WHS Journal 2007

Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 1

WHS Journal 2007

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WHS Journal 2007 Contents Editorial — Terry Wall ‘Saddlebags and Navvies’ — Douglas H Burt Irene Eva Cornwell — Obituary by Stan Goudge Charles Wesley — Protagonist or ‘push over’? — Norman Brookes Spiritual Journey — Graham Whaley The Marsden Cross Heritage Centre and Chapel — Rev. Patricia Bawden Directory 2007 Anniversaries 2008-9

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WHS Journal 2007 Editorial The completion of the North Island Main Trunk Line in 1908 was a significant moment in the development of the New Zealand economy. Doug Burt’s article commemorates this event. He tells the story of the chaplains who worked in the camps along the line and the commitment of the church to provide worship and ministries of evangelism and pastoral care. It was a pioneering fonn of what we know today as industrial chaplaincy or workplace support. Doug draws attention in his article to the novels of Herman Foston. Published in 1921 in London, At The Front is an imaginative interpretation of the ministry of the church in the railway camps. It tells the life of Ralph Messenger, the hero of the novel, who travels from England to start a new life. An earnest young man seeking to vindicate himself, he is an example of piety, who through hard work and study, manages to better himself in the Dominion. The novel is an intriguing social history of the times and of the way in which the church sought to be in touch with those who endured hard lives in remote regions. There are discussions of socialism, deemed to be inadequate, and of temperance, endorsed enthusiastically. There is a sermon on Christ’s Sympathy (p. 109). The theme of the novel is the mysterious work of God’s providence in the lives of those who are faithful to the gospel. The author provides numerous accolades for Ralph’s heroism. It is interesting to discern the motivation to engage in mission to the construction camps. It seems that “Sunday passed like the weekdays” and those who worked on the line were deprived of the opportunity to develop a spiritual life. We hear an impassioned speech to Conference imploring the “Fathers and Brethren” to take an initiative in embarking upon this mission. The speaker concludes his address by making a few suggestions as to the qualities which the one to be appointed to such work might possess: 1. He should be able to sing. 2. He should have an intense love for his fellow-men. 3. He should be able to make himself at home in the camps and settlers’ homes. 4. If possible, he should have a slight knowledge of doctoring and ambulance work. 5. He should be intensely spiritual, and full of sound common-sense. 6. He should be a good organiser. (p. 96) The story of the mission reveals a church alive to opportunities for mission and conscious of the needs of those involved in heavy and at times dangerous work. There was a willingness to take risks, to invest in places where full-time ministry could not Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 4

WHS Journal 2007 be funded by those for whom it was offered. We are reminded of John Wesley’s dictum, “Go not to those who need you, but to those who need you most.” Doug Burt’s article recalls the church’s impulse in those Edwardian days to reach out and establish communities of faith. Stan Goudge’s fitting tribute to Irene Cornwell invites us to reflect on her distinctive contribution to our mission work in the Solomon Islands, notably employing her linguistic gifts in translating scripture into indigenous dialects. In this year when we have celebrated the tercentenary of the birth of Charles Wesley, Norman Brookes probes the relationship between the two Wesley brothers and comments on their personalities. The poetic work of Charles has not always been given its rightful place in studies of the evangelical awakening. Certainly Norman sees Charles in the wider context of debates about the relationship of the Methodist societies to the Church of England and his understanding of the grace of God. Jack Penman, who died in September of this year, was a long time supporter of the Wesley Historical Society. In recent years he was proof-reader for the Journal. Plans are being put in place to recognize his ministry in a future issue of the Journal. It was Jack who prompted the editor to encourage Graham Whaley to make his spiritual journey available for publication. The article by Patricia Bawden introduces readers to the exciting developments in relation to the Marsden Cross. Pat has been faithful to a vision she received forty years ago of a centre on the site of the first preaching of the gospel in this land. She outlines the history with particular reference to early Wesleyan contact. There have been strong, healthy ecumenical relationships from the very beginning. We are glad to offer for readers the Wesley Historical Society Annual Lecture, given at the Wellington Conference 2007. Jim Stuart explores the social and economic environment in which the Wesley brothers ministered and provides a case for seeing John Wesley’s thought as containing an alternative economics — an evangelical economics, which critiqued and called in question the reigning political economies of the time. Finally, I should like to draw attention to Fred Baker and Tatiana Blagova’s well- received article in the 2006 Journal “Harold Whitmore Williams — The Forgotten Genius”. The New Zealand Listener for January 5 2008 carries a review of a new book on Williams: Russia’s Great Enemy: Harold Williams and the Russian Revolution by Charlotte Alston. It is heartening to see Williams being given the recognition he merits, even if he served the Methodist Church for a few brief years in his appointment at Waitara. — Terry Wall

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WHS Journal 2007 ‘Saddlebags and Navvies’ The Methodist Mission to Railway Construction Workers on the North Island Main Trunk Line, 1895-1908 — Douglas H Burt Introduction It was in 1876 that the provincial government system was abolished in New Zealand. In order to reach the capital, Auckland parliamentarians travelled by train to Onehunga and then embarked upon the long sea voyage to Wellington. Today an hour’s flight bears them over the rugged interior that was then an insuperable barrier. Now the alternative of a tar-sealed highway is also available. But for most of the past century iron tracks provided the principal means of conveying people and goods between our chief cities. At a time when the facility is being curtailed we recall that this is more than a tale of two cities. Because of the presence of the North Island Main Trunk railway, construction camps matured into rail and rural service centres, and backblocks communities have developed established towns. At the same time immigrants from the other side of the world found new homes, sometimes in newly accessible corners of this rugged land. Such relocation of people provided a challenge to followers of the Rev. John Wesley who told them to “Go not only to those who need you, but to those who need you most.” Already in 1839 a Methodist missionary, the Rev. James Buller, had rowed and walked from his Northern Wairoa station at Tangiteroria to Port Nicholson (Wellington) at the time of the arrival of the first New Zealand Company settlers. Along the West Coast from Whaingaroa (Raglan), missionaries and natives brought the Christian message to Maori kainga, sometimes up such rivers as Mokau, Waitotara and Whanganui. With the coming of European colonists some missionaries, especially in coastal Taranaki, extended their ministry to Methodist settlers. During the tragic conflict of the sixties, in which Rev. John Whitely was killed, many of these sought refuge in Nelson. By the time these refugees were able to return, the seat of government had been transferred to Wellington. Though steam railways were both linking and creating settlements, the mountainous interior of the North Island remained largely unknown to any but its scattered Maori inhabitants. The extent of that ‘no-man’s-land’ can be recognised by the fact that Methodist circuits at the 1880 rail heads — Waikato (Te Awamutu) in the north and Rangitikei (Marton) in the south — were administered by the Auckland and Wanganui Synods respectively. Emerging from the devastation of its land wars, the young colony faced a challenge which was to transform this latent region into a highway towards national prosperity. The time was ripe for a bold move to use modern technology to open up this untapped North Island hinterland. With his belief “that railways, generally speaking, in each island, should be designed and Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 6

WHS Journal 2007 constructed as part of a main line”, Premier Julius Vogel’s 1870 Railway Act opened a new chapter of New Zealand history.

METHODIST HOME MISSIONS Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 7

WHS Journal 2007 Our purpose is to explore the way in which the Wesleyan Methodist Church ministered to those constructing the North Island Main Trunk railway. During the great railway building era in Great Britain, in the first half of the nineteenth century, construction workers were commonly known as ‘navigators’ — abbreviated to ‘navvies’. The particular resource, which New Zealand Wesleyans used for the kind of pioneering outreach that included railway navvies, was an often inadequately recognised band of Home Missionaries. At the time that Julius Vogel arrived in this country New Zealand Wesleyans formed a District of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australasia, but in 1874 they gained a measure of autonomy as one of the seven conferences of that church with representation at the triennial conferences. As a result a New Zealand Home Mission Department came into being which employed qualified lay preachers to serve churches which could not support trained ministers. Such home mission stations were often in developing rural areas or on urban fringes. A few of them had unusual characteristics such as the self-descriptive Saddlebag mission of North Taranaki in the first decade of the twentieth century. The degree of oversight that could be given to these usually young agents varied, but an ordained minister was designated to guide and supervise each of them. Many home missionaries went on to become valued ministers, while others later gave devoted service as laymen. This record of a few who touched pioneer life in a particular sphere may serve to honour the many who provided a welcome supplementary ministry throughout the country for over a century. THE VOGEL VISION It is for young countries to look to the railroad system as the most powerful agency in their advancement. Let the country but make the railroads, and the railroads will make the country. (Otago Daily Times editorial, 13 March 1863) Before he became editor of the Otago Daily Times in November 1861 Julius Vogel had progressed from assaying gold in Victoria, through selling patent medicines, to editing local newspapers. He even stood unsuccessfully for the Avoca seat in the Victoria State Assembly. Now twenty years old, he was ready to use the press to promote his own views and political career. While he favoured separate provinces, and would eventually advocate separation between North and South Islands, in 1863 these policies only brought defeat in two provincial elections. When he was returned for Waikouaiti in June, and later became Treasurer, with Macandrew as Superintendent, he encouraged provincial development, including the construction of roads and railways, bridges and immigration, as well as schools and university, in spite of the shortage of money and the difficulty of borrowing any.

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WHS Journal 2007 Ever aggressive in politics, Vogel continued to concentrate on the unpopular provincial issue. When he was defeated in 1866, he won the Goldfields (national) and Taieri (provincial) seats in succession; he rarely contested the same seat twice. Having married, Vogel moved to Auckland, finding a platform as editor and general manager of the Southern Cross (which was later absorbed by the New Zealand Herald). He joined William Fox in opposing the policies of Edward Stafford’s government, especially on Maori and administrative matters. As Treasurer in Fox’s 1869 administration, Vogel soon made that portfolio the most powerful, introducing constructive economic policies which had been few and far between. His bold expansionist policy, which was adopted by the House in 1870, aimed to renew colonization and to stimulate economic growth. It depended on:  thousands of assisted immigrants  the construction of roads and railways, bridges and telegraph lines  the purchase of Maori land for European settlement. These programmes were to be financed by borrowing and land grants. When, on the strength of this policy, Vogel became Premier in 1872, he affirmed “that the real value of the railway is to open up the country, to enable settlers to get further back and afford producers the means of bringing their produce to market.” Economic strictures would mean that it would take many long years to attain that goal. By the time provincial government was abolished, provincial rivalry was responsible for an economic imbalance that tended to favour Otago and Canterbury. It is easy to recognise the significant lead its goldfields gave Otago, especially as several branch railways served Central Otago, in one of which Vogel himself had an interest. It was easier, and cheaper, to build railways across the plains of Canterbury than over the swamps of the Waikato. In many ways Vogel’s plan was a self-balancing package deal, but it depended heavily on having access to borrowed money, which in terms of the day meant raising a loan in London. It helped that the Governor General, Sir James Ferguson, shared the premier’s interest in finance and business. In spite of an economic upturn in 1872-73, state investment in transport and communication (including 1.5 million pounds for railways) came entirely from British investors. From London the Colonial Undersecretary warned, “for a population of 300,000 to be under obligation of paying 370,000 pounds as interest on debt annually, before a shilling can be expended on other purposes of government, does appear very hazardous.” To ease the situation, provincial governments were left to build their own branch lines, while Cabinet decided that main lines should be completed from money for which security was not yet available. In September 1876 the failure of a further Railway Bill, which was to appropriate funds to this end, terminated Vogel’s government without any prospect of a North Island main trunk railway. With the formation of Atkinson’s ‘scarecrow ministry’ — so called because it was an aggregate of members with no party allegiance — Vogel succeeded Featherston as Agent-General in London where over the next four years he helped more than five Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 9

WHS Journal 2007 thousand migrate to New Zealand while Atkinson’s government steadily reduced the public works vote. WHICH ROUTE? The change of leadership also brought pressure as to the route that the northern railway should take. Atkinson’s Taranaki electorate already had several sections of line that would in 1883 link at Marton with the Wellington and Manawatu Company’s track. His faction naturally favoured a more westerly route to the Waikato. But Vogel’s vision was for a more central route through Taupo with branch lines from Marton to New Plymouth and Napier. Although by 1884 the House of Representatives clearly favoured the central route, and construction began on that premise, the issue was not finally resolved until 1900. The North Island Main Trunk Railway Loan Act of 1882 authorised the raising of two million pounds for the construction of the railway but it remained silent as to the route to be adopted. In 1883-1884 the civil engineer and surveyor, John Rochfort spent fifteen months extensively surveying the country west of Ruapehu, while routes via Mokau and also to Napier, by way of Taupo, were investigated by others. These pioneers had access to records of earlier exploration but no surveyed maps of the central North Island yet existed. This land of rivers, mountains and bush was not like gentle Dorset and Devon! Three commissions considered these alternatives and in October 1884 the central route was chosen in spite of the steep northern descent from the Waimarino plateau, the full challenge of which had yet to be appreciated. Geographically the North Island is basically longitudinal, especially in its centre, where most rivers run north and south. Maori had long used this feature to advantage. The chosen route followed the Rangitikei river up to its tributary, Hautapu, which takes its rise at Waiouru on the central plateau. The western flank of Mount Ruapehu provided suitable gradients between there and the 800 metre height of the Waimarino plain. From the northern shoulder of the plateau, streams flow sharply into the upper Whanganui basin. Ongarue River, which flows into Whanganui from the north at Taumarunui, is separated near its source from the WaipalWaikato watershed by Poro- o-tarao (the backside of Tarao). So evident was it that a tunnel through this barrier could carry the railway, once it descended from the central highland, on to the easy gradients that prevailed thence to Te Awamutu, Mercer and Auckland, that when construction did begin, it would be given equal priority to that of the Mangaweka viaduct.

