'Ah! it is very sad; but I do think he will be a better, more steadfast man: he has learnt his weakness, and where to find strength, as he never had before. And the effect on the school is remarkable. That there should be so much tenderness of conscience and apprehension of the guilt of impurity among the children of the heathen in among many brought up in familiarity with sin, is a matter for much thankfulness.'
To this may well be added an extract from Joseph Atkin's journal, showing his likemindedness both in thoughtfulness and charity:—
'I feel quite sure that we must be prepared for many such cases. The whole associations and training of the early lives of these people must influence them as long as they live. The thought of what my mother and sister would think, never occur to them as any influence for good; and although this may be said to be a low motive for doing right, it is a very powerful one, and it is more tangible because it is lower.
'The Bishop, in speaking of it to-day, told the boys that they ought not to do right to please him, but because it was right to please God; but I can't help thinking that pleasing the Bishop may and can help the other very much. Is it not right for a child to do right to please its parents, and for older children too to be helped by the thought that they are pleasing those they love and honour?
'We had a council to-day of all the Church members to talk about how U—— was to be treated. For himself, poor fellow, I should think kindness would be harder to bear than neglect.
'Mr. Codrington says, "On this occasion all the male Communicants went together to some little distance, where a group of boulders under the pines gave a convenient seat. The Bishop set out the case, and asked what was the opinion of the elder boys as to the treatment of the offender. They were left alone to consider; and when we came back, they gave their judgment, that he should not eat in the hall at what may be called the high table, that he should not teach in school, and should not come into Chapel."
'This was of course what was intended, but the weight of the sentence so given was greater with the school, and a wholesome lesson given to the judges. How soon the Bishop's severity, which never covered his pity, gave way to his affection for one of his oldest and dearest pupils, and his tenderness for the penitent, and how he took a large share of blame upon himself, just where it was not due, can well be understood by all who knew him.'
There was soon a brighter day. On January 25, writes Mr. Atkin:—
'We had a great day. In the morning some who were baptized last summer were confirmed, and at night there were baptized three girls and thirteen boys. Most of them were quite little fellows. I don't think any of us will easily forget their grave and sober but not shy looks, as one by one they stepped up to the Bishop. I think that all understood and meant what they said, that Baptism was no mere form with them, but a real solemn compact. All who were in my class (nine), or the Sunday morning school, were baptized in the evening. While we were standing round the font, I thought of you at home, and half wished that you could have seen us there. I was witness for my son (Wate); he was called Joseph, so that I shall lose my name that I have kept so long.'
Joseph Wate, the little Malanta boy, was always viewed by the Atkin family as a kind of child, and kept up a correspondence with his godfather's sister, Mother Mary as he called her.
On the same day the Bishop wrote to Judge Pohlman:—
'My very dear Friend,—I must not let our correspondence drop, and the less likely it seems to be that we may meet, the more I must seek to retain your friendship, by letting you know not only the facts that occur here, but my thoughts and hopes and fears about them.'
(Then, after mentioning the recent transgression, the letter continues respecting the youth.)
'His fright and terror, his misery and deep sorrow, and (I do believe) godly repentance, make me say that he is still, as I trust, one of our best scholars. But it is very sad. For three weeks he did not come even into chapel with us. He not only acquiesced, but wished that it should be so.
'Last Saturday evening he was readmitted, without any using of fine names. I did as a matter of fact do what was the practice of the early Christians, and is recognised in our Ash Wednesday service now. It was very desirable that great notice should be taken of the commission of an act which it is hard for a heathen to understand to be an act of sin, and the effect upon the whole school of the sad and serious way in which this offence was regarded has been very good.
'In the circumstances it is so easy to see how the discipline of the early Church was not an artificial, but a necessary system, though by degrees elaborated in a more complicated manner. But I find, not seldom, that common sense dictates some course which afterwards I come across in Bingham, or some such writer, described as a usage of the early Christians.
'In our English nineteenth century life such practices could hardly be reintroduced with benefit. Yet something which might mark open offences with the censure of the Christian Body is clearly desirable when you can have it; and of course with us there is no difficulty whatever.
'I cannot be surprised, however deeply grieved at this sad occurrence; and though it is no comfort to think how many English persons would think nothing of this, and certainly not show the deep compunction and sorrow which this poor fellow shows, yet, as a matter of fact, how few young Englishmen are there who would think such an act, as this young Melanesian thinks it to be, a grievous sin against God, and matter for continual sorrow and humiliation. So I do rejoice that he is sorrowing after a godly sort.
'In other respects there is a very hopeful promising appearance just now. We number seven clergymen, including myself. We have a very efficient band of Melanesian teachers, and could at this moment work a school of 150 scholars.
'George Sarawia will (D.V.) start with a little company of Christian friends at his own island. The scholars from all the different islands fraternise excellently well, and in many cases the older and more advanced have their regular chums, by private arrangement among themselves, whom they help, and to whose islands they are quite prepared to be sent, if I think fit so to arrange; and I really do believe that from the Banks Islands we may send out missionaries to many of the Melanesian islands, as from Samoa and Karotonga they have gone out to the islands of the Eastern Pacific. Humanly speaking, I see no difficulty in our drawing into our central school here any number of natives that we can support, from the New Hebrides, Banks and Solomon Islands, and I trust soon from the Santa Cruz Islands also.
'Here must be the principal work, the training up missionaries and steadfast Christian men and women, not of ability sufficient to become themselves missionaries, but necessary to strengthen the hands of their more gifted countrymen. This training must be carried on here, but with it must be combined a frequent visitation and as lengthened sojourns in the islands as possible. The next winter we hope that the Rev. J. Atkin will be some time at San Cristoval, the Rev. C. H. Brooke at Florida, the Rev. J. Palmer at Mota. But I am more than ever convinced that the chiefest part of our work is to consist in training up Melanesian clergymen, and educating them up to the point of faithfully reproducing our simple teaching. We must hope to see native self-supporting Melanesian Churches, not weak indolent Melanesians dependent always on an English missionary, but steadfast, thoughtful men and women, retaining the characteristics of their race so far as they can be sanctified by the Word of God in prayer, and not force useless imitations of English modes of thought and nineteenth century civilisation.
'It is sometimes a consequence of our national self-conceit, sometimes of want of thought, that no consideration is shown to the characteristic native way of regarding things. But Christianity is a universal religion, and assimilates and interpolates into its system all that is capable of regeneration and sanctification anywhere.
'Before long I hope to get something more respectable in the way of a report printed and circulated. It seems unreasonable to say so, but really I have very little time that I can spare from directly Melanesian work, what with school, translations, working out languages, and (thank God) the many, many hours spent in quiet interviews with Melanesians of all ages and islands, who come to have private talks with me, and to tell me of their thoughts and feelings. These are happy hours indeed. I must end. Always, my dear friend, affectionately and sincerely yours,
The readmission thus mentioned was by the imposition of hands, when the penitent was again received, and his conduct ever since has proved his repentance true.
