Prayers Written At Vailima, and A Lowden Sabbath Morn

Prayers Written At Vailima was transcribed from the 1916 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, proofing by Stephen Booth.
A Lowden Sabbath Morn was transcribed from the 1898 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
by Robert Louis Stevenson
BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MRS. STEVENSON
LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS MDCCCCXVI
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 .