How the Gospel Triimiphed, 283 
not lawful to hold religious services in the town of Lakemba 
prior to this decision on the part of the king, although 
many hundreds of religious conversations had been held in 
one house and another with different people. Yet, although 
the public worship of God was prohibited, the king had 
commanded some degree of outward respect to be shown to 
the Sabbath-day, and forbade his people from engaging in 
noisy occupations calculated to annoy the Christians. Just 
at this time, a powerful Mbau chief declared war against 
Lakemba, in revenge for his disappointment at not being 
able to obtain wives from the Christian Lakembans. But 
although he arrived off the shore with three hundred fight- 
ing men in six large canoes, he was not permitted to land 
them. The Christian Fijians and Tongans were quite pre- 
pared to defend their faith, if need were. After a parley 
with the king, the Mbau chief was glad to be permitted to 
return, much crestfallen, to his own men, and the danger 
was averted. From this date the history of the mission in 
that part of Fiji, is one of unbroken success. Chapels and 
schools arose on every hand ; hundreds of the people re- 
nounced polygamy, and were lawfully married to one wife ; 
thousands of children were taught in the schools ; and 
hearts were blessed by the grace of God. From Lakemba 
the leaven spread into tributary districts, even where mis- 
sionaries had never gone, for the people carried the good 
news to one another. The small island of Totoya furnishes 
one instance of this statement. On that island, at the time 
of Mr. Malvern's visit in 1849, although no missionary had 
ever before gone among the people, he found a Christian 
Church, numbering fifty-nine members^ and a congregation 
of over three hundred adherents. 
