Meanwhile the heathen people of Ono had done all in their power to persecute their Christian neighbours, who kept the peace as long as possible, but finally were driven to fighting. A civil war lasted for several weeks, which resulted in the complete defeat of the heathen. To their utter amazement, and contrary to all Fijian precedent, their lives were spared, and they were all freely pardoned, a course which naturally inclined them to respect the religion which taught such mercy. Consequently when, in 1842, Mr Williams visited Ono, he found that out of the 500 inhabitants only three persons were still nominally heathen, and these became Christians ere long. He baptised 200 persons, who had been waiting and longing for his coming. Portions of the New Testament and the morning service from the Book of Common Prayer were now printed in the Ono dialect, and eagerly sought by the people; and three years later, when Mr Calvert touched at the isle, he found all the population in a condition of religious fervour which filled him with thankfulness and amazement: the people were so intensely in earnest, and, on the whole, so calm and sensible. It was like a story of the early days of the Church—so wonderful was the flood of light and love that had been poured on these men and women, in answer to their exceeding longing to know the way of truth, and their whole-hearted acceptance of it. Some notes of their prayers and mutual exhortations, as spoken at the “love-feasts,” have been recorded, and, like many others which have been translated to me at different places, breathe such intensity of Christian love and devotion, as we are accustomed to look for only in the lives of great saints. They so rejoice in the radiance of this newly found Light, that they suppose it must flood the whole world on which it has once shone; while we, conscious of the dim grey faith which most prevails beneath our dim grey skies, are more inclined to echo Keble’s sad words— “And of our scholars let us learn Our own forgotten lore!” Many of the Ono men now desired to be allowed to go as teachers to other parts of Fiji (of course in peril of their lives). Of these, eight were selected, and in the simple prayer with which that meeting closed, the Tongan teacher, Silas Faone, exclaimed—“They go; we stay on this small isle according to Thy will. _We would all go, Thou knowest_, to make known the good tidings.” At the close of morning service 300 communicants knelt together at the Holy Communion; and on the following morning all the people assembled on the beach, and again knelt in prayer for blessings on the teaching of the eight first missionaries sent forth by the little lonely isle to preach the Gospel of Christ to the vicious cannibal tribes throughout the group.