I can do no better than conclude this short sketch of the three most important groups of the South Sea islands by touching3 on the work and lives of those brave fellows the missionaries4, who have left all the comforts of their English homes—their best friends and everything else that was dear to them—to teach the gospel of their Master and bring peace and happiness to these wild savages6.
It is an easy thing to sneer7 at these “Gospel punchers” as they are so often called “out west.” But in spite of all the little things against them, one cannot help asking: Is it not through the work of the best of them that we are to-day able to go amongst these savages?
The most bigoted8 unbeliever if he thinks, and if he knows the sort of lives that many of these pioneers have led, must acknowledge their bravery, {194} even if he doubts their beneficial influence; but only the most ignorant could do that.
Mercenary reasons have always been assigned to account for the presence of the missionary in savage5 lands and all over the world, and particularly in New Zealand, one hears tales of the way the early missionaries piled up the gold. In Australia the same stories are told, but there was little in these savage South Sea islands to attract the seeker for gold at the time missionaries first began their work, for whatever they made would be at such a risk that it would not be worth their while.
In Australia and New Zealand, of course, there is a difference, in the latter place particularly, for there the Maoris were owners of large tracts9 of valuable land, and, undoubtedly10, one or two of the lukewarm missionaries were tempted11 and fell.
One story I was told by an old Maori of a certain missionary is worth relating, as his acts rather upset the work of many honest men who were really trying to do good to these noble savages.
“Your clergyman be all right,” said the old man, when I mentioned missionary work. “He teach us about God, but He too greedy. He want all the Maori got.” {195}
“Nonsense,” I said; “who told you that yarn12?”
A smile went round the little crowd as the old man glanced at his friends. “Mr. —— he told us to look to God and we looked, while we looked Mr. —— took our land. Then one day he come to us and he say, ‘God wants more land,’ and we gave him more land. Then some time soon he came again and he say, ‘God wants cattle to put on the land.’ And we give him cattle. Then he say, ‘God wants sheep.’ And we give him sheep. Then long time after he come again and he say, ‘God want money to keep the cattle and the sheep.’ But we had no money and so we had no more God.”
It is acts like these, committed by a few of the black sheep, that have made the bushmen, the cattlemen, and the traders sneer at the missionary, and in their ignorance they have condemned13 the whole for a part.
The trader and the kidnapper14 of the South Seas have for years fought tooth and nail against the missionaries, and it is they who have spread wild tales of the misconduct and strange practices of these noble men. They had an end in view, as they knew their worst foe15 was not the savage but the {196} missionary; it is the missionary who has been the means of stopping the ghastly trade in black men; it is the missionary again who has seen that the native was dealt with fairly; and these are the sins he has committed and can never be forgiven.
As early as 1796 the London Missionary Society, then the Missionary Society, undertook the work of sending men to these islands in the hope of winning their inhabitants to better lives. At that time the lives they were living were as bad, if not worse than those of savage beasts, and the publication of Captain Cook’s Voyages in these islands aroused men of Christian16 feeling, and was the means of the Society sending out men to Tahiti; most of whom eventually died of sickness or were butchered by the natives.
For years these men and others worked their hardest against fearful odds17, and for ten years they made little or no progress. Reports show that in 1813 one Tahitian had become a Christian. But this was the beginning, and during the next few years progress was as rapid as it had been slow before. Eventually the king of the island acknowledged the Christian belief, and set to work to destroy the heathen gods.
THE ARTIST’S GUIDE, ON MALEKULA, NEW HEBRIDES
The adjacent islands were next approached, and {197} the Tahitian Missionary Society was formed with the avowed18 object of devoting all its energies to the conversion20 of the natives of these islands. Amongst its teachers the Society had a large body of natives, and it was not only assisted in this way but financially also by the very men who a few years before would have nothing to do with it.
Then came one of the greatest of the great men to these islands; John Williams, who was not only a splendid worker but a magnificent organiser. He soon had a boat fitted out in which he was able to visit the adjoining islands; finally confining his labours to New Guinea and the New Hebrides.
