Solomons

Missionary Work in the Solomons

From Our N.Z. Correspondent

Auckland, Apr. 20.

“XTOW many realise that the Christian missionary in the Islands preceded and prepared the way for civil adminis tration?” queried Rev. J. F. Goldie, founder and chairman of the N.Z. Metho dist Mission in the Solomons in an ad dress to members of the Auckland Rotary Club in April. The missionary had gone before and made easy the pathway of legitimate commerce, he said.

With two colleagues, Mr. Goldie first visited the Western Solomon Islands in 1902. They were the first missionaries to work in that part of the group, and Mr. Goldie said he saw there not only the salvation of the individual, but “the resurrection of a race.”

One of the missionaries’ initial duties was to reduce the language to writing.

This had been done, and the natives were given a Bible and a literature in a lan guage they spoke better than the mis sionaries.

The object in educating the natives was to develop all-round character so that they could withstand disaster when the inevitable invasion of non-Christian civilisation commenced, concluded Mr.

Goldie.

Mr. W. Atkinson, a well-known planter of many years’ residence in the Shortland Group, British Solomon Is lands, is at present spending a few

months’ holiday in Sydney.