But on the following day Otu pretended to have had a revelation that the idol itself wished to be removed to Tautira; and on the chiefs of Atehuru refusing to allow this, his followers rushed to the temple, seized the idol, carried it off to the sea, and immediately set sail. As soon as they reached land a human sacrifice was ordered, lest Oro should resent this very cavalier treatment; and as no captive was at hand, one of the king's own servants was slain, and offered as an atonement. Of course the despoiled chiefs flew to arms, and prepared to revenge themselves, and recapture their god. About 300 warriors came from the isle of Eimeo, now called Moorea, to the aid of the king, and bloody battles were fought, in which the chiefs' army was almost invariably successful.

There does not appear to have been any trace of cannibalism on either side, but the bodies of the slain were offered in sacrifice to Oro by the victors; while, on the other hand, the king's party did not cease offering human sacrifices, and propitiating the idol by every means in their power. It was recaptured by the chiefs of Atehuru, who, however, with singular religious chivalry, allowed the king to land and deposit his offerings near the temple, though they naturally would not admit him within its precincts.

Happily for the mission party, it so happened

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that just at this crisis a trading vessel came into harbour and landed some men; and about the same time another small vessel was driven ashore, with a crew of seventeen Englishmen. Thus they mustered a force of twenty-three Europeans, who not only put the mission-house into a state of defence, but lending their aid to the king, rendered him material aid—a service which they must have regretted on seeing that all prisoners of war were immediately put to death, and their bodies savagely mutilated. Finally, the chiefs agreed to resign the custody of the idol to the king; and so, for a while, ended one of the many bloody struggles by which the various nations of the earth have drained their heart's blood for the possession of some bit of socalled sacred wood or bone.

Thenceforward the young King Otu carried the precious god with him, whenever he sailed from one isle to another; and the sacred canoe on which its ark was borne, was always deposited at some marae shaded by sombre trees, from whose boughs human victims offered sacrificially were immediately suspended.

While such scenes as these were the incidents of daily life, the mission party had hardships enough to contend with. Five whole years elapsed without either letters or supplies reaching them from England. Their clothes were worn out, boots or

shoes were wellnigh forgotten superfluities; tea and sugar were among the luxuries of the past. At last a small vessel arrived, specially chartered to bring the letters and supplies which had for so long been accumulating at Port Jackson. Imagine the rapture of seeing that little vessel arrive; and then the dismay of discovering that almost everything she had brought was either useless from having lain so long at Port Jackson, or saturated with salt water owing to the wretched condition of the ship. You who live in luxury at home, with everything of the best, and plenty of it, and with so many daily posts as to be a positive nuisance, cannot possibly realise the weariness of that long waiting, or the depth of that disappointment.

Nor was there anything cheering in daily life. The mission work seemed to make no progress at all; the people openly mocked the white men, and despised their teaching.

In 1808 war broke out again more savagely than before. The altars of Oro reeked with human blood; villages were burnt, plantations destroyed, and the whole country reduced to desolation and ruin. The mission settlement was ransacked, the houses burnt, the books distributed among the warriors to be used as cartridge-paper, the printing-types melted to make musket-balls, and every implement of iron found on the place

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The

was converted into a destructive weapon. gardens were again demolished, and the students, finding the din of war more congenial than the arts of peace, joined their brethren in arms.

Finally, feeling that their lives were in imminent danger, and that there was apparently nothing to be gained by remaining, the mission party resolved to abandon Tahiti; and taking advantage of a vessel which happily arrived in harbour, they embarked for Port Jackson, two only, Mr Hayward and Mr Nott, resolving to remain at their several posts and face the worst-the former at Huahine, the latter at Eimeo, to which King Pomare had fled from his enemies. Various attempts were made on their lives, happily without fatal result; and they continued to work as best they could till the year 1812, when, at the invitation of King Pomare, those who had been driven away from Tahiti returned, and made a fresh effort to establish the mission on Eimeo.

They were cordially welcomed by the king, and by a small number of chiefs, who, by Pomare's words and example, had been brought to look with contempt on their idols, and to incline towards the new faith; and though greatly distracted by intertribal wars, this little company resolved to build a substantial house which should be set apart for the worship of the true God.

Thus in the summer of 1813 was the first Christian church in the group erected in Papetoai, the very place whence I now write.

Thirty persons came forward to make public profession of their faith, desiring to have their names enrolled as having rejected idol-worship. Among those who did so was Patii, the high priest of the district, who came to Mr Nott, and announced his intention of publicly burning all the idols in his care. It was a promise heard with thankfulness not unmingled with dread, for there was every probability that such an act would lead to wild excitement among the heathen, and might possibly result in a massacre of the Christians. However, Patii had made up his mind, and at the appointed hour he and his friends collected a heap of fuel on the sea-shore, near the huge marae where he had so often offered human sacrifices to these dumb idols, which he now brought forth, and tearing off the sacred cloth in which they had hitherto been draped, he exhibited them in their hideous nakedness, to the vast multitudes who had hitherto assembled at his bidding to do them homage, and who had now come to witness this act of impious sacrilege.

Some of these ugly little gods were rudely carved human figures, and some had tiny figures carved in relief all over one large image; others were shapeless