that way we learned more of his peculiar excellence than we had done before; and we are free to say that, on such occasions, we derived more benefit from his simple, childlike, candid, reverential, yet searching, careful, and learned methods, than from all the other helps we used outside of Scripture.

Dr. Richards was a loving, genial man in his household and in his social relations, unselfish, unworldly, and unappropriating, almost to a fault. He was never ill-humored, petulant, morose, vindictive. The buoyancy, playfulness, and versatility, which are said to have been remarkably characteristic of his youth, remained to threescore years, though chastened by the fatigues and adversities of professional life. Yet he did not show these qualities like other men. He made no professions. He seemed to be indifferent. His affectionate, sympathizing, and generous spirit was learned only afterwards by some monument or story. A published tribute to some men, places, or institutions; an enlargement or adornment of the village cemetery; a headstone at the grave of an unfortunate lone woman, crazed and friendless, or of the colored widow of his flockthe nurse of all;-a frequent new comfort for the demented old man-the well-known houseless Nazarite of the place; -these and similar charities which others might not have thought of, were proofs of the considerate and persistent kindness of his heart. He loved his place of residence, and was ever quiet and content. He loved his church and people. We bear record that he loved the College. One would hardly have thought it, except when, occasionally, in discourse or prayer, his tremulous voice gave sign of the desire he felt for its prosperity. He loved every student in it, every brick and timber in its walls. He loved it better than his own Alma Mater. It would have broken his heart to leave it, which, however, was not to be broken, but transferred whole to heaven. We know not but his zeal for it hastened his death; for though, as we have learned, his disease was hereditary, his mother and another member of the family having been similarly cut off, yet he had labored, day and night, for a long time, under inany disadvantages, to hasten an important volume illustrative of its history, and that fatigue probably quickened the predisposing causes of his

fatal malady. We know not but he would have died for it, as he would for anything that he thought material to the public good. In his long ministry he was never known, in his pulpit or elsewhere, to speak of it invidiously, or any member of it. He felt it keenly when any thoughtless young men were heedless of instruction, or behaved indecorously in the house of God, or turned irreverently from it. But he never spoke of it, or seemed to know it. And so in general his desk was never made a place for the utterance of private feeling, or any service that would not become a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. Whatever personal views he had of men or things, in college, church, or state; whatever independent, fearless course he followed in ecclesiastical, political, or social life, we knew that we should never be wounded in the house of God by invidious personalities, sectarian jealousies, or partisan appeals. He cared for no man's opinions, but for every man's soul. He had his honest preferences for particular men and measures, and acted them out, with perfect unconcern, on fit occasions; but his Christian love was general, and flowed out here, where it should flow out, over all. He never lisped a shibboleth.

On the whole, a minister of Jesus Christ, whom all men feel it their privilege to criticise and carp at; whose infirmities and defects we are prone to make an apology for our own shortcomings; the theme of every week's, and almost every day's discussion; going in and out among men of all varieties of tastes, tempers, and pursuits; without the advantages of manner, wealth, address; reduced by inadequate support; sometimes plagued with poverty; compelled to a frequent change of house and home, and sometimes hardly having where to lay his head; yet, though weary, never fainting; though cast down, not destroyed; without complainings, murmurings, or disputings; kindly interpreting all adversities; never refusing to bear his burdens; never seeming to feel that any serious burdens were laid upon him; holding fast to righteous principle; meekly testifying the gospel of the grace of God; doing all this, for nearly twenty years, in a peculiarly delicate and difficult position, and then dying, as it were, with his last sermon in his pocket; must be a man of God. As such we lament

and honor him; and we heartily rejoice, not that he is dead, but that, being dead, he has entered into his rest.

"And I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write! Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord! Yea! saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them."

ART. IV. THE FIJI MISSION.

FIJI AND THE FIJIANS. By Thomas Williams and James Calvert, late Missionaries at Fiji.

Edited by George S. Rowe. New York: D. Appleton and Co. 1859.

THE Wesleyan Mission, the origin and progress of which are narrated in this volume, is, from the seeming hopelessness of its subjects at first, from the dangers that have attended it, and from its rapid and extraordinary success, of higher interest and significance than any other that signalizes the age.

