orth as pioneers to Western Polynesia. Up to 1860 two hundred
students had been admitted, a considerable number of whom were married,
and the institution had been greatly enlarged in many respects. The
course of instruction embraces theology, Church history, Biblical
exposition, biography, geography, grammar, and composition of essays and
sermons. The students are also taught several mechanical arts, and for
two or three hours every day are employed in the workshop. At the
printing establishment on the island a variety of works have been
translated, printed, and bound. In three months, ending March 1859,
_Bogue's Lectures_, the _Pilgrim's Progress_, twelve hundred copies of
_Voyages of Mission Ship_, hymn-books, Scripture lessons, and several
other works were turned out of hand. The press-work of these various
books, comprising nearly three hundred thousand sheets a year, had all
been performed by young men, the first-fruits of missionary labours
before their fathers had any written language.

We must now describe the present state of other solitary islands and
groups discovered by Captain Cook. In the course of his second voyage
(1774) he fell in with a low, solitary island, which, from the ferocity
of the inhabitants, he called Savage Island. The inhabitants, numbering
between three and four thousand, for very many years remained in the
condition in which Cook found them. The first attempt to leave native
missionaries was made by the Rev. John Williams, in 1830. But the
natives refused to receive them. In 1840, and in 1842, other attempts
were made. In the latter year the Rev. A. Buzacott nearly lost his
life.

Still these visits had a good effect on the younger part of the
population, who desired to see more of the strangers. Several found
their way to Samoa, where they embraced the Gospel, and two of them,
after a course of instruction at the training college in Samoa, were
found well fitted to return, and to spread its glad tidings among their
benighted countrymen. They were accordingly conveyed to Savage Island
in the John Williams, missionary ship, but were received with a good
deal of suspicion by the natives, and only one remained. He narrowly
escaped being put to death, but undauntedly persevered, and, by degrees,
gathered converts around him. When visited in 1852 by the Rev. A.W.
Murray, he had upwards of two hundred sincere believers gathered into a
church, and many heathen practices had bee