CHAPTER I

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

George Augustus Selwyn had all the advantages of birth and education which would have made a brilliant career in England easy for him. He came of a distinguished family, and his father, a successful lawyer, was in a position to give him every educational advantage. Born in 1809, he was the second of four brothers, who all had brilliant school and college careers. His energy, his capacity for rule, his sympathy showed itself even when he was a boy. His sister says, “he was truly the family friend and counsellor, ever ready to help in all difficulties.” A specially tender tie bound him to his mother; she suffered grievously from nervous depression and he gave up much time in his holidays to cheering her. By her bedside he probably learned that tender care for the suffering which marked him throughout life. At the early age of seven he was sent to a large preparatory school at Ealing, and from there went on to Eton where he was said to be the best boy on the river, nearly the first boy in learning and the greatest diver in the school. His exact scholarship and his skill in swimming and diving were all alike capacities which helped to fit him for his future life. Very popular in the school and distinguished in athletics, he never neglected his studies. One of his friends says that “he seemed to be always preparing himself for some unrevealed future of usefulness.” It was the same when he went on to St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1827, and entered with his usual ardour into both the studies and the sports of the university. Mathematics were very distasteful to him and in the class list of 1831 he was only a _junior optime_, but he was the second classic of his year. He rowed in the Cambridge boat in the first Oxford and Cambridge boat race.

When he left Cambridge, he spent four months in travel on the continent and returned to Eton as private tutor to the sons of Lord Powis. The same energetic life of work and play was continued in his new position at Eton. He it was who persuaded Dr. Hawtrey to draw up rules for bathing and boating on the river. Till then there had been no rules, and the river was considered out of bounds. He wished the boys to have freedom to enjoy the river, but to be obliged to learn to swim before they boated. He himself loved boating and long walks, finding his way across country by a compass; he took part in steeplechases, and so learned to ride horses of all kinds over rough country. Whilst he enjoyed all these varied occupations which were to prove a preparation for the life before him, he had as yet not the slightest idea of going to work abroad. A letter written many years afterwards (1850) to his son shows how uncertain he was as a young man about his future career. “I remember that at your age, though I had some desire for the ministerial office I had not any fixed or devoted purpose of heart to undertake its duties, nor any steadfast resolution to frame my life so as to make it a preparation for it. It pleased God that much of the restless energy which then found its vent in mere amusement and running to and fro, as it seemed without point or aim, was a training of which I have since felt the value, to enable me to do the work of an evangelist in seeking out the sheep of Christ that are scattered over a thousand hills.”

Before long he began to study Hebrew and theology in preparation for his ordination which took place in 1833. Still remaining a tutor at Eton, he worked first as curate of Boveney and later at the Windsor Parish Church, giving up the curate’s salary for two years in order to help the financial difficulties of the parish. The spirit in which he worked is shown by the following remark in a letter to a friend: “I believe that as clergymen we ought to be willing to be tied like furze bushes to a donkey’s tail, if we can thereby do any good by stimulating what is lazy and quickening what is slow.” He threw himself with zeal into every part of the work of his parish, developing new organizations of many kinds. By his devotion as well as by his preaching he won the warm affection of the parishioners, and together with all this parish work he kept up a close connexion with Eton. His old schoolfellow W. E. Gladstone, said of him: “he was attached to Eton with a love surpassing the love of Etonians. In himself he formed a large part of the life of Eton, and Eton formed a large part of his life.” Always a great organizer, he had much influence both amongst masters and boys, at a time when various reforms were being introduced into the school. The impression he made was of one who had a high ideal of personal and Christian life, not an ascetic, but one who valued bodily training and plain living, because they conduced to success in good work.

In 1839 Selwyn married Sarah Richardson, daughter of Sir J. Richardson, a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, in whom he found a companion ready to share with him all the risks and difficulties of an adventurous life. At the time of his marriage there seemed no prospect before him beyond that of a successful ecclesiastical career in England. Full of work, full of zeal, with many friends, living in a place that he loved, and now with a happy home of his own, he was absolutely content with life. But it was ever his firm conviction that an officer in the Church was as much bound as an officer in the army, to obey the command of his superior and to go wherever he was sent. On his marriage he asked his wife never to oppose his going wherever he might be ordered on duty.

