CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8462, 12 June 1907, Page 6

CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

AN IMPORTANT EVENT. The paragraph in our columns, yesterday, which stated that "Thursday next will be the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the Church of England in New Zealand," is, perhaps, liable to be misunderstood. The late Rev. Samuel Marsden, the first Church of England clergyman, preached for the first time on Christmas Day, 1814, and lately a beautiful cross 20ft high' has been erected near Whangaroa to commemorate' this. The Rev. Marsden's work was carried on by others, notably Bishops Williams, Hadfield, Maunsell, and others, till the arrival of Bishop Selwyn in 1842. The event which will be celebrated by special services in Anglican Churches, this week, and next Sunday, marks a new phase of life. The few years which followed Bishop Selwyn's arrival were years in which the country was first really settled. In 1852 a civil constitution was given to the colony, and the people had the political power of self-government. Hitherto in matters ecclesiastical the control of church work had remained in iungland. Bishop Selwyn himself came out with "letters patent" from the Crown, and these "letters patent" contained much that was impossible under the new conditions or life that prevailed. Bishop Selwyn saw that the Church of England must, if it were to obtain a footing in New Zealand, break away from some of the restrictions, of the old church. The Synod must govern in matters financial and non-doctrinal, and the laity and clergy must have a voice as well as the Bishops. Bishops Selwyn and Harper devised an organisation for the Church, which was at once primitive and democratic, and it is the signing of this constitution at Auckland, on June 13th, 1857, that the members of the Church of England are commemorating now. The two fundamental principles of the constitution may be summed up in the recognition of a representative governing body known as General Synod, in which are vested all trusts and properties, comprised of Bishops, clergy and laymen, who must all, by their several orders, consent to any proposal, and, secondly, the retention of the worship and do'ctrine of the Book of Common Prayer, provision being made for alterations only if New Zealand separates from the Mother Country or if the Church in England is separated from the State.