AT THE ASSEMBLY

Evening Star, Issue 19406, 15 November 1926, Page 4

AT THE ASSEMBLY

MAORI MISSION WORKERS

[By A.A.B.]

WELLINGTON, November 12. One of the thriving, growing institutions of the Presbyterian Church is the Maori Mission. The convener of the committee controlling this work, whose energy the Maoris nave immortalised in song, made this plain last night in St. John’s Church to the assembly, when quoting statistics of lands and properties owned. Reference, too, was made to the mission workers. They hoard, he said, of dearth of candidates for the ministry, but the church knew no lack of Maori Mission workers. Rather had they difficulty in training and placing the number of applicants. Nor was the standard of the workers a moderate one if judged by those present, two of whom addressed the assembly. First came one, a mere lassie, who with charming diffidence, yet remarkable realism of speech, described a Maori meeting for worship. _ The Natives apparently are nothing if not religious. Their mysticism is naive in its working. The number_ twelve with them is talismanic. It is sacred to them in fixing a date for religious gatherings, because there were twelve tribes in Israel and twelve apostles of our Lord. This young speaker greatly stirred the imagination of her large audience to seeing the people arrive in the little Maori church, to almost hearing of the frequent tinkling of its bell, to an appreciation of their devoutness in what seemed a remarkable power of quoting endless Scripture reference, until a little knowledge of the language enabled her to see in this constant repetition of well-known texts a dead formalism and verbalism, into which had to be cast the living truth. The young speaker pathetically referred to her helplessness in face of such conditions, through her ignorance as yet of the language; but the convener, after she had sat down in a storm of applause, expressed himself as quite satisfied of her capability of meeting such a situation. Then came a minister, whose name is ever associated with Taumarunui. He is, as mostly every Maori is, a natural orator. He knows the Maoris to the core. • He is said to think in Maori even when he speaks English, and that for the most part in terse Anglo-Saxon terms. He is as fluent, yet turbulent, as a mountain torrent. The assembly invariably meets his appearance at the rostrum with a cheer, for the assembly is very human, and knows it is not only to be edified but entertained. “In medias res”; into the thick of things, as the old Latins would have put it, was characteristically the nature of the opening of his speech. With a wave of the hand he told us the mission must go forward. It could not help itself, for the Maoris were on the increase. He pleaded for a sympathetic understanding of them by the pakeha, their habits and customs. He cast a new light upon the “ tangi,” in its revelation as something more than a gross feast. It was an occasion for life-long friendships to he renewed; yet in presence of the shadow of an inevitably coming sorrow. It was an opportunity for the healing of life-long feuds, as in the very presence of death. , Thus he strived to fling open the Native heart and mind.