NOTES ON MAORI CHRISTIANITY.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 173, 28 December 1874, Page 4

NOTES ON MAORI CHRISTIANITY.

[By James W. Stack.] {From the Press.') As year after year I submit the report of the Diocesan Maori Mission to the Synod, the difficulty continually recurs of accounting satisfactorily, to those unacquainted with the idiosyncracies of the native race, for statements contained in the report which to them must often appear contradictory. _ The difficulty arises from a confusion of thought about the precise meaning of certain words, which are employed by Christians generally, to express certain conditions of mind, and certain outward manifestations of religious faith. These words are associated in our minds with certain ideas ; we cannot conceive them separated, nor can we accept as sincere and ingenuous any attempt to convince us that they can exist apart. And yet we must disassociate them, unless we resolve to do an injustice to the converts from heathenism, and to their teachers. It is owing to this confusion of thought about the meaning of words, that such opposite judgments are passed upon modern converts from heathenism by those who have spoken and written about them.

My apology for studiously avoiding the introduction into my reports of detailed narratives illustrating the work of the mission is this—l dread lest the facts should mislead the readers ; and so prefer to give my own conclusions, rather than allow them to be drawn from the facts themselves. I could tell what would prove incontestibly the depth and reality of individual faith, and yet, if I omitted to state that in the same individual, whose conduct furnished such evidence of genuine faith in the fundamental truths of Christianity, existed a gross misconception of many articles of the Christian faith, and a lamentable want of perception of the plainest duties devolving upon a follower of of the Lord Jesus Christ, my statements would only, as I have said, mislead, and 1 should lay myself open to the charge of suppressing the truth to serve my own purposes. And yet if the whole truth were told, and the ignorance and weakness, as well as the knowledge and strength, of the convert were described, the hasty conclusion would too often be arrived at, that he has no faith at all. To prove that such hasty judgments are made, I may mention that taking up lately a work written by a New Zealand barrister, I came across a chapter devoted to the question whether savages have souls. Referring to the Maoris, he instanced a case that occurred at Otaki three years ago, when Bishop Hadfield ordained two native deacons. The large congregation gathered to witness the ceremony was moved to tears by the Bishop’s address; but, though evincing so much emotion, they only contributed £4 in answer to his appeal. The writer considered this to be conclusive proof that the Maoris have no souls. Judged by the same rule, it is to be feared that the number of English congregations who possess souls must be very limited indeed. From many years’ observation of the Maori, I am convinced that it is next to impossible for races not closely allied to understand or enter into each other’s religious feelings. For men like ourselves, belonging to an ancient Christian nation, to judge fairly of the religious life of converts like the Maoris, won to our faith from a gross and debased heathenism, we must try to understand what their views were of things seen and unseen, of God, and human responsibilities, before they were introduced to Christianity. We may then, partially at least, understand and reconcile, what, from our own stand-point, must appear utterly irreconcilable with the sincere reception of the Christian faith, Old beliefs will cling to a people, after adopting, in all sincerity, a new or an improved faith. Like an indelible dye, the old superstitions will tincture all their conceptions of spiritual things, and will continue to exercise an influence through many generations of professed emancipation from them. The distinguishing characteristics of a race, whether as regards temperament, habits of thought, mode of life, or stage of intellectual development, will all influence the form which the truths of the Christian faith will assume in their minds, and the power they will exercise over their lives.

The idea that prevails in the minds of so many good people that the effect of the sincere reception of the Christian faith is an immediate and perfect transformation of the convert’s whole nature, in thought, feeling, and outward behaviour, that for instance, the convert baptized John, or Paul, or James, becomes, the moment he is the recipient of the Holy Spirit’s grace, identified in heart and mind with him whose name he bears, is not supported by facts. In a certain sense it is true that the potentiality of becoming like the Apostles becomes theirs at that moment, and though we do not see at once in their lives the highest development of Christianity, we must not doubt the genuineness of the converts faith or its ultimate perfection, any more than we doubt that the ripened ear of corn will in due season bedeveloped, though we see nothing when we look, but the green blade which bears no resemblance to it.

