CHAPTER III

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF NEW ZEALAND

Bishop Selwyn and his party left Plymouth on December 26th, 1841, in the _Tomatin_. The long voyage in a sailing vessel was spent in preparing for the work that was before them. To Selwyn’s great joy there was a Maori boy on board who could be used to teach him and his party the Maori language. Lady Martin thus describes the voyage:

“We had a quiet, prosperous voyage in a small barque which would be thought very squeezy nowadays. We had none of the modern luxuries required in steamers—no fresh bread, no stewardess to wait on us, no delicate fare. But we had compensations of an unusual kind. If we had plain living, we certainly had the opportunity of high thinking. Our party consisted of the Bishop of New Zealand, his two chaplains, both men of great gifts, and other clergymen and students. There were daily classes after breakfast for all who wished to learn the native language. There was no printed Maori grammar, only a manuscript grammar and vocabulary, and copies of S. Matthew’s Gospel, just printed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. But we had a walking dictionary in a Maori boy, who had been brought to England by a gentleman and sent to school for two years. He was not a favourable specimen, for he had been the plaything of the servant’s hall in holiday time, and had little more than superficial civilization. However, he was very useful on board, and undertook to teach correct pronunciation.”

The Bishop writes in a letter to his mother:

“On Monday, January 3rd, we began regular habits; reading the daily prayers at eight in the morning, and the Psalms and Lessons, in the original languages, each at their appointed hour. Besides this, there is a New Zealand class, comprising nearly all the party, and a mathematical class for the study of navigation. The whole of the morning is thus occupied, leaving the evening to the discretion of the party, and for preparation for the next day. On Church festivals when the full service is read, the Eton practice of a whole holiday is followed. The advantage of this regular plan is generally admitted, as, instead of the voyage being tedious, very few find the day long enough. We have taken different departments for the study of the New Zealand language. Mr. Cotton and Mr. Reay are making a Concordance of the native Testament. I am compiling from the Rarotonga, Tahitian and New Zealand translations of the New Testament, a Comparative Grammar of those three dialects, which are all from the same root and illustrate one another. I hope to be quite familiar with the three dialects by the end of the voyage, which will much facilitate the plan which I have conceived—and which may God give me grace to carry into effect—of extending the branches of the Church of New Zealand throughout the Southern Pacific.

“I am studying practical navigation under our captain in order that I may be my own _Master_ in my visitation voyages.”

One of the clergy of the party was appointed as chaplain to the steerage passengers, two others as chaplains to the crew. There were daily prayers in the steerage, and the steerage passengers attended all the public services. In Holy Week one of the six clergy on board was chosen to preach every day, and on a lovely Easter day, service was held on the quarterdeck when thirty-four communicated.

On April 10th Selwyn was able to write to his mother:

“I can now converse with Rupai fluently in New Zealand. My navigation has prospered, so that I can now find the ship’s latitude and longitude, and shape her course.”

On April 14th, 1842, the ship reached Sydney. There Selwyn had the opportunity of meeting Bishop Broughton and learning from him something about the affairs of the Church in this new world. Broughton was filled with affection and respect by what he saw of the new Bishop, and inspired with great hopes for the work he might be able to accomplish.

The _Tomatin_ had received some damage in going up Sydney harbour, and the Bishop was too impatient to wait till its repairs were completed. He succeeded in chartering a small brig to convey him and a few others of his party to New Zealand, without waiting for the _Tomatin_. There had been those who dreaded the coming of a bishop, thinking that the conditions of New Zealand were not suitable for an ecclesiastical dignitary. Captain Hobson had said: “What can a bishop do in New Zealand, where there are no roads for his coach?” The Bishop’s conduct soon dispelled all doubts. He landed at Auckland on May 31st. His first act on reaching the shore was to kneel down on the sands and give thanks to God. On the following Sunday, to the delight of all, he said prayers and preached in Maori. The next place he visited was Paihai, and Mrs. Williams thus describes his arrival in her diary:

“While Henry was engaged with his Bible class, William came in and exclaimed: ‘the Bishop of New Zealand on the beach!’ He went down and found the Bishop dragging up a boat in which they had come from Cape Brett, steering for this house with a pocket compass. The Bishop’s manner was most prepossessing. When summoned to tea, both the Bishop and his Chaplain seemed surprised at the long tea table of the two families of Williams, set for twenty-four.”

