the life of those with whom he associated. The church was an
expression of the verbal teaching committed to its ministers. How
clearly the beauty of this comes out when one is forced to feel the
horrible blank occasioned by the absence of the living teacher,
influencing, moulding, building up each individual professor of
Christianity by a process always going on, though oftentimes
unconsciously to him on whom it operates.

'But how is the social life to be fashioned here in Lifu according to
the rule of Christ? There is no organised body exemplifying in daily
actions the teaching of the Bible. A man goes to chapel and hears
something most vague and unmeaning. He has never been taught to
grasp anything distinctly--to represent any truth to his mind as a
settled resting-place for his faith. Who is to teach him? What does
he see around him to make him imperceptibly acquire new habits in
conformity with the Bible? Is the Christian community distinguished
by any habits of social order and intercourse different from non-
Christians?

'True, they don't fight and eat one another now, but beyond that are
they elevated as men? The same dirt, the same houses, the same idle
vicious habits; in most cases no sense of decency, or but very
little. Where is the expression of the Scriptural life? Is it not a
most lamentable state of things? And whence has it arisen? From not
connecting Christian teaching in church with the improvement in
social life in the hut and village, which is the necessary corollary
and complement of such teaching.

'By God's grace, I trust that some little simple books in Lifu will
soon be in their houses, which may be useful. It is even a cause for