The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-08-26


Done For the South Sea Islands.
Early Missionaries and Their In
fuence-A Native Boy Hero.
jCopyright)
Steamship Alameda, in NIid-Oceau,
july lO.-Thcre are some things in the
mind year after year remaining unde-
fined. The time for explanation does not
seem to come. We had for years seen al
lusions to the Southern Cross. We knew
not what it meant. We supposed it to be
an appearance in the heavens at certain
latitude and longitude, yet we knew not
exactly what that appearance was. But
seated a few nights ago on the deck of
this ship in our voyage around
the world gentleman bent over
me and said. 1.-The Southern Cross
is visible. Let US go and see it, Going
TO the opposite side of the ship. looked
up and behcld it in all its suggestivehess
looking down upon us, and looking down
upon the sea. The Southern Cross. is
made up of four bright stars. One star,
standing at the top Of the perpendicular
piece of the cross. and another star stand
ing for the foot of it, one star standing
for the right hand end Of the horizontal
piece Of the cross, and another star for
the left hand end of it. So clear. so re
splendent, so charged with significance,
so sublimely marking off the heavens that
neither man nor woman nor child nor
angel nor devil can doubt it. The South
ern Cross To make it God put those
four worlds in their places. The tender
and tremendous emblem of our religion
nailed against the heavens with silver
nails Of star -Four are enough
con WASTES so WORLDS.
He will not encourage stupidity. If you
cannot see the Southern Cross in the four
stars. forty s.ars viii not make YOU see il.
Up Wonder they stand, the four stellar
evangclists unfolding the cross, What
GOSPEL uI the trmumentl The Cross that
Constantine saw in the sky with the
words. BY this conquer, was an evanes-
cent cross ami for one night, but this
Southern Cross is for all nights, and to
last while creation lasts. So every night
of this voyage among the islands Of the
Pacific / am re:uiuded by this celestial
Cruci6X of the only influence that has
turned the islands from their cruelty,
and shame essuess and hOrror-the in
fiueuce of the Cross.
Excepting the throne of the deity, |
think there will be no higher thrones in
heaven than those occupied by the mis-
sionaries. others have lived and died
for their own country. These lived and
died for the natives of other countries.
Many oil the missionaries were the gradu-
ates OF Yale or Princeton. or New Bruins
wick, or Oxford or Cambridge, or Ediu-
bucgh, and were qualified for pulpits for
editorial chairs, for medical achieve
ment, for great words ana deeds in court
rooms, for commercial successes that
would have brought all honors and all
Injuries to their feet. Many of the
women of this foreign mission cause were
brought up in refined associations, could
play well on musical Instruments, were the
charm of best society, had attractiveness
that fJted them for any circle of ease or
opulence Such men and women took
whaleships for foreign lands lived on fare
that only coarsest digestive organs could
manage, were tossed for months on rough
seas, landed amid naked savages, abode
in grass huts, spent life amid the squalor
and the stencil, and the vermin, and the
epidemics and the low vices of those
whom they had come to rescue. OF roll
of a hundred and eighty names of such
men and women not more than four or
five of them were ever heard of outside of
their own kindred or the circles of bar
barians among whom they lived. The
story of the Christian
HEROES AND HERoINEs
who came to these islands of the Pacific
in the Brig Thaddeus, the Leland, the
BENJAMIN Bush, the Averich, and the
Mary Frazier under Capt. Charles Sum
ner, can never be fully told. All the tai
ents, all the scholarship, all the nerve
and muscle and brain, all the spiritual en-
ergies of these Christly men and women
put forth on behalf of people whom they
had never SEEN and whose names they
had never heard pronounced until the day
of the arrival on these islands. Some of
these messengers of light were cut TO-
pieces and deVoured by cannibals. Some
of them toiled to save the besOtted saw
age while proaigates of Christian coan-
tries landed from merchantmen or war
vessel or whaling ship were trying TO de-
stroy them. The daughter of one
of the missionary families de-
seribes her mother as toiling un-
til the skin was blistered off her
arms, and says that while her father was
about to preach a group of drunken sail
ors broke the windows and brandished q
knife about his face. saying, Here he is /;
have got him Come Onln These mis-
sionaries s9nt their little children TO
America and Europe because they could
not be properly brought up amid heather
ism, and what heart-rending partings
took place as fathers and mothers sur
rendered their children for the VOYAGE
across the seas, in many cases those pa
rents never seeing their children again.
No regular postal arrangements, letters
were often not received until eighteen
months or two years old. The ship Capt.
Charles Summer, for the first part of the
voyage to the Pacific with his group of
missionaries, sco1ed at Christianity, but
he was converted under the influence OF
their example and became their cham.
pion. He said about one of these Pacific
islands, 81 have been here before and ]
see the difference. Formerly as soon as
my anchor was down my snip was sur
rounded by
DIssOLUTE MEN AND WOMEN,
Swimming out from shore and trying C
come aboard. How different now Chris
'tianity has made the change" And
when some one traduced the missionarie,
he said: "Oh you need not tel me these
stories. have lived four months with
these dreadful people and know then
well. / knew the natives, too, as they
were many years ago, and / am fully con
WINGED that the change l see is from til,
influence ofthe religion of the Biblen
. One boy was the means OF the Civili2a
ton and eyangelization Of the Sandwich
Islands. His. father and mother wer,
killed and he ran away with his bah,
brother on his back. The infant was
slain by spear. The heroic boy got on
ship for New England. lie was founC