The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1872-03-13
Conservation of the Bishop of
Honolulu.


Yesterday morning the conservation OF the
Rev. Alfred Willis to the See of Honolulu took
place in the chapel Of Lambeth Palace, the Off
ciating Prelates being the Archbishop of Canter-
bury, the Bishops Of London, Winchester and
Rochester, and DR.. Staley, late occupant Of the
See. The sermon was preached by DR.. Scott
Dean of Rochester formerly Master of BalliOl
College. Mr.. Willis is the second Bishop over
the Church in Hawaii DR.. Staley having been
consecrated in December, 1861, the day after the
death Of the Prince Consort Mr.. Willis has
prepared himself for the higher overseeing of the
Church by upwards of ten years Jealous and
constant work as parish priest, the greater part
of his ordained life having been spent at New
Brompton, district parish cut out of Gilling-
ham, by Chatham, where no wealthy neighbors
mingled with the multitude of dock laborers and
other wage-earniug people connected with Chat
ham. The church, schools and parsonage are
due to his exertious. Hard and unpretentious
labor, therefore, has become q second nature to
him. The service, occurring on the Festival of
the Publication of the Blessed Virgin, was fol-
lowed by celebration, the former Office being
choral
The eloquent and impressive sermon of DR..
Scott, containing a touching allusion to EDglands
latest martyr bishop rivetted the attention of the
congregation, and will long be impressed on the
memory of those who heard it. But when is our
Church to do some public act to commemorate
that brave devoted heart, that welled out so
willingly its blood on the strand of Santa Cruz
When, lately, French Bishop was killed in
China, France was not thus silent. She cele-
brated in a solemn service, and with the custom
airy Grafton the oblation of life given to Christ.
And is Patteson to vanish from onr Communion,
And leave no whispering of a name behind?
The Dean of Rochester chose for his text the
ID and Sd verses of xiii. Acts, recounting the
vocation of Barnabas and Paul and their mission,
by the Church at Antioch to the Gentle world.
The preacher claimed that the very act then in
progress in Lambeth Chapel-the sending forth
a missionary bishop to heathens and the refuse
of civilization who mingled with them-bOund
US in unity with that shining Church which gave
forth clear light when Jerusalem was in ruins
when Christianity itself on one hand was being
shriveled up by slavish liberality, and on the
other was in danger Of being evaporated in fanci
fol clouds of mysticism. The Church now knows
how closely the enveloping garments of the alb
sOrbing world, the ideas of the age, modern civil |
zation, wrap her round, and conceal the beating
heart within, until an act of faith Imagination |
is absolutely required in the behOlder to believe |
that any living nucleus dwes within those colored |
,erements. But here IS an action of life. Here |
proof is given by religion that she yet lives.
With tenderness the preacher spoke, among SO
many present members of Bishop Willis family
If the rending of the ties of home and blood
md more than those, the tearing away the de-
'oted pastor from the flock he had gathered and
lad so loved to pasture Then came the passage
.luded to- relating to Bishop Pattesons death,
md sweet but mournful picture of the dead
Evangelist of Polynesia floating past in the
auoe g." the palm-branch already on his breast
nd, in that illimitable stretch of ocean, where
n the constellation of coral islands, and sing an
ntphon to their Makers praise, the great South
IN Cross looked down upon the martyr, who had
o often steered beneath its light"
1t is. however, necessary, in the cause of sober
ruth, to mention that in Polynesia and among
he gentle natives of Hawaii, and the rather
ver-cvzed city of Honolulu, no danger to life
T freedom has, in the present case, to be appre-
ended. The oppositons, the difficulties, are
ither of the moral and intellectual order that
ave to be encountered and he who takes the
versight of that far flock dispersed" must
AIRY with him frmness and consistency, as well
gentleness and devotion. Many prayers will
Bishop Willis when he leaves our
wn shores to tend the furthest tendrs of the
inc that stretches her branches unto the sea and
er boughs unto the river.-.John Bull, Feb. 3rd