Its publication had all the effect of a thunderbolt. What could the governor mean by such charges? So far from there being any need of a British army to put the missionaries—or rather, their sons—in possession of the land, the truth, of course, was that they were already in possession and had been quietly farming their grants for some years. All through the war the Maoris had respected their titles, and were on the best of terms with the young farmers. To Henry Williams, with his life-long devotion to the government he had once served, no charge could have been more painful. It touched his honour to the quick. He offered to give up every acre of the land, if the governor would either retract or substantiate his charges. Neither of these things would the governor attempt to do. He was determined to get the land, and he left no stone unturned in his efforts to accomplish his object.

August and September, 1847, were the critical time of this distressing episode. On Aug. 13th, Henry Williams received from London the news of the "Blood and Treasure" despatch. It was accompanied by a letter from the C.M.S., instructing the missionaries to divest themselves of all land in excess of 1,260 acres for each grant. They might sell it, or make it over to their children, or put it in trust for the benefit of the aborigines, but they were not to retain it for "their own use and benefit." Nothing could have been more satisfactory to Henry Williams, who had never drawn a shilling from the land for his own use, but had always paid his sons for any of their produce he might require. He now sent to the Society an undertaking that he would at once transfer the land legally to his family, and thus he hoped to put an end to the dispute.

But this did not satisfy the governor. In the same month he submitted proposals so worded as to imply, if accepted, that the land (or a portion of it) had been unjustly acquired. This at once brought up again the question of honour, and the proposals were of course rejected.

It was at this juncture that the governor took a course which was fraught with evil consequences to the New Zealand Church. He applied for help to the bishop. Unless the question was settled, he said, he would be obliged to take steps which might deeply injure their common faith. Would the bishop communicate his letter to the missionaries, and use his influence to induce them to give up their land?

What was the bishop to do? It is generally supposed that he allowed himself to be persuaded against his better judgment by the plausible arguments of the governor. But this is surely to wrong a man of Selwyn's character. He had stood shoulder to shoulder with Henry Williams in upholding the validity of the Treaty of Waitangi, against the action of the same governor and of the Home authorities. It was not likely that he would weakly give way to the blandishments of any individual, unless he had convinced himself that the cause was a just one. How then can we account for his action in this instance?

The only explanation that seems to meet the case is that which is supplied by the idealistic nature of Selwyn's mind. One of his ideals was plain living, and he had something of the socialist's contempt for the "rights of property." Even before his consecration his mind had been exercised on the question of the land purchases of the New Zealand missionaries. When he arrived in the country, he told Henry Williams that he had determined to take no notice of the matter, but for all that he never abated his dislike of the system. These "waste and worthless acres" threatened to mar the success of his schemes. "Catechism and bread and butter" should be enough for missionaries' children; and when these grew to manhood, was not St. John's College open to them, with its farm and its technical training, besides its invitation to the offices of schoolmaster and deacon? If the missionaries' sons were endowed with land of their own, would they not be so much absorbed with its management as to be insensible to the charm of community life and the call of the ministries of the Church? Such thoughts seem to have been working in the mind of the bishop from the time of his arrival, and he had corresponded with the C.M.S. from time to time on the subject. He had hitherto said nothing, but when the governor appealed to him with the plausible reasoning which he—an idealist also—could so skilfully use, the bishop fell in with the proposal, and broke through the reserve which he had hitherto maintained. Such, at least, is the explanation which is suggested by a careful study of the facts. The conflict was one of principles: communism against individualism. Like many other reformers, Bishop Selwyn was strong when he exhibited the positive aspects of the communistic ideal; he failed and became unjust when he tried to force others into the same method of life.

The attack was made with great suddenness. The bishop brought the archdeacon from the Bay of Islands to St. John's College, and there, on September 4, in the midst of his own disciplinarian surroundings, handed him a lengthy letter in which he revealed his long cherished opinions, defended the Blood and Treasure despatch, and called upon the missionary to accept the governor's terms. The startled archdeacon asked for proof of the episcopal charges, but of course no proof was forthcoming. It was a matter of prejudged guilt. The bishop was not skilful in the negotiations, and at last lost his temper and demanded point-blank the surrender of the deeds.[9] Henry Williams felt that he was unjustly accused, and, still holding out for "substantiation or retractation," left the scene of the conference in a fit of indignation, which was still further increased when he found that the unscrupulous governor had been trying to stir up the Maoris of the Bay of Islands to claim the restitution of their lands. Nothing but their strong affection and loyalty towards "Te Wiremu" could have enabled them to resist this appeal to their cupidity. But underhand dealing was the one thing that Williams could not bear, and he would hold no more communication with Governor Grey on the subject. His sons were of age: let them carry on the struggle.

[9] Archdeacon Williams' son-in-law, Mr. Hugh Carleton, has left it on record that the archdeacon and his family would at any time have given up the lands, if only the bishop had shown them some sympathy and publicly disavowed his concurrence with the governor's charges.

The year 1848 brought one ray of light to the unhappy "grantees." The governor brought against one of them an action in the Supreme Court of New Zealand. The two judges were friends of the bishop and of the governor, but their verdict confirmed the missionaries in possession of their land. The legal status thus acquired enabled Henry Williams to convey the whole of the land which stood in his name to his family, and thus to make quite clear to all the real state of the case. But the old question of honour was still unsettled, and Williams sought for a public enquiry both from the British Government and from the Missionary Society. Both bodies, however, were under the influence of his foes, and refused his request. Instead of enquiring into his wrongs, the C.M.S., misled by the constant accusations of the governor, resolved to end the trouble by terminating the connection with their old and well-tried servant.

This was a stunning blow. It was the Eve of Trinity Sunday, 1850, that the letter came to Paihia, after a period so long that it had seemed as though the trouble were at rest. Mrs. Williams has left on record the feelings of herself and her husband on that Sunday: "The day was beautiful in which we saw our old and much-loved home, all untouched in Sabbath peace, for the last time. We told no one; all went on as usual; but it was a great conflict to keep down the thoughts of our expulsion, and all its attendant cruel injustice."

On the following Thursday the move was made. Amidst heavy rain the family rode off to the inland farm at Pakaraka, where the sons were already settled. The cavalcade was escorted by Pene Taui, the general who had repulsed the British troops at Ohaeawai, and by Tamati Pukututu, who had guarded the stores of the English in the same campaign. They had fought on opposite sides in the war, but they were at one in their devotion to Wiremu.

With the removal of Henry Williams, came to an end the Golden Age, or influential period, of the Bay of Islands. Governor and bishop had both left it, and the war had dealt its missions a blow from which they were never to recover. The visitor to Paihia to-day sees a few silent houses ranged along the quiet beach, and amongst them the ruins of the building in which the first printing-press in New Zealand was set up. A church of more modern date contains some remains of the early period, and at the other end of the beach stands the dismantled house in which Carleton lived and wrote. But the most enduring object is the fine granite cross which was erected long afterwards by the Maori Church to the memory of Henry Williams—"a Preacher of the Gospel of Peace, and a Father of the Tribes."

NOTE.—With regard to the rest of those whom Mr. Collier calls the "peccant missionaries" there is not much to be said. One of them, Clarke, was certainly treated with strange injustice. The governor brought an action against him in the Supreme Court, as already related. He did not defend himself, but was dismissed by the C.M.S. on a charge of having gone to law with the governor! A full list of the landgrants may be seen in Thompson's "Story of New Zealand," Vol. II., p. 155. It is not pleasant reading; one could have wished that the missionaries had not been driven to acquire land as they did. Perhaps some of them were led on further than was wise or right. Taylor's claim for 50,000 acres was startling, but he bought the land at Henry Williams' request to save a war between two tribes who both claimed it. When the grants came to be legally made by Governor Fitzroy, Taylor received only 1,704 acres. Maunsell, Chapman, Hadfield, Morgan, Stack, and some others, never bought any land at all; and the amounts claimed by some of the others were very small. The total number of missionaries on the schedule is 36: the total number of acres granted is 66,713. It must be remembered that the families of the grantees were generally large, and that the quality of the land was usually very poor.



