Chapter VI: Face to Face with Heathenism (2)

Steeping my poor brains over the problem, I became an extemporized engineer. Two trees were searched for, with branches on opposite sides, capable of sustaining a cross tree betwixt them. I sank them on each side firmly into the ground, passed the beam across them over the centre of the shaft, fastened thereon a rude home-made pulley and block, passed a rope over the wheel, and swung my largest bucket to the end of it. Thus equipped, I began once more sinking away at the well, but at so wide an angle that the sides might not again fall in. Not a Native, however, would enter that hole, and I had to pick and dig away till I was utterly exhausted. But a Teacher, in whom I had confidence, took charge above, managing to hire them with axes, knives, etc., to seize the end of the rope and walk along the ground pulling it till the bucket rose to the surface, and then he himself swung it aside, emptied it, and lowered it down again. I rang a little bell which I had with me, when the bucket was loaded, and that was the signal for my brave helpers to pull their rope. And thus I toiled on from day to day, my heart almost sinking sometimes with the sinking of the well, till we reached a depth of about thirty feet. And the phrase, “living water,” “living water,” kept chiming through my soul like music from God, as I dug and hammered away!

At this depth the earth and coral began to be soaked with damp. I felt that we were nearing water. My soul had a faith that God would open a spring for us; but side by side with this faith was a strange terror that the water would be salt. So perplexing and mixed are even the highest experiences of the soul; the rose-flower of a perfect faith, set round and round with prickly thorns. One evening I said to the old Chief,—

“I think that Jehovah God will give us water to-morrow from that hole!”

The Chief said, “No, Missi; you will never see rain coming up from the earth on this Island. We wonder what is to be the end of this mad work of yours. We expect daily, if you reach water, to see you drop through into the sea, and the sharks will eat you! That will be the end of it; death to you, and danger to us all.”

I still answered, “Come to-morrow. I hope and believe that Jehovah God will send you the rain water up through the earth.” At the moment I knew I was risking much, and probably incurring sorrowful consequences, had no water been given; but I had faith that the Lord was leading me on, and I knew that I sought His glory, not my own.

Next morning, I went down again at daybreak and sank a narrow hole in the centre about two feet deep. The perspiration broke over me with uncontrollable excitement, and I trembled through every limb, when the water rushed up and began to fill the hole. Muddy though it was, I eagerly tasted it, and the little “tinny” dropped from my hand with sheer joy, and I almost fell upon my knees in that muddy bottom to praise the Lord. It was water! It was fresh water! It was living water from Jehovah’s well! True, it was a little brackish, but nothing to speak of; and no spring in the desert, cooling the parched lips of a fevered pilgrim, ever appeared more worthy of being called a Well of God than did that water to me!

The Chiefs had assembled with their men near by They waited on in eager expectancy. It was a rehearsal, in a small way, of the Israelites coming round, while Moses struck the rock and called for water. By-and-bye, when I had praised the Lord, and my excitement was a little calmed, the mud being also greatly settled, I filled a jug, which I had taken down empty in the sight of them all, and ascending to the top called for them to come and see the rain which Jehovah God had given us through the well. They closed around me in haste, and gazed on it in superstitious fear. The old Chief shook it to see if it would spill, and then touched it to see if it felt like water. At last he tasted it, and rolling it in his mouth with joy for a moment, he swallowed it, and shouted, “Rain! Rain! Yes, it is Rain! But how did you get it?”

I repeated, “Jehovah my God gave it out of His own Earth in answer to our labours and prayers. Go and see it springing up for yourselves!”

Now, though every man there could climb the highest tree as swiftly and as fearlessly as a squirrel or an opossum, not one of them had courage to walk to the side and gaze down into that well. To them this was miraculous! But they were not without a resource that met the emergency. They agreed to take firm hold of each other by the hand, to place themselves in a long line, the foremost man to lean cautiously forward, gaze into the well, and then pass to the rear, and so on till all had seen “Jehovah’s rain” far below. It was somewhat comical, yet far more pathetic, to stand by and watch their faces, as man after man peered down into the mystery, and then looked up at me in blank bewilderment! When all had seen it with their own very eyes, and were “weak with wonder,” the old Chief exclaimed,—

“Missi, wonderful, wonderful is the work of your Jehovah God! No god of Aniwa ever helped us in this way. But, Missi,” continued he, after a pause that looked like silent worship, “will it always rain up through the earth? or, will it come and go like the rain from the clouds?”

I told them that I believed it would always continue there for our use, as a good gift from Jehovah.

“Well, but, Missi,” replied the Chief, some glimmering of self-interest beginning to strike his brain, “will you or your family drink it all, or shall we also have some?”

