REVIVAL OF INTEREST

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17230, 9 April 1930, Page 7

REVIVAL OF INTEREST

MAORIS AND THE CHURCH BISHOP'S BELIEF The growth of interest among Maoris in church activities was mentioned by the Bishop of Aotearoa, Rt. Rev. F. A. Bennett, when preaching at New Plymouth. Tho Maoris were now organising in districts to a greater extent than had been evident since before the Maori wars, the Bishop declared. His Lordship took for his text the Biblical incident of Moses and the burning bush. He drew a parallel between the burning bush which was not consumed and the Maoiti Church, which appeared to some to have succumbed to resentments following the Maori wars. It had gained fresh energy, firesh followers, and a degree of earnest support unknown through two generations. The present period would be one of historical significance for the Maoris of Taranaki. For the first time since the wars of the 'sixties a large number of the Maori people, descendants of the combatants in those wans, were anxious to receive Christianity. For two generations those people had held aloof from the church. Down the coast they had most beautiful services entirely in Maori, the worshippers sitting on the floor ,of the little meetinghouse in the accustomed stylo- before the Maori wairs.