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.

CHAPTER VII
BISHOP SELWYN’S WORK IN ENGLAND FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS

The primary object of Selwyn’s visit to England was to make arrangements for the organization of the Church in New Zealand. The result of his efforts in that direction has been told in the last chapter. But his visit to England was fruitful in other respects also. He had no intention of lingering there, and had written from his ship on the way to England to his friend, Rev. E. Coleridge: