POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
255 
Although the subsequent conduct of Pomare was a 
matter of the deepest regret to his best friends, yet there 
was something in the ceremony unusually imposing ^ and 
the emotions associated with it, must have been intense 
and interesting, especially to the two elder Missionaries, 
who had performed the rite. He had been identified 
with the chief events of their lives; upwards of two and 
twenty years had rolled by since the providence of God 
first brought them acquainted with him on the shores of 
Matavai; and in connexion with that interview which 
memory would, probably, present in strong and vivid 
colours on this occasion, they, perhaps, recollected the 
opinion formed of him, by the humane commander of the 
Duff, that he appeared the last person likely to receive 
the gospel. Yet amid the thickest darkness that had ever 
veiled their prospects, through him the first cheering ray 
of dawning light had broken upon them: he was their 
first convert; in every difficulty, he had been their steady 
friend; in every labour, a ready coadjutor; and had now 
publicly professed that his faith was grounded on that 
rock whereon their own was fixed, and his hopes, with 
theirs, derived from one common source. What intense 
and mingled hopes and fears must have pervaded their 
hearts ! what hallowed joy must they have felt in antici¬ 
pation of fiis being with them an heir of immortality, 
chastened with appalling, and not ungrounded fears, that 
after all he might become a cast-away. 
Numbers, both adults and children, were subsequently 
baptized in the Windward Islands, but it was not until 
some months after, that the ordinance was dispensed to 
any in the Leward or Society group. 
It was in Huahine that the first, from among those who 
had renounced paganism in the Leeward Islands, were 
