“Our present meeting may be looked upon as one of a long series, beginning at the Council of Jerusalem, in which it the will of God by the assembling together of the ministers of Christ for social prayer and mutual counsel.... If I did not believe that our position in this country, both as regards the simplicity and primitive character of our Church establishment, and its freedom from all political connexion, gives us good reason to hope that we may be enabled to avoid the evils into which other Synods have fallen, I should have shrunk from the course which I now propose to you, and fallen back upon the practice sanctioned by custom, if not approved by reason, of a formal charge _ex cathedrâ_, upon the authority of the Bishop alone. I might then have found as has often been the case, that some would have consented _ex animo_, some without consenting would have obeyed conscientiously, some would have denied that their promise of canonical obedience applied to the points of which they disapproved. At the best there would have been much to check co-operation and engender distrust.” He went on to speak of the missionary obligations of the New Zealand Church, and said that New Zealand must become a missionary centre: “We cannot consider our work accomplished till every dialect in the South Seas has its representative members in our Missionary Colleges ... however inadequate a Church may be to its own internal wants, it must on no account suspend its missionary duties.” He expressed his horror of controversy: “Of controversy in general I would say that it is the bane of the Gospel among a heathen people.... I can never forget the pointed illustration of the old chief of Taupo, when I asked him why he still refused to believe. ‘Show me the way,’ he said, ‘I have come to the cross road. Three ways branch out before me. Each teacher says his own way is the best. I am sitting down and doubting which guide I shall follow.’ He remained in doubt till a landslip burst from the mountain under which he lived, and overwhelmed him with all his house.... The course seems to be to teach truth rather by what it is than by what it is not. Let us give our converts the true standard and they will apply it themselves to the discovery and contradiction of error.... Much of what has been said applies also to our relations with our own countrymen. We cannot expect unanimity, let us at least seek peace. Much has been written upon unity, but as yet little has been done towards a union of all religious bodies in one. This at least seems clear, that such a union, however highly desirable, must not be effected by a compromise of truth. When all shall have thoroughly examined the grounds of their own belief, and rejected such errors as they may find, then it is certain that all must come to unity of doctrine, because all will have been conformed to the same unalterable standard of truth.”