For the moment Mrs. Selwyn was to stay with the Williams, whilst the Bishop went off on a journey to visit the other mission stations. He was very pleased with what he saw of the missionaries and wrote:
“They seem to be very zealous and able ministers, and I think myself happy in having under me a body in whom I shall see so much to commend and so little to reprove. The state of the mission is really wonderfully good.”
A year’s experience satisfied him that he had been right in the choice of the Waimate for his residence and for his college. He wrote:
“Every day convinces me more and more that we are better placed here than in one of the English towns. The general laxity of morals, and defect of Church principles in the new settlements, would make them dangerous places for the education of the young, and render it almost impossible to keep up that high tone of religious character and strictness of discipline which is required, both as a protest against the prevailing order of things, and as a training for our candidates for Holy Orders. At the Waimate, I am fettered by no usages, subject to no fashions, influenced by no expectations of other men. I can take the course which seems to me best.”
Already before leaving England, he had thought out how to make the Church in New Zealand independent of home support as soon as possible. With this purpose he asked the S.P.G. to allow him to use what money they could grant him not in paying salaries to the clergy, but in buying sites for future churches, and lands which might provide for some endowments. He wished in the plans he made to avoid both the evils in connexion with endowments which he had seen at home and the dependence on annual grants. He proposed to have a general endowment fund so as to avoid inequalities of endowment, and he determined to allow of no private patronage. Into this general endowment fund he urged all those who received stipends from England, through the Societies or otherwise, to pay what they received, as he himself did. In time he set up in every settlement an archdeaconry church fund into which all money collected or given to the Church was to be paid, and out of which each minister was to receive his stipend. Deacons were to begin with £100, rising gradually to £300 as priests, archdeacons £400, and bishops £500 as soon as they should be appointed. In each case, if possible, a house was to be provided, though it was not guaranteed. In all his plans from the first, he aimed at keeping the Church completely independent of State control. He preferred as he said, “to maintain the Church’s independence, and to commit her support to the free charities of God.”
These plans, thought out before he left England, he set himself to carry out as opportunity arose. He proceeded at once to buy suitable land for the Church. But whilst his fertile brain was thus full of plans for the future, he was equally keen to study the conditions of the present, and before even unpacking his books, he started on a journey to visit all the mission stations in the Northern Island. One of the first places which he stopped at was Wellington, which he reached by a small trading vessel. Here he spent three weeks, much occupied in nursing a young man who had come out with him from England, and from whom he had hoped much as a fellow worker. In this he showed his ability to turn his hand to anything and his tenderness as a nurse. One who watched him wrote:
“He practised every little art that nourishment might be supplied to his patient. He pounded chicken into fine powder; he made jellies, he listened to every sound; he sat up the whole night through by the bed-side. In short he did everything worthy of his noble nature.”
His care unfortunately was in vain and to his great sorrow the young man died. Chief Justice Martin, who was going to accompany him for part of his visitation, arrived to find the Bishop pale and worn with his long nursing. The two friends then started on their journey. Most of it had to be made on foot, often wading through rivers. Sometimes it was possible to ride on horse back, sometimes to go in a canoe on the rivers. Both Bishop and Judge made light of any hardships they might meet. The beauty of the country was a constant delight, and it was a great joy to the Bishop to find the large and devout congregations of Maoris which gathered at the mission stations on Sundays. Where there were English settlers a service for them followed the native service. The Bishop writes: “I never felt the full blessing of the Lord’s day as a day of rest more than in New Zealand.” Everywhere they were warmly welcomed, alike by missionaries and natives, and the Bishop was much pleased with all that he saw. Of one evening he writes:
“The natives assembled in considerable numbers for evening service and scripture questions. After I had questioned them as much as I thought fit, I invited them to ask me their difficulties; upon which such a series of scriptural questions was asked that our meeting did not break up till ten at night, and then only because I explained that my party were tired and wanted to go to sleep.”
On another occasion he writes: