100 Years Of Mission Work In Fiji

Fiji to Celebrate Land ing of Cross and Cargill.

TO mark the passing of one hundred years of Christi anity in Fiji, a Centenary Fund has been established in Suva by the Methodist Mis sionary Society.

The centenary will be cele brated on October 12, 1935.

This date is the hundredth anniversary of the arrival at Lakeba, Fiji, of the first European missionaries, Rev.

William Cross and Rev. David Cargill, both members of the British Wesleyan Church.

Cross was an Englishman and Cargill was Scottish, having graduated in Arts at the Uni versity of Aberdeen.

After doing mission work on the various islands of Tonga, they arrived at Vavau in March, 1835, with the ob ject of crossing to Fiji. However, they were compelled to wait there for six months until the schooner “Blackbird” called at the island.

Sailing from Vavau on October 8, the vessel arrived at Lakeba four days

later. Cross and Cargill went ashore and were met by Tui Nayua, the chief of the island, who spoke the Tongan language. After listening to their re quest for permission to settle there, he offered them his house. This offer was declined, but they eventually decided to live temporarily in a large canoe house

on the beach. The remaining members of the mission party disembarked and the party spent their first night sur rounded by hundreds of natives, many of whom had never seen white men before.

This small band of missionaries started a movement which spread the Gospel throughout the islands of the group and their numbers increased, until to-day the adherents of the Methodist Mission Church in Fiji num ber more than 83,000 people.

To commemorate this great event in the history of Fiji, the committee of the fund has launched a “Ten Thousand Guinea Fund, to erect a Centenary Building in Suva. This will replace the old Jubilee Church, erected in 1885 as a memorial to the first 50 years of mission work.

In an endeavour to secure money for the fund, the secretary of the com mittee, Rev. T. N. Deller, of Bau, is visiting the various mission centres of the Colony and is delivering illustrated lectures on the early history of Viti Levu and the subsequent development of the Methodist Mission. The Fijian children of the Methodist Church have been appealed to and, armed with col lecting cards, are attempting to collect ten shillings each. Those children who are successful will receive a small in scribed brooch as a momento of the centenary.

An interesting link with the early Fiji mission pioneers will be provided by the attendance at the centenary celebrations in 1935 of grandsons of both Mr. Cross and Mr. Cargill. The grandson of Cross is a Methodist minister in New South Wales and Cargill’s grandson is a missionary in India.

To guard against the possibility of destitute immigrants becoming a charge upon public revenue, the Papuan Executive Council recently passed a regulation providing for the deposit by immigrants of the sum of £30 on landing in the Territory. This sum is in tended to cover the cost of mainten ance and passage money to Australia in case of need, and is returnable after the expiration of twelve months if the immigrant makes good.

Tubou Beach, Lakeba, Fiji, where Revs. William Cross and David Cargill, M.A.,landed in 1835. —Photo from “Missionary Review”.