lxxx PREFATORY LETTER, 



all cases among the good elements of success: and the words 

 of the Gospel, and the duties arising out of its commands, 

 are so plain and simple, that an honest teacher, gifted with 

 common sense, cannot well be mistaken in their application, 

 while he is dealing with men of humble state like those of 

 central Africa. Whether he be learned or unlearned can 

 make little difference in the first doctrines he will have to 

 teach, and the first duties he will have to enforce w 7 hen he 

 begins to instruct the poor unlettered heathen. Be he wise 

 or foolish, as this w T orld counts wisdom and folly, and what- 

 ever may have been his social position here, that man deserves 

 our grateful praise, who, under God, has been an honoured 

 instrument in first spreading the light of truth among the 

 heathen, and leading their hearts and wills toward that kind 

 of social union which is the commencement of a Christian 

 society. 



I remember well the mockery and ribaldry — seasoned with 

 pungent wit, and spiced with words which if they helped to 

 raise a laugh, served also to raise a blush on a modest cheek 

 — by which a party of humble Missionaries, who went out to 

 the Islands of the Pacific in the early years of this century, 

 were held up to open scorn in some of the most popular 

 works of that period. These Missionaries were not learned men ; 

 and some of them may have imperfectly known their own 

 strength, and ill counted the cost of what they undertook. But 

 they were earnest men, and not to be put down by the wit and 

 mockery of those who had done, and were willing to do, 

 nothing for the civilization and instruction of the licentious 

 inhabitants of those beautiful Islands. The Missionaries perse- 

 vered against scorn and ill-bodings; and before many years 

 were over, their labours were blessed; and they christianized 

 the Islands to which they first shaped their course; and their 

 goodly victory was, under God, followed by one of the most 

 rapid advances in civilization of which we can find an account 

 in the moral records of the present century. If some of the 





