BUILDING AND PRINTING FOR GOD.
FOR fully three months, all our available time, with all the native help
which I could hire, was spent in erecting a building to serve for Church
and School. It was fifty feet long, by twenty-one feet six inches broad.
The studs were three feet apart, and all fixed by tenon and mortise into
upper and lower wall plates. The beautiful roof of iron-wood and
sugar-cane leaf was supported by three massive pillars of wood, sunk
deeply into the ground. The roof extended about three feet over the wall
plates, both to form a verandah and to carry the raindrops free beyond
the walls. It was made of sugar-cane leaf and cocoanut leaves all
around. The floor was laid with white coral, broken small, and covered
with cocoanut leaf mats, such as those on which the Natives sat. Indeed,
it was as comfortable a House of Prayer as any man need wish for in the
tropics, though having only open spaces for doors and windows! I bought
the heavy wood for it on Aneityum--price, fifty pairs of trousers for
Natives; and these again were the gift of my Bible Class in Glasgow, all
cut and sewed by their own hands. I gave also one hundred and thirty
yards of cloth, along with other things, for other needful wood.
As we were preparing a foundation for the Church, a huge and
singular-looking round stone was dug up, at sight of which the Tannese
stood aghast. The eldest Chief said, "Missi, that stone was either
brought there by Karapanamun (the Evil Spirit), or hid there by our
great Chief who is dead. That is the Stone God to which our forefathers
offered human sacrifices; these holes held the blood of the victim till
drunk up by the Spirit. The Spirit of that stone eats up men and women
and drinks their blood, as our fathers taught us. We are in greatest
fear!"
A Sacred Man claimed possession, and was exceedingly desirous to carry
it off; but I managed to keep it, and did everything in my power to show
them the absurdity of these foolish notions. Idolatry had not indeed yet
fallen throughout Tanna; but one cruel idol, at least, had to give way
for the erection of God's House on that benighted land.
An ever-memorable event was the printing of my first book in Tannese.
Thomas Binnie, Jun., Glasgow, gave me a printing-press and a font of
type. Printing was one of the things I had never tried, but having now
prepared a booklet in Tannese, I got my printing press into order, and
began fingering the type. But book-printing turned out to be for me a
much more difficult affair than house-building had been. Yet by dogged
perseverance I succeeded at last. My biggest difficulty was how to
arrange the pages properly! After many failures, I folded a piece of
paper into the number of leaves wanted, cut the corners, folding them
back, and numbering as they would be when correctly placed in the book;
then folding all back without cutting up the sheet, I found now by these
numbers how to arrange the pages in the frame or case for printing, as
indicated on each side. And do you think me foolish, when I confess that
I shouted in an ecstasy of joy when the first sheet came from the press
all correct? It was about one o'clock in the morning. I was the only
white man then on the island, and all the Natives had been fast asleep
for hours! Yet I literally pitched my hat into the air, and danced like
a schoolboy round and round that printing-press; till I began to think,
Am I losing my reason? Would it not be like a Missionary to be upon my
knees, adoring God for this first portion of His blessed Word ever
printed in this new language? Friend, bear with me, and believe me--that
was as true worship as ever was David's dancing before the Ark of his
God! Nor think that I did not, over that first sheet of God's Word ever
printed in the Tannese tongue, go upon my knees too, and then, and every
day since, plead with the mighty Lord to carry the light and joy of His
own Holy Bible into every dark heart and benighted home on Tanna!
Yet dangers darkened round me. One day, while toiling away at my house,
the war Chief and his brother, and a large party of armed men,
surrounded the plot where I was working. They all had muskets, besides
their own native weapons. They watched me for some time in silence, and
then every man leveled a musket straight at my head. Escape was
impossible. Speech would only have increased my danger. My eyesight came
and went for a few moments. I prayed to my Lord Jesus, either Himself to
protect me or to take me home to His Glory. I tried to keep working on
at my task, as if no one was near me. In that moment, as never before,
the words came to me--"Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, I will do
it;" and I knew that I was safe. Retiring a little from their first
position, no word having been spoken, they took up the same attitude
somewhat farther off, and seemed to be urging one another to fire the
first shot. But my dear Lord restrained them once again, and they
withdrew, leaving me with a new reason for trusting Him with all that
concerned me for Time and Eternity.