PRIVATE DEVOTIONS OVERHEARD. 101 
the dawn of the day, on the morning after their 
arrival, Mr. Scott heard a voice at no great distance 
from his retreat. It was not a few detached sen¬ 
tences that were spoken, but a continued address ; 
not in the lively tone of conversation, but solemn, 
as devotion; or pathetic, as the voice of lamentation 
and supplication. 
A variety of feelings led him to approach the 
spot whence these sounds proceeded, in order to 
hear more distinctly. O, what hallowed music 
must have broken on his listening ear, and what 
rapture must have thrilled his soul, when he dis¬ 
tinctly recognized the voice of prayer, and heard a 
native, in the accents of his mother-tongue, with 
an ardour that proved his sincerity, addressing 
petitions and thanksgivings to the throne of mercy. 
It was the first time he knew that a native on 
Tahiti had prayed to any but his idols ; it was the 
first native voice in praise and prayer, that he had 
ever heard, and he listened almost entranced with 
the appropriate and glowing language of devotion, 
then employed, until his feelings could be 
restrained no longer. Tears of joy started from 
his gladdened eye, and rolled in swift succession 
down his cheeks, while he could scarcely forbear 
rushing to the spot, and clasping in his arms the 
unconscious author of his ecstacy. He stood 
transfixed as it were to the earth, till the native 
retired ; when he bowed his knees, and, screened 
from human observation by the verdant shrubs, 
offered up, under the canopy of heaven, his 
grateful adoration to the Most High, under all the 
melting of soul, and the excitement of spirit, 
which the unprecedented, unexpected, though 
long-desired events of the morning had inspired. 
When the Missionaries met at the house in which 