In 1823 Williams discovered Raratonga, an island in the Hervey group, and he seems to have devoted21 more of his time to the natives of this island than any other. It was his island, “dear Raratonga,” as he always called it. The population of it when he landed he estimated as about 7000, and in less than a dozen years he wrote of them in the following way:—
“I cannot forbear drawing a contrast between the state of the inhabitants when I first visited them, and now in 1834. In 1823 I found them all heathens, in 1834 they were all professing22 Christians23. At the former period I found them with idols24 and {198} Maraes; these in 1834 were destroyed, and in their stead there were three spacious25 and substantial places of Christian worship, in which congregations amounting to 6000 persons assembled every Sabbath day. I found them without a written language, and left them reading in their own tongue the wonderful works of God.”
And again he said—
“In reference to the island generally, it may be observed that the blessings26 conveyed to them by Christianity have not been simply of a spiritual character, but that civilisation27 and commerce have invariably followed in her train.”
Succeeding this noble man in the islands were men of fine characters, the Revs29. William Gill, E. W. Krause, and Messrs. Pitman and Buzacott, and then in 1867 came the man whose sterling30 good qualities will never be forgotten—James Chalmers, or “Tamate,” the name by which he was always known by the natives.
“Tamate” was bred and born in Scotland, and it was there he grew muscular and learned to love open-air life. Quite as a youth he became enthusiastic to devote his life to missionary work in savage lands; but subsequent events, and probably his companions, who were young men keen on {199} mischief31 and adventure, helped to make him forget his early aspirations32. In fact, in that splendid biography of his written by Cuthbert Lennox, it is stated that young Chalmers’ religious ideas went through a period of uncertainty33, and it was not until 1859, when he was eighteen years of age, that he had occasion to remember his early vow19.
It was during a great religious revival34, which was bringing in thousands of converts in Scotland, that Chalmers was persuaded to attend one of the meetings. This meeting he himself said that he and his friends had previously35 determined36 to do all in their power to upset. The result of it was that the true James Chalmers was roused, and from that hour he never wavered in his determination to teach the gospel to savages.
For years he worked steadily37 away at his studies, and in 1861 he was appointed to a position in the Glasgow City Mission. His good work brought him recognition, and finally he applied38 to the London Missionary Society for a position as missionary. The application was accepted, and Chalmers then went into training and was ordained39 as a missionary in 1865. He sailed almost immediately afterwards in the missionary boat John Williams II. for Raratonga island. {200}
Prior to leaving England James Chalmers married, and to his wife he gives the credit of half the successes of his life. The passage out to the South Seas was a terrible one, as the following extract shows:—
Whilst still in the English Channel the vessel40 encountered a terrific storm, memorable41 as being that in which the London was lost. Three passengers were thrown out of their bunks42, the pilot was knocked insensible, the compass binnacle was damaged, the whale-boat was carried away, and the seamen43 were constrained44 to ask the missionaries to pray for a change of wind. With difficulty the John Williams II. made the Portland Roads, and escaped the fate of some twenty-one vessels46 which foundered47 in the storm.
But this was only the beginning of the trials of that journey. Another storm met them in the Bay of Biscay, and a third one off the Cape45 of Good Hope, but they reached Adelaide eventually, and were there able to rest.
On the 21st of August the missionary ship which was to carry them to the islands left Sydney, and was in less than a fortnight high and dry on a reef, but she did not become a total wreck48. She was taken back to Sydney for repair, leaving there again on the 15th of November, to become a total wreck on the 8th of January; her passengers were landed, minus all their belongings49, on an almost unknown {201} and uninhabited island. The notorious Bully50 Hayes, however, rescued them from this spot and took them to Samoa. Eventually James Chalmers and his wife reached Raratonga safely after a voyage extending over seventeen months—the passage now takes about six weeks.
“Tamate’s” life in the South Seas was a life of sheer hard work, but he always felt, and properly so, that he was making headway. At the beginning of his career at Raratonga he set to work on the young men, as he thought in them lay the future hopes of the civilisation of the islands. When one knows the risks he ran in going back into the bush, where white men were so dreaded51 that they were often shot on sight, one cannot help feeling that a special providence52 was looking after him. He took no half measures and made few concessions53, but went boldly to work at the start as he intended to go on to the end.
