100 
RELIGION. 
conclusion, at which it seems impossible to avoid arriving, 
and that is, the unity of the human race ; and seeing that 
these are alluded to in Scripture, they indicate one common 
age of the human family. In fact, the fragmentary remains 
of Scriptural knowledge to be found amongst the different 
sections of our race in the most remote and distant parts of 
our globe, are satisfactory evidences of the same, and were 
missionaries carefully to collect and record them, they would 
render essential service to the establishment of truth. 
In preserving the myths of the heathen, truth is thereby 
to be discovered, concealed indeed beneath the disguise with 
which tradition and spiritual darkness have enshrouded it; 
thus the creation of the world, of man, and his fall, are to 
be discovered even in the Maori myths. 
As light and life are represented by Tama nui te Ra, the 
great son of day, so is Hades by Hine-nui-te-po, the great 
mother night, into which all must fall. Maui, the great hero 
god of the Maori mythology, is represented as having length- 
ened the day by beating the sun and rendering him lame, 
which is perhaps only a figurative way of recording the fact of 
their having come from the tropics to the temperate clime of 
New Zealand, where the days are necessarily longer than in 
Hawaiki. Determined still further to show his strength by 
prolonging man's life and destroying the power of Hades, or 
death, Maui determined to enter the infernal regions during 
the period of the day, when Hine-nui-te-po was supposed to 
sleep, to pass through therealmsof night and re-entering those 
of light, so to destroy the power of the grave, but he found 
that death never slept. Maui failed ; he was unequal to the 
work of saving man or even himself ; he could not return, 
night closed her portals, Maui perished, and so like him 
all have died ; had he succeeded there would have been 
no death in the world, but when he failed, death became 
the general lot of all. Do we not here trace a reference to 
death being entailed on us through the failure of our first 
parent. 
The propitiating God by sacrifice was likewise general, 
even the heathen have felt the truth, without shedding of 
