then you killed an unarmed man in cold blood for the matter of land?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then you repeated the act of Cain towards Abel, and in the sight of God and man you are a murderer.” “The man started up in great wrath, but the Bishop calmly repeated it. The man started on his feet and left the ring of people, muttering and growling; but his own people did not seem disposed to support him on that point, nor to question the Bishop’s judgment.” Some days after, the soldiers arrived, and the natives grew very excited thinking that the Bishop had broken faith with them; but he reassured them and finally after giving good advice to both sides in the dispute restored peace. Abraham writes: “It was very striking to see the men’s delight when he wound up his speech with their old song, the Maori equivalent for ‘Lady bird, lady bird, fly away home.’ All the good advice seemed to tell but little, but this quotation set the whole party on the alert.” During the days spent in this work of peace-making, Selwyn held many services with both colonists and natives, and persuaded the colonists to provide themselves with churches. Whilst waiting for the steamer which was to take him away, he with his party set to work to mend a road full of great holes, which he had in vain tried to persuade the people to mend. They made the road passable in a day and a half’s work; and were watched by the passers-by with amusement, but unfortunately not with shame for their own idleness. The Bishop was violently attacked in the local papers for his conduct in the Taranaki dispute. In one of them it was said: “Bishop Selwyn is again lending his blighting influence to New Zealand, has again taken the murderer by the hand.... It is reserved for the Bishop of New Zealand to use his undoubted influence to shield notorious criminals from justice when those criminals appeal to his sympathies through the medium of a dark skin.” He was accused of preventing the sale of land to the settlers in New Plymouth. Thinking that some members of the Church might have been offended by the reports they had heard of his opinion and conduct, he felt it to be a religious duty to explain his opinions in a pastoral letter to them. In this he stated what he considered to be the cause of the hostility between the Maoris and the settlers. He said that land had been acquired too hastily without sufficient investigation of the titles, and went on: “My advice to the natives in all parts of New Zealand has always been to sell all the land which they are not able to occupy or cultivate. I had two reasons for this: first to avoid continual jealousies between the races; and secondly to bring the native population within narrower limits, in order that religion, law, education and civilization might be brought to bear more effectually upon them.”