THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 IN THE 
 
 HEBRIDES 
 
 \ 
 
 IN THE NEW HEBEIDES.
 
 IN THE 
 
 HEBKIDES 
 
 IReminfscenccs of 
 
 Xfte ano Morfe, 
 
 ESPECIALLY ON THE ISLAND OP ANEITYUM, 
 FROM 1850 TILL 1877. 
 
 By the 
 
 REV. JOHN INGLIS, D.D., 
 
 Thirty-three Years a Missionary, first of the Reformed Presbyterian Church 
 
 of Scotland, and then of the Free Church of Scotland, in 
 
 New Zealand and in the New Hebrides ; 
 
 Author of " A Grammar and Dictionary of the Ancityumese Language," etc. 
 
 T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK. 
 1887.
 
 'BV 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED WIFE, 
 
 THE PAETNER OF MY LABOURS, TRIALS, AND COMFORTS, 
 
 DURING ALL THE PERIOD COVERED 
 
 BY THIS BOOK.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE literature connected with the New Hebrides is some- 
 what copious. We may pass over the " Memorial of 
 Mendana to the King of Spain," which has been often 
 quoted, more or less fully. The portion of Captain Cook's 
 Voyages referring to the New Hebrides, published more 
 than a century ago, is written in all the clear, graphic, 
 and truthful style of the great navigator. When in 1850 
 I first sailed along the group, I read Cook's narrative in 
 the large edition of his Voyages, and the accounts seemed 
 as fresh and truth-like as if they had been written only 
 a twelvemonth before. Captain (now Admiral) Erskine's 
 admirable " Journal " refers only briefly to the New 
 Hebrides ; it has reference chiefly to the eastern islands. 
 The second volume of the Kev. William Gill's fascinating 
 work, entitled " Gems from the Coral Islands," contains 
 some interesting details of mission work on the New 
 Hebrides. In his " Nineteen Years in Polynesia," in a 
 clear, methodical, and perspicuous narrative, the Rev. Dr. 
 Turner has recorded the labours and perils of the first 
 two mission families his own and Rev. Dr. Nisbet's 
 settled on Tanna, and to which he added three voyages
 
 X PERFACE. 
 
 in the John Williams. The Rev. A. W. Murray comes 
 next, with his " Missions in Western Polynesia," and in 
 strong and earnest language relates what was done for 
 the introduction of the Gospel by the agents of the 
 London Missionary Society. The next two volumes are 
 from a navigator's point of view, being Journals of 
 Cruises in H.M.S. Rosario ; the one by Captain Markham, 
 R.N., the other by Captain Palmer, R.N., who were sent 
 to examine into the labour traffic and report upon it. 
 They are both well-written volumes ; the authors were in 
 deep sympathy with the greatly injured natives. The two 
 volumes that followed those are deeply affecting biogra- 
 phies, the first of the Rev. J. W. Matheson and his wife, 
 and the Rev. S. F. Johnston, by the Rev. Dr. Paterson ; 
 the second of the Rev. G. N. Gordon and his wife, by his 
 brother, the Rev. J. D. Gordon. The life of the Rev. Dr. 
 Geddie, by the Rev. Dr. Paterson, is to a large extent a 
 collection of Dr. Geddie's journals and letters, and gives 
 a full and interesting account of the commencement and 
 early history of the New Hebrides mission, up to the time of 
 our arrival in 1852. After that date the work connected 
 with the mission increased so much, that it was in work- 
 ing, not in writing, that Dr. Geddie's time was chiefly 
 occupied, and hence his journals and letters were for 
 the most part brief. An excellent little volume, entitled 
 " A Year in the New Hebrides," &c., by F. A. Campbell, 
 1873, gives a very good account of the islands and the 
 mission up to that date, and is enriched by an appendix 
 containing a " contribution to the phytography of the New
 
 PHEFACE. XI 
 
 Hebrides by Baron Von Mueller," the plants having been 
 collected by Mr. Campbell, but arranged and named by the 
 learned Curator of the Melbourne Botanical Garden. But 
 the Rev. Dr. Steel's volume, entitled " The New Hebrides 
 and Christian Missions," is really the history of the New 
 Hebrides mission. It contains a vast amount of valuable 
 information, collected with much pains, patience, and 
 discrimination. He records fully and faithfully the toils, 
 trials, and triumphs of the missionaries ; defends them 
 ably, and vindicates them successfully, from the aspersions 
 cast upon them and the misrepresentations made against 
 them by such writers as Meade and Brenchley able 
 men, but prejudiced and misinformed, and who unhappily 
 accepted their information from sources utterly unreliable. 
 Dr. Steel is remarkably well informed on missions, knows 
 everything about the New Hebrides mission, writes with 
 extreme care and accuracy, and is in full sympathy with 
 mission work to the heathen. 
 
 It is highly probable that some friends of the New 
 Hebrides mission will be disappointed with this volume. 
 It is not, as they may have expected it to be, a history 
 of that mission. Dr. Steel's book rendered that quite 
 unnecessary ; but I never contemplated a history of the 
 whole mission. When about to prepare his history, Dr. 
 Steel consulted me, and would not have proceeded with 
 it if I had thought of writing a history of the whole 
 mission. But I urged him to go on with his work, as it 
 would in no way interfere with mine. This is a history 
 of the Aneityum rather than of the New Hebrides
 
 xil PREFACE. 
 
 mission, and, furthermore, rather of my own station (and 
 not all that I wished to say about it) than of the whole 
 island ; but as the work on both stations was carried on 
 on the same lines, and with very much the same results, 
 it so happens that what I have said about my own station 
 will generally apply to the whole island. This volume is 
 not written in chronological order ; it does not record what 
 was done year by year ; it is a succession of subjects, but 
 not a consecutive history; although, as far as practicable, I 
 have arranged the subjects to follow each other in regular 
 order. It is not autobiographical, but it contains almost 
 nothing that has not come under my own personal ob- 
 servation, or been attested to me by eye or ear witnesses. 
 I have to some extent copied from my own letters and 
 journals published in the Reformed Presbyterian Magazine 
 and elsewhere ; but these extracts have all been rewritten 
 and abridged or extended, as seemed to be required, 
 and the information, where needed, brought down to the 
 present date. There is nothing startling in the book, 
 nothing sensational ; it is not written specially for the 
 learned or for the scientific, but for average Christian 
 readers, who feel an interest in missions to the heathen ; 
 and I sincerely hope that those who come to its perusal 
 with moderate expectations may not be disappointed. 
 The elder Dr. M'Crie used to say, " A sermon is a sermon, 
 but a letter is only a letter ; " and on one occasion, at a meet- 
 ing for Foreign Missions in Exeter Hall, the Chairman said, 
 " Now let the missionaries give us their facts, and we will 
 draw our inferences for ourselves." In the following pages
 
 PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 I have tried to avoid sermonising, and to allow my readers 
 to draw their inferences for themselves. In a few cases 
 the same idea or the same fact has been repeated in 
 different chapters, but as seldom as possible, and only for 
 the sake of connection. 
 
 I have still sufficient materials on hand to form 
 another volume, which would contain biographical sketches 
 of natives, both heathen and Christian, chapters on the 
 manners, customs, and traditions of the Aneityumese, 
 illustrations of Scripture through light supplied from the 
 New Hebrides, and other aspects of missionary life and 
 work similar to those given here. But the appearance of 
 that volume will depend very much upon the reception 
 given to this one. Publishers are extremely chary about 
 running any risks with missionary literature ; and hence 
 the authors of mission books have to make strong and 
 pathetic appeals, to secure the patronage of their private 
 friends, as well as the support of the general public. 
 
 LINCUAN COTTAGE, KIRKCOWAN, N.B., 
 November i^th, 1886.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS I 
 
 II. THE NEW HEBRIDES 8 
 
 III. ANEITYUM 19 
 
 IV. THE ANEITYUMESE IN HEATHENISM 29 
 
 V. ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION .... 37 
 
 VI. MISSION-HOUSES 55 
 
 VII. THE SABBATH ON ANEITYUM 63 
 
 VIIL THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM . . ." . . -74 
 
 IX. THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM 89 
 
 X. THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM Il6 
 
 XI. THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM . . . .136 
 
 XII. THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION SYNOD . . . .154 
 
 XIII. MISSION VESSELS THE " DAYSPRING " . . . .164 
 
 XIV. ASTRONOMY ON ANEITYUM "ECLIPSES" . . .172 
 XV. EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE ON ANEITYUM . . 183 
 
 XVI. THE LABOUR TRAFFIC IN THE NEW HEBRIDES . . 198 
 XVII. THE FRENCH AND THE NEW HEBRIDES . 222
 
 xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 xix. 
 
 xx. 
 
 XXI. ; , 
 
 XXII. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 XXIV. ANEITYUM ] 
 XXV. CONCLUSION 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IL SKETCHES REV. JAMES M'NAIR 
 
 234 
 
 REV. DR. GE'DDIE . 
 
 . 247 
 
 MRS. INGLIS . . . 
 
 . 26l 
 
 SIR GEORGK GREY 
 
 295 
 
 ADMIRAL EUSKINE 
 
 . 301 
 
 BISHOP SELWYN . 
 
 39 
 
 ;N 1876 
 
 319 
 
 
 344
 
 MISSIONARY LIFE AND WORK. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 
 
 THE South Seas, or the Pacific Ocean, is the largest expanse of 
 water on the face of the globe. Speaking in round numbers, 
 it is 7000 miles square, or nearly fifty million square miles. 
 It is studded with something like a thousand sunny isles, 
 every one of them fair as Eden, and fertile as the garden of 
 the Lord. If Homer had possessed our geographical know- 
 ledge, he would have made the 3000 Oceanides, the daughters 
 of Oceanus and Tethys, not to be the goddesses of the rivers, 
 but to be the goddesses of those beautiful, palm-crowned, 
 paradise-like islands that stud the Pacific, and bask on its 
 sunny bosom. But Oceanica, or the Island world, as it has 
 been called, is perhaps the most imperfectly known of any 
 portion of the earth's surface. It is invariably laid down in 
 all our maps in such a narrow compass on such small pro- 
 portions that the islands, and groups of islands, appear as 
 indistinct as the star dust, or the nebulae, in the Milky 
 Way ; so that nobody, to whom the subject has not been 
 a special study, has any distinct conception of either the
 
 2 THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 
 
 separate islands, or of the groups to which they respectively 
 belong. 
 
 The name of the South Seas was given to this ocean by 
 Balboa, the man who was the first to discover it ; and it was 
 discovered and named in this way. In 1513, the year in 
 which the battle of Flodden was fought, when Yasco Nugnez 
 de Balboa was governor of Santa Maria, in the isthmus of 
 Darien, on one occasion while he was travelling inland ex- 
 ploring the country, his native guides informed him that 
 the sea could be seen on the other side from the top of the 
 mountain before him. Animated by a glowing hope, he 
 proceeded alone to the summit, and there, to his surprise and 
 delight, he saw the great expanse of ocean stretching away 
 as far as he could see to the south ; for from the bay of 
 Panama to Mexico the coast-line is nearly west. He imme- 
 diately fell on his knees and thanked God for this great dis- 
 covery. Columbus, and nearly all those first great discoverers, 
 were men of simple earnest piety; if not enlightened, they 
 were devout, and recognised the hand of God as guiding them. 
 Balboa no doubt felt at that moment, as Franklin felt when 
 he discovered that the electric spark and the lightning were 
 the same, that he had secured an earthly immortality. He 
 hastened with all speed to the shore, and with sword and 
 buckler in his hands, he plunged up to his middle in the 
 waves, and took possession of the whole ocean in the name 
 of his sovereign, Ferdinand, king of Spain, and from the 
 direction in which the ocean lay from where he stood, not 
 from its relative situation on the globe, he named it the 
 SOUTH SEA. 
 
 How little did Balboa think, when he pel-formed that sym- 
 bolic act in the name of his master, that the ocean he had
 
 THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 3 
 
 just discovered was of such enormous dimensions was 
 covered with such a multitude of islands was to lie so long 
 unexplored was to be of so little benefit to his country ; but 
 was by-and-by to be the scene on which such triumphs of the 
 Gospel were to be achieved was to become one of the great 
 highways for the commerce of the world was, in these latter 
 days, to create such an earth hunger among the colonising 
 nations of Europe, and was to engender such a fever among 
 them for the annexation of its islands ! 
 
 It received the name of the Pacific Ocean in this way. In 
 1519, six years after Balboa's discovery, the year in which 
 Charles V. was made Emperor of Germany, Ferdinand Magel- 
 lan, a famous Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain, 
 was despatched, in a vessel named the Victory, to discover the 
 exact position of the Molluccas. He sailed along the east 
 coast of South America till he discovered the two clouds the 
 two patches of nebulae that bear his name, and also the 
 straits that are called after him, and through which he passed. 
 He then sailed westward for 7000 miles, at first before the 
 south-east and then before the north-east trade wind, till he 
 reached first the Ladrone, and subsequently the Philippine 
 Islands, where, after all this brilliant discovery, he was killed 
 in a quarrel with the natives in 1521, just as Cook, after his 
 world-renowned voyages, fell a victim to a native quarrel at 
 Hawaii, in 1779. As the sea was remarkably smooth during 
 this long voyage, Magellan naturally inferred that it must 
 be always so, and called it the PACIFIC OCEAN ; although at 
 times it is swept over by tremendous hurricanes and is occa- 
 sionally the reverse of pacific, which has led superficial critics 
 and tyroes in seafaring knowledge to show off their feeble 
 wit by speaking of it as the so-called Pacific, or the ocean that
 
 4 THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 
 
 is non-pacific ; but these cases of storm are simply like the 
 exceptions that strengthen the rule. The late Admiral 
 Fitzroy, who was well acquainted with this ocean, and one of 
 the very highest authorities on such a subject, while urging 
 the claims of the Panama route from London to Australia, 
 gave as one of his principal reasons the extent of smooth 
 sailing enjoyed on this ocean. There is so much of this 
 ocean being within intertropical and subtropical regions, 
 where the sea, as a general rule, is so much smoother than 
 in higher latitudes, whether north or south, that Magellan, 
 with the intuitive sagacity of a great man, rightly named it 
 the PACIFIC OCEAN. 
 
 Exclusive of Australia and New Zealand, geographers have 
 arranged the South Sea Islands under these three divisions, 
 viz., Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. Polynesia, or the 
 Many Islands (from voXvf, polys, many, and finos, nesos, an 
 island), was the name given at first, in a general way, to the 
 whole of these islands ; then they were divided into Eastern 
 and Western Polynesia ; but now Polynesia is restricted to the 
 eastward islands, situated between long. 180 deg., the last 
 meridian, and South America. Melanesia, or the Black Islands 
 (from pi^as, melas, black, and vSjffo;, nesos, an island), so called 
 from the colour of the inhabitants, comprises all the islands 
 south of the line from long. 180 deg. and west to New 
 Guinea, including the Fiji group, the New Hebrides, New Cale- 
 donia, the Loyalty Islands, the Solomon group, New Britain, 
 New Ireland, the Louisiade Archipelago, and other islands. 
 Micronesia, or the Little Islands (from pinco;, mikros, little, and 
 ?jffo;, nesos, an island), so called from the islands being little, 
 comprises all the islands north of the line, from Hawaii 
 on the east to China on the west, and includes the Kingsmill
 
 THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 5 
 
 group, the Scarborough Range, the Radick and the Ralick 
 chains, and a multitude of other islands. 
 
 The South Sea Islands are inhabited by two, and only 
 two, races, viz., the Malay Polynesian and the Papuan, two 
 races perfectly distinct, both in personal appearance and in 
 language. The Malay are the descendants of Shem, or at 
 least they are of Asiatic origin ; the Papuans are the de- 
 scendants of Ham, or at least they are of African origin. 
 The Malays are by far the finest in personal appearance ; 
 they are tall and well-formed, their skin a light yellow, 
 their hair a smooth glossy black. Their language is soft 
 and mellifluous, rivalling, if not surpassing, the Italian 
 itself. It is a peculiar but universal rule in all the dialects 
 of this language, that not only every word, but every syllable, 
 ends with a vowel ; while of the consonants, it is the semi- 
 vowels 1 m n r s, and the slender consonants k p t, that are 
 most commonly used. There are no gutturals, and ng is the 
 only double consonant ; while even that, in some of the dialects, 
 is softened into n tanyata, man, becomes tanata or Jcanaka. 
 If on a map of the South Sea Islands a point is fixed upon 
 at Easter Island, another at the north-west extremity of the 
 Sandwich Islands, and a third at the south-west extremity 
 of New Zealand, and if lines are drawn from these three 
 points so as to form a triangle on the map, this triangle 
 will include nearly the whole of the Malay Polynesian race. 
 While the language spoken by all these Malays is one, the 
 natives of nearly every group speak a different dialect of this 
 one language. There are at least seven distinctly marked 
 dialects of the Malay languages, viz., the Hawaiian, the 
 Marquesan, the Tahitian, the Rarotongan, the Samoan, the 
 Tongan, and the Maori or New Zealand. The Samoan is by
 
 6 THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 
 
 far the softest and smoothest, the Maori is the strongest and 
 roughest. The one is the Ionic of Polynesia, the other is the 
 Doric. Climate, it is said, by affecting the muscles of the 
 mouth, has a strongly modifying influence upon language. 
 Certain it is that Samoa and the Marquesas, where the 
 softest dialects are spoken, are the warmest localities ; whereas 
 New Zealand, where the strongest dialect is spoken, is the 
 coldest. But the softness and liquid smoothness of their 
 language brings one great disadvantage to the Polynesians, 
 it renders them nearly incapable of pronouncing English. 
 
 Melanesia, or, as it is sometimes still called, Western 
 Polynesia, is inhabited by the other distinct race, the Papuan, 
 who take their name from the island of Papua or New Guinea, 
 the largest island in Oceanica. They are also called Melane- 
 sians, from their dark colour, and Negritoes or Negrilloes, from 
 their negro-like appearance. They have crisp hair of different 
 shades, but never glossy black like the Malays. Their skin 
 is dark, a kind of coffee-and-milk colour, and their features 
 generally plain. Their whole appearance is unmistakably 
 African, but without the prognathous, protruding jaws of the 
 genuine negro. Their language is quite distinct from that 
 of the Malay Polynesian ; it belongs to an entirely different 
 family of languages, and it is endlessly diversified. Not only 
 on every group, but on every island, a different dialect is 
 spoken ; and so widely different are they as to be almost, 
 sometimes altogether, xanintelligible to the inhabitants of an 
 adjoining island. It will be difficult to say, till the languages 
 are more fully examined and compared than they have yet 
 been, how far they are connected by a common paternity. On 
 the south of the New Hebrides the dialects have evidently 
 sprung from a common language. There are strong re-
 
 THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS. 7 
 
 semblances in grammatical structure, but the diversity in the 
 vocables is very great. One would almost think that the 
 whole race had come direct from Babel at the confusion of 
 tongues, and that the inhabitants of one island had scarcely 
 ever spoken one word to those of another, from that day 
 to this.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 BEFORE proceeding to describe the New Hebrides, I may 
 insert a short paragraph or two, to connect the early dis- 
 coveries in the South Seas with the discovery of the New 
 Hebrides. After Magellan the next great name that appears 
 in this ocean is Mendana. Alvaro Mendana de Meyra, the 
 nephew of the Viceroy of Peru, sailed on a voyage of dis- 
 covery from Lima, in South America. He discovered the 
 Solomon Islands in 1567, the year in which the Reformed 
 Kirk of Scotland was established and endowed by the State. 
 He called them the Solomon Islands, from a belief that they 
 had supplied the gold and treasure employed in the building 
 of the Temple. The minds of the early discoverers seem 
 to have been constantly inflamed by the description of the 
 wealth of Solomon. The land of Ophir was the object of 
 continual research. Columbus, among his other dreams, be- 
 lieved that he had discovered this source of Jewish splendour 
 in Hispaniola and Yeragua. The Solomon group extends 
 about 600 miles, lying N.W.W. and S.E.E., between n deg. 
 and 5 deg. S. lat. and 163 deg. and 154 deg. E. long. Although 
 this group was discovered more than three centuries ago, it 
 was, till recently, one of the least-known groups in the world. 
 It is not much more than a century since the very existence
 
 J N J W }J 15 ji J D i o ii c 
 
 If 
 
 ,H 
 
 C.Quiro* 
 
 'Auroral. 1 
 
 Espin'tuSanto x 
 
 &fa. Whitsuntide I . 
 
 V 
 
 Ambrim 
 
 Malicollau: JE***"*^ 
 
 Paum^ ' 
 
 ^ 
 
 Api 
 
 ^^^"ShepTtfra^, If 
 
 
 Zff|' Lonpirudt TB\f~Eatt from IS&~ &rrrnir 
 
 / T^/- .ttraiflht Linrt dividr this Map into Squarrjt of 10(1 nfllith Milt*. 
 2 Tht ordinary Vtarte s ' XT' Lalitudr and Lonpitudr are yirtn in the mann
 
 THE NEW HEBRIDES. 9 
 
 of this group was doubted. So little was then known of 
 those seas, that one of the best hydrographers of that period, 
 Dalrymple, removed them on his chart ten or twelve degrees 
 to the west of their true position, under the belief that the 
 Solomon Islands of Mendana were the same as New Britain. 
 It was not till, by the elaborate disquisitions of the French, 
 comparing and combining the early and later discoveries, that 
 it was found that Mendana, Bougainville, Surville, Carteret, 
 Shortland, and others, had all discovered the same group. 
 The imperfect means in use for finding the longitude left the 
 discoveries of the early navigators in much uncertainty. But 
 with Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, New Caledonia, and other 
 islands all rising to such importance, and lying in such near 
 proximity, there is no fear of the Solomon group remaining 
 much longer a terra incognita. 
 
 After the Solomon group, the next discovered was what are 
 now called Queen Charlotte's Islands. Mendana was anxious 
 to revisit the Solomon Islands, and found a colony there, but 
 it was not till twenty-eight years afterwards, not till 1595, 
 that he was able to make the attempt. He was accompanied 
 by Pedro Vernandez de Quiros, a native of Portugal, and " an 
 officer of known worth." They failed to find the Solomon 
 group. They knew the latitude, but ship chronometers 
 were then unknown, and their longitude was wrong. They 
 kept too far to the east, and they came upon the Queen 
 Charlotte's Islands, which they called Marquesas, but which 
 must not be confounded with the modern Marquesas, which 
 lie to the north-east of Tahiti. Queen Charlotte's group is 
 small, and lies about 10 deg. S. lat. and 168 deg. E. long. It 
 lies a little to the north of the New Hebrides. It was, as I 
 have said, discovered by Mendana in 1595. He formed a
 
 10 THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 settlement at Santa Cruz, and died there the same year. 
 After his death the settlement was broken up. It was on Santa 
 Cruz where the deeply lamented Commodore Goodenough was 
 killed by the natives in 1876. This group was lost sight of 
 for nearly two centuries, till it was rediscovered by Captain 
 Carteret in 1767, and named after the reigning Queen. It was 
 proposed by French writers to withdraw the name of Queen 
 Charlotte, and to call it the Archipelago of La Perouse, in 
 honour of that distinguished French navigator, who perished in 
 one of them, called Vanikolo, in 1788. But this has not been 
 done. The episode of La Perouse is the most thrilling event 
 connected with the history of this group ; and all that is known 
 of it has been told by Chevalier Dillon, an enterprising colonial 
 captain, well known in Australia more than fifty years ago, 
 who published, in two volumes, an account of his voyages to 
 Fiji, the New Hebrides, &c., and after whom Dillon's Bay, 
 in Eromanga, was named. La Perouse was sailing on a 
 voyage of discovery ; the last place at which he was seen or 
 heard of was at Botany Bay, in New South Wales. The 
 account given to Captain Dillon by the natives of Vanikolo, 
 in 1826, was, that one morning after a fearful hurricane, when 
 they went out, they saw two vessels wrecked on the reef that 
 surrounds the island : one of them sank outside the reef ; the 
 other was driven over the reef into smooth water : a great 
 number of the men on board were drowned, and their bodies 
 devoured by the sharks; others were killed by the natives, 
 but a portion survived, who erected a stockade by the side of 
 a stream, and out of the wreck of the large vessel they built 
 a small one with two masts, in which they all sailed away 
 but two. As this vessel was never heard of it must have 
 been lost. The natives had never seen a ship or a white man
 
 THE NEW HEBRIDES. I I 
 
 before. They supposed them to be water or oceau spirits. 
 They said, " A man stood at the gate of the stockade with an 
 iron rod in his hand" (the sentry with his musket). "The men 
 had long noses out from their heads" (alluding to their cocked 
 hats). " They ate only little bits of food " (probably biscuits). 
 " The chiefs kept looking through something at the sun and 
 the stars. Of the two men who remained on the island, the 
 one was a chief, the other a common man ; the chief had died 
 three years before Captain Dillon's visit ; the other had fled 
 away to another island with the native chief under whom he 
 lived." Captain Dillon obtained a great number of articles 
 belonging to the two vessels, so as to furnish abundant proof 
 that La Perouse's vessels were lost there. He conveyed them 
 to France, received the rewards offered by the French Govern- 
 ment, and was honoured with the title of Chevalier by the 
 French King. The group next discovered was the Neio 
 Hebrides. 
 
 The New Hebrides were first discovered in 1606, the year 
 after the Gunpowder Plot. Dynamite was then unknown, or 
 the plot might not have been discovered. Torres Straits, 
 between Australia and New Guinea, were discovered the same 
 year by Quiros's second in command, Louis Varz de Torres, 
 after whom they were named. Quiros had been major pilot 
 to Mendana in his last voyage. He supposed the New 
 Hebrides to be part of the great southern continent, the 
 idea that filled the imaginations of all the early adventurers, 
 and hence he called it Tierra del Espiritu Santo. He anchored 
 in the large bay of St. Filip, in the north-east corner of the 
 northernmost island, now generally called Santo. Here a large 
 river runs into the sea, which he called the Jordan. He founded 
 a town on its banks, which he called Le Nuova Jerusalem,
 
 12 THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 the New Jerusalem. The port he named Vera Cruz, the True 
 Cross. The Spaniards quarrelled with the natives, and soon 
 abandoned the settlement. Quiros returned to Mexico, but 
 Torres sailed west, and passed through the Straits that he 
 discovered, and which are rendered memorable by Commodore 
 Erskine's proclaiming there the British protectorate over 
 the south-east of New Guinea. Nothing more was known 
 of the New Hebrides till 1768, when Cook sailed on his first 
 voyage to the South Seas to observe the transit of Venus at 
 Tahiti; and, two years after, Wallis and Carteret had pro- 
 ceeded on a voyage of discovery in the same ocean : a period 
 brilliant with eminent men in pursuit of new regions. 
 This year Bougainville ascertained that the land discovered 
 by Quiros was not a continent, but a group of islands. He 
 sailed through the passage that bears his name, between 
 Mallicolla and Santo, landed upon what he misnamed Lepers' 
 Island (he had mistaken some skin disease for leprosy 
 there is no leprosy on the New Hebrides), the correct name 
 of which is Aoba, and called the group by the name of the 
 Great Cyclades. In 1773 Captain Cook explored the entire 
 group, and thought he had done enough to entitle him to 
 name them anew himself, and called them The New Hebrides, 
 supposing them to be the most western islands in the Pacific. 
 In a subsequent voyage, however, he discovered another large 
 island, nearly 200 miles farther west, which he named New 
 Caledonia, and took possession of it formally in the name of 
 his sovereign, King George the Third ; but which was taken 
 possession of surreptitiously in 1854 by the French during 
 the Crimean war, when our Government could not afford to 
 have a quarrel with the French about such a paltry posses- 
 sion. Some writers, jealous for the honour of Quiros, have
 
 THE NEW HEBRIDES. 13 
 
 strongly urged that the original name should be restored to 
 this group. For the sake of distinctness and simplicity, the 
 plain, common-sense plan of retaining or restoring the native 
 names of places, wherever these can be ascertained, is now 
 generally acted on. But as the natives have no name for 
 the entire group, some foreign name must be adopted. The 
 name given to them by Quiros, however, is objectionable. 
 Sounding in grave sonorous Spanish, in Roman Catholic 
 ears, there might appear nothing improper in Tierra Australis 
 del Espiritu Santo. But translated into English, where 
 sacred names are so carefully excluded from common objects, 
 what would sound more harsh and profane in Protestant 
 ears than the Archipelago of the Holy Ghost ! Whatever 
 opinion may be formed of Cook's procedure in rejecting the 
 Great Cyclades and employing the New Hebrides, the latter 
 name is now so firmly established, that it is certain to be 
 retained permanently and employed universally. 
 
 The New Hebrides group extends to about 400 miles in 
 length, lying N.N.W. and S.S.E., between 21 deg. and 15 deg. 
 S. lat. and 171 deg. and 166 deg. E. long. They lie about 1000 
 miles nearly due north of New Zealand, about 400 miles west 
 of Fiji, about 200 miles east of New Caledonia, and about 1400 
 miles north-east of Sydney. There are about thirty islands in 
 the group ; nearly twenty of them are inhabited, and the third 
 of them are of considerable extent. It is their proximity to 
 New Caledonia that is the only plausible argument advanced 
 by the French to justify their desire for annexing the group. 
 The French have no claim whatever upon the New Hebrides. 
 The claim of the British is beyond dispute. Everything that 
 has been done for the group, and for the natives of those 
 islands, has been done by the British. Cook, as we have
 
 14 THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 seen, partly discovered the islands ; he fully explored them, 
 surveyed the whole group, and laid the islands down in maps, 
 with an accuracy that has never been surpassed. For about 
 forty years they have been visited almost annually by a British 
 man-of-war, to maintain law and order, and secure life and 
 property. Nearly all that has been done to develop trade 
 on the islands has been effected by British capital, skill, and 
 industry. All that has been done to introduce Christianity, 
 promote education, and advance civilisation has been done 
 by British missions and British subjects. It was the British 
 missionaries who were the first, and all along have been the 
 most active and earnest, to oppose and repress kidnapping 
 and slavery on the group. Our Presbyterian mission has 
 expended ;i 60,000 in their efforts to Christianise the natives : 
 and we are not only maintaining, but we are extending and 
 increasing our agencies to promote the highest interests of 
 the natives. But what have the French done to promote 
 any of these objects? They have done literally nothing. 
 And judging from what they have done in the islands 
 nearest to us, viz., the Loyalty Islands, they would suppress 
 our mission as fast as they possibly could. Moreover, all the 
 natives are eager to be under British protection. But they 
 all dread any connection with the French. It is true there 
 was a French mission for some years on Aneityum, but what 
 were the results ? They were equal to the means employed, 
 but no more. The missionaries printed no books, opened 
 no schools, and erected no churches. They held one short 
 service in their own house on the Sabbath, and gave to the 
 natives small brass medals with the image of the Virgin 
 Mary on one side, and assured them that if they wore 
 these medals she would protect them from all evil. After
 
 THE NEW HEBRIDES. T 5 
 
 the priests left the island, a young lad who had lived with 
 them went and lived with Mr. Geddie, and continued faith- 
 fully to wear the medal ; but he attended church and school 
 on the mission station. Mr. Geddie took no notice of the 
 medal ; but by-and-by it disappeared, the lad had ceased to 
 wear it ; and Mr. Geddie said to him one day, " Mataio, what 
 has become of the medal of the Virgin Mary that you got 
 from the priests ? " "Oh," said he, " you remember that 
 the other Sabbath day you read to us out of the book how 
 Joseph and Mary lost little Jesus about Jerusalem, and they 
 had to seek Him for three days before they could find Him ; 
 so I thought, if Mary knew so little about her own son, it 
 was not likely she could know much about me. So I threw 
 the medal away ! " And so ended Mariolatry and the Popish 
 mission on Aneityum. I have heard Ave Maria pronounced 
 on New Caledonia, but never on Aneityum. 
 
 The New Hebrides may be looked upon as a continuation 
 of New Zealand. The geological character of both is the 
 same. The islands are volcanic, resting upon a basis of coral. 
 The lava in its melted state has often run over above the 
 coral. The islands constitute something like a range of 
 mountains, covered largely with forests and deep valleys 
 with steep water-formed ridges ; and with blank spaces, of 
 course, where the ocean rolls between. The west side of 
 Santo, the largest and most northerly of the group, is 
 extremely beautiful and picturesque. The island rises up out 
 of the sea like a long, huge mountain. The ridges and valleys 
 rise up one above another from the shore to the summit ; and 
 if presented in a picture, they would resemble the frontispiece 
 of a geography, where the relative heights of the mountains 
 on the globe are represented in a plate. I have not visited
 
 1 6 THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 the north end, nor the east side, of Santo, but I understand 
 they are beautiful. A few years ago the Dayspring sailed 
 round the island, and anchored at the head of the great bay of 
 St. Filip, where Quiros and Torres anchored their two vessels. 
 One of our missionaries, the Rev. Mr. Neilson, was on board. 
 He was much pleased with all that he saw, and supplied a 
 very interesting account of the voyage. The natives were 
 peaceable and kind, and gave them a good reception. Mr. 
 Neilson strongly recommended that a mission station should 
 be formed, and two missionaries should be settled, at the head 
 of St. Jago Bay, at the port of the True Cross, on the banks 
 of the modern Jordan, and on the very site of the New 
 Jerusalem as laid down by Quiros ; that so a reality might 
 be effected, far nobler than the ideal contemplated by the 
 courageous and devout, but ignorant and superstitious, ad- 
 venturer of 1606. Want of men, rather than want of means, 
 prevented the Mission Synod from carrying out this proposal. 
 But we are creeping northward, and occupying one island 
 after another as fast as we are able ; and we trust that 
 the day is not far distant when that suggestion will be 
 an accomplished fact, and when it shall be said, " Behold 
 Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia; . . . the Lord shall 
 count, when He writeth up the people, that this man was 
 born there." 
 
 The New Hebrides, like New Zealand, have a moist, humid 
 climate ; they rarely ever suffer from drought. The islands 
 are well supplied with streams of excellent water ; there is 
 generally a sufficiency of rain, and very seldom too much. As 
 in New Zealand, the clouds are high, and the atmosphere is 
 clear. Anything like a London fog is quite unknown. The 
 climate is delightful, the range of the thermometer all the
 
 THE NEW HEBRIDES. I/ 
 
 year round is only about 30 deg. ; from 60 deg. up to 90 deg. 
 The sea-breeze modifies the heat. The prevailing winds are 
 from south to east. The public health is always best in summer 
 during the warmest weather, while sickness prevails most in 
 winter when the weather is coldest. 
 
 The volcanoes constitute the next point of resemblance. 
 There are three volcanoes in the New Hebrides, one on Tanna, 
 another on Ambrym, and a third on Polevi ; all three are 
 active. The volcano on Tanna is as active and conspicuous 
 to-day as it was a century and more ago, when seen by 
 Cook and the Forsters. Heavy earthquakes are felt in 
 both groups. Both regions are to a large extent covered 
 with forests, although necessarily different, the one being in 
 the temperate and the other in the torrid zone. But the 
 far-famed damara, or kauri pine, so plentiful and so prized 
 in the north of New Zealand, is also found in the New 
 Hebrides, though of a different species. In the forests of 
 both there is the same dense undergrowth and the same 
 profusion and variety of ferns : on Aneityum there are about 
 a hundred species. In the shores of both groups fish are 
 plentiful, but for the most part they are coarse and hard as 
 compared with the fish in our northern seas. There are, of 
 course, exceptions, for some are soft, tender, and delicious. 
 Fifty years ago the coasts of New Zealand were among the 
 best whaling grounds in the southern hemisphere, till the 
 whales were either nearly killed out or frightened away from 
 the shore. In the New Hebrides whales appear in large 
 numbers during the calving season ; and for the last thirty 
 years there has been one, often two, whaling stations on 
 Aneityum, and occasionally one on Eromanga. From ^2000 
 to ^3000 worth of whale oil has been obtained on Aneityum
 
 I 8 THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 in one season. In both New Zealand and the New Hebrides 
 the only indigenous quadruped is a small rat. In the New 
 Hebrides there are four species of small lizards, but all of 
 them are harmless ; there are snakes of two feet long or more 
 on the shore, and serpents of three feet long or so in the 
 interior, neither of which are poisonous. 
 
 The New Hebrides are a valuable group of islands. Every 
 tropical production can be cultivated there to perfection. If 
 carefully protected and developed they may become to Aus- 
 tralia and New Zealand what the West Indies have been to 
 the mother-country. But if the so-called labour traffic is 
 allowed to continue, or still worse, if they are allowed to 
 become a French penal settlement, as the French Govern- 
 ment has been straining every nerve to accomplish, then 
 Ichabod may be written over every island, and the hopes of 
 the missionaries and the philanthropists will be extinguished. 
 Let the friends of those poor natives watch and pray ; watch 
 against the selfishness of man, and pray to the merciful and 
 righteous God to defend these poor helpless aborigines. 
 
 The population of the New Hebrides has been estimated as 
 low as 70,000, and as high as 150,000. The islands are not 
 populous, and from various causes the population is rapidly 
 diminishing; and nothing can neutralise these causes, and 
 save the natives from extinction, except Christianity. It is 
 the true Conservatism. The Wesleyans say that they are the 
 friends of all, and the enemies of none, and certainly so is 
 Christianity, and so is our Mission.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 ANEITYUM. 
 
 THE correct spelling of this word is A-neit'-yum, pronounced 
 in three syllables, with the accent on the second syllable. 
 But the word has struggled hard to secure the proper pro- 
 nunciation, and still more to establish the correct spelling. 
 In this group almost every island has two or three names ; 
 one given by the natives belonging to the island, and another 
 or others by the natives of other islands respectively, and by 
 foreigners. Captain Cook was the first to reduce the name 
 to writing and publish it in print, and he wrote it Anattom. 
 This is the way it is pronounced by the Tannese. Cook was 
 never nearer Aneityum than Tanna, and he accepted the 
 name which he heard there. The people of Futuna call it 
 E-ki-d-mo, and here again the traders have corrupted it into 
 Gama ; and, not satisfied with this, they have Scotticised it into 
 Campbell. On one occasion, in the first year of the Mission, 
 the captain of a small schooner called on me, and was shown 
 into my study. He told me that his object in calling at the 
 island was to bring home half a dozen Campbell boys, who 
 had been working for a white man on the Isle of Pines. 
 
 While this conversation was going on my wife came into 
 the room. 
 
 When the trader had gone away, she said, " But who
 
 2O ANEITYTJM. 
 
 are these Campbell boys that the man is speaking so much 
 about?" 
 
 " Don't you know these 1 " I said ; " they are your own 
 Aneityumese. " 
 
 The early traders gave another variation to Aneityum, and 
 called it Anatam, with the accent on the last syllable, as if it 
 had been an Indian word. This was the recognised form of 
 the word in Sydney. When we first went to the Mission, 
 one of our correspondents in Sydney addressed our letters to 
 Aneityum (Anatam), the latter word being added to prevent 
 mistake. Bishop Selwyn wrote it, for native purposes at 
 least, Anaijom. The missionaries all pronounced it correctly, 
 but the Samoan brethren fixed the spelling of it to be 
 Aneiteum, which was caused in this way. In the Samoan 
 alphabet as fixed by the missionaries there is neither w nor 
 y, as these letters are not needed in the Samoan language. 
 Mr. Geddie and I, however, introduced them into our alphabet 
 when we finally fixed the number of letters for the Aneit- 
 yumese. The Samoan missionaries spelled the word with 
 Samoan letters only, but retaining the correct pronunciation. 
 Mr. Geddie and I followed their example till 1860, when I 
 came home to carry the New Testament through the press, 
 and found almost every person mispronouncing the name of 
 our island. Most of them called it A-nei-te-um, pronouncing 
 it in four syllables, with the accent on the third. I took upon 
 myself to change the e into y, so as to prevent this mis- 
 pronunciation. The Rev. Mr. Copeland, who had charge of 
 my station at the time, an exact scholar and an excellent 
 orthoepist, wrote me suggesting the same change. His letter 
 and mine on this subject must have crossed each other in 
 mid-ocean. This spelling is now generally accepted.
 
 ANEITYUM. 2 1 
 
 The natives of Aneityum, following the genius of their 
 own language, call Tanna Anma, and Futuna Anhas ; or more 
 fully, Inpekeranma, the Land of Bread-fruit ; and Inpekeran- 
 has, the Bad Land, that is, the land where food is scarce ; 
 their own land, as I have said, being Inpelteraneityum. It 
 was discovered, however, that Ipari was the proper name of 
 Tanna, Tanna means land ; the natives call it Tanna asora, 
 the great land, as we speak of the continent or the mainland. 
 But when Captain Cook, pointing to the ground, made signs 
 as to what they called the island, the natives always said 
 tanna, meaning land or earth, whereas he understood them 
 to mean the name of the island, at least so we infer from 
 similar experiences. Two of our young missionaries having 
 discovered this, thought, in their youthful zeal, that they 
 would put down the usurper, and reinstal the lawful owner ; 
 call the island Ipari, and discard Tanna. But, alas ! the 
 prescriptive right of a century held good against all comers. 
 Max Miiller tells us, in his " Lectures on Language," that on 
 one occasion, when the Emperor Sigismund was delivering 
 a speech, he mispronounced a Latin word. An old gram- 
 marian took the liberty of reminding him of the correct 
 pronunciation. But the Emperor, conscious of his despotic 
 power, spoke to the effect that the Imperial pronunciation 
 must henceforth be accepted. But, alas ! against the long- 
 accepted pronunciation of the word the will of Coesar was 
 powerless. Our young friends, certain that they were right, 
 and believing in the long- accepted axiom, " Great is the 
 truth, and it will prevail," published their supposed discovery 
 although it had been known twenty years before to some 
 of the older missionaries, who, however, were willing to let 
 well alone discarded Tanna, and dated all their letters from
 
 22 ANEITYUM. 
 
 Ipari, and concluded that the change was completed. But 
 what is more obstinate than use and wont ? So far as I am 
 aware, Ipari has never been seen in print, except in connec- 
 tion with the published letters of these two brethren. By 
 the way, some people spell this word Tana. This spelling 
 would be correct if it were a Malay word, where every syllable 
 ends in a vowel. But in this case it is incorrect. It is a 
 Papuan word, and as you hear it pronounced, the first 
 syllable ends in a consonant ; it is not pronounced Ta-na, 
 but Tan-na. 
 
 Aneityum is the most southern island of the New Heb- 
 rides. The harbour at Anelgauhat, on the south-west side of 
 the island, is in lat. 20 deg. 14 min. S. and long 169 deg. 
 49 min. E. ; the variation of the compass is 10 deg. 30. min. E. 
 It is a small and, for a tropical, rather a poor island, about 
 35 miles in circumference. It consists of a congeries of 
 mountains, the highest of which is nearly 3000 feet. These 
 are intersected by three or four large valleys and a num- 
 ber of small ones. When we went to Aneityum in 1852, 
 in the Border Maid, with Bishop Selwyn, the night before 
 we reached the island, immediately after sunset, he called 
 our attention to the first glimpse of land. About 50 miles 
 west of our calculated position, on the extreme edge of the 
 far-distant horizon, there rose up in clear and distinct out- 
 line, like two little knolls, the two round summits of Inrero, 
 or Saddle Back, as it was afterwards called by the officers 
 of H.M.S. Herald, who surveyed the island. The hills are 
 steep, and the valleys for the most part deep and narrow. A 
 small strip of alluvial land along the shore, where the shore 
 is protected by a reef, with the lower part of the larger 
 valleys, include the most of the cultivated land of the island,
 
 ANEITYUM. 2 3 
 
 and contain the principal part of the population. The lower 
 and middle parts of the mountains next the sea are mostly 
 formed of red ferruginous clay, and are scantily covered with 
 herbage and brushwood. On the upper parts, the soil, though 
 stony, consists of a rich black mould, and dense forests cover 
 the summits of the mountains. The island, as might be 
 expected, is well watered, and the ingenuity of the natives is 
 seen in nothing perhaps so much as in the system of irriga- 
 tion by which they water their plantation of taro and sugar- 
 cane. There are swamps in different parts of the island, 
 which are extremely valuable as taro grounds, but, from 
 being imperfectly drained, are also productive of ague and 
 fever. 
 
 The principal fruit trees on the island are the cocoa-nut, 
 the bread-fruit, the horse chestnut, and a few others of less 
 value. Taro is cultivated largely, and may be considered as 
 the bread of the land. Sugar-cane and bananas are equally 
 plentiful Yams are produced only to a very limited extent, 
 whereas on Tanna they are a staple article of food. The 
 sweet potato grows well, and so does arrow-root Pine-apples, 
 custard apples, the cape gooseberry, &c., have been introduced 
 and grow well. Oranges, lemons, limes, and all that family 
 grow exceedingly well. But the common fruits and culinary 
 vegetables of this country come to no perfection there. Pigs 
 and fowls are the only live stock that the natives possess, and 
 these are not numerous. The cows and goats at the two 
 Mission stations throve well, but sheep did not increase, and 
 we ceased to keep them. Around the island, but especially 
 at the principal harbour, fishing is one of the regular and 
 almost daily pursuits of the natives. The fish, however, are 
 not very plentiful, and are for the most part of an inferior
 
 24 ANEITYDM. 
 
 quality. A good many turtles are caught from time to time. 
 The island of Aneityum is one on which, by a moderate 
 industry, an abundance of food may always be raised, but 
 where the spontaneous productions of the earth and the 
 ocean are much less abundant than they appear to be on 
 some other islands, and on some other groups. 
 
 The island is divided politically into six principal districts, 
 three on the south side, and three on the north. Aname, our 
 station, is on the north, but the districts are of very unequal 
 sizes : each of these again is divided into several sub-districts. 
 In the days of heathenism there was a principal chief for 
 each principal district, and an under chief for each sub- 
 district. It is much the same still, only formerly the principal 
 chiefs exercised the priestly rather than the kingly power, 
 though both offices were frequently combined in the same 
 person. The priestly office has now ceased. The power of 
 the chiefs on Aneityum was very limited. Every man did 
 very much that which was right in his own eyes. The men 
 who were most distinguished as warriors or famed as disease 
 makers, being most dreaded, possessed the greatest power. 
 Under the reign of heathenism, both in civil and religious 
 matters, fear and not love was the grand ruling principle by 
 which obedience was secured. 
 
 There is neither a town nor a village in the whole island. 
 The system of cottage farming is in a state of full develop- 
 ment there. There is no large proprietor, no powerful or 
 wealthy chief ; every man sits proprietor of his own cottage, 
 his own garden, and his own cultivated patches you could 
 not call them fields. The waste lands and the forests, to the 
 summits of the mountains, belong to the tribe. They are a 
 kind of crown lands, but what each man cultivates belongs to
 
 ANEITYUM. 2 5 
 
 himself. But this system, so warmly advocated by many in 
 this country, is not good as an exclusive system. There they 
 have no capitalists and no division of labour : every man 
 cultivates his own garden, builds his own cottage, hews out 
 his own canoe : every man does everything, and hence he 
 does nothing either quickly or well. The Mission stations, 
 however, became the germs of villages, and the arts of civilised 
 life have largely sprung up around them. In mechanical 
 skill the natives of Aneityum and of the New Hebrides 
 generally are greatly inferior to the Malays of Polynesia. 
 Being evidently a much earlier migration than the Malays, 
 they had brought less civilisation with them, and being longer 
 dissociated from the civilised world, they had lost more of 
 what they originally brought. Their houses, canoes, orna- 
 ments, and weapons of war showed the least possible skill 
 in their form and workmanship. But they are quite an im- 
 provable race, and are eager to imitate their superiors. In 
 their movements they are active and energetic ; they work 
 well at any kind of unskilled labour, and at what may be 
 called native skilled labour, and when trained they evince 
 a fair aptitude for acquiring a knowledge of European 
 skilled labour. The women make excellent nurses and good 
 domestic servants. 
 
 It was currently and extensively believed that the climate 
 of the New Hebrides was extremely unhealthy. From what 
 I saw and heard, when I first became acquainted with the 
 group, I fully concurred in that view at the time. There 
 were apparently good grounds for that opinion. I am now, 
 however, fully certain that this is not the case. It would be 
 foolishness in the extreme in that group to tamper with 
 the laws of health. And no command in the decalogue
 
 26 ANEITYUM. 
 
 requires to be more carefully obeyed than the sixth, which 
 " requires all lawful endeavours to preserve our own life and 
 the life of others." In regard to this commandment, on 
 those islands retribution follows on the heels of disobedience 
 both with swiftness and certainty. Still, as there are no 
 examples of caprice, and as, by the dear-bought experience of 
 the first missionaries and others, the causes and character of 
 the diseases most prevalent on those islands are known, there 
 is much less to be apprehended on the ground of sickness 
 than was at one time believed. 
 
 For a number of years I kept a Meteorological Register of 
 the winds, weather, and temperature; I insert that for 1853, 
 which may be accepted as a fair average, and will convey the 
 most distinct idea that I can furnish of the climate. 
 
 It will be seen from this table that the mean temperature 
 in the shade, at my station, during that year was 76 deg. (in 
 Samoa it is about 78 deg.); the highest was 89 deg. and the 
 lowest 58 deg. The number of fine days was 251; and indeed 
 the most of the eighty-seven showery days might be set down 
 as fine, though not as fair days. On the wet days, however, 
 the rain often descends in torrents. Thunderstorms are not 
 frequent not oftener than two or three times in the year, 
 but they are occasionally violent, and sometimes bordering 011 
 the terrific. The nights are often clear and beautiful, and 
 every part of the firmament is bespangled with stars. At one 
 season or another every constellation in the heavens is visible, 
 from the Southern Cross to the Great Northern Bear. I was 
 quite delighted the first night that I saw the Plough. The 
 Ursa Major is not visible in New Zealand, and hence I had 
 not seen it for six years. But on Aneityum, when it is at 
 its highest southern altitude here, it is seen in the north, a
 
 ANEITYUM. 
 
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 28 ANEITYUM. 
 
 few degrees above the horizon, and night after night it keeps 
 hovering, like a guardian angel, over the island of Tanna. 
 While approaching Port Resolution I have seen it stretch- 
 ing across the mouth of the harbour, like the ancient 
 Colossus at Rhodes. From the great breadth of ocean around 
 and the general prevalence of the trade winds, the atmosphere 
 is kept cool and pleasant ; and during a great part of the 
 year the salubrity of the island is secure.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ANEITYUMESE IN HEATHENISM. 
 
 THE Aneityumese, as well as the natives of the New Hebrides 
 generally, are all, as near as may be, unmixed Papuans. They 
 are of a distinctively African type, doubtless descendants 
 of Ham. Their traditions are very vague, and of little or 
 no historical value. Their mythology is equally vague and 
 indistinct. So far as we could sift out from the most intelli- 
 gent natives, their ideas about the unseen world were some- 
 what as follows: Inhujeraing was the supreme deity. He 
 was the maker of heaven and earth, and all things that they 
 contain ; he had many children and grandchildren, but nobody, 
 say the natives, knows who their mother was. Moitukke-tukke, 
 Inbotheth, Ndho, and a host of others, were inferior or local 
 deities. They appear all to have been deified men. Natmas, 
 the name given to every deity, signifies literally a dead man, 
 and they all dwelt in Uma-atmas, the Land of the Dead. 
 Theirs was the Worship of their Ancestors. Prayers and 
 offerings were presented to one when taro was planted ; to 
 another when a canoe was made ; to another when war was 
 undertaken; to another in time of sickness, &c. Like the 
 ancient idolaters, one tribe were worshippers of one class 
 of deities, another tribe of another class. There were no 
 temples, but every little district had a piece of sacred ground
 
 30 THE ANEITYUMESE IN HEATHENISM. 
 
 that was never tilled, and on which all sacred rites were 
 performed. At the Reformation in Scotland, Knox and the 
 Reformers urged that the Church lands, when forfeited to the 
 Crown, should be appropriated for the support of religion, 
 education, and the poor. So there, when heathenism was 
 given up, those Church lands, those untilled sacred grounds, 
 were appropriated by public consent, and, so far as they went, 
 for the support of education, and were passed over to the 
 teachers for the time being, as gardens for the planting of 
 taro, sugar-cane, and bananas. The popular belief was that 
 earth, and air, and ocean were filled with natmasses, spiritual 
 beings, but all malignant, who ruled over everything that 
 affected the human race. There was a numerous and power- 
 ful priesthood, who, according to the popular belief, directed 
 all the malignity of the unseen world, and whose exactions 
 on the people were very oppressive. Stones were the chief 
 fetishes, or representatives of the natmasses: these were of 
 all sizes, from that of a pebble to blocks of some tons weight. 
 About a mile inland from our station are two blocks each as 
 large as the roof of a small cottage ; both of them were recog- 
 nized as natmasses ; the one, the larger, was called the sun, 
 and the other the moon. The sides of the larger rock are 
 marked with some rude sculptured figures of fishes and birds ; 
 and as one of the best fishing grounds could be seen from 
 these rocks, certain incantations performed on these were 
 believed to affect the success or non-success of the fishing. 
 Every family had a basket containing a collection of natmasses 
 of their own a sort of penates, or household gods, which they 
 worshipped as a family. When they professed Christianity 
 these were destroyed, or sometimes brought to the missionary ; 
 but in a few cases a portion of them were secretly retained,
 
 THE ANEITYUMESE IN HEATHENISM. 31 
 
 and for long afterwards, in time of severe sickness or on a 
 deathbed, when they were pressed, as they often are by their 
 friends, as Job of old was by his, to confess their secret sins, 
 this secret idolatry was brought to light. Scarcely anything 
 is so tenacious of life as superstition ; witness the remains of 
 it among the ignorant in our own land. The natives had a 
 distinct belief in a future state, and in the efficacy of prayer 
 and sacrifice to propitiate their offended deities. They never 
 offered human sacrifices, although they were cannibals ; and 
 although their beliefs were in many respects exceedingly 
 erroneous, yet they were of great use to us in helping to 
 lead them to understand and receive the Scriptural doctrines 
 on these vital points. But while they believed in the im- 
 mortality of the soul, like the Greeks and Romans and our 
 Pagan forefathers they had no idea of the resurrection of the 
 body. The wife was strangled on the death of her husband, 
 that her spirit might accompany his to the land of the dead, 
 to be his servant there as she had been in this world. The 
 entrance to Uma-atmas was in the west end of the island. 
 Tradition said there had been a volcano at this place, but that 
 in some period, of what we should call the prehistoric era, 
 the natmasses, for some reason not known, had removed it to 
 Tanna, and it has remained in the neighbourhood of Port 
 Resolution from that time to this. Uma-atmas was divided into 
 two regions, called the good land and the bad land, correspond- 
 ing to paradise and gehenna ; but their ideas of the rewards 
 and punishments of the unseen world were extremely vague 
 and indistinct ; the sin that would be visited with the severest 
 punishment there was stinginess or niggardliness in giving 
 away food, and the virtue that received the highest reward 
 was a generous hospitality and a giving liberally at feasts.
 
 32 THE ANEITYUMESE IN HEATHENISM. 
 
 Their deities, like themselves, were all selfish and malignant ; 
 they breathed no spirit of benevolence, and the rewards and 
 punishments of the future state were connected more with 
 ritual observances than with moral character. Their religion 
 contained no principle that could lead to a holy life ; they cer- 
 tainly thought that their gods were like themselves, and that 
 they approved of their sins. It would have been morally 
 impossible on Aneityum for any man to have conceived of 
 such a character, morally and religiously, as that of the man 
 Christ Jesus. To have done so would have been a miracle as 
 great as that of His resurrection. 
 
 I may here give a brief account of one of our natmasses, 
 which may be accepted as a typical case. His name was 
 Rangitafu ; he belonged to Nohmunjap, a district to the west 
 of our Mission station. Rangitafu was a block of whinstone, 
 about five feet long, a foot and a half broad, and a foot thick. 
 He was a sea-god, and presided over shipwrecks. He seemed 
 to have been an Abaddon, not a Joshua; an Apollyon, not a 
 Jesus ; a destroyer of seamen, not a Saviour ; and was thus in 
 unison with the malignant divinities of the New Hebrides. 
 No mariner saved from shipwreck ever hung up his dripping 
 garments in the temple of Rangitafu, as a thank-offering to 
 the god for his deliverance, as Horace represents them doing 
 in the temples of Neptune at Rome. If a man went to sea 
 in his canoe, his friends did not approach the shrine of 
 Rangitafu with offerings and prayers, supplicating for his 
 safety. He seems to have been powerless in this respect. 
 But, on the other hand, his enemy went to the priest with a 
 present ; the priest then presented a piece of a broken canoe 
 to Rangitafu, and offered up a prayer, in the belief or hope 
 that the natmas would destroy the canoe and cause those on
 
 THE ANEITYUMESE IN HEATHENISM. 33 
 
 board to perish. One day, when we were preparing to erect 
 our Teachers' Institution, without my knowledge, the chief 
 and people of the land in which Eangitafu was worshipped 
 made a frame of wood, placed the natmas thereon, and some 
 thirty men carried him two miles on their shoulders, and 
 brought him to the Institution, to be laid in the foundation. 
 But we did not hide him away underground I thought we 
 could utilise Rangitafu to a better purpose. As the Roman 
 generals of old were in the habit of augmenting the splendour 
 of their triumphal entries into Rome by exhibiting as trophies 
 the gods of the conquered nations, so we resolved to do some- 
 thing of the same kind with the rejected divinity of Noh- 
 munjap. As the stone was admirably adapted for the front- 
 door step of the Institution, so we set it apart for that 
 purpose ; and that it might remain as a perpetual trophy to 
 the power of the Gospel, we laid the well-known natmas, with 
 all needed Masonic honours, as the principal step before the 
 principal door of this important building. At Ashdod, Dagon 
 fell prostrate on the threshold before the ark of God. On 
 Aneityum, Rangitafu, for about eight and twenty long years, 
 has been trodden underfoot by every one that has entered 
 into that temple of ours, in which the Word of God has been 
 taught, and the elements of a liberal education have been 
 communicated. 
 
 On Aneityum the idols were all, like the Jewish altars, of 
 uncarved, unhewn stones. The only exception to this which 
 we ever found was in the case of Tuatau, a natmas which I 
 found at Anauunse and took home with me. Tuatau was of 
 wood, a piece of a breadfruit tree. Like the idolaters mentioned 
 by the prophet, the maker of this idol had chosen a tree that 
 will not rot. It was a rudely shaped, uncouth figure, its conn-
 
 34 THE ANEITYUMESE IN HEATHENISM. 
 
 tenance only very slightly resembling the " human face divine." 
 I was struck with its being made of wood, and afterwards 
 learned that it Avas not a native idol it was of foreign manu- 
 facture. It had a little history of its own, which may serve 
 to illustrate that of " the image which fell down from Jupiter " 
 (Acts xix. 35). About the beginning of this century, as nearly 
 as native chronology supplied me with the date on which to 
 calculate, in the days of Tuatau, a great chief of Anauunse, 
 this poor idol was one morning found drifted ashore by the 
 north-east wind. How long it had been tossed upon the 
 ocean nobody knew. But as it bore all the marks of a Malay 
 idol, and was very like the fisherman's god of Rarotonga, as 
 given in Williams's " Missionary Enterprises," and which, he 
 says, " was placed on the forepart of every fishing canoe ; and 
 when the natives were going on a fishing excursion, prior to 
 setting off they invariably presented offerings to the god, and 
 invoked him to grant success," it seemed highly probable 
 that this idol was a Rarotongan fisherman's god that the 
 canoe on which it was borne had been wrecked that the 
 poor fishermen had been drowned and that the idol had been 
 drifted along before the trade- winds till it was cast ashore on 
 Aneityum. But, be that as it may have been, its subsequent 
 history was well enough known. Among a people remarkably 
 unskilled in the pictorial arts, its faint resemblance to the 
 human form secured for it favour and veneration. The day 
 on which it was found was one on which Tuatau was making 
 a great feast. The Natmasses were always closely connected 
 with the feasts. It was one of the fundamental articles in 
 the creed of heathenism on Aneityum, that the man who made 
 the largest feasts and who presented the most costly offer- 
 ings to the Natmasses was the man that most effectually pro-
 
 THE ANEITYUMESE IN HEATHENISM. 35 
 
 pitiated their favour. The sacred men all declared that the 
 Natmasses had made this image and brought it to Tuatau ; 
 and the chief and the ignorant populace accepted the state- 
 ment as readily, and believed it as firmly, as the Asiarchs and 
 the idolaters of Ephesus believed that the ugly little statue, 
 made of ebony or vine-wood by Canetias, was, as the priests 
 of Diana affirmed it to be, " the image that fell down from 
 Jupiter." The chief received it as a token of the special favour 
 of the Natmasses, placed it within the sacred enclosure, and 
 thenceforth regarded it as his tutelar divinity. After the death 
 of Tuatau the idol received his name, and was supposed to be 
 watching over his spirit ; and it continued to be worshipped 
 till Christianity was accepted in Anauunse. 
 
 Had the idol been a man a shipwrecked sailor, or one of 
 the poor fishermen on the prow of whose canoe it sat con- 
 spicuous, as Castor and Pollux did in the ship that carried 
 Paul to a certainty he had been killed, and most probably 
 also eaten ; at least a shipwrecked sailor met with this sad 
 fate at Eromanga, within less than a twelvemonth of the 
 time when Tuatau fell into my hands ; but being a block of 
 wood, shaped so as to have a faint resemblance to a man, it 
 was set up and worshipped as a god. But this dumb idol, 
 after a somewhat singular history, and after, through the 
 deceit of Satan, it had got as it were a new lease of life, and 
 its worship had been prolonged a quarter of a century longer 
 than if it had remained in its own land, also fell before the 
 Word of God. For " the idols He shall utterly abolish 1 " 
 
 But Tuatau still exists, and serves a purpose. When Mr. 
 Geddie saw it, he was eager to send it on to Nova Scotia, and 
 I at once gave it up to him. He forthwith made a suitable 
 box for it, packed it securely, and shipped it by the John
 
 36 THE ANEITYUMESE IN HEATHENISM. 
 
 Williams for Sydney, to be forwarded thence to Pictou, in 
 Nova Scotia, for the Foreign Mission Committee of the 
 Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia. And, so far as is 
 known to me, it continues to occupy a conspicuous place in 
 the missionary museum of that church, just as a selection 
 of Rarotongan idols, supplied by the apostolic John Williams, 
 stand in the museum of the London Missionary Society, in the 
 Mission House, Blomfield Street, London ; and when some 
 young natives of that island were in London a few years ago, 
 those idols were the first Rarotongan gods they had ever seen, 
 so completely has idolatry been swept away from Rarotonga. 
 Now, as the Reubenites and Gadites continued to point to the 
 altar Ed, that was reared on the right bank of the River 
 Jordan, to prove to the Israelites that their ancestors had 
 had a share in the wars and the conquest of Canaan as well 
 as theirs, so future generations in the Presbyterian Church 
 of Nova Scotia may point to Tuatau, to prove that their 
 ancestors, as well as ours, had taken a part in the evangelisa- 
 tion of the South Seas. 
 
 There are various other things connected with the character 
 of the Aneityumese, with their manners and customs, as well 
 as their idolatry of which alone I have spoken to which I 
 might here refer ; but these will come in, and perhaps more 
 appropriately, as I go on to narrate the progress of the 
 mission, and the marvellous revolution which it effected, and 
 to which I now proceed as the great outstanding fact of the 
 island's history.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 
 
 THE New Hebrides Mission was commenced, and has been 
 carried on, without any previously arranged plan. One 
 chapter of its history has been developed after another, as 
 God has opened up the way by His providence. He has 
 originated movements and raised up agencies in such ways, 
 in such places, and at such times, as clearly to demonstrate 
 that the work has been His own. The London Missionary 
 Society was the first to enter this field, as they were the 
 first to carry the Gospel into the South Seas. The Presby- 
 terian Church of Nova Scotia was the first to follow them. 
 Next came the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland ; 
 then the Presbyterian Churches of Australia and New 
 Zealand ; and finally the Presbyterian Church of Canada and 
 the Free Church of Scotland. God in His providence brought 
 all these agencies so gradually and so naturally into the work, 
 that one cannot but believe that the New Hebrides Mission 
 has a future before it greatly beyond anything that has yet 
 appeared. 
 
 John Williams was the first missionary that landed on the 
 New Hebrides. He visited Tanna, Futuna, and Eromanga ; 
 and, as the whole Christian world knows, he was killed by the 
 natives of that island in November 1839.
 
 38 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 
 
 Next, in 1842, Messrs, (afterwards Drs.) Turner and Nisbet 
 were settled on Tanna ; but after labouring with considerable 
 encouragement for about seven months, an epidemic broke out. 
 The missionaries were blamed for causing the disease; war 
 ensued, and their lives were threatened. During this crisis a 
 vessel appeared in sight, and after carefully weighing the pro- 
 spects before them, they resolved to take advantage of this 
 opportunity ; they engaged a passage and returned to Samoa, 
 leaving some native teachers behind them to keep the station 
 open, their lives being less in danger than the lives of the mis- 
 sionaries. They said afterwards, however, that if they had 
 known the character and customs of the natives as well then as 
 they did subsequently, they would have remained on Tanna ; 
 but they acted according to the best of their knowledge. 
 
 The next agency that entered the field was, as I have 
 already said, the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia. Their 
 mission originated in this way. When, in 1838, the year 
 before the martrydom of John Williams, the late Dr. Geddie 
 was ordained, and settled over a congregation on Prince 
 Edward Island, the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia 
 had no mission to the heathen. Mr. Geddie was no sooner 
 settled than he began to agitate the question. He wrote on 
 the subject in the local newspapers and in the denominational 
 magazine. He brought the matter up, first in the Presbytery, 
 and afterwards in the Synod. After vigorous and persistent 
 efforts, Mr. Geddie and his friends prevailed. The Synod 
 agreed to commence a mission to the heathen, and to support 
 two missionaries. Missionaries were advertised for, but no 
 one offered his services. Subsequently Mr. Geddie came 
 forward and offered to go himself. Another missionary 
 could not be found, but Mr. Isaac Archibald was engaged 
 
 / O O
 
 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 39 
 
 as a lay Catechist. The South Seas were selected as the 
 mission field, and on this account : When John Williams, the 
 martyr of Eromanga, was in Scotland, the United Secession 
 Synod gave him ^500 to assist him in opening up some 
 islands for their contemplated mission to the heathen. After- 
 wards, however, they abandoned this idea, and chose Old 
 Calabar as their mission field. Meanwhile the Presbyterian 
 Church of Nova Scotia, being an offshoot of the Secession 
 Church, naturally entered into communication with the 
 parent Church, to assist them in selecting a field for their 
 mission ; and the Secession Synod, on their part, frankly 
 resigned to the Nova Scotian Church their claims on the 
 South Seas, in connection with the London Missionary 
 Society. In November 1846 Mr. Geddie and his party 
 sailed from Halifax to Boston, in the United States. After 
 difficulties and delays, they again sailed from Newburyport 
 in a small whaler bound for the Sandwich Islands. After 
 a long, perilous, and extremely uncomfortable voyage, they 
 reached Honolulu. After staying there for about two 
 months, and receiving no small kindness from the brethren 
 of the American mission, they obtained a passage to Samoa 
 in another whaling ship. They had to remain about eight 
 months on Samoa, awaiting the return of the John Williams 
 from England. During their detention, both at Hawaii 
 and Samoa, they laid themselves out to become acquainted 
 with the working of both these missions. When the John 
 Williams reached Samoa in 1848, the brethren there made 
 every arrangement for the speedy and satisfactory settle- 
 ment of the -mission party from Nova Scotia. One of the 
 Samoan missionaries, the Rev. T. Powell, and his wife were 
 appointed to accompany them for a year, to introduce them
 
 40 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 
 
 to their work, and a band of Samoan teachers was told off 
 to go with them as helps. Messrs. Turner and Nisbet, for- 
 merly of Tanna, accompanied the John Williams as a depu- 
 tation during the voyage ; so counsel and experience were 
 always at hand. No new missionaries should be settled 
 in a new field without having, if possible, an experienced 
 mission family to remain beside them for six or twelve 
 months, to give them the benefit of their experience. The 
 John Williams sailed for the New Hebrides. The five 
 southern islands of the group had been for ten years more 
 or less occupied by Rarotongan and Samoan teachers. The 
 John Williams visited all those five islands at this time, and 
 the missionaries examined them most carefully. Their choice 
 finally lay between Efate and Aneityum, and at last they 
 fixed upon Aneityum ; and, as they afterwards discovered, 
 a kind and merciful Providence had guided them in their 
 choice, for the Efate natives had been laying plots for their 
 lives. 
 
 But even here their prospects were anything but bright. 
 Shortly before this a party of eight French Roman Catholic 
 priests and lay brothers had settled at the harbour. They 
 had erected an iron house, and mounted two small cannon 
 on the roof; thus proclaiming themselves to belong to the 
 Church militant. Here were religious opponents. Then 
 there was a large sandal-wood establishment recently begun, 
 also at the harbour. Here were secular influences all dis- 
 tinctly adverse to the mission. The natives, too, were all 
 decidedly opposed to the settlement of the missionaries among 
 them. At last, Nohoat, the principal chief at the harbour, 
 got the matter compromised. " My brethren," he said, "let 
 us allow the missionaries to stay ; the teachers have been very
 
 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 4! 
 
 quiet : there is no fear but the missionaries will be the same. 
 You may steal from them as much as ever you like, only do 
 not kill them, and do not hurt them. They are few, we are 
 many : they are weak, we are strong : if they trouble us, we 
 can send them away at any time." Nohoat continued to the 
 end of his life the true and tried friend of the missionaries ; 
 and, what was better, his love and fidelity to the servants 
 ripened, and that before very long, into love and fidelity 
 to the Master. To these very easy conditions the natives 
 assented, and the missionaries were allowed to remain. And 
 certainly, for the first twelvemonth at least, the eighth com- 
 mandment lay very much in abeyance. A piece of land was 
 bought near to where the teachers lived, on which to build 
 their houses, and the mission was commenced. 
 
