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Updated: June 21, 2025
If the people of Erromanga are severely punished for this by the Man-of-war, we will all hear of it; and our people will then fear to kill you and the other Missionaries, so as to destroy the Worship of Jehovah. Now, they say, the Erromangans killed Missi Williams and the Samoan, Rarotongan, and Aneityumese Teachers, besides other white men, and no Man-of-war has punished either them or us.
At Tanna, supposed to possess fifteen thousand inhabitants, Mr Williams left three missionaries the day before he was murdered at Erromanga; but two of them soon died, the climate being more injurious to the natives of Eastern Polynesia than to Europeans. In 1842 Messrs. Turner and Nisbet were sent to occupy the island, but were driven away by the savages, and sought shelter in Samoa.
Amongst others set apart at the same time was John Williams, the martyr of Erromanga. It was at first proposed that Williams and Moffat should go together to Polynesia; but Mr. Waugh remarked that "thae twa lads were ower young to gang together," so they were separated. At the age of twenty-one Moffat sailed for South Africa.
Sorrowful experience on Tanna had taught us to seek the site of our Aniwan house on the highest ground, and away from the malarial influences near the shore. There was one charming mound, covered with trees, whose roots ran down into the crevices of coral, and from which Tanna and Erromanga are clearly seen.
The large island of Erromanga has but little native population, and that is all christianized; the same is true of the smaller islands of Aneityum, Aniwa and Futuna. I preferred to study Tanna, as it is characteristic of all the southern part of the archipelago.
Even Cook, who certainly was both careful and just, was treacherously attacked in Erromanga, for the Melanesian is bloodthirsty, especially when he thinks himself the stronger. But to-day it may be stated as a certainty that no attack on a recruiting-ship or on any white man occurs without some past brutality on the part of a European to account for it.
If they are not punished for what has been done on Erromanga, nothing else can keep them here from killing you and me and all who worship at the Mission House!" I answered, "Nowar, let us all be strong to love and serve Jehovah Jesus. If it be for our good and His glory, He will protect us; if not, He will take us to be with Himself. We will not be killed by their bad talk.
As we have seen, colonization in the New Hebrides was begun by the whalers, who had several stations in the southern islands. They had, however, little intercourse with the natives, and their influence may be considered fairly harmless. More dangerous were the sandalwood traders, who worked chiefly in Erromanga.
These remarks are not uncalled for, nor will they be considered as without point when the name of the island is given Erromanga; a name full of painful associations to all who take an interest in missionary enterprise, and in the advancement, by human instrumentality, of the kingdom of the Redeemer.
John Williams, the torch-bearer of the Pacific, whom the brown men loved, the great pioneer, who dared death on the grey beach of Erromanga, sounds a morning bugle-call to us, a Reveillè to our slumbering camps: "The daybreak call, Hark how loud and clear I hear it sound; Swift to your places, swift to the head of the army, Pioneers, O Pioneers!" Kapiolani
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