Show Me the Sky - Nicholas Hogg [68]
Addressing him with stately etiquette, both reverends explained the nature of their visit in generally excellent Fijian – only the pronunciation of Rev. Collins a little unclear at times – impressing the king and the principal men also gathered for this most serious of business.
The chief priest was outwardly sour to our presence, but his counsel held no sway before the king, who sat in silent and motionless reverie while considering the request of a mission to be established upon his shores. But it was not the fact that I was one of his subjects that gained favour, or that the love of God had already swelled within his chest. After an age of thought, the only sound the waves on the reef and the waft of a fan worked by one of his wives, he suddenly announced: ‘Everything is true from the land of the white man. Muskets and gunpowder are true, therefore your religion must be true.’
With that he clapped his huge hands together, the smack of his heavy palms as loud as an exploding cap, and dispatched a body of men to clear land for a house, which yesterday, after five days of feverish construction, was completed.
I should be happy that I sleep under such a magnificent roof, that I have been granted a room in the second largest house on the island, but I only sleep here because my father cannot bear to hear what he does not know. My mother, who has been bedridden with sleeping sickness, spoke to me only as though I had wandered into her dream, and seems to think that I have never even left the shores of Lakemba.
When I told my father of London and its spires higher than the tallest palms, that more people live in one city than all the islands of the great Pacific, and that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for our sins, he put his hands over his ears and shouted, ‘Enough! Before the white man we believed that the sun rose in Tonga and set in Fiji. We were happy with our own gods. They put fish in the sea and fruit on the trees and never did we go hungry. Before the ships came men sat content with only their canoe and house. Now they sell their wives for a handful of nails. Now you tell me I will go to a land of fire when I die, that unless I place my soul in the palms of the white man I am damned for ever.’ Then he said, ‘Go. You are my son no more.’ The words stabbed my heart like a knife.
I pray that with the help of the Lord above, and the dedication of Reverends Thomas and Collins, who have already drawn large crowds to their open-air services, that I can guide my mother – if the Lord grant her health – and father along the one true path.
12 May 1835
Today the Caroline set sail. The missionaries are now well and truly left in the care of the Lord.
The three children of Rev. Collins have already made themselves quite at home, running free and gay with the children of the village, laughing louder than I ever heard them in the confines of the ship or their house in Port Jackson.
Whilst the reverends could hardly be described as joyous, I believe they are more than satisfied with the welcome so far. Each day the congregation swells, and the word of our arrival echoes through every village on the island.
13 May 1835
The morning service was attended by the king – his first since our welcoming audience – and though attentive to the account of creation, did not yet wish to offer his soul to Jehovah.
Though my younger brother listens with wonder at my adventures, my father sullenly ignores my very presence, only speaking to mock the shirt on my back. Yesterday he asked, ‘Are you ashamed of your skin?’
The reverends are attended by willing villagers keen to please their newly arrived guests – guests who also happen to dole out fish hooks, nails, and the promise of redemption – with baskets of yams or the carriage of fresh water from the stream.
Shame on me! I am already a sceptic of my people and their embrace of the one true God. Of course I am happy that several scores of my brothers and sisters have pledged