The Dawn of a Better Day.  
The eighteenth century passed away, and as the nineteenth began its course, a great and marvellous change came over the dwellers on the lonely island in that almost unknown region of the Southern Seas. It was a change both spiritual and physical, the latter resulting from the former, and both having their roots, as all things good must have, in the blessed laws of God.
 
The change did not come instantaneously. It rose upon Pitcairn with the sure but gradual influence of the morning dawn, and its progress, like its advent, was unique in the history of the Church of God.
 
No preacher went forth to the ignorant people, armed with the powers of a more or less correct theology. No prejudices had to be overcome, or pre-existing forms of idolatry uprooted, and the people who had to be changed were what might have been deemed most unlikely soil—mutineers, murderers, and their descendants. The one hopeful characteristic among them was the natural amiability of the women, for Young and Adams did not display more than the average good-humour of men, yet these amiable women, as we have seen, twice plotted and attempted the destruction of the men, and two of them murdered in cold blood two of their own kinsmen.
 
It may, perhaps, have already been seen that Young and Adams were of a grave and earnest turn of mind. The terrible scenes which they had passed through naturally deepened this characteristic, especially when they thought of the dreadful necessity which had been forced on them—the deliberate slaying of Matthew Quintal, an act which caused them to feel like murderers, however justifiable it may have seemed to them.
 
Like most men who are under deep and serious impressions, they kept their thoughts to themselves. Indeed, John Adams, with his grave matter-of-fact tendencies and undemonstrative disposition, would probably never have opened his lips on spiritual things to his companion if Young had not broken the ice; and even when the latter did venture to do so, Adams resisted at first with the dogged resolution of an unbelieving man.
 
“We’ve been awful sinners, John Adams,” said Young one afternoon as they were sauntering home from their plantations to dinner.
 
“Well, sir, no doubt there’s some truth in what you say,” replied Adams, slowly, “but then, d’ye see, we’ve bin placed in what you may call awful circumstances.”
 
“That’s true, that’s true,” returned Young, with a perplexed look, “and I’ve said the same thing, or something like it, to myself many a time; but, man, the Bible doesn’t seem to harmonise with that idea somehow. It seems to make no difference between big and little sinners, so to speak, at least as far as the matter of salvation is concerned; and yet I can’t help feeling somehow that men who have sinned much ought to repent much.”
 
“Just so, sir,” said John Adams, with a self-satisfied air, “you’re right, sir. We have been awful sinners, as you say, an’ now we’ve got to repent as hard as we can and lead better lives, though, of course, we can’t make much difference in our style o’ livin’, seein’ that our circumstances don’t allow o’ much change, an’ neither of us has bin much given to drink or swearin’.”
 
“Strange!” rejoined Young. “You almost echo what I’ve been saying to myself over and over again, yet I can’t feel quite easy, for if we have only got to repent and try to lead better lives, what’s the use of our talking about ‘Our Saviour?’ and what does the Bible mean in such words as these: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.’ ‘Only believe.’ ‘By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.’ ‘By the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified.’”
 
“Do you mean to say, sir, that them words are all out of the Bible?” asked Adams.
 
“Yes, I know they are, for I read them all this morning. I had a long hunt after the Bible before I found it, for poor Christian never told me where he kept it. I turned it up at last under a bit of tarpaulin in the cave, and I’ve been reading it a good deal since, and I confess that I’ve been much puzzled. Hold on a bit here,” he added, stopping and seating himself on a flowering bank beside the path; “that old complaint of mine has been troubling me a good deal of late. Let’s rest a bit.”
 
Young referred here to an asthmatic affection to which he was subject, and which had begun to give him more annoyance since the catching of a severe cold while out shooting among the hills a year before.
 
“From what you say, sir,” said Adams, thoughtfully, after they had sat down, “it seems to me that if we can do nothing in the matter o’ workin’ out our salvation, and have nothin’ to do but sit still an’ receive it, we can’t be to blame if we don’t get it.”
 
“But we may be to blame for refusing it when it’s offered,” returned Young. “Besides, the Bible says, ‘Ask and ye shall receive,’ so that knocks away the ground from under your notion of sitting still.”
 
“P’r’aps you’re right, sir,” continued Adams, after a few minutes’ thought, during which he shook his head slowly as if not convinced; “but I can’t help thinkin’ that if a man only does his best to do his dooty, it’ll be all right with him. That’s all that’s required in His Majesty’s service, you know, of any man.”
 
“True, but if a man doesn’t do his best, what then? Or if he is so careless about learning his duty that he scarce knows what it is, and in consequence falls into sundry gross mistakes, what then? Moreover, suppose that you and I, having both done our duty perfectly up to the time of the mutiny, were now to go back to England and say, like the bad boys, ‘We will never do it again,’ what would come of it, think you?”
 
“We’d both be hanged for certain,” answered Adams, with emphasis.
 
“Well, then, the matter isn’t as simple an you thought it, at least according to your view.”
 
“It is more puzzlin’ than I thought it,” returned Adams; “but then that’s no great wonder, for if it puzzles you it’s no wonder that it should puzzle me, who has had no edication whatever ’xcep what I’ve picked up in the streets. But it surprises me—you’ll excuse me, Mr Young—that you who’s bin at school shouldn’t have your mind more clear about religion. Don’t they teach it at school?”
 
“They used to read a few verses of the Bible where I was at school,” said Young, “and the master, who didn’t seem to have any religion in himself, read over a formal prayer; but I fear that that didn’t do us much good, for we never listened to it. Anyhow, it could not be called religious teaching. But were you never at school, Adams?”
 
“No, sir, not I,” answered the seaman, with a quiet laugh; “leastwise not at a reg’lar true-blue school. I was brought up chiefly in the streets of London, though that’s a pretty good school too of its kind. It teaches lads to be uncommon smart, I tell you, and up to a thing or two, but it don’t do much for us in the book-larnin’ way. I can scarcely read even now, an’ what I have of it was got through spellin’ out the playbills in the public-house windows. But what d’ye say, sir, now that we both seem inclined to turn over a new leaf, if you was to turn schoolmaster an’ teach me to read and write a bit better than I can do at present? I’d promise to be a willin’ scholar an’ a good boy.”
 
“Not a bad idea,” said Young, with a laugh, as he rose and continued the descent of the track leading to the settlement.
 
The village had by this time improved very much in appearance, good substantial cottages, made of the tafano or flower wood, and the aruni, having taken the place of th............