THE CALL OF THE PACIFIC
It will be remembered that through a clerical error, the Melanesian
Islands had been included in Bishop Selwyn’s diocese. He did not forget
this, but he believed that his first duty was to get to know New Zealand
itself. When by his various journeys on land, on foot or on horseback,
up the rivers in canoes, and round the coast in little sailing vessels,
he had learned to know the work and needs of the Church in New Zealand,
and had by a second Synod held in 1847 arranged for its organization,
his thoughts were free to go out to the vast stretch of ocean and
islands which by a mere accident had been entrusted to his charge. An
opportunity to make a preliminary voyage to the islands was given to him
by the request that he should act as chaplain on the _Dido_, a warship
which was being sent at the end of 1847, to investigate the causes of an
affray between the natives and two English vessels. The islands were
much visited by traders chiefly in search of sandal wood, and the
conduct of these traders had again and again aroused the animosity of
the natives, who had often avenged themselves by murder and treachery,
so that landing on the islands was reputed very unsafe. On this first
voyage to the Pacific, the Bishop learned a lesson of great use to him
afterwards. He wanted to land on the Isle of Pines, an island which had
a bad reputation. The captain and the officers of the _Dido_ in vain
tried to dissuade him, but he got into a small boat and rowed himself
into the lagoon. There to his surprise, he found an English schooner.
Its captain was trading for sandal wood and, when Selwyn asked him how
it was that he could smoke his pipe contentedly in the lagoon of one of
the worst islands of the Pacific, where a man-of-war was afraid to
enter, he answered, “By kindness and fair dealing I have traded with
these people for many years. They have cut many thousand feet of sandal
wood for me and brought it on my schooner. I never cheated them. I never
treated them badly—we thoroughly understand each other.” In talk with
this man, Captain Paddon, Selwyn learned much about the islanders, how
their confidence could be won and how to treat them, and also the
necessity of avoiding those islands where unprincipled traders had
aroused suspicion and anger. He used always to speak of Captain Paddon
as his tutor.
The voyage on the _Dido_ was a voyage of observation. The Bishop had to
discover how the problems presented by Melanesia could best be met.
There were already missions of various denominations at work in the
islands. Heroic work had been done especially by the London Missionary
Society. Both missionaries and Christian natives had suffered death for
their faith. At Tonga he visited a Wesleyan station and made friends
with Mr. Thomas, the senior missionary who had spent twenty years in the
islands. Selwyn was charmed with his schools full of smiling children,
and with the beautiful mission chapel, which he described as “a noble
building, without nails, bound together with the cocoa nut rope,
beautifully arranged in variegated patterns.” In visiting the missions
of other denominations, the Bishop did not feel it right to join in
their public services, but was glad, when their guest, to share their
family prayers. In one island he found a village divided into rival
factions by the rivalry of two native teachers, “separate chapels,
services and systems attesting the power of Satan, even in this peaceful
island, in dividing the house of Christ against itself.... This is one
instance out of many, and it will surely strike every thoughtful
Christian, that I, who have been charged with bigotry and intolerance
for advocating unity and opposing dissent, should have had the evils of
schisms again and again brought under my notice by members of the
English Independent body and of the Scottish secession.” How to avoid
adding to the confusion caused by religious differences, was one of the
chief problems which the conditions in Melanesia presented to him, but
he seemed to see the future development clear before him. He was
determined not to encroach on islands already occupied by other missions
nor to “inflict upon those simple islanders all the technical
difficulties of English dissent.” He wrote:
“Nature has marked out for each missionary body its field of duty. The
clusters of islands together like constellations in the heavens seem
formed to become new branches of the Church of Christ, and each a
Church complete in itself. It is of little consequence whether these
babes in Christ have been nourished by their own true Mother, or by
other faithful nurses provided that they have been fed by the sincere
milk of the word. The time must come, I think, when they will be no
longer under tutors or guardians, for this present government by
English Societies is admitted to be preparatory to the introduction of
self-government by native Churches, and then I shall be free to
communicate with every branch of the great Polynesian family as with
bodies in no respect liable to the imputation of dissent or schism.”
Another problem was presented by the great variety of dialects spoken,
sometimes more than one in the same small island. Selwyn wrote:
“Nothing but a special interposition of the divine power could have
produced such a confusion of tongues as we find here. In islands not
larger than the Isle of Wight, we find dialects so distinct that the
inhabitants of the various districts hold no communication with one
another. Here have I been for a fortnight working away as I supposed
at the language of New Caledonia and just when I have begun to see my
way, I learn that this is only a dialect used in the southern
extremity of the island, and not understood in the parts I wish to
attack first.”
