MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH SEAS.

Samoan Reporter, Issue 16, 1 December 1854, Page 5

MISSIONS IN THE SOUTH SEAS.

THEIR CLAIMS ON THE CHURCHES. Polynesia has long been a popular field of missionary enterprise. But, if we may judge from the amount of aid furnished to it now, we must conclude that the interest once felt in the welfare of its people is declining. That interest seems greater on the platform than in the committee room; among the public than with those who dispose of the men and money furnished by the churches to convey the Gospel to foreign lands. It may not be extensively known, but it is a fact, that, notwithstanding the general increase of late years in the number of missionaries and in the amount of missionary funds, the supply of both to the missions in the Pacific has undergone a very considerable diminution. The Protestant Societies which have employed a portion of their resources in the Pacific are, the London and the Church Missionary Societies, the American Board for Foreign Missions, and the Wesleyan Missionary Society. Seven or eight years ago, these Institutions had 140 labourers in this ocean ; but, at the present time, they have not more than 120. All the missionaries included in the former number were dependant on the funds of the societies which sent them forth; but, of the latter number, at least thirteen are sustained wholly, or nearly so, by the churches and communities to which they minister. Two others are supported by contributions from New South Wales. These contributions were made for the special benefit of the Pacific, and they would not have reached the mission-

ary treasury but for the proximity of our field of labour, and the visits of our missionary ships to that colony. The societies which have been thus relieved of the support of these fifteen missionaries, through the liberality of the native churches and of our friends in Australia, instead of regarding the funds thus set free as sacred to the planting of new missions in the still heathen portions of this ocean, have diverted them from the Pacific altogether. It appears, therefore, that this part of the world has sustained, during the last few years, a loss of twenty missionaries, and of money, equal to the support of thirty-five. As a set-off to this serious withdrawment of support from these missions by the societies which commenced the work here, only three missionaries have come to our help from other quarters. One of these is supported by friends in Nova Scotia, and another is from Scotland. I3ishop Selwyn, of New Zealand, has made several missionary voyages among the islands of Western Polynesia. He has adopted the plan of taking from those heathen lands to New Zealand, native youths, with a view of instructing them, and then returning them to their homes as the evangelists and civilizers of their countrymen. Other labourers in the Pacific have found this method of procedure very useful as an auxiliary to other means ; but alone it is not likely to succeed. We have been informed, fhat a few of the youths taken under the care of Dr. Selwyn made pleasing progress in knowledge, and gave evidence of piety, whilst among their Christian friends in New Zealand. But we have not yet heard of any tribe or individual having been enlightened and converted by their instrumentality. The Bishop has not yet attempted a mission on any heathen shore. He has contributed only one foreign agent toward the making up of the deficiency of labourers in the Pacific, which we deplore. That individual is stationed in the Loyalty Islands, among a people who were reclaimed from heathenism through the blessing of God upon the labours of Rarotongan and Samoan teachers placed there by agents of the London Missionary Society. It is not too soon for us to express our apprehension that the churches are faltering in their compassion towards this people. It is more than time for us to ask that the losses which we have sustained be made up to us, and that we be allowed our full proportion of the increase of men and money which has begun to flow into the treasury of God.

The friend and advocate of the tribes of the Pacific has no difficult work to perform. He needs not fear lest he should fail to make their claims apparent. He has only to collect his facts, and to set them forth in such a manner as that they may be fairly seen; and he may then boldly ask, if any part of the world can show more powerful claims than the Pacific for the help of Christians; and whether it be not the will of God that the missions here be carried on with sustained and increasing vigonr. The following table will illustrate the amount of labour which has been employed in the Pacific, together with the present state of the missions.

