434 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
of England, that ever asked such questions as 
these. 
The doctrine of the resurrection of the body has 
ever appeared to them, as it did when announced 
by the apostle to the civilized philosophers of 
Athens, or the august rulers in the Roman hall of 
judgment, as a fact astounding or incredible. Of 
another world, and the existence of the soul in 
that world after the dissolution of the body, they 
appear at all times to have entertained some indis¬ 
tinct ideas; but the reanimation of the mouldering 
bodies of the dead, never seems, even in their 
wildest flights of imagination, to have occurred to 
them. When first declared by the Missionaries, 
it merely awakened astonishment, and was con¬ 
sidered as one among the many novel and striking 
facts connected with the doctrines which the new 
religion unfolded. But as the subject was more 
frequently brought under their notice in public 
discourse, or in reading the scriptures, and their 
minds were more attentively exercised upon it in 
connexion with their ancestry, themselves, and 
their descendants, it appeared invested with more 
than ordinary difficulty ; bordering, to their appre¬ 
hension, on impossibility. On this, as well as 
other equally important points, their queries, from 
native simplicity and entire ignorance, were some¬ 
times both puerile and amusing. 
A number of the attendants on the queen’s 
sister, soon after their reception of Christianity, 
came to the meeting, and stated that one of their 
friends had died a few days before, and that they 
had buried the corpse according to their ancient 
manner, not laying it straight in a coffin, as Chris¬ 
tians were accustomed to do, but placing it in a 
sitting posture, with the face between the knees, 
