Pioneers and Founders | Page 4

Samoan islanders have a college, managed by an English minister
and his wife, where teachers are educated not only to much good
discipline, but to much real refinement, and go forth as admirable and
self-devoted heralds of the Gospel into other isles. They have furnished
willing martyrs, and many have been far beyond praise. One lack,
however, seems to be of that definite formularies, a deficiency which
leaves the teaching to depend over much on the individual impressions
of the teacher.
The chief remnants of cannibalism are to be found in the New Hebrides.
The leader of the attack on John Williams is still alive at Erromango,
and the savage defiant nature of this people has never been subdued.
They belong more to the Melanesian than the Polynesian races. The
first are more like the Negro, the second more like the Malay. The
Melanesian Missions are in the charge of the Missionary Bishop, John
Coleridge Patteson, who went out as a priest with the Bishop of New
Zealand in 1855.
The New Zealand story, as I have said, cannot be told in the lifetime of
the chief actor in it. It is a story of startling success, and then of
disappointment through colonial impracticability. In some points it has
been John Eliot's experience upon a larger scale; but in this case the
political quarrel led to the rise of a savage and murderous sect among
the Maories, a sort of endeavour to combine some features of
Christianity and even Judaism with the old forgotten Paganism, and yet
promoting even cannibalism. It is memorable, however, that not one
Maori who had received Holy Orders has ever swerved from the faith,
though the "Hau- Haus" have led away many hundreds of Christians.
Still, a good number remain loyal and faithful, and hold to the English
in the miserable war which is still raging, provoked by disputes over
the sale of land.

The Melanesian Mission was begun from New Zealand; but whereas
the isles are too hot for English constitutions, they can only be visited
from the sea, and lads are brought away to be educated for teachers.
New Zealand proved too cold for these natives of a tropical climate,
and the college has been transplanted to Norfolk Island, where Bishop
Patteson has fixed his head-quarters. One of his converts from Banks's
Island has received Holy Orders, and this latter group seems in good
train to afford a supply of native ministers to islands where few
Englishmen could take up a permanent abode.
The African Missions would afford much detail, but want of space has
prevented me from mentioning the Rev. George Leacock, the West
Indian clergyman, who gave up everything when already an old man to
pave the way of the Gospel in the Pongas. And the Cape still retains its
first Bishop, so that it is only on the side of Natal and Zululand, where
the workers have passed away, that the narrative can be complete. But
the African Church is extending its stakes in Graham's Town, Orange
River, Zululand, and Zanzibar; and while the cry from East, West, and
South is still "Come over and help us," we cannot but feel that, in spite
of many a failure, many a disappointment, many a fatal error, still the
Gospel trumpet is being blown, and not blown in vain, even in the few
spots whose history, for the sake of their representative men, I have
here tried to record. Of the Canadian and Columbian Indian Missions,
of the Sandwich Isles, and of many more, I have here been able to say
nothing; but I hope that the pictures of these labourers in the cause may
tend to some understanding, not only of their toils, but of their joys, and
may show that they were men not easily deceived, and thoroughly to be
trusted in their own reports of their progress.
CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.
March 16th, 1871.
CHAPTER I.
JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE OF THE RED INDIANS.
Since the great efforts that Britain had made between the years 500 and

1000 to bring the knowledge of the truth into the still heathen portions
of the Continent,--since the days of Columban and Gal, of Boniface
and Willibrord,--there had been a cessation of missionary enterprise.
The known portions of the world were either Christian, or were in the
hands of the Mahommedans; and no doubt much of the adventurous
spirit which, united with religious enthusiasm, forms the missionary,
found vent in the Crusades, and training in the military orders. The
temper of the age, and the hopelessness of converting a Mahommedan,
made the good men of the third 500 years use their swords rather than
their tongues against the infidel; and it was only in the case of men
possessing such rare natures as those of Francis