[Illustration: NEW ZEALAND]
G. A. SELWYN, D.D.
Bishop Of New Zealand and Lichfield
BY
LOUISE CREIGHTON
AUTHOR OF “LIFE AND LETTERS OF MANDELL CREIGHTON, D.D.” ETC., ETC.
“_Here am I, send me._”
_WITH 2 MAPS_
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. 4
NEW YORK, TORONTO
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS
1923
_Made in Great Britain_
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface vii
Chronological Table viii
Introduction ix
Chap.
I.—Childhood and Youth 1
II.—Early Missions in New Zealand 13
III.—First Impressions of New Zealand 23
IV.—The Maoris and the Settlers 48
V.—The Call of the Pacific 64
VI.—Church Organization in New Zealand 85
VII.—Bishop Selwyn’s Work in England for Foreign Missions 108
VIII.—The Melanesian Mission 120
IX.—The Maori Wars 141
X.—Return To England and Last Years 161
_MAPS_
New Zealand _Frontispiece_
Pacific Ocean _page xii_
PREFACE
The work that Bishop Selwyn did in laying the foundations of the Church
in New Zealand, and his views as to Church organization have special
lessons to teach us in these days. It is to bring these lessons to the
notice of those who are unable to study larger biographies that this
short life has been written.
No one can write about Bishop Selwyn without expressing great
indebtedness to the Rev. H. W. Tucker whose _Memoir_ of the Bishop,
founded on the letters and papers entrusted to him by the Bishop’s
family, contains most of what can be known about him. In this little
book I have freely used Mr. Tucker’s _Memoir_, indeed the book could not
have been written without it. I have consulted many other books bearing
on the history of New Zealand and Melanesia, but my object has been to
write about Selwyn, and about New Zealand and Melanesia only so far as
they concerned him. I have tried to show what manner of man he was by
telling of what he did and said, and to let him reveal himself by his
own words and by his letters, rather than to attempt to explain him in
my own words. I cannot claim to have had access to any new material, I
have only selected from what is already published that which will enable
my readers to learn something of the life and work of a man of
distinguished gifts and a great leader in the Church.
Louise Creighton.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
Birth 1809.
Ordained Deacon 1833.
Consecrated Bishop of New Zealand 1841.
Reaches New Zealand 1842.
First Voyage to the Pacific 1847.
Visit to England 1854.
The Maori War 1862-1865.
Second Visit to England 1867.
Bishop of Lichfield 1868.
Death 1878.
INTRODUCTION
The life of George Augustus Selwyn has many lessons to teach us. In the
position which he was called upon to fill, there were exceptional
opportunities which his own natural gifts enabled him to meet in an
exceptional way. He showed himself to be not only a devoted missionary
and a capable organizer, but a statesman, able to grasp a big situation
and to lay wise foundations for the future. As a missionary bishop, he
had the care of a specially virile and promising race in the Maoris, and
of the other very varied races that inhabited the countless islands of
the Pacific. But he had also to provide for the spiritual needs of the
colonists who came to his diocese in ever growing numbers, attracted by
the rich promise of New Zealand. The claims made upon his time and
thought by the colonists, the Maoris and the islanders had all to be met
and adjusted, and in the midst of all the urgent demands for the
pressing work of each moment, he had to be building up the church of the
future. He could not think only of the native Church. His call was not
only to be a missionary, to bring the heathen to Christ, but also to lay
the foundations of a Church which was to witness to Christ in a land
destined for a great future, as part of the British Empire. He had to
consider how black and white could be welded into one nation, and into
one Church. His could not be the simple straightforward task of the
teacher or the evangelist. Yet he was ever at heart a missionary,
animated by a true sense of vocation. There are those whose own life of
devotion and service is their chief witness for Christ, their great gift
to His Church; but Selwyn was called to do more than witness for Christ
by his life and his individual work. His work as an organizer was
inspired by a desire for efficiency, for making the best use in God’s
service of the men and the money entrusted to his care. But more than
this, he had ever before him a vision of what the Church in New Zealand
should be in the future. He saw it a Church, founded on the best
traditions of the past, able to grow and expand to meet all the needs of
the future, in communion with the Anglican Church throughout the world,
that Church which he believed by its origin and history to be the branch
of the Catholic Church best fitted to the genius of the Anglo-Saxon
people. Rooted in the past, throbbing with the active life of the
present, ready to meet the great possibilities of the future, the Church
was the inspiration of all his efforts. But in his devotion to the
whole, he never lost sight of the individual. It is the combination of
far reaching views with tender care for each individual soul which gives
him his special charm and makes him so valuable an example for others.
