CHAPTER V. J. F. POMPALIER.
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CHAPTER V.
J. F. POMPALIER.
IN 1838, a small vessel came into the Hokianga with a new and disturbing element in the mission field. It brought the Roman Catholic Bishop Pompalier and two priests. They chose for their first abode the mouth of one of the tributary streams. Not long afterwards, the Bishop removed his head-quarters to the little town of Kororareka, in the Bay of Islands; and, after its destruction, to Auckland. He was liberally supplied with funds by the Propaganda Fidei, and soon had as many as twenty priests, besides lay-brethren, at his command, for service in New Zealand. They were all Frenchmen. It is to be regretted that the agents of that society are more zealous in treading in the steps of Protestant missionaries, than in breaking up new ground, in purely heathen lands. This has been the case, at least, at the Antipodes, to the great scandal of our common Christianity. Some of those priests were located in different places, while others travelled up and down the country. They were all zealous in their vocation, and made efforts worthy of a better cause. The resident priests gave praiseworthy attention to the improvement of the social life and industrial pursuits of their neophytes.
Lieutenant the Hon. H. Meade, R.N., in his "Ride
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through the Disturbed Districts of New Zealand in 1864-5," gives the following picture of one of these self-denying men:--
"After leaving Lake Rotorua, the character of the country we passed through to-day was dismal in the extreme, the path winding along barren valleys and through vast crater-like basins of pumicestone, sparsely covered with scattered tufts of a poor kind of buffalo-grass. In one of these terraced basins we found two little whares, one of which was surmounted by a cross: these were the church and dwelling of Father Boibeaux, a French Roman Catholic missionary, who has been out here about five years. We gladly stopped for an hour or two, and partook of the good father's hospitality. It would be difficult to conceive a life of greater devotion and self-denial than this. Wifeless, childless, with no companionship save that of his little congregation of natives, most of whom live at great distances from their priest,-- no hope of ever again seeing his native land, or returning to the society of educated men,--his life is passed in his Master's work, in a place where even the barest necessaries of life are procured with the greatest difficulty. He spoke with affection of his native friends, and hopefully of the ultimate progress of civilization and Christianity amongst them; though he confessed that, under the combined influence of the war and the new fanaticism, he, as well as the Protestant missionaries, have almost entirely lost the influence enjoyed in years gone by."
In one of the Native Commissioners' Reports for Opotiki, I find this record: "The Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. J. Alletage, seems to advise them in their worldly affairs with great zeal and judgment." In this direction they made good use of that quiet, but potent, agency of "Sisters of Mercy," who taught boarding-schools of Maori and half-caste girls.
Highly coloured reports of their great success, found their way into the pages of the "Annals of the Propagation of the Faith." They grossly deceived themselves, if they believed all that they wrote respecting their glowing triumphs. Without the slightest wish to underrate their merits, I may say, with much satisfaction, that
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they failed to withdraw the converts of the Protestant missionaries, to any appreciable extent. For this, much was due to the fact that the Scriptures were in their hands; and, through the liberality of the British and Foreign Bible Society, they had been very widely circulated.
They found many adherents from those who had resisted the appeals of the Protestant missionaries, and who regarded them as a rival sect; and, by the free use of presents, they drew many of them for a while. But all that was illusive; and when the novelty had gone, it was estimated that not more than three per cent. of the Maori population were professed Romanists.
They took the name of Pikopo. This no doubt was maorified from the Latin word episcopos; but, unfortunately for them, it had an ominous meaning in the Maori tongue,--creeping in the dark. Their untiring energies were worthy of praise; but, unhappily, were fruitful chiefly of strife and discord. It was their one great object to assail and denounce the missionaries who had preceded them.
They carried about a picture of a chronological tree, representing the Protestant bodies as the lopped-off branches, to be "cast into the fire." Thus "endless genealogies which minister questions" were brought forward, to the confusion of the people; in the place of the elementary truths of the Gospel--the "milk for babes"--which they stood in need of, in their spiritual infancy.
I do those men no wrong when I accuse them of sowing the seed of division among a people who were but just coming to the light. As Frenchmen too, perhaps unconsciously, in their zeal, their influence was
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as adverse to the sovereignty of our Queen as to that of the Saviour. In 1862, C. H. Brown, Esq., reporting on the state of the tribes on the south-eastern coast said:--
"I fear that the Roman Catholic priests, intentionally or unintentionally, have done the natives much harm, in a political sense. It is especially from the Roman Catholic natives we heard such taunts and objections as these: 'In the beginning you brought us the faith; we received it blindly; we have since seen the wrong of it. Now you bring us another law, we are going to be more cautious. Yours is a land-taking, a man-destroying Church. The French are a good people; they don't take land. You have deserted the faith, and set up the Queen as your God.'"