There were also difficulties caused by the unscrupulous conduct of the
traders, and the fear of consequent treacherous action on the part of
the natives. The number of the islands made it impossible to contemplate
providing English teachers for each. The Bishop decided that the only
way to meet the need was to aim at securing a sufficient supply of
native teachers and to raise up a native ministry. As he thought over
the call that came to him from this vast region, he reproached himself
for the enforced delay in responding to it and wrote:
“While I have been sleeping in my bed in New Zealand, these islands
have been riddled through and through by black slug, the bêche-de-mer,
has been dragged out of its hole in every coral reef to make black
broth for Chinese Mandarins, by the unconquerable daring of English
traders, while I, like a worse black slug, as I am, have left the
world all its field of mischief to itself. The same daring men have
robbed every one of these islands of its sandal wood, to furnish
incense for the idolatrous worship of Chinese temples, before I have
taught a single islander to offer up his sacrifice of prayer to the
true and only God. Even a mere Sydney speculator could induce nearly a
hundred men from some of the wildest islands in the Pacific to sail in
his ships to Sydney to keep his flocks and herds, before I, to whom
the Chief Shepherd has given commandment to seek out His sheep that
are scattered over a thousand isles, have sought out or found so much
as one of those which have strayed and are lost.”
In 1849, the year after his voyage of observation in the _Dido_, Selwyn
sailed again to the Pacific, this time in his own little yacht the
_Undine_, which he had used in his visitations of the coast of New
Zealand and the adjacent islands. The _Undine_ was a tiny vessel of only
21 tons. The Bishop was his own navigator, and had no charts to guide
him in those unknown seas. He set to work at once to make charts and
maps, which were afterwards thankfully accepted by the Admiralty. He was
so good at managing a ship that the captain of a merchant vessel once
said it almost made him a Christian and a Churchman to see the Bishop
bring his schooner into harbour. The _Undine_ carried no arms; from the
first the Bishop, though taking all due precautions, was absolutely
fearless in landing on the islands. He said: “Where a trader will go for
gain, there the missionary ought to go for the merchandise of souls,”
and again: “It is the duty of a missionary to go to the extreme point of
boldness short of an exposure to known and certain danger.” His
departure from Auckland is thus described:
“We have just parted with our Bishop, and seen him go off on his
lonely mission voyage. Our feelings have been strangely varied. We
rejoice to see him enter on such a work, and are thankful for these
opening prospects; and yet saddening thoughts and human fears will
mingle with high hopes: fears of perils by sea and of perils by the
heathen. Some at home and here talk of risks, and that the Bishop has
enough to do in his immediate diocese, and that it is better to build
up what is planted and the like. But it seems like a great instinct in
our Bishop’s mind that he must dig foundations and hew stones, and
heave them up single-handed; and they that come after him will do the
polishing and ornamenting. Not that he is unfitted for the fine work.
Few better able than he to construct and build up. But then everybody
likes the nice work. Nobody likes the rough beginnings which have no
present results and small glorification. Perhaps the very thing
needful for him is to go with care on his lonely path sowing precious
seed. We would fain see him go in a larger vessel. But he is anxious
about incurring any extra expense. He has no fear and has run so many
voyages in his little schooner that it is difficult to say much. He
and his wife are scrupulously careful in all their own expenses while
so large-hearted and handed in everything for the public good.”
The _Undine_ started with a prosperous run of one thousand miles to
Anaiteum, made in ten days. Such a voyage was a great rest and
refreshment for Selwyn. He wrote to a friend in England:
“Few men are so entirely at their ease at sea, or so able to use every
moment of time, perhaps more effectually because with less distraction
than on shore. The effect of this is that in a voyage of reasonable
duration I can master the elements of a new language sufficiently to
enter at once into communications, more or less, with the native
people. I feel myself called upon by these natural advantages to carry
the Gospel into every island which has not received it.”
At Anaiteum a Presbyterian mission was established, and the Bishop in
consequence did not attempt to begin any work there, but had much
friendly intercourse with the Scotch missionaries. He met there
according to appointment with Captain Erskine, commanding the
_Havannah_, and the _Undine_ accompanied the larger vessel in visits to
some other islands. Captain Erskine considered the Bishop’s plan of
travelling with no arms of any sort as “one of no little risk.” When he
heard that some natives of an island, notorious for its hostility to
white men, had been allowed to come on board the _Undine_, he wrote that
he “was ready to allow that it required the perfect presence of mind and
dignified bearing of Bishop Selwyn, which seemed never to fail in
impressing these savages with a feeling of his superiority, to render
such an act one of safety and prudence.”
