numbers came over a distance of twelve miles to hear him.
Tubou, the chief of Nukualofa, appeared convinced of the truths of
Christianity, had a chapel built, and attended service; but tempted by
his brother chiefs, who promised to make him king of the whole group if
he would adhere to the old faith, he declined for the present to make a
profession of Christianity. The work thus commenced at Nukualofa by the
London Society's Tahitian teachers, was carried on in a spirit of
brotherly love by the Reverend N Turner and William Cross and their
devoted wives, sent out by the Wesleyan Missionary Society in 1828.
They began schools there, which were well attended, while Mr Thomas
opened one at Hihifo, at which, in spite of the opposition of the chief
Ata, some twenty boys attended. In two years Mr Thomas could preach
fluently in the language of the people, and congregations for public
worship were formed and well attended. Mr Thomas had gone over to
Nukualofa to preach, when the king Tubou, who had been absent for six
months, attended, with two hundred of his subjects, the chapel which he
himself had built, and where he now heard in his own tongue from the
lips of an English minister the gospel clearly explained. Other chiefs
from the two groups of islands to the north, Vavau and Haabai, in the
course of the year sent to petition for teachers, or rather, one sent,
being indifferent about the matter; the latter, Tui-Haabai, as he was
called, came to Tonga in person. Though he earnestly pressed the point,
there was no one to send; and so on his return home, finding an English
sailor who could read and write, though sadly ignorant of the truths of
religion, he made him his teacher. His perseverance and earnestness
were to be rewarded. A sick lad, a step-son of Ata's, was the first
convert at Hihifo, but on his death, the chief still more hardening his
heart, it was agreed by the missionaries that Mr Thomas should remove
from that station to Haabai. They however first sent one Peter, a
native convert, to prepare the way, a plan which has been almost
universally successful. The missionaries now spent some time together
at Nukualofa, where the field appeared so promising. So indeed it
proved; often so crowded was the chapel, that the missionaries went out
amid the encampments of their visitors on the sea-side, that they might
preach to them the words of eternal life under the free vault of heaven.
It was at this time that K