Then, after a pause, he proceeded,—“When you go back to Fotuna, and they ask you, ‘What is Christianity?’ you will be like an inland Chief of Erromanga, who once came down and saw a great feast on the shore. When he saw so much food and so many different kinds of it, he asked, ‘What is this made of?’ and was answered, ‘Cocoa-nuts and yams.’ ‘And this?’ ‘Cocoa-nuts and bananas.’ ‘And this?’ ‘Cocoa-nuts and taro.’ ‘And this?’ ‘Cocoa-nuts and chestnuts,’ etc., etc. The Chief was immensely astonished at the host of dishes that could be prepared from the cocoa-nuts. On returning, he carried home a great load of them to his people, that they might see and taste the excellent food of the shore-people. One day, all being assembled, he told them the wonders of that feast; and, having roasted the cocoa-nuts, he took out the kernels, all charred and spoiled, and distributed them amongst his people. They tasted the cocoa-nut, they began to chew it, and then spat it out, crying, ‘Our own food is far better than that!’ The Chief was confused and only got laughed at for all his trouble. Was the fault in the cocoa-nuts? No; but they were spoiled in the cooking! So your attempts to explain Christianity will only spoil it. Tell them that a man must live as a Christian before he can show others what Christianity is.” On their return to Fotuna they exhibited Jehovah’s yam, given in answer to prayer and labour; they told what Christianity had done for Aniwa; but did not fail to qualify all their accounts with the story of the Erromangan Chief and the cocoa-nuts, with its very practical lesson. The two Chiefs of next importance on Aniwa were Nerwa and Ruwawa. Nerwa was a keen debater; all his thoughts ran in the channels of logic. When I could speak a little of their language, I visited and preached at his village; but the moment he discovered that the teaching about Jehovah was opposed to their Heathen customs, he sternly forbade us. One day, during my address, he blossomed out into a full-fledged and pronounced Agnostic (with as much reason at his back as the European type!) and angrily interrupted me:— “It’s all lies you come here to teach us, and you call it Worship! You say your Jehovah God dwells in Heaven. Who ever went up there to hear Him or see Him? You talk of Jehovah as if you had visited His Heaven. Why, you cannot climb even to the top of one of our cocoa-nut trees, though we can, and that with ease! In going up to the roof of your own Mission House, you require the help of a ladder to carry you. And even if you could make your ladder higher than our highest cocoa-nut tree, on what would you lean its top? And when you get to its top, you can only climb down the other side and end where you began! The thing is impossible. You never saw that God; you never heard Him speak; don’t come here with any of your white lies, or I’ll send my spear through you.”