Missionary Peacemaking
By W. H. B.
OUR missionary on Atchin, New Hebrides, had an opportunity this spring to act as arbitrator in a war between villages on the island. The causes of the war were characteristic of the state of darkness which the gospel has come to this island to dispel. One of the villages had boasted the possession of a rain-making medicine man. There was a long dry spell on the island; and though this medicine man had died, the inhabitants of the other two villages had decided that it must be caused by some one in that village who had inherited his power, so they started in to wipe it out. Most of the people, however, were induced to come to the mission to talk it over; and there they were told of the God of Elijah, who, having made all things, alone had power to control nature. “Their talk was quite excited and dramatic at the first, but finally they were all sitting down with each other and shaking hands, and then they were friends again. They said, ‘Evu koatsin’—finished forever—and went back to their homes joyful.” W. H. B.