Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 87.djvu/36

32 as Fijian custom demanded. Indeed, even to-day whenever a high chief stumbles and falls all in his neighborhood must tumble like checkers in a row, and, if he takes medicine, his subjects clamor for some of the same sort.

We must not assume that all or even that most of the Fijians were hypocrites in thus following their chief. For years the zealous spirit of the missionaries had been at work among them and they had gained the hearts of many of the poor and downtrodden, especially of the women, upon whom the tyranny of savage days fell with a heavy hand. It was the high chief and the warrior classes who had most to lose through the levelling democracy of Christianity which denied their divine right to rule through tabu, abolished their polygamy, discouraged war, prohibited cannibalism and in every way lessened their authority and rendered ridiculous the proud traditions of their caste. While the high chief remained unconverted, the missionary's lot was happy in that he well could be the kind and simple friend of the distressed and the brotherly adviser of the troubled, but with the conversion his temporal power became paramount, for it was impossible for him to escape the difficult double role of leader in secular as well as religious affairs, and thus the simple-minded lover of mankind was suddenly exalted into the position of the vicar of the terrible god of the white man whose favor was hard to win and whose punishments were eternal.

It is but fair to the missionaries to recognize that their temporal tower was at the outset forced upon them, and that the mistakes which they have at times fallen into are those which overshadow the spiritual function of the clergy in all states wherein the government has fallen under the domination of the priesthood.

It was indeed fortunate for Fiji that the missionaries had been obliged to labor for nineteen long and almost hopeless years, and to endeavor in every way to understand and endear themselves to the people before any of the important chiefs had yielded to their teaching.

Everywhere in the Pacific where missionary success was quickly and easily attained, results more or less disastrous to the natives had followed. Despite many notable and glorious exceptions such as Chalmers of Papua, the old type of missionary was too often predisposed to regard all customs not his own as "heathen," hence pernicious. Thus if his success was immediate, as in Hawaii, his well-meant zeal impelled him too quickly to overthrow old customs and at once to force upon his converts a semblance of the habits of his own stratum of European society.

In this connection it should, however, be said that the blame for most of the bigotry, which has been all too evident, especially in former times, should fall but lightly if at all upon the field worker who, living among the natives, comes to love them as his friends and at least deals with