PARSON AND TEACHER

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 90, 17 April 1922, Page 6

PARSON AND TEACHER

A VETERAN PRESBYTERIAN. RET. GEORGE BROWN, OF OMKH.UHGA. t P EARLY CHURCH MEMORIES. I . j WALKING TO THE WADE AND BACK. i — > Six feet of Scotch manhood, with a f constitution that must have been as ! hard as the red granite of his native . Aberdeen, the Rev. (ieorge Brown at , ninety-two looks good for the century - and more. Instead of the nono- • genarian of conventionality, huddled 1 in an armchair, stick in hand, ' hesitating of speech and with an ineradicable tendency to wander from the \ subject, you find Mr. Brown wonderfully preserved, with a clear eye, a mind that ' can follow a subject with the keenness of a setter, and still possessing that '■ faculty of balancing the present with ' the past, a faculty which usually slips ' unperccived from old people. ' He lives just opposite the old block- ' house at Onehunga, and remembers when it was loop-holed for rifle fire, ' and the militia used to drill on the ' place that not long ago was opened > Oβ a public park by Lord Jellicoe. >sr. • spite of hie ninety-two years Mr. ' Brown is punctilious in his old world ' courtesy, and in seeing his visitor to the garden gate steps out almost as p spry as a young man of thirty. In , this brisk walk lie reminds one of another remarkaMe old <»entleinan, fir John Logan Campbell, who, by the way, • was also a Scotsman. l A SPLENDID FIVE. In their early manhood these old colonists had to walk from necessity, and they never quite lose their disdain for the'effeminate tram-riding ways of t the present generation. We hear a good s deal about muscular Christianity now-*----0 days, but how many clergymen are there who would (or could) walk forty t or fifty miles a day carrying the Gospel message? The committee of the Free Church of Scotland evidently knew what it was about when it sent George Brown out to New Zealand. In thoso days Scotland and the North of Ireland used to. alternate in sending out a young minister to the colony, and to 1 this missionary zeal of the rugged old Presbyterians we owe a memorable I quinuit—the Rev. Duvid Bruce, whose , name wa s so long connected with St. Andrew's, the Rev. John Macky, of t Otara (tPapatoetoc), "Scotch" Church as . it used to bo called, who in his latter . days was quite blind but used to ride . about hie district on a faithful old . horse that seemed to know exactly f where to go, the T?ev. Thomas Norrie, 5 whose rugged character radiated from . Papakura for long, the Rex. Robert McKinnev, cf Warkworth, and the Rev. % George Brown. Even in the boyhood of middle aged • people these men of God were so old ; that they had been landmarks for many l years, and it is hard to believe that one I of the noted band is still alive. Only t laet Sunday Mr. Brown took part in the I diamond jubilee services at St. James' •> of which he ie the "father," and his wide • connection with the history of the Presbyterian Church in Auckland may be I gathered from the fact that he stands • in a similar relation to Onehunga, Avon--1 dale, Rcmuern, Takapuna, Wade (now I Silvcrdale), Henderson, Waikuinete (now - Glen Eden). Titirangi. Epsom and Ellers- • lie. r A WALKING MINISTER. Born seven years before Queen Vie- ' (oria came to the throne, Mr. Brown T was thirty yeans of age when he landed 1 in Auckland" in 1900 from the ship Jura. i Hie first sphere of duty was sufficiently ' comprehensive, a eermon at Onehnnga • in the morning, another at Avondalo in ' ihc afternoon, and a third at Hobeon f street in the infant city in the evening, but it was a mere "pocket-parieh"' to what he afterwards undertook. It perI haps does not pound much to-day, but it muet be remembered that Mr. Brown did hie circuit on foot. Service at Onehunga was held in a pensioner's cottage—it was one of the villages formed of timeexpired soldiers, mainly from Ireland — at Avondale there was a church, and at Hobson Street the service was held in what was used as a school during weekdays. This last-mentioned service afterwards developed into St. James' congregation, of which the Rev. Peter Mason wae the first ordained minister. , For a couple of years Mr. Brown kept • up his Sunday round of Onehunga, Avondale and Hobson Street, and was then ; appointed to look after th\e northern I shore of the Waitemata down as far as I the Wado, a name which has been i softened in our modern manner to Rili verdale. Every fourth week-end would [ . see the young Scotchman cross the | . Waitemata by the only ferry that than , plied, a rowing l>nat which went over . to Northcote. or Stokes Point as it was then called (and is still called on the • charts), and set off on his twenty-four , mile tramp to the Wade. Conveyances , there were none in the early sixties, except for a few bullock drays, and the ', roads were little better than mere ■ tracks. ' • J KELLYS BULLOCKS. At the Wade there was a. primitive -, caravanserai, kept by an Irishman named , Maurice Kelly, about whom there are in- , numerable etories all with a laugh in ! them. One of the beet, and one that I Kelly used to tell himself, concern* the election for the superintendent of the Province when Williamson and Gillies I fought their famous duel, or rather the , politicians fought it for them. And ■ everyone was a politician then—there was "simply no other excitement to be had. Kelly was a strong Williamsonite, and he used to tell with a merry roll of hie wild Irieh eye, how he polled "every) bleseed one of his working bullocks" at that notorious election. Such a jeu d'e«prit would hardly be possible to-day. tut half a century a?o they were not so exacting at the polling booths —and you may be sure that an Irishman would invent good likely-sounding names for the novines lie roped in to support his ' champion. ' CHUPvCH UNION. [ The services that Mr. Brown used to , hold in these out-of-the-way settlements I were very simple—just a prayer, a hymn [ or two, and an expounding of a chapter, , and all creeds, even Roman Catholics at , time*, could be eeen in the little congrer gatione. And consecrated buildings ' were few and far between, and many of the services were held in private houses. In backbloek places, where the Anglicans had a. church, the Presbyterians •would use it, and vice versa—an c example of Church union made possible ;• by the example of the broad-minded d Sel-wyn. 4 After a time Mr. Browns sphere or ]! work extended west, taking in HerV. rson, Waikumctc, Titirangi, and going

