POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
141 
applause. It has sometimes been unwarrantably insi- 
nuated^ that the founders of the Missionary Society 
expected to convert the heathen to Christianity by 
their own energy; and the allegation has been occa¬ 
sionally repeated since those days,—perhaps in some 
instances, to increase the impression produced by the 
accounts of the recent changes which have taken place 
in those islands, contrasting the former and latter results 
of Missionary labours, and representing them as demon¬ 
strations of the impotency of man, and the power of 
the Most High. The lively feeling that attended the 
establishment of the Missionary Society, the liberality 
of the principles recognized as its basis, and the com¬ 
bination of different parties in its support, were at that 
time adapted to excite in minds of a cautious and delibe¬ 
rative habit, and fearful of innovation, the apprehension 
that it had originated in a desire, on the part of its 
projectors, to signalize themselves, and secure a name 
and influence in the Christian world, to which they 
were not otherwise entitled. Individuals, whose minds 
were deeply imbued with the subject, who had iden¬ 
tified themselves with its progress and its results, and 
had embarked not only their influence, but much of their 
property, in the undertaking, might, and probably did, 
under the ardour of their feelings, indulge on some occa¬ 
sions in a splendour of imagery, and a richness of de¬ 
scription, that exceeded the sober realities of fact: but 
they never imagined that they could subvert any system 
of idolatry by their own agency ; or, that their efforts 
would be in any degree effectual for the conversion of 
the people, but as they were attended by the influence of 
the Holy Spirit. There might be, and perhaps was, a 
more confident hope of the speedy accomplishment of the 
