“When I heard the church bell ring this evening and summon me to the first vestry meeting I had attended for twelve years, and for the first time in this country, I was quite overcome and affected to tears.” At these meetings the Bishop called the attention of the people amongst other things to the fact of their dependence for their religious ministrations on money sent from England, often from the savings of the poor. His plan was to endow every minister to the extent of half his income, and to leave the rest to be supplied by his own people. In this way the minister would be partially dependent on, and partially independent of his flock. The principles of the proposed constitution were thoroughly discussed at these various meetings, often by men who had little knowledge or experience to bring to the consideration of the matter. The Bishop bore patiently with questions and interruptions not always of the most courteous kind. In a letter written by one who was present at these meetings it is said: “I mention these facts to give you some notion of colonial church life in its less interesting and romantic features. There are some hard, coarse, rough scenes to be gone through—such as would astonish an English bishop if he were to come across them. It is just as well that people at home should know that the trials of colonial bishops do not so much consist in the pleasant excitement of walking through the glorious forests, and swimming the rivers of New Zealand, or the like, nor in the novelty and refreshment of missionary work among a simple or savage people, but in being brought into contact day by day with the rudest and coarsest spirits of unrestrained colonialism, which vaunts itself and prides itself in saying and doing the most offensive things in the most offensive way. Our Bishop has practically exemplified an old saying we used to have at Eton, ‘You must go on never minding.’” The Bishop was willing patiently to let them talk, hoping that “they would feel their feet for themselves and stand all the firmer for it.”