“Oh, to have this treasure in my own words of Aniwa!”
When Matthew and Mark were at last printed in Aniwan, he studied them incessantly, and soon could read them freely. He became the Teacher in his own village School, and delighted in instructing others. He was assisted by Ruwawa, whom he himself had drawn into the circle of Gospel influence; and at our next election these two friends were appointed Elders of the Church, and greatly sustained our hands in every good work on Aniwa.
After years of happy and useful service, the time came for Nerwa to die. He was then so greatly beloved that most of the inhabitants visited him during his long illness. He read a bit of the Gospels in his own Aniwan, and prayed with and for every visitor. He sang beautifully, and scarcely allowed any one to leave his bedside without having a verse of one or other of his favourite hymns, “Happy Land,” and “Nearer, my God, to Thee.” On my last visit to Nerwa, his strength had gone very low, but he drew me near his face, and whispered,—
“Missi, my Missi, I am glad to see you. You see that group of young men? They came to sympathize with me; but they have never once spoken the name of Jesus, though they have spoken about everything else! They could not have weakened me so, if they had spoken about Jesus! Read me the story of Jesus; pray for me to Jesus. No! stop, let us call them, and let me speak with them before I go.”
I called them all around him, and he strained his dying strength, and said, “After I am gone, let there be no bad talk, no Heathen ways. Sing Jehovah’s songs, and pray to Jesus, and bury me as a Christian. Take good care of my Missi, and help him all you can. I am dying happy and going to be with Jesus, and it was Missi that showed me this way. And who among you will take my place in the village School and in the Church? Who amongst you all will stand up for Jesus?”
Many were shedding tears, but there was no reply; after which the dying Chief proceeded,—
“Now let my last work on earth be this:—we will read a chapter of the Book, verse about, and then I will pray for you all, and the Missi will pray for me, and God will let me go while the song is still sounding in my heart!”
At the close of this most touching exercise, we gathered the Christians who were near-bye close around, and sang very softly in Aniwan, “There is a Happy Land.” As they sang, the old man grasped my hand, and tried hard to speak, but in vain. His head fell to one side, “the silver cord was loosed, and the golden bowl was broken.”
Soon after his burial, the best and ablest man in the village, the husband now of the orphan girl already referred to, came and offered himself to take the Chiefs place as Teacher in the village School; and in that post he was ably assisted by his wife, our “little maid,” the first who carried the news of the Gospel life to her tribe, and inclined their ears to listen to the message of Jesus.
His great friend, Ruwawa the Chief, had waited by Nerwa like a brother till within a few days of the latter’s death, when he also was smitten down apparently by the same disease. He was thought to be dying, and he resigned himself calmly into the hands of Christ. One Sabbath afternoon, sorely distressed for lack of air, he instructed his people to carry him from the village to a rising ground on one of his plantations. It was fallow; the fresh air would reach him; and all his friends could sit around him. They extemporized a rest,—two posts stuck into the ground, slanting, sticks tied across them, then dried banana leaves spread on these and also as a cushion on the ground,—and there sat Ruwawa, leaning back and breathing heavily. After the Church Services, I visited him, and found half the people of that side of the Island sitting round him, in silence, in the open air. Ruwawa beckoned me, and I sat down before him. Though suffering sorely, his eye and face had the look of ecstasy.