Organization was never to him an object in itself. In the midst of big
schemes, struggling with big plans, there was no service however menial
that he was not eager to render to any sufferer however humble, there
was no task however arduous that he was not ready to undertake. He lived
intensely, and though life was to him a constant act of self-surrender,
he could rejoice in it and in all that it brought to him of beauty,
interest and affection.
[Illustration: _PACIFIC OCEAN_]
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
George Augustus Selwyn had all the advantages of birth and education
which would have made a brilliant career in England easy for him. He
came of a distinguished family, and his father, a successful lawyer, was
in a position to give him every educational advantage. Born in 1809, he
was the second of four brothers, who all had brilliant school and
college careers. His energy, his capacity for rule, his sympathy showed
itself even when he was a boy. His sister says, “he was truly the family
friend and counsellor, ever ready to help in all difficulties.” A
specially tender tie bound him to his mother; she suffered grievously
from nervous depression and he gave up much time in his holidays to
cheering her. By her bedside he probably learned that tender care for
the suffering which marked him throughout life. At the early age of
seven he was sent to a large preparatory school at Ealing, and from
there went on to Eton where he was said to be the best boy on the river,
nearly the first boy in learning and the greatest diver in the school.
His exact scholarship and his skill in swimming and diving were all
alike capacities which helped to fit him for his future life. Very
popular in the school and distinguished in athletics, he never neglected
his studies. One of his friends says that “he seemed to be always
preparing himself for some unrevealed future of usefulness.” It was the
same when he went on to St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1827, and
entered with his usual ardour into both the studies and the sports of
the university. Mathematics were very distasteful to him and in the
class list of 1831 he was only a _junior optime_, but he was the second
classic of his year. He rowed in the Cambridge boat in the first Oxford
and Cambridge boat race.
When he left Cambridge, he spent four months in travel on the continent
and returned to Eton as private tutor to the sons of Lord Powis. The
same energetic life of work and play was continued in his new position
at Eton. He it was who persuaded Dr. Hawtrey to draw up rules for
bathing and boating on the river. Till then there had been no rules, and
the river was considered out of bounds. He wished the boys to have
freedom to enjoy the river, but to be obliged to learn to swim before
they boated. He himself loved boating and long walks, finding his way
across country by a compass; he took part in steeplechases, and so
learned to ride horses of all kinds over rough country. Whilst he
enjoyed all these varied occupations which were to prove a preparation
for the life before him, he had as yet not the slightest idea of going
to work abroad. A letter written many years afterwards (1850) to his son
shows how uncertain he was as a young man about his future career. “I
remember that at your age, though I had some desire for the ministerial
office I had not any fixed or devoted purpose of heart to undertake its
duties, nor any steadfast resolution to frame my life so as to make it a
preparation for it. It pleased God that much of the restless energy
which then found its vent in mere amusement and running to and fro, as
it seemed without point or aim, was a training of which I have since
felt the value, to enable me to do the work of an evangelist in seeking
out the sheep of Christ that are scattered over a thousand hills.”
Before long he began to study Hebrew and theology in preparation for his
ordination which took place in 1833. Still remaining a tutor at Eton, he
worked first as curate of Boveney and later at the Windsor Parish
Church, giving up the curate’s salary for two years in order to help the
financial difficulties of the parish. The spirit in which he worked is
shown by the following remark in a letter to a friend: “I believe that
as clergymen we ought to be willing to be tied like furze bushes to a
donkey’s tail, if we can thereby do any good by stimulating what is lazy
and quickening what is slow.” He threw himself with zeal into every part
of the work of his parish, developing new organizations of many kinds.
By his devotion as well as by his preaching he won the warm affection of
the parishioners, and together with all this parish work he kept up a
close connexion with Eton. His old schoolfellow W. E. Gladstone, said of
him: “he was attached to Eton with a love surpassing the love of
Etonians. In himself he formed a large part of the life of Eton, and
Eton formed a large part of his life.” Always a great organizer, he had
much influence both amongst masters and boys, at a time when various
reforms were being introduced into the school. The impression he made
was of one who had a high ideal of personal and Christian life, not an
ascetic, but one who valued bodily training and plain living, because
they conduced to success in good work.
In 1839 Selwyn married Sarah Richardson, daughter of Sir J. Richardson,
a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, in whom he found a companion ready
to share with him all the risks and difficulties of an adventurous life.
At the time of his marriage there seemed no prospect before him beyond
that of a successful ecclesiastical career in England. Full of work,
full of zeal, with many friends, living in a place that he loved, and
now with a happy home of his own, he was absolutely content with life.
