‘Why was I made to hear thy voiceAnd enter while there’s room?’
Throughout the day the subject dwelt upon his mind; after dinner the conversation turned to it, and he was casually asked who was the author of the hymn he had quoted in the morning. He shook his head and said, ‘I cannot tell, perhaps it was Watts, or Wesley,’ and several hymn books were produced in which the bishop and others instituted a fruitless search, the bishop at length saying, ‘I can’t find the hymn, Mr. Marsden.’ ‘Can’t you, sir,’ was the reply, ‘that is a pity, for it is a good hymn, sir—says what the Bible says, free sovereign grace for poor sinners. No self-righteous man can get into heaven, sir, he would rather starve than take the free gift.’ In the course of the day the conversation turning upon New Zealand, the bishop expressed the opinion, once almost universal though now happily exploded, an opinion, too, which Mr. Marsden himself had regarded with some favour in his younger days, that civilization must precede the introduction of the gospel; and his lordship argued, as Mr. Marsden himself had argued thirty years before, in favour of expanding the mind of savages by the introduction of arts and sciences, being impressed with the idea that it was impossible to present the gospelwith success to minds wholly unenlightened. Mr. Marsden’s answer is thus recorded—‘Civilization is not necessary before Christianity, sir; do both together if you will, but you will find civilization follow Christianity, easier than Christianity to follow civilization. Tell a poor heathen of his true God and Saviour, point him to the works he can see with his own eyes, for these heathen are no fools, sir—great mistake to send illiterate men to them—they don’t want men learned after the fashion of this world, but men taught in the spirit and letter of the Scripture. I shan’t live to see it, sir, but I may hear of it in heaven, that New Zealand with all its cannibalism and idolatry will yet set an example of Christianity to some of the nations now before her in civilization.’”
It will not be out of place to offer a passing remark upon Mr. Marsden’s conduct to Dr. Broughton, the first bishop of Sydney. As an Episcopalian, sincerely attached to the church of England, he had long desired the introduction of the episcopate into the colonial church, of which, as senior chaplain, he himself had been the acknowledged leader for so many years. When the appointment was made it was a matter of just surprise to his friends that he was passed over in silence, while an English clergyman was placed over him to govern the clergy, amongst whom he had so long presided, and whose entire respect and confidence he had gained. There is no doubt that his integrity and fearless honesty had rendered him somewhat unacceptable to men in power, and that to this his exclusion is, in a great measure, to be ascribed. But this slight brought out some of the finest features in his truly noble character. He had never sought either honours, wealth, or preferment for himself. Ifa disinterested man ever lived it was Samuel Marsden. The only remark which his family remember to have heard him make upon the subject was in answer to a friend, who had expressed surprise at the slight thus put upon him, in these words—“It is better as it is; I am an old man; my work is almost done.” And when Dr. Broughton, the new bishop, arrived in the colony, he was received by Mr. Marsden not with cold and formal respect but with Christian cordiality. When the new bishop was installed he assisted at the solemn service; the eloquent author of the “Prisoners of Australia,”[K]who chanced to be present, thus describes the scene—“On a more touching sight mine eyes had never looked than when the aged man, tears streaming down his venerable cheek, poured forth, amidst a crowded and yet silent assemblage, the benediction upon him into whose hands he had thus, as it were, to use his own metaphor, ‘yielded up the keys of a most precious charge;’ a charge which had been his own devoted care throughout the storms and the tempests of a long and difficult pilotage. And now like another Simeon, his work well nigh accomplished, the gospel spreading far and wide over the colony and its dependencies, and the prayer of his adopted people answered, he could say without another wish, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.’” Though differing from him, we may add, on some points, Mr. Marsden retained to the last sincere regard for bishop Broughton, who in return fully appreciated the high and lofty character of his senior chaplain. “Well!” said he one day when he heard of his last illness, breaking out after a thoughtful silence, “if there ever was a truly honest man,Mr. Marsden certainly is one;” and after his death he publicly expressed his “deep sense of the loss he had experienced, and the painful void he felt in the absence of his aged and faithful companion who had so often stood by his side, whose genuine piety and natural force of understanding,” said he, “I held in the highest esteem while he lived, and still retain them in sincerely affectionate remembrance.”
Conscious that in the course of nature his decease could not be far distant, death was now his frequent meditation. He viewed its approach without levity and without alarm. Familiar through life with death in every form, his feelings were not blunted; he still felt it was a solemn thing to die, but he had experienced the love of Him who had tasted death for every man, and was no longer “subject to bondage through fear of death.” He continued his pastoral visits to the sick and dying to the last, and some of those who were raised from a bed of languishing, and who survived their pastor, speak of the affectionate kindness, the delicacy and tenderness, as well as the deep-toned spirituality of mind he showed in the sick chamber, as something which those who had not witnessed it would be backward to credit. One of the last letters which he penned filled three sides of folio paper, addressed to a friend who had met with a severe accident in being thrown from a carriage; it contained the most consoling and Scriptural aids and admonitions; it was unfortunately lost by its possessor on a voyage to India, or it would have proved, we are assured, an acquisition to our memoir, of real interest and importance.
As he stepped out of his gig, his family easily perceived from his manner if he had been visiting thechamber of death, and never presumed to break a sacred silence that was sure to follow his deep-drawn sigh till he was pleased to do so himself. This he did in general by the solemn and subdued utterance of a text from Scripture, or some verse of a favourite hymn. The tears often fell down his aged cheeks while slowly articulating, in a suppressed voice, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord;” or from one of Watts’s hymns.
“Oh could we die with those that die,” etc.
After this touching relief he seemed to feel more at liberty to speak on future events connected with his own decease, when he should be sitting down, as he frequently said, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God. Indeed his happy, social spirit led him to connect the joys of heaven with the society of saints and patriarchs and his own departed friends. Sitting at dinner with the bishop and others as his guests, his mind abstracted itself from the surrounding scene, and he addressed the Christian friend to whose notices of his last days we have already had recourse: “You know, madam, you and I are to take an alphabetical list some day of all the names of the good men I expect soon to meet in heaven; there will be (counting them up upon his fingers) John Wesley, Isaac Watts, the two Milners, Joseph and Isaac, John Newton and Thomas Scott, Mr. Howels of Long Acre, and Matthew Henry——” Here the conversation of the party broke off the solemn reverie.
Yet all this tranquillity was consistent with that natural fear of death which for the wisest purposes God has implanted in man, and which Adam must have known in paradise, or else the Divine prohibition and the threatened penalty, “in the day that thou eatestthereof thou shalt surely die,” could have had no force and appealed to no motive. “In the month of September, after his last voyage, he called at the house of his friend, the Rev. Mr. Cartwright, with a young lady from New Zealand, to introduce her to Mrs. Cartwright. The door was opened by his aged and now deeply afflicted friend and brother in the ministry, for Mrs. Cartwright had expired in the night, after a few hours’ illness. Mr. Marsden, with his usual cheerfulness of manner, said, ‘Well! I have brought Miss W. to introduce her to Mrs. Cartwright.’ ‘Stop! stop, my friend,’ responded the mourner, in a solemn manner, ‘don’t you know that Mrs. Cartwright is dead?’ ‘Dead? dead?’ replied Mr. Marsden. ‘Oh no; oh no. You must be in joke; it is too serious a matter to make a joke of, Mr. Cartwright.’ ‘Indeed,’ responded Mr. Cartwright, ‘it is too true. Come, and I will convince you,’ and then led him to the room where the remains of his departed wife lay. Mr. Marsden approached the body, saying, ‘Oh! she is not dead; no, no, she is not dead;’ (the bright complexion remaining unchanged), ‘she is not dead;’ and then, passing his hand over the face, the cold chill of death dissipated the delusion. ‘Yes, she is dead, she is dead,’ and leaving the room, he hurried away to give vent to his feelings.”
