1895 - Wohlers, J. F. H. Memories of the Life of J.F.H. Wohlers - ADDENDUM

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ADDENDUM.

THE translator is loath to obtrude his paltry personality on so sacred a scene as the life of such a man, but to afford a very slight glimpse of it, by one who is unworthy to unloose the latchet of his shoe, he appends a short account of a visit he made to Ruapuke when little more than a boy (in 1873), and published at the time. Once more (in 1894), he visited the scene of his labours. His tomb marks his place of rest.

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us" (Romans viii., 37).

"He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before His angels" (Revelation iii., 5).

"To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father in His throne" (Revelation iii., 21).

"And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of My Father " (Revelation ii., 26, 27).

"And I will give him the MORNING STAR!" (Revelation ii., 28).

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THE TRANSLATOR'S VISIT TO RUAPUKE.

(Extract from Otago Daily Times, 11th January, 1873.)

Outlandish places not often visited by man, "Antres vast and deserts idle," have a certain charm for me. It is a characteristic, I suppose, common to the race, and the only difference between a Sir John Franklin, a Livingstone, or a Captain Cook, and an ordinary mortal, is that the one has the feeling developed to an irresistible force, and the other can quietly button it up and smother it witout any difficulty.

The recent trip of the "Storm Bird" from the Bluff to Ruapuke presented an opportunity of seeing a place that but few of our dwellers in towns have seen, and was not to be despised accordingly. Ruapuke is a small island about 4 1/2 miles long, by 3 miles broad, about 13 miles distant from the Bluff, inhabited, as I understood, by about 70 or 80 Maoris, and one white man and his family--the Rev. Mr. Wohlers. This gentleman is a German missionary, and has been on the island since 1844. The communication with the outside world is very irregular, the only means of transport being by boat.

It was a lovely day, with a fresh wholesome sea breeze blowing when we got away from the Bluff wharf at noon, with about 80 excursionists from Invercargill, and steamed across the Strait against the breeze, the fore-trysail just drawing enough to steady the vessel. Among the passengers were a number of the natives of the island, who, happening to be at the Bluff, were glad of the chance to run across and back so easily. The Rev. Mr. Wohlers and the chief of Ruapuke, Topi by name, were also on board. Both of the latter I found very communicative, Mr. Wohlers answering my many questions as to the strange life he was leading, and the peculiarities of the place, with the greatest cheerfulness. Topi is an intelligent specimen of the Maori. He it was who was selected to pilot the Acheron in these waters when the coast was surveyed, under Captain Stokes. Other names are given in the Government charts as having "assisted" Captain Stokes, but poor old Topi's is not mentioned. I don't suppose he was much of a hand at the sextant and logarithms, but you may wager he knew every rock and sheltered cove, tide rip, or shoal, between the Solander and Otago Heads, and, after all, assisted to some purpose. Too often he had made the journey by boat without compass or chart, when safety depended upon a keen look-out and knowledge where a sandy beach lay or a headland jutted out, that a boat might run for on a dirty night, and be hauled up on the beach or lie in smooth water until a change of weather gave her dusky crew a chance to continue their journey. This is the school Topi learnt in--not so snug a one as the "Dido's" quarter-deck, but for practical seamanship and the

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development of self-reliance, not to be despised, though trigonometry was an extra.

For ten miles further we hold our course, Ruapuke developing slowly from a undefined, misty sort of a land, into a more shapely looking country. The outlines of the lower hills, and the lay of the gullies, the trees and the rocks becoming more and more visible until we pass between Bird Island and some rocks that might make the passage by night unpleasant, round a promontory into a little bay by name Henrietta.

The strong sea breeze blows right out of the bay; while a quarter of a mile away, on the other side of the neck of land that here juts out, we should have to lie with steam up in case the anchor should drag, and we should be plunging bows into the sea. Here she lies as snug as if alongside the wharf. The bay is sheltered from all winds but the south-west, and even in that direction Stewart Island must form a partial shelter, although the "fetch" is quite long enough to raise a very respectable sea. Still, the fact that Topi keeps his cutter moored here all the year round, would lead one to the conclusion that it never can be very bad. Hardly is our anchor down, when the irrepressible boy, who is not wanting on this occasion, lets his anchor go, and hopefully waits until blue cod and trumpeter, the daintiest fish in New Zealand waters to my taste, reward his labours.

