/ / e
THE MORAL UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE.
a tt'mou
PREACHED AT THE ORDINATION OF
LUTHER HALSEY GULICK, M.D.,
AS A MISSIONARI TO THE
MICRONESIAN ISLANDS.
BY JOSEPH P.  )MPSON,
Taotor of ttt 3roabaiae ra. lt euel      r c.
WITH AN APPENDIX ON TiE CORAL ISLANDS
"Declare His praise in the Islands... To the Isles afar off
that have not heard His fame."
ALSO,
THiE CHARGE DELIVERED ON THE SAME OCCASION,
By Rev. SWAN L. POMROY, D.D., Cor. Sec. A. B. C. F. M.
THE RIGHT HAND OF FELLOW: IP,
AS GIVEN BYU
Rev. JOHN D. PARIS, of the Sandwich Islands Mission.
NEW YORK:
M. W. DODD, PUBLISHER, BRICK CHURCHI CHAPEL.
I
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ISA,IAH."
AND
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- 3
1851.  
THE MORAL UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE.
,l ermau
PREACHED AT THE ORDINATION OF 
LUTHER hALSEY GULICK, M.D.,
AS A MISSIONARY TO THE
MICRONESIAN ISLANDS.
BY JOSEPH P. THOMPSON,
Pasto:r of tTe 3reatan gabertlnarTle (-urtt.
WITI  AN APPENDIX ON THE CORAL ISLANDS.
"Declare His praise in the Islands... To the Isles afar off
that have not heard His famne."'
ALSO,
THE CHARGE DELIVERED ON THE SAME OCCASION,
By Rev. SWAN L. POMROY, D.D., Cor. Sec. A. B. C. F. M.
THE RIGHT HAND OF FELLOWSHIP,
AS GIVEN BY
Rev. JOHN D. PARIS, of the Sandwich Islands Mission.
NEW YORK:
M. W. DODD, PUBLISHER, BRICK CHURCH CHAPEL.
1851.
ISAIAH.
AND  
SERM ON.*
"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel
to preach to them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and
tongue, and people."-Revelation, xiv. 6.
THE  command of Christ, "Go ye into all the world
and preach the gospel to every creature," assumes the
MORAL UNITY of all the different races of men.   Whatever
theory may be adopted of the physical and historical unity
of mankind,-whether that of universal derivation fi'om a
single pair, or that of separate centers of creation corresponding with the present geographical distribution of the
human species,-it is still true that all men have the same
moral nature, with the same capacities and wants.   We
must preach the gospel to every creature, because wherever man is found there is a nature requiring to be renovated, and capable through this agency of being transformed into the likeness of God. For our encouragement
in fulfilling this command, the final results of the gospel
* Henry Lobdell, M.D., under appointment from  the A. B. C. F.  M. to the
Assyrian Mission, had also been examined and approved by the Council, but was
prevented by sickness from being present at the Ordination Services in the Tabernacle.
As the Sermon was prepared partly at his request, the allusions to himself and his
mission were retained as belonging to the occasion. Dr. Lobdell was subsequently
ordained by a Committee of the Council, at the Church of the Pilgrims, Brooklyn. 
4
are brought to view in the glories of the redeemed in
heaven. The song of redemption in the New Jerusalem
will be sung b)y the representatives of "every kindred,
and tongue, and people, and nation." The lordly Celt,
the agile Arab, the swarthy Copt, the treacherous Malay,
the ferocious Kurd, the lofty, warlike Kaffre of the
Bechuana, the barbarous Papuan, the brutal SauiOeid,
the cannibal Alforian, the fierce Algonquin, and the
revengeful Iroquois-these all redeemed to God by the
blood of Christ, shall sit down with his chosen racewith Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and their seedand their barbarous tongues, with sweetest harmony, shall
join the song of Moses and the Lamb.
"Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him."  God's commissioned angel, flying in mid heaven with the everlasting
gospel, bears his message "to every nation, and kindred,
and tongue, and people."
The text suggests as a theme appropriate to a Missionary Ordination, THE UNITY OF MANKIND, ESPECIALLY
IN THEIR MORAL NATURE AND CONDITION.
The whole plan of salvation regards the human race as
one. The Scriptures teach both the historical and the
physical unity of mankind. Moses treats of the human
race as the offspring of a single pair created by God in
the beginning.  Paul declares that "God that made the
world, and all things therein... hath made of one blood
all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and
hath determined the times before appointed, and the
bounds of their habitation." 
To these declarations of the sacred Scriptures science
has nothing to oppose.  It is true that some scientific
men of distinction-and, in particular, one who has
brought to the shrine of an American University the rich
fruits of a native sagacity, stimulated by the highest
European  culture-have questioned whether "mankind
constitute  physiologically  but  one  species."   These
gentlemen find it difficult to account for the varieties
among different families of mankind, by aty natural
causes,-suchi as migration, climate, nomadic, agricultural
or commercial pursuits,-which have operated since the
creation, or rather since the flood; accordingly, they
conjecture that mankind, though all pertaining to one
genus, had several distinct origins, by separate local
creations, corresponding in the main with the geographical distribution of the more prominent races.  This is
not the place to attempt a refutation of this theory.   To
notice it is merely incidental to my subject.  It may be
proper to observe, however, that this theory of a plurality
of creations does not appear to have been suggested by
any potent or stringent facts, but rather to have been
invented for the solution of difficulties which others no
less eminent in the science of physiology claim to have
solved without it.  It is rather an expedient devised
for an occasion, than a theory based upon scientific
induction.
Great as are the varieties among different races of
men, their unities are far.greater; and in no respect
do they differ from each other as widely as in several
respects they all alike differ from the inferior animals.
Prichard, in his elaborate work on the Natural History
5 
6
of Man, exhibits on the same plate figures of skulls taken
at random from "the most dissimilar and widely separated
races of niankind,"-as for example, a Kongo Negro, an
aboriginal American, and a Chinese of Canton,-in which
the resemblance of the heads, both in the front and in the
base view, is so striking that one might almost be taken
as a fac simile of the whole. This would not be true of
all skulls taken from these several races; but that it is true
of specimens from each class is equally to the purpose.
One needs only to glance at the skulls of different races
of men figured upon the same plate with the skulls of the
Chimpanzee and of the Orang, to see how close are the
affinities of mankind with each other, and how remote is
the humtblest type of man firom the most exalted of the
inferior animal tribes. While in the human skull, when
properly developed, the facial angle ranges from eightyfive degrees, its maximum, down to seventy degrees, its
minimum, in the skull of a full grown Orang or Satyrthe creature that approaches nearest to man-it never
exceeds from thirty to thirty-five degrees, or less than half
the lowest standard of the human skull in any of the
tribes of man.*   The varieties in the different races of
men are far less numerous or striking than in different
races of the inferior animals-such as the sheep or dog —
belonging to one species or tribe.t
The general observations deduced by Prichard from
his survey of the human races, appear to be conclusive
as to the physiological unity cf mankind. "The different
races of men," he observes, "are not distinguished from
each other by strongly marked, uniform, and permanent
* See Appendix A.
t See Appendix B. 
distinctions, as are the several species belonging to any
given tribe of animals. All the diversities which exist are
variable, and pass into each other by insensible gradations;
and there is, moreover, scarcely an instance in which the
actual transition cannot be proved to have taken place.
Thus, if we consider the varieties of figure which are
generally looked upon as the most important, and begin
with those of the skeleton and the skull as their foundation, we shall find every particular type undergoing deviations and passing into other forms."
"With respect to color," he continues, "it is still
more easy to trace the greatest variations within the limits
of one race.  There is, perhaps, not one great family of
nations, having its branches spread through different
climates, which does not display in this particular the
most strongly marked variations." The black Hindoos of
Anu-gangani are "of one identical stock with the yellowhaired and blue-eyed villagers of Jumnotri and Gangotri."
The Jews of Northern Europe are fair, those of Portugal
are dark, and those of Cochin are black.  On the Malabar
coast are two colonies of Jews, the one known as "white
Jews," and the other perfectly black; yet the Jews
nowhere intermarry with strangers. The Arabs, also a
separate race, vary in color from the whiteness of the
European, through all the shades of yellow and brown, to
a deep, glossy black.
Albinos are found not unfrequently in the Negro race.
Indeed, this term  properly denotes  "a white person
belonging to a race of blacks." It was originally applied
by the Portuguese to the white Negroes on the coast of
Africa, of whom a King of Ashantee at one time had
7 
8
collected nearly one hundred. This peculiarity, which
does not seem to be a disease, but merely the absence of
coloring matter from the skin, " is probably more common
in Africa than elsewhere.  Dr. Winterbottom mentions
eleven instances among the native tribes about Sierra
Leone, and Mr. Jefferson seven among the Negro slaves
of America."* The Red Kariens of Tenasserim, and the
Red Fulahs of the Gambia, are mentioned by Latham as
instances of Asiatic and African tribes with an American
color.t  The Rajmahali mountaineers, belonging to the
Tamulian family, have "a Mongolian physiognomy conjoined with a dark skin; broad faces, small eyes, flattish
or rather turned-up noses, and lips thicker than those of
the inhabitants of the plain,"T-a sort of Chinese-Negro
aspect.  Examples such as these have led the eminent
anatomist and ethnologist, Dr. Lawrence, to the conclusion that "color is not an essential character of race;
that identity of tint is not necessary to establish descent
from a common stock. These occurrences, together with
numerous examples of the widest deviation in color in
animals confessedly of the same species, fully authorize us
to conclude that, however striking the contrast may be
between the fair European and the ebon African, and
however unwilling the former may be to trace up his
pedigree to the same ADAM with the latter, this superficial
distinction is altogether insufficient to establish diversity of
species." ~
* Lawrence, " Lectures on the Natural History of Man," Bohn's edition, p. 195.
t Ethnology of the British Colonies.
t Eliot, "Asiatic Researches;' vol. iv.
~ Lectures, &c., p. 207. 
9
The texture of the human hair likewise exhibits every
gradation of variety; some of the black tribes of Africa
having long flowing hair, while some South Sea Islanders
of a lighter complexion and a different physiognomy, have
the short crisped hair which many suppose peculiar to the
African race.*
As respects the average duration of human life, the
physical changes to which the humnan constitution is subject, and all the "great regulations of the animnal economy,"
there is nothing that amounts to a specific difference
among the different races of men.   "Thus, while mankind, in all its varieties, is distinguished from all other races
of animals by differences incomparably greater, more
definite, and more important than those which separate
the very highest class or species of those animals from the
very lowest, the different varieties of mankind are so
slightly marked, and so shaded into one another, that their
unity is incomparably more prominent than their diversity."t  It is remarkable, too, that as science pursues its
investigations upon purely physiological grounds, many of
the apparent diversities and contrasts among different
races disappear, or are distinctly traced to their proximate
cause. This fact has led Humboldt to the conclusion
that the distribution of mankind is not properly into
species originally different, but' only a distribution into
varieties, which are commonly designated by the some-:
what indefinite term, races." Physiology itself presents
the most weighty reasons in support of the theory of theunity of the human race. Those who maintain a plurality
* Appendix C.
t North American Review, No. clii., p. 172. 
10
of species are at a loss to define them; and, as has been
well observed, even they acknowledge some sort of unity,
and employ science "in dividing a unity into parts,
instead of performing her higher and proper office of
grouping and connecting parts into a whole."
From these mere physical marks of unity in the human
species, we now advance to the psychological proofs of
the same fact.
A  late writer thus classifies the evidences from this
source: "By the psychological unity of the race is meant,
that all nations and tribes of men possess essentially the
same intellectual and moral constitution, differing only in
degree and in its stage of development at different times,
in different countries, under different circumstances, and
among different tribes, families, and individuals; an intellectual and moral constitution by which, as by an infinite
distance or impassable gulf, man is separated from all the
other inhabitants of the earth.  There is no probable
evidence that any species of the lower animnals, or even
any one individual among them-however remarkable its
instincts or great the indications of its intelligence-can
apprehend, or be taught to apprehend, an abstract mathematical ratio, or the distinction between right and wrong
as an universal ethical law, or the intelligent use of language as based upon and expressing logical generalizations. But there has been found no tribe of men so
degraded in organization or habit, that they could not
be taught to apprehend all these; or, indeed, that such an
apprehension has not been found already in some degree
developed among them. Now, in the possession of this
rational, ethical, and logical nature all men are one, and
.::... 
11
they must always recognise each other as brethren, even
though, for the sake of some profoundly scientific distinction, the physiologist should divide themn into an indefinite
number of species."*
LANGUAGE-its existence, laws, and affinities-gives a
testimony to the unity of the races of mankind hardly less
striking than that of physiology.   The universality of
language among men, the fact that all the races of manlkind have some conventional form of speech, while
amnong the inferior animals this is utterly wanting, is itself
a weighty argument for the unity of the human species.
No tribe of men has ever been found without a language;
no tribe has ever been found incapable of communicating
with others of the human family by some intelligible conventional signs; indeed, "n many of the most uncultivated
dialects, as the African and American families, for example, are among the most complex in organization and
elaborate in structure;" but no tribe of the inferior animals
has ever been found to possess any medium of intercommunication that could properly be termed a language.
Moreover, in human languages there are affinities and
radical connexions that indicate the original unity of the
race as it is genealogically exhibited in the Scriptures.
I cannot here follow the investigations that lead to this
result. The Chevalier Bunsen, in his work on Egypt,
gives his support to " the hypothesis of the original unity
of mankind, and of a common origin of all languages of
the globe." The two Humboldts, William and Alexander,
declare their belief in a " commnunity of language," which,
"more  than  any  other  attribute of  mankind,  binds
* North American Review, ut sup. 
12
together the whole human race." This opinion is based
simply upon philological grounds, and it comes from men
who cannot be accused of any superstitious reverence for
the  Hebrew  Scriptures.   Alexander  Von  Humboldt,
whose researches in ethnography entitle his opinion to
mniuch consideration, expresses his conviction that, "however insulated certain languages may at first appear,
however singular their caprices and their idioms, all have
an analogy among them, and their numerous relations
will be more perceived in proportion as the philosophical
history of nations and the study of languages shall be
brought to perfection." *
The science of comparative philology is of so recent
origin, and so incomplete in its inductions, that its conclusions are not yet to be received with implicit confidence.  But the investigations of ethnographers in this
department tend more and more to the conclusion that
"the language of man was originally one."t  The idea that
that one was the Hebrew tongue, or that there now exists
" some language which contains, as it were, the germ of
all the rest, and forms a center whence all others visibly
diverge," has indeed been generally discarded; but as the
learned Dr. (now Cardinal)Wiseman observes, the fruitless
search after the primary language, like the fruitless chase
of the philosophler's stone, or for the elixir of life, has led
to many important and unexpected discoveries, and
valuable results. These results are thus summed up by a
writer already quoted: "The general result of the most
* Klaproth,"  Asia Polyglotta," quoted by Wiseman.
t Wiseman,  "Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion," Vol. i., p. 109.
London Edition. 1849. 
