124 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
dread them. Especially dreaded were old forsaken houses, old fences, or 
anything which had once been occupied by families of the higher chiefs now 
dead. 
In former times, while they lived and moved in the feelings of their 
ancient religion; while the poetical ideas of their gods occupied their 
minds, and they felt themselves above grovelling animalism: they could be 
healthy, live and thrive as other heathens do, though their morals and 
civilization do not come up by far to that of the Christians. But when those 
higher ideas did no longer occupy their mind, when they were in constant 
dread of offending against the tapu, when their physical constitutions were 
no longer healthy, when they saw but few children were born and many of 
the young people died: then they lost heart, and felt themselves sinking. 
Yet there is something in the human mind, also in the mind of the 
miserable savage, which, through all the dulness, inward and outward, 
longs for something higher, for something heavenly, divine. When, there- 
fore, the Maoris in the north of New Zealand at last comprehended the 
teaching of the missionaries, when the spirit of Christianity was brought 
near their heart, then they felt that that was the very thing which gave 
them relief in their inward groaning. Some were converted ; others followed. 
They were sincere. They became cleanly, enlightened, good, and loving. 
Others saw it,—it infected them. Then Christianity spread from place to 
place—a most powerful spiritual movement vibrated through the race. 
With Christianity the missionaries in the north had also introduced the 
arts of reading and writing. This was a marvel to the Maoris, who, by 
nature, are endowed with a fair intellect. That the new things, called 
books, could talk to them ; yea, that they could put their talk on paper and 
send it to distant friends, there to be understood: that was to them @ 
miracle, which confirmed their faith in Christianity. They felt at once 
their minds lifted high above the old dulness, and that explains the great 
spiritual movement which vibrated through the whole race. Yet it was not 
the mechanical art of reading and writing which changed their minds from 
wolves to lambs, but the spiritual ideas in Christianity. Murder, cannibalism, 
and other sins, as far as they had light and understanding, were at once 
abolished. Also wars ceased, so long as the spirit of gentleness and for- 
bearance of Christianity dwelt in their simple minds. That there should 
come some reactions, that the inherited wildness in a generation grown UP 
since then should have broken out here and there, was no more than might 
be expected. 
Now, that great spiritual movement from the north had already reached 
this far south, chiefly through native agencies, when I arrived here. 
was, therefore, quite safe for me to live among the Maoris. The New 
