A MAORI BISHOP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20028, 18 August 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

A MAORI BISHOP.

BY KATANGA

THE DESIRE OF MANY YEARS.

So long as the decision of the Anglican Church to have a Maori bishop was no more than the creation of an office, public heed had little ardour. Now that tiie man is found, general interest is caught and riveted. The decision was momentous. It was reached only after long thought. A new departuro of far-reach-ing implications was contemplated. There were difficulties. They were met. The departure was made. It was really a great step. But it was taken in that realm of high policy where many seldom walk, and they were unmoved. The emergence of the man makes all the difference. In this instinctive arousal is wrapped up something of great worth to human affairs. They are not ruled and moulded by offices, but by men. The offices serve; personalities direct and dominate. Warwick, the Kingmaker, counted for more than the crown. Mussolini is more than the Duce. Often it is the power behind the throne that is really regnant —the power of some unofficial man—or woman—with a will to get things done. Otherwise it is the throne's occupant that makes it more than a chair of state. Harness must bo worn by flesh and blood to serve its end. It avails nothing if it clothe no more than the ghost of an idea. A recognition of the truth in this, indeed, gave weight to the deliberations about a Maori bishop that took place long ago—longer ago than perhaps this generation remembers. " Where is the man ? " was the constant, question when such an appointment was mooted. It was ail inevitable quesion. In those earlier days, doubtless, there was no clear answer possible. Even they who noted the hour could not see the man. The lack of the man made somo deny the hour. This day has seen practical agreement about the hour and the men. Native Agency. In the long ago of missionary work in these islands theie was put into practice the "accepted principle of employing native agency, as soon and as far as possible. For a while, no such agency was possible. Then a few lay readers were available; next, some paid native " teachers." Always, however, close European oversight was maintained as desirable, and always there was the hope that the need for it would die away. When, in. time, it was deemed well to admit Maori lay readers or teachers to deacon's orders, this need tor what one of the missionaries called " efficient spiritual and domestic superintendence" persisted. The lesson of earlier years had not been wholly lost. There seemed to be coming a day of rapid and sure progress in a civilisation thoroughly Christian, fostered by an efficient native ministry, itself inspired by a sympathising and buttressing European clergy. Came the war of the sixties and the Hauhau outbreak, The hope was dashed. Native ministers and teachers were more than ever hard to get. War called away some already at work. A few of them tried to do incompatible tilings—to fight and to teach. The general native mind saw the incongruity of this. A period of decaying influence followed. It left its mark on succeeding years. Out of the changed conditions came at last a considered policy, one giving a larger place to local native interest arid responsibility, yet providing for a travelling European oversight. It is the policy governing the main lines of work to-day. " One of Ourselves." The evolution of this process toward a fully-ordained native ministry, with a titulary head in a Maori bishop, can be traced through recent years.- It was quickened by Maori wishes. " You ministers have forsaken us!" said a Ohinomutu native to the Rev. T. S. Grace in 1877; "we seldom see a minister; when one does come, he rings the bell, has prayers for an hour, and then either shuts himself up in a house or goes on. This is not the kind of thing we want! Rather, let us have Maori ministers. They sit down and talk and eat with us, and are one of ourselves!" It requires little imagination to feci the force of that. It puts in its own way the rational© of a nativo church that has won its way everywhere in missionary policy. There is no separation from European work necessarily involved in the plea, but an unanswerable appeal for liberty of self-realisation and self-expression. An imposed Christianity can never be other than alien.

Of particular interest is the wish for a Maori bishop voiced in the seventies. There was then a church conference about it. This conference concluded that there was then no native clergyman suitable for the post, but it did not repudiate the idea. The Maoris were eager for its being given effect. To the Waka Maori, a native newspaper, there was contributed then a letter on this subject by a Maori, James Martin. He urged the appointment on grounds that cannot easily be gainsaid, and concluded with a word especially wise—" It is the right we are seeking for; the right according to Scripture, and according to the custom in other lands, and some way, also, whereby the union between European and Maori may be quite complete." The Maori Point of View. The whole letter—it is included in " A Pioneer Missionary Among the Maoris," the letters and journals of Mr. Grace, recently published —should be read. It was meant for all " friends in these islands.'" Its writer, telling of his people's initial instruction in ' Christianity and the making of some of them ministers as soon as the requisite knowledge was acquired, goes 011 to describe how " we were next instructed in the law, and had scarcely laid hold of all its points when some of ns were dragged forward to be members of Parliament, Ministers of the Government and assessors in the courts of justice." ile asks the question, " Why arc some of us raised to prominent positions in the Government and not in the Church ? In other words, why do the Church appointments, with respect to us Maoris, abruptly cease at the office of ordinary minister'! Why is there 110 Maori bishop, since the natives of these islands have, for a considerable time, embraced Christianity'!" He suggested a Maori appointment to the see of Waiapu, vacant through the resignation of " our patriarch Bishop Williams."

Let it not be sairl thai the Maorinesa of a man unfits him to be a bishop! If there is a man of understanding mid holy life, the Scripture points out that ho i 3 the one. St. Paul's instruction of Titus is quoted with relevance: St. Paul did not.say elders for the Cretans should be sent from among the Jews, that is, from St. Paul's own nation and that of the rest of the apostles. No! but they wore appointed from among the Gentiles themselves. From modern practice this appellant draws a precedent: Look at Africa, at the negro race that is there—one of themselves is their bishop. . . It will, perhaps, occur to an evilly disposed mind it is because Europeans cannot live in that country, on account of the extreme heat, that a native bishop is set over tho church there, and that it is owing to the genial climate of New Zealand that the bishoprics here are restricted to Europeans only! But let such a man think as he pleases. Happily, the time for discussion is now over. On all hands there will instead be a genial expectation that the Rev. L l '. A. Bennett, chosen to be the first Bishop of Aotearoa under an arrangement calculated to cement further the union between the two peoples in these islands, will fulfil the hopes and desires of so many years.