268 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
baptism is only the external sign. When we first 
administered that ordinance^ we had no idea of the natives 
thronging in such numbers to receive it, and conse¬ 
quently had not deliberated on the term of that probation 
which we afterwards deemed it desirable to institute. 
The same interesting state of the people by which the 
close of 1819 had been distinguished, marked the com¬ 
mencement of 1820. Never were our direct Missionary 
labours more arduous and incessant; and yet during no 
period of our residence there, were they more delightful. 
We beheld indeed the isles waiting for the laws and 
institutions of Messiah, and felt that we had been sent 
to a people emphatically prepared of the Lord, made 
willing in the day of his power. 
The inhabitants of the remote districts which we had 
periodically visited, were many of them no longer satis¬ 
fied with an opportunity for conversation on religious 
subjects once a week, but came and built their houses in 
the neighbourhood of Fare. We recommended those 
who remained, to do the same 5 and soon after the annual 
meetings in May, they so far complied as to render it 
unnecessary for us to visit these stations. 
Our spacious chapel was opened in the latter end of 
April, on which occasion I read a translation of the sixth 
chapter of the second book of Chronicles, and afterwards 
preached from the sixth verse. Our Missionary meeting 
was remarkably well attended, and the subscriptions pro- 
portionably liberal; they amounted to between three and 
four thousand gallons of oil, besides cotton, and other 
trifling articles. 
In the midst of this delightful state of things, the sta¬ 
tions were visited with a distressing epidemic, which 
spread through the whole group of islands, and proved 
