Diocese.

The Diocese is wholly undermanned. We are trying to do the impossible with our present number of Clergy. The men are miserably paid—sometimes not paid at all!—and cannot possibly cover all the work that is expected of them. The consequence is: too much is attempted, and therefore the quality of the work suffers. Men cannot possibly visit as regularly page 5 and efficiently as they ought, read as much as they want, and pray as much as they must, if they are spiritually to keep going, under existing conditions. The conditions would be absolutely, intolerable were it not for the noble band of Laymen who, all over the Diocese, are doing such splendid work for God and this Empire in trying to prevent the White Man from relapsing into Paganism. We have got to face facts, and not to fancy that everything is going on beautifully: to do that is to live in "a fool's paradise." The condition of affairs is serious, not sufficiently serious for despair or pessimism, but quite serious enough to attract the best men to grapple with it, keen minds to think about it, loving, faithful hearts to pray about it.

A Lay Reader said to me a short time ago at a conference in a bush district: "The horror before us is: the fear of getting used to doing without God and His grace in the Sacraments." Other Laymen in the country districts have told me the same. There you have the position. Men who care are living under the awful apprehension of learning to do without God, and "if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable."^* But there are hundreds who don't care and never have had the chance of earing; for the State schools inevitably, at present, create an atmos-phere wherein it is almost impossible for men to learn to care. And yet, God cares for them so much, and they—good, strong, honest men and women that they are, with their wholesome, fearless, bonny boys and girls—would be so glad to care if they only had the chance. "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"^† That is the sort of cry the great God is voicing to His Church both at Home and in the Colonies. The greatness of this Empire has its foundations laid on the Christian Faith. The continuance of this Empire depends on our loyalty to our first principles. "The King's business requireth haste."^‡ If we do not face the facts prayerfully, bravely, and with holy resolve, we shall find the opportunity gone.

Again, while we have nothing like enough Clergy page 6 or Lay Readers, we have a superabundance of churches and vicarages. Of course it is quite right to acquire sites wherever we can: we must look ahead and prepare for providing Houses of God for our people who shall inhabit this land in the years to come, and also prepare for houses wherein, when the time comes for a resident clergyman, the man and his family may live. Within the boundaries of Auckland and its suburbs we want sites—not for immediate use, but for future—for about six churches. The Laity who own property are quite right in giving sites for churches and vicarages: to offer such to God is their privilege, and the Laity of this Diocese are true and leal men who not only give the site, but also, frequently, the first donation towards the building. God bless them for their gifts to Him! But I am quite satisfied that we have built both churches and vicarages too quickly. Many results have happened: (a) The Clergy nave so many places to "serve*' that the quantity of the work interferes with its quality. (b) Mean structures have sometimes been run up, and not always in the place most convenient for the population, (c) Vicarages have been planted in places without due consideration as to the trend of population. (d) Resident Clergy have been put down in great unwieldy districts which cannot afford to keep a man and his wife and family in decency; or, if they can theoretically afford to pay him adequately, the man practically has so much country to cover, and has such hard, pinching poverty at home, that he cannot keep in sufficiently close touch with his scattered flock to enable them to thoroughly appreciate the privilege of enabling those who "preach the Gospel" to "live of the Gospel."^§ If the man does not, because he cannot, visit constantly, the personal touch of the people with him grows weak, and, quite normally, his maintenance is too shadowy a thing for the majority to care much about.

But I would not have you think that there is not another side to the picture; there is: the very multiplicity of the buildings and their remote situation is an evidence in some real sense of the keenness of our people, of their love for their Mother Church, and of their page 7 desire to worship the Giver of all good things in a House set apart for His honour and glory.