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WHS Journal 2007

Map showing alternative routes for railway in central North Island - chosen route was Te Awamutu to Marton. — A Compendium of Railway Construction, F K Roberts KING COUNTRY TURF Our attention turns from geography to history. The land wars had brought the Auckland railway to a halt when it reached Te Awamutu in 1880. A few kilometres ahead was the Aukati line. North of that line was the pakeha land, confiscated from the natives, now being turned into farms by European settlers, many of them former members of the militia. South of the line was the King Country that remained closed to white settlement. King Tawhiao at Te Kuiti maintained this barrier against the negotiations of the government for access to extend the railway.

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WHS Journal 2007 The final battle of the land wars took place at Orakau just north of the Puniu River. The land south of the river belonged to the paramount Maniapoto chief, Wahanui Huatere, who had received a Wesleyan missionary education at Wakatumutumu, near Te Kuiti and Wesley College, Three Kings. Many mission Maori who did not agree with King Tawhiao’s opposition took a leading part in opening this restricted area to the British Crown forty-five years after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Rewi Maniapoto said to Rochfort: “Tell Mr. Bryce [the Native Minister) to hasten the railway. I am an old man now, and I would like to ride in the railway.” He had been with his kinsman, Wahanui, when they had met Bryce at Ranana where Major Kemp (a Maori police officer also known as Kepa Te Rangihiwinui) lived. On that occasion Rochfort, who was also present, spoke to great effect: By having a railway and roads through your lands you will find that your poor bush will become rich. Previous to your arrival I had a dream that the whole of the trees on both sides of the Whanganui River, big and small, all fell towards mc, and I could see the river in the same position. The interpretation of my dream is that the whole of the natives were the trees, the river was the railway, and the falling towards me is that you will allow the railway to come through and that I am to be the means of inducing you and that you are to help me .... This will be your last opportunity of improving your lands.

Turning the first sod of the Main Trunk Railway, 15 April 1885 — Auckland City Libraries On 15 April 1885 three steam engines pulled a special excursion train out of Auckland railway station and strained up the 1:43 Parnell bank with about half its seats filled. Others joined the train on its way to Te Awamutu, though some were heading for the Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 12

WHS Journal 2007 races at Cambridge. On arrival numerous coaches conveyed them from the station free of charge to where a serviceable plank bridge, which had been built across the Puniu River, gave access to a steep path up the south bank. Meanwhile Premier Stout had been in Alexandria (Pirongia) with other leading persons of the day to decide on protocol that would suitably recognise all parties to this very significant sequel to conflict over land, which would affect the future of both races. Their arrival at Puniu, escorted by the Te Awamutu Cavalry, was largely obscured by dust. When all fifteen hundred spectators were assembled Wahanui took off his hat and coat, dug out three sods of his own turf and placed them in the barrow which had been used by Sir George Grey when turning the first sod of the Waikato-Thames railway on 23 December 1878. The Maori present counted the successive sods in audible tones. As cheers died down Rewi Maniapoto stepped forward and called on the Premier to wheel away the sods. Mr Stout wheeled the barrow along some specially provided planks and upturned the turfs on to the ground to the accompaniment of cheers and the band playing ‘God save the Queen’. Rewi Maniapoto reminded those present of a major condition of the agreement, and must have won the approval of the Premier, who was a keen temperance advocate, when he said that he regarded the fresh waters of the Puniu as the proper ‘booze’ boundary. Another source has Wahanui saying: The part of Mr. Stout’s speech which I wish to make reference to refers to prohibition. The government marked out the district but I objected. I said there could be no better boundary than the stream of fresh water that flows below us. I consider the river to be the boundary of such a district. One other suggestion I would make is that we would give the railway a name. There was an ancestor whose name was Turongo and I wish that name given to the line; to the chain width as the people on each side have their own names for their lands. The crowd had therefore, until they could return to the north bank of the river, to slake their thirst with prosaic tea. The gate was open, but it would be twenty-three years before Aucklanders could travel the twin rails to the capital city. VOGEL’S RETURN The year before that eventful day at Puniu, Julius Vogel had stepped off the Tongariro to re-enter New Zealand political life. He quickly found that “five years of stagnant prices, during which Atkinson had applied the pruning knife at the Treasury, had created a period of depression.” The mere appearance of Vogel raised hopes of a new regime. He was elected with Grey and Atkinson to form a new much needed government. But Grey soon withdrew and a vote of no confidence in Atkinson opened the way for the more stable ministry of Stout with Vogel back as Treasurer, and Richardson in charge of Public Works. Atkinson said that it was a government of Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 13

WHS Journal 2007 railways, but at its heart was the basic hidden purpose of rescuing the agricultural economy. Vogel saw that the country needed the completion of the Main Trunk railway as well as building up the district railway and road systems. Soon cuts, debentures and more borrowings were under way to enable major public works to proceed. All proposals for district railways were referred to local bodies so that they could contribute half the cost of any excess. Even the deferment of the proposed southern East to West Coast and the Nelson line could not prevent the approaching collapse of the Stout ministry. As the member for Wellington (George Fisher) put it, “The problem was to keep the government in and keep their policy out.” Vogel and Stout regarded railways as reproductive works, capable of generating employment and return for capital. They agreed to restrict borrowings to railway extensions but cutbacks made by parliament endangered the railway programme, largely due to inter-island mistrust. North Island members knew that unless the loan authorised in 1883 was belatedly raised, their Main Trunk railway would never be finished. Vogel had to reiterate his commitment to South Island railways. But by March 1886 Governor Jervois was asked to dissolve the parliament. That the 1886 loan floated in October was barely subscribed was “ascribed to the declining favour in which New Zealand securities are now regarded, owing to the magnitude of the continual growth of public debt without clear evidence of corresponding increase in the power to discharge it.” Yet in March 1887 the first sod was turned for the South Island Midland railway. Then at last in June Vogel reluctantly fell back on cost cutting — no new railways would be built. On his resignation as Treasurer early in the new year of 1888 he retired to England. He never returned to New Zealand. However, in spite of much economic adversity, his vision was actualised over the following two decades. AT THE FRONT This is the title of a novel written by a Primitive Methodist home missionary about a young man who served among the navvies during the making of the Stratford to Okahukura railway in the decade after the completion of the Main Trunk line. Four cartons of Herman Foston’s unpublished novels earned him the heading “New Zealand’s most unpublished author” in a 1997 display in Wellington. But two that were published came to my attention. In later years Foston was a keen temperance lecturer. Borrowing from his title to provide headings for the main divisions of our story also draws attention to the frontier nature of the work of navvies and missionaries alike. THE NORTH FRONT 1 As navvies and engineers began to turn the vision into tentative reality, the infant churches had included these immigrants and other workers within their outreach as best they could. Te Awamutu had been included in the widespread Waikato circuit

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WHS Journal 2007 established following the land wars. The fact that Dr William Morley describes it, when it became a separate circuit from 1882 to 1890, as “exceedingly prosperous” with a second church at Kihikihi which was sold in 1886, reflects the progress of railway construction accommodation as the Puniu river was crossed. Te Awamutu rejoined the Hamilton circuit for a few years but with the arrival of Gabriel Elliott from Mangaweka in 1901, it became a home mission station for three years. During that time a church was opened at Otorohanga. In order to avail his local inter-church committee of a donation from Shepherd Allen towards a Methodist church, Elliott gave an assurance that it would be available to everybody. By 1899 services were being held as far as Te Kuiti which was then the effective railhead. THE SOUTH FRONT 1 In June 1888 the branch line from the Wellington and Manawatu Railway at Marton reached Hunterville, over two hundred kilometres north of Wellington. The Rangitikei plains provided good gradients and settlement was more advanced here than in the King Country. At Marton, the centre of the Rangitikei Methodist circuit, the 1872 church had to be replaced in 1893 by one seating two hundred and twenty in 1893. Men working on the Hunterville railway may also have joined with settlers in the little church at Upper Tutaenui or at services held at Porewa. When Balance’s Liberal Party won the 1891 election, Richard Seddon as Minister of Public Works dispensed with private contracts, instead letting work out to co- operative groups of men supervised by an engineer. With the exception of certain tunnels and viaducts, the 152 miles (243 km) then remaining to be completed — from Mangaonoho (near Porewa) to Puketutu (near Te Kuiti) — would be constructed on the co-operative system. This would necessitate more accommodation for workers and their families. The first such camp was at the Makohine viaduct where on 13 November 1893, Mrs Quinlivan and three children perished when their tent was caught in a slip of ‘material system’ from a cutting. Compassionate allowances were recommended by Prime Minister Seddon for her husband Thomas and his brother Patrick, father of one of the children, as well as her surviving daughter. Under the co-operative contract system, formation work was divided into sections of suitable size for a party of between six and twelve men. A head man, or overseer, received no extra pay but his tenure was subject to the wish of his gang. The engineer in charge assessed the value of excavation and other work involved and wages were based on those ruling in the district for similar work plus a small percentage representing a contractor’s tender price. A monthly measurement ensured payment by result rather than estimate. Tents and expensive equipment were provided by the government but the navvies found their own picks and shovels. While any workman who did not pull his weight could be voted out of the party there was a rough but genuine camaraderie among the men and a gang that was always voting out one of its number got a bad name among other parties. While they were very tolerant of physical Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 15

WHS Journal 2007 disability and even the chronic loafer, incompetent men, or such as were a danger to themselves or to others, could be dismissed by the engineer. Accommodation for those thus contracted to the Public Works Department, many of whom were immigrants, as well as for professional staff, had to keep pace with the needs of construction through a basically unserviced region. Most construction camps were transient groupings of tents. One of the heaviest and most vital pieces of equipment wagoned to a new campsite was the camp oven. The ability to turn out palatable, digestible camp oven meals was a mark of distinction among navvies and engineers. The release of three thousand trout in the Hautapu River in 1894 provided both sport and delectable meals. Supplies for the job and for those who did it had to be brought by wagon from the current railhead or from Pipiriki on the Whanganui River. Making a railway, particularly through rugged country such as surrounds the central plateau, involves a great deal more than putting rails on the ground. After the initial exploratory surveys, which determined the most suitable general route, engineering surveyors had to meticulously establish how the best gradients and easiest curves could be obtained. On their success depended the loading and speed of trains in the future. To this end much navvying was required such as bush felling for survey lines and forming access roads — not very pleasant tasks, especially in winter at heights of up to eight hundred metres above sea level.

