A History of the English Church in New Zealand

by Henry Thomas Purchas

The check caused by the Rotorua-Thames (or "bonnet") war was but of short duration. Long before its close, Chapman was back at Rotorua, with Morgan as his colleague. They built a new station on the island in the lake (Mokoia), and here their families and their wardrobes were in peace. Before long every village round the lake had its raupo chapel; and Chapman himself pressed on southward to Lake Taupo, where the effects of his labours will meet us later on.

In the same year (1838) Brown and Wilson re-occupied Tauranga, which soon became a particularly powerful centre. Not only were the catechetical classes large and enthusiastic, but the native teachers itinerated through the villages of the district, and a party of fifteen set off on a missionary tour to Taupo and Cook Strait. The history of this bold undertaking is hard to discover, but local traditions seem to show that these dimly-remembered pioneers must have descended the Wanganui River, and that at least one must have penetrated as far south as Otaki.

From Tauranga also an occasional visit was paid to Matamata, which was not again to become the residence of a white missionary. But it had Tamihana Waharoa with his model pa, and its graveyard contained the grave of Tarore, "who, being dead, yet spake." Her father, Ngakuku, did not indulge in useless grief, but in 1839 accompanied Wilson from Tauranga along the Bay of Plenty to Opotiki near its eastern end, and there they founded a station amid a people more savage than any yet encountered. Yet even these accepted the new teaching with eagerness. A curious evidence of this was given by a deputation which came one day to Opotiki from a village 30 miles in the interior. The object of these strangers was not blankets or powder, but simply to ask the white man whether the words of the burial service might be read over the unbaptised!

Outside the region of the "bonnet" war, changes also were in progress. The tribes were moving toward the coast, and their teachers found it wise to follow. The Puriri station was for this reason broken up, and two new ones established on the Hauraki Gulf—Fairburn settling at Maraetai, and Preece near the mouth of the Thames. Hamlin, too, abandoned his post at Mangapouri, and sailed down the Waikato to its mouth. Proceeding northwards to the Manukau Harbour, he found there the Rev. R. Maunsell already established. They worked together for three years; then Maunsell, leaving Hamlin at Manukau, opened a new station at Waikato Heads. Maunsell was a Dublin graduate of great eloquence and strong personality. He soon acquired a commanding influence over the people of his district, and an examination held by him in 1839 rivalled those of the Bay of Islands ten years before. Fifteen hundred people were present at this gathering. A class of 450 were examined in the Catechism in the open air, while 300 more advanced scholars inside the schoolhouse displayed their proficiency in varied subjects, some of them repeating correctly whole chapters out of the Epistles. At the close came a baptismal service, when 100 Maoris were received into the fold of Christ's Church; and afterwards a celebration of the Holy Communion, when more than that number participated. The service was followed by a feast, at which whole pigs were deftly carved and carefully apportioned, with their share of corn and kumeras, to each tribe: "In a few moments the whole vanished as if by magic. All was animation and cheerfulness, and even those who had come four and five days' distance seemed to forget their fatigue in the general excitement."

While the mission was thus spreading through the island in cheering fashion, the older stations at the Bay were privileged to receive an episcopal visit. The able and devoted Dr. Broughton had lately (1836) been appointed Bishop of Australia, and had been requested by the C.M.S. to extend his pastoral care, as far as possible, to the islands of New Zealand. The mention of such a visit calls up imaginative pictures of its probable course. Would there not have been intense expectation and busy preparations beforehand? The Maoris would doubtless welcome their august visitor with characteristic heartiness, and would come forward in hundreds, if not in thousands, to receive the gift of Confirmation at his hands. His journeys from one station to another would be like a triumphal progress; there would have been feastings, gifts, and rejoicings everywhere.

The actual facts were just the reverse. No one knew beforehand of his lordship's intention. He arrived unexpectedly on Dec. 21, 1838, and at a time when any sort of public welcome was well-nigh impossible. A violent epidemic of influenza had just spread through the settlements, and hardly a person was unaffected. Everyone was ill and weak. It was not without a certain appropriateness that the first distinctively episcopal acts performed upon our soil were those of the consecration of burial-grounds at Paihia and at Kororareka. The bishop went inland to Waimate, but the missionary in charge (R. Davis) could hardly, for weakness, show his visitor round the village. To judge by his journals, his thoughts were more taken up with his dying Maoris than with the living prelate. At the confirmation held when the bishop returned to Paihia (Jan. 5), only 44 Maoris were able to be presented, besides 20 white people—mostly missionaries' children. At the Hauraki station the bishop found a mere handful able to receive the laying-on of hands. Owing to the shortness of his visit and to the difficulty of communication, he was unable to visit more than these three stations; and he had left for Norfolk Island before many of the missionaries knew of his arrival.

It must not be supposed, however, that this visit was in vain. The leaders of the mission had long felt their isolation from the rest of the world, and the new difficulties which the growth of a European population in the Bay was beginning to bring forth. They received much encouragement from the good bishop's counsel, and were placed in a better position for dealing with the white men. The sick were cheered by his sympathetic ministrations, and all classes united in expressing the farewell hope that he would not forget them but would soon visit them again.

This hope was destined not to be realised; but the bishop left behind him a permanent addition to the mission staff in the person of a young Oxford undergraduate, who had been driven by delicate health to leave England and to undertake the long sea voyage to Australia. The bishop had admitted him to the diaconate in Sydney, and now at Paihia ordained him to the priesthood. Octavius Hadfield was still in a state of extreme delicacy, but he resolved to dedicate whatever might remain to him of life and strength to the service of Christ among the Maoris.

Neither bishop nor priest, however, nor yet catechist nor settler, was to be the most signal agent in the extension of the work during these wonderful "years of the right hand of the Most Highest." Their labours were indeed richly blest, as the preceding pages have sufficiently shown. But the humbler instruments whose work has now to be recorded stand out in bolder relief, owing to the amazing contrast between the insignificance of the means and the magnitude of the results achieved.

The east side of New Zealand was brought into contact with the mission through the prevailing winds which blow from that quarter. In the year 1833 there arrived in the Bay of Islands a ship which, while lying becalmed off the East Cape, had received on board a party of some dozen Maoris from the shore. Before they could be landed, the wind had sprung up, and thus they were carried into the territory of their enemies, who immediately proceeded to allot them as slaves. But the wind was not an altogether unkind one, for it had brought them within reach of Christian influences. The missionaries rescued the men and sent them eastwards again. Before they could land, however, they were again blown away by a sudden gale, and once more found themselves at the Bay. Here they were kept at Paihia for the winter, and in the summer of 1834 were at last successfully restored to their friends. They were accompanied on this occasion by Mr. William Williams, who found a warm welcome among the kinsfolk of the returned refugees. He even marked out a spot in the Waiapu valley for a future mission station. Nothing more, however, was done for some years; the incident, though deeply interesting, was well-nigh forgotten, and "it was hardly thought that any good results would follow."