New Hebrides Islands by C. H. PARKER

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 26, 1914

New Hebrides Islands

By C. H. PARKER

[This group of islands is located about fifteen hundred miles east of northern Australia, and, although among the first pioneered with the gospel in the South Pacific, John Paton having located here, the islands have but recently been entered with the message.]

MANY changes have taken place in the work here since my last report. We have been called to lay away little Harold Carr, and now Brother and Sister Carr have had to return to Australia on account of the serious state of Sister Carr's health. Little did we think, when we last reported, that such circumstances would arise; but the One at the helm makes no mistakes in the course he steers. So we bow our wills, and say, "Father, not my will but thine be done." We are sorry to lose the association of Brother and Sister Carr in the work here, for we had learned to love them very much. Our prayers go with them that God will guide their future beside the still waters and into green pastures.

Much remains to be done, more than one man can well do alone, yet the promise is, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be." So we take comfort in the thought that God knows it all, and that "we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." The knowledge that our brethren are praying for us buoys us up, and it makes us determine to do to the utmost of our power the work that falls to our lot to do. Like Luther of old, we say, "Here I take my stand, so may God help me, I cannot do otherwise. Amen."

We have our church and school building all completed with the exception of seating it. This we hope to do the first of next month, when the timber will be landed here. We ask all to pray that at the dedication of this building, it may be filled by the presence of God, and that his presence shall never leave it, but that it shall be a place where many of this people shall be born again, not of flesh and blood, but of the Spirit.

This is the black man's new year, as they have dug their first yams. Feasting, dancing, and hideous yelling are the order of the day. Many pigs are killed and offered upon their stone altars in their amils (heathen dancing grounds). A little later their meke will be held, which is the greatest of their feasts and dancing. This is the time when they are supposed to pay all of their debts. Hundreds of pigs will be killed and sacrificed.

O, we long for the day when we can talk with this people with no impediment of the tongue; when we can point them to the true God that made the heavens and the earth, and the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

Atchin.