Modern heroes of the mission field

Moulton Library

Sanger Tii#iilo§l#al Semliiary J

BOSTON

UNIVERSITY

Boston University School of Theology
Library

MODERN HEROES OF THE MISSION

FIELD.

Bp tflert. JDr. tUDalslj, jDt«l)op of ®fl0ori).

HEROES OF THE MISSION FIELD.

ismo^ Cloth, $1.00.

" Dr, Walsh has not only carefully studied the records of
Christian life preserved by the best Church historians, but he
has also reproduced in a form at once reliable, instructive, and
interesting, the diverse conditions and heroic endeavours for
the furtherance of the Kingdom of God that characterised
diiiferent eras. As an introduction to the study of Christian
progress this book has real value, and deserves very hearty
recognition and recommendation." — Christian.

MODERN HEROES OF THE MISSION
FIELD. Sketches of the Great Pioneers of the

Nineteenth Century.

I2>n0y Cloth, $i.oo.

ECHOES OF BIBLE HISTORY.

The Story of Palestine Exploration and Excavation

Popularly Told.

Fifty Illustrations, 127710, Cloth, S-fJO,

THE VOICES OF THE PSALMS.

127710, Cloth ^ $1.50.

" A devout and graceful guide to the book of Psalms. It is
not a commentary, yet it contains many expositions, and into
its texture is woven information such as can only be found in
the best ancient and modern commentaries." — Recorder.

THOMAS WHITTAKER, Publisher, 2 and 3 Bible House

MODERN HEROES

MISSION FIELD.

BY THS RIGHT REV.

W. PAKENHAM WALSH, D.D.,

Bishop qfOssory, Ferns and Leighlin,

FOURTH EDITION-.

NEW YORK :

THOMAS WHITTAKER,

2 AND 3 Bible House.

PREFACE.

Tn acceding to the wish that I should
continue my sketches of missionary heroes,
and bring down the history of missionary
enterprise to our own day, I have prescribed
to myself the same rule which guided me
in the former series* — namely, that the
characters chosen should be those not only
of typical men, but representative, as far as
possible, of different fields of labour, and
various modes of action. The theme has

♦ Published in the Clergyman's Magazine for 1878,
and also separately as a volume by Messrs. Hodder and
Stoughton, Paternoster Row, London j and Whittaker,
Bible House, New York. The present sketches were
originally printed in the same Magazine, 1881.

vi PREFACE.

been resumed with the commencement of the
present century, for the life of Schwartz
(which closed the former series) brought
us down to the end of the eighteenth.

In reviewing the long, grand muster-roll
of illustrious names which belong to the
period that has intervened between his day
and ours, the chief difficulty lay in the
exercise of choice. It has been thought
better, for many reasons, to make no men-
tion of living men, although some of these
might well take their place beside any of
the noblest who have preceded them ; but
even with this additional limitation, the task
of selection, if not an invidious, has certainly
not been an easy one.

We trust that these sketches will furnish
some idea of the extent and progress of
missionary work during this century, and o:^
the varied instrumentalities which are now
employed in carrying it on. Beginning

PREFACE, vil

with a time when the ** messengers of the
Churches" were sneered at as ** consecrated
cobblers/* they carry us on to our own
happier days, when their names find grate-
ful record in royal speeches, and their
remains find honourable repose in our
national sanctuaries ; they show us how
all sorts of culture, linguistic, medical, and
scientific, are being made subservient to
the spread of the gospel of Christ ; they
prove that the age of chivalry is not past,
and that the spirit of martyrdom is not
extinct in the Church of God ; and they
bear testimony that the Gospel has lost
neither its vitality nor its power, inasmuch
as amongst all races, whether savage
or civilized, it has achieved, and is still
achieving, triumphs which may well com-
pare with those of apostolic times.

We may challenge the history of the
world to produce instances of heroism

▼iii PREFACE.

more exalted or more heart-stirring than
those which are enumerated here ; and we
may claim for these champions of the
Cross a valour and a self-devotion as
disinterested as they were sublime. Let
it be remembered, moreover, that they are
but examples chosen from a countless host
of brave and noble men, ** of whom the world
was not worthy," — men who were content to
labour on in silence and obscurity, with-
out any hope of earthly recompense, and
many of whom laid down their lives in
the cause of Him whom they loved and
served.

These records prove, moreover, that
with regard to the heroism of missionary
enterprise, no body of Christians can lay
claim to a monopoly. We have, and we
strongly hold, our ecclesiastical preferences
and convictions ; but heroism like this is
the outcome of Christianity itself, and it

PREFACE, ix

furnishes undeniable evidence that, amidst
many unhappy differences, there exists
amongst Christian people a grand under-
lying agreement both as to faith and duty.
To quote the words of one* of whom any
Church or nation might be proud : — " The
spirit of missions is the spirit of our Master ;
the very genius of true religion. A diffu-
sive philanthropy is Christianity itself. It
requires perpetual propagation to attest its
genuineness." And he adds, what is of
vast importance to bear in mind — " the
Church must send her ablest, most highly
educated, and best men to the heathen ;
. . . for the work in the foreign Held is
more difficult than the work at home ; "
and he describes as a '* popular delusion "
the supposition that ** an army requires to
be better led in peace than in war."
If these sketches help to attract attention,

* Dr. Livingstone.

X PREFACE.

to deepen sympathy, and to call forth help
on behalf of this great cause, — more especi-
ally if they be the means of enlisting new
warriors in this noblest of all services, — they
will have answered the purpose for which
they were written, and realized the prayer
with which they are now sent forth.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGH

I. HENRY MARTYN: INDIA AND PERSIA, 1805-1812 I

II. WILLIAM CAREY: INDIA, I793-1834 . • 3I

in. ADONIRAM JUDSON : BURMAH, 1813-1850 . 6$

IV. ROBERT MORRISON: CHINA, 1807-1834 . , 95

V. SAMUEL MARSDEN : NEW ZEALAND, 1814-1838 II9

VL JOHN WILLIAMS: POLYNESIA, 1817-1839 . 1 43

Vn. WILLIAM JOHNSON : WEST AFRICA, 1816-1823 169

VIH. JOHN hunt: FIJI, 1838-1848 , . . 195

IX. ALLEN GARDINER : SOUTH AMERICA, 1835-1851 217

X. ALEXANDER DUFF: INDIA, 1829-1864 . . 247

XL DAVID LIVINGSTONE : AFRICA, 184O-1873 . 28 1

XII. BISHOP PATTESON : MELANESIA, 1855-1871 . 315

I.

HENRY MARTYN, INDIA AND PERSIA,
1805— 1812.

As to the name that should stand foremost
on the list of ** Modern Heroes of the
Mission-field,' ' there can scarcely be a doubt.
That of Henry Martyn does not, indeed,
take the first place chronologically; for of
those whose lives are to be sketched, one at
least preceded him in the mission field ; but
for the saintliness of his character, the
devotedness of his life, and the influence of
his bright though brief career, his name
stands confessedly pre-eminent.

It is most natural, and appropriate also,
considering the purpose for which these
sketches were written, that a member of the
Church of England should enjoy this dis-
tinction ; and we have no doubt that Non-
conformists themselves will rejoice to see

I

2 MODERN HEROES OF

Martyn's name taking such a position on a
roll which records the achievements of some
of their own most distinguished missionaries.
His claim to this place in our own ranks is
unquestionable. What Herbert is amongst
our poets, and Wilson amongst our bishops,
Henry Martyn is amongst our missionary
heroes. High Church, Low Church, Broad
Church, or whatever other sections there
may be amongst us, unite with one accord
in giving their meed of honour to this most
saintly of men. We cannot, indeed, go so
far as Sir James Stephen, and say that
** Martyn's is the one heroic name which
adorns the annals of the English Church
from the days of Elizabeth to our own ; "
but we can assign him a foremost place
amongst our best and noblest worthies.
Although, in respect to direct missionary
success, his career must be considered as
almost a failure, yet, in its indirect effects,
no other has been more fruitful. His **Life*'
has awakened the missionary spirit in more
human hearts than any other memoir ever
given to the world; and not only has it

THE MISSION FIELD. 3

stirred up many a brave spirit to follow him
to the same great battle-field, but it has
sustained and cheered many a soldier of the
cross amidst his arduous conflicts. Thus
Weitbrecht writes : *' During my leisure
hours I read Henry Martyn's life. Dear
Martyn ! how I love his tender heart and his
intense love to his Saviour ! If any reading
besides the Bible is calculated to bring a
missionary into a proper frame of mind,
while engaged in his labour of love, it is
the * Life ' of this holy man. It raised my
mind to holy aspirations for the same spirit.
Oh ! how I can feel with him in griefs and
sorrows, being tempted and tried by an un-
believing world much in the same way."

A valued friend whom I consulted in
reference to these sketches said to me, ** I
fear the life of Henry Martyn is a hackneyed
subject;" and in one sense he was right,
for no story has been more frequently read,
or is better known ; but I do not think that
the public are tired of it, and others are
evidently of the same opinion ; for there
has lately issued from the press, as one of a

4 MODERN HEROES OF

series of books entitled ** Men Worth Re-
membering/' another sketch of our hero's
life (by Canon Bell). This paper, however,
does not pretend to be more than a loving
** memorial " of one " whose praise is in all
the churches/' and a grateful record of
labours which ought never to be forgotten.

Born (1781) in the humble home of one
who had been a Cornish miner, but who,
having learned the value of a little edu-
cation for himself, desired to give a fuller
measure of it to his son, Henry Martyn
fought his way through difficulties and
adversities up to the highest honours that
his university could bestow. Cambridge
may well be proud of her senior wrangler,
and St. John's may well link together in
honour the names of two illustrious students,
who within her walls knew and loved each
other ; destined each of them to shine with
an undying lustre, though in widely different
spheres — Henry Kirke White as the poet,
and Henry Martyn as the missionary.

How little we can determine, from his first
attempts, concerning a man's future career

THE MISSION FIELD, 5

may be illustrated from the fact that Martyn
began his college studies by committing the
propositions of Euclid to memory, and yet
at the end of four short years he was the
foremost mathematician of his class. It
augured well for his many-sidedness of
mind, that though he mainly applied himself
to mathematics, he carried off the first prizes
of his year in Latin composition, was elected
fellow of his college, and was again and
again appointed as Examiner in classics and
metaphysics. Indeed, he was known amongst
his fellow-students as ** the man who had not
lost an hour.'' But the time was at hand
when he was to lay down all his honours at
the Master's feet, and to consecrate all his
abilities and attainments to that Master's
service.

He had already realized the insufficiency
of earthly honours to make him happy. He
thus describes his own feelings at the
moment when all men were applauding and
many envying him : ** I obtained my highest
wishes, but was surprised to find that I
grasped a shadow." It reminds us of

6 MODERN HEROES OF

Edmund Burke's famous saying on the
occasion of a great election : ** What shadows
we are, and what shadows we pursue! " But
Aiartyn had begun the search after enduring
happiness. The influence of his younger
sister, combined with that of a college friend
who had been formerly his school com-
panion, had led him to the study of the
Holy Scriptures ; and the death of his
father, which occurred just as his son had
attained the highest summit of his ambition,
deepened his religious impressions, and he
soon found rest and satisfaction in the
gospel of Jesus Christ. Up to this time he
had resolved on going to ** the law" as a
profession, and had preferred it to entering
the ministry, ** chiefly,'' as he confesses,
" because he would not consent to be poor
for Christ's sake." But now a new ambition
seized him, and he resolved not only to
become a clergyman, but to devote his life
to the work of God amongst the heathen.
He accordingly offered himself, at the close
of the year 1802, to the Church Missionary
Society, and professed himself ready to go

THE MISSION FIELD. 7

to any part of the world as a missionary of
the cross of Christ.

This choice was mainly determined by two
things ; first, by an observation of the Rev.
Charles Simeon, to whose ministry at Cam-
bridge he had attached himself. This
observation had reference to the wonderful
benefits which had resulted from the labours
of a single missionary (Dr. Carey) in India,
and the young graduate could not divest his
mind of the impression which it made. It
haunted him day and night. Soon after
this he was led to read an account of David
Brainerd, who had devoted a short but noble
life to the evangelization of the Red Indians ;
and this memoir not only confirmed his
growing resolve to dedicate himself to
missionary work, but often guided and
cheered him afterwards, amidst his arduous
labours in the East. Most truly may it be
said that he became what Brainerd often
wished to be, — **a flame of fire in the service
of his God."

It must not be forgotten that at the time
Henry Martyn came to this resolve the

8 MODERN HEROES OF

position of a missionary was held in pity and
contempt — in pity by those who esteemed
their work as an earnest but wild enthusiasm
— in contempt by those who considered them
more in the light of fools than fanatics. It
was the day ,when the authorities openly
opposed missionary effort in India, and when
a Governor-General declared that the man
who could be mad enough to speak of
religion to the natives would fire a pistol
into a magazine of gunpowder. Our
missionary-designate had to encounter these
prejudices, and to learn that not even his
admitted talents or his academic distinctions
could save him from scorn and misconcep-
tion. **Yet I desire," he writes, ** to take
the ridicule of men with all meekness and
charity, looking forward to another world for
approbation and reward." And this more-
over was a life-long trial; for towards the
end of his career we find him repeating lines,
which were often upon his lips during his
seven years of incessant toil —

" If on my face for Thy dear name
Shame and reproaches be,

THE MISSION FIELD, 9

All hail reproach, and welcome shame,
If Thou remember me ! "

And yet, strange to say, it was not as a pro-
fessed missionary that this most devoted of
all missionaries found his way to the East.
Just at this crisis of his history all his little
patrimony was lost, and as his sister was
involved in the disaster, it appeared scarcely
justifiable to leave her unprovided for, so
long as his presence in England could
alleviate her distress. His friends, in order
to meet the difficulty, procured him a
chaplaincy in the East India Company's
service, and it was avowedly in that capacity
he went forth to foreign lands ; but how he
used his position to further the great aim of
his life let his whole subsequent history
declare ; and in what spirit he received the
appointment let the following extract from
his journal testify : — ** The prospect of this
world's happiness gave me rather pain than
pleasure, which convinced me that I had
been running away from the world rather
than overcoming it." Let no one imagine,
however, that it was without the deepest

lo MODERN HEROES OF

pangs to which an affectionate and sensitive
nature can be subjected, that Henry Martyn
found himself taking leave of honours and
fame and friends at home, to encounter the
unknown but certain trials of what he was
determined should be a missionary career.
He makes no secret of his feelings ; and his
letters and journals bear witness that he
took his last look at England with an almost
breaking heart: **I find by experience that
I am as weak as water." They are touching
words — all the more touching for their
honesty and truthfulness.

And there was besides, in his case, ** a
beautiful sad story" of tender and deep
attachment to one who seemed well worthy
of him, but whose union to the man she
loved was hindered both then and afterwards
by circumstances upon which we have neither
time nor heart to linger. It is very affecting ,
as one reads his memoir, to see how her
image again and again rises to his view, now
as he crazes from the deck of the vessel that
bears him far away, or again as he looks out
on the pale moonlight of an Eastern sky, or

THE MISSION FIELD. ii

once more as he finds himself amidst the
solitude and dreariness of some comfortless
caravansary. The last letter he ever wrote
was to Lydia Grenfell, when from his distant
station at Tabriz, though labouring under
illness and weakness, he looked forward to
a meeting with her whom he hoped one day
to call his wife. But it was not to be. Their
union and their joy were to be reserved for
heaven.

We cannot dwell upon the eventful
voyage, during which, ** instant in season
and out of season," he preached Christ to
his fellow-passengers, with a boldness that
made some angry, and yet with a tenderness
that made others weep. Nor can we stay to
tell how on the Brazilian coast he gained
alike the love of wealthy planter and of poor
slave, and held conversations in Latin with
priests and friars, endeavouring to win them
to the ** truth as it is in Jesus.'* Neither
can we tarry to relate how at the Cape,
where a fierce war was waging, he went
ashore, regardless of all danger, to minister
to the wounded and the dying, and to speak

12 MODERN HEROES OF

both to degraded Hottentot and brave
British soldier the words of eternal life.

India was reached at last, and the heart of
our missionary was filled with conflicting
emotions — of joy, to find himself in the scene
of his long-anticipated labours — of de-
spondency, when he looked around and saw
the ** gross darkness " of the land, and the
apparently insuperable hindrances in his
path. With all his enthusiasm, he was not
the man to under-estimate the difficulties of
his work ; and with a temperament which
was not so much the result of melancholy as
of an exquisite sensitiveness, his heart often
sank within him at the scenes he witnessed,
and the abominations by which he was
surrounded. His righteous soul was vexed,
now by the apathy or the opposition shown
by his fellow-countrymen in India towards
the truth which he preached ; now by their
ungodly lives, which raised up the most
fearful stumbling-blocks against the recep-
tion of Christianity by the natives. At one
time we find him saddened and depressed by
gross idolatries in the pagoda of Juggernaut,

THE MISSION FIELD, 13

at another horrified at finding- himself just
too late to rescue a deluded woman from the
blazing fire of the Suttee. It was no marvel
that he should say, ** I shivered as if stand-
ing as it were in the neighbourhood of hell; "
and again, ** The fiends of darkness seem to
sit in sullen repose in this land.'*

Still his faith failed not ; he knew what
God could do in His own good time, and in
that confidence he wrote these almost pro-
phetic words : " Even if I never should see
a native converted, God may design, by my
patience and continuance in the work, to
encourage future missionaries."

His first home in India was appropriately
enough in a ruined pagoda which was fitted
up for his use, and it was a joy to him that
** the place where once devils were worshipped
/was now become a Christian oratory." He
soon made the acquaintance of men like-
minded with himself — Brown and Corrie,
and also of the Serampore missionaries —
Carey and Marshman. He had really been
given to India in answer to their prayers,
and they were not slow to appreciate his

14 MODERN HEROES OF

character and worth. Indeed, every effort
was made to detain him at Calcutta, that he
might minister to the English, but his heart
was set on his special work, and from the
first he sedulously devoted himself to the
acquisition of Sanscrit and Hindustani, in
order to fit himself for it, often wearying his
Munshees by his untiring assiduity.

At the end of four months he was sent to
Dinapore, and began his regular duties as
chaplain to the troops. To a man like
Martyn these were not matters of mere
routine; nor did he confine his ministrations
to the ordinary services from the drum-head,
or to the visitation of sick soldiers in the
hospital. He had special meetings in the
evening for such as were desirous of further
spiritual instruction; he gathered the native
wives of the soldiers every Sunday afternoon
for a service in their own tongue ; he pre-
pared for their use a Hindustani translation
of our Lord's parables, with a simple com-
mentary ; and he opened, at his own cost,
five schools for native children. Frequently
his duties were of a most painful kind. At

THE MISSION FIELD, 15

one time he is remonstrating with a colonel
who is living in open and flagrant sin ; at
another he is rebuking an apostate official
who has abjured Christianity, and built a
mosque in honour of the false prophet. But
amidst all this his heart is fixed upon his
chosen work ; he is mastering Arabic and
Persian ; he is disputing with Brahmins, and
becoming acquainted with their tenets ; he is
studying the Ramayuna and the Koran ; he
is translating portions of the New Testament
and of the Prayer Book into oriental
tongues ; and all this in a place where, to
use his own regretful language, " not one
voice is heard saying, * I wish you good luck
in the name of the Lord.' "

Three years of this prefatory work, and he
is transferred to Cawnpore (1809), where we
find him preaching to a thousand soldiers
drawn up in a hollow square, when the heat
is so intense that many of the men drop
down around him, and where his own health
suffers continually from ague and fever. It
was here that he had the happiness of meet-
ing Mrs. Sherwood, whose Christian sym

l6 MODERN HEROES OF

pathy cheered him, and whose graphic pen
has left us such vivid portraits both of our
hero and his work. Her first impressions
of him are thus recorded : ** He was dressed
In white, and looked very pale, which how-
ever was nothing singular in India ; his hair,
a light brown, was raised from his forehead,
which was a remarkably fine one. His
features were not regular, but the expression
was so luminous, so Intellectual, so affection-
ate, so beaming with Divine charity, that no
one could have looked at his features and
thought of their shape or form ; the out-
beaming of his soul would absorb the
attention of every observer." She describes
him as most polished and refined ; with a
voice and ear most musical ; and her picture
of her little Lucy, eighteen months old,
creeping up to the pale, white-clad mission-
ary, as he lay upon his sofa, with all his books
around him, and perching herself on the big
Hebrew Lexicon, which he needed at every
turn, but from which his gentle love would not
displace her, is most beautiful and touching,
and shows that his was not the morose and

THE MISSION FIELD. ly

gloomy temperament with which he has
sometimes been unfairly credited.

It was at Cawnpore he made his first essay
at public preaching to the natives ; and his
was a weird and motley congregation. On
Sunday evenings he opened the gates of his
garden to the devotees and vagrants who
haunted the station, and who were easily in-
duced to attend by the promise of a pice
apiece. Sometimes from five to eight
hundred of these Jogees and Fakeers would
crowd around him, as he read to them some
striking verse of Scripture, and then endea-
voured to explain to them, in language most
simple but most beautiful, the Fatherhood
of God and the love of Jesus Christ our
Saviour. It was a scene that might have
inspired the pencil of some great artist.
Mrs. Sherwood says that ** no dreams in the
delirium of a raging fever could surpass the
realities'' presented on these occasions.
She describes this frightful crowd, ** clothed
with abominable rags, or nearly without
clothes, or plastered with mud and cow-dung,
or with long matted locks streaming down

2

i8 MODERN HEROES OF

to their heels ; every countenance foul and
frightful with evil passions ; the lips black
with tobacco, or crimson with henna. One
man who came in a cart, drawn by a bullock,
was so bloated as to look like an enormous
frog; another had kept an arm above his
head, with his hand clenched till the nails
had come out of the back of his hand ; and
one very tall man had all his bones marked
on his dark skin with white chalk, like the
figure of grim Death himself*

Such was the congregation of the gifted
and accomplished Fellow of St. John's, but
it realized to him the happy experience of
the Master — ** To the poor the gospel is
preached ; '* and though at the time he only
knew of one old Hindu woman (whom he had
baptized) as the fruit of his labour, a seed
had fallen in that unlikely place, which
brought forth much fruit in after days.
Amongst some young Mussulmans who sat
one evening on the wall of the missionary's
garden, amusing themselves with the **folly"
of the English padre, was a pundit named
Sheik Salah. To him the word of God

THE MISSION FIELD. 19

proved quick and powerful, and we meet with
him afterwards in mission history as Abdul
Messeh, the earliest of our Indian pastors,
who was ordained by Bishop Heber, and of
whom that discerning and lamented prelate
speaks in his journal with such commend-
ation. More than forty Hindus were con-
verted to Christianity by the instrumentality
of this one man ; and when he died, a monu-
ment was erected by the Resident at Lucknow,
to commemorate his devotedness and success.
Truly the labours of Henry Martyn were
**not in vain in the Lord,'* although in this
case, as in others, he was not privileged to
see the fruits for himself.

But his great work was his translation of
the New Testament, first into the Hindustani,
and next into the Persian tongue. To use
an expression of his own, he felt that ** the
translation of the Scriptures was the grand
point," and that it would be ** a work of
more lasting benefit " than his preaching
would be, and therefore to this he gave him-
self unremittingly. His assistant in the
Hindustani translation was a famous scholar

20 MODERN HEROES OF

named MIrza, of Benares, who seems to have
been a comfort as well as a help to him ; but
Sabat, the Arabian, whom he employed to
aid him in the Persian, and who afterwards
became an apostate from Christianity, was
a constant trouble and perplexity ; his wild,
passionate nature breaking out perpetually
into all kinds of insubordination. In one
passage of his journal, Martyn speaks thus
truly though unconsciously of his own spirit,
when he says, ** And this also I learnt, that
the power of gentleness is irresistible."
But not even Martyn' s gentleness could tame
this Ishmaelite ; and one result of his proud
and unbending superciliousness was that the
missionary's better judgment was often over-
borne in the work which he had in hand ; so
that after the translation was completed he
had the mortification of finding that whilst in
the opinion of competent judges his Hindu-
stani was all that could be desired, his
Persian was too lofty in its style, and too full
of Arabic idioms, to be generally useful.
On making this discovery, he resolved to go
into Persia and Arabia, with the view of revis-

THE MISSION FIELD. 21

tti^ his Persian Testament under the most
favourable circumstances, and of com-
pleting an Arabic version which was nearly
finished.

He quitted India in bad health. Symptoms
of consumption, the hereditary disease of his
family, had begun to show themselves, and
his incessant toil had greatly enfeebled him.
His friend, Mr. Browne (at whose instigation
he first took up the work of translation),
wrote to him, with oriental expressiveness,
** Can I then bring myself to cut the string,
and let you go ? I confess I could not if
your bodily frame were strong, and promised
to last for half a century. But as you burn
with the intenseness and rapid blaze of
phosphorus, why should we not make the
most of you ? Your flame may last as long,
and perhaps longer in Arabia, than in India.
Where should the phoenix build her odori-
ferous nest, but in the land prophetically
called the * blessed ' ? And where should
we ever expect but from that country the
true Comforter to come to the nations of the
East?"

22 MODERN HEROES OF

He left India on the 7th of January, 181 1,
without a companion, without even an atten-
dant, and it is only from fragments of his
letters and journals we can trace his pro-
gress. Now he is on board a vessel for
Bombay, and delights in hearing from the
captain, who had been a pupil of Schwartz,
the story of that noble missionary; now he
is standing by the tomb of Xavier at Goa,
and visiting the chambers of the Inquisition
close by; now he is suffering from sun-
stroke at Bushire; now he is traversing in
oriental dress the mountain paths of Persia,
with the thermometer rising to 126° at noon,
and with the nights so piercingly cold that
he has to gather all his wraps about him to
keep himself from shivering — ** a fire within
my head, my skin like a cinder, my pulse
violent." But as we read of the countless
** parasangs " he travelled day after day,
and contrast the object of his journey with
that of a Cyrus or an Alexander, we cannot
fail to see that the humble missionary was a
truer hero than the mighty conquerors who
preceded him in those classic regions. Ar-

THE MISSION FIELD. 23

rived at Shiraz, ** the Athens of Persia," he
spent the last year of his brief eventful life
in perfecting his New Testament, and trans-
lating the Book of Psalms. He sought to
lay the precious volume, when completed, at
the feet of the Shah, and travelled a thou-
sand miles with this object ; but fever struck
him down before he could accomplish it, and
the presentation had to be made by Sir Gore
Ousley, the British ambassador. The gift
was graciously accepted by the monarch;
and better still, it was declared by the best
judges to be ** a noble version ; " and having
been printed afterwards at St. Petersburg, it
went forth on the wings of the press in a
tongue which, according to his biographer,
** is spoken by 200,000 who bear the Christian
name," and is known moreover to a large
proportion of the earth's inhabitants.

Not, indeed, without manifold interrup-
tions was this great work accomplished.
Again and again had our missionary to
encounter the Mollahs and the Soofies of
Persia in public and private disputation. In
these controversies all his faith and patience

24 MODERN HEROES OF

as a Christian, as well as all his acumen and
learning as a scholar, were put to the severest
test. There is something grand as we look
at that gentle and emaciated, but intrepid
young man (he had scarcely passed his
thirtieth year) encountering, single-handed,
the fanaticism and the fury of these Eastern
sages, and confessing and upholding the
religion of Christ against the speculations
of vain philosophy, and the blasphemies of
Islam, when to do so was to run the risk of
losing life. To Henry Martyn, we believe,
belongs the honour of having been the first
in modern days to preach the gospel of
Christ to the followers of the false prophet ;
and he did so with a tact and a skill which
won the admiration of his opponents. We
must wait ** until all things are made known "
before we can tell the full issues of these
discussions. But Sir Robert Ker Porter
has mentioned how earnestly he was asked,
on his journey, by some Persians, whether he
was acquainted with ^* the man of God."
** He came here," they said, *' in the midst
of us, sat down encircled by our wise men,

THE MISSION FIELD, 25

and made such remarks upon our Koran as
cannot be answered. . . . We want to know
more about his religion and the book that
he left among us.''

A writer in the Asiatic journal has men-
tioned the case of an interesting and accom-
plished man, called Mahomed Rahem, whom
he met at Shiraz, and who for years had
been secretly a Christian. On inquiry, it
turned out that he had been led to change
his religious opinions in consequence, as he
said, of the teaching of **a beardless youth
enfeebled by disease," who had visited their
city in the 1223 of the Hegira, and encoun-
tered their Mollahs with great ability and
forbearance. He then described a farewell
visit which he had paid to the young mis-
sionary before his departure from Shiraz,
and said, ** That visit sealed my conversion.
He gave me a book ; it has been my con-
stant companion ; the study of it has formed
my most delightful occupation ; its contents
have consoled me." He showed the book.
It was the New Testament in Persian, and
on one of the blank leaves was written.

26 MODERN HEROES OF

** There is joy in heaven over one sinner
that repenteth. — Henry Martyn."

There is no mention of Mahomed Rahem
in Martyn's memoir, but he was probably
one of those young men who, as he says, came
from the college, **full of zeal and logic,''
to try him with hard questions.

Soon after this his face was turned towards
Europe. He resolved to make his way to
England, via Constantinople, to recruit his
failing health, and perhaps to bring back
his beloved one with him to India. The
fragments which record his last journey are
painfully interesting. Shattered in health,
enduring the severest privations, driven along
with relentless haste in spite of failing strength
by a heartless dragoman — '* the merciless
Hassan" — but bearing all with the spirit of
a martyr and a saint, he lay down to die at
Tocat, on the i6th of October, 1812, at the
earlyageof thirty-one, without a friend to com-
fort him, without one Christian near to smooth
his dying pillow, or to catch his parting words.
Whether he died of exhaustion, or of the
plague which was then raging, none can tell.

THE MISSION FIELD. 27

The last entry in his journal, ten days
before his death, is this: —

" Oct. 6th. — No horses being to be had, I had an un-
expected repose. I sat in the orchard, and thought with
* sweet comfort and peace of my God, — in soUtude my
Company, my Friend, and Comforter. Oh ! when shall
time give place to eternity ? when shall appear that new
heaven and that new earth wherein dwelleth righteous-
ness ? There — there shall in nowise enter anything that
defileth ; none of that wickedness which has made men
worse than beasts ; none of those corruptions that add
still more to the miseries of mortality shall be seen or
heard of any more."

The love and piety of Christian brethren
have in later years erected a suitable memo-
rial over this true soldier of the cross. They
found the rude slab that covered his grave
concealed beneath the sand of a mountain
stream, but so little was known of him, by
those who had buried him, that it is said they
had carved thereon the name of ** William
Martyn.^"* The remains were lovingly re-
moved to a quiet spot in the mission cemetery,
and help was obtained from the East India
Company and other sources to build a hand-
some monument. The inscription in four
different languages is as follows : —

28 MODERN HEROES OF

REV. HENRY MARTYN, M.A.,

CHAPLAIN OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, BORN AT TRURO,

IN ENGLAND, ON THE i8tH FEBRUARY, 1 78 1, DIED

AT TOCAT, ON THE i6tH OCTOBER, l8l2.

HE LABOURED FOR MANY YEARS IN THE EAST, STRIVING

TO BENEFIT MANKIND, BOTH IN THIS WORLD

AND FOR THAT TO COME.

HE TRANSLATED THE HOLY SCRIPTURES INTO HINDUSTANI

AND PERSIAN, AND MADE IT HIS GREAT OBJECT

TO PROCLAIM TO ALL MEN THE GOD AND

SAVIOUR OF WHOM THEY TESTIFY.

HE WILL LONG BE REMEMBERED IN THE COUNTRIES

WHERE HE WAS KNOWN, AS "A MAN OF GOD."

MAY TRAVELLERS OF ALL NATIONS, AS THEY STEP ASIDE

AND LOOK ON THIS MONUMENT, BE LED TO HONOUR,

LOVE, AND SERVE THE GOD AND SAVIOUR OF

THIS DEVOTED MISSIONARY !

The gifted pen of Lord Macaulay has
furnished another epitaph : —

** Here Martyn lies ! In manhood's early bloom
The Christian hero found a pagan tomb ;
Religion, sorrowing o'er her favourite son,
Points to the glorious trophies which he won—
Eternal trophies, not with slaughter red,
Not stained with tears by hopeless captives shed,
But trophies of the Cross ; for that dear name
Through every form of danger, death, and shame,
Onward he journeyed to a happier shore.
Where danger, death, and shame are known no more."

THE MISSION FIELD, 29

For ourselves, a prayer in one of his earliest
journals seems best to express the wishes of
our hearts, both with respect to the influ-
ence of his own memory, and of that higher
example which ruled his life : —

" Memoria tua sancta, et dulcedo tua beatissima pos-
sideant animam meam, atque in invisibilium amorem
rapiant illara,"

11.

WILLIAM CAREY. INDIA, 1793— 183^

There is a story told about the subject of
the following sketch which may be repeated
here by way of introduction. It is said that
long after he had attained to fame and emi-
nence in India, being Professor of oriental
languages in the college of Fort William,
honoured with letters and medals from royal
hands, and able to write F.L.S., F.G.S.,
F.A.S., and other symbols of distinction
after his name, he was dining one day with
a select company at the Governor-General's,
when one of the guests, with more than
questionable taste, asked an aide-de-camp
present, in a whisper loud enough to be
heard by the professor, whether Dr. Carey
had not once been a shoemaker. **No, sir,"
immediately answered the doctor, *' onl}'' a
cobbler!'* Whether he was proud of it,

32 MODERN HEROES OF

we cannot say ; that he had no need to be
ashamed of it, we are sure. He had out-
lived the day when Edinburgh reviewers
tried to heap contempt on ** consecrated
cobblers," and he had established his right to
be enrolled amongst the aristocracy of learn-
ing and philanthropy.

Some fifty years before this incident took
place, a visitor might have seen over a small
shop in a Northamptonshire village a sign-
board with the following inscription : —

Second-hand Shoes Bought and Sold^
WILLIAM CAREY.

The owner of this humble shop was the son
of a poor schoolmaster, who inherited a
taste for learning; and though he was con-
signed to the drudgery of mending boots
and shoes, and was even then a sickly, care-
worn man, in poverty and distress, with a
delicate and unsympathizing wife, he lost
no opportunity of acquiring information both
in languages and natural history, and taught
himself drawing and painting. He always

THE MISSION FIELD, 33

worked with lexicons and classics open upon
his bench ; so that Scott, the commentator,
to whom it is said that he owed his earliest
religious impressions, used to call that shop
** Mr. Carey's college/' His tastes — we
ought rather to say God's providence — soon
led him to open a village school ; and as he
belonged to the Baptist community, he com-
bined with the office of schoolmaster that of
a preacher in their little chapel at Moulton,
with the scanty salary of^ 1 6 a year. Strange
to say, it was whilst giving his daily lessons
in geography that the flame of missionary
zeal was kindled in his bosom. As he looked
upon the vast regions depicted on the map
of the world, he began to ponder on the
spiritual darkness that brooded over so many
of them, and this led him to collect and
collate information on the subject, until his
whole mind was occupiedwith the absorbing
theme.

It so happened that a gathering of Baptist
ministers at Northampton invited a subject
for discussion, and Carey, who was present,
at once proposed ** The duty of Christians

3

34 MODERN HEROES OF

to attempt the spread of the Gospel amongst
heathen nations.'' The proposal fell amongst
them like a bombshell, and the young man
was almost shouted down by those who
thought such a scheme impracticable and
wild. Even Andrew Fuller, who eventually
became his great supporter, confessed that
he found himself ready to exclaim, ** If
the Lord would make windows in heaven,
might this thing be ? " But Carey's zeal was
not to be quenched. He brought forward
the topic again and again ; he wrote a
pamphlet on the subject ; and on his re-
moval to a more important post of duty at
Leicester, he won over several influential
persons to his views. It was at this time
(1792) he preached his famous sermon from
Isaiah liv. 2, 3, and summed up its teaching
in these two important statements : (i)
'* Expect great things from God," and (2)
"Attempt great things for God." This
led to the formation of the Baptist Mis-
sionary Society; and Carey, at the age of
thirty-three, proved his sincerity by volun-
teering to be its first messenger to the

THE MISSION FIELD, 35

heathen. Andrew Fuller had said, ** There
is a gold mine in India ; but it seems as
deep as the centre of the earth ; who will
venture to explore it?" ** I will go down,"
responded William Carey, in words never
to be forgotten, ** but remember that you
must hold the rope." The funds of the
Society amounted at the time tO;^i3 7s 6d,
But the chief difficulties did not arise out
of questions of finance. The East India
Company, sharing the jealousy against
missionary effort, which, alas ! at that time
was to be found amongst the chief states-
men of the realm, and amongst prelates of
the Established Church as well as amongst
Nonconformist ministers, were opposed to
all such efforts, and no one could set his
foot upon the Company's territory without
a special licence. The missionary party
and their baggage were on board the Earl
of Oxford^ and the ship was just ready to
sail, when an information was laid against
the captain for taking a person on board
without an order from the Company, and
forthwith the passengers and their goods

36 MODERN HEROES OF

were hastily put on shore, and the vessel
weighed anchor for Calcutta, leaving them
behind, disappointed and disheartened.

They returned to London. Mr. Thomas,
who was Carey's companion and brother
missionary, went to a coffee-house, when, to
use his own language, ** to the great joy of
a bruised heart, the waiter put a card into
my hand, whereon were written these life-
giving words : * A Danish East India7nan,
No. lo. Cannon Street.^ No more tears that
night. Our courage revived; we fled to
No. lo. Cannon Street, and found it was
the office of Smith and Co., agents, and
that Mr. Smith was a brother of the cap-
tain's ; that this ship had sailed, as he
supposed, from Copenhagen ; was hourly
expected in Dover roads ; would make no
stay there; and the terms were ^loo for
each passenger, £^o for a child, and ^25
for an attendant." This of course brought
up the financial difficulty in a new and
aggravated form ; but the generosity of the
agent and owner of the ship soon overcame
it, and within twenty-four hours of their

THE MISSION FIELD, 37

return to London, Mr. Carey and his party
embarked for Dover; and on the 13th June,
1793, they found themselves on board the
Kron Princessa Maria, where they were
treated with the utmost kindness by the
captain, who admitted them to his own
table, and provided them with special
cabins.

