1836 - Marshall, W. B. A Personal Narrative of Two Visits to New Zealand - [Pages 50-99]

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more than name) brethren, and fellow labourers together with Christ; and who ought therefore to love one another as dear children, even as Christ hath loved us, and given himself for us.

With the assistance of the Christian natives at this settlement, the seven following places, removed to different distances from each other, are visited with the means of grace every Lord's-day: Otuihu, Waikare, Wangai, Pukitona, Kororarika, Tepuki, and Kawa Kawa.

The Rev. W. Williams, who had finished a medical education, before entering into holy orders, is the physician of the whole mission family, and has been instrumental of good as a surgeon, not only to the members thereof, and to the sick natives, but also to many of the resident traders, one of whom, who came off to the ship from Kororarika, had suffered amputation of the leg at his hands; exhibiting another instance of how varied and invaluable have been the services rendered by the missionaries to the Europeans as well as to the New Zealanders. The extension of the mission in different directions, renders it desirable that a reinforcement of its medical strength should be secured for it from home, and it is much to be wished, that, in the absence of any one combining in his own person the twofold qualification of the medical practitioner and the clergyman, whom the parent Society may have it in their power to send out, at least some member of the former profession may be found, like the beloved Luke, to combine

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the office of evangelist and physician, for the benefit of New Zealand, and in order to the preservation in health of the missionaries and settlers.

Before quitting the station at Paihia, I may make mention of the advantages accruing to the mission from the circumstance of several of the missionaries having wives. The domestic concerns of all the stations devolve upon them. The daily instruction of the native females, not only in reading, &c, but also in housewifery, is ably conducted by them. The superintendence of the several infant schools appertains to them also. And besides all which, to them the New Zealand woman looks for the example in her own sex of godliness with contentment being great riches. The influence of a Christian woman upon the tone and feeling of society in general, is inconceivably great; from her flow forth all the silent charities of life; our first lessons of love, and mercy, and gentleness, are received from her; during all the first years of a man's life he finds his best reward in the fond, approving smile, or fonder kiss of his mother; and amid the greater distractions occasioned by the more incessant labours of his after years, how sweet to have his domestic hearth cheered by the assiduous kindness, how precious to have his many temptations to anxiety and care removed, one by one by the patient and persevering goodness, and by the constant and unwavering friendship of his wife, the good gift of God to man, when in the judgment of that unerring God, it was pronounced "not good for man to be alone." If the influence of

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the tender sex be in a civilized society great; if by the first teachings of the mother, the future character of the child is moulded; if in proportion as the women of a country are immaculate, the standard of morality in that country is high; and if example be a more powerful, because a more eloquent and intelligible persuasive to good or to evil than precept, then it will be obvious, that among tribes of savages, where the women are unchaste, and neither gentle nor kindly affectioned, owing to the miserable state of degradation to which they have been reduced, the presence of Christian females, as well as of Christian men, is necessary to raise the morality of those tribes, by rescuing their wives, and sisters, and daughters, from the twofold degradation of social inferiority and personal impurity. A consideration which is submitted with the greatest confidence and earnestness to all the friends of Protestant missions to the heathen, into the Societies for the promotion of which the spirit has been long endeavouring to insinuate itself of that Wicked One whom the Lord will destroy with the word of his mouth and the brightness of his coming, and among whose most characteristic features is written, "the forbidding to marry." To say nothing of the incalculable advantage of begetting a righteous seed to inherit the land; to say nothing of what that charity which is kind can surely never forget, the solace to a missionary under privations of which only a missionary can have any adequate conception, furnished him in a companion who may share with him her own measure of consolation, and

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divide with him his portion of sorrow; to say nothing of the influence necessary to effect a salutary change in the domestic manners of a new people, which woman, and woman alone, can exercise, how, I would ask, is the unmarried missionary to be a living epistle of Christ to the gentiles among whom he preaches, and an epistle to be read and known of all men? The law was a shadow of good things to come, but the body is of Christ; and husbands are enjoined to love their wives as Christ loved his church, and wives to obey their husbands, as the church obeys her Lord, and thus to shadow forth the beautiful but mysterious union that subsists between, a living God and a dying man, between the church which is the bride of Christ, and Christ who is head over all things to his body the church. This union may be preached, and preached so as to commend itself to the bearers, but how is it to be signified by a missionary unless he be married, and what is to represent it in the living example, after it has been recommended by the living voice, of the unmarried missionary?

The plea, for insisting, as in many instances has been insisted upon, that missionaries should make trial of their first stations for a few years unmarried, is one of economy, the nibbling parsimony of a miserly prudence, which would deny to the missionary living, the help, and comfort, and friendship, and counsels of a wife, because it grudges to the widow of the same missionary, when he is happy enough to die at his post and in the

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field, the travelling expenses requisite to restore her to her own land and to her own family; and still more sinfully grudging the widow and the orphan that portion of our Father's common bounty, to which every widow and orphan in the world have an inalienable right. Well and truly was it observed to the author, by a dear and honoured friend, on this very subject, "the poor Papist is more to be commended in this thing than the proud Protestant, for his church forbids him to marry, under the vain expectation of making him holier and fitter for the office of a priest by the prohibition; but our's have no motive for hindering us, but the love of money which is the root of all evil." 1

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Mr. Busby, the British Resident, to whom I was introduced at the mission-house, returned with me to the ship. During the brief conversation I had with this functionary on the passage off, and in the subsequent intercourse between us, he exhibited the feelings and principles, as well as the manners of a gentleman. Nor was he at all backward in acknowledging how greatly he had been indebted to the missionaries' families, since his first arrival in the country, for hospitable kindness, and active friendship. Under their roof he had found a home for many months, when he had no home of his own; to their exertions the speedy completion of his present residence was chiefly owing; while almost exclusively in them had he been obliged to seek for society, from the coldness and jealousy, not to say rudeness, with which he was received from the beginning, by most of the resident traders.

