Again, there are many instances of Hau Haus who were so strong in their convictions that they of their own free will deliberately offered themselves up to undergo the fiery ordeal by leaving their harbours of safety and, unarmed, trusting alone to spiritual aid, faced certain death; and I have never read of any persecuted communities doing the same.
When in 1865 the Pai Marire religion was promulgated by a demented Maori named Te Ua, the two principal promises held out to induce the Maoris to join the new religion were: first, that they should be rendered invulnerable in action; and, secondly, that they should be granted the gift of tongues. They were also promised the assistance of legions of angels, and that those white soldiers who were not turned into stone should with the rest of the settlers be driven into the sea, after which the natives should be given the knowledge of all the European arts and sciences. Please note he made no promise about a future state, nor, like Mahomet, did he invent any gorgeous paradise, thronged with pretty girls, where free drinks would be served out _ad libitum_.
Now these were queer promises to captivate a Maori warrior, as after the first excitement there was but little in them to induce him to abandon Christianity and cling to Hau Hauism. Let us take them _seriatim_, remembering at the same time that the Maori is an astute reasoner. First of all the promise of invulnerability. Well, that would be all right so long as they only had to fight against the white man, but the pakeha was to be driven out, and what would follow then? War was the Maori's greatest pleasure, and each tribe hated his neighbour quite as much as he hated the white man. Yet his neighbour was to become just as invulnerable as he was to be himself. Where, therefore, would be the fun if he could not kill his enemy, eat him, nor turn his bones into useful and ornamental articles? Bah! the zest of war would be gone. Then again the second promise. What on earth use could the gift of tongues be to a man when there was not to be a single foreigner left in the country with whom to collogue? As for the other promises, they were not worth a row of pins, for if the warriors became invulnerable they wanted no further angelic aid; and as far as acquiring the arts and sciences went, so long as they could learn how to make rum and grow tobacco, all the rest could go swing, they being willing to live as their fathers had lived before them.