The Old Helmet Volume II Part 27

As he drew near the door of the king's house, with the intent to prevail for the right or to protest against the wrong, he saw the biers standing ready; and so knew that all the efforts previously made to hinder the barbarous rites had been unavailing. The house as he entered was in the hush of death. One woman lay strangled. Another sitting on the floor, covered with a large veil, was in the hands of her murderers. A cord was pa.s.sed twice round her neck, and the ends were held on each side of her by a group of eight or ten strong men, the two groups pulling opposite ways. She was dead, the poor victim underneath the veil, in a minute or two after the missionaries entered; and the veil being taken off they saw that it was a woman who had professed Christianity. Her sons were among those who had strangled her. Another woman came forward with great shew of bravery when her name was called; offered her hand to the missionaries as she pa.s.sed them; and with great pride of bearing submitted herself to the death which probably she knew she could not avoid. Everybody was quiet and cheerful, and the whole thing went on with the undisturbed order of a recognized and accustomed necessity; only the old king's son, the reigning chief for a long time back, was very uneasy at the part he was playing before the missionaries; he was the only trembling or doubtful one there. Yet he would not yield the point. Pride before all; his father must not be buried without the due honours of his position. Mr. Rhys and Mr.

Lefferts had staid to make their protest and offer their entreaties and warnings, to the very last; and then heart-sick and almost faint with the disgusting scene, had returned home.

Yet the influence of the truth was increasing and the good work was spreading and growing around them, steadily and in every direction. A great many had renounced heathenism; not a small number were earnest Christians and shewed the truth of their religion in their changed lives. A great number of reports proved this.

"It is work that tries what stuff men's hearts are of, however,"

remarked Mr. Morrison as he folded up one packet of letters. Neither of his hearers made him any answer. Mrs. Caxton sat opposite to him, deeply attentive but silent, with her hand always lying upon her own particular packet. Eleanor had turned a little away and sat with her side face towards Mr. Morrison, looking into the fire. Her work was dropped; she sat motionless.

"I have a letter to read you now of a later date," Mr. Morrison went on,--"from Mr. Rhys, which shews how well he has got hold of the people and how much he is regarded by them already. It shews the influence gained by the truth, too, which is working there fast."

After giving some details of business and of his labours, Mr. Rhys wrote--"My last notable piece of work, has been in the character of an amba.s.sador of peace--not heavenly but earthly. News was brought four or five days ago that the heathen inhabitants of two neighbouring districts had engaged in open hostilities. Home business claimed me one day; the next morning I set out on my mission, with one or two Christian natives. The desolations of war soon met our eyes, in destroyed crops and a deserted village. n.o.body was to be seen. I and those who were with me sat down in the shade of some trees, while a native went to find the inhabitants who had hid themselves in a thicket of mangroves. As soon as the chief heard that I was there, and what I had come for, he declared he would be a Christian forthwith; and four or five of his princ.i.p.al men followed his example. They came to me, and entered fully into my object; and it was decided that we should go on immediately to the fortress where those who wished to carry on war had intrenched themselves. We got there just as the sun was setting; and from that time till midnight I was engaged in what I saw now for the first time; a savage council of war. Grim black warriors covered with black powder sat or stood about, on a little clear spot of ground where the moon shone down; muskets and clubs and spears lay on the gla.s.s and were scattered about among the boles of the trees; a heathen-looking scene. Till midnight we talked, and hard talking too; then it was ended as I had prayed it might. The party with whom I was had suffered already in battle and had not had their revenge; it was difficult to give that up; but at last the chief got up and put his hand in mine. 'I should like to be a heathen a little longer,' he said, 'but I will _lotu_ as you so earnestly entreat me.' _Lotu_ is their name for embracing Christianity. Another young warrior joined him; and there under the midnight moon, we wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d; those two and those who were with me. In another part of the village a dozen women for the first time bowed the knee in the same wors.h.i.+p.

