CHAPTER V.

Law compared to a Country Dance-Cause of the Love of Life -Infanticide in New Zealand and the other South Sea Islands - Wonderful Effects of Christianity in checking it— Evils of Surplus Population-Different remedies for this Evil.

When I mentioned, in a letter which I wrote on leaving New Zealand, that one of the native princesses there had appeared in a neat English dress, I was not then aware that this was one of the effects of Christianity, but Mr. Williams, in his interesting narrative of "Missionary Enterprizes to the South Sea Islands," shews its wonderful effects in ameliorating not only the spiritual but the temporal condition of the natives. From Tahiti, which is now Christianized, they export nearly 200 tons of sugar annually, furnish beef to ships at threepence the pound, and 200 vessels now anchor there annually, whereas, some years ago, it was not safe to land either there, or on almost any of the islands of these seas. Some of them, no doubt embraced Christianity from motives apart from religion, and the inhabitants of the Samoa Islands, in particular, held meetings for several months before. doing so, at which the subject was discussed in all its bearings. At one of these meetings a venerable chief

rose up and addressed them as follows.

"It is my

wish that the Christian religion should become universal amongst us. I look at the wisdom of these worshippers of Jehovah, and see how superior they are to us in every respect. Their ships are like floating houses, so that they can traverse the tempest-driven ocean for many months with perfect safety; whereas if a breeze blow upon our canoes, they are in an instant upset, and we sprawling in the sea. Their persons also are covered from head to foot with beautiful clothes, while we wear nothing but a girdle of leaves. Their axes are so hard and sharp, that with them we can easily fell our trees, but with our stone axes we must dub, dub, dub, day after day, before we can cut down a single tree. Their knives too, what valuable things they are, how quickly they cut up our pigs compared with our bamboo knives. Now I conclude that the God who has given to his white worshippers these valuable things, must be wiser than our gods, for they have not given the like to us We all want these articles, and my proposition is, that the God who gave them should be our God."This speech, which throws all the logic of Locke and of Bacon into the shade, produced the desired effect.

Talking of the dress of the inhabitants of Tahiti Mr. Williams says, "The females had long observed the dress of the missionaries' wives, but while heathen, they greatly preferred their own. No sooner, however, were they brought under the influence of religion than all of them aspired to the possession of a gown, a bonnet, and a shawl, that they might appear like Christian women. And if it be not already proved, the experience of a few more years will demonstrate the fact, that the missionary enterprize is incompar

ably the most effective machinery that has ever been brought to operate upon the social, the civil, and the commercial, as well as the moral and spiritual interests of mankind."

When the natives, some years ago, were in the habit of selling their land to Europeans, for muskets, blankets, &c. they used every possible method by persuasion and argument, to get as much value as possible in these articles, money being seldom given. "Can you compare," they would say, "the articles which you offer, and which must eventually perish, with the broad land before you, which can never decrease, but will survive beyond the lives of your lateest posterity. What will become of your blankets? they must rot and be as nothing; and your muskets? they must wear out; and when you die, the land which you purchase will yet belong to your children; but what will fall to our children, when your payments have ceased to be serviceable to us ?"

Almost immediately however after making the purchase and paying the price, it was necessary to take possession of the land, otherwise one was exposed to the risk of their selling it again; and instances have occurred, where they sold the same land two or three times over, from the purchasers not having taken possession of it. In this country, possession is said to be nine-tenths of the law, but in New Zealand, it was the whole law, and nothing but the law. This reminds me of an anecdote of an English lawyer, who lived in the days of William the Conqueror, and was introduced to that monarch shortly after his arrival in London, from Normandy, in France. William, by way of complimenting him on his great age, said to him, "I understand, my venerable friend, that you

have outlived all the lawyers of your own day,""Please your Majesty," replied this old lawyer, "had you not come over, I would have outlived the law itself."

Law is said to be like a country dance, where people are led up and down till they are tired, so that this old lawyer must have danced with a good many in the course of his day.

It is a remarkable circumstance in the history of man, that age, while it lessens the enjoyment of life, increases the desire of living. Dangers which he despised in his youth, assume new terrors as he grows old; and though experience tells him that past enjoyments have yielded him no real happiness, and reflection must convince him, that from the infirmities of age, he must every day have less, yet hope, more powerful than either, still beckons him to pursue. New sources of happiness even at this the last, the closing stage of all his wanderings, still open up to his imagination, and like a losing gamester, every succeeding disappointment serves only to increase his ardour to continue the game. He takes infinitely more care of his health than in the days of his youth, his caution increases as his years decline, and at the very moment that life becomes scarcely worth retaining, he is most taken up in useless efforts to prolong it.

Our attachment to every object in nature, seems to increase with the length of time we have known it. An old friend is a proverbial expression, and an old horse, and an old dog, attract much of our regard. Even the fall of a tree familiar to him from his youth, brings a tear to the eye of old age." A mind," says Goldsmith, "long habituated to a certain set of objects, insensibly becomes fond of seeing them; visits

them from habit, and parts from them with reluctance. Hence proceeds the avarice of the old in every kind of possession; they love the world, and all that it produces; they love life, and all its advantages, not because it gives them pleasure, but because they have known it long." Life, in short, would be insupportable to those who, beset with the numberless calamities of decaying nature, and the consciousness of having survived every pleasure, feared death no more than when in the vigour of manhood; and thus happily the contempt of death forsakes us when it could only be prejudicial; and life acquires an imaginary value, in proportion as its real value is no more.

There is one thing in which New Zealand women resemble the Chinese, the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, and some other savage nations, and that is, in destroying their children occasionally after they have a sufficient number, lest they should not be able to support them all; and sometimes from caprice or superstition, as if the mother had boasted that she would have a male child, and it turns out a female, it would be very apt to suffer in the cause. This however but rarely happens, as they have seldom so many as to cause them to have recourse to this remedy. Indeed, they seem to be fast decreasing from a variety of other causes, such as the wars among the different tribes which prevailed till within this year or two, and from the manner in which they are suffocated every night in their pahs or native villages, which are often heated to a temperature of 100° Fahrenheit, from a large fire placed in the centre, with almost no opening for the smoke to get out, thus bringing on colds when they are ushered into the chilly air of the morning. Mr. Busby, the British resident at the Bay of Islands'