23 - Romance of Missionary Heroism by John C Lambert

This captivating collection, subtitled “True stories of the intrepid bravery and stirring adventures of missionaries with uncivilized man, wild beasts, and the forces of nature in all parts of the world,” brings to life the thrilling accounts of extraordinary individuals. Discover the remarkable journeys of Jacob Chamberlains medical ministry in India, the perilous challenges faced by Alexander Mackay in Uganda, James Chalmers’ encounters with headhunters in New Guinea, and John Patons mission among the South Sea cannibals. Witness the courage of Hawaiian queen Kapiolani as she confronts the gods of the volcano. These stories are romantic in their celebration of adventure and heroism, yet never romanticized; they tell of sacrifices made, homes left behind, and the heart-wrenching losses endured by these brave missionaries. (Summary by D. Leeson)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter twenty three of the Romance of Missionary Heroism. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Romance of
Missionary Heroism by John Chisholm Lambert, Chapter twenty three, The
Apostle of the New Hebrides. Of all the many island
clusters of the South Pacific, there is none perhaps which

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has so good a claim as the New Hebrides to
be regarded as a classic ground in the history of
Christian missions. It was on Aromanga, one of this group,
that John Williams, the greatest of all the missionaries of Oceania,
the Apostle of the South Seas, as he has justly
been called, fell in death under the club of a
fierce cannibal. And it was on Tana, an adjacent island,

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that the veteran doctor John G. Payton, a man not
less apostolic than John Williams, began a career so full
of intrepid action and hair breadth escape, of thrilling adventure
and extraordinary romance, mingled at times with dreadful tragedy, that,
more almost than any other in the missionary annals of
modern times, it serves to illustrate the saying truth is

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stranger than fiction. It is nearly fifty years since doctor
Peyton was sent out by the Reformed Presbyterian Church of
Scotland to begin his life work among the cannibals of
the New Hebrides. Tana was the island chosen for his sphere,
an island hitherto untouched by Christianity, and the Tanis were

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among the most ferocious savages of those southern seas. When
he landed, war was afoot between an inland tribe and
a tribe of the shore. He tells how on the
very first night that he spent on Tana, five or
six men who had been killed in the fighting were
cooked and eaten at a neighboring spring, so that next morning,
when he wanted some water to make tea for his breakfast,

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the spring was so polluted with blood that it could
not be used. On the second evening, the quiet of
the night was broken by a sound more blood curdling
even than the howls of infuriated warriors. A wild wailing
cry from the villages around long continued and unearthly. It
told of the strangling of the widow, that she might

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accompany her dead husband into the other world and be
his servant there as she had been here. At first,
mister Peyton had the companionship of his brave young wife
amidst the trials and perils which had daily to be faced.
But in a few months she was cut off by fever,
together with the little son who had just been born

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to them. The lonely man had to dig a grave
with his own hands and lay the bodies of his
beloved ones in the dust. At this time, when he
was almost distracted with grief, a providential visit from Bishop
Selwyn and mister Coleridge Pattison in their missionship, brought him
the consolation of true Christian sympathy. Standing with me, he writes,

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beside the grave of mother and child, I weeping aloud
on his one hand, and Pattison afterwards, the martyr Bishop
of Nukapu, sobbing silently on the dad the other. The
godly Bishop Selwyn poured out his heart to God amidst
sobs and tears, during which he laid his hands on
my head and invoked Heaven's richest consolations and blessings on

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me and my trying labors. Strengthened by this angel visit
from the noble pair of Church of England missionaries. Mister
Peyton set to work once more, though day by day
he was made to feel that his life hung by
a single thread. Constantly the savages threatened him with death.
Sometimes during the night they made cowardly attempts upon his life,

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but in some way or other, the stumbling of an assailant,
the barking of his trusty dog, the working of superstitious
fear in a heathen heart, the danger was always turned aside.
One morning, before daybreak, mister Peyton was wakened by the
noise of shots being fired along the beach. He had
brought a few native teachers from the Christian island of

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Anetaium to help him in his work, and one of
these men rushed in breathlessly to say that six or
seven natives had been shot dead to make a provision
for a great cannibal feast, and that the murderers were
coming to kill mister Peyton and the on Italioumese for
the same purpose. At once he called all the teachers
into the house, locked the door and barred the window.

