th full knowledge of what is
called the "Great Revival at the Sandwich Islands," about the year
1836; when several thousands were, in the course of a few weeks,
admitted into the bosom of the Church. But this result was brought
about by no sober moral convictions; as an almost instantaneous
relapse into every kind of licentiousness soon after testified. It
was the legitimate effect of a morbid feeling, engendered by the
sense of severe physical wants, preying upon minds excessively prone
to superstition; and, by fanatical preaching, inflamed into the belief
that the gods of the missionaries were taking vengeance upon the
wickedness of the land.

It is a noteworthy fact that those very traits in the Tahitians, which
induced the London Missionary Society to regard them as the most
promising subjects for conversion, and which led, moreover, to the
selection of their island as the very first field for missionary
labour, eventually proved the most serious obstruction. An air of
softness in their manners, great apparent ingenuousness and docility,
at first misled; but these were the mere accompaniments of an
indolence, bodily and mental; a constitutional voluptuousness; and an
aversion to the least restraint; which, however fitted for the
luxurious state of nature, in the tropics, are the greatest possible
hindrances to the strict moralities of Christianity.

Added to all this is a quality inherent in Polynesians; and more akin
to hypocrisy than anything else. It leads them to assume the most
passionate interest in matters for which they really feel little or
none whatever; but in which, those whose power they dread, or whose
favour they court, they believe to be at all affected. Thus, in their
heathen state, the Sandwich Islanders actually knocked out their
teeth, tore their hair, and mangled their bodies with shells, to
testify their inconsolable grief at the demise of a high chief, or
member of the royal family. And yet, Vancouver relates that, on such
an occasion, upon which he happened to be present, those apparently
the most abandoned to their feelings, immediately assumed the utmost
light-heartedness on receiving the present of a penny whistle, or a
Dutch looking-glass. Similar instances, also, have come under my own
observation.

The following is an illustration of the trait alluded to, as
occasionally manifested among the converted Polynesians.

At one of the Society Islands--Baiatair, I believe--the natives, fo