If you look at a map of South America, you will see a group of small islands, numbering in all about two hundred, lying off the coast of Patagonia. These are the Falkland Islands, the two largest of them bearing the names of East and West Falkland. They are under the British flag, and form a headquarters for whalers and small sealing vessels which frequent the Straits of Magellan. It was to these desolate islands that Allen Gardiner sailed in the year 1841, and anchored in Berkeley Sound, on the 23rd December of that year, hoping to reach the Patagonians from there. He erected a small wooden house on an island with a population numbering about twenty men and three or four women. An old boat which had been cast aside by its owners as unfit for further use, was rigged up, provisions to last for some weeks were put on board, and with a small crew of drunken whalers, Gardiner and a companion named Johnson, sailed for the shores of Patagonia, with the Gospel message.
When they reached the shore, they lit a fire, and before long a number of natives appeared, armed with bows, scantily clad in skins, looking very sullen. Gardiner shook hands with them all round, made them presents of some brass buttons, bits of colored braid, and a small looking glass, which they received with signs of appreciation. Here they built themselves a hut near the shore, and remained for several days. The natives of the place were about a hundred in number, and seemed friendly, Wissale their chief, readily granting his permission to build and settle amongst them. But as has often been found, the servants of Christ must not depend too much on the fair promises or apparent friendliness of heathen chiefs, whose object in welcoming them is mainly to plunder. Their trust must be in the living God, whose power alone can preserve their lives in the midst of the cruelties of heathendom.
In consequence of the favorable opening thus found, Gardiner proceeded to England in the hope of getting others to come out and enter the open door with the Gospel of Christ. He found, however, that during the six years of his absence in Patagonia, the missionary spirit had sadly declined in his native land. Three Missionary Societies, before which in turn he made known the needs of Patagonia, declined to take up the work there owing to the lack of funds; and thus the earnest missionary’s faith was tested, and his patience severely tried. But when man fails us, it drives us to the living God, and Allen Gardiner had then to learn what others have yet to learn, namely, that Missionary Societies, with their rules and restrictions, their commands and prohibitions, are not calculated to help, but more frequently hinder the Lord’s servants from carrying out his Master’s behests. Happy is the Gospeller, at home or abroad, who is no one’s servant but the Lord’s, and who looks to Him alone for all his directions, as well as for the supply of his wants. The Lord may try His servant’s faith, but He can never fail to be a good Master to all whom He sends forth to do His business among the sons of men.
Thus cast upon God, Gardiner sent forth to the people of God in Great Britain a short and simple statement of what the Lord had done in Patagonia, which ended with the following stirring appeal: “Let us remember Him who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, who willeth that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, and who will not be satisfied until He has received the fullness of that harvest which the travail of His soul is still ripening.” The result of this was that a number of Christian men and women met for prayer, and save of their means to send the Gospel to the benighted dwellers of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. A Mr. Hunt, who had been a schoolmaster in Kendal, accompanied Allen Gardiner on December 12th, 1844, in the brig Rosalie, which reached Gregory’s Bay in two months, where they landed their stores and built a hut. But fresh trials of faith and patience awaited them there as we shall see.