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The Story of John G. Paton; Or, Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals

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Title: The Story of John G. Paton; Or, Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals

Author: John Gibson Paton

Editor: James Paton


        
Release date: February 8, 2009 [eBook #28025]
                Most recently updated: January 4, 2021

Language: English

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Credits: E-text prepared by Carl D. DuBois


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THE STORY OF JOHN G. PATON

Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals

by

REV. JAMES PATON, B.A.

Illustrated







A. L. Burt Company,Publishers, New York





PREFACE.


EVER since the story of my brother's life first appeared (January 1889)
it has been constantly pressed upon me that a YOUNG FOLKS' EDITION would
be highly prized. The Autobiography has therefore been re-cast and
illustrated, in the hope and prayer that the Lord will use it to inspire
the Boys and Girls of Christendom with a wholehearted enthusiasm for the
Conversion of the Heathen World to Jesus Christ.

A few fresh incidents have been introduced; the whole contents have been
rearranged to suit a new class of readers; and the service of a gifted
Artist has been employed, to make the book every way attractive to the
young. For _full_ details as to the Missionary's work and life, the
COMPLETE EDITION must still of course be referred to.

JAMES PATON.
GLASGOW, _Sept,_ 1892.

CONTENTS.
CHAP.

 1. Our Cottage Home
 2. Our Forebears
 3. Consecrated Parents
 4. School Days
 5. Leaving the Old Home
 6. Early Struggles
 7. A City Missionary
 8. Glasgow Experiences
 9. A Foreign Missionary
10. To the New Hebrides
11. First Impressions of Heathendom
12. Breaking Ground on Tanna
13. Pioneers in the New Hebrides
14. The Great Bereavement
15. At Home with Cannibals
16. Superstitions and Cruelties
17. Streaks of Dawn amidst Deeds of Darkness
18. The Visit of H.M.S. "Cordelia"
19. "Noble Old Abraham"
20. A Typical South Sea Trader
21. Under Axe and Musket
22. A Native Saint and Martyr
23. Building and Printing for God
24. Heathen Dance and Sham Fight
25. Cannibals at Work
26. The Defying of Nahak
27. A Perilous Pilgrimage
28. The Plague of Measles
29. Attacked with Clubs
30. Kowia
31. The Martyrdom of the Gordons
32. Shadows Deepening on Tanna
33. The Visit of the Commodore
34. The War Chiefs in Council
35. Under Knife and Tomahawk
36. The Beginning of the End
37. Five Hours in a Canoe
38. A Race for Life
39. Faint yet Pursuing
40. Waiting at Kwamera
41. The Last Awful Night
42. "Sail O! Sail O!"
43. Farewell to Tanna
44. The Floating of the "Dayspring"
45. A Shipping Company for Jesus
46. Australian Incidents
47. Amongst Squatters and Diggers
48. John Gilpin in the Bush
49. The Aborigines of Australia
50. Nora
51. Back to Scotland
52. Tour through the Old Country
53. Marriage and Farewell
54. First Peep at the "Dayspring"
55. The French in the Pacific
56. The Gospel and Gunpowder
57. A Plea for Tanna
58. Our New Home on Aniwa
59. House-Building for God
60. A City of God
61. The Religion of Revenge
62. First Fruits on Aniwa
63. Traditions and Customs
64. Nelwang's Elopement
65. The Christ-Spirit at Work
66. The Sinking of the Well
67. Rain from Below
68. The Old Chief's Sermon
69. The First Book and the New Eyes
70. A Roof-Tree for Jesus
71. "Knock the Tevil out!"
72. The Conversion of Youwili
73. First Communion on Aniwa
74. The New Social Order
75. The Orphans and their Biscuits
76. The Finger-Posts of God
77. The Gospel in Living Capitals
78. The Death of Namakei
79. Christianity and Cocoa-Nuts
80. Nerwa's Beautiful Farewell
81. Ruwawa
82. Litsi
83. The Conversion of Nasi
84. The Appeal of Lamu
85. Wanted! A Steam Auxiliary
86. My Campaign in Ireland
87. Scotland's Free-will Offerings
88. England's Open Door
89. Farewell Scenes
90. Welcome to Victoria and Aniwa
91. Good News from Tanna, 1891



THE STORY OF JOHN G. PATON.



CHAPTER I.
OUR COTTAGE HOME.

MY early days were all spent in the beautiful county of Dumfries, which
Scotch folks call the Queen of the South. There, in a small cottage, on
the farm of Braehead, in the parish of Kirkmahoe, I was born on the 24th
May, 1824. My father, James Paton, was a stocking manufacturer in a
small way; and he and his young wife, Janet Jardine Rogerson, lived on
terms of warm personal friendship with the "gentleman farmer," so they
gave me his son's name, John _Gibson_; and the curly-haired child of the
cottage was soon able to toddle across to the mansion, and became a
great pet of the lady there. On my visit to Scotland in 1884 I drove out
to Braehead; but we found no cottage, nor trace of a cottage, and amused
ourselves by supposing that we could discover by the rising of the
grassy mound, the outline where the foundations once had been!

While yet a mere child, five years or so of age, my parents took me to a
new home in the ancient village of Torthorwald, about four and a quarter
miles from Dumfries, on the road to Lockerbie. At that time, say 1830,
Torthorwald was a busy and thriving village, and comparatively populous,
with its cottars and crofters, large farmers and small farmers, weavers
and shoemakers, doggers and coopers, blacksmiths and tailors. Fifty-five
years later, when I visited the scenes of my youth, the village proper
was extinct, except for five thatched cottages where the lingering
patriarchs were permitted to die slowly away,--soon they too would be
swept into the large farms, and their garden plots plowed over, like
sixty or seventy others that had been blotted out!

From the Bank Hill, close above our village, and accessible in a walk of
fifteen minutes, a view opens to the eye which, despite several easily
understood prejudices of mine that may discount any opinion that I
offer, still appears to me well worth seeing amongst all the beauties of
Scotland. At your feet lay a thriving village, every cottage sitting in
its own plot of garden, and sending up its blue cloud of "peat reek,"
which never somehow seemed to pollute the blessed air; and after all has
been said or sung, a beautifully situated village of healthy and happy
homes for God's children is surely the finest feature in every
landscape! Looking from the Bank Hill on a summer day, Dumfries with its
spires shone so conspicuous that you could have believed it not more
than two miles away; the splendid sweeping vale through which Nith rolls
to Solway, lay all before the naked eye, beautiful with village spires,
mansion houses, and white shining farms; the Galloway hills, gloomy and
far-tumbling, bounded the forward view, while to the left rose Criffel,
cloud-capped and majestic; then the white sands of Solway, with tides
swifter than horsemen; and finally the eye rested joyfully upon the
hills of Cumberland, and noticed with glee the blue curling smoke from
its villages on the southern Solway shores.

There, amid this wholesome and breezy village life, our dear parents
found their home for the long period of forty years. There too were born
to them eight additional children, making in all a family of five sons
and six daughters. Theirs was the first of the thatched cottages on the
left, past the "miller's house," going up the "village gate," with a
small garden in front of it, and a large garden across the road; and it
is one of the few still lingering to show to a new generation what the
homes of their fathers were. The architect who planned that cottage had
no ideas of art, but a fine eye for durability! It consists at present
of three, but originally of four, pairs of "oak couples" (Scottice
_kipples_) planted like solid trees in the ground at equal intervals,
and gently sloped inwards till they meet or are "coupled" at the ridge,
this coupling being managed not by rusty iron, but by great solid pins
of oak. A roof of oaken wattles was laid across these, till within
eleven or twelve feet of the ground, and from the ground upwards a stone
wall was raised, as perpendicular as was found practicable, towards
these overhang-wattles, this wall being roughly "pointed" with sand and
clay and lime. Now into and upon the roof was woven and intertwisted a
covering of thatch, that defied all winds and weathers, and that made
the cottage marvelously cozy,--being renewed year by year, and never
allowed to remain in disrepair at any season. But the beauty of the
construction was and is its durability, or rather the permanence of its
oaken ribs! There they stand, after probably not less than four
centuries, japanned with "peat reek" till they are literally shining, so
hard that no ordinary nail can be driven into them, and perfectly
capable of service for four centuries more on the same conditions. The
walls are quite modern, having all been rebuilt in my father's time,
except only the few great foundation boulders, piled around the oaken
couples; and parts of the roofing also may plead guilty to having found
its way thither only in recent days; but the architect's one idea
survives, baffling time and change--the ribs and rafters of oak.

Our home consisted of a "but" and a "ben" and a "mid room," or chamber,
called the "closet." The one end was my mother's domain, and served all
the purposes of dining-room and kitchen and parlor, besides containing
two large wooden erections, called by our Scotch peasantry "box beds";
not holes in the wall, as in cities, but grand, big, airy beds, adorned
with many-colored counterpanes, and hung with natty curtains, showing
the skill of the mistress of the house. The other end was my father's
workshop, filled with five or six "stocking-frames," whirring with the
constant action of five or six pairs of busy hands and feet, and
producing right genuine hosiery for the merchants at Hawick and
Dumfries. The "closet" was a very small apartment betwixt the other two,
having room only for a bed, a little table and a chair, with a
diminutive window shedding diminutive light on the scene. This was the
Sanctuary of that cottage home. Thither daily, and oftentimes a day,
generally after each meal, we saw our father retire, and "shut to the
door"; and we children got to understand by a sort of spiritual instinct
(for the thing was too sacred to be talked about) that prayers were
being poured out there for us, as of old by the High Priest within the
veil in the Most Holy Place. We occasionally heard the pathetic echoes
of a trembling voice pleading as if for life, and we learned to slip out
and in past that door on tiptoe, not to disturb the holy colloquy. The
outside world might not know, but we knew, whence came that happy light
as of a new-born smile that always was dawning on my father's face: it
was a reflection from the Divine Presence, in the consciousness of which
he lived. Never, in temple or cathedral, on mountain or in glen, can I
hope to feel that the Lord God is more near, more visibly walking and
talking with men, than under that humble cottage roof of thatch and
oaken wattles. Though everything else in religion were by some
unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, or blotted from my
understanding, my soul would wander back to those early scenes, and shut
itself up once again in that Sanctuary Closet, and, hearing still the
echoes of those cries to God, would hurl back all doubt with the
victorious appeal, "He walked with God, why may not I?"



CHAPTER II.
OUR FOREBEARS.

A FEW notes had better here be given as to our "Forebears," the kind of
stock from which my father and mother sprang. My father's mother, Janet
Murray, claimed to be descended from a Galloway family that fought and
suffered for Christ's Crown and Covenant in Scotland's "killing time,"
and was herself a woman of a pronouncedly religious development. Her
husband, our grandfather, William Paton, had passed through a roving and
romantic career, before he settled down to be a douce deacon of the
weavers of Dumfries, like his father before him.

Forced by a press-gang to serve on board a British man-of-war, he was
taken prisoner by the French, and thereafter placed under Paul Jones,
the pirate of the seas, and bore to his dying day the mark of a slash
from the captain's sword across his shoulder for some slight disrespect
or offense. Determining with two others to escape, the three were hotly
pursued by Paul Jones's men. One, who could swim but little, was shot,
and had to be cut adrift by the other two, who in the darkness swam into
a cave and managed to evade for two nights and a day the rage of their
pursuers. My grandfather, being young and gentle and yellow-haired,
persuaded some kind heart to rig him out in female attire, and in this
costume escaped the attentions of the press-gang more than once; till,
after many hardships, he bargained with the captain of a coal sloop to
stow him away amongst his black diamonds; and thus, in due time, he
found his way home to Dumfries, where he tackled bravely and wisely the
duties of husband, father, and citizen for the remainder of his days.
The smack of the sea about the stories of his youth gave zest to the
talks round their quiet fireside, and that, again, was seasoned by the
warm Evangelical spirit of his Covenanting wife, her lips "dropping
grace."

On the other side, my mother, Janet Rogerson, had for parents a father
and mother of the Annandale stock. William Rogerson, her father, was one
of many brothers, all men of uncommon strength and great force of
character, quite worthy of the Border Rievers of an earlier day. Indeed,
it was in some such way that he secured his wife, though the dear old
lady in after days was chary about telling the story. She was a girl of
good position, the ward of two unscrupulous uncles who had charge of her
small estate, near Langholm; and while attending some boarding school
she fell devotedly in love with the tall, fair-haired, gallant young
blacksmith, William Rogerson. Her guardians, doubtless very properly,
objected to the "connection"; but our young Lochinvar, with his six or
seven stalwart brothers and other trusty "lads," all mounted, and with
some ready tools in case of need, went boldly and claimed his bride, and
she, willingly mounting at his side, was borne off in the light of open
day, joyously married, and took possession of her "but and ben," as the
mistress of the blacksmith's castle.

Janet Jardine bowed her neck to the self-chosen yoke, with the light of
a supreme affection in her heart, and showed in her gentler ways, her
love of books, her fine accomplishments with the needle, and her general
air of ladyhood, that her lot had once been cast in easier, but not
necessarily happier, ways. Her blacksmith lover proved not unworthy of
his lady bride, and in old age found for her a quiet and modest home,
the fruit of years of toil and hopeful thrift, their own little
property, in which they rested and waited a happy end. Amongst those who
at last wept by her grave stood, amidst many sons and daughters, her son
the Rev. James J. Rogerson, clergyman of the Church of England, who, for
many years thereafter, and till quite recently, was spared to occupy a
distinguished position at ancient Shrewsbury and has left behind him
there an honored and beloved name.

From such a home came our mother, Janet Jardine Rogerson, a
bright-hearted, high-spirited, patient-toiling, and altogether heroic
little woman; who, for about forty-three years, made and kept such a
wholesome, independent, God-fearing, and self-reliant life for her
family of five sons and six daughters, as constrains me, when I look
back on it now, in the light of all I have since seen and known of
others far differently situated, almost to worship her memory. She had
gone with her high spirits and breezy disposition to gladden as their
companion, the quiet abode of some grand or great-grand-uncle and aunt,
familiarly named in all that Dalswinton neighborhood, "Old Adam and
Eve." Their house was on the outskirts of the moor, and life for the
young girl there had not probably too much excitement. But one thing had
arrested her attention. She had noticed that a young stocking-maker from
the "Brig End," James Paton, the son of William and Janet there, was in
the habit of stealing alone into the quiet wood, book in hand, day after
day, at certain hours, as if for private study and meditation. It was a
very excusable curiosity that led the young bright heart of the girl to
watch him devoutly reading and hear him reverently reciting (though she
knew not then, it was Ralph Erskine's _Gospel Sonnets_, which he could
say by heart sixty years afterwards, as he lay on his bed of death); and
finally that curiosity awed itself into a holy respect, when she saw him
lay aside his broad Scotch bonnet, kneel down under the sheltering wings
of some tree, and pour out all his soul in daily prayers to God. As yet
they had never spoken. What spirit moved her, let lovers tell--was it
all devotion, or was it a touch of unconscious love kindling in her
towards the yellow-haired and thoughtful youth? Or was there a stroke of
mischief, of that teasing, which so often opens up the door to the most
serious step in all our lives? Anyhow, one day she slipped in quietly,
stole away his bonnet, and hung it on a branch near by, while his trance
of devotion made him oblivious of all around; then, from a safe retreat,
she watched and enjoyed his perplexity in seeking for and finding it! A
second day this was repeated; but his manifest disturbance of mind, and
his long pondering with the bonnet in hand, as if almost alarmed, seemed
to touch another chord in her heart--that chord of pity which is so
often the prelude of love, that finer pity that grieves to wound
anything nobler or tenderer than ourselves. Next day, when he came to
his accustomed place of prayer, a little card was pinned against the
tree just where he knelt, and on it these words: "She who stole away
your bonnet is ashamed of what she did; she has a great respect for you,
and asks you to pray for her, that she may become as good a Christian as
you."

Staring long at that writing, he forgot Ralph Erskine for one day!
Taking down the card, and wondering who the writer could be, he was
abusing himself for his stupidity in not suspecting that some one had
discovered his retreat and removed his bonnet, instead of wondering
whether angels had been there during his prayer,--when, suddenly raising
his eyes, he saw in front of old Adam's cottage, though a lane amongst
the trees, the passing of another kind of angel, swinging a milk-pail in
her hand and merrily singing some snatch of old Scottish song. He knew,
in that moment, by a Divine instinct, as infallible as any voice that
ever came to seer of old, that she was the angel visitor that had stolen
in upon his retreat--that bright-faced, clever-witted niece of old Adam
and Eve, to whom he had never yet spoken, but whose praises he had often
heard said and sung--"Wee Jen." I am afraid he did pray "for her," in
more senses than one, that afternoon; at any rate, more than a Scotch
bonnet was very effectually stolen; a good heart and true was there
virtually bestowed, and the trust was never regretted on either side,
and never betrayed.

Often and often, in the genial and beautiful hours of the autumntide of
their long life, have I heard my dear father tease "Jen" about her
maidenly intentions in the stealing of that bonnet; and often have heard
her quick mother-wit in the happy retort, that had his motives for
coming to that retreat been altogether and exclusively pious, he would
probably have found his way to the other side of the wood, but that men
who prowled about the Garden of Eden ran the risk of meeting some day
with a daughter of Eve!



CHAPTER III.
CONSECRATED PARENTS.

SOMEWHERE in or about his seventeenth year, my father passed through a
crisis of religious experience; and from that day he openly and very
decidedly followed the Lord Jesus. His parents had belonged to one of
the older branches of what is now called the United Presbyterian Church;
but my father, having made an independent study of the Scotch Worthies,
the Cloud of Witnesses, the Testimonies, and the Confession of Faith,
resolved to cast in his lot with the oldest of all the Scotch Churches,
the Reformed Presbyterian, as most nearly representing the Covenanters
and the attainments of both the first and second Reformations in
Scotland. This choice he deliberately made, and sincerely and
intelligently adhered to; and was able at all times to give strong and
clear reasons from Bible and from history for the principles he upheld.

Besides this, there was one other mark and fruit of his early religious
decision, which looks even fairer through all these years. Family
Worship had heretofore been held only on Sabbath Day in his father's
house; but the young Christian, entering into conference with his
sympathizing mother, managed to get the household persuaded that there
ought to be daily morning and evening prayer and reading of the Bible
and holy singing. This the more readily, as he himself agreed to take
part regularly in the same, and so relieve the old warrior of what might
have proved for him too arduous spiritual toils! And so began in his
seventeenth year that blessed custom of Family Prayer, morning and
evening, which my father practised probably without one single avoidable
omission till he lay on his deathbed, seventy-seven years of age; when
ever to the last day of his life, a portion of Scripture was read, and
his voice was heard softly joining in the Psalm, and his lips breathed
the morning and evening Prayer,--falling in sweet benediction on the
heads of all his children, far away many of them over all the earth, but
all meeting him there at the Throne of Grace.

Our place of worship was the Reformed Presbyterian Church at Dumfries,
under the ministry, during most of these days, of Rev. John McDermid--a
genuine, solemn, lovable Covenanter, who cherished towards my father a
warm respect, that deepened into apostolic affection when the yellow
hair turned snow-white and both of them grew patriarchal in their years.
The Minister, indeed, was translated to a Glasgow charge; but that
rather exalted than suspended their mutual love. Dumfries was four miles
fully from our Torthorwald home; but the tradition is that during all
these forty years my father was only thrice prevented from attending the
worship of God--once by snow, so deep that he was baffled and had to
return; once by ice on the road, so dangerous that he was forced to
crawl back up the Roucan Brae on his hands and knees, after having
descended it so far with many falls; and once by the terrible outbreak
of cholera at Dumfries.

Each of us, from very early days, considered it no penalty, but a great
joy, to go with our father to the church; the four miles were a treat to
our young spirits, the company by the way was a fresh incitement, and
occasionally some of the wonders of city-life rewarded our eager eyes. A
few other pious men and women, of the best Evangelical type, went from
the same parish to one or other favorite Minister at Dumfries; and when
these God-fearing peasants "forgathered" in the way to or from the House
of God, we youngsters had sometimes rare glimpses of what Christian talk
may be and ought to be.