It plainly appears, then, that Protestant missions have been extensively and powerfully influential upon the opinions, lives, and hearts of the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands. We cannot think that the most liberal contributor to them will be otherwise than thankful and happy that he has lent his aid to an enterprize which has led to such results. But, we are told, that India and China have paramount claims on the resources of the churches. We are further told, that these countries were closed to the Gospel when the founders of our missionary societies commenced their labours in the Pacific ; and that, had they to begin under the present altered circumstances of the world, the islands of this ocean w r ould be one of the last places to which their attention would be drawn. To this kind of talk we reply, that such a disregard of this region of the earth would be but another illustration that “the Lord seeth not as man seeth.” In the case which we are now considering, man looks on the mighty numbers of Asia; but it is demonstrable that the eye of God’s distinguishing favour is on the Pacific. The fact of Asia having been formerly closed to missionaries was nothing less than God speaking in His providence, and saying, This is not the w r ay. The fact that circumstances drew attention to the Pacific, and presented an open door, was nothing less than the voice of God, saying, This is the way; walk ye in it. Is the method of God’s communication with man changed since he thus made known his will to the projectors of modern missions ? Does he not still speak by means of the circumstances of the world, and the changes which are ever passing over them? Look, then, at Asia and at the Pacific, and inquire whether or not He has recalled or reversed His former directions. Are not China and India still, to a great extent, closed, so far as regards access to the minds and hearts of the people? and does not the Pacific present an open and wide door?

Asiatics were not fewer formerly than now. The force which millions give to the call for help was as great then as it is now. The Polynesians were not more numerous then than now. Amount of population did not turn the index of Christian compassion then. Why should it do so now? It is clear, that we must look at something beside numbers, if we would ascertain the will of God in reference to the claims of Ihe different parts of the world upon the depositaries of the Gospel. Our conviction is, that the providence of God points the churches to the Pacific Islands more decidedly and more imperatively, we do not say more exclusively, than ever. Yea ; the Lord himself has gone forth to those islands ; and he has accompanied the preaching of the Word there with such an abundance of the signs of His presence as He has nowhere else displayed. To say, then, that were the fathers of our missions to begin their work now, they would leave the Pacific in its darkness, or greatly diminish its quota of labourers, is, in effect, to say, that they would be less wise than they were to discern the signs of the times, or less obedient to the indications those signs afford.

In support of our position, we offer the following table, illustrative of the proportion of converts to each missionary in various countries. As different denominations of Christians differ in their terms of communion, or qualification for membership, and as, therefore, the indiscriminate comparison of the communicants of one denomination with those of another may lead to very erroneous conclusions as to the number of real converts in.the several missions, we have distinguished the denominations or Societies, in order to enable the reader to compare one with another, the various missions of each society separately ; and thus furnish to him an accurate view of the comparative productiveness of each field of labour. We may remark here, that the statistical statements given in this paper are, for the most part, taken from pub-

lications of 1852; and may, therefore, be regarded as representing the state of the missions in 1851. It is difficult, in our circumstances, to obtain a complete set of returns of more recent date than this. We could, indeed, have corrected some of our figures to a later period; but we prefer, for the sake of fairness and uniformity, to let them stand as they are. The number of missionaries in the Pacific has probably decreased since 1851. In one or two groups, there may also have been a diminution under other heads of the returns, Ihe sitiall—pox and other diseases have literally decimated the population of the Sandwich Islands; and the measles that of Tahiti. These fearful visitations must have reduced proportionably the ehnrehes and the schools. But, in other missions, there has been an advance in the number of professed Christians, communicants, and scholars, which has probably more than compensated this loss.

In 1847, the average number of members of society to each minister of the Wesleyan denomination in Great Britain was only 277.

