Sandy Cove was a small settlement inhabited partly by native converts to Christianity, and partly by a few European traders, who, having found that the place was in the usual track of South Sea whalers, and frequently visited by that class of vessels as well as by other ships, had established several stores or trading houses, and had taken up their permanent abode there.

 

The island was one of those the natives of which were early induced to agree to the introduction of the gospel. At the time of which we write, it was in that transition state which renders the work of the missionary one of anxiety, toil, and extreme danger, as well as one of love.

 

But the Reverend Frederick Mason was a man eminently fitted to fill the post which he had selected as his sphere of labour. Bold and manly in the extreme, he was more like a soldier in outward aspect than a missionary. Yet the gentleness of the lamb dwelt in his breast and beamed in his eye; and to a naturally indomitable and enthusiastic disposition was added burning zeal in the cause of his beloved Master.

 

Six years previous to the opening of our tale, he had come to Sandy Cove with his wife and child, the latter a girl of six years of age at that time. In one year death bereaved the missionary of his wife, and, about the same time, war broke out in the island between the chiefs who clung to the idolatrous rites and bloody practices peculiar to the inhabitants of the South Sea islands, and those chiefs who were inclined to favour Christianity. This war continued to rage more or less violently for several years, frequently slumbering, sometimes breaking out with sudden violence, like the fitful eruptions of the still unextinct volcanoes in those distant regions.

 

During all this period of bloodshed and alarms, the missionary stuck to his post. The obstinacy of hatred was being gradually overcome by the superior pertinacity of zeal in a good cause, and the invariable practice—so incomprehensible to the savage mind—of returning good for evil; the result was, that the Sabbath bell still sent its tinkling sound over the verdant slopes above Sandy Cove, and the hymn of praise still arose, morning and evening, from the little church, which, composed partly of wood, partly of coral rock, had been erected under the eye, and, to a large extent, by the hands of the missionary.

 

But false friends within the camp were more dangerous and troublesome to Mr Mason than avowed enemies without. Some of the European traders, especially, who settled on the island a few years after the missionary had made it habitable, were the worst foes he had to contend with.

 

In the same vessel that brought the missionary to the island, there came a widow, Mrs Stuart, with her son Henry, then a stout lad of thirteen. The widow was not, however, a member of the missionary’s household. She came there to settle with her son, who soon built her a rudely constructed but sufficiently habitable hut, which, in after years, was enclosed, and greatly improved; so that it at last assumed the dimensions of a rambling picturesque cottage, whitewashed, brilliant, and neat in its setting of bright green.

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