New Publication.

The Martyrs of Melanesia.

This is the title of an earnest and eloquent sermon delivered by the Rev. James Cosh, M A., in St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Auckland, on the occasion of the death of Bishop Patteson, the Rev. James Aitken, and a teacher named Steven, who were killed by the natives of Nukapu, on the 20th September, 1871. Mr. Cosh speaks with the fervour of a devoted missionary in defence of the Christian enterprise in which these lives were sacrificed, repudiating the charges of fanaticism or madness which are often levelled against those who engage in it. In the latter part of the sermon he expresses his confident expectation that good will come out of this painful event, by the rousing of the authorities to put down the iniquitous traffic in the natives of the islands in these Southern Seas—which has undoubtedly led to the perpetration of the murders which are now deplored. Henceforth, a new era is looked for in the history of Christian missions in these islands. As our readers are probably aware, Mr. Cosh labored several years in the New Hebrides; but, on account of the health of his family, has been compelled to quit the field. He has been officiating with great acceptance in Auckland during the absence of Mr. Bruce in Scotland; but, on his return, purposes to join the church in Otago. His experience on the mission field gives weight to the sentiments which are so ably expressed in the following extract:—

"Let no one think then, because a black disaster has recently befallen our cause, and a cruel blow has been struck at the enterprise of Christian missions in Western Polynesia, that the promises of God have failed, or that His watchful Providence has been withdrawn from the work which He has promised so largely to bless. Let no one for a moment deem that the lives of these three martyrs of Melanesia have been recklessly thrown away. The work to which Bishop Patteson and his associates had consecrated themselves, and which for many years they had prosecuted with untiring zeal and activity, was the noblest work that can engage the energies of even the most gifted of our race. And if at length they have fallen in it, they could not have fallen in a better cause. For them we need not now mourn with any mourning of hopeless grief. They have died for immortal truth; and in such a death they have met with the noblest fate that could have come to them. They had consecrated their page 16 lives to God, and, fearless of all danger, they dared to do His will in the field which He had called them to occupy; and now, as a reward of their faith, He has put upon them in their death a distinction which He reserves for few. They came by loss while here in the service of the great King—the loss of father and mother and brother and sister, the loss even of life itself. But, having laid down their lives for Christ's sake, they have found now a new and a better life in His presence. Up to the very last they were spending and being spent in turning sinners unto righteousness; and now they shine as stars, and shall do so forever and ever. Honoured while they lived for their heroic devotion, a place of distinction has been given them in the New Jerusalem above; and the glory of which they are now the blessed partakers, is a glory which shall never decay.

"And gone though they are from their work and their warfare here, yet their usefulness is not ended. They have fought a good fight, they have finished their course; but their memory will long live amongst us, and, fragrant with a sweet perfume, their death will hallow all our lives. Gone up they are in a chariot of fire; but may we not hope that their mantle will fall on some whom they have left behind? Will not their noble example animate us all with a higher spirit of self-devotion to the good cause in which they fell? Shall we not all henceforth be more zealous on behalf of God's work among the heathen; and by prayer and effort seek to hasten on the day when deeds of violence and bloodshed will no more be heard of, when ignorance and sin shall all be overcome, and the kindom of righteousness and peace established on every continent and isle?"