To one of his helpers in Raiatea, Williams said in conversation one day, “If I had a ship at my command, not one island in the Pacific but should, God permitting, be visited, and teachers sent to direct the wandering feet of the heathen to happiness and heaven.” This desire was to be fulfilled in a remarkable manner, and by a way which he knew not. In 1827, Williams and several others left on a visit to the island of Raratonga. Here again, God had been preparing a way for his servants, and for the entrance of His Word.
A heathen woman of Rarotonga had brought from Tahiti, where she had been on a visit, rumors of the “God of heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ,” whom the missionaries there were preaching about. Makea, the king, heard the woman’s story, and named one of his children “Jehovah” and another “Jesus.” He also erected an altar to this great “Unknown God,” so that when the missionary ship The Endeavor arrived with the Lord’s servants on board, they were accorded a welcome by the natives, who had been thus aroused to interest in the things of God. Here, with the help of the friendly natives, Williams built a vessel of from 70 to 80 tons burden, which he named The Messenger of Peace. Without knowledge of shipbuilding and with very few of the necessary tools, this was a marvelous undertaking. But the brave Gospeller was determined to succeed, and overcoming all difficulties, he, by the help of God, was enabled to finish and launch this first Gospel ship of the South Seas within three months. The whole story of its conception, progress, and completion, reads like a romance. When he began to build, he found himself without a bellows at all suitable for smith work. There was nothing in the island from which to construct one, and this seemed an insurmountable difficulty. But Williams was not to be hindered. He killed the only four goats he possessed, and used their skins for his bellows, which, however, the rats devoured in a night’s time, leaving nothing but the bare boards. Still undaunted, he next made a wooden box, which threw wind on his fire as a pump throws water, and thus the iron work and nails for his ship were made.
When The Messenger of Peace was launched, she made a trial trip to Aitutaki, a distance of 170 miles, on which the Rarotongian king accompanied him. A second voyage was made to the Samoan Islands, arriving in Savage Island where he found the people wild and unreachable. The chief came on board the ship and behaved in a dreadful manner, dancing up and down the deck, gnashing teeth and howling like a wild beast. Two young men belonging to the island joined the party, so they sailed away to Tonga, sore at heart that no entrance could be found to these degraded people with the Gospel. At Tonga they met with a Samoan chief, named Fauea, who was a Christian, and he introduced the mission party to countrymen.
Thus the Gospel ship was put to good use, in carrying the glad tidings to islands where its joyful sound had never been heard, and thus the light arose in habitations of darkness, where it shines till the present day.