He
Remained Some Time At Tahiti; Receiving The Hospitalities Of The
Missionaries There, And, From Time To Time, Exhorting The Natives.
After bewailing their social condition, he frankly says of their
religious state, "Certainly, appearances are unpromising; and however
unwilling to adopt such a conclusion, there is reason to apprehend
that Christian principle is a great rarity."
Such, then, is the testimony of good and unbiassed men, who have been
upon the spot; but, how comes it to differ so widely from impressions
of others at home? Simply thus: instead of estimating the result of
missionary labours by the number of heathens who have actually been
made to understand and practise (in some measure at least) the
precepts of Christianity, this result has been unwarrantably inferred
from the number of those who, without any understanding of these
things, have in any way been induced to abandon idolatry and conform
to certain outward observances.
By authority of some kind or other, exerted upon the natives through
their chiefs, and prompted by the hope of some worldly benefit to the
latter, and not by appeals to the reason, have conversions in
Polynesia been in most cases brought about.
Even in one or two instances - so often held up as wonderful examples
of divine power - where the natives have impulsively burned their
idols, and rushed to the waters of baptism, the very suddenness of
the change has but indicated its unsoundness. Williams, the martyr of
Erromanga, relates an instance where the inhabitants of an island
professing Christianity voluntarily assembled, and solemnly revived
all their heathen customs.
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