"So far was well; but it yet remained to induce the opposite hostile party to agree to peace; you understand only one side was yet persuaded. Early the next morning I set about it. Here a difficulty met me. The Christian chiefs made no objection to going with me to parley with their enemies; but I wanted the company also of another, the chief of this district; knowing it very important. And he was afraid to go.

He told me so plainly. 'If I do as you ask me,' said he, 'I am a dead man this day.' I did my best to make him think differently; a hundred men declared that they would die in defence of him; and at last I gained my point. Tui Mbua agreed to go to the neighbourhood of the hostile town, if I would bring its princ.i.p.al men to meet him at an appointed place. So we went. This chosen place was a fine plot of ground enclosed by magnificent chestnut trees. I went on to the town, with a few unarmed men. The people received us well; but it was difficult to make the old heathen, brought up on treachery and falsehood, believe that I was to be trusted. But in the end the chief and twenty of his men consented to go with us, and left their arms at home. They did it with forebodings, for I overheard an old man say, as we set out from the place,--'We shall see death to-day.' I lifted my voice and cried, 'To-day we live!' They took up the words, and heart at the same time, and repeated, 'To-day we live'--to encourage themselves, I suppose, as we went towards the chestnut-tree meeting ground.

"I felt that the peace of the whole region depended on what was to be done there, and for my part went praying that all might go well. It was an anxious moment when we entered the open place; any ill-looks in either party would chase away trust front the other. As we went in I watched the chief who accompanied me. He gently bowed to Tui Mbua and approached him with due and evidently honest respect. My heart leaped at that moment. Tui Mbua looked at him keenly, sprang to his feet, and casting his arms about his enemy's neck gave him a warm embrace. The people around shouted for joy; I was still, I believe, for the very depth of mine. One of the Christian chiefs spoke out and cried, 'We thank thee, O Lord, for thus bringing thy creatures into the way of life;' and he wept aloud for very gladness.

"After that we had speechifying; and I returned home very full of thankful joy."

This was the last letter read. Mr. Morrison folded up his packet amid a great silence. Mrs. Caxton seemed thoughtful; Eleanor was motionless.

"He is doing good work," remarked Mr. Morrison; "but it is hard work.

He is the right sort of man to go there--fears nothing, s.h.i.+rks nothing.

So are they all, I believe; but almost all the rest of them have their wives with them. How came Rhys to go alone?"

"He does not write as if he felt lonely," said Mrs. Caxton.

"It is better for a man to take a wife, though," said Mr. Morrison. "He wants so much of comfort and home as that. They get tired, and they get sick, and to have no woman's hand about is something to be missed at such times. O we are all dependent. Mr. Rhys is domesticated now with Brother Lefferts and his family. I suppose he feels it less, because he has not had a home of his own in a good while; that makes a difference."

"He knows he has a home of his own too," said Mrs. Caxton; "though he has not reached it yet. I suppose the thought of that makes him content."

"Of course. But in a heathen land, with heathen desolation and dark faces all around one, you have no idea how at times one's soul longs for a taste of England. Brother Rhys too is a man to feel all such things. He has a good deal of taste, and what you might call sensitiveness to externals."

"A good deal," said Mrs. Caxton quietly. "Then he has some beautiful externals around him."

"So they say. But the humanity is deplorable. Well, they will get their reward when the Master comes. A man leaves everything indeed when he goes to the South Seas as Rhys has done. He would have been very popular in England."

"So he will in the islands."

"Well so it seems," said Mr. Morrison. "He has got the ear of those wild creatures evidently. That's the man."

It was time for evening prayers; and afterwards the party separated; Mrs. Caxton carrying off with her her packet of letters unbroken. The morning brought its own business; the breakfast was somewhat hurried; Mr. Morrison took his departure; and nothing more was said on the subject of South Sea missionaries till the evening. Then the two ladies were again alone together.

