20 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
occasion, they, perhaps, recollected the opinion 
formed of him, by the humane commander of the 
Duff, that he appeared the last person likely to 
receive the gospel. Yet amid the thickest dark¬ 
ness that had ever veiled their prospects, in him 
the first cheering ray of dawning light had broken 
upon them : he was their first convert; in every 
difficulty, he had been their steady friend; in every 
labour, a ready coadjutor; and had now publicly 
professed that his faith was grounded on that rock 
whereon their own was fixed, and his hopes, with 
theirs, derived from one common source. What 
intense and mingled hopes and fears must have 
pervaded their hearts! what hallowed joy must 
they have felt in anticipation of his being with 
them an heir of immortality, chastened with appal¬ 
ling, and not ungrounded fears, that after all he 
might become a cast-away ! 
Numbers, both adults and children, were sub¬ 
sequently baptized in the Windward Islands, but it 
was not until some months after, that the ordi¬ 
nance was dispensed to any in the Leeward or 
Society group. 
It was in Huahine that the first, from among 
those who had renounced paganism in the Lee¬ 
ward Islands, were thus initiated into the outward 
church of Christ. Huahine was a new station, 
and few of the inhabitants, when we landed, knew 
much more of Christianity than its name. Fifteen 
months had elapsed since our arrival, and during 
that period, among a people who had every 
thing to learn, we had made the doctrines and 
general precepts of the gospel the topics of our 
discourses. Many of them now came forward, de¬ 
claring their desire to become the disciples of the 
Saviour, to make a public profession of faith in 
