POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
237 
sidered as an indication of his purpose that she should 
be trained up in the new religion^ was a source of great 
encouragement to the converts^ and of corresponding- 
dissatisfaction to the idolaters^ who already began to 
meditate on the means of their destruction. 
It was not in Pare and Matavai alone that the pro¬ 
fessed worshippers of God were to be found. Some 
there were who openly avowed their attachment to the 
new order of things^ maintaining^ in the midst of the 
heathen around them^ daily worship in their families^ and 
morning and evening private devotion; others^ who, for 
fear of giving offence to their chiefs or neighbours, 
maintained secretly their profession, and at the hour of 
midnight met together, as the persecuted Christians in 
England have often formerly done, in the depths of the 
woods, or the retired glens of the valleys, for conference 
or social prayer. 
The state of affairs in Tahiti was such, as to prevent 
the queen and her sister from proceeding on their in¬ 
tended tour of the island ; but while they remained at 
Pare, a circumstance occurred similar to that which had 
transpired in Eimeo, though probably more decisive and 
important in its immediate results. 
When a present of food and cloth was brought to the 
visitors by some of the chiefs of Tahiti, the priests also 
attended, and, observing the party disinclined to 
acknowledge or render the customary homage to the 
gods, began to expatiate on the power of the gods, and, 
pointing to some bunches of ura, or red feathers, which 
were always considered emblematical of their deities, em¬ 
ployed insulting language, and threatened with vengeance 
the queen’s companions. One of Pomare-vahine’s men, 
the individual who had offered their acknowledgments to 
