76 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
and by whom they had been preserved; nor did 
we refer them often ,to the testimony of history, to 
prove that the persons, whose names were affixed 
to the different parts, actually wrote the books 
ascribed to them; but we referred them to their 
internal evidence, their harmony or accordance 
with the works of creation, and the dispensations 
of Providence, in their display of the Divine cha¬ 
racter and perfections, their admirable adaptation 
to the end for which they were given, and the uni¬ 
versality of their application to mankind. Next to 
the agency of that blessed Spirit, under whose in¬ 
fluence those scriptures were first penned, and by 
which alone they become the means of spiritual 
illumination to any individual, the internal evi¬ 
dences of the Bible have operated upon the 
minds of the natives with greatest force. When 
they have been asked why they believed the 
scriptures to be the word of God, they have an¬ 
swered, “ We believe they have a higher than 
human origin, because they reveal what man could 
never know; not only in reference to God himself, 
but our own origin and destinies, and what, when 
revealed, appears to us true ; because its declara¬ 
tions accord with the testimony of our own con¬ 
sciences, as to the moral character of our actions ; 
and because, though written by persons who never 
saw us, or knew our thoughts, it describes so 
accurately our inclinations, imaginations, motives, 
and passions. It must have been dictated by One 
who knew what man was, better than we know 
each other, or it could not have displayed our 
actual state so correctly/’ These, or declarations to 
the same effect, if not given in precisely the same 
words, were the reasons they frequently assigned 
for believing the divine origin of the scriptures. 
