offered the newly constituted bishopric of New Zealand by Bishop Blomfield, of London. This he accepted in May of the same year, lodging a protest, however, against the wording of the "letters patent" appointing him to the see, in which the Queen was referred to as giving him "power to ordain." On Oct. 17th, 1841, the Bishop was consecrated at Lambeth, and on Dec. 26th he set sail from Plymouth in the Tomatin, acquiring the Maori language on the voyage out from a young New Zealander named Rupai, who had been educated in England, and was returning to his native country. On April 14th, 1842, the Tomatin cast anchor in the harbour of Sydney, N.S.W., where Bishop Selwyn spent some weeks with the Bishop of Australia, Dr. Broughton. Ultimately he left for New Zealand in a small brigantine called the Bristolian, reaching Auckland on May 30th, 1842. Here he was for a short time the guest of Captain Hobson at Government House. He soon, however, took up his permanent quarters, at the Waimate, where he remained till 1844, when he went to reside at Auckland, appointing the Rev. Henry Williams to the charge of the locale as Archdeacon of Waimate. The Bishop early undertook a visitation of his wild and almost impenetrable diocese in both islands, and founded St. John's College at Auckland for the training of Maori candidates for holy orders. He quickly acquired a strong influence over the Maoris and frequently offered his mediation in the various conflicts between the two races. In 1844 Captain Fitzroy, the then Governor of New Zealand, proposed to the Legislative Council to increase his salary and allow him expenses, but the proposal was rejected by a majority of two, in vindication of the principle of the equality of the various denominations in the eye of the State. In 1844 he convened a Church synod in New Zealand, this being the first assembly of the kind brought together under the auspices of Anglicanism since Convocation had been silenced in 1717. There were present the Bishop, three archdeacons, four priests, and two deacons, and questions of Church discipline and Church extension were discussed. But this meeting was held to be illegal by the British authorities. So in 1847 a second synod was held, when the Bishop read a correspondence between the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mr. Gladstone, then Colonial Secretary, proposing a Church constitution in which bishops, clergy, and laity should be represented. The six bishops of Australasia met at Sydney in 1850 and likewise recommended a constitution for the Australasian Church in which the laity should be united with the clergy. Two years later the laity of New Zealand, headed by the Governor, petitioned to be allowed to take part in Church legislation. And at length in 1859 the first General Synod was held, at which five bishops and a large number both of clergy and laity were present. The Church of New Zealand, thanks to the labours of Bishop Selwyn and Sir William Martin, aided not a little by Sir George Grey, was definitely founded on personal consent, and has been the most independent of external trammels of any of the Australasian Churches. Bishop Selwyn was what is called a High Churchman, and at first did not get on well with the Nonconformist missionaries labouring in New Zealand. Gradually, however, reciprocal feelings of respect sprang up; and when Bishop Selwyn left New Zealand, some of the warmest tributes paid to his high qualities emanated from Nonconformist sources. Bishop Selwyn having acquired the Maori language himself, was able consistently to render the knowledge of the native tongue a condition precedent to ordination for his missionary clergy. The Bishop was early brought into conflict with the New Zealand Company, whose resort to physical force for the acquirement of Maori lands he protested against from the first as part of his Christian duty. The company therefore ignored him in initiating the Otago and Canterbury settlements. He was not very favourable in his prognostications as to the success of the latter, and in a letter written in Dec 1848 expressed a preference for the Hawke's Bay district, the heads of the Waipu and Waikata rivers, the plain of the Thames, and the vicinity of the Wairoa, and Kaipara rivers as respectively superior sites for prosperous exploration. In 1847-8 he paid his first visit to the Polynesian islands in H.M.S. Dido. His second visit was accomplished in 1849, in the little
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