What are the instructions of the British Resident at New Zealand, I have not been able to ascertain. All that it has been in my power to learn of bis

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duties, has been gathered from a letter of introduction from Viscount Goderich to the Chiefs of New Zealand, of which he was the bearer. What is the character of his authority, or what the extent of his powers, I am altogether ignorant of. He receives his appointment from the Home Government, and his salary from the Colonial Treasury of New South Wales. Lord Goderich's letter, and Mr. Busby's address to the chiefs on his appointment, will be appended to this narrative, and found to breathe a kind and gracious spirit towards the inhabitants. Time will more fully develop, and in language of a more definite character, the nature of the Resident's duties, and the benefits reciprocated between the natives and their British and Australian visitors, in consequence of his settlement in the country. There can be no doubt, in the meanwhile, that the presence of an English gentleman of intelligence, possessing an official sanction and an independent salary, and instructed generally to afford protection equally to all classes, whether natives or foreigners; to prevent the influx into a country just emerging from the darkness of heathenism into the light of Christianity and civilization, "of men who have been guilty of crimes in their own country, and who may effect their escape from the place to which they may have been banished," and "whose duties will be to investigate all complaints which may be made to him," must, unless counteracted by local and other opposition, operate beneficially upon the general interests of New Zealand. In order, however, to the efficiency

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of such a person, he must not be introduced to the chiefs by a recommendatory letter from one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, and be at the same time treated with contumely by any person to whom his Majesty may confide the government of either of his Majesty's Australian colonies. It must not be enumerated among his duties in a letter from the throne, the investigation of all complaints which may be made to him, if the government of New South Wales be competent to decide upon any ex-parte statement against the natives, without reference to him at all; and without investigation of any kind, to act upon that decision, and threaten the natives with not only "the destruction of all their vessels, houses, and settlements near the coast," but in very deed to put that tyrannical threat into literal execution in three cases, with the sanguinary accompaniment of an unnecessary sacrifice of human life. Unless there be an extension of the principles of international law to all our intercourse with New Zealand, the erection of that country into a British residency is an act of inexplicable policy at best, and the appointment of a British Resident, ostensibly to "foster and maintain" a "friendly feeling between the King's subjects and the native inhabitants;" to prevent, as much as possible, the recurrence of those "misunderstandings and quarrels," as Mr. Busby minces what outspeaking truth would call robberies and murders; robberies the most barefaced! and murders the most wanton! to give a greater assurance of safety and just dealing

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between both countries in their commercial intercourse with each other, is to say the least of it, perfectly useless. Unless the executive government of our Australian colonies be instructed to do justly, and to love mercy, and compelled to take counsel with Mr. Busby, and grant a hearing to the New Zealanders when complained of, as well as to the parties who complain of them, his Majesty's representative may be effectually superseded by a figure of stone or wood, set up as an effigy, to scare the vultures who would prey upon New Zealand; and the colonial treasury might transfer the amount of his income towards defraying the incidental expenses of a military expedition against the innocent as well as the guilty portion of the inhabitants.

On the 15th, accompanied by Mr. Midshipman Dayman, I proceeded to visit a third station of the church mission, at Waimate, a village about fifteen miles from Paihia, and situated in the interior of the country; the missionaries at the latter place kindly furnishing us with horses, which, however, requiring to be caught and brought in from the hills, led to our detention for at least two hours; and when at length fairly seated in our saddles, and carried by an easy gallop along the sands to a part of the river, across which it became necessary to swim the beasts, we were kept waiting an hour longer, for the appearance of the boat that was to ferry us over, but which being pulled by unconverted natives, lagged behind most lazily, and thus afforded one an opportunity of observing

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a principal difficulty to be encountered in any attempt at civilizing, without previously, or at the same time, evangelizing a race of savages.

The unsettled conduct and unsteady pursuits of the savage, without the means or the necessity of constant occupation, unexposed to the exigencies of civilized modes of life, and unaccustomed to the corresponding enjoyments resulting from the orderly disposal, and regular employment of time and labour, can never be so far counteracted as to admit of his becoming staid and steady, and without this, as his industry must always be wanting in perseverance and assiduity, so his employers can never calculate with certainty upon the results of his labour: the idle and migratory, the restless and vagrant habits of the savage, can never be thoroughly subdued, or entirely vanquished, except by the substitution of new principles of action, and another set of motives upon which to act, as well as by the institution, of new modes of acting. Those motives and principles, and may I not likewise add, those modes, are nowhere provided but in Christianity. Let the savage become a Christian, and in the love of God, because God first loved him, he has implanted within him an unfailing, undying, undecaying principle of industry. Let the love of Christ be shed abroad in the heart of a man, and, be he savage, or be he civilized, it will constrain him to constancy in well doing, as well as to good works, that the God by whom he has been greatly loved, may, in his bearing much fruit, be by him, in return, greatly glorified; and thus will it become

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a sufficient and abiding motive to constant and persevering labour. And let this principle and this motive be possessed by whom it may, to the possessor, be he who he will, the man Christ Jesus will be the way, the fashion, and the example perpetually before him, in yielding to the constraint laid upon him to redeem the time because the days are evil; and in obedience to the impulses of the new principle within him, to let his light so shine before men, that they seeing his good works, may glorify his Father who is in heaven.

The following candid recantation of an opposite opinion, may serve to confirm the view given above; and is the more valuable, as proceeding from a source which can hardly be suspected of any leaning to that high and holy enthusiasm which in our day has revived the work of the Lord in heathen lands. It is contained in the "Metropolitan," for August, 1831, and has a place in that work as a critical notice of Bennet and Tyerman's Journal of Voyages and Travels. "The utility of modern missions, unsupported by Christian states, and plying their voluntary and unauthorized labours among savage barbarians, has ever appeared to us uncertain, and scarcely worthy of the expense which has been lavished upon them. To the intellectual and other qualifications of the missionaries employed, we have likewise felt serious objections, and until the appearance of the present volumes, we were disposed to consider them as fanatical disturbers of the social happiness and characteristic prejudices of large communities,

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whom it was impossible for them to reclaim or to benefit. We now cheerfully yield to the force of evidence. We are the friends of truth, and wish to countenance no theory at variance with its dictates. We had always imagined that civilization must precede conversion, and that Christianity, from the elevated purity of its principles, and the intellectual culture which the right understanding of them required, was placed at an infinite distance from the capacities and comprehensions of human creatures degraded below the brutes, and whose moral perceptions were obscured by the grossest ignorance and superstition. It had never occurred to us that the mysteries of an abstruse faith could be reduced to such simplicity of statement, and enforced with such irresistible sanctions, as would fix the attention and awaken the energies of the most indolent and ferocious of our species. We never dreamed that civilization could spring from such a cause: we are glad that the experiment has been made, and on so large a scale as to vanquish the most obstinate scepticism."

So much time had been lost through delays, that on gaining the opposite bank of the river, it became necessary to put the horses on their mettle, and make the best of our way to Waimate. This, in a degree, deprived us of the enjoyment we might otherwise have felt from the scenes through which we passed. For, although there is a pleasurable excitement in rapidity of motion and speedy transition, it is infinitely inferior to that calmer gratification which belongs to the traveller whose leisure

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allows him to gather information by the wayside, and while gratifying his external senses, to enrich his understanding as well. A couple of natives from the settlement, one to take back the horses, and another to carry our packages, serving as guides, ran on before, even faster than the beasts would ride, and led us through a wild but beautiful country, to which the windings and turnings of the river lent grace and beauty. A ride of a few miles brought to view a remarkable waterfall, where the waters of the Waitangi on their seaward course glide over a perpendicular cliff formed of black stone, which, glassed by those running waters, faces the traveller like a wide and outstretched mirror standing erect above the troubled surface of the boiling whirlpool below, supported on either side by the bank of the river, and smoothed and polished in readiness for the sun to contemplate therein, when be rises, his own unequalled beauty and unrivalled brightness. A circular basin beneath receives the fall, and thence transmits it in a shining stream to the end of its journey, between Paihia and the small peninsula on which the British Resident has built his dwelling.