Henry Williams himself wrote to a friend on June 24th, 1842:

“The Bishop is now in my house having landed after dark on Monday evening last. We were all taken by surprise and put into an immediate bustle. I was delighted to see his face and to hear him speak and was relieved from many forebodings. I have seen very much of this good man during the few days of his sojourn amongst us. We have spoken freely upon various subjects in connexion with the Mission, and it is very remarkable that in no one instance have we had a contrary idea. He so fully enters into our views upon all missionary points, that I am at times under some apprehension of forgetting that he is our Bishop.... We are all of us delighted at the knowledge the Bishop has obtained of our language. He can to the surprise of all converse with ease and directness. The Bishop observes moreover that he shall require all his clergy to acquire the language, that they may attend to the natives.... I feel fully satisfied to leave all the affairs of the Mission or my own as a missionary in his hands.”

In another letter he writes:

“He has captivated every heart by his kindness and courteous manners.... I am persuaded that nothing will escape his notice, however trifling the circumstance.... He is now going to make a tour of the Island visiting every station.”

Of his first Sunday at Paihai the Bishop himself writes:

“I administered the Lord’s Supper to one hundred and fifty native communicants and was much struck with their orderly and reverential demeanour. All were dressed in European clothing, and, with the exception of their colour, presented the appearance of an English congregation.”

The Bishop spent several days with this experienced missionary learning all he could from him about the condition of the country, about the complicated land question, and about the different mission stations. All that he observed and learned helped him to mature his plans for the future. He had chosen to be called Bishop of New Zealand because he did not wish, by taking the title for his see from one particular settlement to provoke the jealousy of others. But it was necessary to decide where he should fix his residence. The New Zealand Company wished him to go to Wellington where they had secured a great deal of land and the agent went so far as to tell him that if he decided to settle at Auckland, instead of being looked upon by them with affectionate regard as their best friend, he would be regarded coldly as a prop of a rival settlement. Auckland was then the seat of government, though what was in a few years to become a beautiful city was still only a cluster of huts. Lady Martin described it as follows:

“Government House was only a one-storied cottage standing back from the road. A few wooden houses were dotted about, in which the Government officials lived. There were wooden barracks which contained about fifty soldiers; a supreme court-house, where the Judge held his court in the week, and which on Sundays was used as a church; a milliner’s shop, a blacksmith’s forge, and two or three stores. Butcher and baker were unknown, there was no beef or mutton to sell, and no roads for carts to travel along had there been.”

The climate was genial and the situation beautiful, and the Bishop hoped that Auckland might be the future cathedral city. For the moment, however, it seemed best that he should settle at the Waimate on the Bay of Islands. It had been the first headquarters of the C.M.S. mission and the Bishop went to inspect it immediately on his arrival in New Zealand. He described it as follows:

“I walked round the mission station and inspected Mr. Clarke’s house, which I decided would accommodate Sarah and such of the party as I might leave with her. The house is a little out of repair.... The garden has been overrun with cattle, but most of the plants are still alive, and with a little care may soon recover.... Seen from a distance the Waimate presents the appearance of an English village with a white church and spire, comfortable houses and gardens. This is by far the most settled place in the country. I am informed that four hundred native communicants assemble at the Lord’s Table. This will probably be my headquarters for some years, till I can deliberately choose a site for my residence and erect substantial buildings.”

For the moment Mrs. Selwyn was to stay with the Williams, whilst the Bishop went off on a journey to visit the other mission stations. He was very pleased with what he saw of the missionaries and wrote:

“They seem to be very zealous and able ministers, and I think myself happy in having under me a body in whom I shall see so much to commend and so little to reprove. The state of the mission is really wonderfully good.”

