2. Is the Church of New Zealand in any way Compromised by the act of the late Primate?

Your Lordship, in the "Statement" presented by you to the Fourth General Synod, which met in Auckland in 1868, wrote as follows—and you invite special attention to the passage on page 12 of the pamphlet to which I am replying:—"An engagement page 14 of more than ordinary solemnity has been entered into; the two contracting parties being the Church in New Zealand, speaking and acting by her Metropolitan, and Bishop Jenner. The question to be decided by the Synod is simply this : Do the interests of the New Zealand Church demand, and will justice and honesty admit of the repudiation of that engagement by either of the parties, without the concurrence of the other? Such a question may safely be left to the judgment of any assembly of fair-dealing Englishmen; and the Bishop leaves it with perfect confidence in the hands of the General Synod of the New Zealand Church." Tour Lordship must forgive me for saying that it is a perfectly groundless assumption that any engagement, either expressed or implied, has ever been entered into between the Church in New Zealand and yourself. Herein lies the fous et origo mali. Tour words are, "the Church in New Zealand speaking and acting by her Metropolitan." Now if it can be proved that the New Zealand Church did really speak and act by her Metropolitan or, in other words, authorise her Metropolitan to speak and act for her, in the matter of the appointment of a Bishop of Dunedin, I have not a word more to say, except to express the deepest contrition for having had any share in the repudiation of a solemn engagement. But I must boldly and unflinchingly say that no such proof can be given. It is just this point, as I need not remind your Lordship, which Bishop Abraham essays to prove in his letter, in the Supplement of the Guardian of June 7th, 1871, and of which you say that it "remains unanswered and unanswerable." As the Bishop has said in that letter all, and more than all, that can be said on the side of the question which he has espoused, it will be convenient perhaps if I put what I have to say on the other side, in the shape of a reply to that letter. I hope it is unnecessary for me to say that, in applying myself to this task, I do so with feelings of the deepest respect, and most sincere regard, for one from whom I have received many kindnesses, and with whom, when he was in New Zealand, I enjoyed the privilege of frequent and friendly correspondence.