It was a clear night, countless stars shining above, the sea in front smooth, all around a forest of spears stuck upright in the earth, and on the ground the multitude of human beings in their scanty loose garb of tapa cloth lying fast asleep, while the man who had come as an apostle to them spent the night in thought and prayer.

Such a scene can never be forgotten! In the morning the ship's boat came to fetch him off, and he took the chiefs back with him to the ship to receive presents and be introduced to those who were to live among them.

There was also a formal reconciliation with Duaterra and his tribe, and the wondering Maories took their travelled brother into high estimation when they really beheld the animals they had imagined to be mere creations of his fancy, and were specially amazed at the sight of Mr.Marsden mounted on horseback.
Duaterra, meantime, of his own accord, was making preparations for the first Sunday service held in New Zealand.

It was likewise the Christmas Day of 1815, and Mr.Marsden felt it a most appropriate moment for his first proclamation of the good tidings of great joy among this most distant of the nations.

Duaterra's ideas of a church consisted in enclosing about half an acre of land with a fence, and erecting in the midst a reading-desk three feet, and a pulpit six feet high, both made out of canoes, covered with either black native cloth or some canvas he had brought from Port Jackson, and ranging near them some bottoms of old canoes, as seats for the English part of the congregation, and on the hill above he hoisted, of his own accord, the British flag.
On the Sunday morning Duaterra, his uncle, and Koro Koro, another chief who had been in Australia, all appeared in regimentals given them by Governor Macquarie, swords by their sides, and switches in their hands, and all their men drawn up behind them.