Raurimu 1906, showing living conditions of rail workers’ families. —A Compendium of Railway Construction, F K Roberts p. 30 THE SOUTH FRONT 2 When writing his comprehensive History of New Zealand Methodism in 1900, Dr William Morley did not directly mention the railway then being built through the Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 16

WHS Journal 2007 central plateau. But his opening description of the Mangaweka home mission station is truly redolent of Julius Vogel, journalist and politician: During the last seven years the interior of the North Island has been rapidly opened up. The tide of civilisation has steadily advanced. The outpost of one year has become the starting point of the next. As new lands were surveyed there has been a stream of population ready to pour in. The Mangaweka Methodist District is entirely the growth of this period. It comprises the larger part of the Upper Rangitikei. The township was known first as ‘Three Log Whare’. The railway township of Mangaweka developed beside the erection of the massive viaduct at the turn of the century. At the first sale of town sections Mr R S James, teacher of the district school, arranged the purchase of a church site. Methodist services were held in the 14 foot by 12 foot school by the Rev. James Thomas and Mr C E Darvill of the Rangitikei Circuit, until a young lay preacher was sent to the new mission station from Wanganui, in June 1895.

Mangaweka Church The First Church on a Home Mission Station”. —Morley, p.319 Although he was of delicate appearance, Arthur Hopper proved himself exceedingly wiry. Of the ten agents who were based at Mangaweka during the building of the line he served the longest. Then after six years as a journalist, he returned to mission work. He was ordained in 1911 continuing to minister until he retired in 1935. Much that Dr Morley wrote of the nature of his work could also be applied to his successors: He got through an enormous amount of work, amid untoward conditions, and with very rough travelling. The population was a mixed one, so far as their religious proclivities were concerned. There were Protestants of all denominations, and not a few Roman Catholics. Wisely confining himself to the essentials of Christianity and showing a kindly spirit towards all, visiting

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WHS Journal 2007 the sick and needy of all creeds and no creed, Mr. Hopper gained great respect and won a way for his Master’s message. Before his farewell early in 1898 services, which had been held in the new school when it was built, had moved into the first church erected in the infant town. Plain but substantial, Trinity Church was designed to seat one hundred and fifty people. Two services continued to be held each Sunday and sixty scholars attended the Sunday school, superintended by Mr A O Smith with help from Miss Munro. His successor Harold Blomfield’s health failed and in 1899 Gabriel Elliott arrived for two years before being moved to Te Awamutu, to begin a lifetime association with the King Country. At the beginning of the new century the town of about a thousand people had already acquired grocers, drapers, boot shops, photographic and pharmaceutical establishments and even two local newspapers. With the completion of the Makohine viaduct in November 1902 the line was opened as far as Mangaweka. A year later Mangaweka’s own viaduct was completed. As formation continued towards the central highland a co-operative settlement of two hundred grew some four miles north at Kawhatau. The missionaries visited and held services at these camps usually on Sunday afternoons. A larger camp developed near where Mr Darvill had settled at Utiku. The horse-riding ministers must have welcomed the access road that had been formed up to Waiouru. As early as September 1894 members of a syndicate formed in Christchurch had arrived to settle in Taihape. By the time the rails reached Taihape ten years later it was seen as having a future as a flourishing town. Three services had been held each month but when Thomas Bryant became the first resident missionary in 1904 he was able to open a church that November and could report much increase in congregations. At the same time he opened monthly services at Mataroa and Turangarere where the loop up the Hautapu valley was being formed. The next year Taihape became the first Methodist Circuit to be formed within the railway construction region and the Rev. Frederick Copeland began a three year ministry. While railway navvies and their families must have taken much of their time and energy, the missionaries did not neglect the settlers who lived in this remote area. Seven miles from Taihape, about twenty neighbours gathered in Mrs Groome’s home. She was the daughter of a British Methodist minister. Mr Battley, who managed the large Maori sheep station at Moawhango to the east, provided a piano to lead services. At such places, as many as three hundred and fifty people attended public worship. In view of the rugged terrain and scarcity of serviceable roads it was indeed an enormous amount of work. Construction was moving towards the central plateau. The section of line from Mataroa to Waiouru, that looped up the Hautapu Valley, was not opened until July 1908. THE NORTH FRONT 2 Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 18

WHS Journal 2007 Formation as far as Te Kuiti had required only two tunnels: the 1:43 Parnell Rise out of Auckland and a very short one through a spur at Mercer. Four months after the turning of the turfs at Puniu two engineering contracts were signed which would launch major progress. The first was for the Waiteti viaduct (127 metres) that would give access towards the strategic penetration of the Mokau to Ongarue saddle at Poro- o-tarao. It was the second contract that was to be most affected by the deteriorating economy. Work on the 1300 metre Poro-o-tarao tunnel (through unstable papa country 440 metres above sea level) was delayed until the contract date for its completion had passed. Then the problems of tunnelling without modern machinery through such country became all too clear. Horses and drays and sheer navvy power dominated. Such basic amenities as the bush-encircled camps provided must have been welcomed by weary workers and beasts. A special railway was laid to bring timber eight kilometres from the Tunnel Timber Company’s own mill at Tapuwae, and bricks to line the tunnel were made in their own brickworks. Even before the completion in 1890 it provided access for men and horses in both directions. Apart from river bridges, engineering work would be minimal all the way to Raurimu spiral. For those living and labouring at this focal point at the approach of the new century the tunnel portals must have afforded encouraging symbolism. By the turn of the century the tunnel was open. From 1896 it was in use by the Public Works Department although not officially opened until the end of 1906. It was possible, with some care, to walk through and even ride a horse to the Ongarue valley. As work on the Taumarunui section progressed Kakahi and Owhango had become centres of administration and engineering services. By 1906 Raurimu was housing those creating the spiral. On 11 January 1901 a letter was read at an executive meeting of the Methodist Home Mission Board in Auckland from Mr W S Allen. It contained the offer by Mr Roget of Victoria to work among the railway men on the Main Trunk Line. Mr Allen was thanked for what he had done and for the generous offer of help towards the cost of employing him for two years. It was resolved that Mr Roget be appointed. Mr W Shepherd Allen was a British Methodist who, after twenty years in the House of Commons, took up the Piako block near Morrinsville, where his support and benefactions to the Church deserve a book of their own. As his homestead, ‘Annandale’ was near the Piako wayside rail station, members of the Upper Thames Methodist Circuit enjoyed his hospitality for their quarterly meetings before returning to the Ohinemuri goldfields.

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Poro-o-tarao, 1900, showing settlement and rails ready for further down the line. — A Compendium of Railway Construction, F K Roberts p.18 By April Henry Roget had arrived and nine shillings and five pence was voted for his expenses from Auckland to the scene of his labours at Poro-otarao. Messrs Gittos and Allen were deputed to purchase a tent, blankets and a waterproof sheet and forward the same to him for use in his work. In a letter from Honolulu, Mr Allen requested that Roget’s labours be confined to men employed on the Trunk line. There is no mention of the horse that he is known to have sold for nine pounds on being moved to Coromandel a year later. Undoubtedly his horse negotiated the slippery tracks and unfinished tunnel to good effect as he fulfilled this early industrial chaplaincy. Bringing spiritual care to the Poro-o-tarao community he was also laying the foundation for a ministry as a missionary in Fiji and his later circuits in Victoria and New South Wales. IN THE MIDDLE Methodist settlers had established weekly services in Mr McHardie’s home at Ohakune in 1894. When Rev. W Keall from Feilding visited, in November of that year, sixty people gathered in the Raetihi billiard room. As a result the Dictrict

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WHS Journal 2007 Chairman, Rev. George Bond, sent Mr Keall’s eldest son, Robert Purcell Keall, an accepted candidate for the ministry, to establish the Mangawhero home mission station to the south and west of Mount Ruapehu. His first services were held in the two main towns on 25 October 1896.

Ohakune Church — Morley, p.320 Within six months he had erected a church to his own design at Ohakunc with services also at Raetihi and Karioi. The land had only been opened up for four years but settlement was going on steadily. On October 30 1898 a church was opened to seat one hundred and twenty persons; Sunday School and Bible Classes were also started. The mission station name was changed to Waimarino and Raetihi became the residential centre for the seven young men appointed over the next twelve years. As this station had its beginnings in a settler church its annual reports barely mentioned the Railway work. In his 1900 report G W Cobb still referred to the projected North Island Main Trunk Railway, but saw the work steadily growing in spite of the removal of some regular members. During 1903 Charles Blair (who became my minister in 1939) had found a warm welcome in outlying places, and three well-conducted Sunday Schools on the mission station. When construction had begun in 1887 no one yet knew for certain precisely where the line would go. In 1898 a meeting in Auckland was still agitating for a Taranaki route, but already the construction surveyor, Robert W Holmes, was wrestling with two great gradient challenges. The survey line, which sought to bring the track down from Waimarino (National Park - 807 metres above sea level) to Raurimu (592 metres above sea level), proved to be descending too steeply with no available alternative. In his tent at Raurimu, Holmes slept on the problem and recalled how he had dealt with a matching situation in the ascent of the Hautapu valley. Today’s motorists, encountering two very steep slopes south of Waiouru, may wonder where the railway has disappeared. It meanders in fact to the west along the Hautapu river valley along the fascinating Turangarere loop from Hihitahi (741 metres above sea level) to Mataroa (530 metres and one 96 metres) for the northern descent. This solution

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WHS Journal 2007 produced the famous Raurimu spiral where passengers can see the other end of their train going round the bends.

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WHS Journal 2007 When finally, in October 1900, a third official commission decided that they were on the right track, a great deal of progress had already been made. Since 1891 Robert Holmes had been in charge of construction and later of locating a more defined route. The Superintending Engineer was Peter Seton Hay who was the first to graduate BA from Otago University and, having gained honours at Master’s level, declined an exhibition offered by Cambridge University in order to return to court a New Zealander. He had designed the Makohine and Mangaweka viaducts. Five more viaducts were needed to span the almost one thousand metres of deep valleys flowing from Mount Ruapehu. By the time he had finished designing them, Hay had become Assistant Engineer-in-Chief, bringing him into close association with their erection that would be the climax to the construction. Engineering works centred on Owhango, Waimarino (which became National Park) and Ohakune in turn. It was from exposure while inspecting this work that Peter Hay incurred the illness from which he died on 19 March 1907. About 1906 the Secretary for Home Missions, Rev. T G Brooke, wrote a Report re the Committee on Sites in Rising Towns of Taranaki which had found it impossible to meet together for counsel. For the same reason no steps had been taken to raise funds. The fact, too, that the rising townships were all in the backblocks of the District and consequently in a region of which no more than one or two members had any personal knowledge had been an added difficulty. With such limited consultation they considered that sections ought to be secured at the earliest possible moment at Mangaparo and Matiere in Ohura and at Taumarunui on the northern section of the Main Trunk Line; then along the course of the line now under construction (or completed but not yet handed over by the Public Works Department) at the following places: Raurimu, Matatote, and Horopito (especially the latter as the nearest point on the line to Raetihi); also at Waiouru. Most of the places mentioned needed prompt attention, as land would certainly increase in value. Taumarunui posed special difficulties, the township being Maori land that could only be leased, while the available government land above the railway was a high terrace seen as unlikely to attract public interest. A much later minister noted that T G Brooke’s name appears on the foundation stone of the Taumarunui church. John B Beeche, a theological student recently appointed to Raetihi, was asked in 1906 by the Secretary to look for a church site at Horopito, which was expected to provide road access from Raetihi that summer. In later years when Beeche had to withdraw from ministry for health reasons, he practised law in Waihi and was elected Vice President of the Methodist Conference, the highest office open to a layman at that time. As a young minister I enjoyed the kindly advice of ‘Waihi Beeche’.

