FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF NEW ZEALAND
Bishop Selwyn and his party left Plymouth on December 26th, 1841, in the
_Tomatin_. The long voyage in a sailing vessel was spent in preparing
for the work that was before them. To Selwyn’s great joy there was a
Maori boy on board who could be used to teach him and his party the
Maori language. Lady Martin thus describes the voyage:
“We had a quiet, prosperous voyage in a small barque which would be
thought very squeezy nowadays. We had none of the modern luxuries
required in steamers—no fresh bread, no stewardess to wait on us, no
delicate fare. But we had compensations of an unusual kind. If we had
plain living, we certainly had the opportunity of high thinking. Our
party consisted of the Bishop of New Zealand, his two chaplains, both
men of great gifts, and other clergymen and students. There were daily
classes after breakfast for all who wished to learn the native
language. There was no printed Maori grammar, only a manuscript
grammar and vocabulary, and copies of S. Matthew’s Gospel, just
printed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. But we had a
walking dictionary in a Maori boy, who had been brought to England by
a gentleman and sent to school for two years. He was not a favourable
specimen, for he had been the plaything of the servant’s hall in
holiday time, and had little more than superficial civilization.
However, he was very useful on board, and undertook to teach correct
pronunciation.”
The Bishop writes in a letter to his mother:
“On Monday, January 3rd, we began regular habits; reading the daily
prayers at eight in the morning, and the Psalms and Lessons, in the
original languages, each at their appointed hour. Besides this, there
is a New Zealand class, comprising nearly all the party, and a
mathematical class for the study of navigation. The whole of the
morning is thus occupied, leaving the evening to the discretion of the
party, and for preparation for the next day. On Church festivals when
the full service is read, the Eton practice of a whole holiday is
followed. The advantage of this regular plan is generally admitted,
as, instead of the voyage being tedious, very few find the day long
enough. We have taken different departments for the study of the New
Zealand language. Mr. Cotton and Mr. Reay are making a Concordance of
the native Testament. I am compiling from the Rarotonga, Tahitian and
New Zealand translations of the New Testament, a Comparative Grammar
of those three dialects, which are all from the same root and
illustrate one another. I hope to be quite familiar with the three
dialects by the end of the voyage, which will much facilitate the plan
which I have conceived—and which may God give me grace to carry into
effect—of extending the branches of the Church of New Zealand
throughout the Southern Pacific.
“I am studying practical navigation under our captain in order that I
may be my own _Master_ in my visitation voyages.”
One of the clergy of the party was appointed as chaplain to the steerage
passengers, two others as chaplains to the crew. There were daily
prayers in the steerage, and the steerage passengers attended all the
public services. In Holy Week one of the six clergy on board was chosen
to preach every day, and on a lovely Easter day, service was held on the
quarterdeck when thirty-four communicated.
On April 10th Selwyn was able to write to his mother:
“I can now converse with Rupai fluently in New Zealand. My navigation
has prospered, so that I can now find the ship’s latitude and
longitude, and shape her course.”
On April 14th, 1842, the ship reached Sydney. There Selwyn had the
opportunity of meeting Bishop Broughton and learning from him something
about the affairs of the Church in this new world. Broughton was filled
with affection and respect by what he saw of the new Bishop, and
inspired with great hopes for the work he might be able to accomplish.
The _Tomatin_ had received some damage in going up Sydney harbour, and
the Bishop was too impatient to wait till its repairs were completed. He
succeeded in chartering a small brig to convey him and a few others of
his party to New Zealand, without waiting for the _Tomatin_. There had
been those who dreaded the coming of a bishop, thinking that the
conditions of New Zealand were not suitable for an ecclesiastical
dignitary. Captain Hobson had said: “What can a bishop do in New
Zealand, where there are no roads for his coach?” The Bishop’s conduct
soon dispelled all doubts. He landed at Auckland on May 31st. His first
act on reaching the shore was to kneel down on the sands and give thanks
to God. On the following Sunday, to the delight of all, he said prayers
and preached in Maori. The next place he visited was Paihai, and Mrs.
