The American Board of Foreign Missions was organized in Mission Park, Williamstown, Massachusetts, in the early part of this century, and the organization is commemorated by an appropriate monument. It has evangelized the Hawaiian Islands, and carried on work in the Marquesas, Gilbert, Marshall, and Caroline islands. Since 1873 most of the active labor has been performed by the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, which owns a mission vessel, the _Morning Star_.
[Illustration: MISSION SHIP ON HER VOYAGE.]
The London Missionary Society has missions in the Society, Tuamotu, Hervey or Cook, Austral, Samoa, Tokelau, Ellice, Gilbert, and Loyalty groups, on Niue and several other isolated islands, and in New Guinea. It owns two vessels, the _John Williams_ and the _Ellengowan_.
The Australian Wesleyan Conference supports missions in Tonga, Feejee, Samoa, Rotumah, and New Britain; the Presbyterian churches of Australia have a mission in the New Hebrides, and possess a mission vessel, called the _Dayspring_.
The Melanesian Episcopal Mission is maintained in the Banks', Santa Cruz, and Solomon islands, and has a mission vessel, called the _Southern Cross_. The Catholics have missions on all the islands controlled by the French, and on most of the others, but they did not make their appearance until long after the work had been well under way in the hands of the Protestant organizations.
A considerable proportion of the early missionaries were murdered by the natives, whose good they sought, and others died of disease, privation, and the effects of the climate. But the ranks were steadily filled up, and the work went on; the native converts and teachers were fully as zealous as the white men who had taught them the new religion, and much of the work of instruction was performed by them. Whenever native teachers were murdered by the savages among whom they had taken their residences, others volunteered to fill their places. The following incident is recorded in the history of mission work in Polynesia:
In 1822 the mission ship of the Rev. John Williams anchored off an island which proved to be Mangaia of the Hervey group. Three Tahitian teachers, two of them accompanied by their wives, volunteered to land and establish a mission. No sooner were they on shore than they were attacked and plundered of everything they possessed, and they only escaped with their lives by swimming back through the surf to the ship.