Missionary
Edward Garrard Marsh, the husband of his sister Lydia, would play an important role in Henry's life. Marsh was a member of the Church Missionary Society (CMS). Henry received The Missionary Register from him, which described the work of CMS missionaries. Henry took a special interest in New Zealand and its native Māori people. It was not until 1819 that Henry offered his services as a missionary to the CMS. He was initially accepted as a lay settler, but was ordained later.
He studied surgery and medicine, and learned about boat-building. He studied for Holy Orders for two years, and was ordained Deacon of the (Anglican) Church of England, on 2 June 1822, by the Bishop of London; and as an Anglican Priest, on 16 June 1822, by the Bishop of Lincoln.
On 17 September Henry and Marianne and three children sailed for Sydney, Australia on the Lord Sidmouth, a convict ship. In February 1823, at Hobart, Henry met Samuel Marsden for the first time. At Sydney he met Marsden again. In July 1823 they set sail for New Zealand, accompanying Marsden on his (fourth) visit to New Zealand on board the Brampton. In 1823 he arrived in the Bay of Islands and settled at Paihia, across the bay from Kororareka (nowadays Russell); then described as "the hell-hole of the South Pacific" because of the abuse of alcohol and prostitution that was the consequence of the sealing ships and whaling ships that visited Kororareka.
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Famous quotes containing the word missionary:
“Why have such scores of lovely, gifted girls
Married impossible men?
Simple self-sacrifice may be ruled out,
And missionary endeavour, nine times out of ten.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The missionary is no longer a man, a conscience. He is a corpse, in the hands of a confraternity, without family, without love, without any of the sentiments that are dear to us.... Emasculated, in a sense, by his vow of chastity, he offers us the distressing spectacle of a man deformed and impotent or engaged in a stupid and useless struggle with the sacred needs of the flesh, a struggle which, seven times out of ten, leads him to sodomy, the gallows, or prison.”
—Paul Gauguin (1848–1903)