38 Prospects of the Mission. 
Its history is equally singular. During the first five years, as 
much work was done as has been done, apparently, during the 
succeeding twenty. There was a brilliant dawn, and a splendid 
flush of success at the commencement; but the day that fol- 
lowed has been dark and cloudy. The mission has been tossed 
on stormy waters, and been exposed to disaster, and death, and 
massacre. And these calamities have been compensated by no 
signal victories—at least to the eye of man. If we cannot ex- 
plain this mystery, we can still say, with our Lord, “ Even so, 
Father ; for so it hath seemed good in thy sight.” At the same 
time, there have been causes at work—such as the sweeping 
visitations of disease, the malign influence of traders and the 
cruel acts of the man-stealers—which have kept alive the power 
of superstition, and made the islanders dread the white man’s 
presence. These causes are, we may hope, disappearing. We 
may hope that the time to favour these dark places of the earth 
is close at hand. 
Then we must not forget that that long night of toil has not 
been altogether barren, Besides the church of Aniwa—the 
whole population of which island are receiving the kind christian 
care of our beloved friends, Mr. and Mrs. Paton—in Tana, 
Eramanga, Fotuna, and Efate, there are little bands of people 
whose hearts the Lord has opened to attend to the gospel mes- 
sage, and whose faith, in some cases, has endured sore trial and 
triumphed over very formidable obstacles. 
And, finally, we ought surely to mark it as a matter of un- 
qualified thankfulness to God, that Aneityum was so early and, 
to speak comparatively, so easily won. If Mr. Geddie had met 
with the repulses which have driven the missionaries from the 
other islands, it is difficult to see how the mission ever could 
have had a beginning. But Aneityum gave it a favourable start, 
and has ever since afforded shelter and safe retreat to the 
teachers and missionaries when they were hunted from their 
own stations; and it still forms the base of those operations 
