Five years after John Williams, the noble missionary pioneer of the South Sea Islands, had been clubbed to death by the ferocious natives of Erromonga, while landing on their shores with the Gospel, the children of Great Britain raised amongst themselves £6000, to build a new missionary ship, which was named after the murdered missionary and sent out to the South Seas. After twenty years’ service she was wrecked on the coral reef of Pukapuka, or Danger Island, and within two years was replaced by a larger vessel, built in Aberdeen, and named the John Williams, also provided by young folks of the British Isles. She sailed from Gravesend in January, 1866, and was overtaken in that disastrous gale in which the S.S. “London” was wrecked in the Bay of Biscay and over three hundred of her passengers and crew carried to a watery grave. The John Williams sustained great damage, and had to return to Weymouth for repairs. Among the passengers on board was a young Scotch missionary and his wife on their way to Rarotonga to spread the Gospel among the dwellers there—Mr. and Mrs. James Chalmers of Inveraray. They began work on board the vessel, holding meetings among the sailors, and had the joy of seeing work done for God in the conversion of several of the crew. On September 5th the second John Williams was wrecked on a sunken reef when entering the harbor of Aneitium, and after being got off and made seaworthy, was finally wrecked at Savage Island, the missionaries losing everything, except the clothes in which they stood. Picked up by the brig Rena, whose captain, Bill Hayes, was a notorious buccaneer and pirate, they were carried to Rarotonga. Chalmers was the first to reach the shore, carried by a native, who asked: “What fellow name belong you?” that he might shout it to those on shore. The missionary shouted “Chalmers,” and the Rarotongian roared out “Tamate”—the nearest sound his lips could frame, and by the name of “Tamate,” Chalmers was known over the whole of that coast for over thirty years, as he went in and out among the natives telling the story of redeeming love. Such were some of the trials of faith and patience which these two young servants of the Lord were called to pass through, as they entered upon the path of service to which they believed the Lord had called them. Some imagine that the pioneer Gospeller’s calling is one of romance and adventure, well suited to those whose taste is toward a rollicking and knockabout life, but a very short experience of it will prove to such, that they have entirely mistaken the nature of the true missionary calling. Nothing short of faith in God, and the deep consciousness that He who has called to will sustain in the path, can enable any to continue steadfastly and go forward unflinchingly in a calling in which difficulties and trials are a daily occurrence.
When Chalmers and his wife arrived in Rarotonga they found it in a deplorable condition. Two successive hurricanes of great violence had swept across the island. Houses were wrecked, the mission school was in ruins, and the crops were spoiled. The old heathenism of former times was no longer to be seen; cannibalism had long been abolished, but many of the old habits were still clung to.
The natives used leaves for plates, cocoanut shells for cups, and their fingers for spoons and knives. Stone houses, which had been built by some of their fathers, were deserted for native huts, and the chief, who had a five-roomed stone house, preferred to live in a reed cottage. The children were dressed in nature’s garb, and most of the natives wore very scant clothing. The young men were sadly given to strong drink, and had abandoned all work, with the result that they were hopelessly in debt. Traders came offering them gay clothes, guns and powder, then claiming their crops in payment. This, together with their drunkenness, utterly ruined the younger men, many of whom had fled to live in the bush, where they made and consumed orange rum and other intoxicants, fighting like savages. Some of these were the descendants of the early converts to Christianity, and professed to be Christians themselves, without being “born again.” The great danger in heathen as well as in so-called “Christian” countries is, to rest satisfied with a “name to live,” an outward form of religion, handed down from sire to son, apart from a personal acceptance of Christ, and an individual new birth by the Spirit of God. All such “professors” must sooner or later lapse, and the unregenerate sinner appears in his true, natural colors. So it ever has been and must be, for only that which is of God, wrought by His Spirit through the Word in the souls of men, will sustain the test of time and the tear and wear of life. It was a difficult job to deal with these drunken, lapsed professors, who frequently began their orgies by singing a hymn around a barrel of rum. Chalmers would walk up to the scene of revelry, pull out the corks of their barrels, and pour their contents on the ground. Then he would speak the truth to them, and point out what must be the end and doom of those who commit such sins.
After almost four years of hard and discouraging labor, a work of grace began among the natives. Many of the worst of the islanders were truly converted, and took their stand on the Lord’s side, along with the few older believers who remained. These young converts were taught the necessity of working with their hands, so that they might lead honest and upright lives, providing for themselves and their families. The result in a short time was wonderful. Fields were tilled, crops were reared, land was cleared and gardens planted. In five villages, mission premises were built, schools begun, a printing press was set up and wrought, and the Word of God taught and preached daily. God blessed His Word, and for several years, Chalmers and his wife, with their native helpers, had a busy and a fruitful time in Rarotonga, which was but the school in which the Lord was educating His servant for work in a new and larger field. His heart was set on opening up new fields and breaking new ground with the Gospel plow. Writing to his old friend, Mr. Meikle, of Inveraray, by whose instrumentality he had been led when a lad to the Saviour, he says, speaking of the departure of some of his helpers to another island: “How I should rejoice to accompany them, to stand in the center of Papua and tell of infinite love. The nearer I get to Christ and His Cross, the more do I long for contact with the heathen. The one wish is to be entirely spent for Christ, working consumed in His love.” These words breathe the true missionary spirit. We shall hear how they were fulfilled.