Samoan Missionary Dead

AT 101

THE Rev. Lameta-Sei’a, the veteran Samoan minister, recently died in Samoa, at the age of 101, reports the Methodist “Missionary Review.”

If the date of his birth —1841 —given in the report is correct, and it cannot be very far out, he was born just after the first Methodist missionary—the Rev.

Peter Turner —had left Samoa, and be fore the Rev. Martin Dyson had re-opened the mission. Lameta entered Malua, the theological college of the London Mis sionary Society, and then went to Tonga, as many Samoans did in those days. But, whereas they made the journey in order to enter Tubou College, which was the centre of education in the Pacific because of the scholarship and zeal of the Rev.

Dr. Moulton, Lameta went in order to enter the service of the Methodist Free Church, which was the name of the other division of the divided church led by the

Rev. J. B. Watkin.

After a few years, he returned to Samoa with the status of minister. Shortly afterwards his name appears in the re cords as a Probationer of the Methodist Church, and he was ordained by the Rev.

E. G. Neil in 1905. Lameta was first ap pointed to Apia, the capital, where he worked for nine years; then he had charge of a large circuit on Savaii-Itu-O- Tane. His last appointment was to Piula College, but he retired shortly after and lived with his family at Vaimoso until the time of his death.

No one was better known or more highly respected by the Samoan Church than Lameta. He was most dignified in his bearing, and, in a land of orators, he was a notable orator.

Mr. J. Bunting, whose son, Mr. J. A.

Bunting, holds the lease of Manuae Island, in the Hervey Group, returned recently to NZ after a visit to the Cook Islands.