172 LINGUISTICS IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC. 
ability to make a fair rendering of psalms, canticles, and hymns for the 
beginnings of his work. 
Bishop G. A. Selwyn advocated the teaching of the Melanesians at 
St. John’s, Auckland, in English, but this was before Patteson came on 
the scene. Selwyn was a scholar, but it is doubtful whether he could 
be characterized as a linguist, nor had he the time to give to linguistic 
studies as Patteson had. His Maoris he taught in Maori, and one 
hears nothing of any proposal of his to abolish Maori as a medium of 
communication. He had perforce to adopt English for his Melanesians, 
just as he had to bring them away from their own country in order to 
teach them. What one feels about the substitution of English for a 
native language nowin the Mission is that a veritable cardinal principle 
is in danger of being abandoned thereby, viz., the principle that every 
man should “hear the Gospel” in his own language. 
THE NEED FOR A POLICY IN TRANSLATIONAL WORK. 
The whole Bible has been translated into almost every Polynesian 
language. In Melanesia no complete Bible exists as yet, though the 
Mota Bible is practically complete. Certain small sections of the 
earlier books of the Old Testament were omitted purposely from it. 
In Papua no complete Bible exists, but some of the languages have a 
complete New Testament. In setting out to translate the Bible, what 
portion is the missionary to start on? How much of the Bible, or 
rather, how much of the Old Testament, is really required? ‘These 
two questions must have occurred to the minds of all missionaries, 
yet it would seem that no one mission has ever formulated a definite 
scheme in the matter of directing or controlling biblical transla- 
tions. With regard to the first question, as to what part of the Bible 
one should begin on, the Rev. Dr. Macfarlane, of the London Mis- 
sionary Society in Torres Straits, wrote asking this question of Dr. 
Codrington, and the answer given was that it seemed best to make a 
beginning with the Gospel according to St. Luke. In the Melanesian 
Mission St. Luke and the Acts were the first translations made by 
Bishop Patteson. Dr. Codrington states: “I wrote the middle of St. 
Matthew and St. Mark, the Passion being old. Bishop Patteson 
wrote St. John. I did almost all the Epistles.” 
Even apart from the necessity for translating the Psalms for use in 
the daily services, there can be no doubt that a translation of the 
Psalms should be made as soon as possible in order to encourage the 
devotional life of the people. The metrical version of the Psalms in 
the Indian language of Massachusetts was the first part of the Bible 
which John Eliot, the apostle of the American Indians, published, and 
in the singing of the Psalms he found the readiest means of arresting 
attention and the simplest expression for the religious feelings of his 
child-natured people. 
