THE BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND'S VISITATION TO THE SOUTHERN ISLAND in 1848. (From the New Zealand Journal, April 21, 1849) [Continued from our last.]

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 361, 29 September 1849, Page 3

THE BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND'S VISITATION TO THE SOUTHERN ISLAND in 1848. (From the New Zealand Journal, April 21, 1849 ) [Continued from our last.]

WELLINGTON.— THE HOSPITAL. On Sunday, 2 1st May, the duties of the tiny began with English and native services in the hospital, where patients of both races lay side by side, with the aarae attention and relief administered to all alike. An hospital like this, under such really devoted management as that of Dr. Fitzgerald, is the best practical commentary on (he text, which we continually quote, that God " hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwpll on all tbe face of the earth." It would be easy to trace the effect of the Wellington Hospital upon the state of feeling among the natives of the South, and to show thnt much of their goodwill towards the English race has been thus produced. I think that I have already mentioned in former letters, that one of the chief men of Porirua, Te Hiko-e-te rangi, — son of the great chief Te Pehi (Tippahec), who visited England, — insisted upon being allowed to die in the hospital, among the friends who had been kind to him. This was done in opposition to all native custom, and to the solicitations of his friends, several cases of successful treatment of dangeroui disorders have spread the fame of the " Whure turoro," as far as Wanganui. Every English icttlement is now being supplied with a similar institution, but it is not easy to find men who will enter into the work with the same spirit of. watchful earnestness which is so apparent in every part of the management of the hospital at Wellington. It was a common topic in Ileki's speeches, that the Government built nothing but prisons and barracks, and that therefore it could not have come into the country for the good of the native people. This imputation is now in courie of being redeemed ; and, as I am confident that there would have been little or no war in the country if the benevolent character of the British Government had been practically exhibited from the first ; so now I look forward with the fullest hops to a long continuance of peace, on the basis of a liberal and enlightened effort to improve the social and moral state of the New Zealanders by every good and useful institution which their circumstances may require. At the temporary Church near the Government House the usual English congregation assembled^; but from the very straggling position of the houses, and other causes, the attendance is neither so regular nor so good as we could wibh. This evil will be remedied in some mi isure by the new ckurch at the southern end of the town, which will be much more convenient for the greater part of the population. Mr. Cole's duties, already too great for his strength, will be much increased by this arrangement, till the means can be found of maintaining a second clergyman.

DISTRICT CHAPELS. In the afternoon I walked with my excellent friend, Captain Colliason, to the little chapel in the wood, on the Porirua road, where a good congregation of the neighbouring so tins had assembled for divine service. We are indebted to the kintlnes9 of the Rev. John Hawtrey and his son for the site of this chape}, with, twenty acres of land. It i 3 a very central situation, and the Government road, passing close by it, makes it easily accessible on both sides. If we should be able to set on foot the college at Porirua, these district chapelrieB will como under the charge of the collegiate deacons, till they grow up in the form of. separate parishes with resident incumbents. There are three already of this class: — I. ICirori, where a site has been given by Mr. Justice Chapman , 2. the valley oi the llutt, where a chapel is being built on land given by Captain Daniell ; nnd, 3, the chapel in the Porirua fctoad. But these do not by any means supply the wants of the people, who, by the nature of. the country, are scattered over a wide surface, with hills almost impassable 'between one settlement and another. BURIAL GROUNDS.

With the exception of a piece of land wliioh we bought at Te Aro (south end of the town of Wellington), we are still without a site for a church, in a town half as large as Constantinople. The piece otiginally marked out is a mere watercourse, Bcarcely available even for the small parsonage, which stands perched upon the only flat part of the ground, with a most uncomfortable expo ure to the wind and rain. Of course I declined to accept such a site for the main church of the southern division. It was next proposed to build the church upon tho buriol ground allotted to the Church of England in 1842. The foundation wag no sooner laid than the Dis-cnteis protested qgumst any appropriation of a burial ground to the church, as an " infringement of the principle of the N-w Zealand Company, of the equality of all religious bodies." The application of this " principle" has not restrained tho Wesleyans, the Presbyterians, and the Romanist! from occupying moat valuable and eligible sites for their chapels to which I never objected. As you will hear of the charges brought against me of attempting (0 appropriate the whole burial gjound to the Churcli

