328 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
the civilization of the people^ attending tlie religious meet¬ 
ings^ together with our pastoral duties, now pressed so 
heavily upon us, that we found some assistance requisite. 
This we necessarily sought among the converts, and 
were happy to find four persons, members of the 
church, suitable to act as assistants, whom we pro¬ 
posed to the church to elect as deacons. Diaconi is the 
term by which they are designated; not, however, selected 
from any strong predilection to the term, or any extra¬ 
ordinary importance attached to it, but because a scrip¬ 
tural term, and one more easily assimilated to the idiom 
of their language than some others. 
On the 15th of February, 1821, they were set apart in 
the clmrch to this office, by an address from 1 Tim. iii. 10. 
and prayer for the blessing of God upon them. Anna, 
Taua, Pohuetea, and Matatore^ were the persons selected, 
and so long as I continued in the islands, we found them 
consistent Christians, and valuable coadjutors in manag¬ 
ing the temporal concerns of the church, visiting the 
sick, attending the prayer-meetings, &c. 
Religion was now almost the sole business of the 
people at Fare, and the adjacent districts ; and although 
the meetings were frequent, many continued to visit our 
dwellings, sometimes by day-break ^ and often, after we 
had retired to rest at night, one or two would come 
knocking gently at our doors or windows, begging us to 
give them directions, or to answer their inquiries as to 
the thoughts that distressed their minds. No time, no 
place, appeared to them unappropriate; and whether 
they sat in the house, or walked by the way—skimmed 
the surface of the water in their light canoe, or laboured 
in the garden—religion was the topic of their conversation. 
Their motives were various, and probably often of a very 
