POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
225 
existence in what are properly the Society Islands. It is 
not probable that it will ever be revived^ and^ at a recent 
public meetings in alluding to it, as illustrative of the 
former, and contrasting it with the present state of the 
people, the native speaker concluded by saying, Behold, 
under the gospel of Jesus Christ, this land, where man- 
eaters have dwelt, has become a land of neighbours and 
of brethren.^’ 
No people in the world, in ancient or modern times, 
appear to have been more superstitious than the South 
Sea Islanders, or to have been more entirely under the 
influence of dread from imaginary demons, or super¬ 
natural beings. They had not only their major but their 
minor demons, or spirits, and all the minute ramifica¬ 
tions of idolatry. Sorcery and witchcraft were exten¬ 
sively practised. By this art, the sorcerers pretended 
to be able to inflict the most painful maladies, and to 
deprive of life the victims of their mysterious rites. 
It is unnecessary now to inquire whether satanic 
agency affects the bodies of men. We know this 
was the fact at the time our Saviour appeared on 
earth. Many of the natives of these islands are firmly 
persuaded, that while they were idolaters, their bodies 
were subject to most excruciating sufferings, from the 
direct operation of satanic power. In this opinion they 
might be mistaken, and that which they regarded as the 
effect of super-human agency, might be only the influ-^ 
ence of imagination, or the result of poison. But con¬ 
sidering the undisputed exercise of such an influence, 
recognized in the declarations and miracles of our Lord 
and of his apostles, existing not only in heathen, but 
Jev/ish society, and considering, in connexion with this, 
the undisputed dominion, moral and intellectual, which 
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