 The Roman Catholic missionaries had selected, and pur- 
 chased from the natives, a piece of the finest land in the 
 harbour. They had enclosed, dug, and planted a fine garden ; 
 and it looked as if a second Eden was about to bloom around 
 them. But, alas ! although the natives were quite quiet, yet 
 neither their iron house, their mounted cannon, nor the rifles 
 they always carried with them wherever they went, could 
 protect them from danger. There was a lurking enemy near 
 them, which they did not suspect. There was a large swamp 
 behind their house over which the trade-wind blew, and 
 wafted the invisible and impalpable malaria into their dwell- 
 ing. The result was that, in a comparatively short time, one 
 after another of the party was laid down with fever and 
 ague. In consequence of this, by-and-by the Popish Bishop 
 came, and took them all away to the Isle of Pines. And, 
 happily for our mission, such was the effect of this terrible 
 scare, that from that day to this a Popish priest has not
 
 42 ORIGIN OP THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 
 
 been seen on the New Hebrides. The Lord can bring good 
 out of evil. 
 
 The traders bought the island of Inyeug, which forms 
 one side of the harbour, and is the best sanitarium on 
 Aneityum; on this little island malaria is unknown. But 
 after a time, ignorant of their mercies, they removed their 
 establishment to the mainland, drove the Samoan teachers 
 off the place on which they had built their house, and took 
 possession of the next best piece of land in the bay, and 
 which was adjoining to the Roman Catholic mission property, 
 forcing the Samoan teachers up to a narrow barren corner 
 towards the head of the harbour. But Providence watches 
 over helpless innocency. The portion selected by the traders 
 was only a little less unhealthy than that selected by the 
 priests, while the part left for the teachers, and subsequently 
 for the missionaries, was the least unhealthy of the three. 
 Both the other two stations have been abandoned, but this 
 one is occupied still, and has been found to be, on the whole, 
 one of the healthiest spots on the island. 
 
 At the end of the first year Mr. Powell and his family left 
 Aneityum and returned to Samoa. About the end of the 
 second year Mr. Archibald and his family left the mission 
 and proceeded to New South Wales. After this, for nearly 
 two years, Mr. and Mrs. Geddie toiled on alone. Near the 
 end of the fourth year my wife and I arrived from New 
 Zealand and joined the mission. Mr. Geddie's letters and 
 journals, published in his Life, and other publications, give 
 such a full and particular account of the history of the 
 mission during these four years, as to render it superfluous 
 for me to enter into details ; suffice it to say, that these were 
 years of hard toil and much suffering, but with not a little
 
 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 43 
 
 to encourage. With the exception of Mrs. Geddie, nearly 
 every member of the mission had long and severe attacks 
 of fever and ague, the one outstanding disease of Aneityum 
 and of the New Hebrides. Our arrival was very opportune, 
 and our reception was very cordial ; but of this more by and 
 by. I proceed now to explain how it came to pass, in the 
 good providence of God, that the Reformed Presbyterian 
 Church in Scotland was brought in to the New Hebrides 
 Mission ; for it was providential. " God is in history," says 
 D'Aubigne, and certainly still more so in missions, as the 
 history of every mission abundantly testifies. 
 
 In the end of last century and the beginning of this, when 
 the missionary spirit awoke, missions were undertaken and 
 carried on by societies, not Churches ; but, as the missionary 
 spirit increased and spread, the Churches were aroused to 
 a sense of their duties and responsibilities, and missions 
 began to be undertaken by Churches. Among the first in 
 Scotland to recognise this duty was the Reformed Presby- 
 terian Church. About 1828 the Rev. S. Bates of Kelso, 
 afterwards Rev. Dr. Bates of Glasgow, preached the sermon 
 at the opening of the R. P. Synod, and chose for his subject 
 Christian Missions. The result of this sermon was the 
 establishment of a mission to our fellow-countrymen in 
 Canada, to whom in succession four missionaries were sent. 
 In 1838, the year again before that in which John Williams 
 fell on Eromanga, the Rev. Dr. Duff addressed a public 
 meeting in Stranraer. His overpowering appeals on behalf 
 of the heathen left such an impression on the mind of Dr. 
 W. Symington, that, at the next meeting of the R. P. Synod, 
 he brought forward a motion, which was cordially agreed to, 
 to the effect that the Synod should not be satisfied with a
 
 44 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 
 
 mission to the Colonies, it should also undertake a mission 
 to the heathen. A Committee was appointed, and, after 
 careful inquiry, it was agreed to establish a mission among 
 the Maories or natives of New Zealand. This mission, as 
 we shall by and by see, was subsequently transferred to the 
 New Hebrides. The R. P. Church, from 1842, when it 
 ordained its first missionary to the heathen, till 1876, when 
 it was united with the Free Church, sent forth to New 
 Zealand and the New Hebrides no fewer than eleven mis- 
 sionaries and their wives, and since the union of the two 
 churches the United or Free Church has sent forth other 
 six, and of these seventeen missionaries and their wives, 
 who have been sent out during these forty-two years, only 
 one missionary and three missionaries' wives have died. 
 
 In 1842 the R. P. church sent out the Rev. James Duncan 
 and his wife to commence their mission among the Maories. 
 In 1844 my wife and I followed. We found Mr. and Mrs. 
 Duncan fully engaged in mission work among the natives on the 
 Manawatu River, in the north of Cook's Straits, some seventy 
 or eighty miles from Wellington. We joined them at once. 
 After the mission had been in existence for two or three years ; 
 after we had acquired a knowledge of the Maori language, 
 and had become acquainted with the condition of the natives, 
 we felt satisfied that the Church had committed a mistake in 
 selecting New Zealand as their mission field. The natives 
 were comparatively few ; they amounted to only about one- 
 half the number we had been led to believe that they were. 
 We found only about 700 on the whole of the Manawatu. 
 All the natives of New Zealand were claimed as belonging 
 either to the Church of England or the Wesleyan Missions ; 
 and although we were forty miles from the nearest missionary,
 
 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 45 
 
 yet he had native teachers settled in every village ; so that 
 we found ourselves to be simply interlopers. While there 
 was ample room for more missionaries, there was not room 
 for another mission to work advantageously. In these 
 circumstances Mr. Duncan and I wrote a joint letter to the 
 Committee, advising them to select another field for their 
 heathen mission. By a singular coincidence, or rather an 
 overruling Providence, on the very day on which our secre- 
 tary, Dr. Bates, received our letter, he received one from the 
 Rev. A. W. Murray of Samoa, one of the London Missionary 
 Society's missionaries, an intimate personal friend of his own. 
 In this letter Mr. Murray, who had had no communication 
 with us, stated that when he first heard that we had gone to 
 New Zealand, he was sure, from what he knew of the New 
 Zealand missions, that we had made a great mistake; but 
 if the Church would remove us, and send us to the South 
 Seas, the Samoan brethren would do everything in their 
 power to secure for us a suitable field of labour ; that they 
 were expecting two Presbyterian missionaries from Nova 
 Scotia, and they would be glad to locate us all in the New 
 Hebrides. 
 
 Dr. Bates at once put himself in communication with the 
 Committee of the London Missionary Society, inquiring if 
 the Society could provide a field for their two missionaries. 
 The Committee answered that, as they were extending their 
 operations in India and elsewhere, they could not at that 
 time increase the number of their missionaries in the South 
 Seas, and that they would gladly receive, not two only but 
 twenty, if the R P. Church could send them. ' The John 
 Williams was in England at that time, and about to sail for 
 the South Seas ; and it was arranged conditionally that, after
 
 46 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 
 
 leaving Sydney, the vessel should call at New Zealand for us. 
 But before these arrangements could be carried out the 
 Reformed Presbyterian Synod held its annual meeting, and 
 these arrangements required to be confirmed by the Synod. 
 But the Synod, not so well informed on this point as their 
 Committee, being also, like all larger bodies, more timid and 
 more conservative than smaller ones, thought that these steps 
 were too precipitate, and decided that a longer trial should be 
 given to the New Zealand Mission. Meanwhile the Maori 
 war had broken out, and all the settlers and missionaries on 
 the north side of Cook's Straits were driven into Wellington. 
 While thus detained there, Mr. Duncan and I employed our 
 time in preaching to the Presbyterians in Wellington, who 
 were at that time without a minister. When we received the 
 answer to our letter, it was to the effect that we were to hold 
 ourselves in readiness to proceed to the South Seas by the 
 John Williams. The next mail brought letters countermand- 
 ing these instructions, and informing us of the decision of the 
 Synod, and that we were to return to the Manawatu as soon 
 as practicable. As the Maori war was now over, Mr. Duncan, 
 acting on these instructions, returned to his former station. 
 But, acting on my own convictions of duty, I remained in 
 Wellington for eighteen months or so ministering, under 
 temporary arrangements, to the Scotch settlers, and being 
 supported by them, but corresponding still with the Com- 
 mittee about a new mission field. The Nova Scotian Mission 
 party were before this time settled in the New Hebrides, and 
 I received a letter from Mr. Geddie, through Bishop Selwyn, 
 inviting me to join him. 
 
 At the end of this time I paid a visit to Auckland. I was 
 daily expecting a letter from the Committee. Postal com-
 
 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 47 
 
 munication between the home country and New Zealand was 
 at that date slow and irregular. At the end of two months 
 a vessel arrived from London with a mail on board, and hav- 
 ing letters for Wellington as well as Auckland. At my 
 request the postmaster kindly looked over the Wellington 
 letters, and found some for me ; and one of them was from 
 our secretary, Dr. Bates, authorising me, if a suitable oppor- 
 tunity occurred, to proceed to the South Seas, and confer with 
 Mr. Murray or Mr. Geddie, or any of the Samoan missionaries, 
 and select a field satisfactory to myself. 
 
 I was staying with the Colonial Secretary, Dr. Sinclair, and 
 told him the purport of this letter. He told the Governor, 
 Sir George Gi'ey, who said that if a man-of-war were coming 
 in soon, and sailing for the .South Seas, he would gladly use 
 his influence with the Captain to secure me a passage. At 
 this juncture occurred a singular providence, which proved a 
 turning-point in the history of the New Hebrides Mission. 
 In less than ten days after I received my letter, H.M.S. 
 Havannah, Captain Erskine, R.N., arrived in Auckland har- 
 bour from Sydney, about to proceed to Western Polynesia on a 
 three months' voyage, and was to sail direct to Aneityum in 
 a few days. Sir George Grey kindly applied to Captain 
 Erskine, who very frankly granted the passage, and said he 
 would either land me on Aneityum or take me on to Sydney, 
 as I might require. They had taken Bishop Selwyn on to 
 Samoa the year before, and what they had done for the 
 Episcopal Mission they were equally glad to do for the 
 Presbyterian. In a week or so we had sailed for Western 
 Polynesia. We reached Aneityum. I consulted with Mr. 
 Geddie, and made certain conditional arrangements. We 
 then proceeded on our voyage, visited the other islands of
 
 48 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 
 
 the New Hebrides, also Queen Charlotte's group, the Solomon 
 Islands, and New Caledonia, and at the end of three months 
 we reached Sydney. This was a singularly favourable oppor- 
 tunity for carrying out my object. And, strange to say, that 
 was the only instance, either before or since, in which a man- 
 of-war sailed direct to Aneityum or the New Hebrides from 
 New Zealand. Had I not been in Auckland at that time, 
 and had I not received that letter at the time that I did, I 
 could not have taken advantage of that opportunity, and 
 there was no other practicable way I could have reached 
 Aneityum. And had I not visited Aneityum, it is probable 
 that I might never have joined the mission ; and at the end 
 of two years, when I did join it, Mr. Geddie told me that, 
 had I not come at that time, he did not think that he could 
 have held on much longer, as his health was so impaired by 
 successive attacks of fever and ague. And had the mission 
 been broken up, its future history would have been extremely 
 doubtful. The knowledge I acquired during that voyage of 
 the islands and of the natives was to me of great and per- 
 manent value. At the end of seven months I rejoined my 
 wife in Wellington. I might have proceeded to the New 
 Hebrides at once, but, acting on the principle of the Latin 
 proverb, festina lente, " hasten slowly," I wrote a full report 
 of my voyage in the Havannah to our Mission Committee, and 
 awaited instructions from home. Meanwhile, as the Presby- 
 terian congregation in Auckland was vacant, that I might 
 neither be idle nor a burden upon the mission funds, I 
 made an arrangement to supply their pulpit till I should 
 receive an answer to my report. At the end of a twelve- 
 month I received a letter from the Secretary, authorising 
 me, on conditions that were satisfactory, to proceed to
 
 ORIGIN OP THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 49 
 
 Aneityum, and take up a station for myself in connection 
 with Mr. Geddie. 
 
 When I communicated my intentions to Bishop Selwyn, he 
 kindly renewed an offer he had formerly made, of giving us a 
 free passage to Aneityum in his mission vessel, the Border 
 Maid, in which he was shortly to sail to the islands, to his 
 own mission field. This we gladly accepted, and had we been 
 his own missionaries, he could not have treated us more 
 kindly and considerately. He took all our supplies, our 
 furniture, a whale-boat, the frame of a house, goats, pigs, 
 and poultry, &c., so that we commenced our labours under 
 great advantages. There was another special providence 
 here, or another event providentially overruled in our favour. 
 Had we not been in circumstances to take advantage of the 
 Bishop's voyage at that time, instead of getting to Aneityum 
 as we did without delay and without expense, we should have 
 found it to be a matter of extreme difficulty and of very 
 great expense. 
 
 In a few months after this the Bishop sold the Border 
 Maid, returned to England, had a new vessel built at home 
 the Southern Cross and brought her out with him to New 
 Zealand ; and it was two years before he again visited the 
 New Hebrides. In these circumstances, it would scarcely 
 have been practicable for us to have reached Aneityum at 
 all. We arrived on the ist of July 1852. 
 
 In the end we found that all the tantalising delays, and 
 all the vexatious disappointments, that we had experienced 
 were only parts of a gracious plan, wisely arranged to bring 
 about an important end. The old divines used to say that 
 " Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people ; " and so 
 we found Aneityum to be a mission field prepared for us,
 
 50 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 
 
 who by a somewhat special training had been in some measure 
 prepared for it. We arrived also, as I have said, at a most 
 opportune time. But as the success of the mission on 
 Aneityum during the following eight or nine years was so 
 rapid, so much beyond anything that has ever occurred since 
 on any of the other islands, I think it necessary to state what 
 appears to me to be, under God, some of the principal causes of 
 that remarkable success. When we took the first census the 
 population of Aneityum was 3500. We may assume that it 
 continued stationary tilT the measles were brought in 1861. 
 When Mr. Geddie settled on the island in 1848, the natives 
 were all heathen, with a few exceptions. When we arrived 
 in 1852, there might be 400 professedly Christian, the rest 
 were all heathen. When we left the island in the end of 
 1859, to carry the New Testament through the press in 
 London, the whole population had professed Christianity ; and 
 what was perhaps more remarkable, there was never after- 
 wards any going back to heathenism ; except once or twice, 
 and that for only a very short time and to a very limited 
 extent. One obvious cause was this; on the year that we 
 arrived the last of the outside opposition disappeared. The 
 Popish opposition had never become formidable. It was 
 more feared than felt, and it was not long till it entirely 
 ceased, by the removal of the French priests. The sandal- 
 wood establishment during the first four years of the mission 
 was an active and unscrupulous opposition. The leading 
 persons among them employed every means in their power to 
 put down the mission. This establishment was removed first 
 to Tanna, and finally to New Caledonia. Moreover, the gold 
 discoveries in Australia drew off all the floating white popula- 
 tion from the islands to the gold-fields, and for some years
 
 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 5 I 
 
 we had the natives entirely to ourselves ; and the new 
 religion was almost the sole object that engrossed their 
 attention. And before the return of the traders the work of 
 the mission was so far advanced that they were unable to 
 retard it. In the next place, during these eight years both 
 the mission families enjoyed remarkably good health, which 
 greatly promoted our mission labours, whereas during the 
 first four years of the mission all the mission families suf- 
 fered severely from fever and ague, and the experience of 
 the Samoan teachers as to health was relatively the same. 
 Moreover, both Mr. Geddie and I had each of us some 
 special, though different, qualifications for the kind of mission 
 work that required to be done on Aneityum. Mr. Geddie 
 had been some years a minister in a settled charge, and well 
 acquainted both with preaching and pastoral work. I had 
 had a somewhat similar experience both at home and in New 
 Zealand. Mr. Geddie, during his stay at Hawaii and Samoa, 
 had had the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with 
 the missionaries of both the American and London Societies, 
 and also with the way in which the work was carried on in 
 both these missions. He acquired also a considerable know- 
 ledge of the Samoan language. 
 
 During my eight years' connection with New Zealand, I 
 had become acquainted with the leading missionaries in both 
 Societies, and with their modes of conducting their mission 
 work, and had gained a tolerably minute acquaintance with 
 the Maori language. In mechanical, medical, and educational 
 knowledge and experience both of us were, I believe, above 
 the average of those commencing a new mission. And com- 
 ing from different countries and different Churches, and ap- 
 proaching the mission field from opposite points and by totally
 
 52 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 
 
 different routes, and having come in contact with totally 
 different sections both of religious and general society, and 
 having each seen so much, but yet totally distinct portions, 
 of the South Sea Mission field, when we met we brought 
 together, without any merit of ours, an amount, especially of 
 extra-professional, but withal of valuable knowledge, rarely 
 combined in the case of two missionaries entering a new 
 field. Yet our views and principles in all the essentials 
 of mission work were singularly alike. It was notable, also, 
 that on those points in which we were constitutionally dif- 
 ferent, the one was generally found to be the complement of 
 the other ; where the one was weak the other was strong, and 
 vice versd. Hence the one was no drawback to the other, and 
 the work went smoothly on. Furthermore, the natural con- 
 dition of the island was favourable for our work. The island 
 was moderate in size and very compact. The language was 
 everywhere the same. The localities were accessible and not 
 difficult to work. We were able to visit the whole island, 
 and occupy it with native evangelistic and educational 
 agencies, as soon as we had these trained, which we super- 
 intended and directed. And there were no contiguous out- 
 lying masses of heathenism to resist our operations and make 
 counter aggressions. In our approaching the New Hebrides, 
 Mr Geddie and I, as I have said, became acquainted with the 
 agencies and appliances employed by the four great Societies 
 carrying on missionary operations in the South Seas. Our 
 field was in many respects different from theirs. We never 
 slavishly copied any of their modes of working. But when- 
 ever, in our altered circumstances, we could adopt any of their 
 plans, we availed ourselves of their experiences, and frequently 
 with great advantage. Hence I used often to say to our
 
 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 53 
 
 young missionaries, after I had explained to them our modes 
 of working, " This is the way we do. It is very well for you to 
 know how we do things here, but it is not necessary that you 
 should do always as we do. Your circumstances may be so 
 different from ours, that were we in your situation we might 
 adopt some totally different course." 
 
 I have said that our arrival was very opportune. Mr. 
 Geddie had struggled away, and that successfully, in the face 
 of many difficulties and much opposition ; but the state of the 
 island and the mission was such that, even had we arrived 
 sooner, we could have rendered him but very little help ; but 
 had we been much longer in arriving a great opportunity 
 would have been lost. About the time of our arrival, in the 
 good providence of God, the chief difficulties were being 
 removed, and as a feeling favourable to Christianity had set 
 in among the natives, by our coming at that juncture, that 
 feeling was utilised, and those favourable circumstances were 
 taken advantage of. It was a striking example of the truth 
 of the poet's well-known lines 
 
 " There is a tide in the affairs of men 
 Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune." 
 
 Had this opportunity been lost it might never have returned. 
 Our arrival, too, had a wonderful effect on Mr. Geddie's 
 health and spirits. Up till the arrival of the John Williams 
 and the deputation of the Samoan missionaries, three weeks 
 before our arrival, he had been suffering almost daily from 
 fever and ague ; but the first day after the vessel came in, 
 the excitement caused by the arrival of the brethren com- 
 pletely stopped the fever and ague. Our settlement so 
 shortly after, and the new departure taken in the mission,
 
 54 ORIGIN OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION. 
 
 acted like magic, and effected a complete cure. New and 
 congenial company, encouraging prospects, and abundance 
 of work, put new life into him ; he felt himself like another 
 man. He was naturally a man of action, and his hands 
 were now full full of work entirely to his mind.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 MISSION HOUSES. 
 
 IN order to work, and work successfully, it is necessary, in 
 the first place, that we should live and be in good health. 
 This holds specially true of mission work in the New 
 Hebrides. Hence health must be secured at whatever price. 
 Owing to my visit to the New Hebrides before I went thither 
 to reside, I had obtained a much better idea of the climate, 
 and of the conditions under which health could be enjoyed, 
 than I should otherwise have had. From my youth I had 
 studied more or less carefully the laws of health. When a 
 mere boy I had read " Buchan's Domestic Medicine," and 
 studied carefully the first part, which relates to the preven- 
 tion of disease, and I continued to read popular works on the 
 same subject as they came into my hands. After my ordi- 
 nation I attended medical classes for six months in Glasgow. 
 When I was in New Zealand I became acquainted with 
 several medical gentlemen connected both with the army and 
 the navy; some in active service, and some retired from 
 active life, but who had had extensive experience in tropical 
 climates. From these I got many useful hints, which proved 
 of great benefit to me during my residence on the islands. 
 At that time the New Hebrides islands had a pre-eminently 
 bad character as regards health, and not without good cause.
 
 56 MISSION HOUSES. 
 
 The French priests and lay brothers, as we have seen, suc- 
 cumbed to the malaria, and left the island. Both the white 
 men and the natives of other islands, connected with the 
 sandal- wood establishment, suffered very severely from fever 
 and ague, and a good many of them died. A medical gentle- 
 man from Sydney, who resided for some months with the 
 proprietor of the above establishment, and who had the best 
 opportunities of studying the diseases of the island, told Mr. 
 Geddie that he observed not only the island fever, but also 
 the jungle fever of India. The missionaries and the Raro- 
 tongan and Samoan teachers had also been severe sufferers. 
 When I visited Aneityum in the Havanndh in 1850, Mr. 
 Geddie came on board, accompanied by a Rarotongan teacher. 
 He had been suffering for some months from fever and ague, 
 and was very much reduced, and was looking very ill; the 
 teacher was still worse, and died a few weeks thereafter. I 
 used afterwards to say to Mr. Geddie, that if he had on set 
 purpose intended to deter me from joining the mission, he 
 could not have taken a more effectual method to accomplish 
 his object. He and the teacher, with their pale faces and 
 sickly, haggard appearance, were such a contrast to the fresh, 
 vigorous-looking men on board the man-of-war, that it looked 
 as if we had been boarded by Death and his body-servant 
 the moment we came to anchor, and as if both were saying to 
 me, " If you stay here this is what you may look forward to." 
 When we went north to Efate we found two Rarotongan 
 teachers, both of whom had suffered severely from fever and 
 ague. As we sailed up Havannah Harbour we saw two 
 or three beautifully whitewashed houses belonging to the 
 Samoan teachers. The teachers were all dead ; their houses 
 were empty, and their canoes were lying rotting on the
 
 MISSION HOUSES. 57 
 
 beach. The sickness and mortality among the teachers up 
 to that date had been very great. In short, they could not 
 stand the climate at all. Frequently they got away by some 
 trading vessel to the Loyalty Islands, where, there being 
 no malaria, they soon regained their health and strength. 
 Bishop Selwyn said to me that we might possibly find some 
 elevated, healthy spot near the centre of the island so free 
 from malaria that we might be able to live on Aneityum all 
 the year round, and yet enjoy good health; although he 
 admitted that this was doubtful. 
 
 In these circumstances, how to be able to live at all on the 
 islands was the first question. Were these diseases prevent- 
 able, or were they inevitable ? Therefore, before we left New 
 Zealand, we made every effort in our power to secure the 
 preservation of life and health. Our friend Dr. Logan, who 
 had served his full time as a surgeon in the royal navy, told 
 me that when cruising on the west coast of Africa, they often, 
 when lying at anchor, covered the port-holes of the vessel at 
 night with woollen netting, to keep out the damp and protect 
 themselves from fever ; and that in the morning every net 
 was wet as Gideon's fleece, when the dew lay on the fleece 
 alone, and the whole earth around was dry. He advised us, 
 therefore, to provide something of this kind, with which to 
 cover our windows in the hot and rainy season of the year, 
 as often as we had to keep them open, whether by day or by 
 night. We did our best to prepare for those conditions of 
 life. My wife fell in with a job lot of thin net-like woollen 
 shawls, which she bought, and took with us to Aneityum. 
 However, happily for us, we never found it necessary to use 
 these precautions. 
 
 In addition to maintaining in as high a state as possible
 
 58 MISSION HOUSES. 
 
 the general health, the most important sanitary improve- 
 ment that I introduced related to the construction of our 
 dwelling-house. In Tahiti, Rarotonga, Samoa, and elsewhere 
 the missionaries, for the most part, had simply earthen or 
 lime floors in their houses, covered with native mats for 
 carpets, and as there was little or no malaria in those 
 islands, they found these houses healthy enough. Mr. Geddie 
 brought the frame of a house with him from Samoa, and 
 erected his house on the same principles as the brethren did 
 in Samoa. Instead of covering the wooden frame with 
 weather boarding, between the studs the walls were wattled 
 outside and inside, and plastered with Lime prepared by burn- 
 ing the live coral. The house, when plastered and white- 
 washed, was clean, neat, and beautiful. The earthen floor, 
 when covered with native mats, was comfortable, tasteful, 
 and elegant. This did very well during the day, when the 
 sea-breeze blew in at one window and out at another ; but at 
 night, when doors and windows were shut, when the malaria 
 rose from the floor, and was confined inside the house by the 
 lime walls, and was also breathed and breathed again by the 
 inmates, sooner or later fever and ague was the result. 
 
 I took with me from Auckland materials prepared for two 
 weather-boarded rooms, and flooring for other three rooms. 
 I built a foundation of stone two feet high, inserting under 
 each room two little windows of perforated tin or zinc. On 
 this foundation I set up the frame and constructed the house. 
 This plan secured a free circulation of air underneath the 
 floor; so that the connection with the earth beneath the 
 floor, and hence with the malaria, was completely cut off 
 during the night. And we were living to all intents and 
 purposes, as far as sanitation was concerned, not on the
 
 MISSION HOUSES. 59 
 
 ground floor, but on the first floor, or in an upper storey. I 
 had no fever and ague for seven years ; and even then, it was 
 caused more by exhaustion from continuous overwork than 
 from climatic influences. My wife suffered sooner than I did, 
 though only slightly, but it was from the same causes from 
 over-exertion rather than miasma. 
 
 I introduced another principle, borrowed from some of the 
 Samoan brethren, and that was, to have the house single or 
 only one room in breadth, with a window on each side, having 
 two sashes, and hinged, so that the windows could be thrown 
 open whenever it was desirable, and a free circulation of air 
 from side to side established. 
 
 At the end of six months, when our dwelling-house and 
 some outbuildings were completed, Mr. Geddie, seeing the 
 manifest advantages of these arrangements, resolved to erect 
 a new house for himself on the same principles. He had 
 not wood, but suitable stones were available ; and I assisted 
 him in marking off the site of the house, and in laying the 
 foundation. At the end of a twelvemonth, notwithstanding 
 a heavy pressure of mission duties, the house was completed, 
 and Mr. Geddie and his family took possession of the build- 
 ing. Up to this time his youngest daughter, a child of four 
 years of age, had been suffering continuously from fever and 
 ague. She had a fit every day, and, during the continuance 
 of the fit, she shook and became delirious. But they had 
 not been six weeks in the new house till the ague left her, 
 and she had not another fit for the following six years, when 
 she left the island to go home for her education. Mr. Geddie 
 himself, too, was all but completely free from fever and ague 
 for many years. 
 
 In after years, when new missionaries arrived, in some
 
 60 MISSION HOUSES. 
 
 cases they could not be provided with boarded floors, even 
 if anxious to get them ; in other cases the new arrivals were 
 sceptical as to the necessity for such precautions. But the 
 result was, that, as a general rule, the absence or presence 
 of fever and ague was dependent very largely on the presence 
 or absence of house-building on these principles. We lost 
 several of our missionaries, because the health either of the 
 missionary or of his wife had given way, owing to the bad 
 site or the defective construction of their houses. And the 
 greatly superior health, enjoyed as a whole in the families 
 of the New Hebrides Mission in recent years, is owing, more, 
 perhaps, than to anything else, to the greater care that has 
 been taken to carry out these principles in the building of 
 their houses. 
 
 The conditions of a healthy dwelling-house on the New 
 Hebrides are these: the selection, if practicable, of an elevated, 
 dry, and open site for the house ; a closely jointed, boarded 
 floor, raised two feet above the ground ; the foundation com- 
 pletely closed all round, to prevent rubbish of any kind from 
 accumulating beneath; with small windows of perforated 
 tin or zinc to secure a free circulation beneath. The house 
 must be only one room in width, with a window on each 
 side, with double sashes, and hinged so as to open on each 
 side, and allow the air to circulate freely from side to side 
 of every room during the day. To prevent a draught, the 
 window on the weather or windy side of the room can be 
 closed, and the other left open, and the fresh air can thus 
 be enjoyed, without any danger from the current or draught. 
 If these precautions be observed, fever and ague will not 
 be troublesome, the general laws of health being, of course, 
 carefully attended to and faithfully observed.
 
 MISSION HOUSES. 6 1 
 
 When the Livingstonia Mission was commenced on Lake 
 Nyassa, I wrote a letter to the Rev. Dr. Goold of Edinburgh, 
 who, along with Dr. Duff, was at that time one of the 
 secretaries of that mission, stating the results of our experi- 
 ence on this point on the New Hebrides, and making some 
 suggestions as to the construction of their houses. He 
 forwarded my letter to Dr. Stewart, who thanked me very 
 kindly for my suggestions. How far they considered it 
 necessary to adopt our plans, or how far they had the 
 means of carrying out these principles, I do not know. 
 At Lovedale and in South Africa, where the soil is dry 
 and there is no malaria, men may live as they list, and 
 that with impunity, as far as houses are concerned, but it 
 is totally different in Central Africa ; witness Mrs. Living- 
 stone, Bishop M'Kenzie and his party, and even the history 
 of Livingstonia. Traders and settlers come down to our 
 islands, and think that they may camp out with impunity, 
 as they do in Australia; but fever and ague, sickness and 
 mortality, quickly arouse them to a sense of the altered 
 conditions of existence ; and they soon adopt our principles 
 of house-building. Some missions have suffered severely by 
 neglecting those principles of sanitation that we have adopted. 
 The sixth commandment dominates the success or non-success 
 of missions in unhealthy climates far more than most people 
 think, and as much so as any of the other nine. The sixth 
 commandment requires all lawful endeavours to preserve our 
 own life and the life of others. But it is a commandment which 
 good men, and even good missionaries, too often overlook, 
 as if it were merely a sort of bye-law, and not one of the 
 ten, written on tables of stone. They seem to think that 
 their bodies are their own, and they may treat them as they
 
 62 MISSION HOUSES.. 
 
 please, that the soul is everything, and the body nothing, 
 at least comparatively. But God is wiser than man, and 
 the arrangements of His Providence are such that in those 
 climates the penalty speedily follows the transgression, and 
 the punishment inflicted for disobedience is swift as well 
 as sure.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE SABBATH ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 THERE was no Sabbath on Aneityum up till March or April 
 1841. There was not even the slightest tradition that such 
 a day had ever existed. For untold centuries, year after year, 
 and generation after generation, there had been nothing 
 but long unbroken weeks of toil, extending from the ist ot 
 January till the 3ist of December, but with no Sabbath either 
 at the commencement or the close. But from the first Sabbath 
 of April 1841 the first Sabbath after the first teachers were 
 landed up to the present time, the Sabbath has been observed 
 on Aneityum, and has marked the first day of every week. 
 It was not a Popish or prelatic Sunday, it was a Christian 
 Sabbath. Dr. Andrew Thomson of Edinburgh says that 
 some people speak of the Scottish Sabbath as if it were some 
 institution peculiar to Scotland. It would be just as correct 
 to speak of the Scottish sun as something peculiar to the 
 country ; for the sun and the Sabbath were both alike made 
 for man, not for Scotchmen only. On Aneityum we had no 
 Sunday a day, the one half for devotion, and the other half 
 for diversion. It was a Sabbath a day, as the word signifies, 
 of rest, a day of rest for the body, and a day of worship for 
 the soul. The Sabbath and the sun were both recognised, 
 not as burdens, but as blessings.
 
 64 THE SABBATH ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 We invariably found that the Sabbath was the first part 
 of Christianity embraced by the heathen. If at war, they 
 gave up fighting on that day. They gave up fishing; they 
 gave up digging, &c. They adopted the Sabbatic part of the 
 day; it became simply and entirely a day of rest, before it 
 became a day of worship. The Christian natives would come 
 and tell us of some heathen tribe, and say, "The people of 
 such and such a land will soon become Christian now ; they 
 are begun to sit idle on the Sabbath." And it invariably 
 turned out to be the case. They first rested, and by-and-by 
 they came to us to attend worship. 
 
 Our teaching with respect to the Sabbath was not that 
 usually put forth by the secular press of the present day; 
 it was that of the school of such men as Dr. Andrew 
 Symington of Paisley, Rev. John Angell James of Birming- 
 ham, Dr. James Hamilton of London, Sir Andrew Agnew 
 of Lochnaw, Mr. John Henderson of Park, &c., viz., that the 
 Sabbath is a day of Divine appointment, and of perpetual 
 moral obligation; a holy day, not a holiday; a happy day, 
 but not a day of frivolity ; a day for the refreshment of the 
 physical powers, for the strengthening of the intellectual 
 faculties, for the quickening of the spiritual graces, and for 
 the elevating of the whole man. With us too Saturday was 
 to some extent a day of preparation for the Sabbath. On 
 Sabbath all servile work was suspended. No work was done 
 except works of necessity or mercy. No cooking was done on 
 Sabbath. Some may think that this was terribly puritanical, 
 oppressively rigid, Sabbatarianism run mad, worse than the 
 strictest and sternest of Scottish Sabbaths, worse than any- 
 thing enjoined by the straitest sect of the Pharisees. To 
 such I would say, Audi i alteram partem, "Hear the other
 
 THE SABBATH ON ANEITYUM. 65 
 
 side; or like Themistocles to his judges, "Hear first, and 
 then strike." On one occasion a young missionary came out 
 from Scotland to the New Hebrides, and was staying with 
 us for a few weeks. On the second or third Sabbath after 
 his arrival, while we were sitting at dinner, he said, " I did 
 not expect to get any dinner here on Sabbath." We said to 
 him, " What made you think that you would get no dinner 
 here on Sabbath ? " " Oh," said he, " I was told that there 
 was no cooking on Aneityum on Sabbath, and I thought that 
 if there was no cooking there would be no eating." "Your 
 statement of facts," we said, " is quite correct, but your in- 
 ferences from these facts are quite wrong. Both the natives 
 and the mission families do all their cooking on Saturday; 
 but the Sabbath, instead of being a day of fasting, is more 
 nearly allied to a day of feasting ; with respect to food it is 
 the best day of all the seven. All our baking, boiling, and 
 roasting are done on the Saturday ; but with our American 
 stove, the kettle can be boiled on Sabbath, the frying-pan 
 utilised, and the oven heated to warm a roast, in the shortest 
 possible time, and with the least possible labour to servants ; so 
 that for a hot joint and a warm dinner an Aneityum Sabbath 
 can equal if not surpass any English Sunday. But in a 
 climate where the thermometer always ranges from 62 to 
 90 in the shade, to sit down to a cold collation could never 
 be much of a penance even on a Sabbath-day. 
 
 The natives never cook an oven more than once a day, and 
 that is for supper; but if they should cook no oven during 
 half the days of the week, they never miss to have one on 
 Saturday ; and it is sure to be the largest and the best in the 
 whole week, and supplies them with abundance of food for 
 two days ; so that they are in no danger of being hungry on
 
 66 THE SABBATH ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 Sabbath. Their cooking is a tedious and laborious process, 
 which I shall describe elsewhere. Our object was to present 
 to them Christ's yoke as easy and His burden as light. To a 
 people who had never enjoyed a statutory day of rest, the 
 weekly Sabbath was felt to be a Heaven-sent blessing ; to a 
 people whose religion had at times imposed weeks, and even 
 months, of fasting, to secure food for some great feast, when 
 they ate no pleasant food, and often very little of any kind, 
 a weekly day of rest and of abundance of food was looked 
 upon as the reverse of a gloomy day. They could say with 
 Graham, the author of " The Sabbath " 
 
 " Hail, Sabbath ! thee I hail, the poor man's day ! " 
 
 When every member of every family, young and old, weak 
 and strong, had a good breakfast on Sabbath morning, they 
 could join in family and public worship with joyful hearts 
 and gladsome minds ; they could enter into the spirit of 
 the pad Psalm, which is entitled, "A Psalm or Song for the 
 Sabbath-day," and which says, "It is a good thing to give 
 thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises unto Thy name, 
 O'Most High: to show forth Thy loving-kindness in the 
 morning " (when mercies are promised), " and Thy faithfulness 
 every night " (when promises are fulfilled). Formerly the 
 natives lived in a state not simply of fear, but of terror, for 
 the Natmasses and the sacred men. From this state of 
 constant dread they were all but completely delivered by 
 Christianity. Hence in their circumstances, in the full 
 deliverance from superstitious fears, the Sabbath was not to 
 them a day of gloom, and dread, and sadness, bu a day of joy, 
 gladness, and rejoicing ; the happiest day of all the seven." 
 So far as I am aware, in none of the South Sea missions
 
 THE SABBATH ON ANEITYUM. 67 
 
 was the word Sunday ever introduced as a name for the day. 
 On some of the islands Sabbath was adopted in the form of 
 Sabate, or whatever the idiom of the language might require. 
 But generally native words were found to express the idea. 
 We had two forms on Aneityum. It was the Nathiat atumop, 
 the resting day, a literal translation of the Sabbath. It was 
 also the Nathiat itap, the sacred or the holy day. They 
 called Saturday the Nathiat auaret-ha, the cooking day, 
 owing to the special cooking for the Sabbath. In New 
 Zealand the Maories called the Sabbath the Ba tapu, the 
 sacred or holy day. Saturday was the Ra horoi, the washing 
 day. In the beginning of the mission the natives washed 
 their clothes on that day, to be clean for the Sabbath. 
 Friday they called the Ra oka, the sticking or killing day. 
 Tradition says that in the early . days of the New Zealand 
 mission, when the missionaries had a pig to kill, they always 
 killed it on the Friday, that it might be roasted on the 
 Satiirday for their dinner on Sabbath. 
 
 Our Sabbath services were conducted very much as they 
 are at home, with two exceptions : we met much earlier, and 
 we employed much more lay agency. In this country, in 
 many places public worship does not begin till twelve o'clock, 
 and in no place does it commence earlier than half -past ten. 
 Our two services were always over before twelve o'clock. 
 In summer we commenced between eight and nine, and in 
 winter between nine and ten. We had always two services, 
 with an interval of fifteen or twenty minutes ; each service 
 was about an hour and a quarter. When the second service 
 was over, the people went all direct home, and met again 
 about three o'clock for the Sabbath-school in their respec- 
 tive localities. We had public worship in four places every
 
 68 THE SABBATH ON ANETTYUM. 
 
 Sabbath : the central one, which was larger than all the other 
 three, at Ananie, and three out-stations one at Anauunjai, 
 a second at Anauunse, and the third at Inwaijipthav, a deep 
 inland valley. I officiated for three Sabbaths in succession 
 at the central station, and once a month, in rotation, at each 
 of the out-stations. To these I went on the Saturday after- 
 noon, and returned on the Monday forenoon, that I might 
 devote the whole Sabbath for the benefit of these remote 
 districts. The next point of difference was the extent to 
 which native agency was employed. Every Sabbath I em- 
 ployed four natives elders, or deacons, or teachers two at 
 each service ; one read a chapter, and the other led in prayer. 
 At each of the three out-stations four natives conducted the 
 whole services. I thus employed sixteen natives each Sab- 
 bath. They also assisted in the same proportion at the week- 
 day prayer-meeting. I had about forty on my officiating 
 list, and I employed them in rotation. I brought them all 
 in turn from the out-stations to Aname, and I sent them 
 from the central district to the out-stations. In this way all 
 the office-bearers were brought always into regular and con- 
 tinuous contact with the people of every district, and the 
 state of the work at every station was always well known. 
 Dinner was always provided by some family in the district 
 for the men who came from a distance to officiate. I drew 
 up a plan of service for a month, and intimated every Sab- 
 bath and Wednesday who were to officiate, and at what 
 places, for the following week. This was the main theo- 
 logical training which the native agents received. But the 
 most remote of my teachers in this way heard, at the least, 
 one of my" expositions and sermons once every month, and 
 it was wonderful how they remembered them. On one occa-
 
 THE SABBATH ON ANEITYUM. 69 
 
 sion I heard one of my expositions on the anointing of David 
 by Samuel reproduced at the end of three years, and, on the 
 whole, it was very correctly given. "We had several objects 
 in view in bringing forward the natives in this way. It 
 lessened, and, at the same time, largely supplemented the 
 labours of the missionary; it gave greater variety to the 
 services ; it developed the abilities of the natives ; it gave us 
 an opportunity of observing the progress they were making 
 in religious knowledge, in the gift of prayer, in effective 
 reading, and in public speaking, so that we could correct 
 them when necessary. It gave us also opportunities of hear- 
 ing the native idioms employed on religious subjects, which 
 greatly increased our knowledge of the language, and of the 
 forms of expression best suited for communicating Bible 
 knowledge. Their theology might be wrong, but we were 
 sure that their language was right. Before Thomas Boston 
 published his " Fourfold State," he read portions of Addison's 
 " Spectator " that his English might be formed on the best 
 model ; and for the same purpose he read some parts of Cicero 
 before he published his treatise in Latin on " Sacred Stigma- 
 tology, or the Doctrine of the Hebrew Points." But as we 
 had no classical writers on which to form our style, we took 
 for our models the best native speakers on the island. 
 
 As the mission advanced we had now and again to change 
 our plans. In the beginning of the mission, almost every 
 Sabbath afternoon we sent out small parties, headed by one 
 or two of our wisest, most intelligent, and most influential 
 natives, to visit the heathen, and talk with them in their 
 own homes. These came back to us in the evening, and told 
 us what they had said to the natives, and what objections the 
 heathen had made to receive the Gospel. This gave us an
 
 7O THE SABBATH ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 opportunity of learning the opinions of the heathen, and of 
 instructing the Christian natives how to meet the objections 
 of the heathen, and in this way we had not to draw our bow 
 at a venture ; we came to know, through these conversations, 
 where the joints of the harness lay, and where the arrows 
 would pierce with the greatest effect. As the heathen 
 diminished in numbers, these irregular visits gave place to 
 regular services all over the island. 
 
 We had also a prayer-meeting once a week, both at the 
 central and at the out-stations at first on the Friday, 
 and subsequently on the Wednesday afternoon. But I 
 was always careful to draw very sharp lines and make very 
 marked distinctions between the divine and the human, be- 
 tween the Sabbath and its Divinely-instituted services, and 
 days and services of human appointment. I was very pro- 
 nounced in my teaching and practice about the Christian 
 Sabbath ; its Divine authority, its perpetual moral obligation, 
 and the promises and blessings connected with the faithful 
 observance of that day : " The Lord blessed the Sabbath-day 
 and hallowed it." I never recognised Sunday even by name. 
 Its heathen origin, its Popish and prelatic history, and its 
 recent culmination in the secular Sunday Society, have all 
 strengthened my aversion to Sunday. I never attached 
 much importance even to our week-day prayer-meetings, 
 though they were well attended, and in our circumstances 
 they served several important objects. I always met with 
 my candidates' class before our prayer-meeting; all our 
 marriages were solemnised in the church at the close of the 
 prayer-meetings ; our meetings of session, and of our deacons' 
 court, were held at the same time, and the prayer-meeting 
 was a fitting close to such meetings. There are some Chris-
 
 THE SABBATH ON ANEITYUM. 7 I 
 
 tians who entertain such spiritual views that they think 
 every day should be a Sabbath. But if every day were a 
 Sabbath, it would practically end in there being no Sabbath 
 at all God draws a sharp distinction about days in the 
 fourth commandment : " Six days shalt thou labour and do 
 all thy work," &c., " but the seventh day is the Sabbath." In 
 proportion as holidays and week-day religious services are 
 multiplied, there is a danger that the sanctity of the Sabbath 
 will be diminished. I used often to say to the natives, " It is 
 a good thing to come to the week-day prayer-meeting, if you 
 have time and opportunity ; but if you have not, there is no 
 sin in staying away ; because it is a meeting simply of man's 
 appointment, not of God's. It is altogether different with 
 the Sabbath ; it is a day of God's appointment, and is to 
 be wholly observed as a day of rest and worship. In the 
 beginning of the mission we could have had a semi-Sabbath 
 every week At first we held our prayer- meeting on Friday 
 afternoon. This institution had travelled west from Samoa. 
 It had served a good purpose there, and the native teachers 
 had brought it with them to the New Hebrides, and the mis- 
 sionaries continued its observance. We went on the principle 
 of disturbing no arrangements that had grown up with Chris- 
 tianity that were not contrary to Scripture. But one Friday, 
 when I was from home, my wife, as usual, was at the meeting, 
 and one of our leading natives gave the address, part of which 
 was to this effect : "We have two holy days," he said, " two days 
 for worship every week ; we have the Friday and the Sabbath. 
 We have worship on Friday because Christ was put to death 
 on a Friday, and we have worship on Sabbath because on that 
 day Christ rose from the dead. Let us therefore be strong, 
 my friends," he said, "to worship God on these two days."
 
 72 THE SABBATH ON ANEITYTJM. 
 
 When I came home my wife told me what the speaker had 
 said, and added, "You had better look sharp; for if the 
 natives take up these notions about Friday, and if the French 
 priests should return to the island, the natives will be quite 
 prepared to adopt the Popish views about Friday the un- 
 lawfulness of eating flesh on that day, and so forth. Mr. 
 Geddie and I took counsel together on the subject, and 
 on inquiry found that these views were pretty generally 
 entertained among the natives. We had meetings with our 
 respective sessions, and first privately, and afterwards pub- 
 licly, we explained the Scriptural doctrine of the Sabbath, 
 and testified against their erroneous inferences. " It is quite 
 true," I said, " that Christ was crucified on a Friday, but the 
 Scriptures say nothing about Friday being set apart in any 
 way to commemorate that event. God appointed the Lord's 
 Supper to keep in remembrance the death of Christ. Our 
 Lord rose from the dead on the first day of the week ; and to 
 commemorate His resurrection God appointed the first day of 
 the week to be the Lord's Day and the Sabbath. From the 
 creation of the world till the resurrection of Christ, God 
 appointed the seventh day of the week to be the Sabbath, the 
 day of rest ; to commemorate His resting on that day from 
 the work of creation, which He had just finished ; and from 
 the resurrection of Christ till the end of the world, He has 
 appointed the first day of the week to commemorate the 
 resurrection of Christ, His finishing the work of redemption, 
 and His resting therefrom, and called it the Lord's Day. The 
 first day of the week commemorates two rests the rest of 
 creation and the rest of redemption. It is, therefore, at once 
 the Lord's Day and the Christian Sabbath. Hence we do not 
 need two Sabbaths the one day commemorates two events ;
 
 THE SABBATH ON ANEITYUM. 73 
 
 the completion of creation and the completion of redemption ; 
 and serves two purposes that of rest and that of worship. 
 From that time forward we changed the week-day prayer- 
 meeting from the Friday to the Wednesday, which other- 
 wise was, in many respects, more suitable than the Friday. 
 Thereafter the Sabbatic character of the Friday disappeared. 
 
 But the Sabbath question was not yet quite ended. Some 
 years afterwards I was at Anauunse examining the schools. 
 The teachers, I may remark, were in general more zealous 
 about the week-day prayer-meeting than ever I was. My 
 zeal was concerned chiefly about the Sabbath. On this occa- 
 sion, when I entered the school-house, I observed a sentence 
 written in large distinct letters on the black-board, and the 
 writing was, not Imiehva nathiat atumop, " Remember the 
 Sabbath-day," but Imiehva nathiat wenste, "Remember the 
 Wednesday." After the meeting I took the teacher and 
 explained to him what I have said above, as to the difference 
 between the Sabbath and a week-day prayer-meeting; and 
 ever after, this addition to the fourth commandment ceased 
 to appear on the black-board. 
 
 I have no doubt but that the steady and rapid progress of 
 the Gospel on Aneityum was due, in no small degree, to the 
 manner in which we emphasised the Scripture doctrine of the 
 Sabbath, and established its observance. We thus secured 
 time for religious instruction, quietness for devotional exer- 
 cises, and the largest possible amount of social sympathy 
 in the public services of the sanctuary; and, above all, 
 brought down upon us the influences of the Holy Spirit, in 
 accordance with the Divine promise. The exile of Patmos, 
 too, was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 I MAY here state, once for all, that, while I am describing 
 what occurred on my own side of the island, I am virtually 
 describing Mr. Geddie's also ; for the work on the two sides 
 of the island was conducted on the same principles, and the 
 results accomplished were much the same; save that, when 
 we arrived on Aneityum the mission was a good deal farther 
 advanced on Mr. Geddie's side of the island than on the other, 
 as a mission family had always been residing there, and for 
 a considerable time too ; whereas there had been no resident 
 mission family on the other side except for a short time. 
 Hence, owing to that, and to Mr. and Mrs. Geddie's longer 
 experience and better acquaintance with^ the language, for 
 a number of years their side naturally took the lead in the 
 general progress of the mission. 
 
 On our arrival at Aneityum, comparing small things with 
 great, we found what might be called a system of National 
 Education hopefully inaugurated. Mr. Geddie had brought 
 with him a small second-hand printing-press, and a small 
 font of half-worn type. He had prepared a primer, a small 
 Catechism, six hymns, and a small selection of Scripture 
 extracts. A school was in operation at Aname, our station ; 
 it was conducted by Amosa, a Samoan teacher, his wife, and
 
 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 75 
 
 their daughter. At the end of six months they were re- 
 moved to Ahaij, and took charge of the district of Anauunjai, 
 where they remained for six years, till they were removed 
 to Niwe, or Savage Island. We had three districts that 
 attended our school at Aname, viz., Ipeke, Aname, and Isav, 
 containing a population of 120. They were nearly all pro- 
 fessedly Christian, but only a minority of them attended 
 school. A small number could read a little, and might with 
 difficulty have passed the examination in the reading classes 
 in the Second Standard of the Scottish Educational Code. At 
 first I made no changes ; I allowed Amosa and his wife to 
 carry on the school as they had been doing. We met every 
 morning except Saturday and Sabbath for an hour at sun- 
 rise, which in summer was from 5.20 to 6.20, and in winter 
 from 6.40 till 7.40. The school was opened with singing and 
 prayer ; subsequently I added the reading of a chapter at 
 the opening service. At the close a section of a small first 
 Catechism was read or repeated simultaneously. The rest of 
 the time was spent -in teaching them to read. The system 
 followed was the monitorial. As my wife and I were wholly 
 unacquainted with the language, that we might lose no time, 
 I took up a class of fourteen boys in the alphabet, and she 
 took up a class of twelve girls of the same standing. By 
 the time they had mastered the alphabet, we had acquired 
 as much of the language as enabled us to conduct them 
 through the primer. When we arrived at Aneityum Mr. 
 Geddie had completed a translation of Matthew. He next 
 proceeded to translate Mark. At the end of a twelvemonth 
 we resolved to get a gospel printed, and to appeal to our 
 friends to assist us in paying for the same. It was too far 
 to send the manuscript to London ; but it was expected that
 
 76 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 the John Williams would be calling on us as she went up to 
 Sydney ; and as the second gospel was much shorter than 
 the first, we resolved to have a translation of Mark prepared 
 for the press, and to get it printed in Sydney. This was 
 done. The translation was carried through the press by the 
 Rev. J. P. Sunderland of the Samoan mission ; and, consider- 
 ing the circumstances under which it was executed, it was, 
 though not a perfect, yet a highly creditable production, and it 
 gave an immense stimulus to education all over the island. 
 
 My plan was this, to make the school at my station as 
 much of a model school as possible, and to aim at education 
 being national, scriptural, free as far as fees were concerned, 
 but compulsory as to attendance, that is to say, so far as 
 moral suasion could compel and when vigorously applied it 
 can go a long way very much as we do at home in keeping 
 up the attendance at Sabbath-schools. 
 
 When Amosa went to Ahaij the full charge of the school 
 fell into my hands. I then reorganised it ; I enrolled the 
 entire population as scholars, and supplied books to all who 
 had none. I divided them into classes. The men sat in the 
 one end of the school and the women in the other. I 
 appointed a monitor to each class of eight or ten scholars. 
 To make the work as light as possible, I had two sets of 
 monitors; these taught week about; and I taught the 
 monitors myself the week they were not teaching, so that 
 they might always keep fully abreast of their scholars. 
 Mrs. Inglis did the same with the women. We also extended 
 education over the whole of my district as fast as possible. 
 Every Sabbath at the close of public worship some of the 
 leading natives came to me, and told me the name or names of 
 any who had come to church that day for the first time. These
 
 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 77 
 
 I inserted in my list of names ; I also gave them a book, and 
 directed them to attend the nearest school. It was always 
 understood that whenever any one came to church, he had 
 given up heathenism, professed Christianity, and placed him- 
 self under missionary instruction. The progress of the work 
 was steady, but not rapid. On one Sabbath there would be 
 two or three new names to be added to the roll ; the next 
 there would perhaps be only one ; on the third there might 
 be five or six, but scarcely ever more on one Sabbath. But 
 there was hardly ever a Sabbath but there was one or more, 
 till the whole island was Christian. On this point there was 
 ' a marked difference between the Malays and the Papuans. 
 In Eastern Polynesia, among the Malays, when a chief 
 became Christian, every one belonging to the tribe felt that 
 he must adopt the religion of his chief, and so become 
 Christian. After Mr. Buzacott went to Rarotonga, he was 
 surprised to see such remarkably good attendances at public 
 worship ; but his satisfaction was greatly diminished when he 
 found out that it was not their love to the Word of God that 
 brought such crowds to the chapels, but their fear for the 
 commands and threatenings of the chief. But among the 
 Papuans the chiefs have no such power; democracy rules. 
 Hence religion is a personal rather than a tribal affair ; every 
 man acts on his own personal responsibility. 
 
 As soon as in any land we had six or eight scholars, we 
 got these and their friends to erect a school-house at first a 
 small grass hut and I appointed a teacher to them, generally 
 a husband and his wife. Another grass hut was erected for 
 the teacher and his family, and thus another district school 
 was called into existence. The teacher and his wife met with 
 their scholars every morning, except Saturday and Sabbath,
 
 ?8 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 for about an hour. On Sabbath they brought them to 
 church, and held a Sabbath-school in the afternoon ; and on 
 Wednesday afternoon they brought them to the weekly prayer- 
 meeting. When the morning school was dismissed, the 
 natives went all off to their work ; they were not a lazy or 
 indolent people, even in their heathen state, and Christianity, 
 as it was embraced, greatly stimulated their industry. 
 
 At first our teachers were often persons of very slender 
 attainments in scholarship ; the ground had to build the dyke ; 
 but we chose, as far as possible, men of character and influence, 
 to whom the people would look up. Sometimes we sent a young 
 lad of more than average ability and attainments to assist 
 the teacher in his tutorial labours. By-and-by I opened an 
 afternoon class for the teachers, their wives, and assistants, 
 so that the whole teaching staff might be kept fairly abreast 
 of their scholars. This was the germ of our Teachers' Insti- 
 tution, which bore good fruit in after days. At first we con- 
 fined our instruction solely to teaching the natives to read. 
 And during the whole of my missionary life I applied my 
 chief strength, as far as education was concerned, to make the 
 natives good readers. The ability to read, and that easily 
 and correctly, lies at the foundation of all good scholarship. 
 A man can learn nothing from books till he is able to read ; 
 and he will never read much till he can read without diffi- 
 culty. Our primary object was to teach them to read, that 
 they might be able to read the Bible, and learn the will of 
 God and the way of salvation for themselves the great aim 
 and object of all missionary work. Our first books, owing to 
 the small and worn-out types that we had to employ, were 
 very indistinctly printed ; hence the progress of the natives 
 in learning to read was comparatively slow.
 
 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 79 
 
 The gospel of Mark, printed in Sydney, though in small 
 type, was very clear and distinct, and was thus a great 
 advance on our former books. Subsequently I applied to 
 Mrs. Dr. Symington of Glasgow and other friends at home, 
 and they sent us out a new press and a font of new English 
 type one of the largest sizes. With this Mr. Geddie printed 
 the gospel of Matthew. When the natives got the gospel 
 printed in this type, their progress was one-half moi'e rapid 
 than it had formerly been. It was quite gratifying to see 
 how fast they learned to read Matthew. 
 
 Our first year was educationally one of great success. I 
 opened eight new schools, and had on my list 550 scholars 
 above six years of age. I calculated that there might be 
 about fifty more nominally Christian, but attending no school, 
 and of children under six, belonging to Christian families, 
 probably 100, giving us thus 700 of the population more or 
 less under missionary instruction. But, as we afterwards 
 found that the population on my side of the island at that 
 time was 1900, we had still 1200 natives in all the darkness 
 and degradation of savage heathenism. 
 
 Our public worship was held in the Sabbath morning and 
 forenoon, and both services were over before twelve o'clock. 
 Our Sabbath-schools met in the afternoon about three or four 
 o'clock. In the early part of the mission, every Sabbath 
 afternoon I sent deputations of two or three of the most 
 intelligent of the natives to visit each of the schools, to assist 
 the teachers, and encourage the people, and hold a short 
 prayer- meeting at the close. I always accompanied one of these 
 deputations myself, and in this way I visited all the schools 
 in rotation. After we returned home we held the Sabbath- 
 school at our own station, and with that terminated the
 
 80 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 public services of the Lord's Day. Every night we had wor- 
 ship in our own house with the natives living on our premises, 
 and all those living round about us who chose to come in. 
 We sang a hymn, then read verse about all round, and closed 
 with prayer, thus giving an educational as well as devotional 
 value to the exercise. 
 
 We also commenced at this time a Female Industrial 
 School, with the view of elevating the women. Mrs. Inglis, 
 in addition to superintending the female department of the 
 morning and Sabbath-school, held an afternoon class certain 
 days of the week for the female teachers, and subsequently com- 
 menced this other school. She took in seven young women 
 to live on the premises. Their parents and friends provided 
 them with food, and she supplied them with clothing, and, in 
 addition to attending all my classes in the Teachers' Institu- 
 tion, she instructed them in sewing, washing and dressing 
 of clothes, and general household work. Two of them were 
 daughters of principal chiefs, and the rest were daughters or 
 relatives of influential families. We had a neatly plastered 
 lime house erected for them, and appointed a man and his 
 wife one of our best couples to live with them, and be 
 responsible for their behaviour. The average number accom- 
 modated was from ten to sixteen. This Institution was kept 
 up all the twenty -five years that we lived on the island. 
 Almost every young woman on our side of the island was for 
 a longer or shorter period in this school, and the results were 
 most beneficial. In after years the most of our teachers' 
 wives were drawn out of these young women's classes. In 
 learning to read, men and Avomen, boys and girls, were about 
 equally expert ; in writing and arithmetic, the men and boys 
 excelled, but in committing to memory, the women and girls
 
 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 8 I 
 
 were by far the best. For the first twelve years after we 
 joined the mission we had the four Gospels, the Acts, and the 
 Epistles, from Galatians to Philemon inclusive ; also Genesis, 
 Exodus, Jonah, and the historical poi'tion of Daniel, each 
 bound up as a separate book as they were successively 
 printed. We had thus a new book on an average once a year ; 
 and the more advanced scholars had fully mastered the one 
 book before the other appeared. One of the exercises in the 
 Sabbath -school was to repeat the portions of Scripture they 
 had committed to memory during the week. In this exer- 
 cise the women and girls greatly excelled. A number of 
 the younger women and girls in Mrs. Inglis's class not only 
 learned to read one book before another was printed, but also 
 to commit each of them to memory. On one occasion a lady 
 in Paisley sent out a piece of cloth to be made into a dress, 
 and given as a prize to the woman who excelled in committing 
 Scripture to memory. Mrs. Inglis prescribed as the task for 
 competition the first six chapters of the Acts. But instead 
 of one she had six who repeated these chapters, every one of 
 them without missing a word ; and she had to provide six 
 dresses instead of one. 
 
 We went on, year by year, covering the island with schools, 
 till I had twenty-eight on my side of the island, all fully 
 equipped. At first the school-houses were merely grass huts ; 
 but by-and-by these were all superseded by beautiful lime 
 houses, plastered and whitewashed ; also a teachers' house 
 and a house containing two small rooms, for the missionary 
 when he visited the place, and in which he might either stay 
 all night or take a meal, as he might require. Every native 
 was within a mile of a school, and was supplied with all the 
 necessary books. For the first fifteen years of the mission
 
 82 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 they were supplied with books gratis, till the New Testament 
 was all printed, and came out in one volume strongly bound 
 in calf. After that they paid for all their books ; they paid 
 in all ^1400 for books, and all by arrowroot, prepared and 
 contributed by themselves, but disposed of for them by the 
 missionaries. But while we gave them their books for 
 nothing, we did not give them away indiscriminately. We 
 instituted a thorough system of something like competitive 
 examination. We never gave a scholar a new book till he 
 had thoroughly mastered the old one. In the early part of 
 the mission I visited all my schools once a quarter, on week- 
 days. When the schools increased I was able to visit them 
 only once in the half-year, and finally only once in the year. 
 I examined every scholar, and gave a new book to every one 
 who could read the old one, but to no one else. To be able to 
 read the old book was the one and sole condition of obtaining 
 a new one ; and as I examined every scholar myself, there 
 was no chance of favouritism, and no danger of injustice. 
 The system wrought well. At first, when a large proportion 
 of our scholars were advanced in years and could not see well, 
 and hence were not able to distinguish the letters, they learned 
 to repeat the words by rote, and when I would ask them at 
 the examinations for new books, if they could read, one and 
 another would say, " I can read the words, but I cannot read 
 the letters ! " They came to know the words from their 
 appearance, or their length, or their position on the line or 
 on the page. In short, they learned in this way to repeat the 
 sentence. And as our primers were for the most part made 
 up of choice texts of Scripture doctrinal and practical they 
 thus committed to memory important portions of the Bible, 
 even although they did not know the letters ; and they learned
 
 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 83 
 
 them all the easier, that they could see the words in the book. 
 It was like the Egyptians reading hieroglyphics, or Belzoni 
 deciphering the Rosetta stone. 
 
 There was another peculiarity in reading that sprang up 
 at the beginning of the mission. Amosa, the Samoan teacher, 
 and his wife were diligent and conscientious in their efforts 
 to teach the natives to read, but although they could read 
 their own language well, the Aneityumese was so different 
 from the Samoan that they had very considerable difficulty 
 in learning to read it. Hence, when they were teaching the 
 alphabet and the primer to the natives, they kept the right 
 end of the book to themselves, and held the side of the book 
 to the scholars. In this way all the natives whom they 
 taught to read kept always the side of the book to them when 
 reading, and read, not as we do, across the page and along 
 the line, but from what was to them the top of the line to the 
 bottom ; and so inveterate had the practice become, that some 
 of them continued to read in this way as long as they lived. 
 
 The teaching of writing we began on slates. But after we 
 got our Teachers' Institution, which was fully fitted up with 
 desks and furnished with all necessary appliances, we intro- 
 duced writing with paper and ink Arithmetic was a more 
 serious undertaking ; we had not only to teach them how to 
 form figures for they were without figures as well as without 
 letters but we had to teach them the English names of the 
 numerals. They counted by fives, not by tens, as we do. 
 They counted their fingers up to five, then said mkmak, or 
 my hand, for five. They then said "my hand and one" for six, 
 "my hand and two" for seven, and so on till they came to ten, 
 and then they held up their ten digits, and said, " my two 
 hands." They repeated the same process on their ten toes, and
 
 84 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 then said " my two hands and my two feet " for twenty. All 
 beyond was " many, many," or " a great many," &c. To teach 
 arithmetic with this vocabulary was impossible. Our first 
 practical want was to express the names of the chapters 
 and verses in the Gospels. The twenty-sixth chapter and the 
 seventieth verse of Matthew would have run thus " My two 
 hands and my two feet, and my hand and one chapter, and my 
 two hands and my two feet, also my two hands and my two feet, 
 and again my two hands and my two feet, and my two hands 
 verse of Matthew." We saw that we could teach arithmetic 
 only by adopting the English names of the numerals, and 
 hence, as far as arithmetic was concerned, we taught them to 
 speak English. One way of teaching them was this. Every 
 morning after the school was opened I stood up and counted 
 the scholars, and made the whole school count them simul- 
 taneously after me, thus : I pointed to the first scholar and 
 called out one, and the whole school shouted out one after me. 
 I then pointed to the next and called out tivo, and the whole 
 school shouted out two after me ; I did the same with three, 
 and so on till every scholar was counted, and the whole 
 school followed me till I had finished. This process I repeated 
 morning by morning for years in all our schools, till these 
 English numbers were as familiar to every native as their 
 mother-tongue. For a considerable time we gave special 
 attention to instructing them in notation and numeration, 
 till they were somewhat familiar with the names and forms 
 of the figures and their combinations ; afterwards we pro- 
 ceeded to the four simple rules. When we got the whole 
 New Testament in one volume, to repeat the books in their 
 order, and find out book, chapter, and verse, was at first a 
 formidable task. But by daily teaching and constant
 
 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 85 
 
 practice, by-and-by a good many of the younger scholars 
 became very expert in finding out the places, when book, 
 chapter, and verse were named. At first we used only the 
 cardinal numbers. They had only three ordinal numbers, 
 viz., first, middle, and last. These always reminded me of 
 Isaac Ambrose's famous treatise entitled, " First, Middle, 
 and Last Things." When they were tolerably well grounded 
 in the cardinal numbers, I tried to initiate them into the use 
 of the ordinal ; but, simple as it appears to us, it was very 
 difficult for them to understand the difference between one, 
 two, three, and first, second, and third, between ten men and 
 the tenth man, between the twelfth chapter and the fifteenth 
 verse and twelve chapters and fifteen verses. Our object in 
 the Teachers' Institution was to give secondary or middle, 
 rather than what might be called higher, education ; to secure 
 the greatest amount of education possible for the greatest 
 available number. We wished to raise up a large number of 
 native agents moderately qualified, to act as teachers to their 
 fellow-countrymen, who should instruct them in the art of 
 reading, so as to make them able to read the Bible ; and not 
 a select number to be specially educated to act as pastors, 
 or for teaching the higher departments of an educational 
 curriculum. The education that we required for our teachers 
 was a totally different education from that required in India, 
 in South Africa, or even in Samoa. Dr. Duff's Institution in 
 Calcutta was eminently suited for the requirements of India. 
 Dr. Stewart's at Lovedale for South Africa, and Dr. Turner's 
 at Malua for Samoa. But we could not have had on Aneityum 
 an institution such as those. You cannot establish a national 
 university in an isolated country village. It cannot be 
 supported by the village, and it is not required by the wants
 
 86 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 of the villagers. For their own mental, moral, and spiritual 
 improvement, the natives cannot be too well educated ; but 
 for professional objects their education cannot be raised above 
 a certain point. The means of acquiring a high education 
 cannot be obtained; and even should such an education be 
 acquired, there is no scope for the exercise of such attain- 
 ments. The language of Aneityum is spoken only on one 
 island, and hence they are shut up "within a single reef," 
 as John Williams would have said. Besides providing a per- 
 manent staff of fifty teachers and their wives for our own 
 island, at one time or another, and for longer or shorter 
 periods, we sent away as many to the other islands, to assist 
 the missionaries, or prepare the way for them. But it was 
 not chiefly as evangelists or teachers that they were valu- 
 able ; but as house-builders, boatmen, cooks, nurses, household 
 servants, goatherds, and general helps all round ; but the 
 better their Christian character, the greater their Scriptural 
 knowledge, and the more advanced their general civilisation, 
 the more helpful did they prove to the missionaries in in- 
 troducing the Gospel among the other islands. At first 
 Mr. Geddie and I arranged that he should take charge of 
 the printing-press, and that I should carry on the Teachers' 
 Institution ; but by-and-by, owing to various circumstances, 
 we could not carry out this plan as we intended. Among 
 other reasons, the supply was not equal to the demand, and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Geddie had to undertake the higher education 
 as well, and supply a native agency both for their own side of 
 the island and also for other mission stations. I conducted 
 this institution for two hours every afternoon, four days 
 in the week, for two sessions of four months each annually. 
 The institution was always popular and well attended. It
 
 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 87 
 
 was as well attended, if not better, the last year I was on the 
 island than it had ever been. Including a junior division of 
 promising boys and girls, the number on the list was nearly 
 ninety. But what could that do to raise up a high scholar- 
 ship from the very lowest strata of an ignorant and degraded 
 section of humanity ? 
 
