Original Correspondence. CONSISTENCY A RARE VIRTUE.

New Zealander, Volume 2, Issue 102, 15 May 1847, Page 2

Original Correspondence. CONSISTENCY A RARE VIRTUE.

To the Editor of the New Zealander* Sir,— Your strictures on Mr. Thorpe's letter, in the New Zealander of last Saturday, must appear just and satisfactory to all impartial readers, even those not exccplcd who are but superficially acquainted with tife history of this infant colony. There is, however, another point which seems to call for a little illustration, with reference to what he deplores in the Native Christians, viz., "want o[ Christian feeling, spiritual perception?, and enlightened morality."' In his address to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, the author would make his Lordship believe, that the whole number of Native Christians in New Zealand were enveloped in the same cloud, which hangs over a few refractory Chiefs and their followers, who either made no profession of religion, or were separated from Christian communion in consequence of their conduct. Whether such a misrepresentation could have issued from the pen of a man under the influence of those "spiritual perceptions of a Christian," — the absence of which he deplores in the Natives— is a question which admits of considerable doubt. This doubt is increased by the consideration that those " spiritual perceptions and feelings of a Christian" did not lead him to ponder the imprepiiety of harrowing up those wounds, which the circumstances of the demise of C— G. — had inflicted on the minds of his relatives and friends. Nor docs his "enlightened morality," of which he considers the native Christians equally destitute, induce him even to qualify his description of the late of that lamented individual. He presumes to inform his Lordship that "Hone Heke and his followers feasted on" &c. &c. — What an uncalled for, sweeping, and disgusting expression 1 A partial disfigurement was reported as having taken place on the body of the person alluded to, but the causes remained unknown ; he was decently and honorably buried by a Clergyman, and a monument to his memory has been sent out by his relatives and friends .in token of their tender feelings of love and regard. Why then does Mr. Thorpe's " enlightened morality" not clteck him in his broad and loose assertion of a circumstance, over which even delicacy — I do not say charity — would gladly throw her mantle of forgetf ulness ? But Mr. Thorpe is not wont to do things in an ordinary way, it appears ; he states, with a precision of extraordinary logic, " that, with a few exceptions, he it afraid, there never was an adult savage in the southern hemisphere, either civilized or christianized." What an extensive stock of personal knowledge he seems tohave acquired ; he must indeed—to use his own phraseology—be a " travelled and experienced" man. His. expansive mind takes no less than the southern heini~ spheie within its iron jjrasp, lays its teeming inhabitants of various professions, one by one, in the balance ot his enlightened discrimination, and announces to JSnrl.Gi y the staitling result, "that' he is ahaid, there never was an adult savage within this lictnis>uhor& either. '\ ,li '. dor JuihtidiiiZfd." YU, icUMig to be misapprehended, he candidly admits titat, though such a thing* has never taken plnce> " there are a i'e.v exceptions 1 1" A fair index, one may conclude, to the apparatus which has produced such an extraordinary piece of literary and historical informs tion. We fnay well say, consistency is a rare virtue. A Subscriber. Auckland, May 7, 1847. [Wo were accidentally prevented from noticing that part of Mr. Thorpe's letter upon which our cor-> respondent observes, and, we can not but consider it a fortunate circumstance, as we are indebted to it for thetruly candid and sensible communication of a gentleman, who appears to be much more familiar With, the subject than we arc— « Ed. N. Z.]