IN FIJI 29 
of morality which the New Testament teaches; yet Chris- 
tianity elevated them to that standard, and thereby wrought 
a triumph which no drilling of mere moral culture could 
have achieved: it went deeper than any other system could 
have reached, exercising, as it did, a power which no other 
could command. 
“It did more than reform these licentious savages. In 
changing their hearts, it wrought in them a new style of 
ideas, a new class of motives. In the breast of the relent- 
less warrior, the treacherous savage, the wily and suspicious 
heathen, it set up a quick and active charity, giving birth to 
strange emotions never felt before,—the emotions of sym- 
pathy and love for those whom they had hitherto known 
only as the sharers or the objects of their crime. They 
felt impelled to spread, as they could, the knowledge of 
that truth which had been the means of thus completely re- 
newing them.” 
The lives of the missionaries were, from the first, exceed- 
ingly active. From early morning till late at night they and 
their wives were kept busy answering questions and teaching 
the natives. Their coming had introduced to the Fijians not 
only new standards of life and new ideas of religion, but 
new means for the accomplishment of their everyday tasks. 
Axes, knives, chisels, and other tools were now brought 
within their reach. Calico and other cloth were also avail- 
able, for it was by these things that the missionaries paid for 
all labor, food, and other necessaries. The barter, too, of these 
tools and comforts for such native articles as the mission- 
ary families needed, had the effect of bringing to Lakemba 
peoples from other islands. These, returning to their home 
islands, invariably carried with them articles of European 
manufacture, and told wonderful stories of all they had seen 
in the homes of the missionaries. Thus the mission, its fam- 
ilies, and their manner of life, and the strange teaching of 
the white men, became the general theme of conversation in 
all the islands of that part of the group. 