13
extended and critical philological researches is, that there
is no language, however savage, which is perfectly insulated. Everv language belongs to some faumily, and all
the families, as such, are so related to one another by
community of words, grammniatical analogies, intermediate
gradations,  and  an  all-pervading network  of  tangled
affinities, that it is impossible to suppose any portion to
have been historically entirely separated from the conmmon
stock. It is, moreover, a remarkable fact that the less one
knows of languages, the greater their diversities appear;
but the more thoroughly they are studied and familiarized,
the greater are found and acknowledged to be their similarities and analogies; and the greater the number of
languages which one is able intelligently to compare, the
more those similarities and analogies branch out, interlock,
and intertwine in every direction, until the whole is at
length woven into one firm and solid texture. We are,
therefore, forced to assume an original unity of human language, of which all existing languages are but branches and
off-shoots, or organized fragments; or, perhaps, still better,
different forms and stages of development.   This essential and primeval unity of language points unequivocally
to a genealogical unity of man."*
The language of the present inhabitants of Assyria, to
whom  one ofthe brethren approved by this Council is
destined, is allied to the great Indo-European stock; that
of the  Micronesian  Islanders,  to whom  the other is
appointed, is allied, so far as their language is known, to
the  Indo-Malayan.   When,  therefore, these  brethren
shall teach the barbarous tribes to whom they severally
* North American Review, No. clii., p. 179. I 
14
go, in their own tongues, the wonderful works of God, it
will be no marvel if they shall find in races so widely
scattered, marks of affinity, either in the words or in the
grammar of their primitive forms of speech-the dialectic
differences of Babel grafted upon or sprouting from the
original stock of central Asia-Europe.*
I have been betrayed into topics belonging rather to
the Chair of the Professor than to the Pulpit, because the
intimate relations between science and religion demand
that the teachers of religion should not be indifferent to
the investigations or even the speculations of men of
science, nor pertinaciously set aside a fact of science by a
foregone conclusion in morals. The Bible rightly interpreted has nothing to fear from Science fairly established.
"Religion has nothing to fear from the legitimate advance
of human learning."
But it is time that we should rise from the region of
the physical and the merely intellectual sciences to the
higher level of moral science, from which we propose to
survey the unity of the human species. Enough has been
said, I trust, to vindicate the sacred writers from the
charge of ignorance or of error in asserting the historical.
and the physiological unity of mankind. Their mnoral
unity is a fact that more nearly concerns us in the work
of evangelizing the world.  By the moral unity of mankind I intend, their essential and universal likeness to
each other in their moral character, in their conduct as
social beings, and in their relations to right and wrong, to
the law of their Creator, and to the future state.
Such a unity, I have said, is assumed in the command
* See Appendix D. 
15
to evangelize all nations.   The  text embraces this idea.
The proofs of this unity are given in facts familiar to all
who have studied the missionary enterprise, and they have
a special bearing upon the prosecution of that enterprise,
and therefore upon the occasion for which we are now
convened. They may be reduced to four general heads,
which I will present in their natural order.
I. All the races of men are alike depraved.
The observation of missionaries everywhere agrees in
this-that the same passions of the human soul are exhibited under every variety of climate and of physical
conformation.  Lust, anger, jealousy, revenge-every base
and hateful passion-has been found in full play in every
nation under heaven. The same moral influences are
everywhere at work with the same results. The catalogue of vices and crimes that the Apostle in the Epistle to
the Romrans registered against the polished pagans of his
day, has its counterpart in all unchristian nations, polished
or rude.  Viewed as a moral being, in his essential character, man is everywhere the same. The lawless Kurds,
to whose vicinity one of these brethren will go, waylaid
an American pastor as he journeyed inoffensively across
their territory, and in spite of firmans and passports, but
for divine interposition would have massacred him and
his party in the passes of the mountains, for the sake of
their  meager  traveling  equipments.   The  Kingsmill
Islanders, in whose vicinity the other will locate, massacred an American seaman of the Exploring Expedition,
for the sake of his musket and his tobacco; and this in
sight of an American war ship, and under the thunder of
0 
16
its guns. The Kurds endeavored to decoy their medi tated victims to a place where murder could be perpe trated with impunity. The Islanders sought by artifice
to divide the little company of scientific explorers, that
they might cut them in pieces one by one. And yet the
Kurds would not violate the rites of hospitality, even
when the strangers were in their power; and the Islanders
were gentle and kind to a deserter from an English vessel,
who threw himself unarmed upon their protection. TI'his
remarkable resemblance in character is not accidental:
these tribes, occupying localities so separate and distinct
the one dwelling among the mountain fastnesses of Central
Asia, the other upon the coral reefs of the Southern
Ocean-exhibit in their moral character the common
traits of humanity. Hlowever men may vary in the
predominance of certain traits, some being fierce and
warlike, and others gentle and peaceable, it may be
affirmed without contradiction, that among all nations the
worst passions of the soul are uniformly displayed when
occasion calls them out. Even the dreamy author of
" Typee" and "Omoo," while he is so enamored of the
simple savage state of the South Sea Islanders as to wish
that it might never be disturbed by civilization and ntissions-likening it to the innocence and blessedness of
Paradise-yet naively informs us of the inveterate hostility
between "Typee" and " Happar," of his own fears of
treachery, of his well-grounded suspicions of cannibalism,
and of the desperate risks by which he at length achieved
his flight.  So invariable is the moral character of man,
that when a new island or continent is discovered, or an
unknown region is explored, if we but know that it is 
17
inhabited by human beings, we know that there also are
exhibited in some way the characteristics of depravity
common to the race.
Now whence comes this uniformity of moral character?
It is not a mere instinct of the race to do evil-to indulge
in anger, jealousy, malice, and revenge; or to engage in
strife, and murder, and war. If it were a mere animal
instinct, its universality would fix the identity of the
species.  There is no fact like this among the phenomena
of Natural History. Animals of different species never
exhibit such a uniformity of habit.   On the low ground
of animal instinct, therefore, we must conclude that mankind are ONE.  But this is something higher than instinct:
it has a positive and a moral character. We find Reason
and Motives operating with respect to the conduct of men
as social beings, and with relation to right and wrong.
Whence, then, comes this uniformity of moral action in
races so widely distributed? Here we must make one of
two suppositions: either the account given in the Scriptures of the creation and fall of man is the true one, or,
there has been a plurality of creations, each of which
has  proved. abortive  as respects moral  character.   If
depravity were merely a physical thing, the supposition of
successive creations of depraved beings to propagate their
kind, each in a new region, would be derogatory to the
wisdom and benevolence of the Deity. Why continue
to produce that which must be uniformly bad?
But depravity is moral, not physical; and this only
makes it more difficult to reconcile a plurality of species
with reason or with the Divine perfections.  If all the
different tribes of men  had as many  different original
2 
18
heads, how comes it that without exception they agree
in moral character? This is a thing not of physical constitution, but of moral choice; and the fact that the
human species in Asia had fallen, would no more be a
reason why a totally distinct species newly created in
Africa should fall, than the fact that man has fallen is a
reason, or even affords a presumption, that the angels in
heaven will fall.   We  cannot upon rational grounds,
reconcile the universal depravity of mankind with diversities in. their origin. And how can we reconcile with the
Divine perfections the supposition that God brought into
being a succession of apostate races, knowing that they
would be such-that He created a white man and found
him unfaithful, and then created a black man and found
him the same, and then created a red man with the same
result; and thus continued to experiment upon human
nature in different localities, as far as the most fertile
ethnologist has carried the division of races. How much
more natural, reasonable, and  truthful the account of
depravity given by Moses, and reiterated by Paul, "By
one man"-and he the head of the race-," sin entered
the world." How impressive, too, in this view, becomes
that grand correlative truth of the Gospel, "As in Adam
all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." There is no
proffer of salvation to any not of Adam's race.  OUT OF
ADAM, OUT OF CHRIST.
II. The universality of CONsCIENCE in mankind argues
an identity of species.
The affections of the soul-hope, fear, joy, love, and
the like-uniformly exhibited by  men in like circum 
19
stances, go to establish the unity of the human  race.
These. affections, however, are to some extent common
to other races of animals: I would, therefore, rest the
argument here upon that susceptibility to pleasure or pain
in view of moral conduct, which is a universal and dis tinctive attribute of humanity.   The apostle Paul, in the
Epistle to the Romans, makes the universal fact of a
conscience in man an argument for the universality of
the final judgment.   "When  the Gentiles, which have
not the law"-the heathen who are destitute of a revelation-" do by nature" —under the mere guidance of rea son and conscience —" the things contained in the law;"
when they act upon the principle of the moral law, or
carry out any of its precepts, " these, though they have
not the revealed law, are a law to themselves. They
show the work of the law written in their hearts, their
conscience also bearing witness"-this spontaneous moral
instinct approving the right and condemning the wrong,
— " and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else
excusing one another,"-their after-thoughts, their reflections argue each case of moral conduct before the tribunal
of the judgment, or sitting as jurors, condemn or vindicate
each act according to its character; or, it may mean that
their thoughts among themselves, their discussions upon
points of morals, accuse or palliate their deeds, according
to some acknowledged standard of right and wrong.
In all nations, however rude, there are punishments for
certain crimes; there is some recognised code of morals;
there is some tribunal of justice; nay, the veriest barbarians betray a consciousness of a moral law, even in the
cruelties they practice toward barbarians like themselves. 
20
The rudest savage, who snatches his tomahawk and
roams the forest for the scalp of his enemy, that he may
avenge an injury to himself, his family, or his tribe,
shows by that act a capacity to feel and to condemn
injustice, though this hinders not his doing the same.
Thus  even among the wild wanderers  of the desert,
and in the fierce contests of savage tribes, there is seen
what Chalmers calls "the tact of a moral discernment
between what is fair and what is injurious in the chlaracter of mnan."
The furtive manner in which savages commit theft or
murder, the deception by which they endeavor to conceal
the deed, the fear they manifest of detection and punishment-these all betray an inward and ineradicable sense
of right and wrong. It has been remarked by missionaries
that whenever they deliver to the heathen the moral law
embraced in the Ten Commandments, and especially what
is called the second table of the law, that treats of the
duties of man toward man, they assent without objection
to the truth and justice of its requirements, and also that
they acknowledge the fidelity of the picture drawn by Paul
in the first chapter of Romans, to their on  ifloral chlaracter antid state. Converts:from among the heathen in all
nations have borne testimonyilat before the introduction
of Christianity they had a sense of right  and wrong,
however imperfect, and heard oftn the voice of con science within  their breasts.   The  gospel  invariably
wakes up these susceptibilities, if dormant, and quickens
them, if dull.
Now whence this universal conscience, if men be not
of one common origin and kind? Any like uniformity 
21
of animal instinct would prove an identity of species:
does not this uniformity of mental and moral constitution
in all the races of men prove that they constitute but one
species? Observe, this is a very striking peculiarity of
the human race: there is no semblance of a conscience
in any inferior tribe of animals.  The  more sagacious
animals may be taught that such and such acts are forbidden, and may refrain from them through fear of punishmnent; but they do not refer these acts to any ethical
code; they do not look beyond the rod of the master;
they have no innate sense of right and wrong, no perception of moral relations, no consciousness of a moral
law; nor is it possible by any process of education to
teach them the principles and distinctions of a code of
ethics. But mankind universally have such a code —
crude and erroneous it may be-but nevertheless dictated
by a moral sense, and capable of being refined upon by
the just and searching distinctions of the law of God.
The feeling of a man in view of a wrong action is widely
different from the feeling of a brute in view of any act of
mischief that subjects it to punishment. The man suffers
remorse; the brute a mere sentient fear of bodily pain.
The uniformity of this development in man, and its peculiarity, go very far towards establishing an identity of
species.  There is in man a moral constitution that in
various stages of development is common to the human
race; and is also distinctive as respects other races of
animals. Is not the human race, thus uniformly constituted, ONE? 
III. The universality of the religious sentiment, and of
religious worship among mankind, points to the unity of
the human species.
The religious sentiment is a characteristic of humanity.
No animal but man exhibits it; and no man has yet been
found destitute of that sentiment, upon the face of the
globe.   Under whatever forms that sentiment may  be
exhibited, in whatever mode and to whatever objects
religious worship may be rendered-whether in the gorgeous temples and with tbe costly sacrifices of India, or
by the obscene and horrid rites of Australia; whether to
the spirits of ancestors, as among the Indians of North
America and the Malays of Micronesia, or to the rude
and repulsive images of the Sandwich Islander, or to the
fetish or the devil-symbol of the West African; however
conceived and rendered, worship, as a religious act, is
common  to all the tribes of men.   No  nation has yet
been found without a religion.  In the traveler's narrative
of a newly discovered Island or Continent, or of a people
newly visited, we look for some mention of religious sentiments and rites, as confidently as for a description of
social customs or of persona] appearance and habits of
life. Indeed, religious sentiments and religious rites often
first arrest the attention of a traveler among a strange
people, and seem to be interwoven with the whole texture
of society. Religion is universal among mankind. There
are, moreover, affinities between the different religions of
mankind, especially as regards some sacrificial atonement
for sin and some conception of a future state, that point
strongly, if not conclusively, toward one common historical
origin. A priesthood and a sacrifice, under one modifi
g2 
23'
cation or another, are found with great uniformity
throughout the world. Some of the islanders of Micronesia have the custom of offering to their gods, which are
but deified chiefs, the first-fruits of whatever they possess
-a custom singularly analogous to the requirement of
Jehovah from Israel. A belief in a future state and in a
higher order of beings, is found universally among mankind. The religious faith of all nations takes hold upon
an invisible world. A supposed connection with that
world has ever given to the prophet and the priest an
almost supernatural power over thle multitude. Sacerdotal and consecrated orders have everywhere "caused
themselves to be revered as the interpreters of destiny,
and as mediators between God and men;" vice-gerents
of the Deity have appeared "on the banks of the Tiber,
of the Bramah Pootra, and of the Arabian gulf." Piacular
offerings in some form, and especially in the form of
animal, and even of human sacrifice, are common alike
to the Hindoo, the Aztec, and the Australian. The
sense of guilt and of the need of expiation, and the
immolation of victims to propitiate the gods, are universal
phenomena in human history. Shrines, altars, oracles,
pilgrimages, sacrifices, are peculiar to no one portion of
the human  family: Egypt and Greece, Jerusalem and
Mecca, the Holy Sepulcher and the Car of Juggernaut,
alike testify to the strength and the universality of the
religious sentiment  in  man.   The  long, low  grassy
mounds on the banks of the Mississippi- the memorials
of a departed race,-the massive monuments of Anahuac,
the stupendous pyramids of the Nile, the mummy of the
Egyptian, the urn of the Greek, the funeral pile of the
0 
24
lHindoo, the sacrifice of the living for the dead-the
widow for the husband, the servant for the master-in
China, in Africa, in Peru, and in the Islands of the sea,
-this universality of funereal rites betokens a universal
belief in a Future State, which by all its various expressions links the race of man to a common origin and a
common destiny.
The religious sentiment is a grand, a uniform, and a
distinguishing peculiarity of the human race. The origin
of this sentiment is in the very constitution of the mind;
its development is a part of the natural development
of man; it is not an outward habit, but an inward power
-deep, all-pervading. It exhibits principles and leads to
acts entirely unknown among the lower orders of animals.
Are not beings thus mysteriously identified by a spiritual
connexion with the Future and the Invisible, beings of
one species? Does not this vital spiritual unity far outweigh all the diversities of form, and color, and condition?