A year’s experience satisfied him that he had been right in the choice of the Waimate for his residence and for his college. He wrote:

“Every day convinces me more and more that we are better placed here than in one of the English towns. The general laxity of morals, and defect of Church principles in the new settlements, would make them dangerous places for the education of the young, and render it almost impossible to keep up that high tone of religious character and strictness of discipline which is required, both as a protest against the prevailing order of things, and as a training for our candidates for Holy Orders. At the Waimate, I am fettered by no usages, subject to no fashions, influenced by no expectations of other men. I can take the course which seems to me best.”

Already before leaving England, he had thought out how to make the Church in New Zealand independent of home support as soon as possible. With this purpose he asked the S.P.G. to allow him to use what money they could grant him not in paying salaries to the clergy, but in buying sites for future churches, and lands which might provide for some endowments. He wished in the plans he made to avoid both the evils in connexion with endowments which he had seen at home and the dependence on annual grants. He proposed to have a general endowment fund so as to avoid inequalities of endowment, and he determined to allow of no private patronage. Into this general endowment fund he urged all those who received stipends from England, through the Societies or otherwise, to pay what they received, as he himself did. In time he set up in every settlement an archdeaconry church fund into which all money collected or given to the Church was to be paid, and out of which each minister was to receive his stipend. Deacons were to begin with £100, rising gradually to £300 as priests, archdeacons £400, and bishops £500 as soon as they should be appointed. In each case, if possible, a house was to be provided, though it was not guaranteed. In all his plans from the first, he aimed at keeping the Church completely independent of State control. He preferred as he said, “to maintain the Church’s independence, and to commit her support to the free charities of God.”

These plans, thought out before he left England, he set himself to carry out as opportunity arose. He proceeded at once to buy suitable land for the Church. But whilst his fertile brain was thus full of plans for the future, he was equally keen to study the conditions of the present, and before even unpacking his books, he started on a journey to visit all the mission stations in the Northern Island. One of the first places which he stopped at was Wellington, which he reached by a small trading vessel. Here he spent three weeks, much occupied in nursing a young man who had come out with him from England, and from whom he had hoped much as a fellow worker. In this he showed his ability to turn his hand to anything and his tenderness as a nurse. One who watched him wrote:

“He practised every little art that nourishment might be supplied to his patient. He pounded chicken into fine powder; he made jellies, he listened to every sound; he sat up the whole night through by the bed-side. In short he did everything worthy of his noble nature.”

His care unfortunately was in vain and to his great sorrow the young man died. Chief Justice Martin, who was going to accompany him for part of his visitation, arrived to find the Bishop pale and worn with his long nursing. The two friends then started on their journey. Most of it had to be made on foot, often wading through rivers. Sometimes it was possible to ride on horse back, sometimes to go in a canoe on the rivers. Both Bishop and Judge made light of any hardships they might meet. The beauty of the country was a constant delight, and it was a great joy to the Bishop to find the large and devout congregations of Maoris which gathered at the mission stations on Sundays. Where there were English settlers a service for them followed the native service. The Bishop writes: “I never felt the full blessing of the Lord’s day as a day of rest more than in New Zealand.” Everywhere they were warmly welcomed, alike by missionaries and natives, and the Bishop was much pleased with all that he saw. Of one evening he writes:

“The natives assembled in considerable numbers for evening service and scripture questions. After I had questioned them as much as I thought fit, I invited them to ask me their difficulties; upon which such a series of scriptural questions was asked that our meeting did not break up till ten at night, and then only because I explained that my party were tired and wanted to go to sleep.”

On another occasion he writes:

“The natives, on seeing us, sent canoes to bring us to the island, where we were received with all ceremony, welcomed with speeches, and presented with ducks, potatoes and lake shell fish. I made my return as usual in Gospels of St. Matthew.”

