166 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AVSTBALASIA 



effective action in public spheres that a work which 

 left " half told the story of Cambuscan bold/' would 

 be a maimed and truncated composition. He has acted 

 to some extent as his autobiographer. In speeches, 

 pamphlets, and treatises, historical and contentious, 

 Lang has related as much of his own story as he perhaps 

 cared to tell, though by no means as much as we should 

 like to know. 



The commanding part played by churchmen in Euro- 

 pean history has had but faint reflections in the history 

 of colonisation. Colonial history has seen no such 

 picturesque figures as Innocent III. or Gregory VII. ; 

 there was little or no scope for such personalities in 

 countries that passed through a mere remnant of the 

 ecclesiastical stage. Yet Australia and Nevs Zealand 

 have afforded a theatre for three or four remarkable 

 ecclesiastics who have done great things or exercised 

 effective influence outside the pale of their communions. 

 Samuel Marsden fought many a stout battle with the 

 high officers of the State, and Bishop Broughton, as 

 long a member of the Legislative Council of New South 

 Wales, or as heard before it, contended on equal terms 

 with such men as Went worth and Lowe, and was a 

 valiant ally of the strong Governor of his day. But 

 two men stand out conspicuously by their intellectual 

 power and moral energy and the largeness of the arena 

 where they battled — Bishop George Augustus Selwyn 

 and Dr. John Dunmore Lang. In the Church of England 

 and the young colony of New Zealand Selwyn was another 

 Innocent, though usually in alliance, like St. Boniface, 

 with governing persons and potently swaying a bar- 

 barous people ; while Lang was far more of the type 

 of Hildebrand, endeavouring to mould or subjugate 

 Secretaries of State and Governors, Councils, Presby- 

 teries, and Synods, fulminating brands of excommuni- 

 cation when he failed, defying all, chained on his rock 

 or confined in prison ; withal, a leader of peoples, a 

 founder of colonies, and a planter of churches. 



Born in 1799, Lang came in almost with the new 



