BY LOUISE CREIGHTON AUTHOR OF “LIFE AND LETTERS OF MANDELL CREIGHTON, D.D.” ETC., ETC. “ Here am I, send me. ” WITH 2 MAPS LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. 4 NEW YORK, TORONTO BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 1923 Made in Great Britain...

The work that Bishop Selwyn did in laying the foundations of the Church in New Zealand, and his views as to Church organization have special lessons to teach us in these days. It is to bring these lessons to the notice of those who are unable to study larger biographies that this short life has been written. No one can write about Bishop Selwyn without expressing great indebtedness to the Rev. H. W. Tucker whose Memoir of the Bishop, founded on the letters and papers entrusted to him by the Bish

The life of George Augustus Selwyn has many lessons to teach us. In the position which he was called upon to fill, there were exceptional opportunities which his own natural gifts enabled him to meet in an exceptional way. He showed himself to be not only a devoted missionary and a capable organizer, but a statesman, able to grasp a big situation and to lay wise foundations for the future. As a missionary bishop, he had the care of a specially virile and promising race in the Maoris, and of the

George Augustus Selwyn had all the advantages of birth and education which would have made a brilliant career in England easy for him. He came of a distinguished family, and his father, a successful lawyer, was in a position to give him every educational advantage. Born in 1809, he was the second of four brothers, who all had brilliant school and college careers. His energy, his capacity for rule, his sympathy showed itself even when he was a boy. His sister says, “he was truly the family friend

Selwyn might speak of New Zealand as a land of promise, but he knew well that it had not yet emerged from barbarism. Its inhabitants, the Maoris, were a race splendidly gifted both physically and intellectually, but they were constantly involved in internecine warfare, tribe fighting against tribe, and all alike delighting to feast on the bodies of their captured foes. New Zealand had been discovered by Jasman, the Dutch navigator, in 1642, but no European had landed on the islands till Captain

Bishop Selwyn and his party left Plymouth on December 26th, 1841, in the Tomatin . The long voyage in a sailing vessel was spent in preparing for the work that was before them. To Selwyn’s great joy there was a Maori boy on board who could be used to teach him and his party the Maori language. Lady Martin thus describes the voyage: “We had a quiet, prosperous voyage in a small barque which would be thought very squeezy nowadays. We had none of the modern luxuries required in steamers—no fresh br

The Maori chiefs regarded the treaty of Waitangi as the Charter of their liberties, and in the opinion of Bishop Selwyn it was “highly beneficial to the people of New Zealand since it gave them the protection of the British Government and assured them ‘that no land would be taken from them which they were not willing to sell.’” But the treaty was obnoxious to the members of the New Zealand Company, since it was a continual hindrance to their plans for the development of the Colony. They were con

It will be remembered that through a clerical error, the Melanesian Islands had been included in Bishop Selwyn’s diocese. He did not forget this, but he believed that his first duty was to get to know New Zealand itself. When by his various journeys on land, on foot or on horseback, up the rivers in canoes, and round the coast in little sailing vessels, he had learned to know the work and needs of the Church in New Zealand, and had by a second Synod held in 1847 arranged for its organization, hi

As we consider in detail any portion of Bishop Selwyn’s varied work, we must never forget that behind the details of the moment, the great work needed for the future was ever present to his mind. Yet he was never lost in visionary schemes, details did not escape him, attention to them was one of the ways in which his great plans were made possible. All that he did, he saw in the light of the great call that he believed had come to him, to lay in New Zealand the foundations of a living Church, se

The primary object of Selwyn’s visit to England was to make arrangements for the organization of the Church in New Zealand. The result of his efforts in that direction has been told in the last chapter. But his visit to England was fruitful in other respects also. He had no intention of lingering there, and had written from his ship on the way to England to his friend, Rev. E. Coleridge: “Do not urge me to prolong my stay, but use your influence to get my work speedily done, and send me to my ow

A fortnight after Bishop Selwyn reached Auckland on his return from England, the Southern Cross , the new mission ship, arrived. She was first sighted on a very wet day, and as soon as the Bishop was sure it was her, he called Patteson to come with him to meet her. Patteson describes the scene: “I hurried on waterproofs knowing that we were in for some mudlarking. Off we went, lugged down a borrowed boat to the water. I took one oar, a Maori another, the Bishop steering. After twenty minutes pul

Bishop Selwyn had helped to make peace at Taranaki (New Plymouth) in 1855, but discontent continued to smoulder both amongst the Maoris and the Colonists. The English continued to be eager to acquire more land and not scrupulous enough as to the means used to acquire it. Disputes about title deeds and the right to certain bits of land were frequent. The Maoris were suspicious of the constant encroachments of the British power. They felt that by degrees their country was passing from them into fo

The discovery of gold in the Southern Island had brought such a rush of new settlers that it seemed necessary to divide the Diocese of Christchurch and form a new Diocese of Dunedin. All were agreed about this, but unfortunately a controversy arose as to the actual appointment of the new Bishop. Selwyn, eager to see someone appointed as quickly as possible, wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, with more definiteness than the Rural Deanery Board at Dunedin was prepared for. The Archbishop with