430 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
almost overpowering, and has either suspended our 
conversation, or induced an abrupt transition to 
some other topic. 
This is a most distressing consideration, and is 
a subject often brought before a Missionary’s mind, 
from the circumstances into which his engage- 
ments lead him, and the intimate connexion of his 
every effort with the future and eternal destinies of 
those around him; while it furnishes, next to the 
love of Christ, one of the most powerful incentives 
to devotedness and unabated effort. Well might 
one now engaged in this work exclaim, ‘‘ Five 
hundred millions of souls,* who are represented 
as being unenlightened! I cannot, if I would, 
give up the idea of being a Missionary, while -I 
reflect upon this vast number of my fellow-sin- 
ners, who are perishing for lack of knowledge. 
‘Five hundred millions!’ intrudes itself upon my 
mind wherever I go, and however I am employed. 
When I go to bed, it is the last thing that recurs 
to my memory; if I awake in the night, it is to 
meditate upon it alone; and in the morning, 
it is generally the first thing that occupies my 
thoughts.” 
What mind, under the influence of the unequi- 
vocal declarations of the sacred volume, and an 
acquaintance with the true condition of the hea- 
then, can calmly entertain the thought of the mil- 
lions who remain ignorant of the gospel ? 
We always told those who inquired, that it 
was not for us to say, what was the actual state 
of the departed; that of those who died in in- 
fancy, we were permitted to cherish the conso- 
latory hope of their felicity; that those who sur- 
* It is estimated that there are more than six hundred 
millions destitute of the knowledge of the gospel... 
