A History of the English Church in New Zealand Part 1

A History of the English Church in New Zealand.

by Henry Thomas Purchas.

PREFACE.

If asked why I took in hand a task of such difficulty and delicacy as that of writing a History of the Church in our Dominion, I can really find no more truthful answer than that of the schoolboy, "Please, Sir, I couldn't help it." From boyhood's days in the old country, when a copy of the Life of Marsden fell into my hands, I felt drawn to the subject; the reading of Selwyn's biography strengthened the attraction; the urging of friends in later years combined with my own inclinations; and thus the work was well on its way when the General Synod of 1913 committed it to my hands as a definite duty.

For the last quarter of a century the Church of this Dominion has indeed possessed a history by my honoured teacher, Dean Jacobs. That scholarly volume could hardly be bettered on the const.i.tutional side. In this department the Dean wrote as one who had taken no mean part in the events which he describes. His ecclesiastical learning and his judicial temper rendered him admirably qualified for the task. In working over the same ground I have perhaps been able to point out a few facts which he had missed or ignored, but on the whole I have left this part of the field to him. This is not a const.i.tutional history: it seeks rather to depict the general life of the Church, and the ideals which guided its leading figures.

The Dean's description of the missionary period is also an admirable piece of work, but he had not the advantage of the stores of material which are now available. Through the indefatigable enthusiasm of the late Dr. Hocken the journals of the early missionaries have been brought to this country, and are made available to the student. His comprehensive collection enables us to come into close touch with days which are already far distant from our own. Of course the historian must be guided by the principle, _summa sequi fastigia rerum_; but he cannot estimate aright the work of the heroic leaders and rulers of the Church unless he can follow the thoughts and careers of the less conspicuous agents--the humble missionary or catechist, the native convert or thinker.

In acknowledging my obligations to the late Dr. Hocken, I would wish to express my grat.i.tude to the authorities of the Dunedin Museum, where his library is kept; and also to my friend Archdeacon Woodthorpe, who kindly placed at my service the unpublished volume in which Dr. Hocken's researches into the life of Marsden are contained. For permission to consult the G.o.dley correspondence in the Christchurch Museum I have to thank the Board of Governors of Canterbury College; and for the loan of a rare and valuable pamphlet on the death of the Rev. C. S. Volkner I am greatly indebted to Mr. Alexander Turnbull, of Wellington. Archdeacon Fancourt, of the same city, has afforded me generous help in recovering some of the early history of the diocese he has so long served; while, in Auckland, the Rev. J. King Davis--a descendant of the two missionaries whose names he bears--has enabled me to identify the positions of some long forgotten _pas_, and has furnished valuable information on other points. Other correspondents, from the Bay of Islands to Otago, have a.s.sisted generously with their local knowledge.

Outside of New Zealand I have to acknowledge help from Mrs. Hobhouse, of Wells, and the Ven. Archdeacon Hobhouse, of Birmingham, the widow and son of the first Bishop of Nelson.

Many clergy have kindly acceded to my application for photographs of their churches. A fair number of these I have been able to use, and to all the senders I desire to express my thanks. For the view of the ruined church at Tamaki I am indebted to Miss Brookfield, of Auckland, and for the excellent representation of the scene at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi to Mr. A. F. McDonnell, of Dunedin. In the preparation of the MS. for the press I have been greatly a.s.sisted by the Rev. H. East, Vicar of Leithfield.

But the greatest help of all remains to be told. To the aged and venerable Bishop Leonard Williams this book owes more than I can estimate. Not only has he furnished me with abundant information from the stores of his own unique and first-hand knowledge, but, on many points, he has engaged in fresh and laborious research. Every chapter has been sent to him as soon as written, and has benefited immensely by his careful and judicial criticism. Without this thorough testing my book would be far more imperfect than it is.