When about, half way to Waimate, the low growl, followed by the loud bark of a number of native dogs, called our attention to a native village of considerable extent, through the middle of which the road led. It was the first we had lighted on since our departure from Paihia, and the first place where we had fallen in with any signs of either human or animal life. It was very neatly

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built, as well as very beautifully situated, every hut testifying to the ingenuity and skill in handicraft of the singular people by whom they are erected. A roof, slightly curved and thatched with rush outside, and lined with palm leaves in, spreads over the walls of the building, which are made of clay, wattled and inclosed within and without by compact bundles of split cane, placed uprightly, and divided into small square compartments by the ligatures of cane, or reed, that bind every part together. The roof, projecting generally two or three yards in front and behind, and about as many feet on either side, is further supported by a rustic colonnade, and thus forms a rustic porch at the entrance, and a covered way all round, while the shrubs and wild flowers indigenous to the country twine their tendrils round the pillars, and climbing to the ridge-pole, cover the roof with verdure, and shoot forth their buds to blossom in the sun. Over each doorway there is commonly a small architrave, more or less carved, according to the taste, ability, or means of the householder or the architect. All these cottages stood in small open gardens, carefully and even handsomely fenced in; while extensive plantations of Indian corn, fully ripe, spread out on every side in rich luxuriance, waving their golden harvests to the passing breeze; an amphitheatre of gently rising hills framing in the picture, which only requires to complete it numberless groups of laughing natives, and here and there a Wata' by the way side.

The Wata' is of very varied construction, being

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sometimes a mere stage, lifted up about twenty feet above the ground, upon four stanchions, and in its turn supporting the winter store of potatoes, corn &c., all carefully covered in with a matting of reed or bulrush: sometimes a rudely manufactured raft, slung from the dead or dying branches of a decayed tree, and apparently out of reach of any common thief, answering the same purpose, and certainly giving an additional touch of the picturesque to the general character of a New Zealand village.

I shall have occasion hereafter to enter into further particulars respecting the domestic architecture of the New Zealanders, and will only now observe, that in hardly any feature of society is there greater diversity exhibited than in the study of domestic comfort, and the contentment with those pleasures afforded by home, which the state and progress of this art among different nations serve to indicate. In New Holland, the native strips a tree of its bark, puts together a triangle of sticks, and spreads out a hive thereon, in which to shelter himself from the inclemency of the weather. In the country of the Bosjesman in Africa, and of the Veddahs in Ceylon, the comfortless inhabitants hide them in the rocks and caverns, or climb the branches of a tree for protection from the beasts of the field; neither of these tribes of savages can be said to have a home; the New Zealander, again, and the other islanders of the Pacific have homes, but inhabit them not, unless that can be called inhabitation, where the occupants of a house only use it to sleep in, or only resort to its covert during the

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pelting of some pitiless storm. But the pains taken in the erection of their dwellings, and the property each man has in his own edifice, bespeak an advance in the progress, and add enlargement to the view of society at the stage even now occupied by them. And, as we advance in our examination of this subject, we shall find, that nations, as they rise in the scale of intelligence and civilization, who yet from their external relations, and the respect in which they are held from without, deserve more than others to be called citizens of the world, will nevertheless, when examined more closely, be found to seek their comforts within the respective circles of their own families, and for that purpose to encourage and bring to perfection every art by which those comforts can be contributed to, and to this end there is no art perhaps more tributary, than domestic architecture, even as there is no people among whom that art is more encouraged than the English, whether in the mother country, or its dependencies. The present condition of the New Zealanders, with respect to it, is calculated to awaken the hope, that New Zealand will become, in this and in other particulars, to the southern, what England is to the northern hemisphere, a pattern worthy of imitation, 'and a model deserving to be copied.

Several of the natives came out to gaze at the disturbers of their peace, but gave the intruders a much more friendly greeting than the dogs in their jealousy had done before them. And with the greater number we had to shake hands, a task of some labour, when engaged in with half a tribe of

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Athletes like these, as the somewhat naive remark of my young companion, at an after stage of the journey, may serve to shew. "Come along, ******," were his words. while one of those whom we met on the road was shaking my whole frame with the heartiness of his salutation, "Come along, ******, the man doesn't seem as if he would have done shaking hands with you for the next month." They have adopted our mode of saluting in deference to our admitted superiority, but only in their intercourse with us: when our guide afterwards met one of his own friends, he rubbed noses with his countryman, the native salutation, and curious only as contrasted with our own rougher custom; for so various are the manners of men in this particular, that any deviations discoverable in barbarous countries, are less to be wondered at as deviations, than preserved as marks of a generic character, which agree in giving to all mankind a common origin. And the fact that the New Zealand mode of kissing with the nose instead of the lips, is accompanied in cases of meetings after protracted separation with weeping and crying, recalls to mind several memorable examples of the latter kind recorded in the most ancient of all records; thus, Jacob, when he first saw "Rachel the daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, kissed her, and lifted up his voice and wept." Gen. xxix. 10,11. Again, at his interview with Esau his brother, after an absence of twenty years, it is written of the latter, that "he ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck,

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and kissed him, and they wept." Gen. xxxiii. 4. In the affecting scene between the patriarch Joseph and his brethren, when he can no longer refrain from discovering himself to them, he is said to have "wept aloud," or as the original may be rendered, he "gave forth his voice in weeping." "And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover, he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that his brethren talked with him." Gen. xlv. 2, and 11,12. And afterwards, when he "made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father to Goshen; and presented himself unto him;" it is added in the history, that "he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while." Gen. xlvi. 29. Profane writings furnish several examples of a similar kind.

In connection with this subject, and as countenancing the belief that the natives of this country are as susceptible of the polish as of the more substantial improvements of civilization, that in short they are as capable of exercising the charity which "doth not behave itself unseemly," as that which "thinketh no evil," I may mention, that during Pomare's visit to the Alligator, one of his attendants required to shake hands with one of the officers. He stretched out for this purpose, but unwittingly, his left hand, when recollecting himself, he instantly withdrew it, and casting off the cloak from his shoulders, in order to disengage the right, took within it that proffered by his friend.