The delay, singularly enough, removed
one of Carey's chief difficulties and regrets.
His wife, who was physically feeble, and
whose deficiency, in respect to moral in-
trepidity, was afterwards painfully accounted
for by twelve years of insanity in India, had
positively refused to accompany him, and
he had consequently made up his mind to
go out alone. She was not with him when
he and his party were suddenly expelled
from the English ship ; but she was so
wrought upon by all that had occurred, as
well as by renewed entreaties, that with her
sister and her fiYe children she set sail with
him for Calcutta.

Difficulties of various kinds surrounded
them upon their arrival in India. Poverty,

38 MODERN HEROES OF

fevers, bereavement, the sad illness of his
wife, the jealousy of the Government, all
combined to render it necessary that for a
while Carey should betake himself to an
employment in the Sunderbunds, where he
had often to use his gun to supply the wants
of his family ; and eventually he went to an
indigo factory at Mudnabully, where he
hoped to earn a livelihood. But he kept
the grand project of his life distinctly in
view; he set himself to the acquisition of
the language, he erected schools, he made
missionary tours, he began to translate the
New Testament, and above all he worked at
his printing press, which was set up in one
corner of the factory, and was looked upon
by the natives as his god.

Carey's feelings at this time with regard
to his work will be best expressed in the
following passage from a letter to his sisters:
** I know not what to say about the mission.
I feel as a farmer does about his crop ;
sometimes I think the seed is springing, and
then I hope ; a little time blasts all, and my
hopes are gone like a cloud. ... I preach

THE MISSION FIELD. 39

every day to the natives, and twice on the
Lord's Day constantly, besides other itine-
rant labours ; and I try to speak of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified, and of Him
alone ; but my soul is often dejected to see
no fruit." And then he goes on to speak
of that department of his labour in which his
greatest achievements were ultimately to be
won : ** The work of translation is going on,
and I hope the whole New Testament and
the five books of Moses may be completed
before this reaches you. It is a pleasant
work and a rich reward, and I trust, when-
ever it is published, it will soon prevail, and
put down all the Shastras of the Hindus.
. . . The translation of the Scriptures I
look upon to be one of the greatest desi-
derata in the world, and it has accordingly
occupied a considerable part of my time and
attention.''

Five or six years of patient unrequited
toil passed by, and then four additional
labourers were sent out by the Society to
Carey's help. Two of them will never be
forgotten, and the names of Carey, Marsh-

40 MODERN HEROES OF

man, and Ward will ever be inseparably
linked in the history of Indian missions.
, Ward had been a printer ; and it was a
saying of Carey's, addressed to him in
England, that led him to adopt a mission-
ary's life: **We shall want you," said he,
** in a few years, to print the Bible ; you
must come after us." Marshman had been
an assistant in a London book-shop, but
soon found that his business there was not
to his taste, as he wished to know more
about the contents of books than about their
covers ; so he set up a school at Bristol,
mastered Greek and Latin, Hebrew and
Syriac, and became prosperous in the world;
but he gave up all to join Carey in his
noble enterprise, and moreover, brought out
with him, as a helper in the mission, a young
man whom he himself had been the means
of converting from infidelity. Marshman's
wife was a cultivated woman, and her
boarding school in India brought in a
good revenue to the mission treasury. His
daughter married Henry Havelock, who
made for himself as great a name in the

THE MISSION FIELD. 41

military annals of his country as his illus-
trious father-in-law had won for himself in
the missionary history of the world.

The jealous and unchristian policy of the
East India Company would not allow the
newly arrived missionaries to join their
brethren, and they were compelled to seek
shelter under a foreign flag. Fortunately
for the cause of missions, a settlement had
been secured by the Danes at Serampore,
some sixteen miles up the river from Cal-
cutta, and it now proved ** a city of refuge"
to Englishmen who had been driven from
territory which owned the British sway.
The governor of the colony, Colonel Bie,
was a grand specimen of his race ; he had
been in early days a pupil of Schwartz, and
he rejoiced in knowing that the kings of
Denmark had been the first Protestant
princes that ever encouraged missions
amongst the heathen. He gave the exiled
missionaries a generous welcome, and again
and again gallantly resisted all attempts to
deprive them of his protection, declaring
that ** if the British Government still refused

42 MODERN HEROES OF

to sanction their continuance in India, they
should have the shield of Denmark thrown
over them if they would remain at Seram-
pore." Carey determined, though it was
accompanied with personal loss to himself,
to join his brethren at Serampore, and the
mission soon was organized in that place,
which became, so to speak, ** the cradle of
Indian missions." It possessed many ad-
vantages : it was only sixty miles from
Nuddea, and was within a hundred of the
Mahratta country; here the missionaries
could preach the Gospel and work their
printing press without fear, and from this
place they could pass under Danish pass-
ports to any part of India. There was a
special providence in their coming to Seram-
pore at the time they did; for in 1801 it
passed over to English rule without the
firing of a shot.

They were soon at work, both in their
schools and on their preaching tours.
Living on homely fare, and working for
their bread, they went forth betimes in pairs
to preach the word of the living God, now

THE MISSION FIELD, 43

in the streets or in the bazaars, now in the
midst of heathen temples, attracting crowds
to hear them by the sweet hymns which
Carey had composed in the native tongue,
and inviting inquirers to the mission-house
for further instruction. The first convert
was baptized in the same year, on the day
after Christmas. His name was Krishnu.
He had been brought to the mission-house
for medical relief, and was so influenced by
what he saw and heard, that he resolved to
become a Christian. On breaking caste by
eating with the missionaries, he was seized
by an enraged mob, and dragged before the
magistrate, but to their dismay he was
released from their hands. Carey had the
pleasure of performing the ceremony of
baptism with his own hands, in presence of
the governor and a crowd of natives and
Europeans. It was his first recompence
after seven years of toil, and it soon led the
way to other conversions. Amongst the rest,
a high-caste Brahmin divested himself of
his sacred thread, joined the Christian
ranks, and preached the faith which he once

44 MODERN HEROES OF

destroyed. Krishnu became an efficient
helper, and built at his own expense the first
place of worship for native Christians in
Bengal. Writing about him twelve years
after his baptism, Carey says, ** He is now
a steady, zealous, well-informed, and I may
add eloquent minister of the Gospel, and
preaches on an average twelve or fourteen
times every week in Calcutta and its
neighbourhood."

But we must turn from the other labourers
and the general work of the mission to dwell
upon the special work for which Carey's
tastes and qualifications so admirably fitted
him. We have seen that his heart was set
on the translation and printing of the Scrip-
tures, and to this from the outset he sedu-
lously devoted himself. On the 17th March,
1800, the first sheet of the Bengali New
Testament was ready for the press, and in
the next year Carey was able to say, " I
have lived to see the Bible translated into
Bengali, and the whole New Testament
printed." But this was far from being the
end of Carey's enterprise. In 1806, the

THE MISSION FIELD. 45

Serampore missionaries contemplated and
issued proposals for rendering the Holy
Scriptures into fifteen oriental languages,
viz., Sanscrit, Bengali, Hindustani, Persian,
Mahratta, Guzarathi, Oriya, Kurnata, Te-
linga, Burman, Assam, Boutan, Thibetan,
Malay, and Chinese. Professor Wilson, the
Boden Professor of Sanscrit at Oxford, has
told us how this proposal was more than
accomplished: ** They published," he says,
** in the course of about five-and-twenty
years, translations of portions of the Old
and New Testament, more or less consider-
able, in forty different dialects." It is not
pretended that they were conversant with
all these forms of speech, but they employed
competent natives, and as they themselves
were masters of Sanscrit and several ver-
nacular dialects, they were able to guide
and superintend them.

In all this work Dr. Carey (for the degree
of Doctor of Divinity had been bestowed on
him by a learned university) took a leading
part. Possessed of at least six different
dialects, a thorough master of the Sanscrit,

46 MODERN HEROES OF

which is the parent of the whole family, and
gifted besides with a rare genius for philo-
logical investigation, **he carried the pro-
ject," says the professor, "to as successful
an issue as could have been expected from
the bounded faculties of man." And when
it is remembered that he began his work
at a time when there were no helps or
appliances for his studies; when grammars
and dictionaries of these dialects were un-
known, and had to be constructed by
himself; when even manuscripts of them
were scarce, and printing was utterly un-
known to the natives of Bengal, the work
which he not only set before him, but
accomplished, must be admitted to have
been Herculean. Frequently did he weary
out three pundits in the day, and to the
last hour of his life he never intermitted
his labours. The following apology for
not engaging more extensively in corre-
spondence will be read with interest, and
allowed to be a sufficient one : — ** I trans-
late from Bengali and from Sanscrit into
English. Every proof-sheet of the Bengali

THE MISSION FIELD. 47

and Mahratta Scriptures must go three
times at least through ray hands. A
dictionary of the Sanscrit goes once at
least through my hands. I have written
and printed a second edition of the Bengali
grammar, and collected materials for a
Mahratta dictionary. Besides this, I preach
twice a week, frequently thrice, and attend
upon my collegiate duties. I do not men-
tion this because I think my work a burden
— it is a real pleasure — but to show that
my not writing many letters is not because
I neglect my brethren, or wish them to
cease writing to me.'*

Carey was by no means a man of brilliant
genius, still less was he a man of warm
enthusiasm ; he had nothing of the senti-
mental, or speculative, or imaginative in
his disposition ; but he was a man of un-
tiring energy and indomitable perseverance.
Difficulties seemed only to develop the one
and to increase the other. These difficul-
ties arose from various quarters, sometimes
from the opposition of the heathen, some-
times from the antagonism of the Britibh

4S MODERN HEROES OF

Government, sometimes, and more painfully,
from the misapprehensions or injudiciousness
of the Society at home ; but he never was
dismayed. On the contrary, he gathered
arguments for progress from the opposition
that was made to it. ** There is," he writes
**a very considerable difference in the
appearance of the mission, which to me is
encouraging. The Brahmins are now most
inveterate in their opposition ; they oppose
the Gospel with the utmost virulence, and
the very name of Jesus Christ seems
abominable in their ears." And all this
is the more remarkable, when we remember
that he was by nature indolent. He says of
himself, ** No man ever living felt inertia
to so great a degree as I do." He was
in all respects a man of principle, and not
of impulse. Kind and gentle, he was yet
firm and unwavering. Disliking compli-
ments and commendations for himself, it
was not his habit to bestow them upon
others. Indeed, he tells us that the only
attempt which he ever made to pay a com-
pliment met with such discouragement, that

THE MISSION FIELD. 49

never had any inclination to renew the
attempt. A nephew of the celebrated
President Edwards called upon him with a
letter of introduction, and Carey congratu-
lated him on his relationship to so great a
personage; but the young man dryly replied,
** True, sir, but every tub must stand on its
own bottom.'*

From his childhood he had been in
earnest in respect to anything he under-
took. He once tried to climb a tree and
reach a nest, but failed, and soon came to
the ground; yet, though he had to limp
home bruised and wounded, the first thing
he did, when able again to leave the house,
was to climb that same tree and take that
identical nest. This habit of perseverance
followed him through life. One evening,
just before the missionaries retired to rest,
the printing office was discovered to be on
fire, and in a short time it was totally
destroyed. Buildings, types, paper, proofs,
and, worse than all, the Sanscrit and other
translations perished in the flames. Ten
thousand pounds' worth of property was

4

50 MODERN HEROES OF

destroyed that night, no portion of which
was covered by insurance ; but under the
master mind of Carey the disaster was soon
retrieved. A portion of the metal was re-
covered from the wreck, and as the punches
and matrices had been saved, the types
were speedily recast. Within two months
the printers were again at their work ;
within two more the sum required to repair
the premises had been collected ; and within
seven the Scriptures had been re-translated
into the Sanscrit language. Carey preached
on the next Lord's-day after the conflagra-
tion, from the text, *' Be still, and know that
I am God," and set before his hearers two
thoughts : (i) God has a sovereign right to
dispose of us as He pleases ; (2) we ought
to acquiesce in all that God does with us
and to us. Writing to a friend at this
time, he calmly remarks that *' travelling
a road the second time, however painful
it may be, is usually done with greater
ease and certainty than when we travel
it for the first time/' To such a man
success was already assured, and by such

THE MISSION FIELD, 51

a man success was well deserved. And it
came.

When the Government looked round for
a suitable man to fill the chair of oriental
languages in their college at Fort William,
their choice fell, almost as a necessity, upon
the greatest scholar in India, and so the
persecuted missionary became the honoured
Professor of Sanscrit, Bengali, and Mahratta,
at one thousand rupees a month. He stipu-
lated, however, that he would accept the
office only on the condition that his position
as a missionary should be recognized ; and
he took a noble revenge upon those who
had so long opposed his work, by devoting
the whole of his newly-acquired salary to
its further extension. His new position
served to call attention to missionary work ;
and by degrees a better feeling sprang up
towards it both at home and abroad. Carey
and his companions were at length able to
preach in the bazaars of Calcutta. Fresh
labourers had come to India. Corrie,
Browne, Martyn, and Buchanan were stirring
the depths of Christian sympathy by their

52 MODERN HEROES OF

work and by their appeals. Grant, Wilber-
force, and Macaulay were rousing the British
nation to some faint sense of duty ; so that
when the charter of the East India Company
came to be renewed in 1813, the restrictive
regulations were defeated in the House of
Commons by a majority of more than two
to one. In the very next year the founda-
tions of the Indian Episcopate were laid;
and in the following year Dr. Middleton, the
first Metropolitan of India (having Ceylon
for one archdeaconry, and Australia for
another !) was visiting the Serampore mis-
sionaries, in company with the Governor-
General, and expressing his admiration and
astonishment at their work.

Distinctions crowded fast upon the North-
amptonshire cobbler. Learned societies
thought themselves honoured by admitting
him to membership. He had proved him-
self a useful citizen, as well as a devoted
missionary. He had established a botanic
garden, and edited *^ The Flora Indica ; "
he had founded an agricultural society, and
was elected its president ; he suggested a

THE MISSION FIELD. 53

pTantatlon committee for India, and was its
most active member; he collected a splendid
museum of natural history, which he be-
queathed to his college; he was an early
associate of the Asiatic Society, and con-
tributed largely to its researches ; he had
translated the ** Ramayana,'' the most
ancient poem in the Sanscrit language, into
three volumes ; he was a constant writer in
the Friend of hidia ; he founded a college
of his own, and obtained for it a royal
charter from the King of Denmark ; and
in these and other ways he helped forward
the moral and political reforms which have
done so much for Hindustan. He was one
of the first to memorialize the Government
against the horrid infanticides at Sangor,
and he lived to see them put down. He
was early in the field to denounce the mur-
derous abominations of the Suttee, and to
oppose to them the authority even of the
Hindu Vedas, and he had the satisfaction
of seeing them abolished by Lord William
Bentinck. He protested all along against
the pilgrim tax, and the support afforded by

54 MODERN HEROES OF

the Bengal Government to the worship of
Juggernaut, and he did not die until he
saw the subject taken up by others who
carried it to a triumphant issue. What
would have been his devout gratitude, had
he lived to see the last links of connection
between the Government and the idol
temples severed in 1840, and Hindu and
Mohammedan laws, which inflicted for-
feiture of all civil rights on those who
became Christians, abrogated by the Lex
Loci Act of 1850! What would have been
the joy of Carey, of Martyn, or of Corrie,
could they have heard the testimony borne
to the character and success of missions in
India by Sir Richard Temple, the late
Governor of Madras, at a public meeting
held last year in Birmingham ! He said,
•* I have governed a hundred and five
millions of the inhabitants of India, and I
have been concerned with eighty- five millions
more in my official capacity. . • . I have
thus had acquaintance with, or been authen-
tically informed regarding, nearly all the
missionaries of all the societies labouring

THE MISSION FIELD. 55

in India within the last forty years. . . .
And what is my testimony concerning- these
men? They are most efficient as pastors
of their native flocks, and as evangelists in
preaching in cities and villages from one
end of India to the other. In the work of
converting the heathen to the knowledge
and practice of the Christian religion, they
show great learning in all that relates to the
native religion and to the caste system. . . .
They are, too, the active and energetic
friends of the natives in all times of danger
and emergency."

So far as to the character of the mission-
aries. Speaking of their success, he said,
" It has sometimes been stated in the public
prints, which speak with authority, that their
progress has been arrested. Now, is this
really the case ? Remember that missionary
work in India began in the year 1813, or
sixty-seven years ago. There are in the
present year not less than 350,000 native
Christians, besides 150,000 scholars, who,
though not all Christians, are receiving
Christian instruction ; that is, 500,000 people,

56 MODERN HEROES OF

or half a million, brought under the influence
of Christianity. And the annual rate of in-
crease in the number of native Christians has
progressed with advancing years. At first
it was reckoned by hundreds yearly, then by
thousands, and further on by tens of thou-
sands. . . . But it will be asked, what is the
character of these Christian converts in India?
what practically is their conduct as Chris-
tians? Now, I am not about to claim for
them any extreme degree of Christian per-
fection. But speaking of them as a class, I
venture to affirm that the Christian religion
has exercised a dominant influence over their
lives, and has made a decided mark on their
conduct. They adhere to their faith under
social difficulties. Large sacrifices have to
be made by them. . . . The number of
apostates may almost be counted on the
fingers. . . . There is no such thing as decay
in religion, nor any retrogression towards
heathenism. On the contrary, they exhibit
a laudable desire for the self-support and
government of their Church. ... I believe
that if hereafter, during any revolution, any

THE MISSION FIELD, 57

attempts were to be made by secular violence
to drive the native Christians back from their
religion, many of them would attest their
faith by martyrdom."

Carey was not the man to wish or to
expect that Government should step out of
its sphere in order to enforce Christianity
upon the natives. ** Do you not think,
Dr. Carey/' asked a Governor-General,
*' that it would be wrong to force the Hindus
to be Christians?" ** My Lord," was the
reply, '* the thing is impossible; we may,
indeed, force men to be hypocrites, but no
power on earth can force men to become
Christians." Carey, however, was too clear-
headed not to see, and too honest not to say,
that it was one thing to profess neutrality,
and another to sanction idolatry ; that it was
one thing to abstain from using earthly
power to propagate truth, and quite another
to thwart rational and scriptural methods of
diffusing it. And he was too much of a
statesman, as well as too much of a mission-
ary, not to see that in respect to some tenets
of the Hindu system it would be impossible

58 MODERN HEROES OF

for the Government eventually to remain
neutral, inasmuch as they subverted the very
foundations upon which all government is
based.

Such was the man who in the sequel won
deserved honour even from hostile critics,
and earned high encomiums from even pre-
judiced judges. Well might Lord Wellesley,
who was, perhaps, the greatest of Indian
statesmen, say concerning him, after listen-
ing to the first Sanscrit speech ever delivered
in India by an European, and hearing that in
it Carey had recognized his noble efforts for
the good of India, ** I esteem such a testi-
mony from such a man a greater honour than
the applause of courts and parliaments."

Still, amidst all his labours and all his
honours, he kept the missionary enterprise
distinctly in view, and during the forty years
of his residence in India he gave it the fore-
most place. Several opportunities and no
small inducements for returning to his native
land were presented to him, but he declined
them all. *' I account this my own country,"
he said, **and have not the least inclination

THE MISSION FIELD, 59

to leave it ; " and he never did. To the last
his translations of the Scriptures and his
printing press were his chief care and his
chief delight. He counted it so sacred a
work, that he believed that a portion of the
Lord's-day could not be better employed
than in correcting his proof-sheets. In his
seventy- third year, when weak from illness
and old age, and drawing near to death, he
writes, ** I am now only able to sit and to lie
upon my couch, and now and then to read a
proof-sheet of the Scriptures ; but I am too
weak to walk more than across the house,
nor can I stand even a few minutes without
support." His last work was to revise
his Bengali Bible, and on completing it he
says, ** There is scarcely anything for which
I desired to live a little longer so much as
for that.*'

He went back to Serampore to die ; and
** he died in the presence of all his brethren."
It must have been a touching sight to see
Dr. Wilson, the Metropolitan of India, stand-
ing by the death-bed of the dying Baptist,
and asking for his blessing. It bore v^itness

6o MODERN HEROES OF

to the large-he'artedness both of the prelate
and of the missionary, and was a scene that
did honour alike to the living and to the
dying. Carey in his will directed that his
funeral should be as plain as possible ; that
he should be laid in the same grave with
his second wife, the accomplished Charlotte
Rumohr, who had been a real helper to him
in his work ; and that on the simple stone
which marked his grave there should be
placed this inscription, and no more: —

William Carey,
Born August i^thf 1761 / died ,

Loving hands filled up the blank with " the
gih June, 1834." Before he died he had
the privilege of seeing three of his sons en-
gaged in the work to which he had devoted
his own life. The name of one of them
will meet us in another field of labour. He
had aided in the establishment of more
than thirty different missionary stations in
various parts of India, and these were minis-
tered to by some fifty pastors, one half of
whom were natives of the country. He had

THE MISSION FIELD. 6i

seen a goodly number of converts gathered
from heathenism into the Christian fold; and
he had provided for them, and for multitudes
who were to follow, the sacred Scriptures in
their own divers tongues.

He sleeps in the mission burial ground
of Serampore, beside Ward and Marshman.
Ward had preceded him to the blessed rest
by some eleven years, Marshman survived
him by only three. They had lived and
worked together in the midst of trial and
opposition, for a quarter of a century, and
they had learned to love one another as
brothers. They had ** coveted no man's
silver or gold or apparel ; " their ** own
hands had ministered to their necessities."
** Marshman," says his biographer, ** died
like his colleagues, in graceful poverty,
having devoted little short of ;^40,ooo to
the mission, through a long life of priva-
tion. ** Their motives and their support
amidst all their difficulties and dangers may
be summed up in the following lines, which
were written by Ward on his arrival at
Serampore : —

62 HEROES OF THE MISSION FIELD,

** Lord, we are safe beneath Thy shade,
And so shall be 'midst India's heat:
What should a missionary dread,
Since devils crouch at Jesus' feet?

•* There, blessed Saviour, let Thy cross
Win many Hindu hearts to Thee \
This shall make up for every loss.
Whilst Thou art ours eternally."

Speaking of this illustrious triumvirate, a
dignitary of our Church in India has said,
** There were only a few men at Serampore,
but they were all giants.*' Other and dis-
tinguished missionaries succeeded them in
their labours, but it is no disparagement
to apply to them the language used con-
cerning David's mighty men : ** Howbeit
they attained not unto the first three ; " and
we may add concerning Carey, what is said
of the Tachmonite, ** He sat in the seat, the
chief amongst the captains.'

y%

III.

ADONIRAM JUDSON, BURMAH, 1813— 1850.

America has taken a prominent place in
modern missionary effort. For a century
and a half she had been engaged in desultory
efforts for the heathen on her own continent,
and men like Elliott and Brainerd had done
a noble work for the perishing Red Indians.
But the beginning of this century witnessed
a grand outburst of missionary spirit beyond
the Atlantic, and this spirit soon carried its
messengers east and west across the waters
to the shores of the Old World, where now
they are to be found rivalling both in
numbers and in zeal their elder European
brethren. Burmah, India, China, Africa,
and the Isles of the Pacific bear witness to
their labours ; the Turkish Empire stands
pre-eminently indebted to their efforts ; and
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe has borne such

64 MODERN HEROES OF

a testimony to what he saw and knew of
American missionaries in Syria, Armenia,
and Kurdistan, as proves their title to a
distinguished place amongst the warriors of
the cross.

Adoniram Judson (born in 1788, in the
home of a Congregationalist minister in
Massachusetts), as he was amongst the first
of his countrymen to feel this new impulse,
so was he confessedly the foremost in im-
parting it to others. The mission to Burmah,
which was the first outcome of this awakened
zeal, and in some respects the greatest and
noblest field of its victories, must always be
identified with him, and with those three
illustrious women who were successively his
wives, and whose names and labours must
for ever be inseparably linked with his. In
reading the eventful story of the Judsons, so
full of peril and of patience, so marked by
suffering and success, we seem as if we had
alighted upon some grand romance ; but we
rise from its perusal with a deep conviction of
its stern reality, and with a growing admiration
of the Christian heroism which it displays.

THE MISSION FIELD. 65

Judson, as it has been well said, was ** a
missionary of the apostolic school." Like
others who have led the van in the assaults
of the Gospel upon paganism, he was a man
pre-eminently endowed both by nature and
by grace for the great work in which Provi-
dence employed him. We shall find, as a
rule, that it is not the intellectually halt and
feeble who have been called to ** jeopard
their lives unto the death in the high places
of the field," and that the men who have
gained this high distinction have moreover
been baptized in a remarkable degree ** with
the Holy Ghost and with power." Such
was Judson. The early precocity of his
genius may be gathered from the fact that
at three years of age he could read ; that
before he was ten he had gained a reputation
for solving difficult arithmetical problems ;
and that when he entered college at sixteen,
he obtained the highest place. Bright,
intellectual, and enthusiastic, he was more-
over extravagantly ambitious. His father
had said one day that *' he would be a great
man," and a great man he resolved to be.

5

66 MODERN HEROES OF

He dreamt of being a statesman, an orator,
a poet, and he built his castles in the air
accordingly ; but he was far nearer the
truth when, at four years of age, he used to
collect the village children around him, and,
mounted upon a chair, would preach to them
a simple gospel with singular earnestness.
His father and mother remembered in after
years that the favourite hymn with which he
prefaced these infant exercises was one
beginning with the prophetic words —

" Go preach my Gospel, saith the Lord."

Brought up in a pious home, he had been
visited by serious thoughts ; but religion
seemed to stand in the way of his ambition,
and the wave of French infidelity reached
him through the influence of a brilliant but
sceptical fellow-student. Judson's thoughts
and plans became consequently unsettled.
Now we find him teaching a school at Ply-
mouth, now attaching himself to a dramatic
company, now touring in search of excite-
ment through the Northern States. It was
during this tour that God rescued him from

THE MISSION FIELD. 67

infidelity and sin. He had reached a countiy
inn, and the landlord apologized for putting
him to sleep in the next room to that of a
young man who was dying, but he had none
other to offer him. Sad sounds came from
that sick chamber through the midnight
hours, and they stirred up solemn thoughts
and anxious inquiries in Judson's breast. He
made the case of that young man his own,
and as he did so he felt the shallowness of
his own newly-adopted philosophy, and its
insufficiency to sustain him in the hour of
death. The morning dawned, and he in-
quired about the sufferer. ** He is dead."
He asked his name, and was stunned at
finding that it was that of his friend — shall
we not rather say of his tempter? That
morning he turned his horse's head towards
home ; God had begun a work in his heart,
which resulted in true conversion. Soon we
find him in the calm retirement of the Theo-
logical School at Andover, patiently inquiring
into the truth of God, and ultimately yielding
himself to Christ with a fulness of conviction
and satisfaction, which never afterwards

63 MODERN HEROES OF

during his life was harassed by a single
doubt.

Two years had scarcely passed by since
that memorable night at the wayside inn.
His father was now a pastor at Plymouth,
and had conceived plans for his son's pre-
ferment. The minister of the largest church
at Boston was willing to take young Judson
as a colleague, and the parents, delighted at
the prospect, complacently apprised him of
the good news. **You will be so near
home,'* said the mother. But Judson did
not speak. His sister chimed in with her
congratulations ; and then the young man
found a tongue, and earnestly replied, ** No,
sister, I shall never live in Boston ; I have
much farther to go." Two years before he
had startled them by the announcement of
his infidel opinions ; they were scarcely less
startled now, though in a strangely different
way, by hearing his firm resolve to be a
missionary to the heathen.

How had it come about? He had met
with Buchanan's ** Star in the East," and
this had awakened the missionary spirit.

THE MISSION FIELD. 69

He had read Syme's ** Embassy to Ava,"
and this had turned his whole soul towards
Burmah and its benighted Buddhists. The
leaven of missionary enterprise had begun
to work in the Andover seminary. Three
young men — their names deserve to be
recorded — Mills, Richards, and Rice — had
formed themselves into a missionary society
in the college, with the object of training
themselves for work amongst the heathen.
Judson joined them, and soon became the
leading spirit of the devoted band. Some
one asked him in later life, during a visit to
America, whether he had been more in-
fluenced hy /ait k or love in going to Burmah.
He paused a moment, and then peplied,
'* There was in me at that time little of
either; but in thinking of what did influence
me, I remember a time out in the woods
behind Andover seminary, when I was almost
disheartened. Everything looked dark. No
one had gone out from this country. The
way was not open. The field was far distant,
and in an unhealthy climate. I knew not
what to do. All at once Christ's * last

70 MODERN HEROES OF

command* seemed to come to my heart
directly from heaven. I could doubt no
longer, but, determined on the spot to obey
it at all hazards, for the sake of pleasing the
Lord Jesus Christ ^ And then he added
these memorable words, ** If the Lord wants
you for missionaries. He will send that word
home to your hearts. If He does so, you
neglect it at your peril I "

Out of that little group of students, as
from a fruitful germ, grew up ** The
American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions," and Judson was their
earliest and noblest agent. But first he was
sent to England (in 1811) to confer with the
London Missionary Society, and on the way
was captured by a French privateer, and
confined with other prisoners in the hold.
Here, as he was translating from his Hebrew
Bible into Latin, the doctor discovered him,
and contrived his release from this part of
the vessel. Landed at Bayonne, he was
marched as a prisoner through the streets,
and attracted the attention of a fellow-
countryman by exclaiming against the in-

THE MISSION FIELD, 71

justice of detaining an American. This
kindly citizen visited the dungeon to which
Judson had been consigned, and managed to
pass the prisoner out under the capacious
folds of his own great cloak. Eventually
Judson made his way to England, where he
was kindly received, and whence he was
promised help ; but this foreign aid was not
needed, for the American Board of Missions
had already attracted large support, and
Judson soon re-crossed the Atlantic, and was
set apart for his grand enterprise. He was to
go to some Asiatic field — in India or Burmah,
according as God's providence should point
the way. On the 5th February, 181 2, he
married the beautiful Anne Hasseltine;
twelve days later he embarked with her for
Calcutta, and on the 17th of June they
reached their destination.

And here began the link with Serampore
and the strange events which led to the
formation of the Burmese mission. Carey
and his fellow-labourers invited them to stay
at the mission-house ; and as Judson's views
on baptism had undergone a change during

72 MODERN HEROES OF

the voyage out, he severed his connection
with the American Board, and resolved to
cast in his lot with the Baptist missionaries.
But the East India Company, hostile to their
work, and alarmed at this new influx of
missionary labourers, issued a peremptory
order that they should return to their own
country. It so happened that a Mr. Chater
and Felix Carey (a son of the famous
Serampore missionary) had gone a short time
previously to Rangoon, to pioneer a way for
missions in the empire of ** the Golden
Sovereign of land and water." It was de-
cided to send the new-comers thither ; but
even this could be effected only by stratagem.
They were smuggled on board a vessel for
the Mauritius, but were detected, and forced
to disembark ; they contrived to get on
board again, and on reaching St. Louis
found that they must visit Madras as the
only way of reaching Burmah. Here they
narrowly escaped from another order of the
Company, and eventually in a crazy vessel
reached Rangoon in July 1813, half dead
with sickness and discomfort.

THE MISSION FIELD. 73

It was a disheartening and a gloomy pro-
spect that lay before them. There was at
this time no provision made for their support.
They were in a land of slaves ruled over by
a despotic tyrant, and by rapacious viceroys,
who were well called ** the eaters of the
provinces.'* Brutal murders and audacious
robberies were of continual occurrence. The
mission-house was close to the spot where
public executions were constantly taking
place. All around rose the gilded pagodas
where the great Gaudama, as an incarnation
of Buddha, was adored. In every street
were seen the lamasaries, or homes of the
priests, who were reckoned to be one in
every thirty of the population, and who
taught the cheerless creed of ** Nirwana," or
annihilation. Very few had so much as
heard the name of Jesus, and it was death,
according to the law, to renounce the faith
of Buddha, which, alas ! is still the dreary
creed of three hundred millions of the
earth's inhabitants. No marvel then that
Judson and his wife should record that
their first day in Burmah was "the most

74 MODERN HEROES OF

gloomy and distressing" that ever they had
passed.

But the devoted pair set to work at once,
applying themselves to the acquisition of the
spoken tongue and of Pali, which is, so to
speak, the sacred text of Ava. Like all true
Protestant missionaries, Judson felt that if he
was to reach their hearts, he must not only
speak their language, but that he must also
give the people the Word of God in their own
tongue. The Burmans are a reading people,
and this was an additional reason for, and a
fresh stimulus to, his work. So well did he
succeed, that a Burmese governor, who re-
ceived one of his translations four years after
his arrival, could scarcely believe that it
was the work of a foreigner. But we cannot
dwell on this portion of his work. We may,
however, mention here that in 1834, after
twenty years of patient toil, he completed
his translation of the whole Bible ; and when
the last page passed through his hands, he
knelt down and prayed ** for the forgiveness
of Heaven on all the sins that had mingled
with his labours, and commended his work

THE MISSION FIELD. 75

to the mercy and grace of God, to be used as
an instrument for converting the heathen to
Himself." There was then no grammar nor
dictionary of the language, and this made his
task one of extreme difficulty ; but before he
died he rendered the work of his successors
comparatively light by compiling a grammar,
and nearly completing a dictionary of the
Burmese tongue. They remain to this day
as monuments of his industry and talent, and
have not yet been superseded. Nor was this
all : he imported a printing press from
Serampore, and a printer from America
(where the Baptists had adopted his mission),
and he published ** A Summary of Christian
Doctrine,'' and many valuable tracts, the
circulation of which was greatly blessed.

Four years having been spent in pre-
liminary study, Judson went to Chittagong,
to try and find amongst the native Christians
some one who knew the Burmese tongue,
and could assist him in his work. There he
was unexpectedly detained for seven months;
but his brave wife remained at her post,
with other missionaries who had arrived

l(> MODERN HEROES OF

at Rangoon, gathering the native women
around her, and teaching them the story of
redeeming love. When persecution broke
out, she not only prevented the abandonment
of the mission by her firmness and decision,
but she went in person to the authorities, and
by her tact and address obtained a repeal
of their harsh enactments. When cholera
raged, and the rest of the party resolved to
leave for Bengal in the last remaining vessel,
she braced her mind to the occasion, returned
to the mission house, pursued her studies as
formerly, and *'left events with God."

On his return Mr. Judson began what he
felt to be the great purpose of his life — his
evangelistic work. Under the shadow of the
grand pagoda, and in a crowded thorough-
fare, he built a humble zayat, or hall of public
resort. Its walls were made of bamboo, and
it was covered in with thatch. One room
was open to the street, and there he sat all
day to receive those whom interest or
curiosity induced to listen to his message.
Another room was fitted up for public
worship, and a third was devoted to classes

THE MISSION FIELD. 77

ks^'. the women, and opened on the garden of
the mission-house. Quietly and slowly, but
steadily and surely, the work went on. In-
quirers, opponents, cavillers, found their way
to that humble shed. He soon discovered
that the philosophies and speculations of
Europe had been anticipated in the East;
that Idealism and Nihilism had been dis-
cussed by Brahmins and Buddhists centuries
before the days of Berkeley and Hume ; and
that amongst the professors of the national
creed there existed a large proportion of
semi-atheists and metaphysical sceptics.
With these he reasoned, dealing now with
their common sense, and now with their
consciences, pressing home on each the
need man has of a Saviour and a Sanctifier,
and showing how God has provided these in
His glorious Gospel. At length one convert
declared himself on the side of Christ, and
Moung Nau was baptized as the firstfruits
of Burmah unto the Lord. Two others
followed ; but persecution threatened, and so
on a November evening, when the sun had
gone down, they made their humble, timid

78 MODERN HEROES OF

profession. ** Perhaps," said the missionary,
** if we deny Him not, He will acknowledge
us, another day, more publicly than we
venture at present to acknowledge Him."
It was some comfort to him to find that on
the next Lord's-day, after the services were
over, ** the three converts repaired to the
zayat, and held a prayer-meeting of their
own accord."

By this time the number of Inquirers began
to excite the alarm of the Buddhist priests.
A new and by no means friendly viceroy had
replaced Mya-day-men, who had shown the
Judsons no little kindness. He observed
the zayat, and it was soon perceived that it
was here the converts had learned ** to for-
sake the religion of the country." Moreover
the old emperor had died, and his successor,
who was supposed to be a zealous Buddhist,
had initiated his reign by gilding the great
pagoda, which contained the sacred hairs
of Gaudama, and by passing sundry enact-
ments in favour of the popular religion.
The growing fear of persecution checked
inquiry, and the work was likely to cease.

THE MISSION FIELD. 79

Under these circumstances Judson thought
it well to secure, if possible, the royal pro-
tection, or, at all events, some measure of
toleration, and so he resolved to go to Ava,
and to wait upon the emperor. Accordingly,
he and Mr. Colman, a brother missionary,
set out for the capital, with some valuable
presents for members of the court, and a
Bible in six volumes, covered with gold-leaf,
to lay before the ** golden feet.'* His old
friend, Mya-day-men, undertook to present
them, and every forehead was laid in the dust
as the modern Ahasuerus, with royal gait,
and with gold-sheathed sword in hand, gave
audience in the splendid palace. After he
had asked several questions, and heard the
Prime Minister read the petition, he held
out his hand for the tract, which contained
a brief summary of the Christian faith. As
he silently read the opening sentences, the
hearts of the missionaries sent up a secret
prayer to God — ** Have mercy on Burmah !
have mercy on her king ! " But he dashed
the paper to the ground with palpable dis-
dain. An attempt to conciliate him was

8o MODERN HEROES OF

made by unfolding and displaying one of
the attractive volumes ; but the *' Sovereign
of land and sea" took no notice. The
Prime Minister interpreted his master's will :
— ** In regard to the objects of your petition,
His Majesty gives no order; in regard to
your sacred books, His Majesty has no use
for them : take them away."

