SLIP OF THE PEN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 257, 27 September 1933, Page 9

SLIP OF THE PEN

BISHOP SELWYN’S DIOCESE. ENLARGED BY ACCIDENT. The oft-mentioned story of a slip of a pen by a Crown official, which resulted in a bishop’s. diocese being enlarged by 46 degrees of latitude, was referred to by Rt. Rev. J. T. Steward, formerly Bishop of Melanesia, preaching at a special service in connection with the dedication festival of All Souls’ Church at Hastings, England. The preacher was referring to the spread of the church overseas, which lie said, had come as a result of the Oxford Movement and the current spirit of reform, and told how New Zealand was first made into a giant diocese. In those days bishops received their authority from letters, or legal documents, signed by a member of the Royal Family, and it was intended to give Bishop Selwyn jurisdiction over New Zealand and the islands up to 23 degrees south of the Equator: But

the official who wrote out the authority before it received the Royal signature put 23 degrees north! And so the bishop’s diocese was enlarged by 46 degrees of latitude and came to include the Solomons, the Reef Islands, the New Hebrides and those which came to be known as Melanesia. The -white men of those districts had little or no respect for law and order; they wanted to be a law unto themselves and had no care or consideration for the rights of the natives, whom they thought were there to bo exploited, killed or sold, whichever happened to be the most profitable course to take. In consequence the natives had as bad a name for treachery and savagery as possible. The bishop, however, said Mi Steward, did not treat his enormous mandate as a mistake but as a call from God, and after seven years going over his diocese and founding bishoprics, he turned his attention to the islands, where the greatest difficulty was that of language. Hundreds of languages were spoken there, but none of them were written. But the bishop realised that if Christianity was to be understood by the natives it must be presented to them in their own

tongues. “We call ourselves the heirs of such people,” said the preacher. call ourselves the heirs of the Oxford Movement. Here as you meet together today to commemorate the dedication of this beautiful church, cast out your thoughts wider, to embrace the other meaning of ‘church,’ not this building in which we worship, but the body to which we belong, with Christ as the head, the winning of all mankind to the knowledge and love of God by the sacramental gifts of our Holy Church.”