The 1897 Sunday Schools gift to Bishop Julius

the Lord Bishop of Christchurch

New Zealand

We the teachers and scholars of the Sunday Schools in your Lordships Diocese, desire respectfully to offer to you our congratulations on your safe return from England after taking part in two such Memorable events in the history of the Church and Empire as the Lambeth Conference and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

We would assure your Lordship also that from no members of your flock do you receive a more hearty welcome than from the children in whom you have always shown such a true fatherly interest and for whose spiritual welfare you have always laboured, and from the teachers whose office is under your Lordships and the Parochial Clergy to instruct the young in the truths of holy religion.

We are fully conscious of the efforts made by your Lordship to obtain some religious teaching in the State Schools of the Colony and highly value the many useful improvements which have been made in the system and teaching in our Sunday Schools under your fostering care. The Teachers Association and the Annual Inspection of our Schools have proved to be a great boon to both Teachers and Scholars and have already done much to raise the status of the Sunday Schools in your Diocese.

That your Lordship has returned with renewed strength for the duties of your sacred office it is our earnest  hope  and that Almighty God will long spare you to carry on your noble  and self-denying labours  for the people committed to your charge is the heartfelt prayer of the humble members of your flock who offer to you this small Memento of our personal affection for yourself and of reverence for the office of Chief Pastor which you so worthily occupy in this Diocese.

These pages begin a very large volume presented to Churchill Julius on his return to the Diocese by the Sunday Schools of the Diocese.   He had left Lyttelton on 12 February and retuned on 5 October 1897, just in time for Synod.

Not all seventy-five Sunday Schools of the Diocese with the names of the scholars and teachers, or all the churches recognized and unrecognized are included on its pages, nevertheless   it provides a valuable resource for those who are searching for members of their family at this time.  The names have been indexed and can be searched on request. Some of the churches photographed no longer exist or have been replaced. while others are still standing.