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lEngltsi) ©fntrcf) lExpanston
Edited by
T. H. DODSON, M.A.
Principal of S. Paul's Missionary College, Burgh; and Canon of
Lincoln Cathedral
AND
G. R. BULLOCK-WEBSTER, M.A.
Hon. Canon of Ely Cathedral
WITH A GENERAL PREFACE BY
THE BISHOP OF S. ALBANS
#)ant>boofcs of
iEnglist) *Tt)urrt) ilvpansion
Edited by T. H. Dodson, M.A., Principal of
S. Paul's Missionary College, Burgh, and
Canon of Lincoln Cathedral ; and G. K.
Bullock-Wkbsteb, M.A., Hon. Canon of
Ely Cathedral.
i. JAPAN. By Mrs. Eiavard Bicker-
STKTH.
2. WESTERN CANADA. By the
Rev. L. Norman Tuckkr, Sl.A. ,
D.C.L. ; General Secretary of the
Missionary Society of the Church of
Canada, and Hon. Canon of Toronto
Cathedral.
3. CHINA. By the Rev. F. L. Norris,
M.A., of the Church of England Mis-
sion, Peking ; Examining Chaplain
to the Bishop of North China.
4. AUSTRALIA. By the Rev. A. E.
David, M.A. , sometime Arch-
deacon of Brisliane.
5. SOUTH AFRICA. By the Right
Rev. Bishop HAMILTON BAYNBS,
D. D. , sometime Bishop of Natal.
IN PREPARATIOS
6. NORTH INDIA. By the Rev C F.
ANDREWS. MA., Fellow of Pembroke
College, Cambridge, and Member of the
Cambridge Mission to Delhi.
ffcantrtoofts of ISngltsi) Glutei) lExpangion
*6
g>outI) &fric
Right Rev. A. HAMILTON BAYNES,
D.D. (Oxon) ; D.D. (S. Andrews)
Sometime Bishop of Natal
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP
A. R. MOWBRAY & CO. Ltd.
London : 34 Great Castle Street, Oxford Circus, W.
Oxford : 106 S. Aldate's Street
First printed, 1908
SH33
GENERAL PREFACE
IT was said, I believe by the late Bishop
Lightfoot, that the study of history was the
best cordial for a drooping courage. I can
imagine no study more bracing and exhilarating
than that of the modern expansion of the Church
of England beyond the seas during the past half
century, and especially since the institution of
the Day of Intercession for Foreign Missions.
It is only when these matters are studied
historically that this expansion comes out in its
true proportions, and invites comparison with the
progress of the Church in any similar period of
the world's history since our LORD'S Ascension
into heaven.
But for this purpose there must be the accurate
marshalling of facts, the consideration of the
special circumstances of each country, race and
Mission, the facing of problems, the biographies
of great careers, even the bold forecast of
conquests yet to come. It is to answer some
of these questions, and to enable the general
reader to gauge the progress of Church of
England Missions, that Messrs. A. R. Mowbray
and Co. have designed a series of handbooks,
825148
vi General Preface
of which each volume will be a monograph on
the work of the Church in some particular
country or region by a competent writer of
special local experience and knowledge. The
whole series will be edited by two men who
have given themselves in England to the work
and study of Foreign Missions — Canon Dodson,
Principal of S. Paul's Missionary College, Burgh,
and Canon Bullock-Webster, of Ely.
I commend the project with all my heart.
The first volume, which I have been able to
study in proof, appears to me an excellent in-
troduction to the whole series. It is a welcome
feature of missionary work at home that we have
now passed into the stage of literature and study,
and that the comity of Missions allows us to
learn from each other, however widely methods
may vary. The series of handbooks appears
to me likely to interest a general public which
has not been accustomed to read missionary
magazines, and I desire to bespeak for it a
sympathetic interest, and to predict for it no
mean success in forming and quickening the
public mind.
EDGAR ALBAN.
HlGHAMS,
WViodford Green, Essex,
November JO, 1907.
EDITORS' PREFACE
' | tF.W facts in modern history are more arrest-
«-' — i ing or instructive than the rapid extension
of the Church's responsibilities and labours in the
colonial and missionary fields ; yet, until recently,
few facts perhaps have been less familiar to those
who have not deliberately given themselves to a
study of the subject.
It has therefore been felt that the time has
come when a series of monographs, dealing with
the expansion of the Church of England beyond
the seas, may be of service towards fixing the
popular attention upon that great cause, the
growing interest in which constitutes so thank-
worthy a feature in the Church's outlook to-day.
The range of this series is confined to the work
in which the Church of England is engaged. That
story is too full to allow of any attempt to include
the splendid devotion, and the successful labours,
of other Missions of Christendom. But, for a fair
understanding either of the Christian advance
generally or of the relative position of our own
viii Editors' Preface
work, a knowledge of those Missions is essential ;
and it is in the hope of leading some of its
readers to such further comparative study that
this series has been taken in hand.
The Editors have tried to keep in view the
fact that, while the wonderful achievements here
recorded have been accomplished in large part
through the agency of our Missionary Societies,
yet these Societies are, after all, only the hands
and arms of the Holy Church in the execution
of her divine mission to the world.
They have directed their work, as Editors,
simply to securing general uniformity of plan
for the series, and have left each writer a free
hand in the selection of material and the ex-
pression of opinion.
T. H.D.
G. R. B.-W.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
Jj^HE Preface to the earliest work on Church
^— " history — the first systematic record of Chris-
tian expansion — looks back behind the Day of
Pentecost and behind the Ascension to " all that
JESUS began both to do and to teach," implying
that all the story the writer had to tell was of
what JESUS, ascended yet present, continued to
do and to teach in His Church.
That is the pattern for all Church history to
follow — the modern story, like the ancient, is of
the doings and teachings of Him Who is still
in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.
And the record has still the twofold character.
It is the story of doing and teaching, of the
outward and the inward, the outward history of
travel and founding, of building and organizing ;
the inward history of truth and doctrine and
principle behind and underneath the material
superstructure.
In the following slight sketch of South African
Church expansion I have had two classes of
Author's Preface
readers in mind. First, those who are chiefly-
interested in the fascinating story of the outward
growth — the facts, the men, the places, the build-
ings, the gradual expansion from the " day of
small things," from one diocese to ten, by which
" the little one has become a thousand " ; and,
secondly, those who are even more interested in
the inward principles, the doctrinal and constitu-
tional questions of which the outward develop-
ments are the product and expression. The one
class will think how the kingdom of heaven is
like a grain of mustard seed, and will rejoice to
watch the smallest of all seeds grow into the
great tree. The latter class will look deeper and
see, with the eye of the soul, the leaven which is
hid in the three measures of meal, and will trace
the unseen process by which the kingdom of
heaven as a spiritual force is working till the
whole is leavened.
For the sake of the latter class of readers I
have devoted considerable space to those con-
troversies, which, though they often lead us into
the dusty arena of the Law Courts, are an impor-
tant and inevitable part of the process by which
great principles of ecclesiastical polity are estab-
lished. For the sake of the former class of
Author's Preface xi
readers I have banished a large part of this
record to an appendix, so that they may, if they
prefer, follow the outward progress of the Church
with less interruption.
On the one hand I was anxious that the
missionary student should find a more or less con-
tinuous story of the1 pioneering march of the
Christian army. On the other hand, I felt that
no story of the South African Church would be
complete without a statement, full enough to be
intelligible, of the constitutional struggle by which
that Church has done so much to settle the lines
on which the Anglican communion must be
organized in those new lands where the Church
is no longer " by law established." The fact that
so many people have asked me, since my return
from Natal, what the Colenso controversy was
about, seems to show that there is need for a
simple statement of the facts, and that it may
be convenient to have, side by side, the salient
points of the several legal decisions to which it
gave rise.
In describing these controversies I have tried
to be impartial. " All battle," says Carlyle, " is
misunderstanding." I have tried to see the truth
which animated each side. And I hope that the
xii Author's Preface
result may be, not the reopening of dispute, but
the strengthening of the bond of peace which
now, by GOD'S grace, prevails.
In conclusion I acknowledge, with much grati-
tude, the debt which I owe to previous writers —
to the biographers of Bishop Gray, Bishop Colenso,
and Archbishop Tait, to Dr. Wirgman, of Port
Elizabeth, to the Right Hon. James Bryce, to
the S.P.G. Digest, and to many other authorities.
I am also indebted to the Bishops of Natal,
Zululand, and S. Helena, and to the Rev. Canon
Mullins, the Rev. the Hon. A. G. Lawley, and the
Rev. E. H. Etheridge for important contributions.
And finally I wish to thank my old friend Bishop
Gibson for his great kindness in revising the
proofs and supplying me with much valuable
information as to the more recent developments
of the Church in South Africa.
A. HAMILTON BAYNES,
Bp.
Nottingham,
May, 1908.
CONTENTS
CHAP. ""*"
I. Race Problems . - - - i
II. Beginnings of Church Work - - 32
III. The Colenso Controversy - 54
IV. The Province of South Africa - - 86
Appendix A. Later Stages of the Natal
Controversy .... 171
Appendix B. Letter of Bishop Cotterill to
Archbishop Tait ... - 205
General Index - - - - - 211
Bibliography - 220
ILLUSTRATIONS
South African Bishops. Provincial
Synod, 1898 - - - Frontispiece
Table Mountain, from Wynberg - facing page 34
The late Bishop Gray - „ „ 37
The Late Bishop Colenso - ,, ,, 50
The late Bishop Macrorie - ,, ,, 80
The late Archbishop West Jones - ,, ,, 87
South African Church Railway Mission
Coach - - - - ,, ,, 107
S. Augustine's Church, Rorke's Drift „ „ 137
Handbooks of English Church Expansion
SOUTH AFRICA
<0C
CHAPTER I
Race Problems
HEN Bartholomew Dias, with his Portu-
guese navigators, discovered the Cape in
i486, he called it " The Cape of Storms," but his
king, John II, renamed it "The Cape of Good
Hope." It would be hard to say, in the light of
its subsequent history, which was the more appro-
priate title — whether the pessimism of the subject
or the optimism of the sovereign has received the
fuller justification. In things civil and things
ecclesiastical there has been no lack of storms.
But South African storms are followed by brilliant
sunshine, and though the clouds were often of the
blackest —
" Yet Hope had never lost her youth,"
South Africa
and the brighter name has survived, and will, we
may still trust, finally justify its selection.
Ho°°^ ^ 'ie " Hope" which gave its name to the Cape
was the hope of finding a sea-route to India.
That hope was fulfilled by Vasco da Gama, who,
after discovering Natal on Christmas Day, 1497,
and naming it after the Natal Day of our LORD,
accomplished the long-desired end of finding the
way to India. But there were other hopes which
were never absent from the minds of the sea-
rovers of that age — the hope of finding gold and
precious stones. Those hopes also were destined
long years after to find at Kimberley and Johan-
nesburg a fulfilment beyond the dreams of avarice.
But they were, probably, the chief causes of the
fact, which is noteworthy in South African history,
Portuguese that the Portuguese, who were first in the field,
play but a small part in the subsequent story.
Lured, no doubt, by vague rumours of those early
gold workings which have left faint traces at
Zimbabwyc, they pressed on east and north to
the Mozambique coast where the)- still rule. In
doing so they left the substance for the shadow,
the temperate climate and the fertile lands for the
fever-stricken swamps, and the more tropical heat
of a country which can never become a white
Race Problems
man's land to the same extent as the Cape
Colony and the high veld. So in this history the
Portuguese come on to the stage only to pass off
again, and we are left to consider the peoples
who were there before them and the people who
followed after. And the races which meet in
South African history are many and diverse. It is
in this clash of races that most of the "storms"
which have given a sad verification to the earliest
name of the Cape had their origin. And though
our immediate task is with the ecclesiastical
rather than the political history, we cannot alto-
gether understand the former without some slight
acquaintance with the latter.
The earliest inhabitants of whom we know Bushmen,
anything were the Bushmen. A diminutive race,
possibly akin to the Pigmies whom Stanley found
further north, they take a very low place in the
scale of civilization. They wore few clothes,
built few houses, cultivated no land, but lived in
caves, and supported themselves by hunting and
stealing, or lived on roots and wild fruits. One
gleam of higher light they had, and they have left
behind them one pathetic token of faculties of a
higher and more human order, in the drawings of
men and animals which may still be seen in places
4 South Africa
where the painters have long disappeared — on the
rock surfaces, for instance, of the caves in the
Drakensberg Mountains of Xatal.
The race which the Portuguese and the Dutch
found in chief possession at the Cape was that
Hottentots one which the Dutch named Hottentots. It is
supposed that they had dispossessed the Bushmen
of the best lands along the coast. They were a
people also of somewhat small stature and of a
yellowish dusk}- hue. In their unmixed purity of
blood they have practically disappeared, except
perhaps in Namaqualand, but their half-breed
descendants — half- Hottentot and half- Dutch —
are still in evidence throughout the Cape Colony,
and especially in the tribes which bear the name
of Griquas, a people of yellowish complexion,
and speaking the Dutch language, or rather the
Dutch patois called the " Taal."
Hut the native race which does not tend to dis-
appear, which flourishes and increases at a rapid
rate under European influence, is the race which
Bantus. bears the generic title of Bantu. It includes
main' tribes and man)- types of physiognomy.
1 he Kafirs, the Zulus, the Basutos, the Bechuanas,
the Matabele, the Mashonas, and many more,
belong to the Bantu race. In feature they
Race Problems
approximate at the one end to the negro and
at the other to the Arabs and other Semitic
people. They have black or brown skins, woolly
hair, thick lips and flat noses, though here and
there men are found with the sharper profile
and the curving contour of the Asiatic type.
There is a vague tradition among them that they
came from the north, and it seems likely to be
true, and probably they have an infusion of Arab
blood introduced far back into their race in the
time when in North Africa their forefathers mixed
with the Semitic peoples.
These were the three main divisions of the
native inhabitants whom the earliest European
settlers found in South Africa. The confusion Malays and
of race has been still further increased by the
introduction, by the Dutch, of large numbers of
Malays from the Dutch possessions in the
Malay Archipelago, and later by the introduction,
by the British, of Indian coolies.
And now we must trace, in briefest outline, the
history of the European immigrations into South
Africa which followed the passing wave of Portu-
guese adventurers which we have noticed in the
fifteenth century.
The first coming of the Dutch was due to the
South Africa
mere accident that the Cape was a convenient
port of call on the long voyage to Dutch East
India. There, again and again in the early part
of the seventeenth century, ships put in to obtain
fresh water and vegetables, things of priceless
value to crews which suffered from the scurvy
which was the curse of those long voyages. So
they landed at the Cape and planted vegetables.
As Mr. Bryce says, " It is from these small begin-
nings of a kitchen-garden that Dutch and British
dominion in South Africa has grown up." Eng-
land had also put in a claim as early as 1620 to
dominion at the Cape. In that year two naval
commanders had dropped anchor in Table Bay
and hoisted the British flag, but their action was
not recognized or followed up by the authorities
at home, and very soon the troubles of Cavalier
and Roundhead drove all thoughts of South
Africa out of English heads. But the Dutch were
less preoccupied, and at the suggestion of a ship-
wrecked crew, which had spent six months beneath
Table Mountain, the Dutch East India Company
landed three ships' crews in 1652 under the com-
mand of Jan van Riebeek. For five and twenty
years from this time the little colony remained
content with the environs of what is now Cape-
Race Problems 7
town. There they built their first church, which
was served by a lay preacher called Wylant, the
colony being considered too insignificant to need
an ordained minister. There they began to plant
the pines and oaks which have made the roads
around Capetown resemble the stately groves
and avenues of some noble park. And there they
made their first experiments in vine and fruit-
growing. There, too, alas, they brought the curse
of slavery, landing negroes from the west coast
and sowing seeds of future trouble. A more
valuable element was, however, added to the Huguenots
community in 1687. Two years before that date
the Edict of Nantes had been revoked by
Louis XIV, and many Huguenot families had
found their way into the Netherlands. A party
of these was persuaded to emigrate to the Cape.
Some three hundred set sail and made their
home in South Africa. They were men of higher
type, in education and social standing, than the
Dutch farmers, who mostly sprang from the
lowest ranks of society, and in their new settle-
ments at Stellenbosch and Drakenstein they soon
made their influence felt. They brought their
own pastor, Pierre Simond. The Dutch applied
to them the policy which they have often resented
8 South Africa
when applied to themselves. They insisted on
the use of the Dutch language, and in other ways
pressed on a policy of amalgamation. This end
they so effectively attained that before long the
fusion was complete, and though the prevalence
of French names among the leading Boers (the
Jouberts, Marais, De la Revs, etc.) shows how
largely the Huguenots have leavened the com-
munity, yet the Dutch pronunciation which has
been given to them (Villiers being pronounced
Vilje, and Celliers, Celje) shows how effectively the
Huguenot leaven has been absorbed.
Meanwhile the Dutch farmers had been gradu-
ally overspreading the country districts and learn-
ing the joys of isolation and independence which
have so strongly marked them ever since, and, at
Dutch East the same time, the power of the Dutch East India
India Com- . .
pany. Company was steadily waning and its governors
becoming more and more unpopular. The Gov-
ernment of the Company had never been sympa-
thetic, though its hold upon the people of course
varied according to the tact and popularity of the
governor of the day. But it had always been
autocratic, the farmers having no direct share in it.
It had been aristocractic and socially out of touch
with the democratic Boers. It had been need-
Race Problems
lessly officious, interfering in the smallest matters
with the freedom of the individual, prescribing
what crops the farmers should grow, and demand-
ing a large share of their produce, and establishing
commercial monopolies with small regard to the
prosperity of the people.
To these causes may be attributed that growing
dislike of orderly government and that longing
to escape into the wilds, where each man might
live under his own vine and fig-tree, which have
been a characteristic of the South African Boers
under both Dutch and British rule. This growing
feeling of repugnance to the Government of the
Dutch East India Company steadily increased
through the latter half of the eighteenth century.
Delegates were sent to Holland to state the
grievances of the Boers, and although commis-
sioners were sent out to inquire, the remedies
suggested were felt to be inadequate. Then came
the exciting news of the revolt of the British
colonies in America, and of the revolutionary move-
ments in France. And all these causes co-operating Revolt of
led to a revolt of the Dutch farmers, who set up
small republics at Graaf-Reinet and Sweilendam,
and affairs in the Cape Colony seemed to be
fast drifting into anarchy and bankruptcy.
io South Africa
At this moment South Africa was swept into
the vortex of European politics. The English,
who, with their rapidly increasing responsibilities
in India, had learnt to take a far different estimate
of the value of the Cape from that which they
had formed in 1620, espoused the cause of the
occupation Stadtholder, and in 1795 took possession of the
country in his name. As, however, at that
moment the Prince of Orange was unable to
hold the Cape, the British remained in possession
until the peace of Amiens in 1802, when it was
handed back to Holland. But war broke out
afresh in the following year, and the struggle with
Napoleon made the possession of the naval station
at the Cape a matter of great importance to
England, and accordingly in 1 806 a strong force
was landed at the Cape, when, after a single
engagement, the British flag was hoisted at Cape-
town and the Dutch surrendered. In the chaos
of the preceding years there had grown up a
desire for orderly government, so that opposition
to the British rule was but half-hearted, and
many of the Dutch rejoiced in the prospect of
a strong regime which should restore the waning
prosperity of the country.
It is interesting, from our point of view, to
Race Problems i i
notice that Henry Martyn, the devoted missionary, Henry
was on board the fleet which lay anchored in
Table Bay, on his way to India. After the battle
of Blaauberg he ministered to the wounded and
dying, and in his diary he writes (January 10,
1806): "About five the commodore fired a gun,
which was instantly answered by all the men-of-
war. On looking for the cause we saw the British
flag flying from the Dutch fort. I prayed that
the capture of the Cape might be ordered to the
advancement of CHRIST'S kingdom, and that
England, while she sent the thunder of her arms
to the distant regions of the globe, might not
remain proud and ungodly at home, but might
show herself great indeed by sending forth the
ministers of her Church to diffuse the Gospel
of Peace."
In 1 8 14 the occupation of the British was
transformed into permanent sovereignty by formal
cession from the Stadtholder, who received for
this and other Dutch possessions the sum of
£6,000,000.
Space does not permit of anything like a history
of the country. All this outline is intended to do
is to give some idea of the various races which
have found a home side by side in South Africa,
i : South Africa
in order that we may understand the nature of
those struggles which have marked the history of
South Africa from the beginning of European
occupation, and have given all too dismally accu-
rate a verification to the first name its Cape
received as the Cape of Storms,
problem Here, then, are the factors in that race problem
which have taxed the brains of statesmen and
philanthropists for the last century — this motley
crowd of races, black and white, civilized and
uncivilized, flung down and huddled together in a
country which, though vast in extent, is yet not
so unlimited that each could go its own way with-
out conflict with the others. And any history of
the Church must face this problem on the very
threshold, for from the Day of Pentecost, the
solution of it has been the first duty of the Church.
According to the story of the Book of Genesis the
confusion of tongues is a sort of devil's sacrament
— the outward and visible sign of an inward and
spiritual disgrace — of the pride and prejudice of
men which lead to jealousy and hatred and
internecine strife. Behind that difference of
language lies the difference of mind and thought
and aim and method which makes mutual under-
standing and sympathy so hard to learn. And
Race Problems 13
the work which the Church began on the very
day of her birth was the work of reconciliation —
not the work of reducing all to a dead level of £|c?0nr^;.
uniformity, not the introduction of one language,
but the introduction of a concord of hearts finding
expression in the astonished cry, " We do hear
them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of
God," such a reconciliation that each, while retain-
ing and developing its individuality, may bring
that individual contribution into the common
stock, and make it subserve to a common good,
until the different races meet in an all-embracing
city of GOD, and the " nations walk in the light
of it, and the kings of the earth do bring their
glory into it."
The various divisions and subdivisions of race
group themselves into two main divergences —
that of black and white, and that of Boer and
Briton. These two controversies appear and
reappear, and cross and recross each other,
throughout the history, and would seem indeed
perennial were it not for our faith that the
secret and the motive power for its solution is
latent in the Church of Christ.
Why is it that these race controversies have
been so much harder to overcome in South
14 South Africa
Africa than elsewhere ? A little consideration
The may help us to an answer. The controversy of
problem '
elsewhere, black and white meets us in many parts of the
world, but in most of these the problem seems
in a fair way to a solution in the ordinary course
of nature. There are many black or coloured
races which gradually disappear when brought into
contact with a higher civilization. The struggle
for existence and the survival of the fittest have
done their work, or are doing it ; in some cases,
no doubt, with many accompanying elements of
cruelty and inhumanity, but sometimes, in spite of
the best intentions, and the most benevolent
activities, of the higher race. The Red Indians
in America, the Maori in New Zealand, the
aborigines of Australia from one cause or another
are going or gone. On the other hand, there are
many regions where black and white meet which
can never become permanently a white man's
country. Conditions of climate prevent the white
man from making his home and bringing up his
children there, so that the white population
remains a limited official class which never
enters into any considerable competition with
the coloured race, and never seriously menaces
their land or their goods. The British in India,
Race Problems 15
the Dutch in the Malay Islands, the French in
Siam are examples of this condition of things.
But South Africa falls under neither of these South
categories. The Bantu races show no sign of exceptional
dying out in contact with civilization. On the
contrary, they flourish and increase faster than
before. The Pax Britannica, the absence of
decimating wars, the resources of civilization to
contend with diseases of men and animals, and
to develop the productiveness of nature, all
favour the rapid increase of the coloured races.
And those races are both healthy and fertile, and
the conditions of climate are congenial to them.
On the other hand, they are not so uncongenial to
the white man that he cannot make his permanent
home in the country. He readily adapts himself
to the surroundings, and he has come to stay.
Here, then, are the factors of a very serious
problem and one that must inevitably grow more
serious according to the present laws of growth.
Both populations increase, but the black increases
more rapidly than the white, and the land remains
a fixed quantity, so that sooner or later the time
must come when it is felt to be too narrow for
the demands of the population.
It may be well here to give the actual figures
1 6 South Africa
showing the proportion of Europeans to coloured
people of all descriptions. I take them from the
Report of tJie South African Native affairs Com-
mission, published in 1905 : —
Statistics. State.
Europeans.
Coloured
people.
No. of times as
many coloured as
Europeans.
Cape Colony
-
579.741
[,830,063
3*1
iNatal
-
97.^9
1,011,645
io-4
Orange River
143.419
241,626
i-6
Transvaal
299.327
1,103,134
3'5
Swaziland
1
J
Basutoland
Rhodesia
15.420
'•145.352
74*8
Bechnanaland
1,135.016
Total -
5,331,820
4-6
But the problem presented by these figures is
not merely that of the struggle for existence. It
is more subtle and complicated. There is never
absent in the relations of the two colours the
horror on the part of the white man of any
intermixture of blood, and consequently of any
suggestion of equality which might break down
the separating barriers. How strong this senti-
ment is no one can perhaps fully realize who has
not lived in Africa or in the Southern States of
America. There is only one European Nation in
which the sentiment has been comparatively weak.
ture.
\
Race Problems 17
That is the Portuguese. And their experience is
not encouraging. Both in Africa and India they intermix-
have mingled and intermarried more freely than
other Europeans with the native populations in the
midst of which they dwelt. And the result has
not been to level up the lower race but to level
down the higher. And in India to-day the so-
called Portuguese are but a step removed from
the natives. In fact, in some respects, the half-
caste races are in a worse condition than the pure
natives. They are looked down upon and dis-
liked by both sides, and there seems a tendency
to moral degeneration among them.
There is, indeed, one Eastern race with regard
to whom this horror of intermixture seems on the
way to disappear, or at least to be greatly modi-
fied. That is the Japanese. The disparity of
colour and type is somewhat less marked than
in the case of other Eastern peoples, and con-
sequently there is not the same physical repul-
sion. But the change of sentiment with regard to
them is something more than this. Men are not
animals, to be directed merely by instinctive
physical repulsion or attraction. The physical
always rests to some extent upon the spiritual.
And it is rather the fact that the Japanese have
1 8 South Africa
been entering into fellowship with Europe in the
world of ideas — in culture, in refinement, in
heroism, in political and artistic and literary
capacity — which is tending to break down the
prejudice against the yellow skin in their case.
It is not, perhaps, altogether inconceivable that,
as with Othello in Shakespeare, in some far dis-
tant future the same tendency may appear with
regard to the black races. But that time is still
below any horizon which we at present can see.
Scriptural Meanwhile there are two Scriptural principles
principles. r i r
which have guided the Christian Church in deal-
ing with this problem. One is that in the Church
of Christ " there can be neither Greek nor Jew,
Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free " — that1 to ask
the question, " Who is my neighbour ? " with a
view to drawing a line and limiting the duty of
love is to undermine the whole structure of the
universal kingdom of GOD. But this does not
involve the teaching of equality. S. Paul has
taught us that there are many and diverse mem-
bers in the one body. And it is obvious that
there cannot be equality between races which are
just emerging from barbarism and those which
have behind them centuries of Christian civiliza-
tion. But it docs involve the teaching of brother-
Race Problems 19
hood. The native is a brother, though it may be Brother-
hood not
a younger brother who is still a child. It is not, equality,
therefore, inconsistent for the Church to set its
face strenuously against any intermixture of blood.
The Church at home proclaims the doctrine of
brotherhood as between Belgravia and Bethnal
Green, but it does not encourage intermarriage.
The second Scriptural principle which guides
us is that God, Who has " made of one blood
all nations of men," has also " determined their
appointed seasons and the bounds of their habita-
tion." That is to say, Christian truth does not
ignore national distinctions, though it sets itself
against national selfishness and prejudice.
The consistent aim, therefore, of the Christian
Church has been to set itself against wild doc-
trines, as foolish as they are dangerous, of equality
between black and white ; and, on the other hand,
to break down prejudice, and inculcate brotherly
relations, and to encourage the natives to assimi-
late European culture and ideas, and to allure
those who are thus emerging from barbarism to
the side of law and order by making the separat-
ing line between the enfranchised and unenfran-
chised not simply one of colour but one of culture
and civilization.
20 South Africa
It is in accordance with this principle that the
Commission already quoted resolved, " that in the
interests of both races, for the contentment of
the native population and better consideration of
their interests, it is desirable to allow them some
measure of representation in the Legislatures of
the country," and went on to suggest principles by
which such representation should be safeguarded
against dangerous results.
But the problem of white and black has been
throughout the history complicated by, and inter-
Briton ana woven with, the other race problem of Briton and
Boer. Here again it may be asked why it is that
these two kindred nations have not long ago fused
into a single and harmonious unity, just as the
more widely separated Dutch and Huguenot
people in South Africa have done, or as the Dutch
and English did long ago in New York. Many
reasons may be given for this continued disunion.
The character and habits of the Dutch farmers
kept them remote and isolated. The nature of
the soil and the conditions of stock farming
require a wide area, and the Boer remains iso-
lated and therefore little affected by new ideas.
He retains all his ancient prejudices, which are
not rubbed off by contact at close quarters with
Race Problems 21
the English of the towns. Again, there may have
been a want of wisdom and tact in the early part
of last century in substituting English for Dutch
methods of local government, and in insisting on
the use of the English language, so that the Boer
acquired a deep-rooted sense of hardship and
grievance.
But far beyond these causes is the one perennial
source of trouble in South African history, and
that is the tactless and unsympathetic interference
of the home authorities in matters with which, at
a distance of six thousand miles, they could have
but little knowledge. And this interference has Political
. . vacillation.
been too often due to the passing exigencies of
party government, so that the people of South
Africa have felt they were being exploited, and
their affairs managed or mismanaged, merely at
the bidding of political wirepullers in England.
