Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/251

BEGmNmGS LAKEMBA AND EEWA. 221 remained in the land of their adoption ; but some of them were half- hearted and insincere in their religion, and have since done very much to hinder the Mission work in the Fiji group. Some, however, were men of another stamp. Their religion was thorough and sincere. The distance is great indeed from the desperate, lawless, and vile course which these men held, to the high standard of morality which the New Testament teaches ; yet Christianity elevated them to that standard, and thereby wrought a triumph which no drilling of mere moral culture could have achieved : it went deeper than any other system could have reached, exercising, as it did, a power which no other could command. It did more than reform these licentious savages. In changing their hearts it wrought in them a new style of ideas, a new class of motives. In the breast of the relentless warrior, the treach- erous savage, the wily and suspicious Heathen, it set up a quick and active charity, giving birth to strange emotions never felt before, — the emotions of sympathy and love for those whom they had hitherto known only as the sharers or the objects of their crime. They felt impelled to spread, as they could, the knowledge of that truth which had been the means of thus completely renewing them. Most hearty and zealous were many of these early Tongan Cliristians in carrying out, in every possible way, the spread of scriptural holiness through the land. They were constant and laborious in schools, and useful as Class-Leaders and Exhorters. Denying themselves, and taking up their cross, they followed Christ diligently, striving hard to do something to repair the mischief they had effected by their past wickedness. Their services were invaluable, and it cannot be doubted that they were supplied by the Lord to meet the peculiar exigency of this difficult Mission. No better pioneers could have been fomid. They sailed with their Chiefs to many islands, and had influence with men high in power. They were not hindered by the fears to which Fijian converts are liable, and boldly professed Christianity. Their position was independent, and they held family prayer, generally accompanied with singing, on board their canoes, or in the houses where they stayed in their frequent voy- ages. Thus was the name, and something of the character of Chris- tianity, made known more widely and in shorter time than it could have been by any other agents. Tongan Teachers of rare excellence have at various times, from the beginning, gone forth from their own country to take part with the Missionaries in evangelizing Fiji, watching over the converts and feed- ing the churches in remote towns and far scattered islands. Every day, and all day long, the Missionaries and their wives were