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Hapuawhenua Viaduct, north of Ohakune, built 1907-8 – one of many needed to span deep valleys along the route. —A Compendium of Railway Construction, FK Roberts p.51

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Raurimu Station, 1908. The first level of The Spiral in the foreground, with Station at lower level in middle distance. More substantial buildings are evident. —A Compendium of Railway Construction, FK Roberts p.30

Raetihi Church and Trustees – Morley, p.342

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Prime Minister the Rt Hon. Sir Joseph Ward driving the ‘last spike’, just north of the Manganui-o-teaoViaduct (a little south of National Park) November 1908. [The Parliamentary Special had travelled Wellington to Auckland three months earlier.j — A Compendium of Railway Construction, F K Roberts p.l4 After Prime Minister William Massey had driven the final spike near Erua on 6 November 1908 much finishing work remained. The Public Works Department did not hand over the Taumarunui to Erua section to Railways until February 1909. Regular Main Trunk expresses operated in both directions from 15 February. In the process of realising Sir Julius Vogel’s vision the country had gained thousands of immigrants. Not only were the main North Island cities and towns brought closer; much formerly inaccessible pastoral and arable land had been made available for settlement, some by former navvies who continued to illustrate Vogel’s dictum: ‘Let the country but make the railroads and the railroads will make the country.’ A FRONTIERSMAN Twenty-seven year old George Sherson had been agricultural contracting with his father and brother in Canterbury before moving north to Mangaweka in 1897. Here he and his horses were contracted to the Public Works department on building the Main Trunk Railway. When he married Ellen McKinnon of Rangiwahia in October 1903 it cost him two hundred and forty pounds to build a seven-bedroom totara house. Mangaweka Methodists could not know that their son, Donald, born the following

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WHS Journal 2007 year, would eventually become a Methodist minister. At the time George had to pay up to one hundred and twenty pounds for a draught horse, which indicates the value of his team of eighty and their drivers to the construction work. As well as a variety of lesser duties, heavy components for viaducts had to be hauled from Owhango up to the viaduct sites With the completion of the railway he had to sell his horses. He found work briefly as a booking clerk with a coach company. By 1909 he was driving a team of horses bringing logs down the Landvale Road tramline and the young family was living in a mill hut in Taumarunui. That year he won a farm in a ballot. The road to Otinui being little more than a farm track, household goods and small children were moved on horseback to begin life on land the railways had made. There they welcomed visits from Charles Stewart, the Saddlebag missionary. Whenever possible they worshipped in the Methodist church which was built in the railway town of Taumarunui. EPILOGUE The Methodist Conference recognised the end of this phase of mission work by using, for the first time, ‘Main Trunk Line’ to designate J F Martin’s 1907 appointment to Raurimu. Mr Martin liked to use the term ‘Saddlebag’ to describe his mission work, thus providing a descriptive name for the pioneer work of those who took up the challenges of the country being opened up by the railways between Mokau and Kaiteke. Charles Stewart, who was appointed to the North Taranaki Saddlebag mission in 1908, was moved the following year to Ohura as the line from Stratford approached. Taumarunui, by then a halt for locomotives in preparation for the Raurimu ascent, also developed through the Saddlebag mission. Both centres had a church building within a decade. The mission that served the railroads continued to serve the country the railroads made.

Leaving Ohakune Station early 1900s. [Source unknown] Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 27

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Regular Main Trunk express train services started in 1909. Here, at Raurimu, the engine builds a good head of steam before tackling The Spiral;

Taumarunui Station and main street 1910. Settlement now showing as substantial and permanent. While the railway station is no more, many of the buildings remain in 2008. — A Compendium of Railway Construction, F K Roberts p.20 and outside back cover.

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WHS Journal 2007 APPENDIX Methodist Home Missionaries who served during the Construction of the North Island Main Trunk Railway 1895 — 1908 Year Mangaweka Mangawhero Te Awamutu 1895 Arthur Hopper (June) 1896 Arthur Hopper R Purcell KealI (6 m) 1897 Arthur Hopper Edwin C Somerville 1898 Harold Blomfield John H White Waimarino 1899 Gabriel Elliott G W Cobb 1900 Gabriel Elliott R Flowers 1901 Henry Roget (NIMT) Gabriel Elliott 1902 George F Stockwell Charles Blair Gabriel Elliott J I Turnbull 1903 J I Turnbull Charles Blair Gabriel Elliott 1904 James Richards Charles J Bush Thomas Bryant (Taihape) 1905 J L Michaelis Charles J Bush W Cross Victor S Mercer John B Beeche 1906 John B Beeche A Hislop J F Martin 1907 W Harry Wise John B Beeche A Hislop Saddlebag Mission J F Martin (Main Trunk Line (Raurimu)) 1908 North Taranaki Saddlebag Mission Charles A Stewart

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WHS Journal 2007 Irene Eva Cornwell née Shoosmith 24 November 1924— 4 January 2007 82 years Funeral Service Mt Albert Methodist Church Monday 8 January 2007 at 1.00 pm Officiating Minister the Reverend Elizabeth Hopner Tribute by the Reverend Stan Goudge

Greetings to all of you. We are so pleased that you can join with us in this joyful celebration of such a grand life of a remarkable lady, a life lived to the full in loving service in the spirit of Jesus Christ, Irene’s Lord and Master. I am Stan Goudge a retired Methodist Minister, who like Irene was born in Masterton. I have known Irene’s family for as long as I can remember. Her parents Doug and Dot Shoosmith were great friends of my parents. I am here to say a word or two about Irene at her special request, having had the honour of proposing the toast to Gordon and Irene at their golden wedding celebrations in February 1998, and then speaking about Gordon at his funeral service here in May 2004.

Irene was born into a happy family whose life centred around the home at Essex St, the Masterton Methodist Church and Shoosmith’s men’s ouffitters in Queen St. Esme was the oldest, then Irene number two, and the boys Rob and Ian. She was educated at West School Masterton and at the Wairarapa College where she was Head Prefect in 1942. She was active in sports, especially swimming, tennis and netball. Irene won the Old Girls’ Cup for Sportsmanship and Proficiency in Sport, captained the Basket

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WHS Journal 2007 Ball/Netball team for two years and was a Wairarapa representative player. She was a good scholar who enjoyed her studies and her school years. Irene early dedicated her life to Christ and at seventeen wanted to be a missionary in China; she even began learning Mandarin but that was not to be. She completed her nursing training in the Masterton Hospital, and her Plunket training in Dunedin. The Second World War made an impact on her life because a young New Zealand soldier, an engineer, was sent to Masterton in 1940 to help build military camps. He was a Methodist too and the local minister, Harry Kings, took a young Gordon Cornwell around to the hospitable Shoosmith home to introduce him to the young people there. Irene was still a college girl, and Gordon had his eye first on her older sister, Esme, but by the time Gordon was posted overseas, Irene and her mother travelled to Auckland to see him off. She was wearing a locket with Gordon’s photo in it and she wore it for the rest of her life. When her soldier boy returned to New Zealand in 1946, he was a twenty-four year old veteran and she was twenty-two, and when he popped the question she said — yes. They were married by the Rev. George Goodman on 7 February 1948 and were to spend fifty-six years together. Gordon too had felt the call to mission work and he went to Trinity Theological College for two years’ training. The newly weds lived in a flat at Robbins Corner, Onehunga. Then followed the appointment to the Solomon Islands, to Buka in Bougainville where they spent fifteen years serving the people in the name of Jesus. It is hard for us to realise the difficulties faced at Buka. The Japanese had left, destroying anything of value. All that was left of the Mission Station was “pumpkins, a few chickens and forty orphans”. So they started rebuilding: Gordon as pastor, husband, builder, sailor, preacher, and Irene as wife, mother, nurse in charge of the hospital, teacher and spiritual leader. These were exhilarating pioneering days but hard days. Gordon was away when Irene delivered her still born first child in a grass hut, with no help from the local women, and she buried the babe all by herself. Ruth was born at Buka, and the birth of the twins Neil and Graeme was a difficult time for her as Irene had expected only one child and not two. She was very ill with hepatitis for a long time afterwards. With the arrival of Pauline the family was complete. Although Irene had four children, she experienced seven pregnancies in all. There was a high price paid for missionary service in the Solomon Islands in the 1940s and 50s.

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WHS Journal 2007 Irene was a good linguist and translator. She translated parts of the Bible into five different local Solomon Island dialects so that the people could have the Scriptures in their own language. She also published a collection of life stories of Solomon Island women. In 1963 the family returned to New Zealand and Gordon served as Methodist minister in Okato in Taranaki, Kaikohe in Northland, and at Dominion Road, Auckland. You can be sure that Irene played her full part in that nebulous role of ‘parson’s wife’, sharing fully in the ministry, playing the organ, organising Women’s Fellowships as well as being wife and mother. In Kaikohe where stipends were not always paid in full, Irene subsidised the family income as night sister in the Maternity Ward. Irene and Gordon even took over the running of the Kaikohe High School following the sudden death of the Headmaster, and kept it going until proper arrangements could be made. It was during the ministry at Dominion Road in 1975 that Gordon suffered a serious heart attack and retired from the ministry. In 1977 Irene and Gordon became highly valued members of this church at Mt Albert. Gordon was ill for many years. We thought he might die on several occasions, but Irene would not let him do that! Her loving care of her man was a wonder to behold and she had a special care for him over the next twenty-seven years. The financial situation at that time was far from good. Irene accepted the challenge to find a home, which she did at Rangeview Road, and she paid off the mortgage, while working as a Plunket nurse in South Auckland. Her specialist skills in infant and childcare saw Irene appointed Tutor Nurse for the Plunket Society, running ‘Parenting for Adoption’ courses at Bethany, and lecturing to students at the Auckland Medical School. Irene was frequently consulted by doctors about tropical diseases. She decided that a change in direction was a good idea so Irene Comwell studied for a Diploma in Social Work and enjoyed the experience of widening her view of life and helping older people and families. She was an effective Life Line Counsellor for twenty years. Irene was a practical activist with a pastor’s heart and a desire to serve and help. She seemed to gravitate to people who needed special love and care, and was a great visitor to those in need, especially to the Everill Orr Village and often with a small plate of cookies. She was a leader in the Women’s Fellowship, here at Mt Albert, in the Auckland District and at National level. Her wise counsel was sought and freely given. An example of her practical help and her pastoral heart can be illustrated by the Friday Morning Stamp group that she and Gordon ran in their home at 4/40 Richardson Road for many years. Its purpose was to collect, and prepare for sale, used stamps to raise money for the Women’s Fellowship and overseas missions. But it did more than that. She gathered together to help her, folk that were living by themselves, perhaps a bit

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WHS Journal 2007 lonely, and she gave them a worthwhile task to do and a hearty lunch, good companionship and a listening ear. Sure they raised thousands of dollars for missions, but more than that, much more, it helped the folk she gathered around her. Her loving heart meant that both her mother and Gordon’s mother lived with them in the last years of their lives at Rangeview Road, and the house was altered and an additional room added to give them their special place. Irene remained physically active as long as she could. She was a keen member of the Rocky Nock Bowling club, served as its President and went swimming three times a week. Increasingly as she grew older her special care was for Gordon. She was determined to nurse him herself so that he could remain at home until the end. Since his death some two and a half years ago it has been obvious that her health has declined and that she missed him terribly. Theirs was a great love affair that never dimmed. Every night there was the ritual: a goodnight kiss and a “God bless” before going to sleep. As her health began to fail and she grew frailer and frailer, Irene Cornwell reluctantly went to live in the Everrill Orr Home where she died peacefully last Thursday. She was eighty-two years old. We are grateful for the loving care that surrounded her at Everrill Orr, even though she hated being dependent on others. The support from this church family and from Liz and Keith Hopner, and from her daughter Pauline who brought her to church and attended to her needs as other family members lived out of Auckland, is greatly appreciated. How do you sum up such a life, and do Irene Cornwell’s life story justice? She was a remarkable lady, with a gracious smile, who led a life devoted to Christ, and to the Methodist Church which she loved and served all her days. We honour her for her commitment to the people of Buka and Bouganville — to their health, education and spiritual needs; her love for her children and her grandchildren, and those she met through nursing, Plunket and Lifeline. Her romance and love affair of nearly sixty years with her beloved Gordon. A woman of piety and grace, who, if we had such a list, would be numbered amongst the Methodist saints. Irene you have touched our lives for good, you have shown us the Gospel in action. You have done well. You have fought the good fight, you have run the great race, you have finished your course. Your story will be told, your memory and example will grace our living. Rest in peace. Enter into the joy of your Lord.

