. Mission life in the islands of the Pacific : being a narrative of the life and labours of the Rev. A. Buzacott. at he should survive his beloved Parakoti—his father inChrist. When the tidings reached Rarotonga that the venerable mis-sionary had been summoned to receive his reward, Mas hands, tremblingwith age and grief, assisted in draping the church in mourning, and his wailand tears of sorrow mingled with the loud and pitiful cry of the wholepeople. 60 MEMORIALS OF THE REV. A. BUZACOTT. About the same time a church was formed by at Arorangi, which steadily grew in numbersand pi
. Mission life in the islands of the Pacific : being a narrative of the life and labours of the Rev. A. Buzacott. at he should survive his beloved Parakoti—his father inChrist. When the tidings reached Rarotonga that the venerable mis-sionary had been summoned to receive his reward, Mas hands, tremblingwith age and grief, assisted in draping the church in mourning, and his wailand tears of sorrow mingled with the loud and pitiful cry of the wholepeople. 60 MEMORIALS OF THE REV. A. BUZACOTT. About the same time a church was formed by at Arorangi, which steadily grew in numbersand piety. The days of darkness and of anxious toil werenow past, and, as by the law of secret yet mightygrowth, the whole island became as a garden of theLord; and to the present day no spot of the mission-field can compare with Rarotonga in the variety andabundance of its precious fruit, gathered and garneredto the honour and praise of the great Lord of the vine-yard. The hand of God sows not in vain:Long sleeps the darkling seed seasons come, and change and go,And all the fields are deep with CHAPTER V. SCHOOLS. Schools constitute one of the most important de-partments of missionary labour. In order to realizethe difficulties which seemed to bar and defy all pro-gress, the reader must fairly estimate the followingfacts: The whole population had no knowledge ofletters. The natives seemed unable to regard thealphabet in any other light than as a religious mystery,utterly unintelligible to the uninitiated, and as theprimary test of the sincerity and earnestness of thosewho were anxious to adopt the new doctrines. Ac-cordingly, so soon as idolatry was put away out oftheir sight, old and young readily wished to learn thestrange cabalistic sounds, and to study the forms ofthe new characters. The language had not yet beenreduced to writing. The only means of instructionwere a few Tahitian books, being a first school-book,and a few portions of the New Testament in that
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