Under Axe and Musket

In his autobiography, John Payton, a missionary to an island of cannibals in the South Pacific in the 19th century wrote:

"But my enemies seldom slackened their hateful designs against my life, however calmed or baffled for the moment.  Within a few days of the above events, when Natives in large numbers were assembled at my house, a man furiously rushed on me with his axe; but a Kaserumini Chief snatched a spade with which I had been working, and dexterously defended me from instant death.  Life in such circumstances led me to cling very near to the Lord Jesus; I knew not, for one brief hour, when or how attack might be made; and yet, with my trembling hand clasped in the Hand once nailed on Calvary, and now swaying the scepter of the Universe, calmness and peace and resignation abode in my soul.
"Next day, a wild Chief followed me about for four hours with his loaded musket, and, though often directed towards me, God restrained his hand.  I spoke kindly to him, and attended to my work as if he had not been there, fully persuaded that my God had placed me there, and would protect me till my allotted task was finished.  Looking up in unceasing prayer to our dear Lord Jesus, I left all in His hands, and felt immortal till my work was done.  Trials and hairbreadth escapes strengthened my faith, and seemed only to nerve me for more to follow; and they did tread swiftly upon each other's heels.  Without that abiding consciousness of the presence and power of my dear Lord and Saviour, nothing else in all the world could have preserved me from losing my reason and perishing miserably.  His words, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world," became to me so real that it would not have startled me to behold Him, as Stephen did, gazing down upon the scene.  I felt His supporting power, as did St. Paul, when he cried, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."  It is the sober truth, and it comes back to me sweetly after twenty years, that I had my nearest and dearest glimpses of the face and smile of my blessed Lord in those dread moments when musket, club, or spear was being leveled at my life.  Oh the bliss of living and enduring, as seeing "Him who is invisible"!