’St. Thomas, Norfolk Island:  December 21, 1868.

’My dear Cousin,—­I must write you a few lines, not as yet in answer to your very interesting letter about Mr. Keble and about Ritualism, &c., but about our great event of yesterday.

’George Sarawia was ordained Deacon in our little chapel, in the presence of fifty-five Melanesians and a few Norfolk Islanders.  With him Charles Bice, a very excellent man from St. Augustine’s, was ordained Deacon also.  He has uncommon gifts of making himself thoroughly at home with the Melanesians.  It comes natural to him, there is no effort, nothing to overcome apparently, and they of course like him greatly.  He speaks the language of Mota, the lingua franca here, you know.

’But what am I to say of George that you cannot imagine for yourself?  It was in the year 1857 that the Bishop and I first saw him at Vanua Lava Island.  He has been with us now ten years; I can truly say, that he has never given me any uneasiness.  He is not the cleverest of our scholars; but no one possesses the confidence of us all in the same degree.  True, he is the oldest of the party, he can hardly be less than twenty-six years old, for he had been married a year when first we saw him; but it is his character rather than his age which gives him his position.  For a long time he has been our link with the Melanesians themselves whenever there was something to be done by one of themselves rather than by us strangers.  Somehow the other scholars get into a way of recognising him as the A 1 of the place, and so also in Mota and the neighbouring islands his character and reputation are well known.  The people expect him to be a teacher among them, they all know that he is a person of weight.

’The day was warm and fine.

’At 7.20 A.M. we had the Morning Service, chanting the 2nd Psalm.  I read Isa. xlii. 5-12 for the First Lesson, and 1 Tim. iii. 8-13 for the Second, and the Collect in the Ordination Service before the Prayer of St. Chrysostom.  Mr. Codrington, as usual, read the prayers to the end of the third Collect, after which we sang our Sunday hymn.

’At 11 A.M. we began the Ordination Service.  One Epiphany hymn, my short sermon, then Mr. Codrington presented the candidates, speaking Mota for one and English for the other.  The whole service was in Mota, except that I questioned Bice, and he answered in English, and I used the English words of Ordination in his case.  George was questioned and answered in Mota, and then Bice in English, question by question.  Mr. Nobbs was here and a few of the people, Mr. Atkin, Mr. Brooke, so we made a goodly little party of seven in our clerical supper.

’What our thoughts were you can guess as we ordained the first Melanesian clergyman.  How full of thankfulness, of awe, of wonderment, the fulfilment of so much, the pledge of it, if it be God’s will, of so much more!  And not a little of anxiety, too—­yet the words of comfort are many; and it does not need much faith, with so evident a proof of God’s Love and Power and Faithfulness before our very eyes, to trust George in His Hands.