Letter 2. TO THE RIGHT REVEREND Dr. SELWYN, EPISCOPALIAN BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator, Volume V, Issue 354, 24 July 1844, Page 3

Letter 2. TO THE RIGHT REVEREND Dr. SELWYN, EPISCOPALIAN BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND.

My Lord, — In your communication to our District Committee, of October 31 st ISI3, (our answer to which you will long 'ere this have recived,) your lordship is very free to declare the Wesleyans to be "schismatics," their ordination to be invalid, and their baptisms, to be at most, but the mere acts of laymen." f)f course, we can admit no part of this sweeping sentence to be correct; and if your Lordship will only submit it to be tried in written debate, by the test of Scripture and right argument, we have no fear of being able to substantiate any ecclesiastical claims which, as a part of Christ's visible Chuch, we feel ourselves entitled to advance. Such bare declarations, however, when unsupported by a show of reason, whether proceeding from your Lordship, or from any other source, may generally speaking, as far as the most intelligent part of a civilized community |is concerned, be allowed to pass off, as a very innoxious kind of sentiment; such men will look for the proof, as well as the assertion ; and the one will be surrendered, whenever tf.e other is found deficient. W.th the unthinking class, however, even of our own counttymen, such declarations will be considered irrcirag-,-ble, were it for no other reason than because they are put foith by men of acknowledged learning and superiority. In this case, the evjl is great, inasmuch as it adds intolerance to ignorance, and a spirit of religious bigotry to a naturally contracted mind. Thence has arisen that feeling of rancorous and impassioned hostility of the lower order of Papists against Protestantism, and of the same class ot' Protestants, the one against the other, and such a feeling will continue to be exercised in all its malignity, so long as it is fostered and maintained by sentiments of an intolerant and exclusive character.

Now, I would respectfully submit (o your Lordship's judgment, as to Avhat is likely to be the ultimate consequence upon the native character, of the propagation of such exceptionable and high-church views, as thore to which I have alluded. AVill it serve the promotion of their best interests, whether domestic, civil, or religions? Upon your Lordship's arrival in New Zealand you found the natives generally settled down in a state of domestic peace, and family feuds are ended, and parents and children worshipping God together, according to their limited knowledge. Perhaps one part of the family had been baptized into the Episcopalian, and another part into the Wesleyan Church. Your Lordship appears amongst them, and tells them that they must no longer worship together, but separately, and that the teachers of the one party are no longer to be allowed to instruct the other: — thar they are a distinct communion, and that all the distinctions of the Church are to be rigorously observed. 1 here refer to my own district. And what, my Lord, is the effect? Why, the Scripture is literally fulfilled, that "a man's foes shall be they of his own household: " and here we have the awful sight of father and son, mother and daughter, tuaiana and teina, hating each other with a mortal hatred. In some cases they are dividing themselves into separate Pas, — in other case into separate divisions of the samy Pa; and in one village, within eight miles of this settlement, has the party spirit risen so high between near kinsmen, that one of them has erected a fence across the kainga, and lined it thickly with fern — not as a breakwind, or shelter, but, as he told me, "that one party might not be able even to look upon the other! " I know your Lordship would disapprove of every thing of the kind; but such is the natural effect of an exclusive religion upon an uninstructed mind. You restrict them in ecclesiastical communion, though of the most indifferent character; but they know not where to limit the restriction, and hence we find it extended to their worship, to their cultivations, to their dwellings, and to their food. They will neither eat together, sit together, nor commune together, and a kind of embryo-per-fiecution is already being carried on, on both sides ; I say on both sides, for though they are far from being equally guilty, yet I lament to say, that many of my own natives, excited to action by the intolerance of the Church party, have more than once exceeded the bounds of Christian temperance. But a short time ago, a serious altercation arose between the natives of Orangituapeka and Waimate, three days journey to the southward of this place : the inhabitants of the former Pa declared, that they had

adopted the bishop's tikanga, and refused to allow their Missionary, the Rev. J. Skevington, (who resides within two miles of the place) to visit them ; at the same time using very contemptuous language towards the natives of Waimate. Feelings rose high between the two parties, and but for the prompt measures of their Missionary, a scene which had commenced with intolerance, would have ended in blood.

