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to waylay and kill one of the Aneityum teachers, who had, under the excitement of the moment, snatched a weapon from one of the men and smashed it. About a week after a neutral party came to me to say, that if we would make some compensation for the broken weapon the heathen would be satisfied. I said, No, they were the aggressors. The excitement soon spread over the whole island, and the people became divided into two parties-a party favourable to the heathen, and a party favourable to Christianity.

A month later I intimated that as many as possible of the Christian party would go to one of the "lands" to hold a service, at which I should baptise a child of one of the Aneityum teachers. Early on the Sabbath morning one of the men who made the first attack destroyed a ladder erected on a precipice on the path leading to the place where the service was to be held, and collected stones at the top of a cliff at the bottom of which we must pass, to hurl them down on us. Before the hour for meeting some of the people in the "land" to which we were going discovered what had been done, and on reaching the spot we found them just finishing the repairing of the ladder. We were thus enabled to proceed, and hold the service.

Attempts such as these are not likely to do the work much injury. A far more successful kind of opposition is the sending of messages to parts of the island where they fear we may gain a footing, telling their brethren on no account to have anything to do with books or the Gospel, if they would keep scarcity and sickness far from them. Such statements are but too readily believed. To us it seems strange that they should have so many and deep-rooted prejudices against the Gospel. Their minds seem incapable of comprehending the good that follows in its train; at least the remembrance of it is only momentary. From their point of view the Gospel is the harbinger of slavery, scarcity, and death, and a barrier in the matter of wives, tobacco, kava, and amusements.

The Christian party, too, have been doing some things which, though right enough from our point of view, have annoyed the heathen. The withdrawal of even a few from their ranks is felt to be a blow. When the time for their ceremonies comes they do not like to miss either the faces or the food of any of their brethren. Some of our party refused to lend their canoes to fish for heathen purposes, and when the heathen tabooed the sea some of them went out and fished, putting their prohibition to defiance. On the great day of the heathen worship, when all the heathen were assembled to sacrifice to their gods and to feast, the Christian party had a rival feast not far off, which, report said, was nearly as great as that of the heathen. They know now the object for which we live here, and they feel that so long as they continue their practices a chasm exists between us and them, and, to some extent, between them and their brethren.

The difficulties more immediately around us may be traced in a great measure to one man—the chief of the district where we live, —who has a certain heathen ceremony to perform on some of his

children. They are not old enough yet, and he wishes everything to go on as heretofore, till he is ready to join us. I have used every means to make him expedite what he has in view, or to abandon it altogether, but he persists. We cannot wait for him, and we must even push forward despite his opposition.

In this letter I have spoken of the existence of two parties—the Christian and the heathen. I use the term Christian because I have not a better. I wish I had one that would not mislead those at a distance. In speaking in the native language we have a word which means to survey, or examine, or look at. This term describes very well our converts. They are beginning to hear about Christianity, and to examine it a little, but they are far from being Christians either in heart or life. Do not be surprised if I have to tell you that some of them have been stealing from us, or speaking to us as if we were dogs, or levelling a musket at us.

By the "Dayspring we received a small book of 12 pages of Scripture Extracts, which was printed in Auckland under the supervision of Mr Inglis. During the summer I made a rough translation of a part of Luke. Since the beginning of March I have been busy putting up two rooms-the nucleus of our permanent house. When we came here we could not get a proper site, and we shall have to remove our present house. My manual labours are only beginning now.

Since our settlement here thirty-six natives have been taken away by the slavers. Not one, even of those first taken away, has been returned. There is a strong desire on the part of many to go off in these vessels, although they have no idea where they are going, or what they are to do.-Yours, etc. J. COPELAND.

LETTER FROM REV. THOMAS NEILSON, JUNIOR. PORT RESOLUTION, TANNA, 23rd June 1869. REV. AND DEAR SIR,-I received your letter, dated this day three months ago, on the 12th curt. I have not had an opportunity of writing to you since the beginning of the year. We have always plenty of vessels going up to Sydney towards the close of the year, but during the first half they are nearly all outward bound.

