PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



65 



spiritual instruction of the island are, for the most 

 part, in a low and declining condition. 



" They were not less united in assigning the tem- 

 poral distress of the colony as a principal cause of 

 their peculiar difficulties, and discouragements. 

 While churches and societies at home are diminish- 

 ing the amount of their assistance to missionary in- 

 stitutions here, the inhabitants are disabled, by their 

 sad reverses, from supporting their own ministers 

 and teachers, as they otherwise might ; and persons 

 who have still some means at their disposal, are 

 tempted to plead the badness of the times, as a suffi- 

 cient apology for restricting their exertions. 



" The consequence is, that ministers are returning 

 home ; schoolmasters are returning home ; and the 

 places of those competent and devoted benefactors 

 are left vacant, or filled by others less qualified to 

 succeed them. To what is this lovely island retro- 

 grading? Ye friends of humanity, who have done 

 so much, awake and bestir yourselves, lest all that 

 you have done be undone — lest your work be ruined, 

 and your reward lost ! From the scene of the facts, 

 amid a great assembly perfectly qualified to judge 

 the accuracy of my statements, I tell you that the 

 objects on which you have expended so much money, 

 so much labor, so much time, so much life, are in 

 jeopardy ; and ignorance, irreligion, superstition, 



