CHAPTER VI

CHURCH ORGANIZATION IN NEW ZEALAND

As we consider in detail any portion of Bishop Selwyn’s varied work, we must never forget that behind the details of the moment, the great work needed for the future was ever present to his mind. Yet he was never lost in visionary schemes, details did not escape him, attention to them was one of the ways in which his great plans were made possible. All that he did, he saw in the light of the great call that he believed had come to him, to lay in New Zealand the foundations of a living Church, self-governing and independent. He had no desire to be an autocrat, but wished as far as possible to work with and through others. It will be well to bring together the various measures he adopted for the organization of the Church, whilst neglecting none of the work for education and evangelisation which was so dear to him. We have seen how one of his first acts had been to appoint in 1844 an archdeacon, that he might have at least one trusted adviser to whom he could delegate some part of his responsibility. Then followed the first tiny Synod of his clergy, called two years later. He looked to the future, but he built on the experience and traditions of the past. He wrote to a friend in the year that the first Synod met:

“My first charge if I ever find time to write it, will be an attempt to deduce a plan of operations, suitable to the peculiar case of New Zealand, from the records of the first three centuries of the Church. In my endeavours to avoid all party shibboleths I am much assisted by the natural effect of the native Church in enforcing simplicity of doctrine and regularity of discipline. I hope to make this a fulcrum for moving the chaotic mass of the English settlements, which are more like a fortuitous concourse of atoms than anything else, with the additional disadvantage that every atom has an opinion and voice of his own, and thinks himself a mountain.”

He longed for the help of others in the great work before him, and for opportunities of consultation with wise and experienced men as to its problems. This first synod met at Waimate and consisted of three Archdeacons, four priests and two deacons. It was summoned “to frame rules for the better management of the mission and the general government of the Church.” It dealt chiefly with questions of church extension and with some of the difficulties found in all missionary lands, problems concerned with baptism and marriage in a population partly heathen and partly Christian. But humble though it was, it met with much criticism in England, and was regarded by some as an unlawful assumption of authority and independence. It was the first attempted Synod of the Anglican Church since Convocation was suppressed in 1717. There were then no Diocesan Conferences or other authorised meetings of clergy and bishops. The Church was regarded as a State Establishment, and some regarded Bishop Selwyn’s Synod as an infringement of the royal supremacy, and blamed the Bishop for priestly assumption.

With one of the criticisms of his first Synod the Bishop was quite ready to agree. It was stated that it was not a true Synod, because the laity were not represented. In 1847 at his second Synod, he proposed a constitution of the Church in New Zealand, according to which representatives of the laity as well as bishops and clergy should meet together, and he inaugurated the discussions preliminary to its adoption. To this Synod he delivered his primary charge. In it he showed both how he looked back and how he looked forward in making his plans. He said:

“Our present meeting may be looked upon as one of a long series, beginning at the Council of Jerusalem, in which it the will of God by the assembling together of the ministers of Christ for social prayer and mutual counsel.... If I did not believe that our position in this country, both as regards the simplicity and primitive character of our Church establishment, and its freedom from all political connexion, gives us good reason to hope that we may be enabled to avoid the evils into which other Synods have fallen, I should have shrunk from the course which I now propose to you, and fallen back upon the practice sanctioned by custom, if not approved by reason, of a formal charge _ex cathedrâ_, upon the authority of the Bishop alone. I might then have found as has often been the case, that some would have consented _ex animo_, some without consenting would have obeyed conscientiously, some would have denied that their promise of canonical obedience applied to the points of which they disapproved. At the best there would have been much to check co-operation and engender distrust.”

He went on to speak of the missionary obligations of the New Zealand Church, and said that New Zealand must become a missionary centre:

“We cannot consider our work accomplished till every dialect in the South Seas has its representative members in our Missionary Colleges ... however inadequate a Church may be to its own internal wants, it must on no account suspend its missionary duties.”