As we passed along the village, we remarked a

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man, highly tatooed, sitting solitary by the side of the road, with his head completely shaved. Whether he was "tapu," and doing the penance of one so situated, I could not learn. But it is a fact, that almost superstitious respect is paid to the hair of the head by this people, and the loss of any of it is considered a calamity requiring propitiation. Was this man excommunicated? and is tapu and excommunication one. and the same in the case of individuals? However this may be, the removal of the tapu from any one, requiring, as it does, priestly interference and ceremonial rites, inclines the enquirer to ask, from the correspondence in this custom between the New Zealanders and the ancient Israelites, and not from this custom alone, but from innumerable others, has New Zealand derived its population from any of the lost tribes of Israel? Among its traditions, accounts of the creation and of the deluge have been preserved, nearly resembling the Mosaic accounts. The native name for the mother of all living is Heva, who they assert to have been formed from the rib of a man, and while the nations around them have bowed the knee to lords many and gods many, the Atua of the New Zealanders, though an unknown, has only been ONE God. I presume not to decide upon the question, but merely propose it as worthy a fuller discussion than I am qualified to give it, whether the lost tribes of Israel are not to be found in New Zealand, and other islands of the South Pacific Ocean? only adding, that the Levitical laws of excommunication, and the rites by which

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the restoration of the excommunicated was effected, will find practices analogous to them in this country.

The path on which we were, now cut through a field of Indian corn, and to prevent either men or cattle from turning aside and "treading down the corn," it is well beaten, sufficiently wide to serve for a bridle as well as a foot path, and is bounded on both sides by a dwarf wall, made of the cinders and lava, collected from a neighbouring plain strewed with those effusions of the volcano, which help, in some measure, to account for the undulating surface of the country between this and the sea.

The horses having to return to Paihia, in readiness for the labours of the ensuing day, we had been requested to dispense with their services after fording the last stream of water, and of this request the guide who was to return with them took care to remind us in time. A walk of from four to five miles over hill and dale, was now before us, in the course of which, from the summit of one of a chain of little hills, we had a distant view of a volcanic mountain, rising in the centre of a vast plain, like a cone, the inverted edge of the crater being distinctly visible, although the fire that once burned within, is either slumbering there still, or has exhausted itself. Traces of a volcanic origin are said to be discernible over the whole island, and the alleged fact that soundings may be had from its northern extremity all the way to Norfolk Island, would lead to the supposi-

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tion that many of the isles by which these seas are studded, are the productions of submarine volcanos. Our time not admitting of a nearer approach, we pushed on, and came to a second village, neatly and compactly built, and highly picturesque. But the huts were lower than we had been accustomed to see, and the doors appeared too small for the owners to crawl in at, even when lying flat for that purpose. Several of the natives were gathered together, and sharing their evening meal of potatoes with one another, seated on the ground in the open air; the clear blue sky, unshadowed by a single cloud, their only canopy. They all rose to meet and salute us, and did so after the usual hearty custom of their countrymen on meeting with friendly Europeans, shaking us by the hand till our arms ached. Our guide having given one of them a small piece of tobacco, received in exchange a meal of potatoes, of which he ate with evident appetite, as he went on his way; and then, the sense of hunger allayed, threw away what remained.

A little farther on, were a couple of women boiling potatoes in an English swing pot of cast iron, a product of our own country, the sight of which, however apparently little a kail pot may have to do with patriotism, was not void of interest to one, in whose breast that healthful feeling has not yet ceased to glow, which rejoices to meet with the arts and manufactures of his own beloved native land, in all nations and countries, even to the uttermost ends of the earth. And surely the love of

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one's country may be suffered to luxuriate in the pleasure afforded by so trifling an incident as that of beholding the lately savage inhabitants of a savage country, not only feeding upon a root for which they were first indebted to an Englishman, but also cooking it after the English fashion in a vessel of English manufacture. The peaceable extension of our comforts and customs, to the rude inhabitants of uncultivated countries, is one of the best conquests achieved by us as a people: and such, henceforth, be all thy conquests, O my country! and in such may thy sons rejoice, more than in the blood-bought triumphs of the sword, or in those that have been acquired, at the point of the bayonet.

The unevenness of the ground over which we travelled, frequently presented to our view beautiful and romantic glens and valleys. In one of the former I was first gratified with a sight of the fern tree, rising to a considerable height, and of a very graceful figure. The heath-fern of New Zealand attains a size hardly credible by those who have only seen that child of the desert in England, where its growth is stunted. I never before saw any so large, while its varieties, I am told, are also very many. What in England would be considered heaths, and which abound here, and are of great extent, might in New Zealand be almost styled forests of fern, were it not that the true forests of this country abound with yet larger and loftier occupants. The Palm, the Pine, and the Cowry,

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with numberless other trees, some of which blossom beautifully in their seasons, mingling in different situations, and intermingling their branches, compose rich and shadowy woods, to refresh the eye of the spectator, wherever it may turn, while their leaves seem woven into a veil of many tints and hues, as if to intercept the too warm kisses of descending sunbeams, in their transit to the earth. Yet is there, so far at least as I have hitherto observed, a bleakness and barrenness notwithstanding, in much of the scenery of New Zealand, leaving the soul unsatisfied, even where the eye has not gone without gratification. But in this, and all other matters of mere taste, the critic has to take into account his own habits of thought and feeling, for those habits may, in many respects, be peculiar to himself, and for them he needs to make allowance when forming his judgment. As regards myself, the absence of animate beings, the absence of human forms and human dwellings, the absence of every thing which an Englishman is accustomed to look for when treading in the known track of human footsteps, renders mere scenery a blank to me, however crowded with other objects, seeing that man, and the operations of man's hand are needed, to spread over such scenery the joyousness of life. Which reflection, however, by forcing one back upon original principles, accounts for the dissatisfaction with which any one returns from viewing the country in the absence of its inhabitants, and transfers the blame thereof from the picture to the

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spectator, by shewing that the fault is not one of real barrenness in this beautiful creation of our God, but a consequence of man's not liking to retain God in his thoughts. True it is, that the figure of man gives animation to the dullest painting of still life, and the mere shadows of a man cast over a scene in nature, startles the very dust of that scene into life. But, wherefore? --Man, when he came first from the hands of his Maker, stood erect, in the image and likeness of God; and God in the second Adam, "the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person," commends himself to the world not only as a fountain of light, and love, and life, ever full, and ever flowing, but also as the perfection of all beauty, natural and physical, as well as moral and spiritual. During the absence of God in Christ from his own creation, the only compensation for his loss to creation, and the beholders thereof, is the presence of man, His heirs and representatives, to whom the promise of the inheritance is given, and the task allotted of spreading abroad in every direction the knowledge of the Most High, until the redemption of the purchased possession, and the return of its Lord to reign in righteousness upon the earth. When, therefore, any place is left desolate by man, it becomes of a paradise, a waste; and of an Eden, no longer a well watered garden, but a wild and weary wilderness, until the one remaining spring be touched, which can alone connect emotions of pleasure with scenes seemingly deserted by man and by man's Maker. And where is that spring to be found unless in the

