or he was the
chief authority on the island. He it was who each Sunday led the prayers
of the islanders, all assembled around him in the church which they had
built, thinking, as they joined in the words of the service, of their
unknown brethren in the great country beyond the seas. He it was who
explained week by week the words of the Bible to his listening
companions, taught the children, and married the young people.

It was to Adams that every dispute was referred; all those slight
disagreements which spring up from time to time, but which with the
islanders were never, as they said, more than word-of-mouth quarrels,
and always ended before set of sun.

The captains, though anxious to linger awhile in this island home, were
obliged to leave next day, and they departed amid the regrets and
farewells of these simple-hearted, affectionate people, a people
Christian in heart as well as in name,--sincere, modest, pure, and
unselfish, whose life seemed to be fashioned on the words of God's Book,
"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things
of others."

And all this peace and happiness has sprung, under the blessing of God,
from the seeds of His truth sown long, long years before in the hearts
of two English sailors, and from the power of His truth in His written
word, and in the teaching of His Spirit.

NORFOLK ISLAND.

Far distant from the many other islands with which the Southern Pacific
Ocean is studded, one stands alone, rich in natural beauty, and with a
climate almost unrivalled.

This lovely island was visited by Captain Cook in 1774, and named by him
Norfolk Island; it was then uninhabited, and neither the vegetable nor
the animal world had been disturbed. For about two hundred yards from
the shore, the ground was covered so thickly with shrubs and plants as
scarcely to be penetrable further inland. The account given by Cook led
to an attempt at settlement on Norfolk Island; but this was attended
with difficulty. The island is small, being only about six miles in
length by four in breadth; and was therefore unavailable for a large or
increasing population. Lying nine hundred miles from Port Jackson, in
Australia, it was inconveniently remote from that country; and, worst of
all, its cliffy and rocky shores presented serious dangers to mariners
attempting a landing. Its general unsuitableness, however, for ordinary
colonization, was considered to adapt it as a penal settle