ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22386, 4 April 1936, Page 1 (Supplement)

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

s A Tale of Old Russell

f ' By MATANGA

!* LD llussellj so 'tis said, beI J came once more older Kororareka on the last Sunday of jjarch this year. Ghost's of various visage Walked, that is, when was honoured in solemn thanksgiving and stalwart ispeech the passing of x hundred years since Christian hearts and hands built the place of worship to which many went that day in grateful pilgrimage, sped by inheiited memories and in unseen fellowship with thrice as many unable to obey their desire to be of the company. Round about that storied building gathered presences that the informed and thoughtful have never allowed 7 themselves to forget. These intangible entities were real indeed. To the alert mind they were intimately near, to be felt, heard, even seen, coming out of the 'shadow & of history to brood above the graves, marked and unmarked, of brown folk and white, in that God's - acre, and to make all that sacred spot, and its setting of land and sea, instinct with brave thought that spanned more than a century. And in tlrie midst, looking amazingly well after its long sentinel-watch of - valiant duty, the church itself stood as more than a monument —rather as a rallving standard of a challenging enterprise of deathless endeavour. For this they built it, those strong hearts and hands of other days. They toiled in a ministry of hope, and this lives on—as was said in one Maori paean of gratitude —into the whare-tapu,'s second hundred years. It was eminently right that the Spirit of Russell Past should with admonition of courage in trial impress a | lesson etched here and there in severe black, and that the Spirit of Russell - Present, less positive of mien, should move as if not quite sure of itself; but the Spirit of Russell Yet to Come, heedful of all fits disciplined seniors could ' teach, had obvious reason to be of good cheer. To have come safely through so relentlessly searching a test of valorous • ,j patience is, ample warrant for belief that nothing can enduringlv withstand the crusade of Christian witness launched bv the missionary pioneers. The Ghosts That Walked Marshalled by the Spirit of Russell Past, the ghosts of earliest Kororareka walked as befitted them on this recent day of celebration. Their leading cohort were all brown of face. Lithe, sinewy, agile, scions of a race to whom leagues of ocean were wide roads of adventure, mapped by wind and current, lit by sun and star, the substantial originals of these ghosts made a home on this little crescent shore. They maintained most arts brought from their ancestral borne, inventing a few to suit new circumstances. A vigorous life they led, full of stout striving and pastime, vehement often in unleashed passion, yet graced on occasion with kindly custom. So generations came and went until white faces appeared among the brown, - many of the newcomers being so unlovely that Kororareka fell into a wilder savagery, the more sordid because of the mingling of the worst in two races. The invaders were not all bad, but degeneration increases apace by such contacts and soon Kororareka became a byword in the South Seas. Its better elements strove manfully against the descent, but were sorely baffled. Darwin saw the place and was repelled by its decadence and squalor. . Yet at that very time, after missionaries in the Bay had long been doubtful of trusting their evangel to Kororareka's unwelcoming wickedness, this church ' was being prepared on a site a little apart. ' i

Faithful Service See, among the ghosts on this commemorative day, that of Charles Baker supervising the task on the land for 'which he has negotiated. Under his eyes Nesbit and his men keep at their •work,, encouraged by the gifts of money and material that make it possible, although long after they have finished there will be need to defray a debt. Whalemen, merchants, visiting ship-folk, the missionaries themselves, their brethren of another communion, some local settlers, and people as different as Busby the British Resident and a "Mr. Nobody," join in support. All their genial ghosts are in the revived recall; those alien spectres would look considerably ashamed were they able. Turn again to the others. Here, of earliest arising among them, is the Rev. Thomas Chapman, who "called almost every Sunday to visit this place Kororareka, holding services with the natives first and then with the Europeans." He says, "We make a chapel of a small rush house." And not far away is Captain Juke, in whose dwelling services were held for a period in 1828. Charles Baker attests that "the amount of time devoted to this place is very great, and if no real or apparent good has been done, yet much evil no doubt has been prevented." The church, he adds, "is getting ready for use but will take much time and expense to complete." That dates from November, 18115. '

In the following March he tells of regular services at Kororareka church ;n Maori and English. But still the building was incomplete, for June comes before the Rev. Henry Williams can write—"the church at Kororareka has been erected during the year. It will, however, require much to be done to it before it is'completed." Single-minded Earnestness

No surprise need be felt at the holding of services in the building before it was finished. These C.M.S. men were single-minded in their earnestness. This building, of characteristic Georgian style, was attractive without being pretentious. The subscription-lists described it a;s a "chapel." Erecting it north and south—not with the altar in the east--they showed a noteworthy disregard of conventions, perhaps preferring that its only door should open out toward the northern homeland they still loved deeply. Their first hopes ran only to a building forty feet by twenty, but ere they built they enlarged the dimensions to fifty feet by thirty. Their faith was thus shown, for even when Samuel Marsden came, on his last visit to New Zealand, in 1837, thery was still need for money; it was then he added five Pounds to the building fund. Besides Alarsden, Bishop Broughton, of Australia, was among those recalled at the centenary celebration, for lie preached in this church on December 2 0, 1838, and consecrated the burial ground on January 24, 1839. About a year later Captain Hobson performed his first official duties in this same building, proclaiming there British sovereignty on January 30, 1840. Last of all, while'still the township tv'as sometimes called by its native name, camo the t-erriHe conllict of which the jjg I c 'h yet bears slight scars —when in t?45 Kawiti and Pumuka and the o.apotai overcame the British defence, and would have destroyed it had not clone Hoke come down from Maiki Hill 'l'd saved that end of the town. Ghosts of old Kororareka have walked |l?ain. a diverse assemblage. But even the worst of them are powerless to do "arm, and the Spirit of llussell Past -Poults onward invincibly.