RETROSPECT.
(1814-1841).
The native bent of the Maori mind caused the people, as
they embraced Christianity, gradually to place themselves as a
matter of course under the guidance of a sort of Christian
theocracy. It was under the auspices of this mild missionary
regime—which, if a government, was a very singular one, seeing
that there were no laws, and an almost total absence of
crime—that the first British Governor set foot on the shores of
New Zealand.
—Judge Wilson.
Hardly had Henry Williams returned to Paihia
from his great journey through the heart of
the island, when a warship arrived in the Bay,
bearing Captain William Hobson with a commission
from Queen Victoria, authorising him to annex the
country to the British Crown. A not very friendly
historian (Saunders) has summed up the situation at
this point by saying that, on his arrival, Hobson fell
into the hands of the Reverend Henry Williams, and
obligingly admits that he might have fallen into worse
ones. As a matter of fact, the captain could have done
but little had he not secured the co-operation of this
influential missionary. Rusden speaks no more than
the truth when he declares that "Henry Williams had
but to raise his finger, and his mana would have
weighed more with the Maoris than the devices of
Colonel Wakefield or the office of Hobson."
The first act of the new official was to gather the
northern chiefs on the lawn in front of the British
Residency, on the other side of the river from Paihia,
and to lay before them the famous document known as
the Treaty of Waitangi. It is sometimes asserted that
Henry Williams was really the author of this treaty.
That would seem to be an error, but he may have been
consulted in the drafting of the document; and there
can be no question but that it was his influence which
induced the chiefs to sign it. It was he who interpreted
to the Maoris the provisions of the treaty, and the
speech in which Hobson commended it to their acceptance;
and it was he and the other missionaries who
secured the signatures of the chiefs in other parts of
the island. Whatever may be thought of the policy
of this momentous document—securing as it did to
the native race the full possession of their lands and
properties under the British flag—it is a standing witness
to the influence of the missionaries, and to the
trust which the Maoris had come to place in their integrity
and benevolence of purpose.
The one place where the treaty was opposed was
the new English settlement of Wellington, where the
settlers stigmatised it as "a device to amuse the savages,"
and proceeded to set up a rival government of
their own. Henry Williams went once more therefore
to Port Nicholson, and succeeded in getting the treaty
signed by the chiefs of that place. Thus supported,
Hobson now felt himself strong enough to proclaim
the Queen's sovereignty over the country, and himself
became its first Governor. He had no military force
to depend upon, and he ruled the country through the
missionaries. His tenure of office was embittered by
the constant opposition of the Company at Wellington,
as well as by the difficulties natural to such a position;
and he was harassed into his grave within two years
of his arrival. But this period may be looked upon
as the climax of missionary influence in New Zealand.
After 1842, mission work went on extending, but the
old workers no longer occupied the forefront of the
stage.
Before they retire into the background to make room
for other figures, it will be well therefore to cast a
glance over their work and its methods, their characters
and their example. The position which they held
was in many ways unique, and though their age lies
not so far behind us in point of time, it really belongs
to an order of things quite different from our own.
The first point of contrast with our present somewhat
overgoverned society is the absence of authority.
The missionaries and settlers were sent out to a wild
country to do the best they could. The bishops of
the Church in England did not claim, nor believe that
they possessed, any jurisdiction over them. The direction
of the mission lay with the Committee of the
C.M.S., but unless it sent out a sentence of dismissal,
what could such a distant body do? If it sent out instructions
to New Zealand, no answer could be expected
for a whole year, during which time circumstances
might have altogether changed. Short of
actual dismissal, its power of discipline was but slight.
Much of its power must of necessity be delegated to
Marsden in Australia, but Marsden's authority was
limited in the same way, though not quite to the same
extent. He could not visit the mission often, nor could
he secure that his instructions should be obeyed. As
a matter of fact they were often not obeyed. "I know
nothing I can say will have any influence upon their
minds," he once wrote in despair; "they have followed
their own way too long, and despise all the orders
that have been given them by their superiors." This
censure applied to certain individuals among the first
settlers, and when one reads the letters and journals of
these same men, one cannot help feeling some sympathy
with them in their position. Possibly Marsden, with
his exceptional powers, expected rather much of average
human nature. But the point is that the position
of an early missionary was an independent one. There
was no civil government at all, and the instructions
from ecclesiastical superiors were necessarily infrequent,
often lacking in knowledge, never quite up to
date, and backed by no compelling force except the
threat of "disconnection" from the Society.
