n His Son came down to die. It is sad to think how often man,
to whom God has given the most, is the least ready to use these gifts
for his Maker's glory, so that instead of these lovely islands being
always full of His praise, they are often homes of sin and of
unhappiness, as indeed it was at first with Pitcairn, the history of
which we now give.

* * * * *

Far away from any other land, in the midst of the South Pacific Ocean,
there is a little island, a mere speck in the sea, for it is not six
miles across at its widest point. A passing ship might leave this tiny
island unnoticed, save for the lofty cliffs and precipices which guard
its shores, running down to the white waves, ever curling and breaking
at their feet. Yet it was not a mere rock, inaccessible and barren; for
when once a boat has safely won its way through the breakers, and the
sailor has climbed the rocks which, steep above steep, stand like a wall
before him, he is rewarded by the sight of lovely valleys, of forests of
fruit-bearing palms, and of green, fresh-springing plants: a little
fairy land, a new paradise seems hidden here from the eye and the foot
of man.

It is called Pitcairn's Island, and was discovered more than a hundred
years ago by a passing ship. It was uninhabited, and no one set foot on
it again, till in 1789 a small ship might have been seen approaching its
shores, as if she would seek an anchorage in that dangerous, rocky bay.

The ship is called the _Bounty_, and carries for her crew nine English
seamen, and some colored men and women, natives of Tahiti, an island at
which the _Bounty_ had been recently anchored.

There is no captain on board, though the first mate, Fletcher Christian,
seems to take his place and to direct the course of the ship; but his
words are few, and his face is sad, as if some past trouble or sin
weighed on his heart, and, when he is not obliged to be active, he sits
gazing listlessly over the water, looking for he knows not what.

It would be a long and sad story to tell how that ship came to be thus
cruising in the wide Pacific. Months before, Fletcher Christian and some
of the sailors of the _Bounty_ had mutinied; had put their captain, who
by his harsh and unjust treatment had provoked their anger, into the
ship's launch with eighteen of the crew, leaving them thus to reach home
or to die on the ocean.

The mutineers well knew that if they returned to E