"That's about what happened at Taka Raro the last time I was down there. The population is supposed to be divided about half and half between the Latter Day Saints and the Catholics. There are no missionaries living on the island. The head churches in Papeete send their men around when they can to see how things are going with their flocks. That is usually about once a year for each of them. Boats don't often put in at Taka Raro. I've been there only four times in ten years, myself, and the last time I brought down a young fellow from the Protestant crowd. He had been with me the whole cruise, holding services at the islands where I had put in for copra. I hadn't gone to any of them, but at Taka Raro I felt the need of some religion. I had spent the whole day chasing that Maroaki I spoke about. The old rascal has owed me that eight hundred francs since nineteen ten. He is an elder in his church too. The minute he makes out my schooner standing in toward the pass off he goes on important business to the far end of the lagoon. I went after him that day, with my usual luck. He wasn't to be found, and I came back to the village feeling a bit ruffled up.
"It was just time for the meeting, and I decided that I might as well go as to loaf around finding that old hypocrite while my copra was being loaded. The church was packed when I went in. There wasn't a Catholic in the village that evening. All of those who had been Catholics were taking part in the _himine_ and singing the Protestant songs as well as the Latter Day Saints'. No one seemed to pay much attention to the sermon, though. The young missionary didn't understand the language very well, and the preaching was hard for him. But he seemed to feel pretty good about the meeting, and when we left, the next day, he went down to the cabin to write a report of the progress his church had made at Taka Raro. He must have had a lot to say, for he was at it all the morning. He didn't know that we passed the Ata just after we got out of the pass. That made me feel good, for Louis Germaine, her skipper, has been a rival of mine for years, and I had every kilo of dry copra there was on the island. I got the megaphone and was about to yell, 'Good luck to you, Louis!' when I saw that he had a missionary aboard, too--a priest with a knee-length beard and a black cloak; so I only waved my hand and Louis shook his fist and shouted something I couldn't make out. I was going to the westward, stood close inshore, and passed the village from the outside an hour later. The priest hadn't lost any time getting his congregation together. Since there was no copra to be bought, I suppose Louis told him he had to get a move on. There had been another religious landslide. I was sure of that from the singing, which I heard clear enough, the wind being offshore. Great singers these Paumotuans, and it doesn't make very much difference to them whether the song is 'Happy Day' or 'Jerusalem, the Golden.' Of course I didn't say anything to my missionary. As the old saying is, 'What you don't know won't hurt you.'"