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WHS Journal 2007 Charles Wesley — protagonist or ‘push over’? 300th anniversary of his birth, 18 December, 1707 Address given at the Trinity Theological College Wesley Day Dinner, Auckland, New Zealand 25 May 2007 Norman Brookes I think it is fair to say that though many Methodists are able to quote the odd line or so from the writings of John Wesley, such as: “the world is my parish”, “there is no religion but social, no holiness but social holiness”, “an ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge”; considerably more, could quote Charles Wesley and quote him more extensively. The reason for this is quite clear. Charles Wesley, the less well known brother, has through his hymns shaped the heart and life of ongoing Methodism. If John Wesley was Methodism’s founder, Charles Wesley has been its guiding light at least at the grass roots.

Many of us have sung Charles Wesley’s hymns since our childhood. Words like: “Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the new born king”, or “Love divine all loves excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down”, or “Forth in thy name, 0 Lord, I go, my daily labour to pursue”, and, one appropriate for the week of Pentecost, “0 thou who camest from above, the pure celestial fire to impart, kindle a flame of sacred fire on the mean altar of my heart! “, are part of Methodism’s bread and butter. Today we are Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 34

WHS Journal 2007 increasingly aware that these hymns have not only influenced Methodism. They have gone on to influence the worship and theology of the world Church. Roman Catholics and Pentecostals alike are willing to draw on the hymnody of Charles Wesley. True it was John Wesley who inaugurated and shaped what became the Methodist Church but it is Charles Wesley who nurtured our theology at the grassroots and I suspect will go on nurturing it for years to come. But who was this man, Charles Wesley? Who was this man who has been so influential in our lives that not a Sunday goes by without thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands, singing words that he wrote. (He may not have been granted “a thousand tongues to sing his great redeemer’s praise” in a personal literal sense — but who can doubt that his plea has been answered — and is answered Sunday by Sunday.) Who was this man who was arguably the most prolific hymn writer of all time, writing almost 7000 hymns, many of which have become classics? The fact is most of us know less of Charles as a person than we know of John. The familiar stories that surround the older brother, of being a “brand plucked from the burning”, of riding over a quarter of a million miles on horseback, of a broken romance and an unhappy marriage, are lacking in equivalents when it comes to Charles. But let that not divert us from the effort to become acquainted with the Charles. A happily married man, his wife’s name was Sarah, and an affectionate father to his three children, Charles, Sarah, and Samuel. Who was this Charles Wesley the man who ensured that Methodism was “born in song”? Charles Wesley was born on 18 December, 1707, 300 years ago this year, in the rectory at Epworth in the north of England. He was four and a half years younger than John. Like John, and the rest of Samuel and Susannah’s large family, he was nurtured at his mother’s knee. Susannah gave him a love of learning that was to take him to Oxford University. She also, in her regular one on one sessions with her children, set him on a spiritual quest — a quest that would lead him into ordained ministry. His poetic gift, however, that was to be so influential in his life he gained from his father, Samuel. The editor of Charles Wesley’s Journal describes Samuel as a “fine poet”. Charles himself was not so sure. In an appraisal of his father’s poems in a letter written in 1747 Charles says “that the verses are (some of them) tolerable, the notes good, but the cuts best of all”. Charles followed John to Westminster School, and later to Christ Church College, Oxford, where he became a founding member of the Holy Club. He graduated at Oxford in 1730. Two years later he introduced George Whitefield, who was to become the other great evangelist of the age, to the Holy Club. He felt the call to be a missionary and on 14 October 1735 sailed with bother John to the new world. Charles went to Frederica, John to Savannah, in Georgia. While there Charles acted as the Colony’s Secretary for Indian Affairs, and tried to bear witness to his faith amongst both the settlers and the native peoples. As with John, Charles’ time in Georgia was

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WHS Journal 2007 neither happy nor greatly productive. Consequently, less than ten months later he returned to England. The plus from the experience was that both brothers witnessed the lively faith of some German Christians, Moravians, and were impressed by their faith and increasingly dissatisfied with their own. Back in England, on the day of Pentecost, 21 May 1738, just three days before his brother’s celebrated ‘conversion’ experience (though some have argued it was less a conversion than the discovery of an assurance that God loved him), Charles records the following in his Journal: “I rose and looked into the Scripture. The words that first presented were: ‘And now Lord, what is my hope? Truly my hope is even in thee.’ I then cast down my eye, and [read] ‘... put a new song in my mouth, even a thanksgiving unto our God. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall put their trust in the Lord.” Charles continues, “I now found myself at peace with God, and rejoiced in the hope of loving Christ .... I went to bed still sensible of my own weakness (and I humbly hope to be more and more so) yet confident of Christ’s protection. I saw that by faith I stood, and that without hearing, read the preface to Martin Luther’s Commentary on Romans. “ — which so moved his brother John three days later. Before the week was out he wrote, “I broke through my own great unwillingness, and at last preached faith in Christ . . .“ [p.96 vol 1, Journal of Charles Wesley] Now I have long held the view that Charles Wesley was a gentler, more amenable, more inclusive, and less dictatorial man than his brother John. However, I must confess that this view was based not so much on research but rather on a gut feeling, a hunch that those of a poetic bent are like that. Besides how could one write so eloquently of Love Divine and not be like that? Particularly if one asks that the Divine Love be realized in himself. “Finish then thy new creation, Pure and spotless let us be.” Certainly Charles’ hymns lead me to think there is at least a modicum of credibility in my hunch. But if Charles was this gentler, more amenable, preacher, was he a ‘push over’, mere putty perhaps in the hands of his brother? I think not. What I have discovered, as I read Frank Baker’s Charles Wesley as revealed in his Letters earlier this year, is that this relative gentleness does not mean, indeed cannot be taken to mean in any sense whatsoever, that Charles Wesley was a ‘push over’. I have found that to be true whether in terms of his relationship with his brother, or with those from whom he differed in theology, or with the secular or ecclesiastical authorities. Charles Wesley, I have discovered, was a man with back bone, a man of conviction, as well as gifted poet and hymn writer. We can sense something of Charles’ inner strength of character in the way he responds to and deals with various conflicts. Let me illustrate this by giving you three examples:

1. Conflict with the secular authorities

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WHS Journal 2007 Unlike John who visited Ireland twenty one times, Charles visited Ireland only twice, the first being from September 1747 to March the following year, and the second from August to October 1748. One result of these visits was that an Irish judge sentenced him in his absence to transportation to one of the colonies. I haven’t been able to track down the exact cause of this though on several occasions there were riots, or near riots, on the edges of Charles Wesley’s open air meetings in Dublin, Athlone, Cork, and elsewhere. Charles responded to this by writing a poem in which he suggests that it was an honour to be convicted for the spreading of the gospel: Me He hath counted for His name Worthy to suffer wrong and shame; Condemned for publishing my Lord, Proscribed for ministering His word; Untried, unheard, to exile driven, ‘Gainst all the laws of earth and heaven. Needless to say he was far from impressed with the judge — While those who fill the Judge chair To abuse their dread commission dare; Nevertheless, The Lord, whom on our side we have, Shall from unrighteous Judges save, His injured messengers confess, And give His suffering people peace. [I am not sure what happened to his sense of rhyme in the latter verse!] Charles had the wisdom not to forward his poem to the judge but no doubt shared it with his friends. 2. Conflict over theology As mentioned earlier, it was Charles who introduced George Whitefield to the Holy Club at Oxford. Whitefield had remarkable oratorical gifts and became famous for his preaching. Some have suggested that he was a more effective preacher than either of the Wesley brothers. However, he was also for a time a thorn in the side of the Wesleys. This was due to the fact that Whitefield held a Calvinistic understanding of the sovereignty of God and thus elevated the doctrine of predestination, including double predestination: that is the predetermining of human lives to end either in heaven or in hell. Both Charles and John Wesley were by contrast Arminian by conviction. They believed that no one is predetermined to either heaven or hell, but that all people can be saved. Charles makes this clear in several of his hymns and poems:

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WHS Journal 2007 O that the world might taste and see, The riches of His grace! The arms of love which compass me Would all mankind embrace. and again in – Come, sinners, to the gospel feast, Let every soul be Jesu’s guest; Ye need not one be left behind, For God hath bidden all mankind. and again in – Pardon for all flows from His side; My Lord, my Love is crucified. On 22 August 1739 Charles wrote in his Journal, “Here I cannot but observe the narrow spirit of those that hold particular redemption (predestination) Mrs Seward is irreconcilably angry with mc ‘for (she says) he (i.e. Charles) offers Christ to all.’ Her maids are of the same spirit; and their Baptist teacher insists that I ought to have my gown stripped over my ears.” Charles continues, “When Mr. Seward, in my hearing, exhorted one of the maids to a concern for her salvation, she answered, ‘It was to no purpose; she could do nothing.’ The same answer he received from his daughter, of seven years old. See the genuine fruits of this blessed doctrine!” This flowed over into dispute with George Whitefield. On the 16 March 1741 Charles wrote to his brother John, “This is to summon you hither immediately. George Whitefield, you know, is come. His fair words are not to be trusted ...; for his actions (are) most unfriendly. An answer to your sermon he just put into my hands. The title was enough.” A day later Charles asked George to preach. Charles was at heart a peacemaker. But he was quick to regret his request as George chose to preach on predestination. Afterwards Charles says, “I mildly expostulated with him, asking him if he would commend me for preaching the opposite doctrines. (I also) protest(ed) against the publishing (of) his answer to you, and labour(ed) for peace to the utmost of my power.” 3. Conflict with his brother, John While Charles’ argument with his friend George Whitefield was over theology, his argument with his brother had to do with ecclesiology. From beginning to end Charles was a committed Churchman, he was very clear that he was a Church of England clergyman and that he intended to remain so. He abhorred talk of the Methodist societies separating from the Church of England. Frank Baker goes so far as to say

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WHS Journal 2007 that, “The attempt to keep Methodism within the Anglican Church was Charles’s life- work.” [p.131 Baker] Certainly it was an issue close to Charles’ heart. Time and again he cautioned his brother, and the lay preachers, from breaking their allegiance to the Church of England. In 1752 this led Charles to prepare a document which he and, more importantly from Charles’ perspective, his brother John signed along with their preachers, binding them to “never leave the communion of the Church of England without the consent of all whose names are subjoined”. Charles tried for a time to have it made mandatory for all new preachers to sign this but the document never achieved that status. Charles’ unease with respect to John’s commitment to the Church of England is evident in a poem he sent to John in 1755, it read: When first sent forth to minister the word, Say, did we preach ourselves, or Christ the Lord? Was it our aim disciples to collect, To raise a party, or to found a sect? ... [p.94 Baker] Charles certainly did not want to be party to founding a sect. He hoped John might remain of the same mind. John did, for a while. Matters came to a head in the lead up to the 1780 Conference. A number of the Methodist preachers were seeking ordination, but not by an Anglican bishop, but by John Wesley himself. We can understand why; many knew little of the Church of England. But for Charles this was not acceptable. Believing that this issue would find its way on to the agenda of the Conference he replied to John’s invitation to attend, saying: My reasons against accepting your invitation to the Conference are: 1. I can do no good. 2. I can prevent no evil. 3. I am afraid of myself; you know I cannot command my temper, and you have not (the) courage to stand by me. 4. I cannot trust your resolution; unless you act with a vigour that is not in you. so I am to stand by and see the ruin of our cause! You know how far you can depend on me; let me know how far I may depend on you and on our preachers. [p.133 Baker] That’s pretty strong stuff. In fact Charles did attend the Conference but he kept a low profile. No ordinations took place. It wasn’t till four years later, in the face of the desperate need for ordained leadership in America that John Wesley took the step of ordaining three preachers — among them Dr Thomas Coke, who was already a clergyman, as superintendent.