With a heavy heart they returned home.
Before they did so, however, they learned,
to their deep dismay, that some fifteen years
before a Burmese, who had been converted
by the Portuguese priests, and sent to Rome
to complete his education, was on his return
accused before the authorities by his own
nephew, and subjected to the cruel torture
of the iron mall. Beaten from head to foot
till his body was one living wound, he still
pronounced the name of Christ, and refused
to deny his faith. The story held out a sad
prospect of what converts might expect, but
the missionaries gathered some comfort from
the sample of constancy which it exhibited ;
and strange to say, on their return, the
recital of it was blessed in deciding some

THE MISSION FIELD, 8i

waverers as to their future course. The
missionaries now resolved to leave Burmah
for a while, with their three converts, and
to go to a region between Bengal and
Arracan, where a kindred tongue was spoken.
This resolution produced dismay amongst
the little group of inquirers at Rangoon.
** Do stay with us," they said, **till there
are ten disciples, and then appoint one to
be the teacher of the rest when you are
gone.'* The appeal was irresistible, and
fervent prayer followed it. It reminds us of
Abraham's intercession for Sodom ; but in
this case ** the ten " were found. Before five
months had passed, Judson was able to take
his wife, whose health was seriously impaired,
to Calcutta, and to leave the infant church
to the native care of Moung Shwa-gnong.
But within six months they returned to their
little flock, and found their converts, not-
withstanding much persecution, true to their
profession, and glad beyond measure to
welcome them. It was a cheering thing,
moreover, to see their old friend, the kindly
viceroy, just reinstated in office. The ene-

6

82 MODERN HEROES OF

mies of the Gospel had gone to him with
an accusation against the native teacher
— ** He has turned the priests' rice-pot
bottom upwards." "What matter!" said
the viceroy; ** let the priests turn it back
again."

The work went on ; disciples began to
increase ; schools were opened, and two re-
markable men, Moung Shwa-ba and Moung
Ing, of whom we shall hear again, were
added to the Church ; so that although
** Mama Judson," as the natives loved to
call her, was suffering severely from liver
complaint, and had to go for two years to
America, as her last chance of life, her
noble husband resolved to remain at his
post. He was almost the only person on
earth who had such a knowledge of their
language as to be of use to the pagans of
Burmah. And so with sorrowful hearts the
husband and wife parted. Dr. Price, a
medical missionary, now joined the mission.
His fame reached **the golden ears," and
he was summoned to Ava. Judson accom-
panied him as interpreter. The reception

THE MISSION FIELD. 83

on this occasion was more favourable than
the last; but the ** golden mouth" put some
alarming questions to Judson : '* And you
in black, are you a medical man too?"
** Not a medical man, but a teacher of re-
ligion, your Majesty." " Have any of the
Burmese embraced it ? " Judson diplo-
matically replied, **Not here." ** But are
there any in Rangoon ? " demanded the
emperor. ** There are a few." ** Are they
foreigners ? " persisted the despotic king.
Judson trembled for the consequences ; but
the truth must be told at all hazards.
** Some foreigners and some Burmese," he
replied. There was an awful silence ; but
He who is mightier than the kings of the
earth restrained man's wrath, and before
Judson left the capital he had preached to
both king and courtiers, and received an
invitation to return and reside at Ava.

Mrs. Judson came back from America in
December 1823, with additional missionary
helpers, and within seven days of her arrival
at Rangoon she and her husband were sail-
ing up the Irrawady, on their way to Ava.

84 MODERN HEROES OF

The natives, who had never seen a white
woman before, flocked in crowds to witness
the wondrous sight, and soon the happy
missionary and his devoted wife were in-
stalled in the premises assigned them by the
king. Their work in the capital had begun
under the most favourable circumstances ; he
was engaged in preaching, and she in con-
ducting her school, when intelligence arrived
of hostilities with the British, followed by
the news that Rangoon had been captured !
The few Englishmen in Ava were imme-
diately imprisoned, and orders were issued
for the arrest of the foreign teachers. Judson
was suddenly seized, in his wife's presence,
by an armed band, who threw him on the
floor, tied his arms behind his back, and
hurried him to prison. She barred herself
with her four Burmese girls into an inner
room, to escape the savagery of the infuriated
guards. In the morning she contrived to
send the faithful Moung Ing to make in-
quiries, and he brought back word that
Judson and Price and the English merchants
were in the death-prison, with three pairs of

THE MISSION FIELD. 85

iron fetters on each, and all fastened to a
long pole to prevent their moving.

We cannot enter into the particulars of
that two years' terrible captivity, or of the
heroic efforts made by Anne Judson to
assuage the sufferings of her husband and
his fellow-prisoners. But it is not too much
to say that it was owing to her tact and
intercessions that they were not murdered.
It is a record on the one side of the noblest
patience, and on the other of the most devoted
love. During part of the time, and that too
the hottest season of the year, Judson was
shut up with some hundred Burmese robbers
in a cell that had no window, and they were
so jammed together that he could not find
room to stretch himself. It was a rare
luxury when he obtained the reversion of a
lion's cage, after the poor animal had been
starved to death, because it was supposed'
to be mysteriously connected with English
power. The head-jailer, himself a branded
murderer, was an incarnation of cruelty and
mocking jocularity. After a time Mrs. Jud-
son contrived, partly by presents and partly

86 MODERN HEROES OF

by appeals, to have the rigour of his bond-
age somewhat relaxed, and she kept up
secret communications with him by writing
on flat cakes which were concealed in bowls
of rice, and by stuffing scraps of paper into
the mouth of an old coffee-pot. Only once
during his long captivity did his brave spirit
give way. His wife had contrived a surprise
that might remind him of home by concoct-
ing something like a mince pie with buffalo
beef and plantains. He had borne taunts
and insults without shrinking; he had en-
dured fever and ague without dismay ; he
had seen some of his European fellow-
prisoners die from extremity of hardship,
and he had not quailed ; he had kissed his
new-born baby in his wife's frail arms,
through the iron bars of his cell, and he
had done so without a sigh ; but when he
looked upon this touching remembrance of
a happy home and of wifely tenderness, he
Dowed his head upon his knees, and the
tears flowed down to the chains that clanked
about his ankles, and the dainty viand
remained untouched.

THE MISSION FIELD, 87

Mrs. Judson had managed to secrete the
manuscripts of his translations in the earth
beneath the mission-house; but the rainy
season came on, and they were Hkely to be
ruined with the damp. In his dungeon he
was anxious about them, and he arranged
with her to sew them up in a pillow, so
mean in its appearance, and so comfortless
withal, that the covetousness of even a
Burman jailer should not be excited by it.
The little sleep he enjoyed was all the
sweeter because his aching head, as well as
his anxious heart, was pillowed on the Word
of God. When he was sent to another
prison-house at Oung-pen-la, which he
reached with lacerated and bleeding feet,
the ruffian jailers seized for themselves the
mat which covered the precious pillow, and
threw the apparently useless article away.
Moung Ing found the relic, carried it to the
mission-house, and by its aid Burmah after-
wards obtained the Bible in her native
tongue.

When the English advanced upon the
capital, Judson was employed by the

88 MODERN HEROES OF

Burmese as an interpreter, and sent to the
camp to mediate. He discharged the diffi-
cult duty so admirably, that he was after-
wards thanked by the Governor-General.
Sir Archibald Campbell insisted, amongst
other terms, upon the release of the Judsons,
and they were soon under the protection of
the British flag, and on their way to their
old station at Rangoon. But most of the
converts were scattered, and there was no
security for life under Burmese rule ; so it
was determined to carry the old zayat into
the territory recently ceded to the British,
and to set up a new mission at Amherst, and
subsequently at Moulmein. Here they re-
commenced their blessed work, and not
without success ; but Judson having gone
again to Ava in the vain endeavour to obtain
religious toleration, returned only to find
that his noble wife had died of fever in his
absence, and that he was soon to lay his
motherless child beside her, under the hopia
(or hope tree), which seemed such a blessed
emblem of their rest and resurrection.
Judson was never the same man after

THE MISSION FIELD, 89

that. He had not indeed lost his holy re-
solution, but he had lost his cheerful
elasticity. For a time he indulged in an
ascetic spirit, and would live for days alone
amongst the woods, in fasting and prayer,
and seeing only those who came to him for
religious instruction. But he came forth
from this period of seclusion with a new
baptism of energy and devotedness. He
gave up all his patrimony to the cause of
missions, and set out once more to assail the
strongholds of Satan in the old Burman
empire, and especially at Prome, its ancient
capital. He was led to take an especial
interest in the Karens, an interesting and
patriarchal race, who were treated as slaves
by the Burmese, but were infinitely their
superiors in all the better traits of human
character. They had no priesthood, and
scarcely any form of religion, but possessed
strangely truth-like traditions of Paradise,
and the Fall, and the Deluge, and a coming
Deliverer. It was this mission which led him
to know and marry his second wife, Sarah
Boardman, who had shared her first husband's

90 MODERN HEROES OF

labours amongst this people while he lived,
and was now devoting herself to their best
interests after his death. By the year 1836
there were as many as 248 Karen communi-
cants, and the success went on until the con-
verts were reckoned by thousands, and one
of the missionaries could say, ** Heathenism
has fled from these banks ; I eat the rice and
fruits cultivated by Christian hands, look on
the fields of Christians, see no dwellings but
those of Christian families."

Eleven years more passed by, and several
children were born, but the health of Sarah
Judson was shattered by constant toil, and
she was ordered, as a last resource, to try a
voyage to America. Her husband went with
her, intending to see her as far as the
Mauritius ; but when they reached it, finding
that she was fading away, he went on with
her to St. Helena, and there she breathed
her last on the ist September, 1845. ^^^
had written a beautiful ** Farewell," which
she meant to give him at parting. It began-—

** We part on this green islet, love ;
Thou for the Eastern main,

THE MISSION FIELD, 91

I for the setting sun, love;
Oh ! when to meet again ? **

and it ended with these invigorating words —

" Then gird thine armour on, love,
Nor faint thou by the way,
Till Boodh shall fall, and Burmah's sons
Shall own Messiah's sway."

Judson found the lines after she had ** gone
home," and when he copied them, he wrote
after the last verse these words — ** * Gird
thine armour on ' — ^And so, God willing, I
will yet endeavour to do; and while her
prostrate form finds repose on the rock of
the ocean, and her sanctified spirit enjoys
sweeter repose on the bosom of Jesus, let
me continue to toil on all my appointed time,
until my change, too, shall come."

Judson proceeded to America, but what a
change he found since he had left it thirty-
four years before ! Scarcely one whom he
had known was alive to welcome him ; but
the old apathy about missions had given
way to a generous enthusiasm, and he felt
pained by the excessive and universal

92 MODERN HEROES OF

homage that was paid to him. The uni-
versities had made him a Doctor by diploma ;
statesmen and philosophers crowded round
him to pay their respects. He was a great
man indeed, but the early ambition of his
youth was quenched in the deep humility of
an aged servant of the Lord. He remained
but nine months in the States, and then re-
turned to his work. He had been anxious
to find a suitable biographer to write a
memoir of his late wife, and was recom-
mended to a lady who had gained no small
literary fame under her nom de plume of
Fanny Forrester. Emily Chubbuck was
vivacious as well as talented, and many
wondered when they heard that she was to
be Dr. Judson's wife; but she made a noble
partner for the missionary, and a loving
mother to his children. She enriched our
literature with one of the most exquisite
biographies in the language, and gathered
the materials which give us such an insight
into the grandeur of her husband's life.
Each of Judson's partners had distinctive
talents; Anne was a linguist, Sarah a

THE MISSION FIELD. 93

poetess, Emily an authoress. The first had
in her most of the heroine, the second most
of the missionary, and the third most of the
savante. As wives, they were all worthy of
such a husband ; and he was worthy of them.
The last three years of Judson's glorious
life were spent at Moulmein and Rangoon,
amidst alternate difficulties and encourage-
ments. An affection of his voice now pre-
vented him from doing much in the way of
preaching, but there was the less need of
this, as the mission was supplied with other
labourers ; still he superintended the work,
and cheered the workers, and laboured hard
himself at his Burmese Dictionary. He had
completed the first section of it (the English-
Burmese), when weakness, followed by fever,
utterly prostrated him, and the physicians
prescribed a voyage to the Isle of France.
His devoted wife was not in a condition to
go with him, but the mission printer and a
faithful Bengali servant went in her stead.
Four months afterwards she learned the sad
news that within a fortnight after she had
parted from him he was laid in an ocean grave

04 HEROES OF THE MISSION FIELD,

(i2th April, 1850). "He could not," wrote
his widow, ** have a more fitting monument
than the blue waves which visit every coast ;
for his warm sympathies went forth to the
ends of the earth, and included the whole
family of man." He was brave, faithful,
patient, hopeful to the end. His last words
were uttered in his dear Burman tongue:
**It is done." ** I am going."

♦* Servant of God, well done !
Rest from thy lov'd employ;
The battle fought, the victory won.
Enter thy Master's joy.

** The pains of death are past ;
Labour and sorrow cease;
And life's long warfare clos'd at last,
His soul is found in peace.

** Soldier of Christ, well done !
Praise be thy new employ;
And while eternal ages run
Rest in thy Saviour's joy I*

IV.

ROBERT MORRISON. CHINA, 1807—1834.

On almost any morning in the years 1805 or
1806 a grave and thoughtful young man
might have been seen emerging from the
gates of St. Bartholomew's Hospital in
London, and making his way with rapid
steps to his lodgings in Bishopsgate Street.
Those who had witnessed his industry and
attention in the wards and lecture-room,
during the two or three preceding hours,
would have concluded that his one object
in life was to qualify himself for the profes-
sion of a physician. Had they accompanied
him to his humble lodging, and seen him
shutting his closet door and kneeling down
when the clock struck the hour of noon (as
was his custom all through life), they would
have gathered that he was a pious man.
By-and-by, after a hasty meal, the stalwart

96 MODERN HEROES OF

young- pedestrian is on the road to Green-
wich, carrying- with him a goodly array of
mathematical instruments ; and if we follow
him into the Observatory, we shall find him
deep in astronomical studies, and working
out difficult stellar problems, under the
guidance of the famous Dr. Hutton. Our
conclusions as to his ultimate purposes in
life have been already somewhat disturbed,
and it is difficult as yet to assign the motives
which have led him to link medicine and
astronomy together in his course of study.

But let us trace his steps as he returns to
the metropolis, and makes his way to the
reading-room of the British Museum. The
librarian evidently knows the visitor, and,
without any question asked or answered,
furnishes him with writing materials, and
with a strange-looking manuscript, which
the student begins at once to transcribe.
It is in the Chinese character, and contains
a Harmony of the Gospels, the Acts of
the Apostles, and the Pauline Epistles;
the work, as far as can be ascertained,
of some Jesuit missionary. Our student

THE MISSION FIELD, 97

spends some patient hours over the precious
document, and then once more we find
him in his city lodgings.

But now another character appears upon
the scene. The small eyes, the high cheek-
bones, the peculiar physiognomy, all indicate
that he is a Chinaman ; while his proud,
domineering manner, as he instructs his pupil
in the mysteries of his perplexing language,
shows at once that he has inherited the
characteristics of his race. The Chinese
teacher is Yong-Sam-Tak, and his clever,
assiduous pupil is Robert Morrison, the
embryo missionary, who may lay claim, at
least amongst the reformed churches, to be
the Apostle of China, and who was destined to
give the Word of the living God, in their own
peculiar character, to four hundred millions
of idolatrous heathen. And now we have
obtained the clue to his varied employments,
and can explain why his versatile genius has
led him to the study of medicine, astronomy,
and oriental literature, that he may the
better qualify himself for the one great
purpose on which he has set his heart.

7

98 MODERN HEROES OF

It is, however, a remarkable circumstance,
that, when young Morrison began his study
of Chinese, he had not the remotest idea
of engaging in missionary work, or that
China was to be the scene of his life-long
labours. When, on his return to England,
after seventeen years of patient toil, he stood
in London upon the platform of the Bible
Society, with a volume of the Chinese Bible
in his hand, a gentleman who addressed the
meeting narrated the following story. Many
years before, while reading in the British
Museum, his attention was attracted to a
young man who was studying a book written
in strange characters. ** I took the liberty,"
he said, *' of asking him what language it
was." **The Chinese," he modestly replied.
**And do you understand it?" I inquired.
** I am trying to do so," was the reply,
** but it is attended with singular difficulty."
** And what may be your object ? " ** I can
scarcely define my motives," he answered;
** all that I know is that my mind is power-
fully wrought upon by some strong and
indescribable impulse, and if the language

THE MISSION FIELD. 99

be capable of being surmounted by human
zeal and perseverance, I mean to make the
experiment. What may be the final result,
time only can develop. I have as yet no
determinate object in contemplation beyond
the acquisition of the language itself." Can
we doubt that God's mysterious providence
was even then, without his knowledge, lead-
ing him to, and gradually preparing him
for, the great business of his life ?

But before we follow him to his distant
field of labour, and point out the calm but
decided heroism that distinguished him,
we must go back a little in his history,
and see his antecedents. Though bom in
Northumberland and spending his early
years at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he sprang
from a Scottish stock, and inherited much
of the vigour and prudence of his race.
His earliest employment was of an humble
kind, and he served his time to his own
father as a last and boot-tree maker. From
a maternal uncle he obtained the earliest
rudiments of an ordinary education, and,
except for an excellent memory, and for

loo MODERN HEROES OF

rigid application, he was not in any way-
distinguished amongst his companions. He
had early given his heart to God, but there
was nothing remarkable, as there was in
Judson's case, regarding ** the rise and pro-
gress of religion " in his soul. When he
was about one-and-twenty, he made up his
mind to enter the ministry of the Scottish
Church, and set himself to prepare for it.
This led to his admission into Hoxton Aca-
demy, better known after its removal as
** Highbury College," and here the same
characteristics of ardent piety, indefatigable
application, and devoted zeal, which marked
his after-life, were soon made manifest. It
was here, too, he conceived for the first time
the idea of becoming a missionary. The
preference for this special work did not
arise, in his case, from any strong excite-
ment, nor, as far as can be ascertained, from
any striking external impulse, but rather
from a calm, deliberate view of the state
of the heathen, and of his own obligations
to his Lord and Savioun From the begin-
ning of his life to its very end duty was his

THE MISSION FIELD. loi

pole-star, and it was the solemn sense of
duty which led him to resolve on being a
missionary.

The London Missionary Society had then
an academy at Gosport, and to it Morrison
was transferred. As yet there was nothing
settled as to his field of labour. Mungo
Park was then contemplating the formation
of a settlement at Timbuctoo, in the heart
of Africa, and the young student felt inclined
to accompany him; but the burden of his
prayers at this time was that ** God would
station him in that part of the missionary
field where the difficulties were the greatest,
and, to all human appearance, the most insur-
mountable." His prayers were heard, and
his designation to China was the answer to
them. Circumstances had turned the atten-
tion of earnest men to that vast country,
with its teeming millions of inhabitants.
The British and Foreign Bible Society had
heard of the manuscript in the British
Museum, to which reference has been
already made, and it suggested to them
the idea of giving the whole Bible to China

I02 MODERN HEROES OF

in Its own tongue. But there were serious
difficulties in the way. China was closed,
not only against the Gospel, but against
the commerce of ** the outward barbarians."
Any open attempt at evangelisation was
certain to kindle persecution. And besides
all this, the hostility of our own Government
to all missionary effort was so decided, that
it was hopeless to expect a transit for a
Gospel-messenger in a British ship.

But nowithstanding all these obstacles, it
was determined to send a missionary to
China, and the lot fell on the young student
at Gosport. We have already seen how God
was preparing him for the work. From the
moment that China was assigned as the
scene of his labour, he came to London, and
gave himself up for two years to those special
studies which were most likely to win a way
for him amidst a proud and prejudiced, but
literary people. Being at length set apart
for his work, he sailed for New York, because
it was impossible, for the reasons which we
have already mentioned, to reach his destina-
tion by a direct route. But this was over-

THE MISSION FIELD, 103

ruled for good. Friends of the truth, in
England, furnished him with letters of
introduction to others in America, and these
again commended him to the American
Consul at Canton, and to other men of
influence.

A touching incident is on record concern-
ing his stay at the house of a Christian
gentleman in New York. Morrison had
been taken suddenly ill, and was placed in
the gentleman's own chamber, where, in a
little crib beside the bed, slept a child,
whom it was thought a pity to disturb. On
awakening in the morning, she turned to
talk as usual to her parents ; but, seeing a
stranger in their place, was somewhat
alarmed. After a moment's pause she
fixed her intelligent eyes steadily upon him,
and said, "Man, do you pray to God?"
*' Oh, yes, my dear," said Mr. Morrison,
** every day: God is my best friend." The
answer seemed at once to reassure the
startled child ; she laid her little head con-
tentedly upon her pillow, and fell asleep.
Morrison often referred to the circumstance,

I04 MODERN HEROES OF

and said that it taught him a lesson of con-
fidence and faith.

As he was about to sail for Canton, and
,was settling- the question of fare and freight
with the shipowner, the man of business,
looking at him with a smile that only half
concealed his contempt, inquired, **Now,
Mr. Morrison, do you really expect that you
will make an impression on the idolatry of
the Chinese empire?" **No, sir," said
Morrison, with a dignified sternness, and with
a countenance of which it has been said, ** it
was a book wherein you might read strange
things," — ** No, sir, but I expect that God
will." Those who knew little of him might
say that he was too proud to be vain ; those
who knew him best would say that he was
too pious to be proud.

He reached Canton in September 1807,
and found himself amongst '*the cunning,
jealous, inquisitive Chinese." On every side
he saw evidence of their worldliness, their
ignorance, and their idolatry; and he said
to himself, **0h, what can ever be done with
these ignorant, yet shrewd and imposing

THE MISSION FIELD, 105

people?" "But,'* he adds, ** what were
our fathers in Britain?" Accordingly, he
went to work with undaunted heart and
unfailing faith. " China," said he, ** may
seem walled around against the admission of
the Word of God ; but we have as good
ground to believe that all its bulwarks shall
fall before it, as Joshua had respecting the
walls of Jericho."

To acquire the language, and to translate
the Scriptures into it, were the great objects
which he set before him. Evangelistic
efforts in the way of preaching must be set
aside till the long-closed door was opened for
it. The obstacles in his path were enormous.
The language itself, both in its spoken and
written forms, was confessedly most difficult.
There were as yet no grammars to aid him,
and, owing to the suspicion of the Govern-
ment, it was only at the risk of their liberties
and lives that teachers could be obtained.
His old friend, Yong-Sam-Tak, turned up in
China, but was of little use to him. There
was as yet but one Englishman, Sir George
Staunton, who had made himself master of

io6 MODERN HEROES OF

the language, and though he showed much
kindness to the missionary, there were many
reasons why, as British representative at
Macao, he could not openly render him much
assistance. On every side there were
jealousies — jealousies between the English
and Americans, jealousies between the Com-
pany and British Christians ; jealousies from
the Portuguese Romanists ; and, above all,
jealousies on the part of **the Celestials," as
the Chinese loved to call themselves; and
therefore every step had to be taken with the
most extreme caution.

For a time he adopted the dress and
customs of the Chinese ; cut off his hair, and
wore a tail ; allowed his nails to grow ; ate
his food with chopsticks ; and walked about
in a Chinese frock and cumbrous shoes ; but
he soon found that all this, though he meant
it for the best (in his readiness to ** become
all things to all men '*), only awakened sus-
picion, and that it was wiser to dress like
other foreigners who had come for purposes
of trade. But he kept on steadily at the
study of the language in both the Mandarin

THE MISSION FIELD, 107

and Canton dialects ; and with this view
procured such books as might assist him ,
obtained what iielp he could from native
teachers ; lived constantly with two Chinese
domestics ; spoke to them and read to them
in their own tongue, and even repeated his
private prayers in the language which he
sought to conquer. His success may be
gathered from the fact that ere long he was
appointed translator to the East India Com-
pany's factory, a post which, like Carey
under similar circumstances, he prized, not
so much for the emoluments which it brought
with it, as for the facilities it offered for
further study, and the opportunity which it
gave him to relieve the Missionary Society
of expense.

His feelings at this time will be best
described in his own words: **But for the
cause I serve, I would gladly exchange my
present situation for any in England or
Scotland at;^50 a year. From this barren
land I look with mournful pleasure to the
fruitful plains of British Israel : your green
pastures are plentifully watered by the

lo8 MODERN HEROES OF

Streams of life ; but here, alas ! all is cheer-
less as the sandy desert Well, though the
prospect now be very, very dreary, we look
forward to the time when this barren land
shall be turned into streams of water, and
the desert blossom as the rose."

We must now follow him to what may be
called, both literally and metaphorically, his
subterra7iean labours. Privacy, caution, pa-
tience, were absolutely necessary for his
work. It must be done, if done at all, with the
utmost secrecy and consequent self-denial.
And so we get a glimpse of the prudent and
indefatigable missionary living in a cellar
below the roadway, with a dim earthenware
lamp lighted before him, and a folio volume
of Matthew Henry's Commentary screening
the flame both from the wind and from
observation. It was a true and real heroism
that enabled him to work on day after day,
and year after year, for the most part alone,
and without any aid from external excitement,
or any of those helps which come to us from
the countenance and approbation of our
fellow-men. He had not even that fuel for

THE MISSION FIELD, 109

enthusiasm which is to be found in the pre-
sence of large and interested audiences, and
which missionaries so often derive, even
from the objections and questionings of their
hearers. Two expressions, which were often
on Morrison's lips, indicated, the one his
strength of motive, the other his source of
strength : the first was, " It is my duty; "
the second, **Look up, look up.'*

The first portion of Holy Scripture which
he printed in 1810 was ** The Acts of the
Apostles; " and he always admitted that this
was in effect a revision from the manuscript
which he had studied at home, and which
thus became the nucleus of the Chinese New
Testament. In 18 14 he had finished the
rest of the New Testament, and sent it to
the press ; and in the same year he baptized
his first convert, Tsae Ako, who had been
helping him in his work. In 1819, with the
aid of Dr. Milne, the whole Bible was com-
pleted, and, by liberal help from the British
and Foreign Bible Society, was published in
twenty-one volumes. During this time he
had to superintend not only the printing.

no MODERN HEROES OF

but also the cutting of the blocks from which
the copies were to be struck, and often had
his patience and perseverance been tried by
finding them destroyed, sometimes by the
ravages of the white ants, sometimes through
the terror of the workmen, and sometimes
through the hostility of the native magis-
trates. We may add that when he saw im-
perial edicts issued against Christianity ;
when his own work was again and again
assailed, and for a time interrupted; and
even when bitter persecutions were stirred
up against his few but faithful converts, this
calm and resolute soldier of the cross was
not dismayed, but held fast to his convic-
tions and to his duties. When the worldly
wisdom of *'the Honorable Company" led
them to fear that they should be compro-
. mised if it were known that their interpreter
was engaged in the work of Bible translation,
he never for a moment hesitated as to his
duty. To use his own words, ** The cha-
racter of a missionary I cannot sink ; no, not
if my daily bread depend on it." They
went so far as to sever their connection with

THE MISSION FIELD, in

him for a while ; yet, such was their con-
fidence in his wisdom, and their high estimate
of his capacity, that he was soon restored to
office: they employed him again and again
as a Chinese jurist in political matters of the
greatest delicacy and importance, and even
sent him on one occasion with Lord Am-
herst on an embassy to Pekin. They also
undertook the publication of his Chinese
Dictionary, a work which he carried on
simultaneously with his Biblical translation.
Some idea of the extent and vastness of
this work may be formed from the fact that
it cost them ^15.000 to produce it. It was
in reality a Chinese Encyclopaedia, explain-
ing some 40,000 characters, and giving a
vast amount of information concerning the
whole circuit of Chinese literature. We
are accustomed to call Dr. Johnson, our
English lexicographer, *'a Colossus of
Literature,*' but by what title shall we
designate the marvellous compiler of the
Chinese Dictionary ?

Nor was this his only literary labour.
His Grammar of the language ; his Chinese

lia MODERN HEROES OF

Miscellany; his **View of China for Philo-
logical Purposes ; " his editing and publish-
ing of the ^*Notitia Linguse Sinicse;" these,
and other works of a similar kind, would
have established for him, as Professor Kidd
has well observed, a world-wide reputation
in the domain of letters. But we must
remember, as the Professor has also said,
that ** whatever he accomplished as an
ardent scholar, a zealous divine, and a
steady patriot, owed its origin to his reli-
gious character."

Two special considerations urged him on
in his work of Biblical translation ; one was
that both Buddhism and Confucianism had
been mainly spread in the ** Flowery Land,"
not by oral teaching or preaching, but by
books; the other was that, although the
dialects of China were manifold (some
reckon them at two hundred), and differed,
many of them, as much from each other as
the languages of Plurope, yet the printed
character of the country was intelligible to
all readers. Perhaps this will be best
understood by an illustration. The Arabic

THE MISSION FIELD, 113

numerals (i, 2, 3, 4, etc.), standing as they
do, not for sounds, but for numerical notions,
are at once understood by all readers, al-
though, as inhabitants of different countries,
they will call them by entirely different
names. The Chinese written characters,
being symbolic, and not phonetic — repre-
senting things to the eye, instead of sounds
to the ear, are in this way intelligible
throughout the empire, and not only there,
but in the Corea, Japan, Loo-Choo, and
Cochin China, where they are known, and
where the press has been in use for seven
hundred years. Thus, by translating the
Holy Scriptures into the printed characters
of China, Morrison provided a book, and
that book the Book of God, for one- third of
the human family !

It is not pretended that Dr. Morrison's
translation of the Bible is a perfect one. It
was the first translation into the most difficult
language of the world, and it was accom-
plished under unparalleled difficulties. **The
written language of China," says the Rev.
A. E. Moule, of Ningpo, ** would require

8

114 MODERN HEROES OF

almost two lifetimes of unremitting toil."
No one knew this better than Morrison
himself. He felt the need of a thorough
revision of his work, and had his life been
spared longer, he would have effected it ;
but, to use his own words, he studied
** fidelity, perspicuity, and simplicity;" and
he aimed (it is his own happy illustration) at
preparing the way in China, as Wycliffe did
in England, for those who should come after
him.

His fame as a scholar had reached Europe.
French savants had corresponded with him.
Glasgow had conferred on him the degree
of Doctor in Divinity. It was no wonder,
therefore, that when he came to England in
1824, after seventeen years of indomitable
labour, men like Sir George Staunton, Sir
Robert Peel, and Bishop Sumner, should
welcome him, and present him to his
Sovereign; that his name should be received
with cheers in the Imperial Parliament ; that
literary institutions like the Royal Society
should invite him to membership ; and that
Churchmen and Dissenters should vie with

THE MISSION FIELD, 115

each other to do him honour. His own
catholicity of spirit was proved in many
ways, and perhaps in none more than in
this, that, though a Dissenter, he invariably
used the Liturgy of the Church of England
in his ministrations to the residents ; and
when he wished to bequeath to his native
converts a help to their devotions, he trans-
lated it into their own tongue. **To me it
appeared," he writes, " that the richness of
its devotional phraseology, its elevated views
of the Deity, and its explicit and full recog-
nition of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ,
were so many excellences that a version of
them into Chinese, as they were, was better
than for me to new model them."

After two years in England, spent, as he
says, ** mostly in stage coaches and inns " —
for he travelled far and near to promote an
interest in missionary work — he returned to
the land of his adoption, and for the eight
years that followed, amidst failing health
and family afflictions and manifold dis-
couragements, he still pursued without
cessation his multifarious labours. The

Il6 MODERN HEROES OF

Anglo-Chinese college, which he himself
had founded at Malacca, and to which he
was a most generous benefactor, engaged
much of his attention. The printing press
was employed not only in printing succes-
sive editions of the Holy Scriptures, but
also in producing tracts, hymn-books, and
catechisms, which were scattered in thou-
sands amongst the population, by means
of native Christians and traders, although,
as Dr. Morrison truly observes, they seemed
** not more in comparison of the vast extent
of ground to be cultivated than a handful of
seed would be if cast on the mountains of
Lebanon." To the Europeans and Ameri-
cans who resided in Canton and Macao, and
to the sailors who visited these ports, he gave
religious instruction ; but^ except to the
natives in his own employ, he could give no
oral instruction to the heathen, this being
rendered impossible by the despotism under
which he lived. Still, the few opportunities
which he had were diligently employed, and
not without success. He did much to raise
the tone of morals and religion amongst the

#v

THE MISSION FIELD. \\^

foreign residents, and was the means of
winning a little band of Chinamen to the
profession of Christianity. One of these
was Leang Afa, who became the first native
preacher of the Gospel in the empire.

Morrison lived to see other labourers
arrive in China, and to welcome Dutch and
American as well as English missionaries.
The work has made vast advances since that
•*day of small things," but to him belong
the credit and the praise of having pioneered
the way. We have said enough to show
that his talents were of a solid rather than
of a showy character, and that the work of
missions in China was no less indebted to
his caution than to his genius. ** One false
step at the beginning might have delayed
the work for ages."

There was in him, as in many other heroic
minds, a strange mixture of the sternest
severity in respect to duty, and of the
softest affection as regarded those dear to
him. His letters to his children, his interest
in their sports — nay, the very caresses he
bestowed upon his dog ** Caesar," all bear

ii8 HEROES OF THE MISSION FIELD.

witness to the gentleness of his disposition.
His journals breathe a spirit of earnest piety,
and at the same time of statesmanlike
wisdom. He was generous almost to a
fault. As in the cases of Schwartz, Carey,
and Marsh man, the chief part of his official
income was expended upon his missionary
work.

He died in harness — ** tired in the work,
but not ^it" — and he died almost alone;
for all but one of his family had gone to
England on account of health. He was
weak and scarcely able for the effort, but he
gathered his little flock of converts round
him on the last Lord's day that he spent on
earth, and for the last time they heard from
his dying lips the clear expression of his
faith, the solemn exhortation of his love, and
his earnest prayers for them and for his
work; and then, on August ist, 1834, to
use the Oriental language of one of that
little band, ** he entered on his golden
tranquillity.'*

V.

SAMUEL MARSDEN, NEW ZEALAND,
i8 14— 1838.

The missionary heroes whose histories have
been already sketched in this volume, found
their fields of valour and devotion amongst
races which, however benighted, were yet to a
great degree civilized, and in some instances
positively refined ; but we have now to turn
to the history of men who spent their lives
amidst barbarians, and who won their noblest
trophies among cannibals and savages.
Foremost of the band stands Samuel Marsden,
the "Apostle of New Zealand." This sturdy
Yorkshireman, whom no dangers could
affright, and whom no difficulties could
deter, like many of his fellow-heroes, w^as
born of humble parents, at Horsforth, in the
neighbourhood of Leeds, in 1764, and after
having received an elementary education

120 MODERN HEROES OF

in his native village was transferred to the
Grammar School of Hull, which was then
presided over by Dr. Milner, the well-known
ecclesiastical historian. It is said that for a
time he worked at the anvil, but that he
evinced no ordinary literary promise seems
certain from the fact that he was adopted
by the ** Eland Society," which sought out
young men of talent for the ministry, and
by it was sent to complete his education at
St. John's, Cambridge. This occurred some
few years before Henry Martyn became a
student at the same college. Before, how-
ever, Marsden had taken his degree, the
offer of a colonial chaplaincy amongst the
convicts of New South Wales was made to
him through the influence of Mr. Wilber-
force, and on the recommendation of the
Rev. Charles Simeon, who had early dis-
covered the peculiar fitness of the young
mechanic for a post which was as rough and
arduous as it was noble and self-denying.
How little did either he or his patrons know
for what a destiny God's providence was
preparing him ! The youthful chaplain was

THE MISSION FIELD. 121

waiting at Hull, with his newly-wedded
bride, for the sailing of the ship which was
to carry them to their ** distant banishment,"
when just as he was entering the pulpit on
Sunday morning, the signal-gun was fired,
and he and his wife had to set out at once
for the beach, accompanied by the whole
congregation, to whom, instead of a sermon,
he gave his parting benediction, and then
set sail amidst their prayers and their fare-
wells. While the vessel waited at Ports-
mouth for her cargo of convicts, Marsden
visited the Isle of Wight, and it was a sermon
of his in Brading Church that led to the
conversion of ** the Dairyman's Daughter,"
whose touching story has been so well told
by Leigh Richmond in his '* Annals of the
Poor."

It was a rough and in many respects an
Unpleasant charge that awaited Marsden at
Paramatta. The colony was composed of
the worst of felons and bush-rangers — the
very scum and refuse of a vicious population
who had been banished from their own land
for every conceivable crime, and for whose

122 MODERN HEROES OF

reformation and instruction scarcely any-
thing had been done. The work allotted to
him was enough to appal the stoutest heart,
but the heroic clergyman entered upon it with
the faith of a man who believed in his
mission, and though he was thwarted and
opposed and misrepresented at every step
by those in authority, he still persevered
** through evil report '* (we cannot add ** and
through good report") in carrying out his
own well-laid plans for the benefit of the
abandoned criminals who formed his charge,
and for that of the reckless and brutish
population which surrounded them. It was
the policy, and oftentimes the base self-
interest of those who held power in the colony
to resist all attempts at reformation and
improvement ; and as the brave and godl)^
chaplain persisted in his efforts, he was con-
stantly assailed with personal abuse, official
misrepresentation, and newspaper libels.
Again and again had he to appeal for pro-
tection to the laws of his country, and or
each occasion with success ; till at last hi$
philanthropic efforts won the notice and

THE MISSION FIELD, 123

approbation of such friends of the human
race as Lord Gambler, William Wilberforce,
and Elizabeth Fry ; and better still, his sug-
gestions on behalf of the moral and spiritual
welfare of the colony were adopted by the
Government at home.

It was during a visit which he paid to
England in 1807, for the purpose of laying
his plans before the authorities, that he
pleaded the cause of New Zealand with the
Church Missionary Society, and thus laid
the foundation of one of the most remarkable
missions of modern times. Fourteen years
previously, when on his first voyage to New
South Wales, he had read ** The Life of
Brainerd,'' and it had kindled in his bosom,
as it has kindled in many others, a flame of
missionary zeal. Whilst engaged in his
projects for the colonists, he did not lose
sight of the despised Australian natives,
and made frequent though abortive efforts
for their good ; but his attention was more
particularly directed to the New Zealanders.
They were feared and hated in New South
Wales ; but Marsden soon discovered them

124 MODERN HEROES OF

to be a noble type of savage, though con-
stantly engaged in internecine wars, and
often stirred up to murderous reprisals upon
white men, by the ill-treatment they received.

They were an inquisitive and enterprising
people, and paid frequent visits to New
South Wales. Marsden opened his hospi-
table doors to receive them, and soon gained
a wondrous influence over them. Some-
times he had as many as thirty of them
beneath his roof. One remarkable chieftain,
Tippahee, with his four sons, visited the
colony in 1806, and our hero found that
the tattooed cannibal was a man of superior
ability, anxious for the improvement of his
people, and ready to adopt plans for the ele-
vation of his race. Marsden sent him back
to New Zealand laden with seeds and tools
and useful gifts, and thus prepared the way
for the nobler projects which occupied his
thoughts.

