IN INDIAN WILDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 April 1925, Page 7

IN INDIAN WILDS

MISSIONARY’S DEATH. «Missionaries have many/ times been tlie. heroes of stories of Sacrifice in the wilds, but the work/and the date’of Mr E. -IF; .Hall, < who .died ■•recently rin Brazil), and' who. gave up. Jiis career in the,Army to spread-the .Gospel among the heathen, has -rarely .-been equalled To work’ among,.the.-Indians'; he abandoned , alj,,jthe comforts- which : go -tp make. AVestern life enjpyable,. and the tragedy of his end; but ...emphasises the risks , : he took and gilds his memory wit|i h0n0ur.,.,. ./Mr Hall, laboured, among ,the Indians on the upper . teaches .of dhe Amazon, ' living.' just' like olid of them. sleeping rich by side with then! On the vefaiiditlx Of h village hut, eating their food and helping them in ’their work in the fields and forest. Under a blazing sun and in air atmosphere which, as he once'described'it in a letter,-was “8(5 per-, cent mosquitos,’.’ he went about rin native dress, stripped to the waist,, suffering great privation without coinplaint.: ~- ■' ■■ • • ■ i ...r It had always been, maintained by, Mr ■ Hall that. in ■ order, to spread .Christianity in the wilds it, was.necessary, to > live 'among the,natives as.one qf' K tliemselveS)<and jhG,did ; 50,., despite it, warning that stich a course could.hot fall tb. have iat.^l...results.. f No .white nian had' over before, worked in that’ part'of Brazil,, and the nearest white man .was hundreds of miles awuy. The Indians called him the ‘ ‘Mad Englishman;'” but they grew to love him. His wbrk was bearing fruit when he was smitten with fever in Decefnber. ...Cut off from-medical supplies and attention, -Mr Hall .had little chanpe of recovery, :and" died -IQ -days before . Christmas.-r. So .reinote iis thexwillago ■ that, the:.news of ‘his death did” not reach London jintii;"February, ■ (:.. v ; Sopie details. : of My Hall’s, .life.among the, jndians. can be gathered. from, the following' extracts- .-from,, his, .’diary, which .has been received; at the headquarters:,of the.crusade. . . Describing his voyage up ,the river with, native-' boatmen, he writes:—,. On the fourth day of ourjourney. we ' landed; on/a .sandy bank to stretch bur cramped limbs. In sheerjoie.de vivre ?we ran ; about ;on. all fours, • turned somersaults. -Even "in Engs land the sight of a respect- . ■ able.missionaryrin a lonely spot late at night and-by moonlight imitating the ;antics.'.of thecape might have ~ been .commented upon;” About mid- .; night we landed again, on thg sand apd; kindled a fire upon, which we • brewed•• coffee and cooked some of the fish .which I had .caught. There we 'made a meal- by the clear light of the almost full tropical moon. . A further/extract, dated September 26, when he reached his post, reads The men ivhb have had of this country say that a man who goes’ to live among the Indians will (die at once by disease.' ' Very well, ■ it-seems to'me that if this is so, one 'might as well be hung for stealing-a ■ sheep, as a lamb. My-theory is that

the-isurest way to kill oneself in this climate is to behave like an invalid, ,"■ take only, set . periods of exercise, doctor -oneself . with European medicines, .and r generally... treat oneself like, apprize, Pekiiiese pup. '-?■ i -.-Further, extracts, are', as...follow . ; October 9/—Thy wenemot very ip. is parhaps '2oft square, i.e.; this .area is roofed over but not walled. ’'Under ■ this roof, there Uis which occupies perhaps a', quarter of the space. In it sleep, the man And Lis'wife. •'Sundry youths.and I sling hammocks in the space .outside where there is a roof.but no walls, and we eat and live here also. : ••, October y—The Indians were not very keen- for me to go tree-felling ■ with them, because they do not think I run fast enough when the trees are falling. However, I promised to run faster, so I went, ■ .too. -- ■ " • October 12. —Spent most of the- day preparing,-, a .Gospel address. We sang .some f .hymns in the evening, .but;there did not: seems to. be- an opportunity for preaching.. This was. because three traders had arrived, selling brandy and musical /instillments, and consequently we ;had no ■ audience. ‘ October 13.-y-All night I the whole community appeared to be -busy; singing! and drinking brandy. Strange tq say, .1 slept rather better, than usual. October 15. —In the evening I s started to read the second of m'y three addressefe.". This was 'the one whieli I thought would ; really interest -riiem, for it: told of the Creation, the Flool, and Babel, but I was mistaken. The few who were present, when- I started melted away, and the whole of those in the household got into their hammocks, went to sleep and spored. But I can’t blame them, I Always do go to sleep in sermons myself. October 16.-y-To-night I preached the third of my three. addresses. It was dbmewhat disturbed by my host below being; what is often described as rearing drunk, but he quietened down towards the end. A member of: a South of Ireland loyalist family, Mr. Hall, was: born 27 years ago. He'was at school when war broke out and immediately joined tie

- Army. While serving in'France with > the Artillery he was badly gassel, and 1 after recovering, secured a coinmiss'.on ‘ in the Air Force. " He remained in tho R.A.F. after the war. Then, a- remarkil able change came over him. He be- ... came fervently religious, and, throwing 1 himself heart and soul into missionary work, identified . himself with the "World-Wide Evangelisation Crusade. j , In the autumn of-'1923 Mr Hall went on a preaching tour in the South and s 'West of Ireland. Although he encoun- £ tered great hostility\ in his native . countryside and was stoned at several plates, he r&iused to give in. t Tho Rev. G. A. Barclay, the head of the World-Wide Evangelisation Cruthat Mr Hall was a man e of fine personality, always with a 1 bright smile. “He was converted,” r says Mr. Barclay, “to use the general s expression, while an officer in the Air 'f Force, being greatly influenced by a e little book on nlissionary work written by Mr C. T.. Studd, the great cricketer, t now a missionary in the heart of t Africa, who founded this crusade. i- “When he was training at dur mis--9 sion college, at Upper Norwood ho used ’ to sleep on boxes rather than on a bed, so as to harden himself for his future > wbrk. In Amazonia he used to go e about barefoot and practically naked, s except for a thin loin-cloth. He shared ' the life of the natives in every way.” r