Biography Of Missionary Martyr

LOLOWAI, on the island of Aoba, is nowadays the headquarters in the New Hebrides for the Melanesian (Anglican) Mission. It is also the site of a mission hospital for the training of New Hebrideans called the Godden Memorial Hospital.

The hospital commemorates Charles Christopher Godden, an Aus tralian, who went to Lolowai as a young missionary in early 1901, and was murdered there six years later at the age of 30.

Godden’s murderer was a New Hebridean, who was recruited to work on the sugar plantations of Queensland and who there murdered his overseer. After serving three years in prison, he came out complaining of having been tortured and was shipped back to Aoba. He vowed to murder the first white man he saw; and Godden, who had protested for years over the evil aspects of the labour trade, proved to be his victim.

It was an ironical death, just as was that of Bishop Patteson in the Santa Cruz Group 30 years earlier. The Godden Memorial Hospital was built to commemorate Godden’s martyrdom in 1937.

Now Godden’s daughter Ruth, who was born several months after his death, has created another memorial to him—a biography, based largely on her father’s numerous letters and other writings.

Called Lolowai. the biography has been published by the Wentworth Press, 48 Cooper .Street, Surry Hills, Sydney, at $6.50 per copy. It is printed offset from typescript, and has several photographic illustrations.