As he contemplated his own near approach to the eternal state, a few chosen passages of Scripture fell often from his lips; and it was remarked they were almost the only repetitions he made use of; for his mind was richly stored with Scripture, which he seemed to bring forth with endless variety, and often in the happiest combination; but now he often repeated thewords of Job, “He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not,” chap. xiv. 2. And those of Zechariah, “Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?” chap. i. 5.
Like Cornelius, he had been a devout man, a man of prayer through life. He believed in the promises of effectual aid from God the Holy Spirit, to carry on the work of grace in his own soul. Nerved with this faith, he waged a ceaseless war against corruptions within, and temptations from without. And while he viewed the promises of assistance from the Holy Spirit, as given not to supersede our own exertions, but to animate them, he simply trusted to Him to become the author of his complete sanctification. And all the blessed fruits of faith were found richly clustering round his character. It was his constant habit, after his return from a journey, to spend some time in his room alone, engaged, no doubt, in holy communing with God. When he prayed in the family, or before his sermon in the pulpit, where he seldom used a form, the rich and fervid unction, the variety and copiousness of his supplications and thanksgivings, seemed to intimate how closely he had been wont to commune in secret with his heavenly Father. The fifty-first Psalm now often supplied the words for many a humble confession of sin, and many an earnest aspiration for larger supplies of the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying influences, both in the pulpit and elsewhere. He appears always to have held frequent communion with God in ejaculatory prayer throughout the day. To one whose engagements were so many, and whose interruptions were necessarily so frequent, the practice was no doubt most beneficial. Thusthe lamp of God in his soul was always trimmed, and the light went not out as age and infirmities drew on. His friends now remarked his frequent abstraction from the scenes around, while his moving lip and solemn gesture significantly intimated the direction of his mind, and the occupation of his thoughts. His mind became daily more spiritual, and even when in the midst of visitors he seemed often to be absorbed in silent prayer.
“An incident which seems to show that he had a presentiment of his approaching end occurred on the last Sunday on which the holy communion was administered before his death. Although in his usual health, he did not assist in the service, as he always had done for a long period of forty-five years in the same congregation; and when the officiating minister was ready to distribute the bread and wine, he remained in his pew, apparently overcome by his feelings. A pause ensued, when, as he still did not attempt to move, the Rev. Henry Bobart, his son-in-law, thought it advisable to take the elements to him. Many of his congregation were affected to tears, impressed with the belief that they might not again receive from his venerable hands those emblems of the Saviour’s love. He had never yet been present at the church without assisting at the solemn rite. Such fears were but too truly and sadly realized. On the Sunday evening, at the parsonage, it was the custom, at family worship, to read one of a course of sermons. The Sunday before his death, when he was still apparently as well as usual, he requested that the one in course for that evening might be laid aside and Bradley’s sermon the ‘Morrow unknown,’ from the text ‘Boast not thyself of to-morrow,’ substituted. Some slight objection was made; but on his again expressing hiswish, it was of course complied with. The remarks made by him upon the subject during the evening excited the apprehensions of his family that the coming week might be one of trial, but they little thought that ere the next sabbath one so loved and revered would be removed from them.”
On Tuesday the 8th of May, 1838, a few of his friends visited him at his own house; he wore his usual cheerfulness, and they wished him, as they thought, a short farewell as he stepped into his gig on a journey of about five and-twenty-miles. In passing through the low lands contiguous to Windsor, the cold suddenly affected him, and he complained of illness on his arrival at the house of his friend, the Rev. Mr. Styles, the chaplain of the parish. Erysipelas in the head broke out, and a general stupor followed, so that he became insensible. His mind wandered amongst the scenes to which his life had been devoted, and he uttered a few incoherent expressions about the factory, the orphan school, and the New Zealand mission. “Though he spoke but little,” says his friend, Mr. Styles, in his funeral sermon, “yet in his few conscious moments he said quite enough to show that the Saviour whom he served through life was with him in the time of trial. A single remark was made to him by a bystander on the value of a good hope in Christ in the hour of need. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘that hope is indeed precious to me now;’ and on the following evening, his last on earth, he was heard repeating the words ‘precious, precious,’ as if still in the same strain of thought which that remark had suggested. Soon after, inflammation having reached the brain, his spirit was released. On Saturday morning, the 12th of May, he entered—who candoubt?—upon the enjoyment of his ‘eternal and exceeding great reward.’”
He was buried in his own churchyard at Paramatta. Upwards of sixty carriages formed the mourning train, and a numerous assemblage of mourners, including most of the public functionaries in the colony, followed him to the grave. Of these, some who had in years long past thwarted and opposed him came at last to offer an unfeigned tribute of deep respect. A few had been his early associates in the ministry, and in every good word and work. The majority were a youthful generation, to whom he was only known as a wise and venerable minister of God. His parishioners had been most of them brought up under his instructions, and had been taught from their infancy to look up to him with respect and love. The solemn burial service was read by the Rev. Dr. Cowper, who first came out to the colony at Mr. Marsden’s solicitation. He stood over the grave and addressed the mourners on the early devotedness of their departed friend and pastor to the great work of the ministry, told them how solemnly he had dedicated himself to God before he left England in his youth, and reminded them of the fidelity with which through evil and good report he had endured his Master’s cross, despising the shame.
Australia seemed at length fully to appreciate his worth. It was quite fitting, and indeed an additional tribute to his integrity, that some mutterings of calumny should be uttered by ungodly men, even as the grave closed over him, and that a priest of the apostate church of Rome should catch them up, and gladly give expression to them. With this exception the colony was unanimous, as were the friends of religionin England, and throughout the world, in mourning for him as for one who had been great as an evangelist in the church of Christ, and as a philanthropist second to none who have ever devoted their lives to the welfare of their fellow creatures. It was proposed to erect a monument to his memory by public subscription; the proposition was warmly approved on all sides, and subscriptions were offered to a considerable amount. Whole families became subscribers—parents, and children, and domestic servants, all ready thus to testify their reverence. On further consideration, it was thought better to erect a church to his memory on a piece of his own land, which he himself had devised for that purpose, to which the name of Marsfield should be given; and the design, we believe, has been carried into effect, at the cost of about six thousand pounds.
The public press, not only in Australia but in England, published biographical sketches of his life and labours, with articles on his motives and character. The great missionary societies recorded his death with becoming feelings of reverential love. The notice of him in the minutes of the Church Missionary Society, the reader will not be displeased to find in these pages. It was read at their annual meeting at Exeter-hall, and published in their thirtieth report.
