CHAPTER XXI.

LOYALTY ISLANDS.

A missionary home - Missionary qualifications - Unsatisfactory converts-Interference of Romish priests-Barbarities practised in Lifu by French soldiers-Appointment of an Imperial Commission-Its results-Uvea, or Britannia Isles-Romish persecutions.

Ar length, on the 30th October 1859, Messrs Baker and M'Farlane, with their wives and three children, were landed on the coral beach of Lifu, the former being stationed at Mu, on the east side of the island, and the latter at Chepenehe, on Wide Bay. "Our little cottage," writes Mr M Farlane, "soon began to look like home. By the taste and activity of Mrs M'Farlane, packing-cases were soon dressed and transformed into handsome-looking pieces of furniture. The windows, although the admiration of the natives, who had not any in their houses, were such that we could not keep out the wind and rain without shutting out the light also. Although after heavy rains the water was ankle deep in our house, and during the hurricane months we had to prop it up, yet it was a much better one than we expected to find, and superior to most of those occupied by missionaries upon their arrival in the field."

There was no want of supplies, the natives bringing abundance of their produce for barter, and insisting upon

the missionary purchasing as much as they wished to dispose of. Several of the islanders, through their intercourse with the sandalwood-traders, had learned a good many English words; but in four months Mr M'Farlane was able to read sermons in the Lifuan dialect, and in seven to preach without notes.

At first his time was much occupied with manual labour. He had to superintend the process of lime-burning, to sharpen saws, to look after the sawyers, and to mark the logs. His view of missionary qualifications, indeed, tallies pretty closely with that enunciated by Bishop Patteson. "To draw a plan of your church, school, and dwellinghouse," he observes, "you must be an architect; to build and repair them, you must be mason and carpenter; and when a pane of glass is broken, you must turn glazier; and when the table-knives or your wife's scissors require sharpening, you must turn scissors-grinder; to mend your chairs, you must be a cabinetmaker; to repair your boat, you must be a boat-builder; to manage it in rough weather among those islands, you must be a seaman; to shoe your horse, you must be a blacksmith; and to manage him over island roads, you must be a rider. So that more is required to make a good missionary than the mere ability to translate and expound the Scriptures."

In his division of the island, Mr M'Farlane found himself, though a Presbyterian, exercising quasi-episcopal functions over his six Samoan and Rarotongan teachers, with their numerous Lifuan assistant teachers, while his "diocese" contained a scattered population of over 3000 souls.

Cannibalism and polygamy had both ceased out of the land, and the people generally professed to be Christians.

Of the value of such professions some idea may be formed from Mr M'Farlane's statement that the natives are seldom truly penitent. They may be sorry for having sinned, but it is only lest God should punish them for what they have done. They are great at Bible-reading, church-going, and psalm-singing; but they are at the same time liars, hypocrites, and thieves. At the first service he attended, his attention was drawn to an elderly man, with spectacles upon nose, who was looking with a most sanctified air into his hymn-book, which he was holding upside down. The hymns then in use are condemned as devoid of sense and metre, while the singing was mere bawling, each individual shouting at the top of his voice.

It

The native teachers, too, are characterised as being for the most part lazy, selfish, ignorant, and proud. Even Pao could barely read or write. They cannot, however, be dispensed with, and would indeed be invaluable were they more thoroughly trained and educated. is clearly impossible to send out a sufficient number of European missionaries to supply the religious wants of the widely-scattered islands of the South Pacific. The expense would be ruinous, and no private funds would ever be adequate to such a purpose. Native teachers, besides, more easily gain the ear of their fellow-islanders, and are less suspected of ulterior motives. But, to be truly serviceable, they need a far higher education than they can at present obtain.

The aspect of affairs was, nevertheless, hopeful. Eight congregations, each consisting of some thirty members, had been formed on the island, and in a very short time the aggregate number of worshippers exceeded two thousand five hundred. A seminary was also established for the

training of Lifuan teachers; roads were cut in all directions, and kept in good repair; chapels were erected in almost every considerable village, and wells were sunk to supply the natives everywhere with fresh water. Attention, too, was paid to agriculture; and pigs, poultry, oil, and cotton were exported to a comparatively large extent. The Romish priests were the chief purchasers of oil and cotton, which they resold at a good profit, though at one time they refused to buy these articles from Protestant converts. Religious rivalry, indeed, ran disgracefully high.

Ukenezo, the chief of the heathen portion of the island, being disgusted and alarmed by the defection and conversion of his brother-in-law, had written to the Government of New Caledonia to send him priests, in the belief that they would be supported by soldiers, by whose aid he would be enabled to triumph over his enemies. The result was an excellent illustration of the fable which represents the horse as calling in the help of man in his contest with the stag.

Romish priests, indeed, had landed from the neighbouring island of Uvea in 1858, during Bishop Patteson's residence, but were not then welcomed by the bulk of the population. They built themselves a house, the interior of which was profusely decorated with pictures, images, medals, and crosses, all regarded by the natives as potent charms. They further gave acceptable presents to their adherents, while they threatened their opponents with a French man-of-war. One of them had the bad taste to build his house close to the Protestant chapel at Chepenehe, and to employ a native to beat a gong during divine service, in order to annoy the congregation. According to Mr M'Farlane, "the Roman Catholic priests [in Lifu] generally live in miserable houses, remark

The French in Lifu.

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able only for their filth and disorder; and their persons are often disgustingly dirty. This they call 'merit,' and 'self-sacrifice.' One of the storekeepers in New Caledonia," he continues, "who supplies the priests with their provisions and barter-goods, told me that, during the three years he had been there, the priests had ordered all sorts of goods, but never any soap."

The rivalry that reigned between the two Christian Churches soon culminated in acts of outrageous violence perpetrated by the Papists; and when these failed to arrest the extension of Protestant principles, the priests applied to the Governor of New Caledonia for the aid of the military. A small force of twenty-five French soldiers was accordingly landed in the early part of 1864, and encamped about half a mile from the missionary settlement at Chepenehe. The lieutenant in command, a hot-headed young man not twenty-five years of age, who called himself "Commandant of the Loyalty Islands," immediately issued orders to provide suitable accommodation for his men, threatening to put in irons whosoever refused to obey the decree. Houses were speedily run up, but the natives received not the slightest remuneration for their time and labour.

The commandant next talked of burning Chepenehe, and was with difficulty diverted from his purpose by the remonstrances of Messrs M'Farlane and Sleigh. He positively forbade, however, all further distribution of books in the vernacular tongue, and also religious instruction in any other language than French; while his soldiers conducted themselves as in a conquered country, ill-using the natives and laying their hands upon whatever they fancied. A plot was therefore formed to