Diocesan Synod.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4908, 2 October 1884, Page 3

Diocesan Synod.

The eleventh Synod, of the Auckland Church of England Diocese was opened in Auckland at 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon there'being a large attendance of clergymen and laity. Bishop Cowie presided, and in the course of his address reviewed at length the work carried on. He mentioned that at the first Synod in 1870 there were but twenty-ninc|clergymen summoned whereas at present the names of fifty seven licensed clergy were on the roll, and the whole number of clergy in the Diocese was sixty-nine. The increase in the number of lay Synodsmen was also large, viz., from forty in 1870 to sixty-one at the present time. The number of clergy had increased by seven, including one Maori deacon, since the last meeting of the Synod; but he had to record the death of one of the senior members of the 3taff, namely, the Eev. Hart D. D. Sparling, B.A. The work of the Church among the Maori population of the Diocese continued to progress. In February he had the pleasure of admitting to Deacons' Orders a chief of the Aopowri tribe, whose distriot is in the extreme north of this island; this addition making the Maori clergy thirteen in number. In February Bishop Cowie had the gratification of' presiding at a Maori Church Board, to which representatives of all the congregations in the Diocese were invited. The Board met at Paihia, in the Bay of Islands ; and. amongst other resolutions one wbb passed requesting him to send Maori clergy from the North of the Diocese on a missionary tour in the southern Waikato, where the tribes, alienated by the war, had held aloof from the clergy for more than twenty years. The two clergy chosen for this mission were everywhere kindly received by their brethren of "the Southland were cordially invited to repeat their • visit after the winter. The Selwyn Memorial Fund had now a capital of £986 10s Gd, yielding an income of about £60. A substantial arid handsome church was opened at Ellerslie in December last, and arrangements were being made for building several more in different parts of -the Diocese. Referring to the question of religious teaching in State schools, his lordship said :—"lt is my fiim conviction that bat for tbemutral jealousy of a comparatively email number of the population, the same willingness of parents that their children should receive religions instruction in Government schools would be found to exist throughout he colonies of Australasia. The readiness of a small minority of the population to withhold from their own children the religious teaching that they approve of lest the majority should have their children taught that which they also prefer, is an instance of the illiberality and tyranny of the so-called ■•• unsectarian' parly. Their action 18 scarcely compatible with the gospel rule to do to others as you would they should do to you, and it has been compared, not inaptly, to the advice given by the false mother in the judgment of Solt mon, who preferred the death of the child to leaving her rival in contented possession of her own/* .