A DISTINGUISHED VISITOR

Otaki Mail, 18 May 1923, Page 4

A DISTINGUISHED VISITOR

—,— f FIRST NATIVE INDIAN 315H0.?. The Right Rev. V. S. Azariaii, the first native Indian bishop of the Aug"! - can Church, has arrived hi Wellington 3 from Sydney, lie is regarded as one j of the ablest and best informed men i i India, and is considered to be an avthority on many of the subjects which are exercising the minus of our rulers in India today. lie is often consulted • by the Indian Government on uiattois of importance affecting the millions of] native in our Eastern empire. lie I comes to New Zealand on the invitation j comes to New Zealand ..a the in-, vitation of Archbishop Julius. Besides attending the Church Con gross and the Wellington Missionary Exhibition, he will visit each dio eese and speak in ail the large centres. In all. he will spend some six weeks in the Dominion. Bishop Azariaii is an lion. LL.P. of Cambridge, and was con =ccrated al Calcutta in 1912. He was born in a humble home, so humble, in fact, that his people have been refused access to the temples of Hinduism before their conversion, lie attended the Christian College at Tinnevelly. and finally tie Madras Christian College. Early in 1,1',. the missionary spirit p.. -—d him. and he organised, with a inuup of young men. the Indian Missionary Society of Tinnevelly. In the last few years this society has won several thousand converts in the Teluga country, two of their Brahmin converts, working without salary, and receiving only their fend and clothes. After founding the Tinnevelly Society, he organised the National Missionary Society of India, l'oi ' some years he worked amongst Hie ileprossed classes in Domakal. After passing through severe trials, he was finally called to the bishopric of thai

an bishop marked n lieu departure. :n> I J :i now era in tndi nissions. On L'l'tii j December, VJI2. in the Cnthe.lral nt Calcutta, the Kev. \\ -S. Az.iiiiih * .as 5 consecrated before n distinguished a.---" semljly, in the presence of the Oovvitci-' of Bengal, by tire metropolitan mid all the Anglican bishops of India. Burinali. and Ceylon. To-day. as the Uishop of [Joinnkal. | as a loader in the Indian Church. Mishop Azariah's life is being lived for t Ji.> welfare of India. He is generully if that (it him for the high position he now occupies.