Farewell!
And now, at last, approached a crisis in the Life of Pitcairn, which had indeed been long foreseen, long dreaded, and often thought of, but seldom hinted at by the islanders.
Good, patient, long-enduring John Adams began to draw towards the end of his strange, unique, and glorious career. For him to live had been Christ, to die was gain. And he knew it.
“George Nobbs,” said he, about four months after the arrival of the former, “the Lord’s ways are wonderful, past finding out, but always sure and safe. Nothing puzzles me so much as my own want of faith, when there’s such good ground for confidence. But God’s book tells me to expect even that,” he added, after a pause, with a faint smile. “Does it not tell of the desperately wicked and deceitful heart?”
“True, Mr Adams,” replied his friend, with the term of respect which he felt constrained to use, “but it also tells of salvation to the uttermost.”
“Ay. I know that too,” returned Adams, with a cheery smile. “Well do I know that. But don’t mister me, George. There are times when the little titles of this world are ridiculous. Such a time is now. I am going to leave you, George. The hour of my departure is at hand. Strange, how anxious I used to feel! I used to think, what if I am killed by a fall from the cliffs, or by sickness, and these poor helpless children should be left fatherless! The dear Lord sent me a rebuke. He sent John Buffett to help me. But John Buffett has not the experience, or the education that’s needful. Not that I had education myself, but, somehow, my experience, beginnin’ as it did from the very beginnin’, went a long way to counterbalance that. Then, anxious thoughts would rise up again. Want of faith, nothing else, George, nothing else. So the Lord rebuked me again, for he sent you.”
“Ah, father, I hope it is as you say. I dare hardly believe it, yet I earnestly hope so.”
“I have no doubt, now,” resumed Adams. “You have got just the qualities that are wanted. Regularly stored and victualled for the cruise. They’ll be far better off than ever they were before. If I had only trusted more I should have suffered less. But I was always thinking of John Adams. Ah! that has been the great curse of my life—John Adams!—as if everything depended on him. Why,” continued the old man, kindling with a sudden burst of indignation, “could I have saved these souls by merely teaching ’em readin’ and writin’, or even by readin’ God’s book to ’em? Isn’t it read every day by thousands to millions, against whom it falls like the sea on a great rock? Can the absence of temptation be pleaded, when here, in full force, there have been the most powerful temptations to disobedience continually? If that would have done, why were not all my brother mutineers saved from sin? It was not even when we read the Bible that deliverance came. I read it for ten years as a sealed book. No, George, no; it was when God’s Holy Spirit opened the eyes and the heart, that I an’ the dear women an’ child’n became nothin’, and fell in with His ways.”
He stopped suddenly, as if exhausted, and his new friend led him gently to his house. Many loving eyes watched him as he went along, and many tender hearts beat for him, but better still, many true hearts prayed for him.
That night he became weaker, and next day he did not rise.
When this became known, all the settlement crowded to his house, while from his bed there was a constant coming and going of those who had the right to be nearest to him. Nursed by the loving women whom he had led—and whose children’s children he had led—to Jesus, and surrounded by men whom he had dandled, played with, reared, and counselled, he passed into the presence of God, to behold “the King in his beauty,” to be “for ever with the Lord.”
May we join him, reader, you and I, when our time comes!
On a tombstone over a grave under the banyan-tree near his house, is the simple record, “John Adams, died 5th March 1829, aged 65.”
And here our tale must end, for the good work which we have sought to describe has no end. Yet, for the sake of those who have a regard for higher things than a mere tale, we would add a few words before making our farewell bow.
The colony of Pitcairn still exists and flourishes. But many changes have occurred since Adams left the scene, though the simple, guileless spirit of the people remains unchanged.
Here is a brief summary of its history since 1829.
George Nobbs had gained the affections of the people before Adams’s death, and he at once filled the vacant place as well as it was possible for a stranger to do so.
In 1830 the colony consisted of nearly ninety souls, and it had for some time been a matter of grave consideration that the failure of water by drought might perhaps prove a terrible calami............