| 552 no shepherd for over thirty years, have gone into the Catholic Church. The local organizations have been kept up, but the great majority of the membership are young people or rather those who were unborn, or very young when Grouard went away; but they talk as glibly about what Turuati taught, as if they had heard him for themselves, but do not know what he taught. There was one oversight on the part of Grouard, and that was a failure to translate the laws of the church affecting the duties of the various officers of the branch, and the duties of the members, and concerning the conferences, etc.
There are some branches which do not receive the church, and refuse to acknowledge the revelations contained in the book of Doctrine and Covenants; because as they say, that Grouard did not tell them anything about such a book. They supposed that the formula of baptism, and the prayers in the sacramental service, and the duties of priests, teachers, and deacons, which he taught them was learned from Joseph, and not from any printed book, which the church here was to receive as authoritative, and from which he had learned what he had taught them.
The second class were those who had departed from the faith as taught by Brn. Rodger and Wandell in 1873, the few days they were in Tahiti. They had been baptized (most of them) by elders ordained by these brethren, who without thought as to the interpretation that would be put upon it, in their certificates of appointment to missions-called the appointees "elders in Israel," and from this, without warrant of course, they got the idea that Israel was to be part of the church name, and that they were Israelites in the flesh. From this grew the idea of Abraham being their head to the disparagement of the Messiah. From these mistakes grew the title "Israelites," and an antagonism between the Grouardites and them, and the feeling was not far from bitter. The Israelites went to one extreme, and the other party to the other, for while the former gave more prominence to Israel than is justifiable by the scriptures, the others began to condemn everything Israelitish, and forgot the fact that Jesus himself was an Israelite in the flesh, and that "salvation is of the Jews." I have had to fight two of these parties with the truth found on middle ground. .
These people are of Israelitish origin I am satisfied-and for several reasons; and like Israel of old, they are a crooked, perverse, stiff-necked generation. I soon got them to see the truth about Abraham and Israel, and I have found them ever since, more humble, teachable, and tractable than these Anaa people, whose cry is, eternally' "Anaa te upoo;" "Anaa is the head."
The third class were those whom I found in Tahiti and Maatea, these were squarely with the Reorganization, the good fruit of the labors of Brn. Wandell and Rodger. The wisest, and best informed, and most earnest ones I found in these places. They had indeed an advantage, for they had the Herald coming to them which they now and then had translated by Mr. Barff. I would like to see the Herald taken in every
(page 552) |
