FRQM THE LIBRARY OF
TRUSTY COLLEGE
TO
BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
J.
BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
A MEMOIR
BY
F. D. HOW
AUTHOR OF
BISHOP WALSHAM HOW I A MEMOIR
ETC.
LONDON
ISBISTER AND COMPANY LIMITED
15 & 16 fAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN
1899
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON &> Co,
London <&&gt; Edinburgh
OCT 2 * 1991
136265
TO THE MOTHER
WHOSE INSPIRATION BREATHES THROUGH
ALL HIS LIFE AND LETTERS
THIS BRIEF MEMORIAL
OF
BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
is
RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY
DEDICATED
PREFACE
THE following sketch of Bishop John Selwyn has
appeared to me more and more inadequate in pro
portion as, in the course of writing it, I have been
privileged to become more and more familiar with
the beauties of his life and character.
Such as it is, I lay it before those who knew and
loved him well, and beg them to pardon its deficiencies.
The members of the Bishop s family were urgent
that the book should be short. With this desire I
fully sympathise, but it has in some measure added
to my difficulties.
Before the work was undertaken another hand
had begun to write a history of the Melanesian
Mission. I undertook to trespass as little as possible
upon this ground. Those, therefore, who desire to
read chiefly of mission work must await the publica
tion of that history.
x PREFACE
I wish to give warm thanks to those who have so
greatly helped me. Chief of these are the members
of the Selwyn family, who will not desire a special
mention of their names. Besides these I am deeply
grateful to Mrs. a Court-Repington, Mrs. Long
Innes, Mrs. Balston, the Lord Bishop of Newcastle,
the Rev. Dr. Codrington, the Rev. John Still, the
Rev. F. E. Waters, the Rev. the Provost of Eton,
the Rev. C. Abraham, the Rev. O. Mordaunt, the
Rev. Professor Stanton, the Rev. A. Penny, the Rev.
J. O. F. Murray, Robert Kinglake, Esq., Richard
Durnford, Esq., and Charles Bill, Esq., M.P.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. EARLY LIFE ....... 1
II. CHOICE OF A PROFESSION ALHEWAS . . . 16
in. ST. GEORGE S, WOLVERHAMFI-ON TRIP TO AMERICA
DEATH OF BISHOP PATTESON ... 26
IV. ARRIVAL IX MELANESIA NORFOLK ISLAND, ETC. . 44
V. MELANESIA SUGGESTIONS OF THE BISHOPRIC . 58
VI. NORFOLK ISLAND ...... 71
VII. VARIOUS INFLUENCES BISHOP PATTESON, ETC. . 82
VIII. HIS CONSECRATION ...... 92
IX. DEATH OF MRS. J. R. SELWYN .... 117
X. DEATH OF HIS FATHER VISIT TO ENGLAND . 131
XI. MELANESIA . . . . . . .150
XII. HIS SECOND MARRIAGE RENEWED WORK IN
MELANESIA . . . . . . .161
XIII. MISSIONARY ADVENTURES ..... 177
XIV. LAST YEARS IN MELANESIA .... 195
XV. SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE .... 207
XVI. THE END ........ 242
XVII. A FEW LETTERS ON SPIRITUAL MATTERS 253
CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE
JOHN RICHARDSON SELWYN was born on May 20,
1844. Of him alone of our Missionary Bishops it
may be said that he was born in the region of his
future labours, for his birthplace was the Waimate
in the Bay of Islands in the northern part of New
Zealand. There it was that his father, George
Augustus Selwyn, Bishop of New Zealand, had
established his headquarters, making use of the
roomy wooden station belonging to the Church
Missionary Society. There too St. John s College,
" a Polynesian College for the different branches of
the Maori family scattered over the Pacific," first
saw the light, and there it remained until some
difficulty with the owners caused its removal in
1846 to Auckland.
Owing to these circumstances the future Bishop
of Melanesia could never in after life have felt
himself the stranger in the Islands that many
another man would have done, for the Maoris were
A
2 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
proud to boast that he was one of themselves, and
the sound of their languages was as familiar to his
baby ears as was his mother tongue. Then again,
when the College was moved to Auckland he was
taken thither also by his parents, and his earliest
childhood was passed in an institution where Maori
and English boys learnt lessons side by side and
lived a life in common. It was when he w^as five
years old that his father returned on October 1,
1849, at midnight from a cruise among the Islands
in the schooner Undine. Mrs. Selwyn was aroused
by the Bishop s voice exultingly exclaiming " I ve
got them ! " " Them " turned out to be five little
savage boys, the first of many who afterwards were
brought in to be educated, and to form in time a
native clergy for Melanesia.
With these little natives Johnnie Selwyn made
great friends, and, when one of them was ill with a
disease which proved fatal, it was Johnnie Selwyn s
name which was on his lips as he kept constantly
calling for his beloved playmate.
All these things must have had their effect, and,
though for many years he lived in England at
school and college, and though his knowledge of the
Maori language was entirely lost, yet the seeds
sown in the first ten years of his life were destined
to bear ample fruit.
The influence of his father was but little felt in
these early days. There were, it is true, strong
EARLY LIFE 3
traits of character directly inherited ; there came
also in later life that admiration for his father s
work and desire to share in it which was so large a
factor in his dedication to missionary work ; but as a
child he saw little of him. " My boyhood, alas ! "
he wrote,* " can remember little of my father. I can
remember him suddenly appearing in the middle of
the night, fresh from one of those voyages which
laid, with so much daring and so much forethought,
the foundations of the Melanesian Mission. I can
recall the dingy cabin of his little schooner, creaking
and groaning in a gale of wind off the coast of New
Zealand, and a figure in wet and shiny oilskins
coming down from the long watch on deck to see
how my mother and I were faring below."
It was on his mother that he depended from the
very first. It was from his mother and from her
alone that he learnt his earliest lessons. In those
first years of his life he and his mother were so
closely welded together that no distance of space
or time was ever able afterwards to loosen the
bond between them. There is an old rhyme which
says :
My son is my son till he gets him a wife,
My daughter s my daughter all her life.
This was certainly falsified in John Selwyn s case.
No matter what friendships he made or what ties
* Selwyn College Calendar, 1894.
4 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
he formed in the course of his life, he never altered
one hair s breadth in his devoted intimacy with his
mother.
It is curious to note in a man of so essentially
" manly " a type some characteristics which show
that he also possessed certain feminine qualities
of mind and even habits. His handwriting may,
perhaps, be taken as typical of this. This twofold
nature especially endeared him as a child to his
mother. " He was my son and my daughter," she
says, " he was exactly like a son and a daughter."
She bears witness at the same time to his having
been a very spirited boy, and to his having shown
at an early age some of those traits which became
familiar afterwards as, for instance, an unfailing
courtesy, and a quickness of temper followed by an
equally quick desire to make amends. Mrs. Selwyn
was fortunate enough to take out with her an
admirable servant who, in spite of severe illness,
remained faithful to her in her New Zealand home,
and, as was the case with most women who came in
contact with him, became devoted to John Selwyn,
whom she nursed from the hour of his birth. Her
love for him was fully returned, and their affectionate
relations were maintained to the end of her life a
few years ago. He would often go to visit her after
he became a Bishop, and the story goes that on his
first arrival she would address him with some awe
as " My Lord," then in a little while it would come
EARLY LIFE 5
down to "Bishop," and then to " Master Johnnie,"
and at last, when old memories swept everything
before them, it was always "My darling Johnnie."
This same old friend bore witness to the early
piety of the boy, saying that she remembered well
finding him, when a very little fellow, on his knees
praying for her at a time when she was far from
well. This habit of prayer grew with his growth,
and it will be seen how greatly it influenced his life
from beginning to end.
Of his chief interests as a little lad there is not
much to be recorded excepting that, like most small
boys, he was very fond of fishing, of which he was
able to get plenty of a sort ! from the rocks at
Taurarua, where they used constantly to stay with
Sir William Martin, the Chief Justice. One of his
chief delights then as always w r as history and all
connected with it. He knew all about the chief
battles by land and sea, and, as he himself said in a
letter long afterwards, " whatever I read of that sort,
it just sticks." When he was quite a little fellow he
was most indignant and contemptuous because some
of the boys at St. John s College, Auckland, didn t
know the ballad of " Chevy Chase." This keenness
made the history lessons with his mother a delight to
them both, and she well remembers his intense enjoy
ment of Macaulay s " Lays of Ancient Rome." His
only other teacher at this time was Mr. Abraham
(now Bishop), who taught him his first Latin.
6 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
In May 1854 the Bishop of New Zealand and
Mrs. Selwyn came to England, and then for the
first time John Selwyn set foot in his mother
country. What a marvellous change it must have
seemed to him ! A change from the life of a young
colony to the old-world English ways, from the little
black Maori boys of St. John s, Auckland, to the
manners and customs of the most famous of our
public schools. He was sent to Eton very soon
after his arrival in England, and it was arranged
that his holidays should be spent at Ely. His
father s eldest brother, Professor Selwyn, was one
of the Canons there, and another relative living
there at that time was Mrs. Peacocke, wife of the
Dean, and his father s youngest sister. It was with
this aunt that most of his time was spent, and to
this day she writes in terms of the warmest appre
ciation of his affectionate companionship.
He was very careful in the selection of his friends,
bringing only one or two specially nice boys to stay
at the Deanery. He does not indeed seem to have
had many companions in the holidays. His brother,^
four years older than himself, was little with him.
There seems to have been a systematic separa
tion of the two boys, for they were at different
houses at Eton and their holidays were spent with
different uncles. However, Johnnie Selwyn was
never at a loss for amusement : he gratified his love
* Rev. W. Selwyn, Vicar of Bromfield, Salop.
EARLY LIFE 7
of adventure by making perilous journeys outside
the roof of Ely Cathedral, to which he obtained
ready access as the Dean s nephew, and the river
and its boats were a source of continual delight to
him. His aunt Mrs. Thompson (on the death of the
Dean Mrs. Peacocke married Dr. Thompson, the late
master of Trinity College, Cambridge), tells of his
devotion to his " dear boats," but adds that his
readiness to leave them and nurse her in a time of
illness was most touching. On another occasion, too,
he was known to have given up a boating expedition
and could nowhere be found, until, on search being
made, he was discovered reading to a page-boy who
was ill upstairs. This sympathy with suffering was
one of his strongest characteristics : in Melanesia he
would sit up night after night nursing the sick, and
often gave up his own bed to a native boy who
was ailing, though it might not improbably mean
that the bedding could not be used by him again.
Towards the close of his life, when lame and broken
in health, it will be seen that he devoted much time
to visiting hospitals and did all in his power to
alleviate the pain and trouble of others.
But to return to his boyhood : he gives just one
glimpse in a letter written to his mother many years
afterwards, where he says that he accounts for his
own learning being inferior to hers in depth and
variety by the fact that she when a girl spent her
evenings in reading with her aunt, while he spent
8 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
his in playing cribbage with his uncle. To sum up
the impression he made upon his relations during
these Ely holidays, nothing can be better than
Mrs. Thompson s own words : " I dare not," she
says, " begin about his lovely character, unselfish
and cheerful under suffering, and thoughtful for
every one."
At Eton he seems to have borne an excellent
character with the authorities, for it is said that
there was " not one complaint from either school
master or tutor," though he was never a particularly
studious boy. His appearance at that date has
been described by an old schoolfellow as that of a
sturdy, square-shouldered boy with the countenance
of a Lord Chancellor. There is no doubt that,
whatever he took in hand, he was tremendously in
earnest, and this shone out in his eager, determined
face and sparkling eye. He was not a tidy boy : in
fact all his life long he was noted for a certain care
lessness of dress : a striking instance of this is given
by Dr. Hornby, the Provost of Eton, who writes :
"I believe that I first saw John Selvvyn on the Oxford
towing-path in 1865 or 66, running with the University crew.
He had come over from Cambridge to see his rivals, he being
then, I think, stroke of the Cambridge eight. I Avell remember
his appearance, which was very characteristic. He had
borrowed a set of flannels from one of his friends at Uni
versity College, Oxford, probably an old comrade in the
Eton eight, and was running along very joyously in a Uni
versity College blazer, which was far too narrow for his
EARLY LIFE 9
broad shoulders, and a pair of white flannel trousers which
were much too long for his legs. It was impossible not to
notice this as well as his bright, happy look, as of a man out
for a good holiday and thoroughly enjoying himself? 1
In order to obtain a true notion of his Eton and
Cambridge life the following valuable paper is
inserted here valuable both from its intrinsic
interest, and also from the fact that it is penned
by his chief school and college friend, Mr. R. A.
Kinglake.
" My first meeting with John Richardson Selwyn was at
John Hawtrey s, where we were together for about a year,
Selwyn being at this time eleven years of age. John Hawtrey,
a nephew of the Provost, was a Lower School Master. He
took none but little boys, and as soon as they got into the
fourth form they migrated to other houses. Selwyn went
to Coleridge s, while I went to Evans . Coleridge, who was
then Lower Master, was soon after elected to a College fellow
ship, and Selwyn thereupon became a pupil of the Rev. E.
Balston, who was also my tutor, and he came across the road
from Coleridge s to Wm. Evans" 1 , where he and I struck up a
friendship which was only severed by death. Selwyn did
not live in the boys house, but he occupied a room in the
cottage where Mr. Evans lived, and where the Earl of Pem
broke and one or two pet boys had rooms. . . . There was
no dining hall at Eton to be compared to Evans . It was
hung round with old tapestry, and the walls decorated
with coats of armour, &c. ... At the high table the
head boys sat in high-backed velvet chairs : it was a charm
ing specimen of an old baronial hall. [What an impression
this must have made on the small New Zealander !]
10 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
" Although he must have been separated from his parents
at a very early age, the training and religious teaching he
had received were indelibly stamped upon his mind, for at
twelve years old he had a marvellous knowledge of the Scrip
tures . . . and could repeat by heart numberless texts and
passages from the New Testament.
"When he was about fifteen years of age Mrs. Selwyn
came from New Zealand on a visit, and stayed at Evans" 1 .
He went to London to meet his mother, but not having seen
her for so many years did not recognise her. He had also
grown out of her recollection, being by this time a broad-
shouldered strong boy. However, it did not take long for
them to be on the most affectionate terms, and I remember his
expressing his joy at having his mother again with him, to
whom he could tell all his inmost thoughts and hopes.
" Evans" 1 was a great house in those days. Four Lytteltons
were there, Lord Cobham and his three brothers. The house
was ruled and managed by the head boys . . . and this con
fidence was never misplaced. . . . Selwyn took to football and
rowing, and was one of the best long behinds at football I
ever knew. Cool and calm at the moment of danger, never
flurried, the house had a perfect defender for their goals, and
with him as captain Evans won the football challenge cup,
and became cocks of college." 1 . . . Selwyn, I think, played in
the house cricket eleven. He rowed three in the house four,
the remaining members of the crew being myself, S. E. Hicks,
and the Rev. J. Trower. About this time he and I took up
pair-oar rowing together, and we won the Pulling with
great ease. . . . Selwyn stood so high in football 4 choices
that he might have been either captain of the field eleven,
or captain of the Wall, which was considered a better
position. I was next to him in the 6 Wall choices and
stood low in the field, so, for the honour of the dear old
house, and thinking I should like to be captain of the Wall,
he accepted the captaincy of the field eleven, and I took the
EARLY LIFE 11
Wall, an act which was greatly appreciated by the boys in
the house.
" He was a great favourite with the headmaster, Dr.
Balston, who knew he had a boy of strong will and character
at the top of the school, and one who would set an example
of good to the younger and weaker boys, and he felt he could
always rely on him if he should want his aid.
" Selwyn s principal amusements were rowing and bathing.
[He was a splendid swimmer, and on one occasion when at
Scarborough during his holidays he swam so far out that a
boatman rowed after him and fetched him back a totally
unnecessary proceeding. His " rescuer " proceeded to demand
five shillings for what he had done, on which John Selwyn
remarked : " I observe there are sharks in the sea even on the
coast of England ! "]
" Two of his very intimate friends at Eton were Stephen
Fremantle, a brother of the present Lord Cottesloe, who
won the Newcastle Scholarship and became a student of
Christchurch and, unfortunately, died young after giving
promise of great things ; and Charles Bill, now member
for one of the divisions of Staffordshire. [His love and
admiration for Stephen Fremantle is mentioned in many
of his letters, and in memory of him he called his eldest
son Stephen. 11 ]
" I went to stay with him at Ely during the Easter holidays
of 1862 to read for our matriculation examination at Trinity,
Cambridge. Here we used to row every afternoon in a
pair-oared outrigger. . . . On one occasion, in consequence
of some inadvertence in the steering, we both lost our
tempers, and each tried to row the other into the bank.
The river was absolutely straight for over three-quarters of
a mile, and after rowing the whole distance, and finding the
boat still keeping her course in the centre of the stream,
we burst out laughing. . . . Thus we gained perfect con-
12 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
fidence in one another, and when we went up to Cambridge
we had no difficulty in winning the University Pairs, and
afterwards the Silver Goblets at Henley.
" When Selwyn went to Trinity he kept in Malcolm
Street, and, as he preferred the freedom of lodgings, he re
mained there during the whole of his University career, and
never had rooms in College. He rowed twice in the University
crew (1864 and 1866). [He was stroke of the boat in the
former year, and rowed two in the latter. Cambridge
rowing was at a low ebb at the time, and he lost both races
with Oxford.] As I was President of the C.U.B.C. and
captain of 3rd Trinity, I resigned the latter post to him, thus
repaying him for his generosity to me in our Eton football
days. 11
In 1866 John Selwyn made one of the great
friendships of his life. This was with John Still, *
captain of the Cams College Rowing Club, who
was a member of the Cambridge crew for four years,
of which the first was 1866, thus just overlapping
Selwyn. This friendship resulted in the two men
working side by side for some years, first of all at
Wolverhampton, and then in Melanesia.
One or two extracts from letters written during
his Cambridge life may be added to this chapter,
each one being interesting for some special reference
or allusion.
Thus it is curious in view of after events, and his
father s acceptance of the See of Lichfield, to find
him writing to his mother on August 25, 1863, as
follows :
* Rector of Hockwold, Brandon.
EARLY LIFE 13
" I went up to Uncle Charles for a cricket party
on the 1st, and then to Lichfield to play in a match
there. Did you go to Lichfield when you were in
England ? It has one of the most perfect Cathedrals
in England, not excepting Ely, as it has been com
pletely restored, and now they are putting in a
reredos similar to that at Ely."
Then again, writing to his mother on May 26,
1864, we find an allusion to his intention to take up
the law as a profession. His uncle, Sir Charles
Selwyn, was a notable judge, and his grandfather on
his mother s side (after whom he was named) was
Sir John Richardson, of whom Lord Campbell in
his "Life" (vol. i. p. 379) says : " He is not only a
deep lawyer, but a very elegant scholar. I do not
recollect any appointment which gave such universal
satisfaction." For these reasons, and also for much
in his own nature which fitted him for the profession,
it was always thought that he would go to the Bar.
He writes as follows :
" The great thing with us now is Willie s [his
brother] ordination. He is regularly started in the
world now, and I hope I shall get as good a one. I
think a young clergyman s life and a young lawyer s
are about as widely different as anything can be,
though I suppose both have their own temptations,
especially the latter. I think I shall try when I am
14 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
in London to get lodgings a little way out in the
country, and then one will be able to get away from
the eternal din ; and besides, it is very much better
to put oneself out of the reach of temptation, as they
say that men who have been working all day feel so
inclined to knock about at night. However, you
shall have my experiences when I have arrived at
that state. At present I am only a Cambridge
undergraduate who is not very likely to floor the
Classical Tripos, unless he works very hard, which,
what with boat-races, Prince of Wales coming to
Cambridge, &c., does not seem very easy."
His lonely independence, owing to his great dis
tance from his father and mother, comes out strongly
in the following extract from a letter to his father
written from Dresden, where he was reading with a
party under the auspices of Mr. Richmond, on
August 22, 1864.
" It is a very queer state of things, but at present
I am almost entirely on my own (see the paucity of
my English when I know no other word to express
what I mean but) hook ; thereby meaning that
hardly anybody, uncles, &c., knows how I am going
on in the working way. . . . Everybody said that
the Germans would be very rude, on account of the
mess England had made by inserting her finger in
the Danish war, but such is anything but the case.
EARLY LIFE 15
I never met with more civility and kindness. My
German is not so flourishing as it might be, but by
a reckless disregard of all genders, and often of
declensions also, I generally manage to make myself
understood."
This pluck in the matter of unknown tongues was
to stand him in good stead when he first went out to
Melanesia. It is said that, while many a more timid
man hesitated long before attempting to address the
natives, as soon as John Selwyn knew twenty words
of Mota, he preached a sermon and made himself
understood.
His fears as to flooring the Classical Tripos were
unfounded, for he came out safely in the 3rd Class
in 1866, and then returned to New Zealand on a
visit to his parents.
CHAPTER II
CHOICE OF A PROFESSION ALREW AS
THIS visit to New Zealand proved the turning-point
in his life. He went out with law-books in his box,
and no other intention in his mind than that of
preparing for the legal profession. Before the visit
was over, an entirely different path of life opened
out before him.
But this did not happen just at first. There were
other things to occupy his mind for a time, such as
the joy of being once more with his father and
mother. He describes his arrival in a letter to
Mrs. a Court-Repington, in which he says :
" My father s house looks straight over the
entrance to the harbour, and they saw us coming in,
and before we anchored there was the well-known
shovel hat in the stern sheets of a man-of-war s boat,
which soon transported me to my native land. . . .
My old nurse appeared in most gorgeous attire to
greet me, one item of which was a brooch containing
CHOICE OF A PROFESSION ALREW AS 17
as a centrepiece a glass button which I wore at
somebody s wedding in the year one ! What do
you think of that for fidelity ? "
There is evidence, too, in the recollection of one
who was at that time a little lad of nine, and
lived at Auckland, N.Z., that law studies were
at all events in John Selwyn s mind during the
first part of his stay with his parents. This friend
writes :
" He was supposed to be reading law, and used to spend
much time in his shirt sleeves teaching a black-and-tan terrier
tricks, much to my delight. He would take me out in his
little 10-ton cutter in the harbour, and let me steer when all
was plain sailing, or hang on to the sheet when we tacked. I
can remember one day drifting off with the ebb tide with one
scull in the dinghy, and finding that the most frantic exertions
only made her spin round and drift away further from shore.
He had his boots and coat off in a moment as he caught sight
of the plight I was in, and swam out in his clothes to bring
back the nine-year-old brat."
But two things soon happened which between
them brought about a change of mind, and made
him determine to take Holy Orders. The first of
these was a long six weeks expedition with his
father to the district of the Waikato. This was a
newly conquered part and the travellers had to
undergo a series of hardships, such as sleeping in
huts on fern beds, &c., which would have been
B
18 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
thought severe enough by most men, but which the
father and son seem to have equally enjoyed.
In the course of his lectures on pastoral work in
the Colonies and Mission Field, delivered in the
University of Cambridge in 1896, Bishop John
Selwyn thus described his experiences on this
occasion :
" Just after I landed my father took me on a six-
weeks tour. I was cook and bed-maker. It was
mine to hoist up the little tent, to fill it with fern
judiciously arranged, to cut the scanty rasher, and
fit it between a cleft fern-stick ready for toasting,
and, when he came, to do this deftly, so that all the
grease might fall on the solitary biscuit which
acted as dripping-pan. This was when we camped.
Sometimes we slept at settlers houses, and never
did men receive heartier welcome. Sometimes a
soldiers mess welcomed us, and the guard turned
out to salute a very travel-stained Bishop, but one
who they all knew had gone through hardships and
peril for their sakes."
This journey gave John Selwyn an insight into
the difficulties and self-sacrifice of his father s work,
and sowed the seed of a desire to be allowed to take
his own share in the labour. Then came his know
ledge of and devotion to Bishop Patteson, whose
advice and example watered that seed and fostered
CHOICE OF A PROFESSION ALREWAS 19
it until it bore fruit in a fixed determination to help
his father, " not," to quote Dr. Codrington s * words,
" for his father s sake only, but for the work s
sake."
Full of this idea he returned to England with his
father and mother when the former was summoned
to the first Lambeth Conference in 1867. Then
came another change. The Bishop of New Zealand
was with great difficulty persuaded to accept, at the
request of the Queen, the vacant Bishopric of Lich-
field, and John Selwyn had to make up his mind to
give up for a time his missionary aspirations and
help his father to settle into his new diocese, first,
however, going back with him for a hurried visit to
New Zealand to settle up affairs there.
On their return to Lichfield he seems to have
spent his time partly as his father s secretary, partly
in attending theological lectures at Cambridge, and
latterly, for a few months before his ordination to
the curacy of Alrewas, in working as a layman in
that parish.
This period was no doubt a time of considerable
trial. He had always been a thoroughly good fellow,
but he was endowed with immense spirits and was
exceptionally boyish and unconventional in his ways,
so that, while the prospect of being a clergyman
was attractive enough to the strongly marked serious
* Dr. Codrington was Head of the Melanesian Mission after
the death of Bishop Patteson.
20 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
side of his character, yet it seemed to him to require
so great a change in his mode of life that, as appears
in many of his letters at this date, it caused him
grave apprehension. However, he was ordained
deacon by his father on Trinity Sunday 1869, and
went to work at Alrewas under the Rev. W. H.
Walsh, an old friend of the family. There is a short
account of his ordination in a letter to a friend,
which is worth quoting for its simplicity. He says :
" I ought to have thanked you before for your
delightful little George Herbert. I read some
of him while I was waiting in the morning to go to
church, and wondered whether it was possible to
reach such a standard. The service was delightful
on Sunday. My father could hardly say anything
when I came up, and, of course, it was the most
solemn moment I have ever passed. I only hope
all the love and kind wishes that have been sent
me may end in something, but it seems very hard
not to turn back again to one s old ways."
It may be as well to describe his personal appear
ance at this time, as it does not appear to have
altered much until he became broken in health
towards the end of his life. He is described as a
man of strong physical frame and eyes full of fire
and enthusiasm ; not tall but very muscular, his
head well set on his shoulders ; the sort of man to
CHOICE OF A PROFESSION ALREW AS 21
have near one in a crowd ; almost boyish in manner,
very merry and cheerful, and always a most
welcome guest to children. Many people (especially
strangers) saw in him a strong resemblance to the
great Napoleon. His exact height was 5 ft. 7f in.
as may be gathered from an extract from a letter to
his eldest daughter written from Norfolk Island in
1888 : he pretends to be horrified at having so tall
a daughter and says :
" I see you are 5 ft. 6f in. only an inch below
me ! ! ! Wretch ! Stop ! "
As would be supposed from his natural tastes he
devoted a great deal of attention to the children in
o
the parish of Alrewas, going much to the school,
joining in the cricket and football, and teaching the
village lads to swim. Many acts of kindness are
still recorded of his brief stay in that place, such
as helping an old woman to take in her coals,
leaving his own dinner to carry some to a sick
neighbour, taking medicine late at night from the
doctor to a distant hamlet, and going night and
morning for many weeks to carry an infirm old man
up and down stairs. Some neighbours in the county
asked him frequently to dinner, and were almost
vexed at his constant excuses. After he left they
found out that his real reason was his reluctance to
miss his attendance on this old paralytic. By these
22 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
and such-like characteristic actions, as well as by his
absolute lack of ecclesiastical priggishness, he became
in a short time deeply endeared to the people
among whom he was first called to work.
One other matter must here be mentioned.
There was, staying with the Walshes, a young lady,
an orphan, by name Miss Clara Innes, to whom
John Selwyn became engaged shortly after he left
Alrewas for Wolverhampton, and who was the
faithful and loving partner of his first missionary
labours. He thus describes his engagement :
To MRS. A COURT-REPINGTON.
" WOLVERHAMPTON, July 7, 1871.
" What will you say to me for having been such
a bad correspondent ? . . . One reason is that I
have had a great many letters to write to another
lady, who is very exigeante and never lets me off !
All which means that at last I have broken the
spell, and am really engaged. The young damsel is
one Clara Innes, who has been Hving for some time
with my old vicar at Alrewas, where I got to know
her very well. She filled my place when I left, and
used to do great things in the parish which roused
my admiration, and this grew into love which has
deepened every minute since we have been engaged,
and I think we are as happy in each other as any
two people in the world. She is very tall [she was
CHOICE OF A PROFESSION ALREWAS 23
exactly his own height], fairly good looking, and
very bright and merry, so we mean to be a most
jovial couple."
This letter has been quoted a little out of place
here, because it throws a sidelight upon the Alrewas
life, and also because it affords an opportunity of
saying a word, thus early, on a subject of great
interest in studying the life of Bishop John Selwyn.
From first to last he owed nearly everything to the
beneficent influence of women. It is true that the
example of his father and of Bishop Patteson
inspired him to a great degree, but there was not
any very close intimacy, and the few great friends
whom he possessed among menkind, such as
Mr. Charles Bill and the Rev. John Still, had
nothing like the influence over him that several
women acquired. When separated so widely as a
boy from his parents he depended in some measure
for sympathy on his aunt, Mrs. Peacocke, but far
more on a saintly and lovable cousin who enjoyed
his closest confidence, and to whom, had she lived,
he would in all probability have been married. Then
there were one or two married ladies who were
devoted to his interests and with whom he carried
on an immense correspondence. The sister of the
cousin above mentioned was one of these, as also was
Mrs. a Court -Hepington, an aunt of Lord Pembroke,
with whom John Selwyn was in the same house at
24 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
Eton. That he deeply valued these friendships is
plain from the following extracts :
To MRS. A COUHT-REPINGTOX.
"ALREWAS, Jan. 21, 1870.
" Did you see an article in the Saturday on
friendship ? I got in such a rage with it, especially
when it talked about women s friendship for men.
It rather ignored and sneered at the idea, while /
think that a good married woman friend is the very
best thing a man, and especially a young one, can
have. I have got about three, and they do one
more good than anything else. So, great was my
wrath at the article."
Then again, just before he started for Melanesia
in January 1873, he wrote :
" I have two memories to help me on in the work,
all summed up in one line of a hymn, Martyrs
brave and patient saints Bishop Patteson the
one and dear II the other."
He is here referring to the cousin who died, and
whose memory was with him all through his life ;
thus in 1890 he says :
" How much I learnt from B and you all of
the beauty and helpfulness of women It is a very
CHOICE OF A PROFESSION ALREWAS 25
good faith for a youngster to get hold of, and I
have never found it fail yet. Of course I have met
foolish and extravagant and some wicked women,
but on the whole I have met and cared for so many
good ones that my faith has never wavered, and
I have been helped and comforted by them more
than I can say."
And then what can be said of his close affection
for his mother and her wonderful influence over
him ? Only that to read the long and frequent
letters to her with which he supplemented his diary
is a revelation of an intercourse between mother and
son, both spiritual and otherwise, such as is not
commonly conceived possible.
CHAPTER III
ST. GEORGE S, WOLVERHAMPTON TRIP TO
AMERICA DEATH OF BISHOP PATTESON
WHEN John Selwyn had been some eighteen months
at Alrewas his father found him a fresh sphere for his
energies. A large and important town parish, that
of St. George s, Wolverhampton, had got into a con
siderable state of disorder through a want of a good
understanding between the people and the Vicar,
who was at that time given leave of absence by the
Bishop. Here seemed an admirable opportunity for
testing what there might be in his son, and at the
same time for placing some one in the parish upon
whom he, as Bishop, could thoroughly depend. So,
reluctantly enough, John Selwyn had to go. He
thus writes of the matter :
To MRS. A COURT-REPINGTON.
" ALREWAS [end of 1870 ?].
" I dare say you have heard of the row going on
ST. GEORGE S, WOLVERHAMPTON 27
at St. George s, Wolverhampton. Well, the incum
bent is going on leave of absence, and my father,
more suo, is packing me off thither. It is an awful
responsibility, and one that I would not undertake
were I not told to go. You will think of me some
times and pray that I may have the spirit of counsel
and of peace."
He went there on January 2, 1871, and certainly
did not find a very pleasant state of things, the one
redeeming feature being the presence of the Rev. F.
E. Waters, now Vicar of Holy Trinity, Hanley, who
had just been ordained Curate of the parish, and
who became his lifelong friend.
Writing to his mother four days after his arrival
he thus describes what he found :
" I am quite settled down now, though I feel some
what moped and lonely at times without a single
soul one cares very much about except
" Still. I think things might be a good deal worse
than they are. The parish certainly is in an awful
mess. The schools at the upper end are going to
the dogs, and at the lower end they are not much
better. This last place is where the Mission Church
is, and I have received rather a facer to-night, as I
meant to have an Epiphany service there this even
ing. Waters went to see about it, and the man told
him he didn t dare open it without an order from
28 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
the Committee. Now this Committee consists of a
good many of the malcontents who have paid their
guineas, and are therefore members according to the
terms of the deed. To-night they have said that
they cannot let me have the school without a meet
ing of the Committee. I have quietly acquiesced,
and they will know better than to make such a false
step as to stop me altogether. Still it is a bore just
as things are at present, as I looked on that as my
working ground, and it may bring me into collision
with them, which is just what I want to avoid. I
dare say there will be no fuss however, so, as you
say, I will not take trouble at interest. There are
many rays of hope, though, going about. ..."
Again, writing to a cousin on January 9, 1871, he
says :
" What a change this is ! ... To be 011 one s
guard for everything one says or does, and to be
going on in a sort of armed neutrality with no end
of foes outside, ready to take advantage of a slip.
That is about one s state at St. George s just now.
Perhaps it will get better soon."
To MRS. A COURT-BEPINGTON.
"ST. GEORGE S, WOLVERHAMPTON, Feb. 27, 1871.
" This is a queer life altogether, as one has to be
greatly on one s Ps and Qs, The principal opposing
ST. GEORGE S, WOLVERHAMPTON 29
churchwarden is a pawnbroker with whom I discuss
questions of theology. Then I have another man
who wants to preach in a licensed schoolroom in the
parish, and I won t let him. Hence a small row.
But I think that is smoothing down."
It was certainly no slight test to which the Bishop
had put his son, and it must have been no small
satisfaction to him to find how amply his trust in
that son s capabilities was justified. The Rev. F.
E. Waters gives the clue to the success which met
John Selwyn s efforts to bring about a better state
of things. He says :
" I quite well remember the bright, cheery greeting I re
ceived from my new chief at his first coming, and all the time
he stayed at St. George s I found him a kind friend, a very
inspiring leader, and a noble example. He was from the first
full of faith, hope, and charity. He had a most lovable and
winsome way, and soon began to win back the confidence and
respect that had been lost. If I were to be asked what were
his chief characteristics I should say cheerfulness and prai/er-
fulness. I remember his telling me when a very tiresome
meeting was over, where bitter things had been said and angry
speeches made : I was praying all the while was speak
ing," and the meeting which began so badly broke up quite
peacefully. ""
Any one who has been to Wolverhampton and
wandered even a few yards from the station will
have noticed the specially rough appearance of the
lads who loiter about on the look out for a job. It
30 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
was this element that Selwyn managed chiefly to
attract to himself by his mixture of manliness and
affection, qualities which when found in combination
few boys can resist. The first whom he won were
sent out to bring in others, and so his adherents
increased in numbers. He used to preach in the
streets, and these lads formed his bodyguard. He
had one special champion by name " Tom," of whom
it is told that on one occasion he was fighting for the
fourth or fifth time another lad who had insulted
Mr. Selwyn. Unfortunately a policeman appeared on
the scene and carried off the coats of the combatants,
and no doubt Tom would have had to appear before
the magistrates if Mr. Selwyn had not turned up in
the nick of time and begged him off.
So things went on getting day by day smoother
and more satisfactory for the six months during
which he was curate in charge of the parish. Then
a change in his position occurred, as will be gathered
from the following letters to Mr. Waters, who was
away on his holiday.
" WOLVERHAMPTON, Aug. 8, 1871.
"MY DEAR WATERS,
" I have two very good pieces of news for
you : 1. That the Bishop has offered Mr. [the
vicar of St. George s] a living. He goes to see it
to-morrow, and it is almost certain that he will
take it. If he does (this is entre nous) the Bishop
ST. GEORGKS, WOLVERHAMPTON 31
will leave me here, and we shall I think get on
famously, as the people seem to want me to stay,
and H told me the other day that he thought
it was the best thing that could be done. This from
what he had heard.
" And now comes the to me still better news that
Still, my greatest friend, has determined to give up
the curacy he was going to in Dorsetshire, and will
come here. This will be splendid, as he is a man
one can thoroughly trust, and as good a fellow as
ever breathed. I trust, therefore, that this winter
we shall be able to show the town what the young
ones can do.
" Believe me,
" Yours very truly,
"J. R. SELWYN."
To the SAME.
" WOLVERHAMPTON, Aug. 14, 1871.
