Lechworthy’s project for a pamphlet dealing with mission work in the South Seas had never been of a very ambitious character. It was to be nothing more than the notes of a passing traveller, with no intention of comprehensiveness or finality, designed only to awaken more interest in the missions. Very rarely did Lechworthy lay aside any work that he had projected and actually begun; persistence and self-reliance had been the distinguishing notes of his commercial career. But now he gathered together the memoranda that he had already made, wrapped them in a big envelope, endorsed it and sealed it.
“Hilda,” he said, “you remember an idea I had of writing something about the missionary work, you know—I’ve given that up.”
“Yes,” said Hilda, who understood him well, “I suppose so. There’s a good deal else, isn’t there?”
Lechworthy’s mind had always been far less constricted than his opponents had supposed, and he was beginning now to adjust himself to the new ideas and facts that had lately come within his experience. Some change of view had been dawning upon him before he ever reached Faloo. His belief in Christianity as expounded by the evangelical section of the Church of England remained unshaken, the main pillar of his life as it had ever been. He still felt the encouragement of missionary enterprise to be part of his religious duty. But he had seen things, and he had lost faith in some of the faithful.
He had found quite good men making hypocrites and calling them native converts, and had regretted that the wisdom of the serpent is so seldom joined to the harmlessness of the dove. He had found that the teaching of Christianity had involved too often the teaching of much which was worthless in European civilisation and positively dangerous when transported to these islands. With many illustrations the King had made that clear to him. He had found, too, that much good work was being done by men whom he regarded as lost heretics and spoke of as “Romans.” To write the truth as he had found it might do harm. And here, in this remote island, out of the political and commercial atmosphere that had sometimes distorted his vision, and far from the petty wars of sects, specious misrepresentation refused to be called by any prettier name. Hilda herself would not have shrunk from it with more acute disgust.
Accustomed as he was to regard all that happened to him as specially ordained by Providence, he meekly submitted to the change in his plans which it seemed to him that Providence had directed. The work which he had designed had been taken out of his hands; it might be that some vainglorious thoughts had mingled with that design. And other work had been given him. He regarded it as no blind chance which had brought him to Faloo, had saved him from Bassett’s revolver and Hilda from the island fever, and had put him into the hands of this strange native king, with his scheme for making of his own little island a refuge for some remnant of his race against the devastating inroad of an unsuitable civilisation.
In his new work Lechworthy was yoked with an unbeliever, or at least with one who doubted. The King made no profession of Christianity. With the fundamental facts of Christianity he was already acquainted, and for a philosophical discussion of them he was always ready. He professed a general toleration and a readiness to be convinced by events. But he left Lechworthy with no more than a conviction of his honesty and a hope for his future.
“You see,” said the King, one evening, “we are very good and mild people here, and we wish to please. On some islands they fight very often, and they eat man. But my people are gentle, unless they are greatly hurt, and so also am I. You, too, I specially wish to please, and a little lie is easy and costs nothing. But suppose you find me out, what then? Would you be pleased?”
“I should not, sir,” said Lechworthy. “I should resent it. In fact, it would make it impossible for us to work together.”
“All right. Very good. That is what I thought. So I do not say I think just the same as you and repeat pieces of your sacred books. It would be pleasant but untrue. So when I say something else that may please you, then you can believe me. You go to get me British protection, to shut out the white men, to leave Faloo for its own people. But you want Protestant religion. I say that shall be. In return I give this Protestant religion a very good chance. I bring in the best native converts I find, and they shall teach the religion. Not boots, and square-face, and English weights and measures, but just the religion. And I build a fine church all correct. If I do not do all I have said, then I am a liar and you may take the British protection away from us again.”