“For seven years, during the troubles of New Zealand, I neglected altogether this part of my diocese, and now bitterly rue the consequences of this delay, as fields then untrodden by the foot of a missionary are now overrun with Papists and others.... Considering that within the last twelve months, I have visited every English settlement in New Zealand (except Whanganui) of 150 inhabitants from Stewart’s Island to the Bay of Islands, and that the larger settlements have been visited every year upon the average at least once, since I arrived ... and that I have visited on foot twice every mission station; and am now preparing, at the end of my ninth year, to visit them a third time, in the course of a walk of about one thousand miles ... considering, I say, all these things, I think that objectors had much better hold their tongues, and not ‘compel’ me to seem to ‘boast’ when I would much rather dwell in silence upon my own infinite shortcomings.” His increasing knowledge of the islands confirmed his sense of the extent and importance of the work to be done, and he wrote in his diary: “The careful superintendence of this multitude of islands will require the services of a missionary bishop, able and willing to devote himself to the work.” CHAPTER VI CHURCH ORGANIZATION IN NEW ZEALAND As we consider in detail any portion of Bishop Selwyn’s varied work, we must never forget that behind the details of the moment, the great work needed for the future was ever present to his mind. Yet he was never lost in visionary schemes, details did not escape him, attention to them was one of the ways in which his great plans were made possible. All that he did, he saw in the light of the great call that he believed had come to him, to lay in New Zealand the foundations of a living Church, self-governing and independent. He had no desire to be an autocrat, but wished as far as possible to work with and through others. It will be well to bring together the various measures he adopted for the organization of the Church, whilst neglecting none of the work for education and evangelisation which was so dear to him. We have seen how one of his first acts had been to appoint in 1844 an archdeacon, that he might have at least one trusted adviser to whom he could delegate some part of his responsibility. Then followed the first tiny Synod of his clergy, called two years later. He looked to the future, but he built on the experience and traditions of the past. He wrote to a friend in the year that the first Synod met: