A BISHOP WITHOUT A SEE.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10150, 24 September 1898, Page 6

A BISHOP WITHOUT A SEE.

The news of the death of the late Bishop 1 Jenner, recalls a remarkable chapter in the history of the Church of England in New Zealand. He occupied the singular position of being a Bishop who never en--tered into legal possession of any see. About the year 1862 steps were taken with a view to dividing the huge diocese of Christchurch into two, and erecting the southern portion into the diocese of . Otago. Somehow or other a misunderr !i '. standing arose between Bishop Selwyn and the Rural Deanery Board which was" set up in Otago. When there a fair prospect .of raising the £6000 -v) which it was hoped to get J; as an endowment, the BisTiop "-j wrote home to the Archbishop of Canterbury, aslang him to select a clergyman for the position. The Bishop had been accustomed to conducting the affairs of the Church very largely on his own responsibility, but whether he was simply taking lus own course in this instance, or whether he thought he was acting with the approval of the Rural Deanery Board, is not veiy clear. What happened was this, that the Archbishop of Canterbury, .acting with a ; promptitude which seems to have astonished even Bishgp Selwyn, nomi- v nated the Rev. H. L. Jenner, Vicar of „'.. Preston, near Sandwich, Kent, for the S bishopric, and that the Rural Deanery V Board afterwards refused to confirm the \ nomination. What made it all the more r* awkward was that the consecration of -' ; „c the Bishop-designate was allowed to place, apparently before either fie or the ;!/ Archbishop realised the true position of J ; \' f affairs. At first only the insufficiency' V 7. of the endowment was publicly urgea._ - '-'M against the appointment, but soon thereof! was a great outcry over the discovery;-{p that Bishop Jenner, as it was sr> l ' '-i'ki.;':'l"}\

,vas an ultra-ritualist. Mr. W. Carr Young, on Otago layman, who visited England, attended n service at St. Matthias's Stoke Newington, in which Bishop Jenner took part, and seems to have been very much moved by what he suv. So deeply did he feel about it that he wrote a letter to Archbishop Longley, stating that on the occasion referred to, he "hud witnessed the most extravagant services, and heard the <■ rostcst doctrines that ever disgraced a .To-called Protestant Church." If Bishop Jenner cuino out to New Zealand and practised the views which he apparently approved on the occasion referred to, Mr. Carr Young prophesied that it would lead to the disruption of the colonial Church. Bishop Jenner, in reply, declared that nothing could be further from his intentions and principles than to endeavour to force a ritual such at that of St. Matthias's, on the clergy and laity, of his diocese. "I should most undoubtedly discourage," ho said, "the " most obvious improvements in Divine " worship, unless they were introduced " with the most tender and considerate "regard to the feelings, and even pre- " judices, of the devout laity. Nothing, " in my opinion, would be more ridiculous " than to attempt to carry out 'high " ritual' in Now Zealand, particularly in "such a settlement as that of Otago." He even offered, if ho came out, to place his resignation in tho hands of the Primate, at tho expiration of three years from the date of his arrival, on being requested to do so by (say) two-thirds of the communicants of the diocese. Bishop Jenner came out to New Zealand, and the question of what was to be done was hotly debated at a meeting of the Diocesan Synod of Dunedin, then newly constituted. The Synod sat from 4 p.m. until G a.m. the following morning, when a resolution accepting Dr. Jenner as Bishop was put and lost. Dr. Jenner sailed for England shortly afterwards, and returned to the vicarage of Preston, go ended one of the most exciting, and in many respects regrettable, episodes in connection with the history of the Anglican Church in this colony. It is difficult to apportion justly the exact measure, of blame on the right shoulders, but everyone must agree that Dr. Jenner himself was, through no fault of his own, placed in a very thankless position, and was, in fact, a very hardly-used man.