He expressed his horror of controversy:

“Of controversy in general I would say that it is the bane of the Gospel among a heathen people.... I can never forget the pointed illustration of the old chief of Taupo, when I asked him why he still refused to believe. ‘Show me the way,’ he said, ‘I have come to the cross road. Three ways branch out before me. Each teacher says his own way is the best. I am sitting down and doubting which guide I shall follow.’ He remained in doubt till a landslip burst from the mountain under which he lived, and overwhelmed him with all his house.... The course seems to be to teach truth rather by what it is than by what it is not. Let us give our converts the true standard and they will apply it themselves to the discovery and contradiction of error.... Much of what has been said applies also to our relations with our own countrymen. We cannot expect unanimity, let us at least seek peace. Much has been written upon unity, but as yet little has been done towards a union of all religious bodies in one. This at least seems clear, that such a union, however highly desirable, must not be effected by a compromise of truth. When all shall have thoroughly examined the grounds of their own belief, and rejected such errors as they may find, then it is certain that all must come to unity of doctrine, because all will have been conformed to the same unalterable standard of truth.”

Of his own episcopal authority he said:

“I believe the monarchical idea of the Episcopate to be as foreign to the true mind of the Church, as it is adverse to the Gospel doctrine of humility. Let it never be thought that I alone am interested in the good government of our Church, and that you are merely subjects to obey. Whatever interest I have in the work you have also.... I would rather resign my office, than be reduced to act as a single and isolated being. It remains then to define, by some general principles, the terms of our co-operation. They are simply these: that neither will I act without you, nor can you act without me. The source of all diocesan action is in the Bishop; and therefore it behoves him so much the more to take care that he act with a mind informed and re-inforced by conference with his clergy.”

The desire of the laity to take part in the work of the Church was shown by a letter addressed to the Bishop in 1850, signed by both clergy and laity, amongst whom were Sir George Grey and Chief Justice Martin. In this they spoke of the responsibilities of the New Zealand Church as being the most advanced and remote outpost of the Church of England, of the call to them to aid in the foundation of a great nation and in moulding its institutions as well as of their duties to the heathen peoples in their neighbourhood. They stated their sense of the necessity for some speedy establishment of Church government amongst them which “by assigning to each order in the Church its appropriate duties, might call forth the energies of all, and thus enable the whole Church most efficiently to perform its functions.” To this letter an outline Constitution was appended, which had been drawn up by Sir George Grey during the enforced leisure of a sick bed. It proposed that a General Convention should be summoned, resembling “that which has proved so beneficial to our brethren in America.”

Selwyn had the advantage of discussing this matter at the Conference of Bishops in Sydney which he attended the same year. In a Pastoral Letter sent out in 1852, he explained further the objects he was aiming at. A Constitution was needed because the Church in New Zealand was not established by law, and therefore a large portion of the Ecclesiastical law of England did not apply to it. If they were to have laws to guide them, they must apply for the power granted to all incorporated bodies to frame their own bye-laws. He added a list of the general principles which should guide the framing of such bye-laws. During the two following years, meetings were called in all the settlements in New Zealand to discuss these principles. He wished the constitution to have the full approval of the people and not to be imposed upon them by authority from above. The delight of the laity at realising that they were once more part of a living church is illustrated by the words of a farmer who said:

“When I heard the church bell ring this evening and summon me to the first vestry meeting I had attended for twelve years, and for the first time in this country, I was quite overcome and affected to tears.”

At these meetings the Bishop called the attention of the people amongst other things to the fact of their dependence for their religious ministrations on money sent from England, often from the savings of the poor. His plan was to endow every minister to the extent of half his income, and to leave the rest to be supplied by his own people. In this way the minister would be partially dependent on, and partially independent of his flock. The principles of the proposed constitution were thoroughly discussed at these various meetings, often by men who had little knowledge or experience to bring to the consideration of the matter. The Bishop bore patiently with questions and interruptions not always of the most courteous kind. In a letter written by one who was present at these meetings it is said:

“I mention these facts to give you some notion of colonial church life in its less interesting and romantic features. There are some hard, coarse, rough scenes to be gone through—such as would astonish an English bishop if he were to come across them. It is just as well that people at home should know that the trials of colonial bishops do not so much consist in the pleasant excitement of walking through the glorious forests, and swimming the rivers of New Zealand, or the like, nor in the novelty and refreshment of missionary work among a simple or savage people, but in being brought into contact day by day with the rudest and coarsest spirits of unrestrained colonialism, which vaunts itself and prides itself in saying and doing the most offensive things in the most offensive way. Our Bishop has practically exemplified an old saying we used to have at Eton, ‘You must go on never minding.’”

