Under the first strong influence of conversion the Maori readily gave in to missionary insistence in this matter; but after awhile the old habit reconquered them. Then came individual relapses into barbarism, individual antagonism with the missionaries, and much division and heart-burning. It would have been better, in my humble opinion, to have ignored polygamy, or at least not to have pointed at it so particularly. It would have been better to have allowed things to remain as they were, in this respect, and to have relied on bringing up the young generations to the Christian observance of matrimony. Indeed, some few missionaries did adopt a line of action something like this, and found it the wisest in the long run. By-and-by, the Maori began to seriously argue the matter. They took their Bibles, which they had been taught to regard as the standard of right and wrong, and asked the missionaries to show them where polygamy was forbidden. Nay, was it not divinely sanctioned in many parts of the Old Testament? The Maori is naturally an acute reasoner and casuist, and those missionaries who stood out so emphatically against polygamy now found themselves worsted on their own ground. The arguments that have prevailed throughout Christendom in favour of monogamy were not accepted by the Maori. They wanted direct Biblical ordinance, and as that was not forthcoming they assumed that polygamy was lawful, or, at least, some of them chose to do so. Then there was great joy. There were marriages and giving in marriage, after the good old custom. Probably, this controversy on the matrimonial question was one of the causes that afterwards eventuated in Hau-hau. In these days polygamy is very rare, chiefly because the men outnumber the women, and because Maori find it expedient to conform to Pakeha custom. I visited a hapu once, whose chief had three wives; but he was an earnest Christian—_à la Maori_. He held prayers morning and evening in front of his wharè, at which all the people of the kainga attended. He conducted a long and lugubrious service every Sunday, expounding the Scriptures and preaching like a Spurgeon. He kept the Sabbath rigidly sacred, and interlarded his conversation with texts. Altogether he was a model man, never getting drunk except when he visited the township, never cheating anybody unless he was doing business with him. _Bonâ-fide_ marriages between white men and Maori women are seldomer contracted now than they used to be. I knew a man whose Maori bride brought him ten thousand acres of rich land as a dowry. She was a delicious little brown innocent, just such another as Mrs. Tangiao. Another man I knew married a Maori girl out of gratitude, she having saved his life from her own people in the early warlike days. She had acted towards him in a similar way to that in which Rahab of Jericho did to the Hebrew spies.