February brought Mr. and Mrs. Palmer to their new home, and carried away Mr. Codrington for a holiday. The budget of letters sent by this opportunity contained a remarkable one from young Atkin. Like master, like scholar:—
'February 24, 1869.
'My dear Mother,—You must not think about my coming back; I may have to do it, but if I do, it will seem like giving up the object of my life. I did not enter upon this work with any enthusiasm, and it is perhaps partly from that cause that I am now so attached to it that little short of necessity would take me away; my own choice, I think, never. I know it is much harder for you than for me. I wish I could lighten it to you, but it cannot be. It is a great deal more self-denial for you to spare me to come away than for me to come away. You must think, like David, "I will not offer unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing." If you willingly give Him what you prize most, however worthless the gift may be, He will prize it for the willingness with which it is given. If it had been of my own choosing that I came away, I should often blame myself for having made a selfish choice in not taking harder and more irksome work nearer home, but it came to me without choosing. I can only be thankful that God has been so good to me.'
Well might the Bishop write to the father, 'I thank you in my heart for Joe's promise.'
How exactly his own spirit, in simple, unconscious self-abnegation and thorough devotion to the work. How it chimes in with this, written on the self-same morning to the Bishop of Lichfield:—
'St. Matthias Day, 6.45 A.M., 1869.
My dear Bishop,—You do not doubt that I think continually of you, yet I like you to have a line from me to-day. We are just going into Chapel, altering our usual service to-day that we may receive the Holy Communion with special remembrance of my Consecration and special prayer for a blessing on the Mission. There is much to be thankful for indeed, much also that may well make the retrospect of the last eight years a somewhat sad and painful one as far as I am myself concerned. It does seem wonderful that good on the whole is done. But everything is wonderful and full of mystery....
'It is rather mean of me, I fear, to get out of nearly all troubles by being here. Yet it seems to me very clear that the special work of the Mission is carried on more conveniently (one doesn't like to say more successfully) here, and my presence or absence is of no consequence when general questions are under discussion....
'Your very affectionate
The same mail brought a letter to Miss Mackenzie, with much valuable matter on Mission work:—
'February 26, 1869.
'Dear Miss Mackenzie,—I have just read your letter to me of April 1867, which I acknowledged, rather than answered, long ago.
'I can't answer it as it deserves to be answered now. I think I have already written about thirty-five letters to go by this mail, and my usual work seldom leaves me a spare hour.
'But I am truly thankful for the hopes that seem to show themselves through the mists, in places where all Christian men must feel so strong an interest. I do hope to hear that the new Bishopric may soon be founded, on which Mr. Robertson and you and others have so set your hearts. That good man! I often think of him, and hope soon to send him, through you, £10 from our Melanesian offertory.
'You know we have, thank God, thirty-nine baptized Melanesians here, of whom fifteen are communicants, and one, George Sarawia, a clergyman. He was ordained on December 20.
'There are many little works usually going ons which I don't consider it fair to reckon among the regular industrial work of the Mission. I pay the young men and lads and boys small sums for such things, and I think it right to teach the elder ones the use of money by giving them allowances, out of which they buy their clothing, &c., when necessary, all under certain regulations. I say this that you may know that our weekly offertory is not a sham. No one knows what they give, or whether they give or not. A Melanesian takes the offertory bason, and they give or not as they please. I take care that such moneys as are due to them shall be given in 3d., 4d., and 6d. pieces.
'Last year our offertory rather exceeded £40, and it is out of this that my brother will now pay you £10 for the Mackenzie fund. I write all this because you will like to think that some of this little offertory comes bond fide from Melanesians.
'...You take me to mean, I hope, that Christianity is the religion for mankind at large, capable of dealing with the spiritual and bodily needs of man everywhere.
'It is easy for us now to say that some of the early English Missions, without thinking at all about it, in all probability, sought to impose an English line of thought and religion on Indians and Africans. Even English dress was thought to be almost essential, and English habits, &c., were regarded as part of the education of persons converted through the agency of English Missions. All this seems to be burdening the message of the Gospel with unnecessary difficulties. The teacher everywhere, in England or out of it, must learn to discriminate between essentials and non-essentials. It seems to me self-evident that the native scholar must be educated up to the highest point that is possible, and that unless one is (humanly speaking) quite sure that he can and will reproduce faithfully the simple teaching he has received, he ought not to teach, much less to be ordained.
'All our elder lads and girls here teach the younger ones, and we know what they teach. Their notes of our lessons are brought to me, books full of them, and there I see what they know; for if they can write down a plain account of facts and doctrines, that is a good test of their having taken in the teaching. George Sarawia's little essay on the doctrine of the Communion is to me perfectly satisfactory. It was written without my knowledge. I found it in one of his many note-books accidentally.
'As for civilisation, they all live entirely with us, and every Melanesian in the place, men and women, boys and girls, three times a day take their places with all of us in hall, and use their knives and forks, plates, cups and saucers (or, for the passage, one's pannikins) just as we do. George and two others, speaking for themselves and their wives, have just written out, among other things, in a list which I told them to make out: plates, cups, saucers, knives, forks, spoons, tubs, saucepans, kettles, soap, towels, domestic things for washing, ironing, &c.
'The common presents that our elder scholars take or send to their friends include large iron pots for cooking, clothing, &c. They build improved houses, and ask for small windows, &c., to put in them, boxes, carpet bags for their clothes, small writing desks, note-books, ink, pens. They keep their best clothes very carefully, and on Sundays and great days look highly respectable. And for years we know no instance of a baptized Melanesian throwing aside his clothing when taking his holiday at home.
'As far as I can see my way to any rule in the matter, it is this: all that is necessary to secure decency, propriety, cleanliness, health, &c., must be provided for them. This at once involves alteration of the houses, divisions, partitions. People who can read and write, and cut out and sew clothes, must have light in their houses. This involves a change of the shape and structure of the hut. They can't sit in clean clothes on a dirty floor, and they can't write, or eat out of plates and use cups, &c., without tables or benches, and as they don't want to spend ten hours in sleep or idle talk, they must have lamps for cocoa-nut and almond oil.
'These people are not taught to adopt these habits by word of mouth. They live with us and do as we do. Two young married women are sitting in my room now. I didn't call them in, nor tell them what to do. "We didn't quite understand what you said last night." "Well, I have written it out,—there it is." They took, as usual, the MS., sat down, just as you or anyone would do, at the table to read it, and are now making their short notes of it. Anyone comes in and out at any time, when not at school, chapel, or work, just as they please. We each have our own sitting-room, which is in this sense public property, and of course they fall into our ways.
