FIRST CONVERSION. 77 of hope, and a glimmering is to be hailed joyfully where there has been thick darkness. Since that time I have been at all sorts of deathbeds dark and gloomy, fearless and horror-stricken, calm and exulting. And I have noticed in some instances, that natives who could speak good English when in health, would entreat that I should read and pray in native when they were near death. It was so much less difficult for them to apprehend it. And, while I have done so, the talk of the wurley would be hushed, and an expression of solemnity manifested in every face; and afterwards warm thanks would be given by the sick man or woman. We cannot stoop too low to save souls. Jesus stooped much lower than we can do to redeem us; and shall we not emulate His example, and try to seek and to save that which was lost? Efforts to make known the gospel do not always show their effects at once; but I have known many instances of people who seemed stolid and hardened at the time that they heard the Word, yet when sickness came upon them and death drew near they called upon the name of the Lord. But there have been darkly contrasted deathbeds to such as those I have been speaking of; where the dying person has been so imbruted that there was no fear of death. The wants of the flesh have absorbed all attention to the last. On one occasion I was trying to get a woman, whose case, as far as the body was concerned, was hopeless, to think of her soul; but every attempt seemed useless. At last I spoke of the certainty of her death. I said, "We shall die, and so will you." Another old woman who sat near hearing this said, "Ngurn pornani? wunyarn el takkani ngruwar nunnukki" ("We shall all die? then let us eat plenty of flour"). Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die that was the idea, evidently. I had not been more than three months preaching the gospel to the natives before there appeared a token of God’s grace in the decision of a young man named Waukeri to become a Christian. The decision was clear and unmistakable. It may not have been very enlightened, any more than that of many others
