United States or Pitcairn Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I am going to worship Jehovah, the God of Papeiha." And with that he threw down the god at the feet of the teachers. One of them ran and brought a saw, and first cut off its head and then sawed it into logs. Some of the Rarotongans rushed away in dread. Others even some of the newly converted Christians hid in the bush and peered through the leaves to see what would happen.
Why do you take a log of wood and carve it, and then offer it food? It is only fit to be burned. Some day soon you shall make these very gods fuel for fire." So with the companion who came to help him, brown Papeiha went in and out of the island just as brave Paul went in and out in the island of Cyprus and Wilfrid in Britain.
At last the fierce chief gave in, and Papeiha and his friends, before the sun had risen, hurried to the beach, leapt into their canoe and paddled swiftly to the ship. "We must wait and come to this island another day when the people are more friendly," said every one except Papeiha, who never would turn back. "Let me stay with them," said he.
So at Rarotonga, when the call came, "Who will go ashore?" and a canoe was let down from the ship's side, two men, Papeiha and his friend Vahineino, leapt into it. Those two fearlessly paddled towards the shore, which was now one brown stretch of Rarotongans crowded together to see this strange ship with wings that had sailed from over the sea's edge.
The watching, awe-struck people looked to see the teachers fall dead, but nothing happened. The islanders then began to wonder whether, after all, the God of Papeiha was not the true God. Within a year they had got together hundreds of their wooden idols, and had burned them in enormous bonfires which flamed on the beach and lighted up the dark background of trees.
Shortly after a vessel arrived from Raiatea, bringing another missionary, with many books, and several pigs and goats, which Papeiha and his companion had promised the people. This raised the missionaries in their estimation, and they with one accord threw away all their idols, and resolved to listen to the teaching of the Gospel.
The ship stood off for the night, for the ocean there is too deep for anchorage. Papeiha and his brown friends, with their wives, went ashore. Night fell, and they were preparing to sleep, when, above the thud and hiss of the waves they heard the noise of approaching crowds. The footsteps and the talking came nearer, while the little group of Christians listened intently.
Next morning quite early, before the heat of the sun was great, Papeiha looked out and saw the priest tottering along with bent and aching shoulders. On his back was his cumbrous wooden god. Behind the priest came a furious crowd, waving their arms and crying out: "Madman, madman, the god will kill you." "You may shout," answered the priest, "but you will not change me.
The savages came jostling and waving spears and clubs as they crowded round him. "Let us take him to Makea." So Papeiha was led to the chief. As he walked he heard them shouting to one another, "I'll have his hat," "I'll have his jacket," "I'll have his shirt." At length he reached the chief, who looked and said, "Speak to us, O man, that we may know why you persist in coming."
To-day the flames of love which Papeiha bravely lighted, through perils by water and club and cannibal feast, have shone right across the ocean, and some of the grandchildren of those very Rarotongans who were cannibals when Papeiha went there, have sailed away, as we shall see later on, to preach Papeiha's gospel of the love of God to the far-off cannibal Papuans on the steaming shores of New Guinea.
Word Of The Day