Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/535

 MBIJA. 497 passed with the Society at Ndama. I preached twice ; and, in addition to the usual con- gregation, more than one hundred Heathen heard me each time. I baptized thirteen adults and one chUd. One of the adults was, a few months before, a zealous heathen priest. At the morning services, six Heathen at Ndama, and four at an adjoining village, publicly renounced Heathenism. Sixty church-members partook of the Lord's Supper in the afternoon. During my stay I met the Classes here, and from Tavulomo, and gave them their tickets. " Whilst by the mat of a sick woman, a person sitting by said, * This woman has been long and severely ill, but we never hear her complain ! ' She overheard the remark and said, * It is of God : had I been thus afflicted before I knew God, I could not have borne it ; but now I can pray, and put my trust in Jesus.' " About a week before this I visited a heathen village named Is'a "Wailevu. Many people collected to see and hear me, and I had the pleasure of entering the names of the Chief of the village, and another old man, on my list of professing Christians. " At the services of the Eighth Sunday four, and on the ninth two, persons joined in with us. There is commonly a good feeling among the older worshippers, and I trust some of them are becoming ccmfirmed in the truths which they hear, and may help to strengthen and stablish those who have recently been added to us. " At the quarterly visitations, I have been pleased with the simplicity and apparent sincerity of the Societies. Depth of religious experience is not to be looked for among these infant Churches ; it is encouraging to find them fearing God, and working right- eousness. With the general spirit and conduct of the Leaders I am well pleased. " The Society in Tiliva are not strangers to persecution. In addition to doing them smaller injuries, the Heathen set fire to the chapel, which, with the Teacher's house, was burnt to the ground. This occurred about two years since ; and up to the present time they are called to endure insult, and the spoliation of their plantations. " Some of our members have lately quitted this vale of tears, not without a hope of going to that world where they shall weep no more. In January, Samson Tanima died, after protracted, and at times excruciating, suffering. He had been a member of Society about ten years, being among the first who received the truth on the commencement of this Mission at Lakemba. He came with me to this place from Viwa. He was a truly honest, industrious, and faithful man. His strong conviction of the truth of Christianity never wavered, and he rarely missed an opportunity of urging its claims upon his coun- trymen, dhd occasionally he did so at great personal risk. I can testify to many hun- dreds of Fijians having been faithfully warned and expostulated with by Samson. He was a private member of Society, but his zeal for the cause of God might put many of its official members to the blush. A few minutes before he died, he expressed his con- fidence in the Redeemer, and expired just after I had commended him to God in prayer.* " Caesar Mbangi died in the same month. He was an old man who had been a Chris- tian about two years. He spoke more freely about his spiritual state than any sick Fijian I have yet met with. He received my visits with marked joy. One of his friends ob- served that, although communicative to me, he remained silent when visited by his neighbours. Caesar accounted for this by saying, ' I am near my end, and wish to keep cheerfully remained an exile at Lakemba for several years, where he was a faithful servant of Mr. Williams, whom he accompanied to Mbua. While at Lakemba, this earnest man, on being inter- rogated as to his Christian experience, said : " I am very happy. I have enjoyed religion all the day. I rose early in the morning, and prayed that the Lord would greatly bless me, and keep me throughout the day : and He has done so ; and generally does when I fully attend to religious duties early in the morning. But, if I neglect, and rush into the world without properly attend- ing to my religious duties, nothing goes right. I am wrong in my own heart, and no one round me is right."
 * This was a native of Somosomo. His people not being allowed to become Christian, he