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WHS Journal 2007 Charles heard about this through a third party, Henry Durbin. He replied to Durbin saying, “I am thunderstruck. I can(not) believe it.” A little later, after reading John Wesley’s defence of his action, Charles wrote again to Durbin saying: I have the satisfaction of having stood in the gap so long, and staved off the evil for near half a century. And I trust I shall be able, like you, to leave behind me the name of an honest man. Which with all his sophistry he (i.e. John) can never do ... I call you ... to witness that I have had no hand in this infamous ordination. To his brother John he wrote, with a touch of sarcasm, “... for three score years (they) said (you were) a Papist; and lo (you) turn out at last a Presbyterian!” Charles later wrote to an American clergyman, Thomas Chandler, saying that his brother: ha(d) acted contrary to all his declarations, protestations, and writings and left an indelible blot on his name as long as it shall be remembered! Thus our partnership here is dissolved, but not our friendship. I have taken him for better for worse, till death do us part — or rather re-unite in love inseparable. I have lived on earth too long ... to see this evil day. [p.l37 Baker] The underlying brotherly friendship remained, though Charles continued to dispute the matter of separation from the Church of England with John and to plead with him to go no further. Months before he died Charles discovered that John had ordained some preachers to serve in Scotland. He was, however, spared from witnessing the ultimate step, the ordaining of a preacher to serve Methodists in England. That took place in August 1788. Fortunately Charles Wesley had entered into his eternal rest some four months earlier. Methodism, which he had served so long and so well, was well on its way to becoming a separate Church a Church he never sought — but it would be a Church enriched for generations to come by his wonderful gift for marrying profound theology with singable verse. If to keep Methodism within the Church of England was Charles Wesley’s life’s work then we have no option but to see that work as a failure. His brother, ever the pragmatist when it came to spreading the gospel, was not overly imbued with such idealism. John would not be a slave to ecclesiastical niceties if they were seen to impede the spread of the gospel. However, to say that Charles failed in this respect is not to deny that he fought long and hard, and forthrightly, for his convictions on this matter. Charles was no ‘push over’ and, who knows, maybe it will yet be Charles who will have the last word. Certainly he would rejoice in the Covenant now in place between the Church of England and the Methodist Church, and the covenant in place

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WHS Journal 2007 between the Church of Ireland and the Irish Methodist Church. Which lead me to ask when will it happen here? Charles’ enduring legacy is in song. While we may express things differently today, we do well to ponder his legacy. Listen to his incisive word on the incarnation, “Our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man”; listen to his joyful announcement of the nativity, “Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the new born king”; listen to his sense of wonder at the cross, “The immortal God for me hath died! My Lord, my Love is crucified.” Listen to his exuberance at the resurrection, “Lives again our glorious King; where O death, is now they sting?” Listen to his words for Pentecost, “The Holy Ghost, if I depart, the comforter shall surely come, Shall make the contrite sinner’s heart, His loved, His everlasting home”; listen to his summation of the radical nature of Christian conversion, “My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.” These and many others deserve to be remembered, and not just remembered, but sung. In our remembering Charles and the profundity of his words, may we also be reminded that God deserves the best we can offer when we too sing to God’s glory.

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WHS Journal 2007 Spiritual Journey — Graham Whaley

Early Years I grew up in the suburb of Pt Chevalier in Auckland and attended the Pt Chevalier Church of Christ in Kiwi Road. My mother had been a staunch Methodist, her father over several generations being involved in St John’s in Ponsonby. When my parents bought their home in Pt Chevalier there was no Methodist Church in the vicinity — so we attended the closest church, the Church of Christ. In many ways The Associated Churches of Christ shaped me and made me what I am today ... and I am eternally grateful to them! It was an ‘evangelical’ church — but although the teachings were biblically based, it was not fundamentalist or narrow. Its teachings, based on the movement begun by the Campbells in Scotland in the late nineteenth century, tended to look back to the record of the early church in the New Testament for guidance on faith and order. It stressed believer’s baptism, weekly communion and ‘every member a minister’. It was a ‘participatory’ church. During the twenty or so years I attended there we seldom had a minister, and the services and church activities were planned and conducted by lay people. I was presiding at the Lord’s Table when I was fourteen or fifteen, superintendent of the Sunday School when I was sixteen and conducting services and preaching by the time I was seventeen. During this time I was also a member of the Leaders’ Meeting. Like many others I was involved in youth activities. I became chairperson of the Auckland District Youth Committee and it was there that Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 42

WHS Journal 2007 I first met Marion — she became my secretary (and later my wife!). It was a great training ground for the future. Education I attended Gladstone Road Primary School, Pasadena intermediate, Mt. Albert Grammar, and went on to The University of Auckland — my fees being paid by a Secondary Teacher’s bursary. I had already decided to be a teacher influenced by the fact that The Churches of Christ had a Mission in Africa in Southern Rhodesia. The Mission Station at Dadaya, while founded by F L Hadfield in 1906, was largely developed by Garfield and Grace Todd after their arrival in Rhodesia in 1934. In the following years they became champions of the African cause; Garfield even serving for a time as Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia. It all seemed so romantic! I was greatly influenced by reading Trevor Huddleston’s Naught for your Comfort and Alan Paton’s Cry the Beloved Country. Later, novels Andre Brink, Nadine Gordimer, Doris Lessing and Gillian Slovo had an impact. I read works on traditional African religion by Geoffrey Parrinder and Michael Gelfand. However, it was John V Taylor’s The Primal Vision, subtitled ‘Christian Presence Amid African Religion’ that was formative in shaping my views of the white missionary’s place in Africa. The book begins with a proverb from Uganda, which says: “When the leopard comes to you, the club at your neighbour’s kraal won’t drive him off.” Taylor says: “That devastating Ganda proverb should, perhaps, check any more non-Africans from offering to interpret Africa to the world!” In 1956 a large Youth Mission was held at the Ponsonby Road Church of Christ. At the conclusion of the service the missioner, who was from Australia, asked any young people who felt called to offer their lives to Christ for “full- time service” to come forward and kneel at the front. I went forward. I was twenty-one years of age. Otorohanga College After completing my degree and a year’s teacher training at Epsom Training College, I was appointed to Otorohanga College in the King Country. I attended the Otorohanga Baptist Church. Vie Johnson, who was the pastor, had been a Baptist missionary in China. I had been greatly inspired by the story of Hudson Taylor and his attempts to make the Christian message compatible with Chinese culture. I soon realized that Vie’s views on ‘mission’ did not quite coincide with mine (or Hudson Taylor’s). However, we did have some great discussions. At school I found myself thrust into the position of looking after the Crusaders group. I had never attended these groups at school or at university myself. The Crusaders at Mt Albert Grammar had always seemed rather ‘prissy’ and narrow and my brief encounter with the Student Christian Movement had been largely due to an interest in one of the young ladies who was part of the local group! To my surprise the Crusader

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WHS Journal 2007 group at Otorohanga grew rapidly — even attracting young people who had never attended church. I think mainly because of my more liberal views and the discussions we held on teen issues and current events, rather than concentrating on Bible study. Dadaya Mission, Rhodesia 1961 — 72 I was approached by the Overseas Mission Board of the Associated Churches of Christ in 1960 to see if I would be prepared to go to Dadaya Mission in Rhodesia the next year. They were facing a teacher crisis. After some thought, I agreed. So in January 1961, I set off from Wellington on the Southern Cross bound for Durban. In central Africa it was a time of political chaos. The Central African Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was collapsing and while the Premier, Sir Roy Welensky and his colleagues, supposedly espoused a policy of ‘partnership’, there was little evidence of it. As some wit once said, “It was like the partnership of a rider and his horse.” Sir Edgar Whitehead, who had replaced the more liberal Garfield Todd as Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia in 1960, was being forced to take strong measures to curb the growing restiveness of the African parties, under the leadership of Joshua Nkomo, Ndabaninge Sithole, Herbert Chitepo, and later Robert Mugabe. At Dadaya, we were fairly isolated from all of this, and tended to get on with our teaching and church related work. I do, however, remember once when Judith Todd was home on holiday from Capetown University, being invited to attend a ZAPU political rally in Shabani, our nearest town and an asbestos mine, with her. Thousands of Afric can mine workers had gathered — as well as many who had walked in from nearby Lundi Native Reserve. There was a heavy police presence — fully armed and very threatening. There was a lot of pushing and shoving and some outbreaks of violence, incited in the main by the police. Judith and I were the only ‘whites’ present, and we were quickly hussled away by the police after the rally ended. We heard later that there had been considerable police brutality — several of our church members in the Reserve had been assaulted and beaten. Soon after Whitehead was ‘outed’ and the Rhodesian Front was voted into power by the white minority. (The African majority on the whole did not have the vote.) Ian Smith, the new Prime Minister, stated publicly, “There will be no African Prime Minister in my lifetime.” Soon after he declared unilateral independence from Britain. Racist legislation was introduced, attitudes hardened and Rhodesia became in effect an ‘apartheid’ state. At Dadaya there was little time for reading theology. Theology was done ‘on the hoof’ and tended to be a response to situations faced daily. One important influence on my thinking however, was the literature books, chosen for African students to study by the Cambridge ‘O’ Level Examination Board in the United Kingdom. There was always one book with an African setting. In my first year the book to be studied was All Men Are Brothers, a basic biography of the life of Albert Schweitzer. I had known little of Schweitzer, but was fascinated by Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 44

WHS Journal 2007 this famous physician, musician and theologian who was prepared to sacrifice a brilliant career to work in a primitive hospital in Gabon. I began to seek further information on his life and work and discovered his writings on ‘the historical Jesus.’ In the second year the book was Things Fall Apart by the gifted Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe. I was profoundly affected by his account of the destructive influence of Christianity on the traditional life of the Ibo tribe. In my opinion this is the greatest African novel of the 20th century. In the third year we studied The African Child by Camara Laye — a beautiful and sensitive account of the author’s boyhood experiences growing up in the Malinice tribe, in an area behind Sierra Leone and Liberia. The arrival of Marion The greatest influence came through my own family situation. It wasn’t long before we came to experience racial discrimination and injustice first hand. In 1962 Marion had come from New Zealand and we were married in the Mission Church at Dadaya. I chose my best friend, Samuel Mumbengegwi, (a young man doing teacher training) to be my best man and one of Marion’s bridesmaids was Elia Nknomo (who later became a nurse and married a Dr Zhou who was shot dead by Smith’s Rhodesian forces at Mnene Hospital for treating terrorists.) The inclusion of ‘blacks’ in our bridal party became a talking point among the ‘whites’ in Shabani and the surrounding farm areas. Such a thing was unheard of in the segregated Rhodesia of those days, and regarded as ‘dangerous and unacceptable’. We tended to be ostracized. And then on top of this experience, in 1963 we took into our family a four year old coloured boy, Gibbon Danke, who had been abandoned at the Mission. For the next ten years, while we lived in Rhodesia, we were never able as a family to eat together in a café, go to a cinema or stay in a hotel. We were even refused admittance to a church in the area where we resided, because it was written into the constitution that ‘whites only’ were permitted to use the facility. In the late 1960s and early 1970s we moved from mission service to Salisbury where I became inspector in the Department of Education. We were becoming more and more disillusioned with the Smith regime and openly opposed the Government’s racist policies. We supported the work of the Catholic Peace and Justice Commission and Marion worked as private secretary for Jack Grant, director of Christian Care — an organization that assisted African detainees and their families. (Robert Mugabe was in detention at this time at Gonagozingwa and Marion was supplying him with educational material to enable him to study for his law degree.) Garfield Todd was under house arrest at his ranch and Judith, after a period in prison, was forced to flee the country. I got into trouble myself for being the main speaker at a Missionary Conference on Education — a government ‘spy’ must have been present and reported on my speech. I received notification from the Minister of Education informing me that I was not to accept any further such invitations. On top of this our telephone was being tapped, our mail and our house watched.