“The Committee of the Church Missionary Society record the death of the late Rev. Samuel Marsden with feelings of deep respect for his personal character and gratitude to the Great Head of the church, who raised up, and who so long preserved, this distinguished man, for the good of his own, and of future generations.“In him the Committee recognise an individual whom Providence had endowed with a vigorousconstitution, both of body and mind, suited to meet the circumstances which ever attend a course of new and arduous labours. Entering upon the duties of his chaplaincy forty-five years ago, at a time when the colonists of New South Wales were, for the most part, of abandoned character and suffering the penalty of the law, he, with admirable foresight, anticipated the probable future destinies of that singular and important colony, and never ceased to call the attention of both the local and home governments to the great duty of providing for the interests, both temporal and spiritual, of the rapidly increasing population by a proportionate increase in the number of colonial chaplains.“In the discharge of his diversified duties, the native energies of his mind were conspicuously exhibited in the undisturbed ardour, public spirit, and steady perseverance, with which his various plans of usefulness were prosecuted; while his high natural gifts were sanctified by those Christian principles, which from his youth up, he maintained and adorned, both by his teaching and by his life.“But it is to his exertions in behalf of Christian missions that the Committee are bound especially to call the attention of the Society. While he omitted no duty of his proper ministerial calling, his comprehensive mind quickly embraced the vast spiritual interests, till then well nigh entirely unheeded, of the innumerable islands of the Pacific Ocean, whose ‘inhabitants were sitting in darkness, and in the shadow of death.’“Under the influence of these considerations, Mr. Marsden zealously promoted the labours of the different societies which have established missions in the South Seas. And it is to his visits to New Zealand, beguntwenty-five years ago, and often since repeated, and to his earnest appeals on behalf of that people, that the commencement and consolidation of the Society’s missions in the Northern Island are to be attributed.“In calling to mind the long series of eminent services rendered to the Society by Mr. Marsden, the committee notice with peculiar satisfaction the last visit made by him, in the year 1836, to the Society’s missions in New Zealand—a visit justly termed by the Lord Bishop of Australia ‘Apostolical.’ With paternal authority and affection, and with the solemnity of one who felt himself to be standing on the verge of eternity, he then gave his parting benediction to the missionaries and the native converts.”
“The Committee of the Church Missionary Society record the death of the late Rev. Samuel Marsden with feelings of deep respect for his personal character and gratitude to the Great Head of the church, who raised up, and who so long preserved, this distinguished man, for the good of his own, and of future generations.
“In him the Committee recognise an individual whom Providence had endowed with a vigorousconstitution, both of body and mind, suited to meet the circumstances which ever attend a course of new and arduous labours. Entering upon the duties of his chaplaincy forty-five years ago, at a time when the colonists of New South Wales were, for the most part, of abandoned character and suffering the penalty of the law, he, with admirable foresight, anticipated the probable future destinies of that singular and important colony, and never ceased to call the attention of both the local and home governments to the great duty of providing for the interests, both temporal and spiritual, of the rapidly increasing population by a proportionate increase in the number of colonial chaplains.
“In the discharge of his diversified duties, the native energies of his mind were conspicuously exhibited in the undisturbed ardour, public spirit, and steady perseverance, with which his various plans of usefulness were prosecuted; while his high natural gifts were sanctified by those Christian principles, which from his youth up, he maintained and adorned, both by his teaching and by his life.
“But it is to his exertions in behalf of Christian missions that the Committee are bound especially to call the attention of the Society. While he omitted no duty of his proper ministerial calling, his comprehensive mind quickly embraced the vast spiritual interests, till then well nigh entirely unheeded, of the innumerable islands of the Pacific Ocean, whose ‘inhabitants were sitting in darkness, and in the shadow of death.’
“Under the influence of these considerations, Mr. Marsden zealously promoted the labours of the different societies which have established missions in the South Seas. And it is to his visits to New Zealand, beguntwenty-five years ago, and often since repeated, and to his earnest appeals on behalf of that people, that the commencement and consolidation of the Society’s missions in the Northern Island are to be attributed.
“In calling to mind the long series of eminent services rendered to the Society by Mr. Marsden, the committee notice with peculiar satisfaction the last visit made by him, in the year 1836, to the Society’s missions in New Zealand—a visit justly termed by the Lord Bishop of Australia ‘Apostolical.’ With paternal authority and affection, and with the solemnity of one who felt himself to be standing on the verge of eternity, he then gave his parting benediction to the missionaries and the native converts.”
And thus was the man honoured in his death, whose life had been one long conflict with obloquy and slander. With few exceptions his enemies had died away, or been gradually led to abandon their prejudices, and many of them now loved and revered the man whom they had once hated or despised. This, however, is but the usual recompense of a life of consistent holiness. God often allows his servants to live and even to die under a cloud of prejudice; but sooner or later, even the world does homage to their virtues and confesses its admiration of the Christian character, while the church of Christ glorifies God in the grace which made their departed brother to shine as a light in the world.
FOOTNOTES:[K]London: Hatchard, 1841.
FOOTNOTES:
[K]London: Hatchard, 1841.
[K]London: Hatchard, 1841.
Character of Mr. Marsden—His Life and Labours.
Character of Mr. Marsden—His Life and Labours.
The reader may naturally expect in conclusion a summary of Mr. Marsden’s character. In attempting this, we are by no means insensible to the difficulty of the undertaking. Indiscriminate eulogy, and the arrogance which affects to blame in order to establish its own claim to superior wisdom, are both alike impertinent and unbecoming. Yet it is not easy to speak of one whose motives were so high, whose labours so constant and self-denying, and whose triumphs so remarkable, without enthusiasm. While, on the other hand, those infirmities which may generally be detected even in the best men, and which truth requires to be impartially noted down, did not much affect his public life; and we have felt all along as we have written with the disadvantage of having known him only by the report of others. Still, however, something should be attempted. The character of Mr. Marsden is too instructive to be lost; perhaps few great men ever lived whose example was more calculated for general usefulness,—for the simple reason that he displayed no gigantic powers, no splendid genius; he had only a solid, well ordered, mind, with which to work,—no other endowments than those which thousands of his fellow men possess. It was in theuse of his materialsthat his greatness lay.
Mr. Marsden was a man of a masculine understanding, of great decision of character, and an energy which nothing could subdue. He naturally possessedsuch directness and honesty of purpose, that his intentions could never be mistaken; and he seemed incapable of attempting to gain his purpose by those dexterous shifts and manœuvres which often pass current, even amongst professing Christians, as the proper, if not laudable, resources of a good diplomatist, or a thorough man of business. When he had an object in view, it was always worthy of his strenuous pursuit, and nothing stopped him in his efforts to obtain it, except the impossibility of proceeding further. Had his mind been less capacious such firmness would often have degenerated into mere obstinacy; had it been less benevolent and less under the influence of religion, it would have led him, as he pressed rudely onwards, to trample upon the feelings, perhaps upon the rights, of other men. But he seems, whenever he was not boldly confronting vice, to have been of the gentlest nature. In opposing sin, especially when it showed itself with effrontery in the persons of magistrates and men in power, he gave no quarter and asked for none. There was a quaintness and originality about him, which enabled him to say and do things which were impossible to other men. There was a firmness and inflexibility, combined with earnest zeal, which in the days of the reformers would have placed him in their foremost rank. None could be long in his society without observing that he was a man of another mould than those around him. There was an air of unconscious independence in all he did which, mixed with his other qualities, clearly showed to those who could read his character, that he was a peculiar instrument in the hands of God to carry out his own purposes. These traits are illustrated by many remarkable events in his life.
