CHRISTIAN MISSIONS TO THE MAORI.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 215, 8 June 1877, Page 13

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS TO THE MAORI.

The history of the Protestant missions to the Maori, if the facts be as stated, discloses an immorality and cupidity of a most shameless kind on the part of the missionaries. No wonder if the Maoris so soon as they found them out felt a. strong indignation against them, and all who patronised them, and no wonder if such a feeling survive to this day. It is not likely to pass away while a single Maori lives. " The first liead of the New Zealand Mission," says the Presbyterian Dr. Lang, in his letter to Lord Durham, " was dismissed for adultery, the second for drunkenness, and the third, so lately as the year 1836, for a crime still more enormous than either of these." Good heavens! what must the pagan Maori have thought of such spiritual teachers and models as these ? Still more to a like effect is told. This is surely a dark opening for the history of a Christian mission, and more resembles the shameful records of a criminal calendar, says my authority. Dr. Dieffenbach, a Protestant naturalist, tells us that "of all the natives of the Polynesian race, the Maori shows the readiest disposition for assuming a high degree of civilisation." How painful to reflect that the religion of Christ should have been first presented to his notice by such bise apostles as these described by Dr. Lang 1 . This Protestant Mission was originally founded by a Mr. Mwsden in 1814. He was brought up a blacksmith, but became ultimately an Anglican minister in New South Wales, where for some years he practised as a farmer and preacher, and made a pretty good "pile" in that way. He knew a tiling or two about the quality and value of land. He began on his arrival in New Zealand by buying 200 acres of land for twelve axes. It was a good bargain, and a fit beginning for Protestant Missions in New Zealand ; though afterwards the natives complained that the missionary had taken advantage of their ignorance, and had "done" them — brown. A flock of Eng-

lish Protestant clergy and Wesleyans now soon settled in New Zealand, and followed suit to Mr. Marsden in the land-purchasing line. Where the carcass is, there the eagles gather together. To the Maori the original Protestant missionaries were real birds of prey. It is painful to think so. How different the conduct of the Catholic missionaries on their arrival in New Zealand.* The leader of this body was a Frenchman, Dr. Porapalier. He is described by Mr. Terry as " a man peculiarly adapted for the purposes of the Catholic missionary. By education a scholar, in manners engaging, in countenance prepossessing and expressive, added to sincere and earnest zexl in the cause he had undertaken, it may easily be imagined," lie says, "that he creates no ordinary sensation among the aborigines." He caused the Protestant missionaries "great anxiety," and witb. good reason. "He has converted," says the author of the History of New Zealand, " the oldest chief in the Bay of Islands, his sons and people, though previously attendants of the Church mission." Dr. Pompalier made the natives understand that he had not been sent to trade nor to buy land. During the war in the North, instigated and conducted by Protestant nativs, Dr. Pompalier played a conspicuous part. When offered by the commander of an English frigate, on that occasion, shelter and protection against the natives, he refused the offer. He said he would remain among them. He had no fear of danger from them. "He feared sin and nothing else." Col. Mundy tells that the Catholic Mission Station, Tinder Dr. Pompalier, was the only portion of the town spared by the rebels. It would occupy too much of your paper to record fully Dr. Pompalier's labours and successful career as a Catholic missionary. Dr. Selwyn, the head of the Church of England missions, was no ordinary man. His natural gifts of body and mind, his great attainments as a scholar, and his high moral character, all combined to give him great influence among the Maoris. If he ha,d been of the same creed as Dr. Pompalier, and they had pulled together, there would not, I believe, have been a pa^an Maori to be seen in this colony at this day, or very few. The mass of them would have been good Christians and loyal subjects of the Queen. One of the greatest evils attending the Protestant teaching among the Maoris, as everywhere else, has been the propagation of a spirit of rehellion, in consequence of their having been led to interpret the Bible as they please. Mr. Fox says up to a certain point the influence of the Protestant missionaries on the Maori has been beneficial, beyond that "injurious in a very high degree "Instead of improving the natives," says the author of Rovings in the Pacific, " the Protestant missionaries have superinduced upon their other bad qualities hypocrisy of the deepest dye." Wherever Protestantism prevails among the civilised or barbarians there a spirit of disobedience to the civil government lurks, and physical force alone can keep it down. We have seen this in New Zealand among the Maoris to our loss, and see it even now. The disobedient Catholic is worse that a Protestant. The ecclesiastical, no less than the civil, power has been ordained by God, and they who will treat the first with contempt will not hesitate to oppose the other whenever inducement and a favourable opportunity to rebel present themselves. What a pity it is that the Catholic missions to the Maori should of late have been so much neglected. Who may be in fault 1 cannot say, but at present the many native Catholics are as sheep without a shepherd in most parts of the Auckland Diocese. Let those who have the power remove this reproach speedily. The pious and public-spirited efforts of Dr. Pompalier to Christianise and civilise the Maori seem in a fair way to be now fruitless. Protestantism will never in a Christian sense civilise them, though it may improve their physical condition to some extent. Dr. Pompalier has now gone to his account, and we may piously hope to his reward. God rest him well. The natives of New Zealand will not soon see his like among them again. He had his faults, doubtless, and his misfortunes too. The evening of his days was possibly clouded by the recollection of the harsh and ungenerous treatment he experienced from some of his spiritual children, when pecuniary difficulties pressed upon him. But let that pass now. God will one day judge us all — bishops, priests, and people together. Laic.

The venerable prolate of St. Jarlath's has sent to the Dublin Freeman a subscription towards the Butt Fund, accompanied by a letter which, as a matter of course, has been widely read. His Grace says : — " Never in our recent history was there, I think, a crisis in which the exertions Ireland is capable of making are more likely to be crowned with success. My reason for not being desponding in my anticipation is the fact of men being more in earnest, and therefore more to be relied on, than on some of those past occasions so humiliating to the characters of some of our parliamentary representatives, and so disastrous to the interests of our country."

* As an illustration of the insatiable greed of Protest ant missionaries in New Zealand fo» land, I m.vy add the following facts and figures :— ln 1841 Rev. J. Mathews claimed upwards of 2,000 acres ; Rev. T. Aitken over 7,000 ; Mr. Clark, 19,000; Mr Fairbaiin, -20,000; Mr. Kemp, 18,000, and so on— in all, as Dr. Thomson reports, i-'.oou acres. Some of these reverend land speculators, as Fairbairn and Archdeacon Williams, got hold of some of the best laud in the best situations, and have '• stuck" to a porti mof it. To this day their heirs or assigns hold it. True. Government afterwards made them all disgorge largely ; but they do not seem to have been the least ashamed of their conduct. They rather justified it, though it gave scandal to the whole Protestant bi»ly —in the Colony and at Home. Dr. Thomson, in his Story of Neto Zealand, tells that 27 square miles in one quarter of the North Island were purchased by Protestant missionaries. Many of these reve'end land-jobber.s or their connections I believe were afterwards employed in the Native Land Purchase 1 'epartment l'hey knew how to •' lnaunge" the natives. Need we wonder if discontent and war followed, leading to a sort of Cromwellun confiscation of native land at Last ? Is it possible the natives can ever in their hearts feel any love for the Protestant missionaries or their religion after what has happened ! It is the religion of the ruling majority, and fur worldly motives they or many of them may outwardly profess it, but it is against humau nature that they should ever inwardly believe in its truth.