ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 681, 23 October 1852, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the New Zealander. Sib, — Please to insert in your valuable journal, on Saturday, the -accompanying reply to the Rev. Gr. A Kissling, since demanded, in your issue on the 20th instant. — 1 am, &c, William Comrie. Auckland, Oct. 22nd, 1852.

To the Rev. G. A. Kissling. Rev. Sir, — I acknowledge the letter bearing the signature of A. B. as mine, on which you comment in the New Zealander, October 20th. When I read your name I felt pleased, and convinced that I was opposed by an educated gentleman of urbanity of manners/ and on reading your letter my convictions were deepened. Allow me in the first place to notice some things in it to which I will give you no answer, because they are not in evidence. You aay that "little more than the minor Prophets are wanting to make the Maori Bible complete." Where is the proof? This has been said a million of times within the last thirty years, and is likely to be said as often within the next thirty years to come. You say I ought " to have borne in mind the valuable manuscripts that were burnt." I heard of the burning of a Maori Dictionary and of Maori Songs, but of no manuscript of the Maori Bible. These things are not in evidence. Neither is the " great boon conferred on the country by the Missionaries in rendering a crude language into writing" proved. To call upon me to combat assertions, not proved, is evidently calling wpon me to fight without an antagonist. Now \for the foundation, having dug out a little of the rubbish. You say I " labour under a mistake when I charge the Missionaries with delinquency of duty in not giving the Aborigines the whole word of God in their own language." I said no such thing, Mr. Kissling, but I asked " Why have not the well paid Missionaries given them the Old Testament V In proving my so called mistake, your first paragraph does not lie in my line, because nothing is noticed in it about the Bible ; but from it your foot steps over a period of thirty years, to your second proof. In it you say that in the year 1837 a beautiful edition of the Maori Testament was carried through the MisssionPress by the Missionaries themselves, and fifty thousand copies circulated among the Natives. "Why do you use me so ill V* It was not of the New, but of the Old Testament I spoke. However since you bring this terrible army of fifty thousand copies into the battle field, I shall assail them right and left. Fifteen years intervene between 1837 and the present time. There are 120,000 aborigines. Suppose a copy to be given to each three of them and to last two years, then 40,000 copies would be destroyed in that time. It is unnecessary to proceed further with the calculation. It is perfectly clear that the edition would be out of print long before the expiration of fifteen years, for a book is out of print when it cannot be purchased, by the public, for money, which the Maori Testament has not been for years, and mis- ; sionaries themselves would be ashamed to confess tbat they still have copies to sell, since there has long been so great a famine for them. I have now annihilated this host of 50,000 ; what next \ " The great bulk of the native race

have been taught to read and write." This is an unfortunate admission for you, Mr. Kissling. I have now a hold of you, firm and fast, and I can, with the givatest possible ease wrench tills weighty argument out of your hands. If the missionaries have taught nearly all the aborigines to read, and send them away from their schools without the possibility of obtaining Bibles to read; then, I ask, is it not as clear as day, from your own admission, that the missionaries are not preparing the Maories to serve God, since they withhold from them the Bible — the only thing: on earth which can direct them to serve God — after they have taught them to read it I There is no one thing they can read in common except that excellent political journal, the Maori Messenger, which all of them may do after the missionaries have taught them to read. Is not this as true, Mr. Kissling, as anything said in the Bible I The tendency of this scholarship, in the present state of Maori literature, is to make them good servants to the Sovereign of England, not to the Sovereign of Heaven. The 5000 copies of the five Books of Moses which you parade as having been in print four years ago — that is one copy for every twenty-five Maories— is perhaps not worth noticing. At the end of your letter, you, at length give me a reply to my question. But your reply is only a question which you put to me. You ask, " am I aware of the difficulty of giving a Maori version of the Old Testament V* Perhaps I am, j but my ability is not in evidence. But when you apologise for the missionaries, after they have been fifty years in the field, by telling the public that " a faithful translation must occupy a considerable time," and ask me "have I ever calculated the time it occupied the translators of the English Bible, before they produced a true and faithful version for public use \ " I answer* yes, three years— stop, I have erred. A faithful version! There never was, and perhaps never will be, a faithful version. This, then, is your answer to my question. The Missionaries require more time, and then they will give a true and faithful version. I declare in the name of my Master, that if the Missionaries have not a better answer, when from His eternal throne He shall put my question to .them, if they publish not the translation in question shortly, they shall be condemned as guilty of a great delinquency. See in how short a time otheis have done this work, in other languages, under as great, if not greater, difficulties than the New Zealand Missionaries have to contend against. Wickliffe, in about five years, translated the Bible, and published it in 1360. Tindal, in about the same time, translated the New Testament, and was burnt immediately after finishing the translation of the Old Testament, in which he was employed eight or nine years. John Knox, Goodman, and Cole, translated the Bible, with notes, during the short time they were in Geneva. The difficulty of printing in those times was far greater than that of the New Zealand Missionaries. But, rev. sir, let me present the most parallel case I can find to the case of the New Zealand Missionaries. You have heard and read of Dr. Carey, who, with Ward, Marshman, and six other Missionaries, went to India about the time the Missionaries came to New Zealand. It is stated in Cox's History of the Baptist Missionary Society, page 209, that one of the objects of the Missionaries was, from the first, the translation of the Scriptures, and of pouring, through them, into millions of readers the streams of salvation along the plains of India. The different dialects of the New Zealand Natives, which you represent to me as a mighty barrier against a translation of the inspired Word, are as nothing compared to the multiplicity of Indian dialects — yet Dr. Carey and his heavenly-minded associates had the Old and NeAV Testament translated and printed in the Bengalee tongue. In the same year they printed the New and part of the Old Testament in the Sunscrit language ; also the New Testament and part of the Psalms in the Arissa tongue. In the same year (1809) the New Testament was like--wise translated, but not printed, in the Tilinga tongue. They translated, also, the New Testament into the Ilurnata language : the New Testament, and part of the Old, was translated into the Maharatta language : the New Testament translated and half printed into Hindoostan, and also into Sikh : the New Testament, as far as the Ephesians, translated into Chinese. These ten different translations were made in 1809 ; and in the following year these nine heaven -born men made similar translations into eighteen different dialects or languages. (See Cox's History, p. 211.) I think this oase of the holy Carey and his eight humble associates might make the Missionaries ashamed of the apology you form for them, from what you call the difficult dialects of the New Zealand Natives. But I must leave these examples to speak for themselves I might bring hundreds more equally bearing upon the case of the New Zealand Missionaries. But if these examples do not convince you of the futility of your answer to my question, and of your apology for them, I might bring hundreds of examples m vain. I am, Rev. Sir, Your obedient Servant, William Comrie, Minister of the Church of Scotland. Auckland Oct. 22, 1852.