Under such circumstances everything depended on
the personalities of the men themselves. Those who
came before 1823 were on the whole disappointing.
Marsden frequently compared them to the twelve spies
who all failed, excepting Caleb and Joshua. Unfortunately
he never lets us know who his "Caleb" and
his "Joshua" were. But one of them can hardly have
been other than the young schoolmaster, Francis Hall,
whose letters reveal a singularly earnest and beautiful
spirit. Even he, however, admits the demoralising
influence of the surrounding paganism—an influence
which none wholly escaped, and before which some
actually succumbed. "I feel in myself," quaintly
writes another, "a great want of that spirituality of
mind which New Zealand is so very unfavourable for;
because of the continual scenes of evil that there is
before our eyes, and for want of Christian society.
So that you must excuse my barrenness of writing, and
give me all the Christian advice you can."
The most interesting personality among these first
settlers was Kendall. Wayward and erring, passionate
and ungovernable as he was, a close study of his
letters shows a depth of sin and penitence, together
with a breadth and boldness of philosophical speculation,
which fascinates the reader. Alone among the
missionaries he seems to have tried to approach the
Maori from his own side, and to enter the inmost recesses
of his thought: "I am now, after a long, anxious,
and painful study, arriving at the very foundation
and groundwork of the Cannibalism and Superstitions
of these Islanders. All their notions are metaphysical,
and I have been so poisoned with the apparent sublimity
of their ideas, that I have been almost completely
turned from a Christian to a heathen." Like the
ancient Gnostics, Kendall tried to combine Christianity
with a sublimated version of pagan superstitions; and
if moral restrictions stood in the way, he cast them
aside. "I was reduced," he says, "to a state so dreadful
that I had given myself entirely up, and was utterly
regardless of what would become both of body and
soul."
The details of his strange career cannot, of course,
be given here. He has been represented as an utter
hypocrite, and evidence is not wanting to give colour
to the charge. But another and more favourable
view is not only possible: it is forced upon anyone who
studies his self-revelation through his letters. He
seems to have hoped that his ordination would have
given him moral strength and stability, but he had
to admit that he had never been so strongly tempted
to sin, so unable to resist it, or so ingloriously foiled,
as since his return from England. Marsden's sharp
exercise of discipline, though it elicited outbursts of
passion, seems to have had a healing effect. "Blessed
be God," he writes, "who has certainly undertaken
for me. His sharp rebuke has laid me low; yet why
should I repine, since He has inclined me to seek His
face again?" Upon his expulsion from the mission,
he retired to a house he had built at "Pater Noster
Valley," and after a few months left the country. His
great services in reducing the Maori language to written
form have hardly been sufficiently recognised.
Marsden, like the other settlers, could never adapt
himself to the Italian vowel sounds, and at his request
Kendall wrote out a new vocabulary on a different system;
but he soon found it unsatisfactory, and returned
to the principles which he had worked out with Professor
Lee. For the rest of his life—in South America
and in Australia—he still tried to perfect his Maori
Grammar. But the tragedy of his life outweighs the
value of his philological efforts. If ever a New Zealand
Goethe should arise, he may find the materials
for his Faust in the history of Thomas Kendall.
From the date of the new beginning of the mission
in 1823, its agents were, for the most part, men of
a superior type. Yate, indeed, one of the ablest
amongst them, was accused on a charge of which he
never could, or perhaps would, clear himself. He was
accordingly "disconnected" by the Society, but a certain
doubt hangs over the issue; and his after life was spent
in useful and honourable service as chaplain to the
seamen at Dover. The rest of the new workers did
excellent service for the mission, and most of them
lived to an old age in the country. Remarkable for
their linguistic capacity stand out William Williams,
who translated the New Testament; and Robert Maunsell,
who followed with the Old. This remarkable
man took all possible pains to gather the correct idioms
for his task—sometimes by engaging the Maoris in
argument, sometimes by watching them at their sports.