This has often aroused the strongest resentment
on the part of our own countrymen in South
Africa ; how much more, therefore, must it have
been resented by the Dutch ? And even where
the motive at work has been a higher one than
mere party victory, there has often been a fatal
vacillation between conflicting ideals, the incom-
patibility of which has not at the time been clearly
22 South Africa
incompat- perceived. For instance, there are two ideals,
ible ideals.
each excellent in itself, which have animated the
English democracy — the ideals of political free-
dom and of humanity towards native races. But
it has often been forgotten that between these two
the Home Government must choose. It is impos-
sible at the same moment to insist on freedom of
self-government for colonists or Boers, and on
taking out of their hands the one thing which
supremely concerns them, viz., the management of
native affairs. The incompatibility of these two
ideals was clearly pointed out by Lord Milner in
dispatches dealing with the native question in 1902,
directly after we assumed control of the Transvaal
during the late war. In a memorable sentence,
which might have applied to many epochs in
South African history, he says, " Most especially
would I raise a warning voice against the fatal
doctrine that the Imperial Government is to deal
with the native question regardless of colonial
sentiment. That doctrine, absurdly enough, is
often preached in the very quarters where there
is the loudest demand for the immediate complete
self-government of the new territories."
I have been dealing with these fundamental
race problems which have been present all through
Race Problems 23
the stormy history of South Africa quite generally
and regardless of chronology, showing, as in the
last paragraph, the operation of old controversies
in the light of latest events. But it is time that
we turned back to the history to see how these two
conflicts — that of white against black, and that of
Briton against Boer — have recurred from the first.
In the century between 178 1 and 1881 there Kafir
J ' Wars.
were ten Kafir wars between the European
farmers of the Cape Colony and the Kafir tribes
to the east and north. It is difficult to resist the
conviction that this long controversy would have
long before been settled, and much bloodshed
avoided, had it not been for the well-meant but
often ill-advised interference of the Home Govern-
ment with the colonists. Again and again humani-
tarian sentiment, associated in the colonial mind
with Exeter Hall, was aroused in favour of the
natives and at the expense of the colonists, who
no less deserved sympathy, living as they did in
close proximity to these warlike and restless
tribes, who were constantly making life and
property insecure upon the borders. This dis-
trust of colonial methods of treating natives, and
ill-informed dictation as to the terms to be granted
to the Kafirs after war, are perhaps never more
24 South Africa
marked than in the dispatches of Lord Glenelg in
st°reenting l836- In tnis document, which reversed the
decision of Sir Benjamin D'Urban, the Governor
of the Cape, he said, " In the conduct which was
pursued towards the Kafir nation by the colonists
and the public authorities of the colony, through
a long series of years, the Kafirs had ample
justification for the late war " ; and he proceeded
to insist that the territory annexed as a security
against future raids, and as a set-off to the nume-
rous thefts of cattle, must be reversed. " It rests
upon a conquest resulting from a war in which, as
far as I am at present enabled to judge, the
original justice is on the side of the conquered,
not of the victorious party."
It would be quite beyond the scope of our
present work to examine into the justice of this
decision or the evidence on which it is based.
Lord Glenelg may or may not have had sufficient
proof to justify it. But the point is that such
a decision, forced upon colonists at close quarters
with savages who had murdered their wives and
children, and stolen their cattle, by statesmen
living in safety six thousand miles away, must
have made them furious with a sense of intoler-
able tyranny and injustice.
Race Problems
25
This is one example, out of many, of the work-
ing and interaction of the two race problems.
About the same time came the abolition of
slavery. That abolition might have been ac-
quiesced in by the Boers, but it was accompanied
by much blundering in the matter of compensa-
tion. The compensation promised was not paid,
and what was paid was seriously diminished by
the regulations which made it payable in
England. These two things — the abolition of
slavery and Lord Glenelg's dispatches — led on
to that which became an epoch-making event
in South African history, viz., the Great Trek, The Great
just as, a quarter of a century later, the aboli-
tion of slavery led to another and even more
momentous secession in the United States of
America. We have seen that the Boers had
developed a dislike of all State interference ; but
when that interference took the form of high-
handed dictation from a remote, and alien, and
unsympathetic Government, and that with regard
to the one point on which they were most sensi-
tive, viz., their relations with their formidable
native neighbours, it seemed to them that life was
not worth living. The depth of feeling which was
stirred may be measured by the cost they were
26 South Africa
willing to pay for freedom, for the Great Trek
meant that the emigrant Boers abandoned their
farms, lands, houses, and everything that could not
be taken with them on the long wagon journey to
the wild and unknown north.
Here, again, it must be remembered, we are not
attempting a history, but only selecting incidents
in the history which illustrate the operation of this
perennial controversy between Boer and Briton,
and the aggravation of that controversy by the
vacillation of English politics.
The British Government of that day was all for
the contraction of the expense and responsibility
of empire, rather than for its expansion, and they
suffered the Boers to go. The trekkers travelled
on across the Orange River and across the Vaal,
and they poured down over the great wall of the
Drakensberg into the well-watered valleys of Natal.
But here they encountered the most warlike of all
the native races — the Zulus, whose armies had
been organized on European methods by Tshaka,
and who were now ruled by Dingaan. There
^Dinpan-s followed the murder of Piet Retief at Dingaan's
kraal, the massacre of Boers, and their retaliation
on the Zulus, which gave its name of " Weeping '
to the village of Weenen, in Natal.
Race Problems 27
Now came another swing of the pendulum of
British politics. The authorities, who could watch
with equanimity the disappearance of the Boers,
could not rest content when a native conflagration
threatened, and there was a fear of the Boers
establishing themselves on the sea coast and
becoming a maritime people. So England inter-
fered, and sent a small force to assert the dormant
claim of Britain to Natal. The pendulum once
again swung back, and we left the Boers to
establish a Dutch republic which they styled
"Natalia." Fresh alarms of native trouble pro- " Natalia,
duced fresh interference, and at last led to our
final occupation of Natal as a British colony in
the year 1842.
The same vacillation which we have traced in
Natal marked our policy towards the emigrant
Boers elsewhere. They were left to go their
way without let or hindrance for many years.
Then the policy of interference was again in
the ascendant, and a military resident, with a
few troops, was sent to Bloemfontein ; and in
1848 the whole region from the Orange River
to the Vaal was formally annexed. This again
roused the Boers, and Bloemfontein was besieged
and capitulated. Sir Harry Smith, the Governor
28 South Africa
of the Cape, retaliated, and defeated the Boers
at Boomplats ; but at that moment (1848) the
British authorities were considerably embarrassed
with native troubles, and finally the Sand River
fn^fvans- Convention was signed in 1852, by which (with
vaa1- certain limitations) the independence of the Boers
north of the Vaal River was recognized. This
was followed not long after by similar concessions
to the Boers between the Orange River and the
Vaal. In spite of the fact that England had
ruled them with more or less success for eight
years, in spite of representations from the inhabi-
tants of the country, in spite of a motion in the
House of Commons, the British authorities signed
the Convention of Bloemfontein in 1854, and
actually paid a sum of ^48,000 to be rid of
the trouble of managing the affairs of the
district ; and the Orange Free State came into
existence as an independent republic. Under
the wise control of Sir John Brand as President
(1865) the affairs of the Free State flourished.
But it was otherwise with the more scattered
and disorganized Boers beyond the Vaal. By
the year 1876, when a war broke out between
them and the Kafir chief Sekukuni, their
finances were in a state verging on bankruptcy,
Race Problems 29
and at the same time they were threatened by
the still more formidable power of the Zulus
under Cetewayo. At this juncture Sir Theophilus
Shepstone was sent up as British Commissioner
to inquire into their affairs, and in his pocket
he carried a secret commission, to be used at
his discretion, to annex the whole territory in
the name of the Queen. After three months'
inquiry he decided to use this discretion, and
on April 12, 1877, the Transvaal was formally Transvaal
r ' ' annexed.
annexed, with the approval of Sir Bartle Frere,
and the acquiescence, or, at least, the sullen
submission, of the divided Boers.
The story of what followed is too well known
to need repetition. All might yet have gone
well but for official blundering. The promise
of self-government made at annexation was
not fulfilled. The selection of a Governor who
was something of a martinet, and who added
to personal unpopularity the crowning offence
to Boer susceptibilities of appearing to have in
his veins a strain of black blood, proved a
further obstacle to the success of the experi-
ment. And, finally, by the Zulu War, which
broke the threatening power of Cetewayo, the
chief motive for even the reluctant acquiescence
30 South Africa
in annexation was removed. Then came the
Boer rising, the siege of the British garrisons in
the Transvaal, the failures of the little British
force under Sir George Colley at Laing's Nek,
Majuba Ingogo, and Majuba Hill ; and the final surrender
concession. o £> » J >
of Mr. Gladstone's Government, which we have
always flattered ourselves was the height of
magnanimity, but which the Boers have always
regarded as the height of weakness.
In 1867 the children of a Boer farmer at
Hopetown found a pretty stone, which they kept
as a plaything. That plaything was the begin-
ning of a new era in South African history, for
it proved to be a diamond ; and, soon after, the
greatest diamond mines in the world were opened
at Kimberley. The British Government was
something like those Boer children. When it
annexed the Transvaal in 1877, and gave it
back again in 1 881, it little knew that it was
playing with untold treasures of gold. The
discovery of those hidden stores on the Wit-
watersrand, in 1887, changed the whole face of
the country, and introduced a whole world of
new complications as between Briton and Boer.
Johannesburg became the most populous town
in South Africa, and the chief source of revenue
Race Problems 31
for the Transvaal Government. Into all that
followed — the grievances of the Uitlanders, who
were taxed but allowed no representation ; the
Jameson Raid ; the ever-increasing armaments
of the Boers ; the pie-crust promises of the British
authorities ; the growing impatience of the British
in Johannesburg under the increasing exactions
and restrictions of the Kruger regime ; the last
straw added to their burdens by Sir William Great Boer
War.
Butler's treatment of the Reformers ; the long
negotiations before and after the Bloemfontein
Conference ; the Ultimatum and the war — into
all these we cannot enter.
The cruelty and folly of this long course of
vacillation in England's treatment of the fun-
damental problem of South African politics is
to be measured only by the waste of life and
treasure which the late great war has caused.
How can we wonder that, after so many examples
in the past, the Boers should have been convinced
that once again the swing of the political pendu-
lum would stop the war or reverse the policy on
which it was founded ? And who, indeed, can be
confident that the pendulum has even yet come
to a state of equilibrium ?
32 South Africa
Services.
CHAPTER II
Beginnings of Church Work
QDt
'E may now pass to our proper subject — the
history of the English Church in South
Africa, the political history of which, with its race
problems, we have rapidly sketched in the pre-
ceding chapter,
church The first English Church service of which we
know was held in Capetown by a naval chaplain of
the fleet returning from India on April 20, 1749.
And for some time after the first British occupa-
tion of the Cape, in 1795, the only services held
were conducted by naval and military chap-
lains. At the second British occupation, in 1806,
Mr. Griffiths, the garrison chaplain, seems to have
been the only English priest, and to have begun
for the first time regular Church services. The
cathedral register at the Cape begins with him.
For many years services were held by permission
in the Dutch church. At this time and for long
afterwards (even after the arrival of the first
Beginnings of Church Work 33
Bishop) the Governor of the Cape was recognized
as " the Ordinary," and no public service could
be held but " by permission of His Excellency."
In 1819-20, by means of a grant of £50,000 from
the Imperial Government, a body of four thousand
emigrants was sent out to the Eastern district of
the Cape, and from that moment the Society for s.p.g.
the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
began its operations in South Africa. The Society
entered into arrangements with the Imperial
Government, by which the latter was to make an
allowance of £100 a year towards the stipend of
each clergyman sent out. The Society added
another £100, and in 1820 the Rev. W. Wright
was appointed to the charge of the emigrants.
The Society also voted a sum of £500 towards a
church at Capetown, but the local government
represented " that such a building was not wanted
in Capetown," and the money was therefore
diverted to the erection of a church at Grahams-
town. The next year we hear of " one of a num-
ber of huts," which had been erected as barracks,
being " neatly fitted up at the public expense " as
a chapel, and on the arrival of Lord Charles
Somerset, "being duly transferred, and the solem-
nization of the Sacraments sanctioned by public
34 South Africa
authority." The Holy Communion was celebrated
in it for the first time on Christmas Day, 1822,
and there were sixteen communicants. Mr. Wright
also conducted service at Wynberg, a suburb eight
miles out of Capetown, and began schools for
First English. Dutch, and natives. In 1829 we find
clergY- . 1 • 1 • n r 1
that there were nine clergymen in Cape Colony.
Five of these were Colonial priests, the senior
being Mr. Hough. Of the other three, one was a
military chaplain, the second was the Astronomer
Royal, who had fitted up " a neat little chapel in
an unappropriated room of the Observatory," and
the third was the Governor's domestic chaplain.
For want of clergy man}- Church people attended
Wesleyan or Dutch services. Mr. Hough had no
church of his own, and was unable to administer
the Holy Communion more than once a quarter
" on account of being obliged on every Sacrament
Sunday to build an altar after the masters of the
(Dutch) church " had left, which altar had to be
" pulled down in time for their next service."
More than forty years from the British occupa-
tion were to pass before the Church in South
Africa received any formal order and organization
by having a Bishop of its own. During this long
period English Churchmen at the Cape were de-
- <
O .c
2 1
Beginnings of Church Work 35
pendent for episcopal ministrations on the casual
visits of Indian and other Bishops on the way to visitsof
and from their dioceses. In 1827 Bishop James, Bishops,
of Calcutta, called at the Cape, and during his
visit confirmed some four hundred and fifty can-
didates in the Dutch church. He also ordained
seven priests and two deacons. The only complete
church at this time was S. George's, Grahamstown.
Two years later his successor, Bishop Turner, spent
ten days in Capetown, preaching in the Dutch
church, and confirming one hundred and eighty
people. In 1832 Bishop Daniel Wilson, of Cal-
cutta, consecrated sites for churches at Rondebosch
and Wynberg, confirmed some three hundred per-
sons, and ordained two deacons to the priesthood.
In 1834 S. George's Cathedral was opened for
service. It had cost .£17,000, and it is character-
istic of the time that of this sum £"7,000 was
"raised in shares of £"25 each, bearing interest at
six per cent. . . . secured on the pew rents." It
was and is a severely plain square building, de-
signed by an officer of the Royal Engineers after
classical models, with no pretensions to architec-
tural beauty. *
1 A new and stately cathedral of stone is now rapidly
rising between the Government Avenue and the old
36 South Africa
The next Bishop who visited South Africa was
Dr. Corrie, of Madras, in 1835, and in 1 843 Bishop
Nixon, of Tasmania, called at the Cape and con-
firmed some hundreds of candidates, and ordained
one priest.
Not unnaturally, a church so neglected and
so disorganized, dependent on such casual and
irregular superintendence, showed little vitality ;
and the drear}- years furnish little that is interest-
ing or inspiring in Church history. Other religious
bodies, which were better organized and cared for,
went ahead and left the Church lagging far behind,
so that when at last a Bishop was appointed, he
found much to discourage — little life in the Church,
and much leeway to make up.
It was on June 1, 1 841, that Archbishop Howley
summoned the great meeting of Churchmen
colonial which established the Colonial Bishoprics Fund.
Fund.pncs Mr. Gladstone took a prominent part in that
meeting, and became the first treasurer of the
new society. Fifty years later he was again the
chief speaker at the Society's Jubilee meeting in
S. James's Hall. The needs of the Cape were
building, the whole of which will eventually be swept
away. The first portion of this will, it is hoped, very soon
be ready for consecration.
'I'm late Bishop Gray,
To face page 37.
Beginnings of Church Work 37
among the causes which led to this step, and
Miss Burdett-Coutts came forward with great
generosity and provided a considerable sum to-
wards the endowment of a Bishopric of Cape-
town, as she did also for other new dioceses.
But some years more elapsed before a Bishop was
appointed for the Cape. In 1846 the Capetown
District Committee of the S.P.C.K. petitioned the
Colonial Bishoprics Fund for the establishment of
a Bishopric of Capetown, and a similar petition First
was presented by the clergy and laity of the eastern
districts of the colony. The fact that it was
Mr. Hawkins, the Secretary of the Colonial
Bishoprics Fund, who selected the first Bishop
and recommended him to the Archbishop, is an
indication of how little the Church as a whole as
yet concerned itself about her daughter Churches
in the colonies.
The individual selected was Robert Gray ; and,
as his personality plays so large a part in the his-
tory of the Church in South Africa, it is important
to know something of his character and ante-
cedents.
Robert Gray was born in 1 809, the son of Bishop Bishop
Robert Gray, of Bristol. The father had passed
through stormy times, for he was Bishop at the
38 South Africa
time of the Bristol riots of 1S31. The mob, in-
furiated by the rejection by the House of Lords of
the Reform Bill, burnt the Bishop's palace and
attacked his cathedral. The son, who had received
an honorary fourth class in the pass examination
at Oxford, graduating from University College, was
ordained deacon by his father in S. Margaret's,
Westminster, in March, 1833, and acted at first as
secretary to his father, whose health was failing.
In January, 1834, he was ordained to the priest-
hood by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, by letters
dimissory from his father, who died at the end of
the year. Soon after Robert Gray became Vicar
of Whitworth, Durham. After refusing the living
of Hughenden, he was married in 1836 to Miss
Myddleton, the daughter of one of the chief land-
owners in his parish. Already he showed much
interest in the Church abroad by accepting, in
1840, the local secretaryship of the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel, and by the sympathy
which he expressed both for the Church of the
United States and for efforts which were being
made towards closer relations with the Eastern
Church. In 1845 he became Vicar of the impor-
tant parish of Stockton-on-Tees, and in the follow-
ing year he was appointed Honorary Canon of
Beginninos of Church Work 39
Durham Cathedral. These offices, however, he
was not destined to hold for long, for in January,
1847, he received a letter from Mr. Hawkins, ask-
ing him to allow his name to be put before the
Archbishop for the new Bishopric of Capetown.
After much hesitation and correspondence he was
nominated to this office, and his consecration took Consecra-
tion.
place in Westminster Abbey on S. Peter's Day,
1847, when Archbishop Howley and his assistant
Bishops also consecrated Bishop Short, of Adelaide,
Bishop Tyrrell, of Newcastle, and Bishop Perry, of
Melbourne.
In those days, and for some years after, Colonial
Bishops were appointed, like their brethren in
England, by Letters Patent from the Crown, the
theory being that the Church in the Colonies was
part of the Established Church of England, and
that Colonial Bishops were suffragans of the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, to whom they took the oath
of canonical obedience. Bishop Gray's Letters
Patent, dated June 25, 1847, constituted the Cape
of Good Hope and its dependencies, with the
island of S. Helena, a Bishop's See, and appointed
Robert Gray, D.D., the first Bishop thereof.
After his consecration the new Bishop spent
some busy months in England, speaking at meet-
40 South Africa
ings, raising funds for his work, and choosing men
to take out. Among the latter were his Arch-
deacon, Merriman, afterwards Bishop of Grahams-
town, the Rev. the Hon. H. Douglas, the Rev. H.
Badnall, Mr. Davidson, and others.
The Bishop, with his wife and four children and
several of his clergy and workers, sailed in the
Persia on December 28, 1847. From the very
outset the new Bishop found himself in at atmo-
Madeira sphere of controversy. For on landing at Madeira
Controv- . .
ersy. his good offices as a peacemaker were called in as
between two parties of English Churchmen, one of
which adhered to a clergyman called Lowe, who
held the Bishop of London's licence, while the
other followed a Mr. Brown, who was sent out by
Lord Palmerston as chaplain without the Bishop's
licence. By private exhortations, and by a sermon
in which he was " affected even to tears," the
Bishop strove to reconcile the conflicting parties ;
but he seems to have had little hope that his efforts
would prove successful. It is a curious coincidence
that Bishop Gray's episcopal work should have
begun, even before he had reached his diocese,
with this little controversy in Madeira between
Church and State, the Ecclesiastical and Civil
authority, which was to play so large a part
Beginnings of Church Work. 41
in his future contentions in the Church in South
Africa.
The party landed at the Cape on February 20,
1848. In Sir Harry Smith, the Governor of the
day, Bishop Gray found a warm friend. But the
prospect that met him on his first introduction
was not a cheering one. Politically there were initial
11 • 1 1 T-» 1 1 1 < Difficulties
troubles with the Boers on hand, which ended in
the battle of Boomplats ; ecclesiastically there
was much indifference and disorder ; and finan-
cially the problems were somewhat overwhelming.
There was a debt on S. George's Church of
£7, 500, and he saw at once how many more
clergy were urgently needed, with no resources
from which to pay them. And mission work
among heathen and Mohammedans had to be
organized from the beginning.
In July, 1848, we find the Bishop looking out
anxiously for the arrival of new members of his
staff — Messrs. Newman, Green, and Campbell. Of
these, Mr. Green, the future Dean of Maritzburg, Dean
whose work, but lately closed, was to extend over
more than fifty years, was to accompany him on
his first Visitation of the diocese. The description
of this first Visitation gives us a vivid idea of the
difficulties of those pioneering days. The Bishop
4- South Africa
vitiation started on August 23, 1 848, with a wagon and
eight horses which cost him ^300. Mr. Green,
who did not arrive in time to start with the Bishop,
followed him the next day. Each day's journey
began about 5 a.m., and every halt was M filled up
with services ; baptizing, confirming, preaching,
visiting schools and institutions, fixing sites of
churches, and presiding at public meetings with a
view to building them." The route followed was
along the coast eastwards, by Caledon. Riversdale,
Mossel Bay, and Melville, to Port Elizabeth. On
October 3rd, his thirty- ninth birthday, Bishop
Gray writes from Sunday River : " I have now
travelled through my unwieldy diocese near a
thousand miles, and I have yet two thousand
before me on this Visitation. Since I left Cape-
town I have met with one English church, but I
travelled nine hundred miles before I came to it,
. . . but, blessed be God ! I have been enabled
to arrange for eleven churches along the line I
have passed over." For these eleven churches
Mrs. Gray, who had stayed behind at Capetown,
drew the plans and working designs, so that the
Bishop wrote, " Sophie is architect to the diocese."
The Visitation, which covered three thousand
miles and lasted four months, during which the
Beginnings of Church Work 43
Bishop had confirmed nine hundred persons,
ended about December 16th, at Stellenbosch,
where Mrs. Gray, to the Bishop's surprise and
delight, drove out to meet him ; and her descrip-
tion of the party and their equipment gives
indications of what such journeys involved in
those days. " The poor wagon, which looked Hardships
J 10 ofTravel.
so smart when they started, was sadly battered,
its wheels all tied up with ropes, and sundry
patches and stains in all parts of it — the boxes,
bags, dressing-cases, clothes, shoes, etc., showing
grievous marks of having been in the wars. The
Bishop's two new strong tin boxes all battered
to pieces ; neither would lock ; his black patent
leather bags worn into holes ; his hat, which was
new when he started, looked as if he had played
football with it for a month — Mr. Green's still
worse ; and his shoes had a hole in the sole
through which you could put a finger." But
the Visitation had, so the Bishop wrote, " roused
feelings, hopes, and expectations, which had
almost died away. I must not disappoint them
if I can help it, or suffer them to sink again
into listless inactivity."
Bishop Gray's first care as Bishop of a diocese
which had hitherto had no definite organization
44 South Africa
and superintendence, which had grown up in a
casual and haphazard sort of way, was to supply
clergy, churches, and parsonages for the English
population in all the towns and villages of his
diocese. But this was only a part of the vast
Missionary work which la>' before him. He was from the
first fully alive to the claims of the native and
Malay population of the colony. In his very
first sermon he spoke of missions ; and, very
soon after, he writes, " I have ordered a collection
in all churches for the commencement of a
Mission Fund to the Kafirs." He was greatly
concerned about the Mohammedans, and in
March, 1848, he wrote home for a man who
might be a missionary to them. The need for
such mission work was the more pressing, as
Mohammedanism was spreading and aggressive.
In the following month the Bishop writes:
" There are a very great number of Mohammedans
in and around Capetown ; their converts are
made chiefly from among the liberated Africans,
but occasionally also from the ranks of Christians."
Accordingly, in writing home, he asks for " a
good, sound, discreet, earnest man for the Moham-
medans in Capetown." Another project which
much concerned him was that of utilizing the
Beginnings of Church Work 45
power of the Press. " With a view to give
strength and unity of action, courage and infor-
mation to Churchmen, a newspaper must be
started ; for the whole Press, from Capetown
to Port Natal, is sectarian ; and with a repre-
sentative Government and a hostile Press we
should fare badly ; at the end of a few months,
when we see how it pays, I shall probably write
to you about engaging an editor." Education, Education-
al Plans.
too, was occupying him. As a statesman he was
considering every kind of operation by which the
cause of CHRIST and His Church could be fur-
thered. Only about two months after his arrival
he had conceived a great and daring plan. " One
great scheme I have," he writes, " is to buy up
the South African College, which is a failure,
and has ^400 a year from Government. I
mean to make a dash at it, though I scarce
expect to succeed." A little later he was much
encouraged in this plan by the offer of a Univer-
sity man of distinction who seemed just the man
for a head master. " GOD has richly comforted
me on this day by a letter from Merriman, in-
forming me of Mr. White, a Fellow and Tutor
of New College, a first-class man, offering to come
out for five years at his own expense, I was just
46 South Africa
wanting such a man, and had just broached my
scheme about the South African College to the
Chief Justice on Saturday last."
His expectations of failure in the plan of buying
Diocesan up the South African College were realized ; but
College. r & '
the project of starting a diocesan collegiate school
was effected, and within a year it began its opera-
tions in quarters adjoining the Bishop's house at
Protea.afterwards called Bishop's Court. Mr. White
became the head master, and later on the school
was removed to larger premises, and became the
Diocesan College.
On April 1, 1850, the Bishop started on a
Second second and longer Visitation, which was to
Visitation.
include the distant colony of Natal. The hard-
ships and perils of this journey were even greater
than those of the former one. On entering Xatal,
and on leaving it, the party met with serious
accidents which might well have resulted in loss
of life. The route lay through Bloemfontcin and
Thaba-Unchu (as they then spelt it). Somewhere
between that point and the edge of the Drakens-
berg, at the house of a Hottentot called " Old
Isaac," the Bishop was met by Mr. Green and
his future brother-in-law, Mr. Moodie. The
meeting cheered Bishop Gray, and the next
Beginnings of Church Work 47
day the party proceeded to the dangerous de-
scent of the Drakensberg. That range of
mountains, like a sea cliff, descends in many
places by sheer crags, quite impassable by
wheeled vehicles, to the valleys of Natal. Its
highest points are some twelve thousand feet
above the sea. It was, of course, at some point
lower and less impassable that the Bishop at-
tempted to descend. But even so the pole ofItsdanee
his wagon was cracked in several places, and it
was at considerable risk, and by the aid of reims
(i.e., straps of raw hide) that the wagon was got
to the bottom. After passing the Tugela, the
Bushman's Drift, Mooi River and the Howick
Falls, they reached Maritzburg, where they
spent Whitsuntide. Some weeks were spent
there, and many plans laid for mission work
among the 100,000 Zulus, refugees from the,
tyranny of Panda, who then formed the native
population of Natal. Bishop Gray and his
party then passed down to the coast, to
D'Urban, and subsequently paid a visit to the
oldest mission stations in the country, those
of the American Congregationalists.
The return journey was to be, not across the
Drakensberg, but nearer the coast to King-
48 South Africa
williamstown. Those who know the deep gorges
through which the great rivers of Natal, such as
the Umkomazi and the Umzimkulu, flow to the
sea — gorges difficult enough to pass even now
when good roads have been engineered — can
imagine what such a journey must have been
for a wagon and eight horses in those days
when the roads can have been little better
Narrow than mountain tracks. After several descents
escapes.
and ascents of the greatest difficulty, in which
the Bishop had to go before the horses, leading
them by a reim, and almost getting trodden on
in the process, they had a serious breakdown
in the descent into the Umzimkulu valley.
"In our descent," the Bishop says, "we came
to some very broken ground. Just as I was
offering up thanksgiving for escape from danger
I saw my cart roll over. In an instant it was
turned completely on its head, quite crushing
the tent, and the wheelers were upon their
backs, with their feet in the air. Ludwig
(the driver) was invisible under the cart."
Although they managed to reach their halting-
place without injury to any of the party, it
would seem that the wagon was ruined, for the
Bishop says : " The loss of my cart seems to
Beginnings of Church Work. 49
me like the loss of a home. I read in it, wrote
in it, slept in it, in fact, lived in it. Now I am
without shelter." However, it appears to have
been patched up, for the journey continued, and
we find the Bishop preaching to the natives, with
Mr. Shepstone as interpreter. This, probably,
was not Sir Theophilus, but his brother John,
who afterwards became Judge of the Native
High Court in Maritzburg.
It was this Visitation of Natal that forced
home the conviction to the Bishop's mind that
he must at once proceed to the division of his New
Dioceses
unwieldly diocese, and to the appointment of projected,
at least two more Bishops. His desire at this
time was to hand over the charge of the Cape
to some one else, and to undertake the pioneering
work of missions in Natal himself. " My plan,"
he writes, " is to get Archdeacon Grant, or some
very able man, for Capetown ; and the Arch-
deacon (Merriman) at Grahamstown, and for me
to go to mission work in Natal."
It was this need of subdivision which deter-
mined the Bishop to pay a visit to England to
bring the matter before the Church at home, and
to obtain the men and the necessary funds for the
endowment of the two new Bishoprics of Grahams-
50 South Africa
town and Natal. In a pastoral letter to the mem-
bers of the Church in the diocese Bishop Gray
explained the objects of this journey as being
fourfold: (i) The division of the diocese, (2) the
future maintenance of the clergy, (3) missions to
the heathen, and (4) the foundation of a college.
England. The Bishop sailed for England on January 3, 1852,
and after a Visitation of the Island of S. Helena,
which was within his jurisdiction, he landed at
Falmouth on March 31st.
Bishop Gray's letters and diaries at this time
show his unbounded activity while in England,
and his constant interviews with all the leading
men in Church and State concerning all the
difficult problems that the organization of a new
colonial diocese and province involved. All this
we must pass over, and come to that which was
the primary object of his visit — the selection of
the two new Bishops. On September 7th he
wrote to invite Mr. Armstrong, of Tidenham,
to become the first Bishop of Grahamstown ; and
about the same time he offered the Bishopric of
Bishop Natal to the Rev. John William Colenso, Rector
Colenso. J
of Forncett S. Man-, in Norfolk. Mr. Colenso
had had a distinguished career at Cambridge,
being Second Wrangler and Second Smith's
ifit~ •
; y Abjj *
.,.
l^l^hv '''"'^sO
j^^jfflHy^^'
, *•
^
P/to/o 6y
The late Bishot Cole:
linztt ■■■ / n
To face page 50.
