?i 
 
 ' f'" " 
 
 )", "!*:' 
 
 8ftft!:;ftftift'*! : !: 
 
 v! 
 
 
 ii {I 
 
 lilrtfililliS 
 
 .*.' jaii ,.ft -.':■. 
 
 mmmM 
 
 ftiftft'i;; ;'!* 
 
 I I 
 
 Aft,;:'* 
 
 aftiftft: ': 
 
 ft'a 
 
 S^i;: 
 

 
 (QotneU HttiuerfiitH ffiibranj 
 
 JJihara, Nevu Unrk 
 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 
 COLLECTION 
 
 CHINA AND THE CHINESE 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 
 CLASS OF 1876 
 
 1918 
 

 The fl ate shows when this volume was taken. 
 
 ' H § .2" * 
 
 si .. eV^ l -booVt^ny the cal 1 No.airdgi', to 
 
 Uv-1; '~r 
 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 'W§£4 
 
 **f?Al2v 
 
 
 
 
 ^"W*! 
 
 4^AfiL 
 
 ^lYSILT 
 
 £<>£ use it 
 
 Library Bu 
 
 ildipn Onl-Li 
 
 
 $£*5f>8 
 
 <WSS<£X^ 
 
 'fo&A 
 
 
 
 
 .r-****' 
 
 0*?*'" ' 
 
 SEpl3^. 
 
 _IU#« 
 
 if" 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORO 
 
 
 
 MINTEDIM U.S.A. 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 BV 3705.G97J59 
 
 Luther Halsey Gulick :missionary in Hawa 
 
 3 1924 022 947 158 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022947158 
 

Luther Halsey Gulick 
 
 MISSIONARY IN 
 HAWAII, MICRONESIA, JAPAN, AND CHINA 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCES GULICK JEWETT 
 
 BOSTON AND CHICAGO 
 (Congregational SunoagsSrijool ano ^uMtsfjtng Sncietg 
 
 1 1 %<j r 3 
 
 G, 
 
&V37 03' 
 
 6-17 J5<7 
 
 \^0'~i£. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1895, 
 
 Br Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IT gives me great pleasure to commend a volume which sets 
 forth in such fitting terms the life and work of Dr. Gulick. 
 The volume has been prepared as a labor of love by his daughter, 
 Mrs. Jewett, than whom no one of my acquaintance is better fitted 
 for the task, both through her thorough acquaintance with the 
 incidents of his life and work and because of her command of 
 language and of a style well fitted for this object. Few men have 
 had a more varied experience on mission ground than Dr. Gulick ; 
 few have shown greater ability and power of adaptation to the 
 most varied circumstances, and it is fitting that the record of his 
 career in Micronesia, in the Sandwich Islands, in Spain, and in 
 Italy should be commemorated as a part of the missionary history 
 of the past generation. 
 
 The more I reflect upon it the more I wonder at the work which 
 Dr. Gulick was enabled to do at Ponape, at Ebon, as Secretary of 
 the Hawaiian Board, and, later, in the organization of missions in 
 Papal Lands, and, last of all, in the splendid work of distributing 
 the Scriptures in Japan and China. Certainly he must rank 
 among the great missionaries of the world. Many in this country 
 remember his rare eloquence in setting forth the missionary work. 
 He has a record unsurpassed in missionary annals. 
 
 N. G. CLAEK. 
 
/ will claim the whole heathen world as my countrymen. 
 
 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 {Age fifteen.) 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 FROM the age of twelve until he was married at twenty-three 
 Dr. Gulick was quite deprived of intimate friendship. A 
 certain sort of compensation came, however, in the unreserved 
 expression of himself to himself through his diligent pen and his 
 daily journal. As a result, this journal pictures in a remarkable 
 way the development of the soul of a conscientious child. 
 
 For this reason, and also because the larger interest centers 
 always in what a man is and in what he is becoming rather than 
 in what he does, the earlier years of Dr. Gulick's life in America, 
 and the succeeding years of his growth in Micronesia, have been 
 allowed to occupy more space in this brief history than would 
 otherwise have been given to them. His later missionary expe- 
 riences were in line with what the Christian Church already well 
 understands. They have, therefore, been crowded into narrower 
 compass. 
 
 In the preparation of any biography, the ideal method is that of 
 simple compilation from letters and other manuscript. But this 
 course has its disadvantage; for to present a character clearly in 
 this way necessitates, as a rule, a history in two or three volumes. 
 When that which is more brief is desired, as in the present case, 
 there is, therefore, no alternative but to quote such part alone of 
 what was written as, it may be hoped, will afford both help and 
 inspiration to the reader, giving the rest in condensed narrative 
 form. 
 
 The story of this life has been written with this thought in mind. 
 
 When these chapters have been read, it may perhaps be asked 
 
 whether there were no other side to the character which has been 
 
 a 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 pictured. The answer to the query is that every human life has its 
 stronger and its weaker side, but that a daughter writes this his- 
 tory; and though she has striven to be honest, her father is its 
 hero. 
 
 For the manuscript examined, I am indebted to the kindness of 
 many friends and to the courtesy of the officers of the American 
 Board who have permitted free access to all that is on file in their 
 rooms in Boston. 
 
 Personally my obligation is greatest to the close circle of family 
 relatives without whose earnest cooperation and encouragement 
 this work would not have been attempted. 
 
 F. G. JEWETT. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLT INFLUENCES. PAGE. 
 
 The Beginning of Mission Work on Hawaii. — Physical 
 Charms of the Islands. — Birth of Luther Halsey Guliek. — 
 Condition of the People. — Mutual Relation of Missionary 
 and Hawaiian. — Natural Influence of Such Surroundings 
 upon a Child. — Halsey's Ancestry 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHILDHOOD. 
 
 His Journal. — Indications of Fondness for Study. — Confi- 
 dence of Others in Him. — His Earliest Friends. — Death 
 of Gerrit Judd 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AROUND CAPE HORN. 
 
 Separation from Home. — His Courage. — 111 Health. — Talca- 
 huano. — Sabbath-keeping. — "Working. — His Seriousness. 
 — Arrival at "Wood's Holl 25 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IMPRESSIONS OE AMERICA. 
 
 Need of Adjustment to New Environment. — "Well-intentioned 
 Sabbath-school Superintendent. — Loneliness. — Farm Life 
 in New Jersey and Connecticut. — Introduction to Auburn 
 and to Dr. and Mrs. Halsey 34 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SCHOOL LIFE. 
 
 Study without Play. — Debating Society. — Appreciation of 
 Time. — His Compositions. — Letter-writing. — Homesick- 
 ness. — Waiting for Dr. Halsey. — His Reading. — Exhibi- 
 tion and Prizes. — John Quincy Adams in Auburn ... 40 
 07 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SPIRITUAL SUFFERING. 
 
 Theological Atmosphere of the Time. — Self-accusation. — 
 Surrounding Conditions. — A Sabbath of Extreme Suffer- 
 ing. —Reading "Baxters Call." — "A Delusive Hope." 
 
 — Changed Feelings. — Closing Meditations of the Year 
 1843 53 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 Growing Peace. — Pledge of Himself to Foreign Missions. — 
 Preparation for Union with the Church. — Fear of Self- 
 deception. — The Dedication of Himself 65 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 MEDICAL STUDIES. 
 Indefatigable Study. — Failing Health. — A College Course Im- 
 possible. — Medical Study Begun. — Wide Reading.— 
 Desire for Public Speaking. — Depression. — Intimacy 
 with the News of the World. — City Mission Work. — 
 Old Friends and the Meeting of the American Board. — 
 His devotion to Polynesia 72 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FINAL PREPARATIONS. 
 Theological Study. — Refusal of Proffered Aid. — Projected 
 Mission to Micronesia. — Offer of Himself to the Board. — 
 Doctrinal Perplexities. — His Ordination. — His Marriage. 
 
 — Louisa Lewis Gulick. — They Sail from Boston ... 83 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FAREWELL. 
 
 The Esther May. — The Storm. — Honolulu Again. — Dr. 
 Gulick's Influence upon His Brothers. — Changes among 
 Friends and in the Nation. — Preparation for the Micro- 
 nesian Mission. — Growing Interest. — Ilawaiians Ready 
 to Go as Missionaries. — Purchase of the Caroline. — Public 
 Consecration of the Hawaiian Missionaries. — Kameha- 
 
 meha's Letter. — The Caroline Sails 95 
 
 • 
 
CONTENTS. 9 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HAWAII TO KUSAIE. 
 
 Discomfort. — Butaritarl. — The People. — The King. — De- 
 scription of a Coral Keef. — Kusaie. — Signs of Civilization. 
 
 — "Good King George" 110 
 
 CHAPTER XH. 
 
 REACHING PONAPE. 
 
 Excitement of the Crew. — Pictures of the People. — The 
 Welcome. — Mr. Corgat. — Modes of Travel. — The Caro- 
 line Leaves 125 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SMALL BEGINNINGS. 
 
 The Ponapeans. — Location of the Missionaries. — Dr. and Mrs. 
 Gulick's Home. — Use of Tobacco in Trade. — Dr. Gulick 
 as Musician. — School work. — Housekeeping. — Building. 
 
 — Difficulty in Securing Help. — Scarcity of Food . . .130 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ISOLATION AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 
 
 Sale of the Caroline. — Irregular Communication with the 
 World. — The Annual Mail. — Disappointments. — His 
 Mental Life. --The Pressure of Isolation 148 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE WITH PONAPE AND HER PEOPLE. 
 — THE EPIDEMIC. 
 
 Dr. Gulick's Study of Conditions in Micronesia. — The Out- 
 come of This Work. — Animal Life and Plant Life on 
 Ponape. — The Ruins. — Priests. — The Religion of the 
 People. — The Epidemic * 161 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 1857. 
 General Wakening on Ponape. — The Printing Press. — The 
 First Primer. — Joquin. — Religious Movement. — Dr. 
 Gulick's Desire for more Self-denying Labor 174 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE MORNING STAR. 
 
 Proposition to Build Her. — Enthusiasm of the Children. — She 
 is Launched. — Ponape Beached. — Mrs. Gulick Returns 
 to Hawaii 182 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 WAITING. 
 
 His Description of Mrs. Gulick. — Life without Her. — Dress- 
 making. — Letter-writing. — Extracts from Letters to His 
 Wife. — Her Return 188 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 THE CLOSE OF HIS LIFE IN MICRONESIA. 
 
 Micronesian Missionaries in 1859. — Proposition to Sell the 
 Morning Star — The Mission Pleads for Her and for 
 Their Work in Micronesia. — HI Health. — He Returns to 
 Hawaii 196 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CHANGES. 
 
 San Francisco Visited. — " The Turning Point" in His Life. — 
 Attends the Meeting of the American Board in Springfield, 
 Mass. — Extended Missionary Campaign among the 
 Churches. — His Pleasure in Speaking. — The Interest 
 of His Audiences. — Invitation to become Secretary of 
 the Board of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association. — His 
 Return to Honolulu 202 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 THE NEW WORK. 
 
 Hawaii's Need in 1864. — Lack of Native Pastovs. — Reasons 
 for this Condition. — Action of the Hawaiian Evangelical 
 Association in 1863. — Formation of the Board of the Asso- 
 ciation. — Relation of the American Board to the Hawaiian 
 Board. — Dr. Gulick's Work Outlined. — The Conservatism 
 of Certain Missionaries. — Large Cooperation. — Rapid 
 Results. — Friendship of the Hawaiians. — The Kuokoa. — 
 Visiting among the People 212 
 
CONTENTS. 11 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 POLITICS. 
 
 Kamehameha IV and Kameharaeha V Contrasted. — Proclama- 
 tion of the King. — Action of the Hawaiian Board. — The 
 Convention. — The King Abrogates the Constitution and 
 Prorogues the Convetition. — He gives the People a New 
 Constitution. — Outcome of His Action as Seen in 1893. — 
 News of Abraham Lincoln's Death. — Two Currents in 
 Hawaiian Life. — Two Courses Advocated to Meet the Evil. 
 
 — Dr. Gulick's Position. — His Arrest by the Government. 
 
 — The Reprimand 222 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 TANGLED THREADS. 
 
 His Love for both America and Hawaii. — The Variety of His 
 Work. — Results as Shown in 1869. — Kawaiahao Seminary 
 Established. —The Home in Manoa Valley. — The Diffi- 
 culty of His Position. — His Convictions of Duty. — The 
 Opinion of Others. — He Refuses Reelection as Secretary 
 of the Hawaiian Board. — Leaves for Boston 236 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 PAPAL LANDS. 
 
 In America Again. — The Scattered Family. — Reversed Plans. 
 
 — Little Ollie. — To Spain. — Correspondence of the Gulick 
 Family. — Dr. Gulick's Work in Spain. — Spanish Chris- 
 tians and Self-support. — Best Attitude to take toward 
 Spanish Churches. — He goes to Italy. — Hindrances to 
 Work There. — Financial Embarrassment in Boston. — 
 Close of the Italian Mission. — Visit to Turkey. — Return 
 
 to Boston 247 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 TO THE PACIFIC AGAIN. 
 
 His Duties in Boston. — His Desire to Maintain " the Unity of 
 his Life." — A Call from the American Bible Society. — To 
 Japan. — First Impressions. — News of the Death of His 
 Son 261 
 
12 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 ADJUSTMENT. 
 
 The Pain which Accompanied the Move from One Society to 
 the Other. — Growing Satisfaction in His Work. — Antici- 
 pation of His Wife's Arrival. — She Joins Him .... 266 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE AGED PARENTS. 
 
 Reasons for the Move to Japan. — Changes Since They Left 
 America. — The Last Words of Rev. P. J. Gulick. — His 
 Death. — The Death of Mrs. P. J. Gulick 271 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 BIBLE WORK. 
 
 Work Previously Done by the Bible Society in Japan and 
 China. — Dr. Gulick's Desire to Avoid Giving Pain to 
 Sensitive People. — Departments of Bible Work. — A New 
 Era of Exact Reports Inaugurated. — Rapid Bible Distribu- 
 tion in Japan in 1880. — Division of His Field. — Perma- 
 nent Location in China. — His Colporters. — His Journeys. 
 
 — His Thoughts on the Immensity of China. — Bookkeep- 
 ing. — Progress of the Work 276 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 OVERWORK. 
 
 Preaching in Japan and China. — Character of the Church in 
 Shanghai. — His Audience. — Editorship. — Words of 
 Commendation. — His D.D. — A Son and Daughter Join 
 Foreign Mission Service. — The Call from Hawaii. — 
 Prompt Action in Behalf of Mr. Doane. — His Love for 
 Micronesia. — Quotations Proving Overpressure and Fail- 
 ingHealth 289 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Sudden Prostration. — To Japan and America. — Great Suffer- 
 ing. — Continued Weakness. — New York City Again. — 
 Conversation with His Daughter. — His Last Weeks in 
 Springfield. — He Passes Away 304 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 THE LAST DAYS OF MRS. GULICK. 
 
 Desire to Continue in Mission Work. — Visit to the Cemetery. 
 
 — Return to Japan. — Work There. — Illness. — Death . 310 
 
LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EAKLT INFLUENCES. 
 
 IT was, no doubt, of permanent significance to 
 Halsey Gulick that his earlier years were spent 
 in the midst of the evolution of a Christian from a 
 heathen nation. Missionary work had begun on the 
 Hawaiian Islands in 1820, and the history of that 
 work and of that people is, perhaps, more familiar 
 to the student of missions than that of any other 
 since the days of Paul. Here were islands literally 
 " waiting," and a people who welcomed missionaries 
 with the thrilling words : ' ' Hawaii's idols are no 
 more ! " 
 
 Added to the attraction of this welcome were the 
 physical charms of Hawaii, for there are mountains 
 here that reach to the snows and valleys so deep that 
 the vines and ferns and moss which drape them 
 hardly know what sunshine is. Here, too, are the 
 whitened outlines of surf upon the sand and the 
 shaded green of rolling breakers, while blue skies and 
 
14 LUTHEB HALSEY OULICK. 
 
 summer clouds are drawn about these islands as 
 a curtain. 
 
 Without question, nature and perpetual summer 
 have done their best for Hawaii. But of correspond- 
 ing comforts of man's making there was painful 
 dearth in Honolulu in June, 1828, when Luther Halsey 
 Gulick was born. 1 Indeed, all that is necessary for 
 real living was still in its infancy here ; and though 
 eight years of effort on the part of the earlier mis- 
 sionaries had proved the willingness of the people to 
 improve their condition, Hawaiian barbarism had not, 
 as yet, been exchanged for "Western civilization. 
 Natives still lived in unfurnished, straw-thatched 
 houses of primitive fashion, while many of their num- 
 ber were clad in garments even more primitive than 
 their homes. The truth is that these children of the 
 tropics found it a very easy matter to exercise rigid 
 economy in labor and raiment. 
 
 Of necessity, the missionaries also lived in simple 
 homes. They had only such comforts as were con- 
 veniently brought with them from Boston, around 
 Cape Horn, increased sometimes by the chairs and 
 tables and bookshelves which they themselves took 
 time to make. 
 