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By and by the tramp of many approaching feet was heard,
and all through the morning and the long forenoon, the
Cannibals kept running round the house, whispering to one another
and hovering about the window and the door, but the
expected attack was never made. The Tines knew that mister
Peyton had a fowling piece and a revolver in the house,
they did not know that he had vowed never to

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use them to destroy human lives, and the fear of
these weapons in a white man's hands must have held
them back. For towards noon they stole silently away and
held their gruesome feast without the addition of Christian victims.
Amidst scenes like these, mister Peyton went on steadily with
his work, teaching all whom he could get to listen,

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mastering the language, translating parts of the Bible into tannies,
and printing them with a little printing press that he
had got from Scotland. He was greatly cheered at last
by the arrival of another missionary, mister Johnston, who was
accompanied by his wife. But not long after their arrival,
a painful tragedy befell. It was New Year's night and

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the Johnstons had joined mister Peyton at family worship. Worship
over they retired to their own cabin, which was only
a few yards off, But mister Johnston came back immediately
to inform mister Peyton that two men with painted faces
were standing just outside his window, armed with huge clubs
going out. Mister Peyton at once confronted these nocturnal visitors

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and asked them what they wanted. Medicine for a sick boy,
they replied. He told them to come in and get it,
but the agitation they showed and their evident unwillingness to
come into the light of the room made him suspect
that they had some murderous design. He allowed no sign
of his thoughts to appear, however, but stepped along with

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mister Johnston into the house, followed by the two men,
and keeping a watchful eye on them all the while,
quietly prepared the medicine. When he came forward with it,
the men, instead of taking it, tightened their grasp upon
their killing stones. But his steady gaze seemed to cow them,
and when he sternly ordered them to leave the house,

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they turned away. At that moment, mister Johnston stooped down
to lift a little kitten of mister Peyton's that was
running out at the door and instantly one of the
savages leaped forward and aimed a blow at the stooping man.
Mister Johnston saw it coming, and, in trying to avoid it,
rolled over and fell prostrate on the floor. Quick as thought,

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mister Peyton sprang in between his friend and the savages,
upon which the two men turned on him and raised
their stone clubs in the air to strike him down.
He was saved by the courage and fidelity of his
two dogs. One of them, in particular, a little crossbred
retriever with terrier's blood in him, showed the utmost boldness
and sprang furiously at the faces of the cannibals. The

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dog was badly hurt, but the savages were foiled, and
at last they took to their heels through the door.
Accustomed to such scenes, mister Peyton retired to rest and
slept soundly with the newly arrived missionary. It was otherwise
he had received a nervous shock from which he never recovered,
and in three weeks he was dead again. Mister Peyton

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had to make a coffin and dig a grave, and
then he says, referring to the heartbroken young widow and himself,
we two alone at sunset, laid him to rest close
by the mission house, beside my own dear wife and child.
Shortly after this, a dreadful deed of blood was wrought
on Eromanga, where John Williams had been murdered fully twenty

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years before. The reverend mister Gordon and his wife, Presbyterian
missionaries from Nova Scotia, had been settled on the island
and were making some inroads on its heathendom. But the
Sandalwood traders of the New Hebrides, a very debased set
of men in those days, hated mister Gordon because he
denounced their atrocities and warned the natives against their vices.

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In revenge, they excited the superstitions of the Arimangans by
persuading them that a plague of measles and a hurricane,
both of which had recently visited the island, were brought
about by mister Gordon. Thus the sandal Woods were responsible
for a calamity which made Arimanga once more a martyr Isle,
and all but led to a scene of martyrdom Montana. Also,

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one day, when mister Gordon was hard at work thatching
a printing shed in which he hoped to provide the
Arimangans with the word of God in their own tongue.
Two men came to him and begged for medicine. At
once he left his work and started with them towards
the mission house. As he was stepping over a streamlet
that ran across the path, his foot slipped, and that

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moment the two men were upon him with their tomahawks.
A terrible blow on the spine laid him on the ground.
A second on the neck almost parted his head from
his body. Immediately, a band of natives who had been
hiding in the surrounding bush, rushed out and danced in
frantic joy round the dead missionary. Meanwhile, missus Gordon, hearing

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the noise, came out of the house wondering what had happened.
The spot where her murdered husband lay was fortunately concealed
from her eyes by a clump of trees. One of
the natives approached her, and, when she asked him what
the noise meant, told her that it was only the
boys amusing themselves. Then, as she turned to gaze once
more in the direction of the shouting, he crept stealthily

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behind her, drove his tomahawk into her back and severed
her neck with his next blow. Just after this double murder,
a sandalwood trader brought a party of Arimangans over to
Tana in his boat. These Arimangans urged the Tanis to
kill mister Peyton, as they themselves had killed the Gordons,
And though some of the Tana chiefs refused to have

