PROGRESS OF RELIGION. 
143 
in beholding the chiefs inclined to obey the word 
of God ; which, he said, Jehovah himself was 
causing to grow, so that it prospered exceedingly. 
Thirty-four or thirty-six, in one district, had, to use 
his own expression, “ laid hold of the word of God,” 
though there were others who paid no attention to 
these things. 
At Haumi, the adjoining district, but few were 
prevailed upon to forsake paganism; but among 
them was an intelligent man, who was a priest. 
At Maatea, the district from which the king 
wrote, ninety-six renounced idolatry while he was 
there, in addition to others who had done so 
before. The change appeared to be general here. 
The chiefs, priests, and people publicly committed 
their idols to the flames, attended public worship, 
requested to have their names written down as 
desirous of becoming Christians, and importuned 
the king and his attendants to protract their visit, 
that they might be more fully informed in all the 
matters connected with the profession they had 
now made. 
The Bure Atua had hitherto escaped the ruin 
intended for them by their enemies; and, though 
these were masters of Tahiti, in Eimeo, and 
secretly in Tahiti, the number of those who had 
joined the Christians was greatly increased. This 
state of things could not long remain. The 
haughty and turbulent spirit of the victors was 
such as to prevent it: and in the event of their 
proceeding to the object for which they had taken 
up arms, viz. the suppression of Christianity, it was 
by no means improbable that both the native 
Christians and their teachers, if not destroyed 
by their enemies, might be expelled from Tahiti and 
Eimeo. 
