Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/412

408 great with human sympathy, and who, as Ellis says, would have perceived that

when the spirit is softened or subdued under the influence of suffering, it is often most susceptible of salutary impression; and the exercise of christian sympathy and kindness in such a season will seldom fail to produce even among the most barbarous tribes highly favorable results.

In place of words of love, these missionaries preached the horrors of hell, in place of poverty they displayed that which was to the natives unbounded wealth; and friendship they sought to win through gifts rather than sympathy.

Before passing judgment upon them, however, it is but fair to pause to consider the probable results had they attempted to pursue the less worldly course. Demon worship was and is the religion of the Polynesian, and even to-day, despite the efforts of generations of high-minded and enlightened whites, the natives cling tenaciously to their god of hate and delight above all in sermons treating of his infinite power for vengeance. Moreover, steeped as they have always been in communistic socialism, personal poverty is unknown and can thus make no appeal upon the side of virtue. Where wealth is naught, power is everything, and it is doubtful whether any considerable number of the natives could have been converted to Christianity even in a century had the missionaries not first won over, or forced, the chiefs to accept their faith.

Moreover, Pomare and all the chiefs realized that this white man's religion would never acknowledge the divinity of their descent, in default of which their authority to enforce the tabu, the keynote of their power, was lost.

Foiled thus in their direct effort to Christianize Tahiti, the