MISSION TO THE SOLOMONS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 51, Issue 51, 22 April 1898, Page 4

MISSION TO THE SOLOMONS.

The week before last we stated in our columns that Bishop Vidal of .J1«. J1 « ™- a Btrong foll °wmg of fathers and natives— five priests and nine JJnians— was on his way to the Solomon Islands. This is an event deserving of more than cursory mention. For missionary zeal and heroism always claim our heartiest recognition and loudest praise, and any co-operation in so glorious a work is invariably attended with the choicest blessings of Heaven. In the month of October, 1897, the Holy See and the Society of Mary charged Dr i Vidal with the re-establishment of a mission in the Solomon Islands*. As this is a mission of exceptional difficulty, among tribes reputed to be the most cannibalistic on the face of the globe, the zealous and well-trained apostle has made more than ordinary preparations for its foundation. He was aware that two previous attempts in those islands had been, humanly speaking, disastrous failures, in which the boeiety of Mary lost two bishops and a dozen missionaries, three or whom at least were roasted and eaten by the cannibals. Then those islands were entirely abandoned for 50 years, and during this nail-century no sacrifice of the Mass was offered, no priest reared the cross or uttered the words of salvation in them, and their wretched inhabitants continued to walk in the shadow of death, while they indulged on every opportunity their man-eating propensities, and held their hideous orgies without opposition. THE HEAD-HUNTERS. Meanwhile the neighbouring archipelagoes, even the savagest, gradually received the Gospel, assumed milder and purer manners, "^stroyed the idolatrous temples, and erected churches to the true God. Alone, the terrible archipelago of the Solomons remained inaccessible to the light of faith. It persisted in its cannibalism, nay, probably increased its horrors ; for its natives have earned for themselves the melancholy title of men-hunters, and their chiefs that of collectors of human heads, because they preserve the heads of their victims to decorate their houses as glorious trophies of victory. Up to the present date these atrocities have gone on with increasing frequency, the victims being alternately white men or natives. Ihus, for instance, two traders whose schooner ran ashore on those islands were quite recently massacred. Another traveller, an Irish i Ci C> named Gibbons, in whom Bishop Vidal had hoped to find a valuable assistant in his missionary enterprise, was murdered and eaten a short time ago ; and we remember with sorrow the frightful massacre of a number of the officers and crew of the ship " Albatross." r At certain periods those savages hold especial human sacrifices in which numbers of victims are slain with exceptional ferocity to appease the imagined anger of the false gods. To rescue such a people from their deep degradation the fearlessapostle, Dr. Vidal, was tully impressed with his own natural insufficiency and nothingness. With the deepest conviction he applied to his bold enterprise the inspired words of the Psalmist : " Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." He knew that he was going as a sheep among wolves. Accordingly, he humbly and trustf ully sought the especial blessing of his Holiness the Pope, both for himself and his fellow apostles, and all the bene' actors of his mission. That blessing his Holiness gave with peculiar emotion, and dismissed the prelate with these encouraging- words : " Fear not ; if God is with you, who is against you ?" THE WORK PROCEEDS. _ The next care of Dr. Vidal was to solicit the prayers of the religious communities and the con<rresrations of the faithful wherever he met them, particularly in his travels through France in search of funds for his mission. And for the last twelvemonth those prayero, both in Europe and Oceania, have ascended with great fervour to the throne of God in behalf of this new enterprise. Finally, the Bishop appealed for fellow-workers, and met with the noblest response. He visited the Xoviciates and Scholasticates of the Society of Mary and some great Seminaries in France, laying before the students the dangers of the undertaking in all their stern reality : "We are going, he said, "to cannibals of the darkest dye ; we shall have to endure the fierce heat of the tropics and the malignant fevers which wrought such havoc on former missionaries ; we shall find many crosses, hardships, and sufferings — perhaps death and martyrdom, like our predecessors." This was no cheerful perpective tor human nature, but it could not arrest strong and generous vocations such as are needed for the Solomons. About 20 misaioners, full of lively faith and dauntless zeal, answered the Bishop's appeal with the words : " Ecce ecfo,mitte vie" (Here I am, send me). Five of them are already with the Bishop, and the rest are awaiting orders for a second departure when required. THE VOICE OF THE ISLANDS. A number of Solomon natives, brought some years ago as labourers to Fiji, have been converted to Christianity, and it is obvious how great a help they may prove to the Bithop as guides, interpreters, and catechists. Two Fijian Little Brothers of Mary have generously offered to accompany Dr. Vidal. One of them, whose piety and devotedness are uncommon, has repeatedly told the Bishop that he has long besought Almighty God to accept his life for the conversion of the Solomon Islands, should His holy designs require more blood to hasten the hour of their salvation. Meanwhile the Guardian Angels of those unfortunate Islands are summoning the missionaries to their evangelisation ; the dear little native children, by the voice of their angels, are calling out for the grace of Baptism ; the first Marist missioners and martyrs, who have already impregnated those islands with their blood, are impatient of delay and cry out : " Quae utdtta.s in /tariff nine rneo ?" (What use is there in my blood /) They seem to say : " For ."SO years our blood has been sown like a seed in that land — 'santjuis viartyrum tie men eft C/irintianorum I—and1 — and if that seed has not already germinated, all it awaits, in God's designs, is the additional tears and toils of the heroic band of missioners now on the way to the Solomons."

