RELIGIOUS FEELING. 203 



come in contact in the course of many wanderings ' Eeli- 

 gion, according to both, the true and popular meaning of the 

 word, they had none. "Whatever religion may be defined to 

 be virtue as founded upon the reverence of God and expec- 

 tation of future rewards and punishments, or any system of 

 Divine faith and worship they knew nothing of the kind. 

 They had neither doctrine nor dogma, neither cultus nor 

 system of worship. They knew not of any Being who could 

 properly be called God. They had no idols. They reverenced 

 not the sun, nor moon, nor glittering heavenly host, nor any 

 natural phenomena.' ! Mr. Colenso happens to be not only 

 a missionary but also a naturalist. As a missionary his bias 

 would probably lead him to discover some germ of religion 

 in this and every other savage race, did such a germ really 

 exist ; but as a naturalist he feels bound to represent facts 

 simply as he finds them. His opinion as regards the New 

 Zealanders is confirmed by a writer of a different kind 

 Edward Shortland who thus writes of them : ' The great 

 fact observable from a consideration of their traditions .... 

 is that the people had no idea of a Supreme Being, the 

 Creator of all things in heaven and in earth.' 2 Similar 

 views are, or have been, held by some of the most eminent 

 missionaries concerning the negative condition of religion in 

 other savage races, and their testimony is of the highest 

 importance in connection with the confident assertion so 

 constantly being made in Exeter Hall that in all men the 

 rudiments of religion, of a religious instinct, exist, and only 

 require suitable cultivation and direction. The Rev. Dr. 

 Moffatt, the veteran South African missionary, says of the 

 Bushman (or Bosjesman), *He knows no god; knows no- 

 thing of eternity.' a In his address on South African missions 

 in Westminster Abbey, in November 1875, he said of the 

 Bechuanas when he first visited them, ' They had no idea of 

 a God, and no nof ion of a hereafter. There was not an idol 

 to be found in all their province,' and one being shown to a 

 chief, ' an intelligent leader of the people, it excited his 



1 ' Transactions of the New Zealand Institute,' vol. i. 1868, p. 385. 



2 Ibid. p. 329. 



3 ' Missionary Labours and Scenes in South Africa,' 13th edition, p. 15. 



