# The Lutheran Pioneer_St. Louis_1925_S179
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

179:

Christian missionaries proceeded to other islands,
all of which were in every way veritable strongholds
of the realm of Satan. They were compelled to
witness atrocities almost incredible and passed
through dangers in a way truly miraculous.

But after ten years’ work a wonderful change
took place. A number of powerful chiefs turned
from the slavery of Satan to the service of Christ.
Men who had been monsters of iniquity became
preachers of the Gospel. Within sixty years of the
coming of the first missionaries there were over

a

70,000. The New Hebrides have become famous
in missionary history through the blessed labors of
the “three great missionary Johns”: John Wil-
liams, John Geddie, and John G. Paton. The first
is appropriately called “the Apostle of the South
Seas.” He came to the island world of the Pacific
in 1817 and, beginning his missionary efforts on
the Society Islands, soon extended them with the
aid of native workers, whom he prepared and sent
out to the Hervey, Samoan, Fiji, and other island
groups. Five ships, purchased or built by himself,

Tanu, King of Samoa.

800 churches on the islands, and the Gospel was
regularly preached at 200 other places. Tighty
per cent. of the people are said to be regular at-
tendants at Christian public worship.

The baptismal font of one church has been made
out of the rock upon which in heathen days the
victims of cannibal feasts were slaughtered. An
eloquent witness of what marvels the Gospel has
wrought in the Fiji Islands.

Ture New HEBRIDES.

, These islands lie to the west of the Fiji group.
There are about seventy of them. The thirty in-

habited islands of the group have a population of

.

were used by him in his evangelistic efforts, and
within a period of less than twenty years there was
not an island of any importance within a radius of
2,000 miles of Tahiti, his headquarters in the
Society Islands, that had not been visited.

Under the leadership of the intrepid Williams
the English- missionaries and native workers per-
formed deeds and underwent hardships almost in-
credible. God’s particular blessing attended the
efforts of Williams and his coworkers on Rarotonga,
.an island of the Hervey group, and also on Samoa.
Williams and his helpers were themselves overawed
by the proofs of the Spirit’s working through the
Word.