“Alas! how many act as this poor heathen is doing,” said my father, after Masaugu and his companions had gone away. “They believe in God, and yet, blinded by Satan, fancy in their folly that they can safely put off the time to begin serving and obeying Him.”
Chapter Four.
Our anxieties increase on the departure of Masaugu.—My Father is summoned to visit a sick Missionary at another island, and we are left under the charge of Nanari, the native missionary.—My Mother’s sudden death.—A vessel appears off the coast, and at Kanari’s suggestion I send off a note, warning the Captain of the danger to which he is exposed from the Natives.
We rejoiced to find that Lisele was allowed to remain with her aunt at the settlement. She had tried, even before her return to the settlement, to persuade her father to abandon his intentions of going to war. The tribe he intended to attack inhabited an island some leagues away to the south, and as we stood on the shore we could see its blue outline rising out of the ocean. Lisele had reminded her father that he had professed to wish us well, and that by going away he would leave us exposed to the attacks of other heathen tribes, who would now venture without hesitation through his territory, to attack us. He replied that they would not dare to do so, as he had threatened them with punishment on his return should they molest them.
“Alas!” said Lisele, who told us this when we went to see her at her aunt’s house. “Suppose he is defeated, what protection shall we then have from our enemies?”
“We must trust in Jehovah, my child,” said Abela. “Or, if he thinks fit to allow us to be afflicted, we must submit without murmur to His will. We know that we can but suffer here for a short season, and that He has prepared a glorious and happy home for those who love Jesus, and obey His commandments down on earth. Oh yes! since I have known the truth, I have learned to understand that this world is a place of trial, and that we must not look for peace and happiness and rest while we are in it. God indeed made the world beautiful, and intended it to be happy, but Satan persuaded man to sin, and sin has caused man to depart from God, and brought all the disorder and misery and suffering which we see around us. Faith in Jesus Christ can alone remedy all these evils, and I am sure that they will exist till all the world learns to love and obey Him.”
These remarks of Abela will show that she had made great advances in Christian knowledge, and was well able to instruct her young niece.
Lisele came back with us to the school, which my mother, although weak and suffering still, insisted on superintending. I think that she herself was not aware how ill she really was.