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influence over the populace. The power of the gods 
often seemed only exercised to establish the authority 
of the king, who was by the people regarded as filling 
his high station by lineal descent from them, while the 
measures of the government as often appeared to be pur¬ 
sued to inspire fear, and secure acknowledgments for the 
gods. Hence, when human sacrifices were required, the 
priest applied to the king, and the king gave orders to 
provide the victim. Since the kings and chiefs, as well as 
the people, had embraced the gospel, and many had taken 
the lead in propagating it, and had uniformly adorned it 
by their example, and the people sometimes said, that had 
their chiefs been idolaters or wicked rulers, it would have 
been improper for them to have interfered in any matters 
connected with Christianity, but that now they were truly 
pious, it accorded with their ideas of propriety, that in 
the Christian church they should, as Christian chiefs, be 
pre-eminent. 
We told them they had not imbibed these ideas in a 
Christian, but in a pagan school; that the authority of 
their kings and chiefs was exerted over their persons, and 
regarded their outward conduct; that they held their high 
station under God, for the well-being of society, and were, 
when influenced by uprightness and humanity, the great¬ 
est blessings to the communities over which they pre¬ 
sided. We also stated, that in this station every Chris¬ 
tian was bound, no less by duty to God than to man, to 
render obedience to their laws, to respect and maintain 
their authority, and to pay them every due homage. 
And we also told them, that in the church of Jesus Christ, 
which was purely a religious association, so far as dis¬ 
tinctions among men, from dignity of station, elevation 
of office, fame of achievement, or influence of wealth. 
