NEW ZEALAND

[s. 554] : The colony of New Zealand consists of three islands, viz., North, Middle, and South, or Stewart’s Island, together with certain small islets. The North Island is 44,000 square miles, the Middle Island 55,000, and Stewart’s Island 1,000 square miles. Thus the area of the three islands in round numbers is about 100,000 square miles. The principal islands are separated by Cook’s Straits, and Foveaux Straits separate Stewart’s from Middle Island. The entire length of the colony is 1,100 miles, and resembles Italy in form, while in size it is somewhat le than Great Britain and Ireland. In the North Island the mountains occupy one-tenth of the surface, and vary from There are a few 1,500 to 6,000 feet in height. loftier volcanic mountains, as Tongariro (6,500 is occasionally active; Ruaperhui feet), which (9,100 feet) and Mount Egmont are extinct volcanoes above the snow-line. In the Middle Island Mount Cook rises to about 13,000 feet in height. New Zealand is situated in the South 636 Pacific Ocean, 1,200 miles south of the Australian continent, and about 8,000 miles from San Francisco. The entire group lies between 34° and 48° S. latitude and 166° and 179° E. longitude. The climate is unquestionably one of the finest in the world. The mean annual temperature of the different seasons for the whole colony is, in spring 55°, in summer 63°, in autumn 57°, and in winter 48°. In future it will become the favorite resort of persons seeking health from all fjarts of the world, po e ing, as it does, within a imited area, the most charming scenery and most desirable climate. The death rate is only 10.29 per 1,000. The natives (called Maoris) are of Malay origin, and superior to other inhabitants of the Pacific intellectually and physically. The Maori is the average size of a European, viz., 5 ft. 6 in., but not so well developed. Mentally the natives are capable of very considerable development, and may hereafter fulfil Lord Macaulay’s prediction of them. The government is administered by a Governor appointed by the crown, and a Ministry, a Legislative Council nominated by the crown, and a House of Representatives elected by the people. The population is about 800,000; of these, 40,000 are Maoris. New Zealand was first discovered by Tasman in 1642, and surveyed by Captain Cook in 1770. Thereafter it was frequently visited by whalers, and Maoris from New Zealand were frequently taken to Australia. It was to this circumstance that the beginning of mi ionary work in New Zealand is due. The apostle to the Maoris is the Rev. Samuel Marsden, of the Church of England, who was chaplain of the penal settlement at Port Jackson in Australia. He was struck by the superiority of the Maoris whom he saw, and in 1807 he persuaded the CMS to undertake a mi ion in New Zealand. Matters did not move quicldy, and it was not until 1814 that Marsden set out with three lay mi ionaries in a brig that he had bought for the purpose. He had with him several Maoris, with whom he had become acquainted; two of them chiefs. He landed his party at the home of one of these men, and on Christmas Day, 1814, inaugurated the mi ion by an open-air service, the first Christian service ever held in New Zealand; one of the Maoris translating to the people what Mr. Marsden said in his sermon. The work went on in a marvelous manner until, the European settlers in the islands having greatly increased in numbers. Bishop Selwyn was consecrated as Bishop of New Zealand in 1841. He was amazed at what he found. Everywhere he found the natives eager for instruction, meeting for daily prayers, keeping Sunday, learning to read the portions of Scripture that had been translated into their language. “In short,” he wrote home, “I seem to see a nation born in a day.” But not long after this war broke out in the islands, largely due to indignation at land grabbing by English settlers; the “Hau-hau” superstition invaded the churches, and within twenty years the whole mi ionary enterprise seemed doomed, through the rapid diminution of numbers of the natives. Meanwhile, the Church of England was consolidating European and increasing its forces among the settlers. It sought from the beginning to make the adjacent islands of the Pacific 637 Ne^vton, John Jigao the field of its own efforts at evangelization, and has nobly fulfilled its duty. It was Bishop Selwyn who began that work in the New He brides which is now the Me lanes i an Mi ion, and as early as 1855 the martyr Bishop Pattes on was appointed over the islands, which now form a diocese of New Zealand, while New Zealand itself is hardly to be called a foreign mi ion field. The WMS was the first society to follow in the It sent its first mi ion footsteps of the CMS. But disaster folaries to New Zealand in 1822. lowed the effort. In five years no impre ion had been made; the mi ion station at Kaeo, in what is now the district of Auckland, was destroyed by hostile Maoris, and the mi ionaries, barely escaping with their lives, retired to Australia early But they returned and opened a new in 1827. After station in New Zealand the same year. five years more of seemingly fruitle work light began to appear, and in 1834 eighty-one converts were baptized in one day. In 1855, when the Australian Wesley an Conference was formed and took the control of the mi ion, there were 16 circuits or stations, 500 European and 2,500 Maori members, 2,500 European and 7,500 Maori adherents, 40 churches or other places of worship for Europe ans, and nearly 200 for Maoris. Then the same experience befell the Wesley ans that for a time seemed to overwhelm the Church War and the revival of of England mi ions. The Maoris superstitions paralyzed growth. shot Whlteley in 1869, a mi ionary who had given his life to their welfare. The whole enter But, as in prise seemed to be coming to an end. the case of the Church of England, so in the case the Wesley ans: the European Wesley an of churches of New Zealand grew and prospered; in 1784 the Wesley an Conference of New Zealand was formed and the local church has since then done its share in the work of evangelizing the remains of the Maori people. New Zealand as a Christian country has also Presbyterian Church organization. The its Presbyterian mi ions to the Maoris began in 1841. While the Presbyterians of New Zealand have done their share of the local work of evangelization, their special field has been the New He brides mi ion, well known to the world through the thrilling descriptions of the saintly Paton. The Congregationalists also have local churches in New Zealand and give their funds for mi ionary work to the LMS, with which they cooperate. The Baptists came late into the field, but they alongside the Gospel me age many forms of vice, has done much to degrade and destroy. Page (J.), Among the Maoris, New York, 1894; Short land London, 1882; (E.), Maori Religion and Mythology, Williams (W.), Christianity among the New Zealand ers, London, 1866. See also Mi ionary Review of the World, Vol. XV., p. 326. 555