Some of the stations were ministered to only by native catechists and on one occasion, he was much struck by the venerable figure and manner of a fine old blind man catechising his class. It seemed as if the Christian teaching of the missionaries was already spread throughout the whole land; little churches and schools were to be found in many places, the fields around the stations were well cultivated, industries were being introduced; the Maoris, a race famous for their ferocity, were learning to live quietly and peacefully. The Bishop writes:

“There is much to encourage me: vast numbers can now read and write well and when I have lectures of an evening, it amuses me to see the means they resort to, climbing up on stands inside the building, and many come half an hour before the bell rings, so anxious are they to hear the word of God explained. Some travel ten miles on the Saturday for the services of the next day.”

One of the most interesting stations visited was that at Waikanoe, where the experienced missionary, Rev. O. Hadfield, was in charge. From there the Bishop wrote:

“You would be surprised at the comparative comfort which I enjoy in my encampments. My tent is strewn with dry fern and grass. My air-bed is laid upon it. My books, clothes and other goods lie beside it; and though the whole dimensions of my dwelling do not exceed eight feet by five, I have more room than I require and am as comfortable as it is possible for a man to be when he is absent from those he loves most. I spent October 17th, the anniversary of my consecration, in my tent on the sandhills, with no companion but three natives.... I was led naturally to contrast my present position with the very different scenes at Fulham and Lambeth last year. I can assure you that the comparison brought with it no feelings of discontent; on the contrary, I spent the greater part of the day, after the usual services and readings with my natives, in thinking with gratitude over the many mercies and blessings granted to me in the past year.”

After a night spent in Mr. Hadfield’s house, service was held in the chapel: “more than 500 had come from various parts, so that the chapel and the space outside the walls was quite full.” Later on during this journey, he was met by William Williams, whom he had decided to appoint Archdeacon of Waiapu, so that he might have the oversight of the eastern half of the Island. All that he had seen had strengthened his conviction of the need that from the first the Church should be organized on a firm basis, and as he could not be everywhere and oversee everything himself, he wished to have the help of archdeacons working under him. In spite of the large congregations of natives, he wrote that:

“This people is a very wicked people, and if ‘civilized’ without the influence of the Gospel upon it, they will not be benefited in any way. The influence of the immoral English living in the land is the greatest difficulty I have to contend with.”

At Ahuriri he found “a very numerous Christian community though they had only once been visited by a missionary. The chapel was a substantial building capable of containing four hundred people. In the evening our canoe having stuck fast, we were left without tents or food till midnight; we then procured one tent, in which the first Chief Justice, the first Bishop and the first Archdeacon of New Zealand huddled in their blankets for the night. Surely such an aggregate of legal and clerical dignity was never before collected under one piece of canvas.” He describes a Sunday on their tour a few day’s later:

“The morning opened as usual with the morning hymn of the birds, which Captain Cook compared to a concert of silver bells. When this ceased at sunrise, the sound of native voices chanting around our tents carried on the same tribute of praise and thanksgiving, while audible murmurs brought to our ears the passages of the Bible which they were reading.... I cannot convey to you the least idea of the train of innumerable thoughts which are suggested continually both by the beauty of the scenery, the character of the natives, the various plants, insects and birds.”

The next Sunday there gathered on Poverty Bay “a noble congregation of at least a thousand, assembled amid the ruins of their chapel, which had been blown down.... After morning service the natives formed into classes for reading and saying the catechism—old tattoed and boys, and submitting to lose their places for every mistake with perfect good humour.” The Bishop’s tour took him right across the centre of the island, where he walked over hills covered with fern trees, and sometimes enjoyed the rest of being paddled along a beautiful river. At one station that he visited he met the missionary, Rev. R. Maunsell, said to be one of the best linguists on the mission, and after consultation with him formed a “translation committee, composed of two clergymen and two catechists, from which he hoped in due time to get a standard copy of both Bible and Prayer-book to be published under authority.” The Chief Justice had left him to return to Auckland by sea, and on January 3rd, the Bishop also turned in the direction of Auckland and thus describes the last bit of his journey:

“My last pair of thick shoes being worn out, and my feet much blistered by walking on the stumps, I borrowed a horse from the native teacher and started at 4 a.m. to go twelve miles to Mr. Hamlin’s mission station on Manakan harbour. Then ten miles by boat across the harbour. After a beautiful run of two hours, I landed with my faithful Maori, Rota, who had steadily accompanied me all the way, carrying my bag with gown and cassock, the only articles in my possession which would have fetched sixpence in the Auckland rag market. The suit which I wore was kept sufficiently decent, by much care, to enable me to enter Auckland by daylight; and my last remaining pair of shoes (thin ones) were strong enough for the light and sandy walk of six miles. At two p.m. I reached the Judge’s house by a path avoiding the town, and passing over land which I have bought for the site of the cathedral; a spot which I hope may hereafter be traversed by the feet of many bishops, better shod and far less ragged than myself. It is a noble site overlooking the whole town and with a sea-view stretching out over the numerous islands.”

On this journey of six months, the Bishop had travelled 2,277 miles, of which he had walked 762. His chief object had been to learn to know the country and its needs, so that he might plan his future work wisely. He notes with satisfaction that on this journey he met Mr. Williams on the exact day which he had appointed more than a month before, showing how, even in travelling through wild country, it was possible to be punctual.

When Selwyn got back to the Waimate, having learned much about the country, his first care was the College. He had hoped that his friend, Mr. Whytehead, who had come out with him from England would be its head. But to his deep sorrow, he heard that Mr. Whytehead had been taken ill at Sydney, and died three months after reaching the Waimate, leaving the memory of a saintly character to inspire those who should work after him.

The chief object of the College was to train clergy. Besides the College there was a boarding school, where Selwyn’s plan was to educate Maori lads and the sons of settlers together. He had most carefully thought out the principles upon which both college and school were to be founded. He believed that it was perfectly possible to civilize the whole rising generation of New Zealanders; the one impediment was the difficulty of getting enough English teachers, for not only must education be provided, but also instruction in the “most minute details of daily life and in every useful and industrious habit.” “We are apt,” he wrote, “to forget the laborious procession by which we acquired in early life the routine duties of cleanliness, order, method and punctuality.” Men were needed to train the scholars who had no sense of their own dignity and thought nothing beneath it, “who will go into the lowest and darkest corner of the native character to see where the difficulty lies which keeps them from being assimilated to ourselves. They have received the Gospel freely, and with an unquestioning faith, but the unfavourable tendency of native habits is every day dragging back many into the state of sin from which they seemed to have escaped.... We require men who will number every hair of a native’s head, as part of the work of Him who made and redeemed the world.” He found that the bane of the native people was desultory work interrupted by total idleness, and their inclination to waste their occasional earnings on useless horses or cast-off dress clothes. He feared lest the sons of the settlers should grow up with a sense of superiority and look upon honest labour as disreputable, because of the class of servile natives who clustered round the towns. So he desired “to raise the character of both races by humbling them” and teaching them the dignity of labour. All the students were to spend part of their time in some useful occupation for the support of the institutions. There were industrial classes, where printing, carpentry, carving and weaving were taught. Selwyn considered printing, of all trades, the best fitted morally and mechanically to train “the wayward and careless disposition of an uncivilized youth,” since, “to print at all, he must work orderly.” The youngest boys were to work in the garden, the elder ones to learn farming and forestry.

In the College, though the students were to take their part in the manual labours, he wished to preserve an academic atmosphere, and the students wore caps and gowns, at any rate on special occasions. Its chief purpose was to train the clergy of the future, as he could not hope to obtain a sufficient supply from England. He wrote:

“We must go to all orders of colonists and to the native people without respect of persons, and select from among their children the future candidates for Holy Orders.”