The bay was named Henrietta before Mr. Wohlers' arrival; and as he has been there twenty-eight years, it has borne it no short time. In the age of tradition, it appears a vessel called the "Henrietta" was wrecked there, and, mirabile dictu, after the wreck, and haunting the remains of it, there appeared a queer little animal that the--Liliputians I had almost written instead of the Ruapukians, so grotesque it seems--had never seen before, and for want of a better name, Henrietta they called it. Mouse is the name it goes by with us, but Henrietta it is to this day at Ruapuke. The community is so small, and the intercourse with the outside world so infrequent, that the title the animal was dubbed sticks to him. Had it not been for the isolated condition of the place, it must long ago have given place to the English name.

The missionary's house is a comfortable little cottage, nicely furnished, and carpeted with native mats. Besides his 70 or 80 black children, he has a pretty fair-haired daughter, a native of the island; but, oh, enchanted Ruapuke, speaking English with a German accent. Here again the absence of the "social mill that rubs our angles down" has favoured the history of the place being told in its language. It was holiday time, and the school closed, or I might perhaps have heard the little Maoris saying their multiplication table; and, a sovereign to a cockle-shell, the young rascals would have said it with a German accent!

The remains of a mill, with a pair of French burr stones, were pointed out to me. They are no longer used, as the Maoris

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found it was less trouble to pull across to Bird or Green Island, load a boat with the greasy mutton birds, and send the tit-bits to their friends in the north in exchange for flour, than to grow wheat in so windy and stony a place.

You might doubtless see in a small, isolated community like this many social problems worked out that demagogues and statesmen have quarelled over for ages. In a society of men so small social science is, as it were, reduced to its ultimate fibre, and the reductio ad absurdum of many a plausible high-sounding policy, is here ready worked out to hand. The Ruapukian protectionist would have placed a high duty on flour to stimulate the production of it, and native industry would have had to grow it, though it gathered its crop but every third year, and dug instead of ploughed its fields. All the stump orators that ever inflamed the passions of an excited mob would waste their eloquence at Ruapuke. The Maori knows it is cheaper--that it costs him a less expenditure of protoplasm--to exchange the greasy mutton birds for the flour of wheat than to grow it in his rich but too scant soil, with Boreas to mow it as it grows.

It would take a volume to tell all that might be seen in a couple of hours in a new place, if a man only has the eyes to see. The fresh water lagoon, more valuable to Ruapuke than our water works to us: the fantastical monumental shape of isolated boulders, like the pictures of Druidical stones, deserved attention; but the whistle blew, and reluctantly I bent my steps towards the beach, where I arrived just in time to see two wide-awake villains, who had pulled off their boots, carry the last of the girls into the boat. We hove up the anchor, and started off like a racehorse, before the wind, which had increased to a magnificent breeze. With all square canvas set, we tore along against the strong tide, and made the passage to the Bluff in an hour and three-quarters, having passed a most enjoyable day.

THE MAORI IN HIS NATURAL STATE.

To show the qualities of the Maori (the natural man) in the state he was before being brought under the influence of Christianity (or but very slightly), there is appended an extract from the diary of the Rev. J. A. Wilson, a missionary to the North Island natives, who lived amongst them from 1832 to 1862. The first two instances display some of the highest qualities which man possesses--a noble scorn of treachery, with bitter sarcasm for a traitor, and the most intrepid coolness under heavy fire; the second, the lowest degradation and the most disgusting ferocity of which man can be guilty. Of such contrasts, wide asunder as the poles, is man in his natural state composed. The one inspiring in the mind of the narrator, who witnessed the incidents, as it must in ours, the most unbounded admiration; the other, the utmost shudder of disgust. The office of Christianity is to

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bring every impulse of the natural man (which we all are) under control, and make it subservient to the will of God, and this we cannot do of ourselves.

"For by grace ye are saved through faith, and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast."

Extracts from the Diary of the Rev, J. A. Wilson.

July 18, 1836.--Our messenger, Keno, is a neutral, and has often carried letters between Tauranga and Rotorua. Although well rewarded and kindly treated by us, he went yesterday to Tupaea, the principal chief, and said: "Chapman has sent men (bearers) to Nelson for goods. They return to-morrow. Send early to the forest, and you can plunder them."

