THE REV. ROBERT WARD.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 28, 5 August 1871, Page 8

THE REV. ROBERT WARD.

It will be in the recollection of many of our readers that this reverend gentleman left Wellington for I ngland, towards the close of last year, in the E-lalcione. A furlough was granted to him by his church, after laboring in her service fob upwards of twenty-five years, and he was prevailed upon to revisit the fatherland, in order that somewhat might be learned of this far distant colony, and of the progress of missionary enterprise among the races inhabiting it. In connection with this, he has been advocating its claims upon the attention of the Foreign Mission Committee of the church to which he belongs, in order to induce them to send out more labor rs to this portion of the wide vineyard. News has been received by last mail of his cordial reception in the home country, and also that he has met with no small success in the ooject of his mission. He has been present at several large meetings, and has addressed them on missionary and other subjects. The most numerous assemblage before which he had the honor of speaking, was at the an' ual missionary meeting of the Primitive Methodist Church, held in Spurgeon’s Tabernacle, in London, during the month of May last. Some short extracts from the speech he delivered on that occasion will, no doubt, be read with much interest by not a few of our readers. The extracts are taken from the “Christian World.” In proposing a vote soliciting further help for the colonial missions, the rev.gentleman said “ You see at once that this resolution throws me off to the southern hemisphers, and I confess that my heart is there, for my wife is there, and my children are there, and the field of more than twenty-six years of labor lies there; and, however much I love England—and I love her very much— I love New Zealand better. New Zealand lias been long before the British churches as a field for missionary enterprise, and has long been considered a fair field for the glorious work. New Zealand is known to be inhabited by a race of people as savage and unlike Christ as any that can be found under the sun ; and it was properly argued that if the Gospel could reach the New Zealander and make a man of Him, if it could subdue the savage and turn him into a saint, if it could bring the cannibal to bow humbly at the feet of Jesus, then the Gospel would be ready to accomplish anything. I am exceedingly pleased to have the opportunity of bearing ray testimony concerning the glorious effects which the Gospel has produced amongst the native people of New Zealand. Much, very much, has been said and written about the missions among the Maori people, and very many mistakes have been made. Sometimes the missionaries in New Zealand have blushed, and have been pained at heart, at the exaggerated things which have been printed and published in England concerning that field of labor. An-imaginative mind has fixed upon the fact that a large gathering of Maoris have been seen at the sacramental occasion ; that a native has travelled 200 miles to purchase a New Testament ; and they have been very anxious to get a resident missionary in some particular spot; and the imaginative mind has made much capital out of a few facts of this kind, and dressed them up in such a way, that a false impression has been made in England concerning the work that has really been wrought there . . . . . . , We most deeply regret the ten years’ war that has disturbed us, we most deeply regret the religious delusions that prevail, and I know that many of the native people as deeply regret these things as we do. They bate the religion that has swept away many of the mission stations, and burnt the bibles, and murdered the missionaries, with a hatred as intense as any of us can possibly feel, and many of the New Zealand tribes have never lifted a hand against the Government, and others have fought most bravely in our defence. The colony owes its existence to the missionary. The colonists dared not have planted their homes in New Zealand if the missionary had not gone before them and paved the way. As early as 1810, three men left the neighborhood ofWymoudham, Norfolk ; they were the pioneers of the colony as well as of the mission. When they got to

Sydney they learnt that a ship had been seized in a harbor in New Zealand, and the passengers murdered, and a cannibal feast had been held over their bodies. The result wss that the Governor of New South Wales refused his permission to the missionaries to go to Now Zealand for the space of four years. In the year 1814 he gave permission, and they went, but there was not a captain who would risk his ship by chartering her across the 1200 miles that our steamers run now every week, and the Rev Samuel Marsden spent two thousand pounds in the purchase of a brig called the Active, for the purpose of conveying the missionaries and their families to New Zealand. When they got there they found the natives in actual warfare. However, a welcome was accorded to them, but it was such a welcome as would have made your hearts quail if you had witnessed it. ft was the war dance of welcome, and as they looked upon the work they had to do, and wondered what would be the cousequences of their labors, they looked up to Him who alone was able to save, and consecrated their bodies and souls to the work that they had entered upon. The first sermon in that noble country was preached on Christmas Hay, 1814, by the Rev Samuel Marsden. . . . The language of the people had to be caught from their lips and classified into parts of speech and into words of definite meaning, the habits of the people had to be corrected, their customs and manners were many ol them most revolting, a new set of ideas had to be given to them. It was ploughing upon the rock, It was hoping against hope. And then the terrible wars that came among them! I will give you a specimen of one. There was a chief, a kind of Napoleon among the Maori people, who in the year 1825 visited England. He came to London, and our grandfathers accorded a hearty welcome to him, George IV. invited him to his palace, and loaded him with presents, and gave him a suit of armour, and many stands of arms, and much ammunition, and the chief returned loaded with goods. When he got to Sydney he exchanged many of the goods given to him in England for more arms and ammunition, and he went back to New Zealand with the resolution that the power that guns and ammunition would give him should make him the chief of all the country. I could take you to a spot not more than ten miles from the city of Auckland where a pa stood, which he deter mined to attack with 3,000 men, and all the firearms that he could bring into use, and he did so. 1,000 men were slain, 300 human bodies were baked in ovens and eaten. Human flesh was sent as presents to distant friends. He took a large number of slaves back to the Bay of Islands, and his canoe was decorated with the heads cut off from his enemies. "When he got back to the Bay of Islands, bis daughter, whose husband had been killed in the fight, demanded satisfaction for the death of her husband. Her father gave the slaves into her hand, and she seized the sword that was given to her father by a British King, and ordered the slaves to lay their heads one by one upon the side of the canoe, and that woman’s arm struck off the heads of sixteen men. Not satisfied with this display of savage life, she took a musket, and went into the bush and shot herself, and as the wound was not immediately deadly, she ended lier wretched life by strangling herself. .... I can haidly get away from this part of my address without bringing before you two names of men who I revered on earth, and fully hope to meet in heaven, one a Church missionary, the other a Wesleyan missionary, both of them murdered men, uoth of them martyred spirits who have already joined the noble army of martyrs before the throne of Go<L The first was the Rev Mr Volkner. x knew him well when he first came from Germany. It was necessary for him to learn two languages in order to be widely useful, the English and the Maori, and he soon learned them both. Some of you recollect that he was murdered a few years ago by the very people he lived to save, in the very neighborhood where he had built a church and planted a school, and dealt out blessings for the body and the soul. They put a cord around the neck of the devoted missionary, and hauled him up to the

arm of a willow tree, where they let him hang for an hour, and then, life not being quite extinct, they let him down and took an old axe and chopped off bis head. The women gathered in a circle, and. squatting down in native fashion, turned up their faces and opened their mouths, and the head of the murdered missionary was passed slowly round that they might catch his blood and taste it for themselves. I. must now turn to my very dearly beloved friend, the Rev John Whitely. About twentythree years ago I was on a journey, and I knocked at Mr Whitely’s door about eight o’clock in the morning, and found him conducting family worship. He did not know me, nor had he any idea of my status. 1 was invited to take a seat, and then when we bowed in prayer he did not forget the slranger that was within his gates. For ten years we were stationed near each other, and we often exchanged pulpits at anniversaries; and when I heard of his death I could only exlaim, “ Alas, my brother !” and yet I thought and felt that it was a fitting end for such a devoted man.