Adventures in New Guinea | Page 2

before
them, it is true; but for the most part only to benefit themselves, and not
unfrequently to murder the natives or to entrap them into slavery.
Christianity has won great victories in Polynesia, but no part of the
globe has witnessed fouler crimes or more atrocious wickedness on the
part of white men towards savage races.
The history of the work done by members of the London Missionary
Society is already a long one. As far back as 1871, the Revs. A. W.
Murray and S. McFarlane sailed from Mare, one of the Loyalty Islands,
with eight native teachers, inhabitants of that group, with whom to
begin the campaign against sin, superstition, and savagery in New
Guinea. The first station occupied was Darnley Island, and Mr. Murray
gives an incident that well illustrates the spirit in which these men,
themselves trophies of missionary success, entered upon their work.
Speaking about another island, the natives, in the hope of intimidating
the teachers, said, "There are alligators there, and snakes, and
centipedes." "Hold," said the teacher, "are there men there?" "Oh yes,"
was the reply, "there are men; but they are such dreadful savages that it
is no use your thinking of living among them." "That will do," replied
the teacher. "Wherever there are men, missionaries are bound to go."
Teachers were stationed at the islands of Tauan and Sabaii. Later on,
Yule Island and Redscar Bay were visited, and the missionaries
returned to Lifu.
In 1872, Mr. Murray returned in the John Williams with thirteen
additional teachers, and for the next two years superintended the
mission from Cape York. In 1874, he was joined by the Revs. S.
McFarlane and W. G. Lawes--who have both ever since that time
laboured hard and successfully on behalf of the natives--and the

steamer Ellengowan was placed at the service of the mission by the
liberality of the late Miss Baxter, of Dundee. The native teachers
experienced many vicissitudes. Some died from inability to stand the
climate, some were massacred by the men they were striving to bless;
but the gaps were filled up as speedily as possible, and the map recently
issued (Jan. 1885) by the Directors of the Society shows that on the
south-eastern coast of New Guinea, from Motumotu to East Cape, no
less than thirty-two native teachers, some of them New Guinea
converts, are now toiling in the service of the Gospel.
In 1877, the Rev. James Chalmers joined the mission, and it is hardly
too much to say that his arrival formed an epoch in its history. He is
wonderfully equipped for the work to which he has, under God's
Providence, put his hand, and is the white man best known to all the
natives along the south coast. From the first he has gone among them
unarmed, and though not unfrequently in imminent peril, has been
marvellously preserved. He has combined the qualities of missionary
and explorer in a very high degree, and while beloved as "Tamate"
(Teacher) by the natives, has added enormously to the stock of our
geographical knowledge of New Guinea, and to our accurate
acquaintance with the ways of thinking, the habits, superstitions, and
mode of life of the various tribes of natives.
Notwithstanding various expensive expeditions for the exploration of
New Guinea, he has travelled the farthest yet into the interior. He has
been as far as Lat. S. 9 degrees 2' and Long. E. 147 degrees 42.5'. The
farthest point reached by Captain Armit was about Lat. S. 9 degrees 35'
and Long. E. 147 degrees 38'. Mr. Morrison merely reached a point on
the Goldie River, when he was attacked and wounded by the natives.
This compelled the party to return to Port Moresby.
Mr. Chalmers is still actively engaged in his work on the great island,
and he has placed many of his journals and papers at the disposal of the
Religious Tract Society, in the hope that their publication may increase
the general store of knowledge about New Guinea, and may also give
true ideas about the natives, the kind of Christian work that is being
done in their midst, and the progress in it that is being made.

The prominence which New Guinea has assumed in the public mind
lately is due much more to political than to religious reasons. England
is a Christian nation, and there are numbers who rejoice in New Guinea
as a signal proof of the regenerating power of the Gospel of Christ. Yet,
to the Christian man, it is somewhat humiliating to find how deeply the
press of our country is stirred by the statement that Germany has
annexed the north coast of New Guinea, while it has hardly been
touched by the thrilling story of the introduction of Christianity all
along the south coast.