Prayers Written At Vailima by Robert Louis Stevenson

IN _every Samoan household the day is closed with prayer and the singing of hymns_. _The omission of this sacred duty would indicate_, _not only a lack of religious training in the house chief_, _but a shameless disregard of all that is reputable in Samoan social life_. _No doubt_, _to many_, _the evening service is no more than a duty fulfilled_. _The child who says his prayer at his mother's knee can have no real conception of the meaning of the words he lisps so readily_, _yet he goes to his little bed with a sense of heavenly protection that he would miss were the prayer forgotten_. _The average Samoan is but a larger child in most things_, _and_ _would lay an uneasy head on his wooden pillow if he had not joined_, _even perfunctorily_, _in the evening service_. _With my husband_, _prayer_, _the direct appeal_, _was a necessity_. _When he was happy he felt impelled to offer thanks for that undeserved joy_; _when in sorrow_, _or pain_, _to call for strength to bear what must be borne_.

_Vailima lay up some three miles of continual rise from Apia_, _and more than half that distance from the nearest village_. _It was a long way for a tired man to walk down every evening with the sole purpose of joining in family worship_; _and the road through the bush was dark_, _and_, _to the Samoan imagination_, _beset with supernatural terrors_. _Wherefore_, _as soon as our household had fallen into a regular routine_, _and the bonds of Samoan family life began to draw us more closely together_, _Tusitala felt the necessity of including our retainers in our evening devotions_. _I suppose ours was the only white man's family in all Samoa_, _except those of the missionaries_, _where the day naturally ended with this homely_, _patriarchal custom_. _Not only were the religious scruples of the natives satisfied_, _but_, _what we did not foresee_, _our own respectability_-_and incidentally that of our retainers_-_became assured_, _and the influence of Tusitala increased tenfold_.