Story of the London Missionary Society in the South Seas

The work of the London Missionary Society in the Pacific Ocean through its “Missionary Ships” is truly inspiring. In this heavily illustrated book George Cousins (editorial Assistant and Assistant Foreign Secretary of the London Missionary Society) draws on a number of sources to retell the story. My thanks to Redcliffe College for providing a copy of the book for scanning. This title is in the public domain.

George Cousins [1842-?], The Story of the South Seas. London: London Missionary Society, 1894. Hbk. pp.246. [Click to download complete book in PDF]

Contents

1. The Good Ship “Duff” and Her Strange Cargo
2. “The Night of Toil”
3. The Overthrow of Idolatry
4. Spreading Out
5. Carrying the Light to Other Groups
6. The “Messenger of Peace” and Her Useful Work
7. The Martyred Missionary Polynesia
8. Further Extension
9. Teaching and Training Heathen Converts
10. Joining Hands to Save New Guinea
11. Summing Up, or Work and Workers in the Older Stations
12. Other Labourers in the Southern Ocean

Preface

This book is the outcome of the revived interest in the South Seas which the effort to build the steamer John William’s has created. In reading old books descriptive of the early days of the mission I came across so many striking facts unknown to the present generation that a desire to put these facts together in a short connected story grew strong within me.

The first few pages repeat what appears in the opening chapter of “From Island to Island,” but in an altered form. The remainder is newly written. The books to which I am specially indebted are: Ellis’s “Polynesian Researches,” Williams’s “Missionary Enterprises,” Buzacott’s “Mission Life in the Pacific,” Turner’s” Nineteen Years in Polynesia,” Murray’s” Western Polynesia,” and” Forty Years’ Mission Work,” Gill’s “Gems from the Coral Islands,” Dr. Steele’s “New Hebrides and Christian Missions,” “The Night of Toil,” by the author of the “Peep of Day,” and an article entitled “Christian Work in Polynesia,” which appeared in” The Missionary Review of the World. [Continue reading]