Still farther afield range the thoughts and the gaze of the young amongst us. Twenty-one years ago the old Church Missionary Society, which had done so much for New Zealand in the past, saw a daughter-society spring up in this distant country. The Church Missionary Association of New Zealand has been instrumental in greatly fostering the missionary spirit among young people, has sent out a goodly number to foreign countries, and raises a considerable sum for their support. Young New Zealanders are often more attracted by China and Japan than by the Maoris and Melanesians at their own doors.
What does this show but that the English Church in New Zealand must widen its outlook and expand its sympathies, till it feels itself lifted up and inspired to attempt greater things than anything yet achieved? For long centuries Christianity could never reach these islands: instead of advancing, it was driven back by the Mohammedan invasion. At last, with new knowledge and new hope, there came new enterprise and new daring. The very difficulties of the task became means to its accomplishment; through the most unlikely channels the beginnings of the message came. Portuguese and Hollander and Briton; da Gama and Tasman and Cook; rough whalers, and condemned criminals: in all these we must recognise the instruments which were used by the All-wise in the laying of our foundations. But it is to those who set themselves with conscious courage and far-seeing wisdom to build upon the stone thus laid—to Marsden and Williams and Selwyn—that we owe the deepest debt. Undeterred by the difficulties of their task, undismayed by the dangers of their way, these heroic men gave themselves to the work of building up under southern skies another England and another home for England's Church. It is the same spirit that is needed now, but with such fresh applications as are demanded by the new age.
In this book we have had to tell the hundred years' story of "the English Church in New Zealand." Perhaps the historian of a century hence may be able to trace its absorption into a Church which shall include all the broken fragments of the Body of Christ within its unity; all true schools of thought within its theology; all classes of men within its membership; every legitimate interest and pursuit within its gracious welcome!
For the present juncture the old words approve themselves as the most fitting: "Keep, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without Thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
APPENDIX I.
A TABLE EXHIBITING THE EPISCOPAL SUCCESSION IN NEW ZEALAND.
Those to whose names an asterisk is prefixed were consecrated under Royal Letters Patent.