Combining "the gathering of artifacts with the gathering of souls", George Brown was a key figure in the Christian—and especially Wesleyan Methodist—history of nineteenth-century Oceania. Using Brown’s life as a case study, the author examines the role of Christian missionaries in the Pacific Islands. Brown"s career—from 1860 to 1908—spanned one of the most tumultuous political periods in the South Pacific, as one by one, islands were colonized by imperial nations. Brown was one of the most politically engaged of all missionaries, encouraging colonial rule in the Pacific by America, Britain, Germany, and eventually, Australia and New Zealand. Originally from the north of England, he worked as a missionary in Samoa from 1860, moving to the Bismarck Archipelago (now Papua New Guinea) in 1875. From the 1880s until his retirement in 1907, he worked in Sydney as the general secretary of the Australasian Methodist Overseas Mission. Gathering for God examines Brown"s missionary letters, journals, and journalism, exploring how he attracted Pacific Islanders to Christian teachings, analyzing his leadership during an armed attack on New Britain villages, and looking at his work in the new discipline of anthropology. He was a major collector of artifacts and a photographer of Pacific peoples.