Rare c.19th hand coloured engraving of Lifou, the largest island in the Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia.
The view depicts the mission church which was run by missionaries of the London Missionary Society.
The London Missionary Society established its first mission on the island of Lifou in the Loyalty Islands in 1842, when the Polynesian teacher Fao, from the Cook Islands, arrived to introduce Protestant Christianity. Supported by later European missionaries, notably Samuel MacFarlane, the mission rapidly gained converts, established schools, and promoted literacy in the local language. By the late 1850s, Protestantism had become firmly established across much of the island. Following the arrival of French colonial authority and Marist Catholic missionaries, religious and political tensions increased, culminating in the removal of MacFarlane in 1871 at the insistence of the French administration. Despite these changes, the London Missionary Society left a lasting legacy on Lifou through its influence on education, literacy, and the island’s enduring Protestant tradition.
From the original edition of The Illustrated Sydney News.
References:
Gibbs & Shallard. Illustrated Sydney News. ISSN 2203-5397.
Collections:
State Library New South Wales: F8/39-40
State Library Victoria: PCINF SLVIC=1853-1872
National Library Australia: Bib ID 440095
THE MISSION CHURCH AT LIPU. THE Loyalty Islands, of which Lifu is the principal, form a portion of the Eastern Archipelago. They are situated in the im- mediate vicinity of New Caledonia, and as might reasonably bo expected, they have been the first to feel the effects nf schemes of aggrandizement which, under the title of colonisa- tion, are being pushed by the French authorities in tho South Pacific. For several years agents of the London Missionary Society have successfully laboured in the Loyalty group. The inhabitants, peacefully disposed, neither meddled with their neighbours, nor were meddled with, until the arrival of M. Guillain, the present Governor of New Caledonia, whose antipathies have obtained for him a larger amount’ of notoriety than usually falls to the share of officials of his rank. The building shown in our engraving is the Mission Church, which was the scene of the greatest outrages in connection with the French expedition. It was in its. vicinity that several unarmed natives were shot down without warning, a number of others captured and carried into activity, the missionaries insulted, and the temple, which had been erected to the service of the Most High, turned into a barracks for the French soldiery. There was a time in the world’s history when the fact of being an Englishman was considered sufficient protection against wrong, but that time appears to have passed away ; if it has not we trust that, although the French Emperor has seen fit to veto the conduct of his subordinate, and to prohibit interference with the Mission Churches in the South Seas, that the Government of Great Britain will seek to know by what right English ministers of thc Gospel, guilty of no offence, have been wantonly insulted, and their lives endangered, at the. caprice of French officials.
