A History of the English Church in New Zealand

by Henry Thomas Purchas

Such was the aspect of affairs in the critical year, 1850. Never had the Church been less able to stand a shock, and the action of the C.M.S. might have led to a dangerous schism. For Henry Williams was not the only man who was affected. Two other agents, Clarke and Fairburn, were included in the sentence of dismissal. The mission families were large, and were so bound together by the ties of inter-marriage, that a separation on a large scale seemed possible. But, thanks be to God, no schism occurred. Some of the best of the missionaries, indeed, resolved to leave the country, unless the intolerable imputation of treason and bloodshed could be removed. William Williams ventured to England without leave in order to vindicate the character of the mission, and, especially, that of his own brother. The statement which he laid before the authorities in London (1851) was so full and conclusive that the committee at once passed a resolution absolving the mission from all guilt in connection with the war. The archdeacon therefore resolved to return to his post, although he could not induce the Committee to remove the sentence which still lay upon his brother.

Henry Williams was thus marked out more distinctly than ever as the piacular victim or scapegoat of the mission. And, indeed, his deprivation seemed to have an expiatory effect. Once his dismissal had been made, an improvement began all round. In the first place, the bishop seems to have been genuinely sorry for the harsh action which he himself had done much to bring about. The Society had gone further than he intended, and now his pity was roused. He took no offence when his archdeacon began to hold services in a barn at Pakaraka, nor when (in 1851) he opened a church which his sons had built and endowed with one-tenth of their property. Patience had its right result, and by 1853 the ecclesiastical relations between the two were entirely cordial. Henry Williams was no longer an agent of the C.M.S., but he was still one of the diocesan clergy, and he was still an archdeacon. His own ministrations seemed to gain in power and effectiveness. Stubborn old pagan Maoris came to the services of his new church at Pakaraka. Kawiti, the main upholder of ancient superstitions in the north, was there baptised, and thither the remains of Hone Heke were brought to be deposited near his old master. On one occasion no less than 130 Maoris were baptised by Williams at one time.

With the bishop and the church also, there was a new beginning in a more chastened spirit. Before the end of the same year (1850) the bishop had attended an episcopal meeting in Sydney, where he was able to secure the support of the Australian Church for his infant mission to Melanesia. A few months later he welcomed his old Eton friend, C. J. Abraham, to whose able charge he committed St. John's College. But greater than either of these events, if regard be had to the permanent progress of the Church, was the arrival in New Zealand, during the month of December, of the first instalment of the Canterbury Pilgrims.

The colony which they had come to found was intended to be something different from anything yet seen in New Zealand or in any other part of the British Empire. It was to be a reproduction on a small scale of England itself, as England might be supposed to be if its poverty, its crime, and its sectarian divisions could be eliminated. It was not a missionary undertaking in the ordinary sense of that noble word, nor was it intended as an outlet for revolutionary spirits. It was rather an attempt to get away from revolution, and to return to something of the feudal organisation. The settlement was to have a bishop, but he was to have nothing in common with the occupant of an ordinary "vulgar" colonial see. He was to be a scholarly and well-endowed prelate, with a small and compact diocese in which there should be no dissenters, but where an aristocratic gentry and a loyal peasantry should be watched over by a numerous and well-paid clergy. To attract such a class there must be not only fertile land and easy means of communication, but also good churches and good schools. Churches and schools must therefore be provided, and that on a generous scale. The price of land must be fixed high enough to allow of a large sum being set aside for the endowment of religion and education.

Such were the views of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, in whose fertile brain the scheme originated. But he alone could never have carried it out. The New Zealand Company, with which he was still co-operating, had become discredited, and Wakefield himself did not stand well with Selwyn, whom he had never forgiven for going over (as he expressed it) from the side of the colonists to that of the missionaries. He must therefore secure the help of someone who would be trusted by the class which he wished to attract. The person whom he called to his counsels was John Robert Godley, a man of acute intellect and wide knowledge, of aristocratic connection and of real religious conviction. He was something of a dreamer, but his dreams were always noble ones. By his enthusiasm he was able to enlist the sympathies of several influential men among his old Christ Church (Oxford) friends. The revolutionary year, 1848, helped the project, and in the year following, Godley himself went out to New Zealand to prepare for the emigrants. This was an opportunity for trying to bring about an understanding with Bishop Selwyn. Mr. Gladstone, who was then Colonial Secretary, wrote to Godley: "You are the man, if any, to put colonising operations from this country into harmony with the bishop. If he can be got to look at the New Zealand Company propitiously, I hope all may go well."

One part, then, of Godley's mission was to "capture" the bishop. It was not long before the bishop captured Godley. The natures and ideals of the two men were, in fact, fundamentally akin. Simplicity of life, a self-denying clergy, the spiritual independence of the Church—these were no less dear to the Canterbury leader than they were to the bishop himself. There was all the greater necessity for insistence upon them from the actual circumstances of the colonists. In spite of its aristocratic patrons, the Association was not successful in selling much of its land. There was no money wherewith to build the promised churches and schools nor to pay the clergy. Instead of finding themselves in the receipt of assured stipends, these luckless men were often reduced to something like destitution. The trouble had been partly foreseen, and the Association had tried to find clergy possessed of private means. Some of the clerical immigrants were thus endowed, and they were able to render considerable service. But the system was repugnant to Godley. He found himself confronted with the same problem as had met Selwyn in the north. To the Association it appeared that such a body of clergy "with their possession of private estate, and its necessary occupation and management, would resemble the condition of a large portion of the English clergy as holders of glebe and tythes." To Godley, on the other hand, it appeared that such men would be "primarily settlers and landowners, and but secondarily priests."

This was not the only point on which Godley found himself at variance with his friends in London. In their eagerness to secure clergy of position for their colony, these had actually taken upon themselves to appoint a dean and canons for what was still a part of Selwyn's diocese. This step excited the indignation of the bishop. He was further angered by what he considered an unworthy attempt to interfere with the spiritual functions of the episcopal office. In a letter to Godley he complains bitterly of the "Erastianism" of this action, and of the attempt to make him an accomplice in such proceedings. "It is not my business," he wrote, "to censure the Association, but I must decline all further correspondence with them." This letter was written on May 6, 1851, and it seems to have kindled into flame Godley's smouldering wrath. On the 10th of June he sent off a despatch in which he took up exactly the same ground as the bishop, and resigned his office as a protest against the policy of the Association. His action had the desired effect; the shadowy "dean and canons of Lyttelton" vanished into obscurity, and the Association itself shortly afterwards came to an end. It was composed of many noble and high-minded men; but, as one of them put it, they were an "association of amateurs," and they made mistakes more through ignorance than through design. Wakefield taunted his former ally with the "delirious inconsistency" of his behaviour, but Godley himself felt (like Browning's Rabbi) that

This rage was right i' the main—

though he regretted the vehemence of his language: "That I protested abruptly, rudely, unfeelingly, and in such a way as justly to annoy those whom I ought to have cut my right hand off sooner than give pain to, I shall never cease to deplore; but of the protest itself I cannot repent. And if (as I believe) it had the effect of determining the Association to resign its functions immediately and entirely, I shall always hold that I have by that step conferred a greater benefit on the colony than by any other step that I have ever taken in its concerns."