The argument thus far presented is summned up very
forcibly by a distinguished Fellow of the Edinburgh College of Physicians:
"When we observe that all the races of man, civilized
and savage, have the same powers of utterance-that
both speak naturally, and are equally understood; when
we find all languages, dialects, and tongues reduced to a
few families, and pointing, so far as human wisdom yet
can trace, to one common origin; when we see in all
men, whatever the climate they inhabit and the color of
their skin, a belief in a world beyond the grave; when
even the poor Bushmen exhibit some glimmerings of
0 
25
family relations and habits, and some mingling of human
sentiments; when we discover the use of fire, artificial
clothing, instruments by which the labors necessary to
produce food and raiment are facilitated, and weapons
of offense and defense-the club, the spear, the sickle,
and the fishing-hook-characteristic of mankind; when
we observe objects of worship, prayer to tile gods, sacrifices to obtain real or imaginary blessings-sacred festivities, pilgrimages-the priests and priestesses upon whom
the divine services of the Negroes depend, and who are
supposed to have confidential intercourse with the gods;
when we find in the most depraved breast some belief in
the immortality of the soul and a state of retribution;
when we hear the savage describing his abode beyond
the grave as a fertile hunting ground, and the Christian
speaking of his paradise as a place the joys of which eye
hath not seen, nor the mind of man conceived; when
everywhere are presented funeral rites for the deadburning, sepulture, embalming mummies; when we
behold mounds without number scattered among all the
northern nations of the world, the only remaining records
of races now extinct; when we examine the wonderfully
constructed pyramids of Egypt, the graves of the modern
Peruvians, the monuments of the Polynesians; when
certain religious observances are considered-it may be
the worship of the sun, or the petition of the savage to
the Great Spirit, or the prayers, masses, and litanies
offered for the dead and for the living, in the churches of
Europe and the temples of eastern climes, or the inysterious rites of pagan altars; and when all these are regarded
as phenomena in the history of the most refined and the
Q 
26
most barbarous nations, and as springing from those
co[imon    faculties and sensibilities of feeling, passion, and
hope, which speak of close and unalterable resemblance,
and attest the great natural relation of all men to each
other, formning a piece of divinity within us-' something
that was before the elements, and owing no honiage to
the sun;' and when, lastly, in the joyful laughter and in
those bitter tears which are common alike to the civilized
and cultivated citizen of London, and to the untutored
savage of the desert, are furnished proofs of family identity,  which convince the mind far more powerfully than
all      the subtilties of argument, for
' One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin,'
we are fully satisfied that all the races of men are, as the
gospel clearly expresses it,' of one blood;' that the
BLACK MAN, the RED MAN, and the WHITE MAN are
links in one great chain of relationship, and alike children
who have descended from ONE COMMON PARENT."*
IV. The moral unity of the races of mankind is seen in
the fact  that the Gospel produces among all nations uniformly the same results.
The capacity for improvement is one of the most
remarkable characteristics of the human  species; and
this, like the last mentioned, is a universal characteristic.
No  ace of infeio animals manifests a tendency to elevate
itself, or a capacity for essential and permanent elevation
* Dr. J. C. Hall, "An  Analytical Synopsis of the Natural History of Man,"
prefixed to Bohn's edition of " The Races of Men," by Charles Pickering, M.D.
The passage, however, is but an elaboration of a similar one in Prichard. 
by outward appliances. But there is no race of men that
cannot be elevated.  This fact is thus eloquently portrayed by Dr. Prichard;-," What greater contrasts," he
asks, " can be imagined than those which present themselves when we compare in their actual state the different
races of mankind?  Let us imagine, for a nmoment, a
stranger from another planet to visit our globe, and to
contemplate and compare the manners of its inhabitants,
and let him first visit some brilliant spectacle in one of the
highly civilized countries of Europe-the coronation of a
monarch-the  installation of St. Louis on the throne
of his ancestors, surrounded by an august assembly of
peers and barons, and mitred abbots, and anointed frioom
the cruse of sacred oil brought by an angel to ratify the
divine privilege of kings; let the same person be carried
into a hamlet in Negro-land, at the hour when the sable
race recreate themselves with dancing and barbarous
music; let him then be transported to the saline plains
over which bald and tawny Mongoles roanm, differing but
little in hue from the yellow soil of their steppes, brightened by the saffron flowers of the iris and tulip; let him
be placed near the solitary den of the Bushman, where
the lean and hungry savage crouches in silence like a
beast of prey, watching with fixed eyes the birds which
enter his pitfall, or the insects and reptiles which chance
brings within his grasp; let the traveler be carried into
the midst of an Australian forest, where the squalid companions of kangaroos may be seen crawling in procession
in imitation of quadrupeds,-can it be supposed that such
a person would conclude the various groups of beings
whom he had surveyed to be of one nature, one tribe, or
27 
28
the offspring of the samne original stock? It is much
more probable that he would arrive at an opposite conclusion.
"It is only by tracing the history of the diversified
human races froln ancient times, and by comparing the
former with the present state, we are made aware of the
great changes which time and circumstances have effected
in the condition of particular nations, and are brought to
admit the probability of the opinion that beings apparently so different in their whole manner of existence can
be in any way allied.  It is this inquiry that brings within
our observation, in the first instance, one of the great distinctions between the nature of mankind and that of animials. I allude to the uniformity of habits in successive
generations which prevails through all the tribes belonging
to the lower departments of the living world, and the
variations which take place in human races, and their
tendency to improve, or to alternate periods of improvement, with reverses and retrograde changes. The Numnidian lion and the satyrs of the desert, the monarchies
of bees and the republics of African termitas, are precisely
to-day what they were in the age of AEsop and in the
kingdom of Juba; while the descendants of the tribe who
are described by Tacitus as living in squalid misery in
solitary dens, amid the morasses of the Vistula, have built
St. Petersburg and Moscow; and the posterity of cannibals now feed on wheaten bread."
This  capacity for improvement is, therefore, a  distinguishling trait of humanaity, and its universality goes 
29
far to identify all human races as of one original
stock.
But it is emphatically by means of the Gospel that
mankind are elevated. The Gospel is strictly moral in its
nature, its influence, and its results. It seeks to renew
man's moral nature.  It finds that nature everywhere the
same; and whenever it exerts its power it produces upon
that nature the same effects.'Take the Fejee Islander
-ferocious, suspicious, treacherous, lapping the blood of
his enemies and eating their flesh; the Dyak, hunting for
human heads as an ornament to his dwelling and a symbol of his wealth; the Alforian, using the skulls of enemies
for drinking cups, and as money, wearing their teeth as
necklaces, and depositing the head of an enemy in the lap
of her whom he would woo to be his bride; the North
American Indian, decking himself with human scalps,
and gathering the trophies of war and of the chase for the
hunting ground of the Great Spirit; the squalid, stupid
Esquimaux, whose mind is as cold and rayless as the long
polar night in which he lives; the gross and sensual
Bushman, now revelling in bestial appetites, now glutting
his passions with bloody strifes,-take any and all or
these, and bring them under the power of the Gospel, and
they are new men in Christ Jesus, with one experience,
one character, one life, one hope. The icy Greenlander
melts to tears at the story of the Savior's love; the bloody
Africaner becomes gentle and forgiving as the lamb; the
missionary at the Feejee Islands looks out upon the
sch6 l, the church, the well-tilled garden, the peaceable
and civilized community, from windows that more than
once were closed to shut out the horrid stench of a can 
30
nibal feast.  He whio commanded us to go into all the
world and preach the Gospel to every creature, knew that
by nature man was everywhere the same; and that by grace
he nlight everywhere become the same.   The angel of
the Gospel is commissioned to every nation, and kindred,
and tongue, and people, because that Gospel will transform all into the same blessed likeness of Christ, and
unite them to the glorious kindred of-heaven.
Let one fact more suffice.  A little more than seventy
years ago an enterprising navigator discovered in the
South Pacific a group of islands inhabited by rude and
barbarous tribes of idolaters.  Himself at first an object
of their superstitious fear, he fell at last a victim to their
fierce revenge.   For more  than forty years the intercourse of civilized nations with those islanders served
only to introduce new vices among them, and to help
forward their annihilation.   Thirty-one  years ago. the
first band of missionaries went from this country to those
islands; in the year 1827, a reinforcement was sent to
this mission, of which the Rev. P. J. Gulick was a member.  This evening a son of that missionary, born in the
Sandwich Islands, but educated principally in the United
States, is to receive ordination as a missionary to another
group of islands lying beyond, whither he is to be attended by native helpers from the Sandwich Islands, to be
supported in whole or in part by the Sandwich Island
churches. In view of such results within the life of one
generation, who can doubt that this our brother will witness in the Caroline Islands and throughout all Micronesia, where asyet the gospel has not been preached,
results like those that he has seen from infancy in his 
native islands, once dark and barbarous, now civilized,
Christianized, and recognised as a member of the great
family of nations? Away with all distinctions of race,
when  the Gospel  comes  with its transforming power.
The view now presented imparts unity and dignity to
the work of missions. As Chlrist's work this is every where
the same; but it is the same  also as related to man.
Even the sceptical Humboldt could say that the investigation of the possibility of one common descent of nmankind imparted to the closing pages of his great workthe Costnos —" a nobler and more purely human interest."
How much more noble the interest pertaining to this
subject in a Christian view!  We are all of one racepartakers of a commnon depravity, and heirs through grace
of a common redemption. In sending the Gospel to any
nation, we are sending it to brethren of the human family
who may also become brethren in Christ Jesus.  The
work is everywhere the same-the same subjects, the
same instrumentalities, and the same blessed results.
The brethren this evening to be ordained will go to
fields widely dissimilar-as opposite in their history and
in some leading characteristics as can well be conceived.
Yet they will not go to different planets, nor to beings of
different species; they go to men —men of like passions
with ourselves, men having the same nature, capable of
the same transformation, and of the same exalted destiny.
As I contemplate upon the map their several fields the
one near the cradle of the human family-the other upon
islands that were peopled only by the overflowing of tile
continents, and some of which may have peered above the
81 
32
ocean since Abraham was called-as I see thus the old
and the new, the known and the unknown embraced in
the comprehensive reach of the Missionary Enterprise, I
seem to see with these bodily eyes what John saw in
his wondrous dream-a white robed angel with his silver
trumpet flying in the midst of heaven and proclaiming the
everlasting Gospel to them that dwell on the earth-even
TO EVERY NATION, AND KINDRED, AND TONGUE, AND PEOPLE.
No finer illustration of my theme could be fuirnished
than that given by the fields to which these brethren are
respectively designated. Our brother LOBDELL goes to
join a new  mission on the plains of Assyria.  The
center of his labors will be at Mosul, near the site of the
ancient Nineveh; amid the ruins of a greatness that had
perished when Rome was in its infancy, and the memorials of a civilization that was already fading when
Greece began to dazzle the world; palaces built before
Jerusalem had a king; idols worshiped before Abrahani
had left the plains of Ntamre; sepulchers already covered
with the mold of centuries when Christ appeared in
Judea. In the ancient seat of civilization and empire,
upon the grave of proud and guilty Babylon, where
Nintus and Semiramis reigned in fabled splendor, and
Beltshazzar reveled with the sacred vessels of Israel's
God-even there will he plant the banner of Christ
and call his chosen to the supper of the Lord. Hie will
preach the Gospel where Jonah lifted up his-voice, and
where his sepulcher remaineth to this day; he will
worship where Abraham worshiped; he will sing songs
of victory by the rivers of Babel where captive Israel
wept and chanted her lamnentations. He goes to find 
33
there a degenerate race-to read the truth of the Old
Testament in prophecies fulfilled before his eyes-but
still to find there men partakers of our common humanity,
and capable of the same salvation in which we trust, and
to read the promise of the New Testament in glowing
fruition. He goes there with a nobler aim and with a
holier zeal than one who goes to burrow in the mounds
of ancient cities and to exhume the Past.'He will erect
no monuments of brutal power, no  gorgeous piles of
regal magnificence, but monuments of useful arts, of
beneficent labor, of Science and Religion made tributary
to human  happiness-monuments  not to be hereafter
exhumed to the wondering gaze of the lone antiquary,
but to stand for the grateful admiration of all coming
Time.   He shall be called "thllRepairer of the breach —
the Restorer of paths to dwell in."
Our brother GULICK goes to a people scarcely known
to the ethnologist. They dwell upon the innumerable
coral reefs far to the South and West of his native Sandwich Islands; a people of mixed races-yellow, brown,
and black-but chiefly of the promising Malay, of a
medium stature, light color, features b)old, nose aquiline,
forehead and cheek bones high, hair black and straight
or slightly curled, a kind, benevolent, social, commercial,
peaceable, modest, honest, truthful, considerate, and reflective people-though  mixed with races of a fiercer
mold-a people who understand the art of navigating by
the stars, and are given to maritime pursuits, a people in
whom the moral and intellectual traits predominate over
the physical, and who have these two grand traits oi
national honor, that they reverence their ancestors and
3 
34
respect their women. Marriage is sacred, and though
there be no conventions for woman's rights, and no contentions about equality of dress, where all, alas, are too
near the primitive standard, yet a neglect or a wrong
.. 
done to a wife is resented by her sex in a castigation of
the offender, from which no wealth, nor rank, nor power
can save him. And yet withal our brother will there find
proofs of depravity —serfdom, caste, and other grievous
wrongs; he will find also the religious sentiment there
developed —not in idolatry, gross or refined,-but in the
worship of the spirits of ancestors, by prayer and simple
ceremnonie, the offering of food and the planting of
cocoa-nut trees about their graves. In some islands he
will find an influential priesthood —a priest for every
family; in others no temple,' inlage, or sacrifice.
He will find, too, massive ruins of which the present
islanders can give no account; some traces of the art of
writing; much complexity in government and the constitution of society; skill in the arts of weaving and of
dyeing, and in general a knowledge of the sciences in
advance of their personal comforts; facts which indicate
the deterioration of the present islanders from some higher
state, Whence camne this people, now for the first time
to be made acquainted with the Gospel? Were they
created there upon those little islands a separate race?
Incredible.. Their physiology, their language, their
customs, their moral character and aptitudes, all bind
them to the family of man. Says Dr. Latham, of the
highest authority in all matters of ethnology, "with the
exception of the Mauritius, the isle of Bourbon, Ceylon,
the Seychelles, the Maldives, and the Laccadives in the 
35
Indian ocean, and the Japanese empire with the islands
to the' north thereof, in the Chinese sea, every inhabited
spot of land in the Indian and Pacitc Oceans is inhabited
by tribes of one and the same race."*  The point of contact of that race with the main land is the peninsula of
Malacca on the continent of Asia.
To show the possible migration of these tribes, I would
mention the well-attested fact that a native of these same'
Caroline Islands was found upon a strange island
fifteen hundred miles due east, whither he had been;
wafted in his own canoe.  And as Lathan observes, "the
ocean is the highway between tribe and tribe, or nation
and nation, just in proportion as there is the skill, the'
experience, the courage, and the necessary equipment for,
using it....... The desert, the prairie, or the ocean,
are boundaries that limit or paths that extend the diffusion
of tribes and nations, just in proportion as there is the
camnel, the horse, or the ship to make them available."- 
The same writer traces to India the partial civilization:
of the Javanese, of the people of Bali, and of other
islanders in that archipelago.  This Indian civilization,
however, has given way to a distinctive Malay influence,.
which has diffused itself throughout the ocean world..
