The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-04-13
Letter from Canada.
Corrections-The Gelic-Foreign Mis-
sionS
CLAUDE, ONTARIO, April 4th, 81.

S1OnS.
CLAUDE. ONTARIO, April 4th, 81.
MeSSrS. Editors The distance of Cam
ada from your printing office has made
me responsible for some rather curious
statements in my letters of February 18th
and Oath. One or two of these, you will
kindly allow me to set right. In the
former letter, the sentence regarding Mr..
Rainsford should read: while Mr.
Rainsford, one of the most liberal of the
Low Church ministers, goes out of his
way to decry (not decoy' } Methodists. 3"
In the second letter, 1 meant to say, 1.-The
Protestant minority (not ministry in
the Province of Quebec controls its own
schools and in regard to the Manitoba
College, the statement is, it has been
charged with Theological work IN the
naeantinae.'
Let me add little item. I said that
| believed our Montreal Theological Col
lege stands alone on this continent as
training school for laborers among French
Romanists." 1t has this further distinc-
tlon-to some 1T may seem small one
that special lectures are given to Gaelic
speaking students In the Gaelic tongue.
The lecturer is the Rev. DR.. McNish, of
Cornwall an eminent classical, as we'll as
Celtic scholar.
With your fourishing foreign missions
in China, Mexico, South America, and
Greece, some of your readers may be in
terested in hearing what the Canadian
Church is doing for the nom Christian
world. Our first foreign missionary was
appointed thirty-fve years ago, John
Geddie. The island of Aneityum in the
New Hebrides group was his home and
field OF labor for twenty four years. The
story of his success is told in sentence
on the tablet over the pulpit in the
church, which was the fruit of his early,
and the centre of his later years of toll
When he landed in 1848, there were
no Christians here, and when he left in
1872, there were no heathens" Geddie's
zeal and the missionary spirit of the
Church in the Lower Provinces, which
sent him forth-the first missionary to
the heathen, it is said, sent by any Brit
lsh colonial Church-secured worthy CO.
laborers and successors. Thirteen have
followed him, three of whom now occupy
Erromauga, Aneityum, and Efate. Erro
mauga is name which the martyrdom
OF John Williams will not allow Chris
tendon to forget. Its soil has been rem
dered sacred to us by the blood of three
Of. our own missionaries, George and J.
0. Gordon, and the faithful wife of the
former. The Gordons were remarkable
men. His college course was only part
OF George Gordon's preparation for mis-
sion work. He had had to make his own
way as young man in Prince Edward
Island, and so he could not only preach
but he could hew timber, frame house
tan and dress leather, drive the shoe
makers awl, WELD the blacksmith ham
mer, and thread the tailor's needle" A
strong testimony that his gospel to the
Erromaugans had been "not in word
only, but in power, and in much assur-
ance, is found In the fact, that. while
some who had attached themselves to the
missionary sought safety in flight from
the island at his death, the few who re-
malned were bold enough to ring the
bell on Sabbath morning and meet to-
gether for worship" This was sufficient
fruit of four years labor among the lowest
OF the New Hebrides tribes. Three wears
after his brothers bloody end, John o.
Gordon landed in Erromauga to take his
place lie was man Of thorough devo-
ton, although he could not always see
eye to eye with his brethren, and was
when he was killed, a missionary uncon.
nected with any Church. In 1872, after
eight years work, he fell under treach.
erous blow from the tomahawk of a native
who connected the death Of his two chill.
dren with the missionary's medicine. He
had just finished revising, along with his
native assistant, the translation Of the
account of Stephens martyrdom, wher
the call came. 1t is said that it was this