IN MISSION FIELDS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2416, 23 March 1915, Page 2

IN MISSION FIELDS

MEMORIES OF R.L.S. The Rev. Georgo Brown, D.D., the veteran South Seas missionary, at the request of the Women's Auxiliary, gave an address in Wesley Hall yesterday afternoon upon some aspects of his work while stationed in Samoa. Miss Kirk, of I'etone, ex-president of the auxiliary, presided. In the course of his addreßS, Dr. Browri said that it was very fitting that women should take, a .keen and active interest in missionary work, or, indeed, in all Christian work, a 6 it was owing to Christian teachings that they occupied the position ..they held to-day in the world. In non-Christian countries they were chattels and burden-bearers, to be 6old as their owners desired. In speaking of mission work, Dr. Brown said that often when a missionary returned to a civilised country and was among his own people he was looked upon as a hero, but it was the missionary's wife that deserved admiration. She had to face great suffering, for there was in so many instances the parting with her children as well as loneliness and dangers to face. The Samoans as a people were described, their instinctive poetry, their courteousness, tho possession of every quality that made what was called a gentleman or a gentlewoman. Dr. Brown praised the eagerness which made some women anxious to become missionaries in these South Sea Islands, but he strongly stressed the point that they should be perfectly sound in health before even dreaming of going to these places. The Rev. Mr. Hunt, who had al6o been in Samoa when Dr. Brown was there, was asked to speak. He told his audience of his first meeting with Dr. Brown some thirty years ago in London, when he gave an address upon mission work to a number of students. He noxt met Dr. Brown in Sydney just when he (Mr. Hunt) was 011 his way from New Guinea to Samoa to take up work in that field. The voyage to Samoa would never be forgotten, for travelling on the same steamer were Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. and Mrs. Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Chalmers (Tamati), and himself. Night after night this man, whom they would never forget, would lure them into the smokingroom and there draw them out to tell stories, such stories that they would be almost too frightened to go to bed. . Miss Brittain sang and afternoon tea was handed round, bringing to a conclusion an interesting occasion.