CHAPTER XI.

SACRIFICE AND HEALING.

(1850-1856).

We must suffer for the sin of others as for our own; and in this suffering we find a healing and purifying power and element. —Shorthouse.

The land-grant controversy did not, of course, occupy the whole of Bishop Selwyn's time during the years of its painful and weary course. The journeys by land and sea were still carried on, and were even extended in their range. In 1848 the bishop sailed away eastward, out of sight of land, in a small schooner of 21 tons, and after ten days reached the Chathams; in 1849 he even ventured in the same vessel far to the northward among the coral islands of Melanesia. In 1847 he had held a second synod, and there were some cheering occurrences among the Maoris, especially in the south-west district. At Otaki, for instance, the bishop found 300 men, with Rauparaha at their head, engaged in raising the great pillars of a splendid church, around which a town (to be called "Hadfield") was being laid out. At Wanganui the Rev. R. Taylor held remarkable Christmas gatherings each year. From every pa on the banks, a contingent, headed by its native teacher, would come down the river to Wanganui. The thousands who thus assembled were publicly examined for some days as to their Christian conduct, and some hundreds were admitted to the Holy Communion, which had to be celebrated in the open field. At one of these meetings two chiefs volunteered to carry the Gospel to a hostile tribe at Taupo. They went, and were both murdered. One of them, after being disabled, lingered from morning until sunset, and all through these hours of agony was praying for his murderers that they might receive the light.

But, on the whole, a note of sadness makes itself heard throughout the period. Some of the missionaries, like Maunsell, can "watch the clouds pass overhead," and thank God that the storms of war and of false accusation leave them untouched. But none can feel altogether happy amidst the troubles of his brethren. Hadfield is stricken with a mortal illness, and lies helpless for four years in Wellington. Reay dies at Waiapu, and Bolland at Taranaki. This last-named excellent priest was a brother-in-law of the saintly Whytehead, and carried some of the elder man's inspiring influence into the building and furnishing of the stone church at New Plymouth. His death was greatly mourned by his people, as well as by Selwyn, who confessed a special regard for this beautiful portion of his diocese, and now felt that a holy memory had shed upon it a peculiar lustre. Nelson was hardly keeping up to its early rate of progress, and its central mound, instead of a church bore an ugly fort, into which the nervous townsfolk passed over a drawbridge for their Sunday worship. Wellington was still unsatisfactory, its one wooden church serving for a congregation which was "neither so regular nor so good" as might have been wished. Altogether the diocese appeared to the bishop as "an inert mass which I am utterly unable to heave."

The fulcrum upon which the bishop depended in his efforts to heave the mass was St. John's College, and the college at this time was bringing troubles of its own. In 1847 it suffered a terrible visitation of typhoid fever. The bishop's own two little boys were stricken, and a son of Archdeacon W. Williams died. At one time no less than forty cases were calling for the attention of the staff. Through the care of the medical deacon, Dr. Purchas, the epidemic proved less deadly than had at one time seemed inevitable; but its appearance showed the unwisdom of combining a public hospital with an educational establishment. Even without this special plague, the daily routine was too rigorous to be maintained. English parents began to withdraw their sons from an institution in which Maoris so largely predominated; the Maoris could be kept at work only by constant supervision; the deacon schoolmasters, to whom the duty of superintendence was committed, were more eager to begin preaching than to perform thoroughly the humbler duties of the kitchen and the field. Those who were willing to do the humble work found that they had little time or energy left for intellectual pursuits. The ideal was not practical. More and more it became evident that the very continuance of the scheme depended upon the bishop himself. "Everything in the way of system," he wrote, "from the cleaning of a knife upwards, passes in some form or other through my mind." The result was "a turmoil of much serving, which had in it more of Martha than of Mary"; and he has to face the possibility of the failure of plans "conceived, it may be, in pride rather than in faith."

But the communistic ideal still held the bishop's mind, and at one time (1848) there seemed a prospect of its realisation in an unexpected spot—the Chatham Islands. To this lonely field a Lutheran mission had come in 1846, and the bishop sailed thither with great hopes of bringing it into his system. He visited these German folk—five men and three women—and found them indeed "living in that simple and primitive way which is the true type of a missionary establishment. They seem to be as one family, and to have all things in common." At first, it looked as though their chief might consent to receive Holy Orders in the English Church; but the negotiation fell through, and the bishop left the house in sore vexation, being careful to wipe the dust of his feet on the doormat as he passed. However admirable may have been its constitution, this mission was never a success. Many churches were standing in the island at this time, but the native Christians were either Wesleyans, or they looked rather to far-distant Otaki than to the German community at their doors.



Otaki itself was the other spot where a prospect offered. The Maoris there gave to the bishop 500 acres at Porirua for a college, which was to be similar to St. John's. The gift was thankfully received, and hopes were entertained of an establishment from which the deacons would go forth to serve the chapelries around Wellington, as those at St. John's ministered to the outlying suburbs of Auckland. But the attempt was never seriously made. No man could carry on two such undertakings. The bishop's words show the chastened feelings with which he approached the project: "I have selected a site at Porirua, on which I hope, in submission to Divine Providence, that Trinity College may be built; but I have learned this lesson by the losses with which we have been visited, not to presume upon anything that is not yet attained."

Such was the aspect of affairs in the critical year, 1850. Never had the Church been less able to stand a shock, and the action of the C.M.S. might have led to a dangerous schism. For Henry Williams was not the only man who was affected. Two other agents, Clarke and Fairburn, were included in the sentence of dismissal. The mission families were large, and were so bound together by the ties of inter-marriage, that a separation on a large scale seemed possible. But, thanks be to God, no schism occurred. Some of the best of the missionaries, indeed, resolved to leave the country, unless the intolerable imputation of treason and bloodshed could be removed. William Williams ventured to England without leave in order to vindicate the character of the mission, and, especially, that of his own brother. The statement which he laid before the authorities in London (1851) was so full and conclusive that the committee at once passed a resolution absolving the mission from all guilt in connection with the war. The archdeacon therefore resolved to return to his post, although he could not induce the Committee to remove the sentence which still lay upon his brother.

Henry Williams was thus marked out more distinctly than ever as the piacular victim or scapegoat of the mission. And, indeed, his deprivation seemed to have an expiatory effect. Once his dismissal had been made, an improvement began all round. In the first place, the bishop seems to have been genuinely sorry for the harsh action which he himself had done much to bring about. The Society had gone further than he intended, and now his pity was roused. He took no offence when his archdeacon began to hold services in a barn at Pakaraka, nor when (in 1851) he opened a church which his sons had built and endowed with one-tenth of their property. Patience had its right result, and by 1853 the ecclesiastical relations between the two were entirely cordial. Henry Williams was no longer an agent of the C.M.S., but he was still one of the diocesan clergy, and he was still an archdeacon. His own ministrations seemed to gain in power and effectiveness. Stubborn old pagan Maoris came to the services of his new church at Pakaraka. Kawiti, the main upholder of ancient superstitions in the north, was there baptised, and thither the remains of Hone Heke were brought to be deposited near his old master. On one occasion no less than 130 Maoris were baptised by Williams at one time.

With the bishop and the church also, there was a new beginning in a more chastened spirit. Before the end of the same year (1850) the bishop had attended an episcopal meeting in Sydney, where he was able to secure the support of the Australian Church for his infant mission to Melanesia. A few months later he welcomed his old Eton friend, C. J. Abraham, to whose able charge he committed St. John's College. But greater than either of these events, if regard be had to the permanent progress of the Church, was the arrival in New Zealand, during the month of December, of the first instalment of the Canterbury Pilgrims.

