word of the English language, excepting what has been spoken by our own families.

There are disadvantages, even where the Missionary is in what is called civilized society, but they are of a different kind from those experienced from a residence among a rude uncultivated race. In either barbarous or civilized countries, the greatest trials the Missionaries experience are those connected with the bringing up of a family in the midst of a heathen population; and it probably causes more anxious days, and sleepless nights, than any other source of distress to which they are exposed. This was the case in the South Sea Mission. There were at one time nearly sixty children or orphans of Missionaries; and there are now, perhaps, forty rising up in the different islands, under circumstances adapted to produce in their parents' minds the most painful anxiety.

In the Sandwich Islands, during our residence there, although our hearts were cheered, and our hands strengthened, by the great change daily advancing among the people, yet the situation of our children was such as constantly to excite the most intense and painful interest. It is impossible for an individual, who has never mingled in pagan society, and who does not understand the language employed in their most familiar intercourse with each other, to form any adequate idea of the awfully polluting character of their most common communications. Their appearance is often such as the eye, accustomed only to scenes of civilized life, turns away in pain from beholding. Their actions are often most repulsive, and their language is still worse. Ideas are exchanged, with painful insensibility, which cannot be repeated, and whose most rapid passage through the mind must leave

pollution. So strongly did we feel this in the Sandwich Islands, that the only play-ground to which our children were allowed access, was enclosed with a high fence; and the room they occupied was one, strictly interdicted to the natives, who were in the habit of coming to our dwelling.

We always sought to inspire the natives with confidence, and admit them to our houses, but when any of the chiefs came, they were attended by a large train of followers, whose conversation with our own servants we could not restrain, but which we should have trembled at the thought that our children heard. The disadvantages under which they must have laboured, are too apparent to need enumeration. Idolatry had indeed been renounced by the natives, but, during the earlier part of the time we spent there, nothing better had been substituted in its place, and the great mass of the people were living without any moral or religious restraint.

Our companions, the American Missionaries, felt deeply and tenderly, on account of the circumstances of their rising families, and made very full representations to their patrons; they have also sent some of their children to their friends in their native country. The children of the Missionaries in the South Sea Islands were not in a situation exactly similar to those in the northern islands. The moral and religious change that has taken place since the subversion of idolatry, had very materially improved the condition of the people, and elevated the tone of moral feeling among them; still it must be remembered, that though many are under the controlling influence of Christian principle and moral purity, these are not the majority, and there

is not yet among them that fine sense of decency, which is so powerful a safeguard to virtue; and, besides this, the circumstances of the families are far from being the most pleasing.

In only two of the islands is there more than one Missionary; and only at the Academy, where Mr. Blossom is associated with Mr. Orsmond, is there more than one family at a station. The duties of each settlement, from the partially organized state of society, and the multitude of objects demanding his attention, are such, that the Missionary cannot devote the necessary time to the education of his own children, without neglecting public duties; hence he experiences a constant and painful struggle between the dictates of parental affection and the claims of pastoral care. To afford relief, as far as possible, from this embarrassment, the South Sea Academy was established by the deputation from the Society, and the Missionaries in the islands, in March, 1824.

In compliance with the earnest recommendation of the deputation, and the solicitation of his brethren, Mr. Orsmond removed from Borabora, to take charge of the institution, over which he has continued to preside, to the satisfaction of the parents, and the benefit of the pupils. The first annual meeting was held in March, 1825; the children had not only been taught to read the scriptures, and to commit the most approved catechisms to memory, but had also been instructed in writing, grammar, history, &c. During the examination, portions of scripture were read and recited, copy-books examined, problems in geometry worked, and parts of catechisms on geography, astronomy, and chronology, repeated. The whole of the proceedings gave satisfaction to all

present, and left an impression on each mind, that great attention must have been paid by Mr. and Mrs. Orsmond to the pupils, during the short period they had been in the school. Subsequent examinations have been equally satisfactory.

The institution is under the management of a committee, and its primary design was to furnish a suitable, and, so far as circumstances would admit, a liberal education to the children of the Missionaries, “such an education as is calculated to prepare them to fill useful situations in future life." Native children of piety and talent have access to its advantages, and it is designed as preparatory to a seminary, for training native pastors to fill different stations in the South Sea Islands. It is an important institution, and will, it is hoped, exert no ordinary influence on the future character of the nation at large, as well as prove highly advantageous to the individuals who become its inmates. It merits the countenance of the friends of Missions. Several individuals have kindly enriched its library with suitable elementary books, philosophical apparatus, &c. but these are still very inadequate to the accomplishment of the design contemplated.

But while the establishment of this institution is a just occasion of gratitude to the Missionaries, it does not remove anxiety from their minds with regard to the future prospects of their families. The nature of their station, and the spirit and principles of their office as ministers of Christ, prevent the parents from making any provision for their families. The proper settlement of their children is an object of most anxious solicitude to Christian parents at home-to foreign Missionaries it is peculiarly so. Their remote and

isolated situation precludes their embracing those openings in Divine Providence for placing their children in suitable circumstances, of which they might avail themselves in Christian and civilized society. The prospects of filling comfortable stations there, are all uncertain; professions there are none; commerce is in its infancy, as will appear from the fact of its being still carried on by exchange or barter. The circulation of money is very limited, and its use known to but few.

The fondest hope of every Missionary is, that his children may grow up in the fear of God, be made partakers of his grace, and, under the constraining influence of the love of Christ in their hearts, imbibe their parent's spirit, select his office, spend their lives in supplying his lack of service, and carrying on that work which he has been honoured to commence. In prosecuting this, they will have advantages their parents never possessed; they will have been identified with the people among whom they labour, and will not appear in language and idiom as foreigners; but they will labour under more than counteracting disadvantages, if they never visit the land of their fathers, and must necessarily be far less efficient teachers of the truths of Christianity than their predecessors in the work.

There are a thousand things known to an indidual who has received or finished his education and passed his early days in England, which can only be known under corresponding circumstances, and which a Missionary can never, in such situations as the South Sea Islands, teach his child. Those born there may indeed have access to English literature; but many books, however familiar and perspicuous to an ordinary English