THE CHURCH IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7, 20 February 1908, Page 12

THE CHURCH IN NEW ZEALAND.

(Contributed.) The Missionaries, the Native Wars, and After. (Continued.) Mr. A. H. Blake, an extensive contributor to the newspaper press, writes thus in the ' Record Magazine 1 i During the troublous! decade, ending in seventy, a peculiar phase of missionary affairs was being manifested The massacre at Opotoki of the Rev. Mr. Volckner naturally created a panic, during which ministers of the reformed Churches were not very conspicuous for their personal courage, but, on the contrary, displayed a decided preference for the better part of valor by retiring to the centres of population. Whatever the cause, the Hau-Haus exhibited a decided animosity towards English clergymen. At a time when the Anglican Bishop of Waiapu had eschewed his lovely residence of Waerangaahika (Poverty Bay) in favor of the more se-' cure shelter of Napier, quite another aspect of missionary zeal was being presented on the opposite coast. While our hastily organised colonial troops, under Colonel Whitmore, were being hurried in all directions, in the futile attempt to arrest the incursions of that arch-fanatic of the east, Te Kooti, Titokowaru, upon the West Coast, was scouring the country with his valorous tribes. It is an incontrovertible fact that for years no minister of any denomination, with one exception, dare travel the coast line between Taranaki and Wanganui. Father Rolland, a young French priest, and quite a recent arrival, was this notable exception. Although the district to which he was appointed was a seething hotbed of rebellion he, without hesitation,like a true soldier of Christ, obeyed and went where duty called. In many of the fierce encounters with the diminutive but fearless Titokowaru, the soldier priest, as he was termed by the troops, attended, marching with the rest, his breviary his only weapon. He appeared to have a charmed life, attending to~ the wants of friends and foes alike— foes indeed he had none ;■ the very Hau-Haus seem to N have recognised in him a noncomlbatant, and, it has been asserted, spared him on occasions when others 1 were being shot doiwn by the hidden enemy. One incident may be worth relating, as showing this heroic young priest's extreme solicitude for the smallest of his charges, also the crude notions entertained by some of the savage warriors of that period. A pah (or fortified enclosure) had been attacked by a party composed of white troops and Native allies. |jft.fter an entrance had been effected, it was found that the Hau-Haus had made - good their retreaU

to the forest. Upon entering the pah, a little mite of a jboy was found cowering with terror in a dark corner ; he had been either overlooked . or considered uneqpal to the task of going through the dense bush. The kindly priest, knowing the uncouth 'nature of many of the friendly Maoris, decided to adopt the poor.; wadf, and told the assembled Natives that he intended to take him to ,the nearest settlement, an act not easy of accomplishment, in consequenceof the rough nature of the country. As an object lesson, he informed them that -he. would, baptise the little fellow, which he did, adding : "If this 1 innocent child should meet with any accident, and does not survive the awful journey, he wall ' haere ki-te atua to.taua Matua ' (go to God,, our common Father).' Some of the. Natives could not • understand - the reason for all this trouble over such • an insignificant atom, but at the priest's request took charge of ,him for the night. When the start was. being - made upon the return march, Father Rolland inquired . for the boy, but one of the Natives cooly informed . him that he was "gone to God." What did they mean? "Well, -you told us that if he died he would go to God ; and our thought was that if he lived he would go back to the Hau-Haus; which was best?" Enough, he was killed. The good Father, awfully . shocked, gave them a bit of his mind upon the heinous- . ness of their crime." However, it scarcely produced the sinoerest contrition ; they were evidently of opinion that • their act was a meritorious one '. . . More than a quarter of a century after the occurrence of the foregoing ' events, though personally betraying permanent evidence of the weight of the cross he h&d borne so lovingly and so long, he was pursuing his holy vocation : wiih unidiminished ardor in the mountainous parish of Reefton, Westland, until a short while ago, when he passed to his eternal reward. ' Many cheerful souls have lived in Reefton <vrites the author of ' Tales of the Golden West ') since it ,was carved out of the' dense forest in 1871, who still delight to talki of it as' their, mountain home, and when absent for a time are glad to- get back. . . Some, in the course . of nature, have joined the great majority, and it is but lately that Reefton has had to mourn the passing away of a dear friend in the person of Father Rolland, regretted by all classes and creeds throughout the large - district in Which— he ministered so faithfully. His was a cheerful personality, and he had a good word and .a kind smile for one and all. I well remember on New ■ Year's Day, 1903, meeting him near the Council Chambers, and receiving his warm shake of the hand and ■ his kindly greeting for a happy year — a year that was to see him, in July, lay down his priestly office, to receive the crown of rejoicing in Heaven 1 . Father Rolland will long be remembered as one of the heroes of . New Zealand in, the Maori war of 1868.' At the skirmish in Wanganui Father Lampila could be seen, his clothes .riddled with shot, going oiver the • battlefield accompanied by Brother Eulage, an angel of fidelity, and devotedness, who succumbed under the blows of a traitor. The Nallives, rendered powerless, became . quieter little' by little. They were driven back into the r reserves of the North Island where civilisation invaded them more and more. After some years, the missionaries were able to resume their work so long interrupted, and endeavored to protect the race against old vices. Being dispersed in the forests and distant places, acoess to them was very difficult. For many years . after the war Sister (now Mother Mary Auberfc), with courageous zeal, travelled through the pahs in order to visit and keep alive the Catholic faith in " their . midst, . and she thus prepared the way for 'the missionaries. Sewn Marist Fathers successfully entered upon this mission. They spared no effort, neither were they discouraged by the religious indifference and the deeprooted prejudices of the Maoris against Europeans. They did not cease for twenty years to travel immense districts, extending from the East Cape to Cape Bgmont, from Wellington to Lake Taupo, and thence to Hawke's Bay. At Herouharama (Jerusalem), situated inland on the Wanganui River, Fathers Soulas and Lacroix established a central station near which they erected a church, a hospital for old people, a school lor young girls, and other institutions for the betterment of, the Maori population. In these establishments twelve' Sisters under the direction of Sister M. Joseph ' (Mother Aubert) were engaged. From this central station the missionaries did duty at Ranana, where they built a second school for girls conducted by the Sisters, hesides three other smaller stations, each with a church of its own. Lieutenant the Hon. H. Meade, R.N., in his c Ride Through the Disturbed Districts of New Zealand ' in 1 1864-5, gives the following picture of one of those self-denying early missionary Fathers :— ' After leaving Rotorua, the character 'of the country we passed through to-day was dismal in the extreme, the path.

tered °tSS 3 X bi^gJJS^i^S^f^? T *" mmm the Holy Table ' '" S ° many of them approach (To be Continued.) ' .