Stephen Rabone

Centenary of Pioneer Tongan Missionary

THE centenary fell in June of the arrival in Tonga of the Rev. Stephen Rabone, who laboured for 14 years in the Friendly Islands, and for a short time was acting principal of Newington College, an insti tution which to-day preserves its early associations with the only remaining in dependent kingdom in the Pacific (wrote Mr. Eric Ramsden in the Sydney Morning Herald on June 27). Newingtoh’s students include the Crown Prince Taufa’ahau, a direct descendant of the great Taufa’ahau (George Tubou I.), one of the first to wel come Stephen Rabone to Tonga in 1836.

Rabone’s first attempt to reach Tonga resulted in shipwreck off the island of Bona Vista, in the Verde Group, in De cember, 1834. Undaunted, the Wesleyan Methodist missionary and his young wife returned to England, and again sailed on the Rubicon, a sailing vessel of 450 tons, on April 17, 1835. Hobart Town was reached after an uneventful voyage in the following August.

Mr. and Mrs. Rabone remained there for six months (during which period their eldest child was born), and arrived in Sydney in February, 1836. Six weeks later they sailed for Neiafu, Vavau, and later settled at Feleatoa. The vessel in which they travelled was the old Active, which the Rev. Samuel Marsden had employed so successfully in the Pacific. On the re turn voyage the Active went on a reef and became a total wreck.

Tongatabu was sighted on June 9, 1936.

“Oh, what were our feelings while looking at this island, which has engaged every feeling of our hearts for years past,” de clared the missionary in his unpublished journal (the original of which is in the Mitchell Library, Sydney). “The scenery as you approach surpasses everything we have seen or could imagine.”

“Where you from? Have you mission ary?” inquired an English-speaking Ton gan from a canoe, when the Active lay off Vavau on June 14. “Which him? Which him?” eagerly inquired the native. The Tongan proved to be a man who had lived for some years with the Rev. John Thomas. Rabone and Thomas were doubly related; the newly-married missionary was a step-brother of Mrs. Thomas and his wife was Thomas’s sister. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas had arrived at Hihifo as early as 1826. Before returning to Eng land in 1851 they spent a quarter of a cen tury in the Islands. Four years later they returned to spend another five years there before finally retiring.

King George Tubou’S Famous

Whale Tooth

When Queen Salote returned to Tonga from Sydney last year she carried with her a famous whale tooth, yellow with age, which King George Tubou I. had exhibited at a missionary meeting in Wes ley Church, Chippendale, Sydney, in 1853, The tooth was a priceless relic of the old pagan days. No more precious gift in Tongan eyes could possibly be imagined when the king handed it to Rabone, “to show the people of Australia what the Tongan worshipped prior to accepting Christianity.” Queen Salote was naturally delighted to find that it was still in the possession of the Rabone family, and re marked that she could trace it back to the grandfather of George Tubou I. The year previous to the missionary’s arrival

in Tonga the king had freed his slaves, and ancestral carved spears were con verted into communion rails.

On behalf of members of his family.

Mr. W. T. Rabone (a grandson of the Rev. Stephen Rabone) handed it to the Queen, to be returned to her kingdom. It is now in the Royal Palace at Nukualofa.

A century ago, Tonga was by no means the model Christian State it is to-day. At the time of Rabone’s arrival the mission aries were still meeting with a great deal of opposition. As had Kamehameha in Hawaii, and Pomare 11. in Tahiti, George Tubou I. had to consolidate his kingdom; though the king was a Christian, many of his fellow-countrymen were not prepared to accept the new creed, and were ready to die in defence of the old gods.

Lawless Europeans

European traders were also a cause of anxiety to the missionaries. In one of the first entries in his journal Rabone makes reference to a certain captain who, after taking a Tongan girl to sea, in a state of intoxication threw her overboard, and then forcibly took another young woman, the betrothed of an important chieftain.

In a subsequent altercation the captain killed the aggrieved native. Such men, declared the missionary, made him ashamed “of the name of Englishman.”

