he Maoris and Melanesians at their own doors.

What does this show but that the English Church in New Zealand must
widen its outlook and expand its sympathies, till it feels itself lifted
up and inspired to attempt greater things than anything yet achieved?
For long centuries Christianity could never reach these islands: instead
of advancing, it was driven back by the Mohammedan invasion. At last,
with new knowledge and new hope, there came new enterprise and new
daring. The very difficulties of the task became means to its
accomplishment; through the most unlikely channels the beginnings of the
message came. Portuguese and Hollander and Briton; da Gama and Tasman
and Cook; rough whalers, and condemned criminals: in all these we must
recognise the instruments which were used by the All-wise in the laying
of our foundations. But it is to those who set themselves with conscious
courage and far-seeing wisdom to build upon the stone thus laid--to
Marsden and Williams and Selwyn--that we owe the deepest debt.
Undeterred by the difficulties of their task, undismayed by the dangers
of their way, these heroic men gave themselves to the work of building
up under southern skies another England and another home for England's
Church. It is the same spirit that is needed now, but with such fresh
applications as are demanded by the new age.

In this book we have had to tell the hundred years' story of "the
English Church in New Zealand." Perhaps the historian of a century hence
may be able to trace its absorption into a Church which shall include
all the broken fragments of the Body of Christ within its unity; all
true schools of thought within its theology; all classes of men within
its membership; every legitimate interest and pursuit within its
gracious welcome!

For the present juncture the old words approve themselves as the most
fitting: "Keep, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy Church with thy perpetual
mercy; and, because the frailty of man without Thee cannot but fall,
keep us ever by thy help from all things hurtful, and lead us to all
things profitable to our salvation, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

APPENDIX I.

A TABLE EXHIBITING THE EPISCOPAL SUCCESSION IN NEW ZEALAND.

_Those to whose names an asterisk is prefixed were consecrated under
Royal Letters Patent._

DIOCESE OF NEW ZEALAND.

*GEORGE AUGUSTUS SELWYN: Consecrated October 17, 1841, at Lambeth, by W.
Cantuar (Howley), C. J. London (Bloomfield), J. Li