At that time, though my life was daily attempted, a dear lad, named Katasian, was coming six miles regularly to the Worship and to receive frequent instruction. One day, when engaged in teaching him, I caught a man stealing the blind from my window. On trying to prevent him, he aimed his great club at me, but I seized the heavy end of it with both my hands as it swung past my head, and held on with all my might. What a prayer went up from me to God at that dread moment! The man, astonished and abashed at my kind words and appeal, slunk away and left me in peace.
I had planted a few Yams, of the genus Dioscoria; a most valuable article of food, nearly as precious as potatoes were to the poor in Ireland, and used very much in the same way. Years after, when I went to Melbourne, I took one from Aniwa, by no means the largest, weighing seventy-two pounds, and another, forty-two. The things, however, that I planted on Tanna the Natives stole and carried away, making themselves extremely troublesome. But God never took away from me the consciousness that it was still right for me to be kind and forgiving, and to hope that I might lead them to love and imitate Jesus.
For a season thereafter, the friendly feeling grew on every side. The Natives prepared, for payment, an excellent foundation for a new Church, by levelling down the hill near to my Mission House. Any number of men offered to work for calico, knives, axes, etc. All the fences were renewed, and the Mission premises began to look nice once more, at least, in my eyes. My work became encouraging, and I had many opportunities of talking with them about the Worship and Jehovah. This state of matters displeased Miaki and his men; and one day, having been engaged thus, I rushed back only in time to extinguish a fire which they had kindled under the verandah and close to the door of my house. Our watch had to be unrelaxing. A cousin of Miaki’s, for instance, sold me a fish as good for food which he knew to be poisonous, but Nowar saw in time and warned me of its deadly character. Miaki then threatened to shoot any of the Inland people who came to work or to receive instruction, yet larger numbers came than before, but they came fully armed! Nouka, the high Chief of the Harbour, Miaki’s uncle, came and sat beside us often, and said,—
“Miaki breaks my heart! He deceives Missi. He hates the Worship of Jehovah.”
For some time, Nouka and his wife and daughter—a handsome girl, his only child—and Miaki’s principal wife and her two sons, and nine Chiefs attended Worship regularly at the Mission House, on Sabbaths and on the afternoon of every Wednesday. In all, about sixty persons somewhat regularly waited on our ministrations at this time; and amidst all perils I was encouraged, and my heart was full of hope. Yet one evening, when feeling more consoled and hopeful than ever before, a musket was discharged at my very door, and I was constrained to realize that we were in the midst of death. Father, our times are in Thy hand.
As my work became more encouraging, I urgently applied to the Missionaries on Aneityum for more Teachers, but none could be found willing to return to Tanna. The plague of measles had almost demoralized them. Even on Aneityum, where they had medicine and would follow the Missionaries’ advice, no fewer than eleven hundred had been cut off; and the mortality was very much greater on such islands as Tanna, Aniwa, etc., where they were still Heathen, and either had not or would not follow medical counsels. Of my Teachers and their wives ten were swept away in the epidemic, and the few that were left were so disheartened that they escaped to their own land at the first opportunity, as before recorded, excepting only dear old faithful Abraham. But I need not wonder; smaller perils deter God’s people at home from many a call of duty.
In my Mission School, I offered as a prize a red shirt for the first Chief who knew the whole Alphabet without a mistake. It was won by an Inakaki Chief, who was once a terror to the whole community. Afterwards, when trying to teach the A B C to others, he proceeded in something like this graphic style:—
“A is a man’s legs with the body cut off; B is like two eyes; C is a three-quarters moon; D is like one eye; E is a man with one club under his feet and another over his head; F is a man with a large club and a smaller one,” etc., etc.; L was like a man’s foot; Q was the talk of the dove, etc. Then he would say, “Remember these things; you will soon get hold of the letters and be able to read. I have taught my little child, who can scarcely walk, the names of them all. They are not hard to hold, but soft and easy. You will soon learn to read the book, if you try it with all your heart!”
But Miaki was still our evil genius, and every incident seemed to be used by him for one settled purpose of hate. A Kaserumini Chief, for instance, and seven men took away a young girl in a canoe to Aniwa, to be sold to friends there for tobacco leaf, which the Aniwans cultivated extensively. They also prepared to take revenge there for a child’s death, killed in their belief by the sorcery of an Aniwan. When within sight of the shore, the canoes were upset and all were said to have been devoured by sharks, excepting only one canoe out of six. This one returned to Tanna and reported that there were two white Traders living on Aniwa, that they had plenty of ammunition and tobacco, but that they would not come to Tanna as long as a Missionary lived there. Under this fresh incitement, a party of Miaki’s men came to my house, praising the Erromangans for the murder of their Missionaries and threatening me.
Even the friendly Nowar said, “Miaki will make a great wind and sink any Man-of-war that comes here. We will take the Man-of-war and kill all that are on board. If you and Abraham do not leave us we will kill you both, for we must have the Traders and the powder.”