The colony which they had come to found was intended to be something different from anything yet seen in New Zealand or in any other part of the British Empire. It was to be a reproduction on a small scale of England itself, as England might be supposed to be if its poverty, its crime, and its sectarian divisions could be eliminated. It was not a missionary undertaking in the ordinary sense of that noble word, nor was it intended as an outlet for revolutionary spirits. It was rather an attempt to get away from revolution, and to return to something of the feudal organisation. The settlement was to have a bishop, but he was to have nothing in common with the occupant of an ordinary "vulgar" colonial see. He was to be a scholarly and well-endowed prelate, with a small and compact diocese in which there should be no dissenters, but where an aristocratic gentry and a loyal peasantry should be watched over by a numerous and well-paid clergy. To attract such a class there must be not only fertile land and easy means of communication, but also good churches and good schools. Churches and schools must therefore be provided, and that on a generous scale. The price of land must be fixed high enough to allow of a large sum being set aside for the endowment of religion and education.

Such were the views of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, in whose fertile brain the scheme originated. But he alone could never have carried it out. The New Zealand Company, with which he was still co-operating, had become discredited, and Wakefield himself did not stand well with Selwyn, whom he had never forgiven for going over (as he expressed it) from the side of the colonists to that of the missionaries. He must therefore secure the help of someone who would be trusted by the class which he wished to attract. The person whom he called to his counsels was John Robert Godley, a man of acute intellect and wide knowledge, of aristocratic connection and of real religious conviction. He was something of a dreamer, but his dreams were always noble ones. By his enthusiasm he was able to enlist the sympathies of several influential men among his old Christ Church (Oxford) friends. The revolutionary year, 1848, helped the project, and in the year following, Godley himself went out to New Zealand to prepare for the emigrants. This was an opportunity for trying to bring about an understanding with Bishop Selwyn. Mr. Gladstone, who was then Colonial Secretary, wrote to Godley: "You are the man, if any, to put colonising operations from this country into harmony with the bishop. If he can be got to look at the New Zealand Company propitiously, I hope all may go well."

One part, then, of Godley's mission was to "capture" the bishop. It was not long before the bishop captured Godley. The natures and ideals of the two men were, in fact, fundamentally akin. Simplicity of life, a self-denying clergy, the spiritual independence of the Church—these were no less dear to the Canterbury leader than they were to the bishop himself. There was all the greater necessity for insistence upon them from the actual circumstances of the colonists. In spite of its aristocratic patrons, the Association was not successful in selling much of its land. There was no money wherewith to build the promised churches and schools nor to pay the clergy. Instead of finding themselves in the receipt of assured stipends, these luckless men were often reduced to something like destitution. The trouble had been partly foreseen, and the Association had tried to find clergy possessed of private means. Some of the clerical immigrants were thus endowed, and they were able to render considerable service. But the system was repugnant to Godley. He found himself confronted with the same problem as had met Selwyn in the north. To the Association it appeared that such a body of clergy "with their possession of private estate, and its necessary occupation and management, would resemble the condition of a large portion of the English clergy as holders of glebe and tythes." To Godley, on the other hand, it appeared that such men would be "primarily settlers and landowners, and but secondarily priests."

This was not the only point on which Godley found himself at variance with his friends in London. In their eagerness to secure clergy of position for their colony, these had actually taken upon themselves to appoint a dean and canons for what was still a part of Selwyn's diocese. This step excited the indignation of the bishop. He was further angered by what he considered an unworthy attempt to interfere with the spiritual functions of the episcopal office. In a letter to Godley he complains bitterly of the "Erastianism" of this action, and of the attempt to make him an accomplice in such proceedings. "It is not my business," he wrote, "to censure the Association, but I must decline all further correspondence with them." This letter was written on May 6, 1851, and it seems to have kindled into flame Godley's smouldering wrath. On the 10th of June he sent off a despatch in which he took up exactly the same ground as the bishop, and resigned his office as a protest against the policy of the Association. His action had the desired effect; the shadowy "dean and canons of Lyttelton" vanished into obscurity, and the Association itself shortly afterwards came to an end. It was composed of many noble and high-minded men; but, as one of them put it, they were an "association of amateurs," and they made mistakes more through ignorance than through design. Wakefield taunted his former ally with the "delirious inconsistency" of his behaviour, but Godley himself felt (like Browning's Rabbi) that

This rage was right i' the main—

though he regretted the vehemence of his language: "That I protested abruptly, rudely, unfeelingly, and in such a way as justly to annoy those whom I ought to have cut my right hand off sooner than give pain to, I shall never cease to deplore; but of the protest itself I cannot repent. And if (as I believe) it had the effect of determining the Association to resign its functions immediately and entirely, I shall always hold that I have by that step conferred a greater benefit on the colony than by any other step that I have ever taken in its concerns."

Though helping thus to break up the government of the new colony, Bishop Selwyn fairly captured the affections of the colonists themselves. He arrived at Lyttelton within a few days of their landing, and held a meeting with the four clergy who had then arrived. He was with them again in February, and again in the following November, when he laid down directions for the management of their ecclesiastical concerns. In the bitter disappointment caused by the repeated failure to secure a bishop of their own, the clergy and laity of Canterbury were all the more ready to welcome the help and advice of one who, like Melchizedek, met them with the bread and wine of human kindness and of divine ministration. They were jealously sensitive of their independence, and of their reputation as being the Church Settlement par excellence, but Selwyn treated them with wise consideration. He removed one inefficient priest to the North Island; he urged the Christchurch clergy to interest themselves in the few Maori villages of Banks Peninsula; he gave his warm approval to the establishment of daily services at Lyttelton; but for the most part he left the direction of affairs (after the departure of Mr. Godley) in the hands of his commissary, Archdeacon Mathias. So charmed were the colonists with the bishop's personality that it became a constant saying among them that "the fractional part we are actually enjoying of Bishop Selwyn is better than a whole new bishop to ourselves."

The limits of this book permit of little beyond a bare mention of the Melanesian Mission, which during the years 1850 to 1853 was being successfully prosecuted. This was Bishop Selwyn's own idea; the islands were virgin soil; and their teeming peoples afforded an abundant outlet for the bishop's missionary zeal, which was rather hampered in New Zealand itself by the presence of the older missionaries. Every voyage resulted in some dark-skinned youths being brought to St. John's College for Christian education with the Maori and English scholars.

Vigorous and successful, however, as were the operations in the distant corners of the field, they were balanced by heavy trials nearer home. In 1851 the bishop lost by an early death his only daughter, and in 1853 a storm of evil swept through his college, and nearly broke the spirit of its founder. Two of his most trusted helpers flagrantly betrayed their trust; their evil influence spread to others, and for a time the whole establishment was dispersed. Indeed the Maori portion never reassembled. One student had stood out with conspicuous faithfulness amidst the general falling away, and this man (Rota Waitoa) the bishop now ordained to the diaconate—the first of his race to receive Holy Orders. On the last day of this "year of sorrow," the bishop and his family left the now partially dismantled college for a visit to England. They never lived in the old home after their return, and this moment may be considered as the end of the communistic experiment which had been so hopefully begun at Waimate in 1843. Like Marsden's seminary at Parramatta, this also had failed, and for the same reasons.

When the bishop arrived in London on May 5th, 1855, he met with a warm reception, and forthwith proceeded to carry out his policy of conciliation. Together with Sir George Grey, he visited the Church Missionary House, and pleaded with the Society for the reinstatement of Archdeacon Henry Williams. The Society had by this time come to realise the error of its action, for many of its supporters throughout the country had been agitating for an enquiry. The Committee were therefore not unwilling to accede to the wishes of the two august visitors, and a letter was soon sent to New Zealand, asking the archdeacon to overlook the past, and to take once more his honoured place on the staff of the mission. Henry Williams accepted the overture—tardy as it was—and from his residence at Pakaraka continued to carry on his old work during the remainder of his life.

But the bishop did more than render justice to one ill-used helper. He won over the Society itself to his side by proposing to establish three new bishoprics in New Zealand, each of which should have a missionary as its first head. The scheme was never fully carried out, as the course of our history will show; but its non-fulfilment was due to circumstances which could not at the moment be foreseen.