The change from the darkness of heathenism to the light of the gospel is sudden and complete. The contrast between the old and the new life is clear and distinct, hence in the first stage of his Christian course the convert from heathenism is judged of more fairly than during his after career. For a longer and closer inspection serves to bring to light many imperfections, and after the recollection of the great transformation he has undergone has passed away, and his conduct comes to be judged, not by his past heathen life but by the perfect standards of the Christian Church, then a harsh and hasty judgment of condemnation is too often passed upon him. Sincere and complete as the converts acceptance of the gospel is, there are certain influences beyond his control, certain peculiarities of race and of training, which affect his belief, and he can no more iuliuence these, than he can the color of his skin. The mould will take no more metal than it has a capacity to receive, and the metal will receive a permanent form from the mould. Granted that we are dealing with living agents and not with dead matter, and that the Holy Spirit is a living, ever present, active agent—and granted that the form of the truth when first received by the convert will gradually develop and become more clear and defined, still it must be admitted that on its first reception, the ideas of the converted heathen concerning the truth must of necessity be often at variance with those of his teacher. They may talk of the same things together, and appsar to exchange ideas, but in truth they arc only exchanging words. r iUo ideas represented in their respective

minds by those words often have little or nothing in common. The key to the nature and character of the convert’s faith is to be found in the national belief of his race prior to coming into contact with Christianity. In the case of the Maoris, the religious faith was very low and grovelling. They knew nothing of Monotheism. Nor had they any conception of goodness as a divine attribute. Fierce passions, unrestrained lust, malignant hate were the attributes of the beings whose worship was superseded by Christianity, The Maoris believed that the union of earth and sky generated demigods, who created the tlora and fauna of the world. Many of these beings resembled in their attributes the deities of Grecian and Roman mythology. Subject to these deities were an innumerable host of inferior beings—many of them disembodied spirits who presided over the destinies of man and to whom their cries ascended in distress and their praises in prosperity. How could a people centre in the word Atua, applied indiscriminately to disembodied spirits, to demigods and creative powers, our conceptions of the word God as it stands in our creeds and formularies. What the national conception of the true God was, may perhaps be better gathered from Hauhauism (which was an heretical development rather than a renunciation of Christianity) than from those who only reflected their English teachers opinions. Hauhauism reflects the independent religious convictions of the people, though of course greatly distorted by passion. The hostile feeling which provoked its development led to the rejection of many things, not because they were disbelieved, but because it was thought their rejection would make the Maori protest stronger against the pakeha Christian’s inconsistencies. It is not to be wondered at, that when they broke away from their European guides and tried to conceive of God for themselves, that the result of their independent study of Holy Writ was to convince them, that Jehovah was the God of the sons of Shorn, the family to which they believed themselves to belong, and the Lord Jesus the God of the sous of Japhet, the family to which the English belong. Such expressions as “ My God, “ the God of my fathers,” confirmed them in this view, which they believed to be the true one, and intentionally concealed from them by their English teachers for political reasons. Regarding Almighty God, whoso worship we have introduced only as a more powerful Atua than the numerous Atua Maoris that formerly held sway, but yet, like them, working on behalf of those who possessed a knowledge of the secret modes of influencing Him in their behalf, the Maoris, when illwill sprung up between the two races, set to work to discover some way of approaching God independently of Europeans ; for it was clear to them that Europeans had hitherto used their influence with the Supreme Being to favour their own ends and to weaken and destroy the power of the natives. But the Pakeha Atua was clearly too powerful a being to be altogether discarded. The fact was patent that the old Atuas had all owned his paramount sway by ceasing to obey the wishes of those who could once control them, for they now refused when invoked to do anything that would bring them into collision with the will of the new Atua, as recorded in the Bible and taught by his priests. The difficulty, then, was to do anything effectual without exciting the anger of the Christian God. This they tried to accomplish by conforming in a great measure to the ritual prescribed by the English, to which they superadded many forms of their own invention, compiled from ancient and modern sources, and by these means they hoped to counteract the overwhelming influence of the Pakeha in the court of Heaven.