 Yet neither deficiency in home furnishing nor lack 
 
 1 Through childhood he was called Halsey, though in later life he was 
 more often known as Dr. Luther Gulick. 
 
EAELT INFLUENCES. 15 
 
 of dainty comforts lessened for Halsey the loving 
 welcome of his parents. Their firstborn son ! And 
 this missionary father and mother rejoiced as truly 
 as royalty does when an heir is born. As for the 
 child himself, no palace could have made him merrier 
 and no adornment of " purple and fine-twined linen" 
 could have added any radiance to the love that beamed 
 upon him from his mother's eyes. 1 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Gulick had reached Honolulu in 
 March, 1828, and thereafter, for forty-six consecutive 
 years, they lived among this people of their adoption 
 — years of prayerful devotion to the good of others. 2 
 
 Now because all the knowledge, the enterprise, the 
 unselfish helpfulness which the Hawaiians had ever 
 seen were centered in the missionary homes multi- 
 plying among them, and also because, without any 
 explanation, heathen people know what self-sacrifice 
 
 1 Halsey's ancestor, Hendrick Gulick, came to America from the 
 Netherlands in 1653. In 1790 John Gulick was a Christian farmer in 
 Now Jersey and his wife was, as they claimed, " the most powerful argu- 
 ment for Christianity " which her seven sons and one daughter had 
 ever known. Peter Johnson, the third son, Halsey's father, was born N 
 in 1797. He possessed determination and a lofty ambition, overcame 
 serious obstacles, was graduated from Princeton College in 1825, studied 
 theology there, was married in 1827, and sailed from Boston, in Novem- 
 ber, as a missionary to the Hawaiian Islands. Fanny Hinckley Thomas, 
 his wife, was of English ancestry, born in 1798 in Lebanon, Conn. 
 While teaching in Utica, N. T., she was converted by the preaching of 
 Dr. Charles Finney, of Oberlin, and a year later was married to the 
 New Jersey theological student, and sailed with him for Hawaii. 
 
 2 During this time Mrs. Gulick went to California once, but without 
 her husband. 
 
16 LUTHER HALSEY GULIOK. 
 
 and brotherly love are, very soon and everywhere the 
 missionary was recognized by the natives as their 
 kindest friend. To him they came for medicine, for 
 advice, for instruction, when they were ready for it, 
 for clothing, too, as consciousness of its need dawned 
 slowly upon them. Little by little they were taught 
 to sew, to build better homes, to regard the rights of 
 their neighbors, and to understand the requirement 
 of a righteous God. 
 
 In this atmosphere of helpfulness to others — of 
 life devoted to the glory of God and the good of 
 mankind — Halsey Gulick received his first impres- 
 sions. In his case the forces of a pious ancestry and 
 an environment of self-sacrifice were united, and one 
 need not have been a prophet to foresee the result of 
 this union. Nevertheless unfolding history can alone 
 show whether other forces shall be strong enough to 
 change what seems to be the foreshadowed course of 
 his development. 
 
80 from 157 5 Greenwich 156 J 
 
 WHEN NOON 
 AT LONDON 
 
 HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHILDHOOD. 
 
 IPOR twenty-five years of his life the material from 
 -*- which we draw our best acquaintance with 
 Halsey Gulick is the journal which he himself kept. 
 This was begun in Koloa, Kauai — where his parents 
 were then stationed — on the twenty-fifth of June, 
 1836. Halsey was at this time eight years old ; and 
 we easily picture the boy as he bent over his square, 
 board-covered first volume and with unaccustomed 
 fingers tried to write in straight lines across unruled 
 pages. To-day the cover is worn, the cramped, child- 
 ish writing yellow with age. But through all that is 
 written we trace an unfolding life, and see the man 
 already outlined in the boy. 
 
 That the scene should be laid on heathen ground 
 adds a certain flavor to the whole. But, curiously 
 enough, the heathen are not mentioned, nor the trees, 
 nor the ocean, nor the splendid climate ; probably 
 because for him all this simply represented life in 
 normal conditions. He had known nothing else. 
 There is, however, significant regularity in the daily 
 mention of lessons learned. Indeed the first entry 
 
18 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 sounds the dominant note of the whole : " Mr. Ladd 
 and son and Mrs. Hooper came to tea. I learnt my 
 lessons before they came." Each succeeding day has 
 its similar story — an item of news, then the cheerful 
 refrain, " I have learnt my lessons." Occasionally, 
 however, there is a minor touch, with the reason for it 
 added : "I have not learnt all my lessons. I helped 
 take care of baby." " I have not learnt my lessons. 
 Mr. Alexander came this morning." Yet in both 
 cases and always through the year 1836 we have 
 laconic brevity. 
 
 In December a certain dramatic tendency is added. 
 Tragedy threatens and Halsey's younger brother 
 Orramel is the hero. I give the text in full : — 
 
 "December 14. Learnt my lessons. Orramel is 
 sick. 
 
 "December 15. Learnt my lessons. Orramel is 
 sick still. 
 
 " December 16. Learnt my lessons. Orramel is 
 worse. 
 
 " December 17. Learnt my lessons. Orramel is 
 better." 
 
 A happy ending, concerning which the youthful 
 scribe doubtless felt more joy than is recorded. But 
 with 1837 there is greater detail. We learn more of 
 studies and daily occupation, as shown in January, 
 when, " It is quite cold this morning," he writes. 
 
CHILDHOOD. ■ 19 
 
 " Before breakfast I worked in the garden. At half- 
 past nine I learnt geography, Emerson's Questions, 
 spelling, arithmetic, and writing." Later in the year 
 we read of philosophy added and geometry. 
 
 But as yet there is no written sign of emotion or 
 aspiration or struggle with himself. This came as he 
 grew older. Still there is suggestion of it even in 
 1838 when the year was spent at school in Honolulu. 
 And though the daily journal still tells most of active 
 life, we nevertheless realize by degrees that thoughts 
 are also caught sometimes and given to his journal. 
 
 " The day seemed very long," writes the homesick 
 child ; and the reason for it follows : ' ' Received some 
 things from home to-day." 
 
 Again later : " The scholars did not behave very 
 well in school to-day and I believe Miss Smith felt 
 sad about it." 
 
 A footnote to Miss Smith says : " Our teacher." 
 Footnotes, indeed, have become quite helpful to this 
 " clever lad," as his father termed him. So also is 
 another device. To rectify the mistake of a wrongly 
 written word a fresh bit of paper is neatly pasted 
 over it, and on this the word is carefully written. It 
 is very evident that reading and writing already make 
 serious claim on Halsey Gulick and that his instinct 
 is in favor of their best performance. Certainly he is 
 sincere when he says : — 
 
20 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 " Miss Smith has gone to Lahaina, and I feel very 
 sorry because there is no school this week." 
 
 No doubt there is equal sincerity when he also 
 writes : " It is hard work to keep from whispering and 
 I often yield to the temptation, but I hope I shall be 
 able to very soon overcome." 
 
 This is our first introduction to the constantly grow- 
 ing, overmastering purpose of his life, his unflinching 
 determination to be conqueror of himself. Recog- 
 nizing as we do the moral principle which controlled 
 him, we are not surprised that the mothers in Hono- 
 lulu used to say: "We always felt perfectly safe 
 when our children were with Halsey Gulick." 
 
 Manifestly, friends no less than parents loved the 
 conscientious boy. But something more was required 
 in those stern days. Halsey had not yet passed 
 through the era of spiritual convulsion popularly 
 recognized as "being converted." Without this 
 experience, whatever his life might testify to the 
 contrary, none could feel that his soul was as yet 
 quite safe. Such, indeed, was his own conviction ; a 
 conviction pitifully wrought out with pain and tears 
 in later years. The pressure of this requirement is 
 apparent in the letters which now came to him ; letters 
 written over fifty years ago and loyally kept till all 
 was over — till the battle had been fought, till life's 
 journey was done. One is from a missionary lady : — 
 
CHILDHOOD. 2l 
 
 "My dear boy, do you think of these things? 
 Have you felt that you are a sinner against the great, 
 good God? Many little children have given their 
 hearts to God before they were as old as you." 
 
 But more precious to him was this other letter — 
 precisely written, neatly folded, faded by the years, 
 worn by its journeyings — this letter from a praying 
 mother in Koloa to her son in Honolulu : — 
 
 " We should all be glad to see you. The little 
 boys would talk so much to you and stick so close to 
 you that you would have no time to be lonesome. 
 And your hours of retirement would probably be 
 interrupted. You would have a less favorable oppor- 
 tunity to think of heaven, of hell, of Jesus, and ©f 
 your own soul than you now have in your little private 
 room. I have hoped that you would give your heart 
 to Jesus in that little room. Oh, how happy we should 
 be if you should come back with a new heart ! " 
 
 This was part of the influence that molded him, 
 that bore its fruit in later years. But just now in 
 Honolulu life was more full of busy activity than of 
 spiritual contemplation. We are introduced to vari- 
 ous young friends — to his dearest schoolmate, Gerrit 
 Judd, and to Sereno Bishop and Hiram Bingham, his 
 lifelong friends. 
 
 Besides their mutual occupation, their studies, 
 walks, and games, Halsey had his other interests. 
 
22 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 He drew books from the library, borrowed books from 
 his friends, attended lectures when he could, — a very 
 rare treat in those days, — and even exercised himself 
 sometimes in mercantile transactions. Through these 
 we meet again his dear younger brother Orramel. 
 
 "I went to Mr. Diell to sell some beans for 
 Orramel; got a shilling for them." 
 
 Another venture with other beans brought half a 
 dollar more to himself, Orramel, and John. Then an 
 isolated sentence shows grievous financial loss. Yet 
 it stands without comment or tears : — 
 
 " I lost a purse of money with a dollar in it." 
 
 Literally a nine days' wonder, for nine days later, 
 again without comment or word of acclamation, this 
 time is the terse sequel : — 
 
 " I found my money on the table under some 
 books." 
 
 Books already burying out of sight the silver ! A 
 significant prophecy. 
 
 But Honolulu life came to an end. Halsey returned 
 to Koloa ; and the letters which followed him round 
 out for us these early impressions. Two notes from 
 G-errit are among his treasures of 1839. One of 
 them reads in loving, childish fashion : — 
 
 " Dear Halsey, — When are you coming to school? 
 for we miss you very much indeed; at least 
 I do." 
 
CHILDHOOD. 23 
 
 Following this is a note from their teacher : — 
 
 " Gerrit has gone to his long home. His resting 
 place is in the grave till the last trumpet shall wake 
 the slumbering dead. ' Be ye also ready, for ye know 
 not the hour when the Son of Man cometh.' Halsey, 
 are you ready to die ? Shall eternal life be your por- 
 tion or everlasting death? You must not delay your 
 choice. Halsey, give not sleep or slumber to your 
 eyes till you have made your peace with God." 
 
 Then the stricken mother writes to Halsey about the 
 last hours of his little friend : — 
 
 " He asked to be raised up. The bright sun was 
 just shining into the room. He looked around upon all 
 with a serene, heavenly expression of countenance and 
 then said : ' I feel now that I am going to die and go 
 to heaven. Good-by, dear mother ; I shall see you in 
 heaven.' Oh, how our hearts ached all day! At 
 evening it was apparent he was sinking. I bent over 
 him while his breath grew shorter till it was all quite 
 gone and we sang ' Jesus, lover of my soul.' It is 
 very lonely and sad around the house and garden." 
 
 Folded closely in this letter is a quaint, old-fash- 
 ioned locket ; and across it, under glass, is a lock of 
 fine hair that gleams in the sunshine and is soft brown 
 in the shadow. On a piece of tinted paper in the 
 familiar penmanship of Halsey's early journals is the 
 added word about it: " A lock of Gerrit's hair, who 
 
24 LUTHER HALSET GXJLICK. 
 
 died November 13, 1839, aged ten years, eight 
 months, and five days." 
 
 Notes and locket too have been cherished now for 
 over fifty years. And the gentle presence of the love 
 which treasured them seems very near to them to-day. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 AROUND CAPE HORN. 
 
 rriHE scene of the record now shifts. It is Octo- 
 -*- ber, 1840, and a new heading on a new page 
 introduces us with some formality to new conditions. 
 As if Halsey realized that a crisis in life had come to 
 him, he begins : — 
 
 ' ' Luther Halsey Gulick's Journal, commencing 
 on leaving the Hawaiian Islands for the United 
 States. 
 
 " October 2, 1840. Hurry and bustle all day. At 
 four left the abode of my dear parents in Koloa, at 
 the age of twelve years, three months, and twenty- 
 two days, for the land of my forefathers. Shipped 
 aboard the William Penn, Captain Bodflsh." * 
 
 A brief statement, yet only the foreign missionary 
 can understand what it meant to the home in Koloa, 
 to the mother there, and to the eldest son who left it. 
 And even the foreign missionary of to-day must 
 measure with his imagination and not his experience 
 the pain which came with this kind of parting fifty 
 
 1 Halsey went In company with Mr. and Mrs. Reuben Tinker and 
 their two sons. 
 
 25 
 
26 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 years ago. For in those days separation meant a 
 great chasm seldom bridged. Neither telegraph nor 
 railroad nor ocean steamer had bound the world 
 together. Slow letters exchanged once a year often 
 emphasized the growing estrangement, while parents 
 and children alike were helpless before the inevitable. 
 But duty was as imperative then as now. Innocent 
 children were not safe so close to heathen life. There 
 were two evils to choose between, and wise parents 
 chose the lesser. 
 
 For this reason Mrs. Grulick had packed the little 
 trunk while she tried to hide her tears. But her 
 words were brave as she counseled her son, and for 
 the last time prayed with him and in parting whis- 
 pered : " G-od bless you, my darling boy, and keep 
 you ! Eemember that we are praying for you every 
 day." Halsey then sailed away. And after that, for 
 many days, his mother was ill with her grief and 
 could not be comforted. 
 
 Through the succeeding eight months we have the 
 story of an ocean voyage on a whaler kept by an 
 earnest little boy who was adapting himself to circum- 
 stances and trying to be brave. 
 
 An early trial was "the roaches at night" which 
 troubled him. " They bite my toes," he says, " and 
 run over me." This is the way he met the perplexity : 
 " I have a shelf in my berth on which I put my books. 
 
ABOUND GAPE HORN. 27 
 
 At my feet my clock and bag of clothes are hung up ; 
 at my head a borrowed slate — for I forgot to bring 
 one with me — and my Marquesan fan with which I 
 silenced the roaches." 
 
 "I feel the need of your help often," he writes to 
 his mother, ' ' but I think I shall learn to think and act 
 for myself after a while." And though through these 
 months of oceau monotony there is no real lamen- 
 tation of homesickness, still we repeatedly see how 
 much the separation meant to him as well as to his 
 mother, and how constantly his thoughts were with his 
 parents and brothers at home : — 
 
 " In the afternoon felt bad in thinking I was leaving 
 home and friends, perhaps never more to see them on 
 earth." 
 
 " Passed the Tropic of Cancer yesterday. I can 
 say from my heart there is no place like home." 
 
 " Had prayers in the morning for the first time. It 
 brought to my recollection the privileges I enjoyed at 
 home." 
 
 "I often think of home, but not with feelings of 
 regret, for I know it is for my good." 
 
 Then there is increased pathos : — 
 
 " Sundays here do not seem like Sundays at home, 
 for some reason or other. The day seems longer than 
 it used to at home." 
 
 ' ' These bright moonlight nights I get up into the 
 
28 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 sail that is put up as an awning and think of home 
 and think of getting to the United States." 
 
 It is not difficult to imagine the small figure curled 
 up among the sails, and the bright brown eyes that 
 grow dim as they try to span that limitless, moonlit 
 Pacific Ocean, while pictures of home and mother rise 
 before them. But Halsey had determined to be brave ; 
 he, therefore, thought also of duty and of the United 
 States. Then, too, there was diversion even on a 
 whaler. 
 
 Once his hat flew overboard and there was boyish 
 excitement as a boat hastened after but failed to save 
 it. At times they sighted whales and pursued them. 
 And when they captured one they " took the case on 
 deck and bailed out the oil," while eager eyes "at the 
 masthead saw just how they did it." After all, how- 
 ever, time dragged. Days and weeks moved slowly. 
 Halsey missed the variety of mountain and shore and 
 the freedom of horseback riding, and the journal 
 grows dejected : — 
 
 " I feel the need of exercise. I get tired walking." 
 
 " Very calm and hot all day. It is very discour- 
 aging to be becalmed." 
 
 Then for a season he suffers from headache. He 
 stays in bed mornings and neither studies as usual nor 
 writes in his journal. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednes- 
 day no longer step with regularity through each 
 
ABOUND GAPE HORN. 29 
 
 recorded week, and we recognize the symptom as 
 serious. But after many days they approached Talca- 
 huano. Here they were to touch before rounding 
 Cape Horn. And now each breeze was full of possi- 
 bility ; each calm a woe ; and the days brought every 
 sort of weather : — 
 
 "Wind ahead." "Dead calm." "A favorable 
 breeze." " "Wind blowing almost a gale." " Very 
 favorable breeze." Then, at last, the small scribe is 
 jubilant: "We have got to Talcahuano harbor. We 
 are anchored, though not in the right place." 
 