He says, "I feel as satisfied that Australia was peopled
from either Tiaior or Rotti, as I do about the Gallic
origin of the ancient Britons."  After describing  the
aboriginal inhabitants of the vicinity of Singapore, he
remarks,-" their priest or physician is called bomo, and lie
invokes the hantu, or deities, the unito of the Philippine
islanders, the tii oftheTahitians, and probably the Wandong
t Varieties of Man, p. 129.
* Varieties of Man, p. 130. 
36
and Vintana of Australia and Madagascar respectively."*
Such affinities of language and of customs may be
extensively traced throughout Oceanica, and will doubtless
be multiplied as the facilities for observation increase. The
migration of these island tribes has been from west to east.t
The newly-ordained missionaries will traverse the
globe in opposite directions-the one by the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, the other by the Pacific; but
on the other side of the world, upon meridians not very
remote, they will encounter men of one species with ourselves, and whose earliest ancestors may have dwelt
in Asia-Europe.    Our  brother GULICK  goes  to  lay
foundations, to build where never man has built. At
times the work may seem too vast and difficult for a
few weak-handed men toiling alone. But the very works
of God in that island world must rebuke all impatience
or distrust. Those fair tropic isles, now verdant with the
bread-tree and the cocoa, have been reared through long
ages by tiny insects innumerable, the microscopic builders
and tenants of the coral rocks.  Their minute deposits
the accumulation of ages-not only exhibit forms of beauty
unrivalled in the vegetable world, but present barriers of
strength that a navy may not override. Yet by no such
slow accretions does Christ's kingdom grow. Our brother may there see fashioned to his hand specimens of
moral beauty that the Lord shall choose for his great
cabinet of grace; he may see reared bulwarks of salvation and gates of praise, where all is moral desolation.
:But what matters it if hlie only lay foundations? Though
* Ethnology of the British Colonies, pp. 209, 215.
St Hale, Supplementary Volume to the U. S. Exploring Expedition. See App. E. 
37
he feel himself to be but an atom-a microscopic unit in
the moral universe —yet laboring in God's plan he shall do
a work that will endure when the rocks have crumbled to
their primeval elements-that shall stand in that dread
presence from which every island shall flee away.
Nor will we who tarry here forget the lesson of those
insect rocks; we especially of this church,* who give to
this brother the right hand of fellowship, as at the first
missionary meeting the church at Autioch gave to Paul
and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that they
should go to the Gentiles. Our prayers and alms, though
they be but as microscopic mites in the great sea of human
wickedness, shall be deposited surely and steadily, till
mnany a lagoon, reefed round with coral groves and tropic
verdure, shall give safe harbor to the temipest-driven soul.
I cannot close without adverting in one word, to the
fact that both these brethren are thoroughly qualified
physicians. As Christ sent forth the seventy with power
to heal diseases, thus giving them the readiest access to
sinning, suffering humanity, so are they sent forth with
all the equipments that human skill can furnish for reaching by acts of beneficence the apostate mind of man. A
little case of medicines will often secure for the traveler
among barbarians a degree of reverence that a brace of
pistols would not inspire. The medicine-man bears everywhere a charmed life. I doubt not that a medical nmissionary, when once his character was known, would be
safe among any people under heaven.  And how enlarged
the sphere of such a man! Instead of being a mere
* Mr. Gulick was a Member of the Broadway Tabernacle Church. 
38
auxiliary to a missionary station, he becomes rather its
strength and'stay.  Would  that young physicians of
Christian principle, who now are pining in their unfiequented offices waiting till they shall be grey enough to
have a call, would regard the universal call of Providence,
and go forth to heal and save the lost.
Go, brethren, in your favored work.   Fly as with
angel-wings to preach the everlasting Gospel. We meet
again in an assembly where all diversities of nation and
of language shall be lost; where the pale Caucasian, the
tawny Indian, the tattooed Islander, and the sable Negro,
shall sit down together in their Father's house. I charge
this congregation, I charge my own soul, to be there with
trophies of redeeming grace. I charge you, brethren, to
bring thither such trophies from your distant climes. Let
no tribe, however remote, be unrepresented in that great
and blessed family. Let no tongue, however barbarous, be
unheard in the grand unison of that new and everlasting
song, THOU, O CHRIST, ART WORTHY; THOU, O CHRIST,
ART WORTHY; FOR THOU WAST SLAIN, AND HAST REDEEMED US TO GOD BY TIHY BLOOD, OUT OF EVERY
KINDRED, AND TONGUE, AND PEOPLE, AND NATION. 
AND INSTRUCTI4ONS
TO
L.  1. GULICK,  M.D.,
BY
REV. S. L. POMROY, D.D., COR. SEC. A.B.C.F.M.
MY DEAR BROTHER:
You have been designated to a part of the
world which no herald of mercy has ever visited, and
respecting which comparatively little is known to civilized and Christian nations. Before proceeding therefore to give you the charge with which I have been
intrusted by the council here convened, it is deemed
proper to make some general statements regarding the
field of your future labors.
The region usually termed " Oceanica" is bounded on
the west by the shores of the Asiatic continent and the
line which separates the Indian Ocean from the Pacific;
on the east by the Amlerican continent; omitting, however,
those islands which lie near the coasts of both continents.
It extends north as far as the fortieth and south as far as
the fiftieth parallel of latitude.
0
C R A R G E
0 
It has been  itly termned " The Island World."  In the
beauty, and grandeur, and variety of its natural scenery;
in the salubrity of its climate; in the richness and abundance of its commercial resources, it is certainly unsurpassed by any other section of the earth. This vast
region has been divided, particularly by French geographers, into five grand departments, which are called
Malaisia, Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia.
Mfalaisia includes Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, the
Philippines, Moluccas, and in general the islands in which
the Malays are predominant, or at least prominent.
Australia comprises the continent or island of New
Holland (for it is undetermined to which class it belongs)
and Van Diemen's Land.
Melanesia embraces New Guinea or Papua, New
Britain, Solomon  Islands, New Hebrides, New Caledonia,
Feejee Islands, and some others.
Polynesia includes all that part of Oceanica which lies
east of the Feejees, taking in New Zealand on the south
and the Sandwich Islands on the north, as well as the
numerous groups which lie between them, such as the
Friendly, Navigators', Society Islands, Gambier's, Marquesas, and others.
Micronesia comprises several groups of islands lying
north of Melanesia, east of Malaisia, and west of
Polynesia, extending through about forty degrees of longi
tude and twenty degrees of latitude, almost the whole of
it being north of the equator. The principal groups in
this division are the Pelew, Ladrone, Caroline, Ralich
and Radick Islands, Mulgraves and Kingsmill. The
islands are very numerous, but not large. The name
0
40
14 
41
Micronesia signifies "the region of small islands;" Polynesia  " many  islands;"  Melanesia,  "Black  islands;"
Malaisia, "the Malay islands."
Of the eleven different races into which the human
family are divided, four at least are found in the regions
of Oceanica; viz. the Australian, in Australia, estimated
at 500,000; the Papuan, in Melanesia, sometimes called
oceanic negroes, estimated at 3,000,000; the Negrillo,
found in the interior mountains of New Guinea, New
Hebrides, the Philippine Islands, and some others, also
black, with a strong aversion to the sea, estimated at
3,000,000; and the Malayan race, to which the inhabitants of Malaisia, Polynesia, and Micronesia belong. In
point of numbers this race holds the third rank among
the eleven; the first being the Arab, or white race, estimated at 350,000,000; the second, the Mongolian, at
300,000,000; the third, the Malayan, at 120,000,000.
The great Malayan race are in general of a dusky
brown or dark copper color, with a faint tinge of yellow.
The hair is thick, strong, black, with a slight tendency to
curl. In physical endowments they are superior to most
other races. In disposition they are characterized by a
general gaiety and good humor, a desire to please, and a
willingness to be amused, quite in contrast with the cold
gravity of the North American Indian. To this may be
added extreme fickleness in their passions and purposes,
susceptibility to new impressions, and a readiness to
adopt new customs and new modes of thinking. They
possess, moreover, such an extreme fondness for the sea as
will almost warrant the application of the epithet amnphibious, though it is quite otherwise with their neighbors
. 
of the Papuan, Negrillo, and Australian races. They are
remarkable also for enterprise and bold adventure-a race
of navigators, often making long voyages in vessels in
which our sailors would hesitate to cross a harbor.
They are a people of good intellectual endowments.
No savages have ever shown a greater capacity or a
stronger disposition for improvement. On the other side
of the account, you may set down gross licentiousness,
weakness of the domestic affections, lying, hypocrisy,
theft, cupidity, and many other vices common to all the
dark places of the earth.
With these remarks respecting the Malayan race in
general, we will turn our attention more particularly to
that part of the island world where you and vour associates expect to labor.
The Micronesians, as before remarked, are of the same
race with their neighbors, the Polynesians, and are like
them in complexion, features, physical structure, language,
customs, and general characteristics.   There are, however,  some  diversities in the  different groups  of the
region.   The  more  southern  islands  have  evidently
received some accessions, and some modifications of complexion and character, from the Melanesians on their
southern border, while the western section has clearly
been reached by influences from the Asiatic continent.
They are social and enterprising. A constant intercommunication is kept up by the inhabitants of the different groups and islands, a circumstance highly favorable to
the spread of the Gospel among them. In their voyages,
it is said, they govern their courses by the stars with great
42 
43
accuracy. They divide the horizon into twenty-eight
points, giving to each a name.
Their skill in some of the arts is considerable.
Their canoes, which sail either way with equal facility,
are covered with a varnish of native manufacture, which
renders them water-tight.  The girdles or sashes which)
they wear are made of the filaments of the banana plant,
not braided as in other parts of the Pacific, but woven in
a simple loom, the shuttle being much like that in use
among us.
In regard to general character, all navigators who
have  visited them  are strikingly agreed.   Kotzebue,
Duperrey, D'Urville, Luiitke, Martens, Wilson, and the
United States' Exploring Expedition, all testify that their
most striking trait is a certain native kindness of heart,
sweetness of natural temper, and an absence of harsh and
violent feelings, very rarely to be found among men in
the savage state. They are distinguished also from the
other inhabitants of Oceanica by the unusual consideration awarded to the gentler sex, as well as by the degree
of purity and honesty which are said to prevail among
them.   They  are described as intelligent, considerate,
acute in reasoning, and curious to understand the meaning of any novel appearance. It is the opinion of some
that they have descended to their present condition from
a higher level of civilization once enjoyed by their forefathers, and some traces of which, it is thought, are still
visible.  Wars are not frequent among them; and when
they do engage in thenm, they give due notice to their
enemies that they are coming.
Their religion is said to consist mainly in the worship 
44
of the spirits of their ancestors, which fact shows that at
some former period they have had a connexion with
eastern Asia.   They pray and perform  certain  ceremonies, and among these offer a portion of their food to
the spirits; but they have neither temples, images,
nor sacrifices.  It does not appear that the tabu system
which once prevailed at the Sandwich Islands, has any
existence among them.  It is certain there is nothing of
the kind in that part of Micronesia which bears the name
of the Kingsmill group.
These facts have been gathered tfrom various sources,
English, French, German, Russian, but more especially
from the interesting and truly scientific works prepared
by gentlemen connected with the United States' Exploring
Expedition under Lieut. Wilkes.  Some things also have
been gleaned from periodical papers published at the Sandwich Islands. Of the probable population of Micronesia
no estimate has been mnade by navigators, though many of
the islands are said to be thickly peopled.
The result of all our researches is, that Micronesia
promises to be an open and an exceedingly interesting
field of missionary labor.  Some of the inhabitants have
heard of the changes wrought at the Hawaiian Islands,
and have earnestly entreated that missionaries might be
sent to them also.
There is a general understanding with the London
and other English missionary societies, that the islands of
the Pacific, south of the equator, are to be occupied bv
them, and those north of the equator, by missionaries
from this country.
The  line of steamers which will no doubt soon be 
45
established between our western coast and the eastern
coast of Asia, and for which some provision has already
been made by our Government in its recent treaty with
the Sandwich Islands, will pass through Micronesia, and
thus open a regular channel of communication  with
Honolulu and this country.
The object of this mission may be regarded, perhaps,
as two-fold: First, to give the Gospel to those benighted
and yet beautiful islands of the sea, that their inhabitants,
through its instrumentality, may be fitted for the kingdom
of heaven.   This of course is the primary object.  The
second is to provide the additional moral stimulus necessary to promote the spiritual welfare of the Sandwich
Island churches, develope their energies, and bring them
up to that true self-supporting elevation, where they will
not only need no further aid from this country, but will
become the instruments of extending the blessed work, so
happily begun among themselves, to their brethren in the
regions beyond them.
This mission is to be a branch of the Sandwich Islands
mission, and will be composed partly of American and
partly of Hawaiian christians, chiefly of the latter, both
males and females.  The Hawaiian  missionaries, it is
expected, will be sustained wholly by their own churches.
Other missionaries who may accompany them will derive
their support from the same source, so far as may
be found practicable.
A society, with this object in view, has recently been
formed at the Islands, auxiliary to the American Board.
To this will be entrusted, for the most part, such preliminary measures as may be requisite to the establishment 
46
of the mission.  The first step will be an exploration of
the field, under special instructions sent to the Sandwich
Islands Missiol), who will probably dispatch some of their
number for this purpose.
Micronesia consists in part of low, flat, coral islands,
from one to five or six feet above the ocean, and in part
of high, mountainous, volcanic islands.   The latter, it is
probable, will be first occupied by the contemplated mission, and the former, at a subsequent period, perhaps by
Hawaiian missionaries, acting under the superintendence
of their American brethren. It is thought also that
a small missionary vessel will be called for in the progress
of the work, which, perhaps, the mission itself, with
native aid, may be able to construct.
We have thus given you, my dear brother, such facts
as we  could respecting that  island region to which
you are bound, It would not be strange if, on a closer
inspection by yourself and your associates, the descriptions given by transient visitors should be found to
be somewhat too favorably drawn. Distance and dimness often lend enchantment.   There can be no doubt,
however, that you will find there a people who need the
gospel, and who have been endowed by their Creator
whom they know not, with many interesting and amiable
natural qualities. We believe that the day of their
redemption draweth nigh.
It only remains to deliver to you, in behalf of the
council here convened, their solemn charge respecting the
duties of the office into which you have this evening been
inducted. 
47
You are now, my brother, a minister of the Gospel, an
ambassador of Christ, ordained, commissioned, and fully
empowered to explain the messages of divine mercy, to
administer the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's
Supper, to exercise the rights and discharge the functions
which pertain to the office of the  Christian ministry
" The office of a bishop" is declared by an apostle "to be
a good work." It is indeed a good work, a great work,
a difficult work, a very responsible work, and withal a
most blessed work. I cannot help thinking that many a
burning seraph before the throne would be happy to stand
in your place to-night, and have before him the prospect
and the privilege of publishing salvation to a dyingworld.
It has pleased the great Head of the Church, however, to
entrust this work to sinful men, who know the bitterness of sin, and who have fled for refuge to that
Saviour whom they preach. They can recommend him
as no angel could.   This is your high privilege.   What
we have to say to you, then, is this: Remember always
and everywhere what you are, and act in character.
Study to obtain distinct, consistent, and enlarged apprehensions of Divine Truth as revealed in the Scriptures,
and to acquire the art of impressing it on others. Keep
your  own  soul in constant  communication  with  the
Father of Lights. Endeavor to drink in largely the
Spirit of Christ, his meekness, patience, self-denial, and
persevering love to man.   Be diligent, laborious, faithful,
untiring. Make full proof of your ministry.