In the letter given by TeKooti to the captain of the Rifleman, and addressed to the Resident Magistrate at Lyttelton, exculpating the crew of the vessel from all blame in involuntarily aiding the escape of himself and his followers from the Chatharas, he employed just the same language with which we are so familiar in the manifestoes issued by the Puritans and Covenanters during those troublous times when they were the objects of persecution by the Government of the day. He attributed his escape to the special intervention of Jehovah, who, in answer to prayer, had visited and redeemed his people from bondage and oppression. And I have been told that whenever this man—branded by us with infamy—went into battle against our forces, he always appealed to “ His God,” Jehovah, Lord of Hosts, for victory, and advanced reciting, with his men, the 46th Psalm, “ God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” It was under the immediate protection of Jehovah, God of Israel, Lord of Hosts, backed by the informal influence of their old Atuas, that the Hauhau fanatics hoped to maintain their separate national existence, and a fair share of the divine favor of that God whom they worshipped in common with the Europeans, but of whose impartiality they had grave doubts. If this is the Maori conception of God, what is his conception of his own relation to Him ? That we can soonest learn from the nature of his prayers. By prayer, the Maori meant a charm or incantation, Some form of words that enabled him to hold the Atua spellbound. He learnt these forms from his fathers, and sometimes he added to them one which from his own experience he knew to be effectual. But the prayers did not always embody the object sought after. There was no intelligent appeal to God for the object of desire, no statement made, no reasons assigned. The prayer was simply an incoherent string of phrases, with little to distinguish the petition for deliverance from evil, from that which prayed for the bestowal of good. Prayer was an exercise of the spirit without the understanding. The petitioner desired something, and he appealed to the being he thought could grant his desire, but the request was not couched in intelligible language, and the choice of a petition for a particular object was guided by custom and usage rather than by anything else. The Maori was, in a sense, a man of prayer, he did nothing without prayer. From the moment he rose, till his eyes were closed in sleep, he was perpetually invoking his Atua. But the idea of communion with God, of the soul having sweet intercourse with the unseen, the loving interchange of mutual affection, the longing desires after God embodied in the 42nd Psalm, and which find expression in our own hymns and works of devotion, of such intercourse the heathen Maori could form no conception. How is it then with the Christian Maori/we find thathe values prayer when he wauls some temporal

blessing. In times of distress, he begs the prayers of all around him. He never wearies of going to the throne of grace while he is in trouble ; and yet he, who joins so fervently in the prayers offered up for his deliverance from present trials, rarely employs prayer as a means of strengthening and increasing spiritual life in his soul ; and consequently you find that, with a strict conformity to the outward observances of religion, there is little real spirituality of mind, and, as a rule, no efforts made to foster it; and where such efforts, at the suggestion of the English pastor, are made, they only result in creating a poor imitation of their teacher’s lessons — an acting of what they do not and cannot understand. You tell the Maori that God is his Father, and that he himself is a beloved child, and that he is to return the Father’s love : he only knows what a father’s love is from his own experience as a son ; no teaching will enable him to conceive of the relationship beyond his own experience of it.

