Of course, to a great number of seafaring men, the loveliness of
those regions counts for nothing, their desirability being
founded upon the frequent opportunities of unlimited indulgence
in debauchery. To such men, a "missionary" island is a howling
wilderness, and the missionaries themselves the subjects of the
vilest abuse as well as the most boundless lying.
No one who has travelled with his eyes open would assert that all
missionaries were wise, prudent, or even godly men; while it is a
great deal to be regretted that so much is made of hardships
which in a large proportion of cases do not exist, the men who
are supposed to be enduring them being immensely better off and
more comfortable than they would ever have been at home.
Undoubtedly the pioneers of missionary enterprise had, almost
without exception, to face dangers and miseries past telling, but
that is the portion of pioneers in general. In these days,
however, the missionary's lot in Polynesia is not often a hard
one, and in many cases it is infinitely to be preferred to a life
among the very poor of our great cities.
But when all has been said that can be said against the
missionaries, the solid bastion of fact remains that, in
consequence of their labours, the whole vile character of the
populations of the Pacific has been changed, and where wickedness
runs riot to-day, it is due largely to the hindrances placed in
the way of the noble efforts of the missionaries by the
unmitigated scoundrels who vilify them.
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