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.”
As we consider in detail any portion of Bishop Selwyn’s varied work, we must never forget that behind the details of the moment, the great work needed for the future was ever present to his mind. Yet he was never lost in visionary schemes, details did not escape him, attention to them was one of the ways in which his great plans were made possible. All that he did, he saw in the light of the great call that he believed had come to him, to lay in New Zealand the foundations of a living Church, self-governing and independent. He had no desire to be an autocrat, but wished as far as possible to work with and through others. It will be well to bring together the various measures he adopted for the organization of the Church, whilst neglecting none of the work for education and evangelisation which was so dear to him. We have seen how one of his first acts had been to appoint in 1844 an archdeacon, that he might have at least one trusted adviser to whom he could delegate some part of his responsibility. Then followed the first tiny Synod of his clergy, called two years later. He looked to the future, but he built on the experience and traditions of the past. He wrote to a friend in the year that the first Synod met:
“My first charge if I ever find time to write it, will be an attempt to deduce a plan of operations, suitable to the peculiar case of New Zealand, from the records of the first three centuries of the Church. In my endeavours to avoid all party shibboleths I am much assisted by the natural effect of the native Church in enforcing simplicity of doctrine and regularity of discipline. I hope to make this a fulcrum for moving the chaotic mass of the English settlements, which are more like a fortuitous concourse of atoms than anything else, with the additional disadvantage that every atom has an opinion and voice of his own, and thinks himself a mountain.”
He longed for the help of others in the great work before him, and for opportunities of consultation with wise and experienced men as to its problems. This first synod met at Waimate and consisted of three Archdeacons, four priests and two deacons. It was summoned “to frame rules for the better management of the mission and the general government of the Church.” It dealt chiefly with questions of church extension and with some of the difficulties found in all missionary lands, problems concerned with baptism and marriage in a population partly heathen and partly Christian. But humble though it was, it met with much criticism in England, and was regarded by some as an unlawful assumption of authority and independence. It was the first attempted Synod of the Anglican Church since Convocation was suppressed in 1717. There were then no Diocesan Conferences or other authorised meetings of clergy and bishops. The Church was regarded as a State Establishment, and some regarded Bishop Selwyn’s Synod as an infringement of the royal supremacy, and blamed the Bishop for priestly assumption.
With one of the criticisms of his first Synod the Bishop was quite ready to agree. It was stated that it was not a true Synod, because the laity were not represented. In 1847 at his second Synod, he proposed a constitution of the Church in New Zealand, according to which representatives of the laity as well as bishops and clergy should meet together, and he inaugurated the discussions preliminary to its adoption. To this Synod he delivered his primary charge. In it he showed both how he looked back and how he looked forward in making his plans. He said:
“Our present meeting may be looked upon as one of a long series, beginning at the Council of Jerusalem, in which it the will of God by the assembling together of the ministers of Christ for social prayer and mutual counsel.... If I did not believe that our position in this country, both as regards the simplicity and primitive character of our Church establishment, and its freedom from all political connexion, gives us good reason to hope that we may be enabled to avoid the evils into which other Synods have fallen, I should have shrunk from the course which I now propose to you, and fallen back upon the practice sanctioned by custom, if not approved by reason, of a formal charge ex cathedrâ, upon the authority of the Bishop alone. I might then have found as has often been the case, that some would have consented ex animo, some without consenting would have obeyed conscientiously, some would have denied that their promise of canonical obedience applied to the points of which they disapproved. At the best there would have been much to check co-operation and engender distrust.”
He went on to speak of the missionary obligations of the New Zealand Church, and said that New Zealand must become a missionary centre:
“We cannot consider our work accomplished till every dialect in the South Seas has its representative members in our Missionary Colleges ... however inadequate a Church may be to its own internal wants, it must on no account suspend its missionary duties.”