" Things go on flourishingly here, and I think
everybody is glad I am going to stay. Forty boys
to-night. I am going to take them to Sandwell on
Saturday. There is no small-pox yet."
This last sentence was ominous. It was not very
long before a terrible scourge of this disease visited
St. George s, and indeed the whole town of Wolver-
hampton. A general small-pox hospital was opened
32 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
in John Selwyn s parish, and with that charac
teristic energy and devotion which marked his work
and his play he threw himself heart and soul into the
heavy, anxious, and often nauseous work of visiting
and nursing the sufferers. It was an example
of what his friend Mr. Charles Bill describes as the
motto of Selwyn s life viz., "Whatsoever thy hand
findeth to do, do it with thy might." In subse
quent letters he frequently referred to this severe
experience. Thus, writing to the Rev. F. E. Waters
from on board ship off the Solomon Islands in 1876
he says :
" You and I know from old experience at St.
George s how out of weakness we are made strong,
and how God answers prayer. ... I wonder if you
ever feel the good of that sharp time we had
together ? I do often and often, if only to teach me
faith and prayer."
One of the patients whom he nursed was a drover,
a very rough fellow and a leader of unbelief. This
man one day said to Mr. Selwyn, " Parsons are
no different to any one else, only for their coat."
Off came Selwyn s coat in a moment, and he offered
to change. That man became a staunch friend.
The staff at St. George s at this time consisted of
J. E. Selwyn, John Still, and F. E. Waters. At a
parish meeting the vicar playfully said, " Now that
TRIP TO AMERICA 33
we have got into Still Waters, everything will go
smoothly I am sure." This soon became a stock
joke all over Wolverhampton.
In September 1871 he was given the great
pleasure of accompanying his father to America,
the Bishop of Lichfield having been invited to
attend the Convention of American Bishops at
Baltimore. Of this expedition John Selwyn s
diary is in existence, and a most amusing book it
is. In it he tells of their journey to the above-
named city :
" The train was full of bishops, who speedily came
crowding round to bid us welcome. The heartiness
was extreme, but there were sundry shocks to be
undergone even in the midst of the greatest
cordiality. A bishop in a white coat and pot hat is
startling to one s English notions, but one soon
learnt to forget that in one s admiration of the man
who had bearded Brigham Young in his very
stronghold at Salt Lake City, and had laid the
material foundations of his Church there so deep
that the Saints themselves said, These Gentiles
mean to stop.
Then comes an account of their introduction to
the Convention :
" We stood on the dais and then the President
proceeded to introduce us seriatim to the Con-
c
34 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
vention, and, what was worse, we had seriatim to
make speeches. I do not think we disgraced our
selves, but it was trying. . . . After the cere
mony was over up jumped a member and said,
Mr. President, I propose that the House now take
a recess of twenty minutes for the purpose of
shaking our distinguished visitors by the hand.
Seconded/ said some one, and resolved nem. con.
Thereupon we had to go down the centre aisle
shaking hands vigorously as we went. Special seats
were then assigned us, and the synod went on."
Amongst other experiences he went to hear Ward
Beecher. He thus describes what he saw :
" I got a good place on the platform steps close to
Ward Beecher himself. He was sitting in an arm
chair with a table by his side on which was a vase
of flowers, and on the other side there was another
vase full of exotics. . . . The choir were singing
an anthem when we got in to which the people sat
and listened with apparent contentment. When
this was over Ward Beecher read a Psalm, the people
still sitting. Then followed a hymn. . . . Then
there was an extempore prayer. I suppose an
extempore prayer by Ward Beecher is as good a
thing of its kind as one wants to hear, but the
effect on me was to make me more than ever con
tented with the simplicity and beauty of our own
Prayer-book."
TRIP TO AMERICA 35
After this follows a long description of Ward
Beecher s sermon on Rachel, in which he contrasted
Esau and Jacob, saying that the " diplomatic skill "
of the latter made him the best on whom " to
organise," and, therefore, most fitted for God s
purpose. He seems to have tried to raise a laugh
here and there in his sermon by unworthy means,
as when he spoke of the love which Rachel inspired
as being unaccountable, " but then," said he, " I am
not Jacob."
One excellent story is told by John Selwyn in
this diary :
" A party of settlers were met going to the back
woods. The man who met them asked their various
occupations, and was told that some were to build
the houses, some to clear the ground, &c. And
pray what is that old gentleman going to do ?
pointing to a very old man who accompanied the
party. Oh ! that is my father, was the answer,
* I am going to start the cemetery with him.
On the voyage back to England which began on
November 19, his love of sailors and wish to help
them is recorded :
" I have discovered a way of getting at the
sailors, and since Sunday, when I had service with
them in the dog watch, have been there [fore
castle ?] every evening to give them a series of
36 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
readings. They respond most heartily and always
ask me to come again, and are most thoughtful
about my comfort. First they get a cloth to spread
on the table, and a stool for me to sit on, then a
candlestick for my candle, and to-night a decanter
and some water as I was hoarse. Poor fellows, I
think one could do them some good if the voyage
were longer. I have enjoyed the hour and a half
forward very much."
Thus ended a two months holiday of great enjoy
ment, and it may be also of some influence on his
future, for it must have moved him greatly to
witness the reception given to his father by the
American Church, not so much as an English
Bishop, as the great Missionary of the English
Church.
But a terrible blow awaited the travellers on
their return in the news of the death of Bishop
Patteson.
To MRS. A COURT-EEPINGTON.
" WOLVERHAMPTON [end of 1871 ?].
" It was a terrible blow to us to come back to the
news of Bishop Patteson s death. We have had no
particulars yet, and rather dread them just now.
We only know the fact, and that is so glorious that
one is afraid of anything to make it harrowing. It
DEATH OF BISHOP PATTESON 37
is certainly a carrying out of Solon s adage that no
one could be called happy till he died. There was
a chance of his health failing, when he would have
had to have given up, but now he is spared that
and has died in the zenith of his usefulness, having
just seen enough of the fruit of his labours to cheer
him on (he had baptized eighty-four children on one
island with a fair certainty of their being brought
up Christians), and without a man to throw a hard
word at him. Certainly one hardly ever read of a
more blameless life or a more noble death."
John Selwvn and his friend John Still had more
j
than once discussed the idea of going out somewhere
together as missionaries. The death of Bishop
Patteson brought things to a crisis, and, although
his engagement to Miss Innes had altered his cir
cumstances, yet he went to his father and offered,
if he thought well, to give himself to the work in
Melanesia. The following letters tell the story :
To MRS. 1 COURT-REPINGTON from MRS. SELWYN.
" WESTMINSTER PALACE HOTEL, Feb. ]3, 1872.
" It is not improbable that my dear Johnnie may carry on
this work [in Melanesia]. He is ready, and there seems a fit
ness of things in his father s son being willing to come forward
if necessary. It is not a settled and certain thing in any way
but in the minds of himself and his wife, for it depends on
certain contingencies at present. He told his bride-elect a
38 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
week before the wedding, and she said she could only answer
in the words of Ruth, which pleased us and augurs welL
Then came his wedding and a very bright sojourn at the Isle
of Wight, and now they are settled at St. George s, Wolver-
hampton with their many thousands, and their brave young
hearts to work for them. It will be a pang when it comes,
but we are old. ... I shall not have misled you, shall
I ? about Johnnie. There is no thought of his succeeding
Bishop ^Patteson. Happily he is too young for that. No
one can fill that place, though I hope some one may be found
to take it up. . . ."
To MRS. A COURT-KEPINGTON.
" ST, GEORGE S VICARAGE, WOLVERHAMPTON,
"March 11, 1872.
" MY DEAR MRS. A COURT,
" . . . Of course I had thought something
about it when the news first came home, but the
thought went out of my head and I felt nearly con
vinced that I ought to stay where I was. But on
the Thursday before I was married I went over to
Lichfield to see Miss Yonge, who is going to write
Bishop Patteson s memoir, and Fanny Patteson, and
there I read all the letters that had come home on
the subject, and, as I read, it all seemed to surge
over me that I ought to go, and for these reasons :
( 1 ) It was my father s work, his son in the faith had
died in it. Who then so fit as his son in the flesh
to go on with it ? (2) There was a doubt about
Codrington staying, and, if he didn t stay, it seemed
DEATH OF BISHOP PATTESON 39
likely that the mission would go into another groove
which wouldn t suit it so well. If then Codrington
knew that one or two men were coming out from
England whom he knew, there would be a chance of
his going on and thus carrying on the work in its
integrity. Then my name would be a help, especially
in the Australian Colonies ; and lastly, Jack Still,
the dearest man friend I have, would, I knew, go
with me, and he would be such a gain to any work
that I felt the chance ought not to be thrown away.
So with these thoughts I knelt down and prayed
that I might be guided aright, and the thought only
came the stronger. Then I had a long talk with
my mother, and she, poor thing, told me with
tears in her eyes that she thought it was right.
c You know, Johnnie, I am arguing against myself,
but I think it is right. Then I went out to Alrewas
to preach, and on the counter of the Post Office
wrote a line to C., telling her what I had done, and
saying that, as this was quite a new idea, she ought
to know of it before she tied herself down to me for
life, and that life meaning transportation to New
Zealand. Of course she answered as I expected,
but still I thought it right to let her know. Then
when I came home in the evening I spoke to my
father. He was, I think, very glad, but said it
depends on a variety of circumstances, and the chief
of these was, and is, whether Codrington, who has
been with Bishop Patteson some years, will stay at
40 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
the head of the mission. If he does, as I have said,
all will go well.
" God has given me grace to pull the parish
together, but, much as I love the place and the
people, still I do think that many a man could
now work there better than I, and though I do
not feel myself at all fit for the work out there
mentally yet I believe my physical training and
my delight in ships, &c. , will stand me in good stead.
So you must not think that I have done this
wantonly, or without due consideration, or without
a full knowledge of all that it entails. Still enters
into it all most thoroughly, and he and I have many
a laugh over the details of the business, however
serious the whole of it may be. We have already
arranged our respective shares of the work, he as
purser, I as first mate. My father, too, is very
amusing in the exceedingly commonplace view he
takes of it all. Still went in to see him, and rather
expected some sympathy, but all he got was, Well,
you have spoilt another little plan of mine. I
wanted you to be barge missionary on the canals/
" Ever yours aff.
"J. R. S."
He was, however, to work for nearly another year
at Wolverhampton, a period during which his labours
DEATH OF BISHOP PATTESON 41
were aided and his life brightened by his wife, to
whom he was married in January 1872. He said
that they meant to be a jovial couple, and St.
George s is reported to have been for that year the
merriest vicarage in England, as it w^as also the
scene of some of the hardest work. How thorough
that work was on the part of both may be gathered
from a letter from Mrs. Selwyn (his mother) to
Mrs. a Court-Rep ington, written after the missionary
party had sailed for Melanesia.
"THE PALACE, LICHFIELD, April 2, 1873,
" I have just come back from a week at Wolverhampton,
where the Bishop has been confirming, and where I wished to
go to see Johnnie s people and to tell him of them. I could
never have thought that that dingy town would have such a
halo round it as now it has in my eyes. Yet it was sad enough
in some ways, and how I missed on arriving there the bright
face and loving looks that always awaited me at the station !
But these I do not expect to see again in the flesh. I may as
well dwell on the bright part, and there was a great deal that
was very bright to me in the warm remembrance in which
they are both held, and the great love shown for Johnnie.
The common form of its expression was in pity for the present
incumbent in coming after one whose like the people do not
expect to see again. The whole staff, too, was young and full
of energy, I hope, and it seems to have had a great effect on
the parishioners, of which perhaps they were hardly aware
till they lost the cause. I went to all the schools, and to a
mothers * meeting. Clara s night school came to see me, and
I went to Johnnie s 4 Arabs, a wild set of boys he gathered
together in the course of open-air services, who have been kept
42 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
together since by a devoted satellite of Johnnie s. The grimy
lads listened eagerly to the account of the service at Lambeth
on Sunday and of the going on Monday, and they showed
their zeal in Melanesia by having collected since Johnnie went,
in pennies and halfpennies, more than twelve pounds. It
pleased me to find how much Clara was cared for by her
scholars and their teachers who came daily to see me."
It is plain how great a hold he had on the affec
tions of his parishioners, especially of the lads, who
" could not resist him," and also how he bound them
not only to himself but also to God and to the
Church. All this must have made the wrench
harder. Dr. Codrington says :
" The news of Bishop Patteson s death came to John Selwyn
as a call to devote himself to the Melanesian Mission. He
gave up (not to speak of his prospects in the Church) his
place by his father s side in the manifold enterprises and
undertakings which were opening among the vast and busy
population of the Diocese : he gave up the intercourse with
his parents, so delightful to a most affectionate son who had
been so long separated from them : he gave up the home of
married life into which he had just settled, the intercourse
with his many friends, and the many attractions and interests
of English life."
No small things these for a man of John Selwyn s
temperament to sacrifice. But he made the offering
not only cheerfully and with both hands, as his
generous nature ever prompted him to do, but
deliberately and prayerfully. Mr. John Still re
members how, when it was settled and they were
DEATH OF BISHOP PATTESON 43
one day going upstairs together, Selwyn turned to
him and said, " I say, old fellow, we must have a
prayer about this," and drew him into his room.
As against the sacrifice must be put the attraction
of an adventurous life the boy who made perilous
excursions on the roof of Ely Cathedral was nothing
loth to extend his adventures to the islands of
Melanesia his love of a seafaring life, and, last but
not least, the beautiful and trustful readiness of his
young wife to share with him whatever of hardship
or banishment might fall to his lot.
So it was that after a dedicatory service in
Lambeth Chapel, Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Selwyn, with a
little daughter born at Lichfield shortly before, and
the Rev. John Still, sailed in the Dunbar Castle for
Melanesia in the middle of February 1873. His
mother thus describes the departure :
To MRS. A. COURT-REPINGTON.
"THE LOLLARD S TOWER, LAMBETH, Feb. 11, 1873.
" Monday was a day of intensity. The Bishop went down
the river (with the nursery department !) in the ship, and we
followed by train to Gravesend. By that time everything was
comfortably in order in both cabins. Then came the parting
prayers and the farewells, just where eighteen years ago
Johnnie had left us to go to Eton when we sailed for
New Zealand/ 1
CHAPTER IV
ARRIVAL IN MELANESIA NORFOLK ISLAND, ETC.
THE voyage out in the Dunbar Castle was almost
entirely lacking in incident. A letter written by
John Selwyn towards the end thus describes it :
"We have had the most utterly uneventful
voyage, even as voyages go. Not spoken one single
ship at least we did speak one wretched barque we
passed going the same way as ourselves have had
one stiff blow last Sunday, caught three sharks, and
lost the cat overboard. Voila tout ! "
A good deal of time on board was given by Mr.
and Mrs. Selwyn and Mr. Still to the study of
" Mota " the language of one of the islands in
Melanesia, and the recognised tongue of the Mission
work. The island of Mota is one of the smallest of
the Banks Islands group, and it was in the years
1860, 61, and 62, that openings began first to be
given there for Mission work. Bishop Patteson
ARRIVAL IN MELANESIA 45
took a party of some sixteen to Lifu, an island in the
Loyalty group, and lived with them there. Of these
the greater number belonged to Banks Islands, and
in 1863 four of them, all from Mota, were christened.
Thus the Mota language gradually became the one
generally in use in the Mission. When it is known
that almost every small island had its own language,
and many of them more than one, it is obvious that
some choice had to be made, and it seems natural
from the above circumstances that Mota should have
been selected.
The learning of a new language was a severe
ordeal to John Selwyn. He refers often in the
course of letters to the want of application to work
both at Eton and Cambridge, which had made it
difficult to him to study one subject for long
together. He also laments his weakness in com
position, which his correspondence shows was never
entirely overcome, for, while possessing the power of
graphic description and of making his meaning
perfectly clear, his grammar often left much to be
desired, and he had some curious tricks such as the
use of capital letters before substantives and some
times before adjectives in an absolutely indiscrimi
nate manner. He also had a habit of using a full
stop to supply the place of a comma or semicolon,
and marks of interjection or interrogation he seldom
used at all. These are small things, but they point
to a certain inaccuracy of detail which must have
46 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
made the acquisition of a new language much more
difficult.
The little daughter proved an immense source
of amusement during the voyage, and he gives
several pretty pictures of which " baby " is the
centre. Space must be found for one :
" Babs now enters our cabin in a triumphant pro
cession at 10 P.M. and is wedged in on the arms of
the arm-chair between the table and the wall, so
that the bassinette cannot slip, and then lashed in as
a further precaution. The young damsel is then
the greatest fun possible. She seems utterly regard
less of cold, and when one wakes about seven the
chances are one sees two little feet sticking straight
up out of the cradle, and triumphant crows proceed
ing out of the same."
There was, however, one grave drawback to what
would have been to one with his love of the sea an
immensely enjoyable time. He was attacked by
severe rheumatism which abated slightly for a time
but came on again with increased virulence when on
board the Hero, by which ship he proceeded from
Australia to New Zealand. This upset all plans.
Mr. Codrington, head of the Melanesian Mission, was
to have met them, and to have taken him and Mr.
Still on a voyage to the Islands. How this arrange
ment was upset is described in the following letters.
ARRIVAL IN MELANESIA 47
From REV. JOHN STJLL to C. BILL, ESQ.
" AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, June 3, 1873.
"Billy [Selwyn s nickname at Cambridge] has been very
bad indeed, quite unable to move, but is now better and
fast recovering. His right hand is bad, so he is writing
by deputy."
To REV. F. E. WATERS.
" AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, June 16, 1873.
" I dare say you will have heard ere this reaches
you of our safe arrival in Sydney. . . .
" I found letters waiting to say that Mr. Codring-
ton was coming down to Auckland on or about the
last day of May, and then wanted to take Still and
me a tour of all the Islands, so that we might get
acquainted with our work. . . .
" After a hard fight with Mrs. Selwyn s brother
[who apparently wished them both to stay longer]
we effected a compromise, which was that she should
stay, and Still and I go, and I was then to come
back to Sydney for her. Lliomme propose mais Dieu
dispose. My rheumatism, which had been rather
bad on board the Dunbar Castle, came on frightfully
in the Hero, so badly that Jack had to carry me
about, and I had nearly a week s bed when I came
here. Thank God I am nearly well now, but the
doctor won t hear of my going this trip, as he says it
48 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
might make it chronic ; so Jack will go without me.
You may imagine what a disappointment this is to
me, as we have so long run in couples.
" However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody any
good. Dudley, one of our old mission clergy and
now an incumbent in the town, has developed a
clergyman s throat, so I am going to take his duty
and he is going off to get well.
" Jack and I often talk of you and the old Wolver-
hanipton days, and tell our friends how light we
used to be on Sunday evenings."
To MRS. A COURT-BEPINGTON.
" AUCKLAND, July 30, 1873.
" I got very rheumatic on board, how and why I
know not, but it made life a great burden, and me
very cross, which was not as it should be. ...
" Still and I departed by the Hero, and the next
evening I was laid up again with very bad rheuma
tism which utterly crippled me for the rest of the
voyage, and I had to lie night and day in the saloon,
as getting into my berth was out of the question.
Dear old Still used to carry me about like a child,
and I made my entrance into Auckland on men s
shoulders."
It must have been a severe blow to arrive on
ARRIVAL IN MELANESIA 49
the scene of his labours a cripple. For nearly
two years he had been looking forward to the
time when he should find himself in the region
where his father did his great work, and where he
hoped to be allowed to carry that work on. He had
inherited many traits of character from that father,
but he was fully conscious of many things in which
he could scarcely hope to emulate him. He had
much of his father s determination, a full measure of
his father s indomitable courage, a great deal of his
resourcefulness under difficult circumstances both
external and spiritual, and a spice of his father s
temper. On the other hand, he fell short in learn
ing, and to some extent in power of organisation,
but, as compensation, he had a sweetness of dis
position and an eagerness to make amends which
were all his own.
Feeling then, fully, his intellectual inferiority to
his father, it was not unnatural that he should rely
greatly on his physical powers, all of which had been
trained and developed by his athletic life at Eton
and Cambridge. It was, therefore, a specially severe
ordeal to be carried as an invalid on to the shores of
New Zealand. No doubt, looking at the matter
afterwards in his own spirit of prayerfulness, he
would have seen the hand of God teaching him that
" neither delighteth He in any man s strength."
Sir William Martin, the first Chief Justice of New
Zealand, and a co-fellow of St. John s with Bishop
D
50 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
George Augustus Selwyn, lived at Auckland. He
was a great Maori scholar and a warm patron of the
Mission, and in his house John Selwyn was for a
while laid up. The time was not however wasted,
for the two or three months delay which were
ordered by the doctor were spent partly in taking
charge of the parish of Mr. Dudley (now Arch
deacon) who was away in bad health, and partly in
making friends with as many of the neighbours as
possible, whereby fresh interest in the Melanesian
Mission was aroused and fresh help ensured through
the attractive personality of himself and Mrs.
Selwyn.
By the beginning of October he was well enough
to start, and the middle of that month found
him settled in Norfolk Island. This is the head
quarters of the Melanesian Mission, and here is
situated the St. Barnabas Station and the College
for native boys who are brought there from the
other islands by the Mission vessel in her frequent
voyages. The Station (by which is meant the
group of Mission buildings) stands about three miles
inland from the town or village where the Pitcairn
islanders were allowed to settle in the old convict
prison buildings.
Besides Dr. Codrington, the Selwyns found on
arriving at Norfolk Island two other staunch
workers, both married men viz., the Rev. John
Palmer and the Rev. Charles Bice. The latter of
NORFOLK ISLAND, ETC. 51
these came from St. Augustine s College, Canter
bury, and joined the Mission in 1866. He remained
for twenty years one of the most active members of
the staff, and latterly had charge of the New
Hebrides district. Mrs. Bice came out just before
the Selwyns, and was one of the two ladies they
found in the Mission, the other being Mrs. Palmer,
the first lady who ever came to Norfolk Island.
The Rev. John Palmer had been labouring in the
Mission since 1863, and has been there ever since,
steadily devoted to its service, for which he has
done an unequalled work. He is now Archdeacon.
Mrs. Palmer was the first to begin the system of
the ladies taking charge of the unmarried girls, an
example followed by Mrs. John Selwyn on her
arrival. In many other ways too her influence was
greatly felt. The ladies society was very small,
and, naturally enough, difficulties occurred from
time to time. The veneration felt for Mrs. Palmer
enabled her to do much towards smoothing these
away, and promoting that harmony without which
life at Norfolk Island would have been almost
impossible.
These were the main fellow workers who greeted
Mr. and Mrs. Selwyn and who did so much to make
their life at St. Barnabas a happy one. The day of
their landing at the Island was a memorable one in
the history of their lives. Here is John Selwyn s
own description of his first impressions :
52 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
"NORFOLK ISLAND, Oct. 19, 1873, Sunday.
" MY DEAREST FATHER AND MOTHER,
" Here we are at last, and you may imagine
the thankfulness with which we landed all safe and
well, with bright sunlight and smooth water to
greet us, and a very hearty welcome from all here.
It is one of those occasions which seem to bring out
all the deep humbling feelings of a man s heart, and
they were very real and, I trust, fervent prayers
which we sent up to-night at the evening service.
It was all Mota, which we could follow fairly with
our prayer-books before us, but it is the custom here
to read the Collect for the day in English, and so
we suddenly heard the very prayer we wanted to
say coming in the midst of the strange language
like an oasis, seeming even more beautiful than it
really is from the familiarity in the midst of so
much that was unfamiliar. " God, forasmuch as
without Thee we are not able to please Thee." We
could not have a better motto than that to begin
our work with, and I know you will pray more
earnestly for us that His Holy Spirit will in all
things direct and rule our hearts. . . .
" The people who rowed us ashore were full of
recollections of you, and of tender inquiries about
you. I hope your name will be a help to me in
helping them. Good-night and God bless you both.
Clara sends her dearest love, but is too tired to write.
NORFOLK ISLAND, ETC. 53
Dear little Pearlie [the baby] takes most kindly to
her new quarters, and sends her love to you. I don t
think the photographs give any idea of the place at
all. It is much better kept than they make it look.
Indeed, going down the hill from the avenue into
the place, one would think one was going into a
small and rather well-looking English village. . . .
Our little house stands on the left-hand side. They
all say it is a bad situation, as it is exposed to the
prevailing wind, and it is not very grand, being like
nothing so much as the inside of a workbox. . . .
Clara and I are charmed with the place altogether,
and think we shall like it all very much. I have
been proving my strength by much carting and
lifting boxes, and find I am nearly quite as strong as
I was, which is a great comfort, . . . Good-bye,
my dearest father and mother,
" Ever your affectionate son,
"J. R. SELWYN."
As may easily be imagined it did not take him
long to get to work. He threw himself heart and
soul into the work of the Mission and of the school,
delighting especially in taking his share in the
outdoor manual labour which formed an important
part of each day s duties. The following two letters
give his early impressions of the place and also of
the native boys and girls who were being trained at
St. Barnabas :
54 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
To MRS. A. COUKT-REPINGTON.
"NORFOLK ISLAND, January 13, 1874-.
" You must imagine our mission station as lying
on the slope of a hill about three miles from the
settlement. The main road to nowhere runs right
through the station, and as you come down the hill
you see what looks very like an English village
green. At the far end of it is a cart-shed, cowyard,
barn, &c., looking very homey, and on the right lie
the main buildings of the Mission ; e.g., chapel and
house attached, hall and kitchen, carpenter s shop
and two houses where the bachelors reside and look
after the boys. We married folk live further afield
in little houses of our own.
"It is marvellous how like a boy, say up to
twelve or thirteen, from the Solomon Islands is to a
boy from Belgravia. In point of adaptability to
circumstances I should be inclined to give the palm
to the former, but qua pickle and jokes, &c. &c., all
that constitute small boy nature, even to tears in
their trousers on all occasions, &c. &c., I don t
think there is a pin to choose. Darwin and Co.
may say what they like, but my fellows who can t
take four from five are not at all different from two
of my greatest friends at Eton and Cambridge, one
NORFOLK ISLAND, ETC. 55
of whom was asked what a stalactite would melt in
three hours if it melted an inch in two, and fled at
the bare word ; and the other learnt his Euclid by
heart, signs and all, from sheer inability to com
prehend it. I say it is all nonsense to say that
these fellows are not capable of higher training
because they are dull at first, or to compare them
with those who have had all the weight of thousands
of years of at least partial civilisation to start with,
and whose common everyday facts would be great
discoveries to these fellows. ..."
To A COUSIN.
" NORFOLK ISLAND, Jan. 9, 1874.
" I daresay you fancy that as we are called mis
sionaries we are bound to be living in great hardship.
I am afraid that is not the case. C. and I are
luxuriating for the first time in our married life
(two years next week) in having a settled home of
our own, and a very pretty little home it is too.
Not large, certainly, but compact, and with a nice
garden and cool verandahs, &c. The house was
originally built for some of the younger members of
the Mission to live in, and had one sitting-room and
a number of tiny bedrooms branching off from it.
We have thrown some of these together, moved
partitions, &c., and made a most cosy little bedroom
for ourselves, which C. has titivated up with muslin
56 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
and pink calico till it looks like a boudoir. Then
comes a long narrow room for the nursery. Then a
small store-room and then the kitchen. My room
occupies one end of the verandah, so that I have to
go out of doors to get to it. But it is all very snug,
and being wooden one can put up nails and shelves
anywhere, and stow any amount of things away.
Then the verandah in this climate is as good as
another room, and our garden keeps us gay with
flowers, so that altogether we are most luxurious
too much so perhaps.
We live altogether in a primitive fashion as
regards meals, &c., breakfasting, dining, and having
tea in the big hall with all the boys. This makes it
easy work for the housekeeper, as C. has never to
think about dinner, except what is wanted for nurse
and baby.
" We go out in our turns to work with the boys
and superintend the various works, farm and other
wise, that are going on. Then for those who know
Mota there is a good deal of translating, &c., to be
done, and besides all this there is work in school
and chapel, so that one s day is pretty well filled up.
We begin early too. At 6 a bell rings to call us,
then another for church at a quarter to seven, and
breakfast at a quarter past. School at 8 till 9.30,
then work till 1. I go out to hoe or plant with
NORFOLK ISLAND, ETC. 57
the boys, and find out how profoundly ignorant
I am of the simplest matters connected with hus
bandry, and wish I had taken lessons ! I covered
myself with confusion the other day trying to
plough, but at hoeing, &c., I can hold my own. At
1 comes dinner, and school at 2.15. It is very
hard work to keep oneself awake then, and I often
go to sleep over dictation, much to the disgust of
the boys who want to keep their books neat, and to
whom I dictate something utterly wrong. Then
comes a blessed two and three-quarter hours in which
we try to improve our minds by reading, our bodies
by riding, or our gardens by working. Tea follows
at six, then evening chapel, and school for an hour.
You would like to see my evening school in a corner
of my room, with my little black fellows with curly
heads and black eyes and spindle shanks stretched
out straight in front of them, all writing away at
dictation for bare life, and as keen about their marks
as can be. I try and chaff them into order as well
as I can, and find it answers admirably."
CHAPTER V
MELANESIA SUGGESTIONS OF THE BISHOPRIC
JOHN SELWYN S arrival at Norfolk Island had been
greatly looked forward to by all the members of the
Mission. He had offered himself to the work with
no view of ultimately succeeding Bishop Patteson,
but there is no doubt that it was felt from the very
first that he was the man for the future bishop.
Even had his personal qualifications been fewer than
they were, it would have seemed strange that any
one else should fill the office when a Selwyn was to
the fore. There was one other man who was an
obviously fit person if he would have accepted it.
This was Dr. Codrington, the head of the Mission,
whose linguistic skill and powers of organisation
were invaluable, and to whom the Mission largely
owed its vitality during the years immediately
succeeding the death of Bishop Patteson. Another
name suggested was that of the present Archdeacon
Dudley, but ill-health prevented his seriously con
templating the post. Under all the circumstances
MELANESIA SUGGESTIONS OF BISHOPRIC 59
it was obvious that John Selwyn would be nominated.
His natural fears and sense of unfitness come out
again and again in letters full of the simplest
humility, but it is more than doubtful whether he
would really have liked any one else to have been
appointed. One of the qualities which he inherited
from his father was a kind of " masterfulness," to
which he alludes in a letter to his mother as having
been checked by her when he was a child ; and this
wish to lead, arising from a true sense of the power
of leading, would have made his work less happy,
and probably less effectual, had it been his lot to
be a subordinate member of the Mission. It was the
same all through his life. Captain of the field
eleven at Eton, he stroked the University boat when
at Cambridge. In succession a Bishop and Master
of a College, his leadership ran consistently through
every part of his life, it being said that at a dinner
party it was invariably he who led the conversation,
and led it right well.
" NORFOLK ISLAND, St. Andrew s Day,
"Advent Sunday, 1873.
" MY DEAREST FATHER,
" There are two great memories for us in the
two days which have come together this year. The
first is, that on Advent Sunday 1867, you accepted
the Bishopric of Lichfield. How well I remember
your letter from Windsor telling me of it, and the
60 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
thought, almost the revulsion of feeling that came
over me that one would not go to N. Z. after all ;
and here I am six years afterwards not only at N. Z.
but beyond it, and working at your work, though
alas ! not with you. And St. Andrew s Day carries
us both back to the evening service at Lichfield last
year, when dear little Margaret was baptized. We
thought of it first thing this morning, when baby
came in in her most joyous mood to see us, and after
wards at the early (English) Communion at which I
celebrated, and now 9.30 P.M. (10.15 A.M. with you)
I dare say you are thinking of us as the bells are
ringing for church. It is a very pleasant thought
for us out here, and it will be a pleasant thing to
tell her about when she grows a bit older, of the
old Cathedral and the warm soft light falling on her,
and your voice praying over her, and the Amens
coming down from the choir, with such a long
interval as it seemed between the prayer and the
response. All these are very pleasant memories, and
seem to bring us closer together, and I think prove
what a help the Church services, with their round
of Holy-days and Seasons, are in helping not only
one s love to God, but one s love to each other."
"Jan. 8, 1874.
"I have now to tell you about a very serious
matter which has turned up here, which I am afraid
MELANESIA SUGGESTIONS OF BISHOPRIC 61
you will not quite like. It is this : By the statute
of the Melanesian Bishopric which was passed in
1868 your last session and altered slightly in
1871, it was provided that the members of the
Mission may recommend a person to be appointed
Bishop, or in default of such recommendation, or in
case such recommendation shall not be accepted,
then the Synod shall appoint some person to be
Bishop. This rule put us in a quandary. We are
all willing, nay wishful, to continue as we are for
another year or two, and there is no immediate
need for any strictly episcopal work. Ordinations
there are none, and I dare say the Bishop of Auck
land could manage to run down again in case of
confirmation being needed. But this rule seemed to
leave neither us nor the Synod any choice. Either
we must recommend or else let the nomination lapse,
in which case it seemed to us the Synod would be
bound to elect. Codrington therefore called a
meeting on the Epiphany to consider the matter.
He first put it to us whether we would recommend
or let the matter take its chance. They were all
very strongly in favour of recommending. Then
came the question, Who ? . . . We pressed on
Codrington most strongly the wish of us all that he
should be Bishop, but he refused decidedly, and said
his mind was quite made up. ... I have written
to Dudley and to Sir Wm. Martin, urging that if
he does feel well enough, he (D.) will let himself
62 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
be nominated. . . . Failing that, they nominated
me and indeed they did this absolutely, as the
recommendation which will be sent to the Primate
runs thus : We recommend the Rev. J. R. Selwyn
to fill the vacant Bishopric, but we shall be willing
to accept the Rev. B. Dudley, if the Synod should
see fit to elect him, and he should accept the office,
There the matter stands, and you will feel what a
responsibility I feel thrown on me."
The following letter from Dr. Codrington, then
at the head of affairs in Melanesia, tells of the
impression made by John Selwyn on his first arrival
at Norfolk Island. It sets out most clearly the
reason for the nomination to the Bishopric, and
allows one to gather the generous sentiments which
actuated the writer in resigning his own claim to
the post and welcoming the appointment of a
younger man. The letter is written to the then
Bishop of Lichfield, and runs as follows :
"NORFOLK ISLAND, Jan. 10, 1874.
" MY DEAR LORD,
. . . With regard to your son I really don t know
what to say because I don t want to be anything but moderate
in my language, and the satisfaction with which I contemplate
him is extreme. He certainly keeps us alive, and all the
community feels his presence. He at once was on the most
friendly terms with the Melanesians, who many of them call
him simply John without any scruple, and go to his house
as if he had been here for years. He is very energetic in
MELANESIA SUGGESTIONS OF BISHOPRIC 63
school and in work, but meets with more admiration as yet
when he works than when he teaches, for his deeds are more
intelligible than his words. I believe it is a good thing for
his health that he should work out of doors, though it will
hardly be possible to do much in this climate. . . . He
will also try to get up some boating, a much more difficult
thing here than would be supposed. ... I can t say very
much yet about progress in the Mota language, but I perceive
that there is enough for common use, which no doubt will
gradually increase.
" I must not omit to say how much we are all pleased with
Mrs. John Selwyn. She is so very good-natured and lively
that she adds very much indeed to the happiness of our little
party. It is very agreeable to see that she makes friends at
once with the Melanesians, and it is a good thing that she
should have some to live with her. Their house is not suited
I should say to a family, having been built to accommodate a
very mixed party of young men, but they seem very well
pleased with it, and have already very much improved it.
" You will have read something of what we did on the
Epiphany before you read this. I don t suppose it was exactly
what you wished or expected, but it was really, I think, the
only thing for us to do. ... We thought that it would be
right that on the first occasion of carrying out the Statute
we should exercise our privilege. The practical result is not
much if it is anything, for one may take it for granted that
the General Synod, having heard from me what at any rate in
my opinion and ours here ought to be done, would have made
the appointment as we now recommend. But we have a
certain advantage in that in making the recommendation we
express our desire that the new Bishop should not be conse
crated yet, but wait till he and others have had proof of his
being suitable to the post. Everybody here is more content
than I am to go on as we are, and I am tolerably content ; but
64 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
it is certainly a comfort and support to me to know that the
future is, if all goes well, secured, and it will give him a sort
of right to occupy a position which whether Bishop elect or
not he would have to occupy, and which he will occupy more
satisfactorily with such a title than without it. ... For my
own part I am quite easy about my future relations. I don t
see the difficulty, which I have been told is a serious one, of
playing second fiddle after having played first. ... I hope
and trust all will go well, and I am sure it will be a great
satisfaction to you, and go far to make up to you for the
absence of your son, if you hear that his work out here is
blessed with success and carried on in harmony with all of us.