But since it was impossible to be sure that those so chosen would grow up fitted for the ministerial vocation, no pledges were asked of them, and the opportunities of secular training provided fitted the youth to enter upon other lines of life, should it appear when the right time came that he was not fitted for the special studies needed for Holy Orders. He expected that strangers would hardly be able to understand the complex character of the Institution, but he wrote:

“There is an open and undisguised reality about our work, which seems to be highly favourable to the discrimination of character, and therefore to the due selection of instruments: a class of demure students with face and tone of voice and manner conformed to the standard which they believe to be expected, would be a poor exchange for a healthful and mirthful company of youths, as yet unconstrained by pledges and professions, who show their true character in every act of their lives whether of business or amusement.”

And again:

“The only real endowment for St. John’s College is the industry and self-denial of all its members. Even if industry were not in itself honourable, the purposes of the institution would be enough to hallow every useful art and manual labour by which its resources might be augmented.”

All the members of the mission shared in the manual work, and all, including Mrs. Selwyn, dined together with the students in the Hall. She was much beloved by the natives; they called her Mother Bishop, and described her as “having great grace.”

At Keri-keri, a few miles from Paihai, what was to be the Cathedral library was set up, in the one stone house on the island, which had been used as a store for mission supplies. This library was a very real joy to the Bishop, he speaks of a day in it as “a day of literary luxury” when he sat “looking upon the books, occasionally dipping into them. The very sight of so many venerable folios is most refreshing in this land where everything is so new”; and again “as a charming retreat for his wife when over-wearied with her many and varied duties.... The quiet is as unbroken as the most nervous person could desire, and in this respect entirely different from the inevitable noise of wooden buildings. Here also I may retire in my old age, which will probably be premature, and superintend my College at the Waimate without being subject to all its perturbations.... The charm of this library is that it is so utterly uncolonial. Its walls are worthy of a college. My books carry me back to the first ages of the Church. It is true that when I step outside the door I stumble over a mass of utilitarian treasures. Bales of blankets, iron pots, barrels of all kinds are the miscellaneous furniture of my ante-chambers; but within, everything that can most elevate and purify the mind is to be found. Leisure alone is at present wanting for us to use our treasures; but as the Church system is developed, and active archdeacons stationed at all the principal settlements, I hope to be able to give myself more to meditation and every other profitable exercise, that there may be some abundance in my own heart to flow forth for the benefit of my diocese.”

Material things which might conduce to the well-being of his people were not forgotten by the Bishop. There were then already sheep in New Zealand, but he found that “the Maoris did not know how ‘to transfer the fleece from the back of the sheep to that of the man.’” He was distressed to see precious wool buried in the ground because the natives did not know how to use it, and wrote to a friend in Wales to ask about spinning machines suitable for the manufacture of coarse cloth in his native school, and for a supply of knitting pins for the children.

As was natural there were many interruptions to peaceful progress. News of a conflict between Maoris and settlers at Wairan near Nelson which lead to the massacre of twenty-three settlers, gave the Bishop “the gloomiest day he had yet spent in New Zealand.” This conflict arose as usual over a dispute about land, from misunderstanding of native customs, and from the little knowledge on the part of the settlers of the native language and character. Selwyn was afraid lest news of it should give a bad impression of the natives. He himself was convinced of the absolute safety of free intercourse with them and wrote:

“We have no fastenings to our windows, even on the ground floor, and the door is rarely locked. In travelling I pitch my tent at whatever place I happen to reach at nightfall, and am always hospitably received. In the course of some hundred miles of travelling I have never lost anything.”

In 1844, the Bishop made a second long visitation of his diocese, and for the first time visited the southern island, then much more sparcely inhabited than the northern. It was not easy to get about on land; many rivers had to be forded and one of the party could not swim, so the Bishop’s air-bed had to be converted into a raft in order to convey him across the rivers. In one part of the island the Bishop was much troubled to find religious dissensions amongst the natives, some of whom had been taught by a Wesleyan missionary. He wrote sadly, “controversy has preceded truth, and as usual darkened true knowledge.” As his later policy showed, had he found a really strong Wesleyan mission established, he would not have attempted to interfere; but he found that the mission had only been roused into some sort of activity when other teachers had appeared on the field. He could not recognize that the mere fact of the residence of one missionary, entitled that one to claim the spiritual care of all the southern islands. Neither would he countenance intercommunion between Wesleyans and Anglicans as had been the custom in some parts before his coming. But his personal intercourse with the Wesleyan missionary was most friendly. He writes:

“I stayed one day and a half in his house; but I told him that I could make no transfer of catechumens; that we must hold our own.”