To this Tupaea replied: "You have received the hospitality of the pakeha, and partaken of his kindness. You are their friend. I have never received their gifts or favours. You are the man. It is for you to do this."

I mention this to record the noble reply of a heathen, and the bitter satire in his rebuke. Tupaea's father had done a still greater act.

(An Incident in the Waikato War.)

December 27, 1860.--When I rose to leave, a chief from Kawhia said to me: "Last night we buried some of our dead in the rifle pits. Ask the chief of the soldiers to respect them. Let them remain undisturbed." I promised to do so, and added: "The general will allow you to remove the dead if you desire it." To this they objected, saying: "No; let them remain where they fell. The burial service was read over them in the night during the fight. The ground is tapu (holy) now. We wish them to lie where we have laid them."

Thus under no ordinary fire (for the troops expended in all 170,000 rounds of ammunition during the two days of their attack), at a distance varying from 150 to 250 yards, these people, without perturbation or fear, interred their dead, concluding with the noble burial service of the Church of England--a fact which probably has no parallel in the annals of war. The farewell honours to these bold spirits were literally paid by the guns of our artillery and the unbroken volleys of two British regiments. The burial of Moore (the theme of song) pales in the contrast.

April 2, 1836.--This morning the Taua (war party) arrived. They came without tumult or noise, with a quietness not expected; but it was a lamentable sight. The Ngatimaniapoto tribe struck me as being the wildest and most forbidding. These wretches were carrying on their backs, in baskets made of flax, the flesh and bones of the men they had killed, that it might be eaten at Kawhia and Mokau, on the western coast. When speaking to some of them, a boy, with a man's head in his hand, came and

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stood a yard in front of me, and held it up for me to look at. This he did so often that I was obliged to drive him away. The heads of the chiefs whom they had killed were displayed in triumph, and I observed a little girl playing with one of them on her knee, as our children amuse themselves with a doll. When they had reached the water-side the chiefs sat down by our boathouse to refresh themselves, and then the heads of the Maketu chiefs were placed on low staffs about three feet high--I suppose in order that the people at Te Papu might see them. But the saddest sights of all were the degraded widows of the men who had been eaten, now led away wretched and dishonoured captives. Many of these poor creatures were following behind the cannibals, who still carried on their backs the flesh, heads, or limbs of the slain. Some of these miserables wept when they saw us amongst them. I recognized the widow of Wharetutu; yet help in such an hour was utterly beyond our power. The Taua cut down my young Kahikatoa trees on a spot I had reserved for my garden, and made their ovens, and cooked the flesh of their enemies. This, with also burning some of the fencing, was the only outrage they committed on us; their leaving the settlement uninjured was owing to the influence of Te Waharoa. This chief came to Te Papu in the early morning, and was with me before his main body arrived. When alone I reproved him again for cannibalism and cruelty. He replied: "I am going to breakfast; come and take some of this flesh with me."

July 24, 1836.--As we walked from the site of the settlement to Waharoa's encampment, we saw at a distance memorials newly raised, marking the fall of a chief, or some other rangatira; but when we came to the place itself, the horrors that met us are too revolting and atrocious to dwell upon. It could only be compared to a place where wild beasts were wont to shelter and devour their prey. The bones of men lay promiscuously strewed in every direction. Here a bare skull, and there a rib or ribs, with part of the spine; and around the ovens might be recognised any or every bone of the human frame. When I say that, according to native testimony on the spot, sixty bodies of full-grown men in their prime of life were taken to this den of cannibals--some of these partly eaten being only partly cooked, and the remains still lying about on the warm damp ground--it may easily be imagined that the sight and stench arising from all this was intolerable beyond expression. It was literally "a valley of bones"--bones of men still green with flesh, hideous to look upon! Among these spectacles I was arrested by the ghastly appearance of a once human head. In mere derision it had been boiled, stripped of the skin and hair, and put on a post with a raw Kumara placed in the mouth. The wound that had caused death was a long gash from a war hatchet on the temple.

Well might the Rev. Wilson write as he does on July 3, 1836.--The efforts of a missionary among a savage people in the

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midst of war often appear vain. But it is not so. The ploughman ploughs in winter and toils in the scorching heat of Summer, leaving the result to God.

