"Thus the old religion was undermined, and a way prepared for the introduction of the new faith. The priests were the most inveterate opponents of Christianity, yet the first person who destroyed his idols was a priest. Several others followed his example. Soon another native teacher from Tahiti joined Papehia to aid in the work which so rapidly progressed. The first chief converted was Tinomana. After a lengthened conversation with Papehia, in spite of the expostulations of priests and people, saying, `My heart has taken hold of the word of Jehovah,' he ordered a servant to set fire to his idol and his temple. The Christians now united, with Tinomana at their head, to live together in one community, numbering four or five thousand. Not fifteen months after Papehia landed, they erected a chapel three hundred feet long, with a pulpit at either end, from which each teacher addressed nearly fifteen hundred wild, naked savages at once, without inconvenience. This wonderful change had been effected, you must remember, by two native teachers alone, in less than two years and a half from the day of their landing in Raratonga, and who were themselves born heathens and trained in idolatry in an island nearly seven hundred miles away. "Four years after the discovery of the island, John Williams took up his abode there with the Reverend C Pitman, they being afterwards joined by the Reverend A Buzacott. Laws were now formed, and the first Christian community divided into two separate villages. A chapel of a substantial character was next planned. A site was cleared, large trees were cut down, coral lime was burned, the timber was sawn, and in two months from the commencement an edifice an hundred and fifty feet long and fifty-six feet wide, the thatched roof supported on either side by seven iron-wood pillars twenty-five feet high, was erected. There were ten doors, three at each side and two at each end, and twenty windows, with large Venetian blinds. This chapel was a substantial proof of the zeal of the Christian converts; but the heathens were still numerous and powerful, and at length, hoping to overthrow the new faith, they attacked the settlement, and burned the chapel and many of the Christians' houses. A fearful storm and flood and a severe epidemic followed, carrying off hundreds of the natives. Though severely tried, the missionaries were not cast down. The heathen retired, the epidemic ceased, the damage caused by the storm was repaired, and the work of civilisation proceeded.