Your religion is half-caste; the Pakeha is the father and your hearts the mother, and the son that is born is religion. Hence I say to you, we are all half-castes, and therefore let us live together in one religion (or faith), one love and one law; let us be united. I have not yet forgotten the words of our parent, “Religion, Love and Law.” He never told us to have many religions, many loves, and many laws; but to have one.

In his sermon at Peria (AJHR E12, 1862, pp.8-9), Bishop Selwyn had also pushed the theme of unity, taking as his text Psalm 133, first verse: “ Behold how good and how pleasant it is for Brethren to dwell together in unity. ” He likened this to the peaceful gathering of people of different tribes at Peria; “ There is one thing wanting, and that is that the Pakeha should sit together with you. ” He explained Pakeha presence in the land: “ The coming of the Pakeha to this land was not an authorised act; they were led here by God, the Pakeha Ministers ” and he quoted Mark 16:15 “ Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. ”

By the mid 1860s, following the invasion of Waikato, battles at Gate Pa and Te Ranga, and confiscation of land in Waikato and Tauranga, Maori suspicions that the missionaries were not the neutral mediators they professed to be seemed to be confirmed. Many had acted as agents in supplying information on Maori movements and resources to the government and military. Bishop Selwyn had acted as chaplain to the military during the Waikato campaign. Although he also ministered to his Maori flock, this military connection put him in an ambivalent situation. From the Maori point of view, he appeared much too propitiatory toward the two-faced Pakeha, Governor Grey. Perhaps it is appropriate then to include as the last of this section the drawing (2E) in dark blue pencil on light blue paper of a man who is unhappy. He pakira can mean bald-headed, symbolic of a man devoid of ideas, at a loss, bewildered. There is no indication who this represents but perhaps he symbolises all the unhappy, bewildered people in the 1860s who did not know which way to turn.