2 
their children’s mouths. If this picture be not sufficiently revolting, I must refer you to the 
published reports of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, where you will find plenty of similar, or 
worse, accounts,—accounts which I have heard confirmed by many witnesses, not connected 
with the mission-work. Now picture to yourself a people like this, numbering perhaps 200,000 
souls—see a small band of Missionaries, with their wives and families, going and sitting down 
among them with their lives in their hands (literally “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to 
God,”) and thus living on, without /wman protection, through evil report, or perhaps persecution, 
for years and years, seeing scarcely any fruit of their labours, till their heads are growing grey, 
or till some of their number have been laid in a Feejeean grave; and then behold this same 
mission, after twenty years labours, appealing, by its 10,000 converts, to the sympathies of a 
Christian world ; contrast these pictures, and I think you will jom with me in praying, that God 
may prosper this great work, and that speedily. 
So far for my preface, and now for my main object—which, when I have stated 
the case, will explain my reason for writing all this to you, instead of to some other of my 
friends. I find that the Missionaries here, and at the other stations, are in the habit of 
distributing, at an almost nominal charge, large quantities of medicines; which medicines 
are entirely provided by these devoted men out of their slender pittances. The funds of the 
Parent Society, though large, are so overburdened (as you may see by the Annual Reports, 
in which the Society is always some thousands in debt to its treasurers,) that no assistance 
can be given in this respect. The Missionaries, therefore, must continue to bear this expense 
themselves, or see the poor creatures round them suffering and dying without assistance. I 
need hardly add, that the ability to minister to disease is a valuable aid to a missionary’s 
more especial work; and, indeed, in my opinion so great an aid, that all persons educated for 
missionary work ought to receive a proper medical training; and, if possible, medicines 
ought to be supplied to the Missionary in such quantities as to enable him to distribute gra- 
tuitously in cases of necessity. At present, as I have already said, the medicine chest is a 
very serious annual expense, and particularly so as the Missionary is often obliged to purchase 
in Sydney, at the extravagant colonial prices. 
Now my object is to try whether we cannot raise, among our personal friends, a 
small fund, which might be expended by you or by Mr. Deane,—by whose connection with the 
profession we could be assured that the medicines would be supplied of the best quality, and at 
the cheapest possible wholesale prices. For such an object I am sure you could arrange with 
the wholesale druggists, so as to make the funds go to the greatest possible length. Among our 
mutual friends in Dublin and London (taking Henry Curisry also to your counsel), I think 
we might raise enough to afford at least a supply for a year or two to this and to the Feejeean 
Mission; and should the funds, by the blessing of God, prove greater than we look for, then 
perhaps we might establish a little “ Polynesian Medical Aid Society,” through which agency an 
annual contribution of medicines might be sent to the Missionaries, who would then be enabled 
to distribute gratuitously. For the first object put me down £5; and if the Society be 
established, for £1 annually. I shall enclose a list of the quantities and kinds of medicine 
annually distributed at present at this Station, as a guide to you and the Committee. 
I own I have still another reason for wishing to raise this subscription, and here it 
is. About twelve years ago, after the island had in great measure become Christian, the Jesuits 
3 
commenced an opposition mission here, purposely to overturn the good work, and to introduce 
the Romish superstition in its stead. Though the number of their converts is trifling (not more 
than 400 at the most), they have four priests at present. If it were a’mere question between 
truth and error, I should not care a button for these four black sheep, for it so happens, that 
their teaching, is so similar to the old insular heathenism (which is now held by the natives in 
the utmost contempt and detestation), that the natives themselves see the resemblance: and, 
being well versed in the New Testament, they are not slow to perceive that the Missionaries’ 
teaching answers much better with the teaching of the written Word, than does that of the 
Jesuits. They care nothing for St. Peter’s chair, or for the lineal “ apostolic succession,” unless 
there be also apostolic doctrine. They have read in the epistles what St. Peter and St. Paul 
really taught, and what they warned their disciples against; and it is useless for the Jesuits to 
plead St. Peter’s authority to them, and at the same time to bid them worship the blessed 
Virgin, tell their beads, and pray to saints and angels. They are very shrewd and ready to 
answer him at once out of the New Testament; but refuse to listen to any other authority: so 
that controversy here has invariably injured the “cause.” In one of the controversies, which 
were more numerous formerly than now, when the Jesuit had, in the course of the discussion, 
shifted his ground and changed his assertions more than once, the native controversialist, in his 
reply, called the Jesuit a Feke (or cutile-fish), because he changed colour. This tickled the 
fancy of the other natives, who were all familiar with the habits of the cuttle-fish, which formerly 
was one of their gods. So the word Feke has become the common synonym for Jesuit; and 
they illustrate the nickname by ludicrous comparisons of the habits of both animals. The cuttle- 
fish, with his many grasping arms, sticks fast by its suckers to the object it attacks; its large 
mouth and sharp jaws, are hidden under the arms, and only found out when it bites and 
devours; its great staring eyes are ever looking for prey; it has a habit of squeezing its body 
into narrow holes, where it sits ready to pounce on a passing fish; it squirts out clear water as it 
swims at ease, and throws dirt all round it when attacked, and then scuttles off under cover of 
the fouled water: or it lies down flat, and takes the colour of the stone it lies on, when it is 
cowed, and has no other means of escape. Thus they chaff among themselves, as they point at 
the “ Feke, Feke.” For years the Jesuits made scarcely any impression; and, but for the joint 
influence of French intimidation, bribery, the allowance of a relaxed morality, and the toleration 
of semi-heathenish customs, they would have been left with scarcely any disciples. The French 
intimidation has been their chief support. You know what the French have done at Tahiti ; 
and a similar fate seems impending over these islands. At the repeated solicitation of the Jesuit 
priests, who have reported the most infamous lies of this Mission, French ships of war have been 
sent hither to intimidate; and, very recently, the French Governor of Tahiti arrived with a 
frigate and a steamer, purposely to extort a treaty from the king of these islands in favour of 
Romanism. ‘Toleration does not content them; they are aiming at a super-civil power, with 
or without, the consent of the king. The only countervailing influence to this is the occasional 
visit of an English ship of war; but it is now three years since one has been here, while the 
French ships come frequently. The consequence is, that since the visit of the Tahitian Governor, 
the Jesuits have gained, J am told, nearly 100 converts. It is true that these are persons of 
little influence, and little under the influence of Christianity, many being of the “ looser 
sort.”’ But all is fish that come to the fisherman’s net, and “ many a little, makes a mickle.” 