It is due, however, to the bishop, as well as to my readers, to state emphatically that he is in no way responsible for the views expressed in this book. There are, in fact, a few points on which we do not quite agree. The intricacies of high policy or of mingled motive will never appeal in exactly the same way to different minds. My aim throughout has been to arrive at the simple truth, and I have often been driven to abandon long-cherished ideas by its imperative demand.

In the spelling of Maori names Bishop Williams' authority has always been followed except when a place is looked at from the pakeha or colonial point of view. Then it is spelt in the colonial manner. Readers may be glad to be warned against confusing Turanga (Poverty Bay) with Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty. Similarly, it may be well to call attention to the wide difference between Tamihana Te Waharoa and Tamihana Te Rauparaha. Both were notable men, but their characters were not alike, and they took opposite sides in the great war.

The scope of this book has not permitted me to trace the history of the Melanesian Mission, nor to deal with the island dependencies of our Dominion. Even within the limits of New Zealand itself the treatment of the later period may perhaps seem inadequate. But the events of the years 1850-1890 have been already covered to some extent in my book, "Bishop Harper and the Canterbury Settlement," while for the latest stage of all I have the pleasure of appending to this preface a valuable letter from the present Primate, whose high office and long experience enable him to speak with unique authority upon the life of the Church of to-day.

H. T. P.

Glenmark Vicarage, Canterbury, N.Z., March, 1914.

LETTER FROM THE MOST REVEREND THE PRIMATE.

Dear Canon Purchas--

In consideration of my long career as a church-worker in New Zealand, you have honoured me with a request to add to your forthcoming volume of the History of the Church here a short account of my impressions as to her life and progress since 1871, and also my ideas as to her prospects and the chief tasks which lie before her.

I think the most convenient form in which I could attempt to supply the need would be by addressing a letter to you embracing these topics, which letter, should you esteem it worthy, could be printed with your Preface.

In turning, then, to your first question, I have to premise that the life and progress of any inst.i.tution are very largely affected by attendant circ.u.mstances and surroundings for which perhaps the leaders of the inst.i.tution itself are not responsible. Thus, with reference to our Provincial Church at the period you mention, she was weakened by the loss of not a few of those upon whom she had leaned for counsel and stimulating influence. Bishops Hobhouse and Abraham, Sir William Martin and Mr. Swainson, besides other prominent churchmen, such as Sir George Arney, and others less known, speedily followed their great leader, Bishop Selwyn, to England, or were removed by other causes. Without any surrender to the weakness of a mere _laudator temporis acti_, I look back to the time of my arrival in New Zealand with a feeling that there were giants in the earth in those days. Many whom we have more recently lost were also with us then--men like Messrs. Acland and Hanmer and Maude and Sewell, Col. Haultain, Mr. Hunter-Brown, and, of course, Bishop Hadfield and Dean Jacobs. Many of these were men of marked ability, men who made the synod halls ring with their forcible utterances, men full of knowledge of the Church and love for her, full of self-sacrificing spirit and determination to make her a praise in the faithful guardian of our Church's influence, Primate Harper. The loss of such fathers of the Church has been felt in the interval under review, and could not but affect the life and progress of the Church. It is not for me to say anything of those by whom their places have been filled.

Another adverse circ.u.mstance which must be called to mind in such a review is the long period of commercial depression which followed a short period of fict.i.tious prosperity and inflated values. Misled by the apparently fair prospect of making money rapidly--of which prospect a shoal of interested persons sprang up to make the most--undertakings were entered upon on borrowed capital and properties were bought at prices which could not be realised upon them perhaps twenty years afterwards. The consequence of all this was a widespread desolation. My diocesan visitations were in those days largely made on horseback, and in a journey of perhaps many hundred miles I had to look upon stations and homesteads at which I had formerly been hospitably received, whether their owners belonged to our communion or not, either closed altogether or left in charge of a shepherd.