When I last wrote you, war was raging among the tribes around the harbour; it has since been brought to a close by the beaten party retiring into the interior of the island. During the time that it lasted (about three months and a-half) ten persons were killed, twenty-six severely wounded, seven villages burned, a great many fruit-trees and plantations destroyed, and a district of country about six miles in length and five in breadth, which, when I landed, contained about eight hundred or a thousand people, left without a human habitation. Such is the grievousness of war. During the whole time it lasted I moved freely about among the tribes on both sides, attending to the wounded, and using any little influence I had on the side of peace and mercy. For nearly six months I

and my Aneityumese teachers were the only persons who could mix freely with the natives on either side, and never, that I knew of, with much risk, except on one occasion.

One morning a large village was burned on the opposite side of the harbour. From early dawn till about nine o'clock the smoke of house after house was seen rising in the calm, clear atmosphere. The people in it were my friends, and I had had all the male portion of the village (forty-eight persons) collected for worship in the public square of the village on the previous Sabbath. I accordingly walked up to the place, to see if I could prevent further outrages. I found, however, that the work of devastation was nearly complete. It was about the full of the moon, and the inhabitants of the village, knowing that their enemies were to be upon them in force in the morning, had bundled up all that they could carry with them, and decamped during the night. The chief was so sick as not to be able to walk; but a litter was made for him, and he was carried away inland with the rest. In the morning the fighting men gathered in, like vultures, for the prey. It was a large village, and there were plenty of pigs and fowls running about, a good many canoes on the beach, not to speak of bread-fruit, kava, and bananas in the plantations. There would not be fewer than six hundred men collected to share the spoil, more than one-half of them armed with muskets. I walked round the village, and counted the smouldering ruins of fifty-four houses, in the ashes of some of which the victors were roasting the fowls that had belonged to their inhabitants. Every now and then a pig would spring out from amid a clump of bushes with a grunt; in a moment he would be pursued by half a score of armed men, firing recklessly at him, to the no small danger of the bystanders, until at last, being either shot, speared, or clubbed, he was carried off to be feasted upon in some distant village as a trophy of war. The property was well divided, -those who did not get a share in a canoe, or a part of a pig, got a fowl, a root of kava, a bunch of bananas, or some other trifle valuable in their eyes, so that none went empty away. After walking round the village and surveying the work of destruction, not without melancholy thoughts (for I expected to have placed an Aneityumese teacher in it in a short time, and had a promise from a man living in it, whose wound I had cured, to come and live with me), I went into the public square, in which but three days before I had had the people assembled for public worship for the first and last time, and where, under the spreading boughs of a shady banyan tree, the echoes were wakened to the sounds of a Christian hymn, and the reading of the commandments of God and a part of the Gospel of His grace, and where these savages, who had never engaged in the worship of God before, had bowed their heads reverently while prayer was being offered up for them in their own tongue by one of my teachers. Alas! how soon the change. There were now before me, in three groups, each around its principal chief, a hundred and fifty armed men, all squatted on their haunches, holding their muskets or their clubs between their knees, grinning

with a savage delight over their plunder, and regaling themselves with speeches in praise of their own prowess.

As I stepped in among them, I received a smiling welcome from a good many influential men among them whom I knew. A good many of them, however, looked gloomy and treacherous enough. I took a seat on the stump of a tree, and the business proceeded. I found that they had just decided that the chief who, with his people, had fled the night before, should be banished (i. e., not allowed to return to his village) for four years. And they were now discussing what was to be done with the white men. There were two trading stations, with two white men in each, on the ground of this chief. In these stations there were a good many muskets, and plenty of ammunition and tobacco-the things above all others which they desire; and opinions were divided as to whether they should attack and rifle them, or let them alone. At last one man, bolder than the rest, arose in his wrath, and proposed that they should march down immediately and murder all the white men; and-rising into a fine frenzy of indignation as he proceeded with his speech, brandishing his club and kawas, and leaping about three feet off the ground at every sentence-that they should lay hold of me there and then, and murder me for a beginning. I was left in no suspense as to my fate, for his proposition was immediately received with a shout of ridicule from all sides, my friends saying that they would never allow that; and all those around the harbour declaring that it was dangerous to touch white men, as vengeance would certainly be exacted by a man-of-war for any outrage committed. The matter was at last disposed of, by the various stations of the traders being put under the protection of certain chiefs, and myself under the protection of them all. A few muskets and some other articles were violently taken away from these two stations on the afternoon of the same day, but no further damage was done. Immediately after this man had finished his speech I walked up to him, to have a good look at him, so that I might know him again if necessary, and especially that I might see whether he were really a brave fellow or only a blusterer. I looked him straight in the face; his eye quailed before mine, and he slunk away among the crowd. This happened about the middle of February, and was the close of the campaign. Those who had been the aggressors at first were in the end vanquished, and all driven away inland.

