160 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES, 
The duration of sufferings inflicted on the wicked 
in the future state, was occasionally introduced; and 
more than once I have heard them ask, if none of their 
ancestors, nor any of the former inhabitants of the 
islands, had gone to heaven? This, to us and to 
them, was one of the most distressing discussions upon 
which we ever entered. To them it was peculiarly so ; 
for we may naturally suppose, the recollection of the 
individuals whom many of them had perhaps poisoned, 
murdered without provocation, slain in battle, or killed 
for sacrifice, would on these occasions forcibly recur to 
their minds; and at these times, many a parent’s heart 
must have been rent with anguish, to us inconceiv-- 
able at the remembrance of those children in whose 
blood their hands had been imbrued. Besides these 
sources of intensely painful reflection, there is some¬ 
thing overwhelming in the thought of relatives and 
friends removed from the world of hope and probation, 
having their doom irrevocably fixed I Hence we could 
perceive a degree of painful emotion among the peo¬ 
ple, whenever the subject was introduced ; and although 
less intimately affected by this inquiry than those around 
us, it was to us a most appalling subject—one on which 
we could not dwell with composure. This feeling, on 
their parts, also, has been at times almost overpowering, 
and has either suspended our conversation, or induced 
an abrupt transition to some other topic. 
This is a most distressing consideration, and is a subject 
often brought before a Missionary’s mind, from the cir¬ 
cumstances into which his engagements lead him, and 
the intimate connexion of his every effort with the future 
and eternal destinies of those around him; while it 
furnishes, next to the love of Christ, one of the most 
