Untitled

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 287, 4 September 1928, Page 3

A writer in an exchange recently commenting on a sermon delivered by the Rev. W. Lawson Marsh on the subject of worry, said that it was fear which made a Maori sit down and die after he had unwittingly committed a breach of “tapu.” An authority on Maori tradition, speaking on the subject, said that the statement of the critic was most mis; leading, not only as regarding the Maori people, but also European peoples as well. He said that perhaps .this was never more clearly seen than in a case which happened in our own country a few years ago. An old man nearly a hundred years old was very proud that he was the oldest inhabitant at one ot our institutions for aged people, and felt elated when visitors inquired about him, but one day it came to bis knowledge that a man two years older than himselt, just a hundred years of age, had been admitted to the institution. His chief claim to distinction and one of his chief joys in living had been taken from him. Without any trace of jealousy wtoi” turned his face to the wall and died full of contentment that he had lived so loiie, just as the old Maori chief of a former dav when he found that his eldest son could now lead the men of the tribe Into battle better than he could wrapped Ms mat more closely ' ,ro ' lnd hi “' , sn A thankfulness in his heart that he had reared so valiant a son, went to a corner of his whare, and without fear set his face to the setting sun and passed uwaj.