, and that he has but to break through its walls in order
to breathe the fresh and pure air of a higher life--let him once
consider it cowardice to shrink from this act, and a proof of courage
and of a firm faith in God to rush back to that eternal source from
whence he came--and let these views be countenanced by a whole nation,
sanctioned by priests, and hallowed by poets, and however we may blame
and loathe the custom of human sacrifices and religious suicides, we
shall be bound to confess that to such a man, and to a whole nation of
such men, the most cruel rites will have a very different meaning from
what they would have to us. They are not mere cruelty and brutality.
They contain a religious element, and presuppose a belief in
immortality, and an indifference with regard to worldly pleasures,
which, if directed in a different channel, might produce martyrs and
heroes. Here, at least, there is no danger of modern heresy aping
ancient paganism; and we feel at liberty to express our sympathy and
compassion, even with the most degraded of our brethren. The Fijians,
for instance, commit almost every species of atrocity; but we can
still discover, as Wilkes remarked in his 'Exploring Expedition,' that
the source of many of their abhorrent practices is a belief in a
future state, guided by no just notions of religious or moral
obligations. They immolate themselves; they think it right to destroy
their best friends, to free them from the miseries of this life; they
actually consider it a duty, and perhaps a painful duty, that the son
should strangle his parents, if requested to do so. Some of the
Fijians, when interrupted by Europeans in the act of strangling their
mother, simply replied that she was their mother, and they were her
children, and they ought to put her to death. On reaching the grave
the mother sat down, when they all, including children, grandchildren,
relations, and friends, took an affectionate leave of her. A rope,
made of twisted tapa, was then passed twice around her neck by her
sons, who took hold of it and strangled her--after which she was put
into her grave, with the usual ceremonies. They returned to feast and
mourn, after which she was entirely forgotten, as though she had not
existed. No doubt these are revolting rites; but the phase of human
thought which they disclose is far from being simply revolting. There
is in these immolations, even in their most degraded form, a grain of
that superhuma