glory is followed immediately by the powers of evil, seeking to spoil the vision.

The ideal of God regarding man should be our first duty, and to express that ideal was the work of the Master; God was humanized in him, that man might be "divinized." You can not sin without influencing others in your sin; you can not do good without influencing others in your goodness. The life of the convent and the monastery is an everlasting disgrace, a stain upon the history of mankind, for man can not isolate himself. Those men, who in the fullness of their youthful energy, and the indomitable will of their manhood, will slave for the advancement of the race, they only have moral value, even though at times they have failed and have known the bitterness of defeat. God made you for that.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ELDER J. C. CLAPP.-PART XI.

A MISSIONARY TRIP TO TAHITI.

T WAS in September, 1892, that I went on board the steamship Australia and set sail for Honolulu. I remember with pleasure the many genial friends that greeted me at the wharf in San Francisco to witness my departure. The hearty handshake, the affectionate good-bye and "God bless you," gave evidence of many loving hearts, and I rejoiced that I had the confidence of so many good people.

As the great floating palace set her bowsprit to the sea and began to steam her way towards the Golden Gate, I watched the receding shore; and as long as I could see, the crowd was still there waving their handkerchiefs. We had quite a large passenger list on board, and as nearly all of them had friends that had come to see them off, I did not flatter myself that all the handkerchief waving was meant for me by any means.

After we had passed out of the Golden Gate our captain set our vessel's prow exactly southwest, and he kept her on that course for eight days, when early one morning the man from the watchtower sang out, "Land ahoy!" and we were in sight of the isle of Molokai, the leper island. This island has so often been described by travelers that I need only say that it is the island that was set apart by the Hawaiian government for the home of the unfortunate lepers, and it seems that nature has expressly designed it for them, as it is a natural prison. It is almost impossible for any one to get away from it when they once get there, on account of the peculiar construction of the island, and when a married man or a married woman is condemned as a leper and is sent to the island it is equal to a decree of divorce. The husband or wife may choose to go with the leper companion, but they can not come back again. They must spend the balance of their days in that awful place. Leprosy is a most loathsome disease, and for that reason the law of segregation is rigidly enforced. There has been much discussion as to whether leprosy is contagious or

not. There was a very learned debate going on in the Honolulu papers all the time I was there, but I think the question never was settled either way. There was a kind of experiment made in order to demonstrate that it was catching. A criminal was condemned to be hung, shot, or inoculated with virus of leprosy. He chose leprosy and had the virus put into him in five different places, and from what I was told it was put into him in a barbarous manner, and he was consigned to the lazaret; but at the end of the year he was examined by the board of health and was pronounced free from the dreaded disease. This is as it was told me by the late J. M. Horner. I baptized a girl about sixteen years old that had been kept hid away by her parents and was not sent to Molokai. I learned that she died after I left there.

I might write quite a lengthy chapter on this dreaded disease, but it is easy for any one who wishes to know more of it to look in almost any encyclopedia and he will learn more than is profitable for him to know, unless he knows how to cure it. There is but one good feature about it, there is no pain attached to it. A kind of paralysis precedes the decay of flesh, and fingers or toes may drop off without the knowledge of the patient. People were being carried to the lazaret every week and sometimes quite a number a week while I was there. I learned that there were about two thousand there at that time.

Only a few moments after we sighted Molokai we saw the island of Owahu on our right. The tall cocoanut-trees lifting their heads far above all other vegetation was quite a sight for me, and of course it was an interesting sight for any one unacquainted with the tropics. But just as we were nearing the extinct volcano called Diamond Head, I took my first lesson in a tropical shower. Our captain had put up a heavy canvas or tarpaulin over the upper deck to ward off the tropical sun, and that morning nearly everybody was out promenading the deck. The rain fell so fast that as the vessel would rock, great sheets of water would pour off, first from one side and then from the other, and it was a grand sight to see. But as soon as the rain stopped, which was as suddenly as it began, the sky was as clear and the sun shining as brightly as though there had been no rain in six months. The cloud had all fallen in rain. That is the way the rain king does business in that climate.