The Bishop recognized clearly the risks he ran in visiting the different
islands and wrote:
“It is quite uncertain from visit to visit in what temper the natives
may be found. If any violence or loss of life should have occurred in
the interval between the missionary’s visits, his blood may be
required as much as that of any other white man.”
On this cruise, which lasted only two months, he went to New Caledonia,
the New Hebrides and the Loyalty Isles, and came across many different
men of many different kinds.
“On one day it is my lot to keep company with sandal wood traders, and
on the next with her Majesty’s Men of War. As sources of information,
the sandal wooders are most useful companions; I have received much
kindness and civility from them.”
He thus described his future plan for the conversion of the Melanesian
islanders:
“To select a few promising youths from all the islands, to prove and
test them, first by observation of their habits on board a floating
school; then to take them for further training to New Zealand; and,
lastly when they are sufficiently advanced, to send them back as
teachers to their own people, if possible with some English missionary
to give effect and regularity to their work. All the ordinary losses
by sickness, violence and theft which occur frequently where
missionaries are stationed at once on unknown ground will be avoided.”
From this first voyage he brought back five boys, enough to crowd his
tiny cabin. They reached Auckland safely:
“The walk from Auckland to the College was most amusing from the
frequent exclamations of surprise raised by my native companions at
every new object which they saw.”
Some months afterwards he had to start on a second voyage to take back
the boys to their own homes, lest they should suffer from the New
Zealand winter. He could then write:
“We find that even this first experiment, small and imperfect as it
has been, has opened to us a way for future these islands as
strangers, but we have our own scholars as friends and interpreters to
explain our objects. The report seems to be favourable, as we have now
several applications from the New Caledonian youths for leave to go to
New Zealand. At present I have no intention of taking any, as the
winter is coming on and they would find the change to our climate very
uncomfortable. But if it should please God to prolong my life, I hope
to return, and with increased means of information to select carefully
the next class of scholars and to take them with me to New Zealand.”
He rejoiced in the beauty of the islands and felt hopeful about the
future development of their inhabitants.
“It is not true that only man is vile, these people are the most
friendly people in the world.... To go among the heathen as an equal
and a brother is far more profitable than to risk that subtle kind of
self-righteousness which creeps into mission work, akin to the
thanking God that we are not as other men are.”
He wished to put this Pacific work on a permanent basis and believed
that, if God would enable him before his death “to lay out the ground
plan of a great design, succeeding bishops would not refuse to add each
his course of stone to the rising edifice.” When shortly after his
return from this cruise he went in September, 1850, to a meeting at
Sydney of the Synod of the Church in Australia, one of his chief objects
was to persuade the Australian Bishops to form a Board of Missions.
especially with a view to the needs of Melanesia. His proposals were
sympathetically received, the Australasian Board of Missions was formed,
and the Melanesian mission was solemnly adopted by the Australian and
New Zealand colonies. Selwyn expressed himself as willing to do the
active work of the Mission if Australia would assist him with the
necessary funds. Money was raised in New South Wales to supply a vessel
of one hundred tons, the _Border Maid_, for the Bishop’s voyages to and
fro to the islands with his pupils, and Bishop Tyrrell, of Newcastle,
New South Wales, an old Cambridge friend, agreed to accompany him on his
first voyage in the new mission ship.
On his return to Auckland Selwyn at once founded a Branch of the new
Board of Missions, thus making the New Zealand Church from the first
recognize its missionary responsibilities; his ambition was to make his
diocese the great missionary centre of the Southern Ocean. The carrying
out of his many schemes had been made easier for him by the arrival this
year of his friend, Mr. Abraham, with his wife. Abraham had at last
found himself free to leave Eton and now came to be head of St. John’s
College at Auckland. With him came Mr. Lloyd, another helper, and their
arrival and the hopes thus given of further development so encouraged
Selwyn that he was wont to call this year, 1850, his _Annus Mirabilis_.
The sight of what Selwyn had already accomplished made a deep impression
upon Abraham, which finds expression in a letter home from Mrs. Abraham.
