“Eight.”  Another woman, who was asked the same question, said that she had destroyed seventeen.  Infanticide, or, in other words, the destruction of infants, says the Rev. Mr. Williams, was carried to an almost incredible extent in Tahiti, and some other islands.  He writes, “During the visit of the deputation, G. Bennet, Esq., was our guest for three or four days; and on one occasion, while conversing on this subject, he expressed a wish to obtain accurate knowledge of the extent to which this cruel practice had prevailed.  Three women were sitting in the room at the time, making European garments, under Mrs. Williams direction; and, after replying to Mr. Bennet’s inquiries, I said, ’I have no doubt but that each of these women has destroyed some of her children.’  Mr. Bennet exclaimed, ’Impossible; such motherly, respectable women could never have been guilty of so great an atrocity.’  ‘Well,’ I added, ’we will ask them.’  Addressing the first, I said to her, ’Friend, how many children have you destroyed?’ She was startled at my question, and at first charged me with unkindness, in harrowing up her feelings, by bringing the destruction of her babes to her remembrance; but upon learning the object of my inquiry, she replied, with a faltering voice, ‘I have destroyed nine.’  The second, with eyes suffused with tears, said, ‘I have destroyed seven;’ and the third informed us that she had destroyed five.  Had the missionaries gone there but a few years before, with the blessing of God, they would have prevented all this.  These mothers were all Christians at the time this conversation was held.”

“On another occasion,” says Mr. Williams, “I was called to visit the wife of a chief in dying circumstances.  She had professed Christianity for many years, had learned to read when about sixty, and was a very active teacher in our adult school.  In the prospect of death, she sent a pressing request that I would visit her immediately; and on my entering her apartment she exclaimed, ’O, servant of God, come and tell me what I must do.’  Perceiving that she suffered great mental distress, I inquired the cause of it, when she replied, ‘I am about to die.’  ‘Well,’ I rejoined, ‘if it be so, what creates this agony of mind?’ ’O, my sins, my sins,’ she cried; ‘I am about to die.’  I then inquired what the particular sins were which so greatly distressed her, when she exclaimed, ’O, my children, my murdered children!  I am about to die, and shall meet them all at the judgment-seat of Christ.’  Upon this I inquired how many children she had destroyed, and to my astonishment she replied, ‘I have destroyed sixteen, and now I am about to die.’” After this Mr. Williams tried to comfort her, by telling her that she had done this when a heathen, and during the times of ignorance, which God winked at.  But she received no consolation from this thought, and exclaimed again, “O, my children, my children.”  He then directed her to the “faithful saying,