My companion Missionary, Mr. Copeland, had to go to Aneityum and take charge of Dr. Inglis’s Station, during the absence of that distinguished Missionary and his devoted wife, while carrying through the press at home the first complete Aneityumese New Testament. He succeeded admirably in taking up and carrying forward all their work, and gave vital assistance in translating the Old Testament into the language of Aneityum, for his was an exact and scholarly mind. After their return, he similarly occupied the Station of Dr. Geddie on another part of the same island, while he sought re-invigoration in Nova Scotia on a well-merited furlough. Thereafter, he was placed on the island of Fotuna; and there, with Mrs. Copeland, he laboured devotedly and zealously, till at last she died and his own health gave way to such an extent as compelled him to retire from the Mission field. He found congenial employment in editing, with great acceptance, the Sydney Presbyterian Witness, and thereby still furthering the cause of the Gospel and of Missions.
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. Instantly, 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 this same 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 trading 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. Dr. Turner has been specially used of God for educating many native teachers and missionaries and in translating and publishing edition after edition of the Bible, besides giving them many other educational and religious books in their own language;—blessed work, in which, while I am writing these words, he and his gifted wife are still honourably and fruitfully engaged in the holy autumn of their days.
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 their own happier 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. Marvellous 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 3,500 savages throwing away their idols, renouncing their heathen customs, and avowing themselves to be worshippers of the true Jehovah God. Slowly, yet progressively, they unlearned their Heathenism; surely and hopefully they learned Christianity and civilization. In course of time a simple form of family worship was introduced into and observed by every household on the island; God’s blessing was asked on every meal; peace and public order were secured; and property was perfectly safe under the sanctifying and civilizing Gospel of Christ. And by-and-by these Missionaries lived to see the whole Bible, which they and Mr. Copeland had so painfully translated, placed in the hands of the Aneityumese by the aid of the British and Foreign Bible Society—that noblest handmaid of every Missionary enterprise. But how was this accomplished? As a boon of charity? Listen!
These poor Aneityumese, having glimpses of this 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 £1,200 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! Some of our friends may think that the sum was large; but I know, from experience, that if such a difficult job had been carried through the press and so bound by any other printing establishment, the expense would have been greater far. One book of Scripture, printed by me in Melbourne for the Aniwans, under the auspices of the Bible Society too, cost eight shillings per leaf, and that was the cheapest style; and this the Aniwans also paid for by dedicating their arrowroot to God.
Let those who lightly esteem their Bibles think on these things. Eight shillings for every leaf, or the labour 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! They had felt, and we had observed, that in all lands and amongst all branches of the human family, the Holy Bible is, wheresoever received and obeyed, the power of God unto salvation; it had lifted them out of savagery, and set them at the feet of the Lord Jesus. Oh, that the pleasure-seeking men and women of the world could only taste and feel the real joy of those who know and love the true God—a heritage which the world and all that pertains thereto cannot give to them, but which the poorest and humblest followers of Jesus inherit and enjoy!
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 and goods being landed, and 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 from three to four hundred feet high, which gave the site a feeling of cosiness. It was surrounded, and much shaded, by beautiful bread-fruit 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 all round 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 Tannaman 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 my only hope of being able to live on the island.