第92章

"About a month after I landed, I heard that the chief was dead.He was the father of the present chief, who is now a most consistent member of the church.It is a custom here that, when a chief dies, his wives are strangled and buried with him.Knowing this, Ihastened to his house to endeavour to prevent such cruelty if possible.When I arrived, I found two of the wives had already been killed, while another was in the act of being strangled.Ipleaded hard for her, but it was too late; she was already dead.Ithen entreated the son to spare the fourth wife; and, after much hesitation, my prayer was granted: but, in half an hour afterwards, this poor woman repented of being unfaithful, as she termed it, to her husband, and insisted on being strangled; which was accordingly done.

"All this time the chief's son was walking up and down before his father's house with a brow black as thunder.When he entered, Iwent in with him, and found, to my surprise, that his father was not dead! The old man was sitting on a mat in a corner, with an expression of placid resignation on his face.

"'Why,' said I, 'have you strangled your father's wives before he is dead?'

"To this the son replied, 'He is dead.That is no longer my father.He is as good as dead now.He is to be BURIED ALIVE.'

"I now remembered having heard that it is a custom among the Feejee islanders, that when the reigning chief grows old or infirm, the heir to the chieftainship has a right to depose his father; in which case he is considered as dead, and is buried alive.The young chief was now about to follow this custom, and, despite my earnest entreaties and pleadings, the old chief was buried that day before my eyes in the same grave with his four strangled wives!

Oh! my heart groaned when I saw this, and I prayed to God to open the hearts of these poor creatures, as he had already opened mine, and pour into them the light and the love of the gospel of Jesus.

My prayer was answered very soon.A week afterwards, the son, who was now chief of the tribe, came to me, bearing his god on his shoulders, and groaning beneath its weight.Flinging it down at my feet, he desired me to burn it!

"You may conceive how overjoyed I was at this.I sprang up and embraced him, while I shed tears of joy.Then we made a fire, and burned the god to ashes, amid an immense concourse of the people, who seemed terrified at what was being done, and shrank back when we burned the god, expecting some signal vengeance to be taken upon us; but seeing that nothing happened, they changed their minds, and thought that our God must be the true one after all.From that time the mission prospered steadily, and now, while there is not a single man in the tribe who has not burned his household gods, and become a convert to Christianity, there are not a few, I hope, who are true followers of the Lamb, having been plucked as brands from the burning by Him who can save unto the uttermost.I will not tell you more of our progress at this time, but you see," he said, waving his hand around him, "the village and the church did not exist a year ago!"We were indeed much interested in this account, and I could not help again in my heart praying God to prosper those missionary societies that send such inestimable blessings to these islands of dark and bloody idolatry.The teacher also added that the other tribes were very indignant at this one for having burned its gods, and threatened to destroy it altogether, but they had done nothing yet; "and if they should," said the teacher, "the Lord is on our side; of whom shall we be afraid?""Have the missionaries many stations in these seas?" inquired Jack.