Beginnings of Church Work 51
Prizeman in 1836, and Fellow of S. John's in
1837. He was ordained deacon by the Bishop
of Ely in 1839, being then twenty-five years old,
and in the same year became a mathematical
master at Harrow. From Harrow he had returned
to Cambridge, where, from 1 84 1 to his marriage
with Miss Bunyon, he worked as Fellow and Tutor
of S. John's. The two new Bishops were conse-
crated at Lambeth on S. Andrew's Day, 1853, the
sermon being preached by Bishop Wilberforce, of
Oxford. Bishop Gray now looked forward to the
future with brightest hopes. The object of his
journey was accomplished, South Africa was to
be reinforced by having three centres of spiritual
life and activity instead of one, and there seemed
to be no hindrance to the Metropolitan's earnest
desire to start regular provincial organization by
convening Diocesan and Provincial Synods.
Bishop Gray and Bishop Colenso sailed in the
Calcutta on December 14, 1853, and the party
landed on January 20, 1854.
After ten weeks' survey of his new diocese and
its needs, Bishop Colenso returned home in search
of workers, recording his experiences and con-
clusions in a little book entitled Ten Weeks in
Natal. The other new Bishop — Armstrong of Armstrong
52
South Africa
Bishop
Cotterill.
Univer-
sities'
Mission.
Bishop
Claughton. pHshed
Grahamstown — was destined to a very brief
episcopate, for little more than two years after
his landing he died suddenly, to the great grief
of the Metropolitan.1
Bishop Armstrong was succeeded by Bishop
Cotterill. At first Bishop Gray was distressed
and indignant at the appointment, as it seemed
to him to be a partisan selection by which an
extreme Evangelical was to be forced upon
South Africa. That view, however, he very
soon came to modify, and found in the new
Bishop a congenial and loyal ally.
The following year, 1857, we find Bishop Gray
again in England. This time his chief anxiety
was to promote the formation of a Missionary
Association at the Universities which should
undertake the support of a new diocese on the
Zambesi ; and also he desired to obtain the
appointment of a Bishop for the Island of
S. Helena. Both these objects were accom-
Mr. Piers Claughton was appointed
1 Bishop Armstrong's widow has just passed to her
rest at the great age of ninety-three (May 8th, 1908). It
is interesting to note that one of the clergy who ac-
companied her and her husband to the Cape in 1854
was present at her funeral at Iffley — Canon Mullins, of
Grahamstown.
Beginnings of Church Work 53
Bishop of S. Helena ; and Archdeacon Mac- Bishop
1 Mackenzie
kenzie, one of Bishop Colenso's clergy, was
selected as first Missionary Bishop for the
Zambesi country. His consecration took place
on January 1, 1861, in the Cathedral of Cape-
town, the Bishops of Natal and S. Helena
assisting ; the Bishop of Grahamstown was to
have been also present, but missed his ship.
Thus, from an ever-memorable meeting at
Cambridge, at which Dr. Livingstone was the
chief speaker, began the Universities' Mission
to Central Africa, which has just been thanking
GOD, in this its year of jubilee, for steady and
constant progress, for many thousands of Chris-
tian natives, and for its record of saintly and
heroic names.
54 South Africa
CHAPTER III
The Colenso Controversy
'/ d) I 'E now come to events which have made
^"^** the ecclesiastical history of South Africa
at once memorable and tempestuous. Hitherto, in
spite of all the difficulties of Bishop Gray's earlier
years, we have watched the Cape working out the
justification of its title as the " Cape of Good
Hope." The creation of the three new dioceses
of Grahamstown, Natal, and S. Helena, and the
Missionary Bishopric of the Zambesi, the awaken-
ing of missionary enthusiasm at the Universities
in connection with the latter, the development of
educational work in the creation of a diocesan
college for the colonists and of a missionary
college, at Zonnebloem, for the natives, and the
general uplifting of spiritual life and thought, all
seemed to promise great things for the future.
But suddenly the sky became overcast and storm-
clouds gathered, and a long series of theological
and legal controversies sadly reaffirmed the ap-
The Colenso Controversy 55
propriateness of the earlier title, " The Cape of
Storms."
The very names — Colenso, Gray, Natal — recall
to the older generation among us memories of
heated and extraordinarily complicated battles.
And this complex and tangled dispute was like
a game of cross questions and crooked answers,
in which each side was unwittingly playing into
the hands of its opponent and accomplishing
results the very opposite of those which it held
most dear. This will become plain if, disregard-
ing for the moment the chronological sequence,
we look back on the whole turmoil and try to
disentangle the underlying principles which ani-
mated the leaders in the conflict and made them
at once so determined and so irreconcilable.
One ideal at work was freedom for the Church Two ideals
to develop its organization in a new country on
primitive and apostolic lines, unimpeded by the
civil power and the legal entanglements which
seemed to such idealists to encumber the Estab-
lishment in England.
Another ideal was freedom of thought and
action, so that the essentials of Christianity might
be presented to a vigorous and childlike race of
heathens in attractive simplicity, stripped of the
56 South Africa
elaborate subtleties of dogmatic theology which
had puzzled the brains of long generations of
controversial divines in the older countries.
So stated it might seem as though there were
much kinship between these two ideals of freedom.
As a matter of fact, the two came into acute and
irreconcilable conflict. For the first ideal involved
freedom from the civil power, and the second
found in the civil power its great ally. To the
one the Civil Courts represented all that was
worldly and cold and unsympathetic, to the other
they stood for the calm and dispassionate reason
restraining the prejudice and passion of fanatics
and securing liberty of thought.
These were, broadly speaking, the ideals of
Gray and Gray and Colenso respectively. And vet it was
Colenso. J \ J J .
the Privy Council, which Bishop Gray so vigor-
ously denounced as " the masterpiece of Satan
for the overthrow of the Faith," which was really
accomplishing his ideals by declaring that the
Church of South Africa was a voluntary associa-
tion, in no better case, and in no worse, than other
religious bodies, and therefore free to go its own
way and work out its own rules. And it was the
Privy Council, to which Bishop Colenso so ardently
clung, that was undermining his position by
The Colenso Controversy 57
declaring the Letters Patent null and void, and
so removing the last shreds of establishment
from the Church in South Africa.
It was a strange irony that brought these con- The
... .... Personal
flicting ideals into such violent contact within the Equation.
little Church of South Africa, and a still more
perverse fate which embodied them in such hope-
lessly incompatible personalities as those of Gray
and Colenso — the Oxford theologian and the
Cambridge mathematician ; the one representing
the very soul of the Oxford Tractarian Movement
and the spirit of Athanasius and the early Councils,
the other breathing the Cambridge scientific spirit,
which lightly handled these ancient sanctities and
was ready to throw them all into the melting-pot
of modern criticism.
The interest of the controversies with which we
have now to deal is partly theological and partly
ecclesiastical : that is to say, it concerns particular
doctrines, and it also raises the whole question of
the constitution of the Church, its legislative
bodies, and its judicial tribunals. It is the latter
rather than the former, the ecclesiastical rather
than the theological question, which will chiefly
concern us. And therefore, before we approach
the Colenso case, it will be well to notice another
58 South Africa
lawsuit which raised the question of the legal
position of the Colonial Church.
Long i . This is the case of Long v. Bishop of Cape-
Bishop of fc> r r
Capetown. town The Bishop, in his plans for the develop-
ment of the organic life of the Church, had long
been very anxious to institute regular diocesan
and provincial synods. But the proposed synods
were viewed with some uneasiness by certain of
the clergy, in the fear that they might circum-
scribe the limits allowed to the Church by English
law. This uneasiness led Mr. Long, the incum-
bent of the parish of Mowbray, to refuse to give
notice of the synod in 1856, and to decline to
summon a meeting of parishioners to elect a la)'
delegate. The Bishop passed over this refusal ;
but when it was formally repeated in i860 the
Bishop felt that the refusal of clergy to fall into
line would stultify his synod, so he took action.
Mr. Long was summoned to appear before the
Bishop and his assessors. Sentence of three
months' suspension (though without loss of sti-
pend,) was passed on him, and on his ignoring
the sentence he was deprived. Mr. Long appealed
to the Supreme Court of the colony, which upheld
(Justice Bell, however, dissenting) the Bishop's
sentence. There was then an appeal to the Privy
The Coi.enso Controversy 59
Council. It should, of course, be borne in mind
that, in this and all other ecclesiastical cases in
South Africa, the Court to which appeal was made Appeal to
. . Privy
was not the Ecclesiastical Committee of the Privy Council.
Council, which is the court of final appeal for
ecclesiastical suits in England, but the Judicial
Committee, which is the Appellate Court to which
all appeals go from the Civil Courts of the colonies.
The judgement of the Privy Council was startling.
It reversed the decision of the Cape Court. It
reaffirmed what the Court below had held, that
the Bishop's Letters Patent of 1853 conveyed no
coercive jurisdiction, inasmuch as they were
granted after the Cape Colony had received
representative government. When once a colony
has been granted representative institutions it is
ultra vires for the Crown to impose its Letters
Patent, as it thereby encroaches on the liberties
it has already granted. But, while denying the
coercive jurisdiction of the Bishop, the Supreme
Court had held that this deficiency was supplied
by the voluntary submission which Mr. Long had
given to his Bishop when he received his licence
and took an oath of canonical obedience. In
reviewing that contention the Privy Council made
use of momentous words, which have fixed the
60 South Africa
P"vy status of the Colonial Church. " The Church of
Council
judgement England," it said, " in places where there is no
Church established by law, is in the same situation
with any other religious body, in no better and in
no worse position ; and the members may adopt,
as the members of any other communion may
adopt, rules for enforcing discipline within their
body which will be binding on those who expressly
or by implication have assented to them." The
decision went on to ask what was implied in
Mr. Long's oath of canonical obedience, and it
laid down that it implied obedience to things
which a Bishop in England could lawfully demand
of his clergy. But to require a clergyman to
attend a synod, and to give notice to others to
attend a synod, which was to make laws for the
Church, was beyond what an English Bishop
could lawfully demand ; and therefore Mr. Long
was justified in disobeying the order of the
Bishop of Capetown.
The judgement, as it will be readily seen, was
important, not so much for its view of the par-
ticular question of the lawfulness of synods, as for
its dicta with regard to the status of the Church
in the colonies as a voluntary society in which all
discipline must rest on contract on the part of the
The Colenso Controversy 61
clergy to obey the Canons and Constitutions of
the Church and to submit to such voluntary
tribunals as the Church may create.
We now come to the case of Bishop Colenso.
We have already noticed the personal equation
which was bound in the course of nature to bring
two such minds as those of Gray and Colenso into
conflict. And the divergence was even more
hopeless, if that were possible, between the Bishop Bishop
of Natal and his own dean. For some time past and Dean
11- 111 • ^ Green.
that divergence had been growing acute. One of
the first points of difference had been the question
of the baptism of polygamists, on which Colenso
took a more indulgent view than that of his
brethren. Another was the constitution of a
Church Council, the Bishop of Natal favouring
a much larger infusion of laymen than the dean
or the Metropolitan, and proposing that clergy
and laymen should vote together and not by
orders. Another grievance of the Dean of Maritz-
burg was created by certain expressions of Bishop
Colenso about the Eucharist. On this subject,
however, the Bishop of Capetown was more liberal
than the dean, and advised that Bishop Colenso's
words were not beyond the limits of freedom
allowed by the Church of England. But the crisis
62 South Africa
coienso-s came with the publication of Colenso's Com-
tions'.''3" mentary on the Epistle to the Romans. At the
first reading of it Bishop Gray foresaw that it
would lead to a conflict, that he himself would
feel compelled to take steps to check what he
regarded as heresy, even if his office of Metro-
politan were not promoted, as he felt sure it would
be, by Dean Green. An anxious correspondence
followed between Bishop Gray and Bishop Wilber-
force, of Oxford, as to what steps should be taken.
This was in the second half of the year 1 86 1 . In
November of that year Bishop Gray also wrote to
put the matter before the Archbishop of Canter-
bury (Sumner). And he tells the Bishop of
Oxford that Bishop Colenso quite approved of
his letter to the Archbishop. In May, 1862,
Bishop Gray went to England, Bishop Colenso
being about the same time on his way thither.
On the voyage the Bishop of Capetown heard
for the first time, from a fellow-traveller, of the
impending publication of Colenso's work on the
Pentateuch.
On the arrival of Bishop Colenso Bishop Gray-
wrote to him urging him to meet certain English
Bishops to discuss the views put forth in his pub-
lished writings. But in all the overtures of this
The Colenso Controversy 63
early stage in the controversy one feels how
inevitably the matter was drifting into open war,
because of the impossibility of two such minds
seeing things from the other's point of view
Bishop Gray, although animated by real Christian
sympathy, cannot think or speak of or to Bishop
Colenso otherwise than as an erring brother who Bishop
has to be brought back to the Faith. In other view,
words, Colenso naturally felt that he was already
judged — that there was no possibility of open-
minded and impartial hearing from Bishop Gray
or from those Bishops before whom Bishop Gray
wished to bring him. So again, in writing to the
Dean of Capetown, who was, as it proved, to be
the chief of the prosecuting clergy, the Metro-
politan says (speaking of the procedure he pro-
poses to adopt if the matter comes before him
judicially), " I will not be bound by the narrow
limits, as to the Church's Faith, laid down by
Dr. Lushington or the Privy Council. I will not
recognize them as an authority as to what are the
doctrines which the Church of England allows to
be taught. The Privy Council will make itself, if
not checked, the de facto spiritual head of the
Church of England, and of all religious bodies in
the colonies." Whatever may be said about the
64 South Africa
Privy Council, Dr. Lushington was the Official
Principal of the Court of Arches, and the " narrow
limits " which he had laid down in deciding what
was the Church's Faith in the recent notorious
judgement on Essays and Reviews were that he
declined to be led into a general discussion of
Scripture and antiquity, and stuck to the question
of what came within the Thirty-nine Articles, to
which the clergy had made their subscription.
Here, again, Bishop Colenso had good right to
feel that in any trial to which he might be brought
by the Bishop of Capetown there was no standard
of legality which the>' would both recognize. The
standard by which he claimed to be tried was the
legal formularies of the Church of England. The
standard which alone would satisfy Bishop Gray
was the Catholic Church.
English Meanwhile, long and stormy discussions took
Bishops. ° J
place among the English Bishops who were asked
by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
for advice as to their line of action towards the
Bishop of Natal. Ultimately a resolution pro-
posed by the Bishop of Oxford was carried, to the
effect that the Society should " withhold its con-
fidence from the Bishop until he has been cleared
from the charges notoriously incurred by him."
The Colenso Controversy 65
A general discussion then followed, in which the
Bishop of Capetown announced that he was
advised that he could, under his Letters Patent, or
by his Metropolitical authority, summon Colenso to
appear before him, if his office were promoted, but
at the same time appealed to the Bishops of the
Church at home not to leave all the burden on the
shoulders of the Metropolitan of a small and
distant Church, but to pronounce an opinion on
the writings of the Bishop of Natal. The difficulty
of pronouncing such an opinion, without prejudg-
ing the cause which was ex hypothesi to come
before a judicial tribunal, was sufficiently evident,
but the Bishops ultimately passed (by twenty-five
votes to four) a resolution proposed by the
Bishop of Oxford, viz. : " That we agree after inhibition
common counsel, under a great scandal, to inhibit, colenso.
We would not assume the Bishop's guilt, as he
has not yet been tried, nor make a charge against
him, but assert that there was a great and no-
torious scandal."
Though there were only four dissentients who
formed the minority against this resolution, they
were four of the most eminent of the Bishops —
Archbishop Thomson of York, Bishop Tait of
London, Bishop Thirlwall of S. Davids, and
F
66 South Africa
Bishop Prince Lee of Manchester. At a further
Bishops' meeting on February 7, 1863, a letter
was drawn up and signed by all but Bishop Thirl-
wall, calling on Bishop Colenso to resign his see.
But seeing that Bishop Colenso's object was, not
merely to propound certain views of the Bible and
of Inspiration, but to test the right of clergy to
hold views, which to him were the truth, without
disloyalty to the Church of England, and that his
resignation would have been an admission that
this question was settled in the negative, it is
hardly surprising that he declined to adopt this
course.
Bishop Gray returned to the Cape, landing on
April 11, 1863. In the following month formal
Articles of Articles of Accusation against Bishop Colenso
Accusation *
were laid before the Bishop of Capetown by
Dean Douglas of Capetown, Archdeacon Merri-
man of Grahamstown, and Archdeacon Badnall of
George. They were of great length, traversing all
Bishop Colenso's published writings. The months
which followed were occupied by a Visitation of
the diocese, so that it was not till November 17th
that the hearing began. Two Bishops of the
province sat with the Metropolitan as Assessors,
viz., the Bishops of Grahamstown and of the
The Colenso Controversy 67
Orange Free State (Cotterill and Twells). The Trial and
i- ii-ii Sentence.
verbatim report of the proceedings, published as
a pamphlet, covers 405 closely-printed pages.
Bishop Colenso, who was still in England, in-
structed a certain Dr. Bleek to appear and hand
in a written protest, in which he declined to
admit the jurisdiction of the Court, at the same
time admitting the publication of the incriminated
writings, and denying " that the publication of
these passages, or any of them, constitutes any
offence against the laws of the United Church of
England and Ireland." The judgement of the
Bishop of Capetown, following the " opinions "
of his assessors, was given on December 14th.
After fully entering into the various charges, the
Metropolitan pronounced his sentence, which was
that Bishop Colenso was deprived of his bishopric
and prohibited from the exercise of any divine
office within any part of the Metropolitical Pro-
vince of Capetown. The case ended with a
final protest from Dr. Bleek against the legality
of the proceedings, and an announcement that the
Bishop of Natal intended to appeal, and to resist
the execution of the judgement in such ways as he
should be advised to be proper.
Bishop Colenso now, acting under such advice,
68 South Africa
petitioned the Crown to hear his appeal, and the
law officers of the Crown advised that his peti-
tion should be referred to the Judicial Committee
Privy of the Privy Council for their consideration. The
case came on for hearing on December 14, 1864.
Sir Hugh Cairns, Sir Robert Phillimore, and Mr.
Badeley appeared for the Metropolitan, and pro-
tested against the jurisdiction. Judgement was
delivered on March 20, 1865. Here again, then,
we have a judgement which is obviously of such
momentous consequence with regard to the status
of the Church in the Colonies that it is worth
while to quote some of its expressions. The
Judicial Committee recited at length the clauses
of the Letters Patent granted respectively to the
Bishop of Capetown and the Bishop of Natal which
purported to bestow Metropolitical jurisdiction on
the former. It proceeded to show that legislative
institutions had been conferred on the Cape
Colony by Letters Patent in 1850 (between the
date of Bishop Gray's first Letters Patent and
that of his second, when the new Dioceses of
Grahamstown and Natal were constituted). It
then recited the proceedings in the trial of Bishop
Colcnso before the Bishop of Capetown under his
assumed authority as Metropolitan by virtue of
The Colenso Controversy 69
the Letters Patent. "In this state of things" the judgement,
judgement says, " three principal questions arise :
(1) Were the Letters Patent of the 8th December,
1 85 3, by which Dr. Gray was appointed Metro-
politan . . . valid and good in law? (2) Suppos-
ing the ecclesiastical relation of Metropolitan and
Suffragan to have been created, was the grant of
coercive authority and jurisdiction, expressed by
the Letters Patent to be thereby made to the
Metropolitan, valid and good in law ? (3) Can
the oath of canonical obedience taken by the
appellant to the Bishop of Capetown, and his
consent to accept his see as part of the Metro-
politan Province of Capetown, confer any jurisdic-
tion or authority on the Bishop of Capetown by
which this sentence of deprivation of the Bishopric
of Natal can be supported ? "
Then follows the critical point on which the
whole case turned. " With respect to the first
question, we apprehend it to be clear, upon
principle, that after the establishment of an
independent Legislature in the settlements of the
Cape of Good Hope and Natal, there was no
power in the Crown by virtue of its prerogative
(for those Letters Patent were not granted under
the provisions of any statute; to establish a
7<d South Africa
Metropolitan See or Province, or to create an
Ecclesiastical Corporation, whose status, rights,
and authority the colony could be required to
recognize. After a colony or settlement has re-
ceived legislative institutions, the Crown (subject
to the provisions of any Act of Parliament) stands
in the same relation to that colony or settlement
as it does to the United Kingdom.''
The first question, then, is answered in the
negative — the Letters Patent are not good in law.
The judgement proceeds : " The same reasoning
is, of course, decisive of the second question."
Even if the Letters Patent established the personal
relation of Metropolitan and Suffragan, they had
" no power to confer any jurisdiction or coercive
legal authority."
The third question is very summarily dismissed:
" The argument must be that both parties being
aware that the Bishop of Capetown had no juris-
diction or legal authority as Metropolitan, the
appellant agreed to give it to him by voluntary
submission. But even if the parties intended to
enter into any such agreement (of which, however,
we find no trace) it was not legally competent to the
Bishop of Natal to give, or to the Bishop of Cape-
town to accept or exercise, any such jurisdiction."
The Colenso Controversy 71
The conclusion of the whole matter is very
short and simple : " Their lordships therefore will
humbly report to Her Majesty their judgement
and opinion that the proceedings taken by the
Bishop of Capetown, and the judgement or
sentence pronounced by him against the Bishop
of Natal, are null and void in law."
Here was confusion worse confounded. Both Deadlock,
parties were started on the down grade, which led
inevitably to more hopeless and irreconcilable
divergence. The protagonists were both strong
men, neither of whom was inclined to do things
by halves. Each was quite clear as to the object
he had in view. And so began that deadlock
which was to last for many years to come.
Bishop Gray had already announced, quite
clearly, to his friends what his future course
was to be. In case Bishop Colenso came back to
Natal, he would proceed to excommunicate him
and to appoint another Bishop. Bishop Colenso,
on the other hand, deemed himself committed to
maintain his freedom as a Bishop of the Church
of England and therefore, to ignore a judgement
such as that delivered at Capetown, which was
now shown to have no legal coercive force. The
more clerical bodies, such as the Houses of the
2 South Africa
Convocation of Canterbury, condemned him, the
more strong became his motive to assert the
liberty which the Civil Courts gave him. And yet
viJto?ytlve ms victory was a very partial one. No pronounce-
ment had been obtained one way or the other
with regard to his theological views. His writings
had never been so much as mentioned before the
Privy Council. Their decision gave him merely
the empty and negative victory of overthrowing
the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan under his
Letters Patent, and that through a mere slip of
the lawyers in issuing a document which purported
to be what it was not. And even that victory
was something of a defeat. It had cleared up the
point that henceforth there would be no more
Letters Patent issued, that the Church was a
voluntary society, that it must now proceed to
make its own rules to be voluntarily accepted by
its members, and so it had cleared the way for
Bishop Gray to proceed with his plan of getting
a new Bishop appointed without incurring the
charge of breaking any law or encroaching on the
Royal supremacy.
Seeing that the Privy Council was really, though
unwittingly, strengthening Bishop Gray's hands,
and delivering him from the Erastianism which
The Colenso Controversy 73
he loathed,1 it seems strange that he should have
deluged it with such fierce torrents of reproach.
He speaks of it as the " Dagon of the Privy
Council," " The masterpiece of Satan for the
overthrow of the Faith." " It is," he says,
" through Civil Courts that the world in these
days seeks to crush the Church"; "In that body
all the enmity of the world against the Church
of Christ is gathered up and embodied." On
the other hand, it was this same Privy Council,
which was in reality hastening the emancipation
of the Colonial Church, which Bishop Colenso put
in the forefront of his confession of Faith on
his return to Natal, in November, 1865: "We
have made choice," he said, " to be bound by
her [the Church of England's] laws, to submit
to the decisions of her chief tribunals, to the
interpretations that may be put upon her formu-
laries by her Supreme Courts of Appeal."
1 Indeed, Bishop Gray, in reply to Bishop Tait's
inquires (see below), quotes with satisfaction an amend-
ment which had been carried by thirty-one votes to
three: — "That . . . this Synod assents to, and accepts,
the position assigned to this Church by the judgement of
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the appeal
case, Long v. the Bishop of Capetown, viz., that of a
voluntary religious association, not established by law."
74
South Africa
Colcnso v.
Gladstone
In the meantime we have another very impor-
tant judgement to consider. In 1866 Bishop
Colenso instituted a suit in Chancery against the
Trustees of the Colonial Bishoprics Fund (Mr.
Gladstone and others) to recover his stipend.
The trustees had withheld it on the ground that
the donors of the Fund had given their money on
the understanding that the Letters Patent were
what they purported to be, and that they had
conferred on the Bishops who held them such
jurisdiction as English Bishops possessed. But
now that the Privy Council had pronounced the
Letters Patent to be null and void, and that no
such jurisdiction existed, the subscribers felt them-
selves aggrieved. And, to show this, the)' pro-
duced a letter from Miss Burdett-Coutts, who had
been the largest donor. The case came before
the Rolls Court, and the Master of the Rolls,
Lord Romilly, pronounced judgement on Novem-
judgement. |-,er ^ ! 866, in favour of the plaintiff, compelling
the trustees to pa)* the Bishop's stipend. This
judgement appeared in some ways to contradict
the previous decisions, though the Master of the
Rolls attempted to prove that it did not do so.
He maintained, at great length, that the Letters
Patent were far from being null : that they did,
Lord
Romilly's
The Colenso Controversy 75
in fact, a great deal of what they purported to do,
that they did create a Bishop and a diocese,
that the only thing which they failed to do was to
create a coercive jurisdiction. For this purpose —
to enforce the decisions of his Court — his forum
domesticum — the Bishop must have recourse to
the Civil Courts, that if he had recourse to them
they would enforce his jurisdiction, and that,
therefore his position was none the worse, that
he was in every respect a Bishop of the Church
of England, and that the Church in the colonies
was still part of the Church of England as by
law established. Lord Romilly went one step
further, and tried to show that the Church in
the colony was really in a better position under
the new view of the Letters Patent than it would
have been had those Letters been all that they
purported to be. " In the one case," he said, " if
the Letters Patent effected all that they were
originally supposed to effect, the law on the
subject would be declared by one prelate of the
Church of England with an appeal to another
prelate, and possibly finally to the Primate of All
England, where the matter would end. In the
other case, the law would be declared by a civil
tribunal, with an appeal to the Sovereign in
76 South Africa
Council, where also the matter would end. The
law," he went on to say, " it is important to observe,
is and must be the same in both cases, and ought
to be similarly administered, and that law is the
law of the doctrines and ordinances of the Church
of England. The former are fixed and immutable,
the latter are equally fixed until altered by statute.
This law, whether it be enforced by the ecclesias-
tical or the civil tribunal, is the same and should
receive the same construction, and when ambigu-
ous, the same interpretation."
Now, it is of the utmost importance to consider
this dictum, both because this judgement, most of
all, was considered by Bishop Colenso, and those
who shared his view, to be " the Charter of the
Colonial Church," and because it seemed to
suggest a line of policy for the Church in the
colonies which might have, but has not, been
adopted.
Lord The line of action it foreshadows is this — the
Komilly s
sugges- members of the Church of England in the
tions. °
colonies, though pronounced to belong to a
voluntary society, may, if they will, renounce
their voluntary position, and instead of attempting,
as a voluntary society, to legislate in synods, to
draw up their Constitution and Canons, to which
The Colenso Controversy 77
all their members are to bind themselves by con-
tract, and to appoint their own tribunals to
administer discipline, may bind themselves simply
to the laws of the Church of England. On the
strength of this mutual contract the Bishop may
assume the visitorial powers of an English Bishop
for purposes of discipline, with the single excep-
tion that whenever the exercise of discipline may
be needed, he shall go before the Civil Court and
ask for the arm of the law to enforce with civil
pains and penalties the decisions he may have
arrived at. Now, what would be the position of
the Colonial Church if it had accepted this advice?
First of all, it would absolutely renounce all right
to initiate legislation. Its law must for all time
be the law of the Church of England. " Ah, but,"
it is said by the Master of the Rolls, " that law
remains immutable." (Poor cast-iron Church of
England !) But even the Master of the Rolls
admits an exception. It may be altered by
statute. But the Colonial Church has no repre-
sentation either in the Convocation of the Home
Church nor in the Parliament which frames such
statutes, and therefore, however widely the cir-
cumstances of the Colonial Church may differ,
however many may be the new problems calling
78 South Africa
for new treatment, the Church in the colony is
invited to abandon all power of meeting such
new problems and needs by legislation.1 But,
is it true that the law of the Church of England
remains immutable even apart from direct legisla-
tion ? The law of the Church is not merely
statute law. It also has its common law, which
is based upon decisions of the Courts, and that
common law changes inasmuch as decisions
vary. The law of the Church is different now
Example of from what it was before the famous Lincoln
Lincoln
Case. Judgement. How was the change effected?
" Fresh light," as it was called, was brought
before Archbishop Benson on several points
which had been previously decided by the Privy
Council, and accordingly he reversed their de-
cisions. Then, what happened ? These points
came before the Ecclesiastical Committee of the
Privy Council on appeal, and, with the arguments
of counsel and the judgement of the Archbishop
before them, and the advice of the episcopal
assessors, the Ecclesiastical Committee accepted
the reversal of their own previous decisions, and
that reversal became so far the law of the Church.
From any such chance of obtaining a modification
1 See Appendix B.
The Colenso Controversy 79
of the law the Colonial Church would have been
shut out if it had accepted the specious advice of
the Master of the Rolls. It would have had no
access to the Ecclesiastical Courts at home where
these points might be reopened. It would have
had to bring them before the Civil Courts, which
would have declined to discuss them, contenting
themselves with simply asking what has been the
previous decision on this point. Hence the
Colonial Church would be doubly bound in fetters
of iron, debarred from all legislation either by
statute or by the modifications of unreasonable
decisions.1
The importance of this question will be seen
when we come to the question of the constitution
of the Church of the Province and its famous
" third proviso."
Bishop Colenso's return to Natal was promptly Bishop
followed by the threatened excommunication. ex°com°
tl- -ii . . _ municated.
Inis was accompanied by a private letter from
Bishop Gray, to which Bishop Colenso replied at
great length, setting forth his whole position.
