GEORGE AUGUSTUS
SELWYN
PIONEER BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND
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GEORGE AUGUSTUS SELWYN, D.D.
BISHOP SELWYN.
George Augustus Selwyn,
D.D.
v
PIONEER BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND
F. \V. BORE HAM
WITH TWENTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS AND PORTRAITS
TLonOon S. W. PARTRIDGE & CO., LTD.,
OLD BAILEY.
TO
MY FATHER
AND
MY MOTHER
STACK ANNEX
PREFACE
IT was my happy privilege, on leaving College, to minister for some twelve years to a New Zealand congregation. In moving about that spacious Dominion I had ample opportunities of observing the supreme veneration in which the people of those romantic islands have enshrined the illustrious memory of Bishop Selwyn. From the North Cape to the Bluff there are thousands whose tongues become instantly garrulous in grateful reminiscence at the mere mention of his name. His vigorous hand is on the country still. His episcopate was indisput- ably the most wholesome of all those formative influences which gave tone to the infant nation in those critical days when the foundations of its character were being laid. In view of this impressive experience, it has been a very pleasant and congenial undertaking to pen some words that may help to perpetuate and extend the knowledge of his heroic record. The generation that can catch his spirit will precipitate the conquest of the ages.
I hasten to acknowledge my obligations to " The Life and Episcopate of G. A. Selwyn, D.D.," by the Rev. Prebendary H. W. Tucker, M. A. ; to " The Life
S
2201657
Preface
of Bishop Selwyn," by the Rev. Canon G. H. Curteis, M.A. ; to " The History of the Melanesian Mission/' by Mrs. E. S. Armstrong ; as well as to the Hon. W. Pember Reeves, Dr. T. M. Hocken, F.L.S., and Captain F. W. Hutton, F.R.S., for their numerous contributions to the literature of early New Zealand. I have also been assisted by the files oi the Weekly Graphic (N.Z.), and, generally, by the excellent press of the Dominion.
FRANK WM. BOREHAM.
HOBART, TASMANIA.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A MAN IN THE MAKING, . . . . . . g
II. THE LAND OF THE MOA AND THE MAORI, . . 29
III. ON THE LONE BUSH TRACK, 48
IV. THE GARDEN IN THE WILDERNKSS, ... 74
V. l;Y BATTLE-FIELD AND BIVOUAC, .... 95
VI. CORAL REEFS AND CANNIBAL ISLANDS, . . .US
VII. THE CALL TO THE HOME-LAND, .... 140
.t.
7
GEORGE AUGUSTUS SELWYN, D.D.
CHAPTER I
A MAN IN THE MAKING
" Give us Men !
Strong and stalwart one*.* Men whom highest hope inspires, Men whom purest honour fires, Men who trample self beneath them, Men who make their country wreath them
As her noble sons,
Worthy of their sires, Men who never shame their mothers, Men who never fail their brothers, True, — however false are others,
Give us Men ! — I say again —
Give us Men !"
BISHOP BlCKERSTETH.
THE nineteenth century opened to the strains of martial music. Europe shuddered beneath the tramp of armies. The horror of an alien force land- ing on British shores paralysed the imagination of England. And yet, in one memorable year, lying midway between Trafalgar and Waterloo, there took place an invasion more remarkable than any of which Napoleon ever dreamed. For in 1809 there stole into the world a host of remarkable babies. Mr. Gladstone was born at Liverpool ; Alfred Tennyson was wel- comed at the Somersby Rectory ; and Oliver Wendell Holmes made his first appearance at Massachusetts.
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
On the very self-same day of that fateful year, Charles Darwin made his debut at Shrewsbury, and Abraham Lincoln drew his first breath at old Kentucky. Music was enriched by the advent of Frederic Chopin at Warsaw, and ,of Felix Mendelssohn at Hamburg. Within the year, too, Samuel Morley was born at Homerton, Edward Fitzgerald at Woodbridge, Eliza- beth Barrett Browning at Durham, and Frances Kemble in London.
If there is any justification for the pretty old legend that blazing portents in the skies invariably herald the births of conquerors and of heroes, then our astronomers should have strange tales to tell concern- ing the celestial apparitions of 1809.
But this brilliant cradle-roll is not yet complete. For, in those stirring days, there lived in the picturesque old thoroughfare known as Church Row, at Hampstead, an eminent solicitor named William Selwyn. He had already achieved distinction as a specialist in his profession, and his published contribu- tions to learned literature were always quoted with confidence and always heard with respect. When, nearly thirty years afterwards, the youthful Queen Victoria announced her intention of being united in marriage to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, it was decided to appoint William Selwyn " to instruct Prince Albert in the Constitution and Laws of his adopted country." At the time of his death, in 1855, Mr. Selwyn was the Senior Queen's Counsel at the English Bar. It was into the favourable atmosphere of this cultured Hampstead home that George Augustus Selwyn was born on the 5th of April, 1809. He entered the world, as we have seen, in distinguished company. He was born in a district dear to the heart of every Londoner. The old row, with the ivy-covered church not far off, possessed a thousand and one subtle suggestions of a stately past. And if there is any real philosophy in Heine's famous dictum, that "a man
10
A Man in the Making
should be very careful in the selection of his parents," then George Selwyn displayed in his very nativity that perspicacity which, in his after life, never once failed him.
His mother — a daughter of Mr. Roger Kynaston, of Witham, Essex — was a woman of rare devotion and of a singularly winsome spirit. She was, however, a pitiful sufferer, not the least of her sorrows being the extreme depression and melancholy into which her painful malady submerged her. In these periods of gloom and misery, George had a peculiar influence over her. To her consolation he, even as a child, consecrated the best of his time and talents. Her spirit, crushed and drooping, seemed to inhale the buoyancy and elasticity of his. He alone could rouse and cheer her. Many a half-holiday, when his companions were off to the fields with their bats or their sledges, George spent by his frail mother's couch. After his departure for New Zealand, poor Mrs. Selwyn would steal in silence to a spot beneath his portrait, where her soul would breathe out to God her evening devotions, and it was here that she was found unconscious at last, dying a few hours after- wards on the first anniversary of her son's consecra- tion.
George was the life of the home. There were six children — four boys and two girls — among whom he was quite easily the leader. Whenever the fun waxed most furious in the Ha-mpstead nursery, it was invariably George who was showing.the way into new avenues of merriment or of mischief. In every romp his figure was in the forefront, and his laughter rang the loudest. He inherited from his father, too, a passionate love of all outdoor exercises. For is it not written in the annals of Eton that William Selwyn had carried his bat in the school eleven ?
And yet, side by side with this buoyant and boisterous exuberance, there was a strange seriousness
ii
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
of demeanour about his bearing that rendered him peculiarly engaging and attractive to his seniors. Even as a lad, he breathed upon the whole home a strangely charming and gracious influence. "He was truly the family friend and counsellor," his sister tells us, " ever ready to help in all difficulties. If any case of distress was mentioned in his hearing, his pocket money was at once devoted to its relief."
An unwonted heaviness brooded over the home at Church Row on that memorable day in 1816, when George, then at the age of seven, set out, in company with William, for a preparatory school at Ealing. Here the lads found themselves thrown into the company of about three hundred other boys, among whom were another distinguished pair of brothers — John Henry Newman (afterwards Cardinal) and F. W. Newman (afterwards Professor of Classics in the University of London). On his return home for the holidays, George horrified his sisters by displaying, among other accomplishments, a thorough acquaint- ance with the Racing Calendar, and a skilful proficiency in dancing! Nothing could have been more characteristic or prophetic. We shall repeatedly have cause to admire the facility with which he mastered every subject that offered itself to his eager and hungry mind. And in the playground at Ealing he innocently absorbed all that was to be known on subjects with which his comrades were familiar. That no taint had adhered to his free and open spirit is clear. For in the same letter in which his sister tells of these surprising acquisitions, she says : " There was nothing that was pious, noble, self-denying, and generous, that my brother did not exhibit in his daily life, and as years drew on he was more than ever constant in prayer, never ceasing in the service of his heavenly Master."
From Ealing, George passed on to Eton, where his athletic figure and alert mind soon created their
12
A Man in the Making
inevitable impression upon his companions at the great school. Two of these — Mr. Gladstone and Bishop Abraham — have borne eloquent witness to the magnetic influence which Selwyn exerted at Eton. Bishop Abraham, who was afterwards associated with Selwyn in New Zealand, contributed to the Eton College Chronicle this characteristic anecdote : " We belonged," he says, " to the pre-scientific period, as regards athleticism as well as studies. In Selwyn's long-boat there were seven oars not very good, and one superlatively bad. The boys used to run up town as hard as they could to Bob Tollady's, and seize upon one of the seven moderately bad ones, and the last comer got the ' punt-pole.' Of course, he was sulky all the way up to Surly Hall ; and the other seven abused him for not pulling his own weight. Everyone was out of temper. So George Selwyn determined always to come last. The other fellows chaffed him ; but he used to laugh, and at last said : ' It's worth my while taking the bad oar ; I used to pull the weight of the sulky fellow who had it ; now you are all in good-humour.' The incident illustrates his whole after life. He always took the labouring oar in everything"
After taking the boat to the shed, he would often strip and plunge into the river before returning. For he was as much at home in the water as on it. He could swim like a fish and dive like a duck. For many years a certain bush at Eton, standing high on the bank of the Thames, was known as " Selwyn's bush." " To this," we are told, " he used to run, take a spring, and go over it head foremost at a certain angle, coming up to the surface almost immediately. When asked how to do it, he used to say : ' Fancy yourself a dart, and you will do it with ease ! ' "
He little suspected, in those happy, careless days, that he was practising arts, and acquiring powers that would be simply invaluable to him, amidst
13
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
strangely different conditions, in years to come. It would be an easy task to record his triumphs in academic realms, for in the class-rooms at Eton it was usually taken for granted that Selwyn would be found in the place of honour. But his prowess in running, and jumping, and rowing, and diving must also be carefully observed. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the place which these occupied in the strenuous days of hardship and adventure that followed.
In the same way, he was surely guided by some shrewd and prophetic instinct, in view of the unknown privations that awaited him across the seas, in cultivat- ing with peculiar persistence a fine contempt for easy and luxurious living. They are very few of whom it could be said more truly than of him that they endured hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. And to graduate in that stern school he deliberately set him- self, even in boyhood. When, years afterwards, all England applauded his heroic endurance on inhospit- able islands, his relatives found intense pleasure in recalling trivial incidents of early days by which he had demonstrated his disdain of soft living. On one occasion, for example, he had asked his mother for permission to invite his schoolfellow, William Ewart Gladstone, to stay with him as his guest for the Easter-tide holidays. But Easter means spring, and spring means spring-cleaning ; and the house was in the turmoil of domestic revolution. His mother pointed to the dismantled apartments, and told him that it was impossible ; a guest would be sadly in the way, and would feel himself to be so. George bounded upstairs, and soon reappeared, dragging a great mattress, which he flung upon the wet boards, saying triumphantly: "There now, where's the difficulty?"
The education which had been commenced at Ealing, and continued at Eton, was completed at
A Man in the Making
Cambridge. At the age of eighteen he entered St. John's College, of which he was afterwards a fellow. His first impressions of university life were not altogether favourable. School life had been to him something in the nature of a frolic ; and the gravity of his new environment oppressed him. But with those phenomenal powers of adjustment, which all through life stood him in such good stead, he swiftly made friends with his more sombre surroundings, and discovered that the new conditions had their compensations. "After awhile," he wrote, "the absence of the many distractions of Eton rather recommended the place to me, as one where lost time might, in some measure, be made up." He applied himself with avidity to the main business of university life, and the great day of the year, both with him and with his brother, was that on which they welcomed their proud parents to Cambridge to witness the public acknowledgment of their scholastic successes. With great fidelity and regularity, William Selwyn and his delicate wife made these annual pilgrimages to Cambridge. They were doubtless a source of profound gratification to the fond parents themselves. They certainly afforded unbounded delight to their student sons ; and, long afterwards, in the wild solitudes of the New Zealand bush, in the cabin of his schooner, or on the lonely shore of some tropical isle, a smile would play upon the sunburnt and weather-beaten countenance of Selwyn, as he told Sir William Martin, or " Coley " Patteson, of the immense delight he had derived from those happy visits.
In 1829, Oxford challenged Cambridge to a contest for supremacy upon the river. Cambridge snatched up the gauntlet with alacrity, and set herself to the selection of her crew. The name of George Selwyn sprang to every lip. And so it came to pass that, always a pioneer, he took a prominent part in the
15
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
very first of those great inter-university contests, which have ever since occupied so large a place in the world of athletics.
At Cambridge he cast about him the same pure and wholesome moral atmosphere which had distinguished him in the playgrounds, and by the water-courses of Eton. Both at school and at college, it was freely affirmed that " no fellow would dare to use bad language if Selwyn were within earshot." A look, which eloquently expressed a subtle combination of pity and contempt, would often wither the offender, who would slink off feeling heartily ashamed oi himself.
In aspiring to classical honours, Selwyn felt him- self to be particularly vulnerable in the matter of mathematics; and in his day a place in the mathematical tripos was an essential qualification for classical distinction. He set himself with a will to conquer his pet aversion, and so far succeeded that he gave to his mind an entirely new bent, a circum- stance of which it took magnificent advantage in connection with the delicate and accurate computations which he required of it in the explorations and navigations of later years. He went up for his classical tripos in 1831. In the result, Benjamin Hall Kennedy, who afterwards became headmaster of Shrewsbury, and, later still, Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge, was found to have headed the list ; but in the second place, and with a very narrow margin of excellence intervening between first and second, stood the name of George Augustus Selwyn.
It has often been said that, if Cuthbert Collingwood had been born into any other age of British history than that which was assigned him, he would have been one of the most beloved and most admired of British admirals. As it is, he was overshadowed by the superior genius and irresistible fascination of Jioratio Nelson. Selwyn shared a similar fate. He
16
A Man in the Making
chanced to enter for his coveted distinction in the same year with one whose name was soon applauded throughout the world as a synonym for the ripest and most exact scholarship. But for this fact the achieve- ment of Selwyn would have been recorded among the mosv splendid triumphs in the Cambridge annals. As it is, it was " a famous victory," A Fellowship at St. John's followed. And then a new turn in the tide of events led him, soon after, to take farewell of university life, and search for fresh fields to conquer.
It happened that, on returning from Cambridge at the end of the term, he discovered, with a pang, that his parents had been driven to a radical policy of domestic retrenchment, and had dispensed, among other things, with their horses and carriage. Always keenly sensitive to the sorrows of others, he lost no time in revealing his alarm and inquiring for the reasons that had necessitated so great a change. His father was unable to conceal the fact that the expense of maintaining four sons at Eton and at Cambridge had so drained his resources as to demand imperatively the immediate sacrifice of all luxuries. George felt as David felt when his three mighty men brought him, at the hazard of their lives, the water from the well of Bethlehem for which he had longed. It was secured at too great a cost, and " he would not drink of it but poured it out upon the ground." So the brilliant Cambridge student of 1831 felt that he could no longer quaff the waters of knowledge if they could only be obtained by so great a sacrifice on the part of those whom he loved with all the ardour of his soul. He therefore determined at the first convenient opportunity to search for remunerative employment.
He took his degree in the early days of 1831. He then spent a few weeks in foreign travel. And in May of the same year, shortly after his twenty-second birthday, he returned to Eton in the capacity of private tutor to the sons of the Earl of Powis. To
2 17
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
those acquainted with the history and traditions of that noble house, no testimonial to Selwyn's manly qualities and academic attainments could be more impressive than this one fact. His new style of life afforded him opportunities for the development of qualities which, during the stress of severe study, had lain dormant. He had leisure ; and none better understood how to invest it. The river was still his favourite resort ; and his manipulation of his oars rendered him the idol of the Eton boys of that generation. His expert knowledge of their craft rendered him immensely popular, too, with the water- men on the river, who were for ever singing his praises as a swimmer and an oarsman. Recognising the hold that this hero-worship had established, Selwyn turned it to the best account by labouring among them with a view to their moral and spiritual well-being.
Moreover, he was able to avail himself of his reputa- tion as the champion of the river as a means of placing the pastime, so far as the school was concerned, on a much more secure foundation. Down to this time the Eton authorities had prohibited the boys from rowing. But, in such conditions, it is much more easy to frame such a regulation than to enforce it. The inevitable consequence was, that the prohibition was honoured more in its breach than in its observance ; and the authorities were compelled to wink at the laxity with which the mandate was regarded. Such a state of things was creditable neither to the boys who defied their superiors nor to the masters who were unable to insist upon respect being shown to their own enact- ment. It was in these circumstances that Selwyn intervened. As a result of his representations, the law was repealed. It was ordained that any boy who had passed in swimming might indulge in rowing. By this arrangement oarsmanship received a new glory. It became an honourable distinction instead of a
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A Man in the Making
furtive and surreptitious pursuit ; whilst the condition by which it was guarded gave to the boys a powerful incentive to aspire to aquatic proficiency.
Nor was this the only respect in which, during his residence at Eton, he successfully discharged the lofty but exacting office of a peacemaker. He was able on several occasions to mediate between the boys and the existing powers. And on every occasion his tact, his courtesy, and his experience constituted them- selves a sure guarantee of the happiest -issue of his negotiations.
But his new appointment carried with it a fuller introduction to social life ; and here also he found abundant opportunities for the exercise of the same exalted faculty. For, during the period of Selwyn's service under Lord Powis, England was torn by the bitterest political dissensions. It was a time of crisis almost approaching to revolution ; a time when all the institutions and machinery of national life were being overhauled and reviewed ; a time, in short, when the very best of men, differing sharply in opinion as to the true solution of the problems involved, found it impossible to approach the discussion of those momentous issues without being led from abstract principles into personal animosities. In those riotous days of noisy tumult and violent debate, when many a man's hand was raised against his brother, George Selwyn found and embraced countless opportunities of reconciling those who, in the heat and excitement of public controversy, had ruthlessly outraged old and sacred friendships. Sometimes, in the delicious cool of a lovely summer's evening, on the quiet banks of the tranquil river ; sometimes strolling among the noble oaks in the Great Park at Windsor ; some- times in a secluded corner of a crowded drawing- room, or in the leafy recesses of its adjacent con- servatory, the minister of peace prosecuted his lovely work. But wherever he did it, he did it well ; and
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
many there were who afterwards recalled his gracious service with profound gratitude and admiration.
During his sojourn at Eton, Selwyn indulged in a new form of athletic exercise, of a character peculiarly profitable, in view of the nature of the work to which he subsequently devoted his life. Indeed, if it were not established upon indisputable evidence that his call to colonial work came upon him as a great and amazing surprise, it would be impossible to resist the conclusion that he was deliberately training himself for the tasks that lay before him. Having provided himself with a pocket-compass, he formed the habit of taking prodigious walks, finding his way by its help from village to village, and from point to point. A ploughed field he would take at a brisk run, "to improve his wind."
In following the hounds on one notable occasion he allowed his horse to lag some distance behind many of the leading riders, and was afterwards a little nettled by the banter to which he was subjected concerning the ignominious position he had occupied in the field. He straightway hired horses, and selecting some church steeple as his goal, rode furiously at it, clearing every obstacle that presented itself on his way to that destination. By these wild " steeple chases " his intrepidity as an equestrian was soon placed beyond all doubt ; and for the rest of his life he was held in the highest esteem as a most competent and fearless horseman.
It is easy to see how, all unconsciously, these singular recreations were fitting him for the severe tests that awaited him. Many a time, in groping his way through strange waters, or amidst the dense and trackless bush, he must have recalled with peculiar satisfaction his long cross-country walks, compass in hand, in England. And many a time, when he had no alternative but to set out on some long ride in New Zealand, mounted on the most vicious animal in the
20
BISHOP SELWYN AT THE TIME OF HIS CONSECRATION
From a Painting by Sir W. B. Richmond 21
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
country, he must have been grateful for the apprentice- ship to which he submitted himself by his daring feats of horsemanship at Eton.
He maintained, too, his old prowess as a swimmer and diver. Indeed, he became President of a some- what fantastic organisation known as the Psychrolutic Club. It consisted of two classes of members — Philolutes and Psychrolutes. The former bathed with more or less regularity, and under such condi- tions as were agreeable to them. The latter, on the other hand, were those who had, during one whole year, bathed on at least five days of every week — summer and winter. Selwyn's habit of taking a regular daily swim secured for him the Presidency from an admiring and devoted membership ; and it was at his hands, in the river, that the coveted degree was conferred whenever a mere philolute had qualified for psychrolutic distinction.
It must not, however, be supposed for a single moment that, by all these exuberant recreations, George Selwyn was developing but one side of his manhood. The very reverse was the case. There was never a man of more perfect balance. He was, in the best sense of the term, a great all-round man. His work with his pupils enabled him to maintain his intellectual faculties at the high standard to which he had brought them at Cambridge. And, above and beneath all this, George Selwyn was a man of deep and intense spirituality. Exactly when, and exactly where, the first impressions of this kind were made upon him, it is not easy to say. But it is not difficult to guess. He was, as a boy, the constant companion of his mother ; and to those who can rightly appraise the influence of such a companionship, that one fact will explain all that needs to be accounted for. Throughout his whole life he was remarkable for his intimate and exact knowledge of the Scriptures. An astonishingly appropriate passage would leap to his lips
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A Man in the Making
on every occasion. On the eve of his departure for New Zealand, for example, he gave his brother, Canon Selwyn, a Bible, on the fly-leaf of which he had written : " Ready to depart on the morrow" On saying good-bye to the Rev. E. Coleridge, he wrote in his friend's Bible : " When we had taken our leave one of another, we took ship, and they returned home again." And even when the moisture of death was on his brow, he thought of his widowed and lonely son in distant Melanesia, and murmured : " The blessing of his father shall be upon the head of him who is separate from his brethren."
Whenever he was approached on this matter, he always attributed his familiarity with his Bible to the early teaching of his mother. She contrived and con- trolled this essential part of his education with such shrewd tact, such spiritual insight, and such consum- mate skill, that when he left Hampstead for Ealing he not only knew his Bible thoroughly, but loved it with a sincere and abiding devotion. He had not only mastered the letter, but caught the spirit, of that sublime study. It is altogether impossible to exaggerate the importance, as an essential element in the formation of his character, of those early conversa- tions between mother and son. It was as a direct result of that hallowed intercourse that he was able to present to the critical mind of Eton boyhood a living embodiment of a purity that never even threatened to become priggish, and of an inflexible justice which was perfectly consistent with an exuberant and rollicking jollity. By some subtle power of perception, everybody was made to feel that Selwyn's hearty laugh was part and parcel of Selwyn's holy life.
Moreover, it was as the natural outcome of those sacred and gracious impressions received by his mother's couch, that he became fired with that apostolic passion and dauntless devotion which subsequently impelled him, in spite of apparently
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
insuperable obstacles, to the uttermost ends of the earth. When home on holiday from Ealing, from Eton, from Cambridge, and, later on, from Eton again, he regarded his hour with his mother as an inviolable engagement. They read together, sometimes from the Old Testament, and sometimes from the New, he frequently translating to her from the original languages.
In 1833 he determined to seek ordination as a deacon, and this impressive service was conducted at St. George's, Hanover Square, by the Bishop of Carlisle, on Trinity Sunday, June 9th. Precisely a year later he received " priest's orders " at the same place, and from the same hands. After having officiated in a voluntary capacity as curate-in-charge at Boveney, he undertook to act as curate to the Vicar of Windsor, the Rev. Isaac Gossett, at a stipend of per annum.
He could do nothing by halves, and he threw himself into the work of the district with an energy that almost alarmed his parishioners. He had already undertaken, as a voluntary worker, prior to his appointment to the curacy, to supply an evening service at the parish church. This step, which had been long desired, was accordingly keenly appre- ciated ; and its success, combined with the assiduous and indefatigable attentions which he lavished upon his people, quickly won for him a very wide popularity and a very deep affection.
In 1834, death robbed him of his brother Thomas, and another near relative was drowned in Maidenhead Weir. It may be that these personal acquaintanceships with grief imparted to his nature an added tenderness and a deeper element of sympathy. Certain it is that he greatly endeared himself to the people of Windsor by the felicity and charm with which he fortified them in the day of trouble, and soothed their sorrows in the hour of loss. " If," wrote a correspondent to
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A Man in the Making
the Guardian, — " if there were any misunderstanding among friends, he would not rest until they were reconciled ; if pecuniary difficulty fell upon anyone, he would make every endeavour to extricate him ; if his friends were ill, he was their nurse and companion ; if they lost relations, or fell under any great sorrow, he was with them at any hour to console and uphold them. He was the friend, the adviser, the comforter of all who would admit him to their confidence/' It is not strange that, under a ministry at once so tire- less and so tender, the work of the parish felt the throb of a new impulse, and entered upon a fresh phase of prosperity. The Vicar rejoiced unfeignedly in the new order of things, and allowed his enterpris- ing young curate a perfectly free hand. " It is all Selwyn's doing," he would say, when his people commented on the transformation ; " he is the moving spring here."
