A Memoir of the Rev. Richard Davis for Thirty-nine Years a Missionary in New Zealand

APPENDIX I.

1. Testimony of Bishop Selwyn,

437

2. Admiral Fitzroy's high estimation of Mr. Davis and the other Missionaries at

Waimate,

3. Obituary by Church Missionary Society,

4. Descendants of Rev. Richard Davis,

APPENDIX II.

1. FIRST Conference of the Missionaries of the Church Missionary Society with

New Zealand Chiefs to dissuade the latter from going to war,

2. Letter from the Chief Taiwanga to the Author, in Maori and English,-the

FIRST Letter ever written to England by a Native of New Zealand,

3. Letter from Coleman Davis Auheke, a hopeful Native Youth living in the

Family of Mr. Davis, to the Author, translated into English,

449

4. Letter from the Chief Paratene (Broughton) to Mrs. Coleman, dictated to Mr.

Davis, and by him taken down and rendered into English, sentence by

sentence, with an explanatory Letter of Mr. Davis to Mrs. Coleman,

450

APPENDIX III.

Treaty of Waitangi, from a copy printed at the Government press, Auckland,

with a literal Translation, made in New Zealand, of the Maori Version

thereof, which Treaty would never have been signed but for the interven-

tion of Mr. Davis, and his influence with several of the Native Chiefs,

453

CHAPTER I.

Birth--Parentage-Baptism-Defective Education-Early Conviction of Sin
-Agony of Soul, and Earnest Seeking after Salvation.

WHEN the incarnate Son of God, in the sovereignty of His love and mercy, chose and ordained the apostles, that trumpet-tongued they might proclaim His triumphant resurrection from death, and evangelize a benighted world, He selected the twelve, not from the rulers constituting the Sanhedrim, nor from the Jewish priesthood, nor from the schools of the Prophets, but chiefly from among the fishermen of Galilee, and from the seat of custom, qualifying them for their exalted mission by the extraordinary gifts and sanctifying graces of the imparted Spirit, the Comforter. In this era of missions, the great Head of the Church sends forth and qualifies some of all grades and classes of society, to christianize the dark parts of the earth, and to proclaim Christ crucified and Christ glorified to them that are near, and to them that are far off. Thus, from among the cultivators of the soil, from the class of tenant-farmers--a class, it is to be feared, too generally devoid of the life of God in the soul of man-Richard Davis was providentially called to labour nearly forty years in the missionary field. God was with him. God

wrought in, and by, and with him, to the conversion of many New Zealanders from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. Many Maoris at the last day will arise and call him blessed.

Richard Davis was born in the village of Piddletrenthide, in the county of Dorset, 18th January 1790, and when an infant was baptized in the Parish Church of Piddletrenthide. In this parish his paternal grandfather possessed leasehold property, which he cultivated himself. He also rented a farm adjoining Sturminster-Newton. The father of Mr. Davis, being his only son, assisted him in his business, and on his decease succeeded him in the tenancy of this farm, where Mr. Davis passed his early years. At the age of sixteen he was confirmed by the Bishop of Salisbury in the Abbey Church of Sherborne. The family is of Irish extraction. One of the ancestors of Mr. Davis, a landed proprietor in Ireland, removed from Ireland to England, and changed his name from O'Donel, a name now and heretofore of no mean celebrity in the West of Ireland, to Davis. The cause of this migration from Ireland to England, and of this change of name, can only now, from lapse of time, be matter of uncertain conjecture. By his Irish extraction he was well suited for the New Zealand mission, the Irish resembling the Maori race in the love of figurative language, and in congeniality of character. God ever adapts His instruments to the works which His providence assigns to each.

Mr. Davis received that measure of education, which in former years so generally characterized tenant-farmers. When I first knew him he wrote ungrammatically, his

spelling was very incorrect, and of punctuation he had little or no idea. He was self-taught. The defect of his education was gradually and amply compensated by religious reading and assiduous mental culture. He made some progress in the study of the Hebrew tongue, and in reading the Hebrew Scriptures; also in geology, mechanics, geometry, and spherical trigonometry; and in the use of the theodolite and sextant. He vaccinated the natives of his districts, and administered to them medicines, some most costly in price, and most potent in operation, both extensively and efficaciously. On one occasion I paid two pounds, the WHOLESALE price of two ounces of medicine, which he commissioned me to buy and send to him, deeming it a specific for an epidemic then raging in New Zealand. The entire duties of the medical department in his district frequently devolved on him. On one day, 17th January 1861, he actually dispensed sixty-six doses of medicine. Few missionaries have taken abroad with them a larger or more valuable collection of works of divinity and general literature than what he possessed before his death, which he had diligently studied, and has left to his family for their instruction and edification. Most fervently did he pray, and most ardently did he labour, that he might be qualified both intellectually and experimentally for that mission to which the providence of God had called him. His estimate of the necessary qualifications for a faithful ministration of the Gospel at home or abroad is detailed in a letter to his son-in-law, Rev. Joseph Matthews, 11th February 1844-"As a minister, your eye must be single, or your whole body cannot be full of light.

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A Memoir of the Rev. Richard Davis for Thirty-nine Years a Missionary in New ...