CHAPTER XIV. MISSIONARY JOURNEYS.
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CHAPTER XIV.
MISSIONARY JOURNEYS.
OF the general spiritual development of Christianity in the Maori peoples I have already spoken several times. A further movement in a small way began here in the extreme south, whither so far only a small amount of inward result had been experienced. This spread out from Ruapuke and extended over the scattered villages in the islands and on the coasts of
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Foveaux Strait. The news of the numerous baptisms in Ruapuke and the quiet pious demeanour and the blessed inward peace of those who were baptized flew from place to place and created a movement amongst receptive spirits. Soon Maoris desirous of salvation came from the scattered villages in their boats to Ruapuke to see the new life and to request baptism for themselves. In every case they were kept here one or two weeks to receive instruction and to prove their earnestness, and then when found to be upright in their intentions they were solemnly baptized. They then went joyfully on their road back to their dwellings, and became a salt of the earth and a light to their neighbours. In time most of the scattered districts received in this way little knots of baptized Christians. It was natural that I should soon feel a desire to visit the scattered children in baptism--it made no difference that many were older than I, they all called themselves my children--to see how they progressed in their new life, and to nourish and strengthen them in their Christian walk and belief. I made many journeys for that purpose to the surrounding districts in the Maori boats. Before we enter upon these journeys, it will be necessary to explain the place whence the Maoris had their boats, for the canoes hollowed out of tree stems had already gone out of use.
In earlier times, till just before my arrival, there were many whales and seals, and ships came from many countries to catch them. People came here also from the British colonies in Australia and carried on the whale fishery with boats from the coast at places where the whales came at certain times of the year to cast their young in still water in quiet bays, or, as one says here, to calve. At other times they killed the seals, whose skins are valuable, when basking on the rocks. When the whales and seals were mostly destroyed, so that the catch was no longer profitable, many of the sailors and sealers remained here and made themselves at home amongst the Maoris. The chiefs allotted them wives, and they accommodated themselves to Maori methods of life, but they awakened a disposition towards industry. Some carried on a small trade. Others built boats, or made sails, which they sold to the Maoris for pigs and potatoes. These were also,
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when a whaling ship put into port, exchanged for clothes and European goods. Sometimes brandy was received in exchange, but it was soon drunk, and sobriety again became the order of the day. There were, therefore, foreigners (pakehas) among the Maoris in their different villages. What many of them had been in the notorious Australian colonies I never asked. They lived peaceably and respectably amongst the Maoris as decent fathers of families.
The scattered villages lay (I must state it, as it was in the past, as European immigration has changed it all, even most of the names) partly on the northern coast of Stewart Island, partly on the southern coast of the large Middle Island. Journeys from place to place were always made by boat.
Such journeys were not without danger, for mighty waves roll through the wide strait, and make strong tide rips on the uneven rocky ground, especially where ebb and flood tide meet. A boat appears a very small thing amidst the high foaming waves; but the Maoris are expert sailors, and the journeys are only made when, as far as can be guessed, the weather is likely to be fine.
Let us first go to Stewart Island, the mountains of which can be seen from Ruapuke standing high up across a distance of twenty miles of sea. On coming near to them you pass through a group of small wooded islands of no great height. You then see rocky bluffs and inlets strewn with islands. We now pass into a great inlet called Paterson Inlet. The entrance is at the side, because a large peninsula called the Neck (because it is only joined to the land by a neck) lies right across the mouth. Inside of this island you find yourself in a tangle of woody bluffs and small islands all of moderate height. Beneath them are larger and smaller basins of water, in which the woody landscape is reflected. From a boat the prospect is not sufficiently extensive. Let us climb a height on the Neck of the above-named peninsula, and at the place where for thirty years past the school has stood, which serves likewise for church, where my daughter now lives, married to the preacher and schoolmaster. From this height there is a view of which one never wearies, gazing over the
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bays and their many islands and rocky bluffs, between which glides here and there a white sail, or a fisherman's boat. At the sides climb the mountains, one behind another, rising higher and higher, all thickly wooded almost up to the highest point. The highest mountain is about 4000 feet, being higher than the height of the Brocken in the Hartz mountains. The appearance of the Hartz mountains is softer, but not so sublime as the bold upward spring of these mountains, in their fair wooded garb, with the sea at their feet. The high tops stand out bare from the wooded hills (like bald heads over a growing beard, I might say, but such a comparison is an injustice to their beauty). The great inlet reaches from east to west, halfway through the island, and is continued as a depression in the land to the West coast, thus dividing Stewart Island into two great mountain groups of granite formation.
