“Missi, our fathers loved and worshipped whom you call the Devil, the Evil Spirit; and we are determined to do the same, for we love the conduct of our fathers. Missi Turner came here and tried to break down our worship, but our fathers fought him and he left us. They fought also Peta, the Samoan Teacher, and he fled. They fought and killed some of the Samoan Teachers placed on the other side of the Harbour, and their companions left. We killed the last foreigner that lived in Tanna before you came here. We murdered the Aneityumese Teachers, and burned down their houses. After each of these acts, Tanna was good; we all lived like our fathers, and sickness and death left us. Now, our people are determined to kill you, if you do not leave this island; for you are changing our customs and destroying our worship, and we hate the Jehovah Worship.”
Then, surrounded by a number of men, who had spent some years in the Colonies, he continued in a bitter strain to this effect,—
“The people of Sydney belong to your Britain; they know what is right and wrong as well as you; and we have ourselves seen them fishing, feasting, cooking, working, and seeking pleasure on the Sabbath as on any other day. You say, we do not here need to cook any food on Sabbaths or to toil at our ovens, but you yourself cook, for you boil your kettle on that day! We have seen the people do all the conduct at Sydney which you call bad, but which we love. You are but one, they are many; they are right, and you must be wrong; you are teaching lies for Worship.”
After many such speeches, I answered all the questions of the people fully, and besides I cross-questioned my assailants on several subjects, regarding which they grossly contradicted each other, till the majority of voices cried out,—
“They are lying! Their words are crooked! Missi knows all the truth about the people of Sydney!”
Alas, I had to admit that what they reported was too true regarding the godless multitudes at home who made the Sabbath a day of pleasure, but not regarding Jehovah’s servants. By this time, they were willing to remain quiet, and allowed me to talk of spiritual things and of the blessings that the Sabbath and the Bible brought to all other lands, and to conduct in their presence and hearing the Worship of Jehovah.
But my enemies seldom slackened their hateful designs against 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 axe; but a Kaserumini Chief snatched a spade with which I had been working, and dexterously defended me from instant death. Life in such circumstances led me to cling very near to the Lord Jesus; I knew not, for one brief hour, when or how attack might be made; and yet, with my trembling hand clasped in the hand once nailed on Calvary, and now swaying the sceptre of the Universe, calmness and peace and resignation abode in my soul.
Next day, a wild Chief followed me about for four hours with his loaded musket, and, though 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 protect me till my allotted task was finished. Looking up in unceasing prayer to our dear Lord Jesus, I left all in His hands, and felt immortal till my work was done. Trials and hairbreadth escapes strengthened 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 of my dear Lord and Saviour, nothing else in all the world could have preserved me from losing my reason and perishing miserably. 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 startled me to behold Him, as Stephen did, gazing down upon the scene. I felt His supporting power, as did St. Paul, when he cried, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” It is the sober truth, and it comes back to me sweetly after twenty years, that I had my nearest and dearest glimpses of the face and smile of my blessed Lord in those dread moments when musket, club, or spear was being levelled at my life. Oh the bliss of living and enduring, as seeing “Him who is invisible!”