 Biologists tell us that there are two things necessary to the 
 development of life : there must be the organism and the 
 environment. The growth of the organism depends upon the 
 environment. In nature these invariably correspond with 
 the result contemplated, or the effect intended to be produced. 
 In his famous Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Gray 
 brings out the same idea. Among the " rude forefathers of 
 the hamlet" there slept what had been the organisms, the 
 embryoes, of patriots, poets, statesmen, and warriors; at 
 least, perhaps, there was a " village Hampden," a " mute, 
 inglorious Milton," a " Cromwell guiltless of his country's 
 blood." But they were all undeveloped, the organism was 
 there, but the environment was awanting. Their lot forbade, 
 and hence their destiny was obscure. We too on Aneityum 
 had men who, had circumstances been favourable, would 
 doubtless have been equal to Narayan Sheshadra for their 
 powerful platform oratory or their fervid, persuasive pulpit 
 eloquence. But we had not the educational appliances 
 necessary for developing such talents, where they might have 
 existed; and we had not the needful arena for exercising 
 such acquirements when they might have been developed. 
 Hence, had Gray been our poet laureate, he might have 
 found on our little island representatives of all the classes 
 immortalised in his world-renowned Elegy ; and our Teachers' 
 Institution, like his country village, must remain content
 
 88 THE SCHOOL ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 with producing scholars equal to the requirements of the 
 place and the times, with sending forth men whose utmost 
 attainments in literature is the knowledge of the three R's, 
 and to teach the same to their fellow islanders, or to act as 
 hewers of wood and drawers of water to missionaries on other 
 parts of the group ; and who, having served God in their day 
 and generation, by such humble ministration, will be accepted 
 of the Lord for their labours, and will receive the commenda- 
 tion of their Master, for doing what they could, and maintain- 
 ing the "noiseless tenor of their way."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 THE Sabbath being a recognised institution on Aneityum, the 
 next great work was to give them the Bible in their own 
 language. The work of translation was like the mustard- 
 seed in the parable. From a very small beginning it grew, 
 grew steadily, and at last rapidly, till the people read the 
 whole Bible in their own tongue in which they were born. 
 When finished printed, bound, and placed in their hands 
 it was the fifty-eighth complete printed translation of the 
 Bible to be found in the whole world the second complete 
 translation of the Bible executed by a mission wholly Pres- 
 byterian ; the first having been made by the missionaries of 
 the United Presbyterian Church in Old Calabar. 
 
 Our translations at first were confined to single verses, 
 then to single parables, then to single chapters, then to single 
 gospels, and other single books ; then to the New Testament, 
 and finally to the whole Bible. But it may be interesting to 
 give some details of the progress of the work. It was executed 
 under the auspices, and at the expense, of the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society. They laid down the conditions, and 
 bore all the expenses of printing and binding it, and also 
 made a liberal allowance for translating it. When the New 
 Testament was finished, the Society gave to the Presbyterian
 
 90 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 Church of Nova Scotia and to the Reformed Presbyterian 
 Church of Scotland ^250 each, with the express desire that 
 the services of the translators should be handsomely recog- 
 nised. This was done; Mr. Geddie and I were allowed ;ioo 
 each, Mrs. Geddie and Mrs. Inglis received 20 each, and 
 ;io were given to "Williamu. When the Old Testament was 
 finished, the Society allowed ^600 to the Free Church of 
 Scotland, with which the Reformed Presbyterian Church was 
 now united. ;ioo of this was given to me as a honorarium 
 for translation and editorial work. They also allowed ;ioo 
 to the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia for the first half 
 of the Pentateuch, edited by Mr. (at that time Dr.) Geddie, 
 and printed in Melbourne. After these payments the copy- 
 right belonged to the Society. 
 
 The principles on which translations are conducted by 
 the Bible Society are these. They must be satisfied that the 
 translators are orthodox, and that they will translate honestly, 
 and that they possess sufficient scholarship for doing the work 
 in a satisfactory manner. They also maintain an editorial 
 superintendent one of the best linguists they can secure who 
 carefully examines every translation, and who, by every avail- 
 able test, satisfies himself that the version is correct. The 
 translations of the New Testament must be all made from 
 the Textus Receptus the Received Text or the Authorised 
 English Version, or the Marginal Readings of the Authorised 
 Version. The translations of the Old Testament must be 
 from Van Der Hooght's Hebrew Text, or the Authorised 
 Version, or the Marginal Readings of the Authorised Ver- 
 sion. The translator may choose from any one of these 
 readings, where they differ, but he must follow no other 
 readings. He may consult as many other versions as he
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. pi 
 
 pleases, and express himself in whatever words he may think 
 proper, provided his meaning is fully borne out by one or 
 other of these three authorities respectively. We found it 
 often of great advantage to consult other versions, especi- 
 ally English and South Sea ones. Our difficulties with 
 respect to idiom and modes of expression were often very 
 much the same as those felt by our brethren in other mis- 
 sions, and we thus saw how they had overcome the same 
 difficulties. Other versions, too, often suggested easier and 
 more idiomatic forms of expression than these authorised 
 readings supplied. Twenty-five years ago I had an oppor- 
 tunity of reading a correspondence which had passed between 
 a South Sea missionary and the Foreign Secretary of the 
 Bible Society some fifty years ago now. The missionary was 
 complaining about the restricted and confined conditions pre- 
 scribed by the Bible Society to their translators, and pleaded 
 hard that they should be allowed to exercise a discretionary 
 power, to select readings from a wider range, as they might 
 see fit ; that in the New Testament they might select, say 
 from Griesbach, Scholz, the Latin Vulgate, Boothroyd, and 
 others. The answer from the Bible-House was rather 
 curt and cavalier-like. The Secretary wrote to the effect 
 that they had adopted these rules for security's sake ; they 
 knew those readings, and all that could be said for and 
 against them ; but they were not always quite sure if their 
 translators had the ability, the scholarship, and the skill 
 necessary for selecting other and better readings, and they 
 thought it was safer to retain the present version till a new 
 recension was made by scholars in whom the Churches had 
 the fullest confidence ; and that those versions of the Greek 
 and English New Testament which, for nearly two hundred
 
 92 THE BIBLE OX ANEITYUM. 
 
 and fifty years, had satisfied the whole of the English-speak- 
 ing people on both sides of the Atlantic, and on both sides 
 of the globe, if carefully and accurately translated into their 
 respective languages, might, he thought, be quite sufficient 
 for the untutored savages of Polynesia, whose Christianity was 
 but of yesterday and their Biblical knowledge in its very 
 infancy. The translator prudently made no reply. 
 
 The first gospel that we printed was Mark. It was printed 
 in Sydney. We selected Mark because it was the shortest, 
 and we were eager to give the natives a complete gospel. 
 Mr. Geddie had translated Matthew before our arrival on the 
 island. But after we had finished Mark, he was so satisfied 
 that the translation of Matthew could be greatly improved 
 that he translated it anew, and I assisted in the revision of it. 
 We had now got a new press and a new font of English type, 
 and Mr. Geddie, who had learned to print before he left 
 Nova Scotia, printed it on the island. This large type 
 facilitated the acquisition of the art of reading amazingly 
 among the natives. Our next gospel was Luke, the manu- 
 script of which we sent home, and the translation was printed 
 by the Bible Society in London, also in English type. When 
 I speak of English type I do not mean Roman letters in 
 which all English books are printed, but the large type known 
 among printers by that name, as distinct from longprimer 
 and other sizes. It is one of the largest types used for print- 
 ing the Society's Bibles, the largest used by them being 
 double pica. We next had John's Gospel, which was printed 
 on the island. Next came the Acts of the Apostles, and then 
 the Epistles of Paul from Galatians to Philemon inclusive. 
 Each of these portions was bound up as a separate book, 
 making six in all. We now began preparations for the print-
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 93 
 
 ing of the entire New Testament. The John Williams was 
 to leave the island on her return to London in the end of 
 1859, to take home the missionaries' children and undergo 
 repairs. It was agreed at first that Mr. and Mrs. Geddie 
 should go home on furlough with their family, and take the 
 translation of the New Testament with them, and get it 
 printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society. Afterwards 
 family considerations prevented this arrangement from being 
 carried out. Their infant child was considered too young to 
 be exposed to the perils of such a long and tedious voyage ; 
 and it was finally arranged that my wife and I should ac- 
 company the John Williams, and carry the New Testament 
 through the press. The New Testament was all translated ; 
 but we considered that it would take Mr. Geddie and myself 
 all our spare time for a twelvemonth to revise and correct 
 the translation, so as to have it fit for the press. But the 
 sailing of the John Williams belonged to the same category 
 as Time and Tide that will wait for no one. To meet this 
 difficulty, however, we took a native Williamu home with 
 us. We were seven months on the voyage ; we spent three 
 and a half months between Aneityum and Tahiti, visiting 
 all the stations of the London Missionary Society, and 
 three and a half months more between Tahiti and London. 
 Williamu and I read over and corrected about the half of 
 the MS. during the voyage. On our arrival in London I 
 was placed under the direction of the Editorial Superinten- 
 dent of the Bible Society's translations, the late Bev. T. W. 
 Meller, M.A., Bector of Woodbridge, in Suffolk. He had 
 previously carried the gospel of Luke through the press, 
 and had so analysed that gospel as to form a lexicon and 
 grammar of the Aneityurnese language, as far as Luke sup-
 
 94 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 plied the vocables; and he felt no difficulty in making out 
 the sense of the translation, so as to satisfy himself that 
 the meaning of the original was faithfully given. He was 
 a man of remarkable linguistic gifts, an able and accurate 
 scholar, perfectly familiar with every textual difficulty, fully 
 abreast of the most advanced Biblical scholarship of the 
 day, and a very hard-working, painstaking man. In addition 
 to superintending the Aneityumese New Testament, he was 
 editing a version of the Bible in modern Greek, and super- 
 intending a version of the Fiji Bible, and also one in the 
 language of Madagascar. He was a thoroughly orthodox 
 theologian, and very pronounced in his views of inspiration. 
 He held strictly by what is usually called verbal inspiration 
 not only the words, but the very letters were to be conserved, 
 He quoted Paul's words in support of his view, Gal. 3. 16 : 
 " He saith not, And to seeds, as of many ; but as of one, 
 And to thy seed, which is Christ." Here the sense is fixed not 
 by the use of one word, but by the use of one letter. Hold- 
 ing these views of inspiration, he was extremely particular in 
 seeing that in every translation there should be brought out 
 the original, the whole of the original, and nothing but the 
 original ; which had its dangers as well as its advantages ; it 
 was apt to lead to an over-literal version. Mr. Meller was 
 so impressed with high views of inspiration, and the impor- 
 tance of bringing out in the translation the very mind of 
 God's Holy Spirit, that he was in danger of overlaying the 
 idiom of the Aneityumese with the idiom of the Original ; 
 just as Mr. Spurgeon is reported to have said of the revisers 
 of the New Testament, that they have spoiled their English 
 with their Greek. But I had no difficulty in holding 
 my own with him. While he was an exact scholar, he
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 95 
 
 was a very sensible man, a thoroughly Christian gentleman, 
 kind and considerate ; he had no crotchets, and could always 
 see the force of an argument. He often said to me, " My 
 only wish is to help, I have no wish to dictate; and in 
 every doubtful case, in connection with the Aneityumese 
 language, the decision lies with yourself." But our version 
 was very much improved by his supervision. He had super- 
 intended so many versions, especially South Sea versions, 
 that he knew all the difficulties and all the difficult passages 
 that met the translators, also the true principles by which 
 translations ought to be carried through ; so that he was a 
 safe guide and a wise counsellor. I was greatly helped by 
 his valuable suggestions, and acquired from him much impor- 
 tant knowledge on the principles of translation, which was 
 of great use to me in translating and editing the Old Testa- 
 ment, as well as the New. I was always certain that if my 
 renderings were satisfactory to Mr. Meller they would stand 
 the test of all other criticism. Of this I had a satisfactory 
 proof at the meeting of the Free Church General Assembly 
 in Glasgow in 1878. The then Lord Provost of Glasgow, 
 Sir William Collins, held a Conversazione, at which he gave a 
 semi-official reception to the members of Assembly and their 
 friends. As part of the entertainment he had borrowed 
 from the British and Foreign Bible Society, and brought down 
 from London, a copy of every known version of the Scrip- 
 tures. In that list was a copy of our Aneityumese New 
 Testament, to which, during the evening, I called the atten- 
 tion of the Rev. Dr. Brown, Principal of the Free Church 
 College in Aberdeen, and one of the company of the New 
 Testament revisers. The printing and binding were all 
 that could be desired ; and then, with the ease of an expert,
 
 96 THE BIBLE ON ANElTYDM. 
 
 he selected some half a dozen of testing texts, and began 
 by saying, " How have you rendered this one ? What is the 
 meaning you have given to that one? And what is the 
 translation you have made of this other one?" Happily 
 in every case we found that he accepted our rendering, as 
 in accordance with the latest utterances of the highest sacred 
 criticism. 
 
 There are two ways of translating out of one language 
 into another, viz., the literal and the idiomatic, the rendering 
 of word for word or idiom for idiom. Dr. Robert Young 
 of Edinburgh, in his translation of the Bible into English, 
 carried out the principle of literal translation more fully 
 than any translator I have seen. Moses and the Prophets 
 are made to speak in English words, but their idioms are 
 all Hebrew; his readers are taken over to the ancient seers, 
 and allowed to hear them speaking to the Jews in the idiom 
 of the Hebrew language an interesting and profitable exercise 
 to the select few; but it sounds barbarous, harsh, and to a 
 great extent unintelligible, to those whom the Apostle calls 
 the unlearned. Boothroyd's English translation is on the 
 opposite principle, and is, perhaps, the most idomatic transla- 
 tion that we possess. The Authorised Version is between the 
 two. In our Aneityumese translation we have followed the 
 idiomatic rather than the literal, and rendered idiom by idiom, 
 rather than word by word; although, like the Authorised, 
 we have often retained the Hebrew idiom when it did not 
 obscure the sense, as seeing with the eyes, heaving with the 
 ears, and walking with the feet, &c. ; although the natives, 
 like ourselves, speak only of seeing, hearing, and walking, 
 without any reference to the organs by which these actions 
 are performed. This fuller form of expression gives a greater
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 97 
 
 freshness to the style, without obscuring the sense. Instead 
 of saying, with the Authorised Version and Dr. Young, " Thou 
 shalt not uncover," &c., we have followed Boothroyd, and 
 say, "Thou shalt not marry so and so," which is the true 
 meaning of the expression. Again, blood, the shedding of 
 blood, the pouring out of blood, the sprinkling of blood, 
 &c., are ever-recurring words in connection with the sacri- 
 ficial system of the Israelites, and they pass over from the 
 old economy to the new, and supply vocables for expressing 
 the nature and efficacy of the atoning death of Christ. His 
 blood becomes equivalent to His atonement. Blood has 
 no such meaning in the language of Aneityum. It never 
 means life. But death, the death of Christ, and His being 
 killed or slain as a sacrifice for the sins of men, are expres- 
 sions quite plain and intelligible to the Aneityumese. In our 
 translation we have endeavoured to make the Hebrew writers 
 speak as they would have done had they been Aneityumese 
 speaking to natives of Aneityum. For example, the figurative 
 has almost always to be changed into the literal, and the 
 abstract into the concrete. The Hebrew writers address, or 
 speak of, the inhabitants of a land, or of a city, by the title 
 of daughter, as daughter of Sion, daughter of Jerusalem, 
 daughter of Tyre, daughter of Babylon, &c. ; or they use 
 simply the name of the city, or the country, for the people, 
 as O Jerusalem, O Judah, O Israel. We have to drop the 
 poetry of such expressions, and translate them into plain 
 prose, and speak of the people, or the inhabitants, of Judah, of 
 Sion, and of Jerusalem. Again, " They shall fall by the sword." 
 As the Aneityumese have no swords, this sentence would be 
 meaningless if translated literally. But when we say, " They 
 shall be killed in war," the expression is both intelligible and
 
 98 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 forcible. " To your tents, Israel," we render, "To your 
 homes, O men of Israel." The Hebrew writers speak of a 
 righteous man, a wicked man, a rich man, and a poor man, 
 when they mean the class as a whole, not a single individual. 
 The Aneityumese never speak in this way. If we rendered 
 these passages in the singular, they would understand them 
 as referring to an individual, not to a class. In the Scrip- 
 tures, especially in the laws of Moses, and in the prophetical 
 books, there is a frequent interchange both of the number 
 and of the person, the singular for the plural, and the third 
 personal pronouns for the first. The Aneityumese have no 
 such transitions ; hence, in order to prevent misapprehen- 
 sion, we have often to render the singular by the plural, and 
 the plural by the singular, when such is the evident meaning. 
 The singular would, no doubt, be more forcible to a Hebrew, 
 but it would be bewildering to a native of Aneityum. A 
 Hebrew would perfectly understand the singular for the 
 plural, a native of Aneityum would not. For instance, in the 
 Lamentations of Jeremiah, the prophet, to give a more vivid 
 description of the misery and wretchedness of the nation, 
 concentrates, to a large extent, the sufferings of the people 
 upon himself, and uses the first person singular ; whereas, in 
 our translation, to prevent mistake, we have used the first 
 person plural. Jeremiah says, " / am the man that hath seen 
 affliction;" in the Aneityumese translation it is rendered, 
 " We are the people who have seen affliction." Paul often 
 uses the plural when he is speaking simply of himself, as in 
 i Thess. iii. i, " We thought it good to be left at Athens 
 alone." Conybeare and Howson, in their Life of the 
 Apostle, when translating his Epistles, have rendered the 
 idiomatic Greek into equally idiomatic English, and made
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 99 
 
 uch plurals all singulars, and says, " I thought it good," 
 &c. We have done the same, because the Aneityumese have 
 no royal, or editorial, or oratorical we for the first person 
 singular. I means /, and we means ive, and neither more nor 
 less, and you never means thou. The first point in connection 
 with the use of the pronouns is to ascertain distinctly the 
 meaning of the passage, and then select the proper pronoun. 
 There are four numbers in the personal pronouns, the singular, 
 the dual, the trial, and the plural ; as /, we tico, we three, 
 and we all. It requires four at least to form the plural, and 
 wherever a plural has to be translated, the context must be 
 carefully examined to see how many persons are being spoken 
 of. Hence in the very first chapter of Genesis we have to 
 assume the doctrine of the Trinity to be true, and to say not, 
 " Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," but 
 " Let us three make man in the image of us three, after the 
 likeness of ^ts three; " and in Genesis xi. 7, not, " Go to, let 
 us go down," but " Go to, let us three go down." If we had used 
 the plural, as in English, and not the trial number, it would 
 have implied that there were at least four persons here 
 taking counsel, and hence that there were at least four 
 persons in the Godhead. In the first person, dual, trial, or 
 plural there is both an inclusive and an exclusive form, 
 both in the pronoun and in the verb to be. We two has two 
 forms, viz., alcaijau, "you and I," the inclusive, including the 
 person spoken to ; and aijumrau, " he or she and I," the exclu- 
 sive, excluding the person spoken to. Hence the translator 
 and the preacher have to be very careful in the use of the 
 inclusive and exclusive plural. If, in addressing God in 
 prayer, the speaker says, " We are all sinners," if he uses the 
 inclusive pronoun, akaija, " we all," he includes God among the
 
 100 THE BIBLE ON ANETTYUM. 
 
 number, which would be blasphemy. If in preaching he says 
 aijama, "we all," exclusive, he would mean, "we missionaries 
 are sinners, but not including you natives." To be correct 
 he must reverse the order. He will then be understood, and 
 his words will be appreciated. 
 
 Some people are apt to think that low, degraded savages 
 like the Papuans can have no right language at all; their 
 speech must be merely a kind of gibberish, having neither 
 correct sense, sound, nor grammar. Quite recently the 
 Anglican Bishop of "Western Australia issued an appeal for 
 funds, to assist in educating the blacks in his diocese through 
 the medium of the English language, on the ground that 
 their language was not adapted for conveying to their minds 
 religious instruction. The editor of the Sydney Presbyterian, 
 himself a missionary for twenty-three years, and an expert in 
 native languages, very pertinently asked, " Has the Bishop 
 tried the experiment fully ? Is there a white man in the 
 colony who really knows the language of these blacks ? Let 
 them set to and acquire a knowledge of the language or lan- 
 guages spoken by the natives, and they will doubtless find 
 that it is a vehicle capable of conveying to the native mind a 
 clear conception of the truths of the Bible." Such, at least, 
 has been our experience on Aneityum and other islands of the 
 New Hebrides. When the missionaries went first to Aneityum, 
 in 1 848, they found a language having no affinity whatever to 
 the Malay, or to any language known to them, floating indis- 
 tinctly, as they thought, on the lips of the natives. There 
 was no literature ; not a word of it had ever been written or 
 made visible to the eye ; but they began at once to reduce it 
 to writing. They formed an alphabet; they found out the 
 meaning of the words ; they discovered their true pronuncia-
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. IOI 
 
 tion ; and they ascertained the grammatical structure of the 
 language ; and the result is, that we have a language at our 
 command both copious and exact, capable of giving utterance 
 to every thought and every idea, every want and every wish, 
 known to those to whom it is their mother-tongue. The 
 words are all as precise in their meaning as if they had been 
 defined by Johnson or Jamieson. The grammar is as regular 
 and uniform as if it had been formed by Murray, Lennie, 
 or M'Culloch; while the pronunciation is as exact as if it 
 had been settled and phonographed by Walker, Webster, or 
 Worcester. We have felt no special difficulty in finding 
 words to express every idea contained in the Bible, in both 
 the Old and the New Testaments, also in the Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress and the Shorter Catechism. We have had now and 
 again to use circumlocutions, but we have had to introduce 
 very few new words. It is matter for thankfulness to know 
 that in the Aneityumese language God had provided a vehicle 
 by means of which His whole inspired Word can be fully, 
 clearly, intelligibly, and exactly communicated to the inhabi- 
 tants of that remote and obscure island, although the idiom 
 and form of their language are in many points different 
 from that of Hebrew, or Greek, or Latin, or English. This is 
 clearly seen from the fact that the natives value the Bible. 
 They pay for it ; they read it daily ; they have an intelligent 
 understanding of its meaning; they accept it as God's own 
 Word, and believe it as such ; and it has become largely the 
 guiding principle of their lives. 
 
 When we say that there are twenty languages spoken in 
 the New Hebrides, and a hundred languages in the whole of 
 Melanesia, that the one will require twenty Bibles, and the 
 whole will require five times that number before every indi-
 
 102 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 vidual among them can hear or read the wonderful works of 
 God in his own tongue when we say this, people hold up 
 their hands in amazement, and say, " Why, that is equal to a 
 fourth or a fifth of all the languages of the world. Is there 
 no one language that you can discover that would be under- 
 stood by them all ? " When we assure them that no such 
 language can be found, they then say, " But can you not teach 
 them all to speak English ? " And when we assert this to be 
 impossible, they look upon the case as hopeless. But I meet 
 the difficulty in this way, and say to them, " We have hitherto 
 had so few translations of the Bible, that the labour of pro- 
 ducing one is no doubt greatly exaggerated. It has been only 
 men of gigantic intellect, like Wickliffe, or Tyndale, or Luther, 
 that were deemed capable of undertaking such a task." But 
 if Dr. Geddie and myself, assisted to some extent in the Old 
 Testament by Mr. Copeland if two average missionaries, dur- 
 ing the length of an average missionary lifetime, after dis- 
 charging an average amount of other missionary duties, have 
 given to the natives of one island a complete translation of 
 the Bible, and given to the world a dictionary of 5000 words 
 and a grammar of the language; have not only given the 
 natives the Bible, but have taught them to read it ; and, what 
 is perhaps more difficult, have succeeded in teaching, or rather 
 training them to pay for it, if we have done this, surely any 
 other two average missionaries maydo the same thing for the 
 people speaking another language ; and surely, in these times 
 of enterprise and activity, the same effort may be nineteen 
 times repeated; and then, as far as the New Hebrides is 
 concerned, the work is completed. But the work is going on ; 
 eight different translations are in progress just now, and eight 
 more grammars and dictionaries are being prepared. More-
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYDM. 1 03 
 
 over, four other missions are at present engaged in the 
 evangelisation of the Papuan race, viz., the American Board 
 of Foreign Missions, the London Missionary Society, the 
 Wesleyan Missionary Society, and the Church of England 
 Melanesian Mission ; if each of these, as they are well able to 
 do, supplies twenty translations of the Bible, as well as our 
 own Presbyterian Mission, the work would be finished. It is 
 therefore not only possible, but it is probable, yea, highly 
 probable, all but morally certain, that at no distant day a 
 complete translation of the Bible will exist in every language 
 spoken in Western Polynesia. Let the Churches arise in 
 their strength, and the work is done. 
 
 The process by which we produced the Aneityumese Bible 
 was this. Saturday was the day which I generally appro- 
 priated to translating, and if I could not say, Nulla dies sine 
 versu, " No day without a verse," I could say, to a large extent, 
 " No week without a chapter." After I had been six months on 
 the island I began to translate Genesis. At first I got only a 
 few verses done, and in a very imperfect manner. But week 
 by week, and month by month, the work became easier. 
 After I had finished Genesis I translated Luke. Our mode 
 of proceeding was this. The first duty of a translator is to 
 ascertain and fix upon the meaning of the author. For this 
 end I read the original text, versions, and commentaries, and 
 all helps that I could lay my hands on. Then I translated 
 the original into the Aneityumese as I best could. Then I 
 brought into my study one or two of the most intelligent of 
 the natives, and read the passage to them, verse by verse, 
 asking them if this word or that sentence was correct 
 Aneityumese; and such-and-such being the meaning, was 
 that the best word, or the most suitable expression 1 or what
 
 104 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 changes would they suggest ? and making every correction 
 that could be thought of. 
 
 On the Sabbath morning before church-time, when the 
 people began to assemble, I brought in ten or a dozen of the 
 most intelligent of the natives, and read the portion trans- 
 lated over to them verse by verse, and embodied whatever 
 corrections they might suggest. This was to the natives a 
 kind of Bible lesson, as they necessarily heard a good deal 
 of exposition under circumstances very favourable for being 
 remembered. Subsequently I read it in the church to the 
 whole congregation, following it up with a running com- 
 mentary a kind of lecture, after the manner of a Scotch fore- 
 noon service in the olden time. I had previously instructed 
 the congregation that, if any of them observed any words 
 incorrectly used, they were to come to me and tell me after 
 the service. And though they were anything but forward 
 to display their critical acumen, yet now and again one and 
 another would come to me r and say, " Misi, would you read 
 over that verse," near the beginning, or the middle, or the 
 end, as the case might be, where such-and-such a word occurs, 
 "I was not sure about it." The verse was read, and the 
 remark would be made, " Oh, it is quite correct ; I had not 
 heard it right ; " or, " I think such-and-such a word would be 
 better there." When I had embodied the results of all avail- 
 able criticism, I wrote out a clean copy of the translation, 
 and when the book was finished I sent it over to Mr. Geddie, 
 and he went over it all carefully with his pundits, bringing a 
 fresh eye and a new critical apparatus to eliminate remaining 
 errors and secure further improvements. If there were any 
 doubtful passages left, these were marked, and we examined 
 them together when we met. Mr. Geddie did the same with
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. IO5 
 
 his translations, and finally we read them over together in 
 the hearing of two or three of our best pundits before we 
 said Imprimatur. In the case of the New Testament Mr. 
 Meller read over the translation book by book, and sent them 
 back to me. He wrote no fewer than nine hundred pages of 
 note-paper filled with criticisms, which I stitched up into a 
 volume. Williamu and I examined all his suggestions, and 
 approved or rejected as the case required. Finally, besides 
 daily consultations during the whole time, Mrs. Inglis and I 
 went over the entire translation verse by verse, as it was 
 printed. She read the English, and marked every stop. I 
 followed her in the translation, and watched most carefully 
 that nothing was omitted, and that nothing was added. 
 We then reversed the process. I read the translation, and 
 she checked me with the English. To make so many correc- 
 tions, to revise and revise again, to read the Greek or the 
 Hebrew, the English, and then the Aneityumese, may appear 
 like a work of supererogation. But those who know anything 
 of the work either of translating or editing the Bible will 
 feel no surprise. I once heard the late Dr. Mitchell, Professor 
 of Biblical Criticism in the United Secession Church, say 
 to his class in the Hall, that not one person in a thousand 
 who reads the English Bible has the slightest conception of 
 the labour that has been bestowed upon that book, which they 
 can now buy for a shilling. When I came home in 1860 to 
 carry the New Testament through the press, Mr. Meller gave 
 me a copy of the Greek New Testament, of the Received Text, 
 published by the Bible Society, that I might have an autho- 
 rised standard to guide me. This Greek Testament had been 
 printed at Cologne, in Germany, and the proof-sheets had 
 been read over in succession by four German professors, so
 
 106 THE BIBLE ON ANELTYUM. 
 
 that perfection might be secured. And yet, when Mr. Meller 
 read the book, after it was printed, he found that half a verse 
 had been omitted, viz., the first half of i Cor. x. 23. Instead 
 of "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not 
 expedient ; all things are lawful for me, but all things edify 
 not," the first half was left out. In the Aneityumese New 
 Testament there are about a quarter of a million of words, 
 and in the whole Bible more than a million. To read over a 
 million of words in a foreign language, and see that not one 
 of them is misspelled, that not a capital is misplaced, and that 
 not a point is omitted, is no easy task. To revise, correct, 
 and edit the whole Bible, under the very exact conditions 
 imposed by the Bible Society, is a very laborious work. Dr. 
 Chalmers, however, says that the most imperfect translation 
 of the Bible that ever was made, if honestly done, will not 
 fail to convey to the reader a knowledge of the way of salva- 
 tion. We can safely say of ours, that it was honestly made, 
 and executed to the very best of our ability, and that we 
 called to our aid every available help, whether the works of 
 Biblical critics or the liying voices of intelligent natives. 
 
 The translation of the New Testament was prepared wholly 
 by Mr. Geddie and myself. I translated Luke, ist and 2nd 
 Corinthians, Hebrews, and the Revelation ; Mr. Geddie trans- 
 lated all the rest. I revised, corrected, and edited the whole, 
 with the assistance of Williamu. Of the Old Testament 
 Mr. Geddie translated the last four books of the Pentateuch, 
 Joshua, Judges, ist and 2nd Kings, ist and 2nd Chronicles, 
 Ezra, Nehemiah, the Psalms, the historical portion of Daniel, 
 and Jonah. Mr. Copeland translated Ruth, Esther, the pro- 
 phetical chapters of Daniel, and all the twelve minor prophets 
 except Jonah. I translated Genesis, ist and 2nd Samuel,
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. IO/ 
 
 Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, 
 Lamentations, and Ezekiel. Mr. Geddie by mistake translated 
 Job after I had finished it, and I by a mistake also translated 
 Judges ; and as the latter half of Mr. Geddie 's translation of 
 Leviticus was lost after his death in some printing office in 
 Melbourne, I had also to translate that. But in revising I 
 compared both these translations, and they were improved 
 thereby. Mr. Geddie hastily revised the first half of the Old 
 Testament. Mr. Copeland revised the whole. I had to 
 revise, correct, and edit the whole of the Old Testament as 
 well as the New. Mr. Geddie brought out an edition of the 
 Book of Psalms printed in Nova Scotia, This edition was 
 used up before the Old Testament was printed. He also 
 edited the first half of the Pentateuch in Melbourne before 
 his death, which was put in circulation some years before the 
 Old Testament was published. 
 
 After the Old Testament was finished, the Pteligious Tract 
 Society published a volume for us, which I edited, and which 
 consisted of the first part of the Pilgrim's Progress (abridged), 
 a Selection of Psalms and Hymns, a Eirst Catechism, and the 
 Westminster Shorter Catechism. Th e " Pilgrim ' ' was translated 
 by Mrs. Geddie, and revised and printed by Mr. Geddie at the 
 Mission Press. This was a second edition that I revised and 
 edited. Mrs. Geddie had a great command of the colloquial. 
 The natives used to say, " She spoke just like an Aneityum 
 woman," which was the highest praise they could bestow upon 
 her. Hence she rendered Bunyan's idiomatic Saxon into 
 scarcely less idiomatic Aneityumese. The " Pilgrim " was a 
 favourite book with the natives. The First Catechism was 
 prepared by Mr. Geddie, and passed through a good many 
 editions on the island. The most of the Psalms and Hymns
 
 108 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 were prepared by Mr. Geddie and myself, a few by Mr. 
 Powell, Mr. Copeland, and Mr. Annand respectively. I was 
 the sole translator of the Shorter Catechism, but it was all 
 revised by Mr. Copeland. Both the Bible and the volume 
 published by the Tract Society were clearly and beautifully 
 printed in large type, so as to be easily read, and they were 
 all strongly and tastefully bound in calf, so as to wear well. 
 One volume would last as long as three bound in the usual 
 way. The New Testament in one volume cost four shillings. 
 The Old Testament was bound in two volumes. The price 
 was five shillings each. The other book cost three shillings 
 each copy. 
 
 When I came home in 1877 to carry the Old Testament 
 through the press, Mr. Meller had gone to his rest and his 
 reward, after eighteen years of valuable labours for the 
 Society. Another Editorial Superintendent was occupying 
 his place, viz., the Rev. W. Wright, A.M. (now also D.D.), 
 who had been for ten years a missionary to the Jews in 
 Damascus, from the Presbyterian Church of Ireland. Dr. 
 Wright is an eminent Hebrew scholar, and has greatly dis- 
 tinguished himself by his researches and discoveries in con- 
 nection with the Hittite Inscriptions. My relations with 
 him were in every way as satisfactory as they had been with 
 Mr. Meller. Dr. Wright also rendered very important service 
 both to the Bible Society and to our mission, by keeping the 
 expenses of the printing down to the lowest point. The 
 printing for the Society was all done by contract, and the 
 competition kept the prices down ; but the correction of the 
 proof-sheets was charged by time. The temptation to the 
 printers was this to give in low estimates for the printing, so 
 as to secure the work, and to make up the loss by charging
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 1 09 
 
 high for the corrections. Dr. Wright and one of the Foreign 
 Secretaries saw the danger to the finances from this arrange- 
 ment, and they took every necessary precaution to prevent 
 either carelessness or overcharging on the part of the printers. 
 Printing in a foreign language is so much more difficult than 
 in English, that the price paid is about double. In English 
 the sense and the words guide the printer, so as to prevent 
 mistakes ; but in a foreign language the printer knows nothing 
 about the spelling of the words ; he must follow the MS. ; he 
 has nothing to guide him but the words ; and however care- 
 fully written, it is difficult to avoid mistakes ; c, e, i, 1, t, m, 
 in, ni, n, u, w, &c., are all frequently interchanged in the 
 printing. The best way is to keep two or three of the most 
 skilful printers at one work, whose eyes soon acquire the 
 quickness of experts. This is what is generally done. Instead 
 of this, however, our printers set on a party of unskilled 
 ordinary compositors, and the consequence was, that the 
 number of the errors was legion ; and the corrections were 
 costing more than the original printing, and the proof-sheets 
 had to be corrected not once, twice, Or thrice, but six, seven, 
 or eight times, before they could pass. 
 
 On seeing this Dr. Wright caused me to make out a list of 
 the errors on every page, and after the first proof was cor- 
 rected, to keep a distinct list of the changes made by myself, 
 and another of the errors made by the printers. The rigid 
 supervision exercised by Dr. Wright soon reduced the printers' 
 errors to a minimum, the workmen became so much more 
 careful. The result was that, comparing the price paid for 
 the printing of the Old Testament with that paid for the 
 New, there was a saving effected in the printing of the Old 
 Testament of nearly ;ioo.
 
 110 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 It may not be out of place here to add a word about the 
 Bible-House. It is one of the wonders of London. It was 
 the first place of interest to which we took our visitors while 
 we lived in the metropolis. 
 
 In that house there resided a quiet, unostentatious power, 
 not surpassed by anything in London ; a moral power, silent 
 as the falling dew, and gentle as the still, small voice at 
 Horeb. You enter, but there is nothing to be seen save half 
 a dozen highly respectable looking gentlemen, all sitting at 
 their desks in their respective rooms. But in the depots, in 
 the lower flats, there is an orderly, well-arranged, ceaseless 
 activity going on. Every day in the week, and every week 
 in the year, Sabbath and holidays excepted, ten thousand 
 copies of the whole Bible, or the New Testament, or portions 
 of the Holy Scriptures, were coming into that house, and the 
 same numbers were being sent out, or, in the case of versions 
 printed abroad, were accounted for as passing through that 
 depository; while joo were daily passing through the 
 treasurer's books. Those ten thousand copies daily, in three 
 hundred and fifty of the principal languages of the world, 
 must exert an influence on the human race, that cannot be 
 calculated, and extending from the mightiest empires in 
 Asia to the tiniest islets in the Southern Ocean. 
 
 The next great work in connection with the Bible on 
 Aneityum was the teaching of the natives to read it. But 
 to this I have fully referred when speaking of education; 
 and the third question was, how to get the natives to pay 
 for it. But this I will explain in another chapter, when 
 I treat of the arrowroot. The natives of Aneityum paid 
 to the Bible Society 1200 for the Scriptures, and to 
 the Tract Society -200 for the volume containing the
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. I I I 
 
 " Pilgrim," the Selection of Psalms and Hymns, and the 
 Catechisms. They were supplied with all their books gratis 
 at first with Primers, Catechisms, Hymnals, Scripture 
 Extracts, Gospels, &c. but they paid in full for the Book 
 of Psalms, the first half of the Pentateuch, and the entire 
 Bible. 
 
 In connection with Mr. Meller, I may add a sentence 
 or two about Rev. Aaron Buzacot of Rarotonga, who carried 
 the Rarotongan Bible through the press, under Mr. Meller's 
 superintendence. Mr. Buzacot was an excellent translator, 
 and very highly esteemed by Mr. Meller ; and though he 
 was one of the most earnest and conscientious of our South 
 Sea missionaries, yet he was ready-witted and full of quiet, 
 genial humour. Mr. Meller was strong for the uniform 
 rendering of Greek words, and he would say to Mr. Buzacot, 
 " How is it that you use such-and-such a word, or such-and- 
 such an expression, in such a parable in Matthew, but in 
 the corresponding passage in the other Gospels you use a 
 different word, or a different mode of expression ? I am 
 quite willing that you take any one of them you think best ; 
 but having made your choice, then abide by it." Mr. 
 Buzacot would answer, " Oh, the rendering in Matthew 
 belongs, as we say, to a former dispensation. That was 
 the word we first used, but we found a synonym, and we 
 afterwards used them both. You know that we Dissenters 
 are not like you Churchmen,' we are not bound by the Act 
 of Uniformity. We are like King James's Translators, 
 who preferred variety to unvarying sameness." Mr. Meller, 
 like the recent revisers of the New Testament, insisted on 
 the rendering of the same Greek word being always the 
 same, except where the sense was evidently different. On
 
 112 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 one occasion Mr. Buzacot went to visit one of the English 
 bishops, and see through his palace ; but when he arrived, 
 he found that the bishop was from home, and the palace 
 shut up. After a few questions had been asked and answered, 
 the servant said to him, "Who shall I say was calling for 
 his Lordship ? " Mr. Buzacot at once answered, "Oh, please 
 say it was the Bishop of Rarotonga." To save his conscience 
 he was using the word bishop in its ancient, not in its modern 
 acceptation ; in its Scriptural, not in its Ecclesiastical meaning. 
 When the official heard that the visitor was a bishop, although 
 in partibus infidelibus, although in the most distant see, not 
 simply in Christendom, but in Heathendom, his feelings of 
 reverence were so aroused, that he made a bow to the Oriental 
 prelate, as profound as Dr. Samuel Johnson would have made 
 to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and promised the most 
 dutiful obedience to his commands. 
 
 I have extended my remarks on this subject to an unusual 
 length, but the translation of the Scriptures is one of the 
 most important parts of a missionary's work. I never felt 
 that the work was secure till the natives had the whole Bible 
 in their hands. The natives felt this to some extent them- 
 selves ; at least they highly appreciated the printed Word of 
 God. On one occasion one of our elders was addressing the 
 week-day prayer-meeting, when he said, " It is all very well 
 to hear the missionary explain the Word of God to us, but 
 here," he said, holding up the New Testament, " if we forget 
 it, we can read it for ourselves and bring it all back again." 
 
 We printed the last volume of the Old Testament first, and 
 sent it out to Aneityum, because they had less knowledge of 
 the prophetical books than of the historical. They got the 
 second volume in 1879, and the first volume in 1881. I was
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANE1TYUM. 113 
 
 not on the island when the Old Testament was received, nor 
 have I been there since, but I know that its reception must 
 have been much the same as that accorded to the New Testa- 
 ment in 1863 and afterwards. And Mr. Laurie, my successor, 
 bore emphatic testimony in his letters to the delight which 
 the natives evinced when they got the entire Bible. Perhaps 
 I cannot close this chapter better than by making two brief 
 extracts from my reports to the Bible Society for 1865 and 
 1868. In 1865 I wrote : " The natives are for the most part 
 reading the New Testament with great diligence, and are ad- 
 vancing steadily both in Scriptural knowledge and Christian 
 character. One-fourth of the entire population have been 
 admitted into church-fellowship, and I have at present on my 
 side of the island a candidate's class of 127. Some may think 
 that our admissions must be very loose when we receive so 
 many ; but this is not the case. We rarely admit any one 
 till after a year's instruction and probation. It must also be 
 remembered that every person on the island, above childhood, 
 is reading the Scriptures daily, and hearing them expounded 
 every Sabbath. The Bible is their only book, and Scripture 
 truth is thus kept more constantly before their minds than it 
 can ordinarily be before the minds of most communities. The 
 field is limited in extent, and hence manageable, so that the 
 ordinary appliances for the instruction and evangelisation of 
 the population may be expected, by the blessing of God, to be 
 productive of favourable results. There are two missionaries 
 on the island. We have nearly sixty native teachers ; every 
 native is within fifteen minutes' walk of a school, and within 
 about an hour's walk of a place of public worship on the 
 Sabbath. The population, by measles and other causes, has 
 been reduced to about 2100. We visit all the schools twice 
 
 H
 
 114 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 a year, and hear every examinable person read. As soon as 
 they know the letters, they commence reading some portion 
 of the Scriptures : our education, therefore, is thoroughly 
 Scriptural ; and the results may be seen in the striking con- 
 trast between this and the adjoining islands, which are still 
 in heathen darkness. All here is peace and quietness ; life 
 and property are secure. We may say that we have no 
 crime." 
 
 In 1868 I wrote thus : "It is in a polyglot mission like 
 this that the value of your Society is specially felt. The 
 Word of God, the sword of the Spirit, is our grand weapon of 
 attack for carrying on the war against ignorance, sin, and 
 Satan. The Word of God is the channel through which the 
 Spirit of God operates on the souls of the heathen, and it is 
 only when opened to them in their own tongue that the Word 
 reaches their understanding and conscience, and becomes the 
 instrument of the Spirit's operations. All our missionaries 
 here feel that their first object, whatever labour it may cost 
 them, is to acquire a knowledge of the language of the people 
 among whom they are labouring, and the next is to give them 
 the Word of God in their own tongue. As soon as this is 
 done, but not until then, does the work of evangelisation 
 begin. 
 
 " On Aneityum, where almost every person above infancy 
 has the New Testament and the Psalms of David in his 
 hands, the effect of God's Word is strikingly visible. The 
 diligence of the natives in reading the Scriptures privately 
 has been repeatedly noticed by strangers who have visited the 
 islands. There are a few waifs and strays here, as elsewhere, 
 but the population as a whole are being largely influenced by 
 the Word of God. The Sabbath is particularly well observed.
 
 THE BIBLE ON ANEITYUM. I I 5 
 
 Churches and schools are well attended. One-third of the 
 entire population are fully accredited church members j while 
 peace, quietness, and contentment pervade the whole island. 
 The same process is going on, and the same results are 
 being brought about, in all the other islands occupied by the 
 mission. The leaven of God's Word is beginning it may 
 be slowly, but still steadily and surely to leaven the whole 
 mass of heathenism."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 BESIDES giving the natives the school, the Sabbath, and the 
 Scriptures, we also, from the beginning, set up public worship 
 among them on Sabbath, giving an outstanding prominence 
 to the preaching of the Gospel. I had four places for public 
 worship on Sabbath on my side of the island one at the 
 central station, and three at the out-stations. Mr. Geddie 
 had the same on his side of the island. We had two services 
 every Sabbath, with an interval of twenty minutes between 
 them, and a week-day afternoon prayer-meeting. We had no 
 evening service, either on Sabbath or week-days. Evening 
 meetings were not suitable for native arrangements. In 
 summer Sabbath services commenced between eight and nine 
 in the morning, and in winter between nine and ten. Both 
 our services were over before twelve at noon. The Sabbath- 
 school began between three and four in the afternoon. Our 
 public worship was conducted very much in the same way as 
 in Scotland a lecture at the first diet, and a sermon at the 
 second. Following out the principle enunciated by Mr. David 
 Dickson, minister of Irvine, afterwards professor of theology 
 in Edinburgh University, who used to say, "It is always a 
 good thing to give God's bairns guid blauds of their Father's 
 bread." We always read two chapters of the Bible at each
 
 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. I 1 7 
 
 diet of worship one out of the Old Testament and the other 
 out of the New. For my lecture I generally took the chapter 
 which I had translated during the previous week, or one of the 
 last that Mr. Geddie had translated. This secured a new sub- 
 ject for every Sabbath, and maintained continuous freshness 
 for all our services. At our second diet there was a sermon 
 on some important text. Thus the lecture was the exposition 
 of a chapter, and the sermon was the expounding and enforc- 
 ing of some Scriptural doctrine or of some Christian duty. 
 Twice in succession I preached through the Shorter Catechism 
 at the rate of a question for each Sabbath. This, with occa- 
 sional sermons on other subjects, occupied nearly three years 
 for each course. This of itself was a whole body of divinity, 
 containing what Bishop Jeremy Taylor calls the credenda, the 
 agenda, and the postulanda, all that is to be believed, to be 
 done, and to be prayed for, "for the institution of young 
 persons in the Christian religion." When I have spoken in 
 public about my preaching through the Shorter Catechism to 
 the natives, some of my hearers seemed to think that I was 
 not feeding babes in Christ with milk, but with very strong 
 meat. But such seemed, at the same time, to forget that the 
 object of preaching was to make deep and dark things clear 
 and plain. But the question still arises, Is it true that the 
 Shorter Catechism is so deep and mysterious ? Is there any 
 exposition of Christian truth extant that is plainer, -clearer, 
 or more intelligible ? Archbishop Usher said, " It requires 
 all our learning to make things plain." There is a large 
 consensus of opinion to the effect that the Westminster 
 Assembly, for ability and learning, was the greatest of all the 
 Christian councils that had ever been called together, and 
 was therefore, on Usher's principle, the best qualified for pre-
 
 I 1 8 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 paring a Catechism to fulfil what was their avowed intention 
 in drawing it up, "to be a Directory for catechising such as 
 are of iveaker capacity." The first draft of the Catechism is 
 now generally understood to have been prepared by the Rev. 
 Herbert Palmer, B.D., Master of Queen's College in Cam- 
 bridge, and recognised as the best catechiser of his day in 
 England. In these circumstances, one "might safely infer a 
 priori, what every one who has examined the Shorter 
 Catechism carefully and candidly has found to be true, that 
 it is the plainest, simplest, clearest, easiest, and in every way 
 the best compendium of theology that exists in the English 
 or in any other language, and therefore the very best text-book 
 that any missionary could employ for instructing the young 
 and the ignorant in the knowledge of Divine truth. The 
 other year Mr. Froude, the historian, in one of his addresses, 
 told his audience, that while he was a student at Oxford he 
 had heard scores, perhaps hundreds, of sermons on the power 
 of the Church and the efficacy of the Sacraments, but that 
 he had never heard one on the eighth commandment; and 
 hence, as he thought, true religion was degenerating into forms 
 and ritual, and commercial morality into shams and shoddy. 
 When I read this speech in the islands, I said, " What poor 
 preaching these Universities must supply ! How much better 
 off are our poor natives on Aneityum ! It is true, they hear 
 nothing about the power of the Church, the sacerdotal char- 
 acter of the clergy, or the mystic efficacy of the Sacraments, 
 yet within four or five short years they heard four sermons 
 on the eighth commandment, and more than forty on the 
 whole decalogue." But the teaching of the Shorter Catechism 
 to native converts is not, as some sections of the secular press 
 would make the world believe, a species of well-meant but
 
 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. lip 
 
 sadly misdirected effort ; a thing, to say the least of it, to be 
 quietly laughed at. It is happily no innovation in missionary 
 instruction. The agents of the London Missionary Society in 
 the South Seas have translated the Shorter Catechism into 
 two or three of the languages spoken by their converts. The 
 Wesleyans embody the most of the Shorter Catechism into 
 their denominational Catechism, which they have translated 
 into at least three of the languages of the South Seas, for the 
 benefit of their adherents. But a more interesting case than 
 any of these is to be found in the missionary history of the 
 sainted Eliot. In the admirable biographical notice of that 
 distinguished missionary by the Rev. Professor Graham of 
 London, he says, " But Eliot not only exhorted, he catechised, 
 and lodged the Shorter Catechism in the minds of those wild 
 Mohawks and Iroquois. He knew that, in the swampy ground 
 of those Indian minds, solid massive piles of doctrine must be 
 fixed, if any great and lasting building was to rise." Have 
 any of our philosophical litterateurs any results to show equal 
 to those of the devoted Eliot ? I trow not. 
 
 Neither Mr. Geddie nor I were philosophical, or emotional, 
 or impassioned, or sensational preachers. If anything could 
 be said to our advantage, it would be to the effect that 
 our preaching was plain, simple, clear, practical, earnest, and 
 orthodox ; it was devoid of speculation and all advanced think- 
 ing. We were wedded to the old Scotch theology, and accepted 
 ex animo the teaching of the Westminster Standards. What- 
 ever effects were produced, it was the matter and not the 
 manner of the preaching, the Divine and not the human ele- 
 ment in the service, that produced the result. Our services 
 were about an hour and a quarter each ; the lecture or 
 sermon was about twenty or twenty-five minutes in length.
 
 120 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYTJM. 
 
 We always preached extemporaneously. After translating a 
 chapter, the researches needful to find out the meaning had 
 made the sense clear, and the various forms to which the 
 words had been subjected made their utterance easy, so that 
 very little extra study supplied me with a lecture. With 
 respect to the sermon, I first arranged my plan as well as I 
 could followed Sir Walter Scott's first rule for English Com- 
 position, to get something suitable to say. The ideas being 
 present in abundance and well arranged, the words came 
 spontaneously and clothed them. Whatever may be said in 
 support of read sermons to cultured congregations, extempo- 
 raneous preaching was the most acceptable and effective to 
 these children of nature. Especially after the large portions 
 of Scripture read to them, the more loosely compacted extem- 
 poraneous addresses laid a gentler strain upon their attention, 
 and furnished a greater variety to the services. But I may 
 here give a specimen of the kind of sermons preached by us 
 to the natives, from the outlines of two discourses which I 
 preached at the opening of a new church at Anau-unjai in 
 1855, and which I supplied at the time to the .R. P. Magazine. 
 We had strangers from all parts of the island ; and within 
 and around the church there were about 1000 natives. The 
 doors and windows were all open. I never preached to a better- 
 behaved audience. I preached in the morning and in the fore- 
 noon, and we held a public prayer-meeting in the afternoon. 
 In the morning I preached from Luke iv. 16-19: "And 
 He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up : and, 
 as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the 
 Sabbath-day, and stood up for to read," &c. On this passage 
 I spoke somewhat as follows. I made a few introductory 
 remarks on the occasion of our meeting in this new, large,
 
 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. 121 
 
 and commodious place of worship ; showed what cause we had 
 for joy and thankfulness that God had put it into the heart of 
 the teacher and the people of this district to build a house in 
 which they might so conveniently and comfortably meet and 
 worship God ; and that He had given them strength to finish 
 the house, and had preserved them from all serious accidents, 
 that we had met to worship and praise God for all His 
 goodness and mercy to us and to them. I then called their 
 attention to the private and public character of Christ as 
 set forth in the passage. 
 
 L His private character, (i). He habitually attended the 
 house of God on Sabbath; it was His custom. (2.) He had 
 learned to read the Word of God : He stood up for to read. 
 (3.) He was trained or prepared for public teaching by assisting 
 to conduct the services of the house of God in His youth ; in 
 the synagogue in Nazareth, where He was brought up, it was 
 His custom to stand up for to read. (4.) He was filled with the 
 Holy Spirit, and hence ready and forward to every good work. 
 
 II. His public character, (i.) He was appointed and 
 qualified by God to be our Saviour, and was therefore able 
 to accomplish the work of our salvation ; and God was well 
 pleased with Him in His work. (2.) He was sent to preach the 
 Gospel to the poor or the meek ; He is no respecter of persons. 
 Men often favour the rich : Christ favours the^oor or the meek; 
 He rejects only the proud. (3.) He was sent and qualified to 
 save the miserable of all classes the " broken-hearted," the 
 "captives," the "blind," and the "bruised." (4.) He was 
 sent to overthrow Satan's kingdom, and set up a new kingdom 
 of His own, "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." 
 
 I then proceeded to contrast the character and kingdom 
 of Satan with the character and kingdom of Christ. Satan's
 
 122 THE PULPIT ON ANETTYUM. 
 
 object is to destroy ; Christ's object is to save. " In the 
 days of heathenism," I said, " Satan destroyed your souls, your 
 bodies, your families, your food, your property, and every- 
 thing else that you had. You feared the natmasses (the evil 
 spirits), but you did not love them. Your sacred men, the 
 servants of the natmasses, professed to bring diseases upon 
 you and kill you, but not to give you health and preserve your 
 life. When a man died, his wife, and perhaps his infant 
 child, and some other persons, were strangled, his plantations 
 were destroyed, his fruit-trees were cut down, and his children 
 were left dependent on their friends. You half starved your- 
 selves for months to make great feasts ; and then the food 
 was wasted, as it could not be eaten before it was rotten. 
 You were continually quarrelling and making war ; you were 
 hating and destroying one another. But Christ's Kingdom 
 is quite different from this. He came down to our world for 
 the express purpose of saving men, and delivering them from 
 the power of Satan. He came to save men's souls from hell 
 and take them to heaven. And while He was on earth, that 
 men might understand His character, as of one come to save 
 them, He saved the bodies as well as the souls of those who 
 came to Him. He healed the sick, He fed the hungry, He 
 raised the dead to life, He cast out devils, He taught men to 
 forgive their enemies, to love one another, to live in peace on 
 earth, that they might be happy in heaven for ever." I con- 
 cluded by exhorting them to follow earnestly the example set 
 by Christ in His private character, in regularly attending the 
 house of God on Sabbath, in diligently learning to read the 
 Word of God, in being ever ready to assist in the work and 
 worship of God, according to their respective capacities and 
 opportunities, and in constantly seeking to be filled with the
 
 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. 123 
 
 Holy Spirit, that they might be strong for God's service ; and 
 to look upon Christ and receive Him as an authorised and 
 appointed Saviour, as a willing Saviour, as an able Saviour, 
 and as a present Saviour ; and urged upon them to seek Him 
 and believe in Him just now ; not to put off the securing of 
 their salvation till some other occasion ; that now is the 
 accepted time, and now is the day of salvation. 
 
 In the forenoon I preached from John i. 12, 13 : "As many 
 as received Him, to them gave He poAver to become the sons 
 of God, even to them that believe on His name ; which were 
 born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the 
 will of man, but of God." After a few introductory remarks 
 explaining how Christ is called the Word and the Light in 
 the beginning of the chapter how He came to His own 
 land, but His own professed people, the Jews, received Him 
 not they rejected Him, and were on that account rejected 
 of God, and unchurched, and their privileges extended to the 
 Gentiles all over the world I directed their attention to the 
 class of persons mentioned in these verses, "the sons of God." 
 I spoke of the privileges and of the birth of God's children. 
 
 I. Their privileges, (i.) Their sins are pardoned, their 
 persons and their services are accepted, and they are become 
 friends with God. (2.) They have received new hearts, and 
 they are being made holy and meet for heaven. (3.) They are 
 taken under God's special care ; He preserves them from Satan, 
 from wicked men, and from all real evils. (4.) They are at 
 last glorified in heaven, and made perfectly happy for ever. 
 
 II. The birth of God's children. They are born (i.) Not 
 of blood; they become His children not in consequence of 
 any outward or earthly privileges which they may enjoy, 
 not on account of wealth, rank, parentage, or descent, not
 
 124 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 because they had Abraham for their father. (2.) Not of the 
 will of the flesh ; not from any power or inclination in them- 
 selves : all are dead in trespasses and sins. No man can 
 save himself. (3.) Not of the will of man; not in conse- 
 quence of what others can do for them; however anxious 
 ministers, teachers, parents, or friends may be, they cannot 
 change the heart of any one, or save his soul. (4.) But they 
 are born of God only ; they receive a new heart from God ; 
 it is only the Holy Spirit that can change the heart of man. 
 I then addressed them on their duty, as they were now 
 privileged to hear the Gospel, and took up a common objection 
 against the thorough depravity of man. " If you cannot save 
 yourselves," I said, "and if God only can save you, you 
 will ask me, ' what are you to do ? ' The Word of God makes 
 your duty plain. You must go to Him who alone can save 
 you ; you must go to Him just as you are, with all your sins 
 upon you. You must do as Peter did in the storm, and cry, 
 ' Lord, save us : we perish.' As many as received Christ, 
 or believed on Him, obtained power to become the sons of 
 God. You are to do for your souls as you do for your bodies : 
 you cannot make the seed grow that saves or keeps alive 
 your bodies, but because you cannot make the food grow, 
 and God only can, do you on that account sit still and do 
 nothing ? Oh, no ! you are wise as to your bodies. You dig 
 your land, you fence it, you plant your taro, your bananas, 
 your kumeras (sweet potatoes), and your sugar-cane; you 
 weed them, and you water them as they require it ; and you 
 trust in God that He will make them grow, and you are not 
 disappointed. You do all these things although r you have 
 no promise from God that He will cause them to grow at 
 least no promise so distinct as for spiritual blessings. Now,
 
 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. 125 
 
 follow the same course in seeking the salvation of your souls. 
 The Word of God is the seed : your hearts are the field in 
 which this seed is to be sown. Prepare your hearts to seek 
 the Lord ; hear, read, and think upon His Word ; lay it up in 
 your hearts. The Holy Spirit is the water that makes this 
 seed to grow. By earnest prayer to God, seek the Holy 
 Spirit to come into your hearts and water this seed, and you 
 may safely trust in God that He will cause it to grow up 
 within you to everlasting life. God is not unwilling to save 
 you ; if you act towards your souls as you do towards your 
 bodies, you may fully hope to be numbered among the 
 children of God among those who are ' born again, not of 
 corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, 
 which liveth and abideth for ever.' God has promised the 
 Holy Spirit to them that ask Him, but if you will not receive 
 Christ and believe in Him when He is offered to you if 
 you act the part of the Jews and refuse Him you must 
 perish, and that by your own act: you refuse salvation by 
 the only way in which God has appointed it to be obtained ; 
 you will perish, and you yourselves must bear the blame 
 for evermore. Christ would have gathered the children of 
 Jerusalem as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings ; 
 but they would not hear His voice, and so they perished. 
 You see and know how the hawk pounces down upon the 
 helpless chickens, and bears them away if 'they are not under 
 the wings of their mother. Satan, like a hawk, watches his 
 opportunity to pounce down upon sinners who are not under 
 the protection of Christ. Our loving Saviour is far more 
 wiDing, and far more able, to save sinners than the hen can 
 be to save her chickens. But if they refuse to come under 
 the wings of His protection, they wilfully expose themselves
 
 126 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 to~ Satan, and will certainly be seized by him as his prey. 
 But ' blessed is the man who trusteth in the Lord.' " 
 
 Our elders, deacons, and teachers, in the services which 
 they conduct, keep up all the parts of public worship, and 
 always give an address, more or less in the form of a sermon. 
 The matter of their addresses may be very meagre, the teach- 
 ing of these men may convey very little instruction, and their 
 exhortations may have very little power to stimulate thought, 
 but their addresses are all more or less original, and the 
 number and variety of the gifts employed prevent the same- 
 ness and repetition of one speaker, though greatly more gifted 
 than any of them; while the more common sins, the more 
 prevailing deficiencies, and the more outstanding evils are 
 always plainly pointed out and condemned. They all possess 
 in a considerable degree the gift of prayer. One would 
 naturally expect that they would pick up a few expressions 
 used by the missionaries and confine themselves to these 
 alone, and that it would be a great boon to them to be 
 supplied with a small liturgy. The prayers in that case 
 would be less diffuse, and more concise and correct in form ; 
 but they would lose in force and variety more than they 
 would gain in elegance and propriety of expression. They 
 have a great variety in their prayers ; not individually, but 
 collectively, as among ourselves every individual has his own 
 trains of thought, but all more or less limited ; but then 
 no two natives follow the same process of thinking. Their 
 prayers are largely made up of Scripture, but beyond a few 
 outstanding texts no two men quote the same passages. 
 Hence by drawing largely upon native agency we secure a 
 great amount of freshness and variety. They often use plain 
 and homely, but never vulgar or indelicate, expressions. In
 
 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. I2/ 
 
 prayer for the Tannese, even in their own presence, I have 
 heard an Aneityum chief use the following expression, " Lord, 
 pity the poor, ignorant, wicked Tannese : they know nothing, 
 they know not Thy Word; they are all just like pigs and 
 dogs ; they are stupid, abominable, and cruel ; give them 
 new hearts, and make them good Christians." Praying for 
 the missionaries, another would say something as follows : 
 " Lord, be very gracious to Thy servants the missionaries ; 
 they left a fruitful land to come hither ; they left good food 
 and kind friends, and soft, comfortable beds, to come to this 
 barren land of ours, to a Avicked people, to poor food, and 
 to beds hard, covered with thistles, and every disagreeable 
 pain-causing thing ; give them Thy Holy Spirit to keep their 
 hearts strong for Thy work, and give them at last life ever- 
 lasting." In their ordinary conversation there are few for- 
 bidden words. A spade is generally called a spade, but from 
 their religious vocabulary every doubtful word is scrupulously 
 excluded. In asking my pundits if I might use such-and-such 
 a word, they would say, " It is not a bad word, but it is very 
 nearly a bad word, and if you used it in the church some of 
 the young men might laugh you had better not use it, but 
 take such-and-such another word." 
 
 We always preached in the vernacular, and we never 
 employed an interpreter. At one time, in the early stages 
 of missionary operations, missionaries often employed inter- 
 preters. They stood aghast at the idea of learning a native 
 language, and that they might lose no time in opening up 
 the way of salvation to the perishing heathen, they employed 
 any stray white man or half-caste who professed to know 
 the native language as well as the English ; but in most cases 
 this was followed with such unsatisfactory results, that now-
 
 128 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 a-days, so far as I know, no missionary ever thinks of preach- 
 ing through an interpreter. He may preach an occasional 
 sermon in this way, but only when he has a missionary 
 thoroughly acquainted with the language for his interpreter. 
 But that is all that is ever attempted now. It was through 
 an interpreter that the famous Jonathan Edwards preached 
 to the Indians at Stockbridge. But it is through his treatise 
 on the Freedom of the Will which he wrote while he lived 
 at Stockbridge and not to his preaching through an inter- 
 preter, which gave him his world-wide and never-dying repu- 
 tation. The saintly David Brainerd was almost the only 
 missionary whose preaching through an interpreter was pre- 
 eminently successful, but it was not till after his interpreter 
 was converted, and his burning words were translated and 
 repeated by lips nearly as glowing as his own, that their 
 effects were so marvellous. However, I have no doubt but 
 that his preaching would have been still more effective had 
 his hearers received it at first and not at second-hand. 
 
 A sine qua non, an indispensable condition of success in 
 preaching to the heathen, is a thorough knowledge of the 
 language spoken by the natives to whom he is preaching. 
 The late Mr. James D. Gordon of Eromanga used to say, and 
 that truly, that next to the Spirit of God operating upon the 
 heart of a native, is the effect produced upon his mind by 
 hearing his own tongue correctly spoken either by a foreigner 
 or a native. It has always been so. When the Jews heard 
 that Paul spoke to them in the Hebrew tongue, when they 
 evidently expected Greek, they kept the more silence ; they 
 were riveted by the sounds of their mother-tongue. Perhaps 
 no man of his time had more influence over the natives of 
 New Zealand than the late Sir Donald M'Lean ; and, doubtless
 
 THE PULPIT ON ANE1TYUM. 1 29 
 
 one cause of this remarkable power lay in his extraordinary 
 command of the native language. He not only knew the 
 Maori language thoroughly, and pronounced it accurately, but 
 he spoke with the very tones of a native. Any one hearing 
 him speak, and not seeing him, would have supposed that it 
 was a native whom he heard speaking. It has been the same 
 with all our best and most successful South Sea missionaries, 
 such as John Williams, John Hunt, Bishop Selwyn, Bishop 
 Patteson, and many others that could be named scarcely, if at 
 all, inferior to these. 
 
 A trader may get along after a sort may buy and sell, 
 through the medium of a kind of broken, sandal-wood English, 
 such as, " Me savy ; " " Me want big fellow yam ; " " This 
 boy belong o' you ? " " You too much like go Sydney ; " and 
 hold up three of his fingers, for three years, when the native 
 understands him to mean three months but the missionary 
 who aims at being successful must be able to speak like a 
 native ; he must know the exact meaning of the words, the 
 grammatical construction, and the correct pronunciation. 
 Many people think that any sort of speaking, grammatical or 
 ungrammatical, correctly pronounced or incorrectly, may do 
 for savages. We can understand a Frenchman, a German, 
 or an Italian speaking broken English. We rather relish his 
 foreign idioms, as we can easily understand his meaning. 
 Dr. Chalmers' strong Doric accent added an attraction, rather 
 than otherwise, to his oratory in the ears of an English 
 audience. But it was only a Dr. Chalmers who could produce 
 this effect. It was in spite of his provincial tones, and not in 
 consequence of them, that his eloquence was so overpowering. 
 It requires a missionary to speak his very best to make him- 
 self at all intelligible to natives on a subject so new, and so
 
 130 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 foreign to all their previous ideas, as that of Christianity. 
 When Messrs. Powell and Geddie came first to Aneityum, they 
 thought that every day was lost till they began to preach to 
 the natives. Mr. Powell knew Samoan very well, and having 
 the Samoan teachers, who had been on the island for some 
 years, to assist him in acquiring a knowledge of the language, 
 he began in a comparatively short time to preach to the 
 natives. Mr. Geddie, with his strongly impulsive nature, got 
 up a sermon in a short time afterwards. The natives listened 
 apparently very attentively to the two preachers; and the 
 missionaries, in their inexperience, thought that they had 
 gained the ear of their audience, and that they were now 
 sowing the seeds of saving truth ; but, alas ! they were only 
 deceiving themselves ; the natives sat staring at the foreign 
 speakers, but it was, as the author of the " Seasons " says, 
 " with brute unconscious gaze ; " and as they did not know the 
 meaning of the voice, the hearers were, as the Apostle says, 
 barbarians to the speakers, and the speakers were barbarians 
 to them. Long afterwards, when Mr. Geddie and the natives 
 could converse freely with one another, he asked some of the 
 most intelligent of them if they understood Mr. Powell's 
 preaching and his when they first began to preach to them. 
 " Understand you ! " said they. " Oh no ! we did not under- 
 stand a word that you said ; we thought all the time that 
 you were speaking to us in Samoan." Thus, speaking words 
 that their hearers understood not, they found, as the Apostle 
 further says, that they were speaking to the air. 
 
 When the missionaries began to acquire the language on 
 Aneityum, it was apparently a hopeless task ; there were no 
 helps in the form either of grammar or vocabulary. Every 
 sentence they heard was like one long undivided word ; and
 
 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. 131 
 
 when they asked by signs the name of this thing or that, the 
 natives would tell them nothing without payment. In this 
 way, as their list of words increased, the biscuits in the cask 
 diminished, and by-and-by assumed the form of a rapidly 
 vanishing quantity. But the end was thus gained ; a nucleus 
 of words was thus secured, which by-and-by developed into a 
 satisfactory medium of communication. When Mr. Copeland 
 went to Futuna, he used to sit for hours, day after day, 
 among the idle natives, with pencil and note-book in his 
 hand, taking down new words and new sounds, as his ear 
 caught them up, while the natives were retailing the news of 
 the island and discussing the gossip of the day. When a 
 certain amount of progress has been made, one of the best 
 modes of increasing one's knowledge of the language is to 
 engage in translating the Scriptures. This exercise secures 
 precision and correctness of expression, and as new words 
 are constantly cropping up, the vocabulary continues to 
 enlarge. 
 
