’There is so great want of order in the methods so often adopted, want of arrangement, and proper sequence, and subordination of one to another.

’The heathen man will assume some arbitrary dictate of a missionary to be of equal authority and importance with a moral command of God, unless you take care.  Of course the missionary ought not to attempt to impose any arbitrary rule at all; but many missionaries do, and usually justify such conduct on the ground of their “exceptional position.”

’But one must go much further.  If I tell a man just beginning to listen, two or three points of Christian faith, or two or three rules of Christian life, without any orderly connection, I shall but puzzle him.

’Take, e.g., our English Sunday, I am far from wishing to change the greater part of the method of observing it in England.

’I hope the Melanesian Christians may learn to keep holy the Lord’s Day.  But am I to begin my teaching of a wild Solomon Islander at that end; when he has not learned the evil of breaking habitually the sixth, seventh, and eighth Commandments?

’I notice continually the tendency of the teaching of the very men who denounce “forms” to produce formation.

’It is nearest to the native mind; it generates hypocrisy and mere outward observance of certain rules, which, during the few years that the people remain docile on their first acceptance of the new teaching, they are content to submit to.

’I see the great difficulty of making out all this.  It necessitates the leaving so very much to the discretion of the pioneer.  Ergo the missionary must not be the man who is not good enough for ordinary work in England, but the men whom England even does not produce in large numbers with some power of dealing with these questions.

’It is much better and safer to have a regular well-known rule to act by; but I don’t see how you can give me, e.g., precise directions.  It seems to me that you must use great care in selecting your man, and then trust him fully.

’I hope it is not an excess of self-conceit and self-reliance which makes me pass by, rather lightly, I confess, some of the advice that very well-intentioned people occasionally volunteer to missionaries.  I have had (D.Gr.) the Primate and Sir William Martin’s men, who know what heathenism is, and the latter of whom has deeply studied the character of the various races of the world.

’I mean that when some one said, “Do you really mean to place those savage Melanesians among the immaculate Pitcairners?” the natural answer seemed to me to be, “I am not aware that you ever saw either a Pitcairner or a Melanesian.”  I thought it rather impertinent.  The truth is, that the great proportion of our Melanesian scholars in our school, i.e., not standing alone, but helped by the discipline of the school, are quite competent to set an example to the average Pitcairners.  But this I mark only as an illustration of my meaning.  Occasionally I hear of some book or sermon or speech in which sound views (as I venture to call them) are propounded on these points.