missionary in
Fiji has ever met with a violent death, yet the list of those who died
in the midst of their labours is proportionately great. The Wesleyans,
to whose disinterestedness the conversion of these degraded beings is
due, have, as a society, expended 75,000 pounds on this object; and if
the private donations of friends to individual missionaries and their
families be added, the sum reaches to the respectable amount of 80,000
pounds."

Dr Seemann describes a visit to the island of Lakemba, hallowed as the
spot on which the first Christian mission was established. Mr
Fletcher, the resident missionary, conducted him and his companions
through a grove of cocoa-nut palms and bread-fruit trees to his house, a
commodious building, thatched with leaves, surrounded by a fence and
broad-boarded verandah, the front of the house looking into a nice
little flower-garden, the back into the courtyard.

The ladies gave them a hearty welcome, glad to look once more upon white
faces, and to hear accounts from home. Though the thermometer ranged
more than 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the thick thatch kept off the scorching
rays, and there was a fresh current of trade wind blowing through the
rooms. It was pleasing to see everything so scrupulously neat and
clean; the beds and curtains as white as snow, and everywhere the
greatest order prevailed.

"There are the elements of future civilisation,--models ready for
imitation,--hallowed homes which no Romish priest can afford," observes
the Doctor, "the yard well-stocked with ducks and fowls, pigs and
goats,--the gardens replete with flowers, cotton shrubs twelve feet
high, and bearing leaves, flowers, and fruit in all stages of
development. These missionary stations are fulfilling all the objects
of convents in their best days, and a great deal more; for their inmates
are teaching a pure and simple faith in Jesus, which those of the
convents did not."

Mr Fletcher showed them over the town, the first spot in Fiji where
Christianity was triumphant and a printing-press was established, from
which was issued an edition of the whole Bible in the language of the
people, and several other works. There exist, indeed, two versions of
the Bible in the language of Fiji. The church in the town is a
substantial building, capable of holding three hundred people. There
are some thirty other churches in the Lakemba district alone.

From Lakemba, occupying a week on the voyage, they proceed