in Tahiti and the Society Islands; and we may extend the remark to the New Zealand mission, as shown by his correspondence with the Church Missionary Society a few years later. About this period a reaction had taken place in England amongst religious people. The fond hopes they had unwisely entertained of seeing vast results wherever the gospel was introduced among the heathen and upon the first proclamation of it, had been grievously disturbed; and now the tide ran in the opposite direction. Nothing appears to have given Mr. Marsden more uneasiness than the general lukewarmness of the church of Christ at home, and their despondency as to the success of missions. He speaks of his "anxious days and sleepless nights." But his own courage never failed; and this high undoubting faith, it is beautiful to observe, rests always on the same foundation. It was not, much as he respected them, his confidence either in the Societies at home, or in their missionaries abroad, but simply in the promises of God, in the power of the gospel, and in the unchanging love of Christ for his "inheritance" among the heathen. Thus the missionaries were induced to return to their deserted posts; and not only so, but to resume their work in a higher spirit of faith and cheerfulness. It was not long before hopeful signs broke out, and within ten years Pomare the sovereign became a Christian king, and the island of Tahiti a Christian land. The distance of these missions from Australia, and the difficulty of communicating with them, suggested to Mr. Marsden the advantage of employing a vessel entirely on missionary service. When his mind was once made up he lost no time; the consent of the Societies in England could not all at once be gained; so he resolved, at his own cost, to purchase a missionary ship, the first probably that ever floated on the deep, and bought the Active, a brig of a hundred tons burden, for the service of the two great missions on which his heart was fixed. The following letter, addressed to the Rev. George Burder, though written two years later, is introduced here to complete our summary of the re-establishment of the Tahitian mission: "Paramatta, June 9, 1815.