THE MISSIONARIES.
Any attempt to estimate the state and prospects of New Zealand which should overlook the Missionaries must of necessity be incomplete and erroneous. For thirty years they have played an important part there. Without them possibly New Zealand might never have been colonized by England ; for assuredly without them its settlement would have been delayed, which is almost saying the same thing. They were the pioneers of civilization ; and their labours created an interest and sympathy at home among numbers who would never have entertained a mere colonizing view. The Reverend Samuel Marsden, the founder of the Mission, arrived at Sydney in March 1794, to lighten by his assistance the labours of the Reverend Mr. Johnstone, the original Colonial Chaplain. Mr. Marsden was a Yorkshireman, of a hale and robust constitution, sincerely religious and benevolent, with a large fund of worldly sagacity, and a plentiful flow of animal spirits. He caught by sympathy Governor King's interest in all that related to the Aborigines of New Zealand ; and when the Otaheite Missionaries were forced for a time to-take refuge in New South Wales, the honourable ambition seized him of founding a mission in New Zealand. With incredible perseverance he clung to this object from the beginning of the century ; and he was at last able, by the assistance of the Church Missionary Society, to sail, in 1814, with the first band of Missionaries to New Zealand.
Mr. Marsden's original plan, Dr. Lang informs us, was to make civilization precede conversion : he proposed by teaching the New Zeelenders the arts of civilized life to enlarge their circle of ideas, and win them to listen willingly to the moral and religious instructions of their benefactors. This plan, according to the Rev. Mr. Yate, was adhered to for the first fifteen years of the Mission. To this end, were at first selected, chiefly for their skill, the Catechists attached to the clerical Missionaries in agriculture or mechanical arts. The original Missionaries were Messrs. Kendall, Hall, and King. Previously to their departure from Sydney, Governor Macquarie issued a commission of the peace, in which he appointed the head Missionary, and three Native chiefs who had been residing with Mr. Marsden at Paramatta, Justices of the Peace in New Zealand ; and a similar commission was issued by Governor Macquarie in 1819 in favour of the Rev. Mr. Butler.
A piece of ground was sold to Mr. Marsden for the use of the Mission at Rangihu, at the Bay of Islands, by one of the three chiefs; and there the first Missionary station was established, in 1814. The second was formed at Ken-Ken, in 1819; the third, at Paihia, in 1823; the fourth, at Waimate, in 1830; in 1832 the original station at Rangihu was transferred to Tipuna. All these stations are in the vicinity of the Bay of Islands. The Western aide of the island was left to the Wesleyan Missionaries. It was not till after 1832 that the Church Missionaries began to extend their exertions to the South of the Thames. In 1834, stations were established at Puriri and Mangapouri ; and in 1835 at Matamata, (on the Thames,) Tauranga, and Rotorua. The Missions about Poverty Bay, and on Cook's Straits, are of recent establishment.
In 1838, the Church Missionary Society had five clerical Missionaries in New Zealand, and thirty Catechists. The number of Natives at that time belonging to their congregations both in the Northern and Southern stricts was 4,106; they counted 2,367 scholars, of whom 91 were adults ; and 354 communicants. In 1840, there were twelve stations ; with 8,760 attendants on public worship, 1,796 scholars, 233 communicants. About 1822, the efforts of Mr. Kendall and Professor Lee reduced the Native language—or, more properly speaking, the mixture of English and Native in which the communications of the Missionaries and Natives were carried on—to writing; and in 1835 the printing-press was introduced into the North Island. The Wesleyans commenced their operations in New Zealand at a later date than the Church Missionary Society. Their first Missionaries arrived in 1823, and established themselves at Wangaroa. In 1827, they were forced, by repeated attacks of the Natives, to abandon the station, and retire to Sydney. In 1828, they returned to New Zealand, and settled on the Hokianga. Their labours were confined to the 'vicinity of that river and Kaipara, till 1839, when some of their Missionaries were sent forward to 'Manukau and Kan ia. In 1841, they had Missionaries at Port Nicholson and Cloudy Bay. In 1839, the Wesleyans had 1,300 Native communicants, and about 600 catechumens.
