and that he was resolved to lotu. Hoolan, who had been tipsy for some
days, or as he called it, enjoying himself, was very indignant when he
recovered and heard this, and hastily going to the king, advised him to
wait till the arrival of some Roman Catholic priests, who were the
proper persons to whom to lotu; but the king replied, that the advice of
a man who had been making himself no better than a hog was not worth
having; that he had heard what he was sure was true from the missionary,
and that therefore he should become of the missionary's religion. To
show his sincerity, he resolved to destroy his gods and burn their
moraes, or temples. His great regret was that his daughter and Vihala
were not present to see the work done. The missionary urged him to lose
no time. It was impossible to say what a day might bring forth. It was
not a thing to be done lightly. The missionary visited the king the
evening before the ceremony, and many hours were passed in prayer and in
reading the Scriptures.

The next morning the king, attended by some of his principal chiefs, and
all those who had already professed Christianity, assembled at an early
hour, armed with axes and clubs, and firebrands, and ropes, and
proceeded to the principal morae, or temple. The heathens also
assembled, and stood at a distance trembling, in the expectation that
something dreadful would happen. As the king approached the morae, some
of his own followers even drew back, and formed a knot at a distance.
They had been taught that their gods were full of revenge and hatred,
delighting in doing harm to mortals. As Mr Bent considered it to be
most important that the natives should destroy their idols themselves,
we also stood some way off watching proceedings. The king advanced,
exclaiming, "Jehovah is the true God--these are but senseless blocks of
wood. See!" As he uttered the last word he struck the principal idol a
blow which brought it to the ground. He then rushed at another, several
of his chiefs following his example, and in a few minutes every idol was
overthrown. [See Note 1.] All the time it was interesting to watch the
attitudes and gestures of the heathen, who were evidently under the
expectation that fire would come down from heaven, or that the earth
would open and destroy their impious chiefs. Their astonishment was
proportionably great when nothing of the sort happened, and when the
iconoclasts, fastening ropes round the sen