CHAPTER XV: HAS CHRISTIANITY REALLY BORNE ANY FRUIT IN NEW ZEALAND?
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CHAPTER XV.
HAS CHRISTIANITY REALLY BORNE ANY FRUIT IN NEW ZEALAND?
THIS is a question which, directly or indirectly, has been often asked of us. Has not the Mission been a failure?--Have we ever known any one case of genuine conversion among the native people? --Then probably follows the threadbare axiom, repeated till it is believed to be a fixed law of the world, that coloured races must disappear before the white man, and so the subject is dropped.
If any such questioners had been in New Zealand sixty years ago, when a handful of brave men and women went out in faith to win it for Christ, and could contrast the state of things then with the condition of the people and the status of the Native Church now, they would be compelled to own that real work has been done.
Forty years ago, when we landed, the horrors of cannibalism and of infanticide had ceased; but we heard terrible stories, from those who had been eyewitnesses, of the scenes of heathen fury and revenge.
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A missionary's wife in the North told us of the return of a war-party with prisoners, whom they intended to keep as slaves; but some of the women of the place, whose husbands and sons had been killed, rushed down to the beach like furies and slew them before they were out of the canoes as "utu," i. e., payment for their dead. A clergyman, who brought his young wife out at least fifty years ago, told us how he tried to keep her once from looking out of the window when a wild war-party, all naked, came rushing by, kicking the heads of the enemies they had slain in battle in triumph before them.
It was to such men and women that the Gospel was preached--and it prevailed. Nothing touched the hearts of these fierce barbarians as did the story of the Cross. "My heart has been as hard as a rock," said an old warrior, "but I repent"; and he came to be baptised. And, as we have said, they did give a very practical proof of their sincerity, by letting their slaves go free. One by one the chiefs, who depended on those over whom they had exercised despotic sway for the cultivation of their lands, freed them and let them return to their own homes. This noble act of manumission told, in time, very unfavourably on the position of the New Zealand chiefs. They lost much of their prestige by having to work with their own hands, and they lost the power of exercising the large hospitality which had made their names great in the land
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It is to be regretted that the French word "sauvage," which simply means "wild," should have acquired such a different sense in English. A savage suggests to many of us a cruel, crafty creature, treacherous and degraded, who excites at once feelings of fear and contempt. If the kindlier word "barbarian" were substituted, we might bethink us of the barbarous people at Melita, who showed the shipwrecked party no small kindness, or of our own wild Teutonic forefathers, whom the Roman historian Tacitus describes so vividly. His sketch of them would in many ways do for old New Zealand. "The children running about naked and covered with filth; the men, who, when the excitement of war was over, spent their time between eating and sleeping." What a kindly contempt the cultivated Roman gentleman had for the ancestors of Schiller and Gothe, and for their miserable barley-brew, "fermented into a certain similitude of wine."
Would that our Polynesian women had been as chaste of life as the German matrons!
But we should remember that Roman colonists must have found the Briton as rough and unwashen and self-willed and prejudiced as the Maoris, and that it has taken more than a thousand years to bring us to our present form of civilisation.
It may be well to contrast the progress made in New Zealand in half a century with a somewhat
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longer period, as told by Maclear in his "History of Christian Missions."
He is speaking of Anskar, the great missionary to Denmark, who laboured there for forty years: -- "That Anskar's success was partial and confined to narrow limits was the natural result of the times..... The whole North was in confusion. His successor, Rimbert, contrived to keep the flickering spark alive..... When the work, commenced so nobly by Anskar, was resumed (sixty years after his death) its effect was limited to a great extent to the mainland, while the islanders long persisted in their old rites and still continued in some places to offer human sacrifices." Our troubles and hindrances, it must be remembered, have not arisen from the incursion of heathen, but from the inconsistent lives of more civilised Christians, and from the almost inevitable conflict when two races not speaking the same speech live side by side.
