BY THE ART OF VENTRILOQUISM. 221 
He was aware that it would excite surprise in the 
New-Zealand mind, and apprehended that, if pro- 
perly used, it would awaken their curiosity and 
fix their superstition : he therefore persuaded this 
young man to give out, that he was either a god, 
or a teacher sent from God ; and then to prove his 
mission by throwing his voice into inanimate sub- 
stances, making it appear that the very stones bore 
testimony to the truth of his statements : and then 
to address the people in confirmation of what he 
was teaching. The young man adopted the plan 
— gave to his god the name of Papahurihia — an- 
nounced the changing of the Sabbath-day from 
Sunday to Saturday — and succeeded in gaining 
the attention of many who acknowledged him as a 
teacher : but at the same time, he himself declared 
that the God whom we worshipped was the great 
and the Holy God, and that the religion of J esus 
Christ, which we taught, was the true religion ; 
only, that we were wrong in the day on which we 
more particularly required the people to worship 
God. In the midst of all this, some very strange 
things were asserted, which, notwithstanding the 
wonderful display of his ventriloquism, convinced 
the Natives, almost universally, that he must be 
an impostor. We thought the better way was, to 
watch its progress in silence, lest by much inter- 
ference we should give a notoriety to the subject ; 
convinced, at the same time, that, as it was not of 
God, it must soon come to nought. I should not 
even now have related the fact, but to show, by one 
