THE FIRST CHRISTMAS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 10, 10 December 1936, Page 17

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS

IN NEW ZEALAND »

Christinas began in the heart ol God. Its centuries of earthly story have origin in an eternal purpose. When, in due time, it was born in Bethlehem of Judea, its human history was cradled in the longings of | mankind, taught through the inspired eagerness of a great religious people to look for a Messiah, a Redeemer, an invincible, benignant King. So earth’s first Christmas caino out of Heaven, ushered by the rapture o! hope in a Jewish maiden’s heart, heralded with angelic songs heard by wondering shepherds, anil made radiant by a star that beckoned wise men to devout homage. It was all beauteous'y wonderful, that giving oi Christmas to the world in a Hob Land. Given that all lands might become holy, Christmas must needs go out to country after country, and so at last it came to iliese islands of the distant sea. Tasman and his men kept the sacred festival in Old World fashion of worship and revel as they -kirted the shore on which they fear-

ed to s ot, and soon afterwards went ana.', leaving in their wake, as token of their Christmas thought, the name Three Kings tor the islets seen I mid lor ever larewclicd at that time of Epiphany. Next came Cook, alter a long gap of years, and in those very waters, as ho crossed the track of Tasman near the Three Kings, he kept his first Christmas here, in the effing of our coast.

I But New Zealand had no Christmas lof its own until the over-memorable visit of Mnrsden, bent on blessing the Maori with Christian knowledge and faith. On Christmas Day itself be broke the unreckoned silence by proclaiming to untutored but not unheedful Maori ears the “good tidings of great joy,” planting here the rapture and the hope that had elsewhere uplifted other peoples. So, by the way of 1642 and 1769, dates too deeply awash in the historical tide to be easily seen as stepping-stones, the great Christian season arrived in 1814 to stay. “BEHOLD I JlillNG YOU GOOD TIDINGS.” Dn November 19, 1811. the missionary ship Active, with Marsden, some Europeans, and Maoris on board, in addition to the''officers and crew, left Sydney Cove for New Zealand, and after a delay of nine days in an outer boy sho put out on the open sea. The Three Kings were sighted on December 16, and on Thursday, Decem-

j ber 22. the Active anchored off Rangi- | hona, in llie Hay of Islands, where i the ocean surges often break on little | Oihi beach. Saturday was a wonder- \ ful Christ mas five; furious Maori j ceremonials of welcome and much j after-stir. The Maori chief, Ruatara, !" ho w : .th his uncle. Hongi. and others j lad bean bsiriendcd by Marsden in Sydney, erected a llagsfaff on the ; height at Oihi ; about half-an-aere below enclosed with a fence: a pulpit :nd reading desk (their bases made of ;arts of a canoe) in tlie centre; these dressed with white duck he had brought from Sydney and blackdyed Maori cloth ; some old canoes turned bottom-up for special seats nearby. “The whole was becoming i mid bad a solemn appearance,” says Marsden, to whom it all was a surj prise. On Sunday, Christinas morning, ; Marsden left the ship about ten o’clock with all the occupants except the master and one man. In the /resellce of Maoris and Europeans he

i preached from a Christmas Day text, “Behold. I bring-you good tidings of great joy,” prior to which, his “very soul” stirred almost uncontrollably, lie announced the Old Hundredth, pitching the tune. Returning to the Active, Marsden administered the Holy Sacrament, and then was happy in His meditation. Later, he sets down all the story of that first Christmas in New Zealand, writing out/ of a full heart: “In the above manner tlie Gospel has been introduced into New Zealand, and I fervently pray that tlie glory of it may never depart from its inhabitants till time shall be no more.” To-day, at Oihi, in the Bay of Islands, the story can be read in eloquent symbols —the holy place is deserted: The slopes of Ruatara’s embattled pa are empty of all sound save that of the wind and the sen and the hovering birds. What was a

garden near the homes of the pioneers is merely a few broken trees, their fruit degenerated through neglect. The only visible home that is left is a littie enclosed plot, the burial-groun’d of King (a settler who, with Kendall and Hall, came to New Zealand with Marsden), and most of his family. Stands the memorial cross, inscribed “On Christmas Day, 1814, the first Christian service in New Zealand was held on this spot by the Rev. Samuel Marsden,” but about its base are fragments of its original top. shattered as it fell at llie rude buffeting of a tempest: the substituted carven stone lacks the upward-pointing wedge it first bore. Everywhere touches of wrack and loss and death. Nevertheless, the story is alive. The mission has gone on.

And that is the way with Christmas. It has travelled out and out, from a birth-land become scarred and broken and bereft; but, since at. its heart are the life and love of God, it blesses every haunt of men cherishing it.