ere asceticism is the test of sanctity even among the heathen,
the most self-denying preacher has the best chance of being respected;
but in those luxurious islets, poverty and plainness of living, without
the power of showing the arts of life, get despised. If the priests
could bring their pomp of worship, and large bands of brethren or sisters
to reclaim the waste, they might tell upon the minds of the people, but
at present they go forth few and poor, and are little heeded in their
isolation. Unfortunately, too, the antagonism between them and the
London Mission is desperate. The latter hold the tenets perhaps the most
widely removed from Catholicism of any Protestant sect, and are mostly
not educated enough to understand the opposite point of view, so that
each party would almost as soon see the natives unconverted as joining
the hostile camp: and precious time is wasted in warrings the one against
the other.

The most real enemies to Christianity in these seas are, however, the
lawless traders, the English and American whalers and sandal-wood
dealers, who bring uncontrolled vice and violence where they put in for
water; while they, on the one hand, corrupt the natives, on the other
they provoke them into reprisals on the next White men who fall in their
way. That the Polynesians are good sailors and not bad workmen, has
proved another misfortune, for they are often kidnapped by unscrupulous
captains to supply the deficiency of labour in some of the Australasian
settlements. Everywhere it seems to be the unhappy fact that Christian
men are the most fatal hinderers of God's word among the heathen.

Yet most of the more accessible of the isles have a resident missionary,
and keep up schools and chapels. Their chiefs have accepted a Christian
code, and the horrid atrocities of cannibalism have been entirely given
up, though there is still much evil prevalent, especially in those which
have convenient harbours, and are in the pathway of ships. The Samoan
islanders have a college, managed by an English minister and his wife,
where teachers are educated not only to much good discipline, but to much
real refinement, and go forth as admirable and self-devoted heralds of
the Gospel into other isles. They have furnished willing martyrs, and
many have been far beyond praise. One lack, however, seems to be of that
definite formularies, a deficiency which leaves the teaching to depend
over much on the individual impress