The Bishop was willing patiently to let them talk, hoping that “they would feel their feet for themselves and stand all the firmer for it.”

In England there was a good deal of difference of opinion, even amongst great lawyers, as to the status of the Church in the Colonies, and the right of colonial bishops to hold synods or conventions of their clergy in order to legislate for the Church. Selwyn became convinced that, in order to get the matter settled, he would have to pay a visit to England and he began to prepare to return home for this purpose. He wished above all that the method should be determined by which more bishops could be appointed to aid in a work which it became increasingly impossible for one man to carry on. Both in the colony itself and in England, many criticisms were made as to the way in which he apportioned his time between the three great claims made upon him, the evangelisation of the Maoris, the care of the settlers, and the mission to the Melanesians. In a letter written in 1852, he speaks of a statement he had drawn up as to the way in which he had spent his time during his ten years in New Zealand, and says:

“The results are curious and illustrative of the life of a colonial bishop, which can scarcely be understood and certainly not felt by any of the good questionists in England. One whole year I have spent at sea, between the English settlements, distant one thousand miles at their extreme points, and requiring a voyage of two thousand five hundred or three thousand miles to visit them all. During the whole of this year of voyages, I was lost to all the direct objects of my office; but in that time my charge, journals, study of languages and navigation, and the chief part of my correspondence have been accomplished; all bearing upon that work for which I live, and to which such powers as God has given me of mind and body have been devoted. It appears that the English and native duties have occupied nearly equal portions of time, and the Northern (that is the Melanesian) missions only half as much as either of them; but the collegiate duties as being the husbandry of my best garden plot, have absorbed as much time as the English and native visitations put together.”

His methodical and orderly habits which made the arrangements of his tiny cabin a wonder to all who saw it, his exactness and punctuality, alone made it possible for him to carry out such a multitude of varied duties. His visitations were carefully planned so that no part of New Zealand should escape his notice. On a tour round the Southern Island in 1851, he held forty-four confirmations, and confirmed about three thousand candidates. His programme for each day was marked with D.V. and where the engagement was fulfilled, he added D.G. After this particular tour he could write in his diary:

“End of confirmation tour on which every D.V. has been marked with a D.G. to the exact day.”

But the tour had its own special disappointment, for there were but few young people amongst the candidates for confirmation. This he attributed to the lack of schools, which he must now try to get the missions to provide. Meanwhile new settlers were constantly arriving. In 1847 a large number of military pensioners had been settled by the Government in the neighbourhood of Auckland. No provision for chaplains or for any religious ministry had been made for them. The Bishop set to work at once and provided each of these settlements with a little wooden church. He himself, and the young deacons working with him, conducted the services in these little churches. They went on foot through mud and mire every Sunday to the different settlements, the Bishop always taking the hardest part of the work and the largest number of services. In the evenings all the clergy and lay readers met together at St. John’s for what was called the “Unity Service,” after being widely scattered for their different duties during the day, and joined with the students from the college, dark-faced islanders, English and Maori boys, in a last act of prayer and praise.

In 1850 an important new settlement was made in the Southern Island near Lyttelton. It had been planned in England and was carried out under the auspices of what was called the Canterbury Association, formed in order to send out a band of settlers belonging to the Church of England, accompanied from the first by a number of clergy and teachers, and a prospective Bishop, who came out to view the land before deciding whether he would accept the appointment. Selwyn was very glad to learn that some one was coming who would relieve him of the charge of the Southern Island, but he was not previously consulted as to the Settlement and doubted the wisdom of the arrangements made. He wrote:

“My growing unpopularity with the Company for advocating native rights is, I conclude, the reason why a plan like this of the ‘Canterbury Settlement’ is forced on in the same hurried and reckless manner which has caused all former disasters—without a single enquiry of any kind being addressed to the Bishop of the Diocese. If I were a mere land agent, my local knowledge of every part of New Zealand both of the coast line and of the interior, with few exceptions, wherever human beings are settled, might have induced reasonable men to write to me before they pledged themselves to such a partial and profoundly ignorant body as the New Zealand Company. But the Company must sell land or die.... I cannot compromise myself to a recommendation of any site within the Southern Province unless the whole be accurately mapped, and facility given to every purchaser to know exactly what kind of land he is buying.... Wherever the settlements be formed, the actual surface of the country must be taken into account. Let the site of every town, village, school, church, etc., be marked before a single acre is sold.”