Some people in England suppose that our natives gave up Christianity when they formed themselves into the sect called "Hau-haus." It was only embraced by a certain number in the middle and south of the northern island, and grew up, as has been shown, when the people were maddened by defeat, disease, and by confiscation of their land. It had a political significance. Their King Tawhio became a spiritual power. But, wonderful to say, they never went back
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as the Northmen, to the worship of Odin, or, as the British, to Druidical rites. There was no calling on Papa, the earth-mother, nor Rangi, the sky-god, nor on Tane, who protects the forests. From the Bible, which was their only literature, they got their phraseology. The men who excited and guided them were prophets; Jehovah was to fight for them; the arm of the Lord and the sword of the Lord were on their side, to drive the English into the sea. There was wild talk about angels and much superstition, but no relapse into heathenism pure and simple. This sect is gradually dying out. In its headquarters, the King Country, the Rev. Heta Tarawhiti, who had worked faithfully for twenty years in the Lower Waikato district, has been invited to come and hold services and to open schools for Christian instruction. In the north of the island, the original seat of the Mission, the Native Church grows and prospers. There are ten Maori clergymen at work there. In the report of the Diocesan Synod, December, 1882, the Bishop of Auckland reports, that good progress is being made in the work of the Church among the native race by the Maori clergy and lay readers. Two new churches have been built by the Maoris. Many young men and women have received the rite of Confirmation. At St. Stephen's School there are forty-eight boarders. The literary work is reported to be good, and the results of the last examination
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prove "the knowledge possessed by the boys to be very sound and accurate."
We must not forget that much self-denial and personal exertion is needed on the part of the Maoris in the undertaking to build a church. It is not the case of a subscription list to which each person puts down a sum which may involve no pinch at all.
Some years ago a party of natives were induced by an English adventurer to accompany him to England. He intended to make money by exhibiting them as great chiefs. The enterprise failed, and the poor fellows were in great misery, till a lady, who has ever since been the great friend and benefactress of the Native Church--Miss Dorothea Weale--took them to her house, till she raised funds enough to send them home. One of these, a thoughtful man, called his people together on his return. He told them that he had seen much to pain and shock him in Christian England--much drunkenness, much vice; but that he had been greatly impressed by the number of churches, and that he wanted them to join with him to build one in their own village. They responded heartily to the appeal; but how were they to raise funds? He had counted the cost, and though he was in very delicate health, he and all the people, young and old, went out in the summer to collect kauri gum from the half-dried-up swamps in the neighbourhood. This commands a high price in the
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market, but is a very trying and unhealthy employment. They went on with their work till they raised nearly, £200, when they bought sawn timber and employed skilled labour. Another summer came, and they went on with the same work to get money for paint, glass, and nails. When these were at last obtained from Auckland, the men carried the heavy boxes on their backs from the coast without a murmur. The simple, earnest-hearted mover of the good work died before the church was finished. There is an inscription in it, that "This church was built to the glory of God, by Reihana Te Taukawau." For nearly twenty years Native Church Boards have been established in all parts of the northern island, which meet as our English Diocesan Synods do, every year. Laymen who are communicants are elected from each district in the archdeaneries, and with the native clergy, and the Bishop or the Archdeacon as president, discuss the several matters of business in a practical, orderly way. Each clergyman brings to these Church Boards his report of the number of communicants in his parish, of baptisms, candidates for Confirmation, the numbers of children in the schools, subscriptions towards the churches, &c. Only two years ago, Catherine Poutotora, the daughter of one of the native clergy and wife to a very intelligent Maori layman, a member of the Church Board, thus wrote in English: --
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"We went to the steamer which was to take us to Riverhead. There were ten clergymen on board, twelve laymen (all, of course, Maoris), and Bishop Cowie. On landing we took tickets for the train to Rewiti. This looked a dreary place as we climbed up a steep hill to it. It is a new 'kainga' (village), and the people have built a new church. It was growing dusk, and when we had rested we went to church for evening prayer. Hare Peka 1 gave us a short sermon, taking for his text, 'Behold how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity.' He spoke so warmly on the subject, and on the blessings of Christianity--how it brought 'ngaiwi' (tribes) from all parts; there we were, as of one 'iwi.'
"The next day was Sunday. The young women and old all well dressed, but with such gaudy colours --blue, pink, scarlet, all the colours of the rainbow. We had a grand service, and quite a nice little choir, with bass, tenor, and alto--all the clergy with their surplices on sat on each side of the pulpit. A new clergyman, Te Wiki, gave us a beautiful sermon. He took the story of the fig-tree. His style of preaching was so simple, and yet well studied--word for word so carefully given, I am sure it would be no disrespect to say that he
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reminded me much of Bishop Patteson, and his voice had the same ring."
One remarkable proof of the strength of character of the Maoris must be given in conclusion. A few years ago drunkenness prevailed to a frightful extent in all parts of the country. It has, to a great extent, ceased. In the North, thanks to the steady efforts of the native clergy, the people have, almost to a man, returned to their old habits of sobriety, and white traders with their casks of rum can no longer obtain an entrance.
The parting words of the first Bishop of New Zealand, George Augustus Selwyn -- words half prayer, half prophecy--are even now being fulfilled: "The remnant is taking root downwards, and bearing fruit upwards."