But here we are at Honolulu, the capital of the archipelago. This is the metropolis of the island kingdom, a city variously estimated at from twenty thousand to forty thousand inhabitants, -the land of sunshine and fragrant flowers, of bright skies and clear waters. Here, where both nature and art have combined to beautify the earth, or this part of it, this is certainly "paradise found," the "garden of the gods."

As we are creeping up slowly to our lock there are dozens of native boys and girls from ten to twenty years old swimming around our vessel, begging the pasengers to throw over nickels or dimes for them to dive after, and it is amusing to see how expert they are in the art of swimming and diving. They will

nearly always get the coin before it reaches the bottom, and as they are entirely naked they put them in their mouths until their jaws sometimes stick out like a squirrel's jaws when loaded with

acorns.

Here, as we are landing, we see a motley crowd,-all kinds of men and women,—and we hear all sorts of languages, and see all kinds of costumes, but I am not here for the novelty of the thing. I am here to preach to this people, and I must set myself to take in the situation so far as it pertains to my work. I am here in fulfillment of a prophecy made more than a half century ago, and it is marvelous in my eyes. Not that God has not power to cause all things to work after the counsel of his own will, but it is marvelous that one so weak and vacillating as I should have been spared through all the dangers and trials of his checkered life until the lengthening shadows told that the sun of life was low in the horizon, to fill a mission that he could so much better have filled in the morn or the noontide of life; but God chooses his own way of working, and so may it be.

But I am here now at the wharf, and steamer day is a red letter day in Honolulu. Large crowds gather to hear the music of the Hawaiian national band, and to see and be seen. I see the crowd swaying and heaving like the waves of the sea, some crowding to be the first to get on the boat, and others on board trying to be first to get off, so there is great disorder in the crowd, but no quarreling or fighting. Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Kanakas, and in fact a dozen other nationalities, all mix up in great confusion.

Now I see some dark figures, men and women, crowding their way towards the gangplank, and I take them to be native Saints coming to meet the lennakakaku (elder) to help him on shore. I watched their maneuvers till they got on the boat, and they came straight to me and called me Kalapa (Clapp). Our recognition of each other was mutual. There were also a couple of white ladies that came to the boat to meet me, but they did not crowd forward like the Kanakas.

The natives were very anxious to do all they could for my comfort, and were all smiles and good humor. The white Saints were also very attentive to my wants, and I was soon made to feel that although in a foreign land, I was still among friends, and among some, at least, that spoke my mother tongue.

As I entered upon the work in Honolulu, I felt a strange timidity that I did not recollect ever feeling before. It might have been that the great anxiety that I felt to do a good work and make a great success, accounts for my feelings at that time.

I shall make a digression and acknowledge that in giving this brief account of myself, I have given the bright side, or at least the incidents where I have been successful, and have recorded so little of my failures that I fear that some might get the idea that I have always been a hero; but this is by no means the case. I do not wish to make such an impression; for I have made very

many mistakes and failures, and I find in my work much to be deplored because of ignorance and a lack of practicability.

As is the custom among the natives, I was soon all decorated with flowers, which they call les, pronounced las, which means a yoke. It consists of flowers tastily and deftly woven together in a wreath big enough to go over one's head, and these are often made of rare flowers that are very costly. A native would give his last cent to buy flowers to decorate a friend. This is a pretty custom, but I will venture that any one taking his first lesson in it would almost think it a barbarous custom rather than a mark of honor. The warm climate, and the extreme fragrance of the flowers, and to be so muffled up, is almost suffocating, at least it was to me; but that is their way of showing respect, and of course I submitted to it.