You have now been set apart as a Missionary of the
Cross, and are destined to a dark region, where Christ
has not been named. Difficulties, discouragements, trials, 
48
are before you. With help from above, make up your
mind to meet them like a mnan of God and  a true
minister of him who pleased not himself. Honor your
profession, the gospel you preach, the Master you serve.
Never give your brethren and friends, and the churches
of this land, occasion to regret that they have sent you
forth on this great and blessed enterprise.  Settle it in
your heart that you have enlisted for life, and that if the
will of God be so, you will lie down to your last sleep
among the people for whose salvation you are to labor.
These things we give you in charge before God and the
Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the
dead at his appearing and his kingdom.
Early in the month of November you are expected to
sail with your associates for the Sandwich Islands, which
to you have the charm of birth-place and of home.
There you will remain till the requisite preparations have
been completed, and thence take your departure for
the scene of your labors, bearing the inestimable treasures
of salvation to the perishing inhabitants of the isles. And
when  we  shall meet  you again in the presence  of
the Lord of Life and Glory, may we see you enconmpassed with a great company of redeemed souls, gathered
through your instrumentality into the garner of Heaven. 
THE
RIIGHT HAND  OF FELLOWSHIP,
REV. J. D. PARIS,
OF TIlE SANDWICH ISLANDS MISSION.
[It is due to Mr. Paris to state that the following is only a sketch of his excellent
address, prepared by others from memory.]
MY YOUNG BROTHER:
I have come fifteen thousand miles to give you
this evening the right hand of fellowship as a minister of
the Gospel.
I welcome you in the name and behalf of the Fathers
and Brethren of this council, by whom you are ordained.
I welcome you to a participation in the glorious work of
preaching the gospel of Christ. It is not a work of ease
or luxury. It is a work of toil, and self-denial, and
responsibility. But it is a glorious work, and one we
would not exchange for any other. When all the relations of life are broken up-when the works of philosophers, and statesmen, and poets are consumed-the
sublimest and most durable specimens of art annihilated
-the world and all things in it burnt up,-our work will
4
BY
a 
50
remain. It is written upon that which is imperishablewritten as with a diamond point on the tablet of the soul,
which is immortal as its Maker.
Again I give you my hand in behalf of the Fathers and
Brethren of the Sandwich Islands Mission.   To me this
is a meeting of no ordinary interest.  " Ua pomnaikai kana
i keia halawai anla-Thlis is a happy  meeting for us
two." A thousand associations, tender and sacred, link
you to the Sandwich Islands. You are drawn to thenm
by the bands of nativity, and by the remembrances of
childhood and early youth, and you are soon to return to
them.   Your  parents and brothers  there await your
arrival-you are returning  to your  father's house.  I
heartily greet you as the first son of the Sandwich
Islands Missions who shall have returned to their shores
ordained to the Gospel ministry. I welcome you to a
participation in the labors, joys, responsibilities, and cares
of the missionary. I most heartily welcomne you to a
participation in preaching the unsearchable riches of
Christ to the heathen world. It is a difficult work,
requiring the most steady purpose of soul and the most
fortified  will.  It is  a  work  of long  continuance.
Lengthened nights of toil may precede the day-spring.
But it is a glorious work,  my  brother!  It is a good
work! May the Lord's blessing attend you in your
missionary life! May the work of the Lord prosper
in your hands, and the islands remote which still sit in
darkness, see great light!
And now again I welcome you in anticipation of the
time when we shall on HIawaiian shores extend to you
the hand of assured fellowship, as you leave us for your 
51
more distant field. Our prayers shall follow you, and our
fellow feeling, and may God's blessing accompany you,
and by assistance of divine grace may you remain faithful
to all responsibilities assumed! I welcome you, my
brother!  Welcome! —WELcoME!  
AP P E N DIX.
[A.-r. 6.  THE FACIAL ANGLE.]
THE facial angle-as it was called by Camper, who originated this method
of comparing the heads of different races-is ascertained by the following
simple method: —" The skull is viewed in profile, and first a line is drawn from
the entrance of the ear to the base of the nostrils; then a second, from the
most prominent point of the forehead to the extreme border of the upper jaw,
where the teeth are rooted. It is evident that an angle will be formed at the
intersection of these two lines, and the measure of that angle, or, in other
words, the inclination of the line from the brow to the jaw, gives what is called
the facial line, and forms in Camper's system  the specific characteristic of the
human family." A rough measurement of the angle may be made by taking a
jointed rule, to which is attached an arc of a circle divided into degrees, and
adjusting one limb of it to a line drawn from the extremity of the upper jaw to
the protuberance of the forehead, and the other to a line drawn from the same
point of the jaw to the external opening of the ear; the angle made at the
joint and described on the arc will be the facial angle. It determines the
extent to which the forehead retreats; "sloping backwards from the root of
the nose in some cases, and in others rising perpendicularly above the face."
This mode of measurement is based upon the common idea, that the
protuberance of the lower part of the face indicates a preponderance of the
animal over the intellectual, of eating over thinking, and that the protuberance
of the forehead indicates the reverse.  As a general thing, this is no doubt
true; but it does not admit of a strict scientific application.  "A well-developed
skull and forehead, and  an  expanded  intellect, have  been regarded  as
co-existents in every age: a forehead' villanous low' is Shakspeare's expression
with reference to the Ape."
Dr. Lawrence, to whose admirable work I have had frequent occasion to
refer, makes the following happy presentation of this point;:*
"In man only is the face placed perpendicularly under the front of the cranium;
so that the facial line is perpendicular: hence the angle formed between this line and
the horizontal one above described is most open, or approaches most nearly to a right
angle in the human subject. The face of animals is placed in front of the cranium
instead of under it: that cavity is so diminished in size, that its anterior expanded
portion or forehead is soon lost, as we recede from man. Hence the facial line is
oblique, and the facial angle is acute; and it becomes more and more so as we
descend in the scale from man: in several birds, most reptiles and fishes, it is lost
altogether, as the cranium and face are completely on a level, and form parts of one
horizontal lines
* Lectures on Physiology, &c., pp. 116-1IP9. 
54
Ad The idea of stupidity is associated, even by the vulgar, With the elongation of the
snout, which necessarily lowers the facial line, or renders it more oblique: hence the
crane and snipe have become proverbial.   On the contrary, when the facial line is
elevated by any cause, which does not increase the capacity of the cranium, as in the
elephant and owl, by the cells which separate the two tables, the animal acquires a
particular air of intelligence, and gains the credit of qualities wvhich he does not in
reality possess.  Hence the latter animal has been selected as the emblem of the
goddess of wisdom; and the former is distinguished in the Malay lauguage by a
name  which  indicates an opinion that he  participates with man  in  his most
distinguishing characteristic, the possession of reason.
" The  invaluable  remains of' Grecian art show  that the ancients were  well
acquainted with these circumstances. They were aware that an elevated facial linel
produced by a great development of the instrument of knowledge anrd reflection, and
a corresponding contraction of the tnmouth, jaws, tongue, nose, indicated a noble and
generous nature.  Hence they have extended the facial angle to 90~ in the represen tation of legislators, sages, poets, and others, on whom they wished to bestow the
most august character.  In the statues oftheir heroes and gotls they have still further
exaggerated the human and reduced the animal characteristics, extending the forehead
over the ftace, so as to push the facial line beyond the perpendicular, and to make the
angle 100l.
" The human and the brute face are not more strongly contrasted in size, and in
their relation to the cranium, than in general configuration, in the construction of'
individual parts, the motions and uses to which they are subservient. The latter is merely
an instrument adapted to procure and prepare food, and often a weapon of offense and
defense; the former is an organ of expression, an outward index of what passes in the
busy world within. The elongated and narrow jaws with these muscles, with their
sharp cutting teeth, or strong pointed and formidable fangs, principally compose the
face of the animal: the  chin, lips, cheeks, eyebrows, and  forehead, are either
removed, or reduced to a size and form simply necessary for animal purposes.  The
nose is confounded with the upper jaw and lip; or, if more developed, is still applied
to offices connected with procuring food. Thus we have a muzzle or snout rather
than a face.  In man, on the contrary, the animal organs, the jaws, and teeth are
reduced in size, and covered fromn view; hence the mouth is extremely small, and
neither used, nor capable of use, in directly taking or seizing the aliment.   The chin,
lips, cheeks, bridge of the nose, eyelids, and eyebrows, receive a fulness of development, and fiee play of action, which are seen in no other animal.   The constant
motions t,f this finely-formed countenance correspond with the inward workings and
emotions, and  are a most important medium of influence and communication with
our fellow-creatuies;-inviting and attracting them by its expansion in love, friendship, affection, and benevolent feelings; warning and repelling by its fearful contraction in indignation, Scoin, hatred, malice.  When to the human face we add the
ample and capacious foirehead, the organization of the intellectual and moral being is
perfect; the contract with all others even of the manlike class, pointed and complete.
How admirably do the positions of the face, in the erect attitude of man, and  the
prone posture of brutes, correspond to these striking differences in construction!"
The  method of Cai-ipetr, for the measurement  of the characteristics of
species, has not attaiined( the importance which its inventor anticipated.  The
varying position of the jaws and of the ear renders it difficult of application,
and the size of t!he frontal sinus- a hollow brainless protrusion of bone in the
forehead of some animals  thliros a degree of uncertainty over its inductions.
Other methods of comparison leave beenii adopted, such as the vertical configuration of the skull, by Blumenbich, a-id the weight  and  capacity of the
cranium by others; but it is unnecessary to dwell upon these.   I have alluded
to the facial angle inainlv because it has been used to give a scientific air to a
vulgar prejudice against a portion of the human species who, in this respect,
are said to resemble more nearly the Ape th!ian Man, and to constitute a grade
between the two. Accordit)g to Camper, the facial angle measures fifty-eight
degrees in the young Orang, seventy in the young Negro, and eighty degrees 
55
in the European.  Cuvier, by a slightly different measurement, made the facial
angle sixty-seven degrees in the youing Orang, seventy degrees in the adult
Negro, eighty-five degrees in the adult European, and ninety degrees ill tile
European child.  According to these statements it seemed that the Negro was
but little removed firom the Oranig, and formed an intermediate step in a
gradation of beings, from the lower to the higher. But there was a grand
fallacy in these measurements, which  Professor Owen  has detected  and
exposed. The young Orang was taken as the standard of ccmparison; and
between the young Orangc and the young Negro there is a considerable resem.
blance.  But as the head of the Orang is developed, the cranium  recedes and
the jaw protrudes until the facial angile is reduced to about one half its original
size; while in the Negro the cranium is enlarged and the angle increased by
growth.  " The young Orang-outang," says Martin," is remarkable for a well.
developed forehead, to which the face bears such a just proportioll, and is so
situated as to invest the whole with  a character  and expression closely
approaching that of a little Negro; but, as maturity advances, the bones of the
face develope amazingly; the jaws shoot forward, acqutiire prodigious size, and
are furnished with large teeth; the forehead flattens and falls back; the
cranium, as the face enlarges, gradually assuming  a more backward position,
and the contour of the whole becoming deteriorated and birutalized."*  A  mere
glance at this difference on a plate, sets the whole matter at rest.
I have stated seventy degrees as the minimum of the facial angle in the
skull of the Negro, and eighty-five degrees as its maximumt in the European;
eighty being more properly the average of the Caucasian race. Some would
extend this scale at either extremity; but for this thlere hardly seems to be
adequate authority   But the facial angle of the adult troglodyte is only thirty
five degrees, and that of thle Orang, or satyr, thirty degrees; the difference,
therefore, between  thies  animals  and MAlin is so great, that, as  Prichard
observes, "the utmost diversity between human races is quite inconsiderable
when compared with it."
The history of this subject  iffords a striking illustration of the manner in
which Science- ofteni bold and startling in its announcements, and threatening
to overthrow all human belief-rectifies and modifies its decisions by subsequent investigation, and comes into beautiful accord with the revealed word of
God.
[B.-P. 6S  VARIETIES NOT SPECIEs.]
Triu following extract from the erudite Archbishop Sumner's'* Records of
the Creation" will be read with interest in connexion with the question of
varieties as related to species:
"It is undeniable that the varieties which spring uip and are perpetuated, among
inferior animals, are no less numerous or remarkable than those exhibited by the
inhabitants of the different corners of the globe.  This is a fact familiar to the most
common observation.  While the inhabitant of a seaport, or crowded city, is surprised
by every possible shade of hue in the human complexion, and such varieties of
countenances as must naturally result from a difference in the facial angle, varying
from eighty-five to seventy degrees, the traveller through the country Ands the brute
creation exhibiting similar differences, and deviations not less remarkable from the
original rmodel. He sees, for instance, in almost every county a prevailing breed of
oxen: the red of Devonshire, the white-faced breed of Herefordshire, the hornless
breed naturalized from Poland, the stately brown of Yorkshire, the lean and ragged
Alderney, the black heifer of the Scottish hills. Among horses there is no less
* Natural History of Mammiferous Animals.  By W. C. Linnseus Martin, F,L.S. P, 59.   ee
aIlso Prichard and Hall. 
wariety; as between the  tall and bony  draft-horses of Lincolnshire, the Scotch
galloway, the Welsh or Shetland pony, and the breed of racers.  Again, we find an
acknowledged difference in the breed of sheep, as exhibited by the horned breed, that
of Leicestershire, the Southdown, and the Welsh, with all the intermediate varieties.
Hogs vary no less remarkably in the shape of the head, the length and size of the
leg; and one race, which is not uncommon in some parts of England, has the hoof
undivided.  I do not instancee the numerous races of dogs, because, owing to the
extraordinary difference among them, some naturalists have  controverted  Buffon's
theory of a single species; though even if that belief is given up, very important
deviations will remain to be accounted for. The smnaller animals, as bfowls, hares,
rabbits, &c., afford similar examples of variety, which it is not necessary to notice,
except to show that such is the plan which Nature is universally accustomed to
follow.
"Now, with regard to the degree of difference, it must be confessed that the species
which have been alluded to, exhibit peculiarities no less striking than those of the
European or Negro.   A series of skulls, firom the large head of the wild horse  to
tihe short head of the Hungarian breed, or the slender head of the English racer,
would form a more remarkable instance of deviation than that procured by the facial
angle of Camper, or the zygomatic processes of Blumenbach, in the human race. No
difference in the os colcis, or ulna, between the American and European, is as
considerable as that which exists between the comparative length of leg in different
breeds of hogs, or the size of the head and legs in proportion to the rest of the body
in sheep.  T'he nature of the covering of the animal, whether of the wool among
sheep or of the hair in dogs and goats, varies no less than the hair of the human head.