 It is a dry, arduous, uphill work to acquire these unwritten 
 and non-literary languages. But when at every stage of our 
 progress we feel conscious that we are opening up a channel 
 through which the living water is to flow, that gives spiritual 
 life to immortal souls, these uncultured tongues become in- 
 vested with more than classical beauty, and acquire a higher 
 practical value than the writing on the Moabite Stone, or the 
 characters on the Hittite inscriptions. 
 
 Some missionaries baptize all converts, and their children, 
 as soon as they give up heathenism and place themselves 
 under Christian instruction, and then keep them for a time, 
 longer or shorter according to circumstances, on probation 
 and under instruction, before they admit them to the Lord's
 
 132 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 Supper. Our mode of procedure was in accordance with the 
 principles enunciated in the Shorter Catechism. We did not 
 administer baptism to any till they professed their faith in 
 Christ, and obedience to Him ; but the infant children of such 
 as were, both or only one, members of the visible Church, we 
 baptized. Immediately after baptism we admitted all adults 
 to the Lord's Table. Our mode of procedure was this. We 
 administered the Lord's Supper only at the central stations. 
 All the church members met there. We had public worship 
 on the Friday afternoon. After sermon we baptized all the 
 candidates who had been previously admitted by the session ; 
 and also all the children eligible for baptism, and distributed 
 tokens of admission to all the members. On the Sabbath 
 morning all the intending communicants took their seats in 
 the places allotted for them; and all arrangements for the 
 seating both of the church members and the general congre- 
 gation were carried out by the elders and deacons, who were 
 active and conscientious in seeing that everything was done 
 decently and in order. After the sermon, the sacrament was 
 dispensed in the manner usually observed in Presbyterian 
 congregations. In the afternoon the congregation again met 
 for public worship, and a sermon was preached. On the 
 Monday morning we held a public prayer-meeting, in which 
 the elders and deacons largely took part, and at which 
 addresses were delivered. When this meeting was brought to 
 a close the people dispersed, and returned to their respective 
 homes. 
 
 Calvin tells us in his "Christian Institutes, "that Pope Zephy- 
 rinus was the author of the decree which appointed one par- 
 ticular day every year, that on it the whole of Christendom 
 might give a confession of their faith by partaking of the
 
 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYTJM. 133 
 
 Lord's Supper. But the ordinance of Zephyrinus, which was 
 otherwise good, posterity perverted when they made a fixed 
 law of one Communion in the year. Even in Scotland, since 
 the Revolution till about fifty years ago, one Communion in 
 the year in each parish or congregation, in country parishes 
 at least, was the general rule ; then it became twice a year, and 
 now four times obtains extensively. The " Directory for the 
 Public Worship of God" says "The Communion, or Supper 
 of the Lord, is frequently to be celebrated ; but how often, 
 may be considered and determined by the ministers and other 
 church governors of each congregation, as they shall find 
 most convenient for the comfort and edification of the people 
 committed to their charge." Acting on this principle, Mr. 
 Geddie and I arranged to have the Communion twice a year 
 on each side of the island, but alternately at each station, 
 with the understanding that the church members, as often 
 as convenient, should go from the one side to the other ; thus 
 making it for the most of the members a celebration of four 
 times in the year. For a number of years this arrangement 
 wrought exeedingly well. In the days of heathenism there 
 was no social intercourse ; the population of one portion of 
 the island knew nothing of the people of any other, beyond 
 a few principal chiefs. But at these gatherings the people 
 were brought together from every part of the island, under 
 circumstances extremely favourable for developing every- 
 thing good in their character. These meetings encouraged 
 the Christian party. It revealed to them their own numbers 
 and strength. When the Christian chiefs and people over 
 all the island came together to one point four times in the 
 year, they for the first time realised their own power, and 
 they were encouraged thereby. It had an equally depressing
 
 134 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 effect upon the heathen, who, never meeting, had no idea of 
 their own numbers ; on the other hand, when the Christians 
 returned home, and published in every district the names of 
 the chiefs and the number of the people who were assembled, 
 the accounts all magnified with a tinge of Oriental exaggera- 
 tion, the heathen felt like the spies in presence of the sons 
 of Anak that they were like grasshoppers in their own 
 sight, and they were afraid to molest the Christian party. 
 These meetings had a Christianising, a civilising, and a social- 
 ising influence upon the whole community. Year by year 
 the gatherings increased in numbers, till they became like 
 the great sacramental congregations at Ettrick and else- 
 where in the days of Thomas Boston, when the hospitality 
 of the parish was strained to its utmost capacity to supply 
 food and shelter to the pious worshippers who assembled 
 from parishes far and near. To compare small things with 
 great, these meetings in some respects resembled the three 
 great annual festivals among the Israelites when they met 
 to worship the Lord, first at Shiloh and latterly at Jerusalem. 
 They knit the people together as one man over the whole 
 island. They went far to suppress war, murder, and re- 
 venge, and to diffuse a spirit of forgiveness, of forbearance, 
 of mutual confidence and goodwill, which resulted in the 
 establishment of a general and permanent peace a firm 
 peace over the whole island, which has remained unbroken 
 for the third of a century. These meetings were akin to the 
 Feast of Tabernacles. There was no lack of food. It was 
 supplied in abundance to the strangers, but sleeping accom- 
 modation could be secured only with difficulty. It became 
 very much like the time when the Israelites made booths 
 of branches of palm-trees, of myrtle-trees, and willows of the
 
 THE PULPIT ON ANEITYUM. 135 
 
 brooks, and in such shelters passed the night while they 
 worshipped before the Lord. But those gatherings, however 
 advantageous in the earlier stages of the mission, became 
 inconveniently large when the whole population had embraced 
 the Gospel ; and evils of various kinds began to crop up ; not 
 exactly of the " Holy Fair " type for there was no drinking 
 evils which, by the way, arose from good arrangements being 
 continued after they were not required, and were thus per- 
 verted to evil purposes. With us the friendly hospitalities 
 increased into a species of feasting, and the secular began to 
 overlay the spiritual ; from the difficulties, too, of providing 
 sleeping accommodation, some of the people were invariably 
 catching colds, and occasionally with fatal results. In these 
 circumstances we found it necessary to alter our arrange- 
 ments; and after careful consideration we agreed that, in- 
 stead of having the communion twice a year on each side of 
 the island, as formerly, we should dispense it four times on 
 each side, but on both sides on the same day, and thus 
 discontinue the united meetings. We explained our reasons 
 fully, first to the sessions, and then to the whole people. 
 The natives cordially acquiesced, and the change was effected 
 without any difficulty, and has been carried out with great 
 advantage up to the present time. During the early and 
 transition period of the mission, the first arrangements were 
 the most suitable; but when that period was passed, and 
 when Christianity was fully established, then the ordinary 
 and normal arrangements which obtain in Christian com- 
 munities were found to be the best adapted for securing 
 permanently the benefit of this ordinance.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 FROM the very beginning of the mission "the service of 
 song " occupied an important place in both public and private 
 worship. When I joined the mission in 1852, there had 
 been prepared and printed six Ohranitai (things of the voice), 
 as the natives call all compositions that are to be sung. 
 When I left the mission fifty had been printed, and a few 
 have been added since. Among these are translations or para- 
 phrases, more or less free, of several of the psalms, or portions 
 of psalms, as 51, 67, 72, 84, 90, 100, 121, 133. The following 
 of the Scripture paraphrases, in whole or in part, have been 
 translated 37, 58, 66; also several hymns, such as "The 
 happy land," "We all shall meet in Heaven at last," &c. 
 A considerable number are original, based on Scripture 
 texts, or composed on important Scripture subjects, such 
 as the grace and mercy of God, the sufferings and death of 
 Christ, the work of the Spirit, the Sabbath, the Lord's 
 Supper, Missions, &c. Dr. Geddie and I were the chief 
 composers. Mr. Copeland contributed a small number, 
 and a few have been added since by Mr. Annand and Mr. 
 Laurie. Whatever may be said with regard to the literary 
 and poetical character of our Ohranitai, it may, I think, be 
 very safely affirmed of our sacred songs, that, as to matter, 
 they contain nothing but what is in accordance with the
 
 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM. 137 
 
 analogy of faith ; that the sentiments they express are all 
 Scriptural. 
 
 They are all composed in English metres, and sung to 
 English tunes. We have not attempted rhyme, except in a 
 very limited degree. It is exceedingly difficult to compose 
 anything in the Aneityumese language in the form of English 
 metres. The words are long ; it requires about two verses in 
 Aneityumese to convey the sense that is expressed in one verse 
 in English. And with such a small band of workmen, and 
 with such intractable vocables on which to operate, our psalter, 
 hymnal, book of sacred song, or whatever name our Ohranitai 
 may receive, is still very small, and is not more than a tithe 
 of what is to be found in many of the hymn-books prepared 
 by some of the other missions in those seas. As the languages 
 are all different, we have no means of knowing their difficulties 
 and how far they have mastered them ; no means of know- 
 ing the real or comparative excellences of those productions 
 respectively. Their vocables may be shorter and more tract- 
 able than ours, or they may have other advantages that we 
 do not possess. But if it be true, as Dr. Kyle, the Bishop 
 of Liverpool, says, and he, from his familiarity with this 
 department of literature, should be a competent judge, that 
 there are not more than about two hundred good hymns, 
 thoroughly adapted to public worship, in the English lan- 
 guage only a fourth more than the inspired psalms; as 
 Cowper says 
 
 " How slow the growth of what is excellent ! " 
 
 it may therefore be reasonably supposed, that of the hundreds 
 of hymns found in the various Polynesian hymn-books, the 
 number of really good ones is not great. We were forced to
 
 138 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYDM. 
 
 do just what we could sometimes a psalm, sometimes a hymn, 
 sometimes a text of Scripture, sometimes a Scripture senti- 
 ment, was taken as the basis of a few verses, that, with a 
 considerable effort, were rendered as like poetry as we could 
 make them ; glad, as we were, to get anything that could be 
 sung. We were animated by no spirit of innovation, by no 
 wish to make the world believe that we had found out some 
 more excellent way ; that we were wiser or better than people 
 at home or elsewhere ; and certainly with no expectation that 
 we should ever be quoted as authorities aiming simply at 
 doing the best we could in our circumstances giving some- 
 thing to the people that they would understand, and that 
 would do them good. 
 
 The tunes we adopted were such as are used at home, such 
 as our musical friends out there happened themselves to know, 
 and such as were likely to be most easily learned by the natives, 
 such as " Old Hundred," French," Irish," " Martyrdom," 
 " Tallis," " Caroline," " Hear," " New Cambridge," " Devizes," 
 "St. Asaph's," &c., and several hymn tunes, such as those 
 usually sung to the hymns, " Just as I am without one plea," 
 " Oh that will be joyful," " There is a happy land," &c. We 
 have only two secular tunes, viz., "Auld Langsyne " and 
 " Bonnie Charlie ; " but as the natives have no Bacchanalian 
 and no Jacobite associations with those tunes, they are, in 
 their ears, as pure and sacred as " Old Hundred " itself, or 
 any of the twelve tunes in John Knox's Psalter ; and when 
 we adopt these tunes, it is only restoring to the worship of 
 God what was unjustly taken away and applied to the service 
 of Satan and the world. As a general rule each psalm or 
 hymn has its own tune. We never read the line. 
 
 In the first years of the mission Mrs. Geddie was our sole
 
 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM. 139 
 
 instructor in sacred music, and important were the services 
 she rendered. But for the last fifteen years or so of our stay 
 on the island, when the mission began to increase in numbers, 
 every new arrival possessed of musical powers was pressed 
 in to help us forward in this department of instruction ; 
 especially on my side of the island was this done. Not being 
 able to teach music myself, I invariably took advantage of 
 all the musical talent within my reach, to make up for my 
 own lack of service. I took credit simply for drilling them 
 well into what they had learned ; making them practise it 
 thoroughly, so that they might not forget what they had got. 
 In 1869, as far as my side of the island was concerned, our 
 singing received a great impulse by the visit of two lady 
 friends of ours from New Zealand. My wife and I had 
 accompanied the Dayspring to New Zealand that year, and 
 as the vessel was expected to go back to Auckland in two 
 months to bring the Rev. P. Milne and his wife on to the 
 mission, when we returned from New Zealand we were 
 accompanied by Mrs. Logan and a young niece of hers and 
 Miss Clark. Mrs. Logan was the widow of Dr. Logan, R.N., 
 of Wellington. Her husband and she were two of our first and 
 best friends in New Zealand. What Lydia was to Paul and 
 his party, Mrs. Logan has been to the missionaries of the 
 New Hebrides and the ministers of New Zealand. In her 
 youth she sat at the feet of Drs. Paxton and M'Crie, and 
 imbibed much of their spirit, and she is passionately fond of 
 music. Miss Clark, now Mrs. C. C. Macmillan, was the 
 youngest daughter of the late Mr. Archibald Clark, the first 
 Mayor of Auckland a gentleman well known, especially in 
 religious circles, both in Scotland and New Zealand. Mr. 
 Clark and his family were among our first and most attached
 
 140 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 friends in Auckland, and have all along taken a deep interest 
 in the New Hebrides Mission. Miss Clark, both as a singer 
 and a player, took a first place in the amateur musical circles 
 in Auckland. As the Dayspring was going direct from 
 Auckland to Aneityum only a seven days' voyage and was 
 going direct back in so short a time, those two friends took 
 advantage of this unusual opportunity to pay us a visit and to 
 see the islands and the working of the mission. The visit 
 was pleasant to all, and, in addition, profitable to us and to 
 the mission, and was a month longer than was expected. The 
 two ladies endeavoured to make themselves as useful, in every 
 way, as they could ; they kept a class with the natives for 
 singing almost every day, the whole of the three months that 
 they were on Aneityum, which was attended by from thirty 
 to forty ; and they left a deep impress of their presence among 
 the natives in this department of instruction. As a memento 
 of old friendships, a lady in Auckland had made my wife a 
 present of a small but excellent harmonium, which, under 
 Miss Clark's skilful fingers, gave a trueness to the teaching 
 such as it never had before. But here we were nearly brought 
 to a stand-still, as far as this help was concerned. When 
 John Williams was building his ship on Rarotonga, after killing 
 his only two goats to make a pair of bellows, he found them 
 wholly eaten by the rats in the morning ; and as he had no 
 more goats, he had to exercise his mechanical skill and con- 
 struct a box for a bellows. We had the same enemies to contend 
 with there. First they cut the rope of the footboard nearly 
 through, so that it broke ; but we did not suspect the cause 
 till afterwards. In a few nights, however, they cut large 
 holes in the leather of the bellows, and in the morning it was 
 found that the voice of the charmer was gone. Fortunately,
 
 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM. 14! 
 
 we had some chamois leather in the house, and a bottle of 
 liquid gum ; by means of these we patched up all the holes, 
 and for practical purposes the instrument was as good as 
 ever ; and by a little ingenuity we shut up all the openings, 
 and excluded these pests ever after. 
 
 A beginning had been made in bass by one of our former 
 instructors, but it was only a beginning ; but Miss Clark fully 
 instructed a class of young men to sing this part in several 
 tunes ; she also taught the natives to sing two chants, so that 
 we chanted metrical versions of the 6yth and i2ist Psalms in 
 the church. I had no liking for chants myself, but the class 
 learned them fast, and even the congregation came to join in 
 them with wonderful readiness. I had been long anxious to 
 have " Coleshill " introduced into the church ; but all our 
 musical friends, for one cause or another, had failed to make 
 the attempt. Some of them did not know it. I pressed Miss 
 Clark; she was rather reluctant, alleging that in a minor 
 tune like " Coleshill " the native voice would be sure to fail at 
 some particular notes. However, in deference to my wishes, 
 she agreed to make a trial. The harmonium was taxed to its 
 utmost capabilities. Mrs. Logan and she sang as sure and 
 true as if their musical reputation had been suspended on the 
 effort, and the natives followed. The teaching there was all 
 by the ear ; we had no music-books, either in the old notation 
 or the new. To my great satisfaction, the natives made good 
 their claim to be considered a part of our common humanity ; 
 their voices mastered the difficulties of the minor key as well 
 as of the major; they learned "Coleshill" faster than any 
 tune they had tried, and after it was introduced into the 
 church, the congregation sang it perhaps better than any 
 other tune they had ever attempted. There~was one young
 
 142 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 married woman, Paparua, but now dead, who had, for some 
 years, been one of Mrs. Inglis's girls, who sang it remarkably 
 well, and whom I always employed to lead the singing when 
 I gave out the psalm, the goth, to which it was sung. Every 
 time I heard them sing it, it thrilled through my heart, as if 
 I had been at a Communion in Scotland. My old friend, Mr. 
 Steel of Penpont, and the other singing-masters of that dis- 
 trict of Dumfriesshire of fifty or sixty years ago, showed their 
 knowledge both of music and of human nature when, after 
 exercising the voices of the youngsters for a very brief period 
 on the gamut, they plunged boldly in mediae res, and began 
 with " Coleshill," a tune which, in my humble opinion, with 
 all due deference to the judgment passed by our national bard 
 on " noble Elgin," is 
 
 "The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays," 
 
 and which in thousands and tens of thousands of instances, 
 at sacraments and deathbeds, has raised believing worshippers 
 as near to the songs of the upper sanctuary as is attainable on 
 this side the grave. 
 
 The result of this visit was highly satisfactory ; not only 
 were a good many new tunes learned, but a better taste in 
 singing was created. One of our missionaries, the late Mr. 
 Morrison, was with us one or two Sabbaths, on his way to 
 New Zealand, and just as our friends were about to leave us, 
 he remarked to me that he observed a much better develop- 
 ment of the native voices than he had ever heard in our con- 
 gregation before. 
 
 Among the translations which I made was one in imitation 
 of Montgomery's version of the 72d Psalm, beginning 
 
 " Hail to the Lord's anointed, great David's greater Sou."
 
 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANETTYUM. 143 
 
 It is done in the same metre, and sung to one of the tunes 
 usually set to that version. The natives learned it very soon. 
 Another of my translations was the " Rock of Ages." Accord- 
 ing to Sir Roundell Palmer, now Lord Selborne, while Watts 
 is the best hymn writer in the English language, Toplady, in 
 his " Rock of Ages," has produced the one best hymn. Bishop 
 Ryle's estimate of it is much the same ; and I flatter myself 
 that my translation of it is the best that I have made perhaps 
 the best hymn is the most easily translated. It is in the same 
 metre as the original, and it is made to rhyme. The " Rock 
 of Ages " has been translated into many languages. Mr. 
 Gladstone has translated it into mellifluous mediaeval Latin. 
 To compare small works with great, my translation can make 
 no claims to be as literal, as elegant, and as scholar-like as 
 that of the learned Premier; but then one's vanity is flattered, 
 or at least one's humiliation is modified, by what Lord Stanley 
 told the world of letters a few years ago, in his rectorial 
 address at Glasgow. " I doubt," he said, " if any human being 
 was ever the better or the wiser for being set to spin verses 
 in a foreign and dead language." If this applies to students, 
 will it not apply a fortiori to Prime Ministers ? If such 
 exercises are of no benefit to the writers, are they not likely to 
 be still less so to the readers ? Who will sing Mr. Gladstone's 
 translation ? It is too evangelical for the Church of Rome, 
 the only Church that uses Latin hymns in its services. But 
 mine is a translation, if into a foreign, it is at least into a 
 living language ; it may strengthen a living faith, quicken a 
 living devotion, and supply fuel to "beet the heavenward 
 flame " in living bosoms. 
 
 I insert this translation that the daughters of song may, if 
 they think proper, transcribe it into their albums, and sing it
 
 144 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 to the piano or harmonium, when they wish to call attention 
 to the claims of our mission. Let them pronounce the vowels 
 as in Latin, and they will produce correctly the Aneityumese 
 sounds. 
 
 ROCK OF AGES. 
 
 Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in Thee ! 
 Let the water and the blood, 
 From Thy riven side that flowed, 
 Be of sin the double cure, 
 Cleanse me from its guilt and power. 
 
 Not the labours of my hands 
 Can fulfil Thy law's demands : 
 Could my zeal no respite know, 
 Could my tears for ever flow, 
 All for sin could not atone ; 
 Thou must save, and Thou alone. 
 
 Nothing in my hand I bring, 
 Simply to Thy cross I cling ; 
 Naked, come to Thee for dress 
 Helpless, look to Thee for grace : 
 Foul, I to the Fountain fly ; 
 Wash me, Saviour, or I die ! 
 
 ROCK OF AGES. 
 
 Translated into the language of Aneityum. 
 Nij amelith um itu, 
 Natimarith asitu, 
 Ek apol iram ainyak ; 
 Imiatamairg nesnyak ; 
 Imyialep nyak aiek, 
 lesu, tak eriss irak. 
 
 Netho unyak takitai, 
 Nemtha unyak nevitai ? 
 Nimtan unyak yek etha, 
 Vai netho has asenga ? 
 Imyigoho nyak aiek, 
 lesu, asitu irak. 
 
 Et itap inja iram ; 
 Er ati inmas unyum, 
 Par adahpoi alupas 
 Netho o atimi has. 
 Imyiaras nyak aiek, 
 lesu, jim aru irak. 
 
 While I draw this fleeting breath, 
 When my eyestrings break in death, 
 When I soar through tracts unknown, 
 See Thee on Thy judgment throne 
 Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in Thee. 
 
 Ek wit emehe ainyak, 
 Tup atenghe nyak aiek. 
 An naopan apitag, 
 An naopan mas unyak, 
 Imyiehva nyak aiek, 
 lesu, jim ahnang irak. 
 
 Burns was the best lyric poet the best writer of songs 
 that Scotland, or perhaps any other country, ever produced. 
 It is said that the way he wrote his songs was this : he
 
 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM. 145 
 
 hummed over the tune to himself till he got the spirit of it 
 into his mind, and then proceeded to write such words as 
 would give full and fitting expression to the music. Sir 
 Walter Scott never did this; he made his words without 
 any reference to music. In many cases, however, other hands 
 made fitting music to his words. It would have been a vain 
 expectation for any of us to think that we could produce 
 words in the Aneityuni language that any one would ever set 
 to music ; nor, if possible, could we afford to wait till such 
 was done. But it was not necessary ; there were plenty of 
 excellent tunes already made, and our only question was how 
 we could get suitable words for them. But latterly I endea- 
 voured to carry out Burns's principle in my own way. A 
 tune was fixed upon, I looked at the notes in the book, I 
 heard it sung in English words, I tried to enter into the 
 spirit of the tune ; and wherever there were long, or strong, 
 or what might be called emphatic notes, I endeavoured to 
 have emphatic or strongly accented syllables in that part 
 of the line, and to have feeble words, or unaccented syllables, 
 where the notes were short. In this way the sense and the 
 sound were made to run hand in hand. When these prin- 
 ciples were attended to, mechanical as the process may seem, 
 though not more so than the rules of prosody, I found that 
 the natives learned the tune much more quickly. I was led 
 to adopt this plan when I was preparing a hymn for the tune 
 " Mothers," or " Daughters of Salem," an American tune, in 
 peculiar metre, sung to the words, " The Sabbath bells are 
 ringing," the repeating words being, "Come, come away." 
 The tune was taught by Mr. Robertson, the Cotton Company's 
 agent, who, being an excellent singer, taught the natives a 
 good many tunes and it soon became a remarkable favourite.
 
 146 THE SERVICE OF SOXG ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 For a while they never gave over singing it. When, at the 
 end of five years, the company was dissolved, Mr. Robertson 
 returned to Nova Scotia, and completed his education for the 
 ministry, under the direction of the Mission Board. He was 
 ordained, sent out, and appointed to Eromanga, where he has 
 proved one of our most successful missionaries. 
 
 Besides proceeding in this way, I always got them to sing 
 over those translations before I finished them, to see if there 
 were any words that could not be easily sung : some words 
 can be sung so much more easily than others. Sometimes 
 two syllables have a tendency to run into one, and then the 
 singers go out of the time. In one of the last translations 
 that I made, I found that we had misspelled and mispro- 
 nounced one of our most common words from the beginning 
 of the mission till then. We had pronounced and spelled the 
 word in four syllables, while in reality it contained only three. 
 I had inserted it in one of the lines to be sung in four 
 syllables. I was trying one of our best singers one of our 
 most intelligent natives to sing the verse in which this word 
 stood, but when she came to the word she always made it 
 three syllables instead of four, and hence had a note over at 
 the end of the line. I tried her again and again, pronouncing 
 the word distinctly myself in four syllables, but always with 
 the same result. I finally changed the line by substituting 
 another word. Had I got the translation printed before it 
 was tested in this way, this limping line would have marred 
 the whole verse. I afterwards carefully watched how the 
 natives pronounced the word when reading or speaking, and 
 found that they uniformly pronounced it in three syllables. 
 The mistake had arisen from this : the first syllable of the word 
 ends with a consonant, and the second syllable begins with a
 
 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM. 147 
 
 consonant. In pronouncing the word there is a slight break 
 or pause between the two syllables, which, unless carefully 
 observed, may easily be mistaken for the short sound of i, 
 which letter we had inserted, but which totally disappears 
 when the word is sung. When every sound has to be caught 
 as it floats rapidly and indistinctly on the lips of the natives, 
 it is extremely difficult to avoid mistakes ; it is long before 
 every nicety like this can be discovered and mastered ; they 
 are often discovered by the merest accident. 
 
 The natives possess a fair amount of musical talent ; they 
 are capable of attaining an average degree of proficiency, 
 wherever the requisite amount of instruction is bestowed. 
 They learn music fully as fast as anything else. But here, as 
 in all other things, in the case of a people sunk so low, very 
 moderate attainments must satisfy us. One of our missionary 
 sisters herself a first-class musician who handles the pen 
 of a ready writer, when she first came to Aneityum, evidently 
 thought that their attainments in music were very limited. 
 Mrs. Logan and Miss Clark, however, had not been there 
 before her. In describing a service at our station, she said 
 they sang vigorously, but they kept a much firmer hold of 
 their books than they did of the tunes, which I believe would 
 be quite true. But passing on in the voyage, and seeing the 
 genuine heathen the pits out of which those singers had been 
 dug, and the rocks out of which they had been hewn her 
 views became greatly modified ; the " fair penitent," regret- 
 ting her hastily-formed opinions, listened ever afterwards 
 with a much more charitable ear to those sable children of 
 Ethiopia lifting up their voices unto God, and showing forth 
 His praise. 
 
 But while our psalms and hymns, and all the psalms and
 
 148 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 hymns in Polynesia, are written in English metres, and sung 
 to English tunes, and many of the natives in all the groups 
 have learned to sing well, nevertheless I have long thought 
 that a false principle runs through the whole system. But the 
 remedy will not be easily applied ; it is this, that both their 
 sacred songs and their sacred music should be framed on the 
 same principles as their secular songs and their secular music. 
 I have only heard of one missionary in those seas, Rev. Mr. 
 Pratt of Samoa, adopting something like those principles j 
 but he, as I understood, took simply the old tunes and set 
 them to his new hymns ; and as the associations connected 
 with the old tunes were almost all bad saturated with the 
 abominations of heathenism his brethren disapproved of the 
 plan, and his hymns, thus arranged to that music, were sup- 
 pressed. I think he was thus far on the right path, but had 
 not fully wrought out the right method ; he should have had 
 new tunes on the same principle as the old, as well as new 
 hymns. 
 
 At the Reformation, when the emancipated souls of whole 
 nations sought full expression in songs of joy, like the birds 
 in early spring, mediaeval Latin hymns and Gregorian chants 
 were vehicles far too confined to afford utterance for such 
 exuberant feelings. No doubt the old church music was far 
 finer of a greatly higher order than the music adopted by 
 the Reformers ; just as the old cathedrals were a far higher 
 order of architecture than the humble, unassuming parish 
 kirks far better adapted for the display of grand processions 
 and the performance of high mass, but not for leavening the 
 masses of the people with the knowledge of God's Word and 
 the felt power of a preached Gospel. Hence the minstrels 
 of the Reformation Luther and his compeers seized and
 
 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYDM. 149 
 
 sanctified the national or popular music, and translated psalms 
 or composed hymns in the common ballad metres. In this 
 way both the music and the metres were such as every- 
 body could understand and learn, and the voice of the whole 
 people rose simultaneously, like that of one man ; it was loud, 
 like the voice of many waters, and the effects were marvellous. 
 Wherever the Reformation spread the same course was pur- 
 sued. In England, in the days of Edward VI., Sternhold, 
 Hopkins, and Whyttingham rendered the Psalms into the 
 common ballad metres ; they never thought of throwing them 
 into the form of Greek hexameters or Latin pentameters, and 
 setting them to Gregorian chants, now, like cathedral archi- 
 tecture, coming so much into vogue, and indicating, I fear, a 
 craving for the sensuous rather than the spiritual in Divine 
 worship. The people sang them to the ballad tunes, or 
 others composed on the same principles. The late Rev. J. B. 
 Laughton of Parramatta, writing in the Sydney Christian 
 Herald, said " It is undeniable that all the standard metri- 
 cal versions in use to this day in all Protestant Churches of 
 Anglo-Saxon origin are written in the ballad metre ; and it is 
 equally undeniable that they were sung by our fathers to the 
 old ballad tunes. The writer has repeatedly heard the ballad 
 of ' Chevy Chase,' which Sir Philip Sydney used to say moved 
 his heart more than the blast of a trumpet, sung on the 
 border-land between England and Scotland, to the identical 
 tune known in our sacred collections as ' St. George's ; ' and a 
 fine stirring old tune it is, when sung, as our martial sires 
 used to sing it, with life and fire, and not as our congrega- 
 tions generally sing it, as they sing everything else, with 
 funereal slowness and coldness." 
 
 Music and language must go together the one must affect
 
 150 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 the other. Forty years ago, when Dr. Mainzer was lecturing 
 on sacred music, and teaching large classes in Scotland, he 
 was seriously accused of Popish tendencies, because in some 
 ladies' boarding school in Edinburgh he taught the Stabat 
 Mater to the Latin words. He replied that he had no wish to 
 countenance Popery, but he was engaged to teach the music' 
 of that piece, and he could not teach his pupils to sing the 
 music to perfection except to the Latin words. 
 
 We go to those seas with our English tunes ; these can be 
 sung only to English metres ; these metres are like the bed of 
 Procrustes, a bed admirably adapted made to order, if you 
 will for our short, monosyllabic, nervous Saxon; but into 
 this bed we try to squeeze the long, sesquipedalian, intract- 
 able vocables of those Polynesian tongues, and the result is 
 painful and disappointing. 
 
 A good many years ago, Dr. Grant, of the American Mission 
 to the Nestorians, said, " I have for thirty years been strain- 
 ing my voice to try and teach the Nestorians our English 
 tunes, but with very indifferent success j now I have discovered 
 that they have chants of their own in abundance, that have 
 possibly come down to them from the days of Asaph, Heman, 
 and Jeduthun, and which they sing with ease and spirit." 
 The Nestorians were Christians, and had a long traditional 
 history ; and music, once embodied in the songs of a people, 
 sacred or secular, possesses an amazing vitality. But we have 
 no music on Aneityum such as the Nestorians had. Ours is 
 all heathen to the core. 
 
 Although the natives, judging from their songs, possess a 
 fair amount of poetical as well as musical talent, although 
 they are ready and willing to make prayers and sermons, yet 
 I could never get one of them to attempt to make a hymn, on
 
 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM. I 5 I 
 
 the principle of their own songs. One must remember, how- 
 ever, how few uneducated men or women at home make hymns. 
 But no doubt some one will rise up to tune the sacred lyre, 
 and serve the Lord by embodying the best thoughts of his 
 heart in a genuine native hymn. The Aneityumese recognise 
 the inspiration of the poet ; not the inspiration of genius, 
 as accepted by a sceptical or a secular philosophy, but a per- 
 sonal inspiration, a natmas, a personal spirit, distinct from the 
 man's own soul, speaking through the lips of the poet. It is 
 really the Scriptural idea of inspiration, as expressed by David 
 in his last words, when he said, " The Spirit of the Lord spake 
 by me, and His word was in my tongue." This was no idea 
 infused into their minds by the missionaries, it was their own 
 idea of inspiration in the days of heathenism, before ever they 
 had seen the face or heard the voice of a missionary. It was 
 stereotyped in the language, and supplied us with the vocables 
 for translating intelligibly such expressions as " All Scripture 
 is given by inspiration of God." The plenary inspiration of 
 the Scriptures was to them a doctrine involving no difficulties. 
 The natives have a mimber of songs, but none of them of any 
 great length, and none that claim any great antiquity. 
 
 The songs and the music of the Aneityumese have nothing 
 in common with European poetry or music. Their poetry 
 seems more akin to Hebrew than to either English, Greek, or 
 Latin, It is measured by no feet. It is neither rhyme nor 
 blank verse, nor does it correspond in structure to the Hebrew 
 parallelisms. It seems little else than prose elevated prose, 
 it may be but cut up into divisions like verses, and these are 
 followed by choruses, chiefly single syllables with no meaning. 
 One very common one is, Lil le, HI le; lil la, HI la; lil le, lil 
 le. This, according to Dr. Kitto, was the kind of singing
 
 I 5 2 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANE1TYUM. 
 
 with Avhich Laban wished to send away Jacob. The style of 
 the poetry seems to afford facilities for improvising, of which 
 the natives are fond. Their music is a kind of chanting. It 
 runs along on the principle of a short note and a long alter- 
 nately, within a narrow scale. It is evidently from its resem- 
 blance on this point to their own music that they sing the 
 tune "Ortonville" with more life and spirit than almost any 
 of our tunes, it being composed throughout of a short and a 
 long note alternately. They are very fond of singing their 
 native songs ; they Avill sing away at these syllabic choruses 
 for any length of time, apparently, as onlookers would sup- 
 pose, more for the love of the noise than the love of the 
 music. I never, till I went to Aneityum, saw the full force of 
 those expressions in the Psalms, where men are exhorted to 
 sing and play with a loud noise. We are disposed, with our 
 ideas of music, to look upon these expressions as figurative. 
 But if the Hebrew music and the Hebrew mind were in 
 any way akin to the Aneityumese, such expressions must be 
 understood quite literally ; for a prominent characteristic of 
 their singing, as regards their native songs, is the " loud 
 noise joyfully." In lamenting for the dead, the counterpart 
 of Jeremiah's mourning women could easily be found there ; 
 and the utterances of parental anguish are expressed in the 
 very spirit, often in the very words, of David, " Absalom, 
 my son, my son ! " 
 
 Missionaries have so much to do their duties are so heavy 
 and so multifarious that they cannot overtake much that 
 they wish to do. I never had time to examine the poetry of 
 the Aneityumese to any extent, and to analyse its structure, 
 so as to discover fully the principles on which it is composed 
 and the laws by which it is regulated. Besides this, we all
 
 THE SERVICE OF SONG ON ANEITYUM. 153 
 
 go out to those islands with strong prepossessions in favour 
 of home excellences, hence it is a long time before we can 
 tolerate, far less appreciate, much that is good in things 
 purely native. A German professor, delivering a charge to a 
 young missionary appointed to India, spoke to this effect : 
 " Our wish is, that you make the natives Christians ; but we 
 do not wish you to make them German Christians ; our 
 simple wish is that you make them Tamil Christians." There 
 was great wisdom in the distinction. 
 
 My hope is that some of our younger brethren may 
 possess the requisite poetical and musical powers, and find 
 sufficient time to enable them to investigate this important 
 subject, and compose sacred songs and sacred tunes so nearly 
 akin in principle to their own songs and their own music, 
 that the natives will learn them with ease, and sing them 
 with the heart, the spirit, and the understanding; that, as 
 their language has been the medium of conveying to them a 
 knowledge of God's Word, their poetry and their music may, 
 in like manner, be the channel through which shall ascend 
 unto God the sweet incense of praise and thanksgiving, and 
 all the holy emotions and devotional feelings of contrite 
 hearts and sanctified affections.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 NEW HEBRIDES MISSION SYNOD. 
 
 THE name Synod came to be applied in 1872 to the annual 
 meeting of our missionaries in this way. For a considerable 
 time a felt desideratum in the mission was a proper word to 
 designate our annual assemblings. We ourselves generally 
 called them the Annual Meeting of the Mission ; but in the 
 Colonies and elsewhere this seemed to be too vague a desig- 
 nation, and they began to speak of the Mission Conference, 
 the Mission Council, the Mission this and the Mission that, 
 and hence the question began to be raised, Could no more 
 appropriate name be adopted 1 Meeting, we said, is rather a 
 vague term, and is applied generally to more popular assem- 
 blages than ours is. Conference is a very good word, but the 
 Wesleyans and other Methodist bodies have appropriated 
 it to designate their highest Church Courts, and we would 
 prefer leaving it in their ecclesiastical vocabularies. Council 
 is also a good word, but at that time, owing to the General 
 Council held at Rome, it savoured strongly of the Vatican, and 
 as we had no Ultramontane proclivities in the New Hebrides, 
 we felt shy of doubtful connections. On the whole, Synod 
 appeared to be the least objectionable word we could adopt. 
 It is euphonious, high-sounding Greek, and at the same time 
 a strictly orthodox, fully naturalised Presbyterian vocable.
 
 NEW HEBRIDES MISSION SYNOD. 155 
 
 It has both a popular and a strictly ecclesiastical meaning. 
 In the once famous, but now obsolete, science of Astrology, 
 the conjunctions of the heavenly bodies were called Synods ; 
 and in his Dictionary Dr. Johnson quotes passages from 
 Crashaw, Milton, and Boyle in which these starry synods 
 are spoken of as exercising a benign or a baleful influence on 
 human destinies. In referring to the mythology of Greece 
 and Rome, Shakespeare, Milton, and Dry den, as quoted by 
 the great lexicographer, speak of " Synods of the gods ; " and 
 M'Kenzie, in his " Life of Principal Cunningham," speaks of 
 a " Synod of Carriers " that, in the old ante-railway days, met 
 every Wednesday in Edinburgh in the yard of the " Harrow " 
 Inn, which had great attractions for Cunningham while a 
 student. On the other hand, we have the strictly eccle- 
 siastical application of the word. The Church of England 
 has its Synods as well as its Convocations ; while among 
 Presbyterians, we have the Synod of Dort and the Synod 
 of Jerusalem, we have the Reformed Presbyterian Synod, 
 the United Presbyterian Synod, the English Presbyterian 
 Synod, the Synod of Otago and Southland, and in the 
 Established and Free Churches we have Provincial Synods 
 in any number. Our Synod is somewhat different from any 
 of these. Tt is neither strictly a Synod quoad sacra, nor yet 
 a Synod quoad civilia, although it is somewhat of both, and 
 possesses at the same time the fullest amount of spiritual 
 independence. The Church out there in the New Hebrides is 
 non-established and unendowed, she owns and claims neither 
 teinds nor tithes, but she is united and national, and there 
 are no dissenters ! There is the freest Voluntaryism, without 
 the slightest manifestation of national Atheism. It is a 
 principle with us in translating the Scriptures rather to take
 
 156 NEW HEBRIDES MISSION SYNOD. 
 
 a native word, though it convey only a part of the idea, 
 than use a foreign word which expresses the whole idea, but 
 requires to be explained before it is understood. The native 
 word, without any explanation, conveys some part of the idea 
 to the native mind ; the foreign word none. In like manner 
 the name Synod will convey to every Presbyterian ear some 
 idea of the character of our meetings ; while, to prevent mis- 
 take, and explain ourselves as far as possible, we have added 
 the word Mission ; and our Annual Meetings are to be called 
 Meetings of the New Hebrides Mission Synod. 
 
 No doubt our Synod is sui generis. At the time of the union 
 of the Free and Reformed Presbyterian Churches, when all 
 the principles and all the practices of these two respective 
 Churches were carefully scrutinised, the ecclesiastical lawyers 
 of the Free Church, from the Procurator and the two principal 
 Clerks of Assembly downwards, were puzzled to understand 
 exactly the constitution and character of our Synod. The 
 New Hebrides Synod bore no resemblance either to the Synod 
 of Glasgow and Ayr, or that of Perth and Stirling, or any other 
 Synod either in Scotland or England. It was different from 
 anything known either in France or Geneva. In the long 
 catena of ecclesiastical history, from A.D. 52, when the 
 apostles and elders met at the first Synod in Jerusalem, they 
 knew of no Synod exactly like ours. In Scotland, from the 
 days of Knox, church courts have risen in succession from 
 kirk sessions to presbyteries, thence to provincial Synods, 
 and thence to the General Assembly. In the Australasian 
 Colonies most of the Presbyterian Churches have a General 
 Assembly, but they have no Synods. The Church of Otago, 
 which is looked upon as the most conservative at the antip- 
 odes, has a Synod, but no Assembly. Our mission, which is
 
 NEW HEBRIDES MISSION SYNOD. 157 
 
 the most abnormal of anything known, has a Synod, but no 
 Presbytery. Nevertheless, both in the Colonies and in the 
 islands, we are all most orthodox and loyal Presbyterians. 
 We adhere firmly to the spirit of Presbyterianism, although 
 circumstances have required us to depart, in some cases, from 
 the letter of the system. 
 
 With us we had the thing before we had the name. In the 
 early days of the mission Mr. Geddie and I met, as occasion 
 required, and made all the needed arrangements for carrying 
 on the work of the mission. But after our numbers increased, 
 and especially after we got the Day spring, we found it necessary 
 to have a meeting of all the missionaries once a year, to make 
 arrangements for the sailing of the vessel, for selecting mis- 
 sion stations, for settling missionaries, for sanctioning the 
 printing of translations, and generally for transacting all 
 necessary business connected with the mission. It was at 
 this time, as I have said, that we found it convenient to apply 
 the name Synod to the annual business meetings of the 
 mission ; and it has been universally accepted as expressing 
 the corporate existence and the corporate action of the 
 missionaries. Every missionary is ex officio a member of 
 the Mission Synod, and represents the Church by which 
 he is supported, and protects its interests. Ministers and 
 elders belonging to Presbyterian Churches visiting the New 
 Hebrides, and present at the meeting of Synod, are always 
 associated, but no native elders sit as members. The Synod 
 elects annually a Moderator and a Clerk ; the Clerk is eligible 
 for re-election as often as the Synod may think proper ; the 
 Moderator is not, till the list of members has been gone over ; 
 so that there is no danger of a perpetual Moderatorship 
 springing up among us an evil once so much dreaded in the
 
 158 NEW HEBRIDES MISSION SYNOD. 
 
 Church of Scotland, as being the thin end of the wedge by 
 which bishops were stealthily introduced into the Presbyterian 
 Church. The Synod manages the mission interests in the 
 New Hebrides of ten Presbyterian Churches, viz., of one in 
 the Dominion of Canada, one in Scotland, two in New Zealand, 
 and six in Australia. The Synod manages the Dayspring, 
 as the property of those Churches, directs her movements, 
 appoints on behalf of those Churches a board and agents in 
 Sydney to look after the vessel in the Colonies. The Synod is 
 the supreme authority in the mission in all general matters ; 
 all the missionaries are under the Synod, in a general way, 
 while each one is personally responsible to the Church by 
 which he is supported. If any missionary feels aggrieved by 
 any action of the Synod, he can appeal to his own Church, and 
 from the decision of that Church, in such a case, there is no 
 further appeal. In a few cases, I think, the Synod may have 
 exceeded its authority. Its relations with different parties 
 have at times been a little strained, but they have never 
 been broken off ; and, on the whole, I feel certain that the Synod 
 has done its work well, and from its decisions no appeal has 
 ever been made. It has a great deal of work to do. The 
 meetings of Synod have usually occupied about a week. A 
 copy of the minutes is always sent to each of the Churches 
 connected with the mission. There were often long sederunts, 
 and able, tough, spirited debates, that would have done no 
 discredit to larger and more important Synods than ours. 
 Burning questions, too, sometimes gained admission into our 
 discussions. The use of unfermented wine, or rather palm 
 wine, as it has been called, that is, the liquor of the cocoa- 
 nut, at the Lord's Supper, was on one occasion fully 
 discussed.
 
 NEW HEBRIDES MISSION SYNOD. 159 
 
 When iny wife and I went to the islands, thirty-four years 
 ago, Mr. Geddie had formed a church and dispensed the Lord's 
 Supper, and had used the ordinary fermented wine. In due 
 course I followed the same practice. The missionaries had 
 no allowance from any fund for the purchase of Communion 
 elements. The missionary's wife baked the bread, the mis- 
 sionary himself bought the wine. While the communicants 
 were few the expense was not heavy ; a bottle of wine served 
 for each Communion, which was celebrated twice, thrice, or four 
 times in the year. When the church members amounted to 300 
 or 400, the wine-bill would have been a more formidable item 
 of expense to a missionary with only ;ioo a year. But we 
 reasoned from the sacrament of Baptism to that of the Lord's 
 Supper ; if a few drops of water is as true an emblem, equally 
 effective sacramentally, as a whole river, may not a small 
 quantity of wine, diluted with water, be as true an emblem 
 as a gallon of the same liquor ? So, after the manner of the 
 Ritualists, those pronounced sacramentarians, though not from 
 the same motives, we diluted it largely with water, and added 
 some dart sugar. The advanced critics of the Tubingen 
 school say that, although the Bible is not exclusively God's 
 Word, yet the whole of God's Word is in the Bible, whatever 
 else may be in it ; so, although our cups were not filled exclu- 
 sively with wine, yet there was wine in every cup, and every 
 communicant partook of wine, and the ordinance was there- 
 fore valid. 
 
 For nearly a century port wine has been used in this 
 country in the Lord's Supper. From the Reformation up 
 till near the end of last century the light white wines of 
 France, which Mr. Gladstone is so eager to introduce, on 
 temperance grounds, were used both for sacramental and
 
 l6o NEW HEBRIDES MISSION SYNOD. 
 
 ordinary purposes; but when, in consequence of the great 
 French war, our trade relations with France were broken off, 
 our wine merchants went to Portugal and brought over port 
 wine ; and as no living man has any personal remembrance 
 of the old state of things, many people are in the belief that 
 port wine was always used at the eucharist, and that it was 
 employed because it was red, and in this respect was the most 
 appropriate symbol for the blood of Christ. Things went on 
 with us in their usual way for some twenty years ; the sac- 
 charine diluted wine was used without any misgiving, and no 
 change was contemplated ; but time brought changes. Com- 
 merce had visited the island, and traders there, as everywhere 
 else, were causing annoyance by the introduction of intoxi- 
 cating liquors. Several of our young men had been killed by 
 the use of them. But matters were brought to a crisis by 
 a very trivial and accidental occurrence. One day Ester, our 
 principal native woman, was telling my wife that So-and-so, 
 a very promising young man, had been drinking till he was 
 drunk. " And what did he drink ? " said Mrs. Inglis. " Oh," 
 said she, " it was British kava, of course ; they call it wine ; it 
 is all the same as what we use at the sacrament." This was 
 certainly, in the estimation of the natives, drinking the cup 
 of the Lord and the cup of devils ; it was filling both cups 
 with the same liquor. What was to be done ? The traders 
 would soon fill the cup of devils, but what was to be done 
 for the cup of the Lord ? We could get no unfermented wine ; 
 Mr. Frank Wright had no agencies in these Colonies ; and 
 although Australia is one of the best vine-growing countries 
 in the world, yet the inspissated juice of the grape, so well 
 known to the ancients, is literally unknown there. The grapes 
 are all fermented, and the Government experts connected with
 
 NEW HEBRIDES MISSION SYNOD. l6l 
 
 the excise certify that Australian wine, without being forti- 
 fied by brandy, contains more than thirty per cent, of alcohol. 
 A solution of the difficulty, however, seemed to be easy, by 
 following the example of the missionaries of the London 
 Missionary Society in the South Seas. For a long time past 
 they have used palm wine that is, as I have said, the liquor of 
 the cocoa-nut, which is a species of the palm-tree instead of 
 the ordinary wine. I therefore introduced an overture into 
 the Mission Synod asking that an act should be passed giving 
 liberty to any one who might desire it to use palm wine instead 
 of the common wine at the Lord's Supper. I allowed the over- 
 ture to lie on the table of the Synod for a twelvemonth, that 
 there might be plenty of time to consider it fully. 
 
 It was fully and freely discussed. Everything was said, 
 both for it and against it, that could well be said ; but when 
 the vote was taken, there were, I think, eight against the 
 overture, and only four for it. One member said that rather 
 than use palm wine he would use pure water ; another said 
 that he had once taken cocoa-nut liquor at one of the stations 
 of the London Missionary Society, and that afterwards he 
 seriously doubted whether he had rightly observed the Lord's 
 Supper or not. When our Saviour established the ordinance 
 of the Supper He selected bread and (not wine, for that word 
 is never used in connection with the ordinance, but) the fruit 
 of the vine the former the choicest food and the latter the 
 choicest liquor known in the land of Canaan, the two sub- 
 stances the most pleasant and nourishing to the body as 
 pointing out that the blessings procured by His broken body 
 and His shed blood were to the soul what those were to the 
 body. Now, what the vine and its fruit are to the inhabi- 
 tants of Palestine, such are the cocoa-nut and its fruit to
 
 1 62 NEW HEBRIDES MISSION SYNOD. 
 
 the inhabitants of the South Seas. One writer, speaking of 
 the cocoa-nut in Africa, says, " It is worth while going to 
 Africa, were it for no other object than to drink cocoa-nuts, 
 they are so delicious." Another writer, who spent some 
 months among the South Sea Islands, uses almost the same 
 words, and says, " It is worth any one's while to go to those 
 islands, were it for nothing else than to drink cocoa-nuts, 
 they are so delightfully refreshing." No substance known 
 on the islands is calculated to convey to the mind of a native 
 the idea of the soul-reviving influences of Christ's death so 
 vividly as the liquor of the cocoa-nut. And to stickle even 
 for the grape, in such circumstances, was substituting the 
 letter of the law for its spirit, holding by the rule and over- 
 looking the reason of the rule. Our diluted saccharine wine 
 was perfectly innocuous. It might have been drunk by the 
 most recently reclaimed drunkard without the slightest danger, 
 happily we had none such, but then it was associated 
 in their minds at that time with nothing but the cup of 
 devils, the intoxicating British kava. The members of our 
 Synod were all either pledged or practical teetotalers, but the 
 majority was made up mostly of the younger members of the 
 court, of new arrivals from home, strongly imbued with home 
 and hereditary notions about sacramental wine; they were 
 men who abhorred drunkenness, but nevertheless adhered to 
 some extent to the common but false belief that alcoholic 
 drinks would be good if they were not abused ; that it is in 
 the abuse rather than in the use of these liquors in which 
 the great danger lies ; who held more or less the doctrine 
 recently promulgated to the trade by the great brewer, the 
 Hon. George H. Allsopp, M.P., who says, " In spite of all that 
 our teetotal friends may say, there is no sin in the drink;
 
 NEW HEBRIDES MISSION SYNOD. 163 
 
 it is only the excess of it which should be discouraged;" whose 
 teetotalism rested on the grounds of Christian expediency, for 
 the sake of others rather than themselves, and not on the 
 scientific principles that alcohol is a poison, that it is not 
 a food, not a heat - producing agent, and as an article 
 of support for the system it is utterly useless and wholly 
 pernicious ; that it is injurious to both blood and brains, to 
 body and to mind. Moreover, our young friends had not 
 been sufficiently long in contact with the widening and 
 liberalising influences of island and colonial life to bring 
 them into proper touch with their new relationships, and to 
 realise that the traditions of home life are not always in 
 accordance with the never-failing fitness of things. 
 
 There was one thing, however, that strongly impressed me 
 in connection with the decision of our Mission Synod on this 
 wine question, and that was, the soundness and the far-seeing 
 ability of the Westminster divines. In the thirty-first chapter 
 of the Confession of Faith they say, " All Synods, since the 
 Apostles' times, may err, and many have erred; therefore, 
 they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice, but to 
 be used as a help in both." Now, if those divines formulated 
 so correctly the doctrine of Scripture concerning Synods 
 and Councils, is there not a strong presumption that their 
 dogmatic utterances concerning the Divine Decrees were 
 equally correct ? " God executeth His decrees in the works of 
 Creation and Providence." God is almighty and infallible 
 He cannot err ; but man is feeble and fallible ; for, as some 
 one says, "The best of men are only men at the best."
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MISSION VESSELS THE " DAYSPRING." 
 
 WHEN we had seen something like the beginning of the end 
 in the Christianising of Aneityum, we felt somewhat like John 
 Williams on Huahine, or Raiatea, when he said, "I cannot 
 be shut up within a single reef." We turned our attention to 
 the islands beyond us, and considered as to what we could do 
 for them. By the aid of the mission ship the John Williams, 
 we got two teachers and their wives settled on Tanna, and 
 other two couples on Futuna ; but, when settled, we had no 
 means of visiting them, except by our own whale-boats. We 
 made known our circumstances to the Rev. Dr. Ross of 
 Sydney, the agent of the London Missionary Society, and who 
 was also kindly acting as our agent. He applied to some of 
 his friends to help us, and they kindly sent us down a fine 
 boat by the John Williams, which would have suited our 
 purpose well. But, through the absence of a letter, that had 
 been mislaid, a mistake was committed, and we were given to 
 understand that the boat was intended for the Loyalty Island 
 Mission, and not for ours ; and hence it was passed on to the 
 brethren in that mission, and did not come into our hands at 
 all. In course of time, however, the error was discovered, the 
 mistake corrected, and the price of the boat was transmitted to 
 us, and we obtained an equally suitable boat, which we named
 
 MISSION VESSELS THE " DAYSPRING." 165 
 
 the Columba, after the apostle of lona, as we were striving 
 to make Aneityum the lona of the New Hebrides. This boat 
 served us for some time, till we received from our friends in 
 Glasgow a small schooner of twelve tons, which was called the 
 John Knox, after the great Scottish Reformer. This enabled 
 us to extend our visits as far as Eromanga. Beyond this we 
 could not go, although in subsequent years the John Knox 
 was employed by the brethren of the London Missionary 
 Society, in their first visit to open up their mission to New 
 Guinea. The John Knox, however, did good service in the 
 New Hebrides. 
 
 But the idea of a much larger vessel was still cherished by 
 us. Accordingly, in the end of 1861, when Mr. Paton was 
 driven from Tanna, the missionaries arranged that, partly for 
 the sake of his health, and partly with the view of creating 
 an interest in Australia on behalf of the mission, Mr. Paton 
 should proceed to Sydney and New South Wales, which he 
 did, and afterwards went on also to Melbourne and Victoria. 
 He was very successful in both places, but especially in Vic- 
 toria. The Presbyterians there had just completed a union 
 of all the denominations, and the idea of a new vessel for 
 the Presbyterian mission in the New Hebrides was caught 
 up with enthusiasm as their first united missionary effort. 
 Chiefly through the Sabbath-school children, Mr. Paton raised 
 ^3000 with which to purchase a mission vessel, ^1000 
 with which to bring out new missionaries, and 200 for the 
 support of native teachers. Having completed these arrange- 
 ments, Mr. Paton went back to Scotland, and visited all the 
 congregations of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. Mean- 
 while it was agreed that the vessel should be built in Nova 
 Scotia, under the direction of the Foreign Mission Board of
 
 1 66 MISSION VESSELS THE " DAYSPRTXG." 
 
 the Presbyterian Church in that province, by whose agents 
 the New Hebrides Mission had been commenced, and whose 
 members also raised ;i6oo to the Ship Fund. This was 
 accordingly done. The Day spring, a vessel of 120 tons, was 
 built in New Glasgow, and sailed from Halifax in the 
 autumn of 1863 Mr. William A. Fraser, master. She had 
 a remarkably fine passage out to Australia. She brought 
 out three missionaries with her, viz., Revs. Messrs. Morrison, 
 M'Cullagh, and Gordon. The first two were married. In 
 Melbourne, under the sanction of the Ship Committee, a 
 deck-house was added to the Dayspring, which made her equal 
 to a vessel of 150 tons. In June of 1864 the Dayspring ar- 
 rived at Aneityum, and visited among the Loyalty and New 
 Hebrides Islands till the beginning of December, when she 
 returned to Sydney. Here Mr. Paton, having returned from 
 Scotland, met her, and spent three months visiting the Aus- 
 tralian Colonies. In April Mr. Paton accompanied the vessel 
 to the islands, visited round the group, and attended the Annual 
 Missionary Meeting. It was found that in some respects it 
 was easier to purchase a mission ship than to keep her afloat : 
 the one was a special single effort, the other was to be a 
 permanent annual struggle. It was, therefore, at once 
 agreed that Mr. Paton should go up to the Colonies, consult 
 with friends, and make arrangements for raising such a sum 
 annually as would meet the current expenses of the vesseL 
 Mr. Paton went immediately up to Australia, and by his un- 
 tiring energy and marvellous organising capacity, he arranged 
 that the Sabbath-school children who had chiefly purchased 
 the vessel should raise about ^1800 a year to support her. 
 Of this sum the children connected with the Presbyterian 
 Church of Nova Scotia should raise ^250; the children of
 
 MISSION VESSELS THE " DAYSPRING." 1 67 
 
 the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland, the same; 
 the children of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, $oo ; 
 the children of the Presbyterian Church of New South 
 Wales, 200 ; and the remaining ^600 to be raised by the 
 children of the Presbyterian Churches of New Zealand, South 
 Australia, Tasmania, and Queensland. So excellent were the 
 arrangements that were made, and so loyal to the engagement 
 have been the successive generations of the Sabbath-school 
 children, that, during all the twenty-five years that the Day- 
 spring has been afloat, she has never incurred a penny of debt, 
 she has never been crippled for want of funds, and she has 
 always had a good working balance on hand. This shows 
 also, I think, that the public have had the fullest confidence 
 in the management of the Dayspring funds ; they felt satisfied 
 that they are judiciously and economically spent a point 
 of vital importance in all public trusts, especially for those 
 raised by annual contributions. The Dayspring being intended 
 exclusively for the use of the New Hebrides Mission, the 
 management of the vessel has all along been left in the hands 
 of the Mission Synod. The Synod has appointed a Board in 
 Sydney, consisting of three ministers and three laymen, to 
 attend to the management of the vessel when in the Colonies. 
 These laymen especially are well acquainted with the require- 
 ments of shipping. At first the headquarters of the Day- 
 spring were, for the most part, in Melbourne, as a large 
 proportion of the funds for the support of the vessel were, 
 through the energetic efforts of the Rev. Dr. Macdonald, at 
 that time agent for the vessel, supplied from Victoria But 
 when it was found necessary that the Dayspring shoiild 
 make two voyages from the islands to the Colonies each 
 year, to save time and minimise expenses, the headquarters
 
 1 68 MISSION VESSELS THE " DAYSPRING." 
 
 of the vessel had to be removed to Sydney ; occasionally, how- 
 ever, she visited New Zealand, Melbourne, and other places 
 for special purposes. 
 
 The history of the Dayspring was one of uninterrupted 
 success, till the 3d of January 1872, when she was com- 
 pletely wrecked in Aneityum harbour, in one of the most 
 terrific hurricanes that ever passed over those islands, the full 
 particulars of which I have given elsewhere in this volume. 
 For the ensuing season we chartered the Paragon of Sydney, 
 a new vessel of 160 tons burden. In the meantime we 
 recovered the insurance of the vessel ^2000. Mr Paton 
 and Mr. Copeland were deputed to raise funds to purchase 
 another vessel, the former in New Zealand, the latter in 
 New South Wales. They raised other ^2000. With this 
 ^4000 we bought the Paragon, and fitted her up for the work 
 of the mission, and had her name changed to that of the 
 Dayspring, She has served us now satisfactorily for fourteen 
 years. But great changes have been going on during the last 
 quarter of a century. Steamships are everywhere displacing 
 sailing vessels ; the very kidnappers, in the labour traffic in 
 Western Polynesia, are employing steamers to carry on more 
 effectually their nefarious practices ; and unless our mission 
 had consented, which it had no thought of doing, to be left 
 completely behind in the march of modern progress, it was 
 found necessary that we must go in for at least auxiliary 
 steam-power. 
 
 On this account the Presbyterian Church of Victoria agreed 
 to place at the disposal of the mission the services of Mr. 
 Paton, who is supported by that Church, and is always at its 
 disposal, that he might come to this country and plead for 
 funds with which to buy a new ship. Accordingly he arrived
 
 MISSION VESSELS THE " DAYSPRING." 169 
 
 in London in April 1884, duly authorised for his mission, by 
 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, 
 to all the General Assemblies and General Synods of the 
 Presbyterian Churches in the three kingdoms. He addressed 
 the two Scotch and the one Irish General Assembly, and the 
 Synod of the United Presbyterian Church in Scotland and 
 the Synod of the Presbyterian Church in England. He was 
 cordially thanked by these Supreme Courts for his addresses, 
 and recommended to the liberality of their congregations re- 
 spectively. He also attended and addressed the Pan- Presby- 
 terian Council that met in Belfast that year. He visited con- 
 gregations and addressed meetings in most of the principal 
 cities in the three kingdoms in London, Manchester, and 
 Liverpool ; in Edinburgh and Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee ; 
 in Dublin, Belfast, and Derry. He displayed all his accus- 
 tomed tact, he spoke with all his wonted energy, and pleaded 
 with all his well-known fervid and pathetic eloquence; he 
 solicited only in public, he made no private personal appeals ; 
 but, in addition to his public collections, he received many 
 private contributions, and that from all classes of persons 
 and members of all denominations, from the widow's mite to 
 the offerings of the wealthy; his donors ranged from the 
 titled nobility to the poorest and obscurest of servant girls. 
 I am not aware of the name of any member of the royal 
 family being found on his lists, but then a paragraph has 
 been going the round of the religious newspapers affirming 
 that neither the Queen nor any of her family contribute to 
 any of the missionary societies ; but one thing is certain, that 
 the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland and his distinguished and 
 liberal-minded lady that the Earl and Countess of Aberdeen 
 and all their children were warm and generous supporters of
 
 1 70 MISSION VESSELS THE " DAYSPEING. 
 
 Mr. Paton's Dayspring fund. There is a story told which is 
 quite in keeping with similar well-authenticated anecdotes 
 connected with Mr. Paton's labours. One morning Lady 
 Aberdeen went into the nursery, and found one of her little 
 boys crying. She asked him what was the matter. "Oh," 
 said he, " I am afraid that Mr. Paton will have all the heathen 
 converted before I am big and able to be a missionary, and 
 then there will be nothing left for me to do ! " It was at 
 this very time that the Hon. Ian Keith-Falconer and his 
 young, beautiful, and accomplished wife were accepted by 
 the Free Church of Scotland to carry on their mission to the 
 Mohammedans in Aden. Mr. Keith-Falconer is a younger 
 son of the late Earl of Kintore, generally known, like Lord 
 Shaftesbury, as the "good Earl." He undertook not only to 
 act as a missionary, but to bear all the expenses of the mission 
 himself. He is understood to be one of the best Arabic 
 scholars of the present day. Hearing so much from Mr. 
 Paton about the New Hebrides Mission, and so much from 
 Mr. Keith -Falconer about the Aden Mission, it was quite 
 natural for the young Gordons to catch up enthusiastically the 
 missionary spirit, so fully in accordance with the traditions of 
 that ancient, noble, and religious family. A young Gordon, 
 who would himself have been an Earl of Aberdeen had he lived, 
 had it in his heart to go out as a missionary to Africa. 
 
 Notwithstanding the very depressed state of the country, 
 at the end of eighteen months, Mr. Paton had succeeded in 
 raising ^9000, with which he returned to Victoria. The 
 New Hebrides Mission Synod, the Dayspring Board, and the 
 New Hebrides Mission Committees of the different Australasian 
 Presbyterian Churches have been collecting information, and 
 are consulting as to the size and shape of the vessel, and
 
 MISSION VESSELS THK " DAYSPR1NG. I? I 
 
 examining into the details, so as to see how the money can 
 be disbursed to the best advantage, so as to secure the greatest 
 benefits to the mission, with the most economical expenditure 
 of the funds ; and as there are among them many able, prac- 
 tical men, well acquainted with seafaring matters, there is 
 no doubt whatever but that these objects will be carefully 
 attended to and largely secured. 
 
 It is not to secure speed when sailing on the open sea 
 that we wish to employ steam in our mission vessel, but 
 chiefly to avoid danger and difficulties in going into or out 
 of harbours, and to keep her ffom drifting into peril when 
 caught in calms. While among the islands she is continually 
 either entering or leaving harbours, and she is often becalmed 
 in circumstances where a few hours' steaming would save a 
 day's, or, it might be, a week's, detention, or where a current 
 might drift her into serious danger. Both the first and second 
 John Williams were lost in calms the first at Danger Island, 
 and the second at Savage Island. On one occasion my wife 
 and I, and some other missionaries, were on board the Day- 
 spring, on the coast of Eromanga, when the current all but 
 carried her against the rocks in a calm ; both boats were 
 down, and it was pulling for life. Providentially a light 
 breeze sprang up, which carried us out of danger.
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 ASTRONOMY ON ANEITYUM ECLIPSES. 
 
 ASTRONOMY, as every one knows, had its origin in the East. 
 Under the clear mild skies of Mesopotamia, the sage, thought- 
 ful shepherds, keeping watch over their flocks by night, had 
 their attention constantly drawn to the wonders of the starry 
 heavens. They recorded their observations ; they divided the 
 visible heavens into sections ; and, following the example of 
 the Most High, they counted the number of the visible stars, 
 and called them by names. Hence the Lord, when He spoke 
 to Job out of the whirlwind, recognised the astronomical 
 vocabulary, and said, as rendered in our Revised Version, 
 " Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades, or loose the 
 bands of Orion ? Canst thou lead forth the Mazzaroth " (the 
 twelve signs of the zodiac) " in their season ? Or canst thou 
 guide the Bear with her train ? " 
 
 In the South Seas they have not the long-continued, clear, 
 cloudless Oriental sky, but they have advantages in this respect 
 of which we know nothing in this country. Their knowledge 
 of astronomy, however, was very limited, as much so as of any 
 of the other sciences. They had given names to a few of the 
 constellations, and to a few of the more prominent stars, and 
 to certain celestial phenomena. They had given the names of 
 Katgapoliotli to Venus, when a morning star, and Inwang,
 
 ASTRONOMY ON ANEITYUM ECLIPSES. 1/3 
 
 when an evening star. They call the Southern Cross Nohoaing 
 Wai, the Duck, from the resemblance which its four principal 
 stars bear to that fowl They call the Milky Way Inwau an 
 natliiat, that which binds the Way. The reason of the name 
 is not very obvious. They call Orion the Nelgau, or Canoe, 
 and the Girdle of Orion Nehev, the Paddle for propelling the 
 Canoe. 
 
 With us Orion stands upright on his feet quite a martial 
 hero. At the antipodes he stands upon his head by no means 
 a dignified attitude. But within the tropics, and, consequently 
 on Aneityum, he seems to lie on his side, and, canoe-like, con- 
 tinually sails along the centre of the sky; and thus he is 
 degraded by these maritime people, from being a conquering 
 hero, to be a quiet, slow-sailing ship the grand and the noble are 
 exchanged for the merely utilitarian. They call the Pleiades, 
 or the Seven Stars, the Children of Kumnyumoi. But whether 
 they were men or women, the natives cannot say ; whether they 
 were women, like the Greek Pleiades, the seven daughters of 
 Atlas and Oceania, or men, like the seven Greek poets who 
 bore that name, the Aneityumese cannot determine ; but since 
 they speak of them as cooking taro, we may safely infer that 
 they were female deities, in the island mythology, as that was 
 a female occupation. They had names for several other stars, 
 but what seems strange to us, they had no name for Ursa Major, 
 or the Great Bear. It may have been because it is invisible 
 for six months in the year, and is never seen on the south side 
 of Aneityum, although on the north side, for six months every 
 year, it hovers over Tanna every night, and is a noticeable 
 constellation. They knew nothing about Mazzaroth, or the 
 twelve signs of the zodiac. They had never mapped out the 
 heavens into equal divisions, like the ancient astronomers.
 