"Are you well to-day, Eleanor?" was Mrs. Caxton's first question at the tea-table.

"Some headache, aunt Caxton."

"How is that? And I have noticed that your eyes were heavy all day."

"There is no harm, ma'am. I did not sleep very well."

"Why not?"

"I think the reading of those letters excited me, aunt Caxton."

Mrs. Caxton looked at a line of faint crimson which was stealing up into Eleanor's cheeks, and for a moment stayed her words.

"My dear, there is as good work to be done here, as ever in Polynesia."

"I do not know, aunt Caxton," said Eleanor leaning her head on her hand in thoughtful wise. "England has had the light a great while; it must be grand to be the first torch-bearers into the darkness."

"So Mr. Rhys feels. But then, my dear, I think we are to do the work given us--one here and one there;--and let the Lord place his servants, and our service, as he will."

"I do not think otherwise, aunt Caxton."

"Would you like, to hear some of what Mr. Rhys has written to me? there is a little difference between what is sent to a Committee and what is for the private eye of a friend."

"Yes ma'am, I would like it," Eleanor said; but she did not say so at all eagerly; and Mrs. Caxton looked at her once or twice before she changed the subject and spoke of something else. She held to her offer, however; and when the green cloth and the lamp were again in readiness, she brought out the letters. Eleanor took some work and bent her head over it.

"This is one of the latest dates," Mrs. Caxton said as she opened the paper; "written after he had been there a good many months and had got fairly acquainted with the language and with the people. It seems to me he has been very quick about it."

"Yes, I think so," Eleanor answered; "but that is his way."

Mrs. Caxton read.

"My dear friend,

"In spite of the world of ocean rolling between us, I yet have a strange and sweet feeling of taking your hand, when I set myself to write to you. Spirit and matter seem at odds; and far away as I am, with the vegetation and the air of the tropics around me, as soon as I begin upon this sheet of paper I seem to stand in Pla.s.sy again. The dear old hills rear their wild outlines before me; the green wealth of vegetation is at my feet, but cool and fresh as nothing looks to me under the northerly wind which is blowing now; and your image is so distinct, that I almost can grasp your hand, and almost hear you speak; _see_ you speak, I do. Blessed be the Lord for imagination, as well as for memory! Without it, how slowly we should mount to the conception of heavenly things and the understanding of himself; and the distance between friends would be a sundering of them indeed. But I must not waste time or paper in telling you what you know already.

"By which you will conclude that I am busy. I am as busy as I can possibly be. That is as I wish it. It is what I am here for. I would not have a moment unused. On Sunday I have four or five services, of different sorts. Week days I have an English school, a writing school, one before and the other after mid-day; and later still, a school for regular native instruction. Every moment of time that is free, or would be, is needed for visiting the sick, whose demands upon us are constant. But this gives great opportunity to preach the gospel and win the hearts of the people.

"Some account of a little preaching and teaching journey in which I took part some few months ago, I have a mind to give you. Our object was specially an island between one and two hundred miles away, where many have become Christians, and not in name only; but where up to this time no missionary has been stationed. We visit them when we can. This time we had the advantage of a brig to make the voyage in; the mission s.h.i.+p was here with the Superintendent and he desired to visit the place. We arrived at evening in the neighbourhood; at a little island close by, where all the people are now Christian. Mr. Lefferts went ash.o.r.e in a canoe to make arrangements; and the next day we followed.

