STIGGINS IN NEW ZEALAND.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 191, 1 November 1845, Page 137

STIGGINS IN NEW ZEALAND.

1 — [FromlPaneA.]

In the galleries of the Fesuit Collge of Rome hang a series of portrait, villanously painted for the most part, of deunct brothers of that society. Round the foeheads of every tenth man or so, you see pained a little circle of vermilion — not by way of irnament, for it is an ugly head-dress, but to Sgnify that the person so decorated has met wih death in the pursuit of his missionary labours among the heathen. At the propaganda, where they teach, preach, and sing, in every language in the world, young men are pointed out to fou, who, in addition to the black dress, have a little red cord, which means that they are dooned to death. They go to China, take the native habit and dress, preach there until discovered, tad die as hundreds of their brethren have done before them. These are the men whose abominable artifices and surperstitions are constantly attacked in Exeter Hall.

This line of martyrdom is by no means the line of our missionary fathers — Fathers, indeed, and with large families, too; but though they labour more comfortably, they perform many wondrous things. We suggest, that against next May meeting (there will be plenty of time) Mr. Dandeson Coates, the Secretary of the British propaganda, should get up a picture-gillery for the edification of the goed souls' who come to subscribe to the missions, and pa; and console our martyrs before they go forth to their work. Id New Zealand, for instance, let us have pictures of their sufferings, persecutions, and the miracles they have performed — yes, miracles. There was Father Kendal : Mr. Buller tells us in his speech, that he purchased forty square miles of land with thirty-six axes. Was not this working wonders? This martyr should be painted with an axe in the corner of the picture, as Bartholomew is with a gridiron, or Catherine with a wheel.

Father Williama, that converter of the heathen, should hare a fine canvass dedicated to himself and his large family. ' "He got 11,000 acres of land out of the natives," Mr. Buller says— and Dandeson Coates declares this is what every family missionary ought to do. Father Taylor got 50,000 acres. Fairburn got 40,000 (Dandeson says they are going to give it back again— a subject for another picture). Another little army of twenty-three martyrs put in their claim for 186,000 acres. Let all their portraits be painted, and hung up in Lincoln's Inn-fields for the encouragement of other missionaries, and to induce the public to give more money to poor fellows who can't cultivate their land without capital. These proud achievements belong to the Church alone. The Roman Catholics in New Zealand have not asked or taken an acre. There is only one little job among the Weoleyans ; and what was the consequence ? The man who executed it was disowned, and immediately excluded from that unworthy and sectarian body. Let us trust he has found refuge in Dandeson's pale. Mr. Jerningham Wakefield tells us in his book, that the admirable Fathers (bless them for their benevolence and Christian good-will !) have taught the natives not to put their trust in any man of the world, or to bargain with the European traders who might cheat them, as the Fathers never do; and they call all the non-missionary colonists devils. Devils, of course — and what is the duty of their reverences ? "Why, to cast out the devils, to be sure, and to keep the natives from all danger.