At that time, though my life was daily attempted, a dear lad, named Katasian, was coming six miles regularly to the Worship and to receive frequent instruction. One day, when engaged in teaching him, I caught a man stealing the blind from my window. On trying to prevent him, he aimed his great club at me, but I seized the heavy end of it with both my hands as it swung past my head, and held on with all my might. 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.
I had planted a few Yams, of the genus _Dioscoria_; a most valuable article of food, nearly as precious as potatoes were to the poor in Ireland, and used very much in the same way. Years after, when I went to Melbourne, I took one from Aniwa, by no means the largest, weighing seventy-two pounds, and another, forty-two. The things, however, that I planted on Tanna the Natives stole and carried away, making themselves extremely troublesome. But God never took away from me the consciousness that it was still right for me to be kind and forgiving, and to hope that I might lead them to love and imitate Jesus.
For a season thereafter, the friendly feeling grew on every side. The Natives prepared, for payment, an excellent foundation for a new Church, by levelling down the hill near to my Mission House. Any number of men offered to work for calico, knives, axes, etc. All the fences were renewed, and the Mission premises began to look nice once more, at least, in my eyes. My work became encouraging, and I had many opportunities of talking with them about the Worship and Jehovah. This state of matters displeased Miaki and his men; and one day, having been engaged thus, I rushed back only in time to extinguish a fire which they had kindled under the verandah and close to the door of my house. Our watch had to be unrelaxing. A cousin of Miaki’s, for instance, sold me a fish as good for food which he knew to be poisonous, but Nowar saw in time and warned me of its deadly character. Miaki then threatened to shoot any of the Inland people who came to work or to receive instruction, yet larger numbers came than before, but they came fully armed! Nouka, the high Chief of the Harbour, Miaki’s uncle, came and sat beside us often, and said,—
“Miaki breaks my heart! He deceives Missi. He hates the Worship of Jehovah.”
For some time, Nouka and his wife and daughter—a handsome girl, his only child—and Miaki’s principal wife and her two sons, and nine Chiefs attended Worship regularly at the Mission House, on Sabbaths and on the afternoon of every Wednesday. In all, about sixty persons somewhat regularly waited on our ministrations at this time; and amidst all perils I was encouraged, and my heart was full of hope. Yet one evening, when feeling more consoled and hopeful than ever before, a musket was discharged at my very door, and I was constrained to realize that we were in the midst of death. Father, our times are in Thy hand.
As my work became more encouraging, I urgently applied to the Missionaries on Aneityum for more Teachers, but none could be found willing to return to Tanna. The plague of measles had almost demoralized them. Even on Aneityum, where they had medicine and would follow the Missionaries’ advice, no fewer than eleven hundred had been cut off; and the mortality was very much greater on such islands as Tanna, Aniwa, etc., where they were still Heathen, and either had not or would not follow medical counsels. Of my Teachers and their wives ten were swept away in the epidemic, and the few that were left were so disheartened that they escaped to their own land at the first opportunity, as before recorded, excepting only dear old faithful Abraham. But I need not wonder; smaller perils deter God’s people at home from many a call of duty.