Mr. Marsden's journal of this his first visit to New Zealand is a document of singular interest, and when published at the time in England, it made a deep impression. It is written in plain and forcible language, and is characterized by that vein of good sense and practical wisdom which so distinguished him. There is no display of his own sufferings, trials and privations, no affectation of laboured and studied expression, no highly coloured and partial representation of the savage condition of the natives. All his aim is to lay the truth before the Society and the friends of missions, and in doing so he has written with a degree of accuracy and honest feeling, which while they inform the understanding at once reach the heart. From this unpretending record, a few selections will be laid before the reader. And here, too, we would, once for all, acknowledge our obligations to his "companion in travel," J. L. Nicholas, Esq., to whose manuscript journal of the visit to New Zealand, as well indeed as for other communications of great interest on the subject of Mr. Marsden's life and labours, we shall be much indebted through the future pages of our work. Duaterra and Shunghie had often told of the bloody war, arising out of the affair of the Boyd, that was raging, while they were at Paramatta, between the people of Wangaroa (the tribe of Tippahee) and the inhabitants of the Bay of Islands, who were their own friends and followers; the Wangaroans accusing the people of the Bay of Islands of having conspired with the English in the murder of Tippahee. When the Active arrived, several desperate battles had been fought, and the war was likely to continue.