JUDGE MANNING (PAKEHA-MAORI) ON THE MAORI CHARACTER.

(Earl Pembroke's Edition, 1887, page 195.)

"The Maori rangatira whom I am describing had passed his whole life with but little intermission in a scene of battle, murder, and blood-thirsty atrocities of the most terrific description, mixed with actions of the most heroic courage, self-sacrifice, and chivalric daring such as leave one perfectly astounded to find them the deeds of one and the same people; one day doing acts which, had they been performed in ancient Greece, would have immortalized the actors, and the next committing barbarities too horrible for relation, and almost incredible."

OBITUARY NOTICE.

(From Southland Times, 13th May, 1885.)

It is not always the men whose names are oftenest in the public mouth that make the deepest mark on the times in which they live. Politicians appear and pass away, leaving behind them little besides the memory of party strife--for the most part sufficiently inglorious--and unthought of in connection with the permanent good of their country. We record to-day the death of one, known certainly and revered by those acquainted with the early history of the southern portion of this island, but the extent of whose influence on the native race is probably little suspected by the community of the present day.

The Rev. J. F. H. Wohlers, as our obituary notifies, died at the Neck, Stewart Island, on Thursday, 7th inst., at the age of 73 years. Mr. Wohlers arrived in the island of Ruapuke, in the year 1844, a missionary from a German Society, to promote the conversion and civilization of the Maoris on each side of Foveaux Straits. Fortunately, in a paper read before the Southland Institute, and published in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute of 1881, Mr. Wohlers has left a quaint and most interesting record of his labours. Ruapuke, when he came to the south, was an influential centre of Maoridom. The famous chief Tuhawaiki, or "Bloody Jack," had there his head quarters, and the population numbered about 200 souls. Mr. Wohlers arrived at an opportune time. The natives, having lost even the poetry of their old religion, had, under the superstition of "Tapu," sunk to the lowest depth of degradation. But the results of missionary labour in the North were being felt even in the remote islands of Foveaux Strait. The "vibration," as Mr. Wohlers put it, of the new spiritual movement created by Christian teaching was being

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felt throughout the whole Maori population. The arts of reading and writing had in the north excited the Maori mind, well known to be acute and active, to wonder and desire to be acquainted with them. Writing came upon them like a miracle, and, coming along with Christianity, was accepted as a sort of confirmation of its truth. Yet it was the spirituality of the Christian religion that had so far enlightened the minds of the northern natives, and had abolished, wherever it had been received, murder and cannibalism and other crimes. It was the first faint note of this new revelation, reaching the south by native agencies, that prepared the way for Mr. Wohlers' work, and made it safe for him to dwell among the savages of Ruapuke. We have not space to record the traits and habits of the people at that comparatively recent time, or the expedients adopted for their reformation by the solitary white man who had so nobly thrown himself among them. All this can be gathered from the interesting narrative that we have cited. Let it be said only that a magical change came over the condition of the people. Christian baptism followed. The real family life became established. Cleanliness took the place of filth, and industry that of idleness. Pakeha sailors married Maori women, and the husbands brought into the households at least the reflection of the religion in which they had been brought up. Mr. Wohlers has spoken enthusiastically of the numbers and beauty of the half-caste children that were the issue of these marriages, and those acquainted with the present generation will be able to confirm his statement. Fortunately for Mr. Wohlers and the cause he had taken up, he met in Wellington, in 1849, a lady who became his wife, and who ruled somewhat like a queen in the little community of Ruapuke. Mrs. Wohlers was the means of creating a social and economical revolution in the island, such as only a woman filled with energy and strength of will could accomplish. Eventually a church was built, mainly, if not solely, we have heard, by the missionary's own hands; a school was commenced, in which English was taught, and so the work of amelioration went on. The history of Mr. Wohlers' life is the history of a great turning from darkness to light, and from savagery to civilization of a considerable portion of the Maori race. It is a singular fact that Ruapuke, once the centre of rule and of population in the Strait, should have become almost deserted. All, except a few families of the Maoris and half-castes, have emigrated to Stewart Island, in the neighbourhood, and principally cluster about the Neck. At the Neck resides Mr. Wohlers' only daughter, the wife of Mr. Arthur Traill, missionary of the Presbyterian Church of Otago and Southland, and teacher of the Native school. The old patriarch whose life we have been sketching died in the house of his son-in-law, having passed peacefully away. "The heart-felt sorrow of the Maoris," writes a correspondent from the spot, "is very touching. Both before and since his death even the men might be seen kneeling by his

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bedside and weeping unrestrainedly." He had been regarded by them as a father, and he spoke of them as his spiritual children. We term his a notable life, although it made little noise in the world. Simple, childlike, and devout, and with the weapons only of a good understanding and indomitable industry, he was yet called to a great work which he did nobly; and we have no doubt his name will descend as a household word through many generations of the race he loved so well.

