HARVEST FESTIVAL AT S. ANDREW'S CAMBRIDGE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2287, 8 March 1887, Page 3

HARVEST FESTIVAL AT S. ANDREW'S CAMBRIDGE.

+ The annual harvest festival was held in the above church on Friday evening and was continued on Sunday. Tho decorations, although very similar to those used on former occasions, were tastefully applied, and gave a pleasing appearance. On tins altar wore two very neat littlo sheaves of corn and three loaves, and above it ,the text, "He shall come again with joy and bring his sheaves with him," with a framing of corn ears. The pulpit was hung with scarlet cloth with a fringe—top and bottom —of oats, and in the centre a cross of corn ears and scarlet berries. The font had the usual "birdcage" decorated with flowers set over it, and was by no means the least effective part of the decorations. The lectern, choir stalls, and frame work across tho chancel, woro profusely hung with flowers, corn, and fruit; while other parts of the church had sheaves and banners with various devices worked in corn upon them, placed and hung about. Tho services on each occasion were full choral, the responses being by Tallin, and tho canticles by .lackson. The anthem was Burnby's, "How manifold are thy works," and was very well rendered. The harmonium was playiv. by Mrs Chitty and the choir conducted by Mr<). Garland, the choirmaster. The singing was taken up in a hearty manner, and with the exception of the balancing of tho choir being rather amiss—too much tenor and not enough bass—shows great improvement, the trebles singing out well, and not in the half-hearted style that characterised them some little time ago. Tlie offertory sentences were nicely in tune, but die time —more particularly of the two first—was not given as intended by tho composer. We congratulate the choir on their improvement, and hope to see a still further one. The sermon on Friday was preached by tho Ven. Archdeacon Willis, who took his text from Deuteronomy, 20th chapter, 11th verse. Both sermons on Sunday were by the Rev. It. 13. Cumins, of tho Melanesian Mission. The one in the evening treating more particularly of. the work done and the method of doing it in Melanesia. We givo a short report of the sermon, which we feel sure will interest our readers. Tho text was a portion of the second lesson, Gospel of S. John, 4th chapter, 3">th verse, "Say not ye, there are yet four months and then cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto you, lift up you eyes and look on the fields ; for they are white already to harvest." The preacher said he purposed that evening referring to the spiritual Harvest of Souls, as did Christ when he said "look on the fields for they are white already to harvest." Christ's disciples were sent out to teach everywhere—not to Jews only, the commandment' was worldwide, and embraced the uttermost parts of tno earth. The preacher continued "If you will refer to the 9th Chap, of S. Matthew, and the 37, 38, verses you will find " The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few ;• Pray ye therefore the. Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest." That is what we want my friends ; your prayers, that the souls spread out through the vast fields of the world, may be gathered into God's barn. It is our duty to care first for our own souls, then for those of friends near and clear to us, then for those living around us, and so on until we reach the uttermost parts of the earth. For 10 years it has been iny privilege to labour at God's work in the Solomon Islands, at what is known as the Melanesian Mission. Once a year you are asked to contribute to the mission, and I take this opportunity of making you a little better acquainted with tho harvesting that is going on here. Melanesia is composed of a number of islands-about 100—to the west of and between there and New Guinea. Some of the islands are small, and some 100 miles long. The snil is poor, and the natives are of a very low type. They would coin pare very unfavourably with your natives of New Zealand, both physically and morally; but, my brothern, in God's sight thny are not too low to be reached by the death of Christ, and may be washed clean in Hi.s blood. They have no idea of a supreme being, and the only thing that can be called their religion is a belief in ghosts, beings who they believe once existed among them, and for some cause or other have come back to torment them. That is their only idea of a future state. There are about 100 different languages spoken among the islands, and their religious beliefs vary almost as much as their languages. On one island they believe that the spirits of the departed go into a large rock that stands out in the sea, and at another that they depart into a, swamp, whero the most deadly malaria exists, and is full of crocodiles; there is no place of hope. Their lives are utterly miserable. They are ignorant, cruel, and have not the slightest idea of pity. There are very few young people, parents refusing to rear their young. They would bury them alive sooner than have tho trouble of rearing thorn. If anyone is ill there is very little trouble taken with him, I remember one being ill, and 1 paid for him to bo attended to, but the relatives proposed carrying him into the bush to die, believing if the ghost had him he (the ghost) wonld not attach them. Olds people are a burden. I proposed sending one old man Bome medicine, but they refused, saying he was not worth keeping alive. In many of the islands, lam sorry to say, they are cannibals. Where we can get a footing that is the first thing to give way ; but there are many places where it is still carried on, and where indeed a feast is not considered complete without human flesh. If a chief dies, he is buried, and his grave is decorated with the head of a poor native who has been sacrificed in his honour. At the Island of Be, Christopher I have seen 30 skulls.hanging up outsido a chief's house, all of which have been placed there in a few months. . If they want bodies to decorate the graves of their chiefs they will attack a sleeping village, and murder the whole of the inhabitants. The soil is indeed poor, and we have as yet only been permitted to break up the ground, and in doing so we have to use special implements. The special implements we find of most use are the native boys, tyhpm y?e teach, and then let them go back, usually with a wife—and set up a model home, and thus teach the savages by example. The native agency was first suggested by your late lamented prelate, Bishop Selwyn, and indeed it is the ojily practicable method, for there are so many languages that it is impossible for one person to learn them. We go round the islands with ourjschnoner, and endeavour to get two or three boys from each one; after we have 50 or (i 0 on board we take them to our headquarters at Norfolk Island, where we have a staff of teachers and a school. The first tiding is to teach them all one language, so that they can all be instructed together in the Holy Scriptures. After they have been there two pr f-liroe years intelligence dawns upon them, they are then taken homo and act as interpreters for us. T-he inhabitants have no fear of the native lads haying interested motives ; if they see a white man they immediately say, what does he want ? but their own lads they receive with open arms. This is how we have broken up a little of the ground. Some of the boys that show more intellegence than others are taken back for further teaching—many hoye bpen baptised and some confirmedwith a view to the(r b.epomjpg raissjqnar.ies among their own people. Many of the3e young men meet with great difficulties ; I recollect three that had started a sqhool and were progressing very satisfactorily with it, when the time catne to sacrifice to the ghosts the young men induced the chief to forgo the sacrifice, but the "rain maker" or "medicine man" afterwards pursuaded the chief to curse the school, and after that no one dare go to }t, so it oaine to an end.. At oth.er plapes they had suffered great hardships, their gardens had been robbed, their pigs killed, and their cocoanut trees felled, but they had persevered, and had triumphed, At Norfolk laiand, we have a printing pres.3, but there is such a diversity of languages that we can do but little with it. Some of the natives have built churches that will hold 300 people. They are built of stone, quarried out of the coral reefs with very rough instruments, and there they hold service, not only ,v n Sunday, but every day through, the week. 1 am glad to say that we have stopped infanticide at many of the islands, and now troops of'children may be seen where, ton years ago, there were very few. At pre-. sent we are but breaking up the flron.n.d and pjantjng the seed ; lot ua pray God that the harvest inay be plentiful. I have placed this picture before you s-'o that you may realise the great blessings under which you live." After the offertory the benediction was by the Archdeacon. The offertory in the morning was £5 Is Bd, and in tho evening £3 7s, the church being very full on each occasion,