In 1877, the Rev. James Chalmers joined the mission, and it is hardly too much to say that his arrival formed an epoch in its history.  He is wonderfully equipped for the work to which he has, under God’s Providence, put his hand, and is the white man best known to all the natives along the south coast.  From the first he has gone among them unarmed, and though not unfrequently in imminent peril, has been marvellously preserved.  He has combined the qualities of missionary and explorer in a very high degree, and while beloved as “Tamate” (Teacher) by the natives, has added enormously to the stock of our geographical knowledge of New Guinea, and to our accurate acquaintance with the ways of thinking, the habits, superstitions, and mode of life of the various tribes of natives.

Notwithstanding various expensive expeditions for the exploration of New Guinea, he has travelled the farthest yet into the interior.  He has been as far as Lat.  S. 9 degrees 2’ and Long.  E. 147 degrees 42.5’.  The farthest point reached by Captain Armit was about Lat.  S. 9 degrees 35’ and Long.  E. 147 degrees 38’.  Mr. Morrison merely reached a point on the Goldie River, when he was attacked and wounded by the natives.  This compelled the party to return to Port Moresby.

Mr. Chalmers is still actively engaged in his work on the great island, and he has placed many of his journals and papers at the disposal of the Religious Tract Society, in the hope that their publication may increase the general store of knowledge about New Guinea, and may also give true ideas about the natives, the kind of Christian work that is being done in their midst, and the progress in it that is being made.

The prominence which New Guinea has assumed in the public mind lately is due much more to political than to religious reasons.  England is a Christian nation, and there are numbers who rejoice in New Guinea as a signal proof of the regenerating power of the Gospel of Christ.  Yet, to the Christian man, it is somewhat humiliating to find how deeply the press of our country is stirred by the statement that Germany has annexed the north coast of New Guinea, while it has hardly been touched by the thrilling story of the introduction of Christianity all along the south coast.  The public mind is much exercised in discussing whether Her Majesty’s Government should annex the whole rather than proclaim a protectorate over a part; it hardly cares to remember the names of those who have died in trying to make known to the fierce Papuans our common brotherhood in Christ Jesus.  One can understand that this is natural; still it will be an augury of good for the future of the English people, when, without losing any of their legitimate interest in public affairs, they care more for the victories won by faith alone, over ignorance, vice, and barbarism, than for the victories won by the rifle and sword, however just the cause may be in which these weapons are used.