But it was ever his firm conviction that an officer in the Church was as
much bound as an officer in the army, to obey the command of his
superior and to go wherever he was sent. On his marriage he asked his
wife never to oppose his going wherever he might be ordered on duty.
At that time the authorities of the Church were seriously considering
the need of increasing the number of bishops in the colonies, since
every year more emigrants left England for the newly settled lands
beyond the seas. Amongst the leaders of the Church there were men who
were determined that there should be no repetition of the past shameful
neglect which had left the American colonies so long without a bishop of
their own. The matter was brought forward by Bishop Blomfield of London,
and a Colonial Bishoprics Fund was started. Thirteen countries were
named as most urgently in need of Bishops, and amongst these New Zealand
stood first. The Church Missionary Society had had missions established
there since 1814, and Bishop Broughton of Australia had once been able
to visit them, but could not do so again. The most experienced of the
New Zealand missionaries, Henry Williams, wrote in 1841 “Many questions
of moment frequently present themselves, on which we possess no
authority to enter. We much hope that a Bishop for this colony will soon
make his appearance.” The formation in 1839 of the New Zealand Company,
with the object of buying up land from the natives and encouraging
settlers, had brought with it many new problems and difficulties. The
need for a Bishop as head of the Church which was called to minister
both to Maoris and settlers was recognized by all. The Church Missionary
Society promised £600 a year for his support and it was hoped that the
Government would give a like sum. The Crown was to appoint the Bishop.
The first name suggested was that of Professor Selwyn, George Selwyn’s
elder brother, but he felt unable to leave his Cambridge professorship.
The bishopric was then offered to George Selwyn in a letter from the
Bishop of London to which Selwyn, who had no personal desire for such an
office and who had no wish to change his actual work, answered as
follows:
“Whatever part in the work of the ministry the Church of England as
represented by her Archbishops and Bishops may call upon me to
undertake, I trust I shall be willing to accept with all obedience and
humility. The same reasons which would prevent me from seeking the
office of a bishop, forbid me to decline an authoritative invitation
to a post so full of responsibility, but at the same time of spiritual
promise.... It has never seemed to me to lie in the power of an
individual to choose the field of labour most suited to his own
powers. Those who are the eyes of the Church and have seen him acting
in the station in which God has placed him, are the best judges
whether he ‘ought to go up higher.’ Whether the advancement be at home
or abroad ... with whatever prospects or adjuncts of emolument or
dignity or without any, the only course seems to be to undertake it at
the bidding of the proper authority and to endeavour to execute it
with all faithfulness.... Allow me to offer my best thanks to your
Lordship for your kind letter and to place myself unreservedly in the
hands of the Episcopal Council to dispose my services as they may
think best for the Church.”
The actual offer had to be made by Lord John Russell and meanwhile
doubts had arisen whether Parliament would be willing to grant the money
proposed towards the Bishop’s stipend, but this uncertainty did not
influence Selwyn’s decision. There were other difficulties which weighed
more with him. A colonial bishop was in those days appointed under
Letters Patent from the Crown, and these were so worded as to make it
appear that the bishop’s right to exercise the spiritual functions of
his office was derived solely from the Crown. Selwyn could do no more
than make a formal protest against such wording. An absurd blunder was
also made in the Letters Patent through the ignorance of the Colonial
Office, and jurisdiction was given to the Bishop over sixty-eight more
degrees of latitude than was intended. In this way it came about that
Melanesia was included in the diocese of New Zealand.
The New Zealand Company was ready to make grants of land for the
purposes of the Church, but under conditions which should ensure that
their property was benefited through the Church. They wished the Bishop
to settle on the land they gave, and he was told that his future
popularity would be sacrificed if he did not make his home and build his
cathedral at the place they indicated. But Selwyn was going to promise
nothing until he had himself studied the country. He said that he would
“rent a house for his family and pitch a tent near to it a soon as he
landed and the very next day begin daily service, never he hoped to be
interrupted. He meant then to go away and visit all the islands and when
his choice was made to move his tent thither and continue the services,
and by its side build a wooden church, and outside of the wooden
building to begin to build a chancel of stone in Norman style, and as
soon as any part of the stone cathedral was finished the wooden work
would be taken down.”
From the very first he wished to have some holy place set apart for the
daily service of God, and he carefully superintended the making of the
church tent which was to be the first cathedral of the island church.
