the inclination to entertain it.  In short, it is no way paradoxical to assert, that, were man by any means to know that there shall be no hereafter, his whole life, supposing his constitution to remain the same, would be a direct and continued contradiction to his knowledge.  This, to be sure, would be a strange anomaly in the government of God, and utterly irreconcileable with every view we can form of his veracity, if we may use the expression, though still consistent with his wisdom and goodness.  But what then shall we say of the conduct of the would-be philosophers, who, with limited faculties and intelligences and benevolence, (this is no disparagement, for even Voltaire himself, with all his powers, was but a finite creature!) force reason and science to prove what their own feelings belie, and to oppose what their consciences declare to be irresistible?  It is not profane, on such an occasion, to accommodate the language of an apostle into a suitable rebuke to such perverse contenders.  “What if some labour not to believe, shall their attempts frustrate the work of God?  Far be it—­God will maintain his truth, though all men should conspire against it.”  Allowing then free scope to a notion so natural to us, and having our opinions guided by an unerring light, we shall see that there is something vastly more dignified than fashion in the funeral rites of the Otaheitans—­and feel that there is something vastly more important than eloquence, in the words of an author already quoted at the commencement of this note:—­“Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery, in the infancy of his nature;”—­the reason for which is explained by another author, in words still more sublime and exhilarating:—­“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”—­E.]

As soon as a native of Otaheite is known to be dead, the house is filled with relations, who deplore their loss, some by loud lamentations, and some by less clamorous, but more genuine expressions of grief.  Those who are in the nearest degree of kindred, and are really affected by the event, are silent; the rest are one moment uttering passionate exclamations in a chorus, and the next laughing and talking without the least appearance of concern.  In this manner the remainder of the day on which they assemble is spent, and all the succeeding night.  On the next morning the body is shrouded in their cloth, and conveyed to the seaside upon a bier, which the bearers support upon their shoulders, attended by the priest, who having prayed over the body, repeats his sentences during the procession:  When it arrives at the water’s edge, it is set down upon the beach; the priest renews his prayers, and taking up some of the water in his hands, sprinkles it towards the body, but not upon it.  It is then carried back