The Old Helmet. Volume II

"What has become of Alfred?" he asked, in an irrelevant kind of manner, by way of parenthesis.

"I have not seen him – hardly – since you left England. He is not under mamma's care now."

"And my friend Julia? You have told me but a mite yet about everybody."

"Julia is your friend still. But Julia – I have not seen her in a long, long time."

"How is that?"

"Mamma would not let me. O Mr. Rhys! – we have been kept apart. I could not even see her when I came away."

"Why?"

"Mamma – she was afraid of my influence over her."

"Is it possible!"

"Julia was going on well – setting her face to do right. Now – I do not know how it will be. Even our letters are overlooked."

"I need not ask how your mother is. I suppose she is trying to save one of her daughters for the world."

Eleanor's thoughts swept a wide course in a few minutes; remembered whose hand instrumentality had saved her from such a fate and had striven for Julia. With a sigh that was part sorrow and part gratitude, Eleanor laid her head softly on Mr. Rhys's shoulder. With such tenderness as one gives to a child, and yet rarer, because deeper and graver, she was made at home there.

"Don't you want to take a walk to the chapel?"

"O yes!" – But she was held fast still.

"And shall we give sister Balliol the pleasure of our company to tea, as we come back?"

"If you please – if you like."

"I do not like it at all," said Mr. Rhys frankly – "but I suppose we must."

"Think of finding the restraints of society even in Fiji!" said Eleanor trying to laugh, as she brought her bonnet and they set out.

"You must find them everywhere – unless you live to please yourself;" said Mr. Rhys, with his sweet grave look; and Eleanor was consoled.

The walk to the church was not very long, and she could have desired it longer. The river shore, and the view on the other side, and the village by which they passed, the trees and the vegetable gardens and the odd thatched roofs – everything was pretty and new to Eleanor's eyes. They passed all they had seen in coming from the landing that morning, taking this time a path outside the mission premises. Past the house with the row of pillars in front, which Eleanor learned was a building for the use of the various schools. A little further on stood the chapel. It was neat and tasteful enough to please even an English eye; and indeed looked more English than foreign on a distant view; and standing there in the wilderness, with its little bell-tower rising like a witness for all that was good in the midst of a heathen land, the feelings of those who looked upon it had need be very tender and very deep.

"This chapel is dear to our eyes," said Mr. Rhys. "Everything is, that costs such pains. This poor people have made it; and it is one of the best pieces of work in Fiji. It was all done by the labour of their hearts and hands."

"That seems to be the style of carpentry in this country," said Eleanor.

"The chief made up his mind on a good principle – that for a house of the true God, neither time nor material could be too precious. On that principle they went to work. The timber used in the building is what we call green-heart – the best there is in Fiji. To find it, they had to travel over many a mile of the country; and remember, there are no oxen here, no horses; they had no teams to help them. All must be done by the labour of the hands. I think there were about eighty beams of green-heart timber needed for the house – some of them twelve and some of them fifty feet long. In about three months these were collected; found and brought in from the woods and hills, sometimes from ten miles away. While the young men were doing this, the old men at home were all day beating cocoanut husk, to separate the fibre for making sinnet. All day long I used to hear their beaters going; it was good music; and when at the end of every few days the woodcutters came home with their timber – so soon as they were heard shouting the news of their coming – there was a general burst and cry and every creature in the village set off to meet them and help drag the logs home. Women and children and all went; and you never saw people so happy.

"Then the building was done in the same spirit. Many a time when I was busy with them, overlooking their work, I have heard them chanting to each other words from the Bible – band against band. One side would sing – 'But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded.' – Then the other side would answer, 'The Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation.' I cannot tell you how sweet it was. There was another chant they were very fond of. A few would begin with Solomon's petition – 'Have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer, which thy servant prayeth before thee to-day: that thine eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which thou hast said, My name shall be there: that thou mayest hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make toward this place,' – and here a number of the other builders would join in with their cry – 'Hearken unto the prayer which thy servant shall make!' And so in the next verse, when it came near the end the others would join in – 'And when thou hearest, forgive!' – "

"I should think you would love it!" said Eleanor, with her eyes full of tears. "And I should think the Lord would love it."

"Come in, and see how it looks on the inside."

The inside was both simple and elegant, after a quaint fashion; for it was Fijian elegance and Fijian simplicity. A double row of columns led down the centre of the building; they looked like mahogany, but it was only native wood; and the ornamental work at top which served for their capitals, was done in sinnet. Over the doors and windows triangular pediments were elaborately wrought in black with the same sinnet. The roof was both quaint and elegant. It was done in alternate open and close reed-work, with broad black lines dividing it; and ornamental lashings and bandings of sinnet were used about the fastenings and groinings of spars and beams. Then the wings of the communion rail were made of reed-work, ornamented; the rail was a beautiful piece of nut timber, and the balusters of sweet sandal wood. The whole effect exceeding pretty and graceful, though produced with such simple means.

