Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/368

 338 FIJI AXD THE FIJIAI^S. -wild land, and among those savage people, the winning gentleness and piety of the Missionary's wife are vet borne in mind, and the remem- brance still serves to recommend the religion which adorned her with such lovelmess. When near her death, she requested her husband to take the children to England at once, that they might be educated, and trained in the way of the Lord. As soon as the news of her death reached Mr. Hunt at Somosomo, he sailed nearly two hundred miles to visit the mourners, and urge Mr. Cargill to remove to his own Station. But Fiji was not the place for a man whose wife was gone, leaving four little ones to his care, and Mr. Cargill resolved to go as soon as possible by a schooner bound for the Colonies, where he arrived with his children on the second of September. This laborious and important Circuit was thus left with only one [Missionary, who had to manage the printing, and, indeed, do most of the work connected therewith himself. The general object of the Mis- sion must have been still more liindered, had it not been for the efficient and zealous help of the Tongan Teachers, who strove in every way to do good and spread the truth among the people. The medical renown of the Mission Station also brought many there ; so that at one time the Missionary had three or four sick priests under his care, all of whom had ceased to trust in their own gods for cure. Many of these, who came for the good of their bodies, received great spiritual benefit as well. For some time past there had been residing at Rewa an influential !Mbau Chief, whose father took a leading part in the great rebellion, and was killed when Mbau was retaken by Tanoa's son, Tliakombau. The young Chief Matanambamba, then fled, and put himself under the protection of the Rewan King, and waited, in this asylum, for a favourable opportunity of taking that revenge on his father's murderer which the most sacred custom of Fiji required. Such a man, nursing a deadly hate, which only grew more cruel by delay, would be but ill prepared to receive that Gospel which demands the forgiveness of all enemies ; and accordingly against this religion ^latanambamba exerted all liis power. It was he who had moved Ratu Nggara to have the Christians pelted with stones ; and he himself led the party who way- laid the Missionaries, and with his companions afterwards, by Ratu Nggara's permission fired at the Mission premises. Some months after these occurrences he became very ill, and, after trying all the Fijian modes of cure without success, turned for help to the Cliristians whom he had used so ill. In terrible dreams he was haunted with the thought that the affliction was in consequence of his persecution of