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happy frame of their minds, who, in every flower they see, in every blade of grass on which they tread, in every place when they may chance to sojourn, find, in all things find, objects of loveliness serving them as remembrancers of God! objects of delight, which are to them as so many links in one continuous chain of love, Divine love! whereby the material is connected with the immaterial, the seen with the unseen, the visible with the invisible, the temporal with the eternal, earth with heaven, and, that clod of the valley, Man, with the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth Eternity, Jehovah-God! For, when in such a frame of mind, and such ought always to be the frame and temper of that man's mind who has attained to the knowledge of God and his Son, the Christian spectator will, while he looks round upon scenes of barrenness, remember with humbleness of mind and contrition of spirit, that the barrenness by which he is surrounded, is the curse laid by a merciful but holy God, upon a world of his own making, on account of the sin of man, for whom that world was made, and to whom the dominion of that world had been given. But, from "sight so deformed and strange" it is natural to seek for relief, and he will look for it, penetrating within the veil flung over futurity, above and beyond the time of this barrenness, to that grand catastrophe of which all the prophets witness, when earth's Creator, who cursed and quitted it; shall shine forth and come again as earth's Redeemer to bless it, and abide with it, and when, having restored to it its original charter of liberty, liberty to bring

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forth its fruits in due season, "the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad," "and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose," yea! "shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing." In such a prospect, amid the musings to which it gives birth, and from the holy confidence it is calculated to inspire, that that day, which is also "the day of the manifestation of the sons of God," is not, and cannot, (on account of the gathering signs of the times,) be very far distant, he rejoices in hope of the glory to be revealed, rejoices with joy unspeakable and full of glory, the joy with which a stranger intermeddleth not, and goes on his way with a merry heart, giving thanks to his heavenly Father, for his unspeakable gift, and for his loving kindness and tender mercy to the children of men; and in the fall assurance of faith, that God now accepteth his works.

The next native by whom we were met, carried a small quarto volume in his hand, and a look of peace and sober happiness in his countenance. He was a Catechist, returning to his home, after a day spent, may I not say, well spent, on the instruction of his countrymen, in the words and ways of eternal life.

It was six, P.M. before we reached Waimate, by which time the sun had gone down behind the distant hills, and every object upon which the eye gazed was steeped in the twilight grey of approaching night. As at Tepuna and Paihia, a kind and hearty welcome greeted our arrival, on the part of Mr. Clarke and his excellent wife. Yate and

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the Baron Von Hugel came in soon afterwards from a visit to the Volcanic Mountain, in climbing the sides of which, the latter had wasted all his strength, while his companion was comparatively fresh, having tarried at its base, to visit the natives from house to house, and preach to them the gospel of their salvation. Refreshments were got ready immediately, and after spending the evening in social conversation, the whole family, united in offering an evening-sacrifice of prayer and praise.

March 16th, 1834. Rose a little after day-light, and experienced the chilliness with which the days begin as well as close in this country. Between seven and eight o'clock, met Mr. Clarke's family and other inmates at family prayers, and at nine, A.M. obeyed the summons of the church bell, inviting us to join the great congregation in the house of God. In front of the mission-house we noticed a large blue flag flying, with the inscription "Rongo Pai" in white letters, signifying Good news! or, more literally, Hearken to good! and in the left-hand corner a large white cross surmounted by a dove and olive branch.

It was the first time I had joined a congregation of converted heathen, in the public worship of Almighty God, and that in the midst of which I now found myself could not consist of less than three hundred natives. The church was crowded to excess, and, for want of room within, many persons stood round the windows and doors without; it is a small building, and, although it has recently been added to, requires to be still further enlarged, on account of the increasing congregations with which

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from Sabbath to Sabbath it is constantly filled. Most of the native audience sat upon the ground with only their mats spread beneath them -- and all, as with one voice, joined audibly in the responses, appearing: to do so with a fervour and zeal, which might be transferred with advantage to the devotional services of many a congregation in England.

The service commenced with a hymn in the New Zealand tongue, the composition of Mr. Yate, which was sung by every one then present, if not with all that sweetness of which it was susceptible, yet, certainly with all the harmony of which the singers were capable. I have attempted to render this into English verse, as literally as possible, and shall make no apology for its introduction in this place:--

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After this the Liturgy was read, and during the petitions by the natives of the sentences in the general confession, I was struck with amazement, and very very deeply affected, at the eloquent pathos of their voices, though only able to follow them by interpretation. At the words "A Kahore he ora i amatou" the difference of language was lost sound of in the unity of the sentiment expressed by the Church, and the tone in which that sentence was uttered, seem to me the very echo of my own heart's lamentation "And there is no health in us!"

The different members of the respective mission families resident at Waimate, being also in attendance, two English lessons, in addition to those the New Zealand tongue, were read for their use, during which the natives retained their seats, and preserved the utmost order among themselves, the more devout occupying their own minds in the silent perusal of the sacred scriptures which they held their hands.

After this the infant son of a native Christian was admitted to baptism, and the original of the followingg hymn, sung with loud and lofty chorus: --

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At the close of this hymn, two sermons were preached, one in New Zealand, from the words, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord! Lord! shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven." And, from the beginning to the end thereof, a more attentive congregation I had never witnessed. And

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never have I beheld a whole assembly listen with more apparent eagerness to the words of mortal man, or seem to drink in with all their souls the sentiments of an earthly preacher, as though the tale he was telling them was life unto those souls, to a greater degree than that exhibited bv these redeemed barbarians, many of whom, though they come from remote distances to attend the service and hear the sermon, are not numbered by the missionaries with them that believe. The other sermon was in English, from the words "All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ." And was divided into four parts, in the consideration of which the preacher shewed, 1st. What God is in himself: 2dly. What he hath done for us: 3dly, "What he hath wrought through His Spirit in them that believe: and 4thly, What he will bestow upon those that continue in the faith, steadfast, until the end. 1. God is love--God is light--He is the Lord, the Lord God, gracious and merciful, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, and bv no means clearing the guilty. 2. He has given his Son to die for us, and in him hath given unto us eternal life: he hath redeemed us with his own blood, while we were yet sinners; Christ having tasted death for every man when he died for the ungodly. 3. He hath wrought in us, who believe, a clean heart by the sprinkling of that blood which cleanseth us from all sin; and a renewed a right spirit within us, by the Spirit of Jesus vouchsafed unto us. 4. He is thoroughly

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purposed to bestow upon us an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and which passeth not away, eternal in the heavens.