“What do we find in him? All that he was; all that we believed.... You
can feel the deep joy it is to feel this day by day pressed home to
one’s conviction ... to find that it was not any mere fancy, any
imaginary greatness or goodness, with which memory and friendship had
invested him in absence, but that he was in his simple unvarnished
reality, more than all he (Mr. Abraham) had thought and trusted to and
reverenced for these nine years past—the entire renunciation of self
and all belonging to him in comparison with the duty and the object of
the present moment is so shown forth in his daily life, so
transparently open to all who have eyes to see and hearts to receive
the witness of such an example, that one must be dead and dull indeed
not to feel continually the all-pervading power of such a life.... One
feels that he is the one man to pioneer the way and lay
foundations.... My husband owns that he cannot gainsay or resist the
wisdom with which he speaks, though he is thankful to find the Judge
quite joins with him in his feeling that a drag-chain rather than a
spur is needed on his favourite Melanesian Mission; and is disposed to
watch his widening schemes in that direction with a zealous regard for
this country, which must after all be the real battlefield in behalf
of the coloured race, and also with anxiety for the personal health
and safety of the Bishop himself, which they all feel is certainly
risked in each one of these voyages.... I do not wonder at the hold
these islands have upon him, after hearing his stories of his
intercourse with them, and especially about the boys he had here last
summer.”
The Abrahams were both amused and impressed by the quiet way in which
the Bishop walked “through any mention of State interference and
ecclesiastical law apart from Church authority.” They saw at once how
determined he was to make the Church of New Zealand independent and
self-governed, and to make it realize its responsibility for the
education of the people. In his discussion on these subjects he went on
to thoughts of the Church at home and of the work of Bishops there, and
said that at home too the clergy must take education into their own
hands by doing the work, and that there should be an “episcopate of £500
a year bishops, given to hospitality and not clothing flunkeys in
purple.”
Abraham wrote his first impressions of St. John’s College, to Dr.
Hawtrey, the headmaster of Eton.
“The Bishop and myself are the only persons in the colony almost who
possess libraries; and the taste for such things has to be created, as
at present a mere utilitarian idea of education prevails. Perhaps for
the purposes of the settlers here and the clergy a practical education
is the best suited, and I must confess that I quite quail before the
attainments of some of my scholars, who will make most valuable
missionaries among natives and round a sea girt isle. Only conceive
what a thoroughly αὐταρκης man will be formed out of a boy who at the
age of nineteen knows more divinity than most boys at Eton in the
Sixth Form, who is thoroughly acquainted with French and Maori ... is
a good musician and able to teach the natives singing—a good
mathematician and able to sail the _Undine_ from hence to the New
Hebrides and back, taking sights and managing rigging.... Of course
none of them are scholars in our sense of the words; they devote too
little time to scholarship, having to pay for their support by bodily
work, so that two hours a day, four times a week is all a boy gets of
school. He is either printing, or farming, or weaving, or digging, or
making shoes, etc., the rest of his time. Altogether it is a strange
life we lead here. I am sure I never realized it before I came, but I
will try to put you in possession of our principle; and when I say
our, I mean the Bishop’s—for only his vast head and noble heart could
conceive and execute so complicated a plan.
“The first generation of converts to Christianity is passing rapidly
from this scene, and the middle-aged folk now are very nominal
Christians indeed. They have abandoned cannibalism certainly, and the
horrors of frequent war, thank God, but their moral and religious
state is very questionable. The old chief close by us is a heathen,
and he and many of his people point to the bad lives of the Christian
people as their stumbling block.... The fact is that they are not
educated. The Bishop was told by the missionaries that it was
impossible and visionary to attempt to break through their habits. His
faith was too great to allow him to leave it unattempted, and his
perseverance too strong to be easily deterred or baffled. He
established the college, to which he draws as many as he can afford,
which is only fifty. He first has a native school for children (it
stands about a hundred yards from this; his house and the chapel is
between us). There are twenty or twenty-five of these little brown
mice, living in a wooden Swiss-like cottage, with a master (a
candidate for Holy Orders) and an assistant, one of the scholars, to
look after them. They learn English, arithmetic, singing, writing and
scripture—dig in the garden, make and mend their clothes which are not
extensive. When they are thirteen or fourteen they are drafted off
into the labour departments (to which twenty-five more belong and live
in different houses, under the superintendence of the students) and
become either bakers or cooks, weavers or shoemakers, carpenters or
farmers, etc., attending school half the day, and working the other
half at their trade. All these working departments the Bishop is well
able to superintend. He might have made a capital farmer, or a good
carpenter or a weaver or a printer.
