The vast importance of Australia as the source on which the English manufacturer must at some future day depend for his supplies of wool, had already occupied his thoughts. He found that within three years his own stock without any care on his part, (for his farm was entirely managed in his absence by a trusty bailiff who had been a convict,) had upon an average been doubled in number and value. With the energy which was natural to him, he carried some of his own wool to Leeds, where he had it manufactured, and he had the satisfaction to learn that it was considered equal, if not superior, to that of Saxony or France. His private letters abound with intimations that ere long Australia must become the great wool-producing country to which the English manufacturer would look. He was introduced to king George the Third, and took the liberty, through Sir Joseph Banks, of praying for a couple of Merino sheep, His Majesty’s property, to improve the breed; and his last letter from England, dated from the Cowes Roads, mentions their reception on board. We anticipate a little, but must quote the letter, were it only to let the reader see how possible it is to be at once diligent in business and fervent in spirit. “We are this moment getting under weigh, and soon expect to be upon the ocean. I have received a present of five Spanish sheep from the king’s flock, which are all on board; if I am so fortunate as to get them out they will be a most valuable acquisition to the colony. I leave England with much satisfaction, having obtained so fully the object of my mission. It is the good hand of our God that hath done these things for us. I have the prospect of getting another pious minister. I am writing to him on the subject this morning, and I hope he will soon follow us.... On Sunday I stood on the long boat and preached from Ezekiel xviii. 27: ‘When the wicked man turneth away,’ etc. It was a solemn time, many of the convicts were affected. We sang the Hundredth Psalm in the midst of a large fleet. The number of souls on board is more than four hundred. God may be gracious to some of them; though exiled from their country and friends, they may cry unto him in a foreign land, when they come like the Jews of old to hang their harps upon the willows, and weep when they remember Zion, or rather when they remember England.”[F]
The spiritual wants of the colony were not forgotten. He induced the government to send out three additional clergymen and three schoolmasters; and happily the selection was intrusted to his own judgment. A disciple in the school of Venn and Milner, he knew that the ordinances of the church, though administered by a moral and virtuous man, or by a zealous philanthropist, were not enough. He sought for men who were “renewed in the spirit of their minds;” who uttered no mere words of course when they said at their ordination that they “believed themselves moved thereto by the Holy Ghost.” But here again his task was difficult; clergymen of such a stamp were but few; the spirit of missionary enterprise was almost unfelt; and, to say the truth, there was a missionary field at home, dark and barbarous, and far too wide for the few such labourers of this class whom the Lord had yet “sent forth into his harvest.” Mr. Marsden, however, nothing daunted, went from parish to parish till he met with two admirable men, the Rev. Mr. Cowper and the Rev. Robert Cartwright, who, with their families, accompanied him on his return. His choice was eminently successful. In a short account of Mr. Marsden, published in Australia in 1844, they are spoken of as still living, pious and exemplary clergymen, the fathers of families occupying some of the most important posts in the colony, and, “notwithstanding their advancing years and increasing infirmities,” it is added, “there are few young men in the colony so zealous in preaching the gospel, and in promoting the interests of the church of England.” The schoolmasters too, we believe, did honour to his choice. He had already established two public free-schools for children of both sexes, and he was now able to impart the elements of a pious education, and to train them in habits of industry and virtue. Into all these plans the archbishop of Canterbury cordially entered, and wisely and liberally left it to the able founder to select his agents and associates.
Mr. Marsden likewise urged upon the home administration the necessity of a female Penitentiary; and obtained a promise that a building should be provided. That he was deeply alive to the importance of an institution of this kind, is manifest in his own description of the state of the female prisoners in the earlier years of the colony, and the deplorable picture he draws of their immorality and wretchedness. “When I returned to England in 1807,” he says, “there were upwards of fourteen hundred women in the colony; more than one thousand were unmarried, and nearly all convicts: many of them were exposed to the most dangerous temptations, privations and sufferings; and no suitable asylum had been provided for the female convicts since the establishment of the colony. On my arrival in London in 1808, I drew up two memorials on their behalf, stating how much they suffered from want of a proper barrack—a building for their reception. One of these memorials I presented to the under secretary of state, and the other to his grace the archbishop of Canterbury. They both expressed their readiness to promote the object.” Years, however, passed before the consent of the colonial governor could be gained; and Mr. Marsden’s benevolent exertions on behalf of these outcast women were for some time frustrated.