The Fiji are a group of islands lying between the latitudes of 15° 30′ and 20° 30′ S., and the longitudes of 177° E. and 177° W., and comprise, besides two large islands, a series of clusters sweeping in a circuit from 20° latitude in the east round to 20 in the west, the most northern islet being near the top of the arch in lat. 15° 30' N. They spread over about 40,000 square miles of the South Pacific. They were discovered by Tasman, a Dutch navigator, in 1643. They were visited by Captain Cook in 1772, and occasionally by other voyagers, but remained almost unknown till 1804, when a number of convicts escaped from New South Wales and settled on them, but being wretches of the most desperate character, only contributed by their example to confirm and advance the natives in the demoralization and barbarism to which they had previously sunk. The entire group comprises two hundred and twenty-five islands and islets, about eighty of which are inhabited. They present every variety of outline, from the simple form of the coral isles, to the delicate beauty and sometimes

rugged grandeur of a volcanic structure. Deep vales, farreaching slopes, inaccessible steeps, towering pinnacles, fathomless chasms, and foaming cascades, are often combined in the same landscape. The islands in the eastern part of the Archipelago are small and much alike; towards the west they are large and diversified, the two largest being superior to any other in that part of the ocean. Of the smaller islands, here and there one is composed of sand and coral débris covered with a deep soil of vegetable mould. These are from two to six miles in circumference, having around them a belt of white sand, and a circlet of cocoanuts of perennial green. They have ordinarily one village, inhabited by fifty to one hundred natives. The islands generally in the eastern clusters are of volcanic formation, their shore only having a coral base. Of this class, Vulanga, the chief in the cluster bearing that name, being 19° south lat. and 178° 45' east long., may be taken as an example. It appears as though its centre had been blown out by violent explosions, leaving only a circumferent rim above the water, which to the west and south is broad, and covered with rocks of black scoria rising to a height of near two hundred feet, but to the north-east is narrow and broken. This rim encircles an extensive sheet of water of a dark blue color, studded with scoriacious islets, enamelled with green, and worn away between the extremes of high and low water, until they resemble huge trees of a mushroom form, and give a strange and picturesque effect to this sheltered haven. The passage into these recesses from the surging sea is often attended with great difficulty and danger. Mr. Williams relates that his first entrance into this of Vulanga was at the risk of life. A mountainous surf opposed the strong current which forced its way through the intricate passage, causing a terrific whirl and commotion, in which the canoe, though large, was tossed about like a splinter. The loud voice of the chief issuing his commands amid the thunder of the breakers, and the shrieks of the affrighted women; the wrench of the canoe in its heaving bed of foam; the strained exertions of the men at the steering oar, the anxiety depicted on every face, were exciting and impressive in the highest degree. The instant transition from these to the conscious security, the easy progress, and the repose

that followed the moment the interior of the basin was reached, had a touch of the sublime, and filled the heart with a soft rapture of wonder and gratitude.

Vulanga, though not without beauty, is barren, little except timber growing on it. Its gullies are so bare of earth as not to repay cultivation. Mothe, lying to the N.E., is very fruitful, having a surface less precipitous, and less overgrown with wood. From its highest elevation, which is occupied by a fortress, the scene that unfolds is of extraordinary beauty. The beach is of sand and seven miles in circuit. There are many islands of this size in the group that sustain from 200 to 400 inhabitants each.

Lakemba, the largest of the eastern islands, is nearly round, having a diameter of five or six miles, and a population of about 2000. Totóya, Moala, Nairai, Ngua, Mbenga, exhibit, on a larger scale, the beauties of those already named, and have, in addition, the charms of volcanic irregularities. Among their attractions are high mountains, abrupt precipices, conical hills, fantastic turrets and crags like frowning battlements, vast domes, and shattered peaks, native towns on eyrie cliffs apparently inaccessible, and deep ravines, down which mountain streams, after long murmuring in their stony beds, fall headlong, glittering like silver lines on a block of jet, or spreading like sheets of glass over rocks that refuse them a channel. Here also are found the softer features of rich vales, cocoa-nut groves, clumps of dark chestnuts, stately palms and bread-fruit trees, patches of graceful bananas, or well tilled taro-beds, mingling in unbounded luxuriance, and forming, with the wild reef scenery of the girdling shore, its beating surf, and farstretching ocean beyond, pictures of surpassing beauty. These islands are from fifteen to thirty miles in circumference, and have a population of from one to seven thousand.

Mbau, scarcely a mile in length, is joined to the main island, Viti Levu, by a long flat coral, which at low water is nearly dry, and is always fordable. The town, having the same name as the island, is one of the most striking in appearance in Fiji. The ground rises like a cone, and is covered to a considerable distance upwards by houses of all sizes, tall temples, and other buildings. It is the chief seat