We had, too, special Bible Readings on the Lord's Day evening,--mother
and children and visitors reading in turns, with fresh and interesting
question, answer, and exposition, all tending to impress us with the
infinite grace of a God of love and mercy in the great gift of His dear
Son Jesus, our Saviour. The Shorter Catechism was gone through
regularly, each answering the question asked, till the whole had been
explained, and its foundation in Scripture shown by the proof-texts
adduced. It has been an amazing thing to me, occasionally to meet with
men who blamed this "catechizing" for giving them a distaste to
religion; every one in all our circle thinks and feels exactly the
opposite. It laid the solid rock-foundations of our religious life.
After-years have given to these questions and their answers a deeper or
a modified meaning, but none of us has ever once even dreamed of wishing
that we had been otherwise trained. Of course, if the parents are not
devout, sincere, and affectionate,--if the whole affair on both sides is
taskwork, or worse, hypocritical and false,--results must be very
different indeed!

Oh, I can remember those happy Sabbath evenings; no blinds down, and
shutters up, to keep out the sun from us, as some scandalously affirm;
but a holy, happy, entirely human day, for a Christian father, mother
and children to spend. Others must write and say what they will, and as
they feel; but so must I. There were eleven of us brought up in a home
like that; and never one of the eleven, boy or girl, man or woman, has
been heard, or ever will be heard, saying that Sabbath was dull and
wearisome for us, or suggesting that we have heard of or seen any way
more likely than that for making the Day of the Lord bright and blessed
alike for parents and for children. But God help the homes where these
things are done by force and not by love!

As I must, however, leave the story of my father's life--much more
worthy, in many ways, of being written than my own--I may here mention
that his long and upright life made him a great favorite in all
religious circles far and near within the neighborhood, that at
sick-beds and at funerals he was constantly sent for and much
appreciated, and that this appreciation greatly increased, instead of
diminishing, when years whitened his long, flowing locks, and gave him
an apostolic beauty; till finally, for the last twelve years or so of
his life, he became by appointment a sort of Rural Missionary for the
four nearest parishes, and spent his autumn in literally sowing the good
seed of the Kingdom as a Colporteur of the Tract and Book Society of
Scotland. His success in this work, for a rural locality, was beyond all
belief. Within a radius of five miles he was known in every home,
welcomed by the children, respected by the servants, longed for eagerly
by the sick and aged. He gloried in showing off the beautiful Bibles and
other precious books, which he sold in amazing numbers. He sang sweet
Psalms beside the sick, and prayed like the voice of God at their dying
beds. He went cheerily from farm to farm, from cot to cot; and when he
wearied on the moorland roads, he refreshed his soul by reciting aloud
one of Ralph Erskine's "Sonnets," or crooning to the birds one of
David's Psalms. His happy partner, our beloved mother, died in 1865, and
he himself in 1868, having reached his seventy-seventh year, an
altogether beautiful and noble episode of human existence having been
enacted, amid the humblest surroundings of a Scottish peasant's home,
through the influence of their united love by the grace of God; and in
this world, or in any world, all their children will rise up at mention
of their names and call them blessed!



CHAPTER IV.
SCHOOL DAYS.

IN my boyhood, Torthorwald had one of the grand old typical Parish
Schools of Scotland; where the rich and the poor met together in perfect
equality; where Bible and Catechism were taught as zealously as grammar
and geography; and where capable lads from the humblest of cottages were
prepared in Latin and Mathematics and Greek to go straight from their
Village class to the University bench. Besides, at that time, an
accomplished pedagogue of the name of Smith, a learned man of more than
local fame, had added a Boarding House to the ordinary School, and had
attracted some of the better class gentlemen and farmers' sons from the
surrounding country; so that Torthorwald, under his _régime_, reached
the zenith of its educational fame. In this School I was initiated into
the mystery of letters, and all my brothers and sisters after me, though
some of them under other masters than mine. My teacher punished
severely--rather, I should say, savagely--especially for lessons badly
prepared. Yet, that he was in some respects kindly and tender-hearted, I
had the best of reasons to know.

When still under twelve years of age, I started to learn my father's
trade, in which I made surprising progress. We wrought from six in the
morning till ten at night, with an hour at dinner-time and half an hour
at breakfast and again at supper. These spare moments every day I
devoutly spent on my books, chiefly in the rudiments of Latin and Greek;
for I had given my soul to God, and was resolved to aim at being a
Missionary of the Cross, or a Minister of the Gospel. Yet I gladly
testify that what I learned of the stocking frame was not thrown away;
the facility of using tools, and of watching and keeping the machinery
in order, came to be of great value to me in the Foreign Mission field.

One incident of this time I must record here, because of the lasting
impression made upon my religious life. Our family, like all others of
peasant rank in the land, were plunged into deep distress, and felt the
pinch severely, through the failure of the potato, the badness of other
crops, and the ransom-price of food. Our father had gone off with work
to Hawick, and would return next evening with money and supplies; but
meantime the meal barrel ran low, and our dear mother, too proud and too
sensitive to let any one know, or to ask aid from any quarter, coaxed us
all to rest, assuring us that she had told God everything, and that He
would send us plenty in the morning. Next day, with the carrier from
Lockerbie came a present from her father, who, knowing nothing of her
circumstances or of this special trial, had been moved of God to send at
that particular nick of time a love-offering to his daughter, such as
they still send to each other in those kindly Scottish shires--a bag of
new potatoes, a stone of the first ground meal or flour, or the earliest
homemade cheese of the season--which largely supplied all our need. My
mother, seeing our surprise at such an answer to her prayers, took us
around her knees, thanked God for His goodness, and said to us:

"O my children, love your Heavenly Father, tell Him in faith and prayer
all your needs, and He will supply your wants so far as it shall be for
your good and His glory."

Perhaps, amidst all their struggles in rearing a family of eleven, this
was the hardest time they ever had, and the only time they ever felt the
actual pinch of hunger; for the little that they had was marvelously
blessed of God, and was not less marvelously utilized by that noble
mother of ours, whose high spirit, side by side with her humble and
gracious piety, made us, under God, what we are to-day.

I saved as much at my trade as enabled me to go for six weeks to
Dumfries Academy; this awoke in me again the hunger for learning, and I
resolved to give up that trade and turn to something that might be made
helpful to the prosecution of my education. An engagement was secured
with the Sappers and Miners, who were mapping and measuring the county
of Dumfries in connection with the Ordnance Survey of Scotland. The
office hours were from 9 A. M. till 4 P. M.; and though my walk from
home was above four miles every morning, and the same by return in the
evening, I found much spare time for private study, both on the way to
and from my work and also after hours. Instead of spending the mid-day
hour with the rest, at football and other games, I stole away to a quiet
spot on the banks of the Nith, and there pored over my book, all alone.
Our lieutenant, unknown to me, had observed this from his house on the
other side of the stream, and after a time called me into his office and
inquired what I was studying. I told him the whole truth as to my
position and my desires. After conferring with some of the other
officials there, he summoned me again, and in their presence promised me
promotion in the service, and special training in Woolwich at the
Government's expense, on condition that I would sign an engagement for
seven years. Thanking him most gratefully for his kind offer, I agreed
to bind myself for three years or four, but not for seven.

Excitedly he said, "Why? Will you refuse an offer that many gentlemen's
sons would be proud of?"

I said, "My life is given to another Master, so I cannot engage for
seven years." He asked sharply, "To whom?" I replied, "To the Lord
Jesus; and I want to prepare as soon as possible for His service in the
proclaiming of the Gospel."

In great anger he sprang across the room, called the paymaster and
exclaimed, "Accept my offer, or you are dismissed on the spot!"

I answered, "I am extremely sorry if you do so, but to bind myself for
seven years would probably frustrate the purpose of my life; and though
I am greatly obliged to you, I cannot make such an engagement."

His anger made him unwilling or unable to comprehend my difficulty; the
drawing instruments were delivered up, I received my pay, and departed,
without further parley. Hearing how I had been treated, and why, Mr.
Maxwell, the Rector of Dumfries Academy, offered to let me attend all
classes there, free of charge so long as I cared to remain; but that, in
lack of means of support, was for the time impossible, as I would not
and could not be a burden on my dear father, but was determined rather
to help him in educating the rest. I went therefore to what was known as
the Lamb Fair at Lockerbie, and for the first time in my life took a
"fee" for the harvest. On arriving at the field when shearing and mowing
began, the farmer asked me to bind a sheaf; when I had done so, he
seized it by the band, and it fell to pieces! Instead of disheartening
me, however, he gave me a careful lesson how to bind; and the second
that I bound did not collapse when shaken, and the third he pitched
across the field, and on finding that it still remained firm, he cried
to me cheerily:

"Right now, my lad; go ahead!"

It was hard work for me at first, and my hands got very sore; but, being
willing and determined, I soon got into the way of it, and kept up with
the best of them. The male harvesters were told off to sleep in a large
hayloft, the beds being arranged all along the side, like barracks. Many
of the fellows were rough and boisterous; and I suppose my look showed
that I hesitated in mingling with them, for the quick eye and kind heart
of the farmer's wife prompted her to suggest that I, being so much
younger than the rest, might sleep with her son George in the house--an
offer, oh, how gratefully accepted! A beautiful new steading had
recently been built for them; and during certain days, or portions of
days, while waiting for the grain to ripen or to dry, I planned and laid
out an ornamental garden in front of it, which gave great
satisfaction--a taste inherited from my mother, with her joy in flowers
and garden plots. They gave me, on leaving, a handsome present, as well
as my fee, for I had got on very pleasantly with them all. This
experience, too, came to be valuable to me, when, in long-after days,
and far other lands, Mission buildings had to be erected, and garden and
field cropped and cultivated without the aid of a single European hand.



CHAPTER V.
LEAVING THE OLD HOME.

BEFORE going to my first harvesting, I had applied for a situation in
Glasgow, apparently exactly suited for my case; but I had little or no
hope of ever hearing of it further. An offer of £50 per annum was made
by the West Campbell Street Reformed Presbyterian Congregation, then
under the good and noble Dr. Bates, for a young man to act as district
visitor and tract distributor, especially amongst the absentees from the
Sabbath School; with the privilege of receiving one year's training at
the Free Church Normal Seminary, that he might qualify himself for
teaching, and thereby push forward to the Holy Ministry. The candidates,
along with their application and certificates, were to send an essay on
some subject, of their own composition, and in their own handwriting. I
sent in two long poems on the Covenanters, which must have exceedingly
amused them, as I had not learned to write even decent prose. But, much
to my surprise, immediately on the close of the harvesting experience, a
letter arrived, intimating that I, along with another young man, had
been put upon the short leet, and that both were requested to appear in
Glasgow on a given day and compete for the appointment.

Two days thereafter I started out from my quiet country home on the road
to Glasgow. Literally "on the road," for from Torthorwald to
Kilmarnock--about forty miles--had to be done on foot, and thence to
Glasgow by rail. Railways in those days were as yet few, and
coach-travelling was far beyond my purse. A small bundle contained my
Bible and all my personal belongings. Thus was I launched upon the ocean
of life. I thought on One who says, "I know thy poverty, but thou art
rich."

My dear father walked with me the first six miles of the way. His
counsels and tears and heavenly conversation on that parting journey are
fresh in my heart as if it had been but yesterday; and tears are on my
cheeks as freely now as then, whenever memory steals me away to the
scene. For the last half mile or so we walked on together in almost
unbroken silence,--my father, as was often his custom, carrying hat in
hand, while his long, flowing yellow hair (then yellow, but in later
years white as snow) streamed like a girl's down his shoulders. His lips
kept moving in silent prayers for me; and his tears fell fast when our
eyes met each other in looks of which all speech was vain! We halted on
reaching the appointed parting-place; he grasped my hand firmly for a
minute in silence, and then solemnly and affectionately said:

"God bless you, my son! Your father's God prosper you, and keep you from
all evil!"

Unable to say more, his lips kept moving in silent prayer; in tears we
embraced, and parted. I ran off as fast as I could; and, when about to
turn a corner in the road where he would lose sight of me, I looked back
and saw him still standing with head uncovered where I had left
him--gazing after me. Waving my hat in adieu, I was round the corner and
out of sight in an instant. But my heart was too full and sore to carry
me farther, so I darted into the side of the road and wept for a time.
Then, rising up cautiously, I climbed the dyke to see if he yet stood
where I had left him; and just at that moment I caught a glimpse of him
climbing the dyke and looking out for me! He did not see me, and after
he had gazed eagerly in my direction for a while he got down, set his
face towards home, and began to return--his head still uncovered, and
his heart, I felt sure, still rising in prayers for me. I watched
through blinding tears, till his form faded from my gaze; and then,
hastening on my way, vowed deeply and oft, by the help of God, to live
and act so as never to grieve or dishonor such a father and mother as He
had given me. The appearance of my father, when we parted,--his advice,
prayers, and tears--the road, the dyke, the climbing up on it and then
walking away, head uncovered--have often, often, all through life, risen
vividly before my mind, and do so now while I am writing, as if it had
been but an hour ago. In my earlier years particularly, when exposed to
many temptations, his parting form rose before me as that of a guardian
angel.



CHAPTER VI.
EARLY STRUGGLES.

I REACHED Glasgow on the third day, having slept one night at Thornhill,
and another at New Cumnock; and having needed, owing to the kindness of
acquaintances upon whom I called by the way, to spend only three
halfpence of my modest funds. Safely arrived, but weary, I secured a
humble room for my lodging, for which I had to pay one shilling and
sixpence per week. Buoyant and full of hope and looking up to God for
guidance, I appeared at the appointed hour before the examiners, as did
also the other candidate; and they having carefully gone through their
work, asked us to retire. When recalled, they informed us that they had
great difficulty in choosing, and suggested that the one of us might
withdraw in favor of the other, or that both might submit to a more
testing examination. Neither seemed inclined to give it up, both were
willing for a second examination; but the patrons made another
suggestion. They had only £50 per annum to give; but if we would agree
to divide it betwixt us, and go into one lodging, we might both be able
to struggle through, they would pay our entrance fees at the Free Normal
Seminary, and provide us with the books required; and perhaps they might
be able to add a little to the sum promised to each of us. By dividing
the mission work appointed, and each taking only the half, more time
also might be secured for our studies. Though the two candidates had
never seen each other before, we at once accepted this proposal, and got
on famously together, never having had a dispute on anything of common
interest throughout our whole career.

As our fellow-students at the Normal were all far advanced beyond us in
their education, we found it killing work, and had to grind away
incessantly, late and early. Both of us, before the year closed, broke
down in health; partly by hard study, but principally, perhaps, for lack
of nourishing diet. A severe cough seized upon me; I began spitting
blood, and a doctor ordered me at once home to the country and forbade
all attempts at study. My heart sank; it was a dreadful disappointment,
and to me a bitter trial. Soon after, my companion, though apparently
much stronger than I, was similarly seized. He, however, never entirely
recovered, though for some years he taught in a humble school; and long
ago he fell asleep in Jesus, a devoted and honored Christian man.

I, on the other hand, after a short rest, nourished by the hill air of
Torthorwald and by the new milk of our family cow, was ere long at work
again. Renting a house, I began to teach a small school at Girvan, and
gradually but completely recovered my health.

Having saved £10 by my teaching, I returned to Glasgow, and was enrolled
as a student at the College; but before the session was finished my
money was exhausted--I had lent some to a poor student, who failed to
repay me--and only nine shillings remained in my purse. There was no one
from whom to borrow, had I been willing; I had been disappointed in
attempting to secure private tuition; and no course seemed open for me,
except to pay what little I owed, give up my College career, and seek
for teaching or other work in the country. I wrote a letter to my father
and mother, informing them of my circumstances; that I was leaving
Glasgow in quest of work, and that they would, not hear from me again
till I had found a suitable situation. I told them that if otherwise
unsuccessful, I should fall back on my own trade, though I shrank from
that as not tending to advance my education; but that they might rest
assured I would do nothing to dishonor them or my own Christian
profession. Having read that letter over again through many tears, I
said,--I cannot send that, for it will grieve my darling parents; and
therefore, leaving it on the table, I locked my room door and ran out to
find a place where I might sell my precious books, and hold on a few
weeks longer. But, as I stood on the opposite side and wondered whether
these folks in a shop with the three golden balls would care to have a
poor student's books, and as I hesitated, knowing how much I needed them
for my studies, conscience smote me as if for doing a guilty thing; I
imagined that the people were watching me like one about to commit a
theft; and I made off from the scene at full speed, with a feeling of
intense shame at having dreamed of such a thing! Passing through one
short street into another, I marched on mechanically; but the Lord God
of my father was guiding my steps, all unknown to me.

A certain notice in a window, into which I had probably never in my life
looked before, here caught my eye, to this effect--"Teacher wanted,
Maryhill Free Church school; apply at the Manse." A coach or bus was
just passing, when I turned round; I leapt into it, saw the Minister,
arranged to undertake the School, returned to Glasgow, paid my
landlady's lodging score, tore up that letter to my parents and wrote
another full of cheer and hope; and early next morning entered the
School and began a tough and trying job. The Minister warned me that the
School was a wreck, and had been broken up chiefly by coarse and bad
characters from mills and coal-pits, who attended the evening classes.
They had abused several masters in succession; and, laying a thick and
heavy cane on the desk, he said:

"Use that freely, or you will never keep order here!"

I put it aside into the drawer of my desk, saying, "That will be my last
resource."

There were very few scholars for the first week--about eighteen in the
Day School and twenty in the Night School. The clerk of the mill, a good
young fellow, came to the evening classes, avowedly to learn
book-keeping, but privately he said he had come to save me from personal
injury.

The following week, a young man and a young woman began to attend the
Night School, who showed from the first moment that they were bent on
mischief. On my repeated appeals for quiet and order, they became the
more boisterous, and gave great merriment to a few of the scholars
present. I finally urged the young man, a tall, powerful fellow, to be
quiet or at once to leave, declaring that at all hazards I must and
would have perfect order; but he only mocked at me, and assumed a
fighting attitude. Quietly locking the door and putting the key in my
pocket, I turned to my desk, armed myself with the cane, and dared any
one at his peril to interfere betwixt us. It was a rough struggle--he
smashing at me clumsily with his fists, I with quick movements evading
and dealing him blow after blow with the heavy cane for several
rounds--till at length he crouched down at his desk, exhausted and
beaten, and I ordered him to turn to his book, which he did in sulky
silence. Going to my desk, I addressed them and asked them to inform all
who wished to come to the School,--That if they came for education,
everything would be heartily done that it was in my power to do; but
that any who wished for mischief had better stay away, as I was
determined to conquer, not to be conquered, and to secure order and
silence, whatever it might cost. Further, I assured them that that cane
would not again be lifted by me, if kindness and forbearance on my part
could possibly gain the day, as I wished to rule by love and not by
terror. But this young man knew he was in the wrong, and it was that
which had made him weak against me, though every way stronger far than
I. Yet I would be his friend and helper, if he was willing to be
friendly with me, the same as if this night had never been. At these
words a dead silence fell on the School: every one buried face
diligently in book; and the evening closed in uncommon quiet and order.

The attendance grew, till the School became crowded, both during the day
and at night. During the mid-day hour even, I had a large class of young
women who came to improve themselves in writing and arithmetic. By and
by the cane became a forgotten implement; the sorrow and pain which I
showed as to badly-done lessons, or anything blameworthy, proved the far
more effectual penalty.

The School Committee had promised me at least ten shillings per week,
and guaranteed to make up any deficit if the fees fell short of that
sum; but if the income from fees exceeded that sum, all was to be mine.
Affairs went on prosperously for a season; indeed, too much so for my
selfish interest. The Committee took advantage of the large attendance
and better repute of the School, to secure the services of a master of
the highest grade. The parents of many of the children offered to take
and seat a hall, if I would remain, but I knew too well that I had
neither education nor experience to compete with an accomplished
teacher. Their children, however, got up a testimonial and subscription,
which was presented to me on the day before I left and this I valued
chiefly because the presentation was made by the young fellows who at
first behaved so badly, but were now my devoted friends.

Once more I committed my future to the Lord God of my father, assured
that in my very heart I was willing and anxious to serve Him and to
follow the blessed Saviour, yet feeling keenly that intense darkness had
again enclosed my path.



CHAPTER VII.
A CITY MISSIONARY.

BEFORE undertaking the Maryhill School, I had applied to be taken on as
an agent in the Glasgow City Mission; and the night before I had to
leave Maryhill, I received a letter from Rev. Thomas Caie, the
superintendent of the said Mission, saying that the directors had kept
their eyes on me ever since my application, and requesting, as they
understood I was leaving the School, that I would appear before them the
next morning, and have my qualifications for becoming a Missionary
examined into. Praising God, I went off at once, passed the examination
successfully, and was appointed to spend two hours that afternoon and
the following Monday in visitation with two of the directors, calling at
every house in a low district of the town, and conversing with all the
characters encountered there as to their eternal welfare. I had also to
preach a "trial" discourse in a Mission meeting, where a deputation of
directors would be present, the following evening being Sunday; and on
Wednesday evening they met again to hear their report and to accept or
reject me.

