A History of the English Church in New Zealand

by Henry Thomas Purchas

Though helping thus to break up the government of the new colony, Bishop Selwyn fairly captured the affections of the colonists themselves. He arrived at Lyttelton within a few days of their landing, and held a meeting with the four clergy who had then arrived. He was with them again in February, and again in the following November, when he laid down directions for the management of their ecclesiastical concerns. In the bitter disappointment caused by the repeated failure to secure a bishop of their own, the clergy and laity of Canterbury were all the more ready to welcome the help and advice of one who, like Melchizedek, met them with the bread and wine of human kindness and of divine ministration. They were jealously sensitive of their independence, and of their reputation as being the Church Settlement par excellence, but Selwyn treated them with wise consideration. He removed one inefficient priest to the North Island; he urged the Christchurch clergy to interest themselves in the few Maori villages of Banks Peninsula; he gave his warm approval to the establishment of daily services at Lyttelton; but for the most part he left the direction of affairs (after the departure of Mr. Godley) in the hands of his commissary, Archdeacon Mathias. So charmed were the colonists with the bishop's personality that it became a constant saying among them that "the fractional part we are actually enjoying of Bishop Selwyn is better than a whole new bishop to ourselves."

The limits of this book permit of little beyond a bare mention of the Melanesian Mission, which during the years 1850 to 1853 was being successfully prosecuted. This was Bishop Selwyn's own idea; the islands were virgin soil; and their teeming peoples afforded an abundant outlet for the bishop's missionary zeal, which was rather hampered in New Zealand itself by the presence of the older missionaries. Every voyage resulted in some dark-skinned youths being brought to St. John's College for Christian education with the Maori and English scholars.

Vigorous and successful, however, as were the operations in the distant corners of the field, they were balanced by heavy trials nearer home. In 1851 the bishop lost by an early death his only daughter, and in 1853 a storm of evil swept through his college, and nearly broke the spirit of its founder. Two of his most trusted helpers flagrantly betrayed their trust; their evil influence spread to others, and for a time the whole establishment was dispersed. Indeed the Maori portion never reassembled. One student had stood out with conspicuous faithfulness amidst the general falling away, and this man (Rota Waitoa) the bishop now ordained to the diaconate—the first of his race to receive Holy Orders. On the last day of this "year of sorrow," the bishop and his family left the now partially dismantled college for a visit to England. They never lived in the old home after their return, and this moment may be considered as the end of the communistic experiment which had been so hopefully begun at Waimate in 1843. Like Marsden's seminary at Parramatta, this also had failed, and for the same reasons.

When the bishop arrived in London on May 5th, 1855, he met with a warm reception, and forthwith proceeded to carry out his policy of conciliation. Together with Sir George Grey, he visited the Church Missionary House, and pleaded with the Society for the reinstatement of Archdeacon Henry Williams. The Society had by this time come to realise the error of its action, for many of its supporters throughout the country had been agitating for an enquiry. The Committee were therefore not unwilling to accede to the wishes of the two august visitors, and a letter was soon sent to New Zealand, asking the archdeacon to overlook the past, and to take once more his honoured place on the staff of the mission. Henry Williams accepted the overture—tardy as it was—and from his residence at Pakaraka continued to carry on his old work during the remainder of his life.

But the bishop did more than render justice to one ill-used helper. He won over the Society itself to his side by proposing to establish three new bishoprics in New Zealand, each of which should have a missionary as its first head. The scheme was never fully carried out, as the course of our history will show; but its non-fulfilment was due to circumstances which could not at the moment be foreseen.

In the larger world of English life, also, the bishop made his mark. A course of Advent sermons before the University of Cambridge had a wonderful effect in stimulating the interest of the Church in foreign missions. An appeal for funds for Melanesia resulted in £10,000 being raised within a few weeks, and also in the gift of a new ship for the island work; a letter to a young friend who remembered Selwyn's parting sermon in 1841 secured the noble and saintly Patteson for the same mission; an interview with another of his early friends—Henry Harper, vicar of the Berkshire village of Strathfield Mortimer—won from this humble parish priest the promise to come out to New Zealand for the bishopric of Christchurch, as soon as a duly authorised request should be forthcoming. Altogether, Selwyn was able to feel that his visit had been successful in its objects, and he returned to his diocese in 1855 with new heart for the work, and new means for its effective prosecution.

As soon as possible after his arrival he proceeded to Canterbury, and once more convened a meeting of its principal churchmen. Ecclesiastical affairs had not prospered in this settlement as its promoters had anticipated. Godley had left in 1852, and the diocese had become wearied with the continual disappointment of its hopes of seeing a bishop of its own. The meeting at first urged Selwyn himself to take the position of Bishop of Christchurch, and on his refusing this offer, a unanimous resolution was carried in favour of his friend and nominee, the Rev. Henry John Chitty Harper. By Christmas, 1856, the new bishop had arrived, and was installed on Christmas Day in the little pro-Cathedral of St. Michael, Christchurch, amidst the eager expectation of the community. Selwyn was present at the arrival of his friend, and also at the installation service. At last he was able to hand over some part of his diocese to an episcopal colleague: that colleague, moreover, being a man whom he had known in his early days, and from whom he had received his own first impulse towards the work of the ministry.

At peace with Henry Williams and the other missionaries; at peace with the Church Missionary Society; at peace with the Canterbury colonists, and secure in the loyal friendship of their bishop; he could now press forward with a project which had long occupied his thoughts, viz., the binding together of the varied elements of the Church into one united and organised whole.

Note.—As throwing light upon the proposed bishoprics mentioned in this chapter, and also as showing the thoughts which were at this time passing through Bishop Selwyn's mind, it may be well to quote the following passage from a letter written by him in England to his friend the Rev. E. Coleridge (Aug. 14, 1854):

"If the organisation of the New Zealand Church had been a little more advanced towards completion, I should gladly have availed myself of the consent already obtained to the appointment of the Venerable Archdeacon Abraham to succeed me in the See of Auckland; the archdeaconries of Wellington, Waiapu, and Tauranga being, as it is proposed, erected into bishoprics, and placed under the episcopal care of the present Archdeacons Hadfield, W. Williams, and Brown. Knowing the difficulties which are thought to stand in the way of the creation of missionary bishoprics, I should then have gladly undertaken the charge of Melanesia as my own diocese, retaining only such an interest in New Zealand as might connect me still with the councils of its Church, and give me a central home and resting-place among my own countrymen."