With very kind remembrances to Mrs. Selwyn, I remain, my
dear Lord,
" Yours very faithfully,
R. H. CODRINGTON."
The Synod seem to have ultimately postponed
the whole matter, so that there was no thought of
his immediate consecration. He was yet barely
thirty, and all were agreed that it would be far
better that he should wait for two or tbree years
and gain experience of the work and further know
ledge of the language. It would be well, too,
that the Melanesians should learn to love and trust
him, as they did so amply, before he took over the
command of tbe Mission.
Early in 1874 his second child, another girl, was
born, and was named after the cousin to whom he
had been so devoted in bis boyish days. Writing
to this cousin s sister he says :
MELANESIA SUGGESTIONS OF BISHOPRIC 65
"NORFOLK ISLAND, March 28, 1874.
" Baby No. 2 has arrived ! Isn t that dreadful ?
. . . She was born on January 30, and baptized on
St. Mathias Day, the day Bishop Patteson was
consecrated in 1861. The little font was most
beautifully decorated, and in it stood the portable
font which my friends gave me. It looked so pretty
shining up through the leaves and water. The
service was in English, but all the Melanesians
came, and we had two hymns and the blessing in
the native language we use. Afterwards there was
a whole holiday, and a pig for the boys to cook and
eat out of doors."
Before going on to describe the general work of
the Mission, especially John Selwyn s share therein,
which as a matter of fact included a little of every
thing both indoor and outdoor, spiritual and tem
poral, by land and by sea, it is interesting to note
his position as a Churchman and the anxiety he
always felt about affairs in the Church at home. As
might be expected from a man of his breezy dis
position and wholesome mind, all extremes were
abhorrent to him. His natural piety and prayer-
fulness, coupled with the fact that his father was
ruling an English diocese on slightly new lines,
caused him to give much anxious thought to these
matters even when far removed from them, and in
E
66 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
an atmosphere where such things fade away when
men are brought face to face with heathenism.
His great idea was that there should be some
general assembly of the Church of England which
should speak with a voice of authority, and be
obeyed by all. Writing to Mrs. a Court-Repington
in 1874 he says :
" I am perturbed about the state of the English
Church, though there is so much real work being
done which one does not hear of, that one must
expect some disturbances. But why won t men
learn to obey that they may rule ? How can men
set up the high standard of sacerdotalism that they
do, when they rebel in every possible way ? How
can they speak of the voice of the Church when
they refuse to listen to the voice of one of its
Captains ? There are worse disciplines for a man s
mind than the University course from Putney to
Mortlake, and the inexorable row on all, and the
kicking out of the boat if you don t row. ... I do
earnestly long to see some power outside Parliament
which may reform the great abuses in the Church,
and some body which may define what is the limit
of the Church of England both upwards and down
wards. There is no danger of such a body narrow
ing our freedom unduly, but the weight of the voice
of the living Church would be very great, and men
would have to weigh their * conscientious (!)
MELANESIA SUGGESTIONS OF BISHOPRIC 67
scruples more deeply than they do now before they
opposed it."
In the same year, writing to his mother about
affairs in England, he asks :
" What is the temper of the Church ? I think I
know. Every one wants to work after his own
fashion totally regardless of his neighbour, especially
if that neighbour happens to be his Bishop. But men
must see that they must unite soon in a true Church
Association of which the leading principle will have
to be, What can I give up for the sake of unity ?
In 1877, soon after his consecration, he thus writes
to his father :
" I can t understand the position which the E.C.U.
have taken up. . . . But it is not a time for ana
lysing people s consciences. It is a time for doing.
And here I do think you have your chance. Do
stir up people, say the Bishops of Peterborough
[Magee], Manchester [Fraser], and others, and go
straight to the Prime Minister and say we MUST
have a Synod Conference of the whole Church.
We can t go on like this. The Rock will howl on
one side and the Church Times on the other : but I
am sure the great body of clergy and laity would
welcome such a proposition, and the Church would
speak with a power it has never known."
He was fully conscious of the advantage of his
68 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
work being far away from the scene of agitation, as
may be gathered from the following :
To REV. F. E. WATERS.
"OFF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS, August 1, 1876.
" Though we have our share of difficulty and
doubt, and endless secular work, yet are we free
from much which disturbs you at home. But let me
give you this comfort, that I, as an outsider, can
see how much the Church is gaining. Though torn
by doubt and insane enthusiasm, yet the main body
is advancing steadily. There may be much to give
the blues, but, as at St. George s, the whole thing is
going on slowly but, I am certain, surely."
Lastly, there is one line written from his brother s
vicarage at Bromfield in 1879 to Mrs. a Court-
Repington :
" Did you go to the prayer-meeting at Wilkin
son s [now Bishop of St. Andrews] ? He asked for
men for me, and I have already heard of two. But
one is married, which I don t want, and extreme,
which would frighten our Australian supporters, but
not me. It would soon be knocked out of him by
contact with heathenism."
There seems to have arisen once or twice in the
minds of some who were most intimate with him a
doubt as to his absolute soundness on all matters of
MELANESIA SUGGESTIONS OF BISHOPRIC 69
belief. Thus a very close friend in writing a descrip
tion of him after his death said :
" His views were rather broader than mine, and (I used to
think) not thoroughly sound upon some points. He was so
full of the love of God that I do not think he quite saw the
necessity of dwelling so much as some of us do upon the
severity of God as essential to preserve the balance of the
attributes set forth in Holy Scripture. 1 1
There is, however, 110 trace in the course of a vast
correspondence, much of it of a most intimate nature
and relating to spiritual affairs, of anything more
than a wish, natural to a frank and simple mind, to
satisfy himself so far as possible of the truth of what
he held. In the middle of all his work he never
failed to find time for reading, and studied many theo
logical books, sermons, Bampton Lectures, &c. &c.,
which were sent out to him by friends in England.
At the same time there is a touching extract from a
letter to his mother which suggests that she too had
some fears of this kind : he writes from Norfolk
Island in 1883:
" And now, mother, you see that I am always
ready to follow your advice, so please never hesitate
to give it me. I may be a Bishop in the Church of
God, and as such have to advise and direct others,
but to you I am your son, and nothing can abrogate
that highest of relationships. Please do not fancy
that I am going to drift away at all seriously from
70 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
anything you hold. I thank God that every day
the light seems clearer and clearer as to the utter
impossibility of believing anything else than the
awful majesty of God, and the union with Him
which He has made for us in His Son. I may
hesitate here and there as to the evidence for this
or that, but it is a hesitation which springs from an
absolute faith in God in Christ manifesting His
love to the world, and often arises because it cannot
quite reconcile this or that doctrine with the great
fundamental truth. But anything like infidelity or
agnosticism, which so troubles men of my age and
standing nowadays, seems to me, thank God (I say
it most humbly and unboastingly), as a thing on
which my mind is firmly settled and made up ; and
this not by any shutting of my eyes to their argu
ments, but by a perfect concord and agreement of
my reason with my faith. Dear mother, I have
written this for your sake, as I sometimes think that
what I say troubles you a little. You will feel why
I write it, not because I think I stand, or that I am
not conscious of utter shortcoming, but because I
feel more and more the rest of such a faith, and
more and more thank God for it. And with this
comes a greater acquiescence in my work, as I realise
more and more what God is to me, and therefore
what He can be to those to whom I am sent."
CHAPTER VI
NORFOLK ISLAND
THE work of the Melanesian Mission was twofold.
The Southern Cross (the Mission ship) made several
voyages each year to the various Islands, those who
sailed in her being left for shorter or longer periods
at different places to start or encourage schools, and
to help such native teachers as were working among
their own people. On her return journeys the ship
brought as many boys as possible to be trained at
St. Barnabas School on Norfolk Island. The other
part of the work of the Mission was mainly with
this school, though there was always a certain
amount of extra labour incurred in ministering to
the Norfolk Islanders at the town, who seldom seem
to have been provided with proper clerical super
vision of their own.
Sometimes, then, John Selwyn found himself
voyaging about the Islands, and sometimes working
at the school and enjoying domestic life with his
wife and children. His letters home to England
72 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
never fai] to picture the progress of his two little
girls "Pearlie" and " Rebie," and afterwards of his
boy " Stephie," born in 1875, and named after
Stephen Fremantle, a dear Eton friend whose early
death was a great grief.
" I am very full," he wrote, " of the loss of my
dear friend, Stephie Fremantle. He was such a
grand fellow, so simple and straightforward, and
with such a power of work in him and influence for
good."
And again :
You may imagine my sorrow on the abrupt
announcement of dear old Stephie Fremantle s death.
Still, one could not and does not feel very sorry.
Long separation such as ours takes off a great deal
of the bitterness of death, and I think brings out all
the more strongly the bright recollections of past
life. This certainly is the case with Stephie s
memory. The old days at Eton come crowding
back, and I can see the fives walls where he and
Johnny Waller and I used to be such allies, and the
place where he once made a cut for five, and, above
all, the little captain s room at my dame s where he
used to read so hard, and I used to come in for half
an hour s chat before going to bed. And above all
I remember him reading prayers at my dame s, and
setting us all such a bright, good example."
NORFOLK ISLAND 73
But to return to the domestic life at Norfolk
Island. His delight in his children was unbounded.
Here are some descriptions of their ways which he
sent to his mother :
" Pearlie has one very quaint custom, which is to
say two graces at meals. The first is long and
orthodox, the second is in Mota, and consists of two
words, Taltoa, Amen, which means Hen s egg,
Amen. Where she got this from nobody knows,
or what it means either, but she is not satisfied till
she has said it."
" Pearlie chatters in the most delightful way,
half Mota and half English, though she understands
both equally well, and is always ready to translate
one into the other. Some of these translations are
very funny. For instance the [native] girls call
Clara Clara and me John Selwyn, and if you ask
Pearlie what is the Mota for mamma and papa she
always says Clara and John Selwyn, and then
shouts with delight."
On August 5, 1875, he is able to write and tell
his mother of the birth of his first son. The pleasure
of the baby s arrival was a little marred by the
prospect of losing his other children, for it had been
arranged that as soon as she was able to do so their
mother should take them (or at all events the eldest
one) to England to live for a time with their grand
parents at Lichfield.
74 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
"NORFOLK ISLAND, Aug. 5, 1875.
"MY DEAREST MOTHER,
" Clara has got the wish of her heart a
boy. . . . Well, my family increases fast, and I
shall soon be like the old woman who lived in a
shoe. However, rooms are easily added to a wooden
house, and if Pearlie goes home we shall be reduced
to our normal state of two. It is hard work to think
of giving up the child, but I like to think of my
daughter profiting by that influence which I know
so well, but have not followed half enough. I like
to think of her sitting by your knee, and hearing
those stories I know so well, and above all being
ruled by that loving will which is so much more
strong and so much less fiery than mine. . . . Clara
wants the boy to be called John, but I rather object:
but she will have her way, I take it. Good-night,
mother.
" Your loving son,
"J. R. SELWYN."
The domestic life of the Selwyns on Norfolk
Island must have been to some extent spoilt by the
presence in their house of a number of native girls
who lived with them. The boys lived in the school,
but the girls were boarded at the various married
people s houses. These girls were many of them
betrothed to the boys in early days before they were
NORFOLK ISLAND 75
brought to the island, and it was found far better
when possible to bring them also, because it was
thus easier to get the boys, and also there was a
better chance of their remaining Christians when
both husband and wife had been trained at the
Mission. The affection shown by these girls to Mr.
and Mrs. Selwyn comes out in many letters from
the future Bishop to his mother, and must have
been a full recompense for all the care and love so
ungrudgingly given.
In 1875 measles attacked the school, and almost
every boy was down with the disease. In their
native islands very little was ever done to help a
sick man ; in fact, he was usually taken to a small
hut away from his own home and left to take his
chance. It must have been a surprise to these boys
to find how tenderly they were nursed. Writing to
his mother on October 30, 1875, John Selwyn says :
" Every night we used to make a great jorum of
arrowroot, and then I used to sally forth with a
lantern, and do the rounds. One had to unearth
figures in all sorts of shapes and contortions, rolled
in blankets, feel their pulses, look at their tongues,
and cheer them up as well as one could."
This is all of a piece with the love of nursing
and sympathy with suffering which was one of the
features of his self-sacrificing life. It was no doubt
76 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
prompted also by his affection for the boys, of which
he writes often. Thus, when a very heavy trouble
had fallen on the Mission work in Florida, he wrote:
" I know my own love for the boys has doubled
since it [the scandal] came out, and the sort of
feeling came over me that I used to have at Wolver-
hampton in a difficulty there of an awful sense of
God s presence, and yet a confiding trust in His
help."
But it was not all easy to him. It was no doubt
delightful on Sunday evenings to sit and watch the
native girls gathered round his wife and singing in
Mota " Art thou weary," and pleasant enough to
teach the boys to row, or see them start out with
their food in a bundle for a long day s pleasure on
Saturdays, which were (after the Eton plan) whole
holidays. But sometimes a feeling of weariness and
a sort of despair took hold of him even in the begin
ning of his mission life ; on November 14, 1874, he
wrote to his mother :
" One wants to have a touch of Arnold s spirit,
and teach them what true responsibility is. But
how ? One is never sure of anything being done,
and never sure that anybody sees that anything
wants to be done. Well, it all comes to this, that,
as Still says, one wants the patience of ten Jobs, and
NORFOLK ISLAND 77
I haven t got it, and so take gloomy views whiles,
when it is one s own fault five times out of six."
On the whole, however, he was hopeful about the
school work.
" I think it," he wrote, " a very remarkable and a
very blessed thing that a school of two hundred
should have been managed so long without any
ostensible punishment. The boys are on the whole
wonderfully obedient and trustworthy far more so
than the same number of English boys would be."
Every now and then, too, some special event would
come to cheer him and bring new hope. A boy
crept up to him one night and whispered, " What
can I do to help the people of my village ? " This
proof that the boy had learnt not only to value
Christianity, but was filled with the Christian
desire of helping others, was a great joy to John
Selwyn. " One s heart lifts up," he said when
describing it. Again, in the course of a letter to his
mother, he writes :
Sometimes one has great comfort. One sees a
boy dying, as Simeon did the other day, with calm
faith, and, I believe, a sincere repentance, and the
hope that springs from such a death is very great.
I often have the calm, peaceful face of the boy, as he
78 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
lay in our room with his hand on his head as if
asleep, in my mind, and, if one can only send one or
two such as he before one, one won t have lived in
vain."
It must not be forgotten that, besides all the work
of the Mission, Selwyn had while at Norfolk Island
to study hard at the new language. The difficulty
of this was in his case increased by his lack of ear.
When lecturing at Cambridge long afterwards he
said :
" Let us take language ; and by that I do not
mean philology, though the more you know of that
the better, but the art of acquiring and distin
guishing uncouth sounds. I speak feelingly, as my
ear was my bane all through my missionary life. I
have lived as much as most people on islands where
I was pioneer, where hardly a soul understood me,
and I understood not one word. I have preached a
sermon by means of two small boys who were far
too shy to stand up before their countrymen in the
open, but could just manage to translate my words
if they were allowed to hide under the table. And
I will back myself under such circumstances to pick
up a fair speaking vocabulary, which will pass
muster, as soon as most people. But there I stop,
I could not hear, not even languages in which I
catechised and preached. An unexpected sentence,
NORFOLK ISLAND 79
though I knew every word in it, was a jumble of
sounds."
So life at St. Barnabas Mission Station went on,
broken at intervals by voyages to the islands of
which there will be much to say hereafter. His
first journey in the Mission ship was taken in the
autumn of 1874, when he stayed for a time at
various places to live with the natives, and so get
on far more intimate terms than would have been
otherwise possible. It was the plan on which the
Melanesian Mission worked, and in those same
lectures at Cambridge he describes it thus :
" This brings me to the method which alone
appears to offer hope for the conversion of great
masses of people, and which I believe to be the hope
that sways most missionaries to-day. It is this :
that the function of the missionary is not so much
himself to try and convert, as to thoroughly train
and fill with his own spirit those who shall convert
their own people. For this ... we want great
teachers and we want great faith. Great teachers,
men, that is, who feel the full force of Christ s
teaching in their own souls and thus are able to fill
others with it, not only in the letter but in the
spirit. Men who live with their scholars as a father
lives with his children, and absolutely fills them with
himself. . . . You will find a glorious example of
this sort of work in the life of Bishop Patteson."
80 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
In after years he grew well accustomed to these
prolonged absences, but just at first the time seemed
long, and there was always a sense of uneasiness as
to those he had left behind him. One of the places
at which he stayed on this first journey was Ara, a
tiny island south of Motalara. There he received
letters from England and from Norfolk Island, his
delight in which he describes in a letter to his
mother :
, Sep. 27, 74.
" On the 10th the ship turned up at Mota.
What a pleasant sight it was to see the gleam of
her sails through the trees, and to know that she
had letters and news aboard. It was not, however,
our only news, as a man-of-war schooner came down
with an unexpected note from Clara, which was
delightful.
" When one had shipped and unshipped persons
and things at Mota and Ara, was it not pleasant
to lie on one s back and feast on your going to the
1 Drawing-room, and Pearlie s quaint vocabulary and
Clara s walks and talks with the girls, &c. &c. It
ivas good ! Certes, though one has a good deal of
separation, yet one gets a good deal of concentrated
enjoyment out of it all. ... I must tell you how
delighted I was with the bright happy tone in which
Clara wrote. It was such a help. Of course I felt
NORFOLK ISLAND 81
a little anxious as it was our first real separation.
. . . And then she wrote me such a bright, hearty
letter, full of the work she had got to do, of her
girls in the house, of my class at school which she
takes, of the children, and of bright sympathy with
my work, no complaining about the separation, but
looking upon it as our little cross which makes the
months we spend together all the sweeter. Alto
gether I never read a letter with more thankfulness
than I did hers."
CHAPTER VII
VARIOUS INFLUENCES BISHOP PATTESON, ETC.
BEFORE going any further with the history of Bishop
John Selwyn s missionary work two or three points
must be mentioned with a view to its proper
appreciation. It is difficult to realise how young he
was : reading the serious letters, full of the grave
thoughts of an older man, which he wrote to his
mother, finding, too, how universal was the feeling
that he was to succeed Bishop Patteson, it is hard
to remember that so few years had elapsed since he
stroked the Cambridge boat, or indeed since he was
playing the "wall" game at Eton. But his youth
must be remembered in order to understand the
difficulties as well as the successes of his career.
The responsibilities thrown upon him so early in life
were a heavy burden, but the physical strength and
the fire and dash which belonged to his years did
much to carry him through many a time of stress
and danger.
Then again, the climate in which his work had to
VARIOUS INFLUENCES BISHOP PATTESON 83
be carried on must be borne in mind. This is, of
course, tropical, with very little variation all the
year round. The rainy season is the most trying
time, and the interior of the islands where the bush
is thickest is the most deadly locality. Near the
open beach the climate is more endurable for
Europeans, but fever and ague are prevalent every
where. John Selwyn suffered severely from these,
and it was these that caused his early death just as
surely as if he had fallen a victim to the poisoned
arrows of a savage foe. Mr. Still relates as an
instance of Selwyn s dogged determination that he
would take his turn at reading prayers on board the
Southern Cross, while his teeth were chattering
loudly with an attack of ague.
One thing more must be remembered. In all his
work and the free sacrifice of himself that he made
he was influenced by the example of Bishop Patte-
son. He seems to have tried to follow closely in
his footsteps. The fact that the Bishop was also an
Etonian may have helped to foster this devotion.
He never forgot that it was Bishop Patteson s death
which inspired him to volunteer. Thus he writes
to Mrs. a Court-Repington on May 5, 1874 :
" You speak of some of the passages in Bishop
Patteson s Life being a sort of prophecy of my going
out. Did you notice a letter to his uncle, Edward
Coleridge, in which he says that there must be some
84 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
young fellows rowing up to Surly that night
(June 4) who ought to be able to help ? Curiously
enough I was rowing that evening."
Again, to his mother on September 27, 1874, he
says :
" I have not told you how we remembered Bishop
Patteson last Sunday (September 20). We were
nearly in the latitude of Santa Cruz, though some
way to the westward. It was a bright, sparkling
day, and when one read the accounts in Miss Yonge s
Life it came up very vividly before one s eyes.
How quickly the three years have gone ! And yet
it seems a long while ago. We had just come back
from America when we heard of it ; do you re
member ? I do quite well, and the coming of the
first thought into my mind, Ought I to volunteer ?
Well, here I am, and last Sunday s memories
brought home very forcibly what I have volunteered
to try and do. And how one shrinks when one
thinks of it ! But then faith says, Don t be a
coward or distrust the power of God and His work.
Distrust yourself, but not Him.
He seemed to be continually measuring his life by
that of Bishop Patteson and regretting his inability,
as he thought, to reach so high a standard.
" I confess," he said, " I do not care for these
VARIOUS INFLUENCES BISHOP PATTESON 85
people as Bishop Patteson used to care for them.
They often irk me, and I get tired and weary. But,
thank God, I do feel a desire to spread the honour
of His name, and this is such a help."
His reverence for the memory of Bishop Patteson
was a large factor in his conduct of the Mission,
inasmuch as it led him to alter as little as possible
the lines of work which had been laid down by his
great predecessor. So he entered with enthusiasm
into the twofold life ; happy in his home and his
teaching in the school, even happier (except for the
separation from his wife and children) in the sea
faring and adventurous life in the Southern Cross
on her voyages among the islands. His knowledge
of nautical things and of navigation stood him in
good stead, though he was fortunate enough to have
the services of a splendid captain who took charge
of the Mission ship. This was Captain Bongard, a
Sussex man and a marvellous navigator. It is said
that if he did but catch sight of the smallest scrap
of an island he always knew it again. He was mate
of the Southern Cross in Bishop Patteson s time,
and became captain afterwards. He succeeded an
officer who had been old and rather timid, and the
change was greatly to the advantage of the Mission.
It is sometimes said that the Melanesian Bishops
navigated the Mission ship themselves, but such a
thing rarely occurred, indeed never when Captain
86 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
Bongard was on board. Few men did so much as
he in a practical way for the advancement of the
work. He grasped the scheme of the Mission, and
carried it out to admiration. He was so fine a
seaman that Bishop John Selwyn himself stood a
little bit in awe of him. That he had a vast respect
for him is evidenced by an extract from a letter to
Mr. Charles Bill, in which he says :
" The ship feels very odd, as I have sent Bongard
home to look after the new ship. So the mate is in
charge, and he and I look after the navigation. If
you come across Bongard ... he is a first-rate
fellow, and as good a seaman as ever stept."
John Selwyn s delight in all naval matters was a
great help to him in dealing with the officers and
men of the various men-of-war and other vessels
that touched at the islands. He sometimes, how
ever, felt that too much of his interest was taken up
in such things. Writing to his mother from the
Southern Cross " at sea," he says :
" If I only knew things worth knowing as well as
I know the ins and outs of half a dozen different
professions, battles, &c., I should do. The other
day a young lieutenant told me that by my talk on
naval matters lit* would think I was one of her
Majesty s officers. I felt humiliated, but I can t
help it. .1 read a thing and it sticks. Now I must
VARIOUS INFLUENCES BISHOP PATTESON 87
go and take a sight, and see whether we have done
twenty miles this twenty-four hours."
His great friend, Mr. Bill, writes of him that it is
a curious speculation to consider which of all pro
fessions would have suited him best, and surmises
that in the Army or the Navy or at the Bar he
would have risen to considerable eminence. It is
interesting to find him wondering how far such
subjects interfere with the profession to which he
had given himself. The following striking letter
bears upon this :
To his MOTHER.
" Easter Day, 1875, NORFOLK ISLAND.
"... How one felt the truth of the story of
God s love to man when I was trying to bring the
message of peace to bear on this matter. That
message always is real, but it is when you bring it
into direct antagonism with some heathen custom
that one sees how very real it is. And yet how
little does one realise it oneself. Here have I been
spending a couple of hours this morning devouring a
volume of Alison on the last campaign of Napoleon
before the battle of Leipsic. And he was the
greatest master of the opposite doctrine that the
world ever saw. And yet I have been admiring
him. Of course one says that one is only admiring
88 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
the pluck and science and energy in that wonderful
man. And yet I am not sure. I am not at all sure
that there is such an exact balance in one s mind
between the right and the wrong as there ought
to be. How many would refuse the name he won,
if it were all clearly put before them, if they had
to purchase it with the meanness, rapacity, and
unscrupulousness which he displayed, and with all
the loss of life which he so unhesitatingly induced ?
Not many : no, not even if they had St. Helena put
into the opposite scale. ... I have learnt a lesson
or two from it. How carelessly one reads of ten
thousand men being killed or wounded, of men
working under the fire of a hundred pieces of
artillery, just as if it were a mere matter of course
for a soldier to expose himself! While I sometimes
think of a very trifling risk to be incurred at this or
that island. Or again, I read this morning of
Napoleon meeting the remains of the Old Guard
after the Russian campaign on the field of Lutzen.
What for ? To send them back to rest at home ?
Never a bit : but to wheel them round and send them
back to Dresden. And I think that I am justified
in wasting a whole side of notepaper in describing
my quarters if I sleep on the sand at Rowo, or some
such place ! and think five months a very long time
to be away from Oara ! Well, they thought of
glory. Perhaps I haven t got a right idea yet of
* the glory that is to be revealed.
VARIOUS INFLUENCES BISHOP PATTESON 89
While upon this subject it may not be out of
place to mention that later on, when he had been
consecrated, one of his grand schemes was to have a
ship of his own. He even went so far as to start a
fund for the purchase of a vessel to be called the
Ruth, presumably because she was to go gleaning
souls. One lady alone gave him 1000 towards this
object, and he would have succeeded in his desire if
it had not been for the strenuous opposition of his
friends in the Mission, who knew very well that it
would be fatal. When on the Southern Cross he
had to be guided by the regularly arranged voyages,
but it was recognised that in a ship of his own he
would not be sufficiently cautious, would have prob
ably anchored for days at the mouth of some pesti
lential river, and, as one of his advisers has said,
" would not have lived a twelvemonth."
The following extracts from letters prove how keen
he was on the scheme, the first one showing that the
idea had taken hold of him even in the early days
before he became Bishop.
To his MOTHER.
"Sept. 15, 1876.
" I wish I had 10,000 to start a small ship of my
own to go among the islands into whose hands we
could play, whose agents we could oversee, and by
means of which [ship] we could ensure the natives
90 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
getting a fair price for their work. The old monas
teries won their way by some such action, and I do
not think it at all beneath the dignity of our work.
It is a puzzle, which I see Bishop Pattesoii was
thinking about."
(In connection with this idea several references
occur in Bishop John Selwyn s letters to a project
for forming a trading company in the islands. He
was not able, however, to carry this out.)
To his FATHER.
MAEWO, July 1, 1878.
" I am very seriously meditating turning my house
into a small vessel, say something like the Undine,
in which I can be more my own master than in the
large one which has to carry boys from place to
place, and is necessarily much tied down by this.
All these traders and labour vessels go about in the
islands throughout the year without much damage,
and I should be able to maintain a great deal of life
in the schools by being able to visit them in January
and February, besides being able to pop over to
Sydney or Queensland or Fiji, if need be. My
official income ought to keep such a vessel going for
the five months in which the big vessel is not down
here. But this is all a thought and may be a
crotchet, but I am very anxious to spend as much
VARIOUS INFLUENCES BISHOP PATTESON 91
time in the islands as possible, and Codrington is so
superlatively good in all matters pertaining to the
school that I do not feel that I am much wanted
there."
To his MOTHER.
"BoLi, April 5, 1882.
" This Mission teaches me the depth of my father s
insight, as I see more and more how much more can
be done by really good native teachers than by
almost any white man. What one wants is to train
them a little better than we have hitherto done.
My plan for that is a permanent head at Norfolk
Island, leaving the Bishop visitor there and supreme
in the Islands. [This could only be worked by the
possession of a ship of his own.] The others do not
quite see it in this light ; but I do not see how, as
the churches grow, a man can be both, and inter
mittent headship is, like an intermittent spring, apt
to fail just when you don t want it to."
CHAPTER VIII
HIS CONSECRATION
To return to the early years of his mission work, it
has already been stated that the nomination of the
Bishop of Melanesia rests with the members of
the Mission, and very soon after Selwyn s arrival
they submitted his name to the General Synod of
the Church in New Zealand. The whole matter
was by this body postponed for three years to his
great relief, as is recorded in the following letter
to his mother :
"NORFOLK ISLAND, Sept. 1874.
" We have news by this mail of the General Synod
at Wellington, though not a soul has written about
it. I can t tell you how thankful I am about the
Bishopric question. I seem to breathe quite freely
now, and perhaps by the end of three years some
body may have turned up much more fitted for the
post than I, or at least I shall have ample time to
win my experience. Meanwhile I am getting to
HIS CONSECRATION 93
know the physical part of the business pretty well,
I think, and the boating comes very natural and
handy to me. I am not out of the wood yet, but
hitherto I haven t had a touch of rheumatism. I
feel as strong as ever I did . . . even my old back
has given up being stiff ! "
In 1875 Mrs. John Selwyn and her children went
to England, and he was left to feel their loss acutely,
though, as he sometimes said, it made the depar
tures for island voyages much easier. The Bishopric
question, though postponed, was never out of his
mind, and he greatly missed the presence of his wife,
with whom he could talk it all over freely. He
wrote much to his parents on the subject :
To his MOTHER.
"NORFOLK ISLAND, Dec. 13, 75.
" What would I not give for one good talk with
my father, though such a question must I think be
settled by one s own conscience. I own I cannot
see any one else, and on that ground it seems
cowardly to let the Mission go on without a working
head. But then when that thought is done it is
succeeded by such a burst of one s own short
comings that one is afraid lest the Mission should
take any harm by my taking an office for which I am
so unfitted. And then sometimes I am conscious of
94 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
a cowardly thought, What if the Mission should
fail and I get the blame of it/ but this I drive away
as utterly unworthy and untrustful. God has
guided me hitherto, unworthy as I am, and He will
guide me in this also, but it is a heavy trial.
" One has not time to be very dull, but I find that
it is a very different thing being away from one s
wife, and having one s wife away from home. In
the former case one has new scenes and a different
life, but at home one expects to see a wife or chick
about."
To his FATHER.
" SOUTHERN CROSS (at sea),
" 3 days out from N. L,
"Oct. 5, 1875.
" Codrington has been pressing the question of my
consecration in a letter which the Bishop [of Christ-
church] received in August 75. The Bishop says in
answer, The chief difficulty in the way of the
election of J. Selwyn to the Episcopate is the
securing a meeting of the General Synod. If that
could be done I do not see why his consecration to
the office should not immediately take place. . . .
He then says that he will make inquiries as to the
possibility of convening a meeting which shall have
due weight and authority in the estimation of the
Church : and goes on to point out that the General
HIS CONSECRATION 95
Synod might meet very early in 1877. . . . I mean
to write to the Bishop of Christchurch on my own
responsibility begging him to hold his hand as far as
I am concerned. For, apart from personal reasons on
which I will enter presently, this haste seems to be
useless and dangerous. Useless, because in no case
could Codrington get the Bishop s reply till about
the end of the year, and I do not suppose that the
Bishop would act until he had heard from him
again. How then would it be possible for me to be
elected, consecrated, and get off with the ship in
April ? and if it is deferred till October, no great
harm can be done in waiting till February 1877.
And it would be dangerous, for the Synod would
be almost certain to think that I was crammed down
their throats, especially after their former action,
and would probably resent it accordingly. I cannot
see therefore that any good would come from this
haste, and I think an indefinite amount of harm
might arise.
" But all this is apart from what is with me the
main reason : namely, a growing sense of unfitness
for the office. I do not mean unfitness in the sense
in which we talk of unfitness, or rather unworthi-
ness, for the Holy Communion ; of that any one must
needs have an overwhelming sense while at the
same time he may be conscious of powers within him
which by God s grace may enable him to do his
work. But I am conscious of no such powers. Day
96 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
by day I feel my own deficiencies more and more
galling. I have no memory for languages, and but
little application in studying them, and I am utterly
deficient in the very important power of remember
ing people s names. Besides this, until this last year
I have felt myself utterly unable to gain any hold
on the boys. Certainly during and since the
measles I have felt more power in this way, and
consequently have never enjoyed my life so much as
during these last three months, hard work though
it has been.
(i Against this the only thing I can fairly put in the
balance is that I am fond of the ship and of boating,
that I know nearly all the places we go to well, and
that there is no one else of our present staff who
knows them so well, or who is so fond of that sort of
work as I am. This seems to point out that I
should be with the ship a good deal, but I think that
if I had a station at some northern island such as
Florida I might do this and let the vessel return
without me. Then with Bice at Leper s Island,
Palmer in the Banks group, Still at Bauro, Penny at
Florida, and myself further north, while the future
Bishop went about in the vessel, we should do very
well. Surely there is some one more capable than
any man we have yet.
" I wish, how I wish, I could have one good walk
with you to talk it all over ! And the first thing I
would tell you would be my sorrow for opportunities
HIS CONSECRATION 97
missed. What would I not give for your habits of
application, and for the learning which your care
provided for me, but my thoughtlessness threw
aside. I am always seeking it now, but the evil
habit of desultoriness fights sadly against it, and
the actual school and farm life at Norfolk Island
has left little time for anything else."
The absence of wife and children at this critical
time is often referred to by him, and the extracts on
this subject give some of the few glimpses obtainable
of his home life in Norfolk Island. Writing from
the Southern Cross off Mota he says :
" I own I don t like the thought of the house
without the two little bright faces, and Pearlie
rushing into my room to ask for a pencil and paper,
and Rebie strutting down the verandah to greet
one as one came in from work."
In a letter from Norfolk Island to a cousin he
writes :
"It is rather lonely here now with neither wife,
chick, nor child. It is not half so bad being away
oneself, but it does not seem at all in the nature of
things that one s wife should be away. The room
and house are full of shadows, and one expects to
hear the little feet or the familiar voice, and so one
gets unked occasionally. . . .
G
98 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
" Not that my girls [the native girls] don t take
the most excellent care of me, and the house is in
apple-pie order. I have told them off into different
sets, and they take it in turn to do different work.
One, a most staid old maid, is housekeeper, and she
looks after me in the most maternal way, mends my
socks, sorts my clean clothes, &c. The smallest of
all is flower-gatherer, and she keeps my rooms
radiant. At the end of my little den I have three
photographs of Clara, Pearlie, and Rebie in glass,
and the other day the child of her own notion
decorated them with flowers, and never misses now.
Is it not a pretty thought ? "
One of the chief sacrifices to a man of John
Selwyn s bright sociable disposition must have been
the isolation and narrowness of the life on Norfolk
Island, and the rare chances of communication with
the outer world where he had so many interests
and so many friends. He was still a very young
married man, and this isolation must have been far
more keenly felt when his dear ones were away in
England. It is not then surprising to find his
thoughts turning towards home. It was pretty
certain that his consecration would not be much
longer delayed, and it was natural that there should
have sprung up in him a strong desire for the event
to take place in England. It would have combined
so much ; he would have had all his best loved with
HIS CONSECRATION 99
him, and the consecrating hands laid upon his head
would have been those of his father.
To his MOTHER.
" NORFOLK ISLAND, March 8, 1876.
"And now for the great question as to my coming
home. I wonder what you will say about it all.
It seems too good a thought ever to come true,
especially as I can carry it out with such a clear
conscience as to the not running away from work.
Fancy walking in the day before the Epiphany to
sit in the Cathedral [Lichfield] again with you and
Clara and listen to my father, and show the glories
o f the windows to Pearlie. L homme propose and
God will dispose as He pleases."
To the SAME.
" PORT PATTESON, May 4> } 1876.
" Eight weeks more and I shall know my fate.
Am I to come home or not ? Father, mother, wife,
arid children, to come home to all ! Surely never
man had much greater hope than that. I don t like
to dwell on it with all the changes and chances of this
mortal life in between, but it bubbles up sometimes."
John Selwyn had one unusual custom in the
matter of letter- writing. Most people write to their
100 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
relations and friends so that the letter may arrive
on the anniversary of a birthday or other occasion.
Mails were so exceedingly irregular in Melanesia
that he reversed the process and wrote his letter on
the special day to be observed. Thus he invariably
wrote on his own and his mother s birthdays and
on the anniversaries of the death of those whom he
had loved, &c. Here is an example of this kind of
letter, written on his own birthday in 1876 when
his thoughts were full of his coming consecration :
To his MOTHER.
" SOUTHERN CROSS (at sea), OFF WANO,
"May 20, 1876.
" Thirty-two years, mother ! I wonder what you
would have said to some fairy at the Waimate, who
told you that in that time the child you kissed
would be knocking about the Pacific, and that you
would be spending your old age in a Bishop s Palace
in England. This birthday seems a very solemn
one to me, though it is hard enough to realise it
when one is spending most of the day buying combs
for my boys at Norfolk Island with bits of tobacco.
And yet it tells me that before I am thirty-three I
shall probably be here again as Bishop. . . .
" I am going to keep the middle watch for our
Captain, who was up all last night, so I must go to
bed now.