The Maori name for Stewart Island is Rangiura (from Rangi, heaven, and ura, to redden, as the blushing of cheeks), and doubtless the soft red of evening often pours a graceful flood of light over the landscape of Rangiura.
Although there is much building going on, and cities are rising up as if they grew out of the earth, Stewart Island can supply the south with timber for a long time to come. It appears particularly well adapted for it. On the other hand, its wet, cold summers are but little adapted to agriculture. Perhaps the thick woods are the cause of this, for when the woods are thinned, the soil is still covered with a sort of half-preserved green kind of vegetable growth to a depth of three to five feet, in which no field or garden plants will thrive, because their roots cannot reach firm soil underneath it. There are now a few saw-mills in the woody bays, and small vessels carry the timber to European settlements. Then, however, when I used to visit my children in baptism, the Maoris lived in a hopeless state of poverty, because their old heathenish religion and later religious customs had lost all power over their conduct. To this the sailors, who had become incorporated amongst them, contributed in no small measure. The hearty acceptance of Christianity dispelled this hopelessness when it was brought to them. The Maoris then lived in little
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villages of twenty to thirty inhabitants. The huts were not nearly as good as those of Ruapuke, where the families of the chiefs lived, and their habits of life were poverty-stricken and dirty. In most of the villages I found a few of my baptized people. I remained for a week or longer in each of the villages, nourished and strengthened the believers, lifted the fallen up, and prepared others for baptism, who were then baptized with all the solemnity that the poverty-stricken huts allowed. I then proceeded further.
When I look back upon my early missionary journeys, although imperfect and defective influences always had a disturbing effect on me and prevented me from being unduly uplifted, I always find that they had a strengthening effect on my spirit. I will not compare them with St. Paul's missionary journeys in Greece and Asia Minor, not even in the smallest measure. This much, however, the Maoris and the Greek-speaking people had in common. They had outlived their heathenish religion, and were, therefore, prepared for Christianity, which offered and gave to their seeking hearts full satisfaction. In other respects there was an enormous difference. Paul and his companions had to do with an enlightened, wealthy, and vigorous people. The Maoris, on the other hand, were sunk in ignorance, poverty, and hopelessness, and for that reason were nearly dying out. In their case it was proved that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a power of God to the salvation of all who believe, and able to lift them in this life out of their sunken condition.
Sometimes, on my arrival in a village, a pig was killed, and as long as it lasted it was well appreciated. Still, it was not often that the Maoris had a pig to kill, as most of them went to the before-mentioned Europeans in payment for boats, sails, and tackle; at other times there were fish and sea-birds. It happened sometimes in the poorer villages, when the weather was stormy, that no boat could go out to fish, and that for a week we had nothing to eat but dry potatoes, and nothing to drink but water from the brook. Sometimes I was the only visitor. At other times I was accompanied by others from place to place, and the huts were sometimes so over-crowded that at night we slept, thickly packed, on the earthen floor. The smell that arose from such a bed was
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no sweet one. Fortunately, the walls were not too tight to prevent the admission of fresh air. Still, a missionary, yet in his full strength, enjoying good health, who had gone out with the expectation of encountering hardships, did not trouble himself much about it. Then it was always refreshing, after a week of dry potatoes and cold water, to come to a place where one of the Europeans lived. A clean seat was here available, not, it is true, on a chair--tables and chairs were very scarce in the district,--but on a sailor's chest, which was drawn up to the fire, and there I was entertained with salt pork and unleavened bread baked in ashes.
