POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
223 
Not only were the sacred materials with which the altars^ 
and the apendages of the temple, had been constructed, 
converted into fuel ; but the food, considered sacred, was 
esteemed so no longer, the invidious and debasing dis¬ 
tinctions attached to the females were removed, and both 
sexes, among those who professed Christianity, sat down 
together to their cheerful meal. 
Under the influence of these encouraging prospects, 
although enfeebled by frequent indisposition, the Mis¬ 
sionaries prosecuted their work; their scholars increased 
in the same degree that the profession of Christianity 
prevailed, and a supply of four hundred copies of their 
abridgment of the New Testament, and a thousand 
copies of small elementary books, which had been printed 
in New South Wales, arrived very opportunely about 
this time; spelling books they were still much in want 
of, as those formerly printed in England had long been 
expended. 
Such was the pleasing state of things in the com¬ 
mencement of 1815. The importance and advantages of 
education appeared to be more extensively appreciated, 
and between forty and fifty, principally adults, regularly 
attended the Mission school. The agents of vice, ido¬ 
latry, and cruelty, were not inactive. The struggle 
between light and darkness, truth and error, order and 
anarchy, benevolence and barbarism, had never ap¬ 
peared more intense and conspicuous, than at this 
time. The little band of scholars in the Mission 
school, and worshippers in the chapel, unwilling to 
enjoy their privileges alone, employed every proper 
and persuasive means to induce their friends and 
relatives to attend to these things; at least to make 
a trial of the school, and to hear what was said about 