'There is perhaps no such thing as teaching civilisation by word of command, nor religion either. The sine qua non for the missionary—religious and moral character assumed to exist—is the living with his scholars as children of his own. And the aim is to lift them up, not by words, but by the daily life, to the sense of their capacity for becoming by God's grace all that we are, and I pray God a great deal more; not as literary men or scholars, but as Christian men and women, better suited than we are for work among their own people. "They shall be saved even as we." They have a strong sense of and acquiescence in, their own inferiority. If we treat them as inferiors, they will always remain in that position of inferiority.
'But Christ humbled Himself and became the servant and minister that He might make us children of God and exalt us.
'It is surely very simple, but if we do thus live among them, they must necessarily accept and adopt some of our habits. Our Lord led the life of a poor man, but He raised His disciples to the highest pitch of excellence by His Life, His Words, and His Spirit, the highest that man could receive and follow. The analogy is surely a true one. And exclusiveness, all the pride of race must disappear before such considerations.
'But it is not the less true that He did not make very small demands upon His disciples, and teach them and us that it needs but little care and toil and preparation to be a Christian and a teacher of Christianity. The direct contrary to this is the truth.
'The teacher's duty is to be always leading on his pupils to higher conceptions of their work in life, and to a more diligent performance of it. How can he do this if he himself acquiesces in a very imperfect knowledge and practice of his duty?
'"And yet the mass of mediaeval missionaries could perhaps scarce read." That may be true, but that was not an excellence but a defect, and the mass of the gentry and nobility could not do so much. They did a great work then. It does not follow that we are to imitate their ignorance when we can have knowledge.
'But I am wasting your time and mine.
'Yours very truly,
'P.S.—George and his wife and child, Charles and his wife, Benjamin and his wife, will live together at Mota on some land I have bought. A good wooden house is to be put up by us this winter (D.V.) with one large room for common use, school, &c., and three small bed-rooms opening on to a verandah. One small bed-room at the other end which any one, two or three of us English folks can occupy when at Mota. I dare say, first and last, this house will cost seventy or eighty pounds.
'Then we hope to have everything that can be sown and planted with profit in a tropical climate, first-class breed of pigs, poultry, &c., so that all the people may see that such things are not neglected. These things will be given away freely-settings of eggs, young sows, seeds, plants, young trees, &c. All this involves expense, quite rightly too, and after all, I dare say that dear old George will cost about a sixth or an eighth of what we English clergymen think necessary. I dare say £25 per annum will cover his expenses.'
On Easter Sunday the penitent was readmitted to the Lord's Table. A happy letter followed:—
'Easter Tuesday, 1869.
'My dearest Sisters,—Another opportunity of writing. I will only say a word about two things. First, our Easter and the Holy Week preceding it; secondly, how full my mind has been of Mr. Keble, on his two anniversaries, Holy Thursday and March 29. And I have read much of the "Christian Year," and the two letters I had from him I have read again, and looked at the picture of him, and felt helped by the memory of his holy saintly life, and I dared to think that it might be that by God's great mercy in Christ, I might yet know him and other blessed Saints in the Life to come.
'Our Holy Week was a calm solemn season. All the services have long been in print. Day by day in school and chapel we followed the holy services and acts of each day, taking Ellicott's "Historical Lectures" as a guide.
'Each evening I had my short sermonet, and we sought to deepen the impressions made evidently upon our scholars by whatever could make it a real matter of life and death to them and us. Then came Good Friday and Easter Eve, during which the Melanesians with Mr. Brooke were busily engaged in decorating the Chapel with fronds of tree-ferns, bamboo, arums, and oleander blossoms.
'Then, at 7 A.M. on Easter Morning, thirty of us—twenty-one, thank God, being Melanesians—met in Chapel for the true Easter Feast.
'Then, at 11 A.M., how we chanted Psalms ii, cxiii, cxiv, and Hymn, and the old Easter Hallelujah hymn to the old tune with Mota words. Then at 7 P.M. Psalms cxviii, cxlviii, to joyful chants, and singing Easter and other hymns.
'So yesterday and so to-day. The short Communion Service in the morning with hymn, and in the evening we chant Psalm cxviii, and sing out our Easter hymn. Ah well! it makes my heart very full. It is the season of refreshing, perhaps before more trails.
'Dear U—— was with us again on Easter morn, a truly repentant young man, I verily believe, feeling deeply what in our country districts is often not counted a sin at all to be a foul offence against his Father and Saviour and Sanctifier.
'Six were there for their first Communion, among them honest old Stephen Taroniara, the first and only communicant of all the Solomon Isles—of all the world west of Mota, or east of any of the Bishop of Labuan's communicants. Think of that! What a blessing! What a thought for praise and hope and meditation!
'I sit in my verandah in the moonlight and I do feel happy in spite of many thoughts of early days which may well make me feel unhappy.
'But I do feel an almost overpowering sensation of thankfulness and peace and calm tranquil happiness, which I know cannot last long. It would not, I suppose, be good: anyhow it will soon be broken by some trial which may show much of my present state to be a delusion. Yet I like to tell you what I think, and I know you will keep it to yourselves.
'Good-bye, and all Easter blessings be with you.
'Your loving brother,
The island voyage was coming near, and was to be conducted, on a larger scale, after the intermission of a whole year. Mr. Brooke was to make some stay at Florida, Mr. Atkin at Wango in Bauro, and the Bishop himself was to take the party who were to commence the Christian village at Mota, while Mr. Codrington and Mr. Bice remained in charge of twenty-seven Melanesians. The reports of the effects of the labour traffic were becoming a great anxiety, and not only the Fiji settlers, but those in Queensland were becoming concerned in it.
The 'Southern Cross' arrived in June, but the weather was so bad that, knocking about outside the rocks, she sustained some damage, and could not put her freight ashore for a week. However, on the 24th she sailed, and put down Mr. Atkin at Wango, the village in Bauro where the Bishop had stayed two years previously.
Mr. Atkin gives a touching description of Taroniara's arrival:—
'Stephen was not long in finding his little girl, Paraiteka. She was soon in his arms. The old fellow just held her up for the Bishop to see, and then turned away with her, and I saw a handkerchief come out privately and brush quickly across his eyes, and in a few minutes he came back to us.'
The little girl's mother, for whose sake Taroniara had once refused to return to school, had been carried off by a Maran man; and as the heathen connection had been so slight, and a proper marriage so entirely beyond the ideas of the native state, it was thought advisable to leave this as a thing of heathen darkness, and let him select a girl to be educated into becoming fit for his true wife.