When Selwyn settled at Windsor, he was strongly urged to avoid Beer Lane, a squalid neighbourhood in which the scum of the district herded together. A place with so evil a reputation had, however, a special charm for the new curate, and he made his way towards it. On entering the lane, a stalwart ruffian approached him, and loudly ordered him out of the thoroughfare. Selwyn quietly pressed on his way. The bully thereupon threw off his coat, and, assuming a pugilistic attitude, flourished his fists in the face of the curate, and again brawled out his demand. In a fVish, Selwyn aimed at his braggart assailant a blow which sent him sprawling on his back on the pave- ment. The bystanders applauded tumultuously ; the bully hastened away in consternation ; and the curate's visits to Beer Lane were ever after received with the utmost respect.
But perhaps the most characteristic incident in connection with his ministry at Windsor was a speech which he delivered on the unpromising subject of
25
George Augustus Selwyn. D.D.
parochial finance. The parish was in debt to the alarming extent of about ^3000. The position became so acute that a special vestry meeting was summoned. Litigation, had been threatened, and there were those who counselled a policy of resist- ance. It was at this stage that the curate spoke, and gave to the matter an entirely new complexion. He demonstrated most clearly that the amount was really owing, and must be honourably discharged. He appealed to his hearers to regard the debt as a challenge, and to rise bravely to meet it. To prove that he was not indulging in vapid heroics, he offered to contribute one-tenth of the entire sum himself, by refusing to accept any stipend for the next two years. Such a call was irresistible, and within a month the parish was entirely free of all pecuniary obligations. It was the first time in Selwyn's life, but it was not the last, that he entirely cut from under his feet all visible means of support.
The year 1838 — his thirtieth — constitutes itself an important and eventful one in the life of George Selwyn. It was the year of Queen Victoria's coronation. In the early part of that year Selwyn made his name prominent in connection with two absorbing matters of ecclesiastical controversy. The one was the question of Cathedral Reform, which filled the newspapers and occupied all minds. The other was a proposal for the consolidation and combination of the work of several of the great Church publishing and missionary Societies. On these thorny topics he wrote extensively, and shared the fate of all reformers. He was ridiculed as an impracticable idealist and visionary. Those who laughed at him then little dreamed that, within a very few years, he would have the opportunity, in a great diocese of his own, of submitting his theories to the crucial test of experience, and that their vindication would there be so complete as to justify their
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A Man in the Making
adoption in the Homeland on a more magnificent scale !
But that thirtieth year of his had a vital interest of its own, quite apart from all parochial labours and public controversies. For, in November of that year, he announced to his friends that Miss Sarah Richardson, the daughter of Sir John Richardson, a Judge in Her Majesty's Court of Common Pleas, had consented to become his wife. Sir John Richardson had a pleasant country residence known as " The Filberts," near Bray. It was no small undertaking for George Selwyn to negotiate the land and water that intervened between Eton and Bray, as often as his heart 'dictated its desirability. And concerning the ardour of Selwyn's courtship, the Rev. Pre- bendary H. W. Tucker tells a famous story.
" On a certain night," he says, " Mr. Selwyn was returning to Eton at an hour much later than those kept by the ferrymen. There was no difficulty in his punting himself across ; but then — what of the owner of the punt in the morning? What of the early passengers coming perhaps to their work, if the Windsor curate had appropriated the punt at the midnight hour ? Was there no way of combining late hours at ' The Filberts' with the rights and comforts of the ferryman and his passengers? It was part of his nature always to have unselfish thoughts for others ; and the present difficulty was solved in a way that cost him less effort than would have been the case with most men. A modern Leander, he punted himself across the river, and then, having undressed, ferried himself back, made the boat fast, and swam back to his clothes ; thus gratifying himself and caus- ing no inconvenience to others." Years afterwards, in his wild and romantic episcopate beneath the Southern Cross, seated on a fallen tree, beside a crackling camp-fire in the bush, one of his favourite Maoris told him, in his lovely liquid tones, the
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
graceful native legend of the radiant Hinemoa, and of how, for the love she bore to the noble Tutanekai, she swam at dead of night across the moonlit waters of Lake Rotorua, guided by the lute of her lover. Did Selwyn's mind fly back, we wonder, as he listened to the story, across the oceans and across the years, to his own midnight escapades upon the Thames ?
George Augustus Selwyn was married to Sarah Richardson on 25th June, 1839. Little did the curate's bride dream of what was involved in the " I will " that she pronounced that day ! Mr. William Selwyn, Q.C., who, a year later, was appointed Treasurer of Lincoln's Inn, laid aside for awhile the onerous responsibilities of his professional career, and took his son's position as a private tutor at Eton. The happy pair were thus enabled to indulge in the luxury of a wedding tour.
By his marriage, George Selwyn automatically vacated his Fellowship at St. John's, Cambridge, which had been worth to him about ,£140 per annum. He had already heroically renounced his stipend as curate of Windsor for the space of two years. At the time of his wedding he was, therefore, wholly dependent upon his private earnings, which were both slender and precarious. And he had no reason to anticipate anything, in the unknown future, beyond a possible preferment to a quiet rural parsonage. We shall have ample opportunities of satisfying ourselves, as we follow his animated career, that George Selwyn was absolutely one of the most disinterested, and yet one of the most severely practical, men that ever breathed.
CHAPTER II
THE LAND OF THE MOA AND THE MAORI
" I arrive where an unknown earth is under my feet ; I arrive where a new sky is above me ; I arrive at this land, a resting-place for me. O Spirit of the Earth ! the stranger humbly offers his heart to Thee ! "
OLD MAORI SONG.
A \ 7"E shall not be so negligent of the common * * courtesies of life as to accompany Mr. and Mrs. Selwyn on their honeymoon, but, leaving them to their felicity, we shall take an imaginary tour of a very different kind. It is to a land so far away across the seas that the simplest way of visiting it, having in view the exigencies of ocean currents and trade winds, is to make a complete circle of the earth, going out by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and returning by way of Cape Horn. New Zealand consists in reality of a group of islands, the total area of which is only very slightly smaller than that of the United Kingdom. It was discovered by Abel Tasman in 1642, but only the most transitory interest was taken in the country, until the historic and adventurous voyages of Captain Cook opened up the conception of new empires to the imagination of the old world. It is truly a realm of wonder, this Pacific group to which we have so swiftly flown. We step ashore, and astonishing revelations unfold themselves. We are in a land of luxurious vegetation and of broad and fertile plains ; a land of sky-piercing mountains, thickly covered with eternal
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
snows ; a land of rushing rivers and of thundering cataracts ; a land of boiling springs and of icy glaciers ; a land of silvern sounds and of burning volcanoes ; a land of mossy dells and of fern-clad valleys ; a land of hills and dales, draped with evergreens of all tints and shades, picked out with brilliant patches of colour and a glorious profusion of bloom. Here are grouped, in strange proximity, the marvels of which many nations boast. We find here the sunny skies of Italy, and the great blue lakes of Switzerland ; the snow-capped heights of Asia, and the prairies of the Far West ; the hissing geysers of Iceland, and the lovely fjords of Norway. Here from daybreak till twilight a new choir of feathered songsters maintains a constant carnival of melody. And then, at dusk, strange constellations globe themselves into the dome above our heads, until the whole vault is bespangled with glowing jewels ranged round the Southern Cross. Everything around us strikes us as being extravagant, prodigal, prolific, profuse. Nature lets herself go. There is no sense of restraint. Giant trees and tiny saplings, matted thickets and climbing creepers, twisting vines and impudent parasites all intertwine, and interweave, and intertangle themselves in the most glorious confusion of green. Beneath your feet, ferns and mosses carpet every inch of soil ; overhead, trees growing upon trees, layer upon layer, each weighing the other down by the burden of this bewil- dering tangle of vegetation, greet your eye everywhere as you explore these novel phases of forestry. The traveller stands amazed at the teeming and fantastic forms of life on every side.
Moreover, Nature has shown her kindness to this land, not merely in the superabundance of her favours, but in the judicious selection of her gifts. Just across the sea, on the broad Australian continent, and on the tight little island of Tasmania, the bush, though not so dense a jungle as is this, is rendered perilous
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The Land of the Moa and the Maori
by the presence of carnivorous beasts and of deadly serpents. But into this Paradise no wolfish eyes have ever peered. Upon these swinging boughs no hideous snake has ever twined himself. Both in her givings and in her withholdings Nature has betrayed a singular favouritism towards this happy land. It is not strange that British subjects in this most remote outpost of empire invariably speak of their island home with manifest pride, and with sincere affection. They know why the wandering imagination of the dying Selwyn could find no lovelier glades through which to ramble than those bush solitudes which, in better days, he had loved so well. Even the sadness of farewell in New Zealand is tempered for those who remain, by their unwavering conviction that the prodigal, overborne by fond recollections of the lovely land he is leaving, will quickly tire of other climes and return to his earlier love.
The tourist who visits this southern wonderland to- day finds there a great nation. He whirls from city to city in fast expresses ; or, preferring to travel by coastal steamer, lounges in sumptuously furnished saloons. In each city he discovers handsome streets, stately architecture, bustling commerce, imposing in- stitutions, first-class newspapers, electric tramcars, and a perfect network of telephones. He misses no com- fort ; he is asked to deny himself no luxury to which he has been accustomed in London or in Edinburgh. Everywhere he witnesses the signs of immense in- dustries. He sees great and busy factories ; he glides in and out of ports crowded with shipping ; he observes, as he hurries through the country, that the far-stretching plains are covered with heavy crops ; he notices that the most rugged hills are dotted with sheep ; and, even in the bush country, the curling columns of smoke, rising from among the trees, tell him of smiling homesteads and of prosperous coun- tries. He finds that, in this new land, about a million
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
souls of his own kith and kin have made their home ; whilst, every week, steamers from the " old country " pour their hundreds of immigrants into the Dominion. He observes, too — and perhaps this surprises him most of all — that, so far from having lost their national spirit, these colonists display, if possible, an even more ardent patriotism than that to which he has been accustomed. The very first news to which they turn in the paper is to the cablegrams from the Homeland. The birthdays of the King and of the Prince of Wales are celebrated as public holidays, all shops being closed and the day abandoned to appropriate festivities. And, when Great Britain became em- broiled in hostilities in South Africa, the stalwart sons of this young nation trooped forth in their thousands that they, in their regiments of rough-riders, might take their places beside the historic battalions that fought at Agincourt, Blenheim, and Waterloo.
But, although only a few years have intervened, it is a far cry from the New Zealand of to-day to the New Zealand of 1840. The settlers then were few and far between. They consisted principally of whalers, attracted by the abundance of their huge game for which these seas were famed, supplemented by a handful of immigrants who had drifted across from the Australian mainland. To all intents and purposes the land was still in the undisturbed possession of the Maori; and as it is with him that much of our time must be spent, it may be well if, without delay, we seek a formal introduction.
The Maori is a bundle of contradictions. Of all aboriginal peoples he is quite easily the most attractive and the most interesting. For ages he was at once the most ferociously savage and, in many re- spects, the most highly cultured of all the dark races. The men are tall and stalwart, of sinewy frame and handsome bearing. The women are comely and graceful, of shapely form and pleasing face. And these
32
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
exterior charms are but the natural reflection of a certain beauty and refinement in the very soul of the race. For the Maori is a born poet. The spirit of romance stirs in his blood. His folklore is a perfect fairyland of fascination. His myths, legends, and traditions abound in stories of exquisite pathos and beauty. His love-stories are as chaste and as graceful as anything in Western literature. The twinkling stars, the crystalline lakes, the snow-capped heights, the beetling cliffs along his rugged coast, and the scarped crags of his romantic valleys, have all been woven into these charming fancies. Ask a Maori, for instance, how it comes about that his land is a place of smoking mountains and of boiling springs, and he will tell you that, once upon a time, there came to this country, from the wonderful isle of Hawaiki, our great chief and magician, Ngatoro. He brought with him his favourite slave, and they landed from their canoe on the shores of the Bay of Plenty. Pressing inland, they cut a way for themselves through the bush, guiding their course by the stars, until they descried against the skyline the snowy summit of Mount Tongariro. When they reached the mountain, they determined to make the ascent. But as they mounted higher and still higher, the intense cold numbed every limb, and at last the poor slave lay in the snow, paralysed, and sick unto death. Turning towards the sea, Ngatoro shouted to his sisters to bring fire. His cry reached them in their home across the ocean, and, snatching up a bowl of fire, they hastened to his relief. Wherever, in the course of their pilgrimage, they halted, geysers sprang up through the sand. Wherever sparks or ashes fell from the bowl, hot springs or hissing steam-jets burst through the fern. When at last they reached Ngatoro, they found to their dismay that they had come too late ; the slave was dead. In his wrath, Ngatoro seized the burning bowl and hurled it at Mount Tongariro. And, from
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The Land of the Moa and the Maori
that day to this, the mountains of Taupo have smouldered with volcanic fires, which sometimes slumber, and sometimes break out in terrific and destructive eruption.
Yet, incongruously enough, side by side with this lofty strain of poetry and romance were to be found the most revolting and persistent savagery. When Tasman, on first discerning the land, ventured to effect a landing, the natives celebrated their intro- duction to pale faces by killing and eating as many as they could capture. The intrepid Dutchman named the spot " Massacre Bay," and sailed gloomily away, not at all proud of his latest discovery. More than a century later, Marion du Fresne, a French navigator, was, with sixteen members of his crew, brutally butchered and made the victims of a cannibal orgy. Ship after ship shared the same horrible fate. These sickening stories soon became the property of mariners all the world over, and in every cabin and forecastle on the high seas, the natives of New Zealand were discussed with terror as the most atrocious and bloodthirsty monsters on the face of the earth. For more than a century captains kept a wary eye upon the skyline for the first glimpse of the New Zealand coast, and, on its appearance, ordered boarding-nets to be immediately lowered to prevent the dreaded savages from coming to close quarters.
Nor must it be supposed that the Maori was displaying towards the white men a ferocity to which he was ordinarily a stranger. For ages the soil of New Zealand was literally drenched in blood as a result of his furious and devastating tribal feuds. And the captives, taken in these pitiless campaigns, were invariably devoured by their conquerors.
All this makes gruesome reading, but the facts need to be kept steadily in mind, as a dark back- ground to the picture which we seek to paint, if we
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
would duly appreciate, and accurately appraise, the work of those fearless pioneers of the Gospel of Christ, who led this wild and barbarous people into the emancipating light of the kingdom of God.
But as, in negotiating a tunnel, we plunge from daylight into darkness only to emerge as suddenly into the sunshine again, so here a brighter gleam claims our attention. It is a strange study in light and shade. For the Maori may justly claim to be ranked alongside the most enterprising pathfinders of our modern civilisation. The records of his daring voyages would have stirred the blood of Sir Francis Drake, and kindled the admiration of Sir Walter Raleigh. Long before our own hardy navigators had fired the imagination of the world with visions of Western empires and Southern continents, these dauntless explorers, in large and shapely canoes, capable of accommodating and provisioning 150 men, had found their way across the immense spaces of the southern oceans. Long before the Vikings of the North had turned their frowning figure-heads seawards, these Vikings of the South had completed voyages as wonderful as any in the history of the world. From island to island, and from continent to continent, they groped their way, deterred neither by the equatorial fervours of the tropics, nor by the biting snowstorms of the south, until the vast Pacific could withhold no secret from them. Through " the long wash of Australasian seas," on across the silent waste of waters, steering their course among volcanic isles and coral reefs, they made their way to the great American continent. Monuments of these early voyages have been found along the coasts of Chili and Peru ; up the banks of the Rio Negro, a great river of Patagonia, which discharges its waters into the Atlantic ; and even up the slopes of the Andes, and on the great plains of Argentina. One other word remains to be said by way of
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The Land of the Moa and the Maori
introduction to this most attractive people. But that word is the saddest word of all. For, even at the time of which we write, the Maoris were a dying race. This fact is worth noting. The decay of aboriginal peoples has been so often, and in some cases so justly, attributed to their contact with civilisation, that it is well to recall the fact that, in the case of the Maori, the mournful process 01 disintegration had asserted itself before the white man landed on his shores. This lamentable condition had been reached owing to two main causes. The cradle of the race — the fabled Hawaiki — has been lost in obscurity, but it is certain that the pilgrim fathers of the Maori people had come from a much more genial latitude ; and the later generations were slow in adjusting themselves to the more rigorous climatic conditions. The early discoverers found that consumption and kindred diseases were even in their time working fearful havoc among the tribes. In 1790 a devastating epidemic swept over the country, demanding heavy toll at every settle- ment.
The other main cause of their persistent tendency to extinction lay in the terrific and depopulating nature of those sanguinary feuds to which reference has already been made. It cannot be wondered at that a people, who can never have been particularly numerous, should have been swiftly decimated and diminished by a policy of slaughter so relentless and unceasing. The real marvel, on the other hand, must surely be that a race, disfigured by instincts of such incorrigible brutality.should, under the spell ofChristian influences, have laid aside so quickly the hideous customs to which it had been so long addicted, and that, within the lifetime of a single generation, many of the sons and daughters of that ferocious people should have distinguished themselves in all depart- ments of scholarship, and in all the arts of peace.
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
This must forever rank among the real wonders of the world.
History abounds in amazing coincidences ; and this history is no exception to the rule. During those very years, in the course of which George Selwyn was being equipped for his life's great destiny, strange movements were afoot at the other end of the world. The whole attitude of public thought and of official policy towards that remarkable land which we have just visited underwent a complete and radical change within the brief period represented by Selwyn's child- hood and youth. Whilst, on the one hand, the sower was being taught and trained, and whilst his seed-basket was being stored with precious grain, the distant field, in which he was to fling that seed broadcast, was being simultaneously ploughed and harrowed, and prepared for his early coming.
When Selwyn was born, the average Englishman, if he had heard of New Zealand at all, thought of it as an insignificant cannibal island somewhere in the wide Pacific, and felt no inclination for a closer acquaintance. Very excellent people shuddered at the mention of its name. In 1814 — Selwyn being a boy of five, and making the old nursery at Hamp- stead echo with his merry peals of laughter — His Majesty's Ministers of State became so dubious of the wisdom of Captain Cook in planting the Union Jack on these frightful shores that they gravely repudiated the annexation, and formally disowned the territory. It was not long, however, before the tidings of strange happenings on those far-off islands led the authorities to retrace their steps.
For in 1809 — the very year of Selwyn's birth — the first missionary had landed in New Zealand. And he, strangely enough, was a Maori boy. It happened that the Rev. Samuel Marsden, a chaplain near Sydney, had heard the thrilling stories that the sailors told of the extraordinary people on the islands
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The Land of the Moa and the Maori
across the Tasman Sea. He became possessed of an irresistible desire to secure their evangelisation ; and, in the course of a visit to England, he pleaded with the Church Missionary Society to turn its thoughts to so heroic an enterprise. His eloquence was so persuasive, and his arguments so convincing, that the Society immediately committed itself to the under- taking. On the ship on which he returned to Sydney, Mr. Marsden was surprised to discover a young Maori sailor named Tuatara ; and in him the zealous evangelist recognised a sublime opportunity. At every leisure moment he sought out the dark-skinned sailor-lad, told him the wonderful story of the Gospels ; and pleaded with him with such success that Tuatara promised to hurry back to his own people and reveal to them the story of redeeming love. He kept his word. The Maori chiefs sat with open eyes and open mouths as Tuatara described to them the astonishing sights that met his gaze in the white man's country. The Maoris looked at each other incredulously. He told them how the white man sowed his crop, and ground his corn, and made his bread. Then they rose in derisive laughter and refused to believe a word. But Tuatara had prudently provided himself with a tiny bag of wheat and a coffee-mill. The sceptical natives stood around the little plot whilst Tuatara prepared his soil and sowed his seed. They nudged each other, tapped their heads, and exchanged significant glances. Much travel, they evidently thought, had wrecked poor Tuatara's brain, or brought him under the witchery of an evil spirit. But when there appeared first the blade, and then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear, the fashion of their countenances changed. They crowded round, and watched Tuatara grind his corn in his coffee-mill. And they ate, with wonder, of his bread. For awhile they listened with more respect to that still more wonderful story of which Tuatara loved to speak.
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
But the young evangelist spoiled it all by telling one wild and impossible tale which his brethren could never believe. Over the sea, he said, the white man had an animal a thousand times as big as a rat, and the white man sat upon its back and made it bear him, and harnessed it to his heavy burdens and made it drag them. They awoke the echoes of the hills with their laughter as they derided this ridiculous story. But when, some years after, they saw Mr. Marsden ride his horse upon the beach, they remembered Tuatara's words. The vindication of all his statements power- fully inclined the minds of his people towards the missionaries. He was a forerunner ; and, like another forerunner, it was said of him : " He did no miracle, but all things that he spake were true."
Then, in 1814 — the year in which George Selwyn had celebrated his fifth birthday, and in which the British Government had solemnly abandoned its claim upon New Zealand territory — Mr. Marsden himself arrived. And it was on Christmas Day of that memorable year — memorable for the shortsightedness of British statesmanship in repudiating the land on behalf of Britain, and memorable for the farseeing sagacity of the Christian missionary in claiming the land on behalf of Christ — that the first service was held. How proudly Tuatara made all the preliminary arrangements, prepared the pulpit, and acted as interpreter. That first service was conducted, on that glorious midsummer day, beneath a cloudless sky. There were present three scarred old .chiefs, attired in all the glory of some old uniforms which had found their way out from England. Swords dangled by their sides, and they held native switches in their hands. " I stood up," says Mr. Marsden, "and began by singing the Old Hundredth Psalm, while my soul melted within me as I looked round at the people and thought of their state. It was Christmas Day, and my text was in every way
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The Land of the Moa and the Maori
appropriate to the situation : ' Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy !'" Mr. Marsden repeatedly visited New Zealand during the following years, and greatly endeared himself to his native hearers. When, in 1838, he came for the last time, accompanied by his daughter, the Maoris carried the old man — he was then seventy-two — from place to place through the bush in a hammock supported on their shoulders.
THE OLD CHURCH AT REMUERA, BUILT BY BISHOP SELWYN
After bidding them a pathetic farewell, he returned to Sydney, where he shortly afterwards died. That was only a few months before Selwyn's marriage.
But by this time the people of England had awakened to the fact that they had enormously underestimated the value of those islands, of which they had spoken so flippantly. Thoughtful men rubbed their eyes in amazement, as it dawned upon them that the coral reefs of their earlier fancy were, in
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
reality, a group of islands almost as large as those on which they were themselves living. The stories of sea-captains, and the letters of missionaries and of whalers, gave an entirely new impression of the extraordinary magnificence and amazing fertility of this distant land. The British Government was brought to a better state of mind; and in 1833 it determined to appoint a British resident to be stationed in New Zealand.
At about the time of Selwyn's wedding New Zealand absorbed a vast amount of public attention. The members of Her Majesty's Cabinet never met at Westminster, and the great dignitaries of the Church never assembled at Lambeth, but the engrossing claims of New Zealand pressed themselves import- unately upon their consfderation. At length, in 1841, the Archbishops and Bishops " declared it to be their duty to undertake the charge of the Fund for the endowment of Colonial Bishoprics, and to become responsible for its application." They immediately made out a list of those colonies which they regarded as in most urgent need of episcopal appointments. And at the very top of the list, compiled in order of urgency, stood the name of New Zealand. In view of the fact that New Zealand was one of the youngest of British dependencies, this prominence is impressive. It reflects the conviction, that was rapidly growing upon the popular mind, that this new country, away in southern seas, was a land of splendid promise and magnificent possibilities. It was therefore decided to appoint without delay a pioneer Bishop of New Zealand.
But the man ! Whom should they send ? So much depended upon that decision. One member of the Committee of the Church Society of New Zealand had been conspicuous on account of the intense interest he had displayed in these distant islands. Upon him the choice fell, and the call was accordingly
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The Land of the Moa and the Maori
addressed to William Selwyn, George's elder brother. Upon mature consideration he felt it his duty to decline the appointment, and afterwards earned for himself a high reputation as the Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity. By some happy thought — or shall we say by some providential instinct? — some- one suggested that perhaps they had chosen the right family, but the wrong brother. The thought of the vigorous young Windsor curate made a powerful appeal to every mind ; and it was instantly resolved to invite the Reverend George Augustus Selwyn to become the first Bishop of New Zealand.
Selwyn's attitude towards the call may be easily stated. He was descended from distinguished military ancestors, and all the instincts of a soldier stirred within his veins. It was often said of him in New Zealand that he was " a General spoiled." He held strongly all through life that a clergyman should be absolutely at the disposal of his ecclesiastical superiors. Like Newman, his old schoolfellow, he hated to be consulted, and loved to be commanded. It is impossible to appreciate either the spirit in which he went to New Zealand, or the motives from which nearly thirty years later he left it, unless this peculiarity be clearly grasped. He found that it was the sincere wish of the Bishops that he should go ; and he felt that no option remained to him.