“You and all your people,” I answered, “and all the people of the Island may come and drink and carry away as much of it as you wish. I believe there will always be plenty for us all, and the more of it we can use the fresher it will be. That is the way with many of our Jehovah’s best gifts to men, and for it and for all we praise His Name!”

“Then, Missi,” said the Chief, “it will be our water, and we may all use it as our very own.”

“Yes,” I answered, “whenever you wish it, and as much as you need, both here and at your own houses, as far as it can possibly be made to go.”

The Chief looked at me eagerly, fully convinced at length that the well contained a treasure, and exclaimed, “Missi, what can we do to help you now?”

Oh, how like is human nature all the world over! When one toils and struggles, when help is needed which many around could easily give and be the better, not the worse, for giving it, they look on in silence, or bless you with ungenerous criticism, or ban you with malicious judgment. But let them get some peep of personal advantage by helping you, or even of the empty bubble of praise for offering it, and how they rush to your aid!

But I was thankful to accept of the Chief’s assistance, though rather late in the day, and I said,—

“You have seen it fall in once already. If it falls again, it will conceal the rain from below which our God has given us. In order to preserve it for us and for our children in all time, we must build it round and round with great coral blocks from the bottom to the very top. I will now clear it out, and prepare the foundation for this wall of coral. Let every man and woman carry from the shore the largest blocks they can bring. It is well worth all the toil thus to preserve our great Jehovah’s gift!”

Scarcely were my words repeated, when they rushed to the shore, with shoutings and songs of gladness; and soon every one was seen struggling under the biggest block of coral with which he dared to tackle. They lay like limestone rocks, broken up by the hurricanes, and rolled ashore in the arms of mighty billows; and in an incredibly short time scores of them were tumbled down for my use at the mouth of the well. Having prepared a foundation, I made ready a sort of box to which every block was firmly tied and then let down to me by the pulley,—a Native Teacher, a faithful fellow, cautiously guiding it. I received and placed each stone in its position, doing my poor best to wedge them one against the other, building circularly, and cutting them to the needed shape with my American axe. The wall is about three feet thick, and the masonry may be guaranteed to stand till the coral itself decays. I wrought incessantly, for fear of any further collapse, till I had it raised about twenty feet; and now, feeling secure, and my hands being dreadfully cut up, I intimated that I would rest a week or two, and finish the building then. But the Chief advanced and said,—

“Missi, you have been strong to work. Your strength has fled. But rest here beside us; and just point out where each block is to be laid. We will lay them there, we will build them solidly behind like you. And no man will sleep till it is done.”

With all their will and heart they started on the job; some carrying, some cutting and squaring the blocks, till the wall rose like magic, and a row of the hugest rocks laid round the top bound all together, and formed the mouth of the well. Women, boys, and all wished to have a hand in building it, and it remains to this day, a solid wall of masonry, the circle being thirty-four feet deep, eight feet wide at the top, and six at the bottom. I floored it over with wood above all, and fixed the windlass and bucket, and there it stands as one of the greatest material blessings which the Lord has given to Aniwa. It rises and falls with the tide, though a third of a mile distant from the sea; and when, after using it, we tasted the pure fresh water on board the _Dayspring_, it seemed so insipid that I had to slip a little salt into my tea along with the sugar before I could enjoy it! All visitors are taken to see the well, as one of the wonders of Aniwa; and an Elder of the Church said to me lately,—

“But for that water, during the last two years of drought, we would all have been dead!”

Very strangely, though the Natives themselves have since tried to sink six or seven wells in the most likely places near their different villages, they have either come to coral rock which they could not pierce, or found only water that was salt. And they say amongst themselves,—

“Missi not only used pick and spade, but he prayed and cried to his God. We have learned to dig, but not how to pray, and therefore Jehovah will not give us the rain from below!”

The well was now finished. The place was neatly fenced in. And the old Chief said,—

“Missi, now that this is the water for all, we must take care and keep it pure.”

I was so thankful that all were to use it. Had we alone drawn water therefrom, they could so easily have poisoned it, as they do the fish-pools, in caverns among the rocks by the shore, with their nuts and runners, and killed us all. But there was no fear, if they themselves were to use it daily. The Chief continued,—

“Missi, I think I could help you next Sabbath. Will you let me preach a sermon on the well?”

“Yes,” I at once replied, “if you will try to bring all the people to hear you.”

“Missi, I will try,” he eagerly promised. The news spread like wildfire that the Chief Namakei was to be the Missionary on the next day for the Worship, and the people, under great expectancy, urged each other to come and hear what he had to say.

