PIONEER MISSIONARY

Evening Star, Issue 21811, 29 August 1934, Page 3

PIONEER MISSIONARY

RUBLE WORK IN NEW HEBRIDES NO HEATHENS WHEN HE DIED The centenary of the. birth of the Rev. Peter Milne, the first foreign missionary sent out by the Presbyterian Church of Otago and Southland, was commemorated last night, when Synod held a special service in First Church. The Moderator (Rev. E. G. Gardiner) presided, and Dr V. E. Galway was at the organ. In his address on the life and work of the pioneer, the Rev. H. H. Barton, M.A., said that Peter Milne was born in the parish of Stains, in the North of Scotland, on May 17, 1834. Like many a Scotsman who had risen to eminence, his early life was one of poverty and hardship, and he was in his thirty-fifth year before he had completed the long and arduous course pf study required for Presbyterian ministers. The occupations and tasks which had engaged him in the interval served to fit him for the very varied duties which fall to the lot of a missionary on an isolated island. , ■ . When the call reached Scotland for a missionary to serve the then Presbyterian Church of Otago and Southland in the New Hebrides Milne immediately responded. He was ordained by the Free Church Presbytery of Edinburgh, the Rev. Sir Henry Wellwood officiating. On his arrival in Dunedin a missionary meeting was held m Knox Olmrcfi, at which Millie stated, in characteristic fashion, that, whatever might happen, he did not think he would turn nack. Hy the grace of God he never did. Milne was settled on JNguna, one of the smaller islands of the INew Hebrides Group, on July TJ, 1870. For years his task was most discouraging. The natives seemed unwilling to attend tne services held by the missionary, and even when the first little churcii was opened only two natives —and both ot them from the missionary compound—attended. So far from listening in tascinated wonder to the glorious Gospel, those whom he succeeded in reaching at all would greet ins message witn mocking laughter. It was March, 1880, before the first converts were baptised on JNguna itself. Thereafter the tide turned, and by the end of 1889 the' missionary had baptised 1,095 converts. The former fierce intertribal lighting, frequent cannibalistic orgies, wild “ sing-songs,” burial alive ot the aged and infirm, and other horrible concomitants of iieathehistn gave place to a peaceful and law-abiding Christian civilisation. From Nguna, as the years passed, many native teachers went forth to other islands, and a warm interest was cultivated amongst them in the spread of the Gospel. Peter Milne was singularly fortunate in having as his life companion ,a wife who devoted herself to the work of the ■Gospel with a zeal equal to his own. In many respects lie was worthy to be ranked among the greatest ot South Sea Island missionaries. His dauntless courage, his passion for thoroughness, his amazing tenacity of purpose, and his wonderful devotion to the Ngunese were outstanding characteristics. His was the faith that removes mountains and laughs at impossibilities. Upon the memorial tablet which was erected by the natives in the church at Nguna, after his death on November 26, 1924, are inscribed the words: “When he came to Nguna, July, 1870, there were no Christians; when he died there were no heathens.” To this child race of the New Hebrides we owed a duty from which we might not turn. Too often in the past the natives had been exploited and ill-used, enslaved and debauched for base gam. The sacred memories of the past, the blood of the. martyrs, and the record of such a life as that of Peter Milne should be a challenge to the church to carry on the task. The Rev. Alexander Don also gave an address, i n which he spoke in glowing term? of the devoted and unremitting labours of Mr Milne in the field of missionary enterprise.