Henry Thomas Purchas

“ There is not the deep feeling of devotion, nor is there the old sense of the overwhelming importance of divine things. Fewer of the labouring men are present than were seen in the old woolshed services.
Years pass by, and a village springs up amidst the farms. Small church-buildings rise almost side by side. The attendants of the schoolroom no longer worship together. It is the Cypress or Macrocarpa period, when trim hedges divide the gardens—and often the people—from one another. But the little church, with its cross and other sacred emblems, grows dear to some. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A terrific explosion of all the English ammunition in the lower block-house brings the fighting to an end, but the harbour is alive with boats laden with fugitive settlers. Here, are Henry Williams and the bishop conveying dead and wounded soldiers to Paihia, or to the man-of-war which lies at anchor in the background; there, are Maoris cheerfully helping their late enemies to save their household goods. But what are these English doing? Their warship begins to fire at the town, and especially at the church behind which the wounded are lying! No one is hurt, it is true ”

“ Here the North Island far outstrips the South. There are those who decry the Sunday school with its limited hours and its often untrained teachers, but the devotion of these voluntary workers is one of the brightest features of the church life of to-day; while the results of their labours—could they be really measured—would probably astonish the gainsayer. That the ethical ideals of the community are what they are, and that the moral standard achieved is what it is, must surely be largely due to the simple elements of Christian faith and duty which are inculcated in the Sunday school. ”

“ At any rate Hongi began now to disclose his purposes: "Do not go to England," he said to Hinaki at Marsden's table; "you will surely be ill there. Better go home and see to your defences. I shall come to visit you before long." All the presents which the great people in England had showered upon him (excepting, of course, the suit of armour) he now bartered for muskets and powder. A legend of his race told how when the Maoris came from Hawaiki they were followed by an invisible canoe in which sat the figure of Death. ”

“ Watts-Ditchfield, the Church of England Men's Society has taken firm root among us. Slowly but surely the supreme lesson of service is being learnt: the old type of layman who supported the Church as an honourable part of the State fabric, and as a barrier against revolution, is passing away before the newer type of enthusiastic worker, who feels the call of Christ to share in labour and sacrifice for the brotherhood and for the world.
The beginning of our history found New Zealand waiting for the coming of a Christian missionary. ”

“ Her own efforts to alter economic laws had not been successful; Marsden, Selwyn, and Godley had found the spirit of individualism too strong for them: was it not clear that the Christian's duty was to concentrate his efforts upon the development of unselfish character in both capitalist and worker; to try to hold the classes together by upholding the sacred character of the State, and the solemn responsibility of each individual for the right use of whatever property or cleverness he might possess; to warn against the dangers of wealth and also against the greed for its possession ”

“ Undoubtedly the prestige of the white man's civilisation gave a valuable leverage at first, as in the notable case of Ruatara. Undoubtedly also, many of the common people were simply swept along by the current when once it grew strong enough to make itself felt. But the earliest real converts were old men, delicate girls, consumptive lads, and wretched slaves, whose hearts were caught not by axes and blankets, but by the message of a Father's love and of a home beyond the stars. ”

“ As Bishop Selwyn put it long afterwards: "There was something more touching in the origin of that constitution than persons are generally aware of. The first draft of the present constitution was drawn by Sir George Grey on a sick bed at Taranaki; and it was the fruit of those feelings which come upon the mind in sickness, when a man sets aside thoughts of government and the cares of this world, and knows, as a Christian man, that he has something better to think of than the perishable things of this life. ”

“ Up every river valley the news was passed that the Maori had at last turned on the pakeha, and had beaten him in open fight. The crafty Rauparaha, fearing a terrific act of vengeance on the part of the white men, resolved to forestall any such danger by driving them out of the country. He felt certain of his own Ngatitoas, but between them and Wellington lay Waikanae, where Hadfield's influence was strong, and where Wiremu Kingi, the father-in-law of Ripahau, was chief. ”

“ The law of unity is the essence of its strength, its purity, and its holiness.
—Bishop Selwyn.
"The urgent necessity of mutual communion for preservation of our unity ... maketh it requisite that the Church of God here on earth have her laws." So wrote the judicious Hooker in that immortal work which came to Bishop Selwyn as a legacy from his great predecessor, Samuel Marsden. The bishop himself was well aware of this necessity. We have seen how he tried to bind the missionaries to himself by calling them together in synods in 1844 and in 1847. ”

“ The necessity for more ordinations was the chief reason why the Church Missionary Society so earnestly advocated an increase of bishops. The establishment of the diocese of Waiapu certainly justified their hope to a large extent, for not only did Bishop Williams admit a number of Maoris to the ministry, but his example encouraged Selwyn himself to go forward more boldly. His reluctance was due partly to sad experience, partly to his own high ideals; and it would seem to afford another instance of the truth which his career so often exemplified, "The best is the enemy of the good." ”

“ We must not seek to anticipate the season of rest. It is a blessed thing to work in the Lord's vineyard; it is cowardly and ungenerous to wish to shorten our time of service in the army of Christ. But, oh! the thought that a time will come, if our faith fail not, when we shall feel the burden of anxieties and trials and disappointments and bereavements taken away, and the continued warfare against sin all ended and for ever: the thought of this cannot surely be given us for naught! ”