HIS CONSECRATION 101
"It is an overwhelming thought sometimes, How
can I get a real hold on these people ? and some
times the sight of the ship so well appointed, which
has been provided by the liberality of friends at
home and which is here at one s absolute disposal,
almost makes rne hate her. I suppose one ought to
feel the same in a large parish in England with
clubs and schools and influence ready to one s hand :
but I think this is worse. And then the worst of
all is that people at home will think of one as so
good, and write about noble work and self-sacrificing
labour and all that sort of nonsense, till one is ready
to sink with shame. Still and I think this is the
worst part of all."
Just at this time the question of his visit to
England was settled, and he had to make up his
mind to a great disappointment. It was not
thought wise, for reasons stated in the following
letter, that he should go. Nothing is more note
worthy than the brave and uncomplaining way in
which he received the decision ; it was just one thing
more to be ungrudgingly offered :
To his FATHER.
" S. CROSS (at sea}, NEW HEBRIDES,
"July 10, 1876.
" The Bishop of Christchurch states very fairly
102 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
and kindly all the objections to the course proposed,
all of which I think I mentioned in my letter to
him. I did not and do not think that any of them
are insuperable save that of the great doubt as to
the interpretation which the General Synod might
put on my going. He thinks that many would say
that I counted on the certainty of their confirmation
and would assert their independence accordingly.
This, of course, quite settled the matter, as nothing
would give one greater pain than to have the
shadow of a doubt thrown on one s motives ; albeit
they little know how I shrink from the honour
which they would suppose me to covet.
" And so my visit to England falls to the ground.
I can t say I am not sorry, as I am very sorry to
think that I shall not be able to have one good talk
with you about many matters which now press
heavily on us. But I am not disappointed as I
never built for one instant on the thought. I was
almost certain that the Bishop of Christchurch
would say what he has said, and I have been all
along prepared to acquiesce in his saying it
thoroughly and heartily. We shall not be the less
together in heart and soul because we are absent in
body, and though I may not feel your hands on my
head once again I shall know that our prayers are
meeting before the Throne of Grace."
Meanwhile many doubts as to his fitness for the
HIS CONSECRATION 103
office of a Bishop not unnaturally crowded into his
mind. The chief of these seems to have been the
difficulty of preventing the secular part of his work
from swamping the more spiritual. To his mother
he writes :
" What tries one is the amount of utterly secular
work which of its very nature makes one secular. I
fight against it, but it is very hard to look upwards
through yards of calico ! "
To his FATHER.
" SOUTHERN CROSS (at anchor), MAEWO,
June 11,1876 {
[
" It seems to me that we shall have to have three
voyages always. Our numbers are so large that the
ship is very crowded going down, and three voyages
would relieve her very much, and also I think allow
of the work being better done. This means seven
months at sea for me, part of the cost which has to
be counted. Perhaps some day or other Clara will
be able to go with me a bit, as mother sometimes
used to go with you, but I don t know at present.
" I have been reading to-night that sublime ex
hortation to the priests which probably you are
reading at this very moment. I think one wants it
104 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
here more than in the midst of the shoe clubs and
school accounts of parish life in England. Here it
is so easy to be a sailor and a boatman, and a
tramper through villages, and a sleeper on hardish
beds, and all the rest of it, which in the world s eyes
make the sort of martyrdom of missionary life, and
which in reality are nothing at all ; and it is so
hard to invest all these with the glow of the inner
life which must have warmed St. Paul in his
journeyings often, or in his daily handicraft.
Language, or rather the want of it, has much to do
with this, and I am lazy and idle at that which
ought to be the main object of my life. And I feel
painfully conscious of an unreadiness to attract the
native mind, that is to put my mind alongside his
mind, as Dr. Johnson would say. ... I need not
tell you what a comfort it is to me to be able to
write to you as I feel I can now, leaning on your
perfect sympathy and love."
To his MOTHER.
"S. CROSS, OFF MOTA, Sept. 2, 1876.
" I know how the little worries and manifold cares
of your daily life must require this sense of nearness
to God to sweeten and spiritualise them. And indeed
I can sympathise with you with all my heart, as our
life is one of so much bustle and hard physical work
that it is very, very difficult to get up the spirituality
HIS CONSECRATION 105
which must be at the bottom of it all. Take to-day,
for instance, we have been taking off the Ara folks
in a heavy sea, and they have brought no end of
traps which they ought not to bring, and one had to
think of the boat alongside, and of our twelve
passengers who had to be got safely up the ladder.
And there were things to be divided on shore, arid
unpleasant stories coming out at the last moment.
Altogether it is very hard to think that all this is
means to an end, and that end the winning souls to
the kingdom of God. I don t say this complain-
ingly, but only as a fact ; and a fact which joins me
to you in the midst of your legs of mutton, and my
father in the drudgery of his letters.
"After the Bishopric question is settled I don t
care what I do, but we shall then be fitting out and
I shall be wanted in Auckland. And that leads me
to the great matter that of course lies uppermost on
my mind, and does not grow lighter as time goes on.
" Thank you very much for your kind loving words.
I can hear you saying them, and would that I could
sit on your sofa and say my say again about them.
One can t write the thoughts that throng one s
brain and trouble one s heart. I feel all that you
say about God s calling, and if He calls that He will
give the grace which is needful. I feel all this ;
but it is very hard to get oneself to believe that He
does call. All one s own imperfections stand out
106 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
ten times more vividly than before. And beyond
that all one s doubts and fears are shrinking from
the work itself, and one s anxieties as to its future
are redoubled when one thinks that its future move
ment will have to come so largely from oneself ; and
then there is no lack of selfish motives besides,
which are best unsaid, as they are best driven away
when thought of. Well, all these things make it
very hard indeed to let that trust you speak of take
full possession and govern everything else. I can t
analyse myself, but you will understand what I
mean. I think I shall be better when I have had a
good talk with Clara. There are cases where
woman s sympathy, and above all woman s faith and
love help men more than almost anything else.
And Clara too will be fresh from you so that I shall
get herself and you rolled in one."
Then, in a further part of the same letter, he
tells of another difficulty that beset him and made
him inclined to shrink from any accession of autho
rity :
" One is master to a very great extent now, and
the very last thing that such an office requires is
masterfulness. There is a quiet way of doing things
which I see and envy in others, and at very rare
intervals acquire myself, and then I am surprised to
find out how easily things go. With our large
HIS CONSECRATION 107
school there is a great deal of real orderliness and
obedience necessary ; and the difficulty is to do this
without upsetting the sense of friendship which
binds us together, or the self-respect which is not
too strong in many of the boys. Boats are very
aggravating things in this way. Sails won t go up
right, and fellows will always mistake one rope for
another, &c. , and one hates oneself, when one comes
in, for not taking things quietly. Well, you can
guess it all, but I like telling you of it, as you will
know one s struggles. . . . The latter part of this
voyage I have been rather poorly and lazy. My
head got wrong somehow, and worried me a good
deal, and I have had a touch of fever hanging about."
As it was found impossible for him to go to Eng
land for his consecration it became imperative that
Mrs. John Selwyn should return at once in order
that she might be with him when the day came that
would be fraught with so large a measure of added
responsibility and solemn dignity. He went to
Australia to meet her and describes his delight in a
letter to a cousin written from Bishopscourt, Dun-
edin, on January 9, 1877.
" You may imagine how pleasant it is hearing of
you all from Clara, and still more how pleasant it is
to have that dear old living letter back again. I had
to wait a very long time for her, but it was worth the
108 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
waiting. Just at the end I went down to Queens-
cliffe at Melbourne Heads, and there used to get up
at 3.30 A.M. lest the vessel should go by in the early
morning. Four days did I repeat this unparalleled
devotion, and at last on Sunday morning, Decem
ber 19, there the ship was, just coming in at the
Heads ! Off I scuttled with the health officer,
caught Clara not in the least expecting me, and my
triumph was great ! "
How little either thought in the joy of their
meeting that one short year was all that was left to
them of their young and happy life together on
earth !
On their arrival in New Zealand they enjoyed
nearly two months of quiet, in which he might
prepare for his consecration. This he had planned
long beforehand, for in March 1876 he says in the
course of a letter to his mother :
" I am writing to the Bishop of Christchurch
saying I would rather not go starring, but, if he
could find us a quiet berth for a couple of months or
so, I would be very glad to fill it, and thus get a
little quiet time."
This period was of great value, for not only
did his mind become calm and restful in the com
panionship of his wife and in a life free from small
HIS CONSECRATION 109
cares and worries, but he then was able to seek in
much prayer and meditation for that courage which
it required to take up the high office of Missionary
Bishop. When his age not thirty-three is con
sidered, and the characteristics which had marked
his life, it could not be but that now and then he
trembled at what lay before him. Writing to his
old friend, Mr. Waters, he says :
" I can t tell you how much I shrink from it.
St. George s was nothing to this. It seems to
demand so much, and I am conscious not only of so
little, but also of so many drawbacks in my temper
and many other things. . . . Those I have most
reason to trust have told me that I ought to allow
my judgment to bow before that of others, so I am
going to take the awful step, and I know you will
not forget me in my anxiety when you approach the
Throne of Grace." "
At last, early in February 1877, the General
Synod confirmed his nomination to the Bishopric,
and the prospect of consecration became immediate.
To his MOTHER.
" QUEENSTOWN, Feb. 1, 1 877.
" We got the telegrams, for they were many, on
Friday morning stating that the General Synod had
110 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
unanimously confirmed our nomination. I was rather
surprised, as I did not think the question would
come on quite so soon. Dudley telegraphed that
every one was earnest and unanimous, and this is
a great comfort. It seems to make the duty very
clear, and it is a great thing to relieve one s mind
when there have been so many misgivings as in my
case. The Primate at first wanted to have the
consecration on Quinquagesima, but I found we
could not get away in time, and begged for the
next Sunday.
"We have had a very nice quiet time up here,
though the weather has been very bad. I can t say
I minded much, as, after being all about the colonies,
a snug little house with one s wife and boy is very
pleasant. There is a delicious little church next
door, where we have morning prayer, and where
Clara and I can go in the middle of the day."
Besides getting some rest and quiet parish work
at Queenstown he was delighted to find a hospital
hard by, where he was able to indulge his lifelong
fondness for cheering and helping the sick. He says
of this latter experience that it was " very helpy," a
word which he seems to have coined, and which,
with another similar word, "resty," he frequently
used in his letters.
Like so many other men who have lived lives full
HIS CONSECRATION 111
of sympathy and love for others, he had a keen
sense of humour, and delighted in good stories.
Even in the course of a letter such as the above, he
cannot resist telling one. He had been on an excur
sion to some mines and was talking of the difficulties
and expense of transport ; he then says :
" Apropos of packing goods, Mr. K told me that
a man ran away from his wife on one or two diggings
in Australia without success, and finally bolted over
here. The first thing he saw when he had settled
down was his wife on a pack-horse being packed
up to him at Is. per lb., and she a heavy weight /"
His consecration was finally settled to take place
at Nelson on Sunday, February 18. Even so there
was hardly time for him and Mrs. Selwyn to get
down from Queenstown. They arrived late on the
16th, and two days afterwards he became one
of the youngest Bishops ever consecrated in our
Church. Writing to Mr. Charles Bill he alludes
to this :
"SOUTHERN CROSS (at sea), Oct. I, 1877.
" Thank you for your words, my dear old friend,
about my Bishopric. You, who know me so well,
will know that it is no seeking of mine that I was
enrolled among the ranks of what Mr. Alderman
Macarthur is pleased to call * the boy Bishops.
BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
Subjoined is the letter which he wrote to his
father on the evening of the day, when all was over,
and it is followed by an extract from a New Zealand
newspaper, giving a report of the touching sermon
preached on the occasion by Mr. Dudley, now Arch
deacon, at that time incumbent of the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre in Auckland.
To his FATHER.
"NELSON, February 18, 1877.
" MY DEAR FATHER,
" I don t know what I am to say to you about
to-day except that it is over, and that I stand pledged
to carry on as head the work which you and Bishop
Patteson began. We have had a glorious day, and
bright, hearty services. Owing to the floods down
south we missed the Ringarooma, which would have
brought us up on Wednesday, and only managed by
dint of very hard travelling to arrive late on Friday
night. But we were just in time for the closing of
the Synod, and, as they had invited me to take my
seat, I was able to make a little speech and thank
them for the confidence they had shown to me.
Yesterday it was hard to be quiet as people came to
call, but we had a nice quiet evening together, and
time to think and write a bit of a sermon I had to
HIS CONSECRATION 113
preach to-day. The main service was at 11 ; you
know the church well, and can imagine the surround
ings. Everything was beautifully arranged and
ordered. I sat just beneath the pulpit, close to the
steps of the chancel. Dudley preached a really ad
mirable sermon, full of tender allusion to you and
Bishop Patteson, and earnest words of caution and
help to myself. The Bishops of Auckland and
Dunedin presented me, and the Primate was most
kind and helpful, as indeed were they all. I do not
think you will want me to analyse my feelings, even
if I could do it. There are things which one feels
but cannot describe. Perhaps the greatest and most
comforting thought I had was one of rest. It was
done. The long, hard struggle was ended in my
accepting the post, and I was being sent forth with
all the power and blessing the Head of the Church
could bestow. I had a quiet time at the Communion
. . . and I was drawn very near you all. Perhaps
you were kneeling then in the chapel at Lichfield
(though it would have been very late), but at any
rate we were one in spirit. I like to think of your
joy as I hope it is, and to pray for your work
as one who has just begun to have part of the load
laid on him also. I have no doubt you have sent
your blessing to me ; will you and my mother accept
mine in return, the blessing of a son who is feeling
every day more and more what a debt he owes to his
father and mother, and who hopes to be stirred by
H
114 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
their love to follow the example they have set him ?
With Clara s fondest love to you both.
" Believe me,
" Your most loving and dutiful son,
"J. R. SELWYN,
"Bishop."
From " THE CHURCH CHRONICLE FOR THE DIOCESE OF
WELLINGTON," March 1, 1877.
" Mr. Selwyn showed his earnestness of purpose and
thorough sincerity in coming out to devote himself to the
service of his great Master amongst the savages of Melanesia,
and it would have been impossible to find for the office to
which he has been formally appointed a man whose heart was
more in his work, or who was in any way better fitted for the
trying and arduous life he has selected, than John Richardson
Selwyn.
" Mr. Dudley s sermon concluded as follows : And now let
us apply our thoughts more closely to the subject of the
Melanesian Mission brought under our special notice by the
solemn service in which we are engaged. The whole history
of that Mission is an illustration of love going forth in
self-sacrifice and proving a marvellous power. Look first at
its founder, the first and only Bishop of New Zealand, with
us in spirit as we all know this day, and with his whole heart
offering up his son for this work.
" In the same spirit it was, too, that Bishop Patteson was
enabled to sacrifice so many of his natural tastes and inclina
tions, and to throw himself and all his varied powers and gifts
heartily into this missionary enterprise. . . . This spirit it
was, this, and not his linguistic skill and other talents, which
gave him his marvellous power.
HIS CONSECRATION 115
" And this same spirit, when it went forth with power
from the martyr s grave in the Southern Seas, drew our friend
back from his mother-country to engage in this work, and
has ever since drawn after him from all parts of England such
abundant freewill offerings that the Melanesian Mission finds
itself (at least as compared with some Missions) opulent. . . .
" Brethren, what shall we say to him ? It seems to me we
can say nothing better than this : Go forth, brother Father
in God, as you will be ere this service is concluded to your
work of faith and labour of love among those your father cared
for and first sought out, to whom Bishop Patteson devoted
himself, and by whom his life was in ignorance taken. We
wish you good luck in the name of the Lord. We trust that
the life you this day surrender to Him more fully than ever
may long be spared for His service : that every needful gift
may be bestowed upon you : and that in all your perils, by
land and water, in weariness and painfulness, in the disappoint
ments you must experience, and in the difficulties, impossible
to be foreseen, which must arise, you may ever be cheered by
the sense of His love, who never leaves nor forsakes one faithful
servant. We will follow you ever, and those with you, with
our thoughts and our prayers and our freewill offerings. And
we ask you ever to remember that the work God is doing
through you is not confined to Melanesia, but that as the
signs of an Apostle are wrought out in you as we are
assured they will be and as the power of Christian love
is more and more shown in your complete self-consecration,
that power, even though its apparent effects be but slow
and tardy in Melanesia, will be felt here in New Zea
land ; it will be felt in Australia ; it will be felt by England.
Yes, wherever the English Church has faithful children,
men will bless God for you, and will be cheered in their
own troubles, and will be stirred to new devotion, and
will recognise in the reports of your labours one more token
of the reality of Christ s presence, and of the unfailing fulfil-
116 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
ment of His parting promise, I am with you alway, even
unto the end of the world/ "
A simultaneous service was held in Lichfield Cathe
dral at 11 P.M., so as to correspond as nearly as
possible to 11 A.M. in New Zealand. Even at this
late hour there met together a goodly number who
wished to join their prayers with those being offered
in the Antipodes for the new Bishop. At this ser
vice the Bishop of Lichfield prayed that his son
might unite boldness with caution, and might not be
puffed up by reason of his high office.
CHAPTER IX
DEATH OF MRS. J. R. SELWYN
THE next two or three months were spent in New
Zealand speaking and preaching for his Mission and
renewing many old friendships. The welcome he re
ceived as his father s son was a great delight to him.
To his FATHER.
"AUCKLAND, April 5, 1877.
" Many are the inquiries after you, and the ex
pressions of rejoicing at having a Bishop Selwyn
amongst them again. Sed quantum mutatus ab illo
Hectare ! "
Towards the end of April Bishop and Mrs. John
Selwyn with their eighteen months old son arrived
at Norfolk Island to take up the work there. The
two little girls had been left with their grandmother
at Lichfield, and sorely were they missed in the home
life which was resumed once more at St. Barnabas
Mission Station.
118 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
To his FATHER and MOTHER.
"NORFOLK ISLAND, April 27, 1877.
" On the Sunday we arrived I made my first ap
pearance in the chapel in the evening, Codrington
preaching about the continuity of office, and I saying
a few words at the end. The next day we all met
in the evening and talked over matters. This is a
great step, as we have rather too much isolation. . . .
When I held my first Confirmation in town [i.e., the
port where the Norfolk Islanders lived] there were
some thirty confirmed, and we had a very bright hearty
service. Altogether I think my episcopate here has
begun very brightly, and I hope we may keep it up."
The isolation he speaks of was a matter much in
his mind, and from time to time he tried various
methods of drawing the little Mission society more
closely together. A letter to his mother on this
subject may be quoted here, though it was riot
written till some years afterwards :
"NORFOLK ISLAND, Septuagesirna, 1879.
" Do you remember writing to me about our not
meeting together for prayer ? Well, ever since I
have been Bishop I have been trying to rectify this,
but it has been uphill work. First, I tried Bible
reading, and each of us to say something, but people
DEATH OF MRS. J. R. SELWYN 119
held their tongues, and I defy any one to go on by
himself addressing all his intimate friends ! . . .
Now, I think, we have solved the difficulty. It has
always been the rule here that on alternate Sundays
we have Mota Holy Communion, and on the Satur
day before, after church, the communicants stay and
are addressed by the leading man, Bishop, or who
ever he may be. I have taken the idea from this.
On the evening before our English Holy Communion
we meet together, one of us (in turn) addresses us,
and we have prayers for our work. The addresses
turn on work as much as possible, and on the Holy
Communion, so with fresh minds every week they do
not get stale. I hope you will approve of this."
In the autumn of 1877 he went a voyage to the
islands, and used some of his spare time on board
ship to write to those who had sent him congratula
tions on his consecration.
To MRS. A COURT-REPINGTON.
<" SOUTHERN CROSS (at sea), Oct. 31, 1877.
" I often wonder |who and what I am myself, and
at times fall, oh ! so fall, even from my standard of
what a bishop should be. I sign myself as Bishop
Patteson used to, and as I have no definite diocese
I think it is the best way. As to title I am supremely
indifferent. On board my sailors call me Bishop
120 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
generally, though the captain generally ^begins with
My Lord in the morning. Personally I like the
simple title best."
To BEV. F. E. WATERS.
" SOUTHERN CROSS (at sea), Nov. 2, 1877.
" Many thanks for your kind letters of congratula
tion and sympathy. I need the latter far more than
the former, as the responsibility presses very heavily
on me at times, though the blessings are often very
great. You and I know what responsibility on very
young shoulders means, don t we ? It is very pleasant
to find you remembering andf speaking of those days
as you do. I look back on them as some of the
happiest and certainly some of the most instructive
of my life. And the lessons of our short but very
full experience often come in to cheer and comfort
me now. Come what may, things cant look much
blacker than they did in the January days when we
used to serve out soup in the back kitchen, and then
go out to meet and and all the rest of them !
I always think I learnt the power of prayer more in
those first few months than I ever did before."
" Come what may " ! He little knew the terrible
blow so soon to fall upon him. Few men who ever
lived have had a keener delight in the quiet joys
and intimacies of family life than he : few men
DEATH OF MRS. J. R. SELWYN
blessed with wife and children have suffered such
limitations of their happiness. Of the six years
that he had been married a large part had been
spent in voyages to the islands, when his wife had
been left for months together at Norfolk Island ;
another large part had been spent by Mrs. Selwyn
on her visit to England ; leaving a singularly short
period during which husband and wife were
together. Added to this was the absence in
England of his two little girls, an absence which
he of all men felt most keenly. Yet were these
things offered gladly : not one word of grumbling,
not one word of grudging, can be found in all
his letters. He was now to be tried still more
severely. On December 30, 1877, Mrs. Selwyn died
at Norfolk Island, leaving a little baby, Clara Violet,
to bear her name for a few short months, and then
to rejoin her in her rest in Paradise.
There are one or two letters giving an account of
that sad day, and it is impossible not to be touched
by the simplicity and resignation, the certainty that
" all is well," and the never failing generosity with
which he offered even this his very heart to the
Master whom he served.
To the REV. F. E. WATERS.
"NORFOLK ISLAND, Feb. 6, 1878.
" I have only just been able to begin my letters
BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
again, as since my dear wife s death on December 30
I have been almost constantly engaged in nursing
Mr. Penny [one of the Mission staff, now Rector of
Wolverhampton], who was very ill ; and then a
vessel came in from Auckland, necessitating report
writing, &c. I can hardly yet realise the loss of
that dear bright life which was the light of my
home. One goes about and does one s ordinary
round of work and is so busy that there is hardly
time to think, but it is very terrible at times ; and
yet I am so very happy for her sake that I am
wonderfully upheld and comforted, and I can always
soothe myself by going to her grave. It was a
sudden and yet not an unlooked-for blow, as of
course we had prepared for her confinement, and
so, though the last few days were clouded by
delirium, I was not unhappy, as the most childlike
trust and love shone through it all, and one could
see her mind was stayed on God, and was therefore
in perfect peace."
To MRS. A COURT-REPINGTON.
"March 11, 1878.
" She fell asleep in my arms at twenty minutes
past ten on Sunday morning. I was so wonderfully
blessed. I went to service that morning and gave
the blessing, and in the evening, when we buried her,
I followed in my robes, and felt so strong that I
DEATH OF MRS. J. R. SELWYN 123
read the last part of the funeral service. It was a
sight to see how the people loved her. I think
nearly every one in the Island came to the funeral,
and the children of her classes sent me afterwards
five pounds to get some memorial of her. My girls
all take great interest, and every Sunday we have a
fresh wreath of flowers, and a fresh set of flowers
for the cross itself which lies on the grave, and they
stand round and sing hymns. And so I am won
derfully upheld."
What a beautiful picture this is ! The native
girls, for whose sake she had given up so much and
had worked so hard, who had been used to gather
round her when the Bishop was on his voyages
and sing the hymn for those at sea, now standing
by her early grave and comforting the husband she
had left by singing the sacred songs that she had
taught them.
Bishop John Selwyn never used the melancholy
language so frequently heard about death. When
speaking of the cousin to whom he was so deeply
attached as a boy, or of his dear friend Stephen
Fremantle, or, later on, of his father, his words are
an example of the really Christian manner in which
death should be spoken of. There are two letters
from him, both to Mrs. a Court-Eepington, written
nearly twenty years apart, which bear witness to
this :
124 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
" ST. GEORGE S VICARAGE, WOLVERHAMPTON,
"Aug. M, 1872.
" I only hope you are having as lovely a day for
the funeral as we are here, with bright sun over
head and all nature laughing round. I never think
there is much sorrow in a funeral. There is such a
resty feeling about it all, such a sense of lifting
upwards in the service, that I am sure it is really less
sad than any other part of the death."
To MRS. 1 COTJRT-KEPINGTON.
" 18 DE VERE GARDENS, W., Oct. 18, 1891.
" In God s mercy the brightness of the light from
the other world grows, as the darkness of the sorrow
ever lessens. The departure of a very loved soul
wrings our hearts for a while, but there is nothing,
not even the words of Christ Himself though of
course it is by the power of those words that it acts
nothing which so leads one s own soul to contem
plate the happiness of those who are gone and makes
us try to follow them.
" I like to think of you by that quiet grave which
I am sure now will be able to soothe not sadden you,
and your own St. Luke will still be a beloved phy
sician, and tell you of Him who raised Jairus
daughter, or better still that most wonderful of all
stories for its marvellous simplicity, of Him who saw
DEATH OF MRS. J. R. SELWYN 125
the lonely mother and had compassion on her. I
wonder whether this will all sound commonplace to
you ? I hope not, for indeed it is very real to me.
My own grave at Norfolk Island has never for four
teen years lacked its flowers, and I lay them now
very much as a thank-offering for all that grave has
taught me. May it be so with you, dear friend, and
may you at the end find that the loss that seemed
so terrible has been in reality a blessing to you
both. It must be so."
On February 18 he consecrated the churchyard
where he had laid his wife. The letter describing
this brings to mind the incident related as happen
ing when he went out in 1866 to visit his parents in
New Zealand and rescued a little boy under similar
circumstances. It must be noted, however, that the
word " boy " as used in Melanesia simply means a
native, and does not refer to his age.
To REV. F. E. WATERS.
" NORFOLK ISLAND ,
" On the day [anniversary] of my consecration we
consecrated the cemetery where my dear wife rests.
It was a very solemn little service. The clergy
walked in procession round the graveyard while all
our boys and girls sang the 23rd Psalm and the
c Nunc Dimittis. Then we had a lesson, and finally
126 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
a very pretty hymn written by Mr. Codrington. I
only just got back in time for it, as on that day one
of our boys was carried away in a small canoe, in
which he was fishing, right out to sea. The news
came while we were at dinner. I rushed off at once,
got a boat, and rushed down to the spot where he
was last seen. . . . We found him some three miles
off the land. He was sitting on the canoe, which
was bottom up. There was tremendous excitement
among our boys when he was brought up here."
On the following Easter Day he wrote to his
mother from on board the Southern Cross at sea :
" You can easily believe what a different Easter
Day this has been to any that I have ever had yet.
Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the
first-fruits of them that slept, pervades every
thought and every service. . . . The separation now
is very different from anything one ever felt before,
and yet it is nearer. Set your affection on things
above seems easier, too, and surely God in His
mercy means it to be easier when He takes away one
who was so great an earthly help. . . . We began
by an early Communion at seven o clock, and I said
to Penny that I think we and those at Norfolk
Island were probably the first who began to keep
Easter Day in all the world, as there are hardly
any churches eastward of us except those in New
DEATH OF MRS. J. R. SELWYN 127
Zealand, and hardly any of them begin before eight
o clock."
Meantime Mr. Still, knowing well the anxiety
that would be felt in England about the Bishop s
welfare, wrote to Mrs. Selwyn (the Bishop s mother)
as follows :
" NORFOLK ISLAND, April 9, 1 878.
" All is hurry now that the Southern Cross has come in ;
but I thought you would like just a line to say how our
Bishop is on leaving for the Islands. He has been wonderfully
well all this time, going about his work in the old hardworking,
cheerful spirit. I fancy it is even harder for him now that
the first strain is over, but he bears up most bravely. He
very seldom speaks gloomily of himself, though he sometimes
says it seems to get worse as time gets on."
More than one allusion will have been noticed in
the foregoing letters to the love of flowers which
seems to have characterised the native girls at the
school on Norfolk Island, and must have had a
civilising influence. Not only is the use of flowers
for adorning graves repeatedly mentioned, but
Bishop John Selwyn speaks of the brides at the not
infrequent weddings which took place " looking so
nice in their print dresses, with their hair dressed
with white flowers." In another letter he says :
"We thought much of dear Bebie on Monday
[her birthday], and the girls made such a pretty
128 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
wreath for her picture. After it had hung there
awhile I took it off to her mother s cross. I thought
the child would like it as it were coming from her."
This year, 1878, was probably the saddest in the
whole of the Bishop s life. In the course of the
spring he went off for a voyage among the islands,
staying for some time at various places. Amongst
these was Maewo, and here he was to receive
another blow. He had left his only son, Stephie,
and little Clara Violet, the baby, in safe keeping at
Norfolk Island. Of the latter he wrote that she
was " a very bonny baby " when he came away.
He was now to learn that God had seen fit to
take His lamb into His eternal arms. He thus
describes the news being brought to him :
To MRS. A COURT-REPINGTON.
"MAEWO, July 18, 1878.
" The boy who came up to my little house at
Maewo shrank from telling me the news, and said
only, Your child is dead. I gasped out Which?
I felt as if I could not spare Stephie, and it was a
great joy almost when I heard it was the little one.
Not that I did not want my little Violet to keep
alive her mother s name ; but I could spare her, and
perhaps nay, certainly God is merciful and has
taken her from the evil to come."
DEATH OF MRS. J. R. SELWYN 129
This chapter shall close with a beautiful letter
written to his mother while on this voyage :
" SOUTHERN CROSS (at sea),
" SOUTH OF SANTA CRUZ, June 8, 1878.
" I liked reading of the joyous Christmas that the
children had, though it was a strange contrast to
the sad hard fight with death which was going on
in our little room at Norfolk Island. But they
were spared that wondering awe which attends a
child s first meeting with illness and death, and that
wistful longing which would have come over them
for the mother who was gone. It was well. One
likes to wonder if her spirit was allowed to cross
those 16,000 miles of space and look down on the
children she missed so much, and yet gave up so
freely. It would, to our thinking, be a fit reward.
And yet one knows nothing of conditions of life
between here and the day of judgment, and even if
such glimpses were allowed, one cannot separate the
thought of them from the longing which such a
glimpse would give if vouchsafed to a soul living
here. Does death so change the conditions of our
being that such a sight would be pure joy ? We
cannot tell. And yet even to us there is more of
joy than of sorrow in the thought of the spirit
mother watching Rebie dancing into the room as
the New Year, or hearing Pearlie singing the
Christmas hymn. It is very very wonderful.
130 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
" June 12. I meant to have written to you last
night when you were all assembled probably at
Eton for St. Barnabas, but I went to sleep. It
was not for want of thinking of you, though, as I
thought of little else all day, and told my boys in
the evening how year after year the Eton party had
helped our work, and I told them also how I had
first heard for certain that we were to go out at
that meeting, and how Clara had determined to
come as a daughter of consolation. Do you re
member that day, mother ? How well I remember it
the pouring wet, and the pew-opener who would
lead us close to you, and then your little note, and
above all I remember my darling s earnest though
tearful face as she pressed my hand and gave herself
up to that work from which she never flinched no,
not once. Ajid then we looked together and spoke
of the figure of our Lord in glory, who with open
arms seemed to call us on. The real arms have
closed round her now, and she has learnt, I earnestly
believe, what peace He can give."
CHAPTER X
DEATH OF HIS FATHER VISIT TO ENGLAND
THE letters written by Bishop John Selwyn to his
mother and to one or two other specially favoured
correspondents are wonderful for the fulness of
detail and graphic description, which make his life,
whether at Norfolk Island or on voyage among the
islands, extraordinarily vivid. But it is impossible
not to be equally struck with his reticence. Con
versation with any of those who worked by his
side reveals how often and how seriously he was
attacked by malaria and other illnesses due to the
climate. His own reference to such things is
always of the slightest, and frequently coupled with
some joke or cheery word which might do away
with any anxiety on his behalf. Thus he would
say:
" We have been back from the Islands about a
month, two weeks of which I have spent indoors
under a dragon of a doctor who was very savage
132 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
when I got ague a second time through going about
too much."
Or,
" Since I last wrote I have had one attack of
ague, and hope I am getting rid of it. The result
has been oceans of tonics and quinine : which I
always forget, and the doctor looks reproachfully at
my full bottle ! "
On this voyage in the summer 1878 he was (to
add to his other troubles) by no means free from
illness, and in the following note there is the first
allusion to anything going wrong with his feet, in
which, and in his legs, he was afterwards to suffer
so severely :
" I had an attack of ague the other day, but that
has passed over and I am very well ; only my foot
hurts me sometimes."
But this terribly eventful time had yet another
sorrow in store for him. In a totally unexpected
and accidentally abrupt manner he learnt that his
father was dead.
To his MOTHER.
"MAEWO, July 2, 1878.
" MY DARLING MOTHER,
" I have come down here for news, and news
I have got. How can I pour out my heart to you
DEATH OF HIS FATHER 133
or tell you how you live in my heart, and how I long
to comfort you ? I could do that, as I have passed
through the same great sorrow myself, and now I
can hardly realise that the end of that grand un
selfish life has come at last, and the crown won. You
have endured many a separation, and He will help
you to endure this. But how I long to be with you !
Perhaps some telegram may come to say that you
want me, and then I shall come at once. I am
writing on board a labour vessel where I have only
heard that my dear father is dead. The agent said
to me just as the man did about Bishop Patteson,
By-the-by, who is that Bishop Selwyn who is dead
in England ? And all I have seen is that Maclagan
succeeds him. . . .
" I wrote to him [his father] only last night, and I
shall let the letter go, as you will like to see it.
May God pardon me for the sorrow my carelessness
has caused him, though I rejoice to think that the
few last years I have been some help and comfort
to him if only by my absence [i.e., his taking up the
work in Melanesia]. I cannot write here, and must
wait till I get home to my little house at Maewo,
when I can think it all over, and weigh what I ought
to do. . . . May God guide vou and help you and
be with your children. I can t bear to think of that
dear old home broken up.
" So grows in heaven our store. God is trying
us heavily this year ; I hope it may be for our
134 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
eternal good. Now I must try and carry on his
work, that what he began may go on as he would
have made it. That is his legacy to me, and please
God I will do it. Give my fondest love to our
chicks.
" Your most loving and dutiful son,
J. R. SELWYN, Bishop."
At this point in his letter he wrote out in full
the Collect for All Saints Day, and the passage in
the prayer for the Church Militant, beginning with
" We give Thee humble and hearty thanks."
" Distance softens sorrow wonderfully. I feel as
if he was nearer to me now as I sit alone in my little
hut at Maewo with a great gale roaring overhead at
midnight, and all my love goes swelling out towards
him, and the acknowledgment of what he was to
me, without the sense of blankness which one feels
when one is very near those who are taken. That
comes when I look at his letters and think that I
shall nevermore see those beautifully straight lines,
and well formed letters, and trace the love growing
stronger between us day by day. I did hope, too,
that I might have been allowed to officiate with him
once as bishop. We must wait now.
" July 4. I have been pondering all day on what
I ought to do, and I think I ought to go home, if
DEATH OF HIS FATHER 135
only I could get there now. It seems it ought bo
be now rather than later, as I shall be able to help
you to settle your plans, if only I could get home in
the next few months.
" I pray so earnestly, though not as earnestly as
I could wish, for you, mother. To-day I went down
to bathe and prayed by the side of the stream in
the glorious evening light, and seemed so near you
all. This work seems now his special legacy to me
his and Bishop Patteson s and yet at times I feel
very cold and dead about it.
" My mind is very full of you and plans as I
trudge along the narrow paths, and I hate the
thought of all the business I shall have to do if I
show my face in England. That horrid S.P.G. will
send me to preach at least half a dozen sermons, for
which I have very little taste ; I must try and write
some on board."
He frequently poured out his thoughts, especially
on matters that moved him deeply, in verse ; and,
though most of the poems he composed were,
obviously not meant for publication, yet here and
there some lines have been preserved which give a
clearer insight into his feelings on some special
occasion. A good example of this is found in the
verses he wrote on hearing of his father s death.
136 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
" Alone I stood upon the shore,
Where oft my father stood before,
When first he came to plant the Cross,
Disdaining all the world calls loss,
Contented for the love of God
To follow where his Master trod,
And seek, where clustering islands hedge
The ocean highway s farthest edge,
The souls whom Jesus would compel
To throng His marriage festival.
" I felt alone : for, though my boys *
Whispered in sympathy, our joys
Are deeper far than they can know,
And deeper, therefore, is our woe.