When he first arrived in New South Wales, while theft, blasphemy, and every other crime, prevailed to an alarming extent among the convicts, the higher classes of society, the civil and military officers, set a disgraceful example of social immorality. Such is the account given by a Sydney periodical a few weeks after Mr. Marsden’s decease, which goes on to say: “Many an individual of a more plastic nature might have been moulded by the prevailing fashion of the age in which he lived, and instead of endeavouring to struggle against the tide of popular opinion, would have yielded in all probability to its seducing influence. Such was not the case with Mr. Marsden. When he was opposed on all hands, and even by the civil and military authorities of the day, he faithfully performed his duty, and careless of the powerful coalitions combined for his destruction, ‘all the ends he aimed at were his country’s, his God’s, and truth’s.’ Educated in the school of the Milners, the Simeons, and the Fletchers, he was not disposed to flatter the vices of any man; but with plainness and sincerity of speech, he discoursed ‘of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come.’” He has been known to rebuke sin at a dinner-table in such a manner as to electrify the whole company. Once, arriving late, he sat down in haste, and did not for a few minutes perceive the presence of one who should have been the wife of the host, but who stood in a very different relation to him. Mr. Marsden always turned a deaf ear to scandal, and in the excess of his charity was sometimes blind to facts which were evident enough to others. The truth now flashed upon him, and though such things were little thought of in the colony, he rose instantly from the table, calling to the servant in a decided tone to bringhis hat, and without further ceremony, or another word, retired. That such a man should raise up a host of bitter enemies is not to be wondered at.
To these qualities his great successes in life, under God, were due. The young chaplain who single handed confronted and at length bore down the profligacy of New South Wales, and the shameless partiality of its courts of justice (the immediate result and consequence of the licentious lives and connexions of the magistrates) planned, and was himself the first to adventure upon the mission to New Zealand. Against the rashness of this attempt the timid expostulations of his friends, the hesitation of the captains who declined so perilous an adventure, and even the remonstrances of Governor Macquarie himself weighed not a feather in the scale. He saw his way clearly; it was the path of duty, and along it he must go. And when, ten years afterwards, scarcely a nominal convert had been won from among the cannibals, when tens of thousands of good money had been spent, when the church at home was almost weary of the project, and half disposed to give it up, he was still true as ever to the cause. He neither bolstered up his courage with noisy protestations, nor attempted to cheer the languid zeal of others by the slightest exaggerations, but quietly went forward calmly resting upon the two great pillars, thecommandsand thepromisesof God. So again with respect to the Polynesian missions; at first he showed little of that enthusiasm in which some of its promoters were caught as in a whirlwind, and carried off their feet. But high principle endures when enthusiasm has long worn out. And it was to the firm and yet cheering remonstrances of Samuel Marsden, and to the weight which his representations had with the churchesof Christ in England, that the directors were indebted for the ability to maintain their ground, and that this perhaps the most successful of Protestant missions, was not finally abandoned upon the very eve of its triumphs.
While he embraced large and comprehensive projects, it was one of his striking peculiarities that he paid close attention to minute details. Some minds beginning with the vast and theoretical, work backwards into the necessary details; others setting out upon that which is minute and practical, from the necessities of the hour and the duties of the day before them seem to enlarge their circle and to build up new projects as they proceed. The former may be men of greater genius, but the latter are in general the more successful, and to these Mr. Marsden belonged. The cast of his mind was eminently practical. No crude visions of distant triumphs led him away from the duties which belonged to the scene and circumstances in which providence had placed him. Paramatta was for many years the model parish of New South Wales, although its pastor was the soul of the New Zealand mission, and of many a philanthropic enterprise besides. Commissioner Biggs, in his “Report of Inquiry,” which was published by order of the House of Commons, observes that “Mr. Marsden, though much occupied by the business of the missions which he conducted, and by the superintendence of the orphan school which he had himself called into existence, was remarkably attentive to the duties of his ministry.” “The congregation at Paramatta appeared to me to be more respectable than at the other places of worship, and the choral parts of the service were admirably performed by the singers, who have been taught underthe direction of the Rev. S. Marsden.” He was well known to all his parishioners, to whom he paid constant ministerial visits; his attention to the sick, whether at their own homes or the government hospital, was unremitting, and here his natural shrewdness, sharpened as it was by his spiritual penetration, showed itself in his insight into the true character of those he dealt with. Nothing disgusted him more than a want of reality. High professions from inconsistent lips were loathsome to him, and his rebukes were sometimes sharp. A gentleman, whose habits of life were not altogether consistent with Christian simplicity and deadness to the world, had been reading “Mammon,” when that volume had just made its appearance, and with that partial eye with which we are too apt to view our own failings, had come to the flattering conclusion that by contrast with the monster depicted in “Mammon,” the desires he felt to add field to field and house to house, were not covetousness, but that diligence in business which the Scriptures inculcate. In the happy excitement of the discovery, he exultingly exclaimed, “Well, thank God, I have no covetousness.” Mr. Marsden, who had read no more about covetousness than he found in the Bible, had sat silent; rising from his chair, and taking his hat, he merely said, “Well, I think it is time for me to go: and so, sir, you thank God that you are not as other men are. You have no covetousness? havn’t you? Why, sir, I suppose the next thing you’ll tell us is that you’ve no pride;” and left the room.
But when he spoke to a modest inquirer, these roughnesses, which lay only on the surface, disappeared. To the sick, his manner was gentle and affectionate, and in his later years, when he began, fromfailing memory and dimness of sight, to feel himself unequal to the pulpit, he spent much of his time in going from house to house and amongst the prison population, exhorting and expounding the Scriptures. Upon one of these occasions, a friend who accompanied him relates that he made a short journey to visit a dying young lady, whose parents on some account were strangely averse to his intrusion, pastoral though it was. But the kindness with which he addressed the sufferer, whom he found under deep spiritual anxieties, and the soothing manner in which he spoke and prayed with her, instantly changed the whole bias of their minds. “To think,” they exclaimed when he left the house, “of the aged man, with his silver locks, coming such a distance as seventeen miles, and speaking so affectionately to our feeble child!”
“At Paramatta, his Sunday-school,” his daughter writes, “was in a more efficient state than any I have since seen;” and the same remark might probably be applied to his other parochial institutions, for whatever he did was done with all his heart; and he was one of those who easily find coadjutors. Their example seems to shed an immediate influence. And his curates and the pious members of his flock were scarcely less zealous and energetic than himself.
He found time to promote missionary meetings, and to encourage the formation of tract and Bible societies, as well as other benevolent institutions, at Sydney and other places. On many occasions he delivered interesting speeches, and not long before his death he presided at a Bible Society meeting at Paramatta, when, in the course of an affectionate address, he alluded to his beloved New Zealand. New Zealand was near his heart, and he now seldom spoke of itwithout being sensibly affected. Relating an anecdote respecting Mowhee, a converted New Zealander, he was completely overcome, and burst into tears.
His manner of preaching was simple, forcible, and persuasive, rather than powerful or eloquent. In his later years, when he was no longer able to read his sermons, he preached extempore. His memory, until the last year or two of his life, was remarkably tenacious: he used to repeat the whole of the burial servicememoriter, and in the pulpit, whole chapters or a great variety of texts from all parts of Scripture, as they were required to prove or illustrate his subject. He was seldom controversial, nor did he attempt a critical exposition of the word of God. His ministry was pure and evangelical. “You can well remember him, my hearers,” says the preacher, in his funeral sermon, “as having faithfully preached to you the word of God; clearly did he lay before you the whole counsel of God. Man was represented by him as in a condemned and helpless state, lying in all the pollution and filthiness of his sin, totally unable to justify himself wholly or in part, by any works of righteousness which he can do; God, as too pure to look upon iniquity without abhorrence, and yet too merciful to leave sinners to their sad estate without providing a refuge for them; Christ, as All in all to the sinner; as wisdom to enlighten him, as righteousness to justify him, sanctification to make him holy in heart and life, as complete redemption from the bondage of sin and death into the glorious inheritance of heaven; the Holy Spirit of God as the only author of aught that is good in the renewed soul; faith as the only means of applying the salvation of the gospel to the case of the individual sinner; justification by faith; thenecessity of regeneration; holiness indispensable. All these were represented by your departed minister as the vital doctrines of the gospel, and the mutual bearing and connexion of each was clearly shown. And this he has been doing for nearly forty-five years.”
