SOME few weeks ago we had the privilege of hearing Dr. Paton, the great missionary amongst the islands of the Pacific. The islands where he is working are not so very far away front Danger Island. Thousands of the natives of these islands are now professedly Christian, and very many are true followers of Christ. He said, if in England the true followers or Christ were only as devoted to their Lord as are the converts of Eromanga and other islands in the New Hebrides group, the great problem, “How to reach the masses,” would be soon settled. Most earnestly did he declare that the gospel of God is the power of God that reaches the cruel cannibal, and changes him into a true self-denying follower of Christ, and that all “schemes for first educating and civilizing the heathen, and after a while speaking of Christ to them, are sorrowful errors.”
In one island, where only a few years ago no stranger and no white man could land in safety, lest he should be killed and eaten, now there is not a house where family prayer is not daily beard. Where a few years ago the people had no conception of reading or writing, now the language has been rendered into form by the missionaries, and the Bible is read with the utmost zeal by the people. The cost of producing such a Bible is very great. But the natives deny themselves, to the utmost of their power, and really beyond their power, in order to procure the book of God. Thus on one island they give all their arrowroot to Jesus! They plant and cultivate this food, and sell it entirely for Christ. Some three weeks in the year they labor specially in cultivating it, and if during these weeks any one should work less eagerly than in his own garden, they will say, “Work as heartily for Jesus as for yourself―serve Him better than yourself.” In times when other crops have failed, these devoted people have gone famished rather than touch a piece of arrowroot, and thus they have already collected some twelve hundred pounds, which has been used in procuring for them the prize of the Word of God, printed in their own tongue. Perhaps more by the testimony of a changed life, and by the Christian walk among the heathen, than by any other means, has the gospel of God spread so wonderfully in these islands.
Weil might Dr. Paton say, as he told these stories of changed lives, and Christ-like ways, that if there were such devotion in the great numbers of Christians in England, there would be less heard of lapsed masses, and of want of interest in the things of God.
Dr. Paton wishes very much to obtain a steamship by which the islands that are still cannibal may be visited. Some of these poor heathen are crying out for Christian teachers, but at present they cannot be visited. A glance at the map will show the great difficulty there is in getting from island to island. The work is remarkably encouraging, and every Christian must rejoice when hearing of it. Would you like to help on this work? if you would, you can send what you please to us, and we will forward it to headquarters.