and a new sect, the Kanitu, issued from the division.  Since then Kanitus and Israelites, like the Cameronians and the United Presbyterians, have made common cause; and the ecclesiastical history of the Paumotus is, for the moment, uneventful.  There will be more doing before long, and these isles bid fair to be the Scotland of the South.  Two things I could never learn.  The nature of the innovations of the Rev. Mr. Williams none would tell me, and of the meaning of the name Kanitu none had a guess.  It was not Tahitian, it was not Marquesan; it formed no part of that ancient speech of the Paumotus, now passing swiftly into obsolescence.  One man, a priest, God bless him! said it was the Latin for a little dog.  I have found it since as the name of a god in New Guinea; it must be a bolder man than I who should hint at a connection.  Here, then, is a singular thing:  a brand-new sect, arising by popular acclamation, and a nonsense word invented for its name.

The design of mystery seems obvious, and according to a very intelligent observer, Mr. Magee of Mangareva, this element of the mysterious is a chief attraction of the Mormon Church.  It enjoys some of the status of Freemasonry at home, and there is for the convert some of the exhilaration of adventure.  Other attractions are certainly conjoined.  Perpetual rebaptism, leading to a succession of baptismal feasts, is found, both from the social and the spiritual side, a pleasing feature.  More important is the fact that all the faithful enjoy office; perhaps more important still, the strictness of the discipline.  ‘The veto on liquor,’ said Mr. Magee, ‘brings them plenty members.’  There is no doubt these islanders are fond of drink, and no doubt they refrain from the indulgence; a bout on a feast-day, for instance, may be followed by a week or a month of rigorous sobriety.  Mr. Wilmot attributes this to Paumotuan frugality and the love of hoarding; it goes far deeper.  I have mentioned that I made a feast on board the Casco.  To wash down ship’s bread and jam, each guest was given the choice of rum or syrup, and out of the whole number only one man voted—­in a defiant tone, and amid shouts of mirth—­for ‘Trum’!  This was in public.  I had the meanness to repeat the experiment, whenever I had a chance, within the four walls of my house; and three at least, who had refused at the festival, greedily drank rum behind a door.  But there were others thoroughly consistent.  I said the virtues of the race were bourgeois and puritan; and how bourgeois is this! how puritanic! how Scottish! and how Yankee!—­the temptation, the resistance, the public hypocritical conformity, the Pharisees, the Holy Willies, and the true disciples.  With such a people the popularity of an ascetic Church appears legitimate; in these strict rules, in this perpetual supervision, the weak find their advantage, the strong a certain pleasure; and the doctrine of rebaptism, a clean bill and a fresh start, will comfort many staggering professors.