Besides Stephen, Joseph Wate and two other Christian lads were with Mr. Atkin, and he made an expedition of two days' visit to Wate's father. At Ulava he found that dysentery had swept off nearly all the natives, and he thought these races, even while left to themselves, were dying out. 'But,' adds the brave man in his journal, 'I will never, I hope, allow that because these people are dying out, it is of no use or a waste of time carrying the Gospel to them. It is, I should rather say, a case where we ought to be the more anxious to gather up the fragments.'
So he worked on bravely, making it an object, if he could do no more, to teach enough to give new scholars a start in the school, and to see who were most worth choosing there. He suffered a little loss of popularity when it was found that he was not a perpetual fountain of beads, hatchets, and tobacco, but he did the good work of effecting a reconciliation between Wango and another village named Hane, where he made a visit, and heard a song in honour of Taroniara. He was invited to a great reconciliation feast; which he thus describes, beginning with his walk to Hane by short marches:—
'We waited where we overtook Taki, until the main body from Wango came up. They charged past in fine style, looking very well in their holiday dress, each with his left hand full of spears, and one brandished in the right. It looked much more like a fighting party than a peace party; but it is the custom to make peace with the whole army, to convince the enemy that it is only for his accommodation that they are making peace, and not because they are afraid to fight him. It was about 12 o'clock when we reached the rendezvous. There was a fine charge of all, except a dozen of the more sedate of the party; they rattled their spears, and ran, and shouted, and jumped, even crossing the stream which was the neutral ground. We halted by the stream for some time; at last some Hane people came to their side; there was a charge again almost up to them, but they took it coolly. At about 10 o'clock the whole body of the Hane men came, and two or three from Wango went across to them. I was tired of waiting, and asked Taki if I should go. "Yes, and tell them to bring the money," he said.
'While I was wading through the stream, the Hane men gathered up and advanced; I turned back with them. They rushed, brandishing their spears, to within ten or twelve paces of the Wango party, who had joined into a compact body, and so seated themselves as soon as they saw the movement.
'Kara, a Hane man, made his speech, first running forwards and backwards, shaking his spear all the time; and at the end, he took out four strings of Makira money, and gave it to Taki. Hane went back across the stream; and Wango went through the same performance, Taki making the speech. He seemed a great orator, and went on until one standing by him said, "That's enough," when he laughed, and gave over. He gave four strings of money, two shorter than the others, and the shortest was returned to him, I don't know why; but in this way the peace was signed.'
After nineteen days, during which the Bishop had been cruising about, Mr. Atkin and his scholars were picked up again, and likewise Mr. Brooke, who had been spending ten days at Florida with his scholars, in all thirty-five; and then ensued a very tedious passage to the Banks Islands, for the vessel had been crippled by the gale off Norfolk Island, and could not be pressed; little canvas was carried, and the weather was unfavourable.
However, on September 6, Mota was safely reached; and great was the joy, warm the welcome of the natives, who eagerly assisted in unloading the vessel, through storms of rain and surf.
The old station house was in entire decay; but the orange and lemon trees were thirty feet high, though only the latter in bearing.
The new village, it was agreed, should bear the name of Kohimarama, after the old home in New Zealand, meaning, in Maori, 'Focus of Light.' After landing the goats, the Bishop, Mr. Atkin, and five more crossed to Valua. They were warmly welcomed at Ara, where their long absence had made the natives fancy they must all be dead. The parents of Henry, Lydia, and Edwin were the first to approach the boat, eager to hear of their children left in Norfolk Island; and the mother walked up the beach with her arm round Mr. Atkin's neck. But here it appeared that the vessels of the labour traffic had come to obtain people to work in the cotton plantations in Queensland, and that they had already begun to invite them in the name of the Bishop, whose absence they accounted for by saying his ship had been wrecked, he had broken his leg, he had gone to England, and sent them to fetch natives to him. No force had been used as yet, but there was evident dread of them; and one vessel had a Mota man on board, who persuaded the people to go to Sydney. About a hundred natives had been taken from the islands of Valua, Ara, and Matlavo, and from Bligh Island twenty-three were just gone, but Mota's inaccessibility had apparently protected it. It will be remembered that it has a high fortification of coral all round the beach, with but one inconvenient entrance, and that the people are little apt to resort to canoes. This really has hitherto seemed a special Providence for this nucleus of Christianity.
They spent the night at Ara, making a fire on the sandy beach, where they boiled their chocolate, and made gravy of some extract of meat to season their yam, and supped in public by firelight, reclining upon mats. Afterwards they went up to the Ogamal, or barrack tent: it was not an inviting bed-chamber, being so low that they could only kneel upright in it, and so smoky that Stephen remarked, 'We shall be cooked ourselves if we stay here,' proving an advance in civilisation. One of the private houses was equally unattractive, and the party slept on the beach.
The next morning they started to walk round the island: taking two cork beds, a portmanteau and a basket of provisions; stopping wherever a few people were found, but it was a thinly peopled place, and the loss of the men carried off was sensibly felt.
One village had had a fight with a boat's crew from Sydney. They made no secret of it, saying that they would not have their men taken away; and they had been sharp enough to pour water into the guns before provoking the quarrel.
Further on there was a closer population, where the Bishop was enthusiastically welcomed, and an Ogamal was found, making a good shelter for the night. Then they returned to Ara, where Mr. Atkin notes, in the very centre of the island, a curious rock, about 200 feet high, and on the top, 20 or 30 feet from the nearest visible soil, a she-oak stump, and two more green and flourishing a little below. The rock was of black scoriae, too hot in the middle of the day to sit upon, and near it was a pool of water. 'Such water, so rotten.' The water used by the visitors had been brought from Auckland. The natives do not trouble water much, I don't think they ever drink it, and they certainly don't look as if they ever washed.
On the following day they recrossed to Vanua Lava, where they spent a quiet calm Sunday in the vessel, landing in the afternoon to see Fisher Young's grave, which they found well kept and covered with a pretty blue creeper.
The next Sunday they spent at Kohimarama: beginning with Celebration at 7.30 A.M., and in the afternoon making the circuit of the island, about ten miles. In one place Mr. Atkin bent over the edge of the natural sea wall, and saw the sea breaking 150 or 200 feet below!
After a fortnight spent in this manner, he and the other two clergymen carried off their Melanesians to Norfolk Island, leaving the Bishop to be fetched away in a month's time. Here is the letter written during his solitude:—
'Kohimarama, Mota Island: September 23, 1869.
'My dearest Joan and Fan,—Here I am sitting in a most comfortable house in our new Kohimarama, for so the Melanesians determine to call our station in Mota. The house is 48 feet by 18, with a 9-foot verandah on two sides. It has one large room, a partition at each end, one of which is subdivided into two small sleeping rooms for George and his wife, and Charles and his wife. There is no ceiling, so that we have the full advantage of the height of the house, and plenty of ventilation, as the space beyond where the roof comes down upon the wall plates is left open.
