Two days after his Consecration, Selwyn received an offer from the Rev. C. J. Abraham, one of the ablest Eton masters, to come and work with him in New Zealand as soon as he could be free from the special work he had undertaken at Eton. To this offer Selwyn answered at once: “I am quite overwhelmed with joy at your letter and have just risen from my knees after having poured forth my thankfulness to God.... When I think of the position in which the course of His providence has placed me ... I tremble at the thought of my weakness, and though I know the sufficiency of Divine Grace, still I long for brethren of a like mind to share with me the labours and the joys of the coming harvest. Men talk of sacrifices as a loss. I thank God that the enlarged comprehension of His scheme of mercy, which He has lately given me, has made me feel that no worldly advancement could compensate for the loss of one single moment of the peaceful and thankful and yet humble state of mind which I have enjoyed since the scales of all earthly objects of desire fell from my eyes.... I encourage you to cherish the feelings in which your letter was written, to dwell upon them; and in the end to act upon them; not on the spur of the present occasion, but with the calm, deep and deliberate devotion of a balanced judgment. Men think enthusiasm necessary to missionary enterprise. May we be enabled to show that the highest range of spiritual thought, the most entire and uncompromising obedience to the letter of the Gospel, being no more than our bounden duty, is compatible with the most perfect evenness of mind, and with the subdued and rational exercise of the understanding. “Being called to the Episcopate at an early age I feel at liberty to look forward to a long course of pastoral superintendence over the Church in New Zealand. In that course many great and important changes must occur, for which I must be prepared.... Could I find a few men like yourself, who would silently work with me by the devotion of themselves and their means to the same cause, we should see year after year, parish after parish, archdeaconry after archdeaconry start into life, not with the mere appurtenances of temporal endowment, but with the provision of a living hand to give life and spirit to the institution.... Will you be one of the feeders of my Church, with the view of being in the course of time one of its pastors?” During the farewell days spent at Eton and Windsor many friends gathered to show him their affection and to do him honour. At a meeting held in Windsor, he spoke again of the motives which had made him ready to go forth and of his readiness to go anywhere he might be sent, and of his deep thankfulness because “that land of promise, New Zealand, a land literally flowing with milk and honey, was to be his.”