_Vailima lay up some three miles of continual rise from Apia_, _and more than half that distance from the nearest village_. _It was a long way for a tired man to walk down every evening with the sole purpose of joining in family worship_; _and the road through the bush was dark_, _and_, _to the Samoan imagination_, _beset with supernatural terrors_. _Wherefore_, _as soon as our household had fallen into a regular routine_, _and the bonds of Samoan family life began to draw us more closely together_, _Tusitala felt the necessity of including our retainers in our evening devotions_. _I suppose ours was the only white man’s family in all Samoa_, _except those of the missionaries_, _where the day naturally ended with this homely_, _patriarchal custom_. _Not only were the religious scruples of the natives satisfied_, _but_, _what we did not foresee_, _our own respectability_—_and incidentally that of our retainers_—_became assured_, _and the influence of Tusitala increased tenfold_. _After all work and meals were finished_, _the_ ‘_pu_,’ _or war conch_, _was sounded from the back veranda and_ _the front_, _so that it might be heard by all_. _I don’t think it ever occurred to us that there was any incongruity in the use of the war conch for the peaceful invitation to prayer_. _In response to its summons the white members of the family took their usual places in one end of the large hall_, _while the Samoans_—_men_, _women_, _and children_—_trooped in through all the open doors_, _some carrying lanterns if the evening were dark_, _all moving quietly and dropping with Samoan decorum in a wide semicircle on the floor beneath a great lamp that hung from the ceiling_. _The service began by my son reading a chapter from the Samoan Bible_, _Tusitala following with a prayer in English_, _sometimes impromptu_, _but more often from the notes in this little_ _book_, _interpolating or changing with the circumstance of the day_. _Then came the singing of one or more hymns in the native tongue_, _and the recitation in concert of the Lord’s Prayer_, _also in Samoan_. _Many of these hymns were set to ancient tunes_, _very wild and warlike_, _and strangely at variance with the missionary words_.