have come from Tahiti and other parts of the Georgian and Society
Archipelago.

"Great as was the change, after all allowances are made, in the islands
of which I have been speaking, that produced by the promulgation of the
truth in Raratonga was still greater. You know how John Williams, after
founding the church in Huahine, moved to Raiatea, in the Hervey group,
and thence sailing forth, discovered the then savage Raratonga, where
the devoted Papehia landed to commence the work which he was afterwards
enabled to perfect. Papehia began his ministrations by telling the
people about the power and purity of God, and His love to mankind, and
contrasting His attributes with those of their idols. By teaching both
old and young portions of Scripture, and the latter to read, they began
to perceive the follies of heathenism.

"Thus the old religion was undermined, and a way prepared for the
introduction of the new faith. The priests were the most inveterate
opponents of Christianity, yet the first person who destroyed his idols
was a priest. Several others followed his example. Soon another native
teacher from Tahiti joined Papehia to aid in the work which so rapidly
progressed. The first chief converted was Tinomana. After a lengthened
conversation with Papehia, in spite of the expostulations of priests and
people, saying, `My heart has taken hold of the word of Jehovah,' he
ordered a servant to set fire to his idol and his temple. The
Christians now united, with Tinomana at their head, to live together in
one community, numbering four or five thousand. Not fifteen months
after Papehia landed, they erected a chapel three hundred feet long,
with a pulpit at either end, from which each teacher addressed nearly
fifteen hundred wild, naked savages at once, without inconvenience.
This wonderful change had been effected, you must remember, by two
native teachers alone, in less than two years and a half from the day of
their landing in Raratonga, and who were themselves born heathens and
trained in idolatry in an island nearly seven hundred miles away.

"Four years after the discovery of the island, John Williams took up his
abode there with the Reverend C Pitman, they being afterwards joined by
the Reverend A Buzacott. Laws were now formed, and the first Christian
community divided into two separate villages. A chapel of a substantial
character was next planned. A site was cleared, large trees were cut
down, coral l