But, however it might be with the immigrant, the Maori remained a religious being. Strange, fanatical, repulsive, as might be the forms which his devotion took, he was still a believer in a world of spirit. Selwyn had hoped that this ingrained religiousness would have acted for good on the colonist. Of such influence there is little trace. The drawing together which might undoubtedly be seen before the war, had given place to a movement in the opposite direction. Here again Selwyn's departure was significant. There never came another who looked upon Maori and pakeha with the same equal and comprehensive love. An incident from the days before the war may serve to show what, under happier circumstances, the Maori might have done for his European brother: Sir George Grey, Bishop Selwyn, and an English visitor were travelling along the east coast, near Ahuriri. In the course of the day they had been talking to the natives about the duty of reserving certain of their lands as educational grants for the benefit of their children and of posterity. In the middle of the night they were woke up in their tent by a deputation of these natives calling to Sir George Grey, and asking him whether he himself acted upon the plan he recommended to them, and whether he gave tithes, or any portion of his worldly goods, to the Church of God. The governor was bound to admit that he had not done so in the past; but undertook to do better for the future. The result was that he bought and gave a piece of land in Wellington as a site for a church. Bishop Selwyn added an adjoining section, and the English visitor[17] still another; and thus the diocese acquired what it had long sought for in vain--a central site for its cathedral church, diocesan offices, and bishop's residence. [17] This was the Hon. A. G. Tollemache, who afterwards added another section of city land for an episcopal endowment. The diocese in which the two races are brought into closest and most equal relations is, of course, that of Waiapu. The reconstruction of this shattered portion of the Church was brought about indirectly by the same zeal on the part of Governor Grey for securing educational reserves for the Maoris. We have seen that Bishop Williams was driven from his home in 1865, and compelled to take refuge with his brother in the north. For seven years Waiapu was left without a synod, and, in one sense, it never received its bishop back at all. Some months after the bishop's departure, his house at Waerenga-a-hika (near Gisborne) was the scene of a fierce battle. The Hauhaus held the adjoining _pa_, and the bishop's house was used as the fortress of the British troops. After seven days' siege the _pa_ was captured, but the episcopal residence and the college were in ruins. The bishop remained for two years in exile, and his restoration was at last brought about in an unexpected way.