Vexatious delays followed. Oddly enough, the real cause of these irritating procrastinations was, that the Government then in power, as well as its pre- decessors in office, entertained grave doubts as to Mr. Selwyn's fitness for the position. It is singular that whilst, in 1814, one Government should have doubted the value of the land, another, in 1841, should have entertained similar apprehensions as to the fitness of the man. Both New Zealand and George Selwyn have amply vindicated themselves since then. As the Times, in reviewing the situation years after-
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
wards, pointed out, he was emphatically and pre- eminently the man, — "A Christian, yet a man of the world ; a scholar, yet an athlete ; first and foremost in all the tests of English skill and courage ; wise and witty as well ; with a word, a look, and a deed for everybody ; holding his own, yet denying to no one else that privilege ; it was by a happy venture that he was chosen at the age of thirty-two to found a see at the Antipodes, when the people he had to convert were still fresh from banquets on the flesh of their murdered fellow men."
In drawing up the Letters Patent, the Crown solicitors made a number of unhappy blunders, the correction of which absorbed a deal of precious time. One astounding and egregious mistake, however, they made which has become historic. Selwyn instantly noticed it, but whispered not a word. The new see should of course have been defined as lying between the 34th and 5<Dth degrees of south latitude. But the clerk, his mind intent on stating accurately the northern and southern limits of the new episcopate, declared that the territory lay between the 34th degree of north latitude and the 5oth degree south ! According to this geographical definition, New Zealand may be said to extend its inordinate length across the whole Western hemisphere ! Selwyn saw, however, that this broad and Catholic interpretation of his duties would afford him the coveted opportunity of visiting and evangelising the scattered islands of the Pacific. He therefore smiled up his sleeve, and kept his own counsel.
At last the Ministers of State decided to content themselves with the selection of their ecclesiastical brethren ; the Queen approved the nomination ; Selwyn in so many words accepted" the appoint- ment ; and the Crown solicitors had, so far as they knew, drafted with accuracy the tiresome official documents.
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With all his wonted sprightliness and energy, Selwyn then threw himself into the work of preparing for his daring enterprise. " I remember," says his sister, "sitting up half the night helping him to make a waterproof belt for his watch and pedometer. He meant to swim the rivers, pushing his clothes in front of him. He was wonderfully skilful in providing for his intended New Zealand life." One of the first orders that he gave was for the construction of a church tent, a tabernacle which, folded within moderate compass, he could take with him, and, im- mediately on his arrival, erect as the first " Cathedral " of his island see. In all these preparations, Mrs. Selwyn also worked with a will. Most cordially had she adopted the New Zealand project as her own as well as her husband's. In relation to her, however, Selwyn remarked to a friend that he could never have brought himself to accept the call, but for the fact that Sir John Richardson had recently breathed his last. " For," he asked, " how could I have taken away that old man's daughter?"
Before his consecration Bishop Selwyn asked the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to entrust him with an annual grant for the purpose of endow- ment, in preference to giving annual salaries for clergymen. " What I most of all deprecate," he said, "is the continuance of annual salaries, which leave a church always in the same dependent state as at first, and lay upon the Society a continually increasing burden." During the next ten years S.P.G. grants for endowment alone amounted to ^7000.
His Consecration Service now began to occupy all his thoughts, and a profound and touching gravity pervaded his spirit whenever his mind recurred to this impressive event. It was conducted by the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, at Lambeth Chapel, on i/th October, 1841, the Bishop of Barbados preaching the
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
sermon. The chapel was uncomfortably crowded, many of his own friends being unable to secure admission.
Nine days later another imposing ceremony took place, this time at Cambridge. The young Bishop went down to his old university to receive his degree as a Doctor of Divinity. " When he knelt down before the Vice-Chancellor," the record runs, " it was a noble sight ! Dr. Turton, the Regius Professor of Divinity, made an admirable speech in Latin, alluding to Constantine, to the missionary labours of England, to the Bishop's own zeal, to his high qualifications, and to the fine prospects before him." Cambridge spared no effort that day to prove that the university was proud of her valiant and distinguished son. Oxford followed suit by conferring a similar degree, and his investiture on that occasion was scarcely less enthusiastic or impressive.
The next few weeks were naturally monopolised by a long series of private and semi-public farewells. During these last days in England, he spent as much time with his parents and sisters as he could possibly steal from these valedictory engagements. Some of these functions were of exceptional interest and significance, as testifying to the lofty place which Selwyn commanded in the esteem of the greatest and the wisest men. Here, for example, we find him the central figure of a dinner-party assembled in his honour. It is being held in the house of his old friend, Mr. Edward Coleridge. Among the guests it is easy to recognise Mr. Gladstone and Mr. (afterwards Lord Chief Justice) Coleridge. Yonder, too, sit two other occupants of judicial benches in the persons of Mr. Justice Patteson and Mr. Justice Cotton. And at least three future bishops are here — Archdeacon Wilberforce (who later on became Bishop, first of Oxford, and then of Winchester) ; Mr. Durnford, afterwards Bishop of Chichester ; and Mr. Chapman,
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who, four years later, became the first Bishop of Colombo.
The farewell service at Windsor was one which no one present ever forgot. The parish church was crowded to the very doors. The youthful prelate preached from the prophetic and triumphant words : " The abundance of the sea shall be converted unto Thee ; the forces also of the Gentiles shall come unto Thee." The people who, to the end of life, cherished every memory of their young minister with a personal and tender regard, leaned forward in strained and breathless silence, as he outlined his ambitions amidst the strange and savage scenes towards which he was turning his face. And when he said that, having successfully established a vigorous and aggressive Church on those distant shores, he would be content to die there neglected and forgotten, tears trickled down all faces, and the pent-up emotions of his devoted hearers found expression in audible, though stifled, sobs.
Farewells are trying ordeals, especially to natures as sensitive and transparent as those of the Bishop and Mrs. Selwyn. The last few weeks in England were a painful experience for both of them, and it was with a sigh, almost of relief, that they reached the last of those exacting days. Berths had been secured on board the Tomatin, bound for Auckland via Sydney; and when the last fond look had been given, the last broken word spoken, and the last hand wrung, the Bishop and his wife took their places on board. A few weary days — including Christmas Day — were spent in idly waiting for a wind. And then, on 26th December, 1841, a favourable breeze sprang up, the Tomatin stood out to sea, and in a few hours the watchers at Plymouth could but faintly descry the white sails of the vanishing ship, like the fluttering wings of a small sea-bird, on the wide and watery horizon.
47
CHAPTER III
ON THE LONE BUSH TRACK
" Far, far off the daybreak calls — hark ! how loud and clear
I hear it wind !
Swift to the head of the army ! Swift ! spring to your places, Pioneers ! O Pioneers ! "
WALT WHITMAN.
"\ X 7"ITH characteristic ingenuity and activity, Bishop * * Selwyn reached his destination rather more than three weeks before the ship on which he set sail. A voyage from Plymouth to Auckland was, in those days, a tedious ordeal for even the most lethargic passenger ; but, with the Bishop's restless impatience to get to work, it was simply intolerable. Many of us, in this twentieth century of ours, have raced to and fro between England and New Zealand, completing the long journey, on our palatial ocean liners, in five or six weeks. But seventy years ago the good ship Tomatin took six months to reach her haven. She left Plymouth Sound, as we have seen, in December, 1841, and she cast anchor in Auckland harbour on 24th June, 1842. She had, however, reached Sydney on I4th April ; but in moving up to her anchorage in that port she had unfortunately taken the ground, with the result that she was doomed to remain idle for some time, undergoing repairs. The Bishop, in strolling about the busy wharves, discovered a small brig — the Bristolian — about to sail for Auckland. He therefore decided to leave Mrs, Selwyn and some members of his party
48
On the Lone Bush Track
to come on by the Tomatin, whilst he and others transhipped to the Bristolian. In this way he contrived to land in New Zealand nearly a month before the Tomatin was sighted off the coast.
But we should make a grave mistake if we supposed that those months, spent in the motionless calm of tropical seas, or in tumbling through tumul- tuous gales about the Cape, were wasted in indolence. In the first place, the party was a large one, and could easily provide itself with abundant avenues of profitable entertainment. It included, besides the Bishop, Mrs. Selwyn and her baby boy, the Rev. C. L. Reay, of C.M.S., together with four clergymen (Messrs. Cotton, Whytehead, Cole, and Dudley), three catechists (Messrs. Butt, Evans, and Nihill), and a schoolmaster and mistress, all of whom the funds placed at the Bishop's disposal by S.P.G. enabled him to take with him. The Rev. B. L. Watson also was travelling on the Tomatin, bound for Australia.
Dr. Selwyn's alert mind, always hungry for infor- mation, and quick to scent even the most unpromising sources from which it might be obtained, swiftly discovered the means of acquiring proficiency in two arts, which proved simply invaluable to him on his arrival in New Zealand. And he applied himself to their mastery with such diligence and success that, when at last the Tomatin dropped her anchor, the Bishop could speak the Maori language with almost faultless fluency, and was a perfect expert in the science of navigation. The latter he had, of course, gathered from his intercourse with the captain of the ship. And, for the former, he had found a capable instructor in young Rupai, a Maori lad, who, by a fortunate providence, happened to be a passenger by the same vessel. The Bishop sought him out, gleaned from him the Maori word for this object and for that action, reduced his answers to a system, and at length lound himself able to hold prolonged conversations
4 49
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
with his young instructor in the native tongue. When the Tomatin, after her long voyage, was pushing her way up the harbour at Sydney, a number of Maoris passed in a small boat under the bow of the vessel. Their astonishment may be imagined when the Bishop leaned over the bulwarks of the ship and shouted his greetings to them in their own language. It was on a glorious moonlight night that the Bishop, standing on the deck of the Bristolian, caught the first glimpse of his diocese. Just before midnight, on Friday, 27th May, the " Three Kings " displayed their rocky headlands against the horizon. The spectacle greatly impressed him. " God grant," he wrote in his diary, " that I may never depart from the resolutions which I then formed, but by His grace be strengthened to devote myself more and more earnestly to the work to which He has called me ! " At daybreak next morning the mainland of the North Island — his future home — stood out boldly on the skyline. At midnight, on Sunday, the moon again transfiguring both sea and land, the Bristolian cast her anchor at the mouth of Auckland's beautiful harbour. " Every outward ' circumstance," says the Bishop, " agreed with our inward feelings of thankful- ness and joy." As soon as the first faint streaks of daybreak appeared in the eastern sky, the Bishop was astir. In a few moments a boat, which he had purchased in Sydney, was lowered from the brig, and, plying his oars with a will, the Bishop had the satisfaction, before sunrise, of planting his feet on New Zealand shores. His chaplain, Mr. Cotton, bore him company in that early morning expedition, and was afterwards fond of telling how the Bishop, overcome by his emotions, threw himself upon his knees on the sand, and, in the grey light of the dawn, gave thanks to God for his safe arrival.
The newcomers lost no time in making their way to the house of Mr. Chief Justice Martin. The good
5°
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
man was not yet up, but he was soon dragged from his bed, and constrained, together with the Attorney- General, Mr. Swainson, to row back to breakfast on board. Afterwards, Dr. Selwyn called at Government House, to pay his respects to Captain Hobson, who showed him the most cordial hospitality until some permanent arrangement could be made. When the Governor had received intelligence from England that a bishop was about to be appointed to New Zealand, he flung down the dispatches in amazement, and exclaimed : " A bishop ! What on earth can a bishop do in New Zealand where there are no roads for his coach ? " But when he beheld the recipient of the surprising appointment he changed his mind. " Ah ! " he remarked, " that is a very different thing : this is the right man for the post ! "
On his first Sunday in the new land the Bishop threw the Maoris into ecstasies of delight by gathering them together and briefly addressing them in their own language. They were filled with unbounded astonish- ment at the advent of the white preacher, who could so fluently discourse to them in their native tongue. There can be no doubt that, by this single achievement, the Bishop completely disarmed their prejudices and favourably inclined their minds to welcome his message. It was a master-stroke. On the same day he addressed himself in English to the settlers and the members of his own party. One or two sentences from this "Thanksgiving Sermon " betray the thoughts that were surging in his mind. " A great change," he said, " has taken place in the circumstances of our natural life ; but no change which need affect our spiritual being. We have come to a land where not so much as a tree resembles those of our native country. All visible things are new and strange ; but the things that are unseen remain the same. The same Spirit guides and teaches us. The same Church acknowledges us as her members ; stretches out her
52
On the Lone Bush Track
arms to receive and bless our children, to lay her hands upon the heads of our youth, to break and bless the bread of the Eucharist, and to lay our dead in the grave in peace." His text' on that historic occasion was marked by that striking appropriateness which always distinguished his Scriptural quotations : " If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me."
Let us glance around at this rude and primitive civilisation into the midst of which wehave so suddenly plunged. Our references to Government House, and to the presence of a Chief Justice and an Attorney- General, may create a distinctly false impression. There, then, is the residence of His Excellency, — a hurriedly constructed one-storied wooden cottage ! Round about it huddle a few even less pretentious structures. About fifty soldiers are housed in a wooden barracks over yonder. Here is the rough old Court House, which also does duty as a church. This track, leading down into the township, will take us to a tiny cluster of stores. There are as yet no roads. The bush is everywhere, and as one looks down from the hill, the insignificant group of modest dwellings, which, at this distance, look like mere dolls'- houses, are lost in the wild and picturesque confusion of foliage with which, for centuries, Nature has decked and draped the entire landscape.
Having, in the course of a week or so, thoroughly acquainted himself with the immediate vicinity, the Bishop was impatient to explore the country a little farther afield. It was quite to his taste, therefore, when Governor Hobson informed him that he was about to despatch a representative to inquire into a Maori massacre which had just occurred in the Thames Valley, and invited him to join the expedition. As the schooner made her way along the coast, the Bishop was entranced at the exquisite beauty of the
53
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
scenery which unfolded itself in panoramic splendour in every direction.
It was with infinite delight, too, that he cultivated that acquaintance with the native people which he had made, under such happy auspices, on his first arrival. Their manner of grouping themselves in villages or pas, together with all their domestic arrangements, simply captivated him. His intro- duction to a Maori pa was an experience which he was never likely to forget. He found the ordinary native families living for the most part in whares. A whare is a strongly constructed hut, ornately carved and elaborately adorned, thatched with raupo, and carpeted with mats of native flax. Here and there several families had established their domestic economy upon socialistic or co-operative principles, all living together in a whare-puni, or larger whare. The advantage of this system was most pronounced in winter, when all slept together round the wall, with their feet towards the centre of the floor, where a great fire was kept blazing all through the night. When- ever it became necessary to hold a general deliberation, one of these apartments was transformed, for the time being, into a kind of Town Hall, and within its precincts the villagers assembled to discuss their grievances. The chiefs lived in larger and more imposing structures. But none of these native dwell- ings were to be despised. Although, in the nature of the case, the architecture was but rudimentary, and the execution primitive, the buildings were erected with considerable skill, and were wonderfully neat, weather-proof, and comfortable. The whole group of whares, whare-punis, and patakas (or storehouses) was surrounded by a high palisade, from behind the protection of which the villagers could resist a hostile visitation from a neighbouring tribe. These fortifica- tions were constructed on so staunch a pattern, and on such excellent military principles, that, in the tragic
54
MAORI CHIEF, SHOWING ELABORATE TATTOOING ON FACE
55
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
days of the New Zealand war, the Maoris were often able to entrench themselves behind these palisades, and for days at a time hold our trained regiments at bay. The whole village, with its dwellings, store- houses, and fortifications, is called a pa ; and as the Bishop scrutinised its details for the first time, chatting the while with his native escort, with quiet dignity and easy grace he made no attempt to disguise his intense admiration of all that he saw. Moreover, he found occasion, in the course of his short tour, to admire the evidence of their integrity as well as the monuments of their industry, for he discovered that the houses of the settlers, living in close proximity to the pas, had not so much as a bolt upon the doors. Surrounded by natives, the property of the white man was inviolable.
They found at last the old chief who had been mainly responsible for the recent massacre. He sat in solemn state, wrapped in his blanket, and surrounded by his tribe. After a long palaver he agreed, with manifest reluctance, to give up the slaves with which he had enriched himself in the late disturbance, and to behave himself peaceably in days to come. Having thus satisfactorily adjusted the matter, the party set out on their return to Auckland. They were unavoidably detained, over the Sunday, at a settlement about twelve miles from headquarters, and the Bishop turned the delay to the best account by conducting service in the native language. They reached Auckland next day, having been absent five days.
One other journey of importance the Bishop made whilst waiting for his wife's arrival. After having care- fully studied a map of the country, and taken counsel with the Government officials at Auckland, he came to the conclusion that he ought to make his permanent home at a village on the Bay of Islands, at which the Church Missionary Society had already established its
On the Lone Bush Track
principal station. And as it was within the blue waters of this bay that the Tomatin was expected to first cast anchor, the most powerful incentives combined in pointing the Bishop northwards. Immediately on his return from his first jaunt, there- fore, he again set sail, and losing no time on the voyage, safely reached the mission-station. We shall allow the good missionary's wife to tell the story of his arrival. Writing to a friend in England, she says : —
" Our good Bishop has arrived ! He took us all by surprise. He had been becalmed off the heads, took to his boat, and reached this place soon after dark. W. and H. were soon down at the beach, where they found the head of our New Zealand Church busily engaged in assisting to pull up the boat out of the surt. Such an entree bespoke a man fit for a New Zealand life. We are all delighted with him ; he seems so desirous of doing good to the natives, and so full of plans for the welfare of all."
The Bishop had scarcely settled down to prepare his future home, and make general arrangements for the establishment of his headquarters at this spot, when a messenger rushed to him with the welcome intelligence that the Tomatin was lying at anchor in the offing. To continue the letter from which we have just quoted, the missionary's wife goes on to say : " The Tomatin has arrived, bringing Mrs. Selwyn and the rest of his numerous party. We admired him before, but he has completely won our hearts to-day by his reception of his wife and family."
It was about ten miles from the landing-place to the mission-station at Waimate, and in those days the task of conducting the party, and its necessary baggage, even that moderate distance was attended by no small difficulty. At length, however, the settle- ment was reached. The house of a Mr. Clarke had been secured as a " Bishopscourt " for the present ; and it was arranged that Mrs. Selwyn should consider
"57
George Augustus Selvvyn, D.D.
herself a guest at the mission-house until the episcopal dwelling had been put into thorough repair. The Waimate was, at that period, the most settled district in New Zealand ; and here, to a greater extent than anywhere else, the influence of the missionaries had made itself felt. The Lord's Table was frequently surrounded by as many as four hundred native con- verts. Its very remoteness from the centres, into which the flowing tide of immigration was beginning to pour, commended it to the Bishop in selecting a home. He knew that he himself would be absent for long periods on his evangelistic labours ; and he felt an intense horror at the thought of leaving his loved ones to breathe the unwholesome moral atmosphere that too often characterises new colonial settlements. Mrs. Selwyn quickly fell in love with her new surroundings and associates. The Waimate itseL, with its cosy houses and pretty gardens clustering around the white spire of the little church, reminded her of an English village. She would often take her little boy and stroll away along the tracks into the bush, and return to the mission-house delighted with the new ferns and mosses which she had gathered in her ramble. The Maoris themselves, too, were a source of perennial interest to her. She was especially amused at their culinary arrangements, and loved to see them cook their food. She watched them dig an oven — a circular hole two or three feet wide — out of the ground. In this pit a large fire was kindled ; a layer of stones was laid upon the blazing pile ; and, as the wood crumbled to ashes, these stones, giving off a fierce heat, fell to the bottom of the excavation. The wood was then shovelled out ; the stones, by means of a stout stick, were arranged evenly in rows and covered with a layer of green leaves ; on these the food was then placed. Another layer of leaves covered it, and the earth was then restored until the hole was almost filled again. After a time the oven
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On the Lone Bush Track
would be reopened, and the food, " done to a turn," was taken out and eaten.
One grievous disappointment cast its gloom over their first home at the Antipodes. Dr. Selwyn's old friend and chaplain, the Rev. T. B. Whytehead, from whose magnetic influence over young men in England the Bishop had been led to anticipate great things in the coming days, was too ill when the Tomatin left' Sydney to resume the voyage. And when, sub- sequently, he did complete the journey and rejoin the party, he only asked of the new land a grave.
But the time had now come to start work in real earnest, and the Bishop, having seen his wife and child comfortably ensconced in their cosy quarters at the Waimate, began to apply his restless mind to a plan for compassing the needs of his enormous episcopate. He determined to spend the remainder of the year 1842 in a personal visitation of the whole of the North Island, and to follow up this stupendous programme by a southern tour in 1843. When we remember that, as the crow flies, a thousand miles intervene between the North Cape and the Bluff; when we reflect, too, that it was the Bishop's intention, not simply to travel through the land from Dan to Beersheba, but to zigzag from settlement to settle- ment, acquainting himself with all the people of his huge diocese ; and when we further remind ourselves that, necessarily, much of the ground must be covered on foot, we can form a vague notion of the colossal proportions of his undertaking. On 28th July, five weeks after his wife's arrival, he set out upon his first great expedition. He returned on 9th January ot the following year, having traversed in the interval 2685 miles, of which 1400 were by ship, 397 by boat, 126 on horseback, and 762 on foot!
The best descriptions of these long feats of endurance and exploration are contained in his letters to his father. They were great days, in the dear old
59
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
home, when letters arrived from over the seas. And such letters ! For they consisted, not merely of pages and pages of racily written descriptions of his wild nomadic life, lit up by vivid and realistic flashes which seemed to bring New Zealand next door to Great Britain, but also of exceedingly clever pen-and- ink sketches of every scene and object that called for •particular attention. Dr. Selwyn put his very best into his home letters. They were literary gems and artistic masterpieces. They were, moreover, couched in terms of the old-time boyish frankness ; and breathed, in every stroke of the pen, that fragrant atmosphere of transparent devotion and undying affection in which, in the heart of their writer, every thought of home was immutably enshrined.
It is from these tender and characteristic epistles, which filled at the same time the eyes of their readers with tears, and their hearts with grateful pride, that we gather the most authentic impressions of these wonderful and adventurous pilgrimages. On, and ever on, he tramped along the tortuous bush tracks, mile after mile and day after day. The very tuis and bell-birds must have come to know that lithe and lonely figure as he invaded their sylvan solitudes, and, pausing not nor resting, pressed tirelessly on, It was in prosecuting these great tours that his cross-country work at Eton proved invaluable to him. No obstacles turned him aside. He found a way or made it. He negotiated the most broken and forbidding country with a facility which would have kindled the envy of a royal engineer. In every gully and ravine he discovered a spot at which he could cross the mere, ford the stream, or splash his way through the lagoon. By the bank of the river he would either strip for a swim, or inflate his air-bed, and fastening it to boughs torn from the trees, convert it into a magnificent raft. It was a part of his creed, and a part to which he clung as tenaciously as to any, that difficulties were
60
61
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
designed for the express purpose of being overcome. He laughed his way through obstacles that to most men would have been insuperable. Sometimes he was attended in these long marches by admiring and devoted natives. Occasionally one of his colleagues went with him ; and once or twice his great friend, Mr. Chief Justice Martin, was able to dovetail his own itinerary into the programme of the Bishop. But often he was quite alone, pitching his little camp at night beside a giant kauri or beneath some spreading native beech, and at the first suspicion of sunrise, folding his tent like the Arab, and silently stealing away.
Capiain Jacobs, of the Mission schooner Southern Cross, once overtook the Bishop travelling north, riding one horse and leading another ; the latter bore the impedimenta of his camp. The captain, who was about to enjoy the hospitality of a neigh- bouring settler, invited the Bishop to share the kindly accommodation with him. The well-meant offer was instantly and firmly declined. "You see," he said, " people get up so late. By the time that they are having breakfast, I shall be half-way on my journey." As it happened, however, Mr. Jacobs had not travelled many miles next morning before he came upon the Bishop sitting gipsy-like in front of a fire by the side of the track, in the blaze of which he was evidently cooking his breakfast. He explained that his fond hopes of an early start had been cruelly frustrated by the horses having broken away during the night. On the opposite side of the crackling flames, obviously on the best terms with his ecclesiastical companion, squatted the most worthless-looking tramp that it was possible to see. " He positively hadn't five shillings worth of clothes on him ! " Captain Jacobs would exclaim, in telling the story. " You see," said the Bishop, with an inclination of his head towards his strange guest, "I have a friend to breakfast!"
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On the Lone Bush Track
" Ay," the captain would add in relating the incident, " and he meant it too ! "
This al fresco hospitality was a common feature of these long bush marches. The Bishop hated to eat his morsel alone. Innumerable stories are told by his friends of the way in which they would find him on a track over the mountains, or in the shaded recesses of some thickly wooded valley, sharing his frugal meal with an aged Maori, or spreading a simple repast on the bark of a fallen tree for the entertain- ment of some fellow-traveller, who, by a mistaken reckoning, found himself at an unexpected distance from his base of supplies. And in every case he was on the best of terms with his companion. Whether listening to the prattle of a Maori child who had wandered from a neighbouring pa ; or sharing his lunch with a bronzed and broad-shouldered squatter ; or chatting with an awkward, loose-limbed lad from a remote settlement, he was always perfectly at his ease, and always imparting the same sense of freedom to his guest.
