256 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
thus initiated into the outward church of Christ. Hua- 
hine was a new station, and few of the inhabitants, when 
we landed, knew much more of Christianity than its 
name. Fifteen months had elapsed since our arrival, 
and during that period, we had made the doctrines and 
general precepts of the gospel the topics of our dis¬ 
courses, among a people who had every thing to learn. 
Many of them now came forward, declaring their desire 
to become altogether the disciples of the Saviour, to 
make a public profession of faith in him by baptism, 
and to seek instruction in all his will. We found that, 
had we been so disposed, we could no longer defer the 
rite, with regard at least to some of those who applied. 
Anxious that it should be on their part a reasonable act, 
and that, before being received, it should be understood, 
we proposed to meet one afternoon every week, with those 
who desired to be baptized. At this meeting we en¬ 
deavoured to instruct them in the nature, origin, design, 
and subjects of the ordinance, together with the duties 
of those who should receive it. There was no wish on 
our parts to baptize by stratagem, as some of the popish 
Missionaries have done, but we sought to make the peo¬ 
ple well acquainted with the matter in all its bearings.— 
At the first weekly assemblies, between twenty and thirty 
of the most promising of the converts attended, after¬ 
wards the numbers exceeded four or five hundred. 
In the instructions given, the Scriptures, and the Scrip¬ 
tures only, were our guide; and we endeavoured to incul¬ 
cate the doctrine as we found it there, and as if it had 
never been controverted. Our warrant for its adminis¬ 
tration we derived from our Lord’s commission to the first 
Missionaries, which was also our own. In its nature, we 
instructed them not to consider baptism as possessing any 
