ble words--"It must impart joy to every benevolent mind to know,
that by the efforts of British Christians upwards of _three hundred
thousand_ of deplorably ignorant and savage barbarians, inhabiting the
beautiful islands of the Pacific, have been delivered from a dark,
debasing, and sanguinary idolatry, and are now enjoying the civilising
influence, the domestic happiness, and the spiritual blessings which
Christianity imparts. In the island of Raratonga, which I _discovered_
in 1823, there are upwards of 3000 children under Christian
instruction daily; not a vestige of idolatry remains;[A] their
language has been reduced to a system, and the Scriptures, with other
books, have been translated. But this is only one of nearly a hundred
islands to which similar blessings have been conveyed." Tens of
thousands of souls more have been added to this number since these
words were written! In no part of heathendom has the gospel produced,
in so short a time, such wonderful fruit as in Polynesia. The labours
and sacrifices of the converted natives are more striking than in any
other missions. Many islands have been converted solely by means of a
native agency, and are superintended by native preachers only. Let us
take the Sandwich Islands as illustrating what has been accomplished
_for_ the natives, and _by_ them. The American Mission was commenced
in 1824. These islands have been converted long ago to Christianity,
so that not a vestige of idolatry remains, and not only do they
support their own clergy and schools, but have their own Bible and
Foreign Missionary Society. They raise for these objects about L4000
per annum, and support six missionaries to the heathen islands around
them. The communicants in the islands amount to upwards of 25,000, and
the children who attend the common schools to a still greater number.

[Footnote A: The first idol which, a catechist from Raratonga, who
visited London in 1848, ever beheld, was in the Museum of the London
Missionary Society.]

If we turn our eye to the great Western Continent, we see the gospel
preached to its wandering Indian tribes; while the condition of Mexico
and of California affords every prospect of the rapid extension of
truth through kingdoms long benighted.

Mohammedan countries have also been opened to the missionary. Through
the influence of Lord Aberdeen and Sir Stratford Canning, the Sultan
was induced in 1844 to give religious toleration to his subjects; so
th