THE MISSIONARY'S DEFENSE
The following occurrence was related by Missionary von Asselt, a Rhenish missionary in Sumatra from 1856-76, when on a visit to Lubeck:—
"When I first went to Sumatra, in the year 1856 I was the first European missionary to go among the wild Battas, although twenty years prior, two American missionaries had come to them with the gospel; but they had been killed and eaten. Since then no effort had been made to bring the gospel to these people, and naturally they had remained the same cruel savages.
"What it means for one to stand alone among a savage people, unable to make himself understood, not understanding a single sound of their language, but whose suspicious, hostile looks and gestures speak only a too-well-understood language,—yes, it is hard for one to realize that. The first two years that I spent among the Battas, at first all alone and afterward with my wife, were so hard that it makes me shudder even now when I think of them. Often it seemed as if we were not only encompassed by hostile men, but also by hostile powers of darkness; for often an inexplicable, unutterable fear would come over us, so that we had to get up at night, and go on our knees to pray or read the Word of God, in order to find relief.
"After we had lived in this place for two years, we moved several hours' journey inland, among a tribe somewhat civilized, who received us more kindly. There we built a small house with three rooms,—a living-room, a bedroom, and a small reception-room,—and life for us became a little more easy and cheerful.
"When we had been in this new place for some months, a man came to me from the district where we had been, and whom I had known there. I was sitting on the bench in front of our house, and he sat down beside me, and for a while talked of this, that, and the other. Finally he began, 'Now tuan [teacher], I have yet one request.'
"'And what is that?'
"'I should like to have a look at your watchmen close at hand.'
"'What watchmen do you mean? I do not have any.'
"'I mean the watchmen whom you station around your house at night, to protect you.'