The variety of his engagements at this time was equal to their importance. He had returned home charged with an almost infinite multiplicity of business. He was the agent of almost every poor person in the colony who had, or thought he had, important business at home. Penny-postages lay in the same dim future with electric telegraphs and steam-frigates, and he was often burdened with letters from Ireland and other remote parts (so wrote a friend, who published at the time a sketch of his proceedings in the “Eclectic Review,”) the postage of which, for a single day, has amounted to a guinea; which he cheerfully paid, from the feeling that, although many of these letters were of no use whatever, they were written with a good intention, and under a belief that they were of real value. He had already been saluted, like the Roman generals of old, with the title of common father of his adopted country; and one of his last acts before he quitted England, was to procure, by public contributions and donations of books, “what he called a lending library” (so writes the reviewer,[G] and the expression seems to have amused him from its novelty), “consisting of books on religion, morals, mechanics, agriculture, and general history, to be lent out under his own control and that of his colleagues, to soldiers, free settlers, convicts, and others who had time to read.” In this, too, he succeeded, and took over with him a library of the value of between three and four hundred pounds.
It was during this two-years’-visit to his native land, that Mr. Marsden laid the foundation of the Church of England mission to New Zealand. In its consequences, civil and religious, this has already proved one of the most extraordinary and most successful of those achievements, which are the glory of the churches in these later times. This was the great enterprise of his life: he is known already, and will be remembered while the church on earth endures, as the apostle of New Zealand. Not that we claim for him the exclusive honour of being the only one although we believe he was, in point of time, the first who began, about this period, to project a mission to New Zealand. The Wesleyans were early in the same field. The Rev. Samuel Leigh, a man whose history and natural character bore a marked resemblance to those of Mr. Marsden, was the pioneer of Methodism, and proved himself a worthy herald of the cross amongst the New Zealanders. A warm friendship existed between the two. On his passage homewards he was a guest at Paramatta; and no tinge of jealousy ever appears to have shaded their intercourse, each rejoicing in the triumphs of the other. Still, Mr. Marsden’s position afforded him peculiar facilities, and having once undertaken it, the superintendence of the New Zealand mission became, without design on his part, the great business of his life.
He had formed a high, we do not think an exaggerated, estimate of the Maori or New Zealand tribes. “They are a noble race,” he writes to his friend John Terry, Esq., of Hull, “vastly superior in understanding to anything you can imagine in a savage nation.” This was before the mission was begun. But he did not speak merely from hearsay: several of their chieftains and enterprising warriors had visited Australia, and they ever found a welcome at the hospitable parsonage at Paramatta. Sometimes, it is true, they were but awkward guests, as the following anecdote will show; which we present to the reader, as it has been kindly furnished to us, in the words of one of Mr. Marsden’s daughters. “My father had sometimes as many as thirty New Zealanders staying at the parsonage. He possessed extraordinary influence over them. On one occasion, a young lad, the nephew of a chief, died, and his uncle immediately made preparations to sacrifice a slave to attend his spirit into the other world. Mr. M. was from home at the moment, and his family were only able to preserve the life of the young New Zealander by hiding him in one of the rooms. Mr. M. no sooner returned and reasoned with the chief, than he consented to spare his life. No further attempt was made upon it, though the uncle frequently deplored that his nephew had no attendant in the next world, and seemed afraid to return to New Zealand, lest the father of the young man should reproach him for having given up this, to them, important point.”
