“We have taken everything your house contained, and would take you too if we could; for we hate the Worship, it causes all our diseases and deaths; it goes against our customs, and it condemns the things we delight in.”
Nowar informed me that only a few nights before this, Miaki and his followers went inland to a village where last year they had killed ten men. Having secretly placed a savage at the door of every house, at a given signal they yelled, and when the terrified inmates tried to escape they killed almost every man, woman, and child. Some fled into the bush, others rushed to the shore. A number of men got into a canoe to escape, but hearing women and children crying after them they returned, and taking those they could with them they killed the rest lest they should fall alive into Miaki’s hands. These are surely “they who through fear of death are all their lifetime subject to bondage.” The Chief and nearly his whole village were cut off in one night! Not an uncommon thing in those Islands, where war becomes chronic, and the thirst for blood becomes insatiable. The dark places of the Earth are “full of the habitations of horrid cruelty.” To have actually lived amongst the Heathen and seen their life gives a man a new appreciation of the power and blessings of the Gospel, even where its influence is only very imperfectly allowed to guide and restrain the passions of men. Oh, what will it be when all men in all nations love and serve the glorious Redeemer!
This Miaki and his followers were a scourge and terror to the whole island of Tanna. They intensely hated Nowar, because he would not join in their cruelties. Yet he and Manuman and Sirawia and Faimungo continued to survive long after war and death had swept all the others away. The first three lived to be very old men, and to the last they made a profession of being Christians, though their knowledge was very limited and their inconsistencies very grave and very numerous. Happy is it for us that we are not the judges, for souls either of the white or the dark skin, as to how many and grievous things may be forgiven, and whether there be or be not that spark of love, that grain of faith which the Lord the Pitiful will graciously accept and increase![[1]]
[1]. See Appendix A. “The Prayer of the Tannese,” etc.
About five o’clock in the evening the vessel hove in sight. Before dark we were all safely on board, and were sailing for Aneityum. Though both Mr. and Mrs. Mathieson had become very weak, they stood the voyage wonderfully. Next day we were all safely landed. We had offered Captain Hastings £20 to take us to Aneityum, but he declined any fare. However, we divided it amongst the mate and crew, for they had every one shown great kindness to us on the voyage. After arriving on Aneityum, Mrs. Mathieson gradually sank under consumption, and fell asleep in Jesus on 11th March, 1862, in the full assurance of a glorious resurrection, and was interred there. Mr. Mathieson, becoming more and more depressed after her death, went over to Mr. Creagh’s Station, on Maré, and there died on 14th June, 1862, still trusting in Jesus, and assured that he would soon be with Him in Glory. Never more earnest or more faithful souls entered the Mission field, but they both suffered from weakness and ill-health during all their time on Tanna, and had frequently to seek change by removal for a short period from the island. Their memory is very fragrant to me as fellow-labourers in the Gospel of Jesus.
After their death, I was the only one left alive in all the New Hebrides Mission north of Aneityum to tell the story of those pioneer years, during which were sown the seeds of what is now fast becoming a glorious harvest. Twenty-five years ago, all these dear brethren and sisters who were associated with me in the work of the Mission were called home to Glory, to cast their crowns at the feet of Jesus and enjoy the bliss of the redeemed, while I am privileged still to toil and pray for the salvation of the poor Islanders, and plead the cause of the Mission both in the Colonies and at home, in which work the Lord has graciously given me undreamt-of success. My constant desire and prayer are that I may be spared to see at least one Missionary on every island of the group, to unfold the riches of redeeming love and to lead the poor Islanders to Jesus for salvation.
What could be taken in three boats was saved out of the wreck of Mr. Mathieson’s property; but my earthly all perished, except the Bible and the translations into Tannese. Along with the goods pertaining to the Mission, the property which I had to leave behind would be undervalued at £600, besides the value of the Mission House, etc. Often since have I thought that the Lord stripped me thus bare of all these interests, that I might with undistracted mind devote my entire energy to the special work soon to be carved out for me, and of which at this moment neither I nor any one had ever dreamed. At any rate, the loss of my little earthly all, though doubtless costing me several pangs, was not an abiding sorrow like that which sprang from the thought that the Lord’s work was broken up at both Stations, and that the Gospel was for the time driven from Tanna.
In the darkest moment, I never doubted that ultimately the victory there, as elsewhere, would be on the side of Jesus, believing that the whole Earth would yet be filled with the glory of the Lord. But I sometimes sorely feared that I might never live to see or hear of that happy day! By the goodness of the Ever-merciful One I have lived to see and hear of a Gospel Church on Tanna, and to read about my dear fellow-Missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Watt, celebrating the Holy Supper to a Native Congregation of Tannese, amid the very scenes and people where the seeds of faith and hope were planted not only in tears, but tears of blood,—“in deaths oft.”
My own intention was to remain on Aneityum, go on with my work of translating the Gospels, and watch the earliest opportunity, as God opened up my way, to return to Tanna. I had, however, got very weak and thin; my health was undoubtedly much shaken by the continued trials and dangers through which we had passed; and therefore, as Dr. and Mrs. Inglis were at home carrying the New Testament through the press in the language of Aneityum, and as Tanna was closed for a season, Dr. Geddie, the Rev. Joseph Copeland, and Mr. Mathieson all urged me to go to Australia by a vessel then in the Harbour and leaving in a few days. My commission was to awaken an interest among the Presbyterian Churches of our Colonies in this New Hebrides Mission which lay at their doors, up till this time sustained by Scotland and Nova Scotia alone. And further, and very specially, to raise money there, if possible, to purchase a new Mission Ship for the work of God in the New Hebrides,—a clamant necessity, which would save all future Missionaries some of the more terrible of the privations and risks of which a few examples have in these pages already been recorded.
After much prayerful deliberation with my brethren and with my own heart before God, I somewhat reluctantly felt constrained to undertake the task. If my story was to be the means of providing more Missionaries for the Islands, and of providing a commodious Ship for the service of the Mission alone, to keep open their communications with the outer world and with Christian influences, not to speak of carrying their provisions at fixed periods, or rescuing them when in troubles and perils from the jaws of death, I was not unwilling to tell it again and again, if the Lord would open up my path. God knows my heart, and any one who really knows me will easily admit, that no selfish or egotistical motive has influenced me in reciting through all the Australasian Colonies, New Zealand, Scotland, and latterly in many parts of England and Ireland, the incidents of my career and experience, first of all on Tanna, and thereafter for nearly twenty years—as the Second Part of my biography will relate—on the neighbouring island of Aniwa; an island entirely given to me by the Lord, the whole population of which became Christian; and they and their race will be my crown of joy and rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus.