been able to confer. And now, when the clouds gather and the rain impends over the forest and our house, permit us not to be cast down; let us not lose the savour of past mercies and past pleasures; but, like the voice of a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memory survive in the hour of darkness. If there be in front of us any painful duty, strengthen us with the grace of courage; if any act of mercy, teach us tenderness and patience.

ANOTHER

Lord, Thou sendest down rain upon the uncounted millions of the forest, and givest the trees to drink exceedingly. We are here upon this isle a few handfuls of men, and how many myriads upon myriads of stalwart trees! Teach us the lesson of the trees. The sea around us, which this rain recruits, teems with the race of fish; teach us, Lord, the meaning of the fishes. Let us see ourselves for what we are, one out of the countless number of the clans of Thy handiwork. When we would despair, let us remember that these also please and serve Thee.

BEFORE A TEMPORARY SEPARATION

To-day we go forth separate, some of us to pleasure, some of us to worship, some upon duty. Go with us, our guide and angel; hold Thou before us in our divided paths the mark of our low calling, still to be true to what small best we can attain to. Help us in that, our Maker, the dispenser of events, Thou, of the vast designs in which we blindly labour, suffer us to be so far constant to ourselves and our beloved.

FOR FRIENDS

For our absent loved ones we implore Thy loving-kindness. Keep them in life, keep them in growing honour; and for us, grant that we remain worthy of their love. For Christ's sake, let not our beloved blush for us, nor we for them. Grant us but that, and grant us courage to endure lesser ills unshaken, and to accept death, loss, and disappointment as it were straws upon the tide of life.

FOR THE FAMILY

Aid us, if it be Thy will, in our concerns.

Have mercy on this land and innocent people. Help them who this day contend in disappoint

ment with their frailties. Bless our family, bless our forest house, bless our island helpers. Thou who hast made for us this place of ease and hope, accept and inflame our gratitude; help us to repay in service one to another the debt of Thine unmerited benefits and mercies, so that when the period of our stewardship draws to a conclusion, when the windows begin to be darkened, when the bond of the family is to be loosed, there shall be no bitterness of remorse in our farewells.

Help us to look back on the long way that Thou hast brought us, on the long days in which we have been served not according to our deserts but our desires; on the pit and the miry clay, the blackness of despair, the horror of misconduct, from which our feet have been plucked out. For our sins forgiven or prevented, for our shame unpublished, we bless and thank Thee, O God. Help us yet again and ever. So order events, so corroborate our frailty, as that day by day we shall come before Thee with this song of gratitude, and in the end we be dismissed with honour. In their weakness and their fear the vessels of Thy handiwork so pray to Thee, so praise Thee. Amen.

SUNDAY

We beseech Thee, Lord, to behold us with favour, folk of many families and nations gathered together in the peace of this roof, weak men and women subsisting under the covert of Thy patience. Be patient still; suffer us yet awhile longer; - with our broken purposes of good, with our idle endeavours against evil, suffer us awhile longer to endure, and (if it may be) help us to do better. Bless to us our extraordinary mercies; if the day come when these must be taken, brace us to play the man under affliction. Be with our friends, be with ourselves. Go with each of us to rest; if any dream, be their dreams quiet; if any awake, temper to them the dark hours of watching; and when the day returns, return to us, our sun and comforter, and call us up with morning faces and with morning hearts- eager to laboureager to be happy, if happiness shall be our portion- and if the day be marked for sorrow, strong to endure it.

We thank Thee and praise Thee; and in the words of Him to whom this day is sacred, close our oblation.

Lord, enlighten us to see the beam that is in our own eye, and blind us to the mote that is in our brother's. Let us feel our offences with

our hands, make them great and bright before us like the sun, make us eat and drink them for our diet. Blind us to the offences of our beloved, cleanse them from our memories, take them out of our mouths for ever. Let all here before Thee carry and measure with the false balances of love, and be in their own eyes and in all conjunctions the most guilty. Help us, at the same time, with the grace of courage, that we be none of us cast down. When we sit lamenting amid the ruins of our happiness or our integrity, touch us with fire from the altar, that we may be up and doing to rebuild our city in the name and by the method of Him in whose words we now conclude.