The passion for accuracy was strong in him to extreme
old age, and even on his death-bed he interrupted
the ministrations of his parish priest with the
startling question, "Don't you know that that is a mistranslation?"
Apart from translation work, the missionaries had
little inclination or ability for literary pursuits. Some
of them (e.g., W. Williams, Yate, and Colenso) took
an interest in the plants and animals of their adopted
country, but for the most part the missionary was a
man of one book, and that book was the Bible. Life
was too serious a thing to allow of attention to the
literary graces. The place where his lot was cast was
in a special sense the realm of Satan. The evidences
of demonic activity lay all around. On the one hand
were the sickening scenes of slaughter and cannibalism;
on the other were the evil lives of sailors and traders
of his own race. Now and then the great Enemy would
draw nearer still, and one of his own comrades would
fall a prey. His own religion was of a somewhat
austere type. His calendar was unmarked by fast or
festival; he had few opportunities of participating in
a joyous Eucharist; there was no colour in his raupo
chapel, nor variety in his manner of worship.
The home life of the missionary doubtless often
presented a picture of domestic happiness. But there
were no luxuries. If he wished to vary the daily routine
of pork and potatoes, he must try to obtain some
fish or native game. Failing these, he had only his
own garden and poultry-yard to look to. Soldiers'
rations of coarse groceries were served out from the
Society's stores, but everything else must be bought out
of his slender income—£50 if a married man (unordained),
or £30 if a bachelor. Often in the earlier
days, while the Maoris were still unfriendly, even pork
and potatoes were not to be had. More than once
Henry Williams and his family were brought to the
verge of starvation.
OLD CHURCH AT RUSSELL (Built in 1838).
In spite of these and other privations, the health of
the missionaries was good and their families were
large. No death occurred among them until 1837,
when Mrs. R. Davis was called to her rest. Dangers
abounded on every hand, yet accidents were rare. Mr.
and Mrs. Charles Davis were lost at sea; Marsden
was wrecked on the Brampton reef, but escaped unhurt
with all his party. Henry Williams passed through a
terrible experience when returning from Tauranga in
1832. For two days his little vessel had been enveloped
in driving rain and had been blown quite out
of her course, when the missionary, who had been praying
through the whole night, seeing at daybreak a
rock immediately ahead, fell back upon his old nautical
skill, seized the tiller in his own hands, and just succeeded
in saving the craft from destruction.
It was this imminent peril that raised in the mind
of Henry Williams the question of how to make provision
for his numerous family in case of his death.
Like most of his colleagues, he had sons growing to
manhood, and was anxious to do his duty by them.
He could have sent them to England, but this would
have meant a life-long separation between parents and
children; to Sydney, but this would involve their exposure
to the temptations of a convict settlement. He
therefore decided to buy some land near to Paihia,
and on this to settle his sons. The Maoris were
pleased to sell him the land, and the Home Committee
approved of the scheme. Several of the other missionaries
did likewise. The plan seems a reasonable
one, and it received the approbation of Bishop Broughton,
on the condition that the lands so obtained should
be strictly devoted to the use of the children, and not
to that of their parents. But it has brought upon the
missionary body, and upon Henry Williams in particular,
the reproach of land-speculating—a reproach
which is still reiterated by modern historians such as
Saunders and Collier. Fortunately, an incident
occurred at the close of our period which is enough
to furnish a decisive test, at least in the case of Henry
Williams.
One of the first acts of Governor Hobson was to
seek for a site for the capital of the new Colony. Wellington
was vetoed by the Home Government, and
the only other European town was Kororareka in the
Bay of Islands. In this place or its neighbourhood
the governor would doubtless have fixed his headquarters,
had it not been for Henry Williams. This sagacious
man had long noted the magnificent possibilities
of the Waitemata Harbour, and on being asked his
advice he took the governor to the spot. Hobson
at once saw the value of the position, and selected the
place where the city of Auckland was soon to rise.