Sabbath came round. Aniwa assembled in what was for that island a great crowd. Namakei appeared dressed in shirt and kilt. He was so excited, and flourished his tomahawk about at such a rate, that it was rather lively work to be near him. I conducted short opening devotions, and then called upon Namakei. He rose at once, with eye flashing wildly, and his limbs twitching with emotion. He spoke to the following effect, swinging his tomahawk to enforce every eloquent gesticulation,—

“Friends of Namakei, men and women and children of Aniwa, listen to my words! Since Missi came here he has talked many strange things we could not understand—things all too wonderful; and we said regarding many of them that they must be lies. White people might believe such nonsense, but we said that the black fellow knew better than to receive it. But of all his wonderful stories, we thought the strangest was about sinking down through the earth to get rain! Then we said to each other, The man’s head is turned; he’s gone mad. But the Missi prayed on and wrought on, telling us that Jehovah God heard and saw, and that his God would give him rain. Was he mad? Has he not got the rain deep down in the earth? We mocked at him; but the water was there all the same. We have laughed at other things which the Missi told us, because we could not see them. But from this day I believe that all he tells us about his Jehovah God is true. Some day our eyes will see it. For to-day we have seen the rain from the earth.”

Then, rising to a climax, first the one foot and then the other making the broken coral on the floor fly behind like a war-horse pawing the ground, he cried with great eloquence,—

“My people, the people of Aniwa, the world is turned upside down since the word of Jehovah came to this land! Who ever expected to see rain coming up through the earth? It has always come from the clouds! Wonderful is the work of this Jehovah God. No god of Aniwa ever answered prayers as the Missi’s God has done. Friends of Namakei, all the powers of the world could not have forced us to believe that rain could be given from the depths of the earth, if we had not seen it with our eyes, felt it and tasted it as we here do. Now, by the help of Jehovah God the Missi brought that invisible rain to view, which we never before heard of or saw, and,”—(beating his hand on his breast, he exclaimed),—

“Something here in my heart tells me that the Jehovah God does exist, the Invisible One, whom we never heard of nor saw till the Missi brought Him to our knowledge. The coral has been removed, the land has been cleared away, and lo! the water rises. Invisible till this day, yet all the same it was there, though our eyes were too weak. So I, your Chief, do now firmly believe that when I die, when the bits of coral and the heaps of dust are removed which now blind my old eyes, I shall then see the Invisible Jehovah God with my soul, as Missi tells me, not less surely than I have seen the rain from the earth below. From this day, my people, I must worship the God who has opened for us the well, and who fills us with rain from below. The gods of Aniwa cannot hear, cannot help us, like the God of Missi. Henceforth I am a follower of Jehovah God. Let every man that thinks with me go now and fetch the idols of Aniwa, the gods which our fathers feared, and cast them down at Missi’s feet. Let us burn and bury and destroy these things of wood and stone, and let us be taught by the Missi how to serve the God who can hear, the Jehovah who gave us the well, and who will give us every other blessing, for He sent His Son Jesus to die for us and bring us to Heaven. This is what the Missi has been telling us every day since he landed on Aniwa. We laughed at him, but now we believe him. The Jehovah God has sent us rain from the earth. Why should He not also send us His Son from Heaven? Namakei stands up for Jehovah!”

This address, and the Sinking of the Well, broke, as I already said, the back of Heathenism on Aniwa. That very afternoon, the old Chief and several of his people brought their idols and cast them down at my feet beside the door of our house. Oh, the intense excitement of the weeks that followed! Company after company came to the spot, loaded with their gods of wood and stone, and piled them up in heaps, amid the tears and sobs of some, and the shoutings of others, in which was heard the oft-repeated word, “Jehovah! Jehovah!” What could be burned, we cast into the flames; others we buried in pits twelve or fifteen feet deep; and some few, more likely than the rest to feed or awaken superstition, we sank far out into the deep sea. Let no Heathen eyes ever gaze on them again!

We do not mean to indicate that, in all cases, their motives were either high or enlightened. There were not wanting some who wished to make this new movement pay, and were much disgusted when we refused to “buy” their gods! On being told that Jehovah would not be pleased unless they gave them up of their own free will, and destroyed them without pay or reward, some took them home again and held on by them for a season, and others threw them away in contempt. Meetings were held; speeches were delivered, for these New Hebrideans are irrepressible orators, florid, and amazingly graphic; much talk followed, and the destruction of idols went on apace. By-and-bye two Sacred Men and some other selected persons were appointed a sort of detective Committee, to search out and expose those who pretended to give them all up, but were hiding certain idols in secret, and to encourage waverers to come to a thorough decision for Jehovah. In these intensely exciting days, we “stood still” and saw the salvation of the Lord.

