IDOLS AND TEMPLES DEMOLISHED. 159 
lions, wives, and children of the Atehuruans, and 
in cold blood cruelly murdered upwards of one 
hundred helpless individuals; and this probably 
made the conduct of Pomare II. appear more 
remarkable. At length, they concluded that it 
must be from the new religion, as they termed 
Christianity; and hence they unanimously declared 
their determination to embrace it, and to place 
themselves and their families under the direction of 
its precepts. 
The family and district temples and altars, as 
well as those that were national, were demolished, 
the idols destroyed by the very individuals who 
had but recently been so zealous for their preser¬ 
vation, and in a very short time there was not one 
professed idolater remaining. Messengers were 
sent by those who had hitherto been pagans, to the 
king and chiefs, requesting that some of their men 
might be sent to teach them to read, and to in¬ 
struct them concerning the true God, and the order 
of his worship. Those who sent them expressed 
at the same time their determination to renounce 
every evil practice connected with their former 
idolatrous life, and their desire to become alto¬ 
gether a Christian people. Schools were built, 
and places for public worship erected; the Sabbath 
was observed; divine service performed; child- 
murder, and the gross abominations of idolatry, 
were discontinued. 
What an astonishing and happy change must 
have taken place in the views, feelings, and pur¬ 
suits of the inhabitants of Tahiti, in the course of 
a few weeks, from the battle of Narii, or Bunaau'ia! 
A flood of light, like the rays of the morning, had 
broken in upon the intellectual and spiritual night, 
which, like a funeral pall, had long been spread 