He wrote thus on seeing the printed prospectus of the Settlement. It had filled his mind with anxiety because of his intense love for New Zealand and his eager desire for anything that might benefit the Church and the country. But when the Canterbury pilgrims began to arrive, he hastened to Lyttelton to greet them. As soon as the _Undine_ was seen to enter the harbour, two of the newly-arrived clergy hastened on board. One of them thus describes his visit:

“Both wore cap and gown, at which the Bishop seemed pleased (one wonders whether it would not have been truer to say amused), they gazed around with awe and interest until the awe at least was dispelled by the cordial reception they met with, and the unequalled charm of the Bishop’s presence and conversation. The marvellous neatness of that diminutive cabin and the ingenuity of its arrangements, are never to be forgotten.... On the following Sunday the Bishop celebrated the Holy Communion in a loft over a good’s store, reached by a ladder, the seats being extemporised by resting planks on sugar barrels.”

The Bishop himself writes to a friend interested in the Settlement:

“Here I am among the Canterbury pilgrims; and a very good set of colonists they are, as far as I can judge. But a great mistake has been made in sending out too many at once, and in allowing any consideration to prevent their instant occupation of land. They are not allowed to choose till two months after their arrival, by which time many will have become demoralized by idleness and desultory habits.... I repeat again and again the same advice: send out your parochial staff ready organized—clergymen, landowners, labourers, not turned adrift upon an interminable plain: far less cooped up in a Dutch oven at Lyttelton; but to go at once to a parish known and chosen by themselves, and to a church and school already built; so that not one single day’s delay may occur in resuming those good habits in their new country which they have learned in England. I find neither church, nor school, nor parsonage in existence. Money enough has been spent, but all in civil engineering. Last Sunday I administered the Holy Communion in a crowded loft over a store. I do not care for these things if they are unavoidable; but where it has been part of the plan from the first to put religion in its right place, I do object to spacious and costly offices, long lines of wharves, roads, piers, etc., and not one sixpence of expenditure in any form for the glory of God, or for the comfort of the clergy. I shall, of course, make the best of the matter.”

A few weeks later another ship arrived, bringing more emigrants, several schoolmasters, and the Bishop designate. Selwyn who had been away on a further voyage, returned to meet him, and at a conference with him and the clergy of the settlement, agreed to resign into his hands the southern portion of the diocese of New Zealand. The meeting was held in an unfurnished room in the immigration barracks at Lyttelton. It was brought to a close by the announcement made to Selwyn that the wind was favourable for his departure. Before leaving he expressed “his great thankfulness at finding such a spirit of unity among the clergy of this new branch of the Church of God,” and gave them his blessing. He returned again towards the end of the year to assist with his advice in the organization of the new diocese, so that all might be from the first established on a sound basis. But the hope that he was going at once to be relieved of the charge of the Southern Island was disappointed. The Bishop designate felt himself unfit for the post for which he had been selected, and returned to England. It was five years before a Bishop for this new diocese of Christchurch was sent out.

Bishop Selwyn’s immense responsibility continued unrelieved. He had not only the supervision of all the missions to the Maoris, the planning of the work amongst the Pacific Islands, but the provision for the religious and educational needs of the increasing number of colonists who were attracted by the rich promise of New Zealand. During these years he had gained a full knowledge of the country. He wrote in 1853:

“The dim and visionary idea of New Zealand, which I used to brood over in 1841, before we left England, is changed by God’s blessing to an accurate knowledge of every accessible part of the coast, and of almost every inhabited place in the interior.”

