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POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
any of the prayers^ they have always recited them in 
these tones. 
Nothing can exceed the horror they have of their 
former worship. An instance of this kind occurred at 
Parea with an old blind priest of the fisherman’s temple 
there. When the majority of the inhabitants embraced 
Christianity^ he declared he would not abandon the idols, 
nor unite in the worship of the God of the Christians; 
and in order to shew his determination, on the Sabbath- 
day, when the people went to the chapel, he went out to 
work in, I think, a part of the ground belonging to his 
temple : while thus engaged in mending a fence, a bough 
struck his eyes, and not only inflicted great pain, but 
deprived him of his sight, and, like Elymas, he was 
obliged to be led home. This circumstance deeply 
affected his mind ; he became a firm believer in the true 
God, maintained an upright and resigned frame of mind, 
and, when baptized, adopted the name of Paul, from the 
similarity in the means employed in humbling and con¬ 
verting him, and those used to bring the apostle to a 
sense of the power and mercy of the Saviour. He died 
in 1824. Two or three years before this, I visited his 
residence; and, in company with others, attended him to 
the temple of which he had been priest. After examining 
its ruins, we requested him to recite, simply for our 
information relative to the nature of the former worship, 
one of the prayers he had been accustomed to offer there. 
After great persuasion, he consented, and, assuming the 
crouching position, or sitting as it were on his heels, he 
commenced, in a shrill, tremulous tone, to repeat the 
names of the gods, &c., but he was soon seized with a 
violent trembling and evident alarm, and declared he 
durst not, he could not proceed. Corresponding appre- 