Williams thus describes his arrival in her diary:
“While Henry was engaged with his Bible class, William came in and
exclaimed: ‘the Bishop of New Zealand on the beach!’ He went down and
found the Bishop dragging up a boat in which they had come from Cape
Brett, steering for this house with a pocket compass. The Bishop’s
manner was most prepossessing. When summoned to tea, both the Bishop
and his Chaplain seemed surprised at the long tea table of the two
families of Williams, set for twenty-four.”
Henry Williams himself wrote to a friend on June 24th, 1842:
“The Bishop is now in my house having landed after dark on Monday
evening last. We were all taken by surprise and put into an immediate
bustle. I was delighted to see his face and to hear him speak and was
relieved from many forebodings. I have seen very much of this good man
during the few days of his sojourn amongst us. We have spoken freely
upon various subjects in connexion with the Mission, and it is very
remarkable that in no one instance have we had a contrary idea. He so
fully enters into our views upon all missionary points, that I am at
times under some apprehension of forgetting that he is our Bishop....
We are all of us delighted at the knowledge the Bishop has obtained of
our language. He can to the surprise of all converse with ease and
directness. The Bishop observes moreover that he shall require all his
clergy to acquire the language, that they may attend to the
natives.... I feel fully satisfied to leave all the affairs of the
Mission or my own as a missionary in his hands.”
In another letter he writes:
“He has captivated every heart by his kindness and courteous
manners.... I am persuaded that nothing will escape his notice,
however trifling the circumstance.... He is now going to make a tour
of the Island visiting every station.”
Of his first Sunday at Paihai the Bishop himself writes:
“I administered the Lord’s Supper to one hundred and fifty native
communicants and was much struck with their orderly and reverential
demeanour. All were dressed in European clothing, and, with the
exception of their colour, presented the appearance of an English
congregation.”
The Bishop spent several days with this experienced missionary learning
all he could from him about the condition of the country, about the
complicated land question, and about the different mission stations. All
that he observed and learned helped him to mature his plans for the
future. He had chosen to be called Bishop of New Zealand because he did
not wish, by taking the title for his see from one particular settlement
to provoke the jealousy of others. But it was necessary to decide where
he should fix his residence. The New Zealand Company wished him to go to
Wellington where they had secured a great deal of land and the agent
went so far as to tell him that if he decided to settle at Auckland,
instead of being looked upon by them with affectionate regard as their
best friend, he would be regarded coldly as a prop of a rival
settlement. Auckland was then the seat of government, though what was in
a few years to become a beautiful city was still only a cluster of huts.
Lady Martin described it as follows:
“Government House was only a one-storied cottage standing back from
the road. A few wooden houses were dotted about, in which the
Government officials lived. There were wooden barracks which contained
about fifty soldiers; a supreme court-house, where the Judge held his
court in the week, and which on Sundays was used as a church; a
milliner’s shop, a blacksmith’s forge, and two or three stores.
Butcher and baker were unknown, there was no beef or mutton to sell,
and no roads for carts to travel along had there been.”
The climate was genial and the situation beautiful, and the Bishop hoped
that Auckland might be the future cathedral city. For the moment,
however, it seemed best that he should settle at the Waimate on the Bay
of Islands. It had been the first headquarters of the C.M.S. mission and
the Bishop went to inspect it immediately on his arrival in New Zealand.
He described it as follows:
“I walked round the mission station and inspected Mr. Clarke’s house,
which I decided would accommodate Sarah and such of the party as I
might leave with her. The house is a little out of repair.... The
garden has been overrun with cattle, but most of the plants are still
alive, and with a little care may soon recover.... Seen from a
distance the Waimate presents the appearance of an English village
with a white church and spire, comfortable houses and gardens. This is
by far the most settled place in the country. I am informed that four
hundred native communicants assemble at the Lord’s Table. This will
probably be my headquarters for some years, till I can deliberately
choose a site for my residence and erect substantial buildings.”
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:
“The natives, on seeing us, sent canoes to bring us to the island,
where we were received with all ceremony, welcomed with speeches, and
presented with ducks, potatoes and lake shell fish. I made my return
as usual in Gospels of St. Matthew.”
