CONCERNING A TEXT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 223, 20 September 1935, Page 6

CONCERNING A TEXT.

Last Sunday we hailed gentle spring in Wellington in appropriately Antarctic weather. There was snow lower down on the ranges than it has been sinco last summer; it blew nippingly, it rained in furious flurries, then it hailed. But wo did not neglect our church duties for all that; and I listened with pleasure to the resonant, vigorous voice of tho Governor-General reading the lessons at tho leading Presbyterian Church in the city and then to an excellent sermon by tho minister on the blessings of pcace. My enjoyment was all the greater because I happened to hear it over the radio, without the ordeal heroically endured by the Ministers of the Crown, who attended in their belltoppers and ceremonial raiment. Really the radio is tho best possible home missionary. And it makes for liberality and breadth of religious tastes. If you don't carc for the Methodist sermon this morning you can switch on to tho fine music of a Roman Catholic choir.

But tho greatest interest in that Presbyterian sermon, to me at any rate, was tho text of historic memory. The Minister based his discourse on Psalm 80, 10th verse: "Mercy and truth arc met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." Tho good man in the pulpit would possibly have been shocked somewhat had lie known that at least one of his unseen audience thought not of David the sweet singer or yet of the Leaguers of Geneva, but of Te Kooti the Maori bush general. That text was Te Kooti's greeting to the Hon. John Bryce, the Native Minister, when tho representative of the Government met tho Maori rebel at Mangaorongo, in th© King Country, in 1883, and claspcd hands in token of reconciliation and peace. The shrewd old bushfighter was a poet in his way and he was wonderfully well versed in tho Scriptures. Certainly he was more of a Bible student than most pakehas. Mercy and truth, righteousness and peace: To Kooti chose skilfully his words when ho recited that psalm. He'himself typiified Truth ("To Pono") and Righteousness ("Te Tika"). The Government represented Mercy and Peace. A very fair allotment of the respective roles, with all the advantage on the part of tho .Maori. I cannot rccall at the moment honest John Bryce's reply, but I am tolerably certain that his response to Te Kooti's text was neither so poetic nor so deliciously appropriate to the great occasion. * —J.C.