Nor were these continuous pilgrimages mere purposeless tramps. Whenever he caught sight of the wreathing column of smoke that betokened the settler's hut, he instantly turned aside to acquaint himself with the people and their conditions. When- ever he came upon some rustic township, bush settlement or native pa, he at once pitched his tent, and threw all his energy into his ministration to the deepest needs of the people. He conducted services whenever, and wherever, he could find or make an opportunity, sometimes in a barn or loft, sometimes in a concert-hall or dancing-saloon, sometimes in a native whare, and often in the open air. The azure sky was frequently his cathedral dome, the bush- birds his choristers. The most unaffected and approach- able of men, he induced alike the roughest and the shyest to entrust him with their confidenc s. He
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
comforted the aged ; he counselled the middle-aged ; and young people and little children delighted in his company. Moreover, he was often called to " heal the sick " as well as to " preach the Gospel," and with all a man's strength, and all a woman's gentleness, he executed this part of his apostolic commission. " What an admirable nurse he was ! " wrote a lady friend, who had often witnessed his ministry to the stricken and the suffering. "There are many now living who can tell of his tenderness and patience in this capacity."
The only person for whom the Bishop showed no consideration was himself. Mr. Abraham (afterwards Bishop of Wellington) tells how, in the course of a long walk from one end of the North Island to the other, the Bishop stopped, apparently to adjust a boot-lace, and told Mr. Abraham to go on, saying : " I will overtake you in a minute." The delay lasted longer than he had expected, and Mr. Abraham strolled back to ascertain the cause. He found the Bishop treating an ugly and inflamed wound on his heel, and stolidly hacking away the proud flesh with his pocket-knife. In relation to the sufferings of others he was acutely sympathetic, but where he himself was concerned, he was a perfect Spartan.
On reaching Wellington, the southern limit of his first visitation, he was joined by the Chief Justice, who saw at a glance that this rude life of privation and endurance was already telling upon him. "As our boat neared the beach," writes the Judge, "the Bishop stood there to welcome us. It was very joyous to meet him again, but I was struck by his pale, worn face. He was nursing the sick in the person ofpoor Evans, who had then been given over by the physicians. He was to all appearances sinking. The Bishop was watching and tending as a mother or wife might watch and tend. It was a most affecting sight. He practised every little art, that nourishment might
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On the Lone Bush Track
be supplied to his patient. He pounded chicken into fine powder, that it might pass, in a liquid form, into his ulcerated mouth. He made jellies ; he listened to every sound ; he sat up the whole night through by the bedside. In short, he did everything worthy of his noble nature. It went to my heart." To the great grief of the Bishop the patient died, leaning, in his last anguish, upon the arm of his assiduous bene- factor. " I had been with him three weeks," the Bishop wrote to his mother, "and enjoyed much comfort in the simple manner in which he expressed the sincerity of his repentance, and the grounds of his hope for the life to come." In a letter to Mrs. Martin, the Chief Justice tells how, in strolling over the sunlit hills next morning for a breath of fresh air before going into Court, he found there, amidst the life and beauty of a spring morning, a boy digging the grave of poor Evans. " The Bishop and I," he adds, " have slept side by side, on two stretchers, in a huge loft ever since I came."
Immediately after the funeral of his late patient, Dr. Selwyn turned his face northward, and set out upon his return journey. He made his way along the shore, on the west coast of the island, with a view to visiting the settlers of the Taranaki district. He had not gone far, however, before he was overtaken by a misfortune which compelled him to camp, for three days, among the low sand-hills near the beach. His heel became inflamed as a consequence of continual walking on the flat sands, and whilst chafing at this enforced inactivity, he celebrated the anniversary of his Consecration Service. In contrasting his present condition with that in which he found himself a year ago, and in reviewing the toils and travels in which the year had involved him, he found cause for nothing but contentment and thanksgiving. And, in recount- ing, in his letter to his mother, the numerous mercies which had, during the year, attended his way, he
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
specially mentions the cheerfulness with which she had borne the anguish of their separation. It was not until many months afterwards that he learned that that letter was destined never to greet the eyes of her for whose comfort it was designed. For, even as he sat among the tussocks, impatiently nursing his swollen heel, that gentle spirit, beneath his portrait in the old home, was peacefully breathing itself back to God. On that first anniversary of his Consecration Service she passed away, thinking of him, speaking of him, and praying for him to the very last.
His return journey led him through country more closely settled by immigrants on the one hand, and more thickly peopled by native tribes on the other. At Waikanae, more than five hundred Maoris crowded together to hear him ; and as he addressed them in their own rhythmic and musical language, he was delighted to notice, from the quickly changing play of expression upon their countenances, that his utterance was followed with interest, and its deeper significance apprehended with ease. It was evident that, among the natives, his fame had preceded him. At every pa he was welcomed with boisterous enthusiasm, and tribe vied with tribe in demonstrat- ing its delight. Here, enormous bonfires blazed in honour of his approach ; whilst there, animals were slaughtered and presented as a token of goodwill. Sometimes, indeed, these effusive manifestations of rejoicing at the coming of the great white preacher stood in imminent peril of appearing somewhat ludicrous. On one occasion, for example, he visited a strong and fortified pa which had recently made its name notorious in connection with a most revolt- ing massacre, followed by the supplementary horrors of cannibalism. The guilty people received the Bishop with the most frenzied delight, " the principal murderer being himself most assiduous ;n his atten- tions. '
6$
On the Lone Bush Track
Having followed the coast-line as far as the point at which the waters of the beautiful Manawatu empty themselves into the sea, Dr. Selwyn decided to reorganise his party, in order to make the ascent of the stream. On 7th November, therefore, he found himself at the head of an expedition consisting of six canoes, each containing eight men, fully equipped for the long river journey. New Zealand has many claims upon the admiration of beholders, but in her river scenery she surpasses herself. The clear and tranquil waters, reflecting as in a mirror the majestic hills on either side, are at once the rapture of the poet and the despair of the artist. As far as eye can reach, in every direction, the mountainous peaks lift their massive heads to the skies, sometimes feathering gently and gradually down to the river's brink, and sometimes falling with abrupt and precipitous suddenness to the water's edge. As the canoes glide on, we catch glimpses of range beyond range, in bewildering number and variety, every slope densely clothed with a glorious tangle of magnificent bush, which, from the branches that wave triumphantly from the dizzy heights above, to those that lean over and bathe their verdure in the eddies of the stream, nowhere knows a break.
Before the procession of canoes was launched upon its long expedition, the Bishop had received from Wellington a budget of letters and newspapers from home. Only those who have been similarly circum- stanced can know the thrill that accompanies the arrival of the English mail. Yet so transcendently beautiful was the scenery, and so charming the foliage amidst which his little fleet was so gracefully moving, that the Bishop found it difficult to withdraw his gaze for a moment from the loveliness around him, in order to devour the precious contents of his welcome missives. Day after day the great flowering shrubs which, in all their early summer glory, imparted to
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the evergreen bush a magnificent profusion of colour, the rhythmic plash of the paddles in the silvery waters, and the wild melody of the myriad songsters in the forest around, wove themselves into a memory of music and delight which haunted the Bishop to his dying day. The laughter of these waterfalls, the thunder of these cataracts, and the innumerable calls and echoes of the bush were with him even in his last hours. Night after night, when the mopoke was shouting his strange cry down the wooded valleys, the party would paddle ashore and pitch their encampment. At every sign of a settlement, progress was instantly suspended, greetings exchanged, and a service conducted. When Sunday dawned, they were far from any traces of population. It was a glorious day, sunny but not sultry. The Bishop gathered his Maori attendants together, and in his own homely and felicitous style expounded to them the eternal message of the love of Christ. Later in the day he indulged in a restful stroll through the charming environs of the camp. And before retiring for the night, he once more assembled his party, and committed them to that Divine care, beyond which, by peak or by plain, by sea or by shore, none who trust can ever drift.
The next day afforded them the opportunity of enjoying the more exciting pleasures of the chase. They forsook the river and struck inland towards the east coast. After some little exploration they came upon a noble plain, across which they were able to walk for eighteen miles on soft, fresh grass. The district abounded in wild pigs, and when at night the hunters turned towards the camp, each man was heavily laden with his porcine spoil. In this vicinity, too, they discovered a fine lake, in the centre of which stood a small island, on which a native settle- ment had been erected. In response to their signals, the Maoris sent canoes across the rippling waters to
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bring the episcopal party to the pa. Wrapped in his flowing blanket, the chief pronounced an oration of welcome, "with all the dignity" — to quote Dr. Selwyn's words — "of a Roman senator. But when," he adds, " the time came for our departure, he prepared to accompany us by dressing himself in a complete English suit of white jean, with white cotton stockings, shoes, neckcloth, and shirt complete. His wife was dressed in a brilliant cotton gown, spotted with bright red, and a good English bonnet, but without shoes or stockings. The canoe, being in shallow water, some distance from the shore, the dutiful wife saved her husband's shoes and stockings by carrying him on her back to the boat."
On November i6th an awkward predicament overtook them. After conducting a service at Ahuriri, they found the canoe stuck fast, and the tents out of reach ! At length one tent was procured, in which the first Bishop of New Zealand, the first Chief Justice, and the first Archdeacon huddled together for the night. " Surely," writes the Bishop, " such an aggregate of legal and clerical dignity was never before collected under one piece of canvas ! "
It was amidst such alternating scenes of gravity and gaiety that this long and memorable tour of episcopal visitation drew to its close. Sometimes we see the Bishop preaching with great force and fervour to as many as a thousand Maoris at once, they standing bare-headed beneath the scorching summer sun, whilst he addresses them from beneath the canvas awning which they have erected for his accommodation. Sometimes we catch a glimpse of him bending over the prostrate form of a member of his staff, who, overcome by the heat and excitement of the journey, has developed a malady which sorely taxes all his master's ingenuity and resource. And at other times we see him crossing a river, either by felling a tree to serve as a rustic bridge, by swimming,
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if not encumbered by heavy baggage, or by punting across on a hastily improvised raft.
He had fondly hoped to be back at the Waimate in time to spend his first midsummer Christmas with his wife and child. But all hope of realising this alluring dream had to be reluctantly and ruthlessly abandoned. It was getting towards the end of November when, emerging from the bush-land of the interior, they heard the roar of the breakers on the east coast of the island. On 2Oth December he slept in a potato-field, which, as he said, possessed the twofold advantage of providing him with both bed and board. The next day he saw the steam rising from the thermal district of Rotorua. A - few hours later he reached the banks of the Thames, and contrasted that lonely stream with the busy river around which most of his Eton and Windsor recollec- tions centred. Christmas Day was spent in conference with an old chief who, whilst really heathen, made a profession of Roman Catholicism in order to evade the attentions of Protestant missionaries. On Sunday, January ist, he "reviewed with great thankfulness the events of the past year, so full of new and important features"; and on January 3rd he reached Auckland. His own record of his return is too striking to be omitted.
" On Tuesday, January 3rd," he says, " my last pair of thick shoes being worn out, and my feet much blistered by walking on the stumps, I borrowed a horse from the native teacher and started at 4 A.M. to go twelve miles to Mr. Hamlin's Mission Station, on Manakau harbour. Then ten miles by boat across the harbour. It is a noble sheet of water, but very dangerous from shoals and squalls. After a beautiful run of two hours I landed with my faithful Maori, Rota, who had steadily accompanied me all the way, carrying my bag with gown and cassock — the only articles in my possession which would have
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fetched sixpence in the Auckland rag- market. My last remaining pair of shoes (pumps) were strong enough for the light and sandy walk of six miles to Auckland ; and at 2 P.M. I reached the Judge's house by a path, avoiding the town, and passing over land which I have bought for the site of a cathedral. It is a spot which, I hope, may hereafter be traversed by many bishops better shod, and far less ragged, than myself."
If, in addition to his longing to see his dear ones, any other incentive were needed to hasten his steps towards the Waimate, it was supplied by the news which greeted him on his entrance into Auckland, of the arrival, in a most critical condition, of his friend, the Rev. T. B. Whytehead. Only those who had walked, as closely as the Bishop had done, with this choice and cultured spirit, could appreciate his worth. It was a fundamental part of Dr. Selwyn's programme to establish a College at Waimate with Mr. Whytehead as its principal. Without losing an hour, therefore, he hurried on. When approaching the settlement, Mr. Whytehead was one of the first to greet him, " his pale and spectral face telling its own story." A day or two later the invalid took to his bed. Each evening the Maori Christians, to whom he had ministered, ranged themselves beneath his window, and sang, in their own language, " Glory to Thee, my God, this night ! " — a hymn which Mr. Whytehead had himself translated for them. Ten days after his chiefs return, the patient sufferer passed peacefully away ; and the Bishop felt that his burial gave to the land of his adoption a new sanctity and an added claim. Perhaps the most eloquent tribute ever paid to this good man's memory was offered when, twenty- five years later, the members of St. John's College, Cambridge, erected a new chapel. They engraved the name of Thomas Whytehead on the vaulted roof, side by side with those of Henry Martyn, William
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Wilberforce, William Wordsworth, and James Wood, as the five most distinguished benefactors of their race which the College, during the nineteenth century, had produced.
But meanwhile the Bishop was at home again ! After his prodigious labours and ceaseless privations, he was permitted to breathe a softer atmosphere. His delight at finding his wife and child in excellent health, and in once more revelling in the luxury of their society, knew no bounds. The missionaries and their families welcomed him back with a will. The Maoris, on catching sight of him, clapped their hands and shouted " Haere Mail" (Welcome !). And the whole settlement assumed a festal air on his return.
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CHAPTER IV
THE GARDEN IN THE WILDERNESS
" He stood upon the world's broad threshold ; wide
The din of battle and of slaughter rose ; He saw God standing on the weaker side That sank in seeming loss before its foes.
Therefore he went
And humbly joined him to the weaker part ; Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content
So he could be the nearer to God's heart, . And feel its solemn pulses sending blood
Through all the widespread veins of endless good."
LOWELL.
'"PHE days which the Bishop spent in the congenial •*• atmosphere of his northern home were by no means devoted to rest or relaxation. His first extensive tour through but one of the islands of his enormous diocese had but deepened his sense of responsibility. He felt that he was laying the found- ations of a mighty nation. And every moment of the time that intervened between one long expedition and another was invested in the equally important task of organisation and consolidation. Dr. Selwyn had implicit faith in New Zealand. He dreamed radiant dreams of its splendid future. Even when the hills were everywhere draped with virgin bush, he deliber- ately laid his plans in confident anticipation of the time when those same landscapes should be smothered with an intricate network of crowded streets ; when those very hills should echo to the scream of railway engines ; and when that clear air should be murky
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with the smoke of many factories. He heard afar off the tramp of millions of feet, the roar of heavy traffic, and the whirling of myriad wheels. And he set himself to prepare for the day that he saw dawning. Into two movements, especially, the Bishop threw all his energy from the very first. He felt that, as the future centre of his work, it was essential that a site for a Cathedral should be purchased in Auckland ; and as he looked with gratitude and delight upon the hundreds of native converts at the various mission- stations, he was confirmed in his conviction that a College, for the training and equipment of a native ministry, was absolutely indispensable.
He had only been a few months in the country when he selected and purchased a site for the Cathedral. Macaulay has made all the world familiar with his gloomy vision of the New Zealander stand- ing on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's. But Mr. Swainson, the first Attorney-General of New Zealand, has painted a companion picture in somewhat livelier colours. Referring to the site selected for the Auckland Cathedral, he says : " By the provident foresight of Bishop Selwyn, this commanding position has been secured for the Metropolitan Cathedral of New Zealand. And at some remote period, in the far distant future, when the projected Cathedral shall have become a venerable pile, it will be a matter of no little interest to its then ministers (should the tradition be so long preserved) to read how, in the dark or early ages of New Zealand, A.D. 1843, its founder, the first bishop, returning from a walking visitation of more than a thousand miles, attended by a faithful companion oi a then, it may be, extinct race, his shoes worn out and tied to his instep by a leaf of native flax, travel-worn but not weary, once more found himself on this favoured spot, arrested for a moment by the noble prospect presented to his bodily eye, and cheered by
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the prophetic vision of a long line of successors, Bishops of New Zealand, traversing the same spot, better shod and less ragged than himself. Such a scene, illustrative of the hour and the man, in the hands of a true artist, would afford a fitting subject for a painting to adorn the walls of the future Chapter- house."
But the coup-de-grace of the Bishop's faculty for organisation, and the finest reflection of his own practical ingenuity, was undoubtedly the establishment of the College of St. John the Evangelist. Founded on " the best precedents of antiquity," and intended for both natives and European colonists, St. John's College was frequently declared by the Bishop to be the " key and pivot " of all his operations, and the only regular provision for its support was an annual grant of .£300 from the S.P.G. For the first two years the College really consisted of two or three small tents, grouped around the Cathedral tent which the Bishop had brought from England. Then when the Bishop removed to Auckland, the tents gave place to wooden houses, thatched with reeds, on the banks of the stream at Purewa. And from those modest beginnings the work has persisted, the methods have developed, and the buildings have grown to the much more elaborate and imposing proportions which characterise the institution to-day.
The College was designed according to the original documents: (i) as a place of religious and useful education for all classes of the community, and especially for candidates for Holy Orders ; (2) as a temporary hostelry for young settlers on their first arrival in the country ; and (3) as a refuge for the sick, the aged, and the poor. The Bishop, with that practical sagacity which never failed him, ordained that each student should devote a definite portion of his time daily to some useful pursuit, in aid of the purposes of the Institution. He reminded his young enthusiasts
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of the apostolic precept : " Let him labour, working with his own hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." Arrange- ments were made by which the students should be taught and exercised in the crafts of gardening, forestry, farming, carpentry, turning, printing, weaving and in other equally useful arts and remunerative occupations.
" Our little College assumes a regular form," the Bishop wrote to his sister in July, 1843, " and already gives me promise of a supply of men duly qualified to serve God in the ministry of His Church. We have already nine students, three of whom will, I hope, be admitted to deacon's orders in September. I suppose that Sarah has given you an account of our mode of life which will amuse you. Mrs. Watts is College cook, and bakes and cooks for the whole body so that ladies as well as gentlemen are free to attend to reading and teaching. The College kitchen is regulated upon the plan of a kitchen at Cambridge supplying regular ' commons ' to every member, and providing extras to those who like to order. Each person's ' commons,' including tea, sugar, meat, bread, and potatoes, amounts to one shilling per diem, which is the uniform expense of every person in the establishment.
" At the end of seven years, if we may look forward to so distant a period, we hope to send William to England. I used to think of bringing him, but the more I see of my diocese, the less prospect I have of being able to absent myself for a year within the next ten or fifteen years. If I could get some good Arch- deacons from England the case would be altered, but there seems to be a conspiracy of papas and mammas against New Zealand and me, four of my personal friends, if not five, being prevented by such interference from following the leading of their own hearts and joining me.
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" Sarah is in high favour with the natives, who love a cheerful eye and friendly manner. Her name is 1 Matta Pihopa,' — Mother Bishop. They all say that her ataivai (grace) is great.
" Our native school on board the Tomatin has been of the greatest possible service to us all, though I regret to say that our schoolmaster, Rupai, my native boy, has fulfilled the predictions of Sir William Hooker and others, and returned to his native habits.
" We have also a little printing-press in constant operation, printing native lessons and skeleton sermons for the native teachers, college regulations, bills, receipts ; in fact, doing everything that we require for the routine of our business.
" I have held two ordinations, one at Wellington, at which Mr. Mason was admitted to priest's orders in the presence of 400 natives, the other at the Waimate, when Mr. Davis, one of the senior catechists of the Church Mission, was ordained deacon. I have also held six confirmations, at which 700 natives and a few English have been confirmed.
" You will gather from this letter that we are very happy and beginning to feel settled for life, with roots striking deeper and deeper into the soil of this lovable country."
A great deal of time was spent in planning the division of his huge and unwieldy episcopate into separate sees, a step which the Bishop saw to be inevitable at no distant date. A thorough scheme of preliminary organisation was drafted, and a common Diocesan Fund was established. Into this Fund, with characteristic unselfishness, the Bishop threw half of his own stipend.
Mrs. Selwyn's health, which had for some time given much anxiety, improved somewhat towards the end of 1843, and the Bishop felt that he could leave her in the care of their old friends, Mr. Chief Justice Martin and his excellent wife, and set out on his
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deferred visitation of the South Island. He left Auckland as the sun was setting, on i8th October, 1843, accompanied by his chaplains, Mr. Cotton and Mr. Nihill, and by the "chief protector of Aborigines," Mr. Clark.
We shall make no attempt to follow him in detail throughout this second long journey. The tour which we have already described is typical of all such nomadic excursions. He determined, on this second expedition, to cross the North Island diagonally, from north-east to south-west, to visit the settlements at New Plymouth, Wanganui, and Wellington, and to sail thence for the South Island, on which he had not yet set foot.
In the course of this pilgrimage he penetrated the volcanic region, and stood amazed at the awe-in- spiring phenomena by which he was everywhere surrounded. Magnificent geysers hurled their immense volumes of boiling water to the skies ; hot springs foamed and bubbled in every direction. Through every crack and cranny and crevice fierce jets of steam rushed hissing out. Here and there, the very mud was seething and spluttering in a furious ferment of heated agitation. The entire area was weird, awful, desolate, yet possessing a grandeur of its own. The very earth shuddered as though in the grasp of a relentless monster who could crush it if he would. Every inch of soil, and every drop of moisture, gave fearful witness to the fiery forces that slumbered beneath the surface, and ominously hinted at wild possibilities should they awake in anger. The Bishop gazed, too, with a delight approaching to ecstasy, on the radiantly beautiful pink and white terraces, both of which have since suffered complete demolition in the fearful eruption of 1886.
Pressing towards the south, his letters afford us glimpses of him, now hewing for himself a way through a trackless jungle of bush ; now up to his
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arm-pits in some extensive swamp or lagoon ; and, again, swimming the Wanganui river, or crossing it at the flood on his air-bed, which he had by this time dignified with the title of " the episcopal barge." On 1 5th November he reached Wanganui, then a tiny settlement of about a hundred people ; on 4th December he left New Plymouth ; and on 8th Decem- ber he effected, at Nelson, his first landing on the South Island.
A deep gloom enshrouds the records of this tour, for at every place the Bishop detected evidences of that smouldering hatred and festering discontent which, not long after, burst out into actual war. Everywhere natives and settlers were looking askance at each other, and regarding one another with ill- disguised suspicion. Here and there massacres had already taken place, and at every turn Dr. Selwyn's happy faculty for reconciling antagonists and adjust- ing grievances was laid under heavy requisition. He had no sooner landed on the South Island than he discovered, to his sorrow, that the North held no monopoly in this unfortunate matter. The church at Nelson is prettily perched upon a picturesque knoll in the centre of the town. The Bishop found the hill converted into a fort, and was compelled to enter the building by way of a drawbridge. On the Sunday he preached in the church, making tactful and conciliatory reference to the painful dissensions and shocking atrocities which had recently occurred, and a few days later left for Wellington. Here,also,a tumultuous state of feeling prevailed. A Maori had been charged with theft and sentenced to two months' imprisonment. The natives in Court made a hostile demonstration, furiously hissing the judge ; they then retired to their pa to consider further action, and arrange a rescue of the prisoner. Taking with him Mr. Hadfield (afterwards Bishop of Wellington) and Mr. Cotton, Dr. Selwyn strode off to the pa. Greenstone
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
hatchets and iron weapons were angrily flourished in his face, and with many threats and imprecations he was commanded instantly to depart. He persisted, however, in quietly remaining among them, speaking, as opportunity presented itself, an occasional word of dispassionate counsel or friendly persuasion. Mr. Hadfield also addressed the Maoris in " a quiet vein of raillery which is always effective with native assemblies." Before midnight the storm had subsided, and next morning the chiefs professed the utmost goodwill.
If, as we have seen, the North Island expressed, in 1843, but a remote hint, an almost imperceptible whisper, of the remarkable transformation of the immediate future, it may be fearlessly affirmed that the prophecy of a coming civilisation in the South Island was even less audible. Where the busy province of Canterbury now stands, with its hundreds of thriving towns, and even where its stately capital now converges upon its lofty Cathedral spire, a great and silent prairie was all that greeted the eye of Bishop Selwyn. He landed from the schooner Richmond, on which he had run down from Wellington, on 6th January, 1844. The coast he found dotted by one or two whaling stations ; but the broad areas of the Canterbury plains, now a perfect panorama of pastoral and agricultural activity, waved, far as the eye could reach, with brown tussock and with yellow grass. He would have been a daring seer who, looking upon that trackless prairie as it met the eye of Bishop Selwyn, would have hazarded the prediction that, within the lifetime of a single genera- tion, great ocean liners would be smoking on every skyline,bearing the wealthy products of those unbroken plains to all the markets of the world.