This sermon I have thus briefly analysed, thinking I it might be considered a fair specimen of the manner and matter of those sermons which are preached to the natives, and have been owned of God in the salvation of many souls from among the people, not only from the fear of death, but also from the power and dominion of sin. And I have been at the more pains to convey a correct notion of the character of the preaching addressed to the New Zealanders, seeing that one of the slanderous writers upon New Zealand, puts into the mouth of a missionary while preaching to the natives, the monstrous and incredible lie that all men will be condemned, and then, to produce a picture, the artist sets the congregation a laughing: at the gross absurdity of what could never have been uttered by any one of the whole corps of missionaries, whether lay or clerical, either at this or any other station. According to Mr. Earle, "draughtsman to the Beagle," the subject matter of the discourse heard by him, was Hell, universal Hell!, the climax of the preacher's peroration; --the general condemnation of the whole human race! the general and unqualified damnation of all mankind!! 2 According to the writ-

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ten sermon of Mr. Yate, attentively listened to and carefully remembered by the writer of these pages,

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the topics of the missionary's discourse, were; -- God, Most High, and his redeeming love--Fallen Man, and his high destinies and soul-ennobling privileges. If sinners were also exhorted with affectionate earnestness to flee from the wrath to come, and seek for refuge, in the prospects of Death-- Judgment-- and Eternity, to the hope set before them in the Gospel; if the hardened, the impenitent, and the unbelieving, were admonished of their guilt, and warned of the peril they incurred while making God a liar, how, I would ask, how otherwise could the ambassador of Christ have delivered to them an entire message? Should the "draughtsman to the Beagle" come before the public a second time to bear his voluntary testimony on the subject of Christian Missions, and Christian Ministers, he is recommended to call to mind one, at least, of the instructions of his youth, and not to turn away from that voice which saith: --"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."

The benediction was next pronounced, and all the people knelt down to receive it. And then the assembly separated, peaceably and in good order,

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the majority returning to their several homes, without farther procrastination, while the remainder gathered round the strangers with outstretched hand, and the kindly appellative, Ekero! Friend! Nor would they leave us until we had shaken hands with them.

On the way back to Mr. Clarke's, who had set off before breakfast to preach at different stations in the neighbourhood, Mr. Yate was stopped by four native preachers coming to him for instructions, before departing also to their respective fields of labour, each one having to preach at some distant village. The employment of laymen, and of converted natives, as teachers and preachers, is an important feature in the New Zealand mission, and will continue, I trust, a very prominent one. The limitation of God's ministry to men episcopally ordained, or even to men accredited by Christian congregations, is a limitation without either precedent or sanction in holy writ: and when scrupulously insisted upon, or rigorously adhered to, is an usurpation of lordship over the house, and in the temple of God, for which there is no warrant in Scripture, and to which there should be no submission in the church. The proof of God's speaking in the above classes is contained in the fact, that as large an increase of faithful men has been added to the church through the labours of the lay, as through those of the clerical members of this mission, and "Father Davies," as the honest fanner of that name is called by the New Zealanders, has

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been as abundantly blessed with souls for his hire, although in his own person he combined the tasks of teaching the poor savages around him "to till the ground for their subsistence and look up to heaven for their salvation," as "Brother" Williams, "the beloved physician" and clergyman, while connecting the instruction of their souls with care for the health of their bodies, among whom he has laboured, and not in vain, in the Lord.

In the afternoon, Yate, the Baron, Everard 'Hongi, (a nephew of the famous warrior, on whom George the Fourth bestowed a steel cuirass,) Dayman, and myself, walked to Koropi, a picturesque village, about three miles distant from Waimate, the chief of which, "'Hau," has built a roomy chapel at his own cost, and for the most part with his own manual labour. In it we found a congregation of upwards of a hundred persons, waiting in readiness for an evening service, and to which they attended with evident interest and pleasure. At the close of the sermon I took a walk through this exceedingly neat and beautiful village, and was returning with Yate, when the hum of voices proceeding from the chapel we had recently quitted, again drew our steps in that direction, and there, to my great delight, stood the chief in the place just vacated by the missionary; and there, in front of him, from fifty to sixty of his tribe, of both sexes and of all ages, were seated on their mats. The chief was catechising his people, and acting as the prophet, the priest, and the king of his tribe. It was the most beautiful spectacle I had ever wit-

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nessed. There was in his manner something so mild, yet, withal, so dignified; in his tones such a mixture of the commanding and the persuasive; in his looks such meekness and gentleness, that I could have been content to remain gazing at and listening to him for hours. Then again, his people, the very old and the very young, emulous alike of answering correctly all his questions, and all intent upon acquiring that knowledge which is able to make men wise unto salvation; and the whole party so evidently finding in the Sabbath a delight, and esteeming it honourable; while the house in which they were met, testifying to the genuineness of its builder's faith by the excellency of the fruits it brought forth; and the spot on which they were met, having but a few years ago been reigned over by Satan, and brooded over by the clouds of ignorance and the darkness of sin, all, all conspired to make the heart faint within me from excess of joy, at the sight of the mighty works which had been accomplished in this heathen land, in the name of the Lord, and by the power of his might. It was with difficulty I could tear myself away from a scene of such perfect enchantment, and when I did so, it was with pain and regret. My heart was with these villagers, and my affections will linger about the place of their abode, while memory serves me or life lasts.

As, slowly and sadly, I moved off, 'Hau followed, and coming up with us, took the Manatungha from his ear to give me. I hesitated to receive it, but he would neither be denied, nor

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would he accept aught in exchange. And his wife coming up likewise, and following her husband's example, I requested Yate to tell them, that we had all a remembrancer in heaven, the great High Priest of our profession, who ever liveth to make intercession for us, upon which they replied, "that is what we want; we want him to think of us, that he may pray for us to the Saviour, when, perhaps, we may not be praying for ourselves." Mau, the wife of this man, is described as a woman of eminent piety, and as exhibiting that one unerring sign of deep personal religion, an anxious desire for the salvation of all around her, beginning with her own family. And once, at a subsequent period; speaking of an aged relative of hers, who was suffering under the alarms of an awakened conscience, after having long resisted and opposed the truth, she used the following quaint but forcible comparison. --Religion is like tobacco; when first taken, it makes a man sick, and ill, and angry; if he goes on taking it, he thinks it still hateful and disagreeable, and spits it out of his mouth; but if he will still go on eating it, he comes at last to love it so much, that he cannot live without it--this day and that day, in this place and in that place, he is always eating it and always loving it; the more he eats the more he loves it.

