Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/259

BEGINNINGS — ^LAIOEMBA AND EEWA. 229 their effort, find a more hopeless or forbidding prospect. Now and then, news came to England of the Mission in Fiji ; but that intelligence con- sisted chiefly of results gradually and painfully reached. What those results cost, — of labour, of sickness, of pain, of disappointment, of out- raged feeling, of strong cryings and tears, — the Missionary's God only knows. If these things were more thought of at home, prayers on behalf of Missionaries would not be so few or so formal ; the fashion able annual guinea would be a matter of self-reproach to many, and the shabby givings of an unchristian stinginess would look shabbier than ever. The gifts cast in the Lord's treasury by those whose enjoyments are never lessened by the offering, always look meagre and unworthy when compared thus with the sacrifice of those who of their penury have cast in all they had. The two pioneer-Missionaries of Fiji could not long be content to limit their work to Lakemba and its immediate dependencies. Tui Nayau, the King, though declaring his purpose of becoming Christian, put off the decisive act, stating that he feared to be the first great Chief who should lotu^ while others of wider influence, and to whom he was tributary, still maintained the old religion. All the time, however, he showed the real state of his feelings by carrying on a regular system of oppression and persecution against the new converts. At last, in con- sequence of their urgency, he strongly recommended that one of the Missionaries should go and live with some greater King, the King of Mbau or of Somosomo, and persuade him to take the lead in becoming a Christian. Being very anxious to stretch out their efforts more widely, the Missionaries determined to follow the King's counsel, and thus carry the Gospel to another and far more important part of Fiji. The difficulty seemed great ; for the stock of articles of barter was very low, and houses would have to be built and food purchased in the new place : in spite of this, Mr. Cross, whose health was much shattered, resolved to go to the opposite part of the group. He left Lakemba at the close of 1837, in a vessel belonging to Chevalier Dillon, to whom he paid £125 for conveying himself and family, with their slender store of household goods. Their destination was Mbau, a small islet scarcely separated from the coast of the great island of Na Viti Fevu. This place was then fast rising to the position of power which it has since oc- cupied ; and the new visitors arrived at a most important time, when a seven years' civil war had just passed its crisis. Driven out by a powerful and far-spreading rebellion, Tanoa, the old King of Mbau, had long been exiled ; but Seru, his young son, was permitted to remain, and kept himself out of the way of suspicion