“Nothing but a special interposition of the divine power could have produced such a confusion of tongues as we find here. In islands not larger than the Isle of Wight, we find dialects so distinct that the inhabitants of the various districts hold no communication with one another. Here have I been for a fortnight working away as I supposed at the language of New Caledonia and just when I have begun to see my way, I learn that this is only a dialect used in the southern extremity of the island, and not understood in the parts I wish to attack first.” There were also difficulties caused by the unscrupulous conduct of the traders, and the fear of consequent treacherous action on the part of the natives. The number of the islands made it impossible to contemplate providing English teachers for each. The Bishop decided that the only way to meet the need was to aim at securing a sufficient supply of native teachers and to raise up a native ministry. As he thought over the call that came to him from this vast region, he reproached himself for the enforced delay in responding to it and wrote: “While I have been sleeping in my bed in New Zealand, these islands have been riddled through and through by black slug, the bêche-de-mer, has been dragged out of its hole in every coral reef to make black broth for Chinese Mandarins, by the unconquerable daring of English traders, while I, like a worse black slug, as I am, have left the world all its field of mischief to itself. The same daring men have robbed every one of these islands of its sandal wood, to furnish incense for the idolatrous worship of Chinese temples, before I have taught a single islander to offer up his sacrifice of prayer to the true and only God. Even a mere Sydney speculator could induce nearly a hundred men from some of the wildest islands in the Pacific to sail in his ships to Sydney to keep his flocks and herds, before I, to whom the Chief Shepherd has given commandment to seek out His sheep that are scattered over a thousand isles, have sought out or found so much as one of those which have strayed and are lost.”