I entered upon my work, as I said before, with what I thought bright prospects of success, but had to talk through an interpreter. I found Bro. G. J. Waller, who was a resident of the islands and the president of the branch, to be fully alive to the interests of the church, and although he was full of business in secular affairs, he always found time for church duty and money to help it along. We had J. M. Poepoe, a native lawyer, employed as interpreter, and I learned that there was no better interpreter in the kingdom. That the natives are no farther along morally and spiritually is no fault of Bro. Waller's; for if they had adhered to his counsels they would have occupied higher and better conditions than they do now.

After I became acquainted with the Hawaiian character I became satisfied that much of our labor was wasted; for after I succeeded in baptizing quite a number, I confess I did not see the change in them that I thought I ought to see, and so I began to think that the mission was costing too much for the returns we were getting. Bro. J. M. Poepoe, our interpreter, was an elder, and a fine speaker, and we hoped that through his labors we might reach many of the natives, but we found it very difficult. I engaged with Bro. J. M. Poepoe to translate the Doctrine and Covenants into the Hawaiian language, but we found it very slow work. If I had been capable of doing the work alone I could soon have accomplished it, but the way we did it was very tedious work. The work was finally completed and published, I believe at Bro. Waller's expense, but I doubt that the sale of books ever justified the labor and cash bestowed on the work by Bro. Waller.

I was in Hawaii during the revolution and saw and heard it all, and if I were to tell the story as I saw and heard it, it would be a different story than the one told by the Hon. James Blount, of Georgia, whom President Cleveland sent over to the Islands to investigate the trouble; for much of his report lacked the element of truth.

I had a good opportunity to learn the condition and politics of Hawaii, as two of my old friends, Horner brothers, were nobles in the house of legislature under the monarchy. These Horner brothers were long residents of Alameda County, California, where

I became acquainted with them many years ago. Through them I also became acquainted with many of the leading men of the kingdom.

I had been in that mission about a year when it was decided to bring my family over, that my wife could assist in the Sundayschool. Accordingly I sent for my family and rented a cottage and fixed up as best I could for housekeeping. When they came I felt that with such a reënforcement we would be able to do a big work, and we certainly did try, but it seemed we never could work the people up to a proper standard. I taught a class of the young native men, and my wife taught a class of young native women or girls, and really it did seem for a season that we were making headway; but finally there was a blight cast over the work that I hardly feel at liberty to mention, but it was sufficient to greatly hinder the work and discourage me so that I felt I could not stay in the mission any longer.

Bro. G. J. Waller understood the condition so well that he was willing that I should leave the mission, and I do not know but he was anxious for me to leave it. Here I wish to say that there were conditions arose that made a little friction between me and Bro. Waller, yet he is an honorable man, and worthy of all confidence. He is sound in the faith, and an untiring worker in its interest.

On account of things occurring that I seemed to have no control over, I came to the conclusion that I could do nothing more there, and I thought it possible that if I should come back to my own native land, things would be better, and I might get to a place where my work would do more good. So I asked to be released from the Hawaiian Mission, not that the mission is a hard one especially, viewed from a temporal standpoint: In fact it was the easiest mission I had ever had, so far as that is concerned, but I felt my labor and influence were at an end in Hawaii. Were it not that it seemed to be a part of the destiny marked out for me by the spirit of prophecy, I would say that my island mission was a failure, and yet it was very much like nearly all those who have gone to the Islands. They have stayed till they began to get acquainted with the work, and slightly acquainted with the language, and have left for new fields.

Agreeably to my request the conference of 1894 liberated me from that mission, and I returned to California, and by appointment began to labor in the Pacific Slope Mission under the direction of Elder J. F. Burton. I labored, I think, for about two years, living part of the time in San Jose, and part of the time in Santa Cruz, much of the time greatly afflicted with stomach trouble and other troubles that the world knew nothing of, but still I kept up and tried to be cheerful, and in this I succeeded so well that few. if any, of my friends knew the burden I was carrying.

(To be continued.)