easily join in using the one Mota language, just as a Frenchman, a German, a Russian, a Pole, an Italian, and an Englishman, all meeting in the same cafe or railway carriage, on the same glacier or mountain top, might harmoniously agree to use the French language as their medium of communication.  So the service is conducted in Mota with one exception only.  The collect for the day is read in English, as a brief allowable concession to the ears and hearts of the English members of the Mission.  The service consists of the greater part of the Church of England Service translated.  Some modifications have been made to suit the course of religious instruction.  The Psalms are chanted and hymns sung in parts, and always in admirable tune, by the congregation.  Noteworthy are the perfect attention, the reverent attitude, the hearty swing and unison of the little congregation, a lesson, I felt with shame, to many of our white congregations.

’Immediately after service clinks out the breakfast bell, and, with marvellous promptitude and punctuality, whites and blacks, lay and clerical, are seen flocking to the mess-room.  The whites sit at the upper end of the table, but beyond the special privilege of tea, all fare alike, chiefly on vegetables:  yams or sweet potatoes, and carrots or vegetable marrows, as may suit the season, with plenty of biscuit for more ambitious teeth, and plenty of milk to wash it down.  Soon afterwards comes school for an hour and a half.  Then work for the boys and men, planting yams, reaping wheat, mowing oats, fencing, carting, building, as the call may be, only no caste distinction or ordering about; it is not go and do that, but come and do this, whether the leader be an ordained clergyman, a white farm bailiff, or a white carpenter.  This is noteworthy, and your readers will gain no clear idea of the Mission if they do not seize this point, for it is no matter of mere detail, but one of principle.  The system is not that of the ship or the regiment, of the farm or the manufactory of the old country, but essentially of the family.  It is not the officer or master saying “Go” but the father or the brother saying “Come.”  And to this, I firmly believe, is the hearty cheerful following and merry work of the blacks chiefly due.  At 1 P.M. is dinner, much the same as breakfast.  Meat, though not unknown, is the weak point of the Mission dietary.  In the afternoon, work.  At 6, tea.  In the evening, class again for an hour or two; this evening class being sometimes a singing lesson, heartily enjoyed by the teacher.  I forget precisely when the boys have to prepare matter arising out of the lessons they have received viva voce.

’There are evening prayers, and bed-time is early.  Noteworthy are the happy conjunctions of perfect discipline with perfect jollity, the marvellous attainment of a happy familiarity which does not “breed contempt.”