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anything to do with the business, the great majority of
them began to cry aloud for the missionary's death. Crowds
came flocking to the mission house and shouting in mister
Peyton's hearing, the men of Arimanga killed Missy Williams long ago,
and now they have killed Missy Gordon. Let us kill
Missy Peyton too, and drive the worship of Jehovah from

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our land. Another favorite cry of the time, and one
that boded ill for this much enduring man, whose constant
peril's adventures and escapes recall the story of Old Ulysses.
Was our love to the Arimongans. Our love to the Arimongans.
At this juncture, just when mister Peyton's life from day
to day seemed to be hanging by a single hair,

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two British warships sailed into the harbor. Seeing the state
of matters, the Commodore urged mister Peyton to leave Tana
at once, and offered to convey him either to New
Zealand or to the island of Anetaium, where Christianity had
obtained a firm footing. But though grateful for the Commodore's kindness,
he firmly declined to leave his post. He knew that

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if he did so, his station would immediately be broken up,
and all the labors of the past three or four
years would go for nothing. Moreover, in spite of all
that had happened, in spite of the fact that so
many of the people would willingly have put him to death,
he loved those cruel savages with that Christian love which
seized the latent possibilities of goodness in the very worst

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of men. To him. A troop of howling cannibals, literally
thirsting for his blood were his dear benighted Tanies. After all,
it takes a hero to understand a hero, and it
may help us to appreciate mister Peyton's heroism in standing
fast at what he felt to be the post of duty.
When we find what Bishop Selwyn thought of it, after

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hearing the whole story of the incident from Commodore Seymour's
own lips. Describing to a friend how the brave scotchman
had declined to leave Tana by h M. S. Pelorus,
he added, and I like him all the better for
so doing. The following words in one of his letters
show how high he rated mister Peyton's conduct. Talk of bravery,

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talk of heroism. The man who leads a forlorn hope
is a coward in comparison with him who, on Tana
thus alone, without a sustaining look or cheering word from
one of his own race, regards it as his duty
to hold on in the face of such dangers. We
read of the soldier found after the lapse of ages,
among the ruins of Herculaneum, who stood firm at his

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post amid the fiery rain destroying all around him, thus
manifesting the rigidity of the discipline amongst those armies of
ancient Rome which conquered the world. Mister Peyton was subjected
to no such iron law. He might, with honor, when
offered to him, have sought a temporary asylum in Auckland,
where he would have been heartily received, but he was

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moved by higher considerations. He chose to remain, and God
knows whether at this moment he is in the land
of the living. After the departure of the men of war,
constant attempts were made on mister Peyton's life. Sometimes his
empty revolver drove away his cowardly assailants. Frequently he was
delivered by his perfect faith in the divine protection and

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the confidence with which he asserted that faith. Once, for example,
as he was going along a path in the bush,
a man sprang suddenly from behind a bread fruit tree, and,
swinging his tomahawk on high with a fiendish look, aimed
it straight for mister Peyton's brow. Springing aside, the missionary
avoided the blow, and before the ruffian could raise his

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weapon a second time, he turned upon him and said,
in a voice in which there was no fear, if
you dare to strike me, my Jehovah God will punish you.
He is here to defend me. Now. At once the
man trembled from head to foot and looked all round
to see if this Jehovah God might not be standing
near among the shadows. Another time, it seemed that the

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end had surely come. A conch shell was heard peeling
out a warlike summons. Evidently it was a preconcerted signal,
for the ominous notes had not died away. Before there
was seen an immense multitude of armed savages advancing out
the double down the slopes of a hill some distance off.
Abandoning the mission house, mister Peyton, with his native teachers,

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escaped through the bush to the village of a half
friendly chief some miles away. But it was not long
till the savages were hot foot on their trail. The
fugitives saw them coming and knew that God alone could
save them. We prayed, says doctor Peyton, as one can
only pray when in the jaws of death. And then
a strange thing happened, when, about three hundred yards off

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the pursuers suddenly stood stock still. The chief with whom
he had taken refuge, touched mister Peyton's knee and said,
Messi Jehovah is hearing. And to this day doctor Peyton
can give no other explanation of what took place. That
host of warriors, to whom no opposition could possibly have
been offered, hesitated, turned back and disappeared into the forest.

