CHAPTER FORTY.

Mrs Reichardt's story made a sensible impression on me. I no longer
wondered at the pallor of her countenance, or the air of melancholy that
at first seemed so remarkable; she had suffered most severely, and her
sufferings were too recent not to have left their effects upon her
frame.

I thought a good deal about her narrative, and wondered much that men
could be got to leave their comfortable homes, and travel thousands and
thousands of miles across the fathomless seas, with the hope of
converting a nation of treacherous savages, by whom they were sure to be
slaughtered at the first outbreak of ill-feeling.

I could not but admire the character of Reichardt--in all his actions he
had exhibited a marked nobility of nature. He would not present himself
before the woman who had the strongest claims upon his gratitude, till
he had obtained a position and a reputation that should, in his opinion,
make him worthy of her; and though he had a presentiment of the fate
that would overtake him, he fulfilled his duties as a missionary with a
holy enthusiasm that made him regard his approaching martyrdom as the
greatest of all earthly distinctions. I felt regret that I had not
known such a man. I knew how much I had lost in having missed such an
example.

My having heard this story, led me into much private communing with
myself respecting religion. I could consider myself little better than
a savage, like the brutal Sandwich Islanders; my conduct to Jackson had
been only in a degree less inhuman than that these idolaters had shown
to their teacher when he was in their power. I fancied at the time that
I served him right, for his villainous conduct to my father, and brutal
conduct to me: but God having punished him for his misdeeds, I felt
satisfied I had no business to put him to greater torment as
satisfaction for my own private injuries. I fancied God might have been
angry with me, and had kept me on the island as a punishment for my
offences; and I had some conversation with Mrs Reichardt on this point.

"Nothing," she observed, "can excuse your ill-feeling towards Jackson;
he was a bad man, without a doubt, and he deserved condign punishment
for his usage of your parents; but the Divine founder of our religion
has urged us to return good for evil."

"Yes," I answered readily, "but I should have suffered as bad as my
father and mother, had I not prevented his doing me mischief."

"You do not kn