PKOGRESS OF EELIGION. 175 
dred and thirty-eight, and is rapidly increasing. 
Our teacher, who is a worthy man, and whose 
services are of great value to us, has never 
received the sanction or licence of the proper 
authorities in the Church, to qualify him for the 
very important and prominent situation he fills. 
He is most anxious, and we are no less so, that 
he should be more formally inducted into the 
office of pastor ; and for this purpose our humble 
request to you is, that you will (if it can be 
done with propriety) make our case known to 
the Bishop of London, or some other competent 
Dignitary, who would send a pastoral letter to 
our teacher, sanctioning and confirming him in 
the sacred office he for nineteen years has held 
among us." 
Mr. Nobbs had been between eighteen and 
nineteen years in the midst of the people, when 
the above letters were written ; and he had 
maintained and advanced among them, accord- 
ing to the teaching of the Church of England, 
those good principles with which the very name 
of Pitcairn has been so long and so happily 
associated. 
As their religion has been full of good fruits, 
so it has been of a quiet, sensible, and unosten- 
tatious kind. Inquiry having been made of 
Mr. Nobbs by some persons in the United 
States of America, a few years since, as to any 
instances of sudden and extraordinary con- 
version, which might have fallen under his 
notice, he replied that his experience did not 
furnish any such cases from Pitcairn. In an- 
swer to the questions put to him, he remarked, 