But before he could buy the land from its Maori possessors,
he was disabled by a stroke of illness, and
returned invalided to find nursing and medical attention
at the mission station of Waimate. During the
period of his convalescence he fixed his abode at Russell—a
house just opposite to Paihia—and the Auckland
scheme was left in abeyance. Speculators were
busy about other suggested localities in the Bay of
Islands, but the real site was known only to Henry
Williams and to the governor himself.
What a chance was here for a speculator! Never,
perhaps, before or since, has such an opportunity
occurred. Williams, with his unrivalled influence over
the Maoris, might have bought up large tracts of
land near the new site. If the charges against him are
true, this is what he would have done. As a matter
of fact, he never acquired a single acre of land in that
district. He suffered the seat of government to be removed
a hundred miles away from his own doors to
a place where he did not possess, or try to possess, a
single foot. This fact should surely set at rest for
ever the question of the disinterestedness of Henry
Williams.
Land-buying was not the only fault of which the
missionaries were accused. An English artist, Earle,
visited New Zealand in 1827, and on his return published
an account of his travels, in which he accused
the church clergy of churlishness and inhospitality.
Yet these same men were the ones who came to his
assistance when his house was burned, and supplied
all his wants to the full. This fact Mr. Earle does
not mention, and has not a favourable word to say
on behalf of those who had befriended him.
A very different visitor arrived some eight years
later in the research-vessel Beagle. This was Charles
Darwin, whose name had not yet achieved renown,
but who was already distinguished for that philosophical
temperament and keen observation which make
his judgment to be of exceptional value. He speaks
of "the gentlemanlike, useful, and upright characters"
of the missionaries; expresses his admiration of the
civilised appearance of Waimate; and finds in the results
thus achieved the best ground for hope for the
future of the country. He had evidently been previously
impressed by Earle's denunciations, and was
even surprised to see one of the missionaries' sons
playing cricket with the Maori scholars. The mention
of this little incident was doubtless intended to soften
the impression of extreme austerity, and is not without
its value to this end. But it does not go very far
to modify the picture of old-fashioned gravity and
severity. In modern times the missionaries would
have been playing in the game themselves.
On the whole, the reports which reached the mother
country were favourable, and caused great rejoicing
among the friends of the mission staff. But there
was one doubt which agitated the minds of a certain
circle of English society, and that was as to the churchmanship
of the New Zealand mission. Its agents
were good men, and had achieved astonishing success;
but had they kept up the distinctive tone and system
of the mother Church? Were they distinguishable
from the Methodists by whose side they laboured?
No treatment of the subject can be considered complete
which omits this feature of the situation.
Undoubtedly there was some justification for the
fears entertained in the Home land. Marsden himself
had been born and brought up in a Methodist family.
From this, as a young man, he had passed without
sense of break or violent change into a church school,
and thence to Cambridge, where he was associated
with the Evangelical leaders, who emphasised the individual
rather than the corporate aspect of the
Church's teaching. We have seen that in 1819 he
sent over a Methodist preacher to report upon and
to stimulate his nagging workers. He was not in
favour of the Methodists sending a mission of their
own to New Zealand, but when in 1822 his friend
Mr. Leigh determined to settle in the country, Marsden
put no obstacles in his way. Not only so, but
in 1823 Marsden himself brought over Leigh's colleagues,
Hobbs and Turner, who established their
station at Whangaroa, after consultation with the settlers
at the Bay of Islands. The stations were not
far apart, and constant brotherly intercourse was
maintained between the occupants. When the Wesleyans
fled from their homes in the turmoil of 1827,
it was to Kerikeri and Paihia that they betook themselves
in the first place, and it was Marsden's parsonage
at Parramatta that sheltered them afterwards.