It was often remarked during the lale Maori war, when hostilities broke out in those districts where different religious communions had followers, that they generally originated, and were often confined to members of the Church of England. Admitting, for the sake of argument, that this was the case, it is probably to be accounted for by the fact that the Church natives had been kept for many years in a chronic state of irritation by the enforced use of the (socalled) State prayers ; whilst these natives who did not use the Liturgy had been spared the annoyance experienced by those who did. Believers in the efficacy of prayer, the natives considered that unfair advantage was taken of them, when they were compelled to pray for the success of a political system which they looked upon as hostile to their dearest interests. Murmurs were heard about these prayers long before the war, and since then in this island their use has been assigned by Maoris as a reason for habitually absenting themselves from public worship. Owing to the peculiar ideas in the native mind regarding the nature of prayer, the visitation of the sick becomes a very delicate duty. The greatest care is required to avoid the use of ill-omened words and expressions. The sufferer’s looks will often brighten or darken during the service held at his bedside, at the sound of some good or illomened expression. I once read the 40th Psalm to a sick chief who died shortly afterwards, and his friends said no wonder he died, for you read about “Mountains being moved he told us himself that you had given him up. This expression occurs in their incantations in which the removal of mountains was equivalent to the destruction of a chief. A similar instance occurred at Kaiapoi fourteen years ago. A young halfcaste woman brought up from infancy in a Christian family fell ill. She had nothing very seriously the matter with her, and I had no doubt that that in a few days she would be perfectly well. I had occasion to go away from the place for some days, and on my return 1 was surprised to find her in a dying state and in very low spirits. She had refused all food for several days, and continued to moan out, “I am ruined. lam dying.” On enquiry I found that during my absence one of the lay readers, instead of making selections as usual, had read the whole of the visitation service, including the prayer commending the dying soul to God. It was this which had terrified the poor young woman. She believed that the Christian tohunga instead of bringing her back to life, had dismissed her from it. All efforts to reassure her were unavailing, and she died denouncing the folly of the old man who made the fatal blunder. Innumerable instances might be cited to illustrate the Maori idea of prayer —but I shall confine myself to one more, showing the wonderful restorative effects of prayer that often come under the notice of those who minister to the natives. I was called some months ago to administer the Sacrament to a dying man. I found him suffering from inflammation ofthc lungs. He had had several attacks previously, and his medical attendant had no hope of his recovery. He was too weak to speak even in a whisper, and I had great difficulty in administering the elements to him. At the conclusion of the service I took his hand to bid him farewell. He held me tightly and raised himself up in bed the tears streaming down his cheeks. After some seconds he gasped out, “ 1 am very happy. This has brought my Lord very near to mo. lam ready to go or stay as he wills ” I left, fully expecting to hear of his death before night : judge my surprise to see him recover—rallying from the time he took the Lord’s Supper—and again in his usual place in church a fortnight afterwards. On my congratulating him upon his recovery he said, “ The Lord brought me back from the grave. It was in the Sacrament he gave me back my life.” Seeing that the Maoris have such erroneous ideas of the nature and attributes of God—that they fail to comprehend many of the leading doctrines of Christianity—that prayer and worshipappearto them more in the light of potent charms or incantations than of communion and fellowship with God—are we to conclude that they do not possess saving faith ? I think not. In the face of such facts as we find in the Old and New Testaments we cannot deny that they are Christians, because their conceptions of the faith are false and grovelling. Do we not find that the father of the faithful himself left his kindred and jus father’s house, attracted by the promise that he should possess a laud that God would show him, and that the Apostles forsook all and followed Christ because they thought Ho was about to restore the kingdom to Israel? It was the low motive that led on to the higher. Maori Christianity, is a low and imperfect type of that faith, which has attained to such perfect development, in the lives of its followers among more highly cultivated races. We find the germs existing which will in time, as the Maori improves intellectually, become perfected. It is rather in the life of the convert than in his belief that we have to look for evidence of saving faith, but even there we must be willing to make great allowances. Maori Christianity imperfect as it is, has achieved marvellous results, which are too often overlooked. Ifc conquered and subdued a ferocious people, and welded into one the most discordant elements. It taught the sanctity of human life to those who before took it with as little compunction as a civilised man would take the life of a worm. It taught them to spare it, under circumstances of extreme provocation. It has taught them to give up blood feuds, which, according to their national code of honor was an infamous thing to do. And further it has drawn those between whom these blood feuds existed, to kneel together at the Lord’s table, in peace and charity with all men,

It has taught them to give up heathen customs to which they clung with passionate attachment. It has abolished the religious system of the country, which was the main stay of the dignity and power of the chiefs. It has abolished cannibalism, slavery, polygamy and infanticide. It has taught the people to forgive their enemies. It has taught the people to believe in God, to have hope of immortality, and to desire to win the Divine approval by a good life. These arc some of the principal effects produced by the reception of Christian truth by the Maori, and these results have been achieved in the lifetime of men still in their vigour. But, great as the results are, the fact remains that a people professing the same faith with ourselves are far behind us in the conception of truth—attaching to many words, such as Atua (God), karakia (worship), whakapouo (belief or religion), hara (sin), meanings altogether unlike those which orthodox Christians attach to them ; and in their practical application of the principles of Christianity omitting much that is usually considered essential, and yet in their conduct showing that they have grasped the idea that to follow Christ means, not only the renunciation of sin—but a life of selfsacrifice. For it ought never to be forgotten that in embracing Christianity the rangatira class, which comprised the whole of the freemen, did what the rich young man spoken of in the Gospels would not do —they gave up all to follow Christ. They gave up their tapu and mana, by which their influence and dignity was maintained, and voluntarilyjiauded over their power to the Church, and reduced themselves to the rank of the poorest by setting at liberty their slaves, who were scut home with the message, “ Go tell your people the God of peace has brought you home again to them.” The chief, to prove his sincere acceptance of the Lord Jesus as his Master, dismissed the tillers of his fields, the hunters and fishers of his preserves, the servants of his household, and degraded himself to the rank of one of his own slaves, by defiling his sacred person with the abomination of the cookinglire. Men who had ruled powerful communities, and distinguished themselves in times of peace and war, and whose influence extended far beyond their own tribes, humbled themselves as little children before their own slaves, and often submitted to be taught by them the first principles of the Christian faith.

