OF THE SOUTH SEAS 489 



and ate fruit from the tabu tree, they should have been 

 punished, and if their children killed the son of your 

 God, they should have been punished; but why worry 

 us about it ? We have not killed you, and our first man 

 and woman respected all tabu trees." 



They disdained the cruel message that their fore- 

 fathers were in the perpetually burning umu, the oven, 

 as did that Frisian king, Radbod, who with one leg in 

 the baptismal font, bethought him to ask where were his 

 dead progenitors, and was answered by the militant 

 bishop, Wolfran, "In hell, with all unbelievers." 



"Then will I rather feast with them in the halls of 

 Woden than dwell with your little, starveling Christians 

 in heaven" said the pagan, and withdrew his sanctified 

 limb to walk to an unblessed grave in proud pantheism. 



Otu, the son of King Pomare, had a revelation that 

 the god Oro wished to be removed to Tautira from 

 Atehuru. The chiefs of that district protested, and 

 Otu's followers seized the idol, and went to sea with him. 

 They landed as soon as it was safe, and mollified the god 

 by a sacrifice; and having no victim, they killed one of 

 Pomare's servants. The island then divided into hate- 

 ful camps, and Moorea joined the fray. The mission 

 sided with the king, and the crews of two English ves- 

 sels fortified the mission, and with their modern weapons 

 helped the royal party to whip the other faction. Wars 

 followed, the mission was again invaded, the houses 

 burned, and the missionaries, not desiring martyrdom, 

 fled to Australia, thousands of miles away. But two 

 remained, and kept at their preaching, and finally the 

 genius of the Clapham clerics triumphed. Pomare ate 

 the tabu turtle of the temple, and a Christian nucleus 