 Two weeks here involved a new experience in 
 Sabbath-keeping. Now Halsey was not perplexed 
 about the Sabbath question. He had been strictly 
 trained and his pen had thus far followed each Sabbath 
 of the voyage with a quiet notice of it : " Had meet- 
 ing forenoon and afternoon. " Had meeting twice as 
 usual." " Fine weather; had preaching morning and 
 evening." Then, relentlessly : " No meeting. I won- 
 der at it. Cutting up the whale. It does not seem 
 much like keeping the Sabbath holy." After that, for 
 successive Sabbaths, the simple words: "No meet- 
 ing," " No meeting,'' till the condition became chronic 
 and he writes very gravely: "Had no meetings as 
 usual." i 
 
 i Omitted because of Mrs. Tinker's illness. Evidently Halsey cUcl 
 not know the reason. 
 
30 LUTHER HALSEY QULICK. 
 
 In Talcahuano there was a difference : — 
 
 " "We went aboard the frigate Constitution and had 
 services. There was a good deal of noise, though it 
 cannot be helped, for there are five hundred men on 
 board. We had some music. At four we returned, 
 after dining with Commodore Claxton, a kind-hearted 
 old gentleman. Our entertainment was very splendid ; 
 far too much so for the Sabbath, I thought." 
 
 Those good people did not know how near to them 
 in visible form the recording angel stood, nor how 
 instinctively the divine in the child balanced their 
 professing with their doing. Yet he used his invisible 
 scales everyday and made quaint comments sometimes. 
 
 " I am rejoiced that I am not a sailor," he writes. 
 " The mate, who professes to be pious, asked one of 
 the men what he was talking about, and the man 
 chose not to tell, so the mate struck him two or three 
 times in the face ! This gave great offense to the 
 individual — just as it would to me ; therefore he 
 took hold of the mate — just as I should have done, 
 no matter whether he was mate or captain. For this 
 he was turned off duty." Then follows the moral 
 with its childish grammatical twist: "A sailor's life 
 is hard, especially when they have bad masters." 
 
 This suggestion of warfare was certainly sinful. 
 Yet it must have been more interesting to a boy than 
 prosaic sewing and washing. He nevertheless did 
 
AROUND CAPE HORN. 31 
 
 the prosaic thing, and turning it into recorded history 
 one day he writes : — 
 
 "Sewed a little." Then again: "In the evening 
 washed some clothes." And later: "I feel pretty 
 tired; washed six shirts, three towels, one pair 
 of trowsers, aired my bed, put my woollen clothes 
 to the bottom of my chest." Diligent boy of 
 twelve ! 
 
 After leaving Talcahuano he was still more dili- 
 gent, for now he added the duties of cabin boy to 
 his other occupations. This he was glad to do, 
 as it was through the personal kindness of Captain 
 Bodfish that he was able to go to America on this 
 whaler. 
 
 " I like my business of steward very well," he 
 writes one day. "I rise at five in the morning and 
 set the table, set the table at eleven for dinner and 
 four for supper." But later the pleasure of it passes, 
 for " it is pretty cold now," he says. "It is not so 
 comfortable to get up in the morning as it used to be." 
 Then there is added trouble : "I have to take great 
 care when I go with the dishes, it is so rough." "A 
 heavy gale blowing. The wind made a great noise 
 whistling through the rigging. Headlights in." 
 
 Verily no imagination is needed to recognize the 
 serious tone of these early journals. It is not brood- 
 ing melancholy, not weakness, but as if even this lad 
 
32 LUTHMR HALSEY OULIGK. 
 
 had looked with unclouded eye into life and recog- 
 nized its great significance. Sometimes, indeed, there 
 are amusing situations. Yet even then only a smile 
 is caught between the lines, never any laughing. In 
 fact the nearest approach to a merry note is when he 
 says : — 
 
 " I have been securing my things so that they may 
 not ' fetch away ' as the sailors say. I am getting 
 quite inclined to speak as the sailors do." 
 
 But several months later, in a footnote to this entry, 
 he thus chides himself for the unusual levity: "This 
 is the day on which Lucy Thurston left this world, as 
 is hoped, for a better one. How different would have 
 been my thoughts and my occupation had I known that 
 while I was so thoughtlessly spending my time the 
 spirit of the lovely missionary daughter was winging 
 its flight to another world ! " 
 
 At last, however, it is May, 1841. The end of the 
 voyage is near ; and in its ending, as in its begin- 
 ning, we feel the throbbing patriotism of this boy for 
 the land he had never seen. "With a certain solemnity 
 as if he wrote, " Thus endeth the first lesson," he 
 makes his closing entries : — 
 
 " We are drawing near the land of my forefathers, 
 but not my home." 
 
 "Friday, May 28. In the morning at four o'clock 
 got a pilot and went into the Sound. At about a 
 
ABOUND CAPE EOBN. 33 
 
 quarter before nine o'clock got to anchor in "Wood's 
 Holl. At eleven went to Captain Fisher's with Sam- 
 uel Tinker. So we have reached the end of our 
 voyage after a passage of two hundred and thirty- 
 eight days, or eight months lacking three days." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IMPRESSIONS OP AMERICA. 
 
 WHEN Halsey landed at Wood's Holl, near New 
 Bedford, he was filled with curiosity concern- 
 ing the United States, and he also had exalted antici- 
 pation of things that were better than those he had 
 left. For thus far the highest civilization he had 
 seen was that of Hawaii, in 1840, and the only Chris- 
 tianity he had ever known was that which had given 
 itself to foreign missionary work. Christian men with 
 lives spent in money-making he had never met. This 
 was part of the new thing which America held for 
 him. Guided by less noble aims than the uplift of a 
 nation, Christian life in the central Pacific would have 
 seemed puerile — unworthy. 
 
 Stamped by the early environment, Halsey had come 
 to the new. To it he must adjust himself. Indeed, 
 with each new experience there was inevitable adjust- 
 ment, and often the process was painful. Yet the 
 actual must replace the ideal. Despite its odd mix- 
 ture of well-meant kindness and unintentional cruelty, 
 humanity in America must be accepted as he found it. 
 
 A lesson in this direction came soon after landing. 
 
 34 
 
IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 35 
 
 It is not recorded in his journal. Perhaps the pain 
 was too deep to be repeated at the time in writing. 
 And yet we know that young Guliek never forgot the 
 sense of astonishment and humiliation which it brought 
 to him one Sabbath morning. 
 
 He was at Sabbath-school ; and the worthy superin- 
 tendent, with more kindness than delicacy, told the 
 children about the little missionary boy who had come 
 to them from a heathen land. To prove the need that 
 his benevolent plan should be carried out, he showed 
 to the school the hat which Halsey Guliek wore, and 
 then proposed that they give him money enough 
 to buy another. So the small hat from Hawaii, the 
 travel-worn hat that was not very modern, was passed 
 about to gather up the pennies . 
 
 No doubt it was the old, unpardonable blunder of 
 ignorant sinning — intentions being truly kind — yet 
 the grief which followed was none the less real to the 
 child who endured it. The new world had suddenly 
 grown cold, and lonely too. And to emphasize the 
 loneliness, it was almost a month before he reached 
 his relatives and could once more feel that he really 
 belonged to anybody. This interval of time repre- 
 sented a few days with Mr. and Mrs. Tinker at Wood's 
 Holl ; separation from these last of the home friends ; 
 sail by slow schooner to New York ; a brief visit 
 there with his mother's old friend, Mr. Ripley ; then, 
 
36 LUTHER HALSET OULIGK. 
 
 with a sigh and a tear of disappointment perhaps, 
 the significant words : " So ends the third week in the 
 land of my ancestors." 
 
 By slower schooner yet he went to Forked Kiver, 
 New Jersey, and records another Sabbath and a 
 birthday on the water : — 
 
 " Sabbath we passed Hell Gate. I helped pull at 
 the oars, thinking it would be no sin, for we might get 
 against the rocks." 
 
 "To-day is my birthday. How different I should 
 spend it with my dear parents ! " 
 
 Precious boy ! And your mother that day, on 
 distant Kauai, was praying as only a mother can pray, 
 that God would comfort her son. It would be yet 
 five months before she could hear that he had safely 
 reached her home ; and Halsey in turn would not 
 hear from his mother until a year after he had left 
 her. Those were brave, hard days for mother and 
 son alike ; for her in imagination of what might be ; 
 and for him in realization of what was. 
 
 Solitary traveling to new places in a strange land 
 was a dreary experience. No friends accompanied 
 him ; none met him at any point. All were kind when 
 he reached them, but the boy in the "land of his fore- 
 fathers" was homeless and utterly alone. He did 
 not complain in his journal, no doubt accepting it all 
 as part of the uew life. But in later years Dr. Gulick 
 
IMPBEStJIONS OF AMERICA. 37 
 
 spoke sometimes of that first great loneliness and the 
 desolateness of it. The worst ended, however, when, 
 with a renewed sense of the dramatic, he wrote : — 
 
 " Got into harbor at six this morning. At seven 
 went ashore. After walking about two miles I found 
 the house I had been looking for for about nine 
 months. Found my uncle and aunt well." 
 
 Farm life in New Jersey and Connecticut introduced 
 Halsey at once to a world of new creatures and expe- 
 riences. Everything was full of interest and much 
 had its " first time " for him. 
 
 ' ' Saw a toad for the first time," he says. " Strange- 
 looking creatures but just as they are represented in 
 books." 
 
 " This morning killed a snake, the second and 
 largest one I ever saw." 
 
 " To-day I was much pleased with the novelty of 
 riding on the hay." 
 
 But most delightful of all: "Last night Aunt Eliza , 
 had a little son. It is the first cousin I ever saw. 
 Did nothing all day but run around and talk of my 
 cousin." 
 
 Halsey himself, with his thoughtful words and ear- 
 nest ways, not to mention his box of curiosities, 
 must have been interesting to his relatives. And then 
 his clothes ! In addition to the fashion of them there 
 was the demoralized condition th'at followed shipboard 
 
38 LUTHER HAL8EJ GULICK. 
 
 use, and his own pitiful attempt at washing. This 
 inspired more dismay perhaps than interest in the 
 heart of his aunt, for " when we opened my chest 
 and box," he says, " aunt thought my clothes looked 
 very dirty. She can have no idea of an eight months' 
 voyage aboard a whaler.'' 
 
 Soon, however, "Betsey Harry" and "Betsey 
 Clark " are recorded as having ' ' come to make my 
 clothes." The wardrobe is in shape again. Halsey 
 has visited the old home in Connecticut, " truly a 
 place which is not to be despised," as he testifies; 
 and now school life in America is before him. 
 
 " October 27, 1841. Started for Auburn this morn- 
 ing at three o'clock. I rode all clay and reached here 
 (Albany) at eleven o'clock in the evening. I got 
 pretty tired." 
 
 "Thursday, 28. Got to Auburn at ten o'clock in 
 the evening, having left my trunk at Syracuse by 
 accident. But I think I shall get it again. P.M. 
 Went to the depot when the cars came in and found 
 my trunk. It was all safe. Took a walk around 
 town. This village is a very pleasant place." 
 
 Thus had Halsey traveled alone once more to meet 
 new faces in a new place. For the present, however, 
 this ended his journeyings. He had come to Auburn 
 to find his permanent home with Dr. Luther Halsey, 
 his father's friend of Princeton days. It was for 
 
IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 39 
 
 him that Luther Halsey Gulick was named, and with 
 him that much of his time in the United States was 
 spent. He was a wise counselor and a kind friend 
 always. Mrs. Halsey was no less kind, and Halsey 
 loved them both. And yet, through these early years, 
 no friend became so intimate with him as to intercept 
 the confidences which found increasing fullness of 
 expression in his journal. This loss of intimate 
 human friendship no doubt explains much of the 
 mental suffering which came to him later in lines of 
 religious thought. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 SCHOOL LIFE. 
 
 REMEMBERING that even in Honolulu school 
 had its charm for him, we imagine the eager 
 expectancy with which Halsey reached his first school 
 home in America, and entered in due form the Auburn 
 Academy. Still we must imagine this, for it does not 
 appear in the manuscript. What we really apprehend 
 is the necessity he felt for immediate adaptation to an 
 astonishing schoolroom emergency : — 
 
 " There is so much noise I cannot study, but I hope 
 to get used to it soon." 
 
 Later we note a quiet satisfaction in his small room 
 in the attic, "because it is so entirely removed from 
 any noise " ; his growing passion for books ; his grief 
 when holidays, vacations, or illness interfere with his 
 studies ; and his written protest against " not needed 
 liberties" when, because it is hot, school is "dis- 
 missed earlier than usual," and " lessons shortened." 
 
 In fact, he carried his devotion to such a point that 
 for months after he went to Auburn we search in 
 vain for some sign of outdoor exercise, or sports with 
 other children. At last the silence is explained : — 
 
 40 
 
SCHOOL LIFE. 41 
 
 " To-day for the first time I played a game of foot- 
 ball; feel pretty tired. It is the first time I have 
 played since I have been here." 
 
 Thirteen years old, and this the first time he had 
 played in six months ! Still he was not wholly with- 
 out diversion. He piled wood for exercise sometimes. 
 And there was promise of much pleasure when he 
 joined a debating society. But early convictions were 
 strong. Profanity shocked him. He soon left, 
 saying, — 
 
 " My reason for leaving it was the use of profane 
 and vulgar language. Some think me too scrupluous 
 about it. But my parents have often told me that the 
 less I have to do with those who use profane language, 
 the better. When I joined them I thought them to be 
 young men in morals as well as in size ; but I find 
 that I was greatly mistaken, for I have never heard 
 worse language used wherever I have been, not 
 excepting shipboard." 
 
 This unhesitating allegiance to what seemed duty is 
 constantly seen. Yet there is also frequent self- 
 accusation. "We are often led to anticipate the con- 
 fession of serious wrongdoing, until with a start of 
 surprise we suddenly realize that the grievous reproach 
 of this mere child is not for actual sin committed, 
 but over time which he thinks he has wasted ; as on 
 the first of January, 1842 : — 
 
42 LUTHER IIALSET GTJLIGK. 
 
 "Another year has passed,'' he says, "never to 
 return. Oh, I have done a great many things for 
 which I am ashamed ! I have disobeyed G-od all of 
 the past year, and I cannot dare to hope that he will 
 keep me another year if I keep on in the same way. 
 Let me reform and try to live better this year — I 
 mean improve my time. My motto for this year shall 
 be ' Redeem the time.' " 
 
 Indeed, through these years, whatever else is want- 
 ing in the journal, there is no lack of proof that 
 thoughts of time, of life, its importance and its 
 brevity were constantly with him : — 
 
 " To-day is my dear father's birthday. He is forty- 
 five years old. How fleeting is time ! It is even like 
 a vapor that appeareth for a little while and vanisheth 
 away. The time will soon arrive, if I live, when I 
 shall be as old as my father. Yet how distant it 
 seems ! " 
 
 And later : "This is the close of the year, and I 
 have been spending it in making a ' fox and geese-' 
 board. My conscience reproves me for it. There are 
 ways, almost without number, that I might have spent 
 it more profitably. But it is too late. The day 
 has gone, weeks, have gone, months too, and years. 
 They have gone, never to return. How solemn the 
 thought ! " 
 
 In the meantime, however, proofs that Halsey did 
 
SCHOOL LIFE. 43 
 
 improve his moments are before us in writing. What 
 tales they tell ! 
 
 ''Here is his first literary effort. It greets the world 
 neither as "Essay" nor "Paper," but states its 
 modest aspirations as " Intended for a Composition." 
 With it are many other compositions, all carefully 
 written, all numbered in regular order, all tied neatly 
 in one package. Some carry the ordinary titles under 
 which the ordinary youth most often writes. Others 
 are index fingers of the writer himself. One enumer- 
 ates the steps of " The Staircase of Knowledge," 
 steps which we easily see that he himself is climbing. 
 Another assails without apology "Fashion, the Child 
 of the Devil." And with drawn sword this child from 
 heathen lands denounces the goddess whom we follow. 
 He calls her "a thief," "a swindler," "an outcast 
 of hell" ; the " meanest of devils and the proudest of 
 devils," " the gravest of devils and the merriest of 
 devils," " the worst of devils and the most fascinating 
 of devils." 
 
