572 
MANIHERA AND KBREOPA. 
We reached Motutere about noon the next day. Here 
we had the usual cry, and then speeches ; they first bade us 
welcome, but inquired what was the object of our coming ; 
was it to see the Church trampled under foot, and the ser- 
vants of God slain ? Was it to give our hands to the mur- 
derers ? If this were the case, Rangipo* would be closed 
against us, and there would be no coming here in safety ; 
others spoke in the same strain ; I said, I might also ask 
them what was the good of their words, did God establish 
His Church here that it might continue war ? was not that 
the work of the Devil ? had they not sufficiently felt the 
evil of it in former days to prevent their commencing it 
again ? would God permit His Church to be trampled under 
foot ? could they extinguish the light of the sun ? God 
was the head of the Church, and we were the members 
of it — was it right that the members should act without the 
head ? The foundation of the Church was love — would it be 
seen if we rose up and killed one another ? was it not our 
safest way to leave all with God, and trust to Him for the 
termination of this said affair ? 
I also sent a letter to Hikairo, and all the teachers of 
Rotorua, dissuading them from taking up arms to avenge 
these murders, but recommending them to leave all with God, 
and left Taupo with the conviction that those gloomy hills 
of darkness'” would soon be made light by the bright beams 
of the Gospel ; I was accompanied to Auckland by a native, 
who was deputed by his tribe to attend the Central Com- 
mittee, and apply for a minister to be sent to Taupo ; at 
Auckland we received the news of a barbarous murder of a 
settler's family at Wanganui, this hastened my return ; the 
Governor kindly offered me a passage in the Inflexible , war 
steamer, to Wanganui, in which he also went himself; and 
grieved was I to find, on my arrival, what a change had taken 
place during my absence ; a Chief had been nearly killed by 
the carelessness of a young midshipman, whose pistol by some 
means went off ; when another heathen and hostile Chief im- 
mediately went and murdered the family already alluded to 
* The name of the road from Wanganui across the Tongariro plains to Taupo. 
