Still the church in New Zealand is in an infant state, surrounded by many dangers. The influx of Europeans, the sudden increase of wealth and luxury, the introduction of a new and foreign literature from England, bearing as it were upon its wings all that is bad as well as all that is lovely and of good report in theology, politics, and morals, may well cause, as indeed it does create, the deepest concern to those who have at heart the purity of the Maori faith, and the continued progress of the gospel. It is not for those who know that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, to doubt for a moment of its ultimate success; but the firmest faith may, at the same time, be apprehensive and anxious, if not alarmed, for the fiery trial that awaits her,--not of persecution, but of wealth and luxury, and the sad example of every European vice. Let the reader help them with his prayers.
We cannot close our sketch of the progress of Christianity in New Zealand, without some allusion to the Canterbury Association, one of the most remarkable attempts of modern times to colonize on Christian principles, or rather perhaps we should say, to carry abroad the old institutions of England, and plant them as it were full blown in a new country. The design was not altogether original, for the New England puritans of the seventeenth century, had led the way, in their attempts to colonize at Boston and in New England, in the days of Charles I. They would have carried out the principles, and worship of the Brownites to the exclusion of other sects, though happily for the freedom of religion, their design was soon found to be impracticable, and was only partially accomplished. The Canterbury Association was formed on high church of England principles, "avowedly for the purpose of founding a settlement, to be composed in the first instance of members of that church, or at least of those who did not object to its principles." Its early friends now admit that their project was, in some of its parts, utopian and impracticable. The idea, if ever seriously entertained, of excluding by a test of church membership those whose profession differed from their own was abandoned by most of the colonists as soon as they had set foot on the shores of New Zealand. In 1848, Otakou or Otago, in the southern part of the Middle Island, was colonized by an association of members of the Free Church of Scotland; and in 1850, the first colonists were sent out to the church of England settlement, founded in the vicinity of Banks's Peninsula, by the Canterbury Association. The site made choice of possessed a harbour of its own, an immense extent of land, which it was supposed might easily be brought under cultivation, and removed from danger of disturbance from the natives, of whom there were but few, an extent of grazing country unequalled in New Zealand, and a territory "every way available for being formed into a province, with a separate legislature." The plan was to sell the land at an additional price, and appropriate one third of the cost to ecclesiastical purposes. The sums thus realized by sales of land, were to be placed at the disposal of an ecclesiastical committee, who were empowered to make such arrangements as they might think fit to organize an endowed church in the colony. A bishopric was to be at once endowed, a college, if not a cathedral, was to be connected with it, a grammar-school of the highest class, was to be opened as well as commercial schools; and all the luxuries of English country life, including good roads, snug villas, well cultivated farms; and good society, were to be found by the future settler, after a very few years of probationary toil.