Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Rev. Samuel Marsden, of Paramatta, Senior Chaplain of New South Wales; and of His Early Connexion with the Missions to New Zealand and TahitiMarsden, Samuel
Religion
Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Rev. Samuel Marsden, of Paramatta, Senior Chaplain of New South Wales; and of His Early Connexion with the Missions to New Zealand and Tahiti
Marsden, Samuel
Marsden, Samuel, 1765-1838; Missions -- French Polynesia -- Tahiti (Island); Missions -- New Zealand; Māori (New Zealand people)
The spiritual wants of the colony were not forgotten. He induced the
government to send out three additional clergymen and three
schoolmasters; and happily the selection was intrusted to his own
judgment. A disciple in the school of Venn and Milner, he knew that the
ordinances of the church, though administered by a moral and virtuous
man, or by a zealous philanthropist, were not enough. He sought for men
who were "renewed in the spirit of their minds;" who uttered no mere
words of course when they said at their ordination that they "believed
themselves moved thereto by the Holy Ghost." But here again his task was
difficult; clergymen of such a stamp were but few; the spirit of
missionary enterprise was almost unfelt; and, to say the truth, there
was a missionary field at home, dark and barbarous, and far too wide for
the few such labourers of this class whom the Lord had yet "sent forth
into his harvest." Mr. Marsden, however, nothing daunted, went from
parish to parish till he met with two admirable men, the Rev. Mr. Cowper
and the Rev. Robert Cartwright, who, with their families, accompanied
him on his return. His choice was eminently successful. In a short
account of Mr. Marsden, published in Australia in 1844, they are spoken
of as still living, pious and exemplary clergymen, the fathers of
families occupying some of the most important posts in the colony, and,
"notwithstanding their advancing years and increasing infirmities," it
is added, "there are few young men in the colony so zealous in preaching
the gospel, and in promoting the interests of the church of England."
The schoolmasters too, we believe, did honour to his choice. He had
already established two public free-schools for children of both sexes,
and he was now able to impart the elements of a pious education, and to
train them in habits of industry and virtue. Into all these plans the
archbishop of Canterbury cordially entered, and wisely and liberally
left it to the able founder to select his agents and associates.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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