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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 77

Wellington, N.Z., 3rd October, 1904

Wellington, N.Z.,

Oh dear people! I wish I could write to every one of you, and especially to those who have so kindly written to me. But if I were to sit in all day to do it, page 35 I fear the result would not pay for the labour, for I could only repeat the same story, and express the same good wishes to each, and it will be easier for you all to read what I have to say when it is printed.

Christchurch is like an English cathedral city; it is situated on a wide plain, through which flows the Avon, bordered by willows, just now in springtime bright with their new green dresses. I had the more time to see all there was to be seen in and about the place, because I had no lectures or services during my four days' stay, and my only business was to make acquaintance with people likely to help, or at least to sympathise with a Unitarian movement. I met many interesting people, and some very friendly, but hardly any to be relied on to build up a church. So we left on the 28th September, and came by the night boat, a twelve hours' voyage, back to Wellington, from which we had been three weeks away. It is the seat of Government, though inferior in respect of population to both Auckland and Christchurch. There are many New Zealanders who have nothing to say for Wellington, except that it is windy, and that you can always tell a Wellington man wherever he may be by his putting his hand up to his hat when he turns a corner. To me it is a city which I admire the more, the more I get used to it. It is shut in between the hills and the lake-like harbour, to which Captain Cook gave the name of Port Nicholson; and from the verandah of the boarding-house I am lodging at I look over town and suburbs and port, and far away to the snow-clad summits beyond. Three or four tall chimneys pour page 36 out a black smoke, serving to show which way the wind is blowing, and so help us to make a guess as to what the very changeable weather will next be. They serve too to remind us of the least pleasurable aspect of that great and thriving city of the far north in which the best years of my life have been passed, and my best work been done.

Here I have spent three Sundays, and conducted services morning and evening in a public hall, and preached to audiences, not indeed numerous—whoever looks for numbers among us, and estimates success by count of heads will find nothing but disappointment—but of the best families in the city. Yesterday I had in the morning 26 men and 14 women; in the evening which was wet, about double the number. The singing, too, was managed without any difficulty, and after three Sundays in strange temples, it was very welcome, the sense of being at home again, preaching and praying and singing just as we do at Mill Hill.

I hope this letter will go via Vancouver and reach you some time about November 9th, but there are many mail routes from here, and it is not at all certain how a letter will be sent. By the 9th we shall have reached Salt Lake City, the Mormon Zion, where we hope to spend a couple of days, and thence go on perhaps by way of Chicago to Boston.

It was, as you know, my purpose to he with you at the latest by the third Sunday in November. When I found myself under almost an obligation to prolong my stay here another three weeks I extended my leave page 37 to the last Sunday, and was planning how I might hurry through America, so as to get from San Francisco to Leeds in three weeks. But now comes under the sea five words from Mill Hill "Hargrove expected sixteenth December Lupton," and, though I regret to be so long away, the message is a relief to me, and I heartily thank the congregation which has dealt so generously with me, and the committee and its chairman (who bears two names honoured by all the Unitarians of England) for this mark of their good will.

So dear friends, supposing that it fares as well with me for the remainder of my tour as it has done uniformly hitherto, I shall meet you all again and address you from my old pulpit on the 18th of December next. You will hear from me next on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, then once from the Atlantic seaboard, and the third time we shall need no letters of communication for I shall see you all and be seen of you. Which may God grant!

C. H.

We left Auckland on Saturday, the loth of October, and kept the next day too as Saturday the 15th, so as to correct the error of a day into which those who make the round of the world must needs fall, getting a day behind or before the true reckoning according as they travel with or against the sun. From on board ship, I wrote to Mr. Jellie, as Minister and Representative of the Auckland Congregation, the following, which I insert here as evidence of the sense of affection and gratitude which I entertained towards the dear page 38 good people who had showed me so much loving kindness. I have since heard that Mr. Jellie is shortly to be married to the daughter of Mr. Macky, the leading member and chief benefactor of his congregation. The news is of more than private interest, as it may be taken to intimate that the first Unitarian Minister in New Zealand has taken up his permanent home there. May he have a long and useful Ministry, and help to the forming of new congregations in that favoured and progressive Colony.