verandah. I have such Japanese lilies making ready to put forth their splendours. Two or three azaleas grow well. Rhododendrons won't grow well. My little pines grow well, and are about seven feet high. It is very pleasant to see the growth of these things when I return from the voyage. The 'pottering about' the little gardens, the park-like paddocks, with our sheep and cattle and horses, gives me some exercise every day. I go about quietly, and very often by myself, with a book. After thinking of all kinds of things and persons, I think that my increased and increasing unwillingness to write is one proof of my not being so strong or vigorous. I can't tell you what an effort it is to me to write a business letter; and I almost dread a long effusion from anyone, because, though I like reading it, I have the thought of the labour of answering it in my mind.
'Then again, I who used to be so very talkative, am taciturn now. Occasionally, I victimize some unfortunate with a flow of language about some point of divinity, or if I get a hearer on South Sea languages, I can bore him with much satisfaction to myself. But I am so stupid about small talk. I cannot make it. When I have to try with some Norfolk Islander, e.g. it does weary me so! Mind, I don't despise it. But instead of being a relaxation, it is of all things the hardest work to me. I am very dull in that way, you know. And sometimes I think people must take me to be sullen, for I never know how to keep the talk going. Then if I do talk, I get upon some point that no one cares for, and bore everybody. So here, too, I fall back on my own set of friends, who are most tolerant of my idiosyncrasies, and on my Melanesians who don't notice them.
'Your loving Brother,
'J. C. P.'
In spite of this distaste for writing, a good many letters were sent forth during the early months of 1871, most of them the final ones to each correspondent. The next, to Miss Mackenzie, is a reply to one in which, by Bishop Wilkinson's desire, she had sought for counsel regarding the Zulu Mission, especially on questions that she knew by experience to be most difficult, i.e., of inculcating Christian modesty, and likewise on the qualifications of a native ministry:-
'Norfolk Island: Jan. 26, 1871.
'My dear Miss Mackenzie,-In addition to a very long and interesting letter of yours, I have a letter from my sister, who has just seen you at Havant, so I must lose no more time in writing.
'First, let me say that I am as sure as I can be of anything that I have not registered, that I wrote to thank you for the prints long ago. Indeed, all these many gifts of yours are specially valuable as having been once the property of your brother, of whom it seems presumptuous for me to speak, and as having actually been used in Mission work in so distant a part of the world.
'I need not say that 'Thomas a Kempis,' his sextant, and his pedometer, are among my few real valuables. For the use of the prints, I can't say much on my own knowledge. My classes are for the most part made up of lads and young men, teachers, or preparing for Confirmation or Holy Communion; one class, always of younger ones, being prepared for Baptism; and sometimes youths, newcomers, when we have to take in hand a new language. Those prints are not of much use, therefore, to my special classes. Most of them have passed beyond the stage of being taught by pictures, though they like to look at them. But Mrs. Palmer has been using them constantly with the girls' classes, and so with the less advanced classes throughout the school.
'One difficulty will to the end be, that by the time we can talk freely to our scholars, and they can understand their own language employed as a vehicle for religious teaching, they are not sufficiently supplied with books. True, we have translations of such parts of the Bible as quite enable us to teach all that a Christian need know and do; but I often wish for plenty of good useful little books on other subjects, and I don't see my way to this. Our own press is always at work printing translations, It is not easy to write the proper kind of book in these languages, and how are they to be printed? We haven't time to print them here, and who is to correct the press elsewhere? The great fact in your letter is the account of Bishop Wilkinson's Consecration. I am heartily glad to hear of it, and I will send, if I can, now, if not, soon, an enclosure to him for you to forward. I doubt if I can help him by any means as to qualifications of candidates for Holy Orders, Our work is quite in a tentative state, and I am sometimes troubled to see that this Mission is supposed to be in a more advanced state than is really the case.