All this had come upon me so unexpectedly, that I almost anticipated
failure; but looking up for help I went through with it, and on the
fifth day after leaving the School they called me before a meeting of
directors, and informed me that I had passed my trials most
successfully, and that the reports were so favorable that they had
unanimously resolved to receive me at once as one of their City
Missionaries. Deeply solemnized with the responsibilities of my new
office, I left that meeting praising God for all His undeserved mercies,
and seeing most clearly His gracious hand in all the way by which He had
led me, and the trials by which He had prepared me for this sphere of
service. Man proposes--God disposes.

I found the district a very degraded one. Many families said they had
never been visited by any Minister; and many were lapsed professors of
religion who had attended no church for ten, sixteen, or twenty years,
and said they had never been called upon by any Christian visitor. In it
were congregated many avowed infidels, Romanists, and drunkards,--living
together, and associated for evil, but apparently without any effective
counteracting influence. In many of its closes and courts sin and vice
walked about openly--naked and not ashamed.

After nearly a year's hard work, I had only six or seven
non-church-goers, who had been led to attend regularly there, besides
about the same number who met on a week evening in the ground-floor of a
house kindly granted for the purpose by a poor and industrious but
ill-used Irishwoman. She supported her family by keeping a little shop,
and selling coals. Her husband was a powerful man--a good worker, but a
hard drinker; and, like too many others addicted to intemperance, he
abused and beat her, and pawned and drank everything he could get hold
of. She, amid many prayers and tears, bore everything patiently, and
strove to bring up her only daughter in the fear of God. We exerted, by
God's blessing, a good influence upon him through our meetings. He
became a Total Abstainer, gave up his evil ways, and attended Church
regularly with his wife. As his interest increased, he tried to bring
others also to the meetings, and urged them to become Abstainers. His
wife became a center of help and of good influence in all the district,
as she kindly invited all and welcomed them to the meeting in her house,
and my work grew every day more hopeful.

By and by Meetings and Classes were both too large for any house that
was available for us in the whole of our district. We instituted a Bible
Class, a Singing Class, a Communicants' Class, and a Total Abstinence
Society; and, in addition to the usual meetings, we opened two
prayer-meetings specially for the Calton division of the Glasgow
Police--one at a suitable hour for the men on day duty, and another for
those on night duty. The men got up a Mutual Improvement Society and
Singing Class also amongst themselves, weekly, on another evening. My
work now occupied every evening in the week; and I had two meetings
every Sabbath. By God's blessing they all prospered, and gave evidence
of such fruits as showed that the Lord was working there for good by our
humble instrumentality.

The kind cowfeeder had to inform us--and he did it with much genuine
sorrow--that at a given date he would require the hay-loft, which was
our place of meeting; and as no other suitable house or hall could be
got, the poor people and I feared the extinction of our work. At that
very time however, a commodious block of buildings, that had been
Church, Schools, Manse, etc., came into the market. My great-hearted
friend, the late Thomas Binnie, persuaded Dr. Symingrton's congregation,
Great Hamilton Street, in connection with which my Mission was carried
on, to purchase the whole property. Its situation at the foot of Green
Street gave it a control of the district where my work lay; and so the
Church was given to me in which to conduct all my meetings, while the
other Halls were adapted as Schools for poor girls and boys, where they
were educated by a proper master, and were largely supplied with books,
clothing, and sometimes even food, by the ladies of the congregation.

Availing myself of the increased facilities, my work was all
reorganized. On Sabbath morning, at seven o'clock, I had one of the most
deeply interesting and fruitful of all my Classes for the study of the
Bible. It was attended by from seventy to a hundred of the very poorest
young women and grown-up lads of the whole district. They had nothing to
put on except their ordinary work-day clothes,--all without bonnets,
some without shoes. Beautiful was it to mark how the poorest began to
improve in personal appearance immediately after they came to our Class;
how they gradually got shoes and one bit of clothing after another, to
enable them to attend our other Meetings, and then to go to Church; and,
above all, how eagerly they sought to bring others with them, taking a
deep personal interest in all the work of the Mission. Long after they
themselves could appear in excellent dress, many of them still continued
to attend in their working clothes, and to bring other and poorer girls
with them to that Morning Class, and thereby helped to improve and
elevate their companions. My delight in that Bible Class was among the
purest joys in all my life, and the results were amongst the most
certain and precious of all my Ministry.

I had also a very large Bible Class--a sort of Bible-Reading--on Monday
night, attended by all, of both sexes and of any age, who cared to come
or had any interest in the Mission. Wednesday evening, again, was
devoted to a prayer-meeting for all; and the attendance often more than
half-filled the Church. There I usually took up some book of Holy
Scripture and read and lectured right through, practically expounding
and applying it. On Thursday I held a Communicants' Class, intended for
the more careful instruction of all who wished to become full members of
the Church. Our constant text-book was _Paterson on the Shorter
Catechism_ (Nelson and Sons), than which I have never seen a better
compendium of the doctrines of Holy Scripture. Each being thus trained
for a season, received from me, if found worthy, a letter to the
Minister of any Protestant Church which he or she felt inclined to join.
In this way great numbers became active and useful communicants in the
surrounding congregations; and eight young lads of humble circumstances
educated themselves for the Ministry of the Church--most of them getting
their first lessons in Latin and Greek from my very poor stock of the
same! Friday evening was occupied with a Singing Class, teaching Church
music, and practising for our Sabbath meetings. On Saturday evening we
held our Total Abstinence meeting, at which the members themselves took
a principal part, in readings, addresses, recitations, singing hymns,
etc.

Great good resulted from this Total Abstinence work. Many adults took
and kept the pledge, thereby greatly increasing the comfort and
happiness of their homes. Many were led to attend the Church on the
Lord's Day, who had formerly spent it in rioting and drinking. But,
above all, it trained the young to fear the very name of intoxicating
drink, and to hate and keep far away from everything that led to
intemperance.

I would add my testimony also against the use of tobacco, which injures
and leads many astray, especially lads and young men, and which never
can be required by any person in ordinary health. But I would not be
understood to regard the evils that flow from it as deserving to be
mentioned in comparison with the unutterable woes and miseries of
intemperance.

To be protected, however, from suspicion and from evil, all the
followers of our Lord Jesus should in self-denial (how small!) and in
consecration to His service, be pledged Abstainers from both of these
selfish indulgences, which are certainly injurious to many, which are no
ornament to any character, and which can be no help in well-doing.
Praise God for the many who are now so pledged!



CHAPTER VIII.
GLASGOW EXPERIENCES.

ON one occasion, it becoming known that we had arranged for a special
Saturday afternoon Temperance demonstration, a deputation of Publicans
complained beforehand to the Captain of the Police--that our meetings
were interfering with their legitimate trade. The Captain, a pious
Wesleyan, who was in full sympathy with us and our work, informed me of
the complaints made, and intimated that his men would be present; but I
was just to conduct the meeting as usual, and he would guarantee that
strict justice would be done. The Publicans having announced amongst
their sympathizers that the Police were to break up and prevent our
meeting and take the conductors in charge, a very large crowd assembled,
both friendly and unfriendly, for the Publicans and their hangers-on
were there "to see the fun," and to help in "baiting" the Missionary.
Punctually, I ascended the stone stair, accompanied by another
Missionary who was also to deliver an address, and announced our opening
hymn. As we sang, a company of Police appeared, and were quietly located
here and there among the crowd, the sergeant himself taking his post
close by the platform, whence the whole assembly could be scanned. Our
enemies were jubilant, and signals were passed betwixt them and their
friends, as if the time had come to provoke a row. Before the hymn was
finished, Captain Baker himself, to the infinite surprise of friend and
foe alike, joined us on the platform, devoutly listened to all that was
said, and waited till the close. The Publicans could not for very shame
leave, while he was there at their suggestion and request, though they
had wit enough to perceive that his presence had frustrated all their
sinister plans. They had to hear our addresses and prayers and hymns;
they had to listen to the intimation of our future meetings. When all
had quietly dispersed, the Captain warmly congratulated us on our large
and well-conducted congregation, and hoped that great good would result
from our efforts. This opposition also the Lord overruled to increase
our influence, and to give point and publicity to our assaults upon the
kingdom of Satan.

Though Intemperance was the main cause of poverty, suffering, misery,
and vice in that district of Glasgow, I had also considerable opposition
from Romanists and Infidels, many of whom met in clubs, where they drank
together, and gloried in their wickedness and in leading other young men
astray.

An Infidel, whose wife was a Roman Catholic, became unwell, and
gradually sank under great suffering and agony. His blasphemies against
God were known and shuddered at by all the neighbors. His wife pled with
me to visit him. She refused, at my suggestion, to call her own priest,
so I accompanied her at last. The man refused to hear one word about
spiritual things, and foamed with rage. He even spat at me, I mentioned
the name of Jesus. "The natural receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God; for they are foolishness unto him!" There is a "wisdom" which is
at best earthly, and _at worst_ "sensual and devilish." I visited the
poor man daily, but his enmity to God and his sufferings together seemed
to drive him mad. Towards the end I pleaded with him even then to look
to the Lord Jesus, and asked if I might pray with him? With all his
remaining strength he shouted at me, "Pray for me to the devil!"

Reminding him how he had always denied that there was any devil, I
suggested that he must surely believe in one now, else he would scarcely
make such a request, even in mockery. In great rage he cried, "Tes, I
believe there is a devil, and a God, and a just God too; but I have
hated Him in life, and I hate Him in death!" With these awful words he
wriggled into Eternity; but his shocking death produced a very serious
impression for good, especially amongst young men, in the district where
his character was known.

How different was the case of that Doctor who also had been an
unbeliever as well as a drunkard! Highly educated, skilful, and gifted
above most in his profession, he was taken into consultation for
specially dangerous cases, whenever they could find him tolerably sober.
After one of his excessive "bouts" he had a dreadful attack of _delirium
tremens_. At one time wife and watchers had a fierce struggle to dash
from his lips a draught of prussic acid; at another, they detected the
silver-hafted lancet concealed in the band of his shirt, as he lay down,
to bleed himself to death. His aunt came and pleaded with me to visit
him. My heart bled for his poor young wife and two beautiful little
children. Visiting him twice daily, and sometimes even more frequently,
I found the way somehow into his heart, and he would do almost anything
for me and longed for my visits. When again the fit of self-destruction
seized him, they sent for me; he held out his hand eagerly, and grasping
mine said, "Put all these people out of the room, remain you with me; I
will be quiet, I will do everything you ask!"

I got them all to leave, but whispered to one in passing to "keep near
the door."

Alone I sat beside him, my hand in his, and kept up a quiet conversation
for several hours. After we had talked of everything that I could think
of, and it was now far into the morning, I said, "If you had a Bible
here, we might read a chapter, verse about."

He said dreamily, "There was once a Bible above yon press; if you can
get up to it, you might find it there yet."

Getting it, dusting it, and laying it on a small table which I drew near
to the sofa on which we sat, we read there and then a chapter together.
After this I said; "Now, shall we pray?"

He replied heartily, "Yes."

I having removed the little table, we kneeled down together at the sofa;
and after a solemn pause I whispered, "You pray first."

He replied, "I curse, I cannot pray; would you have me curse God to His
face?"

I answered, "You promised to do all that I asked; you must pray, or try
to pray, and let me hear that you cannot."

He said, "I cannot curse God on my knees; let me stand, and I will curse
Him; I cannot pray."

I gently held him on his knees, saying, "Just try to pray, and let me
hear you cannot."

Instantly he cried out, "O Lord, Thou knowest I cannot pray," and was
going to say something dreadful as he strove to rise up. But I took up
gently the words he had uttered as if they had been my own and continued
the prayer, pleading for him and his dear ones as we knelt there
together, till he showed that he was completely subdued and lying low at
the feet of God. On rising from our knees he was manifestly greatly
impressed, and I said, "Now, as I must be at College by daybreak and
must return to my lodging for my books and an hour's rest, will do you
one thing more for me before I go?"

"Yes," was his reply.

"Then," said I, "it is long since you had a refreshing sleep: now, will
you lie down, and I will sit by you till you fall asleep?"

He lay down, and was soon fast asleep. After commending him to the care
and blessing of the Lord, I quietly slipped out, and his wife returned
to watch by his side. When I came back later in the day, after my
Classes were over, he, on hearing my foot and voice, came to meet me,
and clasping me in his arms, cried, "Thank God, I can pray now! I rose
this morning refreshed from sleep, and prayed with my wife and children
for the first time in my life; and now I shall do so every day, and
serve God while I live, who hath dealt in so great mercy with me!"

After delightful conversation, he promised to go with me to Dr.
Symington's church on Sabbath Day; there he took sittings beside me; at
next half-yearly Communion he and his wife were received into
membership, and their children were baptized; and from that day till his
death he led a devoted and most useful Christian life. He now sleeps in
Jesus; and I do believe I shall meet him in Glory as a trophy of
redeeming grace and love!

In my Mission district I was the witness of many joyful departures to be
with Jesus,--I do not like to name them "deaths" at all. They left us
rejoicing in the bright assurance that nothing present or to come "could
ever separate them or us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord." Many examples might be given; but I can find room for only
one. John Sim, a dear little boy, was carried away by consumption. His
child-heart seemed to be filled with joy about seeing Jesus. His simple
prattle, mingled with deep questionings, arrested not only his young
companions, but pierced the hearts of some careless sinners who heard
him, and greatly refreshed the faith of God's dear people. It was the
very pathos of song incarnated to hear the weak quaver of his dying
voice sing out--

"I lay my sins on Jesus, The spotless Lamb of God."

Shortly before his decease he said to his parents, "I am going soon to
be with Jesus; but I sometimes fear that I may not see you there."

"Why so, my child?" said his weeping mother.

"Because," he answered, "if you were set upon going to Heaven and seeing
Jesus there, you would pray about it, and sing about it; you would talk
about Jesus to others, and tell them of that happy meeting with Him in
Glory. All this my dear Sabbath School teacher taught me, and she will
meet me there. Now why did not you, my father and mother, tell me all
these things about Jesus, if you are going to meet Him too?" Their tears
fell fast over their dying child; and he little knew, in his unthinking
eighth year, what a message from God had pierced their souls through his
innocent words.

One day an aunt from the country visited his mother, and their talk had
run in channels for which the child no longer felt any interest. On my
sitting down beside him, he said, "Sit you down and talk with me about
Jesus; I am tired hearing so much talk about everything else but Jesus;
I am going soon to be with Him. Oh, do tell me everything you know or
have ever heard about Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God!"

At last the child literally longed to be away, not for rest, or freedom
from pain--for of that he had very little--but, as he himself always put
it, "to see Jesus." And, after all, that was the wisdom of the heart,
however he learned it. Eternal life, here or hereafter, is just the
vision of Jesus.



CHAPTER IX.
A FOREIGN MISSIONARY.

HAPPY in my work as I felt through these ten years, and successful by
the blessing of God, yet I continually heard, and chiefly during my last
years in the Divinity Hall, the wail of the perishing Heathen in the
South Seas; and I saw that few were caring for them, while I well knew
that many would be ready to take up my work in Calton, and carry it
forward perhaps with more efficiency than myself. Without revealing the
state of my mind to any person, this was the supreme subject of my daily
meditation and prayer; and this also led me to enter upon those medical
studies, in which I purposed taking the full course; but at the close of
my third year, an incident occurred, which led me at once to offer
myself for the Foreign Mission field.

The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, in which I had been
brought up, had been advertising for another Missionary to join the Rev.
John Inglis in his grand work on the New Hebrides. Dr. Bates, the
excellent convener of the Heathen Missions Committee, was deeply
grieved, because for two years their appeal had failed. At length, the
Synod, after much prayer and consultation, felt the claims of the
Heathen so gently pressed upon them by the Lord's repeated calls, that
they resolved to cast lots, to discover whether God would thus select
any Minister to be relieved from his home-charge, and designated as a
Missionary to the South Seas. Each member of Synod, as I was informed,
agreed to hand in, after solemn appeal to God, the names of the three
best qualified in his esteem for such a work, and he who had the clear
majority was to be loosed from his congregation, and to proceed to the
Mission field--or the first and second highest, if two could be secured.
Hearing this debate, and feeling an intense interest in these most
unusual proceedings, I remember yet the hushed solemnity of the prayer
before the names were handed in. I remember the strained silence that
held the Assembly while the scrutineers retired to examine the papers;
and I remember how tears blinded my eyes when they returned to announce
that the result was so indecisive, that it was clear that the Lord had
not in that way provided a Missionary. The cause was once again solemnly
laid before God in prayer, and a cloud of sadness appeared to fall over
all the Synod.

The Lord kept saying within me, "Since none better qualified can be got,
rise and offer yourself!" Almost overpowering was the impulse to answer
aloud, "Here am I, send me." But I was dreadfully afraid of mistaking my
mere human emotions for the will of God. So I resolved to make it a
subject of close deliberation and prayer for a few days longer, and to
look at the proposal from every possible aspect. Besides, I was keenly
solicitous about the effect upon the hundreds of young people and
others, now attached to all my Classes and Meetings; and yet I felt a
growing assurance that this was the call of God to His servant, and that
He who was willing to employ me in the work abroad, was both able and
willing to provide for the on-carrying of my work at home. My medical
studies, as well as my literary and divinity training, had specially
qualified me in some ways for the Foreign field, and from every aspect
at which I could look the whole facts in the face, the voice within me
sounded like a voice from God.

It was under good Dr. Bates of West Campbell Street that I had begun my
career in Glasgow--receiving £25 per annum for district visitation in
connection with his Congregation, along with instruction under Mr.
Hislop and his staff in the Free Church Normal Seminary--and oh, how Dr.
Bates did rejoice, and even weep for joy, when I called on him, and
offered myself for the New Hebrides Mission! I returned to my lodging
with a lighter heart than I had for sometime enjoyed, feeling that
nothing so clears the vision, and lifts up the life, as a decision to
move forward in what you know to be entirely the will of the Lord. I
said to my fellow-student, Joseph Copeland, who had chummed with me all
through our course at college, "I have been away signing my banishment"
(a rather trifling way of talk for such an occasion). "I have offered
myself as a Missionary for the New Hebrides."

After a long and silent meditation, in which he seemed lost in
far-wandering thoughts, his answer was, "If they will accept of me, I am
also resolved to go!"

I said, "Will you write the Convener to that effect, or let me do so?"

He replied, "You may."

A few minutes later his letter of offer was in the post-office. Next
morning Dr. Bates called upon us, early, and after a long conversation,
commended us and our future work to the Lord God in fervent prayer. At a
meeting of the Foreign Missions Committee, held immediately thereafter,
both were, after due deliberation, formally accepted, on condition that
we passed successfully the usual examinations required of candidates for
the Ministry. And for the next twelve months we were placed under a
special committee for advice as to medical experience, acquaintance with
the rudiments of trades, and anything else which might be thought useful
to us in the Foreign field.

When it became known that I was preparing to go abroad as Missionary,
nearly all were dead against the proposal, except Dr. Bates and my
fellows-student. My dear father and mother, however, when I consulted
them, characteristically replied, "that they had long since given me
away to the Lord, and in this matter also would leave me to God's
disposal." From other quarters we were besieged with the strongest
opposition on all sides. Even Dr. Symington, one of my professors in
divinity, and the beloved Minister in connection with whose congregation
I had wrought so long as a City Missionary, and in whose Kirk Session I
had for years sat as an Elder, repeatedly urged me to remain at home.

To his arguments I replied, "that my mind was finally resolved; that,
though I loved my work and my people, yet I felt that I could leave them
to the care of Jesus, who would soon provide them a better pastor than
I; and that, with regard to my life amongst the Cannibals, as I had only
once to die, I was content to leave the time and place and means in the
hand of God who had already marvelously preserved me when visiting
cholera patients and the fever-stricken poor; on that score I had
positively no further concern, having left it all absolutely to the
Lord, whom I sought to serve and honor, whether in life or by death."

The house connected with my Green Street Church was now offered to me
for a Manse, and any reasonable salary that I cared to ask (as against
the promised £120 per annum for the far-off and dangerous New Hebrides),
on condition that I would remain at home. I cannot honestly say that
such offers or opposing influences proved a heavy trial to me; they
rather tended to confirm my determination that the path of duty was to
go abroad.

