STREET WESLEYAN CHURCH.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4530, 27 September 1875, Page 6

MANNERS-STREET WESLEYAN CHURCH.

The anniversary of this church was celebrated oh Tuesday by a tea and public meeting. The tea-meeting, considered both as a social gathering of the members of the church and. also from a financial point of view, was highly successful. The proceeds of tickets for the tea amounted to upwards of £l2 10s. The tea-meeting was succeeded by the public meeting held in the church. . The Hon. Mr. Scotland, M.L.C., as chairman, opened the meeting by some appropriate remarks, and the following report of the trustees was read to the meeting : At the close of the seventh year since the new church was opened, the trustees have pleasure, in presenting to the members and congregation the usual report. They would express their gratitude to God that through another year the various services and agencies of the church have been sustained, and that tokens of the Divine presence and favor have not been withheld. The increase of congregation reported last anniversary has continued during the year, and the church has been found on Sabbath evenings not at all too large for the worshippers. The trustees would, however, urge upon the congregation the propriety of attending more largely and frequently the prayer meeting and week-night service of the church. ' The Sabbath-school continues to prosper, but there is need of additional accommodation for the infant's and senior departments, and this matter must soon be considered. The choir have rendered efficient services during the year, for which the trustees beg to express their thanlcs, and the thanks of the congregation generally. Financially the year has been a prosperous one. •A larger sum has been contributed to the support of the ministry and for missions than in any twelve months previously, while the trust income has also been increased. £OO have been expended in the alteration of pews at the upper end of the church, and in sundry repairs, alterations of gas fittings, &c. £BO have also been paid towards liquidation of the debt, which has thus been reduced to £I6OO. The balance of debt reported last year as being due on the parsonage has been paid by the circuit; and the trustees have leased that portion of the property, and with the proceeds acquired another residence for the minister. The .following statement shows the amount raised by the congregation during the year, and the manner in which the proceeds have been applied:—

The trustees are gratified that they have Deen able, by ordinary income, to reduce the debt at all; but as it is still heavy, they would ask the aid of the whole congregation in their further attempts to liquidate it. And while they do this, they would ask earnest prayer, that there may be spiritual prosperity, and that many souls may, by tho ministry of the word, be brought to Ood. The Rev. W. Morlet, in moving the adoption of the report, said that the church was erected some seven years since at a cost of £3300, exclusive of the old materials from the previous building, which had been incorporated into the present structure. This first cost, added to that of the gasfittings and the covering of the roof, brought up the total cost of the building to £4OOO. It might be added that such a building would cost at the present time, owing to the increased rates of labor and material, not less than £6OOO, so that financially the society might well consider it a very good investment. A legacy of debt had been handed down from the time of the older church, amounting to a considerable sum. This debt had been reduced in the first instance by the sale of some land by the trustees, and by £IOO during the past year, and the financial prosperity seomed to warrant the anticipation that the debt would be reduced by another £IOO by next anniversary. He then referred with pleasure, as a Bi'gn of progress, to the increased need of school accommodation for tho children attending the Sunday and infant schools, and the general financial prosperity of the church. He then expressed his regret at certain want of earnestness in spiritual things which he had observed on the part of the congregation, and urged upon them the duty of aiding as much as lay in their power the labors of the office-bearers of the church in carrying on their work. The Rev. Mr. Ogg said that the congregation showed their appreciation of their ministers by the large attendance at both the morning and evening se»vices of the church, and from some of the reports of the sermons that had come under his notice in some of the Wellington newspapers, they must have been most edifying, and he had no doubt that they were highly acceptable. The impressions received in some minds by listening to good sermons were very marked. They were raised as it were above the vulgar affairs of daily life, but he maintained that unless these good impressions were actualised in the daily Uvea of the