Cleanliness and better fare were not the only pleasures I enjoyed in the huts where a father of European birth kept house. The Maoris had few children, and these had a dirty, flaccid look. With the families of mixed blood it was different. Here I met a Maori housewife, sparely but cleanly dressed, surrounded by numerous half-bred children just as clean and with rosy faces. A person fond of flowers, who has long wandered through dry places, and then finds a blooming rose bush with buds and blowing roses, could have no greater joy than I experienced at the sight of these lovely children. A pleasure fills the feeling human heart, and one hopes that these children may thrive, by the blessing of the grace and friendship of our God, through Jesus Christ. The cause of these children thus blooming was that the families were cared for and ruled by parents who had been born and had grown up under the influence of Christianity. Negligent Christianity is always better than sunken heathendom. The cleanliness and neatness in such huts may not always have been so well preserved, but, to a certain extent, specially prepared for my arrival; still, it was a great advance in manners, for the pure Maoris could not for a long time, even on the occasion of the visit of a missionary, adopt the good custom of washing themselves. The feeling that they were dying out (more of this hereafter) had destroyed their hope. Such Maori women who had the good fortune to obtain European husbands felt lifted up out of their state of listlessness into a better method of life, and became joyful mothers of children. They were seized, too, by the spiritual movement of the new
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teaching--namely, of Christianity--and it was their most earnest desire to be baptized with their husbands and children, and to be honourably married. Whatever the husband had previously been, the children were so amiable that "The hearts of the fathers were turned to the children, and the unbelievers to the wisdom of the just." I met everywhere with a hearty reception, and was attentively listened to. The Bishop of New Zealand (Dr. Selwyn) had already been before me in some of the villages, and had already baptized a few half-bred children and married the parents properly; still, there was plenty for me to do. When a mixed family was thus baptized, and the parents properly married, they all felt so blessed that they formed a Christian family.
On the other side of the Foveaux Strait, the south end of the Middle Island, the formation of the land is different to what it is at Stewart Island. The south-east end is a wide plain. In front of this there is a row of small mountains standing quite solitary. These run from the high mountains of the Western Alps in a south-easterly direction along the sea coast, and are separated by the mouths of wide rivers. These have the plains on one side and the sea on the other. The island of Ruapuke is the last link of this chain of mountains.
As far as the coast was inhabited the conditions were the same as at Stewart Island. The Maoris lived in small villages remote from one another, in a state of listlessness, from which they were awakened by Christianity. What has already been said about the inhabitants of Stewart Island may equally be said of them. I will only relate one recollection I have of them. Once when I went for the first time to a village on the coast, I found the people very favourable to church services. The population was a little more numerous than in other villages, and they had no Europeans living amongst them. As on my arrival at Ruapuke, they were divided into two parties, Wesleyans and Anglicans; each party had built a little church to itself--naturally only miserable places thatched with grass, and as a proof that the opinions of each were acceptable to the other they had built them close together, so that a person in one could hear what was spoken and sung in the other, and these two churches together bore the
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name of Babel. When I asked what induced them to use this name the reply was made that Dr. Selwyn, the bishop who had been here before, had himself suggested the name to them. The simple people had not noticed the irony, and in all good faith had called their church Babel, and I did not interfere with their simplicity. I was requested, so that all party feeling might be at rest, to hold meetings in one church one day and in the other the next. I willingly consented, with the one condition that all should assemble at the place where I held the meeting, and should seat themselves in such a manner that there should be no distinction of parties. This was agreed to, and we had a beautiful union, elevating gatherings, refreshing hours of instruction, and at last the sacrament of baptism was administered.
There were Pakeha Maoris--that is, foreigners or Europeans who had become domiciled amongst the Maoris in other places on the coast. Some of them had little vessels with which they carried on a whale-fishery.
For a long time the reader will have remarked that the Maori ways of living were very dirty ones, and will think that with conversion some cleanliness and decent customs should have been introduced. He is right, but everything has its proper time, also the improvement of the Maori manners. It does not come all at once. The conversion, when an adaptability for its reception is present, or is awakened by the Spirit of God, works inwardly in the heart. Manners, as a fruit of the Spirit, must be learnt by sustained effort. Without a previous conversion and a renewal of the heart in truth this would be impossible. The wild savage is used to dirt and untidiness, and feels at home in it. At times he can wallow in gluttony, and at other times suffer hunger without it giving him much trouble. He need only work when he feels inclined, and can idle for as long and as often as he chooses. If useful and beautiful things from the civilized world come within his reach, and he can obtain them either by begging, robbing, or stealing, he does it, but to work for a civilized life, and for its attendant advantages, and that without ceasing, that he can and will not do. From his point of view he would be a fool to exchange his careless, wild life for a civilized one. The latter
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requires a hundred labours and troubles with which he will have nothing to do. Change of heart alters this. God-fearing men, who in old Christendom have been born again by the Grace of God to a lively hope in the resurrection from the dead in Jesus Christ, know well what new strength for self-improvement the conversion effects; how one transacts his business with love and pleasure in the sight of Jesus Christ, and what a desire for purity of heart and person, and a consistent life is thereby obtained. It is just the same with the conversion of the Maori. They now felt the desire to enter the ranks of civilized men and people, and were willing to undertake the labour and trouble that a civilized life requires. Now came the time to lead and help them in it.