We can well imagine with what earnest-
ness the vigorous and devoted man of God
pleaded the cause of his proteges with the
committee of the Church Missionary Society

THE MISSION FIELD. 125

in London, and we know with what alacrity
they responded to his appeal. No clergymen
could at first be found to engage in the
heroic enterprise; but two skilled mechanics
were placed under Marsden's charge, to
visit the islands, to establish friendly rela-
tions with the natives, and to use the arts of
civilization as a means towards the promul-
gation of the Gospel. This subordination
of means to an end is distinctly marked in
their instructions : ** Ever bear in mind that
the only object of the Society, in sending
you to New Zealand, is to introduce the
knowledge of Christ among the natives, and
in order to this, the arts of civilized life."
Whatever may have been Mr. Marsden's
earlier ideas with regard to the importance
of civilization in its relation to Christianity,
his experience, at the end of thirty years
of toil, found expression in these words :
** Civilization is not necessary before Chris-
tianity ; do both together if you will, but
you will find civilization follow Christianity
more easily than Christianity follow civiliza-
tion.'* And then he added these memorable

126 MODERN HEROES OF

words : ** I shall not live to see it, but I may
hear of it in heaven, that New Zealand, with
all its cannibalism and idolatry, will yet set
an example of Christianity to some of the
nations now before her in civilization." It
was this thorough confidence in the truth of
God, not only as an end, but as a means,
which carried him through hosts of difficul-
ties.

On Marsden's return voyage to Port
Jackson, with his two associates, it so
happened that a poor, sickly, emaciated New
Zealander sailed with them in the same sl>ip.
Ruatara, like many of his countrymen, had
been cruelly treated by English sailors, who,
under delusive promises, had induced him
to sail with them to England, and then, after
having almost worked him to death, left him
in poverty and sickness, to find his way
back, as best he could, to his native land.
The benevolent chaplain pitied the poor
outcast stranger, and inquired into his
history. Strange to say, he was nephew
to Tippahee ; and Marsden soon found that
he was endowed with many of his uncle's

THE MISSION FIELD, 127

/loblest qualities, and with earnest desires
for the advancement of his people. Not-
withstanding the cruel treatment he had
received, he had been deeply impressed
with what he had seen in England, and
more especially with the observance of the
Lord's-day. The care and tenderness of
his bluff but kindly friend soon re-esta-
blished his health, and won him over to
promise his valuable services in aid of
Marsden's Christian enterprise.

Upon their arrival at Paramatta, dis-
astrous news awaited them. A large
merchantman, the Boyd, having put into the
harbour of Whangaroa, had been plundered
by the natives, and all the passengers and
crew had been murdered and devoured. It
was afterwards ascertained that the most
wanton provocation had been given by the
captain to a young chief who had been on
board, and hence this horrible retaliation.
This, in its turn, led to terrible reprisals.
Some whalers, hearing of the loss of the
Boydy determined to avenge it, and con-
founding the innocent with the guilty, came

128 MODERN HEROES OF

down upon Tippahee in his island home in
the Bay of Islands, put him and his people
to the sword, and burnt their village to
ashes.

The state of excitement was so great that
Marsden wisely postponed his missionary
enterprise ; and meantime Ruatara returned
to his home, and began to enlighten his
people by recounting what he had heard
and seen, by introducing seeds and agri-
culture, and by *^ making a Sunday," as he
expressed it, for the space of ** five moons,"
at the end of which period he seems to have
lost his reckoning, and to have abandoned
that part of his plan. At length the two
mechanics visited New Zealand, and were
joyfully received by Ruatara and his friends,
some of whom, in company with the young
chief, returned with them to Port Jackson,
and filled the anxious heart of the good
chaplain with rejoicing, when he saw the
near prospect of a commencement for his
long-contemplated work.

He could find no captain of a ship adven-
turous enough to take him and his party to

THE MISSION FIELD. 129

the land of cannibals. One, Indeed, offered
to run the desperate risk; but he asked
;^6oo for the single venture, and this was
beyond the means at the chaplain's disposal;
so at his own risk he purchased the Active^
a little brig, the first of those missionary
vessels which have since done such good
service in the cause of Christ.

On the 19th November, 1814, Marsden
embarked, with a motley crew of Christians
and savages, Europeans and New Zealand-
ers, women and artizans, together with a
few horses, cattle, sheep, and poultr}'', and
dropped his anchor in the Bay of Islands,
close to the scenes of recent bloodshed and
horror. It was just as the Christmas festival
was drawing near, with its memories of peace
and mercy. The Whangaroans and the
people of the Bay of Islands were still at
war ; the one suspected the other of having
conspired with the English in the murder
of Tippahee, and a deadly feud existed
between them. Marsden saw at once that
if he went at first to Ruatara's friends, it
would be misinterpreted by the Whan-

9

130 MODERN HEROES OF

garoans as an act of partiality ; so he deter-
mined to show that he was the friend of both,
and boldly resolved, not only to land un-
armed amongst the Whangaroans, but, with
only one companion, to spend the night in
their midst.

Perhaps in the annals of heroic enterprise
there never was a braver deed. Ruatara,
who knew the unscrupulous ferocity of his
race, and that they were burning with the
spirit of revenge, did all he could to dis-
suade the intrepid missionary, but in vain.
A welcome, however, awaited Marsden,
though it was scarcely of a kind to reassure
him. On the hill opposite the landing-
place, a band of naked warriors, armed
with clubs and spears, occupied a command-
ing position. After an anxious pause, a
native advanced, flourishing a red mat, and
crying, ** Haromai ! haromai ! '* (*' Come
hither ! come hither ! ") Then the warriors
advanced. Some of them wore necklaces
made of the teeth of their slaughtered
enemies ; while others were adorned with
the dollars which they had plundered from

THE MISSION FIELD. 131

the ill-fated strangers whom they had lately
murdered on that very beach. Seizing
their spears, they brandished them as if in
fury. Screams and yells were heard on
every side. Every face was fiercely dis-
torted, and every limb employed in the
wildest gesticulation. It was their war-
dance. ** What nearer approach to demons/*
said Captain Fitzroy, on witnessing one of
these performances, ** could be made by
human beings ? '* But it was a ^^ welcome,''' for
the name of ** Marsden," "■ the friend of the
Maories," had reached them through their
countrymen who had visited Paramatta.

That night he and Mr. Nicholas remained
upon the island. He has described his own
sensations : — ^* The night was clear, the
stars shone bright, the sea was smooth ;
around were the warriors' spears stuck up-
right in the ground, and groups of natives
lay in all directions, like a flock of sheep
over the grass, for there were neither tents
nor huts to cover them. I viewed our pre-
sent situation with feelings which I cannot
describe — surrounded by cannibals who had

13* MODERN HEROES OF

devoured our countrymen. I wondered
much at the mysteries of Providence, and
how these things could be. I did not sleep
much ; my mind was occupied by the
strange circumstances in which we were,
and the new and strange ideas which the
scene naturally awakened."

As Marsden lay awake that night, there
shone above him one of the most striking
constellations of the other hemisphere — the
southern cross, formed by a group of four
brilliant stars. And then there arose another,
— the southern crown, that magnificent
diadem of light, as if to assure him of the
glorious issue of his work, and to cheer him
with the remembrance that

" To patient faith the prize is sure,
And they, who to the end endure
The cross, shall wear the crown."

Christmas Day was at hand. It fell upon
a Sunday, and Ruatara made preparations
for the performance of Divine worship on
shore. The English flag was hoisted upon
the highest hill above the village in honour
of the Christian holiday. About half an

THE MISSION FIELD. 133

acre of ground had been enclosed with a
fence ; a rude pulpit had been erected, and
draped with native mats, and some old
canoes turned upside down were arranged
as seats for the Europeans. Chiefs and
people were gathered all around, while the
women and children formed a wider circle
outside. A solemn silence prevailed, and
then the tones of the grand ** Old Hun-
dredth '* rose for the first time on that
distant shore Marsden entered the pulpit,
and preached from the angelic message of the
day, " Behold, 1 bring you glad tidings of
great joy." A native who had been on
board was the interpreter, and when the
people complained that they could not
understand it well, Ruatara told them that
they would understand it by-and-by, and
that he would explain it as far as he could.

Such was the first entrance of the Gospel
into New Zealand, and such the heroic man
who gained that entrance for it, no less by
his kindness than by his courage. From
that day onwards, throughout a quarter of
a century, he made the mission his constant

134 MODERN HEROES OF

care. Residing at Paramatta, and waging
there an unceasing war with vice, injustice,
and obloquy, his heart was still in New Zea-
land. The Active passed to and fro con-
tinually between Port Jackson and the
mission, carrying from time to time fresh
labourers to the field, and bringing over
young and intelligent natives to be trained
under his friendly supervision. Seven times
did this noble-hearted man cross over in his
missionary ship, and every time with bless-
ing and advantage to the natives. At one
time it was to set the missionaries to work
upon the language^ and to compile voca-
bularies ; at another it was to install fresh
labourers and mechanics in some new settle-
ment ; at another it was to open schools
and seminaries for the instruction of the
people ; at another it was to step in as
mediator between hostile tribes, and to stay
the fierce ravages of war ; always it was to
proclaim the Gospel of Christ, and to extend
the Redeemer's kingdom.

For a long time there were no converts,
and the missionaries were exposed to im-

THE MISSION FIELD. 135

minent peril amidst the sanguinary conflicts
which surrounded them. But still there
was a very general desire amongst the
natives that the Pakehas (or Englishmen)
should settle amongst them. They were
wise enough to see the advantages arising
from the presence of civilized and kindly
teachers. And on one occasion they ear-
nestly assured Mr. Marsden that there was
no danger of the Pakehas being killed and
eaten, for ** their flesh was not so sweet as
Maori flesh, because the English ate too
much salt! '* At length a spirit of inquiry
was manifested ; the truth of God began to
find lodgment in these savage hearts : one
chief, and then another, was baptized ; the
people followed their example ; houses of
prayer sprang up in various directions, and
the wilderness began to ' ' blossom as the rose. ' '
When Marsden paid his sixth visit he
found a striking contrast on the east and
west shores of the bay where he landed.
On the one side were naked savages en-
gaged in war ; nothing was to be heard but
the firing of musketry, the yells of the

136 MODERN HEROES OF

combatants, the moans of the wounded, and
wild lamentations for the slain. Not one
ray of heavenly light or peace upon that
dismal shore. On the other, the sound
of "" the church-going bell ; " the natives
decently dressed, and assembling for divine
worship ; the church service printed in their
own language, and many of them able to
read it, and ready to use it with propriety
and devotion. The whole settlement re-
minded him ** of a well-regulated English
parish." ** Here," wrote the good man,
** might be viewed at one glance the bless-
ings of the Christian religion and the
miseries of heathenism even with respect
to the present life ; but when we extend our
thoughts to the future, how infinite the
difference ! "

His seventh and last visit was a memor-
able one. He was now seventy- two years
of age ; he was bowed down with infirmity,
and his sight was failing him ; but he
resolved once more to visit his beloved
Maories, in company with his youngest
daughter. •* The people in the colony/'

THE MISSION FIELD, lyj

said he, "are becoming too fine for me
now. I am too old to preach before them,
but I can talk to the New Zealanders."
His advent was hailed with unutterable
delight. Wherever the venerable patriarch
appeared, he was greeted by the native
Christians with tears of joy, while the hea-
then population welcomed him with firing
of muskets, and the exhibition of their war-
dance. One chieftain sat upon the ground,
gazing upon him in silence for several
hours; and when reproved by a bystander
for what seemed like rudeness, he replied,
** Let me alone ; let me take a last look ; I
shall never see him again ! " At Kaiti,
Marsden sat in his arm-chair in the open air
before the mission-house, and held a con-
stant levee. Thousands of Maories poured
in from every quarter, and from great
distances, to do homage to their benefactor.
With his characteristic benevolence, he pre-
sented each with a pipe and fig of tobacco,
and when he was about to re-embark they
carried him on their shoulders to the ship,
a distance of six miles. With paternal

138 MODERN HEROES OF

authority, and with all the solemnity of a
man who stood on the verge of eternity, the
apostolic missionary gave his parting bene-
diction to the missionaries and their native
converts, and quitted the shores of New
Zealand for the last time.

Amongst the records of the Church Mis-
sionary Society has been found a letter from
him, written after his return to Paramatta.
It is in a large and straggling hand, and
dated loth December, 1837. It was his
last communication, and was not received
until after his death. In it he writes, ** I
am happy to say the mission goes on well
amidst every difficulty. I visited many
places in my last voyage from the North
Cape to Cloudy Bay. The Gospel has made
a deep impression upon many of the natives,
who now lead godly lives." The letter
concludes with these touching words : ** I
am now very feeble ; my eyes are dim, and
my memory fails me. I have done no duty
on the Sabbath for some weeks through
weakness. When I review all the way the
Lord has led me through this wilderness,

THE MISSION FIELD. 139

I am constrained to say, ^ Bless the Lordy
O my souL^ '*

Five months later, on the 8th May, 1838,
this grand old man gave up the ghost. He
was brave and vigorous to the last. Only
a month or two before his death, he and his
daughter were stopped by two noted bush-
rangers, who presented pistols at their
heads, and threatened to shoot them if
they spoke a word. Perfectly undismayed,
the aged chaplain remonstrated with them on
their wicked course of life, and warned them
that if they did not abandon it he would
probably meet them at the gallows. His
words were fulfilled ; they were arrested for
other outrages, and one of his latest official
acts was to attend them to the place of
execution !

His last words were spoken in response to
a remark on the preciousness of a good
hope in Christ — "Precious, precious, pre-
cious." And so " the friend of the Maories '*
and of the convicts died in the presence of
all his brethren, having outlived the slander
and opposition of all his enemies, and having

I40 MODERN HEROES OF

successfully planted one of the grandest
missions of this century. If all who after
wards came into contact with the New Zea-
land tribes had been actuated by his spirit,
the dark shadows which for a time were
thrown across this ** Britain of the southern
hemisphere " had been unknown.

Marsden once entertained the idea that
the New Zealand tribes might have been
united under one native prince, but he soon
found that while every chief was willing to
accept the supreme power, not one of them
was willing to take a secondary place. He
then saw that there was nothing to preserve
them from ruin and disintegration, except to
bring them under British protection. His
last years were employed in preparing them
for this event ; and two years after his death
New Zealand became a British colony, the
first, we believe, that was won by her without
the sword. At the same time the English
episcopate was introduced under the vigor-
ous and benignant sway of the famous
Bishop Selwyn. That Episcopate has since
been broken up into six different Sees, to

THE MISSION FIELD. \\\

meet the growing requirements of the
Church; whilst a goodly native ministry
and some fifteen thousand native Christians
attest the stability of the work, the founda-
tions of which were so well and wisely laid
by the heroic '* Apostle of New Zealand."
It is not too much to say that to Samuel
Marsden Great Britain owes, under God,
both the colony and the Church of New
Zealand.

We shall close this notice of his life and
labours by recording the testimony of one
who himself may well be claimed as a hero
in the mission field. Bishop Selwyn, upon
his arrival in the colony, three years after
Marsden' s death, wrote these memorable
words : — ** We see here a whole nation of
pagans converted to the faith. God has
given a new heart and a new spirit to
thousands after thousands of our fellow-
creatures in this distant quarter of the earth.
Young men and maidens, old men and
children, all with one heart and with one
voice praising God, all offering up daily
their morning and evening prayers, all

142 HEROES OF THE MISSION FIELD.

searching the Scriptures to find the way of
eternal life, all valuing the Word of God
above any other gift, all in greater or less
degree bringing forth and visibly displaying
in their outward lives some fruits of the
influences of the Spirit. Where will you find,
throughout the Christian world, more signal
manifestations of the presence of that Spirit,
or more living evidences of the kingdom of
Christ?"

"His sov'reign mercy has transform'd

Their cruelty to love ;
Soften'd the tiger to a lamb,

The vulture to a dove I"

VI.

JOHN WILLIAMS.— POLYTTESIA, 1817— 1839.

What Cook was amongst navigators, John
Williams was amongst missionaries. Both
were eminently distinguished for their
heroism and for their philanthropy. The lot
and labour of both were mainly cast amid
those lovely groups of islands, whose feathery
palm trees and tufted cocoa-nuts are mir-
rored in the waters of the Great Pacific.
These islands were made known to the
civilized world by the one; they were
brought into the fellowship of Christendom
by the other. Both of these distinguished
men lost their lives by murderous hands,
upon those distant coasts, in the noble effort
to do their duty to God, and to be a blessing
to their fellow-men. And if Cook was a
real martyr in the cause of science, Williams
was a real martyr in the cause of religion.

144 MODERN HEROES OF

John Williams was born at Tottenham
Court, London, in the year 1796, and gave
early evidence of those practical habits
which contributed so much to his subse-
quent usefulness and success. Even as a
child, the little breakages of the household
were constantly referred to his skill and
handicraft for their repair; and when he
was apprenticed to an ironmonger in the
City Road, it was soon observed that, al-
though exempted by his indentures from the
more laborious parts of the business, he
preferred the forge to the counter, and
became such an expert workman, that he
was frequently employed by his master in
executing orders which required special
skill. He was usually spoken of as ** the
handy lad ; " but no one guessed what valu-
able results were to flow from his taste and
genius for mechanics.

Though brought up by pious parents,
he was not religious, and for a time was
led into companionships by no means im-
proving to his character. One Sunday
evening he was loitering at the corner of a

THE MISSION FIELD, 145

Street, waiting for some companions to
accompany him to a place of amusement.
He was beginning to feel annoyed at their
non-appearance, and his natural impatience
was increased, because the delay gave occa-
sion to unpleasant self-reflections which were
anything but welcome. Just at that moment
his master's wife passed by, on her way to
** the Tabernacle," and with some difficulty
induced the loiterer to go with her. It
proved to be the turning-point in his life;
and many years afterwards, when, in that
same place of worship, the successful mis-
sionary was narrating to a breathless audi-
ence the story of his labours and successes,
** he pointed with deep emotion to the door
by which he had entered, and to the pew in
which he had sat on that memorable night,
when the word of God had been fastened in
his heart, as in a sure place, by the Master
of assemblies."

The discoveries of Cook had directed the
attention of Christian men to the Isles of the
Pacific, and the London Missionary Society
had selected them as the scene of its earliest

10

146 MODERN HEROES OF

labours. These loveliest spots on the earth
were becoming depopulated by vice and
cruelty. ** Mothers slept calmly on the beds
beneath which they had buried many of their
own murdered infants ! " For many years
the early pioneers seemed to toil on in vain.
At length there were signs of an awaken-
ing. In some of the islands the natives
renounced their idolatry, and gave up their
bloody rites. There was a cry for help, and
when it reached England, Williams was
the first to say, ** Here am I ; send me."

It was on the 30th of September, 18 16,
that nine young men stood side by side
in Surrey Chapel to receive their mis-
sionary designation. John Williams and
Robert Moffatt were the two youngest of the
band ; the former destined to be ** the
Apostle of Polynesia," the latter to win for
himself, in connection with the dark con-
tinent of Africa, a name only second to that of
Livingstone, his illustrious son-in-law. The
words in which the aged minister who
addressed them gave his parting exhortation
to John Williams rang not only then, but

THE MISSION FIELD. 147

through all his after life, like a trumpet in his
ears: **Go, my dear young brother; and if
your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth,
let it be with telling sinners of the love of
Jesus Christ ; and if your arms drop from
your shoulders, let it be with knocking at
men's hearts to gain admittance for Him
there."

With Mary Chauner, his young and
devoted wife, who proved herself a noble
helpmeet to a noble husband, Williams and
his companions set forth on their missionary
voyage. Touching at New Zealand, they
received an apostolic greeting from Samuel
Marsden, and reached Eimeo, one of the
Society Islands, just twelve months after they
had left England. Here and in neighbour-
ing islands of the group, Williams remained
for some time, perfecting himself in the
Tahitian language. He had not the philo-
logical powers of a Carey or of a Morrison,
nor was he as fruitful as they were in the
compilation of grammars and lexicons ;
neither did he possess the philosophic mind
which enabled Judson and Martyn to contend

148 MODERN HEROES OF

with the sophistries of the East ; but he had
strong- common sense, a marvellous power
of endurance, and an extraordinary facility
in adapting himself to circumstances ; so
that by throwing himself thoroughly amongst
the simple islanders, he soon got into their
habits of thought and expression, while his
mechanical skill and unfailing readiness were
constant sources of power and influence.

He was led to select Raiatea as the centre
of his first missionary operations. It was the
largest and most central island of the group ;
it was moreover the seat of political power,
and the head-quarters of idolatry. The
temple of Oro, " at once the Mars and the
Moloch of the southern seas," stood here,
but by a happy accident, or rather by a kindly
providence, some knowledge of the Gospel
had been already introduced. Pomare,
the well-known Christian king of Tahiti,
with some of his people and an English
missionary, had been driven thither in a
storm ; and such was the impression made
by this unintentional visit, that the chief,
whose name was Tamatoa, became desirous

THE MISSION FIELD, 149

that Christian teachers should settle in his
island. He came himself to entreat the
missionaries to instruct his people. Williams
was most anxious to go; but, being the
youngest of the band, he waited until all his
colleagues had declined the offer, and then
joyfully volunteered for the noble service.

There was a grand welcome at Raiatea for
** Viriamu; *' this being the nearest form of
pronunciation that the natives could find in
their speech for the name of ** Williams."
A present of five pigs for Viriamu, five for
his wife, and five for their baby-boy, with
abundance of yams and cocoa-nuts and
bananas, proved that the people were willing
to accept their new teachers. They were
ready, moreover, to hear Mr. Williams
preach, to observe the Lord's Day, and to
renounce their idols ; but their moral condi-
tion was unutterably debased, their idleness
was inveterate, their habits of theft, poly-
gamy, and infanticide were abominable, and
their darker and fiercer passions were some-
thing awful when roused to war or vengeance.

The story of Mr. Williams' proceedings

ISO MODERN HEROES OF

and success at Raiatea may be taken as a
sample of what he afterwards accomplished
at the two other great centres of his vast
mission— Rarotonga and Upolu. It would
be impossible in a sketch like this to follow
him in all his work. An eminent prelate
of our Church once compared Mr. Williams'
** Narratives of Missionary Enterprise" to
the ** Acts of the Apostles; " and truly if
heroic devotion, consecrated energy, and
marvellous results may warrant such a com-
parison, not one of these elements is wanting.
Without for a moment losing sight of his
primary work in the evangelization of the
people, he employed every art and adjunct
of civilization within his reach to raise them
from their indolent and brutish habits. He
very wisely says in one of his journals,
** The missionary does not go to barbarize
himself, but to elevate the heathen ; not to
sink himself to their standard, but to raise
them to his.'* Accordingly, he built himself
a house, with window sashes and Venetian
blinds, and filled it with neat and com-
modious furniture, almost every article of

THE MISSION FIELD. 151

which was made by his own ingenious hands.
He taught the natives how to make lime
from coral, and to build decent houses for
themselves. He set them the example of
gardening and agriculture and boat-building,
and rewarded all attempts at industry by
presents of nails, hinges, and tools.

Soon a place of worship was erected in
their midst, capable of containing some three
thousand people. Williams took care to
make it as far as possible worthy of the pur-
pose for which it was designed. It was truly
a noble Polynesian cathedral, though its
sides were made of wattles, and its pillars of
the trunks of trees. He expended special
care upon the carving of the pulpit and
reading-desk, and fabricated such wondrous
chandeliers for evening service, that when
the natives beheld them they exclaimed,
** Au Brittanue e ! Au Brittanue e ! " ** O
England, O England!" "A Fenua maraau
ore;" "the land whose customs have no
end."

These were, however, but means towards
an end, and that end was the salvation of

152 MODERN HEROES OF

souls and the extension of the Redeemer's
kingdom. Christianity began to make its
way. The maraes, or idol houses, were
pulled down ; the gods were committed to
the flames, infanticide was abolished,
cannibalism had ceased, divine service was
held three times every Sunday, family prayer
was universal, and the people who lately
seemed as if possessed by devils were
** sitting, and clothed, and in their right
mind." **With respect to civilization,"
says Mr. Williams, ** we have pleasure in
saying that the natives are doing all that we
can reasonably expect, and every person is
now daily and busily employed from morning
till night. At present there is a range of
three miles along the sea-beach studded with
little plastered and whitewashed cottages,
with their own schooner lying at anchor
near them. All this forms such a contrast
to the view we had here three years ago,
when, excepting three hovels, all was a
wilderness, that we cannot but be thankful,
and, when we consider all things, exceedingly
thankful for what God has wrought."

THE MISSION FIELD, 153

Williams was a statesman as well as a
mechanic. In May 1820 he succeeded in
getting a new and admirable code of laws
established in a great assembly by the votes
of the people. Trial by jury was a distinc-
tive feature of this code, and such an efficient
sxecutive was provided from amongst the
natives themselves, that the whole system
worked admirably. He laid the foundations,
moreover, for a remunerative commerce, by
teaching them how to cultivate cotton and
tobacco, as well as by instructing them in
rope-making and other useful arts. He
taught them how to prepare the sugar-cane
for the market, and not only constructed a
mill for the purpose, but made with his own
hands the lathe in which the rollers for it
were turned.

It was both a test of his work and a proof
of its real progress, when he proposed to the
converted islanders the formation, amongst
themselves, of a Missionary Association for
the evangelization of the heathen in the
surrounding islands. The speeches that
were delivered, and the interest that was

154 MODERN HEROES OF

evinced by them in reference to this work,
but above all the contributions that were
given towards carrying it on, proved how
deeply the truth of God had taken root in
their own hearts. At the end of the first
year the Raiateans had given some 15,000
bamboos of cocoa-nut oil, the value of which
was at least ^500, as a recognition of their
own obligations to the Gospel, and of their
earnest desire to make it known to others.

The ardent spirit of Williams was not to
be restrained within the boundaries of
Raiatea. He longed to branch out into the
regions beyond. From time to time he
heard amongst the natives strange songs
and traditions of an island which they called
Rarotonga, and all he heard concerning it
made him anxious to discover it, and make
it the centre of another missionary effort.
It so happened in God's providence that,
while he was meditating on the subject,
some natives from this then unknown island
arrived at the missionary settlement, and
confirmed his resolution. ** I cannot,'* he
said, •* content myself with the narrow limits

THE MISSION FIELD, 155

of a Single reef; and if means are not pro-
vided, a continent would be to me infinitely
preferable ; for there, if you cannot ride, you
can walk ; but to these isolated islands a
ship must carry you." Year after year he
appealed to Christians in England to enable
him to procure a vessel wherewith to carry
out his heroic purpose, but his appeals
proved fruitless. At length, undertaking a
serious pecuniary responsibility, he procured
a schooner called the Endeavour^ and, with
some native Christians and the Rarotongan
visitors, set out upon his voyage of dis-
covery. The story reads like a romance,
and reminds one of Columbus and his search
for the new world. Baffled day after day in
his efforts to discover the traditionary island,
he still persevered. The provisions were all
but exhausted ; the captain came to the
missionary early one morning, and said to
him, *' We must give up the search, or we
shall all be starved.*' Williams begged him
to steer on until eight o'clock, and promised
that if the island were not then in sight he
would return home. It was an anxious hour.

156 MODERN HEROES OF

Four times had a native been sent to the
top of the mast, and he was now ascending
for the fifth. Only half-an-hour of the time
agreed upon remained unexpired, when
suddenly the cloud-mist rolled away, the
majestic hills of Rarotonga, the chief of the
Hervey group, stood full in view, and the
excited sailor shouted, ** Tele, teie, taua
fenua nei ! " '* Here, here is the land we
have been seeking ! "

It would occupy more space than we can
spare, to tell how the story of Raiatea was
repeated at Rarotonga, and how, within
twelve months of its discovery, the whole
population, numbering some seven thousand,
had renounced idolatry, and were engaged
in erecting a place of worship, six hundred
feet in length, to accommodate the over-
whelming congregations.

But not even triumphs like these could
satisfy the grand aspirations of this devoted
man. He looked out upon the vast Poly-
nesian world of islands which still remained
unevangelized around him and beyond him,
and he resolved to build a ship of his own,

THE MISSION FIELD. 157

in which he might roam through the vast
Archipelago of the western world. His
account of the building of that ship reads
like another romance, and has been com-
pared to a chapter in De Foe ; but while it
equals that story in interest, it has the great
advantage of reality. With none to help
him but the natives whom he had raised from
savagedom ; with only a few rude tools, and
with no experience save that which he had
acquired as an ironmonger's apprentice, he
planned and carried to completion his
ambitious project. The natives looked on
in wonder as the teacher built his ship.
One day, when he had forgotten his square,
he wrote for it to his wife, upon a chip, which
he told a chief to carry to Mrs. Williams.
** What shall I say?" inquired the puzzled
Rarotongan. * * Nothing, " replied the mission-
ary, ** the chip will tell her ; " and when, on
reading the message, she gave him the
square, the astonished chieftain ran through
the settlemicnt, exclaiming, **0h! the wisdom
of these English! they make chips talk!"
and he tied a string to the mysterious

158 MODERN HEROES OF

missive and hung It as an amulet around
his neck !

The story of his bellows is well known.
There were only four goats on the island,
and three of them were killed to furnish the
leather for it. But during the night the rats
of Rarotonga, which were like one of the
plagues of Egypt, congregated in vast
numbers, and left nothing of the bellows
except the boards. Williams then ingeni-
ously constructed a blowing machine, on
the principle of the common pump, which
defied the rats, and accomplished his purpose.
And then the builder was soon on board his
** Messenger of Peace," which the natives
called **the Ship of God," and was carrying
the glad tidings of the Gospel to the sur-
rounding shores.

And this led to the establishment of his
third, and perhaps most interesting station,
in the Samoan or Navigator's group. Less
superstitious and more intelligent than the
inhabitants of the Hervey or Society Islands,
the Samoans were even more ready to re-
ceive the Gospel. In some instances con-

THE MISSION FIELD. 159

verts from the other islands had prepared
them for the missionary ; and he was met by
the joyful greeting, ** We are the sons of
the Word!" In others, the fame of **the
wonderful white man" had preceded him,
and secured a hearty welcome. His progess
was like that of a conqueror, and wherever
he went preaching the Gospel of God's
grace, the thronging multitudes flocked to
him ** as doves to their windows," until out
of 60,000 some 50,000 were under instruc-
tion. His visits to the surrounding islands
were looked for with most intense anxiety,
and song and dance bore witness to the
influence which he exercised, and to the affec-
tion in which he was held. One of these
Samoan ballads has been happily preserved :

" Let us talk of Viriamu.
Let cocoa-nuts grow for him in peace for months.
When strong the east winds blow, our hearts forget him

not.
Let us greatly love the Christian land of the great white

chief.
All victors are we now, for we all have one God !
No food is sacred now. All kinds of fish we catch and eat,
Even the sting-ray.

i6o MODERN HEROES OF

** The birds are crying for Viriamu,
His ship has sailed another way.
The birds are crying for Viriamu,
Long time is he in coming.
Will he ever come again ?
Will he ever come again ?

M

We doubt whether, since the days of the
Apostles, any one man was the means of
winning so many thousands to the true faith
of Christ by the preaching of the gospel ;
and he has left this striking testimony con-
cerning his work : ** Having witnessed the
introduction of Christianity into a greater
number of Islands than any other missionary,
I can safely affirm that in no single Instance
has the civil power been employed in its
propagation." And again, having noticed
the moral influence of the converted chief-
tains upon their people, he says : ** Chris-
tianity has triumphed, not by human .»
authority, but by its own moral power, by
the light which It spread abroad, and by the
benevolent spirit which It disseminated ; for
kindness is the key to the human hearty whether
it be that of savage or civilized man ; and

THE MISSION FIELD. i6i

when, instead of being barbarously murdered,
they were treated with kindness, the multi-
tude immediately embraced the truth, for
they naturally attributed the mighty trans-
formation in these formerly sanguinary chief-
tains to the benign influence of the Gospel
upon their minds.'*

Eighteen years had now been spent in
labours such as these. Several helpers had
come out to aid him, and he had located
them along with native teachers in several
leading stations, so that he could say,
** There is not an island of importance with-
in two thousand miles of Tahiti to which the
glad tidings of salvation have not been con-
veyed.'* But a vast work remained still to
be accomplished. New Caledonia, the New
Hebrides, and, farther off, New Guinea, with
their countless multitudes, lay in darkness.
** The harvest was plenteous, but the
labourers were few ; *' and so he resolved to
visit England, in order to tell of the 300,000
savages already brought under Christian
instruction; to get his Rarotongan version of
the Scripture through the press; and to

II

i62 MODERN HEROES OF

beseech his countrymen to come ^* to the help
of the Lord against the mighty."

He reached London in 1834, and it is not
too much to say that this visit did more to
fan the flame of missionary interest than any
event which had occurred for a century.
When, at the end of four years, he sailed
down the Thames in the Camden (a vessel
of 200 tons burden, which had been ex-
pressly purchased for his use, at a cost of
;^2,6oo), he was accompanied on his voyage
by sixteen other missionaries and their wives,
and was followed by such a gale of prayer
and sympathy from the tens of thousands
who had been thrilled by his narratives, as
plainly testified how much his visit had been
blessed to hearts at home.

VisitinT in turn all his old stations, he
planted schools in some, and left fresh la-
bourers in others, and soon we find him at
the Samoas again ; where, fixing upon Upolu
as his home, and making it the third and as
it proved the last centre of his evangelistic
achievements, he yearned over the benighted
islands that still lay beyond him in ''the

THE MISSION FIELD, 163

shadow of death." Erromanga was the key
to the New Hebrides, and they in their turn
to the Papuan races of New Guinea ; and
so he set his heart upon Erromanga; though,
with a strange and unaccountable foreboding,
his wife endeavoured to extract a promise
from him that he would not land upon its
shores. His last Sunday amongst the
Samoans seemed wrapt in gloom. The
sorrow of his people on parting from him
was intense ; his own previsions were dis-
tinct as to the difficulties of dealing with a
race who were known to be violent and
suspicious, and who had been frequently
exasperated by the cruelties of the white
men, who visited their coasts from time to
time in search of sandal-wood ; all these
things pressed upon his heart, naturally
buoyant though it was, and probably led
him to select the Apostle's text at Miletus
for his last address: ** They all wept sore,
and fell upon Paul's neck, and kissed him;
sorrowing most of all for the words which he
spake, that they should see his face no more."
On the 20th November, 1839, Dillon's

1 64 MODERN HEROES OF

Bay was reached, and a party from the ship
visited the shore. The natives showed no
hostile attitude, but were shy and sullen,
and it was observed that all the women
were kept out of sight. Although this
created some suspicion, still the presence of
several children at play removed it. Mr.
Williams was the second of the little band
of four who landed. He offered his hand
to the natives, but they declined it ; he then
presented some cloth, which they accepted.
He was engaged in enlisting the attention
of the children, when a cry of ** danger'*
from the boats caused all the party to run.
The captain and a Mr. Cunningham escaped.
Mr. Harris, who had been foremost in the
advance, was killed at once; and just as
our missionary hero reached the beach,
and was almost out of danger, he stumbled
in the surf. A heavy blow from a club
felled him in the water; it was repeated
again and again as he regained his feet ;
and a whole flight of arrows speedily com-
pleted the dreadful tragedy.

So fell the martyr of Erromanga, at the

THE MISSION FIELD, J65

early age of forty-three, but not until he
had accomplished a work which has made
his name immortal. The last words he ever
wrote, and which were left unfinished in his
memorandum- book but a few hours before his
death, have a prophetic ring about them : —

** This is a most memorable day, a day
which will be transmitted to posterity ; and
the record of events which have this day
happened will last long after those who
have taken an active part in them shall
have retired into the shades of oblivion ;
and the results of this day will be "

There can be little doubt that the horrid
orgies of cannibalism followed closely upon
the murder; for when H.M.S. Favourite
visited the island to recover the bodies, a
few bones were given up as the only remains
of the man who had done so much good in
his day and generation. These were carried
to Upolu, and laid beside his desolate home
and widowed church. The noblest monu-
ment that could be raised to his memory
was the resolution of his Samoan converts
to carry on that work, in the pursuit of which

1 66 MODERN HEROES OF

their beloved teacher fell, and to plant the
standard of the cross upon the soil of
Erromanga.

Again and again they attempted it at the
peril of their lives; but each repulse only
led to fresh endeavours, which at length
were crowned with success. Dr. Selwyn,
the Bishop of New Zealand, contributed in
no small degree to this blessed result. On
his first visit to the New Hebrides he touched
at Erromanga with a native teacher. They
knelt together on its blood-stained shore,
and asked God to open a way for His
Gospel to the degraded inhabitants. He
brought some of the natives with him to
New Zealand, instructed them in the Word
of God, and sent them back to their country-
men to create a more favourable impression
concerning white men than prevailed at the
period which we have just described. At
length, in 1852, two native Christians from
the Hervey Islands were landed, and one
of those chiefs who were most forward in
giving them a welcome was the very man
who had murdered Williams. It turned out

THE MISSION FIELD. 167

upon inquiry that some foreigners had killed
his own son, and that he had avenged him-
self upon the first white man who came
within his reach ; but the very club which
struck the fatal blow was surrendered to the
missionaries, and the prayer which had been
offered up on that ensanguined beach was
at length fully answered.

Erromanga, however, was to have other
associations with the noble army of martyrs
before that blessed consummation could be
attained. In 1861, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon,
a devoted missionary pair, were savagely
massacred by some of the heathen. It is
a touching link between two other martyr-
doms and theirs, that they were buried close
to the spot where Williams fell, and that
the funeral service of the Church of England
was read over their graves by Bishop Pat-
teson, who was himself destined to become
** the Martyr of Melanesia.'*

The deaths of these eminent Missionaries
have contributed, more perhaps than did their
devoted lives, to awaken a spirit of sympathy
with their work, and to inspire a belief in its

i68 HEROES OF THE MISSION FIELD

reality. They show that the spirit of self-
sacrifice is not extinct in the Church of God,
and that as in Apostolic times, so now, there
are those who ** count not their lives dear
unto themselves," so that they *^ may finish
their course with joy," and bear the glad
tidings of salvation unto the very ends of
the earth.

" They climbed the steep ascent of heav'n
Through peril, toil, and pain ;
O God, to us may grace be giv'n
To follow in their train 1"

VII.

WILLIAM AUGUSTINE BERNARD JOHNSON,
WEST AFRICA. 1816— 1823.

The name that stands at the head of this
chapter is not so well known as those which
have preceded it in these sketches; but it
is no less entitled to a place beside them,
and deserves to be better known, both on
account of the personal character of the man
who bore it, and of the marvellous work
which he was permitted to accomplish.

