MAORIS AS MISSIONARIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 213, 29 August 1908, Page 2

MAORIS AS MISSIONARIES.

TO VISIT SOUTH SEA ISLAND& By Telegraph,-Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. At the ArcMcaconal Conference at Cambridge, the Rev. W. If. Hawkins, of the Maori mission station at Te Awamutu, delivered an excellent discourse on the Maori missions gen«rally and he showed that of late great advance had been made. He stated that he had been visiting the Melanesian and Polynesian Islands with n view to ascertaining if Maoris would make suitable missionaries to work in that part of the world. He found that nearly everywhere, and particularly in the Polynesian Inlands, the inhabitants could understand him when lie addressed them in Maori, and he could understand their language through its similarity to the Maori one. He consulted the Bishop of Melanesia on ths matter, and it had now been decided to send Maori married men and one single man to act ns missionaries. Tire married nun would take up tilislr residences in tho thickly populated districts and the single man would travel over the grriund where there were fewer inhabitants Mr. Hawkins stated that lie had mentioned the. matter to. th* Afaoris up north, and they were most enthusiastic over it. There were fully fifty willing to go as missionaries to the South Sea Islands, and the difficnltv would be to choose from that number.