Many of the proprietors of these sheep stations had been liberal supporters of the Church, and their ruin spelt disaster to the authorities of the nearest clerical charge, if not also the weakness of diocesan inst.i.tutions. During those long, long years, diocesan management was a weariness indeed, and not the less so because it was so hard to keep up the courage even of our church-workers themselves. I am thankful to say that no organised charge within my own diocese was closed in that period, but it was manifestly impossible to subdivide districts and so to introduce additional clergy. Little else could be thought of than holding on.

By these circ.u.mstances, then, the life of the Church was affected and her progress hindered. New conditions were developed, and the rulers of the Church had to accept and provide for these new conditions. I am far from saying that the large displacement of the pastoral industry by the agricultural was a misfortune either to the country or the Church: as regards the latter, the large increase of the population upon the land has given the Church more scope for the exercise of her ministerial activities; but for vestries and church committees the work is harder, demanding, as it does, so much closer attention to details. In the old days one man might ride round the eight or ten stations within a district, and by collecting 10 to 20 from each would thus easily raise a large part of the stipend of the clergyman, and at the same time enjoy a pleasant visit to his friends. The collecting from a large number of scattered persons is a different matter, and means many workers and much patience. It is not unnatural, therefore, that this outlying work is avoided, and that the church officials rely too much upon the residents in towns and villages. This is a danger of the present, and needs close attention. A vestry easily becomes content so soon as in one way or another it has got together enough money wherewith to discharge its obligations; but there can be no free and elastic expansion unless the interest of all her members is enlisted by the Church, and each is willing to do his part in the establishment of the kingdom of Christ.

I think the progress of the Church of late years has been satisfactory.

We have a body of clergy who, in devotion to their work and ability for the performance of it, need not fear comparison with those of other countries, not excluding the average of the English clergy themselves; and I think it high time that that insulting enactment known as the "Colonial Clergy Act" was rescinded. It is an unworthy bar to full inter-communion between areas of the Church which profess to be at one.

As to our lay people I can only say that I often stand amazed at the willing and patient sacrifice they make of time and effort in the management of church affairs in synods, on vestries, and committees of every kind for the promotion of her work.

As to the future, the great task of the Church is, to my mind, the instruction both of the young clergy and the young laity as to the Divine Commission and real nature of the Church. Since union through the truth is the only method authorised by Holy Scripture, we must teach and teach and teach. That is the task of our divinity schools and of the clergy in preparing their candidates for confirmation: line upon line and precept upon precept, definite and clear instruction should be given so that the future heads of families may know and value their privileges, and the whole population will be impressed by the strength of our convictions.

I am afraid I have allowed my pen to run beyond the limits you had in view, but you must do what you think well with this letter, and believe me to remain,

Faithfully yours, S. T. DUNEDIN, Primate.

Bishopsgrove, January, 1914.

INTRODUCTION.

Beginning from Jerusalem.

--_Acts._

A commercial message of trifling import may now be flashed in a few minutes from Jerusalem to the Antipodes: the message of Christ's love took nearly eighteen centuries to make the journey. For a time, indeed, the advance was direct and swift, for before the third century after Christ a Church had established itself in South India. But there the missionary impulse failed. Had the first rate of progress been maintained, the message would have reached our sh.o.r.es a whole millennium before it actually arrived.

But what would have been then its form and content? Had it made its way from island to island, pa.s.sing through the minds of Malay, Papuan, or Melanesian on its pa.s.sage, how much of its original purity would have been preserved? And who would have been here to receive it? Possibly, only the moa and the apteryx. Who knows?

These considerations enable us to look with less regret upon the check which the Christian message received after its first rapid advance. The rise of Mohammedanism in the sixth century drove the faith of Christ from Asia and from Africa, but it kept it "white." It threw a barrier across the old road which led from Jerusalem to the Antipodes, but the barrier enabled preparation to be made on either side for a grander and more fruitful intercourse. On the south of the Islamic empire the migrations of the peoples brought to our islands the Maori race, who made them their permanent home. On the north, the Christian faith took firm hold of the maritime nations of Europe, from whom the missionaries of the future were to spring.

The capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1452 may be taken as the turning point. It closed more firmly than ever the land-route to the south, but the libraries of this great city, in which was preserved nearly all that remained of ancient learning, were scattered by the captors, and their contents carried far and wide. New Testament ma.n.u.scripts awakened fresh study in the western world, and led to a cleansing and quickening of religion; narratives of old Greek explorers made men impatient of the barrier which blocked them from the lands which the ancients had known, and thus drove them to seek new routes by sea.

Marvellous was the energy which now awoke. By 1492 Columbus had crossed the Atlantic, and Vasco da Gama, having rounded the African continent, had reached India by an ocean road which had nothing to fear from the Mussulman power.

Two routes, in fact, had now been opened, for not only did the Portuguese follow up da Gama's discoveries in the Indian Ocean, but the Spaniards from the American side soon entered the Pacific. But neither of these nations quite reached our distant islands. Their s.h.i.+ps were swept from the sea in the seventeenth century by the Dutch, whose eastern capital was Batavia. From this port there started in 1642 a small expedition of two s.h.i.+ps under the command of Abel Tasman. Heading his journal with the words, "May the Almighty G.o.d give His blessing to this voyage," the courageous Hollander went forth, and, sailing round the Australian continent, struck boldly across the sea which now bears his name. On December 16th the mountainous coast of our South Island rose before him, and what we may now call New Zealand was seen by European eyes. The ferocity of the inhabitants prevented the explorer from landing on its sh.o.r.es, but his expedition spent some weeks along the coast. His austere Calvinism prevented Tasman from observing in any special manner the festival of Christmas, but as a Rhinelander he could not forget the "Three Kings of Cologne," whom legend had a.s.sociated with the Magi of the Gospels. On Twelfth Night his s.h.i.+ps were abreast of the small island which lies at the extreme north of the country, and "this island," wrote Tasman, "we named Drie Koningen Eyland (i.e., Three Kings Island), on account of this being the day of Epiphany."

Here then, at last, was a spot of New Zealand soil to which a name was attached which told of something Christian. The name stood alone as yet, but it contained a promise of the time when the Gentile tribes should come to Christ's light, and their kings to the brightness of His rising.

For nearly a century and a half the startled Maoris treasured the memory of the white-winged s.h.i.+ps of the Hollander, before they saw any others like them. At length, in 1769, there appeared the expedition of Captain Cook. England had now wrested from the Dutch the sovereignty of the seas, and Cook was looking for the "New Zealand" which appeared on the Dutch maps, but which no living European had ever seen. More tactful and more fortunate than his forerunner, Cook was able to open a communication with the islanders and to conciliate their good-will.

Not yet, however, was England prepared to follow up the lead thus given.

Not until her defeat by the American colonists, which closed the "New World" against her convicts, did Britain's statesmen bethink them of the still newer world which had been made known by the explorer. In 1787 an expedition went forth from England--not indeed to New Zealand, but--to South-east Australia, where a penal colony was established at Port Jackson. A strange and repulsive spectacle the enterprise presented, yet these convict s.h.i.+ps were the instruments for carrying on the message which had been sent out from Jerusalem by apostolic bearers. "Did G.o.d send an army of pious Christians to prepare His way in the wilderness?"

asked Samuel Marsden, the second chaplain of this colony. "Did He establish a colony in New South Wales for the advancement of His glory and the salvation of the heathen nations in those distant parts of the globe by men of character and principle? On the contrary, He takes men from the dregs of society, the sweepings of gaols, hulks, and prisons.

Men who had forfeited their lives to the laws of their country, He gives them their lives for a prey, and sends them forth to make a way for His chosen, for them that should bring glad tidings of good things. How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!"

Advance and retreat; check and recovery; failure of methods which seemed direct and divine; compensating success through agencies that looked hostile; the winds of the Spirit blowing where they list--none able to tell beforehand whence they are coming or whither they will go: such are the outstanding features of the long journey of the Christian faith across the globe; such will be found to mark its history when established in this land.

First Period.