Farther south, where now the prosperous province of Otago stands, the silence was even more intense. Here, to a greater extent than in the north, the
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Maoris had been decimated by tribal warfare, and swept off by pitiless disease. At the opening of the nineteenth century a native settlement near the Otago Heads had consisted of about 2000 souls. Half a century later only fifty of these survived. Men with whom Dr. Selwyn conversed could tell how, within their memory, a settlement of a thousand hid dwindled down to a dozen. The colder climate and the fiercer feuds had combined with diseases, intro- duced from over the seas, to work the most fearful havoc. " At one small bay," we are told, " about three hundred died of measles. Some of the parents, ere dying, are said to have buried their children alive rather than leave them to linger on through the disease to its fatal end."
At the time of the Bishop's arrival in Otago, the scene was preparing for a radical change. The old race had almost expired, the new race had not yet arrived. It was not until four years later that the John Wydiffe and the Philip Laing brought out, from their highland homes and quiet kirks, those sturdy pioneers who, before they had so much as built a hut or felled a tree, kneeled upon the shore and, mingling their voices in psalms and supplication, prayed that they might find grace to establish a colony in the love of righteousness, and in the fear of God. Through these lonely lands the Bishop made his way, minister- ing to such human life as he could discover, and always preparing to-day for the spiritual needs of the millions who were coming to-morrow. On one day he is being entertained by the great chief, Te Rehe, who lived, with his wife, in a hut curiously constructed of the bones of whales, thatched with reeds. On another he is making himself perfectly at home in a deserted and dilapidated old whaling station, where broken boilers, decayed oil-barrels, and the ruins of once snug little cabins mutely told of busy times in still earlier days. For, from the time of the first
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
discovery of New Zealand, her waters swarmed with whales ; and these extremely southern seas were especially the happy hunting-ground of those adven- turous spirits who scorned the isolation, and braved the perils, of cannibal islands in the exciting pursuit of their gigantic prey. Many a night did the Bishop spend at these southern whaling stations. Sitting with the whalers round a blazing fire, he loved to listen to the thrilling stories that these earliest settlers could tell of their hairbreadth escapes, both by sea and land. They had often returned from the dangers of the chase upon the waters, only to confront an attack from hostile natives on the shore. And many a good story did these same whalers afterwards tell of the excitement with which the Bishop would follow breathlessly the unfolding of their adventures, often capping their most stirring tales by the recital of some equally fearsome experience through which he himself had passed.
Having journeyed as far as Stewart Island in the extreme south, the Bishop hastened home. On the way he was entertained by the captain and officers of a French corvette which chanced to be lying at anchor in Akaroa Harbour. " I dined on board," he tells us, " in a style which contrasted amazingly with my life on the native schooner, as I was received with a salute, the crew drawn up in order, and a variety of other formalities." He reached Auckland after a speedy passage, having, however, very narrowly escaped shipwreck off the Banks Peninsula.
Immediately upon his return, the Bishop resolved to transfer his residence from Waimate to Auckland. Upon him devolved now the care of many churches, and it became absolutely essential that he should be in touch with things at their centre. Moreover, his days were dark with gloomy foreboding. Every messenger brought news of the alarming spread of disaffection among the natives, and of deplorable
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
outbreaks of hostilities. He was eager, too, to press on with his great work of ecclesiastical reorganisation, and this could be far more expeditiously effected from Auckland than from a remote settlement in the far north. The Church Missionary Society had also committed itself to a readjustment of its forces in New Zealand ; and all these factors in combination rendered the Bishop's removal imperative. He there- fore appointed the Rev. Henry Williams, his old friend and early host, Archdeacon of the Waimate, and removed his own home, his episcopal headquarters, and St. John's College to the rapidly rising town of Auckland, the then capital of the colony. Lady Martin, the wife of the Chief Justice, thus vividly describes the departure : —
" The Bishop, Mrs. Selwyn, and the children were off by 7 A.M. Mrs. Selwyn and her little boy of five (William) rode ; the Bishop was on foot, with his infant son (John, afterwards Bishop of Melanesia) securely swathed in a plaid which was thrown over his shoulder and wound round his waist. Friends bade farewell ; and the Maori children came swarming to the top of the lane singing: 'O that will be joyful, When we meet to part no more.' We rowed across the harbour, and before sunset landed at the little town of Kororeka. We then went up to the small wooden parsonage near the church on a hill above the town and found the garden gay with shrubs and flowers. Ere long the large party from the Waimate, composed of English and natives, was encamped in tents near Auckland till the new St. John's College was ready to receive them."
Without further delay the Bishop decided to put into actual operation some of those abstract ideas which he had conceived and formulated at Windsor. In September, 1844, he summoned a Synod of the clergy of his diocese to " frame rules for the better management of the mission, and the general govern-
The Garden in the Wilderness
ment of the church." It is difficult now to discern the grounds on which such a gathering could be justly censured ; but the fact remains that, when the news reached England that such a Synod had been convened, it was greeted with a storm of angry criticism. New Zealand has, in a most marked way, been a land of political and ecclesiastical experiments. Many abstract principles of political economy have
GENERAL VIEW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE AND CHAPEL
there been subjected to the stern test of practical experience; and on having vindicated themselves on that limited theatre, have become the commonplaces of statesmanship among the older nations. Very few modern Churchmen, it may be, adequately recognise the enormous influence which Bishop Selwyn exerts upon the religious life of our own day as a direct out- come of these early experiments at the Antipodes. He tested and improved his methods, most carefully
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revising and pruning them at every stage, until the finished result conformed precisely to his original ideal. Then, on his elevation to Lichfield, he transplanted the perfected organisation into the unpromising soil and atmosphere of the conservative church-life of the Homeland. Here, again, it abundantly justified itself; and it is not too much to claim that the imposing Synods and Pan-Anglican Congresses to which modern eyes have grown accustomed are the direct fruit and natural outcome of those earlv experiments on the distant shores of New Zealand.
During the next few years the Bishop worked night and day at the development of his institutions. As a result of these titanic labours he was able, in an incredibly brief space of time, to look around upon a group of activities of which any man might pardon- ably be proud. St. John's College grew into a large and prosperous centre of manifold, beneficent enter- prises. Tutors and students devoted themselves with equal energy to the exacting tasks of the class-room as well as to those industrial pursuits by which the establishment was supported. The hands that clasped the text-book and the pencil in the morning awoke the echoes of the neighbourhood with hammer and saw in the afternoon. The greatest pride was taken not only in the intellectual progress of the students, but in the ploughing of the land, in the swarming of the bees, in the feeding of the cattle, and in those departments of the estate in which the printing-press, the shoemaker's last, the tailor's needle, and the weaver's loom were kept in constant employment. Around the College there flourished a cluster of kindred beneficent organisations. Quite an array of schools sprang up. There was a natives' adult school, a native boys' school, a native girls' school, a half- castes' school, and an English primary school. Then, too, there was an elaborate teaching staff ; there were
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the lay associates ; and there was a visitor for Household and Hospitality.
But, perhaps, the beautiful simplicity and apostolic devotion which characterised all these institutions will be most easily comprehended by a reference to the St. John's Hospital. Side by side with the College, the Bishop founded this most excellent establishment, from the beds of which none who were sick or in pain were by any means excluded. The staff consisted entirely of voluntary helpers, who cheerfully bound themselves to render medical attendance and nursing care without any remunera- tion whatever. The Bishop issued an appeal, based upon the Divine precept : " Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." And in response to that challenge there was found no lack of willing workers who pledged themselves " to minister, so far as health would allow, to all the wants of the sick of all classes, without respect of persons or reservation of service, in the hope of excluding all hireling assistance from a work which ought, if possible, to be entirely a labour of love."
Such time as could be snatched from the immense labour involved in this work of consolidation was devoted to further tours of visitation through the islands. In making these lengthy and tedious excursions, the equestrian skill which the Bishop had acquired in his cross-country steeple chases at Eton often served him in good stead. At Wellington he won the undying admiration of the Maoris by the way in which he rode a certain horse along the beach. At every step he was greeted with shouts of " Tena korua ko ! " (" There you go, you and the buck- jumper ! "). He dismounted and inquired the cause of these unwonted demonstrations. Whereupon he was informed that the chief who had lent him the horse had deliberately placed at his disposal an
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
animal of particularly vicious propensities, and the natives were applauding the skill with which he was managing the worst buck-jumper in the country !
On another occasion the Maoris introduced him to a horse which they called Rona, or, The Man in the Moon. It was, they said, impossible to manage him. The Bishop took a pack-saddle, and for two long hours he wrestled patiently, but persistently, with the knotty problem. He succeeded at last in covering the horse's eyes with a pocket-handkerchief. Then, holding up a foreleg with one hand, he adjusted the pack-saddle with the other, the Maoris beholding his triumph with mingled expressions of amazement and delight.
Sir George Grey, who assumed the Lieutenant- Governorship in 1845, and who was through all his term of office a most staunch and sympathetic friend ^>f Bishop Selwyn's, brought a number of zebras into the country. Many attempts were made to ride them, but always without success. At last an old Maori chief, who had witnessed the prowess of the Bishop, asked if he had ever tried to break them in. He was assured that such a feat was impossible. The chief, however, sceptically shook his head, and replied : "Impossible! how so? he has broken us in, and tamed the Maori heart, why not the zebra ? "
The confident old chief was probably thinking of the services which the Bishop was constantly rendering as peacemaker in the native pas. Many a sanguinary conflict was averted by his timely and fearless intervention. On one occasion he entered a pa, where all was turmoil and confusion on account of the fact that a chief had murdered his cousin. War was instantly declared between the friends of the two parties ; the adherents of the murdered man loudly proclaiming, with fierce gesticulations, their thirst for revenge. In a very short time the two little armies were drawn up in battle array. Bishop
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Selwyn, accompanied by Mr. Abraham, interviewed the leaders, first on this side and then on that, attempting to bring about a peaceful understanding. At last the Bishop approached the murderer, who shamelessly recited the details of his crime, and concluded the ghastly narrative by demanding : " What do you think of that ? " Near by, the friends of the man were lying fingering the triggers of their rifles, and quite prepared to fire if the slightest danger threatened him. The Bishop, however, looked the man full in the face and replied : " I have no hesitation in saying that, on your own showing, you have committed the crime of which Cain was guilty when he slew his brother Abel ! " Quivering with anger, the man sprang forward and screamed : " Say that again if you dare ! " The Bishop stood without a tremor and deliberately repeated the words. Mr. Abraham confessed that he thought the Bishop's hour had come, for he saw the man's hand tighten on his tomahawk hidden under his tartan plaid. At that critical moment, however, a great cry arose among the warriors : " The Bishop is right ! the Bishop is right ! " Thereupon the guilty chief, confronted with his crime, convicted by his conscience, and deserted by his friends, slunk off, ashamed, to his ivhare.
It was only too evident by this time that the work which the Bishop and his colleagues had so patiently and painfully built up was destined to be subjected to a fearful and fiery ordeal. The dissensions and disputes which had smouldered for years had at last blazed out into actual war. The slumbering savagery of the native race revived with the outbreak of hostilities. Every fierce passion was inflamed by a sense of injustice, and every barbarous instinct was quickened by the sight of blood. No greater calamity could have overtaken the Bishop's heroic labours than this tragic and deplorable convulsion. The sickening horrors of war are sufficiently gruesome
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and revolting anywhere and at any time ; but for a war between the nation, represented by the mission- aries on the one side, and the dark race which they had come to evangelise on the other, to break out just as the first Christian institutions were being tremblingly founded, was a calamity aggravated by every possible circumstance of time and of place.
Yet so it was British men-of-war were riding at anchor in the lake-like harbours of New Zealand. British regiments were encamped in those quiet valleys which had for ages been the home of the kewa and the tui. Maoris and Europeans flashed at each other glances of hatred, and hurled at each other angry threats and taunts of defiance. And soon the tree-draped hills of this lovely land were echoing to the clash of steel, the crack of rifles, the cry of men in anguish, and the deep booming of heavy guns.
CPIAPTER V
BY BATTLE-FIELD AND BIVOUAC
"It is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute. And, ever widening, slowly silence all, The little rift within the lover's lute, Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, That rotting inward slowly moulders all."
TENNYSON.
TN the year 1819 — George Selwyn being then a lad •*• of ten, preparing for public-school life at Eton — the great Maori war-chief Hongi Ika visited England. It was less than four years after Waterloo, and Napoleon was fretting out his last days at St. Helena. All eyes were focussed on the stalwart frame and tattooed face of the terrible old chief. But his powers of observation were also fully taxed. Our huge machinery of war simply astounded him. Before our frowning forts and threatening camps, our splendid regiments and our far-flung battle-line, he stood alarmed and bewildered. A few years later he lay dying in his native land. The peaceful murmur of the waves was in his ear ; the wind sighed softly through the rata-leaves above his head ; and round his couch there mingled with his relatives young chiefs who aspired to inherit from the departing hero his lion-like courage. And in his death-agony, the terror which our armaments had inspired returned upon him. " My children," he cried, " attend to my last words. If ever there should land on this shore a
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people who wear red garments, who do no work, who neither buy nor sell, and who always have arms in their hands, beware ! Those people are called soldiers, a dangerous people whose occupation is war ! When you see them, fight against them ! Then, O my children, be brave ! Then, O my friends, be strong ! Be brave that you may not be enslaved ! Be strong that your country may not become the possession of strangers ! " And uttering these cryptic words he died, and his people cherished his strange sayings.
Twelve years later Captain Hobson, R.N., the first Lieutenant-Governor, landed at the Bay of Islands. He at once hoisted the Union Jack, and endeavoured to persuade the chiefs to recognise the sovereignty of Queen Victoria. But the natives remembered the last words of Hongi and were afraid. " The next thing we heard," wrote one chief, " was that the Governor was travelling all over the country, with a large piece of paper, asking all the chiefs to write their names, or make marks upon it. We all tried to find out the reason why the Governor was so anxious to have these marks. Some of us thought the Governor wanted to bewitch all the chiefs, but our pakeha (white) friends laughed at this, and said that Europeans did not know how to bewitch people. Some told us one thing ; some another. We did not know what to think ; but we were all anxious for him to come to us soon, for we were afraid that all his blankets, his tobacco, and other good things would be gone before he came to our part of the country, and that he would have nothing left to pay us for making our marks on his paper."
At last, on 7th February, 1840, Captain Hobson gathered a great assembly of the principal chiefs at Waitangi. In answer to their anxious inquiries he most solemnly assured them that, in acknowledging Queen Victoria as their lawful sovereign, they did not surrender the proprietorship of a single inch of soil.
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For long they remained dubious and hesitant. They listened sceptically ; strolled off in little groups and knots ; returned to elicit further information from the Governor ; and again retired for further consultation with each other. History presents to the imagination few spectacles more romantic and picturesque than this conclave at Waitangi. Here are the heirs and representatives of a wild, yet . noble race, surrounded by the rugged but lovely scenery of their native land, parleying with the accredited ambassadors of a vast and splendid empire. And as they listen to the eloquent overtures and alluring promises of the pale and polite strangers, they find their minds woefully tormented with uncertainty as to whether they are likely to be aggrandised or victimised by the proposed alliance. At last a number of chiefs signed. Some even among these stubbornly refused to accept any present from the Governor, lest it should even seem that a sale of land had . been effected. Captain Hobson, without waiting for the decision of the minority, declared the negotiations completed ; and cheerfully informed the warriors that "the shadow would go to the Queen, whilst the substance would remain with themselves." They might, he said, confide most implicitly in the good faith of the British Government. Indeed, he cleverly persuaded the assembled chiefs that, by signing the treaty, they had enormously enhanced their dignity and importance, since their own titles would be officially recognised, whilst their people, restrained from tribal feuds, and protected from foreign aggression, would rapidly grow in numbers and in wealth.
One other fact is of immense significance. In addition to the right of the race to the whole of the land, and the claim of the individual upon his own section of territory, the treaty of Waitangi also safe- guarded the integrity of tribal rights. The land belong- ing to one tribe could not be ceded tQ another tribe,
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or seized by it with impunity. It was principally the disrespect shown to this aspect of the compact that involved the country in the unspeakable horrors of the Maori war. Moreover, Captain Hobson found it an easier task to persuade the Maoris to sign the treaty than to convince his own countrymen of the necessity of keeping faith with its conditions. The New Zealand Company, which naturally had most to do with land transactions with the natives, frankly informed the British Government that " they had always had very serious doubts whether the treaty of Waitangi, made with naked savages by a consul invested with no plenipotentiary powers, could be treated by lawyers as anything but a praiseworthy device for amusing and pacifying savages for the moment." The Governor, however, congratulated himself on having secured the coveted signatures. He formally proclaimed New Zealand a British Colony ; and to the further disgust of the New Zealand Company, who were hurrying on the work of settlement farther south, he proclaimed Auckland the seat of Government. It was here, eighteen months later, that the Bishop visited him immediately upon his own arrival ; and here, a few months later still, the gallant captain died.
The Governor had dwelt most optimistically, in his address to the Maoris, on the fabulous wealth that would accrue to them under British sovereignty and protection. Traders would simply swarm into the country ; great towns would spring up with incredible rapidity ; the crowds of white men would barter with their darker brethren on terms most favourable to the latter. In a few months the pas of the natives would overflow with treasure. Unfortu- nately this rose-tinted prophecy fulfilled itself but tardily ; and when, after some months had elapsed, the Maoris could discover no appreciable increase in the volume of immigration, they began to suspect
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«/
that the integrity of their possessions was really no more secure than the realisation of this golden dream. " This one thing at least was true, we had less tobacco and fewer blankets than formerly," writes that chief from whose story we have already quoted ; " and we saw that the first Governor had not spoken the truth, for he told us that we should have a great deal more. At last we began to think that the flagstaff (on which the Union Jack had been hoisted) must have some- thing to do with it ; and so Heke, the nephew of old Hongi, went and cut it down. The Governor put up the flagstaff again. A second time Heke cut it down. Now when the Governor heard that Heke had cut down the flagstaff the second time, he became very angry. So he sent to England and to Port Jackson, and everywhere,, for soldiers to come and guard the flagstaff, and to fight with Heke. So the soldiers came, and Heke sent runners to all the divisions 01 his tribe, saying : ' Come, stand at my back ; the red garment is on the shore. Let us fight for our country ! Remember the last words of Hongi!"
The letters of Bishop Selwyn make it clear that this Maori record of the beginning of the war is not far from the truth. "The first indication oi disaffec- tion to the British Government," he writes, " was in March, 1843, from John Heke, who has since made himself so conspicuous in his opposition to our Government. I found, on inquiry, that the natives suspected me oi an intention of sending their names to the Queen. For a long time my residence at Waimate was supposed to have some connection with the general scheme for taking forcible possession of the country. These suspicions were studiously favoured by travelling dealers, who abused their small knowledge ot the native language to misrepresent the Government, and slander the missionaries." He then describes the insult offered to the flag, and adds, " I shuddered at the thought of the beginning of hostilk
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ties, so full of presage of evil for the future. Heke then crossed to Paihia and, with his party, danced the war-dance in my face, after which many violent speeches were made."
Unhappily for all concerned, some of the earlier engagements in this terrible conflict told somewhat heavily against the British. The white men fired the first shot, and the white men were the first to run. The Maoris, who had entertained an exaggerated conception of our military prowess, were intoxicated with a frenzy of delight at their unexpected successes, and the confidence which they imbibed from these early triumphs undoubtedly contributed to the inordinate prolongation of the struggle. It must not, however, be forgotten that, at the outset, almost every advantage lay with the native forces. Their great palisades furnished them with defences, so ingeniously contrived and so powerfully constructed, as to be almost impregnable. Over and over again our troops thundered down upon these formidable ramparts, and were driven back like waves beaten into spray by the crags of the coast. In cases of emergency, too, the abundant natural resources of one of the most wonderful countries in the world were unreservedly at the disposal of the natives. When pressed they had but to retreat into the bush, and it was as though the earth had opened her mouth and swallowed them up. Every track and every tree was familiar to them. They were in league with Nature. They had their natural rendezvous in every district. They plunged into the fern, one here and one there ; and in half an hour had reassembled in some evergreen retreat into which no British scout could penetrate. Amidst this prodigious jungle of vegetation the most shrewd explorer might easily lose his way. He would be an intrepid commander, indeed, who would lead his men into the recesses of these forests. Swarms of ambushed foes might be
JOHN HEKE
From a sketch made by a lady resident in New Zealand during the war 101
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
lurking in the shelter of the dense foliage, within a few feet of the track. And in the thermal region the advantage was even more marked. Narrow paths thrid a labyrinth of horrors. To miss the way is to fall into a boiling spring, or to step into a hissing cauldron of seething mud. In these fearsome districts the Maoris were perfectly at home. Into this neigh- bourhood, quivering with volcanic agitation, they had but to retire at their pleasure, and they were as secure from the assaults of their foes as though they had crossed the ocean, or migrated to another world.
If, however, the stars in their courses seemed to be fighting for the native cause, it must also be confessed that the Maoris responded to the smiles of fortune by a magnificent display of courage. Their exploits recalled the loftiest traditions of the heroic ages, and the purest strains of mediaeval chivalry. Again and again our British officers doffed their helmets to the conspicuous valour of their foes. On one occasion, for example, some 300 Maoris were shut up in entrenchments at a place called Orakau. "Without food, except a few raw potatoes ; without water ; pounded at by our artillery, and under a hail of rifle bullets and hand grenades; unsuccessfully assaulted no less than five times, they held out for three days, though completely surrounded. General Cameron humanely sent a flag of truce inviting them to surrender honourably. To this they made the ever famous reply: ' Heoi anol ka ivhawhai tonu ; ake, ake, ake ! ' (' Enough ! we fight right on for ever and ever and ever ! ') The General then offered to let the women out. The answer was : ' The women will fight as well as the men ! ' At length, on the after- noon of the third day, the garrison, assembling in a body, charged at quick march right through the English lines, fairly jumping — according to one account — over the heads of the men of the 4oth Regiment as they lay behind the bank. So
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unexpected and amazing was their charge, that they would have got away with but slight loss had they not, when outside the lines, been confronted by the force of Colonial rangers and cavalry. Half of them fell. The remainder, including the celebrated war- chief Rewi, got clear away. The earthworks and the victory remain with us," says the Hon. W. Pember Reeves, from whose narrative we have quoted, " but the glory of the engagement lay with those whose message of ake, ake, ake ! will never be forgotten in New Zealand."
Throughout the whole of this lamentable strife, which continued in fitful outbreaks through many years, the bravery of Bishop Selwyn elicited the applause of both soldiers and civilians. Concerning one of the earlier engagements, the Auckland limes remarked: "His Lordship, the Bishop of New Zealand, was an active witness and participator in this business ; and it is only due to him to record that it is impossible for the rapture of praise to exceed that with which every tongue loads him. Fearless in the very midst of the contest, Dr. Selwyn sought to allay the heat of blood and to arrest the fury of the fight. He was also seen bearing the wounded from the field ; afterwards, unwearied, he was at the bedside of the dying. Much more than this, he was the nurse, and the surgeon, and the servant of the sick as well as their spiritual attendant."
During the most anxious days of the war, the Bishop displayed a sleepless vigilance which amazed everybody. He really seemed ubiquitous. With a switt perception that almost amounted to intuition he bewildered even military experts by his accurate knowledge of movements afoot elsewhere. More than once he rushed, half-clothed, into some little bush settlement at dead of night. In his hand was a ballarat — an impromptu lantern, consisting ot an inverted bottle with the bottom broken oft, and a
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candle fixed in the neck. " The Maoris are coming ! the Maoris are coming ! " he cried, as he beat Upon the door of every house and hut. In his strong arms he would carry the aged folk and tender children, until the entire population of the village had been safely transferred to some secure hospice in the depths of the neighbouring bush. An hour later the village would be in the hands of a horde of angry natives, whilst the skies were lurid with the glare of the burn- ing houses. There are many still living who grate- fully remember the Bishop as having saved their lives in this way, in the days of their defenceless infancy.
When the war was actually raging, Dr. Selwyn con- fined his attention to the affected area. Only during periods of truce did he continue his expeditions through the more remote portions of his see. At one stage of the strife he made it a practice to hold a Sunday morning service at a certain Redoubt, and then to ride on from camp to camp, conducting seven or eight services in the course of the day. " There was rather a high ridge along which the Bishop had to ride between the two Redoubts. For the space of two miles it was exposed to the fire of the Maoris in the bush below. The Bishop rode at full canter. The officers used to watch him with their field-glasses. They would see a puff of smoke, and hear a ' ping,' look at the Bishop galloping along, and say : ' It's all right; they've missed him!' This occurred fre- quently."
