Men who had forfeited their lives to the laws of their country, He gives
them their lives for a prey, and sends them forth to make a way for His
chosen, for them that should bring glad tidings of good things. How
unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!"

Advance and retreat; check and recovery; failure of methods which seemed
direct and divine; compensating success through agencies that looked
hostile; the winds of the Spirit blowing where they list--none able to
tell beforehand whence they are coming or whither they will go: such are
the outstanding features of the long journey of the Christian faith
across the globe; such will be found to mark its history when
established in this land.

First Period.

CHAPTER I.

THE PREPARATION.

(1805-1813).

Every noble work is at first "impossible." In very truth: for every
noble work the possibilities will lie diffused through immensity,
inarticulate, undiscoverable except to faith.
--_Carlyle._

For the seed-plot of Christianity and of civilisation in New Zealand we
must look away from the present centres of population to the beautiful
harbours which cluster round the extreme north of the country. Chief
among these stands the Bay of Islands. This noble sheet of water, with
its hundred islands, its far-reaching inlets, its wooded coves and
sheltered beaches, was for more than a quarter of a century the focus of
whatever intellectual or spiritual light New Zealand enjoyed. Here the
Gospel of Christ was first proclaimed, and the first Mission stations
were established. Here were founded the first schools, the first
printing press, the first theological college, the first library. Here
the first bishop fixed his headquarters, and here he convened the first
synod. Here was signed the Treaty of Waitangi, by which the islands
passed under British rule, and here was the temporary capital of the
first governor. Here, too, was the theatre of the first war between
Maoris and white men; here stood the flagstaff which Heke cut down; from
these hills on the west the missionaries beheld the burning of
Kororareka, whose smoke went up "like the smoke of a furnace."

At the opening of the nineteenth century this important locality was
occupied by the warlike and enterprising tribe of the Ngapuhi. The soil
was generally infertile, but the waters teemed with fish, while the
high clay cliffs and the narrow promontories lent themselves readily