"Still more important than the former events was the arrival of Messrs. Williams and Barff at Samoa, with a band of native teachers, in 1830, at the moment when Tamafaigna, a despot, who united the supreme spiritual with great political power, and whose boundless sway presented a most formidable barrier to the introduction of the gospel, had just been slain, and their cordial reception by Malietoa, a chief of an acute and inquiring mind and amiable disposition, who himself, with his sons, and their wives and children, soon afterwards renounced their superstitions, and destroyed the only idol found in Samoa. The population, when the missionaries landed, amounted to forty thousand, who, though not so cruel and bloodthirsty as that of other groups, were still sunk in the lowest depths of pagan ignorance and misery. "I have watched too the partial establishment of Christianity among the native inhabitants of New Zealand, and its extension thence northward, as also from the east among the islands of Western Polynesia--the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and the Loyalty and Britannia Islands. Still the great work is progressing. New labourers are appearing in the field. From all directions the heathen are crying out for instruction in the wonderful gospel, and more and more labourers are required to supply their urgent wants. A very remarkable feature in this great work is the mode in which it has been accomplished. The number of educated white men engaged in it has been comparatively very small. The most unexpected results, the greatest triumphs have been brought about through native agency. The natives of the Society Islands and Hervey group especially, instructed by English missionaries, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, have, with love in their hearts for their perishing brethren and a burning desire for their conversion, gone forth, braving all perils, some to the surrounding, others to far distant islands, and their language being similar, they have at once been able to address their heathen inhabitants. Many have died from sickness, others have been murdered by those they came to help, but the remainder have persevered till they have seen the cause of the gospel triumphant. "Oh, Mr Harvey, I wish that others were impressed as I am with the awful thought that day after day thousands upon thousands of heathen are perishing in darkness and sin who might, did their Christian fellow-men use more exertion, have had the glorious gospel preached to them, and have been brought to see the light. I will illustrate the remarks I have made," said Mr Bent, "by examples as they occur to me, keeping, as much as my memory will allow, to the sequence of events." ------------------------------------------------------------------------