To the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Waiapu.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1237, 2 January 1883, Page 2

To the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Waiapu.

Wz have to acknowledge with thanks the following letter from the Bishop of Waiapu for publication, and shall revert to the subject in to-morrow’s issue : — Dear Brethren in the Lord,—By a resolution of the Diocesan Synod, it is directed offertories be made throughout the Diocese on the first Sunday of the yeor in aid of a General Diocesan Church Fund. I now invite your cordial co-operation in giving effect to this resolution. The object of the fund may be described as the work of Home Missions and Church Extension in the Diocese, i.e., to assist in supporting clergymen and building churches in necessitous districts. Such fund was proposed by a resolution of the Synod some years ago ; and certainly whatever was the need then, it is much greater now. seeing the increase in the number of our parishes, clergy and churches, has by no means kept pace with the growth of the population. A vigorous, united, and sustained effort on the part of all churchmen in the Diocese is therefore urgently needed. We may well be stirred up to this work by the example of other Dioceses both in New Zealand and in the sister Colonial Church of Australia, where such funds are in active operation. The Diocesan Fund is administered by the Standing Committee, which consists of three clergymen and five laymen, elected annually by the Synod, with the Bishopjas' President. It is thus- a work of the Church, as such, which all its members should support, uniting in contributing to it in recognition of their common interests as churchmen.

Now, dear Brethren in the Lord, I' appeal to you not merely on such grounds of community of interests as one might urge in the case of any ordinary society in which men are associated. I would urge the unspeakably higher motives that should influence those, who by God’s great love, have been made one boay in Christ. Let us heartily accept this our spiritual citizenship with its privileges and responsibilities, and then, freed from the bondage of selfishness, we shall gladly bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. The cheerful offering of our contributions to a common Church Fund, according to the ability which God has given to each, on the first Sunday of the new year, will be an appropriate acknowledgment of our dependence on Him for life and all its blessings, and may help us, for the future, to live more in the spirit of our Divine Master, to look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. That Goa may make all grace to abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work is the prayer of Your faithful servant in Christ, Edward C. Waiapu, Napier, New Year’s Day, 1883,