“What, do you think that you could hope to make Christians out of such naked savages as those are?” exclaimed Hugh Owen, who had not turned his mind to the subject.
“Of course; those well-behaved, well-clothed people we saw, were quite as wild and ignorant as the naked savages we have just left, but a very few years ago. Not fifty years since there was not an island in the wide Pacific which had risen out of a state of the most complete savagedom. Now, in the eastern part of the ocean, whole groups have embraced Christianity. The Sandwich Islands are rapidly advancing in civilisation, and King George of Tonga, himself a man of much talent, though once a savage, ruled over a large population of enlightened men, a large number of whom possess a better knowledge of the Scriptures, and would be able to give better reasons for the faith that is in them than would nine-tenths of the population of any country in Europe, England not excepted.”
“Who told you that?” asked Owen; “I have heard a very different account.”
“I heard it from my late captain, who spent three years cruising among the islands of all parts of the Pacific,” answered Elton. “Captain Harper, too, said the same thing, and neither of them can be accused of being in the interest of the missionaries.”
“Certainly not; I fully believe the facts,” exclaimed Charley. “If I had not undertaken to carry Jack back to his family, I should like to volunteer to convey missionaries to all these islands. I could not wish for a better employment for the little schooner or for myself.”
“The very thought that was in my head,” said Elton. “When our present enterprise is accomplished, I will offer my services for the work. I think that a sailor could scarcely be engaged in a better.”
Faithfully did young Elton keep his promise.
Just then the man on the look-out exclaimed that he saw an object floating on the water ahead, but what it was he could not make out. As the schooner got nearer, the object was pronounced to be a raft, and to have living people on it. On getting still nearer, it was seen to be not a raft, but one of the double canoes of those seas, which consist of two canoes joined together by a platform. This platform extends across the entire width of both canoes and the greater part of their length. Several people were on the deck. Some were kneeling, one was standing up, and others were lying at their length, their heads propped up, as if in a state of exhaustion. As the schooner hove-to close to them, those on board her were startled by hearing, among sounds strange to their ears, the name of Jehovah clearly pronounced.
The people were dark-skinned, undoubtedly natives, though clothed in garments, either of native cloth or cotton, several of them wearing hats. They, however, it was evident, did not regard the appearance of the schooner with satisfaction, and several of them hung down their heads with apprehension at seeing her. As there was still too much sea to allow of the schooner going alongside of the canoe, a boat was lowered, and Elton and two men pulled up to her.
“We are friends; we, too, worship Jehovah,” he shouted, holding up his hands as if in prayer. In an instant the aspect of the whole changed. Those who had been hanging down their heads lifted them up with a smile on their countenances, and the man who was standing in the midst of them exclaimed in return, “Yes, yes; friends—all who worship Jehovah are our friends!”