THE NEW BISHOP OF SYDNEY, [From the Morning Chronicle, Dec. 8.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 910, 22 April 1854, Page 4

THE NEW BISHOP OF SYDNEY, [From the Morning Chronicle, Dec. B.]

Although it would be superfluous, to those acquainted with the recent annals of the Colonial Church and its missionary history, to enlarge on the labours of the Bishop of New Zealand, there must be many of our readers who can scarcely appreciate Dr. Selwyns peculiar fitness for the important office of Metropolitan of the Australian Church, and Bishop of Sydney, which we yesterday announced would be offered to his lordship on his arrival in England. This appointment is not only a creditable recognition of the Bishop of New Zealand's remarkable labours and successes, but it is dictated by a wise appreciation of the needs of Australia itself. Bishop Selwyn was a Fallow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and was subsequently curate of Windsor, where his labours were signally successful. He seems to have a remarkable gift in attracting personal regard ; and one of his brother fellows, the lamented Mr. Whytehead, followed him in his antipodean mission, and left his small fortune at tke Bishop's disposal for church purposes, in the home of their mutual adoption. At Eton and Windsor, Mr. Selwyn made devottd friends, to whose persevering energy it is in great measure owing that the missionary institutions in New Zealand have hitherto been maintained in efficiency. It is now eleven years since Bishop Selwyn first set foot in the colony ; and though it would be unjust to pass over the work done by such pioneers as Mr. Matsden, and Mr. — now Archheacon — Hadfield, it is undeniable that to the Bishop's own exertions is due the present condition of New Zealand. It presents, as an almost solitary specimen in the range of British colonization, a whole native population, if not entirely converted, yet penetrated with the gospel. To have effected this, implies a rare combination of personal powers in the first Bishop of the colony. Others may have equalled although they have not surpassed his spiritual zeal; but we may truly speak of his labours at unparalleled since the days of Xavier. He is literally never idle ; and he seems equally at home in all departments of the missionary work. He founds colleges, and teaches the humbler arts of life to his poor native flocks. He lectures bis divinity students, and with his own hands fashions garments for the new converts. He can perform the lowliest offices without compromising the spiritual dignity of his station ; and while he never forgets the Christian Bishop, he has that elasticity of temper which makes him equally at home in the native hut, or in a University pulpit. He exhibits administrative poweri of the highest order. The college which he has founded is a model of his far sighted wisdom in forecasting the future wants of education. In politics, by his intervention with the chiefs, he succeeded in mitigating the war,* and in ultimately attaching '' the aborigines to British rule. He can, and often | does, steer and sail his own mission ship. He i« i in the habit of performing his visitations and i missionary work on foot. In this way he has ' travelled thousands of miles. When he meets wiih a river, he swims it ; and he faces the bush, the ocean, the storm, and the cold, with a hardihood of constitution and an intrepidity of spirit which equally display his moral and his physical energies. Nor must it be supposed that be is a man who deals ODly in rose coloured letters to his friends. In his journal we find him as often deploring failures as relating successes — he is as keen in detectinginconsisterjcies as in planningnew work. He is no blind admirer of savage life. He knows, and he acknowledges, the defects of native character, but he appears to possess that plasticity of influence which enables him, while recognizing these, to deal with the wayward savages to whom he is

sent. - His mission seems to realize the happy but.difficult mean between compromising with Pagan views and untutored tempers, and presenting that austere and revolting aspect which the Church too often puts on before new converts. Bishop Selwyn has been enabled to show that he is a Bishop of the Church of England, with its own temper, traditions, and characteristic tendencies — and at the same time that he is chief missionary to a people who require very different treatment from the settled congregations of his Fatherland. New Zealand presents one distinctive feature, as compared with nearly all other European colonies — the aborigines are becoming fused with the settlers. It has been the policy of the Chorch to melt the races, and consequently, Bishop Selwyn has made it his first work to learn the native language, and to translate the Church books, and to preach in the vernacular. Nor is the internal stale of the Church in New Zealand less satisfactory than its outward relations. As the Bishop once remarked, he and his clergy have a work in band which prevents them being mixed up with the controversies at home. He stands, we helievp, in equally good relations with the Church Missionary Society and the Society for propagating the Gospel. He has as many clergy from the one institution as the other. His journals and letters abound with recognition of missionary work, by whomsoever it may be successfully and earnestly propagated. He describes with as much feeling the labours and spirit of Mr. Burns, the Scotch missionary, and of Williams, the martyr of Erromanga, as those of his own clergy. This, then — and we have only rapidly glanced at the specialities of Bishop Selwyns character —is the man whom it is proposed to make Metropolitan of the Australasian Churches. He has not only built and consolidated the Church in New Zealand-— planted it with churches, strengthened it with a college, studded it with native schools, and saturated si noble native race with Christian sentiments, snd with many of the arts of life, leaving his diocese in such a state that it is ripe for division into other dioceses— but be has carried the Gospel into the immense archipelago of the Pacific. He has brought native youths from the Melanesian Islands, and after educating them in his own college, has taken them back there to spread the religion and the life of England. On the island of Mallicolo — where, on his last visit but one, bis life was in great danger — we now find that, on his recent visit, the very ringleader of his murderous assailants swam off to welcome him, and carried him on shore on his shoulders. In the vasi Polynesian group, the fame of the Bishop's charity and zeal has so spread that we read of these fierce islanders everywhere begging that the white teachers may be sent to their country. If such a man as Bishop Selwyn is not destined to tell on Australia, we shall despair of that noble country, the seed-plot of a future Empire. But we will not be so unjust. His is just the character likely to set ferth the church attractively. As bead of the several sees, his influence will tell on the luxury which is advancing so rapidly on the community. An energetic and flourishing people like those of Sydney can best appreciate such works as Bishop Selwyn has done in bis own diocese. He is skilled in educational matters, and already, as vre hear, he has won upon the confidence of the Sydney people by his judicious interposition in the difficult matter of the University. And it must be remembered that Bishop Broughton's memory will bear^no second-rate successor. Nor will the new prelate's missionary powers be suffered to rust. We owe a debt, hitherto very miserably discharged, to the aborigineH of Auelrslia ; and not cn}y on the continent, but beyond it towards the North, there are vast fields of Paganism yet unapproaclied by the Church. Both as Churchmen and as patriots, all who have the welfare of Australia at heart will congratulate themselves and that great British settlement, nhan they are assurtd, as we trust will be the case, that the Bishop of New Zealand accepts the office to which he will be recommended.