Union
As soon as the Presbytery of Otago was formed in 1854 it sent a letter to the congregations and presbyteries of the northern church about the importance of cooperation and union between the two churches. Although they represented different sides of the 1843 split the two churches still held common doctrine, polity and discipline. The responses were initially friendly replies, but no further effort was made at uniting the two groups until 1861 when a joint committee was formed and prepared a basis of union. Slight differences between the two groups delayed further progress for some time. The northern church had always been self-supporting, but the Synod of Otago and Southland had been granted a large tract of valuable land, and the Synod was keen to retain ownership of that land in the case of union with the northern church. The open-minded northern church lived among a more mixed population than the conservative Synod which had insisted that only members of the Free Church of Scotland could join its community. From the beginning a large number of the Synod wished to join with the northern church, but an influential minority successfully resisted. This group softened its opposition, however, and in 1901 the two churches united under the name of The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. The Synod wished to continue its existence, and since it had been established by act of parliament and could not be dissolved, it became a court of the united church and retained control of its trusts. The Synod of Otago and Southland remains the only regional court of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Read more about this topic: Synod Of Otago And Southland
Famous quotes containing the word union:
“Thus piteously Love closed what he begat:
The union of this ever-diverse pair!
These two were rapid falcons in a snare,
Condemned to do the flitting of the bat.”
—George Meredith (1828–1909)
“Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves,—the union between themselves and the State,—and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in the same relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union which have prevented them from resisting the State?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“These semi-traitors [Union generals who were not hostile to slavery] must be watched.—Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of this Rebellion. The man who thinks that the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery—in fact, its only enemy.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)