My Lord, in the introduction of High-Chur-chisminto New Zealand, you seem mostegregiously to have miscalculated the Native character. Naturally proud and domineering and resentful, the inculcation of any principles of a kindred tendency, upon the mind of a semi-civilized New Zealander, must of necessity be fraught with danger. I have already alluded to its evil effect on the domestic harmony of our people, nor do I apprehend that any greater benehl is likely to accrue to their civil condition. It was rightly considered as a glorious proof of the influence of the Gospel in New Zealand, when divided and contending tribes were brought to lay down their arms, to submit to negociations of peace, and to forbear all further depredations on each other. Considering the natural restlessness of their minds, the ferocity of their courage, their love of warfare, their quick susceptibility of wrong and insult, and their implacability of revenge, no single'achievement of Missionary effort in this country, is at all to be compared with the one alluded to. But your Lordship needs not to be reminded, that although the habit of warfare has been suppressed, yet the evil and malignant spirit which led to it, has been, as yet, in thousands butpartially subdued, many a sanguinary war in New Zealand has arisen from no greater source than the trivial desecration of some religious rite or custom, or some real or supposed insult which may have been given to some favourite atua ,• so that if they have fought for roligion once, they may be tempted to fight for religion again. Not, perhaps, for religion's sake (though that would be no new thing in the world) but because of that overbearing spirit which exclusivenes3 is sure to infuse, or as an act of retaliation for insults which either they, or their religion may have received,

For instance, the tribes of the Taranaki district are the conquered enemies of the Ngatimamopoto and Waikato, and many of the past years have been spent by the majority of them in slavery. In the course of time the Gospel is introduced into the Waikato 'district by our brethren the Rev. Messrs. VVlutely, Wallis, and Woon, and more recently by the Rev. Mr Maunsell of the Church Mission. The preachin? of that Gospel obtains success — the chiefs with the rest of the people receive it, and in compliance with the entreaties of their Ministers, agree to a cessation of hostilities with their enemies, — the doctrine of Christian compensation is urged upon them, and with the best feelings, and from the most disinterested motives, the Tara..aki slaves are returned to the land of their birth, the chiefs are left to their own servants and to do their own work : and we now behold such exertions of self-denial on the part of the Waikato aristocracy, as have never before been witnessed since ihe country was first colonized with New Zcalanders. At length the slavey arrive at horn?, and for some considerable time continue to "walk by the samejrule, and to mind the same thing," grateful to God for his Gospel, and to their chiefs for their liberation. Hui by and bye a new Gospel arrives, new tikangas are set vp t new rules are enforced, new teachers are sent amongst them, their baptism is ridiculed, their Church is degraded, and their old and faithful Ministers, who have taught them all they know, who have cared for and defended them, and who at length have released them from slavery, are now slandered and denounced as uncommissioned intruders into the land, — and that too by men who in ret>pect to Missionary labouis and zeal, are perfectly " unworthy to unloose the latchet of their shoes," — The consequence of all this is, that the people like so many children, are ever fond of something new, ore proselyted over to the new ritenya, are instructed in the new doctrines, and admitted, for the first time, as they are taught to believe, into the true Church. Under 1113 influence of this teaching, it is not long before the old hatred towards their Waikato chiefb revives in its full strength ; and any little morsel of retailed slander which they can collect against the Wesleyan Church, or against the claims of the Wesleyan Ministers, is so much the more delightful to their embittered feelings, inasmuch as that is the Church and those are the Ministers of their old and victorious enemies. My Lord, I speak what I know, when I say that this revived feeling of ancient animosity has no little share in the present religious commotion of the Taranaki district, and who can say where this spirit will end? Many a Waikato chief has already to my knowledge, been grossly insulted by these High-Church proselytes, aud many an exasperated remark has been made in reference to it on their return home; and some have even gone so far as to propose fetching their slaves away again, that they might be initiated, for a few more years, in the principles of Wesleyan prudence and Wesleyan love. It is but three week 3 ago, since I accompanied the Rev. J. Whiteley to Waimate, and so intemperate were the proceedings , of your Lordship's disciples at Wareatea against that devoted and successful minister of the Saviour, that an unhappy collision had well nigh taken place. Feelings of no ambiguous character were perceived to arise in the breasts of the few Waikatos that attended us, as they stood gazing in astonishment; and but for the timely precaution of my friend, who ordered them to leave the village and proceed on their journey, there is no knowing what the result would have been. And yet these very natives were most of them returned from slavery through the kind interposition of the very man whom they were now so grossly insulting, and who but for him would have been in slavery still. They had th<> confidence to plead your Lordship's personal instructions as an excuse fir their conduct, but, of course, whatever those directions may have been, they must have exceeded them on the present occasion. But if your Lordship chooses to lay the foundation of an intolerant exclusiveness in the minds of uninstructed men, you need not be surprised at any excesses of conduct into which they may run, or at any event, however

