HAPPY SAMON!

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1629, 10 March 1884, Page 2

HAPPY SAMON!

s Mr Lord, who resided in Samoa, lias ) (says the 'Hawaiian Gazette') l)3en i giving a series of Lectures in San f Francisco on the littie islands. Of the i Samoan he says:—He has no govcrne ment except a nondescript sham which t was imposed upon him three years ago i- by the guns of a man-of-war, in pur- .- suancQ of a conspiracy of three un--3 principled consuls. He has, no roads 3 or bridges. He lives almost without e clothes, in the same house and in the : way which he has always lived. He is t indolent and idle, without occupation )' for mind or body. He has'not even 3 the industries that lie used to have, for. many things that were formerly 3 manufactured by tin; people are now f dispensed with or .supplied by traffic. 3 He lias not added to his virtues, but, f by association with bad white men, . has gained some vices. He is not as - honest, genuine, and childlike as lie ' formerly was. : Ho has acquired some of the cunning of the serpant, without / the counteracting by the harmlcssness of the dove. ..He does not know the i meaning of chastity, and it cannot be instilled into him, because, in his !i present condition. Ins cannot see the sin '- of its opposite. All! but it may be e said that his soul is saved! Well, that ii we don't know with certainty, and I e propose to speak only of what we do s know. But if his soul is saved with the amount of piety it now contains, it I never would have been lost at iill. He 8 may have received all the outward ems bellishments of the Gospel, but he is 'i nothing but a gilded heathen at the l best, As Mark Twain says, " wickedness exists only in reality, not in name." c Nearly all the people go through the 0 stated religions observances, and also )f contribute liberally to the local mission and the London Mission Society; but ii church-going and prayers are the fash--1 ion, and generosity is their nature, The essential character of the people is still unchanged, The Earl of Pembroko very truly says, "The natives live two lives—a church and a natural one, i, Every family in the land have prayers i- morning and night, but they adjourn is from evening prayer to attend lascivie ous dances and obscono entertainy ments."