Amidst the important questions that occupied his mind during these busy
weeks of preparation, details were not forgotten. His sister remembers
“sitting up half the night helping him to make a water proof belt for
his watch and pedometer. He meant to swim the rivers, pushing his
clothes in front of him.” During all his preparations the thought of the
great spiritual work to which he was dedicating his life filled his
thoughts. One who was with him at the time writes: “He said the
‘Consecration Service’ had lately been his constant study, and that
after next Sunday (his Consecration day) his existence as an individual
must cease, and that all his own individual interests and ties must
undergo the change with him. Sarah (his wife) knelt down beside him and
looking up in his face said, ‘I know at any rate you will not love me
any the less.’ He stroked back the hair from her forehead, kissed it,
saying, ‘Surely not the less but the more.’ He went on to explain that
what he meant was ‘that his very being, with all its powers and
affections must now be dedicated to God in a more peculiar and solemn
degree than heretofore, and be absorbed into higher powers and boundless
affections.’”
He was consecrated on October 17th in the Chapel at Lambeth Palace. It
was not yet the custom to hold consecrations in the Abbey or at S.
Paul’s Cathedral. There was not room for the many friends who wished to
be with him in the Chapel, which was crowded as it had never been before
on such an occasion. Exceptional interest was felt in his going forth,
due to the affection and admiration with which he was regarded by so
many, and to the sense of the brilliant prospects at home that he was
gladly giving up to go to a distant land only just emerging from
barbarism.
Two days after his Consecration, Selwyn received an offer from the Rev.
C. J. Abraham, one of the ablest Eton masters, to come and work with him
in New Zealand as soon as he could be free from the special work he had
undertaken at Eton. To this offer Selwyn answered at once:
“I am quite overwhelmed with joy at your letter and have just risen
from my knees after having poured forth my thankfulness to God....
When I think of the position in which the course of His providence has
placed me ... I tremble at the thought of my weakness, and though I
know the sufficiency of Divine Grace, still I long for brethren of a
like mind to share with me the labours and the joys of the coming
harvest. Men talk of sacrifices as a loss. I thank God that the
enlarged comprehension of His scheme of mercy, which He has lately
given me, has made me feel that no worldly advancement could
compensate for the loss of one single moment of the peaceful and
thankful and yet humble state of mind which I have enjoyed since the
scales of all earthly objects of desire fell from my eyes.... I
encourage you to cherish the feelings in which your letter was
written, to dwell upon them; and in the end to act upon them; not on
the spur of the present occasion, but with the calm, deep and
deliberate devotion of a balanced judgment. Men think enthusiasm
necessary to missionary enterprise. May we be enabled to show that the
highest range of spiritual thought, the most entire and uncompromising
obedience to the letter of the Gospel, being no more than our bounden
duty, is compatible with the most perfect evenness of mind, and with
the subdued and rational exercise of the understanding.
“Being called to the Episcopate at an early age I feel at liberty to
look forward to a long course of pastoral superintendence over the
Church in New Zealand. In that course many great and important changes
must occur, for which I must be prepared.... Could I find a few men
like yourself, who would silently work with me by the devotion of
themselves and their means to the same cause, we should see year after
year, parish after parish, archdeaconry after archdeaconry start into
life, not with the mere appurtenances of temporal endowment, but with
the provision of a living hand to give life and spirit to the
institution.... Will you be one of the feeders of my Church, with the
view of being in the course of time one of its pastors?”
During the farewell days spent at Eton and Windsor many friends gathered
to show him their affection and to do him honour. At a meeting held in
Windsor, he spoke again of the motives which had made him ready to go
forth and of his readiness to go anywhere he might be sent, and of his
deep thankfulness because “that land of promise, New Zealand, a land
literally flowing with milk and honey, was to be his.”
The party that was to accompany the Bishop and his wife and child to New
Zealand, consisted of his two chaplains, Mr. Cotton, Student of Christ
Church, Oxford and Mr. Whytehead, Fellow of St. John’s, Cambridge, three
missionary clergy, three catechists and two school teachers. Mrs.
(afterwards Lady) Martin, wife of the first Chief Justice of New
Zealand, travelled with them to join her husband. The Chief Justice, who
had gone out a few months before, came to be one of Selwyn’s chief
helpers and friends. The spirit in which he had entered upon his work is
shown by the fact that he had impressed upon his wife that “the
aborigines of their new country were to be worked for and cared for.”
The voyage to New Zealand was in those days of course undertaken in a
sailing ship, and the party were delayed some days at Plymouth waiting
for a favourable wind. Those relatives and friends who had come to see
them off were obliged one by one to leave. The Bishop settled himself in
the ship on Christmas eve and held his first service on board on
Christmas day. On the next day after prayers with those friends that
remained, the last farewells were said and the little ship _Tomatin_ was
off on its long voyage.