Carlyle, in his life of Cromwell, says that he ranks the foreign
missionary and his convert with the greatest heroes in history.
It is in his story of Kapiolani. These Christian teachers in the
South Seas brought the queen to faith in God, and to the new
ideas of home, school, government and social progress. But the
people still worshiped the gods whose home was in the crater,
whose column of fire was on the sky. So the missionary and the
queen told the people that they would dare the native god. They
made their way to the foot of the mountain. The people shrieked,
wept, implored, but these two walked bravely on. They stood
on the edge of the crater, breathing the sulfurous gases. The
queen hurled stones into the abyss and shouted her threats and
denials. When they came down, in safety, superstition was dead.
Carlyle says that a Christian missionary slew a cult in that
hour, and that the event will always rank in history with Elijah
at Baal and the Christian convert who cut down the sacred oak
of Thor for Germany. But foreign missions have produced scores
of heroes and heroines like these. The history of missions is
a sky that is ablaze with light that will shine forever and
forever.--N. D. HILLIS.
(2063)
See ADVICE TO MISSIONARIES.