Restrained by an Unseen Agency by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Aug 12, 1909

Restrained by an Unseen Agency

By W. A. S.

THE psalmist says that in olden time God rebuked heathen kings for the sake of his children, saying, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” Often since then even fierce barbarians have felt the presence of unseen guardians about the servants of the Lord. John G. Paton, on the island of Tanna, in the wild New Hebrides, was surrounded by fierce cannibals. They had gathered one day to kill the missionary and all friendly to him. Paton says:—

Frenzy of excitement prevailed, and the blood-fiend seemed to override the whole assembly; when, under an impulse that surely came from the Lord of pity, one great warrior chief who had hitherto kept silent, rose, swung aloft a mighty club, and smashing it earthward, cried aloud:—

“The man that kills Missi must first kill me; the men that kill the mission teachers must first kill me and my people; for we shall stand by them and defend them till death.”

Instantaneously, another chief thundered in with the same declaration; and the great assembly broke up in dismay. All the more remarkable was this deliverance, as these two chiefs lived nearly four miles inland, and, as reputed disease makers and sacred men, were regarded as among our bitterest enemies.

Again, the missionary says:—

One day while toiling away at my house, the war chief and a large party of armed men surrounded the plot where I was working. They all had muskets. They watched me for some time in silence, and then every man leveled a musket straight at my head. Escape was impossible. My eyesight came and went for a few moments. I prayed to my Lord Jesus. I tried to keep on with my task, as if no one was near me. In that moment, as never before, the words came to me, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do,” and I knew I was safe. Retiring a little, they took up the same attitude, and seemed to be urging one another to fire the first shot. But my dear Lord restrained them once again, and they withdrew.

A few days later natives in large numbers were assembled about his house:—

A man furiously rushed on me with his ax; but a Kaserumni chief snatched a spade with which I had been working, and dexterously defended me from instant death. Life in such circumstances led me to cling very near to the Lord Jesus; I knew not, for one brief hour, when or how attack might be made; and yet, with my trembling hand clasped in the hand once nailed on Calvary, and now swaying the scepter of the universe, calmness and peace and resignation abode in my soul.

Next day, a wild chief followed me about for four hours with his loaded musket, and, though often directed toward me, God restrained his hand. I spoke kindly to him, and attended to my work as if he had not been there, fully persuaded that my God had placed me there, and would protect me till my allotted task was finished. Looking up in unceasing prayer to our dear Lord Jesus, I left all in his hands, and felt immortal till my work was done. Trials and hair-breadth escapes strengthened my faith, and seemed only to nerve me for more to follow; and they did tread swiftly upon each other’s heels. Without that abiding consciousness of the presence and power of my dear Lord and Saviour, nothing else in all the world could have preserved me from losing my reason and perishing miserably. His words, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world,” became to me so real that it would not have startled me to behold him, as Stephen did, gazing down upon the scene.

Yet again:—

One evening I awoke three times to hear a chief and his men trying to force the door of my house. Though armed with muskets, they had some sense of doing wrong, and were wholesomely afraid of a little retriever dog which had often stood betwixt me and death. God restrained them again; and next morning the report went all round the harbor that those who tried to shoot me were “smitten weak with fear,” and that shooting would not do.

A powerfully built sacred man of the island, having publicly suffered defeat in an attempt to kill the missionary by sorcery, now determined to kill him with a warrior’s spear. Paton says:—

For weeks thereafter, go where I would, he would suddenly appear on the path behind me, poising in his right hand that same Goliath spear. God only kept it from being thrown, and I, using every lawful precaution, had all the same to attend to my work, as if no enemy were there, leaving all other results in the hands of Jesus.

Still later a savage aimed a blow at the missionary with a tomahawk. Paton avoided it, and said: “My Jehovah God is here to defend me now.”

Trembling, the man looked fearfully about and dared not follow farther. The fear of Jehovah again restrained the savage heart. We need to learn that God is indeed a present help, and his angels fellow servants with the children of God on earth.

W. A. S.