"The Reverend Samuel Marsden was the first incumbent of St John's Parramatta, the oldest and one of the handsomest of Australia's churches of the colonial period. In his own day a controversial figure, he left behind two sharply conflicting historical images, for Australians tend to see him as the "flogging parson" of Parramatta", while New Zealanders think of him as "Greatheart Marsden" or "The Apostle of the Maoris". He was a valiant missionary in New Zealand and the Pacific, a leading farmer and woolgrower in Australia, as well as an assiduous parson, stern magistrate and meddler in politics. A man of great weakness and great strength he remains a towering figure of his time." -- Back cover.