January 31, 1801.-Among the natives around us are many objects of compassion, whose bodies are wasting with disease, and their souls hurrying into eternity in a state of the utmost insensibility. It is surprising what havock disease has made since we have been on the island. Matavai is almost depopulated, in comparison to what it once was, according to the accounts given by the natives; and not only in this district, but the whole island. Stout men are cut down in a few months; women and children share the like fate. They say the disorder that makes such havock among them came from England; and we have told them repeatedly, that it is owing to the wickedness of their women, in prostituting themselves to the sailors of the vessels that come here. They understand what we say, and assent to the truth of it; but their hearts are so set upon COVETOUSNESS, that the appearance of a vessel effaces all remembrance of the evils they have suffered, and are suffering, and they burn with a desire to obtain something, if it is but a rag; this induces husbands to prostitute their wives, and parents their children. God must with his outstretched arm turn them, or they never will be turned; pluck them as brands from the burning of their lusts, or they never will be saved. We cease not to pray our Heavenly Father in Christ to have mercy upon the perishing bodies and souls around us; we endeavour to warn them of their danger, and show them how it is to be avoided, and we wait for God to arise and have mercy upon them.

The following occurrence affords a melancholy confirmation of man's corruption, and that by nature our feet are swift to shed blood. A young man yesterday cut the hair of another, (a near relation we understand,) and shaved his beard, with a keen sharp-pointed knife. In the evening, his relation, whom he had thus obliged, took an opportunity to steal his scissors. This morning the owner of the scissors knowing, or suspecting who had taken them, took the razor-knife, and went in quest of the thief: having found him, he charged him with the crime-the other denied it-the former insisted upon it that he was the thief, and from a few words went to blows; the man with the knife stabbed the other in a dreadful manner in his breast, and wounded him shockingly in one of his arms, and the calf of one of his legs. He would soon have killed him, if some by-standers had not timely interfered. Mr. Broomhall immediately went and sowed up the wound in his breast, and applied such suitable remedies as he had. It is probable he would soon have been a dead man, if Mr. Broomhall had not been at hand to render him assistance; for which, however, the generality of the beholders appeared to censure him; alleging, that as the man was a thief, he deserved what he had got, and should be left to die. Human nature, its present fallen state, is the same in all ages, in all parts of the world, unnatural, implacable, unmerciful.

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The person who was guilty of this cruelty, received in the struggle a deep cut in his right arm,

which he had afterwards dressed by Mr. Broomhall, without any apparent concern. Pomarre takes no notice of this matter.

This morning a human sacrifice was brought into this district from Hapyano, which they were taking to Pomarre. Two of the brethren saw the corpse; it was tied up in a long basket of cocoanut leaves; his head was much bruised with stones, with which they had killed him.

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When our two neighbours the other day, gave us information concerning the thief, amongst other things we were informed, that the Otaheitans practise enchantment in order to discover a robber. The manner is this; a pit is made, and water put therein; the priest holding a young plantain tree in his right hand, utters his prayers over this pit, till the spirit of the thief is reflected in the water. does not appear that every priest can do this: the circumstance was told us of Otoo, who is priest as well as king. We have also been lately informed that the Otaheitans are guilty of self-murder, generally on the following account: a man is upbraided by his wife and her family, because he does not make them presents, and is bid to begone, and come no more near them. This sometimes makes so deep an impression upon the despised husband, that he is resolved to destroy himself, which he effects by casting himself from some rocky precipice or lofty cocoa-nut tree."

Extracts might be multiplied, but the preceding ones may suffice to give the reader some idea of the

state of society in Otaheite, during the first years that the Missionaries of the London Society resided there.

Who can look upon such scenes without horror! who would not bless the philanthropist who should attempt to deliver this degraded people from their slavish subjection to the prince of darkness? How awful, and how appalling, to behold a whole community governed by such licentious, idolatrous, and savage principles, nerving the arm of murder against all ages and both sexes, from the new born infant to the superannuated priest; polluting and embittering all the relations of life, showing one undistinguished mass of corruption, where life is full of crime, and death apparently without hope. To infuse virtue into such a population, imparting comfort and order to all the relations of life, and gilding the dying hour with the sunbeams of eternal life, would indeed be a charity worthy of an immortal, and glorifying even to Jehovah himself, the only living and true God, by whose blessing alone, such a charity could be consummated.

Pause here, Reader! and consider, whether such a miraculous change could be effected; altering the current of time to succeeding generations in Otaheite, from being a vehicle of misery and guilt, into a gentler tide, bearing on its wave the blessings of life, and the hopes of immortality-muse! and let the sacred fire burn in thy bosom, the fire of compassion for the benighted heathen, and of gratitude to the Lord of heaven and earth, that He has cast thy happy lot in such a favoured land.

From this period until the year 1804, the Mis

sionaries experienced but little variety in their circumstances and situation. The natives pursued their iniquitous and murderous courses, regardless of the counsels, and despising the example, of the holy men, who had left country and kindred to lead a sinful people, a people laden with iniquity, to the great Redeemer of souls; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God. The rumours of war, occasional insurrections, the thirst of each other's blood, and the ferocious habits of the surrounding heathen, added personal danger to unsuccessful labours.

Within the hallowed dwellings of those modern apostles, the worship of God and the practice of virtue, shone with peaceful lustre and an holy beauty. But to the limits of their residence was yet confined that sacred fire of heavenly origin, which waited for the divine command to kindle a flame that should diffuse itself through every heart, purifying the affections and reforming the manners of a whole nation.

There, unprotected by man, the servants of Jehovah rested in faith; the promises of his word threw a shield over them; "Fear not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I AM THY GOD!" and, were the prayer of Elisha answered to their servants as to his own servant, when he prayed, "Lord, open his eyes, that he may see," the same scene would, no doubt, be disclosed, as when "the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." Calmly

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