In the larger world of English life, also, the bishop made his mark. A course of Advent sermons before the University of Cambridge had a wonderful effect in stimulating the interest of the Church in foreign missions. An appeal for funds for Melanesia resulted in L10,000 being raised within a few weeks, and also in the gift of a new ship for the island work; a letter to a young friend who remembered Selwyn's parting sermon in 1841 secured the noble and saintly Patteson for the same mission; an interview with another of his early friends—Henry Harper, vicar of the Berkshire village of Strathfield Mortimer—won from this humble parish priest the promise to come out to New Zealand for the bishopric of Christchurch, as soon as a duly authorised request should be forthcoming. Altogether, Selwyn was able to feel that his visit had been successful in its objects, and he returned to his diocese in 1855 with new heart for the work, and new means for its effective prosecution.

As soon as possible after his arrival he proceeded to Canterbury, and once more convened a meeting of its principal churchmen. Ecclesiastical affairs had not prospered in this settlement as its promoters had anticipated. Godley had left in 1852, and the diocese had become wearied with the continual disappointment of its hopes of seeing a bishop of its own. The meeting at first urged Selwyn himself to take the position of Bishop of Christchurch, and on his refusing this offer, a unanimous resolution was carried in favour of his friend and nominee, the Rev. Henry John Chitty Harper. By Christmas, 1856, the new bishop had arrived, and was installed on Christmas Day in the little pro-Cathedral of St. Michael, Christchurch, amidst the eager expectation of the community. Selwyn was present at the arrival of his friend, and also at the installation service. At last he was able to hand over some part of his diocese to an episcopal colleague: that colleague, moreover, being a man whom he had known in his early days, and from whom he had received his own first impulse towards the work of the ministry.

At peace with Henry Williams and the other missionaries; at peace with the Church Missionary Society; at peace with the Canterbury colonists, and secure in the loyal friendship of their bishop; he could now press forward with a project which had long occupied his thoughts, viz., the binding together of the varied elements of the Church into one united and organised whole.

NOTE.—As throwing light upon the proposed bishoprics mentioned in this chapter, and also as showing the thoughts which were at this time passing through Bishop Selwyn's mind, it may be well to quote the following passage from a letter written by him in England to his friend the Rev. E. Coleridge (Aug. 14, 1854):

"If the organisation of the New Zealand Church had been a little more advanced towards completion, I should gladly have availed myself of the consent already obtained to the appointment of the Venerable Archdeacon Abraham to succeed me in the See of Auckland; the archdeaconries of Wellington, Waiapu, and Tauranga being, as it is proposed, erected into bishoprics, and placed under the episcopal care of the present Archdeacons Hadfield, W. Williams, and Brown. Knowing the difficulties which are thought to stand in the way of the creation of missionary bishoprics, I should then have gladly undertaken the charge of Melanesia as my own diocese, retaining only such an interest in New Zealand as might connect me still with the councils of its Church, and give me a central home and resting-place among my own countrymen."

The boldness and grandeur of this scheme have hardly been sufficiently realised. An ecclesiastical province divided into small dioceses, with missionaries at their head, and its primate spending his time in the foreign mission field: what an object lesson to the whole Church New Zealand would have presented!



CHAPTER XII.

ORGANISATION AND PROGRESS.

(1850-1859).

The inward life must not be separated in practice from the external unity of the body of Christ. The law of unity is the essence of its strength, its purity, and its holiness. —Bishop Selwyn.

"The urgent necessity of mutual communion for preservation of our unity ... maketh it requisite that the Church of God here on earth have her laws." So wrote the judicious Hooker in that immortal work which came to Bishop Selwyn as a legacy from his great predecessor, Samuel Marsden. The bishop himself was well aware of this necessity. We have seen how he tried to bind the missionaries to himself by calling them together in synods in 1844 and in 1847. The canons which were passed by these gatherings were doubtless of some importance, but their chief value lay in the spirit of unity which they were calculated to evoke.

Legitimate and natural, however, as such gatherings must seem to us, they threw the Committee of the Church Missionary Society into "transports of alarm." In England the synodical action of the Church had been so long silenced, that any attempt to revive it was regarded as an act of priestly assumption, and an affront to the supremacy of the royal power. But Selwyn's action was only a little in advance of the time. In all the colonies, men were feeling after some form of church government by which laws could be made and unity preserved. The bishops were sent out from the mother Church with Royal Letters Patent, which seemed to confer upon their holders almost absolute power, but the colonies possessed no machinery by which this power could be enforced; and it was evident that some method must be devised by which the different members of the Church could be brought together, and enabled to make laws for its governance and well-being.

The method followed by Bishop Selwyn was that which he derived from the primitive Church. The bishop and his clergy formed a "synod" which could enact "canons" for the regulation of the faithful. But something more was evidently needed; and this, too, seemed to spring into existence in the memorable year 1850, which marked in so many ways the turn of the tide in the New Zealand Church.

The self-same month which witnessed the departure of Henry Williams from Paihia, beheld his great antagonist, Sir George Grey, laid upon a bed of sickness at New Plymouth. There is no absolute proof that the archdeacon's case was consciously before the governor's mind, though it is hard to think that it was not. But it is certain that his thoughts were drawn at this juncture to the question of the government and unity of the Church. As Bishop Selwyn put it long afterwards: "There was something more touching in the origin of that constitution than persons are generally aware of. The first draft of the present constitution was drawn by Sir George Grey on a sick bed at Taranaki; and it was the fruit of those feelings which come upon the mind in sickness, when a man sets aside thoughts of government and the cares of this world, and knows, as a Christian man, that he has something better to think of than the perishable things of this life. His Excellency has produced what has been of great spiritual benefit to the Church in this country."

The chief point about the governor's scheme was the inclusion of the laity in the government of the Church. Of course this was not an altogether original feature. It had already been adopted by the American branch of the Anglican communion. During the years that followed the promulgation of Grey's scheme, American theological halls were echoing to such sentiments as this: "The power of self-government is advocated over all the Colonial Churches of the British Empire. Why is it that the Churches in New Zealand and New South Wales are demanding synodical action and lay representation? It is our influence and our example." The American origin of the Grey document is clearly shown by the term "Convention," which was used to describe the proposed legislative body. The bishops were to sit apart in one house; clerical and lay representatives were to sit together, but to vote separately, in another. The provisions of the document were simply but clearly drawn, and they foreshadow in most points the completed constitution of 1857. One matter of detail was allowed to creep into the fundamental provisions: church pews might be appropriated, but not charged for!

When Selwyn received this draft, he at once expressed his willingness to adopt it if it should be supported by a considerable number of churchpeople. The governor therefore set himself to secure signatures to a letter urging its acceptance upon the bishop. In this he succeeded beyond his expectations. In Auckland the letter was signed by "the General, the Chief Justice, the principal military officers, by all the clergy in the neighbourhood, by all the principal merchants who are members of our Church, and by a large number of other persons." The total, in fact, reached 94; and the column is headed by the simple signatures, "G. Grey," and "Wm. Martin." A good body of signatures was appended from Taranaki, Wanganui, and Nelson; none from Wellington or the eastern district. The names of the brothers Williams, of course, do not appear, but some of the other missionaries were found willing to sign—Kissling, Maunsell, Morgan, Ashwell, and Taylor.

With this document the bishop sailed for Sydney, to attend the meeting of bishops already referred to. The Australian prelates were entirely in favour of synodical action, but they were not prepared to follow the Grey scheme in its entirety. Their plan was for bishop and clergy to constitute a "synod" (as in ancient times), but that lay representatives should at the same time hold a "convention," which should have the right of veto on certain of the decisions of the "synod." As the name "G. A. New Zealand" appears among the list of signatories, it may be presumed that he concurred in this rather clumsy scheme; but in the following year he acted in the opposite direction by inviting Mr. Godley and another layman to sit in conference with the clergy of the diocese of Christchurch.

The points of difference between the rival schemes do not appear in the next act. In 1852 the bishop put forth a pastoral letter, in which he called the attention of the churchmen of New Zealand to the absolute necessity for providing some church authority. The colony had just received its civil constitution: the Church must have one too. As to whether laymen should sit with the clergy or not, the bishop leaves the matter open. But he adopts a proviso upon which both Sir George Grey and the Australian bishops had insisted, viz., that whatever convention or synod might be set up, it should have no power to alter the doctrine and ritual of the Church of England, or the Authorised Version of the Bible.