There was now, of course, nothing left for the
Metropolitan to do but to find a suitable man
willing to take up the difficult and unenviable
1 See Appendix B.
8o South Africa
task of the Bishopric which Bishop Gray had
declared to be vacant in Natal. The first
suggested name was that of the Rev. F. H. Cox,
of Hobart, in Tasmania. When he declined the
post, Bishop Gray made great efforts to persuade
Mr. Butler, of Wantage (afterwards Dean of
Lincoln), to accept the office. For a time it
appeared that Mr. Butler would be the Bishop.
But ultimately the Archbishop of Canterbury
strongly advised him that it was desirable that
a man of less marked partisanship would have
a better chance of reconciling the divided
Church, and Mr. Butler withdrew. A great
many others were suggested and sounded, but
Bishop ultimately Mr. Macrorie, Vicar of Accrineton,
Macrone. ' °
was selected and undertook the somewhat
thankless task.
Then arose a long series of somewhat excited
and acrimonious discussions about the place of
the new Bishop's consecration. It was one thing
to say that the Church of the colony was a
voluntary society, and therefore free to make its
own arrangements as to the Bishops it appointed
and consecrated, but it was quite another thing
that such a consecration, which certainly seemed
to flaunt the Privy Council, should take place in
^■j
1 w
1 ^K^ "
^SP ^$<5
■L
>• 1
■
i jfl
V- ^i i
Photo by] [Russell & Sons.
The late Bishop Macrorie.
To face page 8o.
The Colenso Controversy
England, where a Royal mandate for the con-
secration was a part of the service in the Prayer
Book. Letters and telegrams were flying about
as each new place of consecration was suggested
and abandoned. And ultimately, after many
strenuous efforts to arrange the consecration in
this country, Bishop Gray somewhat reluctantly
yielded to pressure, and decided to consecrate his
new suffragan in his own cathedral at Capetown.
The consecration took place there on the Feast of
the Conversion of S. Paul, 1869.
The same year saw further litigation. Bishop Further
Colenso applied to the Supreme Court of Natal,
to transfer to him the properties of the Church of
England in Natal that were vested in Bishop
Gray. The Court decided (Judge Connor dissent-
ing) that, inasmuch as Bishop Gray's Letters
Patent were dated a short time after those of
Bishop Colenso, the trusteeship of Bishop Gray
had, in that short interval, lapsed, and the pro-
perties had passed to Bishop Colenso as his
successor in Natal. This judgement was upheld
on appeal by the Privy Council.
The position of Churchmen in Natal under these
confusing and conflicting judgements can be im-
agined to have been one of extreme difficulty and
South Africa
complexity. Each side had a certain justification.
Those who accepted Bishop Macrorie, with vary-
ing degrees of warmth, could say, " Whatever the
Law Courts may say as to technical flaws in Letters
Patent, we accept Bishop Gray as our Metropoli-
tan, and his sentence has for us spiritual authority.
We therefore can no longer give allegiance to a
Bishop whom he has deprived of his office; and, on
the other hand, are bound in conscience to accept
the Bishop whom he has consecrated to rule over
our Church." Those, on the other hand, who still
adhered to Bishop Colenso could say, " Whatever
Bishop Colenso's views may be, we are law-abiding
Englishmen, and the Crown having pronounced
that Bishop Colenso is still the legal Bishop of
Natal we cannot refuse to obey him." As a
matter of fact these sentiments were expressed,
as was not unnatural, in somewhat more vigorous
language, and " the contention was so sharp
between them " that in more than one case
scenes of physical violence took place as to the
possession of buildings. Dean Green, ejected
from S. Peter's Cathedral, of which he had been
Rector, and from his parsonage, set to work to
build the new Cathedral of S. Saviour's; and all
over the colony Bishop Macrorie had to face
The Colenso Controversy 83
the task of supplying new churches in the place
of those which had been handed over to Bishop
Colenso.
The next important event in the constitutional Provincial
r Synod,
history of the Church in South Africa is the Pro- 1870.
vincial Synod, which was held in 1870. The
Church in South Africa had been pronounced, on
the highest authority, to be a voluntary associa-
tion ; and it had been pointed out that, whatever
discipline might be needed, to secure law and
order in that Church, must be based on the volun-
tary compact of its members to obey the Canons
and Constitution as agreed to by the whole body.
The first work of the Provincial Synod, therefore,
was to draw up in a formal manner the principles
of its association — its Constitution — and also the
rules for its practical working — its Canons. The
first Article of the Constitution stated that " the
Church of the Province of South Africa, otherwise
known as the Church of England in these parts :
first, receives and maintains the Faith of our LORD
JESUS Christ as taught in the Holy Scriptures,
held by the primitive Church, summed up in the
Creeds, and affirmed by the undisputed general
Councils ; secondly, receives the doctrine, Sacra-
ments, and discipline of Christ, as the same are
84 South Africa
contained and commanded in Holy Scripture, ac-
cording as the Church of England has set forth
the same in its standards of faith and doctrine ;
and it receives the Hook of Common Prayer, and
of ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, to be
used, according to the form therein prescribed, in
public prayer and administration of the Sacra-
ments and other holy offices ; and it accepts the
English version of the Holy Scriptures as appointed
to be read in churches ; and, further, it disclaims
for itself the right of altering any of the aforesaid
standards of faith and doctrine." Then follows a
proviso securing to the Church the right to make
alterations which shall be made by the whole
Anglican communion, or which are necessitated
by special local conditions, and a second providing
that any such alterations shall be confirmed by a
"Third General Svnod of the whole Anglican communion.
Proviso."
And then comes the " third proviso," already
alluded to, which has been the centre of much con-
troversy. Its terms are, " Provided also, that in
the interpretation of the aforesaid standards and
formularies the Church of this Province be not
held to be bound by the decisions, in questions of
faith and doctrine, or in questions of discipline
relating to faith or doctrine, other than those of
The Colenso Controversy
its own ecclesiastical tribunals, or of such other
tribunal as may be accepted by the Provincial
Synod as a Tribunal of Appeal."
It is impossible, within the limits of this brief
survey, to trace all the steps of this dreary and
bitter controversy, and I shall not therefore attempt
to record all the incidents of the conflict which the
situation rendered inevitable. But it may make
the story more intelligible, and keep together the
underlying principles which are of permanent im-
portance, if I add, in the form of an Appendix,
a chapter describing the later stages of the Natal
controversy, and so enable the reader to under-
stand the position which at present exists.
86 South Africa
CHAPTER IV
The Province of South Africa
/££HE Church Controversy has monopolized
^-^ our attention to a degree which some
may consider disproportionate. But the con-
stitutional struggle which lay behind the per-
sonal questions will be seen to be of such
consequence to the whole Colonial Church as to
justify the otherwise disproportionate space
allotted to it. It was this controversy which
led to the first origination of the Lambeth
Conference of Bishops which now takes place
every ten years. It is the solution of this
vexed question which has been the chief con-
tribution of the South African Province to
our modern English Church history. But it
is time now to return to the story of Church
Expansion in the other dioceses which, along
with Capetown and Natal, form the Province of
South Africa. Our survey will show that con-
troversy was not the main element of Church
I'ltoto by]
The lati Archbishop Wesi Joni s.
To face \>.i^t
[Elliott
The Province of South Africa 87
life, but that on every side souls were being
cared for, and ground won for Christ.
Diocese of Capetown
Of the Diocese of Capetown we have already
spoken at some length, but only up to the date
of Bishop Gray's death in 1872. The choice of
a successor was ultimately delegated by the
Elective Body at the Cape, with the consent
of the Bishops of the Province, to the Archbishop
of Canterbury, the Bishop of Edinburgh, and the
Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel. The choice fell on the Rev. William {g^
West Jones, who has filled the office of Metro- J"
politan of South Africa (under the title, since
the Lambeth Conference of 1897, of Archbishop
of Capetown) from that day to this. The new
Bishop had been successively Scholar and Fellow
of S. John's College, Oxford, and afterwards Vicar
of Summertown and Rural Dean of Oxford.
He was consecrated in Westminster Abbey on
May 17, 1874. Some difficulty arose over the
question of the oath of canonical obedience to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, which the form of
Consecration in the Prayer Book demanded.
This oath had ceased to be appropriate in the
West
ones.
88 South Africa
case of a Metropolitan after the decisions which
have been recorded, making it clear that the
Church of the Province was not part of the
Church of England as by law established. The
difficulty was met by an explanatory document
signed by the new Metropolitan as well as by
the Archbishop of Canterbury, explaining in what
sense the oath was taken and administered.
The difficulty was removed not long afterwards
by Lord Blachford's Colonial Clergy Act.
The task to which the new Bishop succeeded
was no easy one. It is true that the broad
foundations of the Church in South Africa had
been laid by the Provincial Synod of 1870, and
the legal proceedings respecting the Bishopric
of Natal were at an end. But the dual Bishopric
in that diocese left an unstable equilibrium, and
in his own diocese the Metropolitan had three
congregations which remained so far aloof from
the provincial organization that they sent no lay
representative to the Synod, though their clergy
attended it. However, a working basis had
been obtained, and the new Bishop was able
to devote himself to the work of peaceful con-
struction and development, which he did with
great devotion and marked success.
The Province of South Africa 89
The difficulties associated with the mixture of
many alien races was acute in the Diocese of
Capetown, as, in addition to the many aboriginal p'eopie/'ed
races of Africa, there was the large Malay popula-
tion and the still larger element of half-castes who
are known as " coloured people." Writing in
1900, Bishop Gibson gives the number of mem-
bers of the English Church in the diocese as
sixty-three thousand, of which thirty thousand
were coloured people. The number given in
the South African Provincial Church Directory
for 1908 is "about 100,000," of whom probably
half are coloured.
Although, as we have seen, the Church of
England was late in the field, while much work
had been done in the earlier years of last century
among these half-caste people by the Moravians,
the Rhenish Missionary Society, the Berlin
Mission, and English Nonconformist Missions,
the last half of the century showed great activity,
and the growth of many vigorous centres of
missionary work. Pre-eminent among these
stands the work of the late much-loved Arch- Arch-
deacon Lightfoot at S. Paul's, Capetown. He u|htfoot.
arrived in the colony in April, 1858, and,
from that time until his death on November
9<d South Africa
12, 1904, he continued to give his whole heart
to the Cape Malays and the coloured people,
and the poor and distressed of every nationality,
For nearly half a century his was one of the
most conspicuous figures in Capetown. In any
visitation of deadly sickness he was the first to
minister to those who were stricken down, and
in every charitable and philanthropic movement
he took a leading part. An interesting sketch
of the " Life and Times " of the Archdeacon,
by H. P. Barnett-Clarke, has lately been pub-
lished. In an introductory memoir the Arch-
bishop of Capetown writes: — "It was among
the privileges of my life to have known him,
and to have felt the power of his influence. He
was the most loyal of friends, the most warm-
hearted of men, the most faithful of advisers.
As a missionary he had but one thought, to
win souls for CHRIST. He was the devoted
friend of the poor, and his love for little children
was really wonderful. The poor in Capetown
almost worshipped him." In 1858, and again
in 1882, there was a terrible epidemic of small-
pox; and in 1867 typhus fever raged among
the filth)' dens in which some of the coloured
people of Capetown lived. In all these epidemics
The Province of South Africa 91
Archdeacon Lightfoot was untiring and fearless
in his devoted ministrations. It was this selfless
and unsparing devotion which, perhaps more
than anything, won the hearts of the heathen
and Mohammedan population to the man him-
self and to the Creed which inspired him, and
which his life and labours preached even more
eloquently than his sermons. His name was a
household word throughout the province ; and,
when he died, Capetown, without distinction of
creed or race, was moved as it was never moved
before. Long before this date the Archdeacon
had been reinforced in this work by the Cow- £°Y£ley
J bathers.
ley Fathers and others. Before his death,
Bishop Gray had written to Father Benson
inviting him to make Capetown one of the
fields of work for his Community, but it was
not till some years later that the invitation was
accepted. Father Puller arrived in 1883 to act
as chaplain to the All Saints' Sisters, and to
help in their numerous charitable works. He
soon saw, however, that the Mohammedan work
was not one that could be undertaken merely in
the spare moments left by other ministries ; and
accordingly, in 1887, the Rev. W. U. Watkins
was sent out by the Society charged with this
92 South Africa
special commission. He continued for a few
years to contend with the immense difficulties
of the work, though with small encouragement
as far as the number of converts was concerned,
but in 1890 he was withdrawn to the still more
trying work for lepers and lunatics in Robben
Island. In 1896 the Mission was again re-in-
forced from Cowley by a visit from Father
Page and the arrival for more permanent work
of Father Waggett, who brought with them
a lady doctor, Miss Pellatt. The work of
the Cowley Fathers was not, however, con-
fined to the Cape Malays. Father Puller had
already begun work among the Kafirs in 1883,
and three years later he started a Boarding
House in Sir Lowry Road, which he called
S. Columba's Home. In 1898 a new S. Columba's
Home, which had been built under the direction
of Father Waggett, was blessed by the Arch-
bishop of Capetown with his comprovincial
Bishops who were present at the Provincial
Synod of that year. As the result of training
in this home, Father Powell, writing in 1900,
records that at that time one hundred and seventy-
five men had been baptized after careful prepara-
tion. The Home has also been the centre of
The Province of South Africa 93
much evangelistic work, with preaching stations
at Simonstown, Woodstock, Salt River, and
Mowbray, and other places. Since the formation
of the Kafir Location at Maitland, some few
years ago, the native work of the Cowley Fathers,
now presided over by Father Bull, is mainly con-
centrated there. The formation of a separate
parish (in place of the former district) of
S. Philip's, Capetown, under the Rev. B. Guyer,
has set the Fathers free to devote themselves
to their Kafir work at Maitland and elsewhere,
and gives them leisure for holding Retreats
throughout the province.
Prominent among the Church Institutions for
Kafirs in the Cape Diocese stands the Native
College of Zonnebloem, near Capetown. It was zonne-
11 • , r 1 bloem.
founded, in 1858, primarily for the sons of
native chiefs. It has trained not only Kafirs,
but Zulus, Basutos, and other tribes ; it is doing
a great work among the coloured people, as well
as the natives.
Most of the work we have mentioned is in
Capetown and its neighbourhood, and from the
nature of the case Capetown plays a larger
part in relation to the whole diocese than is
the case with regard to most dioceses and their
94 South Africa
cathedral cities ; for not only is the population
of the Cape Peninsula very large in comparison
with that of the country districts, but the pro-
portion of Dutch to English, which in the country
districts is largely in favour of the former, is
reversed in the neighbourhood of Capetown, so
that in 1900, out of ninety clergy in the diocese
fifty-one were working in the Cape Peninsula.
But in all the scattered country parishes there
is mission work among the native or coloured
population going on side by side with that among
the whites. Indeed, the special feature of this
diocese may be said to be the work that is being
carried on among the coloured people. In the
large country parishes there are sometimes ten
or a dozen out-stations, generally ministered to
by coloured or white catechists, with large con-
gregations drawn from the farm labourers, or
fishermen, who speak nothing but the " Taal." In
other dioceses a similar work is carried on among
natives who speak Kafir, Sesuto, or Sechuana.
Here the problem is a different one: different
as regards race, language, conditions of life,
and degrees of civilization ; but the life is as
truly a missionary life. The foundation of a
coloured ministry has just been laid by the
The Province of South Africa 95
ordination to the diaconate of Mr. Zeeman, who
has for many years done a most valuable work
at Malmsbury as catechist and schoolmaster.
The tiny white congregations, consisting some-
times of only half a dozen people,' in the back
country, have been supplied with the Sacraments
for some years by two itinerant priests, who
work directly under the Archbishop or his Co-
adjutor. In not a few cases Sunday Services
are held by licensed laymen.
It is a remarkable fact that the half-century
which has elapsed since the consecration of the
first Bishop has seen only one change in the
occupant of the episcopal throne of Capetown,
though during the same period there have been
seven Archbishops of Canterbury. In the whole
history of the Anglican communion there have
been few more memorable episcopates than that
of the present Archbishop of Capetown, who, in
spite of much physical weakness and suffering,
has so devotedly and so effectively ruled his
diocese for the space of thirty-three years with
the respect and reverence and affection of every
Churchman in South Africa.1
1 Since this was written and printed the good and
much-loved Archbishop has passed to his rest. The end
96 South Africa
Diocese of Grahamstown
The Diocese of Grahamstown, as we have seen,
was formed at the same time as that of Natal.
After Bishop Armstrong's short but active epis-
copate, Bishop Cotterill was appointed in 1856.
He found the foundations well and truly laid, by
his predecessor, of an immense work among the
natives. For this large enterprise the Church
sirG.Grey. had greatly to thank Sir George Grey, the Gov-
ernor of the Cape. In New Zealand he had
shown his practical sympathy for the Maori,
came suddenly on May 21, 1908. Less than three weeks
before he had presided at the Annual Festival of the
South African Church in London. At that meeting he
spoke gravely as to his health, and said that he was there
against his doctor's wishes. But none of us realized how
soon the end was to come. The funeral was, most appro-
priately, at Oxford, which, as Fellow of S. John's, Vicar
of Summertown, and Rural Dean, he had loved so well.
And it was a happy circumstance that the approaching
Pan-Anglican Congress had brought together in England
ten (past and present) South African Bishops, all of whom
attended the funeral as pall-bearers.
No one could have done the work of a peacemaker in
stormy South Africa better than the late Archbishop, for
even those most opposed to him in opinion could not but
love him for his loving kindness, and reverence him as one
for whom spiritual things were the supreme reality, and as
one who lived at all times very near to his Lord and
Saviour.
The Province of South Africa 97
and when, on taking up his office in South
Africa, he found himself confronted with the
constant danger of risings among the unsettled
Kafirs upon his borders, he determined that
the one thing which could effectively pacify and
consolidate the Kafirs on the side of law and
order was the spread of earnest missionary and
educational work among them. He therefore
conceived a vast scheme, in which he invited
the co-operation of the Church. It was, as he
said, a " bold step " to pledge Imperial funds
to the extent of ,£40,000 per annum in providing
schoolmasters, agricultural and industrial teachers,
and all necessary apparatus. He appealed to the
Church to provide and support the missionary
staff. " The Church," he said, " has now an
opportunity of retrieving her character, of recov-
ering lost ground. She will greatly embarrass
my government if she does not rise to her duty."
Bishop Gray warmly responded to this appeal,
and backed up the application of his brother of
Grahamstown to the Church at home to supply
what was needed. " Now, then," he wrote, " is
our time or never. The Society for the Propa-
gation of the Gospel ought for the next few years
to back up the Bishop of Grahamstown more
H
Canon
Mullins.
98 South Africa
largely than an)- other Bishop. The work will
be done in ten years by us or by others, and
Government will pay at least three parts of
the expense."
The Society responded by a grant of ^1,500,
and, with the help of a devoted band of mission-
aries whose names have become well known —
Merriman and Waters, Greenstock and Mullins
— four new mission-stations, named after the four
Evangelists, were opened. One of the survivors
of that devoted group, Canon Mullins, has kindly
written his recollections of those far-off days. He
writes : —
" Although from the arrival of Bishop Gray in
1848 much and lasting work had been done for
the half-castes in the western part of his huge
diocese, it was not till its subdivision in 1853 into
the Dioceses of Grahamstown and Natal that any
steps could be taken by our Church — alas ! so
often the last in the field — towards the evangeliza-
tion of the huge masses of Kafirs and Fingoes upon
the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony. Upon
the arrival of Bishop Armstrong, October, 1854,
there were only some eighteen clergy, including
garrison military chaplains, to minister to the
Europeans, and no native work had been at-
The Province of South Africa 99
tempted. Upon the immediate frontier of the
colony there were after the close of the war of
1850-52 the territories of three semi-independent
tribes of Kafirs proper, located upon the western
bank of the Great Kei, and also several large
locations of Fingoes, who had been of great help
to us during the late war. Archdeacon Merriman
had done what he could to make preparations for
permanent mission work, and a week after Bishop
Armstrong landed in his vast diocese, his heart
was gladdened by hearing that the work had been
started on October 1 8th, S. Luke's Day. It was,
indeed, the day of small things, but before the close
of 1855 the following centres had been selected,
and missionaries sent to the following tribes : —
" 1. The Amandlambi, under Umhala, between
King William's Town and the sea : S. Luke's
Mission.
" 2. The Fingo largest location at Keiskama
Hoek, under the mountains : S. Matthew's Mission.
" 3. The Amangqika, under the famous Sandilli,
our late enemy : S. John's Mission.
" 4. The Amagcaleka, under the great chief,
Kreli, in the Transkei : S. Mark's Mission.
" Little or no progress was made in the work
until these proud and haughty natives had by
ioo South Africa
their own determined action committed what has
aptly been called national suicide. In this extra-
ordinary madness but very few of the Fingos
joined, but the other three tribes, listening to the
voice of the great witch-doctor, Umhlakaza, who
was backed up by the orders of the chiefs and
amapakati, or counsellors, destroyed all their cattle
and goats, and were soon starving. It was early
cattle in 18^6 that the first rumours of the 'cattle-killing'
killing J &
mania. mania were heard. But as week after week and
month after month passed, rumour became fact,
and nearly all their vast herds of cattle were
slaughtered, and left to rot by the hundred. The
crops reaped in 1856 were the heaviest they had
reaped for many years, so heavy that the cattle
were turned into the fields before the harvest was
completed. This corn was duly threshed and put
into the corn-pits. But the prophets' orders were
that there was to be no ploughing or sowing in the
spring (September and October), 1856. The har-
vested corn was to be taken from the pits and
thrown away : no food of any kind grown in 1857
was to be eaten, because on a certain da)- in
February that year all their ancestors and chiefs
long dead and gone would rise from their graves
rejuvenated, their cattle and goat-pens would be
The Province of South Africa ioi
crammed with numerous herds, and their gardens
produce enormous crops spontaneously. They
would listen to no persuasions to the contrary.
The orders were literally carried out by the
majority belonging to the Xosa tribes. By May
tens of thousands were starving. Men, women,
and children were to be found digging up roots,
barking the mimosas, gathering gum, crushing the
bones of the cattle they had destroyed, picking up
any offal to appease the pangs of hunger. Thou-
sands died in their huts, hundreds fell by the road-
side as they endeavoured to make their way into
the colony to obtain food. Then it was that the
colonists who had so lately suffered so severely
from the prolonged war of 1850-52 — many losing
their all, having had their farm-houses burnt, their
cattle and sheep swept off in a night, their brave
sons murdered — showed how strongly is implanted
in a Christian's heart the gospel of love. Sub-
scriptions were raised, soup kitchens started at
given centres, starving children fed and clothed,
orphans, unable even to feed themselves from
weakness, carefully tended till they gradually
recovered or death ended their sufferings.
"It was now that the heathen Kafir first began
to listen to the missionary — they were humbled.
io2 South Africa
The Word so long rejected was at last listened to,
and the first small handful of the immense har-
vest was reaped. Since that date the work has
gone on and spread. At times, perhaps for a year
or two, little progress had been made — but few
souls gathered in. In 1856 the message was sent
to the large Tembu tribes, the Dungwanas and
Tshashus. In 1859 began that work that is ever
growing amongst the Amaqwati and Amangcina
tribes to the north, and in 1864 the late Bishop of
S. John's, our stalwart vanguard, went to the
Mpondomisi.
" So rapidly grew the work that it was found
necessary to separate the Transkeian Missions
from the Diocese of Grahamstown, and in 1873
the new Missionary Diocese of S. John's, Kaf-
fraria, was inaugurated.
" To the north-east, meanwhile, a start had been
made in the large locations of the Herschel dis-
trict. The first missionary was sent there in 1886.
Under God's blessing the work has greatly pros-
pered here, and ' tlix little one has become a thousand.'
" In i860 it was decided to start an industrial
training school at Grahamstown. The lads who
were sent there were at first those who had been
rescued from death during the cattle-killing famine.
The Province of South Africa 103
Others followed from the central mission stations.
For many years the supply of native catechists
and schoolmasters came from this institution, and
some twenty-five native clergy have, in whole or
in part, received their education and training here.
Since 1874 one marked feature of the work has
been the training of carpenters; and the work sent
to the Intercolonial Exhibition, London, some
years since, and the highly-finished stalls and
choir-screen of the Grahamstown Cathedral — the
work of these native apprentices — witness to the
care with which they have been taught the trade.
" Grahamstown, although for many reasons an
excellent centre for a training school, is somewhat
far from the now scattered locations, and it was
found advisable to strengthen the industrial work
and training that has for a long period of years
been carried on at S. Matthew's, Keiskama Hoek.
There a large number of boys and girls are being
trained as teachers and catechists, and it is hoped
that in the near future many may be called and
chosen for the native ministry.
"If the Native Church is to grow and prosper
in the land it is absolutely indispensable that —
" (a) There should be a well-trained native
ministry.
io4
Solth Africa
" (b) This should be supported entirely by
the natives, and no help given from Europeans,
at least not from grants made by Missionary
Societies.
" (c) All native Christians should be taught from
the first to contribute with great regularity to
a native ministry fund, and this fund used for the
native ministry only, and not for catechists or
schoolmasters.''
One of the largest and most successful centres
of mission work was, and is, that already men-
tioned by Canon Mullins — S. Matthew's, Keis-
kama Hoek. First under the Rev. W, Green-
stock, and afterwards under the Rev. C. Taberer,
it has educated and converted very large num-
bers of natives. The mission work in the city
of Grahamstown under Canon Mullins has also
been greatly blessed from Bishop Cotterill's time
down to the present day. In 1863 the Bishop
held his first Synod, which was attended by
thirty-two clerical and thirty lay members. The
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel handed
over to the diocese the administration of its grant,
as recognizing that the Church had reached the
stage of full organization and corporate life. But,
on the other hand, the Government, which had
The Province of South Africa 105
been so generous under Sir George Grey, was
now withdrawing all support to the mission
schools. But, in spite of these hindrances, the
work, both among colonists and natives, con-
tinued to increase, so that 1,500 baptisms are
recorded in a single year at the S.P.G. stations,
and Colonial Church members numbered 12,500.
In 1 87 1 Bishop Cotterill was translated to the
See of Edinburgh, and Archdeacon Merriman (at Bishop
0 Merriman.
that time Dean of Capetown) was nominated as
his successor. His consecration took place on
S. Luke's Day of that year. Immediately before
his consecration the Bishop-elect made a journey
of 800 miles " on two small ponies " through
Kaffraria to the borders of Natal, to judge for
himself as to the needs of the work in that district
and the project which was then being discussed of
forming the new Diocese of Kaffraria. Bishop
Cotterill, in his farewell charge, had foreshadowed
the arrangement subsequently concluded, whereby
the missions in Kaffraria " would form a link
between his old diocese and Edinburgh " ; and he
added, " I should be thankful if that Church in
which I shall be a Bishop should be able to plant
and maintain a mission of its own among the
Kafir tribes."
106 South Africa
The result was that the Metropolitan of
South Africa entered into immediate negotiation
with the Primus of the Scottish Church, who
readily promised his countenance and support
to the proposal, and the Society for the Pro-
pagation of the Gospel, in February, 1872,
expressed its satisfaction at the arrangement, and
pledged itself to recognize and co-operate with a
Bishop so accredited by the Scottish Church. So
the new Diocese of Kaffraria has been, from its
first creation, one of the distinctive spheres of the
Episcopal Church in Scotland. Bishop Merriman,
whose zealous work left a lasting mark upon the
Diocese of Grahamstown, died, as the result of
a carriage accident, on August 16, 1882 ; and in
Bishop t]ie following vear Bishop Webb was translated
Webb. & ' '
from Bloemfontein to take his place. Under
Bishop Webb, Grahamstown became the centre
of many most thriving and valuable ecclesiastical
institutions. It is, perhaps, more like an English
cathedral city than any other South African
town. The Sisterhood which he introduced has
gradually extended its operations, and, under its
Mother saintly and devoted Superior, Mother Cecile,
whose recent death has been a loss to the whole
Anglican Church, became a recognized centre
The Province of South Africa 107
for the training of teachers for the whole colony.
The Superintendent of Education at Capetown,
though not himself a Churchman, had such con-
fidence in Mother Cecile and her staff that he
invited her so to increase her buildings as to be
able to undertake this work on a wider scale ;
and she gave her life to this great undertaking.
Grahamstown also became the centre of another
most successful work which is extending every
year, and proving more and more its effectiveness.
This is the Railway Mission, under the superin- £=?iiway
J l Mission.
tendence of the Rev. Douglas Ellison. Its object
is primarily to minister to the men employed over
the thousands of miles of railway in South Africa,
station-masters, gangers, plate-layers, and their
families. But it does much more than this. The
mission-car is a movable church, which supplies
spiritual ministrations to pioneer settlers in new
districts where, as yet, there is no church building.
It serves to form the nucleus of congregations
which, in no long time, are able to build their
own church, and furnish themselves with the
ministrations of a resident clergyman. The
Railway Mission thus occupies new ground. It
is the first on the spot. And again and again
new parishes have thus been formed through its
io8 South Africa
pioneering work. It is now no longer a diocesan
institution, but forms, in fact, one of the pro-
vincial organizations (although its central home
is still in Grahamstown), its operations having
been extended as far as the Diocese of Pretoria
and Mashonaland.
Education. Grahamstown is also a great educational centre.
S. Andrew's College for Boys is perhaps the most
thriving Church school in South Africa, and has
had the training of many of the chief citizens of
the Cape Colony. Canon Espin, for many years its
venerated warden, was able to boast that, next to
Eton, his college had sent more old boys to the
front in the late war than any English school.
The Girls' High School has also done invaluable
work ; while the Kafir Institution, under Canon
Mullins, has furnished a constant supply of well-
trained Christian natives for the ministry and
for educational work.
In 1897 Bishop Webb resigned the See of
Grahamstown, which he had held for fourteen
years, and not long after was appointed to the
Deanery of Salisbury, which he held until his
B.shop death in 1907. His successor was Canon Cornish,
Cornish. -/ '
at that time Vicar of S. Mary's, Redcliffe, who was
consecrated in 1899.
