Part 22 (1/2)
Scarcely were my words uttered, when they rushed to the shore, with shoutings and songs of gladness; and soon every one was seen struggling under the biggest block of coral hich he dared to tackle They lay like limestone rocks, broken up by the hurricanes, and rolled ashore in the arhty billows; and in an incredibly short time scores of them were tu prepared a foundation, I -basket, into which every block was firmly tied and then let down to me by the pulley--a Native Teacher, a faithful fellow, cautiously guiding it I received and placed each stone in its position, doingcircularly, and cutting them to the needed shape with my American ax The wall is about three feet thick, and the uaranteed to stand till the coral itself decays I wrought incessantly, for fear of any further collapse, till I had it raised about twenty feet; and now, feeling secure, anddreadfully cut up, I inti then But the Chief advanced and said--
”Missi, you have been strong to work Your strength has fled But rest here beside us; and just point out where each block is to be laid We will lay them there, ill build them solidly behind like you And no man will sleep till it is done”
With all their will and heart they started on the job; so the blocks, till the wall rose like est rocks laid round the top, bound all together, and formed the mouth of the well Wo it, and it re thirty-four feet deep, eight feet wide at the top, and six at the bottom I floored it over ood above all, and fixed the windlass and bucket, and there it stands as one of the greatest iven to Aniwa It rises and falls with the tide, though a third of ait, we tasted the pure fresh water on board the _Dayspring_, the latter seemed so insipid that I had to slip a little salt into ar before I could enjoy it! All visitors are taken to see the well, as one of the wonders of Aniwa; and an Elder of the Native Church said tothe last two years of drought, ould have all been dead!”
Very strangely, though the Natives themselves have since tried to sink six or seven wells in the es, they have either come to coral rock which they could not pierce, or found only water that was salt And they say ast themselves, ”Missi not only used pick and spade, but he prayed and cried to his God We have learned to dig, but not how to pray, and therefore Jehovah will not give us the rain, from below!”
CHAPTER LXVIII
THE OLD CHIEF'S SERMON
THE as now finished The place was neatly fenced in And the old Chief said, ”Missi, I think I could help you next Sabbath Will you let me preach a sermon on the well?”
”Yes,” I at once replied, ”if you will try to bring all the people to hear you”
”Missi, I will try,” he eagerly promised The news spread like wildfire that the Chief Namakei was to be Missionary on the next day for the Worshi+p, and the people, under great expectancy, urged each other to come and hear what he had to say
Sabbath careat crowd Namakei appeared dressed in shi+rt and kilt He was so excited, and flourished his tomahawk about at such a rate, that it was rather lively work to be near hi devotions, and then called upon Na wildly, and his li effect, swinging his toesticulation:--
”Friends of Namakei, men and women and children of Aniwa, listen to e things we could not understand--things things all too wonderful; and we said regarding ht believe such nonsense, but we said that the black fello better than to receive it But of all his wonderful stories, we thought the strangest was about sinking down through the earth to get rain! Then we said to each other, The oneus that Jehovah God heard and saw, and that his God would give hiot the rain deep down in the earth? We mocked at hihed at other things which the Missi told us, because we could not see them But from this day I believe that all he tells us about his Jehovah God is true Some day our eyes will see it For to-day we have seen the rain fro to a cli the broken coral on the floor fly behind like a war-horse pawing the ground, he cried with great eloquence:--
”My people, the people of Aniwa, the world is turned upside down since the word of Jehovah ca up through the earth? It has always come from the clouds!
Wonderful is the work of this Jehovah God No God of Aniwa ever answered prayers as the Missi's God has done Friends of Namakei, all the powers of the world could not have forced us to believe that rain could be given from the depths of the earth, if we had not seen it with our eyes, felt it and tasted it as we here do Now, by the help of Jehovah God the Missi brought that invisible rain to viehich we never before heard of or saw, and”--(beating his hand on his breast, he exclai here in my heart tells me that the Jehovah God does exist, the Invisible One, e never heard of nor saw till the Missi brought Hie The coral has been removed, the land has been cleared away, and lo! the water rises Invisible till this day, yet all the sah our eyes were too weak So I, your Chief, do now firmly believe that when I die, when the bits of coral and the heaps of dust are removed which now blind my old eyes, I shall then see the Invisible Jehovah God with my soul, as Missi tells me, not less surely than I have seen the rain from the earth below From this day, my people, I must worshi+p the God who has opened for us the well, and who fills us with rain from below The Gods of Aniwa cannot hear, cannot help us, like the God of Missi Henceforth I am a follower of Jehovah God Let every o now and fetch the idols of Aniwa, the Gods which our fathers feared, and cast them down at Missi's feet Let us burn and bury and destroy these things of wood and stone, and let us be taught by the Missi how to serve God who can hear, the Jehovah who gave us the well, and ill give us every other blessing, for He sent His Son Jesus to die for us and bring us to Heaven This is what the Missi has been telling us every day since he landed on Aniwa
We laughed at him, but noe believe him The Jehovah God has sent us rain from the earth Why should He not also send us His Son from Heaven?
Namakei stands up for Jehovah!”
This address, and the Sinking of the Well, broke the back of Heathenism on Aniwa That very afternoon, the old Chief and several of his people brought their idols and cast them down at my feet beside the door of our house Oh, the intense excitement of the weeks that followed! Company after company came to the spot, loaded with their Gods of wood and stone, and piled them up in heaps, as of others, in which was heard the oft-repeated word, ”Jehovah! Jehovah!” What could be burned, we cast into the flames; others we buried in pits twelve or fifteen feet deep; and some few, more likely than the rest to feed or awaken superstition, we sank far out into the deep sea Let no Heathen eyes ever gaze on theain!
One of the very first steps in Christian discipline to which they readily and al on every reat Jehovah for their daily bread
Whosoever did not do so was regarded as a Heathen (Query: how many white Heathens are there?) The next step, and it was taken in a manner as if by so than joyful, was a for Doubtless the prayers were often very queer, andsuperstitions; but they were prayers to the great Jehovah, the coer to Gods of stone!
Necessarily these were the conspicuous features of our life as Christians in theirFamily Prayer, and Grace at Meat; and hence, most naturally, their instinctive adoption and imitation of the same as the first outward tokens of Christian discipline Every house in which there was not Prayer to God in the family was known thereby to be Heathen This was a direct and practical evidence of the New Religion; and, so far as it goes (and that is very far indeed, where there is any sincerity beneath it), the test was one about which there could be no mistake on either side
A third conspicuous feature stood out distinctly and at once,--the change as to the Lord's Day Village after village followed in this also the example of the Mission House All ordinary occupation ceased
Sabbath was spoken of as the Day for Jehovah Saturday ca to the extra preparations for the co day of rest and worshi+p They believed that it was Jehovah's will to keep the first day holy The reverse was a distinctive mark of Heathenisan to rise visibly on the delighted eye The whole inhabitants, young and old, now attended School,--three generations sometimes at the one copy or A B C book!
Thefts, quarrels, crimes, etc, were settled now, not by club law, but by fine or bonds or lash, as agreed upon by the Chiefs and their people