JOHN WILLIAMS, THE APOSTLE OF THE SOUTH

SEAS.*

BY DR AHLFELD, PASTOR IN LEIPSIC.

JOHN WILLIAMS was born at Tottenham High Cross, London, June 29, 1796. His father was devoted to business, and troubled himself little with the education and the inner life of his children. Williams belonged to the large class of labourers in the kingdom of God in whose hearts the mother has, by prayer, exhortation, and quiet living to the Lord, tended the young plant of faith. But Williams' mother was not alone. A beloved grandmother was her helper in her labours. We have, therefore, before us a picture such as Paul presents in his Second Epistle to Timothy, an Eunice and a Lois, who led to the Lord, in his early years, a richly gifted boy, and planted in his soul the first seeds of piety. The seeds took root. The services of the house of God were joyful hours to the boy, and a lie was as offensive to him as poison. During his school years had he, of his own accord, without the knowledge of his mother, written a morning and an evening prayer, the one in prose and the other in verse, which give a touching evidence of his desire after good. When he reached his fourteenth year he left his father's house, and his parents bound him as an apprentice to an Enoch Tonkins, a worthy furnishing ironmonger in the City Road. The agreement was that he was to be trained to the commercial, and not to the mechanical part of the business. But he learned both. Such a turn had he for the hammer and the file that he spent all his spare hours in the smith's shop, and soon the articles that he made were so well finished, that they passed out of his hands at once to the wareroom or the show window. Williams knew not yet what end this skill would serve, but the Lord knew. It is, indeed, marvellous with what wisdom He trained this labourer for his future calling. Nothing that would equip him for a missionary was wanting. The grace of the Lord knew, too, how to make profitable use of the course of error into which, for a time, he strayed. Dear reader, some brooks, from their fountain-head to where they fall into a river, or into the sea, remain pure and transparent. They never have laboriously to work their way through a swamp. They are detained by no obstacle. Few, however, of God's children have a spiritual experience similar to this. Few, indeed, they are, who steer from childhood through the years of youth onward, in undisturbed course until they reach perfect manhood in Christ Jesus. In the life of John Williams was the soil that had been cultivated by the prayerful labours of a mother and grandmother, flooded over by the foul stream of the world and of the flesh. The Word of God was forgotten, prayer ceased to be offered, and the way to the

* Translated from Piper's Evangelischer Kalendar for 1869. A brief, but deeply interesting outline, from a German point of view, of the life and labours of one of the greatest of Christian missionaries. Dr Ahlfeld is a well known evangelical preacher in Leipsic.

church became strange to him. He had more knowledge of the way to certain beer shops. Indeed, in the society of godless_companions he had brought himself to scoff at the name of Jesus. Otherwise, however, his life was correct.

But the Lord was not to leave His chosen vessel to be destroyed by the devil. In a simple but not less effective manner, He brought the godless career of the young man to a close. On the 30th of January 1814-a Sabbath evening,-Mrs Tonkins, the wife of his employer, was on the way to the house of God. By the light of a street lamp she recognised the apprentice, who was standing near a beer shop, and asked him what he was doing. Williams frankly told her he was waiting for some companions, with whom he expected to pass a pleasant evening in the tavern. He was annoyed that they had not kept the appointed hour, and had allowed him to wait so long to no purpose. The pious woman, who knew well that she had a mother's duty to discharge to her apprentice, very pressingly asked him to come with her to the church rather than to the tavern. After some resistance the wild lad gave himself up a captive to her will, not knowing that that evening he should be made a captive, and be bound over to the service of Christ Jesus. The preacher read out as the subject of his discourse the words, "What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" These solemn inquiries came to the mind of Williams "with power, and with the demonstration of the Spirit." His eyes were opened-he saw his need; but, at the same time, the wondrous way of salvation which a God, full of compassion, has prepared and opened for sinners in Christ Jesus. On this evening the brook burst out of the stagnant swamp, and began again to flow onwards in uninterrupted course to the boundless ocean of heavenly bliss. With diligence and earnestness he again read in the Word of God, and the house of God and its services became his delight. The Gospel, the Person of the God-man, His deeds and His words, became to him living truth, and the Holy Spirit produced joy in his heart. He grew in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. What maternal love had planted, what the fidelity of his landlady had rescued from destruction, what the Christian minister had tended, should by yet another means make increase, and become fitted for the missionary calling. In the congregation to which Williams belonged was a young men's society, of about thirty members, which met every Monday evening. In its proceedings Williams took a very active part. Indeed, it became the university in which he acquired the preliminary branches needful before he could enter on his future calling. There he learned the art of presenting a biblical theme in a clear, orderly, and lively manner. As a Sabbath school teacher, he traded with the talent committed to his care, and gained the hearts of his scholars, and the esteem of his fellow-labourers. The London Missionary Society was then in the full fervour of early life, and by its annual and quarterly meetings did much to fan the flame of missionary zeal for the conversion