Let us look for once at the heart of the Maori at the time of their conversion. What was it that moved them so mightily? Was it fear of hell, or a warm longing for heavenly blessedness? It was neither. To the heathen Maori life after death was quite an indifferent matter, and a desire for piety required first to be awakened in them by Christianity. I believe, in most conversions in old Christendom likewise, neither the fear of hell nor a desire for blessedness is the moving cause. It is true that many a bold sinner, when on his death-bed, experiences a cowardly fear of hell, even although he may not have believed in any before, and he is ready to promise everything that conversion requires. But such a conversion is not to be trusted, for when the danger is past the old ways of life are generally continued. The thief on the cross was not converted by fear, but by his heart being drawn, being near to the Saviour who died for sinners. The moving cause of conversion lies deeper than a mere desire for reward or fear of punishment--heaven or hell. It lies in the nature of man made after the image of God. Whether they are moral or immoral men of old Christendom, be they fine people or raw heathens of the far lands and islands of the earth, deep in the human breast lies a fearful unrest, which may, it is true, slumber, but which from time to time will make itself felt in shuddering and uneasiness, and also in love and a deep yearning for a higher life and being. If, now, the gospel of Christ is brought near to this anxious seeking of the creature, such as is centred in man; and if the
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hearts can lift themselves above the previously conceived vain opinions, and be open to the influence of the Spirit of God; then the divine relation is accepted and taken hold of.
Those natures which on meeting quickly take hold of one another we call related to one another.--Goethe.
The Maoris, as well as the peoples of the South Sea Islands, had outlived their heathen religions, and they groaned under a medley of religious forms. In this condition, and before they had completely died out under their hopeless views of life, God so brought it about in his wise providence that the gospel of Christ should be brought to them. On my arrival in New Zealand their diminution from dying out was quite noticeable. Here in the south I found there was one birth to three deaths. This had quite discouraged the people; and, even for savages, they were in a state of helpless poverty. They did not even possess the necessary food and clothing to be able to stand the frequent severe weather. As Christianity, especially when conversion takes place, gives the mind a cheerful and hopeful upward swing, the general elevation which the Maori people experienced is explainable, and is the reason why so many conversions followed on my weak labours. It was the anxious seeking of the creature that finds its desire in Christianity.
In civilized Christianity if anyone is converted or born again of the Spirit a great change takes place in his heart, and his general conduct shows the fruit of the spirit--"Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, temperance." Such a change for the better takes place in the converted Maori. The former has, however, enormous advantages. He has drawn in Christian manners and customs with his mother's milk, and has grown up surrounded with them. The Maori, as a heathen, has inherited nothing. He has grown up in uncleanness, roughness, cruelty, deceit, and treachery. His Christian knowledge is faulty, and what he has is newly learnt, and not yet interwoven in his life. His Christian experiences are to a great extent formal, and his virtues do not yet arise from a free spirit, but are mostly the result of forced resolution. In order to express his feelings, he freely uses parables. The figure of "That spiritual Rock that
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followed them, and that Rock was Christ" (1 Cor. x., 45) was a lovely thought to the Maori. He compared himself to a shell that adheres to the rocks and cannot be torn away by the waves of the sea, or to a seabird that floats over the unstable waves, thrown about hither and thither, swimming or diving, which then flies and seats itself on a rock, and there stands with firm foothold. A man converted in old Christendom is a deeper Christian and a better man than the converted Maori, but the change for the better is just as great in the Maori as in the other, if you consider what he has been. As a heathen, he was "so grim that no one could walk in the same street with him," now he is a meek disciple of Christ.
"Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burthen light." (Matthew xi., 28-30.)