It was by Marsden's advice that they settled at Hokianga
on their return, and they always looked forward
to his visits as eagerly as did their brethren at the
Bay of Islands. He himself rejoiced to receive them
to the Holy Communion; their converts were admitted
to the same holy ordinance at Waimate and Paihia;
the missionaries preached without hesitation in one
another's pulpits. So anxious were the leaders on
both sides to spare the Maoris the spectacle of Christian
disunion, and to emphasise the fact that they baptised
not in their own name but in that of their common
Master, that on the occasion of the reception
into the fold of the great chief Waka Nene and his
brother, Patuone, they arranged that Patuone, who
belonged to the Methodists, should be baptised by the
church clergy, while Waka, who was an adherent
of the church mission, should receive the sacred ordinance
at the hands of the Wesleyans.
Highly irregular! some will exclaim. But there are
important considerations which must be kept in mind.
In the first place, the unhappy separation between the
Methodist body and the historic Church had not then
assumed the hard and fast character which it bears
to-day. The followers of Wesley were still in fairly
close touch with Wesley's mother Church; they still
occupied, to a large extent, the position of a voluntary
order within the established framework. They used
the Book of Common Prayer at their services, and
taught the Church Catechism to their children. And
in New Zealand they looked up to Marsden as their
apostle, and were guided in their operations by his
disinterested advice. Nor should it be forgotten that
the agents of the C.M.S. were mostly laymen. Setting
aside Hadfield, Mason, and Burrows, who all appeared
upon the scene near the close of our period, there
were but four ordained clergy during the years of
co-operation between the two societies, viz., Brown
and Maunsell and the brothers Williams. Nor did
the "historic episcopate" present any obstacle to intercommunion.
No bishop was seen in the land until
the end of 1838, and then his stay was but short.
There was accordingly no question as to the necessity
of confirmation as a qualification for communion.
Confirmation simply could not be had. Candidates
were admitted to the Eucharist after long and careful
probation. Bishop Broughton, who was a High
Churchman and a disciplinarian, found that his misgivings
as to the churchmanship of the mission were
unfounded. A few things were irregular, as of course
they were likely to be in an isolated community which
had been cut off from the rest of the world for a quarter
of a century, but at the end of his visit the bishop
could express his conviction that everything would be
easily set right by a bishop residing on the spot.
On the whole, the relations between the two bodies
seem to have been marked by true wisdom as well as
by Christian sympathy. But the harmony was not
perfect. When the Wesleyan missionaries transferred
their operations from Whangaroa on the east
coast to Hokianga on the west, they seem to have
taken it for granted that the whole of the west coast
was to be reserved for them, while the east was to be
the sphere of the Church. But the physical features
of the island were opposed to such an arrangement.
Nearly all the rivers from the interior run westwards,
and the missionaries in following the movements of
their people sometimes found themselves by the western
sea. The first instance of this tendency was in
the Waikato district, where, as we have seen, Hamlin
and Maunsell were drawn to the Manukau Harbour
and the Waikato Heads. The result was a confusion
of operations. The Wesleyans had established stations
further to the south on the Kawhia and Raglan
harbours, and thus barred the operations of Maunsell
in this direction. Much correspondence ensued
with the Home authorities, and for a time the Wesleyans
withdrew from their posts. Eventually, however,
a treaty was signed at Mangungu in 1837 by
Henry Williams on the one hand, and the Rev. N.
Turner on the other. By this agreement the harbours
of Raglan and Kawhia, with the hinterland as far
eastwards as the Waikato and Waipa rivers, were definitively
included within the Wesleyan sphere of influence.
Nothing was said about the coast to the
southward, and there was nothing whatever to prevent
the settlement of Hadfield at Waikanae and
Otaki in 1839, nor that of Mason at Wanganui in
1840. The idea, however, of "the West Coast for the
Wesleyans" still survived in some minds, and there
were those who resented the settlement of Hadfield
and Mason on "their" coast as an unfriendly act.
These two excellent missionaries were also violently
attacked by one of the younger Wesleyans in Taranaki,
apparently through ignorance of the Church's
position. The ultimate settlement of the boundaries
was reached by tacitly recognising all the west coast
north of Wanganui (excepting of course Maunsell's
district) as lying in the Methodist sphere, and all
south of Wanganui as included in that of the Church.