He expressed his horror of controversy:
“Of controversy in general I would say that it is the bane of the Gospel among a heathen people.... I can never forget the pointed illustration of the old chief of Taupo, when I asked him why he still refused to believe. ‘Show me the way,’ he said, ‘I have come to the cross road. Three ways branch out before me. Each teacher says his own way is the best. I am sitting down and doubting which guide I shall follow.’ He remained in doubt till a landslip burst from the mountain under which he lived, and overwhelmed him with all his house.... The course seems to be to teach truth rather by what it is than by what it is not. Let us give our converts the true standard and they will apply it themselves to the discovery and contradiction of error.... Much of what has been said applies also to our relations with our own countrymen. We cannot expect unanimity, let us at least seek peace. Much has been written upon unity, but as yet little has been done towards a union of all religious bodies in one. This at least seems clear, that such a union, however highly desirable, must not be effected by a compromise of truth. When all shall have thoroughly examined the grounds of their own belief, and rejected such errors as they may find, then it is certain that all must come to unity of doctrine, because all will have been conformed to the same unalterable standard of truth.”
Of his own episcopal authority he said:
“I believe the monarchical idea of the Episcopate to be as foreign to the true mind of the Church, as it is adverse to the Gospel doctrine of humility. Let it never be thought that I alone am interested in the good government of our Church, and that you are merely subjects to obey. Whatever interest I have in the work you have also.... I would rather resign my office, than be reduced to act as a single and isolated being. It remains then to define, by some general principles, the terms of our co-operation. They are simply these: that neither will I act without you, nor can you act without me. The source of all diocesan action is in the Bishop; and therefore it behoves him so much the more to take care that he act with a mind informed and re-inforced by conference with his clergy.”
The desire of the laity to take part in the work of the Church was shown by a letter addressed to the Bishop in 1850, signed by both clergy and laity, amongst whom were Sir George Grey and Chief Justice Martin. In this they spoke of the responsibilities of the New Zealand Church as being the most advanced and remote outpost of the Church of England, of the call to them to aid in the foundation of a great nation and in moulding its institutions as well as of their duties to the heathen peoples in their neighbourhood. They stated their sense of the necessity for some speedy establishment of Church government amongst them which “by assigning to each order in the Church its appropriate duties, might call forth the energies of all, and thus enable the whole Church most efficiently to perform its functions.” To this letter an outline Constitution was appended, which had been drawn up by Sir George Grey during the enforced leisure of a sick bed. It proposed that a General Convention should be summoned, resembling “that which has proved so beneficial to our brethren in America.”
Selwyn had the advantage of discussing this matter at the Conference of Bishops in Sydney which he attended the same year. In a Pastoral Letter sent out in 1852, he explained further the objects he was aiming at. A Constitution was needed because the Church in New Zealand was not established by law, and therefore a large portion of the Ecclesiastical law of England did not apply to it. If they were to have laws to guide them, they must apply for the power granted to all incorporated bodies to frame their own bye-laws. He added a list of the general principles which should guide the framing of such bye-laws. During the two following years, meetings were called in all the settlements in New Zealand to discuss these principles. He wished the constitution to have the full approval of the people and not to be imposed upon them by authority from above. The delight of the laity at realising that they were once more part of a living church is illustrated by the words of a farmer who said:
“When I heard the church bell ring this evening and summon me to the first vestry meeting I had attended for twelve years, and for the first time in this country, I was quite overcome and affected to tears.”
At these meetings the Bishop called the attention of the people amongst other things to the fact of their dependence for their religious ministrations on money sent from England, often from the savings of the poor. His plan was to endow every minister to the extent of half his income, and to leave the rest to be supplied by his own people. In this way the minister would be partially dependent on, and partially independent of his flock. The principles of the proposed constitution were thoroughly discussed at these various meetings, often by men who had little knowledge or experience to bring to the consideration of the matter. The Bishop bore patiently with questions and interruptions not always of the most courteous kind. In a letter written by one who was present at these meetings it is said:
“I mention these facts to give you some notion of colonial church life in its less interesting and romantic features. There are some hard, coarse, rough scenes to be gone through—such as would astonish an English bishop if he were to come across them. It is just as well that people at home should know that the trials of colonial bishops do not so much consist in the pleasant excitement of walking through the glorious forests, and swimming the rivers of New Zealand, or the like, nor in the novelty and refreshment of missionary work among a simple or savage people, but in being brought into contact day by day with the rudest and coarsest spirits of unrestrained colonialism, which vaunts itself and prides itself in saying and doing the most offensive things in the most offensive way. Our Bishop has practically exemplified an old saying we used to have at Eton, ‘You must go on never minding.’”
