of the pulpit, where seats were reserved for us, and to which we made our
way in slow and tedious procession, from the difficulty of finding a spot
even to place our footsteps without treading on the limbs of the people,
seated on their feet as closely almost as they could be stowed.

"As we entered, Mr. G. paused in his sermon till we could be seated.
I ascended the pulpit beside him, from which I had a full view of the
congregation. The suspense of attention in the people was only of momentary
duration, notwithstanding the entire novelty of the laced coats, cocked
hats, and other appendages of naval uniform. I can scarce describe the
emotions experienced in glancing an eye over the immense number, seated
so thickly on the matted floor as to seem literally one mass of heads,
covering an area of more than nine thousand square feet. The sight was
most striking, and soon became, not only to myself, but to some of my
fellow-officers, deeply affecting.

"With the exception of the inferior chiefs having charge of the district
and their dependants, of two or three native members of the church and of
the mission family, scarce one of the whole multitude was in any other than
the native dress--the _maro_, the _kihee_, and the simple _tapa_, of their
primitive state. In this respect, and in the attitude of sitting, the
assembly was purely pagan; totally unlike those of the Society Islands; as
unlike as to one at home. But the breathless silence, the eager attention,
the half-suppressed sigh, the tear, the various feeling--sad, peaceful,
joyous--discoverable in the faces of many, all spoke the presence of an
invisible but omnipotent Power--the Power that can alone melt and renew the
heart of man, even as it alone brought it first into existence."

Turning from the changes which have been wrought in these islands,--on
which we have, perhaps, lingered too long already,--we turn to one through