Pageant Of 50 Years Of

Mission Work

ABOUT 4,000 people attended the Bris bane City Hall on Sunday afternoon, July 20, when Church of England Grammar School boys depicted in pageantry, “50 years of mission work in Papua.”

The pageant, re-enacted events that had taken place from the arrival of the first Anglican missionaries in Papua, in 1891, to the consecration of the beautiful Anglican Cathedral at Dogura, in 1941.

The pageant concluded “mission week.”

It was initiated to help reach the ob jective of £lOO,OOO, and 50 missionaries for work in the Pacific. Bishop Ash. Com missioner for the Australian Board of Missions, hopes to have both money and missionaries by 1950—the board’s cen tenary year. About £12.000 has already been received towards this goal, and 10 missionaries have been recruited.

Describing the proceedings, a com mentator said that the pageant showed the great events and experiences of the Anglican Mission in 50 years of work in Papua. The Papuans were “winsome, and possessing possibilities far beyond the dreams of those who had first entered upon their land. Many of the people were still under bondage of the past: but great numbers of them had passed into the Church of Christ.” Careful training and influence of the Christian missionary had transformed their natural conception of life from bloodshed and destruction to a happy fellowship.

Recalling Mr. Samuel Tomlinson and his wife who pioneered the Anglican mission field in 1891. the commentator credited them with having laid the foundations of the New Guinea Mission.

Originally a carpenter, Mr. Tomlinson became teacher, deacon and ultimately priest. The year 1893 had seen the in troduction of the South Sea Islanders as teachers. They had given great service to the Mission. The crowning event of 50 years’ work had been the consecration of the Cathedral of St. Peter and St.

Paul. Standing on Dogura Hill, it had taken five years to build, and stood as a monument to the work of the mission.