They flocked around us now at every meeting we held. They listened eagerly to the story of the life and death of Jesus. They voluntarily assumed one or other article of clothing. And everything transpiring was fully and faithfully submitted to us for counsel or for information. One of the very first things of a Christian discipline to which they readily and almost unanimously took was the asking of God’s blessing on every meal and praising the great Jehovah for their daily bread. Whosoever did not do so was regarded as a Heathen. (Query: how many _white_ Heathens are there?) The next step, and it was taken in a manner as if by some common consent that was not less surprising than joyful, was a form of Family Worship every morning and evening. Doubtless the prayers were often very queer, and mixed up with many remaining superstitions; but they were prayers to the great Jehovah, the compassionate Father, the Invisible One—no longer to gods of stone!

Necessarily these were the conspicuous features of our life as Christians in their midst—morning and evening Family Prayer, and Grace at Meat; and hence, most naturally, their instinctive adoption and imitation of the same as the first outward tokens of Christian discipline. Every house in which there was not Prayer to God in the family was known thereby to be Heathen. This was a direct and practical evidence of the New Religion; and, so far as it goes (and that is very far indeed, where there is any sincerity at all), the test was one about which there could be no mistake on either side.

A third conspicuous feature stood out distinctly and at once,—the change as to the Lord’s Day. Village after village followed in this also the example of the Mission House. All ordinary occupations ceased. Sabbath was spoken of as the Day for Jehovah. Saturday came to be called “Cooking Day,” referring to the extra preparations for the day of rest and worship. They believed that it was Jehovah’s will to keep the first day holy. The reverse was a distinctive mark of Heathenism.

The first traces of a new Social Order began to rise visibly on the delighted eye. The whole inhabitants, young and old, now attended School,—three generations sometimes at the one copy or A B C book! Thefts, quarrels, crimes, etc., were settled now, not by club law, but by fine or bonds or lash, as agreed upon by the Chiefs and their people. Everything was rapidly and surely becoming “new” under the influence of the leaven of Jesus. Industry increased. Huts and plantations were safe. Formerly every man, in travelling, carried with him all his valuables; now they were secure, left at home.

Even a brood of fowls or a litter of pigs would be carried in bags on their persons in Heathen days. Hence at Church we had sometimes lively episodes, the chirruping of chicks, the squealing of piggies, and the barking of puppies, one gaily responding to the other, as we sang, or prayed, or preached the Gospel! Being glad to see the Natives there, even with all their belongings, we carefully refrained from finding fault; but the thread of devotion was sometimes apt to slip through one’s fingers, especially when the conflict of the owner to silence a baby-pig inspired the little wretch to drown everything in a long-sustained and angry swinish scream.

The Natives, finding this state of matters troublesome to themselves and disagreeable all round, called a General Assembly, unanimously condemned dishonesty, agreed upon severe fines and punishments for every act of theft, and covenanted to stand by each other in putting it down. The Chiefs, however, found this a long and difficult task, but they held at it under the inspiration of the Gospel and prevailed. Even the trials and difficulties with which they met were overruled by God, in assisting them to form by the light of their own experience a simple code of Social Laws, fitted to repress the crimes there prevailing, and to encourage the virtues specially needing to be cultivated there. Heathen Worship was gradually extinguished; and, though no one was compelled to come to Church, every person on Aniwa, without exception, became an avowed worshipper of Jehovah God. Again, “O Galilean, Thou hast conquered!”

Often since have I meditated on that old Cannibal Chief reasoning himself and his people, from the sinking of the well and the bringing of the invisible water to view, into a belief as to the existence and power of the great Invisible God, the only Hearer and Answerer of prayer. And the contrasted picture rises before my mind of the multitudes in Britain, America, Germany, and our Colonies, all whose wisdom, science, art, and wealth have only left them in spiritual darkness—miserable doubters! In their pride of heart, they deny their Creator and Redeemer, so gloriously revealed to them alike in Nature and in Scripture, and are like a dog barking against the sun. They will accept nothing but what their poorly-developed Science can demonstrate; yet that Science, as compared with the All-Truth of the Universe, is infinitely smaller than was the poor Chief Namakei’s knowledge as compared with mine! They do certainly know that their very existence, at every moment, depends on things that neither reason nor science can fathom, any more than Namakei could understand the rain from below. For every reason that he and his people had to believe in the Invisible God, who brought the water to their view, these sons and daughters of civilization, “the heirs of all the ages in the foremost files of time,” have ten thousand more—from history, from science, from material progress—yet in their pride of Intellect they refuse to acknowledge and adore that Invisible and Inscrutable God, in whom every day they live, and move, and have their being, and who has spoken to us by His Son from Heaven. If their own sons, daughters, or servants, who are infinitely less dependent on them than they are upon God, should treat themselves as they are treating their Creator, what would they think? How would they feel? I pity from the depth of my heart every human being, who, from whatever cause, is a stranger to the most ennobling, uplifting, and consoling experience that can come to the soul of man—blessed communion with the Father of our Spirits, through gracious union with the Lord Jesus Christ. “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in Thy sight.... Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light” (Matt. xi. 25-30).