The project of the establishment of a Church of England Mission in Sarawak was started by the late Rajah in 1847. The Earl of Ellesmere and others interested themselves in the project, and, sufficient funds having been subscribed, the Rev. F. T. McDougall and two other missionaries were sent out, and arrived in Sarawak in June, 1848. The Church of St. Thomas, now the Diocesan Church, was completed and consecrated by the Bishop of Calcutta in 1851. Two years later the Mission was transferred to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; and, in 1855, to complete the organisation of the Church in Borneo, Mr. McDougall was consecrated Bishop of Labuan and Sarawak. He resigned in 1867, and died in 1886. Mr. Chambers, who had for many years been a missionary in Sarawak, succeeded him, and on his resignation[[364]] the Venerable G. F. Hose, Archdeacon of Singapore, was consecrated Bishop in 1881, and the full designation of the diocese then became Singapore, Labuan, and Sarawak, by the inclusion of the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States.
The headquarters of the Mission is at Kuching, where the Bishop and the Archdeacon reside, the latter being also the Vicar of Kuching. The Mission Stations are at Lundu, Kuap, Banting, Sabu in the Undup, and Sebetan in the Kalaka, and at these places there are churches and schools. Hitherto all these stations, which were established many years ago, have been under the care of resident clergymen, but at present there are four vacancies. Attached to these principal Stations, and under the supervision of the missionary in charge, are many scattered chapels with native catechists and teachers.
In Kuching the work of the Mission lies chiefly amongst the Chinese. Kuap, which is within a day's journey of the capital, is a Land-Dayak village; the other Mission Stations are in districts populated by Sea-Dayaks, and the labours of the S.P.G. are chiefly confined to these people.
During the first six and a half years of Bishop Hose's episcopate, 1714 persons were baptized, and the number of native Christians had risen to 3480 in 1887.
For a full and interesting account of the work done by the Mission the reader is referred to Two Hundred Years of the S.P.G. (1701-1900).
That the Church in Borneo has done, and is still doing good, no one will dispute. It has not, however, extended its sphere of influence beyond its original limits, and within those limits, from Lundu to Kalaka, there is not only room, but the necessity for many more missionaries to labour than the Church is at present provided with. Missionary enterprise has not kept pace with the advance of civilisation. The large districts that since 1861 have reverted to the raj have been totally neglected by the S.P.G., and these districts, both in respect to area and population, constitute by far the greater part of Sarawak. But the Church in Sarawak is entirely dependent upon extraneous support, and when funds appear to be wanting, even to maintain the former efficient state of the Mission, and indications of retrogression are only too evident, there can be little hope for progression. A bishop cannot find missionaries, they must be sent to him, and he must be provided with the means to support them and their missions, and unless he is so far assisted he cannot be blamed for any shortcomings. To succeed, a mission, like other undertakings, must be based upon sound business principles. The isolated efforts of even the best men, men like Gomes,[[365]] Chambers,[[366]] Chalmers,[[367]] and Perham,[[368]] who have left their personal stamp upon the Mission, can be of little avail without continuity of effort and purpose, and to insure this a system is necessary, a system of trained missionaries, training others to take their places in due time, and for want of such a system the S.P.G. is now left with but two English missionaries in Sarawak.
To the deep regret of all in his diocese, failing health and advancing years necessitated the retirement of Bishop Hose at the end of 1907, after having spent the best years of his life in faithful service to the Church in the East. As far back as 1868 he was appointed Colonial Chaplain at Malacca. He was transferred to Singapore in 1872, and was appointed Archdeacon in 1874. For a little over twenty-six years he had been Bishop of a diocese of unwieldy size, over 120,000 square miles, containing a population of about two and a quarter millions, the supervision of which, with the two Archdeaconries separated by 450 miles of sea, necessarily entails a great deal of hard work and a considerable amount of travelling, and by reason of this it is proposed shortly to subdivide the diocese.[[369]]
The great Spanish Jesuit, one of the founders of the Jesuit Society, St. Francisco Xavier, the Apostle of India and the Far East, in 1542 laid the foundations of a missionary enterprise that scarcely has a parallel. Earnest and self-denying priests followed in his footsteps, and eventually some reached Borneo. Of the work of the earlier missionaries in Borneo we know hardly anything, but, as with Xavier at Malacca, they probably met with little success. They wandered away into the jungles, there to end their days amongst savage and barbarous people, at whose hands we know some met with martyrdom. They have left no traces and no records behind them, even their names are perhaps forgotten.
Fr. Antonio Vintimiglia, already mentioned in chapter ii. established a Roman Catholic Mission at Bruni, where he died in 1691; there may have been others there before him, but evidently he was the last Roman Catholic priest for many years in that part of Borneo with which this history deals.
In 1857, a Roman Catholic Mission was again established at Bruni, Labuan, and Gaya Bay, under a Spaniard named Cuateron, as Prefect Apostolic, who was assisted by two worthy Italian Priests. The romantic story of how Senor Cuateron became a priest, how he established the Mission, and how he obtained the means to do so, will be found in Sir Spenser St. John's Life in the Forests of the Far East. St. John tells us that the funds entrusted by Fr. Cuateron to the Papal Government as a permanent support for his Mission were diverted to other purposes, and the money he retained himself was dissipated in unsuccessful speculations. In 1861, nothing remained but closed churches and Fr. Cuateron. He remained for over fifteen years longer, and then he too disappeared.