The Bishop was willing patiently to let them talk, hoping that “they would feel their feet for themselves and stand all the firmer for it.”
In England there was a good deal of difference of opinion, even amongst great lawyers, as to the status of the Church in the Colonies, and the right of colonial bishops to hold synods or conventions of their clergy in order to legislate for the Church. Selwyn became convinced that, in order to get the matter settled, he would have to pay a visit to England and he began to prepare to return home for this purpose. He wished above all that the method should be determined by which more bishops could be appointed to aid in a work which it became increasingly impossible for one man to carry on. Both in the colony itself and in England, many criticisms were made as to the way in which he apportioned his time between the three great claims made upon him, the evangelisation of the Maoris, the care of the settlers, and the mission to the Melanesians. In a letter written in 1852, he speaks of a statement he had drawn up as to the way in which he had spent his time during his ten years in New Zealand, and says:
“The results are curious and illustrative of the life of a colonial bishop, which can scarcely be understood and certainly not felt by any of the good questionists in England. One whole year I have spent at sea, between the English settlements, distant one thousand miles at their extreme points, and requiring a voyage of two thousand five hundred or three thousand miles to visit them all. During the whole of this year of voyages, I was lost to all the direct objects of my office; but in that time my charge, journals, study of languages and navigation, and the chief part of my correspondence have been accomplished; all bearing upon that work for which I live, and to which such powers as God has given me of mind and body have been devoted. It appears that the English and native duties have occupied nearly equal portions of time, and the Northern (that is the Melanesian) missions only half as much as either of them; but the collegiate duties as being the husbandry of my best garden plot, have absorbed as much time as the English and native visitations put together.”
His methodical and orderly habits which made the arrangements of his tiny cabin a wonder to all who saw it, his exactness and punctuality, alone made it possible for him to carry out such a multitude of varied duties. His visitations were carefully planned so that no part of New Zealand should escape his notice. On a tour round the Southern Island in 1851, he held forty-four confirmations, and confirmed about three thousand candidates. His programme for each day was marked with D.V. and where the engagement was fulfilled, he added D.G. After this particular tour he could write in his diary:
“End of confirmation tour on which every D.V. has been marked with a D.G. to the exact day.”
But the tour had its own special disappointment, for there were but few young people amongst the candidates for confirmation. This he attributed to the lack of schools, which he must now try to get the missions to provide. Meanwhile new settlers were constantly arriving. In 1847 a large number of military pensioners had been settled by the Government in the neighbourhood of Auckland. No provision for chaplains or for any religious ministry had been made for them. The Bishop set to work at once and provided each of these settlements with a little wooden church. He himself, and the young deacons working with him, conducted the services in these little churches. They went on foot through mud and mire every Sunday to the different settlements, the Bishop always taking the hardest part of the work and the largest number of services. In the evenings all the clergy and lay readers met together at St. John’s for what was called the “Unity Service,” after being widely scattered for their different duties during the day, and joined with the students from the college, dark-faced islanders, English and Maori boys, in a last act of prayer and praise.
In 1850 an important new settlement was made in the Southern Island near Lyttelton. It had been planned in England and was carried out under the auspices of what was called the Canterbury Association, formed in order to send out a band of settlers belonging to the Church of England, accompanied from the first by a number of clergy and teachers, and a prospective Bishop, who came out to view the land before deciding whether he would accept the appointment. Selwyn was very glad to learn that some one was coming who would relieve him of the charge of the Southern Island, but he was not previously consulted as to the Settlement and doubted the wisdom of the arrangements made. He wrote:
“My growing unpopularity with the Company for advocating native rights is, I conclude, the reason why a plan like this of the ‘Canterbury Settlement’ is forced on in the same hurried and reckless manner which has caused all former disasters—without a single enquiry of any kind being addressed to the Bishop of the Diocese. If I were a mere land agent, my local knowledge of every part of New Zealand both of the coast line and of the interior, with few exceptions, wherever human beings are settled, might have induced reasonable men to write to me before they pledged themselves to such a partial and profoundly ignorant body as the New Zealand Company. But the Company must sell land or die.... I cannot compromise myself to a recommendation of any site within the Southern Province unless the whole be accurately mapped, and facility given to every purchaser to know exactly what kind of land he is buying.... Wherever the settlements be formed, the actual surface of the country must be taken into account. Let the site of every town, village, school, church, etc., be marked before a single acre is sold.”
