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qiient life. His father Pomare^ and his mother Idia, 
were probably more infatuated with idolatry^ and more 
uniformly attached to the idols^ and every institution 
connected with their worship, than even the priests, or 
perhaps any other individuals in the islands. He had 
been early and often initiated in all the mysteries of 
falsehood and abomination connected with the system, 
and had engaged with avidity in the bloody and 
murderous rites of idol worship. In addition to this, 
he had been nurtured amid the debasing and pollut¬ 
ing immorality, for which his country, ever since its 
discovery, had been distinguished; and although his 
ideas of the moral perfections of the true God might be 
but indistinct, and his views of the purity required in 
the gospel but partial, yet it might naturally be ex¬ 
pected, that the convictions of guilt in such an indi¬ 
vidual, when first awakened to a sense of the nature and 
consequence of sin, would be deep and severe. That 
this was actually the case, appears from several letters 
which he wrote to the Missionaries soon after his 
arrival in Tahiti, as well as from the conversation they 
had with him on the subject. 
In a letter, dated Tahiti, September 25, 1812, he thus 
expresses himself: May the anger of Jehovah be 
appeased towards me, who am a wicked man, guilty of 
accumulated crimes,—of regardlessness and ignorance of 
the true God, and of an obstinate perseverance in wick¬ 
edness ! May Jehovah also pardon my foolishness, unbe¬ 
lief, and rejection of the truth ! May Jehovah give me 
his good Spirit to sanctify my heart, that I may love 
what is good, and that I may be enabled to put away 
all my evil customs, and become one of his people, and 
be saved through Jesus Christ, our only Saviour ! I am 
