Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/525

YIWA AND MBAT7. 489 now that the Native Ministers cost the people something, the people appreciate their labours, and try to realize a return, in spiritual instruction, for their own expenditure. This leads them to frequent, more often than they did formerly, the school and the chapel. " 3. It gives a zest to the labours of the Native Pastor. He does not like to let his people see that he is paid by them for doing nothing. He knows that they will expect him to work ; and that they can (and will, if it needs be) communicate to the Missionary his inactivity. Hence he is led to guard especially against his tropical indolence." Some further results of the year's labours were^the commencement of a new chapel at Mbau ; the building of eight Mission-houses on Viti Levu ; the establishment of a church at Ngau, where, Fijian tradition says, cannibalism originated. Two hundred and twenty- six couples were married here, and one hundred and seventy-four adults baptized. One hundred and seventy-four couples were married, and two hundred and twenty -two adults baptized, and three beautiful chapels built, at Nairai, where, " at a Missionary Meeting, five young men, Local Preachers on trial, offered themselves as messengers of the Church, and were accordingly appointed to Stations on the Large Land. The following summary shows what had been done : — " In this Circuit, the net increase in numbers is five hundred and twenty-three, and more than six hundred are on trial for membership. Twenty-seven are on trial as Local Preachers, the majority of whom are young men. A scheme has been established, by great exertion on the part of the Missionary, by which all the Native Agents will be supported by the people amongst whom they labour. This is to be done by the erection of a house in the first instance, and the contribu- tion of food monthly, and clothing quarterly. " In this Circuit they have only one Missionary ; there are twenty chapels, fifty-one preaching places, thirty-two paid agents, twenty-two Local Preachers unpaid, six hundred and twenty-three members of the Church, six hundred and twenty-seven on trial, thirty-five day schools, two thousand day scholars, and nine thousand attendants on public worship." At the commencement of 1857, Thakombau dismissed his many wives, and was publicly joined in holy matrimony to his chief Queen. The wealth and influence which he thus sacrificed cannot be appreciated by strangers to Fiji ; but the heart of the King had been yielding more and more to the power of the Gospel, until at last he bowed in sub- mission to that yoke of purity, the righteousness of which he had long acknowledged. This great difficulty being removed, the Vunivalu and