Whatever the daughter of Adams may have feared in her love for her
father, he himself did not appear afraid to receive these English
visitors to his island refuge. For he felt that as, in the sight of God,
his sin had for Christ's sake been pardoned, so in the eyes of men these
long years of penitence, and of honest endeavor after a better life,
would surely have won pardon for the sins of his youth. It was with
feelings too deep for words that he looked once more on the faces of his
countrymen and heard the English speech from other lips than those to
whom he had taught it. All the memories of early days awoke in him, and
he longed to return once more and see his native land before he died.
But as soon as those round him understood his wish, they seized his
hands, they clung around him, praying him with tears not to desert them,
not to leave his children; and Adams, much moved, promised to remain.
And indeed he would have been sorely missed had he gone, for he was the
chief authority on the island. He it was who each Sunday led the prayers
of the islanders, all assembled around him in the church which they had
built, thinking, as they joined in the words of the service, of their
unknown brethren in the great country beyond the seas. He it was who
explained week by week the words of the Bible to his listening
companions, taught the children, and married the young people.
It was to Adams that every dispute was referred; all those slight
disagreements which spring up from time to time, but which with the
islanders were never, as they said, more than word-of-mouth quarrels,
and always ended before set of sun.
The captains, though anxious to linger awhile in this island home, were
obliged to leave next day, and they departed amid the regrets and
farewells of these simple-hearted, affectionate people, a people
Christian in heart as well as in name,--sincere, modest, pure, and
unselfish, whose life seemed to be fashioned on the words of God's Book,
"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things
of others."
And all this peace and happiness has sprung, under the blessing of God,
from the seeds of His truth sown long, long years before in the hearts
of two English sailors, and from the power of His truth in His written
word, and in the teaching of His Spirit.
NORFOLK ISLAND.
Far distant from the many other islands with which the Southern Pacific
Ocean is studded, one stands alone, rich in natural beauty, and with a
climate almost unrivalled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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