No point in the final constitution of the New Zealand Church has been more criticised than this. What was the precise object of its insertion? Of course, the natural conservatism of the churchly mind would account for much, but not for all. What national church ever before tied its own hands in this deliberate way? But was the Church of New Zealand to be a national church? That was exactly the point which had chief influence with the statesmen and lawyers to whom the constitution is mainly due. To them the Royal Supremacy stood first. Nothing must be done which could in any way infringe upon the prerogatives of the Crown. Only in the possible case of a separation of Church and State in England, or in the case of a political separation of New Zealand from the Mother Country, could there be any liberty in these all-important points. Then the liberty might be absolute and complete.

But there was one man in New Zealand who saw farther than the rest. Godley would have none of the Grey scheme, and he persuaded his fellow churchmen of Canterbury to put forth a protest against it. Any plan for the government of the Church should emanate (they argued) from the episcopate, and should be dutifully accepted by the faithful. They themselves would therefore refrain from any detailed suggestions, but they strongly maintained the right of even the infant Church of New Zealand to deal, if necessary, with questions of doctrine and ritual, and even of the translation of the Scriptures. Cordially as they were attached to their Prayer Book and to their Bible, they yet could foresee a time when occasion might arise for change.

What Selwyn's own feeling on this matter might be, it is not easy to discover. But as, in their conversations at Lyttelton, he and Mr. Godley always found themselves in agreement, it seems not unlikely that on this point also the minds of the two men were in accord. But the bishop could not do as he would in this as in many other matters. The Committee of the C.M.S. had already taken alarm at a step which seemed likely to separate the colonial Church from that of the Mother Country, and they sent out instructions to their missionaries forbidding them to take part in the proposed convention.[10] This was one of the reasons which prompted the visit of the bishop to England in 1854. Before he set sail, however, he had called meetings in all the different centres of population; at these meetings he had laid his scheme before the Church, and he had carefully codified the criticisms which were offered. In most localities the draft was accepted as it stood. Auckland seems to have devised the idea of uniting bishop, clergy, and laity in one chamber. Christchurch had lost its man of insight through Godley's departure, and it now swung round into a merely conservative position. It joined with the rest of the settlements in insisting upon the principle of the Grey scheme, by which the Prayer Book and Authorised Version of the Bible were declared to be outside the powers of any New Zealand synod.

[10] Even as late as the year 1866 the Secretary of the C.M.S. (the Rev. Henry Venn) could write out to New Zealand: "If all the colonial churches are to be made free, the Church of England would be ruined as a missionary church. The people of England would never send out missionaries to be under Free Bishops."

The disappearance of Godley, with his visions of independence, made the task of the bishop more easy when he confronted the Committee of the Church Missionary Society. He was able to assure these cautious men as to the inoffensive character of his proposals. "The Committee now understood," writes their historian, Dr. Eugene Stock, "that no separation from the Church of England was intended; that the Queen's supremacy was recognised; that questions of doctrine and ritual would be excluded from the purview of the synods; and that the interests of the Maori Christians would be cared for." They accordingly withdrew their former instructions, and now signified their approval of the missionaries joining with the bishop in the proposed organisation of the Church.

This concession formed the answer of the Committee to Selwyn's proposal to found the missionary bishoprics mentioned in the last chapter, and it removed one of the most formidable obstacles in the way of a constitution. Another obstacle, hardly less formidable, disappeared of itself during the year after the bishop's return. This was the difficulty of obtaining State sanction for the proposed authority. Many attempts had been made by Mr. Gladstone and others to procure such sanction from the Imperial Parliament; but in 1856 the English legal authorities discovered, what seems so obvious now, that no State authorisation would be needed if the system could be based simply on voluntary compact. If any colonial Church wished to make rules for its own government, it was quite at liberty to do so, provided that these rules were held to apply only to such persons as were willing to be bound by them. Thus then it happened that, as the moral and personal obstacles were removed by patience and Christian wisdom, the legal ones fell of themselves, and now there remained no hindrance to the calling of a conference for the final settlement of the matter.



The conference met on May 14, 1857, in the little stone chapel of St. Stephen, near the residence of Sir William Martin, at Auckland. The occasion was felt to be one of extreme importance. Never before had the different elements of which the Church was composed been brought face to face together. Christchurch sent its new bishop and the Rev. J. Wilson. Archdeacon Abraham stood for the Selwyn type of clergy. Sir William Martin's thoughtful face was absent, but his views would be voiced by his friend Mr. Swainson, the former Attorney-General. Now that the Church was to be separated from the State, and organised on a voluntary basis, it is somewhat surprising to find the government of the day so strongly represented. The Premier (Stafford), the Attorney-General (Whitaker), and Mr. H. J. Tancred, the Postmaster-General, are all there. To balance these new men, we see the missionaries Maunsell, Brown, and Kissling. But still something is needed. Where are the leaders of former days? A sense of satisfaction is experienced when at last the brothers Williams enter together and take their seats. "All were very kind," wrote Archdeacon Henry, "and we were much pleased with the benevolent countenance of the Bishop of Christchurch."

The sittings of the conference lasted for five weeks. The long preliminary discussions had cleared up most of the points in advance: there was no question as to the desirableness of laymen taking an equal part with bishops and clergy in the proposed synods, nor was there any hesitation in pronouncing unalterable the provision which exempted the formularies of the Church and the Authorised Version of the Bible from synodical handling. But there were two points on which opinions differed widely. Canterbury insisted on diocesan independence, and the power of managing its own property. This claim was not thoroughly dealt with by the conference, and was destined to give trouble in the future. The real struggle lay between the group of Auckland laymen and the president, on the qualification to be required of those who should represent the laity in synods, and of those who should select them by their votes.

Two views were held, then as now, on this important matter. One side would limit the Church to such as are in full communion with her, and are actively interested in her welfare. The other would embrace within her fold as many as possible, even if their churchmanship and their Christianity should be but nominal. Bishop Selwyn took the former view, and in this attitude he would doubtless be supported by the missionary representatives, who were accustomed to a strict discipline in the Maori Church. Canterbury also stood on the same side. Godley himself had been its ardent advocate, and on this point at least his principles were not abandoned after his departure. They had even been accentuated by the Canterbury declaration of 1853, in which it was urged that the ecclesiastical franchise should be confined to persons who should not only declare themselves communicants of the Church, but should also disavow membership in any other religious denomination. This stringent requirement probably arose from an experience which Archdeacon Mathias mentions in a letter to Lord Lyttelton. Many had come out at the Association's expense as "Church of England" members, who yet turned out to be "professed dissenters," and some of them "dissenting preachers." The religious unity of the settlement was thus rendered impossible, and one of the aims of its founders defeated at the outset.

On this point therefore—a point of far more importance to the Church than the property question, which attracted the greater attention at the time—the bishop would be supported by the missionary clergy and by the Canterbury representatives. But he met with firm resistance from the Auckland laymen. These were men of "a fine conservative temperament," and they would agree to no proposal which should make the Church in New Zealand less comprehensive than the State-governed Church of the Mother Country. Their view is thus expressed by Carleton: The bishop "would have made the Church of England a close borough, to which formal admittance under rules prescribed would be required; the laymen, on the other hand, held that every baptised Englishman enjoyed church membership as a matter of course and right, until he should think fit to declare dissent."

Both of these opposing views have much to say for themselves; for both of them great names may be quoted in support. At the Auckland Conference, as throughout the whole after-history of our Church, it was the lay (or Arnoldian) view that triumphed: "The bishop, seeing no eagerness on the part of the laity, but, on the contrary, much quiet and thoughtful criticism, gave way upon every main point of difference, gracefully enough. Failure of cherished schemes had changed him much. But he was bent upon carrying something, and by gentle management he did. A scheme of fair working promise, with little to take exception to, was the result."

The document which was solemnly put forth on June 13th, 1857, as the "CONSTITUTION for associating together, as a Branch of the United Church of England and Ireland, the members of the said Church in the Colony of New Zealand," carried at its foot seventeen signatures, which are not the least interesting part of the whole. To those who follow the history of the Church, both before and after this promulgation of her authoritative act of government, what thoughts are suggested by the first four names of the list: "G. A. New Zealand," "H. J. C. Christchurch," "Henry Williams," "William Williams"! What controversies past and future, what agonies of mind, what silent heroism, what spiritual conquests, what believing prayer!

