followed immediately by the open profession of several natives of
Tahiti. The second event occurred in November, 1819, when King
Rihoriho, of Hawaii, one of the Sandwich Islands, in one day breaking
through the most revered of heathen customs, set fire to the temples,
and destroyed the idols, a few months before the arrival of the
missionaries, who were then on their way to attempt the conversion of
his people. The third event occurred in 1829. It was the conversion of
a powerful chief of the Friendly Islands, who afterwards became King
George of Tonga. Some time before this, two Tahitian teachers connected
with the London Missionary Society, on their way to Fiji had resided
with Tubou, chief of Nukualofa. Under their influence and instruction
Tubou gave up the Tonga gods, destroyed the spirit house, and erected a
place for Christian worship, in which he and his people, to the number
of two hundred and forty, assembled to listen to Divine truth in the
Tahitian language, on the 4th of February, 1827. He was not, however,
baptised till 1830. A fourth event, which appears still more wonderful
to those who know the man than any I have before mentioned, was the
conversion of the fierce and proud cannibal, King Thakombau, of Bau, the
most powerful among the chiefs of Fiji, on the 30th April, 1854. He
may, indeed, be considered the king of all Fiji, for all the other
chiefs are either his vassals, or vassals to those who acknowledge him
as their chief. Although a large number of the inhabitants of the
group, of all ranks, had embraced Christianity before the king, yet his
conversion more especially marked the triumph of the truth in Fiji, and
proves the power of the gospel to change the heart of a man, however
benighted, savage, and bloodthirsty he may have been.

"To these more prominently important events may be added the
establishment of a church at Raratonga, in May, 1833, ten years after
the landing of the first native teacher, which went on increasing till
the entire population had been brought under Christian instruction.

"Still more important than the former events was the arrival of Messrs.
Williams and Barff at Samoa, with a band of native teachers, in 1830, at
the moment when Tamafaigna, a despot, who united the supreme spiritual
with great political power, and whose boundless sway presented a most
formidable barrier to the introduction of the gospel, had just been
slain, and their cordial reception by Ma