Dwelling on the outskirts of civilization and of the Christian world, he was too deeply impressed with the grand line of distinction between Christianity and hideous ungodliness, whether exhibited in the vices of a penal settlement or the cannibalism of New Zealand, to be likely to attach too much importance to those minor shades of difference which are to be met with in the great family of Jesus Christ. As his heart was large, so too was his spirit catholic. He was sincerely and affectionately attached to the church of England. He revered her liturgy, and in her articles and homilies he found his creed, and he laboured much to promote her extension. Yet his heart was filled with love to all those who name the name of Christ in sincerity. Wherever he met with the evidences of real piety and soundness of doctrine, his house and his purse flew open; and orthodox Christians of every denomination from time to time either shared his hospitalities or were assisted in their benevolent projects with pecuniary aid. With what delicacy this was done may be gathered from such statements as the following, which is copied from the “Colonist” newspaper, September 12th, 1838: “An attempt having been made to build a Scotch church in Sydney, the colonial government for a time opposed the scheme, and in consequence some of its friends fell away. Then it was that the late Samuel Marsden, unsolicited, very generously offered the loan of 750l.to the trustees of the Scotch church, on the security of the building and for itscompletion. This loan was accordingly made; but as it was found impracticable to give an available security on the building, Mr. Marsden agreed to take the personal guarantee of the minister for the debt.”
In the same spirit he presented the Wesleyan Methodists with a valuable piece of land on which to erect a chapel, at Windsor. This act of Christian charity was acknowledged by their missionaries in a grateful letter. Mr. Marsden’s reply is full of warmth and feeling. “You express your acknowledgment for the ground at Windsor to build your chapel and house upon. I can only say I feel much pleasure in having it in my power to meet your wishes in this respect. To give you the right hand of fellowship is no more than my indispensable duty; and were I to throw the smallest difficulty in your way I should be highly criminal and unworthy the Christian name, more especially considering the present circumstances of these extensive settlements, ‘where the harvest is so great and the labourers are so few.’ ... The importation of convicts from Europe is very great every year; hundreds have just landed on our shores from various parts of the British empire, hundreds are now in the harbour ready to be disembarked, and hundreds more on the bosom of the great deep are hourly expected. These exiles come to us laden with the chains of their sins, and reduced to the lowest state of human wretchedness and depravity. We must not expect that magistrates and politicians can find a remedy for the dreadful moral diseases with which the convicts are infected. The plague of sin, when it has been permitted to operate on the human mind with all its violence and poison, can never be cured, and seldom restrained by the wisest human laws and regulations. Heaven itself has provided the only remedyfor sin—the blessed balm in Gilead; to apply any other remedy is lost labour. In recommending this at all times and in all places, we shall prevail upon some to try its effect; and whoever do this we know they will be healed in the selfsame hour. I pray that the Divine blessing may attend all your labours for the good of immortal souls in these settlements.”
His private charities displayed the same catholic spirit. His disinterestedness was great, and his only desire seemed to be to assist the deserving or to retrieve the lost. He was not foolishly indifferent to the value of money, as those who had business transactions with him were well aware; but its chief value in his eyes consisted in the opportunities it gave him to promote the happiness of others. Hundreds of instances of his extraordinary liberality might be mentioned, and it is probable that many more are quite unknown. The following anecdotes, furnished by his personal friends, will show that his bounty was dealt out with no sparing hand.
A gentleman, at whose house he was a visitor, happened to express a wish that he had three hundred pounds to pay off a debt. The next morning Mr. Marsden came down and presented him with the money, taking no acknowledgment. The circumstance would have remained unknown had not the obliged person, after Mr. Marsden’s decease, honourably sent an acknowledgment to his executors. All he assisted were not equally grateful. Travelling with a friend in his carriage, a vehicle passed by. “Paddy,” said he, calling to his servant, “who is that?” On being told, “Oh,” said he, “he borrowed from me two hundred pounds, and he never paid me.” This was his only remark.
Yet he was not tenacious for repayment, nor indeed exact in requiring it at all where he thought the persons needy and deserving. The same friend was with him when a man called to pay up the interest on a considerable sum which Mr. Marsden had lent to him. He took a cheque for the amount, but when the person retired, tore it up and threw it into the fire, remarking, “He is an honest man. I am satisfied if he returns me the principal; that is all I want.”
On another occasion, a friend who had been requested to make an advance of fifty pounds to a needy person, but was unable to do so, mentioned the case to Mr. Marsden, with, “Sir, can you lend me fifty pounds?” “To be sure I can,” was the answer, and the money was instantly produced. When he called, shortly afterwards, to repay the loan, Mr. Marsden had forgotten all about it. “Indeed I never looked to its being repaid.”
The Rev——, being pressed for a hundred pounds, walking with Mr. Marsden, mentioned his difficulties. Mr. Marsden at once gave him a hundred pounds, simply remarking, “I dare say that will do for you.”
A lady had come to the colony at the solicitation of her family, with the view of establishing a school of a superior class for the daughters of the colonists. At first she met with little success. Mr. Marsden saw the importance of her scheme, and at once invited her to Paramatta, offering her a suitable house and all the pecuniary aid she might require, and this under the feeling of a recent disappointment in an undertaking of the same nature.
Of the large sums he expended on the New Zealand mission from his own private resources it is impossible even to conjecture the amount, to say nothing of alife in a great measure devoted to the service. He one day called upon a young man of enterprise and piety, whom he was anxious to induce to settle in New Zealand, and offered him fifty pounds per annum out of his own purse, as well as to raise a further sum for him from other sources. Nor should it be forgotten, in proof of this disinterestedness, that with all his opportunities and influence in New Zealand, he never possessed a single acre of land there, or sought the slightest advantage either for himself or for any member of his family.
Another feature in his character was his unaffected humility. This was not in him the nervous weakness which disqualifies some men for vigorous action, rendering them either unconscious of their power, or incapable of maintaining and asserting their position, and consequently of discharging its obligations. This, though often called humility, is, in fact, disease, and ought to be resisted rather than indulged. Mr. Marsden’s mind was vigorous and healthy; he took a just measure of his powers and opportunities, as the use he put them to proves abundantly. There was nothing in him of the shyness which disqualifies for public life; he was bold without effrontery, courageous without rashness, firm without obstinacy; but withal he was a humble man. His private correspondence will have shown the reader how anxious he was to submit his own judgment, even on questions affecting his personal character, to what he considered the better judgment of his friends at home. To vanity or ostentation he seems to have been a perfect stranger. There is not a passage in his correspondence, nor can we learn that a word ever fell from his lips, which would lead us to suppose that he ever thought himself in any way an extraordinary man. Flattery disgusted him, and even moderate praise was offensive to his feelings. When the life of his friend, Dr. Mason Good, appeared from the pen of Dr. Olinthus Gregory, it contained an appendix, giving an account of his own labours and triumphs at Paramatta and in New Zealand. This he cut out of the volume with his penknife, without any remark, before he permitted it to lie upon his table or to be read by his family. He was so far from thinking he had accomplished much, either in the colony or amongst the heathen, that he was rather disposed, in his later days, to lament that his life had been almost useless; and indeed he was heard more than once to express a doubt whether he had not mistaken his calling, and been no better than an intruder into the sacred ministry. Perhaps failing health and spirits were in part the cause of these misgivings, but his unfeigned humility had a deeper root. It originated in that evangelical piety upon which all his usefulness was built. He saw the holiness of God, he saw his Divine perfection reflected in his law, and though he had a clear, abiding sense of his adoption through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, this did not interfere with a clear conception too of his own unworthiness. When told one day, by a justly indignant friend, how basely he was misrepresented, “Sir,” he exclaimed, and the solemnity of his manner showed the depth of his meaning, “these men don’t know the worst. Why, sir, if I were to walk down the streets of Paramatta with my heart laid bare, the very boys would pelt me.”
Such was Samuel Marsden, a man whose memory is to be revered and his example imitated. “Not merely a good man,” says the preacher of his funeral sermon,“who filled up the place allotted to him on earth, and then sank into his grave; not merely a faithful minister of Christ, who loved and served his Saviour and turned many to repentance, but more than either of these. Rightly to estimate his character we must view him as a peculiar man, raised up for an especial purpose.” And he adds—
“As Luther in Germany, and John Knox in Scotland, and Cranmer in England, were sent by the Head of the church, and fitted with peculiar qualifications to make known his glorious gospel, hidden in Romish darkness, so too, no less truly, wasSamuel Marsdenraised up in this southern hemisphere, and admirably fitted for the work, and made the instrument of diffusing the light of that same gospel, and of bringing it to bear on the darkness of New Zealand and the Isles of the Sea, and upon the darkness, too, no less real, of the depravity of society in early Australia.”
“As Luther in Germany, and John Knox in Scotland, and Cranmer in England, were sent by the Head of the church, and fitted with peculiar qualifications to make known his glorious gospel, hidden in Romish darkness, so too, no less truly, wasSamuel Marsdenraised up in this southern hemisphere, and admirably fitted for the work, and made the instrument of diffusing the light of that same gospel, and of bringing it to bear on the darkness of New Zealand and the Isles of the Sea, and upon the darkness, too, no less real, of the depravity of society in early Australia.”
Progress of the Gospel and of Civilization in New Zealand, since Mr. Marsden’s Decease.
Progress of the Gospel and of Civilization in New Zealand, since Mr. Marsden’s Decease.
The great work of Mr. Marsden’s life was undoubtedly the New Zealand mission; but he was also, as we have seen, the early friend, the wise adviser, and not unfrequently the generous host of that devoted band of men who first essayed the introduction of the gospel to the Society Islands. Each of these missions has been attended with astonishing success; each has produced what may be called magnificent results,—results which already far exceed, in some respects, the most sanguine hopes, extravagant as at the time they seemed to be, of Mr. Marsden and his early coadjutors some fifty years ago. Yet in other respects their disappointment would have been great had they lived to witness the present state of things, whether in New Zealand or Tahiti. Instead of native tribes growing up into Christian brotherhood, and asserting a national independence, these beautiful islands have bowed to a foreign yoke. Instead of native churches they have rather assumed the form of offshoots and dependencies of British churches. A great work has been accomplished, and its fruits will never cease to ripen. But events have occurred which only prophets could have foreseen; changes have taken place which neither political sagacity nor the saintly wisdom of those good men who first projected our foreign missions amidst storms of insult, or, what was worse to bear, thewithering influences of a contemptuous neglect, anticipated. It is often so in this world’s history. Our successes, our trials, the events which happen to us, our national history, and that of the church of Christ, scoop out for themselves fresh channels, and flow still onwards, but in the direction perhaps least of all expected.
Our readers are, we trust, so far interested in the details already given as to desire some further acquaintance with the later history of these great missions since Mr. Marsden’s death. This we propose to give, briefly of course, for the subject would fill a volume; and such a volume, whenever it shall be written well and wisely, will be received with delight by every intelligent member of the whole catholic church of Christ.
We shall direct our attention in the first place toNew Zealand.
Attempts to colonize upon a large scale, attended with constant aggressions upon the native tribes, had occurred before Mr. Marsden’s death, and awakened his anxiety. A New Zealand Company was formed in 1839, with the avowed object of purchasing land from the Maories, and settling large tracts of the island with English emigrants. It made no provision for the spiritual welfare of the natives, nor indeed for that of the European settlers; and it was evident that, however well-intentioned, the project in the hands of a mercantile company would be effected, as such schemes always have been effected, only at the cost of injustice and oppression to the natives. Meanwhile danger was threatening from another quarter. Louis Philippe now sat upon the throne of France. Though not ambitious of military conquest, he wascunning and unprincipled, and anxious to extend the power of France by force or fraud. Her colonial possessions she had lost during her long war with England, and now scarcely one of them remained. He saw and coveted the islands of the Southern Ocean, and resolved to repair his colonial empire by the addition of these splendid and inviting prizes. It was said, and we believe with truth, that a frigate was already equipped and on the very point of sailing for New Zealand with secret orders to annex that island to the crown of France, when the English government, tardily and with sincere reluctance, resolved to anticipate the project and claim New Zealand for the queen of England. This was done, and the island was formally annexed to the English crown, and in January, 1842, became an English colony.
For once the story of colonial annexation is neither darkened with crime nor saddened with war and bloodshed. The measure was essential both to the security of the natives and to the work of the Protestant missions. Lawlessness and anarchy were universal: the Maori tribes were slaughtering one another; the white man was slaughtering the Maori tribes. For the native laws were obsolete, and the laws of England no man yet had the power to enforce.
There was, too, on the part of England, and it was strongly expressed in the British parliament, a determination to secure, as far as possible, not only the safety but the independence of the natives under their old chiefs, and to leave them in possession of their ancient usages and forms of government. In fact, the authority of queen Victoria was to be that of a mild protectorate rather than an absolute sovereignty. The chiefs were to acknowledge the supremacy of thecrown as represented in the governor. To him, and not as heretofore to the field of battle, with its horrors and cannibalism, were their disputes to be referred; and in all doubtful questions English law, its maxims and analogies, were to be held supreme. Upon these easy terms the most fastidious will find little to blame in our annexation of New Zealand. The Maories did not exceed, it was computed, one hundred thousand souls. Suppose they had been twice that number, still they could scarcely be said tooccupythe whole of an island of the size of Ireland, and quite as fruitful. There was still room for a vast influx of Europeans, leaving to the natives wide tracts of land far beyond their wants, either for tillage or the chase, or for a nomad wandering life, had this been the habit of the Maories. And when the threatened seizure by France is thrown into the scale, few Protestants, of whatever nation they may be, will hesitate to admit that the conduct of England in this instance was both wise and just.
The Maories in general accepted this new state of things with satisfaction. Those of them who resided on the coast and in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands saw that the aggression of the colonists was restrained, and that their own safety was secured. Further in the interior, where the want of an English protectorate was less felt, heart-burnings occurred, fomented, as usual, by designing men, and aggravated by the occasional outrage of individuals. Some of the tribes resisted, and a war broke out, though happily neither bloody nor of long duration, in which the Maories maintained the reputation of their native valour, even against English regiments. Nor was it till the year 1849 that the peace of the island and thesupremacy of the English crown were perfectly restored and asserted.