Many of the natives had been in the habit of fancying that the missionaries were weak men, but in “Tamate” they met one who was their equal in most things and could beat them at many.
As a sportsman and a man of pluck he immediately won their hearts, in fact every one who {202} came in contact with him speaks of him as a Man before all else.
One missionary said at the court in Sydney that, in his dealings with the natives, he remembered before all else that he was an Englishman, then a man, and lastly a missionary; but in “Tamate” every one recognised the Man.
From Raratonga Chalmers worked diligently54 amongst all the adjacent islands, and when later he had his yacht he was able to extend his operations and win many of the worst savages to better ways, and by joining in with the other missionaries some splendid work was accomplished55. Throughout he saw the need of native teachers, and it was this branch of the work he set himself to push on, with the result that now there are native teachers and preachers in every island in the Pacific.
The chief trouble with which he and other missionaries had to contend was the climate; the unhealthy districts they had to visit often laid them up for weeks at a time. Finally Tamate’s wife, after a long and distracting illness, died and left him broken-hearted, for through all his difficulties she had been his mainstay. She died at sea on the 25th of October 1900. Her end was a very sad and disappointing one, as is shown by a letter Chalmers {203} wrote to one of his friends at the time. “We had dreamt of a little rest together in a cottage out of London somewhere, before we crossed the flood. We shall dream no more, she waits on the other side, as she said ‘I shall be waiting for you all.’”
It was not long she had to wait either, for on the 7th of April of the following year James Chalmers was massacred in the Aird River district, a part of the islands where he was not well known. The following account of the massacre56 was written by the Rev28. A. E. Hunt, who accompanied His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony on a punitive57 expedition. “The Niue (Chalmers’ yacht) anchored off Risk Point on the 7th of April, and a crowd of natives came off. As it was near sunset Tamate gave them some presents, and made signs that they were to go away and the next day he would visit them ashore58. At daylight the next morning a great crowd of natives came off and crowded the vessel in every part. They refused to leave, and in order to induce them to do so Tamate gave Bob, the Captain, orders to give them presents. Still they refused, and then Tamate said he would go ashore with them, and he told Tomkins (his right-hand man) to remain on board. The latter declined and went ashore with Tamate, followed by {204} a large number of canoes. When they got ashore the whole party were massacred and their heads cut off. The boat was smashed up, and the clothing, etc., distributed. All the bodies were distributed and eaten.”
Chalmers evidently felt that his end was coming, though it cannot be supposed he knew how it would come. A few weeks before his death he wrote to a friend: “Time shortens, and I have much to do. How grand it would be to sit down in the midst of work and hear the Master say, ‘Your part is finished, Come.’”
Some time before Chalmers’ death Williams and many other missionaries were massacred; in fact it is in this way most of them have died, but their work will always remain as a memento59. As Robert Louis Stevenson said, when bunching the good and bad missionaries together:
“With all their gross blots60, with all their deficiency of candour, honour, and of common sense, the missionaries are the best and most useful whites in the Pacific.”
The End
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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sneer
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| v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语 | |
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bigoted
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| adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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yarn
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| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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kidnapper
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| n.绑架者，拐骗者 | |
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foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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professing
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| 声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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idols
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| 偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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blessings
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| n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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revs
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| abbr.revolutions （复数）旋转，回转，转数n.发动机的旋转( rev的名词复数 )v.（使）加速( rev的第三人称单数 )；（数量、活动等）激增；（使发动机）快速旋转；（使）活跃起来 | |
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sterling
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| adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑) | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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revival
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| n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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ordained
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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bunks
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| n.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的名词复数 )；空话，废话v.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的第三人称单数 )；空话，废话 | |
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seamen
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| n.海员 | |
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constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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foundered
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| v.创始人( founder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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51
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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concessions
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| n.（尤指由政府或雇主给予的）特许权( concession的名词复数 )；承认；减价；（在某地的）特许经营权 | |
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diligently
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| ad.industriously;carefully | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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punitive
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| adj.惩罚的，刑罚的 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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memento
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| n.纪念品，令人回忆的东西 | |
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blots
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| 污渍( blot的名词复数 )； 墨水渍； 错事； 污点 | |
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