The Rev. S. W. Payne, R.N., an army chaplain engaged with the British regiments in New Zealand, gives the following graphic description of the variety of the duties which the Bishop imposed upon himself in those stirring days : — " Dr. Selwyn was taking me one day," he says, " from the Queen's Redoubt to the Headquarters, along a road through dense bush, said to be infested with Maoris, and by which no officer was allowed to travel without an escort, but he
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would not hamper himself with one. We came to a part of the road on the side of a steep hill full of deep ruts. He told me to pull up and hold his horse. He dismounted and set to work to fill up the ruts, saying, as he laboured, that the waggons for provisioning the troops might get capsized. I was reminded of the good Samaritan, as this, like the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, had the title of 'the bloody way.' Farther on we came to a place where a company of the i8th Royal Irish were stationed. They were not remarkable for sobriety, and as we were passing the stockade, the Bishop saw a man lying drunk without anything on his head. He dismounted and dragged him a considerable distance, until he placed him under the shelter of a tree, remarking to me, ' Those men do not know the danger of sunstroke.' "
Not once, nor twice, but hundreds of times in those trying and eventful years he took his life in his hand that he might minister to both Maoris and English- men, when they were ranged in hostile camps. " I have been," he wrote later, " in every action that I could possibly reach. It was my rule to minister to the wounded natives as well as to the British. They were both part of my Christian charge, were one in Christ, and therefore one to Christ's minister. Indeed, I always ministered to the fallen Maori first, to give a practical answer to their charge against me of forsaking and betraying them. It was needful that I should be in the midst of each fray and between the two fires, but I was never hurt. I lay on the ground at night and shared soldier's fare ; but to this hour I know not the touch of rheumatism."
It was, however, with a heavy heart that Dr. Selwyn continued his great work amidst such scenes as these. Whilst here, he was able to save the lives of a handful of settlers ; and whilst there, he was able to command, by his distinguished valour, the almost superstitious
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reverence of the British troops, none knew better than he that every gun fired was the death-knell of some of his most cherished aspirations. This fury of shot and shell was demolishing, not merely palisades and entrenchments, but that greater work which, through the years, he had so carefully devised and so patiently prosecuted. He knew that the turbulent passions excited by the conflict had, in hundreds of instances, usurped those holier sentiments which he had been at such pains to instil. He thought of those upon whose heads he had fondly laid his hands in confirmation, and he trembled for them as he reflected on the scenes of carnage in which they were now engrossed. He remembered the sacred stillness and the hallowed hush of those great Communion services, when vast multitudes of native converts had received at his hands, in uttermost humility, the emblems of redeem- ing love ; and his heart ached as he thought of the scattering processes which the war had precipitated. In thousands of cases the sight of blood operated upon the members of the native churches as the scent of wine operates upon a reformed drunkard. Some there were, as we shall see, who maintained, unsoiled, the purity of their Christian profession. But as against these there were, alas ! very many who suffered a terrible and irretrievable relapse.
Perhaps the most painful element in the whole melancholy business was the extent to which the Bishop was misunderstood, and his best deeds misconstrued, by those whom, above all others, he was most anxious to serve. The Maoris, notwith- standing all the proofs which he had given them of his devotion, could not overlook the fact that he was a white man, and that all the prejudices of his patriotism ranged him with their foes. Mr. Tucker quotes from "an English officer in high command" a striking instance of the tragic manner in which the conduct of the Bishop was exposed to misinter-
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pretation. " One day," he says, " after a hard fight between the English and the natives in and around the swamp, our men had driven off the main body of the natives, and the Colonel was returning to his quarters in the evening, inwardly thanking God that he had escaped without a scratch, when he met the Bishop going towards the swamp.
" ' What are you after, my lord ? ' asked the Colonel.
"'Going to look for the wounded,' replied the Bishop.
" ' Oh, but there are a good many natives in the swamp to look after them.'
" ' I don't know that,' said the Bishop, and tramped on towards the swamp. The officer could not let him go alone, so he turned back and accompanied him to the scene of the late action. The Bishop led the way among the toi-toi grass and called out in Maori :
"'Any wounded men here?'
"•'Bang.bang!' was the sharp reply from several rifles.
" ' All right,' said the Bishop ; ' and now let us go into the other part where the firing was hottest.'
" Off they went, and again the Bishop cried out :
" ' Any wounded men here ? '
" ' Tenet ahau / ' ( ' Yes, here am I ! ') a weak, thin voice replied.
" They made their way towards him, picked him up, and carried him off the field on a check shepherd's plaid that one of them had. They had several miles to go before they could reach the Redoubt and get his wound attended to. As they were going, they fell in with two soldiers making for the camp, and got them to take turns occasionally in carrying the man, while the Colonel and the Bishop carried the men's rifles. Some natives saw the Bishop carrying a rifle, and spread a report that he had fought against them. This poisoned their minds against him for two years or more. At last, on the occasion of a great meeting of natives, some speaker denounced the Bishop as one of their foes, when up got the wounded Maori
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and told his people the true story ; and then all their bitterness and hostility turned to admiration and gratitude."
Such episodes, however, did not always reach so felicitous a termination, and irreparable damage was done to the work by the malice which the war engendered, and the misconceptions to which it gave rise. The Maoris found it hard to believe that the Bishop could sleep in the tent of their hated enemy, eat at the white man's table, and kneel in tears by the English soldier's deathbed, and yet remain, as truly as before the war broke out, the dark man's friend. Nothing in the whole sad history of the campaign caused the Bishop more anguish of spirit than this pitiful and yet pardonable estrangement. Nor was the misunderstanding confined to the natives. Again and again he was received by the settlers with hostile demonstrations, on account of the friendship he had shown to the Maoris. In the Taranaki Herald of 22nd August, 1855, f°r example, we come upon sentences which sound strangely, now that history has pronounced its deliberate and dispassionate verdict. "Bishop Selwyn," says the paper, "is again lending his blighting influence to New Zealand, has again taken the murderer by the hand as he did the perpetrators of the Wairau massacre. It is reserved for the Bishop of New Zealand to use his undoubted influence to shield notorious criminals from justice, when those criminals appeal to his sympathies through the medium 01 a dark skin." The Bishop, however, remembered that the critics of Galilee had heaped similar censures upon his Master. He also had been charged with too great intimacy with sinners, and His servant could afford to regard the indictment with equanimity. He was fortunate in the possession of a most extiaordinary faculty for overcoming the hostility of his adversaries of both colours, and of binding them
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to himself as lifelong friends. On one occasion he was compelled to make his way from the wharf to a Post Office in Taranaki, accompanied by a hooting and abusive crowd. He quickly captivated the mob by his easy manner, and his perfect willingness to debate the whole question with them, and many who came to hiss and groan remained to applaud and cheer. Among the natives the same thing happened constantly. Towards the end of the year, during a lull in which it was half hoped that the last shot had been fired, the Bishop set off on one of his long overland tours of visitation. He fearlessly invaded, alone and unarmed, the territory in which the most disaffected of the Maoris resided. At one village he found that a fanatical prophet had urged the people to show no kindness to the Bishop, and had particularly instructed them not to receive him into their houses. " If he come," cried the enthusiast, " offer him a pigsty for his lodging ; it is good enough ! " When the Bishop arrived, they carried out their teacher's instructions to the letter. The pig- sty was offered — and accepted ! The Bishop quietly turned out the pigs, went off to the bush to gather some fern to litter down for his bed, and then made himself cosy in his singular episcopal hostel. The Maoris watched his philosophical behaviour with the utmost amazement, and exclaimed: "You cannot whaka-tutua that man ! " that is to say : " You cannot degrade his character as a gentleman ! " When Professor Selwyn, the Bishop's brother, heard of the episode, he penned the following amusing lines : —
" A Johnian Bishop in New Zealand wood, Finding no host to give him bed or food, Was kindly lodged by two of porcine breed, Who left their straw to rest his weary head. But hark ! returning at the dead of night, A friendly grunt is heard upon the right, And, on the left, a snout salutes his cheek, Which moved the chaplain in great wrath to speak :
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
Ho, friends and Maoris : this is infra dig —
Our Bishop's cheek insulted by a pig !
He must be killed and cooked ! The Bishop smiled
And said : My friends, in judgment be more mild.
These pigs have been my friends, have lodged me well,
And of their kindness I shall often tell,
And for the kiss — you do not understand 'em,
It is the pig's admission ad eundemj"
It was in the course of the same eventful tour that another remarkable experience befell him, which conclusively demonstrates his wonderful presence of mind in dealing with the most threatening combina- tions of hostile circumstances. It happened that at about this time the Governor had issued an edict making it illegal for the natives to have arms or ammunition in their possession. This had led Renata, a friendly and very influential chief, to address a dignified protest to the British Commissioner, in which he alleged that it savoured of cowardice on the part of the white men to attempt to disarm their enemies. In presenting this document, he delivered a speech, with great intensity and dramatic power, in which he exclaimed: "My custom with regard to my enemy is : if he have not- a weapon, I give him one, that we may fight on equal terms. Now, O Governor, are you not ashamed of my defenceless hands?" This speech had great influence with the natives ; and the closing question was constantly quoted with enthusiastic admiration and profound approval.
Whilst Renata's great oration was still fresh in the minds of his hearers a new sensation arose. An English carter and his boy were found murdered near the village of Omata. The tragedy occurred just as the Bishop was entering the district. One niylit Dr. Selwyn found himself seated, with a group of fierce-looking natives, round a blazing fire in one of the whares. The conversation turned on ghost stories, supernatural premonitions, portents and presentiments. The Maoris recited many of their weird legends and
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traditions. In return the Bishop offered to entertain them. " You have told me many strange things," he said, " now I will tell you a ghost story ! " The group was hushed into silence in a second, and the Bishop began : " Once upon a time a man dreamed a strange dream. He seemed to be sitting, with a large party, round a huge fire, when suddenly out of the flames there rose up the figure of a great and noble chief. And the chief spake and said : ' O Governor, if I had an enemy, and he had no weapon, I would give him one before we fought. O Governor, are you not ashamed of my defenceless hands ? ' and he stretched those helpless hands out before them. And in the dream the people round the fire all applauded the brave words of the great chief who had risen from the flames. And even as they clapped he vanished ; and lo ! another form arose from out of the fire. The second figure was that of a little English boy. His face was very pale, and it was hideously smeared with blood. In his hand he held a bullock-whip. And then very, very slowly he also stretched out his hands to the Maoris round the fire, and asked : ' Are you not ashamed of my defenceless hands ? ' Then he, too, vanished ; and the man who dreamed the dream awoke!" The Bishop's companions implored him to interpret the strange story. But they showed from their demeanour that they understood it perfectly well. They rose from the fireside and silently retired to rest. Next day they spread the Bishop's wonderful ghost story among all the neighbouring tribes ; and on the following night there was no bivouac or camp fire in the district at which it did not find an echo.
If, however, as a general rule, the war disorganised the work, and led to the relapse of some of the most promising converts, it also provided abundant evidence that the teaching of the Bishop, and of the missionaries, had made a most deep and lasting impression.
It happened that, during the later phases of the in
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
struggle, General Cameron and his men were encamped on the banks of the Waikato. The troops were woefully short of provisions. The Maoris held a very strong position at Meri-meri, farther up the river, and an attack was apprehended at any moment. One day several large canoes were seen coming round the bend of the river ; and Colonel Austin went down to reconnoitre. To his surprise he dis- covered that, instead of being crowded with fierce and tattooed warriors, they were loaded with milch goats and potatoes. The British officers asked for an explanation. " We heard," replied the Maoris, " that you hungered. The book which the missionaries brought us says : If thine enemy hunger, feed him ! You are our enemies, you hunger ; we feed you ; that is all ! " And the canoes put off on their return journey to Meri-meri, as though nothing extra- ordinary had happened;
It was quite a common thing, when traversing the scene of a recent engagement, and performing the last ministries to the dead, to find a Maori gospel or prayer-book in the haversacks of the fallen warriors — a mute witness to their association with the Bishop, and an eloquent testimony to the depth of the impression he had made.
But, perhaps, the most notable instance of Christian behaviour which illumined the long agony of the war was that provided by the magnificent courage and splendid self-effacement of Henare Turatoa. Henare had been for some eight years a student at St. John's College at Auckland, and had there come into the closest personal touch with the Bishop. Dr. Selwyn was not quite satisfied, however, that he possessed all the qualifications that are required in a minister of the Gospel. He was excitable, impulsive, and easily swayed. Fearful lest, in some sudden gust of tempta- tion, he should betray the truth, the Bishop advised him to abandon all thought of the ministry, and to
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devote himself, in private life, to the dissemination of Christian influence. It fell to his lot, twelve years afterwards, to defend the celebrated Gate Pa against the terrific assaults of our British regiments. Time after time our forces thundered down upon the pa, and were as often successfully resisted. After one of these furious onslaughts, several British officers were left wounded inside the entrenchments. By the side of one of them, on whose face death had already stamped his claim, Henare watched, all through the dreary night, with the tenderness of a woman. Towards morning the dying soldier feebly moaned for water. Not a drop was to be had within thefla. The nearest spring was beyond the line of British sentries. Without pausing for a moment Henare rose, left the pa, crept out, wormed himself like a serpent through the fern, until, stealthily, and at the risk of his life, he passed the sentries, as they paced restlessly to and fro. Reaching the spring, he filled his calabash with water, and set out upon his perilous return. Half an hour later he was again stooping over his prostrate foe, moistening his parched lips with the precious drops which he had obtained at the hazard of his life; and at the same time pouring into his dying ears the deathless consolations of the Christian Gospel.
A day or two afterwards the British again, and this time successfully, stormed the pa. Henare and his brave followers were driven out, and slowly retreat- ing with their faces to the foe, were everyone of them impaled upon British bayonets. When Henare's body was searched, there was found upon his person a strange document in his own language, and in his own handwriting. It was headed : " Orders for the Day." It began with a form of prayer ; it contained the plans for the day's warfare ; and it ended with the sentence : If thine enemy hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give him to drink ! These words, being in such uncompromising antagonism to those principles of 8 113
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revenge which had for centuries dominated the Maori race, created a deep and singular impression upon the native mind, and were repeatedly quoted by the converts in the trying days of the war.
When at last the horror was ended and peace pro- claimed, the Bishop was publicly presented with the medal, which was ordinarily given only to military officers, as a token of the admiration everywhere felt for the bravery he had displayed. Moreover, the officers and men, to whom he had so tirelessly ministered, resolved to present him with some tangible token of their appreciation. All those whom he had assisted in the hour of emergency, whose lives he had saved in the time of peril, whom he had nursed in sickness, or, when wounded, borne to shelter, subscribed liberally to this " Thank-offering." Numerous pathetic donations came also from fond but sorrowing parents, whose soldier sons came not back from the far-off land, but whose pillows had been smoothed and softened in death by the Bishop's kindly touch. The Bishop eventually spent this money in adorning the private chapel at Lichfield ; and in doing so he was careful to immortalise the magnificent valour of his old friend and student, Henare Turatoa. The designs of the various windows all represent the nobler qualities of a military life, and most of them stand in some way associated with the campaign in New Zealand. Here, for instance, is a representation of a globe, with a scroll reaching from England to New Zealand, bearing the legend : " One in Christ." But the window that will always enchain the attention of visitors is that on the south side. It represents David pouring upon the ground the water which, at the risk of their lives, his three mighty men had brought him ; and is intended to comemmorate the still greater heroism — since, in his case, the deed was performed for an enemy — that will always be associated with the name of Henare Turatoa.
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CHAPTER VI
CORAL REEFS AND CANNIBAL ISLANDS
" O prophets, martyrs, saviours ! ye were great, All truth being great to you ; ye deemed Man more
Than a dull jest, God's ennui to amuse ; The world for you held purport ; Life ye wore Proudly, as kings their solemn robes of state ; And humbly, as the mightiest monarchs use."
WILLIAM WATSON,
A S soon as Dr. Selwyn had thoroughly explored ** the whole of that stupendous diocese, which it was in the minds of the English dignitaries that he should control, he began to consider the claims of that still larger see which a clerical error had assigned to him. It will be remembered that, in drawing up the Letters Patent in connection with his appointment, the Crown solicitors had defined the diocese as lying between the 5Oth degree of south latitude and the 34th degree north! He himself saw this, but said nothing, delighted that it would give him the right, should he care to avail himself of it, of extend- ing his work among the countless islands that stud the broad Pacific.
In 1848 he was offered the position of temporary chaplain on H.M.S. Dido. An unfortunate outbreak of hostilities had occurred at the Graville Islands, and Sir George Grey had requested Captain Maxwell to proceed to the scene of the disturbance. At the moment affairs in New Zealand had assumed a more hopeful outlook. The war seemed to have been
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
quelled. The native church was thoroughly organised. The Bishop had visited every part of the country ; and Captain Maxwell's offer seemed like a providen- tial opportunity of sowing the precious seed in more distant fields. In the nature of the case, it could only be a flying visit ; but the Bishop learned much in this brief expedition which he turned to practical account in his later and more prolonged voyages. He discovered, among other things, that the natives of a given island are pretty much what their visitors make them. After having called at the Friendly, Navigator, and New Hebrides groups, the Dido dropped her anchor off the Isle of Pines. The Bishop prepared to go ashore, but Captain Maxwell reminded him that the extreme barbarism of the natives had won for the island a very evil notoriety, and urged him to remain on board. In spite of all the argu- ments of the gallant commander, however, the Bishop persisted in his determination, borrowed a boat, and was soon rowing for the lagoon. Imagine his astonish- ment when, on turning a bend of the bay, he saw, lying quietly at anchor in a sequestered nook, an English schooner ! On deck lounged a solitary sailor, smok- ing his pipe, and altogether so very much at his ease that it was clear that he was not tortured by any apprehensions as to the character of the natives. " Why, how is this ? " asked the Bishop from his boat ; " they tell me that this is one of the worst islands in the Pacific ; yonder lies a British man-of- war afraid to come nearer, and yet you seem to be enjoying yourself to your heart's content ! " In a few moments the owner, Captain Paddon, who had been ashore trafficking with the natives for sandalwood, returned to the ship. To him the Bishop again propounded his problem. The captain chuckled good-humouredly and replied : " I have been trading with these people for many years. They have cut me many thousands of feet of sandalwood, and brought
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it to me on the schooner. I have shown them such kindness as I could. I have always dealt with them in perfect fairness, and they have treated me in the same way. We most thoroughly understand each other."
This trivial incident, which enshrined a whole world of philosophy, made a lasting impression on Dr. Selwyn's mind ; and in his own subsequent voyages he was often emboldened to approach the most repulsive people by the memory of Captain Paddon's experience. The episode led, moreover, to a lifelong friendship between the two men. The captain was often able to assist the Bishop with valuable advice as to the surest method of securing a friendly footing on certain islands ; whilst in a really remarkable and unexpected way the Bishop was able to serve the genial mariner. It happened thus. His great admiration for Dr. Selwyn led Captain Paddon to name one of his schooners The Bishop. A few years later the name of the Bishop had come to be regarded with genuine reverence and extraordinary affection on many islands at which Captain Paddon had never called. But when at length it suited his purpose to direct his helm towards these strange peoples, he was often amused and delighted to find that the very name of his schooner secured for him a profuse and boisterous welcome. Indeed, it is evident that the name of " Bishop " came to be regarded with almost superstitious veneration on these beauteous but dreaded isles. When Captain Denham, of H.M.S. Herald, landed on a remote group, and set up his theodolites for purposes of survey, the natives instantly assumed a threatening and warlike attitude. The captain, however, chanced to remark to one of his officers that a certain native was suffering from a gash apparently inflicted with a fish-hook. The savages mistook the word fish-hook for bishop, and supposing that the officers of the Herald were in some way related to their popular benefactor, they immediately
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changed their behaviour and made most courteous offers of assistance. The Bishop's stalwart and muscular frame had in itself a fascination for these wild children of nature. After the consecration of Bishop Patteson, Bishop Selwyn was strolling along the seashore, arm-in-arm with Bishops Hobhouse and Abraham ; all three were of fine and stately build. A group of Melanesian boys, squatting on the sand, gazed upon the trio with undisguised admiration. At last one of them exclaimed : " Bishop Hobhouse is a big strong man ; and Bishop Abraham is a big strong man ; but our Bishop could throw both of them into the sea ! "
But this was later on. The Dido again cast anchor in New Zealand waters on March 4th, 1848. The tour had occupied only nine weeks ; but the Bishop always referred to it as a most valuable introduction to the untamed life of the Pacific. Moreover, he had seen just enough to fill him with an irrepressible desire to set out upon a more leisurely cruise among those peoples of whom he had caught but a passing glimpse.
He had already made practical use of those lessons in navigation which he received from the captain of the Tomatin on his voyage out from home. In the little Flying Fish—^ tiny schooner of seventeen tons burden — he had coasted along the rugged shores of New Zealand, and passed to the islands in the immediate vicinity. In course of time, as he plumed his wings for farther flight, the Flying Fish gave place to the Undine, a schooner of twenty-two tons burden. In this modest craft, with a crew of four men, many of his most eventful voyages were made. Within three weeks of his return on the Dido he set out with the Undine on a visit to the extreme south of New Zealand, and to the Chatham Islands. On his return the log of the schooner showed that, during his absence of fourteen weeks, he had sailed 3000 miles, and called at quite a multitude of places. In all his voyagings he earned the reputation of being a careful
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yet intrepid navigator ; and the captain of a merchant- man once remarked to a New Zealand clergyman that " it almost made him a Christian and a Churchman to see the Bishop bring his schooner into harbour ! "
The Bishop used to glory in telling a story of an experience that befell him during one of those fluctuations of public feeling, in which he was the object of a great deal of unpopularity. Those who knew nothing of the discomforts of navigating strange waters in a wretchedly overcrowded little schooner of twenty tons, used to attribute his nautical pro- pensities to a "fondness for yachting!" Late one evening the Undine anchored at Wellington. The Bishop immediately went ashore in a dinghy, and overheard an interesting conversation on the beach. " What's that schooner that has just come in? "one man called to another. " Oh," replied his comrade, " it's that old fool, the Bishop ! " At that moment the dinghy grounded on the shore ; the Bishop sprang out, rubbing his hands and chuckling as he added, "Yes, and here's the old fool himself!"
Every day, however, increased the Bishop's impatience for another vision of the fronded palms of his tropical outposts. Writing to a friend in England, he said : " My visit to the Isle of Pines, though only of a few hours' duration, has left upon my mind the deep conviction that an effort there would not be in vain, and that the spiritual conquest of that little island would open the way to New Caledonia, and its adjacent islands of the Loyalty Group. This is the point upon which the missionary energies of the New Zealand Church ought to be bestowed as a sign of its own vitality, in giving to others freely what it has freely received. The most frightful crimes of rapine and massacre are now being committed by the very people who received Captain Cook seventy years ago with a friendly disposition beyond that even of the people of the ' Friendly Islands.' The change must
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
be attributed to the fact that we have followed up our first knowledge of New Caledonia with the most sordid and unscrupulous schemes of avarice, instead of sending out men with the heart of Cook, and with the powers and graces of the ministerial calling. The young men of the College begged me, before my voyage in the Dido, to accept their assurance that, if I should discover any opening where their services might be more required than in New Zealand, they held themselves in readiness to answer to the call."
Accordingly, on 1st August, 1849, the Undine, with all sail set, glided gracefully out of Auckland harbour. The Bishop paced his quarter-deck with all the con- fidence of an old salt, delighted at being able at last to point his prow towards those coral reefs and cannibal islands whose bread-fruits and cocoanut palms seemed to wave and beckon to him from beyond the distant horizon. Through heavy seas and adverse weather the tiny craft bravely ploughed her way and, in spite of unfriendly elements, completed the run of 1000 miles to Anaiteum on the tenth day out from Auckland. Here the Presbyterian mission- aries were hard at work, and Dr. Selwyn made no attempt to disguise his admiration of their magnificent enterprise. Indeed, the Bishop's relations with the Scottish missionaries on the New Hebrides group may serve as an apt illustration of that broad-minded catholicity which always characterised him. He appreciated to the fullest extent the labours of representatives of other Churches.
When, a few years later, that devoted and apostolic labourer, Dr. J. G. Paton, was mourning on these islands the sudden loss of his young wife, Dr. Selwyn counted it an honour to be numbered among his comforters. " Soon after her death," wrote Dr. Paton, " the good Bishop Selwyn called in his Mission ship. He came to visit me, accompanied by the Rev. J. C. Patteson. They had met Mrs. Paton on
1 20
" THE UNDINE "
THE CABIN OF " THE UNDINE "
From sketches by Bishop Selwyn
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Anaiteum the previous year ; and as she was then the picture of perfect health, they also felt her loss very keenly. Standing with me beside the grave of mother and child, I weeping aloud on the one hand, and Patteson — afterwards the Martyr Bishop of Melanesia — sobbing silently on the other, the godly Bishop Selwyn poured out his heart to God amidst sobs and tears, during which he laid his hands on my head and invoked Heaven's richest consolations and blessings on me and my trying labours. The virtue of that kind of episcopal consecration I did, and do, most warmly appreciate."
Some time afterwards, when Dr. Paton was subjected to severe criticism for remaining among his savages during a period of special peril, Dr. Selwyn was his most vigorous defender. " Talk of bravery ! talk of heroism ! " exclaimed the Bishop, " the man who leads a forlorn hope is a coward in comparison with him who, alone, and without a sustaining look, or cheering word, from any of his own race, regards it as his duty to hold on in the face of such dangers. He might, with honour, have accepted a temporary asylum in Auckland, where he would have been heartily received. But he was moved by higher considerations. He chose to remain, and God knows whether at this moment he is in the land of the living!"
