Site of First Church in Polynesia

[By Marjorie Henry, of Buckland’s Beach, New Zealand, great-greatgranddaugher of William and Sarah Henry, first Pacific Islands missionaries (1797) A IN the shade of a great breadfruit tree, at Matavai, Tahiti, and near a dilapidated Tahitian hut, stands a smooth grey stone.

Animals crop grass around it, children lump over it, adults sit on it; and there is no sign to tell the world that this spot was the cradle of missionary endeavour in Poly nesia.

Along the 80-miles road that circles Tahiti there may be seen, every few miles, substantial cement churches white, * candy pink and baby blue—and to them on Sun days, answering the call from many belfries, come the Tahitian con gregations, dressed in white.

It appears that they neither know nor care about the worn grey stone —which is all that remains of the church built in 1798 by the first brave missionaries sent out under the auspices of The London

Missionary Society.

On the other side of the road, the land is swampy from a stream that has become choked with weeds; but, as the curator of the museum, Aurora Natua, pointed out, it would not always have been like that.

It was beside that stream that the missionaries, voluntary exiles, built themselves a home, preferring it to that built by the Tahitians for Captain Bligh of Bounty fame which had been given to them on arrival.

We stood in the moving shadows of the coconut palms and thought of them, of the missionaries and their wives, of their courage and their discouragements (for it was 16 years before they converted any one) .

In Tahiti there are always new churches under construction—yet it appears that neither the adminis tration nor the numerous clergy consider this sacred spot worthy of a monument.

T he . actual . site of first Christian church built in the South Pacific Islands.

It was at Matavai. Tahiti. The dark object in the foreground (a foundation stone) is all that remains of it, now.

The Landing of the Missionaries in Tahiti in 1797 the queen are carried on the shoulders of slaves.-Prom Painting by M A. Smirke, RA.