Some of the stations were ministered to only by native catechists and on
one occasion, he was much struck by the venerable figure and manner of a
fine old blind man catechising his class. It seemed as if the Christian
teaching of the missionaries was already spread throughout the whole
land; little churches and schools were to be found in many places, the
fields around the stations were well cultivated, industries were being
introduced; the Maoris, a race famous for their ferocity, were learning
to live quietly and peacefully. The Bishop writes:
“There is much to encourage me: vast numbers can now read and write
well and when I have lectures of an evening, it amuses me to see the
means they resort to, climbing up on stands inside the building, and
many come half an hour before the bell rings, so anxious are they to
hear the word of God explained. Some travel ten miles on the Saturday
for the services of the next day.”
One of the most interesting stations visited was that at Waikanoe, where
the experienced missionary, Rev. O. Hadfield, was in charge. From there
the Bishop wrote:
“You would be surprised at the comparative comfort which I enjoy in my
encampments. My tent is strewn with dry fern and grass. My air-bed is
laid upon it. My books, clothes and other goods lie beside it; and
though the whole dimensions of my dwelling do not exceed eight feet by
five, I have more room than I require and am as comfortable as it is
possible for a man to be when he is absent from those he loves most. I
spent October 17th, the anniversary of my consecration, in my tent on
the sandhills, with no companion but three natives.... I was led
naturally to contrast my present position with the very different
scenes at Fulham and Lambeth last year. I can assure you that the
comparison brought with it no feelings of discontent; on the contrary,
I spent the greater part of the day, after the usual services and
readings with my natives, in thinking with gratitude over the many
mercies and blessings granted to me in the past year.”
After a night spent in Mr. Hadfield’s house, service was held in the
chapel: “more than 500 had come from various parts, so that the chapel
and the space outside the walls was quite full.” Later on during this
journey, he was met by William Williams, whom he had decided to appoint
Archdeacon of Waiapu, so that he might have the oversight of the eastern
half of the Island. All that he had seen had strengthened his conviction
of the need that from the first the Church should be organized on a firm
basis, and as he could not be everywhere and oversee everything himself,
he wished to have the help of archdeacons working under him. In spite of
the large congregations of natives, he wrote that:
“This people is a very wicked people, and if ‘civilized’ without the
influence of the Gospel upon it, they will not be benefited in any
way. The influence of the immoral English living in the land is the
greatest difficulty I have to contend with.”
At Ahuriri he found “a very numerous Christian community though they had
only once been visited by a missionary. The chapel was a substantial
building capable of containing four hundred people. In the evening our
canoe having stuck fast, we were left without tents or food till
midnight; we then procured one tent, in which the first Chief Justice,
the first Bishop and the first Archdeacon of New Zealand huddled in
their blankets for the night. Surely such an aggregate of legal and
clerical dignity was never before collected under one piece of canvas.”
He describes a Sunday on their tour a few day’s later:
“The morning opened as usual with the morning hymn of the birds, which
Captain Cook compared to a concert of silver bells. When this ceased
at sunrise, the sound of native voices chanting around our tents
carried on the same tribute of praise and thanksgiving, while audible
murmurs brought to our ears the passages of the Bible which they were
reading.... I cannot convey to you the least idea of the train of
innumerable thoughts which are suggested continually both by the
beauty of the scenery, the character of the natives, the various
plants, insects and birds.”
The next Sunday there gathered on Poverty Bay “a noble congregation of
at least a thousand, assembled amid the ruins of their chapel, which had
been blown down.... After morning service the natives formed into
classes for reading and saying the catechism—old tattoed and boys, and
submitting to lose their places for every mistake with perfect good
humour.” The Bishop’s tour took him right across the centre of the
island, where he walked over hills covered with fern trees, and
sometimes enjoyed the rest of being paddled along a beautiful river. At
one station that he visited he met the missionary, Rev. R. Maunsell,
said to be one of the best linguists on the mission, and after
consultation with him formed a “translation committee, composed of two
clergymen and two catechists, from which he hoped in due time to get a
standard copy of both Bible and Prayer-book to be published under
authority.” The Chief Justice had left him to return to Auckland by sea,
and on January 3rd, the Bishop also turned in the direction of Auckland
and thus describes the last bit of his journey:
“My last pair of thick shoes being worn out, and my feet much
blistered by walking on the stumps, I borrowed a horse from the native
teacher and started at 4 a.m. to go twelve miles to Mr. Hamlin’s
mission station on Manakan harbour. Then ten miles by boat across the
harbour. After a beautiful run of two hours, I landed with my faithful
Maori, Rota, who had steadily accompanied me all the way, carrying my
bag with gown and cassock, the only articles in my possession which
would have fetched sixpence in the Auckland rag market. The suit which
I wore was kept sufficiently decent, by much care, to enable me to
enter Auckland by daylight; and my last remaining pair of shoes (thin
ones) were strong enough for the light and sandy walk of six miles. At
two p.m. I reached the Judge’s house by a path avoiding the town, and
passing over land which I have bought for the site of the cathedral; a
spot which I hope may hereafter be traversed by the feet of many
bishops, better shod and far less ragged than myself. It is a noble
site overlooking the whole town and with a sea-view stretching out
over the numerous islands.”
On this journey of six months, the Bishop had travelled 2,277 miles, of
which he had walked 762. His chief object had been to learn to know the
country and its needs, so that he might plan his future work wisely. He
notes with satisfaction that on this journey he met Mr. Williams on the
exact day which he had appointed more than a month before, showing how,
even in travelling through wild country, it was possible to be punctual.
When Selwyn got back to the Waimate, having learned much about the
country, his first care was the College. He had hoped that his friend,
Mr. Whytehead, who had come out with him from England would be its head.
But to his deep sorrow, he heard that Mr. Whytehead had been taken ill
at Sydney, and died three months after reaching the Waimate, leaving the
memory of a saintly character to inspire those who should work after
him.
The chief object of the College was to train clergy. Besides the College
there was a boarding school, where Selwyn’s plan was to educate Maori
lads and the sons of settlers together. He had most carefully thought
out the principles upon which both college and school were to be
founded. He believed that it was perfectly possible to civilize the
whole rising generation of New Zealanders; the one impediment was the
difficulty of getting enough English teachers, for not only must
education be provided, but also instruction in the “most minute details
of daily life and in every useful and industrious habit.” “We are apt,”
he wrote, “to forget the laborious procession by which we acquired in
early life the routine duties of cleanliness, order, method and
punctuality.” Men were needed to train the scholars who had no sense of
their own dignity and thought nothing beneath it, “who will go into the
lowest and darkest corner of the native character to see where the
difficulty lies which keeps them from being assimilated to ourselves.
They have received the Gospel freely, and with an unquestioning faith,
but the unfavourable tendency of native habits is every day dragging
back many into the state of sin from which they seemed to have
escaped.... We require men who will number every hair of a native’s
head, as part of the work of Him who made and redeemed the world.” He
found that the bane of the native people was desultory work interrupted
by total idleness, and their inclination to waste their occasional
earnings on useless horses or cast-off dress clothes. He feared lest the
sons of the settlers should grow up with a sense of superiority and look
upon honest labour as disreputable, because of the class of servile
natives who clustered round the towns. So he desired “to raise the
character of both races by humbling them” and teaching them the dignity
of labour. All the students were to spend part of their time in some
useful occupation for the support of the institutions. There were
industrial classes, where printing, carpentry, carving and weaving were
taught. Selwyn considered printing, of all trades, the best fitted
morally and mechanically to train “the wayward and careless disposition
of an uncivilized youth,” since, “to print at all, he must work
orderly.” The youngest boys were to work in the garden, the elder ones
to learn farming and forestry.
In the College, though the students were to take their part in the
manual labours, he wished to preserve an academic atmosphere, and the
students wore caps and gowns, at any rate on special occasions. Its
chief purpose was to train the clergy of the future, as he could not
hope to obtain a sufficient supply from England. He wrote:
“We must go to all orders of colonists and to the native people
without respect of persons, and select from among their children the
future candidates for Holy Orders.”
But since it was impossible to be sure that those so chosen would grow
up fitted for the ministerial vocation, no pledges were asked of them,
and the opportunities of secular training provided fitted the youth to
enter upon other lines of life, should it appear when the right time
came that he was not fitted for the special studies needed for Holy
Orders. He expected that strangers would hardly be able to understand
the complex character of the Institution, but he wrote:
“There is an open and undisguised reality about our work, which seems
to be highly favourable to the discrimination of character, and
therefore to the due selection of instruments: a class of demure
students with face and tone of voice and manner conformed to the
standard which they believe to be expected, would be a poor exchange
for a healthful and mirthful company of youths, as yet unconstrained
by pledges and professions, who show their true character in every act
of their lives whether of business or amusement.”
And again:
“The only real endowment for St. John’s College is the industry and
self-denial of all its members. Even if industry were not in itself
honourable, the purposes of the institution would be enough to hallow
every useful art and manual labour by which its resources might be
augmented.”
All the members of the mission shared in the manual work, and all,
including Mrs. Selwyn, dined together with the students in the Hall. She
was much beloved by the natives; they called her Mother Bishop, and
described her as “having great grace.”
At Keri-keri, a few miles from Paihai, what was to be the Cathedral
library was set up, in the one stone house on the island, which had been
used as a store for mission supplies. This library was a very real joy
to the Bishop, he speaks of a day in it as “a day of literary luxury”
when he sat “looking upon the books, occasionally dipping into them. The
very sight of so many venerable folios is most refreshing in this land
where everything is so new”; and again “as a charming retreat for his
wife when over-wearied with her many and varied duties.... The quiet is
as unbroken as the most nervous person could desire, and in this respect
entirely different from the inevitable noise of wooden buildings. Here
also I may retire in my old age, which will probably be premature, and
superintend my College at the Waimate without being subject to all its
perturbations.... The charm of this library is that it is so utterly
uncolonial. Its walls are worthy of a college. My books carry me back to
the first ages of the Church. It is true that when I step outside the
door I stumble over a mass of utilitarian treasures. Bales of blankets,
iron pots, barrels of all kinds are the miscellaneous furniture of my
ante-chambers; but within, everything that can most elevate and purify
the mind is to be found. Leisure alone is at present wanting for us to
use our treasures; but as the Church system is developed, and active
archdeacons stationed at all the principal settlements, I hope to be
able to give myself more to meditation and every other profitable
exercise, that there may be some abundance in my own heart to flow forth
for the benefit of my diocese.”
Material things which might conduce to the well-being of his people were
not forgotten by the Bishop. There were then already sheep in New
Zealand, but he found that “the Maoris did not know how ‘to transfer the
fleece from the back of the sheep to that of the man.’” He was
distressed to see precious wool buried in the ground because the natives
did not know how to use it, and wrote to a friend in Wales to ask about
spinning machines suitable for the manufacture of coarse cloth in his
native school, and for a supply of knitting pins for the children.
As was natural there were many interruptions to peaceful progress. News
of a conflict between Maoris and settlers at Wairan near Nelson which
lead to the massacre of twenty-three settlers, gave the Bishop “the
gloomiest day he had yet spent in New Zealand.” This conflict arose as
usual over a dispute about land, from misunderstanding of native
customs, and from the little knowledge on the part of the settlers of
the native language and character. Selwyn was afraid lest news of it
should give a bad impression of the natives. He himself was convinced of
the absolute safety of free intercourse with them and wrote:
“We have no fastenings to our windows, even on the ground floor, and
the door is rarely locked. In travelling I pitch my tent at whatever
place I happen to reach at nightfall, and am always hospitably
received. In the course of some hundred miles of travelling I have
never lost anything.”
In 1844, the Bishop made a second long visitation of his diocese, and
for the first time visited the southern island, then much more sparcely
inhabited than the northern. It was not easy to get about on land; many
rivers had to be forded and one of the party could not swim, so the
Bishop’s air-bed had to be converted into a raft in order to convey him
across the rivers. In one part of the island the Bishop was much
troubled to find religious dissensions amongst the natives, some of whom
had been taught by a Wesleyan missionary. He wrote sadly, “controversy
has preceded truth, and as usual darkened true knowledge.” As his later
policy showed, had he found a really strong Wesleyan mission
established, he would not have attempted to interfere; but he found that
the mission had only been roused into some sort of activity when other
teachers had appeared on the field. He could not recognize that the mere
fact of the residence of one missionary, entitled that one to claim the
spiritual care of all the southern islands. Neither would he countenance
intercommunion between Wesleyans and Anglicans as had been the custom in
some parts before his coming. But his personal intercourse with the
Wesleyan missionary was most friendly. He writes:
“I stayed one day and a half in his house; but I told him that I could
make no transfer of catechumens; that we must hold our own.”
He saw need for vigorous work in the south amongst the half-caste
population, “where the fathers and mothers have been living together for
some years, I married them and baptized their children: in all
twenty-five couples married and sixty-one children baptized. I must have
a visiting clergyman in the Straits as soon as possible, but where to
find a man fit for the work I know not.... Many of the old whalers and
sealers are settling down into a more quiet life, and are to a man
anxious that their children should not follow the course of life which
they have led themselves.” The problems he met with on this visitation
made him think much of his future plans for the diocese, seeking
guidance in framing them from the first three centuries of the Church’s
history.
Amongst the Bishop’s difficulties were his relations with the Church
Missionary Society. Whilst full of admiration for the work of their
missionaries, he would not ordain the laymen among them except on the
condition that he decided the sphere of their work. As the Society
refused to accept this condition, the Bishop would not ordain the
catechists in their missions. He also refused to ordain any as priests
who had not attained a certain standard of learning, and he waited to
ordain any native till he considered him sufficiently educated. In all
these matters, the Society had a different policy. They were accustomed
to control their own missions from home and were not inclined to give
way to a Bishop who had only come out after the missions had been well
established. These and other difficulties and misunderstandings led to
the refusal of the Society to rent permanently to the Bishop the wooden
buildings at the Waimate, where he had set up his College.
As he could not stay at the Waimate Selwyn determined to move at once to
Auckland which he had always intended to be the Episcopal See. When the
Maoris in the Waimate district heard of his intended removal, there was
much disturbance. Lady Martin describes the scene that followed. It was
on what was called market day, when the Maoris brought their wares for
sale, and before the traffic began there was school and cathechising in
the chapel after morning prayers.
“The people had heard a rumour of the Bishop’s intention to remove to
Auckland, and there was a great deal of speech-making on the subject.
A powerful speaker opened the debate. The orator began by trotting
slowly up and down a given space, always beginning and ending each
sentence with his run to and fro. After a while he got warmed up and
excited, and then he rushed backwards and forwards, he leaped up off
the ground, he slapped his thigh, shouted, waved his spear.”
It seemed more as if he were breathing out death and destruction than as
if he were urging the Bishop to stay among his people.
“It was very amusing to see the two brothers Williams stand up and
answer them. Archdeacon Henry Williams, a stout, old-fashioned looking
clergyman with broad-brimmed hat and spectacles, marched up and down
with a spear in his hand, and elicited shouts of applause. Then his
brother drew a large space on the gravel, and divided it into three
parts, and asked whether it was not fair that the Bishop should live
in the middle of the diocese instead of at either end. There was a
loud murmur of voices, ‘It is just,’ but all the same they did not
like to lose him and his large party from among them.”
A month later, the Bishop, with his family and friends, started for
Auckland. Mrs. Selwyn and their little boy rode, the Bishop walked,
carrying his infant son swathed in a plaid to his side. As they left the
Waimate, crowds gathered to bid them farewell. At Auckland the large
party, together with the native students, had to live in tents till the
college buildings were ready for them.
In order that there might be someone to superintend the Church in the
Waimate district, Selwyn appointed Henry Williams to be Archdeacon of
the Waimate, saying in his letter to him, “your long experience, and
your great influence with the natives, will give me the greatest
confidence in delegating to you the charge of this portion of my
diocese.”
In September, 1844, as a further step to that complete organization
which he contemplated, the Bishop summoned a Synod of his clergy. Three
Archdeacons, four other priests and two deacons met together with him,
in order “to frame rules for the better management of the mission and
the general government of the Church.” On this occasion they discussed
only questions of church discipline and extension, but it was the
beginning of that complete system of self-government which was to
establish the independence of the Church in New Zealand.