The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1894-08-31
THE SOUTHERN CROSS
THE. EMBLEM GOD MADE WITH FOUR
WORLDS IN THE HEAVENS.

Celestial Crucifx-Grand Work Done b!
Missionaries In the South Sea Islands
Heroes and Heroines.
copyright, Louis Klopsch. lS94.l
STEAMSHIP ALAMEDA, Midocean, July
20.-There are some things in the mint
year after year remaining underlined
The time for explanation does not seen
to come. We had for years seen allu
Bions to the southern cross. We knew
not what it meant. We supposed it tt
be an appearance in the heavens at GER
tain latitude and longitude, yet we
knew not exactly what that appearance
was. But, seated few nights ago Oh
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 beheld it in all its suggestive
ness looking down upon us and looking
down upon the sea. The southern cross
1t is made up Of four bright stars. One
star standing at the top of the perpen-
dicular piece Of the cross, and another
star standing 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 Respondent. so charged with
Significance, so sublimely marking off
the heavens that neither man nor wom-
an nor child nor angel nor devil can
doubt it. The southern cross To make
it God put those four worlds in their
places. The tender and tremendous en-
blem of our religion nailed against the
heavens with silver nails of star. -Four
are enough.
God wastes no worlds He will not
encourage stupidity. If you cannot
see the southern cross in the four
stars, 40 stars will not make you see
it. Up yonder they stand, the four
stellar evangelists unfolding the cross.
What gospel Of the frmamentl The
cross that Constantine saw in the sky
with the words, SPY this conquer, :"
was an evanescent Cross and 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 l am reminded by
this celestial crucifix of the only inf1u-
ence that has turned the islands from
their cruelty and shamelessness and hor-
ror-the influence of the cross.
Excepting the throne of the Deity,
think there will be no higher thrones
in heaven than those occupied by the
missionaries. Others have lived and died
for their own country. These lived and
died for the natives of other countries.
Many of the missionaries were the grad
yates of Yale or Princeton or New
Brunswick or Oxford or Cambridge or
Edinburgh and were qualified for pull
pits, for editorial chairs, for medical
achievement, for great words and deeds
in courtrooms, for commercial successes
that would have brought all honors and
all luxuries to their feet. Many of the
women of this foreign mission cause
were brought up in refined associations,
could play we'll ON musical instruments,
were the charm of best society, had at
Effectiveness that fitted them for any cir
Gle 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 their 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 $50 names of such men and wom-
en- not more than four or five of them
were ever heard of outside of their own
kindred of the circles of barbarians
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 Ave-
rich and the Mary Frazier under Cap
tain Charles Sumner can never be fully
told. All the talents, all the scholar
ship, all the nerve and muscle and
brain, all the spiritual energies 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
1u6SSeuSSIS VI IlSUJ were cut TO pieces
and devoured by cannibals. Some of
them toiled to save the besotted saw
age, while profigates of Christian coun-
tries landed from merchantmen or war
vessel or whaling ship were trying to
destroy them. The daughter of one of
the missionary families describes her
mother as toiling until the skin was
blistered off her arms and says that
while her father was about to preach
group of drunken sailors broke the win
dows and one brandished knife about
his face, saying: Here he is. l have
got him. Come onr" These missionaries
sent their little children to America and
Europe because they could not be prop
erly brought up amid heathenism, and
what heartrendingf partings took place
as fathers and mothers surrendered their
children for the voyage across the seas,
In many cases those parents never see
Ing their children againl No regular
postal arrangements-letters were often
not received until Is months or two