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WHS Journal 2007 Years in Fiji After more than ten years away, we found it difficult to readjust. New Zealand in 1972 was not the New Zealand we had left in 1961, and now of course we were a family, with four children to provide for: Gibbon (now renamed Philip), Debbie, Stephen and Todd. After a year I applied for the job of Principal of Dudley High in Suva, Fiji, and was accepted. Our three years in Fiji enabled us to see how it was possible to live happily and peacefully in a multi-racial society. New Zealand 1975-1985 In 1975 we returned to New Zealand and I took up the position of Executive Secretary of the Bible Society in Wellington. From there I offered as a candidate for ministry in the Methodist Church and was accepted to go to St John’s-Trinity College in Auckland. Up until now my spiritual journey had been largely influenced by a passion for social justice — understandably our whole family had a great aversion to anything that smacked of racism. Now my whole horizon was broadened. I discovered that I was free to reject many of my ‘old’ beliefs and attitudes and formulate a ‘theology’ of my own. For me St John’s was a liberating experience. To read Bultmann, Bonhoeffer and Barth, and to study the First Testament through the eyes of scholars like Von Rad, Eichrodt, Wolff and Mays blew my mind. Not to mention missiology. And with lecturers like Jim Stuart, J J Lewis, Keith Rowe, George Armstrong and Raymond Pelly, we were constantly being challenged. My first appointment was to the Mt Albert Methodist Parish. It was the time of the Springbok rugby tour and the peace marches against the visits of United States nuclear ships. Both Marion and I were heavily involved — and our family too. There were some in the church who did not like this and were quite vocal at the time. But we were committed in our opposition to racial injustice and apartheid and to the peace movement. Return to independent Zimbabwe: 1985-1993 In 1984 we received a letter from R S Garfield Todd as chairman of the Dadaya Governing Board and the Past Students’Association asking us if, now that Zimbabwe was free and independent, we would consider returning. I was being asked to set up a religious studies department and to act as chaplain at the High School. And so in 1985 we returned. At first everything was euphoric. Many of my former pupils (including my best man Samuel Mumbengegwi) were in Mugabe’s government and we were feted, even special invited guests of the President at the fifth anniversary celebrations of Zimbabwean independence! However, the euphoria did not last. The African dream dissolved. In 1988 we left Dadaya and I became Superintendant Minister of the

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WHS Journal 2007 Kadoma Circuit of the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe — a Circuit with over thirty churches and one minister, one aged evangelist and one youth worker. My thinking on the new regime was greatly influenced by the writings of Dambudzo Marechera, whose novel The House of Hunger described the desolation and disillusionment of so many young Zimbabweans. Marechera committed suicide in his twenties after being victimized and hounded by the Mugabe government. In 1991 I was appointed Methodist Lecturer at the United Theological College at Epworth in Harare. Students from all denominations participated in its life. I taught three different courses in Old Testament. The examinations were set by the Religious Studies Department at the University of Zimbabwe. As well as preparing for and teaching these courses, I had responsibility for a circuit with eight churches to care for in the townships of Sakubva and Tafara.

Centenary Celebrations of Methodist Church in Zimbabwe, Harare 1991. The AIDS epidemic was beginning to take hold and I spent much of my ‘free’ time visiting the sick and dying, and conducting funerals for church members. It was horrendous. At first we lived in the old mission house at Epworth, in the middle of an African township that had grown up during the war — a township of shanties and slums with no facilities, and little hope. We were protected by a razor-wire fence, and a guard who kept watch at night. Life was hazardous and we were concerned about our own safety. The political situation had deteriorated during the six years that we had been there. The economy had slowed, the structural adjustment programme had thrown many out of work and several years of drought had impoverished the rural people. The government was corrupt and Mugabe and most of his ministers were only concerned

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WHS Journal 2007 with their own aggrandisement and survival. Crime was on the increase and Harare was full of beggars, tsotsis and street kids. Return to New Zealand In 1993 we returned to New Zealand to find ourselves right in the middle of the homosexual debate. I had applied to go to the church at Red Beach, but was rejected by the congregation. I was obviously not conservative or charismatic enough. There were some similar difficulties with Birkenhead where we finally ended up. The leaders at Birkenhead were determined to get me to state my position on the homosexual issue and demanded a telephone link up — something very difficult to organize in Zimbabwe. I was not prepared to support their hard line position. In many ways the issues of the New Zealand Church, when compared with the tragedies unfolding in Zimbabwe, seemed irrelevant and of little consequence — an example once again of a small judgemental group wanting to enforce their opinions on others and marginalize and demonise a section of society. As with racial discrimination it all seemed contrary to the gospel. Following our time at Birkenhead, I spent three years as Superintendent at the Auckland Central Mission involved in the Mission’s social services, aged care and work with the city’s poor and homeless. The results of poverty and injustice could be seen in the city centre. After retirement I found myself once again involved with the homosexual issue when I was asked to step in at Trinity Church, Pakuranga when the church split and a majority of the congregation left. I was shocked by the hatred and bigotry displayed — not necessarily towards homosexual people themselves — but toward those who did not agree with the position taken by those who decided to leave the Methodist Church. For two years I was involved in a ‘healing ministry’. The church grew, showing that there is life after such a division. My personal gospel For me the gospel is all about caring for others — especially those who are marginalized or oppressed in our society, or the wider world. It is about inclusiveness — acceptance of all regardless of race, culture, religion or sexual preference. It’s about God’s redemptive love for the world, as John Wesley said; ‘The whole world is my parish.’ God is for all! It’s about sharing the world’s resources and preserving the earth and the environment. It’s about loving family, friends — and enemies! It’s about hope — hope for now and hope for the future. Methodist Church folk in a Resettlement Area doing “Kraal Visiting” — preaching from village to village, 1980s.

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WHS Journal 2007 The Marsden Cross Heritage Centre and Chapel — Rev. Patricia Bawden I am happy to respond to the editor’s invitation to write about ‘the vision’ for the Bay of Islands; the Marsden Cross Trust Board; the proposed Heritage Centre; and the involvement of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in mission work in northern New Zealand, which began as early as 1819.

The Rev. R Grice baptized me as a baby, at Rawene in the Hokianga, where my grandfather James Bawden was a lay preacher. My great- grandfather, Josiah, had been a ‘class leader’ at the Methodist Chapel at St Erth in Cornwall. My mother was Anglican. From St John’s College, I was ordained as a permanent Anglican deacon in 1976. My call was not to the priesthood, but to the Bay of Islands. At the editor’s request this is the story of a forty-year pilgrimage once described by Terry as, “A long journey and I guess at times a very lonely one.” However, the story of Methodist involvement in New Zealand, goes back to the beginnings of the Christian church in New South Wales. The Vision During 1961 and 1962, a small interchurch group of teens and twenties met each Wednesday evening at 7pm at St Paul’s Methodist Church in Hamilton. Following an Ecumenical Youth Conference, attended by 1700, in Lower Hutt in January 1961, a Youth Committee of the National Council of Churches (YCNCC),

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WHS Journal 2007 formed in the Waikato. Within a year, there was a Parade of Witness of 800 along the main street in Hamilton, followed by a service for 1000 young people in Rugby Park. The speaker, the Rev. Dr Allan Brash, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, stood up to speak and commented that he had never seen anything like it. We had experienced a wonderful movement of God across the Waikato. It was an exciting time. The chorus, “Lord Jesus Christ, You have come to us. You are one with us, Living Lord” was one of our favourites. Every eight weeks we held Sunday evening gatherings of 200-3 00 from across the Waikato Basin at different churches in Hamilton. We began with a ‘bring a plate’ meal and set out cups and saucers. We could have fed an army! Lively worship, was always followed by some great speaker, including Bishop Hall, the Bishop of Hong Kong; representatives of the churches who had attended the World Council of Churches Assembly, ‘Christ the Light of the World’ at New Delhi, Colonel Dr Cooke of the Salvation Army; Canon Manga Cameron, Anglican; and the Rev. Rua Rakena of the Methodist Church. With the regular gatherings, I began to think, “We touch heaven every few weeks. I wish we had a centre where this could happen all the time.” The living God was with us, and this was some years before the charismatic revival of the mid 1960s. I had been teaching in Hamilton, but with the death of my father in 1963, I moved back to Auckland. At the end of 1964, I had a very clear call from God, “Go to lona.” When I checked this out with Archdeacon Leo King, at St Andrew’s, Epsom, he said, “This is of God, you must go.” Our YCNCC Committee used to look to lona as a place where the Very Rev. Lord McLeod took unity between the churches seriously. The badge for the ecumenical movement was a small round blue one with OIKOUMENE (the whole inhabited earth) around the top and a ship, with a mast. We used to say that ‘the mast was the cross, Christ the pilot and we were sailing into unknown seas’. We had walked in faith over those exciting years, now the call was ‘to go out in faith’. On 11 March 1965, I sailed for England. God had given me the promise from Psalm 16:11, You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy (NRSV) I knew only five weeks out of eight and a half months, but I trusted a Lord who had said, “Follow Me.” Using all my savings, superannuation and insurance money I set out on an amazing journey, which was to take me through England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales; across the Continent to Lourdes, Lyons, Geneva and up to Grandchamp Community, on Lake Neufchatel in Switzerland, a place of quiet peace and beauty. I travelled across Europe with Janet, an English Secondary School teacher and Methodist lay preacher, who taught at Hull Grammar School. At midday prayer on the second day of our visit to Grandchamp, the Psalm for the Day, in the Taizé service book, was Psalm 16. Again the words, I will show you the Path of Life .... I knew that Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 50

WHS Journal 2007 God had called me on this pilgrimage ... that He had a special reason for it. In the quietness of that chapel, it all fell into place. God showed His will for a Centre in the Marsden Cross area of the Bay of Islands .... It was vividly clear ... I shared with Janet ... and over the past 42 years we have never doubted, that one day that Centre ‘at earth’s farthest shores’ would be established to the Glory of God. As the Rev. Terry Wall commented in 2004, “It has been a long journey.” God did not tell me it would take over 40 years, but we have a faithful God whose Word does go forth and does not return void. In 1974/75, a strong Committee formed, but the land was sold and remained in private hands for over twenty years. Once it came back onto the market in 1999, steps could then be taken towards the fulfillment of God’s vision.

View from site for the Marsden Cross and Chapel. The Marsden Cross Trust Board Set up in 2003, the Marsden Cross Trust Board is an Ecumenical body, with Maori and European representation as well as a member from the Church Missionary Society. A site for the establishment of the Marsden Cross Heritage Centre and Chapel has been purchased at the head of the valley, with magnificent views out over the Bay of Islands. From its inception, the Rt Rev. Richard Randerson has chaired the Trust Board. Also on the board is Mr John King, great great grandson of one of the first three CMS missionaries who arrived with the Rev. Samuel Marsden. Working in partnership towards the Resource Consents is Mr Hugh Rihari, chairman of the Rangihoua Trustees, descendants of Ruatara, through whom Marsden came to New Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 51

WHS Journal 2007 Zealand. Methodists appointees on the Board are the Rev. Diana Tana, and the Rev. Dr Terry Wall. The plan is for the Centre with nearby accommodation to be fully operational before the 2014 bicentennial celebrations. On 23 November 2007, the NZ Historic Places Trust Board agreed to register, the Rangihoua Historic Area, encompassing the land around Oihi Bay, the Rangihoua pa and the valley, as well as the beautiful Te Puna Bay next door, and the four Te Pahi Islands. Once the domain of the great chief Te Pahi, who visited Sydney in 1804, it was Ruatara his nephew, who is today honoured as ‘The Gateway of the Gospel’. The Trust hopes to establish a national iconic heritage landmark that will inspire future generations, and promote the spiritual and cultural significance of the site in the years ahead. The creation of the ‘Rangihoua Historic Area’, gives public recognition to this land on which the first sustained Maori/ European settlement in New Zealand was established.

