Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/185

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Letters from New Zealand
159

down the harbour, the Bishop standing alone at the stern, looking for the last time at the scene of the great work of his life.

Shall I venture to appraise it, and what seems to me its real significance? It lies, I think, above all other things, in the personal influence and character of the man; that which is summed up in the untranslatable Maori phrase, his "Mana." To Selwyn belongs the unique distinction of the impulse given years ago to Missionary enterprise and work. His heroic example, his endurance of hardship, his marvellous courage and patience, his splendid Christian character, touched the imagination of the Maori as keenly as it did that of the Church at Home. In organization, too, he was great, but less so, it would seem, in administration. Possessed of ample private means, and generously liberal, he scarcely anticipated the future. The Diocese of Auckland under its new Bishop, from what I hear, will find itself none too well equipped either in the matter of men or money.

Leaving Auckland, I took my passage in a small steamer which runs by the west coast to Wellington. Auckland has a large western harbour as well as that on the east, which is chiefly used. This Manakau harbour is hampered by a dangerous sand-bar lying outside the heads, on which the H.M.S. Orpheus was lost with nearly all hands. It extends for some miles, and its tumbling surf proved too much for the equanimity of most of the passengers, including myself and Mr. Poole, one of the most effective and humorous speakers in Synod. We had to give in to Neptune, though Poole did his best by flinging quotations from Horace at me, and challenging response. In vain! We subsided on to the settees which are used at night