They scarcely feel the ties of home
Which bind us wheresoe er we roam,
Nor that fond link of mutual love,
The mystery of God above,
Since therein unto us is given
To know the Father s love in heaven :
" But loneliest then, when came the thought
Of all the ship s return had brought
Of tenderest sympathy, the shower
Of love a wife knows best to pour.
Ah ! then a double blankness pressed
With silent force upon my breast.
But for one moment : then the light
Burst forth across my faithless sight,
Why should I wish my darling here
To share my sorrow ? Surely there
She shares his joy. To her is given
To welcome him within that heaven
* Melanesians.
DEATH OF HIS FATHER 137
Wherein the Lord s redeemed rest,
With His eternal presence blest.
The daughter did but go before ;
The father follows : on that shore
Our store increases evermore !
" I need not mourn the ship s return :
Thoughts such as these more truly burn
With comfort than the written line,
For that is human, these divine.
These are the messengers of love
Which bind us to our home above,
These the communion of God s saints
To cheer us when our spirit faints,
And bid us think that they and we
Are one in Christian unity."
He quickly determined that it was necessary that
he should return to England. There was his
mother s future to arrange for, and there was the
guardianship of some relatives which now fell on
him and required his attention. On board the boat
by which he sailed to Australia en route for England
he wrote to announce his arrival, in the course of
which letter he says :
To his MOTHER.
" SS. WOTONGA (at sea), Sep. 1, 1878.
" On Sunday evening we discovered a vessel under
the land, which turned out to be the Dayspring, the
Presbyterian Mission vessel, which was cruising
round. I went on board, and they were very civil,
138 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
and asked me to hold service. This was rather
formidable, as I had no idea what a Presbyterian
service was like. However, I thought of my father,
and used all the Church prayers I could remember,
and read a chapter of the Bible, on which I held
forth. Then we had a good talk, and they told me
a little about my father, and gave me a copy of
Punch, with lines to his memory. I then learnt for
the first time when he died."
On arrival in Australia he got letters telling him
much detail of which he had hitherto been ignorant.
c5
and learnt of the project of " Selwyn College" as a
memorial to his father. It should be mentioned that
on this voyage home he brought his little son Stephie
w T ith him, acting as his nurse, and looking after him
in a way that greatly touched his fellow passengers.
Here is an extract from a letter written at this time:
To his MOTHER.
"BATHURST, Sep. 30, 1878.
" I like the idea of a College as at Keble, but it
will take a vast deal of money. However, Bishop
Abraham does not seem at all doubtful about it.
You will like Stephie, and I hope to have him
thoroughly in hand by the time we get home. He
fights me stubbornly (like his father) in the most
comical way, as if I was one of his girl nurses, and
VISIT TO ENGLAND
wonders that I don t give way. My love to my
darlings. I can t believe that next month I may
almost say, if God will, I shall see them. Tell them
that daddy won t be long after this, and they must
have their best kisses ready for him and Stephie."
At last the travellers, the Bishop and his baby
boy, arrived at Lichfield. It was nearly six years
since he had seen his mother, and several since he
had seen his little girls, who were now six and nearly
four years old respectively. It is not therefore sur
prising that they had almost forgotten him, and
relate that they felt " dreadfully shy " as they sat
up to what seemed a very late hour awaiting his
coming. They, with their grandmother, were staying
with Bishop Abraham close to the Cathedral at
Lichfield, during the time that the house in the
Close, in which Mrs. Selwyn now lives, was being
prepared.
Is it not possible to picture the scene ? The
silent Close ; the dark December night ; the listening
for the sound of wheels ; the stream of light as the
door is thrown open ; the sturdy figure of the Bishop
bearing in his arms his little Stephie (wrapped in
shawls against the cold of an English winter), and
hurrying forward with eager eyes that hungered for
a sight of his widowed mother and his motherless
girls. But his own words are best, written just a
year afterwards :
140 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
To his MOTHER.
" SOUTHERN CROSS (at sea) DEC. 6, 1879-
" Look at that date, mother, and see if you
remember it. I was just arriving at Lichfield, and
can see the picture now so vividly the pretty
drawing-room looking so warm and bright the two
shy chicks sitting up to see daddy, and the dear old
mother in the corner with them. And that is a
whole year ago ! It seems ten and yet only yester
day. ..? Well, it was worth the long journey and the
hard racket but it was all too short. And then,
dear mother, I renewed my lease of you. We have
always been doing that in our lives : in 1861, 1866,
and now again in 1878 ; and each time has brought
its own help to me."
A Lichfield lady used at that time to come in as
governess to the two little girls, and from her pen
there is a further account of the impression made by
Bishop John Selwyn. It is contained in a short
sketch of him written for his daughters since his
death. This lady says :
" How well I remember my first meeting with him in Bishop
Abraham s dining-room ! He came in with you two girls
clinging one to each hand and Stephie on his shoulder, and
dear grandmamma bringing up the happy little procession.
I can recall the strong active figure, and the beautiful dancing
VISIT TO ENGLAND 141
light in his eyes, as well as the rested happy look in his
mother s face, and I love to remember that my first meeting
with him included his thanksgiving in the Cathedral for his
safe arrival. His first request to me was, Come with us all
to give thanks, 1 and my last meeting with him included that
happy Easter Communion with you all in 1897 in grand
mamma s little room. So my first and last memories of him
are of fc giving thanks," which surely was the very key-note of
the bright, joyous spirit none of us can ever dissociate from
memories of him."
He was endowed with a large measure of that
great gift from God, a natural love of children. No
wonder, then, that his heart went out in special
fulness to these little maidens, and that they in
return were devoted to him. Long separation such
as fell to their lot could not] fail to make some little
difference, not in the measure of their love, but in
the complete and absolute freedom and familiarity
which insensibly grows up between parents and
children who are always together. He, when he
was with them, was always a little bit afraid of
spoiling them, and they on their part were always
a little bit in awe of him. Possibly his impetuous
nature, and the quickness with which he would be
" down upon " anything he did not like, accounted
to some extent for this, though the impression thus
caused would invariably be removed at once by the
return of his sweet smile and the gentle explanation
which followed. Of his treatment of his children, a
capital picture is drawn by the same lady :
BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
" The one thing that impressed me most deeply in his love
for you all was his strong sense of your need of discipline, and
the firmness with which he always maintained it in spite of your
being so young and his having so short a time with you.
I think he feared being either too indulgent or too severe,
but to me this side of his love was very impressive. He once
said to me quite sadly : I fear my children will only re
member me as a big playfellow. 1 * I don t know what I an
swered, I only know that to me his treatment of you was a
deep lesson, and that all my life long I shall feel that my belief
in the Fatherhood of God owes much of its strength and
clearness to the exhibition of his fatherly love and care for you.
Two pictures of his dealing with his children s faults
come before me, both connected with the same child. Once,
when first he came, we were all sitting in the drawing-room at
Bishop Abraham s. I was in a low easy chair, with my feet a
little stretched out. One of you little girls stumbled over
them, and your father told you to say, I beg your pardon.
These words were exceedingly repugnant to you, and you
utterly refused. He could not of course pass it over, but in
a room full of people it was not an easy matter to insist.
However, insist he did. He picked you up in his arms, and
standing in front of me dictated the following speech : I m
a very heavy little personage, and I came down on your toes
like a cartload of bricks, and I humbly beg your pardon.
This you had to repeat bit by bit, and every one laughed except
poor you and I ; but when it had been done with many sobs
you were kissed and comforted, and it was all said with his
arms holding you tightly. The other time was a sterner
rebuke. He overheard a piece of childish rudeness and was
really angry, but, as soon as you had apologised, in your own
words this time, he once more picked you up and let you sob
out your grief in his arms."
His love of, and power with, children, was a
LOVE OF CHILDREN 143
marked feature of his whole life. References have
already been made to the happy way he had of
dealing with the boys and girls in Norfolk Island.
It will not be out of place to quote just one or two
more here. In 1888 there was a severe epidemic
of meningitis in the school, and he wrote to his
mother as follows :
"Meanwhile we have to try and keep up the
boys spirits in every way, and if you had seen my
small class this morning you would not have
thought they were very bad. I have a long stick
with which I whack them in fun, and they all love
this stick dearly. If I leave my class in another
room one of them is sure to appear with it, and if it
is mislaid another makes its appearance next school
unfailingly. Then I have a two-pronged stick of
portentous length. Some one proposed breaking
off a prong, but the girls rushed at the proposer
and said, No, you mustn t do that : the Bishop likes
licking us with two sticks ! Isn t it jolly having
people like that to deal with ?"
In 1881 he was staying in the Island of Mota, and
he draws an exceedingly pretty picture of the
games of the native children and of his own share
in them :
" They have a most excellent form of prisoners
base which big and little can play at together. ... I
144 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
wish you could see one or two of the lithe little
forms. There is one child in particular, about
Pearlie s age and size, with a little short petticoat,
who is the picture of grace and life. It is quite a
study to see her with her eyes open wide, and
parted lips, and body all poised to spring back,
advancing to challenge the other side. I could
not resist one evening as the old nursery feeling
came over me, and out I rushed to join them. It
was such a pleasure to the chicks. Those opposite
made a dead set at me at once, while my side, and
especially the young girl aforesaid, took pride in
nursing me through the intricacies of the game.
One little dot set her whole heart on catching the
Bishop, and was always after me when I tried to
get out. I tried hard to humour her, but could not
manage it gracefully. The children are simply
marvellous in their good temper. Palmer and I
have been examining all the schools. . . . The
children, when they pass creditably, get a piece of
print for a petticoat, and it was pretty to see
them sitting about under the trees sewing them
(very badly, I must confess). . . . Fancy the
delight, when your only garment is a yard of blue
print, in winning another of red stuff, and then
making it into a real petticoat, all your own work,
with the hem outside, which has to be done again,
and then having the whole inspected by the Bishop
with much shyness and equal pride. . . . My heart
LOVE OF CHILDREN 145
does go out to meet these little ones, and I think
they feel that it does."
Again, after revisiting England, on one occasion
he wrote to his mother :
" Well, it is a very great blessing to have been
home and have had it all, as it is very humanising
and softening. I can see the little children stop
and look at me because my eyes look lovingly at
them for my chickies sake, and other children whom
I play with make great friends on the strength of
my little women at home."
During the last years of his life, when a con
firmed cripple, children were a special delight and
solace. When in London he would have himself
carried into a ward of the Victoria Hospital for
Children, and there hold a simple service for them.
In Cambridge many little ones still remember his
delightful stories. He would gather them round
him, no matter how distinguished the rest of the
company might be, and begin a yarn half fairy
tale, half fact gathered during his travels of which
shipwreck and rescue by the aid of wonderful big
white birds not infrequently formed part. These
stories were too often interrupted (as much to his
own annoyance as to that of the children) by some
ecclesiastical female who was " simply dying to
have a word with the Bishop."
K
146 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
During the short six months he was in England
in 1878 and 1879, he was continually in request for
sermons and meetings, and spent a great deal of the
time, which he would have wished to give to his
mother and children, in pleading for the Melanesian
Mission. This was a considerable trial, and people
were not always very considerate in putting forward
claims upon his time. " For all that, " says one who
saw much of him just then, " I never remember
seeing or hearing the slightest trace of impatience
or irritation on the subject." Nothing ever seems
to have been too great or too small a thing for him
to give.
At last the dreaded moment came when he must
leave all the love and happiness he had been enjoy
ing and start back for Melanesia. Just at that
period of life when the affections are perhaps the
strongest he was only thirty-five he had to
leave all whom he loved behind him, for little
Stephie was now to remain in England with his
sisters. Out there in Norfolk Island there was not
one of his own flesh and blood to welcome him
only a quiet grave with its cross of flowers. No
wonder he wrote to Mr. Bill on the voyage of the
bitterness of the parting :
"SS. GARONNE (at sea), June 25, 1879-
<c Many thanks for your letter, which reached me
just before I started. I don t know how I got over
RETURN TO MELANESIA 147
the next day, and especially the next night. I felt
as if my heart would break in the evening, or my
head go. But, thank God, I am all right again
now."
To a man with his sunny disposition and love for
his fellow creatures the feeling of desolation could
not last long. Amongst other things his delight in
sailors came to his rescue. Here are some extracts
from letters to his mother written on board the
Garonne.
"June 24, 1879-
" The passengers are a very nice pleasant set, and
our prayers are really a sight to behold. To-day I
should say we had thirty, or even more. Sang the
Te Deum very well. This is most thankworthy.
Also the sailors let me go down to them, and we
had some forty in the forecastle last Sunday even-
ing."
"OFF CAPE BREDA, July 31, 1879.
" I was seeing the sick wife of one of our passen
gers (the same poor woman who lost her two children
the other day), and while I was there her little boy
came in, and with great triumph produced a paper of
sugarplums which had been given him and which
was for mother. Then, when he had given them
her, he climbed up into the berth and put his arm
round her, and got hers coiled round him. It was a
148 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
very pretty picture, but I could not help thinking
how my boy would never have that most blessed of
loves which exist between a mother and her son.
You see, mother, I know a great deal of that."
The Southern Cross seems to have been sent to
meet him, and convey him to the Islands en route
for Norfolk Island. There is a letter to his mother
in which the hunger for a sight of the little ones
he had left cannot be suppressed.
" SOUTHERN CROSS (at sea) Sep. 26, 1879-
" I do not know when you thought of moving from
Torquay ; still, I should think you would be nearly
home by this time, and I look at the little photograph
of the ugly house [Mrs. Selwyn s residence in the
Close, Lichfield] in its ugly aspect, and think how
lovely I should think it if I could see the little faces
looking out of the night-nursery window."
He was unfortunate enough to be taken seriously
ill with ague just at this time, a fact which he
ascribed to having lost his acclimatisation during his
visit to England :
To MRS. A COURT-REPINGTON.
" SOUTHERN CROSS (at anchor), Oct. 18, 1879.
" I have only just begun to think again of writing,
RETURN TO MELANESIA 149
as I had to put my letter away again as I was very
poorly, and then out came (what I think had been
threatening for a long time, as I never felt so
wretched and listless) a bad attack of ague. It was
a little more than ague, that is, I never was free from
it and had a continual heat and partial delirium."
CHAPTER XI
MELANESIA
As has been stated in the Preface, it is not intended
here to write a history of the Melanesian Mission,
or even of those years when Bishop John Selwyn
was at its head. That is left for another hand to do.
At the same time it is necessary that some idea
should be given of the work he did, and the sort of
places he visited, and people with whom he had to
do. This shall be divided into two parts : the first,
consisting of a number of extracts from letters
written at various times and from various places,
which may serve to give a general impression of his
life in Melanesia ; the second, of an account of one
or two of the most important actions and missionary
feats accomplished by him during his career.
His reluctance to speak much in his letters about
his frequent illnesses, or the gradual undermining of
his constitution, has been already mentioned. He
was equally reticent concerning the risks he ran on
numbers of occasions when landing among strange
MELANESIA 151
and possibly hostile natives. It is certain that, while
making as light as possible of such things, he often
wrote farewell letters to those he loved in case any
thing happened to him. These letters were seldom
sent, but one will be found, as an example, in the
account of his going ashore at Gaieta (Florida) to try
to persuade the chief to deliver up the murderers
of Lieutenant Bower. One thing is quite certain :
he never allowed any one to incur any danger that he
was not willing to share, and when possible he would
land first alone, and take the whole risk himself.
These things will come out clearly in the following
extracts, as will also the character and habits of the
islanders for whose salvation he was working.
To his MOTHER.
" MAEWO, June 26, 1878.
" I have just come back to such a terrible thing,
that it makes one s blood run cold to think of it. I
had been for a splendid walk in which all sense of
seediness produced by three wet days had passed
away, and had come back to find the people had
brought me heaps of water, and the old gentleman
of the place had come up and drawn me aside to show
me three yams he had been digging for me. My
boys were boiling the water for tea, my school
children were hanging about waiting for school
altogether it was as simple, bright a little scene as
152 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
one wanted to see, when I heard that a woman had
died at the next village. They had not told me of
her illness, and it was no good going down, so I sat
quietly down to tea and entertained an old fellow
who had been very civil to me yesterday. All of a
sudden one of my boys looked up and said, Yes,
poor woman ! Who ? said I. The mother of
the woman who died/ said he quietly ; * they have
stamped on her and thrown her into the grave, and
she was not dead Can you imagine anything more
terrible ? All this had been going on not 300 yards
from where I was sitting. However, it is not quite
so bad as they made out, although bad enough. She
had implored them to take her life, as she did not
want to survive her daughter, so they bound the
living and the dead together, and then trod the
mother to death. It is the first time such a thing
has been done in this part of the island, though it is
common in the southern part. The deed was done
by her own sons, and I suppose they thought they
did her good service. One can imagine it all. A
woman here has very little that makes life worth
living at the best of times, and if sorrow is super-
added she may well say let it end, even though
her creed is nothing after death.
" I am very well, but nearly eaten by mosquitoes,
and the rats are something wonderful. They have
lived on my biscuits, got a bit of glass out of the
MELANESIA 153
front of the biscuit-box where it was only slightly
broken and lived on that; and now that I have
stopped both these sources of food I am mightily
afraid lest they should live on me. If you hear of
your son as a second Bishop Hatto, please do not
think that it is because I oppress the poor. On the
contrary, I had the oldest man hereabouts to tea to
night, and fed him with haricot mutton and biscuit,
and heard his story of the coming of the first ship,
which they thought was a spirit and brought the
ghosts of dead black men, which had shadows that
you could see through ; and I have bound up four
bad legs and one bad neck ; so that though I have
stowed away the biscuits in a box I don t deserve the
fate of the Rhenish Bishop."
To MRS. A COURT-REPINGTON.
" MOTA, Oct. 18, 1880.
" I spent my five weeks while the ship was at
Norfolk Island on (to us) new ground at the Torres
Islands, very nice, noisy, simple-minded folk. They
were afflicted with a terrible sort of ulcer, principally
caused by dirt, but partly, I fancy, by deterioration
of blood. It was terrible. One day I dressed thirty-
seven bad legs ; and there were others so bad that
they would not let me touch them, and prepared to
die : and, indeed, I could do nothing for them. I
think I saved a good many, and the people were very
154 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
good, and cleaned up their houses, washed their
bandages, and generally kept themselves cleaner.
But I longed for Sister Dora s skill and power, and
sometimes for her appliances."
This reference to Sister Dora comes naturally from
the pen of a Staffordshire man, for though not by
birth, yet by all associations, he was closely connected
with that county.
From these same Torres Islands he wrote a long
letter to his mother, in which he laments that he
had not the enthusiasm of his father or of Bishop
Patteson, and thanks God for the sense of duty which
kept him up to his work. He ends up these thoughts
with the following rather pathetic words :
" I think the real truth is that I dislike being
Bishop. I shrank from it at first, and the liking has
never come. But in I am and on I must, which
is what my father would say."
His estimate of himself was full of humility, but
lacking in true appreciation. Had the enthusiasm
been absent, no amount of mere sense of duty could
have carried him forward to the great achievements
of his life. Besides which, there is evidence that
when incapacitated for the work he realised only too
well his devotion to it. The very nature too of his
work was such that, unless he had had the true love
and ardour for it, he would have never been able to
MELANESIA 155
sustain its vicissitudes. He once said in a letter to
his mother that he sometimes compared his life with
that of an ordinary bishop, whose interests are
usually general rather than particular ; whereas
there, besides the care of the churches, there was
the care, bodily and spiritually, of every individual,
and this was never absent from his mind. The
following description of a day s work in Florida will
illustrate this :
To MRS. LONG INNES.
" BOLI, FLORIDA, Nov. 16, 1881.
" Shall I tell you what a day is like here ? To
day, for instance ? Well, I got up at 6.30, and
went to my tub, which is behind a screen outside.
Thence I yelled to have the bell rung, and then
trotted off to school. . . . Here I bothered two
girls out of their life by my individual attention to
their reading. Then prayers. Then back to break
fast. This is a great event, and really it is very
nice save that one gets awfully tired of preserved
meat. . . . Before I get to this repast I am seized
on by a woman to do her baby s leg, and generally
there are two or three other legs and an ear or two.
Then I eat, and then I smoke a cigarette, buy any
thing, settle anything that has to be settled before
I get to work. But as the Bishop s house is com
fortable and contains sundry good things, people
156 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
who are not going to work think it rather a nice
place to sit, so in drop two or three friends. Now,
they are all very well when I want to learn Florida,
but I don t want them in the morning, so I am in a
difficulty as I don t like to kick them out. But I
generally go out myself; then, when they have
evaporated, I slip back, and down goes a mat before
my door and my oak is sported, and then to my
Greek Testament. To-day the mat was raised and I
was summoned to a child in strong convulsions. I
wish you had been by, as you would have known
what to do. I rushed off with the kettle and
mustard, and put the child at once into a hot bath
in a bucket. But the fits have been going on all
day, and I am afraid it won t live out the night.
As the father was a Christian I baptized it. I
stayed there a long time and got it a little warmer,
but that was all. Then back to my reading, and so
till it was so hot and I was so sleepy I could read
no more. Then a siesta. Then I woke up and
found some boys and went for a good walk. Oh !
so pretty along the beach of firm white sand, with
overhanging trees, and orchids arid ferns on every
trunk, and the white surf breaking on the reef out
side, and then rolling across the lagoon to break in
ripplets at your feet. . . . Home, to find thatjsome-
body in his zeal had rung the bell on a half- holiday,
so the school was all hard at work. Prayers in the
open air, as it was nearly dark. Then dinner, and
MELANESIA 157
then two new candidates for baptism to gladden my
heart. What do you think of that for a quiet day
in the dreaded Solomons ? "
This day, as so many others, ended by his writing
several sheets of letters, and this addition to his
work should always be borne in mind. From the
letters to his mother written during this same expe
dition two extracts must be given as illustrating the
feelings and thoughts of the natives on the one hand
and of himself on the other :
To his MOTHER.
" BOLI, FLORIDA, Sunday, April 2, 1882.
" What a bore self is ! I am always debating about
things. How far one is bound to consider oneself:
e.g., one takes one s waterproof sheet and a plaid,
and hears one of one s small boys shivering next
door. Ought one without any hesitation to give
him the sheet ? I am on a matted floor, mind, and
should not get damp, but I may get skin disease.
One is always having St.-Martin-of-Tours sort of
questions, and I am afraid I do not answer them in
his way. In fact, I think the tendency of this life
is to make one selfish, as one has to be constantly
asserting oneself.
All these people are such beggars. They are to
158 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
one another, and they carry it out fully to strangers.
Everybody who comes to you is only thinking what
he can get. * Bishop, this is somebody s brother,
Bishop, this is the uncle of a boy at Norfolk
Island, &c. If it is not begging it is buying, and
if it is not buying it is coming into one s den and
making remarks on everything one has got. After
a time one can keep people well within bounds, but
in newish places one has to live in a constant state
of repressing, which is disagreeable. The chiefs are
worst of all. I went at the man here the other
day. Lifa, said I, you went up in my vessel to
Norfolk Island the other day, did you not ? and you
stayed at Norfolk Island, did you not ? and you
came back again, and you had presents there : how
much food had you to buy on board? He said,
4 None. Then said I, I have been in your country
for a fortnight, and you have not sent me a single
yam, but have begged everything you could. Is
that like a chief? I do not care. I can buy all I
want ; but chiefs ought to behave as such.
To his MOTHER,
/ BOLI, April 5, 1882.
"I have been trying to get Good Friday and
Easter well observed here, but I am afraid I
cannot do much except among the teachers. It is
too early yet with these people to get them to mark
MELANESIA 159
days and seasons, when heretofore they have never
known what a season meant at all, and one is afraid
to make it too much of a yoke. I find also that it is
very difficult to get them to understand abstract
history, for such the history of our Lord is to them.
But all this will come as their minds grow. This
week I am trying to make them know the facts, with
but little theory, of the death of Christ. That is
after all the real Gospel, as I have been reading to
day in a capital book of H. W. Dale s, a Congrega-
tionalist, on the Atonement. I wish you would read
it, as I think you would like it. The style is very
pleasant, and one wonders as one sees how very near
they are to us, or rather one sees how broad is the
basis and how little is the difference between different
schools as to the real bearing of Christianity.
" I wonder whether I wrote to ask you to send
the pastoral staff? I should like it to use at
functions in our chapel at Norfolk Island indeed
I ought to have had it for the consecration, but I
forgot it."
The above refers to his father s pastoral staff,
which was afterwards used at many of the episcopal
ceremonies in Melanesia by Bishop John Selwyn.
In 1884 he visited Nukapu in order to set up the
cross to mark the place where Bishop Patteson was
killed. This could not have been a very easy task,
160 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
and required the full exercise of his tact and daring.
Here is his brief account :
To his MOTHER.
" SOUTHERN CROSS (at sea), Oct. 26, 1884.
" We got to Nukapu last Saturday, and the chief
came out to us at once, and we went in together. I
took the engineer in to help me to put up the cross.
I was a little bit afraid that the people might be
shy at the last moment, but they all manifested the
most eager zeal, and dug holes and cleared the
ground with great vigour. We put it just in front
of the house where Bishop Patteson was killed, at
their earnest request, as they said people could see
it from the sea. I am afraid they can t very well,
as it does not show out much, but it stands very
well when you land."
At this point it is necessary to make a break in
these extracts so as briefly to describe what took
place in the following year a year of great import
ance to the Bishop.
CHAPTER XII
HIS SECOND MARRIAGE RENEWED WORK
IN MELANESIA
IN 1885 he paid another visit to England. It was
six years since he had seen his daughters, and six
years at their time of life meant a great change.
His eldest child had been ill, and on his return he
took the whole party down to Llanfairfechan, where
he obtained a pony cart for their general use, and
laid himself out in every way to ensure one of those
happy bits of family life which at long intervals
brightened him on his way.
There was at this time staying with a married
sister in London a Miss Annie Mort, whose home
was in Sydney, and whom the Bishop had known
in very early days, when with his father and mother
he had stayed at her father s house. Later on their
acquaintance had been renewed at Alrewas, where
Miss Mort and her sister used to spend their
holidays at the vicarage when he was curate of that
parish. On his return to England in 1885 he went
L
162 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
to see Miss Mort in London, and in a very short
time they became engaged, and were happily
married on August 11 of that year. It has been
said that if he had married again a little sooner his
life might have been prolonged, for he became rather
reckless about his health, neglecting to take off wet
clothes, and being in many ways careless of himself.
It was, as may be imagined, a great joy to all who
cared for him to know that he had thus taken a
fresh lease of happiness of life, and that he would be
accompanied to his far-off work by one who would be
a helpmeet for him in every way. It was an added
gratification when it was found that the second Mrs.
John Selwyn was as ready as the first had been to
devote herself to the interests of the Mission.
In the following November Bishop and Mrs. John
Selwyn sailed for Melanesia, and very shortly after
their arrival he must have started on a voyage to
the islands, as may be gathered from the following
letters. It will be noticed that reference is made in
the first of these to a bad foot a symptom, doubtless,
of the trouble to come.
To his MOTHER.
" SOUTHERN CROSS (at sea), Easter Day, 1886.
" My foot is nearly well, but I have to nurse it a
bit, which means sitting down more than I care about.
MELANESIA 163
" There are signs that the old religion is breaking
down. C. has had a new house built, and to do this
a house belonging to a spirit had to be pulled down.
Nobody liked doing this very much, but two of the
Christian boys went at it and down it came.
" Poor Poian (the owner), said old Taki, c I am
sure he will die. He thought the outraged spirit
would kill him. However, he didn t, nor the boys
who pulled the house down. And so the other day
they were sent for, as being spirit-proof, to remove
another spirit s tree. No religion can long stand
this open defiance of it. They believe that any one
who offends the spirit will die, and consequently
they never have put his power to the proof. But
when they find that he can be insulted with im
punity they soon cease to believe in him.
" I don t dare to begin counting the weeks. It is
like thinking about the end in a boat-race : nothing
does you up so soon or makes the end seem so far.
Well, mother dear, I have this advantage over every
body else in this work, that no one has such a
mother or such a wife or such children as I have to
give up, so I hope I do not offer what costs me
nothing.
May 8. At Boli there was a bad piece of news.
Old Takua, the old chief there, and Dikea, his
164 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
brother, had made a raid on one of our teacher s
people (he was away at Norfolk Island) and driven
them away, and then they invaded his house, broke
some of the school things, and took away two
banners. These, however, they put back. The
ostensible reason was that they wanted topunish
them for harbouring a young fellow who had
offended Dikea, but some of my best teachers told
me that Takua had said, Let us drive away this
new doctrine ; we will do some little damage, and
then wait and see what happens. If no man-of-war
comes and punishes us, then we will attack them
more determinedly.
To his MOTHER.
" YSABEL, Sunday Evening, July 11, 188().
" I am here on my way back from visiting the
great chief of these parts, who has been and is very
ill, and to whom I have just administered a strongish
tonic of brandy and quinine, which I find to be a
most efficacious remedy (pace the teetotalers). My
going was one of those little trials which one has to
face here nothing very great in themselves, but
with a possibility of consequences which have to be
taken into consideration and make one feel grave.
Some time ago I went to see him and found him
ill with influenza, and gave him some pain-killer,
which generally proves efficacious. Last night
MELANESIA 165
when I came back from a long excursion to see a
case in the neighbourhood of Tega I heard that he
was very ill, and had removed from his own home
to an outlying island (this probably to get away
from his Tidalo or spirit), and that his people said
that my medicine was the cause of his sickness.
This was serious ; so after church this morning I
came away to visit him. My boys came with me
without hesitation, though I fancy they thought
there might be danger. I wrote to Annie [his wife]
last night, and told her why I went. That is the
hard part of what we have to do, not the doing it
ourselves. I think if we really see our path of duty
clear we can commit our souls to God as unto a
faithful Creator, and my path was very clear. I
had to think of my teachers here, who would be
very likely to have my imaginary sin visited on
them. But still it is very hard to face probable
sorrow for those you love, and I knew what a
terrible thing it would be to her, and to you and the
chicks though you all, if you had known, would
have told me to go ; so I had much prayer and felt
strengthened. When we were half-way on our
journey we picked up his brother, who said that who
ever originated the report it did not come from Soga
himself, as he declared that the Bishop s medicine
had done him good. So we found when we reached
our destination. He was touched at my coming so
far to visit him, and accepted the tonic in a good
lotf BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
spirit. It was a medieval si^ht, the administering
of it. I mbred it with great gravity, then drank a
sceLl-rill myself to show that I near: : no harm,
then H:iO had a sip. and then the men all round
Tasted it. and nnally the chief had his shell-foil
Then H:iO and I held forth, and so came away
after a li^ile prayer to God before Soca thai He
woold bless the medicine- And all this tbr a man
who only a month ago attacked and massacred a
whole village. And yet I am sure I am right. A
ehier*s death is stich a sertocs matter here, and
please God if he ^ets well I may win his heart.
Tec mav imagine that my heart is light to-night.
There wis no ianger. bat there might have been,
and I had to Eiee the * mi^ht/ *
iLc-TESB.
.JE. HT E..
DlSTiSCS
~ There are nice asscciatiocs in that heading.
mother, which. I have set down with the precision of
call our attention to it. It is ood tor oor
son to rfifnk of von. on vocr seventy-seventh birthday
~" i T _ .: cin sight of the island where one who was
I^frp- a sod to vou. and dear to VOCL as one, laid down
m
his life i-:c Christ. nk his death. like the death
MELANESIA 167
of all those who are departed in the faith of Christ
and the love of God, has helped ine to realise more
vividly than before the Communion of Saints and
the life of the world to come.
I always feel that the assurance of the con
tinuity of our Christian life, that the life }*ert is the
life t/oere, is the greatest possible help to try and
make the life here a fitting preparation for that
which is to come.
Here is the boat coming off from Xukapu after
being 1 ashore for a long time. I did not go in, a I
have had a bad cold, and want to keep out of the
SUIL We have been waiting about outside just as
the Scntfbern Cross did in 71, but it is all right this
time, and the people are a friendly as possible/
In the autumn of IB 86 Mrs. John Selwyn
accompanied her husband on one of his cruises.
To MBS. A
a : SOUTHEEX CBW* aa *ear), Ori. 18,1 886.
i; I fl.m like a sna.il and earrv mv home on nnr
back just now, as, to my intense happiness, and I
think hers also, Annie is with me. We have nude
her very comfortable on board, and her only horror
is the cockroaches !
168 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
To his MOTHER.
" SOUTHERN CROSS (at sea), Nov. 14, 1886.
" I told Pearlie how we met the man-of-war at
Port Patteson, and how we went to dinner in state,
Annie much exercised at only having a print frock,
but looking very nice therein, and I proudly conscious
of the fact that I had a white shirt and a decent
coat. I wonder if you and my father were ever in
similar straits ! But we had a very happy visit,
and then met again three days afterwards at Santa
Cruz. The men-of-war people made themselves
extremely agreeable to the Santa Cruzians, and the
Captain went ashore with me, so altogether it was a
very happy visit, and ought to do good, as they have
so often had unfriendly men-of-war.
" Walter Woser s ordination took place at his own
church, but, as all the people round came, that was
far too small, so we moved the altar outside, and all
the people sat round. It was a very pretty and
very solemn sight in the early dawn. There were
eighty- six communicants, and we were four clergy.
"After the service we had a bright happy break
fast party in the school, and then Annie and I
walked to another church about a mile and a half
off, where we had morning prayer, with seventeen
candidates for baptism, the first-fruits of a new place.
MELANESIA 169
Then home to rest for a bit, and finally no, not
finally, but last of the services the Confirmation of
thirty -seven candidates at Ava. That, again, we had
out in the open air, as the church was too small.
" After dinner a magic lantern with sacred pictures
made the end of a tolerably hard day."
Meantime, of course, the work of the school in
Norfolk Island went on, and took up what time the
Bishop could spare from the other islands. All his
letters concerning this side of his life are full of good
cheer and encouragement. He combined many
offices in his own person, as, for instance, when he
writes that he must close his letter as it was dinner
time, and he had to stand punctually before the
door to blow up those who were late !
The following extracts taken at intervals from his
correspondence give some idea of his work with the
native boys and girls at St. Barnabas Mission
Station.
I.
" I have just read an entry in one of my boys
journals : This was a very good Sunday, we received
the Holy Communion in the morning/ This is only
for himself to see, and I was greatly pleased at it.
I think it shows a little that they really do feel the
blessings of that holy feast. I wish I could get
nearer to them than I do. I think they trust me,
170 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
and will come to me in difficulties, and know that I
will do anything for them, but I can t keep up a
conversation with them and draw them out as some
folks can. I talk to them, but they don t talk to
me. Nevertheless I am very fond of them, and
should be much out of my element elsewhere."
II.
" The school wants pulling up a bit, so I am glad
to be here. I can hardly believe that I am to be at
home for nearly six months. It is too delightful to
think about. And home is so pretty and so nice,
and the dear wife fills it all with her presence and
her love, and I am very blessed thankful, I trust,
for all God s mercies to me.
"I have just made out rough statistics of our
work for the year [1886], which show: Schools, 69 ;
scholars, 1967 ; Confirmations, 36 ; Church Conse
cration, 1 ; Ordination, 1 ; teachers, 161 ; baptisms
(adult), 561."
in.
To his ELDEST DAUGHTER.
" I generally take the girls to teach [preparation
for baptism] if I can get them, and when I have
them I think of you, and feel as if they were my
daughters through you . . . and as if I loved them
because I love you so dearly. They are so shy when
MELANESIA 171
they come in to see me, and I have to bend my head
down to catch what they say, but they are very
much in earnest."
IV.
" I have a class of catechumens every day. I
always begin in the same way : Do you really wish
for baptism ? Yes. Why ? There is the crux,
and oftentimes I have to wait a quarter of an hour
before I get the answer. But it is generally the
right one, and not a stock answer. Little , of
Santa Cruz, made me the best, I think very shy
but very decided To do away with sin. One girl
said Mabo, which is the Florida for peace and
reconciliation. "
v.
" Last night three of the boys came for separate
interviews till nearly ten. This is very hard work
as they will not speak, so one has to pump up
thoughts, and I was so sleepy I could barely think.
But the prayer at the end with my arm round the
neck of each is very helpful, and I think must assure
them that there is an earthly care and love around
them as well as the care arid love of God."
One specially charming incident must not be
omitted. The Bishop was continually trying to
teach the Christian grace of unselfish care for others.
172 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
To emphasise this he determined on the bold experi
ment of interesting the boys at the school in those
who needed help in far-off lands, just as children in
our churches are taught to care for foreign missions.
The particular work about which he told them was
that carried on by the late Bishop Walsham How
in East London. The venture succeeded beyond his
furthest hopes, as is witnessed by the following
letter :
"NORFOLK ISLAND,
" Feast of the Epiphany, 1886.
" MY DEAR BISHOP OF BEDFORD,
" Before I go to bed to-night I should like to
write you a line about a matter which has helped
me very much, and will, I hope, help you.
