Part 21 (1/2)
My constant custoht in between the contending parties My faith enabled rasp and realize the promise, ”Lo, I am with you always” In Jesus I felt invulnerable and i His work And I can truly say that these were the moments when I feltand e ious influence I tried to interest all the villages, and to treat all the Chiefs equally
In our early days, after getting into ed the Chief, or representative man of each district, to put up one or other at thewith his people, built the cookhouse; another, the store; another, the banana and ya-house; another, the boys and girls'
house; the houses for servants and teachers, the Schoolhouse, and the large shed, a kind of shelter where Natives sat and talked when not at work about the premises Of course these all were at first only Native huts, of larger or smaller dimensions But they were all built by contract for articles which they highly valued, such as axes, knives, yards of prints and calico, strings of beads, blankets, etc They served our purpose for the time, and when another party, by contract also, had fenced around our premises, the Mission Station was really a beautiful, little, lively, and orderly village, and in itself no bad emblem of Christian and civilized life The payments, made to all irrespectively, but only for work duly done and according to reasonable bargain, distributed property and gifts aed a well-conditioned rivalry which had many happy effects
Heathenise efforts to stamp out our Cause on Aniwa, but the Lord held the helainst us He ostentatiously set hi at it very openly and defiantly on Sabbaths He, beco and in contempt of the Worshi+p, with an arht; and one man, whoe to Jehovah”
A few days thereafter, this brother also fell sick and suddenly died
The Heathen party made much of these incidents, and soe, but most feared to murder us; so they withdrew and lived apart froet By and by, however, they set fire to a large district belonging to our supporters burning cocoanut and breadfruit trees and plantations Still our people refused to fight, and kept near to protect us Then all the leading men assembled to talk it over Most were for peace, but so us away or killing us, that they ht be left to live as they had hitherto done At last a Sacred Man, a Chief who had been on Tanna when the Curacoa punished the es of the friendly Natives there, stood up and spoke in our defense, and warned theht happen; and other three, who had been under my instruction on Tanna, declared themselves to be the friends of Jehovah and of His Missionary Finally, the Sacred Man rose again, and showed the round his left arreat Chief at Port Resolution on Tanna, when he saw that Missi and his wife could not be kept there, took ed me by these, the shells of his office as Chief, taken from his own arm and bound on mine, to protect them from all harm He told me to declare to the men of Aniwa that if the Missi be injured or slain, he and his warriors will coe in blood” This turned the scale Theclosed in our favor
Close on the heels of this, another and a rather perplexing incident befell us A party of Heathens asse on the Lord's Day, in conte also to waylay the Teachers andwas held by the Christian party, at the close of the Sabbath Services All ished to serve Jehovah were to co, unarht talk and reason together with thehtythat they were on Jehovah's side, and wished to go with me But, alas! they refused to lay down their aroing or sufferthem to peace, I was reluctantly placed at their head, and we e of the unfriendly party
The villagers were greatly alarmed The Chief's two sons came forth with every availableand speechifying, so their replies--the Natives are all inveterate talkers! Tofeature,--their rage found vent in hours of palaver, instead of blows and blood It ended in peace The Heathen were aed themselves henceforth to leave the Worshi+p alone, and that every one who pleased ht come to it un the Lord
CHAPTER LXVI
THE SINKING OF THE WELL
BUT Iof the Well, which broke the back of Heathenis a flat coral island, with no hills to attract the clouds, rain is scarce there as co mountainous islands; and even when it does fall heavily, with tropical profusion, it disappears, as said before, through the light soil and porous rock, and drains itself directly into the sea The rainy season is from December to April, and then the disease ions is apt to prevail, viz, fever and ague