The extent of Missionary influence in New Zealand was not limited to the direct communication of the Missionaries with the Aborigines. Native converts carried a vague notion of what they had heard, and even some knowledge of letters, to remoter tribes. But the amount of this indirect influence is difficult to estimate. Much has been attributed to it that has in reality been owing to the intercourse of the Natives with the Bay whalers, voyagers, and traders from Europe and Sydney. The nature of the Missionary influence may in part be inferred from the kind of agents chiefly employed. The number of regular clergymen has necessarily been small. The Catechists have in general been mechanics of a serious turn of mind ; and, as is apparent from their undertaking the charge, enthusiastic and courageous, but with the narrow views of their class. The Missionaries have in general set an example of steady, decorous conduct. They possessed the arts of civilization, at the same time that their demeanour contrasted with the other classes of civilized people known to the Natives, and supported their assumption of a sacred superiority. They were to the Aborigines examples of thrift, comfort, and even luxury. Nevertheless, the influence which they acquired was imperfect. Their religious instruction was dogmatical, and not very largely blended with that secular knowledge that is needed to constitute even the rudest kind of education. Many perhaps of the best Missionaries for making converts, those who possessed superabundant enthusiasm, were not of a class to shape the infant politics of a country ; especially having to contend with the conflicting attractions of the other style of civilization, introduced by the sailors. The Natives made little progress in arts and sciences ; which is not to be wondered at, when we observe that those among their instructors who were capable of teaching special arts— carpentry, shoemaking, and the like—were not backed by the example of a whole civilized society. It is perhaps only among people already semi-civilized that special arts can be introduced in a way to make any rapid or perceptible progress. Mr. Marsden's plan of making civilization precede conversion was abandoned, But while it was acted upon, the Missionaries ap., pear to have contracted from their secular pursuits a somewhat worldly spirit. A curious illustration of this occurs in the evi.. dence of Mr. John Flatt before the Committee of the House of Lords in 1838. Mr. Flatt was sent out by the Church Missionary Society in 1834, to assist Mr. Richard Davies, the Superintendent, "that he might have more liberty to attend to his catechetical duties and the spiritual concerns of the Natives." But Mr. Davies did not want more liberty for those duties—he preferred the farm ; and Mr. Flatt, who does not appear to have been selected with any view to his theological qualifications, was sent into the interior as a Catechist. The enormous extent of the Missionary land-purchases in New Zealand is another evidence of this secular spirit. According to a report of the Land Commissioners, published in the Auckland Gazette of 7th September 1843, the land at that time claimed by nineteen Church Missionaries amounted to 192,371 acres ; the quantity already awarded to thirteen of them, to 20,688 acres.
The political power attributed to or conferred upon these Missionaries had also an unfavourable influence on their characters. In 1814, and again in 1819, as we have seen, the heads of the Mission were appointed Justices of the Peace. In 1835, Mr. Busby, when sent as Resident to New Zealand, was "accredited to the Missionaries," and directed to act by their instructions on all occasions. In 1840, Governor Hobson selected his first Protector of Aborigines from among the ranks of the Missionaries. It is not in human nature to have power and office cast upon it without contracting a taste for exerting them. The Missionaries in New Zealand have become politicians ; taking upon them to decide on the policy of English immigration and settlement, and to place themselves at the head of a Native party in the country. Their previous habits and pursuits were not exactly calculated to qualify them for forming sound opinions on questions of this kind. They saw in New Zealand nothing but a field for "missionary enterprise,' and they wished to keep it so : that, on the most favourable interpretation, was the extent of their views. Wise or unwise, however, the Missionary influence has become allpowerful in the official councils of the colony. Over the Natives their authority—of the extent of which a very exaggerated opinion had been formed—appears to be on the wane. Since the Missionary Protector of Aborigines has acted as agent in the purchase of land for Government, and as the emissary of Government to persuade them to obey its injunctions, the Natives have begun to regard him and his colleagues with the same suspicion that the Missionaries had taught them to entertain of other Europeans. At Manganui, North of the Bay of Islands, the Natives interrupted the proceedings of the Court of Land Claims. At Wellington, in the South, they refused to obey the deci. sion of the Court of Land Claims. In both cases, the influence of the Missionary Protector of Aborigines was tried, to bring the Natives to reason ; and in both cases without effect. But, however uninfluential with the Natives, the power of the Missionaries over the European population in New Zealand is despotic. Through the Missionary Societies here they exercise, or are believed to exercise, an unlimited influence over the decisions of the Colonial Office. Mr. Earp, in his evidence before the House of Commons Committee last session, attributes the course of policy pursued by Governor Hobson mainly to the exaggerated opinion he had formed of Missionary influence in, England, and his fear of giving offence.
"I have heard him," says Mr. Earp, "express an opinion, that the Aborigines Protection Society in Parliament was so powerful, that doing anything to get himself into a mess [about the Natives] would be getting the Government here [in England] into a scrape at the same time. I do not impute the slightest wish to Captain Hobson to embarrass us—he did it from those motives; but the inordinate fear of that Society led him often into things that he would not otherwise have done. It was by that circumstance that Mr. Clarke acquired the undue power over him which he had : he was the lay agent of the Church Missionary Society, and knew how to take advantage of his position. The Governor was a religions man himself, and he knew the Governor's fears as to the Society in England, and worked upon them."
From the most recent accounts it appears that, in this respect at least, Captain Fitzroy is treading in the footsteps of his predecessor. And the influence which the Missionaries exercise through the secular official, Mr. George Clarke, is likely to be increased by the promotion of one of their number to the ecclesiastical dignity of Dean by the Bishop of New Zealand.
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