It remains only to be mentioned that Mr. Wohlers is survived by his devoted wife, and, as we have said, by his daughter, who is the mother of several children.

Extract from the Minutes of Presbytery, First Church, Invercargill, June 3, 1885, the day which the Presbytery met and was constituted.

INTER ALIA,--
It was unanimously resolved that the Rev. Messrs. Stobo, Alexander, and Stevens be appointed to draw up a minute relative to the death of the Rev. Mr. Wohlers, expressive of the Presbytery's sympathy with the bereaved members of his family, and forward the same to his widow, of which the following is a copy:--

"The Presbytery having heard of the death of the Rev. Mr. Wohlers, missionary to the Maoris at Ruapuke, desires to put on record its sense of his long and faithful labours in that mission. Although conducted among a decaying remnant, the great day, they believe, will make manifest the good that has been done, and the surviving natives who so warmly cherish his memory will ever continue, we trust, to walk under the influence of the truth which he inculcated. The Presbytery would express its sympathy with the bereaved widow and daughter, to whom they desire that a copy of this minute be sent."
ALEX. BETHUNE, Presb. Clerk.

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT,

WELLINGTON, April 30, 1885.

The Reverend J. F. H. Wohlers, Ruapuke.
Reverend Sir,--I have the honour, by direction of the Hon. Mr. Stout, Minister of Education, to acknowledge the receipt of the letter written by Mr. Arthur W. Traill at your request, forwarding your resignation of the appointment of native school teacher at Ruapuke owing to very serious illness.

I am to intimate to you that the Minister accepts your resignation with regret, and to say that your engagement will not be regarded as terminated until October 30, 1885, that your salary will be paid as usual till that date, and that you may consider that you have six months' leave of absence.

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I am, further, on behalf of the Minister, to express to you the hearty appreciation by himself and the Government of the devoted labours of yourself and Mrs. Wohlers, throughout so many years, amongst the natives in the southern parts of New Zealand, and of the evident success that has attended your arduous efforts to teach and civilize them.

I have the honour to be, with much respect,
Your obedient servant,
JOHN HISLOP.

This letter from the Government of New Zealand to the Rev. Mr. Wohlers was written only seven days before his death. It is evidently in answer to one tendering his resignation as teacher of the native school, from which office, as his book informs us, he derived in later years sufficient income to relieve him from the need of maintaining himself by exhausting manual labour. To how few it would have occurred to resign at an age and under circumstances when he may well have thought his final resignation of all earthly offices was very near, let the reader judge for himself. To the honour of the Government, it is to be noted that they granted him six months' leave of absence on full pay. His action in this matter is only consistent with that minute conscientiousness that "payment of tithe of mint and anise and cummin," neglecting not "the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith," which marks his whole career. It comes from his deathbed as a faint perfume, almost of heavenly odour, fragrant as "incense from Sheba" and as the "precious ointment that flowed down Aaron's beard even to the skirts of his clothing."
"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints" (Psalm xcvi., 15).

The translator concludes with a few words by Clement of Alexandra, one of the earliest of the Christian fathers, and himself a missionary to the heathen:--

"Orpheus, Amphion, Arion, and the Greek musicians, employed their skill in confirming the perverseness of man, and leading him to idols and stocks and stones. Not so the Christian musician; he comes to destroy the bitter tyranny of demons, to substitute in its place the mild and gentle yoke of piety; to raise to heaven those who had been cast down upon the earth. He alone has tamed man, the most savage of beasts, and has indeed made men out of stones by raising up a Holy Seed from among the Gentiles, who believed in stones. Such is the power of the New Song--it has converted stones and beasts into men. They who were dead without any portion of the real life have revived at the mere sound."

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