out tie far as the Mamikau Heads. Millers were busy fifty-five years ago turning the lordly kauri of the Waitakere ranges into timber, and Henderson's Mill, started by the father of Mr. Tom Henderson, the well-known yachtsman, was a busy place, while at the Manukau Heads the Whatipu Valley was the site of another mill which turned out something like 30,000.000 ft of first-class kauri, worth to-daj about C 900,000. And at Pararaha, the rocky gorge beloved of West Coast habitue*. about two miles along the West Coast towards Karekare, was another milling centre. Knowing them in their pre-sent-day solitude, it is difficult to pictuer theee valleys echoing the screech of the saw and the shouts of bushmen as in the days when Mr. Brown first knew them. Once a month he went down to see the sawmillers, and to get to the Heade he took passage in the steamer "Tom Thumb. -, built by the late Captain Cunningham, and her name well describes her tonnage and horse-power. Another spot that used to be visited by the peripatetic Scotch minister was Rivcrhead. where John Lamb had a flour mill and biscuit factory, a venture which did not make a fortune for the founder. Mr. Brown even went as far afield as Kaukapakapa, which he reached cither from the Wade, through Wainui, or by way of Riverhead, walking the whole distance, except in the rare instances that he managed to borrow a h»rse. MANUKAU PAS. V»-y few holiday makers wlio go cut to Waikowhai Park, on thfl shores of the Manukau Harbour, and boil a billy full of pipie, know that they are having their kai on grouavl which is *u!l vi Maori memories. Waikowhai was a Maori kainga even in Mr. Brown's time. and when he first came out the natives used to tramp into Onehunga with their pikaus of kumaras, potatoes, and other prodnee. At Mangere there was quite a large settlement, and before the Manukau was bridged they used to paddle across in their canoeg bringing pigs and potatoes for tho little pakcha village over the water. In the sixties, men-o'-war, the picturesque Niger, Esk, and others of that type, used to lie off" the Bluff, and there was also a naval brigade which used .to patrol up as far as Waiuku. Probably the formidable naval array on the muddy waters of the Manukau put a sensible fear into the dusky warriors of the Waikato. as they never attacked the pensioner settlement at Onehunga, and the nearest they got was to the Heads, where they cut down the flaestaff at the signal station—which was then on the north head and not on the south head as at present. SCHOOLMASTER. A couple of generations hare passed since Mr. Brown retired from active charge of the church at Onehunga, but he has not spent an idle life. He did some teaching , in Scotland before ho came to the colony, and at Onehunga he resumed the work, which appealed strongly to him. carrying on a day school in connection with the church. In those days our free secular system had not come into being, and education was provided by the various denominations. Mr. Brown afterwards became teacher of classics under Mr. Farquhar Mcßac. at the high school next to St. Andrew's Church in Lower Symonds Street, Auckland. "One of the" finest teachers I ever came across," ways Mr. Brown, speaking of Mr. Mcßae, who will be well remembered by old hands as headmaster of the Auckland Grammar school. Mr. Brown afterwards used to coach pupils privately, and many a weil known Aucklander passed through his hands., His contemporaries have all gone to their long home, and although he liken to talk about them and *h- old times, he possesses the inestimable gift of_ being still interested in everything that is going on around him.