THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1935 ARCHBISHOP REDWOOD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21999, 4 January 1935, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1935 ARCHBISHOP REDWOOD

By the death of Archbishop Redwood the Dominion has lost a link with its earliest days of colonisation. When speaking of his career, in acknowledgment of felicitations on his attaining the diamond jubilee of his episcopacy last February, he described himself as "a bundle of records." There was no suggestion of dry parchment in the words: he meant, as was readily understood, the long life that had outdistanced others in many ways by effluxion of time. Records indeed! They are amazing in their tale of years as priest, bishop, archbishop. But from one point of view> taken inevitably when thought is given to his place in the regard of the whole people of this Dominion, his life was a conspicuous bridge spanning New Zealand history. "I have been a-citizen of our beautiful country," he could proudly and thankfully 6ay, "for the past ninety-two years." In his early boyhood he saw this land as a Crown Colony; he lived to see it become a self-governing unit in the British Commonwealth of Nations. That experience has been given to few. But still more impressive is the way in which his own career kept pace with the progress of the country to which he was brought as a child of a pioneering English family and of which he became ardently fond. Conditions were hard for the Redwoods when they made their new home in an isolated part of the Nelson district : creature comfort' 3 were scarce and social amenities few. Yet they were of the stuff out of which fine "citizens" are made, and the word came well from the lips of this famous son as he looked back across the years. In the story of his life — its youthful devotion to a high calling, its response to opportunity' for education, its fidelity to growing tasks, its constant dedication to cherished ideals, its achievement of signal eminence—is proof that circumstances, however seemingly unfavourable, can be made to minister to resolute purpose. Not less amazing but more admonishing than the development of the Dominion is the personal advance he made from discipline to discipline, from task to task, as these called him. A link is snapped: a life remains, enshrined in the annals of the land that was his home.

How closely and fully Archbishop Redwood was identified with the history of New Zealand is realised afresh now that he is gone. In many ways his career was unique. One of these has been noted in his multiplying of contacts between this land and others, and by this is meant more than the mere touch that was maintained by the visits abroad for training and in a representative capacity at great assemblies. These experiences, valued for themselves, were turned by him to deeper account than the conveyance of greetings and the dissemination of secular knowledge between country and country. They were used as privileges of a real embassage of hearts. Living for a time in France and in Ireland, and enjoying frequent fellowship with those whose national outlooks were innately different from his own and widely various, he became unusually able to interpret many types of thought. As such experiences increased, it was more and more evident that his soul was a clearing-house of manifold spiritual conceptions, in truly catholic appreciation. Opportunity for service of this kind i's given to few; he used it with a capacity that matched the privilege, a capacity that was heightened by scholarship and deepened by international sympathy. Yet the brilliance of this service cannot outshine the devotion to his own charge and his own country. Able in a special degree to interpret one people to another, as well became the first entrant to the priesthood from Bishop Pompallier's mission in Oceania, he was glad to concentrate his chief activities on the needs of this land. This devotion it remem bers to-day with gratitude. The evident fitness for leadership in ad-

ministration that long ago marked him for advancement was employed, within and beyond his Church, to profit the whole Dominion. The greater part of his unwearying activity was directed, of accepted vocation, to the affairs of his Church. Immense demands were made in the earlier days of his priesthood and episcopacy on a boundless energy that overcame hardships of travel, when roads were bad or non-existent. Iri all toil of this kind he was splendidly adventurous. But in the course of his long life he saw these difficulties decrease and was able to turn his powers to other tasks of path finding, especially in education and social service. A'S in duty bound, it was still his own Church that claimed ihe central place in all planning and endeavour, but wider interests were not neglected. On the occasion of his diamond jubilee this was rightly acknowledged in the congratulations offered by those entitled to speak of it. It has been sincerely and gratefully said that he belonged to all New Zealand. He still belongs to New Zealand as his requiem is 'sung. Death has taken him away, but his name and influence abide. Churchman, patriot, humanitarian, a servant of his God and a lover of his fellowmen, he will long be remembered in honour.