 174 ASTRONOMY ON ANEITYUM ECLIPSES. 
 
 Like the Jews, they divided the day and night into eight 
 watches. They had the four principal divisions, of sunrise, sun- 
 set, noon, and midnight. They had a word for the other four 
 subdivisions, viz., nine o'clock in the forenoon and three o'clock 
 in the afternoon, when the sun was half up the sky, and 
 again when half down, and another word for nine at night, 
 and another for the morning watch, the cock-crowing the 
 true and also the false crowing, which I have described fully 
 elsewhere. They had no weeks ; the week has followed the 
 Jewish and the Christian Sabbath. Where there have been 
 no Sabbaths there have been no weeks. The Romans had 
 Nundince, their nine-fay periods, but seven days have followed 
 the Sabbath. The week is a positive, not a natural, division 
 of time, like the day, the month, and the year. They counted 
 by moons, but they had no names for the different months ; 
 they simply counted the number of moons. They counted 
 by years, but they had no eras, no epochs from which they 
 began to count their years. They had no Olympiads, like the 
 Greeks ; no year of the building of the city, like the Romans ; 
 no A.M. or A.D., like us. They had no word for the whole year ; 
 but they had three seasons, the summer, the winter, and the 
 hungry time ; that was the time when the old crop was eaten 
 up, and before any of the annual crops were ripe, correspond- 
 ing to the spring. They never spoke of so many years, but of 
 so many winters. They marked the beginning of the year by 
 the blossoming of the reeds, an annual plant. The expression 
 for everlasting was irai iji ieng, while the reeds blossom ; or 
 irai iji mesese, while winters remain. They have at least 
 twenty-five names for the winds, but they are not divided 
 equally, like the thirty-two points in the mariner's compass. 
 The winds blow mostly from south round by the east, and on
 
 ASTRONOMY ON ANEITYOM ECLIPSES. 1/5 
 
 to the north, but very little from north round by the west on 
 to the south. The prevailing wind is the south-east trade- 
 wind, but this does not blow from one point only, but all along 
 from the south to the east. On Aneityum we have the words 
 of Solomon almost literally fulfilled : " The wind goeth toward 
 the south, and turneth about unto the north ; it whirleth about 
 continually, and the wind returneth again according to his 
 circuits." The wind maketh the circuit of the horizon about 
 once a fortnight. The process is this. There is a calm day. 
 On the following a light wind springs up, a little to the west 
 of south ; day by day it draws, little by little, towards the east, 
 and increases daily in strength till it reaches its maximum ; 
 but that is not always the same. In summer especially it passes 
 the east on to the north ; when blowing north of east the atmos- 
 phere is often laden with humidity ; you cannot move but you 
 perspire, and then you feel very uncomfortable. At the north- 
 east it often dies away, takes a leap to the west, where it 
 remains from one to, sometimes, five or six days ; but it is not 
 reliable. Then it dies away, and is calm for a day or so, and 
 then springs up as before at south by west, and proceeds on 
 its circuit, going in the opposite direction to the hands of a 
 watch ; but it never returns in the other direction. They have 
 not four cardinal points in the horizon, as we have ; the east 
 is called the rising of the sun, and the west is the setting of 
 the sun. They have no word for south or north, but 
 round the island everywhere it is seaward and landward. 
 On both sides of the island it is called up towards the 
 rising of the sun, and down towards where it sets. They 
 have names for all kinds of hurricanes ; they have a name 
 for the rainbow, for a halo round the sun or moon, for 
 a comet, a meteor, a falling or shooting star, the Aurora
 
 1/6 ASTRONOMY ON ANEITYUM ECLIPSES. 
 
 Australia or Southern Lights or Streamers, Magellan's 
 Clouds, &c. But they never distinguished between the fixed 
 stars and the planets. I occasionally called the attention 
 of the more intelligent to the- planets. They had often ob- 
 served eclipses both of the sun and of the moon. Owing 
 to the great clearness of the atmosphere these phenomena 
 are remarkably well seen. I never fully realised the Scrip- 
 tural description of eclipses till I saw them on Aneityum, 
 when I saw the sun become black as sackcloth of hair, and the 
 moon become as blood. We had a good view of four eclipses 
 two of the sun and two of the moon. 
 
 On the 25th October 1855 we had a total eclipse of the moon. 
 We observed the eclipse first about half-past seven in the 
 evening. It was then total, and continued so for about an 
 hour ; the lower limb of the moon then began to emerge from 
 the shadow of the earth, and by nine o'clock the moon was 
 again "walking in brightness." As we had no almanacs 
 there at that time, except one we had made ourselves, for the 
 use of the natives, merely to teach them the months and the 
 days, and one that our Samoan brethren had prepared for the 
 use of their mission, which, although it marked the changes 
 of the moon, gave no intelligence about eclipses, we were not 
 at all on the outlook for such a phenomenon, and but for the 
 natives we might not have observed it. I was busy writing 
 in my study, and Mrs. Inglis was doing the same in another 
 room, when one of her girls came running in and called out 
 to her, " Ak Misi, et mun mas inmalwg, et alupas yang ; apam 
 aiek um almoi " " Mistress, the moon is dead, she is so 
 yellow ; do come out and see her." We went out immediately; 
 and if yellowness, or rather a dull blood-like redness, had been 
 a sure sign of death, the moon had been dead to a certainty.
 
 ASTRONOMY ON ANEITYUM ECLIPSES. 1/7 
 
 This furnished me with a good opportunity to give the natives, 
 both then and afterwards, some lessons on the elements of 
 astronomy, and on the causes of eclipses, both of the sun and 
 moon, with which they appeared to be much gratified. For- 
 merly they had no idea of the causes of eclipses. Like some of 
 the heathen nations of antiquity, they looked upon them as 
 prognosticating evil, as indicating the death of some great chief, 
 or some similar calamity, and they used to blow on conches, 
 beat wooden drums, cut down trees, howl, and make hideous 
 noises, either through fear, or to avert the dreaded calamity. 
 
 Although eclipses of the sun and moon were occurring 
 every year, it was not often that we observed them. In 
 1871, however, we were singularly favoured in that respect. 
 Within two weeks there were two eclipses, the one of the sun 
 and the other of the moon, both predicted to be visible, and both 
 actually observed on our side of the globe ; and we had a fine 
 view of both. I was at Futuna during the eclipse of the sun, 
 which took place on Sabbath the i8th of June. The morn- 
 ing was cloudy and threatened rain, and no traces of the sun 
 were to be seen ; but about mid-day the clouds broke up, and 
 the sun shone out among them. At about half-past one the 
 first contact was visible, and the eclipse continued till about 
 half -past four. Regarding the sun as a map, hung up on a 
 wall, with the north at the top, the south at the bottom, the 
 east on the right hand, and the west on the left, the appear- 
 ance of the eclipse may be thus described. It began on the 
 south-west of the sun's disc, crept gradually round to the east 
 side, and finally went off at the north-east. At the middle of 
 the eclipse the shadow of the moon extended to about the 
 middle of the sun's disc ; about a fifth part of the disc was 
 
 obscured ; the light around was sensibly diminished. 
 
 M
 
 I /S ASTRONOMY ON ANEITYUM ECLIPSES. 
 
 The eclipse of the moon took place a fortnight after that of 
 the sun, on Sabbath the 2d of July, or rather, on the morn- 
 ing of Monday the 3d ; it began about half -past twelve, and 
 ended about half-past two. The missionaries for the Annual 
 Meeting had all landed on Aniwa, from the Dayspring, on the 
 Saturday before. When the services of the Sabbath, public 
 and private, were over, I volunteered to sit up and awaken 
 the others when the eclipse began ; we always went early to 
 ' bed on the islands. I did so ; but some of the brethren were 
 so eager for the sight that they kept peeping out now and 
 again, evidently afraid lest I should fall asleep during my 
 watch. Up till midnight the sky was remarkably clear, not 
 a cloud passed over the face of the moon ; but about twelve 
 o'clock large masses of clouds rose up, and it appeared for 
 a time as if the moon would be entirely hid ; but the wind 
 carried them along, breaks occurred, and every now and then 
 we had some clear glimpses, which enabled us to observe the 
 progress of the eclipse during its whole course. This eclipse 
 proceeded in an opposite direction to that of the sun the fort- 
 night before. It began on the north-east quarter of the 
 moon's disc, the place where it ended on the sun; it then 
 crept down along the east side, and finally went off on the 
 south-west side, where that of the sun began. When the 
 eclipse was at the greatest, about a sixth part of the moon's 
 disc was obscured. There was one very striking difference 
 between the two eclipses. In the eclipse of the sun, one-half 
 of the moon's shadow was seen on the sun's disc ; a half-circle 
 was distinctly marked, reaching to the centre of the sun's 
 disc. But in the eclipse of the moon it was only a small part 
 of the earth's shadow that was seen on the moon's disc; it 
 was a segment of a large circle, and extended only about half-
 
 ASTRONOMY ON ANETTYUM ECLIPSES. I 79 
 
 way to the centre of the moon's disc, but covering a much 
 larger portion of her perimeter. 
 
 On both occasions we tried to improve the phenomena, for 
 the benefit of the natives, both in conversation and in our 
 public services ; not by spiritualising them which some can 
 do very pertinently but in a way which seemed to us more 
 suitable for our auditors, viz., by explaining the causes of the 
 eclipses, and calling in God's works as the witnesses for the 
 truth of His Word. " You see," we said to the natives, " that 
 large, deep, dark hollow place on the sun's face, as smooth 
 and round on the edge as if it had been cut out with a knife ; 
 what is the cause of that ? That is the moon, the half of 
 which is come in between us and the sun." Their eyes 
 opened wider, and they watched with newly awakened interest 
 the progress of the eclipse, as they understood something of 
 the cause of this strange phenomenon. A similar explanation 
 was given when the moon was eclipsed. They were shown 
 how the earth was at that time exactly between the sun and 
 the moon, and how the shadow of the earth was falling on 
 the face of the moon. 
 
 The natives were told beforehand what was to be expected. 
 At Futuna the afternoon service took place during the eclipse 
 of the sun. Mr. Copeland met with the Futunese in the 
 church, and I held a short service in the schoolroom with jthe 
 Aneityumese teachers and some other Aneityumese who were 
 there at that time, and the drift of our remarks was some- 
 what as follows : " Your wise men formerly professed, and 
 the wise men among the heathen in all these islands still pro- 
 fess, to make rain and wind, good weather and bad weather, 
 health and sickness, to kill and to cure, at their pleasure. 
 Our wise men never profess to do any such things ; because
 
 I So ASTRONOMY ON ANETTYUM ECLIPSES. 
 
 they know that God only can make rain and wind, send sick- 
 ness and death, give life and health, make food plentiful or 
 cause famine ; but they can do what the wise men among the 
 heathen never attempted to do; they tell long beforehand 
 when the sun and moon will die (the native word for an 
 eclipse, as we have seen), and why ? How do they know this ? 
 They know it because they study the works of God, and they 
 find that all the works of God are true. Everything that God 
 does, and everything that God says, is true. He has spoken a 
 law to the sun and to the moon, and they hear His word and 
 obey His law. He has made the paths of the sun and the 
 moon so true and exact, and He has made the rate of their 
 travelling along these paths so true and exact, that our wise 
 men, who search out these things, can, by counting for they 
 have made themselves very expert in counting figures tell 
 long beforehand the very month, and day, and hour when we 
 may see them pass one another, as we have seen them do 
 to-day. Everything that God does is true ; there is nothing 
 deceitful in it; and everything that God says is true; His 
 word is as true as His works. In the Bible He says that 
 every one that believes in Christ, and repents of his sins, 
 shall be saved, and go to heaven ; but that every one who 
 refuses to believe in Christ, and to repent of his sins, shall'be 
 condemned and go to hell. And as certainly as the predicted 
 eclipse has been seen to-day, so certainly will God's word 
 about our souls be found true at the day of death and at the 
 day of judgment." 
 
 During our stay at Futuna the natives of that island had 
 another lecture read to them on the evidences of Christianity, 
 more convincing to their minds than the whole of Butler's 
 " Analogy," with the volumes of Paley and Chalmers on the
 
 ASTRONOMY ON ANEITYUM ECLIPSES. l8l 
 
 evidences superadded. " Ye men of Athens," said Paul, " I 
 perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious," or, as 
 most critics now render it, "ye are very religious." The 
 Futunese, like the Athenians, are " very religious " in their 
 own way. Till certain religious ceremonies and observances 
 have been attended to, they will not plant a single yam; 
 otherwise, it is believed, the yams would not grow, or some 
 calamity, such as sickness or death, would befall the man who 
 planted them. The year before that Mr. Copeland had had 
 some yams planted in his garden before any of these cere- 
 monies had been performed by the sacred men, and they were 
 now ripe. A day was appointed for their being dug, and a 
 number of natives, heathen and Christian, were invited, and 
 came to see the produce taken up. The mounds were opened 
 by the Aneityumese teachers, and out came such yams as had 
 scarcely ever been seen on Futuna,, to the great delight of the 
 Aneityumese and the Christian natives of Futuna, but to the 
 manifest surprise and confusion of the heathen. But, alas ! 
 it was there as it is elsewhere 
 
 ' ' Convince a man against his will, 
 He's of the same opinion still." 
 
 The following Sabbath came, but there was no accession to 
 the number of worshippers. Many an infidel has read Butler, 
 or Paley, or Campbell, or Chalmers, and remained as much an 
 infidel as before. The Pharisees saw our Saviour's miracles, 
 and yet rejected His message of mercy. No doubt the heathen 
 on Futuna would say, as other heathen have repeatedly said, 
 that it might do very well for Mr. Copeland or the Aneityumese 
 to plant their yams without propitiating the gods of Futuna, 
 because they were foreigners, but it would be perilous for
 
 I 82 ASTRONOMY ON ANEITYUM ECLIPSES. 
 
 them to do so. The gods would certainly be angry, and punish 
 them. No one who has not grappled with the superstitions 
 of heathenism can have any idea of the darkness, and hardness, 
 and obstinacy of the heathen heart. They really think that 
 what they believe is true. They have been born into this 
 belief; it has " grown with their growth and strengthened with 
 their strength," and with them their religion is no make- 
 believe. However erroneous, it is a part of their very nature. 
 Nothing can effect a change in their beliefs but Divine power. 
 Still, the more suitable the means, and the more diligently 
 these are employed, the more confidently may we expect the 
 Spirit's influence from on high. Exhibitions such as these 
 serve very much the same purposes among the heathen that 
 lectures and essays on the evidences do among ourselves ; and 
 where they do not convince the sceptic, they often confirm the 
 faith and fortify the mind of the true but weak believer.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 EAKTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE ON ANEITYUM. 
 
 ON the 28th of March 1875 we w ere startled by a very severe 
 earthquake, followed immediately by a tidal wave, which 
 raised the sea ten or eleven feet above its ordinary level at 
 spring-tides. At our station the sea rose about four feet 
 higher than during the hurricane of 1873, when the Day- 
 spring was lost. It was not merely the height to which it 
 rose, but the force with which it rolled in, that rendered it so 
 formidable. It covered all the low land of Aname, the dis- 
 trict on which our houses stood. It broke open every door, 
 and rushed into every house. It made large breaches in 
 the walls of the church, and broke completely down one-half 
 of the outer walls of the Teachers' Institution, a building 
 seventy feet long, and its walls ten feet high. It broke open 
 the front-door of our dwelling-house, and rushed in, two feet 
 deep, through the lobby, although the floor was raised two 
 feet above the ground. The sea rose round the whole island, 
 and did serious damage r at every exposed situation. In all 
 the low-lying districts the taro the staff of life on the island 
 was more or less injured. There had not been such an 
 earthquake, or such a rise of the sea, within the memory of 
 living man. Tradition had to be called in to supply a parallel 
 case. The natives said that their fathers had told them that
 
 1 84 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. 
 
 there was an earthquake in their days which loosened the rocks 
 on the mountains, and sent the stones rolling down into the 
 valleys, and that the sea rose and covered the low lands ; but 
 no one now living saw that earthquake this was the heaviest 
 and most disastrous that any living man had seen. 
 
 On our side of the island there were several narrow escapes 
 from the sea, both of adults and of children, but no lives were 
 lost. On the other side of the island one boy was drowned 
 and two men were severely hurt, and several also had narrow 
 escapes from the sea. As the other station (Mr. Murray's) 
 stood high, it sustained no injury from the sea ; but the large 
 stone church was considerably damaged by the earthquake, 
 the front wall being considerably rent. Several schoolhouses 
 on the shore, on both sides of the island, were destroyed. At 
 Mr. Oronstedt's whaling- station at Anau-unse, on the west, 
 or lee, end of the island, considerable damage was done to the 
 premises by the earthquake; and the wave, as it retired, 
 carried off two whale-boats ; but on the return of the wave 
 for it returned, but in a very modified form, doing no injury 
 the boats were brought back towards the shore, and the 
 natives recovered them, without their having sustained any 
 injury. But at the other whaling-station on the island of 
 Inyeug the scene was appalling, and the ruin was all but 
 complete. The small island of Inyeug forms one side of the 
 Aneityum harbour. It was a lovely and a healthy spot, and 
 had been occupied for nearly thirty years as a whaling and 
 trading station, and been exposed to all the hurricanes that 
 had passed over the island, without sustaining any very 
 serious damage; even the great tidal- wave of August 1868, 
 which came rolling up along the whole eastern coast of New 
 Zealand, and was observed in Port Resolution, in the island
 
 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. I 8$ 
 
 of Tanna as the Dai/spring was lying there at the time 
 was not noticed on Inyeug. On this occasion, however, the 
 sea rose on both sides of the island, and nearly covered the 
 whole of it. Mr. Underwood, with one of his sons and a few 
 natives, were on the station at the time. He heard the sea 
 coming, and called on the rest to run to a little eminence at 
 the end of the island. He himself ran, but was either met or 
 overtaken by the sea, which carried him off his feet ; provi- 
 dentially he caught hold of some firm object, and held on by 
 it till the sea receded, and in this way he escaped with only 
 a few bruises. One whale-boat was carried out to sea, and 
 nearly every house on the island was destroyed. Mr. Under- 
 wood's dwelling-house, a large, strong, weather-boarded build- 
 ing, was lifted up, and carried to the very edge of the sea, and 
 there left a ruin. The whole island was a scene of desolation. 
 
 Having given this brief general account of the earthquake 
 and the wave, I shall now proceed to describe more fully how 
 they affected ourselves. 
 
 On Sabbath evening the 28th of March we had retired to 
 rest at our usual time, between nine and ten o'clock. About 
 a quarter past eleven we were awakened by an earthquake. 
 It was heavy for earthquakes there ', it would have been con- 
 sidered a very moderate one in New Zealand at least in 
 Wellington ; it was, however, unusually long. I thought, and 
 others thought the same, that it must have been more than a 
 minute, and it had a peculiarly alarming motion. After it 
 was over I rose and went through the house, but, so far as I 
 could observe, nothing was injured. I went out ; the natives 
 were all aroused, and out of doors too. It was a beautiful, 
 clear, calm night ; not a breath of wind was blowing ; nothing 
 was heard but the usual sound of the reef ; while the sea seemed
 
 1 86 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. 
 
 quiet and still as a sleeping infant. The moon was within 
 two nights of entering her last quarter, and was about an 
 hour up ; below her, and near her, hung a drapery of sable 
 clouds, with a bright silver lining. Orion, the most conspicuous 
 object at that time during the evenings in the western sky, 
 had just set. The Great Northern Bear, stretched out at his 
 full length, was keeping his nightly watch over the island of 
 Tanna. The Southern Cross had just attained its highest 
 elevation, and was standing perpendicular. Centaurus, Argo 
 Navis, and other constellations were shining with their usual 
 brilliancy from "the chambers of the South." A lovelier 
 night could not have been witnessed. I returned to the house 
 and went to bed, hoping that the disturbance for the night 
 was over ; but in about fifteen minutes after the earthquake 
 we heard a sound in the distance. My wife said, " What sound 
 is that ? " I said, " I think it is a gust of wind coming through 
 the trees " no uncommon thing on calm nights. " It is not 
 wind, that," she said ; and springing out of bed, she looked 
 out at the eastern window, in the direction whence the sound 
 was coming. " There is not a leaf moving," she said. 
 
 The sound was increasing, and she hurried to the door. I 
 sprang up after her. As she opened the back-door she saw 
 one of our natives coming out of their house, just opposite to 
 ours ; and she called out, " Yamin, what sound is that ? " " It 
 is the sea, Misi," he said; "run, run, Misi, run." She called 
 out to me to make haste. He took her by the hand, just as 
 she was, in her night-dress, with a sheet which she had acci- 
 dentally wrapped around her. Fear added wings to her feet, 
 and, under the young man's guidance, in a few moments she 
 had cleared both the back- yard and the back-garden, broken 
 down the reed fence, and gained a slight elevation beyond.
 
 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. l8/ 
 
 They saved their distance and no more ; the sea just touched 
 their feet before they got out of its reach. They were there 
 joined by others, mostly women and children, and thence 
 threaded their way through the bush to our cottage on Lolan- 
 napjis, nearly half a mile distant, at least by the path along 
 which they went, and where they were fairly beyond the reach 
 of the sea. 
 
 In the meantime I had turned back, but only for a few 
 seconds, to draw on a pair of trousers, and experienced a very 
 striking illustration of the value of our Saviour's admonition 
 (Mark xiii. 16), " Let him that is in the field not turn back 
 again to take up his garment." These few moments proved a 
 dangerous, and might have been a fatal, delay ; the sea was 
 in the bedroom before I got out of it, and I had to pass 
 through something like the waters seen in the prophet's vision. 
 At the threshold the waters were to the ankles ; when I had 
 gone, not a thousand, but only thirty paces, the waters were 
 to the knees ; and when I had gone only thirty more, the 
 waters were nearly to the loins, and running in a strong 
 current. In the middle of the back-yard I met our principal 
 native man, carrying his step-daughter on his shoulder; he 
 took hold of my arm, and we waded together till we reached 
 the back part of the yard, and got hold of a native house, in 
 which was lying an elderly woman, the widow of one of our 
 teachers, and who was nearly blind. Mrs. Inglis had called 
 out and aroused her as she passed the house ; but, poor woman ! 
 she could do nothing. In a moment the sea was at her door, 
 which was shut, and to open it would have been to let in the 
 enemy faster than he was coming ; but she wisely sat up in 
 her bed, and left herself in the hands of God. We stood still, 
 and held on by her house, as we could do nothing better. In
 
 1 88 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. 
 
 a short time the worst was over ; the waters rapidly abated, 
 and in five minutes the sea had returned to its wonted chan- 
 nels. Immediately thereafter all the men near us came into 
 the premises to ascertain our condition, and render whatever 
 assistance might be needful. I learned from them that my 
 wife, under safe guidance, was on her way to Lolan-napjis. I 
 therefore sent on clothes, blankets, &c. ; and after seeing that 
 there was no returning waves of any consequence, I followed 
 with the other natives to Lolan-napjis myself, where we spent 
 a safe but rather anxious night. 
 
 About half-past three o'clock on the Monday morning 
 we had another shock of earthquake, much heavier, though 
 greatly shorter, than the first, and which brought down the 
 stone chimney in our cook-house, and which, I presume, was 
 the shock that damaged the stone church at Anelgauhat. 
 About five o'clock, a little before daylight, there was a third, 
 not so heavy as either of the other two; and about eight 
 o'clock there was a fourth, which some thought to be heavier 
 than any of the former three; but as all the damage had 
 been done by the second that could be done, without a con- 
 siderable additional force, this fourth shock left no special 
 traces of its presence. From that time for more, than three 
 weeks there was not a day in which there was not one or 
 more shocks. During the first ten days they amounted to 
 upwards of a hundred; a good many of them were rather 
 sharp shocks, but none of them doing any damage. So far 
 as my experience and information go, the law of earthquakes 
 seems to be this : All the damage is done by the first 
 shock or shocks ; these, again, are succeeded by a number 
 of lighter shocks, which inflict no serious injury. After the 
 severe earthquake in Wellington in 1848, while we were
 
 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. 189 
 
 living there, there was not a day for three months without 
 one or more shocks, but they did no damage; and we then 
 learned that some old whalers had had a similar experience 
 at Dusky Bay many years before. 
 
 On Monday morning, when daylight revealed the effects 
 of the earthquakes and the wave, the scene on the premises 
 was one of great desolation; every house was more or less 
 a ruin, and every place was covered more or less with rubbish 
 and debris. I have already referred to the condition of the 
 church and the Teachers' Institution, but nearly every build- 
 ing had sustained some damage. There being no wind, our 
 roofs the thatch of which was rather a fragile preparation, 
 being made of sugar-cane leaf were all uninjured, a cir- 
 cumstance which greatly mitigated our calamity ; but the 
 walls had been frightfully battered by the action of the sea. 
 The extent of the damage done to our walls may be judged 
 of when I mention that, as near as I could calculate, we 
 had to put up anew four thousand feet of wattle and plaster. 
 The sea had entered every house on our premises on Aname, 
 and every room in every house, with the exception of our 
 bathroom ; the wave had spent its force just before it reached 
 it. All the matting on our floors was saturated with mud 
 and soaked with sea water; the amount of washing and 
 cleaning that had to be performed was almost fabulous. 
 Chests and boxes had been knocked about in all directions, 
 and the most of their contents had been injured by salt 
 water. My boat had been carried out to sea, and brought 
 back again towards the shore, but it was so much injured 
 that I had to break it up. It was an old boat, however, and 
 not of much value. Nearly all our reed fences were laid 
 prostrate, and one-half of them carried completely away ;
 
 190 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. 
 
 while our bananas, which nearly half fed our natives, did not 
 yield more than a third of their usual produce for more than 
 nine months afterwards. 
 
 But that which rendered the calamity more vexatious to us 
 than it otherwise would have been was this : our summer 
 nominally, but our winter really that is, the time when we 
 expected heavy rains, storms, and hurricanes was over, and 
 our premises had undergone all those renovating processes 
 which were considered necessary to make them look decent 
 and respectable for another year. All the whitewashing, 
 painting, cleaning, fencing, repairing of coral walks, &c., 
 required by our houses, our gardens, and our glebe, for the 
 ensuing season, had been finished a few weeks before. We 
 fancied that we were now secure from all labours of this kind 
 for a twelvemonth to come. In a week or ten days we were 
 expecting the Dayspring, with whatever visitors she might 
 bring us ; when, lo ! in less than ten short minutes all our 
 fond hopes were blasted, all our fair prospects were blighted, 
 all our sanguine expectations were signally disappointed ; an 
 overwhelming amount of difficult and discouraging labour was 
 thrown upon our hands. But all is not lost that is imperilled 
 the gloomiest prospects do not always prove the most disas- 
 trous. We were signally favoured by a gracious Providence; 
 in little more than three weeks all our damages were repaired; 
 our ruins, so far as houses were concerned, had disappeared, 
 and cosmos had again emerged from chaos. The premises 
 were as good as they were before ; some parts of them were 
 even better, as they were now quite new. But it caused some 
 twenty days hard work to the natives ; and all that and more 
 very hard and harassing labour to Mrs. Inglis and myself. 
 
 The natives on that occasion, however, behaved uncommonly
 
 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. 191 
 
 well; I never saw their sympathies flow out towards us so 
 fully or so spontaneously. They came out and wrought with 
 a will, unsolicited and unpaid. Our principal chief, Nowan- 
 pakau, who generally took the management and direction of 
 native labour in connection with the mission, was absent on 
 mission business on Tanna ; but so willing were the natives 
 themselves, that his absence was not felt. It was almost 
 worth all the losses we had sustained, and all the labour we 
 had performed, to see the reality of their Christianity so 
 unmistakably brought out, in the readiness and heartiness 
 with which they wrought, without pay and without food, to 
 repair the damages done by the sea and the earthquake. 
 From the morning after the calamity we had on an average 
 fifty natives a day working for us. They came in rotation ; 
 we had a new party every day, with the exception of a few of 
 the more skilled workmen, who assisted me daily in preparing 
 the framework of the. buildings, where these were broken down, 
 or in otherwise making ready the work for the less skilled 
 natives. On the last day but one of these repairs we had a 
 hundred men working at the reed fences, and on the following 
 day we had fifty women collecting and bringing coral to cover 
 our walks the last process in restoring our premises to their 
 former condition. 
 
 Our garden was the only part of our station that showed 
 the effects of the sea, without any possibility of their being 
 speedily removed. Our large and beautiful bananas, the 
 staple produce of our garden, on which our natives depended 
 so largely for food, which combined so fully the utile cum 
 dulci the profitable and the beautiful were to a great extent 
 completely destroyed ; and it required time as well as care to 
 restore them to their former flourishing and fruitful condi-
 
 192 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. 
 
 tion. After the terrific hurricanes that swept over the north 
 and west of Scotland in December and January 1883-4, and 
 committed such awful havoc among our woods, it was re- 
 ported that the Earl of Stair said, when he saw the destruction 
 around Castle Kennedy, that he would rather have seen his 
 noble mansion levelled to the ground, than the devastation 
 produced among his trees ; he could have rebuilt the castle, 
 but he could not restore the woods. Comparing small things 
 with great, our feelings were somewhat akin to his, supposing 
 his castle had been left in ruins as well as his woods. 
 
 I felt a good deal the interruption to my mission labours 
 proper. At that time I was busily occupied correcting our 
 translation of the Old Testament. I had just finished a very 
 careful examination and correction of Mr. Copeland's transla- 
 tion of the twelve minor Prophets, and was going on with a 
 correction of my own translation of Isaiah, embodying Mr. 
 Copeland's corrections of that translation. I had also finished 
 the correction of Genesis and the first fifty Psalms, and was 
 tasking myself to the utmost extent that time and strength 
 would permit, when all these labours were suspended for a 
 month. But the Lord alone knows what is best for us; 
 change of employment is often as good as rest, and that 
 month's physical toil probably did us as much good as a 
 month's holidays might have done ; it was certainly greatly to 
 be preferred to a month's sickness. We felt thankful, after 
 all that had happened, that we were still alive and enjoying 
 our usual health, and were again surrounded, as fully as for- 
 merly, with means and appliances for being useful, and with 
 the conveniences and comforts of civilised life. 
 
 I should have mentioned that on the Monday morning the 
 natives found a considerable number of fish of various kinds
 
 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. 193 
 
 left high and dry by the receding wave ; also one large turtle 
 and several young ones not half grown : these latter are very 
 rarely seen or caught. 
 
 In these tropical islands vegetation is rapid and luxuriant, 
 food can be raised or procured with great ease, and many 
 advantages are held out to those who will take up their abode 
 in those sunny isles. But Paley's great law of compensation 
 holds good all the world over, and those islands prove no excep- 
 tion to its operation ; floods, storms, hurricanes, earthquakes, 
 tidal waves, and fever-producing malaria are some of the 
 conditions attached to island privileges, to prevent people in 
 other less favoured lands from " envying or grieving at the 
 good " of those, in many ways, highly favoured islanders, and 
 to keep them from indulging in any " inordinate motions or 
 affections towards " any of the special privileges which they 
 enjoy. 
 
 But some will say, " Why did you select for your station 
 such a low and exposed locality ? " In answer to this I may 
 state, that when we fixed upon that place for our mission 
 station, we were not aware that those powerful agencies with 
 which, unhappily, we became so familiar were likely to be- 
 come such frequent visitants to that particular spot. If we 
 had had to commence the mission again, we would doubtless 
 have avoided some mistakes that we had committed, and it 
 is to be hoped that young missionaries proceeding to other 
 islands will profit by our experience. Twelve years before 
 that I did think of changing our station, and I carefully 
 examined another locality with that view; but the labour 
 involved in making the change would have been so great that 
 I shrank from the undertaking, and, as a compromise, erected 
 our cottage on Lolan-napjis, which, besides being a sanitorium,
 
 194 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. 
 
 proved a valuable refuge when the earthquakes and the tidal 
 wave came so suddenly upon us, and where we and all our 
 natives stayed ten days, till our sea-soaked dwellings were 
 again habitable. But our station was so central, so con- 
 venient, and had so many advantages, as largely counter- 
 balanced those occasional but severe drawbacks. There had 
 not been on Aneityum an earthquake or a tidal wave like that 
 one for fifty or perhaps a hundred years ; and, relying on the 
 strictly mathematical principles that govern the calculation 
 of chances, we thought we might reasonably hope that the 
 chances were at least like fifty to one, that another such catas- 
 trophe would not occur for many years to come. Mr. Laurie 
 has, however, removed the station wholly to Lolan-napjis, not 
 so much from the fear of a tidal wave, as for the sake of 
 what chiefly led me to erect the cottage at first, viz., the 
 greater salubrity of the situation. 
 
 The earthquake and the tidal wave were severely felt on 
 Aniwa and Eromanga, as well as on Aneityum. There were 
 also at both islands a severe earthquake and a high tidal 
 wave, higher than the first wave, two nights afterwards, on 
 the 3oth of March. The Robertsons and their natives on 
 Eromanga fled to the hills, but no lives were lost. But the 
 place where the tidal wave was most severely felt was at 
 Lifu, on the Loyalty Islands. Three villages were swept 
 away, and from twenty to thirty people were drowned. 
 But the forces of nature were still in a state of activity. 
 On the 5th of May following, at two o'clock in the morning, 
 there was the heaviest earthquake we ever felt on Aneityum. 
 Not only did the earth quake, but the r*ocks were rent. In 
 different parts of the island large blocks of overhanging 
 rock were rent off, and precipitated to the valleys below,
 
 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. 195 
 
 On other parts where large boulders were lying half buried 
 on the surface, they were upheaved and shaken out of the 
 earth, and left strewed about like the riddlings of creation, 
 as Burns said of the stones on his farm of Ellisland. Both 
 our chimneys were thrown down. The kitchen one was razed 
 to its foundation ; the other was brought down to a level 
 with the side walls. The chimney in our dining-room, the 
 lime of which was only slightly cracked by the earthquake 
 of March 2pth, was rent to the foundation, and would have 
 shared the fate of the kitchen chimney had not the lower 
 part of it been strongly braced by a partition and the frame 
 of a door on the one side, and of a press on the other ; but 
 the top of the chimney, which was four feet high above the 
 roof, was pitched over to the ground with apparently as 
 much ease as a man's hat would have been blown off his 
 head by a strong gust of wind. It touched the roof only 
 in one place ; the house stood nearly north and south, but the 
 chimney was thrown diagonally, in a south-east direction. 
 Afraid of another tidal wave, we all fled inland as fast as 
 we could, and threaded our way through the bush to our 
 cottage on Lolan-napjis, where we stayed till daylight ; happily 
 there was no rise of the sea at all. While we were in the 
 bush there was another heavy shock, which made the trees 
 quiver and move backwards and forwards all around us. For 
 three months afterwards we were never more than a few 
 days without earthquakes, mostly slight, but a good many 
 rather sharp ; but they did no damage. They were gene- 
 rally preceded by a loud hollow rumbling sound, under the 
 ground, resembling distant thunder. We heard it coming 
 from the north-west, and waited, expecting a severe shock ; 
 sometimes there was a sharp quiver, sometimes a slight
 
 196 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. 
 
 one, and sometimes none at all ; but as you never can 
 calculate what an earthquake may be, those hollow threaten- 
 ing sounds produced anything but a soothing effect upon 
 an excited nervous system. The volcano on Tanna was 
 unusually active during those three months; though forty 
 miles distant, almost every day we heard the eruptions like 
 the booming of distant cannon. The mission-house at the 
 other station was built of stone. The Murrays, who then 
 occupied the station, awakened by the shock, sprang out 
 of bed and made for the door, but the door was locked, and 
 the key had been shaken out of the door, and there appeared 
 to be nothing before them but to be buried in the ruins. 
 Happily they found escape by another door, and spent the 
 remainder of the night, which was cold and comfortless, in 
 the open air, and thus escaped unhurt. 
 
 Although at our station, in addition to the two chimneys, a 
 great deal of plaster was brought down, and lamps, bottles, 
 glass, crockery, and kindred articles were smashed up a good 
 deal, yet the damage was nothing compared with that of the 
 28th and 2pth of March. I repaired the chimneys by means 
 of piping, and by the time the vessel returned with the 
 missionaries for the meeting of Synod, our repairs were com- 
 pleted and our house again habitable, But while, for all 
 merely utilitarian purposes, the station was as good as ever, 
 yet, as one of the missionaries observed, our church, Institu- 
 tion, dwelling-house, &c., were all so patched-up-like that our 
 premises would never again have the same appearance that 
 they once had. 
 
 But we felt thankful "While earthquakes, floods, storms, 
 and everything terrible in the phenomena of nature had, for 
 the year previous, been making the circuit of earth and ocean
 
 EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVE. 1 97 
 
 while it would have been difficult to say where one could 
 have gone to be safe and while we once and again fled, 
 as they " fled before the earthqtiake in the days of Uzziah, 
 king of Judah " the Lord mercifully preserved us in life and 
 health, and secured or restored to us all our comforts. 
 
 After thirty years' experience of earthquakes and kindred 
 phenomena, I have often said that nothing reminds one so 
 forcibly of the day of judgment as an earthquake, especially 
 when it happens at night ; it is so sudden, so unexpected, so 
 uncertain as to the future, so striking, so irresistible in its 
 effects, and strikes such terror into the hearts of a whole 
 community in a single moment. When God unbars the doors 
 that shut up the great deep, when He suspends the prohibi- 
 tion, " Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther, and here 
 shall thy proud waves be staid," men and the works of men 
 become an easy prey to the newly escaped prisoner. When 
 the sea came upon us in all his strength, roaring like thunder 
 along the whole coast, it furnished a striking commentary on 
 the passage, while they all slumbered and slept, at midnight 
 there was a cry made, " Behold, the bridegroom cometh ; go ye 
 out to meet him ; " and they that were ready went in. But 
 there was no time left for getting rea'dy, for " the door was 
 shut " (Matt. xxv. i-io).
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC IN THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 THE labour traffic to Queensland, Fiji, and New Caledonia 
 has been carried on in the New Hebrides for twenty -three 
 years. It began in 1863. Its history is well known. It 
 has been vigorously attacked as a part of that " consummation 
 of all villanies," and it has been as stoutly defended, not 
 only as a profitable investment to the planters, but as an 
 institution of unspeakable advantage to the natives. Almost 
 everything has been said both against it and for it that could 
 well be said ; and we fondly hope that its days are nearly 
 numbered. Volumes have been written upon the subject, and 
 it would require many volumes more to record and expose 
 its black and bloody history. In a single chapter I can 
 merely indicate its outstanding features. As we have pre- 
 historic events, and Reformers before the Reformation, so we 
 have a prehistoric as well as a historic labour traffic. There 
 are three names that stand out prominently in the prehistoric 
 period of this grand enterprise, viz., Mr. Benjamin Boyd, 
 Captain Paddon, and Mr. Robert Towns. Mr. Boyd was a 
 Scotchman, belonging" to an old and highly respectable family 
 in Wigtownshire. He was a man of great energy and enter- 
 prise, an extensive squatter in New South "Wales. He 
 founded Boyd Town at Twofold Bay, near the southern
 
 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 199 
 
 extremity of New South Wales. He presented Dr. Lang 
 with the first bell for the Scots church in Sydney ; probably 
 it continues to toll there still. So far as I know, he was the 
 first to deport natives from" the islands to the Colonies. He 
 sent down a vessel to the New Hebrides, and took away about 
 eighty or a hundred natives. I met the captain of that 
 vessel on Aneityum a year or two after our settlement there. 
 He told me that their mode of procedure was this. The 
 natives were quite willing to go with them, but they took only 
 ten or a dozen from each island. In this way each party was 
 afraid of all the others, and, speaking eight or ten languages 
 on board, like the builders at Babel, they could take no con- 
 certed action against the captain and crew, and they were 
 all conveyed to Boyd Town quiet as lambs to the slaughter, 
 and were set to work on the stations. Six or eight were 
 taken from Aneityum, three of whom returned. From their 
 own account, they were well used ; but, like all captive exiles, 
 they longed to be home. So on some fitting occasion the 
 Aneityum contingent ran off and took the way to Melbourne, 
 some 200 miles distant. As soon as their flight came to be 
 known, a party was sent after them on horseback, who by- 
 and-by overtook them, and ordered them to return. " No," 
 said they; "this man is our chief, and we must obey him," 
 pointing to the'eldest of the party, whose name was Kauware. 
 The man in pursuit seems to have been a wise and humane 
 man, for, instead of shooting one or two of them, and driving 
 the rest back with a musket pointed to their heads, as the 
 practice in such cases has often been since, he conducted them 
 to Melbourne, put them on board a vessel for Sydney, whence 
 they found their way back to Aneityum. One or two of the 
 number engaged to remain in Melbourne ; one was drowned
 
 200 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 
 
 about Sydney. If there were any more they were not ac- 
 counted for. The three that returned home were among the 
 Christian party when we arrived on the island. They were 
 uncommonly clever men, and were all afterwards settled as 
 teachers on Tanna. In the beginning of June 1851 Mr. 
 Boyd left San Francisco with two vessels, the Wanderer and 
 the Ariel, with the view of exploring the South Sea Islands, 
 then little known, and of trying to establish a kind of 
 Papuan Republic or Confederation; thus anticipating the 
 plans proposed by Sir Julius Vogel and others plans, 
 however feasible, yet wholly impracticable. On the i5th of 
 October following, Mr. Boyd and a single native went ashore 
 on Guadalcanar, one of the Solomon Islands, where he was 
 killed by the natives. His friends on board the Wanderer 
 waited several days, and made every effort to find him, either 
 dead or alive, but without success. In 1854, three years 
 afterwards, a report reached Sydney that Mr. Boyd's name, 
 or at least his initials, were seen cut on trees on the island 
 where he went ashore, that the natives said he was alive, 
 but that he was a prisoner. Mr. Boyd must have been very 
 popular in Sydney. For from the strength of this report, such 
 an amount of outside pressure was brought to bear on the 
 Government, that orders were sent to Captain Denham of 
 H.M.S. Herald, who was carrying on a Government survey 
 in Fiji, to leave the survey at once, and proceed to the 
 Solomon group in search of Mr. Boyd. He proceeded at once, 
 but called at Aneityum to see if we could find him interpreters, 
 and if he could procure any provisions, as he was short of 
 supplies. Interpreters there were none, but Dr. Geddie and 
 I supplied him with a few casks of flour which, of course, 
 he either paid for or replaced and a quantity of native food.
 
 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 2OI 
 
 He proceeded to Guadalcanal 1 , but no traces could be found 
 of Mr. Boyd. But Mr. Boyd, however good his own conduct 
 and intentions were, had discovered a mine of wealth for his 
 successors in the labour traffic, but accompanied with evils of 
 which he could have no conception. 
 
 Captain Paddon, the next outstanding representative in the 
 traffic, was an Englishman, connected with a good family, and 
 who had served on board a man-of-war as a midshipman, 
 came from India in charge of a merchant vessel, and opened 
 a large trading station on Aneityum before Mr. Geddie's 
 arrival, and went in largely for the trade in sandalwood, 
 which had just been discovered on the islands. Captain 
 Paddon was an able and energetic man, popular, and well 
 liked by sailors and the white men afloat among the islands. 
 He was the first to work out the principle that, in order to 
 get natives to work well, you must take them away from 
 their own island, and leave them entirely dependent on their 
 employer for their food. He also adopted Mr. Boyd's plan 
 of bringing them in limited numbers from different islands, 
 so that they could not combine against their employer. Bishop 
 Selwyn told me that he took some hints from Captain Paddon's 
 mode of managing his natives, in making his arrangements 
 for conducting his Melanesian College at Auckland ; he was 
 a keen observer, and took hints from all quarters. Captain 
 Paddon became the prime mover in the sandalwood trade. 
 After a residence of some years on Aneityum he removed to 
 Tanna, and subsequently to New Caledonia, where he died 
 in 1862. With him ended what I have called the prehistoric 
 period of the labour traffic. He employed a large number of 
 natives for working on his own station, collecting sandalwood 
 on Erornango and Santo, and in sailing in his vessels; but
 
 202 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 
 
 he never took them away from the islands, and he seemed 
 desirous to treat them kindly. But he gave a great impulse 
 to the labour traffic, although its evils were not then greatly 
 developed. 
 
 Mr. Robert Towns was one of the leading merchants and 
 shipowners in Sydney ; he was a member of the " Upper 
 House," and he was the connecting-link between the pre- 
 historic and historic periods of the labour traffic ; he closed 
 the former, and initiated the latter. He brought numbers of 
 natives to Sydney, to work on his wharf and on his planta- 
 tion at Paramatta. I met with him in 1863, when he told 
 me that the natives in his employment at Paramatta were 
 as fat as pigs and as merry as crickets ; he seemed to think 
 that they could not be happier than they were. He was a 
 liberal subscriber to the hospital, and had a right to a certain 
 number of beds ; and when any of his natives were ill, they 
 were sent to the hospital. While we were staying in Sydney 
 with our friend, Dr. Moon, one of the surgeons of the 
 hospital called upon me, to see if I would go and interpret 
 for him to a sick native. " Mr. Towns," said he, " has almost 
 always some of his sick kanakas with xis, and we are terribly 
 annoyed with them ; we do not know their language, and 
 they do not know ours ; hence we cannot find out, with any 
 certainty, what is wrong with them, and they cannot be 
 made to understand what they are to do." I went with 
 him, and found out that the man came from Efate, but 
 his language was unknown to me. I got the Rev. Mr. 
 Buzacot, formerly of Rarotonga, to visit him. He and a 
 native of that island, who lived with him, went to the 
 hospital, but they could not speak intelligibly to the sick 
 man.
 
 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 203 
 
 It was in the sandalwood trade, however, that Mr. Towns 
 at first in connection with Captain Paddon, and finally 
 himself alone employed the greatest number of natives. The 
 sandalwood was collected chiefly on Eromanga and Santo, and 
 stored on Aneityum. Mr. Towns sent down a vessel once every 
 three months to take the wood on to China. As the sandal- 
 wood was nearly exhausted on the New Hebrides when the 
 cotton-planting began, so Mr. Towns, who was the father and 
 founder of the labour traffic in Queensland, at once transported 
 his capital, vessels, and employees from the one traffic to the 
 other. The sandalwood trade inflicted a great amount of 
 cruelty on the natives, and caused a good deal of bloodshed ; 
 but it was nothing compared with the labour traffic proper, 
 either in the extent of its operations or in its terribly injurious 
 consequences. The cargoes were no longer dead matter 
 lumps of scented wood but human beings with immortal 
 souls, treated largely as chattels. No doubt Mr. Towns and 
 those who invested their capital and employed their vessels 
 in the labour traffic were men of average justice and humanity, 
 who had no wish to be harsh, cruel, or unjust, but their 
 language was like this " We have land, but land is of no use 
 without labour ; we must have labour, get it as we may." And 
 the instructions to their agents were understood to imply some- 
 thing like this " Get labour; get it honestly if you can ; but 
 get labour ! " As time went on nearly all the rowdyism and 
 all the ruffianism of the Colonies was afloat in search of labour ; 
 the character of the agency and the circumstances of the 
 trade soon produced a state of things the very reverse of 
 what Mr. Gladstone aims at in his legislation, for in this 
 case it became more and more difficult to do right, but more 
 and more easy to do wrong. Easy and rapid was the descent
 
 204 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 
 
 to Avernus. Mr. Towns explained to me in Sydney his plans 
 for employing natives, and assured me that, if the missionaries 
 would assist him in getting natives, he would do more to 
 civilise them in one year than Mr. Geddie and myself would 
 do in ten. No doubt he thought so ; but we nattered our- 
 selves that we knew better ; and the experience of twenty- three 
 years has not changed my opinions. 
 
 At that time the American war had raised the value of 
 cotton to such fabulous prices that Queensland, Fiji, and New 
 Caledonia became cotton-growing countries, and the demand 
 for labour was enormous. When peace was restored, and 
 the price of cotton fell, the planters began to cultivate sugar 
 instead of cotton, and so the demand for labour continued. 
 In 1863 Mr. Towns sent down his first vessel to the New 
 Hebrides to deport natives to his cotton plantations in 
 Queensland. At this point of its history the traffic was all 
 meekness ; its voice was that of a lamb, mild and gentle ; 
 the labourers were engaged for six months only. If they were 
 unwilling to return home at the end of that period, they 
 would be allowed to remain six months longer. By-and-by 
 the term of service was extended not only from six months to 
 twelve, but from one year to three, and subsequently from 
 three years to five, and numbers were kept much longer. When 
 Fiji became a Crown colony Sir Arthur Gordon, always a 
 true friend to the native races, sent home, at the Government 
 expense, hundreds of natives, many of whom had been de- 
 tained long beyond the period of their engagement. Year 
 after year the traffic increased ; it was almost the only trade 
 in those seas. If it was objected that the white men could 
 not speak to the natives, and that the natives could not 
 understand the terms of the agreement they were said to
 
 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 205 
 
 have made, every vessel was at once provided with an inter- 
 preter a "Tanna man." Tanna was the great emporium 
 for interpreters. One would have supposed that every Tanna 
 man was an "Admirable Crichton," that he could speak his 
 way to the wall of China, or that he knew every one of the 
 twenty languages spoken on the New Hebrides. Nothing 
 could show more clearly the fraudulent character of the system 
 than the sham of the " Tanna man " interpreter. Force and 
 fraud became more and more frequent, outrages on the one 
 hand, and retaliation on the other, rapidly increased, till the 
 one culminated in the horrible tragedy on board the Carl, 
 and the other in the lamented death of Bishop Patteson. 
 
 The Carl case, which was tried in Melbourne, sent a thrill 
 of horror not only through the Australasian Colonies, but far 
 beyond. The naked facts were these. The Carl sailed from 
 Melbourne to Fiji. The head of the expedition was a Dr. 
 Murray. The captain left the vessel at Levuka ; the mate, 
 whose name was Armstrong, was appointed captain. He 
 obtained a license from Consul March to go on a " labour 
 cruise." Dr. Murray accompanied the vessel as surgeon. They 
 proceeded to the New Hebrides, and then to the Solomon 
 group. Their mode of kidnapping was this. They had heavy 
 pieces of iron fastened to ropes, and the ropes tied to the 
 vessel. When canoes came alongside the ship, the captain 
 and the sailors threw these pieces of iron into the canoes, and 
 capsized them, and as the natives were swimming about the 
 white men picked them up, heaved them on deck, and 
 secured them in the hold. At Malicolla they kidnapped twelve 
 or thirteen, at Santa Anna the same number was obtained, 
 at Isabel they got ten, and at Florida four or five ; but at 
 Bougainville, an island densely inhabited by warlike natives,
 
 206 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 
 
 they obtained eighty, whom they also secured in the hold. 
 But in this instance they overlooked Mr. Boyd's precaution, 
 and took too many from one place. After being forty-eight 
 hours on board, the Bougainvilleans, impatient of restraint 
 and conscious of their strength, began to fight ; some of them 
 attempted to set fire to the ship ; others tried to prevent them ; 
 and this caused the fighting. Every attempt was made to 
 pacify them, but no white man understood their language. 
 In about a quarter of an hour they were fired on with guns 
 and revolvers by the whites, who had behaved inhumanly 
 enough before, but who now thirsted for blood like wild 
 beasts. The firing and fighting lasted all night. In the 
 morning the hatches were taken off, and the killed and 
 wounded were taken out of the hold and put on deck. There 
 were about seventy killed and wounded. The dead natives 
 were at once thrown overboard. There were about fifty killed 
 and twenty wounded. The twenty wounded were thrown 
 into the sea while still alive. The white men set to and so 
 scrubbed the vessel and whitewashed it with lime, that when 
 a party from a man-of-war overhauled the vessel, it was 
 pronounced to be all right. When the case was tried in 
 Melbourne, Dr. Murray became Queen's evidence. The cap- 
 tain and mate were sentenced to severe punishment ; but 
 their counsel taking advantage of some legal technicalities, the 
 sentence was evaded, and after a short imprisonment they 
 were released. 
 
 The Carl case was no doubt an exceptionally bad one, but 
 there were scores of other cases of precisely the same char- 
 acter, only more limited in extent. The trade was found to 
 be so insufferably bad, that, roused by those atrocities, the 
 Imperial Parliament passed an Act, not to suppress the traffic,
 
 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 2 07 
 
 but to regulate it ; for the belief was still held that the traffic, 
 like the old slave-trade, might be satisfactorily regulated. 
 This Act was to be quoted as the " Kidnapping Act," the title 
 clearly indicating the character of the evil it was intended to 
 remedy. It was not intended, of course, to regulate the kid- 
 napping, but it was expected to transmute those kidnappers 
 into humane, honest, and honourable emigration agents. Yet, 
 strange to say, all this time the Queensland authorities were 
 pronouncing the traffic to be immaculate ; everything was 
 being done according to Act of Parliament. If anything was 
 wrong, you must look in the direction of Fiji or New Cale- 
 donia ; and when a charge of this kind was hinted at in those 
 quarters, a cry was immediately heard, loud and indignant, 
 as that of injured innocence. From the very beginning our 
 missionaries and our Mission Synod, year after year, pro- 
 claimed the character and the doings of the traffic to the 
 Presbyterian Churches supporting the mission, and to the 
 Colonial and Imperial Governments. As I have stated else- 
 where, a letter from one of our missionaries, the Rev. James 
 M'Nair of Eromanga, having fallen into the hands of Mr. 
 P. A. Taylor, M.P., was the cause of the evil being first 
 brought to the notice of the British Parliament. By the 
 Act above referred to, the Government and Parliament of 
 Great Britain stamped the Polynesian labour traffic, during 
 the first ten years of its existence, as being largely a system 
 of kidnapping, and that Act was passed with the view of 
 eliminating that element from the traffic. To secure that 
 object all the former regulations were to be rendered more 
 stringent, and new arrangements were to be made for re- 
 dressing the grievances and securing the rights of the natives, 
 and for putting the traffic on such a footing that it would be
 
 208 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 
 
 as beneficial to the labourers as to their employers. Hence 
 all vessels, as formerly, were to be licensed ; a Government 
 agent was to be continued on board of every vessel, to testify 
 that all the emigrants came willingly, and that they under- 
 stood fully the terms of agreement, and that every regulation 
 was carried out as appointed by Government. In addition to 
 this, a small man-of-war was stationed on every group, as an 
 ocean police, to watch the doings of the traffic. We have had 
 thirteen years of the traffic under this reformed phase, and 
 what has been the result ? The outrageous buccaneering 
 character of the traffic has to a large extent disappeared, but 
 there is a very wide consensus of opinion to the effect that 
 the spirit of the Kidnapping Act has been largely evaded. 
 In the mission field, in the Colonies, and in the public press 
 at home a strong belief is expressed that the essence of 
 slavery and the slave-trade is still to be found in this labour 
 traffic ; that the natives are taken away, as Lord Derby has 
 formulated the expression, either by force, or by representations 
 that actually amount to fraud. 
 
 Our mission urges, not the further regulation of the traffic, 
 which twenty-three years' experience has shown to be tho- 
 roughly vicious in principle, but its complete suppression. 
 "We urge this on three grounds (i) the in jury it is doing to 
 missions ; (2) the evil results to the natives in the depopula- 
 tion of the islands ; and (3) the loss of life by violence, both 
 native and European, to which it is constantly leading. We 
 hear much in these times of vested interests, of their sacred 
 and inalienable character, and of the right for compensation 
 when they are invaded or affected in any way. Now if there 
 are vested rights anywhere, our mission certainly possesses 
 them in the New Hebrides. We have invested ^"150,000 to
 
 THE LABOUR TEAFFIC. 209 
 
 begin with. , Our claims go back for nearly fifty years. But 
 we have invested life as well as money. Let us take the his- 
 tory of Eromanga, an island that unhappily has a world- wide 
 reputation. On the second day after missionary operations 
 had been commenced on the New Hebrides, John Williams 
 and Mr. Harris, as I have elsewhere said, laid down their 
 lives as martyrs on that island. Twenty-two years later the 
 Eev. G. N. Gordon and his saintly wife were martyred, and 
 ten years afterwards his brother, the Rev. J. D. Gordon, fell 
 beneath the tomahawk of the savage. Before this last martyrr 
 dom, the Rev. James M'Nair, a man of an eminently mis- 
 sionary spirit, succumbed to fever and ague the disease of 
 the island and died. At this juncture the Rev. H. A. 
 Robertson, with his beautiful, accomplished, excellent, and 
 heroic young wife, arrived from Nova Scotia, and, of their 
 own free choice, they were settled on blood-stained Eromanga 
 in 1871. They took their lives in their hands. Often were 
 they in imminent peril from the savage heathen. Often for 
 weeks the Christian natives watched their house day and 
 night, lest they should be murdered by the heathen ; but 
 they wrought on till Eromanga has become virtually Chris- 
 tian. Mr. Robertson entered fully into the spirit and aims 
 of his martyred predecessors ; he gathered up and utilised the 
 results of their labours. He followed out their plans, and 
 worked upon their lines ; from Dillon's Bay as a centre he 
 opened up stations and sent out native agents on both sides 
 of the island, till these agencies met at Cook's Bay, on the 
 other end of the island, forty miles distant. His heart was 
 delighted when, after years of danger and difficulty, he had 
 completed his organisation, and placed a chain of schools, 
 stations, and native agents round the island. But what was
 
 2IO THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 
 
 his disappointment when, some months afterwards, he returned 
 to Cook's Bay, one of his most important stations, and found 
 the school closed and worship discontinued. A labour vessel 
 had called in, and both the teacher and every young and able- 
 bodied man had been induced to go on board, to proceed to 
 Queensland or Fiji, or wherever else the vessel was going, to 
 be sold for 6 sterling a head, ostensibly as passage-money 
 for the immigrants. No doubt in this case both captain and 
 agent would present a clean bill at the Immigration Office ; 
 the agent would testify that the immigrants had all shipped 
 of their own freewill, and had all perfectly understood the 
 terms of the contract, although neither captain nor agent 
 understood a word of Eromangan. A few words of pigeon- 
 English picked up by some one of the natives was a sufficient 
 medium for settling all the terms of the engagement. But 
 let us see how the matter was looked at by the missionary. 
 Happily we have not here tp draw upon" our imagination ; 
 we have it expressed in his own words, in a letter published 
 in the Presbyterian Record for the Dominion of Canada for 
 April 1880 : 
 
 " To many of those young men, especially to those who 
 were brought out of heathen darkness by means of our 
 labours, I am deeply attached ; and were it not for those 
 wretched slavers our hearts would be greatly cheered among 
 them. But, oh ! these so-called labour vessels (?) are an 
 immense curse and drawback. May this miserable traffic 
 soon be abolished ! Within the past four months these 
 fishers of men have taken away more than a hundred of my 
 promising young men and lads, including one TEACHER ! ! ! 
 That is, they have bought them with muskets, axes, knives, 
 calico, &c., paid for them on the spot ! Christian friends,
 
 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 2 I I 
 
 this is a vile traffic, and I am henceforward its decided and 
 open enemy. What use, so far as I can see, is there in 
 my Church paying me a salary to bring this people out of 
 heathen darkness if it is only for this world ? only to make 
 them better servants ? for whom ? for those who have no 
 interest in them beyond what they can get out of them." 
 
 These words are the utterances of a heart, as we can see, 
 rent with anguish. But this is not a solitary case. It is 
 within our knowledge that similar things have been done 
 again and again on Eromanga. Furthermore, there is not 
 a mission station on the New Hebrides from which some, 
 in many cases a large number, of their most promising 
 natives have not been taken away in a similar manner. 
 None can deny that we have invested a large amount of 
 blood and treasure on EJromanga; we have acquired a vast 
 amount of valuable knowledge, we have gained a great deal 
 of important influence, and we have obtained a considerable 
 amount of useful experience, all of which we are turning 
 to account for the Christianising, the enlightening, and the 
 civilising of the poor degraded natives. But we have no 
 Act of Parliament to protect our vested interests. We 
 cannot sell those investments, and unless we are allowed 
 to utilise them, and work them out in our own way, they 
 are lost to us and to the world for ever. We have provided, 
 and are still further providing, for the natives religious and 
 secular instruction ; but when they are taken away, their 
 seats in the churches and in the schools are left empty, and, 
 so far as they are concerned, our agencies become a needless 
 expenditure ; the natives go where nobody can speak to them, 
 and where they can speak to nobody, and henceforward their 
 progress ceases. We are quietly and peacefully carrying
 
 212 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 
 
 on our work; we are molesting nobody in Queensland or 
 elsewhere; and what moral right has the Government of 
 Fiji or Queensland to license the rowdyism of their respective 
 populations, to go down and prowl about and plunder our 
 mission of its best natives, and carry into captivity the 
 poor defenceless inhabitants of those islands, in order that 
 their thews and sinews may be transmuted into Colonial 
 gold, careless as to the fate of their aged parents or their 
 young and helpless children left behind on the islands ? I 
 shall just give another example of the way in which recruit- 
 ing for labourers is carried on in the islands, with the 
 " Kidnapping Act " in full operation. 
 
 On the 5th of September 1882 the three-masted schooner, 
 Ceara Captain Satine, a Swede a Queensland labour vessel 
 carrying the English flag, lay to opposite the South River, 
 as it is called, in Eromanga, about twelve miles south of 
 Dillon's Bay, where the principal mission station on that 
 island is located. The Ceara sent in two boats manned with 
 native crews the one of them in charge of a white man, 
 the other in charge of a native named Nomoo belonging 
 to the island of Tanna. These two boats proceeded up the 
 river ; the one landed on the right bank and the other on 
 the left. When the Tanna man went ashore, he professed 
 to be in search of water, and to be afraid to land, lest the 
 Eromangans should kill him. They said, " Oh, do not be 
 afraid. You see the church there ; we are all Christians now, 
 and kill nobody." He went in the direction of the water, 
 but did not seem to take much interest in it. He came 
 in behind where some of the women were sitting, and 
 made an attempt to seize Utokatak, the chief's daughter, a 
 young woman sitting among the rest. A man, probably her
 
 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 213 
 
 brother, interposed; a scuffle ensued; the Tanna man fired 
 a revolver and wounded the Eromangan, though happily 
 he was not killed. The young woman fled. The Tanna man 
 pursued, seized the girl, and carried her to the boat, and 
 placed her securely in the stern. Meanwhile Lovo, her 
 father, ran after them, calling upon the other men to assist 
 him in saving his daughter ; but before any effective resist- 
 ance could be organised, the Tanna man had not only made 
 fast the young woman, but had turned round and seized 
 the steer-oar, while the natives in the boat, as directed, levelled 
 their muskets at the father, and shot him dead at the bow 
 of the boat. They then pushed the boat into deep water and 
 pulled down the river. At the same time the other boat 
 left the other side of the river, taking away a young lad ; 
 but whether he went willingly or unwillingly had not been 
 ascertained, although, from the fact that another young lad 
 was seen running away from the boat, as if escaping from 
 being caught, the likelihood was, that the lad was carried 
 off against his will. The two boats met down the river, 
 and the Tanna man placed the young woman in the white 
 man's boat, and the white man proceeded to the vessel with 
 the two recruits. 
 
 Nomoo, the Tanna man, remained behind with his boat, and 
 pulled along the shore for a few miles, till he came to a small 
 creek, where there was a boat harbour, which he entered. 
 There were some natives on the shore at that place. As the 
 Tanna man could speak Eromangan, he called upon the 
 natives to come to the boat, holding up a quantity of tobacco 
 as an indication that he wished to trade. TJmo, the teacher in 
 that place, an excellent young man, went down to the boat. 
 He had an owl in his hand, which the Tanna man bought.
 
 214 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 
 
 When the teacher was delivering up the bird and taking hold 
 of the tobacco, the Tanna man seized him by the wrist and 
 attempted to drag him into the boat ; but he succeeded in 
 wresting himself from the Tanna man's grasp, and Nomoo 
 placed his revolver to Umo's right side and shot hjm. Umo 
 fell in the water, but springing to his feet, he ran up the 
 ravine. The Tanna man pursued him, revolver in hand, calling 
 upon him to stop or he would shoot him. He did not stop ; 
 the Tanna man fired, and the Eromangan, after running a 
 short time, fell down dead on the spot. The other Eromangans 
 fled to the bush. The Tanna man returned to the boat and 
 rejoined the vessel, which proceeded to Havannah harbour, on 
 Efate. Mr. Robertson and the people at Dillon's Bay saw 
 the vessel pass, but at the time were ignorant of the terrible 
 tragedy that had just been enacted. This Tanna man was a 
 well-known character ; he had been sixteen years connected 
 with the traffic, and that conduct was a specimen of the boasted 
 civilising influence which that system brings to bear on 
 savage character. He belonged to a place called Sulphur 
 Bay or Weasisi, where that same year we had opened a new 
 mission station, and settled on it Mr. and Mrs. Gray, the 
 missionary and his wife of the Presbyterian Church of South 
 Australia. Now, if such deeds are perpetrated almost within 
 sight of a missionary's door, what do we conceive is being 
 done among those islands where there is no missionary resid- 
 ing ? The Imperial and the Colonial Governments have been 
 trying to regulate this labour traffic for the last twenty -three 
 years, and its character remains as we see it. Had the 
 philanthropic Wilberforce or Dr. Andrew Thomson been alive 
 to-day, they would have denounced this euphoniously-named 
 labour traffic as strongly as they denounced the slavery and
 
 THE LABOUR TEAFFIC. 21 5 
 
 the slave-trade of their own times denounced it as a system 
 that contained the very essence of the slave-trade and slavery, 
 a system that must be suppressed at whatever risks, because 
 it cannot be regulated ; for it is rotten to the core ; and we 
 call upon good Christians everywhere to help us in protecting 
 the poor and defenceless natives from the hands of bloody and 
 deceitful men. 
 
 A common way of conducting the traffic is this. The labour 
 vessel lies in the offing, and two boats are sent into the bay. 
 One of them, manned chiefly by natives, it may be from Tanna 
 or the Loyalty Islands, goes close in to the shore to engage 
 natives. The other lies some distance off, so as to cover the 
 first boat, and so as to be able to sweep the beach, if neces- 
 sary, with rifles, or shoot down any troublesome native. The 
 natives, knowing these arrangements, are in general on their 
 good behaviour; but at times misunderstandings occur and 
 collisions take place. Some old man, the chief of the tribe 
 perhaps, interposes to prevent his son, a young lad, from going 
 away in a labour vessel, and he is shot dead by those in charge 
 of the boats ; and this, as was to be expected, is afterwards 
 followed by a massacre of some other boat's crew. Is this 
 free emigration ? In this country there are Government 
 agents to see that every emigrant gets fair play, and as soon 
 as he lands in Canada, or elsewhere, he is met by another, to 
 see that all contracts have been fulfilled ; and even this is not 
 considered sufficient, for it is now proposed to have Govern- 
 ment agents on board the ship, as well as at both ends of the 
 voyage, to see that full justice is done to the emigrants during 
 the few days or the few weeks occupied by the voyage. And 
 all this for emigrants who know every word that is spoken to 
 them, who know what their rights are, and, if wronged, or
 
 2l6 THE LABOUK TRAFFIC. 
 
 supposed to be wronged, know how, and where, and when 
 to apply for redress. It is totally different with our native 
 emigrants. In Queensland or Fiji, it is true, there is a 
 Government agent to look after them, but he does not know a 
 word of their language, and they do not know a word of his. 
 On board the vessels at the islands there is another Govern- 
 ment agent, who is equally ignorant of their language, and 
 they of his ; and as this agent is under the strongest tempta- 
 tion to make matters smooth for the captain and the owners, 
 the poor natives have no security against either force or 
 fraud. 
 
 But although the natives were ever so willing to go to 
 Queensland and other places, we urge the complete suppres- 
 sion of the labour traffic, because it is fast depopulating the 
 islands and exterminating the natives. Let the present state 
 of things go on, and in a comparatively short period of time 
 those lovely islands will be uninhabited wastes. In Tasmania 
 the native race is extinct. In Victoria there are only a few 
 hundreds left. In New South Wales they are now only a 
 remnant. Over nearly the whole of the South Seas, especially 
 in Western Polynesia, the native population is decreasing. 
 But all causes put together are not so destructive of native 
 life as the labour traffic. At the present time there is a fleet 
 of about thirty labour vessels afloat among those islands, each 
 one, on an average, deporting eighty emigrants each voyage. - 
 These vessels will make, on an average, four or five voyages 
 annually. I have known them make a voyage once a month 
 from the New Hebrides to New Caledonia. This would make 
 10,000 or 12,000 of a drain on the able-bodied male popula- 
 tion annually. The engagements are never less than for three 
 years, but often for five. This involves the constant absence
 
 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 2 I/ 
 
 from the labour-recruiting districts of say 40,000 able-bodied 
 men. Allowing these to be a fifth of the population, we have 
 200,000 people deprived of their principal bread-winners. 
 How society must be deranged by such a process ! On the 
 islands how much the birth-rate must be reduced, and how 
 much the mortality of the young, the aged, and the helpless 
 must be augmented, while the death-rate on the plantations 
 is amazingly increased ! In Queensland, instead of the nor- 
 mal mortality of 9 annually in the 1000, among men from 
 eighteen to forty-five years of age, it ranges from 70 to no 
 in the 1000, or about ten times as much as it ought to be. 
 But, to show that these statements are not hypothetical nor 
 exaggerated, I shall quote the latest and the highest authority 
 that can be obtained on the subject. The Sydney Illustrated 
 News of August 28, 1885, quoting from the special com- 
 missioner of the Sydney Morning Herald, says : " The Royal 
 Commissioners, in their report to the Government of Queens- 
 land, say that the natives were 'seduced on board on false 
 pretences,' ' that the nature of their engagements was never 
 fully explained to them,' ' that the method of recruiting was 
 cruelly deceptive and altogether illegal,' ' that a system of deli- 
 berate fraud was practised in engaging all the recruits,' and 
 ' that, while some of the natives were forcibly kidnapped, all of 
 them were allured on board by false statements.' Those," 
 says the writer, " are sweeping assertions, and doubtless the 
 evidence taken before the Commission justifies them." After 
 mentioning some extenuating circumstances in defence of the 
 above recruiting agents, he says : " At the same time, it may 
 be mentioned that a knowledge of the natives on and around 
 their own islands shows the opportunities for recruiting 
 native labour by deception or by force to be so numerous,
 
 21 8 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 
 
 and to offer such temptations to those on board a labour 
 vessel wanting recruits, that it would be altogether opposed 
 to human nature so situated for recruiting agents not to "take 
 advantage of them." 
 
