26S 
LETTERS FROM NATIVES, 
LETTER XX. 
FROM WARIKI, TO MR. CLARKE AND THE REV. W. YATE. 
Mr. Clarke, and Mr.Yate — This is the begianing* of 
my saying* any thing to you in a book. How is it that 
I am so deaf to what you say ? If I had listened to your 
various callings, I should many times have done the 
things which God bids us do ; and should not have obeyed 
my heart, which is a deaf and a lying heart, and very 
joking : and my heart sometimes ridicules me for saying, 
I wish to believe right, and to do right. How is it ? How 
is it ? Sometimes I say Aye, and sometimes the thoughts 
within me cause me to say No, to the things of God: 
and then, there is a grumbling and a contention within, 
whether Aye or No is to be the greatest, or which is to 
be overturned. The more I turn my eyes within, and 
continue looking, I the more wonder, and think perhaps 
I have never prayed, perhaps T have. I have this day, and 
many days, kneeled down, and my mouth has whispered 
and has said loud prayers ; but I wish to know, and 
am saying within me, if I have prayed with my heart. 
Say you, if I have prayed to God with my heart, should 
I say No, and not do His bidding, as the Bible says we 
must, and tells us how? And should I flutter about 
here like a bird without wings, or like a beast without 
legs, or like a fish whose tail and fins a native man has 
cut off, if I had love in my heart towards God ? Oh ! I 
wish that I was not all lip and mouth in my prayers to 
God. I am thinking that I may be likened to stagnant 
water, that is not good, that nobody drinks, and that does 
not run down in brooks, upon the banks of which kumera 
and trees grow. My heart is all rock, all rock, and no 
good thing will grow upon it. The lizard and the snail 
run over the rocks, and all evil runs over my heart. 
