shook hands with him; we rubbed noses together. Yes; I saw a
missionary's face; I sat in his cloth house; I tasted his new food; I
heard him talk Maori. My heart bounded within me. I listened, I ate his
words. You slept at nights; I did not. I listened, and he told me about
God and His Son Jesus Christ, and of peace and reconciliation, and of a
Father's house beyond the stars: and now I, too, drank from his
calabash, and was refreshed. He gave me a book, too, as well as words. I
laid hold of the new riches for me and for you; and we have it now. My
children, I am old; my hair is white, the yellow leaf is falling from
the _tawai_ tree. I am departing; the sun is sinking behind the great
western hills; it will soon be night. But hear me: do you hold fast the
new riches--the great riches--the true riches. We have had plenty of sin
and pain and death; and we have been troubled by many--by our neighbours
and relatives; but we have the true riches: hold fast the true riches
that Karepa has sought for you!"

[Illustration: RUINS OF ST. THOMAS'S CHURCH, TAMAKI.]

How can we account for all this? Must we not say that these were indeed
the "_Years of the right hand of the Most High_"?

CHAPTER VII.

RETROSPECT.

(1814-1841).

The native bent of the Maori mind caused the people, as they embraced
Christianity, gradually to place themselves as a matter of course
under the guidance of a sort of Christian theocracy. It was under the
auspices of this mild missionary regime--which, if a government, was a
very singular one, seeing that there were no laws, and an almost total
absence of crime--that the first British Governor set foot on the
shores of New Zealand.
--_Judge Wilson._

Hardly had Henry Williams returned to Paihia from his great journey
through the heart of the island, when a warship arrived in the Bay,
bearing Captain William Hobson with a commission from Queen Victoria,
authorising him to annex the country to the British Crown. A not very
friendly historian (Saunders) has summed up the situation at this point
by saying that, on his arrival, Hobson fell into the hands of the
Reverend Henry Williams, and obligingly admits that he might have fallen
into worse ones. As a matter of fact, the captain could have done but
little had he not secured the co-operation of this influential
missionary. Rusden speaks no more than the truth when he declares that
"Henry Williams had but to raise his finger,