When the Bishop told his friends of Dr. Paton's heroic refusal to leave the islands on H.M.S. Pelorus, he added : " And I like him all the better for so doing ! " The journals of Dr. Paton and his colleagues abound in acknowledgments of kindnesses conferred, and services rendered by the Bishop in the course of his visits to the New Hebrides islands.
Whilst weatherbound at Anaiteum, the Undine fell in with H.M.S. Havannah. Captain Erskine, of the man-of-war, was greatly impressed with the Bishop's enterprise, and amazed when he learned that he allowed
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the most dangerous savages to come on board at their will. The commander could only account for the Bishop's safety by attributing it to " that perfect presence of mind and dignified bearing of Dr. Selwyn which seemed never to fail in impressing these savages with a feeling of his superiority ; this alone could render such an act one of safety and prudence." The Bishop conducted service on the Havannah. Lady Shaftesbury received a letter from her son, who was on board, in which he said : " I was never so struck with anybody's preaching as with his. The effect on the men was quite electrical ; and I could have listened to him for hours."
From Anaiteum the Undine sailed away to the New Caledonian and other islands. The Bishop was sufficiently astute to recognise the immense value of a pleasant introduction to these untamed races. He therefore carefully matured his plans. He made it his custom before leaving the ship to ascertain, if possible, the name of the principal chief on the island. He would then swim ashore, never on any account allowing anyone else to share the peril with him. On reaching the sandy beach, or coral crags, he called aloud the name of the chief. When that dignitary arrived, the Bishop would smilingly present him with a tomahawk, holding out his hands at the same time for the chief's bow and arrows. These he would at once lay upon the ground, a proceeding to which the chief would usually respond by sending the tomahawk away to the rear. These pacific overtures happily concluded, Dr. Selwyn would play with the children, pat them on the head, and distribute among them a quantity of fish-hooks and brightly coloured tapes, which he had ingeniously stored in his hat before taking to the water. Here his conquest was usually complete. These wild children of Nature were invariably captivated by his easy and yet princely manner, He made them feel at once that he loved
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them and desired nothing but their welfare. "At one savage place," we are told, " he was eyed suspici- ously at first ; but he brought forward one of his own black boys, nicely clothed and able to read, and pulling out his fat cheeks, he pointed to the lantern jaws of a little native, making them understand that he would feed up any of their children they would let him take. When they saw him poking his fingers into the hollow cheeks of the one, and pulling out the fat of the other, they danced and shouted with joy at the fun, and would have let him carry off dozens." In these and other ways — for he could adapt his methods with lightning rapidity to suit the exigencies of time, or place, or people — he swiftly ingratiated himself in the goodwill of the natives, and was allowed to bear off one or more lads for training in his College in New Zealand.
For this was his plan. He saw that, in the brief periods which he could snatch from his main work in New Zealand, it would be absurd to attempt serious evangelistic work among the islands. It would take years to acquire the languages, understand the customs, and overcome the prejudices of the islanders. But by taking representative children from their sea- girt homes, educating, and, if possible, Christianising them at his own College, he hoped to be able to send them back to their original homes as native preachers and evangelists, fully equipped and qualified to win their own people for Christ. In the course of this first voyage, the Bishop contrived to persuade the natives of five different islands to confide children to his care. The men on the Havannah were greatly amused at Dr. Selwyn's strange collection of specimens. Here is the entry in the log of the warship recording her last glimpse of the schooner : —
"At 5 P.M. we weighed, and ran out of the roads, admiring, as we passed and waved adieu to the Undine, the commanding figure of the truly gallant Bishop of
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New Zealand as, steering his own little vessel, he stood surrounded by the black heads of his diciples."
After an absence of exactly three months, the Undine returned to Auckland. Nobody had ex- pected him back quite so soon ; but the doors had been left unbolted and the Bishop burst in. He aroused Mrs. Selwyn by exclaiming : " I've got them ! I've got them ! " and pointing to the group of black faces by which he was attended. " It was," as Mr. Tucker remarks, " a triumph for which to be thankful ; the five wild little islanders were the forerunners of the indigenous clergy of Melanesia."
The flutter of excitement within the precincts of St. John's College caused by this sudden invasion of young savages from the Pacific can be better imagined than described. Unhappily, one of .them, a boy named Thol, from the island of Lifu, became very ill. Mrs. Selwyn, in writing to her son William, who had gone to England to study, thus refers to him : " He lies in the library, and we all take care of him, and wonder to see one, who has been so little taught, behave so well. On the table lies a list of Lifu words, which we learn from him, and with these, and the English he has picked up, we can converse a little. He made me laugh to-day by suddenly asking if nurse would ' fight him ' if he had a cocoanut. He meant, of course, if she would be angry. He wants to have a large ship, and take a great many of us to Lifu ; but especially is Johnny to go ; and there, he says, his mother will carry Johnny on her back and give him 'too much sugar-cane.' The other islanders look strange enough because of their dark skins and yellow hair. Their names are Siapo, Uliete, and Kateingo ; and there is also a boy named Thallup, trom the Isle of Pines. They all appear to be very happy, only they would like it better if they could get sea-water to drink."
The sick little inmate of St. John's College was 125
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giving early evidence of the gift of prophecy when he playfully said that " Johnny must go to Lifu ! " For " Johnny " did go, as the world knows very well, in the capacity of Bishop of Melanesia.
Of these five lads, one, and he the best pupil, was destined never to prosecute that work for which he spent some years in preparation. Poor Siapo died at Auckland in 1853. The Bishop was absent at the time, and, on a lovely Sunday afternoon, was walking with his friend the Governor, Sir George Grey. Finishing their stroll they entered a tent, followed by a messenger bearing dispatches. Each sat down to open his budget of correspondence. One letter, addressed to Dr. Selwyn, brought the news of the death of poor Siapo, the Loyalty islander. Over- come with grief, the Bishop burst into tears. Then, turning to the Governor, he exclaimed : " Why, you — who knew Siapo too — have not shed a single tear ! " " No," replied Sir George, " I have been so wrapped in thought that I could not weep. I have been thinking of the prophecy that men of every nation, and kindred, and people, and tongue were to meet in the kingdom of heaven. I have tried to imagine the joy and wonder prevailing there at the coming of Siapo, the first Christian of his race. He would be glad evidence that another people of the world had been added to the teaching of Christ." " Yes, yes," said the Bishop, " you are right ; you are right ; that is the true idea to entertain ; I shall weep no more ! "
In May, 1850, the first batch of young Melanesians were happily restored to their island homes ; and in December of the same year four new disciples arrived under somewhat unusual conditions. They had implored Captain Erskine, of H.M.S. Havannah, to take them on board that they might go to the Bishop's school. Indeed, one had himself clambered on to the deck, and refused to move unless he were taken. Two of these were from Erromango, on which
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island the heroic John Williams had already laid down his life for the sake of the Gospel ; one was from the Solomon Group, and one from Sandwich Island.
In September the Bishop sailed for Sydney, to attend a Synod that may be regarded as the path- finder of all those imposing Pan-Anglican Congresses and Synods that have since assembled in various parts of the world. At this Assembly the Australian Board of Missions was formed, and two most important resolutions were reached. These were : (i) That a larger vessel, the Border Maid, of 100 tons, should be secured as a Mission vessel in place of the little Undine ; and (2) that on her maiden trip Bishop Tyrrell, of Newcastle, should have the honour of accompanying Bishop Selwyn. The Rev. William Nihill, who had been engaged as teacher of the Melan- esian boys at St. John's College, and his young brother- in-law, Nelson Hector, were also to be of the party.
The Border Maid sailed in July, 1851, on this memorable voyage. The four Melanesian boys brought by the Havannah were on board, on their way back to their several homes. With more ample accommodation, and with a larger staff, it was now possible to conduct classes on board ; and thus the work of St. John's College was really continued uninter- rupted until the very hour of the students' landing.
On arrival at Malicolo a distinctly unpleasant experience awaited the party. Going ashore they were treated with every consideration, and they engaged to return on the following morning to replenish their water-barrels. Accordingly, next day, Bishop Selwyn conducted his party ashore, taking with him Nelson Hector, whom he left in charge of the boat whilst he himself went for the water. The company was thus divided into three sections : Bishop Tyrrell being on the ship, Nelson Hector on the beach, and Bishop Selwyn inland after water. They nad no sooner separated than each clearly
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perceived that a change had enveloped the scene. The natives were animated by a very different spirit from that which they had displayed the previous evening. The entire absence of women aroused their suspicions, and other ominous signs encouraged the most gloomy forebodings. A crowd of natives, whose grimaces and gesticulations betrayed their sinister purposes and malicious designs, surrounded the ship, and Bishop Tyrrell found all the resources of his ingenuity exercised in the defence of the vessel. A second batch of savages assailed Nelson Hector, brandishing their clubs, and threatening the lonely boatman with a thousand deaths unless he immedi- ately relinquished his oars. On shore Dr. Selwyn was compassed about by some 200 natives in very evil humour. It was clear to the Bishop that the islanders had formed no actual plan of attack, or, in such numbers, they could with the utmost ease have overpowered and slain the voyagers of the unhappy Border Maid. But something had evidently excited their suspicions, if it had not actually kindled their animosity. They were in that critical mood in which the slightest tactical blunder on the part of the white men would have led to a tragic calamity. Bishop Selwyn, in a cheerful voice, instructed his men to behave as though every condition were normal. He led them gaily to the spring ; they filled their casks to the brim, and then, apparently in the most leisurely good-humour, he led them back to the boat. Here they found the savages still " hectoring Hector " — as the Bishop playfully termed it — but the white men quietly took their places, and pulled back to the ship. In writing to his friends of the adventure, Bishop Tyrrell affirmed his profound conviction that, in such crises, "nothing but Bishop Selwyn's quick-sighted reading of character and apprehension of gestures, his habits of order and forethought, besides his calmness and courage, enabled him to walk un- 9 • 129
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scathed where others would have been in imminent danger."
All who saw the Bishop when he was surrounded by hostile savages, and apparently face to face with certain death, agree that the impressive majesty of his bearing, the splendid stateliness of his figure, the irresistible charm of his countenance, together with his perfect self-possession and unfailing good-humour, completely disarmed his most brutal antagonists, and allowed him to walk unharmed where the most frightful perils lurked on every side.
At Lifu the Border Maid was accorded a royal welcome. Dr. Selwyn was saluted as " Thol's father." Thol himself, who was at a distance from the coast, was sent for. On his arrival this promising young student of St. John's College begged that he might be taken back for a second term of instruction, and that Apale, a young relative of his, might accompany him. A request so very much to the Bishop's taste was of course cheerfully granted. Sad to say, however, poor little Apale caught a severe chill from which he died six months later. During his illness, Thol, distracted with grief, kneeled beside him, sobbing and moaning : " Oh, my brother ! alas, my brother ! " as though his very heart would break. On his deathbed, Apale dictated a letter to his father, avowing his implicit faith in his Saviour, and his unruffled happiness in view of death. The Bishop himself ministered to the dying boy to the very last, forsaking a public service that he might be present as the soul of Apale took its flight. In conducting the funeral service, he beautifully referred to his lamented disciple as "the first-fruits of the church at Lifu."
After a voyage of three months' duration, the Border Maid reached Auckland on October 7th, freighted with thirteen dark boys for study at St. John's. Of these, three were returning for a further
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course of instruction ; the other ten were visiting New Zealand for the first time.
In June of the following year Dr. Selwyn decided that the time was ripe for definitely establishing a mission at Nengone, under the care of a resident missionary. From this island quite a number of lads had " graduated " at St. John's ; and their presence represented in itself a very cheering promise of a robust native church at an early date. The Rev. William Nihill, the intimate friend of the Bishop, and the tutor of the boys, offered himself for this work. For more than three years this most excellent man laboured unceasingly at Nengone, and won, in no ordinary degree, the heartfelt affection of the natives. In 1855, however, he suddenly died of dysentery, and Mrs. Nihill bravely continued the work after his departure. In 1856 the Bishop and Mr. Patteson visited the island. A great assembly of natives congregated in front of the mission-house. Then they passed in procession to the secluded and sacred spot at which their teacher had been lain to rest. On the way they were overflowing with reminiscences of their departed friend — his gentle life, his gracious words, his noble and kindly deeds. And at the grave the islanders reverently assisted the Bishop in erecting a wooden cross on which was inscribed, in their own language, "I AM THE RESUR- RECTION AND THE LIFE,"
More and more every day the Bishop felt that it would be necessary to place this great work among the islands on a more satisfactory foundation. The growth and development of the native church in New Zealand had by this time reached a stage that demanded recognition and review at headquarters. Dr. Selwyn therefore determined to visit England. He was most eager to look again into the face of his aged father before death rendered such a privilege impossible. " My dear old father's grey head," he wrote, " will be
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
the magnetic centre of our system." In view of the increasing claims of the work, he longed for an oppor- tunity to plead for funds with which to prosecute his tasks with greater effect, and on a worthier scale. And he was eager to discuss with his episcopal brethren, and with the directors of missionary enterprise, the complicated problems which the rapid development of the work had forced into urgent prominence.
The opening of 1854, therefore, found the Bishop, accompanied by Mrs. Selwyn and their second son, John — now a lad of eight — hastening towards London. He was going home principally to maintain that the two branches of his enormous work — that in New Zealand on the one hand, and that in Melanesia on the other — had now assumed such gigantic proportions that it was imperative that each should be regarded as a separate see. With his boy trotting by his side, he paced the deck of the vessel thinking out the speeches by which he proposed to support his case before the Bishops and Mission Boards in London. Little did he dream that, in the person of his little companion, who interrupted his contemplations with a thousand questions concerning the strange objects that met his gaze in the progress of that long voyage, he was even then in the company of the future Bishop of Melanesia!
It is clear, however, that the digressions necessitated by those boyish interrogations did not seriously impair the force or cogency of the speeches. They were delivered with overwhelming power and effect. Although the minds of men were preoccupied and absorbed with the anxieties of the Crimea, he simply carried everything before him. With consummate generalship he marshalled his splendid army of telling facts ; whilst the impregnable strength of his case, the pitiless logic of his argument, and the thrilling and romantic character of his personal experiences, swept upon his audiences with the resistless rush of a hurricane. One young man, possessed of some
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;£i2,ooo, came to hear him, and at the close of the address offered every penny of his fortune to the Bishop. Dr. Selwyn refused, however, to accept so large an amount, offered under the generous impulse of an enthusiasm which his own eloquence had kindled. A number of admirers joined in subscribing funds with which to present the Bishop with a new and larger schooner, the Southern Cross, whilst "Miss Charlotte M. Yonge generously ear-marked for this
THE "SOUTHERN CROSS"
Bishop Patteson is seen steering in the dinghy
purpose all profits accruing from the publication of " The Daisy Chain."
Two of the Bishop's most congenial occupations during his sojurn in his native land were his delightful conversations with his aged father, and his visits of inspection to the yards in which the Southern Cross was being built.
The Bishop found no difficulty in convincing his episcopal brethren of the absolute necessity of elevating the islands into a separate see ; and under his magnetic
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and inspiring influence, the sum of .£10,000 was raised in a few weeks for the endowment of the new bishopric.
Dr. Selwyn had hoped to make the return voyage to New Zealand in the new schooner, but tiresome delays took place in her construction, and, even when at last she was completed, shewas found to be leaky, and an entire and exhaustive overhaul was necessitated.
On March I5th, 1855, the Bishop wrote in his diary : " Packed up sorrowfully." On the 22nd we read : " Took final leave of my dearest father ; " and on the 2Qth he sailed. These second farewells — as they know well who have endured the terrible ordeal — are much more painful than the first. In Dr. Selwyn's case the pang was particularly poignant. There was no element of uncertainty ; he knew quite well that he was saying good-bye to his father for the very last time. The elder man died a few months later at the age of eighty-one. Then, too, Dr. Selwyn was leaving both his boys, William and John, to study in England. The sadness of farewell was therefore aggravated for the Bishop by many contributing circumstances.
One of the most valuable results of this visit to England was the strengthening of the Bishop's staff, which was powerfully fortified by at least one most important acquisition. Dr. Selwyn enlisted the services of the Rev. John Coleridge Patteson, whose subsequent appointment as the first Bishop of Melanesia, and whose martyr-death on the Isle of Nukapu, will ever be cherished among those fragrant memories which are the most cherished legacy of the Christian Church. Patteson had listened, enthralled, to an address which Dr. Selwyn had delivered prior to his first voyage to New Zealand ; and all through the years he had been conscious of a deepening desire to join his hero on his distant field. The Bishop's return to England presented the precise opportunity for which he had so long hungered in silence ; and it was with a full and grateful heart that he at length
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found himself appointed to labour side by side with the man who had fired his youthful imagination and thrilled him with missionary fervour. It was not the least among the notable achievements of Bishop Selwyn, that he was able to capture the hearts of men of this fine stamp, and to gather around him a band of heroes whose deathless devotion was only surpassed by his own.
The ship Duke of Portland, with the Bishop and his party on board, cast anchor in New Zealand waters on 5th July. Men of both colours united in according him a royal welcome back to the la/id of his adoption. To his unbounded delight, the white sails of the Southern Cross gleamed on the horizon only a fortnight later. It is worth peeping into Mr. Patteson's diary for a description of her arrival : —
" About 9 A.M.," he says, " I saw from my windows a schooner in the distance, and told the Bishop I thought it might be the Southern Cross. Throughout the day we kept looking, from time to time, through our glasses. At 3 P.M. the Bishop came in : ' Come on, Coley, I do believe it is the Southern Cross' So I hurried on my waterproofs, knowing that we were in for some mud-larking. Off we went ; lugged down a borrowed boat to the water, tide being out. I took one oar, a Maori another, Bishop steering. After twenty minutes' pull we met her and jumped on board. But on Tuesday we had a rich scene. Bishop and I went to the Duke of Portland and brought off the rest of our things. But it was low water, so the boats could not come within a long way of the beach ; and the custom is for carts to go over the muddy sand as far into the water as they can. Well, in went our cart, which had come from the College with three valuable horses, while the Bishop and I stood on the edge of the water. Presently, one of the horses lost its footing, and then all three slipped up. Instanter, Bishop and I had our coats off, and in we rushed to
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the horses. Such a plunging and splashing ! But they were all got up safe. Imagine an English Bishop, with attending parson, cutting into the water to disentangle their cart-horses from the harness, in full view of everybody on the beach ! ' This,' said the Bishop, 'is your first lesson in mud-larking ! "
With the capable assistance of Mr. Patteson, and with the excellent equipment represented by the new schooner, the work among the islands became every year more efficient, and its rapid development emphasised the necessity for the early appointment of a separate bishop. But notwithstanding this, for several years Dr. Selwyn was compelled to supplement his exhausting labours in New Zealand by a no less arduous and exacting enterprise among the uncivilised peoples of the South Seas.
Many and various were the tasks that claimed his attention in the course of these years of navigation. Now we see him at the helm with anxious face, groping his way among coral reefs, and through uncharted waters that have never before been ploughed by the keel of a ship. Again, the schooner is fight- ing her way beneath frowning skies, struggling through black tempests, and tossing among mountainous seas, every huge wave threatening to engulf and destroy her, whilst her dauntless com- mander, with calm and serious face, and clad in drip- ping oilskins, fearlessly maintains his ceaseless vigil on the quarter-deck. On other occasions, when it became necessary to carry young native women to Auckland as students, or as brides for love-lorn pupils already there, the Bishop himself became costumier, and now out of a bed-quilt, and again out of an old sail, fashioned garments in which these dusky damsels could make a creditable debut in civilized society ! His shrewd familiarity with human frailties displayed itself on these occasions in the gay bunch of coloured ribbons which he invariably attached to the left
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shoulder of the new garments ! Mr. Patteson was fond of telling, too, how on one memorable voyage the Bishop paced the deck for hours with a little sick boy, from one of the islands, in his arms. And at another time he took the entire charge of a baby during the sickness of the mother, and nursed the tiny mite with such acceptance that, at the end of the voyage, the baby made it clear that its preference was decidedly for the Bishop rather than for the mother !
But perhaps the most historic adventure of our versatile Bishop in these seas was that which befell him at New Caledonia. In groping her course up the lagoon, the Southern Cross, with a shock that made her shiver from stem to stern, grated hard on the rocks. She bumped heavily and repeatedly. It happened that several ships were all at hand. Help was offered from all these vessels, but the Bishop was anxious that his own men should bring about the deliverance of the vessel. Everybody worked with a will, the Bishop, as usual, taking the lion's share of the labour. Towards midnight, the tide rising to the full, the ship slid off the ledge of rock into deep water.
But now came the real difficulty. For after the strain to which she had been subjected, and the bumping which she had experienced, who was to declare the schooner sufficiently seaworthy to cross the intervening ocean to the distant ports of New Zealand? "There was," says the Rev. B. T. Dudley, who was present, "no dock, no patent slip, and no divers were obtainable. But the Bishop was equal to the occasion. He caused the ship to be heeled over as far as was safe ; and then, having stripped himself to his tweed trousers and jersey, . . . made a succession of dives, during which he felt over the whole of the keel and forward part of the vessel, much to the detriment of his hands, which were cut to pieces with the jagged copper; and ascertained the
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exact condition of her bottom, and the nature of the injuries sustained. No wonder that the next day, after dining on board the Frenchman, he was sent away with a salute of eleven guns ! "
And so for more than ten years Bishop Selwyn prosecuted this extraordinary work of navigation and evangelisation among the islands, in addition to the principal enterprise to which he had set his hand in New Zealand. In the course of a single voyage, he visited sixty-six islands, effected eighty-one landings, and brought back thirty-three pupils to be trained as preachers to their own people of the everlasting Gospel. Every voyage was marked by its own hair- breadth escapes and thrilling adventures, as well as by experiences of infinite pathos and irresistible humour.
Throughout all these expeditions he rigidly adhered to two fixed principles which he framed for himself at the outset. These were : (i) That he would never interfere with any Christianization already under- taken by any religious body or sect whatsoever, so that he would never bring before the islanders the great stumbling-block of divisions among Christians who should be as brethren. (2) That in taking to them the religion of Englishmen, he would in no way force upon them English methods and ways of life, except in so far as they are part of morality and godliness.
Writing at sea on September i/th, 1851, the Bishop said, " It is mainly owing to the efforts of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, under God's bless- ing, that I have been enabled, during the last nine months, to visit, with ease and comfort, inhabited countries stretching over thirty-three degrees of lati- tude, or, one-eleventh part of the circumference of the globe."
At length, in 1861, that happy consummation was achieved for which the Bishop had laboured, and pleaded, and waited, and prayed, through so many
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long years. Recognising the phenomenal progress which the Melanesian Mission had made, the English ecclesiastical and civil authorities agreed to appoint a Bishop of Melanesia. And who shall describe the joy of Dr. Selwyn when he learned that Mr. Patteson had been nominated for the position ? For six years he had acted as the Bishop's understudy, labouring loyally and devotedly by his side. And in his elevation to the bishopric, Dr. Selwyn gratefully recognised the realisation of his own fondest dreams, and the answer to his most fervent prayers.
CHAPTER VII
THE CALL TO THE HOME-LAND
" Life ! we've been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather, 'Tis hard to part where friends are dear, Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh or tear. Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time ;
Say not Good-night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good-morning."
MRS. BARBAULD.
"\1THEN the important Bishopric of Sydney fell * * vacant, it was at once offered to Dr. Selwyn, who promptly declined it. He afterwards com- plimented himself on that decision under perhaps the strangest circumstances in which a man ever found reason for felicitation. For in 1854 ne found himself — not for the first time in his life — " without any visible means of sustenance." We have already seen how, in order to free the parish church at Windsor from the incubus of debt, the curate voluntarily forfeited his salary for the space of two years. His income, as Bishop of New Zealand, had been ^1200 per annum, half of which had been provided from the national exchequer, whilst the Church Missionary Society had contributed the balance. The amount donated by the Society, however, he had made over to the fund for the erection and support of new sees, contenting himself with the moiety voted by Parlia- ment. But suddenly this faithless stream ran dry. New Zealand became a self-governing colony, with
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responsible government and political institutions of her own. From that moment it was impossible for the stipend of the New Zealand Bishop to find a place in the Imperial estimates, whilst the new colonial Government recognised no established church, and could not, therefore, shoulder the responsibility.