Amongst many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian
gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, "The cannibals! you will
be eaten by cannibals!" At last I replied, "Mr. Dickson, you are
advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the
grave, there to be eaten by worms, I confess to you, that if I can but
live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no
difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; and in the
Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the
likeness of our risen Redeemer."

The old gentleman, raising his hands in a deprecating attitude, left the
room exclaiming, "After that I have nothing more to say!"

My dear Green Street people grieved excessively at the thought of my
leaving them, and daily pleaded with me to remain. Indeed, the
opposition was so strong from nearly all, and many of them warm
Christian friends, that I was sorely tempted to question whether I was
carrying out the Divine will, or only some headstrong wish of my own.
But conscience said louder and clearer every day, "Leave all these
results with Jesus your Lord, who said, 'Go ye into all the world,
preach the Gospel to every creature, and lo! I am with you alway.'"
These words kept ringing in my ears; these were our _marching orders_.

Some retorted upon me, "There are Heathen at home; let us seek and save,
first of all, the lost ones perishing at our doors." This I felt to be
most true, and an appalling fact; but I unfailingly observed that those
who made this retort neglected these Home Heathen themselves; and so the
objection, as from them, lost all its power.

On meeting, however, with so many obstructing influences, I again laid
the whole matter before my dear parents, and their reply was to this
effect:--"Heretofore we feared to bias you, but now we must tell you why
we praise God for the decision to which you have been led. Your father's
heart was set upon being a Minister, but other claims forced him to give
it up! When you were given to them, your father and mother laid you upon
the altar, their first-born, to be consecrated, if God saw fit, as a
Missionary of the Cross; and it has been their constant prayer that you
might be prepared, qualified, and led to this very decision; and we pray
with all our heart that the Lord may accept your offering, long spare
you, and give you many souls from the Heathen World for your hire." From
that moment, every doubt as to my path of duty forever vanished. I saw
the hand of God very visibly, not only preparing me for, but now leading
me to, the Foreign Mission field.

Well did I know that the sympathy and prayers of my dear parents were
warmly with me in all my studies and in all my Mission work; but for my
education they could of course, give me no money help. All through, on
the contrary, it was my pride and joy to help them, being the eldest in
a family of eleven; though I here most gladly and gratefully record that
all my brothers and sisters, as they grew up and began to earn a living,
took their full share in this same blessed privilege. For we stuck to
each other and to the old folks like burs, and had all things "in
common," as a family in Christ--and I knew that never again, howsoever
long they might be spared through the peaceful autumn of life, would the
dear old father and mother lack any joy or comfort that the willing
hands and loving hearts of all their children could singly or unitedly
provide. For all this I did praise the Lord! It consoled me beyond
description, in parting from them, probably forever, in this world at
least.



CHAPTER X.
TO THE NEW HEBRIDES.

ON the first of December 1857--being then in my thirty-third year--the
other Missionary-designate and I were "licensed" as preachers of the
Gospel. Thereafter we spent four months in visiting and addressing
nearly every Congregation and Sabbath School in the Reformed
Presbyterian Church of Scotland, that the people might see us and know
us, and thereby take a personal interest in our work. On the 23d March
1858, in Dr. Symington's church, Glasgow, in presence of a mighty crowd,
and after a magnificent sermon on "Come over and help us," we were
solemnly ordained as Ministers of the Gospel, and set apart as
Missionaries to the New Hebrides. On the 16th April of the same year, we
left the Tail of the Bank at Greenock, and set sail in the _Clutha_ for
the Foreign Mission field.

Our voyage to Melbourne was rather tedious, but ended prosperously,
under Captain Broadfoot, a kindly, brave-hearted Scot, who did
everything that was possible for our comfort. He himself led the singing
on board at Worship, which was always charming to me, and was always
regularly conducted--on deck when the weather was fair, below when it
was rough. I was also permitted to conduct Bible Classes amongst both
the crew and the passengers, at times and places approved of by the
Captain--in which there was great joy.

Arriving at Melbourne, we were welcomed by Rev. Mr. Moor, Mr. and Mrs.
Samuel Wilson, and Mr. Wright, all Reformed Presbyterians from Geelong.
Mr. Wilson's two children, Jessie and Donald, had been under our care
during the voyage; and my young wife and I went with them for a few days
on a visit to Geelong, while Mr. Copeland remained on board the _Clutha_
to look after our boxes and to watch for any opportunity of reaching our
destination on the Islands. He heard that an American ship, the _Frances
P. Sage_, was sailing from Melbourne to Penang; and the Captain agreed
to land us on Aneityum, New Hebrides, with our two boats and fifty
boxes, for £100. We got on board on the 12th August, but such a gale
blew that we did not sail till the 17th. On the _Clutha_ all was quiet,
and good order prevailed; in the _F. P. Sage_ all was noise and
profanity. The Captain said he kept his second mate for the purpose of
swearing at the men and knocking them about. The voyage was most
disagreeable to all of us, but fortunately it lasted only twelve days.
On the 29th we were close up to Aneityum; but the Captain refused to
land us, even in his boats; some of us suspecting that his men were so
badly used that had they got on shore they would never have returned to
him! In any case he had beforehand secured his £100.

He lay off the island till a trader's boat pulled across to see what we
wanted, and by it we sent a note to Dr. Geddie, one of the Missionaries
there. Early next horning, Monday, he arrived in his boat, accompanied
by Mr. Mathieson, a newly arrived Missionary from Nova Scotia; bringing
also Captain Andersen in the small Mission schooner, the _John Knox_,
and a large Mission boat called the _Columbia_, well manned with crews
of able and willing Natives. Our fifty boxes were soon on board the
_John Knox_, the _Columbia_, and our own boats--all being heavily loaded
and built up, except those that had to be used in pulling the others
ashore. Dr. Geddie, Mr. Mathieson, Mrs. Paton, and I were perched among
the boxes on the _John Knox_, and had to hold on as best we could. On
sheering off from the _F. P. Sage_, one of her davits caught and broke
the mainmast of the little _John Knox_ by the deck; and I saved my wife
from being crushed to death by its fall, through managing to swing her
instantaneously aside in an apparently impossible manner. It did graze
Mr. Mathieson, but he was not hurt. The _John Knox_, already overloaded,
was thus quite disabled; we were about ten miles at sea, and in imminent
danger; but the captain of the _F. P. Sage_ heartlessly sailed away, and
left us to struggle with our fate.

We drifted steadily in the direction of Tanna, an island of cannibals,
where our goods would have been plundered and all of us cooked and
eaten. Dr. Geddie's boat, and mine had the _John Knox_ in tow; and Mr.
Copeland, with a crew of Natives, was struggling hard with his boat to
pull the _Columbia_ and her load towards Aneityum. As God mercifully
ordered it, though we had a stiff trade wind to pull against, we had a
comparatively calm sea; yet we drifted still to leeward, till Dr. Inglis
going round to the harbor in his boat, as he had heard of our arrival,
saw us far at sea, and hastened to our rescue. All the boats now, with
their willing Native crews, got fastened to our schooner, and to our
great joy she began to move ahead. After pulling for hours and hours,
under the scorching rays of a tropical sun, we were all safely landed on
shore at Aneityum, about six o'clock in the evening of 30th August, just
four months and fourteen days since we sailed from Greenock. We got a
hearty welcome from the Missionaries' wives, Mrs. Geddie, Mrs. Inglis,
and Mrs. Mathieson, and from all our new friends the Christian Natives
of Aneityum; and the great danger in which both life and property had
been placed at the close of our voyage, made us praise God all the more
that He had brought us to this quiet resting-place, around which lay the
Islands of the New Hebrides, to which our eager hearts had looked
forward, and into which we entered now in the name of the Lord.

Mr. Copeland, Mrs. Paton, and I went round the island to Dr. Inglis's
Station, where we were most cordially received and entertained by his
dear lady, and by the Christian Natives there. As he was making several
additions to his house at that time, we received for the next few weeks
our first practical and valuable training in Mission house-building, as
well as in higher matters. Soon after, a meeting was called to consult
about our settlement, and, by the advice and with the concurrence of
all, Mr. and Mrs. Mathieson from Nova Scotia were located on the south
side of Tanna, at Umairarekar, and Mrs. Paton and I at Port Resolution,
on the same island. At first it was agreed that Mr. Copeland should be
placed along with us; but owing to the weakly state of Mrs. Mathieson's
health, it was afterwards resolved that, for a time at least, Mr.
Copeland should live at either Station as seem most suitable or most
requisite.

Dr. Inglis and a number of his most energetic Natives accompanied us to
Umairarekar Tanna. There we purchased a site for Mission House and
Church, and laid a stone foundation, and advanced as far as practicable
the erection of a dwelling for Mr. and Mrs. Mathieson. Thence we
proceeded to Port Resolution, Tanna, and similarly purchased a site, and
advanced, to a forward stage, the house which Mrs. Paton and I were to
occupy on our settlement there. Lime for plastering had to be burned in
kilns from the coral rocks; and thatch, for roofing with sugar-cane
leaf, had to be prepared by the Natives at both Stations before our
return; for which, as for all else, a price was duly agreed upon, and
was scrupulously paid. Unfortunately we learned, when too late, that
both houses were too near the shore, exposed to unwholesome miasma, and
productive of the dreaded fever and ague,--the most virulent and
insidious enemy to all Europeans in those Southern Seas.



CHAPTER XI.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF HEATHENDOM.

MY first impressions drove me, I must confess, to the verge of utter
dismay. On beholding these Natives in their paint and nakedness and
misery, my heart was as full of horror as of pity. Had I given up my
much-beloved work and my dear people in Glasgow, with so many delightful
associations, to consecrate my life to these degraded creatures? Was it
possible to teach them right and wrong, to Christianize, or even to
civilize them? But that was only a passing feeling; I soon got as deeply
interested in them, and in all that tended to advance them, and to lead
them to the knowledge and love of Jesus, as ever I had been in my work
at Glasgow. We were surprised and delighted at the remarkable change
produced on the Natives of Aneityum through the instrumentality of Drs.
Geddie and Inglis in so short a time; and we hoped, by prayerful
perseverance in the use of similar means, to see the same work of God
repeated on Tanna. Besides, the wonderful and blessed work done by Mrs.
Inglis and Mrs. Geddie, at their Stations, filled our wives with the
buoyant hope of being instruments in the hand of God to produce an
equally beneficent change amongst the savage women of Tanna. Mrs. Paton
had been left with Mrs. Inglis to learn all she could from her of
Mission work on the Islands, till I returned with Dr. Inglis from the
house-building operations on Tanna; during which period Mr. and Mrs.
Mathieson were also being instructed by Dr. and Mrs. Geddie.

To the Tannese, Dr. Inglis and I were objects of curiosity and fear;
they came crowding to gaze on our wooden and lime-plastered house; they
chattered incessantly with each other, and left the scene day after day
with undisguised and increasing wonderment. Possibly they thought us
rather mad than wise!

Party after party of armed men going and coming in a state of great
excitement, we were informed that war was on foot; but our Aneityumese
Teachers were told to assure us that the Harbor people would only act on
the defensive, and that no one would molest us at our work. One day two
hostile tribes met near our Station; high words arose, and old feuds
were revived. The Inland people withdrew; but the Harbor people, false
to their promises, flew to arms and rushed past us in pursuit of their
enemies. The discharge of muskets in the adjoining bush, and the horrid
yells of the savages, soon informed us that they were engaged in deadly
fights. Excitement and terror were on every countenance; armed men
rushed about in every direction, with feathers in their twisted
hair,--with faces painted red, black, and white, and some, one cheek
black, the other red, others, the brow white, the chin blue--in fact,
any color and on any part,--the more grotesque and savage-looking, the
higher the art! Some of the women ran with their children to places of
safety; but even then we saw other girls and women, on the shore close
by, chewing sugar-cane and chaffering and laughing, as if their fathers
and brothers had been engaged in a country dance, instead of a bloody
conflict.

In the afternoon, as the sounds of the muskets and the yelling of the
warriors came unpleasantly near to us, Dr. Inglis, leaning against a
post for a little while in silent prayer, looked on us and said, "The
walls of Jerusalem were built in troublous times, and why not the
Mission House on Tanna? But let us rest for this day, and pray for these
poor Heathen."

We retired to a Native house that had been temporarily granted to us for
rest, and there pled before God for them all. The noise and the
discharge of muskets gradually receded, as if the Inland people were
retiring; and towards evening the people around us returned to their
villages. We were afterwards informed that five or six men had been shot
dead; that their bodies had been carried by the conquerors from the
field of battle, and cooked and eaten that very night at a boiling
spring near the head of the bay, less than a mile from the spot where my
house was being built. We had also a more graphic illustration of the
surroundings into which we had come, through Dr. Inglis's Aneityum boy,
who accompanied us as cook. When our tea was wanted next morning, the
boy could not be found. After a while of great anxiety on our part, he
returned, saying, "Missi, this is a dark land. The people of this land
do dark works. At the boiling spring they have cooked and feasted upon
the slain. They have washed the blood into the water; they have bathed
there, polluting everything. I cannot get pure water to make your tea.
What shall I do?"

Dr. Inglis told him that he must try for water elsewhere, till the rains
came and cleansed away the pollution; and that meanwhile, instead of
tea, we would drink from the cocoa-nut, as they had often done before.
The lad was quite relieved. It not a little astonished us, however, to
see that his mind regarded their killing and eating each other as a
thing scarcely to be noticed, but that it was horrible that they should
spoil the water! How much are even our deepest instincts the creatures
of mere circumstances! I, if trained like him, would probably have felt
like him.

Next evening, as we sat talking about the people, and the dark scenes
around us, the quiet of the night was broken by a wild wailing cry from
the villages around, long-continued and unearthly. We were informed that
one of the wounded men, carried home from the battle, had just died; and
that they had strangled his widow to death, that her spirit might
accompany him to the other world, and be his servant there, as she had
been here. Now their dead bodies were laid side by side, ready to be
buried in the sea. Our hearts sank to think of all this happening within
ear-shot, and that we knew it not! Every new scene, every fresh
incident, set more clearly before us the benighted condition and
shocking cruelties of these Heathen people, and we longed to be able to
speak to them of Jesus and the love of God. We eagerly tried to pick up
every word of their language, that we might, in their own tongue, unfold
to them the knowledge of the true God and of salvation from all these
sins through Jesus Christ.



CHAPTER XII.
BREAKING GROUND ON TANNA.

OUR small Missionary schooner, the _John Knox_, having no accommodation
for lady passengers, and little for anybody else except the discomfort
of lying on deck, we took advantage of a trader to convey us from
Aneityum to Tanna. The Captain kindly offered to take us and about
thirty casks and boxes to Port Resolution for £5, which we gladly
accepted. After a few hours' sailing we were all safely landed on Tanna
on the 5th November, 1858. Dr. Geddie went for a fortnight to
Umairarekar, now known as Kwamera, on the south side of Tanna, to assist
in the settlement of Mr. and Mrs. Mathieson, and to help in making their
house habitable and comfortable. Mr. Copeland, Mrs. Paton, and I were
left at Port Resolution, to finish the building of our house there, and
work our way into the good will of the Natives as best we could.

On landing, we found the people to be literally naked and painted
Savages; they were at least as destitute of clothing as Adam and Eve
after the fall, when they sewed fig-leaves for a girdle, and even more
so, for the women wore only a tiny apron of grass, in some cases shaped
like a skirt or girdle, the men an indescribable affair like a pouch or
bag, and the children absolutely nothing whatever.

At first they came in crowds to look at us, and at everything we did or
had. We knew nothing of their language; we could not speak a single word
to them, nor they to us. We looked at them, they at us; we smiled and
nodded, and made signs to each other; this was our first meeting and
parting. One day I observed two men, the one lifting up one of our
articles to the other, and saying, "Nungsi nari enu?"

I concluded that he was asking, "What is this?" Instantly, lifting a
piece of wood, I said, "Nungsi nari enu?"

They smiled and spoke to each other. I understood them to be saying, "He
has got hold of our language now." Then they told me their name for the
thing which I had pointed to. I found that they understood my question,
What is this? or, What is that? and that I could now get from them the
name of every visible or tangible thing around us! We carefully noted
down every name they gave us, spelling all phonetically, and also every
strange sound we heard from them; thereafter, by painstaking comparison
of different circumstances, we tried to ascertain their meanings,
testing our own guess by again cross-questioning the Natives. One day I
saw two men approaching, when one, who was a stranger, pointed to me
with his finger, and said, "Se nangin?"

Concluding that he was asking my name, I pointed! to one of them with my
finger, and looking at the other, inquired, "Se nangin?"

They smiled, and gave me their names. We were now able to get the names
of persons and things, and so our ears got familiarized with the
distinctive sounds of their language; and being always keenly on the
alert, we made extraordinary progress in attempting bits of conversation
and in reducing their speech for the first time to a written form--for
the New Hebrideans had no literature, and not even the rudiments of an
alphabet. I used to hire some of the more intelligent lads and men to
sit and talk with us, and answer our questions about names and sounds;
but they so often deceived us, and we, doubtless, misunderstood them so
often, that this course was not satisfactory, till after we had gained
some knowledge of their language and its construction, and they
themselves had become interested in helping us. Amongst our most
interesting helpers, and most trustworthy, were two aged chiefs--Nowa
and Nouka--in many respects two of Nature's noblest gentlemen, kind at
heart to all, and distinguished by a certain native dignity of bearing.
But they were both under the leadership of the war-chief Miaki, a kind
of devil-king over many villages and tribes.

The Tannese had hosts of stone idols, charms, and sacred objects, which
they abjectly feared, and in which they devoutly believed. They were
given up to countless superstitions, and firmly glued to their dark
heathen practices. Their worship was entirely a service of fear, its aim
being to propitiate this or that Evil Spirit, to prevent calamity or to
secure revenge. They deified their chiefs, like the Romans of old, so
that almost every village or tribe had its own Sacred Man, and some of
them had many. They exercised an extraordinary influence for evil, these
village or tribal priests, and were believed to have the disposal of
life and death through their sacred ceremonies, not only in their own
tribe, but over all the Islands. Sacred men and women, wizards and
witches, received presents regularly to influence the gods, and to
remove sickness, or to cause it by the _Nahak, i. e._ incantation over
remains of food, or the skin of fruit, such as banana, which the person
has eaten on whom they wish to operate. They also worshiped the spirits
of departed ancestors and heroes, through their material idols of wood
and stone, but chiefly of stone. They feared these spirits and sought
their aid; especially seeking to propitiate those who presided over war
and peace, famine and plenty, health and sickness, destruction and
prosperity, life and death. Their whole worship was one of slavish fear;
and, so far as ever I could learn, they had no idea of a God of mercy or
grace.

But these very facts--that they did worship something, that they
believed in spirits of ancestors and heroes, and that they cherished
many legends regarding those whom they had never seen, and handed these
down to their children--and the fact that they had ideas about the
invisible world and its inhabitants, made it not so hard as some might
suppose to convey to their minds, once their language and modes of
thought were understood, some clear ideal of Jehovah God as the great
uncreated Spirit Father, who Himself created and sustains all that is.
It could not, however, be done offhand, or by a few airy lessons. The
whole heart and soul and life had to be put into the enterprise. But it
could be done--that we believed because they were men, not beasts; it
had been done--that we saw in the converts on Aneityum; and our hearts
rose to the task with quenchless hope!



CHAPTER XIII.
PIONEERS IN THE NEW HEBRIDES.

A GLANCE backwards over the story of the Gospel in the New Hebrides may
help to bring my readers into touch with the events that are to follow.
The ever-famous names of Williams and Harris are associated with the
earliest efforts to introduce Christianity amongst this group of islands
in the South Pacific Seas. John Williams and his young Missionary
companion Harris, under the auspices of the London Missionary Society,
landed on Erromanga on the 30th of November 1839. Alas, within a few
minutes of their touching land, both were clubbed to death; and the
savages proceeded to cook and feast upon their bodies. Thus were the New
Hebrides baptized with the blood of Martyrs; and Christ thereby told the
whole Christian world that He claimed these Islands as His own. His
cross must yet be lifted up, where the blood of His saints has been
poured forth in His name! The poor Heathen knew not that they had slain
their best friends; but tears and prayers ascended for them from all
Christian souls, wherever the story of the martyrdom on Erromanga was
read or heard.

