Many of their inquiries related to the proper observance of the Sabbath, and under what circumstances it would be proper to launch a canoe or undertake a voyage? This resulted from the king's sister being taken ill at Afareaitu, while we were residing there; and the natives wishing to send word to her relations, but hesitating because it was the Sabbath. A man once came and said, that while he was attending public worship, a pig broke into his garden; that on his return, he saw him devouring the sweet potatoes, sugar-cane, taro, and other productions, in which pine-apples were probably included, but that he did not drive it out, because he was convinced it would immediately return, unless he repaired the broken fence, and that he supposed was a kind of labour prohibited on the Sabbath. He therefore allowed the pig to remain till he was satisfied, and did not mend the fence till the following morning. He, however, wished to know, and the people in general were evidently interested in the inquiry-whether, in the event of a similar occurrence at any future period, he should do wrong in driving out the animal, and repairing the fence. He was told that the most secure way would be to keep the fence in good repair, but that if pigs should break in on the Sabbath, they ought by all means to be driven out, and the breaches they had made, so far repaired as to secure the enclosure till the following day. A chief of Huahine once asked me whether it would be right, supposing he were walking in his garden on that day, and saw ripe plantains hanging from the trees that grew by the side of the path, to gather and eat them: I answered, that I thought it would not be wrong. I felt inclined to do so, said he, last Sabbath, when walking in my garden; but on reflecting that I had

other fruit ready plucked and prepared, I hesitated,not because I believed it would be in itself sinful, but lest my attendants should notice it, and do so too, and it should become a general practice with the people to go to their gardens, and gather fruit to eat on the Sabbath, which would be very unfavourable to the proper observance of that sacred day.

Their inquiries referred not only to historical, biographical, and other facts connected with the sacred volume, but to those relating to other nations of the earth. The extent of territory, number of inhabitants, colour, language, religion, of the different countries of whom they had heard from occasional visiters, were topics of conversation at these meetings, together with the efforts of Christians to propagate the gospel among them. But the most interesting of these, referred to England; and although their recollections of Captain Cook were generally more indistinct, and very different from those entertained by the Sandwich Islanders, he was often alluded to; and we were asked, if any members of his family still survived, and whether they would ever come to the islands. The cities, towns, houses, carriages, dress, and manners of the English, the royal state of king George, the numbers in his army, the evolutions of his troops, the laws of the kingdom, the punishment of crimes, the principles of commerce, and the extent and variety of manufactures, were at different times brought forward.

Numbers of the natives had indeed visited England, but their observation had been so limited, or their accounts so contradictory and exaggerated, that their countrymen knew not what to believe, and not unfrequently, when any of these had returned, the substance

of their reports was brought to the questioning meeting, to receive our confirmation or explanation. The religious character and observances of the English were usually matters of great interest. The dimensions and number of our cathedrals, churches, and chapels, the size of the congregations, the proportion of the population that attended public worship, and the order of the services, were often topics of inquiry or conversation. The experience of those who were true Christians in England, was also introduced; and their remarks on this point, especially when they first became interested in the subject of religion themselves, were often rather amusing. "How happy the Christians in England must be," they would sometimes say."So many teachers, so many books, the whole of the Bible in their language, and no idolatry, they must have little else to do but to praise God. Their crimes have never been like ours; they never offered human sacrifices, murdered their infants, &c. Do they ever repent? have they any thing to repent of?" It was, however, only those who were recently awakened to a sense of the enormity of these crimes, and were but very partially informed as to the true state of England, that ever asked such questions as these.

The doctrine of the resurrection of the body has ever appeared to them, as it did when announced by the apostle to the civilized philosophers of Athens, or the. august rulers in the Roman hall of judgment, as a fact astounding or incredible. Of another world, and the existence of the soul in that world after the dissolution of the body, they appear at all times to have entertained some indistinct ideas; but the reanimation of the mouldering bodies of the dead, never seems, even in their

wildest flights of imagination, to have occurred to them. When first declared by the Missionaries, it merely awakened astonishment, and was considered as one among the many novel and striking facts connected with the doctrines which the new religion unfolded. But as the subject was more frequently brought under their notice in public discourse, or in reading the Scriptures, and their minds were more attentively exercised upon it in connexion with their ancestry, themselves, and their descendants, it appeared invested with more than ordinary difficulty; bordering, to their apprehension, on impossibility. On this, as well as other equally important points, their queries, from native simplicity and entire ignorance, were sometimes both puerile and amusing.

A number of the attendants on the queen's sister, soon after their reception of Christianity, came to the meeting, and stated that one of their friends had died a few days before, and that they had buried the corpse according to their ancient manner, not laying it straight in a coffin, as Christians were accustomed to do, but placing it in a sitting posture, with the face between the knees, the hands under the thighs, and the whole body bound round with cords. Since the interment, (they added,) they had been thinking about the resurrection, and wished to know how the body would then appear, whether, if left in that manner, it would not rise deformed, and whether they had not better disinter the corpse, and deposit it in a straight or horizontal position. A suitable reply was of course returned. They were directed to let it remain undisturbedthat probably long before the resurrection it would be so completely dissolved, and mingled with the surrounding

earth, that no trace would be left of the form in which it had been deposited.

Questions of this kind were only presented during the first stages of their christian progress, and they were not frequent. In general their inquiries were exceedingly interesting. The time when, the means by which, the attending circumstances, and the manner of the resurrection, the recognition of friends, the identity of the bodies of adults, and whether the souls of infants would be united to infant bodies, and whether they would be as inferior in the future state, as their powers and faculties appeared in this, often furnished matter for hours of interesting conversation. There were, however, other points of inquiry peculiarly affecting to themselves.

Many of their reladevoured by sharks;

tives or countrymen had been a limb or large portion of the fleshy part of the body of others, had been destroyed by these savage fish. A constant attendant on these meetings at Afareaitu had, while we resided there, one side of his face torn off, and eaten by one. The sharks, that had eaten men, were perhaps afterwards caught, and became food for the natives, who might themselves be devoured by other sharks. Cannibalism, though some deny its having been practised among themselves, is supposed to have existed in one of the islands at least, and is known, and universally acknowledged to prevail among those by which they are surrounded; and it is not considered by them improbable that some of their own countrymen have been eaten by the islanders among whom they have, from stress of weather, been cast. The men who had eaten their fellow-men, might, and perhaps often were, (as many of the cannibals inhabit