This unpleasant situation arose whilst the Bishop was in England ; and there were those who thought that, in the strangely altered circumstances, he might quite reasonably decline to return to his see. But they did not know their man. He informed his friends that, in view of the new conditions, he congratulated himself on having refused the see of Sydney ; for had he accepted it, there might have been some difficulty in securing a Bishop to take charge of New Zealand without remuneration. "As for myself," hesaid, " I have lived in New Zealand long enough to have learned the best places for finding fern-roots and the haunts of birds and fishes, and I wish to state most clearly and distinctly, and in all seriousness, that it is my intention to go back to my diocese and to dig or beg, if need be, for my maintenance, for I am ashamed of neither ! "
True to his word, he returned to New Zealand, and threw himself with unabated zeal into those labours by sea and land, in peace and war, in which we have already followed him. To the less romantic, but equally necessary, task of Church organisation, also, he applied himself with special vigour. In 1862 he was able to reflect with satisfaction that New Zealand was divided into five separate episcopates — Christ Church, Wellington, Nelson, Waiapu, and his own. He had nearly a hundred clergymen minis- tering over great parishes in different parts of the colony, whilst of these one-tenth were native preachers. Moreover, one Synod had been held in the diocese of Waiapu, at which three Maori ministers, and nineteen lay synodsmen of native race, had conducted all the proceedings in their own language.
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In 1867 the first Lambeth Conference was to be held, and Dr. Selwyn was summoned to attend it. His admirers, with vivid memories of his inspiring visit in 1854, na<^ often pleaded with him to return. But so long as the matter stood merely on grounds of sentiment, or even of expediency, he turned a deaf ear to their most importunate entreaties. But the business to be transacted at Lambeth was so vital, and the demand for his presence so insistent, that he felt himself commanded to attend, and in July, 1867, he again turned his face homewards.
Into the nature of the deliberations of that august assembly at Lambeth we, of course, cannot enter. It is sufficient for our purpose to observe that, in the opinion of all who participated in those impressive conclaves, the presence of Bishop Selwyn constituted itself the most conspicuous feature of the gathering. He was the ornament of every debate to which he contributed. No voice was heard with more respect, and no opinions carried greater weight than his. His commanding figure, his finely-chiselled face, his charming personality and his silver tongue stamped their indelible impress upon the Church life of the world, as a result of his presence at these memorable meetings.
It happened that, during this visit to England, the death of Bishop Lonsdale created a vacancy in the historic see of Lichfield. All thoughts instantly turned towards that distinguished visitor from over- seas, whose eloquence at the Lambeth Conference, and whose inspiring sermons and addresses through- out the country, had stirred the entire Church to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. Nobody was surprised, therefore, when it was officially announced that the ancient and important episcopate of Lichfield had been offered by Lord Derby to the Right Rev. G. A. Selwyn, D.D., Bishop of New Zealand. Nor was anybody who knew him astonished at his instantly declining the promotion. He was at Exeter when
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the call reached him, and without waiting a moment, he wired his refusal.
He wrote to Lord Derby explaining that he felt it his duty to return to New Zealand : "(l) Because the native race requires all the efforts of the few friends that remain to it ; (2) because the organisation of the Church in New Zealand is still incomplete ; (3) because I have still, so far as I can judge, health and strength for the peculiar duties which habit has made familiar to me ; (4) because my bishopric is not endowed ; (5) because I have personal friends, to whom I am so deeply indebted that I feel bound to work with them so long as I can ; and (6) because a report was spread in New Zealand that I did not intend to return ; to which I answered that nothing but illness or death would prevent me. My heart is in New Zealand and Melanesia."
In recording his call to New Zealand twenty-six years earlier, we had occasion to remark upon Dr. Selwyn's military instincts. He was born to command and to be commanded. From those beneath his authority he expected explicit and unwavering obedience. To his own civil and ecclesiastical superiors he submitted himself without reserve. A soldier's life had a powerful fascination for him. He could have passed with honours a most exacting examination in military tactics, and was familiar with every device and strategy of Caesar and Napoleon, of Marlborough and Wellington. His criticisms of the disposition of British regiments during the Maori war were always precisely to the point. It is only by an appreciation of this peculiarity of his versatile nature that his decisions in 1841 and in 1867 can be under- stood. The Queen on the one hand, and the Arch- bishop of Canterbury on the other, made it clear to him that they wished him to transfer his service from one end of the world to the other, and when they had so spoken he felt that no further word remained to be said.
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
On Sunday evening, ist December, 1867, in her private room at Windsor Castle, Queen Victoria discussed the whole matter with Dr. Selwyn. She assured him that it was her own earnest desire that he should leave his work beneath the Southern Cross and make his home under the northern stars. " And so," he says, " I accepted with as good a grace as I could, though I felt very sorrowful, and still feel so."
He was enthroned as Bishop of Lichfield on pth January of the following year. For awhile he was in the peculiar position of holding simultaneously two episcopates. He made it a condition of his acceptance of Lichfield, however, that he should be permitted to return to New Zealand to take farewell of his people at the Antipodes.
And what distressing farewells those were ! What it cost Dr. Selwyn to say good-bye to Bishop Patteson, to his episcopal brethren in New Zealand, to his devoted clergy (both European and Maori), and to his hosts of friends of both races, will never be known in this world. Nor can we imagine what it must have meant to him to tear himself away from the land whose snow-capped mountains, rugged ranges, rushing rivers, fertile plains, and glorious bush had been endeared to him by the very privations he had endured in exploring their charms. In bidding farewell to the New Zealand of 1868, he cast many a thought back to the wilder and lonelier New Zealand of 1841, and lifted up his heart in gratitude for the amazing transformation.
" Sire, the Bishop ! " said one of the touching addresses presented by the Maoris, "salutations to you and to Mother! (Mrs. Selwyn). We are in grief! Great is our affection for you both who are now being lost to us. But how can it be helped, in consequence of the word of our great one, the Queen ? Sire, our thought with regard to you is that you are like the
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poor man's lamb taken away by the rich man. Go, sire, and may God preserve you both ! "
" How," asks Canon Curteis, " could the Maoris avoid being deeply attached to a man whose humour, simplicity, and manliness were so entirely after their own heart?" And he gives this story, graphically told by one of the actors — or sufferers !-— in the scene. " In the year 1855 I was travelling with the Bishop down to Taranaki to try to stop a war between two native tribes. On the last day of our march our stores were reduced to a small piece of bacon and a handful of flour — to be shared by three persons. Having forty miles to walk, we agreed to defer our single remaining meal till mid-day, about which time, after dragging ourselves through a black muddy creek, we bathed in a river of clear water a mile farther on, and then decided to rest and cook our bacon-puff. Just as we were dividing the savoury morsel into three equal parts a Maori appeared. He was exhausted and starving, having been in the bush two days and nights without any food. With a twinkle in his eye, expressive of amusement at our coming disappointment, the Bishop whispered tome : 'We must give him the puff!' And so we did, tramping off ourselves for a further walk of twenty rough miles to the river Waitara, where, at length, we broke our fast ! "
After a long and painful series of valedictory functions, the Bishop at last left New Zealand on 2Oth October, 1868. All shops were closed on that sad day, and the streets were thronged with crowds of people, eager for a last glimpse of the Bishop. The church of St. Paul, Auckland, was packed to the point of suffocation, and multi- tudes, disappointed, were turned from the doors. As the Bishop, with his wife and son and Bishop Abraham, made their way towards the wharf, they were besieged for final handshakes and last good-
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byes. A towering triumphal car, tastefully decor- ated, had been specially constructed. Aloft, a seat had been prepared for "Mother" (Mrs. Selwyn), whilst the others were grouped around and beneath her. This ponderous conveyance was dragged, first by four horses, and then, the horses being removed, by the people themselves. At the wharf there was the usual bustle and agitation attendant upon a steamer's departure. Then a shout from the bridge, a whistle here, the casting off of a cable there, and the great ship stood out to sea. A snow-storm of waving handkerchiefs was all that could be recognised by those on deck, as they 'fastened their last lingering gaze upon the vanishing wharves.
" At 6.45 P.M.," wrote the Bishop, " on 2ist October, Cape Maria Van Diemen melted away into the twilight mist. Another look at the 'Three Kings' was the close of all. And then the thought came upon me with great bitterness that I should never see the dear old land again. But the mind has now settled down upon its new bearings, and the magnet of English interests and work begins to draw me on."
The lofty anticipations which his statesmanship at the Lambeth Conference had led his friends to enter- tain concerning his administration of an English see were by no means disappointed. He fearlessly intro- duced into the Church life of England those novel methods which he had tested on colonial fields ; and it may be doubted whether any one Bishop has contributed more effectively to the ecclesiastical organisation of our own time than has Bishop Selwyn. Whether addressing the House of Lords, speaking in Convocation, delivering charges to his own clergy, or preaching in the stately Cathedral at Lichfield, he never failed to carry conviction to the minds of his auditors. They were invariably impressed by his transparent sincerity, his intense passion, and his evident desire to promote the well-being of others.
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In his own diocese, too, he wrought wonders. The modest yet dignified, homeliness which had won the hearts of the Maoris did not fail him in the " Black Country " in England. A student tells how " he saw the Bishop for the first time as he stood courteously holding open the door of a third-class carriage for a coal-begrimed woman, with baby and basket, to get in. It was as though a great lord was ushering a duchess into Windsor Castle."
When, in November, 1872, an appalling colliery accident overwhelmed the little village of Pelsall, the Bishop was on the scene immediately, and his tireless activity and practical sympathy amazed all beholders. From early morning until late at night he was labour- ing for the relief of the distressed. He visited the widows and fatherless children whose homes seemed in ruins after the desolating catastrophe. He kneeled and wept with them, addressing to them tactful and soothing words of consolation which, for years after- wards, echoed like haunting music in their memories. He visited the mansions of the wealthy, collecting funds for the relief of the sufferers. In castle and cottage he was equally at home. And where vicars and curates were exhausted by the additional strain to which the demands of the tragedy had subjected them, he cheerfully occupied their pulpits and ministered in their stead.
After a long and fatiguing day at the scene of this disaster, the Bishop and his son John were one night walking home — a distance of eight miles — when they came upon a little village in which they found a poor woman in peculiar distress. Her coal-merchant had inconsiderately shot her coals down outside her door, and left her to get them in as best she could. With- out a second's hesitation the Bishop of Lichfield and the future Bishop of Melanesia threw off their coats, and, tired to death as they already were, neither of them rested for a moment until all the fuel had been
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
safely housed and neatly stacked. Then, leaving the good woman in a state of breathless embarrassment and surprise, they again strode off into the night.
Under Dr. Selwyn's vigilant control no section of the population was overlooked. Those elements in the community which are generally regarded as sheep having no shepherd, he made his especial care. His quick eye soon perceived that the people on the barges, the floating population of the canals, were entirely out of touch with all religious activities. He therefore arranged for a mission-barge — the Messenger — to be built under his own supervision ; and this unique vessel, with its resident chaplain on board, was soon to be seen thridding the intricate waterways of the Trent and the Mersey. Indeed, it was no uncommon spectacle to behold the Bishop himself conducting service on the barge, or sitting with the chaplain on a heap of cinders, taking a rough- and-ready meal between the hours of worship.
The most forbidding districts of the Black Country felt, under his episcopate, the throb of a new spiritual impulse. Under his unwearying supervision there were no unreached masses in the whole of his extensive diocese. He believed with all his heart and soul in the power of the Gospel to uplift even the most degraded. Had he not with his own hands administered the sacred emblems of redemptive grace to those who had, not so long before, greedily devoured human flesh ? And he was confident that the triumphs which had been achieved on cannibal islands could be repeated in city slums. He organised " missions," conducted in many instances by laymen, and miracles were wrought as a result. In one district, we are assured, " pigeons kept for betting purposes were got rid of; cards were flung into the fire ; wives, who had never seen their husbands come home sober, now saw them hastening to church ; and unmarried women were now no longer afraid to be out after dark."
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The radiations and vibrations of the Bishop's energy were felt in every crevice and corner of the diocese. " He were one," exclaimed an unlettered admirer, whose life had been transformed beneath the spell of the Bishop's touch, — "he were one that did speak straight home to you ; he knew all about we, I can tell you!" "If ever you want a good turn done for you," said another man, " send for the Bishop ; he's the one to do it ! " " Yes, it's the Bishop's arm now and for ever, if he wants it," exclaimed a third, gazing with gratitude and pride upon the once-mangled limb which Dr. Selwyn had saved for him ; " I'd rather ha' died than ha' lost it, but the Bishop, he give me the five pun' note for a silver bone, and it's made a new man of me. Yes, it's his arm now ! "
Twice in the course of those busy years he crossec the Atlantic attending Conventions, preaching special sermons, and delivering addresses in the great centres of population in Canada and the United States. Both in 1871 and in 1874 his journeys across the Western continent resembled the triumphal progress of a conqueror. Everywhere he was accorded magni- ficent receptions. All sections of the community — dignitaries of churches, leaders in politics, princes of commerce, and captains of industry — thronged to hear him ; and deep and permanent was the impression which he left on the best life of the Western peoples.
In the midst of these multitudinous activities, which would have shattered the constitution of a weaker man, there fell a blow which shrouded his whole life in gloom. In 1871, just after the Cathedral bells had gleefully welcomed him back from his first American tour, there came the staggering intelligence that his " dear son in the Lord," Bishop Patteson, had been cruelly murdered at Nukapu. Only those who had watched, during the years of happy and united service, the ever-increasing bond of affection existing between the Bishop and " Coley," could appreciate
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the stunning severity of this awful blow. The Bishop moved about for days like a man dreaming, bewildered, dazed. In the Cathedral, at every evensong, he asked for the Dead March. His whole life seemed draped in mourning. It appeared an amazing incongruity that the children should go on laughing, and that the birds should continue to sing. To him the universe held but one black fact — " Coley was dead ! — and murdered ! " He recalled with pathetic vividness the perils they had shared on those island homes of barbarism. " Oh, why did we not die together then ? " he would ask. " God only knows ! He knows ! One is taken and the other left !"
Then followed what was probably the culminating act of heroism in this so heroic life. Dr. Selwyn was the Founder of the Melanesian episcopate. In reality, he was himself the pioneer Bishop of that strangely scattered see. He had conducted those expeditions which had trained and prepared Mr. Patteson. for his bishopric. And to him all eyes turned in expectation now. Whom would he nominate to the vacant charge in succession to the murdered Bishop? By his side stood his own son — John Richardson Selwyn — filial in affection, loyal in service, wise in counsel, fearless in danger. And in that time of anguish, whilst every fibre of his being shuddered with horror at the atrocity that had stained the islands with the blood of his friend, he offered his own son as his successor at the post of peril. The General Synod of New Zealand heartily accepted the suggestion, and elected the Rev. J. R. Sel- wyn to succeed Bishop Patteson in the see of Melanesia.
The consecration of the second " Bishop Selwyn " took place in the pretty little cathedral church, stand- ing on its leafy knoll, at Nelson, New Zealand, on 1 8th February, 1877. And who shall describe that altogether unique service held exactly simultaneously in Lichfield Cathedral? It was a glorious summer Sunday morning at Nelson ; and the little cathedral
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around which the birds were singing blithely was flooded with brilliant sunshine. It was a raw winter's night at Lichfield ; many of the shops were still driving their Saturday night's trade ; the stars shone coldly through the clear but nipping air as, towards the "witching hour," the cloaked and muffled worshippers wended their way to the stately old cathedral. No contrast could have been more strik- ing ; yet the two services were held at precisely the same moment of time, those at Lichfield joining those at Nelson in dedicating to his great life-work the younger Bishop Selwyn. At Lichfield the Bishop delivered a brief address, characterised alike by its simplicity, its beauty, and its courage ; and then, after silent prayer, and a consecration hymn, the congregation, with bowed heads, filed out into the weird darkness of that early Sabbath morning. They thought the more of the doctrines and precepts that fell from their great Bishop's lips as they reflected on the munificent sacrifice which that service represented.
In that same year the distinguished character of the Bishop's colonial service was" recognised by his being appointed the first " Prelate of the Order of St. Michael and St. George." Anything that linked his present life with those wild and hardy days of adventure beyond the seas came to Dr. Selwyn like cold water to a thirsty soul. Mrs. Selwyn often caught him gazing with peculiar fondness upon his beautiful study-table, inlaid as it was with many- tinted woods of various grains, gathered from his own beloved New Zealand bush.
A few weeks later, however, the Bishop's own health gave to his relatives the gravest cause for alarm. During the month of March it became evident that it was only by calling up all the reserve forces of his indomitable will that he was discharging his multifarious duties. He would ask, after a service, to be left alone. On 24th March he conducted an
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
impressive confirmation service at Shrewsbury, concluding a most beautiful arid searching address with the words — destined to be his last in public — " Safe in the arms of Jesus." At the close of the service, Bishop Hobhouse congratulated him on the energy and vigour with which he had spoken. " Yes," he replied, " but it was like holding on to a ship in a storm. I held on by my hands and feet!" Then, flinging himself back in his chair in uttermost weariness and abandonment, he exclaimed : " The end is come ! "
He was able to return to Lichfield, however, and to enjoy to the last the gentle ministries of those loving hands which, in all his toils and travels, had never failed to comfort, soothe, and strengthen him. Mrs. Selwyn was with him until the end. With her he held several cheerful and even animated conversations, which almost encouraged the hope that the ominous symptoms might yet disappear. But on the Saturday he was weaker, and asked to be permitted to take the Communion with his wife and family. Clad in the lowly garments of penitence to the very last, his first words to this little gathering, as it slowly and sorrow- fully filed into his room, were : " I wish to tell you all {hat I have made my humble submission to God for all my sins." Out of great feebleness, he addressed to each of those present, including the servants, a few touching words of earnest exhortation. Then, pausing for a moment with closed eyes, as his mind sped across the rolling oceans to his lonely son, he added, with that felicity of Scriptural quotation which never deserted him : " The blessing of his father shall be upon the head of him who is separate from his brethren." He then pronounced his last bene- diction ; and the little household, with many stifled sobs and falling tears, passed mournfully from the room.
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
at last. That sturdy and athletic frame had throbbed so long with muscular activity and manly vigour that so sudden and complete a collapse seemed scarcely credible. Yet there he lay, the very picture of mortal frailty ! The arms, once so sinewy and strong, lay helplessly by his sides. The eyes, once so expressive and, on occasions, so fiery, stare vacantly upward. He spoke incoherently, not in English but in Maori — he is once more trudging along the old bush-tracks, climbing his beloved mountains, and holding palavers with hostile native tribes. Then suddenly there was a knitting of those splendid brows, a return of intel- ligence to those eloquent eyes, and he recognised the watchers by his bedside. A weary smile played over his features as he reminded his little grand-daughters of earlier frolics, and wished they were robins that they might perch upon his hand. The old enthusiasm mantled his features as he detected the figure of Sir William Martin, and chatted for a moment on the old days in the land beyond the sea. Then once more the tired eyes closed, and he uttered almost his last intelligible words — those lovely Maori syllables in which a native Christian, dying, assures the friends who surround his couch that he has caught the vision of the glory dawning from a better world : "It is Light ! It is Light I IT is LIGHT ! "
He lingered, the feeble flame at times flickering fitfully, until the Thursday. Then, collecting all his little store of strength, he murmured a few broken words, in which he avowed his undying affection for that noble wife who had so ungrudgingly shared all his burdens, and his serene trustfulness in the eternal love of God. Then, like a tired child nestling down to sleep, he composed himself, with a soft sigh, upon his pillows, and peacefully entered into his rest. So, on April Iith, 1878, at the age of sixty-nine, the valiant soul of one of England's very greatest sons passed triumphantly away.
154
The Call to the Home-Land
During the following week the entire nation rose as one man to do honour to his memory. Represent- atives of every shade of English and colonial life turned their steps towards Lichfield in respectful sorrow, at what each felt to be a personal, as well as a national bereavement A grave was specially carved out of the solid rock on which the old Cathedral stands. To this final resting-place the coffin was
THE PALACE, LICHFIELD, WHERE BISHOP SELVVYN DIED
affectionately borne by his old schoolfellow, the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone; his old pupil, the Earl of Powis ; his oldest New Zealand friend, Sir William Martin ; and by Archdeacon Allen, the Provost of Eton ; Lord Hatherton ; and Sir Percival Heywood. Five hundred clergymen witnessed to the intense personal affection, which he always inspired in those who served under his authority, by joining, in mournful procession, the cortege to the tomb ; and
J55
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
thus performing a last act of homage to a leader whom to follow was to love.
In all parts of the world the most glowing tributes were paid to his memory. Pulpit, press, and platform vied with each other in commemorating the command- ing virtues and distinguished excellences of one whom no difficulty had ever daunted, and the imprint of whose splendid and gracious influence must abide upon the world for ever.
It was to be expected, of course, that testimonies to his sterling worth should come from the highest national and ecclesiastical sources. And, bearing the hall-mark of profound sincerity and of deep emotion, such eulogies were uttered. But to these must be added one or two others which, offered gratuitously and spon- taneously, must be reckoned as of at least equal value.
Mr. Punch, for example, who had, on the Bishop's translation to Lichfield eleven years before, paid magni- ficent tribute in glowing metre to the mettle of the heroic prelate, again voiced the universal sentiment in lines which appeared on the day of the funeral. From a lengthy poem we may select a few stanzas : —
" Lift hats all, as this funeral takes its way —
Whate'er our Church or sect, for once we can — To him that's borne unto his rest to-day, Each breath a Bishop — every inch a MAN !
" Few are the Pauls we breed in these soft times,
To live the life of travel and of toil, Face danger, hardship, rough ways, change of climes — The early Christian soldier's march and moil.
"So he sailed forth across Australian seas,
To where the savage Maori held his own, Bark-robed, tattooed, close watching, ill at ease,
The white man's strength still growing, not yet grown.
u And there the Bishop stood, between the war Of Clans and Chiefs and Settlers, all alone, Holding the Christian banner high and far, 'Bove smoke of strife and noise of warriors blown.
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George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
" Until his way was clear, and he was free,
His wide, wild Bishopric to range at will, To swim the river and to sail the sea,
And set to labouring work his strength and skill.
"Till savages were weaned from savageness,
And white men owned a faith ne'er owned till then ; And school and Church rose in the wilderness, Fruit of the seed of Love — Goodwill to men !
"At length from work he rests, and to the bier
His good deeds follow him, and good men's love ; And one true Bishop less we reckon here, And one good angel more they count above."
But perhaps, after all, one of the most weighty witnesses to the worth and work of Bishop Selwyn was that given by Charles Kingsley in his dedication of " Westward Ho ! " and as offered by one who was, four years afterwards, appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, it is notable indeed. On the opening page of that most thrilling and dramatic story of exploit and adventure, we read : —
TO THE RAJAH SIR JAMES BROOKE, K.C.B,
AND
GEORGE AUGUSTUS SELWYN, D.D.,
BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND,
Ubis Boofe is
By one who (unknown to them) has no other method of ex- pressing his admiration and reverence for their characters.
That type of English virtue, at once manful and godly, practical and enthusiastic, prudent and self-sacrificing, which he has tried to depict in these pages, they have exhibited in a form even purer and more heroic than that in which he has drest it, and than that in which it was exhibited by the worthies whom Elizabeth, without distinction of rank or age, gathered round her in the ever glorious wars of her great reign. C. K.
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The Call to the Home-LaDd
An exquisitely beautiful recumbent statue of the Bishop has been placed in Lichfield Cathedral, which will always remain one of the principal attractions of the splendid minster. The approach to that monument has been worn by the pilgrim feet of thousands of patriotic New Zealanders, Melanesian missionaries, and tattooed Maoris, eager to lay a reverent hand upon that effigy of their great pioneer Bishop and friend. In 1882 a touching scene was here witnessed. Beside the pure white alabaster
RECOMBEKT FIGURE OF BISHOP SRIAVYN IN T.TCTTFIET T> CATHEDRAL
effigy of the sleeping Bishop, there stood a wrinkled old New Zealand chief, his face and features tattooed in the time-honoured native fashion. Standing silently at first, he gazed upon the tomb until faster and faster still, the tears coursed down his scarred but noble face. Then he kneeled, and for awhile yielded to his emotion, as his memories of the good Bishop returned lik'e a wave upon him. Then, rising and gazing in admiration at the lovely statue, he exclaimed in his own language : " That was his very chin ; that was his forehead ; and those were the
George Augustus Selwyn, D.D.
very finger-nails which I myself saw him bite in his nervousness, when he preached his first sermon in our language ! "
In 1909 the centenary of Dr. Selwyn's birth was celebrated with the greatest enthusiasm in New Zealand, and in honour of the occasion a new wing — the Patteson wing — was added to St. John's College at Auckland.
But we need linger no longer beside these monuments. Dr. Selwyn's work is not yet finished. He had to do, not only with the upbuilding of a strong Church, but with the moulding of a great nation. He literally fought his way through floods and flames that that Church might be the channel through which the blessings of the Gospel of Christ should flow to many peoples. And he endured untold hardships and indescribable privations that that young nation might present to the world the impressive spectacle of a people doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with their God. To-day that Church cherishes his name as among her chiefest treasures ; whilst that vigorous nation, sturdy and daring, opulent and free, rises in gratitude to do honour to his memory. New Zealand will never forget the most sagacious and sure-footed of all her pathfinders.
Without grudge, or stint, or thought of self, he lavishly poured out his greatly-gifted life, like precious ointment, on the head of his Redeemer. The fragrance of his influence is in all the world. His body sleeps at Lichfield ; his name is in all the Churches ; his work moves grandly on ; his record is on high.
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