In the meantime, the Bishop had not neglected the attacking party.  Of them, one had been killed outright, and two more were recovering from their wounds, and it was necessary to act as pacificator.

’Meanwhile, I think how very little religion has to do directly with keeping things quiet; in England (for example) men would avenge themselves, and steal and kill, were it not for the law, which is, indeed, an indirect result of religion; but religion simply does not produce the effect, i.e. men are not generally religious in England or Mota.  I have Maine’s Book of “Ancient Law” among the half-dozen books I have brought on shore, and it is extremely interesting to read here.’

How he read, wrote, or did anything is the marvel, with the hut constantly crowded by men who had nothing to do but gather round, in suffocating numbers, to stare at his pen travelling over the paper.  ‘They have done so a hundred times before,’ he writes, actually under the oppression, ’but anything to pass an hour lazily.  It is useless to talk about it, and one must humour them, or they will think I am vexed with them.’

The scholars, neatly clothed, with orderly and industrious habits, were no small contrast:  ’But I miss as yet the link between them and the resident heathen people.  I trust and pray that George and others may, ere long, supply it.

’But it is very difficult to know how to help them to change their mode of life.  Very much, even if they did accept Christianity, must go on as before.  Their daily occupations include work in the small gardens, cooking, &c., and this need not be changed.

’Then as to clothing.  I must be very careful lest they should think that wearing clothes is Christianity.  Yet certain domestic changes are necessary, for a Christian life seems to need certain material arrangements for decency and propriety.  There ought to be partition screens in the hut, for example, and some clothing is desirable no doubt.  A resident missionary now could do a good deal towards showing the people why certain customs, &c., are incompatible with a Christian life.  His daily teaching would show how Christ acted and taught, and how inconsistent such and such practices must be with the profession of faith in Him.  But regulations imposed from without I rather dread, they produce so often an unreasoning obedience for a little while only.

The rules for the new life should be very few and very simple, and carefully explained.  “Love to God and man,” explained and illustrated as the consequence of some elementary knowledge of God’s love to us, shown of course prominently in the giving His own Son to us.  There is no lack of power to understand simple teaching, a fair proportion of adults take it in very fairly.  I was rather surprised on Friday evening (some sixty or seventy being present) to find that a few men answered really rather well questions which brought out the meaning of some of our Saviour’s names.