220 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
representation of consequences, made by her friends, 
attended the school again, so soon as her strength 
admitted. Her infatuation, as they conceived it to be 
in this respect, not only encouraged her school-fellows, 
but, with other circumstances which occurred about the 
same time, made a considerable impression on the minds 
of the idolaters, and occasioned some of the priests 
publicly to declare their firm conviction ^^that the 
religion of the foreigners would prevail, in spite of all 
opposition r 
The progress of Divine truth was so rapid among 
the natives, that, in the close of 1814, not fewer than 
300 hearers regularly attended the preaching of the 
gospel. Upwards of 200 had given in their names, as 
professors of Christianity. Three hundred scholars 
attended the means of instruction in Eimeo; besides 
which, there were a number in Sir Charles Sander’s 
Island, Huahine, and Raiatea^ so that, at this time 
there is reason to believe that between five and six 
hundred had renounced idol-worship. 
These encouraging appearances, in regard to the 
affairs of the new converts, only appeared to arouse the 
anger of their idolatrous enemies, who were no longer 
satisfied with simply ridiculing, and treating with con¬ 
tempt, the objects of their hatred, but proceeded to more 
alarming plans of resistance against the progress of 
those new principles which were daily gaining ground 
among the people. It was by no means an uncontested 
triumph, nor an undisputed possession, that Christianity 
acquired in those islands; every inch was reluctantly sur¬ 
rendered \ and, at several periods, persecution raged, amid 
the Elysian bowers of Tahiti and Eimeo, as much as ever 
it had done in the valleys of Piedmont, or the metropolis 
