Survey of Missionary Stations, New Zealand.
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New Zealand.
The B F Bible Society has received from the Auckland Auxiliary 20l., and it has ordered 316 copies. The Auxiliary at Wellington has made a small remittance--Pp. 218, 219.
CHRISTIAN-KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY.
There have been 2000 copies of the Liturgy in the language of New Zealand placed at the Bishop's disposal, also Books and Tracts; and 1000l. for Canterbury Settlement toward the endowment of the Bishopric.
CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
STATIONS AND LABOURERS --The Stations are taken in their order from north to south. Kaitaia lies in the north-west of the Northern Island; the five which follow are connected with the Bay of Islands. At a considerable distance to the southward lie Waikato, at the mouth of the river of that name, on the west coast, and Manukau, 23 miles inland; east of Manukau lies Hauraki: and further eastward, on the coast, Tauranga. Rotorua is in the centre of the Island--Poverty Bay, or Turanga, nearly in the same latitude, on the east coast--and En-
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try Island, or Kapati, off the south-west coast, and is the head-quarters of a district extending along the coast, from Port Nicholson on the south to the River Wanganui on the north. One Missionary at one time resided at Nelson, in the Middle Island.
NORTHERN DISTRICT --Kaitaia: 1834: Joseph Matthews: W. G. Puckey, Cat. -- Tepuna: 1815: vacant -- Kerikeri, with an Out-Station at Wangaroa: 1839: James Kemp, Cat. --Paihia: 1823: and Waikare: vacant -- Waimate: 1831: Robert Burrows--Kaikohe: Richard Davis. 2 European Teachers; Nat. As. 99--Communicants, 871--Schools, 68: Scholars, 2689. There are 10 Churches built with boards, and between 30 and 40 native-built rush Chapels.
MIDDLE DISTRICT --Bishop's Auckland: George Adam Kissling: Robert Vidal, Sec. of Mission-- Waikato: Robert Maunsell: Kaitotehe: 1843: Benj. Yate Ashwell-- Otawao: 1843: John Morgan--Hauraki: Thomas Lanfear: James Preece, Cat. --Turanga: 1835: Archd. Alfred N. Brown, Christopher P. Davis--Rotorua: Thomas Chapman--Opotiki: John Alex. Wilson, Cat. 1 European Teacher, 74 Nat. As. --Communicants, 1224 --Last returns give Schools, 93: Scholars, 5418. There are nearly 100 native-built Chapels, and about 10,000 attendants at Public Worship.
EASTERN DISTRICT --Hicks' Bay: Poverty Bay or Turanga: Archd. Wm. Williams, Ralph Barker-- Uawa: Charles Baker--Wairoa: James Hamlin--Waitangi: Wm. Colenso. 132 Nat. As. This District contains five Stations, viz. Turanga, in Poverty Bay, at which Archdeacon Williams resides--Uawa, 36 miles north of Turanga, where Mr. C. Baker commenced a new Station -- Rangitukia, near Waiapu, where another new Station was commenced by Mr. J. Stack. Communicants, 2054--Schools, 80: Scholars, 3500.
WESTERN DISTRICT --Entry Island: Wanganui: Richard Taylor, T. S. Grace: John Telford, Printer: 1 European Teacher--Waikanae: Octavius Hadfield--Otaki: Samuel Williams--156 Nat. As. -- Communicants, 1064--Last year's returns give Schools, 28: Scholars, 2322. The Rev. R. Barker and the Rev. T. Lanfear and their wives reached Auckland on the 26th of November; and the Rev. T. S. Grace and Mrs. Grace on the 9th of July --Pp. 219, 220, 248, and 64 of our present Volume; and see, at pp. 323, 324, 363-367, 398-405, 438-446, 485, and at pp. 148-155 of our present Volume, many particulars of the Mission.
The perplexing contest respecting the holding of large tracts of land by Missionaries, to which the Committee have alluded in several of their late Reports, has led to the separation of two individuals from the Society--the Archdeacon Henry Williams and Mr. George Clarke. The Committee cannot allude to the close of their connection with Archdeacon H. Williams without, at the same time, bearing a sincere testimony to the eminent services which, for above thirty years, he rendered to the cause of the Mission, and of the Church of Christ, in New Zealand.
These losses have been in part repaired by the addition of new Missionaries--the Rev. Messrs. Barker and Lanfear--who have already arrived in New Zealand, and a third Clergyman, the Rev. T. S. Grace, who is on his way out. The Rev. Octavius Hadfield, who was for several years so severe a sufferer as to be reported in the last stage of illness, has been restored to health, and enabled to resume his duties, and has been appointed an Archdeacon. The Rev. S. M. Spencer, who went out as a Missionary of the Society with the Bishop in 1842, after a few years' separation, has returned to labour again zealously in the ranks of the Society. R. Vidal, Esq., has been appointed Secretary of the Central Committee, and has sailed for New Zealand.
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Church Missionary Society--
At the Ordination of Mr. Morgan the Service was wholly in the native language --a fact of important significance and encouragement; the first instance of the kind, as the Committee believe, in modern Missions. A large assembly of both races, including the Representative of Her Majesty in the Colony, afterward united at the Lord's Supper. [Report.
The returns are so imperfect as to make it impossible to give any thing like a correct Summary.
GOSPEL-PROPAGATION SOCIETY.
