’Wadrokala, one of the Nengone lads, who had recently made his first communion, became the prominent scholar at this time.  He had thought a good deal.  One night he said:  “I have heard all kinds of words used—­faith, repentance, praise, prayer—­and I don’t clearly understand what is the real great thing, the chief thing of all.  They used these words confusedly, and I feel puzzled.  Then I read that the Pharisees knew a great deal of the law, and so did the Scribes, and yet they were not good.  I am not doing anything good.  Now I know something of the Bible, and I can write; and I fear very much, I often feel very much afraid, that I am not good, I am not doing anything good."’

He was talked to, and comforted with hopes of future work; but a day or two later his feelings were unconsciously hurt by being told in joke that he was wearing a shabby pair of trousers to save the good ones to take home to Nengone.  His remonstrance was poured out upon a slate:—­ ’Mr. Patteson, this is my word:—­I am unhappy because of the word you said to me that I wished for clothes.  I have left my country.  I do not seek clothes for the body.  What is the use of clothes?  Can my spirit be clothed with clothes for the body?  Therefore my heart is greatly afraid; but you said I greatly wished for clothes, which I do not care for.  One thing only I care for, that I may receive the life for my spirit.  Therefore I fear, I confess, and say to you, it is not the thing for the body I want, but the one thing I want is the clothing for the soul, for Jesus Christ’s sake, our Lord.’

Soon after a very happy Christmas, Wadrokala and Kainwhat expressed a desire, after a final visit to their native island, to return with Mr. Patteson, and be prepared to be sent as native teachers to any dark land, as the Samoans had come to them.

Wadrokala narrated something of the history of his island, a place with 6,000 inhabitants, with one tribe forming a priestly caste, the head of which was firmly believed by even these Christian Nengonese to possess the power of striking men dead by his curse.  Caroline, Kainwhat and Kowine were the children of a terrible old chief named Bula, who had fifty-five wives, and whose power was almost absolute.  If anyone offended him, he would send either a priest or one of his sons to kill the man, and bring the corpse, of which the thighs were always reserved for his special eating, the trunk being given to his slaves.  If one of his wives offended him, he sent for the high priest, who cursed her—­simply said, ‘She has died,’ and die she did.  A young girl who refused to marry him was killed and eaten, or if any person omitted to come into his presence crouching, the penalty was to be devoured; in fact, he seems to have made excuses for executions in order to gratify his appetite for human flesh, which was considered as particularly dainty fare.  Everyone dreaded him, and when at last he died a natural death, his chief wife was strangled by her own brother, as a matter of course.  Such horrors as these had pretty well ceased by that time, though still many Nengonese were heathen, and the priests were firmly believed to have the power of producing death and disease at will by a curse.  Wadrokala, with entire conviction, declared that one of his father’s wives had thus been made a cripple for life.