82 OBUISE OF THE 'GUBAQOA.' 



planatory of this abstinence from religious violence is a 

 certain feature of their theology (if we may depend upon 

 the account of it wliicli Captain Wilkes tells us he received 

 from the heathen or non-christianised natives), namely, their 

 notion of a supreme God which seems to have excluded the 

 attribute of violence or war-patronage. But, inasmuch as 

 there is an inevitable tendency to war which must have super- 

 natural patronage, they admitted three subordinate deities, 

 one of whom enticed them to war, another Avho led them 

 to it, and a tliird, like Bellona, who encouraged them to ' 

 fight. In thus placing their supreme God above the insti- 

 gation or superintendence of human destruction and 

 slaughter, their views had the advantage over those of the 

 Mosaic scheme, which regarded God as the Lord of hosts. 

 So sensible, indeed, had some of the Jewish people just 

 before the birth of Christianity become of this blot in their 

 own faith, that we find one of the most eminent of them, 

 the famous, patriotic, and pious Jew of Alexandria, Philo, 

 earnestly and eloquently protesting against the belligerent 

 character ascribed to God in the Old Testament, declaring 

 it to be a temporary accommodation to uninstructed minds 

 yet incapable of higlier conceptions, and looking beneath 

 the rudeness of the letter for an interpretation more in har- 

 mony with a belief in a beneficent deity, the object of vene- 

 ration and love. 



The population of Upolu is about 15,000, including 120 

 Europeans. A slight increase has taken place since the 

 census of 1854. With the exception of two or three 