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At length, there came what doctor Peyton's brother and editor
describes as the Last awful night. Driven from his own station,
mister Peyton had succeeded after encountering dreadful risks and hardships
by sea and land enjoining mister and Missus Matheson, who
occupied another post of the mission at the opposite end
of Tana. But soon the cannibals were on his track again,

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and the crisis came, which led to the breaking up
for a time of all Christian work on Tana. The
mission house was in a state of siege, and mister Peyton,
worn out with fatigue and constant watching, had fallen into
a deep sleep. He was wakened by his faithful dog, Cluthup,
pulling at his clothes. Feeling sure that the instincts of

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the animal had not deceived it, and that even in
the dead silence of the night, it must have scented
some danger. Mister Peyton wakened his companions. Hardly had he
done so, when a glare of red light fell into
the room. Then dark figures were seen flitting to and
fro with blazing torches and making for the adjoining church,
which was speedily in flames. Next, the savages applied their

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torches to the reed fence by which the mission house
was connected with the church. And now the inmates knew
that in a very few minutes the house also would
be on fire, and that outside in the night, armed
savages would be waiting to strike them down with cowered
blows if they tried to make their escape. Then it
was that mister Peyton performed a deed which, if done

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by a soldier on the field of battle, would be
thought worthy of the Victoria Cross. Seizing a little American
tomahawk with his right hand, and taking his empty revolver
in the left, he issued suddenly from the door, before
the savages had closed in upon the house. Running towards
the burning fence, he attacked that part of it which
was still untouched by the fire, cutting it down with

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his tomahawk in a frenzy of haste, and hurling it
back into the flames, so that it might no longer
serve as a conductor between the church and the house.
At first the savages were spell bound by his boldness,
but soon several of them leaped forward with clubs uplifted,
leveling his harmless revolver at them. Mister Peyton dared them

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to strike him, And though they all urged one another
to give the first blow, not one of them had
the courage to do it. So they stood facing each
other in the lurid glow of the burning church, now
flaring up through the midnight like a great torch, the
intrepid white Man and that band of bloodthirsty cannibals. And
then there occurred something which the chief actor in this

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most dramatic scene has never ceased to attribute to the
direct interposition of God. A rushing, roaring sound came out
of the south, like the muttering of approaching thunder. Every
head was turned into distinctively in that direction, for the
natives knew by experience that a tornado was about to
burst upon them. In another moment it fell. Had it

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come from the north, no power on earth could have
saved the mission house and its inmates. But coming from
the quarter exactly opposite, it swept the flames backwards and
destroyed every chance of the house taking fire. And on
the heels of the loud hurricane, there came a lashing
torrent of tropical rain, which before long extinguished the fire altogether.

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With this furious onset of the elements, a panic seized
the savages. This is Jehovah's reign, they cried, and in
a few moments every one of them had disappeared into
the darkness, leaving mister Peyton free to rejoin mister Matheson
and his wife in perfect safety. That was mister Peyton's
last night on Tanna. Next morning, the bluebell, a trading

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vessel came sailing into the bay, and by it the
missionaries were rescued from their now desperate situation and taken
to eyes Nataium. Both mister and Missus Matheson died soon after,
the strain of their experiences on Tana had been too great.
But in mister Peyton's case, those years of trial and
apparent defeat proved but his apprenticeship for the extraordinary work

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he has accomplished since first by his labours on the
island of Aniwa, which lies between Tana and Aromanga. The
natives there, though cannibals, too, were less violent and brutal
than the Tanese. Doctor Peyton tells how, in clearing ground
to build himself a house on Aniwa, he gathered off
that little spot of earth two large baskets of human bones.

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Pointing to them, he said to an Oniwon chief, how
do these bones come to be here? Ah, replied the
native with a shrug worthy of a cynical Frenchman. We
are not tana men. We do not eat the bones.
The tale of mister Peyton's life in Aniwa is as
thrilling as any in the annals of the missionary Church.
But that, as mister Kipling would say, is another story

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and cannot be told here. Nor can we do more
than allude to the romance of mister Peyton's wanderings through
the Australian bush and over the cities of England and Scotland,
in connection with the building of the day spring, or
rather of a succession of day springs. For shipwreck was
a common thing in those coral studded seas, and the
time came besides when for mission work, as for other work,

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the ship of sails had to give place to the
ship of steam, and to come back to Tana again.
It can only be said that fruit appeared at length
in that hardest field in Heathendom doctor Peyton has had
the joy of seeing other men enter into his labours
the peculiar joy of giving his own son, the Reverend
Frank Peyton, to that same island, where he toiled in

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loneliness and tears, till driven from its shores by the
savages themselves. His patient sufferings, no less than his unselfish work,
helped to bring about at last a relenting of the
Tanese heart. His early plowshare, we might say, driven through
the hard soil, opened the way for the hopeful sowers
and glad reapers who came in due season. End of

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Chapter twenty three