SACRIFICE AND HEALING.
(1850-1856).
We must suffer for the sin of others as for our own; and in this
suffering we find a healing and purifying power and element.
--_Shorthouse._
The land-grant controversy did not, of course, occupy the whole of
Bishop Selwyn's time during the years of its painful and weary course.
The journeys by land and sea were still carried on, and were even
extended in their range. In 1848 the bishop sailed away eastward, out of
sight of land, in a small schooner of 21 tons, and after ten days
reached the Chathams; in 1849 he even ventured in the same vessel far to
the northward among the coral islands of Melanesia. In 1847 he had held
a second synod, and there were some cheering occurrences among the
Maoris, especially in the south-west district. At Otaki, for instance,
the bishop found 300 men, with Rauparaha at their head, engaged in
raising the great pillars of a splendid church, around which a town (to
be called "Hadfield") was being laid out. At Wanganui the Rev. R. Taylor
held remarkable Christmas gatherings each year. From every _pa_ on the
banks, a contingent, headed by its native teacher, would come down the
river to Wanganui. The thousands who thus assembled were publicly
examined for some days as to their Christian conduct, and some hundreds
were admitted to the Holy Communion, which had to be celebrated in the
open field. At one of these meetings two chiefs volunteered to carry the
Gospel to a hostile tribe at Taupo. They went, and were both murdered.
One of them, after being disabled, lingered from morning until sunset,
and all through these hours of agony was praying for his murderers that
they might receive the light.
But, on the whole, a note of sadness makes itself heard throughout the
period. Some of the missionaries, like Maunsell, can "watch the clouds
pass overhead," and thank God that the storms of war and of false
accusation leave them untouched. But none can feel altogether happy
amidst the troubles of his brethren. Hadfield is stricken with a mortal
illness, and lies helpless for four years in Wellington. Reay dies at
Waiapu, and Bolland at Taranaki. This last-named excellent priest was a
brother-in-law of the saintly Whytehead, and carried some of the elder
man's inspiring influence into the building and furnishing of the stone
church at New Plymouth. His death was greatly mourned by his people, as
well as by Selwyn, who confessed a special regard for this beautiful
portion of his diocese, and now felt that a holy memory had shed upon it
a peculiar lustre. Nelson was hardly keeping up to its early rate of
progress, and its central mound, instead of a church bore an ugly fort,
into which the nervous townsfolk passed over a drawbridge for their
Sunday worship. Wellington was still unsatisfactory, its one wooden
church serving for a congregation which was "neither so regular nor so
good" as might have been wished. Altogether the diocese appeared to the
bishop as "an inert mass which I am utterly unable to heave."
The fulcrum upon which the bishop depended in his efforts to heave the
mass was St. John's College, and the college at this time was bringing
troubles of its own. In 1847 it suffered a terrible visitation of
typhoid fever. The bishop's own two little boys were stricken, and a son
of Archdeacon W. Williams died. At one time no less than forty cases
were calling for the attention of the staff. Through the care of the
medical deacon, Dr. Purchas, the epidemic proved less deadly than had at
one time seemed inevitable; but its appearance showed the unwisdom of
combining a public hospital with an educational establishment. Even
without this special plague, the daily routine was too rigorous to be
maintained. English parents began to withdraw their sons from an
institution in which Maoris so largely predominated; the Maoris could be
kept at work only by constant supervision; the deacon schoolmasters, to
whom the duty of superintendence was committed, were more eager to begin
preaching than to perform thoroughly the humbler duties of the kitchen
and the field. Those who were willing to do the humble work found that
they had little time or energy left for intellectual pursuits. The ideal
was not practical. More and more it became evident that the very
continuance of the scheme depended upon the bishop himself. "Everything
in the way of system," he wrote, "from the cleaning of a knife upwards,
passes in some form or other through my mind." The result was "a turmoil
of much serving, which had in it more of Martha than of Mary"; and he
has to face the possibility of the failure of plans "conceived, it may
be, in pride rather than in faith."
But the communistic ideal still held the bishop's mind, and at one time
(1848) there seemed a prospect of its realisation in an unexpected
spot--the Chatham Islands. To this lonely field a Lutheran mission had
come in 1846, and the bishop sailed thither with great hopes of bringing
it into his system. He visited these German folk--five men and three
women--and found them indeed "living in that simple and primitive way
which is the true type of a missionary establishment. They seem to be as
one family, and to have all things in common." At first, it looked as
though their chief might consent to receive Holy Orders in the English
Church; but the negotiation fell through, and the bishop left the house
in sore vexation, being careful to wipe the dust of his feet on the
doormat as he passed. However admirable may have been its
constitution, this mission was never a success. Many churches were
standing in the island at this time, but the native Christians were
either Wesleyans, or they looked rather to far-distant Otaki than to the
German community at their doors.
[Illustration: ST. MATTHEW'S CHURCH, DUNEDIN.]
Otaki itself was the other spot where a prospect offered. The Maoris
there gave to the bishop 500 acres at Porirua for a college, which was
to be similar to St. John's. The gift was thankfully received, and hopes
were entertained of an establishment from which the deacons would go
forth to serve the chapelries around Wellington, as those at St. John's
ministered to the outlying suburbs of Auckland. But the attempt was
never seriously made. No man could carry on two such undertakings. The
bishop's words show the chastened feelings with which he approached the
project: "I have selected a site at Porirua, on which I hope, in
submission to Divine Providence, that Trinity College may be built; but
I have learned this lesson by the losses with which we have been
visited, not to presume upon anything that is not yet attained."
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."
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 L10,000 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."
The boldness and grandeur of this scheme have hardly been sufficiently
realised. An ecclesiastical province divided into small dioceses, with
missionaries at their head, and its primate spending his time in the
foreign mission field: what an object lesson to the whole Church New
Zealand would have presented!