Oihi Bay/Rangihoua. Site of CMS Mission Station and Cross, and end of Rangihoua Pa. 1814 The First Service at Rangihoua/ First Mission Station On Christmas Day 1814, the Rev. Samuel Marsden preached the Gospel to the Maori people, on the hillside beside the still waters of Oihi Bay, in the Bay of Islands. Pohutukawa, bloomed on the steep cliffs of the great Rangihoua Pa, that overshadowed the gathering, as Marsden’s voice rang out with the message from Luke Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 52

WHS Journal 2007 Chapter 2, verse 10: Behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy. Chief Ruatara, nephew of the late paramount chief, Te Pahi had invited Marsden to come to this land, because he hoped to introduce agriculture and the Christian faith to his tribe. Marsden, greatly respected by the Maori people, had waited twenty years to come to New Zealand. He had rescued many from the streets of Sydney and from ruthless sea captains, who appreciated their skill as sailors but who were loath to release them from the Articles they had signed. Over a period of four years, Ruatara had spent time with Marsden and his family, working on his farm and attending services at St John’s Church in Parramatta. The Active lay anchored in Oihi Bay, while the three Church Missionary Society families of John King, William Hall and Thomas Kendall unloaded their possessions to set up the first permanent European settlement on the shores of New Zealand. Within weeks, the first Land Sale Deed, signed between the Maori chiefs and the CMS, created the first farm. Marsden, had arrived with ‘Noah’s Ark’, a collection of animals and poultry. By 1816, the first school building opened on the mission station hillside, with a roll of 70 pupils by 1817. Even today, although the Marsden Cross hillside has been a Public Reserve, marked by a grey stone Celtic Cross, it has been a quiet, largely forgotten spot. Yet, the surrounding area is referred to as ‘The Cradle of the Nation’, because of its great significance in the early history of our country. In the summer of 1972, my mother and I joined a Methodist Tour group to travel around sites associated with the early Wesleyan mission in North Auckland, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the beginning of that work. We visited Rangihoua, Kaeo, Mangungu, Rawene, Waima marae and the Hokianga Harbour at Omapere. The first mission station at Kaeo, had its roots in the Church Missionary Society settlement at Rangihoua, in the Bay of Islands. The foundations for this development go back to 1815 in Australia and the purposes of God make a fascinating story. On ‘World Day of Prayer’ 1972, I was invited to be present at a service at the Leigh Memorial church in Parramatta, to the west of Sydney. The Guest speaker was Deaconess Mary Andrews, who had been a CMS Missionary in China from 1937 to 1945, under both the Japanese and Chinese regimes. As I entered the foyer of the church, I was interested to see plaques honouring Samuel Leigh, Walter Lawry, William White and John Hobbs, names associated with early New Zealand. The Rev. Samuel Marsden had to be the link. He had been the minister at the nearby St John’s Anglican Church in Parramatta. In 1815, The Rev. Samuel Leigh was the first Wesleyan missionary to arrive in Australia. Having grown up with a strong religious influence in his Staffordshire home, he began study for the ministry, before acceptance by the Wesleyan Methodist Conference at Portsmouth in 1812. Two years later, he sailed for Australia, landing on 10 August 1815, where he presented his credentials to Governor Macquarie. A Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 53

WHS Journal 2007 Wesleyan Society had been meeting in the Rocks area of Sydney, since 1812. They welcomed the new arrival, whose sincerity and deep faith quickly won him acceptance and support.

Marsden Cross During 1817, Leigh was able to open the first Methodist church in Australia at Castlereagh, followed by preaching places at Parramatta, Windsor and Liverpool. On 13 September 1818, Samuel Leigh laid the foundation stone of a brick chapel at Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 54

WHS Journal 2007 Windsor, built on land given by the Rev. Samuel Marsden, who had commented, “It was no more than his duty to help Christians of any denomination who attempted to give moral and religious instruction to the colonists.” Other chapels soon opened at Macquarie Street and Princes Street in Sydney. The Australian Dictionary of Biography states, “Leigh established the first Methodist circuit in Australia, with some fourteen preaching places, which involved him in 150 miles (241 km) of travel every three weeks.” Not only did Leigh preach regularly at these centres, but he also set up Bible classes and Sunday schools. The Rev. Samuel Leigh and the New Zealand Connection 1819 - 1823 Samuel Leigh’s ministry had worked alongside that of the Rev. Samuel Marsden, whose church was St John’s Parramatta, built in 1803. Leigh had been welcomed into Marsden’s family. In May 1819, Walter Lawry, a young Cornish Methodist, joined Leigh in Sydney. He was destined later to be General Superintendent of the Methodist Mission in New Zealand. Lawry’s arrival eased the pressure on Samuel Leigh, whose health had been failing due to the demands of his growing ministry. Realising this, Marsden offered his friend a free passage on the Active to New Zealand. Leigh accepted the offer arriving at Rangihoua, in the Bay of Islands on 5 May 1819. He stayed with the CMS missionaries William Hall, John King and Thomas Kendall and their families for six weeks. From William Hall’s journal it appears that, with John King, Leigh visited Hongi Hika’s village at Kerikeri for two days, before going north to Whangaroa overnight with Kendall. Strachan’s Ljfe of Leigh, based on Leigh’s reports, pictures him as a mediator in the CMS conflicts at the time, urging them to visit the Maori more and to hold daily prayer and Bible reading. John King’s diary refers to him reading sermons, while Kendall prayed in Maori. Samuel Leigh returned to New South Wales, obsessed with a plan to bring a Wesleyan mission to New Zealand. In 1821, he travelled back to England where he campaigned enthusiastically until the Wesleyan Annual Conference authorised the opening of the new field, appointing Leigh, “General Superintendent of Missions to New Zealand and the Friendly Islands”, with emphasis on evangelistic work. His instructions were, “Not to enter upon other men’s labours, but to lay the foundation; not to reap the fruit of others’ toil, but to put the plough into unbroken soil.” Before leaving England, Leigh was ordained and married Catherine Clews whom he had known since childhood. In January 1822, they left Australia for New Zealand, returning to the CMS station at Rangihoua. Marsden had suggested that Leigh act as Pastor to the lay missionaries. He was the first ordained person to live for any time at Rangihoua. With his wife, Leigh had the use of a barn and meals with William Hall and family. For sixteen months, they shared tasks at the mission, studied the Maori language and made trips seeking a site for the Wesleyans to occupy. Leigh wrote of

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WHS Journal 2007 the change since his 1819 visit, “It is four years since I last saw this place. The Maori have made considerable advance, a change for the better is quite visible.” In a letter dated 11 March 1822, Samuel Leigh gives a picture of the unity at Rangihoua Station: Yesterday, being Good Friday, we met for Divine Worship and it was a time much to be remembered. The congregation consisted of two missionaries from the CMS, one from the London Missionary Society and one from the Methodist Society. We were of one heart and mind. Nothing of the party spirit was among us, but our united prayers were offered to our common Lord. During 1819, the Kerikeri mission was established. On 16 May 1823, William White arrived with stores for the proposed Wesleyan mission. White commented on the warmth of his reception by the CMS at both Kerikeri and Rangihoua. Invited to preach at both places, he met those with whom he would work closely in the future, John King, William Hall, James Shepherd and James Kemp. In a letter dated 24 May 1823, White wrote, “It is a source of great pleasure and has been very refreshing to my spirit to witness the good understanding, the cordial affection and the union of sentiment between the brethren of the CMS and ourselves ....“ The following month, the Wesleyan mission was established at Kaeo, a quite heavily Maori populated area, on the Whangaroa Harbour, in which their ship anchored on 6 June 1823. As well as Samuel Leigh and William White, the CMS missionaries William Hall, James Shepherd, along with the Rev. John Butler, of Kerikeri, landed to help establish ‘Wesleydale’, the Wesleyan mission station. Today, a stone cairn across the valley from Kaeo township marks the site of that early beginning. On 5 August, Marsden arrived in the Bay of Islands on the Brampton. Travelling with him were the Rev. Nathaniel and Anne Turner and Rev. John Hobbs, who joined White and Leigh at Wesleydale. When Marsden visited the mission, he found Leigh very ill and suggested he should return to Sydney for medical help and care. From the start, Marsden had befriended the young Samuel Leigh. With the mission established, he was now able to withdraw back to Australia. Thus, it was that the Wesleyan Mission had grown from contact between Marsden and Leigh in New South Wales. In 1819, Leigh had spent a period of six weeks at Rangihoua, followed by a further sixteen months from 1822, before the CMS missionaries accompanied Samuel Leigh and William White to set up their own mission station at Whangaroa. When Wesleydale failed in 1827, it was the Hokianga chief Patuone, friend of the Anglicans, who invited the Methodists to re-establish their Mission at Mangungu, on the Hokianga Harbour in 1828. In New Zealand, European settlement began based on a deep trust between Maori and European, and with close relations between those who brought the Christian

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WHS Journal 2007 faith to our shores. The angel’s words to the shepherds on the hillside outside Bethlehem on the first Christmas morning, had found fulfillment in early contacts within our land, and are still a relevant message for our racially diverse nation today: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward all. —Luke 2:14

Marsden Cross Valley, Rangihoua Pa at right, looking down towards the Marsden Cross.

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WHS Journal 2007 Wesley Historical Society— DIRECTORY 2007 Executive Members President Mrs Helen Laurenson 14 Corbett Scott Ave Epsom Auckland 3 09 630 3850 [email protected] Secretary Rev. Barry Neal 2 Upland Road Huia West Auckland 1250 09811 8054 [email protected] Minute Secretary Mrs Shona Michie 16A Ocean View Road Northcote Auckland 094185374 Treasurer Mrs Ruth Blundell 29 Layton Road Manly Whangaparaoa 09424 3415 Editor Rev. Dr Terry Wall 14 St Vincent Ave Remuera Auckland 1050 (H) 09 522 0729 [email protected] Committee Rev. Norman Brookes 20 Index Place The Gardens Manurewa Auckland 2105 Wesley Historical Society – Publication #85 Page 58

WHS Journal 2007 09 269 4501 [email protected] Rev. Doug Burt 9/34 Esplanade Road Mt Eden Auckland 3 09 630 9503 Mrs Margaret Gordon 32a Haverstock Road Sandringham Auckland 3 09 620 6026 Mr Eric Laurenson 14 Corbett Scott Ave Epsom Auckland 3 (0) 09 630 4741 (H) 09 630 3850 [email protected] Rev. Dr Susan Thompson 104 Beerescourt Road Hamilton 07 849 7630 [email protected] Mrs Jill Weeks 112 Bayswater Avenue Bayswater North Shore 09 445 8669 [email protected] Rev. Philip Taylor 12 Melandra Road Whangaparaoa 09 424 3059 Rev. Graeme White 19 Graham Avenue Te Atatu Penin. 09 834 6757 [email protected] Mr Ivan Whyle 1 OA William Ave Greenlane

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WHS Journal 2007 Auckland 1005 09 525 4282 Corresponding Members Rev. Donald Phillipps 46 Bryant Street Kenmure Dunedin 03 453 5625 [email protected] Rev. Marcia Baker 11 Merton Place Christchurch 5 03 352 2671 [email protected] Mr Frank Paine 22/40 Bristol Street St Albans Christchurch Email courtesy Marcia Honoured Members Dr Elaine Bolitho 33 Kandy Crescent Ngaio Wellington [email protected] Rev. Dr Allan Davidson Private Bag 28-907 Remuera Auckland 1136 (0) 09 521 2725 [email protected] Mrs Verna Mossong 38A College Road Northcote 09419 7584 [email protected] Rev. Rua Rakena P0 Box 62554 Central Park Penrose 09 570 5234 Mr Dave Roberts

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WHS Journal 2007 3d Malvern Way Paraparaumu 04279 8152 Publications Committee Rev. Dr Susan Thompson (Convener) Mrs Helen Laurenson Mrs Jill Weeks Rev. Dr Terry Wall Rev. Barry Neal ANNIVERSARIES FOR 2008-9 1908 Centenaries 2 February Winton Church opened 29 March Whirinaki Church opened 17 May Pahiatua Church opened 6 June Mamaku Church stonelaying 7 June Manaia Church opened 6 August Geraldine Church stonelaying 9 September Maori Hill Dunedin stonelaying 17 October Auckland City Mission stonelaying 31 October Fairburns stonelaying 11 December Maori Hill Church opened 1909 Centenaries 13 February Auckland City Mission Hall opened 17 February Gore new Church stonelaying 31 February Kingsland new school opened 24 March Takapuna Church opened 3 June Gore brick Church opened 4 July Te Kowhai Church opened 31 July Mangonui Church opened 10 August Papakura stonelaying 11 August Brooklyn stonelaying 1 September Ranunga hall opened 18 September Okaiawa hall opened 19 September Papakura Church opened 29 September Lowcliffe Church opened 4 October Brooklyn Church opened 2 November Oroua school burnt 14 November Petone Church reopened 4 December St Kilda hall stonelaying.

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