FAR away in that land known as New Zealand, there lived a Maori boy called Hui. He had dwelt with his tribe nearly all his life, but some of the members of it had wandered away from their “pah” (village), and had “camped” near a European settlement in Wellington.
An evangelist was preaching in a tent just on the outskirts of the township, and Hui, seeing the people go in, thought he might try to get in as well, and see what the “white man” was doing! He went in, took a seat at the back of the tent, and gazed about, and wondered greatly at what was going on—not understanding English, he was, of course puzzled. He caught the words—
“O happy day, happy day,
When Jesus washed my sins away,”
and on account of the chorus of that hymn being repeated several times, he actually learned them there and then. He went back to his tribe, and kept saying the words over and over again, feeling quite important in having learned some of the “white man’s” language. Day after day he said the lines, not understanding one of the words.
Some months afterwards he went to work on a settler’s farm, and picked up English very quickly, and from his fellow workmen heard about God.
Once again the tent was pitched, and Hui went to hear the “white man” preaching.
The preacher was feeling rather downhearted for he fancied that all in that tent were Christians; but Hui was touched and drank in the words of the gospel of God’s great love to poor sinners quite eagerly.
“O! did God so love a poor ‘Maori boy,’” he thought, “that His Son came here and shed His blood, and will it really wash my sins away?”
The hymn, “O Happy Day,” was given out, and the tears streamed down Hui’s face as he joined in singing those precious words, the first English words that he had learned. The preacher noticing this spoke to the young Maori lad as he was leaving the tent, and had the great joy of hearing that Hui had that night met the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour God, and that Jesus had indeed washed away his sins.”
ML 11/11/1917