onary in all regions must be prepared to
do, for as yet only the comparatively small body of Christians as I have
mentioned, who had settled round us, had been brought out of heathenism,
while the larger number of the population appeared even more hostile to
the new faith than at first. Still my father would often say, when he
felt himself inclined to despond, "Let us recollect the value of one
immortal soul, and all our toils and troubles will appear as nothing."
Such was the state of things at the mission station when my history
commences.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC DESCRIBED.--MY MOTHER'S ILLNESS.--NASILE, A
MESSENGER FROM LISELE, COMES TO THE SETTLEMENT, FOLLOWED SHORTLY BY
LISLETE AND MASAUGU, WHO PROMISES TO LOTU AFTER HE HAS DEFEATED HIS
ENEMIES.--MY FATHER WARNS HIM IN VAIN OF THE FEARFUL DANGER HE RUNS BY
PUTTING OFF BECOMING A CHRISTIAN.

The vast Pacific--in one of the islands of which the events I am
describing occurred--presents a wide and hopeful field for missionary
enterprise. It is scattered over with numberless islands--in most cases
so clustered together as to form separate groups--some rising in lofty
mountains out of the sea, surrounded by coral reefs, beautiful and
picturesque in the extreme, while others are elevated but a few feet
above the ocean, generally having palm trees growing on them. These
latter are known more particularly as coral and lagoon islands. The
islands of the character I have last mentioned have been produced by the
gradual sinking of the land beneath the ocean, when on its reaching a
certain depth, countless millions of coral insects have built their
habitations on it, and have continued building till they reached the
surface--the new islands consequently keeping the forms of the submerged
lands which serve as their foundations. The lagoon islands have been
formed by the insects building round the edge of some submerged crater.
As the land sank the creatures have continued to build upwards, and thus
a ring of coral rock has arisen in the ocean--sometimes complete, at
others with a break or opening in it. In other instances the coral
insects have built near the shore, and as the land has sunk they have
continued to build upwards, but in consequence of requiring the pure
salt water, have not advanced towards the land, which, however, still
sinking, a wide space of water has appeared between it and the structure
raised by them. This is the cause of