’Young men and lads come to us and say, “Let me do that.  I can’t write the languages, or do many things you or Mr. Pritt or Mr. Palmer do, so let me scrub your floor, or brush your shoes, or fetch some water.”  And of course we let them do so, for the doing it is accompanied by no feeling of degradation in their minds; they have seen us always doing these things, and not requiring them to do them as if it were the natural work for them, because they are black, and not proper for us, because we are white.

’Last night, a young man, sitting by the fire, said to the Bishop, “They want you to stop with them in my land.”

’"I wish with all my heart I could.”

’"Yes, I know, you must go to so many places.”

’"But they are different in your land now.”

’"Oh! yes, they don’t fight now as they used to do; they don’t go about armed now.”

’"Well, that is a thing to be thankful for.  What is the reason of it, do you think? "

“Why they know about you, and see you now and then, and Henry Tagalana talked to them, and I talked a little to them, and they asked me about our ways here, and they want to learn.”

’"Well, there are now five of you from your island, and you must try hard to learn, that you may teach them, for remember you must do it, if God spares your life."’

’During the year 1865 a great advance was made in the industrial department of our work.  About seventeen acres of land were taken in hand and worked by Mr. Pritt, with the Melanesian lads.  We have our own dairy of thirteen cows, and, besides supplying the whole Mission party, numbering in all seventy-seven persons, with abundance of milk, we sell considerable quantities of butter.  We grow, of course, our own potatoes and vegetables, and maize, &c., for our cows.  The farm and dairy work affords another opportunity for teaching our young people to acquire habits of industry.’

Cooking, farm, gardening, dairy-work, setting out the table, &c., were all honourable occupations, and of great importance in teaching punctuality and regularity, and the various arts and decencies of life to the youths, who were in time to implant good habits in their native homes.  Their natural docility made them peculiarly easy to manage and train while in hand; the real difficulty was that their life was so entirely different from their home, that there was no guessing how deep the training went, and, on every voyage, some fishes slipped through the meshes of the net, though some returned again, and others never dropped from their Bishop’s hands.  But he was becoming anxious to spare some of his scholars the trial of a return to native life; and, as the season had been healthy, he ventured on leaving twenty-seven pupils at St. Andrew’s with Mr. and Mrs. Pritt, among them George and Sarah Sarawia.

After Trinity Sunday, May 27, the ‘Southern Cross’ sailed, and the outward voyage gave leisure for the following letter to Prof.  Max Muller, explaining why he could not make his knowledge of languages of more benefit to philology while thus absorbed in practical work:—­