Henry Williams was thus marked out more distinctly than ever as the piacular victim or scapegoat of the mission. And, indeed, his deprivation seemed to have an expiatory effect. Once his dismissal had been made, an improvement began all round. In the first place, the bishop seems to have been genuinely sorry for the harsh action which he himself had done much to bring about. The Society had gone further than he intended, and now his pity was roused. He took no offence when his archdeacon began to hold services in a barn at Pakaraka, nor when (in 1851) he opened a church which his sons had built and endowed with one-tenth of their property. Patience had its right result, and by 1853 the ecclesiastical relations between the two were entirely cordial. Henry Williams was no longer an agent of the C.M.S., but he was still one of the diocesan clergy, and he was still an archdeacon. His own ministrations seemed to gain in power and effectiveness. Stubborn old pagan Maoris came to the services of his new church at Pakaraka. Kawiti, the main upholder of ancient superstitions in the north, was there baptised, and thither the remains of Hone Heke were brought to be deposited near his old master. On one occasion no less than 130 Maoris were baptised by Williams at one time. With the bishop and the church also, there was a new beginning in a more chastened spirit. Before the end of the same year (1850) the bishop had attended an episcopal meeting in Sydney, where he was able to secure the support of the Australian Church for his infant mission to Melanesia. A few months later he welcomed his old Eton friend, C. J. Abraham, to whose able charge he committed St. John's College. But greater than either of these events, if regard be had to the permanent progress of the Church, was the arrival in New Zealand, during the month of December, of the first instalment of the Canterbury Pilgrims.