Again, therefore, in 1842, the London Missionary Society sent out
Messrs. Turner and Nisbet to pierce this kingdom of Satan. They placed
their standard on our chosen island of Tanna, the nearest to Erromanga.
In less than seven months, however, their persecution by the savages
became so dreadful, that we see them in a boat trying to escape by night
with bare life. Out on that dangerous sea they would certainly have been
lost, but the Ever-Merciful drove them back to land, and sent next
morning a whaling vessel, which, contrary to custom, called there, and
just in the nick of time. They, with all goods that could be rescued,
were got safely on board, and sailed for Samoa. Say not their plans and
prayers were baffled; for God heard and abundantly blessed them there,
beyond all their dreams.

After these things, the London Missionary Society again and again placed
Samoan Native Teachers on one or other island of the New Hebrides; but
their unhealthiness, compared with the more wholesome Samoa or
Rarotonga, so afflicted them with the dreaded ague and fever, besides
what they endured from the inhospitable savages themselves, that no
effective Mission work had been accomplished there till at last the
Presbyterian Missionaries were led to enter upon the scene. Christianity
had no foothold anywhere on the New Hebrides, unless it were in the
memory and the blood of the Martyrs of Erromanga.

The Rev. John Geddie and his wife, from Nova Scotia, were landed on
Aneityum, the most southerly island of the New Hebrides, in 1848; and
the Rev. John Inglis and his wife, from Scotland, were landed on the
other side of the same island, in 1852. An agent for the London
Missionary Society, the Rev. T. Powell, accompanied Dr. Geddie for about
a year, to advise as to his settlement and to assist in opening up the
work. Marvelous as it may seem, the Natives on Aneityum, showed interest
in the Missionaries from the very first, and listened to their
teachings; so that in a few years Dr. Inglis and Dr. Geddie saw about
3500 savages throwing away their idols, renouncing their Heathen
customs, and avowing themselves to be worshipers of the true Jehovah
God. Slowly, yet progressively, they unlearned their Heathenism; surely
and hopefully they learned Christianity and civilization. When these
Missionaries "came to this Island, there were no Christians there; when
they left it, there were no Heathens."

Further, these poor Aneityumese, having glimpses of the Word of God,
determined to have a Holy Bible in their own mother tongue, wherein
before no book or page ever had been written in the history of their
race. The consecrated brain and hand of their Missionaries kept toiling
day and night in translating the book of God; and the willing hands and
feet of the Natives kept toiling through fifteen long but unwearying
years, planting and preparing arrowroot to pay the £1200 required to be
laid out in the printing and publishing of the book. Year after year the
arrowroot, too sacred to be used for their daily food, was set apart as
the Lord's portion; the Missionaries sent it to Australia and Scotland,
where it was sold by private friends, and the whole proceeds consecrated
to this purpose. On the completion of the great undertaking by the Bible
Society, it was found that the Natives had earned as much as to pay
every penny of the outlay; and their first Bibles went out to them,
purchased with the consecrated toils of fifteen years!

Let those who lightly esteem their Bibles think on those things. Eight
shillings for every leaf, or the labor and proceeds of fifteen years for
the Bible entire, did not appear to these poor converted savages too
much to pay for that Word of God, which had sent to them the
Missionaries, which had revealed to them the grace of God in Christ, and
which had opened their eyes to the wonders and glories of redeeming
love!



CHAPTER XIV.
THE GREAT BEREAVEMENT.

MY first house on Tanna was on the old site occupied by Turner and
Nisbet, near the shore, for obvious reasons, and only a few feet above
tide-mark. So was that of Mr. Mathieson, handy for materials as goods
being landed, and, as we imagined, close to the healthy breezes of the
sea. Alas! we had to learn by sad experience, like our brethren in all
untried Mission fields. The sites proved to be hot-beds for Fever and
Ague, mine especially; and much of this might have been escaped by
building on the higher ground, and in the sweep of the refreshing
trade-winds. For all this, however, no one was to blame; everything was
done for the best, according to the knowledge then possessed. Our house
was sheltered behind by an abrupt hill about two hundred feet high,
which gave the site a feeling of coziness. It was surrounded and much
shaded, by beautiful breadfruit trees, and very large cocoa-nut trees;
too largely beautiful, indeed, for they shut out many a healthy breeze
that we sorely needed! There was a long swamp at the head of the bay,
and, the ground at the other end on which our house stood being scarcely
raised perceptibly higher, the malaria almost constantly enveloped us.
Once, after a smart attack of the fever, an intelligent Chief said to
me, "Missi, if you stay here, you will soon die! No Tanna man sleeps so
low down as you do, in this damp weather, or he too would die. We sleep
on the high ground, and the trade-wind keeps us well. You must go and
sleep on the hill, and then you will have better health."

I at once resolved to remove my house to higher ground, at the earliest
practicable moment; heavy though the undertaking would necessarily be,
it seemed our only hope of being able to live on the island. Alas, for
one of us, it was already too late!

My dear young wife, Mary Ann Robson, landed with me on Tanna on the 5th
November 1858, in excellent health and full of all tender and holy
hopes. On the 12th February 1859 God sent to us our first-born son; for
two days or so both mother and child seemed to prosper, and our
island-exile thrilled with joy! But the greatest of sorrows was treading
hard upon the heels of that joy! My darling's strength showed no signs
of rallying. She had an attack of ague and fever a few days before; on
the third day or so thereafter, it returned, and attacked her every
second day with increasing severity for a fortnight. Diarrhea ensued,
and symptoms of pneumonia, with slight delirium at intervals; and then
in a moment, altogether unexpectedly, she died on the 3d March. To crown
my sorrows, and complete my loneliness, the dear baby-boy, whom we had
named after her father, Peter Robert Robson, was taken from me after one
week's sickness, on the 20th March. Let those who have ever passed
through any similar darkness as of midnight feel for me; as for all
others, it would be more than vain to try to paint my sorrows!

I knew then, when too late, that our work had been entered on too near
the beginning of the rainy season. We were both, however, healthy and
hearty; and I daily pushed on with the house, making things hourly more
comfortable, in the hope that long lives were before us both, to be
spent for Jesus in seeking the salvation of the perishing Heathen. In
our mutual inexperience, and with our hearts aglow for the work of our
lives, we incurred this risk which should never have been incurred; and
I only refer to the matter thus, in the hope that others may take
warning.

Stunned by that dreadful loss, in entering upon this field of labor to
which the Lord had Himself so evidently led me, my reason seemed for a
time almost to give way. Ague and fever, too, laid a depressing and
weakening hand upon me, continuously recurring, and reaching oftentimes
the very height of its worst burning stages. But I was never altogether
forsaken. The ever-merciful Lord sustained me, to lay the precious dust
of my beloved Ones in the same quiet grave, dug for them close by at the
end of the house; in all of which last offices my own hands, despite
breaking heart, had to take the principal share! I built the grave round
and round with coral blocks, and covered the top with beautiful white
coral, broken small as gravel; and that spot became my sacred and
much-frequented shrine, during all the following months and years when I
labored on for the salvation of these savage Islanders amidst
difficulties, dangers, and deaths. Whensoever Tanna turns to the Lord,
and is won for Christ, men in after-days will find the memory of that
spot still green,--where with ceaseless prayers and tears I claimed that
land for God in which I had "buried my dead" with faith and hope. But
for Jesus, and the fellowship He vouchsafed me there, I must have gone
mad and died beside that lonely grave!

Dr. Inglis, my brother Missionary on Aneityum, wrote to the Reformed
Presbyterian Magazine:--"I trust all those who shed tears of sorrow on
account of her early death will be enabled in the exercise of faith and
resignation to say, 'The Will of the Lord be done; the Lord gave and the
Lord hath taken away: blessed be the Name of the Lord!' I need not say
how deeply we sympathize with her bereaved parents, as well as with her
sorrowing husband. By her death the Mission has sustained a heavy loss.
We were greatly pleased with Mrs. Paton during the period of our short
intercourse with her. Her mind, naturally vigorous, had been cultivated
by a superior education. She was full of Missionary spirit, and took a
deep interest in the Native women. This was seen further, when she went
to Tanna, where, in less than three months, she had collected a class of
eight females, who came regularly to her to receive instruction. There
was about her a maturity of thought, a solidity of character, a
loftiness of aim and purpose, rarely found in one so young. Trained up
in the fear of the Lord from childhood, like another Mary she had
evidently chosen that good part, which is never taken away from those
possessed of it. When she left this island, she had to all human
appearance a long career of usefulness and happiness on Earth before
her, but the Lord has appointed otherwise. She has gone, as we trust, to
her rest and her reward. The Lord has said to her as He said to David,
'Thou didst well in that it was in thine heart to build a House for My
Name.' Let us watch and pray, for our Lord cometh as a thief in the
night."

Soon after her death, the good Bishop Selwyn called at Port Resolution,
Tanna, in his Mission Ship. He came on shore to visit me, accompanied by
the Rev. J. O. Patteson. They had met Mrs. Paton on Aneityum in the
previous year soon after our arrival, and, as she was then the picture
of perfect health, they also felt her loss very keenly. Standing with me
beside the grave of mother and child, I weeping aloud on his one hand,
and Patteson--afterward the Martyr Bishop of Kakupu--sobbing silently on
the other, the godly Bishop Selwyn poured out his heart to God amidst
sobs and tears, during which he laid his hands on my head, and invoked
Heaven's richest consolations and blessings on me and my trying labors.

Sorrow and love constrain me to linger over her last words. She cried,
"Oh, that my dear mother were here! She is a good woman, my mother, a
jewel of a woman."

Then, observing Mr. Copeland near by, she said, "Oh, Mr. Copeland, I did
not know you were there! You must not think that I regret coming here,
and leaving my mother. If I had the same thing to do over again, I would
do it with far more pleasure, yes, with all my heart. Oh no! I do not
regret leaving home and friends, though at the time I felt it keenly."

Soon after this, looking up and putting her hand in mine, she said--

"J. C. wrote to our Janet saying, that young Christians under their
first impressions thought they could do anything or make any sacrifice
for Jesus, and he asked if she believed it, for he did not think they
could, when tested; but Janet wrote back that she believed they could,
and (added she with great emphasis) _I believe it is true!_"

In a moment, altogether unexpectedly, she fell asleep in Jesus, with
these words on her lips. "Not lost, only gone before to be forever with
the Lord"--my heart keeps saying or singing to itself from that hour
till now.

It was very difficult to be resigned, left alone, and in sorrowful
circumstance; but feeling immovably assured that my God and Father was
too wise and loving to err in anything that He does or permits, I looked
up to the Lord for help, and struggled on in His work. I do not pretend
to see through the mystery of such visitations,--wherein God calls away
the young, the promising, and those sorely needed for His service here;
but this I do know and feel, that, in the light of such dispensations,
it becomes us all to love and serve our blessed Lord Jesus so that we
may be ready at His call for death and Eternity.



CHAPTER XV.
AT HOME WITH CANNIBALS.

IN the first letter, sent jointly by Mr. Copeland and myself from Tanna
to the Church at home, the following statements occur:--

"We found the Tannese to be painted Savages, enveloped in all the
superstition and wickedness of Heathenism. All the men and children go
in a state of nudity. The older women wear grass skirts, and the young
women and girls, grass or leaf aprons like Eve in Eden. They are
exceedingly ignorant, vicious, and bigoted, and almost void of natural
affection. Instead of the inhabitants of Port Resolution being improved
by coming in contact with white men they are rendered much worse; for
they have learned all their vices but none of their virtues,--if such
are possessed by the pioneer traders among such races! The Sandal-wood
Traders are as a class the most godless of men, whose cruelty and
wickedness make us ashamed to own them as our countrymen. By them the
poor defenseless Natives are oppressed and robbed on every hand; and if
they offer the slightest resistance, they are ruthlessly silenced by the
musket or revolver. Few months here pass without some of them being so
shot, and, instead of their murderers feeling ashamed, they boast of how
they despatch them. Such treatment keeps the Natives always burning
under a desire for revenge, so that it is a wonder any white man is
allowed to come among them. Indeed, all Traders here are able to
maintain their position only by revolvers and rifles; but we hope a
better state of affairs is at hand for Tanna."

The novelty of our being among them soon passed away, and they began to
show their avarice and deceitfulness in every possible way. The Chiefs
united and refused to give us the half of the small piece of land which
had been purchased, on which to build our Mission House, and when we
attempted to fence in the part they had left to us, they "tabooed" it,
_i. e._ threatened our Teachers and us with death if we proceeded
further with the work. This they did by placing certain reeds stuck into
the ground here and there around our house, which our Aneityumese
servants at once knew the meaning of, and warned us of our danger; so we
left off making the fence, that we might if possible evade all offense.
They then divided the few breadfruit and cocoa-nut trees on the ground
amongst themselves, or demanded such payment for these trees as we did
not possess, and threatened revenge on us if the trees were injured by
any person. They now became so unreasonable and offensive, and our
dangers so increased, as to make our residence amongst them extremely
trying. At this time a vessel called; I bought from the Captain the
things for payment which they demanded; on receiving it, they lifted the
Taboo, and for a little season appeared to be friendly again. This was
the third payment they had got for that site, and to yield was teaching
them a cruel lesson; all this we felt and clearly saw, but they had by
some means to be conciliated, if possible, and our lives had to be
saved, if that could be done without dishonor to the Christian name.

After these events, a few weeks of dry weather began to tell against the
growth of their yams and bananas. The drought was instantly ascribed to
us and our God. The Natives far and near were summoned to consider the
matter in public assembly. Next day, Nouka, the high chief, and Miaki,
the war-chief, his nephew, came to inform us that two powerful Chiefs
had openly declared in that assembly that if the Harbor people did not
at once kill us or compel us to leave the island they would, unless the
rain came plentifully in the meantime, summon all the Inland people and
murder both our Chiefs and us. The friendly Chiefs said, "Pray to your
Jehovah God for rain, and do not go far beyond your door for a time; we
are all in greatest danger, and if war breaks out we fear we cannot
protect you."

But this friendliness was all pretense; they themselves, being Sacred
Men, professed to have the power of sending or withholding rain, and
tried to fix the blame of their discomfiture on us. The rage of the poor
ignorant Heathen was thereby fed against us. The Ever-Merciful, however,
again interposed on our behalf. On the following Sabbath, just when we
were assembling for worship, rain began to fall, and in great abundance.
The whole inhabitants believed, apparently, that it was sent to save us
in answer to our prayers; so they met again, and resolved to allow us to
remain on Tanna. Alas! on the other hand, the continuous and heavy rains
brought much sickness and fever in their train, and again their Sacred
Men pointed to us as the cause. Hurricane winds also blew and injured
their fruits and fruit-trees,--another opportunity for our enemies to
lay the blame of everything upon the Missionaries and their Jehovah God!
The trial and the danger daily grew, of living among a people so
dreadfully benighted by superstition, and so easily swayed by prejudice
and passion.

The Natives of Tanna were well-nigh constantly at war amongst
themselves, every man doing that which was right in his own eyes, and
almost every quarrel ending in an appeal to arms. Besides many battles
far inland, one was fought beside our houses and several around the
Harbor. In these conflicts many men were bruised with clubs and wounded
with arrows, but few lives were lost, considering the savage uproar and
frenzy of the scene. In one case, of which we obtained certain
information, seven men were killed in an engagement; and, according to
Tannese custom, the warriors and their friends feasted on them at the
close of the fray, the widows of the slain being also strangled to
death, and similarly disposed of. Besides those who fell in war, the
Natives living in our quarter had killed and feasted on eight persons,
usually, in sacrificial rites.

It is said that the habitual Cannibal's desire for human flesh becomes
so horrible that he has been known to disinter and feast upon those
recently buried. Two cases of this revolting barbarism were reported as
having occurred amongst the villagers living near us. On another
occasion the great chief Nouka took seriously unwell, and his people
sacrificed three women for his recovery! All such cruel and horrifying
practises, however, they tried to conceal from us; and many must have
perished in this way of whom we, though living at their doors, were
never permitted to hear.

Amongst the Heathen, in the New Hebrides, and especially on Tanna,
_woman_ is the down-trodden slave of man. She is kept working hard, and
bears all the heavier burdens, while he walks by her side with musket,
club, or spear. If she offends him, he beats or abuses her at pleasure.
A savage gave his poor wife a severe beating in front of our house and
just before our eyes, while in vain we strove to prevent it. Such scenes
were so common that no one thought of interfering. Even if the woman
died in his hands, or immediately thereafter, neighbors, took little
notice, if any at all. And their children were so little cared for, that
my constant wonder was how any of them survived at all! As soon as they
are able to knock about, they are left practically to care for
themselves; hence the very small affection they show towards their
parents, which results in the aged who are unable to work being
neglected, starved to death, and sometimes even more directly and
violently destroyed.

A Heathen boy's education consists in being taught to aim skilfully with
the bow, throw the spear faultlessly at a mark, to wield powerfully the
club and tomahawk, and to shoot well with musket and revolver when these
can be obtained. He accompanies his father and brothers in all the wars
and preparations for war, and is diligently initiated into all their
cruelties and lusts, as the very prerequisite of his being regarded and
acknowledged to be a man and a warrior. The girls have, with their
mother and sisters, to toil and slave in the village plantations, to
prepare all the materials for fencing these around, to bear every
burden, and to be knocked about at will by the men and boys.

Oh, how sad and degraded is the position of Woman where the teaching of
Christ is unknown, or disregarded though known! It is the Christ of the
Bible, it is His Spirit entering into humanity, that has lifted Woman,
and made her the helpmate and the friend of Man, not his toy or his
slave.



CHAPTER XVI.
SUPERSTITIONS AND CRUELTIES.

ABOUT the time of my dear wife's death, our brother Missionary, Mr.
Mathieson, also became exceedingly unwell. His delicate frame fast gave
way, and brought with it weakness of the mind as well; and he was
removed to Aneityum apparently in a dying condition. These sad
visitations had a bad effect on the natives, owing to their wild
superstitions about the cause of death and sickness. We had reason to
fear that they would even interfere with the precious grave, over which
we kept careful watch for a season; but God mercifully restrained them.
Unfortunately, however, one of my Aneityumese Teachers who had gone
round to Mr. Mathieson's Station took ill and died there, and this
rekindled all their prejudices. He, poor fellow, before death said, "I
shall not again return to Port Resolution, or see my dear Missi; but
tell him that I die happy, for I love Jesus much, and I am going to
Jesus!"

Hearing these things, the natives insolently demanded me to tell them
the cause of his death, and of Mr. Mathieson's trouble, and of the other
deaths. Other reasoning or explanation being to them useless, I turned
the tables, and demanded them to tell me why all this trouble and death
had overtaken us in their land, and whether they themselves were not the
cause of it all? Strange to say, this simple question turned the whole
current of their speculations. They held meeting after meeting to
discuss it for several days, and returned the message, "We do not blame
you, and you must not blame us, for causing these troubles and deaths;
but we believe that a Bushman must have got hold of a portion of
something we had eaten, and must have thrown it to the great Evil Spirit
in the volcano, thereby bringing all these troubles and curses."

Another Chief vindicated himself and others thus:--"Karapanamun, the
Aurumanu or great Evil Spirit of Tanna, whom we all fear and worship, is
causing these troubles; for he knows that if we become worshipers of
your Jehovah God, we cannot continue to fear him, or present him with
the best of everything, as our forefathers have always done; he is angry
at you and at us all."

The fear of the deaths and troubles being ascribed to them silenced
their talk against us for a season; but very little made them either
friends or foes, as the next event will too painfully show.

Nowhat, an old Chief of the highest rank from Aneityum, who spoke
Tannese and was much respected by the natives all round the south side
of Tanna, came on a visit to our island. After returning home, he became
very ill and died in a few days. The deluded Tannese, hearing of his
death, ascribed it to me and the Worship, and resolved to burn our house
and property, and either murder the whole Mission party, or compel us to
leave the island. Nowhat's brother was sent from Aneityum to talk to the
Tannese and conciliate them, but unfortunately he could not speak the
language well; and the Aneityumese Teachers felt their lives to be at
this time in such danger that they durst not accompany him as
interpreters, while I, on the other hand, did not understand his
language, nor he, mine. Within two days after landing, he had a severe
attack of ague and fever; and, though the vessel he came in remained
eight days, he was prostrated all the time, so that his well-intentioned
visit did us much harm. The Tannese became furious. This was proof
positive that we were the cause of all their sickness and death! Inland
and all along the weather side of the island, when far enough away from
us, they said that the natives were enjoying excellent health. Meeting
after meeting was held; exciting speeches were delivered; and feasts
were given, for which it was said that several women were sacrificed,
cooked and eaten,--such being the bonds by which they entered into
covenant with each other for life or death.

