Maranatha

A Foretaste of What Is To Come

We have recently finished reading William Williams' Christianity Among The New Zealanders.  Our edition was published by Banner of Truth Trust in 1989.  This, in turn, was a republication of the original, first published in 1867.  William Williams was the brother of Henry Williams.

In our view, the missionary annals ought to be required reading for every NZ Christian.   

Both of these stalwart warriors of the Kingdom of God arrived in New Zealand towards the end of 1823.  Both were men of great faith and faithfulness, along with their wives and children.  Many times their collectives lives would be threatened over the next 40 years or so.  They did not deflect from their duty or course during that time.

William Williams was the more scholarly of the two brothers.  Eventually, he was appointed Bishop of Waiapu, an area stretching from Tauranga down to Napier.

At the end of his account of Christianity among the New Zealand Maori he asks the question, What of the future?  He had lived to see staggering progress of the Gospel amongst Maori.  He also witnessed what we might call the Corinthian phase--the first falling away of many from the faith--due to increasing exposure to migrants from the UK.  Many of these folk were more Victorian than Christian, more nominal than true believers.

A Curse Passing Down the Generations

Clinging To A Poisoned Vine

Followers of current affairs in New Zealand will be aware of the disordered state of Maori in the northern most climes of the country.  We have in mind the divisions within the tribe Ngapuhi.  The government wants to conclude a Treaty settlement with the tribe.  The tribe is said to have over 110 hapu or clans, or family groupings of people related by genealogical descent.  The tribe also has these groups roughly grouped into over half a dozen "sub-tribes".

Some of these groups are bitterly at odds with others.  Some claim that no-one and no organization can represent all of Ngapuhi.  They are demanding that their particular hapu must negotiate with the Crown on its own behalf and on its own terms.  The Government has voted an amount for settlement; Ngapuhi sub-tribes cannot agree who or what group should represent them in negotiations with the Crown.  This has gone on for decades.

Well, actually, it has gone on for centuries amongst Ngapuhi.  Literally.

Early NZ Church History

A Brief Incandescent Flame

In the annals of the Church the story of early missionary work amongst the savage Maori who populated New Zealand before the arrival of Europeans is one of the more riveting.  A few  missionaries had arrived by 1824.  The early years of labour were extremely difficult and dangerous.  But the 1840's witnessed the high tide mark of Maori acceptance of the Gospel of Christ.  They also saw the high water mark of Maori enterprise, save the more recent developments amongst the tribes as a result of recent Treaty settlements.  

Firstly, the high water marks of Christianity.  Harold Miller, Librarian of Victoria University College, describes the state of Christian faith and practice amongst the Maori.

When [Governor] Grey arrived in New Zealand in 1845 the great majority of Maori People had become at least nominal Christians, and many were becoming industrious and efficient farmers.  At this period visitors to remote districts were full of accounts of the remarkable transformation.  Thus in the early 'forties a visitor to the Thames valley reports that in one of the villages there had been a revolution and that a young chief had broken away from the old community and built a new village to be run on Christian lines.  At the gate he had stuck up a notice which ran: "My friends, listen to me, God has said: Thou shalt not commit adultery.  If any of us commit adultery, let him be put out of this pah.  God has said: Thou shalt not steal.  If any of us steal, let him be put out of this pah.  God has said: Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.  If any of us work on the Sabbath Day, let him be put out of this pah. . . . Listen, my friends: because of these things God's anger had come upon us; let us put them away that He may be appeased."
 
And these were not mere words: they were rigorously enforced.  The penalty for persistent offence was exclusion from the village.  Twenty years later Sir John Gorst was to report in glowing terms of the state of the district: law and order were strictly maintained, the traffic in ardent spirits had been rigorously put down, boarding schools had been established in several places and lands set apart for their support, and a thriving trade in foodstuffs with the town of Auckland had been established.

Everywhere in the 1840's religion was playing a part, sometimes a large part, in the lives of the whole community.  At one populous place in Cook Strait it was reported that nearly the whole of the population rose daily at sunrise for a service and attended a school that followed.  At another place, where the men set out to work before it was light, it was the custom to assemble at sea--sometimes sixty or seventy big canoes--and to sing a hymn and to say prayers before they began their fishing.
 
On Christmas Day, 1846, we are told that at Wanganui, where the Europeans were holding a race meeting, four thousand Maoris gathered to celebrate the Nativity.  Some of them had travelled a hundred and fifty miles.  In every Christian village a substantial building was set apart from religious purposes; and in some of the more populous centres new buildings were put up that would hold a thousand worshippers.  In one place in Upper Waikato the ridge-pole, nearly a hundred feet in length was dragged through the woods for three miles; and the windows had been carried for seventy miles over some very rough country on the backs of the chiefs. [Harold Miller, New Zealand (London: Hutchinson's University Library, 1950), p. 43f.]

Marsden had arrived at the end of 1814; the Williams brothers (Henry and William) and their families came in 1823.  Richard Davis arrived with his family in 1824.  Within fifteen years the leadership of most (but not all) Maori tribes were either professing Christians, or regarded themselves as strong supporters of the missionaries.