He wrote thus on seeing the printed prospectus of the Settlement. It had filled his mind with anxiety because of his intense love for New Zealand and his eager desire for anything that might benefit the Church and the country. But when the Canterbury pilgrims began to arrive, he hastened to Lyttelton to greet them. As soon as the Undine was seen to enter the harbour, two of the newly-arrived clergy hastened on board. One of them thus describes his visit:
“Both wore cap and gown, at which the Bishop seemed pleased (one wonders whether it would not have been truer to say amused), they gazed around with awe and interest until the awe at least was dispelled by the cordial reception they met with, and the unequalled charm of the Bishop’s presence and conversation. The marvellous neatness of that diminutive cabin and the ingenuity of its arrangements, are never to be forgotten.... On the following Sunday the Bishop celebrated the Holy Communion in a loft over a good’s store, reached by a ladder, the seats being extemporised by resting planks on sugar barrels.”
The Bishop himself writes to a friend interested in the Settlement:
“Here I am among the Canterbury pilgrims; and a very good set of colonists they are, as far as I can judge. But a great mistake has been made in sending out too many at once, and in allowing any consideration to prevent their instant occupation of land. They are not allowed to choose till two months after their arrival, by which time many will have become demoralized by idleness and desultory habits.... I repeat again and again the same advice: send out your parochial staff ready organized—clergymen, landowners, labourers, not turned adrift upon an interminable plain: far less cooped up in a Dutch oven at Lyttelton; but to go at once to a parish known and chosen by themselves, and to a church and school already built; so that not one single day’s delay may occur in resuming those good habits in their new country which they have learned in England. I find neither church, nor school, nor parsonage in existence. Money enough has been spent, but all in civil engineering. Last Sunday I administered the Holy Communion in a crowded loft over a store. I do not care for these things if they are unavoidable; but where it has been part of the plan from the first to put religion in its right place, I do object to spacious and costly offices, long lines of wharves, roads, piers, etc., and not one sixpence of expenditure in any form for the glory of God, or for the comfort of the clergy. I shall, of course, make the best of the matter.”
A few weeks later another ship arrived, bringing more emigrants, several schoolmasters, and the Bishop designate. Selwyn who had been away on a further voyage, returned to meet him, and at a conference with him and the clergy of the settlement, agreed to resign into his hands the southern portion of the diocese of New Zealand. The meeting was held in an unfurnished room in the immigration barracks at Lyttelton. It was brought to a close by the announcement made to Selwyn that the wind was favourable for his departure. Before leaving he expressed “his great thankfulness at finding such a spirit of unity among the clergy of this new branch of the Church of God,” and gave them his blessing. He returned again towards the end of the year to assist with his advice in the organization of the new diocese, so that all might be from the first established on a sound basis. But the hope that he was going at once to be relieved of the charge of the Southern Island was disappointed. The Bishop designate felt himself unfit for the post for which he had been selected, and returned to England. It was five years before a Bishop for this new diocese of Christchurch was sent out.
Bishop Selwyn’s immense responsibility continued unrelieved. He had not only the supervision of all the missions to the Maoris, the planning of the work amongst the Pacific Islands, but the provision for the religious and educational needs of the increasing number of colonists who were attracted by the rich promise of New Zealand. During these years he had gained a full knowledge of the country. He wrote in 1853:
“The dim and visionary idea of New Zealand, which I used to brood over in 1841, before we left England, is changed by God’s blessing to an accurate knowledge of every accessible part of the coast, and of almost every inhabited place in the interior.”
