A GREAT MISSIONARY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13574, 4 December 1907, Page 7

A GREAT MISSIONARY.

SYMPATHY EVEN FOR CAiNMBALS. DR. BROWN'S VARIED CAREER. The life story of the Rev. Dr. Brown, who has retired from the general secretaryship of Methodist Missions, as told in the Sydney Morning Herald, is intensely romantic. He was born in Durham seventy-two years ago, was apprenticed to a draper, served with a chemist, studied medicine, and went to sea. From the sea he went to the backwoods of Canada, returned to England, and then sailed for New Zealand, for no other reason than that New Zealand was the furthest point to which a ship could carry him. On board were two very notable people — the first Bishop Selwyn, and the Rev. Mr Patteson, afterwards Bishop of Melanesia. Bishop Selwyn gave him his first lesson in Maori. Having entered the Methodist ministry, he went to Samoa, where he risked his life many times in trying to keep the peace between native factions. From Samoa he went to Fiji at the timo of a terrible epidemic, which carried off 40,000 natives, and then to Now Britain, a home of cannibalism. There were no white settlers to help the missionaries, four of whom were murdered and eaten by the natives. The rest of the party were in great peril, but Dr. Brown organised a punitive expedition and inflicted stern retribution. Talele, the chief murderer, sent word to Dr. Brown that he still had some yams left, and was keeping them to cook with tb« doctor's body. However, Talele and Dr. Brown afterwards became great friends, and the missionary came to admire the man who had had such evil designs on him. "He would have been a decent sort if he 1 had had better opportunities," is Dr. Brown's comment on him. Dr. Brown, by the way, ridicules the theory that cannibalism is due to the scarcity of animal food. Sometimes it is done for revenge, and sometimes to acquire the qualities of the murdered man, but most often to give satisfaction to the spirit of a murdered relative. In 1891 Dr. Brown led to New Guinea the largest party that has over set out to commence missionary operations. Later on he established a mission in the Solomon Islands; and miraculously escaped death many times. "But to-day Dr. Brown has a kindly word for the most bloodthirsty cannibal, apparently considering him as good as a civilised white, but suffering from lack of opportunity — not opportunity to kill, but to ,do better." After laying broad and deep t the basis of a magnificent missionary effort, Dr. Brown remains the sole survivor of the old missionary pioneers.