It was a beautiful day and as beautiful a sight as eyes could see. We visited the houses of the native teachers, who were subjects of admiration in every respect; met candidates for baptism and examined them; married a couple; and Bro. Griffiths preached. There is a new chapel, of very neat native workmans.h.i.+p; with a pulpit carved out of a solid piece of wood, oiled to give it colour and gloss. In the chapel the whole population of the island was a.s.sembled, dressed in new dresses, attentive, and interested. So were we, you may believe, when we remembered that only two years ago all these people were heathens. O these islands are a glorious place now and then, in spots where the devil's reign is broken. I wish you could have seen us afterwards, my dear friend, at our native feast spread on the ground under the trees; you who never saw a table set but with exact and elegant propriety. We had no table; believe me, we were too happy and hungry to mind that. I do not think you would have quarrelled with our dishes; they were no other and no worse than the thick broad glossy leaves of the banana. No fault could be found with their elegance; and our napkins were of the green rind of the same tree. Cocoanut sh.e.l.ls were our subst.i.tute for flint gla.s.s, and I like it very well; especially when cocoanut milk is the refreshment to be served in them. Knives and forks we had none!

What would you have said to that? Our meat was boiled fowls and baked yams and fish dressed in various ways; and the fingers of the natives, or our own, were our only dividers. But I have seen less pleasant entertainments; and I only could wish you had been there,--so you might have whisked back to England the next minute after it was over, on some convenient fairy carpet such as I used to read of in Eastern tales when I was a boy. For us, we had to make our way in haste back to the s.h.i.+p, which lay in the offing, and could not come near on account of the reef barrier. We got on board safely, pa.s.sing the reefs where once an American s.h.i.+p was wrecked and her crew killed and eaten by the people of these parts.

"The next day we made the land we sought; and got ash.o.r.e through a tremendous surf. Here we found the island had lately been the seat of war--some of the heathen having resolved to put an end by violence to the Christian religion there, or as they call it, the _lotu_. The Christians had gained the victory, and then had treated their enemies with the utmost kindness; which had produced a great effect upon them.

The rest of the day after our landing was spent in making thorough inquiry into this matter; and in a somewhat extended preaching service.

At night we slept on a mat laid for us, or tried to sleep; but my thoughts were too busy; and the clear night sky was witness to a great many restless movements, I am afraid, before I lost them in forgetfulness. The occasion of which, I suppose, was the near prospect of sending letters home to England by the s.h.i.+p. At any rate, England and the South Seas were very near together that night; and I was fain to remember that heaven is nearer yet. But the remembrance carne, and with it sleep. The next day was a day of business. Marrying couples (over forty of them) baptizing converts, preaching; then meeting the teachers and cla.s.s-leaders and examining them as to their Christian experience, etc. From dawn till long past mid-day we were busy so; and then were ready for another feast in the open air like that one I described to you--for we had had no breakfast. We had done all the work we could do at that time at One, and sought our s.h.i.+p immediately after dinner; pa.s.sing through a surf too heavy for the canoes to weather.

"Let me tell you some of the testimony given by these converts from heathenism; given simply and heartily, by men who have not learned their religion by book nor copied it out of other men's mouths. It was a very thrilling thing to hear them, these poor enterers into the light, who have but just pa.s.sed the line of darkness. One said, 'I love the Lord, and I know he loves me; not for anything in me, or for anything I have done; but for Christ's sake alone. I trust in Christ and am happy. I listen to G.o.d, that he may do with me as he pleases. I am thankful to have lived until the Lord's work has begun. I feel it in my heart! I hold Jesus! I am happy! My heart is full of love to G.o.d!'

"Another said, 'One good thing I know,--the sacred blood of Jesus. I desire nothing else.'

"Another,--'I know that G.o.d has justified me through the sacred blood of Jesus. I know a.s.suredly that I am reconciled to G.o.d. I know of the work of G.o.d in my soul. The sacred Spirit makes it clear to me. I wish to preach the gospel, that others also may know Jesus.'

"All these have been engaged the past year in teaching or proclaiming the truth in various ways. Another of their number who was dying, one or two of us went to see. One of us asked him if he was afraid to die?

'No,' he said, 'I am sheltered. The great Saviour died for me. The Lord's wrath is removed. I am his.' And another time he remarked, 'Death is a fearfully great thing, but I fear it not. There is a _Saviour_ below the skies.'