The inhabitants for miles around united in seeking our destruction, but
God put it into even savage hearts to save us. Old Nowar, the Chief
under whom we lived, and the Chief next under him, Arkurat, set
themselves to rescue us. Along with Manuman and Sirawia they opposed
every plan in the public assembly for taking our lives. Some of their
people also remained friendly to us, and by the help of our Aneityumese
Teachers, warned us of danger and protected our lives. Determined not to
be baffled, a meeting of all our enemies on the island was summoned, and
it was publicly resolved that a band of men be selected and enjoined to
kill the whole of those friendly to the Mission, old Nowar among the
rest, and not only to murder the Mission party, but also a trader who
had lately landed to live there, that no one might be left to give
information to the white men or bring punishment on the Islanders.
Frenzy of excitement prevailed, and the blood-fiend seemed to override
the whole assembly; when, under an impulse that surely came from the
Lord of Pity, one great warrior Chief who had hitherto kept silent,
rose, swung aloft a mighty club, and smashing it earthwards, cried
aloud, "The man that kills Missi must first kill me,--the men that kill
the Mission Teachers must first kill me and my people,--for we shall
stand by them and defend them till death."

Instantaneously, another Chief thundered in with the same declaration;
and the great assembly broke up in dismay. All the more remarkable was
this deliverance, as these two Chiefs lived nearly four miles inland,
and, as reputed disease makers and Sacred Men, were regarded as amongst
our bitterest enemies. It had happened that, a brother of the former
Chief having been wounded in battle, I had dressed his wounds and he
recovered, for which perhaps he now favored us. But I do not put very
much value on that consideration; for too clearly did our dear Lord
Jesus interpose directly on our behalf that day. I and my defenseless
company had spent it in anxious prayers and tears; and our hearts
overflowed with gratitude to the Saviour who rescued us from the lions'
jaws.

Leaving all consequences to the disposal of my Lord, I determined to
make an unflinching stand against wife-beating and widow-strangling,
feeling confident that even their natural conscience would be on my
side, I accordingly pled with all who were in power to unite and put
down these shocking and disgraceful customs. At length ten Chiefs
entered into an agreement not to allow any more beating of wives or
strangling of widows, and to forbid all common labor on the Lord's day;
but alas, except for purposes of war or other wickedness, the influence
of the Chiefs on Tanna was comparatively small. One Chief boldly
declared, "If we did not beat our women, they would never work; they
would not fear and obey us; but when we have beaten, and killed, and
feasted on two or three, the rest are all very quiet and good for a long
time to come!"

I tried to show him how cruel it was, besides that it made them unable
for work, and that kindness would have a much better effect; but he
promptly assured me that Tannese women "could not understand kindness."
For the sake of teaching by example, my Aneityumese Teachers and I used
to go a mile or two inland on the principal pathway, along with the
Teachers' wives, and there cutting and carrying home a heavy load of
firewood for myself and each of the men, while we gave only a small
burden to each of the women. Meeting many Tanna-men by the way, I used
to explain to them that this was how Christians helped and treated their
wives and sisters, and then they loved their husbands and were strong to
work at home; and that as men were made stronger, they were intended to
bear the heavier burdens, and especially in all labors out of doors. Our
habits and practises had thus as much to do as, perhaps more than, all
our appeals, in leading them to glimpses of the life to which the Lord
Jesus was calling them.



CHAPTER XVII.
STREAKS OF DAWN AMIDST DEEDS OF DARKNESS.

ANOTHER war-burst, that caused immense consternation, passed over with
only two or three deaths; and I succeeded in obtaining the consent of
twenty Chiefs to fight no more except on the defensive,--a covenant to
which, for a considerable time, they strictly adhered, in the midst of
fierce provocations. But to gain any such end, the masses of the people
must be educated to the point of desiring it. The few cannot, in such
circumstances, act up to it, without laying themselves open to be
downtrodden and swept away by the savages around.

About this time, several men, afraid or ashamed by day, came to me
regularly by night for conversation and instruction. Having seen the
doors of the Mission House made fast and the windows blinded so that
they could not be observed, they continued with me for many hours,
asking all strange questions about the new Religion and its laws. I
remember one Chief particularly, who came often, saying to me, "I would
be an Awfuaki man (_i. e._ a Christian) were it not that all the rest
would laugh at me; that I could not stand!"

"Almost persuaded"--before you blame him, remember how many in Christian
lands and amid greater privileges live and die without ever passing
beyond that stage.

The wife of one of those Chiefs died, and he resolved to imitate a
Christian burial. Having purchased white calico from a Trader, he came
to me for some tape which the Trader could not supply, and told me that
he was going to dress the body as he had seen my dear wife's dressed,
and lay her also in a similar grave. He declined my offer to attend the
funeral and to pray with them, as in that case many of the villagers
would not attend. He wanted all the people to be present, to see and to
hear, as it was the first funeral of the kind ever celebrated among the
Tannese; and my friend Nowar the Chief had promised to conduct a Service
and offer prayer to Jehovah before all the Heathen. It moved me to many
strange emotions, this Christian burial, conducted by a Heathen and in
the presence of Heathens, with an appeal to the true and living God by a
man as yet darkly groping among idols and superstitions. Many were the
wondering questions from time to time addressed to me. The idea of a
resurrection from the dead was that which most keenly interested these
Natives, and called forth all their powers of inquiry and argument. Thus
the waves of hope and fear swept alternately across our lives; but we
embraced every possible opportunity of telling them the story of the
life and death of Jesus, in the strong hope that God would spare us yet
to bring the benighted Heathen to the knowledge of the true salvation,
and to love and serve the only Saviour.

Confessedly, however, it was uphill, weary, and trying work. For one
thing, these Tannese were terribly dishonest; and when there was any
special sickness, or excitement from any cause, their bad feeling
towards the Worship was displayed by the more insolent way in which they
carried off whatever they could seize. When I opposed them, the club or
tomahawk, the musket or _kawas_ (_i. e._ killing-stone), being instantly
raised, intimated that my life would be taken, if I resisted. Their
skill in stealing on the sly was phenomenal! If an article fell, or was
seen on the floor, a Tanna-man would neatly cover it with his foot,
while looking you frankly in the face, and, having fixed it by his toes
or by bending in his great toe like a thumb to hold it, would walk off
with it, assuming the most innocent look in the world. In this way, a
knife, a pair of scissors or any smaller article, would at once
disappear. Another fellow would deftly stick something out of sight
amongst the whipcord plaits of his hair, another would conceal it
underneath his naked arm, while yet another would shamelessly lift what
he coveted and openly carry it away.

With most of them, however, the shame was not in the theft, but in doing
it so clumsily that they were discovered! Once, after continuous rain
and a hot damp atmosphere, when the sun shone out I put my bedclothes on
a rope to dry. I stood at hand watching, as also the wives of two
Teachers, for things were mysteriously disappearing almost under our
very eyes. Suddenly, Miaki, who with his war-companions had been
watching us unobserved, came rushing to me breathless and alone, crying,
"Missi, come in, quick, quick! I want to tell you something and to get
your advice!"

He ran into my house, and I followed; but before he had got into his
story, we heard the two women crying out, "Missi, Missi, come quick!
Miaki's men are Stealing your sheets and blankets!"

I ran at once, but all were gone into the bush, and them my sheets and
blankets. Miaki for a moment looked abashed, as I charged him with
deceiving me just to give his men their opportunity. But he soon rose to
the occasion. He wrought himself into a towering rage at them,
flourished his huge club and smashed the bushes all around, shouting to
me, "Thus will I smash these fellows, and compel them to return your
clothes."

One dark night, I heard them amongst my fowls. These I had purchased
from them for knives and calico; and they now stole them all away, dead
or alive. Had I interfered, they would have gloried in the chance to
club or shoot me in the dark, when no one could exactly say who had done
the deed. Several of the few goats, which I had for milk, were also
killed or driven away; indeed, all the injury that was possible was done
to me, short of taking away my life, and that was now frequently
attempted. Having no fires or fireplaces in my Mission House, such being
not required there,--though sometimes a fire would have been invaluable
for drying our bedclothes in the rainy season,--we had a house near by
in which all our food was cooked, and there, under lock and key, we
secured all our cooking utensils, pots, dishes, etc. One night that too
was broken into, and everything was stolen. In consternation, I appealed
to the Chief, telling him what had been done. He also flew into a great
rage, and vowed vengeance on the thieves, saying that he would compel
them to return everything. But, of course, nothing was returned; the
thief could not be found! I, unable to live without something in which
to boil water, at length offered a blanket to any one that would bring
back my kettle. Miaki himself, after much professed difficulty, returned
it _minus_ the lid,--that, he said, probably fishing for a higher bribe,
could not be got at any price, being at the other side of the island in
a tribe over which he had no control! In the circumstances, I was glad
to get kettle _minus_ lid--realizing how life itself may depend on so
small a luxury!



CHAPTER XVIII.
THE VISIT OF H. M. S. "CORDELIA."

ONE morning, the Tannese, rushing towards me in great excitement, cried,
"Missi, Missi, there is a God, or a ship on fire, or something of fear,
coming over the sea! We see no flames, but it smokes like a volcano. Is
it a Spirit, a God, or a ship on fire? What is it? what is it?"

One party after another followed in quick succession, shouting the same
questions in great alarm, to which I replied, "I cannot go at once; I
must dress first in my best clothes; it will likely be one of Queen
Victoria's Men-of-war, coming to ask of me if your conduct is good or
bad, if you are stealing my property, or threatening my life, or how you
are using me?"

They pled with me to go and see it; but I made much fuss about dressing,
and getting ready to meet the great Chief on the vessel, and would not
go with them. The two principal Chiefs now came running and asked,
"Missi, will it be a ship of war?"

I called to them, "I think it will; but I have no time to speak to you
now, I must get on my best clothes!"

They said, "Missi, only tell us, will he ask you if we have been
stealing your things?"

I answered, "I expect he will."

They asked, "And will you tell him?"

I said, "I must tell him the truth; if he asks, I will tell him."

They then cried out, "Oh, Missi, tell him not! Everything shall be
brought back to you at once, and no one will be allowed again to steal
from you."

Then said I, "Be quick! Everything must be returned before he comes.
Away, away! and let me get ready to meet the great Chief on the
Man-of-war."

Hitherto, no thief could ever be found, and no Chief had power to cause
anything to be restored to me; but now, in an incredibly brief space of
time, one came running to the Mission House with a pot, another with a
pan, another with a blanket, others with knives, forks, plates, and all
sorts of stolen property. The Chiefs called me to receive these things,
but I replied, "Lay them all down at the door, bring everything together
quickly; I have no time to speak with you!"

I delayed my toilet, enjoying mischievously the magical effect of an
approaching vessel that might bring penalty to thieves. At last the
Chiefs, running in breathless haste, called out to me, "Missi, Missi, do
tell us, is the stolen property all here?"

Of course I could not tell, but, running out, I looked on the
promiscuous heap of my belongings, and said, "I don't see the lid of the
kettle there yet!"

One Chief said, "No, Missi, for it is on the other side of the island;
but tell him not, I have sent for it, and it will be here to-morrow."

I answered, "I am glad you have brought back so much; and now, if you
three Chiefs, Nauka, Miaki, and Nowar, do not run away when he comes, he
will not likely punish you; but, if you and your people run away, he
will ask me why you are afraid, and I will be forced to tell him! Keep
near me and you are all safe; only there must be no more stealing from
me."

They said, "We are in black fear, but we will keep near you, and our bad
conduct to you is done."

The charm and joy of that morning are fresh to me still, when H. M. S.
_Cordelia_, Captain Vernon, steamed into our lovely Harbor. The
Commander, having heard rumor of my dangers on Tanna, kindly came on
shore as soon as the ship cast anchor, with two boats, and a number of
his officers and men, so far armed. He was dressed in splendid uniform,
being a tall and handsome man, and he and his attendants made a grand
and imposing show. On seeing Captain Vernon's boat nearing the shore,
and the men glittering in gold lace and arms, Miaki the Chief left my
side on the beach and rushed towards his village. I concluded that he
had run for it through terror, but he had other and more civilized
intentions in his Heathen head! Having obtained, from some trader or
visitor in previous days, a soldier's old red coat, he had resolved to
rise to the occasion and appear in his best before the Captain and his
men. As I was shaking hands with them and welcoming them to Tanna, Miaki
returned with the short red coat on, buttoned tightly round his
otherwise naked body; and, surmounted by his ugly painted face and long
whipcords of twisted hair, it completely spoiled any appearance that he
might otherwise have had of savage freedom, and made him look a dirty
and insignificant creature.

The Captain was talking to me, his men stood in order near by--to my
eyes, oh how charming a glimpse of Home life!--when Miaki marched up and
took his place most consequentially at my side. He felt himself the most
important personage in the scene, and with an attempt at haughty dignity
he began to survey the visitors. All eyes were fixed on the impudent
little man, and the Captain asked, "What sort of a character is this?"

I replied, "This is Miaki, our great war Chief?"; and whispered to the
Captain to be on his guard, as this man knew a little English, and might
understand or misunderstand just enough to make it afterwards dangerous
to me.

The Captain only muttered, "The contemptible creature!" But such words
were far enough beyond Miaki's vocabulary, so he looked on and grinned
complacently.

At last he said, "Missi, this great Chief whom Queen Victoria has sent
to visit you in her Man-of-war, cannot go over the whole of this island
so as to be seen by all our people; and I wish you to ask him if he will
stand by a tree, and allow me to put a spear on the ground at his heel,
and we will make a nick in it at the top of his head, and the spear will
be sent round the island to let all the people see how tall this great
man is!" They were delighted at the good Captain agreeing to their
simple request; and that spear was exhibited to thousands, as the
vessel, her Commander, officers, and men, were afterwards talked of
round and round the island.

Captain Vernon was extremely kind, and offered to do anything in his
power for me, thus left alone on the island amongst such savages; but,
as my main difficulties were connected with my spiritual work amongst
them, rousing up their cruel prejudices, I did not see his kindness
could effectually interpose. At his suggestion, however, I sent a
general invitation to all the Chiefs within reach, to meet the Captain
next morning at my house. True to their instincts of suspicion and fear,
they despatched all their women and and children to the beach on the
opposite side of the island, beyond reach of danger, and next morning my
house was crowded with armed men, manifestly much afraid. Punctually at
the hour appointed, 10 A.M., the Captain came on shore; and soon
thereafter twenty Chiefs were seated with him in my house. He very
kindly spent about an hour, giving them wise counsels and warning them
against outrages on strangers, all calculated to secure our safety and
advance the interests of our Mission work. He then invited all the
Chiefs to go on board and see his vessel. They were taken to see the
Armory, and the sight of the big guns running so easily on rails vastly
astonished them. He then placed them round us on deck and showed them
two shells discharged towards the ocean, at which, as they burst and
fell far off, splash--splashing into the water, the terror of the
Natives visibly increased. But, when he sent a large ball crashing
through a cocoanut grove, breaking the trees like straws and cutting its
way clear and swift, they were quite dumfounded and pled to be again set
safely on shore. After receiving each some small gift, however, they
were reconciled to the situation, and returned immensely interested in
all that they had seen. Doubtless many a wild romance was spun by these
savage heads, in trying to describe and hand down to others the wonders
of the fire-god of the sea, and the Captain of the great white Queen.
How easily it all lends itself to the service of poetry and myth!



CHAPTER XIX.
"NOBLE OLD ABRAHAM."

FEVER and ague had now attacked me fourteen times severely, with
slighter recurring attacks almost continuously after my first three
months on the island, and I now felt the necessity of taking the hint of
the Tannese Chief before referred to--"Sleep on the higher ground."
Having also received medical counsel to the same effect, though indeed
experience was painfully sufficient testimony, I resolved to remove my
house, and began to look about for a suitable site. There rose behind my
present site, a hill about two hundred feet high, surrounded on all
sides by a valley, and swept by the breezes of the trade-winds, being
only separated from the ocean by a narrow neck of land. On this I had
set my heart; there was room for a Mission House and a Church, for which
indeed Nature seemed to have adapted it. I proceeded to buy up every
claim by the Natives to any portion of the hill, paying each publicly
and in turn, so that there might be no trouble afterwards. I then
purchased from a Trader the deck planks of a shipwrecked vessel, with
which to construct a house of two apartments, a bedroom and a small
store-room adjoining it, to which I purposed to transfer and add the old
house as soon as I was able.

Just at this juncture, the fever smote me again more severely than ever;
my weakness after this attack was so great, that I felt as if I never
could rally again. With the help of my faithful Aneityumese Teacher,
Abraham, and his wife, however, I made what appeared my last effort to
creep--I could not climb--up the hill to get a breath of wholesome air.
When about two-thirds up the hill, I became so faint that I concluded I
was dying. Lying down on the ground, sloped against the root of a tree
to keep me from rolling to the bottom, I took farewell of old Abraham,
of my Mission work, and of everything around! In this weak state I lay,
watched over by my faithful companion, and fell into a quiet sleep. When
consciousness returned, I felt a little stronger, and a faint gleam of
hope and life came back to my soul.

Abraham and his devoted wife Nafatu lifted me and carried me to the top
of the hill. There they laid me on cocoanut leaves on the ground, and
erected over me a shade or screen of the same; and there the two
faithful souls, inspired surely by something diviner even than mere
human pity, gave me the cocoanut juice to drink and fed me with native
food and kept me living--I know not for how long. Consciousness did,
however, fully return. The trade-wind refreshed me day by day. The
Tannese seemed to have given me up for dead; and providentially none of
them looked near us for many days. Amazingly my strength returned, and I
began planning about my new house on the hill. Afraid again to sleep at
the old site, I slept under the tree, and sheltered by the cocoanut leaf
screen, while preparing my new bedroom.

Here again, but for these faithful souls, the Aneityumese Teacher and
his wife, I must have been baffled, and would have died in the effort.
The planks of the wreck, and all other articles required, they fetched
and carried; and it taxed my utmost strength to get them in some way
planted together. But life depended on it. It was at length
accomplished; and after that time I suffered comparatively little from
anything like continuous attacks of fever and ague. That noble old soul,
Abraham, stood by me as an angel of God in sickness and in danger; he
went at my side wherever I had to go; he helped me willingly to the last
inch of strength in all that I had to do; and it was perfectly manifest
that he was doing all this not from mere human love, but for the sake of
Jesus. That man had been a Cannibal in his Heathen days, but by the
grace of God there he stood verily a new creature in Christ Jesus. Any
trust, however sacred or valuable, could be absolutely reposed in him;
and in trial or danger I was often refreshed by that old Teacher's
prayers, as I used to be by the prayers of my saintly father in my
childhood's home. No white man could have been more valuable helper to
me in my perilous circumstances; and no person, white or black, could
have shown more fearless and chivalrous devotion.

When I have read or heard the shallow objections of irreligious
scribblers and talkers, hinting that there was no reality in
conversions, and that Mission effort was but waste, oh, how my heart has
yearned to plant them just one week on Tanna, with the "natural" man all
around in the person of Cannibal and Heathen, and only the one
"spiritual" man in the person of the converted Abraham, nursing them,
feeding them, saving them "for the love of Jesus"--that I might just
learn how many hours it took to convince them that Christ in man was a
reality after all! All the skepticism of Europe would hide its head in
foolish shame; and all its doubts would dissolve under one glance of the
new light that Jesus, and Jesus alone, pours from the converted
Cannibal's eye.



CHAPTER XX.
A TYPICAL SOUTH SEA TRADER.

THE prejudices and persecutions of Heathens were a sore enough trial,
but sorer and more hopeless was the wicked and contaminating influence
of, alas, my fellow-countrymen. One, for instance, a Captain Winchester,
living with a native woman at the head of the bay as a Trader, a
dissipated wretch, though a well-educated man, was angry forsooth at
this state of peace! Apparently there was not the usual demand for
barter for the fowls, pigs, etc., in which he traded. He developed at
once a wonderful interest in their affairs, presented all the Chiefs
around with powder, caps, and balls, and lent among them a number of
flash-muskets. He urged them not to be afraid of war, as he would supply
any amount of ammunition. I remonstrated, but he flatly told me that
peace did not suit his purposes. Incited and encouraged thus, these poor
Heathen people were goaded into a most unjust war on neighboring tribes.
The Trader immediately demanded a high price for the weapons he had
lent; the price of powder, caps, and balls rose exorbitantly with every
fresh demand; his yards were crowded with poultry and pigs, which he
readily disposed of to passing vessels; and he might have amassed great
sums of money but for his vile dissipations. Captain Winchester, now
glorying in the war, charged a large hog for a wine-glass full of
powder, or three or four balls, or ten gun-caps; he was boastful of his
"good luck" in getting rid of all his old muskets and filling his yards
with pigs and fowls. Such is the infernal depth to which we can sink,
when the misery and the ruin of many are thought to be more than atoned
for by the wealth and prosperity of a few who trade in their doom!