The Province of South Africa 109
A difficult problem, in the solution of which
Bishop Cornish has taken a leading part, is that
of the Ethiopian movement. This was a move- Ethiopian
" movement.
ment on the part of the natives of South Africa
to form a Church exclusively for the black
population. Finding that the African Metho-
dist Episcopal Church in the United States
was a distinctively African Church, they formed
an alliance with it, and their leader, Mr. Dwane,
went to America and received such Episcopal
Orders as that Church could confer. The move-
ment was regarded with some suspicion and much
misgiving by the civil authorities, as having a
dangerous political tendency. On further study
of Church history, Mr. Dwane" and some of his
followers became somewhat uneasy and dissatisfied
as to their ecclesiastical status, finding that the
Methodist Episcopal Church had no claim to
historical continuity and Apostolical succession ;
and they accordingly put themselves into com-
munication with some of the Anglican clergy, as
to the possibility of allying themselves with the
historic Church of England. After much personal
communication with the clergy and a long cor-
respondence with the Archbishop of Capetown, it
seemed that they were really in earnest in the
I 10 South Africa
matter, and had an intelligent grasp of the whole
question ; and at last the Archbishop felt that the
time had come to put their petition before the
Bishops who assembled in an Episcopal Synod at
Grahamstown in 1900. This petition was that
they might be received into the Church, but with-
out losing their corporate existence as the "Ethio-
pian Church." It was pointed out to them by the
Bishops that the Church could not recognize an
imperium in imfterio, and that to acquiesce in
racial separatism within the Church would be to
contradict S. Paul's definition of the Church as
knowing no distinction of " Greek or Jew . . .
barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free." After
much consultation, however, the Bishops formu-
lated a proposal to form within the Church an
Ethiopian Order; and drew up a proposed con-
stitution of such an Order, providing for the
instruction of the members of this Ethiopian
movement individually, and their reception by
Confirmation into the Church, and thereafter for
the regulation of the affairs of the Order by a
Provincial and a Chapter, and also for the adjust-
ment of the relations of this Order to the Pro-
vincial Synod, to the Bishops, and to the existing
missions of the Church. This proposal was
The Province of South Africa iii
explained in detail to the leaders of the move-
ment, and by them to the conference of their own
members which was assembled at the same time
at Grahamstown to the number of some four
hundred. The result was that the proposal was
unconditionally accepted, and Mr. Dwane" was
confirmed by the Archbishop of Capetown in the
presence both of his own followers and of the
Bishops.
The Bishop of Grahamstown then took over the
superintendence of the work of instructing indi-
vidually the members of the Ethiopian body, and
with the help of funds from the Church at home,
and of special missionaries furnished first by the
Church of the Province, and afterwards sent out
from England, a large number of them were, in
due course, confirmed. The negotiations with
Mr. Dwane- took place while war was still raging
and considerable parts of the country were in-
accessible, so that there was no chance of com-
municating with the " Ethiopians " living in those
districts. When, at last, communications were
reopened it proved that by no means all his
followers were prepared to follow Mr. Dwane's
lead, and some disputes arose. Then, again, as was
to be expected, there were difficulties as between
i i 2 South Africa
the members of this new body and the older
mission-stations. Partly owing to these diffi-
culties and partly for other reasons, it has been
found best to appoint, for the time being, an
English Provincial of the Order in place of Mr.
Cameron Dwane ; and accordingly the Coadjutor Bishop of
Capetown (Dr. Cameron), who had had more
than ten years' experience of native life in the
Diocese of S. John's, where he was Warden of
the college at Umtata, and latterly Provost of
the cathedral, and at a later date had spent more
than a year (1902-3) in South Africa as Chaplain
to the Order of Ethiopia, has now been appointed
to the office of Acting-Provincial.
s. Paul's The Diocese of Grahamstown has rendered
Hostel.
another great service to the province in the estab-
lishment of a Theological College for Europeans
(S. Paul's Hostel). The clergy in the province
number about 540 : of these some sixty-six are
Bantu, but less than thirty are colonial. Of the
latter, the Diocese of Capetown claims more than
half. It must, of course, be borne in mind that
the European Church population throughout
South Africa is itself, in reality, very small : but
it is also stated on excellent authority that not
a few young men have been deterred from offer-
The Province of South Africa 113
ing themselves for the ministry by the difficulty
and expense of the necessary education. This
reproach has been largely wiped away by the
establishment of S. Paul's Hostel and the gene-
rous support given to it by the Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge. The Theo-
logical College was formed in 1902, and has been
fortunate in having for its Wardens, first, the late
Canon Espin, and now the Rev. E. C. West.
During these few years thirteen men (colonial-
born, or at least already resident in South
Africa) have been ordained, and there are at
present ten students in connection with the
college.
Diocese oe Bloemfontein
The Diocese of Bloemfontein consists of the
Orange River Colony, Griqualand West, Bechu-
analand, and Basutoland. It originally formed
part of the undivided Diocese of Capetown, and
as such we have seen Bishop Gray visiting it in
his early journeys. In the year in which the
Diocese of Capetown was divided, the Orange
River District was handed back to the Dutch and
became a republic, known as the Orange Free
State. As such it was excluded from the three
i i 4 South Africa
Dioceses of Capetown, Grahamstown, and Natal,
and the English settlers had for many years very
little spiritual ministration. In the year [863 the
Diocese of Orange River, as it was at first styled,
Bishop was formed, and the Rev. E. T wells was con-
Twells.
secrated its first Bishop. The Bishop found his
diocese in a condition of spiritual destitution,
many of the settlers having become Wesleyans
or members of the Dutch Church, owing to the
neglect of the Church of England. The only
English church in the diocese was in ruins, and
the Bishop had to accept the hospitality of a
Wesleyan chapel in which to preach. The first
centres of work were Bloemfontein itself, where a
clergyman and a schoolmaster were placed, Faure-
smith and Smithfield. From these centres, during
the next two years Win burg, Cronstadt, Bethle-
hem, Harrismith, Reddesberg, and other places
were visited, and occasional services were held.
Mission work was also started among the natives,
and in November, 1866, the first church was
consecrated at Bloemfontein, and a house was
built for the Bishop, who up to that time had
lived as a lodger in a single room.
Basuto In 1865 came the war between the colonists
and the Basutos under their chief, Moshesh. This
war
The Province of South Africa 115
war greatly interrupted the mission work among
the natives, and inflicted heavy losses on the
farmers. In a single day's raid some 70,000
sheep were captured from the district of Smith-
field ; and the losses of one month were estimated
at £200,000. Moshesh was one of the few great
leaders whom the native tribes of South Africa
have produced. For many years he had preserved
his independence and defended the interests of his
tribe against all comers with marked success. In
the war of 1865 a determined assault was made
by the Boer settlers on his hitherto impregnable
fortress — a flat-topped mountain called Thaba-
Bosigo — but a well-aimed bullet from one of the
few rifles of the defenders struck the leader of the
storming party, Wepener, when only thirty yards
separated the party from victory, and the column
faltered and fell back. Moshesh, however, was
diplomatist enough to know that his only chance
of ultimate escape was to make terms with his
white foes, and he cleverly threw himself on the
English, and asked that he might henceforth live
" under the wide folds of the flag of England."
The High Commissioner received his overtures
and intervened, declaring the Basutos to be British
subjects, and in 1869 peace was concluded with
1 1 6 South Africa
the Free State. The result of the war was to
remove certain hindrances to mission work by
diminishing the power of the chiefs, and that
\v..rk went steadily forward. Hopeful beginnings
had been made among the Griquas at Philip-
polis (1863), among the Kafirs at Bloemfontein
(1865), and among the Barolong at Thaba
'Nchu. In 1867 the mission work of the
Modderpoort Brotherhood was started by Canon
Beckett
In 1869 Bishop Twells resigned, and Arch-
deacon Merriman having declined a unanimous
Bishop call from the diocese, the Rev. A. B. Webb was
consecrated to the vacant see on S. Andrew's
Day, 1870. In that same year Moshesh, the
Basuto chief, died. Before his death he had
asked Bishop Gray to send missionaries to his
people, and in 1876 two strong centres of mis-
sionary work were established in Basutoland.
One, in the north, at Thlotse Heights, was placed
under the charge of Canon Widdicombe, who
for more than thirty years did splendid service
there, establishing a handsome stone church, a
well-built mission house, and a training school for
lads who are preparing to be Church workers,
either as school teachers or catechists. The other
Webb.
The Province of South Africa 117
station, in the south of Basutoland (Mohale's
Hoek), was under the care of the Rev. E. W.
Stenson, and afterwards of the Rev. M. A.
Reading. Another active centre was founded
at Sekubu, thirty miles north of Thlotse Heights,
where the Rev. T. Woodman did long and faith-
ful service. The band of well-known Basuto
missionaries includes the names of Father Car-
michael, Canon Spencer Weigall, and the Rev.
J. Deacon ; while in Bechuanaland the Church
of the Province has been represented for over
thirty years by the singularly self-denying life
of Canon Bevan.
The Missionary Brotherhood founded by Canon
Beckett, and associated so long with the name of
Father Douglas, has now for some years given
place to the Society of the Sacred Mission.
In 1883 Bishop Webb was translated to
Grahamstown, and after a long interregnum, dur-
ing which the diocese was administered by Arch- •
deacon Croghan, Bishop Knight Bruce was Bishop
brought from the East End of London to the B"u«.
sunny hills of the Orange Free State, and con-
secrated as the third Bishop in 1886. The new
Bishop was a great traveller. In his own diocese
he at once made long rides from parish to parish
1 1 8 South Africa
and from mission to mission, making up the
arrears of Confirmations which three years had
caused since his predecessor's departure. Me
also travelled into unknown parts of Basutoland,
being the first Bishop to visit the celebrated
Falls of the Malutsuanyane River. A still longer
and more arduous pioneering journey was that
which he made beyond the limits of his diocese
into what was then undiscovered territory in
Matabeleland. His interest in this new country
led to his translation when the new Bishopric
of Mashonaland was founded in 1891. His
B^hop successor at Bloemfontein was Bishop Hicks,
who was well-known as a college tutor at Cam-
bridge, and who supplied to the Episcopate of
South Africa a valuable element of scholarship
and theological learning. He was also a success-
ful organizer, and did much to introduce into the
mission work of the diocese a more effective
system of discipline among the native congrega-
tions. Latterly, however, his health gave cause
for anxiety, and after a visit to Natal in 1899,
in which he conducted a Quiet Day for the clergy
and preached at the consecration of the new
chancel of the cathedral, he died at Maseru almost
at the very hour at which President Kruger's
The Province of South Africa 119
" Ultimatum " expired in October of that year.
His death was followed by another long inter-
regnum, as the war which was then raging pre-
vented the calling together of the Elective
Assembly. During this interval, Bishop Webb
revisited the scene of his former labours, and
gave valuable help as temporary Bishop of such
parts of the diocese as were accessible. At last,
in 1 90 1, the Elective Assembly met and ap-
pointed the present occupant of the see, Bishop *?'s1i°p
Chandler, whose preparation for South African
work was, like that of Bishop Knight Bruce, in
the very different surroundings of East London.
Bishop Chandler was consecrated in Capetown
Cathedral on the Feast of the Purification,
1902.
Diocese of S. John's
The Diocese of S. John's, Kaffraria, was, as Scottish
we have already seen, founded by the Scottish
Church. In December, 1871, the Bishops of
South Africa addressed an appeal to the Primus
of Scotland and his suffragans. In it they said,
" Having heard that it has been the wish of the
Scotch Episcopal Church to found a mission to
the heathen within, or adjacent to, the territories
i2o South Africa
of the British Empire, which shall go forth as
a distinct mission from that Church . . . we
venture to invite the attention of the Bishops of
that Church to the great field of South Africa.
. . . Within this field there lies a tract of country
inhabited by different Kafir tribes, who are, for
the most part, wearied out either by continued
warfare among themselves, or ... by a quarter
of a century of ineffectual struggle against British
rule.
" Our English Church missions across the Kei
— now four in number — together with several
out-stations held by native teachers, need a closer
superintendence than they can now receive ; and
the invitations given us to extend our missions
eastward from these . . . (and bring them) into
closer connection with the station newly planted
in Adam Kok's territory from the Natal Diocese,
seem to indicate the propriety of trying to
establish now what was designed and almost
carried into execution some years ago, viz., a
Bishopric for Independent Kaffraria. Should the
Episcopal Church of Scotland consent to take
up the work ... it would . . . complete the as
yet broken chain of the Church's missions from
the extreme west of Cape Colon}- to Natal and
The Province of South Africa 121
the regions beyond, stretching up nearly to the
Zambesi River."
The Scottish Episcopal Church accordingly
invited the co-operation of the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel, and an agreement was
made that a Board of Missions should be estab-
lished in Scotland, and that a Bishop and staff of
helpers should be provided for Kaffraria. The
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was
to place its missionaries under the Bishop's
jurisdiction, and relinquish part of the grant it
had hitherto been receiving from the Scottish
Church.
The man chosen as the first Bishop was Dr. ^^"v
r Callawc
Callaway, who had done a great missionary work
in Natal under Bishop Colenso and subsequently
under Bishop Macrorie, at Spring Vale and High-
flats, with an important outlying station at Clydes-
dale on the Umzimkulu. Dr. Callaway was a
remarkable man who had come to the Church of
England from the Society of Friends. His parents
had been Church people in humble station in
Somersetshire, but he had been brought into con-
tact with the Quakers through his headmaster at
Crediton School. He did not long find rest, how-
ever, within the Society. In much distress and
122 South Africa
unrest of mind he betook himself to medical
studies, and in 1S41, being then twenty-four years
old, he entered S. Bartholomew's Hospital as a
student. He never seems, however, to have con-
templated medicine as his permanent vocation.
He was much influenced by reading Maurice's
Kingdom of Christ, and in 1853, for the first
time since his secession, received the Holy Com-
munion in the Church of England ; and, on the
appointment of Dr. Colenso to the See of Xatal
in that year, he volunteered for service under
him as a missionary. Accordingly he was
ordained at Norwich in 1854, and he and his
wife sailed for Xatal with Bishop Colenso on his
return to his diocese from which he had come
back after ten weeks of investigation of its needs.
Being possessed of fairly ample private means,
Dr. Callaway decided to take up a farm on the
south side of the Umkomazi River, which was
then being offered by the Natal Government on easy
terms, and to found a mission station there. The
place was called Spring Vale. The buildings,
which still remain (though much injured by white
ants) still attest the grand scale of Dr. Callaway's
operations. His hold on the native flock which
he had gathered there was remarkably evidenced
The Province of South Africa 123
by the fact that when he was called to the
Bishopric of Kaffraria about one-third of his
people decided to accompany him, leaving their
homes and their possessions in order still to be
near the " Father " whom they had come to love
so much.
The new diocese extended from the Kei River to
the Umtamvuna, between the Drakensberg Moun-
tains on the north-west, and the Indian Ocean on
the south-east. It contained many native races —
the Pondos, Gcalekas, Fingoes, Bacas, Tembus,
and Griquas. The Bishop was consecrated in consecra-
S. Paul's Church, Edinburgh, on All Saints' Day,
1873. Before leaving England he set him-
self to obtain the needful materials for his new
work, and his visions of what was needed included
(1) a boys' institution, (2) a girls' school to lead
the native Christian girls away from the social
surroundings of their heathen life, (3) a printing
press, (4) a training college for the native ministry,
(5) a cathedral of simple beauty and dignity, (6)
library for the colonists, and (7) a hospital.
He sailed for his new diocese in August, 1874,
and, after a touching farewell to his friends at
Spring Vale, and munificent gifts of property
there to the Diocese of Natal, he pitched
a
124 South Africa
his tent on the S. John's River, which it was
decided should give its name to the diocese
and its Bishop. Before long, however, it was
found more suitable to make Umtata, instead
of S. Andrew's in Pondoland East (where his
temporary headquarters had been fixed), the
centre of the diocese. Here a site was selected,
a cottage purchased, and a little iron church
brought up from Durban to serve as the pro-
cathedral. In 1877 the Bishop's work was
sadly interrupted by an outbreak of war with
the Gcalekas, during which the little cathedral
had to be fortified with a palisade and a trench,
and many of the mission stations had for the
time to be abandoned. One of the Bishop's
cherished schemes was carried into effect at
Umtata in 1879, when, in the presence of his
Diocesan Synod and of several of the native
chiefs, the Bishop laid the foundation-stone of
S. John's Theological College for the training
of natives for the ministry, or for the work of
teaching. Already, in 1877, the first native
priest, Masiza, had been ordained, and there
were several native deacons at work in the
diocese. In 1880 Bishop Callaway was attacked
by a stroke of paralysis, involving temporary
The Province of South Africa 125
loss of sight. This involved a return to England
and a period of complete rest in Scotland ; and,
although the Bishop was able to return to his
diocese full of hope for a renewed period of
activity, his health continued to cause anxiety,
so that, in 1883, the Rev. Bransby Key, who Bishop
had been engaged in missionary work in the
diocese for more than twenty years, was con-
secrated as Coadjutor Bishop. On the death
of Archdeacon Button, who had been throughout
the Bishop's right-hand man and personal friend,
Bishop Callaway decided that his health demanded
a severance from the diocese which he had created
and served so well ; and, accordingly, he sent in
his resignation to the Metropolitan in June, 1886,
and Bishop Bransby Key became the second
Bishop of S. John's. Bishop Callaway returned
to England, and died in 1890.
The new Bishop found a network of mission-
stations where, before the diocese was formed,
there were but four. The chief of these were
S. Mark's and S. Peter's, at Butterworth, in the
south, the former with some thousand com-
municants, and the latter with 600. The
Mission of All Saints, a little further north, had
been formed, in 1861, by the Rev. John Gordon;
126 South Africa
S. Alban's, begun originally as an offshoot of
All Saints' by the Rev. D. Dodd, had become a
separate mission. S. Augustine's Mission to the
Mpondomisi was begun in 1S65 by Mr. Key, and
carried on after 1883 by the Rev. Alan Gibson,
who for man}' years was Bishop Key's right-hand
Bishop man, and afterwards became Coadjutor Bishop
of Capetown. Clydesdale is a Griqua village
near the Umzimkulu, where a flourishing mission
work was founded by Bishop Callaway, while he
was still a missionary in Natal, and managed by
Archdeacon Button. S. Stephen's, Matatiela, was
begun by the Rev. T. W. Green in 1S86 amongst
the Basutos in the extreme north-west of the
diocese. Umtata, the foundation of which we
have already recorded, became the centre of
man\- activities — educational establishments not
only for catechists and clergy, but also for
boys and for girls, with a hospital and two
churches.
During Bishop Key's episcopate a large number
of churches was built, some twenty — many of them
for white congregations — in stone or other durable
material, and man}- of less solid structure as out-
posts for native converts, to be replaced in lime by
permanent churches.
The Province of South Africa 127
Since the withdrawal of Bishop Callaway from Pondoiand
Missions
S. Andrew's, the Church had had practically no
work in Pondoiand, where, however, the Wesleyans
had (as they had and have elsewhere) large stations.
This part of the country which was the last portion
of" Independent Kaffraria" to come under British
rule, remaining under its native chiefs till 1894,
was a special care to Bishop Key. On the with-
drawal of Dr. Johnson from Umtata in 1892, a
medical mission was started among the Pondos,
which was placed under the charge of the Rev.
Dr. Sutton. Through the instrumentality of a
well-known trader in those parts — Mr. Strachan
— an interview was arranged between the Bishop
with these two medical missionaries and the Pondo
chief, who promised that he would instruct his
people to receive the " abafundisi," or mission-
aries. The result was the founding of S. Bar-
nabas' Mission in Western Pondoiand in 1893,
while in East Pondoiand another flourishing
Mission was conducted by the Rev. P. Hornby.
In July, 1900, Bishop Key was travelling through
Pondoiand, having visited S. Barnabas' Mission
and Port S. John's, and was proceeding towards
Clydesdale and Kokstad, when he met with an
accident through the overturning of a post-cart.
128 South Africa
The accident did not seem at the time to be
very serious, though it injured the Bishop's eye,
and he had to abandon his journey and to be
nursed for a few days at S. John's. He recovered
so far as to hold an Ordination in September,
and to return to England : but the injury was
more serious than at first appeared, and in
January, 1901, it ended fatally. There have-
been few stronger or humbler men in the South
African Church than Bishop Bransby Key, few
who have had so little thought of self, and who
have worked with such whole-hearted devotion
to the missionary cause, and certainly there has
been no South African Bishop who has understood
the natives as he did. He was succeeded by
the present Bishop, Joseph Watkin Williams,
who for man\' years had been chaplain to the
Archbishop of Capetown, and in that capacity
had been in close touch with all the problems
of South African Church history, and knew much
of the work of a South African Bishop. lli>
episcopate has already been marked by the
building of a dignified cathedral, in memory of
Bishop Key, at the consecration of which both
the Archbishop of Capetown and the Bishop of
Glasgow were present, and by the completion of
Colonial
born
The Province of South Africa 129
what is probably the finest mission church in the
province. The latter is the Church of S. Cuth-
bert, the station which, since 1883, has been
the centre of the old district of S. Augustine's.
Here it was that the Brotherhood of S. Cuthbert
(founded by the Rev. G. Callaway, whose name
is so dear to many natives and Europeans) had
its home, until it was merged in the Society
of S. John the Evangelist, which, under Father
Puller, has been in charge of the mission work
in connection with S. Cuthbert's since 1904.
S. John's is notable for its devoted band of
colonial clergy. Both Archdeacons (E. L. Coakes cler£Y-
and T. Chamberlain) are South Africans, one
from Natal, the other from Cape Colony. Canon
Waters is the son of one of the most earnest and
self-denying missionaries that South Africa ever
knew, the late Archdeacon Waters, and his son,
again, is a deacon working in the diocese. One
of the missionaries in Matabeleland (the Rev.
J. W. Lucy) comes also originally from the old
S. Augustine's. But it is, perhaps, in the training
of native clergy that Umtata has made itself
most conspicuous. A third of the whole number
in the province are to be found in this diocese ;
and one, Canon Masiza, who lately passed to his
K
130 South Africa
rest, proved conclusively that it is possible for
a native to minister to colonial congregations, and
to be loved and respected by those not of his
own colour.
Diocese of Natal
We have already devoted much space to the
Church in Natal (in the text and Appendix
A), but a word or two may be added on that
which has not been mentioned — its work among
the natives and Indians. Bishop Callaway's
work at Spring Vale and Highflats has been
ivussi^ns. noticed incidentally. The work there has been
carried on by many missionaries — in recent
years by the Rev. Philip Burges and the Rev.
J. G. Chater. Man}- new out-stations have
been started. Further south Is the Mission of
S. Luke's, where, at Knqabeni, good work has
been done by an old missionary, the Rev. 1'.
Turpin. A grass fire destroyed his church and
house some years ago, but the disaster proved
a blessing in disguise, for a much larger and
better church has taken the place of the old
one; and the influence of the mission spreads
far into the surrounding districts, among the
people of the half-caste chief, Tom Fynn, who
The Province of South Africa 131
is himself a Christian. In Pietermaritzburg
itself a considerable work among the natives
has been long carried on by the Rev. F.
Green, a son of the venerable Dean of Maritz-
burg. For some time Mr. Green was the Prin-
cipal of S. Alban's College for natives, which
was then in Maritzburg but has now been
removed into the country, a few miles from
Estcourt, under the charge of Canon Troughton, a
son-in-law of Dean Green. The college is quite Educa-
full. Among the students are natives from the ce°nt*es.
Diocese of Zululand, as well as from Natal itself.
They are being trained as catechists and clergy.
Attached to S. Alban's, under Canon Troughton's
general supervision, a school has recently been
opened, called S. Bede's, with a trained master
at its head, for the education of native teachers
for mission schools. The old College of S. Alban's
in Maritzburg is now used as a hostel for native
Christians passing through the town or coming
in from a distance to attend classes and services.
Canon Troughton succeeded a most devoted
missionary, Mr. Thompson, who lost his life
through fever contracted while making a pioneer-
ing expedition with the Bishop of Lebombo.
The headquarters of this mission were formerly
132 South Africa
at Enhlonhlweni, about ten miles from Lady-
smith. The work there, under Canon Troughton,
so outgrew its buildings that the old mission
house was left to Miss Cooke and other lady
workers who had started a boarding school for
girls, and Canon Troughton removed to Riverdale
near Estcourt. During the siege of Ladysmith
Canon and Mrs. Troughton were practically pris-
oners, as Enhlonhlweni was in the midst of the
Boer lines, between Spearman's Hill and Lady-
smith. Miss Cooke's boarding school, at which
native girls are trained for domestic service and,
when they show sufficient ability, for the work of
teaching in mission schools, has now been form-
ally constituted a diocesan institution, and new
buildings, badly needed to take the place of the
present house of unburnt brick, will be taken in
hand as soon as the necessary funds are forth-
coming. Enhlonhlweni is in the parish of
Ladysmith, and it is in this parish and in the
parish of Estcourt that there are some of the
strongest centres of missionary work in the
Diocese of Natal. In addition to the English
clergy who supervise this work, there are
engaged upon it the Rev. Walter Mzamo and
the Rev. R. Radebe (priests), and the Rev. S.
The Province of South Africa 133
Mabaso, who is in deacon's Orders. Behind
them is an excellent body of native catechists,
mostly trained at S. Alban's College. At Buhver,
in the district of Polela, under the Drakensberg,
west of Maritzburg, the Rev. B. Markham has
long worked among both Basutos and Zulus.
In addition to these mission-stations there is
work going on in nearly all parishes under the
supervision of the incumbent, and in many cases
with the assistance of native deacons or catechists.
Many of the clergy whose primary duty is to
European congregations take the keenest interest
in the evangelization of the natives within their
parishes. In Durban for many years the Rev.
D. Mzamo (for a long time the only native
priest in the diocese, though now his son and
two other natives have joined him in that Order)
worked as Priest-in-charge of S. Faith's under
the Vicar of S. Cyprian's. After working for
a time among the native Christians at Greytown
under the Rev. G. E. Pennington (now Canon),
Mr. Mzamo has returned to S. Faith's. This
church, though enlarged not long ago by the
addition of an aisle, is still too small for the
large and earnest congregation, almost entirely
composed of men, which crowds it every Sunday.
134 South Africa
The lessons learnt at S. Faith's are taken by the
natives back with them to their homes in the
country, and from time to time strong little cen-
tres of missionary work, created by these lay
evangelists, have been discovered. A year or
two ago the present Bishop started the system
of a Superintendent of Native Missions, to act
as a sort of native archdeacon, and Canon
Burges resigned his parish — the Karkloof — in
order to undertake this work. He has lately
been appointed to the office of Archdeacon of
Maritzburg. His work as Superintendent of
Native Missions has produced a more systematic
organization of the missionary operations in the
diocese, and an increase of interest in the work
among the European congregations.
I"di?n Natal is remarkable for its large Indian popula-
tion. In the first instance these natives of India
came, chiefly from the Madras Presidency, to
work as coolies on the sugar plantations. But
many more have come since for other work,
and there is all over the country a considerable
number of Mohammedan traders, who are popu-
larly called " Arabs," but are really natives of
Gujarat. Dr. Booth, a medical man, gave up
his practice nearly a quarter of a century ago
The Province of South Africa 135
on purpose to become a medical missionary
among these Indians. His headquarters were
at Durban, where a mission house and an
orphanage and several schools and a dispensary
and a little church, dedicated to S. Aidan, were
built. For seventeen years Canon Booth did
devoted and successful work among these Indians,
until, in 1901, he became Dean of Umtata. The
work extended to other parts of the colony, and
was assisted by several Indian priests and many
teachers. The mission is now in the charge of
Canon A. H. Smith. S. Aidan's, in Durban, is
still the centre of this work, but a college has
been built at Sydenham, a suburb of Durban,
which has become a centre of strength and hope
for this Indian work. For there Christian
Indian boys are being trained under an excellent
staff to be teachers in the Indian mission schools
round Durban, and scattered throughout the
colony. At Sydenham, also, a home for Indian
orphans is managed by ladies trained and sent
out by the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel. In Maritzburg, also, ladies from Eng-
land have long been engaged in the work, among
whom Miss Payne-Smith, a daughter of the late
Dean of Canterbury, deserves honourable men-
136 South Africa
tion. Two European priests are working in the
Indian Mission under Canon Smith — the Rev.
A. Beyill Brown and the Rev. A. French. They
have as their colleagues two Indian priests, the
Rev. S. P. Vedamuttu and the Rev. J. Nulla-
thamby.
Diocese of Zulu land
Passing on towards the north we come to the
Diocese of Zululand, which is now politically part
of Xatal. The mission work of the Church began
here in i860, when the Rev. R. Robertson was
sent by Bishop Colenso and established himself
at Kwa Magwaza. We have seen that Bishop
Colenso's archdeacon, Charles Mackenzie, became
first Bishop of the Universities' Mission at the
Zambesi. After his death, however, that work was
for the time abandoned, owing to the unhealthy
nature of the country ; and, instead a Mackenzie
Memorial Mission was sent to Zululand. In
Bishop 1870 Bishop Wilkinson, now Bishop of Northern
Wilkinson. ' ■ r
Europe, was consecrated first Bishop of Zululand.
He resigned in 1875, and was succeeded by
Bishop d. Bishop Douglas McKenzie. His headquarters
McKenzie. ' ° *
were at Isandhlw ana, the fatal battlefield of the
Zulu War of 1879.
The Province of South Africa 137
Mr. C. Johnson, a son of a Natal colonist,
had already begun work in these parts. He is
now Archdeacon of Zululand, and has a mission-
station which, for numbers of converts and workers,
and for the size of its central church and the
number of its out-stations, is second to none in
South Africa. Valuable testimony was borne
last year, at the time of the Zulu rising, by
Sir Charles Saunders, the Commissioner, to the
influence for good which the Mission of S.
Augustine's, Rorke's Drift, exercised over the
natives.
Bishop McKenzie died in 1890, and was suc-
ceeded bv Bishop Carter, who came from the Bishop
J r Carter.
