lands, abused the characters of settlers,
individually and collectively, and, instead of fostering
good will between the races, have, whenever
opportunity offered, widened the breach they were
themselves the first to make. Thus, they
believed they would most easily retain their own
spiritual ascendancy. They feared lest the
influence they were wont to exercise over their
flocks should gradually die out, and the
hierarchy at the antipodes be lost in the bustle of
a rough Anglo-Saxon republic. The narrow
policy failed utterly; the missionaries lost the
power that a generous exercise of sympathy,
a little human tolerance, a little of the dignity
that belongs to pure lives led in charity with all
men, would have undoubtedly preserved to them.
They who should have been, and could have
been, the bond of union between the settlers
and the natives, committed themselves to the
meanest policy of selfishness, and sowed the
bitter seeds of strife in the name of the Gospel
of charity. From such seeds they did not reap,
even into their own garners, the fruit they
desired. They lost their influence, and mainly
because they made themselves, by their own
folly, unpopular with the immigrants, instead of
trying to amalgamate the old flock with the
new.

I am not one of those who would decry
missionary labour. I have a sincere honour for
men who, casting aside the comforts of their
native land, have betaken themselves to the
work commanded in the words, "Go ye forth
unto all nations," and amongst a nation of
savages have concentrated their energies on the
diffusion of the word of truth. I can understand
that at the first colonisation of New Zealand they
were influenced partly by a just desire to prevent
the natives from being cheated, and that they
properly opposed alienation of lands for such prices
as a few Brummagem muskets and a score of
Jew's-harps. I can believe that their desire was
often only to protect the interests of a capable
people whom they trusted to see rising into
importance through the influence of Christianity.
From what they then knew of colonial life at
the antipodes, they might not unreasonably be
unable to foresee the ingress of a class of men
whose manners and behaviour were likely to
raise in the minds of their disciples a respect
for Christian institutions. What, it may be
asked, could they picture to themselves as the
result of immigration, judging from the
neighbouring colony of New South Wales, but, as it
then was, the introduction of disease, drunkenness,
profligacy, and vice, in all its worst forms?
I admit that they had cause for fear, and feel
that it would be almost sacrilege to criticise the
actions of a man like Marsden. Would that the
missionaries to New Zealand had all been like
him! But the fatal defect of their body in New
Zealand was, that they could not open their eyes
to the laws that rule human society. Did they
suppose that their opposition could arrest the
tide of civilisation? Could they not see God in
the world as well as in the Bible? Why should
they have endeavoured to oppose the settlement
of those Englishmen, who, if they had been taken
by the hand by teachers and helpers already on
the spot, and wiser and better themselves, would,
through precept and example, have become their
best allies? If they had striven to graft the
civilised habits of the colonist upon the
Christianity taught by the missionary, there would
have been peace now in New Zealand. And
how illogical was the ground they took up! In
their previous teaching they must have told their
disciples how Christianity brings its own fruits
of joy into this world; yet, as soon as they heard
that Christians were coming, they abused them,
and by inference discredited the influence of the
religion they professed. The principle of peace
and good will, on the first great opportunity of
practically acting on it, was ignored. Why were
not the new comers welcomed as a part of the
great common flock? However it might be
with the convicts of New South Wales, these
gentlemen—for such they generally were by
birth and education—must have understood the
difference between free emigration and
transportation. Again, for their prevention of the
alienation of land from the natives for frivolous
and trifling payment, they are to be praised; but
this was not protection of the natives against
colonists. The land was first bought by the
agents of a commercial company, and in these
matters of land bargaining with the natives the
immigrants, as a body, had no part.

The sale of lands dishonestly bought was
reversed, and they were repurchased, the original
price being retained (particularly the muskets)
for future adjustment, in which they (the
muskets) took an active part. Nor does the
grave mistake end here, for the missionaries
persisted in a course meddlesome in itself and
subversive of the discipline which might otherwise
have been exercised over the natives.
Many, forgetting wholly their office and the
scriptural directions for its due performance,
rushed headlong into politics, adopting a policy
for the protection of the Maoris against improbable
contingencies, and by its cramping influence
diametrically opposed to the interests of
the settlers. So they endeavoured to maintain a
failing influence over the native, by combining
the priest with the politician, until now in New
Zealand missionary influence is powerless,
except where it bends subservient to all the wishes
of the natives. In the last war at Taranaki,
the missionary party were the first to find an
imaginary flaw in the purchase at Waitara,
and by publishing their sentiments they not
only seriously compromised the governor, but
directly supported the natives in rebellion.
Why did they not depend more, in a wise
sympathy, upon the hearts and wills of their fellow-
countrymen to support them in the labours
which had already returned an abundant
harvest? To many, I know, these must be, as
they are to me, unwelcome truths. I should
not speak them if they represented nothing
but an individual and personal impression.
Unhappily they are what almost every educated
settler in New Zealand knows and thinks.