 Verily, he is in earnest with his convictions. And 
 the voice of his young aspiration rings out no less 
 earnestly in his unformed, youthful sermon on 
 " What we are, What we might be, and What we 
 will be " : — 
 
 " Fellow students, we may be great and good men, 
 and we may be ignorant and vile men. We may be 
 
44 LUTHER HAL8EY GULICK. 
 
 a blessing to society and we may be a disgrace to it. 
 We may live in obscurity unknown and uncared for ; 
 we may be looked up to when living and spoken of 
 when dead with veneration. . . . Determine in your 
 own mind what you will be, and then pursue it. Be 
 not deterred by trifles or by obstacles, however great. 
 . . . Determination is a potent charm. It has an 
 irresistible power. "When put in motion it sweeps all 
 before it. It is like a flood. It carries before it all 
 the dams of indolence and the bridges of folly. It 
 overwhelms all the castles of self-esteem and widens 
 the channels of fearful cautiousness." 
 
 In addition to this writing of compositions a time- 
 worn memorandum book brings to us a record of all 
 letters written and received between 1840 and 1848. 
 Dates are faithfully noted. The years stand by them- 
 selves. Words of explanation are introduced. All 
 entries are in iuk and neatly written. And through 
 it, from first page to last, are the names of father and 
 mother, of Orramel, John, Charles, William, Theo- 
 dore, and Thomas — so large a family that in refer- 
 ring to a letter received he says : — 
 
 "My brothers were all well, and the oldest six of 
 them (too long a list to enumerate !) were at Punahou 
 boarding school." 
 
 Family birthdays were also remembered, and we 
 sometimes feel the homesickness which swept as a 
 
SCHOOL LIFE. 45 
 
 deep undercurrent to his life; peculiarly so on a 
 brother's birthday, when he says : — 
 
 " Such days as this in particular my mind leaves 
 the location of the body and seems to travel away 
 eighteen thousand miles to my parents and my 
 brothers, and I vainly wish I knew how they were 
 spending it. But as I cannot know, 
 
 ' Fond memory brings the light 
 Of other days around me,' 
 
 and I fancy that they are celebrating it in the same 
 manner as we did in ' other days.' Yet frequently the 
 thought will intrude itself into my mind : ' Perhaps 
 they are mourning the loss of one of their number. 
 Or, perhaps, — unwelcome thought, — there is no one 
 left of them all, either to mourn or rejoice.' " 
 
 Then as a sad refrain to his thinking, the song in 
 full is written out : — 
 
 Oft in the stilly night, 
 
 Ere slumber's chain has bound me, 
 Fond memory brings the light 
 
 Of other days around me : 
 The smiles, the tears 
 
 Of boyhood's years, 
 The words of love then spoken ; 
 
 The eyes that shone, 
 Now dimmed and gone, 
 
 The cheerful hearts now broken 1 
 
46 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 Thus in the stilly night 
 Ere slumber's chain has bound me, 
 
 Sad memory brings the light 
 01 other days around me. 
 
 When I remember all 
 
 The friends so linked together, 
 I've seen around me fall 
 
 Like leaves in wintry weather, 
 I feel like one 
 
 Who treads alone 
 Some banquet hall deserted, 
 
 Whose lights are fled, 
 Whose garlands dead, 
 
 And all but he departed ! 
 
 Thus in the stilly night 
 Ere slumber's chain has bound me, 
 
 Sad memory brings the light 
 Of other days around me. 
 
 Yet homesickness in a child's heart is not always 
 dominant, nor always tearful. It is often hidden by 
 busy occupation or delightful sport. Thus it was with 
 Halsey. Vacations in New Jersey were full of swim- 
 ming and driving, and farming and rest. But when 
 they came to an end he was " not the least sorry for it," 
 as he says, " because all play suits me no better than 
 it did Jack." 
 
 Without any question he preferred study to play. 
 And for this reason an experience which came to him 
 one fall was peculiarly trying. 
 
SCHOOL LIFE. 47 
 
 He had returned to Auburn as directed by his guar- 
 dian, and had learned that Dr. and Mrs. Halsey were 
 expected the next day. "With much excitement and 
 pleasure he therefore went to the station the next day 
 to meet them. We feel the contagion of suppressed 
 excitement as the alert, slender boy with bright hair 
 and brown eager eyes watches the train as it conies, 
 and then stands breathless to welcome his friends. 
 
 His eyes were not so bright and his step was slower 
 as he went home that evening, for his guardians had 
 not come. He had the same experience the next day 
 and the next. In fact it was repeated without varia- 
 tion every day for six weeks. School had begun, 
 but he must not enter till Dr. and Mrs. Halsey should 
 arrive. Worst of all, no letter came to explain, and 
 no directions as to what this fatherless, motherless 
 boy should do. He was boarding, and a few extracts 
 from his journal show how time dragged : — 
 
 "Paid my usual visit to the depot. As usual did 
 not find Dr. Halsey." 
 
 " Time passes very slowly, or at least seems to. I 
 go to the depot once or twice every day, partly to 
 spend the time, but chiefly in hopes Dr. Halsey will 
 come." 
 
 "This week like the rest has been spent in reading, 
 writing, and going to the depot." 
 
 " This long vacation ought, I think, to suffice for 
 
48 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 some time to come, as it is a great hindrance to a 
 student to relinquish his studies long at a time." 
 
 At last, however, a letter came from Dr. Halsey. 
 They had been unavoidably detained by the illness of 
 Mrs. Halsey. "He hopes," writes the lad, "I will 
 not take up too many studies, and cautions me against 
 confining myself too closely." 
 
 Halsey entered the Academy at once, and, compen- 
 sating himself for the long vacation, he studied per- 
 sistently through seventeen of the succeeding nineteen 
 months in Auburn. 
 
 Glancing backward for a moment, we appreciate 
 the value of books to him while he waited. He seems 
 to have read constantly ; not with an unreasoning 
 devotion to whatever he found that was written, but 
 with such guidance of his instinct that the profitable 
 and not the foolish was chosen. Granted that at 
 fourteen a boy's instincts may not always be trusted, 
 still the sort of admiration given is some measure of 
 the kind of books that please him. And at this time 
 Halsey showed his line of choice in the inspiration 
 that came to him through DAubigne's History of the 
 Eeformation. 
 
 "lam much pleased with the two principal charac- 
 ters which figured in the Germanic Eeformation, 
 Luther and Melanchthon, though I hardly know which 
 to admire most, Luther for his boldness, or Melanch- 
 
SCHOOL LIFE. 49 
 
 thon for his mildness. I think, however, I should 
 prefer being a Luther (I am one by name) . There is 
 something noble, something that evinces more than 
 ordinary courage, in the act of standing up before the 
 crowned heads of the earth, whose decisions will, 
 perhaps, consign one to the fate of a martyr, and 
 fearlessly announcing and defending one's doctrines, 
 something which makes me sometimes wish that I had 
 lived in that age, and could have taken part in those 
 transactions. But those days are past, and I must 
 prepare for usefulness in some other sphere, though it 
 may be that I shall yet have a similar opportunity to 
 ascertain what spirit I am of." 
 
 A hope that erelong proved to be a prophecy. He 
 showed indeed, even then, the spirit that was in him 
 by the disapproval which flashed itself across events 
 or doings that seemed to him unworthy, insincere — 
 as concerning a Fourth of July celebration : — 
 
 "How greatly have we honored our fathers who 
 procured us that in which we glory ! With what 
 complacency must Washington now be looking on us 
 who have forgotten the ' God of battles ' ! Why not 
 render tribute to whom tribute is due ? Bacchus can- 
 not be the author of our independence." 
 
 Annual examinations followed. Life grew more 
 intense, and Halsey's scorn of all sham, of all per- 
 forming for appearance is increasingly manifest : — 
 
50 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 " There is great excitement nowadays about the 
 'Old Hospital' as, in common parlance, we term the 
 academy. Examination is near at hand, and though 
 the fate of each individual is, ere this, decided, there 
 is something rousing to some minds in that it is soon 
 to be known and that in public. Certain portions of 
 the book with which we are already quite familiar are 
 selected as those in which we are to be examined ! 
 And thus we are to aid in increasing the reputation of 
 the ' academy ! A ridiculous imposition on the public 
 and the parents of those attending there. 
 
 " There was no school to-day, so as to give the little 
 urchins an opportunity to breathe the fresh air and 
 clean themselves preparatory to the wonderful exami- 
 nation. A greater account could not be made of the 
 greatest exhibition imaginable than is of this vexatious 
 examination. I, however, feel very little concern or 
 anxiety about any appearance or show. I shall per- 
 form my part as well as I can, and trouble myself no 
 farther." 
 
 Then came the exhibition — the marching two by 
 two, decorated with badges, preceded by martial 
 music and followed by teachers, trustees, and citizens; 
 the exercises in the First Church, and then the climax 
 of it all — the prizes. 
 
 I wonder if it grieved those merry boys and girls 
 that the stranger among them should receive more 
 
80H00L LIFE. 51 
 
 than they all. Was it hard for them to understand 
 that this quiet boy from Hawaii who studied when 
 they played, who thought when they were thoughtless 
 — that this boy, so much less American than they by 
 birth, was yet more truly American than most of them 
 in noble love for America, in devotion to duty, in 
 improvement of opportunity? Perhaps neither they 
 nor he appreciated yet the difference. Certainly there 
 is no self-conscious approval in the simple record : — 
 
 " There were in all sixteen speakers, and the best 
 speaker received a premium selected for that purpose. 
 After all had finished came the distribution of premi- 
 ums. I received three : ' The Orator's Own Book' for 
 algebra, ' Holiday Tales ' in writing, and ' Croley's 
 Selections from British Poets ' for the best speech 
 of the whole. My spirits and strength have been 
 screwed up to this point, and now they give way. I 
 am as completely deprived of any youthful vivacity as 
 I ever was. These examinations do not agree with 
 me. So farewell, school ; welcome, welcome vacation !" 
 
 The great event of this vacation was a visit to 
 Auburn by John Quincy Adams : and Halsey's 
 spirited account of the affair throws a new touch of 
 color into the picture he is painting of himself : — 
 
 " As soon as Mr. Adams entered the church there 
 was a general rush for good seats. And as every one 
 pushed and ran, I pushed and ran also, so that, by 
 
52 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 jumping one seat I got to the nearest possible seat to 
 the stage. The stage was the one on which we made 
 our speeches." Then in parenthesis there is the 
 shrewd deduction, " The statesman and orator is but 
 little removed from the schoolboy." 
 
 "... After he had finished speaking, when about 
 halfway down the aisle, a little child two or three 
 years old attracted his notice, which he immediately 
 lifted up and kissed, to the infinite amusement of 
 those assembled. After that I saw several mothers 
 trying to get their children into his notice, but all 
 ' the little children ' were not ' suffered to come unto ' 
 him. Seeing so many pressing forward to shake 
 hands, many smaller than myself, and as I knew the 
 ceremony to be a simple one, the spirit of enthusiasm 
 was infused into my veins, and I pressed forward also 
 to receive a share of the blessing. I can now say 
 to the day of my death : ' I have seen John Quincy 
 Adams and shaken hands with him ' ! " 
 
 Vacation came to an end. The boy was rested and 
 eager for school. And reversing the refrain of a 
 month before, he now writes: "Farewell vacation. 
 Welcome, welcome school." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SPIRITUAL SUFFERING. 
 
 RUNNING parallel with his school life and, 
 indeed, closely interwoven with the history of 
 it, is the very sad story of the spiritual suffering 
 through which Halsey was at the same time passing. 
 The pathos of the minute journal record of it is the 
 fact, which seems evident from the beginning, that 
 he was a Christian through the whole of it, and that 
 the questioning, the self -distrust, the torment of mind 
 and soul which he eudured were but the natural out- 
 come of a morbid theology fermenting in the mind 
 of a highly organized, self-depreciative child. It 
 was, indeed, on a sternly anthropomorphic view of 
 God that he was spiritually nurtured ; a theology 
 which emphasized the wrath of God and the horrors 
 of hell, and finally, as a test question, asked him 
 whether, "If he knew he were doomed to hell, he 
 would still determine to serve God ? " 
 
 In turning these yellow pages we are increasingly 
 impressed by the fact that Halsey's soul was utterly 
 alone when he wrote them. His parents were so far 
 away that no letter could receive its answer in less 
 
 53 
 
54 LUTHEB HALSEY QULICK. 
 
 than a year. His relatives in this country were 
 necessarily strangers to hirn. Of his kindest friends 
 Dr. Halsey was an overworked professor and Mrs. 
 Halsey an invalid. His journal was, therefore, his 
 only confidant, and through it we are able to follow 
 the soul of a child as it gropes its way to God alone. 
 The struggle began in 1842. 
 
 " The Holy Spirit has been striving with me lately," 
 he writes, " but I have resisted it. I would not have 
 God to reign over me ; I sometimes think I really 
 wish to be forgiven and have a new heart, yet I know 
 my unwillingness is all that hinders me. I hardly 
 know what to do. I am told to pray, but I cannot ; 
 I can speak, it is true, but that is all. I do not feel 
 penitent. I am afraid to die, afraid of God, and of 
 the torments of hell, where I know I shall go, if I 
 die as I am now." 
 
 This was the beginning of the suffering which 
 reached its climax almost a year later. Concerning 
 the closing three months of the year he says : — 
 
 ' ' My time was so at my own disposal during the 
 whole of this period that I could make no excuse with 
 respect to opportunities for reflection. I was six 
 hours at school and almost the whole of the remainder 
 of the day I had to myself. Mrs. Halsey was not at 
 home and Dr. Halsey being absent at the seminary 
 a great part of the time, I frequently sat for hours 
 
SPIRITUAL SUFFERING. 55 
 
 in their room, engaged in reading and reflection. 
 My feelings were disclosed to no one, nor have 
 they been to this day, save in a letter to my 
 parents." 
 
 We are thus made acquainted with surrounding 
 conditions, and they show very little physical exercise, 
 practically no companions, because he did not care 
 for the usual sports of children, no older counselor, 
 an intense Calvinistic theology, of which he had 
 grasped more than does the ordinary child of fifteen, 
 a keen imagination, sensitive conscience, and consec- 
 utive hours and days and weeks for self-examination, 
 self -accusation, and pain. The results which followed 
 were to be expected. Indeed, given the conditions, 
 one might have predicted the result. 
 
 " From the twenty-second of October to the tenth 
 of December," he continues, "my feelings were such 
 as never before or since. For the first few days I 
 felt scarce any interest at all in things not immediately 
 connected with religion. My studies afforded me no 
 pleasure or relief. I envied the birds and inanimate 
 objects their state ; and I do not know but truth will 
 warrant me in saying I in reality thought myself no 
 longer ' a prisoner of hope ! ' 
 
 " It surprised me that my fellow students who were 
 not professed Christians could be so thoughtless and 
 trifling when hell was before them." 
 
5(3 LUTHER HALSEY QULICK. 
 
 At this time he passed through a crisis of emotion 
 which he describes as " agony." 
 
 " October 22, 1843. I arose this morning as usual 
 a little before six and aided in the necessary labors 
 of the commencing day. After breakfast I occupied 
 myself by reading in my Bible, and as I read I began 
 seriously to think whose service I should enter, the 
 service of God or of Satan. Had any one asked me 
 which I should prefer dying in the service of, or which 
 I really intended to be the servant of, I should 
 unhesitatingly have replied : ' That of God ' ; and it 
 was indeed my intention to choose him ; but before 
 doing so formally I thought it proper to count the 
 costs, that I might clearly understand what I took 
 upon myself. 
 
 " Before commencing, however, I knelt and prayed 
 — was it prayer? — -that I might have a true idea of 
 the Christian duties and that the Holy Spirit might 
 aid me in my decision. I then attempted to ' call in 
 my wandering thoughts ' and collect my mind, that 
 I might not go heedlessly and ignorantly to work. 
 
 " My mind ran over several of the duties which 
 would be required of mc and which the world, as well 
 as God, would expect me to perform ; but in some 
 way now forgotten my attention was called off. I 
 began to think about other things, and my attention 
 was not arrested till the bells began to ring for 
 
SPIMITUAL SUFFEBING. 57 
 
 morning service, when I went to my room to get my 
 cloak preparatory to going. But suddenly as I was 
 putting on my cloak ' I am lost ' crowded itself among 
 my truant thoughts. ' I am lost. I did not choose 
 God and his service. My day of grace is past.' 
 Such thoughts as these rushed upon me like a torrent, 
 and so powerfully did the thought force itself upon 
 my mind, an effort did not shake it off. 
 
 " I paused a moment in the act of placing the cloak 
 on my shoulders. I knew not what to think of it. 
 At first I attempted not to heed it, as I perceived it 
 began .to agitate me greatly. But I could not divert 
 my mind. I experienced such sensations in those few 
 moments as I hope never to have again. They were 
 of horror and' fear. I was in the greatest agitation. 
 I cannot with words, and particularly on paper, describe 
 my feelings. Perspiration began to start from my 
 brow. And in my agony I knelt down by my bed to 
 implore, if it were possible, mercy from Him whom 
 I had offended. But I found it impossible. I could 
 not summon my wandering thoughts together. And 
 then the idea of addressing him was not connected 
 with any hope. For how could I hope for mercy from 
 one I had so deeply offended ? 
 
