may all learn of the true God, and that you, like all the people in
the far-off islands of the sea, may take your gods made of wood, of
birds' feathers and of cloth, and burn them."

A roar of anger and horror burst from the people. "What!" they cried,
"burn the gods! What gods shall we then have? What shall we do without
the gods?"

They were angry, but there was something in the bold face of Papeiha
that kept them from slaying him. They allowed him to stay, and did not
kill him.

Soon after this, Papeiha one day heard shrieking and shouting and wild
roars as of men in a frenzy. He saw crowds of people round the gods
offering food to them; the priests with faces blackened with charcoal
and with bodies painted with stripes of red and yellow, the
warriors with great waving head-dresses of birds' feathers and white
sea-shells. Papeiha, without taking any thought of the peril that he
rushed into, went into the midst of the people and said:

"Why do you act so foolishly? 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. He would take his stand, now under a grove of bananas on
a great stone, and now in a village, where the people from the huts
gathered round, and again on the beach, where he would lift up his
voice above the boom of the ocean breakers to tell the story of Jesus.
And some of those degraded savages became Christians.