NOTES [Position of Catechists, Missionaries]
[Image of page 192]
NOTES
THE POSITION OF CATECHISTS IN THE C.M.S. MISSION
The two orders of C.M.S. missionary--clerical and lay--which looked well enough in England, did not answer the New Zealand conditions. In fact it was only by abandoning the theory and accepting the practice of equality that the C.M.S. mission was able to advance. As William Williams wrote,
Persons sent out by the Society, whether under the denomination of ordained missionary or catechist, are in most respects upon a common footing, and many of those distinctions which exist in a large community are lost in this land. 1
In New Zealand there were only two respects in which ordained missionaries and catechists differed: the catechist had a lower salary, and although he prepared candidates for baptism and church membership, he did not administer either the sacrament of baptism or that of the Lord's Supper. No other social distinction was acceptable to either group. Wiliam Williams pointed out to the London Committee,
If you look to the situation of some of your lay missionaries before they entered the service of the Society you will find that they were in station far above many who are now ordained. 2
This applied particularly to the Wilsons, where a naval officer had married a Colonel's daughter!
The Parent Committee, however, hoped to introduce more order into the New Zealand mission, by making two of the ordained missionaries superintendents--Henry Williams for the Northern district, Alfred Brown for the Southern. The leadership of Henry Williams however, which was freely although not gratefully acknowledged, grew out of his ability in the local situation; it had not been bestowed by London. Consequently the Parent Committee's title of 'Superintendent' was resented by the missionaries. It had connotations of 'Superintendent of Convicts at Port Jackson', wrote William Williams, and, he added, 'the practice in New Zealand is to defer to the judgement of the collective body'. 3 Brown was also unwilling to accept this title because of the offence it gave to his lay colleagues.
Another distinction the London C.M.S. had thought of making-- probably as an economy--was in the education of missionary children.
[Image of page 193]
The curriculum of the Waimate Boys' School was a severely classical one, and in London this was thought an unnecessary burden or extravagance for catechists' children. But again in New Zealand both ordained and lay missionaries joined forces to oppose any such distinction. Williams, then headmaster of the school, wrote that his only criteria were 'superior talent and application', 4 and one of his most promising classical students at this time was George Clarke, son of a catechist. Catechist Charles Baker, although he admitted that he had no pretensions to be a classical scholar, wanted the best for his children. Breathing deeply the frontier air of New Zealand he wrote,
Who knows but that one of my children might not be a Bishop or a Statesman were he living in our own country but according to the spirit of the Society's letter his destiny is fixed. It will not work. I very much deplore the case--all our folks feel the thing keenly. 5
But although the C.M.S. missionaries thought of each other as colleagues, the Maoris were quick to discern the difference between clerical and lay. This was especially the case in the more remote districts where a lay catechist, although in charge of a station, was only permitted to carry out a teaching function; he could not baptize, marry, or administer the Lord's Supper. Thus he could become in the eyes of the converts, a second class missionary, who had to rely on the visits of his priestly superior for the more significant offices of the Christian ritual. James Stack, who had been a missionary in New Zealand from 1823, was always sensitive on this point, and the proximity of his station at East Cape to that of George Kissling's at Hicks Bay did not improve his status:
Mr. K. expressed his regret that a perfect stranger possessing the clerical function seemed to be treated with more regard than old and tried friends of the natives who had sown the seeds of Gospel truth in their minds ... a young chief (a baptized native) when speaking of Mr. Kissling said . . . "This is a minister next to a Bishop--but as to Chapman and Stack, they are only like myself". 6
MISSIONARY
James Preece
He arrived at the Bay of Islands as a catechist in 1829. Although, as William Williams wrote, catechists and ordained missionaries were on an equal footing in New Zealand, an exception was made with Mr. Preece. He helped establish the Puriri station and later on was in sole charge of the Thames station, Kauweranga, but always there seems to have been a reluctance to have him as a close colleague. In 1835 there was a suggestion that Preece should help A. N. Brown at the Southward by opening a station at Tauranga.
[Image of page 194]
It won't do, [Brown replied from Matamata,] Tauranga ought to be occupied & that soon but not by him I think. Entre nous my opinion is that if Mr. P. moves it should be in a northerly direction.' 7
Thomas Chapman's comment when he heard that Preece might be sent to Whakatane was, 'He will have nobody but himself to talk to and better society need not be provided for him.' 8 The ordained missionaries also wrote slightingly about the prospect of Preece's ordination, 'Who next? or who not' wrote Henry Williams, and his brother made a similar comment in his letter of 28 November 1842. In fact Preece was one of the few of the early catechists who was not recommended for ordination. Towards the end of 1847 he was sent into the remote Urewera country to open a station at Ahikereru.
