Missionaries in their times

Press, 19 February 1983, Page 16

Missionaries in their times

Samuel Ironside, in New Zealand, 18391858. By W. A. Chambers. Ray Richards and the Wesley Historical Society of New Zealand, 1982. 285 pp. $3O. The Waikato Journals of Vicesimus Lush, 1864-8; 1881-2. Edited by Alison Drummond. Pegasus, 1982. $29.95. (Reviewed by Jim Gardner)

In spile of recent attempts to displace them by whalers, traders and PakehaMaoris. missionaries remain nearest the centre of the debate on early race contacts in New Zealand. Their aims and their performance are still the grounds of sharp controversy, primarily because race relations are, in the view of some, no less precarious than they were in the 1840 s. It can hardly be denied that the missionaries played a’ vital, though not necessarily dominant, role in giving an initial and decisive twist to those relations.

What they did (or did not do) arguably still affects New Zealand in the 1980 s. Is it possible for a concerned New Zealander to be neutral about so important though remote an element in the continuing argument on Pakeha and Maori social values? Yet an old-fashioned historian is bound to counter with an old-fashioned contention; the early missionaries must be studied in terms of their own times and background, not ours. Hindsight is al! right up to a point, but bad history makes bad social prescription. Good, perceptive studies of missionaries must always be welcomed in their own right by New Zealanders. The two books under review are perhaps not major contributions, but they provide an instructive contrast on the impact of Christianity on Maori and colonial New Zealand. Samuel Ironside arrived at Mangungu in 1839 and his most important work was done at Cloudy Bay in 1840-3. The few years on either side of the Treaty of Waitangi (which Ironside signed as a representative of his church) were the period of maximum missionary influence among Maoris. He left New Plymouth for Sydney in 1858. not long before racial tension in Taranaki flared into open war. Vicesimus Lush began his New Zealand career in 1850 as Anglican vicar to the military pensioners of Howick. In 1864-8, the main period covered in this part of his journal, he was an intinerant minister to the Inner Waikato, working among both Europeans and Maoris. Lush was too late to take part in the classic expansion of the missions; Ironside was in the forefront of that brief epoch.

Yet Ironside did not stay to witness the tragic destruction of those early bright hopes by confiscation and war. Lush lived and worked among the wreckage, or on the fringes of it. He was aware of Maori bitterness and withdrawal, but his main concern was with the poverty-stricken immigrants struggling to set themselves up on confiscated Maori land. The principal deficiency of Chambers's book is that it lacks the longer perspective against which the New Zealand career of Ironside should be viewed. He chronicles in full detail the remarkable years at Cloudy Bay. but does not pose the more difficult questions: Why did the period of general missionarysuccess come when it did 9 What were the long-term effects of the work of Ironside? What was the nature of the Maori conversions so carefully enumerated in his reports? What happened to the Maoris who responded so well to his pastoral care? In 1873 James Buller was deploring the decline of the Methodist Maori mission. It is impossible not to contrast this book with J.M.R. Owens's study of the Wesleyan mission 1819-27, which Chambers does not include in' his bibliography. Professedly non-Christian. Owens does face up to the more rigorous questions of cross-cultural evangelism, even if his answers are not always convincing. It would be interesting to know the views of the Wesleyan Historical Society which assisted Owens and sponsored Chambers. The latter’s book is described in a society statement as a "major work by a careful and diligent scholar." Certainly it is based on wide research and is well documented, but a "major" study of Ironside would have presented a more incisive analysis of his character and methods. Nevertheless there is lucid narrative and extensive quotation from original sources. Methodist readers looking for scenes of missionary faith and courage will find much of this book an inspiration. Ironside must be reckoned one of the outstanding evangelists among Maoris. Perhaps the best-known episode of his career was his unflinching action following the Wairau affray (1843). He risked his life to bury the dead, helped to check further Maori vengeance, calmed the Wairau, but refused to condone the folly of that ill-fated expedition. Lush's Inner Waikato ministry was concerned less with declining Maori communities than with struggling European ones. He did not face the

dangers and challenges experienced b\ Ironside. Nevertheless Selwyn's warning to Lush that his task in New Zealand would be hard and poorly paid was borne out in the 1860 s. Rollo Arnold has shown that in the North Island Methodist ministers were, in fact, better off than Anglican priests at this time. Lush’s salary was miserable and always in arrears; he had to depend on all sorts oi private hospitality for food and shelter; his long journeys on.horseback left him frequently wet through and wretchedly cold. Clearly the help of English relatives was vital to his pastoral work and to his family's livelihood. Mrs Drummond has made another fine job of editing this third and last section oi Lush's journal. Its main importance is as social evidence about middle-class adaptation to New Zealand conditions and about the "small man’s frontier" in Auckland. From both books a wealth of material for analysis of the careers of early New Zealand ’ clergy can be quarried’ Two points especially struck me. It has been asserted that missionaries should have married into Maori society instead of setting up little domestic enclaves of middle-class England. The absurdity of such views should be self-evident. Indeed. Ironside and Lush would not have come to the colony without the support of a beloved wife: they recruited their strength for difficult tasks in the frail security .of an English home. Again, it has been claimed that missionaries should have fostered Maori religion instead of seeking to destroy it. One of the strengths of Chambers's book is that it describes fully the English background to Ironside's work in NewZealand. In a most solemn commissioning the duty of English-style conversion had been laid upon him. He retained vivid memories of great Sheffield congregations applauding yet another missionary's success in winning souls for Christ in savage lands. The visible reward of his work was a similar report and a similar reception. To create retrospectively for the missionaries possibilities which did not exist is one historical dead-end. Another is. of course, the simplistic attitude of some Christians who do not face up to the problems of cross-cultural evangelism. The surest antidote to either overvaluing or undervaluing the missionaries’ work is to read extensively in their journals (many of which are published), with as full a knowledge aS possible of the context in which they laboured.