And the animals which have been enumerated furnish as remarkable, and, apparently,
as arbitrary varieties of color as we find among' mankind, from the Albino to the
New Zealander or Afirican.   The difference, therefore, is not less in degree, and it is
the sarne in kind; it consists in the shape of the skull, in the length of some of the
bones, in the hair, and in the color of the skin.  Yet the examples alleged have been
confined almost to a single kingdom.   Take the globe collectively, as in the case of
Man, and the bison and buffalo will be added to the varieties of the ox; the Argali
and Siberian sheep will be placed in contrast with our domestic breed; the Ceylon
horse would be instanced, which is not more than thirty inches high; and, according
to the most common opinion, the dog would afford an example of the wolf or jackal
in a state of domestication.  Perhaps the best general idea of the natural tendency
to variety, which is found in all the species of land animals, may be formed from
those plates in books of zoology which present a collective view of the separate
species; and as the advocates of different species in the human race takes pains to
show us the fea-ttures and complexion most dissimilar to each  other  in frightful
contrast, it is seasonable to employ the same  method in order to counteract an
erroneous impression."*
[C.-P. 9.  HAIR ANiD COLOR.]
It is a popular notion that the heads of certain races of men, and especially
of the negro race, are covered with a growth of wool instead of hair, and that
this feature constitutes a distinction of species. The experiments of Mr.
Youatt, however, have shown the contrasy% It had long been noticed that
hair, however crisp and curly, had not the felting property of wool.   In
endeavoring to ascertain the reason of this difference, by microscopical experiments, Mr. Youatt discovered that the fibre of wool is serrated, its edges
resembling the edge of a ribbon, or the teeth of a fine saw; while in hair,
though there is sometimes an appearance of scales, there are no tooth-like
projections.  The differences between wool and hair, according to Mr. Youatt,
are as follow:
* London Edition, Pp). 346-350.
56 
57
"The fibre of wool is crisped, or curled, the curls increasing according to  the
fineness and felting property of the wool; and, in addition to this, it is decidedly
serrated; whilst hair, though spmetimes curled, but in a very limited degree in comr
parison with wool, has its edge only scaly, or rugose, and never truly serrated; and
hence it is that hair, though it will entangle and harle to a certain extent, will not
felt into a compact mass." *
Dr. Prichard, who repeated with much care the experiments of Mr. Youatt,
remarks as follows:  "A careful observation, with the aid of the microscope, will convince everybody
who makes it, if I am not much mistaken, that the hair of the African is not wool,
but merely a curled and twisted hair. I have seen and examined the filaments of
hair belonging to different races of men, and have compared them with the filaments
of wool from the Southdown sheep, with the assistance of Mr. Estlin, who is skilful
and long practised in the use of the microscope, with the aid of glasses magnifying
about four hundred times. Hairs of a Negro, of a Mulatto, of Europeans, and of
some  Abyssinians, sent to me by M.  d'Abbadie, the celebrated  traveler, were,
together with the wool of a Southdown sheep, viewed both as transparent and opaque?
bodies. The filament of wool had a very rough and irregular surface, though no
serrations, distinctly so termed, were perceptible. The hair of the Negro, which was
extremely unlike that of wool, and of all the other varieties mentioned, had the
appearance of a cylinder with smooth surface; they all appeared more or less filled
with a dark coloring matter, which, however, did not entirely destroy their transparency. The coloring matter was apparently much more abundant in the hair of
the Negro than in the others. The Abyssinian hair was also very dark, but so far
diaphonous that a riband-like band appeared running down through the middle of a
cylindriform tube; and the Mulatto hair resembled the Abyssinian in this respect.
The filament of European hair seemed almost entirely transparent; it had the
appearance of an empty tube, coated internally with something of a dingy or dusky
color, which only prevented it from being quite pellucid. European hair of a light
color had the same appearance, but was still less darkened.
"From these observations, I am convinced that the Negro has hair properly so
termed, and not wool. One difference between the hair of a Negro and that of an
European consists in the more curled and frizzled condition of the former.  This,
however, is only a difference in the degree of crispation, some European hair being
likewise very crisp. Another difference is the greater quantity of coloring matter, or
pigment, in the hair of the Negro. It is very probable that this quality is connected
with the former, and is its cause, though we cannot determine in what manner one
depends upon another; but as these properties vary sitnultaneously, and are in proportion one to another, we may infer that they do not depend upon independent
causes.
" It may be worth while to remark, before we take leave of this subject, that if
this cuticular excrescence of the Negro were really not hair, but a fine wool; if it,
were precisely analogous to the finest wool, still this would by no means prove the
Negro to be of a peculiar and separate stock, since we know that some tribes of
animals bear wool, while others of the same species are covered with hair. It is
true that in some instances this peculiarity depends immediately on climate, and is
subject to vary when the climate is changed; but in others it is deeply fixed in the
breed, and almost amounts to a permanent variety." t
Dr. J. C. Hall notes two other popular distinctions between hair and wool.
One is that "wool falls off altogether in a mass, and leaves the animal bare,
while hairs fall off singly, and from time to time;" the other, that "the growing part of the fibre of wool varies in thickness, according to the season, being
thicker in proportion to the warmth of the atmosphere, and smallest of all in
winter; on the contrary, the filament of hair is generally of uniform thickriess;
or tapering a little towards a point.":t
t Natural History of Man, third edition, p, 103.
* Martin,  pp. 157-8.
X Preface to Pickering. 
Dr. Lawrence makes the following statements respecting the varieties of hair 
In the Papuas of New Guinea it is completely frizzled and woolly; but so much
longer'than in the Negroes, that when fully dressed out, according  to their favorite,
fashion, it forms a round bush of three- feet in diameter, quite eclipsing our most dignified, legal and tfiheological wigs.
,' Individual cases of red' hair occur in the three dark-colored varieties of men;
and the soft white hair of the Albino is occasionally seen in all of them.
The animal kingdom famnishes us with numerous parallel. varieties in the color
and texture of the hair, as, for example, in the black sheep, in the black and white
horses, in the various hues of cattle; in the white, black, brown, or spotted rabbits
all undoubtedly produced from the original gray stock."*
From these considerations, it appears that there are no  such marked  peen'
liarities in the structure or the color of the hair of different races as to'
constitute a distinction of species.
With respect to coZor, Latham makes the following observations,  designed'
to illustrate the effect of moisture and coolness to freshen the complexion, and:
of moisture and heat to darken it:     In Afiiea, as is well known, a great portion of the population is black-skinned;.
and with this black skin other physical characteristics are generally found in conjunction. Thus the hair is either crisp or woolly, the nose depressed, and the lips
thick, As we approach Asia these criteria decrease, the Arab being fairer, better-'
featured, and straighter-haired than the Nubian; and the Persian more so than the:
Arab. In Hindostan, however, the color deepens; and by looking amongst the most
moist and alluvial parts of the southern peninsula, we find skins as dark as those otf
Af'rica, and hair crisp rather than straight. Besides this, the fine oval contour and
regular features of the high-cast Hindus of the North become scarce,. whilst the lips
get thick, the skin harsh,. and the features coarse.  Further on, we come to the great,
peninsula which contains the kingdoms of Ava and Siam, the Indo-Chinese or Transgangetic peninsula. In many parts of this the population blackens again; and in the
long narrow peninsula of Malaeca,. a large proportion of the older population has,
been described as black.'"t
ED.-P-r. 14.  L1ANGUAGE.
The more Langtuage is studied, the more is it seen to, be one of the most
remarkable characteristics of Man, and one of the strongest marks of the unity
of the human race.  The title of voice-dividing given to Man  by Homer  and
Hesiod  is: no lIess significant than that  of tool-handling,  given  to him  by
Franklin.  Of the phenomenon of speech Dr. Lawrence observes    Man. exhibits,. by external, signs, what passes within  him; he communicates  his
sentiments by words, and this sign is universal.   The savage and the civilized mani
have the saie powers ot utterance; both speak naturally, and are equally understood..
It is not owing, as some have imagined, to any defect in their organs, that animlalsare denied the facu~lty of speech.  The tongue of a. monkey is as perfect as that c,t a
man; Camper asserts that the laryngeal pouch renders it impossible for the ourangoutang to speak; I do not clearly understand how this is ascertained; but, allowing.
its truth, there are other monkeys, who have not this pouch,. and yet cannot speak.
Several animals may be taught to pronounce words, and even to repeat sentences; which proves clearly that the want of speech is not owing to any defect inr
their organs; but to make them conceive the ideas, which these words express, is"
beyond the power of art. They articulate and repeat like an echo or machine.
"Language implies a train of thinking; and for this reason brute animals are
incapable of speech; for, though their external senses are not inferior to our own,
and though we should all'ow some of them to possess a faint dawning of comparison,
reflection, and judgment, it is certain that they are unable to form that association of
ideas, in which alone the essence of thought consists.
t Man and his Migrations, p. 7.
58
* Leetwes, &e, pp 211-12 
59
"The possession of speech, therefore, corresponds to the more numerous, diversified, and exalted intellectual and moral endowments of Man, and is a necessary aid
to their exercise and full development. The ruder faculties and simple feelings of
animals do not require such assistance. The natural language of inarticulate sounds,
gestures, and actions, suffices for their purposes. The wonderful discovery of
alphabetical writing, and the invention of printing, complete the benefits derived from
the noble prerogative of speech."
The affinity of languages is referred to in the text as a proof of the unity of
the human race.  Dr. Wisetnan, whose linguistic attainments and philosophical
accuracy entitle his opinion on this subject to the highest confidence, remarks,
" That the comparative study of languages has brought into certain relationship
many which heretofore had seemed divided in sunder, forming thereof great groups
of families, so that nations and tribes covering vast tracts of territory are in this
study accounted as only one people; while subsequent researches tend in every
instance to diminish the number of independent languages, to widen the pale of their
larger provinces, and to bring the number of original stocks much nearer to what
might be supposed to have arisen in a sudden, among the few inhabitants of the
earlier world.       Languages gradually forming themselves into
groups, and those groups daily tending to approximate and claim mutual relationship,
assuredly afford the best proof of a former point of departure, and serve to divide the
human race into certain great characteristic families, whose further subdivision enters
the province of history. Like those grouped but disunited masses which geologists
consider as the ruins of former mountains, we see in the various dialects of the globe;
the wrecks of a vast monument belonging to the ancient world.  The nice exactness.
of their tallies in many parts, the veins of similar appearance which may be traced.
from one to the other, show that they have been once connected so as to form a
whole; which the boldness and roughness of outline at the points of separation,
prove that it is no gradual dissolution, no silent action which hath divided, but some
violent convulsion which hath riven them in sunder."*
Even Herder, who pronounces the history of Babel " a poetical fragment, in
the Oriental style," asserts, that "from  the examination of languages, the
separation among mankind is shown to have been violent; not indeed that!
they voluntarily changed their language, but they were rudely and suddenly
divided firom one another."
The language, or rather languages  of the Micronesians,  have a  strong
infusion of Malay words. This is apparent from the comparative vocabularies
compiled by Mr. Horatio Hale, the able Philologist of the United States
Exploring Expedition.  The  report of Mr. Hale, forming  vol. VII. of the
narrative of the Expedition, contains much valuable and well-digested information respecting the Micronesians, and exhibits, under  various aspects, their,
Malaisian affinities.
Latham unhesitatingly connects these islands with the M~alayan peninsula,
by the affinities of language. He says:
"As the languages, both of Polynesia and Micronesia, differ from each other far
less than those of New Guinea, the Papuan Islands, and Australia, the separation
from the parent stock is later. It is, most probably, through the Philippines that
this third line [of migration] converges towards the original and continental source
of all three. This is the South-eastern portion of the Asiatic Continent, or the.
Indo-Chinese Peninsula."t
Marsden, in his "History of Sumatra," observes that,.
"Besides the Malayan there are a variety of languages spoken in Sumatra, which,
* Science and Religion, vol. i., pp. 67 and 115.
t Btanand;his-Migrations, p..128.. 
60
however have not only a manifest affinity among themselves, but also to that general
language which is found to prevail in, and be indigenous to, all the islands of the
eastern sea, from Madagascar to the remotest of Captain Cooke's discoveries; comprehending a wider extent than the Roman or any other tongue has yet boasted. In
different places it has been more or less mixed and corrupted, but between the most
dissimilar branches an evident sameness of many radical words is apparent, and in
some, very distant from each other in point of situation, as for instance the Philippines and Madagascar, the deviation of the words is scarcely more than is observed
in the dialects of neighbouring provinces in the same kingdom."*
[E.-P. 36.  THE CORAL IsLANDS.]
A  friend has suggested to me that the new mission to which Dr. Gulick
is appointed, instead of being called by the limited title of "Caroline," or the
learned title of "Micronesian," should be popularly designated THE CORAL
IsLANDS MIssION.  The suggestion is a good one.  The South Pacific is studded
with myriads of coral islands, which are as yet but little known, even to the
physical geographer and the naturalist, and which present to the missionary
a new and inviting field. The structure and the surface of these islands is
peculiar and varied. Darwin thus describes the first appearance of the rings
of coral land, sometimes called Lagoon islands:  "A long and brilliantly-white beach is capped by a margin of green vegetation
and the strip, looking either way, rapidly narrows away in the distance, and sinks
beneath the horizon. From the mast-head a wide expanse of smooth water can be
seen within the ring."t
The nearer view of one of these islands is represented as follows:  " The ring-formed reef of the lagoon-island is surmounted in the greater part of its
length by linear islets. On the northern or leeward side there is an opening through
which vessels can pass to the anchorage within. On entering, the scene was very
curious and rather pretty; its beauty, however, entirely depended on the brilliancy of
the surrounding colors. The shallow, clear, and still water of the lagoon, resting in
its greater part on white sand, is, when illumined by a vertical sun, of the most vivid
green. This brilliant expanse, several miles in width, is on all sides divided, either
by a line of snow-white breakers from the dark heaving waters of the ocean, or from
the blue vault of heaven by the strips of land, crowned by the level tops of the
ocoa-nut trees.  As a white cloud here and there affords a pleasing contrast with
the azure sky, so in the lagoon, bands of living coral darken the emerald green
vater."T
The theory of Darwin respecting the formation of coral reefs and islands is
one of much interest to the geologist.  It is, however, to Prof. James D.
Dana, of Yale College, that we are indebted for the most lucid, complete, and
satisfactory description of these islands, as well as for a new and beautiful
theory of their formation. His Geological Report of the United  States
Exploring Expedition is highly appreciated by scientific readers; and the
republication of it in the "Journal of Science" has brought it within the reach
of a numerous circle to which it was  before inaccessible.  By his kind permission several extracts from that Report are here inserted, together with the
neat maps and illustrations that accompany it in the "Journal of Science."
The plate on the opposite pagre is a map of the Kingsmill Group, one
,of the prominent groups of Micronesia. The boundaries of Micronesia
ot "Journal,"&c. vol ii. p. 177, Harper's edition.
* Quoted by Wiseman p. 447.
1 P. 243. 
Py`M~                         MARAICI
Tari Thn
A I&Lnd
API~
TARAWA
Wa
Arammna~"         ~MAiANA
.Xuria~   ~)
~ ~auou
\y~~~\;k;,amoutL~
4
TARAWAN
KlNGSMILL OR UP.