“At 7 a.m. we all meet in chapel. At 2 p.m. hall, we all dine
together. There is an upper table for the clergy and the ladies; the
different departments dine together, presided over by their foreman,
at different tables—plain, good, wholesome fare. From 4 to 6 school or
work—at 6 tea in hall—7 chapel.... The attachment of the natives to
the Bishop is wonderful. They thoroughly appreciate his care for
them.”
Mr. Abraham’s presence made it easier for the Bishop to move about his
diocese, now that he had one whom he could thoroughly trust to leave in
charge at Auckland. When some little time after his return from the
Synod the new mission ship, the _Border Maid_, arrived with Bishop
Tyrrell on board, he started in it for another voyage to the Pacific,
taking back with him four boys who had been brought over to school by
Captain Erskine in the _Havannah_. Two of the boys were to be landed at
Erromango, where some years before Mr. Williams, a member of the London
Missionary Society, had been murdered. There the Bishop was very
cautious about landing, though the boys assured him “No fight, no
fight.” When the chiefs came down to meet him, he landed and went two
miles inland with the boys to their home. There he knelt down and said
prayers with them, bidding them tell their friends what they were doing,
and what it meant. The boys wept when he parted from them on the beach.
Other boys, who had been at Auckland, were visited on their islands. On
one island, Neugone, Samoan teachers were working and had built a chapel
in which Selwyn preached in Samoan to a large congregation. They
earnestly desired a permanent minister, but it was not possible yet to
give them one, though not long after Selwyn was able to place Mr. Nihill
there. Five boys were brought away for training. One young chief was
most anxious to come, and wept bitterly when his father would not allow
it. The Bishop comforted him by promising to call for him next time. The
most anxious moment of the voyage is described in a letter from the
Bishop of Newcastle to a friend:
“The greatest danger to which we were exposed arose from the natives
at the Island of Malicolo. Only one ship is known to have visited this
harbour before and the natives did not know one word of English or of
the language of the other islands. Numbers collected on the shore as
we entered the harbour and as we wanted to replenish our water we at
once communicated with them.... The place shown by them as the best
for obtaining water, proved so inconvenient, that the Bishop of New
Zealand and myself rowed along the shores of the harbour to find, if
possible, a more convenient stream or pool. We found one more
accessible and returned after an absence of two hours to the ship.
Whenever we left the ship, we always gave directions to the chief mate
to allow a few natives to come on board at a time, if they came in
their canoes, and wished to see the ship, and seemed quiet and
friendly. On our return the mate told, us that they had allowed one or
two small parties to come on board, but that afterwards so many came
and looked so questionable, armed with their clubs and spears, that he
thought it prudent to refuse permission to them to come on deck. The
Bishop of New Zealand still thought it important to procure some
water, so we arranged that we should not both go in the boats as the
place we had selected as the best for obtaining water, while I
remained in charge of the ship. At dawn the boats went with casks to
fetch the water. I was left in the ship with the mate and one sailor,
and two or three of the native boys from the other islands. Within an
hour after the boats had left the ship, two or three canoes came off
to the ship, filled with huge men, most of them were armed with their
clubs and bows and spears. In the first canoe the chief man was such a
ferocious looking ruffian that I at once determined he should not come
on board. Later, five or six other canoes came off to the ship, and
there must have been at least fifty of these huge men in them, many
armed. Every now and then one more forward than the rest would take
hold of the ship and plant his foot on a slight projection, so that
one spring would bring him on deck. No sooner had he planted his foot
and looked up, than he saw me just over him directing him very calmly
but decidedly to get back into his canoe. All this time the native
boys from the other islands who were on board were in the greatest
terror.... After two hours the men in the canoes consulted together,
evidently came to the conclusion that it was no use to try any longer,
and began to move off.... Next came the most anxious hour that I have
ever passed. When the canoes had moved off a little way, they stopped
and every eye was directed towards the two boats of the ship which
were lying off the shore, where the water was being fetched from a
pool about a quarter of a mile inland. The men in the canoes consulted
together, then changed their places, filling the two largest canoes
with those who were evidently the greatest fighters, and these two
canoes paddled towards the boats.... The danger was lest the two
canoes should reach the two boats and overpower the two men before the
Bishop of New Zealand came down with his body of men from the
water-pool. I called to the mate and asked whether we could render any
assistance? ‘None my Lord.’ I paced the deck a few seconds and then
asked again, have we any means of self-defence in the ship? The answer
was, ‘None.’ This information did not disconcert me; I felt it a duty
to inquire whether anything could be done, and if anything could have
been suggested should at once have set about it. But the thought that
something fatal might happen on shore brought with it a sickening
feeling of reckless disregard as to what might happen to myself. I
therefore paced the deck and rendered the only aid I could render—that
of fervent prayer to Almighty God.... I saw soon the canoes reach the
boats: I saw two of the natives in one of the boats; I heard a noise
and a shout from the shore—I could not trust my eyes when I thought I
saw the boats move from the shore rowed by our own men—I gave the
telescope to the mate and eagerly asked whether he could see the men
in the boat and the Bishop with them. He looked and answered, ‘Yes,
they are all there—and his Lordship steers the first boat.’ The Bishop
on reaching the shore with his band of water carriers, had seen one of
the ship’s boats waiting to receive them, surrounded by natives, who
were brandishing their clubs round the boy left in charge and making
all sorts of threatening gestures, while he sat unmoved only quietly
resisting their efforts to take the oars from him. The Bishop and his
water-bearers made their way steadily onward to the water’s edge. He
said, ‘Go on,’ and they walked into the water lifting their casks
higher and higher as they advanced. As they approached the boat the
natives made off.”
