’Some, I think, may be helped by being associated with us, and with their friends of the Solomon Isles, New Hebrides, in spending some months on shore, where they would soon acquire a fair knowledge of the language, and might be of great use to less advanced friends.  This would be a real work for them.  Just as Mission work is the safeguard of the settled Church, so it must be the safeguard of these young native Churches.

’No doubt the Missionary spirit infused into the Samoan and Karotongan Churches kept them living and fruitful.  I am trying to think upon these points.

’If the contrast be too violent between the Mission station with its daily occupations and the island life, it becomes very difficult for the natives to perpetuate the habits of the one amidst the circumstances of the other.

’The habits acquired at Norfolk Island ought to be capable of being easily transferred to the conditions of the Melanesian isles.

’They ought, I think, to wear (in the hot summer and on week days) light loose clothing, which could be worn at home; or clothing of the same shape and fit (though perhaps of warm materials) might be worn.

’The circumstances of the two places must be different, but we must minimise the difference as much as possible.

’I often think of the steady-going English family, with regular family prayers, and attendance twice at Church on Sunday, and the same people spending two months on the Continent.  No opportunity is made for family prayers before the table d’hôte breakfast; and at least one part of the Sunday is spent in the Roman Catholic Cathedral, or in a different way from the home use.  And if this be so with good respectable folk among ourselves, what must be the effect of altered circumstances on our Melanesians?

’It is not easy to keep up the devotional life on shore at home, or in the islands, or on board ship with the same regularity.  And where the convert must be more dependent than we ought to be on external opportunities, the difficulty is increased.  So if the alteration be as little as possible, we gain something, we make it easier to our scholars to perpetuate uninterruptedly the Norfolk Island life.

’To live with them and try to show them how, on their island, to keep up the religious life unchanged amidst the changed outward circumstances is a good way, but then we can’t live among them very long, and our example is so often faulty.

’Curiously do these practical difficulties make us realise that there may really be some benefit in artificial wants; and that probably the most favourable situation for the development of the human character is a climate where the necessaries of life are just sufficiently difficult of production to require steady industry, and yet that nature should not be so rigorous as to make living so hard a matter as to occupy the whole attention, and dwarf the mental faculties.’