'The verandah is a grand lounging place; very commodious for school also, when other classes fill the large room, and a delightful place to sit or lie about on in this genial warm climate. These bright moonlight nights are indeed delicious. The mosquito gives no trouble here to speak of. The cocoa-nut trees, the bread-fruit trees, yam gardens, and many kinds of native trees and shrubs, are all around us; the fine wooded hill of Mota shows well over the house. The breeze always plays round it; and though it is very hot, it is only when the wind comes from the north and north-west, as in the midsummer, that the heat is of an oppressive and sickly nature.
'About twenty lads and young men live here, and about forty attend daily school; but I think there is every indication of all Mota sending its young people here as soon as we have our crops of yams, &c., &c., to provide sufficient food. Improved native huts will, I think, soon be built over our little estate here.
'Many girls I hope to take to Norfolk Island. They could hardly be brought together with safety to this place yet. The parents see and admit this, and consent to my taking them. I tell them that their sons will not marry ignorant heathen girls (their sons I mean who have been and are still with us); that all the young fellows growing up at Kohimarama must have educated wives provided for them, and that I must therefore take away many young girls with me to Norfolk Island. The fashion here is to buy at an early age young girls for their sons, though occasionally a girl may be found not already betrothed, but almost grown up. I now say, "I want to train up wives for my sons," and the fashion of the place allows of my buying or appropriating them. You would be amused to see me engaged in this match-making. It is all the same a very important matter, for clearly it is the best way to secure, as I trust, the introduction of Christian family life among these people.
'George and I are satisfied that things are really very promising here. Of course, much old heathen ignorance, and much that is very wrong, will long survive. So you recollect perhaps old Joe (great-Uncle Edward's coachman) declaring that C. S. as a witch, and there is little proof of practical Christianity in the morals of our peasants of the west, and of Wales especially.
'It is not that one should acquiesce in what is wrong here, but one ought not to be surprised at it. Public opinion, the constraint of law, hereditary notions, are more effective in preventing the outbreak of evil passions into criminal acts in very many cases and districts in England.
'Now these restraints are, indeed, indirect consequences of Christianity, but do not imply any religion in the individuals who are influenced by them. These restraints don't exist here. If they did, I think these Mota people now would live just as orderly decent lives as average English folk. Christianity would not be a vigorous power in the one case or in the other. Exceptional cases would occur here and there.
'If I am asked for proofs of the "conversion" of this people, I should say, "Conversion from what to what?" and then I should say, "Ask any close observer in England about the commercial and social morality existing in not only the most ignorant ranks of society: how much is merely formal, and therefore, perhaps, actually detrimental to a true spirit of religion!" Here you don't find much that you associate with religion in England, in the external observances of it; but there are not a few ignorant people (I am not speaking of our trained scholars) who are giving up their old habits, adopting new ways, accepting a stricter mode of life, foregoing advantages of one kind and another, because they believe that this "Good news," this Gospel, is true, and because the simple truths of Christianity are, thank God, finding some entrance into their hearts.
'I dread the imposition from without of some formal compliances with the externals of religion while I know that the meaning and spirit of them cannot as yet be understood. Can there be conceived anything more formal, more mischievous, than inculcating a rigid Sabbatarian view of the Lord's Day upon a people who don't know anything about the Cross and the Resurrection? Time enough to talk about the observance when the people have some knowledge of the vital living truth of a spiritual religion.
'So about clothing. If I tried to do it, I think I could make the people here buy, certainly accept, and wear, clothing. With what result at present? That they would think that wearing a yard of unbleached calico was a real evidence of the reception of the new teaching.
'Such things are, in this stage of Mission work, actually hurtful. The mind naturally takes in and accepts the easy outward form, and by such treatment you actually encourage it to do so, and to save itself the trouble of thinking out the real meaning and teaching which must of course be addressed to the spirit.
'These outward things all follow as a matter of course after a time, as consequences of the new power and light felt in the soul; but they may be so spoken of as to become substitutes for the true spiritual life, and train up a people in hypocrisy.
'I beg your pardon really for parading all these truisms. Throw it in the fire.
'I don't for a moment mean or think that religion is to be taught by mere prudence and common sense. But a spiritual religion is imperilled the moment that you insist upon an unspiritual people observing outward forms which are to them the essence of the new teaching. Anything better than turning heathens into Pharisees! What did our Lord call the proselytes of the Pharisee and the Scribe?
'And while I see and love the beauty of the outward form when it is known and felt to be no more than the shrine of the inward spiritual power; while I know that for highly advanced Christians, or for persons trained in accurate habits of thought, all that beauty of holiness is needful; yet I think I see that the Divine wisdom of the Gospel would guard the teacher against presenting the formal side of religion to the untaught and ignorant convert. "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth," is the great lesson for the heathen mind chained down as it is to things of sense.
'"He that hateth his brother is a murderer:" not the outward act, but the inward motive justifies or condemns the man. Every day convinces me more and more of the need of a different mode of teaching than that usually adopted for imperfectly taught people. How many of your (ordinary) parishioners even understand the simple meaning of the Prayer-book, nay, of their well-known (as they think) Gospel miracles and parables? Who teaches in ordinary parishes the Christian use of the Psalms? Who puts simply before peasant and stone-cutter the Jew and his religion, and what he and it were intended to be, and the real error and sin and failure?—the true nature of prophecy, the progressive teaching of the Bible, never in any age compromising truth, but never ignoring the state, so often the unreceptive state, of those to whom the truth must therefore be presented partially, and in a manner adapted to rude and unspiritual natures? What an amount of preparatory teaching is needed! What labour must be spent in struggling to bring forth things new and old, and present things simply before the indolent, unthinking, vacant mind! How much need there is of a more special training of the Clergy even now! Many men are striving nobly to do all this. But think of the rubbish that most of us chuck lazily out of our minds twice a week without method or order. It is such downright hard work to teach well. Oh! how weary it makes me to try. I feel as if I were at once aware of what should be attempted, and yet quite unable to do it!
'St. Michael's Day.—[After an affectionate review of most of his relations at home.]—When the Bishop and Mrs. Selwyn pressed me a good deal to go with them to England, it obliged me a little to analyse my feelings. You won't suspect me of any want of longing to see you, when I say that it never was a doubtful matter to me for five minutes. I saw nothing to make me wish to go to England in comparison with the crowd of reasons for not doing so. They, good people, thought it would be rest and refreshment to me. Little they know how a man so unlike them takes his rest! I am getting it here, hundreds of miles out of reach of any white man or woman, free from what is to me the bother of society. I am not defending myself; but it is true that to me it is a bore, the very opposite of rest, to be in society. I like a good talk with Sir William Martin above anything, but I declare that even that is dearly purchased by the other accompaniments of society.
