the beginnings of the mission were full of dangers and difficulties. The savage attacks of the Maoris threatened several times to destroy the mission, but amidst all dangers, not only to himself but to his wife and children, Williams remained calm and unafraid. He gained an amazing personal ascendency over the Maoris, and exposed himself fearlessly again and again in order to stop their feuds and bring an end to their repeated and cruel wars. It was not only the Maoris he had to fear, he met with much opposition from the settlers also, who objected to the efforts of the missionaries to secure fair treatment for the natives, and threatened to turn them out of the country. Williams was in no hurry to make converts. He would have no hasty baptisms. For each there must be a long period of probation; but when, after due preparation and testing, the first had been baptized, the number of Christians increased rapidly. Williams gave himself with great energy to language study. He found the Maori dialects very corrupt and difficult to reduce to order. In this work he was greatly helped by his brother William, who was an Oxford scholar, and who helped to fix the language and give it its grammar. Portions of the Bible were translated and the Maoris, old chiefs as well as young boys, after being taught in the schools set up by the missionaries, became eager readers. It was the constant recurrence of native wars that weighed most heavily upon Williams’ mind. In 1832, he wrote of himself as “in much distress of mind at the present state of things in this land. All is dark, dreary and in dire confusion.” But he was not often cast down. The chief mission station, Paihai in the Waimate, where he lived, was a centre of education and industry. Charles Darwin, visiting it during his voyage in the _Beagle_ in 1835, wrote of it: “The lesson of the missionary is the enchanter’s wand. I thought the whole scene admirable and to think that this was the centre of cannibalism, murder and all atrocious crimes.” In time some of the most bloodthirsty old chiefs died and the young ones were more ready to listen to the new teaching. They became eager readers of the Bible, they attended the schools, were ready to learn simple handicrafts and after their baptism gave up their desire to fight and seek revenge for every provocation. After a time the missionaries who now had amongst their converts some who were eager to help in the work of teaching, were able to start other missions further south than the Bay of Islands, in the neighbourhood of the Waikato and the Thames rivers. Richard Taylor, one of the early missionaries, writes: “The Gospel could not have made the progress it did or have obtained such a permanent hold upon the native mind, had it not been for the agency of the native teachers. In many places they were the first bearers of the Gospel, and some laid down their lives.”