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I told them I could not give them any part of it, but I told Ripahau to write for them on paper, Our Father, &c. He wrote it for them all, and they learnt it. Before, Ripahau had not believed, but now his heart began to grow. We talked to him, and he believed." The result of this marvellous conversion was the visit of the two cousins to the Bay of Islands.
The crafty Rauparaha, fearing a terrific act of vengeance on the part of the white men, resolved to forestall any such danger by driving them out of the country. He felt certain of his own Ngatitoas, but between them and Wellington lay Waikanae, where Hadfield's influence was strong, and where Wiremu Kingi, the father-in-law of Ripahau, was chief. To Waikanae accordingly he steered his boat.
But they had learned something even better than the art of reading. They had learned and learned with the spirit the subject-matter of the book. They now took Ripahau with them to some villages on the mainland to teach the people about the book: "These people believed, and they all wanted the book.
These he procured, and among them there was a much-damaged copy of the Gospel of St. Luke. This bore the name of Ngakuku, and was in fact the very copy upon which little Tarore was sleeping when she was murdered in the night! In order to study in quiet, Tamihana and his cousin Te Whiwhi took Ripahau to the island and made him teach them there.
Thus was white New Zealand saved by Waikanae Christianity; and Waikanae Christianity was due, under GOD, to an invalided Oxford undergraduate, a Maori slave, and a little girl with her Gospel of St. Luke! But what of Rauparaha's son, Tamihana, the man without whom Hadfield would not have come to the district, nor Ripahau been converted, nor Tarore's gospel brought into use?
At any rate the old warrior gave a warm welcome to the young missionary, Hadfield, and insisted that he should live at Otaki under his protection. A meeting of a different character was that between Williams and his old scholar, Ripahau. This man had married a daughter of Rangitaake, or Wiremu Kingi, head chief of Waikanae, and had become a person of great influence in the tribe.
After much debate, Ripahau was similarly commissioned by the other side; peace was soon concluded; a war-dance gave relief to the excited feelings of the tribesmen; a service occupied the evening; and the day was concluded with a quiet meeting, in which the few native teachers of the district were prepared to receive the Holy Communion, which was to be administered for the first time in those regions on the Sunday morning which was now approaching.
Early on that day the Maoris came round the missionaries' tent and began their Matins worship. Ripahau had taught them hymns, and to these they had themselves fitted "very agreeable" tunes. At 8 o'clock a great service was held, with a congregation of 1,200 people. Then followed the Holy Eucharist.
And now the two powers had met, for the young men who had arrived at Paihia were none other than the son and the nephew of Rauparaha, and the cause of their coming was due to the forgotten slave Ripahau himself. This seemingly insignificant person had reached Otaki in the new territory of the Ngatitoas some three years before.
Ripahau showed no signs, however, of becoming a Christian, and after a time asked leave to join a fighting party which was leaving the Bay for Rotorua. He seems to have become known there to Mr. Chapman, but he soon disappeared, and for two years nothing was heard of him. At last, Chapman received from him a letter asking for books.
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