The same year that saw Williams going
forth to Polynesia beheld Johnson going
forth to Western Africa. The fields were
in many respects utterly unlike, and the
characteristics of the men were widely
different. The isles of the Pacific, notwith-
standing all their beauty and fertility, were
inhabited by races distinguished for their
vice and ferocity ; they needed a conqueror

I70 MODERN HEROES OF

and a civilizer, and they found one in
Williams. Africa, darkened by devil-
worship, and crushed and brutalized by the
slave-trade, required an emancipator and
a ** son of consolation," and she found both
in Johnson. Each was admirably suited for
the work which God had given him to do ;
and though the former laboured for more
ihan twenty years, and the latter for less
than seven, the successes which they indivi-
dually achieved will endure comparison.

Johnson was by birth a Hanoverian, and
had passed a few years in a German count-
ing-house ; but when the call to missionary
labour reached him at the age of twenty-
eight, he filled the very humble position of
workman in a sugar-refiner's establishment
at Whitechapel in London. The story of
his own conversion, which had happened
three years previously, was a remarkable one.
It was war-time ; his wages were scanty ;
provisions were dear; his wife and himself
were on the brink of starvation ; and the
poor labourer was brought down to the
very verge of despair. He had come home

THE MISSION FIELD, 171

one evening utterly hopeless, and with
scarcely raiment to cover him ; there was
no food in the house ; his wife was weeping ;
he threw himself upon the bed beside her,
and tossed to and fro in an agony of woe —
"■ No friend to go to." '* What to do I did
not know."

Just then the remembrance of a verse
which he had learned when only eight years
old flashed across his mind. It had been
impressed upon him in a curious way. The
schoolmaster expected every child to repeat
on Monday morning some portion of the
sermon which had been preached on the
previous Sunday. On one occasion the
only part that William Johnson could re-
member was the verse, *' Call upon me in
the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and
thou shalt glorify Me." As it was only a
text, the schoolmaster did not consider it
sufficient, and expressed his dissatisfaction
with his young pupil. This grieved the boy
exceedingly, but it had the effect of Impress-
ing the passage Indelibly upon his mind.
And so in the anguish of his soul that verse

172 MODERN HEROES OF

came back to the despairing man. **Call
upon Me ! " But will He hear me if I call?
Have I not sinned against Him ? Oh, what
shall I do ? no worldly prospects, and an
angry God! He passed a wretched night;
went early to his work; came back to his
home at what to other men was breakfast-
hour, but came, because to stay behind
would only have awakened suspicion as to his
misery. His wife met him at the door with
a joyous smile; she had obtained unexpected
employment, and wages in advance, and his
breakfast was ready. '* My feelings at that
moment," he afterwards wrote, ** I cannot
well express. The greatest sinner in the
world, and God so merciful ! '* He remem-
bered that there was an evening service in
the German church at the Savoy, and he
resolved to go to it. A Moravian missionary
preached, and that sermon brought him to
Christ.

From that moment he longed to bring
others to the same Saviour. His wife was
the first object of his solicitude, and though
at first she resisted his endeavours and en-

THE MISSION FIELD, 173

treaties, she was eventually given to his
prayers, and afterwards became his willing
and devoted helper in his work. He attended
Bible and missionary meetings, and on one
occasion was present when three young men
were dismissed to their distant field of
labour. As one of these opened his heart,
and told how he had been led to think of
engaging in missionary work, Johnson's
heart was stirred : he thought of the misery
of the heathen ; of all that Christ had done
for himself, and he felt as if he too must go.
His own words are remarkable. ** These
were my feelings that night : I was drowned
in tears ; I turned myself to the wall, and
gave free course to the feelings of my heart.
In this state was my mind for some time.
*^ Oh, if I could but go ! here am I, O Lord,
send me." There were, however, many
difficulties in the way, and he tried to quench
the new-born desire. This led to coldness
and darkness and carelessness. Another
address from the pulpit aroused him. " Are
any of you in darkness? '* said the preacher,
" examine yourselves ; for something is the

174 MODERN HEROES OF

reason that God hides His face." Johnson
examined himself, and the issue was that he
was constrained to cry, "That is it! that is
it ! Lord, to Thee nothing is impossible.
Here am I, send me if it is Thy will."

He who had put the desire into his heart
soon opened the way for its accomplish-
ment. A countryman of his own. Henry
During, had been accepted by the Church
Missionary Society as a schoolmaster for
Sierra Leone. He called on Johnson, and
told him that they wished to send another
with him in a like capacity. The case was
laid before the fathers of that Society, and
they at once accepted him. And so these
two men went forth in the same ship (1816),
were afterwards ordained together on the
same day, and the one at Regent' s-Town
and the other at Gloucester wrought such a
wondrous work for God in Africa as more
than justified the Society in its choice, and
laid the foundation of those native churches
which are now the hope and glory of that
dark continent.

But we must now turn to the state of

THE MISSION FIELD. 175

things at Sierra Leone, in order to under-
stand the work which lay before our mis-
sionary. This peninsula on the western
coast of Africa had been discovered by the
Portuguese, and from them received its
name, which means "the Mountain of Lions/'
It had been the theatre of some of the
darkest, as it was to become that of some of
the brightest, scenes in that strange land.
Here, as at various other places along the
coast, the slave-trade had been perpetrating
its cruelties, and pushing its horrid trade in
human flesh and blood. The native chiefs
were induced by the offers of enormous
profits to engage in this accursed traffic ;
and white men, calling themselves Christians,
were those who held out the tempting bribe,
and then consummated their wickedness by
carrying off the wretched victims of their
''avarice into distant lands, to pine and die
beneath the lash of their task-masters.

The captives taken, some of them in mid-
night expeditions, and others in cruel wars,
were chained together, and driven in gangs
to the sea-board, where they were secured

176 MODERN HEROES OF

in barracoons until the slave-ships arrived
in sight. Sad and dreadful were the scenes
to be witnessed inside and around those
horrid enclosures. Here you might see a
melancholy procession of forty or fifty negro
girls, advancing with bleeding feet, and all
bound together by an iron chain passed
through the collars which clasped their
necks. There you might behold a gang of
sorrowful men, fastened together in pairs,
and driven along, with oaths and curses, to
their terrible prison-house. From within
might be heard the wail of miserable
mothers, whose children had been torn from
them, or whose infants had been put to
death ; and often amidst these agonizing
cries there arose the groans of the dying,
whose sufferings and exhaustion were about
to release them from the miseries of life.

By-and-by the slave-ship is in sight, and
the wretched captives are transferred to the
care of the hardened slave-dealers on board.
Who can picture the horrors of that *^ middle
passage " ? Imagine four hundred miser-
able beings crammed into a hold that was

THE MISSION FIELD. 177

only twelve yards long, by seven wide, and
three and a half high ! Packed ^* like her-
rings in a barrel ; " stifled with the suffocat-
ing heat ; kicked and beaten when they
ventured to complain, and scantily supplied
with food to eat, or still worse, left without
any water with which to quench their thirst !
No marvel that scarcely three out of every ten
reached their destination, and that many of
the survivors were so broken down in consti-
tution that it was more economical for their
new proprietors to ** use them up,*' and to
purchase fresh slaves, than to give them
such nourishment and medicine as might
prolong their lives.

But the spirit of Christianity at length
put forth its power. The voices of Sharp,
and Thornton, and Clarkson, and Wilber-
force pleaded the cause of humanity and
religion. English judges declared that
slaves could not live on British ground, and
that the moment they touched it they were
free. England awakened to a sense of her
sin and of her responsibility. At an enor-
mous cost, the nation emancipated the

12

178 MODERN HEROES OF

bondsmen in her own colonies, and then
took measures to check the African slave-
trade. With a view to this, our squadrons
watched the coast, pursued the slave-ships,
and liberated the captives on the shores of
their own land.

But the efforts of Christian men did not
cease with the political emancipation of the
slave. There was yet a higher liberty to be
achieved. The charter of missionary effort
ran thus : ** Ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free," and British
Christians resolved to extend that freedom
to the down-trodden sons of Ham. By a
concurrence of providential circumstances
Sierra Leone became the place where this
noble enterprise was to be put into execu-
tion. Thither the English cruisers brought
the manumitted slaves, and by a happy
arrangement, entered into between the
British Government and our missionaries,
placed them under Christian instruction.
Among these emancipated Africans were to
be found the representatives of numerous
tribes in the interior, and samples of 150

THE MISSION FIELD, 179

different dialects have been collected to-
gether from the Queen's Yard at Sierra
Leone. Thus marvellously had the pro-
vidence of God overruled the cruelties of
the slave-trade to accomplish purposes of
Divine mercy, and to bring whole races
within the reach of missionary influences.

It was to labour amongst these poor
negroes that Johnson went forth. The
sainted Edward Bickersteth had preceded
him to the colony to make arrangements,
and on the arrival of our missionary, placed
him at Hogbrook, better known in after
days as Regent' s-Town, to take the charge
and education of some 1,500 of these miser-
able negroes. I call them miserable, for
the iron had indeed entered into their
soul. Emaciated by hunger, and ulce-
rated with disease, they were dying at
the rate of seven or eight a day, and those
who were fortunate enough to survive were
degraded in mind as well as in body. John-
son felt deeply depressed, and the more so
because, notwithstanding all his kindness to
them, his wretched proteges seemed callous

iSo MODERN HEROES OF

and indifferent. Sunday came, and, to his
mortification, only nine attended, and these
were almost naked. The truth was, they
had suffered so much at the hands of
white men that they were still suspicious
of their intentions. But Johnson persevered.
He had to dole out their daily allowance of
rice, and he took advantage of every oppor-
tunity to show them sympathy and consider-
ation. This soon began to tell. The Sun-
day congregations overflowed his cottage,
and had to assemble in a large shed, and
thence to move into the open air. His
school was thronged; but how was he to
teach it? His pupils had never seen a book,
or known a letter. He selected twelve boys,
and taught them the first four letters of the
alphabet. He then divided his school into
twelve classes, and made each boy teach a
class. He next taught his swarthy pupil
teachers four letters more; these communi-
cated their knowledge to the rest, and so by
degrees the whole alphabet was mastered.
Before twelve months had passed, some of
his scholars were reading the New Testament.

THE MISSION FIELD. i8i

But Johnson was not content with his suc-
cess as a schoolmaster. His heart yearned
over his charge, and he laboured to raise
them from their spiritual bondage and de-
gradation. Happily his journals are pre-
served, and they give us some idea of his
unceasing and prayerful labours as an
evangeHst. He had been set apart for the
ministry by the Lutheran missionaries, but
his work had to be carried on amidst great
and manifold difficulties. The climate was
deadly in the extreme; the fellow-helpers
who came out to him were constantly drop-
ping and dying at his side. The crowded
graveyard at Kissy is to this day a memorial
of the dauntless bravery of that heroic band
who formed the forlorn hope of Africa. He
was himself frequently prostrated by fever ;
his noble wife was bearing up against bad
health and privations; and at the end of
three years he had to take her to England
in order to save her life.

But what was the record which he was
able to give concerning those three years of
devoted labour ? He could tell of an

i82 MODERN HEROES OF

organized and Christian community, living
together in a well-laid-out and well-built
town of their own construction, with a
church capable of containing 1,300 people,
and filled to overflowing, three times on
each Lord's-day, with attentive congrega-
tions. He could speak of 263 communi-
cants; of a daily service at which never
less than 500, and sometimes as many
as 900, attended ; and best of all, of real
conversion unto God, and of visible and
undeniable proofs thereof in the altered
life and conduct of his people.

An aged and honoured missionary lately
informed me, that when Johnson visited
England (1819), he told him that the first
evidence of a real impression having been
made upon the native mind presented
itself at a time when his own heart was
overpowered by his apparent want of suc-
cess, and when he was ready to surrender
his work in utter despair. He had wandered
into the dark forest, and sat down to medi-
tate and mourn, when suddenly he heard a
native voice from amongst the thick bushes

THE MISSION FIELD, 183

breathing forth the heart's anxieties In
earnest prayer to God. It was a ** token for
good,'* and the missionary went back to his
labour strengthened and comforted, to meet
from day to day with fresh and increasing
proofs that his ** labour was not in vain in
the Lord."

The following is an extract from a report
sent home to the British Government by the
authorities at Sierra Leone : —

** Let it be considered that not more than
a few years have passed since the greater
number of Mr. Johnson's population were
taken out of the holds of slave-ships ; and
who can compare their present condition
with that from which they were rescued,
without seeing manifest cause to exclaim,
* The hand of Heaven is in this ! ' Who
can contrast the simple and sincere Chris-
tian worship which precedes and follows
their daily labours with the grovelling and
malignant superstitions of their original
state, their greegrees, their red-water, their
witchcraft, and their devil-houses, without
feeling and acknowledging a miracle of

i84 MODERN HEROES OF

good, which the immediate interposition of
the Almighty alone could have wrought?
And what greater blessing could man or
nation desire or enjoy, than to have been
made the instruments of conferring such
sublime benefits on the most abject of the
human race ? **

Nothing strikes one more, in reading the
records of West African missions, than the
childlike simplicity of the people's faith, and
the intense earnestness of their devotions.
Johnson records many of their prayers. We
give one which in its broken English and
deep intensity may be taken as a sample of
the rest. The missionary was standing out-
side his schoolroom window, and overheard
a scholar praying thus : ** O Lord, we have
been so long on the way to hell, and we
have no been saved; we been hear your
good word so long, and we been no consider.
O learn us how to follow you now. We live
nigh hell. O Lord Jesus, save us, save us !
We want you to do it now — now we want
you to save us. O Lord Jesus, hear us this
night ! our sins too much ; O save us — save

THE MISSION FIELD. 185

US." No wonder that the pious missionary
should add, ** I could stay no longer, but
went home. My heart was full ; I gave free
course to the fulness of it. I was drowned
in tears. O my God and Saviour, what
hast Thou done ! What shall I render unto
Thee?"

The negroes were, as may be gathered
from the foregoing, an excitable people, and
it needed great wisdom on Johnson's part to
keep their enthusiasm within bounds, and to
distinguish between what was real and what
was only emotional in their impressions.
Indeed, he had in this respect to contend
with two opposite influences. The Governor,
who seemed to look upon baptism as a sort of
political ordinance by which Africans were
to be converted into Englishmen, was con-
tinually urging our missionary to admit all
comers into the Church ; whilst one of the
timid native catechists, whom Johnson desig-
nates as ** that fearful Tamba," was so full
of apprehension lest any hypocrite should
gain an entrance, that he was continually
raising objections against the administration

i86 MODERN HEROES OF

of the rite. Johnson, however, steered a
middle course, and the best evidence of his
wisdom in so doing may be found in the fact
that, after the lapse of many years, and
notwithstanding many hindrances and dis-
couragements, the church and congregation
which he founded at Regent' s-Town had
maintained its early character for piety
and stability.

The love that was felt towards him by his
people might be judged of by their sorrow
when he left them in order to take his wife
to England. They accompanied him in
hundreds on foot to Freetown, a distance of
some five miles ; and when they could go no
farther, they pointed to the sea, and ex-
claimed, ** Massa, suppose no water live
here — we go with you all de way — till feet
no more.'* And he reciprocated their affec-
tion : •* Had I ten thousand lives," he says,
** I would willingly offer them up for the sake
of one poor negro; " and when, at the close
of 1 819, after his brief six months' visit to
England, he was re-embarking for Africa,
he observes, *' The climate, it is true, is still

THE MISSION FIELD. 187

very unhealthy; and some of my dearest
friends and brethren in the Lord have fallen
victims to it since my departure. But by
the grace of God, none of these things move
me. I am ready to go to Sierra Leone, and
die for the name of the Lord Jesus/' We
may add that a devoted sister, whom he had
won to Christ, accompanied him and Mrs.
Johnson on their return to Africa.

The joy and excitement evoked by his
return is best told in the language of a
native teacher : ** In the evening Mr. Wil-
helm keep service. . . . When he done
praying, and the people begin to go out, one
man come into the church, and said, * All
people hear ! Mr. Johnson send me to come
and tell you — he cojne ! he live in the town ! '
And the people begin to make a noise.
Some could not get out through the door,
but jumped out through the window — they
so full of joy. Some went to Freetown the
same night; and some sing all the night
through."

Once more we find him in active work;
correctin^of mistakes which had arisen in his

i88 MODERN HEROES OF

absence through the indiscretion of his re-
presentatives ; building- up the native church
in steadiness and godliness ; advancing the
natives by means of agriculture and fisheries
and public works ; raising the schools to
progress and efficiency, and above all making
Christ known to sinners as the one way of
life and salvation. Nor did Johnson confine
his regards to Regent' s-Town. He had
early conceived plans for the vast interior of
Africa. **Ah!" he writes, **how far are
our thoughts from those beyond the colony,
just as if there were no other heathen in
Africa ! . . . For my part, I feel just like a
bird in a cage. . . . My mind is wandering
into the interior of Africa. Is this mere
imagination ? . . . Lord, hast Thou designed
me to proceed from hence into other parts of
Africa? Here am I, send me." And so
we find him again and again making mis-
sionary explorations, amidst much hardship
and peril, now all around the peninsula of
Sierra Leone, and again in company with
native Christians (one of them being a Henry
Martyn !) to the Bananas, where we find him

THE MISSION FIELD. 189

holding palavers with the natives amidst
their greegrees and devil-houses.

In 1822, the returning and increasing
illness of his wife necessitated the pain of
parting from her, and of sending her to
England; but for a year longer he laboured
on alone amidst mingled joys and sorrows,
successes and discouragements. His work
was nearly done, though he knew it not.
Ophthalmia had broken out in the colony,
and he suffered severely from it. His
general health was manifestly affected ; his
throat showed palpably that he needed rest,
and the doctors urged him to take it. His
wife was recovering, and he longed to bring
her back to labour with him again. And so
he sailed for England in April 1823. In
his last report, written a few weeks before
he left Regent' s-Town, he could speak of
1,079 scholars, of whom 710 could read; he
could tell of his 450 communicants ; he could
rejoice over his prosperous Missionary Asso-
ciation, and the liberality of his people's
contributions to it ; he could write about the
general progress of industry and civilization

I90 MODERN HEROES OF

in the district; and, above all, concerning
the increase and deepening of spiritual life
amongst his converts.

He hoped to come back to his work again ;
but it was ordered otherwise. The little we
know of his last days is from the simple
narrative of a native woman, who was bring-
ing the Diirings' little girl to England in
the same ship. Sara Bickersteth was, as
Johnson himself described her, ** the first of
her nation who had tasted that the Lord is
gracious," and to her was granted the sacreJ
privilege of tending her beloved pastor in
his dying hour. It appears that within three
days of his embarkation the symptoms of
fever appeared, and day by day it grew
worse and worse. On Saturday, 3rd May,
he said to his weeping attendant, ** I think I
cannot live ; *' and then delirium set in; but
amidst his wanderings he spoke of his faith-
ful African helpers, and called for his brother
missionary. During, ^*to tell him all he had
to say." Then reason returned, and he
spoke lovingly of his poor wife, and of his
longing wish to see her before he died ; and

THE MISSION FIELD, 191

then he tried to comfort his poor weeping-
convert, and gave her full directions as to
what she was to do when she g-ot to England.

It was a touching- scene — the dying mis-
sionary in the cabin of the ship ; the black
girl — his own child in the faith, watching
by his berth ; the white baby in her arms,
quite unconscious of what it all meant.
Johnson asked her to read the twenty-third
Psalm; ** And when I had read it," pro-
ceeds her touching narrative, ** he said to
me, * I am going to die ; pray for me ; ' and
I prayed the Lord Jesus to take him the
right way/' Then he sent a charge to the
Society to send a good minister to Regent' s-
Town, and added, ** If I am not able to go
back, you must tell David Noah to do his
duty; for if Noah say, * Because massa dead,
I can do nothing,' he must pray, and God
will help him, and so we shall meet in
heaven." The last words that Sara Bicker-
steth could catch were these — ** I cannot
live. God calls me ; I shall go to Him this
night."

So died William Augustine Bernard John-

192 MODERN HEROES OF

son, on the 4th May, 1823, at the early age
of thirty-five. Like Judson, he lies in his
ocean grave until the sea shall give up her
dead. Like him, he needs no other monu-
ment than the blessed work which he was
permitted to accomplish, and which has
since grown into such vast proportions that
Sierra Leone has ceased to be a missionary
station, and has become a fully organized
native Church. When its first bishop, Dr.
Vidal, reached the colony in 1853, three
thousand candidates renewed their bap-
tismal vows at his confirmation. The
colony is now marked out into its several
parishes, rejoices in its native pastorate,
has its college affiliated to an English uni-
versity, and has sent out, under the first
black bishop of modern times, its own
missions along the course of the Niger, and
into that vast interior which it was the burn-
ing desire of Johnson to see evangelized.

He was pre-eminently a missionary of
God's making and of God's sending.
As we trace his history, from the days
of his poverty and despair at Whitechapel,

THE MISSION FIELD, 193

until he stood forth as the ambassador
of life and consolation to the crushed and
bleeding sons of Africa, we feel that he had
been prepared for his special work by the
power of grace, and the discipline of
suffering. And as we contrast the state
of Sierra Leone, when Johnson first knew
it, with what it was when he left it,
and still more with what it has become in
our own day, we bless the mercy and the
love which raised up men like him to con-
summate the efforts which had been already
set on foot, for the emancipation of the slave.

The following passage from the pen of
his biographer may form a suitable close to
this brief sketch of his memorable life : —

'* Isolate, for a moment, the case of
Regent's Town, and let it be regarded
with close attention. Here is a single man,
but just escaped from a London workshop,
employed in organizing, civilizing, and
humanizing a large body of rescued slaves,
of a different race, and of various other
tongues. In a wonderfully short space of
time he so gains the affections of these

13

194 HEROES OF THE MISSION FIELD.

poor savages that a large Christian village
arises, almost as if by magic. Streets and
gardens, a church and schools, fields and
farm-yards, are occupied and cultivated by
hundreds of willing hearts and hands. At
once^ without any delay, a congregation of
redeemed and saved men and women is
seen. The church is filled to overflowing ;
the schools are crowded with eager learners ;
hundreds press forward to beg for the
benefit of the Christian Sacraments. Mean-
while, industry and its fruits abound on
every side; and purity of morals, such as
no English village knows, universally pre-
vails. Such are the results of even three
or four years* labour ; may we not reason-
ably ask, — when did the religion of Rome,
or of the East, or when did the philanthropy
of rationalistic philosophers, produce such a
wondrous transformation as this?*'

VIII.

JOHN HUNT, FIJI, 1838-1848.

Fiji has been lately annexed to the British
Crown, and our leading newspapers contain
frequent advertisements setting forth, in at-
tractive colours, the great advantages which
may be enjoyed by emigrants to this new
and thriving colony. Amongst others are
named the peaceful and industrious habits
of the great body of the native population,
and the steady progress which they are
making in the arts and pursuits of civilized
life.

It will be worth our while to contrast all
this with the state of Fiji fifty years ago.
We shall then be in a better position to
estimate the marvellous and salutary in-
fluence which missionary enterprise has
exercised upon it, and to form some idea of
its deep obligations to the man who was the

196 MODERN HEROES OF

chief instrument in bringing* that influence
to bear.

The Fiji group consists of some hundred
islands, lying at seven days' distance from
New Zealand; of these, the two principal,
known respectively as Viti Levu and Vanua
Levu, contain one hundred and fifty thou-
sand inhabitants, and are each about the
size of Devonshire. The population of
all the other islands, when taken together,
amounts to about a similar number. On
these islands, Nature seems to have lavished
her richest treasures of fruitfulness and
beauty. ** The tree, the shrub, the flower,
the leaf, are all fresh and strong, and brought
to perfection. New and beautiful varieties
meet the eye at every turn. Fruits and
flowers teem by the roadside; the fruit is
good for food, and the colours of the flowers
defy description."

But when men turned to contemplate the
moral aspect of the scene, it was hideous in
the extreme. To speak of the treachery and
ferocity of the inhabitants were to say but
little. The rage of civilized man was only

THE MISSION FIELD. 197

like the restless tosslngs of a baby, when
compared with the passion of a Fijian savage.
Let those who have witnessed it describe it :
** The forehead is filled with wrinkles ; the
large nostrils distend and fairly smoke ; the
staring eyeballs grow red and gleam with
terrible flashings ; the mouth is distended
into a murderous and disdainful grin ; the
whole body quivers with excitement ; every
muscle is strained, and the clenched fist
seems eager to bathe itself in the blood of
him who has roused this demon of fury."

Infanticide and cannibalism flourished in
even darker forms than in other savage lands.
Two-thirds of all the infants were killed at
birth, and every village had an executioner
appointed to carry out this deed of blood.
Those who survived were early trained to
the darkest deeds. Dead bodies were
handed over to young children to hack and
hew ; living captives were given up to them
to mutilate and torture. No marvel if we
read that sick and aged parents were put
out of the way by the clubs of their own
offspring, and that hoary hairs and failing

198 MODERN HEROES OF

Strength excited neither reverence nor com-
passion. As to cannibalism, it had become
an Epicurean art. The mother rubbed a
reeking portion of the horrible repast on the
lips of her own infant, to generate an early
taste for human blood. It was no uncommon
thing for a man to select his best wife or
his most tender child for the dreadful festival,
and even to invite his friends to the awful
banquet. Ra Undreundu kept a registry,
by means of stones, of the bodies which he
had eaten, and they numbered 900 ! The
only word in the Fijian language for the
human body when deprived of life was
** Vakalu," and that word included in it
the idea of cannibalism ! The horrid
practice mingled itself with all the acts of
life and worship. The building of a canoe,
the burial of the dead, the payment of a tax,
and even the taking down of a mast, were
each accompanied by this revolting cere-
monial. A chief has been known to kill
eight or ten men in order to make rollers
for the launching of his canoe, and the ovens
were previously ablaze to cook them for his

THE MISSION FIELD. 199

banquet. We must draw the veil over still
darker scenes, which will not endure recital
in Christian ears.

It was to such a people that John Hunt
was destined to be a missionary and (we use
the word with reverence) a saviour. Agents
of the Wesleyan Missionary Society had
reached their shores from the Friendly Islands
in 1834, and the accounts transmitted by
them to England led to the issue of a
remarkable appeal entitled, "Pity poor
Fiji!" This document not only pointed
out the miserable condition of these wretched
heathens, but gave hope, from the success
which had already accompanied the first
missionary efforts amongst them, that the
Gospel would yet win its way in these be-
nighted islands.

Hunt was at this time a student in the
Wesleyan Academy at Hoxton, and had his
heart set on going out to Africa ; but a man
was sorely wanted for Fiji, and the lot fell
most unexpectedly upon him. His previous
history was a remarkable one. He had been
brought up as a farm-boy, but he was neither

200 MODERN HEROES OF

handy nor expert at common work, and was
often laughed at as a simpleton by his fellow-
labourers. But for all that, the Lincoln-
shire plough-boy meditated great things.
He had often heard his father, who had
served as a sailor under Nelson, tell stirring
stories of bravery and adventure, and in his
secret soul he resolved to be a hero. His
heroism, however, was to be exhibited on
a very different field from any which he had
been contemplating. His earliest religious
impressions appear to have been connected
with a deep anxiety felt by him for the salva-
tion of his own mother, and these were soon
deepened by recovery from a brain-fever, and
by the instructions of Methodist preachers
in the district where he lived.

The Genius of Poetry found Burns at the
plough, and the Genius of Missionary Enter-
prise found Hunt at a like employment. At
nineteen years of age he was fortunate enough
to be hired by a farmer who was a reading
man. Hitherto Hunt had seen no books
except the Bible and the Pilgrim's Progress;
but now he began to read such works as

THE MISSION FIELD. 201

Paley's Evidences, and Dwight's Theology,
and Home's Introduction, and he gave up
all his spare time to mental improvement.
Mason on Self-knowledge was the book,
however, that took most thorough hold of
him, and did most for the formation of his
character. Very few would have suspected
that under his blue smock there throbbed
a heart that was beginning to feel the con-
sciousness of a power, the existence of which
it scarcely dared to credit. But the time to
test it was at hand. In the unavoidable
absence of a local preacher, he was asked to
address a little congregation in the humble
chapel. With trembling and reluctance he
consented, but he did his part so ably and
so well that he was asked to repeat the
effort elsewhere. A Methodist preacher,
who happened to hear him, had the sagacity
to perceive from his rough but vigorous
speech, and in his apt and ready power of
illustration, that John Hunt was no common
man.

He sounded him on the subject of his be-
coming a preacher, and thehonestploughman,

202 MODERN HEROES OF

while shrinking, under the deep sense of his
own unworthiness, from such an office, con-
fessed an ** ambition to go to the Cape, as a
servant to Laidman Hodgson,'' a missionary
whom he had often heard preach on the
circuit, and whom he thought he would be
able '' to assist a little, not only in gardening,
but in Sunday-school teaching, and other
humble ministrations." The letter of the
preacher, recommending him to the Mis-
sionary Committee, amused the secretaries,
and seemed to them a piece of good-natured
extravagance ; but when they came to have
an interview with the young man, they found
that he was far beyond the average standard,
and he was at once admitted to the Institution
at Hoxton. His progress in study soon
justified their choice, and at the end of his
second year he was sent to the Oxford circuit,
where his earnest, thoughtful, and manly
speech commanded attention and respect.
There was a flame of genius in his eye when
he warmed to his subject, and a token of
might in the stretching out of his long and
sinewy arm, as in bold but loving accents he

THE MISSION FIELD. 203

addressed his fellow- men. Africa was upper-
most in his thoughts, and his daily prayer
was for ** fitness for the work of God in that
dark continent." But he was destined for
another field, and his nomination to it came
to him both as a surprise and a disappoint-
ment. He was summoned to the Mission
House in 1838, and asked whether he would
go to Fiji. The question startled him, and
he asked time to consider it. Returning to
Hoxton, he burst into the room of a fellow-
student, and in quick, excited tones told him
of the unexpected proposal. His friend,
thinking only of the hardships and peril of
such a mission, began to sympathize with
him. But he had not read the secret of
Hunt's deep emotion. " Oh, that's not it,"
exclaimed the impassioned youth; ** I'll tell
you what it is : that poor girl in Lincolnshire
will never go with me to Fiji ; her mother
will never consent to it." The truth was,
that that strong noble heart of his had been
linked in love, for the last six years, to Hannah
Summers, and he, whom neither cannibalism
nor paganism could affright, felt dismayed at

204 MODERN HEROES OF

the possibility of being- parted from her for
ever. At his friend's suggestion he sat down
instantly and wrote her a loving and straight-
forward letter, every line of which made it
plain that, if he had doubts about others, he
had none about her. Still his heart was
distressed, and he moved in and out amongst
his fellow-students with an anxious and
dejected air. But as quickly as posts could
travel in those days, came back the reply of
that noble girl, and Hunt burst once more
into his friend's chamber, and with beaming
face and cheery voice exclaimed, ** It*s all
right ! She'll go with me anywhere ! "

About one o'clock on the 14th February,
1838, the formal decision of the Missionary
Committee was given; at half-past two Hunt
was on the coach, and next morning he was
at home. On the 6th of March he was
married, and on the 29th of April he and his
devoted wife sailed for Sydney. There he
met John Williams, the future martyr of
Erromanga, and it is remarkable that they
left Sydney upon the same day for their
respective mission fields.

THE MISSION FIELD, 205

Upon landing at Fiji on the 22nd of
December, the young missionary and his wife
found that they must go to Rewa, a solitary
and distant station on Viti Levu, and take up
their lonely residence amongst a savage
people, of whose language they were in utter
ignorance. But undismayed they went to
their arduous post, and instantly Hunt began
his study of the language. They soon found
that, so far as the butcheries and cruelties of
the people were concerned, *' the half had
not been told them." The king, however,
was favourable, and one or two of the chiefs
were ready to *' lotu^'^ that is, to profess the
new religion ; but their motives were of a
very mixed nature, as may be gathered from
the reply of one of them when asked whether
he believed that Christianity was true;
** True ? Everything that comes from white
man's country is true ; muskets and gun-
powder are true; your religion must be true! "
Still, their adherence prepared the way for
the Gospel, and the people were more willing
to listen to it when the chiefs had once set
the example. It was not long before the

2o6 MODERN HEROES OF

power of truth began to tell, and real con-
versions followed ; but as soon as they took
place persecution began. The priests and
heathen chiefs plundered every one who had
been guilty of the lotu. Strange to say, it
was the influence of the king, himself a
heathen, that stayed the rising hostility.
His own brother, who had been a leader in
the pillage of the Christians, was severely
reproved by him; and when, notwithstanding
this, he threatened the missionaries in the
king's presence, the king significantly said,
** If you injure the missionaries, I will begin
to eat chiefs." Every one knew the meaning
of that threat ; the offender begged forgive-
ness, and the persecution ceased.

At the end of seven months it was thought
desirable that Hunt should leave Rewa, and
settle at Somosomo, a town of great impor-
tance on another island. Tuithakau, the
king, and his two sons, were persons of great
influence, and having heard of the missions at
Lakemba, they had put in a plea for teachers
for themselves. The Somosomo people were
more than ordinarily savage, and were re-

THE MISSION FIELD. 207

garded with as much horror by the other
Fijians as the Fijians themselves were
regarded by the English. No missionary
had ever visited Somosomo ; no native of
the place had ever lotued. Only one white
man had ventured there, and he had been
barbarously murdered a short time before ;
but thither the heroic missionary and his
wife repaired, together with another devoted
couple, Mr. and Mrs. Lythe, and here the
next three years of their consecrated lives
were spent.

Notwithstanding the king's invitation, their
reception was cold and cheerless, and the
sights and scenes amidst which they had to
live were appalling in the extreme. Within
a week news came that the king's youngest
son was lost at sea. Forthwith an order was
issued that sixteen women, some of them of
high rank, should be strangled, and despite
of Hunt's entreaties they were put to death,
and then burned in front of the mission-house,
amidst the blast of conchs and the yells of
incarnate demons. Some months later,
eleven men were dragged with ropes to the

2oS MODERN HEROES OF

ovens, and roasted for a banquet ; and when
the missionary's wife closed the window-
blinds against the sight and stench of the
horrid festival, the infuriated natives threat-
ened to burn down the house unless they
were re-opened !

Sickness and domestic bereavements came
and added to their sorrows, and yet we read
in Hunt's journal at this period that ** trials
and privations are words seldom used by us,
and are things that are thought much more
of by our dear friends at home than by our-
selves." Take one scene from this period
of his life. It is a Sunday evening, and their
place of worship is a gloomy room, under a
low thatched roof, with a small chamber at
one end, partitioned off with mats. In this
room stands the preacher, with a visible con-
gregation of two men, and an invisible
audience of two women. The two men are
his brother missionary and a young English-
man, whose life he has lately saved from the
club of a murderous chief. The two unseen
listeners are the missionaries' wives, each
with a new-born baby, one of them being

THE MISSION FIELD. 209

the preacher's firstborn child, and it is dying.
But the text is from the first chapter of St.
James : ** My brethren, count it all joy when
ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this,
that the trial of your faith worketh patience."

Three days after this the child was dead ;
and as the mother bent over her lifeless babe,
she had to encounter, when she looked up,
dark savage faces mocking at her grief.
Oh ! could she only lay her little one in a
quiet grave in some Christian land, the trial
would not be so severe ; but yet that little
grave " consecrated Fiji as the missionaries'
burial-ground, and the soil has become very
wealthy since."

The king of Somosomo, though he did not
formally withdraw his protection from Hunt
and his companions, forbad his people
becoming Christians under pain of death
The missionaries could have withdrawn,
had they so desired; and when Captain
Wilkes, of the American Navy, visited the
island in 1840, he was so pained with the
sight of all their sufferings, that he offered to
convey them to any other island ; but they

14

2IO MODERN HEROES OF

declined the offer, and persevered in their
work. At length it was resolved that Mr.
Hunt should leave, in order to occupy
another station, v/hich had been deprived of
its missionary's services. The results of his
three years* work in Somosomo had been
only indirect, but they were far from being
unimportant. Mr. Hunt, when leaving, could
appeal to the following instances : — a town
had been taken in war without a man being
killed; a large canoe has been launched, and
has made her first voyage without a single
instance of cannibalism ; and the Somosomo
people have feasted their superiors, the
Mbau people, for several weeks without a
single dead body. In the first instance we
were one cause^ instrumentally, of the people
being spared ; in the second, perhaps the only
cause ; and in the third, perhaps the only cause
too; btit we had not directly to interfere; for the
influence which truth had on the minds of
the people made our interference unnecessary'.
Viwa, where the last six years of Hunt's
life were spent, and where his greatest
triumphs were won, was an important politi-

THE MISSION FIELD. 211

cal centre, within a few miles of Mbau, the
highest seat of Fiji power ; the local chief
was favourable, and some converts had been
already made ; but King Thakombau, ** the
butcher of his people,'* was fierce in his
opposition, and the bloody wars in which
he was constantly engaged made the mis-
sionary's position exceedingly perilous. Still
with undaunted bravery and heroic patience
he went on. Now he is at work upon his
translation, and to him belongs the honour
of giving the New Testament to Fiji in its
native tongue; now he is travelling his eleven
hundred miles in a single twelvemonth,
and making known everywhere the story of
peace; now he is organizing schools, and
training the most promising of his converts
as native teachers.

Amidst troubles and perils, amidst wars
and rumours of wars, we find Hunt (to use
his own favourite expression) ** turning care
into prayer," and steadily pursuing the one
purpose of his life. *^ I must be on the full
stretch," was his constant apology when
friends thought he worked too hard. What

212 MODERN HEROES OF

that apology implied will be best understood
by a glance at his labours. There was first
of all the difficult task of conquering the
language ; then the ceaseless endeavour to
restrain the cruel dispositions of the chiefs ;
then the incessant effort to instil some ideas
of God and goodness into dark and savage
minds. One day he is writing upon his
favourite subject of sanctification, and pre-
paring his manuscript for the press; another
day he is reading Swift or Byron, and
cultivating his mental powers by the study
of English literature and the Greek Testa-
ment; always he is taking the bright view
of things ; and if there be a single spot of
sunshine in the landscape, he is sure to find
it out. And he tries to spread sunshine, as
well as to enjoy it; acting as nurse and
doctor to the sick and dying, carrying little
comforts from the mission house to Fijian
hovels, and instructing the wretched natives
in a thousand little arts of decency and civi-
lization, whilst he is ever trying to lead
them to still higher things.