Turning from the country to the City of Auckland, the story of being undermanned has to be repeated. There is not a Vicar in Auckland to-day who is not facing a task impossible alike spiritually, mentally, and physically. The needs of Auckland this moment are the same as the needs of the country: men. I will illustrate my point with instances where it is clearest; but in each Auckland parish the need is, proportionately, the same. The Vicars of the Auckland Parishes are expected to discharge certain Diocesan functions as well as attend to their directly Parochial calls. For a moment, think of page 8 the demands, spiritual and physical, on the Vicars of the Cathedral and of All Saints'. Each man ought to have, if his Parish is to be properly visited and daily Service to be regularly offered, two assistant Curates. 'The Vicar of the Cathedral is single-handed. The Vicar of All Saints' has one assistant Curate. Each of these men, as also other Auckland Vicars, has Diocesan duties to perform: you expect and demand such performance; the Diocese naturally turns to the City of Auckland for men of affairs and of judgment; the Auckland Layman expects, when he goes to church on Sunday, a sermon that will give him food for thought by instructing him in The Faith; the Auckland resident expects the Vicar of the Parish, or one of the Clergy, to call at his house regularly. These are the sort of things the Auckland Clergy are expected, and they themselves want, to do. The same remarks apply, in measure, to New Plymouth and other towns. But the thing is, under existing conditions, impossible. The manual worker is said to be incapable of manual labour for more than a third of the twenty-four hours. The brain worker knows how limitless his hours of labour are. The worker who has to draw upon his spiritual faculties, in addition to his bodily and mental faculties, knows that, sooner or later, the quality of his work must suffer.

Joining town and country together, and viewing them both, there is another fact to be faced. It is connected with the need of the Clergy; for it cannot be remedied without Clergy: there is no Diocesan centre. We have a Chaplain to the Public Institutions doing real solid work, a Home Missionary, whose zeal and labours are alike Apostolic, Maori Superintendent Missionaries working against inherited odds with rare faith and pluck; but each man is, practically, alone; there is no central altar whereto he may repair for the live coal, and from which he may get the holy fire; he belongs to no parish heart in any real and true sense—yes, he is alone. The fact is unpleasant, but true. There is no convergent altar for the Diocese; there is no red-hot centre whereat the souls of Priests and Laity can be warmed after the chilling effects of loneliness, of over-work, of the pinch of poverty.

But, one may be saying: there is S. Mary's Parnell; page 9 it is our Cathedral at present. Quite true; but the Vicar of the Cathedral Parish—like the Archdeacon of Auckland—is just one of the men upon whom the demands are intensely Diocesan. And, further, as a Diocese the Cathedral Parish does not get, and has never got, one farthing of financial help from the Diocese. Through the loyal friendship, trust, and confidence of the Vicar of that Parish, I am—as your Bishop—in the happy position to-day of being able to have any service at any time that I appoint and with any preacher that I name in the Church of S. Mary, Parnell. But if the Diocese, "quâ" Diocese, uses this church, as it does, for a Cathedral, the Diocese is bound, in some manner, to provide for a staff being maintained at the Cathedral. We are getting, as a Diocese, privileges without responsibility at S. Mary's. That is not good.

The Synodical system in the Colonies is an example of completeness and order to the whole world. We know for a fact that its example played no inconsiderable part in the Federation of the Australian States. It may be, as, the Bishop of Newcastle, N.S.W., says, we are unable "singly or collectively to do more than one thing at a time," and consequently we are faced by a disproportionate development between Synodical and Cathedral work. But in this Diocese we really suffer from the disproportion. The Cathedral and the Synod grew together in the early days of the Church. The men of old saw the vision; they were practical men because they were idealistic in thought. "Synodism and Cathedral-ism are twin forces." The one rectifies the other. The Synod suffers if the Cathedral idea is not real. The Cathedral suffers without a Synod. The Cathedral is "the spiritual equipoise" of the Synod. To-day the need for us is less connected with the site of the Cathedral than with the system of the Cathedral. I have touched upon that system. We shall fail in many ways if we are content to allow ourselves to be deprived very much longer of the practical benefits of the ideal. The Diocese will, for many years to come, offer an ever-changing variety of problems for solution and needs for remedying. They will best be met by us and our children if on a central altar the Divine fire is ever burning, from a central shrine the Daily Intercession is ever offered to the Most High.