156 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
the natives were hired to build this first school and 
chapel in Eimeo. It was then much more compact^ and 
the width better proportioned than it now appeared. 
It had always been employed, not only as a school, but 
also as a chapel. When the number of scholars and 
worshippers of the true God increased, so as to 
render accommodation difficult, one of the ends had 
been taken down, a new piece of timber joined to the 
ridge pole, the building lengthened about twelve or 
fifteen feet, and the end then closed up. When the 
place became again too small, a similar enlargement 
had been made ; and, as the new piece which supported 
the roof, was laid upon the former ridge pole, it dis¬ 
tinctly marked the increase of Christian worshippers at 
the place within the last four or five years. 
The first Sabbath I spent in the islands, was a day of 
deep and delightful interest. The Missionaries were 
accustomed to meet for prayer at sun-rise, on the morn¬ 
ing of the Sabbath. This service I attended, and was 
also gratified to find, that not fewer than four or five 
hundred of the natives, imitating their teachers in this 
respect, met for the purpose of praise and supplication 
to the true God, during the interval of public worship, 
which was held early in the morning, and four in the 
afternoon. 
About a quarter before nine in the morning, I accom¬ 
panied Mr. Crook to the public worship of the natives, 
held in the same house in which I had visited the 
school a day or two before. It was, indeed, a rude and 
perishable building, totally destitute of every thing im¬ 
posing in effect, or exquisite in workmanship ; yet I 
beheld it with emotions of pleasure, as the first roof 
under which the natives of Tahiti had assembled, in 
