Part 6 (1/2)
But ainst my life, however calmed or baffled for the moment Within a few days of the above events, when Natives in large numbers were assembled at my house, a man furiously rushed on me with his ax; but a Kaseru, and dexterously defended me fro very near to the Lord Jesus; I knew not, for one brief hour, when or how attackhand clasped in the Hand once nailed on Calvary, and noaying the scepter of the Universe, calnation abode in my soul
Next day, a wild Chief followed h often directed towards me, God restrained his hand
I spoke kindly to him, and attended to my work as if he had not been there, fully persuaded that my God had placed me there, and would protectprayer to our dear Lord Jesus, I left all in His hands, and felt immortal till thened my faith, and seemed only to nerve me for more to follow; and they did tread swiftly upon each other's heels Without that abiding consciousness of the presence and power ofelse in all the world could have preservedmiserably His words, ”Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” became to me so real that it would not have startleddown upon the scene I felt His supporting power, as did St Paul, when he cried, ”I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me” It is the sober truth, and it comes back to me sweetly after twenty years, that I had limpses of the face and smile of my blessed Lord in those dreadleveled at”Hi, I awoke three ti to force the door of h ar, and holeso which had often stood betwixtthe report went all round the Harbor that those who tried to shootwould not do A plan was therefore deliberately set on foot to fire the premises, and club us if we attempted to escape But our Aneityumese Teacher heard of it, and God helped us to frustrate their designs When they knew their plots were revealed to us, they seemed to lose faith in themselves, and cast about to circumvent us in soood
CHAPTER XXII
A NATIVE SAINT AND MARTYR
NAMUEI, one of e There he had built a house for hist the Heathen a pure and hu he came and reported on the state of affairs to me
Without books or a school, he yet instructed the Natives in Divine things, conducted the worshi+p, and taught the, when one -stone, a deadly weapon like a scythe stone in shape and thickness, usually round but so They throw it froreat distance and with fatal precision The Teacher, with great agility, warded his head and received the deep cut froainst the club that was certain to folloiftly The Priest sprang upon hie yells He evaded, yet also received,out of their hands, actually reached the Mission House, bleeding, fainting, and pursued by howlingthe noise I ran out with all possible speed
On seeing me, he sank down by a tree, and cried, ”Missi, Missi, quick!
and escape for your life! They are co to kill you; they say they un with me; for they hate Jehovah and the Worshi+p!”
I hastened to the good Teacher where he lay; I bound up, washed, and dressed his wounds; and God, by the , kept the infuriated Tannese watching at bay Gradually they began to disappear into the bush, and we conveyed the dear Teacher to the Mission House In three or four weeks, he so far recovered by careful nursing that he was able to walk about again Soe; but I insisted, as a preliminary, that the Harbor Chiefs should unitedly punish him who had abused the Teacher; and this to test them, for he had only carried out their oishes,--Nowar excepted, and perhaps one or two others Theythe Teacher with a pig and so; but I said, ”No! Such bad conduct must be punished, or ould leave their island by the first opportunity”
Now that Sacred Man, a Chief too, had gone on fighting with other tribes, till his followers had all died or been slain; and, after three weeks' palaver, the other Chiefs seized him, tied him with a rope, and sent me word to come and see him punished, as they did not want us after all to leave the island I had to go, for fear of more bloody work, and after talk with them, followed byfriendly for so to listen and learn, the Teacher earnestly desired to return to his post I pled with him to remain at the Mission House till we felt more assured, but he replied, ”Missi, when I see the for my blood, I just see myself when the Missionary first came to my island I desired to murder him, as they now desire to kill er, I would have re to teach us, till, by the grace of God, I was changed to what I ae these poor Tannese to love and serve Him
I cannot stay away from them; but I will sleep at the Mission House, and do all I can by day to bring them to Jesus”
It was not in me to keep such a man, under such motives, from what he felt to be his post of duty He returned to his village work, and for several weeks things appearedinterest in us and our work, and less fear of the pretensions of their Heathen Priest, which, alas! fed his jealousy and anger One ood Teacher knelt in prayer, the sareat club and left hi and unconscious The people fled and left hia little, crawled to the Mission House, and reached it abouthim, I ran to , ”Missi, I a! They will kill you also Escape for your life”
Trying to console hi hi up to Jesus, and rejoicing that he would soon be with Hireat but he bore all very quietly, as he said and kept saying, ”For the sake of Jesus! For Jesu's sake!” He was constantly praying for his persecutors, ”O Lord Jesus, forgive the Oh, take not away all Thy servants from Tanna!
Take not away Thy Worshi+p fro all the Tannese to love and follow Jesus!”
To him, Jesus was all and in all; and there were no bands in his death
He passed fro into the Glory of his Lord Huh he reat man had fallen there in the service of Christ, and that he would take rank in the glorious Arrave near the Mission House With prayers, and ned his remains to the dust in the certainty of a happy resurrection Even one such convert was surely a triumphant reward for the Missionaries, who him to Jesus May they have reat day!
CHAPTER XXIII
BUILDING AND PRINTING FOR God
FOR fully three months, all our available time, with all the native help which I could hire, was spent in erecting a building to serve for Church and School It was fifty feet long, by twenty-one feet six inches broad
The studs were three feet apart, and all fixed by tenon and mortise into upper and loall plates The beautiful roof of iron-wood and sugar-cane leaf was supported by three round The roof extended about three feet over the wall plates, both to form a verandah and to carry the raindrops free beyond the walls It was ar-cane leaf and cocoanut leaves all around The floor was laid hite coral, broken small, and covered with cocoanut leaf mats, such as those on which the Natives sat Indeed, it was as comfortable a House of Prayer as anyonly open spaces for doors and s! I bought the heavy wood for it on Aneityuain were the gift of ow, all cut and sewed by their own hands I gave also one hundred and thirty yards of cloth, along with other things, for other needful wood
As ere preparing a foundation for the Church, a huge and singular-looking round stone was dug up, at sight of which the Tannese stood aghast The eldest Chief said, ”Missi, that stone was either brought there by Karapanareat Chief who is dead That is the Stone God to which our forefathers offered human sacrifices; these holes held the blood of the victim till drunk up by the Spirit The Spirit of that stone eats up ht us We are in greatest fear!”
A Sacred Man claily desirous to carry it off; but Iin my power to show them the absurdity of these foolish notions Idolatry had not indeed yet fallen throughout Tanna; but one cruel idol, at least, had to give way for the erection of God's House on that benighted land
An ever- of ow, gavewas one of the things I had never tried, but having now prepared a booklet in Tannese, I gotthe type But book-printing turned out to be forhad been Yet by dogged perseverance I succeeded at last My biggest difficulty was how to arrange the pages properly! After many failures, I folded a piece of paper into the nu the as they would be when correctly placed in the book; then folding all back without cutting up the sheet, I found now by these nues in the fra, as indicated on each side And do you think me foolish, when I confess that I shouted in an ecstasy of joy when the first sheet came from the press all correct? It was about one o'clock in theI was the only white man then on the island, and all the Natives had been fast asleep for hours! Yet I literally pitched my hat into the air, and danced like a schoolboy round and round that printing-press; till I began to think, A my reason? Would it not be like a Missionary to be uponGod for this first portion of His blessed Word ever printed in this new language? Friend, bear with me, and believebefore the Ark of his God! Nor think that I did not, over that first sheet of God's Word ever printed in the Tannese tongue, go upon my knees too, and then, and every day since, plead with the ht and joy of His own Holy Bible into every dark heart and benighted home on Tanna!