At that time the authorities of the Church were seriously considering the need of increasing the number of bishops in the colonies, since every year more emigrants left England for the newly settled lands beyond the seas. Amongst the leaders of the Church there were men who were determined that there should be no repetition of the past shameful neglect which had left the American colonies so long without a bishop of their own. The matter was brought forward by Bishop Blomfield of London, and a Colonial Bishoprics Fund was started. Thirteen countries were named as most urgently in need of Bishops, and amongst these New Zealand stood first. The Church Missionary Society had had missions established there since 1814, and Bishop Broughton of Australia had once been able to visit them, but could not do so again. The most experienced of the New Zealand missionaries, Henry Williams, wrote in 1841 “Many questions of moment frequently present themselves, on which we possess no authority to enter. We much hope that a Bishop for this colony will soon make his appearance.” The formation in 1839 of the New Zealand Company, with the object of buying up land from the natives and encouraging settlers, had brought with it many new problems and difficulties. The need for a Bishop as head of the Church which was called to minister both to Maoris and settlers was recognized by all. The Church Missionary Society promised £600 a year for his support and it was hoped that the Government would give a like sum. The Crown was to appoint the Bishop. The first name suggested was that of Professor Selwyn, George Selwyn’s elder brother, but he felt unable to leave his Cambridge professorship. The bishopric was then offered to George Selwyn in a letter from the Bishop of London to which Selwyn, who had no personal desire for such an office and who had no wish to change his actual work, answered as follows:

“Whatever part in the work of the ministry the Church of England as represented by her Archbishops and Bishops may call upon me to undertake, I trust I shall be willing to accept with all obedience and humility. The same reasons which would prevent me from seeking the office of a bishop, forbid me to decline an authoritative invitation to a post so full of responsibility, but at the same time of spiritual promise.... It has never seemed to me to lie in the power of an individual to choose the field of labour most suited to his own powers. Those who are the eyes of the Church and have seen him acting in the station in which God has placed him, are the best judges whether he ‘ought to go up higher.’ Whether the advancement be at home or abroad ... with whatever prospects or adjuncts of emolument or dignity or without any, the only course seems to be to undertake it at the bidding of the proper authority and to endeavour to execute it with all faithfulness.... Allow me to offer my best thanks to your Lordship for your kind letter and to place myself unreservedly in the hands of the Episcopal Council to dispose my services as they may think best for the Church.”

The actual offer had to be made by Lord John Russell and meanwhile doubts had arisen whether Parliament would be willing to grant the money proposed towards the Bishop’s stipend, but this uncertainty did not influence Selwyn’s decision. There were other difficulties which weighed more with him. A colonial bishop was in those days appointed under Letters Patent from the Crown, and these were so worded as to make it appear that the bishop’s right to exercise the spiritual functions of his office was derived solely from the Crown. Selwyn could do no more than make a formal protest against such wording. An absurd blunder was also made in the Letters Patent through the ignorance of the Colonial Office, and jurisdiction was given to the Bishop over sixty-eight more degrees of latitude than was intended. In this way it came about that Melanesia was included in the diocese of New Zealand.

The New Zealand Company was ready to make grants of land for the purposes of the Church, but under conditions which should ensure that their property was benefited through the Church. They wished the Bishop to settle on the land they gave, and he was told that his future popularity would be sacrificed if he did not make his home and build his cathedral at the place they indicated. But Selwyn was going to promise nothing until he had himself studied the country. He said that he would “rent a house for his family and pitch a tent near to it a soon as he landed and the very next day begin daily service, never he hoped to be interrupted. He meant then to go away and visit all the islands and when his choice was made to move his tent thither and continue the services, and by its side build a wooden church, and outside of the wooden building to begin to build a chancel of stone in Norman style, and as soon as any part of the stone cathedral was finished the wooden work would be taken down.”

From the very first he wished to have some holy place set apart for the daily service of God, and he carefully superintended the making of the church tent which was to be the first cathedral of the island church.

