The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 20

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

20

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

ee ———————————————————
nin

About a month after their arrival at Norfolk
Island they were visited by John Coleridge Patteson,
at that time the chaplain of Bishop Selwyn of
Melanesia, who provided them with flour and other
necessities. Five years later, in 1861, Patteson suc-
ceeded Bishop Selwyn, and in 1864 he established
his missionary training-school for the natives of the
Loyalty groups on the opposite side of the island.
Patteson took great interest in the new settlers and
did all he could to make them feel at home. His
visits to the island gave him great joy because of
the gentleness of character and virtuous simplicity
of conduct which the inhabitants displayed.

But strange to say, the Pitcairners were not well
pleased with their new home. Though the island
has a very fertile soil; though the noble Norfolk
Pine abounds, and maples, palms, and great ferns
are found in great number; and though the orange,
lemon, banana, fig, peach, and pineapple flourished
and the potato, yam, and other cereals gave large
yields, the Pitcairners longed for their old rock-
bound home. Already in 1858 two families, num-
bering sixteen members, returned to Pitcairn Island.
Later four more families returned to the old home
in spite of the earnest entreaties of Bishop:Patteson,
who called their attention to the superior educa-
tional and religious advantages of Norfolk Island.
Of these four families just mentioned two young
men, however, remained on Norfolk Island to attend
the training-school of Bishop Patteson to prepare
for missionary work, and these two young men ac-
companied the bishop on the missionary voyage to
the Santa Cruz Islands in 1871 and together with
the bishop were killed by the natives of Nukapu
Island of that group because these mistook them
for slave-traders who had recently kidnaped some
people of the island and committed other atrocities.

The population of Norfolk Island, according to
last accounts, numbers 700 persons, of whom 400
were communicant members of the Church of
England, while the population of Pitcairn Island
has already grown to 140 persons, and the problem
of overcrowding is again threatening.

Those of the families living on Norfolk Island
are furnishing not a few of the pupils of the mis-
sionary training-school founded on the island by
Bishop Patteson, and thus from them there is going
out a constant stream of Gospel-messengers to carry
the glad tidings to other islands of the seas. ‘The
families on Pitcairn Island are likewise embarking
on mission enterprises to the natives of Melanesia.
In this manner the descendants of the reckless
mutineers of the ship Bounty, the progeny of crime

and lust, and thus from beginning doubly accursed,
have become a new missionary force among the
islands of the Pacific.

The story of the Pitcairn Islanders is an example
of the power of the Word of God, a proof that it is
indeed the seed of God which by His grace can
raise up in the most sterile and unpromising soil
and amid the most hopeless conditions an abun-
dant harvest for the Kingdom. The Word of God,
without any other assistance, changed Pitcairn
Island from a habitation of the devil into an Eden;
through its divine power the Word brought good out
of evil, light out of darkness, and virtue out of vice.
Where the feet of no other missionary had left his
tracks, this living Word, which lives and abides for-
ever, proved a pioneer missionary, turning an aban-
doned sailor to his God, who, in turn, then used
this same Word to bring the whole bastard com-

munity which surrounded him to their Savior.
Surely, a wonder of transforming grace!
F. J. L.

Our Country’s Greatest Need.

Among the true builders of our country we must
give a prominent place to the noble company of
early home missionaries and their successors. They
aimed at the regeneration of the individual settlers.
As the tide of immigration moved westward, they
tried with their whole strength to lift the newcomers
to a higher plane of living by directing them to
Christ, the Savior. Though they received but little
praise for their labors, they faithfully sought to
have the spiritual progress of our people keep pace
with their material advancement.

To this end they preached Christ in season and
out of season wherever the opportunity was offered
them. Their teaching was enforced by their zeal,
their unselfishness, their devotion to the will of God.
Their love of God, their love for their neighbors,
their love for Christ’s Gospel helped them to build
wisely and solidly. They-served the people of their
day with a heroism and in a spirit of self-sacrifice
that deserved the utmost measure of appreciation
and praise.

Cheerfully these pioneers went forth to carry
the Gospel into the various parts of our country.
Untold are the hardships which these soldiers of
the Cross endured; innumerable the obstacles which
they were compelled to overcome. Never will man

here below know the opposition which these heroes
in the army of God encountered: in their holy war-
fare against sin, world, and Satan. But still they