A great movement at length took place

THE MISSION FIELD, 213

among-st the people. The priests had pre-
dicted a terrible drought in consequence of
the lotu, but it did not come. The faith of
the people in paganism began to be shaken.
The queen of Viwa became a Christian.
Thakombau's personal friend and generalis-
simo, the redoubtable Verani, who has been
styled '^ the Napoleon of Fiji," followed her
example, and was baptized by the name of
Elijah. The great canoe, which he used to
launch for war and bloodshed, was now con-
stantly employed in carrying the messenger
of mercy to the distant islands. Verani
himself became a preacher. Thakombau
endeavoured to dissuade him, and the people
expected that he would take summary
vengeance on the apostate ; but to their
astonishment he exclaimed, ** Did I not
tell you that we could not turn Verani ?
He is a man of one heart : when he was
with us, he was fully one with us ; now that
he is a Christian, he is decided, and not to
be moved.'' This kingliness of consistency
began to tell on others, and ere long the
converts were reckoned by thousands.

214 MODERN HEROES OF

Hunt was a **Wesleyan of the Wesleyans; "
and the movement, as it sped, bore marks of
the system out of which it grew ; but it was
no marvel that fierce cannibals, by whatever
agency they were brought to repentance,
should exhibit those agonies of sorrow, and
those excitements of conviction, which were
manifested amongst the Fijians. For days
and nights together they gave way to the
wildest grief, they fainted away from sheer
exhaustion, then prayed themselves into an
agony again, and then passed into a state of
utter insensibility. There was, however, a
real and abiding work beneath all this, and
Hunt knew how to distinguish it. " There
are here,'* he says, ** two conversions, one
from heathenism to Christianity as a system,
and a second from sin to God. Both these
are of the greatest importance : without the
first there is no hope of the second. We
seldom witness anything like penitence in a
heathen. Generally it is not until they have
professed Christianity for some time that
they sincerely seek the Lord.*'

The claims upon his thought and labour

THE MISSION FIELD. 215

during this exciting period, and still more
during the reaction which followed, and then
the responsibility and care which came upon
him with all the exigencies and demands of
a settled Christian population, began to tell
upon his stalwart frame. The pale face, and
feverish pulse, and failing appetite told that
something severe had been going on behind
the outer scene. There was something
solemn — almost a mystery of heavenliness —
about that tall, thin, stooping figure, as with
earnest eyes and feeble steps he still en-
deavoured to carry on his work. What a
contrast to the man of iron strength who
had come up to London from the fields of
Lincolnshire some twelve years before ! It
was soon evident that he was dying, and the
native Christians met and entreated God to
spare him to them. Elijah Verani's prayer
was touching: ** O Lord, we know that we
are very evil ! but spare Thy servant : if
one must die, take me ! take ten of us I But
spare Thy servant to preach Christ to the
people ! "

It was not to be. The last conflict was at

2i6 MODERN HEROES OF

hand. Hunt died with his armour on, and
entered heaven with the note of triumph on
his lips — ** Hallelujah." His coffin needed
no earthly heraldry to emblazon it. It bore
the simple inscription : —

JOHN HUNT
Slept in Jesus October 4TH, 1848. .
Aged 36 Years.

Thakombau came to look upon the dead
face of the teacher before whom he had
often quailed, and to do honour to the man
whom in his inmost heart he could not but
revere. Hunt had left a message of love
and prayer for the royal savage, who as he
listened to it was deeply moved. The mis-
sionary did not live to see his prayer answered,
but others did ; and when, some years later,
Thakombau was publicly baptized, the con-
gregation which witnessed his Christian
profession was a strange one ; — husbands
whose wives he had dishonoured ; widows
whose husbands he had slain ; sisters whose
brothers he had strangled ; relatives whose
friends he had eaten ; children who formerly

THE MISSION FIELD, 217

had vowed to avenge In his blood the wrongs
inflicted on their parents.

Hunt's work was an abiding one. The
late Dr. Harvey, Professor of Botany in the
University of Dublin, visited Fiji in 1850,
two years after Hunt's death, and has left
the following testimony : ** I speak from
personal observation, having visited the
Wesleyan Missions at the Friendly and Fiji
Islands. I know something, therefore, of
the work that is actually going forward in
the Pacific; and as I am in no way connected
with this mission, and, from my predilections
as a Churchman, not over-disposed to sympa-
thize with a body of Dissenters, you may, I
hope, regard me as an unprejudiced witness,
if I speak favourably of what I have seen.
... It has pleased God remarkably to bless
the labours of His servants, who had so long
watered the ground, not only with their tears,
but with their blood. Some await In Fijian
graves a glorious resurrection ; but others
who have for long time * gone forth weeping,
bearing precious seed/ are now returning
joyful, * bringing their sheaves with them.*

2i8 HEROES OF THE MISSION FIELD.

Heathenism is everywhere on the decline.
Neither heathen temple nor heathen priest
any longer remains at Bau. In that late
abode of butchery and lust, the Christian
congregation meeting every Lord's-day
numbers over a thousand. Some 70,000
throughout the various islands are at least
nominally Christian, and thousands more
are willing to come under mission teaching,
if only missionaries and native teachers can
be sent to them. And if nothing interfere
to blight present prospects, please God, a
few more years will witness the demoniacs
of Fiji no longer * naked, and cutting them-
selves with stones,' but redeemed to Christ,
'sitting, clothed, and in their right minds.' "
These hopeful anticipations have been to
a great extent realized. Fiji is not only a
gem in the British crown, but a precious
jewel in the missionary diadem ; and to
John Hunt, above all other men, belongs
the honour of having placed it there!

IX.

CAPTAIN ALLEN GARDINER, R.N.
ZULULAND AND SOUTH AMERICA, 1835—1851.

The tragical fate which befell this heroic
man, in his noble endeavour to introduce
Christianity into Terra del Fuego, has made
his name to be a household word, and has
won for him a distinguished place in the
history of missionary adventure. But it is
not generally known that Allen Gardiner had
been a missionary pioneer during sixteen
years of his previous life, and had already
endured hardships and privations of no
ordinary kind in his efforts to prepare the
v/ay for the Gospel, both in South Africa and
in South America. He was a layman, and,
though urged to enter into holy orders, pre-
ferred to continue one to the end, because he
believed that in that capacity he could best
promote God's glory, and clear the track for

220 MODERN HEROES OF

the ordained messengers of peace. His
plans were not always the wisest or the best
constructed, but his spirit and resolution were
of the loftiest type, and in all our missionary
annals there is no one who can more justly
claim as his own the apostolic motto, ** In
journeyings often."

Born in 1794, the son of a Berkshire squire,
he showed an early predilection for a sailor's
life. While he was still a child he exercised
his ingenuity in sketching a plan for cutting
the French fleet out of Rochelle harbour. A
love of adventure was early manifested by
his writing out a vocabulary of African words
from ** Mungo Park's Travels," and by his
sleeping all night upon the floor, in the hope,
as he said, that he would thereby inure him-
self to hardship, as he "intended to travel all
over the world."

At sixteen he entered the navy, and having
distinguished himself as a midshipman in
an engagement between the Phoebe and the
Essex, he was sent home as lieutenant in
charge of the prize. Four years after this
(1820) we find him at Penang, in the Daunt-

THE MISSION FIELD, 221

less^ and it was here that the early but
neglected instructions of a pious and departed
mother began to tell. His father had drawn
up a touching record of her last days, but
had not shown it to his son. It happened,
however, that a Christian lady, who was
present at her death, lent the narrative to
the young sailor before he sailed from Ports-
mouth, and allowed him to copy it. Gardiner
had wandered far from her early teaching ;
but this memoir recalled him. He bought a
Bible, but was so much ashamed to be seen
doing so, that he watched the bookseller's
shop until he saw there were no customers
inside, and then he ventured in and made the
purchase. That Bible and that narrative
accompanied him to Penang. While there
a wise and kindly letter received from his
mother's friend set him upon examining the
one and reflecting upon the other, and the
result was that the dashing young naval
officer gave his heart to God.

His duties led him at this time to the coasts
of South America, and he began to take that
deep interest in the aborigines which never

222 MODERN HEROES OF

afterwards forsook him, and in the exercise
of which he laid down his life. He had
witnessed the blessed results of missionary
effort in Tahiti, and when he came back to
England on sick leave, he pleaded the cause
of the poor Indians with the London
Missionary Society, and placed his services
at their disposal. The Society did not see
its way to undertake the mission, and Allen
Gardiner resumed his naval duties, and
became a married man. His wife was
delicate, and her increasing illness led them
eventually to reside in the Isle of Wight.
At length she was taken from him, and
beside her bier he made a solemn vow to
dedicate himself more especially to the
service of God. His tastes and training
pointed out to him the path of a missionary
explorer, and he determined to become a
pioneer in some of those dark regions of the
earth which had not yet been visited by the
light of the Gospel.

His steps were directed in the first instance
to Southern Africa. Our colonists had been
pushing their way amongst the warlike

THE MISSION FIELD, 223

Kaffirs, and frequent conflicts had taken
place between them, but no one as yet had
dreamt of subduing them to Christ. The
honour of starting the first missionary settle-
ment in Zululand belongs to Captain
Gardiner. This is an interesting fact, when
taken in connection with all that has since
rendered that country so familiar to English-
men, both in a political and a religious point
of view. He induced a Pole named Berken
to accompany him, and the history of their
perils and adventures reads like a strange
romance. Now with their own hands they
are digging their horses out of the morasses
into which they have sunk ; now they are
swimming the swollen rivers, at the peril of
their lives, and lying down upon the banks,
wet and hungry, to be awakened from their
uncomfortable repose by the snorting of
hippopotami, as the huge animals come
trampling through the crushed and quiver-
ing reeds. At length Gardiner reached the
rude capital of Dingairn, an able but fero-
cious chief, who was the terror of all white
settlers, and the tyrant of his own people.

224 MODERN HEROES OF

Over this man he contrived to gain a mar-
vellous influence, even inducing him, though
he steadily refused to become a Christian,
to grant ground for a missionary settle-
ment.

Gardiner now took up his residence at
Port Natal, his only possessions being ** his
clothes, his saddle, a spoon, and a New
Testament." The colony, if such it could
be called, consisted of a few miserable
hovels, in which some thirty rough English-
men resided, surrounded by a multitude of
fugitive Zulus, who acted as their servants.
Our pioneer made himself at home amongst
this motley company, and did what he could
to instruct them. It was no new thing to
him, as a naval officer, to read the Church
of England service on Sunday mornings ; so
he gathered the white men under the shadow
of a stately tree, and read to them words
which they had almost forgotten, but which
came back to them like the tones of their
mother's voice. In the afternoon he col-
lected the Kaffirs, and, with the help of an
interpreter, explained to them the simplest

THE MISSION FIELD. 225

^cts of Bible history. Nor were his
week-days unemployed. He opened a school
for the wretched native children, dressed
them in the first clothing they had ever
known, and became himself their patient
schoolmaster. Nor was this all. He aided
the colonists with his advice and succour in
founding their first regular town, and on the
25 th June, 1835, i^ sprang into existence
as *' Durban/'

Troubles arose between the colonists and
DIngairn. The Zulus who worked for the
English had fled from his tyranny, and he
threatened to come down upon the settle-
ment with fire and foray. Gardiner appeared
in the new character of an ambassador, and
presented himself at the kraal of the royal
savage in his full uniform. This made a
deep impression ; but the known and ap-
proved character of the ambassador made a
deeper one ; and the result of this strange
interview was that Dingairn constituted our
hero his plenipotentiary, and made him
governor of ** all the country of the white
people's fold," that is, in other words, of

15

226 MODERN HEROES OF

the territory which we now call Natal. This
induced Gardiner to revisit England in order
to consult the Government on the political
situation, and the Church Missionary Society
concerning the religious one. He soon
returned with a missionary staff, and was
warmly received by Dingairn, who however
was apprised that the missionaries could not
hold secular appointments, and that these
should be given to officers of the British
Crown.

For a time all went on prosperously ; but
complications, for which the missionaries
were in no way responsible, soon arose
between the whites and the Zulus. Covet-
ousness and greed on the one side induced
revenge and treachery on the other. War
and rapine followed ; the missionary settle-
ment had to be abandoned; and Gardiner,
after more than three years of earnest labour
in Natal, left Africa with a heavy heart, and
sought a new field for his exertions.

His thoughts naturally reverted to the
Indians of South America, and more espe-
cially to those of the Pampas and of Chili,

THE MISSION FIELD, 227

who in past years had not only stirred
his compassion by their spiritual destitution,
but had also excited his admiration by the
heroic stand which they had made for their
independence. He reached Rio Janeiro in
July 1838, and immediately began a series
of indefatigable journeyings and investig-
ations. We can give but a passing glance
at them. He travelled to Monte Video and
Buenos Ayres, and thence to Mendoza.
In fourteen days he crossed nine hundred
miles of the Pampas, then scaled the heights
of the Cordilleras, and after eleven days of
incessant toil reached Santiago, on the
Chilian side of the Andes. From Santiago
he travelled to Concepcion, thence to New
Guinea, and from that he made his way to
Valparaiso. During these journeys he had
frequent interviews with native chiefs, but
the results were not satisfactory; **They did
not want a missionary." Many of them
had suffered so fearfully at the hands of
white men, and especially of Spaniards, that
they looked upon all strangers with suspi-
cion. Some of them were even then under-

228 MODERN HEROES OF

going the miseries of an exterminating
warfare from the races which called them-
selves civilized, and there was no opening
for the introduction of the gospel of peace.
In other districts, where these difficulties did
not exist, the jealousy of the authorities and
the opposition of the Romish priesthood
precluded all hope of doing good ; and so,
after two years of fruitless effort, he quitted
South America, and directed his steps to
New Guinea, where he was met by the sullen
suspicions of the Dutch, who could not bring
themselves to believe that an English officer
was free from political designs, and who
only looked upon his missionary pronounce-
ments as a cloak for these.

Baffled successively upon two continents,
and now once again in the Malay Archi-
pelago, he conceived the plan with which his
last and best known enterprise was to be
associated. In a letter written at this time
to a friend he says : *' Having at last
abandoned all hope of reaching the Indian
inhabitants where they are most civilized and
least migratory, my thoughts are necessarily

THE MISSION FIELD. 229

turned toward the South. Happily for us,
and T trust eventually for the poor Indians,
the Falkland Islands are now under the
British flag ; and although the settlement is
poor, still it is the resort of numbers of
whalers, and of the small sealing vessels
which frequent the Straits of Magellan. The
Patagonians about Gregory Bay, in the north-
eastern part of the strait, have always evinced
a friendly disposition to foreigners, and it is
to that spot I am now particularly turning
my attention. We purpose to proceed to
Berkeley Sound in the Falkland Islands.
Making this our place of residence, I intend
to cross over in a sealer, and to spend the
summer among the Patagonians. Who can
tell but the Falkland Islands, so admirably
suited for the purpose, may become the key
to the aborigines, both of Patagonia and
Terra del Fuego ? "

He went to the Cape of Good Hope, and
fetched his family with him from thence to
the Falklands. Leaving them there in a
lonely wooden hut, on that treeless, shrubless
shore, he set off with his servant in a crazy

230 MODERN HEROES OF

schooner for the stormy Straits of Magellan.
Here he came into contact with the Fuegian
dwellers on the islands, and found them to be
barbarians of the lowest type, whom neither
gifts nor kindliness could conciliate, and who
were evidently determined to give no
countenance to their white visitors. He
therefore resolved on making his way to a
tribe of Patagonians on the mainland, con-
cerning whom he had received some informa-
tion, and with whom a Spanish Creole had
been living for some twelve years. This
wild adventurer had gained considerable
influence amongst them, and proved most
useful to Gardiner as an interpreter. A
chieftain named Wissale was particularly
friendly, and promised a welcome to the
captain, if he would come back and set up
a mission amongst his people ; so Gardiner
returned full of hope and thankfulness to his
sorry home upon the Falklands, determined
to bring back his family with him, and to
settle amongst the Patagonians.

But he was fated to be disappointed. The
whalers would not undertake the perilous

THE MISSION FIELD. 231

voyage for ^300, which was all that he had
to offer them. His applications to the
Church Missionary Society were not success-
ful, for at that time they had not the means
to undertake a new mission. So he resolved
on returning to England, and pleading in
person the cause of Patagonia amongst
British Christians. Even in this his hopes
were frustrated. His appeal was met with
apathy and coldness ; but nothing could chill
the warmth of his burning missionary zeal.
Failing in his main object, he endeavoured
to further it indirectly by obtaining a grant
of Bibles and Testaments, and set sail for
Rio Janeiro in order to distribute them.
This was in 1843 J 3,nd his perils and experi-
ences, as he travelled from port to port, and
from place to place, would supply a chapter
of strange adventure. One thing resulted
from it, for which he was thankful, and that
was a promise of ;^ 100 a year from English
congregations in South America towards the
establishment of a Patagonian mission.

Strengthened by this encouragement, he
returned again to his native land, where his

232 MODERN HEROES OF

eloquent and earnest appeals were more
successful than those of his previous visit.
The foundations of a missionary society for
Patagonia and Terra del Fuego were laid in
1844, and before the year expired he was
again upon his old ground, along with a Mr.
Hunt, who resigned an endowed school in
Kendal in order to accompany him, and to
prepare the way for an ordained clergyman.
Once more the story of fatigue and danger
was enacted in reaching the natives ; but
somehow things were changed since Gardiner
had left. Wissale proved hostile, and
attempted Gardiner's life; a Spanish padre
had arrived, and had preoccupied the
ground ; and the brave pioneer, disappointed
but not dismayed, took advantage of the
arrival of a British ship to return home and
wait a more auspicious opportunity. Some
will say that he exhibited less patience than
courage, and that as he was prone to be
rapid and resolute in making his beginnings,
so was he also prone to relinquish his projects
without sufficient cause. But the whole life
of the man contradicts this theory. His own

THE MISSION FIELD. 233

View of the case is the true explanation of
his conduct, and it is summed up in the
following passage of his journal : *' We can
never do wrong in casting the Gospel net on
any side or in any place. During many a
dark and wearisome night we may appear to
have toiled in vain, but it will not be always
so.'* **If they persecute you in one city, flee
ye to another."

It was no marvel if, after such failures,
his supporters in England began to hesitate
about further attempts ; but his own resolu-
tion remained unshaken. ** Whatever course
you may determine upon," said our hero,
** I have made up my mind to go back again
to South America, and leave no stone un-
turned, no effort untried, to establish a
mission amongst the aboriginal tribes. They
have a right to be instructed in the Gospel
of Christ. While God gives me strength,
failure shall not daunt me. This, then, is
my firm resolve — to go back and make
further researches among the natives of the
interior, whether any possible opening may
be found which has hitherto escaped me

234 MODERN HEROES OF

through the Spanish Americans, or whether
Terra del Fuego is the only ground left us for
our last attempt. This I intend to do at my
own risk, whether the Society is broken up
or not. Fund the money which belongs to
the Society, and wait to see the result of the
researches now to be made. Our Saviour
has given a commandment to preach the
Gospel even to the ends of the earth. He
will provide for the fulfilment of His own
purpose. Let us only obey ! "

The deeds of the man were as heroic as
his words. In 1846, we find him in company
with a Spanish Protestant, making his way
through Bolivia, despite of fever and opposi-
tion, to reach the Indians who lay beyond ;
and presently we discover him once again
travelling up and down through England,
reporting the openings he had discovered,
and endeavouring to fire his auditors with
something of his own burning enthusiasm.
If he had found it difficult to urge his com-
mittee on, they now found that it was impos-
sible to hold him back. Their means were
not sufficient to fit out such an expedition as

THE MISSION FIELD. 235

he wished for, but he induced them to consent
to an experimental one on a smaller scale.
With four sailors and one ship-carpenter, a
dingey, a whaleboat, and two wigwams, he
started in 1848 in the barque Clymene^ bound
for Payta. He landed at Picton Island,
where the thievish propensities of the Fue-
gians soon made it manifest that a mission
amongst them could only be safely conducted
afloat, that for this purpose a ship would
be required, and that the boats which he
had brought from England were unsuited
for his hazardous enterprise in such stormy
latitudes. And so the dauntless sailor re-
turned to England to urge the need of larger
means and a more thorough equipment.

He found it impossible to stir up the
generosity of British Christians to the libe-
rality that was required. No one knew
better than he did what was absolutely needed
for such a project, and again and again he
pressed his convictions concerning it upon
the Society at home. But their funds were
small, and it may be mentioned that of the
;^iooo collected he gave ^300 himself So,

236 MODERN HEROES OF

sooner than abandon his enterprise, he re-
luctantly resolved to modify his plans, and
reduce them to the lowest estimate, in the
self-denying but delusive hope that some
additional danger and hardship, endured by
himself and his companions, would compen-
sate for the absence of those better equip-
ments which his nautical experience had so
wisely suggested at the first.

On the 7th September, 1850, the expe-
dition sailed. Tne names of the deathless
seven deserve to be recorded. Allen Gar-
diner was the chief, and was accompanied by
two catechists — Surgeon Williams and John
Maidment; three Cornish fishermen — Pearce,
Badcock, and Bryant, well accustomed to
stormy seas in the Irish Channel ; and a
ship-carpenter named Joseph Erwin, who
had been with Gardiner on his previous
voyage, and now volunteered for this fresh
service, declaring that to be with such a
captain ** was like a heaven upon earth, he
was such a man of prayer." They were all
men of simple piety, and went to the work
with holy resolution. From first to last

THE MISSION FIELD, 237

not d jarring word was heard in that devoted
company, and their one object was ** to
serve the good Master in whose name they
had gone forth." The Ocean Queen, bound
for San Francisco, gave them a passage,
and undertook to land them at Terra del
Fuego, with their two launches — the Pioneer
and the Speedwell^ and provisions for six
months.

And now we come to the story of the
saddest disaster in the records of missionary
enterprise. It had been arranged that pro-
visions for another six months should follow
the party, but the committee could not find
any ship that would consent to go out of its
course to Picton Island, and they had there-
fore to forward the supplies to the Falklands.
The governor there arranged to send them
on, but by a sad fatality the vessel was
wrecked, and the master of a second dis-
obeyed orders, and so the missionary party
were left unprovided. Meantime they had
landed, but were compelled by the plunder-
ing habits and hostile attitude of the natives
to re-embark, and seek shelter in a distant

238 MODERN HEROES OF

and retired bay, where they settled down in
two companies, and waited in longing
expectation for the promised relief. The
storms crippled their boats, and destroyed
one of them. Their nets were torn to pieces
by the action of the ice, and as by an unfor-
tunate oversight their powder had been for-
gotten on board the Ocean Queen, they could
obtain no fresh supplies of food. At length
their stores were becoming exhausted, and
they had to subsist mainly on limpets,
mussels, and wild celery. Scurvy broke
out amongst them, and added its horrors to
those of hunger. One by one they died
upon that desert shore, and Gardiner was the
last survivor of the gallant band !

Twenty days after his death, the John
Davison, under Captain Smyly, sailed from
Monte Video to enquire after them, and
soon anchored in Banner Cove. He found
a direction painted on the rocks — " Gone to
Spaniard Harbour.'' Let us tell the sequel
in Captain Smyly's words : —

"Oct. 22, 1851. Ran to Spaniard
Harbour. Blowing a severe gale. Went

THE MISSION FIELD. 239

on shore, and found a boat with one person
dead inside ; another body we found on the
beach, another buried. These, we have
every reason to believe, are Pearce, Williams,
and Badcock. The sight was awful in the
extreme. The two captains who were with
me in the boat cried like children. Books,
papers, medicine were strewed along the
beach, and on the boats, deck, and cuddy.
• . . But we had no time to make further
search, as the gale came on so hard. It
gave us barely time to bury the corpses on
the beach and get on board. The gale
continued to increase, so that it drove us
from our anchorage and out to sea. ... I
have never found in my life such Christian
fortitude, such patience and bearing, as in
the records of these unfortunate men ; they
have never murmured, and Mr. Williams
writes in one of his papers, and in the time
of greatest distress, * I am happy beyond all
expression.' "

Meantime, H.M.S. Dido had been ordered
by the Admiralty to search for the mission-
ary party. She arrived in January 1852;

240 MODERN HEROES OF

and Captain Morshead, guided by the sen-
tence on the rocks, made for Spaniard
Harbour. The following is his melancholy
record : —

*^ Our notice was first attracted by a boat
lying upon the beach. It was blowing very
fresh from the south, and the ship rode
uneasily at her anchor. I instantly sent
Lieut. Pigott and Mr. Roberts to reconnoitre
and return immediately, as I was anxious to
get the ship to sea again in safety for the
night ; they returned shortly, bringing some
books and papers, and having discovered
the bodies of Captain Gardiner and Mr.
Maidment unburied. . . . On one of the
papers was written legibly, * If you will
walk along the beach for a mile and a half,
you will find us in the other boat, hauled up
in the mouth of a river at the head of the
harbour, on the south side. Delay not — we
are starving.' At this sad intelligence it
was impossible to leave that night, though
the weather looked very threatening. . . . We
landed early next morning, January 22nd,
and visited the spot where Captain Gardiner

THE MISSION FIELD, 241

and his comrade were lying, and then went
to the head of the harbour. We found there
the wreck of a boat, with part of her gear
and stores, and a quantity of clothing, with
the remains of two bodies, which I conclude
to be Mr. Williams (surgeon), and John
Pearce (Cornish fisherman), as the papers
clearly show the death and burial of all the
rest of the mission party. The two boats
were thus about a mile and a half apart.
Near the one where Captain Gardiner was
lying was a large cavern, called by him Pioneer
Cavern, where they kept their stores and
occasionally slept, and in that cavern Mr.
Maidment's body was found. . . . Captain
Gardiner's body was lying beside the boat,
which apparently he had left, and being too
weak to climb into it again, had died by the
side of it. We were directed to the cavern
by a hand painted on the rocks, with
Psalm Ixii. 5-8 under it."

The words referred to are the following,
and the choice of them under such circum-
stances proves how strong and unshaken was
the faith of Gardiner and his companions : —

16

242 MODERN HEROES OF

^^ My soul, wait thou only upon God ; for my
expectation is from Him, He only is my rock
and my salvation ; He is my defence ; I shall
not be moved. In God is my salvation and my
glory ; the rock of my strength^ and my refuge^
is in God."*^ The diaries, which fortunately
have been preserved, give a thrilling account
of those terrible months of patient endurance
and heroic resolution. They tell moreover
of the love and consideration manifested by
the noble leader for his devoted band. There
is something unspeakably touching in the
account of his getting Maidment to con-
struct crutches out of two forked sticks, so
that he might try to reach the other section
of his little company, and be a comfort to
them. But his strength was not equal to
the effort, and he had to return to his boat.
There Maidment ministered to him, until he
too sank from exhaustion. He had left a
little peppermint-water beside the bed of
his chief, and retired for rest to the cave,
but from it he never returned.

When we get our last glimpse of Gardiner,
he is weakly endeavouring, with his india-

THE MISSION FIELD, 243

rubber shoe, to scoop some water from a little
pool which had trickled down at the stern of
his boat. The last words he wrote were
these : ** Our dear brother left the boat on
Tuesday at noon, and has not since returned;
doubtless he is in the presence of his Re-
deemer, whom he served so faithfully. Yet
a little while, and through grace we may
join that blessed throng, to sing the praises
of Christ through eternity. I neither hunger
nor thirst, though five days without food !
Marvellous lovingkindness to me a sinner!"

It was with sorrowing hearts the sailors of
the Dido gathered together all that remained
of this heroic band, and gave them Christian
sepulture. The funeral service was appro-
priately read by a naval officer at the grave
of Captain Gardiner and his comrades. The
colours of the boats and ship were struck
half-mast, and three volleys of musketry re-
echoed on that lonely shore, as the last
tribute of respect to a gallant and noble-
minded Englishman.

No, we will not call it the last tribute of
respect. In the letters and journals which

244 MODERN HEROES OF

he wrote in his ''boat dormitory/' he com-
mitted his mission to the care of the Chris-
tian Church, and sketched out the methods
by which he thought it would be best ad-
vanced. That legacy of faith and love was
administered to in the court of Christian
charity by devoted men, who became his
followers in the work on which he had set
his heart. His own son was one of that
heroic band. A mission-ship, called the
Allen Gardiner, was built as the best memo-
rial of his name. The Falklands have been
since erected into an English bishopric,
and the first occupant of the see is a man
who had already devoted his life to God in
the same missionary field where Captain
Gardiner fell. Perhaps nothing short of the
sad catastrophe which we have described
would have awakened English Christians
out of the apathy from which Gardiner had
found it so impossible to arouse them,
or kindled that zeal on behalf of South
America which we are thankful to say has
been evoked by his sad but glorious
fate.

THE MISSION FIELD, 245

*♦ The white foam crests the wave,

The wind sweeps weirdly by ;
And whirling round with plaintive sound
The stormy petrels cry.

** Amid the beetling rocks,

In a chill cavern's shade,
Within the gloom of that strange dark tomb

A dying bed is made !

** A gallant seaman there

Casts round his sunken eyes :
Unblanched by fear, tho' grim Death is near,

A noble Christian dies.

"No greed for yellow gold;

To head no conquering band;
Not fame had led the sleeping dead

To seek that savage land.

** I see a morning dawn,

A King upon His throne,
And thousands stand at His right hand,
Who well their work have done.

" With wreaths of victory crowned,

Among that conquering band,
On the crystal sea his rest shall be.
Who died for the Southern land 1 *•

X.

ALEXANDER DUFF, D.D, INDIA, 1830— 1864.

Some sixty years ago a bright imaginative
boy was lying, amongst the blaeberries, upon
the bank of a stream that flowed close by
his father's Highland cottage, as it nestled
beneath the shadow of the Grampians. A
short time before this he had fallen into the
burn, and had narrowly escaped from drown-
ing. The incident had made a deep impres-
sion upon him, which was further deepened
by the reading of Buchanan's weird Gaelic
poem, "The Day of Judgment," and Milton's
sublime epic of ** Paradise Lost," both of
which exercised a strange fascination over
his young mind. And so it came to pass
that as he lay beside the stream he fell
asleep, and dreamed a dream, which, whether
we regard it as a prevision of his fancy, or
as an intimation of his future destiny, may

248 MODERN HEROES OF

well be deemed remarkable. He saw above
him a glorious light, from which there issued
by-and-by a golden chariot studded with
gems, and drawn by horses of fire. It
reached his side, and he heard a voice say-
ing to him, '* Come up hither, I have
work for thee to do." In the effort to arise
the young sleeper awoke ; but the remem-
brance of that dream never left him during
a long life, and shortly before his death he
related it to his grandson.

That youth was Alexander Duff, who was
destined to be, in more senses than one, the
first missionary of the Established Church of
Scotland, and to exercise an influence upon
the future of India more potent than that of
any other man of his time, whether amongst
the ranks of statesmen, warriors, or philan-
thropists. His father's spiritual lineage has
been traced to the preaching of Charles
Simeon, whose solitary sermon in a Scotch
village kindled new light in the heart of the
pastor whose ministry Duffs parents had
long attended. The Highland farmer caught
from his minister a portion of that blessed

THE MISSION FIELD, 249

illumination, and endeavoured to communi-
cate it to his children.

Young Duft's first introduction to mission-
ary topics came to him through his father,
who was wont to show his children pictures
of Juggernaut and other heathen idols,
accompanying them with explanations, which
were well calculated to awaken compassion in
the hearts of his young hearers for the state
of the heathen. These feelings were intensi-
fied when he passed from the Grammar School
at Perth, of which he had become the dux^
to the University of St. Andrews, with ^20
in his pocket, being all the patrimony that
his worthy father could bestow upon his son.
Here " the eagle-eyed impulsive youth "
made his own way by winning scholarships
and exhibitions, and had the good fortune to
become at once the pupil and the friend of
the illustrious Chalmers. That great man
had just come to fill the chair of Moral
Philosophy, and his teaching, example, and
enthusiasm were like *' life from the dead."
He stirred the dull stagnation of moderatism
into which the Church of Scotland had

250 MODERN HEROES OF

settled down, and won a benignant and
triumphant ascendancy over the students of
the university. Duff was one of that noble
band of young men who came under his
magic influence, and when the great Scotch
orator delivered his famous prelections on
missionary subjects in the Town Hall, was
among the first to yield himself to the
overpowering spell. Here, too, he heard
Marshman and Morrison recount the story of
their missionary and linguistic labours, and
thus he enlarged the compass of his infor-
mation, and his admiration of the work.

The missionary spirit had been awakened
in Scotland: Inglis and Chalmers had infused
new life into the then almost effete instru-
mentality called ** the Scottish Missionary
Society." India was chosen as the field of
its operations, and the distinctive feature
of this new aggression upon its heathenism
consisted in the determination to call in the
aid of European science, and of English
literature to dislodge the absurdities of the
ancient superstitions, and to reach the lead-
ing classes of Hindustan, who, up to this

THE MISSION FIELD. 251

time, had remained almost untouched and
uninfluenced by Christian truth. It was no 1
part, however, of the system conceived by ,
these gifted men that Christianity was to be
divorced from science, but rather that the
latter, in all its departments, should be
permeated by the influence of the former.
From them ** Duff imbibed his firm and
noble belief in the inseparable unity of truth,
and his immovable conviction that all true
science pointed the way to revealed
theology."

It was not, however, until he had been a
third time pressed by his superiors to under-
take an office, from which, (on account of his
high estimate of its dignity, and his unfeigned
consciousness of personal unworthiness,) he
had shrunk again and again, that young Duff
surrendered himself to the manifest guidings
of Providence, and consented to go forth, in
the strength of the Lord, to carry out the
projects of his gifted teachers. All he asked
was freedom from local control in India, and
perfect liberty to use his own judgment as to
the system of discipline and tuition to be

252 MODERN HEROES OF

employed in the seminary which he was
commissioned to found.

In October 1829, the young missionary
sailed for Hindustan, in the Lady Holland^
with the passport of an ** interloper *' ; so
necessary, alas ! in those days of intolerance.
He had already won literary and scientific
distinctions, as well as theological honours.
To a robust frame, which had been inured to
exercise and peril among his native moun-
tains, he added that sturdy and yet cautious
spirit which so generally distinguishes his
countrymen, and that genial affection and
vigorous intellect which, in their combination,
are always so powerful and so attractive.
Above all, he was gifted with fervent piety,
and filled with the spirit of Divine love — his
best equipment for the glorious work which
he had to perform.

He was literally cast like a seaweed upon
the shores of India. He had been already
shipwrecked at ** the Cape,'* and had lost
his valuable library. The only thing saved
from the wreck was a Bible and Psalter,
which had been given him as a parting gift

THE MISSION FIELD, 253

at his ordination, and In the preservation of
which the devoted missionary read an intima-
tion that henceforth the Book of Books must
be his supreme and absorbing study. **They
are gone," said he, speaking of his eight
hundred volumes, " and blessed be God, I
can say * gone ' without a murmur. So
perish all earthly things: the treasure that
is laid up in heaven alone is unassailable."
He was often heard to say that this event
exercised a most important influence on the
whole of his subsequent career. Scarcely
had the Moira, in which he left the Cape,
entered the Hoogly, than the south-west
monsoon struck her in its fury, and drove her
as a shattered wreck upon the shore. The
missionary and his wife were barely rescued
from the rolling billows, and they spent their
first night in India within the shelter of a
heathen temple. Even this was a favourable
introduction. ** Surely," exclaimed the
natives, ** this man is a favourite of the
gods!"

Though kindly welcomed by such men as
Corrle, and Browne, and Adam, he found

254 MODERN HEROES OF

that the whole missionary body in Calcutta,
with the one solitary exception of the aged
Carey, were decidedly hostile to his plans.
And we can scarcely wonder at it, for in
many cases the natives who had hitherto
come into contact with English science and
literature had turned it to bad account.
Tom Paine and his ** Age of Reason" had
become the favourite author of those who
had learned English. In the Hindu College,
where western science had been for some
time taught, but taught apart from religion,
several young Brahmins had indeed renounced
their superstitions, but were lapsing into utter
infidelity. The missionaries saw the dangers
which were likely to accrue ; but they did not
see, like Duff, that those dangers must be
met and conquered, nor did they perceive,
like him, that new forces were at hand which
would facilitate the task. It was in the face
of the highest authorities, in the face of
Government enactments, and of learned dis-
sertations, and despite the practice of Chris-
tian philanthropists, that Duff resolved, after
mature consideration, to repudiate Sanscrit,

THE MISSION FIELD, 255

Persian, and other Oriental tongues, and
openly and fearlessly to proclaim English
as the most effective medium of Indian
enlightenment; to make it in fact what
Greek and Latin had been to the Renais-
sance and at the Reformation, and to
employ science in connexion with Chris-
tianity as the means of influencing those
who, by their attainments and occupations,
were destined to direct the national heart
and intellect of Hindustan.

In one thing only did the bold young
missionary disregard home orders ; and in
this act of disobedience he exhibited some-
thing of the same genius which was displayed
by Nelson at St. Vincent, when he placed the
telescope to his sightless eye, and refused to
see the signal which woifld have robbed his
fleet and his country of a glorious victory.
The authorities in Scotland, following in the
track of Bishop Middleton and of the Baptists,
had resolved that the new seminary should
not be established in Calcutta. Duff saw
that its location there was absolutely neces-
sary to its success ; so he planted his college

256 MODERN HEROES OF

in the great Chitpore Road, the very centre
of native life ; and the issue proved that he
was right

It was opened on the 12th July, 1830. A
remarkable man was present. This was
none other than Rammohun Roy, the Indian
Reformer, who was now approaching the
close of his memorable career. At the early
age of sixteen he had been led, through the
study of Sanscrit and Arabic, to renounce
heathenism. Having entered the service of
the British Government, he had conducted
himself with conspicuous integrity ; but at
the age of fifty he resigned his office, and
entered upon a course of philosophic inquiry,
which led eventually to his institution of
** the Brahmo Somaj," the main principle of
which was to proclaim and to practise the
worship of the one supreme and eternal God.
This man, though he never recognized the
divinity or atonement of our Lord Jesus
Christ, had conceived the deepest reverence
for His teaching, and the young missionary,
with quick discernment, saw how the Deistic
Reformer could be rendered helpful to his

THE MISSION FIELD, 257

own Christian plans. He therefore entered
into communication with him, explained the
objects he had in view, won his co-operation,
and through his influence secured a number
of pupils for his seminary.

