FROM SAVAGE TO CHRISTIAN

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 217, 12 September 1908, Page 8

FROM SAVAGE TO CHRISTIAN

THE ISLANDS FIFTY YEARS AGO

LONDON, July 24,

Last Sunday evening the Bishop of Melanesia was the preacher at Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square, , the offertory being devoted to the Melanesian Mission. , ~

Preaching from the text, "Thy will be done on eartb as ib is in Heaven,' the Bishop said t.hat he would ask the congregation to accompany him in imagination to tho uttermost, parts-or, the world, in the South Pacific Ocean; period. 50 years ago;. Let them imagine,,if they could, islands stretching some 1200 miles along the cdast of Australia, islands many of which were 1050 miles»away from the coast. Some were small, and others relatively large, being about 120 miles long by about 40 miles broad. He would ask them to imagine the state of things that existed in these islands 50 years ago, before the message .-of • Christianity hacVreached them. At that time there were no villages by the shore, for at many of the islands the villagers were dangerous. War canoes travelled up and down the coast, their occupants being head-hunters, who. sometimes travelled 300 .miles away from thenown islands, and at dead of night would stealthily surround a village, arouse the inhabitants at early dawn by a loud shout, upon which they would come trooping out, and the head-hunters would return with] their trophies in the shape of 70 or 100 heads. • ■ Again, at the Solomon and the New Hebrides Islands, at the time to which ! he referred, cannibalism was by no means uncommon, and the taking o f human life for religious, sacrifices was frequent. At that time, also, the, natives were in the habit of getting rid of their old people by burying them alive. The Bishop reminded his hearers also that their religion, like that of all primitive peoples, was founded on a belief in ghosts, whom they worshipped and sacrificed to, and a belief, though a very dim belief, in a great [spirit or spirits. Every pool, every : stone, was. haunted; the supernatural, the, invisible world, was far more ■material'J.to., these people than the visible world. '' ~ : After referring to -the massacres of white crews on these outposts of Empire in the old days, massacres which were often only acts of reprisal for the injustices of previous white visitors, Bishop Wilson described the great change that had iiaken place in the islands to which Christianity had been earned. Since the banner of Christ had been planted in these remote places head-hunting had ceased, and cannibalism and all the barbarities of the past had been swept away. They now had schools for the natives, from which after seven or eight years' teaching and training they were sent out to their own people tp spread the light. The Gospel was given to each of them printed: in his own language, to preach to his own flock in the native tongue. In some of the islands there were now 100 communicants where a few years ago there were none, so these Christian villages became a means of converting darkness j into light. There were others, however, into which the light had not yet j been brought, and it was largely upon ! behalf of these that he appealed. ; There were still men and women; on these islands, said the Bishop, who had no knowledge of God, who still practised cannibalism,, and killed little children with poisoned arrows, and these people were holding out both hands to them for help.