He saw need for vigorous work in the south amongst the half-caste population, “where the fathers and mothers have been living together for some years, I married them and baptized their children: in all twenty-five couples married and sixty-one children baptized. I must have a visiting clergyman in the Straits as soon as possible, but where to find a man fit for the work I know not.... Many of the old whalers and sealers are settling down into a more quiet life, and are to a man anxious that their children should not follow the course of life which they have led themselves.” The problems he met with on this visitation made him think much of his future plans for the diocese, seeking guidance in framing them from the first three centuries of the Church’s history.

Amongst the Bishop’s difficulties were his relations with the Church Missionary Society. Whilst full of admiration for the work of their missionaries, he would not ordain the laymen among them except on the condition that he decided the sphere of their work. As the Society refused to accept this condition, the Bishop would not ordain the catechists in their missions. He also refused to ordain any as priests who had not attained a certain standard of learning, and he waited to ordain any native till he considered him sufficiently educated. In all these matters, the Society had a different policy. They were accustomed to control their own missions from home and were not inclined to give way to a Bishop who had only come out after the missions had been well established. These and other difficulties and misunderstandings led to the refusal of the Society to rent permanently to the Bishop the wooden buildings at the Waimate, where he had set up his College.

As he could not stay at the Waimate Selwyn determined to move at once to Auckland which he had always intended to be the Episcopal See. When the Maoris in the Waimate district heard of his intended removal, there was much disturbance. Lady Martin describes the scene that followed. It was on what was called market day, when the Maoris brought their wares for sale, and before the traffic began there was school and cathechising in the chapel after morning prayers.

“The people had heard a rumour of the Bishop’s intention to remove to Auckland, and there was a great deal of speech-making on the subject. A powerful speaker opened the debate. The orator began by trotting slowly up and down a given space, always beginning and ending each sentence with his run to and fro. After a while he got warmed up and excited, and then he rushed backwards and forwards, he leaped up off the ground, he slapped his thigh, shouted, waved his spear.”

It seemed more as if he were breathing out death and destruction than as if he were urging the Bishop to stay among his people.

“It was very amusing to see the two brothers Williams stand up and answer them. Archdeacon Henry Williams, a stout, old-fashioned looking clergyman with broad-brimmed hat and spectacles, marched up and down with a spear in his hand, and elicited shouts of applause. Then his brother drew a large space on the gravel, and divided it into three parts, and asked whether it was not fair that the Bishop should live in the middle of the diocese instead of at either end. There was a loud murmur of voices, ‘It is just,’ but all the same they did not like to lose him and his large party from among them.”

A month later, the Bishop, with his family and friends, started for Auckland. Mrs. Selwyn and their little boy rode, the Bishop walked, carrying his infant son swathed in a plaid to his side. As they left the Waimate, crowds gathered to bid them farewell. At Auckland the large party, together with the native students, had to live in tents till the college buildings were ready for them.

In order that there might be someone to superintend the Church in the Waimate district, Selwyn appointed Henry Williams to be Archdeacon of the Waimate, saying in his letter to him, “your long experience, and your great influence with the natives, will give me the greatest confidence in delegating to you the charge of this portion of my diocese.”

In September, 1844, as a further step to that complete organization which he contemplated, the Bishop summoned a Synod of his clergy. Three Archdeacons, four other priests and two deacons met together with him, in order “to frame rules for the better management of the mission and the general government of the Church.” On this occasion they discussed only questions of church discipline and extension, but it was the beginning of that complete system of self-government which was to establish the independence of the Church in New Zealand.