Such was Samuel Marsden, a man whose memory is to be revered and his example imitated. "Not merely a good man," says the preacher of his funeral sermon, "who filled up the place allotted to him on earth, and then sank into his grave; not merely a faithful minister of Christ, who loved and served his Saviour and turned many to repentance, but more than either of these. Rightly to estimate his character we must view him as a peculiar man, raised up for an especial purpose." And he adds-- "As Luther in Germany, and John Knox in Scotland, and Cranmer in England, were sent by the Head of the church, and fitted with peculiar qualifications to make known his glorious gospel, hidden in Romish darkness, so too, no less truly, was SAMUEL MARSDEN raised up in this southern hemisphere, and admirably fitted for the work, and made the instrument of diffusing the light of that same gospel, and of bringing it to bear on the darkness of New Zealand and the Isles of the Sea, and upon the darkness, too, no less real, of the depravity of society in early Australia." APPENDIX I. Progress of the Gospel and of Civilization in New Zealand, since Mr. Marsden's Decease. The great work of Mr. Marsden's life was undoubtedly the New Zealand mission; but he was also, as we have seen, the early friend, the wise adviser, and not unfrequently the generous host of that devoted band of men who first essayed the introduction of the gospel to the Society Islands. Each of these missions has been attended with astonishing success; each has produced what may be called magnificent results,--results which already far exceed, in some respects, the most sanguine hopes, extravagant as at the time they seemed to be, of Mr. Marsden and his early coadjutors some fifty years ago. Yet in other respects their disappointment would have been great had they lived to witness the present state of things, whether in New Zealand or Tahiti. Instead of native tribes growing up into Christian brotherhood, and asserting a national independence, these beautiful islands have bowed to a foreign yoke. Instead of native churches they have rather assumed the form of offshoots and dependencies of British churches. A great work has been accomplished, and its fruits will never cease to ripen. But events have occurred which only prophets could have foreseen; changes have taken place which neither political sagacity nor the saintly wisdom of those good men who first projected our foreign missions amidst storms of insult, or, what was worse to bear, the withering influences of a contemptuous neglect, anticipated. It is often so in this world's history. Our successes, our trials, the events which happen to us, our national history, and that of the church of Christ, scoop out for themselves fresh channels, and flow still onwards, but in the direction perhaps least of all expected.