A word must be said, however, on the legal aspect of this constitution. As the early Christian congregations in the Roman Empire sometimes found it advisable to register themselves as burial clubs, since only thus could they obtain any legal status, so, in order to obtain a recognised position in the eyes of the law, the Church in New Zealand found it necessary to appear simply as a holder of trust property. Bishop Selwyn had prepared for this move by procuring the passing of an Act by the Legislative Assembly in 1856, which enabled any body of trustees to be incorporated in proper form. In 1858 the Church of New Zealand was formally brought under this enactment. This fact accounts for the rather conspicuous place which the property element holds in the constitution document. It was the one legal basis which was possible in the circumstances of the case. The endowments of the Church are held on condition of the observance of the provisions of the constitution by those who enjoy any of the proceeds of that property. In the eye of the law, the Church of this Dominion stands on precisely the same footing as any other body for which any property is held in trust.

Now that the Church had been set upon her feet (to use Mr. Gladstone's words to Godley), after the stilts of government support had been knocked away, it remained to be seen how she would walk. The first duty was to carry out the concordat which Selwyn had made with the C.M.S., and to found the missionary bishoprics. The scheme had been disallowed in 1854 by the Colonial Office, but now the way was open. The proposed diocese of Tauranga, indeed, was never pushed forward, but the others were soon set on foot. The new diocese of Wellington was offered to Archdeacon Hadfield, but his continued ill-health prevented his acceptance. The bishop therefore proposed the name of his talented and cultured friend, Archdeacon Abraham. The proposal was at once accepted by the Wellington churchmen, and the archdeacon proceeded to England for his consecration. Nelson also claimed a bishop of its own, and for this difficult post Selwyn recommended his friend Edmund Hobhouse, then Vicar of St. Peter-in-the-East at Oxford. This devoted man was also a fellow of Merton College in the University, and he had narrowly missed being appointed to the see of Christchurch two years before. With great physical strength, which enabled him to walk 30 or 40 miles a day, Hobhouse was yet a constant sufferer from headache, but his deep piety and his solid learning well qualified him for the episcopal office. The two bishops-elect were consecrated together (still under Letters Patent) on Michaelmas Day, 1858, and arrived in New Zealand during the first General Synod, which met under the new constitution in the city of Wellington in the month of March, 1859.

The most interesting feature of this gathering was the inauguration of a fifth bishopric—that of Waiapu. In this case the bishop's original plan was carried out in its exactitude, for no one but the "episcopally-minded" William Williams could well be thought of for such a post. The Letters Patent were brought out from England by Bishop Abraham, and the consecration was held, during the course of the session, in the little St. Paul's Church, on Sunday, April 3.[11] A unique feature of the service arose from the fact that the four consecrating bishops were all younger than the veteran upon whom they laid their hands. The new bishop was "one whose age and experience," said Selwyn in his opening address, "has often made me feel ashamed that I should have been preferred before him, and to whom I have long wished to be allowed to make this reparation, by dividing with him the duties and responsibilities of my office." "It was a most delightful day," he afterwards wrote, "and one that I little expected to see when I first came to New Zealand. All seemed to be so thoroughly happy and satisfied with the appointment of the new bishops, as much as if each settlement had chosen its own bishop from personal knowledge.... I shall now go back to Auckland light in heart ... and I hope to be enabled by God's blessing to prosecute the mission work with more vigour in consequence of the cutting off of the southern portions of New Zealand."

[11] It is a matter for regret that the scene of this first episcopal consecration in New Zealand can no longer be pointed out. The church stood, opposite the Museum, on government land which now forms part of the grounds surrounding the Parliament buildings. But portions of the structure were removed to the Bolton-street cemetery, and still form part of the mortuary chapel there.

This day of happiness marks the end of a distinct epoch in our history. The decade which began in 1850 amidst confusion and disunion, had brought year by year some healing strengthening power, until it closed with a united Church, an increased clergy, and a multiplied episcopate.

Not a day too soon was the constitutional fabric finished. Already the clouds were gathering which heralded the coming storm.



CHAPTER XIII.

TROUBLE AND ANGUISH.

(1859-1862).

Cheerful, with friends, we set forth: Then, on the height, comes the storm! —M. Arnold.

The period which begins with the year 1860 presents an aspect so desolate that it is hard at first to find a single cheering feature. The prospect which seemed so bright in 1859 is quickly obscured by mist and storm. Guiding-posts are hard to find; the faces of friends seem hostile in the gloom; voices of appeal sound dim and confused amidst the moan of the tempest.

How little did Selwyn think on that autumn day in 1859 when, from his presidential chair, he looked in gladness of heart upon his four new bishops, that at the same hour a bolt was being forged by the Government in Auckland which would shatter the most hopeful of his plans! How little could he expect that, of the bishops before him, one (Williams) would be driven from his home, and another (Hobhouse) harried from his diocese; or that he himself would be mobbed and insulted, turned back on roads which he had been accustomed to travel, fired at by men who had hitherto listened obediently to his words! How little could he foresee the ruined churches, the abandoned missions, the apostacy of the tribes, or the closing of large tracts of country against himself and his clergy! How incredible would have seemed the intelligence that amongst his flock a heresy would arise which should demand the life of a Christian minister as an acceptable sacrifice!

Yet, though at first everything looks uniformly dark and hopeless, the eye comes in time to form a truer picture. Shapes of strange magnificence make themselves dimly visible; noble characters appear all the grander for the strain through which they pass; principles and ideals through stern conflict are tested and displayed. Half a century has well-nigh passed since the events took place; the chief actors have disappeared from the earthly scene; a calmer and more discriminating treatment ought now to be possible than could be secured amidst the passions of racial and political strife.



At first it seemed as though the new constitution were destined to work smoothly. The organisation and first meeting of the General Synod was followed up by the calling together of the clergy and laity of the various dioceses in local synods—each under the presidency of its bishop. In 1861 Selwyn took advantage of the newly-acquired ecclesiastical freedom to consecrate John Coleridge Patteson to the missionary bishopric of Melanesia; and this saintly man went forth to the ten years of faithful work which were to be brought to a sudden close by his martyrdom in 1871. At the end of the same year (1861) Bishop Williams called together a synod of the diocese of Waiapu, at which nearly all the members belonged to the native race, and all the proceedings were conducted in the native tongue. An opportunity was thus afforded for that sagacity in counsel and that eloquence of speech for which the Maori race was famed.

But the opportunity came too late. Maori Christianity had been left so long in an unorganised and immature condition that it had begun to develop itself on lines of its own. The march of events had brought about a situation which was only partially foreseen, and, even if foreseen, could hardly perhaps have been prevented. The subject is one of peculiar difficulty, but as it has a direct bearing on problems of to-day, an attempt must be made to elucidate its main features.

The organisation of the New Zealand Church seemed to leave no place for the rule of the Church Missionary Society. Selwyn wished it to resign its lands and its agents immediately into the hands of the general synod. The Society was not quite ready to do this, but it began to withdraw in a gradual way. It sent out few, if any, fresh missionaries to take the places of those who had died or retired, and it began to curtail its monetary grants. It had spent (according to Mr. Swainson's estimate) some quarter of a million pounds on New Zealand: it might well ask, Had not the time arrived for its funds to be employed elsewhere?

But if the white missionaries were to be allowed gradually to depart, their places must be taken by natives of the country. Year after year the Society was urgent in asking for the ordination of Maoris, not only to the diaconate but also to the priesthood, in order that the Maori Christians might have an opportunity of receiving the Holy Communion at least once a quarter. But this the bishop would not do. He was favourable to such a policy in the abstract, but he and the missionaries themselves were so much impressed with the educational and social deficiencies of even the best of the Maori converts, that they shrank from their admission to Holy Orders. Selwyn had hoped that St. John's College would have supplied him with men of higher education and more civilised habits, but his expectations had been dashed by the dispersion of 1853, and his confidence was slow to spring again.