Miaki the war Chief had a young brother, Rarip by name, about eighteen
years of age. When this war began he came to live with me at the Mission
House. After it had raged some time, Miaki forced him to join the
fighting men; but he escaped through the bush, and returned to me,
saying, "Missi, I hate this fighting; it is not good to kill men; I will
live with you!"

Again the war Chief came, and forced my dear young Rarip to join the
hosts. Of course, I could only plead; I could not prevent him. This
time, he placed him at his own side in the midst of his warriors. On
coming in sight of the enemy, and hearing their first yells as they
rushed from the bush, a bullet pierced young Rarip's breast, and he fell
dead into the arms of Miaki. The body was carried home to his brother's
village, with much wailing, and a messenger ran to tell me that Rarip
was dead. On hasting thither, I found him quite dead, and the center of
a tragic ceremonial. Around him, some sitting, others lying on the
ground, were assembled all the women and girls, tearing their hair,
wounding themselves with split bamboos and broken bottles, dashing
themselves headlong to the earth, painting all black their faces,
breasts, and arms, and wailing with loud lamentations! Men were also
there, knocking their heads against the trees, gashing their bodies with
knives till they ran with streaks of blood, and indulging in every kind
of savage symbol of grief and anguish. My heart broke to see them, and
to think that they knew not to look to our dear Lord Jesus for
consolation.

I returned to the Mission House, and brought a white sheet and some
tape, in which the body of dear young Rarip was wrapped and prepared for
the grave. The Natives appeared to be gratified at this mark of respect;
and all agreed that Rarip should have, under my direction, a Christian
burial. The men prepared the grave in a spot selected near to his own
house; I read the Word of God, and offered prayer to Jehovah, with a
psalm of praise, amidst a scene of weeping and lamentation never to be
forgotten; and the thought burned through my very soul--oh, when, when
will the Tannese realize what I am now thinking and praying about, the
life and immortality brought to light through Jesus?

As the war still raged on, and many more were killed, vengeance
threatened the miserable Trader. Miaki attacked him thus, "You led us
into this war. You deceived us, and we began it. Rarip is dead, and many
others. Your life shall yet go for his."

Captain Winchester, heartless as a dog so long as pigs and fowls came to
the yard at whatever cost to others' lives, now trembled like a coward
for himself. He implored me to let him and his Mare wife sleep at my
house for safety; but I refused to allow my Mission to be in any way
identified with his crimes. The Natives from other islands, whom he kept
and wrought like slaves, he now armed with muskets for his defence; but,
having no faith in their protecting or even warning him, he implored me
to send one of my Teachers, to assist his wife in watching till he
snatched a few hours of sleep every day, and, if awake, he would sell
his life as dearly as he could by aid of musket and revolver. The
Teachers were both afraid and disinclined to go; and I could not
honestly ask them to do so. His peril and terror became so real that by
night he slept in his boat anchored out in the center of the bay, with
his arms beside him, and a crew ready to start off at the approach of
danger and lose everything; while by day he kept watch on shore, armed,
and also ready to fly. Thus his miserable existence dragged on, keeping
watch alternatively with his wife, till a trading vessel called and
carried him off with all that he had rescued--for which deliverance we
were unfeignedly thankful! The war, which he had wickedly instigated,
lingered on for three months; and then, by a present given secretly to
two leading Chiefs, I managed to bring it to a close. But feelings of
revenge for the slain burned fiercely in many breasts; and young men had
old feuds handed on to them by the recital of their fathers' deeds of
blood.



CHAPTER XXI.
UNDER AX AND MUSKET.

ABOUT this time, our Sabbath audiences at the Mission numbered forty or
so. Nowar and three or four more, and only they, seemed to love and
serve Jesus. They were, however, changeable and doubtful, though they
exerted a good influence on their villages, and were generally friendly
to us and to the Worship.

One morning at daybreak I found my house surrounded by armed men, and a
Chief intimated that they had assembled to take my life. Seeing that I
was entirely in their hands, I knelt down and gave myself away body and
soul to the Lord Jesus, for what seemed the last time on earth. Rising,
I went out to them, and began calmly talking about their unkind
treatment of me and contrasting it with all my conduct towards them. I
also plainly showed them what would be the sad consequences, if they
carried out their cruel purpose. At last some of the chiefs, who had
attended the Worship, rose and said, "Our conduct has been bad; but now
we will fight for you, and kill all those who hate you."

Grasping hold of their leader, I held him fast till he promised never to
kill any one on my account, for Jesus taught us to love our enemies and
always to return good for evil! During this scene, many of the armed
slunk away into the bush, and those who remained entered into a bond to
be friendly and to protect us. But again their Public Assembly resolved
that we should be killed, because, as they said, they hated Jehovah and
the Worship; for it made them afraid to do as they had always done. If I
would give up visiting the villages, and praying and talking with them
about Jehovah, they intimated that they would like me to stay and trade
with them, as they liked the Traders but hated the Missionaries! I told
them that the hope of being able to teach them the Worship of Jehovah
alone kept me living amongst them; that I was there, not for gain or
pleasure, but because I loved them, and pitied their estate, and sought
their good continually by leading them to know and serve the only true
God.

But my enemies seldom slackened their hateful designs against my life,
however calmed or baffled for the moment. Within a few days of the above
events, when Natives in large numbers were assembled at my house, a man
furiously rushed on me with his ax; but a Kaserumini Chief snatched a
spade with which I had been working, and dexterously defended me from
instant death. Life in such circumstances led me to cling very near to
the Lord Jesus; I knew not, for one brief hour, when or how attack might
be made; and yet, with my trembling hand clasped in the Hand once nailed
on Calvary, and now swaying the scepter of the Universe, calmness and
peace and resignation abode in my soul.

Next day, a wild Chief followed me about for four hours with his loaded
musket, and, though often directed towards me, God restrained his hand.
I spoke kindly to him, and attended to my work as if he had not been
there, fully persuaded that my God had placed me there, and would
protect me till my allotted task was finished. Looking up in unceasing
prayer to our dear Lord Jesus, I left all in His hands, and felt
immortal till my work was done. Trials and hairbreadth escapes
strengthened my faith, and seemed only to nerve me for more to follow;
and they did tread swiftly upon each other's heels. Without that abiding
consciousness of the presence and power of my dear Lord and Saviour,
nothing else in all the world could have preserved me from losing my
reason and perishing miserably. His words, "Lo, I am with you alway,
even unto the end of the world," became to me so real that it would not
have startled me to behold Him, as Stephen did, gazing down upon the
scene. I felt His supporting power, as did St. Paul, when he cried, "I
can do all things through Christ which strengthened me." It is the sober
truth, and it comes back to me sweetly after twenty years, that I had my
nearest and dearest glimpses of the face and smile of my blessed Lord in
those dread moments when musket, club, or spear was being leveled at my
life. Oh the bliss of living and enduring, as seeing "Him who is
invisible!" One evening, I awoke three times to hear a Chief and his men
trying to force the door of my house. Though armed with muskets, they
had some sense of doing wrong, and were wholesomely afraid of a little
retriever dog which had often stood betwixt me and death. God restrained
them again; and next morning the report went all round the Harbor that
those who tried to shoot me were "smitten weak with fear," and that
shooting would not do. A plan was therefore deliberately set on foot to
fire the premises, and club us if we attempted to escape. But our
Aneityumese Teacher heard of it, and God helped us to frustrate their
designs. When they knew their plots were revealed to us, they seemed to
lose faith in themselves, and cast about to circumvent us in some more
secret way, Their evil was overruled for good.



CHAPTER XXII.
A NATIVE SAINT AND MARTYR.

NAMUEI, one of my Aneityumese Teachers, was placed at our nearest
village. There he had built a house for himself and his wife, and there
he led amongst the Heathen a pure and humble Christian life. Almost
every morning he came and reported on the state of affairs to me.
Without books or a school, he yet instructed the Natives in Divine
things, conducted the worship, and taught them much by his good example.
His influence was increasing, when one morning a Sacred Man threw at him
the _kawas_ or killing-stone, a deadly weapon like a scythe stone in
shape and thickness, usually round but sometimes angular, and from
eighteen to twenty inches long. They throw it from a great distance and
with fatal precision. The Teacher, with great agility, warded his head
and received the deep cut from it in his left hand, reserving his right
hand to guard against the club that was certain to follow swiftly. The
Priest sprang upon him with his club and with savage yells. He evaded,
yet also received, many blows; and, rushing out of their hands, actually
reached the Mission House, bleeding, fainting, and pursued by howling
murderers. I had been anxiously expecting him, and hearing the noise I
ran out with all possible speed.

On seeing me, he sank down by a tree, and cried, "Missi, Missi, quick!
and escape for your life! They are coming to kill you; they say they
must kill us all to-day, and they have begun with me; for they hate
Jehovah and the Worship!"

I hastened to the good Teacher where he lay; I bound up, washed, and
dressed his wounds; and God, by the mystery of His own working, kept the
infuriated Tannese watching at bay. Gradually they began to disappear
into the bush, and we conveyed the dear Teacher to the Mission House. In
three or four weeks, he so far recovered by careful nursing that he was
able to walk about again. Some petitioned for him to return to the
village; but I insisted, as a preliminary, that the Harbor Chiefs should
unitedly punish him who had abused the Teacher; and this to test them,
for he had only carried out their own wishes,--Nowar excepted, and
perhaps one or two others. They made a pretense of atoning by presenting
the Teacher with a pig and some yams as a peace-offering; but I said,
"No! Such bad conduct must be punished, or we would leave their island
by the first opportunity."

Now that Sacred Man, a Chief too, had gone on fighting with other
tribes, till his followers had all died or been slain; and, after three
weeks' palaver, the other Chiefs seized him, tied him with a rope, and
sent me word to come and see him punished, as they did not want us after
all to leave the island. I had to go, for fear of more bloody work, and
after talk with them, followed by many fair promises, he was loosed.

All appearing friendly for some time, and willing to listen and learn,
the Teacher earnestly desired to return to his post. I pled with him to
remain at the Mission House till we felt more assured, but he replied,
"Missi, when I see them thirsting for my blood, I just see myself when
the Missionary first came to my island. I desired to murder him, as they
now desire to kill me. Had he stayed away for such danger, I would have
remained Heathen; but he came, and continued coming to teach us, till,
by the grace of God, I was changed to what I am. Now the same God that
changed me to this can change these poor Tannese to love and serve Him.
I cannot stay away from them; but I will sleep at the Mission House, and
do all I can by day to bring them to Jesus."

It was not in me to keep such a man, under such motives, from what he
felt to be his post of duty. He returned to his village work, and for
several weeks things appeared most encouraging. The inhabitants showed
growing interest in us and our work, and less fear of the pretensions of
their Heathen Priest, which, alas! fed his jealousy and anger. One
morning during worship, when the good Teacher knelt in prayer, the same
savage Priest sprang upon him with his great club and left him for dead,
wounded and bleeding and unconscious. The people fled and left him in
his blood, afraid of being mixed up with the murder. The Teacher,
recovering a little, crawled to the Mission House, and reached it about
midday in a dying condition. On seeing him, I ran to meet him, but he
fell near the Teacher's house, saying, "Missi, I am dying! They will
kill you also. Escape for your life."

Trying to console him, I sat down beside him, dressing his wounds and
nursing him. He was quite resigned; he was looking up to Jesus, and
rejoicing that he would soon be with Him in Glory. His pain and
suffering were great but he bore all very quietly, as he said and kept
saying, "For the sake of Jesus! For Jesu's sake!" He was constantly
praying for his persecutors, "O Lord Jesus, forgive them, for they know
not what they are doing. Oh, take not away all Thy servants from Tanna!
Take not away Thy Worship from this dark island! O God, bring all the
Tannese to love and follow Jesus!"

To him, Jesus was all and in all; and there were no bands in his death.
He passed from us, in the assured hope of entering into the Glory of his
Lord. Humble though he may appear in the world's esteem, I knew that a
great man had fallen there in the service of Christ, and that he would
take rank in the glorious Army of the Martyrs. I made for him a coffin,
and dug his grave near the Mission House. With prayers, and many tears,
we consigned his remains to the dust in the certainty of a happy
resurrection. Even one such convert was surely a triumphant reward for
the Missionaries, whom God had honored in bringing him to Jesus. May
they have many like Namuri for their crown of joy and rejoicing in the
great day!



CHAPTER XXIII.
BUILDING AND PRINTING FOR GOD.

FOR fully three months, all our available time, with all the native help
which I could hire, was spent in erecting a building to serve for Church
and School. It was fifty feet long, by twenty-one feet six inches broad.
The studs were three feet apart, and all fixed by tenon and mortise into
upper and lower wall plates. The beautiful roof of iron-wood and
sugar-cane leaf was supported by three massive pillars of wood, sunk
deeply into the ground. The roof extended about three feet over the wall
plates, both to form a verandah and to carry the raindrops free beyond
the walls. It was made of sugar-cane leaf and cocoanut leaves all
around. The floor was laid with white coral, broken small, and covered
with cocoanut leaf mats, such as those on which the Natives sat. Indeed,
it was as comfortable a House of Prayer as any man need wish for in the
tropics, though having only open spaces for doors and windows! I bought
the heavy wood for it on Aneityum--price, fifty pairs of trousers for
Natives; and these again were the gift of my Bible Class in Glasgow, all
cut and sewed by their own hands. I gave also one hundred and thirty
yards of cloth, along with other things, for other needful wood.

As we were preparing a foundation for the Church, a huge and
singular-looking round stone was dug up, at sight of which the Tannese
stood aghast. The eldest Chief said, "Missi, that stone was either
brought there by Karapanamun (the Evil Spirit), or hid there by our
great Chief who is dead. That is the Stone God to which our forefathers
offered human sacrifices; these holes held the blood of the victim till
drunk up by the Spirit. The Spirit of that stone eats up men and women
and drinks their blood, as our fathers taught us. We are in greatest
fear!"

A Sacred Man claimed possession, and was exceedingly desirous to carry
it off; but I managed to keep it, and did everything in my power to show
them the absurdity of these foolish notions. Idolatry had not indeed yet
fallen throughout Tanna; but one cruel idol, at least, had to give way
for the erection of God's House on that benighted land.

An ever-memorable event was the printing of my first book in Tannese.
Thomas Binnie, Jun., Glasgow, gave me a printing-press and a font of
type. Printing was one of the things I had never tried, but having now
prepared a booklet in Tannese, I got my printing press into order, and
began fingering the type. But book-printing turned out to be for me a
much more difficult affair than house-building had been. Yet by dogged
perseverance I succeeded at last. My biggest difficulty was how to
arrange the pages properly! After many failures, I folded a piece of
paper into the number of leaves wanted, cut the corners, folding them
back, and numbering as they would be when correctly placed in the book;
then folding all back without cutting up the sheet, I found now by these
numbers how to arrange the pages in the frame or case for printing, as
indicated on each side. And do you think me foolish, when I confess that
I shouted in an ecstasy of joy when the first sheet came from the press
all correct? It was about one o'clock in the morning. I was the only
white man then on the island, and all the Natives had been fast asleep
for hours! Yet I literally pitched my hat into the air, and danced like
a schoolboy round and round that printing-press; till I began to think,
Am I losing my reason? Would it not be like a Missionary to be upon my
knees, adoring God for this first portion of His blessed Word ever
printed in this new language? Friend, bear with me, and believe me--that
was as true worship as ever was David's dancing before the Ark of his
God! Nor think that I did not, over that first sheet of God's Word ever
printed in the Tannese tongue, go upon my knees too, and then, and every
day since, plead with the mighty Lord to carry the light and joy of His
own Holy Bible into every dark heart and benighted home on Tanna!

Yet dangers darkened round me. One day, while toiling away at my house,
the war Chief and his brother, and a large party of armed men,
surrounded the plot where I was working. They all had muskets, besides
their own native weapons. They watched me for some time in silence, and
then every man leveled a musket straight at my head. Escape was
impossible. Speech would only have increased my danger. My eyesight came
and went for a few moments. I prayed to my Lord Jesus, either Himself to
protect me or to take me home to His Glory. I tried to keep working on
at my task, as if no one was near me. In that moment, as never before,
the words came to me--"Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, I will do
it;" and I knew that I was safe. Retiring a little from their first
position, no word having been spoken, they took up the same attitude
somewhat farther off, and seemed to be urging one another to fire the
first shot. But my dear Lord restrained them once again, and they
withdrew, leaving me with a new reason for trusting Him with all that
concerned me for Time and Eternity.



CHAPTER XXIV.
HEATHEN DANCE AND SHAM FIGHT.

THE Chief, Nowar Noukamara, usually known as Nowar, was my best and
most-to-be-trusted friend. He influenced the Harbor Chiefs and their
people for eight or ten miles around to get up a great feast in favor of
the Worship of Jehovah. All were personally and specially invited, and
it was the largest Assembly of any kind that I ever witnessed on the
Islands.

When all was ready, Nowar sent a party of Chiefs to escort me and my
Aneityumese Teachers to the feast. Fourteen Chiefs, in turn, made
speeches to the assembled multitude; the drift of all being, that war
and fighting be given up on Tanna,--that no more people be killed by
Nahak, for witchcraft and sorcery were lies,--that Sacred Men no longer
profess to make wind and rain, famine and plenty, disease and
death,--that the dark Heathen talk of Tanna should cease,--that all here
present should adopt the Worship of Jehovah as taught to them by the
Missionary and the Aneityumese,--and that all the banished Tribes should
be invited to their own lands to live in peace! These strange speeches
did not draw forth a single opposing voice. The Tannese are born
talkers, and can and will speechify on all occasions; but most of it
means nothing, bears no fruit.

After these speeches, a scene followed which gradually assumed shape as
an idolatrous ceremonial and greatly horrified me. It was in connection
with the immense quantity of food that had been prepared for the feast,
especially pigs and fowls. A great heap had been piled up for each Tribe
represented, and a handsome portion also set apart for the Missionary
and his Teachers. The ceremony was this, as nearly as I could follow it.
One hundred or so of the leading men marched into the large clear space
in the center of the assembled multitudes, and stood there facing each
other in equal lines, with a man at either end closing up the passage
between. At the middle they stood eight or ten feet apart, gradually
nearing till they almost met at either end. Amid tremendous silence for
a few moments, all stood hushed; then every man kneeled on his right
knee, extended his right hand, and bent forward till his face nearly
touched the ground. Thereon the man at the one end began muttering
something, his voice rising ever louder as he rose to his feet, when it
ended in a fearful yell as he stood erect. Next the two long lines of
men, all in a body, went through the same ceremonial, rising gradually
to their feet, with mutterings deepening into a howl, and heightening
into a yell stood erect. Finally, the man at the other end went through
the same hideous forms. All this was thrice deliberately repeated, each
time with growing frenzy. And then, all standing on their feet, they
united as with one voice in what sounded like music running mad up and
down the scale--closing with a long, deep-toned, hollow howl as of souls
in pain. With smiles of joy, the men then all shook hands with each
other. Nowar and another Chief briefly spoke; and the food was then
divided and exchanged, a principal man of each Tribe standing by to
receive and watch his portion.

At this stage, Nowar and Nerwangi, as leaders, addressed the Teachers
and the Missionary to this effect; "This feast is held to move all the
Chiefs and People here to give up fighting, to become friends, and to
worship your Jehovah God. We wish you to remain, and to teach us all
good conduct. As an evidence of our sincerity, and of our love, we have
prepared this pile of food for you."

In reply, I addressed the whole multitude, saying how pleased I was with
their speeches and with the resolutions and promises which they all had
made. I further urged them to stick fast by these, and that grand fruits
would arise to their island, to themselves, and to their children.

Having finished a brief address, I then walked forward to the very
middle of the circle, and laid down before them a bundle of stripes of
red calico and pieces of white calico, a number of fish-hooks, knives,
etc., etc., requesting the two Chiefs to divide my offering of goodwill
among the Tribes assembled, and also the pile of food presented to us,
as a token of my love and friendship to them all.

