ASSEMBLY IN SESSION

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 518, 22 November 1928, Page 13

ASSEMBLY IN SESSION

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH GOVERNMENT MISSION TO MAORIS After a communion service, which was also attended by the delegates to the Women's Missionary Union Conference, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand began its business session this morning. The Moderator, Professor W. Hewitson, preached at the service, taking for his subject "Fellowship and Service.” Dr. J. J. North (Baptist) and Dr. C. H. Laws (Methodist) assisted at the service. There were 750 communicants present. Before the business proper, a motion congratulating Mr. Duncan Macpherson, who had reached his 84th birthday, was passed. MAORI GIRLS’ COLLEGE "The outstanding event in the year has been the opening of the Maori Girls’ College at Marton,” stated the report of the Maori Mission, presented by the Rev. J. A. Asher. This was opened by the moderator on March 8, 1928. It was a beautiful building on an ideal site. It could accommodate 45 pupils and 38 girls were now in'residence. The building cost £14,976 and the sum yet to be raised was £4,194. The general working fund of the mission ended the year with a credit balance of £Bl9. Eight new stations had been occupied and nine new buildings acquired. The committee .recommended that the name of the girls’ college should be Turakina, and that £6OO should bfe transferred, if necessary, from the general fund tu the college fund, that the services of Mr. John Mann should be accepted and that he should be ordained as a missionary to "the Maoris and sent to Taupo for a term of language study. It was recommended also that £ 800 should be transferred from the general fund to the college building fund. The Rev. Asher said that it was hoped that Turakina would do lor the Maori girls what Te Aute had done for the boys. At no time in the history of the mission was the work in a more happy or hopeful position, and he was pleased to be able to hand, it over to Assembly. The Rev. T. H. Roseveare said that the time seemed to be at hand when the church would have to think of supplying a school for the boys as well as the girls. The recommendations were approved. (Proceeding)