The changed seasons of the Southern Hemisphere still wait for an inspired poet. The summer Christmas and the autumn Easter have yet to be naturalised among us. Some attempts have been made, not altogether without success. The birth of the Heavenly Babe "in the fulness of time" is felt to be in keeping with the season when
The feathered choir, in copse and glade, Their own enchanting carols sing; Flowers add their incense to the gifts Which nature offers to its King--
while at Easter time, instead of the old association of the Resurrection with the renewed vitality of Spring, we have a fitness drawn from the very contrast:
Christ is risen! All around Autumn leaves are falling; Signs of death bestrew the ground, Winter time recalling. Fading leaf and withered flower Tell us we are mortal: Easter morn reveals a Power Lighting death's dark portal!
These verses are surely on the way to some poetic interpretation of the changed seasons which shall fix the devotions of the future in classic form.[18]
[18] From "The Christian Year Beneath the Southern Cross," by the Rev. F. R. Inwood.
Turning from the liturgical to the personal element in our services, we find that the solitary Marsden of 1814 is now represented by 414 clergy, of whom 50 belong to the Maori race. The numbers vary greatly in the different dioceses. Auckland heads the list with 110 clergy (19 being Maoris), Wellington follows with 77, and Christchurch with 76; Waiapu has 68 (24 being Maoris); Dunedin 46, and Nelson 29. About ninety of these white clergy were born in the land, and many others, having arrived in childhood, have received their training at one or other of the colleges which have been established for the purpose.
Chief among these theological colleges stands, of course, Selwyn's old foundation of St. John's. Its career has been a chequered one, but it was considerably enlarged during the episcopate of Bishop Neligan, and is now in a flourishing condition. Christchurch, in the Upper Department of Christ's College; Dunedin, in Selwyn College; and Wellington, in the Hadfield Hostel, possess institutions which supply to candidates for the ministry a home and a theological training while they attend the lectures at the University colleges. Bishopdale College, which was an institution of great importance under Dr. Suter, has now been revived by the present Bishop of Nelson. The studies in all these local centres are systematised and tested by a Board of Theological Studies, whose operations cover the whole province, and whose standard is equal to that of the mother Church.