These differences in the south-west of the island
hardly disturbed the comity which prevailed in the
north. A more serious trouble, however, arose in
this region when a Roman Catholic mission appeared
there in 1838. In that year a French bishop and a
band of priests landed at Hokianga, and afterwards
moved to Kororareka, right in the centre of the Bay
of Islands. As in other parts of the world, so here,
the Romanists passed over the unoccupied territory
and planted themselves in the midst of occupied
ground, where they proceeded to upset the congregations
of the older workers. For a time they drew
away many of the converts to their side. But the
Maoris were shrewd men, and several of them by this
time knew their New Testament by heart. When the
Roman teachers condemned the English missionaries
for having wives and children, the Maoris were ready
with an effective answer from the example of St.
Peter, the married apostle. They held their own in
argument, and eventually drew back most of their
brethren to the Church of the earlier instructors who
had borne the burden and heat of the day, and proved
their faith by their sufferings and their works.
What those works and sufferings were has already
been partly described in the course of this narrative.
But there is one passage in the literature of the period
which is too graphic to omit. It relates to the adventures
of two of the lesser characters among the missionaries,
and it illustrates both the hardships which
they sometimes underwent and also the nature of the
Maori mind.
It was in 1835 that Wilson and Fairburn heard of
the dangerous position of a party of women and children
belonging to the Waikato tribe. They were encamped
on a stream called Maramarua, and a strong
taua, or fighting party, was preparing to set off from
the mouth of the river Thames, with the object of
cutting off the retreat of these unsuspecting people.
The two missionaries determined to baulk this scheme,
and by rowing all night succeeded in getting ahead
of the pursuers. Next day they had a toilsome walk
of many hours. The taua was on their track, the way
was longer than they expected, and only by a few
seconds did they at last succeed in giving warning
to the Waikatos, and thus saving their lives. But
now the baulked hunters had to be reckoned with.
Respect for the white man kept them from actual violence,
but as night came on the situation was a decidedly
difficult one. Wilson's journal continues thus:
"It was now nearly dark, the rain and wind increasing,
and the only shelter was the long, narrow shed,
partly finished—half of the roof still uncovered. This
hovel was about 18 feet long, 9 wide, and 7 feet in
height. The natives, to make up for the rain which
came through in every direction, lit two fires with
green wood, near each end of the house, which filled
it with smoke. Into this the taua, about thirty men,
entered, and began to take off their wet garments and
crouch round the fires; and into this pleasant abode
for the night we, too, with our four natives, had to
creep: it was either this or remain outside in a winter
easterly gale. After a time we attempted to dry some
of our clothes by one of the fires, but the smoke was
so intolerable, and the heat of the place so great, notwithstanding
it was only half roofed, that we were obliged to lie down with our
faces nearly touching the earth. We remained in silence a long time,
perhaps two or three hours, not a word being addressed to us,
either by the chief, or his followers; this by no means
a good omen in native etiquette and custom. We had
brought no provisions with us, supposing Maramarua
to be nearer to the coast; and after long waiting to
see the mind of the taua and how things would be,
we at last were about to lie down to try to sleep, to
forget our hunger, lodging, and society. Now, it is
an established custom in New Zealand never to begin
or end the day without prayer, and though in this
wretched predicament, Mr. Fairburn proposed that
we should thus close the day. The armed men were
sitting moodily by the fires, when we signified our
wish to our people, who were all Christians. This
night's service will never be forgotten by me; it was
commenced by singing the sixth native hymn, the first
words of which are:
Homai e Ihu he ngakau, kia rongo atu ai,
Ki tau tino aroha nui, i whakakitia mai.
THE CATHEDRAL, NELSON.
"The hymn—an invocation to Christ for the Holy
Spirit's aid to regenerate the natural heart, and impress
it with love to God—I had often heard and sung;
but never before had it come home to me with such
reality, or sounded with such sweetness and power,
as in this solemn appeal to the Most High....