'And I could not spend a quiet month with you at Weston. I should have people calling, the greatest of all nuisances, except that of having to go out to dinner. I should have to preach, and perhaps to go to meetings, all in the way of my business, but not tending to promote rest.
'Seriously, I am very well now; looking, I am sure, and feeling stronger and stouter than I was in New Zealand in the winter. So don't fret yourself about me, and don't think that I shouldn't dearly love to chat awhile with you. What an idle, lazy letter. You see I am taking my rest with you, writing without effort.'
He was looking well. Kohimarama must be more healthily situated than the first station, for all his three visits there were beneficial to him; and there seems to have been none of the tendency to ague and low fever which had been the trouble of the first abode.
Mr. Codrington and Mr. Bice came back in the schooner early in October, and were landed at Mota, while the Bishop went for a cruise in the New Hebrides; but the lateness of the season and the state of the vessel made it a short one, and he soon came back with thirty-five boys. Meanwhile, a small harmonium, which was to be left with the Christian settlement, had caused such an excitement that Mr. Bice was nearly squeezed to death by the crowds that came to hear it. He played nearly all day to successive throngs of men, but when the women arrived, they made such a clatter that he was fain to close the instrument. Unbleached calico clothing had been made for such of the young ladies as were to be taken on board for Norfolk Island, cut out by the Bishop and made up by Robert, William, and Benjamin, his scholars; and Mr. Codrington says, 'It was an odd sight to see the Bishop on the beach with the group of girls round him, and a number of garments over his arm. As each bride was brought by her friends, she was clothed and added to the group.
'Esthetically, clothes were no improvement. "A Melanesian clothed," the Bishop observes, "never looks well; there is almost always a stiff, shabby-genteel look. A good specimen, not disfigured by sores and ulcers, the well-shaped form, the rich warm colour of the skin, and the easy, graceful play of every limb, unhurt by shoe or tight-fitting dress, the flower stuck naturally into the hair, &c., make them look pleasant enough to my eye. You see in Picture Bibles figures draped as I could wish the Melanesians to be clothed."'
To continue Mr. Codrington's recollections of this stay in Mota:—
'I remember noticing how different his manner was from what was common at home. His eyes were cast all about him, keeping a sharp look-out, and all his movements and tones were quick and decisive. In that steaming climate, and those narrow paths, he walked faster than was at all agreeable to his companions, and was dressed moreover in a woollen coat and waistcoat all the time. In fact, he thoroughly enjoyed the heat, though no doubt it was weakening him; he liked the food, which gave him no trouble at all to eat, and he liked the natives.
'He felt, of course, that he was doing his work all the while; but the expression of his countenance was very different while sitting with a party of men over their food at Mota, and when sitting with a party in Norfolk Island.
'The contrast struck me very much between his recluse studious life there, and his very active one at Mota, with almost no leisure to read, and very little to write, and with an abundance of society which was a pleasure instead of a burthen.
'I think that the alert and decisive tone and habit which was so conspicuous in the islands, and came out whenever he was roused, was not natural to his disposition, but had been acquired in early years in a public school, and faded down in the quiet routine of St. Barnabas, and was recalled as occasion required with more effort as time went on. No doubt, his habitual gentleness made his occasional severity more felt, but at Mota his capacity for scolding was held in respect. I was told when I was last there, that I was no good, for I did not know how to scold, but that the Bishop perfectly well understood how to do it. Words certainly would never fail him in twenty languages to express his indignation, but how seldom among his own scholars had he to do it in one!'
This voyage is best summed up in the ensuing letter to one of the Norfolk relations:—
'"Southern Cross" Schooner, 20 miles East of Star Island.
'My dear Cousin,—We are drawing near the end of a rather long cruise, as I trust, in safety. We left Norfolk Island on the 24th June, and we hope to reach it in about ten days. We should have moved about in less time, but for the crippled state of the schooner. She fell in with a heavy gale off Norfolk Island about June 20th-23rd; and we have been obliged to be very careful of our spars, which were much strained. Indeed, we still need a new mainmast, main boom, and gaff, a main topmast, foretopmast, and probably new wire rigging, besides repairs of other kinds, and possibly new coppering. Thank God, the voyage has been so far safe, and, on the whole, prosperous. We sailed first of all to the Banks Islands, only dropping two lads at Ambrym Island on our way. We spent a week or more at Mota, while the vessel was being overhauled at the harbour in Vanua Lava Island, seven miles from Mota. It was a great relief to us to get the house for the station at Mota out of the vessel, the weight of timber, &c., was too much for a vessel not built for carrying freight. After a few days we left Mr. Palmer, George Sarawia, and others at Mota, busily engaged in putting up the house, a very serious matter for us, as you may suppose.
'Our party was made up of Mr. Atkin, Mr. Brooke, and two Mota volunteers for boat work, and divers Solomon Islanders. We were absent from Mota about seven years, during which time we visited Santa Cruz, and many of the Solomon Isles. Mr. Atkin spent three weeks in one of the isles, and Mr. Brooke in another, and we had more than thirty natives of the Solomon Islands on board, including old scholars, when we left Ulava, the last island of the Solomon group at which we called.
'Mr. Palmer, Mr. Atkin, and Mr. Brooke went on to Norfolk Island, the whole number of Melanesians on board being sixty-two. I had spent a very happy month at Mota when the vessel returned from Norfolk Island both with Mr. Codrington and Mr. Bice on board, bringing those of the Melanesians (nearly thirty in all) who chose to stay on Norfolk Island. Then followed a fortnight's cruise in the New Hebrides, and now with exactly fifty Melanesians on board from divers islands, we are on our way to Norfolk Island. We have fourteen girls, two married, on board, and there are ten already at Norfolk Island. This is an unusual number; but the people understand that the young men and lads who have been with us for some time, who are baptized and accustomed to decent orderly ways, are not going to marry heathen wild girls, so they give up these young ones to be taught and qualify to become fit wives for our rapidly increasing party of young men.
'It is quite clear that we must aim at exhibiting, by God's blessing, Christian family life in the islands, and this can only be done by training up young men and women.
'Three married couples, all Communicants, live now at Kohimarama, the station at Mota. George has two children, Benjamin one. It is already a small specimen of a little Christian community, and it must be reinforced, year by year, by accessions of new couples of Christian men and women.
'About twenty lads live at the station, and about forty more come daily to school. It may grow soon into a real working school, from which the most intelligent and best conducted boys may be taken to Norfolk Island for a more complete education. I am hopeful about a real improvement in Mota and elsewhere.
