Memories Of An Sda Mission Leader

A Half Century in the South Seas

E EVERYONE who travelled A regularly in the South Pacific Islands in the eventful years be ween the -early ’Thirties and early ’Fifties sooner or later met Pastor i. G. Stewart, Superintendent of the Seventh Day Adventists’ South Seas fissions.

The “SDA’s”, nowadays, are part if the established order in the islands —they are accepted gener illy, like the men of other Christian Missions, as valuable helpers in the ask of introducing education and , code of morals. But it was not o 30 or 40 years ago.

The Seventh Day Adventists, for Basons I understand and appreciate, re strict vegetarians. For reasons f never have understood, they in ist that Saturday, and not Sunday, [ “holy day”; so that they make tiemselves socially prominent by olding their church services on aturday, and working on Sundays, r Naturally, members of the old stablished churches in the Islands id not put out the “Welcome” mat cult enough to explain the “why” )r the SDA missionaries. It is dif- E separate and rival churches, and f Sunday observance, to primitive slanders. It was still more difficult I explain vegetarianism and Satur ay Sabbath observance. [However, the “SDA’s” now are Ccepted and respected; and credit >r that considerable achievement Des in large measure to leaders like pistor Stewart, and the well-trained fen of truly Christian habits whom e settled among the Islands and icouraged by precept and direction i . G. STEWART was one of the i first students graduated from the SDA Missionary College in SW, and thence he wont directly • Fiji, early in this Century. There, >r some 20 years, he pioneered the ork of his Church; and he carried it similar work in the New Hebrides, hen he was given the direction all the SDA work in the Islands, mth of the Equator, from Dutch ew Guinea, in the west, right cross to Pitcairn Island, in the iSt.

Between 1930 and 1950, I made tany Island tours, as a journalist; id I learned that there was one •ur factor as certain as flying-fish nd the smell of copra, and that as that somewhere along the line should meet Pastor Stewart; and > I got to know him very well.

The things I remember best, in slation to Pastor Stewart, were his itient tolerance of travel discom •rt and travellers’ sinfulness: the tinkling humour with which he >ld me very printable stories of

his experiences in the sick-making little boats and the risky jungle trails which he frequently used; and the fact that he never discussed re ligion or politics.

Of all the hundreds of missionaries I have met, I think Pastor Stewart is the thinnest, and the most pleasant in manner. I presume the vegetarian diet is responsible for the fact that he has carried that waist line with him on into the seventies; but doubtless his other qualities were born with him, for the good of the SDA Church. For he has done a yeoman job for the SDA Missions of the South Seas.

OF course, from such a man, with such a store of interesting memories accumulated in such an unusual way, a book was inevit able —and here it is. Trophies From Cannibal Isles, produced by Review and Herald Publishing Association, in USA.

I have two complaints against it —it has been too long on the way, and it has no index. It should have much value as a book of reference on many aspects of Islands life; but, if one wishes to use it in this way—and we do —one makes one’s own index—or puts it away on a back shelf, with scores of other otherwise valuable books. There should be a law compelling publish ers to index books written by trust worthy people about the Islands.

This book, written simply and very interestingly, follows the author across a score of South Seas groups and territories.

We are taken with him on small

boat voyages where a ducking at the reef entrance is a daily occur rence; into remote mountain villages' where the horrible, stinking evidence of a recent cannibal feast is piled up, only a few yards away from the chief who is giving the white men a grudging welcome; through plantations owned co-operatively, where the natives are changing slowly but willingly to new standards of life; into mission stations where ideas of orderliness and cleanliness have been accepted, and the children are being taught to write, read and use modern tools.

Primarily, the book is a record of SDA mission work. If you are in terested in mission work, it is quite an inspiring record. If you are not, the book—like the sponsored features of commercial radio stations—is worth bearing with, because the entertainment more than outweighs the propaganda.

Pastor Stewart is an experienced photographer—scores of his unusual pictures have been published in this journal—and his photographs

copiously illustrate his new book.

THE quality of Pastor Stewart’s writing ranges from a restrained complacency over what has been accomplished under difficult condi tions, to a grim and pawky humour, with which he describes some missionary experiences.

There is the story of Pastor G. F.

Jones, pioneer SDA missionary in the Solomons. His wife suffered most severely from malaria. During one sickness, he sent for help to another island, where there was a qualified nurse. Before she arrived, days later, Mrs. Jones was apparently dying; and as burial is a matter of urgency in those places, Pastor Jones sat himself down and painfully worked out a plan for the construction of a coffin —a task with which he had not hitherto coped.

However, the nurse arrived, and Mrs. Jones recovered. One day, tidying her husband’s papers, she discovered the plan for her coffin. I judge, from her photograph, that Mrs. Jones was a forthright and

plain-spoken woman.

“Naturally,” writes Pastor Stewart, with masterly under-statement, “Captain Jones was most em b 3.1* Y £1SS0 d • ** It was Pastor Stewart who first described, for me, the thrifty practice of a certain protein-hungry New Guinea tribe of killing off their grandparents at about their fiftieth birthday, and thus bringing their grandparents’ lives to a useful con clusion as the backbone of a solid meat meal. New Guinea frontier missionaries, generally, being realists, are using not only moral suasion to discourage this habit—they are co operating with the Administration in providing the villagers with plenty of pigs, to be broiled as required in place of grandma. The task of the SDA men, of course, is more dif ficult —it is part of their teaching that flesh-eating should cease altogether.

As the title of his book indicates, Pastor Stewart has written much of which he has seen of cannibalism, especially in the New Hebrides and in uncontrolled New Guinea. There are few examples now extant of can nibalism—except in a few shrinking areas in the middle of New Guinea, the practice has been stamped out.

The book should be in all libraries which seek Islands records. The Book and Bible House, Pitt Street,

Sydney, is selling it at 29/6-

Rwr.