Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/221

 nestle in the bosom of the Italian Alps; where brooks and fountains send forth unrestrained their unceasing  melody; where the breezes are soft and balmy, and the  perfumed breath of an unending summer fills the air  with its intoxicating odor, — man alone is debased. Nature displays her brightest charms and revels in her gayest attire; but God’s own image is loathsome and  deformed. Here is indeed a field for the missionary: and laborers are not wanting in fulfilment of the Divine  command, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the  gospel.’ The humble, self-denying followers of Wesley  have found their way to this group."

Looking backward fifty years to these islands, one of the loveliest spots on this huge globe, and visiting them  in my imagination to-day, and listening to the cries and  sighs of the natives, perhaps I may be pardoned for  thinking it would have been better if the islands had  never been discovered by Europeans; not that Christianity is a failure, but that our civilization is. Nations are like individuals — selfish, selfish, selfish. The more they get, the more they want.

The Fiji Islands to-day are an English colony, and the Fiji cannibals are British subjects to Her Most Gracious  Britannic Majesty, Victoria, Queen of England, Ireland,  Scotland, and Wales, that kingdom whose unity, it is  claimed, has never been broken. Yes, it is "rule, Britannia." She rules in the north, in the south, in the east, and in the west. How did she come into possession of these lovely islands? In the same way, no doubt, that she acquired New Zealand — through the treachery of  the American consul, who was an Englishman.