ORDINATION OF A NATIVE DEACON.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume I, Issue 8, 1 November 1855, Page 1

ORDINATION OF A NATIVE DEACON.

On Sunday, the 23rd of September, the Bishop of New Zealand, assisted by Archdeacon Abraham, the Revs. J. F. Lloyd, J. H. Patteson, and several other clergymen of the Church of England, officiated, atTthe Church of St. Paul, Auckland, in the ordination of RiwaiTe Ahu, a native instructor, who was on that day admitted a minister of the gospel of Christ.

As, upon a like occasion, on the 22nd May, 1853, when Tie Rota, another native instructor, was created a deacon, the church was crowded in every part, by native and European visitors, anxious to witness the interesting ceremonial. The form of ordination is at all times a solemn one ; but when a people, but a few short years since were regarded by the general world as outer barbarians and bloody minded pagans, send forth their sons as teachers and preachers of love, faith, and charity,:—of peace on earth and goodwill towards men,—it is little wonder that the ceremonial which authorises them to enter upon their holy calling, should draw together crowds of anxious Christian spectators. The ceremonial of ordination was performed by the Bishop in his accustomed fervid manner, and both in the English and native tongues. In his sermon, the Bishop took occasion to trace the wonder-working providences of God, which had called a people, seated in great darkness, into his marvellous light He drew a striking picture ofl the docility, intelligence, and other valuable| qualities of the native race, proving their greatj utility as fellow workers with their European! brethren in the various arts and requirements ofj life. His Lordship disclaimed all belief in whati he pronounced to be a popular error, that the coloured race must, as by a law of nature, gra-

dually disappear before the white race. It was not, said he, before the white, but before the vices of the white, that the coloured race disappeared. One of the most prevalent, and at the same time, one of the most deadly of those vices, was the crying sin of drunkenness ; it is one which debases the body, and destroys the soul of man; aud against the indulgence of this pernicious vice, Bishop Selwyn uttered his most fervid denunciations. It is much more easy to adopt the vices, than to engraft the virtues of civilization, upon a race in a state of transition from pagan barbarism to Christian light. The sin of drunkenness, long a stranger to the Dative people, has made its stealthy and insidious approaches among them. It is on the increase. The laws that have been humanely framed for their protection, are evaded. And it is a source of poignant grief to their best and firmest friends, that their temporal and eternal welfare should be endangered by such degrading indulgence. We sincerely hope that the faithful admonitions of the Bishop may carry conviction to the readers of these pages, and that any who may have yielded to the enticement of strong drink, will reflect in time, and forsake a practice which has slain more victims than the sword or the gun. We sincerely trust that the two native teachers called, respectively, to expound the scriptures to their fellow-countrymen will cot fail to admonish them on the ruinous consequences of intoxication —a vice which degrades the intellectual man infinitely beneath the level of the unreasoning brute. Let them point to the extraordinary advancement which the natives have made in the many and beneficial arts of true civilisation. Let them urge them to prosecute the spirit of enterprise which has already rendered them remarkably as mariners, traders, and agriculturalists These are objects which, as ministers of a Chris* tian church, it is their peculiar province to inculcate. Both Te Rota andEiwai Te Aim come before thenEuropean and native fellow-Christians with a high reputation. Their worthiness for the office to which they have been selected has been openly proclaimed in the face of a congregation of their united Christian brethren. They know, and we trust they feel, the responsibility they have incurred ; and we also hope that they will demonstrate their jeal by their works, in the regeneration of their fellows.