Whilst in England the Bishop had also made plans for the division of his Diocese and secured the appointment of three new bishops to whom in the old way letters patent were to be granted by the Crown, and they were consecrated in England. After this the Bishops in New Zealand were chosen by the Diocesan Synods. The first General Synod under the new Constitution met at Wellington in 1859. The Bishop in his opening address spoke of it as the fulfilment of hopes cherished during a period of fifteen years. He told of the difficulties that had to be surmounted before his hopes could be realised, and how the Constitution was founded on the basis of mutual and voluntary compact. The property of the Church was to be held by trustees; the Church was to be governed by diocesan Synods, and their work was to be co-ordinated under the General Synod. In the work of all these Synods the laity were to have their full share. He spoke of the danger lest they should be tempted to rely on mere external and material organization, and trust to it rather than to the life of the Spirit, but said that it would be vain to seek for spiritual life by neglecting outward organization; they must trust to the quickening spirit to make them living stones, so that each doing his appointed work and using his own special gift, they might see to it that their Church should grow into a holy temple of the Lord. He spoke of the chains with which the Church of England had been bound by her past history; of the abuses “which had been encrusted on her system,” such as private patronage, the sale of spiritual offices, the inequalities of clerical incomes, and the repeated efforts which had been made to remove them. From these chains the Colonial Church was saved; as faithful children it was their part to show how glorious might be the purity of her doctrine and the holiness of her liturgy, free from those chains.