The Protestant community of India amounts to 112,191. That of the Pacific has reached to 237,600. There are, in some missions in the Pacific, as many candidates for admission to, as there are members in, the churches ; and some of these candidates have stood waiting at the portal for three and six and even twelve years. Let all who feel interested in missions, and who are desirous of know ing the will of God in regard to the direction which they shall give to their own evangelizing efforts, examine the returns which we have collected. Our table shows, that every one of the societies which have established missions in the Pacific has been more successful there than in any other part of the world. It is not length of time which has made this difference, for three of these societies have elsewhere older missions than those which they are sustaining in the Pacific. The first mission of the London Missionary Society to India was sent forth but a few years after that to Tahiti; and all these societies had missions in India before the wars of Tahiti permitted the missionaries there to settle down to steady labour among the people, and before a single inhabitant of the Pacific islands had turned from his superstitions to God. The Baptist mission reached India before the Tahitian mission was projected. It appears, too, that some of the Indian missions numbered amongst their early adherents many who, through the labours of Danish missionaries, had previously gained some knowledge of Christianity, and who had, in consequence, renounced heathenism. But, notwithstanding this simultaneous, and, in some cases, antecedent commencement of Christian labour in India, each agent in the Pacific has reaped, under the auspices of the Church Society, two and a half-fold, under those of the London Society, six-fold, under those of the Wesleyan Society, fourteen-fold, and under those of the American Board, forty-five-fold, more fruit than his fellow-labourer in India has gathered into lhe garner. The missionaries in India, and in some other countries, soon outnumbered those of the Pacific. The proportion of missionaries in India to those in the Pacific is, at the present time, more than three and a half to one. It had almost reached that proportion twenty-five years ago. The Pacific, therefore, has had no greater advantage in comparison with India in the past than it has now. But, although the amount of labour expended in the Pacific has been so much less than that employed in India, the number of converts in the former is more than double that of those in the latter country ; and the average of communicants to each missionary in the Pacific is nine times greater than that to each of those in India. Had all the missionaries of India been employed in the Pacific the same proportion of success which the missionaries who have laboured in the latter country have been favoured with, would have given them an aggregate of 168,340 communicants, instead of 18,410 —the number they have gathered into the church in the former country. Or, on the other hand, if the missionaries who have been engaged in the missions of the Pacific, had been labouring in India, with the average success of missionaries there, they would, in the enumeration of their converts, have lacked the tens of thousands, and have counted only by thousands; instead of 45,680, they must have written, 4,920.

The Friend of India repudiates the attempts of some to obviate unfavourable impressions in regard to the missions in that country, arising from the fewness of converts there as compared with those in the Pacific, West Indies, and some other countries. That publication informs us, that India can stand before the churches, confident in the abundance of the success of its own missions. Results, it says, are not so apparent in India as in some other countries; but “the trees have been marked, and it only remains to cut them down.” We believe in the signs of India’s approaching redemption. We shall rejoice, if we are permitted to see the time when her converts shall, as they ought, altogether outnumber those of the Pacific. But it is proper, at the present day, to bear in mind that the standing tree, though marked, is still a standing tree. To fell the tree, and to pile the timber, are tedious and laborious processes. The Indian labourer knows that they are; and he often groans and faints beneath the toil. We think that an occasional glance at the Pacific might encourage our brethren in India in their arduous duties ; and we feel assured that the cheerfulness of hope, the firmness of purpose, and the vigour of action which now animate the Christian public in their missionary enterprises would be, in a great measure, wanting, if our Secretaries could report no other returns, or only smaller ones, than those furnished by the Indian missions. The supporters of the Church Missionary Society might think 5,000 converts but a slender return from 65 missionaries who have entered into the labours of forty previous

