There are those whose own life of devotion and service is their chief witness for Christ, their great gift to His Church; but Selwyn was called to do more than witness for Christ by his life and his individual work. His work as an organizer was inspired by a desire for efficiency, for making the best use in God’s service of the men and the money entrusted to his care. But more than this, he had ever before him a vision of what the Church in New Zealand should be in the future. He saw it a Church, founded on the best traditions of the past, able to grow and expand to meet all the needs of the future, in communion with the Anglican Church throughout the world, that Church which he believed by its origin and history to be the branch of the Catholic Church best fitted to the genius of the Anglo-Saxon people. Rooted in the past, throbbing with the active life of the present, ready to meet the great possibilities of the future, the Church was the inspiration of all his efforts. But in his devotion to the whole, he never lost sight of the individual. It is the combination of far reaching views with tender care for each individual soul which gives him his special charm and makes him so valuable an example for others. Organization was never to him an object in itself. In the midst of big schemes, struggling with big plans, there was no service however menial that he was not eager to render to any sufferer however humble, there was no task however arduous that he was not ready to undertake. He lived intensely, and though life was to him a constant act of self-surrender, he could rejoice in it and in all that it brought to him of beauty, interest and affection. [Illustration: _PACIFIC OCEAN_] CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH