EARLY MISSIONARIES. 
189 
it might have been supposed a more just conclu¬ 
sion would have been formed, who have occasion¬ 
ally described them as the most unsuitable agents 
that could have been employed. This mode of 
representation, although I do not regard the Mis¬ 
sionaries or their proceedings as perfect, I consider 
to be far from just. It is not my intention to 
eulogize their labours, or to lavish panegyric upon 
their achievements. But in the estimate of their 
character, qualifications, and exertions, a variety 
of considerations ought to have a greater influence 
on the minds of those by whom they are thus 
represented, than they are sometimes allowed to 
exert. Missionary effort, on the extended scale 
and in the distant and comparatively unexplored 
field in which they attempted it, was an event 
as new among the British churches, as the broad, 
catholic principles, upon which it was undertaken, 
were unparalleled. 
The authentic information possessed by many 
who combined in arranging the plan, as well as 
by those who attempted its execution, was not 
only exceedingly limited, but received through a, 
medium* that necessarily imparted a higher glow 
of - colouring, than those channels through which 
more accurate accounts have since been trans¬ 
mitted. Many, no doubt, embarked in the enter¬ 
prise, as subsequent events fully proved, with in¬ 
correct 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 pri- 
* Voyages of Cook, Bligh, &c. 