 Out of 630 natives recruited by the labour vessels con- 
 cerned in the inquiry by the Royal Commission in Queens- 
 land, the mortality in little more than twelve months was 
 167. The average mortality in civilised countries of men at 
 the ages of the recruits is 9 in the 1000 annually; here it 
 amounted to the rate of 265 in the 1000, being more than 
 a fourth of the whole. This is the highest mortality I have 
 ever heard of. From 70 to no in the 1000, as I have 
 said, is recognised as the normal mortality in Queensland, 
 but the very lowest estimate can hardly be characterised as 
 anything less than wholesale murder; and is such a sys- 
 tem to be allowed to continue in any part of the British 
 dominions 1 
 
 But we have another witness at hand. The Queensland 
 Evangelical ^Standard of October 16, 1885, says : " Among the 
 figures given by the Premier in answer to Mr. Black, touch- 
 ing the Polynesians now in the colony, there is one point 
 deserving of special animadversion. The number at the close 
 of last year was 11,745, and since then there have arrived 
 1376, making 13,121 (not counting departures); but of 
 these there are reported as having died no fewer than 936. 
 Out of 13,000 we have actually had close upon a thousand 
 deaths; that is a mortality of 122 per 1000. The most 
 unhealthy cities in the old country, such as Glasgow or Liver- 
 pool, seldom reach the 30 per 1000 ; and that in Queensland 
 the mortality of these Polynesians should be more than four 
 times that high figure is appalling. Either they are in bad
 
 THE LABOUR TEAFFIC. 219 
 
 health before coming here, or the climate is unsuitable, or 
 the work is deadly, or they are abominably treated ; and, in 
 any alternative, we cannot but be thankful that we are soon 
 to see the end of the traffic." The writer of the above para- 
 graph has overlooked one very important figure in his calcu- 
 lation; 30 deaths per 1000 in Glasgow or Liverpool includes 
 the entire population of all ages; 122 deaths per 1000 in 
 Queensland includes only persons from eighteen to forty-five 
 years of age, among whom in civilised lands the normal 
 mortality is only 9 in the 1000; so that the mortality 
 among the Polynesians in Queensland is not simply equal 
 to four times, but to twelve times, the high figures in those 
 old cities. Dr. W. M'Gregor, chief medical officer in Fiji, 
 found the deaths on one estate as high as 750 per 1000 per 
 annum, on another 500, and on others from 200 to 300. 
 Well might Jenkins, the author of " Ginx's Baby " and " The 
 Devil's Chain," direct his scathing irony against the system, 
 and speak of the " cannibals of Polynesia as justly resent- 
 ful of the undesired benevolence of a forcible binding to 
 labour in the sugar-fields of Queensland, for civilisation and 
 Christianity ! " 
 
 This traffic has been regulated for more than twenty long 
 years, and we see what it still is. Let us have a trial of 
 suppression for as long a time. But when we urge the 
 suppression of the traffic, immediately a meaning is imported 
 into our words which they were never meant to convey. 
 We are supposed to wish the natives to be forcibly prevented 
 from leaving their own islands. Every one, of course, consents 
 to the suppression of kidnapping and the deporting of natives 
 under false pretences. But they cannot agree, they say, to 
 put a stop to free voluntary emigration. We do not ask them.
 
 220 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 
 
 Free emigration ! Where is it ? For the first ten years of this 
 traffic, it is now admitted on all hands that it was nearly out 
 and out kidnapping, and for the last thirteen years there is 
 abundant proof to show that it is still little better. If the 
 natives wish to emigrate, let them do so as much as they 
 choose, and as they best can. But let us no longer have a licensed, 
 legalised system, of which force and fraud are the outstanding 
 characteristics. It is this that we wish to see suppressed 
 the system that has existed hitherto. We have no wish to 
 see the natives cooped up as prisoners ; simply let them alone. 
 When the African slave-trade was suppressed, nobody under- 
 stood that to mean the compulsory putting down of free 
 emigration. But how many of the Africans have since that 
 time freely emigrated to Brazil, Cuba, or the Southern States ? 
 So will it be with the natives of the New Hebrides, the Solomon 
 Islands, and New Guinea ; the number will be small indeed 
 who will emigrate to Queensland, Fiji, or New Caledonia. 
 And why should they ? Every native is a landowner ; why 
 should he go abroad and simply sell his labour? Is it not 
 much better for him to stay at home and cultivate his own 
 paternal acres, and then sell his labour and the produce of his 
 land together, which he can always do, and at the same time 
 live at home with his family ? 
 
 This labour traffic is looked upon by some as a fine outlet 
 for the surplus population of the islands. Surplus population ! 
 Was ever ignorance so crass ? Where is it to be found ? 
 Everywhere the population is scanty. There is not an island 
 on the New Hebrides which could not maintain ten times its 
 present population, even with their rude and primitive modes 
 of agriculture. The problem is how to preserve, and, if pos- 
 sible, to increase the population, not to reduce it by emigration.
 
 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 221 
 
 It is certainly not necessary to colonise Queensland by depopu- 
 lating the New Hebrides ; leave the labour on the islands 
 for the islands. During the present century all the Malay 
 Polynesians and a portion of the Papuans in Eastern Polynesia 
 have been Christianised and civilised, and life and property 
 are everywhere secure; and as soon as that was the case, 
 skill and capital found their way to those islands, and utilised 
 the labour lying ready to their hand. Let our missions alone 
 for another century, and the whole of the Papuans in Western 
 Polynesia still savage will be then civilised ; they will be 
 good Christians and peaceful citizens. 
 
 I can simply refer to, without being able to insist or enlarge 
 upon, the many and murderous attacks made upon white 
 men by natives attacks which are of late apparently on the 
 increase, and which led to the lamentable death of Bishop 
 Patteson, Commodore Goodenough, and scores, if not hundreds, 
 of others, many of them as innocent as those two distinguished 
 men, and for which the labour traffic is mainly responsible. In 
 the circumstances, as British subjects, we have again and again 
 appealed to Her Majesty's Government to protect us in our 
 philanthropic efforts, and to protect the poor, helpless natives 
 from the cupidity of our own countrymen. And we further 
 appeal to our fellow-Christians in all the Churches for their 
 sympathy, and for their prayers, that the evils which we 
 feel may be removed, and that the evils which we fear may 
 be averted.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE FRENCH AND THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 FOE a good many years the proposed annexation of the New 
 Hebrides by the French has been one of the burning questions 
 of the day in the New Hebrides and in all the Australasian 
 Colonies. But when it was found that the French proposed 
 to make the New Hebrides a penal settlement for 60,000 of 
 the worst class of criminals in France, to be sent out at the 
 rate of 6000 a year for ten years, the Australasian Colonies 
 rose up as one man in indignant protest against such an out- 
 rageous proposal. This attitude on the part of the colonists, 
 so unexpected by the French, staggered the abetters of this 
 measure, and the plan was fallen from. And now the pro- 
 posal is, if the French are allowed to take possession of the 
 New Hebrides, that they will engage to send no more recidivists 
 or habitual criminals to any of the South Sea Islands. There 
 is perhaps no portion of the globe of which the British public 
 generally are so imperfectly informed as about the South Sea 
 Islands ; hence the doings and aims of the French in those 
 seas are greatly misunderstood, even by our leading states- 
 men. Our mission and the Churches supporting our mission 
 have never ceased in appealing to the British Government, as 
 against the aggressive policy of the French and the dangers 
 to our mission and to the Christianity and civilisation of the
 
 THE FRENCH AND THE NEW HEBRIDES. 223 
 
 natives, if the islands should be annexed by the French ; but 
 our rulers have been singularly apathetic in not watching the 
 persistent efforts of the French to establish a footing in the 
 South Seas, to the certain peril of British interests throughout 
 all the Australasian Colonies. The losses to Imperial and 
 Colonial interests which have been sustained through this 
 policy of indifference are incalculable, with no corresponding 
 advantage to the French, except that of occupying the post of 
 the dog in the manger, and holding strategetical positions 
 which in the event of war would enable them to inflict tremen- 
 dous injuries upon us. 
 
 A short time ago I was sorry, but not surprised, to read a 
 leading article in one of the most influential of the Glasgow 
 papers pleading very strongly for the annexation of the New 
 Hebrides by the French, on the ground of their engaging to 
 give up their recidivist scheme. The writer of that article 
 in the Daily Mail said " Seeing the French are prepared to 
 yield to our representations in regard to penal settlements, it 
 will be difficult for this country to find any valid reason 
 against the step, especially as the French have a far better 
 claim to the New Hebrides than the Germans had to the 
 northern part of New Guinea. . . . The French Government 
 is prepared to guarantee that no recidivists will be sent to any 
 of the islands in the Pacific, provided France is allowed to take 
 possession of the New Hebrides group. This certainly places 
 the annexation question in a new and more feasible light. 
 Germany undertakes to do nothing to hinder France from 
 taking possession of the group. We have no superior claim 
 to these islands ourselves, and it is an important question 
 whether the French proposal to take possession of them ought 
 not to be sanctioned in consideration of the guarantee offered.
 
 224 THE FRENCH AND THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 If propinquity to an existing colony has any weight in the 
 argument, it is decidedly in favour of France." 
 
 To those who have never been in the South Seas, and who 
 are ignorant of the history, and doings, and aims of the 
 French in those regions for the last fifty years, such reasoning 
 may appear very plausible. But to those who are familiar 
 with the history of the South Sea missions, and the part 
 that the French have played in connection with these mis- 
 sions for half a century and more, these arguments carry no 
 weight whatever. One really wonders at the gross ignorance 
 displayed by the public press, not only in this country, but 
 in the Australasian Colonies. Only the other day it was 
 asserted by a leading Sydney paper, that the claims of the 
 French to the New Hebrides were as good as those of the 
 British. To this the Sydney Presbyterian replied, most 
 truthfully, that ours were as a hundred to one against them. 
 An agreement at present exists between the British and 
 French Governments by which the independence of those 
 islands is recognised. This agreement is only temporary, and 
 has never been sanctioned by Parliament. Our Government 
 allowed itself to be overreached by this agreement. As for 
 the Germans giving their consent to the annexation of the 
 New Hebrides by France, the proposal is preposterous ; they 
 have no right whatever to say a word on the subject. It is 
 very doubtful if any German ever set a foot on the New 
 Hebrides. Of this I am very certain, that no German man 
 of -war, no German merchant, or no German missionary was 
 ever seen among those islands. Moreover, what are the 
 claims of the French? In 1768 Bougainville sailed between 
 Santo and Mallicollo, and thus proved that the Espiritu 
 Santo of Quiros was an island, and not a continent. That
 
 THE FRENCH AND THE NEW HEBRIDES. 22$ 
 
 is all that the navy of France has done for the group. Her 
 commerce did nothing till some five or six years ago, when a 
 Land Company was formed at Noumea, the capital of New 
 Caledonia the chairman of which, if I mistake not, was an 
 Irishman, and the manager a Highlander from Nova Scotia 
 with the view of buying land 011 the New Hebrides, selling 
 it again, and developing an island traffic. In order to float 
 this company every effort was put forth to secure annexa- 
 tion by the French, so that they might obtain Government 
 titles for their land ; but it is reported that this, like some 
 other South Sea Bubbles, is about to burst, and that this 
 company, like many other similar ones, is on the rocks for 
 want of funds. Forty years ago a French Roman Catholic 
 mission was established on the island of Aneityum. It was 
 carried on for three or four years ; but as the missionaries 
 suffered severely from fever and ague, they were all removed 
 to the Isle of Pines, and they never returned. But what 
 did they do for the natives ? They erected an iron house, 
 and placed two small cannon on the roof, to protect them- 
 selves from the savages; and they distributed among the 
 children a few small brass medals, with the image of the 
 Virgin Mary on one side. They never acquired the language ; 
 they printed no books ; they taught nobody to read, and they 
 left no converts behind them. The only plausible claim that 
 the French have for annexation is that of propinquity, and 
 there is very little even of that. Noumea, the capital of 
 New Caledonia, is little more than a hundred miles nearer 
 the New Hebrides than is Suva, the capital of Fiji; and 
 what is that on the wide ocean ? But how did the French 
 secure this propinquity? When Cook discovered New 
 Caledonia he erected the British flag, and took possession
 
 226 THE FRENCH AND THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 of the island, by the right of discovery, in the name of 
 His Britannic Majesty. This right continued undisputed till 
 about 1854, when the French surreptitiously took possession of 
 New Caledonia, and subsequently of the Loyalty Islands. Sir 
 George Grey, at that time Governor of New Zealand, and 
 on that question the most far-seeing statesman of the day, 
 urged the Government, it was said, to disallow the doings of 
 the French, and take possession of those islands for them- 
 selves. But it was the time of the Crimean War, and our 
 Government had not then initiated a " spirited foreign policy," 
 and they thought that they could not afford to risk a quarrel 
 with France over a barren island in the South Seas. France, 
 however, saw its importance, in a strategical point of view, as 
 a naval station, from which she might suspend the sword of 
 Damocles over the necks of Australia and New Zealand. Our 
 Government saw their mistake when it was too late, as, four 
 or five years afterwards, when a rupture was apprehended 
 between France and Great Britain, it was understood that, 
 in the event of war, to secure the safety of our Colonies, 
 certain war ships were told off to assemble at Noumea and 
 recapture that town from the French, and hoist the British flag 
 on New Caledonia. One of these vessels lay three weeks at 
 Aneityum. Emboldened by impunity, however, the French 
 think they may now venture on further aggression, but the 
 Colonies are alive, and have shown their hand. 
 
 But it may be asked, What better claims have we on the 
 New Hebrides than the Germans or the French ? I have 
 already said the Germans have no claim at all; and the 
 French have no claim but that of propinquity, and that 
 they secured by an unscrupulous manoeuvre. Our claim is 
 quite different. When Captain Cook came after Bougain-
 
 THE FRENCH AND THE NEW HEBRIDES. 22/ 
 
 ville, he discovered all the southern islands of the group, 
 explored and surveyed the whole of them, and laid the islands 
 down on the chart, and that with an accuracy that has never 
 been surpassed. Captain Cook did so much for the islands 
 that he felt himself entitled to rename the group, to discard 
 the name Cyclades given to them by Bougainville, and call 
 them the Neio Hebrides. From that day to this they have 
 been virtually a British possession ; all that has been done 
 for them, and that has not been little, has been done for them 
 by the British. For forty years they have, in general, been 
 visited once a year by a British man-of-war, to promote the 
 security of life and property, and to advance the interests of 
 civilisation. All the commerce on the group has been carried 
 on by British enterprise, and with British capital. One or two 
 houses in Sydney exported ^70,000 worth of sandalwood 
 from Eromanga to China. All the missions have been British 
 and Protestant. First the London Missionary Society con- 
 ducted operations for about twenty years ; then the Church of 
 England Melanesian Mission was carried on by Bishop Selwyn 
 and his successors for a similar length of time. Our Presby- 
 terian mission has been in operation on the New Hebrides 
 for thirty eight-years ; the other two societies have resigned 
 their claims upon the islands in our favour. "We have just 
 now thirteen missionaries and their wives, and we have three 
 more with their wives on their way to the islands at the 
 present time. Eleven of these sixteen missionaries are being 
 supported by the Presbyterian Churches in Australia and 
 New Zealand. For twenty-three years we have had a mission 
 vessel, the Dayspring, of 160 tons, = and recently one of our 
 missionaries, the Bev. J. G. Paton, as I have explained fully 
 elsewhere, was home for eighteen months, and raised ^9000
 
 228 THE FRENCH AND THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 with which to purchase a new vessel with auxiliary steam 
 power, and to take out more missionaries. In one form and 
 another those three missions, all British, have expended up- 
 wards of ^200,000 in Christianising and civilising the abori- 
 gines. The native population of the group is estimated at 
 from 70,000 to 100,000. There are no fewer than twenty 
 languages spoken on the islands ; our missionaries have mas- 
 terecTten of these, and have reduced them to a written form. 
 We have printed the whole Bible and some other books in one 
 language, for which the natives have paid ^1400; and we 
 have printed portions of the Bible in other nine languages. 
 But we know the attitude which the French have assumed 
 towards Protestant missions in the South Seas for the last 
 fifty years, especially in the Loyalty Islands, the group 
 nearest to the New Hebrides. For more than twenty years 
 they have harassed the missionaries to an incredible extent, 
 and they have persecuted the Protestant natives to a degree 
 to which there is no modern parallel. The British Govern- 
 ment interposed and made effective representations on their 
 behalf to the late Emperor Napoleon. Now, we feel certain 
 that if the French take possession of the New Hebrides, their 
 attitude towards our mission will be in no degree less un- 
 favourable than it has been towards the missions of the 
 London Missionary Society. Our work will be all but com- 
 pletely arrested ; all our preparatory labours will to a great 
 extent be lost. The British Government will hold its own, 
 British commerce will push its way ; but our mission, while it 
 could easily hold its own against Popery pure and simple, is 
 placed at a mighty disadvantage when it has to contend with 
 Popery backed by the civil, naval, and military power of 
 France, as Popery is supported in the possessions of France in
 
 THE FRENCH AND THE NEW HEBRIDES. 229 
 
 the South Seas, and where, as on Mare in the Loyalty Islands, 
 all education must be conducted through the medium of the 
 French language, which, as every one must see, is equivalent 
 to suppressing education altogether. 
 
 But another point of consideration still remains. What do 
 the natives say on this question of annexation ? They are 
 human ; they are not like mere goods and chattels ; they 
 are freemen ; their independence is recognised in the treaty 
 at present existing between France and Great Britain ; 
 they can express distinctly their opinions and wishes ; they 
 know the character of both the French and the British. 
 Now, to which country do they wish to be annexed ? There 
 are not two opinions on this point. They are all anxious to 
 be connected with the British. They are all decidedly averse 
 to the French. Twenty-seven years ago I was the bearer of 
 a petition to our Queen, signed by every one of the chiefs of 
 Aneityum, representing 3500 people, and all Christian, pray- 
 ing for either annexation or a protectorate for their island. 
 About the same time I was told by a scientific gentleman, an 
 F.R.S., who had been naturalist on two British men-of-war, 
 and was well acquainted with natives both in Australia and 
 in the South Seas, who had spent some months on New 
 Caledonia collecting specimens for the British Museum, he 
 said that, from the fact that he was a Briton, as Mr. Glad- 
 stone would call him for he was a Scotchman, and the son of 
 a Scotch professor he could travel in perfect safety over the 
 whole island of New Caledonia, but that the French, although 
 they had been three or four years in occupation of the island, 
 could not leave their encampments but at the risk of their 
 lives ; and the natives so disliked them, that if they did kill 
 a Frenchman, inveterate cannibals though they were, they
 
 230 THE FUENCH A>'D THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 would neither cook him nor eat him ! I might also add that 
 all the Australasian Colonies are decidedly opposed to annexa- 
 tion by France. 
 
 After these statements, I leave my readers to judge as to 
 the value of the claims which the French have put forth to 
 justify them in attempting to annex the New Hebrides. It 
 is certainly a very doubtful ground of merit to plead that 
 they have agreed to abandon the monstrous recidivist scheme, 
 so emphatically denounced by all the Australasian Colonies 
 a proposal that was an insult, not only to Christianity 
 and civilisation, but to human nature itself. Are 70,000 
 or 100,000 intelligent and capable natives, a considerable 
 number of whom can read and write, to be treated like so 
 many head of cattle? From Santo to Aneityum, from the 
 extreme north to the extreme south of the group, you will 
 not go ashore on an island where you may not hear spoken 
 more or fewer English words ; but over all the islands of the 
 group you will not hear a French word spoken. At least, 
 during my twenty-five years' residence on the group, I never 
 heard one word of French spoken by a native, and I never 
 met with any person whose experience in this respect was 
 different from my own. 
 
 The French Government cannot understand the position of 
 Protestant missionaries in the South Seas. There the Roman 
 Catholic missionaries are the pioneers and political agents 
 of the French Government. They are protected, patronised, 
 and assisted in their work, that they may serve the French 
 Government, and the French think that we Protestant 
 missionaries all stand in the same relation to the British 
 Government. They cannot believe that we receive nothing 
 but the ordinary protection of loyal, peaceable, well-conducted
 
 THE FKEXCH AND THE NEW HEBRIDES. 23! 
 
 British subjects, that we never act as Government agents, 
 except on rare occasions that we may act as interpreters. 
 Because the natives are averse to the French and attached to 
 the British, they think that this is all caused by the teaching 
 and influence of us Protestant missionaries. They believe 
 that in French territory we are constantly plotting and 
 planning in the interests of the British and against the 
 French, stirring up the natives to disloyalty and rebellion; 
 and hence they think they are doing God service and help- 
 ing the State in proportion as they impede our missions 
 and worry the missionaries; and were the missionaries not 
 British subjects, they would soon make short work with 
 them, by expelling them from French territory. When they 
 took possession of the Loyalty Islands, they caused the mis- 
 sionaries to remove all their Samoan and Rarotongan teachers 
 and their wives and children, upwards of forty in number. 
 We had to send them all home in the ' Dayepring, The 
 natives are everywhere averse to the Germans, but still more 
 so to the French, because they are overbearing, selfish, 
 and tyrannical in their treatment of the natives. On the 
 other hand, they are attached to the British, whether con- 
 nected with missions, with men-of-war, or with trading 
 establishments ; and why ? Because, as a rule, they are just, 
 generous, and kindly in their conduct towards the natives. 
 It is the difference in national character which leads to the 
 different estimate that is formed by the natives of these 
 respective nationalities. But the French cannot recognise 
 this fact, and they set this all down to the underhand work- 
 ing of the British missionaries, and think that if they could 
 suppress the missions and get quit of the missionaries, their 
 troubles would be at an end, and it would be all smooth sailing
 
 232 THE FRENCH AND THE NEW HEBRIDES. 
 
 in the future ; the musket and the calabooshe would do all 
 the rest, and convert them into model French subjects and 
 exemplary Catholic Christians. 
 
 One of the reasons assigned for the French being so eager 
 to annex the New Hebrides is, that they may have more 
 and better harbour accommodation than they have in New 
 Caledonia. This cannot be the case. On the N.W. side they 
 have the harbour of Noumea, the capital, and on the S.E. side 
 they have Balad, where Captain Cook lay chiefly at anchor ; 
 then they have Yengen, an admirable harbour; and they 
 have likewise Kanala, also an excellent harbour. I have been 
 in all these four harbours, and know what they are. I have 
 even heard it said, by those who ought to know, that along 
 the S.E. side of New Caledonia the harbours are like stalls in 
 a stable, they are so plentiful and so good. The want of har- 
 bours, therefore, cannot be the cause of the French casting 
 their covetous eye's on the New Hebrides. 
 
 In July last it was stated in the papers that Lord 
 Rosebery, having received the replies from all the Austra- 
 lasian Governments on the subject of the French proposals 
 regarding the New Hebrides, officially informed M. Wadding- 
 ton that the Australasian Colonies, which were the parties 
 chiefly affected, were overwhelmingly, if not unanimously, 
 opposed to the arrangements suggested by His Excellency, 
 in a spirit which Her Majesty's Government recognised as 
 conciliatory and amicable. Her Majesty's Government were 
 accordingly unable to consent to any departure from the 
 present understanding between Great Britain and France by 
 which the two countries were bound to respect the indepen- 
 dence of the New Hebrides. 
 
 In June last two French war vessels were despatched from
 
 THE FRENCH AND THE NEW HEBRIDES. 233 
 
 Noumea to the New Hebrides, with troops on board, avowedly 
 to punish the natives for outrages committed on French 
 subjects, although no cases have been specified ; they landed 
 troops and erected the French flag at two points on the New 
 Hebrides, at Havannah harbour and Port Sandwich. When 
 the British Government inquired at the French Government 
 about this, the latter denied all official knowledge of such pro- 
 ceedings, but said that if they had taken place they would be 
 disallowed, the flag would be hauled down, and the troops 
 removed ; but neither have yet been done. We all have heard 
 of Punica fides, Punic faith, and perfidious Albion. We may 
 now, I think, safely add Gallica fides, Gallic faith, as the more 
 certain of the three.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE REV. JAMES M C NAIR, EROMANGA. 
 
 I KNEW nothing personally of Mr. M'Nair till he appeared 
 as a missionary in the Dayspring in August 1866. For 
 some particulars of his early life I am indebted to a state- 
 ment supplied, at the time of his death, to the Reformed 
 Presbyterian Magazine by D. Dickson, Esq., Edinburgh, 
 whose friendly interest in Mr. M'Nair was often acknow- 
 ledged by the missionary himself in the warmest terms. My 
 limited acquaintance with Mr. M'Nair prevents me from 
 doing that justice to his character which a fuller knowledge 
 of his history would have enabled me to do. 
 
 James M'Nair was born at Loch Striven Head, in the parish 
 of Inverchaolain, district of Cowal, Argyleshire, in October 
 1829. After some instruction at home he was sent to the 
 school at Glendereul at the age of twelve. He went to live 
 at Dunoon three years afterwards, when he was employed 
 by the postmaster there in delivering the letters around 
 Dunoon. Even then his natural energy, sagacity, and 
 openness of character drew towards him the goodwill of 
 those with whom he came in contact. Brought under the 
 power of the truth as it is in Jesus, he diligently improved 
 all his spare hours in increasing his education and adding 
 to his stores of useful knowledge. A few years after found
 
 THE REV. JAMES M'NAIR, EROMANGA. 235 
 
 him a very useful man in the district. As a Sabbath-school 
 teacher and office-bearer in the Free Church congregation of 
 Dunoon he was very active and useful for several years. 
 
 On a vacancy occurring in the office of postmaster at 
 Dunoon, the inhabitants at once expressed their desire that 
 Mr. M'Nair should be appointed. A memorial was unani- 
 mously forwarded to Sir Rowland Hill, then Secretary of the 
 Post-Office, who at once complied with the wish of the people. 
 Mr. M'Nair, while grateful for this appointment, intimated, 
 however, to Sir Rowland that he could accept the office 
 only c on the distinct condition that no Sabbath work was 
 to be done. The high moral principle shown by this act 
 attracted Sir Rowland's attention. Mr. M'Nair's conditions 
 were agreed to ; and it is a striking and gratifying fact, that 
 this correspondence, followed by personal intercourse during 
 a summer residence at Dunoon, was the means of forming 
 a strong regard for Mr. M'Nair on the part of Sir Rowland 
 Hill, as shown by many acts of personal kindness both by 
 himself and his excellent lady, and continued to the very 
 last. Only a few months before Mr. M'Nair died he showed 
 me a very kind letter which he had just received from Sir 
 Rowland. 
 
 Mr. M'Nair was a self-made man. He created his own 
 patrons. While holding the office of postmaster in Dunoon, like 
 many other postmasters, he also carried on business as a book- 
 seller and stationer, thus conveniently supplying the public with 
 all the requisites for letter- writing. He had good professional 
 prospects ; he had secured the confidence both of the Post- 
 Office authorities and of all his business connections, especially 
 that of the well-known firm of Messrs. Dickson, stationers in 
 Edinburgh. But he had higher aims than these ; he was eager
 
 236 THE REV. JAMES M'NAIll, EROMANGA. 
 
 to become a minister of the Gospel, or a missionary of the 
 Cross. He was prepared to relinquish all his encouraging 
 business prospects if he could attain this object ; and the 
 Lord, in a singular and unexpected manner, opened up his 
 way for the successful prosecution of his studies, so that, in 
 due time, the desire of his heart was attained. 
 
 The beginning of Mr. M'Nair's personal intercourse with 
 Sir Rowland, which brought about this happy result, occurred 
 in this way. It is well known that Dunoon is a much-fre- 
 quented watering-place. Among other notabilities who re- 
 sorted to Dunoon to spend a portion of the summer mdiiths, 
 for one or more seasons, was his chief, the great Post- Office 
 reformer, Sir Rowland Hill, still personally a stranger to Mr. 
 M'Nair. One day when Sir Rowland called at the Post-Office 
 on business, Mr. M'Nair, as his custom was, when the office 
 was empty, was improving his spare time in the prosecution 
 of his studies, but, as usual, the moment any one entered, he 
 laid down his book to attend to his official duties. While 
 thus engaged with the business on hand, Sir Rowland's eye 
 was attracted to the well-thumbed, dumpy little volume lying 
 on the desk, and, curious to see what the young man was 
 reading, he stretched over his hand and lifted the book, and 
 found that it was Bagster's Polymicrian Greek New Testament. 
 Surprised to see an official in this department occupied in so 
 unusual a study, he -entered into conversation with Mr. 
 M'Nair, and learned from him that he was very desirous to 
 pursue his studies, with the view of entering the Gospel 
 ministry ; that he was most anxious to go to college, but 
 could not afford to give up his situation and his business ; 
 and, finally, encouraged by the kindly deportment of Sir 
 Rowland, Mr. M'Nair put the question to him, if he thought
 
 THE REV. JAMES M'NAJR, EROMANGA. 237 
 
 that the Post-Office authorities would allow him to retain his 
 situation as postmaster, providing he should employ a trust- 
 worthy and properly qualified substitute during the session of 
 college. Sir Rowland said the case was a novel one ; he did 
 not know that such an application had ever been made ; but 
 he would think about it and advise him. After satisfying 
 himself as to Mr. M'Nair's antecedents, attainments, and 
 character, Sir Rowland brought the matter before the Post- 
 Office Commissioners, and although the case was unprecedented, 
 he secured the arrangements which Mr. M'Nair wished, and, 
 as has been said, continued till Mr. M'Nair's death his warm 
 and steady friend. It is an interesting fact to know that Sir 
 Rowland Hill, the author of the penny postage and other great 
 postal- reforms, a man of world-wide celebrity, should by his 
 kind and considerate conduct have been so largely instru- 
 mental in providing the New Hebrides mission with one of 
 its most earnest agents. Surely the hand of God is seen in 
 arranging the most seemingly trifling incidents. Surely " the 
 steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord," both as to his 
 doing good and his getting good. There are far more people 
 interested in missions than either the missionaries labouring 
 in the mission field or the Churches supporting them are aware 
 of ; and in times of trial and discouragement this ought to be 
 hailed as a token for good. 
 
 Mr. M'Nair went to the University of Edinburgh, and had 
 the privilege of pursuing his literary and philosophical studies 
 under Sir William Hamilton and his illustrious associates. 
 He studied theology and the cognate branches, partly in the 
 Free Church College, under Drs. Buchanan, Bannerman, 
 Smeaton, &c., and partly in the Reformed Presbyterian Hall, 
 under Drs. Goold and Binnie ; while, to fit himself more fully
 
 238 THE REV. JAMES M C NAIR ; EROMANGA. 
 
 for missionary labours, he entered the Medical Missionary 
 Institution, and also attended the lectures of Sir James Y. 
 Simpson and some others of the distinguished medical pro- 
 fessors in the Edinburgh University. 
 
 His mind appears to have been early directed to mission 
 work ; but it was not till one of the Reformed Presbyterian 
 students and he were lodging together at college that he became 
 acquainted with the history of our mission. Its claims, how- 
 ever, approved themselves so to his mind, that he resolved 
 to offer his services for our field, and did so. Our Foreign 
 Mission Committee had, only a short time before, accepted 
 the services of two of our own students, Messrs. Cosh and 
 Neilson, and were afraid of incurring pecuniary responsibilities 
 which they might not be able to fulfil ; but they gladly enter- 
 tained the offer, and corresponded with the Mission Board 
 in Nova Scotia, and Mr. M'Nair was finally engaged by the 
 Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces as their mis- 
 sionary. He was taken on trial, licensed, and ordained, by 
 the Reformed Presbyterian Church. 
 
 Before leaving Scotland Mr. M'Nair was united in marriage 
 to Miss Galloway, a young lady belonging to Edinburgh, who, 
 by her education, her Christian character, and her missionary 
 spirit, proved herself to be in every way a helpmeet for her 
 husband, while by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, 
 exemplified so fully in her daily life, she endeared herself to 
 every member of the mission. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. M'Nair arrived at Aneityum in August 
 1866. He accompanied the Dayspriny round the islands 
 when she went to bring the missionaries to the Annual 
 Meeting. At the Annual Meeting in September they were 
 appointed to Ei omanga. When the Dayepring returned, bring-
 
 THE REV. JAMES M'NAIR, EROMANGA. 239 
 
 ing the missionaries to the meeting, the John Williams was 
 in the harbour, but so much injured by an accident she had 
 met with while entering the harbour, that we unanimously 
 agreed to send the Day spring along with her to Sydney, lest 
 she should founder on the voyage. The missionaries, both 
 our own and those of the London Missionary Society, had to 
 remain on Aneityum till her return. In the meantime a 
 small trading vessel was proceeding to Eromanga and Efate, 
 the captain of which kindly offered a passage to as many as 
 he could accommodate. So eager was Mr. M'Nair to be at 
 his station, that he and Mrs. M'Nair, in company with Mr. 
 and Mrs. Morrison of Efate and Mr. Gordon of Eromanga, 
 set off at once, although the vessel was swarming so with 
 cockroaches that they were like to be eaten up alive ; and 
 Mr. and Mrs. M'Nair had to sleep on deck all the eight 
 nights of the voyage, the cabin was so intolerable. 
 
 During their first year Mrs. M'Nair was laid down with 
 fever and ague ; Mr. M'Nair suffered from it also. In conse- 
 quence of this they came back to Aneityum, when the Day- 
 spring went up to the Colonies in December, and remained, 
 mostly at my station, till the vessel returned to the islands in 
 April, when they went back to Dillon's Bay, Eromanga, where 
 they lived ever after till his death. 
 
 He was a true-hearted, earnest missionary. He applied 
 himself most assiduously to acquire the Eromangan language. 
 He taught the natives to read ; he preached to them the 
 Gospel ; he translated portions of the Scriptures ; he adminis- 
 tered medicine to the sick, and in every way he and his 
 devoted wife laid themselves out for the temporal and spiritual 
 well-being of the natives ; and their labours were beginning 
 to tell very effectively, both 011 the Christian natives around
 
 240 THE REV. JAMES M'NAIE, EROMANGA. 
 
 them and on the more distant heathen. In the last year of 
 his life they had the satisfaction of seeing a few converts, 
 whom they had carefully instructed, added to the fellowship 
 of the Church ; and the heathen, in considerablejiumbers and 
 from great distances, were paying them friendly visits. During 
 the first two years that they lived on Eromanga, owing to 
 epidemics and a great mortality among the natives, their lives 
 were often in danger from the heathen ; but during the last 
 two years, owing partly to the absence of these exciting 
 causes, but chiefly, I believe, to their being better known, 
 the heathen had become friendly to them and favourable to 
 Christianity. 
 
 Mr. M'Nair was a large-hearted man, and was devising 
 enlarged schemes of usefulness for Eromanga. On that island 
 travelling is difficult by land ; the sea is the principal high- 
 way ; but then the sea can be traversed in common boats only 
 in fine weather ; there are no reefs along the coast forming 
 lagoons, inside of which boats may always sail safely, as 
 there are in the eastern and many other groups. It is sur- 
 rounded almost everywhere by an iron-bound coast ; even 
 boat harbours are few and far between ; hence a specially 
 good boat is required for sailing round the island. Mr. 
 M'Nair had brought this matter so distinctly before some of 
 his friends in Australia, that the Rev. Mr. Mackie of South 
 Yarra, Melbourne a man who was ready for every good work 
 and his congregation raised a sum, which, with the addition 
 of a gift of ^40 from Mrs. Grundemann of Germany, pro- 
 cured him an admirable lifeboat, alike adapted for sailing or 
 rowing, and which would be safe in all seas and in all weathers, 
 that he might be able to visit round the island, as far and as 
 often as he might require to do so.
 
 THE RE\ 7 . JAMRS M'NAIR, EROMANGA. 24! 
 
 One prominent feature in Mr. M'Nair's character was his 
 thorough reliable honesty. He was a Nathanael an Israelite 
 indeed, in whom there was no guile. His piety was sincere 
 and unostentatious; it was best known by its fruits. He 
 was a reliable man, a peaceable man, a lovable man. He 
 was naturally of a quick and hasty temper ; his Celtic blood 
 boiled up at every display of hollowness, or heartlessness, or 
 injustice in any form. His whole soul was moved within 
 him at the kidnapping system that had been going on so 
 long in those seas, especially when the poor Eromangans 
 were the victims of this " consummation of all villanies ; " 
 and he wrote on this subject to the Commodore commanding 
 on the Australian station, in language unmistakable, distinct, 
 and strong ; and which, it is believed, did good in high places. 
 About this time a letter by Mr. M'Nair was brought under 
 the notice of Mr. Taylor, M.P., and, containing a distinct state- 
 ment of facts, induced him to submit a motion on the subject 
 to Parliament. This was the first time that thejabour traffic 
 was brought under the notice of the Imperial Legislature, 
 and it has never been allowed to slumber since. It was 
 wrong and wickedness that aroused Mr. M'Nair's indignation, 
 but under ordinary provocation his irritation was brief and 
 evanescent, while all the benevolent emotions of his heart 
 were strong and enduring. 
 
 The learned and pious Hervey says : " I have always looked 
 upon gratitude as the most exalted principle that can actuate 
 the heart of man. It has in it something nobly disinterested, 
 and, if I may be allowed the term, generously devout." When 
 I was in New Zealand, eighteen months before Mr. M'Nair's 
 death, I met a gentleman to whom I was the bearer of a 
 letter from our brother, and who had been one of his securities 
 
 Q
 
 242 THE REV. JAMES M C NA1R, EROMANGA. 
 
 when he was postmaster in Dunoon. After expressing his 
 delight at receiving the letter and hearing of the welfare of 
 his friend, he concluded by saying, " Well, I think I never 
 in my whole life met with a more grateful man than Mr. 
 M'Nair." 
 
 He was a modest, unobtrusive man, and never strove 
 after effect; and hence first impressions of him were often 
 less favourable than of many others greatly inferior to him ; 
 but, like all true men, he grew in the esteem of others as he 
 became better known ; and the longer and the better he was 
 known, the more he was liked. 
 
 He was a liberal contributor to all good objects ; he was 
 liberal to the full extent of his means. He was an earnest 
 teetotaler ; he had been so, I believe, all his life ; he used 
 neither alcohol nor tobacco in any form, but cheerfully lent 
 all his influence to assist those who are striving to stern and 
 drive back the fearful flood of intemperance that is desolating 
 both the Church and the world. 
 
 " His great moral courage," says Mr. Dickson, " and his 
 extraordinary power of resolution, were accompanied with, 
 if they were not the result of, a simple, and therefore strong, 
 faith in God. His eye was single, and therefore his whole 
 body was full of light. Naturally affectionate, grace made 
 him singularly generous and unselfish. In many little ways, 
 not only among his own kindred, but among others who had 
 no claim on his care, he was ever ready with kind deeds as 
 well as kind words. Along with a sound and able mind he 
 manifested the spirit of meekness and of love. This gave him 
 power even with the poor Eromangans, whose souls he longed 
 after in the bowels of Jesus Christ." 
 
 He was fully alive to the duty of using " all lawful endea-
 
 THE REV. JAMES M'NAIR, EROMANGA. 243 
 
 vours to preserve our own life and the life of others." The 
 mission -house at Dillon's Bay, though an excellent house, 
 stood in, what experience had shown to be, an unhealthy 
 situation. To remedy that, Mr. M'Nair, when at Aneityum 
 during the last Annual Meeting of the mission that he at- 
 tended, bought from a white man the frame of a cottage of 
 two rooms, which he took with him, intending to erect it im- 
 mediately on his return home, on another and a more healthy 
 site, that they might at least sleep there. All the necessary 
 arrangements for doing so were made. But this and other 
 schemes, however wise and however well laid, were, in the 
 providence of God, cut short. 
 
 Though not a robust man, Mr. M'Nair continued to enjoy 
 a fair measure of good health till within six months of his 
 death, when he was attacked by fever and ague, of an ob- 
 stinate rather than of a violent character ; but under which 
 he finally succumbed. Whether it had become complicated 
 with some other disease or not, it is difficult to say. Most 
 probably it had. He was present at our Annual Meeting in 
 June, attended every sederunt, and took a part, more or less, 
 in all the business ; and although he was weak, and suffering 
 a good deal, no one seemed to suppose that he was in any 
 immediate danger. He was appointed to accompany the 
 Day spring in the following month to Auckland and Raro- 
 tonga, a voyage expected to occupy about two months, in the 
 hope that the change would go far to restore him to his wonted 
 health. But his strength had been much further reduced 
 than any of us suspected. He had reached home just about 
 a fortnight, when he died. Indeed till the very last no im- 
 mediate danger was anticipated, although he had stated to 
 some of the brethren on his way home that he felt he had
 
 244 THE REV. JAMES M*N T ATR, EROMANGA. 
 
 not long to live. On Friday afternoon, the i5th July 1870, 
 after giving a sick native some medicine and a blanket, he 
 went out to the storehouse, and in handing down a bunch of 
 bananas to some natives who had been cutting wood, a severe 
 parxoysm came on. He went in and lay down on the sofa. 
 Mrs. M'Nair asked him if he had much pain. He said, no ; 
 but it was his heart, and the difficulty in breathing. The 
 paroxysm passed off, and he was easier during the night ; but 
 about daybreak another paroxysm came on. He began to 
 retch, and while Mrs. M'Nair was holding him she felt his 
 head become heavy and a cold clamminess on his hands. She 
 immediately sent for Mr. Smith, a white man who had been 
 there for a few weeks, commencing a whaling station, and 
 who had formerly been second mate in the Dayspring. He 
 came in an instant, but all was over. The Dayspring, with 
 four of the missionaries on board, had left Eromanga the week 
 before, no one suspecting that his race was so nearly run. 
 But his work on earth was finished. 
 
 Though his death was sudden and unexpected, yet he was 
 found prepared he was, as the old divines would have said, 
 actually, as well as habitually, prepared ; his loins were girded 
 and his lamp was burning. He knew in whom he had 
 believed. Mrs. M'Nair wrote us, that the whole of the night 
 before his death he appeared to be in an ecstasy of joy. 
 Grace in habit had become grace in exercise ; dying grace was 
 given on a dying bed ; as his day was, so was his strength. 
 " Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright ; for the end 
 of that man is peace." 
 
 He was deeply lamented by the natives. They were both 
 particularly well liked by those about them. To give just 
 one instance. One of our Aneityum teachers and his wife had
 
 THE REV. JAMES M'NAIR, EKOMANGA. 245 
 
 lived with them for a few months to assist them as servants, 
 but had returned home. When the news of Mr. M'Nair's 
 death came to Aneityum, and this woman heard of it, she cried 
 bitterly, and said, " Oh, they were so good ; they were so good 
 to us ; their words were so good ; and their conduct was so 
 good ; yes, both of them were so good ; they two never scolded 
 us ; they two never spoke angry words to us ; no, neither the 
 one nor the other ; their words were always soft and good ; 
 yes, they two were so good; they two were so kind." His 
 missionary career, though brief, was not in vain. On the 
 evening of Saturday Mr. M'Nair was interred alongside of 
 Rev. G. N. Gordon and Mrs. Gordon, who had fallen martyrs 
 at that station some years before. 
 
 On the Tuesday following, Mr. Smith set off in a boat to 
 Port Resolution, and brought Mr. Neilson from Tanna and 
 Mr. Paton from Aniwa, who made every necessary arrange- 
 ment for Mrs. M'Nair. After his settlement in Mr. M'Nair's 
 station, the Rev. H. A. Robertson, with his characteristic 
 energy, kindness, and good taste, had the hallowed spot, with 
 its granite memorial stone sent out by Mrs. M'Nair, care- 
 fully and neatly enclosed ; while a tablet, supplied by the 
 Rev. Dr. Steel of Sydney, with an inscription in English and 
 Eromangan, containing the names of John Williams, Harris, 
 the two Gordon brothers, Mrs. Gordon, and J. M'Nair, has 
 been affixed near the pulpit in the wall of the* Memorial 
 Church. 
 
 Mr. M'Nair left not only a widow, but an infant daughter 
 about a year old, who, when they left the islands, were fol- 
 lowed by the esteem and love, the sympathy and prayers, of 
 all who knew them in the mission.
 
 246 THE KEV. JAMES M C NAIE, EROMANGA. 
 
 Mrs. M'Nair subsequently became the wife of the Rev. Dr. 
 Turner of the Samoan Mission ; and in Samoa, as in the New 
 Hebrides, she has fully realised all the high expectations, as 
 to character and usefulness, that were formed respecting her 
 when she first entered the mission.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE REV. JOHN GEDDIE, D.D. 
 
 As Dr. Geddie was the central figure in the New^Hebrides 
 mission for a quarter of a century, a brief notice of his life 
 and character will naturally be expected in this volume. 
 
 Though brought up and educated in Nova Scotia, Dr. 
 Geddie was born in Scotland ; but his parents emigrated to 
 Nova Scotia when he was an infant of little more than a 
 year old. His father was a watch and clock maker in Banff, 
 in comfortable circumstances. Both his father and mother 
 were God-fearing people, and strongly imbued with a mis- 
 sionary spirit. They seem to have come largely under the 
 influence of that revival wave that passed over Scotland, 
 especially in the northern counties that work of grace which 
 was excited and set in motion chiefly through the instru- 
 mentality of the Haldanes and their coadjutors. One of 
 Mr. Geddie's apprentices was converted by their ministra- 
 tions, and evinced a strong desire to study for the ministry. 
 Both his master and his mistress encouraged J the young 
 man ; Mr. Geddie even remitted some part of the time of his 
 apprenticeship, to allow him to proceed more advantageously 
 with his studies. This young man proved the reality of his 
 conversion by the history of his after life; he developed 
 into the Rev. Dr. Morrison of London, for some thirty years
 
 248 THE UEV. JOHN GEDDIE. D.D. 
 
 the editor of the Evangelical Magazine, the leading organ 
 of Nonconformity. His daughter was married to the Rev. 
 Dr. Legge, the celebrated Chinese missionary. Mrs. Legge's 
 " Life," written by her father, adds another most interesting 
 chapter to female biography and to our missionary literature. 
 The name of Dr. Geddie's mother was Mary Menzies, who 
 came out of a " pious Secession family, that lived on the banks 
 of the Deveron, about seven miles from Banff, where they 
 were engaged in farming. It may be mentioned, as showing 
 how the family were connected with the mission enterprise, 
 that the Rev. Dr. Milne, the very distinguished Chinese 
 missionary, lived for a time as a farm servant in her father's 
 house." 
 
 Dr. Geddie was an only son, but he had three sisters, all 
 eminently Christian women. The eldest was married to the 
 Rev. Dr. Eraser, Clerk of the General Assembly of the 
 Presbyterian Church in Canada, but is dead; the second 
 was married to Mr. James Johnston, for a time merchant in 
 Pictou. Mrs. Johnston sent one daughter into our mission, 
 the late saintly Mrs. Mathieson of Tanna ; her son too was 
 preparing to follow his uncle's footsteps, but the state of his 
 health compelled him to abandon his studies. Mrs. Johnston 
 died a short time after her daughter, Mrs. Mathieson. But 
 before the news of Mrs. Mathieson's death had reached Nova 
 Scotia, she had a strong impression borne in on her mind 
 that her daughter was dead. " Mary," she said, " has gone 
 before me, and she will meet me in heaven." Such impres- 
 sions,' though rare, are not unknown. I know a minister's 
 wife in Scotland who had a similar inborn conviction as to 
 her father's death, while she was on a voyage home from 
 India ; and Dr. Samuel Johnson relates that Lord Ros-
 
 THE REV. JOHN GEDDIE, D.D. 249 
 
 common, the poet, when in France, had some preternatural 
 intelligence of the death of his father, a fortnight before the 
 news came of his being dead. Dr. Geddie's third and youngest 
 sister a woman of a strong missionary spirit was married 
 to a Mr. Henderson, a gentleman living and carrying on 
 business in San Francisco; she too is dead. Two of Dr. 
 Geddie's daughters, Mrs. Neilson and Mrs. M'Donald, were 
 settled in our mission in the New Hebrides. 
 
 Dr. Geddie was born in 1815; ordained in 1838; left 
 Nova Scotia for the South Seas in 1846; commenced his 
 labours on Aneityum in 1 848 ; and died in Geelong, December 
 i5th, 1872. 
 
 The most prominent feature in Dr. Geddie's character 
 the distinctive, outstanding, governing principle of his life 
 was his missionary spirit. He was the son, as we have seen, 
 of parents strongly imbued with missionary principles. By 
 them he was dedicated at his birth to be a missionary, should 
 the Lord so incline his heart and fit him for the work ; he 
 drank in the missionary spirit with his mother's milk. His 
 father's house was full of missionary books, and was regularly 
 supplied with missionary periodicals ; his early reading thus 
 consisted largely of missionary literature. His boyish cravings 
 for literary excitement were gratified, not by the Waverley 
 Novels or the poetry of Scott and Byron, but by the publica- 
 tions of the London Missionary Society, then glowing, month 
 after month and year after year, with the unheard-of triumphs 
 of Christianity in Tahiti and other islands of the South Seas, 
 when the achievements of Nott, Ellis, Williams, and their 
 fellow - labourers were filling Christendom with delighted 
 wonder. Through life his favourite reading was Christian 
 biography, especially the lives of eminent missionaries ; he
 
 250 THE P.EV. JOHN GEDD1E, D.D. 
 
 was also, to his dying day, strongly attached to the London 
 Missionary Society, his early reading having made him fully 
 acquainted with the principles, character, and history of that 
 time-honoured Society. He received his classical, philoso- 
 phical, and theological education at Dalhousie College, and 
 was brought up at the feet of that distinguished Gamaliel, 
 that eminent Master in Israel, the late Rev. Dr. M'Culloch, 
 who did so much to advance the higher education in the 
 Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia a man, as was said 
 of the Rev. Dr. Andrew Symington of Paisley, who was a 
 Senatus in himself. 
 
 When Dr. Geddie was licensed as a preacher there was 
 no organisation in Nova Scotia by means of which he might 
 enter the mission-field ; he therefore, in the meantime, accepted 
 a call from the congregations of Cavendish and New London, 
 on Prince Edward Island, and was ordained as a minister 
 over them. Shortly after his ordination he wrote a series 
 of Letters on Foreign Missions, addressed to the ministers 
 and members of the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia, 
 which were published in the provincial papers. The result 
 of all his labours, public and private, was, that the Synod 
 took up the subject, and resolved to commence a Foreign 
 Mission. The Synod put itself in communication with the 
 United Secession Church in Scotland, now with the Relief 
 Synod, the United Presbyterian Church, of which the Nova 
 Scotian Church was a branch, to assist them in the choice 
 of a field. Shortly before this time the United Secession 
 Church had placed $oo in the hands of John Williams, to 
 be employed in opening up for them a mission-field in the 
 South Seas ; he had recommended New Caledonia to them, 
 on which the London Missionary Society had placed teachers.
 
 THE REV. JOHN GEDDIE, D.D. 251 
 
 Meanwhile the United Secession Church had given up the 
 idea of a mission to the South Seas, and had fixed upon Old 
 Calabar as the field of their missionary operations. They, 
 therefore, offered to pass over their claim to New Caledonia 
 to their Nova Scotian brethren, which the latter accepted. 
 Having fixed upon a field, the next question was, how to 
 obtain a missionary; and as no one else could be found, Mr. 
 Geddie offered his services to the Synod, which they were 
 most ready to accept. 
 
 He lost no time in preparing to depart to the scene of his 
 labours. He had now been seven years a settled minister, and 
 had a wife and three children ; but his heart was in the work, 
 and where there is a will there is a way. What time he had 
 he employed in furthering the cause, and in preparing himself 
 more fully for his work. He visited the congregations, to 
 enkindle or foster an interest in the mission. He took lessons 
 in printing, and obtained some instruction in medicine. He 
 tried " his 'prentice hand " in printing a missionary sermon of 
 his own, from Rev. xiv. 6, entitled "The Everlasting Gospel." 
 The printing was creditably executed, and the sermon put 
 into free circulation. 
 
 He was a man of a strongly impulsive nature. When any 
 object had taken possession of his mind, his whole soul was 
 thrown into it; it must be carried out then and there, at 
 whatever hazards. It was specially so with him in this case. 
 From the time when he demitted his charge till he was ready 
 to sail for the South Seas he lost two of his children ; but, 
 nothing daunted, putting his trust in God, he set sail with the 
 other two, the younger being only six weeks old, having been 
 born in the interval. " God accepted the sacrifice, as the mis- 
 sionary's subsequent experience showed. Moreover, instead
 
 252 THE RISV. JOHN GEDDIE, D.D. 
 
 of waiting a year till he might go direct by London in the 
 John Williams, he resolved to go by America. He arrived 
 in Newburyport just in time to catch the last and worst of the 
 whaling fleet bound for the Sandwich Islands. It proved to be 
 a miserable vessel, and going round Cape Horn in the begin- 
 ning of a Southern winter nearly cost Mrs. Geddie and the 
 two children their lives. In this case, however, his courage is 
 more to be admired than his prudence. Having reached the 
 Sandwich Islands, they had to remain at Honolulu for some 
 two months, till they obtained a passage to Samoa in another 
 whaler. At Samoa they had to remain about eight months, 
 waiting for the arrival of the John Williams from England, 
 when they proceeded to the New Hebrides, and were located 
 on Aneityum, under the auspices of the London Missionary 
 Society, that being thought to be a more suitable field than 
 New Caledonia. Their detention at Honolulu and Samoa was 
 by no means lost time. They had thus an opportunity of 
 seeing the working of both the American and the London 
 Society's Missions, and they acquired a large amount of know- 
 ledge that was of great use to them when left to their own 
 resources on Aneityum. When the Samoan missionaries held 
 their Annual Meeting, they appointed one of the most experi- 
 enced of their number, the Rev. T. Powell and his wife, to 
 accompany Mr. Geddie for a twelvemonth, to assist in estab- 
 lishing the mission. The Synod in Nova Scotia wished to 
 commence their mission to the heathen with two ordained 
 missionaries and their wives. But as they could not secure 
 the services of a second ordained missionary, they engaged a 
 catechist, Mr. I. Archibald, and his wife, who accompanied Mr. 
 and Mrs. Geddie to the New Hebrides ; but this, like several 
 similar arrangements previously attempted by other missions
 
 THE REV. JOHN GKDDIE, D.D. 253 
 
 in the South Seas, proved unsatisfactory and unsuccessful, and 
 at the" end of three years Mr. and Mrs. Archibald left the 
 mission and proceeded to New South Wales, where he found 
 employment as a teacher. 
 
 To relate what Mr. Geddie accomplished on Aneityum 
 would be to write a history of the mission. All, however, that 
 I can do at present is simply to specify a few traits of his 
 character. He was, in many respects, admirably qualified to 
 commence such a mission. He was enthusiastic in his work; he 
 had a great aptitude for dealing with the heathen ; he possessed 
 a kind of intuitive sagacity for treating them so as to gain 
 their confidence. He had a great readiness in acquiring the 
 native language, both in its vocables and its grammar, both 
 in its general principles and in its minute details. He had 
 a very retentive memory ; he could remember even minute 
 particulars for any length of time. Hence if he got hold of a 
 word or a phrase, he seemed never to forget it. He had thus 
 very soon a medium through which to communicate a know- 
 ledge of Divine truth. In this department of mission labour 
 he was ably assisted by Mrs. Geddie, who acquired an extra- 
 ordinary command of the language, especially for conversational 
 purposes. The natives used to say of her, that she spoke their 
 language just like a native of Aneityum, and that her words 
 were all the same as theirs, which was the highest encomium 
 on her that they could pronounce. 
 
 He gave great prominence in all his ministrations to the 
 primary, vital truths of the Gospel sin and grace ; the fall 
 of man ; the love of God ; the atonement of Christ ; the 
 work of the Spirit ; the necessity of a new heart and a holy 
 life. He exhibited Christianity, not as a code of restric- 
 tions, but as a religion of privileges, breathing nothing but
 
 254 THE REV. JOHN GEDDIE, D.D. 
 
 blessings. He gave prominence to the fact that Christ came 
 not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. 
 
 He made early and extensive use of the press. He pre- 
 pared and printed alphabets, primers, hymns, Scripture ex- 
 tracts, and catechisms. He did not wait till he had scholars 
 before he printed books ; he provided the book, and then 
 attracted the readers ; and every new book drew in some 
 new scholars. 
 
 He was an excellent translator ; he had a great facility in 
 discovering how texts of Scripture should be translated so 
 as to be most easily understood by the natives. In general 
 his renderings were clear, simple, elegant, and idiomatic. 
 Perhaps in no department of mission work was his loss more 
 felt than in the translation of the Scriptures. But strange 
 as it may appear, though such an excellent translator, he 
 was by no means a good editor. He wanted that power of 
 patient and continuous application so necessary to secure 
 accuracy in all the multitudinous details requiring attention 
 in the editing of a translation in a new language. This was 
 less felt in the first stages of the mission, when the language, 
 in its printed form, was still in a formative, state, but was 
 becoming more seriously felt as the language was assuming 
 a settled and permanent character. Mr. Geddie was a 
 worker, but he was not a plodder, like Dr. Carey, as depicted 
 by Dr. George Smith, whose admirable life of the great 
 proto -missionary of modern times has recently been published. 
 He was always ready to commence and do the main work, 
 but he had not often patience to plod on and finish. 
 
 He had a great genius for mechanical pursuits. Although 
 he had had no previous training, beyond freely using the 
 tools in his father's shop, he could turn his hand with great
 
 THE REV. JOHN GEDDTE, D.D. 255 
 
 readiness to carpenter's work, mason's work, plastering, 
 &c., as well as printing. He would have excelled as an 
 engineer; he had great inventive power; was fertile in 
 expedients to meet new and unexpected difficulties, where 
 civilisation was as little known as Christianity, and where 
 it was necessary to create the conditions under which work 
 could be done, before he could labour. He had a great com- 
 mand over his hand ; had he followed his father's profession, 
 he would certainly have taken a high place among skilled 
 workmen. Had he been a surgeon, he would have been 
 a dexterous operator. He wrote a clear, distinct, beauti- 
 ful hand, and filled page after page without a blot or a 
 mistake. 
 
 He was a man of simple tastes and frugal habits. He 
 was a strict economist ; he kept his expenditure always 
 below his income ; he was specially careful of the Church's 
 funds, and strove most conscientiously to carry on the 
 mission at the least possible expense to its supporters, not 
 to increase his own salary, but in order that the Church 
 might send out more missionaries, and extend the work to 
 the other islands. 
 
 During the first years of the mission he not only wrought 
 hard, but he suffered much from fever and ague. But after 
 the initial difficulties were overcome, and the evangelisation 
 of the natives had fairly commenced, when doors of use- 
 fulness were opening up in all directions, when all was 
 push on and drive through, and this activity was sustained 
 by the excitement of a daily, continuous, and remarkable 
 success, he was in his perfect element. For any amount 
 of active exertion, physical or mental, he was always ready 
 and always able; with singular facility, he could turn him-
 
 2 56 THE REV. JOHN GEDDIE, D.D. 
 
 self to anything, whether it was to build a mission-house, 
 a schoolhouse, or a church ; to translate a gospel, prepare 
 a catechism, or print a primer; to administer medicine, 
 teach a class, or preach a sermon ; to traverse the island on 
 foot, sail round it in his boat, or take a voyage in the John 
 Williams or the John Knox to the adjoining islands. He 
 was ready, ever ready, for all manner of work and every 
 occurring emergency. But he was flesh and blood, and 
 human strength has well - defined, if not also somewhat 
 narrow, limits. He had a remarkably wiry and elastic con- 
 stitution ; but unfortunately for himself, as well as for the 
 mission, he was frequently careless and inattentive as to 
 the state of his health. Like many strong and healthy 
 people, he seemed incapable of realising the sources of 
 danger till the mischief was done, and the remedy came 
 too late. On our return to Aneityum in 1863, we found 
 him quite broken down, and in great need of a change. 
 His visit home at that time had an excellent effect both 
 upon him and upon Mrs. Geddie. Although he had no rest, 
 except during the voyage, and laboured without intermission 
 during the whole time he was at home, yet change of labour 
 was to him, perhaps, better than total rest. The kindness 
 he everywhere received, and the high and generous appre- 
 ciation of his labours, produced upon his sensitive spirit a 
 powerful and beneficial effect, and, in connection with the 
 bracing atmosphere of the northern provinces, acted like 
 magic in restoring his health. No returned missionary was 
 ever more fully appreciated, wherever he went he was 
 greeted with a cordial welcome; the Synod conferred its 
 highest honour upon him, by voting him into the Moderator's 
 chair; an honour which he modestly declined; an academic
 
 THE REV. JOHN GEDD1E, D.D. 257 
 
 degree of D.D. followed him from Canada, while his visita- 
 tion of the congregations was a constant ovation. 
 
 After an absence of nearly three years he returned to 
 Aneityum a renovated man ; the flush of health was again 
 upon his cheeks, his step was again firm and elastic, and his 
 right hand had regained its cunning. But a machine broken 
 and again repaired is seldom, if ever, equal to a new machine ; 
 so renewed health is seldom equal to original health. It was 
 so, at least, with him; his improved health did not long 
 continue unimpaired. He was never quite his former self. 
 Those who saw him only during the latter years of his mis- 
 sionary life saw him to a great disadvantage. His buoyancy 
 was mostly gone. The work, too, on Aneityum had changed, 
 and had become of a kind not at all so well suited to his 
 capacity or so congenial to his taste. Formerly it was plant- 
 ing, now it was watering and weeding ; formerly it was chiefly 
 evangelising, latterly it was more like pastoral work. More- 
 over, during the former period the work was carried on under 
 highly exciting and encouraging circumstances ; during the 
 latter years, owing chiefly to the depopulation of the island 
 by successive epidemics and the breaking up of the mission 
 on Tanna and Eromanga, it was carried on under very depress- 
 ing and discouraging influences; the former work required 
 ceaseless activity, the latter was an endless plodding ; hence 
 the tone of his correspondence latterly was more desponding. 
 
 Had the language of Aneityum been spoken over the whole 
 group, he would have been in his element, following the 
 example of John Williams, visiting other islands, settling 
 teachers, and opening up new stations ; but, alas ! when he 
 set his foot on Tanna, or Eromanga, or Efate, or any other 
 island of the group, he found his tongue tied and his lips
 
 258 THE REV. JOHN GEDDIE, D.D. 
 
 sealed; it was a new language on every island. When he 
 accompanied the Dayspring as sailing missionary, the only 
 medium of communication which he had with the heathen 
 natives was a few words of broken English. In this way he 
 was reluctantly " shut up within a single reef," after the 
 labours for which he was best qualified had been accomplished, 
 to carry on another kind of work for which he had less fitness 
 and less desire. He was singularly gifted for dealing with 
 the heathen, and with those newly brought under Christian 
 influences ; it was, therefore, very disappointing to him to 
 have his generous efforts so abruptly arrested, and his field 
 of usefulness so completely closed. 
 
 But though he had become less vigorous than formerly, 
 there was no very marked debility about him till July 1871, 
 when he had a severe attack of influenza, which was passing 
 over the islands at that time, and from which he never fully 
 recovered ; it left him permanently debilitated ; and the shock 
 of paralysis which he had in the beginning of June, in the 
 following year, laid him wholly aside from all further labour ; 
 it impaired his memory and impeded his speech. 
 
 For two years or so before his death I had observed a grow- 
 ing spirituality in his prayers, as if he had some inward 
 presentiment that his days on earth were drawing to a close. 
 Mr. Neilson, his son-in-law, also informed me that throughout 
 the time he lived with them on Tanna, during his last illness, 
 he appeared very frequently as if engaged in mental prayer, 
 while that morbid anxiety and restlessness under which he 
 had previously been labouring entirely left him, and he 
 became singularly calm and contented. The devotional ten- 
 dencies of his mind appeared very distinctly after his memory 
 began to fail ; while he never omitted to ask a blessing before
 
 THE REV. JOHN GEDDIE, D.D. 259 
 
 meals, he often, unless prevented, returned thanks two or 
 three times. 
 
 For some time before his death he was mostly unconscious. 
 But, happily for us, our salvation does not depend on the con- 
 dition in which bodily disease may place the soul, or affect its 
 exercises at the hour of dissolution. " The gifts and calling 
 of God are without repentance," and are not reversed on 
 account of any accidents that may befall us on the banks of 
 the Jordan. 
 
 Like most men of his temperament, he was not free from 
 constitutional infirmities both of temper and character, which, 
 at times, tended considerably to mar both his usefulness and 
 his happiness, especially during his latter years, when his 
 health began to give way and his nervous system began to be 
 shaken. The strong points of his character were very strong ; 
 but then he had weak points as well. Unhappily for himself, 
 as well as others, he was not always aware in what his great 
 strength lay, and in what it did not lie. He was sometimes 
 the victim of strong prejudices, both as regarded men and 
 things. He was prone to indulge unreasonable hopes in the 
 new, the distant, and the unknown ; while he was often as 
 unreasonably disappointed with the old, the near, and the well 
 known. He was frequently disposed to draw important con- 
 clusions from very slender premises. On subjects which he 
 thoroughly understood, or matters that had come under his 
 own observation, no man could have had more correct views, 
 or express those views more clearly ; but on subjects requir- 
 ing extensive investigation his conclusions were the result of 
 intuition rather than of induction; and hence, on all ques- 
 tions resting on inferential evidence, or requiring a large 
 induction of facts, his opinions were of little value. He was
 
 260 THE REV. JOHN GEDDIE, D.D. 
 
 often prone to look on the dark side of things, and, especially 
 after his nervous system became enfeebled, to take up ground- 
 less suspicions respecting even some of his best friends. 
 
 But he was raised up by God, and qualified to do a great 
 work. That work he did, and did it well. His faults, his 
 failings, his infirmities, will soon all be forgotten ; but he will 
 be remembered as the father and founder of the Presbyterian 
 mission on that group ; as one who has left his mark, broad 
 and deep, on the New Hebrides, but especially on the island 
 of Aneityum, and whose memory will be long and gratefully 
 cherished by the natives ; as one, also, who has increased the 
 usefulness, extended the boundaries, elevated the character, 
 and heightened the reputation of the Presbyterian Church of 
 Nova Scotia; and as one whose example will fan the flame 
 of missionary zeal in that and other Churches for many years 
 to come. Oh that many such as he may respond to the 
 Divine call, and say, " Lord, here am I ; send me ! "
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MRS. INGLIS. 
 
 THE subject of the following sketch was born at Corriefeck- 
 loch, in the parish of Minnigaff, Kirkcudbrightshire, on the 
 1 5th of April 1821. Her father, John M'Clymont, was a well- 
 known and much-esteemed farmer, and for long a leading 
 elder in the Reformed Presbyterian congregation of Newton - 
 Stewart. Her mother, Jane Murray, who was a model wife, 
 mother, and mistress, was the daughter of a highly respectable 
 elder in one of the Secession congregations in Stranraer. 
 Jessie M'Clymont was the eldest of a family of eleven, of 
 whom eight were daughters and three were sons ; of these, 
 only four are now living one of her brothers and three of 
 her sisters. Corriefeckloch is situated in one of the highest 
 of the upland districts of Galloway, on the borders of Ayrshire, 
 near to the Merrick, the highest hill in the South of Scotland. 
 The district being pastoral, the population was sparse, and 
 the educational advantages were very unsatisfactory. After 
 utilising what the locality could supply, she had to be sent 
 to Newton - Stewart, Stranraer, Ayr, and Manchester, to 
 supply what was lacking at home. When her education, so 
 far as it went, was completed in one of the best ladies' schools 
 in Manchester, she returned home, at the age of fourteen, 
 a precocious girl, both physically and mentally, and for the
 
 262 MRS. INGLIS. 
 
 next nine years of her life, till the day of her marriage, on 
 the nth of April 1844, she was her mother's right hand in 
 the upbringing of the younger children of the family, and 
 in assisting her in all household duties. It was for her an 
 admirable training better than that found in most boarding- 
 schools. She became a thorough expert in domestic economy, 
 both theoretical and practical. It was a family training that 
 went far to fit her for the place she was called to fill as a 
 missionary's wife. The family at Corriefeckloch had a large 
 circle of intelligent Christian relations and friends ; and while 
 they practised a strict economy, they used hospitality without 
 grudging. Theirs was a house often visited by ministers, not 
 only of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, but of all denomi- 
 nations. It has been observed by some, that in those families 
 where a prophet's chamber is provided, and often occupied, 
 where ministers of the Gospel are frequently entertained 
 when discharging their duties, there is among the children a 
 greater intelligence, a higher culture, and a more earnest and 
 enlightened piety than is to be found in families of the same 
 status where there is no chamber on the wall for the passing 
 prophet, and where no Elisha or other holy man of God is 
 constrained by the mistress of the house to go in and eat 
 bread as he passes on his way. 
 
 It is often a difficult matter to fix the date of any one's 
 conversion ; a more important matter is to be certain that it 
 has actually taken place. It is stated in the Life of the late 
 eminent Dr. Wardlaw of Glasgow, that he could not fix the 
 time when he was converted. He was surrounded with 
 healthful religious influences from his earliest childhood, and 
 through these the Spirit of God had operated silently but 
 surely, and in such a way as left 110 doubt of the efficacy of
 
 MES. 1NGLIS. 263 
 
 His work, if the child was not sanctified from his mother's 
 womb. The subject of this sketch, being the eldest child of 
 pious parents, was carefully instructed in Scriptural know- 
 ledge, brought up in the fear of the Lord, and trained up in 
 the way she should go; was a staid, thoughtful child, and 
 had always the appearance of one living under the powers 
 of the world to come. The Rev. Dr. A. Symington, in his 
 admirable Memoir of the Rev. T. Halliday of Airdrie, quotes 
 with approbation the following sentence : " In a regular state 
 of the Church, and a tolerable measure of faithfulness and 
 purity in its officers, family instruction and government are 
 the usual means of conversion, and the public ordinances of 
 edification ; " and Samuel Rutherford says : " I mean not by 
 this that all the children of God can tell the very first 
 mathematical point of the time of their conversion ; for there 
 be some with whom the Lord has dealt from their youth, and 
 with some the Lord deals more smoothly in their conversion 
 than He deals with others." 
 
