Part 9 (1/2)
The night after the visit of the Erroan boat, and the sad news of Mr and Mrs Gordon's death, the Tannese h festival in praise of the Erroans Our best friend, old Nowar the Chief, who had worn shi+rt and kilt for soularly to the Worshi+p, relapsed once , resumed his bow and arrows and his tomahawk, of which he boasted that it had killed veryhi with the Heathen in rejoicing over the a, he replied to this effect, ”Truly, Missi, they have done well If the people of Erroa are severely punished for this by the Man-of-ill all hear of it; and our people will then fear to kill you and the other Missionaries, so as to destroy the Worshi+p of Jehovah Now, they say, the Erroan, and Aneityumese Teachers, besides other white men, and no Man-of-war has punished either them or us If they are not punished for what has been done on Erro you and me and all orshi+p at the Mission House!”
I answered, ”Nowar, let us all be strong to love and serve Jehovah Jesus If it be for our good and His glory, He will protect us; if not, He will take us to be with Himself We will not be killed by their bad talk Besides, what avails it to us, when dead and gone, if even a Man-of-war should coed his shoulders, answering, ”Missi, by and by you will see
Mind, I tell you the truth I know our Tannese people How is it that Jehovah did not protect the Gordons and the Erroans are not punished, neither will our Tannese be punished, though they ling faith, just tre so little of the true Jehovah
Groups of Natives asseether They urged old Abraham to return to Aneityum by the very first opportunity, as our lives were certain to be taken, but he replied, ”I will not leave Missi”
Abraham and I were thrown much into each other's coer We conducted Fa the prayer in Tannese, in which language alone we understood each other:--
”O Lord, our Heavenly Father, they have a They have banished the Aneityumese from dark Tanna And now they want to kill Missi Paton and , protect us, and make their hearts soft and sweet to Thy Worshi+p Or, if they are permitted to kill us, do not Thou hate us, but wash us in the blood of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ He cah Hiood place where Missi Gordon the man and Missi Gordon the wo Thy praise and seeing Thy face Our Lord, our hearts are pained just now, and eep over the death of Thy dear servants; butfor Thy cause, and take thou away all our fears Make us two and all Thy servants strong for Thee and for Thy Worshi+p; and if they kill us two, let us die together in Thy good work, like Thy servants Missi Gordon the reat simple soul poured itself out to God; and my heart melted within me as it had never done under any prayer poured from the lips of cultured Christian men!
Under the strain of these events, Miaki ca of his men to this effect, ”You and the Worshi+p are the cause of all the sickness and death now taking place on Tanna! The Erroa men killed Missi Gordon the o The Worshi+p is killing us all; and the Inland people will kill us for keeping you and the Worshi+p here; for we love the conduct of Tanna, but we hate the Worshi+p We ain”
I tried to reason fir the them, and that our presence and the Worshi+p could only be a blessing to theive up their evil ways I referred to a poor girl, whom Miaka and his men had stolen and abused--that they knew such conduct to be bad, and that God would certainly punish them for it
He replied, ”Such is the conduct of Tanna Our fathers loved and followed it, we love and follow it, and if the Worshi+p condemns it, ill kill you and destroy the Worshi+p”
I said, ”The Word of the Holy God conde to lead you to give it up, and to love and serve His Son Jesus our Saviour If I refuse to obey my God, He will punish ood, that his conduct was good, but that he hated the teaching of the Worshi+p He had a party ofwith him from the other side of the island, and he sent back a present of four large fat hogs to their Chiefs, with aof the Mathiesons If that were done, his hands would be strengthened in dealing with us
To knoas best to be done, in such trying circuether, when so surrounded by perils and enemies, at first seemed the wisest course, and was the repeated advice of e, and had gained a considerable Influence ast the Natives, and there were a number warmly attached both to himself and to the Worshi+p To have left would have been to lose all, which toall with Jesus, I held on while the hope of being spared longer had not absolutely and entirely vanished
The following quotation from a letter of the late A Clark, Esq, J P, Auckland, New Zealand, will shohat Bishop Selwyn thought offast on Tanna at the post of duty, and he knehat he riting about These are the words:--”'Talk of bravery! talk of heroism!
The man who leads a forlorn hope is a coward in comparison with hi look or cheering word froards it as his duty to hold on in the face of such dangers We read of the soldier, found after the lapse of ages a the ruins of Herculaneu all around hi those armies of Ancient Rome which conquered the World Mr Paton was subjected to no such iron law He ht a temporary asylum in Auckland, where he would have been heartily received But he was her considerations He chose to remain, and God knohether at this !' When the Bishop told us that he declined leaving Tanna by H M S _Pelorus,_ he added, 'And I like hi!'”
For my part I feel quite confident that, in like circumstances, that noble Bishop of God would have done the same I, born in the bosom of the Scottish Covenant descended from those who suffered persecution for Christ's honor, would have been unworthy of theer only Yet not to me, but to the Lord who sustained lory
CHAPTER xxxIII
THE VISIT OF THE COMMODORE
AT that tih my life was daily atteularly to the Worshi+p and to receive frequent instruction One day, when engaged in teaching hi to prevent hireat club at me, but I seized the heavy end of it with both ht What a prayer went up from me to God at that dread moment! The man, astonished and abashed at my kind words and appeal, slunk away and left me in peace God never took away froht for ht lead them to love and ihter--a handsoirl, his only child--and Miaki's principal wife and her two sons, and nine Chiefs attended Worshi+p regularly at the Mission House, on Sabbaths and on the afternoon of every Wednesday In ail, about sixty persons soularly waited on our ministrations at this tied, andmore consoled and hopeful than ever before, a ed at my very door, and I was constrained to realize that ere in the midst of death Father, our times are in Thy hand!
In my Mission School, I offered as a prize a red shi+rt for the first Chief who knew the whole Alphabet without a mistake It on by an Inikahi Chief, as once a terror to the whole co to teach the A B C to others, he proceeded in sos with the body cut off; B is like two eyes; C is a three-quarters moon; D is like one eye; E is a man with one club under his feet and another over his head; F is a e club and a smaller one,” etc, etc; L was like a man's foot; Q was the talk of the dove, etc Then he would say, ”Reet hold of the letters and be able to read I have taught my little child, who can scarcely walk, the names of them all They are not hard to hold, but soft and easy You will soon learn to read the book, if you try it with all your heart!”
But Miaki was still our evil genius, and every incident seemed to be used by him for one settled purpose of hate A Kaseruirl in a canoe to Aniwa, to be sold to friends there for tobacco leaf, which the Aniwans cultivated extensively They also prepared to take revenge there for a child's death, killed in their belief by the sorcery of an Aniwan When within sight of the shore, the canoes were upset and all were said to have been devoured by sharks, excepting only one canoe out of six This one returned to Tanna and reported that there were thite Traders living on Aniwa, that they had plenty of ammunition and tobacco, but that they would not co as a Missionary lived there Under this fresh incite the Erro reat wind and sink any Man-of-war that comes here We will take the Man-of-war and kill all that are on board If you and Abraham do not leave us ill kill you both, for we must have the Traders and the powder”
Just as they were assu with the cry, ”Missi, the _John Knox_ is coreat shi+ps of fire, Men-of war, behind her, co very fast!”
I retorted upon Nowar and the hostile company, ”Now is your tireat wind now; get all your ht, and you will find them always ready!”