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UNFAIR FAULT-FINDING.

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Ship," so derisively bestowed by men whose very limited notions of their own religious duties certainly do not include any obligation to support foreign missions.

Another source of equally uncalled-for fault-finding has been the receiving of payment for copies of the Bible and other books, as if the mission, having gone to enormous expense in printing successive editions, each of several thousand copies (and the publication of works in an unknown tongue is at all times a troublesome matter), were to blame in offering these for sale, at prices varying from 1s. to 2s. a volume-that is to say, little, if at all, in excess of cost price. A copy of every book published in the Samoan language is given gratis to each student, and to every agent of the mission. How eagerly the precious books have been bought up by other natives, is shown by the fact of their having voluntarily paid several thousand pounds to acquire copies for themselves.

At the present moment the students at the college number eighty-all fine young men; of these forty-two are married, and occupy the pretty cosy cottages which form this South Sea college. There are also about twenty big boys, and a number of small ones, all receiving a most careful education. These are gathered from every island in the group, and represent many of the principal families, who support the different parties now striving for supremacy. But this is neutral ground, respected by all parties, so politics are excluded as far as is possible.

After luncheon, all these assembled to meet us in the large native church—a fine building, of white coral lime, rounded at the ends like a Tongan house, and with a deep thatch roof. I never saw a finer lot of men and women, with keen intelligent faces. I fear their verdict on the foreign lady must have been very different; for, what with my early sketching expedition on foot, and then the long twelve miles in the boat, in glaring light from sun and sea, I literally could scarcely keep my eyes open; and having foolishly striven to do so, after luncheon (when I might have obtained the blessed "forty winks" in private), I paid the penalty when we reached the cool dark church, and had the humiliating

consciousness that the struggle was becoming vainer and more vain, till at length the angel of sleep triumphed, and held me captive, while M. Pinart put the students through a slight examination, simply as a matter of form.

Afterwards we wandered about the settlement, which is in every respect a model one, and then we enjoyed a pleasant evening at the calm peaceful mission-house, which stands on a grassy headland, palm-fringed, the sea washing three sides of the lawn. It is quite an idyllic home,-a true earthly paradise, where the useful and loving life glides on day by day, undisturbed by the wars and rumours of war on every side. But the peace and the home have alike been purchased by many a year of hard ungrudging toil in the heat and burden of the day.

For Dr Turner began his mission career in stormy times. Soon after the Rev. John Williams had been treacherously murdered at Eromanga in the New Hebrides, in November 1839, the London Mission Society determined to make a renewed effort for the conversion of its fierce inveterate cannibals. Mr and Mrs Turner were accordingly sent on this most dangerous mission. They were joined in Samoa by Mr and Mrs Nisbet, and together proceeded to the New Hebrides.

The day before Mr Williams's death, he had succeeded in landing three Samoan teachers as pioneers, on the isle of Tanna, twenty miles from Eromanga. To this isle the missionaries now sailednot without grave doubts whether they should find the teachers alive. (It was now June 1842.) They found them safe, but their work had made small progress. The people were continually at war, and most unconscionable thieves. They had, however, two good points-infanticide was not common, and they were careful of their own sick, so far as they knew how. But wilder and more savage surroundings could scarcely be conceived than those in which the Turners and Nisbets found themselves left, when the little vessel which had brought them from Samoa had sailed away.

They soon discovered one serious difference between the New Hebrides and the isles of the Eastern Pacific. In the latter, one

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language is understood throughout a whole group, with only such variations as occur between Yorkshire and Somerset. But in the New Hebrides, each island speaks a totally different dialect, and though within sight one of another (as Fortuna, Aneiteum, Tanna, and Eromanga) they cannot understand one another; and the books printed for one would be totally useless for the next. Even on the same island the different tribes are so isolated by war and jealousies that their language remains as totally distinct as that of the Celts and Saxons in Scotland or Wales.

This circumstance, added to the intense jealousies of the tribes, made it a matter of extreme difficulty, as well as danger, to attempt visiting different villages, in which endeavour Mr Turner and Mr Nisbet nevertheless persevered, always at the risk of their lives, being inspired with an intense belief in the reality of their Lord's command (to go into all the world and preach to all His human creatures), and also in His protecting care.

