not
to leave so important a subject in a state calculated to convey erroneous
impressions. Let us bestow upon it, therefore, something more than a mere
cursory glance.
    But, in the first place, let it be distinctly understood, that in all I have
to say upon this subject, both here and elsewhere, I mean no harm to the
missionaries, nor their cause: I merely desire to set forth things as they
actually exist.
    Of the results which have flowed from the intercourse of foreigners with the
Polynesians, including the attempts to civilise and Christianise them by the
missionaries, Tahiti, on many accounts, is obviously the fairest practical
example. Indeed, it may now be asserted that the experiment of Christianising
the Tahitians, and improving their social condition by the introduction of
foreign customs, has been fully tried. The present generation have grown up
under the auspices of their religious instructors. And although it may be urged
that the labours of the latter have at times been more or less obstructed by
unprincipled foreigners, still this in no wise renders Tahiti any the less a
fair illustration; for, with obstacles like these, the missionaries in Polynesia
must always, and everywhere struggle.
    Nearly sixty years have elapsed since the Tahitian mission was started; and
during this period it has received the unceasing prayers and contributions of
its friends abroad. Nor has any enterprise of the kind called forth more
devotion on the part of those directly employed in it.
    It matters not, that the earlier labourers in the work, although strictly
conscientious, were, as a class, ignorant, and, in many cases, deplorably
bigoted: such traits have, in some degree, characterised the pioneers of all
faiths. And although, in zeal and disinterestedness, the missionaries now on the
island are, perhaps, inferior to their predecessors, they have, nevertheless, in
their own way at least, laboured hard to make a Christian people of their
charge.
    Let us now glance at the most obvious changes wrought in their condition.
    The entire system of idolatry has been done away, together with several
barbarous practices engrafted thereon. But this result is not so much to be
ascribed to the missionaries as to the civilising effects of a long and constant
intercourse with whites of all nations; to whom, for many years, Tahiti has been
one of the principal places of resort in the South Seas. At the Sandwich
Islands, the potent institution of the Taboo, together with the entire paganism
of the land, was utterly abolished by a voluntary act of the natives, some time
previous to the arrival of the first missionaries among them.