Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic
“The woman whom you see is a heathen, carrying her husband’s skull
as she goes on a visit to some other village. A party of the natives
are pressing scraped cocoanuts in an oil-press, to get the oil to
buy tobacco with. The dog is one of the many, as heathenish as their
masters.”
From _Story of the Morning Star_,
By Rev. Hiram Bingham.
EVANGELIZING POLYNESIA]
Excluding all considerations of intellect--in which both the
Missionaries and the Polynesians seem to have been about equally
endowed--the abyss between the brethren and the heathen was the abyss
that separated John Knox from Aristophanes and the Greek Anthology:
the abyss between the animal integrity of classical antiquity and the
Hebraic heritage of the agonised conscience. Reason may pass back and
forth over this chasm: but no man once touched by the traditions of
Christianity can ever again sling his heart back across the abyss.
If he attempt the feat--as witness the _Intimate Journals_ of Paul
Gauguin--he but adds corruption to crucifixion, and there is no doubt
as to the last state of that man.
If the fall from innocence was begun in Eden, it was sealed beyond
redemption in Bethlehem. For at the time of the inception of
Christianity, the pagan world was going to its doom, and its death
agonies were frightful in the extreme. Something had to be done to
save humanity,--and something drastic. And humanity--which was at the
same time the priest and the victim--found in the cross the justest
symbol of its triumph in utter human defeat. More effectively to
slander this world, Heaven was set up in libellous contrast; in order
to heap debasement upon the flesh, the spirit was opposed to it as
an infinitely precious eternal entity, tainted by contact with its
mortal habitation. Blessedness lay not in harmony, but in division,
and utter confusion was mistaken for total depravity. “For the flesh
lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and these
are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things
that ye would.” But these things classical antiquity did--being given
over to a reprobate mind, so St. Paul tells us. The Wesleyan brethren
found in Polynesia the same untroubled indulgence in “unrighteousness,
fornication and wickedness,” that had so troubled St. Paul. But in
Tahiti there were no signs of the intellect that classical antiquity
exhibited in the days of its reprobation. And though the Polynesians
seemed to have thriven on unrighteousness, the brethren itched to
infect them with misgivings, and this in a Holy Name. Melville
was profoundly stirred to loathing at these efforts: a loathing
heightened by the later contentions introduced into Tahiti by the rival
proselyting of French Catholic missionaries. Lost in doubt and shame at
such spectacles, in _Clarel_ he thus invokes Christ:
“By what art
Of conjuration might the heart
Of heavenly love, so sweet, so good,
Corrupt into the creeds malign
Begetting strife’s pernicious brood,
Which claimed for patron thee divine?
Anew, anew,
For this thou bleedest, Anguished Face;
Yea, thou through ages to accrue,
Shall the Medusa shield replace:
In beauty and in terror too
Shall paralyse the nobler race--
Smite or suspend, perplex, deter--
Tortured, shall prove the torturer.”
The brethren in Tahiti were without any of Melville’s misgivings.
Their faith was extraordinary. No less extraordinary was the native
imperviousness to salvation. After the brethren had ceased to be an
amusing novelty with gifts to bestow, the natives submitted them
to neglect and mockery. Revolts against King Pomare and constant
war kept the brethren in peril of their lives without releasing
them to celestial jubilation. The Napoleonic wars cut them off from
communication with England. During the first twelve years they heard
from home only three times. These days of fruitless trial sifted the
party. Many of the brethren seized any opportunity that offered to
sail away on chance trading vessels. Of the seven who remained, two
died. In 1801 eight new brethren came out to reinforce the number, then
reduced to four. In 1804 old King Pomare died, and his son Oto became
King under the title Pomare II. In the wars that followed, the mission
seemed broken up: their house was burned, the printing press destroyed,
and six of the brethren removed from Tahiti to Huahine. Two remained,
however, to carry on the forlorn hope. But after all these years
Pomare’s heart began to soften. His gods seemed to be standing him in
little stead. Defeated in battle, he escaped to Eimeo, and invited
the missionaries to follow him. Here he ate a sacred turtle, and when
no harm came to him he dared still further. Meanwhile it was proposed
in England that proselyting in Polynesia be discontinued, since after
sixteen years not one conversion had been effected. But those of
undaunted faith protested. The ship bearing fresh supplies and news of
the revived determination of those at home to prosecute the work was
met in mid-ocean with the cargo of the rejected idols of the Tahitians.
In a church seven hundred and twelve feet long, with twenty-nine doors
and three pulpits, all paid for by himself,--the church in which
Melville witnessed Sunday devotion--King Pomare had himself moistened
on the forehead with the water of life.
Backed by their royal patron, the Missionaries undertook to convert
Tahiti into a Polynesian Chautauqua. As Mrs. Helen Barrett Montgomery
says, in her _Christus Redemptor_: “We cannot follow the glowing story
of how the King had a code of laws made and read it to seven thousand
of his people, who, by solemn vote, made these the law of the land.” In
1839, Captain Hervey, in command of a whale-ship, reported of Tahiti:
“It is the most civilised place I have been at in the South Seas. They
have a good code of laws and no liquors are allowed to be landed on the
island. It is one of the most gratifying sights the eye can witness
to see, on Sunday, in their church, which holds about four thousand,
the Queen near the pulpit with all her subjects about her, decently
apparelled and seemingly in pure devotion.” Three years later, Melville
attended one of these services, and was less favourably impressed.
