SERMON PREACHED ON THE ISLAND. 293 
committing an unjustifiable act that of 
mutiny fled for safety to Pitcairn, an iso- 
lated rock in the South Pacific Ocean, taking 
with them some Otaheitan men and women. 
Within ten years, all the men, with the ex- 
ception of two, came to an untimely end; 
one of these two died of consumption ; and 
the last of this party of mutineers was left on 
the island with five or six heathen women, 
and twenty fatherless children. After some 
time, this man, John Adams by name, be- 
came seriously impressed with the respon- 
sibility of the situation in which he was 
placed. Here were a number of young per- 
sons, between the ages of five and fifteen 
years, growing up in ignorance of the God 
who made them. And they would, humanly 
speaking, in a few years have become con- 
firmed idolaters, from the example of their 
heathen mothers. 
" These considerations weighed heavily on 
Adams's mind ; and ij was then that he had 
two alarming dreams, which so affected him, 
that he could scarcely eat or sleep for some 
time ; when he bethought himself of the 
Bible, brought on shore from the Bounty, 
