Religion.—The religious system of the Samoans differs essentially from that which obtained at the Tahitian, Society, and other islands with which we are acquainted. They have neither maraes, nor temples, nor altars, nor offerings; and, consequently, none of the barbarous and sanguinary rites observed at the other groups. In consequence of this, the Samoans were considered an impious race, and their impiety became proverbial with the people of Rarotonga; for, when upbraiding a person who neglected the worship of the gods, they would call him “a godless Samoan.” But, although heathenism was presented to us by the Samoans in a dress different from that in which we had been accustomed to see it, having no altars stained with human blood, no maraes strewed with the skulls and bones of its numerous victims, no sacred groves devoted to rites of which brutality and sensuality were the most obvious features, this people had “lords many and gods many;”— their religious system was as obviously marked as any other with absurdity, superstition, and vice;— and its followers stand as much in need of the Gospel as the cannibal New Zealander, who feasts on the quivering limbs of his victim, or the infatuated Tahitian, whose gods were gorged with the blood of the sacrifices which were presented upon their altars. When, however, we consider the importance which the Tahitians and Rarotongans attached to their idols, maraes, and religious ceremonies, and the intimate manner in which these were interwoven with their political, civil, and social institutions, we cannot wonder that they should regard those as impious, whose worship was destitute of such appendages.