METHODIST MISSIONS

Evening Star, Issue 17922, 18 March 1922, Page 10

METHODIST MISSIONS

CENTENARY CELEBRATION.

A MEMORIAL PILGRIMAGE

(Written for the Evening Star by A, B. Chappell.]

The Centenary Conference is over. The final reading of 'stations, locating the ministers according to that principle tff jmnuaL appointment which distinguishes Methodism, has been to-day approved. Weighty matters left over from the previous ten days’ discussions have been decided. There has been brief adjournment to the Town Hall to share the city’s honoring of the delegates commissioned to convey centenary greetings from overseas Methodism—the Eev. Grainger Hargreaves (Great Britain), Bishop C. E. - Locke (America), and the Rev. A. M‘Galium (Australia). The conference journal of the proceedings has been duly signed, and the benediction pronounced. Now, as 10 o’clock approaches, there .wend their various ways to the King’s wharf many of the members of the conference, and some others, to join the Northern Steamship Company’s Ngapuhi, en route for the Bay of Islands and Whangaroa, in New Zealand’s Far North. They realise fully at last why, out of turn, Auckland was chosen for their Church’s animal conference location this year, that made possibly this pilgriraagd to those northern parts" whore, a hundred years ago, the Church’s missionaries nobly began their •work in the evangelisation of New Zealand. THE NGAPUHI, " Ngapuhi ” —with what keen snggestlveness the name glistens in gold on the steamer’s bow to-nigbt beneath the moon! It beckons into memory’s flickering life shadowy but gigantic figures, swarthy, stalwart, mighty. Not far away, indeed, whore at the Tamaki the ocean waters of east and west nearly meet, the canoes of the great Ngapuhi tribe were beached and earned across, what time they made onslaughts on the Ngatiwhatua. But there the Ngapuhi were on alien soil—a way they bad. Their homo was in the north ; they have left their form of Maori speech imprinted from Cape Rodney on the east (just beyond Kawau Island), and the Kaipara on the west, right up to Kadtaia, where the tail of the fish of Maui (as the Maori calls the North Island) narrows for its final thrust toward tropic seas. That area, holding ‘Whangaroa, the Bay of Islands, Hokianga, and Whangarei within its scope, was destined to be the scene of Ohnstianity’s earliest enterprise amid Maori ferocity and superstition; to the Ngapuhi the Rongo-pai was first of all made known. ■ What lion-hearted men and women those

white evangelists of a hundred years ago were, settling amid these warrior tribesmen! nto the whirl of taiaha and toma-

hawk, of mere and patu-patu, they brought the tranquilising truth of the Son of Man. For the frenzied haka and the weird incantation they gave the sweet hymns that breathed a divine fraternity. And right well did the Ngapuhi respond. Not all, nor all at once. Across the stage that;memory sets there_ flit awesomely martial actors, all menacing and bloody. Hongi, the relentless avenger, stands for . a moment, as_ ho stood once over vanquished Hinaki, slain, mutilated, and dishonored according to savage practice. Term! and To Ara, Kawiti and Hone Hoke •load the marauding, slaughtering tana. But there «tre redeeming features. Hongi ■ learned to value some things the pakeha . brought better than the coveted mi that spat flame and murderous hall. Te Ara ' protected the civilising stranger. Hon© Heke kept his plighted word to the missionaries however zealously he hated the flag that flew on Maiki, above Kororay»V»j and he even became a lay reader. Burlier there was Rutara (Marsden’a friend and sponsor in the Parramatta chaplain’s magnificently heroic venture in the Bay of Islands) and Korokoro (from

making Christmas morning of 1814, got their cue as to when to rise up and when to be seated again). In the thrilling twenties and thirties there were Tamati Waka Neno and his elder brother, Eruera Patnono, both warriors who knew the boons of peace and afterwards proved unswervingly- loyal to that Waitangi Treaty, which, perchance, had never been signed in 1840 but for their influence. The glory of one was to save the land from Heke’s passionate fury, and of the other to spread his shepherd care about a terror-stricken mission party fleeing from a ' savage raid that had wrecked their home' and sought their lives. Oh! but there were great men among the Ngapuhi or of a moral rank that makes their memory enduringly illustrious; and even from the darkness of foul deeds done by some less noble there gleam unexpected flashes of virtue. Well did many of them vindica/to by their lives the hopes that drew the early missionaries hither-. Surely this is one of those old Maori worthies coming through the throng to the steamer’s. gangway! Head and shoulders above most of the crowd, he looks quickly back this way and that, his dark eyes giving back the light that shines from an electric globe above the steamer’s main deck, and even his brown skin showing lustrous where the cheeks fall to the grizzled moustache that only half hides a very mobile mouth. Patuono redidivus: a Sard among the prophets! No, indeed; no Ngapuhi of old materialised; not a Saul, but a prophet. This is the Rev. Ropata Tahupotiki Haddon, superintendent of the Taranaki Methodist Maori Mission. He goes to share the centenary rejoicing in the far north. See, about him are others of hie race, Maori men (some, like himself, in immaculate clerical attire), and Maori women (some carrying little babies, too young to understand the occasion of this migration, and, by the same token, too young to leave at home). Rubbing shoulders with them in the swift embarkation are conference dignitaries and) humbler representatives, many laymen from other parts of the Dominion, with -a few Auckland folk, and, most interested and interesting, here and there a grandson or grand-d'aughter of the missionary pioneers—these last feeling a tug at the heart that the north has to-night for nobody else. Soon all will be in it: they alone will be of it, home again where childhood's scenes or stories make everytiling familiar. . How eloquent this_ somewhat motley group, motley despite its denominational unity, ig of the changes that a century has seen! The Customs officials count the passengers as they file along the gangway-two hundred, two hundred and ten, two hundred and twenty, four more—another will make up the maximum fixed by the authorities. Ten minutes past the hour—the Ngapuhi is off her -usual run to-night, and her customary punctuality is abandoned “Let go forVdi!” Somebody has missed the trip of a lifetime. THE INSPIRING PAST.

Out into the open sea past sleeping Rangitoto the steamer goes; her wake, tossing back the moonbeams in sparkling splinters, lifts clear above the smooth surface of the sea. There _ is scarcely a ripple. It will .be like blxis for all the journey, north and bode. The old, Jonah joke is to be spoiled for ever—at least where Methodist ministers voyage. Afterwards the genial skipper makes amazed, acknowledgment, “Now I shall know," says he, “that when a Methodist minister comes aboard I ara sure' of a fair passage; but I once ” —ha ruthlessly rescues what ho can of the sea traditbn that has been handed down from the sailors who throw overboard the knave that tried to keep away from the Nineveh —“ had five Presbyterian, parsons .on a trip down to Tauranga, and "it took us four days and a-half,” soon the stewards and stewardesses are busy, led by their good-hearted chief, in the final allotment of sleeping berths. There will be a hatful of silver brought to them ere the return voyage ends, with a brotherly word of thanks; but of that they know even less than we do now, and they seem to serve us for the fun of the thing. Well, they won’t have another trip quite like this—for'a'century, at_ any rate! Every available'nook of the ship is fitted with extra bunks or shakedowns—-

smoking room, forehold, afterhol'd, dining saloon tables, alleyways, skylights, scats, deck spaces. What matters i - ? This is a family gathering. There will be no “ape and tiger” struggle for berths or table places at meals. To make the very best of a good thing for everybody is the determination of the hour. The moonlight invites us to stay on deck. Snatches of hymn tunes are heard. Joyous laughter mingles with quiet speech. It is all so uniquely provocative of cheerful musing upon human hopes and deeds. Somehow history appears, every bit of it, sacred. An all-loving Hand seems to stretch across the years to us. Why not? Soon Tiritiri’s lighthouse is far behind, and Hawaii is lost in the shadows. The coast line grows faint. Above the great constellations slowly swing, and the moon rides high. The sea is the jewelled floor of a vast temple. Here and there a guiding gleam from capo or island shows like a glowing censor marking an aisle. As sleep comes, to the processional played by the throbbing engines, we seem to be heeding lor the past, fortuned 10 glimpse a brighter future as our spirits pass through the sacred portals of a century ago. (To be continued.)