The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1929, Page 148

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148

first vessel that was to bring them was wrecked, and
the captain of the second disobeyed orders. ‘Thus
the little party of seven was soon without food and
other supplies among the pitiless, thieving Fue-
gians. They had no powder for their guns; their
nets were destroyed by ice and storms, and their
boats, except one small dingey, were swept away.
They were forced to live on shell-fish, seaweed, and
wild celery. They quenched their thirst with the
rain-water which they found in the hollows of rocks.
Starvation came ever nearer. Scurvy ‘broke out
among them and added its horrors to those of
hunger. One by one they died upon that desert
beach, and Gardiner was the last survivor of that
band of seven deathless heroes.

Searching Parties.

Less than a month after Gardiner had died,
a ship left Montevideo to look for him and his
companions. When this vessel reached Banner
Cove, it found the information painted on the
rocks, “Gone to Spaniard Harbor.” ‘There they
found the grave of one and the bodies of two others
of the seven. The papers which were found showed
that Gardiner and his companions had been out of
provisions since June 22 and that they had died
a miserable death of starvation and scurvy;~~The
papers also told that they had borne all with
singular Christian fortitude. _The men cried like
children as they read the sad story. Of Captain
Gardiner and the three others no trace was found

here.
ee Found.

Four parties were formed to search for the
missing ones. After several days’ search one of the
parties found a small boat drawn up on the beach.
When they came up to it, they found lying by its
side the body of Gardiner —dead of starvation.
In a cave, not far away, they found the body of
another member of the party. A mile and a half
from where they had found the body of Gardiner,
they found the bodies of the remaining two of the
Deathless Seven. The mission had come to a dis-

astrous end.
Gardiner’s Legacy.

Gardiner’s dying hours were concerned with the
welfare of the very Indians who were driving them
_ from place to place. In his letters and journals,
_ providentially saved, he commits his mission to the
care of the Church and maps out the methods by

_ which he thinks it can be best advanced. And that

legacy of faith and love was administered by
levoted men, who deemed it an honor and a priv-

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

ilege to carry on the work on which he had set his
heart. Men said, “With God’s help, the mission
shall be maintained,” and at once set out to carry
out their resolution. Two stations were soon
opened. But the troubles were not yet to end.
When the mission ship Allen Gardiner was sent to
Beagle Channel to build a new station, the natives
received them very kindly and assisted them in
building a house. A few days after their arrival —
it was on a Sunday —all the party save one went
on shore to engage in a service of praise. Hardly
had the service begun when the 300 natives present
attacked the little band and clubbed them to death.

In 1862 a new missionary party was sent out,
among them being Okokko, a native Fuegian. Sev-
eral stations were opened, and the work seemed to
make progress; but when Okokko was visited after
a year at a place called Woolyah, where he was
working alone, his house had been burned to the
ground. God’s appointed time had not yet come for
the Fuegians, though a mission among the Patago-
nians was carried on with some success.

Success!

In 1868 Okokko and another native Fuegian
opened a station among their people at a place not
far from Beagle Channel. The conduct of the
natives was at times most trying; but by dint of
patience and prudence one Indian after another was
won for Christ. In the course of a few years the
miserable wigwams gave place to comfortable cot-
tages; gardens were planted and fenced, roads
built, cattle and goats introduced, and an orphanage
erected. Polygamy, witchcraft, infanticide, wreck-
ing, theft, and other vices were abolished. Those
who had in former years massacred wrecked sailors
now showed them kind hospitality; such as had
formerly been most notorious thieves had learned to
respect the property of others. Charles Darwin had
strenuously opposed sending missionaries to the
Fuegians, as he believed it to be labor lost; but
when he was told of the change which the Gospel
had wrought in them, he frankly acknowledged his
mistake and declared that he “could not have be-
lieved that all the missionaries in the world could
ever have made the Fuegians honest.”

Thus did God once more show that His Gospel is
a living power unto salvation, able to take bar-
barians of the lowest type, whom neither kindness
nor gifts apparently could conciliate and who were
evidently determined to give no countenance to
their white visitors, and make of them kind, help-
ful, and honest children of God. F.J.L.