SPIRITUAL LIFE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 55, 29 November 1937, Page 7

SPIRITUAL LIFE

Revival Among Maori People

BISHOP IMPRESSED

He had been impressed with the rca J interest in religion aud the revival of spiritual life among the Maori people generally aud especially among the candidates for Confirmation in his recent tour of the various centres of North Auckland, said the Bishop of Ao-tea-roa, Rt. Rev. F. A. Bennett, speaking at the Maori meeting-house, Lower Hutt, yesterday, when he administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to a number of his. people. He read from a letter he received recently from a young Maori church worker: “I have received the Word that alone satisfies the soul, enlightens the spirit and puts the body in its right relationship with God. I was like a man lost in the bush, climbing and descending, turning this way and that way, gasping for breath. But now I am out of the bush, and the path is clear ahead.” This man, said Bishop Beuuett, had got something that the world could not give him. Ho was in the deeper part of the spiritual life, closer to the Kingdom of God. In another letter he had been told that the young Maori people were holding prayer meetings in one centre on a Saturday night? They chose Saturday night because it Avas the night given over to the young men to enjoy the best way they could. Those who came to the meetings were those who really wanted to. At first only four came, now there were six. God’s kingdom must grow through every Christian and they had to ask themselves how efficient they were as Christians in spreading the knowledge of their faith, continued Bishop Bennett. He that was not fully dedicated was half-hearted. There was an old woman who bowed her head at the mention of the names of Jesus and Satan. When the clergyman remonstrated with her she said Satan was the rangatira of this world and she had to bow to his name so she would have the best of luck. How many of them were in the same position? They could not be neutral—they were cither with God and extending His kingdom or against Him. There was no half-way. Nothing stodd still in His presence; those who were not going forward were going back. When he was aboard the Tahiti when she broke down in the -Pacific and it was thought there was no hope of rescue, a man came to him saying he wanted to make a confession before the end came. His confession was that he had been brought up a Christian by his mother, but 30 years before had gone into the world to make his own way. In that time he had never entered a church or prayed. Now he was faced with death, he felt, in his own words, “what an awful fool he had been.” It was the hardest thing to do to find words of comfort for the deathbeds of persons who had led a life in which there had been no thought of God. The religion of many of them was only external ; it had not sunk deep into their hearts.

The Rev. Paul Temuera read the exhortatio to the candidates and preached in the evening at a special service at St. Augustine’s Church, Petone, at which a Maori choir assisted.