ALL SAINTS’ CHURCH DIAMOND JUBILEE.

Hokitika Guardian, 31 October 1925, Page 2

ALL SAINTS’ CHURCH DIAMOND JUBILEE.

EARLY CHURCH HISTORY. (From “The Romance of Westland.”)

11l 1860, the Anglican Bishop of Christchurch, Bishop Harper, personally visited the West Coast and initiated a branch of the Anglican Church, supplying officiating clergymen until the arrival of his soil, the Venerable Archdeacon Harper, in October, 18G6. Westland was established as an Archdeaconry, and a Vicarage was built in Hokitika. The Church of All Saints was built at that time, and opened for divine service oil October 21st, ]Bfifi, hy tlie Archdeacon who at once commenced his business organisation of the district. Chinees were erected at Kaniori. Greynionth. Ross. Stafford, and Waimen (in that order). The Sunday School, in 1873, numbered about 220 scholars and the day school ISO.

In Archdeacon Harper’s hook, “Letters from X'ew Zealand” there is an excellent sketch, of the conditions under which that excellent body of men. the first preachers of the Gospel in AVesthind, lived and laboured:

“Oetolior (itli, 1866. s.s. Tarnrua. a steamer of 2,000 tons, full of miners and others, bound For Westland, men sleeping in every possible corner; another steamer not far off. the Alhambra. as full as we arc. We are lying at anchor, after a passage of 1.200 miles from Melbourne, off the West Coast of the Southern Island of New Zealand, waiting for a tug steamer to take passengers ashore.” “A lovely spring morning, and Ih'foro us a panorama of coast lino more than a hundred miles in view, slightly incurving at either end, one unbroken mass of forest which flows down to the top of the low cl id's which flank tho beach. Between us and the beach, several lines of surf through which the narrow bar entrance to a river is just visible, and on tbe shore a clearing in the forest, with wooden buildings, tents, and corrugated iron structures which form the metropolis of the new El Dorado, named in Maori, Hokitika.”

“So this i.s the place you are going to.” said a fellow passenger to me. as wo stood admiring the view, “are you going to land?” ‘‘No,” said I. ' I must go on in this boat to Christchurch to report myself, and then return hy coach across those mountains l,v a road which I hear has iust been opened.” “Well.” said he. “1 am going ashore for a few hours on business, ami will renort on my return what T have seen.” Rvesontly lie returned. “I’ll give von a year or two there at the most, such a place and such a crowd. One long, narrow, irregular street, over a mile in length, of wooden houses, built right on the sandy beach, just clear of huge trees, some fallen; its suburbs a wilderness of gigantic stumps; crowds of men. rough, and rowdy:’ their talk of gold, deep and shallow sinking, new rushes, waterraces and sluicing. Eighty so-called hotels in one street, strings of packhorses heavily laden, no vehicles, for there are only narrow paths through tho forest, a few coaches which run up and down the bench. Forty thousand, they sav, are at work within a few miles of the town, getting gold bv the handfuls; every one evidently flush of money, ami yet 1 didn’t see a sign of any sort of weapon or revolver, I’jul onlv a. few well set-up mounted police. Talk was running on tlie capture and trial of a gang of Australian bushrangers. who had been lurking in tho forest some way north of Hokitika, and are said to have murdered foully some thirty diggers for the sake of their gold. A’es. a beautiful place to look at from this deck, but—l give you two rears at the most.”

."Alany more.” 1 said. “If I am to do the work there as I intend. 1 haven’t come all the way from England for merely two years; it’s true, 1 believe, that the word Hokitika moans. “When you get there turn hack again,” as the Maoris regard it as the end of file earth, and hold that the souls of tlie dying (lit from this shore; but I am going to make a home there lor some time.” “I don’t envy you,” lie said, as our vessel weighed anchor, going northward to Wellington, and I watched .Mount Cook’s ic.v peak till it was onlv a tinv splinter on the hori/.in.” The cle rjrvmnn ol \Ycstl;m<l performpel very gront work in the stirring days of the rush, and the representatives of tho various Churches worked together with a will. Face to fact* with

primitive Nature, they had not time for petty distinctions and quarrels, Dean Atartin. Archdcaon Harper, and Rev. Air Cow. as well as other Alinislet's, were popular with all sections ol the community, and the Maori farewell to Archdeacon Harper may fairly he quoted as an expression of the esteem in which till were held:

“Go forth ii. the ways of the Gospel and in Peace. Thou who was called to take the oversight of the Pakehas and Alstons in Westland. ' Although thou art going far off to — 1 another place, thou wilt not lie forgotten hy us. For thou hast gone in and out amongst us for so long. And now nbideth Faith. Hope and Charity, But the greatest, of these i.s Charity.”

In “Bishop Harper and the Canterbury Settlement.” by the late Canon H. T. Purclitts. ALA., there is a chapter entitled “The Bishop anil the Diggers.” some extracts from which will he interesting at this stage.

' i “During 1864 nimutirs of gold dej posits beyond the Alps bad been growing more numerous and more confident. , Early in 1865 all doubts were set at j rusel, and thousands of adventurous ! diggers found their way to that hitherj to unknown strand. . . The population | soon numbered between 36.000 and ; 50,000 —all or almost nil being strong . and adventurous men in the prime of i life, of various nationalities and religj ions, and all excited by the maddening thirst for gold.” •‘Here wits a mission field suddenly ! set down at the door of sober, slowmoving. respectable Canterbury. No two populations could be more unlike, nor could there well he a greater difference (in the same latitude) than j existed between the climate, the vegej latino, and the prod nets of the counj tries which they occupied. The Bishop was not v,itliout experience of work ( among miners, for in Central Otago | lie had addressed a large congregation Jof them in the open air during his tour of 1801. and lmd held services for them at Oueenstmvu two years later. But he. had never undertaken such a journey as that to the West Coast, nor had he ever dealt with such a population as was now to Iks found there. He was now over sixty years of age, and might well have sent some younger men to do the pioneering work. Notwithstanding all these coonsidera- m ' turns, he determined to go forth in person ; and the rush had not long set in before he prepared to cross the ranges on a mission tour to this new l world of adventure and excitement. Jr j Starting from tile Malvern Hills station, with his youngest son, George, on September Ist, 1865, he followed, as far as it then reached, the excellent road -vlticli the Canterbury Provincial Council so promptly carried through. But lieyond this stage there was nothing but the roughest of mountain tracks, and the travelling was made worse by incessant rain. Near the River Taipo he found an old Eton lioy —Mr E. Blake—ip charge of a road- ! maker’ camp. The weather was so bad here that the travellers halted for a day. During this time a party of dig- - geis arrived on the scene and demanded food, which was not to he had. Their behaviour was so violent that the Bishop’s words had little effect, and they wore only restrained from rushing'the but by the sight of the engineer’s revolver. Next day, however, the Bishop \va:- able to give these men a lesson ill practical Christianity by helping them across the river. For this purpose lie crossed it some ten times with two diggers hanging on to his legs each time, while he carried their swags on the saddle and round his shoulders.