MELANESIAN BELIEFS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18411, 29 May 1923, Page 8

MELANESIAN BELIEFS.

INFLUENCE IN DAILY LIFE. WHAT RELIGION MAY DO. [BY TELEGRAPH.--own CORRESPONDENT.] CHEISTCHUECH. Monday. In an address at the annual meeting of the •Slelanesiar. Society, the Bishop of Goulburn' said, as a student of / the comparative study of theology or religion, he had been increasingly struck by the valuable contributions to that study made by missionaries to Melanesia and other primitive folds. He had recently reread a work dealing with . the belief in immortality among the peoples of the Western Pacific, and found that this amazing fact emerged— in their desire to seo God and in their spiritual outlook, there was no race or people comparable with ' the Melanesians. The greatest thing to them wa s the spirit of man in this life . and in the life to which it goes. Some , anthropologists .look a doleful view of the native : mind and character. Mr. Fraser, for instance, stated that if they desired to understand the Melanesians they must realise the influence that the belief in the survival of the human soul exercised on their lives.. It was an inbred, omnipresent conviction. Their morality was based on the fear of ghosts and spirits and their whole theory of causation differed in fundamentals from that held by Europeans. Mr. Fraser went on to state that it might be doubted whether education would ever enable (he Melanesians to bridge the gulf between them and Europeans. The speaker, on reading these opinions, had begun almost to despair until the thought struck him it might be quite true that while education merely could not bridge the gulf, religious education could defy the gloomy prognostications of the scientists. Another scientist, discussing the depopulation of Melanesia, which was attributed to a Tack of interest in life due to the cessation of tribal fighting, and the whole system of tribal and social discipline connected therewith, had expressed the opinion ' that the spread of the Christian religion among the Melanesians would give them a new purpose in life and a new perspective. (Applause.) The fact that Melanesians, when trained, could work a printing press showed they were able to hold their own alongside the pampered child of a trades union. (Applause.)