CHAPTER XV.
THE CHILDREN'S CHAPTER.
In 1861 we again returned to our Eastern home, leaving our three children behind, and taking only our baby girl for companion. What a difference it makes in India, to "leave the children behind!"—a common fate indeed for parents, but not the less to be deplored. We used to think and speak of Sarawak as home until 1861; but ever after, we spoke of going home to our children, for where the treasure is there must the heart be also. To do the work so that the time might pass quickly and peacefully, to live upon the mails from England, to carry on two lives as it were, one in the present, the other in the pictures our English letters presented—such at any rate was my fate, though my husband was too true a missionary to feel as I did.
Most of our old Sarawak friends had either died or gone away when we returned in '61, but the mission grew more and more interesting as Christian Churches sprang up on the Dyak rivers. Four new missionaries came out soon after our arrival. Mr. and Mrs. Abè, Mr. Zehnder, Mr. Mesney, and Mr. Crossland, the two latter from St. Augustine's College, Canterbury, from whence had formerly come those two good men, Mr. Chalmers and Mr. Glover. They had both gone to Australia on account of their health, but the teaching of Mr. Chalmers had left its mark among the land Dyaks of Murdang and the Quop, so that Mr. Abè, who was afterwards placed on that station, reaped the harvest which had been sown with many prayers two years before. Mr. Mesney succeeded Mr. Glover at Banting, and its many branch missions; and Mr. Crossland went farther off, to the Dyaks, on the Undop, where he eventually built a church and gathered a little flock of Christians about him. Mr. Richardson came as catechist about the same time, and after staying a short time at Lundu, built himself a house among the Selaku Dyaks at Sedemac, in the country towards Sambas. He was much beloved by those simple people, who speak quite a different language to the Lundus. They exerted themselves to build their own church of substantial balean-wood, and their women learnt to pray as well as the men. "To learn to pray" is the Dyak description of a Christian. "What will you do," asked a missionary, "to bring those around you to Christ?" "I will teach them to pray," was the answer. And surely this is the great distinction between the Christian and the heathen—the one has communion with his Father in heaven, an all-powerful, wise, and loving Friend; the other may cherish some vague belief and worship of an unknown God, but has neither love nor trust to carry him above this world's troubles and trials.
Another baby was added to our family in May, 1862, whose mother died at her birth. This little one stayed with us only seventeen months, and was a great happiness to me; then Sir James Brooke took her to England. However, it was a pleasant chapter as long as it lasted.
Julia, one of our original school-girls, became very useful to me at this time. We had taken her home with us in '59, and sent her to a training-school for teachers in Dublin, so that she was quite competent on our return to take the management of the girls' school. We had eight girls in the house, and a few day-scholars from the town. Lessons used to go on in a room on the basement, where of course I was superintendent, and they learnt sewing in the afternoon. Julia was a very gentle mistress, and I was feeling very happy about my girls, when I found to my sorrow that Julia had an admirer, and I must make up my mind to part with my child who had lived with us since she was four years old. Such natural events must not be considered trials, but the difficulty of replacing her was insuperable. I was obliged at last to send my girls to Mrs. Abè, at the Quop Station, for I was too often away in the mission-boat with the Bishop to keep them at the mission-house. This was not until 1865, however. Poor Mildred felt parting with "her girls," as she called them, very much, and often said, "Mamma, if Sarah and Fanny might come back we would never, never quarrel any more." Are not such pricks of conscience common to us all when our dear ones leave us? But the past never returns!
In 1863, the Bishop built a charming little yawl for mission work. The Fanny was just suited, from her light draught of water, to cross the bars of the rivers, and she was a very good sea-boat too. Not only was she wanted to take the Bishop on his missionary, tours, but she brought the missionaries to Sarawak when, they came for ordinations, or the annual synod; also when they were sick, and required medical aid or change. Very few clergymen know much about the management of boats, and native crafts are very unsafe, so that until the Bishop had a yacht many accidents used to occur, not actually dangerous, for the natives swim like fishes, but drenchings and loss of goods from the upsetting of boats. In the north-east monsoon Fanny was thatched over and laid snugly up a creek, but all the south-west monsoon she was very useful; and no one wanted to travel about, if they could help it, during the wet tempestuous weather which prevailed from November to March.
The Bishop paid his annual visit to Labuan in any steamer which happened to be going. We had the great advantage of frequent visits from an English gunboat, for the admiral of the Chinese seas had orders from England to tell off one gun-boat for the two stations of Labuan and Sarawak. This arose from our being also blest with the presence of an English consul. But after he and his wife had remained two years at Sarawak, they were heartily tired of the dulness of their lives, and did their best to get removed to a more stirring station. However, the recognition of England gave confidence to native traders and security to the well disposed, so that there ensued a time of peace such as we had not experienced during our former sojourns in the country.