Eton Mission in Hackney. For thirteen years
he did devoted work among the Zulus, con-
tinually making long journeys, and constantly
sleeping on the veld or in Zulu huts. In 1903,
at the end of the Boer War, he was translated
to Pretoria, and one of his clergy, the Rev. y^|fii
W. L. Vyvyan, was consecrated as his successor.
In addition to the work already mentioned at
S. Augustine's, Rorke's Drift, there is at Isandhl-
wana a McKenzie Memorial College for native
lads, which for many years was under the care
of the Rev. R. B. Davies. This is intended to
South Africa
supply the diocese with native teachers. Largely
owing to a grant of £500 from the Marriott
Bequest, through the Society for the Propagation
of the G«>spel, large and commodious class-rooms
have been added to this college. A five-roomed
house ha-> also been built there, the gift of Canon
K. B. Davies and his sister, which is now being
used by the Bishop as his residence. Several of
the students at the college have won Govern-
ment certificates.
Mission in t|ie vear igo} the great Church of S. Augus-
Stations. -* J o °
tine's, Rorke's Drift, was dedicated in the presence
of some 2,300 natives and many European resi-
dents. It was built largely of stone, and almost
entirely by native labour. In the same year a
native evangelist, Charles Hlati, who had worked
for some years under the Dutch Reformed Church,
applied to Archdeacon Johnson, asking that he
and his followers, about 1,800 in number, might
be received into the Church of England. The
Archdeacon approached the Dutch Reformed
Church ministers, urging them to provide for
these people, but they were unable to do so,
having, at that time, no ministers free tor the
work. Accordingly, Hlati and his people were
dually received into the communion of the
The Province of South Africa 139
Church, and several congregations of them are
now supervised by the Rev. W. H. Hallowes at
Kambula, and the Rev. A. Rowand at Utrecht.
At Kambula a large farm of 1,500 acres was
bought, and a church of stone, as well as a
parsonage, has been built there by native labour
and Mr. Hallowes' own work ; and within the
present year a church of brick, a successor to a
wood and iron church, has been built at Utrecht.
Land has also been purchased in other parts of
the same district, in order to secure a firm footing
for the establishment of out-stations from Kambula.
Hlati was ordained to the diaconate in 1907.
At Utrecht a handsome stone church for the
Europeans has also been built, and towards this
the Dutch people and Christians of other denomi-
nations gave kindly and generous assistance.
The first Native Conference was held at
S. Augustine's in 1904, when 133 native clergy,
catechists, and elected delegates from all parts of
the diocese discussed many matters relating to
Church life, and, amongst other resolutions, one
was passed that all adherents should contribute
towards the payment of the native catechists and
teachers not less than five shillings each male and
two shillings each female, annually.
140 South Africa
synod ^n ^he same year the first regular Diocesan
Synod was held at Vryheid, with lay representa-
tives as well as clerical.
There is a steady increase in the number of
natives ordained to the sacred ministry, and there
are at present in the diocese six native priests and
three native deacons.
Magistrates have assisted in the laying of foun-
dation-stones— the magistrate of Nqutu at the
church at Esilutshane in S. Augustine's district,
and the magistrate of Melmoth at the laying, in
1907, of the foundation-stone of new buildings at
the boarding-school for native girls at Kwama-
gwaza. This last-named building is to provide
for increased accommodation for the girls, and for
their instruction in cookery and laundry work and
other useful branches of knowledge.
At Ingwavuma, on the Lebombo Mountain, a
fresh beginning of the work was made in 1902,
and in the present year a married priest has gone
up with his wife to reside in that far-off spot,
where there are a large number of natives all
along the top of the mountain range.
At Etalaneni, near the Nkandhla magistracy, the
two thousand Christians in S. Augustine's district,
with some fifteen exceptions, remained loyal to
The Province of South Africa 141
the Government in a time of great trial when
surrounded by rebels.
The industrial work at S. Augustine's of car-
pentry and stone-cutting is, though on only a
small scale at present, of much value, and receives
a grant of £50 a year from the Natal Government.
At Annesdale, Inhlwati, a church of stone was
built by native labour, and dedicated by Bishop
Carter before he left the diocese, in memory of
the first English Church missionary in Zululand,
the Rev. Robert Robertson, who died at that place,
the last station which he founded.
During the past two years farms have been
opened up for sugar plantations and other indus-
tries on the coast lands, and the Rev. Canon
Davies has inaugurated itinerary work amongst
them.
Eshowe has much suffered from the recent
depression in trade, and the consequent retrench-
ments of the officials resident there.
The wide prevalence of East Coast fever has
almost destroyed the cattle in Zululand, and the
outlook is very serious as regards ploughing and
crops and transport.
At S. Augustine's, the five thousand Christian
natives attached to Archdeacon Roach's mission-
142 South Africa
station not only remained absolutely loyal to the
Government during the rebellion of 1906, but also
in many cases rendered valuable assistance. A
Cottage Hospital has been set up, where more
than 2,000 patients were treated in the first year,
and a ward is also to be built for European
patients. A highly-trained nurse, Miss Mallan-
daine, is in charge of this, and the local doctor
provides medical supervision. It is hoped to
establish similar hospitals at other stations, as
they are of great value, and especially in com-
bating the superstition and ignorance prevalent
among the Zulus. Native girls are to be trained
in nursing work.
Adjoining the Osutu kraal of Dinuzulu there
has been for some years an out-station in the
charge of a native catechist, who is preparing for
the diaconate : a part of the work superintended
by Dr. Walters, of Nongoma.
The diocese has now two Archdeacons, who
divide the districts between them.
In 1907 the Christians at Isandhlwana took
part in sending one of the native clergy, who had
long been ministering among them, first as cate-
chist, and then as deacon and priest, the Rev.
O. Nxumalo, as their missionary to the Swazies :
The Province of South Africa 143
the first mission from the Zulus to their former
enemies.
The Europeans' contributions towards the sti-
pends of the clergy and for other purposes amount
to about £1,000 per annum, and those of the
natives to a like sum. There are, roughly speak-
ing, 10,000 Christians of the Church in this
diocese, with 157 native helpers, exclusive of the
clergy, seventy stations and out-stations, and
twenty-six European and native clergy, and
twelve European lay workers.
The college at Isandhlwana is staffed with two
European clergy, the girls' school at Kwamagwaza
with four European ladies.
At most of the magistracies and European
townships and settlements services are held at
regular intervals, though in some more frequently
than in others.
In the Transvaal portion of the diocese a
church, for which the native Christians made,
freely, 100,000 bricks, has been built at Holy
Rood, Endhlozana, by the hands of Canon Mercer
and some native workmen. And the Europeans
at Piet Retief, Amsterdam, and Hlatikulu support
amongst them a priest who serves all those three
places.
144 South Africa
Swaziland. \n Swaziland, which is also within the diocese,
there are now two European priests and one
native priest ; and a wood and iron church, given
by Sergeant- Major Vine, of the South African
Constabulary, has been built for Europeans at
Mbabane ; a church for natives has also been
built at the same place, the headquarters of
Government, in addition to the native churches
at other out-stations ; and eighty acres have been
bought, with a house thereon, at Forbes' Rief, as
a centre of future work in that colony.
Diocese of Pretoria
In the Transvaal, before the discovery of gold
on the Witwatersrand, there were but few English
settlers, and the Dutch had, of course, their own
church. Church work here was therefore scanty
until recent years. In 1864 the recently-appointed
Bishop of the Orange Free State paid a visit to
the country, and soon after sent a catechist, and
later a deacon (the Rev. W. Richardson) to
Potchefstroom. In 1870 the Rev. J. H. Wills
was appointed to Pretoria. But for many years
after this the country depended upon occasional
visits of neighbouring Bishops for Confirmation
and other episcopal offices.
The Province of South Africa 145
It was in October, 1877, when the Metropolitan
visited the Transvaal, that it was decided to form
the country into a separate diocese to be called by
the name of the capital — Pretoria. The Bishop |^°fipeld
selected for the post was the Rev. H. B. Bousfield,
Vicar of Andover. He was consecrated in
England on the Feast of the Purification, 1878,
and reached Pretoria on January 7, 1879.
The Bishop arrived in stormy times, as the Zulu
War was then in hand, and the end of that year
saw a revival of hostilities with the native chief,
Sekukuni, who had more than once before given
serious trouble ; and this was followed in Decem-
ber, 1880, by the revolt of the Boers and the first
Boer War. The result of that war was, of course,
to put back the work of the English Church, as
many of our countrymen left the Transvaal.
Much, however, remained to be done both among
the English settlers and among the natives. The
Rev. A. Temple, who afterwards became Arch-
deacon, was at this time active among the natives
of the Potchefstroom district ; and for the English
mining population of Johannesburg the Rev. J. T.
Darragh was appointed Priest-in-charge, and
afterwards Rector of S. Mary's, a post he has
held ever since. He has done splendid work for
L
1 46 South Africa
the Church of CHRIST both before and since the
war.
In 1902 Bishop Bousfield died, and was suc-
cirt°rP ceeded by Bishop Carter, translated from Zulu-
land. His coming, which synchronized with the
termination of the great Boer War, has been
followed by immense strides in the Church
work of the diocese. Before the war there had
been, beside the Bishop, thirty-two clergy, nearly
all of whom had been expelled from the
Republic at the outbreak of hostilities. When
Bishop Carter took over the charge of the
diocese in November, 1902, he found only
twenty-six clergy at work. By the end of
1904 there were sixty-one. In that year alone
ten fresh districts were provided with resident
clergy, ten new churches were built and five
enlarged, while two more were started, and two
parish halls. There are now seventy-nine clergy
(including four Archdeacons) in addition to five
Army chaplains and five clergy of the Railway
Mission, a great part of whose work lies within
Finance, the diocese. The expenditure from the Central
Fund for last year (apart from the stipends
raised by congregations for their clergy) was
£11,129, just about half of which was contri-
The Province of South Africa 147
buted directly in subscriptions by individuals
and companies, many of the larger firms giving
as much as £500 or £600 each, while the total
grant from England through the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel for the year was only
£1,170, showing that the diocese is in a fair way
to becoming self-supporting.
The missionary opportunities of this diocese j^0ens.
are unique, for, in addition to the large native
population residing in the country, there are
large numbers of men of various tribes brought
from various quarters to work on the Rand.
Excellent work among these has been done by
the Community of the Resurrection, whose head-
quarters are at Mirfield, in Yorkshire. At the
urgent request of the Bishop of Pretoria they
established a branch house in Johannesburg in
1903, and the members of the Community minister
to both whites and natives. The Rev. L. Fuller
(one of the members of the Community) has been
entrusted by the Bishop with the organization of
native work along the reefs in the country districts
immediately around it. In the Potchefstroom
district the native work has been for some eighteen
years past under the care of Archdeacon Roberts.
The Diocesan Report of four years ago shows that
148 South Africa
there were then some 3,000 native communicants
in the district. In the Pretoria district Canon
Farmer has been in charge since 1895, and is
assisted by a native priest. Canon Farmer has
done a great work in itinerating. The Rev. W. A.
Goodwin, a son-in-law of Bishop Bransby Key,
after rendering invaluable service both in the
S. John's Diocese, and as Principal of S. Alban's
native College, in Pietermaritzburg, is now doing
good work among natives under the Bishop of
Pretoria.
The educational work of the Wantage Sisters
at Pretoria and of the East Grinstead Sisters at
Rosettenville is a valuable addition to the re-
sources of the diocese. Many familiar English
institutions, such as the Girls' Friendly Society,
the Mothers' Union, and the Discharged Prisoners'
Aid Society have found their way to the Trans-
vaal. The diocese now boasts its own Lay
Readers' Association, in addition to many branches
of the Church of England Men's Society.
Diocese of Mashonaland
Passing further north we come to the Diocese
of Mashonaland. This country came under
British influence in 1888, when Mr. Rhodes
The Province of South Africa 149
obtained a concession from Lobengula, King of
Matabeleland. The following year the British
South Africa Company was formed under Royal
Charter, and a pioneer expedition started under
Col. Pennefather, with two hundred Europeans
and one hundred and fifty natives, to open up
the country and construct roads. The peaceful ™aJabele
occupation of the country was, however, soon
interrupted by war. First a dispute arose with
the Matabele, which was brought to a successful
termination in the short space of five weeks, in
October and November, 1893, during which the
King Lobengula died of smallpox. Then two
and a half years later — in the spring of 1896 —
a rising took place among the same people,
owing to the removal of the police force in con-
nection with the Jameson Raid. This rising was
subdued by August, but not before one hundred
and forty-one Europeans had been massacred.
Finally, a further revolt took place among the
Mashonas, involving a more serious war, which
lasted more than a year, and in which the regular
army had to be called in.
This rising furnished a remarkable example of
what is at once our weakness and our strength in
dealing with native races — our extraordinary capa-
i5o
South Africa
city for trusting them. On the whole, it is that
trust that is the secret of our power to govern and
win them. Hut occasionally it is misplaced. It
Mashona was so jn this instance. No sooner had we con-
rising.
quered the warlike and independent Matabcle
than we assumed that they were to be at once
and for ever our firm friends and faithful subjects.
Englishmen settled down among them in widely
scattered and lonely farms, people travelled about
the country without arms or escort, and, with
almost reckless confidence, Dr. Jameson withdrew
the Matabeleland mounted police, in November,
1895, to Pitsani, in Southern Bechuanaland, in
view of the rising in Johannesburg. This confi-
dence in the peaceable intentions of the inhabi-
tants of Matabeleland had, no doubt, a certain
justification. The more warlike Matabcle had
been killed or driven across the Zambesi. Many
of those who were left were sincerely relieved
from the perpetual fear of Lobengula's tyranny.
They expressed this relief to Dr. Jameson by
saying, " Now we can sleep." And the other
inhabitants of the country — the Mashonas and
Makalakas — were regarded as so unwarlike as to
be a negligable quantity. But as against these
grounds of confidence there were serious reasons,
The Province of South Africa 151
as we can now see, for uneasiness. The natives
had grievances for which there was some justifica-
tion. They disliked the hut tax, which is a regular
part of our native policy. (It is considered the
best method of taxing luxuries, as each wife has
a hut to herself, and only the wealthier natives
can afford many wives). The perennial grievance
as to land was also a factor in the case, as farms
were at once taken up, and it was obvious that
this policy would in time lead to the confinement
of the old inhabitants within narrower limits, or
else their exploitation as labourers by the new
occupiers of the land on which they were living.
It happened, also, to add to the unrest, that there
was at that time a bad outbreak of rinderpest.
The Government, in order to arrest the disease,
had in many cases to order the destruction of
healthy animals in infected areas. This was
naturally hard for the people to understand, and
led to the idea that the white man was set upon
their ruin. No wonder, then, that when there came
the withdrawal of the ordinary police force of the
country, and, following this, the report of their
defeat by the Boers, the Matabele thought that the
time had come for them to reassert their indepen-
dence and to drive out the encroaching white men.
15- South Africa
Church work in Mashonaland was planned in
1 874, when funds were provided through the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for an
expedition under the Rev. W. Greenstock. Owing,
however, to the death of his companion at Dur-
ban, the expedition had for the time to be aban-
doned. The actual beginning of work dates from
Bishop the pioneer expedition of Bishop Knight Bruce,
Knight . . . . . .
Bruce. in 1 808, which we have already mentioned.
This notable journey marked him out as the
most suitable man to be appointed the first
Bishop of Mashonaland, and to this office he was
translated in 1891. His work at first was among
the natives of Mashonaland. Matabeleland he
left to the care of the London Missionary Society,
which he found in full activity there.
The termination of the little war of 1893, how-
ever, changed the aspect of affairs. It brought
many English settlers into the country, so that the
Church was called to minister to her own mem-
bers ; and Buluwayo, which had been Lobengula's
kraal, became the European capital of Matabele-
land and the chief centre of the Church's work
there. In 1894 Bishop Knight Bruce broke down
in health, and was warned by his doctors that it
was imperative that he should return to England.
The Province of South Africa 153
He died two years later as Vicar of Bovey Tracey.
His successor was William Thomas Gaul, then B«hoP
Archdeacon of Kimberley. Under his energetic
guidance the work of the Church rapidly increased
among both natives and Europeans. The Bishop's
experience among the mining population at Kim-
berley, many of whom he met again in Rhodesia,
and his own hearty and exuberant personality,
made him just the man for the pioneering work
among Mr. Rhodes' young men who began to
flock into the new territories.
Foremost among the new enterprises was the Educa-
creation of a native college near the town ofwork-
Umtali, as a memorial to Bishop Knight Bruce,
which was liberally supported by the Home
Church through both the Society for the Pro-
motion of Christian Knowledge and the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel, and superin-
tended by the Rev. D. R. Pelly. This College
of S. Augustine, near Penhalonga, which has
now for some years had as its head the Rev.
E. H. Etheridge, who is supported by a very
efficient band of colleagues (two of whom, the
Rev. R. Alexander and Brother Sherwin Smith,
may truly be said to have borne the burden
and heat of the day), seems to be in a fair
i 54 South Africa
way to solve the difficult problem of native
education. While all the morning (after the
morning services) is spent in school, the whole
of the afternoon is spent in manual labour, in
which is included gardening, agricultural work,
and building. In spite of the fees charged, there
are applications from many more students than
the college can accommodate ; and the raising of
fees does not in the least check the flow of appli-
cants. At S. Monica's, on the same beautiful
estate, there is a flourishing school for girls and
women, under the charge of Mother .Annie, and
two other ladies. Native schools were also estab-
lished in all the towns, and a native church built,
mostly by the people themselves, at Buluwayo ;
while the white people are ministered to at
Salisbury, Umtali, Buluwayo, Gwelo, Selukwe,
Victoria, and Francistown. At Salisbury there
is a pro-cathedral, and at all the other centres
there arc churches — that at Selukwe, however,
is only just begun. The work north of the
Zambesi has been carried on by the Archdeacon
of Matabeleland (the Ven. F. II. Beavan).
Native The chief centres of native work are (<?) in
Mashonaland — I, S. Augustine's, Penhalonga,
where there is an industrial school for boys, num-
The Province of South Africa 155
bering at present about 170, and an industrial
boarding school for girls (S. Monica's), with
about eighty. There are also four out-stations at
this mission. 2, Rusape, with S. Faith's Mission,
and the Mission of the Epiphany, and several
out-stations. Two lady workers are engaged at
this station with its day schools. 3, All Saints',
Wreningham, with a boarding school for about
thirty scholars, and out-stations. 4, Mission of the
Transfiguration, at Victoria. 5, S. Mary's, Huny-
anyi. 6, S. Bernard's, Mangwendi. There are
also native churches in the towns of Salisbury and
Umtali. (b), In Matabeleland — 1, S. Columba's,
Buluwayo. 2, the Industrial Mission of S. Aidan,
at Bembezi ; and 3, S. Matthew's, Umguza. There
are now, beside the Bishop, twenty clergy, in-
cluding two Archdeacons, working in the diocese,
beside a considerable number of native catechists
and teachers. Archdeacon Upcher has been in
the diocese since 1892, and has proved himself
an ideal missionary, full of zeal, and ready to
turn his hand to anything : no man is so well
known or loved throughout Rhodesia. Archdeacon
Beavan, who came into the diocese in 1903, has
made it his special work to follow up the isolated
white man ; and he has succeeded in keeping in
156 South Africa
touch with our fellow-countrymen in North-West
Rhodesia so thoroughly that when the new diocese,
which the province, thanks to the generosity and
labours of Bishop T. E. Wilkinson, has in con-
templation there, is formed, there will be found a
nucleus of Church work ready to hand.
At the beginning of 1907 it had become
plain that Bishop Gaul, like his predecessor, had
made overdrafts upon his strength, and that, if
his life was to be continued, he must give up
the work he loved so well. His resignation was
accepted by the Bishops of the Province, and,
after an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Bishop
Campbell of Glasgow to accept the post of Bishop
of Mashonaland (to which he was much drawn by
his South African experiences in connection with
the Mission of Help sent out from England in
1904), a successor was found in the person of the
Rev. E. N. Powell, Vicar of S. Stephen's, Upton
Park, E., who was consecrated in Capetown on
S. Matthias' Day, 1908.
Diocese of Lebombo
At the beginning of 1891 the South African
Bishops decided that the time had come for the
formation of a new diocese, to be called Lebombo,
The Province of South Africa 157
from the Lebombo range of mountains, consisting
of the districts around Delagoa Bay — Lourenco
Marques and Inhambane, in Portuguese territory
— and South Gazaland with Lydenberg and
Zoutspanberg, in the Transvaal. This country,
though nominally in the Diocese of Zululand,
had been hardly touched by Church work. In
1 88 1 Bishop McKenzie of Zululand had paid ^fe
a visit to Delagoa Bay, and had secured a site
for mission premises, but he was unable to
prosecute the plan further till 1889, when he
paid another visit. His account of what he
found there is depressing : — " No one anxious for
Communion," " Europeans and natives alike much
addicted to drink," and " the Name of God only
heard in oaths." Bishop McKenzie's death
again delayed the plans for mission work in this
country; but on All Saints' Day, 1893, the
Rev. William Edmund Smyth, then a missionary |^y°h.
in Zululand, was consecrated in Grahamstown
Cathedral as first Bishop of the new diocese.
It was slow and uphill work, and for some years,
the Bishop plodded on almost alone. Of late
years, however, the progress of the diocese has
been marked and fairly rapid. There are now,
beside the Bishop, an archdeacon and eleven
158 South Africa
clergy, twenty-five native catechists and teachers
and other workers, and fourteen English lay
workers.
A good work is being done at S. Christopher's
College, founded in 1901, where some twelve
native students are being trained for the work
of the ministry in the diocese. Three of these
have already been appointed sub-deacons. One
of the special difficulties which has to be faced
in this diocese lies in the number of languages
which must be learned, owing to the variety of
tribes among which work is being carried on.
Fortunately the Bishop is not only a devoted
missionary but also a man of linguistic gifts.
Diocese of S. Helena
We have incidentally mentioned the island
of S. Helena, which, though remote from South
Africa, forms part of the Ecclesiastical Province.
The history of Church work there goes much
further back than that of most of the other
parts of the Province. As early as 1704 we
find the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel allowing a grant of £$ for small
tracts for the Rev. Charles Masham, " a minister
sent to S. Helena by the East India Company,"
The Province of South Africa 159
and two years later a further grant was made
him. The island, however, does not appear
again in the Society's records for more than a
century. On Bishop Gray's appointment to
Capetown he sent the Rev. W. Bousfield to
join the Rev. R. Kempthorne, who, up to that
time, seems to have been the only clergyman,
besides a military chaplain, to minister to a
population which was then estimated at 5,000.
Bishop Gray, who visited the island on his
voyage to England, gives a grim account of the
cargoes of liberated slaves which our Navy was
at that time constantly discharging on to the
island. It roused a deep and earnest determina-
tion in the Bishop's heart to prosecute missionary
work among them. In 1859 he succeeded in
getting a Bishopric established for S. Helena,
with the Islands of Ascension and Tristan
da Cunha ; and Dr. Piers C. Claughton was £,ish°p
' *=> Claughton.
consecrated as the first Bishop, in Westminter
Abbey, on Whitsunday of that year. His epis-
copate was, however, a short one, as in 1862 he
was translated to Colombo.
His successor was the Ven. T. E. Welby, then wf\bV
Archdeacon of George in the Diocese of Cape-
town, who served the Church in the island for
160 South Africa
the long term of thirty-seven years. He died in
Holmes. 1 §99, and was succeeded by Dean Holmes of
Grahamstown in 1899. Bishop Holmes only
lived a few years after his consecration, and was
HoSSTch. followed by Bishop Holbech, who had been
Dean of Bloemfontein. In 1865 the population
of S. Helena was 7,000 ; but the diversion of
trade, owing to the opening of the Suez Canal,
has greatly changed the position and pros-
pects of the island. Much poverty was caused
by the loss of the ocean trade, and in a few
years the population had fallen, by emigra-
tion and other causes, to one half its former
number, viz., 3,500.
Only a small proportion of the inhabitants are
of European birth, the greater part of the islanders
being coloured people of mixed race, their fore-
fathers having been brought there either as servants
of the East India Company or as slaves. The
island is divided into three parishes, each with its
own clergyman, the cathedral being in the centre
of the island.
Aided by the Rebecca Hussey Charity for the
education of the children of released slaves, the
Church has done much for education in S. Helena,
and now has six schools under its care.
The Province of South Africa i 6 i
This diocese has the honour of possessing
one of the most isolated cures of souls imagin-
able : the island of Tristan da Cunha, now, for
the third time, occupied by a resident priest,
the Rev. J. G. Barrow.
The island of Ascension is held by a naval
garrison, for whom the Admiralty long ago built
a church, which was consecrated by Bishop
Claughton.
Diocese of Walfish Bay
In 1 90 1 and 1903 the Coadjutor Bishop of*?jsh°p
Capetown, Dr. Gibson, whose devoted work as
a missionary in the Diocese of S. John's has been
mentioned, having learnt that no provision was
made by the English Church for her members
south of the Congo, made two long journeys,
lasting several months, through German South-
West Africa and a portion of Portuguese West
Africa, with the view of supplying ministrations
to the scattered Church people, and also of seeing
what openings there were in those regions for
missionary work on the part of the Church of the
Province. The expenses of the first journey were
defrayed almost entirely by the people visited ;
for the second, a liberal grant was made by the
1 62 South Africa
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. In 1906,
having been ordered to rest for at least two, if not
three, years, the Bishop resigned his post, and was
succeeded by his old friend, Dr. Cameron, of whom
mention has already been made. Under Bishop
Cameron's fostering care the difficulties which
were only to be expected in connection with such
a movement as that which resulted in the Order
of Ethiopia have been very largely smoothed
away.
Early in 1907, the South African Bishops in
Synod requested Bishop Gibson to accept the
office of Missionary Bishop for Walfish Bay
(which he had already visited some four times)
and the neighbouring parts with which his jour-
neys had made him familiar. It is the sincere
hope of all his friends that his health may allow
of his taking up the work thus allotted to him,
but for the present the Bishop remains under
doctor's orders in Europe, and the office is of
the nature of a titular one — in partibus infidelium.
It is, perhaps, worthy of notice that, although
no colonial man has yet become a Bishop in South
Africa, of the twelve Bishops now belonging to
the Province no less than eight had been working
in the country at some time or other before they
The Province of South Africa 163
were raised to the episcopate. Two, it is true, had
returned to England, but six were actually on the
staff of South African priests at the time of their
election or appointment.
The Mission of Help
An enterprise which has been of the greatest
importance and profit to the South African
Church, and which, on the scale on which it was
carried out, is unique in the history of the Angli-
can communion, remains to be recorded. This is
the movement which received the name of the
"Mission of Help" sent out by the Mother Church
in the year 1904. The idea of such a mission
had been germinating for many years. Its first
inception is to be traced to a visit which Bishop Bishop
. t,. Wilkinson.
Wilkinson (who had just resigned the Bishopric of
Truro) paid to the Cape in 1892, and to conversa-
tions which he then had with his hosts, Sir Henry
and Lady Loch. The idea of a general mission
had been mentioned in the Provincial Synod of
1898, and the matter was left in the hands of
the Bishops. The Bishops met in an Episcopal
Synod in August, 1900, when a letter from Bishop
G. H. Wilkinson was read asking whether an effort
to send out a considerable body of English clergy
164 South Africa
would meet with the approval of the South African
Church. Canon Gore (as he then was) was also
associated with the proposal. It was suggested
that, when the unhappy war which was still raging
should come to an end, the moment might be
opportune for making a great united effort to
deepen and perpetuate the graver thoughts which
the sufferings of the war had aroused, and to
preach the gospel of national righteousness and
reconciliation. The offer was warmly accepted
by the Bishops in Synod. A committee was
then formed to take the matter in hand, and the
first step decided on was to send out a pioneer
expedition in 1902, to survey the ground, and
ascertain the feelings and needs of the several
Son. Dioceses of South Africa. The Rev. V. S. S.
Coles, Librarian of the Pusey House at Oxford,
the Rev. J. Hamlet, Vicar of Barrington, and the
Rev. L. Sladen, Vicar of Selly Oak, formed the first
band, charged to visit the Dioceses of Grahams-
town, Bloemfontein, and S. John's, Kaffraria.
They were followed by Bishop Hornby (now of
Nassau), the Rev. M. B. Furse (now Archdeacon
of Johannesburg), and the Rev. J. P. Maud (now
Vicar of S. Mary's, Redcliffe), who went to Cape-
town, Natal, Zululand, Pretoria, Lebombo, and
The Province of South Africa 165
Mashonaland. This Pioneer Mission did great
things in the way of enlisting the interest and
eager expectation of the colonists with regard to
the larger mission which was to follow, and it
brought back a most valuable report as to the
needs of the Church of the Province.
After what has been recorded in the foregoing
chapters, the truth and importance of the follow-
ing words in this report will be realized : " It is Thrir^
no disparagement to say that the Church of the
Province of South Africa has of necessity been
largely engaged in evolving her system of external
organization." What was now needed was a fuller
sense of the end to which all outward machinery
was the means — a fuller outpouring of the Spirit
within the Body. And the report, with a fine
sense of proportion, added : — " It should now be
indisputably seen that the Church's campaign is
simply one for righteousness" And the report
also gave evidence of an equally fine sense of pro-
portion on the part of the colonists in the way in
which the mission was received. " It was won-
drously cheering to find the universal admission
that the most solid asset in the State is character,
and its most valued product the lives of its
people."
1 66 South Africa
second A second preparatory visit was paid in the
Prepara- r i J r
t°ry following year by the Bishop of S. Andrews,
mission. o j j i
Canon Scott Holland, and Provost Campbell (now
Bishop of Glasgow). The object of this mission
was less to acquire information than to definitely
prepare the minds of Church people in South
Africa for the arrival of the full band of mis-
sioners in the following year. On their return
an interesting conference took place in the Jeru-
salem Chamber between the missioners and the
pioneers and the members of the committee, many
of whom had already had experience of South
African conditions of life and of the special
problems of its Church.
The actual mission consisted of a body of
thirty-six Bishops and clergy. They were divided
into two groups. The first of these was assigned
to the Dioceses of Capetown, Grahamstown, Natal,
The S. John's, and Zululand. Its leaders were the
Missioners. J
Bishops of Gibraltar and Burnley (now Bishop of
Southwell). The second group was to go to the
Dioceses of Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Mashona-
land, and was to be under the charge of the Rev.
C. T. Abraham, Vicar of Bakewell. The first
detachment, seventeen in number, sailed on
April 7, 1904. The rest of the missioners
The Province of South Africa 167
followed at intervals, some of them having
volunteered for six months and others for shorter
periods.