The subject of education has for some time past assumed in this Diocese an aspect of peculiar interest, in consequence of the successful attempt made at St. John's College, Auckland, to adapt collegiate institutions to the circumstances and requirements of a new country. Thomson and Martin, sons of the noted Te Rauparaha, and other young men of the native race at Otaki, are desirous of founding a College at Porirua, and have given for that purpose about 600 acres of land in a most advantageous positron on Porirua Harbour, midway between their own village and Wellington. The Bishop adds, "The Government allows me to accept this grant, subject to the conditions of expending annually for five years one pound per acre, for the purposes specified in the grant."
RELIGIOUS-TRACT SOCIETY.
The Committee have sent to the local labourers nearly 42,000 Tracts, in addition to 68 reams of printing paper, and have furnished supplies to several friends proceeding to the colony. The value of these grants has been 82l.; besides publications, value 100l. --P. 221.
WESLEYAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
STATIONS AND LABOURERS--Auckland: Walter Lawry, General Superintendant of the Society's Missions in New Zealand, and Visitor of those in the Friendly Islands and Feejee; Joseph H. Fletcher, in charge of the School for the education of the children of the Missionaries in New Zealand, the Friendly Islands, and Feejee; Alexander Reid, Master of the Native Training Institution: Thomas Buddle--Kawhia: Henry H. Lawry-- Mangungu and Wangaroa: John Hobbs--Waima and Newark: John Warren--Wairoa and Kaipara: James Buller--Waingaroa and Waipa: James Wallis, George Buttle--Aotea (Beechamdale), and Manukau: John Whiteley, Gideon Smales -- Taranaki, Worth (New Plymouth): Henry H. Turton--Taranaki, South (Wai-mate): William Woon--Waitotara: George Stannard, As. --Taupo: William Kirk-- Port Nicholson, Kapiti, and Cloudy Bay: John Aldred, James Watkin -- Middle Island: Nelson: Samuel Ironside--Waikowaiti, near Otago: Charles Creed -- Gratuitous Sunday-School Teachers, 456; Local Preachers, 327 -- Communicants, 4328 -- Scholars: Boys, 3764; Girls, 3217. Mrs. Turton died on the 21st of October at New Plymouth --Pp. 221, 222, 368.
The review of the operations of the Society's Mission in New Zealand affords much gratification. In every department of the work there is activity and progress. The Missionaries have been greatly cheered by the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher to take change of the Establishment for the education of their children; and Mr. and Mrs. Reid have made a very encouraging commencement of their duties at the Native Training Institution, and the Central School. The influence of Christianity is more decidedly manifested among the people generally within the influence of the Mission, in the gradual enlightenment of their minds, and the elevation of their character; and, as a consequence, a growing improvement is taking place in their temporal condition. Nor do these views of the state of the work depend exclusively upon Missionary Evidence. They are amply supported by the
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independent testimonies of others, who, from their position, have the means of examining the subject for themselves. [Report.
GOSNER'S MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
NEW ZEALAND--Chatham Island: Schirmeister, Muller, Beyer, Engst, Bankes--P. 222.
NORTH-GERMAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN HAMBURG.
Ruapuki: J. F. H. Wohlers-- Nelson: J. W. Ch. Heine, Lay As. --Tarakihi--1846: J. F. Riemenschneider: T. H. Trost, As. -- P. 222.
The moral character of the native population in New Zealand is every year becoming more assimilated to the moral state and condition of our own nominal Christian Population at home. Remaining heathenism is very fast passing into indifference and practical infidelity; while among professed Christians the lust of gain occupies too generally the hearts of the diligent and enterprising, and the vices of idleness and drunkenness, and neglect of the Means of Grace, in others, complete the sad parallelism.
In some degree this state of things may be attributable to the evil example of European Colonists. "It is to be lamented," writes Archdeacon Brown, "that you cannot reprove a Native for any sin at the present day, without his being able to point to the Europeans at Auckland as affording an example of the same kind; whether it be card-playing, drunkenness, desecration of the Sabbath, or any other work of darkness." But the knowledge of human nature, and of the history of the first planting of the Church of Christ in other lands, leads us to expect an apparent decline of spiritual life in the multitude, after the first successful introduction of the Gospel.
The accounts from our Missionaries partake of the complection which belongs to this state of things. They are of a mixed character. A dim-sighted world cannot discover even these bright lights: they look only upon the dark side, and often accuse Missionaries of giving too glowing a colouring to the representation of the state of things.
[Committee of the Church Missionary Society.
In one of the Despatches of the Governor of New Zealand to the Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, presented during the last Session to both Houses of Parliament, His Excellency remarks: --"This short review of the present state of the principal Settlements in New Zealand, will, I think, satisfy your Lordship of the general state of prosperity of this Colony. It only remains for me to add that the exertions of our most excellent Bishop and his Clergy, together with those of the numerous, and I may say admirable body of Missionaries of different denominations, have secured to this Colony a greater amount of religious supervision and of religious instruction than any other young country has probably ever enjoyed; and this circumstance cannot fail ultimately to produce a very powerful effect upon the future population of this country; while at the present day it secures to New Zealand advantages which may be readily imagined, but which it would be difficult to describe in detail, as they enter into all the ramifications of the Society of the country, and of the domestic life both of the Natives and Europeans. However, there can be no doubt that the present state of tranquillity and prosperity of this country, and the rapid advances which the native population are making, are in a very great degree to be attributed to the exertions of the various religious bodies in New Zealand.
[Wesleyan Miss. Soc. Report.
