FUTURE STATE OF THE WICKED. 429 
was the contents of that volume which we came to 
teach them ; that the existence of this baneful and 
often fatal influence was too extensively felt to 
allow of its being questioned ; that the antidote 
to the evil it might have already inflicted, and the 
preservative against its future effects, were pointed 
out; and that it was wiser, and far more important, 
to apply to those remedies, than to indulge in 
unprofitable speculations relative to its origin. 
The duration of sufferings inflicted on the wicked 
in the future state, was occasionally introduced; 
and more than once I have heard them ask, if none 
of their ancestors, nor any of the former inhabitants 
of the islands, had gone to heaven ? This, to us 
and to them, was one of the most distressing dis¬ 
cussions upon which we ever entered. To them it 
was peculiarly so ; for we may naturally suppose, 
the recollection of the individuals whom many of 
them had perhaps poisoned, murdered without 
provocation, slain in battle, or killed for sacrifice, 
would on these occasions forcibly recur to their 
minds ; and at these times, many a parent’s heart 
must have been rent with anguish, to us incon¬ 
ceivable, at the remembrance of those children 
in whose blood their hands had been imbrued. 
Besides these sources of intensely painful reflec¬ 
tion, there is something overwhelming in the 
thought of relatives and friends removed from the 
world of hope and probation, having their doom 
irrevocably fixed! Hence we could perceive a 
degree of painful emotion among the people when¬ 
ever the subject was introduced ; and although less 
intimately affected by this inquiry than those 
around us, it was to us a most appalling subject— 
one on which we could not dwell with composure. 
This feeling, on their parts, also, has been at times 
