ulsion from the mission, he retired to a house
he had built at "Pater Noster Valley," and after a few months left the
country. His great services in reducing the Maori language to written
form have hardly been sufficiently recognised. Marsden, like the other
settlers, could never adapt himself to the Italian vowel sounds, and at
his request Kendall wrote out a new vocabulary on a different system;
but he soon found it unsatisfactory, and returned to the principles
which he had worked out with Professor Lee. For the rest of his life--in
South America and in Australia--he still tried to perfect his Maori
Grammar. But the tragedy of his life outweighs the value of his
philological efforts. If ever a New Zealand Goethe should arise, he may
find the materials for his Faust in the history of Thomas Kendall.

From the date of the new beginning of the mission in 1823, its agents
were, for the most part, men of a superior type. Yate, indeed, one of
the ablest amongst them, was accused on a charge of which he never
could, or perhaps _would_, clear himself. He was accordingly
"disconnected" by the Society, but a certain doubt hangs over the issue;
and his after life was spent in useful and honourable service as
chaplain to the seamen at Dover. The rest of the new workers did
excellent service for the mission, and most of them lived to an old age
in the country. Remarkable for their linguistic capacity stand out
William Williams, who translated the New Testament; and Robert Maunsell,
who followed with the Old. This remarkable man took all possible pains
to gather the correct idioms for his task--sometimes by engaging the
Maoris in argument, sometimes by watching them at their sports. The
passion for accuracy was strong in him to extreme old age, and even on
his death-bed he interrupted the ministrations of his parish priest with
the startling question, "Don't you know that that is a mistranslation?"

Apart from translation work, the missionaries had little inclination or
ability for literary pursuits. Some of them (e.g., W. Williams, Yate,
and Colenso) took an interest in the plants and animals of their adopted
country, but for the most part the missionary was a man of one book, and
that book was the Bible. Life was too serious a thing to allow of
attention to the literary graces. The place where his lot was cast was
in a special sense the realm of Satan. The evidences of demonic activity
lay all around. On the one hand were the si