Lord, the creatures of Thy hand, Thy disinherited children, come before Thee with their incoherent wishes and regrets. Children we are, children we shall be, till our mother the earth has fed upon our bones. Accept us, correct us, guide us, Thy guilty innocents. Dry our vain tears, delete our vain resentments, help our yet vainer efforts. If there be any here, sulking as children will, deal with and enlighten him. Make it day about that person, so that he shall see himself and be ashamed. Make it heaven about him, Lord, by the only way to heaven, forgetfulness of self. And make it day about his neighbours, so that they shall help, not hinder him.

We are evil, O God, and help us to see it and amend. We are good, and help us to be better. Look down upon Thy servants with a patient eye, even as Thou sendest sun and rain; look down, call upon the dry bones, quicken, enliven; re-create in us the soul of service, the spirit of peace; renew in us the sense of joy.

APPENDIX D

SAMOAN AFFAIRS

It is obvious that if the Berlin Treaty were to prove a success, the two chief officials appointed under its provisions should have been men of the world, conversant with ordinary business, perfectly straightforward, accustomed to criticism, free from red tape, prompt to act, ready to conciliate, and willing to undertake responsibility. Moreover, they should have been sent out to their posts as soon as the news of their appointment reached Samoa.

The following note will show that none of these conditions were fulfilled. I take my facts (with one single exception) from the reports of the British Consul and the American Consul-General, for after several efforts I have failed to procure a copy of the German White-book for use in writing these pages. I read it when it came out, and would refer to the leading article in the Times for January 17th, 1893, to show that it directly supported Stevenson's contentions. But it would be useless to refer my readers to an authority so inaccessible. The American Whitebook is likewise not easily obtained, and I have principally quoted the British Blue-book, C 6973, which may be purchased by any one for the sum of two shillings from Messrs. Eyre & Spottiswoode, 32 Abingdon Street, London, S. W. As to the impartiality of the Bluebook, the British Consul during this period was never at any time suspected, justly or unjustly, of being friendly to Stevenson.

The actual facts are as follows:-The Treaty was signed at Berlin on July 14th, 1889: the President did not reach Apia till 26th April, 1891 (Letter No. 85), and though the Chief-Justice arrived in the end of December, 1890 (No. 61), he did not open his court for hearing cases till the 15th of July in the following year (120).

The Chief-Justice from the beginning refused to pay any customs or other duties as a private individual (125); he delayed the proceedings of the Land Commission, by disclaiming all authority to give the necessary formal sanction to their appointment of a secretary, and the hire of a safe for the custody of the numerous title-deeds produced be

fore their court (97); he appointed two Swedes to the only two offices in his patronage, and procured or created two more posts which they held simultaneously with the others (73, 239); and he refused to register any land-titles until a heavy fee had been paid to his Registrar — a stroke by which that officer, in addition to his salary, would within a couple of years have pocketed £3000 (239, 305). Then, when troubles were beginning, he started on September 5th, 1891, on an expedition of several months' duration to study the land systems of Fiji and Victoria (123, 179).

The President for his part chose as the first work of the new Government a large prison, on which £1500, being half the sum collected by the Government up to the time of his proposal, was expended (127), and which, when finished, was not used (278). At the same time he issued an advertisement calling for tenders for " Capitol Buildings," "which proved to be mainly a dwelling-house for Baron Senfft von Pilsach" (127), a residence for which it is fair to add that he duly paid rent.

On September 4th, 1891, five Samoan chiefs, who had surrendered voluntarily to a political charge of having destroyed some houses on the island of Manono, were, no doubt with complete justice, condemned to six months' imprisonment by a native judge, just before the ChiefJustice left for his colonial studies. Two days later, on rumour of an attempt to rescue the men, the Swedish jailor, acting presumably on instructions, placed dynamite under the prison, connected the charge with an electric battery, and threatened to blow the whole of the prisoners sky-high, if any such attempt were made.1

Yet two days later, there having been no sign of trouble, the king,

1 This is the only statement unsupported by any of the official publications, but it was made deliberately by Stevenson upon the information received by him at the time and on the spot; the three Powers publish not one single word of denial or incredulity, and when the Government editor tried to meet the accusation, he did not for a moment question the fact, but endeavoured to explain it away. (The Times, 11th January, 1893.)

If the charge were untrue, it would have been denied with indignation in two lines. If it were admitted to be true, what could be said? Let us take a recent analogy: what would have been said if dynamite had been placed under the huts at Nooitgedacht or St Helena, where the prisoners were prisoners of war, or under the Tombs or Holloway Jail ?