The Story of John G. Paton; Or, Thirty Years Among South Sea CannibalsPaton, John Gibson
Religion
The Story of John G. Paton; Or, Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals
Paton, John Gibson
Missions -- Vanuatu; Paton, John Gibson, 1824-1907
My fever had reached the worst stage, but I struggled to my feet got to
his bedside, and found him in a state of coma, with his teeth fixed in
tetanus. With great difficulty we succeeded in slightly rousing him;
with a knife, spoon, and pieces of wood, we forced his teeth open, so as
to administer an emetic with good effects, and also other needful
medicines. For twelve hours, we had to keep him awake by repeated cold
dashes in the face, by ammonia, and by vigorously moving him about. He
then began to speak freely; and next day he rose and walked about a
little. For the two following days, he was sometimes better and
sometimes worse; but we managed to keep him up till the morning of the
21st, when he again fell into a state of coma, from which we failed to
rouse him. At two o'clock in the afternoon he fell asleep--another
Martyr for the testimony of Jesus in those dark and trying Isles,
leaving his young wife in indescribable sorrow, which she strove to bear
with Christian resignation. Having made his coffin and dug his grave, we
two alone at sunset laid him to rest beside my own dear wife and child,
close by the Mission House.
CHAPTER XXX.
KOWIA.
ANOTHER tragedy followed, with, however, much of the light of Heaven
amid its blackness, in the story of Kowia, a Tannese Chief of the
highest rank. Going to Aneityum in youth, he had there become a true
Christian. He married an Aneityumese Christian woman, with whom he lived
very happily and had two beautiful children. Some time before the
measles reached our island he returned to live with me as a Teacher and
to help forward our work on Tanna. He proved himself to be a decided
Christian; he was a real Chief amongst them, dignified in his whole
conduct, and every way a valuable helper to me. Everything was tried by
his own people to induce him to leave me and to renounce the Worship,
offering him every honor and bribe in their power. Failing these, they
threatened to take away all his lands, and to deprive him of
Chieftainship, but he answered "Take all! I shall still stand by Missi
and the Worship of Jehovah."
From threats they passed to galling insults, all which he bore patiently
for Jesu's sake. But one day a party of his people came and sold some
fowls, and an impudent fellow lifted them after they had been bought and
offered to sell them again to me. Kowia shouted, "Don't purchase these,
Missi; I have just bought them for you, and paid for them!"
Thereon the fellow began to mock at him. Kowia, gazing round on all
present, and then on me, rose like a lion awaking out of sleep, and with
flashing eyes exclaimed, "Missi, they think that because I am now a
Christian I have become a coward! a woman! to bear every abuse and
insult they can heap upon me. But I will show them for once that I am no
coward, that I am still their Chief, and that Christianity does not take
away but gives us courage and nerve."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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