This brief account of the organization of the autonomous Church in New Zealand has been carried to its fitting conclusion in the account of the first meeting of the General Synod and of the first consecration of a Bishop in the country. Bishop Selwyn had accomplished the great work which gave New Zealand a self-governing Church, with a constitution sufficiently elastic to allow it to develop in accordance with its own needs, and yet safely established on those “fundamental principles,” which would for ever secure its union with the Mother Church. By his skill and zeal in bringing this difficult matter to a safe conclusion, he had not only secured a great future for the Church in New Zealand, but he showed the way to other branches of the Anglican Church in other parts of the world. His clear vision, his talent for organization, his indomitable perseverance, his conspicuous power in managing and persuading men, had all combined to make it possible to realize his object in the short period of eighteen years, amidst all the pressure of other work, the strain of constant journeyings to and fro by sea and land, and the cruel anxieties of native wars. What had been achieved filled him with thankfulness and hope for the future. He had worked throughout in full co-operation with others, and on true democratic principles, as befitted a Bishop in a new land. He had no desire to be an autocrat or to win credit for himself. CHAPTER VII BISHOP SELWYN’S WORK IN ENGLAND FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS The primary object of Selwyn’s visit to England was to make arrangements for the organization of the Church in New Zealand. The result of his efforts in that direction has been told in the last chapter. But his visit to England was fruitful in other respects also. He had no intention of lingering there, and had written from his ship on the way to England to his friend, Rev. E. Coleridge: “Do not urge me to prolong my stay, but use your influence to get my work speedily done, and send me to my own element again.” He reached England with Mrs. Selwyn in the Spring of 1854, just when the Crimean War was beginning, but in spite of the pre-occupation of the mind of the country with the war, his energy and eloquence gained him a hearing for the spiritual needs of New Zealand. He spoke and preached in many different places, and four sermons which he delivered before the University of Cambridge created a specially deep impression. He told his hearers that those who came back from the Mission Field were not likely to be able to add anything to the store of learning at home, but that they might be able to bring to them “some deep experience from the fountains of the human heart, some glimpses of primitive Christianity granted to the servants of God in their lonely mission-field.”