A sign of recovery from the exhaustion of the war-period may be found in the stately churches which now began to rise here and there. Christchurch Cathedral, after its years of forlorn desolation, rose slowly from its foundations during the later 'seventies, until in 1881 the nave and tower were completed and consecrated. St. Mary's, Timaru, was begun in 1880, and its nave completed six years later. St. John's Cathedral, Napier, was rapidly built and consecrated as a finished building in 1888. Nothing so artistic or so solid as these edifices had yet been seen in the country, and nothing equal to them was produced for many years. Not only were new churches built: they were filled. A great impetus to devotion was received in 1885 and 1886 from Canons Bodington and G. E. Mason, who were sent out from Selwyn's old diocese of Lichfield to hold missions in Auckland and Christchurch. These able men spent 10 months in the country, and gave of their best to every place they visited. In 1889, Bishop Harper gave notice of his intention to resign his primacy, and, in the following year, laid down his pastoral staff. He had reached the age of 86 before his resignation took effect, but his mind was still vigorous, and when relieved of the cares of office he took up the humbler work of giving divinity lessons in a girls' school. He was pre-eminently a man of peace, but beneath the placid exterior there lay an indomitable will. One who knew him well wrote of him thus: "He left upon me the deep impression that he never had an ideal of power or wealth or fame, but that to go about doing good, and to promote the welfare of his fellow-men with all his strength, were the objects he had in view in his whole life." This resignation was destined to bring about a constitutional difficulty which recalled the trying days of the Jenner incident. The question which divided the Church was nothing less than this, Who is the legitimate primate or chief pastor of New Zealand? Dunedin, curiously enough, was again the point from which the trouble emanated, and a Selwyn was again the person who unintentionally brought it about. Bishop Harper announced his intention to resign the primacy to a general synod at Dunedin in February, 1889. At the close of the session he called for an election of a bishop to take his place as primate in six months' time. The first and the second ballots were inconclusive. Had the third ballot yielded a similar result, the primacy would have gone, according to the canons, to the senior bishop.