"As I glanced around upon the circle of smiling, upturned countenances, I was struck by the docile and childlike expression of many of them. I thought of the sad and benighted condition of this simple people, without the knowledge of God, or the hope of immortality, given up, as it seemed, a helpless prey to the darkest and most cruel superstitions. I thought of the moss-grown marae in the dark wood, with its hideous idols, its piles of human bones, and its hoary priest--fit minister of such a religion. I remembered the aged woman at Mowno's house, and the frightful doom in reserve for her. I felt that perhaps to such impressible spirits, even a passing word, unskilfully and feebly spoken, might by God's blessing do good; and yielding to the impulse of the moment, instead of declaiming the verses from Comus, I began to speak to them in their own language, of those great truths, the most momentous for civilised or savage man to know, and the most deeply interesting to every thoughtful mind, of whatever degree of culture--truths so simple, that even these untutored children of nature could receive, and be made happy by them. "In the plainest and simplest language I could command, and striving to adapt myself to their habits of thought, and to use those forms of expression most familiar to them, I announced the great doctrine of the existence of one God, the sole creator of the world, and the loving Father of all his creatures. I spoke of his power and his goodness, and told them that though invisible to our eyes, as the wind which stirred the tops of the palm-trees above them, he was ever near each one of us, hearing our words, seeing our actions, reading our thoughts, and caring for us continually. "I endeavoured to illustrate these attributes of God, by references and allusions to the daily aspects of nature around them, and to ideas and notions with which their mode of life, and the system of superstition in which they had been trained, rendered them familiar. My especial aim was to lead them, unconsciously, as it were, and without making any direct attack upon their religion, to contrast the benignant character of Him who has permitted us to call Him `Our Father in Heaven,' with that of the malignant beings they had been taught to worship. "I next spoke of death, and of a future life, and assured them that the friends whom they had buried, and they themselves, and all who had ever lived, should awake as from a brief sleep, and live again for ever. But when I proceeded to declare that most awful and mysterious doctrine of our religion, and spoke of the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched, of eternal happiness, and unending woe, I could see by the earnestness of their attention, and the expression of their countenances, how powerfully they were impressed.