Up to the present time, (March 16, 1835;) neither Hau nor his wife have been baptized, although both have been, this long time, desirous to gain, admission by baptism into the visible church, of Christ; the missionaries, solicitous above all

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things to plant a pure church in New Zealand, having kept them on probation hitherto. Their conduct, however, has stood the test of time, and come through the ordeal of trial without injury, and the reality of their conversion being no longer doubtful, they are promised the baptism of water at an early date. May they receive, at the same time, the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire! 3

The extreme caution exercised by the Church Missionaries in the above cases, and others similar to them, is not to be lightly esteemed, and must not be hastily censured. For myself, however, I profess an inability to detect in Scripture any authority for withholding this initiatory ordinance from any individual who may witness a good confession of repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ: that repentance being evidenced by an expressed willingness and desire to be turned from sin unto holiness, and from Satan unto God; and that faith being made apparent by the peace and joy infallibly attendant upon those who believe that in Christ they have redemption, through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Nor, indeed, am I at all satisfied that the custom of either the Eastern or Western Churches-

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in primitive times, would afford its countenance to any thing like a protracted delay in the reception of professed believers in Christ, among the acknowledged members of his church, which is his body. That the sacrament of baptism may be rashly administered, cannot be doubted; that it must have been, in a multitude of instances, unworthily received, is also undeniable. But the abuse of a thing is no argument against its use, for there is nothing that has not been abused. And, I would submit it with deference to the brethren in New Zealand, and, indeed, every where, whether the strictness as to baptism might not with advantage be transferred to the article of discipline afterwards. The restoration of a wholesome discipline, that discipline being regulated solely by the statutes of the Holy Ghost contained in the Old and New Testaments, would do much to restore to their ancient purity the elder branches of the church, and the establishment of such a system of discipline among all the infant churches now rearing in different heathen lands, as should, without the imposition of any yoke of man, be at pains to preserve the commandment of God entire, and the faith of his Son uncorrupted, would, I conceive, answer every end proposed by the present scrupulousness about administering the sacrament of baptism to professed converts, and tend, moreover, to preserve the baptized in their purity, and keep the whole body of the faithful unspotted from the world, besides deterring the vain-glorious and hypocritical from coveting to be united with those

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whose constitutions and usages, salutary though strict, would manifestly declare them to be determined neither to have fellowship with the works of darkness themselves, nor to afford any countenance, either individually or corporately, to the workers of iniquity, while they continue in their iniquity; or to the children of disobedience, while persisting in that disobedience.

The importunate petitions of many of the candidates for this privilege are very affecting in the perusal, and express eloquently and well, though in few words, how deeply they feel on the subject, and how unfeigned is their piety. In reading these "short and simple" letters of the poor New Zealanders, I have been constrained, and I think that very many of my readers will feel constrained with me, to repeat the inquiry instituted by an apostle of old, "Who shall deny water that these may be baptized?"

Through the kindness of Mr. Yate I am enabled to subjoin a few extracts from those letters, and venture to affirm that they speak, in the majority of instances, a language never spoken by hypocrisy, and exceedingly hard to be counterfeited by imposture and deceit. One of the writers is a married native, living with Mr. Kemp at the Keri-Keri, and these are the words addressed by Wahanga to the missionary: "Great is my heart towards God, because he has taken care of me all my days, and has shewn the greatest extent of love for me. It is good for me to be sanctified by him, and, by being baptized, to be let go into his holy church on

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earth, in order that, when I die, I may be taken into his church above, in the heavens. Who can bear the pain of the fire which burns for ever? I want to make haste to Jesus Christ, that I may be saved from it. As the wind digs up the waves of the sea, so the devil digs up sin in my heart: he is always, always, this day and that day, at work there. If I wake in the middle of the night, he wakes also, to contend with me, and to hold fast my soul, that it may not fly to the Saviour, or to stop my mouth, that it may not pray to him." His wife Pahuia's letter breathes a spirit of genuine humility and child-like faith. "It is true," she writes, "it is very true, that it is a good thing to tell to Jehovah all that is in the heart, whether it be good or whether it be evil. My desire is, that my soul may be saved in the day of judgment. It will not be long before Jesus Christ appears to judge all mankind, and I also shall be with them that will be judged. It is right that I should be judged, and that I should be condemned, for my heart is very wicked, and will not do one thing, not one, not one, not one, that Jesus Christ, or God, or the Holy Spirit says is good. If I am angered by them it will be just. But will not the Son of God save me? you say he will, and I believe it! You say that, bad as it is, he will wash my soul in his blood, and make it good and clean. That is what I want. I want to be admitted into his church, and to be made his child, and to be taught his lessons out of his book, and to be taken care of by him, and to be done what with, done what with, done

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what with, thou, O Lord Jesus! say what!" The Christian reader, as he peruses the two following epistles, will remember the pains and perplexities of his own early experience. The first is from Unahanga, a servant at Waimate. "My heart is desirous of being permitted to enter the church of Jesus Christ. I wish to turn altogether to our Father who is in heaven, and to cast away all the evil speaking of this world, the evil thinking, and the evil acting. I am thinking within me, what can be the reason that I have two hearts, which are always struggling one with another. The one is a very good heart, and the other altogether bad. I am wondering which will be thrown down and put undermost at last; perhaps the good one, perhaps the bad one. 0 how they fight! Will you baptize me? or will you not? As I have two hearts, perhaps you will not, and perhaps you will." The other is from Reo, a youth living with Mr. Kemp: --"Here I am, sitting in darkness and sitting in sin; perhaps it is sin that makes it dark. Listen, Mr Yate! *****I have a great deal of evil within me, and very little good. The devil holds fast the evil, and will not let me throw it away; he also blocks up the road, and will not let the good come in. What am I to do? I have no strength, and the devil does as is good to him. What shall I be done with? I will ask God to give me his Spirit, perhaps that is the way. I will ask you to baptize me, perhaps that is the way. I will think about Jesus Christ; dying for my sins, perhaps that is the way. I am tired and sick of sin! where and how shall I throw

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it away from me?" Anheki, a redeemed slave, living with Mr. Davis, thus expresses his desire to be set apart to the service of God: "This is my saying to you, and I say it because I wish to stand in the assembly of God's people, in his church, that we may all stand with joy before his judgment seat, and sit down together in his great kingdom. Now the love of Jesus Christ is come down, and is fixed in the earth, and therefore I say to you, set me apart to be his servant, and baptize me in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Mr. Yate! it is good to be sanctified to God, and to leave behind all that is evil. The great love of our Saviour towards us, makes me love him again, and makes me wish to be his. He died, as a satisfaction for all believers, and God's anger is gone to nothing through him." 'Hongi, a married native, thus describes his state: "I am seeking a heart for the good things of God; I have heard with my ears his glad words, but am unable to make myself his child, because I struggle so for sin. We have all heard the glad news out of his book; they are good, and gracious, and loving words, and are signs from the Holy Spirit to guide the spirit of man. When I think upon the writings my heart is glad within me; when they are fixed in my soul, joy wakes me in the very middle of the night to think about it. How are your thoughts towards us? Are they as they were? If they, are, we have heard them. You say that our souls must feel pain for having by our sins crucified the Lord of life and glory, the Son of God, our Saviour