On his return from England, he had opened a theological college for Maoris at Parnell, where the married students might live in separate cottages, and where they might have the benefit of the freely-given instructions of Sir William Martin. But none of the candidates were considered fit for Holy Orders, and up to 1860 the Bishop had ordained but one deacon beside Rota Waitoa. If it had not been for another small college which was begun by the Rev. W. L. Williams at Waerenga-a-hika, and which enabled Bishop Williams, soon after his consecration, to ordain six Maoris to the diaconate, the number of native clergy at the opening of this period would have been small indeed.

The necessity for more ordinations was the chief reason why the Church Missionary Society so earnestly advocated an increase of bishops. The establishment of the diocese of Waiapu certainly justified their hope to a large extent, for not only did Bishop Williams admit a number of Maoris to the ministry, but his example encouraged Selwyn himself to go forward more boldly. His reluctance was due partly to sad experience, partly to his own high ideals; and it would seem to afford another instance of the truth which his career so often exemplified, "The best is the enemy of the good." Some of the men who were to play leading parts in the coming time were among those whom his strictness rejected.

Chief among these was that Tamihana Tarapipipi who appeared before us in an earlier chapter. From the light-hearted youthfulness of the "bonnet" episode, this young son of the great Waharoa had passed into a grave and thoughtful manhood. After his father's death, his ability had led to his being elected chief instead of his elder brother. Together with a strong desire for knowledge there was a certain dourness in Tamihana's nature, and when he applied for admission to St. John's College, a question is said to have arisen about smoking. The rules of the institution prohibited this pleasant vice, and Tamihana would not give up his pipe. Strange to think of the tremendous consequences which flowed from that simple refusal!

Thrown back upon himself, and seeing no teacher but Archdeacon Brown, who visited Matamata from time to time, the young thinker formed his ideals alone. Experience soon taught him the necessity of law. Loose-living and dishonest pakehas brought disease and trouble among his people, while the old authority of the chiefs was weakening day by day. The Old Testament offered laws which seemed framed for his own case, and, in studying his Bible, Tamihana was struck with the important part which was played by the nationalism of the Chosen People. One verse in particular took his attention: "Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose; one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother."—(Deut. xvii. 15.) Here, surely, was divine sanction for the principle of nationalism and of kingship: might not the cure for the woes of his race be found in a unified State under an elected king of their own blood?

The ideas which were thus working in the young chief's mind were forced into active expression by the treatment he received from those in authority. Early in 1857 he visited Auckland, with the object of making an appeal to the governor for good government among the Maoris. Instead of a welcome, he received a snub from the high officials, who scornfully advised him to go home and help himself. This rebuff drove him to action. Sending messages far and wide, he convened a great assembly of the inland tribes at Rangiaohia in the Waikato. The concourse afterwards moved to Ihumatao on the shores of the Manukau, and within a few miles of Auckland, where the conference was at that very time drafting the church constitution. The one gathering consisted of highly educated clergy and lawyers, the other of unlettered or self-taught Maoris; but the object of both gatherings was the same, and so were the principles which both professed. A Christian law was the object of them both. Tamihana would not allow himself to be put forward as king: he proposed for that honour the aged Waikato chief, Te Wherowhero or Potatau; but he, as king-maker, was the life and soul of the movement. The kingship thus set up was a sorry enough thing in outward appearance, but its flag bore upon it the Cross of the Redeemer; its inauguration at Ngaruawahia (in 1858) was accompanied with prayers and hymns; its object was to bar out intoxicating liquors from the inland tribes, and to keep them from unwholesome contact with the white man and his ways. As Marsden had tried to found a Christian community at Rangihoua, Selwyn at St. John's, and Godley in Canterbury, so Tamihana attempted to set up a Christian State in the interior of the North Island.

It is sad to think that he did not meet with more sympathy from the heads of Church and State. "The members of the Government in Auckland," wrote Sir John Gorst, "did not like Te Waharoa [Tamihana]. Few Europeans knew him personally, and it was the fashion to believe him insincere." At a preliminary meeting at Taupo, the Rev. T. Grace did indeed join in the proceedings, but the colonial government soon moved the governor to petition the C.M.S. for the missionary's removal. Bishop Selwyn left the Taurarua Conference to oppose the king movement at Ihumatao. The one man who saw it in a favourable light was Sir William Martin. To him it was "not an enemy to be crushed, but a god-send to be welcomed." The governor, Colonel Gore-Browne, was weak; but he felt that if he could have Sir William Martin and Bishop Selwyn on his council for native affairs, he might be able to walk uprightly. His proposal, however, was declared "inadmissible," and the well-meaning governor was soon hurried into a policy from which he at first had shrunk.

The beginning of the year 1860 found the king movement still friendly to the British rule. Its influence did not extend much beyond the Waikato country, and it was discountenanced by the tribes who lived under the influence of Henry Williams in the north, William Williams in the east, and of Hadfield and Taylor in the south-west. Hadfield's staunch ally, Wiremu Kingi te Rangitaake, had, in 1848, carried his tribe back to Taranaki, where his ancestral possessions lay, and he too kept aloof from the movement. This chief, upon whom was to turn the future course of events, still stood forth as a champion of the white man; and to him New Plymouth was indebted in 1851, as Wellington had been in 1843 and 1846, for preservation from hostile attack.

Yet this was the man whom the Government now drove into opposition and rebellion. What were his crimes that he should be so treated? In the first place he and his tribe owned the beautiful Waitara lands which lay close to New Plymouth, and a Naboth is always open to the old charge, "Thou didst blaspheme God and the king." Governor Gore-Browne, upon whom lay the direct responsibility in native matters, was an honourable man and the brother of a highly-respected English bishop; but, Ahab-like, he was brought to regard Te Rangitaake as a "rebel" and "an infamous character." And who was the Jezebel in this case? The Government of the day had much to do with the governor's decision, yet the Stafford ministry is looked upon as the ablest and not the least upright that has occupied the treasury benches in New Zealand. These ministers also (it is said) had been misled. By whom? The blame is laid upon the land commissioner, Mr. Parris, whose later reports were certainly very misleading. Yet Parris began with a desire to be fair to all parties. He also succumbed to outside pressure. If we enquire further, we come upon the ugly serpent of sectarian jealousy. Taranaki was in the Wesleyan sphere of influence: Te Rangitaake was a churchman. For the crime of belonging to the Church of England he incurred the violent enmity of a certain Wesleyan minister, who had never forgiven Bishop Selwyn for refusing to allow him to sign a church burial register. Yet this minister thought himself in the right, and could at least point to a murder which had been committed, not by Rangitaake himself, but by another Maori with whom this chief had formed an alliance. Who can judge in such a case, especially when the tangled skein is still further complicated by the action of an astute Maori whose affections had been wounded by a damsel who deserted him in order to become the daughter-in-law of Te Rangitaake? But it is no pleasant thought that the decision to seize the Waitara was made by the Government in Auckland during the very days when the first General Synod was sitting in Wellington, and that amongst the men who thus forced on an unjust and unholy war were at least two who had sat in the Taurarua Conference and had helped to shape the constitution of the Church.

The war thus begun in injustice and ingratitude, was marked by what seemed a contemptuous defiance of religion. Wiremu Kingi was slow to take up arms, and when the surveyors appeared upon the disputed land he merely sent women to drive them off. The governor summoned Kingi to come to him at New Plymouth, offering him a safe-conduct for three days. The chief replied that he was afraid to trust himself among the soldiers, and proposed a meeting on safer ground. No answer was vouchsafed to him; the three days expired on Saturday night, March 3, 1860, and on Sunday the governor began the war. Two of Te Rangitaake's pas were taken by the troops, and his place of worship burnt to the ground.

The news of the aggression spread quickly through the island. Selwyn and Hadfield sent protests and petitions to the Government and to the Queen. The war had been hurried on with such secrecy that the bishop had "heard nothing of the matter till the order was given for the troops to embark." Up to the time when the soldiers were sent to Taranaki, he was "in the most friendly communication with the Governor and his ministers." But now, by these very men, his appeals for an enquiry were spurned, and he was peremptorily forbidden to interfere between the Government and the native race.

