We have no hesitation in pronouncing this second part the most fascinating narrative of missionary adventure and heroism and success that we have ever met. This volume abounds in poetry and pathos, dramatic incident and thrilling experience, lit up by the golden rays of a delicate and unique humor. It reminds one of a varied landscape with bold mountains and modest valleys, where snow-crowned summits look down on summer gardens; where cascades fall into quiet streams, and where all the marvels of light and shade at once relieve and diversify the scene. The twenty-two miles’ gallop through the Australian Bush on the back of Garibaldi, which made the inexperienced rider drunk with excitement and fatigue; the Aniwan woman who, judging clothes an evidence of a new heart, approved her decided conversion by coming into chapel having her person grotesquely adorned with every article of male attire which she could beg or borrow, may illustrate the comical side of this charming story. The three years of progress among cannibals, in laying foundations of Christian families, schools, churches, and even social order, may serve as one of the greatest vindications, through all history, of that Gospel which is still the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation. PREFACE. It is a true joy to me, that I am enabled to place Part Second of my brother’s Autobiography in the hands of the Public without undue delay. The amount of interesting and precious material, entrusted to me to be re-written and prepared for the Press, has, by its very abundance and variety, landed me in the greatest perplexity. Amidst all the toil and anxiety of producing such a book, my only painful experience has been the necessity of cutting out page after page, every whit as beautiful and valuable as any of the pages for which room has been found. That observation applies very specially to the “Letters,” which constitute Chapter IX. These I verily regret to publish in mere fragments, instead of in their own rounded completeness. Two whole Chapters, as outlined by my brother, I am sorrowfully necessitated to omit, so that the Life-Story itself may not be too much enlarged or overloaded. The one refers to “The Kanaka, or Labour Traffic in the South Seas”; and the other to “Annexation, and the Future of the New Hebrides.” Both are of vital import among the Public Questions of the day; and, in the discussion of both, his position and opportunities have led him to take a not inconsiderable share. But the claims of what may more properly be regarded as the Personal Narrative were paramount; and the allotted space, within the limits of this volume, left me, for the present at least, no other choice.