I told you that I meant to begin going round with the Aneityum teachers on Sabbath after the beginning of January. This I have been doing; and perhaps you will be interested in hearing how we conduct our Sabbath services. At half-past eight the longo is beat, and we assemble for morning worship in the little cocoa-nut leaf church, built by a very active Aneityum teacher before I came here, -he, poor fellow, is since dead on Aneityum. There are usually present, Mrs Neilson, myself, and our little girl, the three Aneityumese teachers and their wives, and eight or ten Tannese-four or five men, and four or five women; there are two of these who are never absent; indeed, our only two who make anything like a profession

of Christianity, Nowar and Manumon, both of them chiefs, and men who have been friendly to the worship through all the trials and difficulties here. The service consists of two hymns, two prayers, the reading of a portion of a chapter, the ten commandments, or of a small elementary catechism, a short address from one of the teachers, and the benediction; it does not last longer than about forty minutes. We then visit four or five villages in succession, and conduct services in the public square or "imarom." This is always a pleasant place for assembling even in the heat of the day, as it is shaded by large and umbrageous banyan trees; and during these services most of the principal people in the various villages visited are present, and conduct themselves in an appropriate manner. At some one or other of these villages, almost every Sabbath after worship, refreshments are brought forward for myself and the Aneityumese, consisting of a pudding, cooked the day before, and water-melon, sugar-cane, or drinking cocoa-nuts. This always indicates the goodwill of the people; and although very few of them indeed as yet understand much of the nature or blessings of the Gospel, yet we have succeeded in gaining a footing and a hearing; and who knows what may be the result? We generally get home from our rounds about one o'clock. In the afternoon, the traders in the bay assemble at my house for worship; and when there happens to be a vessel in harbour, we have sometimes quite a respectable congregation. In the evening the Aneityumese gather in for reading and catechising, and occasionally a Tanna man or two along with them. Thus, you see, the seed is being sown, morning, noon, and even; and who knows how soon a rich and glorious harvest may spring up to the praise and the glory of God!

We have settled the Watts at Kwamea; the people had been looking for them for a good while, and were quite prepared to receive them when they came; had a lime-pit prepared for plaster; and sugar-cane leaf for thatch for the house. Mr Inglis and I came over with a party of Aneityumese to assist in building it, and as it was just about finished, I left them there in the end of last week, and came round to my own station here. The greatest drawback to the station there is, that it is so difficult to land at; it faces the trade wind, and the small boat harbour is a narrow break in the reef, about twenty feet wide, and that not quite straight, so that it takes rather skilful management to take it when there is anything like a sea on, and the surf is boiling, and raging with a deafening noise on the reef on either hand. There was a pretty strong breeze on the day we landed, not exactly from the trade quarter, or the port could not have been taken, but from about E. by N. Mr Watt has a capital life-boat, presented to him by the New Zealand people (Do you people at home know how to take a hint ?) of which I took command. Down goes the boat into the water, the vessel "lying-to" about two miles from the land, the "Dayspring" rolling, and the boat jumping, and like sometimes to be smashed to bits. Then into the boat are lowered casks, firkins, boxes, bundles, boards, until she will hold no more; upon the top of this jump down

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