NEEDS THAT CRY ALOUD.

What the mission now requires most urgently is prayers and pecuniary assistance, and if any benefactors in New Zealand wish to further this heroic enterprise by pecuniary offerings, they may forward their subscriptions and promises of prayers and Holy Communions to his Grace Archbishop Redwood, Wellington, who will immediately transmit the same to the Bishop of 1 iji or his represen. tative at Suva.

A PATHETIC LEAVE-TAKING.

Seldom have we read anything rnora affecting than Dr. Vidal's circular letter to the missioners and religious of his vicariate on the occasion of his first departure for the Solomons. "The day is come, he writes, "when we must leave this beloved mission of Fiji tor the purpose of evangelising the Solomons. On Monday, March ZS, we shall sail, via Sydney, with five missionaries and nine native catechists whom we have chosen to aid us in our first undertaking, lnis departure, though long foreseen, impresses us deeply, especially on the day of f areweil. Brethren cannot separate without a pang after long years of mutual labours, privations, and trials, which at times assumed the character of downright persecution. And after these trials God in His goodness has knit us together in the joys of the same success by the sight of flourishing establishments and fervent Christian congregations entirely devoted to their missioners. On leaving you we are going to a new people, still heathen, and reputed the most cannibalistic in the world. Yet, we cannot say we rear the future, and we depart with the firm hope of seeing that people soon converted to Christianity. Yes, they will be Christians, on account of the martyrs' blood already shed on those islands. Bishops, priests, brothers, every rank of the hierachy, have given to them their toils, and their tears, and their blood. That blood, so generously poured out by our first Marist pioneer missionaries, cannot remain sterile, and mußt prove a prolific seed of Christiana. Or shall we say that this people is too degraded and miserable to ever be regenerated by the layer of baptism ? God forbid ; even were their degradation and misery tenfold deeper, it seems that we have found a way to convert them. On the day when Borne entrusted their fate to us, we instantly consecrated them to the Blessed Virgin under the title of Our Lady of Mercy {Mater Miser tconliae). And we said to ourselves : " Since the poor and the wretched are the fittest objeots of mercy, it is in

THE SOLOMON ISLANDS that this prerogative of the Blessed Virgin shall ba most conspicuous. For it were hard to find more hapless creatures than those Solomon islanders, henceforth become our children. Holy Mary, succor the wretched ' Saneta Maria, succurre miseris.' Yes, 0 Mother, it is thy Marist Missioners who are going to preach to them the thrice hoJy name of thy Divine Son, and announce to them His copious redemption. We shall proclaim to them thy maternal bounty. But can these cannibals, so steeped in wickedness, degradation and bloodshed, ever dare, for a long time to come, to deem themselves the children of the gentle and immaculate Virgin 1 No, indeed, 0 Mary, if thou art only the Queen of Heaven and the Mother of Christ. But we will teach them that thou art also the mother of mankind and the help of the afflicted. The sight of thy mercy will attract them to thee, and thou wilt help us to cleanse and convert them. Sanrta Maria, xuccurrr vtiseris. And will their missioners and catechists have the courage to brave all dangers and endure all hardships to which they will be exposed ? If, 0 Mother, they begin to quail, thou wilt restore their courage. 'Jura jmxillannues' And thou wilt comfort them in their darkest hours of downheartedness and weary toil. ' Refote flabilen.' 1 Pray for this people. ' Ora pro popuW ; pray for these savage, fierce, and lawless hordes. Pray for their clergy. ' Intervent }>rovlero.' Intercede for this new clergy of the Solomons, so that all its members may be staunch and true missioners according to thy heart. Let us all, 0 Mother, feel thy powerful intercession. ' Sentiunt omnes tuum juvanieu.' Never ctase to cast upon us all the eyes of thy tender men-y. ' lllos tttox viisericordes oculos ad nos converted "

Such is the holy resolve, such the dauntless language, such the confidence of this heroic band of apostles. Way all their steps be blessed by Providence, and may they shortly reap a rich harvest of souls, and bring a new people, regenerated and uplifted, into the pale of the Church and into the beneficent tide of Christian civiiisa. tion, with all its gifts and advantages for time and eternity !