Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/580

 542 FIJI A2sT) THE FIJIAXS. guished talent ; but Fiji could ill spare Mm ; for her tribes are silentl} passing away into eternity unsaved. Yes ; 150,000 Fijians — immortal, redeemed — are moving down into the dark valley of death, and the deep gulf of eternity beyond, unenlightened, unwarned, and, because unenlightened and unwarned, unsaved. O that the Churches of Britain were acquainted with the piteous thoughts that wring the hearts of Fiji's Missionaries ! They would then not allow us to kill ourselves with our work ; but they would make up our staff to twenty. They would say, sacrifice to om-selves ; ' and then God in heaven would smile His approval, and He would stretch forth more gloriously His mighty arm for Fiji's help, and He would verify His own gracious promise, ' He that watereth others, shall himself also be watered.' But you ask, ' What are these thoughts that would make your eyes weep blood, if blood could flow from the fountain of tears V They are the thoughts of ike mass of ike present generation of Fiji's many tribes passing away into eternity rs" their blood, — passing away to the judgment-throne imen lightened, unsaved. They are the thoughts of hundreds now actu- ally, by their own act, severed from Heathenism, and never hearing the Missionary's voice ; hundreds, whom we have taught, and now they hunger for the bread of life, but we cannot give it ; hundreds, to whom we have spoken of the rivers of salvation, and now they thirst, and in piteous accents cry, ' Where, where is the fountain of the water of life, that we may drink and live % ' But, alas ! we cannot point them to it; and we have no hope of doing it, unless our numbers are doubled at once. And if the seven or eight Missionaries who have, with God's blessing, and under your sanction, taught 45,000 cannibal Fijians to hunger for the bread of life, cannot now satisfy that hunger, what can they do for the great mass of Fiji, which is, although, perhaps, overlooked, perhaps forgotten, still heathen, and still unsaved ? " 0, fathers and brethren, think not that I am guilty of presumption, charge me not with exaggeration, deem me not a fanatic, when I tell you that your Missionaries in Fiji can do nothing for the larger portion of Fiji's benighted race, which is still cannibal, still heathen, still without one ray of Gospel li.ht ; and when I ask you to appeal to the British Churches of Methodism, /or ile saTce o/the blood of the Son of God, which cries and pleads before the eternal throne for Fiji's perishing sons, to pity poor FIJI, and to send help at once to poor perishing Fiji. Na'ua ; and of a perilous and interesting journey into the very heart of the large island of Fiji, (three hundred miles in circumference,) where
 * Fiji shall have twexty Missionaries, at whatever cost, whatever
 * • But I must check my pen. I purposed to tell you of a visit to