years, did not New Zealand, with less than half the number of labourers, add more than another 5,000 communicants to the column of results. The subscribers to the London Missionary Society might sigh and mourn in contemplation of fifty years of expense and exertion, with a missionary corps which has been continually increasing until it now numbers 58 missionaries, and only 1,500 members in the churches, did not their 29 agents in the Pacific report the encouraging number of 5,336 communicants ; and Africa, with a few more labourers, an almost equal return of converts. And what shall we say of the American Board, which, after forty years of labour, with 25 missionaries now at work, numbers, in India, only 399 communicants? And what of the Wesleyan Society, with 14 missionaries in that country, who, forty-five years after the founding of the first mission there, can report but 374 members of society ? Truly, if all the missions of these two societies, were no more productive than their missions in India, the managers and constituents of them might begin to doubt whether they had the Master’s sanction to labour in the vineyard. But, if all the other missions of these societies were wholly fruitless, their total outlay of strength and money would receive not only a sufficient justification, but an ample reward, in the numerous converts of their missions in the Pacific. On the whole, we cannot help thinking, that the success of missions in the Pacific is well calculated, and is probably designed by God, to encourage the faith of his servants in reference to other lands, and to stimulate to exertions for the conversion of their inhabitants. The small nations or tribes of the Pacific, not long ago as wicked and as superstitions as the natives of India and China, and more degraded, ignorant, and inaccessible than they, have utterly renounced heathenism, and are nominally, and many thousands of them, we have reason to believe, really Christian. The lesson taught us, and the encouragement given us by this great fact is, that Asia will, at length, as surely as the isles of the Pacific, renounce its errors and its sins, and embrace the Gospel of the Son of God; even as the granite block, though requiring a larger amount, and a longer application of effort to move it than does the pebble on the strand, at last, obedient to the well-directed force applied, abandons its resting-place, and moves freely in the prescribed course. No just suspicions attach to the character of the converts in the missions of the Pacific to which those of other missions are not liable. We have seen that the missionaries in these islands belong to the same Christian denominations with those in other countries. There is no reason why they should have rules of judging of men and of admission to churches here different to those by which they are guided elsewhere. We have reason for concluding that great care is generally taken to avoid the admission of improper characters to the churches, and to exclude members who act unworthily. Neither missionaries nor people are accustomed to pay respect to persons in these grave matters. In cases of well-ascertained inconsistency of conduct, the chief is rejected or expelled with as little hesitation as the common man. We admit that some of the converts in India are put to more severe trials than is the case generally with those of the Pacific. But, even there, such cases are exceptions ; and here our converts have many trials. Some hazard life, and many expose themselves to loss of property, distinction, and influence, by putting on Christ. Temptations to renounce the Christian profession are many here. The converts are not collected into compounds or separate villages. They live, in some cases, among their heathen countrymen; and, in all, are mingled with the worldly and the wicked. The leading men often court, and sometimes threaten and injure those who, rather than disobey God, refuse to aid their wishes and proceedings. In matters not directly unlawful, many, rather than grieve the consciences of their brethren, or put an occasion to fall in a brother’s way, or furnish sinners with a reason or excuse for sinning, continually do violence to reputed obligations of friendship and family which are held peculiarly sacred among their people, and failure in which exposes the party who is chargeable with it to the imputation of meanness and cruelty. To steer a correct course in some of these cases, requires much watchfulness, knowledge, and decision.

The missionary has not only to gather converts into the church, he has also to rear them to the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus, and to educate the Christian community at large. The work of preaching, which is the more direct instrumentality for the promotion of these ends, is far from occupying the principal part, of the strength and time of the spiritual workman in the Pacific. The peculiar circumstances of the people often impose upon him the necessity of giving them advice and assistance in their secular and political affairs. But, besides this necessity, from which missionaries in many lands are happily exempt, he has, like most of them, to give much attention to schools and to the preparation of a general and of a religious literature. The supply of educational books and of elementary works on national and on natural history and science, is by no means small, in some of these missions. But the first and great aim of the Christian labonrer in regard to books is, to supply his converts with aids to their advancement in Christian knowledge, and in the Christian life. Pre-eminent amongst these aids, he places the Bible. The translation of this blessed book has been diligently and successfully prosecuted by the missionaries in the Pacific. The whole Scriptures have been translated, printed, and circulated in three dialects; the entire New Testament and many parts of the Old in four others; and the Gospel of Mark in one other. This amount of Scripture translation is much greater in proportion to the number of missionaries than that which has been accomplished in India, where ten entire versions are reported, five of the New Testament only, and four of separate portions. Let us glance now at the cost of missions in the Pacific. There are parties who are sadly parsimonious of missionary funds, when it is proposed to spend them for the benefit of this part of the world. The principles which guide such persons in their counting-houses seemed to be laid aside, or reversed, when they meet in the committee rooms of our Missionary Societies. The merchant sends his ships where he can obtain the largest and most profitable cargoes ; and if, fixing his eye on great future advantages, he sometimes ventures his capital where present returns are small, he does not, therefore, neglect the commerce which yields him a large present profit, particularly if the cultivating of it tend, in some direct or even indirect ways to promote and secure the larger trade in another quarter to which his hopes are directed. The committee-man carefully places on his balance-sheet the gains in the Pacific, and fails no, to make the fullest use of them in advocating the general claims of the Society; but in shaping the course of his future transactions, he cripples the missions of the Pacific so far as to render the extension of them impossible, and even to endanger their existence. He thus exposes himself to the misfortune of having but a very meagre report to present to the supporters of the cause, and of weakening their hands in the good and great work of regenerating India, China, and the world. The missions in the Pacific, though affording the largest number of converts, are probably the least expensive in the world. We have endeavoured to ascertain the comparative cost to the churches of missionaries in different

