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them, although they were to travel fifteen thousand miles, written on very small scraps of paper, and that often of a very inferior kind: part of the small space for writing being occupied by apologies for the small paper, and urgent requests, that if I do not return soon, I will send them some paper; and that if I return, I will take them a supply.

The art of writing is of the greatest service to the people in their commercial, civil, and domestic transactions, as well as in the pursuit of knowledge. They are not so far advanced in civilization as to have a regular post; but a native seldom makes a journey across the island, and scarcely a canoe passes from one island to another, without conveying a number of letters. Writing is an art perfectly congenial with the habits of the people, and hence they have acquired it with uncommon facility; not only have the children readily learned, but many adults, who never took pen or pencil in their hands until they were thirty or even forty years of age, have by patient perseverance learned, in the space of twelvemonths or two years, to write a fair and legible hand. Their comparatively small alphabet, and the simple structure of their language, has probably been advantageous; their letters are bold and well formed, and their ideas are always expressed with perspicuity, precision, and remarkable simplicity.*

The South Sea Academy, in which the young king was a pupil, is a most important institution, in connexion

* Writing apparatus and materials of every kind are in great demand among them; most of the letters I have received contain a request that, if possible, I will send them out a writing-desk, or an inkstand, penknife, pens, a blank paper book, &c. The youthful widow of Taaroarii has begged me to bring her a writing-desk.

with the Missionary establishments in this part of Polynesia. It had long been required by the circumstances of the European families, and the peculiar state of Tahitian Society; and the establishment of the Academy was designed to meet their peculiar necessities in this respect.

There are many trials and privations inseparable from the situation of a Christian Missionary among a heathen people. The latent enmity of the mind familiar with vice, to the moral influence of the gospel; the prejudices against his message, the infatuation of the pagan in favour of idolatry, and the pollutions connected therewith-originate trials common to every Missionary ; but there are others peculiar to particular spheres of labour. The situation of a European in India, where, although surrounded by pagans, he yet can mingle with civilized and occasionally with Christian society, is very different from that of one pursuing his solitary labours, year after year, in the deserts of Africa, or the isolated islands of the South Sea, where they have been five years without hearing from England-where there is but one European family in many of the islands-and where I have been twelve or fifteen months without seeing a ship, or hearing a word of the English language, except 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 awaken in their parents 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 from which the natives, who were in the habit of coming to our dwelling, was strictly interdicted.

We were always glad 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, and which we should have trembled at our children listening to. The disadvantages under which they must have laboured, are too apparent to need enumeration. Idolatry had indeed been renounced, 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 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 great 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 that fine sense of decency, which is a powerful 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 station, 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 the

public duties of his station; hence he experiences a constant and painful struggle between the dictates of parental affection and the claims of pastoral care. Το relieve, 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 the month of 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, and has continued to preside over it, 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, and the arts and sciences. During the examina. tion, portions of scripture were read and recited, copybooks 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 scholars, 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

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