to admit of vessels passing through to the still water within their boundary. Streams of water flow down the sides of the mountains, and along the valleys, sometimes forming beautiful cascades, and at other times meandering on with an unruffled surface.

But while the aspect of the country is thus varied and delightful, we find, on turning our eyes from the face of nature to that of man, that the deformity of sin is visible even here. Its inhabitants were, not long since, in all the darkness of heathenism, worshipping gods of wood and stone, which their own hands had made, and, in compliance with the requirements of these imaginary deities, sacrificing the lives of their fellow-men. Fathers and mothers, forgetting the ties of relationship, buried their helpless children alive; and sons and daughters, instead of being the solace of their parents in sickness and old age, took them to some uninhabited place, and there left them to perish from starvation. The same groves which were vocal with the songs of birds, often resounded with the sounds of war and conflict, the groans of the languishing and the dying. On one occasion a man and his wife quarrelled about their child, a fine little boy. The wife refusing to comply with the wishes of her husband, he took up the child by the head and the feet, broke its back across his knee, and then threw it down in the agonies of death before its mother. More than half the children

born in the country were murdered by their own parents,

whose only reason for conduct so unnatural, seemed to be, to avoid the trouble of their maintenance.

Keopuolani was the daughter of the king and queen of Hawaii; but as it was not customary for the high chiefs to bring up their own children, the young princess lived with her grandmother at Maui, where she was consigned to the care of numerous attendants and followers. Here she was taught to worship the idols of the country; and from a very early age, she paid great attention to the duties enjoined by her religion.

While she was living quietly at Maui, an energetic and enterprising chief rose up, who ultimately became a great warrior. This chief, whose name was Tamehameha, fought against her father, and killed him, and thus made himself king of Hawaii in her father's stead.

Some time after this battle, Tamehameha invaded Maui, and, as its chief happened to be at another island, he experienced little difficulty in making himself master of that place. Keopuolani fell into his hands as a prisoner; but being very beautiful, and of a gentle disposition, instead of treating her with the cruelty generally shown to captives taken in war, the king took her for his wife, and she accompanied him to his favourite place of residence at Hawaii.

Tamehameha continued his career of conquest, invading successively the other islands of the group, until at length he became king of the whole, with the exception of one island called Tauai.

The queen was very much beloved by her people, for she manifested great kindness and compassion towards them. When any of her subjects had broken the laws, or otherwise incurred the king's displeasure, if they had a reasonable excuse to offer, which, as the laws were many of them very severe, was often the case, they fled to Keopuolani, and made known their grievances to her, in the assurance that she would plead with the king on their behalf. Many of the high chiefs who pursued a very different course of conduct themselves, afterwards said, to Keopuolani's praise, "She was never the means of any person's being put to death."

About seven years after her first coming to Hawaii, and while she was on a visit to Oahu, Keopuolani became dangerously ill. Various means were tried for her recovery, but without any effect; and her friends, imagining that this illness was the result of the anger of their gods, sent immediately to a priest, who at once pretended to know the cause. He said some men had been eating cocoa-nuts, which the common people were forbidden to eat, and therefore the gods were angry; and unless these men should be offered up in sacrifice, the queen would not recover. cordingly ten men were taken prisoners, and placed under the charge of the servants of the priest, till the time appointed for offering them up. Just in this interval, the queen's illness began to abate, and it was thought likely she would recover. The priests were immediately informed

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of this, and seven of the poor men who were condemned to death, were unbound, and returned to their homes in safety. The remaining three were offered up in sacrifice, Keopuolani being quite ignorant of these proceedings till they were all past.

Some years afterwards, her husband Tamehameha died, and her son Riho-riho became king in his stead. One of his first acts was to abolish the whole system of the idolatry of the country; and this not in consequence of having been told of a religion better adapted to the wants of his people, but because he felt that in which he had been brought up, to be both cruel in its requirements, and degrading in its influence on the people. Among the prohibitions it enforced were these:

No one was allowed to eat cocoa-nuts, except a priest or chief; no woman was allowed to eat out of the same dish with her husband, or any other man, or even to prepare her food at the same fire; no one was at any time permitted to be in a tree, or anywhere, above the king's head, nor to have his hand above the king's head. The punishment for the commission of any of these acts, though they might be accidentally done, was death. If a human sacrifice was wanted, and no one could be found guilty of any of these things, other laws were made, which the people did not know, and which they could hardly fail to break. Once there was a canoe seen sailing out in front of several houses; it was upset by the surf. Presently

one of the men belonging to it seemed to be drowning; an old man, who had been watching the canoe, in compassion to the drowning man, came out of his house to save him. He was immediately seized by the servants of the priests, led to a temple near, and there put to death, while the man who had pretended to be drowning got into a boat and rowed away.

But cruel as these practices were, it required a great deal of courage and determination on the part of the king to abolish a religion which the people had always been taught to venerate, and which had been, for so long, that of their forefathers. The supporters of idolatry took up arms in defence of their gods, and a bloody battle ensued, in which Riho-riho proving victorious, the idolatry of the country was effectually destroyed. At the consultation of the king with the principal chiefs about the abolition of idolatry, Keopuolani not being present, two of the chiefs were sent to ask her opinion. At first she seemed reluctant to give up the religion of her fathers, and asked what evil their idols had done them, that they should now forsake them. She was reminded of all the cruelties enjoined by the priests, and, after thinking awhile, she said, “You indeed speak very properly-let the king's wish and yours be gratified."

Soon after the abolition of idolatry in the Sandwich islands, some good people in America sent missionaries to those islands, to teach the people about the true God.