ronged its waterways. There was little care for the poor
anywhere, and little religion among employers or employed. The close of
the eighteenth century was indeed the low-water mark of English religion
and morality. But by 1809--the year of Ruatara's arrival--an improvement
had begun. What is known as the Evangelical movement was changing the
tone of life and thought. The excesses of the French Revolution had led
to a reaction among the upper classes and made them think more
seriously. This revival did not at once lead to much thought for the
poor at home; it reached out rather towards the heathen abroad. The
"Romantic" school was in the ascendant, and a black skin under a
palm-tree formed a picture which appealed to the awakened conscience.
Much of the fervour of the time had its being outside the historic
Church of England, but in the last year of the old century a few earnest
clergy and laity--without much encouragement from the bishops or others
in high places--had formed what was afterwards known as "The Church
Missionary Society." This Society had the New Zealanders under its
consideration at the very time when Ruatara was being starved and beaten
in the docks of London itself.

What had drawn its attention to a place so distant? It was the presence
of Marsden in England. He had come thither in 1807 on business of grave
and various import. The Government of the day had recognised the value
of his practical knowledge, and had sought his advice on many matters
concerning the welfare of Australia. But he did not forget New Zealand,
and it was to the young Church Missionary Society that he betook
himself. So great, in fact, and so various were the plans which Marsden
entertained for the welfare of the many races in which he was
interested, that the grandiloquent words of his biographer seem not too
strong: "As the obscure chaplain from Botany Bay paced the Strand, from
the Colonial Office at Whitehall to the chambers in the city where a few
pious men were laying plans for Christian missions in the southern
hemisphere, he was in fact charged with projects upon which not only the
civilisation, but the eternal welfare, of future nations were
suspended."

Marsden's proposals were the outcome of his own original mind. He
appealed for a mission to the Maoris, but he wished it to be an
industrial mission. He proposed that artisans should be sent out who
should prepare the way for ordained clergy. A carpenter, a smith, and a