Much of this instruction fell among choking weeds. Still they were all better for having Olmedo among them; and, indeed, the very fact of their being able in any degree to appreciate his life, showed the dawnings of a new light to their minds.
Without this detail of the relative moral positions of the priest and his semi-flock, the reader would not appreciate the force of Kiana’s reply to Olmedo’s appeal, in which the latter had given a brief history of the Christian religion as derived from the Holy Scriptures and interpreted by the Roman church.
I give merely the substance of Kiana’s words, as it would be too tedious to follow them literally through the web of conversation which led to so full an enunciation of his own belief. The reader will perceive a sufficient coincidence, to suggest either a common source of knowledge in the earliest ages of human history or certain religious instincts in the human mind, that make isolated races come to practically the same religious conclusions.
“Some things that you tell me,” said Kiana, “are like our own traditions. From them we learn that there was a time when there was no land nor water, but everywhere darkness and confusion. It was then that the Great God made Hawaii. Soon after he created a man and woman to dwell on it. These two were our progenitors.
“Ages afterwards a flood came and drowned all the land, except the top of Mauna Kea, which you see yonder,” continued the chief, pointing to its snowy summit. “A few only of the people were saved in a great canoe, which floated a long while on the waters, until it rested there, and the people went forth and again built houses and dwelt in the land.
“One of our Gods also stopped the sun, as you say Joshua did, not to slay his enemies, but to give light to his wife to finish her work.
“We have a hell, but it is not one of torturing flames, but of darkness, where bad men wander about in misery, having for food only lizards and butterflies. Our heaven is bright like yours, and those who are admitted are forever happy. You tell me of a Purgatory, where the souls of those who go not directly to heaven or hell, remain in temporary punishment. Our priests tell us that the spirits of those who have been not very good or bad, remain about the earth, and that they visit mortals to protect or harm according to their dispositions.
“We pray with our faces and arms extended towards heaven, as you do. We have our fasts and our feasts, in memory of our good men, who have gone before us to happiness. We venerate their relics and the people worship them.
“You believe in One Great God and worship many. We do the same. What matters it by what names they are called. You declare a man whom you call Pope, to be the representative of God on earth; that he can bind or loose for hell or heaven; that only through belief in his church can any one be saved; that his authority is derived from dreams and visions, and prophesies and traditions written in a Holy Book.
“Our priests too have visions and dreams. Their gods visit them. They claim authority from the same sources of inspiration. Your Pope is no doubt right to govern you as he does. His book is a good book for you white men; but we red men have no need of a book, while our priests still talk with their gods, as you say yours once did.