’You will see by the last Melanesian report of which I desired a copy to be sent to you, that our work is very rapidly increasing; that openings are being made in all directions; and that had we men of trust, we could occupy them at once.  As it is, we keep up a communication with some seventy-four islands, waiting, if it may be, that men may be sent, trying to educate picked men to be teachers; but I am not very sanguine about that.  At all events, the first flush of savage customs, &c., is being, I trust, removed, so that for some other body of Christians, if not the Church of England, the door may be laid open.

’Of course, the interest of the work is becoming more and more absorbing; so that, much as there is indeed going on in your world to distract and grieve one, it comes to me so weakened by time and distance that I don’t sympathise as I ought with those who are suffering so dreadfully from the Indian Mutiny, or the commercial failure, or the great excitement and agitation of the country.  You can understand how this can be, perhaps; for my actual present work leaves me small leisure for reflecting, and for placing myself in the position of others at a distance; and when I have a moment’s time surely it is right that I should be in heart at Feniton, with those dear ones, and especially my dear dear father, of whom I have not heard for five months, so that I am very anxious as to what account of him the “Southern Cross” may bring, and try to prepare myself for news of increased illness, &c.

’You, I imagine, my dear Miss Neill, are not much changed to those who see you day by day; but I should find you much weaker in body than when I saw you last, and yet it did not seem then as if you had much strength to lose:  I don’t hear of any sudden changes, or any forms of illness; the gradual exhausting process is going on, but accompanied, I fear, with even greater active pain than of old; your sufferings are indeed very severe and very protracted, a great lesson to us all.  Yet you have much, even speaking only of worldly comfort, which makes your position a much happier one than that of the poor suffering souls whom I see here.  Their house is one round room, a log burning in the centre, no chimney, the room full of smoke, common receptacle of men, women, boys, girls, pigs, and fowls.  In the corner a dying woman or child.  No water in the island that is fresh, a few holes in the coral where water accumulates, more or less brackish; no cleanliness, no quiet, no cool fresh air, hot smoky atmosphere, no proper food, a dry bit of yam, and no knowledge of a life to come:  such is the picture of the invalided or dying South Sea Islander.  All dying children under years of discretion I baptize, and all the infants brought to the chapel by parents who themselves are seeking baptism; but I have not baptized any adults yet, they must be examined and taught for some time, for the Samoan and Rarotongan teachers sent by the Independent missionaries are very imperfectly instructed and quite incapable of conveying definite teaching to them.