Not without some doubt, and under considerable trial, did I take this
apparently unfriendly attitude of refusing to take their food. But I
feared to seem even to approve of any act of devil-worship, or to
confirm them in it, being there to discourage all such scenes, and to
lead them to acknowledge only the true God. Yet all the time I felt this
qualm,--that it might have been better to eat food with men who
acknowledged some God and asked his blessing, than with those white
Heathens at home, who asked the blessing of no God, nor thanked Him--in
this worse than the dog which licks the hand that feeds it! Nowar and
Nerwangi explained in great orations what I meant, and how I wished all
to be divided amongst the assembled Tribes to show my love. With this,
all seemed highly satisfied.

Heathen dances were now entered upon, their paint and feathers and
ornaments adding to the wildness of the scene. The men seemed to dance
in an inside ring, and the women in an outside ring, at a considerable
distance from each other. Music was supplied by singing and clapping of
hands. The order was perfect, and the figures highly intricate. But I
have never been able to associate dancing with things lovely and of good
report! After the dancing, all retired to the bush; and a kind of sham
fight then followed on the public cleared ground. A host of painted
savages rushed in and took possession with songs and shoutings. From the
bush, on the opposite side, the chanting of women was heard in the
distance, louder and louder as they approached. Snatching from a burning
fire flaming sticks, they rushed on the men with these, beating them and
throwing burning pieces of wood among them, till with deafening yells
amongst themselves and amidst shouts of laughter from the crowd, they
drove them from the space, and danced thereon and sang a song of
victory. The dancing and fighting, the naked painted figures, and the
constant yells and shoutings gave one a weird sensation, and suggested
strange ideas of Hell broken loose.

The final scene approached, when the men assisted their women to fill
all the allotted food into baskets to be carried home and eaten there;
for the different Tribes do not sit down together and eat together as we
would do; their coming together is for the purpose of exchanging and
dividing the food presented. And now they broke into friendly confusion,
and freely walked about mingling with each other; and a kind of savage
rehearsal of Jonathan and David took place. They stripped themselves of
their fantastic dresses, their handsomely woven and twisted grass
skirts, leaf skirts, grass and leaf aprons; they gave away or exchanged
all these, and their ornaments and bows and arrows, besides their less
romantic calico and print dresses more recently acquired. The effusion
and ceremonial of the gifts and exchanges seem to betoken a loving
people; and so they were for the feast--but that laid not aside a single
deadly feud, and streams of blood and cries of hate would soon efface
all traces of this day.



CHAPTER XXV.
CANNIBALS AT WORK.

EARLY one morning, the savage yells of warring Tribes woke me from
sleep. They had broken into a quarrel about a woman, and were fiercely
engaged with their clubs. According to my custom, I rushed in amongst
them, and, not without much difficulty, was blessed in separating them
before deadly wounds had been given or received. On this occasion, the
Chiefs of both Tribes, being very friendly to me, drove their people
back from each other at my earnest appeals. Sitting down at length
within earshot, they had it out in a wild scolding match, a contest of
lung and tongue. Meanwhile I rested on a canoe midway betwixt them, in
the hope of averting a renewal of hostilities. By and by an old Sacred
Man, a Chief, called Sapa, with some touch of savage comedy in his
breast, volunteered an episode which restored good humor to the scene.
Leaping up, he came dancing and singing towards me, and there, to the
amusement of all, reenacted the quarrel, and mimicked rather cleverly my
attempt at separating the combatants. Smashing at the canoe with his
club, he yelled and knocked down imaginary enemies; then, rushing first
at one party and then at the other, he represented me as appealing and
gesticulating and pushing them afar from each other, till he became
quite exhausted. Thereon he came and planted himself in great glee
beside me, and looked around as if to say, "You must laugh, for I have
played." At this very juncture, a loud cry of "Sail O" broke upon our
ears, and all parties leapt to their feet, and prepared for a new
sensation; for in those climes, everything--war itself--is a smaller
interest than a vessel from the Great Unknown Beyond sailing into your
Harbor.

Not many days thereafter, a very horrible transaction occurred. Before
daybreak, I heard shot after shot quickly discharged in the Harbor. One
of my Teachers came running, and cried, "Missi, six or seven men have
been shot dead this morning for a great feast. It is to reconcile Tribes
that have been at war, and to allow a banished Tribe to return in
peace."

I learned that the leading men had in council agreed upon this
sacrifice, but the name of each victim was kept a secret till the last
moment. The torture of suspense and uncertainty seemed to be borne by
all as part of their appointed lot; nor did they prepare as if
suspecting any dread assault. Before daylight, the Sacred Men allocated
a murderer to the door of each house where a victim slept. A signal shot
was fired; all rushed to their doors, and the doomed ones were shot and
clubbed to death, as they attempted to escape. Their bodies were then
borne to a sacred tree, and hung up there by the hands for a time as an
offering to the gods. Being taken down, they were carried ceremoniously
and laid out on the shore near my house, placed under a special guard.

Information had reached me that my Teachers and I were also destined
victims for this same feast; and sure enough we espied a band of armed
men, the killers, despatched towards our premises. Instantaneously I had
the Teachers and their wives and myself securely locked into the Mission
House; and, cut off from all human hope, we set ourselves to pray to our
dear Lord Jesus, either Himself to protect us or to take us to His
glory. All through that morning and forenoon we heard them
tramp-tramping round our house, whispering to each other, and hovering
near window and door. They knew that there were a double-barreled
fowling-piece and a revolver on the premises, though they never had seen
me use them, and that may, under God, have held them back in dread. But
the thought of using them did not enter our souls even in that awful
time. I had gone to save, and not to destroy. It would be easier for me
at any time to die, than to kill one of them. Our safety lay in our
appeal to that blessed Lord who had placed us there, and to whom all
power had been given in Heaven and on Earth. He that was with us was
more than all that could be against us. This is strength;--this is
peace:--to feel, in entering on every day, that all its duties and
trials have been committed to the Lord Jesus,--that, come what may, He
will use us for His glory and our own real good!

All through that dreadful morning, and far into the afternoon, we thus
abode together, feeling conscious that we were united to this dear Lord
Jesus; and we had sweet communion with Him, meditating on the wonders of
His person and the hopes and glories of His kingdom. Oh, that all my
readers may learn something of this in their own experience of the Lord!
I can wish them nothing more precious. Towards sundown, constrained by
the Invisible One, they withdrew from our Mission House, and left us
once more in peace. They bore away the slain to be cooked, and
distributed amongst the Tribes, and eaten in their feast of
reconciliation; a covenant sealed in blood, and soon, alas, to be buried
in blood again! For many days thereafter we had to take unusual care,
and not unduly expose ourselves to danger; for dark characters were seen
prowling about in the bush near at hand, and we knew that our life was
the prize. We took what care we could, and God the Lord did the rest; or
rather He did all--for His wisdom guided us, and His power baffled them.



CHAPTER XXVI.
THE DEFYING OF NAHAK.

SHORTLY thereafter war was again declared, by the Inland people
attacking our Harbor people. It was an old quarrel; and the war was
renewed and continued, long after the cause thereof had passed away.
Going amongst them every day, I did my utmost to stop hostilities,
setting the evils of war before them, and pleading with the leading men
to renounce it. Thereon arose a characteristic incident of Island and
Heathen life. One day I held a Service in the village where morning
after morning their Tribes assembled, and declared that if they would
believe in and follow the Jehovah God, He would deliver them from all
their enemies and lead them into a happy life. There were present three
Sacred Men, Chiefs, of whom the whole population lived in
terror--brothers or cousins, heroes of traditional feats, professors of
sorcery, and claiming the power of life and death, health and sickness,
rain and drought, according to their will. On hearing me, these three
stood up and declared they did not believe in Jehovah, nor did they need
His help; for they had the power to kill my life by Nahak (_i.e._
sorcery or witchcraft), if only they could get possession of any piece
of the fruit or food that I had eaten. This was an essential condition
of their black art; hence the peel of a banana or an orange, and every
broken scrap of food, is gathered up by the Natives, lest it should fall
into the hands of the Sacred Men, and be used for Nahak. This
superstition was the cause of most of the bloodshed and terror upon
Tanna; and being thus challenged, I asked God's help, and determined to
strike a blow against it.

A woman was standing near with a bunch of native fruit in her hand, like
our plums, called quonquore. I asked her to be pleased to give me some;
and she, holding out a bunch, said, "Take freely what you will!"

Calling the attention of all the Assembly to what I was doing, I took
three fruits from the bunch, and taking a bite out of each, I gave them
one after another to the three Sacred Men, and deliberately said in the
hearing of all, "You have seen me eat of this fruit, you have seen me
give the remainder to your Sacred Men; they have said they can kill me
by Nahak, but I challenge them to do it if they can, without arrow or
spear, club or musket; for I deny that they have any power against me,
or against any one, by their Sorcery."

The challenge was accepted; the Natives looked terror-struck at the
position in which I was placed! The ceremony of Nahak was usually
performed in secret,--the Tannese fleeing in dread, as Europeans would
from the touch of the plague; but I lingered and eagerly watched their
ritual. As the three Chiefs arose, and drew near to one of the Sacred
Trees, to begin their ceremonial, the Natives fled in terror, crying,
"Missi, Iawé? Alas, Missi!"

But I held on at my post of observation. Amidst wavings and
incantations, they rolled up the pieces of the fruit from which I had
eaten, in certain leaves of this Sacred Tree, into a shape like a waxen
candle; then they kindled a sacred fire near the root, and continued
their mutterings, gradually burning a little more and a little more of
the candle-shaped things, wheeling them round their heads, blowing upon
them with their breaths, waving them in the air, and glancing wildly at
me as if expecting my sudden destruction. Wondering whether after all
they did not believe their own lie, for they seemed to be in dead
earnest, I, more eager than ever to break the chains of such vile
superstition, urged them again and again, crying, "Be quick! Stir up
your gods to help you! I am not killed yet; I am perfectly well!"

At last they stood up and said, "We must delay till we have called all
our Sacred Men. We will kill Missi before his next Sabbath comes round.
Let all watch, for he will soon die and that without fail."

I replied, "Very good! I challenge all your Priests to unite and kill me
by Sorcery or Nahak. If on Sabbath next I come again to your village in
health, you will all admit that your gods have no power over me, and
that I am protected by the true and living Jehovah God!"

Every day throughout the remainder of that week the Conchs were sounded;
and over that side of the island all their Sacred Men were at work
trying to kill me by their arts. Now and again messengers arrived from
every quarter of the island, inquiring anxiously after my health, and
wondering if I was not feeling sick, and great excitement prevailed
amongst the poor deluded idolaters.

Sabbath dawned upon me peacefully, and I went to that village in more
than my usual health and strength. Large numbers assembled, and when I
appeared they looked at each other in terror, as if it could not really
be I myself still spared and well. Entering into the public ground, I
saluted them to this effect, "My love to you all, my friends! I have
come again to talk to you about the Jehovah God and His Worship."

The three Sacred Men, on being asked, admitted that they had tried to
kill me by Nahak, but had failed; and on being questioned, why they had
failed; they gave the acute and subtle reply, that I also was myself a
Sacred Man, and that my God being the stronger had protected me from
their gods. Addressing the multitude, I answered thus, "Yea, truly; my
Jehovah God is stronger than your gods. He protected me, and helped me;
for He is the only living and true God, the only God that can hear or
answer any prayer from the children of men. Your gods cannot hear
prayer, but my God can and will hear and answer you, if you will give
heart and life to Him, and love and serve Him only. This is my God, and
He is also your friend if you will hear and follow His voice."

Having said this, I sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and
addressed them, "Come and sit down all around me, and I will talk to you
about the love and mercy of my God, and teach you how to worship and
please Him."

Two of the Sacred Men then sat down, and all the people gathered round
and seated themselves very quietly. I tried to present to them ideas of
sin, and of salvation through Jesus Christ, as revealed to us in the
Holy Scriptures.

The third Sacred Man, the highest in rank, a man of great stature and
uncommon strength, had meantime gone off for his warrior's spear, and
returned brandishing it in the air and poising it at me. I said to the
people, "Of course he can kill me with his spear, but he undertook to
kill me by Nahak or Sorcery, and promised not to use against me any
weapons of war; and if you let him kill me now, you will kill your
friend, one who lives among you and only tries to do you good, as you
all know so well. I know that if you kill me thus, my God will be angry
and will punish you."

Thereon I seated myself calmly in the midst of the crowd, while he
leaped about in rage, scolding his brothers and all who were present for
listening to me. The other Sacred Men, however, took my side, and, as
many of the people also were friendly to me and stood closely packed
around me, he did not throw his spear. To allay the tumult and obviate
further bloodshed, I offered to leave with my Teachers at once, and, in
doing so, I ardently pled with them to live at peace. Though we got
safely home, that old Sacred Man seemed still to hunger after my blood.
For weeks thereafter, go where I would, he would suddenly appear on the
path behind me, poising in his right hand that same Goliath spear. God
only kept it from being thrown, and I, using every lawful precaution,
had all the same to attend to my work, as if no enemy were there,
leaving all other results in the hands of Jesus. This whole incident
did, doubtless, shake the prejudices of many as to Sorcery; but few even
of converted Natives ever get entirely clear of the dread of Nahak.



CHAPTER XXVII.
A PERILOUS PILGRIMAGE.

THE other Mission Station, on the southwest side of Tanna, had to be
visited by me from time to time. Mr. and Mrs. Mathieson, there, were
both in a weak state of health, having a tendency to consumption. On
this account they visited Aneityum several times. They were earnestly
devoted to their work, and were successful as far as health and the time
allowed to them permitted. At this juncture, a message reached me that
they were without European food, and a request to send them a little
flour if possible. The war made the journey overland impossible. A
strong wind and a high sea round the coast rendered it impracticable for
my boat to go. The danger to life from the enemy was so great that I
could not hire a crew. I pled therefore with Nowar and Manuman, and a
few leading men, to take one of their best canoes, and themselves to
accompany me. I had a large flat-bottomed pot with a close fitting lid,
and that I pressed full of flour; and, tying the lid firmly down, I
fastened it right in the center of the canoe, and as far above
water-mark as possible. All else that was required we tied around our
own persons. Sea and land being as they were, it was a perilous
undertaking, which only dire necessity could have justified. They were
all swimmers, but as I could not swim, the strongest man was placed
behind me, to seize me and swim ashore, if a crash came.

Creeping round near the shore all the way, we had to keep just outside
the great breakers on the coral reef, and were all drenched through and
through with the foam of an angry surf. We arrived, however, in safety
within two miles of our destination, where lived the friends of my
canoe's company, but where a very dangerous sea was breaking on the
reef. Here they all gave in, and protested that no further could they
go; and truly their toil all the way with the paddles had been severe. I
appealed to them, that the canoe would for certain be smashed if they
tried to get on shore, that the provisions would be lost, and some of us
probably drowned. But they turned to the shore, and remained for some
time thus, watching the sea. At last their Captain cried, "Missi, hold
on! There's a smaller wave coming; we'll ride in now."

My heart rose to the Lord in trembling prayer! The wave came rolling on;
every paddle with all their united strength struck into the sea; and
next moment our canoe was flying like a sea-gull on the crest of the
wave towards the shore. Another instant, and the wave had broken on the
reef with a mighty roar, and rushed passed us hissing in clouds of foam.
My company were next seen swimming wildly about in the sea, Manuman the
one-eyed Sacred Man alone holding on by the canoe, nearly full of water,
with me still clinging to the seat of it, and the very next wave likely
to devour us. In desperation, I sprang for the reef, and ran for a man
half-wading, half-swimming to reach us; and God so ordered it, that just
as the next wave broke against the silvery rock of coral, the man caught
me and partly swam with me through its surf, partly carried me till I
was set safely ashore. Praising God, I looked up and saw all the others
as safe as myself, except Manuman, my friend, who was still holding on
by the canoe in the face of wind and sea, and bringing it with him.
Others ran and swam to his help. The paddles were picked up amid the
surf. A powerful fellow came towards me with the pot of flour on his
head, uninjured by water! The Chief who held on by the canoe got
severely cut about the feet, and had been badly bruised and knocked
about; but all the rest escaped without further harm, and everything
that we had was saved. Amongst friends at last, they resolved to await a
favorable wind and tide to return to their own homes. Singing in my
heart unto God, I hired a man to carry the pot of flour, and soon
arrived at the Mission Station.

Supplying the wants of our dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. Mathieson, whom we
found as well as could be expected, we had to prepare, after a few hours
of rest, to return to our own Station by walking overland through the
night. I durst not remain longer away, lest my own house should be
plundered and broken into. Though weak in health, my fellow-Missionaries
were both full of hope, and zealous in their work, and this somewhat
strange visit was a pleasant blink amidst our darkness. Before I had
gone far on my return journey, the sun went down, and no Native could be
hired to accompany me. They all told me that I would for certain be
killed by the way. But I knew that it would be quite dark before I
reached the hostile districts, and that the Heathen are great cowards in
the dark and never leave their villages at night in the darkness, except
in companies for fishing and suchlike tasks. I skirted along the
sea-shore as fast as I could, walking and running alternately; and, when
I got within hearing of voices, I slunk back into the bush till they had
safely passed, and then groped my way back near the shore, that being my
only guide to find a path.

Having made half the journey, I came to a dangerous path, almost
perpendicular, up a great rock round the base of which the sea roared
deep. With my heart lifted up to Jesus, I succeeded in climbing it,
cautiously grasping roots, and resting by bushes, till I safely reached
the top. There, to avoid a village, I had to keep crawling slowly along
the brush near the sea, on the top of that great ledge of rock--a feat I
could never have accomplished even in daylight without the excitement;
but I felt that I was supported and guided in all that life-or-death
journey by my dear Lord Jesus. I had to leave the shore, and follow up
the bank of a very deep ravine to a place shallow enough for one to
cross, and then through the bush away for the shore again. By holding
too much to the right, I missed the point where I had intended to reach
it. Small fires were now visible through the bush; I heard the voices of
the people talking in one of our most Heathen villages.

Quietly drawing back, I now knew where I was, and easily found my way
towards the shore; but on reaching the Great Rock, I could not in the
darkness find the path down again. I groped about till I was tired. I
feared that I might stumble over and be killed; or, if I delayed till
daylight, that the savages would kill me. I knew that one part of the
rock was steep-sloping, with little growth or none thereon, and I
searched about to find it, resolved to commend myself to Jesus and slide
down thereby, that I might again reach the shore and escape for my life.
Thinking I had found this spot, I hurled down several stones and
listened for their splash that I might judge whether it would be safe.
But the distance was too far for me to hear or judge. At high tide the
sea there was deep; but at low tide I could wade out of it and be safe.
The darkness made it impossible for me to see anything. I let go my
umbrella, shoving it down with considerable force, but neither did it
send me back any news.

Feeling sure, however, that this was the place I sought, and knowing
that to await the daylight would be certain death, I prayed to my Lord
Jesus for help and protection, and resolved to let myself go. First, I
fastened all my clothes as tightly as I could, so as not to catch on
anything; then I lay down at the top on my back, feet foremost, holding
my head downwards on my breast to keep it from striking on the rock;
then, after one cry to my Saviour, having let myself down as far as
possible by a branch, I at last let go, throwing my arms forward and
trying to keep my feet well up. A giddy swirl, as if flying through the
air, took possession of me; a few moments seemed an age; I rushed
quickly down, and felt no obstruction till my feet struck into the sea
below. Adoring and praising my dear Lord Jesus, who had ordered it so, I
regained my feet; it was low tide, I had received no injury, I recovered
my umbrella, and, wading through, I found the shore path easier and
lighter than the bush had been. The vary darkness was my safety,
preventing the Natives from rambling about. I saw no person to speak to,
till I reached a village quite near to my own house, fifteen or twenty
miles from where I had started; I here left the sea path and promised
some young men a gift of fish-hooks to guide me the nearest way through
the bush to my Mission Station, which they gladly and heartily did. I
ran a narrow risk in approaching them; they thought me an enemy, and I
arrested their muskets only by a loud cry--

"I am Missi! Don't shoot; my love to you, my friends!"

Praising God for His preserving care, I reached home, and had a long
refreshing sleep. The natives, on hearing next day how I had come all
the way in the dark exclaimed--

"Surely any of us would have been killed! Your Jehovah God alone thus
protects you and brings you safely home."

With all my heart, I said, "Yes! and He will be your protector and
helper too, if only you will obey and trust in Him."

Certainly that night put my faith to the test. Had it not been the
assurance tha

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