138 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
chism and the art of reading ; and after a lingering 
illness, during which he enjoyed the presence and 
support which true religion alone can impart, 
delivered, as he expressed himself on the last day 
of his life, from the fear of death, and having his 
hopes fixed or relying on the Son of God as the 
only Saviour, he died in peace, at our Missionary 
station in Afareaitu, on the 29th of July, 1817, 
nearly two years after the total overthrow of ido¬ 
latry in 1815. 
He was a man of decision and daring enter¬ 
prise ; and though, on the occasion in Tahiti above 
referred to, he may have acted with a degree of 
zeal somewhat imprudent, it was a zeal resulting, 
not from ignorant rashness, but enlightened prin¬ 
ciple, and holy indignation against the boasting 
threatenings and lying vanities of the priests of 
idolatry; to whose arts of deception he had for¬ 
merly been no stranger. 
The influence of the Bure Atua in the nation, 
from the rank many of them held, and the con¬ 
fidence with which they maintained the superiority 
of their religion, together with the accessions that 
were daily made to their numbers from various 
parts of the island, not only increased the latent 
enmity against Christianity which the idolaters 
had always cherished, but awakened the first emo¬ 
tion of apprehension lest this new word should 
ultimately prevail, and the gods, their temples, 
and their worship, be altogether disregarded. To 
avoid this, they determined on the destruction, the 
total annihilation, of every one in Tahiti who was 
known to pray to Jehovah. 
A project was formed by the pagan chiefs of 
Pare, Matavai, and Apaiano, to assassinate, in 
one night, every individual of the Bure Atua. 