'But a new difficulty has lately been caused by the traders from Sydney and elsewhere, who have taken many people to work in the plantations at Brisbane, Mimea, (New Caledonia), and the Fiji Islands, actual kidnapping, and this is a sad hindrance to us. I know of no case of actual violence in the Banks Islands; but in every case, they took people away under false pretences, asserting that "the Bishop is ill and can't come; he has sent us to bring you to him." "The Bishop is in Sydney, he broke his leg getting into his boat, and has sent us to take you to him," &c., &c. In many of these places some of our old scholars are found who speak a little English, and the traders communicated with them.
'In most places where any of our young people happened to be on shore, they warned their companions against these men, but not always with success. Hindrances there must be always in the way of all attempts to do some good. But this is a sad business, and very discreditable to the persons employed in it and the Government which sanctions it, for they must know that they cannot control the masters of the vessels engaged in the trade; they may pass laws as to the treatment the natives are to receive on the plantations, as to food, pay, &c., the time of service, the date of their being taken home, but they know that the whole thing is dishonest. The natives don't intend or know anything about any service or labour; they don't know that they will have to work hard, and any regular steady work is hard work to South Sea Islanders. They are brought away under false pretences, else why tell lies to induce them to go on board?
'I dare say that many young fellows go on board without much persuasion. Many causes may be at work to induce them to do so, e.g., sickness in the island, quarrels, love of excitement, spirit of enterprise, &c., but if they knew what they were taken for, I don't think they would go.
'November 2nd.—In sight of Norfolk Island. All well on board.
'November 6th.—Yesterday we all landed safely, and found our whole party quite well. Our new hall is finished, and in good time to receive 134 Melanesians.'
Before the full accumulation of letters arrived from Auckland, a report by a passing ship from Sydney stirred the hermit Bishop deeply, and elicited the following warm congratulation:—
'Norfolk Island: November 17, 1869.
'My dear Dr. Moberly,—Since my return—a fortnight since—from the islands a rumour has reached us, brought hither in a small trader, that the Bishop of Winchester has resigned his see, and that you are his successor. It is almost too good to be true. I am waiting with great anxiety for a vessel expected soon; I have had no English news since letters of April. But in all seriousness, private news is of small moment compared with the news of what is to become of that great Diocese. And especially now, when almost all the south of England is so sadly in want of officers to command the Church's army. Exeter, Bath and Wells, Salisbury, Chichester (very old), and till now (if this rumour be true) Winchester, from old age or sickness almost, if not quite, unfit for work. If indeed I hear that God's Providence has placed you in charge of that great see, it will give a different hue to the prospect, dreary enough, I confess, to me; though I hope I am mistaken in my gloomy forebodings of the results of all those many Dioceses being so long without active Bishops. Salisbury of course I except, and Chichester is a small Diocese comparatively, and the good Bishop, I know, works up to the maximum of his age and strength. But if this be a true rumour, and I do sincerely trust and pray that it may be so, indeed it will give hope and courage and fresh life and power to many and many a fainting soul. If I may presume to say so, it is (as Mrs. Selwyn wrote to me when he was appointed to Lichfield) "a solemn and anxious thing to undertake a great charge on the top of such great expectations." But already there is one out here anyhow who feels cheered and strengthened by the mere hope that this story is true; and everywhere many anxious men and women will lift up their hearts to God in thankfulness, and in earnest prayers that you may indeed do a great work to His glory and to the good of His Church in a new and even greater sphere of usefulness. No doubt much of my thoughts and apprehensions about the religious and social state of England is very erroneous. I have but little time for reading about what is going on, and though I have the blessing of Codrington's good sense and ability, yet I should like to have more persons to learn from on such matters. I am willing and anxious to believe that I am not cheerful and faithful enough to see the bright side as clearly as I ought. Your letters have always been a very great help to me; not only a great pleasure, much more than a pleasure. I felt that I accepted, occasionally even that I had anticipated, your remarks on the questions of the day, the conduct of parties and public men, books, &c. It has been a great thing for me to have my thoughts guided or corrected in this way.
'Your last present to me was your volume of "Bampton Lectures," of which I need not say how both the subject and the mode of treating it make them especially valuable just now. And there is a strong personal feeling about the work and writings of one where the public man is also the private friend, which gives a special zest to the enjoyment of reading a work of this kind.
'Certainly it is one of the many blessings of my life that I should somehow have been allowed to grow into this degree of intimacy with you, whom I have always known by name, though I don't remember ever to have seen you. I think I first as a child became familiar with your name through good Miss Rennell, whom I dare say you remember: the old Dean's daughter. What a joy this would have been to dear Mr. and Mrs. Keble; what a joy it is to Charlotte Yonge; and there may be others close to Winchester whose lives have been closely bound tip with yours.
'But, humanly speaking, the thing is to have Bishops who can command the respect and love and dutiful obedience of their clergy and laity alike.
'One wants men who, by solid learning, and by acquaintance too with modern modes of criticism and speculation, by scholarship, force of character, largeness of mind, as well as by their goodness, can secure respect and exercise authority. It is the lawlessness of men that one deplores; the presumption of individual priests striking out for themselves unauthorised ways of managing their parishes and officiating in their churches. And, if I may dare to touch on such a subject, is there not a mode of speaking and writing on the Holy Eucharist prevalent among some men now, which has no parallel in the Church of England, except, it may be, in some of the non-jurors, and which does not express the Church of England's mind; which is not the language of Pearson, and Jackson, and Waterland, and Hooker, no, nor of Bull, and Andrewes, and Taylor, &c.? I know very little of such things—very little indeed. But it is oftentimes a sad grief to me that I cannot accept some of the reasonings and opinions of dear Mr. Keble in his book on "Eucharistic Adoration." I know that I have no right to expect to see things as such a man saw them: that most probably the instinctive power of discerning truth—the reward of a holy life from early childhood—guided him where men without such power feel all astray. But yet, there is something about the book which may be quite right and true, but does not to me quite savour of the healthy sound theology of the Church of England; the fragrance is rather that of an exotic plant; here and there I mean—though I feel angry with myself for daring to think this, and to say it to you, who can understand him.
'November 27th.—I leave this as I wrote it, though now I know from our mails, which have come to us, that you are Bishop of Salisbury, not of Winchester. I hardly stop to think whether it is Winchester or Salisbury, so great is my thankfulness and joy at the report being substantially true. Though it did seem that Winchester was a natural sphere for you, I can't help feeling that at Salisbury you can do (D.V.) what perhaps scarcely any one else could do. And now I rejoice that you have had the opportunity of speaking with no uncertain sound in your "Bampton Lectures." Anyone can tell what the Bishop of Salisbury holds on the great questions of Church Doctrine and Church Government. The diocese knows already its Bishop, not only by many former but by his latest book. Surely you will have the confidence of all Churchmen, and be blessed to do a great work for the glory of God and the edification of the Church.