~ Ta`a~eone~
175  
61
are so accurately described ill Rev. Dr. Pomroy's Charge, that it is unnecessary  to  recapitulate  here  the  leading  divisions  of  Oceanica.   The
object of this note is simply to convey a definite idea of the structure and
appearance of these islands. It will be seen that the islands are very irregular
in shape and size; they often consist of a series of islets along a line of coral
reef, which have emerged a few feet above the ocean, and are clothed with
verdure.    The  following  is Prof.  Dana's description  of  coral reefs and
islands:  "Coral Reefs.-A wide platform of rock covered with the sea except at low
tide, borders most of the high islands of the Pacific.  It is a vast accumulation of
coral, based upon the bottom in the shallow waters of the shores. This bank or
table of coral rock, is of varying width, from a few hundred feet to a mile or more;
and although the surface is usually nearly flat, it is often intersected by irregular boat
channels, or occasionally encloses large bays, affording harbor protection to scores
of ships. In very many instances the reef stands at a distance from the shores like
an artificial mole, leaving a wide and deep channel between it and the land; and
within this channel are other coral reefs, some in scattered patches, and others
attached to the shore.  The inner reef in these cases is distinguished as the frimnging
reef, and the outer as the barrier reef.  The sea rolls in heavy surges against the
outer margin of the barrier; but the still waters of a lake prevail within, affording
safe navigation for the tottling canoe sometimes through the whole circuit of an
island: and not unfrequently, ships may pass, as by an internal canal, fiom harbor to
harbor around the island. The reef is covered by the sea at high tide, yet the
smoother waters indicate its extent, and a line of breakers its outline.  Occasionally
a green island rises from the reef, and in some instances, a grove of palms stretches
along the barrier for miles, where the action of the sea has raised the coral structure
above the waves.
__                        Ie    _      _
The sketch annexed conveys some idea of the peculiar features presented by a
Pacific island and its encircling reefs, though in order to fill out the scene, the jagged
heights and deep gorges of the islands should be covered with forests, and the shores
with groves and native villages.  The coral platform which borders  the shore is
represented with its usual uneven line, its broad harbors with a narrow entrance,and to the left an irregular ship channel running between the inner or fringing reef,
and the outer or barrier. At a single place the sea is faced by a cliff; and here,
owing to the boldness of the shores and depth of waters, the reef is wanting. To
the right there is only a fringing reef.
Coral Islands.-Coral islands resemble the reefs just described, except that a lake
or lagoon is encircled instead of a mountainous island. A narrow rim of coral reef,
generally but a few hundred yards wide, stretches around the enclosed waters. In
some parts it is so low that the waves are still dashing over it into the lagoon; and
in others it is still verdant with the rich foliage of the tropics. The coral-made land
when highest is seldom elevated above eight or ten feet above high tide. 
62
a When first seen from the deck of a vessel, only a series of dark points is de scried just above the horizon. Shortly after, the points enlarge into the plumed tops
of cocoa-nut trees, and a line of green, interrupted at intervals, is traced along the
water's surface. Approaching still nearer, the lake and its belt of verdure are spread
out before the eye, and a scene of more interest can scarcely be inmagined. The surf
beating loud and heavy along the margin of the reef; presents a strange contrast to
the prospect beyond,-the white coral beach, the massy foliage of the grove, and the
embosomed lake with its tiny islets.  The color of the lagoon water is often as blue
as the ocean, although but fifteen or twenty fathoms deep; yet shades of green and
yellow are intermingled, where patches of sand or coral-knolls are near the surface;
and the green is a delicate apple shade, quite unlike the usual muddy tint of shallow
waters.
" The belt of verdure, though sometimes continuous around the lagoon, is usually
broken in some parts into islets which are separated by varying intervals of bare
reef; and through one or more of these intervals, a ship-channel occasionally opens
into the lagoon. The larger coral islands are thus a string of islands arranged along
a line of coral reef.  The king of the Maldives bears the highl-sounding title of
"Ibrahlim Sultan King of the Thirteen Atollons and Twelve-Thousand Isles;" which
Capt W. F. W. Owen, R.N., remarks, is no exaggeration.
The usual features of these islands are presented in the above sketch.  The
narrow belt is seen to consist of several patches of vegetation; and within are the
quiet waters which offer a retreat for vessels wherever there is an opening to the
lagoon.
" A few small coral islands are simple reefs without lagoons. In some cases they
are bare banks of coral; but generally, the usual vegetation of the islands has
obtained a foothold, and affords some protection against the glare of the coral
sand."
The coral reefs are of great variety; sometimes they directly adjoin the
shores of an island, sometimes they are separated from it by an open
channel.
While there are only narrow shore-reefs to many islands, around others a distant
barrier extends, like an artificial mole, sometimes ten or even fifteen miles from the
land, and enclosing not only one, but at times several islands. Between the narrow
fringing platform and these remote barriers there is every possible variation as to
extent and relative position. The inner channel is sometimes barely deep enough at
low tide for canoes, or for long distances may be wanting entirely. Then again, it is
a narrow intricate passage, obstructed by knolls or patches of coral, rendering the
navigation quite dangerous. Again, it is for miles in length an open sea, in which
ships find room to beat against a head wind with a depth of twenty, thirty, or even
fifty fathoms. Yet hidden reefs make caution necessary. Patches from a few square
feet to many square miles in extent are met with over the broad area enclosed by
these distant barriers."
" A wide difference in the extent of reefs would be inferred from these facts. There
is the mere point of coral rock; and again, as for example, west of the two large
Feejee islands, there may be three thousand square miles of continuous reef-ground,
occupied with coral patches and intermediate channels or seas. The inclosing
barrier off Vanua Levu alone is more than one hundred miles long. The Exploring
Isles, in the eastern part of the Feejee group, have a barrier eighty miles in circuit.
New Caledonia, as often cited, has a reef along its whole western shores, a distance
of two hundred and fifty miles, and it extends one hundred and fifty miles further
north, adding thus much to the length of the island. The great Australian barrier
forms a broken line, a thousand miles in length, lying off the coast from the Northern
Cape to the tropical circle; and the channel within is in some parts sixty miles from
the coast, with a depth of thirty to sixty fathoms.
" The seas outside of the lines of coral reef are often unfathomable within a short
distance of the line of breakers." 
63
Respecting the outer reefs, Prof. Dana observes-:
I " It is rare to meet with any corals in this reef-rock retaining the original positions
of growth.  It is at once apparent, that the rock consists of the debris of the coral
fields, consolidated by a calcareous cement; and the greater abundance of the finer
variety of rock indicates that much of it has originated from coral sand or mud."
The inner reefs, on the contrary, seldom present
" Any large accumulation of coral debris. The margin is generally less abrupt;
yet there is every variety, from the gradually sloping bed of corals to the bluff
declivity with its clinging clumps. In different parts, there are many portions still
under water at the lowest tides; and here (as well as upon the outer banks), fine
fishing sport is afforded the natives, who wade out at ebb tide with spears, pronged
sticks, and nets, to supply themselves with food. The lover of the marvellous may
find abundant gratification by joining in such a ramble; among coral plants and
flowers, with fishes of fantastic colors, starfish, echini, and myriads of other beings
which science alone has named, fit inhabitants of a coral world, there is on every
side occasion for surprise and admiration."
The channels among the reefs are sometimes two or three hundred miles
in length, from thirty to sixty miles in width, and as many fathoms in depth;
in other cases the channel is narrow.
"The island of Tahiti on its northern side presents us with a good illustration of a
narrow channel, and at the same time exhibits the usual broken or interrupted character of reefs. This is seen in the following cut, in which the reefs, both fringing
..r..iv,.*.
el~
-t. %..':*/
and barrler, are the parts enclosed by dotted lines.  The outer reef extends half to
two-thirds of a mile from the shore.  Within it, between Papieti and Matavia, there
is an irregular ship channel, varying from three to twenty fathoms in depth. Occasionally it enlarges into harbors; and in other parts it is very intricate, though throughout navigable by large vessels.  The island of Upolu, of the Samoan Group, is
bordered by a reef nearly a mile wide on part of its northern shore; but the waters
within are too shallow for a canoe at low tide; and therefore, notwithstanding its
extent, the reef is rather a fringing than a barrier reef"
I
I 
The shore aceumulations upon some islands greatly enhance their vaeue as
places of residence.
The wide coral banks and the enclosed channels greatly enlarge the limits tributary to the islands they encircle.  They afford extensive fishing grounds for the
natives, and internal waters, which enable them to practise and improve their skill in
navigation, and communicate without danger between distant settlements; and the'
effect is evident in the spirit of maritime enterprise which characterizes the islanders:
for these circumstances have favored the construction of large sail canoes, in which
they venture beyond their own land, and often undertake voyages hundreds of miles
in length. Instead of a rock-bound coast, harborless and thinly habitable, like most
extra-tropical islands, the shores are blooming to the very edge, and wide plains are
spread out with breadfruit and other tropical productions.   Ports, safe for scores of
vessels, are also opened by the same means, and some islands number a dozen, when
the unprotected shores would have hardly offered a single good anchorage."
The general features of a Coral Island are thus described:    A barrier reef, and a lagoon enclosed by it, are the prominent featares of a coral'
island; yet there are a few of small size in which the lagoon is wanting. In the larger
islands, the waters within look like the ocean, and are similarly roughened by the
wind, though not to the same extent.  Standing on the north shore of the Raraka
lagoon (in the Paumotus), and looking south-west, nothing is descried but bluewaters;-far in the distance, to the right or left, a few faint dots are distinguished 
and as the eye sweeps around, these gradually enlarge their lines of palms and other
verdure, which finally become distinct groves on nearing the observer. At Dean's
Island, another of the Paumotus, and at many of the Carolines, the resemblance to
the ocean is still more striking. The lagoon is in fact but a fragment of the ocean
cut off by more or less perfect walls of coral reef-rock; and the reef is here and
there surmounted by verdure, forming a. series of islets.
, In many of the smaller coral islands, the lagoon has lost its ocean character, andc
become a shallow lake, and the green islets of the margin have coalesced in some
instances into a continuous line of foliage. Traces may perhaps be still detected of
the passage or passages over which the sea once communicated with the internal
waters, though mostly concealed by the trees and shrubbery which have spread
around and completed the belt of verdure.  The coral island is now  in its most
finished state: the lake rests quietly in its bed of palms, hardly ruffled by the storms
that madden the surrounding ocean."
The following figures present an accurate view of several coral islands irn
the Pacific.  They are reduced fron the maps of the Expedition to a scale CC
four-tenths of an inch to, a tnmule
1.
4,;-                     %
A...
I  I!;
Taiara and Henuake (figs. I and' 2), are two small belts of foliage, somewhat
similar to Maraki. Henuake possessed an additional charm in being tenanted only
by birds; and they were so tame that we took them from  the trees as if they had
been their flowers,
-64
2.
TAI,&RA.
WIRNIffAKIK, OF. HONDEN 
65
" Swain's and Jarvis Islands (figs. 3 a
4) are of still smaller size, and  have
lagoon.'The former is densely covered w
foliage, while the surface of  the latter
sandy.  Swain's Island is a little depress
about the centre, a fact indicating that th
was formerly a lagoon.
"Fakaafo, or Bowditch (fig. 5), 200
miles north of Samoa, is the type of a
large part of coral islands. The bank of
reef has only here and there emerged
from the waves and become verdant; in
other portions the reef is of the usual
height, —that is, near low-tide level,
excepting a few spots elevated a little by
the accumulation of sand.
The   Paumotu   Archipelago,  the
crowded cluster of coral islands just
northeast of Tahiti, is a most instructive
study for the reader; and a map of these
islands by the Expedition, inserted in the
Narrative of the Expedition, and also in
the Hydrographical Atlas, will well
repay close study. Sailing among these
islands —over eighty in number, only four
of which are over twelve feet high, exclusive of the vegetation-two or three
are almost constantly in sight from the
mast-head.
"The small amount of habitable land
on these reef-islands is one of their most
peculiar features. Nearly the whole surface is water; and the land around the
lagoon is but a narrow rim, the greater
part of which is usually under water at high
Of ten islands, having an aggregate area of 1952 square miles, the amount
of actual dry habitable land is but seventy-six miles, or less than one twentyfourth. In the Caroline Archipelago the proportion of land is still smaller.
"Sections of coral islands and their lagoons have been given by Captain Beechey
and Mr. Darwin. We add another, by way of illustration, although little may be
presented that is novel after the excellent descriptions of these authors.  Sketches of
several ofthese islands, showing the general relation of the rim of land to the reef
and the lagoon within, are given in the plate of the Kingsmill Group. The following
sketch represents a section of the rim of land from the sea on one side (the left), to
the lagoon on the other. In the view, the part m a represents the shallow sea bordering an island, and abruptly deepening one to six hundred feet from the line of
breakers. In these shallow waters are the growing corals; yet, as before stated, a
large part is barren sand or coral rock.
From a to b is the shore platform of reef-rock, nearly at low tide level, with the
margin (a) slightly elevated, and much incrusted at the top with Nullipores. From
the platform there is a rise by a steep beach (b c), of six or eight feet, to the wooded
part of the coral belt represented between c and d. From d to e there is a gently
sloping beach bordering the lagoon. Beyond e the waters of the lagoon at first
deepen gradually, and then fall off more or less abruptly.
"In the Paumotus, the shore platform, the steep beach, and the more gently
sloping shore of the lagoon are almost constant characteristics.
5
SWAIN'S ISLAND.        JARVIS ISLAND.
3.
o"';"; I
"'%t! O....
FAKAAFOo 
66
" The width of the whole rim of land, when the island gives no evidence of late
: elevation, varies from three hundred yards to one-third of a
mile, excepting certain prominent points, more exposed to
the united action of winds and waves, and from opposite
tDi~           directions, which occasionally exceed half a mile."
The cut exhibits a section of an outer-reef, as it
appears when raised above the waters, and covered with
vve'etation.
Professor Dana observes, that the mind experiences
some disappointment in a first view of coral reefs:
" Nature does not make green-houses, but distributes
widely her beauties, and leaves it for man to gather into
gardens the choicer varieties.  Yet  there are scenes in the
coral landscape, which justify the brightest coloring of the
poet; where coral shrubbery and living flowers are mingled
in profusion; where Astrea domes appear like the gemmed
temples of the coral world, and Madrepore vases, the decorations of the groves; and as the forests and flowers of land
have their birds and butterflies, so
Life in rare a    nd  beautiful forms
Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,'
f ir fish of various hues, red, blue, purple, green, and other
brilliant shades, keep constant play, appearing and disappear            ~  g: uing among the branches.
Xz       " The-e fields of growing coral spread over submarine
,  lands, such as the shores of islands and continents, where the
depth is not greater than their habits require, just as vegeta                      tion extends itself through regions that are congenial.  The
germ or ovule, which, when first produced, swims free, finds
afterwards a point of rock or dead coral to plant itself upon,
and thence springs the tree, or some other form of coral
growth.
"The  analogy  to vegetation  does not stop here.  It is
well known that the debris of the forest, decaying leaves and
stems, and animal remains, add to the soil; and that accu                       mulations of this kind are ceaselessly in progress: that by
this   means, in the luxuriant swamp, deep beds of peaty earth
i"~~ Aare formed.  So is it in the coral mead.  Accumulations of
fragments and sands from the coral zoophytes, and of shells
,\~and other relics of organic life, are in constant progress;
and thus a bed of coral debris is formed and compacted.
!.dll i     There is this difference, that a large part of the vegetable
material consists of elements which escape as gases o01
decomposition,  whereas coral is itself an enduring rock-material, undergoing no
change except the mechanical one of comminution. The animal portion is but a
mere fraction of the whole zoophyte.
In these few hints, we have the whole theory of reef-making: not a speculative
opinion, but a legitimate deduction from a few simple facts, and bearing close analogy
to operations on land. The coral debris and shells fill up the intervals between the
coral patches, and the cavities among the living tufts, and in this manner produce the
reef deposit, which is finally consolidated while still beneath the water."