If the lives of Maori Christians arc not at this day so pure as they should be, let us bear in mind that the sin lies in a great measure at our own door. The convert who, with simple child-like faith, accepted at his teachers’ hands the plain precepts of the Gospel, and acted up rigidly to the letter of the law, was at first shocked to observe European Christians trampling under foot the precepts of their own creed, and tempting the converts to sell themselves to sin for reward, scoffing at the Bible and the restraints of religion, aud by their abandoned conduct setting an example that could not fail to be infectious when once the doubt was instilled into the convert’s mind that his teacher was not infallible, that all men did not think with him that a life of sin was a life of death. Especially was this the case when the evil example was set, not by the outcasts of European society, but by men acknowledged by their own teachers as gentlemen, or chiefs, in a Christian land. When they found that the countrymen of the missionaries, instead of forsaking all to follow Christ, took all they could, then their faith was unhinged, aud their practice lowered. Maori Christianity may be likened to an im-perfectly-set mosaic. There are unseemly openings between the squares, aud it is difficult, when attention is directed to these, to see and to appreciate the real beauty of the design, and the excellence of the workmanship. But though the Maori may be charged with many errors in life and doctrine, they are not so wanting in Christian virtues as to deny their claim to be reckoned among the household of faith, N.B.—Since writing these notes, I have had the opportunity of referring to the papers relative to the Hau Hau religion, laid before the House of Representatives, November 29th, 18G4. No. 5 contains following extract from Taranald Herald —“ The song of Gabriel to his people in this island who are standing desolate aud in doubt.” Ko te waiata a Kapariera Eura Id tona iwi tu kiri kau motu tu hawe. WAIATA I UDOKO. 1. Atua Paimaire rirc, (God Paimarire, &c.) Atua Paimarire rire Atua Paimarire rirc Atua Paimarire rirc hau ! 2. Matua Paimarire rire (Father Paimarire, &c.) Matua Paimarire rire Matua Paimarire rire hau ! 3. Atua Tamaiti Paimarire rirc (God Son Paimarire, &c.) Atua Tamaiti Paimariri rirc Atua Tamaiti Paimariri rire hau ! 4. Atua Wairua Tapu Paimarire (God, Holy Ghost, Paimarire, &c.) Atua Wairua Tapu Paimarire Atua Wairua Tapu Paimarire hau ! 5. Kia whakakororiatia koc c Ihowa i runga rawa te kororia te kororia te kororia rire, rire, rire, hau !

“ Glory be to the 6 Lord Most High, glory, (glory, glory.”) This is really a hymn of praise to the Trinity. Enclosure 1 to No G.—Henry T. Clarke, Esq , Commissioner of the Taurauga district, reports, November 14th, 18G4.—“Various rumors are current amongst the natives (some of the most extravagant kind were in circulation) to the effect that the angel Gabriel had appeared upon earth and had interposed on behalf of the native race. That a wonderful deliverance was to be wrought for them, &c, &c. Enclosure No 2.—Ahitaria to To Wahoroa (William Thompson, Tarapipipi, of Waikato), Taranaki, September 6th, 18G4.—“ Salutations to you, the people who have been made holy by Jehovah for his holy mountain. Friend here is the sword which has been given by Jehovah of Hosts, the sword he gave to Sampson and Gideon; the sword which saved Israel from the hand of the Philistines and Midiauites; that is Gabriel Eura the angel, &c, &c. Enclosure No 15.—John White, Esq., R.M. to hon Colonial Secretary,—Te Ua has told Matutaera Tawhiao that. New Zealand is Canaan, the Maoris are Jews, the books of Moses are their law, &c, er.c.