THE GOSPEL IN LIVING CAPITALS.
IN Heathendom every true convert becomes at once a Missionary. The
changed life, shining out amid the surrounding darkness, is a Gospel in
largest Capitals which all can read. Our Islanders, especially, having
little to engage or otherwise distract attention, become intense and
devoted workers for the Lord Jesus, if once the Divine Passion for souls
stirs within them.
A Heathen has been all his days groping after peace of soul in dark
superstition and degrading rites. You pour into his soul the light of
Revelation. He learns that God is love, that God sent His Son to die for
him, and that he is the heir of Life Eternal in and through Jesus
Christ. By the blessed enlightenment of the Spirit of the Lord he
believes all this. He passes into a third heaven of joy, and he burns to
tell every one of this Glad Tidings. Others see the change in his
disposition in his character in his whole life and actions; and amid
such surroundings, every Convert is a burning and a shining light. Even
whole populations are thus brought into the Outer Court of the Temple;
and Islands, still Heathen and Cannibal, are positively eager for the
Missionary to live amongst them, and would guard his life and property
now in complete security, where a very few years ago everything would
have been instantly sacrificed on touching their shores! They are not
Christianized, neither are they Civilized, but the light has been
kindled all round them, and though still only shining afar, they cannot
but rejoice in its beams.
But even where the path is not so smooth, nor any welcome awaiting them,
Native Converts show amazing zeal. For instance, one of our Chiefs, full
of the Christ-kindled desire to seek and to save, sent a message to an
inland Chief, that he and four attendants would come on Sabbath and tell
them the Gospel of Jehovah God. The reply came back sternly forbidding
their Visit, and threatening with death any Christian that approached
their village. Our Chief sent in response a loving message, telling them
that Jehovah had taught the Christians to return good for evil, and that
they would come unarmed to tell them the story of how the Son of God
came into the world and died in order to bless and save His enemies. The
Heathen Chief sent back a stern and prompt reply once more, "If you
come, you will be killed."
On Sabbath morning, the Christian Chief and his four companions were met
outside the village by the Heathen Chief, who implored and threatened
them once more. But the former said, "We come to you without weapons of
war! We come only to tell you about Jesus. We believe that He will
protect us to-day."
As they steadily pressed forward towards the village, spears began to be
thrown at them. Some they evaded, being all except one most dexterous
warriors; and others they literally received with their bare hands,
striking them and turning them aside in an incredible manner. The
Heathen, apparently thunderstruck at these men thus approaching them
without weapons of war, and not even flinging back their own spears
which they had turned aside, desisted from mere surprise, after having
thrown what the old Chief called "a shower of spears." Our Christian
Chief called out, as he and his companions drew up in the midst of them
on the village Public Ground:
"Jehovah thus protects us. He has given us all your spears! Once we
would have thrown them back at you and killed you. But now we come not
to fight, but to tell you about Jesus. He has changed our dark hearts.
He asks you now to lay down all these your other weapons of war, and to
hear what we can tell you about the love of God, our great Father, the
only living God."
The Heathen were perfectly overawed. They manifestly looked upon these
Christians as protected by some Invisible One! They listened for the
first time to the story of the Gospel and of the Cross. We lived to see
that Chief and all his tribe sitting in the School of Christ. And there
is perhaps not an Island in these Southern Seas, amongst all those won
for Christ, where similar acts of heroism on the part of Converts cannot
be recited by every Missionary to the honor of our poor Natives and to
the glory of their Saviour.
Larger and harder tests were sometimes laid upon their new faith. Once
the war on Tanna drove about one hundred of them to seek refuge on
Aniwa. Not so many years before, their lives would never have been thus
intrusted to the inhabitants of another Cannibal Island. But the
Christ-Spirit was abroad upon Aniwa. The refugees were kindly cared for,
and in process of time were restored to their own lands, by our
Missionary ship the _Dayspring_. The Chiefs, however, and the Elders of
the Church laid the new laws before them very clearly and decidedly.
They would be helped and sheltered, but Aniwa was now under law to
Christ, and if any of the Tannese broke the public rules as to moral
conduct, or in any way disturbed the Worship of Jehovah, they would at
once be expelled from the Island and sent back to Tanna. In all this,
the Chief of the Tanna party, my old friend Nowar, strongly supported
our Christian Chiefs. The Tannese behaved well, and many of them wore
clothing and began to attend Church; and the heavy drain upon the poor
resources of Aniwa was borne with a noble and Christian spirit, which
greatly impressed the Tannese and commended the Gospel of Christ.