We then prayed for this dark world, its sorrowing
and erring children, that the God of mercy would be
graciously pleased to bring them to a knowledge of
himself; and after thanks for the mercies of the day,
we commended ourselves to God. Our simple service
over, we said no more. For a time all remained quiet;
none seemed willing to interrupt the silence in this
strange place and on this still stranger occasion; nothing
was heard but the storm, which appeared to be
tearing the remainder of the roof from the shed, and
the rain rattling against the raupo. The taua seemed
as if struck by the fabled wand of some mighty magician!
Their former reserve and low whispering
ceased; and after a while they began to talk quietly
to each other, and shortly afterwards they spoke to
ourselves and to our natives. The gloom had passed
away, their countenances became altered; and they
now began to prepare some refreshments. Each of
the taua had carried at his back a small flax basket
of potatoes, containing some three or four handfuls.
Of this slender stock they passed along (for there was
no moving for want of room) a liberal share for ourselves
and our natives. After this the pig was cut
up and roasted; but, faint and hungry as I was, it was
nearly impossible to eat it. And now all restraint was
thrown off, and the Maoris conversed freely and pleasantly.
So the night wore on, better than it had
begun. At last, cold and weary, overpowered by the
smoke, I fell asleep on a bundle of bullrushes; and
when I awoke, I found that I had been sleeping unconsciously
on one of the men's heads."
Incidents such as this did not, of course, happen
every day; but this one is typical in that it shows the
religious character of the Maori. Here is a war-party
who start out with the object of shooting down
a number of unsuspecting people. They come back
talking in quite friendly fashion with the men who
had baulked them of their prey. What had worked
the change? Simply the singing of a hymn. Where
could we find stronger evidence of a disposition
naturally religious, or a more striking instance of the
divine guardianship?
In trying to trace the causes of the wonderful spread
of Christianity among this ferocious people, it is
natural to think first of the combination of benefits
which the missionaries were able to bring. They
stood for all the knowledge and civilisation of the
outside world, as well as for the message of a world
to come. They had no telephones, no motor cars,
nor even matches; but they brought tools of iron and
of steel, they had strange animals and plants, they used
glass and china and wool and cotton, and above all
they learned from books. Such marks of power could
not fail to tell upon a shrewd people like the Maoris.
The most intelligent of the chiefs, without at all
understanding the truths of Christianity, were at once
attracted by these signs of mechanical and intellectual
superiority. We have seen how much the mission was
indebted to the three great generals of New Zealand—Hongi
in the north, Waharoa in the centre, and
Rauparaha in the south—for the main steps of its
advance. It might seem at first as though the explanation
of Maori Christianity were a fairly simple
matter.
Yet such a conclusion would be very far removed
from the truth. Undoubtedly the prestige of the
white man's civilisation gave a valuable leverage at
first, as in the notable case of Ruatara. Undoubtedly
also, many of the common people were simply swept
along by the current when once it grew strong enough
to make itself felt. But the earliest real converts
were old men, delicate girls, consumptive lads, and
wretched slaves, whose hearts were caught not by axes
and blankets, but by the message of a Father's love
and of a home beyond the stars. The Maori was a
religious being, and when his old faith failed him in
the hour of need, he turned to the new gospel of certitude
and hope. Nobler spirits among the race were
drawn also by the social side of the new teaching;
they saw in it a prospect of ridding the land of desolating
wars; but in each case it was the true power of
Christianity that operated, not the adventitious blessings
which it brought in its train.
Very interesting, as evidences of the heartfelt piety
of the early converts, are the letters which many of
them wrote to Yate on the eve of his journey to England.
There is surely nothing of a merely conventional
goodness about such language as this: "I have
this day, and many days, kneeled down, and my mouth
has whispered and has said loud prayers; but I wish
to know, and am saying within me, if I have prayed
with my heart. Say you, if I have prayed to God
with my heart, should I say No, and not do His bidding,
as the Bible says we must and tells us how?
And should I flutter about here like a bird without
wings, or like a beast without legs, or like a fish whose
tail and fins a native man has cut off, if I had love
in my heart towards God? Oh! I wish that I was not
all lip and mouth in my prayers to God. I am thinking
that I may be likened to stagnant water, that is
not good, that nobody drinks, and that does not run
down in brooks, upon the banks of which kumara and
trees grow. My heart is all rock, all rock, and no
good thing will grow upon it. The lizard and the
snail run over the rocks, and all evil runs over my
heart."