'And now, my dear Bishop of Salisbury, you will excuse my writing on so freely, too freely I fear. I do like to think of you in that most perfect of Cathedrals. I hope and trust that you will have ere long, right good fellow-workers in Exeter, Winton, and Bath and Wells.
'But in the colonies you have a congeries of men from all countries, and with every variety of creed, jumbled up together, with nothing whatever to hold them together—no reverence—no thoughts of the old parish church, &c. They are restless, worldly people to a great extent, thinking of getting on, making money. To such men the very idea of the Church as a Divine Institution, the mystical Body of the Lord, on which all graces are bestowed, and through whose ministrations men are trained in holiness and truth, is wholly unknown. The personal religion of many a man is sincere; his position and duty as a Churchman he has never thought about. I wish the clergy would master that part, at all events, of your Lectures which deals with this great fundamental point, and then, as they have opportunity, teach it to their people. And by-and-by, through the collective life of the Church in its synods, &c., many will come to see it, we may hope.
'I think that I may give you a cheering account of ourselves. I was nineteen weeks in the islands—met with no adventures worth mentioning, only one little affair which was rather critical for a few minutes, but ended very well—and in some of the Solomon Islands made more way than heretofore with the people. We have 134 Melanesians here and a baby. George Sarawia and his wife and two children, and two other married couples—all Communicants—are at Mota, in a nice place, with some twenty-two lads "boarding" with them, and about thirty more coming to daily school.
'The vessel was much knocked about in a violent gale in June off Norfolk Island, and we had to handle her very carefully. The whole voyage was made with a mainmast badly sprung, and fore topmast very shaky. Mr. Tilly was very watchful over the spars, and though we had a large share of squally weather, and for some days, at different times, were becalmed in a heavy swell, the most trying of all situations to the gear of a vessel, yet, thank God, all went well, and I have heard of the schooner safe in Auckland harbour. About forty of our Melanesians here are Solomon Islanders, from seven different islands; a few came from the New Hebrides, the rest from the Banks Islands. We are already pretty well settled down to our work. Indeed, it took only a day or two to get to work; our old scholars are such great helpers to us. We number six clergymen here (G. Sarawia being at Mota). Ten or twelve of the sixth form are teachers. If you care to hear more; I must refer you to a letter just written to Miss Yonge. But it is not easy to write details about 134 young people. Their temptations are very great when they return to their islands; every inducement to profligacy, &c., is held out to them. One of our young baptized lads fell into sinful ways, and is not now with us. He was not one of whom we had great expectations, though we trusted that he would go on steadily. Many others, thank God, were kept pure and truthful in the midst of it all, refusing even to sleep one night away from our little hut, and in some cases refusing even to leave the schooner. "No, I will wait till I am married," said two lads to me, who were married here to Christian girls on November 24th, "and then go ashore for a time with my young wife. I don't think I should yield, but I don't want to put myself in the way of such temptations." And so, when I had naturally expected that they would take their six weeks' holiday on shore, while the "Southern Cross" went from Mota to Norfolk Island and back (during my stay at Mota), they remained on board, rejoining me, as they were two of my boating crew, for the New Hebrides trip! This was very comforting. And when I married three couples on November 24th, and knew that they were pure, youths and girls alike, from the great sin of heathenism, you can well think that my heart was very full of thankfulness and hope.
'I must end my long letter. How will you find time to read it? Send me some day a photograph of your beautiful Cathedral.
'Yours very faithfully,
Before the letter to which Bishop Moberly is referred, Mr. Codrington's bit about the weddings seems appropriate:—
'These wedding days were great festivals, especially before many had been seen. The Chapel was dressed with flowers, the wedding party in as new and cheerful attire as could be procured, the English Marriage Service translated into Mota. We make rings out of sixpences or threepenny bits. The place before is full of the sound of the hammer tapping the silver on the marlingspike. The wedding ceremony is performed with as much solemnity as possible, all the school present in their new clothes and with flowers in their hair. There is even a kind of processional Psalm as the wedding party enters the Chapel. There is of course a holiday, and after the service they all go off, taking with them the pig that has been killed for the feast. An enormous quantity of plum pudding awaits them when, in the evening, they come back to prayers and supper. Rounds of hearty cheers, led off by the Bishop, used to complete the day. Weddings of this kind between old scholars, christened, confirmed, and trustworthy, represented much anxiety and much teaching and expense, but they promise so much, and that so near of what has been worked for, that they have brought with them extraordinary pleasure and satisfaction.'
'Norfolk Island: November 24, 1869.
'My dear Cousin,—To-day we married three young couples: the bridegrooms. Robert Pantatun, William Pasvorang, and Marsden Sawa, who have been many years with us, and are all Communicants; the brides, Emily Milerauwe, Lydia Lastitia, and Rhoda Titrakrauwe, who were baptized a year ago.
'The Chapel was very prettily dressed up with lilies and many other flowers. The bridegrooms wore white trousers, shirts, &c., the brides wore pretty simple dresses and flowers in their hair. We crowded as many persons as possible into our little Chapel. Mr. Nobbs and some ten or twelve of our Pitcairn friends were all the visitors that we could manage to make room for.
'Great festivities followed, a large pig was killed yesterday and eaten to-day, and Mr. Palmer had manufactured puddings without end, a new kind of food to many of the present set of scholars, but highly appreciated by most of them. Then followed in the evening native dances and songs, and a supper to end with, with cheers for the brides and bridegrooms.
'There are now six married couples here, three more at Mota, and one or two more weddings will take place soon. Very fortunately, a vessel came from Auckland only three or four days ago, the first since the "Southern Cross," in June, It brought not only five mails for us English folk, but endless packages and boxes for the Mission, ordered by us long ago, stores, clothing, &c. We had all ordered more or less in the way of presents for scholars, and though we keep most of these treasures for Christmas gifts, yet some are distributed now.
'These presents are for the most part really good things. It is quite useless for kind friends to send presents to Melanesians as they would do to an English lad or girl. To begin with, most of our scholars are grown up, and are more like English young people of twenty or eighteen years old than like boys and girls, and not a few are older still; and secondly, no Melanesian, old or young, cares a rush about a toy. They, boys and girls, men and women, take a practical view of a present, and are the very reverse of sentimental about it, though they really do like a photograph of a friend. But a mere Brummagem article that won't stand wear is quite valueless in their eyes.
'Whatever is given them, cheap or dear, is estimated according to its usefulness; and whatever is given, though it may cost but a shilling, must be good of its kind. For example, a rough-handled, single-bladed knife, bought for a shilling, they fully appreciate; but a knife with half-a-dozen blades, bought for eighteen-pence, they would almost throw away. And so about everything else. I mention this as a hint to kind friends. They do like to hear that people think of them and are kind to them, but they don't understand why useless things should be sent from the other end of the world when they could buy much better things with their own money out of the mission store here.