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Jesus Christ. I say to you, that my heart has been pained long ago, and is pained now, because I have wasted the blood of him who died for me. And now, my thoughts and my heart are very great to be made one of the church by baptism. I am very proud, and I walk in pride, and I sometimes say, ha! what are all the things of God to me, I am only a New Zealander, they will do very well for white and learned people, but not for us; this is the devil hardening and tempting me, that I may fall into his evil and burning residence." Hamo, a redeemed slave, makes the following acknowledgment of what he was, contrasted with what he is; "This is the first time that I ever wrote to you; and my writing is about the things of God, a shewing forth of tears on account of the love of God, which has been disregarded by me; now I possess a will towards Jehovah, and wish to be made his. I have been seven years living with my father, Mr. Davis, and have never thought about the soul. When I have spoken or prayed, it has not been with my heart but with my lips. Now I see, and know, and feel the love of God, my heart is very sorrowful, great is my pain for the evil which I have done, very large are my desires to be baptized. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of sinful men; and my crying to the Lord is, 'O Jehovah, give me thy holy Spirit, to rub out the sins of my heart with the blood of Jesus.'" The next extract is from a letter written by a very young lad, and answers two important questions that had been asked him by the minister

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to whom he is writing. "I have wished a long time to be baptized, because I love God. Do you remember asking me the other day, why I love God, and how much? I love God because he is my father, and Jesus Christ because he is my Saviour, but all my love for them is very little, just as much as one grain of sand. This is all my book. Ngeri," The writer of what follows, Kahiki, has since been baptized. "My heart is very dark and sad, and the reason is, because God is not there. God resting in the heart makes the heart glad, because where he is, there evil is driven away. My will is, to have nothing more to do with evil, but to forsake it altogether, and live as God and Jesus Christ say we must. I wish to talk with you, and for you to talk with me. I wish to ask you how I can be brought to stand nearest to the presence of the Saviour? Perhaps by baptism I may be brought nigh: perhaps by praying for a new heart. Mr. Yate! tell me how. And let me take upon me a new name, for though the native chiefs scoff at me, I am not ashamed of saying to every body, that Jesus is my Saviour and my God!'" The last quotation I shall make is from the letter of another redeemed slave, Peripi: "My heart is broken. I find I am an orphan; and though Mr. Davis has been my father, and Mother Davis has been my mother, this year, and that year, and a great many years, I am looking for another father, and that father must be God! * * * * With me there is nothing but evil inside and outside! but though evil is great it is not so great

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as the love of God. There is one thing that is often knocking me down, that is sin, but the love of God raises me up again."

Having returned from Koropi to Waimate, we found the tea-table spread, and a mixed party of Europeans and natives seated thereat. It being the goodly custom of Mr. Clarke's house, for the native Catechists to take their evening meal with his family every Lord's day. There were five of these Catechists, all attired in decent suits of English clothing, and all behaving with the strictest propriety and decorum; indeed, but for the difference in their language, and the darker olive of their complexion, it could not have been detected from their manners that their education in early youth had been that of savages.

At the termination of this meal, I was taken to see some some invalids in an adjoining family, and having prescribed for their respective cases, followed Mr. Yate to an evening service in the Waimate church. There were about eighty persons present, for the most part adults. A portion of the liturgy having been read, and two hymns sung with much sweetness and power, the first 21 verses of the 2d chapter of Acts were expounded to the meeting, and formed the basis of an exhortation to call upon the name of the Lord, and to ask God in faith, nothing doubting, for the gift of his Holy Spirit. In conversation with more than one of the missionaries at different times, on the prophecy of Joel, referred to by the apostle Peter in this passage, they informed me, that in many instances

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of conversion among the natives, a vision, or a dream, was the mean employed by the Holy Ghost; to first turn the hearts of those individuals from the error of their way. In our own country, many and ingenious have been the attempts to account, from natural causes, for men's dreaming dreams and beholding visions, without the necessity of making any reference in such matters, to supernatural agency, or the revealed truth of God. Notwithstanding all such attempts, however, the testimony of God upon this, as upon every other point, remaineth sure, "making wise the simple," and according to Him, it is a sign of the time predicted when his Spirit should be poured forth upon all flesh, that "the old men shall dream dreams, and the young men shall see visions." Dreams and visions, in the vocabulary of sacred scripture, signify revelations and manifestations of God's will to man, and are a language of symbols, leading the wise to repentance, and guiding the blind by a way tney know not. In every age of the Church, during the Christian as well as in the Jewish dispensation, God has spoken thereby to his servants tne prophets, and instructed therewith his people who delight to do his will, "In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed, then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man." Job xxxiii. 15, 16, 17. And, wnatever others may think, it is to me, one of the most satisfactory, as well as striking features

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in the conversion of the New Zealanders, that these "signs and wonders" have accompanied them that believe.

WAIMATE is the third, and, in some respects, the most important station occupied by the Church Missionaries in New Zealand. The settlement is composed of the families of Messrs. Clarke, Davis, and Hamlin: the spiritual superintendence being intrusted to Mr. Yate. In connection with it, there are eight regular preaching stations, the respective missionaries and native Catechists officiating every Lord's day; and at each of the villages forming those stations, namely, Waimate, Koropi, Kiakohi, Mawe, Tanotoka, Monghakauakaua, Taiamai and Ohaiahai, there are edifices for public worship and sabbath and day schools. At Waimate there is also an infant school, which is taught by Mrs. Hamlin, and said to give very general satisfaction: at the last examination of schools at this place, there were from 800 to 1000 natives present, about 500 of whom passed a creditable examination. It may be said to be the farm of the whole mission, helping as it does to supply the other stations with wheat, and promising soon to grind corn for them all, a water mill for that purpose being in course of erection. The natives, under the direction of Mr. Davies, assisted by Mr. Clarke, having learned the use of the plough. And some idea may be formed of the extent to which agriculture is already carried, from the circumstance of two-and-twenty acres of land belonging to the missionaries having been prepared for

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wheat-sowing, and eight of them sown during the present quarter, as well as twenty-seven rooted and cleared in readiness for the breaking plough by the tribe of Broughton Ripi.

March 17th. --It having been arranged before we left the ship, that Dayman and I should return on board from, Keri Keri in the boat which brought the Captain on shore, we were obliged to take our leave of Waimate at an early hour this morning. We had paid it but a passing visit, yet such was (the kindness that had met us there, and so pleasurable the emotions awakened by every thing we had seen and heard during our short stay, that the regret with which we took our departure, is likely to be lasting.

Yate accompanied us to Keri Keri, the way thither lying in a different direction from that by which we had come, and we rode over more than ten miles of country, varying in almost every particular from the portion previously traversed by us. The valley of Waimate or "bad water," is made exceedingly rich and fertile, by the River Waitangi, which passes through, and occasionally overflows it. An extensive marsh may probably have given rise to the name. This valley lies below the settlement, and our path lay directly across it, and over a wooden bridge, of considerable span, the work of Mr. Clarke, by which the two sides of the river are united; and curious, as the first bridge ever built in New Zealand. The road beyond is an excellent one, and would not disgrace MacAdam himself; it, also, is the work of the Missionaries' hands, and was ren-