Religious Liberty in Rarotonga
BROTHER PIPER, writing of the need of workers in the Cook Islands, says: The special need of more workers in the islands is not so much because of the density of population, but because the people are scattered over so much territory, and the facilities for traveling are poor. Of the conditions in Rarotonga he says further: “On Sunday afternoon, August 31, several of the schoolboys went into the sea for a bath. They were seen by a native policeman, who, thinking they were breaking the Sunday law, came to secure their names. While the policeman was here, he saw our native helper doing some work on his house; and as he also was breaking the law, he had to go to court, too. The case was heard before Colonel Gudgeon. He dismissed the case against the boys, remarking that it was no sin to bathe on Sunday any more that to go for a ride on a horse. Our native helper was next called. He told the judge that as he had kept the seventh day for the Sabbath, and that as God did not forbid his working on the first day of the week, he had worked. I spoke a few words for him in the court. I pointed out that he had not annoyed anybody whatever by working; that it would not have been known had not the policeman come19to get the names of the boys; that God had not placed any restrictions upon man's laboring upon the first day of the week; and that God discountenanced the state's interfering with religion. Colonel Gudgeon asked me if I taught the natives that idea, and when I replied in the affirmative, he told me that I was a very mischievous man. There were a few other points I wished to speak on, and was doing so when the judge cut me short by sentencing Tonga, our native man, to pay twelve shillings, or work on the road twelve days. He quietly said that he would do the work. He did so, but when he had finished eleven days, was given his discharge.” In his previous letter Brother Piper had stated that he did not think they would be troubled by the authorities, and that letter was scarcely more than two hundred miles on its journey when this experience occurred. These facts should arouse us to activity while the four winds are being held.