But as yet I see no religious feeling, no apprehension of the reality of the teaching:  they know in one sense, and they answer questions about the meaning of the Creed, &c., but they would soon fall again into heathen ways, and their people show no disposition to abandon heathen ways.  In all this there is nothing to surprise or discourage us.  It must be slow work, carried on without observation amidst many failures and losses and disappointments.  If I wished to attribute to secondary causes any of the results we notice, I might say that our having lived at Mota two or three months each year has had a great deal to do with the difference between the Banks and the other islanders.

’It may be that, could we manage to live in Bauro, or Anudha, or Mahaga, or Whitsuntide, or Lepers’ Island, or Espiritu Santo, we might see soon some such change take place as we notice in Mota; but all that is uncertain, and such thoughts are useless.  We must indeed live in those other islands as soon as we can, but it is hard to find men able to do so, and only a few of the islands are ripe for the attempt.

’I feel often like a horse going his regular rounds, almost mechanically.  Every part of the day is occupied, and I am too tired at night to think freshly.  So that I am often like one in a dream, and scarcely realise what I am about.  Then comes a time when I wish to write, e.g. (as to you now) about the Mission, and it seems so hard to myself to see my way, and so impossible to make others see what is in my mind about it.  Sometimes I think these Banks Islanders may be evangelists beyond the limits of their own islands.  So many of the natives of other islands live here with them, and speak the language of Mota, and then they have so much more in common with them than with us, and the climate and food and mode of life generally are familiar to them alike.  I think this may come to pass some day; I feel almost sure that I had better work on with promising islanders than attempt to train up English boys, of which I once thought.  I am more and more confirmed in my belief that what one wants is a few right-minded, well-educated English clergymen, and then for all the rest trust to native agency.

’When I think of Mr. Robertson and such men, and think how they work on, it encourages me.  And so, where do I hear of men who have so many comforts, so great immunity from hardship and danger as we enjoy?  This is nothing to the case of a London parish.

’Fanny has sent me out my old engravings, which I like to look at once more, although there is only one really good one among them, and yet I don’t like to think of her no longer having them.  I have also a nice selection of photographs just sent out, among which the cartoons from Hampton Court are especially good.  That grand figure of St. Paul at Athens, which Raphael copied from Masaccio’s fresco, always was a favourite of mine.

’I feel at home here, more so than in any place since I left England; but I hope that I may be able to spend longer intervals in the islands than the mere sixteen or eighteen weeks of the voyage, if I have still my health and strength.  But I think sometimes that I can’t last always; I unconsciously leave off doing things, and wake up to find that I am shirking work.