..."Immediately following the establishment of the government in 1840 the spirit of enquiry into Christianity was greatly on the increase. This was most likely because of the clear conviction of the evils of the former system, and of the blessings that could be obtained through Christianity. People now flocked in large numbers to attend classes for baptism, and particularly at the Mission stations in the Bay of Islands, Waikato and Thames. There was much that was really good happening, but it was also time for Satan to stir up increased opposition.

Accordingly we find that the popish priests were now working with redoubled vigour. They received a great addition to their numbers, and thus they were able to plant their teachers in most of those localities where the missionaries were labouring, and by plausible arguments, supported by liberal presents of clothing, they obtained many followers.

Nuka, the chief of Maungatapu at Tauranga, acknowledged that he had sent an invitation to the Romish bishop to establish a mission at Tauranga. He did not however disguise his motives. "We have heard," he said, "that the Bishop gives blankets to all who receive his doctrine, and we want some of them."

But a noble grant of ten thousand copies of the New Zealand New Testament had been lately made by the British and Foreign Bible Society, and there were many among the natives who were able to wield this sword of the Spirit most effectively. Not only did they endeavour to arrest the effects of evil doctrines among their countrymen, but there were numerous cases in which they confronted the priests with that freedom of speech for which the New Zealanders are noted, not entering upon any abstruse questions, which they might have found it difficult to handle, but keeping to simple points, which required no subtlety of argument.

One of these native teachers met with a priest at Tauranga, and opening his Testament he called the priests attention to the second Commandment and said, "Our teachers tell us that these are the commandments of God; now this tells me that I must not bow down to idols, which you evidently do; and I find, moreover, that you have not got the second commandment among the others, but that it is altogether omitted. I do not therefore believe that your religion is true, and I do not like it. You say also that our missionaries are adulterers, because they are married and are living with their wives; but if you can call them adulterers you must call Peter an adulterer, for it says here in my Testament, that Peter's wife's mother was sick of a fever."

On another occasion the Romish bishop said to a native at Waimate, "The missionaries have houses, and wives, and children; all their love is for them; but we have none, therefore all our love is for you." The native replied, "Is it then wicked for a missionary to have a wife and children?" The bishop said, "I am an apostle and bishop of Christ, and I tell you it is." The native answered, "St Paul was also an apostle, and he said, a bishop ought to be the husband of one wife!"

It is not a matter of surprise, therefore,to hear that numbers of those who had professed an adherence to the Romish Church were soon ready to leave it; that on one occasion twenty persons at Waimate, and on another sixty persons at Kaitaea, came forward publicly to join the Protestant Church.

At the time the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, there had been much hesitation on the part of some of the chiefs in accepting the proposals of government. The missionaries, from a conviction that it was the only safe course for the natives to follow, did their utmost to induce them to sign that treaty; but there was another influence at work instilling suspicion into their minds, which, though not successful at the time, was afterwards to become a fruitful source of trouble.

And now, after the lapse of a few months, several of the chiefs betrayed symptoms of uneasiness on account of the cession of the sovereignty of the islands, and the assistance which the missionaries had afforded the [British] government in that transaction. They had been told that the whole was a scheme to deprive them of their country, and the embers of discontent were smouldering for a time and gathering strength. In the meanwhile the gospel was to work its way in other quarters."