Duft's biographer has given us a graphic
account of the opening day. The missionary
slowly repeated the Lord's prayer in Ben-
gali. Rammohun Roy stood up to show
his reverence, and the pupils followed his
example. '* Then came the more critical
act. Himself putting a copy of the Gospels
into their hands, the missionary requested
some of the older pupils to read. There
was a murmuring amongst the Brahmins
who were among them, and this found voice
in the protest of a leader : * This is the
Christian Shaster ; we are not Christians ;
how then can we read it ? It may make us
Christians, and our friends will drive us out
of caste ! * Now was the time for Ram-
mohun Roy, who explained to his young
countrymen that they were mistaken.
'Christians,' said he, *Hke Dr. Wilson, have
studied the Hindu Shasters, and you know

17

258 MODERN HEROES OF

that he has not become a Hindu. I myself
have read all the Koran again and again,
and has that made me a Mussulman ? Nay,
I have studied the whole Bible, and you
know I am not a Christian. Read and
judge for yourselves. Not compulsion, but
enlightened persuasion, which you may
resist if you choose, constitutes you your-
selves judges of the contents of the book.'
Most of the remonstrants seemed satisfied."
The first and chief difficulty having been
thus surmounted, Duff threw himself with
all his native enthusiasm into his work, train-
ing his own assistants, and taking his full
share in the drudgery of the most elementary
teaching. The institution grew in popu-
larity ; the applications for admission were
so numerous that selections had to be made.
From a school it soon developed into a
college, attended by natives of every caste,
from the Brahmin downwards, and of every
age, from eight to one-and-twenty. At the
end of twelve months a public examination
was held under the presidency of Arch-
deacon Corrie. Lord William Bentinck and

THE MISSION FIELD. 259

Sir Charles Trevelyan were amongst the
audience, and expressed their surprise at
the knowledge of English grammar and
idiom exhibited by the boys, and still more
at the ease and accuracy with which they
read the Holy Scriptures, and answered
questions not merely on its history, but
also upon its doctrines and morals. The
Governor-General afterwards, in his farewell
address, described it as ** a model mis-
sionary effort which even in its early years
had produced unparalleled results." Visitors
from distant provinces came to the Assem-
bly's celebrated academy, caught the spirit
of its plan, and returning to their own
districts laid there the foundations of similar
institutions.

All this was not achieved without a pro-
longed conflict between the Anglicans and
the Orientalists ; there were giants on both
sides ; but eventually the former triumphed,
Macauley, Trevelyan, Bird, and Colvin took
the same side as Duff; and when at length
Lord William Bentinck, one of the greatest
of our Indian proconsuls, issued the famous

26o MODERN HEROES OF

decree of the 7th of March, 1835, which
ordained that the Government should for
the future promote to the utmost European
literature and science, the whole weight of
English rule was thrown into a movement
which must inevitably lead to the disintegra-
tion of Hinduism. The simple facts of
geography, and the true theory of solar and
lunar eclipses, as taught in the school, were
enough in themselves to strike a fatal blow
at Hindu theology ; and when the first
Brahmin consented to dissect a human body
in the medical college (and this was a fruit
of the education received in Dr. Duffs
seminary), it was felt that the system of
caste had received a deadly wound.

But Duff, wiser than the British Govern-
ment, kept up an intimate link between
secular and religious instruction. Lectures
on natural and revealed religion were publicly
delivered by the young missionary, and these
led to such earnest and animated debates,
that the Governor- General had to satisfy
himself that no political danger was to be
apprehended from them. ** The Hindu col-

THE MISSION FIELD. 261

lege " sent its ablest representatives to
uphold the tottering fabric of their faith ;
but the controversy ended in some of the
most prominent of them becoming Christians.
One of these, Krishnu Mohun Banerjea, a
distinguished Koolin Brahmin, became one
of the most leading clergymen in Calcutta;
and another, Gopeenath Nundy, was will-
ing to lay down his life, during the Indian
mutiny, as a martyr for Christ. To aid his
children in the faith, the devoted missionary
opened Sunday and week-day classes for the
study of the Scriptures and for prayer. He
erected a wicker-work chapel for preaching
in the vernacular, and held an English
service every Lord's Day evening. For
inquirers he conducted courses of lectures
on the Bible and philosophy; and when
his opponents, foiled in this arena, betook
themselves to writing in the Bengali news-
papers, this undaunted advocate for Christian
truth followed them, and made each fresh
assault the occasion of a new and blessed
victory.

To tell of the labours of Duff on behalf of

262 MODERN HEROES OF

natives, Eurasians, and Europeans, during
his first four eventful years in India, would
be to write a volume, and not to sketch an
outline. He soon converted the solitude of
his own kirk into a goodly congregation, and
his energy and enthusiasm infused such new
life amongst churchmen, that the British
chaplain found the attendance at his ser-
vice steadily increasing. Sunday observ-
ance was at its lowest ebb when Duff
came to the rescue, and restored some
degree of sacredness to the day of rest.
His influence was felt everywhere as that
of a master-mind, as well as that of a
devoted Christian.

But exhaustion was induced by all this
incessant toil, and he had to return to England
in 1834. What a trial to him this enforced
absence proved itself we may judge from his
own language when describing the spirit in
which he consecrated himself to the work:
** Having set my hand to the plough, my
resolution was peremptorily taken, the Lord
helping me, never to look back any more,
and never to make a half-hearted work of it.

THE MISSION FIELD, 263

Having chosen missionary labour in India, I
gave myself up wholly to it in the destination
of my own mind. I united or wedded myself
to it in a covenant, the bonds of which should
be severed only by death." And so, when
the great missionary left the scene of his
labours, it was only to stir up the spirit of
his fellow-Christians at home by such appeals
as they had seldom heard before, and to give
the Church at large such views of duty and
of responsibility in respect to the heathen
world as it had never hitherto realized. It
is not too much to say that he served the
cause of missions quite as much, during his
five years' residence in Great Britain, as he
had already done by his four years of inces-
sant labour in India. He developed, during
this period, a wondrous power of natural
oratory ; and those who listened to his sub-
lime and stirring appeals came away, not
like the auditors of Cicero, saying, *' What a
mighty orator ! " but like those of Demos-
thenes, when they exclaimed, ** Let us go
and fight the enemy!'* One result of
these vigorous and impassioned addresses

264 MODERN HEROES OF

was that Scottish Christians took up the
missionary work with a generous enthu-
siasm, and they stand distinguished to this
day, above other communities, by sending
out their best and ablest men to the mis-
sionary field.

His health was restored, and in 1839 ^^
turned his face once more to the land of his
adoption. But before he left he bequeathed
to his countrymen a volume, under the title
of ** India and Indian Missions,'' which
helped to keep alive the deep impression
made by his utterances, and gave a full
and graphic exposition of the superstitions
and philosophies of the East. Visiting
Egypt and Sinai on his way, and bringing
the ardour of a boy, and the endurance of a
man, to back the culture of a genial student,
he wrote home charming and Instructive letters
concerning the desert and ** the mysterious
land." There are few things In the language
more touching, or more sublime, than the
account which he wrote from the ** Top of
Mount Sinai" of the Impressions made on
his mind by the solemn scene, while he

THE MISSION FIELD, 265

rc€ited on its hoary summit, upon a Sabbath
day, the Ten Commandments of the eternal
God. Having visited successively the mis-
sions at Bombay and Madras, and strengthened
the hands of his brethren in their work, he
found himself once more in Calcutta. The
first object which caught his eye was in itself
a token of progress; it was a sign -board,
on which were marked in large characters
the words ** Ram Lochun Sen and Co.,
Surgeons and Druggists." ** Not six years
had passed," observes his biographer,
** since the pseudo-orientalists had declared
that no Hindu would be found to study even
the rudiments of the healing art through
anatomy.*' After passing the medical col-
lege, the next strange and gratifying object
which met his eye was a handsome church,
with Gothic tower and buttresses, and close
beside it a commodious parsonage. And
who was the pastor ? One of his own pupils,
formerly a Brahmin of the highest caste,
next an educated infidel, then a humble
student of the Word of Life, and now a
clergyman of the Church of England, duly

266 MODERN HEROES OF

ordained by the Bishop of Calcutta. The
large-hearted and catholic spirit of Duff
rejoiced in this, no less than it did in the
wonderful progress of his own institution in
Cornwallis Square ; and what a change did
he behold as he visited his once lowly school,
and thought of its condition ten years
before.

**Then," he writes, ** the precise line of
operations to be adopted was not only un-
known, but seemed for a while incapable of
being discovered, as it stretched away amid
the thickening conflict of contending diffi-
culties ; now there stood before me a visible
pledge and token that one grand line of
operation had been ascertained, and cleared
of innumerable obstacles, and persevered in
with a steadfastness of march which looked
most promisingly towards the destined goal.
Then I had no commission but either to hire
a room for educational purposes at a low
rent, or to erect a bungalow at a cost not
exceeding £io or ^40 ; now there stood
before me a plain and substantial, yet
elegant structure, which cost between^5,ooG

THE MISSION FIELD. 267

and ^6,000. Then it was a matter of pain-
ful and delicate uncertainty whether any
respectable native would attend for the sake
of being initiated into a compound course of
literary, scientific, and Christian instruction;
now six hundred or seven hundred pursuing
such a course were ready to hail me with
welcome congratulation. Then the most
advanced pupils could only manage to spell
English words of two syllables, without
comprehending their meaning ; now the
surviving remnant of that class were pre-
pared to stand an examination in English
literature, science, and Christian theology,
which might reflect credit on many who
have studied seven or eight years at one
of our Scottish colleges. Then the whole
scheme was not merely ridiculed as chimeri-
cal by the worldly-minded, but as unmission-
ary, if not unchristian, in its principles and
tendencies by the pious conductors of other
evangelizing measures ; now the mission-
aries of all denominations resident in Cal-
cutta not only approve of the scope, design,
and texture of the scheme, but have for

268 MODERN HEROES OF

several years been strenuously, and not
unsuccessfully, attempting to imitate it
to the utmost extent of the means at their
disposal."

Dr. Duff might have spent the rest of his^
career in tending and expanding the institu-
tion which he had founded, but the '* Dis-
ruption " of 1843 brought with it new duties,
and almost a recommencement of his labours.
He had held himself apart, both at home
and in India, from the controversy which
preceded this cataclysm ; but when the
announcement reached him that the **Free
Church " of Scotland had sprung into life,
he took his side without a moment's hesita-
tion, and, together with his colleagues, con-
scientiously proclaimed himself a member
of that body. This led, of course, to the
surrender of the premises and the entire
reconstruction of his work. But the energy
of Duff was equal to the emergency, and the
effect of the disruption was to double the
efficiency of the mission. A new church
was immediately built at a cost of /5, 000.
On the very night before it was to have

THE MISSION FIELD. 269

been opened for Divine service It fell. Un-
dismayed, the congregation, under the
guidance of their pastor, erected another at
a cost of ;^ 1 2,000, and Bishop Cotton pro-
nounced it the prettiest church in Calcutta.
Suitable and extensive buildings for educa-
tional work soon sprang into existence, and
Duff's second college is now well known in
the city as the " Free Church Missionary
Institution."

Conversions and baptisms continued, and,
as a consequence, hostilities began. Duff's
house was besieged ; he was cited into the
courts to try and compel him to the surrender
of one of his Christian pupils. The cry of
** Hinduism in danger" was raised, and this
not only, as at an earlier stage, by aristo-
cratic Brahmins, but by Mulliks and Seels,
who had risen from poverty to wealth, and
who now called in the Jesuits to found a rival
college where English would be taught on
purely secular liiies ! Duff's life was threatened;
and then he addressed a fearless letter to
the Baboos of Calcutta, in which he not only
pleaded for toleration and liberty, but

270 MODERN HEROES OF

pointed out that persecution would only serve
the cause which they hoped to destroy. The
closing sentences of that appeal are worth
recording : —

** In the early ages of relentless persecution
by the emissaries of pagan Rome, it passed
into a proverb that *the blood of the martyrs
became the seed of the Church.' Let the
Calcutta Baboos rest assured that the vital
principle involved in this proverb has lost
nothing of its intrinsic efficacy or subduing
power. The first drop of missionary blood
that is violently shed, in the peaceful cause of
Indian evangelization, will prove a prolific
seed in the outspreading garden of the Indo-
Christian Church. And the first actual mis-
sionary martyrdom that shall be encountered
in this heavenly cause may do more, under
the over-ruling providence of God, to preci-
pitate the inevitable doom of Hinduism, and
speed on the chariot of Gospel triumph, than
would the establishment of a thousand addi-
tional Christian schools, or the delivery of
ten thousand additional Christian addresses,
throughout the towns of this mighty empire."

THE MISSION FIELD. 271

Duff lived down the opposition, and not
only continued his great work of Christianized
Education, but threw himself into various
efforts for the public good. Now he is editor
of the Calcutta Review, and spreading light
by means of its pages throughout the
land ; now he is establishing the first hospital
in Calcutta, an effort which has since ex-
panded into ten kindred institutions ; now he
is aiding the Eurasians, and consolidating
the Doveton Colleges of Calcutta and
Madras ; now he is blowing a trumpet-blast
that brings relief to the famine-stricken
Highlanders of his own beloved Scotland.

In 1 849 there was a strong desire expressed
at home that he should be invited to occupy
the chair of Divinity, which had been vacated
by the death of Chalmers. The bare idea of
losing him created an intense sensation in
Calcutta. Addresses poured in upon him,
not only from Euiopean and native Christians,
but from Brahmins and Pundits, entreating
him not to leave them. He bowed to their
request, and resolved to continue in India;
but his shattered health obliged him, in 1850,

272 MODERN HEROES OF

to revisit his native land, and thus for three
years he became again the organizer and
financier of missionary work at home — stirring
up the General Assembly of the Free Church
(of which he had been elected Moderator) by
a series of addresses which compare favour-
ably with the highest achievements of Chris-
tian oratory ; visiting England, to create
amongst all classes a true appreciation of the
great interests which were involved in the
approaching renewal of the East India Com-
pany's Charter; appealing to the young
men of London, from the platform of Exeter
Hall, to come *' to the help of the Lord against
the mighty ; " and sending out new mission-
aries to extend and consolidate the work
which he had begun in India.

It was during this period that he appeared
before the committees of the Houses of Par-
liament, often encountering the keen opposi-
tion of hostile questioners, but giving such
irrefragable evidence as mainly led to the
famous Educational Despatch of 1854. In-
deed, his ** handiwork can be traced, not
only in the definite orders there conveyed,

THE MISSION FIELD, 273

but in the very style of what has ever since
been pronounced the great educational charter
of the people of India." Well had it been
for Hindustan if the principles of that despatch
had been fully and faithfully carried out.
Duff, when he returned to India, endeavoured
to secure fair play for it, and so long as his
strong hand was at the helm he was suc-
cessful ; but in his dying hours what grieved
him most was the departure of local govern-
ments from its liberal and self-developing
arrangements, and the growing inclination
of ** the powers that be'' to give a high
English education without religion ; a policy
which, to use his own expressive language
before the Lords, was at once ** blind and
suicidal," and the sad results of which we
are already reaping in the growing atheism
of young Bengal.

Before returning, for the third and last time,
to India, he visited America, and received a
perfect ovation wherever he appeared. It is
said that when he delivered one of his mar-
vellous orations in New York, the vast
audience was melted into tears by his pathos,

18

274 MODERN HEROES OF

and afterwards sprang to their feet in the
wildness of their excitement. The reporters
laid down their pens; they might as well
have endeavoured to report a thunderstorm ;
and when the crowds upon the wharf waved
their last farewells to him, they cried aloud,
** No such man has visited us since the days
of Whitfield."

He reached India just in time to encounter
the mutiny of 1857, and was a tower of
strength to the Christian Church in that
fearful crisis. His letters written on the
spot, and all aglow with the thrilling
emotions of the period, are a marvel of
powerful description, calm statesmanship,
and Christian heroism. The Church in India
was indeed baptized with blood, but that
fiery trial proved how deep and sincere w^ere
the convictions of the native Christians ; and
Duff, while he mourned over martyr-pupils,
could thank God for their faithfulness even
unto death.

When the University of Calcutta was
founded in 1863, the vice-chancellorship was
refused by Sir Charles Trevelyan, in order

THE MISSION FIELD. 275

that he might recommend Duff to that
important post. His learning and his
labours on behalf of education eminently
entitled him to this position ; but just then
his old enemy, dysentery, laid him low, and
a voice from home announced that Dr.
Tweedie, the convener of missions, was
dead, and that Duff was wanted at home
**to save the missions." It was with a sad
heart the missionary took his last farewell.
There is something deeply pathetic in his
parting address to the Bethune Society,
representing as it did all the educated non-
Christians of Bengal : ** Wherever I wander,
wherever I roam ; wherever I labour, wher-
ever I rest, my heart will be still in India.
So long as I am in this tabernacle of clay I
shall never cease, if permitted by a gracious
Providence, to labour for the good of India;
my latest breath will be spent in imploring
blessings on India and its people. And
when at last this frail mortal body is con-
signed to the silent tomb, while I myself
think that the only befitting epitaph for my
tombstone would be, * Here lies Alexander

276 MODERN HEROES OF

Duff, by nature and practice a sinful guilty
creature, but saved by grace, through faith
in the blood and righteousness of his Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ ; ' were it by others
thought desirable that any addition should
be made to this sentence, I would reckon it
my highest earthly honour, should I be
deemed worthy of appropriating the grandly
generous words, already suggested by the
exuberant kindness of one of my oldest
native friends, in some such form as follows:
* By profession, a missionary ; by his life and
labours, the true and constant friend of
India.' Pardon my weakness ; nature is
overcome; the gush of feeling is beyond
control ; amid tears of sadness I must now
bid you all a solemn farewell."

He was spared, like Hezekiah, for another
fifteen years, and they were not idle ones.
He filled the chair of Divinity in the New
College of Edinburgh; he was chosen to the
unique honour of being a second time
Moderator of the General Assembly; he
inaugurated new missions in India, Africa,
and the East; he was the peacemaker

THE MISSION FIELD, 277

wherever his voice could be heard ; and at
the patriarchal age of seventy-two, having
'* served his own generation according to
the will of God, he fell on sleep '' on the
1 2th February, 1878, full of days and full
of honour.

A missionary, and much more than a
missionary, Duff was a greater power in
India than any of its statesmen. Their rule
and influence were generally limited to some
five or six years, and new men succeeded
them, very often with different views of
policy, and consequently with enfeebled
because intermittent power; but from the
time he landed at Calcutta in 1830, until
he finally left it in 1864, he was an enduring
and continually operating force.

His own view of his work and of its effects
may be summed up in the following pregnant
sentences : — " As far as education, in its
most comprehensive sense, is concerned, the
whole energy of my life has been devoted
to the attempt to have it impregnated
throughout all its departments, whether of
literature, science, or philosophy, with the

278 MODERN HEROES OF

living spirit of Christianity. . • . And even
though, in the vast majority of cases, no
actual conversion ensues, good unspeakable
has been gained by multitudes, and seeds
have been profusely sown, which, when India
is visited by the long-expected and long-
prayed-for showers of grace, will spring up
with a sudden and glorious harvest."

This estimate has been corroborated by
one who, perhaps, with the exception of
Duff himself, has done more for India, in
this department of Christian labour, than any
of its benefactors.

** It was the special glory of Alexander
Duff," says Bishop Cotton, ** that arriving
here in the midst of a great intellectual
movement of a completely atheistic cha-
racter, he at once resolved to make that
character Christian. When the new genera-
tion of Bengalees, and too many, alas ! of
their European friends and teachers, were
talking of Christianity as an obsolete super-
stition, soon to be burnt up in the pyre
on which the creeds of the Brahmin, the
Buddhist, and the Mohammedan were

THE MISSION FIELD, 279

already perishing, Alexander Duff suddenly
burst upon the scene, with his unhesi-
tating faith, his indomitable energy, his
varied erudition, and his never-failing
stream of fervid eloquence, to teach them
that the Gospel was not dead or sleeping,
not the ally of ignorance and error, not
ashamed or unable to vindicate its claim to
universal reverence; but that then, as always,
the Gospel of Christ was marching forward
in the van of civilization, and that the Church
of Christ was still * the light of the world.'
The effect of his fearless stand against the
arrogance of infidelity has lasted to this day:
and whether the number he has baptized
be small or great (some there are among
them whom we all know and honour), it is
quite certain that the work which he did in
India can never be undone, unless we,
whom he leaves behind, are faithless to his
example."

** Rest from thy labour, rest,
Soul of the just set free !
Blest be thy memory, and blest
Thy bright example be.

28o HEROES OF THE MISSION FIELD.

*' Faith, perseverance, zeal.

Language of light and power,
Love, prompt to act and quick to feel
Mark'd thee till life's last hour.

** Now toil and conflict o'er,

Go take with saints thy place I
But go as each has gone before,
A sinner saved by grace."

XI.

DAVID LIVINGSTONE, ^ir/?7C^, 1840— 1873.

** God has taken away the greatest man of
his generation;'* so wrote Florence Nightin-
gale, the gentlest and best of women, when
she heard of the death of the great mission-
ary explorer. ** Of his character," writes
a great statesman (than whom no one had
fuller or better opportunities of judging), ** it
is difficult for those who knew him intimately
to speak without appearance of exaggera-
tion." A mourning nation has gone a good
way towards endorsing these verdicts, and has
given his last remains a sepulture amongst
her kings. His fame was so world-wide
that other countries seemed to understand
him even better than his own, and not to
love him less. To omit the name of such a
man from these brief sketches of missionary

282 MODERN HEROES OF

heroes would be impossible; and yet the
vastness and variety of his work, and the fact
that concerning him so much has been
written, and so recently, render it a difficult
task. We must content ourselves with
glancing at the more important features of a
life and character which most of our readers
have already studied in detail.

Like Duff, he was a Scotchman, and
sprang from the ranks of the people. It is
well knov^n how at ten years of age he
earned his bread, and helped to support the
family, as a *^piecer " in the cotton works of
Blantyre, and how he contrived, during the
long day's toil in the factory, to place his
book on the spinning-jenny, and to pursue his
studies amidst the roar of the machinery.
His first week's wages were devoted to the
purchase of the ** Latin Rudiments," and he
spent his evenings, and often a portion of his
nights, in acquiring that language. ** He
could play and rollick," says his father-in-
law, " like other boys, but with a growing
thirst for knowledge." Books of travel and
of science were his delight ; and when a rare

THE MISSION FIELD. 283

half-holiday came round, he was sure to be
off to the quarries to collect geological speci-
mens, or away by the hedgerows to gather
herbs and flowers ; for he had early formed
the opinion that a good herbalist had in his
hands the panacea for all bodily diseases.

He was religiously brought up ; and he
tells us, with that quiet humour which never
deserted him, that his last flogging was re-
ceived for refusing to read Wilberforce's
** Practical Christianity." It is plain, how-
ever, that the pious example of his parents,
in a poor but happy home, was his best in-
struction, and laid the foundation for that
eminently practical Christianity which he so
thoroughly understood and so fully exem-
plified. It was at the age of twenty, however,
that the crisis of his spiritual history took
place; and he attributes it chiefly to the
reading of Dicks' *' Philosophy of a Future
State.*' From that time his whole heart was
given to God. There is a touching entry in
his journal, written upon the last birthday
but one of his eventful life, and it reveals at
once the motive and the earnestness of his

284 MODERN HEROES OB

whole career: ** My Jesus, my King, my
Life, my All, I again dedicate my whole self
to Thee."

He had heard of missions from his child-
hood, and had alv/ays been deeply interested
in them ; but it was an appeal on behalf of
China, issued by the famous Dr. Gutzlaff,
which inspired him with the desire to become
himself a missionary. " The claims of so
many millions of his fellow-creatures, and the
complaints of the want of qualified men to
undertake the task," — these, as he informs us,
were the motives which led him, at the age
of twenty-one, to the high resolve ; and
henceforth his *' efforts were constantly
directed towards that object without any
fluctuation." The idea of medical missions
was then comparatively new; but Living-
stone felt that, more especially in connection
with work for God in China, they were indis-
pensable, so he resolved to qualify himself
to the utmost ; and by saving something out
of his summer earnings at the mill, he was
able to pay for his medical and Greek classes
at Glasgow University during the winter, and

THE MISSION FIELD. 285

at the same time to attend lectures in
theology.

**The land of Sinim,*' however, was not
the field which the great Head of the Church
had designed for him. Just as Morrison,
who had set his heart upon Africa, was led
by an all-wise Providence to fill a sphere
more suited to him in China, so Livingstone,
wnose earliest predilections were for China,
was led by the same gracious hand to give
his life to Africa, and to find there the very
position for which both nature and grace had
so eminently qualified him. He had offered
himself to the London Missionary Society,
and was well-nigh rejected on account of his
hesitating manner and lack of ready speech.
Fortunately for the world, the adverse deci-
sion was suspended, and another session
brought out his noble character and vast
capacities. But his prospect of going to
China was interrupted by the Opium War,
and just at this juncture a veteran mis-
sionary (who would have found a promi-
nent niche in these sketches, only that
they are confined to the deeds of departed

286 MODERN HEROES OF

worthies) appeared upon the scene, and
determined the destination of the student.
This was Robert Moffat, who, after three-
and-twenty years of labour in South Africa,
was thrilling the heart of England with the
story of his labours and adventures. He
fired the soul of his young countryman with
a desire to explore and evangelize that mys-
terious land, with which both of their names
will ever be identified. Indeed, it has been
well said that if any heroes of modern times
might be permitted to adopt the grand old
agnomen of ** Africanus," Robert Moffat and
David Livingstone, who soon became his
fellow-labourer and son-in-law, would be the
men.

We are indebted to Professor Blackie for a
biography of our hero, which gives the world
a deeper insight into his inner and social life
than could be obtained from his own official
journals. These latter are generally marked
by that characteristic reticence which caused
him to conceal from the public gaze all that
was best and noblest in his nature. It is
only from his private letters, to his nearest

THE MISSION FIELD, 287

and dearest ones, that we get tht full por-
traiture of a man who was as gentle as he
was resolute, and as loving as he was strong.
The account of his last evening in the old
homestead is touching in its simplicity : ** A
single night was all that he could spend with
his family ; and they had so much to speak
of, that David proposed they should sit
up all night. This, however, his mother
would not hear of * I remember my father
and him,' writes his sister, * talking over the
prospects of Christian missions. They agreed
that the time would come, when rich men
and great men would think it an honour to
support whole stations of missionaries, instead
of spending their money on hounds and
horses. On the morning of the 17 th Novem-
ber, 1840, we got up at five o'clock. My
mother made coffee. David read the I2ist
and 135th Psalms and prayed. My father and
he walked to Glasgow to catch the Liverpool
steamer.' On the Broomielaw, father and
son looked for the last time on each other's
faces. The old man walked slowly back to
Blantyre, with a lonely heart no doubt, yet

288 MODERN HEROES OF

praising God. David* s face was now set in
earnest toward the dark Continent.'*

His first nine years in Africa were spent
chiefly amongst the Bechuanas, nine hun-
dred miles from Cape Town. Here, with
unwearied earnestness, he laboured for the
evangelization of these uncivilized and rude
barbarians. Here, too, he endeavoured to
instruct them in useful arts ; and, after the
example of mediaeval missionaries, he
laboured as a mechanic no less than as a
preacher. At Kolobeng we find him help-
ing to make a canal, preparing a garden,
and building his fourth house with his own
hands. Moffat had taught him how to work
in iron and steel, while at the same time he
became expert in carpentry and other trades.
His devoted wife (Mary Moffat) made the
butter, soap, candles, and clothes, instructed
her infant-school, and taught the women
to sing the hymns which her husband had
translated. They had their privations and
trials, and often lived ** from hand to
mouth; '' but theirs was in the truest sense
a happy life. As he reviews this part of his

THE MISSION FIELD, 289

African career, he finds but one cause of
regret, namely, that he did not devote more
time to playing with his children; *' but,"
he adds, ** I was generally so exhausted by
the mental and manual labour of the day
that in the evening there was no fun left in
me." How touching are the lines which
in after years, when he was separated from
his family, were ever ringing in his ears, —

" I shall look into your faces, and listen to what you say,
And be often very near you when you think I'm far
away."

It was during this period he had that
famous encounter with the lion, which is
known to nearly all who have heard his
name ; but concerning which he wrote home
thus characteristically to his father; **I hope
I shall not forget His mercy. . . . Do not
mention this to any one. I do not like to be
talked about." Livingstone's life was saved
almost by a miracle, but the left arm, which
was crunched by the lion's teeth, was maimed
for life, and the fracture entailed much pain
and suffering to his latest days. It is well

IQ

290 MODERN HEROES OF

known that it was by the false joint in that
broken limb that his body was identified,
when brought home to England by his
faithful followers; but the interesting fact
is not generally known that Mebalwe, who
saved his life, was one of the native teachers
whom he himself had trained, and that it was
a Christian lady in Scotland who contri-
buted the money for this catechisfs mainte-
nance. How little did she dream that the
twelve pounds, which she had sent to
Livingstone for that purpose, would be the
means of preserving to Africa for thirty
years the life of its greatest benefactor !

The firstfruits of Livingstone's missionary
labour in this region was the conversion of
Sechele, a chieftain of extraordinary energy,
who was soon able to read the Bible in his
own language, and to conduct his own
family worship. Sechele, transformed in
feelings, dress, and manners, used all his
influence to induce his people to follow his
example, but without much success. Living-
stone, however, had laid a good founda-
tion, as the results have proved. **That

THE MISSION FIELD. 291

mission," says Dr. Moffat, writing in 1874,
** is the most prosperous, extensive, and
influential of all our missions in the Bech-
uana country."

Livingstone now entered upon the special
career which has made his name so famous,
namely, that of a missionary explorer.
Many considerations led him to the con-
scientious belief that this was the path
peculiarly assigned to him by Providence.
The oppressions practised by the Boers of
the Cashan Mountains upon the Bakwains
first awakened his attention to the evils of
the slave trade, and he longed to see it
crushed out by Christianity and lawful traffic.
He conceived it to be the duty of the
missionary, when he had fully published the
Gospel to any people, to press forward and
make it known to those who had never heard
it. His heart yearned over the countless
millions who must be living in the interior
of that vast unexplored continent, and who
had never yet been visited by the messenger
of peace. He felt, moreover, that God had
given him peculiar talents for this work, and

292 MODERN HEROES OF

that it was his duty to employ them in the
way most likely to advance the great cause
which he had at heart. Writing to a friend
at this time, he tells him about ** the tsetse,
the fever, the north wind, and other African
notabilia" ; but these and many other inter-
esting folnts of information are followed
up by the significant question, " Who shall
penetrate through Africa ? ''

Livingstone himself was to be the answer
to this question ; and he offered himself and
all that was dearest to him — home, prospects,
honours, Christian intercourse — as a willing
sacrifice upon the missionary altar. It would
be a great mistake to think that the mere
love of exploration and adventure, or even
the fame that might possibly accrue from
them, were sufficient to influence a mind like
his. When he had achieved his greatest
reputation as a discoverer, he expressed the
honest feeling of his heart, in reminding those
who had conferred distinctions upon him,
that ** where the geographical feat ends,
there the missionary work begins."

We can only summarize the story of those

THE MISSION FIELD. 293

wonderful journeyings, which revealed to us,
for the first time, the teeming populations and
boundless resources of Central Africa. Pre-
vious to his time the charts of this vast
region presented nothing but a blank. To
use the quaint words of Dean Swift —

** Geographers in Afric's maps
Put savage beasts to fill up gaps,
And o'er inhabitable downs
Put elephants for want of towns."

What a change, and what a revelation !
What bright hopes and prospects for com-
merce, civilization, and Christianity, have
sprung up in that benighted land since the
dauntless explorer unlocked the door, and
opened it wide to the traveller, the merchant,
and the missionary !

The natives had often spoken to him of a
lake which they called Ngami ; and in June,
1849, he set out, with Messrs. Oswald and
Murray, with the hope of discovering it.
Skirting by the great Kalahari desert, he
pursued his way, and on the ist of August
had the satisfaction of being the first white
man to see that now famous lake. Finding

294 MODERN HEROES OF

that region insalubrious, he undertook (in
the year 1850) another expedition. On this
occasion he carried his wife and children
with him to the Makololo country, where he
made what was perhaps the most fruitful of
all his discoveries — that of the great river
Zambesi, flowing in the very centre of the
continent, with its majestic reaches and its
** smoke-resounding " falls. His eyes
gladdened as he gazed upon this unexpected
highway for future commerce ; for he saw in
it a providential aid towards the extinction of
that accursed traffic in human flesh and blood,
which met him everywhere, and which made
his very heart to bleed.

But what was to be the outlet for that
commerce, and how was he to obtain the best
and shortest route to the coast ? These were
questions which forced themselves upon his
consideration ; for the southern Boers had
invaded the Bechuana country, pillaged his
old settlement at Kolobeng, and broken up
the organization which had cost him so many
years of labour. His resolution was prompt
and decisive. He carried his family back to

THE MISSION FIELD. 295

Capetown (where it was observed that his
coat was eleven years behind the fashion),
despatched them to England, and then
started on that arduous journey which led
him from Linyanti, in the veiy centre of
Africa, to Loando St. Paul, on its western
shores. He found, however, that that port
was too distant, and too difficult for con-
venient access, and that it was moreover too
nearly connected with the slave trade to
answer his purpose ; so he retraced his steps,
and travelled right across the vast continent
to the mouths of the Zambesi on the eastern
coast.

This perilous journey occupied four years,
and never did a body of men voluntarily set
out on such a serious undertaking with so
spare an outfit. For himself and his twenty-
seven black companions the stock of provisions
consisted of a few biscuits, a few pounds of
tea and sugar, and about twenty pounds of
coffee. The supply of clothing was equally
scanty, and the money-chest contained only
twenty pounds of beads, worth about forty
shillings. Three muskets for his people,

296 MODERN HEROES OF

with a rifle and double-barrelled smooth-
bore for himself, were all the firearms which
the intrepid traveller took with him, although
on these and on their ammunition mainly de-
pended their supplies of food. ** I had a
secret conviction," observes Livingstone,
*'that if I did not succeed, it would not be for
the lack of nicknacks, but from want of
* pluck,' or because a large array of baggage
excited the cupidity of the tribes through
whose country we wished to pass." His
tact and his fearlessness carried him safely
through many a danger amidst hostile tribes,
whilst his justice, and his kindliness, and his
truth endeared him to his swarthy followers.
The latter always spoke of him as their
** Father," while many of the former came to
regard him as a god. He was ready at any
moment to endure any sacrifice, or to brave
any danger, if only he could save a life, or
soothe a sorrowing heart. A messenger
arrived one night, and told how a native had
been attacked by a rhinoceros, and ripped
open. Livingstone, in order to relieve the
wounded sufferer, started immediately, and

THE MISSION FIELD. 297

forced his way for ten miles through tangled
brake and thicket, amidst the midnight dark-
ness, despite the risk of a like fate await-
ing himself at any moment. Such was his
philanthropy ; but better and nobler still was
that love of souls which led him evermore
to make known to all men the message of
redeeming love. His simple sermons, his
earnest prayers, and his Sunday services
marked him everywhere as ** the man of
God/'

In 1856, preceded by the fame of his
discoveries, he revisited his native land.
The enthusiastic welcome and the triumphal
honours that awaited him might well have
spoiled a less noble spirit. But if Living-
stone had his failings, the love of popularity
was not one of them. He was character-
istically humble. When a great man once
expressed admiration at his wonderful
achievements, he simply replied, " They are
not wonderful; it was only what any one
else could do that had the will." His one
thought was for Africa — **Poor, enslaved
Africa," as he was wont to say, ** when are

298 MODERN HEROES OF

thy bleeding wounds to be healed ? "
Wherever he went he tried to deepen the
national interest on behalf of his adopted
country. To this end he appealed to the
Geographical Society with respect to its
exploration, and to our leading statesmen
with reference to the suppression of its
slave trade. He aroused the Universities
to Its claims upon their intellectual powers,
and the Churches to its demands upon
their Christian charity. With the same
object in view, he sat down and wrote his
*^ Missionary Travels/' which was a kind
of employment so distasteful to him that he
says in the preface, " I would rather cross
the African continent again than undertake
to write another book ! "

He had told his faithful followers in Africa
that nothing but death would keep him from
returning to them, and he kept his word.
In 1858 he started on his second great
expedition to explore the Zambesi. On this
occasion he went forth under a Government
commission, with a regular staff of assist-
ants, and with a small steamer called the

THE MISSION FIELD. 299

Ma Robert^ which was Mrs. Livingstone's
African name ; but this expedition cost him
more anxiety and pain than all his previous
journeyings. Good Bishop Mackenzie, who
had gone out in connection with the Uni-
versities' mission, and had joined Living-
stone in his explorations, fell a victim to
the climate ; several other members of the
mission shared a like fate ; and, saddest of
all, Mrs. Livingstone, who had joined her
husband, was also taken from his side, 27th
April, 1862. They had been only three
short months together, after four years'
separation. Two days after her death he
wrote to Sir Roderick Murchison : ** This
heavy stroke quite takes the heart out of
me. ... I married her for love, and the longer
I lived with her I loved her the more. ... I
try to bend to the blow as from our
heavenly Father. ... I shall do my duty
still ; but it is with a darkened horizon that
I set about it."

This second expedition resulted in the
discovery of Lake Shirwa and Lake Nyassa,
and tended materially towards the suppres-

300 MODERN HEROES OF

sion of the slave trade, by revealing its
enormities, and the awful destruction of
human life which it involved at the hands
of the Arab and Portuguese traders. " I
sometimes fear,'' says Livingstone, ** that
my statements, which are within the truth,
may be looked on as exaggerations ; but
the facts cannot be overstated. We saw
three instances of bodies tied to trees, the
hands fastened behind to the tree, and a
strong thong, round the neck, to the same
tree keeps the body in a sitting posture even
after death. This is the way in which
these vile half-caste Arabs vent their spleen
when a slave is no longer able to walk —
vexed at losing their money, they secure
their death. ... It is quite a relief to get out
of the beat of slave-dealers ; they glut the
market with calico and gunpowder, and
send one tribe to plunder and destroy
another." It was thus that he gave a voice
to the silent agonies of Africa, and made
that voice to be heard throughout the
civilized world ; nor, when he had the oppor-
tunity, did he hesitate to take the law into

THE MISSION FIELD. 301

his own hands, and to strike the fetters from
the limbs of the bleeding slave.