The enterprise was, naturally, a very costly one. Financ
But the expenses were more than met by the
splendid efforts of an influential band of ladies,
headed by Adeline, Duchess of Bedford, who, under
the inspiring lead of the Bishop of S. Andrews,
organized the work of collecting funds throughout
the English dioceses.
The results of the mission are everywhere de- Results
scribed as surpassing the most sanguine expecta-
tions. This remarkable manifestation of the care of
the Mother Church for her South African daughter
seems to have deeply struck the imagination of the
colonists, and everywhere the missioners were met
by large and expectant congregations. People
undertook long and toilsome journeys in order to
be present at the services, and many who had
drifted away from all spiritual influences seem to
have been reached and profoundly affected. There
is every reason to believe that the enthusiastic
response which the mission evoked was something
more than the mere excitement and emotion of
unusual services and famous preachers, and that
in a large number of cases the results have been
1 68 South Africa
true and lasting. The last service of the mission
was held in the Cathedral of Capetown on October
25th ; and on November 15th a great thanksgiving
service was held in S. Paul's Cathedral. The
sermon was to have been preached by the Bishop
of S. Andrews, who had been throughout the
inspiring and sustaining force behind the mission,
as he had been its original projector. Ill-health,
however, prevented him, and his place was filled
by Canon Scott Holland, who, after the Bishop,
had done as much as any one to make the mission
a success. Now that Bishop Wilkinson's work on
earth is ended, it is a happy memory to look back
on this great mission as forming a splendid climax
to a life which was pre-eminent, if not unique, in
the spiritual influence which it exerted on people
of all classes.
Conclusion
This brief review of South African Church
history has shown us that that figure-head which
first confronts the voyager beneath the Southern
Cross, and which stands for what lies beyond it,
is indeed a cape of storms. The different tradi-
tions, the misunderstandings, the varying aims
and ideals of many races, have produced, and
The Province of South Africa 169
will continue to produce, many a conflict. One
thing alone can reconcile those misunderstand-
ings, and draw hearts into stable and loving
union — the grace of the HOLY SPIRIT, and the
enthusiasm of the one all-embracing and all-satis-
fying kingdom of God. But the solid and ever-
growing work of good men which the record
describes is slowly but surely revealing the vision,
and kindling the enthusiasm, of that kingdom,
lifting the eyes of men to those holy hills. South
Africa, though physically a vast country, is, on
its human side, a very small country, closely
knit together. The people of Capetown know
all about the people of Port Elizabeth and
Durban, and those of Durban and Kimberley
know all. about those of Johannesburg and of
Buluwayo. Family connections and business
relations unite them. And, therefore, ideals and
standards of life and thought which touch
Johannesburg to-day will affect Capetown and
Durban to-morrow. And the tone of the towns
affects the farmers in remotest districts, whose
links with the towns and their markets and their
society are many and close. And the native
races draw in through every pore the spirit
which prevails among the white men around
170 South Africa
them. So the way of the Lord is prepared,
ever)- valley is exalted, and every mountain and
hill is made low, and the crooked made straight,
and the rough places plain. Can we doubt but
that the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and
the whole great country shall yet, in God's good
time, fulfil the promise of its early name — The
Cape of Good Hope ?
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 171
APPENDIX A
Later Stages of the Natal
Controversy
BISHOP Gray died on September 1, 1872,
in his sixty-third year, his death being
chiefly due to a fall from his horse, so that he
and his great friend Bishop Wilberforce were, so
far, alike in the circumstances of their death. At
this moment we are concerned, however, with
that event in its bearing on the Church con-
troversy dealt with in Chapter III.
In the following month (October, 1872), Bishop Bishop (
Colenso wrote a long letter to the Archbishop of letter to
. Archbishop
Canterbury as to the legal position of affairs in Tait.
South Africa, and the possible effect of the con-
stitution of the Church of the Province on the
tenure of property. According to the Bishop's
view, all the property vested in Bishop Gray
under his first Letters Patent was lying derelict
for want of a trustee to hold it. The second
172 South Africa
Letters Patent, having been pronounced void,
failed to create a corporation to which the
property held under the first Letters could pass.
This applied to property in all the three dioceses,
Capetown, Grahamstown, and Natal. In addition
to this there was much property acquired at a
later date, but vested in the Bishop of Capetown
"in trust for the Church of England." In all
these cases there would be difficulty about the
succession in the trust, and unless the new Bishop
were clearly a Bishop of the Church of England,
and not simply a Bishop of the Church of the
Province of South Africa, neither Courts nor
Legislature would give recognition to any claims
the Bishop might make to succeed to the trustee-
ship. Bishop Colenso went on to point out par-
ticulars in which the Church of the Province of
South Africa would be held to be a distinct body
from the Church of England from a lawyer's
point of view. " ( 1 ) Because the Synod has
expressly excluded the Bishop, clergy, and laity
of the Diocese of Natal from all share in its
deliberations; (2) because of the third proviso
[which he proceeded to quote] ; and (3) because
the Synod forbids any clergyman to celebrate
Holy Matrimony between persons, the divorced
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 173
husband or wife of either of whom is still alive,
thus making it criminal for the clergy of the
Church of the Province of South Africa to do
what would be perfectly lawful for a clergyman
of the Church of England."
Whatever may be thought as to the force of the
first and third of Bishop Colenso's reasons, there
was considerable force in the second, as was
brought out in the next important judgement
which was pronounced by the Judicial Committee
of the Privy Council. This was the case of
Merriman v. Williams. The plaintiff in this case Merriman
was the Bishop of Grahamstown (who had sue- wiiilams.
ceeded Bishop Cotterill when the latter was
translated to the See of Edinburgh in 1 87 1 )
and the defendant was the Dean of Grahams-
town. Although Dean Williams had taken a
prominent part in the Provincial Synod of 1870,
and in the election of Bishop Merriman, he after-
wards attached himself to the party who held the
same views as the followers of Bishop Colenso in
Natal, and called themselves "Church of England"
as opposed to the " Church of the Province
of South Africa." After a long period of dis-
agreement between the Bishop and the Dean,
which was made the more public and unpleasant
174 South Africa
by the fact that the latter had taken to journalism
and become editor of a local paper, which he could
use as the organ of his ecclesiastical views, the
Bishop brought things to a point by applying to
the Supreme Court of the Colony to restrain the
Dean from preventing his preaching in the Cathe-
if iupTeme dral Church of S. George. The Supreme Court
court. Qf t^e £ape Colony gave its decision against the
Bishop, declaring that the Church of the Province
had separated itself " root and branch " from the
Church of England. And then the matter came,
on appeal, before the Judicial Committee of the
council Privy Council. As between the Bishop and the
Dean the Privy Council decided in favour of the
Bishop, on the ground that the Dean, by sub-
scribing to the constitution of the Church of the
Province, and taking the prominent part which
he had in its organization, had debarred himself
from objecting to it. But the question was not
merely between these two suitors. Third parties
were concerned, and, as against those who had
not subscribed to the constitution of the province,
but still claimed allegiance only to the Church of
England " as by law established," and subscribed
to its formularies and to the interpretation put
upon them by the constituted authorities, the
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 175
Court pronounced that the Bishop could not
claim a right to property which was held " in
trust for the Church of England as by law
established." This result was arrived at by an
examination of the Constitution of the Church
of the Province, and especially of its " third
proviso." The Court recognized that there
might be, after the judgements declaring the
Church in South Africa to be a voluntary body,
a necessity for it to constitute its own ecclesias-
tical tribunals, " But their lordships consider that
the proviso under consideration is very much
more than a recognition of the facts of the case ;
and that the Church of South Africa, so far from
having done all in its power to maintain the
connection, has taken occasion to declare em-
phatically that at this point the connection is not
maintained. ... In the Church of South Africa
a clergyman preaching the same doctrines [as
have been held legal in England] may find him-
self presented for, and found guilty of, heresy. . . .
There is not the identity in the standards of faith
and doctrine which appears to their lordships
necessary to establish the connection required
by the trust on which the Church of S. George
is settled. There are different standards on im-
176 South Africa
portant points. In England the standard is the
formularies of the Church as judicially interpreted.
In South Africa it is the formularies as they may
be construed without the interpretation. It is
argued that the divergence made by the Church
of South Africa is only potential and not actual,
and that we have no right to speculate on its
effect until the tribunals of South Africa have
shown whether they will agree or disagree with
those of England. Their lordships think that
the divergence is present and actual. It is the
agreement of the two Churches which is poten-
tial."
Alleged Here, then, is another " Charter of the Colonial
separation
of the Church" according to the views of Bishop Colenso's
Church of ^ r
the Pro- friends. And it is worth while once again to pause
and ask what course the Church of South Africa
ought to have adopted. There is, no doubt, the
simple and alluring advice of Lord Romilly. The
Church of South Africa might simply have bound
itself by the laws of the Church of England, what-
ever, in the providence of its legislative authorities,
in which the colonies had no share, that law
might be, and by the decisions of Courts to which
it had no access. But it is inconceivable that the
great and growing Church of the whole colonial
vince.
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 177
empire should renounce all power of legislation,
and leave itself helpless in the hands of legislators
six thousand miles away, of Convocations in
which it had no voice, and Parliament in which
it had no representation. It is inconceivable that
it should renounce all power of discipline of its
own — have no Ecclesiastical Courts — but resort,
in every case of ritual or doctrinal irregularity,
to the Courts of the State ; to have the most
sacred questions debated and decided by judges
who might be agnostics or bitter antagonists of
the Church. It was inevitable, therefore, that
the Church, being declared a voluntary body,
should provide its own machinery both for legis-
lation and for discipline. But was it wise or
necessary to announce beforehand, as the third
proviso does, that Privy Council decisions will
not be held binding ? Archbishop Benson, for
one, never disguised his opinion that it was a
mistake. He himself, in the famous Lincoln
case, set aside certain decisions of the Privy
Council, but he did not begin by declaring
(though he was invited by counsel to do so)
that he would disregard the judgements of the
Privy Council. In the same way, he felt that
it would have been wiser for the Church of
N
178 South Africa
South Africa to try each case on its merits,
and, if the evidence seemed to justify a reversal
of the previous judgements, then would have
been the time for the Ecclesiastical Courts of
the Church of South Africa to assert their in-
Proposed dependence. There is no doubt that this course
Repeal of 1
Proviso. would have saved the Church from many
troubles and perplexities, and there has been
more than one attempt made in the Provincial
Synod to repeal the third proviso. But to
remove it after it has stood part of the Consti-
tution is a very different thing from leaving it
out at the first. Many men who would have
voted against its original insertion would not
vote for its deletion. To have had it and
removed it would be held not merely to restore
the non-committal attitude ; it would be taken
to imply a deliberate acceptance of Privy
Council judgements. And there are few branches
of the Anglican communion which would be
prepared to-day to adopt that attitude.
Such was the position of the controversy when
Bishop Colenso died in 18S3. The Law Courts
had had before them certain clearly-defined ques-
tions as to the title to property held under certain
trusts. They had pointed out the course which
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 179
would have secured to the Church of South Africa
an indefeasible title. If she had had no third
proviso, if she had retained the name " Church of
England," if she had frankly and unconditionally
accepted Church of England law and Privy Council
interpretation of that law, her title to property held
" in trust for the Church of England as by law
established " would have been as good as the cir-
cumstances admitted. That, and that only, was
the business of their lordships of the Judicial
Committee. It was not their business, and they
never pretended to regard it as such, to say
whether, in view of other and higher considera-
tions, such a course was expedient. It was no
part of their function to advise, for instance (to
take one small point), whether the title " Church
of England " was really the most suitable for
a Church out of England which might, in the
future, comprise many nationalities. They had
to define the conditions of a legal title to property,
not to advise the Church on ecclesiastical polity,
as to how she would best advance the kingdom
of God.
In the recent controversy in the Free Church unftef7 °f
of Scotland (which presents many points ofQ^erchof
similarity to the case of Natal) the Judges did Scotland-
180 South Africa
not say that the Free Church ought not to have
joined the United Presbyterian Church. That
was no part of their business. They were not
commissioned to guide or dictate ecclesiastical
polity. What they did say was that the union of
the two did introduce certain complications with
regard to the trusts on which the property of the
Free Church was held. It remained for the
Church itself to say whether the gains of the
union justified the risk of such complication,
and indeed (as it proved) loss of property. But,
although the Lords of the Judicial Committee
never dreamed of so exceeding their rightful
function as to dictate to the Church in South
Africa what might be her true policy for the
good of men in the future, they were so inter-
preted by the so-called Church of England party.
That part)-, on the strength of these utterances,
adopted a tone of moral superiority. They
claimed a special loyalty to the Mother Church,
and obedience to the sovereign, as if to secure
a legal title to property were a higher duty than
to provide for the development and self-govern-
ment of the growing Church of the British Empire
beyond the seas.
At Bishop Colenso's death, then, there were
•Later Stages of Natal Controversy i 8 i
two separate Anglican Churches in South Africa.
In Natal the so-called Church of England had its
Church Council and a certain number of clergy
who had been ordained by Bishop Colenso or
adhered to his party. In the Cape Colony there
were certain congregations which, without such
organization or episcopal superintendence, ad-
hered to the same principles and remained aloof
from the Church of the Province, refusing to
accept its Constitution and Canons, or to send
representatives to its Synods. On the other
hand, there was the Church of the Province,
represented in Natal by the Diocese of Maritz-
burg, fully organized according to the rules of
the Province, with its Bishop and archdeacons,
its Diocesan Synod, its cathedral with dean
and chapter, and its parochial clergy.
When Bishop Colenso died Archbishop Benson Bishop
1 Colenso'
strongly advised Bishop Macrorie to resign the death.
See of Maritzburg. Both parties might then
have accepted a new Bishop ; much bitter con-
troversy might have been avoided ; and the
breach might have been healed more easily than
at a later date, when years of painful recrimina-
tion had widened it. The way for Bishop
Macrorie's resignation seemed at that moment
1 82 South Africa
to be made easy, for the See of Bloemfontein
happened to be vacant, and he would have been
cordially welcomed in that diocese. However,
Bishop Macrorie wrote quite definitely to the
Archbishop, giving his reasons for remaining at
his post. " I am persuaded," he said, " that,
independently of the heavy responsibility incurred
by the voluntary severance of so sacred a tie, the
effect of such a step, instead of tending to secure
the object which we have at heart, must produce
the saddest confusion in men's minds, confirming
the strangely erroneous notions which prevail on
one side respecting the Church and her consti-
tution, and on the other unsettling men in those
principles which the struggles and sufferings of
the past twenty years have been designed to
teach them."
Division Thg course which things took after Bishop
stereo- & r
typed. Colenso's death tended rather to stereotype the
existing division ; and, although the dissentient
party was weak as regarded the number of their
clergy, it included many influential laymen, and
the legal position with regard to property gave
it additional solidity.
All the property held in trust for " the Church
of England," of which Bishop Colenso had been
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 183
trustee, was placed by the Supreme Court of
Natal in the custody of Curators of the Court,
chosen from the so-called Church of England
party. The Church Council continued to meet,
and to administer the affairs of that body, and
a constant agitation was maintained to obtain
from the Mother Church the appointment of a
successor to Bishop Colenso as a Church of
England Bishop. First, Sir George Cox (Bishop
Colenso's biographer), and later (on Bishop
Macrorie's resignation) the Rev. W. Ayerst, were
nominated by the Church Council for the office,
and the Archbishop of Canterbury was asked
to consecrate. The Archbishop naturally dis-
owned any locus standi in a province wholly
outside his own, and declined to do anything
to perpetuate the schism in the South African
Church, and refused to apply for the Queen's
mandate for the consecration.
At last, in 1891, Bishop Macrorie decided to Bishop
, r , . t—11 1 Macrorie's
resign, and, alter his return to England, accepted resigna-
an appointment to a canonry at Ely. Bishop
Macrorie, when first called to Natal, had fully
realized the enormous difficulty and the thank-
lessness of the task before him. He had faced
it in a heroic and saintly spirit. Throughout
184 South Africa
his long episcopate he had combined firmness
of principle and courageous persistence with
the utmost gentleness and courtesy. And when
he laid down his office ungrudging testimony
was borne, even by those who remained unre-
conciled to the Province, to his goodness and
his saintly and loving character.
Bishop Macrorie having resigned, Archbishop
Benson felt that the time had come when he
might, if it were desired, intervene with some
hope of success. Accordingly, he allowed it
to be known that if both parties (the Synod of
the Diocese of Maritzburg on the one hand,
and the Church Council of the Diocese of Natal
on the other) were willing to delegate the
appointment of a Bishop to him, he would send
a single Bishop, whose work it would be to draw
together the two bodies. After a protracted
correspondence between Sir Theophilus Shep-
stone (representing the Church Council) and
the Archbishop, both parties delegated the
Bishop selection of their Bishop to Archbishop Benson,
Hamilton l r '
Baynes. anci he appointed the present writer, who had
been for nearly four years his domestic chaplain.
The new Bishop was consecrated on Michaelmas
Day, 1893, in Westminster Abbey. He landed in
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 185
Natal on November 23rd, being accompanied by
the present Bishop of Natal, whom he had brought
out to fill the vacant post of Archdeacon of
Durban, the Rev. J. C. Todd, his chaplain, and
other clergy. The Bishop was met on board the
Scot by a large number of representatives of both
sections of the divided Church, and that evening
a large and enthusiastic soiree was held in the
Town Hall, Durban, to welcome him, at which, for
the first time, all parties combined and vied with
each other in the warmth of their welcome. The
following Sunday the Bishop was enthroned in
S. Saviour's Cathedral, Pietermaritzburg, by the
venerable Dean Green, and preached his first
sermon, and that same evening preached in
S. Peter's, which had been the orginal cathedral
of Bishop Colenso, being accompanied by the
Dean, who had not officiated in that church, of
which he had been the first incumbent, since he
had been ejected by Bishop Colenso.
For the moment all seemed enthusiasm, and
the prospects of final and cordial reunion seemed
of the brightest. But those who looked below the
surface knew only too well that there were still
storms ahead. In his reply to the address of
welcome in the Maritzburg Town Hall the Bishop
i 86 South Africa
had begged his audience to allow all controversy
to rest, at least for the first year, to accept the
position as it was, to impose no new conditions,
to ask for no further concessions on either side,
not to reopen old sores, but to secure a period
of peace for Church work to go quietly forward :
to restore a better mutual understanding and a
truer sense of proportion.
This request, heartily as it was received, was
not granted. Very soon the " Church Council "
of the so-called " Church of England " met and
drew up an address to the Bishop in which they
°ecVunrch demanded that he should sign an undertaking to
council, preserve intact the Constitution of that Church
and the bye-laws of the Church Council. This
was not only a new condition, which had formed
no part of the agreement between the Archbishop
and Sir Theophilus Shepstone (acting on behalf
of the Church Council), but it was in direct contra-
diction to all that the Archbishop had insisted on,
and it would have meant that the new Bishop was
to close the door to reunion, and to tie his own
hands before he put them to the work. It would
have meant that, so far from accomplishing reunion,
the Bishop acquiesced in the continuance of two
separate and rival Churches, and agreed to act in
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 187
a dual capacity as the Bishop of both. All appeals
to the members of the Church Council not to press
this demand were in vain, and there was nothing
for it but for the new Bishop to meet the Church
Council and put formally before them his reasons
for declining to sign such an undertaking. There
was no time to consult the Archbishop of Canter-
bury as to his decision in this matter ; but the
Archbishop, as it afterwards proved, was even
more strongly opposed to any such concession
than the Bishop himself, for he wrote, " You must
not sign even the Thirty-nine Articles if they are
imposed as a condition of acceptance." This
demand of the Church Council proved to be as
the letting out of waters, and there began a new
course of controversy. The Bishop met the
Church Council and put before them clearly what
he could and what he could not do in the way
of concessions to the " Church of England " party.
He said, " I am prepared to guarantee to your Conces-
. sions
congregations protection from the third proviso, offered.
to accept from your clergy a simple declaration of
obedience to me as a Church of England Bishop "
(instead of requiring them to sign the Constitution
of the Church of the Province) " and to administer
the properties subject to the trusts in which they
1 88 South Africa
are vested — that is, for the purposes of the Church
of England."
The Bishop's position was this : — -The Church
of the Province of South Africa is a voluntary
association, to the laws of which people are bound
by voluntary contract. These congregations and
clergy have not yet voluntarily accepted that con-
stitution, and they are not to be coerced. Until
they do so accept them they are in the same
position as that which Mr. Long occupied at the
Cape, when he was held by the Courts to owe
obedience to the Bishop of Capetown in any
matters which a Bishop of the Church of England
could command, but not in matters which belong
only to the Constitution of the Church of South
Africa, as, for instance, the announcing of synods
or attending them, or submitting to their decrees.
All that must come voluntarily when it comes.
In the meantime these people stand to their
Bishop on the basis of the Church of England,
subject to its laws and the interpretation put upon
those laws and no other. Certain congregations
at the Cape had remained on this footing from the
beginning, from the Synod of 1 870 at which the
Constitution of the Church of the Province had
been first drawn up. To this condition of affairs
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 189
the Bishop was willing to assent, but not to the
maintenance of a separate Church claiming to
maintain a separate diocesan organization and
imposing conditions on its Bishop (such as the
signing of the bye-laws of the Church Council)
unknown to the Church at home. To agree to
this last would have been to stultify himself and
to defeat the whole object of his mission, viz., the
drawing together of the two into one Church.
The Bishop was also justified in offering such
special terms to those who had not as yet seen
their way to agree to the Constitution of the
Church of the Province by a canon which had
been passed in 1883, which authorized "the
Bishops ... to take such measures . . . with
regard to churches held under special trusts,
particularly those involving legal connection with
the Church of England as by law established, as
shall in their judgement best conduce to the peace
of the Church, . . . and further sanctions such
action of the said Bishops as shall guarantee to
their ministers (being clergy of the Church of
the Province) and to the congregations thereof,
that nothing shall be required in the conduct of
their services which cannot be required in the
Church of England as by law established."
190
South Africa
But no such concessions would satisfy the
extremists among the Church Council. They
had repeated, through so many years, the dicta
of the law courts as to the separation " root and
branch " of the Church of the Province from the
Mother Church {dicta referring, it will be remem-
bered, solely to the tenure of property) that they
would be satisfied with nothing less than the
recognition of their own little body as the "Church
of England," to which all the rest of South Africa
must come back. Hence they proceeded to
extremes. They decided that until the Bishop
had signed the required declaration he was not
their Bishop, thus repudiating their unconditional
delegation to the Archbishop. And at several
consecutive sittings of the Church Council, at
which the Bishop was present, he was not invited
to take the chair, which was occupied by the
senior presbyter (as provided by the rules on
occasions when the Bishop of the diocese was
not present).
Further than this, the Curators had, after six
months, made no sign of fulfilling the undertaking
made by the Church Council as to the payment of
the Bishop's stipend out of the funds in their
custody, and they were being threatened with
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 191
legal proceedings if they ventured to do so. It
was plain, therefore, that things had come to a
deadlock, and some step was necessary to secure
a modus vivendi. The Bishop, therefore, pro-
ceeded to draft a Bill, to be introduced into the Draft Bin.
Natal Parliament at its ensuing session, creating
him trustee, in succession to Bishop Colenso, of all
the properties of which the trusteeship had lapsed
owing to the cessation of Letters Patent which
had created the Bishop of Natal a " corporation
sole." This brought matters to a head. The
members of the Church Council had definitely to
make up their minds whether they did or did not
want a Bishop. If they did they would be bound
to support the Bill. If they did not, they would
have to show their hand by opposing the Bill.
And in that case the Bishop felt pretty sure that
they would have the colony, and even the majority
of their own constituents, against them. There
followed a series of stormy meetings of the Church
Council, held sometimes in Durban and sometimes
in Pietermaritzburg— the two parties within the
Council (which we may call the Moderates and
the Extremists) being pretty equally balanced.
At last, on May 2, 1894, after a whole day's dis-
cussion, an amendment to a resolution approv-
192 South Africa
Rejected. jnrr the Bill was carried by fourteen votes to
eleven. This amendment simply postponed all
consideration of the Bill in consequence of the
Bishop's refusal to sign the declaration. It was
a victory for the Extremists, who then rose to
leave the meeting with much jubilation. At this
point, however, the Bishop intervened to explain
the position. He thanked those members who
had by their words and votes striven for peace.
He explained that the Bill was drafted in the
hope of settling once for all the question whether
he was or was not their Bishop, which at present
seemed (in their view) to depend on a chance
majority of the Church Council. The Bill, if
passed into law, would have enabled him to
provide for their wants in the matter of clergy.
And it would have justified him in administer-
ing the properties on the basis of Church of
England law. But he had no intention of
pressing the Bill unless he was assured of their
hearty support. The Bill being dropped, the
Bishop explained the position in which they
were left. " You have set aside your delegation
Appeal to ancj declined my services as Bishop. Nothing
congrega- J r °
tions. js furtiier from my thoughts than to intrude
where I am not wanted. I shall not, therefore,
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 193
attempt to act as your Bishop. But if your
clergy are loyal to the Mother Church and to the
Archbishop of Canterbury and to their Ordina-
tion vows, they will place themselves under the
Bishop appointed by his Grace with the licence
of the Queen. Further, any congregations who
object to be deprived of the services of the Bishop
and clergy, and of their connection through him
with the whole Church of England, have a way
open to them. They can, by formal vote of the
vestry, disown the action of the Church Council,
sever their connection with it by withdrawing
their delegates, and place themselves and the
appointment of their clergy in the hands of the
Bishop."
This declaration had the desired effect. Instead
of breaking up (as it was about to do when the
Bishop rose), the Church Council hastily decided
to adjourn till the following morning to consider
the Bishop's announcement. On the following day
the Church Council was reduced to the humiliat-
ing position of having to perform its own happy
dispatch by recommending the vestries to make
their own terms with the Bishop. Accordingly, ^'™s
withing a few weeks, all the vestries of the dis- council,
sentient churches had met and (encouraged by the
o
194 South Africa
unanimous advice of the newspaper press of the
colony) had passed resolutions disowning the
action of the Church Council, and placing them-
selves unconditionally in the hands of the Bishop.
The actual words of the resolution passed at
S. Peter's (Bishop Colenso's cathedral) were as
follows: — " That this vestry, having lost confidence
in the Church Council, and disowning the action
taken by that body at its last sitting, regards it as
no longer representing the feelings of this vestry,
and hereby places this church, the conduct of the
services, and the appointment of the clergy and
the control of its affairs, confidently and unreserv-
edly, in the hands of the Bishop."
vivendi153 From this time onward the Church Council
ceased to exist, and the work of reunion went
quietly forward. The curators carried out the
undertaking as to their contribution to the Bishop's
stipend, the deacon in charge of S. Peter's Cathe-
dral was, with the approval of the congregation,
removed, and Archdeacon Baines appointed In-
cumbent. Under his wise and affectionate pas-
torate the congregation finally threw in its lot
with the Church of the Province, appointing dele-
gates to the Synod. Two others of the dissentient
clergy were, with the approval of their congrega-
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 195
Paul's,
tions, removed, and the itinerary system, by which
one of their number had fomented disunion in
country places, was discontinued. The one con-
gregation that continued to give trouble was
S. Paul's, Durban. On its incumbency becoming g-Jgg
vacant the Bishop proposed to appoint Arch-
deacon Baines. In accordance with his promise
to the dissentient congregations, the Bishop did
not require from their clergy an assent to the Con-
stitution of the Province, but simply those sub-
scriptions which are required in the Church in
England ; so that, for instance, in the case of
S. Paul's, Durban, the archdeacon, in his capacity
of minister of that church, would have been sub-
servient to the law of the Church of England, and
to no other. But because, in his capacity as arch-
deacon, Mr. Baines had subscribed to the Constitu-
tion and Canons of the Province (just as the Bishop
himself had done), the congregation refused to
receive him. And again there was a dead-lock.
This was only relieved by the Bishop offering to
move to Durban for a year and undertake, with
the help of a curate, the incumbency himself. At
the end of that time the congregation willingly
accepted a clergyman who signed the Constitution,
even in his capacity of incumbent.
196
South Africa
Proposed
Court of
Appeal.
Still, the two congregations of S. Paul's and
S. Thomas's, Durban, had not yet followed the
example of S. Peter's in fully uniting with the
Church of the Province and sending representa-
tives to the Synod. The great stumbling-block,
always alleged, was the third proviso. The
Bishop had never held out any hopes of getting
that proviso repealed, for the reasons given above.
But he had consistently pointed out that that
proviso contained its own solution. For it fore-
shadowed the creation of a Court of Appeal
which would have made impossible what had
happened in Bishop Colenso's case, viz., the con-
demnation of a clergyman in South Africa with-
out appeal to the Mother Church. If the latent
promise contained in the third proviso of a Court
of Appeal in England could once be fulfilled, so
that the last word on faith and doctrine would
be said at Canterbury and not at Capetown,
the sting would be removed from the obnoxious
proviso.
On these lines of reform the Bishop concen-
ence, 1897. trate(j hLs energies. He went home to the Lam-
beth Conference of 1897 full of hope that the
urgent needs of the much-tried Church in Natal
would persuade the Bishops to agree to that which
Lambeth
Confer
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 197
was proposed on the agenda, viz., the creation
of a Court of Appeal (or, as it was called, a
Tribunal of Reference) for the whole Anglican
communion. Five days after landing in England,
however (Easter, 1897), the Bishop was laid low
with enteric and peritonitis, and for five months
(till long after the Lambeth Conference had con-
cluded its sittings) he lay between life and death.
It was a matter of acute disappointment to him to
hear that, chiefly owing to the misgivings of the
American Bishops, the proposal of a Tribunal of
Reference had been thrown out. However, the
Conference had not been altogether barren of
result as far as Natal affairs were concerned. It
had resolved that a " Consultative Body " should JJSbSS"
be created, and that the constitution of it should
be left in the hands of the Archbishop of Canter-
bury. Thus, for the first time, the Anglican
communion was to possess a central standing
committee. It occurred to the Bishop that this
Consultative Body might provide, for the time
being, that which was needed. For it was pos-
sible for the Provincial Synod of South Africa,
by its own canons, to make this Consultative
Body its Court of Appeal. But there were many
difficulties in the way— many preliminary ques-
198 South Africa
tions to be settled. Would the Consultative Body
agree to act in a judicial capacity ? Would the
Provincial Synod agree to do what might seem to be
going behind the Lambeth Conference, and obtain-
ing that which it had refused to grant ? And
finally, most important of all, would the dissentient
churches in Natal accept such a solution as a basis
of reunion ?
