SERMON PREACHED ON THE ISLAND. 289 
On the occasion of a wedding sermon, preached 
by Mr. Nobbs in Pitcairn Church, four young 
persons having, on the same morning, entered 
into the holy estate of matrimony, he took his 
text from Eph. v. 22, &c.: " Wives, submit 
yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the 
Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, 
even as Christ is the head of the Church : and 
he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the 
Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives 
be to their own husbands in everything. Hus- 
bands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved 
the Church, and gave himself for it." 
After speaking of the holy influence of the 
Christian religion, in restoring women to their 
proper place in society, he described the igno- 
miny with which females are treated, not only 
among the natives of the islands of the Southern 
Pacific, but among the Hindoos, and Moham- 
medans, and the inhabitants of other countries, 
especially in the East, in which a false religion, 
and absurd superstitions prevail. To this evil 
principle he attributed the custom, so long pre- 
valent in India, of sacrificing widows at the 
funerals of their husbands, and wickedly de- 
stroying numbers of female infants. 
" I am sure, my female friends, your hearts are 
ready to sink within you at the recital of such 
horrible atrocities ; but it is the truth. Nay, I 
need only refer you to the account of the land 
from whence your mothers and grandmothers 
came. You have heard them declare how the 
women were degraded in their country, being 
looked upon as inferior creatures, and how often 
