ols.
Lifting a piece of planed wood, I penciled a few words on it, and
requested our old Chief to carry it to Mrs. Paton, and she would send
what I wanted. In blank wonder, he innocently stared at me, and said,
"But what do you want?"

I replied, "The wood will tell her." He looked rather angry, thinking
that I befooled him, and retorted, "Who ever heard of wood speaking?"

By hard pleading I succeeded in persuading him to go. He was amazed to
see her looking at the wood and then fetching the needed articles. He
brought back the bit of wood, and eagerly made signs for an explanation.
Chiefly in broken Tannese I read to him the words, and informed him that
in the same way God spoke to us through His Book. The will of God was
written there, and by and by, when he learned to read, he would hear God
speaking to him from its page, as Mrs. Paton heard me from the bit of
wood.

A great desire was thus awakened in the poor man's soul to see the very
Word of God printed in his own language. He helped me to learn words and
master ideas with growing enthusiasm. And when my work of translating
portions of Holy Scripture began, his delight was unbounded and his help
invaluable. The miracle of a speaking page was not less wonderful than
that of speaking wood!

One day, while building the house, an old Inland Chief and his three
sons came to see us. Everything was to them full of wonder. After
returning home one of the sons fell sick, and the father at once blamed
us and the Worship, declaring that if the lad died we all should be
murdered in revenge. By God's blessing, and by our careful nursing and
suitable medicine, he recovered and was spared. The old Chief
superstitiously wheeled round almost to another extreme. He became not
only friendly, but devoted to us. He attended the Sabbath Services, and
listened to the Aneityumese Teachers, and to my first attempts, partly
in Tannese, translated by the orator Taia or the Chief Namakei, and
explained in our hearing to the people in their mother tongue.

But on the heels of this, another calamity overtook us. So soon as two
rooms of the Mission House were roofed in, I hired the stoutest of the
young men to carry our boxes thither. Two of them started off with a
heavy box suspended on a pole from shoulder to shoulder, their usual
custom. They were shortly after attacked with vomiting of blood; and one
of them, an Erromangan, actually died. The father of the other swore
that, if his s