We Were Sisters

From Maggie Paton, wife of missionary to the New Hebrides, John Paton, to a friend back home in Stirling, Scotland, about the reaction of women natives on the island of Fotuna, who saw white women for the first time. The letter was written on October 17, 1865:

The ladies were, in consequence, very curious to have us examined properly; and they went about it in a business-like way, as I can testify from the pokes and thumps received. They always felt themselves at the same time, to see how far we were alike! Poor things, they had yet to learn that we were sisters, resting under the same penalty and equally in need of and entitled to the same Saviour.

Letters and Sketches from the New Hebrides, by Maggie Whitecross Paton, printed by Reformation Heritage Books and Sprinkle Publications, 2003, p. 27.