As to the last of these questions, the Bishop, on
his return to Natal, proceeded to call a joint meet-
ing of the vestries of S. Paul's and S. Thomas's,
and put to them the question, whether, in case
he should succeed in persuading the Provincial
Synod to create this Court of Appeal, and so take
the sting out of the third proviso, they would
accept the olive-branch and agree to complete re-
a basis of union. After a Ion"; debate the united vestries
Union. °
resolved by a majority of more than three to one
that they would do so. The two other questions
were complicated by the fact that a whole year
passed, and the Provincial Synod, which meets
only at intervals of five or six years, was at hand,
and nothing had been heard from the Archbishop
of Canterbury as to who were to be the members
of this Consultative Body. Till this was known
it was impossible to ask the Consultative Body
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 199
whether it would agree to act as a Court of
Appeal, and it was unlikely that the Provincial
Synod would agree to legislate in the dark, and
place themselves in the hands of a body which
was still, as far as its constitution was concerned,
an unknown factor. As only two months were
left before the meeting of the Provincial Synod
(in October, 1898), and it was too late for further
correspondence with the Archbishop, the Bishop
decided to make a rapid journey to England.
On his arrival at Capetown, en route for Eng- toWnfiand!
land, the Bishop found that the reply of the Arch-
bishop, for which he had waited a whole year, had
that day arrived. This announced that the Con-
sultative Body was to consist of the Archbishops
of Canterbury and York, of the Bishops of London,
Durham, and Winchester, of the Archbishop of
Armagh and the Primus of Scotland, of one
episcopal representative of each Colonial Province,
and one representative of Dioceses not organized
into Provinces. Owing to a terrible railway
accident, which had delayed the train for nine
hours, the Bishop had only five minutes to decide
whether to go back to Natal or to go on to
England, but he decided that it would be a great
reinforcement to his proposal if he were able to
200 South Africa
announce that the English Bishops who were
members of the Consultative Body approved of
his proposed canon. So he proceeded on his
voyage.
In a three weeks' visit he was able to secure the
warm approval in writing of all the English Bishops
whom the Archbishop had now appointed as mem-
bers of the Consultative Body. Armed with this
support he returned to Capetown, and after a long
Provincial and animated debate the Provincial Synod passed
1908. tlig new canon, with only three dissentients.
Telegrams of rejoicing flowed in from Natal, and
on the Bishop's return there the congregation of
S. Thomas's fulfilled their pledge and gave in
their final alliance to the Church of the Province,
appointing their delegates to the Diocesan Synod.
The congregation of S. Paul's, after long and
anxious meetings, finally went back upon their
undertaking, and professed to have discovered
new reasons against carrying out their promise to
unite. It was this resolution which largely con-
tributed to the Bishop's decision to resign. After
such a breach of faith it became increasingly diffi-
cult for the Bishop to build any fresh bridge by
which the congregation of S. Paul's could pass, with
any sort of grace, across the chasm which separated
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 201
them from the Province. But he knew that, in
case of his retirement, the next Bishop would not
occupy the sort of dual position which he had
held, but would be a Bishop of the Church of the
Province, pure and simple, and that the congrega-
tion of S. Paul's would have to make their choice
between accepting him and the organization of the
Province, or of losing at once the ministrations of
Bishop and incumbent, for it was clear that the
Vicar of S. Paul's would not remain at his post in
opposition to the new Bishop. It may be seen
from the letter published in Archbishop Benson's
Life (vol. ii, pp. 509-10) that he had not asked
the Bishop to remain permanently in Natal. He
had sent him out rather, as he said, as a Vicar-
apostolic than as a Colonial Bishop in the ordi-
nary sense, and he had mentioned seven years as
the period for which he wished the Bishop to
pledge himself, which period had now expired.
In January, 1901, therefore, the Bishop resigned Hamilton
his office and, according to his expectation, his ^.gfnness
namesake and former Archdeacon was appointed
as his successor, and he felt that the work could
not have been committed to safer or wiser or
kindlier hands. The new Bishop's consecration Bishop
r Baines.
took place in Capetown on August 4, 1901. The
202 South Africa
forecast already mentioned, as to what was likely
to happen at S. Paul's, Durban, was very soon
verified. Within a few months of the arrival of
the new Bishop the congregation had decided to
throw in its lot with the Church of the Province,
and it is now represented in the Diocesan Synod.
This important step may be said to have prac-
Reunion. tically completed the work of reunion. It is true
there was still one clergyman with a small follow-
ing in a little church near the docks at Durban
who remained aloof. But in this case the reasons
were mainly personal, neither of the Bishops having
seen their way to invite his co-operation.
One thing only remained to cement on the
material side the spiritual union thus accom-
plished. The legal difficulty as to the Church
The properties remained. We have seen that the
Property
question, trusteeship vested in the Bishop of Natal had
lapsed with Bishop Colenso's death, as the cor-
poration created by Letters Patent ceased with the
cessation of that method of appointing Colonial
Bishops, and the properties remained in the hands
of curators of the Court. And the Grahams-
town judgement continued to be a bar to the use
by the Church of the Province of these properties
held in trust " for the Church of England." The
Later Stages of Natal Controversy 203
case was very similar to that of the Free Church
of Scotland. In both cases certain constitutional
modifications were held so far to depart from the
original trusts as to invalidate the title of the main
body of the Church to properties which it had
previously enjoyed, and gave a control of those
properties to a comparatively insignificant body
out of all proportion to its size and importance.
In the case of Scotland, legislation has been
obtained, though even now it leaves the smaller
claimant with an undue share. In the case of
Natal, legislation was needed both to create a new
trustee and to declare the United Church to be
the " Cestui que Trust." With this object the
Bishop, on the advice of the Synod and with the
co-operation of certain leading laymen, introduced
a Bill into the Natal Parliament ; but outside
influences, which the few still remaining dissen-
tients in the Church were able to invoke, sufficed
to block its progress, and the attempt was, for the
time, abandoned. It cannot, however, be long
before the congregations whose churches are still
in the hands of the curators (such as S. Peter's,
Maritzburg, S. Paul's and S. Thomas's, Durban,
and a few others) and indeed Churchmen through-
out the diocese, will make their influence felt, and
204 South Africa
will ask the Natal Legislature to follow the pre-
cedent of the Imperial Parliament, in the matter
of the Scottish Churches, and to deliver them
from a state of things which materially hinders
their development. This might be done, not as
in the case of Scotland, by dividing the properties
between two Churches — for in Natal there is now
only one — but by a short Declaratory Act declar-
ing that the Church of the Province, the legal
decisions notwithstanding, is to be held to be
" the Church of England," as intended by the
Trust Deeds of the properties concerned.
Letter of Bp. Cotterill to Abp. Tait 205
APPENDIX B
Letter of Bishop Cotterill to
Archbishop Tait
|N the Life of Archbishop Tait by the present
r^ Archbishop of Canterbury (vol. i, p. 370 et
sea.), it will be seen that in the year 1866 Dr. Tait,
then Bishop of London, wrote a circular letter
to all the dignitaries of the Colonial Church
asking- their opinion on four points connected
with the relations of the Mother Church and her
Colonial daughters. The present Archbishop has
kindly allowed me to consult the replies to
these questions. The answer of Bishop Cotterill
of Grahamstown adds considerable force to the
argument which I have advanced in the text
against the practicability of that solution of the
problem which Lord Romilly suggested in his
famous judgement, viz., that Colonial Churchmen
should simply subscribe to the law of the Church
of England en bloc, and renounce all self-govern-
ment.
206 * South Africa
Bishop Cotterill writes : — " To form any correct
judgement of these questions it is necessary to
understand, what many English Churchmen, look-
ing at them from their own standing point, and
with experience formed under totally different
circumstances, wholly misapprehend — the peculiar
condition, requirements, and functions of the
English Church in the colonies, as distinguished
from those of the Established Church in England.
I speak, of course, primarily of the Church in
this colony : but in these things it does not seem
to differ materially from the Church in other
colonies, except where, as in the East and West
Indies, the Church has something of the nature
of an establishment. Generally, then, the eccle-
siastical law of England, not only has no force
here — in the Cape Colony, indeed, all the laws of
England have, by treaty, no force — but if it had,
it would for the most part be quite inapplicable.
In England it relates to matters which law itself
determines. The division of parishes, the status
and rights of the clergy, the limitation of their
duties, their appointment to cures and the condi-
tions under which they hold them, the tenure
and use of Church property, the offices and duties
of churchwardens, and other lay offices, the quali-
Letter of Bp. Cotterill to Abp. Tait , 207
fications and rights of parishioners, are matters
in which the State there makes full and distinct
provision, and the Sovereign's ecclesiastical law
is applicable to them. Here, on the contrary, no
provision is made by law ; it must be made, un-
less each Bishop should act on his own private
judgement, by the mutual consent and co-opera-
tion of all parties in the Church, through Diocesan
and other Synods. And in adapting English
laws and usages to our circumstances, however
desirous we may be of adhering strictly to English
precedents, and retaining, so to speak, the very
atmosphere of the Mother Church, yet not merely
from the fact of its being the Established Church
of the nation, whilst we are not, but also from
the different laws, customs, habits, and very
climate of the country, there must be consider-
able deviations from the original standard. Much
allowance, also, must be made for the different
temperament and feelings of men brought up
under political institutions and associations widely
differing from those which still exist in England,
and yet more widely from those which did exist,
when much of the English ecclesiastical system
was framed. . . . But not only in such matters,
but also in the more important one of the public
2o8 South Africa
prayer and services of our Church, we must adapt
the English rule to our own condition. Both
the express command of an Apostle, and . . .
the very spirit of our liturgy itself demands this
introduction of special prayers for the Govern-
ment of the colony ; and to suppose that, under
all circumstances, in all different countries and
climates, our duty to the Church of England
obliges us strictly to adhere to the letter of her
instructions would indeed be a serious impediment
to the true development of our Church system
throughout the British Empire. There must be
freedom within certain limits, if we are to be a
living and vigorous body, and not a stiffened and
helpless corpse. I would mention as matters
falling within my own experience, for which
modification in our Church services are required
here — the Government of the colony ; our mis-
sions among the heathen— in which considerable
deviations from the rule of the Church of England
are necessary — and the relations of the Church
and its members towards the heathen and cate-
chumens ; frequent droughts, for which the prayers
in our liturgy are often unsuitable and insufficient :
visitations of locusts, sickness among the cattle,
blight of the crops, etc. ; and, lastly, though
Letter of Bp. Cotterill to Abp. Tait 209
certainly not of less importance, the question of
the use of the Burial Service by a clergyman, in
a country in which there is no National Church,
and whose inhabitants are not assumed by the
law of the land to be members of the Church
or Christians at all. I have mentioned these
various points, as sufficient indications that, as
regards discipline, the Colonial Churches must
have some organization of their own, not identical
with that of the Church of England, however
intimately related to it, and closely connected
with it. And it is certain that two systems,
that of a legalized organization, such as that
of the Established Church of England, and that
which is formed by mutual consent in regard
to matters of Church discipline, cannot work
together in the colonies."
GENERAL INDEX
Abraham, Rev. C. T., 166.
Adeline, Duchess of Bed-
ford, 167.
Alexander, Rev. R., 153.
All Saints', 125.
All Saints' Sisters, 91.
Amagcaleka, 99.
Amangcina, 102.
Amangqika, 99.
Amandlambi, 99.
Amaqwati, 102.
Amiens, Peace of, 10.
Amsterdam, 143.
Annesdale, 141.
Annie, Mother, 154.
" Arabs," 134.
Archbishop of Canterbury,
62, 78,80, 87.
Armstrong, Bishop, 51, 96.
99.
Ascension, 159.
Astronomer Royal, 34.
Ayerst, Rev. W., 183.
Bacas, 123.
Badeley, Mr., 68.
Badnall, Archdeacon, 40,
66.
Baines, Bishop, 185, 195,
196, 201.
Bantus, 4, 15, 93-
Barnett-Clarke, 90.
Barolong, 116.
Barrow, Rev., 161.
Basutoland, 113, 116, 117.
Basutos, 4, 114, 126, 133.
Baynes, Bishop Hamilton,
184, etc.
Bechuanaland, 113, 117.
Bechuanas, 4, 150.
Beckett, Canon, 116.
Bell, Judge, 58.
Bembezi, 155.
Benson, Archbishop, 78, 177,
181, 182, 184, 193. 201.
Benson, Father, 91.
Bethlehem, 114.
Beaven, Archdeacon, 154,
i55-
Bevan, Canon, 117.
Blaauberg, 11.
Bleek, Dr., 67.
Bloemfontein, 27, 31, 46>
113, 114, 116.
Boers, 8, 20, 25, 29, 31,
41.
211
212
General Index
Boer War (First), 30, 145.
(Second), 31, 146, 163.
Boomplats, 41.
Booth, Dr., 134, 135.
Bousfield, Bishop, 145, etc.
Rev. W., 159.
British occupation, 10, 32.
British South African Com-
pany, 149.
Brown, Rev. A. B., 136.
Bryce, Mr., 6.
Buluwayo, 152-5.
Bulwer, 133.
Burdett-Coutts, Lady.37,74-
Burges, Canon, 134.
,, Rev. P. T., 130.
Burnley, Bishop of, 166.
Bushmen, 3.
Butler, Dean, 80.
„ Sir W., 31.
Butterworth, 125.
Button, Archdeacon, 125,
etc.
Cairns, Sir H., 68.
Caledon, 42.
Callaway, Bishop, 121, etc.
,, Rev. G., 129.
Cameron, Bishop, 112, 162.
Campbell, Rev., 41.
Carmichael, Father, 117.
Carter, Bishop, 137, 146.
Cathedral, Capetown, 32,
35. 41-
Cattle-killing mania, 100.
Cecile, Mother, 106, etc.
C.E.M.S., 148.
Cetewayo, 29.
Chamberlain, Archdeacon,
129.
Chandler, Bishop, 119.
Chater, Rev. J. G., 130.
Church Council (Natal), 61,
184, etc.
Claughton, Bishop, 52, 159,
161.
Clydesdale, 126, 127.
Coakes, Archdeacon, 129.
Colenso, Bishop, 50, etc.,
55, etc., 66, 79, 121, 136,
171, etc., 181.
Coles, Rev. V. S. S., 164.
Colley, Sir G., 30.
Colonial Bishoprics Fund,
36, 37. 74-
" Coloured people," 89.
Commission on Native
Affairs, 16, 20.
Community of the Resurrec-
tion, 147.
Congo, 161.
Convocation of Canterbury,
72, 77-
Connor, Judge, 81.
Cooke, Miss, 132.
Cornish, Bishop, 108.
Corrie, Bishop, 36.
Cotterill, Bishop, 52, etc.,
67, 96, 105, 173, 205, etc.
Cowley Fathers, 91, 129.
Cox, Rev. F. H., 80.
„ Sir G., 183.
General Index
213
Croghan, Archdeacon, 117.
Cronstadt, 114.
Darragh, Rev. J. T., 145.
Davidson, Rev., 40.
Davies, Canon, 137, 141.
Deacon, Rev. J., 117.
Delagoa Bay, 157.
Dias, B., 1.
Dingaan, 26.
Dinuzulu, 142.
Diocesan College, 46.
Discharged Prisoners' Aid
Society, 148.
Discipline, 118.
Dissentient Congregations,
88.
Dodd, Rev. D., 126.
Douglas, Dean, 63-66.
Douglas, Father, 117.
Douglas, Rev. H., 40.
Drakensberg, 4, 26, 46, 47,
123, 133-
Drakenstein, 7.
Dungwanas, 102.
Durban, 47, 133, 195, 196,
198, 200, 202.
D'Urban, Sir B., 24.
Dutch Church, 114, 138,
144.
Dutch East India Company,
8,9;
Dwane, 109, etc.
East Grinstead Sisters, 148.
Edinburgh, Bishop of, 105.
Education, 45, 93, 103, 106,
107, 108, 112, 131, 135,
153-
Ellison, Rev. D., 107.
Enhlonhlweni, 132.
Endhlozana, 143.
Enqabeni, 130.
Episcopal Synod, no, 162.
Erastianism, 72.
Eshowe, 141.
Esilutshane, 140.
Espin, Canon, 108, 113.
Essays and Reviews, 64.
Estcourt, 131.
Etalaneni, 140.
Etheridge, Rev. E. H., 153.
Ethiopian Movement, 109-
112, 162.
European Immigration, 5.
Farmer, Canon, 148.
Fauresmith, 114.
Finance, 104, 139, 146, 147.
Fingoes, 98-100, 123.
Francistown, 154.
Free Church of Scotland,
179, 180, 202.
French, Rev. A., 136.
Frere, Sir B., 29.
Fuller, Rev. L., 147.
Furse, Archdeacon, 164.
Fynn, T., 130.
Gama, Vasco da, 2.
Gaul, Bishop, 153-6.
Gazaland, 157.
2I4
General Index
Gcalekas, 123, 124.
German South Africa, 161.
G.F.S., 148.
Gibraltar, Bishop of, 166.
Gibson, Bishop, 89, 126, 161,
162.
Girls' High School, Gra-
hamstown, 10S.
Gladstone, 30, 36, 74.
Glasgow, Bishop of, 128,
156.
Glenelg, Lord, 24, 25.
Goodwin, Rev. W. A., 148.
Gordon, Rev. J., 125.
Graaf-Reinet, 9.
Grahamstown, 33-35>49~54>
96, i57-
Grant, Archdeacon, 49.
Gray, Bishop, 37, etc., 159,
171, etc.
Green, Rev. F., 131.
„ Rev. T. W., 126.
,, Dean, 41, etc., 61,
etc., 82, 131, 185.
Greenstock, Rev. W., 98, 104,
151-
Grey, Sir G., 96, 105.
Greytown, 133.
Griffiths, Rev., 32.
Griqualand, 113.
Griquas, 4, 116, 123.
Guyer, Rev. B., 93.
Gwelo, 154.
Hallowes, Rev. W. H., 139.
Hamlet, Rev. J., 164.
Harrismith, 114.
Herschel, 102.
Hicks, Bishop, 118.
Hlati, 138.
Hlatikulu, 143.
Holbech, Bishop, 160.
Holland, Canon S., 166.
Holmes, Bishop, 160.
Hornby, Bishop, 164.
„ Rev. P., 127.
Hottentots, 4.
Hough, Rev., 34.
Howley, Archbishop, 36, 39.
Huguenots, 7.
Hunyani, 155.
Indians, 5, 130, 134.
Ingwavuma, 140.
Inhambane, 157.
Intercolonial Exhibition,
103.
Isandhlwana, 136, 137, 142.
James, Bishop, 35.
Jameson Raid, 149, 150.
Japanese, 17.
Johannesburg, 2, 30, 147.
John II, 1.
Johnson, Dr., 127.
Johnson, Archdeacon, 137,
138.
Jones, Archbishop West, 87,
95-
Judicial Committee, 68.
Kafirs, 4, 44, 93, 98, 116.
General Index
215
Kafir Wars, 23.
Kaffraria, 105, ng, etc.
Karkloof, 134.
Kei River gg, 120, 123.
Keiskama Hoek, gg, 103,
104.
Kempthorne, Rev. R., i5g.
Key, Bishop, 102, 125, 127,
148.
Kimberley, 2, 30, 153.
Kingwilliamstown, 47, gg.
Knight Bruce, Bishop, 117-
119. 153-
Kok, Adam, 120.
Kokstad, 127.
Kreli, gg.
Kruger, President, 31, 118.
Kwamagwaza, 136, 140-
143-
Ladysmith, 132.
Lambeth Conference, 86,
195-
Laing's Nek, 30.
Lebombo, 131, 140, 156.
Lee, Bishop Prince, 66.
Letters Patent, 5g, 68-70,
81, 171, 172, 202.
Lightfoot, Archdeacon, 89,
etc.
Lincoln case, 78, 177.
Livingstone, Dr., 53.
Lobengula, 149, etc.
Loch, Sir H., 163.
London Missionary Society,
152.
Long v. Bishop of Cape-
town, 58, 188.
Lourenco Marques, 157.
Lushington, Dr., 63.
Lydenberg, 157.
Mabaso, Rev. S., 133.
Mackenzie, Bishop, 53, 136.
Macrorie, Bishop, 80-82,
181, etc.
Madeira, 40.
Maitland, 93.
Majuba, 30.
Makalekas, 150.
Malays, 5, 44, 92.
Mallandaine, Miss, 142.
Malmsbury, 95.
Malutsuanyane, River, 118.
Mangwendi, 155.
Masham, Rev. C, 158.
Markham, Rev. B., 133.
Martyn, Rev. H., 11.
Maseru, 118.
Mashonaland, 108, 148, 152.
Mashonas, 4, 149.
Masiza, Rev., 124, 129.
Matabele, 4.
Matabeleland, 118, 149, etc.
Matatiela, 126.
Maud, Rev. J. P., 164.
Maurice, Rev. F. D., 122.
Mbabane, 144.
McKenzie, Bishop, 136, 137,
157-
Melmoth, 140.
Melville, 42.
2l6
General Index
Mercer, Canon, 143.
Merriman, Bishop, 40, 45,
49, 66, 98, 99, 105, 173.
Merriman v. Williams, 173,
etc.
Methodist Episcopal
Church, 109.
Milner, Lord, 22.
Mission of Help, 156, 163,
etc.
Modderpoort, 116.
Mohale's Hoek, 117.
Mohammedans, 41, 44, 91,
134-
Moodie, Mr., 46.
Moshesh, 114, etc.
Mossel Bay, 42.
Mothers' Union, 148.
Mowbray, 58, 93.
Mozambique, 2.
Mpondomisi, 102, 126.
Mullins, Canon, 98, 104,
108.
Mzamo, Rev. D., 133.
Rev. W., 132.
Namaqualand, 4.
Napoleon, 10.
Natal, 2, 26, 27, 46-49,
50-54, 68, 130-136,
171-204.
Newman, Rev., 41.
Nixon, Bishop, 36.
Nkandhla, 140.
Nongoma, 142.
Nqutu, 140.
Nullathamby, Rev. J., 136.
Nxumalo, Rev. O., 142.
Orange, Prince of, 10.
Orange River, 26, 27, 113.
Osutu, 142.
Page, Father, 92.
Panda, 47.
Payne-Smith, Miss, 135.
Pellatt, Miss, 92.
Pelly, Rev. D. R., 153.
Penhalonga, 153, 154.
Pennefather, Colonel,
149.
Pennington, Canon, 133.
Pentateuch, 62.
Philippolis, 116.
Phillimore, Sir R., 68.
Pietermaritzburg, 47,
131-
Piet Retief, 143.
Pigmies, 3.
Pitsani, 150.
Polela, 133.
Polygamy, 61.
Pondoland, 124-127.
Pondos, 123.
Port Elizabeth, 42.
Portuguese, 2, 3, 17.
Potchefstroom, 145-147.
Powell, Bishop, 156.
,, Father, 92.
Pretoria, 144, etc.
Privy Council, 56-59, 68,
73-78, 80, 81, 173, etc.
General Index
217
Provincial Synod, 82-88,
no, 163.
Puller, Father, 91, 129.
Quakers, 121.
Race conflicts, 3, 12, 15, 20,
23, 30.
Radebe, Rev. R., 132.
Railway Mission, 107, 146.
Reading, Rev. M. A., 117.
Reddesberg, 114.
Retief, 26.
Rhodes, Cecil, 148, 153.
Rhodesia, 153.
Richardson, Rev. W., 144.
Rinderpest, 151.
Roach, Archdeacon, 141.
Robben Island, 92.
Roberts, Archdeacon, 147.
Robertson, Rev. R., 136,
141.
Rolls Court, 74, etc.
Romilly, Lord, 74, 75, 176,
205.
Rondebosch, 35.
Rorke's Drift, 137, 138.
Rosettenville, 148.
Rusape, 155.
S. Aidan's, 135.
S. Alban's, 126.
,, ,, College, Maritz-
burg, 131, 148.
S. Andrew's, 124.
„ „ College, 108.
S. Augustine's, 126.
S. Barnabas', 127.
S. Bede's, 131.
S. Christopher's, 158,
S. Columba's Home, 92.
S. Cuthbert's, 129.
S. Helena, 39, 50, 53, 158-
160.
S. John's, 99,
,, ,, Diocese, 119, etc.
,, ,, River, 124.
S. Luke's, 99.
S. Mark's, 99.
S. Matthew's, 99.
S. Monica, 154.
S. Paul's, Durban, 195, 196,
198, 200, 203.
S. Paul's Hostel, 112.
S. Peter's, 125.
S. Thomas's, 196, 198,
200, 201-203.
Salisbury, 154, 155.
Salt River, 93.
Sandilli, 99.
Saunders, Sir C, 137.
Scottish Church, 106, 119.
Sekubu, 117.
Sekukuni, 28, 145.
Selukwe, 154.
Shepstone, J., 49.
„ Sir T., 29, 49,
184-186.
Simond, 7.
Simonstown, 93.
Sisterhoods, 106.
Sladen, Rev. L., 164.
2l8
General Index
Society of Sacred Mission,
117.
Somerset, Lord C, 33.
Slavery, 25.
Smith, Brother, 153.
Smith, Canon, 135.
Smithfield, 1 14.
Smith, Sir Harry, 27, 41.
Smyth, Bishop, 157.
South African College, 45,
46.
S.P.C.K., 37, 113, 153.
S.P.G., 33, 64, 97, 105, 121,
135-138, 152, 153, 158.
162.
Spring Vale, 122, 123.
Stadtholder, 10, 11.
Stanley, 3.
Stellenbosch. 7, 43.
Stenson, Rev. E. W., 117.
Strachan, Mr., 127.
Sumner, Archbishop, 62.
Sunday River, 42.
Supreme Court, 81.
Sutton, Dr., 127.
Swazies, 142.
Swaziland, 144.
Swellendam, 9.
Sydenham, 135.
Synods, 60.
Taal, 4.
Taberer, Rev. C, 104.
Tait, Archbishop, 65, 171,
205.
Tembus, 102.
Temple, Archdeacon, 145.
Thaba 'Nchu, 116.
Third Proviso, 79, 84, 174-
177, J95-
Thirlwall, Bishop, 65, 66.
Thlotsi Heights, 116, etc.
Thompson, Rev. H., 131.
Thomson, Archbishop, 65.
Todd, Rev. J. C, 185.
Transkei, 99, 102.
Transvaal, 22, 29, 31, 144,
etc.
Trek, Great, 25, 26.
Trial of Bishop Colenso,
66, etc.
Tristan da Cunha, 159, 160.
Troughton, Canon, 131.
Tshaka, 26.
Tshashus, 102.
Turner, Bishop, 35.
Twells, Bishop, 67, 114.
Umguza, 155.
Umhlakaza, 100.
Umkomazi, River, 48, 122.
Umtali, 153-5-
Umtamvuma, 123.
Umtata, 124-6, 135.
Umzimkulu, 48.
Universities' Mission, 52,
53, 136.
Upcher, Archdeacon, 155.
U.S.A., 109.
Utrecht, 139.
Vaal, River, 26, 27.
General Index
219
Vacillation of Policy, 21,
Van Riebeek, 6,
Vedamuttu, Rev. S. P., 136.
Victoria, 154, 155.
Vine, Sergt. -Major, 144.
Vryheid, 140.
Vyvyan, Bishop, 137.
Waggett, Father, 92.
Walfish Bay, 161.
Walters, Dr., 142.
Wantage Sisters, 148.
Waters, Archdeacon, 9S,
129.
,, Canon, 129.
Watkins, Rev. W. U., 91.
Webb, Bishop, 106-108,
116, etc.
Weenen, 26.
Weigall, Canon, 117.
Welby, Bishop, 159.
Wesleyans, 127.
West, Rev. E. C, 113.
White, Rev., 45, 46.
Widdicombe, Rev., 116.
Wilberforce, Bishop, 51,
62, 171.
Wilkinson, Bishop G. H.,
163, 166, 167.
Wilkinson, Bishop T. E.,
136, 156.
Williams, Bishop, 128.
Williams, Dean, 173.
Wills, Rev. J. H., 144.
Wilson, Bishop Daniel,
35-
Winburg, 114.
Witwatersrand, 30, 144.
Woodman, Rev. T., 117.
Woodstock, 93.
Wreningham, 155.
Wright, Rev. W., 33, 34.
Wylant, 7.
Wynberg, 34, 35.
Xosa, 101.
Zambesi, 52, 54, 121, 136,
150, 154-
Zeeman, Rev., 95.
Zimbabwye, 2.
Zonnebloem, 54, 93.
Zululand, 136, 157.
Zulus, 4, 26, 93, 133.
Zulu War, 29, 136, 145.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 English Church History in South Africa." Hewitt. (Juta.)
Impressions of South Africa." J)ryce. (Macmillan.) 6/-
1 Sketches of Church Work and Life in Diocese of Capetown."
^Bishop Qibson. (South African Electric Co., Capetown.)
Reminiscences of the Pondomisi War of 1880, {T)ishop Qibion.
(South African Electric Co., Capetown.)
'S.P.G. Digest."
' S.P.G. Historical Sketches of each Diocese."
' Life of Archbishop Benson " (Vol. II. chap ix).
1 Natal. The Land and its Story." Russell. (Davis.)
' The Transvaal as a Mission-Field." Farmer. 2/6.
1 South African Provincial Church Directory." Wood.
Printing Co.)
' Romance of a South African Mission." Fuller
6d. net.
' In the Lesuto." Widdicombe. (S.P.C.K.) 5/-
'The Bechuana of South Africa." Rev. Canon
(S.P.C.K.) bd.
' Sketches of Kafir Life." Callaway.
' Between Capetown and Loanda.
Gardner & Co.) 3/6 net.
'The Mission of Help." Tieo. A. W. T^obinson
Paper, I/- net ; cloth, 1/6 net.
(Church
(Jackson, Leeds.)
Crup, D.D.
(Mowbray.) 2/6 net.
Qishop Gibson. (Wells
(Longmans.)
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