At certain seasons, the Natives drink very unwholesome water; and, indeed, the best water they had at any ti purposes was from the precious cocoanut, a kind of Apple of Paradise for all these Southern Isles! They also cultivate the sugar-cane very extensively, and in great variety; and they chew it, ould fly to water for thirst; so it is to them both food and drink The black fellow carries with hioes off for a day's work, four or five sticks of sugar-cane, and puts in his ti their universal bathing-place, in which they swattle like fish, and little water, al purposes, and none whatever for washi+ng clothes, the lack of fresh-springing water was not the dreadful trial to them that it would be to us Yet they appreciate and rejoice in it ireen cocoanut is refreshi+ng, and in appearance, taste, and color not unlike leh when mothers die they feed the babies on it and on the soft white pith, and they flourish on the saht in preferring, when they can get it, the water fro therefore no per or strea sadly for lack of the same, I resolved by the help of God to sink a well near the Mission PreuideOf the scientific conditions of such an experi to dig through earth and coral above thirty feet, andto our environment, the water, if water I found, could only be salt water after all my toils! Still I resolved to sink that shaft in hope, and in faith that the Son of God would be glorified thereby
OneI said to the old Chief and his fellow-Chief, both now earnestly inquiring about the religion of Jehovah and of Jesus, ”I a to sink a deep well down into the earth, to see if our God will send us fresh water up from below”
They looked at me with astonish to pity, ”O Missi! Wait till the rain comes down, and ill save all we possibly can for you”
I replied, ”We ot, we may be forced to leave you”
The old Chief looked ily, and said ”O Missi! you must not leave us for that Rain comes only from above How could you expect our Island to send up showers of rain froing from the earth in my Land at horew oing wrong; you are losing so, or you would not talk wild like that! Don't let our people hear you talking about going down into the earth for rain, or they will never listen to your word or believe you again”
But I started upona spot near the Mission Station and close to the public path, that , with pick and spade and bucket at hand, an American axe for a haood old Chief now told off his men in relays to watchoutrageous, saying, ”Poor Missi! That's the ith all who goof a notion out of their heads We must just watch him now He will find it harder to ith pick and spade than with his pen, and when he's tired we'll persuade hiet exhausted sooner than I expected, toiling under that tropical sun; but we never own before the Natives that we are beaten; so I went into the house and filled lish- h they be out of shell, and serving their purposes wonderfully Holding up a large hook, I cried, ”One of these to every man who fills and turns over three buckets out of this hole!”
A rush was ain for another and another I kept those on one side who had got a turn, till all the rest in order had a chance, and bucket after bucket was filled and emptied rapidly Still the shaft seemed to lower very slohilevery quickly I was constantly there, and took the heavy share of everything, and was thankful one evening to find that we had cleared , one side had rushed in, and our as all undone
The old Chief and his best men now came around ravely He assuredup through the earth on Aniwa!
”Now,” said he, ”had you been in that hole last night, you would have been buried, and a Man-of-ould have come from Queen 'Toria to ask for the Missi that lived here We would have to say, 'He is down in that hole' The Captain would ask, 'Who killed him and put him down there?'
We would have to say, 'He went down there himself!' The Captain would answer, 'Nonsense! Who ever heard of a whitedown into the earth to bury himself? You killed him, you put him there; don't hide your bad conduct with lies!' Then he would bring out his big guns and shoot us, and destroy our Island in revenge You are rave, Missi, and you will make ours too Give up thisdoards on Aniwa Besides, all your fish-hooks cannot teain to enter that hole; they don't want to be buried with you Will you not give it up now?”
I said all that I could to quiet his fears, explained to thelect of precautions, and finally made known that by the help of my God, even without all other help, Iineer Two trees were searched for, with branches on opposite sides, capable of sustaining a cross tree betwixt theround, passed the beam across them over the center of the shaft, fastened thereon a rude home-made pulley and block, passed a rope over the wheel, and swung an once le that the sides ain fall in Not a Native, however, would enter that hole, and I had to pick and dig away till I was utterly exhausted But a Native Teacher, in who to hire them with axes, knives, etc, to seize the end of the rope and walk along the ground, pulling it till the bucket rose to the surface, and then he hiain I rang a little bell which I had with nal for my brave helpers to pull their rope And thus I toiled on fro so of the well, till we reached a depth of about thirty feet And the phrase, ”living water,” ”living water,” kept chi and hammered away!