Towards the end of 1853, he had the great joy of ordaining his first Maori Deacon, Rota Waitoa, who had been for ten years his constant companion in his travels. It was a consolation in the midst of bitter sorrow, for he had been obliged temporarily to close the College at Auckland on account of the grave misconduct of two in whom he had trusted, and which put an end to his hope of educating together the Maori youths and the sons of the colonists. When the College was able to be re-opened it had to be for white scholars only, and other provision was made for the Maoris. Rota had adopted every Christian and civilized habit, and had risen from one post of usefulness to another and been found faithful and blameless in all. The older missionaries were doubtful of the wisdom of ordaining a Maori, believing that it was difficult to be sure that the tendency to barbarism was yet eradicated. But the Bishop’s confidence in Rota was not disappointed, and he served the Church faithfully till his death twelve years later. Unlike the ordinary natives who were generally characterized by great self-conceit, he was unusually diffident of himself, and he was always eager to seize any opportunity of learning more. When he had worked for eighteen months in the village which had been put under his charge, he told his people that he must go up to the College to fill his seed bags again, having sown all that he took down with him the year before. The English, who saw him at the College on that visit, were “struck by the perfect ease and simplicity of his manner, without the least assumption of forwardness.”
This first ordination of a native marked an important stage in the growth of the New Zealand Church, but the difficult questions as to the constitution of the Church could not be settled without a visit to England, and the Bishop had now made up his mind, to undertake the long journey home. He started with Mrs. Selwyn and his younger son, the elder was already in England for his education, on the last day of 1853, having spent twelve years of arduous work in New Zealand. His desire was to do his business in England and get back as quickly as possible. He wrote during the voyage to his friend, Mr. Coleridge, saying that his objects were the subdivision of the diocese, the enactment of free powers for the Church in New Zealand to meet in Convocation of Clergy and Laity and to manage its own affairs within certain limits, and the recognition of his plans as regards the Melanesian mission. He added:
“Pray use your influence with our friends now in power to give me quick dispatch, as Colonial Bishops being unconnected with the State, are not used to ante-chambers and only wish to get work done with as little formality as possible.”
As he had thoroughly discussed his plans with people in New Zealand he could say that he came authorised by his people “to take such steps as might be necessary for carrying into effect the wishes of his diocese.”
There was much consideration of his proposals and many discussions with the authorities, but it seemed to them impossible to give legal sanction for the organization of an independent colonial Church. At the same time they said that there could be no legal objection to colonial bishops holding synods within their own dioceses. Selwyn therefore gave up all attempts to get legal sanction for the proposed Constitution of the New Zealand Church of England. On his return to New Zealand he at once proceeded to make arrangements for the government of the Church and the final acceptance of its suggested Constitution.
Those members of the Church who were willing to administer its property were asked to associate themselves together on the basis of mutual compact, and to establish a representative governing body to manage its affairs and regulate its extension. Selwyn summoned a general conference of Bishops, Clergy and Laity to meet on May 14th, 1857, and approve finally the Constitution. In his opening address to this Conference he said that as “the colonial churches must have laws for their own government, and as neither the Church nor the State at home is able to make laws for them, they must be free to legislate for themselves.” Whilst in England he had drawn up the outline of a constitution, based on his former proposals and guided by the advice of eminent legal authorities. This constitution he now submitted to the Conference for their final approval. In it the Church in New Zealand was described as a Branch of the United Church of England and Ireland, associated with the mother Church by voluntary compact, and free to govern itself through a representative body. It was to maintain the doctrine and sacraments of the Church of England, and to accept its book of Common Prayer. In the main the constitution followed the lines of that of the American Episcopal Church. The Church of New Zealand was to be autonomous and free from the State Legislature. This Constitution was revised in various particulars in later years, but for the most part it stands as it was originally settled. There was much criticism of it at first, especially in the Canterbury Diocese, where more freedom for the various diocesan conferences was demanded, and objections were made to the powers vested in the central authority. For a time there seemed danger of a severance between that diocese and the rest of the New Zealand Church. Fortunately the firm and wise management of the Bishop effected a compromise on the various points in dispute. The Constitution was finally settled at the General Synod held at Christchurch in 1865 and at the same time steps were taken which completely separated the Church in New Zealand from the Crown, and gave it the appointment of its bishops.
Whilst in England the Bishop had also made plans for the division of his Diocese and secured the appointment of three new bishops to whom in the old way letters patent were to be granted by the Crown, and they were consecrated in England. After this the Bishops in New Zealand were chosen by the Diocesan Synods.