Towards the end of 1853, he had the great joy of ordaining his first Maori Deacon, Rota Waitoa, who had been for ten years his constant companion in his travels. It was a consolation in the midst of bitter sorrow, for he had been obliged temporarily to close the College at Auckland on account of the grave misconduct of two in whom he had trusted, and which put an end to his hope of educating together the Maori youths and the sons of the colonists. When the College was able to be re-opened it had to be for white scholars only, and other provision was made for the Maoris. Rota had adopted every Christian and civilized habit, and had risen from one post of usefulness to another and been found faithful and blameless in all. The older missionaries were doubtful of the wisdom of ordaining a Maori, believing that it was difficult to be sure that the tendency to barbarism was yet eradicated. But the Bishop’s confidence in Rota was not disappointed, and he served the Church faithfully till his death twelve years later. Unlike the ordinary natives who were generally characterized by great self-conceit, he was unusually diffident of himself, and he was always eager to seize any opportunity of learning more. When he had worked for eighteen months in the village which had been put under his charge, he told his people that he must go up to the College to fill his seed bags again, having sown all that he took down with him the year before. The English, who saw him at the College on that visit, were “struck by the perfect ease and simplicity of his manner, without the least assumption of forwardness.”

This first ordination of a native marked an important stage in the growth of the New Zealand Church, but the difficult questions as to the constitution of the Church could not be settled without a visit to England, and the Bishop had now made up his mind, to undertake the long journey home. He started with Mrs. Selwyn and his younger son, the elder was already in England for his education, on the last day of 1853, having spent twelve years of arduous work in New Zealand. His desire was to do his business in England and get back as quickly as possible. He wrote during the voyage to his friend, Mr. Coleridge, saying that his objects were the subdivision of the diocese, the enactment of free powers for the Church in New Zealand to meet in Convocation of Clergy and Laity and to manage its own affairs within certain limits, and the recognition of his plans as regards the Melanesian mission. He added:

“Pray use your influence with our friends now in power to give me quick dispatch, as Colonial Bishops being unconnected with the State, are not used to ante-chambers and only wish to get work done with as little formality as possible.”

As he had thoroughly discussed his plans with people in New Zealand he could say that he came authorised by his people “to take such steps as might be necessary for carrying into effect the wishes of his diocese.”

There was much consideration of his proposals and many discussions with the authorities, but it seemed to them impossible to give legal sanction for the organization of an independent colonial Church. At the same time they said that there could be no legal objection to colonial bishops holding synods within their own dioceses. Selwyn therefore gave up all attempts to get legal sanction for the proposed Constitution of the New Zealand Church of England. On his return to New Zealand he at once proceeded to make arrangements for the government of the Church and the final acceptance of its suggested Constitution.

Those members of the Church who were willing to administer its property were asked to associate themselves together on the basis of _mutual compact_, and to establish a representative governing body to manage its affairs and regulate its extension. Selwyn summoned a general conference of Bishops, Clergy and Laity to meet on May 14th, 1857, and approve finally the Constitution. In his opening address to this Conference he said that as “the colonial churches must have laws for their own government, and as neither the Church nor the State at home is able to make laws for them, they must be free to legislate for themselves.” Whilst in England he had drawn up the outline of a constitution, based on his former proposals and guided by the advice of eminent legal authorities. This constitution he now submitted to the Conference for their final approval. In it the Church in New Zealand was described as a Branch of the United Church of England and Ireland, associated with the mother Church by voluntary compact, and free to govern itself through a representative body. It was to maintain the doctrine and sacraments of the Church of England, and to accept its book of Common Prayer. In the main the constitution followed the lines of that of the American Episcopal Church. The Church of New Zealand was to be autonomous and free from the State Legislature. This Constitution was revised in various particulars in later years, but for the most part it stands as it was originally settled. There was much criticism of it at first, especially in the Canterbury Diocese, where more freedom for the various diocesan conferences was demanded, and objections were made to the powers vested in the central authority. For a time there seemed danger of a severance between that diocese and the rest of the New Zealand Church. Fortunately the firm and wise management of the Bishop effected a compromise on the various points in dispute. The Constitution was finally settled at the General Synod held at Christchurch in 1865 and at the same time steps were taken which completely separated the Church in New Zealand from the Crown, and gave it the appointment of its bishops.

Whilst in England the Bishop had also made plans for the division of his Diocese and secured the appointment of three new bishops to whom in the old way letters patent were to be granted by the Crown, and they were consecrated in England. After this the Bishops in New Zealand were chosen by the Diocesan Synods.