So when a vessel touched the isle, and offered to carry them all away, the mission band refused to desert their post, and for seven months contrived to maintain their ground. But it was a constant struggle and never-ceasing danger. During five months out of the seven the tribes were at war, and at last the whole powerful body of sacred medicine-men-the rain-makers and thunder-makers, and especially the disease-makers-were filled with such jealousy of the foreigners who gave away medicines, and so diminished their gains, that they stirred up the islanders generally to believe that the dysentery, coughs, and influenza which had recently, for the first time, appeared in the group, were all produced by the white men; and, strangely enough, their assertion seemed confirmed by the fact that the tribe among whom the missionaries were living, actually escaped these illnesses.

So about two thousand wild savages united for a more determined onslaught on this friendly tribe; and at last, seeing matters were desperate, the little band of Christians, nineteen in all, were compelled to fly for their lives. They accordingly embarked at dead of night in an open boat and a canoe, hoping to reach the Isle Aneiteum, preferring to face the certain hardships of such a

voyage to the worse certainty of being consigned to cannibal ovens. The sea was, however, wild and tempestuous; and after vainly struggling for several hours to make head against it, they were compelled to return to land, and happily re-entered their own house before any of the natives had discovered their flight. Matters now seemed desperate; but, as the old proverb says, "Man's extremity is God's opportunity." When the villages were blazing on every side of them, and their last hours seemed at hand, a sail hove in sight. It proved to be The Highlander (name of good omen), a whaler, whose captain, knowing that the Turners and Nisbets had gone to Tanna, thought he would just run in and see if they were still alive. The presence of the foreign ship stayed the fighting for the moment, and enabled the mission party very quietly to make their preparations for embarking. This was on Saturday. On Sunday, they as usual abstained from any manner of work, and held public worship. Soon after midnight they silently stole forth, and though their chapel and outhouses, and even the boat-shed, were crowded with people from the neighbouring villages, whose homes had been burnt by the enemy, not one awoke till almost all the party were safely on board with their baggage. So this was accomplished without the dreaded opposition. At last some men awoke, and then messengers flew through the district to summon the chiefs. Mr Turner asked them all to come on board to bid him farewell. Eleven did so, and expressed their grief at all that had occurred; one fine old chief wept like a child, but none ventured to bid the white men stay. In truth, they said that they expected themselves to be exterminated as soon as the vessel had departed.

Seeing no possibility of establishing a mission on any of the neighbouring isles, Mr Turner induced Captain Lucas to convey the whole party to Samoa-a journey which was not without danger, owing to baffling winds and the lack of any reliable chart. They narrowly escaped coming to grief as they passed through the Fiji group, where the vessel was becalmed and quickly surrounded by large war-canoes, each manned by from fifty to a hundred most formidable, armed savages. Providentially a light

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breeze sprang up and carried them away from that danger; and so in due time they reached Apia, where they found welcome and much-needed rest and comfort.

Soon after, Mr Turner was appointed to the charge of a district in Samoa, which gave him the care of sixteen villages; but ere long the pressing need of teachers led to the commencement of the training college, where, with the exception of occasional voyages to the New Hebrides and other groups, he and his successive colleagues have ever since found abundant work, in training native evangelists, translating valuable books, and, so far as lay in their power (not having received a regular medical training), in ministering to the temporal needs of the people, administering such medicines as they could procure, and even, under pressure of necessity, attending to surgical cases. Their chief care, however, was to vaccinate every man, woman, and child within reach, a precaution to which may be attributed the happy circumstance that there has never been a case of smallpox in Samoa, though it is visited by so many foreign ships. In many other groups, where some chance vessel has touched, the deadly infection has been left, and in some cases about a third of the population has died.

Dr Turner observed that the people of Tanna are in mortal dread of a form of witchcraft precisely similar to that so commonly practised in Fiji in its heathen days (and perhaps, sub rosa, even now; for we noticed the extreme care with which some of our followers occasionally collected and buried every scrap of food which they, or we, had touched).

The Fijians believed that if they could get a fragment of the hair or food of an enemy, or a small bit of any garment he had worn, the heathen priest could therewith work a spell which should cause death within four days. The priest kindled a fire and performed incantations over these relics, approaching the spot only on his hands and knees.

The wizard of Tana is a professional disease-maker. He prowls about, continually seeking for refuse of any sort which he can turn to account. An old banana-skin, a bit of a cocoa-nut, the parings of a yam, will answer his purpose. He wraps it in a leaf, that no

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