This adventure illustrates the firm and courageous way in which Selwyn
met the difficulties and risks that attended these voyages, and the
personal ascendency which he gained over the islanders by his courage
and demeanour. Bold and fearless, he yet thought for everyone, prepared
for every contingency and knew how to choose the right persons to trust.
The _Border Maid_ brought back from this voyage thirteen scholars from
six different islands, amongst them two who had gone away with the
Bishop and now returned after visiting their homes. The Maori scholars
at the College went out to meet the long file of black boys on their
arrival, and there were many greetings and much shaking of hands. Three
weeks afterwards, on All Saints’ day, both a confirmation and a baptism
service were held in the College Chapel. The Bishop writes in his diary
that
“The candidates clothed in white robes represented people speaking ten
languages, gathered from one fifth part of the world’s circumference,
from east and west, and one-tenth part from north and south.”
The voyages to the Islands had to be frequent as the scholars could not
stand the New Zealand winter and had to be taken back to their islands
during the cold months. Their education was continued during the voyage.
The hammocks in which they slept in the hold were rolled up during the
daytime, and the hold became a schoolroom, where the same work hours as
at the College were followed. In 1852 the Bishop, who was anxious to
secure Christian wives for his young men, was able to his great delight
to bring back two girls from the Islands. During the voyage he himself
made dresses for them out of a patchwork quilt, and on reaching Auckland
proudly brought them up the beach, one on each arm, dressed in the
garments he had made out of the quilt, ornamented with scarlet bows. His
voyages gave him opportunities for showing kindness to other
missionaries. This year he took out with him a Presbyterian teacher with
his wife, a horse and much baggage and landed them at their mission
station.
Between 1848 and 1852, he visited more than fifty islands, and had given
into his care forty scholars speaking ten different languages. The
Melanesian mission was very dear to his heart. He loved sailing about
amongst the lovely islands, and delighted in the friendliness shown by
the great majority of the people. But the New Zealand colonists did not
look at all favourably upon this extension of his work, and did not
approve of his being so much away from them. Some of his friends thought
that he exposed himself to too many dangers. Even in England some said
that he was neglecting his diocese. To this he replied that Melanesia
was included in the diocese entrusted to him, and though it might be
urged that this was only a clerical error, yet the Archbishop and
Bishops who had consecrated him had “consigned to him the oversight over
the progress of religion in the Coasts and Islands of the Pacific.”
Writing to his dear friend, Mr. Coleridge, he defended himself as
follows:
“For seven years, during the troubles of New Zealand, I neglected
altogether this part of my diocese, and now bitterly rue the
consequences of this delay, as fields then untrodden by the foot of a
missionary are now overrun with Papists and others.... Considering
that within the last twelve months, I have visited every English
settlement in New Zealand (except Whanganui) of 150 inhabitants from
Stewart’s Island to the Bay of Islands, and that the larger
settlements have been visited every year upon the average at least
once, since I arrived ... and that I have visited on foot twice every
mission station; and am now preparing, at the end of my ninth year, to
visit them a third time, in the course of a walk of about one thousand
miles ... considering, I say, all these things, I think that objectors
had much better hold their tongues, and not ‘compel’ me to seem to
‘boast’ when I would much rather dwell in silence upon my own infinite
shortcomings.”
His increasing knowledge of the islands confirmed his sense of the
extent and importance of the work to be done, and he wrote in his diary:
“The careful superintendence of this multitude of islands will require
the services of a missionary bishop, able and willing to devote
himself to the work.”