of the heathen. At one of these meetings, during an address from the Rev. Matthew Wilks, the thought entered his mind, "What if the Lord might need him for service among the heathen," and the thought soon became the desire of his heart; but along with the desire rose the childlike prayer, "Lord, if it is not Thy mind and will that I be a missionary, tear out by the roots this desire from my soul." The Lord did the opposite. The longing for service in the mission field became more and more ardent. He diligently searched his heart whether his old sinful nature still held him bound, whether his desire arose out of vain-glory, or whether the salvation of the perishing heathen was the object he aimed at. But the longer he searched the more was he constrained to say, "I will offer myself as an offering to the Lord, who has offered Himself a sacrifice for me."

The

At length, in the year 1816, he offered his services to the London Missionary Society. He stood the usual examination, and was accepted in July 1816. His employer freely cancelled his indenture of apprenticeship, seven months of which yet remained, that he might at once devote himself to his new calling. On account of the need of labourers, and the special aptitude of Williams for the service, it was determined to send him out early. South Africa and Polynesia were the fields to which the Directors of the Society were then turning their eyes. It was decided that Williams should go to Polynesia. The missionaries upon the Society Islands stood in great need of further aid, for without it the multitude of new converts might easily fall back into their former heathenism. In a few months was the young servant of the Lord-he was not yet twenty years of age, with several other missionaries, to be sent thither. period up to his departure he spent in the most conscientious manner, fitting himself for his calling. The best hours of the day, and the freshest of his strength, he devoted to instruction in theology, under the guidance of his pastor. The rest of his time he spent in the workshop of the joiner, the weaver, the shipbuilder, or in the printer's office, and to everything he put to his hand. His desire was to skill himself so as to be able efficiently to instruct the heathen in the arts of civilised life. On the 30th September 1816 was he, along with eight other brethren, set apart in Surrey Chapel for the service of the Lord among the heathen. John Angel James presented him with a Bible, and said, "Go, my beloved brother, and with the ability which God has given you, be faithful, in season and out of season, in proclaiming the precious truths which this volume contains." Dr Waugh added, "Go, my dear young brother, and if your tongue cleave to the roof of your mouth, let it be with telling poor sinners of the love of Jesus Christ; and if your arms drop from your shoulders, let it be with knocking at men's hearts to gain admittance for Him there."

Shortly before Williams left England he married a pious young woman, Mary Chauner, who proved a help meet for him in the things both of the outer and inner life to the day of his death. He left England, November 17, 1816. The ship sailed by Rio Janeiro

