CHRISTIANITY AND THE MAORIS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3181, 12 November 1892, Page 6 (Supplement)

CHRISTIANITY AND THE MAORIS.

The Timaru Herald says ; —At the Baptist Church the Rev. C. C. Brown reviewed the letter of " Tung.ita Maori," on Christianity and the Maoris. He looked upon the writer of that letter as representing nine hundred million of heathens, who asked to be freed from their superstitions, but the answer they received from Christianity confuses and bewilders them ; Christianity has so many faces and so muny voices, Mr. Brosvn freely admitted that the English race is fast giving up its belief in Christianity in the various forms in which it is presented, as a system of faith rotten to the oore, hopelessly rent asunder, and helpless to renew the vigor of its youth. Mr. Moody, the famous evangelist, only two months ago declared that 90 per cent, of the English working men were hostile to it. ''Tangafca Maori's" taunt about shutting the Bible out of schools Mr. Brown endorsed ; he said every Christian should try to mend such a godless law. The native's remark to the Bishop of the diocese, "physician h?al thyself" was edifying indeed ; what answer could the good bishop make to it ? He quite agreed wi*h " Tangata Maori"-vhen he said it wer.» better to have left the Maoris with their real belief in an unseen spiritual world than to destroy that and give them only a make-believe in its stead. The Christian religion, in its original purity and simplicity, the preacher claimed, is the grandest, noblest, and most perfect ever given to man, but its modora apostate forms must be swept away by the return of the Messiah.