SELWYN CENTENARY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3171, 23 April 1909, Page 6

SELWYN CENTENARY.

[SERVICES AT ST. MATTHEW'S CHURCH. A hundred years have passed since George Augustus Selwyn the first Bishop of Mew Zealand, was born. It is difficult to estimate what our country owes to him. And it has been thought fitting that the centenary of his birth should be celebrated in some special manner. To-day has been selected as the day to be observed, and will be kept throughout the Dominion, and also at Home, particularly in the diocese of Lichfield. Services are to be held in St. Matthew's Church for the Wairarapa district, at which the clergy and choirs of the neighbouring praishes will take part. In the morning here will be a celebration of the Holy Communion at 10.30 a.m., and Festal Evensong will be at 7.30 p.m. Special addresses will be given by visiting clergy. The celebration will be continued in the different parishes on Sunday. .■■ The selection of Selwyn was a specially happy and providential one, says the Rev. H. T. Purchase, M.A., in the course of an article dealing with the life of Bishup Selwyn. He came to our shores at the same time as th"e earliest colonists, an( j was in time to help the infant settlem ents of Wellington, Melson and N ew Plymouth i n their difficulties, a"d to sunply them with the administrations of religion. ', [His vigorous and athletic frame made it easy for him to traverse both our islands on foot; his fine seamanship enabled him to navigate the ocean in a tiny yacht, and to found the Melanesian Mission; his splendid statemanship proved equal to the task of organising the church upon a wise and permanent basis; his unswerving courage and absolute integrity gave him the confidence of the Maoris through the troublous days of war and separation. Of course he had his difficulties and his failures. Bitterest of all to his earnest spirit was the apostasy from the faith of so many of the Maoris, who seemed at his arrival, to be a Christian nation. after he had left New Zealand, the watchers by his deathbed caught the words which showed that he still had the Maoris Jin his heart-"They will come back." .His very loftinessof aim brought him into conflict with the colonists on more than one occasion, and exposed him to obloquy and misrepresentation. Even loyal clergy and laity were sometimeb alienated by bis masterful temper, though they were generally won sweetness and humility.