278 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
incorrect ideas of the work^ or mistaken views of the 
qualifications necessary for its accomplishment. It is 
not^ however, to those who abandoned the task, that I 
refer so much, as to those who (except when driven from 
it by the approaching desolations of murderous war) 
maintained their post, and died in the field | or who, 
after having sustained the privation and toil of thirty 
years of exile from country and from home, are still 
willing to end their days among the people with 
whose interests and destiny they have identified them¬ 
selves. 
Their family connexions may not indeed have been 
of the highest class, neither may the individuals them¬ 
selves have enjoyed the advantages of a very liberal edu¬ 
cation, nor possessed any very extensive acquaintance 
with the world. It is only in comparatively recent times 
that individuals of this class have, by embarking person¬ 
ally on the arduous and self-denying work of propagat¬ 
ing Christianity amongst the pagan nations, exhibited 
some noble examples of Christian devotedness. Many 
of the first Missionaries to the South Sea Islands were 
acquainted with the most useful of the mechanic arts, 
which were adapted to produce a very favourable im¬ 
pression upon the minds of the people. They had 
obtained a creditable English, if not a classical, educa¬ 
tion, a due knowledge of the scriptures, and an experi¬ 
mental aquaintance with the principles of Christianity j 
while some, with great mental vigour combined no small 
degree of intellectual culture. Their own improvement, 
and the preparation for the work, was prosecuted contem¬ 
poraneously with their eftbrts to instruct the people; 
and the numerous and respectable philological and other 
manuscripts which these have transmitted to England, 