 But however the Spirit of God may have been working in 
 her young heart, it was the reading of John Angell James's 
 " Christian Professor," the gift of a friend, through which the 
 Spirit either produced a change of heart, or quickened into 
 new activity a feeble spiritual life, which led her to come to a 
 decision, and make a profession of her faith in Christ. At 
 that time there was a vacancy in the congregation of Newton- 
 Stewart, in which, as I have said, her father was an elder. 
 Dr. Symington of Stranraer was Moderator of the Session pro 
 temp. Along with some other candidates, she was carefully 
 examined by him, and on his report was admitted by the 
 Session to the full fellowship of the Church, in 1839, I think, 
 when eighteen years of age. The family lived thirteen miles
 
 264 MRS. INGLIS. 
 
 from their usual place of worship at Newton-Stewart. For a 
 number of years, during three or four months in summer, 
 the members of the Secession and Eeformed Presbyterian 
 Churches maintained a preaching-station for the benefit of 
 their own families and the inhabitants of the district generally ; 
 but for about eight months in the year, including the entire 
 winter, there was no preaching nearer than Newton- Stewart. 
 But a gig and a cart were called into requisition every Sabbath, 
 and the bulk of the family were always to be found at church. 
 Those who remained at home improved their time by the 
 reading of good books. A favourite book with her on these 
 days was Brown's " Dictionary of the Bible " a book found 
 then in almost every well-instructed family, in the South of 
 Scotland at least, and which is well fitted, from its contents, 
 historical, doctrinal, and practical, to attract, instruct, and 
 impress the reader. She was always a Bible student. When 
 out in the islands, as a kind of light reading at odd times, she 
 read through the whole of Kitto's " Pictorial Bible." 
 
 Three months after our marriage we sailed from London to 
 New Zealand, and joined the Eeformed Presbyterian Mission 
 to the Maories. After eight years we removed to the New 
 Hebrides, in which mission she laboured for twenty-five years. 
 On our return home she spent four years three in London 
 and one in Kirkcowan assisting me to carry through the 
 press the Aneityumese Old Testament and some other native 
 books, including the Aneityumese grammar and dictionary. 
 She was thus publicly employed in mission-work for thirty- 
 seven years. During the last four years of her life she 
 lived retired in Kirkcowan; but she always felt herself as 
 being identified with the New Hebrides mission, and did 
 everything in her power to promote its interests both at
 
 MRS. INGLIS. 265 
 
 home and abroad. She kept up a regular correspondence with 
 all the missionaries' wives, also with a good many ladies, both 
 in Australia and New Zealand, who were warm friends of 
 that mission ; her interest in the mission was unabated till 
 the day of her death. 
 
 It is not my intention to give a full account of her life, or 
 a full delineation of her character ; to do so would be to write 
 a history of the mission she was so identified with all its 
 operations. All that I intend is simply to sketch the out- 
 standing facts of her life and the more prominent features of 
 her character. She entered the mission with the full convic- 
 tion that God had called her to that work, and she threw all 
 her energies into it. Having put her hand to the plough, 
 she never thought of looking back. Although strongly at- 
 tached to her father and mother, to her brothers and sisters, 
 yet, during all the long and lonely years which she lived on 
 the islands, often not seeing a white face but our own for five 
 or six months at a time, she never gave way to the feeling of 
 home-sickness ; she never repined ; she cheerfully recognised 
 the principle, " He that loveth father or mother more than 
 Me is not worthy of Me." But while thoroughly missionary 
 at heart, she was no fanatic ; she took a common-sense view 
 of the situation. She recognised herself as being first a wife, 
 and next a missionary. She felt that her household duties 
 were her first duties ; that she was bound, in the first place, 
 to use all lawful endeavours to preserve her own life and that 
 of her husband ; to attend so to food, clothing, and domestic 
 comfort as would secure the highest possible health in the 
 circumstances, in a place where the climate was debilitating, 
 and where every convenience and every comfort had to be 
 created before it could be enjoyed ; where every violation of
 
 266 MRS. INGLIS. 
 
 the laws of health was followed by the inevitable penalty ; and 
 this policy went far to secure the subsequent success of the 
 mission. 
 
 From various causes our views on almost every subject 
 were very much the same, from the dogmas of theology down 
 to the minutest details in the arrangement of mission- work. 
 This similarity in our views and sentiments was not caused, 
 but it was greatly fostered, by our general reading being nearly 
 always the same. Shortly after our marriage we happened to 
 read an anecdote of Mrs. Taylor, wife of the author of the 
 " Additions to Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible," and other 
 works. When Mrs. Taylor had been married about a year or 
 so, a lady friend called upon her one day, and in the course 
 of conversation asked her what books she was reading. 
 " Books ! " said Mrs. Taylor, " I read no books ; the housework 
 and the baby occupy all my time." " Read no books ! " said 
 the astonished lady ; " and what do you think you will become ? 
 Your husband is a great reader ; he is reading daily ; and if 
 you read none, will you be any companion to him ten years 
 hence ? No ; do what you like, but you must read. Offer to 
 read with him and for him ; read aloud for him while he eats 
 his meals, and get him to read aloud to you while you nurse 
 the baby and do your work. See that you read or hear him 
 read as much as he does." Mr. Taylor was in business at that 
 time, and it was only when his work was over that he had 
 time to read. Mrs. Taylor took up the suggestion, and carried 
 it out ; and the woman who became known as the mother of 
 Isaac and Jane Taylor and their sisters must have read to 
 good purpose. My wife caught up the idea, and carried out 
 the principle, in its spirit at least. We arranged that I should 
 read all my strictly professional reading by myself, while she
 
 MRS. INGL1S. 267 
 
 was engaged with her own especial duties, but that we should 
 read together all our general or popular reading, especially 
 in the evening. In our particular circumstances, having the 
 arranging of our work mostly in our own hands, it was easier 
 for us than for most people to make such an arrangement. 
 In this way we read together our newspapers, magazines, 
 quarterlies, and books of general interest. Sometimes I read 
 while she was plying her needle, and at other times we read 
 time about. On this plan we read the writings of the 
 Symingtons, and most of the literature of the Reformed 
 Presbyterian Church, ancient and modern; for, while the 
 reverse of sectarian, we wished to possess an intelligent know- 
 ledge of the principles of our own denomination. We read 
 together the Life and most of the practical writings of 
 Chalmers, the Life and the whole of the theological works of 
 Principal Cunningham, also the writings of Hugh Miller, of 
 Moffat, and of Livingstone. We read a considerable amount 
 of missionary biography and books on missions, especially on 
 missions in the South Seas. We made remarks on all these 
 books as we read them, and in this way, our knowledge being 
 drawn so much from the same sources, the tendency was to 
 bring our views and feelings into harmony, and lead us to aim 
 at the same ends and to seek to accomplish them in the same 
 manner ; and union here was strength. 
 
 From the very first she set herself, as a duty, to acquire a 
 knowledge of the native language, both in New Zealand and 
 in the New Hebrides. She had a considerable knowledge of 
 the Maori language ; but as we never succeeded in obtaining 
 a satisfactory field of labour in New Zealand, owing to the 
 arrangements of the other missions and the unsettled state of 
 the natives, her knowledge of it was limited compared with
 
 268 MRS. INGLIS. 
 
 her knowledge of the Aneityumese. She never thought of 
 speaking to the natives in broken English, or "pigeon" or 
 sandalwood English, as it is called. This is easiest at first, 
 but accuracy is longer in being attained, and the result is 
 far less satisfactory. She began to speak to the natives on 
 Aneityum with some two or three words, and supplemented 
 these with signs, and wrought away as she best could, but 
 continuing to add to her vocabulary and improve in the know- 
 ledge of the language, till there was not a word in common 
 use the meaning of which she did not know ; and before long 
 she spoke it with great readiness and fluency, if not always 
 with strict grammatical accuracy or with a perfectly correct 
 pronunciation. How few speak a foreign language exactly 
 like a native ! but she spoke it so that the natives always 
 understood what she said to them, and she always understood 
 what the natives said to her. 
 
 She never waited for some great opportunity to arise, or 
 till some great work was to be done ; she cheerfully accepted 
 the day of small things, and always undertook the work that 
 lay nearest to her hand. When we went to Aneityum, as 
 she knew nothing of the language, she went to the morning- 
 school, and commenced a class of ten or a dozen little girls 
 in the alphabet, as she could teach them that with the least 
 possible knowledge of the language. By the time these knew 
 the alphabet and could read a little, she was able to speak to 
 them. She continued this class till they were all good readers. 
 She then, in addition to reading, taught them to commit 
 Scripture to memory, and they went on all learning some 
 parts; but a number of them committed to memory gospel 
 after gospel as fast as they were printed about one in the 
 year then the Acts, and then Paul's Epistles, from Galatians
 
 MRS. INGLIS. * 269 
 
 to Philemon. What they learned daily during the week they 
 repeated in whole on Sabbath. By-and-by, as the work grew 
 upon her, she had to give up her attendance at the morning- 
 school, and confine herself to a Bible-class on the Sabbaths 
 and on the Wednesdays. She instituted a forenoon sewing- 
 class for the women on certain days of the week, which was 
 largely attended. She also established a boarding-school, or 
 a school of industry, for girls and young women. She began 
 with two, but they went on increasing till she had at times 
 as many as sixteen. They lived on the premises, under the 
 immediate care of a responsible man and his wife. For 
 twenty years at least they were under the care of Lazarus 
 and Esther, two natives well known in the mission. My 
 wife undertook to clothe the girls and teach them, but their 
 parents or friends were to supply them with food. Not 
 infrequently, however, she had to feed a portion of them as 
 well. This school proved a great success ; the girls were well 
 instructed and carefully protected. The most of them became 
 teachers' wives, and in after years exercised a salutary influ- 
 ence on the community. 
 
 When Mr. and Mrs. Geddie came to Aneityum, they were 
 accompanied from Samoa by an experienced missionary and 
 his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Powell, to assist them in establishing 
 the mission. The Powells brought with them a knowledge of 
 the best modes of conducting female education, as carried on 
 in Samoa. After their departure, Mrs. Geddie first, who had 
 seen the system in operation in Samoa, and three years after- 
 wards my wife, carried out those principles and plans that 
 had been found to work so successfully by the missionaries' 
 wives in Samoa, utilising their experience, and working on 
 the same lines, simply varying their modes -to meet different
 
 2/0 MRS. INGLTS. 
 
 circumstances among an entirely different race of people ; and 
 to this they owed much of their success. 
 
 My wife was an excellent teacher. In the language of the 
 Educational Code, she was strong in drill. For in its order 
 her Sabbath Bible-class exemplified the Italian proverb it 
 was " as round as Giotto's circle ; " and her week-day sewing- 
 class, often numbering from forty to fifty, was equally well 
 arranged. At first she had to supply the scholars with 
 needles, thread, thimbles, scissors, and all sewing material. 
 If the natives had cloth of their own, she cut it for them 
 as required ; if they had none, she supplied them also with 
 seams. Her aim, like Dr. Chalmers's, was to multiply her- 
 self. She trained so thoroughly the girls living on the 
 premises, that they were able to act as monitors under her ; 
 and when these large classes were collected, she divided them, 
 and set one of her own well-trained girls over every class of 
 four or five to teach them ; and in this way female education 
 and a knowledge of sewing was extended. 
 
 But by-and-by, as scholars increased, she restricted this 
 kind of teaching to a class for the teachers' wives, which met 
 once a week; and as clothing became more plentiful among 
 the natives, she caused the teachers' wives to bring with them 
 all the cloth the natives possessed, and she, assisted by the 
 most skilful of her own girls, cut out the garments for the 
 owners of the cloth, and sent the teachers' wives back to their 
 respective localities to keep schools with their own women, 
 and teach them to sew. If they had no cloth of their own, 
 she supplied them with garments, cut out and tacked together, 
 to be sewed in the district schools, and brought back to her 
 when finished, a week, or a fortnight, or a month afterwards, 
 as distance or other circumstances might render necessary.
 
 MUS. INGLIS. 271 
 
 In another respect she was a great help to me among the 
 women. In heathenism the women were so down-trodden by 
 the men, that they would never have come to me, being a 
 man, to speak about anything. But she, being a woman, was 
 recognised as their friend, and in proportion as they came to 
 know her character their confidence increased. Hence they 
 came to her to explain all their ailments and unbosom all 
 their griefs and sorrows. In this way through her I gained 
 a great amount of valuable information respecting the social 
 condition of the community, which guided me in many impor- 
 tant matters, and enabled me often either to remove or to 
 prevent many serious evils, which, if allowed to go on, might 
 have resulted in disastrous consequences. But with know- 
 ledge thus acquired, which was always power, without any 
 one suspecting it, I could often bring about either the preven- 
 tion or cure of evils, as the case might require. I was able 
 often to ameliorate the condition of the women, and at the 
 same time do no harm to the men, but the very reverse. 
 
 She possessed the administrative faculty in a very high 
 degree. She had order both as to place and time. She laid 
 out her work beforehand; she saw clearly what was to be 
 done ; she knew well how it was to be done ; she ascertained 
 what labour she coxild command ; and she gave her instruc- 
 tions so distinctly that the work was invariably well done, 
 and the workers were never oppressed. Whether the helps 
 were few or many, she divided the work equally among them ; 
 it was felt also to be so reasonable, and comparatively so light, 
 that it was hopefully undertaken and cheerfully performed. 
 The natives during her busiest times felt that they were 
 never burdened. There was no hurry, no bustle, no fuss. 
 Things invariably went on almost, like clockwork, meals were
 
 2/2 MRS. INGL1S. 
 
 served up to the very minute, and every other arrangement 
 was as exact. A gentleman from Sydney, who was staying 
 with us for a short time, was so struck with the punctuality 
 of the meals as got up by the natives, of course under her 
 directions, that he said one day, " Well, I have lived on board 
 a man-of-war, and in many places where order reigned, but 
 I never saw punctuality like this. Why, the meals are all 
 to a very moment." At meetings of the Mission Synod we 
 often sat twenty for dinner and all other meals for a week or 
 ten days at least ; yet so thorough were her arrangements, 
 that on one occasion a lady of the party wrote to one of her 
 friends that there was not even a salt-spoon either awanting 
 or out of its place. The captain of the Dayspring said that 
 she could have conducted the commissariat department of a 
 man-of-war. Some visitors were of opinion that the natives 
 at our station were of a different race from the others, they 
 seemed so docile and so easily managed. They were possibly 
 not aware, however, that at such times she was up every 
 morning at four o'clock; that she had at her back from 
 twenty to thirty of her best-trained natives, mostly teachers 
 and teachers' wives, whom she had trained herself and brought 
 there for the occasion. She had every one of them told off 
 for some special duty, that every one might know his or her 
 work, and that they had to do nothing else. Before breakfast, 
 which was at seven o'clock, owing to the heat, everything had 
 been arranged for the day, and to the uninitiated it seemed 
 as if the whole organisation was some self-acting machine 
 that required no guiding; they did not know how much 
 thought, and planning, and arranging, and hard work had 
 been done before all these agencies had been put into such 
 working order, and the mistress of the house could accompany
 
 MBS. INGLIS. 273 
 
 her lady visitors for two hours daily to the meetings of the 
 Mission Synod, as if she had had as little to think of as they 
 had. There was work hard work but there was no worry ; 
 for thought and timely arrangement had prevented all that. 
 It was not mere mechanical drill on the part of the natives 
 that wrought these results; it was intelligent, well-directed 
 principle. On one occasion there was an unusual number 
 of children some twelve or fourteen. To meet this demand 
 an apartment was curtained off with mats in the Teachers' 
 Institution ; a temporary table was provided for the children 
 and their nurses, and their meals were served up to them 
 there; and every morning a different missionary and his 
 wife were appointed to take charge of the juvenile table, to 
 see that the children had their meals properly, and that the 
 nurses did their duty to all parties. This proved a satisfactory 
 arrangement. To provide food during that time for mis- 
 sionaries and their families, to the number of thirty or more, 
 and an equal number of native servants, required some fore- 
 thought. Accordingly for two or three weeks previously she 
 advertised for fowls, and bought every one that was brought 
 to her, till her coops were all full. She spoke to every fisher- 
 man on the shore to keep her supplied with fish during the 
 meeting ; she had spoken to eight or ten of the chiefs to supply 
 her daily with so many baskets of taro, each man on his day ; 
 and she had pigs and goats ready to be killed as they might 
 be required. On such occasions, in addition to these, she 
 provided in abundance yams, bread-fruit, bananas, cocoa-nuts, 
 pine-apples, sugar-cane, oranges, &c., according to the season. 
 She bought everything that came. If the missionaries could 
 not eat all that was provided, the servants could ; or if the 
 servants could not, there was an overflow meeting outside that
 
 274 MRS. INGTJS. 
 
 could utilise the fragments ; and with whom it was always 
 desirable to be on good terms, not knowing when their help 
 might be required for some purpose ; so that nothing was ever 
 lost. She had two kitchens one of them a temporary erec- 
 tion with an American stove in each, the one new, the other 
 old. She had a cook and his assistant in each kitchen, with 
 other help. She prepared a dozen bedrooms, the majority of 
 them extemporised, as a matter of course, but all of them 
 supplied with everything necessary. In these circumstances, 
 with guests all agreeable, and all willing to be pleased, the 
 meetings proved very enjoyable, and to the most of the 
 visitors the only regret was that their stay could not be 
 further prolonged. 
 
 She took a great interest in the native children, especially 
 the female children, who were sadly neglected in heathenism ; 
 male children were highly prized, but female children were 
 nothing accounted of. You would see the fathers often 
 carrying about and nursing their sons, but you would never 
 see a man nursing his daughter. On one occasion, shortly 
 after we went to Aneityum, a woman near us gave birth 
 to 'a daughter, that being the third daughter she had born 
 in succession. When she learned that it was a daughter 
 and not a son, as she wished and hoped for, she cried out 
 to the women beside her, " Oh, kill it, kill it ! " The natives 
 around her were Christian, and hence her request was re- 
 fused ; but the utterance showed how little value was placed 
 upon girls. My wife set herself to save the infant girls, 
 and the first step she took was not to denounce the poor 
 mothers, but to draw them into her plans. She told the 
 women that she had a great love for the little girls, and that 
 from this time forward she would give a nice dress to every
 
 MRS. INGLIS. 275 
 
 little girl whose mother would bring it to her as soon as 
 she was able after the child was born. She therefore set 
 to work, and, with the help of her own girls, got a number 
 of little garments prepared ; and whenever a mother brought 
 to her a newly-born girl, she dressed it with one of these 
 garments, kissed the baby, praised its clear, bright, black 
 eyes, spoke kindly to the mother, urged upon her the im- 
 portance of nursing the child carefully and keeping it clean, 
 and asked her to bring it back often that she might see it. 
 From that day to this there has not been a girl killed on 
 Aneityum, or yet seriously injured. It was the influence of 
 Christianity that was the great cause, but this also helped. 
 The children were brought to me for medicine, but she 
 supplied medical comforts ; and, either directly or indirectly, 
 she saved many an infant's life. 
 
 During the first year of our residence on Aneityum, a 
 man and his wife brought their sick child to the mission- 
 house. The mother was a young wife about eighteen, con- 
 nected with one of the best families in the district; she 
 was professedly Christian, and very good-looking. The 
 husband was one of the most glum, sullen, and forbidding- 
 looking savages that I ever looked upon an avowed heathen. 
 The child was to all appearance dying; but my wife got a 
 tub of warm water, bathed the child carefully, dried it, and 
 wrapped it up in a piece of a soft blanket, then gave the 
 poor mother a cup of tea and a biscuit. The child by-and- 
 by got a little medicine. They stayed for a few days, partly 
 on our premises and partly in the house of an uncle of the 
 mother's, a Christian man, who attended to the mother and 
 the child. The treatment was successful; the child fully 
 recovered, and grew up to be a fine young man. My wife
 
 2/6 MRS. INGLIS. 
 
 always professed to claim him as her child, seeing she had 
 saved his life. The father was never so terribly glum after- 
 wards; a slight gleam of grateful sunshine lit up his dark 
 countenance, and by-and-by he abandoned heathenism and 
 avowed himself a Christian. On another occasion a man 
 and his wife had come with a sick child, and stayed in one 
 of the little hospitals at the mission station. One morning 
 the man came to me to borrow a spade. I asked him what 
 he was going to do with the spade. He said he was going 
 to dig a grave in which to bury the child. I said to him, 
 "When did the child die?" "Oh," he said, "it is not 
 dead, but it is dying." On hearing this my wife said to 
 him, " Go quickly and bring it to me." He went off at 
 once and brought his wife with the child. It was a cold 
 morning, at least for Aneityum, and the cold was telling on 
 the poor child. It was not dead, but would certainly have 
 died if nothing had been done for it. My wife got a warm 
 bath ready, bathed the child, and afterwards wrapped it 
 carefully in an old soft shawl that had been sent to her from 
 New Zealand in a mission-box, and gave the poor sorrowing 
 mother a cup of tea and a biscuit. When the child revived and 
 began to suck vigorously, the poor father was in an ecstasy 
 of delight, and seemed to forget entirely everything about 
 the spade and the grave. She sent him off to gather wood 
 and keep up a good fire in the hospital. In a few days the 
 family returned home, the mother and child both quite 
 well. By acts such as these, which were often repeated, she 
 saved many an infant's life and alleviated a great amount 
 of juvenile suffering, and at the same time she gained an 
 amazing influence for good over the mothers and the female 
 population generally ; so that there was nothing at all reason-
 
 MRS. INGLIS. 277 
 
 able which they were not willing to do for her if she only 
 asked them to do it. They were docile as children, and 
 would have refused her nothing.* 
 
 She was the first to introduce the making of arrowroot on 
 Aneityum. When we went to the island, all the arrowroot 
 that was used was got from Samoa, and was of very inferior 
 quality, owing to the way in which it was made. After a 
 time she said to me one day, " What a pity it is, when we 
 have the arrowroot growing on the island, that we should 
 not make it for ourselves." We had at that time a 
 Rarotongan teacher and his wife living with us for a year, 
 till they should be settled elsewhere. When the arrowroot 
 was ripe, my wife said to the Rarotongan woman, " Tutau 
 could you teach me to make arrowroot ? " " Oh yes," said 
 Tutau, "if you get me the arrowroot." The raw material 
 was procured. " Now," said the woman, " how do you wish 
 
 * I had just finished this sketch when I received a copy of the Toronto Pres- 
 byterian Review of September i7th, 1885, containing a notice of Mrs. Inglis's 
 death, by the Rev. "VY. M'Cullagh, formerly of the New Hebrides mission, 
 who occupied Dr. Geddie's station on Aneityum for three years, from 1864 
 till 1867, in which he says: "Of her it may be truly said, 'Blessed are 
 the dead which die in the Lord,' &c. She was in every sense the model 
 missionary's wife, for piety, prudence, energy, tact, and skill. Few could 
 surpass her in the duties of practical housekeeping, whilst the mission 
 premises, both inside and out, furnished abundant proof of her superin- 
 tending care. Mrs. Inglis knew how to utilise the products of the island, 
 so that visitors were at once surprised and entertained by her simple yet 
 varied hospitality. She was indeed a true helpmeet to her husband, and 
 though she had no family, her spiritual children were numerous. Her 
 trained domestics would have done credit to any first-class hotel in the 
 Dominion, and her influence over the female portion of the island was 
 magical. No doubt this contributed in no small degree to her husband's 
 success in that part of the island. Her death will be deeply felt by her 
 husband and the Church, and by all who knew her ; and yet their sorrow 
 is not without hope, for assuredly hers will be the reward recorded in Daniel 
 xii. 3 : ' They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, 
 and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." "
 
 27 8 MRS. INGLIS. 
 
 it to be made ? Do you wish it to be made as we make it for 
 the missionaries, or as we make it for a contribution to the 
 London Missionary Society ? " " What is the difference ? " 
 said my wife. " Oh," said Tutau, " there is a great difference. 
 When we make it for the missionaries, we make it far more 
 carefully; we wash the bulbs first, and scrape the skin all 
 off, and then wash them all again, and make them as clean 
 as they can be made, before we grate them down and strain 
 the pulp through a thin cloth ; but when we make it for the 
 Society, we just wash the bulbs and then grate them down, 
 skins and all. The arrowroot," she said, " is just as good, 
 but it is not so pure and white." My wife said, "Oh, I want 
 you to make it as you do for the missionaries the very best 
 that can be made." Tutau set to work, and made fifteen or 
 twenty pounds, the first arrowroot ever made on Aneityum. 
 My wife watched the process, and treasured up in her memory 
 the knowledge thus acquired. The next year she offered to 
 buy all the unprepared arrowroot which the natives might 
 bring. They accordingly brought and brought, and she got 
 our own natives to make it under her direction, till, when 
 finished, instead of twenty or thirty pounds, as she intended, 
 she had from two to three hundred pounds. This was taken 
 by our steadfast friend, Bishop Selwyn, to Mr. Archibald 
 Clark of Auckland, who sold it, the one-half to the Hon. 
 Mr. Shepherd, Colonial Treasurer, the other half to the 
 Hon. Dr. Sinclair, Colonial Secretary gentlemen who knew 
 thoroughly the difference between genuine and adulterated 
 arrowroot. Mr. Clark sent the proceeds in clothing for the 
 natives, and also some suggestions as to how it might be 
 improved in the making of it for the market, and offered to 
 take half a ton next year. On the New Hebrides the natives
 
 MRS. 1NGLIS. 279 
 
 have never learned that there are two ways of making 
 arrowroot; they know only the best way. The industry 
 was now established, but simply as a contribution to the 
 mission, not as an article of commerce. The difficulty is 
 in finding a market. The natives of Aneityum have con- 
 tributed upwards of 2000 for Bibles, books, and missions 
 the proceeds of arrowroot. Other islands, viz., Tanna, Aniwa, 
 Eromanga, Efate, and ISTguna, have all followed the example 
 of Aneityum ; the work is going on, and extending year by 
 year. The arrowroot has uniformly realised a shilling a 
 pound. What is wanted is a steady market, and, to secure 
 this, it would be well if each Church connected with the 
 mission would appoint a small active committee to attend 
 to the sale of the arrowroot. Hitherto our best agents 
 have been the wives and daughters of our ministers and 
 elders wise-hearted and willing-handed Christian women. 
 But these must be sought out and their services engaged ; 
 and it would be the work of these committees to discover 
 and enlist them. In this age of enterprise the sale of every 
 manufactured article must be pushed, and why not push 
 " mission " arrowroot ? 
 
 Her great familiarity with the language was of very im- 
 portant service to me in translating, revising, and editing the 
 Scriptures. She never translated any of the Bible herself, 
 but she was an acute and a sound critic. I always read to 
 her every chapter that I translated. She often objected to 
 words and phrases, and she often suggested improvements ; 
 and both her objections and her suggestions were generally 
 correct, or were at least worth attending to. She listened 
 attentively always to the last revision of every chapter, and 
 approved of all the final corrections. Every final proof she
 
 2 SO MRS. INGLIS. 
 
 attested at least twice. After I had corrected the proofs till 
 I thought them perfect, she took the Authorised English 
 Bible and read it over slowly word by word, naming also 
 every stop, while I watched the translation to see that no 
 word was omitted, and that no word was added. When this 
 was done, I took the English version and she took the transla- 
 tion, and read it over in the same way, and I checked it. At 
 times we reversed the process : I read, and she watched and 
 checked the errors, if any. I may here remark in passing, 
 that, owing to the different idioms of the two languages, the 
 points are not always inserted in the same places in the 
 sentences. Nevertheless it was always useful to compare the 
 punctuation of the two versions. Those unacquainted with 
 such work can scarcely comprehend the labour and the close 
 attention required in such a task. There are nearly a million 
 words in the Aneityumese Bible, and perhaps more than 
 120,000 stops. Now, to read twice through the entire Bible, 
 name these million words each time, and be certain that each 
 word is correctly spelled, and also name twice over each one 
 of those 120,000 stops, and see that each is inserted in its 
 proper place, that a period should never take the place of a 
 comma, a colon of a semicolon, or a point of exclamation be 
 placed for a note of interrogation. This is the drudgery of 
 literature, wanting all the inspiration and all the pleasure of 
 original composition, and where, as Dr. Johnson says of the 
 compilers of dictionaries, the utmost that can be expected is 
 to escape censure. In this department of mission-work she 
 laboured conscientiously and successfully for twenty-nine long 
 years, from the time she went to Aneityum till four years 
 before her death, when the entire Bible, the first part of the 
 Pilgrim's Progress (abridged), the Hymnal, the First Gate-
 
 MRS. INGL1S. 28l 
 
 chisrn, the Shorter Catechism, and the Grammar and Dictionary 
 were all printed. 
 
 She had an excellent constitution, and throughout her whole 
 life enjoyed a fair measure of good health. On Aneityum, 
 and also after her return home, she suffered a good deal from 
 fever and ague of a mild type ; however, she never had any 
 violent attacks. The most serious ailment from which she 
 suffered was sunstroke in 1858, which was followed by several 
 slight attacks of paralysis, but from which she always com- 
 pletely recovered in a few days. 
 
 On our return to this country in 1860, we were introduced 
 by Dr. Goold to Dr. Patrick Heron Watson of Edinburgh, 
 who was just then commencing his brilliant medical career, 
 by which he has taken his place in the front rank of the pro- 
 fession, and gained for himself a European reputation. He 
 examined her very carefully, and after hearing the history of 
 the case and learning all about the symptoms, he pronounced 
 it to be sunstroke. It was the first case of sunstroke we had 
 known, although we knew of several afterwards. Dr. Watson's 
 treatment was very successful ; she had no more paralytic 
 symptoms, although there was a tenderness left in the brain, 
 and she had to be cautious in exerting herself ; she never 
 durst strain the eyes by writing, reading, or sewing, especially 
 white seam. Any long close application of the eyes was felt 
 on the brain. On one occasion on the islands she did not 
 write a letter for eighteen months, and by exercising due 
 caution she suffered very little. On account of this weakness, I 
 was always afraid she might be cut off by paralysis or apoplexy, 
 but never apprehended that heart disease, as it turned out, 
 was likely to be the cause of her death. Although she did not 
 reach the extreme limit of human life ; although, like Jacob,
 
 282 MRS. INGLIS. 
 
 she did not attain unto the days of the years of the life of her 
 fathers her mother died at seventy-six, her maternal grand- 
 mother at eighty-six, and her paternal grandmother at ninety- 
 one yet the time of her working life was above the average. 
 For more than half a century, from her fourteenth year to her 
 sixty-fifth, every day of her life she had done a full woman's 
 work. During all the twenty-five years of our mission-work 
 on Aneityum, she wrought to the full extent of her strength, 
 often greatly beyond it, especially during the first eight years. 
 There were at that time, on our side of the island, 1900 
 natives ; of that number little more than a hundred professed 
 Christianity when we went there, and wore any European 
 clothing. Before the end of those eight years all those 1800 
 heathens had renounced heathenism, were professing Chris- 
 tianity, and were wearing more or less of European clothing ; 
 and almost every one of those 1800 garments worn by the 
 natives had passed through her hands. The demand for 
 clothing was urgent and almost unprecedented in extent. 
 She wrote to her friends at home and in New Zealand for 
 clothing, new or old, and they responded nobly. But the 
 planning as to how to clothe the greatest number of people 
 with the smallest possible quantity of cloth was a problem 
 difficult to be solved. But it was solved in some way. Some 
 would say, " Why not let them do with their native clothing ? " 
 as none "of them were absolutely naked ; for throughout all 
 those islands the dress of which Adam and Eve's girdles were 
 the original patterns is still universally worn. But as it 
 was then, so it is now. As soon as Adam and Eve received 
 and embraced the promise of Christ, as soon as they became 
 professedly Christian, the Lord clothed them with coats of 
 skins, which became a badge of their Christianity ; so as soon
 
 MRS. INGLIS. 283 
 
 as those natives renounced heathenism and professed Chris- 
 tianity, the wearing of some portion of European clothing 
 became a recognised badge of Christianity, as well as the first 
 step towards their civilisation. European clothing had, there- 
 fore, an important bearing on the progress of Christianity on 
 the island, and we did our utmost to utilise the demand. 
 
 But these severe and long- continued strains on her strength 
 in a debilitating climate, as well as the effects of the sunstroke, 
 were telling on her system ; and when we returned home, 
 after eight years' labour on Aneityum after sixteen years' 
 mission-work altogether although her health was compara- 
 tively good, she was so changed in appearance that her friends 
 could scarcely recognise her. Indeed, on the night of her 
 arrival, her youngest brother and her second youngest sister 
 really doubted her identity. When she went away to the 
 mission, they were children of six and eight years of age 
 respectively ; but that night, before retiring to bed, they said 
 to one another, " That lady is never our sister ; but we will 
 say nothing about it till the morning." Next morning, when 
 the fatigue of the journey and the excitement of meeting had 
 passed off, and when a refreshing night's sleep had restored 
 her to something like herself, the doubting brother and sister 
 said again to one another, " Yes, that must be Jessie after 
 all ; the old life and fire are still in her." But after remain- 
 ing in this country two years and a half, assisting me, along 
 with Williamu, a native of Aneityum, to revise the New 
 Testament and carry it through the press, her health and 
 strength became quite reinvigorated, and she never broke 
 down afterwards. 
 
 She had good conversational powers ; she spoke with ease 
 and fluency, but she never attempted to give any public
 
 284 MRS. INGLIS. 
 
 address. At tea-parties or similar gatherings, however, 
 especially if questions were put to her, she could pour forth 
 interesting information about the natives and the mission. 
 During one of our visits to Victoria, we were staying with a 
 family very deeply interested in the mission ; a few friends 
 were invited to meet us. During the evening the gentleman 
 of the house got beside my wife and began to question her 
 about the mission. A good part of the company gathered 
 round them, and an animated conversation was carried on till 
 a late hour. I was doing what I could to entertain another 
 part of the company. Next day this gentleman said to one 
 of the party, "What a pity it is that Mrs. Inglis would not 
 go through among the friends of the mission, and explain 
 things to them as she did to us last night ; it would do so 
 much good to the mission. I assure you that she told us 
 more about the islands, and the natives, and the mission than 
 I ever knew from all the lectures I ever heard or all the 
 books I ever read ; and the beauty of it was, that she told 
 us so distinctly and so clearly all those things I wanted to 
 know, and that is what the lectures and the books seldom 
 tell you." 
 
 She never wrote anything for the press. She was always 
 kept so busy making history that she had no time to write 
 it. But, on the other hand, I scarcely ever wrote anything 
 for publication which I r did not first read to her for her 
 criticism. Many a line and many a sentence she made 
 me score out, and many a one she made me alter. " I 
 think," she would have said, " you had better put out that 
 sentence. It is very good, and I daresay it is all true ; but 
 there is rather too much about yourself in it." Again she 
 would say, " Read that sentence again. I think you could
 
 MRS. INGLIS. 285 
 
 make it clearer if you would rewrite the sentence, and put in 
 a word or two of explanation near the end of it." She seemed 
 to have an intuitive perception of what was right and proper 
 both in sentiment and language. 
 
 She took a special interest in the newly arrived missionaries' 
 wives. She gave them the benefit of her experience, and 
 assisted them at their settlement, and afterwards in every 
 way she could ; and they, on their part, were never slow to 
 acknowledge their gratitude. 
 
 She took the Bible as fast as it was translated and printed, 
 and taught it to the women and girls as earnestly as ever 
 missionary's wife taught it. She taught them first to read it, 
 and then to commit it to memory, and left the Spirit of God to 
 apply it to their hearts and consciences in His own time and 
 way. The Bible was thus the basis of their religion, and also the 
 basis of their civilisation, and the fruit appeared in due time. 
 
 The Lord blessed her in her basket and in her store. She 
 had a great aptitude for creating plenty around her; she 
 managed so successfully with her cows, her goats, her poultry, 
 and her garden, that she had always abundance ; so that when 
 visitors came, and, as it sometimes happened, unexpectedly 
 and in considerable numbers, she was never taken aback. In 
 the islands, in the first years of the mission, a twelvemonths' 
 stores had always to be ordered at once, and they had to be 
 ordered always six months, sometimes twelve months, before 
 they were received ; on one occasion two years' supplies had 
 to be ordered at once. But she invariably calculated so care- 
 fully, that it was a rare thing that she ever ran out of any- 
 thing by ordering too little, or that she lost anything by 
 having ordered too much. She never grudged any expense or 
 any labour that was necessary for carrying on the mission
 
 286 MRS. INGLTS. 
 
 successfully, and she aimed at nothing else. With her it was, 
 "This one thing I do." She was thoroughly unselfish. She 
 was a rigid "economist; put her foot firmly down upon all 
 extravagance. " Waste not, want not," was one of her prin- 
 ciples; hence she had always plenty; but she was neither 
 penurious nor greedy. She was a thorough manager, un- 
 surpassed as a housekeeper; she was neatness itself in her 
 person, her dress, and her household arrangements. She 
 knew what her income was, and she not only always kept 
 within it, but left a large margin for contingencies. She was 
 charitable to the poor, but she was discriminating ; she was 
 kind to the deserving poor, and even to the undeserving she 
 was not hard. She would rather have been imposed upon by 
 two undeserving tramps than that one deserving person should 
 have been sent away hungry. The blessing of him that was 
 ready to perish came upon her, and she caused the widow's 
 heart to sing for joy. In the cause of God she was always 
 liberal, especially in support of the Bible, missionary, and 
 temperance claims. 
 
 She was naturally shy, diffident, and reserved. This was 
 at times, by those who did not know her well, set down for 
 pride ; but it was quite the reverse. It was her humility, not 
 her pride, that often made her appear to be stiff and distant. 
 She looked upon all her equals as cleverer and better than 
 herself. It was generally only when she was forced to act 
 that her superiority appeared. It was always where she was 
 best known that she was most appreciated. She had a very 
 large circle of general acquaintanceship, arising from the 
 circumstances of her position in connection with the mission ; 
 but she had also among these a great number of warmly 
 attached friends; and she never lost a friend except by
 
 MRS. INGL1S. 287 
 
 death. But her friendships could hardly have been said to 
 be made ; they rather grew, and grew insensibly, from some 
 mutual suitability in the parties. She hardly ever remained 
 in any locality for any length of time without contracting 
 some permanent friendship. She was never demonstrative, 
 either in her feelings or in her profession ; she always felt 
 greatly more than she expressed, either on religion, friend- 
 ship, or personal suffering; but she was always true, gene- 
 rous, and sincere; was always prepared to do more than 
 she promised, and was more ready to confer a favour on 
 others than to ask one for herself. 
 
 She never thought of herself but as of an ordinary woman 
 doing an ordinary woman's work doing nothing but what 
 any one might do. She never did anything for show, or to be 
 seen, or to be spoken about. In her character and in her 
 life-work there was nothing at any time, as she judged her- 
 self, or as she appeared to the world generally there was 
 nothing remarkable, nothing brilliant, nothing romantic, 
 nothing out of the way. She was not specially clever, not 
 specially talented, not learned, not accomplished ; was just, as 
 she judged herself to be, an ordinary commonplace woman, to 
 whom the Master had given one talent to occupy till He came; 
 and she certainly did occupy to good purpose. She left her 
 mark very distinctly behind her wherever her lot was cast. 
 One of the great lessons of her life lay in this, that she was 
 in no way extraordinary herself, and did no extraordinary 
 work ; she was nothing but what any ordinary woman may 
 be, and did nothing but what any ordinary woman may do. 
 Hence she could be easily imitated. She aimed at nothing 
 that was out of the way, nothing that was unattainable, 
 nothing that was romantic, nothing that was heroic; she held
 
 288 MRS. INGLIS. 
 
 on the even tenor of her way. She was quiet, undemon- 
 strative, plodding, and persevering. She was never fussy, and 
 never did anything for the sake of effect. With her work 
 meant work. Whatsoever her hand found to do she did it 
 with her might. She put everything into its proper place, 
 and did everything at its proper time, and was herself always 
 up to time. I do not think that she ever lost either a railway 
 train or a steamboat in her life. She laid all her plans in 
 good time beforehand, and always carried them out with 
 quietness and decision. 
 
 She was a woman of a strong independent mind. She had 
 more faith in my opinions than perhaps any one else, but she 
 would never accept of my opinions simply because they were 
 mine, unless she was convinced by the arguments which I 
 adduced that the opinions were correct ; but she was specially 
 quick in apprehending the force of an argument, and yielded 
 at once the moment she was convinced. When we came 
 home in 1877, the views of Dr. Robertson Smith were mov- 
 ing ecclesiastical society in Scotland to its lowest depths. 
 She read largely of the popular literature on the subject, both 
 Dr. Smith's and his supporters. But she refused to accept 
 his views as correct, simply because his arguments failed to 
 convince her, and to satisfy her judgment that he was right ; 
 and she returned with increased satisfaction to what has been 
 called the traditional view of the Mosaic authorship of the 
 Pentateuch, and the generally accepted views respecting the 
 other books of the Old Testament, because all the arguments 
 put forth in behalf of the advanced views failed to convince 
 her that the new views were better than the old. 
 
 She did not care about speculative or controversial divinity ; 
 her mind was far too practical for that. Her creed was em-
 
 MRS. INGLIS. 289 
 
 bodied in the Shorter Catechism. She believed in the equity 
 of the Divine government and the sovereignty of Divine 
 grace, in the plenary inspiration of the Bible and the efficacy 
 of Christ's atonement, and the doctrines that cluster around 
 these. 
 
 Nothing was so distasteful to her as a Christless sermon, 
 or one in which the atonement was ignored. Her religion 
 was of the strong Puritanical type ; there was nothing feeble 
 or sentimental about it ; she .had no craving after the new 
 and the sensational. She was a great admirer of the Henrys, 
 both Philip and his son Matthew ; she admired both their 
 writings and their character. Born and brought up, as she 
 was, in one of the outstanding centres of the Scottish perse- 
 cution, the moors around her being " flowered with martyrs," 
 within four miles of the birthplace of Margaret Wilson, one 
 of the Wigtown martyrs, personally acquainted with all the 
 present descendants of the Wilson family in a locality where 
 the memories of Peden and Ren wick are still fragrant, where 
 the places at which Renwick preached are still pointed out 
 as if the conventicles had been held only yesterday in child- 
 hood and youth poring over the " Scots Worthies " and the 
 " Cloud of Witnesses," as well as the " Pilgrim's Progress " 
 no wonder, in these circumstances, that the spirit of the 
 Covenanters was strong within her. Her religion made her 
 earnest, truthful, devout, and practical. She was hopeful, 
 cheerful, joyful ; there was about her nothing gloomy, no- 
 thing fanatical, nothing frivolous. Her religion was healthy. 
 Accepting life as a good gift and a great trust from God, her 
 aim was to know, obey, and submit to the will of God in all 
 things, as the angels do in heaven. She regarded her chief 
 end as to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever.
 
 290 MRS. INGLIS. 
 
 She knew nothing of despondency or depression of spirits. 
 She required no company or no amusements to keep her from 
 being dull. She never thought of seeking to enjoy herself ; 
 that was what she could do anywhere and everywhere. She 
 strove to maintain a conscience void of offence towards God 
 and towards man, and she found that, in so doing, Wisdom's 
 ways were ways of pleasantness and all her paths were peace. 
 She was a woman of a good understanding ; she feared the 
 Lord from her youth, and feared the Lord above many. She 
 was energetic rather than impulsive, and was actuated by a 
 sense of duty rather than impelled by feeling. She was a 
 Martha rather than a Mary ; an active rather than a medi- 
 tative Christian ; strong in character rather than tender, in 
 manner firm rather than fascinating. She was more ready 
 to serve others than seek her own enjoyment in reading and 
 devotion while neglecting them. Her greatest happiness was 
 in making others happy, though it often involved much toil and 
 trouble to herself. She would have served like Martha rather 
 than sat like Mary. She would have gone forth with Martha 
 to meet Jesus rather than have sat in the house with Mary 
 till her sister came and called her. She, like Martha, would 
 have been cumbered with much serving, and been anxious 
 and troubled about many things when preparing an enter- 
 tainment for the Lord ; but I do not think she would have 
 complained to Him about her sister, and in this way might 
 have escaped the rebuke. But Martha must have accepted 
 the rebuke meekly, for Jesus loved Martha apparently better 
 than either Mary or Lazarus, as the Apostle John places her 
 name first in the list of the three beloved ones, and says, 
 "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister, and Lazarus." 
 But whatever eminence she attained, it was the result of a
 
 MRS. IXGLIS. 291 
 
 long, slow, well- sustained process, not of any daring, rapid, 
 brilliant, successful enterprise. She never attempted any- 
 thing extraordinary, but her excellence lay in always doing 
 ordinary things well. 
 
 Next to the mission, which was her life-work, her heart 
 was in the temperance movement. She was practically a 
 life-long abstainer, but she was a pledged teetotaler from 
 her marriage till her death, and she was no half-hearted 
 adherent. She did not sign the pledge to please her hus- 
 band or any one else. With her it was the result of a 
 strong personal conviction. She firmly believed that the 
 great outstanding evil of the present day in this country is 
 intemperance, and she resolutely took her place in the front 
 rank of reformers. She believed, and therefore it was easy 
 for her to practise. She never either tasted intoxicating 
 drinks herself or offered them to others. During the more 
 than forty-one years of her married life, while she exercised 
 hospitality considerably above the average, she never once 
 placed upon her table either wine or any alcoholic liquor. 
 Some complain that they cannot dispense hospitality with- 
 out using these beverages. She began family life on the 
 temperance principle, and never felt any difficulty. She has 
 entertained at her dinner-table missionaries and ministers 
 of all denominations, and a large circle of private friends. 
 Her guests have been as numerous and of as varied a 
 class as almost any person in her position has been required 
 to entertain; and yet, so far as is known, she never gave 
 offence to any of them on that account, or caused them 
 any disappointment. Her guests all knew always what to 
 expect. Her principles and her practice were so well known 
 that nobody could take offence. And whether she herself
 
 292 MRS. ING US. 
 
 were dining with high or low, with a missionary or a 
 minister, or any one of her acquaintances, her temperance 
 principles were always avowed and acted upon. Her fearless 
 example often strengthened the courage of feebler natures 
 and animated the hearts of younger adherents to the cause. 
 But while she was ardent and firm, she was never either rabid 
 or intolerant. 
 
 She made it a point never to introduce the subject for 
 discussion into any public company, either in her own house 
 or elsewhere. Her own example of abstaining, and the 
 badge of blue ribbon, which for the last four years of her 
 life she had invariably worn, generally led some one, especially 
 if the company was new, to start the subject ; and, as she 
 was well read up on the question, she was never taken aback. 
 She was quite familiar with the Scriptural, the scientific, 
 and the legislative aspects of the subject. She had such a 
 knowledge of the facts and the arguments that she could 
 carry on a discourse or a discussion in such an interesting 
 and profitable manner as never to excite the slightest ill 
 feeling on the part of those who differed from her on the 
 subject. 
 
 She was a generous contributor to the funds of the Scottish 
 Temperance League and other temperance organisations, and 
 she ever welcomed to her house and to her table the agents 
 of all the temperance societies. Some abstainers have been 
 accused of penuriousness, of giving up drink simply to save 
 their money, and that their teetotalism was simply a cloak 
 to cover their stinginess. No such charge could be brought 
 against her. When exercising hospitality, she was careful 
 to provide liberally of substitutes for alcoholic drinks. She 
 always supplied tea, coffee, or other non-alcoholic drinks
 
 MRS. INGLIS. 293 
 
 in abundance. To persons working for her, doing jobs or 
 running errands, she never gave any intoxicants; she gave 
 them other refreshments or a money consideration, or both, 
 according to circumstances. She knew well that the saving 
 effected by total abstinence could easily bear those expenses. 
 She was careful that her good should not be evil-spoken of, 
 and that the influence of her total abstinence should not be 
 marred by any charge of niggardliness. 
 
 She had enjoyed more than a full average of good health 
 during her whole life. About two years before she had a severe 
 attack of the complaint of which she died angina pectoris 
 but from that attack she completely recovered, and she had 
 no symptoms of it ever after ; and during that last summer 
 her health was unusually good. But on Monday the 3d of 
 August, about two in the afternoon, while she was finishing 
 her dinner, she felt a spasm go through her chest, of the 
 same kind as before, but not nearly so severe. Her sister, 
 who lived close beside us, was with her at once. An intimate 
 lady acquaintance, who happened to be at dinner with us, was 
 also present. The doctor arrived in a very few minutes, and 
 injected morphia into the arm, and examined her carefully. 
 The pain gradually became less, and the doctor went away. 
 
 During the afternoon she suffered from sickness, but that 
 also gave way to suitable remedies, and sanguine hopes were 
 entertained that a night's rest would put her all to rights. 
 But about six o'clock in the evening, after she had drank a 
 little tea, she said to me, "I am afraid it is coming back." 
 I caught hold of her at once. She gave a slight quiver, and 
 all was over. She moved her lips, as if wishing to speak, 
 but although she was repeatedly spoken to, "there was 
 no voice nor any that answered." Help in abundance was
 
 294 MRS. INGLIS. 
 
 immediately at hand. Everything that medical skill and 
 friendly assistance could do to restore animation was done, 
 but without avail ; life was gone. The symptoms had been so 
 mild that neither the doctor, the attendants, nor the patient 
 herself had the slightest apprehension of any fatal result. 
 But the end had come. It was so sudden, that it was not 
 like a death ; it was like a translation ; she was not, for 
 God had taken her. The voice from heaven had said to her, 
 " Behold, I come quickly," and continued saying to the sur- 
 vivors, " Be ye also ready." But to the believer sudden death 
 is sudden glory. 
 
 "BLESSED ARE THE DEAD WHICH DIE IN THE LORD, THAT 
 THEY MAY REST FROM THEIR LABOURS, AND THEIR WORKS DO 
 FOLLOW THEM."
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SIR GEORGE GREY, K.C.B., EX-GO VERNOR-IN-CHIEF OF 
 THE NEW ZEALAND ISLANDS. 
 
 MY reminiscences of the New Hebrides mission would be 
 incomplete if I did not insert three names all three impor- 
 tant links in the history of the mission viz., Sir George 
 Grey, Admiral Erskine, and Bishop Selwyn three men who 
 thoroughly understood native character, fully sympathised 
 with missionary effort, and did everything in their power, 
 in their respective positions, to promote the elevation of the 
 native races. Sir George Grey enjoyed exceptional educa- 
 tional advantages. He was a pupil of the late Archbishop 
 Whately, and imbibed largely the enlightened principles of 
 that scholarly, philanthropic, and statesman -like prelate. He 
 was first known to the public by a remarkably well- written 
 and interesting volume of travels in Western Australia. His 
 first public civil appointment was to be Governor of South 
 Australia. He found it a chaos, and left it a cosmos. He was 
 next appointed to be Governor of New Zealand. At that time 
 the natives were everywhere in a state either of open or veiled 
 rebellion. In the days of ancient Rome there were military 
 roads all over the empire. " Starting," as Dr. Wylie says, 
 '* from the golden milestone of Augustus, in the capitol, they 
 traversed the empire in all directions." The one end of each
 
 "2 9 6 SIR GEORGE GREY, K.C.B. 
 
 commenced at Rome, the other terminated at the outer ex- 
 tremity of every province. Along those roads Roman legions 
 could be marched to every point where their presence was 
 required, and the result was the tranquillity of the empire. 
 Sir George adopted the imperial policy. He began road- 
 making at Auckland, and pushed the roads forward as fast as 
 possible into all the leading centres of native population. He 
 offered good wages to all the natives who would work on the 
 roads. This secured the support of all the friendly natives ; 
 by-and-by the waverers joined them, and finally many of the 
 rebels deserted their party and joined the roadmakers. In 
 this way the Government party, like the House of David, 
 waxed stronger and stronger ; while the rebel party, like the 
 House of Saul, waxed weaker and weaker. Sir George also 
 erected two villages, Howick and Onehunga, to be inhabited 
 by pensioners and their families, who were to be sent out from 
 home, each family to be supplied, not with Mr. Chamberlain's 
 " three acres and a cow," but with ten acres and a cottage. 
 In this way the city of Auckland was protected by two 
 garrisons of veteran soldiers. The result of these measures 
 was the security of life and property, and the speedy develop- 
 ment of prosperity in the colony. Sir George was afterwards 
 promoted to be Governor of the Cape Colony, and was also a 
 second time brought to be Governor of New Zealand. After 
 this he retired into private life, bought a small island called 
 Kawau, on the Thames, below Auckland, on which he built a 
 beautiful mansion, where he still resides. After a time he re- 
 turned to public life, and entered the New Zealand Parliament 
 as one of the Members for Auckland, and has been either 
 Premier or leader of the Opposition nearly ever since. He is, 
 as might be expected, a man of high culture and fine literary
 
 SIR GEORGE GREY, K.C.B. 297 
 
 taste. When he first came to New Zealand, my friend Dr. 
 Logan and I used to read with great interest Sir George's 
 speeches at the opening of the Legislative Assembly not for 
 the political principles which they expounded, but purely for 
 their literary merits; they read like the orations of Burke, 
 mutatis mutandis. He was a first-rate Maori scholar; in 
 addition to his volume of travels, he published two volumes 
 of Maori songs and traditions, of great value for ethnological 
 and philological purposes. 
 
 It was in 1850, while I was fulfilling a temporary engage- 
 ment at Auckland, that I made the acquaintance of Sir George 
 Grey, through my friend the late Dr. A. Sinclair, at that time 
 Colonial Secretary, with whom I was staying. I had met him 
 before, but simply officially. He thanked me very cordially 
 for information that I had supplied to the Government, some 
 two or three years before, respecting the movements of the 
 rebel Maories, while we were living on the Manawatu. The 
 Government had thanked me officially at the time. It was 
 then, as I have elsewhere stated, that he obtained from 
 Captain Erskine a passage for me to the South Sea Islands in 
 H.M.S. Havannah, which led to our settlement in the New 
 Hebrides, and which was of such importance to me during 
 all my subsequent missionary life. On my return to New 
 Zealand, at Sir George's request, I drew up a report of my 
 voyage, from a missionary point of view, which he printed 
 in the Government Gazette, and also afterwards in small 
 pamphlet form. He took a deep interest in my missionary 
 prospects, and has been my steadfast friend ever since. At 
 that time it was thought by Bishop Selwyn and those best 
 acquainted with the New Hebrides, that the climate was so 
 unhealthy that European missionaries would not be able to
 
 298 SIR GEORGE GREY, K.C.B. 
 
 live on the islands more than seven or eight months in the 
 year, and that they would require to spend the hot months in 
 New Zealand or Australia. If I had chosen, as some advised 
 me, to open an institution near Auckland for island youths, 
 after Bishop Selwyn's plan, Sir George would have given 
 me a grant of Government land for a site, &c., and assisted 
 me as far as he could. In my circumstances, however, the 
 plan was impracticable. And it was well that nothing was 
 done ; as we subsequently found that the climate of the New 
 Hebrides, though debilitating, was as healthy as the average 
 of tropical islands ; but his kind offers were no less appreciated 
 on that account. 
 
 When he was Governor at the Cape I received three letters 
 from him. In the first one he said that he intended to make 
 a voyage in his yacht among the islands of Western Polynesia, 
 and hoped to call on us at Aneityum. But before he was 
 ready to sail the Indian Mutiny broke out, and the next two 
 letters had reference to delays and disappointments. Troops 
 had been ordered from the Cape. Sir George sent five of his 
 own horses, as a present to the Government, to strengthen the 
 Indian cavalry. The voyage to the islands was never accom- 
 plished. A previous attempt ended also in disappointment. 
 Accompanied by Bishop Selwyn, he was proceeding to the 
 islands in the Government brig. They called at the Isle of 
 Pines, but while entering the harbour they were informed 
 that a French man-of-war was lying at anchor, that the 
 French flag was flying on shore, and that the French 
 had annexed New Caledonia without consulting the British 
 Government. Astounded with this intelligence, and not 
 wishing to commit themselves in any way till they should 
 have official information from the Government at home, they
 
 SIR GEORGE GREY, K.C.B. 299 
 
 put the ship about, and sailed back direct to Auckland. It 
 was understood that Sir George was distinct in counselling 
 our Government to disallow the action of France; but we 
 were then in the very thick of the Crimean war. Inkerman, 
 Balaklava, the Redan, and the charge of the 600 were words 
 on everybody's lips ; hordes of Goths and Vandals were pour- 
 ing in from the frozen North, and we were leaning upon 
 France and Italy for help. In these circumstances Lord 
 Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, and the other members of the 
 Government thought that, although the French had stolen a 
 march upon us, they could not at the time afford to have a 
 quarrel with France about a barren island in the South Seas, 
 the very name of which not one person in ten thousand had 
 ever heard pronounced ; so the unscrupulous conduct of the 
 French was overlooked and condoned. 
 
 Since the recidivist and annexationist policy of the French 
 was made known, Sir George has been distinct and emphatic 
 in denouncing it. He has long pleaded for the annexing of 
 the New Hebrides to New Zealand, and thus to become a 
 part of that province. This would both secure those islands 
 from the French and effectually protect them from the kid- 
 napping system and the labour traffic, as New Zealand has 
 all along been entirely free from the slightest taint of slave- 
 holding proclivities. 
 
 Sir George still takes a warm interest in the New Hebrides 
 mission. After my wife's death I received from him a very 
 kind, sympathetic letter, and at the last meeting of the General 
 Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Auckland, he invited 
 the members to meet him at his residence on Kawau. When 
 there he spoke with great cordiality about the New Hebrides 
 mission, and with what interest he had read the sketch which
 
 300 SIR GEORGE GREY, K.C.B. 
 
 I had prepared of Mrs. Inglis ; he also showed them the 
 books in the Aneityumese language which Dr. Geddie and I 
 had sent him, and explained the value these would be to the 
 future historian of the South Seas. 
 
 The latest notice that I saw of Sir George Grey was that of 
 a great demonstration made to his honour on his last birth- 
 day his 74th, I think in which, at a public meeting in Auck- 
 land, his friends presented him with an address, to which was 
 appended more than 11,000 signatures; a clear indication of 
 the estimation in which he was held, after more than forty 
 years of public life, spent chiefly in New Zealand.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 ADMIRAL ERSKINE, R.N., EX-M.P. FOR STIRLINGSHIRE. 
 
 IN 1850, through the influence of Sir George Grey, I ob- 
 tained from Captain (now Admiral) Erskine a passage in 
 H.M.S. Havannah, from Auckland to the New Hebrides, 
 and thence to Queen Charlotte's Group, the Solomon Group, 
 New Caledonia, and thence to Sydney. The voyage occupied 
 three months. I was the captain's guest, and as such enjoyed 
 every comfort, and possessed special advantages for acquiring 
 all the information that could be obtained respecting the 
 islands and the natives. 
 
 Admiral Erskine belongs to an ancient and honourable 
 Stirlingshire family. He is a grand-nephew of Dr. John 
 Erskine, the leader of the Evangelical party in the Church 
 of Scotland in the end of last century, and the colleague of 
 Principal Robertson, the leader of the Moderates. When I 
 sailed with Admiral Erskine, he brought vividly to my mind 
 the description given by Lord Brougham of his distinguished 
 relative, Lord Thomas Erskine, whose " movements," he says, 
 " were firm, easy, and graceful as those of a blood-horse." 
 He possessed the natural eloquence of the Erskines ; if he 
 had gone in for the pulpit or the bar, he would have been 
 an eloquent orator. He was an excellent linguist ; he pro- 
 nounced the native words with great ease and accuracy. One
 
 3O2 ADMIRAL ERSKINE, R.N. 
 
 of his officers told me that they never met a foreign vessel 
 at sea, French, German, Dutch, Spanish, &c., but Captain 
 Erskine could speak to them in their own language. He was 
 a born ruler of men ; the order on board of his ship was perfect, 
 but there was little or no punishment. Dui'ing the three 
 months that I was on board I saw only one case : a sailor 
 by some means had got drunk, and was made to sit for twelve 
 hours on the main-deck in irons, to make him feel ashamed. 
 The order on board was the result of that latent power 
 possessed by the captain, which was always felt but was 
 never apparent. He was remarkably careful of human life ; 
 when among heathen islands he would allow no one on 
 board to go ashore till he was morally certain that there 
 was no danger to life ; and then they went all ashore unarmed, 
 to show the natives that we had confidence in them, and 
 that they might have confidence in us. He was equally 
 careful about the health of the seamen. I never saw him 
 angry but once, when the officer in charge of the ship, a 
 young man, had neglected, when a squall was coming up, to 
 take in sail soon enough, and allowed the men to be partially 
 wet. "If you were sailing in the West Indies," he said, 
 " and acted in this careless way, you would soon have the half 
 of the men on the sick-list " a proof, moreover, by the way, 
 that he looked upon the West Indies as being far more 
 unhealthy than the New Hebrides. He was equally careful 
 of the men's comfort ; he saw that they never missed their 
 meals at the regular hours. One day, perhaps, he would be 
 going ashore in the forenoon, but on discovering that it was 
 1 1.30, within half an hour of the men's dinner-time he dined 
 himself at four, when the vessel was at anchor he would say 
 to the midshipman in charge of the boat, " Stop just now; let
 
 ADMIRAL EKSKINE, E.N. 303 
 
 the men have their dinner, and then we shall go ashore." 
 On another occasion, perhaps, he would be on shore, and 
 wished, on some account, to remain longer; but discovering 
 that they had not time to do what he wished and be on 
 board at twelve, he would say, " Oh ! never mind ; let us go 
 on board at once, that the men may be in time for their 
 dinner." In this way the work of the cooks and the stewards 
 was never deranged, and the health and temper of the men 
 were never tampered with ; they were healthy and they were 
 happy, hence able and willing for their work, and it was easy 
 for them to obey. 
 
 He always treated the natives with justice, kindness, and 
 courtesy. Whenever he came to an island he at once sought 
 out the chief or chiefs, and got them on board. If any native 
 could be found that could speak English, he got him to inter- 
 pret. He showed them through the ship, caused his steward 
 to give them some food, inquired into any grievances they 
 might have, explained to them the objects of his visit, gave 
 them some small suitable presents, and parted with them 
 fast friends. On two occasions only did anything disagreeable 
 occur in the one case by the action of the seamen, in the 
 other by that of the natives ; but in both cases amicable 
 relations were immediately restored by the tact and good 
 sense of the captain. The one case occurred at Aneityum, the 
 first island at which we called. Two boats went ashore to 
 water ; at the watering-place a number of cocoa-nut trees were 
 growing temptingly near to the place where the boats went 
 ashore, and the sailors helped themselves freely to the nuts, 
 without asking leave from the natives. The owners naturally 
 felt aggrieved, and had it been a purely heathen island, they 
 would have found ways and means of obtaining redress, though
 
 304 ADMIRAL EESKINE, R.N. 
 
 probably not ending pleasantly for either party ; but as the 
 natives were partly Christian, wiser counsels prevailed, and 
 they went to the missionary, and asked him to tell the 
 captain. On the following day, when Captain Erskine went 
 ashore and called at the Mission-House, Mr. Geddie told him 
 what the natives had said. When he went on board, and 
 found on inquiry that the complaints were well founded, he 
 summoned the whole ship's company to the quarter-deck, 
 imposed a fine of so much tobacco on the crews of the two 
 boats, and delivered to them a very solemn and convincing 
 address. They expected, he said, to be three months among 
 those islands, where the natives were all savage cannibals, 
 and the success of the expedition depended largely on their 
 maintaining peaceful relations with the natives ; he told them 
 of other expeditions becoming complete failures owing to the 
 seamen stealing from the natives, getting into collisions with 
 them, and lives being lost on both sides. On the following 
 day he went ashore. His steward took the tobacco. Mr. Geddie 
 sent for Nohoat, the chief. The captain caused the tobacco to 
 be given to him. Both the chief and the natives were delighted 
 beyond measure ; it was the first time in their lives that they 
 had received payment for stolen cocoa-nuts ; and from that 
 day to this, on Aneityum at least, the men of war, as well as 
 the missionaries, have been regarded as their best friends ; in 
 the language of the island they and the missionaries are called 
 Nup u Beritani (British) ; other white people are called simply 
 Nup u Tonga (foreigners). 
 
 The other case occurred at Yengen, a harbour on the south- 
 east side of New Caledonia. Two boats were ashore watering. 
 All went on harmoniously for some days ; but on the afternoon 
 of our last day on shore, the men were washing some of their
 
 ADMIRAL ERSKINE, R.N. 305 
 
 clothes, and had them spread out to dry, when the natives 
 began to be impudent and troublesome, and finally they 
 stole some of the seamen's under-shirts. On seeing this, the 
 officer in charge of the watering party ordered the men to 
 cease their work, pick up everything belonging to themselves 
 and the boat, and return to the ship ; this they did, and he 
 reported the affair to the captain. He at once sent for the 
 chief, and told him what the natives had done. The chief im- 
 mediately sent off his brother after the thieves. As fast as he 
 could run he went over a hill and down to a valley on the other 
 side, and in less than an hour he was back with the stolen 
 property. Captain Erskine commended the chief highly for his 
 honesty and energy. Thus, by the exercise of a little patience, 
 prudence, and forbearance, a collision was averted, a misun- 
 derstanding was prevented, and peaceful relations were main- 
 tained ; and when we weighed anchor on the following morning, 
 the best of feeling existed between the ship and the shore. 
 
 The previous year Captain Erskine had visited Samoa, 
 Tonga, and Fiji Wherever be went he employed his influence 
 to strengthen the hands of the missionaries, but especially 
 in Fiji, where heathenism was still strong. At Mbau, the 
 capital, King Thakambau was still a professed heathen, 
 but Christian influences were beginning to tell upon him ; 
 and a captain of a man-of-war, coming in the name of Queen 
 Victoria, confirming all the teaching of the missionaries, 
 could not fail to influence the king and chiefs of Fiji. He 
 was specially strong in speaking against murder, and canni- 
 balism which was often the incitement to murder. One day 
 he invited some of the principal chiefs, along with the mis- 
 sionaries, to dine with him on board. After dinner he began 
 to expostulate very earnestly with the chiefs for their canni-
 
 306 ADMIRAL ERSKINE, R.N. 
 
 balism, showing them that it was not the missionaries alone 
 who were against this horrid practice, but every white man ; 
 that even soldiers and seamen were as much shocked at it 
 as the missionaries. " Here am I," he said, " a warrior 
 by profession, a fighting chief like yourselves, a captain of 
 a fighting ship, with nothing but fighting chiefs and fight- 
 ing men on board, all sent by the Queen to protect her 
 subjects, and fight against her enemies, if they attack or 
 injure any of her people ; and yet I and every fighting chief 
 and fighting man in the ship are all as much shocked by 
 your cannibalism as any of the missionaries can be ; and were 
 the Queen to know that I have been dining with men that 
 eat human flesh, she would be so shocked that I doubt if she 
 would ever let me into her presence or allow me to touch 
 her hand again." The chiefs could bear the reproofs of the 
 missionaries alone, and reply to them, but remonstrance in 
 this style, broadsides poured in hot and heavy from such a 
 quarter, so confirmatory of all that the missionaries had 
 urged, was more than they could well bear. At last one of 
 the most noted among them for his cannibal propensities, 
 apparently ill at ease under such expostulations, grumbled out 
 in defence " It is very well for white men to talk in this way; 
 they have plenty of Bull-ama-cow (beef) ; we have none ; and 
 unless we eat human flesh, we have nothing else." It was 
 not long after this till Thakambau and some of his chiefs 
 professed Christianity ; and when he did so it was at the risk 
 of his life. The first Sabbath that he appeared in church 
 avowedly a Christian, the missionary had to abridge the 
 service, afraid lest the heathens should attempt Thakambau 's 
 life ; but he held fast to his profession ; and when his death 
 was reported in London a few years ago, at a public meeting
 
 ADMIRAL ERSKINE, R.N. 307 
 
 of the Wesleyan Missionary Society in Exeter Hall, Sir 
 Arthur Gordon, ex-Governor of Fiji, bore the strongest 
 testimony to the high Christian character of Thakambau. 
 Captain Erskine's influence told largely for good on King 
 George of Tonga, King Malietoa of Samoa, as well as on 
 King Thakambau of Fiji. His influence was the same in the 
 New Hebrides, on Aneityum, Tanna, Eromanga, and Efate. 
 Mr. Geddie was the only missionary on the group at that 
 time, but there were Samoan and Rarotongan teachers on 
 Tanna and Efate, whose hands he strengthened. On 
 Eromanga we landed unarmed, both at Dillon's Bay and at 
 Bunkhil. So far as is known to me, with the exception of 
 Bishop Selwyn, we were the first white men that went ashore 
 on Eromanga after the murder of Williams and Harris, and 
 that was eleven years after the event. So horrible was the 
 character borne by the Eromangans at that time, that our 
 action in going among them unarmed was deemed heroic 
 by the outside world, but the merit was all due to Captain 
 Erskine for his admirable arrangements. 
 