of England, I must trouble you with Hie simple statement of the case. I n 1842, Govevnor Hobion adopted the plan of g'mDg to each religious body, from the Eublic land, a burial ground proportioned to the iiumer of its adherents as determined by tue Government census. At Auckland sixteen acres were marked on tbe surveyor's plan for the purpose of a uu " al ground ; eight acres of whi c li were allowed t» tne Church of England, when it appeared on the census that a full moiety of the whole population profe»«ed to belong <o it. The same proportion being found by the cengus nt Wellington, onc-hnlf of tbe burial gronnd at that place was also al| ot ted to the Church in October 1842 On the faith of this arrangement, the ground was enclosed at our exp ense . bu^ as we nn( i no legal pis* •ession or CCronw n title, we never refused the key to the ground to an y one that applied. The Dissenters availed themselves of the use of the fence for which they had not paid, leaving their own giound unoccupied. "When they had buried their dead for some time by our pei mission, they then claimed the joint use of the ground, and have agitated the same question, to our great annoyance, up to tbe prespnt time. If it were not my duty to secure to the friends of those who have been buried by us, the satisfaction of knowing that their bodies lie in consecrated ground I should hive given up the point, and have bought out of my own funds some other burial plane for our dead. But the justice of our case has now become *o npparent. that a Crown grant has been issued, nlloting to the Church of England its own burial ground; and there still remains a grouml of equal extent, cither to be held in common by all the other religions bodies, or to be divided amonpr them. The Church of Rome has kept possession, without opposition, of the burial ground marked out for its members in 1842 by the same authority, whose acts have been so much disputed in our case. If you hear of my intolerance and bigotry, I beg you to accept my assurance that I hate "never done nn unkind act, or wriiten an unfriendly word, against any member of any othpr religious body ; and I can prove tint it is not true that we persecute them, but that they will not tolerate the Church. In the case in question, what right have they to protest against the Church being allowed the free use of its own rights of consecration and sepulture, while they have every equal privilege freely granted to them ? I have been attacked frequently by Mr. Turton, Wesleyan Missionary at Taranaki, but I have not answered him a word. His last complaint is, that I have quoted ngainst him certain " absurd and unscriptural canons," in which his right to the ministry i? denied. The truth is, that hrf claimed of the churchwatdens of Taranaki to he allowed to sign the burial register, according to the 70th canon, in the case of interments at which he officiated in the absence of a clergyman. The churchwardens referrrd the case to me, and I told them that the 10th, 11th, and 12ih canons "prevented me from considering Mr. Turton a minister within the meaning of the 70th canon, which he quoted." This is the offence for which I have again incurred the good man's reprobation. His superior, Mr. Lawry, to whom I referred the matter, consoled me by savin?, «• Oh, Sir, Mr. Turton ig a very young man. You and I, lam sure, will never quarrel." I trouble you with these statements, because it h»i Ijeen reported to me, that these disputes have led some of my friends to believe that I have assumed an offensive tone to the members of the other religious bodies ; than which, I can assure you, nothing can be further from the truth:

VOYAGE TO THE CHATHAM ISLANDS. A* it seemed probable that I should be obliged to return speedily to Wellington, I did not prolong my Btay f particularly as the season was far advanced, and 1 had still nearly 2,000 miles to sail. After attending the levee held by Lieut.-Governor Eyre, on the Queeu's birthday, a ceremony which I had never witnessed since the first day of my landing in New Zealand, I embaiked on board the Undine on the 24th of May, and ran rapidly out of Port Nicholson. Thii being the first of my voyages out of sight of land, I was a little anxious about the performance of my pocket chronometer, though the report of the master of the Dido had been, " Dent, 5796, goes more steadily than either of the watches on board her Majf sty's ship Dido. * We therefore began a strict reckoning by log and observation, io far as the unfavourable state of the weather would allow. In our lazy navigation within sight of land, these precautions are too often neglected. On Saturday evening, May 27, we had ran down our distance ; and the wind being strong, and the weather thick and stormy, we shortened Bail* and lay-to for the night. The next morning the Sisters, or Itutahi rocks, to the north of the great Chatham Island, appeared in sight, and the tliore of the large island was dimly seen through the haze. At this time the sea was very high, and the wind boisterous ; and, not daring to run for the harbour, we stood out to sea and lay. to. In the afternoon a great American whaler pasted us running to the north-weit, and condescended to show us her colours, though we must have looked like a mere fishing-boat in the heavy sea which was then running.") Towards evening the gale abated, and we enjoyed our afternoon prnyers with the Thanksgiving from the prayers to be used at sea. We all felt very thankful that we had kept a cood reckoning, for if we had not lam-to when we did, we should have been close upon the Sisters in the middle of the night. On Monday the 29th May, saw land at day-light ; but a native who came with us from Wellington would not believe that it was Wliaiekauri, from its presenting the appearance of two islands, with a open sea between them. I was too suie of my posiiion to have any doubt upon the subject, and therefoie I comforted the old man by telling him that he would scon see the low banks rise up which connect Maunganui, the noithern hill, with Whakaewa (Mitre Hill), on the south, and encloie the great inland lake, which covers a large portion of the surface of the island. The haza cleared awny as we sailed on and the whole circuit of the wide bay soon became visible, with the flat sandy beach ■hming brightly between the harbour of Waikanae, or Whan»aroa, on the north side, and tlie red bluff of Wuitangi, on the south. Wbakaewa began to show its miired crest tit the south-west extremity of the bay j and, from the mast-head, the line of aurf was seen breaking upon the dangcroui reefs wh ! ch lie off the north-west head. A bright clear sunshine and smooth water enabled me to take tatisfactory observations, and I found that my little watch had not belied its reputation, but hud preserved its rate unaltered from Ship Cove. My n«iive boys, ten in number, had now iecovered from seasickness, and emerged in their clothes to enjoy the sight of land. Their blue dresses gave to our deck a smart and crowded appearance, and made the Undine look like the tender of a man- of- war. By a gond French chart, which I had copie.i on board the Dido, and with pilotage of the old native we found oik way about sunvt into the anchoiage of Waitangi, avoiding in the dmk a bank of kelp, which afterwards proved to be the fafeguard of our vessel, f»r the sea runs so high in tbi* exposed roafstead, and the eddies of wind ciime off the land with Bitch fuiy, thnt nothing but this floating bieakwater of seaweed preserves vessels from being driven ashore.

A wreck of a large veisel was lying upon the beach to warn us of the necessity of caution. We had just anchored, when a boat full of natives came off from the shore, and recognjscd me immediately ; some of the party hating been under my instruction at Mr. Hadfield's mission station Waikanae. They returned to fetch their chief, to whom Mr. 11. gave, at his baptism, the appiopriate name of Willijra Pitt ; but he is better known by his native name of l'omare. He soon came on board, and greeted me ai an old friend, having visited us at the collage in 1847, and having sailed with me in the Undine from Auckland to Wellington, He ii n worthy man, of remarkable steadiness of character j but the hand of God has been laid heavily upon him, for his ions have been taken from him by shipwreck and disease. By trade with Port Nicholson, he has now acquhed several horses and cows, and many of the comforts of civilised life. But he requiics some further help to change the habits of his people, who are far behind their chief in civilization.