In 1823, the French establishment of the _Œuvre de la propagation de
la Foi_ formed at Lyons, and soon cast a beneficent eye upon North
and South America and the islands of Oceania. In 1814, soon after the
restoration of the Bourbons, the Abbé Coudrin had founded the Society
of Picpus “to promote the revival of the Roman Catholic religion in
France, and to propagate it by missions among unbelievers or pagans.”
This establishment received Papal sanction in 1817, and was placed
under “the special protection of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.” In
1833, the Congregation of the Propaganda, with the confirmation of the
Sovereign Pontiff, confided to the Society of Picpus the conversion of
all the islands of the Pacific ocean. Two apostolic prefectures were
established. M. E. Rouchouse was made bishop of Nilolopis, in partibus,
and apostolic vicar of Eastern Oceania; M. C. Liansu was appointed as
his prefect; two priests, Caret and Laval, and a catechist, Columban,
or Murphy, were placed under his direction. In May, 1834, the Catholic
missionaries arrived at Valparaiso, bound for the South Seas.
The benefits of the True Faith were not to advance into the Pacific
unassisted by the secular arm. Two officers of the French Navy,
Vincendon-Dumoulin and Desgraz, in their _Considerations générales
sur la Colonisation Française dans l’Oceanie_ thus speak for the less
purely religious interests of France: “It is impossible for a traveller
who may visit the islands of the Pacific, not to speculate on the
destiny of the happy groups scattered over its bosom. The first thing
that strikes him is the sight of men, consecrated to a religious work,
meddling with the temporal affairs of these free people, whom they
have brought under their domination, under pretence of directing their
consciences.... When the rapid multiplication of the population of all
European countries is considered, it is evident that before long a
European colony will be formed in each of the innumerable islands of
the Pacific, and missionary efforts merit therefore all the attention
of the government.... On the signal from the first cannon that shall
be fired in Europe, a protecting flag will be seen to rise on each of
these islands now so peaceful. God grant that the tri-coloured flag of
our nation may show itself with honour!”
At this time, it was a law of Tahiti that before a foreigner could
have leave to reside on the island, permission must be granted by
Queen Pomare and the chiefs. The Catholic missionaries, aware of this
regulation, succeeded, however, in effecting a landing disguised as
carpenters, and to this island, partly idolatrous, partly heretic,
they gave the salutation of peace. Pomare, however, was unappreciative
of their salute, and refused to the disguised priests permission
to remain. This exclusion, in its sequel, raised the most delicate
questions of international diplomacy, and bestirred Pomare to
scatter anxious letters broadcast over the face of the earth. Her
correspondence included a cosmopolitan company of Commodores and
Admirals, Queen Victoria, the President of the United States, and
Louis Philippe of France. Admiral Du Petit-Thouars, in command of the
_Venus_, was despatched to Tahiti under special orders, “to make the
Queen and the inhabitants feel that France is a great and powerful
nation.” The _Venus_ arrived at Tahiti, August 27, 1838, and proceeded
to summary justice. Under the pressure of a broadside, Pomare was
obliged to beg pardon of the most Christian King. “I am only,” she
wrote to Louis Philippe, “the sovereign of a little insignificant
island; may glory and power be with your majesty; let your anger cease;
and pardon me the mistake that I have made.”
It was further demanded of Pomare that she pay “a great and powerful
nation” the sum of two thousand dollars as a more solid reparation for
her bad behaviour. Pomare was appalled at the magnitude of this sum:
there was no such amplitude of wealth in her treasury. The missionaries
were moved in compassion to finance her political indiscretion. But
in the next humiliation dealt out to her, the brethren were unable to
offer much assistance. The French Admiral bore instructions to require
that the French flag be hoisted the day following the receipt of the
two thousand dollars, and that it be honoured by Pomare with a salute
of twenty-one guns. The situation was awkward. Pomare was very short
of powder. She assured the Admiral she had not enough for more than
five shots. The Admiral paced the deck, and passed his fingers through
his hair in considerable agitation. “What will they say in France,”
said the patriotic commander, “when they know that I furnished the
powder to salute my own flag?” The difficulty was great. An expedient
was necessary, and the Admiral hit upon one: “Mr. Consul,” said he to
the Rev. Pritchard, and British Consul, “I can give you some powder,
and you can do with it as you please.” According to the French report,
Pritchard “himself loaded the bad cannon on the little island and
directed the firing;” and soon after, the French observed Pritchard
to look “thin and bilious, with an appearance of pride, and the cold
dignity so natural to the English.”
But the visiting Admiral had not yet completed his duty to “the
justly irritated King of the French.” He condescended to visit the
Queen on purpose to introduce Moerenhaut as French consul. Moerenhaut
had been American consul at Tahiti, but had been relieved of the
responsibilities of that office at a request of Pomare to the President