families for morning and evening worship, is greater than among the people of Great Britain or the United States.
In their intertribal wars, which sometimes occur in these days, though far less frequently than before the advent of the missionaries, all parties abstain from fighting on Sunday, and men may safely circulate from one hostile camp to another.
And all this has been accomplished through the self-abnegation of the men who obeyed the divine injunction, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." Volumes could be written, as volumes have been written, but even then the whole story of the work and sufferings of the missionaries in the South Seas would remain untold.
Referring to the opposition of the traders to the missionaries, Doctor Bronson said that the death of Mr. Williams was due to the conduct of the seamen, though it was not directly instigated by them.
"One of the products of the Pacific Islands," said the Doctor, "is sandal-wood, which brings a high price in the Chinese market, and so much has it been sought in the last fifty or sixty years that on many of the islands it has entirely disappeared. The sandal-wood traders committed many outrages on the islands that they visited, and these outrages naturally led to reprisals.
"When Mr. Williams and his friend landed on Erromanga, in the New Hebrides, a party of warriors rushed upon them from a thicket where they had been lying concealed. In an instant the missionaries were clubbed, and their bodies were afterwards roasted and eaten by the savages whom the devoted men sought to reclaim. Investigation showed that a sandal-wood ship had visited the island a few weeks before, and her crew had killed several of the natives who opposed the plunder of their plantations and the destruction of their trees. Of course the natives were ready to revenge themselves on the first foreign ship that came there, and this happened to be the one carrying the missionaries.
"In 1871," continued the Doctor, "the death of Bishop Patteson occurred on the island of Nukapu in much the same way. The bishop was widely known and esteemed for his devotion to missionary work in Polynesia, and was greatly beloved by the natives on all the islands he had visited. Shortly before his visit to Nukapu a labor-vessel had been there, and carried off many of the natives against their will. While the natives were thirsting for revenge the bishop arrived, and, not knowing him, they put him to death, as the natives of Erromanga had killed Mr. Williams more than thirty years before."
