So, good friends, weave plenty of cocoa-nut baskets, fill 'em, and bring 'em to-morrow." Such was the substance of great part of this discourse; and, whatever may be thought of it, it was specially adapted to the minds of the islanders: who are susceptible to no impressions, except from things palpable, or novel and striking.

To them, a dry sermon would be dry indeed.
The Tahitians can hardly ever be said to reflect: they are all impulse; and so, instead of expounding dogmas, the missionaries give them the large type, pleasing cuts, and short and easy lessons of the primer.

Hence, anything like a permanent religious impression is seldom or never produced.
In fact, there is, perhaps, no race upon earth, less disposed, by nature, to the monitions of Christianity, than the people of the South Seas.

And this assertion is made with full knowledge of what is called the "Great Revival at the Sandwich Islands," about the year 1836; when several thousands were, in the course of a few weeks, admitted into the bosom of the Church.

But this result was brought about by no sober moral convictions; as an almost instantaneous relapse into every kind of licentiousness soon after testified.