" I preached to our boy son Advent Sunday about
preparing the way of the Lord, with all its obvious
thoughts. . . . Lastly I told them that we must
all try not only to do something but to give some
thing for that end. ... I did not think my words
had gone very deep, but a few days afterwards a
deputation came in very gravely, and one of our
deacons produced a pocket-handkerchief full of
silver which the boys had collected among them
selves. Poor fellows ! they are not very wealthy, as
you may imagine, all they get being for the little
things they do for us as gardeners, &c., and their
friends at home are such terrible sharks and expect
MELANESIA 173
them to bring back stores for the common weal, so
that this represented considerable self-denial on their
part. This sum was offered on Christmas Day. . . .
Then I asked them what they would do with it.
First, they unanimously wished to help white rather
than black people, and when I told them of your
swarming East End population, their utter poverty,
and (what would strike them) the absence of trees
and gardens and open air life, they determined to
send it you to do what you liked with. It is not
much, but I believe it really comes from the boys
hearts. If you have got anything like an orphan
age at which they could have a boy, or anything
about which somebody could write them a line now
and then, I think it would help them. It may help
some London boy to think that these far-away
Islanders are thinking of him. . . .
" Believe me always
" Your affectionate brother in Christ,
"J. R. SELWYN, Bp."
A case was soon found for the use of this most
touching gift, and a little motherless lad whose father
had deserted him was enabled by the generosity of
his black brothers to be taken into a home and cared
for on his discharge from an East End hospital. A
letter descriptive of the lad and of the help they had
given him was despatched to the boys on Norfolk
Island.
174 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
These detached instances of Bishop John Selwyn s
work both on his voyages in the Southern Cross and
in Norfolk Island may serve to give some faint notion
of his life during his missionary career, while it is
hoped that they do not in any way trespass on the
ground which is to be occupied by the History of the
Melanesian Mission.
It may be possible to summarise the causes of his
success in missionary work. There was, first, the
complete and generous self-surrender without which
the rest would have availed little. This comes out
in every detail of his life from the day when he
offered himself to Melanesia under the influence of
the death of Bishop Patteson. Then there was his
power of inspiring the natives with an absolute trust
in him. To this he paid great attention, taking
infinite care to carry out his smallest promise. Thus,
if he had, when leaving a place, said that he would
call there on his way back, nothing prevented his
doing so. The winds might be adverse, and many
days delay might be incurred : there might be no
special reason for going except that he had said he
would do so ; but he considered it well worth while
in order that the natives might know that what he
said, that he did. Another element in his success
was his carefulness about details. This must have
been particularly difficult to him, for he was naturally
careless in his dress and untidy in his habits, but in
his life in the islands and on board the Southern Cross
MELANESIA 175
he was strictness itself as to neatness and order
liness. When Mrs. J. R. Selwyn accompanied him on
a voyage in the schooner she was one day unable to
find him anywhere on board, and at last discovered
him in a far corner of the hold teaching some boys
how to scrub the floor, because he had noticed that
it had been badly done. It was the same on Norfolk
Island. When he came back everything tightened
up, because he used to go about perpetually, seeing
that the whole place was kept clean and tidy.
Lastly, there was the power of a Christian life lived
openly in close contact with them all, which could
not fail to influence the native mind.
That he was a muscular Christian added, no doubt,
to this effect, for the Melanesians greatly admired
his physical strength and skill as they saw it
exercised in navigating or hauling up a boat, or in
any of the numerous ways in which he was able to
show them that he was a strong man. His courage,
too, was often in evidence, and deeply impressed
them with the admiration felt by every human being
for a really brave man. But his essentially Christian
character bore its fruit, too, though sometimes it
may have been long in ripening. Here is a beautiful
story to illustrate this. There was a boy at Norfolk
Island who had been brought from one of the rougher
and wilder islands, and was consequently rebellious
and difficult to manage. One day Mr. Selwyn (it
was before liis consecration) spoke to him about
176 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
something he had refused to do, and the lad, flying
into a passion, struck him in the face. This was an
unheard-of thing for a Melanesian to do. Mr.
Selwyn, not trusting himself to speak, turned on
his heel and walked away. The boy was punished
for the offence, and, being still unsatisfactory, was
sent back to his own island without being baptized,
and there relapsed into heathen ways.
Many years afterwards Mr. Bice, the missionary
who worked on that island, was sent for to a sick
person who wanted him. He found this very man
in a dying state and begging to be baptized. He
told Mr. Bice how often he thought of the teaching
on Norfolk Island, and, when the latter asked him
by what name he should baptize him, he said, " Call
me John Selwyn, because he taught me what Christ
was like that day when I struck him, and I saw the
colour mount in his face, but he never said a word
except of love afterwards." Mr. Bice then baptized
him, and he died soon after.
CHAPTER XIII
MISSIONARY ADVENTURES
IT remains to give one or two of the chief missionary
adventures brought to a successful issue by Bishop
John Selwyn.
The first of these occurred very early in hi
episcopate, when in 1878 he succeeded in obtaining
a footing on some of the small islands in the Santa
Cruz Archipelago. He was accompanied on this
occasion by Mr. Still and Mr. Penny, each of whom
has written a graphic account of his experiences.
Mr. Still says :
" After Bishop Patteson had been killed at Nukapu, and
the place afterwards shelled by a man-of-war, all intercourse
with this group was at an end. The natives were fiercely
hostile to the white man, and it would have been useless
to attempt a landing anywhere. The only thing to be
done was to wait patiently until in some way an opportunity
was afforded of visiting them in a friendly way. And the
opportunity came about in this way. In 1877 Bishop John
Selwyn, on visiting Malanta, found that two men from the
Santa Cruz group had been cast away there, and were being
M
178 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
held as prisoners. With much difficulty he managed to buy
one of them, and returned him to his home in the Santa Cruz
group. This gave just the opening so long waited for, and
the following year the Bishop determined to visit these islands
and try to get on a friendly footing with the natives. On
May 5, 1878, the Southern Cross was running slowly through
the group with a nice breeze, hoping that as she went along
some of the natives would come off in their canoes. The first
canoe, with two men, come out from Panavi ; they were very
shy, and could hardly be induced to come near the ship, but
after a good deal of coaxing the Bishop managed to get them
near enough to hand them a few pieces of hoop iron, and off
they went. We then stood nearer in, and several canoes,
encouraged by the success of the first, came off to see us.
One came alongside, when, owing to the roll of the ship and
a nasty job on the sea, it very nearly filled, so that two out
of the three men in it jumped on to the ship s ladder, and left
the third man to bale out. I induced the younger of the two
to venture as far as to look down through the skylight, but
he would go no further.
" The Bishop made them a present, which encouraged two
more men from another canoe to stand on the ladder and
receive presents ; but not one would come any further.
"After this, we ran along the coast of Lomlom to
Nufiloli, where two canoes came out, and hailed us in a
friendly manner. As we stood nearer in to the land, we were
met by quite a fleet of canoes twenty-three in all some
with three and some with two men in them. Kesi, the
Nufiloli chief a fine, dignified man came on board and
seemed to understand that we were come as friends, as he
knew Tuponu, the man whom the Bishop had bought at
Malanta. After the Bishop had made him a present of an
axe, the chief and his friends left us, and we stood out to sea
for the night.
"The next morning, after a beat with a stiff breeze
MISSIONARY ADVENTURES 179
against a strong westerly set, we fetched in to leeward
of the small island of Nimanu, where canoes came off in
greater numbers than the day before, and a smart trade was
carried on in native ornaments and mats. They were very
eager traders, hoop iron being in great demand. There was
a nasty sea on, and several canoes were swamped alongside ;
however, the men seemed to care very little about that ; they
swam about, first picking up their floating things, and then,
taking hold of one end of the canoe, worked it quickly back
wards and forwards until most of the water was out of it, and
then got in and baled out the rest.
" After a short stay we ran down to Nufiloli, and hove to
off the reef. There was a nasty sea on, but several canoes
came off to us at once, and Kesi, the chief, brought the
Bishop a present of a pig, which was quite acceptable.
" As all seemed so friendly the Bishop made up his
mind to land and pay a visit to the village, and I was told
to get the boat ready. I picked out four of the most
trustworthy of our boys for a crew, and lowered the boat,
into which the Bishop, with Kesi and another man, got, and
we rowed them to the reef. The Bishop and his two friends
landed on the reef, which was alive with hundreds of natives
all very excited, and then started off to walk across the
lagoon to the island some three-quarters of a mile away. We
pulled our boat off about thirty yards from the reef and lay
on our oars waiting. We were soon surrounded by canoes
whose occupants were eager to trade, and wanted all we had
in the boat rowlocks, rudder-lines, or anything they could lay
hands on. With considerable difficulty we persuaded them to
leave us for the ship, where they might trade to their hearts
content.
" For two long hours we waited, anxiously straining our
eyes in the direction of the island to see something of our
Bishop, and hoping that all was going well. One could not
help thinking of Bishop Patteson as we sat there in the same
180 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
boat that had taken him in on his last journey, waiting for our
Bishop, just as Joseph Atkin and his native crew had waited
for theirs, whom they were not to see alive again. However,
we fared well, for the natives this time seemed quite friendly
and good-humoured, and by-and-by we spied the Bishop re
turning across the lagoon in a canoe, as the tide had now risen
considerably. One could see the anxiety clear away at once
from the faces of the boat s crew as they rowed in with a will
to bring the Bishop off. He had had a most satisfactory visit,
and had been well treated by all. An immense crowd had
now collected on the reef from Nufiloli, Lomlom, and Pileni,
all men ; no women or children were to be seen. We hoisted
our boat sail, and went off to the ship with light and thankful
hearts, dragging after us a tail of six canoes. The Bishop now
determined to land at Pileni close by, as so many of the
natives of that island had come over, and seemed quite friendly
and anxious for a visit. It was Penny s turn this time to
take the Bishop ashore, and a very lively time they had of it."
Mr. Penny now takes up the story : he says :
" It was towards evening, and, as we coasted along a huge
fringing reef, looking for an opening, canoes from the shore
followed us ; but their occupants, though keenly anxious to
trade, were uncertain of our intentions and afraid to trust
themselves on board the ship. Presently we rounded a point
and sighted a tiny islet, that corresponded to a minute arc of
the reef s circumference, and we made out an indentation in
the white line of foam where a flotilla of canoes lay sheltering
from the swell and break of the rollers, and on the coral rocks
a crowd of figures were grouped. The little island, we knew,
was called Pileni just such another as Nukapu hard by and
the spot we had sighted, the captain thought, was fit to land
at from a boat.
" As we rowed away from the ship the canoes came out
MISSIONARY ADVENTURES 181
to meet us, and turning accompanied us to the shore. As
we neared the landing-place they crowded round the boat
so that our crew could with difficulty get their oars into the
water, some of the natives scrambling on board and talking at
the top of their voices. The din they set up was simply
deafening, and we couldn t make out a word of their language
and had to trust to signs. One man, I remember, as he bawled
at the Bishop, kept drawing a finger from ear to ear across
his throat. He wanted a necklace, we subsequently discovered,
though the action was suggestive of another desire. My
Solomon Islanders, who formed our boat s crew, I could hear
from their remarks, didn t like the situation, and the Bishop
agreed with me afterwards that at the time we had shared
their opinion. The natives, we found, meant only friendship,
and they were simply wild with excitement at seeing us, but
they were just children of nature, liable to be swayed by any
passing wave of feeling, and we couldn t in the least tell what
they were going to do next.
" The Bishop determined to land, so leaving me to look
after the boat and entertain those of our new friends who
preferred to keep me company, he accepted a back from
a stalwart native and was carried through the surf to the
shore. I fancy I see the scene as I write the sandy beach
and the dense foliage beyond it glowing with the golden
light of the evening sun the crowd of natives splashing
through the shallow water of the lagoon, and the Bishop s
white helmet and grey flannel shirt, as his head and shoulders
appeared above the throng that bore him towards some houses
among the trees. I confess that when I saw the Bishop come
out of those houses I felt profoundly thankful. The uneasi
ness we both felt on this occasion was rather strange we
never could quite explain it ; for we were more than once
together in a really tight situation without such anxiety.
Perhaps the sight of Nukapu in the offing affected us, and the
reflection that the two sets of circumstances up to a certain
182 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
point were curiously alike, Patteson landing just as I have
described Selwyn s landing, entering a house and being clubbed
there, while a shower of arrows from the men on the reef
struck down Joe Atkin as he minded the boat.
" The Bishop s landing set the natives very much at their
ease, they were less rough and noisy, and our only difficulty was
to get them out of the boat, for night was coming on and we
could not take a party on board and return them to Pileni before
dark. So we made signs to them to follow us in their canoes,
which some did. And these enterprising ones profited largely
by their confidence in us, for they sold their possessions and
went home j ubilant and loaded with good things. So ended our
first visit to Pileni. The Mission has a good school there now."
Mr. Still, continuing the narrative, says :
" There was a feeling of much thankfulness on board that
night that this first visit had passed off so successfully, and
that the door had apparently been once more opened. The
next morning we were close down upon Nukapu where Bishop
Patteson was killed, and the question was whether it would be
wise for the Bishop to attempt a landing, or be satisfied with
a visit from the natives if they would come oft in their canoes.
" We sailed round to leeward of the reef and hove to. With
a glass we could see a number of people on the beach, who
were waving to us and holding up green branches. Presently
canoes began to put out into the lagoon and paddle towards
us. We counted ten afloat ; some of the more venturesome
came through the break in the reef and paddled towards us.
We beckoned them on, and the leading canoe with a pig on
board, which they carefully made to squeak loudly while a good
way off to show that they were friendly and only bringing
food, came close up alongside the ship. We bought their mats
and bags, which emboldened one of the men to come up the
ladder and sit on the rail. Then feeling that we were really
MISSIONARY ADVENTURES 183
friendly he solemnly rubbed noses first with the Bishop, and
then with me, and presented us each with an arrow. He
seemed very nervous, and was evidently much relieved when
once more safe in his canoe. By this time the rest of the
canoes had come alongside, and a brisk bartering was going
on. The chief Moto was off, and asked us to come ashore,
which the Bishop said he would do if two of their men stayed
on board the ship. They were all the time constantly affirm
ing that the land was a good one. Fenua lavui " was re
peated over and over again as though they were conscious
that they had a bad name with us. It was now that the
question of going ashore had to be decided. The Bishop was
anxious to go. Penny and I tried to persuade him not to.
We strongly recommended him to be satisfied with so friendly
a beginning for the present, and on a future visit to go ashore
if he then thought right. He left the deck and went below
into the cabin, and presently I looked down through the sky
light, and there saw the Bishop on his knees, with that strong
earnest look upon his face which we all knew so well, asking
God to direct him in this matter. Whilst he was thus praying
the canoes all cleared off arid went back to the island, so that
when he came on deck again the disappearance of the canoes
settled the question. The natives of this island were at that
time evidently most nervous and suspicious, and there can be
no doubt that it would have been unwise, and running an un
necessary risk, to have tested them too severely on that first
occasion. "
The promptness and foresight shown by the Bishop
in purchasing the freedom of Tuponu and using this
man as an introduction to hitherto hostile islanders
cannot be too highly commended. It showed that he
was able to combine diplomacy with boldness and
self-sacrifice. The incident of the Bishop praying in
184 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
his cabin is just characteristic of his whole life. It
will be remembered that even as a child his " prayer-
fulness " was noted ; no wonder that on expeditions
such as the above, when few were with him and
many against, he is found often upon his knees.
Two years later he was able to carry out a still
greater enterprise. It was through this intercourse
with the Reef Islands in the Santa Cruz Archipelago
that he succeeded in 1880 in getting a footing on the
dreaded Santa Cruz itself.
The Bishop s own journal shall give the account of
this event, the most important, perhaps, in the whole
of his career.
" We left Norfolk Island in the Southern Cross
on June 29, and on July 5 stopped at Neugone to
pick up the Rev. Mano Wadrokal and his wife, who
had been for a short holiday at their own home there.
. . . On July 20 we were off the Reef Islands, and
were soon boarded by our friends from Nufiloli and
Pileni. I went in with our visitor, Mr. Coote, to
Nufiloli, and showed him what sort of a place a man
can live in if he chooses. . . . Previously to this we
had a long consultation about going to Santa Cruz
with the vessel. Would they take us over and intro
duce us ? They all jumped at the idea, and thought
it was a most delightful thing to be carried over in
safety in our big ship. ... In the evening I had to
break to them that I wanted to go to Santa Cruz,
MISSIONARY ADVENTURES 185
that Wadrokal might be stationed there. This was,
as I expected, a great blow to them, and they said at
first it could not be. [This was because they did not
want to lose the services of Wadrokal, who had been
stationed on their islands.] When I promised that
the vessel when it came to Santa Cruz should always
come and see them, adding (somewhat craftily) that
they could always ensure this by letting us have
some boys from their islands, they assented cordially
and worked most heartily with us.
" We found that the place they were going to take
us to was Leluovu, about the middle of the northern
face of the island. It was well adapted for our
purpose, as it is separated by about five miles from
the bay where Commodore Goodenough was killed,
and about the same distance from Graciosa Bay,
where the attack was made on Bishop Patteson in
1864.
" We kept a good way off till we could stand in at
right angles to the shore, avoiding thereby running
along the coast and being followed by a fleet of canoes
from every village that we passed. . . . About two
miles off from the shore a whole fleet of canoes carne
out to us, but at first were very shy and would not
come near, but directly they saw our Reef Islanders
and heard their story the whole scene changed.
With one accord they made a rush at us, and climbed
up the side unarmed in the most perfect confidence.
. . . Then they became clamorous for us to go
186 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
ashore. Wadrokal and I went in as pioneers. . . .
Of course I was a little nervous as to what might
happen, as there had been so many mishaps on shore
on this island, but everything, thank God, went
perfectly smooth, and the chiefs showed the most
entire confidence in us.
" When we got ashore we had to* go through the
usual ceremony of sitting in the club-house and
having presents, and we then talked about Wadro-
kal s staying. They were all delighted ; and Meti,
the second chief, promised him a new house at once,
and forthwith carried him off to see it. Mesa, the
head chief, meanwhile carried me off to his own
abode, a little collection of huts surrounded by a
stone wall, where I was introduced to his wives and
fed by them. Then we went on board again to pack
up Wadrokal and his wife, and at 3 took them in,
Mr. Coote and Mr. Comins accompanying us. ...
Then we bade good-bye to Wadrokal and his wife
with a very fervent prayer for their safety and use
fulness. I was very proud of them as I left them
standing alone on the beach in the midst of so many
strangers. . . . And so we went on board, accom
panied to the last by Mesa, the chief, who came off
in my boat totally unarmed. It was a day to be
thankful for, as we have tried so long to get a footing
there. Bishop Patteson went to Nukapu that he
might use it as a stepping-stone, and was killed
there. Commodore Goodenough also fell in trying
MISSIONARY ADVENTURES 187
to open up the way, and now the way has been
opened to us, by the bringing back the cast-away
islanders to their home, and they in turn have intro
duced us to their friends. May God give us grace
to use this opening to His honour and glory."
Two extracts from letters are given here ; the first
giving Bishop Selwyn s own opinion on the exploit,
the second, that of his mother and of Dr. Cod-
rington :
To MRS. A COUR-T-BEPINGTON.
" SOUTHERN CROSS (at sea), Aug. 25, 1880.
" We have got a footing on Santa Cruz at last.
This is most thankworthy, and I am greatly pleased
at it. Perhaps there is a little spice of vanity in
my pleasure, as my friends all accuse me of being
hot-headed and impetuous, and I did work this
business with such extreme caution that I hope they
will now acquit me. But really things have worked
wonderfully well for us, under God s direction, I
trust."
To MRS. A COURT-REPIXGTON from MRS. SELWYN.
"THE CLOSE, LICHFIELD, Dec. 22, 1880.
" You heard of the landing at Santa Cruz. It was a great
venture of faith. Mr. Codrington says : For the Bishop s
courageous and discreet management of this great missionary
188 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
feat we cannot be too thankful. The present success is, I
think, the greatest in that way that remained to be accom
plished, for there is no other place that ever was anything
like so difficult of access. Deo laus sit. 1 To which I say,
Amen, rejoicing that his dear fathers son walks in his
steps."
In the following year Bishop John Selwyn under
took, and brought to a successful conclusion, another
difficult, dangerous, and delicate business. This was
nothing less than landing at Florida to induce the
chiefs of the tribes implicated to give up the mur
derers of Lieutenant Bower and his boat s crew.
He was probably the only man who could have done
this, and his action no doubt saved the whole of the
Florida Islanders from war. On his way he paid
another visit to Santa Cruz, accompanied this time
by Mr. Alan Lister Kaye, who with Mrs. Lister
Kaye had been doing good work in the Mission for
several years.
To EEV. F. E. WATERS.
" SOUTHERN CROSS (at sea), OFF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS,
"May 9, 1881.
" Please observe the date, and remember that it
was at this time that you and I were in full swing
at St. George s ten years ago. How time flies,
doesn t it ? I have good reason to remember this
very day, as it was the day when you may remember
MISSIONARY ADVENTURES 189
Miss Innes came over from Alrewas, with Mrs.
Walsh, and consented to be my wife. Dear old
place, with all its ups and downs one remembers it
as a very bright spot in one s life, and I hope you will
always think that I remember you especially in it.
" We are just going up into Still s old district, and
then I go on to Florida, where things are not in a
pleasant state. You will have heard of the massacre
of the boat s crew of a man-of-war, and, perhaps,
have heard that that took place at a district where
we have got more hold than in any other part of
Florida. I hope our people who live inland had
nothing to do with it, but the people on the coast
undoubtedly had, and a man-of-war has been down
there since, so matters are complicated. However,
I do not think that there is any danger for us, as the
place is so divided up into districts, under separate
chiefs, that we can live in one without being exposed
to any danger from any other.
" We have just been to Santa Cruz, and Kaye and
I slept ashore there. We found everything going
on very smoothly. . . . You would have been
amused to see a school of thirty-six drawn up in
excellent line to receive us, and hardly boasting any
clothing. This, however, is more from custom and
rule than anything else, as a boy does not put on
his clothes till he attains a certain age and kills
a pig."
190 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
To C. BILL, ESQ.
"BUGOTU, YSABEL ISLAND, SOLOMON ISLANDS,
"July 27, 1881.
" When we got near this part of the world, going
by a small island where there is a good anchorage,
we were brought up by a gun from a vessel we
could just see lying there, which turned out to be
the Cormorant sent down to punish the murderers
of Lieutenant Bower [of the Sandfly]. I knew the
Captain [Bruce], and so we consulted together, as
the island, and especially the district where Bower
was murdered, is one of our principal stations. I
offered to see the chiefs and get them to surrender
the principal men concerned if they would. He
came on after me, and we met at Florida. There
I went to see the chief concerned, who, I was glad
to find, was not actually implicated, though he went
very near the wind. The actual murderers were
only five ! They saw the boat land without any ship
being near, and started incontinently to attack it.
Fancy an armed boat s crew being done to death by
five fellows armed with tomahawks, three of them
boys. But they had left all their arms in the boat,
and were attacked when bathing and the Captain
at a distance. We had no end of negotiations, and I
put great pressure on the chiefs all round, as Bruce
said that he should hold the whole group respon-
MISSIONARY ADVENTURES 191
sible if the men were not surrendered. So first of
all the leading man was sent in, and was shot on
the island where he committed the murder. Then I
went over to Kalikona again and got him to sur
render his son, nearly all the things that were in
the boat, and poor Bower s skull. . . . After this
Bruce went away for a bit, and when he came back
they brought another man, the actual murderer of
Bower, who was hung .... It was, as you may
imagine, rather horrid work having to go in for all
this murderer hunting, but I am quite sure I was
right in doing it, as it saved the whole people from
war, and also gave them and all the islands round a
very salutary lesson."
It was on this occasion that he wrote one of the
farewell letters to which reference has been made.
There was, of course, a most unsettled feeling among
the islanders, and it was extremely doubtful, in
view of their excitement and dread of punishment,
how they would receive him. Here is the letter he
wrote at the supreme moment, just before going
ashore .
To his MOTHER.
"OFF GAIETA, FLORIDA, May iQ, 1881.
" DEAREST MOTHER,
" I write you a little line to tell you of my
fondest love and gratitude to you. I am going ashore
192 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
at Gaieta to see Kalikona, the man who is partly
responsible for the murder of the man-of-war s
boat s crew. I have been trying to save the Florida
people from being made jointly responsible for it,
and now I am going to try and induce Kalikona
to give up the actual murderers. I do not think
there is the slightest danger, but still there might
be, and so I write this line.
" You will like to know if anything happens to me
that I was trying to do my duty, and that I believe
with all my heart in the love of God our Saviour,
though I am sadly conscious how often and how
grievously I have sinned against that love.
" Kiss my darlings from me, and let them know
how fondly I loved them ; and tell them that the
love of God alone can make life bright and death
easy. You know what my love to you is : it grows
greater every year.
" Your most loving, grateful, and dutiful son,
J. R. SELWYN,
" Missionary Bishop"
Then when all was well over, he adds a postscript :
^ I " May 20. You may like this, so I send it. "
In a subsequent letter to his mother (undated) he
adds the following particulars :
" I sent a message to Kalikona, the implicated
MISSIONARY ADVENTURES 193
chief, to say that I would meet him alone if he would
come and see me. Accordingly I went in to Gaieta,
and we met on the beach. It was like an old
mediaeval meeting, as he had his armed following,
and Sepi s Christian friends were also armed and
stood on my side, while Kalikona and I met on the
open beach midway between the two. I gave him
the Captain s message that he must surrender the
men, and after a long confab he agreed to it. ...
And now good-bye, dearest mother. What can I
tell you of these thirty-seven years that are gone ?
[This makes it probable that the letter was written
on his birthday, May 20, 1881.] Only that that is
the number by which my love for you is multiplied.
My manhood does not cling to you a whit less than
my infancy did, and I lean on you just as lovingly
now with all the force of reason and love as I did
by instinct when I first lay in your arms as a little
child."
This last extract summarises the character of
the man. It was the marvellous combination of
courage and manliness with a tenderness and love
more commonly ascribed to the nature of woman,
which supplied the power and attraction of his
personality.
While engaged on this exploit at Gaieta he saw
much of Captain (now Admiral) Bruce, who speaks
of his conduct of the business with the greatest
N
194 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
admiration. He also relates how when on board
the man-of-war the Bishop preached magnificently
to the sailors. He would stand at the wheel and
speak to the men, and then would sometimes turn
round and with flashing 1 eye address the officers
behind him.
Nothing has been said as to the general appear
ance of Bishop John Selwyn on his missionary tours.
Possibly his dress might shock some of the clergy
who pin their faith on a rigidly ecclesiastical attire !
Certain it is that he would wade ashore and preach
in a sun-helmet, with his feet bare, and on one
occasion was barefooted even on the platform in a
church where he and Dr. Codrington were taking
service. But the warm heart and the flashing eye
were there, and the man was the man "for a that."
CHAPTER XIV
LAST YEARS IN MELANESIA
DURING the last few years of his work in Melanesia
more than one endeavour was made to tempt him
to other sees. In 1886 he wrote to his mother :
"I am glad the Bishopric of Melbourne is filled
up. My friends have been persistently saying that
it was offered to me. I fancy myself following
Bishop Moorhouse ! No : I can do the work here
after a fashion, et l fy suis et fy rested as MacMahon
said."
Again in 1889 he wrote :
" Would you like me to be Bishop of Tasmania ?
They rather fished as to my willingness to accept it.
... It was tempting, as they are such nice hearty
people ; but poor Melanesia ! who would care for my
people there ? They know me and trust me, and I
will stick to them as long as I can. Whether my
196 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
bronchitis will allow me is quite another question,
as it comes and goes in a fitful sort of way, and is by
no means well yet."
His forecast was correct. Early in that year his
health became so much broken that he and Mrs.
John Selwyn left for Italy en route for England.
His health really began to fail in 1888. In the
earlier part of that year he was at Norfolk Island,
where his house was some three minutes walk from
the school buildings. He had to go across many
times a day and seemed always to feel fagged. He
would look across at the school and say, " Crossing
our field seems like half a mile, I am always so tired
now." Sometimes he didn t seem up to it, and his
class would come to him. When he returned from
a voyage to the islands in December of that year,
Mrs. Selwyn went with him to New Zealand for the
Synod. There the rest of the bishops were so much
struck by his worn appearance, that, without even
speaking to him about it, they wrote him a most
kind letter, signed by them all and headed by the
Primate (Bishop Harper of Christchurch), begging
him to go at once to England for a thorough rest
and urging it on" him as a duty. He hesitated a
good deal because ^he had returned from England
so lately, but in the end he was over-persuaded,
and undertook the journey home. His two
daughters with their governess met them in Italy,
LAST YEARS IN MELANESIA 197
and they all spent some time together in Rome,
where he recovered greatly from his bronchitis and
managed to do a great deal of sight-seeing.
To MRS. A CoURT-REPINGTO!Sr.
" HOTEL VICTORIA, ROME, May 10, 89-
" You will be surprised to hear from me here,
unless some one has told you that I was most un
expectedly sent home by my brother Bishops. I am
trying to get rid of my bronchitis, which has been
troublesome for a year, and might become chronic."
He arrived in England in June, and made a stay
of six months, during which time Dorothy, the
eldest child of his second marriage, was born. In
O
the following January he with Mrs. Selwyn and the
baby started back again in the ss. Pekin, spending
some little time in Egypt on the way. It is to be
feared that he had not completely got rid of his
bronchitis, and he was also suffering from the result
of a sharp attack of influenza, for in a note sent
ashore just before the ship sailed he says :
"I am really much better : my bronchitis is hardly
bothering at all."
From every stopping-place he sent home most
characteristic letters to his daughters. Here are
198 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
one or two extracts which show him the same cheery,
child-loving man as he had been twenty years
before.
" Your godchild [the baby] is in great form. I
am head nurse in the afternoon, and it is quite
pretty to see how she likes my strong arms, lies
down in them quite contentedly when (and this is
the point) she has been crying with other folks, and
then goes off to sleep to the tune of The British
Grenadiers. She is a great duck."
From Gibraltar he wrote describing with great
glee an altercation between a native cabdriver and
a private of the South Staffordshire Regiment, the
latter being the possessor of a pair of black eyes,
which the Bishop did not consider a credit to the
county !
At Brindisi he and Mrs. Selwyn went for a walk,
in the course of which, he says :
" We were going over to the other side of the
Harbour by the ferry, but a small boy came along,
and asked with a sweet smile whether we wanted a
boat, so we took him. . . . He was wonderfully
struck with my knowing all about the sail, and said,
Why, he is a sailor ! ;
After a slow progress the little party arrived back
LAST YEARS IN MELANESIA 199
at Norfolk Island, and the Bishop seemed more like
his old self than he had done for some time, and he
stayed there quietly until the following July, when
he started on a voyage to the islands.
He kept pretty well till the middle of October,
when he began to have very painful boils or abscesses
in his leg. These were accompanied by what he
described as severe rheumatism, and for the rest of
his visit to the islands until the ship picked him up
in the Banks Islands on November 15 it was only
with great pain and difficulty that he could get from
place to place. Walking on the coral reefs seems to
have distressed him much and added to his suffer
ing. This was practically the beginning of the end
as far as his Melanesian work was concerned. The
pain prevented him from sleeping at nights, and he
became really seriously ill. His journal letter to
Mrs. J. R. Selwyn, elated Maewo, November 27, is
most pathetic, and is of special interest as giving an
account of the last days work he was ever to do in
his beloved islands:
" I have had ten very hard days. I got down to
the boat from Zehartob fairly well, and so to Pun,
where O. did the school and Harvey Tagalad and I
examined the Baptismal candidates. Then I bap
tized eight of them, anel got back dead beat. Next
day examined the schools at Milwoa and Wole, and
then that at Totoglag, and so home. [These are all
200 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
places in Motalava.] Rheumatism very bad, and
very little sleep. Next day ship came and we got
into Mota at dark. I could just crawl up the hill,
and next day locomotion was very bad, but I
managed all the near schools. Then I addressed
the Confirmation candidates, and after tea confirmed
them. I sat down all the time. Next day crawled
on board, and oh ! I have been bad since. Could
not sleep, and could only just crawl on deck. I am
rather better now, but I can t sit up for more than
a quarter of an hour without feeling very done,
and I can t sleep much yet. I hope I shan t shock
you as a cripple when I arrive. I simply long for
home. The days and nights seem endless, and
rheumatism makes one blue/ so that I see all sorts
of difficulties about everything."
The Rev. Leonard P. Robin, who accompanied him
on this voyage, adds the following touching details :
" The Bishop held a Confirmation at the head station [in
Mota]. He got through with difficulty, and one could see the
intense effort it was. His exhortations, however, were as
spiritual, as manly, and as earnest as any I ever heard him
give. He was terribly fatigued afterwards, and said when he
sank upon a stretcher in the Mission-house, That s the
hardest bit of work IVe ever done in Melanesia." The next
morning we prepared to leave. I had ague, and was in the
preliminary shivering stage when we went down to the beach.
The Bishop was in such pain that he could not put his foot to
the ground, and had to be half carried down the steep rough
LAST YEARS IN MELANESIA 201
path to the rocks by the seashore, where we waited for the boat
to come in from the Southern Cross * to take us off. They
spread his small mattress on the rocks for him, and he lay on
it leaning against his bundle of pillows and rugs. Presently
he looked round and said, Where s Robin ? He s got ague,
poor fellow. Take him the mattress and tell him to lie
on it. I can do quite well with this touching his bundle
of rugs.
" We soon got on board, but he seemed to grow worse instead
of better ; so, after watering the ship at Maewo, it was decided
to call nowhere else, but to make straight for Norfolk Island.
He was soon unable to climb into his berth, and had his
mattress spread on the cabin deck. One day I was lying on
one of the long seats in the cabin : it was my ague day, and
it was on me in full force. I think I was only half awake
or semi-conscious, and no doubt my breathing was loud and
rapid. Presently I noticed a shuffling sound, and looking
round saw the Bishop clinging to the table and making his
way round to me. He came and put his hand on my forehead
and said, You ve got a pretty stiff bout this time, old boy,
haven t you ? Wait a bit : I ll get you something. I begged
him to go and lie down, but he would not. He made his way
to the medicine-chest and mixed and brought me a dose. I
drank it, and he took the glass, put it back, and then sank
down upon his mattress with a sigh of relief. The story needs
no comment but this what wonder that we loved him ? "
From this point Mrs. J. E. Selwyn takes up the
story : she says :
" After this he became too ill to write more, and was finally
brought ashore on December 10, 1890, lying on a mattress at
: This is the last time he was ever on board this Mission ship,
which had been built mainly at the cost of himself and Mrs.
202 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
the bottom of the boat, looking a perfect wreck. He did not
leave his bed for eight months. The intense pain and sleep
lessness continued, and after some time the doctors discovered
a terrible abscess in his thigh, which had burrowed in every
direction. It was doubtless this which he had thought was
rheumatism. The doctors said that the cause of it was hard
living and exposure when he was in a low state of health.
For six months he suffered the most terrible agony from
neuritis caused by the abscess. To this sleeplessness was
added, and his only relief was gained from morphia. He
could not move his position in the least, and all sorts of com
plications added to his sufferings. [He had to endure a
terrible operation at this time, pieces of bone being removed
by the doctors from his leg. This he endured with his usual
cheerfulness and pluck.] Had it not been for the skill and
devotion of Dr. Metcalfe and Dr. Welchman, together with
his own wonderful courage and patience and almost unfailing
good spirits, he could never have recovered. Dr. Welchman
was a member of the Melanesian Mission, and Dr. Metcalfe
was the medical man in charge of the Norfolk Islanders.
Admiral Lord Charles Scott very kindly sent down a man-of-
war, once to bring air-pillows for my husband, and twice
more to see if he could be brought to Sydney. [The first of
these occasions was the very day that Mary, the second child
of Mrs. J. R. Selwyn, was born, and the Bishop and Mrs.
Selwyn were so seriously ill that the doctors were in great
anxiety about both.] During this time he managed a Con
firmation by his bedside, and before finally leaving was carried
over to the chapel on his bed, which was laid on the altar steps,
and from thence he gave his last address to his dear Me-
lanesians. At last H.M.S. Rapid came, early in July, and
took my husband and me and Dr. Welchman to Sydney. He
John Selwyn. At the present moment the Melanesian Mission
is seeking funds to supply the place of the Southern Cross, which
is worn out and hardly fit for use.
LAST YEARS IN MELANESIA 203
had to be carried on his bed, which had four long handles
attached, for three miles across the island to the landing-
places, relays of eight Melanesians bearing him. There his
bed was placed in a whale-boat, and we rowed about two miles
to the ship, and it was hoisted up by ropes and swung in
board. By this time he was getting better, and was able to
enjoy seeing his friends in Sydney. Indeed, he actually
addressed a missionary meeting gathered at our house from
his bed.
