28 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
hand. Whenever any of our own children have 
been baptized, we have brought them to the 
chapel, and have performed the ceremony at the 
same time and in the same way as with the natives; 
that they might perceive that in this respect there 
was no difference between us. 
The baptism of infants has certainly been 
among our most interesting religious exercises. 
It was generally performed after morning service 
on the Sabbath. We usually addressed a short 
and affectionate exhortation to the parents, en¬ 
forcing their responsibility, and duty towards the 
dear children they were thus offering; not indeed 
as an innocent child was formerly offered in sacri¬ 
fice to senseless idols, or to a cruel imaginary 
deity, but to be trained up in the nurture and 
admonition of that Divine Parent, who has said, 
“ I love them that love me, and those that seek 
me early shall find me.” 
I have been sometimes almost overwhelmed 
on beholding the intensity of mingled feeling, 
with which three or four smiling infants have 
been brought by their respective parents to the 
rustic baptismal font. I have fancied, in the 
strongly expressive countenances of the parents, 
the emotions of gratitude, and the ray of hope 
and anticipated joy in the future progress of 
the child, when it should exhibit the effects of 
that inward change, of which this was the outward 
sign. 
In strong and distressing contrast with sensa¬ 
tions of this hallowed and delightful kind, I have 
supposed the memory of far different acts, in 
which, as parents, many of them had been en¬ 
gaged, has remained ; I have supposed that recol¬ 
lection has presented the winning look of conscious 