countries. We do not speak of missionaries’ salaries merely, but we take the number of missionaries in a mission as the measure of the work performed in it, and we divide by that number the whole expenditure of the mission including charges on account of salary, freight of goods, passage of missionaries, the printing-office, teachers, and school materials, together with the purchase and working of missionary ships. Proceeding in this way with each mission, and then comparing together the quotients, we find the relative amount of labour which is obtained in the various missions for any given sum. The cost of the missions are at the rate per annum for each missionary as follows : —

The missions of the London Missionary Society in Guiana and the West Indies return about one-half of their contributions to the Society. This reduces the proportion of charge to its funds for each missionary to within a few pounds of the gross average to each in the Pacific. But the direct subscriptions of the Christians to the Pacific to the general fund of the Society amount to about onefifth of the total expense of the missions. The net sacrifice, therefore, of the Society on account of these missions is £179 to each missionary. The East Indies contribute to the Society about one-fifth of the cost of the missions in that country, and Africa about one-sixth. The cost of the missions in the Pacific, as compared with those of India is very considerably less than one-half. It is proper to bear in mind, that the money collected in India is chiefly from foreigners resident there, whereas the subscriptions in the Pacific are almost wholly from natives —a direct return to the Society from its own labours. The large special and ordinary contributions from Australia to the various missionary institutions of Britain are, in a great measure, the results of the interest awakened there by the missions and missionaries of the Pacific, and may, therefore, be placed to the credit of the missions with as much reason as those from the British residents of India are to that of the missions in that country. Further, the converts of the Pacific relieve the funds of the Societies at home, indirectly, by the aid they give in the building of mission-houses and school-houses, in the supply of native produce to the missionaries, and in supporting native-teachers among themselves and among the heathen. Chapels are usually built entirely by natives, without any charge to mission funds. In addition to these things, the natives in these seas generally pay for the Bible and other books distributed among them, at prices sufficient to cover, at least, the cost of paper, printing, binding, and freight. The Christian converts in the Pacific, have remitted to the Bible Societie several thousand pounds in payment of the large editions of the Holy Books with which they have been furnished. Taking all the above particulars into account, it is plain that we are by no means making the best of our pecuniary position in the sums we have placed under the heading “ Pacific ” in our table of the comparative cost of different missions. It, nevertheless, appears that, for a certain sum, we get the labours of two men in the Pacific, and one only in India; in other words, we get twice the amount of labour for the same expenditure in the former as compared with the latter. In this connection, let it be remembered, that a missionary’s labour is nine times more productive (forming our estimate of its productiveness on the number of converts) in the Pacific than in India. The two missionaries in the Pacific, therefore, who cost no more than the one in India, are instrumental of results eighteen-times greatei* than those which reward his labours. If he gain one convert, they gain eighteen. It will be said, that we must look at the future of India. We admit that it is right to do so. Our souls exult in the glorious prospect of India’s millions sitting at the feet of Jesus. But, as the world is large, and the resources of our missionary societies are small, we must leave some parts comparatively, perhaps wholly, without the means of knowledge. By expending £5OO a year in India, you may support a missionary, and furnish him with all the necessary appliances of his vocation, and he will succeed in leading forty-one persons to the Saviour; but, by expending the same sum in the Pacific, you may employ two labourers, who will guide 738 sinners into the way of life. Permit us to ask, Does it appear like following the indications of Providence, to leave the 738 to perish, in order to rescue the forty-one from ruin? Would a commercial agent, neglecting such advantages, receive the approbation of his employers ? Would humanity approve such a course in a case of temporal calamity? Where is the Scripture example or sanction of such a plan of proceeding ? Paul might probably have found as large a proportion as one to eighteen willing to receive his message in Asia as compared with Macedonia. Thousands in the Pacific have awoke to a sense of the value of the Gospel, and, being without the Bible and without missionaries, are literally and earnestly crying, “ Come over and help us I” And there are myriads still in absolute darkness, of whose reception of the truth, if made known to them, our experience in the Pacific is as full an assurance as was the heavenly vision which directed Paul to plant the standard of the Messiah on European ground. Let none say, that our argument proves too much. We do not plead that the supply of aid to the different countries be proportioned to the number of converts. We only ask, that the Pacific be allowed the full share of men and money, which were, until within the last few years, voted to it, together with its fair proportion of the general increase of missionary means. With these aids, we think that the work of God may be efficiently prosecuted to a universal triumph of light over darkness in this ocean.