 "This all passed through my mind in the space of 
 five minutes, when I joined the family going to the 
 house of God. When walking, my mind was a little 
 
58 LUTHEB HALSEY GULIGK. 
 
 drawn off, but looking on passing objects I felt as 
 if I should never behold them with pleasure and 
 gayety as before. In church my feelings rose to their 
 former intensity and, if possible, higher. I could 
 not sit still and heard but detached portions of the 
 sermon. 
 
 " My feelings did not rise again during the day, but 
 they were of a melancholy character and so continued, 
 effecting nothing because ' there was no hope and no 
 use in attempting.' " 
 
 After this Halsey suffered every day. There was, 
 it is true, fluctuation in his feelings, degrees of inten- 
 sity to the pain. Yet the pain itself was constant. 
 He believed that if he were not living in such hardened 
 rebellion against God, no day would pass without 
 definite thought on what he terms " the lost condition" 
 of his soul. That days did thus pass was proof to 
 himself that he had outlived all possibility of repent- 
 ance, that he had sinned away his "day of grace"; 
 and his suffering was measured by the enormity of 
 this calamity. 
 
 The prevailing tone of the journal during these 
 months is best shown when he began to read Baxter's 
 Call. 
 
 " In commencing this book," he writes, " I have a 
 variety of feelings. I almost fear to read it, lest, 
 through the extreme and wonderful hardness of my 
 
SPIRITUAL SUFFERING!-. 59 
 
 heart, I should still continue in my sins, and thus it 
 should prove a ' savour of death unto death.' 
 
 " It is with the greatest surprise that I look at my- 
 self. I know that I must die, that I am a sinner, that 
 I cannot escape deserved punishment but by closing in 
 with the offers of mercy made by the only begotten Son 
 of the Father, and I believe I understand the way of 
 salvation ; yet there is something, I know not what, 
 unless it is my wicked heart, which prevents me, and 
 which I have reason to fear will be my ruin. 
 
 "What infatuation! 'T is sufficient to terrify the 
 boldest sinner. And yet I walk on, on the very mar- 
 gin of the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, 
 as careless and unconcerned as though with the fool I 
 said ' There is no God and no soul.' Well may the 
 angels look and be astonished ! Not all my guilt sub- 
 dues me, nor my great danger, nor yet the compassion 
 of a Redeemer in dying, nor the unparalleled long- 
 suffering of a merciful God. ' Oh ! wretched man 
 that I am ! ' my sins increasing, my heart hardening, 
 my time shortening, death approaching, hell gaping, 
 and my doom preparing ! Nothing but the grace of 
 God can save me. ' Create in me a new heart,' and 
 make me what thou wouldst have me to be." 
 
 Then soon after : — 
 
 "At times I imagine I am given up of God, and I 
 feel a sort of melancholy despair, while at other times 
 
60 LUTHER HALSEY GXJLIGK. 
 
 I am in great agony. Yet, after all these fears and 
 resolves and, I cannot but hope, strivings of the Spirit, 
 I continue in my sins, in my extraordinary rebellion 
 against my Maker, so that I have good ground to fear 
 that I have grieved or shall grieve away the Spirit and 
 be forever lost. Oh, may this never be the case -with 
 me ! May I see my many sins in something of that 
 light in which God sees them ! I do not realize the 
 state I am in, or I could take -no peace day or night." 
 
 Through these months of keen introspection not a 
 breath of hope had reached him ; and the depth of 
 his woe, as we have seen, was the agonized desire of 
 his soul for repentance and forgiveness and the belief 
 that, in spite of himself, the hardness of his heart 
 alone prevented peace and pardon. To himself his 
 case seemed hopeless, and he blamed himself alone. 
 
 At last, however, hope came to him for a moment, 
 " a delusive hope " he sadly called it ; and though in 
 simple words that have no hope in them he tells us how 
 it came and how it went again, still we see at once a 
 promise aud a sign that day is approaching : — 
 
 " On Sabbath, the tenth of this month," he writes, 
 " after the tea dishes were removed and the family 
 worship over, Mr. Seymour, a theological student, 
 requested me to remain a few moments. He asked 
 me if I would kneel down with him and promise G-od 
 that I would serve him and from that time forward 
 
SPIRITUAL 8UFFMRWQ. 61 
 
 live wholly for him. I hesitated. I knew not what 
 to do. I was unprepared for it. It was reasonable. 
 It was what I ought to do. Yet I dared not do it. 
 It would be more correct should I say I would 
 not. My blood rushed into my face. I was greatly 
 excited and it was with difficulty I could bring my 
 mind to think on it for a moment. 
 
 "My mind reverted to my feelings on the twenty- 
 second of October. The thought occurred to me : 
 ' There still is hope. If you repent now, you may be 
 saved, and this may be the last time the Spirit will 
 ever strive with you; the last opportunity you will 
 ever have.' I tried to collect my thoughts to make an 
 effort, but could not. The frequency of my making 
 such resolves came up. I thought these would be like 
 the rest, mere words or thoughts, not the firm resolves 
 of the heart. As I said then : ' I dare not say No, 
 yet cannot say Yes ; ' I could not come to any decision. 
 
 " We then knelt down. Mr. Seymour offered 
 prayer and I followed him ; after which he advised 
 me to retire to my room and give myself away 
 unreservedly. 
 
 " I was occupied during the evening with my own 
 thoughts. I ran over the ground several times, count- 
 ing the costs, and brought myself to the point whether 
 I would or would not do it, which I answered in the 
 affirmative. After this point was settled in my mind 
 
62 LUTHER HALSEY GULIGK. 
 
 I went alone and, as I thought, yielded my heart to 
 God, and, as I hope, resolved to seek and strive to 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 " My feelings now assumed a very different aspect. 
 They were entirely changed. Instead of feeling that 
 I was lost, I was full of joy and hope. I felt as a 
 new creature, and was tempted to hope that I was 
 a Christian. Since then I have passed day after day 
 with an indefinite hope. I have scarcely dared bring 
 myself to the test, lest I should find my heart not 
 right before God, till yesterday, when I think I found 
 sufficient to disperse all such hope. Every day reveals 
 more and more the deceitfulness of my own heart. 
 And yet I have been flattering myself that. I was a 
 child of God and an heir of heaven ! " 
 
 Five days later we read the closing words of the 
 closing year. As usual I quote but a small part of 
 what is written : — 
 
 "Sunday, December 31, 1843. It is ten o'clock. 
 But two hours remain of 1843. Soon another year 
 will have commenced. But who knows whether I 
 shall live to see it ? Oh, who? None but God. Let 
 me then improve the remaining part of the year in 
 meditation. 
 
 "I have lately indulged in the hope that I have 
 received pardon for my sins. I have, however, after 
 much thought not discovered sufficient evidence to 
 
SPIBITUAL SUFFERING. 63 
 
 induce me to rely on it. No, I fear I am still unrecon- 
 ciled to God, that he is still angry with me. It is just. 
 It is proper. But how can I remain a moment in 
 peace ? Is God angry with me and I not concerned ? 
 God displeased with me and I insensible? This is 
 a mystery. There are, however, moments when I am 
 really tempted to believe I am a child of God. I can 
 think of nothing then as a test but which corresponds, 
 as I think then, with my feelings. I then look forward 
 to the judgment day and think that, through the blood 
 of Christ, I need fear nothing. I think of death, and 
 picture to myself a peaceful departure from this 
 world. But oh, the thought will intrude itself, for it 
 is indeed unwelcome : ' What if this is all a delusion ! 
 You may yet be in your sins. Satan may only be 
 deceiving you with these vain hopes, the better to 
 secure you as his victim.' Yes, and this may be true. 
 It is in truth the most probable supposition. Oh, 
 what am I to do if this be the case ? I am lost ! I am 
 
 lost .' I AM LOST ! 
 
 "The clock strikes eleven. Only one hour left! 
 And if the end of this year is to be the close of my 
 earthly career, how soon will it close ? This may be 
 the case. The decree may have gone forth with 
 respect to me : ' Cut it down. "Why cumbereth it the 
 ground ? Behold, these fifteen years I come seeking 
 fruit on this fig tree and find none.' 
 
64 LTJTHMB RALSEY GULICK. 
 
 ' ' And what will be my condition in the future 
 world? I pause to address myself to my Maker, my 
 Saviour, my Redeemer. May he in his infinite mercy 
 deliver me from my uncertainty, and may I be brought 
 to action before it shall be forever too late ! . . . 
 
 " But the year has gone. Its last moments have 
 fled. It has gone. Its accounts are sealed for eter- 
 nity. And what a record will they present at the last 
 day! One that I shall be pleased with? Ah! no. 
 It will present one continual sin. All its pages are 
 blackened with sin — sin against the Almighty. It 
 has gone . . . ' with the days beyond the flood.' 
 
 " May my New Year's present to the Lord be ' my 
 body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, 
 which is my reasonable service.' 
 
 "Luther Halsey Gtjlick. 
 "January 1, 1844. Midnight." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 A S the sobs of a child grow gradually fainter and 
 *» then are changed to smiles, so it happened 
 with Halsey's spiritual suffering. It did not cease at 
 once. Peace came to him slowly. There were sea- 
 sons of discouragement when he deplored his weak- 
 ness, his coldness, his unfaithfulness. And finally, 
 having overcome much, he shuddered in the imagined 
 presence of a new tormenting specter — spiritual 
 pride. 
 
 After all, however, the real contest was between 
 the powers of spirit and intellect. Each claimed his 
 highest devotion. As rivals they already stood within 
 the citadel, and now one and now the other was its 
 master. And yet the higher power proved itself the 
 stronger. For under and over and about all else was 
 the spiritual yearning of his life — the note which 
 sounds as an insistent undertone to all he writes. 
 This is very distinctly heard when he announces 
 as his ' ' Christian axiom " the duty of each human 
 being to choose his life work " where talent and 
 circumstances will enable him most to glorify God." 
 
 65 
 
66 LUTHEB HALSEY GULIGK. 
 
 Because of this conviction, with all life and its possi- 
 bilities before him, he dedicates himself to foreign 
 missions. His reasons are the -willing nations, the 
 greater need, the hopeful work ; while shining as a 
 calcium light over all is the example of his parents. 
 
 " "Were reasons valid in their case," he exclaims, 
 " which are not in mine? Shall it be said that the son 
 of a missionary was so dandled on the lap of ease 
 and indulgence that he thinks it a hard matter to 
 make sacrifice for his God ; that the son of a mission- 
 ary is not so good a missionary as the son of a New 
 Jersey farmer or the daughter of a Puritan? Was 
 the command ' Go ye into all the world ' addressed 
 more particularly to my parents than to me ? I answer 
 to each and all a conscience-approving ' No.' " 
 
 Such was the inspiration from his parents ! But 
 there was loyalty also to heathen neighbors. 
 
 " I was born among the heathen," he says. " They 
 are, as it were, my countrymen. And now shall I 
 forsake them ? No : to a certain degree I will claim 
 the whole heathen world as my countrymen." 
 
 Thus, quite unconsciously, did Halsey prophesy of 
 his future. And thus soberly did he take his place 
 with the workers of the world. 
 
 " I must now be a man," he continues with unas- 
 sumed gravity. "I must be sober, stable, persever- 
 ing, living for eternity — which is the part of true 
 
DEDICATION. 67 
 
 manliness. I must acquire complete control over my 
 thoughts. This I have not. I must be rigid in my 
 self-examination and thorough in my self-knowledge. 
 I would live, as Brainard expresses it, ' on the brink 
 of eternity.' My communion with God must be 
 close." 
 
 These were lofty aspirations sincerely held. Yet 
 side by side with them there was constant fear of 
 self-deception. And to help him answer the question 
 of his own honesty he read " The Deceived Professor 
 Undeceived." After that he writes : — 
 
 " It seemed to me as if my submission was for the 
 sake of pardon ; as if my love — if indeed I exer- 
 cised any — was because I thought I was to be saved." 
 
 For further help he now went to a friendly theo- 
 logical student ; and here he met with the astonish- 
 ing query as to whether "if he knew he were doomed 
 to hell, he would be determined still to love and serve 
 God." This was no astonishment to himself, however, 
 for it harmonized with what he already believed and 
 it therefore helped him. Later he talked with Dr. 
 Halsey, met the session of the church, passed the 
 church examination, and then in the quiet of his own 
 room cried out in despair: "Oh, that I might know 
 my own heart ! " 
 
 The strenuousness of this desire is seen on the 
 nineteenth of January, 1845. It is two o'clock Sab- 
 
68 LUTHEB HALSEY GULIGK. 
 
 bath morning and in his small room, dark and cold 
 and lonely, he has risen "to prepare by sober thought 
 and prayer for the coming ordinance of the Lord's 
 Supper.'' 
 
 Think what it meant to him ! The solemn height 
 of all his struggles gained at last ! Remember what 
 he had suffered and be not surprised that with this 
 suffering as a background he should now have looked 
 for the seal of his acceptance in an experience as 
 bright as that was dark. Yet as he looked for spirit- 
 ual ecstasy that morning and guided the pen through 
 which he did his thinking, body and soul alike seemed 
 cold. No rapture from heaven was sent him and he 
 could not fly outside himself to find it. The wings 
 of his soul seemed broken. He did not realize how 
 imperative are physical laws nor how sadly even 
 spiritual possibilities are limited by physical condi- 
 tions. He was thinking, and praying, and writing 
 when he needed sleep and rest. And because he did 
 not understand why he lacked emotion we have this 
 closing page of his early spiritual history : — 
 
 "In prayer since I arose I have had none of those 
 drawings out of soul — going after Christ — which 
 Christians so often speak of. I have none of that 
 peace and joy which I hoped to have enjoyed. All 
 seems cold and chill. I am surprised at myself. 
 
 "What! Am I about to commemorate the dying 
 
DEDICATION. 69 
 
 love of a Redeemer, yet feel no emotion of love to that 
 Redeemer? Feel no thankfulness to him from whom 
 I hope I have received pardon ? Oh ! let me pray and 
 meditate. I cannot go to the table of the Lord feel- 
 ing thus. Would it not be sinful? I have thought I 
 would renew my dedication to God, and put it in 
 writing that it may make a deeper impression upon 
 me. This dedication is nothing but the performance 
 of my duty — that which I should do were I irre- 
 trievably doomed to hell. I am about to address my 
 Maker. May T be suitably afraid and solemn ! " 
 
 The self-dedication that follows is so long that only 
 a small part of it can be quoted. But bear in mind 
 that it was written at two o'clock in the morning by 
 a boy of sixteen who was overshadowed by the awful 
 thought that he deceived himself — that in spite of 
 his aspiration and his hopes he was not a Christian. 
 
 The formality of the covenant and of the prayer 
 that breathes through it is no doubt explained by the 
 views of God which Halsey entertained, and by the 
 religious reading he had done. We see that it was 
 written for future reference : — 
 
 A DEDICATION OF MYSELF TO GOD. 
 
 " Eternal and unchangeable Jehovah ; thou great 
 Creator of heaven and earth, and adorable Lord of 
 angels and men ! I desire with the deepest humilia- 
 
70 LUTHEB MALSEY GULICK. 
 
 tion and abasement of soul to fall down, at this time, 
 in thine awful presence, and earnestly pray that thou 
 wilt penetrate my very heart with a suitable sense of 
 thine unutterable and inconceivable glories. 
 
 " ' Who am I, O Lord, or what is my house,' what 
 is my nature or desert that I should speak of this, 
 and desire that I may be one party in a covenant 
 where thou, ' the King of kings, and Lord of lords,' 
 art the other ? But, O Lord, great as is thy majesty, 
 so also is thy mercy. Behold, therefore, O Lord, I 
 come unto thee. Receive, I beseech thee, thy poor 
 revolted creature who desires nothing in the world so 
 much as to be thine. 
 
 " Hear, O God of heaven, and record it in the book 
 of thy remembrance, that henceforth I am thine, 
 entirely thine. From this day do I solemnly renounce 
 all the ' former lords ' which have had dominion over 
 me, every sin and every desire, and bid in thy name 
 an eternal defiance to the powers of hell. To thee 
 do I consecrate all the remainder of my time upon 
 earth, and beg that thou wouldst instruct and influence 
 me, so that, whether my abode here be longer or 
 shorter, every day and hour may be used in such a 
 manner as shall most effectually promote thine honor 
 and subserve the schemes of thy gracious providence. 
 
 "In this course, O blessed God, would I steadily 
 persevere to the very end of my life ; earnestly 
 
DEDICATION. 71 
 
 praying that every future day of it may supply the defi- 
 ciencies and correct the irregularities of the former. 
 
 " I leave, Lord, to thy management and direc- 
 tion all I possess and all I wish. Continue or remove 
 what thou hast given me. Bestow or refuse what I 
 imagine I want, as thou, Lord, shalt see good. 
 
 " Use me, O God, I beseech thee, as the instrument 
 of thy glory, and honor me so far as, either by doing 
 or suffering what thou shalt appoint, I may bring some 
 revenue of praise to thee and benefit to the world in 
 which I dwell. And when I have done and borne thy 
 will upon earth, call me from hence at what time and 
 in what manner thou pleasest. Only grant that in my 
 dying moments, and in the near approach of eternity, 
 I may remember these my engagements to thee, and 
 may employ my latest breath in thy service. 
 
