More than ten years have, however, since elapsed, and “by the good hand of my God upon me for good,” I am still hale and vigorous, rejoicing to serve my Redeemer by serving those whom He died to save and lives to bring to Glory. Wherefore, at the earnest and repeated entreaty of my dear brother, James, but for whom this book never could or would have been given to the world at all, I resume my pen to add a brief sketch of the Autumn of my life, that he may set it in order, and bring this Autobiography up to date. In many respects, I can unfeignedly say that I would rather bury all in oblivion, or keep it under the eye of my Saviour alone. But I dare not shrink from the door of Great Opportunity thus opened before me; and this, also, I humbly lay on the Altar to the glory of Jesus my Lord.
CHAPTER I.
ROUND THE WORLD FOR JESUS.
A. D. 1886–1893. ÆT. 62–69.
From 1886 to 1892.—Tour Round the World.—Fire-Arms and Intoxicants.—International Prohibition Proposed.—Deputies to America.—Samoan Converts.—America and Hawaii.—San Francisco.—Salt Lake City.—Chicago.—Niagara.—Pan-Presbyterian Council at Toronto.—The Ruthven Imposture.—Sabbath Observance.—Rochester.—New York.—Public Petitions.—Washington.—The Presbyterian Assembly.—President Cleveland.—France’s Withdrawal.—Dr. Joseph Cook.—Dr. Blank.—Second Probation.—Chicago Exhibition.—Canadian Presbyterian Church.—Two months’ Rush of Meetings.—Incidents of Travel.—Impressions of Canada and the States.
From 1886 till 1892 my days were occupied, in the various Colonies of Australasia, and in occasional visits to the New Hebrides, practically in the same way as set forth again and again in the preceding Chapters. Colony after Colony, and Congregation after Congregation listened with ever-deepening interest to the narrative of God’s dealings with the Islanders, and to the record of the effects produced by my relating these incidents wherever my steps had been led in the interests of Missionary Enterprise. If I have accomplished nothing else by all these travels and toils, this at least has been accomplished, and I write it down to the praise of my blessed Redeemer—there are Missionaries at this day laboring in every Heathen Land, who have assured me that they first gave themselves away to the glorious work, while drinking in from my poor lips the living testimony from the New Hebrides that the Gospel is still the power of God and the wisdom of God unto Salvation; and there are individual Christians, and sometimes also Congregations of the Lord, now zealously supporting Missionaries to the Heathen in all the great Mission fields of the world, who, till they heard the story of Cannibals won for Christ by our noble Missionaries on the New Hebrides, had foolishly branded the modern Christian Mission to the Heathen as the greatest imposture and failure of the Century. God has filled the ear and the eye of Christendom with the story of one of the smallest, yet most fruitful, Missions in one of the hardest and darkest fields on this Earth; and the whisper of “imposture” has died for shame, while the arm of the scoffer falls paralyzed, and can no longer sling its stones of abuse. “Failure” has been blotted from the vocabulary of Missions and their Critics by the Story of the New Hebrides.
But in 1892, events which had been maturing through many years came to a crisis, the issue of which was that I was sent a Tour Round the World in the Cause of Jesus, and for the sake of our beloved Islanders. A broadly-drawn picture of these things, without any attempt at details, seems all that is called for here. This I now set myself to give to the patient and indulgent reader of these pages, which after all contain only brief and fragmentary scenes out of a crowded and hurried life.
The occasion was this: The sale of Intoxicants, Opium, Fire-Arms and Ammunition, by the Traders amongst the New Hebrideans, had become a terrible and intolerable evil. The lives of many Natives, and of not a few Europeans, were every year sacrificed in connection therewith, while the general demoralization produced on all around was painfully notorious. Alike in the Colonial and in the Home Newspapers, we exposed and condemned the fearful consequences of allowing such degrading and destructive agencies to be used as barter in dealing with these Islanders. It is infinitely sad to see the European and American Trader following fast in the wake of the Missionary with opium and rum! But, blessed be God, our Christian Natives have thus far, with very few exceptions, been able to keep away from the White Man’s Fire-Water, that maddens and destroys. And not less cruel is it to scatter fire-arms and ammunition amongst Savages, who are at the same time to be primed with poisonous rum! This were surely Demons’ work.
To her honor, be it said, that Great Britain prohibited all her own Traders, under heavy penalties, from bartering those dangerous and destructive articles in trade with the Natives. She also appealed to the other trading Nations, in Europe and America, to combine and make the prohibition “International,” with regard to all the still unannexed Islands in the Pacific Seas. At first America hesitated, owing to some notion that it was inconsistent with certain regulations for trading embraced in the Constitution of the United States. Then France, temporizing, professed willingness to accept the prohibition when America agreed. Thus the British Trader, with the Man-of-War and the High Commissioner ready to enforce the laws against him, found himself placed at an overwhelming disadvantage, as against the neighboring Traders of every other Nationality, free to barter as they pleased. More especially so, when the things prohibited were the very articles which the masses of the Heathen chiefly coveted in exchange for their produce; and where keen rivals in business were ever watchful to inform and to report against him. If illicit Trading prevailed, under such conditions, no one that knows average Human Nature can feel any surprise.
By-and-bye, the Australian New Hebrides Company, with two Steamers plying betwixt Sidney and the New Hebrides, took up the problem. Having planted Traders and Agents on the Islands, they found themselves handicapped in developing business, and began a brisk agitation in the Australasian and English Press, either to have the Prohibition applied all round, or completely rescinded. We have never accepted that alternative, but resolutely plead for an International Prohibitive law, as the only means under God to prevent the speedy sweeping off into Eternity of these most interesting Races by the tide of what is strangely styled Civilization.
At length Sir John Thurston, Her Majesty’s High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, whose sympathies all through have been on our side, advised that the controversy in the Newspapers cease, and that our Missions and Churches send a deputation to America to win the assent of the United States. Consequently, the next Federal Assembly of the Australasian Presbyterian Churches instructed two of its Professors in the Divinity Hall of Victoria, who were then visiting Britain, to return by America, and do everything in their power to secure the adhesion of the United States Government to the International proposal. Lest, however, these Deputies found themselves unable to carry out their instructions, the same Assembly appointed me as Deputy, with identical instructions, to undertake the task during the succeeding year.