The  friendly  offer  was  refused,  in  a  letter  which  announced  his
intention  to  commit  himself  to  the  guardianship  of  the  savages,
and  which  disowned  the  apprehension  which  he  was  supposed
to  feel  in  the  apostolic  words — "  I  fear  nothing  but  sin."

Finally,  if  we  ask  for  the  numerical  result  of  labors  begun
at  so  fearful  a  disadvantage,  and  continued  under  every  trial
and  difficulty  which  could  beset  missionary  efforts, — so  that
success  might  well  seem  impossible  in  a  battle  where  all  human
means  of  attaining  it  were  on  one  side,  and  none  on  the  other,
— one  of  the  latest  writers  on  New  Zealand  has  furnished  this
surprising  statement.  In  1845,  the  Catholics  were  already
estimated  by  Mr.  Clarkson  as  one-twentieth  of  the  population,

*  Australasian  Colonies,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  179.
470  CHAPTER   V.
while  the  Wesleyans,  who  had  been  thirty  years  in  the  field
and  had  spent  vast  sums  of  money,  were  one-seventh  ;  but  in
1854,  the  Wesleyans,  opposed  at  all  points  by  the  Episcopalians
with  their  enormous  wealth  and  official  patronage,  had  dwindled
to  one- eleventh,  and  the  Catholics,  against  whom  all  had  com-
bined in  a  common  hostility,  had  steadily  advanced  till  they
had  become  one-seventh  of  the  whole  population.*

It  appears,  however,  that  even  this  statement  underrates  the
fact ;  for  while  the  Catholic  missionaries  represent  their  fol-
lowers, good  and  bad,  as  amounting  to  about  twenty-thousand,
we  have  seen,  by  a  recent  official  statement,  that  the  whole
number  of  natives  now  remaining  is  only  fifty-six  thousand
and  forty-nine,  of  whom  thirty-six  per  cent,  are  avowed  pagans.
