ii86 



A USTRALASIA ILL USTRA TED. 



met with express approval. The necessary blocks of land were purchased from the New 

 Zealand Company, and with a view to the establishment and permanent endowment of 

 religious and educational institutions of a Presbyterian type, it was made a fundamental 

 article of the contract that the price of the land to the Association should be at the 

 rate of two pounds per acre, but that one-eighth 

 of the price so obtained should be made over to 

 trustees for religious and educational uses in con- 

 nection with the Free Church of Scotland. When, 

 in 1850, the New Zealand Company surrendered its 

 rights to the Crown, the latter continued to observe 

 the original compact, and, as a consequence, the 

 Kirk waxed wealthy and powerful, and educational 



THE CITY OF DUNEDIN. 



institutions sprang up and developed vigorously. This ecclesiastical acquisition of a share of 

 the unearned increment explains also the otherwise strange anomaly of two distinct Presby- 

 terian Churches existing in New Zealand, separated only by territorial limits, as their policy 

 is precisely the same : viz., the Presbyterian Church of Otago and Southland comprehend- 

 ing merely those two districts; and the Presbyterian Church of Xew Zealand, which com- 

 prises the rest of the colony from South Canterbury northward. From time to time the 

 latter Church has made overtures for union, but its twin sister, while willing to be linked 

 in the bonds of fellowship, has amusingly displayed the national canniness in questions of 

 finance by declining any closer and more real union which would involve a division of 



