Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 8, 2025
Under their influence and instruction Tubou gave up the Tonga gods, destroyed the spirit house, and erected a place for Christian worship, in which he and his people, to the number of two hundred and forty, assembled to listen to Divine truth in the Tahitian language, on the 4th of February, 1827. He was not, however, baptised till 1830.
It was at this time that King Tubou was baptised with his family and nearly thirty men and sixty women of his tribe. It was indeed a day to make the hearts of the long persevering and faithful missionaries rejoice." To many readers of missionary reports these statements may not be new, but it was pleasant to have such testimony amidst the scenes themselves.
Mr Thomas had gone over to Nukualofa to preach, when the king Tubou, who had been absent for six months, attended, with two hundred of his subjects, the chapel which he himself had built, and where he now heard in his own tongue from the lips of an English minister the gospel clearly explained.
"Josiah Tubou, the king of Tonga proper, or Tongatabu though a consistent Christian, was a man every way inferior to King George in energy and talent, and the heathen chiefs and other ill-disposed persons set his power at defiance. They even went so far as to take up arms, in the hope of deposing him.
In 1802, Mr Lawry, of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, commenced a mission at Nukualofa, in Tongataboo. Though compelled for a time to abandon it, he returned in 1826, and, through his instrumentality, Tubou, the king, and many of his chiefs and people embraced Christianity.
The labours of the two zealous missionaries just mentioned were largely blessed, and when Tubou was baptised the congregation amounted to six hundred professing Christians. King Josiah's reign was not altogether free from difficulties. The heathen party was strong, and took up arms against him, being supported by some French Roman Catholic priests who had settled in the islands.
Tubou, the chief of Nukualofa, appeared convinced of the truths of Christianity, had a chapel built, and attended service; but tempted by his brother chiefs, who promised to make him king of the whole group if he would adhere to the old faith, he declined for the present to make a profession of Christianity.
It was the conversion of a powerful chief of the Friendly Islands, who afterwards became King George of Tonga. Some time before this, two Tahitian teachers connected with the London Missionary Society, on their way to Fiji had resided with Tubou, chief of Nukualofa.
The Wesleyans have since then laboured exclusively, and with most encouraging success, in the Friendly and Fiji Islands and New Zealand, leaving to the London Missionary Society the wide scope of the Pacific. In 1827 the Revs. Nathaniel Turner and William Cross took up their residence at Nukualofa. At that time Josiah Tubou was king in Tonga.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking