[Footnote 32:  Almost all the particulars now and afterwards stated in favour of the Otaheitans, are fully allowed by recent accounts, especially that of the Missionary Voyage already noticed.—­E.]

It did not appear to us that these people are, in any instance, guilty of idolatry; at least they do not worship any thing that is the work of their hands, nor any visible part of the creation.  This island indeed, and the rest that lie near it, have a particular bird, some a heron, and others a king’s fisher, to which they pay a peculiar regard, and concerning which they have some superstitious notions with respect to good and bad fortune, as we have of the swallow and robin-red-breast, giving them the name of Eatua, and by no means killing or molesting them; yet they never address a petition to them, or approach them with any act of adoration.[33]

[Footnote 33:  The account now given of the religion of the Otaheitans is imperfect in point of information; and it must be held erroneous as to principle, by all who chuse to derive their knowledge on the subject of man’s relation to his Maker, from the sacred Scriptures alone.  The imperfections were the consequence of the very limited acquaintance with these islanders, which existed at the time, and may be readily filled up on the authority of subsequent observers.  As to the erroneousness of principle, it may suffice for the enlightened reader to remind him, that as the Supreme Being himself is the only object of worship, so every other one that is worshipped in place of him, whether made by the hands of men, or found made by nature, or conceived to exist, is virtually and essentially an idol.  It follows from this, that idolatry is much more prevalent than is usually imagined, and is by no means confined to nations in a barbarous or semi-barbarous state.  The worshippers of reason, or virtue, or taste, or fashion, or nature, or one’s own goodness and piety, or the spiritual entities of philosophers and religionists, are as truly idolaters as the worshippers of the grand lama in Thibet, or the economical sect in Lapland, who content themselves with the largest stone they can find.  Mr Hume, who has been at such pains to enquire into the natural history of religion, is most unnecessarily cautious as to the qualifying of one of his most important assertions on the subject of the prevalence of idolaters.  “The savage tribes of America, Africa, and Asia,” says he, “are all idolaters.  Not a single exception to this rule.  Insomuch, that, were a traveller to transport himself into any unknown region; if he found inhabitants cultivated with arts and sciences, though even upon that supposition there are odds against their being theists, yet could he not safely, till further enquiry, pronounce any thing on that head; but if he found them ignorant and barbarous, he might beforehand declare them idolaters; and there is scarcely a possibility of his being mistaken.”  He might have said with perfect confidence, that a traveller