316 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
account of their vices. There were, however, in connexion 
with these truths, matters associated with the impression 
upon their minds, that sometimes a little surprised us. 
Under declarations of the nature and dreadful conse¬ 
quences of sin, aggravated as theirs had been, the denun¬ 
ciation of the penalties of the law of God, and even under 
the awakenings of their own consciences to a conviction 
of sin, we seldom perceived that deep and acute distress 
of mind, which in circumstances of a similar kind we 
should have expected. In connexion with this, when 
such individuals were enabled to exercise faith in the 
atonement of Christ, and to indulge a hope of exemption 
from all the fearful effects of sin and guilt, this apprehen- * 
sion has not, in many instances, been attended by that 
sudden relief, and that ecstatic joy, which is often mani¬ 
fested in other parts of the world, by individuals in cor¬ 
responding circumstances. Yet, in many instances, we 
have not doubted the sincerity of their declarations, or 
the genuineness of their faith in the Redeemer. 
We have often tried to account for this apparent 
anomaly in their Christian character, but have not been 
altogether satisfied with the causes to which we have 
sometimes assigned it. It does not appear, generally, 
that their emotions are so acute as ours, or, that they 
are equally susceptible of joy and sorrow with per¬ 
sons trained in civilized society. Besides this, though 
their ideas of the nature and consequences of sin, the 
blessedness of forgiveness, and the hope of future happi¬ 
ness, were correct so far as they went, yet the varied 
representations of the punishment and sufferings of the 
wicked, and the corresponding views of heaven, as the 
state of the greatest blessedness, being to them partial 
and new, the impressions were probably vague and 