The Church Missionary Society, which had now been established about seven years, seemed fully disposed to co-operate with him; and at their request he drew up a memorial on the subject of a New Zealand mission, not less important than that we have already mentioned, to the London Missionary Society, on the subject of their Polynesian missions. He still lays great stress upon the necessity of civilization going first as the pioneer of the gospel; “commerce and the arts having a natural tendency to inculcate industrious and moral habits, open a way for the introduction of the gospel, and lay the foundation for its continuance when once received” “... Nothing, in my opinion, can pave the way for the introduction of the gospel but civilization.” ... “The missionaries,” he thought, “might employ a certain portion of their time in manual labour, and that this neither would nor ought to prevent them from constantly endeavouring to instruct the natives in the great doctrines of the gospel.” ... “The arts and religion should go together. I do not mean a native should learn to build a hut or make an axe before he should be told anything of man’s fall and redemption, but that these grand subjects should be introduced at every favourable opportunity, while the natives are learning any of the simple arts.” He adds that “four qualifications are absolutely necessary for a missionary—piety, industry, prudence, and patience. Without sound piety, nothing can be expected. A man must feel a lively interest in the eternal welfare of the heathen to spur him on to the discharge of his duty.” On the three other qualifications, he enlarges with great wisdom and practical good sense; but the paper has been frequently printed, and we must not transfer it to these pages.
It is no dishonour done to Mr. Marsden if we say that, in mature spiritual wisdom, the venerable men who had founded the Church Missionary Society, and still managed its affairs, were at this time his superiors. Strange indeed it would have been had the case been otherwise. They listened gratefully and with deep respect to the opinion of one so well entitled to advise; they determined on the mission, and they gave a high proof of their confidence, both in the practical wisdom and sterling piety of their friend, in consulting him in the choice of their first agents. But they did not adopt his views with regard to the importance of civilization as the necessary pioneer to the gospel. So long ago as the year 1815, they thought it necessary to publish a statement of the principles upon which their mission was established. “It has been stated,” they say, “that the mission was originally established, and for a long time systematically conducted, on the principle of first civilizing and then christianizing the natives. This is wholly a mistake. The agents employed in establishing the mission were laymen, because clergymen could not be had; and the instructions given to them necessarily correspond with their lay character. The foremost object of the mission has, from the first, been to bring the natives, by the use of all suitable means, under the saving influences of the grace of the gospel, adding indeed the communication to them of such useful arts and knowledge as might improve their social condition.” The committee’s instructions to their first agents in the mission abundantly sustain these assertions. Mr. William Hall and Mr. John King were the two single-hearted laymen to whom, in the providence of God, the distinguished honour was committed of first making known the gospel in New Zealand. They bore with them these instructions, ere they embarked in the same vessel in which their friend and guide Mr. Marsden himself returned to Australia:—“Ever bear in mind that the only object of the Society, in sending you to New Zealand, is to introduce the knowledge of Christ among the natives, and in order to this, the arts of civilized life.”
Then after directing Messrs. Hall and King “to respect the sabbath day,” to “establish family worship,” at any favourable opportunity to “converse with the natives on the great subject of religion,” and to “instruct their children in the knowledge of Christianity,” the instructions add—“Thus in your religious conduct you must observe the sabbath and keep it holy, attend regularly to family worship, talk to the natives about religion when you walk by the way, when you labour in the field, and on all occasions when you can gain their attention, and lay yourselves out for the education of the young.”
Mr. Thomas Kendall followed; a third layman, for no ordained clergyman of the church of England could yet be found. The same instructions were repeated, and in December, 1815, when the Rev. John Butler, their first clerical missionary, entered on his labours in New Zealand, he and his companions were exhorted thus—“The committee would observe that they wish, in all the missions of the Society, that the missionaries should give their time as much as possible, and wholly if practicable, first to the acquisition of the native language, and then to the constant and faithful preaching to the natives.” It is subsequently added—“Do not mistake civilization for conversion. Do not imagine when heathens are raised in intellect, in the knowledge of the arts and outward decencies, above their fellow-countrymen, that they are Christians, and therefore rest content as if your proper work were accomplished. Our great aim is far higher; it is to make them children of God and heirs of his glory. Let this be your desire, and prayer, and labour among them. And while you rejoice in communicating every other good, think little or nothing done till you see those who were dead in trespasses and sins, quickened together with Christ.” These passages fully exhibit the views of the committee of this evangelical Society with regard, not only to the New Zealand, but to all their other missions. Nor do they stand alone; every missionary association, taught in many instances by bitter disappointment, has long since discovered that the arts and sciences do not prepare the way of the Lord amongst the heathen abroad; just as they leave unsanctified our civilized heathendom at home.