The first General Synod under the new Constitution met at Wellington in 1859. The Bishop in his opening address spoke of it as the fulfilment of hopes cherished during a period of fifteen years. He told of the difficulties that had to be surmounted before his hopes could be realised, and how the Constitution was founded on the basis of mutual and voluntary compact. The property of the Church was to be held by trustees; the Church was to be governed by diocesan Synods, and their work was to be co-ordinated under the General Synod. In the work of all these Synods the laity were to have their full share. He spoke of the danger lest they should be tempted to rely on mere external and material organization, and trust to it rather than to the life of the Spirit, but said that it would be vain to seek for spiritual life by neglecting outward organization; they must trust to the quickening spirit to make them living stones, so that each doing his appointed work and using his own special gift, they might see to it that their Church should grow into a holy temple of the Lord.
He spoke of the chains with which the Church of England had been bound by her past history; of the abuses “which had been encrusted on her system,” such as private patronage, the sale of spiritual offices, the inequalities of clerical incomes, and the repeated efforts which had been made to remove them. From these chains the Colonial Church was saved; as faithful children it was their part to show how glorious might be the purity of her doctrine and the holiness of her liturgy, free from those chains.
There were to be diocesan boards to appoint the clergy, whose maintenance was to be provided by the Diocesan Synods, partly from endowment funds, and partly by voluntary contributions. This was a principle dear to Bishop Selwyn’s heart, which he had advocated ever since he came to New Zealand. The discipline of the clergy was to be in the hands of a Tribunal appointed by the Diocesan Synod and presided over by the Bishop. The electors to the Synods were to be those who declared themselves willing to obey the laws of the Synod, its members must be communicants. He then described what would be the duties of the Synods. Finally he dwelt upon their responsibilities for the native races in New Zealand and Melanesia, and on the urgent need to raise up a native ministry. He rejoiced over the faithful men who had already been ordained, but said it was impossible not to feel some doubts as to the future stability of the native Church. He said: “My recent journey through the Mission Stations has left me in a balanced state between hope and fear”; fear caused by the signs of decaying faith, and by the fact that the native youth were “departing from the example of their fathers, given to self-indulgence, drunkenness and sloth.” He was convinced that the time was coming when it would “be found impossible to carry on a double government for the Colonial and the Missionary Church,” but their blending must be a gradual work though it should be begun immediately. It was with great thankfulness that he told the Synod of the formation of the new missionary diocese of Waiapu for the Southern Island, to which he hoped to consecrate Archdeacon William Williams. “One whose age and experience had often made him feel ashamed that he should have been preferred before him.” The three new Bishops of Christchurch, Wellington and Nelson, who had been appointed in England, were present at the Synod and joined with him at its close in consecrating William Williams, who was thus the first Bishop to be consecrated in New Zealand. Selwyn wrote of this to a friend:
“I wish that you could have been present to see our little church at the Antipodes, represented by its four Eton Bishops, lighting a fifth candlestick to be a light to lighten our native Christians. The new Bishop was already at his work in New Zealand while I was still a boy at Eton; and though a veteran, who might have claimed some relaxation of his work, has just pulled down a comfortable house at his mission station to remove to a wild tract of uncultivated land, and there begin again the first perturbations of a native school for the purpose of training up the New Zealand youth to take their place in the new order of things.”
This brief account of the organization of the autonomous Church in New Zealand has been carried to its fitting conclusion in the account of the first meeting of the General Synod and of the first consecration of a Bishop in the country. Bishop Selwyn had accomplished the great work which gave New Zealand a self-governing Church, with a constitution sufficiently elastic to allow it to develop in accordance with its own needs, and yet safely established on those “fundamental principles,” which would for ever secure its union with the Mother Church. By his skill and zeal in bringing this difficult matter to a safe conclusion, he had not only secured a great future for the Church in New Zealand, but he showed the way to other branches of the Anglican Church in other parts of the world. His clear vision, his talent for organization, his indomitable perseverance, his conspicuous power in managing and persuading men, had all combined to make it possible to realize his object in the short period of eighteen years, amidst all the pressure of other work, the strain of constant journeyings to and fro by sea and land, and the cruel anxieties of native wars. What had been achieved filled him with thankfulness and hope for the future. He had worked throughout in full co-operation with others, and on true democratic principles, as befitted a Bishop in a new land. He had no desire to be an autocrat or to win credit for himself.