Amidst the important questions that occupied his mind during these busy weeks of preparation, details were not forgotten. His sister remembers “sitting up half the night helping him to make a water proof belt for his watch and pedometer. He meant to swim the rivers, pushing his clothes in front of him.” During all his preparations the thought of the great spiritual work to which he was dedicating his life filled his thoughts. One who was with him at the time writes: “He said the ‘Consecration Service’ had lately been his constant study, and that after next Sunday (his Consecration day) his existence as an individual must cease, and that all his own individual interests and ties must undergo the change with him. Sarah (his wife) knelt down beside him and looking up in his face said, ‘I know at any rate you will not love me any the less.’ He stroked back the hair from her forehead, kissed it, saying, ‘Surely not the less but the more.’ He went on to explain that what he meant was ‘that his very being, with all its powers and affections must now be dedicated to God in a more peculiar and solemn degree than heretofore, and be absorbed into higher powers and boundless affections.’”

He was consecrated on October 17th in the Chapel at Lambeth Palace. It was not yet the custom to hold consecrations in the Abbey or at S. Paul’s Cathedral. There was not room for the many friends who wished to be with him in the Chapel, which was crowded as it had never been before on such an occasion. Exceptional interest was felt in his going forth, due to the affection and admiration with which he was regarded by so many, and to the sense of the brilliant prospects at home that he was gladly giving up to go to a distant land only just emerging from barbarism.

Two days after his Consecration, Selwyn received an offer from the Rev. C. J. Abraham, one of the ablest Eton masters, to come and work with him in New Zealand as soon as he could be free from the special work he had undertaken at Eton. To this offer Selwyn answered at once:

“I am quite overwhelmed with joy at your letter and have just risen from my knees after having poured forth my thankfulness to God.... When I think of the position in which the course of His providence has placed me ... I tremble at the thought of my weakness, and though I know the sufficiency of Divine Grace, still I long for brethren of a like mind to share with me the labours and the joys of the coming harvest. Men talk of sacrifices as a loss. I thank God that the enlarged comprehension of His scheme of mercy, which He has lately given me, has made me feel that no worldly advancement could compensate for the loss of one single moment of the peaceful and thankful and yet humble state of mind which I have enjoyed since the scales of all earthly objects of desire fell from my eyes.... I encourage you to cherish the feelings in which your letter was written, to dwell upon them; and in the end to act upon them; not on the spur of the present occasion, but with the calm, deep and deliberate devotion of a balanced judgment. Men think enthusiasm necessary to missionary enterprise. May we be enabled to show that the highest range of spiritual thought, the most entire and uncompromising obedience to the letter of the Gospel, being no more than our bounden duty, is compatible with the most perfect evenness of mind, and with the subdued and rational exercise of the understanding.

“Being called to the Episcopate at an early age I feel at liberty to look forward to a long course of pastoral superintendence over the Church in New Zealand. In that course many great and important changes must occur, for which I must be prepared.... Could I find a few men like yourself, who would silently work with me by the devotion of themselves and their means to the same cause, we should see year after year, parish after parish, archdeaconry after archdeaconry start into life, not with the mere appurtenances of temporal endowment, but with the provision of a living hand to give life and spirit to the institution.... Will you be one of the feeders of my Church, with the view of being in the course of time one of its pastors?”

During the farewell days spent at Eton and Windsor many friends gathered to show him their affection and to do him honour. At a meeting held in Windsor, he spoke again of the motives which had made him ready to go forth and of his readiness to go anywhere he might be sent, and of his deep thankfulness because “that land of promise, New Zealand, a land literally flowing with milk and honey, was to be his.”

The party that was to accompany the Bishop and his wife and child to New Zealand, consisted of his two chaplains, Mr. Cotton, Student of Christ Church, Oxford and Mr. Whytehead, Fellow of St. John’s, Cambridge, three missionary clergy, three catechists and two school teachers. Mrs. (afterwards Lady) Martin, wife of the first Chief Justice of New Zealand, travelled with them to join her husband. The Chief Justice, who had gone out a few months before, came to be one of Selwyn’s chief helpers and friends. The spirit in which he had entered upon his work is shown by the fact that he had impressed upon his wife that “the aborigines of their new country were to be worked for and cared for.” The voyage to New Zealand was in those days of course undertaken in a sailing ship, and the party were delayed some days at Plymouth waiting for a favourable wind. Those relatives and friends who had come to see them off were obliged one by one to leave. The Bishop settled himself in the ship on Christmas eve and held his first service on board on Christmas day. On the next day after prayers with those friends that remained, the last farewells were said and the little ship _Tomatin_ was off on its long voyage.