204 NOTES CONCERNING THE MELANESIAN MISSION. 
ization, have certainly not proved any more useful as propagandists 
than the native teachers of other Missionary bodies in the Pacific 
who were trained in or near their own homes. 
It was during the episcopate of Bishop Wilson that those changes 
began which not only considerably altered the original plan of the 
Mission, but which also bid fair to change its character altogether. 
The Rev. H. Welchman was actually the first to make a change in the 
original plan of the Mission by settling with his wife at Siota, Florida. 
Dr. Comins bought Siota with the idea of establishing a preparatory 
school there for teachers, and he and Mr. Welchman had undertaken 
to conduct it in turn, Mr. Welchman taking the summer months and 
Dr. Comins returning from Norfolk Island during the southeastern 
trade season, when Mr. Welchman went back to his own work in 
Bugotu. Previous to this, however, Mr. Forrest had been living 
continuously at Santa Cruz all the year through, but the rest of the staff 
regularly spent the summer months at Norfolk Island. Bishop J. 
Selwyn, moreover, had long been desirous of doing something to aid the 
Christian life of the converts, because he recognized the necessity of 
building them up in their Christianity. He also wished to give them 
something to do in order to replace the misdirected efforts of the old 
Heathenism with some form of regular employment. His idea was to 
furnish a small vessel for trading purposes and to start a trading com- 
pany, thus providing an outlet for the energies of his people, now that 
the old avenues of their Heathen life were closed. 
FURTHER CHANGES. 
During Bishop Wilson’s episcopate there were many new develup- 
ments of work. Preparatory schools were built at Bongana in Florida, 
at Pamua on San Cristoval, and at Vureas in the Banks Group. The 
missionaries began to reside permanently among their people and mis- 
sion houses were built in all the groups. Men took their wives to the 
islands and women workers were placed in pairs in various places. 
Still, so long as Norfolk Island remained the Bishop’s headquarters it 
could not reasonably be said that these doings amounted to a radical 
change of front; they were only what might be expected, owing to 
the changes in the circumstances of the islands caused by the advent of 
trade and by the presence of other missionary bodies in the Mission’s 
area. [hese two factors, viz., trade and opposition, have worked such 
a change in the Mission’s plan that it may be said that practically 
all the missionaries are residential in the islands, 7. ¢., they no longer 
return to Norfolk Island during the summer. 
The growing importance of the work in the islands so impressed the 
authorities that when Bishop Wilson resigned it was felt that his suc- 
cessor must be prepared to have his headquarters in the islands. Nor- 
