REGNAL LEAGUE OF FELLOWSHIP.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 May 1920, Page 3

REGNAL LEAGUE OF FELLOWSHIP.

A NEW HEX'S MOVEMENT IN NEW PLYMOUTH. What promises to be a very succes:?iiil movement for young men wf..-. inaugurated in Whiteloy Memorial Church on Sunday afternoon. Mr. William Okey presided, and pleaded eloquently for better relations between all classes of society. He said the comradeship of the trenches should be more in evidence in the life of the community. The Rev. J. Napier Milne told the story of the Regnal League of Fellowship, and expounded its main aims and ideas. The League was evolved, not from a Church Committee, but from a sacramental fellowship, which bound men together under circumstances in which their next '■cheerio" might be spoken in eternity. It began at Betliune in a Soldiers' Club on February 20, IMS, and was sustained through ail the vicissitudes of the great retreat and advance. It was felt to be too good a tiling to be dropped with demobilisation, so a more permanent league, developing the fellowship idea, had been formed. In its organisation, the League was almost masonic. There were three circles, with initiation ceremonies and vows. The purpose of the League was comradeship in the highest aims of life. It encourages all forms of healthy recreation, makes much of intellectual culture, seeks seriously to encourage and train its members in the study of social questions with a view to representation on town and other councils, and makes a great point of service through the] medium of a church—the church with i which the menjber may happen to be connected. In the course of his address, Mr. Milne stressed the desirability of the men getting to know each other better. He instanced the dislike of the average man for parsons. When he came over on the Ruahine some 15 months since, he' got to know quite a number of "Diggers" rather intimately. Towards the end of the voyage a sergeant confessed that when he first saw him on board and at the dinner table, he had remarked to his mates, ''God help us, another damned Padre" As it happened, it turned out all right, but without doubt the instinctive attitude of the class was one of dislike. It was professionalism and tilings that affronted the moral sense that they hated. But there were many parsons who did want to be sincere, who were very human, and who often craved for more intimate and human relations with their fellows. He asked them to meet the parsons halfway and give them a chance of knowing them. A pro fern executive committee was formed, and it was decided to hold the meetings every Sunday afternoon at 3 o'clock. Any man over I'd years of age may become a visiting member.