MISSIONARY EFFORTS, 29 
composed had fallen a sacrifice to the fury of the 
islanders in their intestine wars. The Missionaries 
in the Society Islands have been enabled to main¬ 
tain their ground, though exposed to many dangers 
and privations, and some ill usage; but their 
labours were continued with patience and industry 
for fifteen years, from the time of their first esta¬ 
blishment, without any apparent effect. After this 
protracted period of discouragement, God has 
granted them the most astonishing success; and 
the happy change in the outward circumstances of 
the people, and the moral renovation which the 
reception of the gospel has effected in many, have 
more than realized the ardent desires of the Mis¬ 
sionaries themselves, and the most sanguine antici¬ 
pations of the friends of the Mission. 
But though the efforts of the London Missionary 
Society were continued und$r appearances so in¬ 
auspicious, with a degree of perseverance which 
has since been most amply compensated, various 
causes prevented their making any efforts towards 
communicating the knowledge of Christ to the 
Sandwich Islands. While their southern neigh¬ 
bours were enjoying all the advantages of Chris¬ 
tianity, they remained under the thick darkness, 
and moral wretchedness, of one of the most cruel 
systems of idolatry that ever enslaved any portion 
of the human species. 
The attention of the American churches was at 
length directed to the Sandwich Islands; and their 
sympathies being awakened, resulted in a ge¬ 
nerous effort to ameliorate the wretchedness of 
their inhabitants. A society already existed, under 
the name of the American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions , the chief seat of whose ope¬ 
rations was in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, 
