WESLEYAN HOME MISSIONARY MEETING.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXXXI, Issue 7048, 9 October 1900, Page 3

WESLEYAN HOME MISSIONARY MEETING.

A large congregation assembled at the Wesleyan Church on Monday evening, to listen to the deputation (Rev. T. G. Hammond and Ropata Tahu Potiki), speaking on behalf of the Home Mission Fund. Mr L. S. Barraclough occupied the chair. Ropata Tahu Potiki during his address referred to the early history of the natives — how they came to this land from the islands in two canoes tied together. He said the early missionaries commenced a grand work, but the traders came with the firewater and tobacco to put out the fire lit by missionaries. The speaker- strongly urged a crusade among his people to help to lift them up, and lead them back to tho Christian roligion. The Rev. T. G. Hammond also addressed the meeting, and referred to the bad influences they had to fight against, for often when he visits the natives on the Sunday he finds the pakeha there to trade, and when there is a tangi the pakehas flock to the pah, and there encourage them in their heathenish customs. The deputation received a hearty vote of thanks. This was the most successful meeting of the kind held for years.