A History of the English Church in New ZealandPurchas, Henry Thomas
History
A History of the English Church in New Zealand
Purchas, Henry Thomas
Church of the Province of New Zealand -- History; New Zealand -- Church history
This was a stunning blow. It was the Eve of Trinity Sunday, 1850, that
the letter came to Paihia, after a period so long that it had seemed as
though the trouble were at rest. Mrs. Williams has left on record the
feelings of herself and her husband on that Sunday: "The day was
beautiful in which we saw our old and much-loved home, all untouched in
Sabbath peace, for the last time. We told no one; all went on as usual;
but it was a great conflict to keep down the thoughts of our expulsion,
and all its attendant cruel injustice."
On the following Thursday the move was made. Amidst heavy rain the
family rode off to the inland farm at Pakaraka, where the sons were
already settled. The cavalcade was escorted by Pene Taui, the general
who had repulsed the British troops at Ohaeawai, and by Tamati Pukututu,
who had guarded the stores of the English in the same campaign. They had
fought on opposite sides in the war, but they were at one in their
devotion to Wiremu.
With the removal of Henry Williams, came to an end the Golden Age, or
influential period, of the Bay of Islands. Governor and bishop had both
left it, and the war had dealt its missions a blow from which they were
never to recover. The visitor to Paihia to-day sees a few silent houses
ranged along the quiet beach, and amongst them the ruins of the building
in which the first printing-press in New Zealand was set up. A church of
more modern date contains some remains of the early period, and at the
other end of the beach stands the dismantled house in which Carleton
lived and wrote. But the most enduring object is the fine granite cross
which was erected long afterwards by the Maori Church to the memory of
Henry Williams--"a Preacher of the Gospel of Peace, and a Father of the
Tribes."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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