190 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
vation 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 themselves. 
Their family connexions may not indeed have 
been of the highest class, neither may the indi¬ 
viduals themselves have enjoyed the advantages 
of a very liberal education, nor possessed any very 
extensive acquaintance with the world. It is only 
in comparatively recent times that individuals of 
this class have, by embarking personally on the 
arduous and self-denying work of propagating 
Christianity amongst 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 favourable impression upon the minds of the 
people. They had obtained a creditable Eng¬ 
lish, if not a classical, education, a due knowledge 
of the scriptures, and an experimental acquaintance 
with the principles of Christianity; while some, 
with great mental vigour combined no small de¬ 
gree of intellectual culture. Their own improve¬ 
ment, and the preparation for instructing the people, 
was prosecuted contemporaneously with their efforts 
to teach the people; and the numerous and re¬ 
spectable philological and other manuscripts which 
these have transmitted to England, although never 
published, shew that they were far from being 
unqualified for their work. 
Had the first Mission to the South Seas been 
composed entirely of individuals eminent for their 
scientific knowledge and classical attainments, they 
would probably have been less suitable agents than 
those who actually went; as, it may be presumed, 