" I must not forget to say how very kind every one was on
board the Rapid, and how the Blue-jackets, attracted to him
as all sailors were, begged to be allowed to carry him on board
the mail-steamer, as they had carried him ashore. Dr. Welch-
man came home with us, nursing him with the utmost
devotion."
The boat that brought him home to England from
Sydney was the Ballarat, the steward on board (who
has since died) being warmly remembered still for
all the attention and kindness he showed on the
voyage.
He arrived in London in September 1891, and was
met at Tilbury by his daughters, who found him so
much better that he was able to sit up at dinner in
the saloon for the first time.
The Bishop was taken in an ambulance to an
hotel in Queen s Gate, from which he afterwards
removed to De Yere Gardens. The surgeons,
headed by Dr. Pickering Pick, had a great con
sultation over him and decided that the risk of
amputation was too great, so that all they dared
to do was to cut the sinews, which had so con-
204 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
tracted that his right leg was eight inches shorter
than the left.
It was when at 1 8 De Vere Gardens that Sir James
Paget was called in to advise, and told him plainly
that he would never be able to climb a ship s side
again and must resign his post.
To MRS. A COURT-REPINGTON.
"18 DE VERE GARDENS, Nov. 11, 1891.
" When you come you will find me in a very spic
and span dressing-gown, and able to hop from my
room to the drawing-room on crutches. . . . But
my fate is sealed. We had Sir James Paget
in to consult with Pick the other day, and he told
me quite decidedly that I should never be able to
do the work in Melanesia again, and not much of
anything else. So a chapter in my life closes, to my
wife s and my infinite sorrow. But it is so plainly
my duty that it takes away the misery of having to
decide."
He then took a house at Shottermill, near Hasle-
mere, and gathered his family round him. His
pleasure was in some measure spoilt by an attack of
influenza in January 1892 which brought on a severe
bout of the old pains. His sense of humour never
deserted him through it all, and when he, who had
been used to camp out by himself and be his own
LAST YEARS IN MELANESIA 205
cook and bed-maker, found himself in the hands of
a solemn valet, whom he had engaged to see after
him, his amusement and jokes knew no bounds.
This careful attendant would come into the room at
the exact moment, and gravely presenting a salver
would say, "The pill, my Lord"- a proceeding
altogether too much for the Bishop s gravity.
To MRS. A COURT-REPINGTOK
" SHOTTERMILL (undated).
" I am writing in bed with the old weight on [a
heavy weight was attached to his leg to keep the
sinews from contracting] after another five weeks of
it. Influenza brought on inflammation of all the
nerves of my bad leg, and it was a case of as you
were/ ... I could not stand or sit, and can only
do the latter now, and that for a short time.
" I have set up a man nurse, who valets me in
the most lordly way, whereat Annie laughs con-
sumedly."
In April 1892 he took Langhurst, near Witley in
Surrey, and when there used sometimes to manage
on his crutches to take a service in the little school-
church at Grays wood. In November of thafc year
he went to London to have a further operation to
try to lengthen his leg, and when there his mother
had a very terrible illness, which kept them all in
206 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
London for most of the winter, and was a cause of
great anxiety to the Bishop. It seemed as if his
cup of suffering both physical and mental was just
then full to overflowing, and there did not appear to
be anything in prospect to cheer or interest his life
beyond the family love which was ever one of his
greatest joys.
CHAPTER XV
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
IT was no very bright prospect that lay before
Bishop John Selwyn at this time. A hopeless
cripple, cut off from the one sphere of labour to
which he had given his life s devotion, there seemed
little left him but to drag out a few more years of
comparative uselessness.
But there was still a work for him to do. It was
in the spring of 1893, when he was staying at
Worthing with his second daughter, who was ill at
the time, that the offer came to him of the Master
ship of Selwyn College. Nothing more unexpected,
nothing more startling, could have happened. At
the first moment he even conceived the thing to be
some kind of huge practical joke. He took the
letter up into his daughter s room, threw it on her
bed, and sat and roared with laughter at it
" What do you think they want me to do now ? "
he said. The idea that he, " a rough man who had
been out in the wilds and was not fit to associate
208 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
with dons and such folk," as he described himself,
should be Head of a College appeared to him nothing
short of preposterous.
The Bishop of Peterborough (now Bishop of
London) was deputed by the Council of Selwyn
College to convey their wishes. Here are his
letters :
"THE PALACE, PETERBOROUGH, 1 7th March, 1893.
"My DEAR BISHOP SELWYN,
"I have been requested, as one of a Committee
appointed by the Council of Selwyn College, to ask you if you
would be willing to succeed Mr. Lyttelton as Master. I may
add that if you were willing to do so I think the Council
would unanimously elect you.
" I may further say that this decision was not arrived at
without a full consideration of all material facts. I am sorry
to say that personally I am unknown to you ; but that was
not the case with the majority of those present. I can only
suppose that I was deputed to write to you that I might with
greater frankness assure you that all the objections which
would present themselves naturally to your mind want of
academic experience, and the rest were and are before us.
But we were of opinion that you possess qualities which, in
the present condition of the College and of the University,
would make your acceptance of the office of Master peculiarly
useful to those great interests which we all wish to serve. I
shall await with great expectancy your answer, though of
course it is unreasonable to suppose that it can be given
without due consideration and some days of reflection .
"I am,
" Yours very truly,
"M. PETERBURG."
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 209
ee PETERBOROUGH, March 20, 93.
"My DEAR BISHOP SELWYN,
" May I venture to say one or two things, as one
who knows Cambridge and the duties of a Master of Selwyn
College ?
"(1) The important point in a Master is that he should be
known outside Cambridge.
" (2) Equally important is it that in Cambridge he should
distinctly represent some definite side of the work of the
Church. You would represent elements of the greatest im
portance, which are not at present represented.
" (3) There is no difficulty in getting teachers for the Uni
versity Examinations. The work of the Master need not be
more than seeing that the requisite teaching is supplied, and in
supplementing that by spiritual teaching of his own. You
would find a loyal staff of teachers : but you would be able to
give teaching of a general and valuable kind ; it might be as
informal as you like. You would find that it would be
welcomed by many men outside Selwyn. There is absolutely
no need that you should be responsible for any of the ordinary
teaching.
" (4) Masters of Colleges may be of many kinds. What
Lyttelton has done will not be the same as what any successor
will do. The new Master will follow his own lines.
" The Council was of opinion that there was no one who
could advance the interests of the College so much as yourself.
" Yours very truly,
"M. PETERBURG."
His astonishment and amusement at the position
in which he found himself may be gathered from the
following extracts :
210 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
To MRS. LONG INNES.
" WORTHING, April 3, 1893.
" On Saturday I went up to London and saw the
Council of Selwyn College, whom I fought to no
purpose ; so now, as you will see in the papers, I am
Master of that ilk. Don t laugh, but, if you do, you
can t laugh as much as I do at the idea of my being
a Don ! Every one told me it was my duty, so I
am going ; but I don t in the least like it."
To MRS. A COTJRT-REPINGTON.
"WORTHING, April 11, 93.
" What do you think of me as a Don ? I think
it is the very funniest notion that I ever heard of,
and I can t conceive how it is to be done."
To R DURNFORD, ESQ.
" 95 MARINE PARADE, WORTHING,
"April 18, 1893.
"My DEAR DICK,
" My feeling when such an one as you writes
to me anent Selwyn College is risum teneatis
amid (must quote now I m a Don). Can you by
any stretch of imagination fancy me in that position
or can you fancy any sane body of men forcing me
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
to take it ? I went to their meeting, and spoke to
them with much plainness of speech. I appealed to
my ignorance of the least rudiments of the classics,
to my utter ignorance of the veriest outline of
academic work. I quoted Stephie [his son, who had
just matriculated at Trinity], whose opinion of my
attainments was expressed with the utmost frank
ness . . . But it was no go, and so I am dragged
to the Groves of Academe from the wilds of the
Pacific. I laughed so consumedly at the thought
when it was first mooted that my mother was quite
angry. But it was all no good. Every soul I
consulted said Go/ and so I go, the very squarest
peg in the very roundest hole the world has
ever seen. Cincinnatus (was it not C. ? ) is not
in it in comparison. My wife trembles at the idea
of and and the blues of Newnham looking
over our garden wall [Newnham adjoins Selwyn
College].
" Seriously, I go because I am told to go, and I
tremble at the thought. I only hope I may get at
the men, and turn them out as men. I could do
that when I could lead in Melanesia. How on earth
I am to lead in my study I know not. However,
people say it is all right, and, if I fail, I shall go
with rapidity ! . . .
" Best love to my godson.
" Yrs. affect.
"J. R. S.,B P ."
BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
Amongst the " plain things " that he spoke to
those who pressed upon him the Mastership was
the characteristic observation, " If you had called
me to take command of a man-of-war I should
have understood something about it, but a
College !"
The unanimity with which his acceptance was in
sisted upon by all his friends counted for much, but
chiefly he was influenced by his mother s strong wish
that he should undertake the work. It may, perhaps,
have been gathered in the course of this book that
he was hardly likely to withstand the desire of a
mother who had been so much to him throughout
his life. All the same, just at first he often regretted
the step he had taken. He had been offered, and had
refused, a small living in Surrey, and used sometimes
to say, " Why didn t you let me go to Busbridge ? "
Universal satisfaction was expressed when his de
cision became known. The College authorities were
satisfied that his past achievements were credentials
enough, and that the chance of having a Selwyn at
the head of Selwyn College was not to be lost. It
was thought by all a graceful act to offer the post to
his father s son ; and finally letters came from many
quarters giving sound reasons for congratulation
on the appointment. It may be sufficient to quote
two one from a lay, the other from a clerical,
source.
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
From THE LATE RT. Hox. GEORGE DENMAN.
" 8 CRANLEY GARDENS, S.W., April 3, 1893.
"My DEAR BISHOP,
" What glorious news ! Selwyn of Selwyn ! Hurrah !
The Selwyn Boat will be head of the River !
" New Zealand will be glad.
" Melanesia will shout for joy.
" Trinity and Eton will be prouder than ever of their stock.
But none will rejoice more heartily than does
"Yours most sincerely,
"G. DENMAN."
From DR. TALBOT, Bishop of Rochester, at that time Vicar
of Leeds.
" THE VICARAGE, LEEDS, April 6, 1 893.
" MY DEAR BISHOP,
" May I send a word of cordial congratulation from
an old friend at the appointment which I see in the papers ?
I cannot say what pleasure it gives me, for on the one hand it
seems to secure to the College (D.V.) another lease of efficiency
and prosperity, and all the advantage that comes from being
efficiently represented in the University, and, on the other
hand, I cannot help feeling a real delight that after all your
troubles you should have the prospect of a new career which
cannot fail to be to you full of rich interest and opportunity,
and in which you may do such first-rate service for Church
and State. I feel a pure pleasure in the news, and I should
not like to go without just saying it and wishing you God
speed.
" Yours always sincerely,
"E. S. TALBOT."
BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
This last letter was specially valuable as coming
from one who had been for many years head of Keble
College, Oxford,* and therefore knew better than
most other people what was the nature of the work
to which Bishop John Selwyn had been called.
In June 1893 he was formally installed as Master
of Selwyn, and it is noteworthy that the foundation-
stone of the College chapel was laid the previous
day. This building was an immense interest to him,
and to it, as will be seen later on, he gave lavishly
of his time and money. There is a remarkable
unanimity in the expression of the effect that he
made on entering the University life of Cambridge.
With one voice he is said by all to have been like a
fresh sea-breeze blowing through the place. He him
self fancied that at first he did not " hit it off" with
the Dons, but this feeling quickly passed away, and
it was not long before he said, " I think Cambridge
people the kindest in the world." It can readily be
understood by all who are acquainted with University
life, even of the present day, that the influence of
the coming of such a man would be to blow away, or
at least disturb, much of the dust which settles
down imperceptibly in such places. Nothing is
sadder than to watch the slow but sure narrowing of
a man who, with little interest outside his College
* Keble at Oxford and Selwyn at Cambridge are Colleges
upon strictly Church of England lines where a somewhat cheaper
education is provided.
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
walls, spends year after year in the same routine of
duties. And though their number is fewer, yet there
are still in our Universities many who answer to this
description. There are many more who, while spas
modically interested in matters concerning the outer
world, consider the politics and life of their own
University of paramount importance, and deem a
man unable to pronounce the special academic Shib
boleths a person of small account.
To these came Bishop John Selwyn with the smell
of the salt Pacific still upon him : with the uncon-
ventionality of the island explorer visible in all his
ways: with the conviction that there were in the
wide world interests at least as great as those of
Cambridge : with a body broken down by disease,
but a heart as strong as ever, and a keenness which
many another man of fifty might envy : and, lastly,
with a resolve to use his remaining powers to their
utmost extent in the service of those young men with
whom he had so much in common.
His success was assured from the first. It may be
that he made mistakes sometimes ; possibly his
quick temper created difficulties now and again ; but,
as Professor Stanton said in his memorial sermon,
he was " a winning, noble-hearted man, for whose
presence all ought to be the better." That was the
secret of it ; he was so ?io&/e-hearted. No matter
what the mistake, no matter how deeply irritated he
had been, he was quick to make amends, never being
BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
able to rest until he had expressed his own sorrow
and sought the renewed friendship of others.
There is a remarkable story illustrating this of an
incident which happened during these last years of
his life. He was passing through London, and drove
in a four-wheeler from King s Cross to catch his
train at Paddington. The cab crawled along, and
time was getting short. The Bishop called to the
driver to quicken up, and got an exceedingly rude
reply. He lost his temper for a moment, and told
the man he was not going to a funeral and must get
along faster, whereat the cabby got more angry still.
At Paddington the Bishop paid the man his exact
fare but nothing more, telling him it was because of
his incivility. Next day the whole story was told
to Mrs. John Selwyn, the Bishop expressing his own
unhappiiiess at having vexed the man by his careless
words and then not having tried to help him after
wards. A week later he had to go to London again,
so started by a very early train to try and find the
man. On inquiry at King s Cross he learnt that the
cabman s stand was at Paddington Station, so he
hurried off there, and waited for an hour, watching
all the cabs in and and out, but in vain. At last
he had to drive off to Waterloo to catch his train,
and there, to his great joy, saw his man just entering
the station. He had a long talk with him, telling
him how sorry he was for what had occurred. The
man followed suit, and it ended by the Bishop finding
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 217
out all about his home, and afterwards sending ten
shillings to his children. This was a great comfort
to the Bishop, for he had been worrying about it
all the previous week.
The man who could take such pains to make up a
dispute with a cabman was not likely to have pro
longed troubles with the Cambridge folk, either Dons
or undergraduates.
His main work lay, of course, with the latter, and
it was not long before he worked a change in the
general tone of Selwyn College. The discipline was
not particularly good when he first took the reins of
government. This was largely owing to a curious
experiment which had been made by his predecessor,
Mr. Lyttelton (now Bishop of Southampton), who
had tried the plan of combining in his own person
the offices of Master and Dean of the College. To
most old University men it will be obvious that the
result of such an experiment must be that the
College would either have a Master or a Dean, but
certainly not both, the two offices being singularly
incompatible. Bishop Selwyn reverted to the old-
fashioned plan, with excellent results. But it was
also his personality which did so much to produce a
better state of things. It is said that on the first
Sunday after the College service the following words
were overheard from one of the rowdiest of the men :
" I say, I don t like the look of that chap s eye ! "
And no doubt that flashing eye which had controlled
218 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
Melanesian savages, and searched the hearts of
sailors as he preached on the deck of a man-of-war,
was of no little effect as he spoke to the under
graduates whom he had come to govern.
Perhaps his extreme unconventionality added
slightly to his difficulties in this direction. It was
not always understood by the men, who were not
used to being shouted at from the window of the
study of the Master s Lodge. But, if unconventional
himself, he would stand no relaxation of discipline
on the part of others. Probably the luckless under
graduate, who came one day to see him in his study
wearing a pair of white boating shoes, still remembers
the weighty words of the Master on that occasion !
It is certain, however, that many Selwyn men recall
with gratitude and affection those talks over a pipe
late at night (also, perhaps, a little unconventional !)
which ended so often in the pouring out of religious
difficulties, after which the Bisliop took the place of
the Master, and the undergraduate knelt with him
in prayer and received his episcopal blessing.
It was his tact, too, which helped him to keep up
the discipline of the place. As in many another
College, the question of letting off fireworks on the
night of the fifth of November was a burning one.
He showed his full appreciation of the fact that it is
not jireivorks that the undergraduate s soul desires,
but illegal fireworks, and issued an invitation to the
College to come and let them off in his own grounds !
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 219
Nothing could more gracefully and effectually have
quenched the whole subject.
He was much interested and excited during the
great contest in Cambridge about women s degrees,
taking a strong line against their concession. He
wrote several letters bearing upon this subject, from
which the following extracts are interesting :
To a COUSIN.
"SELWYN COLLEGE LODGE, Jan. 9, 1897.
"I attribute to the deep reverence that I carry
about with me, and which grows deeper as years go
on, for womanhood in its purity and lovableness.
I do hope the girls of the present day will not throw
aside much of that charm in their thirst for learning,
which brings them into contact with so much that
may harden them, arid so spoil them. It will be a
bad day for mcmkind if they do."
To MRS. A COURT-REPINGTON.
"SELWYN COLLEGE, May 20, 1897.
" We are all agog about the women to-morrow.
I hope the non-placets are going to win handsomely.
The excitement is very great."
On the evening of the day of the voting (May 21)
220 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
there was some most unchivalrous conduct on the
part of certain persons unknown outside Newnham
College. A letter was written by some one who
signed him- or her- self "Onlooker," which appeared
in the Spectator, and which accused members of a
" neighbouring College" of the outrage. Now, the
College that is neighbour to Newnham is Selwyn,
and great was the Master s wrath at the publication
of this letter, especially when he had fully satisfied
himself that the men of his College were none of
them to blame. He never rested till he got to the
bottom of the affair and had obliged " Onlooker "
to write a further letter to the Spectator admitting
the inaccuracy of many of the statements, and un
reservedly withdrawing the accusation against the
neighbouring College."
Of course his share in University business was not
very large, and his attainments did not fit him for
lecturing, but from the first he always gave one
lecture each week on Divinity to Selwyn men in
their first two years. Uncommonly racy and in
teresting these addresses were, being largely taken
up by narratives of his own experiences. " I don t
know what I taught them," he said of his first
lecture, " but I know I made them laugh ! "
By far the most important work of this kind
which he did was in 1896, when he delivered the
course of pastoral lectures for that year at the
request of the University Theological Board. Any
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
one wishing to know further what manner of man
he was, and what manner of work he did, cannot do
better than read these lectures, which are published
as a separate volume by the S.P.C.K.
His devotion to his old life and work was still
intense, and his continual reference to them in his
lectures and conversation was so frequent, that " My
islanders " became a standing joke in the College.
Naturally enough, one of the matters which troubled
him most was the question of his successor in Mela
nesia. At last he had the great happiness of know
ing that the work would be carried on in the true
spirit. His close friend Canon Jacob (now Bishop
of Newcastle) was consulted by him, and recom
mended an old curate, the Rev. Cecil Wilson, to the
Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Benson), Dr. Codring-
ton, and the Master of Selywn College, who had
been commissioned to make the appointment. For
Mr. Wilson s acceptance he was most thankful,
though his regret at his own resignation crops up
through all his letters on the subject.
To MRS. A COURT-EEPINGTON.
" LICHFIELD, Jan. 8, 94.
" I must stay with Cecil Wilson, Vicar of
Moordown, whom I have stolen to be Bishop
of Melanesia ! Alas ! I don t like to think of
any one else bearing that name, but that is
222 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
only a passing pang. . . . and he is such a nice
fellow."
To the Same.
" SELWYN COLLEGE LODGE, Feb. 20, 94.
" I have just been with Annie and Pearlie to hear
Bishop Tucker [of Mombasa]. He came to call this
morning and we had much talk. Oh ! my heart
burned to be out again. The shelf is not very
comfortable."
To the Same.
" SELWYN COLLEGE LODGE, Dec. 6, 94.
" I heard that Wilson was just starting for the
Islands, and is probably coming back about this
time. Then he goes to New Zealand, and finally
for a short tour in Australia to settle many things.
I cannot help seeing the wisdom of God in taking
me away when He did, as I had so broken down
that I should never have been fit for all these
things."
The building of the College chapel was an
immense interest to him. There were no funds for
properly furnishing it, and to raise these he devoted
much time and labour, starting the subscription list
with a gift from himself of 500. The handsome
and dignified carving of the stalls was an especial
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
object to him, and the completion of this part of the
work is the fitting memorial of his Mastership. No
one who has seen the chapel can fail to appreciate
the loving care with which every detail of a most
beautiful building has been carried out. In the
summer of 1895 the edifice had been nearly com
pleted, and by a fortunate chance it fell to Bishop
John Selwyn s lot to preach in it for the first time.
As will be seen by the subjoined letter, there had
been no intention of using the chapel at all on the
occasion, and, when it was determined to use it,
Canon Gore of Westminster was to have been the
preacher, so that it was by a kind of double accident
that the Bishop s voice was the first one heard in
Selwyn College Chapel. The incident of the dove,
so curiously symbolical and beautiful, was a great
delight to the Bishop.
To MRS. A COURT-EEPINGTON.
"SELWYN COLLEGE LODGE, July 28, 1895.
" Canon Gore is holding a retreat here, and
yesterday he broke down for a bit with the heat.
So I took the bull by the horns and rigged up the
new chapel, so that he could give most of his
addresses in it. He could not take the first, so I
took it the first words ever uttered in its walls
and, as a good omen, in came a dove to listen to the
1 Yen! Creator. "
BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
It is not surprising to find that besides the
religious life of the College and the discipline and
supervision of the work of the undergraduates,
Selwyn Boat Club received a considerable impetus
from the coming of a Master who had himself been a
noted oar. All sorts of stories might be told of his
endeavours in this direction. " If you can t row, I ll
make you/ was no uncommon thing to hear him
say to the hesitating freshman. He was down on
the towing-path in his hand-tricycle whenever he
was well enough and could spare the time, and would
shout out orders to the Selwyn crew as he kept pace
with them in their practice. On one occasion he
was actually helped into the stern of a new Selwyn
four, and coxed it on its trial spin. In all such ways
he renewed the spirit of his youth, and gained
besides a more intimate knowledge of the men of his
College. The cups which he had won in University
races thirty years before he presented to Selwyn
College, where they will ever be cherished in memory
of one who was almost as keen for her success on the
river as in the schools.
His generosity towards the chapel has been
noticed, but this was but a small part of his lavish
expenditure on the College generally. At the risk
of repetition, this leading feature of his character
must again be insisted upon. He gave lavishly,
ungrudgingly, of his best. He spent largely on the
staff of College tutors, while his gifts to under-
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 225
graduates were so frequent as to be sometimes
thought a little indiscriminate. To the College
servants he was kindness itself. He took a personal
interest in each one of them, would call them to him
for a friendly word or two as they passed, and did
all he could to help their club and make their lives
happy. His relations with them may be summed
up in the words of one of them, who, on being asked
about the late Master twelve months after his death,
said, " I only know I lost the best friend ever man
had."
But his career at Cambridge was not memorable
in connection with Selwyn College alone. He threw
himself heartily into several kinds of outside work.
He preached and spoke for Melanesia, and took a
share besides in many matters ecclesiastical. Thus
in Advent 1894, he addressed the candidates for
ordination at Lichfield. "It is a day," said the
Bishop of the diocese (Dr. Legge), " that they will
never forget. The reality of the man, the strong
simplicity of his homethrusts, the enthusiasm for all
that is good and true, and the evident witness of his
own body that he bore in it the marks of the Lord
Jesus, touched, convinced, inspired us all."
Professor Stanton in his memorial sermon speaks
of another work to which the Bishop gave much
attention. This was the Barnwell and Chesterton
Clergy Fund, the object of which was to aid the
poorer parishes in Cambridge. He became president
BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
of this association, and under his care it gained a
renewed vitality.
His old love of hospital work and desire to help
and cheer the sick and maimed, especially any who
were cripples like himself, was most noticeable
during his last years. He visited the infirmary in
Cambridge regularly, and often took services there.
Not content with that, he undertook a certain
amount of pastoral work, obtaining the permission
of the late Vicar of St. Giles to visit sick people in
that parish, and welcome was the sound of the
Bishop s crutches as he dragged himself up a cottage
staircase to bring a bit of sunshine to some poor
bedridden sufferer.
He never seemed able to pass a fellow cripple
by, and many amusing stories are told of his
persuading lame men to race him, and his delight
when his crutches proved faster than those of his
opponent.
In the general religious life of Cambridge he took
a large part, but, as might be expected, more
especially in all that concerned Missions. The
Cambridge branch of the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was greatly stimu
lated by him, while at the same time he took a
leading part in the Board of Missions for the Pro
vince of Canterbury. The Bishop of Newcastle
(Dr. Jacob) gives some account of this latter work.
He says :
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 227
" Bishop John Sehvyn and I were almost contemporaries
. . . but we never came to know one another personally until
1888, the year of the Lambeth Conference, when I was secre
tary to the Board of Missions for the Province of Canterbury.
But our intimacy and friendship were of still later date, and
extended over the last few years of his life, when he had come
back a cripple. We became friends almost instinctively, and
the friendship became closer and closer. . . . Our common
interest in Missions was a great link between us, and Bishop
Selwyn s interest in what the Board of Missions had under
taken was so great that at last, seeing how burdened I was
with the labours of the report and all my other work, he
most kindly offered to tabulate all the replies which we had
received from India to definite questions which we had sent
out. He not only did this, but wrote nearly sixteen pages of
the report, all bearing on discipline and order, without which
I could never have got the report done. . . . On my becoming
Bishop of Newcastle in January 1896, he succeeded me as
Secretary to the Board of Missions. He had thrown himself
so vigorously into the work, and had so well helped on
the Missionary Conference of the Anglican Communion in
1894, and had so happy a power of inspiring others, that he
was the obvious man for the post if he were willing to accept
it, and it was a great joy to me when I heard of his appoint
ment. I cannot say how much I loved this delightful man.
I stayed with him at Cambridge after he had accepted the
Mastership of Selwyn College, and he honoured me by taking
part in my consecration. We found ourselves in close accord
on nearly all the subjects we discussed together. His pluck
when suffering from terrible pain was something to see. His
absolute unselfishness ; his power of throwing himself into all
the interests of another ; his power of inspiring young men
and bringing out all that was manly and good in them ; his
hatred of red-tape " or of any kind of sham ; his intense
longing for the evangelisation of the world ; his love for
228 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
Melanesia and the Mission to which he had given his life all
this is now a memory of the past, but a memory that inspires.
When I heard of his death I thanked God that I had known
and loved him well, and I felt the singular completeness of
that heroic life."
Mission work in the poorer parts of London had a
great attraction for him, and he was, of course,
specially interested in the Eton Mission at Hackney
Wick. A characteristic story is told of one of his
visits there by one who was present. It runs thus :
" The Eton Mission Church was filled one weekday evening
with a large congregation of those poorer members of society
who lived (as they themselves describe it) c under the arch
through which you had to pass into the Mission district. No
one, they said, lived under the arch who could afford either
financially or morally to live elsewhere. But they had many
of them come to church (an old iron church) that night
because their Missioner (the present Bishop of Zululand) had
invited them to hear the message of the Bishop of Melanesia,
an old Etonian, whose teaching would certainly help them.
The processional hymn was heard, and the procession itself
proceeded on its way round the church, the last figure in it
being the Bishop. Suddenly he was missed, and the pro
cession itself proceeded on its way unconscious of its loss.
What had happened ? Why, just this : John Selwyn had dis
covered an old woman who could not find her place in her
hymn-book, and all his episcopacy was set on meeting the
need, however humble, of that one poor old soul. He was
a Bishop indeed, but he was a man first."
Not content with visiting the poor in London, he
had many of them to visit him at Cambridge.
t
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 229
Every Whit Monday about one hundred men from
one or other of the clubs managed by the Oxford
House in Bethnal Green used to come down to
Selwyn College for the day. There was always
dinner in hall for them, at which the Bishop presided.
After one of these Whit Mondays, Mr. Ingram (now
Bishop of Stepney) wrote to Miss Selwyn and said,
" Please thank your father very much indeed. The
men all fell in love with him."
But it was in the starting of the Cambridge
House that Bishop John Selwyn interested himself
most keenly of all. The following account, extracted
from a letter written by the Rev. J. O. F. Murray,
of Emmanuel College, makes clear the Bishop s part
in the initiation of the scheme.
" EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, June 5, 1 899-
" The outline of events is simple enough. On February 17,
1896, the Bishop of Rochester addressed a large meeting of
members of the University, senior and junior, in the hall of
S. John s College. In the course of his address the Bishop
made an earnest appeal to the University as a whole to sup
port and supplement the work of the various College Missions
in South London by providing a Cambridge something to
emulate, on such lines as might commend themselves to Cam
bridge feeling, the work done for the East End by the Oxford
House.
" The way had been prepared for this appeal by a course of
lectures given in the preceding May Term by the present
Bishop of Stepney, then head of Oxford House, on Pastoral
Work in Large Towns. These lectures had done a great deal
230 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
to bring the work of the Oxford House before the minds of
the younger members of the University ; and at the close of
his last lecture the lecturer had expressly challenged his
hearers to found a similar institution in the name of Cam
bridge in South London. But neither he nor they were in a
position to make the challenge effective, and nothing came of
it.
" It was, I believe, entirely due, under God, to Bishop
Selwyn that the Bishop of Rochester s appeal did not share the
same fate.
" Bishop Selwyn had been speaking the night before at the
annual meeting of the Trinity Mission, making, as the
Cambridge Review says, the speech of the evening." His
mind was clearly full of the vast need of South London. He
had also, no doubt from his own experience, a keener sym
pathy than the rest of us with the burden laid on a Bishop
who was called to wrestle with so terrible a problem : not only
his chivalry, but his reverence for the office of the speaker
made him feel that this appeal had at least primd fade
grounds for being taken as a direct call from God. He there
fore set to work at once to organise a response to it.
" His first step was to arrange for a discussion of the appeal
by the members of a Graduate Church Society, of which he
was president. This meeting was attended by some of the
College Missioners from South London ; and the relative
o
advantages of proceeding by an immediate effort to procure
the foundation of fresh College Missions, and of trying to
found an institution which should bear the name of the Uni
versity, were debated with great vigour. In the end a Com
mittee was appointed to see whether any working scheme for
a Cambridge House "* could be devised. Of this Committee
Bishop Selwyn was chairman.
" The following paragraphs written by the Bishop, and
printed in the Cambridge Review on October 29, give a
convenient summary of the work of the Committee. After
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 231
describing the events which led to the appointment of the
Committee, he proceeds :
" The Committee at once found themselves confronted by
two facts: (1) That it was impossible to call anything
a Cambridge " something " which did not include
Trinity ; and (2) that Trinity had already done, as
a College, what the Bishop desired the University to
do as a whole, by establishing not only a Mission
but a Settlement in South London.
" The field of inquiry seemed, therefore, to be narrowed
to the one question : Would and could the Trinity
Settlement expand itself into the larger and more
comprehensive " something "" which the Bishop pleads
for?
" A meeting was therefore held in London with the
representatives of the Trinity Settlement, and a very
frank discussion and interchange of views took place.
The representatives of Trinity Court explained that
they had found it practically impossible to secure the
continuous services of a layman as head of the Court,
and they had therefore appointed the Rev. W. Falkner
Baily, on the following conditions, which they had
agreed upon at the instance of the Bishop of Durham.
" The Committee in inviting a Clergyman to take the
Headship of Trinity Court express their hope that
he will find, while holding the office, ample scope for
the fulfilment of his clerical duties.
" In regard to the religious side of his work, they hope
that he will gather round him a body of men prepared
to work on a religious basis, while not excluding
those who cannot take the full position of Churchmen.
" They look to him to direct the devotional life of the
Court, and to give advice and assistance to its
members in any religious Avork they may undertake,
or in reading for Holy Orders. . . ."
232 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
" This is the basis on \yhich Trinity Court is now working ;
and it explains the resolutions in which the Settle
ment Committee most generously offer that Trinity
Court should become a Cambridge House. These are :
"(1) The Settlement Committee are for their part willing
that Trinity Court should become a Cambridge
House, provided they can be assured that there is
a real and substantial demand for a Cambridge
House.
" (2) They are unwilling to recommend the alterations of
the present constitution, which has been found to
work successfully, without a guarantee that the
work shall be continued on a similar basis.
"The lines therefore of the Cambridge House would be
somewhat as follows :
"(1) There would be a clerical head, directing and super
vising the whole work of the house. He would
hold such services as he might think best for the
welfare of those who might choose to come to
them. These services would form part of the
regular routine of the house, but on the distinct
understanding that attendance at them should not
be compulsory.
" () To this house Cambridge men who accept this basis
would come. Whether as laymen or as intending
hereafter to take Holy Orders, they would all find
work in which they could take part. Members of
colleges having missions would naturally assist
their own missions. Candidates for Holy Orders
would receive from the clerical head such assistance
and guidance as they might need.
" Such is the generous offer made by the Committee of the
Trinity Settlement to the University. Their first condition
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 233
has now to be fulfilled viz., that they should be assured
that there is a real and substantial demand for a Cambridge
House on the part of the University. In order to ascertain
this, the distinguished Cambridge men who are named as
speaking at the meeting on November 10 are coming to
support the Bishop of Rochester in his appeal. It is no
small proof of his belief in the efficacy of such a house to aid
him in his arduous work that he should have been at the
pains to rally to his side such men. Their presence and
their words will tell us that they at least think that the
thing can and ought to be done. It is for the University to
decide whether it shall be done.
" On November 10 the Guildhall was filled from end to
end. The Bishop of Rochester was supported by the Bishop
of Durham, the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, and the Hon.
Alfred Lyttelton, President of Trinity Court. The neces
sary resolutions were carried with enthusiasm, and Bishop
Selwyn was appointed Chairman of the Committee nomi
nated to carry them into effect. He remained Chairman of
the Cambridge Committee of the Cambridge House after
its constitution was finally settled, but for the last six
months of his life he was unfortunately unable to attend
our meetings.
" Such in outline was the history of the founding of the
Cambridge House. You will see from it, meagre as it is,
something of the extent of our debt to Bishop Selwyn. His
ear was the first to hear the call to the work. His energy
overcame the vis inertice which is so very strong among us,
and which might have checked a less resolute spirit than his.
His tact and his statesmanship carried us safely through the
initial difficulties, not so much by any special subtlety of
resource as by the power of his personality. We all, whatever
our own preferences might be, felt that we could trust him,
and so he was able to conciliate conflicting interests and bind
us into a real unity. I trust that the institution which is in
234 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
so real a sense his creation may have a long career of useful
ness before it, and that his relation to it may be one of its
most treasured and most stimulating memories.
" Yours sincerely,
"J. O. F. MURRAY."
In the spring of 1897 Bishop John Selwyn visited
the Mission, giving some lantern lectures, mixing
freely with the working men and enjoying their talk.
He managed to clamber, crutches and all, up the
movable ladder into the Mission chapel, and his
memory will live long amongst those to whom he
spoke his strong, bright, heartening words. The
delightful way he had with working women as well
as working men is instanced by a visit he paid to a
mothers meeting which was held in an out-of-the-
way upstairs Mission- room in Fulham Fields. In
the middle of the meeting his cheery voice was heard
at the foot of the stairs telling a street urchin to
carry up one of his crutches, while he laboriously
toiled up with the help of the other and the boy s
shoulder. He arrived in the room breathless but
beaming, and sitting himself down began his talk to
them with some little joke about cutting out clothes,
telling them how his father cut out jackets and
skirts on the deck of his mission ship to clothe the
first Melanesia!! girls he brought away to teach.
He then talked most enthusiastically about his
Mission life, and brightened the careworn faces of
the women by his inspiriting words and stories. He
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 235
was terribly tired at the time, but would not dis
appoint those who were expecting him an old rule
of life which he had laid on himself years before in
Melanesia.
A. favourite missionary project of his was " The
Foreign Service Order," a scheme by which junior
clergy could be enrolled as willing to work in
distant lands if called upon to do so, with the con
sent of their Bishop. He read a capital paper on
the subject at the Shrewsbury Church Congress of
1896, and in the following June the United Boards
of Missions of the Provinces of Canterbury and
York received a letter from the Archbishop of
Canterbury, forwarding a copy of resolutions re
specting a scheme for foreign service, which had
been agreed upon by the Bishops at their last
episcopal meeting. By this time the Order has
been formed, and a clerical secretary been appointed
in the person of the Vicar of Windsor ; so that one
matter which was very near Bishop Selwyn s heart
in the last years of his life is already being satis
factorily carried out.