 Captain Erskine was always a friend to the native races 
 When he was a young officer in command of a small Govern- 
 ment gunboat in the West Indies, before the emancipation 
 of the slaves, he was a strong supporter of the anti-slavery 
 policy, and wrote a number of articles in the emancipation 
 newspapers in Jamaica all anonymous of course. When the 
 Kidnapping Act for Western Polynesia was passing through 
 Parliament he was Member for Stirlingshire. The Rev. Dr. 
 Kay, the secretary for "our mission, wrote me out to the 
 islands, saying that one of the best clauses of the Bill, in- 
 troduced by Admiral Erskine, had been thrown out while 
 passing through the House of Lords. When I saw him in
 
 308 ADMIRAL ERSKINE, R.N. 
 
 London six years ago I referred to the Bill, and said I was 
 sorry that his clause had been thrown out by the Lords. 
 " So it was," he said, "but when it came back to the House 
 of Commons Mr. Hugesson said, ' Oh, never mind, we shall 
 watch our time and try to get it inserted again ; ' and we 
 did so, and succeeded, and when the Bill received the Royal 
 assent the clause was again in its original place." 
 
 He is a member of the Committee of the Aboriginal Pro- 
 tection Society ; and the last time I was in London the Secre- 
 tary of that Society said to me, " Oh, Admiral Erskine is an 
 excellent man one of the very best members of our Com- 
 mittee ; he is, I think, the very best ' Old Salt ' I ever knew." 
 
 Admiral Erskine's chief literary work is a " Journal of a 
 Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific," an exceed- 
 ingly well-written and interesting volume, the style clear, 
 natural, and vigorous. Lord Nelson's and Captain Cook's were 
 the two portraits that hung in his cabin, and they seemed to be 
 his professional models. Nelson's famous watchword, " Eng- 
 land expects every man to do his duty," was conspicuous on 
 the wheel at the helm. 
 
 It was thirty years from the time I saw him last in Auck- 
 land, immediately after that voyage, till I again met him in 
 London. I was then able to show him the whole Bible printed 
 in the language of Aneityum, and some other books in the 
 same language, and to explain to him, as I have elsewhere 
 stated, what an important service he had rendered to the New 
 Hebrides mission by granting me that three months.' voyage 
 in H.M.S. Havannah. He was much gratified with my 
 visit, and with hearing of the progress of the mission. I 
 subsequently sent him a copy of my Aneityumese Dictionary. 
 " To the righteous good shall be repaid."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE RIGHT REVEREND DR. SELWYN, BISHOP OF 
 NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 BISHOP SELWYN, the name by which he was best known, was 
 a man to whom the New Hebrides mission was much in- 
 debted during the earlier years of its history. In 1852, at 
 considerable inconvenience to himself, he gave my wife and 
 me a passage from Auckland to Aneityum in his mission 
 schooner, the Border Maid; he also took our house, boat, 
 goods, and live stock, and hampered himself much to accom- 
 modate us. Had we been missionaries connected with his 
 own Society, he could not have been kinder to us or more 
 attentive. He was on a three months' exploring cruise among 
 the islands, and on his return home to Auckland he came 
 considerably out of his way to call at Aneityum and ascertain 
 what kind of a reception we had met with. Parties connected 
 with the trading establishment had led him to understand 
 that the natives were in an unsettled state, that their feel- 
 ings towards the mission were at best very doubtful, and that 
 but for their restraining influence on the natives Mr. Geddie 
 would hardly be able to remain on the island, and what the 
 future might be was very uncertain. He told me, on his 
 return, that although he said nothing about it, he was very 
 anxious on our account all the time he was away, and that 
 he felt quite relieved when he came back and found that we
 
 3IO THE RIGHT REV. DR. SELWYN. 
 
 had met with such a cordial reception, that our prospects 
 were so encouraging, and that on both sides of the island the 
 feelings of the natives towards the mission were so favourable ; 
 and that, instead of the safety of the mission depending on 
 the influence of the traders, the balance of parties was, if 
 anything, inclining to the other side. Afterwards either he 
 or Bishop Patteson paid us a visit year by year, as they passed 
 our island, up till the time that we had a vessel of our own, 
 the Dayspring, when their visits became unnecessary. During 
 all that time he did everything in his power to promote the 
 interests of our mission. 
 
 On one occasion my watch became dry and dirty, and 
 refused to go. When the Bishop next called at our island 
 I asked him to take the watch with him to Auckland, to be 
 cleaned. This he cheerfully undertook to do. But not con- 
 tent with this, he made me take his watch, and wear it for 
 a twelvemonth till his return. This I did; it was a silver 
 watch, as like my own as might be ; for he was simplicity 
 itself utility and not show was his principle. When he 
 came to Wellington that year, he called upon an intimate friend 
 of mine, Mr. W. Lyon, a bookseller, but an eminent geologist, 
 and a man of good literary taste and high scientific acquire- 
 ments, showed him my watch that he was wearing, and asked 
 him if he had no new scientific book to send me ; if he had 
 any one, he would be happy to be the bearer of it. Hugh 
 Miller's " Footprints of the Creator " was just out, and Mr. 
 Lyon gave the Bishop a copy of it to bring to me, which he 
 duly delivered, and which I read with much interest. He 
 also brought back my watch, cleaned and in thorough repair. 
 
 When we got the John Knox we had no difficulty in pro- 
 curing a native crew; but we had to engage a white man to
 
 THE RIGHT REV. DR. SELWYN. 311 
 
 take charge of the little vessel We got a suitable man out of 
 the John Williams ; but his salary and other expenses raised 
 our outlay to nearly ^100 for the first year. No provision 
 had been made to meet this expenditure; but just as Mr. 
 Geddie and I were casting about in our minds what we were 
 to do, Bishop Selwyn came in one morning from New Zealand, 
 and brought me ^103, i6s. 4d., to expend on the mission as 
 I thought proper. He received it in this way. " When I 
 was at Dunedin," he said, " while pleading for my own 
 mission in the English church there, I saw some Scotch 
 friends "present, and I said that on Wednesday next I would 
 be leaving Dunedin and going almost direct to the New 
 Hebrides, and if any of them wished to send any contribu- 
 tion to the Scotch mission there, I should be happy to take 
 charge of it. On Wednesday morning, when I came to the 
 wharf, I found three gentlemen waiting for me, who placed 
 ^34, 1 6s. 4d. in my hands to be given to you for your 
 mission; and mind you, I got only ^13 for my own mis- 
 sion. When I came to Wellington, I told your friends, Mr. 
 M'Donald, the manager of the Union Bank, his brother-in- 
 law, Mr. Wallace, and others, what your Scotch friends in 
 Otago had done, and if they wished to follow their example, 
 I should be happy to be the bearer of the gift. When I 
 left Wellington I was made the bearer of 30. When I 
 came to Auckland, I told your friends, Mr. Shepherd, the 
 Colonial Treasurer, and Mr. Clark, the ex- Mayor, what had 
 been done in Dunedin and Wellington, and before I left 
 Auckland they brought me ^39, making in all ^103, i6s. 4d." 
 This money, so providentially sent to us, Mr. Geddie and 
 I appropriated for the support of the John Knox. On the 
 following year the Bishop brought us ^60 from New
 
 312 THE EIGHT KEY. DR. SELWYN. 
 
 Zealand, viz., ^30 from Dunedin through Dr. Burns, an 
 from Auckland through Mr. Clark. So far as I remember, he did 
 not call at Wellington that year. In this way, greatly to our 
 relief, our first two years' financial liabilities were provided for. 
 When he brought my wife and me to Aneityum, he said to 
 me, " Now, Mr. Inglis, you know that, owing to the different 
 principles of our respective Churches, I cannot hold any 
 ecclesiastical fellowship with you ; but in everything secular, 
 I shall be always happy to do anything in my power to'assist 
 you and your mission." I thanked him cordially for his kind 
 offer, and I assured him that I would gladly reciprocate it, 
 as far and long as I was able. I have indicated how faith- 
 fully he fulfilled his promise ; and he continued to do so till 
 the day of his death ; while, on the other hand, neither I nor 
 the Reformed Presbyterian Church ever failed to recognise 
 our obligations to Bishop Selwyn. In 1860, when, in answer to 
 my appeal, the children of the Reformed Presbyterian Church 
 raised ^300 to assist in the repairs of the John Williams, 
 Mr. Kay, the secretary of our mission, made an appeal to a 
 select number of our people for a pound each for Bishop 
 Selwyn 's vessel, and transmitted him ^50, as a recognition 
 for the services he had rendered to our mission. He was much 
 pleased with this contribution towards the support of his mis- 
 sion ship, as evincing the feelings entertained towards him by 
 the Reformed Presbytei-ian Church. When I was leaving the 
 island with the translation of the Old Testament, to get it 
 printed in London, the Mission Synod appointed the Day spring 
 to visit New Zealand ; Mr and Mrs. Watt were also allowed 
 a furlough of four months to be spent in that colony. Mr. 
 Watt and I were also appointed by the Synod to accompany 
 the vessel for three months, and bring the claims of the
 
 THE RIGHT REV. DR. SELWYN. 313 
 
 mission before the Presbyterian congregations in New Zealand. 
 As the Dayspring was going to New Zealand in ballast, at 
 the expense of the ship I bought 14,000 dry cocoa-nuts at IDS. 
 a thousand, and filled the vessel with them, to make presents 
 of them to the children of the Presbyterian Sabbath-schools 
 who had annually contributed to the support of the Day- 
 spring. When we came to Dunedin I found there the Rev. 
 John Selwyn, the Bishop's son, with their mission vessel, the 
 Southern Cross. On the Sabbath I heard him address the 
 Episcopal Sabbath-school children, and afterwards went up and 
 spoke to him. On the Monday following my wife and I met 
 him on the street, along with the Bishop of Dunedin. After 
 speaking a few words I said to him, " Your father once said 
 to me that, owing to the different principles of our respective 
 Churches, he could not hold any ecclesiastical fellowship with 
 me, but in all secular matters he was willing and ready to 
 help us, and I assured him that on these grounds I was equally 
 willing and ready to reciprocate. Now," said I, "we have 
 the Dayspring here, filled with ripe cocoa-nuts, and Mr. Watt 
 and I shall be delighted if you will allow your Sabbath-school 
 children to come down to the wharf, come on board, see 
 through the vessel, and get a cocoa-nut each, and I hope there 
 is no canon in your Church to prevent this form of reciprocity." 
 He laughed, and said he thought not ; but, continued he, "I 
 am in the Bishop's hands, and we shall see what he says." I 
 turned to the Bishop, who was speaking to my wife, and 
 repeated the same words to him. He also laughed at my 
 reference to the canons, and said he thought there would be 
 no such restriction. " But," said he, " it is Mr. So-and-so " 
 one of his clergy " who has charge of the arrangements con- 
 nected with the children ; we will speak to him on the matter,
 
 314 THE RIGHT REV. DR. SELWYX. 
 
 and he will communicate with you." On the following day I 
 received a very polite note from that gentleman, saying that 
 he and the teachers would gladly accept of our offer, and if 
 such a day naming one would suit us, it would suit them. 
 On the day fixed the children were brought down ; they were 
 shown through the vessel, got a cocoa-nut each, and went 
 home well pleased, cherishing the best of feelings towards the 
 Daysprinrj and the New Hebrides mission. To produce the 
 invisible feeling of goodwill between members of different 
 churches is one of the surest ways of bringing about the 
 visible bonds of outward union. In this way even a dry 
 cocoa-nut, if placed in the right soil, may in due time grow 
 up and bring forth the freshest and the sweetest of living 
 fruit. 
 
 When we left the islands the labour traffic was annoying 
 us very much, and the attitude of the French was anything 
 but reassuring, and when we settled in London I was anxious 
 to consult Bishop Selwyn at that time become Bishop of Lich- 
 field and see how his influence could be got to tell in high 
 places, and how the Government could be best approached on 
 these subjects. I wrote to him, offering to take a run out 
 and see him at Lichfield. He wrote me back a very kind 
 letter, inviting my wife and me to spend a few days with Mrs. 
 Selwyn and him at the episcopal palace at Lichfield. Circum- 
 stances occurred which prevented us from accepting his invita- 
 tion. But he subsequently wrote me, saying that he expected 
 to be in London for a few days at the opening of Parliament, 
 and inviting us to breakfast with him at the Lollards Tower, 
 his town residence, and we would talk over these matters 
 then. In the letter containing the invitation he not only 
 described the way I was to go, but also drew a sketch of the
 
 THE RIGHT REV. DR. SELWYN. 315 
 
 route I was to take in crossing the Thames at Westminster 
 Bridge, and the stairs where I was to leave and at which I 
 was to arrive. I went, and found him alone, his sister, Miss 
 Selwyn, keeping house for him that morning. After prayers 
 and breakfast, we talked over the matters affecting the New 
 Hebrides. He purposed seeing the Earl of Carnarvon, an 
 intimate personal friend of his own, who was at that time 
 either Foreign or Colonial Secretary. Afterwards he showed 
 me through the old venerable antique building. On the top- 
 most storey is the apartment that was used as a prison, with 
 eight strong rings, to which were bound those pre-Reforma- 
 tion confessors and martyrs, the Lollards, from which the 
 tower took its name. History and tradition are both silent 
 respecting the inmates of that apartment, and the meaning 
 of the rudely-cut letters that remain on the walls is not 
 known ; but the name of the tower and these old rusty 
 rings bear distinct testimony to the spirit cherished by Rome 
 before the tenth part of the city fell by the revolt of Henry 
 VIII., and what it will continue to be till the other nine 
 parts fall also, and the cry shall be heard, " Babylon the 
 Great is fallen ! " He also showed me the church close by, 
 in which he had been consecrated as Bishop of New Zealand. 
 It was about fifteen years since I had last seen him ; he was 
 then sixty-seven years of age, but I knew scarcely any change 
 in his appearance. He was fresh, healthy, and vigorous ; and, 
 looking at his strong well-knit frame, coupled with his 
 strictly temperate habits, humanly speaking, one might have 
 predicted that he had still more than twenty years of active 
 life before him. But, alas ! " the race is not to the swift nor 
 the battle to the strong," for in less than two short months, 
 after only a few days' illness, he was laid in his grave ; and
 
 316 THE RIGHT REV. DR. SELWYN. 
 
 the New Hebrides mission and all the natives of those seas 
 had lost one of their oldest, best, and truest friends. 
 
 He was a great favourite among the Scotch in New Zea- 
 land, and he took very kindly to them, although he sometimes 
 learned that the motto under their national emblem, Nemo 
 me impune lacessit, was not an obsolete phrase, but still imbued 
 with vitality, and that the thistle required to be handled very 
 gently. On the first visit that he made to Dunedin he called 
 upon the Rev. Dr. Burns, who was the nephew of our national 
 bard, and the first Presbyterian minister in Otago, and one 
 of the two founders of the settlement. Bishop Selwyn was 
 accompanied by another colonial Bishop and some clergy. 
 After the usual salutations and a little general conversation 
 Bishop Selwyn addressed himself to Mrs. Burns a lady, by 
 the way, of great beauty, and as ready in reply as she was 
 beautiful. " I am afraid, Mrs. Burns," he said, "that in this 
 quiet, strictly Presbyterian settlement of yours, you will 
 be startled by such an irruption of Bishops and Episcopal 
 clergy. " " Oh, not at all," she said ; " I have been accustomed 
 all my life to Bishops and all grades of the clergy ; my father 
 held two livings in Essex. No number of Bishops or clergy 
 would startle me." "Oh, indeed!" said the Bishop, "I was 
 not aware of that ; but how, then, did you happen to leave us 
 and come here?" "Oh, I just thought better of it, sir," she 
 said ; "..my mother was a Scotchwoman, and one of my uncles 
 was a parish minister in Scotland. I knew both Churches ; I 
 decided for myself, had the courage of my convictions, left the 
 Church of England, and joined the Church of Scotland ; hence 
 I am here." The Bishop was taken somewhat aback; he was 
 more startled than the lady. This was not thistle down, which 
 he thought he was handling ; but his self-possession enabled him
 
 THE RIGHT REV. DR. SELWYN. 317 
 
 to conceal his surprise. Dr. Burns sat still and said nothing ; 
 but he felt inwardly pleased with the patriotic demeanour of 
 his wife. There was, however, too much principle and too 
 much politeness on both sides for the incident to leave any 
 disagreeable feeling in the minds of either party. 
 
 As a missionary Bishop Selwyn stood unsurpassed for his 
 self-denial, his energy, and his enterprise. His modes of 
 operation did not, however, commend themselves to the ma- 
 jority of other South Sea missionaries ; his new modes were 
 in general not successful, and his successful modes were in 
 general not new. The greatest services that he and Bishop 
 Patteson rendered to the South Sea missions was their 
 example, by which such an ardent missionary spirit was 
 ci-eated. While, from their social position, their talents, their 
 acquirements, and their character, they were in circumstances 
 to command the highest ecclesiastical appointments in the 
 National Church, they cheerfully resigned those advantages, 
 and chose the obscurity, the privations, the perils, and the 
 drudgery of missionaries to the most degraded of savages. 
 Their example sent a thrill of enthusiasm through the hearts 
 of all the students at both the great English Universities. At 
 both these seats of learning it elevated and ennobled the whole 
 missionary enterprise ; it evoked the eulogiums of the public 
 press, and converted at their death even the humour and the 
 irony of Punch into the deepest pathos. The verses written 
 on the death of Selwyn were in the same strain as those pre- 
 viously written on the death of his great African compeer, the 
 last line of which, contrasting the plain slab over his grave 
 with the gorgeous monuments around, ran thus 
 
 "Dead marble that, but this is LIVING STONE."
 
 318 THE RIGHT REV. DR. SELWYN. 
 
 Bishop Selwyn was avowedly High Church ; but if his head 
 or his intellect was distorted with mediasval notions about 
 apostolic succession and kindred dogmas, his heart was all 
 right ; it was largely imbued with the spirit of apostolic love 
 and charity. He said to me on one occasion, " People accuse 
 me of being a Puseyite, but to whatever extent I am High 
 Church, it was my mother that made me. She was a good 
 Churchwoman, kept all the fasts and all the festivals, and I 
 followed her teaching and example ; and hence, to whatever 
 extent I am a High Churchman, I owe it not to Dr. Pusey, 
 but to my mother." This is a very encouraging example to 
 good mothers as well as to good sons.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ANEITYUM IN 1876. 
 
 THE following is the substance of the last report 011 my station 
 which I read in the New Hebrides Mission Synod, which met 
 on the island of Nguna, June i2th, 1876, and which was 
 published in full in the Reformed Presbyterian Magazine for 
 November and December of the same year. I said 
 
 As I fully expect this to be my last report here, I shall 
 endeavour to lay before you as complete an account of the 
 condition of my station as the limits assigned to our Synodical 
 Reports will properly admit. 
 
 RELIGIOUS SERVICES. 
 
 Our Sabbath and week-day services have been conducted 
 in the same way as in former years. I preach twice every 
 Sabbath, and always give an address at the weekly prayer- 
 meeting on the Wednesdays. We have public worship 
 regularly on Sabbaths and Wednesdays at three out-stations. 
 These are conducted generally by the natives themselves, 
 although I visit them as often as I can, and regret that I 
 cannot visit them oftener. But to render these services as 
 efficient as possible, I invariably appoint to each station two 
 men in rotation every Sabbath, selected out of our elders, 
 deacons, and teachers, to take charge of these services ; and I 
 employ four natives every Sabbath at the principal station,
 
 320 ANEITYUM IN 1 8/6. 
 
 two to read a chapter each, and two to pray. In this way 
 we have a chapter read and a prayer offered up by natives 
 at the beginning of each service, and I do the same at the 
 Wednesday prayer-meeting. 
 
 Mr. Spurgeon condemns, in no measured terms, the practice 
 of some ministers who employ inferior men to conduct the 
 first part of the service, and reserve their chief strength for 
 the sermon ; he considers the reading of the Scriptures and 
 the prayer to be as important as the sermon. From his 
 point of view I have no doubt but there is much truth in 
 his remarks. But in my circumstances I feel myself standing 
 wholly beyond the reach of his strictures. I follow this 
 course, not so much to save my own strength although that 
 is an important consideration in this debilitating climate 
 as to instruct the natives in the mode of conducting public 
 worship, where so much of it has to be done by the natives 
 themselves. By bringing elders, deacons, and teachers, in 
 rotation, from the out stations to take a part in the services 
 at the central station, they are stimulated to improve them- 
 selves; and they have the benefit, on these occasions, of 
 hearing my discourses. Moreover, by sending others from 
 the central station to the out-stations, or occasionally from 
 one out-station to another, the worshippers have the benefit 
 of a constant variety of gifts all ministering to their edifica- 
 tion ; and by this constant mutual intercourse the people 
 at all the stations come in contact regularly with all the 
 best of our men, and these come in contact with one another ; 
 so that, as iron sharpeneth iron, their intercourse one with 
 another is calculated to quicken them mutually in the exer- 
 cise of faith, love, and good works. A number of them read 
 the Scriptures very well ; their prayers are always earnest
 
 ANEITYUM IN 1876. 321 
 
 and devout, and also move or less edifying, though often 
 largely susceptible of improvement ; but their addresses or 
 exhortations, while they now and again contain striking 
 remarks, and are in general quite sound as to doctrine, are, 
 upon the whole, rambling, feeble, and by no means very 
 effective. Scripture truth comes forth from their lips so 
 much diluted that the instruction conveyed is very limited, 
 and the impressions produced are anything but powerful. 
 I have much more confidence in the Word of God which they 
 read than in the expositions of it which they deliver. Still, 
 I consider it of such great importance to have the public 
 worship of God conducted on Sabbath at these out-stations, 
 that I am fain to employ even this feeble agency. In order 
 to have the praises of God sung, prayer publicly offered up, 
 and the Scriptures read, all in their own tongue and in the 
 hearing of all, I feel content to put up with addresses, poor, 
 feeble, and unconnected, when the speakers, as our old Scotch 
 divines would have said, are minting after what is good. 
 
 I have never opened any strictly theological class, nor 
 yet supplied our teachers with outlines of sermons to assist 
 them in conducting public services, as is done by most of 
 our brethren in the older missions. More than the half of 
 them hear me preaching or expounding three times every 
 week. I thought they might extract as much matter out 
 of these as would supply a substratum for their own obser- 
 vations. My chief reason, however, for doing so little in 
 this direction has been the want of time. We cannot do 
 everything. But as my successor is likely to have less labour 
 of some kinds than I have had, I trust he will be able to 
 overtake work of this kind, and various other kinds besides, 
 
 which I have been obliged to leave undone. 
 
 x
 
 322 ANE1TYUM IN 1876. 
 
 I have dispensed the Lord's Supper three times on my 
 side of the island since this time twelvemonth, and once at 
 Mr. Murray's station he and Mrs. Murray being absent 
 in Sydney. I admitted no new members during the past 
 year, but I have at present sixteen candidates attending my 
 weekly class ; the most, if not the whole, of these I hope to 
 admit at our next Communion. I have baptized twenty-one 
 children. On our Communion Sabbath we have no service 
 at our out-stations ; the people are expected all to attend 
 at the principal station. On these occasions, besides the 
 Wednesday prayer-meeting as usual at all the stations, we 
 have public worship on the Friday afternoon, and a public 
 prayer-meeting on the Monday morning. On the Friday 
 a sermon is preached, new members, if any, are admitted, 
 baptism is administered, and tokens are distributed to the 
 Church members. We have generally a very good attendance 
 on the Friday. At each of our Communions during the past 
 year the attendance was large and the deportment of the 
 worshippers all that could be expected, almost all that could 
 be desired; and our belief is that much good was done as 
 the result of all the services. 
 
 The late Rev. J. Angell James of Birmingham, in common, 
 I believe, with most of the English Congregationalists, used 
 to test the vitality of spiritual religion among his people, 
 not by their attendance at public worship on Sabbath, but 
 by their attendance at prayer-meetings during the week ; 
 and he complained sadly in his latter years looked upon it 
 as a bad omen that while his Church members and the 
 general congregation had largely increased during the course 
 of his ministry, there had been no corresponding increase 
 in the attendance upon the weekly prayer-meeting, which
 
 ANE1TYUM IN 1876. 323 
 
 led him to infer that their prosperity had been more outward 
 than inward, more visible than vital. Now, if this test could 
 be applied with safety to our Church members here, we might 
 " lay a very flattering unction to our souls," and think that 
 with us matters stood very well. 
 
 While attendance 011 public worship on Sabbaths at our four 
 stations may be about four hundred, the attendance at the 
 prayer-meetings on Wednesdays may be set down at about 
 two hundred. But alas for Aneityum ! Weekly afternoon 
 prayer-meetings, attended by half the Sabbath-day congrega- 
 tions, family worship evening and morning in every house- 
 hold, and twenty-eight morning schools opened and closed 
 with praise and prayer good as these things are in them- 
 selves, they will prove a very fallacious test if they are 
 accepted as proof that there exists on Aneityum a very en- 
 lightened, vigorous, self-sustaining Christianity. The Church 
 there is still in the feebleness of infancy. We trust that 
 there is life, and that widely diffused ; but the strength in 
 that life is small and feeble, and must not be severely strained. 
 Our people require much of the care, watchfulness, guidance, 
 and support of the missionary to direct them to the chief 
 Shepherd and Bishop of souls, and, through no special fault 
 of theirs, will do so for a long time to come. 
 
 It is Andrew Fuller, I think, who says that there are two 
 classes of Christians in the world the one in which the 
 devotional element prevails, the other distinguished by their 
 higher and stricter morality. Each class, he says, are disposed 
 to judge the other too severely ; the devotional class look 
 upon their moral neighbours as cold and lifeless in their 
 religion, if" they have, indeed, any vital religion at all ; while 
 the rigid moralists look upon their more devotional neighbours
 
 324 ANEITYUM IN 1876. 
 
 as a set of psalm-singing, canting hypocrites. Now, both these 
 judgments, he says, are wrong. Both these classes may be 
 intentionally honest. The devotional feelings and exercises of 
 the one class are not a cloak of hypocrisy, and the stern and 
 apparently cold morality of the other is not self-righteousness. 
 Constitutional differences, physical or mental, or different 
 modes of religious training, may have produced these different 
 phases of religious life. Be these things as they may, I feel 
 certain that it is far easier among the Aneityumese to develop 
 devotional habits than high and strictly correct moral char- 
 acter. It is far easier to get them to pray, sing hymns, hear 
 sermons, and read the Scriptures than to be truthful, honest, 
 chaste, and unselfish. It is true this is simply what we might 
 expect the former are the means, the latter is the end ; and 
 it is always easier to put the means into operation than to 
 secure the end contemplated by these means. But the longer 
 we live among these natives, the more are we convinced of 
 the awfully degrading effects of heathenism, and how slow 
 and difficult must be the process of obliterating its baneful 
 effects. We see more and more distinctly the depth of that 
 pit out of which their Christianity has to be dug, and the 
 hardness of that rock out of which it has to be hewn. 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 I visited all my schools, twenty-eight in number, in the 
 end of last year. The condition of the schools was, upon the 
 whole, satisfactory. The London School Board complain of 
 three primary difficulties which they have to grapple with 
 first, how to get the children into the schools ; second, what 
 to make of them when they have got them in ; and third, how
 
 AN KIT YUM IN 1876. 325 
 
 to obtain efficient teachers. Our experience is much of the 
 same kind on Aneityum. Our system of education is national, 
 unsectarian, Scriptural, and free, no school fees, but it is 
 not compulsory; and hence our attendance, though as good 
 as we could reasonably expect, is not at all so regular as we 
 could wish. Happily we have neither Papist nor Secularist in 
 our community, and hence, though the Bible is our principal 
 school-book, we require no conscience clause in our school 
 regulations. 
 
 The only new book we obtained last year was the Almanack, 
 800 copies of which were supplied gratis from the mission 
 press on Tanna, through the kindness of our brother, Mr. 
 Watt a much-prized kindness, which he has shown us for 
 several years in succession. These Almanacks I distributed 
 on both sides of the island in the beginning of the year. 
 Mr. Murray edited a new edition of our psalter and hymn- 
 book, adding three new hymns of his own, which he got 
 printed in Sydney. The edition, consisting of 1500 copies, 
 and delivered to us in sheets, cost nine pounds (^9). All 
 small books of this kind the natives themselves fold, stitch, 
 cover, and cut, the missionaries and their wives supplying 
 the binding materials, training the workers, and superin- 
 tending the work. The binding of these books would cost 
 nearly as much as the printing ; and where we cannot raise 
 the whole of the money by selling the books, as they do in 
 most of the older of the South Sea missions, we think it well 
 to save the half of it, by making the natives bind them them- 
 selves; and if there is any 'truth in the proverb that "a 
 penny hained is twopence gained," the saving is as good as 
 the selling would be. With a slight exception, all our former 
 hymn-books were printed by Dr. Geddie, assisted by the
 
 326 ANEITVUM IN 1876. 
 
 natives. I am suggesting to Mr. Murray that he raise the 
 one moiety of the ^9 among his friends in New South 
 Wales, and I will undertake to raise the other half among 
 mine, as I am unwilling to draw upon our arrowroot 
 fund, which is being raised solely for the payment of the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 I opened our Teachers' Institution this year for about 
 three months, during February, March, and April. The at- 
 tendance was very good; I had eighty-two names on my 
 list, and the average attendance in good weather was from 
 sixty to seventy. The progress, especially in writing, was 
 very satisfactory ; there was no want of capacity and no lack 
 of application. We call this our "Teachers' Institution" 
 because it was begun primarily for the instruction of our 
 native teachers; but we open it to all the better class of 
 scholars who choose to attend. Our object by this school 
 is to promote what in these latitudes we call the "higher 
 education," but which elsewhere would be considered suffi- 
 ciently elementary. Our main strength is expended in 
 teaching what is known, in modern educational terminology, 
 as the ' three R's ; although we do attempt to introduce 
 our pupils to the knowledge of the very simplest elements 
 of a few of the higher branches of education, inlcuding the 
 English language. But I have always made it my principal 
 object to get them well grounded in the art of reading, so as 
 to open to them intelligibly the Word of God. It is of little 
 use to supply them with Bibles unless they are able to read 
 them ; and I teach them writing, arithmetic, and other things 
 chiefly for the bearing of these on the art of reading. Good 
 reading lies at the foundation of all scholarship. Till the 
 art of reading is fully mastered, nearly all other branches of
 
 ANEITYUM IN 1876. 327 
 
 learning are difficult; but the art of reading one's mother- 
 tongue being fully mastered, almost everything else becomes 
 comparatively easy. With natives especially it is of primary 
 importance that they be taught to read well. But this is 
 an arduous task, and requires on the part of the missionary 
 much labour, a good deal of administrative capacity, constant 
 supervision, and unwearied perseverance. 
 
 Dr. Chalmers, in one of his inaugural addresses to his 
 students, as Principal of the New College in Edinburgh, calls 
 attention to the obvious distinction between the powers of the 
 mind and the acquisitions of the mind, and shows that certain 
 branches of learning mathematics, for example are of far 
 more value to ministers, from the strength and culture which 
 they impart to the mind, than from the acquisition which 
 preachers make to their knowledge by means of these studies. 
 In like manner, I value writing, arithmetic, and some other 
 things learned by the natives, more for the mental training 
 they supply than for the addition made to their knowledge by 
 these acquirements, although the direct advantages of these 
 studies are not to be despised. When Williamu was in Britain 
 he wrote a number of interesting and instructive letters which 
 I forwarded to his friends on Aneityum. The natives have 
 for a long time corresponded among themselves ; * and now, 
 not only the missionaries, but even the traders, are beginning 
 to conduct their business with the natives, when necessary, by 
 means of letters. And as for arithmetic, its value is indisput- 
 able to a people who had names for numbers only up to five, 
 and who could count objects up to twenty only by repeating 
 these five numbers on their twice five fingers and their twice 
 
 * Scarcely ever a mail arrived in this country from Aneityum since the time 
 we left the islands but my -wife and I had letters from some of the natives.
 
 328 ANEITYUM IN 1876. 
 
 five toes, and then giving the sum total for twenty by saying, 
 "My two hands and my two feet." Moreover, as they had 
 no characters to represent even these five numbers, we intro- 
 duced both the English names for numbers and the Arabic 
 numerals. Hence, so far as our natives learn arithmetic, 
 they become acquainted, not only with the science of num- 
 bers, but with the vocables and the structure of the English 
 language. 
 
 TRANSLATING AND CORRECTING. 
 
 Since the last meeting of the Mission Synod I have employed 
 all the spare time at my command in carrying forward my 
 corrections of our translation of the Old Testament. I have 
 gone over the latter half of Exodus, the whole of Leviticus, the 
 last eighty Psalms, the last forty-seven chapters of Isaiah, the 
 whole of Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel, embodying Mr. 
 Copeland's corrections of these four prophetical books; his 
 corrections of the Psalms I have yet to embody. I may also 
 mention that when I received Dr. Geddie's unprinted MSS., 
 which had been in the hands of the printers in Melbourne, 
 the last eight chapters of Leviticus were awanting. I wrote 
 to the Secretary of the Bible Society in Melbourne, under 
 whose direction the printing was executed, but I have received 
 no answer as yet to my letter ; I have, therefore, translated 
 these chapters. Mr. Copeland has revised the translation, and 
 I have embodied his corrections. When I shall have embodied 
 Mr. Copeland's corrections of the Psalms, I shall have finished 
 all that I consider necessary to be done to render the transla- 
 tion ready for the press, as far as corrections are concerned ; 
 but considerable portions of the corrected translation will still 
 require to be copied out. I have gone over every part of the
 
 ANEITYUM IN 1876. 329 
 
 translation twice, a very large portion three times, a consider- 
 able part of it four times, and many portions of it still oftener. 
 But as one of the senior missionaries in Samoa one of the 
 highest authorities on such a subject in the South Seas 
 remarked to me in a note sometime ago, " There is no end 
 to revising and correcting." And I daresay the learned com- 
 panies of revisers who meet respectively in the Jerusalem 
 Chamber, Westminster, and the Chapter Library, Winchester, 
 to improve OUT English version, would say the very same thing. 
 
 In his " Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography " Sir James 
 Stephens says of the Benedictines, the oldest and best of 
 the monastic orders : " Their rule assigned an eminent rank 
 among monastic virtues to the guardianship and multiplication 
 of valuable manuscripts. It taught the copyist of a holy book 
 to think of himself as at once a pupil and a teacher, as a 
 missionary while seated at his desk using each finger as a 
 tongue inflicting on the Spirit of Evil a deadly wound at 
 each successive line and as baffling with the pen the dread 
 enemy, who smiles at the impotent hostility of every other 
 weapon grasped by the hand of mortal man." Now, the 
 principle, true in the main, underlying this somewhat exag- 
 gerated language, is certainly more applicable to the trans- 
 lator of God's own Word than to the copyist of any holy book, 
 especially in our days, when we are so aided by the printing- 
 press in multiplying copies that we can meet the demand to 
 any extent and supply every reader with a Bible for himself. 
 
 But some seem to think that to supply a community so 
 small and insignificant as the Aneityumese, a community of 
 less than 1500 people, with a translation of the whole Bible, 
 is involving an amount of labour and expense altogether out 
 of proportion to the good likely to be accomplished ; an idea,
 
 330 ANEITYUM IX 1876. 
 
 the like of which has not been propounded since the canon 
 of Scripture was closed and the work of translating the Bible 
 into foreign languages was commenced. In reply to such an 
 objection I would say, as for the labour of translating, that, 
 as I have said, is finished, and it was all accomplished during 
 what may be looked upon as the spare hours of the mission- 
 aries. I speak from experience when I say that the work 
 of translating, as a whole, has stimulated rather than retarded 
 our other missionary labours. Moreover, it was in this way 
 that we obtained our mightiest lever for the elevating and the 
 evangelising of the community. As for expense, there has 
 seldom been less ground for such an objection. The natives 
 paid the full price, about four shillings a copy, for 2000 
 copies of the New Testament, and about one shilling and 
 sixpence a copy for 2000 copies of the Psalms; and there is 
 every probability of their being able to pay for 1250 copies 
 of the Old Testament as soon as they are printed. It is 
 true there will be some two years' labour in editing the Old 
 Testament, and the expenses connected with that work ; but 
 I am entitled to a furlough about this time, and would be 
 obliged to take it ; and I know not in what labours my time 
 could be more profitably spent than in carrying this transla- 
 tion through the press. Now, if the National Bible Society 
 of Scotland grants supplies of the Scriptures gratis, or at 
 reduced prices, to the inhabitants of the Old Hebrides and 
 other parts of the Highlands to a people who have had the 
 Gospel among them for centuries ; and if the British and 
 Foreign Bible Society supplies Bibles to the natives of some 
 parts of India at the reduced price of tenpence a copy to 
 a people whose civilisation goes back to the ages of hoary 
 antiquity ; would it be generous, would it be just, to the
 
 ANEITYUM IN 1876. 331 
 
 natives of the New Hebrides to the poor Aneityumese, who 
 twenty-five years ago were the lowest of savages to deny 
 them the Old Testament in their own tongue, when, if they 
 go on as they are doing, every man, woman, and child on 
 the island will be prepared to pay, not tenpence a copy, like 
 their brethren in India, for the whole Bible, but ten shillings 
 a copy for the Old Testament alone, and that before the books 
 have left the Bible Society House in London ? I am glad, 
 however, to say that the British and Foreign Bible Society 
 have no such narrow views of economy. Every letter that 
 we receive from their Secretary encourages us to go on trans- 
 lating, and they will print for us. The President of the 
 Society, the Earl of Shaftesbury, said, in October last, at a 
 public meeting in Glasgow : " There might be some insigni- 
 ficant languages which they had not reached yet, but they 
 trusted, by the blessing of God, to reach them, and that they 
 would not leave a single corner of the world to which the 
 Bible had not penetrated, or a single dialect of importance 
 into which it had not been translated." 
 
 THE PUBLIC HEALTH. 
 
 I have, as usual, opened my dispensary daily, and supplied 
 medicine to all comers. I have attended, as far as lay in my 
 power, to the wants of the sick ; and my wife has supplied 
 tea and other medical comforts to all within our reach, in 
 many cases with very beneficial results. Beyond ordinary 
 colds, there has been no sickness ; there has been no epidemic 
 during the year. Food has been plentiful, and the public 
 health has been generally good ; yet, without any assignable 
 reason, the death-rate for 1875 was exceptionally high, and
 
 332 ANEITYUM IX I 8/6. 
 
 at the same time the birth-rate was exceptionally low; the 
 deaths being forty-six, about one-third above the average, 
 and the births only twenty-one, being about a third below 
 the average. The measles and the subsequent epidemics from 
 1 86 1 till 1866 completely disorganised society on Aneit- 
 yum, and left it in such an abnormal state that it has not 
 yet recovered itself. We have, as a rule, a high birth-rate ; 
 and if we could only diminish the death-rate, the state 
 of things would soon improve; and I have still good hopes 
 that, as Christianity develops its strongly conservative, life- 
 preserving influence, the tide will turn in our favour, as it 
 did in Rarotonga, Huahine, and other islands to the eastward, 
 whose history in this respect was much the same as our own. 
 This year, thus far, the births and deaths are about equal 
 During the first four months of this year there were twelve 
 deaths, viz., ten males and two females. There were also 
 twelve births ; and, strange to say, ten of these were males 
 and only two females ! In India, with its 250 millions of 
 people, the population increases annually at the rate of one- 
 half per cent. Every 200 at the end of the year becomes 
 201. Leaving out 1875, the average of the previous seven or 
 eight years showed a decrease of population on my side of the 
 island of about one-half per cent, annually. Every 200 became 
 199. Aneityum would therefore be equal to India if we 
 could shift the balance between life and death just one per 
 cent. not a formidable undertaking, one would think, in these 
 days, when sanitary principles and sanitary regulations are 
 accomplishing so much in arresting disease and prolonging 
 life. One encouraging circumstance is, that within the last 
 few years there has been a slight increase in the female 
 population.
 
 ANEITYUM IN 1 876. 353 
 
 Our own health has been much as it was in former years. 
 With the exception of about three weeks, during which I was 
 laid up with influenza, my own health has continued very good. 
 My wife's health has been better than she expected she has 
 never been laid up ; she has always been able to attend to her 
 domestic and missionary duties, but she has suffered much from 
 intermittent fever, a mild form of fever and ague, especially 
 at night ; and she is longing very much to escape from 
 the influences of the subtle malaria, which is weighing her 
 down like a nightmare, depriving her of refreshing sleep, and 
 literally killing her by inches. A furlough of a year or two, 
 either at home or in one or other of the more bracing of the 
 adjoining colonies, would, I doubt not, humanly speaking, set 
 her up fully for several years more of mission labour ; but our 
 present plans, in connection with the printing of the Old 
 Testament, do not admit of such an arrangement, and will, 
 indeed, render it unnecessary. 
 
 NATIVE CONTRIBUTIONS. 
 
 Last year the natives on my side of the island prepared and 
 contributed 2065 Ibs. of arrowroot, all of first-rate quality, 
 towards the payment of the Old Testament. This is the 
 largest contribution they have ever made. The contributions 
 which they made both for 1874 and 1875 I have still beside 
 me. These I intended to take with me last year, but as 
 arrowroot, when well made, will keep for any length of time, 
 having altered my arrangements, I retained them with me 
 till I leave the islands, when I shall take with me the whole 
 of what may be contributed up till that time, and endeavour 
 to dispose of it, as advantageously as I can, either in the
 
 334 ANEITYUM IN 1876. 
 
 Colonies or at home, or both, as the case may be. We have 
 had no other contributions for mission purposes. The natives, 
 however, make plantations for the teachers ; they send large 
 presents to the teachers on the other islands, and they keep 
 up all their own school-houses. During the year they have 
 built or repaired several school-houses which had been de- 
 stroyed or injured by the earthquakes or the tidal wave ; 
 and they have done the average amount of thatching and 
 other repairs needed on the mission premises. We have had 
 no fencing done since this time twelvemonth, because we have 
 needed none. There was no hurricane this year, and our 
 fences were all put up twice last year once before and once 
 after the destructive ravages of the tidal wave. They, how- 
 ever, put up one piece of heavy wooden fencing, for which I 
 paid them, and which may require a word of explanation. It 
 has always been necessary for us to have our cows and goats 
 herded, and this was always now and again a source of diffi- 
 culty. Four years ago I got a park made. I had attempted 
 the same thing ten years ago, but it did not succeed. On this 
 last occasion the natives gratuitously enclosed the park on three 
 sides with a strong close fence of upright posts, all of hard 
 wood ; the sea formed the fourth side. That fence cost them a 
 great amount of heavy labour. This was a great improvement ; 
 but, nevertheless, at low water the cattle had no difficulty in 
 getting round the end of the fence, and they were still now 
 and again getting out and doing mischief to native plantations, 
 and that even when we kept a herd with them. I saw plainly 
 that the value of the fence would be more than half lost unless 
 the side next the sea were also enclosed. Moreover, I saw 
 that unless this were done the cattle would be a constant 
 source of annoyance to my successor, especially during the
 
 ANE1TYUM IN 1876. 335 
 
 first year. The natives, however, had wrought so much and 
 so well for me in the early part of the year, repairing the 
 damages of the sea and the earthquakes, that the resources of 
 voluntary labour were for the time being nearly exhausted ; be- 
 sides, the planting season had now commenced. I could, under 
 a strong pressure, have got them to do it for nothing ; but as 
 I had no wish that what I expected to be my last demand 
 upon them for labour should savour of oppression, I thought 
 it best to pay them for this piece of work. I selected forty 
 men, consisting of the strongest of our teachers, and others 
 whom they approved of. They wrought the first three days 
 of each week, for three weeks nine days in all. The usual 
 wages for natives on Aneityum is sixpence a day without 
 food ; but as they were picked men and the work heavy, and 
 as they worked with a will, I gave them eightpence a day each 
 and their dinner. I killed a few goats and pigs to kitchen 
 their taro ; by a happy coincidence I had got several presents 
 of taro at the time, so that these dinners for forty men for 
 nine days were not, after all, a burdensome affair. I paid 
 them ^12, being six shillings each, all in white silver coins 
 " current money with the merchant" and they went all home 
 well pleased. Some authorities estimate the denarius or penny 
 of the New Testament which the labourers in the vineyard 
 received at sevenpence halfpenny, so that the wages which I 
 paid were very nearly the same as those that had the sanction 
 of Scripture. This fence has been a great boon to us ; we 
 have had no trouble with our cattle since. As the fence 
 was at first intended for the benefit of my successor and not 
 myself, I might, on the principle of the new " Agricultural 
 Holdings Act," have asked the Synod to authorise me to apply 
 to the Treasurer of the Reformed Presbyterian Mission to
 
 33 6 ANEITYUM IN I 8/6. 
 
 repay me the sum of 12 for unexhausted improvements; 
 but as we are likely to have the benefit of these improvements 
 for a year, and as we have all along been liberally supplied with 
 mission-boxes, which have enabled us to obtain supplies of 
 native food and native labour, the expense of which I should 
 otherwise have had to pay out of my own pocket, I consider it 
 would be not only ungenerous, but unjust, in me to make any 
 such claim at present. 
 
 NATIVE HELP TO THE MISSION. 
 
 There are at present twenty natives, male and female, 
 from my side of the island living on the other islands, either 
 as teachers or as servants to the missionaries. One of our 
 teachers on Tanna died during the past year, and two 
 teachers and their wives, after several years of faithful service, 
 returned home invalided ; one native servant returned from 
 Eromanga. We have, however, sent out nine other natives 
 during the year, viz., three to Futuna, one to Eromanga, and 
 five to Nguna. We also supplied the Dot/spring during the 
 most of the season with five or six natives, as a boat's crew, 
 and we supplied parties of workmen for some months on 
 Eromanga and Nguna, to assist in house- building and .other 
 labours, for the benefit of the missionaries. Of course these 
 have all been paid fully and fairly for their work ; but, never- 
 theless, such supplies of reliable semi-skilled labour are of 
 great importance to the mission. 
 
 THE LABOUR TRAFFIC. 
 
 The so-called labour traffic has shown an unwonted audacity 
 this last year on Aneityum. The Mmj Queen, from Queens-
 
 ANETTYUM IN 1876. 337 
 
 land, of which Mr. James Underwood is labour agent, took 
 away several natives from the other side of the island. The 
 Government agent might be satisfied that the natives were all 
 lawfully and honourably obtained, but Mr. and Mrs. Murray 
 did certainly not think so. The vessel came in after dark, and 
 was off again by morning light. During the night some five 
 or six natives had been got on board, and among others a 
 young man whom Mr. Murray had engaged as cook. When 
 Mrs. Murray went into the kitchen in the morning to give 
 directions about the breakfast, she found that the fire was 
 not kindled, and that the cook was on his way to Queensland. 
 On a subsequent occasion the same vessel, after coasting along 
 my side of the island all day, and sending in her boats at 
 every point to lure away the natives, but without effect, sent 
 in a boat to my station near midnight, well supplied with 
 liquor, to try and get hold of some of the young men, possibly 
 our cook among the rest. We were in bed, and heard nothing 
 of it till the morning ; but Williamu got notice of what was 
 going on, came down to the beach, and the object of the 
 labour agent was defeated. 
 
 The Laura Lind Captain Lind from Noumea, sailing 
 under German colours, with which Mr. Joseph Underwood is 
 connected, has no labour license ; nevertheless, she took away 
 several natives from our island to New Caledonia. It is said 
 that the French authorities were unwilling to let them pass 
 into the labour market, but passed they were; self-interest 
 outweighed legal objections, and they are now in Noumea, 
 working out their three years' term of servitude. History, it 
 is said, repeats itself. " When Hadad heard in Egypt that 
 David slept with his fathers, and that Joab, the captain of the 
 host, was dead," the courage of the Edomite revived. So is
 
 33$ ANEITYUM IN 1876. 
 
 it now. Commodore Goodenough is gone, and the traffic lifts 
 up its drooping head. 
 
 ABSENCE FROM HOME. 
 
 We have been about four months absent from our station 
 during the past twelvemonth ; half of that time in connection 
 with the meeting of the Mission Synod and our visit round 
 the mission stations, and the other half at Mr. Murray's 
 station during his absence. When the Dayspring left the 
 island in December last, my wife and I went round to 
 Anelgauhat, as we generally do, to see the vessel off. We 
 had previously arranged to stay some time there, partly for 
 the sake of the change to ourselves, and partly to take charge 
 of the work in the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Murray. We 
 stayed eight weeks, during which time I conducted the public 
 services on Sabbaths and Wednesdays. I attended the Sabbath - 
 school, held meetings of session, baptized children, dispensed 
 the Lord's Supper, solemnised marriages, visited the sick, dis- 
 pensed medicine daily, and did whatever other mission work 
 required to be done. My wife did all in her power among the 
 women. We had great satisfaction in our visit. The natives 
 over the whole district manifested towards us even more than 
 their wonted cordiality and kindness ; they brought us large 
 presents of food, and performed cheerfully whatever work we 
 required them to do. They re-thatched several houses and 
 covered every house on the premises with cocoa-nut leaves, to 
 protect them from hurricanes. 
 
 Since the Dayspring arrived from Sydney, and we were 
 informed that, in consequence of the state of Mrs. Murray's 
 health, Mr. Murray is resigning his connection with the 
 mission, and is not returning to Aneityum, my wife and I
 
 ANEJTYUM IN 1876. 339 
 
 spent four days on a visit to their station. We found every- 
 thing in excellent order ; everything had been put in order 
 for the return of the mission family, and much disappoint- 
 ment was felt because they had not returned. As requested 
 by Mr. Murray, I packed up all his books and papers ; we 
 also packed up all the clothing, bedding, &c., and the smaller 
 articles belonging to the house, and left six cases ready for 
 shipment. We likewise made arrangements that the premises 
 and the property should be carefully looked after till another 
 missionary take charge of the station, and the sooner that 
 is done the better. All has been peace and quietness since 
 Mr. Murray left them, but the absence of the missionary 
 is felt at every point. When Mr. and Mrs. Murray left the 
 island they had just so far acquired a knowledge of the 
 language and of the people that they were beginning to be 
 really efficient, and the people were just beginning fully to 
 understand and appreciate their real worth. That station 
 has suffered much within the last twelve years from the 
 changes and absence of missionaries. During that time 
 the station has been occupied for longer or shorter periods 
 by no fewer than five missionaries, and, adding one absence 
 to another, it has been vacant for as good as two years. 
 A great, real, and substantial work has been effected on 
 that station, but that work will be in a great measure lost 
 unless an efficient missionary is speedily and permanently 
 settled for that side of the island. 
 
 STATISTICS. 
 
 The following statistics will be sufficient to show the state 
 of the mission on my side of the island at the present time,
 
 340 ANETTYITM IN 1876. 
 
 viz.: Total population, 713: males, 446; females, 267; 
 married men, 169; married women, 169; unmarried males, 
 277; unmarried females, 98; church members at present, 
 354 ; church members admitted since commencement of 
 mission, 664; baptisms since commencement of mission, 
 1 1 68; marriages since commencement of mission, 475; 
 elders, at present, 13; deacons, at present, 12; teachers, at 
 present, 28. 
 
 Within the last eighteen months we have lost by death 
 one of our elders, two of our deacons, and twenty-one of 
 our church members. The whole population are professedly 
 Christian, are supplied with books, and attend church and 
 school. On our island, therefore, we have no room for 
 aggressive work or church extension. Our work is confined 
 to instructing, improving, elevating, and building up a pro- 
 fessedly Christian population a work, however, in which 
 there is ample scope for tasking the energies of the most 
 earnest and devoted of missionaries. 
 
 CHURCH DISCIPLINE. 
 
 The venerable Thomas Boston, of Ettrick, says somewhere 
 in his Memoirs, if I remember his words aright, " Satan has 
 been raging terribly in the lower end of this parish ; three 
 cases of adultery have come to light." If in his sequestered 
 parish, and among his well-instructed and carefully superin- 
 tended flock, such flagrant immoralities were from time to 
 time breaking out, we need scarcely be surprised, however 
 much we may be grieved, that scandals to a much greater 
 extent should, from time to time, break out among a people 
 like ours, so recently brought out of the lowest depths of
 
 ANEITYUM IN 1876. 341 
 
 heathen degradation. Satan has indeed been raging terribly 
 on my side of the island this year. Before our last Com- 
 munion the session suspended no fewer than sixteen of our 
 members. Seven had been suspended last year ; of these 
 we restored four, thus leaving nineteen under suspension, 
 the largest number by far that we have ever had suspended 
 at one time. I feel thankful that it was under myself, and 
 not under a newly-appointed successor, that such a painful 
 event occurred ; otherwise it might have been thought, and 
 with some show of reason, that I had been concealing the 
 real state of the mission and the true character of our 
 church members, and that our church fellowship was nothing 
 better than a mass of hypocrisy and corruption. Instead 
 of this being the case, I am happy to say that with our 
 church members as a whole we have all along had all the 
 satisfaction that could be reasonably expected. 
 
 Of the sixteen members last suspended, fifteen were sus- 
 pended for adultery ; the remaining case was that of a woman 
 striking the wife of one of her neighbours with an axe while 
 under the influence of a fit of jealousy. Happily the jealousy 
 was groundless, both on the part of her husband and the 
 woman whom she struck, and the injury inflicted was not 
 severe ; but the case in itself was too serious to be passed 
 over; human life has been held so cheap among these islands 
 that, whenever it is endangered, as in this case it was, I do my 
 best to impress the natives with its value in the sight of God. 
 
 While here, as everywhere else, we have every form of 
 human depravity to fight against, yet breaches of the seventh 
 commandment form the one great class of evils with which we 
 have chiefly to contend ; nor need this be much wondered at 
 when we remember that there are only sixty-three females
 
 342 ANEITYUM IN 1876. 
 
 for every hundred males, and only thirty-four unmarried 
 females for every hundred unmarried males. This evil is a 
 legacy bequeathed to us by heathenism, when every widow 
 was strangled on the death of her husband, and female infants 
 were often killed ; and the evil was aggravated rather than 
 mitigated by the successive epidemics that passed over the 
 island from 1861 till 1866, inasmuch as the female portion of 
 the population suffered more severely, in proportion, than the 
 male. In this respect that is, in the disproportion of the 
 sexes Aneityum is not unlike a garrison town in England. 
 The state of morals in these towns was largely revealed last 
 year in the House of Commons, in the discussion on Mr. 
 Stansfeld's motion for the repeal of the " Contagious Diseases 
 Act." And certainly, bad as things are with us, Aneityum 
 morals, even at the worst, will not suffer much, if anything, 
 by comparison with the morals of these towns, even after all 
 the reforms effected by the rigid and revolting restrictions 
 which the collective wisdom of Parliament and the Government 
 has brought to bear on them. Our Aneityum Government 
 has no statutory enactments on this subject no registers in 
 which to record the names of every erring sister no medical 
 superintendence under which to place them and no hospitals 
 in which to imprison them as often as the law requires. But 
 Church and State do what they can. Marriage receives every 
 encouragement; but owing to old notions, customs, and tradi- 
 tions, all of heathen origin, but still possessing much vitality, 
 especially the principle, so rigidly carried out, that young 
 women must be married in their own tribes or within their 
 own districts owing to these things, many of their marriages 
 are ill" assorted, and often aggravate these evils instead of 
 removing them.
 
 ANEITYUM IN 1 8/6. 343 
 
 Sin, like disease, is largely preventible ; and we do all that 
 we can to facilitate such family and social arrangements as 
 may best promote both the purity and the peace of the com- 
 munity. To prevent or restrict this evil, the Church plies all 
 the moral means at her command, while the State employs 
 penal inflictions, and tries to strike terror into the hearts of 
 evil-doers. We preach the Law of God and the Gospel of His 
 Son to all ; publicly and privately we warn and exhort men 
 to beware of this sin. We admonish, reprove, rebuke, and 
 suspend our church members. Our chiefs, as a punishment, 
 impose hard labour they fine, they banish, they tie, and they 
 flog offenders, according to the different aggravations of the 
 offence. And, bad as things are, they would doubtless be 
 much worse if these influences were in abeyance, and we 
 may safely hope that, if they are diligently and perseveringly 
 employed, a better state of things will ensue. Life and 
 property have been for a long time safe on Aneityum, and 
 those things that are pure, lovely, and of good report are 
 steadily following. If we continue sowing we shall reap in 
 due time. God is faithful When Paul planted and Apollos 
 watered, God gave the increase.
 
 CHARTER XXV. 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 A BOOK, like a sermon, should have some practical application ; 
 and the lesson which I am especially desirous to impress upon 
 my readers and the friends and supporters of our mission is 
 the great need of increasing the number of our missionaries. 
 For years we have been striving to raise the number to 
 twenty, but we have rarely been able to raise it above twelve. 
 We have oftener been two below than one above that number. 
 Owing especially to the great number of languages spoken 
 in the New Hebrides, we require a much larger proportion 
 of missionaries in our group than in the eastern islands, 
 where the languages are so much fewer in proportion to the 
 population, where one translation of the Bible suffices for so 
 many more people, and where native agency can be so much 
 more easily trained, and made so much more extensively 
 useful, and can be also largely employed for a much higher 
 service. A much smaller number of missionaries is sufficient 
 to accomplish the same work there than with us. In Samoa, 
 and the islands on which the same language is spoken, the 
 population is estimated at about 40,000 ; and there one transla- 
 tion of the Bible is sufficient for the whole, and one Institu- 
 tion, conducted by two missionaries, supplies native teachers 
 and native pastors for the entire population. The Hawaiian
 
 CONCLUSION. 345 
 
 Islands and their dependencies in Micronesia, containing pro- 
 bably 100,000, are supplied by one translation of the Bible 
 and by one Institution ; while the Fiji group, with a popula- 
 tion of 150,000, requires only one translation of the Bible 
 and one Institution for the training of teachers and pastors 
 for the entire group ; whereas the New Hebrides, with a 
 population of perhaps not more than 70,000, with their 
 twenty languages, all so distinct from one another, will require 
 twenty translations of the Bible and twenty Institutions for 
 the training of a native agency, to supply the whole mis- 
 sion. It is thus seen at a glance how many more missionaries 
 proportionately, and all men of high scholarship, we require, 
 than was needed by those older missions in the eastern 
 groups. How wisely the Lord guided the first missionaries 
 to the South Seas, to select the eastern and not the western 
 groups the easier and not the more difficult races, to begin 
 with ! But the easier fields being all fully gained, we are now 
 committed to the more difficult. And we cannot draw back ; 
 we must not stop, be the cost or the labour what it may, till 
 every island in that vast ocean is won for Christ. 
 
 One reason why we are so anxious to increase materially 
 the number of our missionaries at present, is the new Day- 
 spring, with auxiliary steam power, that we are so soon to 
 obtain. The Lord has granted success to Mr. Paton far 
 beyond our most sanguine expectations. He came home 
 avowedly to raise ^6000 for a new Dayspring a Quixotic 
 attempt, as many of his friends thought ; but, after clearing 
 all expenses, he returned with ^9000, for a vessel and for 
 the taking out of new missionaries. We expect soon to be 
 able to reoccupy our two stations on Espiritu Santo, the 
 largest and most northern island of the group. In going
 
 346 CONCLUSION. 
 
 to Santo the vessel has to traverse the whole group, so that 
 an inci-ease of missionaries does not involve an increase of 
 sailing to the mission vessel, and the new ship will possess 
 a great increase of carrying power. In this way, the more 
 missionaries that we have on the field the relative expenses 
 of the vessel will be reduced. 
 
 There is much to encourage us in making this proposal, 
 both within and without the mission. The Lord has, to a 
 large extent, graciously blessed our efforts for the evangelisa- 
 tion of the natives. One island after another has been won 
 over to Christianity. We have churches organised on six 
 islands, and we occupy stations on as many others. We have 
 printed the whole Bible in one language, and we have printed 
 portions of it in eight languages more. A great amount of 
 preparatory work has been done, and experience has been 
 acquired which will facilitate our progress in time to come, 
 especially if the work be carried vigorously forward. 
 
 Without the mission, too, the encouragement has been 
 marvellous and striking. Thirty-four years ago, in the 
 providence of God, two missionaries met on the island of 
 Aneityum, representatives of two of the smallest Presbyterian 
 Churches in Christendom the least of the many thousands 
 of Judah. Now those two small Churches have been joined 
 by others in Scotland, in the Dominion of Canada, and in 
 Australasia, till they number more than 2000 congregations ; 
 these have all adopted the New Hebrides mission as their 
 own, and that with a cordiality and unanimity that is as 
 surprising as it is gratifying. Moreover, the Dayspring was 
 obtained, and has been supported in a manner equally remark- 
 able. The finger of Providence has been conspicuous in the 
 history of this mission from first to last. In the way in
 
 CONCLUSION. 347 
 
 which these agencies have been brought together, and in the 
 way in which these various Churches have been led to co- 
 operate, there has been so much of the doings of the Lord, 
 and so little of the doings of man, that I cannot but regard 
 it as an earnest of what the Lord intends to do for us and 
 by us, unless we become criminally slothful. 
 
 It is true there are formidable difficulties to be encountered, 
 and much in our position and prospects that is fitted to dis- 
 courage. But is there not something, yea much, of this in 
 every mission ? Of these the savage and degraded character 
 of the natives is one of the most apparent; it strikes you 
 the moment you land on their shores. But it has been fully 
 shown that the Gospel can overcome this difficulty. Another 
 formidable obstacle is the number and diversity of the lan- 
 guages nearly as many languages as there are islands, some- 
 times two or three on the same island, and all very widely 
 different. But that is not an insurmountable difficulty ; it is 
 being overcome, and will always yield to patient, persevering 
 labour and the blessing of God ; only you must send out 
 scholarly men for this work men who have an aptitude for 
 acquiring new tongues, men who know something of the 
 principles of language, and who have been drilled into such 
 studies. It is said that in the Wesley an ministry the 
 failures have been chiefly among the less educated. At one 
 time the acquiring of a new, especially a barbarous, language 
 was looked upon as an almost insuperable barrier in the 
 way of missionary effort, and learned men employed illiterate 
 interpreters; even men of such mental powers as Jonathan 
 Edwards and David Brainerd, preached to the North Ameri- 
 can Indians through interpreters. But such ideas are now 
 utterly exploded. No missionary now ever thinks of preaching
 
 34 8 CONCLUSION. 
 
 regularly through an interpreter ; and those of us who have 
 grappled with the difficulties involved in the acquiring of new 
 and barbarous languages know that there is nothing for- 
 midable in this task ; nothing but what average ability and 
 average scholarship, with a fair amount of application, followed 
 by God's blessing, may readily accomplish. The Lord is now 
 doing by His ordinary providence what He did by a special 
 miracle when the lambent tongues sat on the heads of His 
 servants in the day of Pentecost. Tongues were then a sign, 
 as well as a gift ; one of the credentials of apostleship, the 
 token of authority to preach the new faith. Now they are 
 only a gift, the means and the medium of announcing salva- 
 tion through Christ ; and they are to be acquired by ordinary 
 means, and by taking advantage of the many facilities which 
 God in His providence has provided for this end. 
 
 The climate is certainly the most formidable of all our 
 difficulties ; its demands have been so heavy upon physical 
 energy, upon health and life, that people feel alarmed. It 
 would be unwise and unsafe either to ignore or underrate 
 this danger. I certainly regard it as the most formidable 
 difficulty we have to contend with in the mission more 
 formidable, perhaps, than all others put together. It must 
 be recognised, calculated upon, and provided carefully against 
 in every step that we take. But from what we know now, 
 we can see that, beyond a fair, or at most a high, average, 
 the causes of sickness and mortality in the group are to a 
 great extent preventible. None, however, should be sent to 
 our mission but persons in good health and of a sound con- 
 stitution, and who would be [able to "rough it." Experience 
 has led the London Missionary Society and others to adopt 
 a rule that both missionaries and their wives should be sub-
 
 CONCLUSION. 349 
 
 jected to a medical examination as to their health before 
 being sent out. On the islands much can be done to preserve 
 life and secure health by the careful selection of a healthy 
 locality to live in, the proper construction of houses, attention 
 to food, clothing, exercise, medicine, and the laws of health 
 in general. These are important 'everywhere, but especially 
 so there. 
 
 It is admitted on all hands that ours is a very difficult 
 mission field. The Rev. A. W. Murray,' formerly of Samoa, 
 subsequently the pioneer of the New Guinea mission, one 
 of the oldest, most successful, and most experienced mis- 
 sionaries connected with the London Missionary Society in 
 the South Seas, and who knows more about the New Hebrides 
 than any man outside of our mission, in a letter I had from 
 him just before I left the islands, said : " In judging of 
 the New Hebrides mission and its results, we need always 
 to bear in mind that it is a field of very special difficulty. 
 What the difficulties are it would be useless, of course, to 
 specify to you ; but they are greater, I think, and more for- 
 midable, than those that are found in any other of our South 
 Sea missions. We rejoice to think, however, that they are 
 not insuperable j ' prayer and pains, with God's blessing,' 
 as John Eliot used to say, 'will surmount all difficulties in 
 due time.' 'In due time we shall reap, if we faint not.'" 
 We have now a much clearer view of our difficulties than 
 we had twenty years ago, and we have no wish to underrate 
 them. Still, in reading the reports of other missions and 
 other mission fields and every missionary, and every one 
 connected with the management of missions, will find it 
 highly advantageous to make themselves as extensively ac- 
 quainted as possible with the history and ' proceedings of
 
 350 CONCLUSION. 
 
 other missions I feel satisfied that, while our mission field 
 has its own special difficulties, there is nothing in ours call- 
 ing for special despondency. We have special difficulties, but 
 we have also special advantages and special encouragements. 
 God has set the one over against the other. I really see 
 few mission fields that I would exchange for our one. We 
 have already set our feet on the necks of some of our most 
 formidable difficulties, and have overcome them, and time, and 
 patience, and perseverance, and well-directed effort, with the 
 blessing of God, will accomplish the rest, and, like Joshua and 
 Zerubbabel, we " shall bring forth the head stone thereof 
 with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it." 
 
 In appealing to parents for their children for this work, 
 one almost invariable answer we receive is this : We would 
 willingly give them up, but they do not show any inclination 
 for the work themselves, and we do not like to influence 
 them or urge them against their will. But why not influence 
 them so as to bring about a willingness? This, as appears 
 to me, is the very point where parental duty fails. Every 
 parent is expected to influence his child to give his heart to 
 God, and make a profession of his faith in Christ. Why not, 
 then, if they evince sufficient capacity, influence them in the 
 same way to become ministers or missionaries? They are 
 not to force them; but surely it is their duty to influence 
 them, as far as possible, by their prayers, their example, and 
 their conversation; by putting suitable books into their hands; 
 by bringing them within the range of such other influences as 
 might operate favourably upon them ; and by keeping them 
 as far as possible out of all contrary influences. Many 
 of our best missionaries have been led to devote themselves 
 to this work from reading the lives of other missionaries
 
 CONCLUSION. 3 5 1 
 
 who had gone before them. It was the pondering over the 
 first question in the Shorter Catechism that was the initia- 
 tory step in Lady Glenorchy's conversion, and in that noble 
 life of Christian usefulness which she afterwards led. Dr. 
 Chalmers has well shown in one of his lectures (the nth 
 of Romans) that when God requires us to forgive and love 
 our enemies, He does not intend us, by doing so, to con- 
 travene any part of our mental or moral constitution. 
 Christ's injunction is, "If he repent, forgive him." The 
 repentance is to precede the forgiveness, which removes all 
 the difficulty to a Christian spirit. We are to love our 
 enemies, but it is not with a love of complacency, as we do 
 our friends, but simply with a love of benevolence or pity ; 
 and the consideration of the retribution that awaits them, 
 if fully realised in our minds, will produce this pity ; so that 
 loving them in this way will be natural and easy. So, in 
 influencing young people to become missionaries, there is 
 no need of contravening any part either of their mental or 
 their moral constitution of leading them to engage in a 
 work to which they would have no heart. If the right 
 influences are brought to bear upon them, and prove effica- 
 cious, these will give them heart, love, and life for the work. 
 Let Christian life, ministerial character, and missionary 
 labours be presented fully and forcibly before them, as 
 bearing on the glory of God, their own usefulness and happi- 
 ness, and the present and future well-being of their fellow- 
 men ; let them feel that in becoming missionaries they are not 
 like those engaged in secular occupations, however useful and 
 however honourable, operating on perishable materials ; they 
 are operating on the imperishable the immortal on mind 
 and spirit ; they are affecting directly the highest interests
 
 35 2 CONCLUSION. 
 
 of humanity ; the effects of their labours are not confined to 
 time, they will extend into and throughout all eternity. 
 
 From whatever cause, there can be no doubt that those 
 influences which would lead young men to become mis- 
 sionaries are brought to bear far too lightly on the rising 
 youth of the Churches. Every Church and every Missionary 
 Society is crippled for want of agents. Why is this, while 
 every other profession is crowded? Parents are at a loss 
 what profession to choose for their sons. Every profession 
 is over-supplied with candidates the medical, the legal, the 
 literary, the mercantile, the agricultural. The missionary 
 staff alone is under-supplied ; and why should it be so ? 
 Surely there is nothing in the life of the missionary in these 
 latter decades of this nineteenth century, as seen even from 
 a worldly standpoint, nothing in his labours, his perils, his 
 poverty, or his reproaches, that should stagger any brave, 
 earnest-hearted Christian youth. On the other hand, as 
 seen from the same point of view, there seems to be now 
 falling to his share a pretty fair portion of both earthly 
 rewards and worldly honours ; while the crowning promise 
 from another standpoint is : " They that be wise (tnarg. 
 teachers) shall shine as the brightness of the firmament ; 
 and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for 
 ever and ever " (Dan. xii. 3). 
 
 THE END.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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 1979 
 
 NOV 141979 
 
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