fatal, in which such principles may terminate. As a body of Wesleyan ministers, we have delivered our souls, and their blood shall not be required at our hands. My Lord, if such be the injurious tendency of the inculcation of high-church principles upon the domestic and civil interest of the natives, it is very evident that it will exert no better influence on ther religious fee'ings. If it be injurious to them as families and as tribes, it must be equally injurious to them as men and as Christians — and so from experience we find it ; coming from a station in Waikato where all was peace and comparative prosperity and encouragement, great indeed was my surprise and grief, on my arrival here, to find the people ea deeply involved in party contentions as to mere forms and opiuions. 1 nstead of meeting me with enquiries asto the great doctrines and blessings of the Gospel, the time of both minister and people is lavishly wasted away with useless discussions on matters of mere ecclesiastical arrangement. The spirit of the Gospel is evaporated in the form, and the mind perversely surrendered to the influence of "foolish questions and genealogies and contentions," which are " unprofitable and vain." And as to the Church party, it is lamentable to behold the pride and presumption which they evince. On the journey just alluded to, Mr. Whitely was forbidden to preach at Warea, the natives declaring that your Lordship had so ordered it, and that they dare not transgress ; and so a scene was presented, at once ridiculous and disgraceful, of two Missionaries found seated on the ground, whilst an ignorant Maori lad stood up in triumph to disburthen himself of a load of most egregious nonsense. And when in the morning we called upon the natives to prayers in our own sleeping-house, they forthwith left the place, rang thpir own bell, out of mere opposition, engaged in their own worship, and left but three to listen to the "tale of a Saviour's Cross." At Wareatea also we were grossly mocked whilst in the attitude of prayer. My liord, I feel perfectly indignant when I think of the alleged ciuse of this conduct. Here is an old Missionary of eleven years standing, through whose moral influence, and intervention, great and contending tribes have moie than once laid down their arms and become reconciled, — through whose interposition chiefly, the Waikato wars have been ended, and Taranaki repeopled, — and the European settlement of New Plymouth been saved, on more occasions than one, from the hostile visits of the exasperated Ngatimaniopote tribe, I say, here is that very man, forbidden by your Lordship's alleged direction, to exercise his commission in a village, which owes its erection to him, and to natives, who, under God, even owe their present existence to him. In the meantime, the natives are thus debarred from all means of European instruction, save what they may imperfectly derive from the quarterly and half-yearly visits of Church ministers, who as yet are unable to address them in their own language, so that the)' are rather to be held in the bondage of ignorance, than permitted to hear the truths of the Gospel as delivered from the lips of a Wesleyan Minister — and that too in his own District! I merely adduce these instances as proofs of the prevailing spirit. How far your Lordship may have contributed to foster such a spirit is not for me to determine : I can only say that you are, ever and anon, adduced by both parties as the chief exciting cause of all that jealousy and bad feeling, which is found to be so lamentably existing in this District. I must however in justice observe, that many of the more intelligent and respectable Church natives, in this District, are so thoroughly shocked at the repulsive character of these high -church proceedings, and so fully ' alive to the evil consequences in which they must result, that they are determined to resist such novel encroachments to the utmost; and many others, who have already very unsuspectingly been involved in these proceedings, declare that, unless your Lordship be quickly disposed to give up this " tikanga tuara," as they style it, this " back to back Christianity," — they will not only forsake the Communion of your Church, but will return to all the habits and vices and superstitions of their rejected but coveted heathenism. They say — and they are right in saying it — that " heathenism in lovs is better than Christianity without ij." I remain, Your lordship's obedient and humble servant. H. Hanson Turton.