Among the many other good works, outside the
University routine, in which the Bishop interested
himself were the Girls Letter League (an associa
tion for the promotion of letter writing between
ladies and factory girls), of which he was president,
and the National Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children, to the Cambridge Committee of
236 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
which he belonged, and in the work of which his
great love for children caused him to be deeply
interested.
Of his home life at this time it is more difficult to
speak, for, though he never let it be felt more than
he could possibly help, the shadow of his pain and
weakness must have been always present. Never
had he before had so long a spell of uninterrupted
domestic happiness, and this he enjoyed to the full.
His tastes were so childlike and simple that the
little incidents of his home were a great delight to
him. He was never better pleased than when
planning little surprises for others, and he preferred
quiet enjoyments to great entertainments. This
simplicity was obvious, too, in his relation towards
God. He deprecated much introspection, and would
often say," If we try to know God s will and to do it,
He will supply the rest. We needn t fash ourselves
about our feelings" And again, " Look outwards
and upwards, not inwards, and realise God as the
loving Father of us His children."
He never allowed adverse criticism of others in
his home, and, if any talk of this kind began, he
used to say, " Can t we find something else to talk
about ? " One who has read through a large part of
the correspondence of his life is able to bear this
unique witness, that in all his letters not one word
has been found that might not be published for fear
of hurting other people s feelings.
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 237
His consideration for the servants of his house
hold was unbounded, as was their devotion to him.
He insisted that each one should have an armchair
in her bedroom, as well as several in their common
sitting-room, saying that they were the people who
earned it best.
He was naturally impatient in disposition, but
through his long sufferings all who came near him
were struck by his marvellous endurance. He made
so light of his illness and pain that both the
members of his family and his doctors were often
deceived by it. He was always intensely grateful
for anything that was done for him, and never
forgot to thank his nurses for the least service. He
never murmured. " I never heard him mention his
privations," says his mother. He always found
something to be thankful for or to make a joke
about. Even at that terrible moment in Norfolk
Island, when the doctors were taking pieces of
diseased bone out of his leg, he was making riddles
and epigrams upon them ! Mrs. John Selwyn adds
the following testimony :
" Not even to me did he ever own, except three or four
times during his seven years of lameness, how bitter a trial
it was to him, and then it was only to say, I do trust I am
making it a willing offering. I try to make it so. 1 Once I
remember that he and I were standing in our garden at Cam
bridge when Mr. Still and some other old College friends, who
had been talking with us, ran down the slope and across the
lawn to go to some boat-race. He was standing on his
238 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
crutches, and his eyes filled with tears as he said, Ah ! what
wouldn t I give to be able to do that ! It is so hard to be
such a log, and walking on crutches is so irksome. But I
mustn t grumble. I want my lameness to be a willing offering
to God, and I don t think I really grudge it. Let us talk of
something else. He often used to say, If any one had told
me in old days that I should be a cripple and an invalid,
I should have said it was the one thing I couldn t bear ; and
yet, by God s grace, it seems quite different now. But it is
only because He has helped me so."
The society of his little children was a great
solace to him, and he delighted in playing games
with them, showing them tricks with string, &c., and
in many little ways letting them have their full
share in lightening his load. It was characteristic
of him that he got amusement even out of his
crutches, and was especially pleased when he could
use them for any out-of-the-way purpose. For
instance, he was seen using them to pull a footstool
out of the way of the choir in church, and delighted
to lend them for such things as pushing up a sash
window, or indeed for any purpose apart from their
proper use.
His pain and. weakness never prevented the
exercise of his humour, and many things were
penned by him in most happy vein while Master of
Selwyn. For instance, when his old friend Mr.
Waters wrote to ask him for a subscription towards
building a Mission chapel at Hope, he replied as
follows :
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 239
"SELWYN COLL. LODGE, Dec. 18, 1894.
" MY DEAR WATERS,
" Do hawks pick out other hawks een ? Am
I not building a chapel of my own which we have
waited for for fourteen years, and which I am risk
ing Holloway to finish ? Am I not doing all I can
for Melanesia ? Where, then, does Hope come in ?
I live on hope. I tick on hope. I order screens,
benches, altars, electric lights on hope. And now
another Hope springs up. How can I stand another
Hope ? It is not hope, it is madness, it is despair !
Nay, it is a flood of waters which hurries me into a
gulf of bankruptcy. Dun me not now : avaunt !
aroint thee ! You ask for a Mission chapel, forsooth.
You combine them in one ; / have a Mission and a
chapel. What are thy wants to mine ? You have
no senior tutor who haunts your room by day and
by night, and tells you you are cold, you are fear
ful, you are neglecting your duties. You have no
enthusiastic Bishop who proposes to attack the
whole of Queensland, to buy farms for 2000, to
work them at a dead loss.
" Cruel fate ! to be thus wounded by one I thought
my friend ! Hope for 5, but not yet is 5 for Hope.
If hope is not a sorry jade, then Hope shall have 5,
I hope.
"Yrs. affi,
"J. R. SELWYN, Bp"
240 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
He was exceedingly fond of writing epigrams and
short scraps of verse. Just about this same time
his friend Mr. Richard Durnford sent him some
Latin lines written by the Rev. James Lonsdale,
when (many years ago) he was asked by Bishop
Chapman, then a Fellow of Eton, to preach to the
school in the chapel on some Sunday during the
Bishop s residence. The lines were these :
" Cur imparem me cingis honoribus,
Me triste lignum, me vetulum pigro
Sermone, fundentemque tardo
Ore soporiferum papaver ? "
Bishop John Selwyn sent back the following trans
lation :
" Why do you crown with bays I cannot wear
Me, a sad stick/ archaic, dry, and drear ?
Who even when my lips can find a sound
Pour nought but dullest soporifics round ! "
At the beginning of the October Half in 1894 the
Eton boys were prevented from going back to school
by the state of the drains in College, and a short
time afterwards were sent home again because of
the floods. Hence came " a guardian s growl " from
the Bishop s pen.
" At first the drains took time away,
And now the floods come into play !
We wish that Eton would take pains
To drain its floods, or flood its drains ! "
SELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
In October 1896 his leg was worse again. He
had had a great treat in the enjoyment of a holiday
spent mainly on board ship, but the result was not
good.
To MftS. A CoURT-fvEPINGTON.
"SELWYN COLL., Oct. 18, 1896.
" The girls, Stephie, and I went to Norway this
summer and did the Fjords. I left them at Trond-
hjem and went with the training squadron to Shet
land, and so home. It was very jolly, but I am not
sure that I did not catch a chill in Shetland, where
the weather was horrible and hence my leg."
This seems the only account of any special
recurrence of pain until the following year, when his
last illness began.
CHAPTER XVI
THE END
DURING the whole of Michaelmas Term 1897 Bishop
John Selwyn was exceedingly ill. To add to his
other sufferings gastric trouble set in, and he was
unable to take any part in the busy College life
around him. He went up to London to preach in
St. Paul s Cathedral on October 3, but he was not
really fit for the exertion. October 20 was Selwyn
College Commemoration Day, and the Bishop of
Lichfield (Dr. Legge) preached the sermon. He
said afterwards :
"It was at Cambridge that I last saw him [Bishop
J. Selwyn], laid low by that attack from which he never
wholly recovered. He had asked me to preach on their Com
memoration Day in the beautiful chapel which he had been
instrumental in building, a request which I could not dis
regard, a privilege which I could not fail to prize. It was a
great disappointment to him to be unable to attend any of the
services or that occasion, but in the brief interviews I had
with him, amid the evident signs of pain and discomfort which
clouded a little the usual brightness of his smile, there was
THE END 243
the same eye of fire, there were the same strong features telling
of a high and noble purpose sustained by unwavering faith in
God."
From this time until the middle of November he
gradually became worse, and the gravest fears were
entertained. Then, however, his old rallying powers
seemed to come to the rescue, and for a time he was
a little better. There is still preserved a touching
little pencil note which he wrote on November 20
to his aunt, Mrs. Thompson.
" MY DEAREST AUNTIE,
" I am trying to write a line or two to amuse
myself and, I hope, to gratify my friends. God has
been very good to me, and I am a little better, but
the gastric trouble has been awful, and I am still
very shaky. I have lived on milk for three weeks.
People here are so kind.
" Your loving,
"J. R. S., Bp."
Dr. Bradbury, Downing Professor of Medicine,
was unremitting in his care of the Bishop, and
Professor Clifford Allbutt was also called in in con
sultation. Towards the end of the year great hopes
were expressed that a change of climate to some
warm dry place might complete his recovery. He
himself was anxious to try Sorrento, but the journey
was pronounced to be too long, and finally it was
244 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
arranged that he should be taken to Pau. He waited
until after the first Sunday in the ensuing term, and
on January 23, 1898, he attended Morning Prayer
in the College chapel for the first time since the
previous summer, and for the last time in his life.
He read the absolution and gave the blessing his
last blessing to the members of the College, none
of whom could look at him, and notice the ravages
wrought by his long illness, without a keen pang
and a heaviness of heart as they feared lest they
might see his face no more.
On January 25 he left Cambridge accompanied by
Mrs. J. R. Selwyn and his eldest daughter, the
little party arriving at Pau on February 2.
Just one week afterwards he had an exceedingly
bad night, much disturbed by the gastric trouble,
and a nurse was then obtained to undertake the
night work. On the following day, February 10,
and again on the llth, he seemed to be a little
stronger, but was tired out from want of sleep. On
this latter day he read a little, but very little, and
towards evening became slightly breathless. About
one o clock on the following morning (Saturday,
February 12) there was some small stir in the house,
and the voices of doctor and nurse were heard in
consultation. Then the former came out of the
Bishop s room and told Mrs. Selwyn that the end
might come at any time, but that it was hardly
likely to be that night.
THE END , 245
The doctor hurried away to fetch some oxygen to
ease the breathing, and meantime Mrs. and Miss
Selwyn remained in his room, finding a wonderful
strength and help in being with him. He wondered
why they should stay with him at that time of night,
and begged them to go to bed, but they told him
they wanted to see him easier before they left. The
oxygen which the doctor brought relieved him con
siderably, and the watchers were able to go and get
some rest. All that last day he was very weary
and tired. He could only lie on his left side, for
lying on his back increased the breathlessness, and
his other side was painful from perpetual resting
upon it.
Just before four o clock in the afternoon Mrs. and
Miss Selwyn, who were with him, thought him
worse and called the nurse, who at once saw that
the end was near. Miss Selwyn read the Com
mendatory Prayer and some other prayers, after
which the Bishop thanked them and said, " Please
be quiet now/ Presently he said, "I think lam
dying," and then for nearly three hours his mind
seemed wholly given to prayer, his eyes looking
upwards as they always did when he prayed as he
lay in bed. He again and again said, " The grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and
the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with us all
evermore " ; and even when his speech became in
distinct those who watched him could catch the
246 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
words "love of God" and "with us all, with such
emphasis on the " all" Now and then scraps of
Collects and Psalms fell from his lips, and then he
would say, " Oh ! I m so tired ! " and " I m done,
I m done." Once his mind went back to old days
on board the Southern Cross, andjhe^said, "Call
me at one bell." Up to the very end he looked first
at one of those whom he loved so ^dearly and then
at the other with a long earnest gaze which assured
them that he was conscious and knew them to the
last.
The sun, which had been streaming into the room
all the afternoon, had set, and it was growing dark,
when he turned a little more upon his side, the
rough breathing ceased, a few long gentle breaths
came, and he " fell asleep " as softly and gently as a
little child. God had called him just at " one bell,"
as he wished.
He was robed for burial in full episcopal attire,
with a little much-prized gold chain and cross round
his neck, and crosses of violets on his breast and
feet. Early in the morning of February 14 he was
taken to St. Andrew s Church, and there his dear
ones found him lying before the altar when they went
to the celebration at 8.30. The funeral was that
same afternoon, and was taken by Mr. Torry Mr.
Acland-Troyte, the chaplain at Pau, being unwell.
The Bishop s favourite hymn, " Hark ! the sound of
holy voices, * was sung by the little choir to the tune
THE END 247
which was used at Selwyn College. Many English
visitors followed the coffin all the way to the ceme
tery, and the evident sympathy and reverence of the
crowds of wayfarers, who were attending a market
in the place, helped to take away the inevitable sad
ness of laying a much-loved body to rest in a strange
land. One little incident was especially touching.
As the procession skirted the barrack square the
soldiers, who were drilling, stood at attention and
saluted, and the sentry presented arms till lie had
passed. It was so exactly what he, with his love
for soldiers and sailors, would have wished.
As may easily be supposed, the news of Bishop
John Selwyn s death caused a very widespread sorrow.
Letters to members of the family poured in, ex
pressive of affection and admiration for him. The
steward of Selwyn College (Mr. Dempster) wrote in
the names of himself and the servants at the College,
saying that their late Master had been dearly loved
by all of them, and that they felt they had lost a
friend who could never be replaced. The following
extracts from letters will give some idea of the feeling
that was aroused :
" To-day Canon Gore, in his University sermon, spoke of
him as the hero-spirit in terms which must have touched
the hearts of all that great congregation. It seems to me
that any one to whom he ever spoke must have loved him.
Now the great son is with the great father the two who
both fought so gallantly against the kingdom of darkness in
248 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
the remotest corners of earth and sea ! . . . The last time I
saw him I sat beside him in Marlborough College Chapel.
The lesson that evening was % Corinthians iv., and as the
10th and following verses * sounded in my ears I glanced
at the crutches that lay at his feet, and felt that every word
might have been spoken by him."
A well-known Cambridge resident also bore witness
as follows :
"It is a great thing for us in Cambridge to have had
among us, even for a few years only, that noble cheering
presence, which told one that it was possible to rejoice in
the Lord always. 1 "
A Cambridge friend wrote :
"Many old residents might envy the way in which the
Bishop has endeared himself here in these few years. Cer
tainly he is one whose life has been measured by love, and we
would not be of the world which reckons by years."
A domestic servant, who had been at Selwyn
College Lodge, and whose great sorrow was that she
could not serve bim to the very end, wrote :
" I feel too heart-broken to write any more. The whole
College with us are mourning a beloved Master s loss."
How great was tbe grief which was felt by his
islanders in Melanesia can be imagined. Probably
* " Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord
Jesus/ c.
THE END
no one with whom they had ever had to do had
obtained such a hold on their affections, and their
simple hearts must have been wrung when the news
of his death was passed from island to island.
The Rev. Clement Marau sent the following letter
to Mrs. J. R. Selwyn, and from it can be gathered
the depth of feeling stirred in those distant seas.
Translation of the REV. CLEMENT MARAU S Letter to
Mus. SELWYN.
" MY BELOVED MOTHER,
"What shall I write? Can it be that I should
pleasantly give you news ? No ! but let me converse with
you in grief, because I was surprised when I heard by a letter
in which the Rev. J. Archdeacon Palmer told me that our
father indeed, Bishop Selwyn, was dead." 1 It was like the
darkness of night to me, as if I was not yet willing to hear
the news of death, of him, or of you, or of Dr. Codrington.
Ah ! it pains me to hear that one who loved us so much has
died so ; our minds are confused because our father is dead.
I look now in vain for love. All of us here, his children at
Ulawa, are thoroughly grieved for him in sympathy with you.
If it were all dry land for you and us we could meet together
to weep and to grieve together. I have not yet seen in any
one now a love greater than that with which you and your
husband have loved us black people. Bishop Selwyn wholly
gave and laid down his life for us, and he worked very hard
for our benefit, and illness came upon him because of that, and
he was long in suffering, and died because of that. I have
always seen the evidence of his love and yours in this ship of
ours. I know how much money you two gave for it in love
for us. It was as if he gave his life for us ; and everything of
all sorts he gave for us. It was not only money and a ship,
250 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
not only all sorts of things, but it was the true example he set
for us, all his good life for us. And therefore I suppose it
was as if God saw his love more than man sees, and took
him away from us ; and God has given him a heavenly life,
greater than the life that he has given up to us his children in
Christ. I cannot speak to you with words of comfort. It is
for you to comfort us the children of both of you in the Lord.
When we are in grief and calamity, or in any doubt it is for
you to help us with good words that can comfort us. Still
we wish all of us to sympathise with you in grief for our true
father, whom the Father of all has taken from us ; and we
wish that you should see the proof that we still think of your
husband and you, and of that love that came forth from him
to us, because he thoroughly loved every one ; and I think also
that it came forth above all to me. The gift of you two still
remains whole with me, and the words that came with them I
shall always take great care of. And the last gift I suppose was
sent near his death : he heard with compassion that I was build
ing this church here at Ulawa, and he sent me several pounds,
more than any one could easily give. I shall never be able to
forget Bishop Selwyn and Bishop Patteson, who both indeed
gave their lives for me, until my day comes when they lay me in
the grave. I know by eye-witness that they two were true
men of God, who will change their lives for a life of glory.
We shall be sorry that his body is removed from us, and that
our eyes cannot reach to see him, the hand cannot reach to
touch him ; but his life has reached and taken hold of the life
of Christ. I shall add my grief to yours, my mother, for my
father ; and I shall also praise God for the high place that he
has received in the place of eternal life. I wish to know on
what day of the month he died, that always on his day I and my
people may pray and thank God for him. If you please write
and tell me ; and, if it can be, I wish for a little prayer appro
priate for him which you will write and give me, to help the
little prayer which I have thought of myself. I have called
THE END 251
one boy by the name of Selwyn for a remembrance of him.
Good-bye, my mother,
" I am,
"CLEMENT MARAU."
On May 14 a meeting was held in the Combination-
room at Trinity College, Cambridge, to promote a
memorial to the late Bishop. The Vice-Chancellor
presided over an influential gathering, which decided
that the memorial should be twofold viz., in Cam
bridge and in Melanesia. The really remarkable
outcome of the meeting was the fact that the com
mittee which was appointed to carry out the various
schemes was of an unusually influential character,
consisting as it did of the Bishops of London,
Lichfield, Ely, Melanesia, with Bishop Abraham,
Lord Ashcombe, Lord Windsor, Sir John Gorst,
M.P., most of the Heads of Houses, and numerous
other well-known persons.
The fact is that his heroism attracted all who ever
heard his name, and his lovableness all who ever
saw his face.
No more admirable epitome of the man can be
found than Provost Hornby s inscription on the
memorial brass placed to his memory in Eton College
Chapel.
JOHANNES RICHARDSON SELWYN
GEORGII AUGUSTI
NOV^E ZELANDLE EPISCOPI PRIMI
FILIUS NATU MINOR
OLIM EPISCOPUS MELANESIENSIS
252 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
DEINDE COLL C APUD CANTABRIGIENSIS
IN PATRIS MEMORIAM CONDITO
PR^EFECTUS
VIR INGENUO VULTU FORMA VIRILI
SPECTANDUS
ANIMI CANDORE SANCTITATE VIT/E
A PUERITIA ^QUALIBUS NOTUS
RERUM NAVITER AGENDARUM
AUCTOR STRENUUS IMPAVIDUS
PATREM UT CORPORE ITA ANIMO REFEREBAT
LABORUM APPETENS NELIGENS SUI
CHRISTI FIDELIS MILES ET SERVUS
AD VIT.E SU.E FINEM
OBIIT PRIDIE IDUS FEBRUARIAS
MDCCCXCVIII ANNO ^ET. LIII
The following is Bishop Abraham s translation
JOHN RICHARDSON SELWYN
younger son of
George Augustus
First Bishop of New Zealand
was for some time Bishop of Melanesia
and then Master of the College at Cambridge
founded in memory of his Father
He was a man remarkable for his
frank countenance and manly figure
well known from boyhood among his compeers
for singleness of mind and purity of life
being a strenuous fearless Leader
in all vigorous action
he reminded men of his Father
both in body and mind
thirsting for hard work and forgetful of self
a faithful Soldier and Servant of Christ
unto his Life s end
He died on the 12th of February 1898
at the age of 53 years
CHAPTER XVII
A FEW LETTERS ON SPIRITUAL MATTERS
IT is just possible that, in the interest aroused by
the life of a stirring man who loved movement and
adventure, his spirituality may be to some extent
passed over. Yet Bishop John Selwyn could never
have achieved what he did had he not had a deep
wellspring of spiritual life within him. Given to
prayer from his childhood s days, he lived as in the
sight of God. He was not much addicted to talk
on religious matters, but his letters contain more
allusions to this side of his life than might have
o
been expected. Some few are given here that those
who may be trying to follow his example in some
little way may better learn what manner of man he
was :
To one grieving over a Sons fatal Illness.
"Your letter arrived just when I was at my
worst, and all I could do was to tell you of my
loving sympathy and prayers. And what more can
254 BISHOP: JOHN SELWYN
we do than commend you to Him who knows why
He sends you this bitter trial, and why He calls to
Himself the young life which He sent into the
world through you ? This mystery of pain and
sorrow is with us always, and it would be unbearable
(as I have seen it unbearable amongst those who
have no hope) had not our God s Only Son taken
the pain and sorrow on Himself, and thereby taught
us that it is no blind fate, but something which
hangs on the very deepest love of God Himself.
And so we turn to the Man of Sorrows in our
sorrow, and find grace to help in time of need.
And you will find that grace in helping to bear up
your boy s soul and bring him nearer to God, so
that the dread may pass away, and he may find
peace and rest in the arms in which you lay him.
Do you know I think this will be the most sus
taining thought you can have, that you must get
close to God yourself and learn to trust Him, so that
your boy may feel himself borne by the very
strength of your mother-love and trust into the
stronger love of the Father to whom she leads him.
This is what I have been praying for you, very
dimly and imperfectly, but with a strong certitude
of the strength which I am asking for you. It is
that you may be the channel through which, just as
life came to him by you, so now the highest life may
flow. This thought will keep your eyes ever upward,
and looking up means being strong."
LETTERS ON SPIRITUAL MATTERS 255
As to joining the Church of Rome.
" I feel all you say about the beautiful unity of
the Roman Catholic Church, but I think you will
find that that unity is more apparent than real. I
cannot conceive that our Lord gave St. Peter such a
definite headship as the Pope claims on the most
slender authority. If He did, then St. Paul utterly
resisted it, and he was right, when St. Peter was to
be blamed and was wrong. And I cannot believe
that our Lord delegates His power of infallibility to
any mortal man. I would rather go on with our
unhappy divisions than bow to that which I cannot
believe. The declaration of infallibility cuts off the
Church of Rome from the Catholic Church, which
is a far greater thing. There is no such thing as an
universal Bishop, and one of the greatest of the
Popes, the man who sent Augustine, expressly dis
claimed it. But there is a far greater division than
this. The God not the doctrinal, perhaps, though
I think I could quote you one or two things on this
head which would stagger you but the practical
God of the Roman popular Church is the Virgin
Mary. It is a lovely idea that the heart of woman
should be tenderer than the heart of man, and the
popular mind has seized on it, and goes to the Virgin
to influence her Son. But it is utterly derogatory
to the Incarnation. Christ took on Him humanity,
not the nature of man or of woman, but our common
256 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
nature. If then you allow the woman to come
between, you derogate from the perfect humanity of
our great High Priest. I know the Church will
quote you volumes to the contrary, but go into any
country you like and see whose altar is attended
and to whom prayers are addressed, and you will
see that the Virgin ousts Christ."
On the Love of God.
" I know so well how at times the blackness seems
to settle down like a London fog all of a sudden,
and nothing seems to lift it, until you look up into
the face of God. God is Love, and I for one can
never conceive that God shuts out any human being
from that love either here or in the world to come.
But I think that a man can, and often does, as we
know, so harden himself in sin here that lie shuts
away the love of God from himself. Now, God
never compels, so that it is possible that this pro
cess may go on hereafter. I cannot conceive God
not trying to reach the soul, but I can conceive the
soul getting so hardened and devilish that it may go
on resisting for ever."
On Freewill after discussing the first chapter of
"Pastor Pastorum"
" Suppose a husband and wife start together with
wills which, though they love one another very
LETTERS ON SPIRITUAL MATTERS 257
much, are yet constantly liable to clash, and do
clash very often. But suppose that as time goes on
those wills fall into a mutual harmony and become
practically one. Is the love and service which the
wife renders to him less pleasing to the husband
because now it is almost involuntary (I use the word
advisedly), that is, it is unconscious ? The service
has become perfect freedom, and, though it is the
result of effort in the past, it is now accomplished
without effort. So with God. Now we have to
strive to serve Him : then, knowing as we are known,
we shall find it the most absolute joy to do His
will. Surely that will not be a lower service, or one
less pleasing.
"I don t know how we shall be guarded from
temptation there. What I think is that the
Beatific Vision, the knowing God as He is, will
make us like Him, so that we cannot fall. ... I
always think that there is a hint of what the
effect of God s presence must be on those who stand
before it in the indignant answer of Gabriel to
Zechariah who doubted his word : I am Gabriel
that stand in the presence of God, as if he deemed
it impossible that any being who did this could
swerve one hair s breadth."
On the Holy Communion.
" Yes, I know how time and space vanish at the
altar, and that is why I dread the growth of non-
R
258 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
communicating attendance, as it tends to separate
the Communion from the Sacrifice, and I think Christ
has inseparably joined them together."
On Work for Others.
" Did I tell you that I have been writing to Miss
K. about her f Girls Correspondence Guild ? She
has got 300 ladies to join, and they each have a
factory girl to whom they write. I am President,
and have to write an annual letter. ... I do think
it might be a helpful thing. The feeling that there
is a soul depending on you as a friend, even if it is
only by letter, is very helpful.
" The idea of hope is a very good one. I think
people don t say so much about it as they do about
other things because, first of all, everybody is more
or less inclined to hope, and secondly, because Christ
has given us so much hope that people are inclined
to take it unduly. But this is generally about
themselves, and it is in the case of other people that
hope fails. So take the lesson and hope ivhen you
work for others."
On Enjoyment.
" I think that spontaneous delight at anything
that is lovely is a proof in itself that God means us
to rejoice in His gifts. All nature does, as we see
LETTERS ON SPIRITUAL MATTERS 259
in the glory of the spring, and children do also.
Baby, if you ask her where the c pretty is, looks
straight up at the swinging lamp, and jumps from
sheer pleasure. And so I think the spirit we ought
to cultivate is that happy and hopeful one which
rejoices in God s gifts. Not one that is not content
to put away a good deal of the enjoyment of them
if need be, but one that joys over them when they
are there, and treasures them up for remembrance at
other times."
On Death.
" It is a great thing to have seen such patience in
suffering, and it is a great thing also to have been
taught that death is not a dreadful thing. If we
think that it is only going to another room in our
Father s house, it is a lovely thought, for if we love
God we shall like to be nearer Him."
On receiving God s Blessing. A Birthday Letter.
" God will give you His blessing and all that you
need for the coming year, if only you open your
heart to receive it. God s blessing is like the Nile
here [written from Cairo], only more constant even
than that. For that sometimes fails, but He never
does, and, as it is always ready to bless, it is the
fault of the husbandman if he does not take advan
tage of the blessing. For, if his banks are out of
order and his irrigation channels blocked up, then
260 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
the bounteous stream does him no good. So with
us, if our channels are blocked up by sloth and want
of care, the blessing of God finds no way. What
we want is to strive, as far as we can, to be ready
and to keep the channels of our heart clear and
pure, and then God s blessing will flow down, and
all the fruits of the Spirit will blossom out into their
fullest growth."
To a Girl on coming out.
"This is a little line to greet the day in which you
are to blush into womanhood. And indeed it is a
very important day in your life, as it means that
from this day forward you will have to stand more
and more on your own feet, and that you will be
more exposed to all that there is around you which
may hurt you. Don t be afraid. We can t be kept
in bandboxes and wrapped in cotton wool all our
lives, and God does not mean us to be. When our
Lord prayed for His disciples He said, I pray not
that Thou wouldest take them out of the world,
but that Thou wouldest deliver them from the evil.
We have got to go into and to remain in the world,
that we may do the duty which God has sent us to
do. And so, when you get into it, as you will do to
morrow, make up your mind that God shall be with
you there. Then, strengthened by Him, and put
ting Him first, you will use the world as not abusing
it. For here is the danger, lest, little by little,
LETTERS ON SPIRITUAL MATTERS 261
society, amusements, all the cares and occupations
which surround you may make you forget Him.
But if you remember Him, and make Him the key
note of your life, then you may use innocent amuse
ments and pleasures as one of His gifts, and one of
the ways in which you may glorify Him. And
especially may this be the case in all your dealing
with men of about your own age. I know what I
am talking of when I tell you how much influence a
pure bright girl s life may wield on them. You can
raise them : never let them lower you.
" And so too with doubts and difficulties, which
you will hear of now when you go out into the
midst of them. Remember that, though you perhaps
can t answer all of them, yet they are not for that
reason unanswerable. Your own life, bright with
the light of Him whose light is the life of men,
will often be the best answer to others, and feeling
His love will be the best answer to yourself. God
bless you."
On Theatres, Dancing, &c.
"As for theatres and dancing, I think has
been taught that they are wrong, but I do not think
so. They can be, and often are, very wrong, but so
can everything else in this world. You can abuse
anything. But I do not think that if used with care
and moderation they are bad. I have thought a
great deal about it, and that is my deliberate
262 BISHOP JOHN SELWYN
opinion. Old Bishop Hackett used to say, Praise
God and be cheerful, and I think that is a very
good piece of advice."
To a Sick Person.
" I wish I could help you to bear the trial God has
sent you, and perhaps I can a little bit, as He has
sent me one also, and out of it all I can tell you this,
that, if you will trust Him and ask Him, our Father
will give you the strength and, more than that, the
grace to bear it patiently. He has given you this
grace, for you have been good and patient and
loving, and I have seen how the trial has deepened
and strengthened you ; and so you must believe
that, though it seems so hard, there is love behind
it, and He will make it accomplish what He wills.
So look upward and outward, and you will see His
love shining through the clouds, and He will tell
you that you are doing something for Him even
when you seem to be doing nothing."
INDEX
INDEX
ABRAHAM, Bishop, 5.
Alrewas, 19, 21, 161.
a Court-Repington, Mrs., 23.
Allbutt, Professor Clifford, 243.
America, trip to, 33.
B
" BALLARAT," ss., 203.
Balston, Dr., 11.
Baptism of second child, 65.
Bice, Rev. C., 50.
Bill, Charles, Esq., M.P., 11, 32,
86, 87.
Birth, 1.
Bishopric of Melanesia :
suggestions of, 58.
recommended for, 62.
confirmation of appointment
to, 109.
Board of Missions, 226.
Bongard, Capt., 85.
Bower, surrender of murderers of
Lieut., 188.
Bradbury, Dr., 243.
Brass in Eton College Chapel, 251.
Bruce, Capt., 190, 193.
Burial, the Bishop s, 246.
CABMAN, the Bishop and the,
216.
Cambridge, the Bishop s effect on,
214.
Cambridge House, 229.
visit to, 234.
Children, love of, 141.
Churchman, the Bishop s position
as a, 65.
Classical tripos, 15.
Codrington, Dr., 19, 42, 62, 187.
College servants, 225.
Comparison between the Bishop
and his father, 49.
Consecration, the Bishop s, 112.
letters, about, 95, 96, 101, 103,
104.
postponement of, 92.
D
DEATH, the Bishop s, 245.
letters about, 248.
Denman, the late Right Hon.
George, 213.
Doctoring a chief, 164.
Dresden, 14.
Dudley, Archdeacon, 58.
266
INDEX
Dudley, Archdeacon, sermon of,
114.
Duribar Castle, the ss., 44.
E
EASTER Day at Sea, 126.
Ely, 6.
England, his first arrival in, 6.
Epigrams, 240.
Eton, 6, 9, &c.
Eton, Provost of, 8, 251.
Eton Mission, 228.
Evans House, 10.
FATHER S Death, verses on his,
136.
Fireworks, 218.
Florida, a day in, 155.
Flowers, natives love of, 127.
Foreign Service Order, the, 235.
Fremantle, Stephen, 11, 72.
G
GIRLS Letter League, the, 235,
258.
Gore, Canon Charles, 223.
H
HOLY Orders, his decision to take,
17.
How, Bishop Walsham, 172.
ILLNESS, the Bishop s last, 242.
Infant daughter, death of his, 128.
Influences on his missionary life,
82.
Influence, his mother s, 3.
Innes, Miss Clara, 22.
Islands, first voyage to the, 29.
last voyage to the, 199.
K
KAYE, Mr. and Mrs. Alan Lister,
188.
Kinglake, Mr. R. A., 9.
LAMBETH Chapel, dedicatory ser
vice in, 43.
Langhurst, 205.
Lectures, the Bishop s, 220.
Letters : a birthday, 259.
on death, 124, 259.
on enjoyment, 258.
a farewell, 191.
on freewill, 256.
to a girl on coming out, 260.
on the Holy Communion, 257.
from home, 80.
a humorous, 239.
on illness, 253, 262.
on joining the Church of
Rome, 255.
on the love of God, 256.
from Melanesia, 151, &c. ;
162, &c. .
on Napoleon, 87.
on spiritual matters, 253.
on theatres and dancing, 261 .
on work for others, 258.
Letter writing, 99.
Lichfield, Bishop G. A. Selwyn s
acceptance of, 19.
Bishop of (Dr. Legge), 225,
242.
Cathedral, 13, 99, 116.
INDEX
267
Linguistic difficulties, 45, 78.
Lyttelton, Right Rev. the Hon.
Arthur, 217.
M
MARAU, Rev. Clement, 249.
Marriage, the Bishop s second,
162.
Martin, Sir William, 5, 49.
Measles, epidemic of, 75.
Melanesia, the Bishop s first de
parture for, 43.
the Bishop s first return to,
192.
Melbourne, suggestion of Bishop
ric of, 195.
Memorial to the Bishop, 251.
Metcalfe, Dr., 202.
Missionary adventures, 177.
Mota, the language, 44.
Mothers meeting, visit to, 234.
Murray, Rev. J. 0. F., 229.
NATIVE boys, 2, 77.
girls, 74, 98, 123, 143.
Newcastle, Bishop Jacob of, 226.
Newnham College, 220
New Zealand, visit to, 16.
Norfolk Island: first arrival at,
50.
a day s work at, 56.
first impressions of, 52.
first episcopal work in, 118.
school at, letters about, 169,
&c.
Norway, 241.
Nurse, the Bishop s, 4.
ORDINATION, his, 20.
Oxford House, 229.
PAGET, Sir James, 204.
Palmer, Archdeacon John, 50
Pastoral staff, 159.
Patteson, Bishop :
first influence of, 18.
death of, 36.
example of, 83.
setting up cross to memory
of, 159.
memories of, 166.
Pau, 244.
Penny, Rev. A., 180.
Peterborough, Bishop Creighton
of, 208.
Pick, Dr. Pickering, 203.
Q
QUEENSTOWN, 109.
R
" RAPID," H.M.S., 203.
Richardson, Sir John, 13.
Richmond, Mr., 14.
Robin, Rev. L. P., 200.
Rochester, Bishop Talbot of, 213.
Rome, visit to, 197.
S
SAILORS, the Bishop s fondness
for, 35, 147.
Santa Cruz, Archipelago, footing
obtained in, 177.
Island, footing obtained in,
184.
268
INDEX
Scott, Admiral Lord Charles, 202.
Selwyn, Bishop G. A., 1.
death of, 132.
Sir Charles, 13.
Selwyn, Bishop John :
his appearance as a boy, 8.
his appearance as a young
man, 20.
early traits, 4.
visits to England (1878, 1885),
139, 161.
causes of his missionary suc
cess, 174.
severe rheumatism, 46.
he becomes a cripple, 199.
Selwyn, Mrs. J. R., her return,
107.
her death, 121.
Selwyn, Rev. William, 6.
Selwyn College, Cambridge, 138.
offer of mastership, 207.
letters about, 210.
home life at, 236.
College Boat Club, 224.
College Chapel, 222.
College Chapel, first service
in, 223.
Shottermill, 204.
Stanton, Rev. Professor, 215, 225.
Stephen, birth of Bishop s son, 73.
Still, Rev. John, 12, 31, 127, 177,
182.
Stroke of the Cambridge eight,
the Bishop as, 12.
TASMANIA, suggestion of Bishop
ric, 195.
Thompson, Mrs., 7.
Trinity College, Cambridge, 12.
U
UNDERGRADUATES, the Bishop s
relations with, 218.
VESSEL of his own, the Bishop s
wish for, 89.
Victoria Hospital for Children,
145.
Volunteering for missionary work,
the Bishop, 37.
W
WAIKATO, expedition to the, 17.
Waimate, the, 1.
Walsh, Rev. W. H., 20.
Waters, Rev. F. E., 27.
Ward Beecher, 34.
Welshman, Dr., 202.
Wilson, Right Kev. Cecil, 221.
Wolverhampton, St. George s, 26,
&c.
Women s degrees, 219.
Women, influence of, 23.
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220 7J