 " And do thou, O Lord, when thou seest the agonies 
 of dissolving nature upon me, remember this covenant 
 too, even though I should then be incapable of recollect- 
 ing it. Look down then, O my heavenly Father, with a 
 pitying eye upon thy languishing, thy dying child ; 
 place thine everlasting arms under me for support ; put 
 strength and confidence into my departing spirit, and 
 receive it to the embrace of thine everlasting love. 
 
 ' ' I desire to live and die as with my hand on that 
 hope. Amen. Luther Halsey Gulick." 
 
 "January 19, 1845." 
 
CHAPTER Vin. 
 
 MEDICAL STUDIES. 
 
 THROUGH 1846 and until the fall of 1847 Halsey 
 took special studies with Dr. Schapps, of 
 Amboy, New Jersey. These studies were in prepara- 
 tion for both collegiate and medical work ; this combi- 
 nation being made early as a possible help to himself, 
 for he was not strong ; and the journal unconsciously 
 reveals a touch of comic pathos in the union of condi- 
 tions diametrically opposed to sound health with this 
 strenuous preparation for a doctor's life. Determined 
 as always to improve the time, and evidently having 
 no counselor near to advise him, he rises early to 
 study and studies late. Religious life and emotion 
 grow cold, and his lamentation is : — 
 
 "I do not rise early enough — though I rise with 
 the first dawn of day — to have sufficient time to 
 perform my devotional duties in such a manner as I 
 should. And I do not take time at another hour 
 because in haste to begin studying." 
 
 G-oing to bed late, he still rises at any time between 
 three and five, yet can understand neither the " irre- 
 sistible drowsiness " that oppresses him nor the brain 
 
 72 
 
MEDICAL STUDIES. 73 
 
 that "seems dull," nor his " undevotional frame of 
 mind." Hours and moments grow increasingly pre- 
 cious, but he is " overcome with sleepiness," "unable 
 to study," is " drowsy in church," and mourns that he 
 " should so dishonor God in public." He questions 
 whether he is not growing " lukewarm," " cold," and 
 calls upon himself to "beware," to remember "the 
 cloud of witnesses," "to press on in Christ's strength." 
 
 Dyspepsia troubles him. He passes through a 
 course of strict dieting, but diminishes not his studies. 
 He faints away, goes home ill, and grows discouraged. 
 But the record reads : — 
 
 " "Woke at two. French till six. Anatomy till 
 twelve. Drawing till half-past four." 
 
 Over and over again there is similar account of 
 study when sleep was what he needed. Indeed, these 
 months were devoted to relentless study and to unwit- 
 ting transgression of physical laws. Yet a growing 
 consciousness of failing health was forced upon him ; 
 and at last, by peremptory medical command, he 
 stopped studying and sought the motherly care of his 
 ever-loving aunt Eliza, his mother's only sister. 
 
 Thus far Halsey had looked forward with unwaver- 
 ing expectation to a |ull collegiate course as prelimi- 
 nary to his professional studies. Now, however, the 
 outlook is discouraging : — 
 
 " I can study no longer. Of course college will be 
 
74 LUTHEB HALSEY GXJLIGK. 
 
 deferred another year. But by that time I think I 
 may hope to enter the junior class." Though three 
 months of farm life had helped him, and though 
 studies were resumed in the fall, still he was far from 
 well. And by the following spring the final decision 
 was made : — 
 
 "Dr. Halsey says that, as I am, I could not sit 
 down to a regular course of classical collegiate studies. 
 Of course I acquiesce with the most perfect readiness. 
 There is no use in attempting what one cannot do. 
 So then, what will be the sum of my education will 
 depend altogether or in great measure on my health. 
 If I have health, I can study whatever is thought best ; 
 and it will make but little difference where I am to 
 study if I can but have the books." 
 
 In view of the situation, Dr. Halsey advised in 
 favor of a medical course first, aud after that theolog- 
 ical study, if health should then allow it. The result 
 was that Halsey entered the New York College of 
 Physicians and Surgeons in the fall of 1847. 
 
 And now, though medicine was his chosen profes- 
 sion, yet pulsing through all the record of his studies 
 we feel the enthusiasm which was his in other lines of 
 thought. The note he makes of outside reading in 
 1847 proves this : Campbell on Systematic Theology ; 
 Douglass on Missions ; Kitto's Palestine ; Life of 
 Byron ; Dr. Madden on Infirmities of Genius ; Mason's 
 
MEDICAL STUDIES. 75 
 
 Ecclesiastical History ; Taylor's Theory of Another 
 Life ; Lord Brougham's Statesmen ; Shelley ; Keats ; 
 Burns ; Cambray on Eloquence ; D'Israeli's Essays ; 
 Milman's Fall of Jerusalem ; Fenelon on Eloquence ; 
 several of Shakespeare's plays ; Life of Sir J. Rey- 
 nolds ; Hodge's Way of Life ; Life of Gibbon ; Foster 
 on Decision of Character ; Life of Dr. Arnold. 
 
 With this but a part of one year's reading, we can 
 appreciate the fierce determination which was neces- 
 sary to hold him to the work of medical study. 
 Indeed, his own words testify to this. Recognizing 
 the tendency but realizing present duty he says : — 
 
 "I am not a physician in my habit of mind. I 
 must make myself so, whatever else I am. Medical 
 subjects in their practical details must form much of 
 my study. Medicine is my profession, in which I 
 must perfect myself — medicine and theology prima- 
 rily ; natural science and composition secondarily for 
 amusement." 
 
 Reaching around all other interests was his ever- 
 growing absorbing enthusiasm for public speaking. 
 Signs of this had appeared before. But now, in his 
 young manhood, they were multiplied. Touches of 
 ambition also came to him — a desire to reach people, 
 to move them, to be felt and recognized as a force in 
 their lives. To us who read it is as if a new element 
 of character were suddenly introduced ; as if a new 
 
76 LUTHEB HALSEY GJJLIOK. 
 
 adjustment of conditions were suddenly required. 
 And Halsey, too, is perplexed. Is this burning, high 
 ambition a part of the uoble manhood he has longed 
 for? Can it, too, find a place in the fabric of his 
 consecrated life ? His nineteenth birthday shows this 
 perplexity, and with it the new adjustment. 
 
 " Here I sit with irresolution and prodigality of 
 time ; an itching after fame, a despicable one. Oh, 
 had I a friend, I'd open my heart! My pen's, my 
 tongue, this page my friend. I cannot desire to be 
 unknown. I envy the post of a Chalmers. I wish to 
 acquire those qualities which will enable me to lead, 
 while at the same time I wish to be led by piety 
 and reverence, and implicit confidence in divine 
 revelation." 
 
 At this point came opportunity to speak each Sab- 
 bath iu a mission chapel on Fifty-first Street. He 
 gladly accepted, and with clear self-knowledge quietly 
 states again his own ambition with reference to public 
 speaking : — 
 
 " The whole bent of my mind for years, I might 
 say for almost my whole life, has been in this direc- 
 tion, and I still have strong predilections for it, 
 stronger than for anything else." 
 
 Later he emphasizes the point : — 
 
 " The whole passion of my soul for many years has 
 been to become a preacher. I feel confident of powers 
 
MEDICAL STUDIES. 77 
 
 which, if properly directed, can secure me favorable 
 attention." 
 
 Will powers be ' ' properly directed " in a land where 
 no audience appreciates, where no mind will under- 
 stand him? Yet Halsey Gulick was moving toward 
 heathenism so deep that neither audience nor thinkers 
 were anywhere within it. 
 
 In the meantime, however, he goes to hear Mr. 
 Forrest in Macbeth with the avowed purpose of study- 
 ing eloquence. He buys a life of Whitefield and 
 studies this also to learn the source of his power in 
 public speaking. Then, best of all, he attends a 
 course of six lectures on Shakespeare by Mr. Richard 
 A. Dana, an event which he pronounces " the greatest 
 intellectual treat I have enjoyed for a long time." 
 
 It may be that these lectures laid for him the foun- 
 dation of that devotion to Shakespeare which was an 
 enthusiasm always, a devotion which grew into an 
 intimacy so close that in later years his children as 
 little dreamed that his traveling outfit was complete 
 without his well-worn Shakespeare as without the well- 
 worn Bible. 
 
 During this time he found pleasant friends among 
 Union Seminary theological students. "Men of 
 choice spirit," he calls them; "men with whom I 
 can feel and act." Yet though he had these friends, 
 he often suffered from an intensity of depression 
 
78 LUTHER HALSEY GULWK. 
 
 which he accepted as an inevitable part of his life, his 
 inheritance. Just what this depression was we are 
 not told; but shadows which it cast prove its reality. 
 
 "I know I shall never be that jolly, laughing being 
 many another one is, for I have such frequent returns 
 of my constitutional depression of spirits as to prevent 
 this. But if I may be useful, I shall be happy." 
 
 "I am alone. The possibilities of my future life 
 oppress me, though I must acknowledge that I am 
 now in one of my turns of low-spiritedness. These I 
 have to make constant provision for. Oh, it is a 
 source of relief to me to think of a coming stage of 
 existence when I shall be relieved from these physical 
 disabilities ! " 
 
 This element of sadness does, indeed, thread itself 
 through much of his recorded life. Due in part to 
 physical conditions, and in greater part to his sensitive 
 nature subjected to constant overwork, the resulting 
 mental suffering is none the less real to him. But he 
 learns to accept himself as he is, and in 1849 is 
 pleased because he " begins to see the boy gradually 
 wearing off," because " the fermentation of youth is 
 subsiding." Yet, since the beginning, the world and 
 his journal have seen wondrous little of the boy in this 
 serious-minded youth. 
 
 Side by side with these touches of pain, with the 
 record of lectures attended, books read and efforts 
 
MEDICAL STUDIES. 79 
 
 made for earning money, are constant spirited notes 
 of news from Europe, from California, from the world. 
 And as a background to the devotion with which he 
 still consecrated himself to foreign missionary work 
 there is touching significance in the throbbing interest 
 with which he thus watched the movement of the 
 nations. He was keenly alive to each flash of news 
 that came ; the more so perhaps as the months in 
 hurrying by forced him relentlessly toward the point 
 where suddenly he should drop out of all this life and 
 action, and on some lonely island should wait for news 
 that could only reach him once a year — that might, 
 indeed, not reach him even then. 
 
 Now, however, he is part of this intensity, and his 
 journals alone would introduce one fairly to the great 
 events of these years. We watch Austria and Ger- 
 many in 1848, and the French Republic as she elects 
 her president. We follow the Pope in his hegira from 
 Rome, and realize the wild enthusiasm with which the 
 discovery of gold in California is greeted, and the 
 indignation of the country over a supposed secret 
 codicil to our treaty with Mexico. 
 
 Items from the whole mission world also steal their 
 way into these pages, while quiet comments of ap- 
 proval and disapproval demonstrate already the calm 
 strength of the growing mind and the depth of his 
 interest in all missionary problems. What else was, 
 
80 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 indeed, to be expected? For now, as in tbe begin- 
 ning, the compass of his own life pointed unswerv- 
 ingly to missionary work, to work for others, for the 
 most needy wherever they might be. Years before 
 he had written : — 
 
 "I cannot now conceive of anything, if life and 
 health are spared, that will deter me from becoming a 
 foreign missionary. In accordance with this purpose 
 I am determined nothing shall be allowed to pass 
 unimproved which shall render me more useful." 
 And this thought dominated the years. 
 
 Already we have found him speaking each Sabbath 
 on Fifty-first Street. Later he helped organize a 
 Sunday-school in the same place ; and recognizing 
 the unity of all work for others, he at once sees the 
 world's noble mission field stretched out before him. 
 Its door is open. He stands upon the threshold. 
 
 "Thus do I begin my missionary life. I hope it 
 will not cease till life itself ceases. I am a missionary 
 now as much as I ever shall be. A habit of doing 
 good neglected now will never be perfectly formed." 
 
 Uniting this home work to foreign fields was the 
 meeting of the American Board in Pittsfield, Mass., 
 in 1849. Here Halsev listened with quiet discrimi- 
 nation to those who had toiled on the field and to those 
 who, at home, had theorized. Here too he met again 
 young people from Hawaii, playmates once, fellow 
 
MEDICAL STUDIES. 81 
 
 students now in New England. With Hiram Bingham 
 he walked to Chester. "With Warren Chamberlain 
 he climbed Mount Holyoke, and, seated there above 
 the world, these two young men looked out on 
 life as seriously as they studied the picture before 
 them. They "talked of youthful days aud future 
 prospects." Then, with the past of childhood behind 
 them and the future of life rising high before them, 
 they knelt and prayed there on the mountain. 
 
 Thenceforward, boys who had inspired one another 
 in their Honolulu spelling -school became a larger 
 inspiration to each other. Halsey Gulick and Sereno 
 Bishop and Hiram Bingham, schoolmates then, are 
 correspondents now. And Halsey's letters, prized and 
 kept through many years, are before us to-day. Each 
 carries its message. Each touches, through query or 
 exclamation, the keynote of his life ; and all ring as 
 earnestly to-day as they sounded forty years ago when 
 they were written. Even now he pleads for Polynesia : 
 
 "Fellow Polynesians, we are bound by double ties 
 of fellowship. And shall we not be brought under 
 a third bond of unity by engagement in the same life 
 of evangelization of Polynesia?" 
 
 Indeed, through journals and through letters, we 
 increasingly realize that the unshaken, ever-strength- 
 ening purpose of his life was to be a missionary to 
 Polynesia. 
 
82 LTJTREB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 " The ejevation of Polynesia ! For this I will live, 
 for this die. It is but my duty. It will be my pleas- 
 ure. I may not do much. I may not have the capac- 
 ity. I may not be allowed the length of life. But to 
 do all I can, whether much or little, is my obligation 
 and my aim ; the elevation politically, socially, intel- 
 lectually, religiously, the last accomplished securing 
 the rest ; therefore it shall be my main endeavor." 
 
 "With this goal before him, Halsey bent every energy 
 to its attainment, and on the ninth of March, 1850, he 
 was graduated in medicine, and took what he terms 
 the " solemn, imperative oath." ' 
 
 Thus another milestone of life was passed ; and 
 soberly facing the future, he wondered where the next 
 would find him. 
 
 1 For the sake of lessened expense he had previously transferred his 
 connection from the College of Physicians and Surgeons to the Univer- 
 sity of New York. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PINAL PREPARATIONS. 
 
 DURING- his three years of medical study Halsey 
 had attended various courses of lectures in 
 Union Theological Seminary, where Dr. Halsey was 
 at the time lecturing on ecclesiastical history. Much 
 of his reading had also been in theological directions, 
 and now he planned to begin systematic theological 
 study. This was also Dr. Halsey's advice. 
 
 Just here it is interesting to know of an offer of 
 help made to and promptly refused by him because 
 it involved pledged allegiance to Princeton theology. 
 He makes this vigorous statement of the case to his 
 parents : — 
 
 "If I go to a seminary at all, as go I will if I can, 
 I go to examine these subjects of dispute. Mr. D., 
 who last fall offered to do much for me at Princeton, 
 told me they did not want any one who could not act 
 cordially with them and who would prove recreant to 
 Old Schoolism. But for this I should now be pre- 
 paring to enter Princeton Seminary. It is more than 
 I ever will do — to constrain myself to think in any 
 prescribed way. If facts carefully thought over 
 
84 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 bring me to the creed of my ancestors, all is well, 
 and I will profess it ; if not, not. I have bid myself 
 act as my instructors have taught me until such time 
 as I can examine the subjects carefully for myself. 
 
 "I am a Protestant by education, and I have so 
 far imbibed its principles as to refuse to admit into 
 my religious faith any article I have not fully and 
 independently examined. As to Old and New School- 
 ism, I do not know which I shall be ; indeed, I am 
 sure I shall not allow myself to be involved in the 
 disputes of a past decade. On this I am resolved : if 
 receiving help from any source requires of me that 
 I think no otherwise than as the benefactors think, 
 I shall promptly decline their benefaction. This I 
 have done in reference to Mr. D." 
 
 At this point, however, an important crisis in 
 Hawaiian mission history changed the course of 
 Halsey Gulick's life. 
 
 During the summer of 1850 he learned that a 
 missiou to some of the Mieronesian Islands had been 
 projected and that the Hawaiian Island Mission was 
 to act upon it the following May. In view of this he 
 was greatly moved. Through it he saw the possible 
 accomplishment of his most cherished desire — "A 
 Hawaiian mission with Hawaiian missionaries, of 
 whom I should like to be one ! " But opposing this 
 there stood his other great hope for theological study, 
 
FINAL PBEPABATIONS. 85 
 
 for preparation for the life of a preacher. We imag- 
 ine the strait 'twixt two in which he was placed, and 
 we speculate as to influences which will weigh in the 
 balance and determine the future for him. 
 