The anxious and self-accusing spirit which appears
in this passage deepens as the soul passes under the
awe of the sacramental presence. "My Teacher,"
writes another, "I have been many moons thinking
about the holy feast which Jesus Christ gave to His
disciples, and told everybody to eat it in remembrance
of Him. It is not a natives' feast; for in New Zealand
everybody eats as much as he is able, and as fast
as he is able; but this is a feast of belief. If my body
were hungry, I should not be satisfied with a piece
like a crumb, nor with a drop that will go in a cockle
shell; but my soul is satisfied, my heart is satisfied,
though it be a crumb and a drop. The thoughts
within me yesterday were perhaps right, and perhaps
wrong. I said to myself, I am going to eat and to
drink at a table placed before us by the Great Chief
of the world. I must be very good, and must make
myself good within; or, when He sees me, He will
show that He is angry. And then I thought, I will
not think anything that is not right, nor do anything
that is not straight to-day; and then, God will see
that my heart is becoming good. But, Mr. Yate, perhaps
you will, and perhaps you will not, believe it: I
thought no good thoughts, and I did no good works
all day; and yet I was still, and not angry with myself,
no, not at all. Now, my Teacher, you say what
I am to do, before the next day of the Lord's Supper.
I think I must pray to God for a new heart, and
for His Holy Spirit."
This honest confession agrees with the observations
of many outside observers of the change wrought
in the Maoris by their new religion. Not all received
the "new heart." Indeed, to judge from the accounts
of men like Wakefield and Fox, the old heart was
hardly touched by the new doctrines. The Christian
Maoris were blamed for covetousness and insolence,
for dishonesty and lying. "Give me the good old
Maori who has never been under missionary influence,"
was the feeling of many of the colonists.
It was the same complaint as is heard in every mission
field. But calmer and more unprejudiced observers
give a different verdict. The Bishop of Australia
reported: "In speaking of the character of the converted
natives, I express most unequivocally my persuasion
that it has been improved, in comparison
with the original disposition, by their acquaintance
with the truths of the Gospel. Their haughty
self-will, their rapacity, furiousness, and sanguinary
inclination have been softened—I may even say, eradicated;
and their superstitious opinions have given
place, in many instances, to a correct apprehension of
the spiritual tendencies of the Gospel. Their chief
remaining vices appeared to me to be indolence, duplicity,
and covetousness."
In mentioning these three prevailing vices, the
bishop lays his finger upon faults which the lover
of the Maori has still to deplore. His tendency to
indolence shows that Marsden's insistence on industrial
training was sound in theory, though not easy to
carry out in practice. Highly endowed as the Maori
was in many respects, he found it hard to copy the
white man in his regular and even life of toil. The
Maori was in fact the Greek of the south. Intellectually
he was brilliant, and his memory was nothing
short of marvellous. Somewhat later than our period,
an English surveyor on the west coast of the South
Island was disturbed in his camp by a party of Maoris
who had come from Ahaura in the valley of the
upper Grey. They had never seen a white man before,
but they had picked up some knowledge from
other Maoris who had come overland from Port
Cooper. During the night, "they commenced the recital
of the morning service; before morning they had
repeated the Litany four times, the whole version of
the Psalms, three or four creeds, and a marriage service,
and then the whole morning service again."[4]
Men who could do this might surely be expected to
be equal to anything. Altogether, the unfolding of
the Maori nature at this time was such as to arouse
the highest hopes for his future greatness. To the
friends of the mission in England it seemed as though
the angels' songs over a repentant nation could be
almost heard. Their orators, like Hugh Stowell, indulged
in rhapsodies over the isle "now lovely in
grace as she is beauteous in nature"; and even a philosophic
thinker like Julius Hare could give it as his
deliberate opinion that, for many centuries to come,
historians would look back to the establishment of
a Christian empire in New Zealand as the greatest
achievement of the first part of the nineteenth century.
[TOC]