A few remarks upon the structure, growth, and habits of coral zoophytes
will be interesting and aippropriate in this place. How are these wonderful
r2
E.
D4
zy
To 
67
structures of the ocean reared? For the sake of the figure, I have presented in
the discourse the current view that these piles of rock are built up mechani cally by the polyps. In truth, however, the polyp does not build mechanically,
but grows by secretion.   On  this point  the remarks by Prof. Dana are alto gether conclusive:   "It is not more surprising nor a matter of more difficult comprehension that the polyp
should form coral, than that the quadruped should form its bones, or the mollusc its
shell. The processes are similar, and so the result: in each case it is a simple
animal secretion, a formation of stony matter from the aliment which the  animal
receives, produced by certain parts of the animal fitted for this secreting pro cess. This power of secretion is the first and most common of those that belong to
living tissues: and though differing in different organs according to their end or
function, it is all one process, both in nature or cause, whether in the animalcule or
in man. Coral is never, therefore, an agglutination of grains made by the handywork
of the many-armed polyps: for it is no more an act of labor than bone-making in
ourselves.  And again, it is not a collection of cells into which the coral animals
may withdraw for concealment, any more than the skeleton of a dog to its house or
cell: for every part of the coral of a polyp in most reef-making species is enclosed
within the polyp, where it was formed by the secreting process.
"Structure of Coral Animalz or Polyps.-A good idea of a coral polyp may be
had from comparison with the garden aster: for the likeness in external form and
delicacy of coloring is singularly close. The aster consists of a tinted disk bordered
with one or more series of petals; and in exact analogy, the polyp-flower, in its
most common form, has a disk often richly colored, fiinged around with petal-like
organs called tentacles. Below the disk, in contrast with the slender pedicel of the
plant, there is a stout cylindrical pedicel or body, often as broad as the disk itself, and
usually not much longer, which contains the stomach and internal cavity of the polyp:
and the mouth, which opens into the stomach, is placed at the centre of the disk. Here,
then, the flower-animal and the garden-flower diverge in character, the difference
being required by the different modes of nutrition in the two kingdoms of natre.
"The Actinium are entirely fleshy, and usually live attached by their lower extremity
to the submerged rocks of the shores.  The mouth, at the centre of the flower-like
disk forming the summit of the animal, is a simple opening without teeth or appendages of any kind.  The tentacles-the petals of the flower-are tubular organs, and
communicate internally with the interior cavity of the animal. The animal contracts, when disturbed, and conceals the flower by rolling inward over it the margin
bearing the tentacles; and in this state it seems like a lifeless lump of animal matter.
Left quiet for a while, it again expands and appears as before. This expansion is
produced by receiving water into the interior from without, mostly through the
mouth, and thus filling the tentacles and swelling out its fleshy body. They are
generally found expanded with the mouth wide open to receive their prey. As they
are fixed to the rocks, they must wait for their food to come to them. When a crab,
shell-fish, or anything alive, within the capabilities of their bodies, comes within
reach, they usually secure it by closing upon the victim the tentacles (which commonly have a stinging power), and pushing it into the mouth. In many species the
tentacles are too short to aid in capturing food except it be by stinging.  These
organs subserve also the purpose of aerating the blood, a function in which all parts
of the body are more or less concerned.
"One of the most singular peculiarities of polyps is their ready restoration of a
lost part. Even a fragment will go on to complete the entire animal again; as with
the fabled hydra of old, the knife is used but to multiply, for every section becomes a
new animal.
*     *     *     *     *     *
"The breaking of a branch is no serious injury to a zoophyte.  There is often
some degree of sensibility apparent throughout the clump, even when of considerable
size, and the shock, therefore, may occasion the polyps to close. But in an hour, or
perhaps much less time, their tentacles will have again expanded; and such as were
_.            1.!:.-' 
torn by the fracture will be in the process of complete restoration to their former size
and powers. The fragment broken off, dropping in a favorable place, would become
the germ of another coral plant, its base cementing by means of coral-secretions to
the rock on which it might rest; or if still in contact with any part of the parent
tree, it would be reunited and continue to grow as before. The coral zoophyte may
be levelled by transported masses swept over by the waves; yet like the trodden sod,
it sprouts again, and continues to grow and flourish as before. The sod, however,
has roots which are still unhurt; while the zoophyte, which may be dead at base,
has a root-a source or centre of life-in every polyp that blossoms over its surface.
Each animal might live and grow if separated from the rest, and would ultimately
produce a mature zoophyte."
This circumstance will help to explain the almost incredible fact that such
immense accumulations are the work of an animal so insignificant. On this
point Profsor Dana observes:
"Such accumulations of calcareous rock may appear to be an incredible work for
the coral polyp, but only so, because we are not accustomed to contemplate the results
which may proceed from the smallest agencies long continued. The operatives in
the inorganic world are invisible molecules; and among living organisms, it is the
lowest grade, the minims of existence, that have accomplished the grandest results in
the earth's history.
"There is sufficient means provided for the production of coral material for islands,
however numerous. These humble ministers of creative power might, without other
attributes than those they now possess, have laid the foundations of continents and
covered them with mountain ranges. This remark requires no limitation if we allow
the requisite time, and connect with the power of growth such other agencies as have
been at work in the Pacific since the reefs were there in progress."
Respecting the permanence of those wonderful insect-works, he remarks
that:  "The structure built amid the waves will necessarily have the form and condition
best fitted for withstanding their action. The little islet of an atoll is therefore more
enduring than hills of harder basaltic rocks. Reefs of zoophytic growth but' mock
the leaping billows,' while other lands of the same height gradually yield to the
assaults of the ocean. There are cases, however, of wear from the sea, owing to
some change of condition in the island, or in the currents about it, in consequence
of which, parts once built up are again carried off. Moreover, those devastating seas
which overleap the whole land may occasion unusual degradation from some parts.
Yet these islets have within themselves the source of their own repair, and are secure
from all serious injury."
Professor Dana gives the following sketch of The Completed Coral
Island:
"The coral island in its best condition is but a miserable residence for man.
There is poetry in every feature: but the natives find this a poor substitute for the
breadfruit and yams of more favored lands. The cocoanut and Pandanus are, in
general, the only products of the vegetable kingdom afforded for their sustenance,
and fish and crab from the reefs their only animal food. Scanty too is the supply;
and infanticide is resorted to in self defence, where but a few years would otherwise
overstock the half-a-dozen square miles of which their little world consists.
Yet there are more comforts than might be expected on a land of so limited
extent-without rivers, without hills, in the midst of salt water, with the most elevated
point but ten feet above high tide, and no part more than 300 yards from the ocean.
Though the soil is light, and the surface often strewed with blocks of coral, there is a
dense covering of vegetation to shade the native villages from a tropical sun.  The
cocoanut, the tree of a thousand uses, grows luxuriantly on the coral-made land, after
68 
69
it has emerged from the ocean; and the scanty dresses of the natives, their drinking
vessels, and other utensils, mats, cordage, fishing-lines, and oil, besides food, drink,
and building material, are all supplied from it. The Pandanus, or screw-pine, flourishes well, and is exactly fitted for such regions: as it enlarges and spreads its
branches, one prop after another grows from the trunk and plants itself in the ground;
and by this means its base is widened, and the growing tree supported. The fruit,
a large ovoidal mass made up of oblong dry seed, diverging from a centre, each near
-two cubic inches in size, affords a sweetish husky article of food, which, though
little better than prepared corn stalks, admits of being stored away for use when
other things fail. The extensive reefs abound in fish which are easily captured, and
the natives, with wooden hooks, often bring in larger kinds from the deep waters.
From  such resources a population of 10,000 persons is supported on the single
island of Taputconea, whose whole habitable area does not exceed six square
miles.
"Water is to be found commonly in sufficient quantities for the use of the natives,
although the land is so low and flat.  They dig wells five to ten feet deep in any
part of the dry islets, and generally obtain a constant supply. These wells are
sometimes fenced around with special care; and the houses of the villagers, as at
Fakaafo, are often clustered about them. On Aratica (Carlshoff) there is a watering place 50 feet in diameter, from which our vessels in a few hours obtained 390
gallons. The Tarawan Islands are generally provided with a supply sufficient for
bathing, and each native takes his morning bath in fresh water, which is esteemed by
them a great luxury. On Taritari, as Mr. Hale was infoirmed by a Scotch sailor
taken from the island, by the name of Gray, there is a long trench or canal, described by him as several miles long, and two feet deep. They have taro plantations,
which require a large supply of water, besides some breadfruit. These islands have
been elevated a little, but are not over fifteen feet above the sea.
"The only source of this water is the rains, which, percolating through the loose
surface, settle upon the hardened coral rock that forms the basis of the island.  As
the soil is white or nearly so, it receives heat but slowly, and there is consequently but
little evaporation of the water that is once absorbed.
"These islands moreover enclose ports of great extent, many admitting even
the largest class of vessels: and the same lagoons are the pearl fisheries of the
Pacific.
"An occasional log drifts to their shores, and at some of the more isolated atolls
where the natives are ignorant of any land but the spol they inhabit, they are deemed
direct gifts from a propitiated deity.
"The language of the natives indicates their poverty, as well as the limited productions and unvarying features of the land. All words like those for mountain, hill,
river, and many of the implements of their ancestors, as well as the trees and other
vegetation of the land from which they are derived, are lost to them, and as words
are but signs for ideas, they have fallen off in general intelligence. It would be an
interesting inquiry for the philosopher, to what extent a race of men placed in such
circumstances are capable of mental improvement.  Perhaps the query might be best
answered by another, How many of the various arts of civilized life could exist in a
land, where shells are the only cutting instruments,-the plants in all but twenty-nine
in number,-but a single mineral,-quadrupeds none, with the exception  of foreign
mice,-fresh water barely enough for household purposes,-no streams, nor mountains, nor hills?  How much of the poetry or literature of Europe would be intelligible to persons whose ideas had expanded only to the limits of a coral island --
who had never conceived of a surface of land albove half a mile in breadthl, —of a
slope higher than a beach,-of a change of seasons beyond a variation in the prevalence of rains? What elevation in morals should be expected upon a contracted
islet, so readily over-peopled that threatened starvation drives to infanticide, and
tends to cultivate the extremest selfishness?  Assuredly there is not a more uufavorable spot for moral or intellectual development in the wide world than the coral
island, with all its beauty of grove and lake.
These islands are exposed to earthquakes and storms like the continents, and 
70
occasionally a devastating wave sweeps across the land.  During the heavier gales,
the natives sometimes secure their houses by tying them to the cocoanut trees, or to a
stake planted for the purpose.  A height of ten or twelve feet, the elevation of their
land, is easily overtopped by the more violent seas; and great damage is sometimes
experienced. The still more extensive earthquake-waves, such as those which have
swept up the coast of Spain, Peru, and the Sandwich Islands, would produce a
complete deluge over these islands. We were informed by both Gray and Kirby,
that effects of this kind had been experienced at the Tarawan Islands; but the statements were too indefinite to determine whether the results should be attributed to
storms or to this more violent cause."
To these beautiful and interesting islands, where  the gospel has never yet
been preached, our brother Gulick is destined. It is hoped that this sketch of
the field will contribute to awaken an interest in it in the minds of Christians.
The brief sketch of the inhabitants of the Coral Islands given in the discourse was derived principally from the admirable report of Mr. Hale. It
would have been made more complete, had I not anticipated something similar
from the pen of Dr. Pomroy.  All that the reader can desire to know of the
inhabitants of these isles will be found in his lucid sketch. I will conclude
this note, therefore, with a brief notice of the probable origin of this popuiation.
Pickering traces them to the East Indies. There is evidence, that before
the time of Columbus,  "Polynesians  were  accustomed to undertake sea
voyages, nearly as long, exposed to equal danger, and in vessels of far inferior
construction."'
Latham regards the line of migration as that "where the continuity of successive islands is the greatest, and wherever the fewest considerable interspaces
of ocean are to be found. This is an a priori view, subject to modification
firom the'counterbalancing phenomena of winds, or currentis unfavorable to the
supposed migration."   But these interfering causes have determined him "to
consider the Micronesian Archipelago as that part of Polynesia which is the
part most likely to have been first peopled." *
-The same writer observes that
"   distribution over continents is one thing, a distribution over islands another.
The first is easier made when the world is young, and when the previous occupants
create no obstacles.  The second implies maritime skill and enterprise, and maritime
skill improves with the experience of mankind.  One of the greatest facts of ethnological distribution and dispersion belongs to this class. All the islands of the
Pacific are peopled by the members of one stock, or family-the Polynesian.  These
we find as far north as the Sandwich Islands, as far south as New Zealand, and in
Easter Island, half-way between Asia and America. So much for the dispersion.
But this is not all; the distribution is as remarkable. Madagascar is an African
rather than an Asiatic island; within easy sail of Africa; the exact island for an
African population.  Yet, ethnologically, it is Asiatic; the same family which we
find in Sumatra, Borneo, the Moluccas. the Mariannes, the Carolines, and Polynesia.
being Malagasi also.
*        *        *         *        *        *
"But we must remember that true discontinuity can exist in continents only.  The
population of two islands may agree, whilst that of a whole archipelago lying
between them may differ. Yet this is no discontinuity, since the sea is an unbroken
chain, and the intervening obstacle can be sailed round instead of crossed.  The
nearest way from the continent of Asia to the Tahitian archipelago-the nearest part
of Polynesia-is vit New Guinea, New Ireland, and the New Hebrides. All these
islands, however, are inhabited by a different division of the Oceanic population.
Does this indicate displacement? No. It merely suggests the Philippines, the
*  Varieties of Xan, 1). 185. 
Pelews, the Carolines, the Ralik and Radak groups, and the Navigator's Isles, as the
route; and sluch it almost certainly was." *
Mr. M. Mastin mentions a fact that sheds further light upon the probable
course of these oceanic migrations.
" Many instances have  occurred of the slaves in Mauritius seizing on a canoe, or
boat, at night time, and with a calabash of water, and a few manioc, or Cassada
roots, pushing out to sea and endeavoring to reach across to Madagascar or Africa,
through the pathless and stormy ocean.   Of course they generally perish, but some
succeed.  We picked up a fiail canoe within about a hundred miles of the coast of
Af'ica; it contained five runaway slaves, one dying in the bottom of the canoe, and
the others nearly exhausted.   They had fled from a harsh French master at the Seychelles, committed themselves to the deep without compass or guide, with a small
quantity of water and rice, and trusting to their fishing-lines for support. Steering by
the stars, they had nearly reached the coast from which they had been kidnapped,
when nature sank exhausted, and we were just in time to save four of their lives. So
long as the wanderers in search of home were able to do so, the days were numbered
in notches on the side of the canoe, and twenty-one were thus marked when met with
by our vessel.
It is evident that the Micronesians who now navigate their canoes skilfully
and for long distances, by their rude observation of the stars, may have
migrated originally from the East Indies to their present home.
Dr. Gulick is going, therefore, to a portion of the human i,'a  who,
however isolated, were no doubt derived from the Asiatic continent. It is gratifying to know that his own interest in ethnography, and his qualifications as
a man of science, will enable him to throw much light on the interesting question of Oceanic Migrations.
* Man and his Migrations, pp. 95 and 99
71 
I