As the sun is setting I am creeping home from my village tour; and when darkness begins to approach, the canoe drum is beat at every village, and the people assemble under the banyan-tree for evening village prayers. The Elder or Teacher presides. Five or six hymns are joyously sung, and five or six short prayers offered between, and thus the evening hour passes happily in the fellowship of God. On a calm evening, after Christianity had fairly taken hold of the people, and they loved to sing over and over again their favourite hymns, these village prayer-meetings formed a most blessed close to every day, and set the far-distant bush echoing with the praises of God.
At the Mission House, before retiring to rest, we assembled all the young people and any of our villagers who chose to join them. They sat round the dining-room floor in rows, sang hymns, read verses of the Bible, and asked and answered questions about the teaching of the day. About nine o’clock we dismissed them, but they pled to remain and hear our Family Worship in English:—
“Missi, we like the singing! We understand a little. And we like to be where prayer is rising!”
Thus Sabbath after Sabbath flowed on in incessant service and fellowship. I was often wearied enough, but it was not a “weary” day to me, nor what some would call Puritanical and dull. Our hearts were in it, and the people made it a weekly festival. They had few other distractions; and amongst them “The Worship” was an unfailing sensation and delight. As long as you gave them a chance to sing, they knew not what weariness was. When I returned to so-called civilization, and saw how the Lord’s Day was abused in _white_ Christendom, my soul longed after the holy Sabbaths of Aniwa!
Nor is our week-day life less crowded or busy, though in different ways. At grey dawn on Monday, and every morning, the _Tavaka_ (= the canoe drum) is struck in every village on Aniwa. The whole inhabitants turn in to the early School, which lasts about an hour and a half, and then the Natives are off to their plantations. Having partaken my breakfast, I then spend my forenoon in translating or printing, or visiting the sick, or whatever else is most urgent. About two o’clock the Natives return from their work, bathe in the sea, and dine off cocoa-nut, bread-fruit, or anything else that comes handily in the way. At three o’clock the bell rings, and the afternoon School for the Teachers and the more advanced learners then occupies my wife and myself for about an hour and a half. After this, the Natives spend their time in fishing or lounging or preparing supper,—which is amongst them always _the_ meal of the day. Towards sundown the _Tavaka_ sounds again, and the day closes amid the echoes of village prayers from under their several banyan trees.
Thus day after day and week after week passes over us on Aniwa; and much the same on all the Islands where the Missionary has found a home. In many respects it is a simple and happy and beautiful life; and the man, whose heart is full of things that are dear to Jesus, feels no desire to exchange it for the poor frivolities of what calls itself “Society,” and seems to finds its life in pleasures that Christ cannot be asked to share, and in which, therefore, Christians should have neither lot nor part.
The habits of morning and evening family prayer and of grace at meat took a very wonderful hold upon the people; and became, as I have shown elsewhere, a distinctive badge of Christian _versus_ Heathen. This was strikingly manifested during a time of bitter scarcity that befell us. I heard a father, for instance, at his hut door, with his family around him, reverently blessing God for the food provided for them, and for all His mercies in Christ Jesus. Drawing near and conversing with them, I found that their meal consisted of fig leaves which they had gathered and cooked,—a poor enough dish; but hunger makes a happy appetite, and contentment is a grateful relish.