King George, declared Rabone, was “in deed a fine man, body and soul.” At the opening of anew church, in 1837, he ap peared in “a suit of English clothes,” to read Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple. “His remarks, I am told, were judicious and well placed,” com mented the newcomer, “his zeal as mani fest was worthy of a king in so good a cause.” The king, who was the political force behind the Christian cause, lived until 1893. At that time, however, he was

about to visit Hapaii, where, it was hoped, he would deliver a deathblow to “the re maining cause of heathenism in Tonga.”

On December 31, 1836, the young mis sionary was present at a native watch night service. Two days later the mis sionaries were alarmed at hearing the beating of the lali or war drum. The call announced the arrival of a canoe from Tongatabu, which brought information that King George wanted all “strong and healthy men” to proceed to that island, “in case the heathen should be foolish enough to fight, that he might have a force to meet them, and, in the name of the Lord, put them to flight.” The heathen, as a matter of fact, put up a determined resistance and many lives were lost in the fighting that ensued.

That same year the missionary and his

wife were homeless as the result of a devastating hurricane. “Last night it came on to blow very hard, with heavy rain, which before daylight had well filled our bedroom,” he wrote on March 8.

“With the day the wind increased, so that it was soon necessary for my dear wife and child to leave the house. Part of the roof was soon cai'ried away In attempting to walk I was nearly car ried away. About 9 o’clock, our house and every building on the premises were down level with the earth . ” Describ ing the scene next day, he declared; “Oh, what destruction is visible all round!

Scarcely a house, however proverbially strong, but is brought to the earth. Trees of very great size are broken off short and uprooted; many of these have endured the blasts and storms of bygone generations. The nut trees are all stripped of their fruit, every banana tree is flat on the earth, so

that we fear there will be considerable. scarcity felt by the natives, ... It is little more than iwo 'years since we were cast upon the island of Bona Vista, where we lost everything we had except what we stood in, and now by land we are partially Stripped again. Thy will be done! Amen.”

On walking to Neiafu that week, he was astounded “at the scene of barren ness and destruction.” The hurricane had left its mark on every tree and plant.

“Many of them are shrivelled up as if scorched,” he declared. On leaving the village the lali again began to beat, an nouncing the arrival of a sail off the coast.

Fortunately, it proved to be a brig fj*om Sydney with supplies for the missionaries.

The Minerva had been driven off the island, thrown on her beam ends, and the crew had to cut away the masts.

The Tui Tonga

In February of the following year (1838) Rabone recorded the arrival of the Tui Tonga, the revered religious head of for mer days. “He is the greatest personage on the island,” he wrote, “but what a creature of imagination, what a monstrous cypher! He had a handful of people only, cannot speak a word in reference to the government of the island nor anything that concernis it. It is not lawful to eat in his presence . . . and there is lan guage only applicable to this useless being, as much utility to the island as a large mole to a man’s face!”

The old Tonga was passing. The power of the Tui Tonga was already in the hands of George Tubou, ally of the missionaries.

Rabone and his wife later decided to remove to Nukualofa (now the capital).

Then followed patient years of hard mis sionary work.

Following the triumph of Christianity in Tonga, the family removed to Australia.

Later Stephen Rabone’s son decided to offer himself as a missionary. Uhder the tuition of his father (who became a noted Tongan scholar and was responsible for compiling a vocabulary printed in Vavau in 1845 and now keenly sought after by collectors), the Rev. W. T. Rabone became so proficient in the tongue he had known as a child that, on the first Sunday after his return, he was able to preach in Ton gan.

Stephen Rabone collapsed in a Sydney street on July 27, 1872, when on his way to the Wesley Church, Chippendale, and died that day. His funeral sermon was preached by the Rev. James Watkin, who was in Tonga when the former arrived there in 1836. An appeal for funds for a memorial, to which many Tongans sub scribed, resulted in £2OOO being raised.

However, no memorial has yet been com pleted to honour the memory of a worthy pioneer of the Methodist Church in the Pacific and Australia.