Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/163

Rh offerings of the Laity. Give the Laity this responsibility, and the result follows that they realize their duty and privilege as Churchmen. There is also another important result which our experience proves. The Laity are essentially conservative; not only in business matters, but in their share of Church legislation which may affect doctrine or practice. Their conservatism steadies and controls the desire of change or innovation, and yet, with this, there is no trenching on the proper privilege of the clergy, or attempt to dictate in matters doctrinal. Perhaps this is in some measure due to the great advantage New Zealand enjoys in the quality and character of all her early settlers. Few Colonies, if any, have had such an excellent start; and this is true of every class of settler and of the men and women who have ventured to the ends of the earth to build up their homes in the southernmost Islands of the sea.

Synod lasted in Christchurch nearly three weeks; it is represented during its recess by the Standing Committee of six Clergy and six Laity, who form the Executive of the Diocese, meeting, with the Bishop, every month to consider Church affairs. This Committee brings up to Synod its annual report of the Diocese, together with many minor reports of special work, upon which decision and necessary legislation follow.

We are, of course, in the day of small things, but they may be, for all that, an object lesson of things desirable in Church government. The Diocese is very large, but the number of Clergy comparatively small, yet Synod brings nearly all of them together once a year, to enjoy the kindly hospitality of Christchurch, and to meet in friendly intercourse; above