A History of the English Church in New Zealand

by Henry Thomas Purchas

The remaining weeks of the year 1843 were spent amongst the "Cook Strait settlements," in most of which good progress was evident. At Nelson a church and a neat brick parsonage had already been built, while at Wanganui the Maoris had resolved to pull down their brick church and to build a larger one in wood. Wellington was still the unsatisfactory spot. No English church had yet been begun, and the sense of grievance was still strong.

However natural such feelings might once have been, they were surely inexcusable now. For since the bishop's last visit, Wellington had contracted such a debt to the missionaries as should have changed its grievance into gratitude. The New Zealand Company had made its great blunder in attempting to take possession of the Marlborough plain without buying it from its native owners. The result had been the Wairau tragedy, in which 19 white men had been killed by the Maoris under Rauparaha and Rangihaeta. The effect of this deed of blood was quickly felt in other parts. Up every river valley the news was passed that the Maori had at last turned on the pakeha, and had beaten him in open fight. The crafty Rauparaha, fearing a terrific act of vengeance on the part of the white men, resolved to forestall any such danger by driving them out of the country. He felt certain of his own Ngatitoas, but between them and Wellington lay Waikanae, where Hadfield's influence was strong, and where Wiremu Kingi, the father-in-law of Ripahau, was chief. To Waikanae accordingly he steered his boat. Still wet with the salt spray of the strait, and faint from long exertion, he pleaded with such power and pathos that he almost won over these tribesmen to his daring project. The situation was a critical one. Not a moment was to be lost. Hadfield ordered the bell to be rung for Evensong; the assembly thronged in to prayers; and for the time the excitement calmed down.

But the danger was not over. All through the long winter night, Rauparaha was busy in trying to induce Wiremu Kingi to join him. He proposed to attack Wellington and destroy every man, woman, and child. "Let us destroy the reptile while we have the power to do so," he argued, "or it will destroy us. We have begun: let us make an end of them." Kingi was firm, and declared that it was his intention to live at peace with the pakeha. When daylight came, Rauparaha made one more effort: "At least remain neutral," he pleaded. "I will oppose you with my whole force," said Kingi, and the disappointed warrior steered his canoes northwards.

Even now he did not give up his scheme. Forming his camp on an islet in the Otaki River, and taking up a bold attitude, he endeavoured to secure the assistance of the Ngatiraukawa tribesmen. But Hadfield had followed him along the coast, and now brought his great influence to bear on the natives as they were gathered on the river bank. Rauparaha's passionate eloquence failed of its effect, and he saw that the game was lost. With that rapid decision for which he was renowned, this Maori Napoleon now seized what seemed his one remaining chance of safety: he crept submissively to Hadfield, and applied to be received as a candidate for baptism. Somewhat to the amazement of his white friends, Hadfield accepted him as a catechumen, and the two men actually became fast friends.

Thus was white New Zealand saved by Waikanae Christianity; and Waikanae Christianity was due, under GOD, to an invalided Oxford undergraduate, a Maori slave, and a little girl with her Gospel of St. Luke!

But what of Rauparaha's son, Tamihana, the man without whom Hadfield would not have come to the district, nor Ripahau been converted, nor Tarore's gospel brought into use? This zealous man was engaged at the moment on an enterprise very different from that which his father had contemplated. Four years before, he and his cousin had gone to the extreme north to find a teacher for themselves; now they had gone to the extreme south in order to teach others. Travelling in an open boat for more than one thousand miles, these two intrepid men had coasted down the east of the South Island, and had visited all the pas in what are now Canterbury and Otago. Their lives were in jeopardy, for the very name of Rauparaha was enough to arouse a thirst for vengeance among people whom that conqueror had harried and enslaved; but the earnestness of the young men was so transparent that they were received peacefully in every place, and their message was welcomed and accepted.

Such were the tidings which the bishop heard when he reached Otaki. Rauparaha himself was an "enquirer" into the Christian verities; Rauparaha's son had evangelised along the line which he himself was about to travel, and, moreover, was willing to proceed thither again with the bishop as his guide and companion.

With the same Tamihana, then, and nine other Maoris, the bishop left Wellington on January 6th, 1844, in a miserable coasting schooner. When opposite Banks Peninsula the little vessel was forced to put into the bay of Peraki for supplies, and as a strong contrary wind sprang up at this juncture, Selwyn determined to walk to Otago instead of going on by sea. Through this change in his plans, he seems to have been the first white man to discover that Lake Ellesmere was a freshwater lake, and not an extension of Pegasus Bay. It was at the point where the hills of the Peninsula slope steeply down to the end of the Ninety-Mile Beach that the traveller realised this fact, and it was from this point that he gained, at sunset, his first view of what were afterwards to be known as the Canterbury Plains. With his Maoris he spent his first night on shore at a small pa which then stood at the outlet of Lake Forsyth. After a supper and breakfast of eels, the party proceeded next day along the shingle bank which separates Lake Ellesmere from the sea, and at Taumutu found about forty Maoris, some of whom could read, and "many were acquainted with the Lord's Prayer, the Belief, and portions of the Catechism." Here then was the first evidence of Tamihana's previous visit. The service which the bishop held at this place next morning (Jan. 11) may be looked upon as the beginning of Church of England worship in the province of Canterbury.

At Arowhenua more than 100 Maoris were found, but these showed the effects not only of Tamihana's instruction, but also of Wesleyan teachers from the south. The melancholy result was the division of the pa into two sections, who plied the bishop with questions on denominational distinctions. The same uncomfortable state of things was found in almost every village as far as Stewart Island, and detracted much from the pleasure of the tour. At Waikouaiti, 100 miles farther south, the bishop visited a Wesleyan missionary, Mr. Watkins. He was the only white teacher who had as yet visited this portion of the country, and he entertained his guest for two days in friendly fashion. He was inclined to resent the intrusion of Tamihana into his district, but admitted in conversation that, owing to weak health, he had never been able to visit many of the pas himself, and that he had been so scantily supplied with literature by his Society that he could not circulate books. The bishop felt that the ground had certainly not been effectively occupied before Tamihana's visit, for all the Maoris attributed to him the beginnings of their knowledge of the truth. He therefore declined to recognise a Wesleyan sphere of influence in these regions, but the parting between himself and this lonely missionary was thoroughly friendly on both sides.

At Moeraki, Selwyn had again taken to shipboard, and learned from some of his fellow passengers much of the romantic history of the southern whaling stations. He was able also to fill in his map with the names of capes and other coastal features as they came successively into sight: "In the company of these men I soon found the whole of the mystery which had hung over the southern islands passing away; every place being as well known by them as the northern island by us."