“ For the present juncture the old words approve themselves as the most fitting: "Keep, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual mercy; and, because the frailty of man without Thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation, through Jesus Christ our Lord." ”

“ If the blood of the murderer could not be had, then someone else's blood must be shed—someone, too, of equal rank and dignity. Hongi could not bring himself to accept the new message of peace, and his dissatisfaction was, it would seem, fanned by Kendall, who had ambitions of his own to serve. The other settlers, fearing to lose the protection of Hongi's restraining hand, did their utmost to dissuade him from taking the journey, but in vain. "I shall die," said the chief, "if I do not go." ”

“ The settlement was to have a bishop, but he was to have nothing in common with the occupant of an ordinary "vulgar" colonial see. He was to be a scholarly and well-endowed prelate, with a small and compact diocese in which there should be no dissenters, but where an aristocratic gentry and a loyal peasantry should be watched over by a numerous and well-paid clergy. To attract such a class there must be not only fertile land and easy means of communication, but also good churches and good schools. Churches and schools must therefore be provided, and that on a generous scale. ”

“ Marsden at once went to him and found in the miserable stranger the nephew of his old acquaintance Te Pahi. Kindness and attention soon had their effect; the health of the invalid rapidly improved; the remembrance of past injuries melted away before the sunshine of Christian love; and, before the ship reached Australia, Ruatara was once again a man, and now almost a Christian.
This meeting was momentous in its results. "Mr. Marsden and Ruatara," as Carleton says, "were each necessary to the other; each furnished means without which the labour of his associate must have been thrown away. ”

“ Meanwhile, the veteran Bishop Hadfield had laid down both the bishopric of Wellington and the primacy in 1893. The delicate youth who had left Oxford in 1837, who had been the first in Australia to be ordained to the diaconate, and the first in New Zealand to receive the office of the priesthood, had rallied again and again from what had seemed the bed of death, and had outlived most of those with whom he began his work. ”

“ Yet where could be found a better subject for a memoir than Bishop Hadfield? Bishop William Williams also should surely have his biography, but the materials for such a book seem to have been used as fuel by the British soldiers during the siege of Waerenga-a-hika in 1868. Archdeacons Brown and Maunsell also deserve that their life histories should be told. The founders of Canterbury should not be allowed to pass into oblivion. ”

“ Nothing must be done which could in any way infringe upon the prerogatives of the Crown. Only in the possible case of a separation of Church and State in England, or in the case of a political separation of New Zealand from the Mother Country, could there be any liberty in these all-important points. Then the liberty might be absolute and complete.
But there was one man in New Zealand who saw farther than the rest. Godley would have none of the Grey scheme, and he persuaded his fellow churchmen of Canterbury to put forth a protest against it. ”

“ The nights were spent on various islands, which they found to be all deserted, though everywhere they could see the remains of fortifications and villages. Where now the merchants of Auckland have their summer residences, there were no living beings to share the morning devotions of the missionaries, save the birds with their melodious songs. On the site of the Mokoia pa, where Marsden had so often received the hospitality of Hinaki, they could see nothing but fern and fuchsia bushes, with here and there an axe-cloven skull. ”

“ Such marks of power could not fail to tell upon a shrewd people like the Maoris. The most intelligent of the chiefs, without at all understanding the truths of Christianity, were at once attracted by these signs of mechanical and intellectual superiority. We have seen how much the mission was indebted to the three great generals of New Zealand—Hongi in the north, Waharoa in the centre, and Rauparaha in the south—for the main steps of its advance. ”

“ In readiness to receive new ideas, and in the power to assimilate them, he and his kinsmen, Ruatara and Hongi, were striking examples of the height to which the Maori race could attain. Hardly had the century dawned which was to bring New Zealand within the circle of the Christian world, when word came to Te Pahi of the wonders to be seen at Norfolk Island, and of the friendly nature of its governor, Captain King. To test for himself the truth of these tidings, the chief, with his four sons, set forth (about 1803) across the sea to the great convict station. ”

“ Auckland seems to have devised the idea of uniting bishop, clergy, and laity in one chamber. Christchurch had lost its man of insight through Godley's departure, and it now swung round into a merely conservative position. It joined with the rest of the settlements in insisting upon the principle of the Grey scheme, by which the Prayer Book and Authorised Version of the Bible were declared to be outside the powers of any New Zealand synod. ”

“ We had brought no provisions with us, supposing Maramarua to be nearer to the coast; and after long waiting to see the mind of the taua and how things would be, we at last were about to lie down to try to sleep, to forget our hunger, lodging, and society. Now, it is an established custom in New Zealand never to begin or end the day without prayer, and though in this wretched predicament, Mr. Fairburn proposed that we should thus close the day. The armed men were sitting moodily by the fires, when we signified our wish to our people, who were all Christians. ”

“ Others beside bishop and missionaries were stirred with indignation. "The affair at Taranaki," wrote the bishop, "was announced by the government, and looked upon by the natives, as the beginning of a new policy for the whole of New Zealand." As such it was received by the king-maker in the north. Hitherto there had been little sympathy between himself and the Taranaki chief. Now they began to draw together. Patriotism and religion formed a continually strengthening bond. "It was this that disquieted the heart of Te Rangitaake," wrote Tamihana, "his church being burnt with fire." ”