Causes which Induced Colonisation.

It must not be supposed that this step in advance had been gained merely in consequence of the whaling settlement at Bay of Islands The labours of Mr. Marsden, Mr. Leigh, and numbers of other honoured men and women had, under God, prepared the way for the foundation of the colony and the settlement of the Anglo-Saxon race in that fine land. In 1830 Missionary Stations had been established in several places in the North Island, and Christianity had been so generally and heartily accepted by the Maories, that it was estimated that every Sabbath from 35,000 to 40,000 natives were worshipping the Christian's God. This was a marvellous result of such a brief period of labour, and proves conclusively to most minds the great advantage derived by Britain from the efforts of our Missionary Societies to evangilise the heathen, thus paving the way for settlement by the white race. Without such operations and the pacifying Christianising influences of the Missionaries, it would not have been possible for settlement to have been established. And when it is considered that the native population did not exceed 120,000, the triumphs of the Cross of Christ in winning one-third of the entire race in the brief space of fifteen years, to outward conformity, at least, must be looked upon as a mighty growing of the word of God! Sad, indeed, that these triumphs of the Cross should have been so largely undone in later years by the vile traffic in waipiro (fire water), which, to the page 13 eternal shame and disgrace of Britain, appears to have gone almost hand in hand with the heralds of the Gospel. It has been said, with a great deal of truth, that the very ships that took the Missionary and the Bible took also the devil, in solution, in the shape of grog. Would that I need not have made this reference. After this digression, I now come to the notable