Near by is an interesting ruin—the meager remains of an ancient temple—a
place where human sacrifices were offered up in those old by-gone days
when the simple child of nature, yielding momentarily to sin when sorely
tempted, acknowledged his error when calm reflection had shown it to
him, and came forward with noble frankness and offered up his
grandmother as an atoning sacrifice—in those old days when the luckless
sinner could keep on cleansing his conscience and achieving periodical
happiness as long as his relations held out; long, long before the
missionaries braved a thousand privations to come and make them
permanently miserable by telling them how beautiful and how blissful a
place heaven is, and how nearly impossible it is to get there; and
showed the poor native how dreary a place perdition is and what
unnecessarily liberal facilities there are for going to it; showed him
how, in his ignorance, he had gone and fooled away all his kinsfolk to
no purpose; showed him what rapture it is to work all day long for fifty
cents to buy food for next day with, as compared with fishing for a
pastime and lolling in the shade through eternal summer, and eating of
the bounty that nobody labored to provide but Nature. How sad it is to
think of the multitudes who have gone to their graves in this beautiful
island and never knew there was a hell.