QgTA : FOLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
that exist. They would operate powerfully, sup- 
posing the children were all that the parents could 
wish ; supposing they were qualified by talent, 
disposed by deliberate choice, and prepared by 
Divine grace, for the work of Christian Mission- 
aries; but these indispensable requisites, it is 
unnecessary to remark, a parent, with all his soli- 
eitude and eare, cannot always secure. God 
may see fit to withhold those decisive evidences 
of genuine piety, without which the fondest 
parent would tremble at the idea of introducing 
even his own child into the sacred office of an 
evangelist. However Missionary pursuits may 
have been accounted the honour, or have proved 
the happiness, of the parent, the child, as he grows 
up, may not even possess a desire to engage in the 
same: that desire the parent cannot give; and, 
without it, it would, from every consideration, be 
both cruel and injurious to urge it. 
The alternative is most distressmg to contem- 
plate. There are at present no situations of com- 
fort to fill, no trade or business that can be fol- 
lowed. Productive plantations, regular labour, 
mercantile establishments, warehouses, and shops, 
it 1s to be expected, will ultimately exist and 
flourish in these islands, but they cannot be looked 
for in the short period of fifteen years from the 
time when the people emerged from gross igno- 
rance, inveterate vice, and the most enervating 
and dissipating idleness. The circumstances of — 
the female branches of the Mission families are, 
perhaps, still more discouraging. 
I have extended these remarks much Been 
what I intended, when speaking of the South Sea 
Academy ; and ‘although they may be less inte- 
pune to the general Sek than other mat- 