'For example, the report of a man going ashore dressed as a Bishop with a Bible in his hand to entice the natives away, assumes islands to be in a state where the conventional man in white tie and black- tail coat preaches to the natives. My costume, when I go ashore, is an old Crimean shirt, a very ancient wide-awake. Not a syllable has in all probability ever been written, except in our small note-books, of the language of the island. My attention is turned to keeping the crowd in good-humour by a few simple presents of fish-hooks, beads, Only at Mota is there a resident Christian; and even there, people who don't know what Mota was, and what a Melanesian island, for the most part, alas! still is, would see nothing to indicate a change for the better, except that the people are unarmed, and would be friendly and confiding in their manner to a stranger.
'I hardly know how to bring my Melanesian experience to bear upon Zululand. The immorality, infanticide, superstition, seem to be as great in a Melanesian island as in any part of the heathen world. And with our many languages, it is not possible for us to-know the 'slang' of the various islands.
'We must be cheery about it all. Just see what the old writers, e.g. Chrysostom, say about Christian (nominally) morals and manners at wedding feasts, and generally. Impurity is the sin, par excellence, of all unchristian people. Look at St. Paul's words to the Corinthians and others. And we must not expect, though we must aim at, and hope, and pray for much that we don't see yet.
'What opportunity will Bishop Wilkinson have for testing the practical teaching power and steady conduct of his converts?
'Many of our Melanesians have their classes here, and we can form an opinion of their available knowledge, how far they can reproduce what they know, We can see, too, whether they exercise any influence over the younger ones.
'Twelve (this season) are counted as sixth form, or monitors, or whatever you please to call them. [Then ensues an account of the rotation of industrial work,
'The other day I was examining an Ysabel lad, not formally in school, but he happened to be in my room, as they are always hanging about (as you know). He knew much more than I expected: 'Who taught you all this? I am very well pleased.'
''Wogale,' was the answer.
'Edward Wogale is George Sarawai's own brother, volunteering now to go to Anudha (Florida), near Ysabel Island. If I see that a young man (by his written notes, little essays so to say, analysis of lessons) understands what he has been taught; and if I see (by the proficiency of his pupils) that he can reproduce and communicate this teaching to others, then one part of the question of his fitness is answered. If he has been here for years, always well conducted, and if when at home occasionally he has always behaved well and resisted temptation; and perhaps I should add, if he is respectably married, or about to be married, to a decent Christian girl, then we may hope that the matter of moral fitness may be hopefully settled. Assuming this, and thank God, I believe I may assume that it is the case with several here now, as soon as a Deacon is required in any place that he is willing to work in, I should not hesitate to ordain him; but I can't specify exactly what his qualifications ought to be, because I can't undertake to settle the difficult question of what constitutes absolutely essential teaching for a Christian, i.e., the doctrine of fundamentals. Practically one can settle it; and that quite as well as in England, where there is, and must be any amount of inequality in the attainments and earnestness of the candidates, and where no examination can secure the fitness or even the mental capacity of the minister.
'I say to myself, 'Here is an island or a part of an island from which we have had a good many scholars. Some married ones are going back to live permanently. They are Christians, and some are Communicants. They wish to do what they can to get the young ones about them for regular school and to talk to the older people. They all have and can use their Prayer-books. The people are friendly. Is there one among them of whom I can (humanly speaking) feel sure that, by God's blessing, he will lead a good life among them, and that he can and will teach them faithfully the elements of Christian truth and practice? If we all agree that there is such a one, why not ordain him?
'But I want to see people recognising the office of Deacon as something very distinct indeed from that of the Priest. It is a very different matter indeed, when we come to talk about candidates for Priest's orders.
'Again, look at the missionary clergy of old times. No doubt in mediaeval times so much stress was laid upon the mere perfunctory performance of the ministerial act, as apart from careful teaching of the meaning and purport of the act, that the mediaeval missionary is so far not a very safe model for us to imitate.
'But I suppose that multitudes of men did good work who could no more comprehend nor write out the result of
