trust, we could occupy them at once. As it is, we keep up a
communication with some seventy-four islands, waiting, if it may be,
that men may be sent, trying to educate picked men to be teachers;
but I am not very sanguine about that. At all events, the first
flush of savage customs, &c., is being, I trust, removed, so that for
some other body of Christians, if not the Church of England, the door
may be laid open.

'Of course, the interest of the work is becoming more and more
absorbing; so that, much as there is indeed going on in your world to
distract and grieve one, it comes to me so weakened by time and
distance that I don't sympathise as I ought with those who are
suffering so dreadfully from the Indian Mutiny, or the commercial
failure, or the great excitement and agitation of the country. You
can understand how this can be, perhaps; for my actual present work
leaves me small leisure for reflecting, and for placing myself in the
position of others at a distance; and when I have a moment's time
surely it is right that I should be in heart at Feniton, with those
dear ones, and especially my dear dear father, of whom I have not
heard for five months, so that I am very anxious as to what account
of him the "Southern Cross" may bring, and try to prepare myself for
news of increased illness, &c.

'You, I imagine, my dear Miss Neill, are not much changed to those
who see you day by day; but I should find you much weaker in body
than when I saw you last, and yet it did not seem then as if you had
much strength to lose: I don't hear of any sudden changes, or any
forms of illness; the gradual exhausting process is going on, but
accompanied, I fear, with even greater active pain than of old; your
sufferings are indeed very severe and very protracted, a great lesson