THE UTILITY OF MISSIONARY EFFORT.
AMONG the recent contributions to the London Mansion House Fund, for famine relief in India, is one of a little over $4,000 (£344) from the Fiji Islands. In connection with this gift, the English magazine Work and Workers may well call attention to the fact that when Queen Victoria ascended the throne, sixty years ago, the Fiji Islands were inhabited by pagan cannibals, to whom not one ray of light from the Christian world had come. These people were peculiarly ferocious. The Wesleyan Society, which in 1838 had planned to commence work within the group, declared in its report of that year that the missionary must prosecute his work “before the sailor and the merchant will dare to frequent those now inhospitable shores.” And now we have an illustration of what the missionary has accomplished. The Fiji Islands are so far christianized that out of a population of 125,000 about 100,000 are reported in the government statistics as Wesleyans. The whole face of society has changed. In place of brutal orgies there is an orderly and thriving community, and now the grandchildren of the cannibals, whom it was seriously feared would slay and eat the first missionaries, have sent $4,000 to feed the poor of India.—Missionary Herald.