Niue Island by S. W. Carr

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 14, 1916

Niue Island

By S. W. Carr

S. W. CARR

A GROUP OF SABBATH-KEEPING MAORIS IN NEW ZEALAND

[This island, widely separated from others, is situated ten degrees east of the Fiji group and five south of the Samoan Islands.]

OUTSIDE of the usual schooner service between here and Auckland, New Zealand,—a boat running every seven weeks,—a passing ship is a rare event. So when “Sail ho!” was heard recently, all ran to see what it was. It proved to be the “Resolute,” a four-masted timber vessel bound from America to Melbourne. The flag signal read, “Help needed at once.” So the resident commissioner and doctor immediately went out the two miles to her. They learned that through the refusal of the crew of seven men to work, the captain, his wife, and a native of St. Helena had been sailing the ship alone for thirty-one days under short canvas. The month of bread-and-water diet, however, had had a salutary effect on the crew, who were persuaded by the commissioner to resume their duties.

“Sail ho!” was again heard four days later, and this time it proved to be the steamer “Talune,” from Auckland via Fiji and Samoa, bringing back a number of the returned Niue soldiers who had left here ten months ago for the front, via New Zealand. They had proved unequal to the great strain of modern warfare, and a large per cent of them were in the hospital all the time. The remaining eighty soldiers are expected soon. Then all the one hundred and fifty will have returned, except fifteen who died of sickness. Some of them were for a short time in France in the trenches.

Among the latest to join our Sabbath schools is a native teacher and two students of the government English school. They also attend a weekly Bible study, and have begun to keep the Sabbath. The total membership of our three Sabbath schools is now twenty-seven, but not all of these are Sabbath keepers. Those who are nominally so, have yet much to learn. Two have lately given up tobacco, and others are trying to discard the filthy weed, which is used here almost universally by all classes.

Pray that we may continually lean hard upon the Lord, and that the honest in heart may be won for the truth.