How One Pastor Got

a Congregation Letter to the Editor

rE photo, of an early NG missionary published in the May “PIM” is Dr.

G. Brown, as I knew him in 1884.

Dr. Brown was at that time stationed at Duke of York Island, in the Duke of York Group, opposite the island of Mioko, where the German firm (DH & PG) had its headquarters.

It was here that I met the Fiji pastor, “Samurli,” shown in the picture with Dr.

Brown, and of him I wrote in my article, “Native Pastor,” published in the “PIM” last year; “On one occasion, seated on a nearby trader’s verandah, I saw a Fijian teacher (pastor)—a very big fellow —come along to his little church and beat his lali. No one obeyed the call to service.

“The Fijian, looking very stern, took a spear and went out along the beach. He met a native —one of the most inoffen sive in the tribe. He asked the native to come to church. The native refused So the big Fijian seized the fellow and headed him towards the church; and then, with an occasional prod from his spear at the man’s backside, he kept him goine.

“When the ‘congregation’ was inside, the pastor sot into his pulpit and began to sing a hymn, whereupon the native got up and bolted through the door, and although the pastor gave chase, his con gregation got safely away, and he sad)y closed his church.”

I am, etc.,

F. T. Goedicke.

Haapai. Tonga.

July, 1945.