’One difficulty will to the end be, that by the time we can talk freely to our scholars, and they can understand their own language employed as a vehicle for religious teaching, they are not sufficiently supplied with books.  True, we have translations of such parts of the Bible as quite enable us to teach all that a Christian need know and do; but I often wish for plenty of good useful little books on other subjects, and I don’t see my way to this.  Our own press is always at work printing translations, &c.  It is not easy to write the proper kind of book in these languages, and how are they to be printed?  We haven’t time to print them here, and who is to correct the press elsewhere?  The great fact in your letter is the account of Bishop Wilkinson’s Consecration.  I am heartily glad to hear of it, and I will send, if I can, now, if not, soon, an enclosure to him for you to forward.  I doubt if I can help him by any means as to qualifications of candidates for Holy Orders, &c.  Our work is quite in a tentative state, and I am sometimes troubled to see that this Mission is supposed to be in a more advanced state than is really the case.

’For example, the report of a man going ashore dressed as a Bishop with a Bible in his hand to entice the natives away, assumes islands to be in a state where the conventional man in white tie and black-tail coat preaches to the natives.  My costume, when I go ashore, is an old Crimean shirt, a very ancient wide-awake.  Not a syllable has in all probability ever been written, except in our small note-books, of the language of the island.  My attention is turned to keeping the crowd in good-humour by a few simple presents of fish-hooks, beads, &c.  Only at Mota is there a resident Christian; and even there, people who don’t know what Mota was, and what a Melanesian island, for the most part, alas! still is, would see nothing to indicate a change for the better, except that the people are unarmed, and would be friendly and confiding in their manner to a stranger.

’I hardly know how to bring my Melanesian experience to bear upon Zululand.  The immorality, infanticide, superstition, &c., seem to be as great in a Melanesian island as in any part of the heathen world.  And with our many languages, it is not possible for us to-know the “slang” of the various islands.

’We must be cheery about it all.  Just see what the old writers, e.g.  Chrysostom, say about Christian (nominally) morals and manners at wedding feasts, and generally.  Impurity is the sin, par excellence, of all unchristian people.  Look at St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians and others.  And we must not expect, though we must aim at, and hope, and pray for much that we don’t see yet.

’What opportunity will Bishop Wilkinson have for testing the practical teaching power and steady conduct of his converts?

’Many of our Melanesians have their classes here, and we can form an opinion of their available knowledge, how far they can reproduce what they know, &c.  We can see, too, whether they exercise any influence over the younger ones.