’Would the general of an army say to his officers, “Pray, gentlemen, don’t dirty your boots or fatigue your horses to succour the inhabitants of a distant village”?  Or a captain to his mates and middies:  “Don’t turn out, don’t go aloft.  It is a thing hard, and you might get wet”?

’And the difference between us and people at home sometimes is, that we don’t see why a clergyman is not as much bound as an officer in the army or navy to do what he is pledged of his own act to do; and that at home the ‘parsonage and pony-carriage’ delusion practically makes men forget this.  I forget it as much as any man, and should very likely never have seen the mistake but for my coming to New Zealand; and it is one of the great blessings we enjoy.

’There is a mighty work to be done.  God employs human agents, and the Bible tells us what are the rules and conditions of their efficiency.

’"Oh! but, poor man, he has a sickly wife!” Yes, but, “it remaineth that those who have wives be as they that have none.”

’True, but the case of a large family?  “Whosoever loveth child more than me,” &c.

’Second.  The fact that we live almost without servants makes us more independent, and also makes us acquainted with the secrets of each other’s housekeeping, &c.  All that artificial intercourse which depends a good deal upon a well-fitted servants’ hall does not find place here.  More simple and more plain and homely in speech and act is our life in the colonies—­e.g., you meet me carrying six or seven loaves from town to the college.  “Oh, I knew that the Bishop had to meet some persons there to-day, and I felt nearly sure there would be no breakfast then.”  Of course an English person thinks, “Why didn’t he send the bread?” To which I answer, “Who was there to send?.”

’I don’t mean that I particularly like turning myself into a miller one day and a butcher the next; but that doing it as a matter of course, where there is no one else to do it, one does sometimes think it unreasonable to say, as has been said to the Bishop:—­“Two thousand pounds a year you want for your Mission work!” “Yes,” said the Bishop, ’and not too much for sailing over ten thousand miles, and for educating, clothing, and feeding some forty young men!”

’I mean that conventional notions in England are preventing people from really doing half what they might do for the good of the needy.

’I don’t know how this might be said to be a theory tending to revolutionise society; but I think I do know that there is a kind of religious common sense which comes in to guide people in such matters.  Only, I do not think it right to admit that plea for not doing more in the way of almsgiving which is founded upon the assumption that first of all a certain position in society must be kept up, which involves certain expenditure.

’A barrister is living comfortably on £800 a year, or a clergyman in his living of £400.  The professional income of the one increases, and a fatter living is given to the other, or some money is left them.  What do they do?  Instantly start a carriage, another servant, put the jack-of-all-trades into a livery, turn the buttons into a flunkey, and the village girl into a ladies’ maid!  Is this really right?  They were well enough before.  Why not use the surplus for some better purpose?