Others beside bishop and missionaries were stirred with indignation. "The affair at Taranaki," wrote the bishop, "was announced by the government, and looked upon by the natives, as the beginning of a new policy for the whole of New Zealand." As such it was received by the king-maker in the north. Hitherto there had been little sympathy between himself and the Taranaki chief. Now they began to draw together. Patriotism and religion formed a continually strengthening bond. "It was this that disquieted the heart of Te Rangitaake," wrote Tamihana, "his church being burnt with fire." His own heart was disquieted also; and though he would not yet adopt Rangitaake's cause, he could not prevent some of the hot-heads of his tribe from going south to join in the Taranaki war. His own flag at Ngaruawahia became the rallying point for the disaffection which was now spreading through the land. Deputations from distant tribes were received in state by the Maori King; allegiance was tendered by many of those who had hitherto held aloof; lands were presented, and tribute pledged.

Amid the growing excitement, Tamihana restrained the natural feelings of his heart. "Let us not take up an unrighteous cause," he urged; "let us search out the merits of the case, that if we die, we die in a righteous cause." The kingdom was not set up for war but for peace; and the aged Potatau, who died in June, repeated with almost his last breath its watchwords, "RELIGION, LOVE, AND LAW."

The war in Taranaki lasted until June, 1861, when, through Tamihana's efforts, a kind of peace was arrived at. One missionary, at least, played an important part in the operations. The intrepid Wilson was stirred at the news that the Maoris, after one of their victories, had given no quarter to the prisoners. He therefore set out for Taranaki, and went amongst the Maori camps, urging the observance of the laws of civilised warfare. His life was often in extreme danger, but the white bands which he always wore usually secured the respect of friend and foe. After much discouragement, he succeeded in gaining the consent of the Waikatos to spare the wounded, to exchange prisoners, and to tend the sick. His old naval training gave him acceptance with the Imperial forces, and he did much to promote a better feeling on both sides.



Outside the war area, some of the tribes who were most amenable to missionary influence were brought together by the governor in July, 1860, and held a great meeting in the grounds of the Melanesian Mission headquarters at Kohimarama, near Auckland. After long discussion they expressed their determination not to join in the king movement, though they openly questioned the justice of the war. But the king-maker held to his scheme. With a profound philosophy which has hardly yet been mastered by European statesmen, he pointed to the actual existence of different and differing nations in the world. "The only bond," he said, "is Christ." Why should the Maori lose his nationality? Why should not he in his own way co-operate with the pakeha in upholding the law of the one Christ? "This upright stick," he said, "is the governor; this one is the king; this horizontal one which I lay across the other two is the law of God and of the queen; this circle which I draw round the whole is the authority of the queen which guards us all."

Nor did his actions fall below his words. Justice was administered with strict impartiality, and Tamihana himself founded a boarding-school, which contained at one time upwards of a hundred children. In order to provide for the maintenance of these scholars, he and his sons carried on a farm at Peria. Wilson relates how, when he went on a peace-making mission to this place, and was forced to spend the cold night amongst Maoris who showed no readiness to receive his message, a hand was laid upon him in the dim dawn, and the voice of the king-maker said, "You will perish in this place. Arise, come down and stay with me." After breakfast, he found Tamihana at his plough: "The day was wet; he was soaked with rain and bedaubed with mud. The great man—for such he really is—was dressed in a blue serge shirt and corduroy trousers, without hat, and toiling like a peasant." The missionary was then taken to the school, where this Maori Tolstoi gave the children some practical problems in arithmetic, and a dictation lesson from his favourite Book of Deuteronomy.

The latter part of 1861 saw a temporary improvement in the situation. War was for the time suspended. The Stafford ministry were driven from office by the vote of one of their friends, who felt the injustice of their war policy, and—most important of all—the weak governor was removed, and Sir George Grey sent back to take his place. Past suffering did not prevent Henry Williams and his friends from welcoming one who, with all his faults, was a real lover of the native race; and the governor soon showed that he had not forgotten the mistakes he had formerly made. One of his first acts was to go off by himself to Otaki, and there to spend a day or two with Hadfield—son-in-law to Henry Williams. "Of course," writes the latter, "they were agreed upon all points." Somewhat later he called upon the patriarch himself at Pakaraka, and consulted with him as to the best means of bringing peace to the land. With generous trustfulness Henry Williams wrote, "I have every confidence in Sir George, but he is in want of men to carry out his views."

The period from October, 1861, to May, 1863, is thus interesting, as being the last occasion in our history when it can be said that the voice of the Church was really effective in guiding the policy of the country. The indignant protests of Selwyn, Hadfield, and Martin had taken effect; an enquiry into the Waitara case proved the illegality of the Government's action. The new governor tried to establish a system of local self-government among the Maoris, and to atone for the misdeeds of the past. Henry Williams described the situation with characteristic bluntness: "Of the feeling of the old ministry and their partisans, there was no mistake: 'Hang the missionaries and bishops for having caused the rebellion.' These persons are now so still and quiet you may hear a pin drop, even in the bush.... Nothing is now heard but 'the dear Maoris; who would hurt a hair of their heads?'"

The brief period of peace in the north brought troubles of its own to Bishop Selwyn and the Church. The second General Synod was summoned to meet at Nelson in February, 1862. On the day appointed for the opening of the assembly there were not enough members to form a quorum. For several days this deficiency continued, and the synod could not be properly constituted. The members occupied themselves with passing resolutions which were validated at the end of the period, when at last a quorum was secured.

The chief reason for the smallness of this gathering was the attitude of the diocese of Christchurch. This important part of the Church was in a state of rebellion against the constitution. None of its principal clergy had attended the synod of 1859; no representative but the bishop came to that of 1862. Its grievances were of various kinds: it found fault with the "property" element, and the "mutual compact" idea, and the unalterable fundamentals, and all the other features upon which the Auckland laity had insisted. It seemed as though the spirit of Godley had returned in all its trenchant and uncompromising churchmanship. But the most definite of all the Canterbury grievances arose from the claim of the General Synod to own and administer all the church property in the country. Bishop Selwyn had handed over to the first synod more than seventy trust properties, which had been hitherto vested in himself as corporation sole: he expected the diocese of Christchurch to do the same. But this the Canterbury churchmen would never do. Rather than do it, they resolved to secede from the Church of New Zealand, and to reconstitute themselves on a diocesan basis. They appealed to the primate to "throw over" the constitution altogether, and to start afresh on what they considered more churchlike principles.

Such was the ecclesiastical situation for the next three years—1862 to 1865. The position was serious, and there was just the possibility of a schism. But it was hardly more than a possibility. Selwyn seems not to have disquieted himself very greatly about the matter. For there was one saving feature in the case. Christchurch could hardly set up for itself on a diocesan basis without its bishop; and Bishop Harper was Selwyn's friend, and he was loyal to the constitution. The whole synod of Christchurch might pass threatening resolutions—as it did in 1863 and 1864—but as long as Henry Harper occupied the bishop's seat they were bound to be blocked by the episcopal veto. And before the next General Synod the Church was to pass through such tragic occurrences that the question at issue could no longer command the same primary and absorbing interest.



CHAPTER XIV.

RUIN AND DESOLATION.

(1862-1868).

Our heart's consuming pain, At sight of ruined altars, prophets slain, And God's own ark with blood of souls defiled! —Keble.

The armed truce which lasted from June, 1861, to May, 1863, was marked by strenuous efforts on both sides to bring about a lasting peace. To appreciate the gravity of the situation, it is necessary to remember that the European settlements were still but a fringe round the coast, while the whole of the interior of the island was occupied by the Maoris. But that race had so dwindled away during the last half-century, and the Europeans had poured in so fast during the last twenty years, that the relative numbers were now not very unequal. If the Maoris had been united, they might even yet have driven the immigrants from the land. That they were not united in any such hostile policy was due almost entirely to the influence of the missionaries. There would have been no hostility at all if just and considerate treatment had been the rule throughout.