hearers, they were of no real benefit. In reference to the alleged want of zeal referred to in the report, he would say that we must wait patiently for the growth of the good seed All he would now say was that he trusted that the prosperity of the church would continue, and that he had much pleasure in seconding the adoption of the report. The Rev. J. B. Richardson referred to the difficulties which beset the minister wh«w mission takes him into foreign parts ; that he, so to speak, came to take possession of the land on the part of his great Master, aad necessarily must expect much opposition on the part of the people. He did not wish it, however, to be inferred from this that professing Christians should run full tilt at everything that opposes them, but at the same time he believed that the distinctions between thorn and the world should be distinctly marked. He congratulated the church on their general and financial prosperity. The Rev. Mr. Paterson complimonted the choir on the taste, feeling, and power with which they had sung the anthem " Rejoice in. the Lord." He then referred to the great difficulty of preaching a really good sermon, and some critics would find it to be so if they only got on to the platform and tried to speak; He then referred to the report as being highly satisfactory, showing the affairs of the church, spiritually and financially, to be in a moat flourishing state. He considered it to be the duty of the various Christian churches to rejoice in each other's prosperity. He was glad to notice that one of the most remarkable signs of the times was the spirit of unity that was drawing together the various members of the Christian church. Representatives of the various Presbyterian churches from all parts of the world had assembled in London for the purpose of drawing up the rules of a conference, to be held every three years. It was a source of much pleasure to him to notice this tendency of the age, that led all the various Protestant churche3 to confer together on the broad ground of a common Christianity —the broad principles of the Christian faith. He then referred at some length to a source of danger to the Christian profession of many, to be found in the persistent attacks made by someof the Wellington journals upon Christian doctrine, and instanced certain correspondence on miracles which had appeared in the leading journal published in Wellington. Young men would read a smart letter or paragraph in a newspaper, and would naturally inquire, " Why don't the parsons answer these things in print ?" or they " would like to hear what the parsons would say to this." Some of the signatures to these letters were very pretentious, as if the writers believed themselves to be the most learned and most intelligent men in existence. The fact was that the parsons did not care to restate the answers which had been given to those objections many and many a time before. The opinions of Mich men as those referred to were destructive, not constructive. They would give nothing in the place of that which they would take away. The speaker exhorted all present to hold fast the faith delivered to them. The other danger to a Christian life was to be found in the rage and fashion for frequenting such places of amusement as the theatre and the Odd Fellows' Hall, and he believed that the going night after night to witness some of the entertainments given in those places, had a most debasing and degrading effect, and was also a foolish squandering of money. The Rev. Mr. Dewsbuby, after a few preliminary remarks on the prevalence of a sceptical spirit in this age, msde a retrospect of the various Bchemes that had been devised for elevating the human race at various periods of history. He then drew attention to the fact that if the modern sceptic ignored the account of the fall as related in the Bible, he did not attempt to deny the fact of man being in a fallen condition. He also showed that other system of religious belief had not the cathelicity of adaptation possessed by the Christian. In referring to the late correspondence on miracles in the public prints, he said he did not wish or expect a man to believe implicitly everything that was told him; but for men who were possessed of no particular education nor of any remarkable brain power to hold up these, subjects to view simply for the purpose of ridiculing them—he would say that he held such men in the greatest contempt. The speeches of the various speakers were interspersed by hymns and anthems sung bj the choir.

INCOME. Trust Funds— £ s. d. Balance in hand, September, 1874 13 17 3 35 15 8 9S 16 3 Anniversary services, 1874.. Seat re 211 10 2 Sundri Total receipts for Trust Funds .. 363 19 10 Balance due to Treasurer 9 9 2 373 9 0 Circuit Funds— 2 Subscriptions in classes ,. 182 IS 5 471 4 Institutions and Ftmds of the Church — Sunday-school Anniversary £54 4 9 Service of song .. .. 19 6 4 73 11 Home Missions, collections, subscn P38 1C 0 Foreign Missions, collections, subscr P25 18 7 0 Aged Ministers' Fund .. 10 13 14 0 9 1014 13 11 Special— Subscriptions towards parsonage debt 100 0 0 Subscriptions towards Lawrence Circuit 14 0 9 EXPENDITURE. i 1128 13 11 £ s. d. 99 9 4 36 16 8 19 13 9 Repairs and alterations 60 7 10 Organ-blower, tune-books, &c, &c. 12 5 9 2 9 0 Hymn books for strangers 3 11 0 3 12 0 New communion service 12 12 0 3 4 7 Repayment of loans SO 10 0 Total expenditure for Trust Funds 373 9 0 Paid to Circuit Fund for support of Min h471 4 7 Paid to Sunday-scliool 73 11 1 Paid to Mission Fund, &c, as per receipts 98 9 3 Paid to Liquidation Fund 100 0 0 Paid to Lawrence Circuit 14 0 0 £112S 13 11