They were as prone to challenge the Protestant missionaries to open controversy, as they were to make a systematic attack upon their right to teach and preach. Their letters, in their own organ, show this. Take the following out of many, which I select at random:--
"We were informed that the apostles of error had arrived before us at Hokianga, and I resolved to hasten to oppose them, before they should have time to make any progress. One day, we hope, this people will be made to understand that they are following mercenaries, who usurp the title of pastors."
"Heresy has everywhere gained some of the infidels; happily, the sheep are still defended against the fury of the wolves."
"The Protestants trembled at our approach, and made every effort to excite persecution against us."
"On the 22nd of January last, twenty savages, having many chiefs at their head, appeared early in the morning before our house. Their project, as I afterwards learned, was no other than to burn the objects we had with us for divine worship, and to throw the bishop and the priest into the river that flows under his dwelling."
The following extract from a letter of Bishop Pompalier will show how near akin was his own superstition to that of the Maori:---
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"Some days ago, a child, very dangerously ill, was brought to me for baptism; the father, who is a native, accompanied it himself, and ex-pressed a wish to be allowed to share the grace of salvation. I hastened to confer the sacrament on the child: at the end of two days it had perfectly recovered--a circumstance which made a very favourable impression on the minds of the natives."
Referring to a heathen tribe, a priest says:--
"I found them unshaken in the faith, notwithstanding all the seduction and threats which had been held out by the Protestants to draw them over to their sect."
Again he says:--
"The savages are opening their arms to us on all sides: we have scarcely more to do than to pass through a tribe to convert it."
They meant well, I fain hope, but they did evil. Their self-denial, their laborious efforts, their fervent zeal, were worthy of respect; but, alas! all was misdirected. Perhaps it was because, as Frenchmen, they had mean thoughts of Protestants, they were eager to invite public discussion, where they found themselves at a great disadvantage.
It is questionable if, at any time, the cause of religion is promoted by such moral gladiatorial displays; but with a people of so limited a knowledge of the subject, the result rested more on the skill of the debater, than on the power of truth. One of those encounters, at the Bay of Islands, in 1841, is thus described by the late Archdeacon H. Williams:--
"The priests had been very diligent in giving the natives every piece of information upon the subject, according to their view, of ours being a corrupt and fallen Church; full of adultery, in consequence of its ministers being married, and with much more of like importance. When I was at Kororareka, the natives came upon me with these charges; and as I was leaving the beach, three French priests, with their frightful hats and long black robes, came and gave me a challenge to meet them
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publicly, to discuss in Maori the merits of this question, to which I consented. The points brought forth were the evidence of the Church of Christ, and the second commandment. They came forward with great pomp, with about one hundred volumes. We had our Bible which of course they would not admit. I had, therefore, a Douay Bible, which they could not reject I told them that would suffice my purpose. They tried to lead us into the wilderness, but could not; we therefore chastened them with their own weapon. It is impossible to give you anything like a correct account. They got angry several times, and, as usual, never kept to the question. The interest among the Europeans was considerable. I could not have thought they had any interest or care in the matter; but the second day put them to the trial, as it came on to rain hard. They stood their ground bravely till the whole was concluded. Our chairman had much trouble to keep the priests in order. I have had two discussions since this. They are now very quiet. The countenance given to them by nominal Protestants is very painful, but how can it be avoided? We endeavour to proceed as quietly and carefully as we can. The present disturbed state of the country gives them an advantage. Their number of natives is very small."
Bishop Williams was also drawn into a discussion with a Romish priest at Table Cape before a large body of natives. This priest began by drawing on the ground a diagram of the Roman Empire, whence he proceeded to show that Rome was the head of all the Churches, and that, as Peter was the first bishop, all who differ from them must be wrong. He had much to say about councils, etc., but as this was a subject in which the native mind could feel no interest, it was useless to follow it up. When the Scriptures were appealed to, the priest tried to throw discredit upon our translation, saying that the Scriptures had been committed to the Church of Rome, and that we had stolen the book from them.
This accusation was met by an illustration which the natives would well understand. When water is wanted,
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each one takes, from the stream, what he requires. The priest's Bible was a translation--water which the Church of Rome had taken into its own vessel. We did not interfere with that: we went to the original source, and had taken up the water for ourselves. This discussion lasted more than four hours, and the result was that a goodly number of the priest's followers came over to the Protestant side.
It was a great thing that the Bible was in the hands of the Maories, and had been so well read by numbers of them, that they could apprehend the force of an appeal "to the law and to the testimony." But on another occasion, a priest proposed to the Rev. R. Taylor to test their differences by jumping into a fire, and whoever came out uninjured should be credited with the true faith. He was asked if he would jump in first, but to that he would not agree. Bishop Williams was challenged, at another time, to the same ordeal, and there it ended. Without a wish to detract from any credit due to those men for their self-sacrifice, and their devotion to what they believed to be their duty, yet from what I know of the fruits of their teaching, among the Maories at least, I cannot better specify them than in the words: "An enemy hath done this."
