QUERIES OF THE RESURRECTION. 435 
the hands under the thighs, and the whole body 
bound round with cords. Since the interment, 
(they added,) they had been thinking about the 
resurrection, and wished to know how the body 
would then appear, whether, if left in that manner, 
it would not rise deformed, and whether they had 
not better disinter the corpse, and deposit it in a 
straight or horizontal position. A suitable reply 
was of course returned. They were directed to let 
it remain undisturbed—that probably long before 
the resurrection it would be so completely dis¬ 
solved, and mingled with the surrounding earth, 
that no trace would be left of the form in which it 
had been deposited. 
Questions of this kind were only presented 
during the first stages of their Christian progress, 
and they were not frequent. In general their 
inquiries were exceedingly interesting. The time 
when, the means by which, the attending circum¬ 
stances, and the manner of the resurrection, the 
recognition of friends, the identity of the bodies of 
adults, and whether the souls of infants would be 
united to infant bodies, and whether they would 
be as inferior in the future state, as their powers 
and faculties appeared in this, often furnished 
matter for interesting conversation. 
There were, however, other points of inquiry, 
peculiarly affecting to themselves. Many of their 
relatives or countrymen had been devoured by 
sharks ; a limb or large portion of the fleshy part 
of the body of others, had been destroyed by these 
voracious fish. A constant attendant on these 
meetings at Afareaitu had, while we resided there, 
one side of his face torn off, and eaten by one. The 
sharks, that had eaten men, were perhaps after¬ 
wards caught, and became food for the natives, 
