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THE PELEW ISLANDS,

never saw any particular ceremonies, or observedany thing that had the appearance of publicworship. — Indeed, circumstanced as the Eng,lish were, they had not enough of the languageto enter on topics of this nature; and,it wouldalso have been indiscreet to have done it, assuch inquiries might have been misconceived,or misconstrued by the natives. Added to this,their thoughts were naturally bent on gettingaway, and preserving, whilst they remainedthere, the happy intercourse that subsisted be-tween them and the inhabitants.

Though there was not found, on any of theislands they visited, any place appropriated forreligious [rites, it would perhaps be going toofar to declare, the people of Pelew had abso-lutely no idea of religion. Independant of ex-ternal ceremony, there may be such a thing asthe religion of the heart, by which the mindmay, in awful silence, be turned to contemplatethe God of Nature ; and though unblessed bythose lights which have pointed to the ChristianWorld an unerring path to happiness and peace,yet they might, from the light of reason only,

! have discovered the efficacy of virtue, and the■ temporal advantages arising from moral recti-i tude. — The reader will, by this time, havemet with sufficient occurrences to convince him,that the inhabitants of these new - discovered re-gions had a fixed and rooted sense os the greatmoral duties; this appeared to govern their con-duct , glow in all their actions, and grace thgir