The New Zealand Company was ready to make grants of land for the purposes of the Church, but under conditions which should ensure that their property was benefited through the Church. They wished the Bishop to settle on the land they gave, and he was told that his future popularity would be sacrificed if he did not make his home and build his cathedral at the place they indicated. But Selwyn was going to promise nothing until he had himself studied the country. He said that he would “rent a house for his family and pitch a tent near to it a soon as he landed and the very next day begin daily service, never he hoped to be interrupted. He meant then to go away and visit all the islands and when his choice was made to move his tent thither and continue the services, and by its side build a wooden church, and outside of the wooden building to begin to build a chancel of stone in Norman style, and as soon as any part of the stone cathedral was finished the wooden work would be taken down.” From the very first he wished to have some holy place set apart for the daily service of God, and he carefully superintended the making of the church tent which was to be the first cathedral of the island church. Amidst the important questions that occupied his mind during these busy weeks of preparation, details were not forgotten. His sister remembers “sitting up half the night helping him to make a water proof belt for his watch and pedometer. He meant to swim the rivers, pushing his clothes in front of him.” During all his preparations the thought of the great spiritual work to which he was dedicating his life filled his thoughts. One who was with him at the time writes: “He said the ‘Consecration Service’ had lately been his constant study, and that after next Sunday (his Consecration day) his existence as an individual must cease, and that all his own individual interests and ties must undergo the change with him. Sarah (his wife) knelt down beside him and looking up in his face said, ‘I know at any rate you will not love me any the less.’ He stroked back the hair from her forehead, kissed it, saying, ‘Surely not the less but the more.’ He went on to explain that what he meant was ‘that his very being, with all its powers and affections must now be dedicated to God in a more peculiar and solemn degree than heretofore, and be absorbed into higher powers and boundless affections.’” He was consecrated on October 17th in the Chapel at Lambeth Palace. It was not yet the custom to hold consecrations in the Abbey or at S. Paul’s Cathedral. There was not room for the many friends who wished to be with him in the Chapel, which was crowded as it had never been before on such an occasion. Exceptional interest was felt in his going forth, due to the affection and admiration with which he was regarded by so many, and to the sense of the brilliant prospects at home that he was gladly giving up to go to a distant land only just emerging from barbarism.