SELWYN CENTENARY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 June 1942, Page 2

SELWYN CENTENARY

COMBINED SERVICE HELD AT ST. MATTHEW’S MAORI AND PAKEHA PAY TRIBUTE. — NEW ZEALAND’S FIRST ANGLICAN BISHOP. Maori and pakeha held a combined service at St. Matthew’s Church yesterday afternoon, to commemorate the centenary of George Augustus Selwyn, first bishop of the Anglican Church in New Zealand. There was a representative attendance of members of district local bodies. The service was conducted by the Ven. Archdeacon: E. J. Rich and the address was given by the Rev. H. Taepa. Mr G. Te Whaiti (Greytown) read the first Lesson on behalf of the Maoris and the Mayor, Mr T. Jordan, read the second Lesson on behalf of the Europeans. In his address, Mr Taepa referred to Selwyn’s early life and how he came to receive the appointment as the first Anglican Bishop of New Zealand. . The position was offered first to his brother, who declined to accept it. Selwyn made 'it a rule to do whatever the church wanted him to do, without question. Consequently, he was consecrated Bishop of New Zealand in England and came out with a few of his clergy and lay helpers.. When he was being farewelled, the hope was expressed that he would treat his new parishioners with hospitality, to which was added the statement that if his new parishioners should eat him, it was hop.ed that he would disagree with them. LANGUAGE MASTERED. At midnight on May 29, 1842, Bishop Selwyn anchored in Auckland Harbour, said Mr Taepa, and early the next morning he set foot on New Zealand soil. The following Sunday he held a service in the Supreme Court at Auckland, as there was no church there. He delivered the service in Maori, having mastered the language during the voyage to New Zealand. The fluencj’ and correctness with which he spoke staggered the Maoris. A fortnight later he proceeded north and met Henry Williams, who had. appealed to the church to send out a bishop. Selwyn established his headquarters at Waimate North and then started to survey his diocese; which embraced the whole of New Zealand. He was a noted athlete, a good horseman, an excellent swimmer, a good oarsman—he pulled for Cambridge in the first race between Oxford and Cambridge—and he was a good dancer, an accomplishment which appealed to the Maori people. All these achievements had prepared him for the hard task that faced him in New Zealand. On his survey of New Zealand Selwyn covered 2685 miles, 730 miles of which he walked, 330 miles he covered in a canoe and the rest by boat. ONE THOUGHT. Selwyn came out to New Zealand with one thought, said Mr Taepa. He wanted to raise the standard of Maori life and the Maori view of things. With that vision always before him and with love for his leader, Christ, he was able to give out what he had before him to the Maori people. With that vision he was able to defend the Maoris against settlers who wished to take them down. Apart from the whole organisation of the church in New Zealand he also laid the constitutional foundation of the Dominion as a whole. He built St. John’s College at Waimate North and later it was shifted to Tamaki and there was able to train leaders for the Maori people, not only in religious life but in technical subjects. His life and work could be taken as an example and an incentive to carry on the campaign now being launched by the leaders of the church throughout their land today.