"Mr. Ruskin ought to have had this as an illustration of his 'Lamp of

Sacrifice,'" said Eleanor. "How beautiful! – "

"The 'Lamp of Truth,' too," said Mr. Rhys. "It is all honest work. That side was done by our heathen neighbours. The heathen chief sent us his compliments, said he heard we were engaged in a great work, and if we pleased he would come and help us. So he did. They built that side of the wall and the roof."

"Did they do it well?"

"Heartily."

"Do they come to attend worship in it?"

"The chapel is a great attraction. Strangers come to see – if not to worship, – and then we get a chance to tell the truth to them."

"And Mr. Rhys, how is the truth prospering generally?"

"Eleanor, we want men! – and that seems to be all we want. My heart feels ready to break sometimes, for the want of helpers. I am glad of brother Amos coming – very glad! – but we want a hundred where we have one. It is but a few weeks since a young man came over from one of the islands, a large and important island, bringing tidings that a number of towns there had given up heathenism – all wanting teachers – and there were no teachers for them. In one place the people had built a chapel; they had gone so far as that; it was at Koroivonu – and they gathered together the next Sunday after it was finished, great numbers of the people, filled the chapel and stood under some bread-fruit trees in front of it, and stood there waiting to have some one come and tell them the truth – and there was no one. My heart is ready to weep blood when I think of these things! The Tongan who came with the news came with his eyes full of tears. And this is no strange nor solitary case of Koroivonu."

Mr. Rhys walked the floor of the little chapel, his features working, his breast heaving. Eleanor sat thinking how little she could do – how much she would!

"You have native helpers – ?" she said gently.

"Praise the Lord for what they are! but we want missionaries. We want help from England. We cannot get it from the Colonies – not fast enough. Eleanor," – and he stopped short and faced her – "a few months ago, to give you another instance, I was beholder of such a scene as this. I was to preach to a community that were for the first time publicly renouncing heathenism. It was Sunday." – Mr. Rhys spoke slowly, evidently exercising some control over himself; how often Eleanor had seen him do that in the pulpit! —

"I stood on the shores of a bay, reefed in from the ocean. I wish I could put the scene before you! On the land side, one of the most magnificent landscapes stretched back into the country, with almost every sort of natural beauty. Before me the bay, with ten large canoes moored in it. An island in the bay, I remember, caught the light beautifully; and beyond that there was the white fence of breakers on the reef barrier. The smallest of the canoes would hold a hundred men; they were the fleet of Thakomban, one of Fiji's fiercest kings formerly, with himself and his warriors on board.

"My preaching place was on what had been the dancing grounds of a village. I had a mat stretched on three poles for an awning – such a mat as they make for sails; – and around me were nine others prepared in like manner. This was my chapel. Just at my left hand was a spot of ground where were ten boiling springs; and until that Sunday, one of them had been the due appointed place for cooking human bodies. That was the place and the preparation I looked at in the still Sunday morning, before service time.

"At that time, the time appointed for service, a drum was beat and the conch shell blown; the same shell which had been used to give the war call. Directly all those canoes were covered with men, and they were plunging into the water and wading to shore. These were Thakomban and his warriors. Not blacked and stripped and armed for fighting, but washed and clothed. They were stopping in that place on their way somewhere else, and now coming and gathering to hear the preaching. On the other side came a procession from the village; and down every hillside and along every path, I could see scattering groups and lines of comers from the neighbouring country. These were the heathen inhabitants, coming up now to hear the truth and profess by a public act of worship that they were heathens no longer. They all gathered round me there under the mat awnings, and sat on the grass looking up to hear, while I told them of Jesus."

Mr. Rhys's voice was choked and he broke off abruptly. Eleanor guessed how he had talked to that audience; she could see it in his flushing face and quivering lip. She could not find a word to say, and let him lead her in silence and slowly away from the chapel and towards the mission house. Before entering the plantation again, Eleanor stopped and said in a low voice,

"What can I do?"

He gave her a look of that moved sweetness she had seen in him all day, and answered with his usual abruptness,

"You can pray."

"I do that."

"Pray as Paul prayed – for your mother, and for Julia, and for Fiji, and for me. Do you know how that was?"

"I know what some of his prayers were."

"Yes, but I never thought how Paul prayed, until the other day. You must put the scattered hints together. Wait until we are at home – I will shew you."