Let none object to our manner of representing our subject. There is no profaneness in simple arithmetic. Our figures represent facts as nearly as we can ascertain them. They merely strip a painful reality of the mist and darkness which conceal it from some minds. Choice is often made in the alternative of which we speak. By the decisions of aspirant missionaries, and by the appointments of directors, the 41 or the 738 are passed by continually. We complain that it is so frequently the miserable lot of the latter to be thus abandoned. We enter our remonstrance against the inconsistency. Let those who feel this bare view of misery and helplessness too much for their sensibilities to endure, inquire whether they are doing all that they can to supply the world with the Gospel of Christ. There are innumerable ways of blinding the mind to the harrowing fact of thousands and of millions being left by the churches to perish in ignorance of the Gospel, which alone has power to subdue sin and to save the soul. But there is only one way of obliterating the existence of that fact, and that is, to make the proclamation of salvation as wide as the purposes of God’s mercy, and the parting command of His Son.

Society. Missionaries. Communicants. Protestants. Scholars 1828 1846 1852 London 13 38 29 5,336 81,600 12,800 Church 13 29 26 5,213 48,000 13,983 Wesleyan 3 36 35 13,393 40,000 15,951 American 14 37 30 21,738 68,000 11,774 43 140 120 45,680 237,600 54,508

Society. Country. S' R s. 8 Missionaries now. Communion ts Present total. 3 KJ S. 2 © 5 3 © ■<= ?*• London.. . Polynesia 1797 29 5,336 184 Guiana &W. Indies 1807 17 5,510 147 South Africa 1799 24 4,575 140 India 1804 54 1,500 28 Church • • New Zealand 1815 26 5,213 200 Guiana &W. Indies • • • • 3 436 145 Western Africa ... 1804 20 2,216 110 India 1814 65 5,000 77 American Sandwich Islands . 1820 80 21,738 724 India 1812 25 399 16 Wesleyan Friendly Islands .. 1822 8 6,978 172 Guiana & W. Indies 1787 75 46,809 624 Western Africa ... 1811 16 6,608 404 Feejee Islands 1835 7 1,993 214 New Zealand . • • • 20 4,422 221 South Africa 1815 42 4,206 100 India 1817 14 374 27 Aggregate Pacific 120 45,680 18,410 380 41 of all SoIndia 443 defies ...

Society. Pacific. Africa. W. Indies. India. London.. £223 £272 £479 £502 American 302 290 592 Church.. 328 495 .... 604