POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
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disposition was amiable^ her piety unaffected, and her 
love for the poor heathens unfeigned. I trust she is now 
resting from her labours in Abraham’s bosom; and that 
some poor heathens, amongst whom she had lived, have 
gone before, and that some will follow after, to glory.” 
This afflictive bereavement was followed by another 
equally painful, viz. the death of Mrs. Davies,—^which 
took place on the fourth of the following September. 
Her disconsolate partner had scarcely received the sym¬ 
pathies of his companions in exile and labour, when the 
newly closed grave of the mother was opened again, to 
receive the remains of an infant daughter, who sur¬ 
vived its parent but three short weeks. In one week 
more, Mrs. Hayward terminated in death her sufferings, 
and was buried by the side of her departed sisters. The 
letters which conveyed to England the animating 
tidings of the first dawning of a brighter day on Tahiti, 
conveyed also the sad recital of these inroads of death; 
and well might the Missionaries on that occasion sing 
of mercy and of judgment.” 
When death enters a family, and removes a wife 
and a mother from the social and domestic circle, 
though every alleviation which society, friendship, and 
religion can impart are available, there is a chasm left, 
and a wound inflicted on the survivors, which must be 
felt in order to be understood: when death repeatedly 
enters in this way a family connexion, the distress is 
proportionably augmented; but it is impossible to 
form an adequate idea of the desolateness of the 
Mission family, (for such it might be called,) at this 
time, and the cheerless solitude of those thus bereft of 
the partners of their days, and the mothers of their 
children. They were left to sustain alone the toils. 