 On the one hand was love of study and hope for 
 greater usefulness through greater preparation ; on 
 the other was the fact of a medical profession already 
 entered upon and an immediate call to work in the 
 field to which, through solemn dedication, he had 
 already given himself. In his perplexity he consulted 
 Dr. Anderson, then Foreign Secretary of the Ameri- 
 can Board, and received advice against the added 
 theological course, in favor of an early return to the 
 Pacific, and in recommendation of an immediate 
 application for appointment by the Board. Solemn 
 advice for the older man to give to the younger, but 
 conscientiously given, and with this thrown into the 
 scales the weight on that side was heavier. 
 
 Of himself alone was he now in doubt. "Am I 
 ready?" But the hesitation did not last. "I am 
 about decided to offer myself. Divine wisdom will, 
 I hope, direct and control me." Then with the 
 exultation of self-conquest, with the memory of pa- 
 rental example shining around him, with a thrill in his 
 voice, he adds: "Father, it is your own son who 
 wishes to go to the heathen. Why should I withhold 
 myself for the luxury of a few more years of study?" 
 
86 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 And so the decision was bravely made and the 
 formal offer of himself to the Board followed it. 
 
 In view of his passion for books, his burning desire 
 to be a preacher, and his incompleted course of study, 
 we instinctively look for expressed regret or, at least, 
 for some paragraph that shall distinctly speak of 
 these shattered hopes as a sacrifice to duty ; but he 
 does not write of any disappointment. The steps 
 before him had seemed clearly marked, and he took 
 them quietly and firmly, making no lamentation be- 
 cause of others which might have been pleasanter ; 
 he only says : — 
 
 "Oh, I stand curious at the close of each day to 
 know what the next shall reveal of cliviDe mercy and 
 wisdom ! It is a pleasure to trace the thread of 
 divine plan which seems to run through my actions 
 during the past year. I knew not the plan I was 
 developing till now I see it in retrospection, and it is 
 under this impression that I step forward cheerfully 
 to meet the ever-coming future. I only see the few 
 stepping-stones that are just before me in the dashing 
 flood. I trust a Father's hand to direct my general 
 course. I may die before the year expires, but this 
 will, I hope, only hasten my emancipation from this 
 defective body I am in. It will not check my happi- 
 ness nor my usefulness, only perfect both." 
 
 Then the official appointment came to "a new 
 
FINAL PBEPABATIONS. 87 
 
 mission which it is in contemplation to fit out from 
 the Hawaiian Islands to some other group in the 
 Pacific Ocean." 
 
 ButHalsey Gulick, Dr. Gulicknow, was not to sail 
 for almost a year yet. He spent this year — 1851 — 
 in hospital practice in New York, in further study of 
 Greek and Hebrew, in attending lectures, and in still 
 continued indefatigable reading. 
 
 During this year, also, he transferred his connection 
 from the Presbyterian church on Houston Street to 
 the Broadway Tabernacle, where Rev. J. P. Thompson 
 was pastor. The reasons for the change were very 
 plain to himself as he traced them, and quite as plain 
 to us who follow now : — 
 
 " I do this because in my future foreign missionary 
 life I shall probably prefer and, indeed, be under the 
 necessity of acting with my fellow missionaries on the 
 Congregational basis ; and I should prefer becoming a 
 little accustomed to it here. Furthermore, there is 
 such occasional stress laid on the minutiae of the 
 Calvinistic system by the different bodies of the 
 Presbyterian body that I rebel. I do not wish to feel 
 myself as liable to the authoritative whims of weak- 
 minded men. As I seem to see the usual tenor of 
 Presbyterianism about me, it is representative but in 
 form, in name. And authority is exercised over think- 
 ing in a way I dislike. For myself I prefer thinking 
 
88 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 freely, without alarm lest I think heterodoxy. Yet 
 I shall look back with fondness to those examples of 
 mild, patriarchal discipline by fathers and elders, which 
 I shall ever regard as the beau-ideal of government." 
 
 Later, in conversation with Dr. Thompson, he was 
 advised to ask not only for license before he sailed for 
 Micronesia, but for ordination as well. And we share 
 with him the sense of exaltation which this antici- 
 pated, authorized place in the wider field would give 
 him. To be recognized by the Church as worthy to 
 speak publicly and work for Christ ! To be not only 
 licensed but ordained ! This was more than he had 
 dared to hope for. Yet it had come to him unsought. 
 And with thankfulness in his heart he exclaims : — 
 
 " Thus is my way opened, and I may hope to have 
 the prominent plan of my life accomplished." 
 
 Then a council was called by the Broadway Taber- 
 nacle. Among those present as delegates were Rev. 
 William Patton, Eev. George B. Cheever, Rev. H. O. 
 Schermerhorn, Rev. R. S. Storrs, Rev. Timothy 
 Atkinson, and Rev. J. P. Thompson. Dr. Patton 
 was chosen moderator, and Dr. Cheever was the 
 scribe. By these men, some of them in their prime, 
 some of them still young with all the glory of life 
 before them, Dr. Gulick was examined and accepted 
 as a fellow worker. This was on the fourth of Octo- 
 ber, 1851. 
 
FINAL PREPARATIONS. 89 
 
 On the evening of the oth, Sabbath evening, the 
 consummation of all his preparation was reached. A 
 large congregation had gathered in the Broadway 
 Tabernacle, and kneeliog for ordination, while the 
 hands of good men rested on him, Dr. Gulick felt that 
 he was crowned. Again he prayed ; and again he 
 consecrated himself to the loneliness of Micronesia 
 and to any work that God should give him anywhere. 
 
 Before he sailed, however, still another great event 
 was to widen his life and add increasing impetus to 
 its natural currents. This was his marriage. 
 
 Perhaps his nearest previous approach to love was 
 a breathing of romance which came to him one 
 summer when he was eighteen. And though, as 
 compared to that experience, he at the time pro- 
 nounced "romance but a shadow, poetry but a well- 
 touched picture," still it came to an end. To comfort 
 himself he assured his journal with philosophic calm 
 that " though it is painful, the pains are those attend- 
 ing a necessary amputation." 
 
 In this connection various other items are full of 
 significance. Once it is in reply to a letter from his 
 mother : — 
 
 " I sometimes love to read of those good old days 
 when Abraham could say to his ' eldest servant ' : ' Go 
 unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife 
 unto my son Isaac' No troublesome courtships then 
 
90 LUTHEB HALUEY GULICK. 
 
 — all done by proxy. Aye ; and those were the days 
 of Eebekahs and Rachels. But hold — Rachel? No 
 proxy there, I am sure. Am I a Jacob, and have I to 
 work for my own wife ? May it not be a seven years' 
 service ! So with a laugh and a prayer I dismiss the 
 subject, which, by the way, is a fair exhibition of my 
 feelings. I know the pleasure ; I dread the difficulty ; 
 I fear the result ; and so most earnestly desire the 
 favor of the Lord." 
 
 A later comment reads : " As for courtship, woe is 
 me ! I can never consent to waste my time ! " 
 
 But after all, the human heart remained and its 
 human requirement. That era passed, and serious 
 thoughts came to him of a possible life companion. 
 
 ' ' My heart is full of emotion which I may not or 
 cannot express. Oh for the time when I may have a 
 friend to whom I may tell all ! " 
 
 But he was not very sanguine, and one day there is 
 dejection in his journal : — 
 
 ' ' Brainerd had no wife. Henry Martyn had no wife. 
 Schwartz had no wife. Venderkemp had no wife, 
 when he went out. Fisk had no wife. Parsons had 
 no wife. Why need I be alarmed if I am to have 
 none ? " 
 
 Then he passed through a season of what he terms 
 "haggard expectancy," but closes it with a hallelujah: 
 
 " Joy and devout thankfulness are mine ! Miss 
 
FINAL PREPARATIONS. 91 
 
 Louisa Lewis has yielded her assent, and consents to 
 live with me and be my friend for life and my fellow 
 missionary." 
 
 Each day he grew happier, till, on the twenty- third 
 of October, he writes : — 
 
 " Joys accumulate ! Happiness floods my soul ! 
 What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits ! 
 Next week Wednesday I am to be married to her 
 who I think has been appointed for me and for whom 
 I was appointed. May the blessing of the Lord guide 
 and accompany us ever, securing the constant con- 
 tinuance of that endearment and pleasure we now 
 experience ! " 
 
 The following week brought the wedding day with 
 its emphasized happiness. And on the 30th are the 
 happiest words in all these journal pages : — 
 
 " Yesterday I was married to Miss Louisa Lewis ! 
 I am happy ! I am happy ! There does not remain 
 an important wish ungratified. I am in the fruition 
 of all that earth can render me. My only anxiety 
 comes from imagining that such joy cannot be expected 
 long to continue. Yet saddening providences will not 
 destroy our happiness. No, naught but sin can, and 
 against it we pray. We are husband and wife. We 
 are fellow Christians. We are fellow missionaries, 
 and we pray for blessing on each aspect of our lives." 
 
 Louisa Lewis, now Mrs. Gulick, was born in New 
 
92 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 York city on the tenth of November, 1830. Her 
 grandfather, Robert Wardell, was one of the early 
 dry-goods merchants of "Wall Street. In his childhood, 
 Canal Street, a canal then in the suburbs of the city, 
 was his skating ground. Louisa * was the oldest 
 daughter in the family of four sisters and one brother. 
 In her childhood she had been familiarized with the 
 thought of foreign missions by some neighbors who 
 had returned from India — .the first generation of the 
 missionary family of Scudders. 
 
 After studies carried on in Rutgers Seminary, New 
 York city, and two winters of teaching in North Caro- 
 lina. Louisa had for months before her marriage been 
 engaged with her mother in city missionary work in 
 New York. Her devotion to work for others and her 
 forgetfulness of self had been marked characteristics 
 since she was a child ; and when this new opening 
 came for a larger work in a darker place she saw 
 at once the guiding hand of God and was ready 
 to be led. 
 
 A printed account appearing at the time gives a 
 word about the wedding and testifies to what Mrs. 
 Gulick already was to those who knew her : — 
 
 "Whether Dr. G-ulick's wife knows fully what she 
 
 'Louisa's father, Junius Sidney Lewis, was gifted in conversation, 
 brilliant in repartee, whole-souled, full of life and enterprise, a helpful 
 Christian merchant. Her mother, Sarah Wardell Lewis, had been 
 delicately nurtured, and was active always in Christian work. 
 
FINAL PREPARATIONS. 93 
 
 has undertaken is a little doubtful ; yet she is not one 
 likely to be disheartened or to shrink from danger. 
 In the time of the cholera she was a ministering angel 
 to many a suffering and dying family. She went from 
 house to house of the poor, where aid is most needed 
 and most scantily given, and offered her assistance 
 with no regard for the danger to herself. Such a 
 woman is likely to do good wherever she may go." 
 
 Then follows the query which so often meets this 
 sort of self-sacrifice : — 
 
 ' ' Is n't it a little singular that persons who are 
 remarkable not so much for physical adaptation as for 
 intellectual superiority and real gentleness of soul, 
 should so often be the ones to devote themselves to 
 raising up tribes and nations where the human mind 
 is an utter blank and desolation ? " 
 
 And picturing what the new life and surroundings 
 must mean, to this young couple, the writer breathes 
 a prayer which we unconsciously make our own : — 
 
 "May the sun's rays fall gently on their island 
 home, and as they shut out the world from their hopes 
 may they be more than the world to each other ! " 
 
 As we have seen, Dr. and Mrs. Gulick were married 
 on the twenty-ninth of October, 1851. Mrs. Gulick 
 was almost twenty-one, her husband twenty-three, years 
 old. On the eighteenth of November they sailed from 
 Boston for the Hawaiian Islands, Friends were there 
 
94 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 to say "Farewell" and "God speed you." To each 
 it seemed a separation for life, Micronesia was so far 
 
 As the young couple stand on the deck of the small 
 craft, we see fulfilled at last the semi-prophetic yearn- 
 ing of years before when, longing for Martin Luther's 
 opportunity, Luther Halsey Gulick had written : " But 
 those days, are passed, and I must prepare for useful- 
 ness in some other sphere, though it may be I shall 
 yet have opportunity to ascertain what spirit I am of." 
 
 And has not the opportunity come to him now ? 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 PAKE WELL. 
 
 rj^HIS company of missionaries was the last which 
 -L the Board sent to the Pacific via Cape Horn. 
 It included ten persons, six returning to the Hawaiian 
 Islands, and four, Mr. and Mrs. Snow and Dr. and 
 Mrs. Gulick, pioneers facing Micronesia. 
 
 The Esther May was small, her cabin full, and to 
 accommodate all the passengers an added room was 
 fitted up below deck. This was separated by a sus- 
 pended sheet from the cargo of the bark. The prox- 
 imity of sails, ropes, tar, barrels of fish, and barrels 
 of pork was not an aesthetic inspiration to seasick 
 passengers. Indeed, this sheet failed in various ways 
 as a nonconductor, for sounds of scurrying mice, no 
 less than scent of fish, and flesh, and tar, were clearly 
 apprehended through it. 
 
 Nor was the slender, swaying white partition — 
 white at first — much protection during their first 
 storm. When it overtook them tumultuous waves 
 poured over the narrow deck and down the hatch- 
 ways ; cargo and cabin alike were flooded ; all loose 
 articles floated about in the harmony of rhythmic 
 
96 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 motion, while miniature waves within the cabin dashed 
 in unison with monster waves without. 
 
 Doubtless the missionaries appreciated the comedy 
 no less than the tragedy of the situation. But trag- 
 edy must have waxed and comedy waned when, for 
 thirty-six hours, they were calked down in their cabin 
 of small dimensions, while noise and darkness, and 
 cargo that tossed about, were their only companions ; 
 while sailors stood with axes ready to cut away the 
 masts, and death faced them every moment. 
 
 From the midst of trunks filled with water and 
 boxes of books hopelessly soaked, Dr. Gulick no 
 doubt recalled with grim appreciation the anxiety of 
 a secretary in Boston that discipline be secured to the 
 youthful missionary. He had asked permission to go 
 to Hawaii via Panama, the newly opened route involv- 
 ing a journey of sixty-five days, and the answer from 
 the older man to the younger was dignified and solemn : 
 " My young brother," he said, " a foreign missionary 
 needs the discipline of a voyage around Cape Horn." 
 For discipline, therefore, missionary devotion to Micro- 
 nesia was spending five months instead of two upon 
 the water. And though reading and study filled the 
 weeks, 1 time passed slowly. 
 
 i]n this line a summary at its close shows what Dr. Gulick accom- 
 plished during the voyage. Daily readings in Hebrew, Greek, and 
 Hawaiian ; some study of Fren"h ; besides this, Stackhouse's History 
 of Iho Hible, Latham on the Variety of the Races of Man, Mariner's 
 
FAREWELL. 97 
 
 At last, however, land was before them. They 
 were nearing the beautiful Aina hanau, the homeland 
 left so long ago. In the distance, against skies more 
 blue than skies have ever seemed since these last 
 swept above him, Dr. Gulick sees again the hazy out- 
 line of far-off mountains. For hours these float as 
 airy tents above the clouds that hold them. Then 
 their outline grows a trifle clearer. Land is seen below 
 them ; clouds are traced across them ; and gradually 
 from the gray there evolve the softest shades of 
 green. As the tint grows deeper the long coastline 
 is plainly seen ; while dashing over sands white and 
 bleached by myriad washings is the surf that rolls 
 and foams and breaks, and with a sweeping caress is 
 lost for a moment, then, slowly turning back, pre- 
 pares to come again. Sight of it all came first, and 
 then the sound, the musical ripple and swish and 
 roar of waters in constant motion. Twelve years 
 before a tone of utter sadness mingled with the music 
 of their movement, but to-day who can measure all 
 the gladness that it brings ! 
 
 They passed the beautiful islands one by one and 
 were anchored, at last, two miles from Honolulu. It 
 
 Tongo Islands, Life in Fiji, Morell's History of Modern Philosophy, 
 Edwards on Revivals, on Original Sin, on the Affections, and on Faith, 
 Chalmer's Memoir and Sermons. In addition, four sermons written 
 and two outlined. And all this accomplished in spite of the fact that 
 a sea voyage was for him " a constant intellectual misery." 
 
98 LUTHER HALSEY GULIGK. 
 
 was March 24, 1852, Sabbath day ; and here they 
 waited for Monday morning. 
 
 Years of separation lay behind Dr. Gulick and his 
 friends ; there were but two miles of quiet water 
 between them now ; and yet, because of their sturdy 
 loyalty to what they thought was meant by ' ' Remem- 
 ber the Sabbath day to keep it holy," parents and 
 brothers spent the day on shore, while Dr. Gulick and 
 his wife still tarried on the Esther May. 
 
 Dr. Gulick was twelve when he left. Ou his return 
 he was twenty-three. Had time and distance banished 
 him from the lives of his younger brothers? What 
 else was possible ? And yet, if written thoughts ever 
 take the place of spoken words ; if molded lives are 
 ever any proof of personal influence, — we know that 
 he did not return as a stranger to his home. Indeed, 
 he was so good a friend that his written desires for 
 himself had unconsciously set the standard for his 
 brothers. They instinctively felt that thus in turn 
 must they strive ; that his high goal must be their 
 goal too. He had over and over again assumed their 
 unity of purpose. 
 
