548 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
land of his parents^ prior to entering upon the work to 
which his life is devoted. 
Many a Missionary spends the greater part of his life 
without being able to produce any powerful or favour¬ 
able impression upon the people among whom he has 
laboured; others expire in a fields on which they have 
bestowed fervent prayer, tears, and toil, but from which 
no fruit has been gathered; the second generation have 
to commence under circumstances corresponding with 
those under which their predecessors began. When 
success attends their efforts, and a change takes place 
decisive and extensive as that which has occurred in the 
South Sea Islands; yet so mighty is the work, so deep 
the prejudices, so difficult to be overcome are evil habits, 
and so slow the process of improvement upon a broad 
scale, even under the most favourable circumstances, that 
the ordinary period of a Missionary’s life in actual ser¬ 
vice, would appear too short to raise them from their 
wretchedness, and elevate them to a standard in morals, 
habits, intelligence, and stability in religion, at which those 
Avho were instrumental in originating their emancipa¬ 
tion, would like to leave them. They never can be 
expected to advance beyond those who are their models, 
their preceptors, and their guides ; and if the successors 
of the first Missionaries be in any respect inferior to 
their predecessors, the progress of the nation must, in 
regard to improvement, be retrograde—unless this de¬ 
ficiency be supplied from some other source. 
On this account, it does appear exceedingly desirable 
that the successors to the first Missionaries among an 
uncivilized people, who may even renounce idolatry, 
should be in every respect equally qualified for this 
office with those by whom they were preceded, and that 