He had shed his last bitter tears beside
Ma Robert'' s grave, and was about to launch
his steamer, the LadyNyassa, on which he had
expended ^6,000 of his own money, when,
owing to political and financial reasons, the
expedition was recalled by our Government.
He resolved to sail to India and sell his ship
before he returned home. The Portuguese
would have bought her, in order to use her
as a slaver ; ** but," writes Livingstone,
** I would rather see her go down to the
depths of the Indian Ocean than that." His
engineer left him, so he had to turn skipper
himself, and to navigate his vessel from
Zanzibar to Bombay, a distance of 2,500
miles, amidst alternate squalls and calms,
with no other aid but that of three Europeans
and seven natives, most of whom were
disabled by illness during the voyage. But
he reached Bombay, where he sold his ship
for one-third of what she had cost him, and
then sailed for England.

He did not tarry longer amid the luxuries

302 MODERN HEROES OF

of home than to write his second volume,
" The Zambesi and its Tributaries/' His
heart was in Africa; and when the Geo-
graphical Society proposed to him to go
out and discover the great watersheds
of Central Africa, and settle the long-
disputed question of the sources of the Nile,
he at once responded to the call ; but to his
honour be it spoken, that when they wished
him to go forth *' unshackled by any other
occupation," he nobly replied, ** I can only
feel in the way of duty by working as a
missionary.'' His last public words in his
native Scotland will be long remembered as
the epitome of his own life : ** Fear God and
work hard." And so he set forth in 1865
upon his third journey, not without fore-
bodings that it would prove to be his last.
** I set out on this journey," he writes,
" with a strong presentiment that I should
never finish it. The feeling did not interfere
with me in reference to my duty; but it
made me think a great deal of the future
state, and come to the conclusion that
possibly the change is not so great as we

THE MISSION FIELD. 303

have usually believed. The appearances of
Him who is all in all to us were especially
human ; and the Prophet whom St. John
wanted to worship had work to do, just as
we have, and did it."

Taking Bombay in his way, he obtained
from the missionary school at Nassik some of
those young liberated slaves, whose fidelity
to their master, in life and death, have
won for them the admiration of the world.
Eight of them volunteered for the service ;
and these were supplemented at Zanzibar
by some Johannamen and Sepoys ; the
former were thieves, and the latter proved
to be so intolerable that he soon dismissed
them. The party dived into the depths of
the unknown continent, and were lost to the
cognizance of the outer world. Anxious
months of expectation passed by, and no
tidings concerning them arrived. At length
one of the Johannamen arrived at Zanzibar,
with circumstantial news that Livingstone
had been murdered on the shores of Lake
Nyassa. The story was only half credited
in England, and the painful suspense was

304 MODERN HEROES OF

at length relieved in 1868 by letters from
the missionary himself, telling how the
Johannamen had deserted him, but how he
had made the important discoveries of Lake
Tanganyka and Lake Bangweolo. On May
30th, 1869, he wrote again from Ujiji; it
was the last intelligence received from him
up to July 1872, and it told a tale of suffer-
ing and illness, but yet of unconquerable
resolution. He was without medicine or
suitable food; suffering from hemorrhage,
and scarcely able to walk from weakness ;
whilst a war that was raging near him cut
off both communication and supplies ; but
he makes little of his deprivations, and with
a touch of his old humour he writes to his
daughter Agnes : ** I broke my teeth tearing
at maize and other hard food, and they are
coming out. One front tooth is out, and I
have such an awful mouth. If you expect
a kiss from me, you must take it through a
speaking trumpet" ; and again, ''the few
teeth that remain are out of line, so that my
smile is that of a hippopotamus."

After this he pushed on into the Manyuema

THE MISSION FIELD. 30S

country, with the determination of examining
the Lualaha river, and settling the question
of the watershed. All kinds of difficulties
surrounded him ; massacres and atrocities
were of frequent occurrence; most of his
followers failed him ; the Arab slave-dealers
bullied and thwarted him ; his feet were
lacerated by hard travel, and his strength
exhausted by fever and dysentery. On one
occasion he narrowly escaped death three
times in a single day. Then we find him
confined to his hut for eighty days,
** harrowed by the wickedness he could not
stop, extracting information from the natives,
thinking about the fountains of the Nile,
trying to do some good among the people,
. . . and last, not least, studying his Bible,
which he read four times over whilst he was
in this region." Everything seemed to be
against him ; no news from home or country
came to cheer him ; but the brave spirit of-
patient faith could not be quenched. ** All,"
said he, *'will turn out right at the last."
** I commit myself to the Almighty Disposer
of events, and if I fall, will do so doing my

20

3o6 MODERN HEROES OF

duty, like one of His stout-hearted
servants."

He returned to Ujiji, the 3rd of October,
1871, '* a mere ruckle of bones," to find
that his goods had been plundered, and he
himself beggared in his absence. Truly he
had fallen amongst thieves who had stripped
him, and he was half dead ; but who was
to be the good Samaritan who, three days
later, should unexpectedly pour oil and wine
into his bleeding wounds ? The story of
his discovery and relief by Stanley are too
well known to be repeated here. Statesmen
and scientific societies in England seemed
to have passed by on the other side ; and
to the intrepid young American belongs the
honour of having preserved a little longer
that invaluable life. Restored to compar-
ative health and energy, Livingstone was en-
treated by his deliverer to return with him ;
but, though he had not seen a white man
for six years, and yearned after home, he
steadfastly refused. His heart w^as set
upon solving the problem of the Nile, not
so much, as he again and again assures us,

THE MISSION FIELD. 367

for the sake of the discovery, as from the
conviction that it would give weight to his
pleadings on behalf of down-trodden and
enslaved Africa. His impressions about the
sources of the Nile were that they were far
higher than any previous traveller had
supposed, and in this, though he did not
live to know it, he proved to be mistaken ;
but the great object on which he had set
his heart was eventually realized. He had
said in his parting lectures at Bombay,
** Perhaps God in His providence will arrest
the attention of the world to this hideous
traffic by some unlooked-for means ; " and
amongst the last words he wrote were these:
*' I would forget all my cold, hunger, suffer-
ing, and toils, if I could be the means of
putting a stop to this cursed traffic."

The end was drawing near, and his death
was to be the means of awakening more
attention to the subject than his life had
ever done ; for his last words, now deeply
graven upon his tomb, became still more
deeply engraven on the nation's heart: ** All
I can say in my solitude is, may Heaven's

3o8 MODERN HEROES OF

rich blessing come down on every one —
American, English, Turk — who will help to
heal this open sore of the world."

Stanley had left him, and sent up supplies
and men from the coast ; amongst the latter
were some more pupils from the Nassik
School. No sooner had they arrived than
he set out once more for Tanganyika and
Bangweolo. The pathway lay through deep
morasses and flooded rivers, and amidst
incessant rains. The natives proved un-
friendly ; hunger frequently assailed the
party ; his illness returned, and any but an
iron frame would have succumbed at once ;
but he bore up bravely, and, as his journals
prove, his faith remained unshaken. ** No-
thing earthly will make me give up my
work in despair. I encourage myself in
the Lord my God, and go forward.*' He
pursued his investigations, but at length
the strong man was utterly broken down.
They had reached Ilala ; and as he could go
no further, his followers built a hut, and laid
him beneath its shade. The next day he
lay quiet, and asked a few questions. On

THE MISSION FIELD. 309

the following morning (4th May, 1873),
when his boys looked in at dawn, his candle
was still burning; and Livingstone was
kneeling by the bed, with his face buried in
his hands upon the pillow. He was dead !
and he had died upon his knees, praying,
no doubt, as was his wont, for all he loved,
and for that dear land to which he had
devoted three-and-thirty years of his
laborious life !

And that desolate band of followers
whom he left behind, what a marvellous
proof they gave of his influence over them,
and of their deep attachment to him ! They
resolved to carry his remains to Zanzibar,
and give them up to his countrymen ; and
so they embalmed the body, and reverently
laid his heart, and all that could not be
removed, in a Christian grave. Jacob
Wainright, one of the Nassik boys, read the
burial service, and carved an inscription on
the mvula tree that overhung the spot.
And then began such a nine months' march
as the world had never witnessed, whilst
these sons of Ham carried the body of their

3IO MODERN HEROES OF

loved master to the coast ; braving all risks ;
flinging aside all prejudices; at times fight-
ing their way through hostile tribes ; at others
succeeding in carrying out their plan by
stratagem, but never desisting from their
labour of love until they gave up their
sacred charge into the hands of the English
consul. Well might they say as they sur-
rendered their precious burden : —

" Where will ye lay the form that enshrined
Daring so glorious and valour so kind ?
Where shall be rest for the vigorous hand,
Hush for the brain that made weariness grand ?

" Meeter to rest 'mid the tombs of the kings.
Ne'er shall be poet that soars as he sings ;
Warrior that stormeth the newly-made breach,
Martyr that suffers, or mind that may teach.

" Lay him to rest where ye will, he is ours !
Strew on his hearse of Eternity's flowers.
Bear him, O ship, from the deserts he trod ;
Waft him, O Death, to the garden of God I **

Livingstone had once come upon a native
grave, not very far from the place where he
himself was destined to die ; it was a little
rounded mound, with blue beads strewn

THE MISSION FIELD. 311

upon it, and with a little path beside it,
plainly showing that it had visitors. ** This
is the sort of grave," he writes, ** I should
prefer; to lie in the still, still forest, and
no hand ever to disturb my bones ; . . .
but I have nothing to do but wait till He
who is over all decides where I have to lay
me down and die. Poor Mary lies on
Shupanga brae, and * beeks foment the
sun.' ''

But God so ordered it, and the love and
admiration of a mighty nation so desired
it, that he should lie in a nobler sepulchre.
And so the doors of Westminster Abbey
were opened for perhaps the most striking
funeral that ever crossed its threshold;
and as the anthem pealed through the stately
aisles, they laid him down to sleep amongst
the mighty and the great, and princely hands
cast wreaths of flowers upon his coffin, and
men of every class and creed bowed down
their heads and worshipped ; and some were
there who, twelve years before, had helped
him to lay Ma Robert in her lone and distant
grave ; and he was there who had found the

312 MODERN HEROES OF

long-lost missionary, and rescued him from
death; and one was there, more moved
than all the rest — that swarthy son of Africa,
who now helped to bear his pall, but who
had nursed him gently in his sickness, and
who had laid his loving heart to rest
amongst the people for whom he had lived
and died.

It was the first time in the history of the
nation that a missionary hero was thus
honoured. Shall we say that this was
so because such men have usually died at
their distant posts ? or was it rather be-
cause we were all too slow at home to
recognize their bravery and their worth ?
Whatever be the reason, one thing is beyond
dispute, that no one ever obtained this
distinguishing honour at the hands of
Englishmen who was better entitled to
receive it, and that the whole civilized world
has endorsed their tribute of admiration.

There is a well-known journal which is
the representative of our national wit and
humour; but which, when it condescends
to be grave, never fails of being both

THE MISSION FIELD, 313

touching and sublime. Within a border
of the deepest mourning it set forth the
following lines on the sad occasion ; they
are worthy of their theme, and form a
suitable conclusion to this brief record of
a noble life : —

** Droop half-mast colours ; bow, bareheaded crowds.
As this plain coffin o'er the side is slung,
To pass by woods of masts and ratlined shrouds,
As erst by Afric's trunks, liana-hung.

•* 'Tis the last mile of many thousands trod
With failing strength, but never-failing will,
By the worn frame, now at its rest with God,
That never rested from its fight with ill.

" Or if the ache of travel and of toil

Would sometimes wring a short, sharp cry of pain
From agony of fever, blain, and boil,

'Twas but to crush it down, and on again !

" He knew not that the trumpet he had blown
Out of the darkness of that dismal land,
Had reached and roused an army of its own
To strike the chains from the slave's fettered hand.

** Now we believe he knows, sees all is well \

How God had stayed his will and shaped his way,
To bring the light to those that darkling dwell
With gains that life's devotion well repay.

314 HEROES OF THE MISSION FIELD.

" Open the Abbey doors, and bear him in

To sleep with king and statesman, chief and sage,
The Missionary come of weaver-kin,

But great by work that brooks no lower wage.

" He needs no epitaph to guard a name

Which men shall prize while worthy work is known;
He lived and died for good — be this his fame:
Let marble crumble : this is Living-stone

XII.

BISHOP PATTESON, MELANESIA, 1855— 1871.

Those who remember the ** Eton Montem/*
that grandest of all school festivals, will re-
call the brilliancy of the annual pageant,
when lords and ladies of high degree came
down from London to witness the proces-
sion of enthusiastic students, as it made its
boisterous way to Salt Hill, in order to
collect the accustomed votive offerings for
the captain of the college. Brilliant, how-
ever, as the "Montem*' was at all times,
that of 1838 surpassed all that went before
it. Queen Victoria, who had recently as-
cended the throne of her ancestors, had come
from her kingly residence at Windsor to
grace the scene with her presence. The
Eton boys were beside themselves with ex-
citement, and crowded around the royal car-

3i6 MODERN HEROES OF

riage with vociferous and tumultuous loyalty.
One of them, a brave, impetuous youth of
eleven years of age, became entangled in the
wheels, and was on the point of being,
dragged under them, when, with that pre-!
sence of mind which has since so often dis-
tinguished her, the youthful Queen stretched
out her hand to the falling boy. He grasped
it, recovered his footing, and was saved.
Before, however, he could regain his self-
possession, the royal cortege had moved on,
and left him no opportunity for expressing
his gratitude to his deliverer.

Thirty-four years afterwards, the same
illustrious Sovereign, when opening her Im-
perial Parliament, made a touching allusion
to **the murder of an exemplary prelate*' in
the South Sea Islands, and urged upon her
senators the duty of adopting measures for
the suppression of that nefarious practice of
labour-stealing which had led to his death.
She had rescued that noble missionary
bishop, when he was yet a boy, from what
might have been instant death ; and she
mourned for him now as one of that ** noble

THE MISSION FIELD. 317

army of martyrs" who had laid down their
lives for the cause of Christ in distant lands.

It was a ** new thing in the earth " to hear
^a missionary spoken of with admiration in
a royal speech ; but Bishop Patteson de-
served the mention, not merely on account
of his heroic end, but still more on account
of his heroic life.

The son of one English judge, and the
nephew of another, he was born to ease,
affluence, and honour, but was led to re-
nounce them all for the work of God among
the heathen. The earlier missionaries of
this century, with scarcely an exception, had
sprung from the lower ranks of society, but
the time had come when the noble and the
great were to consider themselves honoured
by following in their steps. Three years
had elapsed since his memorable escape, and
Coley Patteson, as his comrades loved to
call him, went with several other Etonians
to hear Bishop Selwyn preach to his old
flock at Windsor. This great missionary
prelate had just been consecrated to his New
Zealand see, and was infusing something of

3i8 MODERN HEROES OF

his own enthusiasm into the hearts of all who
heard him. In a letter to his mother, Pat-
teson records his impressions of the sermon :
**It was beautiful when he talked of his
going out to found a church, and then to die,
neglected and forgotten : all the people
burst out crying; he was so very much
beloved by his parishioners. He spoke of
his perils, and of putting his trust in God ;
and then, when he had finished, I think I
never heard anything like the sensation ; a
kind of feeling that if it had not been on so
sacred a spot, all would have exclaimed,
•God bless him!'*'

It was not the first time that Coley Pat-
teson had heard of missions. Nurtured in
the bosom of a Christian family, he had al-
ready not only resolved to devote his own
life to the ministry of the Gospel at home,
but had begun to take a decided interest
in the work of missions abroad. This ser-
mon, however, and an incident which fol-
lowed it, gave a new direction to his choice.
Bishop Selwyn came to take leave of the
Pattesons, with whom he had long been

THE MISSION FIELD, 319

intimate, and in doing so he said to Lady
Patteson, half in play and half in earnest,
** Will you give me Coley ? " The question
startled the fond mother, and she made no
reply at the time ; but when the boy told
her that ** the one grand wish of his heart
was to go with the bishop," she replied that
if that continued to be his wish when he
grew up, she would give him both her con-
sent and her blessing. Alas! she only lived
a year, and did not see the fruit of that re-
quest and of that promise. But she had
taught him to read his Bible at five years
old, and it was that very Bible which was
afterwards placed in his hands at his conse-
cration.

No boy was more popular at Eton than
Coley Patteson. He was decidedly clever,
but inclined to be idle. When he chose to
put forth his powers, he was successful. He
was full of fun and frolic, but always dis-
tinguished for his courage and patience.
Famous at cricket, he was beloved as captain
of the eleven. He could handle an oar as
dexterously as any one upon the river, and

320 MODERN HEROES OF

he was a perfect expert in the art of swim-
ming. He little knew how well these manly
exercises were fitting him for future service
in a higher sphere. During all his schoolboy
life he maintained a noble consistency. At
one of the annual dinners given at Slough,
by ** the eleven '* of cricket and ** the eight *'
of the boats, one of the boys began to sing
an objectionable song, and Coley instantly
called out, ** If that does not stop, I shall
leave the room." This remonstrance being
unheeded, he took his departure, followed by
some others as brave as himself. Nor was
this all ; he sent back word that unless an
apology were made ** he would leave the
eleven, '' a threat which soon brought the
offender to his senses, and made his com-
panions feel that Patteson's consistency was
,not to be trifled with. He left school with-
out ** sting or stain," and his father wrote
him a letter on the occasion, in which he
attributes his son's blameless career to the
assistance of God's Holy Spirit, and to the
pious instruction which he had received from
the best of mothers.

THE MISSION FIELD, 321

His college life at Oxford tended to de-
velop his character. He refused to join the
eleven because he feared cricket would
prove his tyrant, and he had resolved to
work. He induced the young men at Balliol
to give up their dessert in order to aid the
sufferers in the Irish famine. He distin-
guished himself as a scholar, and especially
as a linguist ; became a fellow of Merton in
1852, and was soon remarkable as a college
reformer. Too pure for party, and too
steady to be moved by any gusts of false
doctrine, he maintained his religious con-
victions unimpaired, and his attachment to
his own Church unshaken, amidst surround-
ing agitation and defection. There was a
reserve, and yet a charm in his manner ; a
spirit of introspection, which, as his bio-
grapher puts it, was at once his strength and
his danger ; a love for all things beautiful,
coupled with a strong and sensible attach-
ment to what was practical and useful.
After obtaining his fellowship he spent five
years in foreign travel ; and Professor Max
Miiller, speaking of him in reference to this

21

322 MODERN HEROES Oil

period, says, ** I saw him last at Dresden in
1853, revelling in the treasures of ancient
Italian art, working hard at Hebrew, Arabic,
and German, and delighting in all that the
best minds of modern Europe could supply
in literature, science, and art. I then
thought I saw in him the future accom-
plished dean or bishop ; but when I heard of
him next, his letters were dated * longitude *
and * latitude,' from some unknown island in
the Pacific Ocean."

He was ordained for a charming parish,
situated near his father's beautiful resi-
dence in Devonshire, and he had before
him every prospect of an honourable and
happy career in the midst of friends and rela-
tives ; but before a year had passed by, the
Bishop of New Zealand, who had come to
England to look for helpers in his work, was
on a visit at Sir John Coleridge Patteson's,
and the old fascination, which twelve years
before had been so strong upon the boy
when he heard the Bishop preach at
Windsor, came back upon the young curate
with a still stronger power as he walked and

THE MISSION FIELD, 323

talked with the man who had been so long*
the object of his admiration. That visit and
those conversations set the seal upon his
determination. He opened his heart to his
father, and he, "with the fullest sense
of his own loss, yet with the most unhesi-
tating heartiness, gave up one who was
dearer to him than life. No father and
son could be more tenderly attached ; none
could feel separation more sensibly; but
neither wavered for an instant in his reso-
lution." Sir John, writing to the Bishop
at the time, says, " If he prove an effec-
tual instrument in New Zealand — as I heartily
pray Him he may be found — I shall feel
that I have in some sort made a present
of him to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and that it is a blessed thing to have done
so." There is something exquisitely tender
in the record of Patteson's departure from
the parental home. The last farewells had
been spoken ; the last kisses had been
given ; the sisters watched him till he had
disappeared from sight, and then returned,
to find their venerable father sitting silently

324 MODERN HEROES OF

over his Bible. Meanwhile the brother
whom they loved so well had turned aside
into the churchyard, picked a few early
primroses from his mother's grave, ^^ and
then walked on !'*'* He had put his hand to
the plough, and he never looked back.

He embarked with Bishop Selwyn in
the spring of 1855, ^^<^ reached New Zea-
land in July. During the voyage he made
such progress in the art of navigation, that
he felt as much at home with a quadrant
in his hand as of old with a cricket-bat, and
acquired such facility in speaking the Maori
tongue that, on his arrival, one of the senior
clergy was asked the not very complimen-
tary question, *' why he did not speak like
Te Patehana (Patteson)." His own special
mission was to be in the Melanesian islands,
which lie near the equator, and are peopled
by a race less intelligent, but more steady,
than the Polynesians. They had no ele-
ments of civilization, and scarcely any ideas
of religion, through which they could be
influenced. They enjoyed a very unpleasant
reputation for cannibalism, and were styled

THE MISSION FIELD, 325

** the irreclaimable savages." They spoke,
moreover, throughout their vast archipelago,
such an infinite variety of dialects, that it
was humorously observed ** they must have
come straight from the tower of Babel, and
gone on dividing their speech ever since."

He spent the first five years of his mis-
sionary life in making voyages, in company
with Bishop Selwyn, amongst these islanders,
and then returning to the missionary college,
where their training school was held. Their
plan of operation was to induce the natives to
give up some of their youths for instruction,
and then to bring the latter to New Zealand,
where they remained under Christian teach-
ing until the winter-time approached, when
it became necessary to carry them home
to their own more genial climate. The
islanders soon learned to place confidence in
the missionaries ; and as each year brought
back a number of the youths with their
glowing and grateful accounts of the treat-
ment which they had received, fresh pupils
were continually offering, and many of the
old ones willingly returned to complete their

326 MODERN HEROES OF

Christian education. It was no uncommon
thing to see the Bishop and Patteson, as
they approached one of these reef-sur-
rounded islands, take off their coats, and
fastening some hatchets or other gifts upon
their backs, take a good header into the surf,
and swim ashore. We can picture them to
ourselves as they go through the ceremony
of rubbing noses with the natives by way
of greeting ; then the entering into friendly
communication with them, and eventually
departing with a precious freight of ** raw
material," in the shape of swarthy boys, to
be worked up by means of kindly teaching
into hopeful pupils, and brought back in
due time to spread abroad amongst their
countrymen the knowledge which they had
received.

The time had now arrived when the
Melanesian Mission was to be entirely sur-
rendered to the care of Patteson, and when,
in order to this, he was to be made a chief
pastor. Bishop Selwyn had trained him to
his work, and gives the following graphic
description of his singular fitness for it : ** I

THE MISSION FIELD, 327

wish you could see him in the midst of his
thirty-eight scholars at Kohimarama, with
eighteen dialects buzzing round him, with a
cheerful look and a cheerful word for every
one, teaching ABC with as much gusto as if
they were the x y z oi some deep problem ;
or marshalling a field of dark cricketers as
if he were still the captain of the eleven
at Eton ; and when school and play are
over, conducting his polyglot service in the
mission chapel." His amazing power as
a philologist stood him in good stead, and
with a skill second only to that of Mezzo-
fanti, he reduced to system and to grammar
between thirty and forty of those hitherto
unknown languages.

He was set apart to his high office in St.
Paul's Church at Auckland, on the 24th of
February, 1861. The consecration was not
by royal mandate, for the Anglican Church
was now beginning to extend its episcopate
beyond the British dominions; but there were
other incidents which gave their own pecu-
liar impressiveness to the scene. Selwyn
was there to lay his hands upon the head of

328 MODERN HEROES OF

the beloved pupil, whose young enthusiasm
he had been the first to kindle. A Maori
deacon was there, and several native
teachers with their wives, to represent the
new-born church. Ten of the island boys
were there to witness and to rejoice in the
consecration of their revered instructor;
one of them, Tagalana, like a living lectern,
held the book from which the chief prelate
read ; and the Bible which was delivered
into the hands of the new Bishop as the
symbol of his office and the guide for his
work, was the very same which had been
given him on his fifth birthday, with his
father's love and blessing. One who wit-
nessed the ceremony observed that Patteson,
clad in his quaint rochet, ** reminded her
of some young knight watching his armour,
as he stood in his calm steadfastness and
answered the questions put to him by the
Primate."

His own feelings proved him worthy of
his office. "I don't suppose,'' he writes,
** that I realize it yet ; but I shall have to
learn what it is to be a bishop by the trials

THE MISSION FIELD. 329

and anxieties which will come. God will
doubtless give strength if I seek it aright ;
but here is the point — I need the prayers of
you all. . . . And now to me it is permitted
to hold up the weak, heal the sick, bind up
the broken, * bring again the outcasts^ seek the
lost'* — those wonderful, beautiful words.
How I held tight the Bible my dear father
gave me on my fifth birthday with both
hands ! and the bishop held it tight, too,
as he gave me the charge in the name of
Christ, and I saw in spirit the multitudes
of Melanesia scattered as sheep amidst a
thousand isles." It may be mentioned here
that he had already arranged with his father
that his own share of the paternal inheri-
tance should go to his beloved mission ; and
on hearing what the amount of it was to
be, he writes : ** Hard enough you worked,
my dear father, to leave your children so
well off. . . . My children now dwell in two
hundred islands, and will need all that I can
give them. God grant that the day may
come when many of them may understand
these things, and rise up to call your

330 MODERN HEROES OF

memory blessed ! ** The father lived to
hear of his son's consecration, and to rejoice
in it ; but within four brief months from that
event he was called away, and the best of
sons had to mourn for the best of fathers.
To tell the story of that too brief episco-
pate would be to recount the perils and the
labours of ten such arduous, yet happy
years as have seldom fallen to the lot of
man. ** In perils of waters,' ' as he navi-
gated his Southern Cross from isle to isle
throughout what has been happily called
his ** ocean see;" ** in perils by the
heatlmn," as ever and anon he landed on
som/ coral reef in the presence of naked
and armed savages; "in weariness and pain-
fulness," as he endured the hardships and
the diseases which were inseparable from
a life like his; in **watchings often," as he
tended his sick and swarthy pupils through
the lonely nights, with all the skill of a
nurse, and all the tenderness of a parent,
he realized to the minds of men the ideal
of an apostolic missionary, and did much
to restore its true character to the much-

THE MISSION FIELD. 331

ill-used and often merely conventional title
of ** Bishop.''

What a sight it must have been to see
him standing up in his boat as he approached
some hitherto unvisited island, extending
his arms to show the suspicious warriors
on the shore that he carried no weapons,
then plunging half-naked into the sea, and
swimming to the land amidst the wonder
of the awe-struck savages ! The very
boldness of Patteson was oftentimes his
safety. Who could bend a bow or hurl a
spear against a man so trustful and so
brave ? And when it happened, as it often
did, that in their suspicion or their fear they
pointed an arrow at him, it was his custom
to look the archer in tho face, with that
bright and sunny smile which seldom failed
to restore confidence, or to disarm hostility.

His principal missionary college for train-
ing youths was eventually established at
Norfolk Island. It was more convenient for
his work, and its more genial climate ren-
dered unnecessary the return of the pupils,
during the winter months, to their own

332 MODERN HEROES OF

homes. It was here that the love and the
labour of the missionary prelate found their
chief employ. ** I am so accustomed," he
writes, " to sleeping anywhere, that I take
little or no account of thirty, forty, fifty naked
fellows, lying, sitting, sleeping around me.
Some one brings me a native mat, some one
else a bit of yam ; a third brings a cocoa-nut ;
so I get my supper, put down the mat (like
a very thin door mat) on the earth, roll up
my coat for a pillow, and make a very good
night of it.*' He was never so happy as
amongst his boys or his books; and the
former were so fond of him that they would
steal into his humble study of ten feet
square, just for the pleasure of being near
him, and of getting now and then a gentle
word or a loving smile. He threw himself
with all his old Etonian enthusiasm, into their
games and sports ; he tried to make them all
as joyous as himself; he loved to hear their
merry uproar when he started them upon a
race, or sent up for them a fire-balloon.

How his heart yearned over them as he
taught them the way to heaven, and saw

THE MISSION FIELD, 335

in one or another the first strivings of the
Spirit of God ; how lovingly and anxiously
he fanned the first sparks of spiritual life
in their hearts, and how wisely and gently
he dealt with all their religious difficulties ;
how gladly he admitted them, with more
than a father's love, to the sacred font,
and yet how cautious he was not to pro-
stitute the sacrament of baptism into an
idle form ; ** I can't baptize people morally
good, who don't know the name into which
they are baptized. ... To say the word, * I
believe,' without a notion of what they
believe, surely that won't do. They must
be taught, and then baptized according to
our Lord's command, suited for adults."

His sorest trials were connected with the
death of some of the boys whom he loved
so well. What a proof it was of mutual
affection when one of them said with his
dying breath, ** Kiss me. Bishop." But
there was not merely the pain of parting
from them, and the loss which the mission
sustained by their removal ; there was also
the difficulty of breaking the sad news to

334 MODERN HEROES OF

their heathen parents, and the danger of
incurring the ignorant resentment of the
islanders, and thus preventing fresh supplies
of pupils. On one occasion a boy died at
the college, and he belonged to an island
the language of which Patteson had not
yet fully mastered. What was he to do ?
Would he avoid that island in his next
voyage, or would he go there, and run the
risk of not being able to exculpate himself?
He determined on the latter course. He
landed on the island, sought out the father
of the boy, and took him by the hand. The
tribe gathered inquiringly around, and
watched and listened, as partly by words
and partly by gestures the Bishop began
to tell his tale. He described the lad*s
illness, and taking a child that stood near,
laid him gently on the ground, and hung
over him, and kissed him to express his
love. Then the Bishop gasped for breath,
and closed his eyes, to show the progress
and issue of the disease ; and then he wept
over the child as it lay before him, to show
them how he felt when the boy was dead.

THE MISSION FIELD, 335

Never was the progress of a drama watched
with such intense interest as that. When
it came to the crisis of the child's death,
the warriors grasped their weapons ; but
when they looked on the white man's face,
and beheld his undissembled tears, they
believed him, and felt that he was their
friend : — " It is all well. Bishop ; he died
well. You did all you could. Bishop ;
it is all well."

No marvel that the work of such a man
should be successful. At the end of 1870,
he could report that at Norfolk Island there
were 180 Melanesians, of whom 62 had
been baptized, and 12 more were prepar-
ing for that ordinance. These youths
proved their sincerity by voluntarily pro-
posing to go to other islands, where the
dialect was like their own, and to under-
take missionary work. In 1871, the
Southern Cross brought back twenty-nine
native Christians to settle in their own
homes, and at the end of that year there
were more than 300 Christians living
amongst their own friends, and diffusing

336 MODERN HEROES OF

amongst them the blessed truths which
they had themselves received. They were
representatives of nearly all the islands that
stretch from the **New Hebrides" to the
** Solomon Group," and cover nine degrees
of latitude. One of the most remarkable
of Patteson's boys was George Sarawia.
He belonged to Vanua Lava, one of the
Banks' Islands, and, while yet a child, had
scrambled of his own accord into the
Bishop's boat. He was the first Melanesian
admitted to holy orders (1868), and was
stationed by the Bishop on the island of
Mota. In that infant church this native
pastor baptized 293 persons, and carried
on beside a most successful work in the
neighbouring islands.

But we must come to the terrible tragedy
which took away the head of the mission
to his great reward. About the year 1869,
the demand for labourers in Queensland
and Fiji had led the captains of trading
vessels to cajole the natives of the Mela-
nesian islands on board their ships, and
then, thrusting them under the hatches,

THE MISSION FIELD, 337

to carry them off to the distant scene of their
enforced labour. In several instances,
terrible reprisals had been inflicted by the
natives upon English crews for this nefarious
conduct. Again and again pathetic appeals
were made to the Bishop to try and get
them back their friends who had been
thus stolen away, and again and again
he had appealed to the authorities to put
down this horrible traffic. But still it went
on, and, infamous to relate, Patteson's
influence with the islanders was fraudu-
lently employed to push the abominable
trade. Sometimes the captains of these
**kill-kiir' vessels, as the natives called
them, would pretend that, as he could not
come himself, he had sent their ships to fetch
the islanders; sometimes they would paint
them to resemble the Southern Cross ; and
there is reason to believe that on some occa-
sions the sailors dressed up on deck a clerical
figure with book in hand, to represent the
Bishop, in order to inveigle the unsuspect-
ing natives on board. Deeds like these

had awakened apprehensions, both at home

22

338 MODERN HEROES OF

and in the mission, for the Bishop's safety ;
and the sequel proved that they were not
unfounded.

It was on the 20th September, 1871, that
the missionary schooner stood off the island
of Nekapu, not far from Santa Cruz. The
Bishop had frequently landed here before,
and it was only in the previous year that
he had been kindly welcomed by the inhabit-
ants. Some canoes lay off the island,
but the people did not come out to meet
him as on previous occasions, and this
was looked upon as strange; but the good
Bishop, fearing nothing, got into a boat with
Mr. Aitken and three native Christian
youths, and pushed off through the blue
waters for the coral strand. On reaching
the reef, it was found that the tide was
too low to allow of the boat crossing it ; so
the Bishop got into one of the canoes, along
with two chiefs who had been always friendly
to him. The boat's crew could not follow,
but they saw the Bishop land, and then he
was lost to sight.

Suddenly a man stood up in one of the

THE MISSION FIELD, 339

canoes, and shot an arrow into the boat,
crying out, ** Have you anything like this?"
A shower of arrows followed from the other
canoes, and before the boat's crew could
pull her out of range, three of them had
been wounded, two of them, as it after-
wards proved, mortally. They made the
best of their way to the ship, and when
the tide began to rise, sent back the boat
in search of the Bishop. The boatmen
crossed the reef, and saw the canoe drifting
towards them. As they neared it, a yell
of triumph rose from the shore. The boat
came alongside, and two words passed from
lip to lip — "The body!'' There it lay,
beneath a native mat, but stripped of its
clothing. The face bore no trace of agony,
but wore its own sweet smile of love.
There were five wounds — no more ; and
the frond of a cocoa-nut palm was fastened
on the lifeless breast, with five knots on
the long green leaves. It was all uncon-
sciously that his murderers had adopted for
him the emblem of Christian victory ; but
it was not difficult to discover the meaning

340 MODERN HEROES OF

which they had themselves attached to their
symbol. Five men had been lately stolen
from Nekapu, and the untutored savages
had taken vengeance upon the first white
man who fell into their hands ; probably with
the full belief, for reasons already alluded to,
that he was accessory to the wrong.

It is remarkable that not long before, in
his appeal to the Provincial Synod of New
Zealand, this noble-minded Bishop had said :
** I desire to protest by anticipation against
any punishment being inflicted on the
natives of these islands who may cut off
vessels or kill boats' crews, until it is clearly
shown that these are not done in the way
of retribution for outrages first committed
by white men. ... It is not difficult to
find an answer to the question, * Who is
the savage and who is the heathen man ? * "

Alas ! that one of the noblest of mission-
aries should be the victim of the treachery
and deceit practised, by his own country-
men, upon people for whom he would
willingly have laid down his life. This con-
solation remains — his death called public

THE MISSION FIELD, 341

attention to the evils which were the cause of
it, and his work survived him. Several of
those whom he evangelized are now ordained
as Christian ministers ; the truth of the
Gospel has won Its way amongst the people
for whom he lived and died ; and another
Selwyn, son of that missionary prelate who
enlisted Patteson in the Melanesian field,
has succeeded the martyred Bishop in the
government of the Melanesian Church.

And so we close our sketches of modern
missionary heroes with the record of one
who was second to none of them In the
lofty bravery of Christian faith, or the
grand devotedness of Christian love. ** To
have known such a man,*' writes Max
Miiller, ** is one of life's greatest blessings.
In his life of purity, unselfishness, devotion
to man, and faith In a higher world, those
who have eyes to see may read the best,
the most real Iniitatio Christi, In his death,
following so closely on his prayer for the
forgiveness of his enemies — * for they know
not what they do ' — we have witnessed once
more a truly Christlike death."

343 MODERN HEROES OF

How will ye mourn the warrior, that fell as warrior ought ?
How praise the hero that hath found the glorious meed he

sought ?
Ah ! drop no tear upon the page that burns beneath his

name —
Breathe never sigh, but raise your song to notes of proud

acclaim !

How shall we name thee ? — as a Knight of ancient line

and true,
That kept his Knighthood's vigils, and all its training

knew,
That look'd on all the world could give, and scorn'd its

ease like dross,
To bear the foremost banner in the Battle of the Cross ?

How shall we think of thee ? — as one who dared the winds

and waves.
On Heaven's sublime discovery, and brake men's living

graves ;
Whose mighty mind in patience turn'd its wide linguistic

lore
To wake the first Te Deum on a Melanesian shore?

Ah ! no, thy style and title owns a bearing far more bright,
For Martyr is a grander name than hero, sage, or

knight.
The lofty joy was thine, afar upon the wilds to trace
The Master's life ! and loftiest souls wear still the lowliest

grace.

THE MISSION FIELD. 343

An oarless boat is floating within the wide lagoon —

It holds a strange, dark, silent mass, that ye will know too

soon.
No soul is there, and from the lips there comes no voice

of prayer.
Row, row beneath the Southern Cross, with the burden

ye must bear ;

And lay your Bishop on the deck, and look your last, nor

weep —
There will be time enough for tears when ye give him to

the deep.
Smooth out the blood-stained vestment's fold, with the

reverent touch of love,
And think upon the Crown of Thorns that won our crown

above !

Leave him in rest I no hope forlorn was that his Saviour

led,
Whose love is deeper than the sea that shrouds His

sainted dead ;
Whose mysteries of grace sublime transcend time's little

loss,
And all our pain, with all our sin, we lay beneath His Cross.

Yet mourn ye must ; but mourn as those who look'd on

Stephen's smile,
And closed the eyes that saw the Lord beyond death's

awful aisle.
Rouse ! by that vision, rouse ! for love and shame of heart,

to pray
That He who gifted such a soul would quicken ours

to-day.

3M HEROES OF THE MISSION FIELD.

O Crowns of all the martyrs ! O Lives of all the saints .
O Choir of Christ's redeemed hosts ! your noblest antnem

faints,
Your bravest light but sparkles dim before the glory due
To Him who bought you with His blood, and gave H/m-

SELF for you ! *

* These lines, as well as those upon Livingstone at page 310^ art
from the pen of Mrs. Alessie Faussett*

DATE DUE

CAYLORO

PRINTED INU.S. A.

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