The first General Synod under the new Constitution met at Wellington in 1859. The Bishop in his opening address spoke of it as the fulfilment of hopes cherished during a period of fifteen years. He told of the difficulties that had to be surmounted before his hopes could be realised, and how the Constitution was founded on the basis of mutual and voluntary compact. The property of the Church was to be held by trustees; the Church was to be governed by diocesan Synods, and their work was to be co-ordinated under the General Synod. In the work of all these Synods the laity were to have their full share. He spoke of the danger lest they should be tempted to rely on mere external and material organization, and trust to it rather than to the life of the Spirit, but said that it would be vain to seek for spiritual life by neglecting outward organization; they must trust to the quickening spirit to make them living stones, so that each doing his appointed work and using his own special gift, they might see to it that their Church should grow into a holy temple of the Lord.

He spoke of the chains with which the Church of England had been bound by her past history; of the abuses “which had been encrusted on her system,” such as private patronage, the sale of spiritual offices, the inequalities of clerical incomes, and the repeated efforts which had been made to remove them. From these chains the Colonial Church was saved; as faithful children it was their part to show how glorious might be the purity of her doctrine and the holiness of her liturgy, free from those chains.

There were to be diocesan boards to appoint the clergy, whose maintenance was to be provided by the Diocesan Synods, partly from endowment funds, and partly by voluntary contributions. This was a principle dear to Bishop Selwyn’s heart, which he had advocated ever since he came to New Zealand. The discipline of the clergy was to be in the hands of a Tribunal appointed by the Diocesan Synod and presided over by the Bishop. The electors to the Synods were to be those who declared themselves willing to obey the laws of the Synod, its members must be communicants. He then described what would be the duties of the Synods. Finally he dwelt upon their responsibilities for the native races in New Zealand and Melanesia, and on the urgent need to raise up a native ministry. He rejoiced over the faithful men who had already been ordained, but said it was impossible not to feel some doubts as to the future stability of the native Church. He said: “My recent journey through the Mission Stations has left me in a balanced state between hope and fear”; fear caused by the signs of decaying faith, and by the fact that the native youth were “departing from the example of their fathers, given to self-indulgence, drunkenness and sloth.” He was convinced that the time was coming when it would “be found impossible to carry on a double government for the Colonial and the Missionary Church,” but their blending must be a gradual work though it should be begun immediately. It was with great thankfulness that he told the Synod of the formation of the new missionary diocese of Waiapu for the Southern Island, to which he hoped to consecrate Archdeacon William Williams. “One whose age and experience had often made him feel ashamed that he should have been preferred before him.” The three new Bishops of Christchurch, Wellington and Nelson, who had been appointed in England, were present at the Synod and joined with him at its close in consecrating William Williams, who was thus the first Bishop to be consecrated in New Zealand. Selwyn wrote of this to a friend:

“I wish that you could have been present to see our little church at the Antipodes, represented by its four Eton Bishops, lighting a fifth candlestick to be a light to lighten our native Christians. The new Bishop was already at his work in New Zealand while I was still a boy at Eton; and though a veteran, who might have claimed some relaxation of his work, has just pulled down a comfortable house at his mission station to remove to a wild tract of uncultivated land, and there begin again the first perturbations of a native school for the purpose of training up the New Zealand youth to take their place in the new order of things.”

This brief account of the organization of the autonomous Church in New Zealand has been carried to its fitting conclusion in the account of the first meeting of the General Synod and of the first consecration of a Bishop in the country. Bishop Selwyn had accomplished the great work which gave New Zealand a self-governing Church, with a constitution sufficiently elastic to allow it to develop in accordance with its own needs, and yet safely established on those “fundamental principles,” which would for ever secure its union with the Mother Church. By his skill and zeal in bringing this difficult matter to a safe conclusion, he had not only secured a great future for the Church in New Zealand, but he showed the way to other branches of the Anglican Church in other parts of the world. His clear vision, his talent for organization, his indomitable perseverance, his conspicuous power in managing and persuading men, had all combined to make it possible to realize his object in the short period of eighteen years, amidst all the pressure of other work, the strain of constant journeyings to and fro by sea and land, and the cruel anxieties of native wars. What had been achieved filled him with thankfulness and hope for the future. He had worked throughout in full co-operation with others, and on true democratic principles, as befitted a Bishop in a new land. He had no desire to be an autocrat or to win credit for himself.