d
immortal, so long as I was doing His work. And I can truly say that
these were the moments when I felt my Saviour to be most truly and
sensibly present, inspiring and empowering me.

Another scheme had an excellent educative and religious influence. I
tried to interest all the villages, and to treat all the Chiefs equally.
In our early days, after getting into my two-roomed house, I engaged the
Chief, or representative man of each district, to put up one or other at
the many outhouses required at the Station. One, along with his people,
built the cookhouse; another, the store; another, the banana and
yam-house; another, the washing-house; another, the boys and girls'
house; the houses for servants and teachers, the Schoolhouse, and the
large shed, a kind of shelter where Natives sat and talked when not at
work about the premises. Of course these all were at first only Native
huts, of larger or smaller dimensions. But they were all built by
contract for articles which they highly valued, such as axes, knives,
yards of prints and calico, strings of beads, blankets, etc. They served
our purpose for the time, and when another party, by contract also, had
fenced around our premises, the Mission Station was really a beautiful,
little, lively, and orderly village, and in itself no bad emblem of
Christian and civilized life. The payments, made to all irrespectively,
but only for work duly done and according to reasonable bargain,
distributed property and gifts amongst them on wholesome principles, and
encouraged a well-conditioned rivalry which had many happy effects.

Heathenism made many desperate and some strange efforts to stamp out our
Cause on Aniwa, but the Lord held the helm. One old Chief, formerly
friendly, turned against us. He ostentatiously set himself to make a
canoe, working at it very openly and defiantly on Sabbaths. He, becoming
sick and dying, his brother started, on a Sabbath morning and in
contempt of the Worship, with an armed company to provoke our people to
war. They refused to fight; and one man, whom he struck with his club,
said, "I will leave my revenge to Jehovah."

A few days thereafter, this brother also fell sick and suddenly died.
The Heathen party made much of these incidents, and some clamored for
our death in revenge, but most feared to murder us; so they withdrew and
lived apart from our friends, as far away as they could get. By and by,
however, they set fire to a large district belongi