EARLY CHURCHES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 32, 8 February 1915, Page 3

EARLY CHURCHES

HISTORICAL AND REMINISCENT ANGLICAN FOUNDATIONS

,i has not been given to any one of '■"j several churches now pyominent in , •' Zealand to stand alon* in distinc- - t> for the work done in Wellington 1 4n Wellington was but an infant. - -«.y shared in the spiritual ministra- ' *3 to the pioneers, and it is charac"itic of the times that the sharing 1 no suggestion of rivalry. It was 'pcomraon thing to see a Presbyterian /,;or in the pulpit of a Wesleyan and the Methodist minister was •pmed equally heartily by the Pres*rian community. The colonial life T] was simple, and the life of a minia- " <pf religion was not easy. The man h, came to attend the spiritual needs /\e scattered congregations and stayed I'fis task was a man of true worth, ?S the men and women of the comity were close enough to him to tend recognise this. No church, as stated, was markedly promis>, but all assisted, and many of l \ now have well-filled volumes of To endeavour to sketch, how;'j briefly, in an article of this kind || history of any church would be -'£c. The article therefore must be a $ notes at random, roughly historical reminiscent. •3 MISSIONS— OCTAVroS <j HADFIBLD. [ tough the Anglican Church, through -■juel Marsden's efforts, established itjas early as 1814 in New Zealand, r "as many years later before the work ' *' carried to the southern portion of 4 North Island. Octavius Hadfield '? to Sydney in 1839 and was ordain4leacon by Bishop Broughton, the t ! Bishop of Australia. New Zea- j ;'.; '. was at that time a ( part of tho $el diocese of Australia. At the „of 1839 Hadfield and Broughton It to New Zealand and on the Feast . Epiphany (6th January), 1840. Had- . Jj was ordained priest at the Bay of *' ','ids. At the time of his ordination .[".all came from the Maoris for missionary to be sent down to flower part of the North Island, and 4'field < volunteered to go. The Rev. ( Williams (afterwards Bishop of Waii brought him down and settled him -_ptaki and Waikanae. There Mr. - iams left him. a solitary, lonely, , Je man to do his best in the midst •he Maoris. Hadfield's best was no effort. From it came the con-,-on of the lower part of the Island ,'o Foxton downwards. Wanganui and '^itikei districts were evangelised by sunder the Rev. Richard Taylor, who headquarters at Wanganui. From '.} small beginnings mission work the Maoris has developed. Now ,'-*t all the Maoris in the Wellington •Jince are Christians, nominally at i, except for a number of Mormons. . 5 Anglican Church has two white 'ionaries in Wellington district, the v A. 0. Williams and his son, Wil : .- ; five Maori priests and one Maori }&T GOVERNMENT CHAPLAIN. t the Rev. Mr. Hadfield came to -'Jington in 1840, he was a missioner "', and the white people settled here ;no Anglican priest until 1842, when •Rev. R. Cole was sent out as Govjent chaplain. Prior to that date -*; settlement had been visited occa\%\\y by Bishop Selwyn and his chap- *., who were stationed at Auckland. ' ICole remained here for twelve years. *l first Anglican church in Wellington ■-■ithe old St. Paul's, which stood on 'jjee of ground on the old Government •86 site. The remains of that old p of worship now serves as a mor<y chapel in the Bolton-street Cemeh A second church, the forerunner It. Peter's, was built at what was ,d Te Aro, on land given by the Hon. , j Tollemache. This was in the early , ;es. Mr. Cole stayed in Wellington Irovernment chaplain until 1854, but l ;&nt clergyman appointed to the dis1 1, apart from the chaplaincy, was the "J C. A. Clark. He resigned after a ';'} for health reasons, and became sec- ' -^y to Sir George Grey. It was he j j was the architect for the new St. j's. The site on which, the old "' stood was required by' the Govrient, and Sir George Grey gave the ■ snt site in compensation. A DIOCESE. • ! ; jt before that time there had been t ?ral changes in the diocese, for such 'id now become. Archdeacon Arthur ' ik, for many years incumbent of St. " came out in 1858. and the same \\ at Lambeth Palace Chapel, on 29th Member, Bishop Abraham was conse'"«^d as the first Bishop of Wellington, lop Abraham consecrated the_ new \ Paul's in 1865, and made it his -"'edral. At the present time it is %n M th» j pro-cathedral. The dioT , at that time was much, greater in , 'at than it is to-day. It included the Vlington and Hawkes Bay provinces, J4 Napier as headquarters for the latJjdistrict. Nor was travelling easy. >x trains we are apt to rail at as slow have been welcomed by a clergy'L or even a bishop, of the 'fifties. V ;HSH VISITING IN THE 'FIFTIES. 'ht. Cole used to travel to the Hutt '.j Porirua on foot, for there were not ' \ horses in the days of his chap'jy. When the R«v. Thomas Hutton h to the Hntt a few years after Mr. '■j's arrival he had still to walk befm Taifca, Upper Hutt, and Petone /isit his parishioners. Then came the • f) of bullock wagons (for the ladies) j horses for such as could ride. Mrs. was the first white woman to f.el from Otaki by bullock wagon. \e are few ladies nowadays who would '^J for the experience, novel though it bo. Roads were passable— at low Jr-for the beach was the highway Aof the distance to Otaki. To Pori'4l there was a sound military road. >#>ri was not a good road, but the ■^ to the Hutt had become neither. ' i nor good. But for really rough •,'elling one could go to the Waira-,-J. The Rev. W. Ronaldson had been 3 by the Church Mission Society to '?? L J jt among the Maoris in that district, . 'J when Maori evangeh'eation brok* '»-n owing to the war and the Hau -) movement, Mr. Ronaldson devoted ,;\elf to travelling round the scattered dements of ths district. Rivers and of roads wefe no obstacles path of this ardent priest. He felled down river beds and forded '4s, enduring great hardships in the i%& of his work. The first clergyman Y>e vppmaied tas wiiio .work la the

Wakarapa was the Rev, Dan Desbois. Anubher name well known in the district later was that of the Rev. Ames Knell. A notable event in Church history in Wellington was the consecration on 19th October, 1370, of Octavius Hadfield as Bishop of Wellington in succession to Bishop Abraham. Bishop Hadfield was the first bishop of a colonial diocese to be consecrated without letters patent or mandate from the Queen. MEMORIES OF OLD TIMES. " The men associated with the first two bishops in their arduous work have passed away or gone to well-earned retirement ; all save one, the Yen. Archdeacon Fancourt. Archdeacon Fancourt was ordained deacon in the old St. Paul's in 1865, and was the first priest ordained in. the new cathedral by. I Bishop Abraham in 1867. At first he nad charge of Porirua and Karori, and later he went to the Hutt. Afterwards he took the position of diocesan secretary. The early days of his ministry were days of incident, when life was full, though not in the way of later days. Travelling round the Porirua and Karori parish was different then from now. The hills were almost completely bush-clad, with birds innumerable and not a few wild pigs. A more beautiful bush walk _ than that between i Makara and Ohariu at that time it would I be difficult to imagine. Church building then was different too. It was not a matter of bazaars, sales-of-work and mortgages, but working "bees" to clear the site and saw the timber. Sawmills were not numerous and many of the old churches now remaining were built with timber sawn in pits on the ground. Choice timber was selected and logs which would be taken nowadays were rejected. Taita, Upper Hutt, Lower I Hutt, Karori (old building), and Makara were built in approximately that order, and stand to this day as enduring evidence of sound and conscientious wor£manship.