ON THE ISLAND OF VATE 153 
‘savage heathen to meek and lowly followers of the Saviour. 
They were now manifesting the genuineness of the change 
by leaving home and friends to carry the same glad tidings 
that had saved them to those sitting in spiritual darkness. 
“A few days later we left our friends at Burimba, Api, 
and calling upon them a fortnight after, we found them en- 
joying the friendship of the Apians.” 
Thus it has been everywhere in the South Seas. From 
the worst and most discouraging conditions, God has called 
men who but a short time before were themselves cannibals, 
and sent them as His messengers to peoples yet in darkness. 
What but the grand old gospel of the grace of God can effect 
such transformations! And as it was in those earlier years, 
so it yet is in the still dark and terrible places of heathenism 
that remain in some of the island groups. There, too, it is 
triumphing as of old over the same conditions of savagery. 
May it still hold on its way, advancing from conquest to con- 
quest, till from these lands of deepest darkness many souls 
have been gathered for the kingdom of our Lord and of His 
Christ ! 