to Sydney. Here he became acquainted with Marsden, well known for his labours in the mission field in New Zealand. He was detained some months in Sydney, but he spent his time in exercising himself for future service, and in gaining more accurate knowledge of the people of Polynesia. At length, on the 17th November 1817, exactly a year since be left England, he landed upon Eimeo, one of the Society Islands. Raiatea was assigned, in common with the missionary Threskeld, as a field of labour-an island on which the longing after day had begun, but on which the sun had not arisen. In a storm some two years before, the missionary Wilson of Tahiti, with nineteen native Christians, subjects of King Pomare, had been cast upon its shores. Pomatoa, king of Raiatea, with his whole people, received them in the most friendly manner, and in return the castaways opened their treasures and preached Christ to them. Wilson and his companions returned to Tahiti, but the longing after further instruction in the knowledge of the Lord remained behind. In Raiatea Williams laboured from 1817 to 1823. It became his school, and the land of his first love—a love that never cooled to the day of his death. With great energy he at once gave himself to the study of the language, and in ten months he was able to preach to the Raiateans in their own tongue. Pomatoa and the other chiefs were very friendly, and gave him what help in his work they could. Williams' idea was that the. Gospel and civilisation should go hand in hand. For the service of the Lord a chapel was built, and he erected for himself a neatly fashioned house, that should serve to the natives as a pattern of better dwellings than their own. Around it there soon flourished a well arranged garden, planted with European and Polynesian flowers, and vegetables, and fruits. Near it was a school, in which young and old were watered with the water of life. It soon flourished more beautifully even than the garden. The Word fell upon receptive ground. Chiefs, and the poor of the people, the aged, and the lisping children, mothers with their babes in their arms, the priests of Oro, all came to school. The king and the queen sat along with their subjects. Raiatea was the chief seat of the worship of the god Oro, the bloody god of war, to whom before and after battle for some hundred of years countless human sacrifices had been offered. Williams soon brought his bloody reign to an end; and his wooden images were destroyed by the people who once, in fear, fell before them. In Raiatea Williams unfolded in his soul, plans of a mission that should stretch its arms over the whole of the neighbouring groups of the South Sea Islands. Three helpers he wished to bring into the service of the Lord: the Printing Press, a Mission Ship, and Native Agency. Elementary books, and eleven hundred copies of the Gospel of Luke, which the missionary Ellis had printed in the language of Raiatea, were quickly sold in the island, and by-and-by the whole New Testament came from the press. In order to form and keep up regular communication with New South Wales and the South Sea Islands, Williams purchased the first mission ship. He himself, the London Missionary Society, and Sir Thomas Brisbane, the governor of New South Wales, fur

nished the cost. Some years later he himself, in order to have it entirely according to his mind, built a ship of his own. The converts he inspired with like missionary zeal. They not only formed a missionary society, but he trained up the pious and the gifted young men for service in the schools and for evangelising the surrounding islands. The islanders proved themselves excellent and devoted labourers in the Lord's service. Under his direction the king gave Raiatea, and a neighbouring island under his rule, a code of laws founded on the principles of the Word of God. For the more certain support of the people, who had hitherto depended on fishing and the native fruits, he introduced the sugar-cane. Under his direction a spacious church was built, as a kind of cathedral for the group of Islands. The strength and the wisdom needed for all these labours he drew from the inexhaustible fountain of the Divine Word. All who saw Williams in Raiatea, or afterwards in the Harvey and the Samoan Islands, were astonished at his vigour, his power of adapting himself to circumstances, and the never-failing tact that appeared in all his labours.

Along with this all-embracing activity, which from Raiatea spread over Borabora in the Society groups, Rurutu, Raratonga, Aitutaki, and others in the Harvey and Tubuai groups, he kept up a constant and affectionate correspondence with his native home in England. His letters to his friends are a treasure of no ordinary preciousness. This correspondence reached its highest interest when the tidings came to him of his mother's death. Thanksgiving that the Lord had given him such a mother, grief at the loss he had sustained, and again praise to God for her entrance into glory, mingle with each other; and how he knocks at the hearts of his relatives with exhortation and entreaty, that they remain true to the Lord, that their end may be as the end of her that was gone. Then, too, he dares no light matter for a son to be the preacher of repentance and the spiritual guide of his father-to exhort him to give his heart to the Lord, who had so long and so especially cared for him, through the dear life-companion now taken from him. The letter is written with a wonderful tenderness. But what a joy must it have been to him when the missionary Nott, who attended the father upon his death-bed, wrote to Williams his last salutation, and the following message:"Tell him, O tell him, that the son has been the means of the father's salvation!"

In the years 1823 to 1830 Williams had made several voyages to the Harvey Islands. The native teachers there afforded him excellent service, but he himself, by his humility, his amiability, his truthfulness, and his power of adapting himself to everything that happened or needed to be done, obtained an almost incredible influence over the people. In a few years the idols were dethroned, and the whole people were either baptised or brought under instruction. At Raratonga a church was built, which every Lord's day was attended by some 2000 worshippers. But this servant of God restlessly pressed forwards. His course was from east to west. At Raiatea and the Harvey Islands other missionaries with native