For a time the progress of the gospel was triumphant. For example, archdeacon William Williams could report that the number of communicants in the eastern district, beneath his care, had risen from twenty-nine in 1840, to two thousand eight hundred and ninety-three in 1850; and these were “members of the congregation who were supposed to walk in the narrow way. Here then,” he exclaims, “is abundant encouragement; the little one is become a thousand. In the course of ten years, there has been time for the novelty of Christianity to wear away; but, while some are gone back again to the beggarly elements of the world, hitherto the Lord has blessed his vineyards with increase.” In other districts the progress of the gospel was equally gratifying. At Tauranga, out of a population not exceeding two thousand four hundred, upwards of eight hundred partook of the Lord’s supper; and yet there were many native Christians who, from various causes, had been kept away from this ordinance. Other denominations of Protestant Christians had likewise their trophies to exhibit to the “praise of his grace,” who had crowned their labours with success. “The facilities,” reports one missionary, upon the eastern coast, “the facilities for usefulness are great; the coast might become one of the most interesting missionary gardens in the world. Crowds can be got together at any time for catechizing; the dear children are all anxious for schooling; the native teachers and monitors put themselves quite under your hands; and they are, I think, a very improving and improvable class.”
Similar reports reached home from almost everystation in New Zealand. At the intervention of a missionary of the church of England, a Wesleyan missionary, and an English lay gentleman, (the surveyor-general,) the Waikato and Wangaroa tribes, bent on mutual slaughter, laid down their arms at the instant the battle should have joined. They had had their war-dance; some random shots had even been fired; their mediators had begun to despair; when at length, towards evening, they agreed to leave the subject in dispute between them (the right to a piece of land), to Sir George Grey, the governor, and Te Werowero, a native chieftain, for arbitration. The question was put to the whole army, “Do you agree to this?” Four hundred armed natives answered with one voice, assenting. The question was put a second time, and they again gave their consent. “The surveyor-general giving the signal, we all,” says the missionary, “gave three hearty cheers; after which the natives assembled for evening-prayers, and,” he adds, “I trust I felt thankful.” The accounts that reached England, filled men’s hearts with astonishment; even upon the spot, men long enured to the spiritual warfare with idolatry, were amazed at the greatness of their triumph. They wrote home in strains such as the following.
“Rotorua is endeared to us by every tie that should endear a place to a missionary’s heart. We came hither, to a people utterly debased by everything that was savage. Now, there is not a village or place around us, where the morning and evening bell does not call to prayer and praise, and where the sabbath is not observed. I am sometimes astonished when I look back upon the past, and remember what we have passed through. If I think only of those scenes which occurred to us during the southern war, the remembrance seems appalling. Now peace reigns in every border; the native chapel stands conspicuous in almost every Pa; wars seem almost forgotten; and for New Zealand, the promise seems fulfilled, ‘I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.’”
“Rotorua is endeared to us by every tie that should endear a place to a missionary’s heart. We came hither, to a people utterly debased by everything that was savage. Now, there is not a village or place around us, where the morning and evening bell does not call to prayer and praise, and where the sabbath is not observed. I am sometimes astonished when I look back upon the past, and remember what we have passed through. If I think only of those scenes which occurred to us during the southern war, the remembrance seems appalling. Now peace reigns in every border; the native chapel stands conspicuous in almost every Pa; wars seem almost forgotten; and for New Zealand, the promise seems fulfilled, ‘I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.’”
New Zealand was at length, outwardly at least, a Christian land. Bishop Selwyn had, in 1842, taken charge of the church of England and the oversight of her missions, and other denominations assumed a fixed and settled character. The missionary began to merge and disappear in the stated minister. The ancient warrior chieftain too, was fading fast from sight; and we cannot deny that, savage as he was, we part from him with some feelings of respect. Who that has a heart to feel, or any imagination capable of being warmed by strains of exquisite pathos, can read unmoved the last words of the dying Karepa? The scene is in the lonely village of Te Hawera, of which he was the chief. Mr. Colenzo, the missionary, arrived just as his people, with loud cries, sitting around his new-made tomb, bewailed his departure. At night they gathered around their spiritual father in his tent, and one of the natives thus related the last words of Karepa.
“He summoned us all,” said he, “to come close around him, and with much love exhorted us; talking energetically, as was his custom, a long while, he said:—‘You well know that I have brought you, from time to time, much riches, muskets, powder, hatchets, knives, blankets. I afterwards heard of the new riches, called faith. I sought it. I went to Manawatu; in those days a long and perilous journey, for we were surrounded by enemies; no man travelled alone: I sawthe few natives who, it was said, had heard of it; but they could not satisfy me. I sought further, but in vain. I heard afterwards of a white man at Otaki, and that with him was the spring where I could fill my empty and dry calabash. I travelled to his place, to Otaki, but in vain; he was gone—gone away ill. I returned to you, my children, dark minded. Many days passed by; the snows fell, they melted, they disappeared; the buds expanded, and the tangled paths of our low forests were again passable to the foot of the native man. At last we heard of another white man who was going about over mountains and through forests and swamps, giving drink from his calabash to the secluded native—to the remnants of the tribes of the mighty, of the renowned of former days, now dwelling by twos and threes among the roots of the big trees of the ancient forests, and among the long reeds by the rills in the valleys. Yes, my grandchildren, my and your ancestors, once spread over the country as the Koitarekè (quail) and Krivi (apteryx) once did; but now their descendants are even as the descendants of these birds, scarce, gone, dead, fast hastening to utter extinction. Yes, we heard of that white man; we heard of his going over the high snowy range to Patea, all over the rocks to Turakiráe. I sent four of my children to meet him. They saw his face; yes you, you talked with him. You brought me a drop of water from his calabash. You told me he had said he would come to this far-off isle to see me. I rejoiced, I disbelieved his coming; but I said he may. I built the chapel, we waited expecting. You slept at nights; I did not. He came, he emerged from the long forest, he stood upon Te Hawera ground. I saw him. I shook hands with him; we rubbed nosestogether. Yes, I saw a missionary’s face; I sat in his cloth house (tent); I tasted his new food; I heard him talk Maori; my heart bounded within me; I listened; I ate his words. You slept at nights; I did not. Yes, I listened, and he told me about God, and his Son Jesus Christ, and of peace and reconciliation, and of a loving Father’s home beyond the stars. And now I, too, drank from his calabash and was refreshed, he gave me a book, as well as words. I laid hold of the new riches for me, and for you, and we have it now. My children, I am old; my teeth are gone, my hair is white; the yellow leaf is falling from the Táwai (beech tree); I am departing; the sun is sinking behind the great western hills, it will soon be night. But, hear me; hold fast the new riches—the great riches—the true riches. We have had plenty of sin and pain and death; but now we have the true riches. Hold fast the true riches, which Karepa sought out for you.’“Here he became faint, and ceased talking. We all wept like little children around the bed of the dying old man—of our father. He suffered much pain, from which he had scarcely any cessation until death relieved him.”
