THE MISSIONARY AND THE INDIAN KING. BY THE REV. HENRY J. MORTON. THE absurdity of idol worship is to our minds so obvious and so gross, that we can hardly understand how even an untaught savage should embrace its follies. For the worship of the host of heaven there appears to be some rational explanation. We can understand the influence exercised over the mind unacquainted with revelation by the mysterious nature, and vivid lustre, and silent course of the starry world. We can fancy the poor child of the desert waking at midnight, and gazing with awe upon those strange fires which burn over his head, and seem to watch him with glittering eyes as he rouses himself to start on his journey. And when we reflect that by these strange fires he measures the flight of time, and guides his footsteps over the pathless sands-when we consider how few objects of interest the earth presents to his eye, and how naturally his gaze is directed towards the glorious host above-we mourn, but we do not marvel, to behold him bowing down to the queen of night and her thousand handmaids, and saying, as their silver light sleeps around him, "Ye are my gods." But that a rational being should so far depart from the path of reason as to worship an idol which his own hands have formed—an image shaped from the tree his own hands have felled, a part of which he has burned therewith to cook his food and warm his limbs, this seems a mystery beyond our power of explanation, an evidence of degradation which we must have deemed impossible, had not unnumbered proofs rendered its truth too sure for skepticism. By the blessing of God, however, the labors of the missionary have been made effectual in disentangling the mind from this degrading snare. Many an idolater, by the simple reasoning of the word of God, has rejected the absurdities of that worship in which he had been born and nourished. The South Sea Islands especially, have been the scene of these glorious emancipations; and one of the most striking instances, among the many offered, has been chosen as the subject of the accompanying sketch. The facts, as related by the missionary, Rev. John Williams, were these: "On making the island of Atiu the missionary ship was visited by the king Ramo-tane. He came in his double canoe, robed in a garment of white, girt about the waist by a sash of figured cotton-his long and beautiful hair hanging over his shoulders and waving with the wind. He mounted the side of the barque, and was cordially received by the officers of the vessel and a native convert from another island. “Remaining all night, he was present on the following day, which was Sunday, at the religious services then performed. During the sermon, that striking passage from Isaiah, xliv. 16, 17, was read and commented upon. The mind of Ramo-tane was deeply impressed, as he listened to the prophet's description and exposure of the folly of idolatry: 'He |