“He summoned us all,” said he, “to come close around him, and with much love exhorted us; talking energetically, as was his custom, a long while, he said:—‘You well know that I have brought you, from time to time, much riches, muskets, powder, hatchets, knives, blankets. I afterwards heard of the new riches, called faith. I sought it. I went to Manawatu; in those days a long and perilous journey, for we were surrounded by enemies; no man travelled alone: I sawthe few natives who, it was said, had heard of it; but they could not satisfy me. I sought further, but in vain. I heard afterwards of a white man at Otaki, and that with him was the spring where I could fill my empty and dry calabash. I travelled to his place, to Otaki, but in vain; he was gone—gone away ill. I returned to you, my children, dark minded. Many days passed by; the snows fell, they melted, they disappeared; the buds expanded, and the tangled paths of our low forests were again passable to the foot of the native man. At last we heard of another white man who was going about over mountains and through forests and swamps, giving drink from his calabash to the secluded native—to the remnants of the tribes of the mighty, of the renowned of former days, now dwelling by twos and threes among the roots of the big trees of the ancient forests, and among the long reeds by the rills in the valleys. Yes, my grandchildren, my and your ancestors, once spread over the country as the Koitarekè (quail) and Krivi (apteryx) once did; but now their descendants are even as the descendants of these birds, scarce, gone, dead, fast hastening to utter extinction. Yes, we heard of that white man; we heard of his going over the high snowy range to Patea, all over the rocks to Turakiráe. I sent four of my children to meet him. They saw his face; yes you, you talked with him. You brought me a drop of water from his calabash. You told me he had said he would come to this far-off isle to see me. I rejoiced, I disbelieved his coming; but I said he may. I built the chapel, we waited expecting. You slept at nights; I did not. He came, he emerged from the long forest, he stood upon Te Hawera ground. I saw him. I shook hands with him; we rubbed nosestogether. Yes, I saw a missionary’s face; I sat in his cloth house (tent); I tasted his new food; I heard him talk Maori; my heart bounded within me; I listened; I ate his words. You slept at nights; I did not. Yes, I listened, and he told me about God, and his Son Jesus Christ, and of peace and reconciliation, and of a loving Father’s home beyond the stars. And now I, too, drank from his calabash and was refreshed, he gave me a book, as well as words. I laid hold of the new riches for me, and for you, and we have it now. My children, I am old; my teeth are gone, my hair is white; the yellow leaf is falling from the Táwai (beech tree); I am departing; the sun is sinking behind the great western hills, it will soon be night. But, hear me; hold fast the new riches—the great riches—the true riches. We have had plenty of sin and pain and death; but now we have the true riches. Hold fast the true riches, which Karepa sought out for you.’
“Here he became faint, and ceased talking. We all wept like little children around the bed of the dying old man—of our father. He suffered much pain, from which he had scarcely any cessation until death relieved him.”
But New Zealand was now passing through a dangerous crisis. The Maori ceased to exist in his savage state. Cannibalism was a mere tradition. Of the ancient superstitions scarcely a trace was left. European arts and manners were introduced in almost every part of the island, and New Zealand took her place amongst other civilized communities. Still, under new circumstances fresh dangers threatened her. The church of Rome saw from afar and coveted so glorious a possession; and in the course of a single year aRomish bishop and sixteen priests landed at Wellington, and a second bishop with his troop of priests and nuns at Auckland. For a while the childish simplicity of the Maori character, fond of show and a stranger to suspicion, gave them great advantage; and the missionaries of evangelical churches viewed their progress with serious apprehension. But as the novelty wore off the Maori Christian discovered that Popery was but a hollow pretence, without heart, or life, or abiding consolation, and whole tribes which had been led astray returned with their chiefs to purer churches in search of better pasturage. Lately the translation of the whole of the Bible has been completed, and in this we have the best antidote, under God, to the progress of this baneful superstition. New Zealand, too, besides its several Protestant bishops of the church of England, its zealous missionaries, and stated ministers of every evangelical denomination, has now at length a native ministry of her own Maories, few as yet in number, but holy men, men of competent learning and gifts of utterance, who have evidently been called of God. One of these, the Rev. Riwai Te Ahu, who was ordained by Bishop Selwyn, is not only highly esteemed by all the natives of whatever tribe they may be, but by the English too; and he is entirely supported by internal resources, by regular contributions from the natives, and a private grant from the governor himself. We can understand something of the joy with which an honoured missionary, one of the oldest labourers in the field, sat and listened in the house of prayer while he officiated, assisted by the Rev. Rota Waitoa, the only two Maori ministers of the church of England in New Zealand, and his own early converts, “the one reading prayers, andthe other preaching an admirable sermon to his own native tribe.” Other churches have similar triumphs. The Wesleyans have three native assistant ministers, and probably these are not all, for it may be presumed that a great work is going forward in so large an island, of which our missionary societies have no official reports, and by agents who are no longer responsible to them. Thus it is often found that in the interior some village or hamlet has become Christian where no European missionary was ever seen. Native converts have done their own work.
Still the church in New Zealand is in an infant state, surrounded by many dangers. The influx of Europeans, the sudden increase of wealth and luxury, the introduction of a new and foreign literature from England, bearing as it were upon its wings all that is bad as well as all that is lovely and of good report in theology, politics, and morals, may well cause, as indeed it does create, the deepest concern to those who have at heart the purity of the Maori faith, and the continued progress of the gospel. It is not for those who know that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, to doubt for a moment of its ultimate success; but the firmest faith may, at the same time, be apprehensive and anxious, if not alarmed, for the fiery trial that awaits her,—not of persecution, but of wealth and luxury, and the sad example of every European vice. Let the reader help them with his prayers.
We cannot close our sketch of the progress of Christianity in New Zealand, without some allusion to the Canterbury Association, one of the most remarkable attempts of modern times to colonize on Christian principles, or rather perhaps we should say, tocarry abroad the old institutions of England, and plant them as it were full blown in a new country. The design was not altogether original, for the New England puritans of the seventeenth century, had led the way, in their attempts to colonize at Boston and in New England, in the days of CharlesI. They would have carried out the principles, and worship of the Brownites to the exclusion of other sects, though happily for the freedom of religion, their design was soon found to be impracticable, and was only partially accomplished. The Canterbury Association was formed on high church of England principles, “avowedly for the purpose of founding a settlement, to be composed in the first instance of members of that church, or at least of those who did not object to its principles.” Its early friends now admit that their project was, in some of its parts, utopian and impracticable. The idea, if ever seriously entertained, of excluding by a test of church membership those whose profession differed from their own was abandoned by most of the colonists as soon as they had set foot on the shores of New Zealand. In 1848, Otakou or Otago, in the southern part of the Middle Island, was colonized by an association of members of the Free Church of Scotland; and in 1850, the first colonists were sent out to the church of England settlement, founded in the vicinity of Banks’s Peninsula, by the Canterbury Association. The site made choice of possessed a harbour of its own, an immense extent of land, which it was supposed might easily be brought under cultivation, and removed from danger of disturbance from the natives, of whom there were but few, an extent of grazing country unequalled in New Zealand, and a territory “every way available for being formed intoa province, with a separate legislature.” The plan was to sell the land at an additional price, and appropriate one third of the cost to ecclesiastical purposes. The sums thus realized by sales of land, were to be placed at the disposal of an ecclesiastical committee, who were empowered to make such arrangements as they might think fit to organize an endowed church in the colony. A bishopric was to be at once endowed, a college, if not a cathedral, was to be connected with it, a grammar-school of the highest class, was to be opened as well as commercial schools; and all the luxuries of English country life, including good roads, snug villas, well cultivated farms; and good society, were to be found by the future settler, after a very few years of probationary toil.
The scheme was warmly taken up at home, and within a single twelvemonth from the 16th December, 1850, when the first detachment arrived, nearly three thousand emigrants had seated themselves in the Canterbury Plains. The towns of Lyttelton and Christchurch were founded, and operations on a large scale were fairly begun. Of course bitter disappointment followed, as it too often does with the early colonists, whose expectations are unduly raised by the romantic stories told them in England. But we must quote a passage from “Archdeacon Paul’s Letters from Canterbury,” just published. It may be of use to other emigrants, into whatever region of the world they go. “Restless spirits, who had never yet been contented anywhere, expected to find tranquillity in this new Arcadia, where their chief occupation would be to recline under the shadow of some overhanging rock, soothing their fleecy charge with the shepherd’s pipe, remote from fogs and taxation and all the thousandnameless evils which had made their lives a burthen to them at home.
“Alas! the reality was soon found to be of a sterner type—