 "It cannot be," he had written, "that seven boys 
 were sent here just to take up room and eat food and 
 wear out clothes. I don't believe it. . . . Let us be an 
 earnest family in mind and heart, and do much for the 
 world of thought and religion. We can if we but 
 
F ABE WELL. 99 
 
 will. . . . Let not our family history be that of sight- 
 less worms, boring the mud for bare existence. . . . 
 Au author is judged by his books, a mechanic by 
 his machines, and a parent by his children. Are not 
 at least John, Charles, Theodore, and Thomas to be 
 missionaries ? " 
 
 From boyhood to manhood he had thus come to 
 them constantly as a mental and a moral inspiration. 
 And it would be difficult, perhaps,' to measure the 
 effect of his written words on the lives of his six 
 brothers. In truth, the voice which for years had 
 called to them across the ocean was strengthened for 
 them by the mystery of distance and America, acad- 
 emy and university which lay behind it. Year by year 
 it had formed part of their growing life. It had 
 emphasized the daily petition of their father that his 
 children might " have the glorious privilege of preach- 
 ing the gospel to the heathen." 
 
 With such preparation it is not strange that in time 
 this privilege came to each in turn. Now, however, 
 they were still young. Their Joseph had returned a 
 great man, with a wife and a commission to preach 
 that "glorious gospel" to yet more heathen islands. 
 Orramel had seen him, and Charles, who was now in 
 America ; but to the younger boys and to his sister 
 Halsey stepped off the Esther May to greet them at 
 once a brother and a hero. 
 
100 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 It is not quite possible to picture the meeting again 
 after the long separation, nor to show all the change 
 which Dr. Gulick found among his friends. 
 
 This aged man who greets them is his father, gray 
 twelve years ago, snowy white to-day ; and this, his 
 mother, more bent and tired now, but with eyes as 
 brown and bright and full of tears as when he left her-. 
 Such different tears to-day ! And this band of boys 
 crowded close about him are his brothers, changed in 
 limb and face and clothing, but unchanged of heart, 
 welcoming in boyish fashion their brother — their hero 
 — and the new sister that he brings. Last of all, 
 like trailing arbutus among them, is the shy little 
 sister with her Madonna face, the sister he had never 
 seen before. 
 
 And this was home again ! This its inner circle ! 
 But other circles were no less changed. Friends of 
 all ages had taken the same forward step. For the 
 nation itself, for its Christianity and its civilization, 
 the step seemed longest. 
 
 Even now but thirty -two years had passed 'since the 
 first missionary landed, and this is what we find : — 
 a population of eighty-four thousand Hawaiians, 1 a 
 form of government changed from the unmeasured 
 tyranny of the Tabu system to a limited monarchy, 
 a house of hereditary nobles and representatives 
 
 •The deaths for 1850 were 4,330; the births 1,422. 
 
FAME WELL. 101 
 
 chosen by the people, churches and schools scattered 
 from Hawaii to Niihau, an annual government allow- 
 ance to its common schools of $26,000, and in these 
 schools fifteen thousand pupils. In fact, schools and 
 scholars of all ages were so multiplied that knowl- 
 edge of reading and writing, geography, bookkeeping, 
 history, and theology were claimed to outstrip all 
 mechanical attainments. In addition to all else there 
 was a church membership of twenty-one thousand, 
 three ordained pastors, and a Christian community so 
 large that a missionary remarks without even an ex- 
 clamation point: "Some of our prisons are nearly 
 destitute of inmates, and the district judges complain 
 for want of something to do." 
 
 Anticipating the mission to Micronesia, the Hawaiian 
 Missionary Society had been formed in 1851 as aux- 
 iliary to the American Board. Its contribution the 
 first year was $6,140. 
 
 Hawaiian history had now fairly entered upon a 
 new era. Heretofore Christian life had grown by 
 what it received ; hereafter it was to grow by what 
 it gave. The importance of this step to Hawaiian 
 church life cannot be overestimated. Ultimately de- 
 signed for those in lower estate than they were, it 
 was nevertheless taken primarily for the benefit of 
 the Hawaiians themselves.* They had reached that 
 point in progressive Christianity where work for 
 
102 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 others was needed to sustain and animate the home 
 life. 
 
 As of all new enterprises, so of this there had been 
 question. Even now it was difficult, nay, in certain 
 cases wellnigh impossible, to maintain self-supporting 
 churches. "Why then organize a new work which 
 would require yet larger giving? Does not charity 
 begin at home? On the whole, however, there had 
 been union of conviction. The society had been 
 organized. "While interest slowly grew in a possible 
 mission of their own, and while funds were coming in 
 to help them begin it, the missionaries for that field 
 had made the journey. They had arrived at last, and 
 stood expectant and questioning on Hawaiian soil. 
 Would these churches feel ready seriously to attempt 
 all that was involved in this proposed foreign mission ? 
 
 The answer to the question is found in the events 
 of the succeeding four months. 
 
 With the coming of the Esther May, what was 
 growing interest before mounted rapidly to glowing 
 enthusiasm. With The Missionary Herald and letters 
 before us, it is easy to live over again those four 
 months of history ; to watch the onward movement of 
 its missionary wave, and to appreciate the increasing 
 momentum with which it rose to rapid culmination in 
 the sailing of the Caroling. 
 
 Preliminary work had already been done, and when 
 
FAREWELL. 103 
 
 the Esther May came, bringing with her a child of 
 their own land — a young man clear-eyed and brave, 
 — eager to be their missionary to Micronesia, play- 
 mates of other days and Hawaiians everywhere recog- 
 nized and welcomed him as their standard-bearer. 
 
 Dr. Gulick was soon speaking in Hawaiian. Mr. 
 Snow was no less earnest through an interpreter, while 
 older missionaries and native Christians were all suc- 
 cessfully working for the same object — the increase 
 of mission interest among the people. The speaking 
 and the praying were but the fanning of the flame. 
 There was soon no question as to the will of the 
 churches. 
 
 Of interest now there was no lack. Money they 
 had generously given and prayers were daily offered. 
 But what of that more serious proposition? Were 
 men and women ready to make the larger gift? Who 
 would go as the first Hawaiian missionary to foreign 
 lands ? This was the most serious question ever yet 
 submitted to the Hawaiian churches. And missionary 
 fathers of the Christian life of Hawaii must have held 
 their breath till the answer came, for it would prove, 
 as nothing else, how deep the roots of Christian life 
 had reached. But the question was hardly asked 
 befoi^ it was answered, first by one, then by another, 
 until seven couples stood as candidates asking for 
 liberty to go. 
 
104 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 From among these seven two alone were to be 
 chosen ; not by lot, as Matthias, but by careful 
 deliberation. And while the people prayed about it, 
 and while the candidates were willing to go or to stay, 
 as should be judged best, the annual meeting of the 
 mission was held in Honolulu. It continued in session 
 from May 6 to June 4. By formal action it passed 
 'the responsibility of the Micronesian Mission into 
 the hands of the Hawaiian Missionary Society ; and 
 from among the seven waiting candidates two were 
 finally chosen — Dariiela Opunui, a school-teacher in 
 the prime of life, a graduate of Lahainaluna Seminary, 
 and Doreka, his wife ; and Berita Kaaikaula, a deacon, 
 the owner of some property, the father of two 
 children, and Deborah, his wife. Both children 
 were left in Honolulu when the parents sailed for 
 Micronesia. 
 
 With the missionary society formed, the mission- 
 aries chosen, and the field waiting for them nearly 
 three thousand miles away, the pressing question was 
 as to the wisest move first to be made. Of the field 
 itself little was known. Sea captains "would not 
 give a straw," they said, " for the lives of men and 
 women who should attempt to live in Micronesia." 
 Still missionary purpose did not swerve. It wa§ sug- 
 gested that, for safety, the husbands go first to " spy 
 out the land " and come again for their wives, But 
 
FAREWELL. 105 
 
 separation seemed impossible when so much was 
 involved, and all decided to go together. 
 
 A further question was as to the vessel they should 
 take ; and this too was promptly answered, for 
 generous Hawaiian love, putting its arms still more 
 closely about its foreign mission, bought for it the 
 schooner Caroline. 
 
 With each new decision larger interest was secured. 
 Natives and foreigners were unitedly enlisted in prac- 
 tical zeal. The children of the missionaries, many of 
 them young men and women, united as the " Hawaiian 
 Mission Children's Society " and pledged themselves 
 to the support of Dr. Gulick and his wife. Lahaina- 
 luna Seminary held itself equally responsible for the 
 salary of its graduate Opunui, and the Second Church 
 of Honolulu assumed the support of Kaaikaula, its 
 deacon. 
 
 The missionary meeting came to au end. The 
 weeks were hurrying by. With so much of intensity 
 in home life and in public life too, Dr. Gulick's 
 journal was not often written. Yet in the midst of it, 
 on the tenth of June, there is a significant birthday 
 note : — 
 
 ' ' Twenty-four years old to-day, and I am launched 
 on the wide, wild sea of life." 
 
 The closing weeks were crowded with meetings and 
 all were full of interest. But most impressive, per- 
 
106 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 haps, was that which included the public consecration 
 of Messrs. Opunui and Kaaikaula with their wives to 
 mission service. All were members of the Second 
 Hawaiian Church of Honolulu. 
 
 It was the last Sabbath in June, and a thousand 
 communicants were present that day. After cele- 
 brating the Lord's Supper together the Hawaiians 
 about to leave spoke to their fellow Christians who 
 were to stay and pray for them. And while they 
 still stood, their wives standing with them, they 
 received both charge and instruction from their pas- 
 tor. 1 Then, to prove his people no less than to 
 strengthen those who left them, Mr. Smith asked all 
 to Tise who were resolved to follow their missionaries 
 " with prayer and contributions year after year, even 
 until death " should come to them. There was no 
 hesitation, for' dusky Hawaiians are as easily moved 
 by sacrifice and devotion as any other people. With 
 one accord they rose to their feet, and standing for 
 a moment they pledged themselves to changeless love 
 for Micronesia and for the workers there. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Sturges had now arrived from the 
 United States. They too were going to Micronesia. 
 
 On the sixth of July a council was called to 
 organize the "Mission Church of Micronesia," the 
 child of that other " Mission Church " organized 
 
 1 Eev. Lowell Smith. 
 
FAREWELL. 107 
 
 thirty-three years before in Park Street Church, Boston 
 — the "Mission Church of the Hawaiian Islands." 
 Of this newest church there were but ten members, 
 five men and five women. A small force surely, yet 
 a lever that should lift all Micronesia ! 
 
 Friends now sent gifts of every sort : food for the 
 voyage, comforts for the new life, letters to cheer 
 them. In truth, the zeal for giving laid hold upon all, 
 high and low, rich and poor, saint and sinner too, so 
 it seems, for they say: "It is the wish of all, the 
 wicked as well as the good, that the Lord may open 
 wide the door before you." 
 
 Even royalty was stirred. "With what touching 
 readiness do those who have suffered try to help 
 those who are still in pain ! Anxious to do his part, 
 Kamehameha III wrote a letter in Hawaiian to " all 
 chiefs of the islands of this great ocean to the west- 
 ward." To them he sent his "greetings" and his 
 wish for them of " peace and happiness now and 
 forever." And then he adds: — 
 
 ' ' Here is my friendly message to you : There are 
 about to sail for your islands some teachers of the 
 Most High God Jehovah, to make known unto you 
 his word for your eternal salvation. A part of them 
 are white men from the United States of America 
 and a part of them belong to my islands. 
 
 "I therefore take the liberty to commend these 
 
108 LVTHEB HALSEY GULIGK. 
 
 good teachers to your care and friendship, to exhort 
 you to listen to their instructions and to seek their 
 acquaintance. I have seen the value of such teachers. 
 . . . Many of my people regard the Word of God, 
 Jehovah, and pray to him ; and he has greatly blessed 
 us. I advise you to throw away your idols, take 
 the Lord Jehovah for your God, worship and love 
 him, and he will bless and save you. May he make 
 these new teachers a great blessing to you and your 
 people and withhold from you no good thing ! 
 
 " Kamehameha." 
 
 And now the Caroline is to sail. It is four o'clock 
 in the afternoon, July 15, 1852 — a quiet, summer 
 afternoon under a tropic sky. From the last prayer 
 meeting in Honolulu missionaries and friends have 
 come to the whar.f . Hundreds are already there ; 
 Hawaiians in bright-colored, simple gowns, decked, 
 as always, with wreaths of beautiful flowers, and 
 missionaries in their sober costume ; children are 
 curious and excited and strangers are filled with 
 astonishment. Natives and foreigners, old and young, 
 all alike have eager faces. Some are tearful, others 
 joyful. Some see only the heroism before them, others 
 see only its pathos ; but all realize that a new era 
 has dawned for Hawaii. 
 
 Kaaikaula and Deborah are saying good-by to their 
 
FAREWELL. 109 
 
 children. Dr. Gulick is once more saying " Good-by" 
 — God be with you — to his mother. His wife is 
 near him, his brothers, his sister, and his father ; but 
 his mother's heart aches most ! 
 
 All who go are gathered upon the deck of the 
 Caroline. The last moments have come ; a hush has 
 fallen ; bowed heads are uncovered ; heaven seems 
 very near, and the cloud of witnesses close about 
 them. Prayers are offered in English and Hawaiian. 
 Then, as a fervent Amen to the praying, the giving, 
 and the hoping, hundreds of voices join in singing : — 
 
 " Waft, wait, ye winds, his story, 
 And you, ye waters, roll, 
 Till like a sea of glory 
 It spreads from pole to pole." 
 
 After this the Caroline moved away. And while 
 from deck and wharf friends still watched each other 
 through the gloaming, darkness came between them 
 and their watching was ended ; yet they felt that 
 God could still be reached. And rising to heaven 
 from Hawaiian homes that night ten thousand prayers 
 brushed the sails of the Caroline and wafted her on 
 her way. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HAWAII TO KUSAIE. 
 
 TWENTY-FOUR people were on the Caroline: 
 three foreign and two Hawaiian missionaries 
 with their wives, Mr. Clark and Mr. Kekela, delegates 
 from Hawaii to return again, and Mr. John Gulick, 
 who accompanied his brother for the voyage. The 
 rest were captain, crew, steward, and cook ; thirteen 
 passengers and a crew of eleven on a schooner of 
 one hundred tons pressing toward Micronesia three 
 thousand miles away ! 
 
 If a photograph would do it, how easy to emphasize 
 the smallness of the Caroline by placing beside it the 
 ocean steamer that crosses the Atlantic to-day ! Ten 
 thousand tons tower broad and high against one 
 hundred, and the difference in size is more than 
 equaled by all the comfort that the smaller vessel 
 lacked. Even to a zealous secretary in Boston the 
 Esther May had seemed small enough and uncom- 
 fortable enough for needed missionary discipline ; but 
 the Esther May represented luxury itself as compared 
 to the limited quarters of the Caroline. Its passen- 
 gers were so crowded now that they had no staterooms ; 
 no 
 
HAWAII TO KUSAIE. Ill 
 
 so cramped that the table on which they dined was 
 placed outside the cabin ; while the service of the 
 schooner was so inefficient that seasick missionary 
 wives supervised the kitchen, washed and baked, and 
 tried to be cheerful. 
 
 Twenty days of rain and sunshine were marked 
 by irregular progress and adjustment to the con- 
 stant nearness of each other. Then, on the fifth of 
 August, land appeared, the most northern of the 
 Gilbert Islands, a low shadow on the horizon ; 
 darker, more stable than a cloud, and far more real 
 than cloudland to eager eyes that saw for the first time 
 a Micronesian coral reef. 
 
 A line of trees and a beach of gleaming sand — 
 that was all. No spot on that low-lying island was 
 so high as the deck on which they stood, and they 
 wondered whether men's thoughts could ever soar 
 from so low an earthly spot to heaven that reached 
 so high above them. Yet prayers that day rose 
 straight and swift from the Caroline, and those who 
 prayed thought an answer came as swiftly down. 
 They prayed for an interpreter and they prayed for a 
 welcome. Both came promptly to them. The natives 
 proved friendly, amused and interested rather than 
 hostile ; the interpreter was an Englishman, who 
 under his flying British ensign was a trader there in 
 cocoanut oil. 
 
112 LUTHER MALSET GULICK. 
 
 Commerce had, indeed, years before sent its mes- 
 sengers to Micronesia, yet in spite of commerce with 
 Christian lands not a ray of Christianity or of civili- 
 zation had yet touched Butaritari. A thousand par- 
 dons of the shirts and the pipes ! Yes ; civiliza- 
 tion had sometimes gasped in a flannel shirt under 
 the burning sky, and it had laid its fiery hand on 
 heathenism already in condition sad enough. Civi- 
 lization had taught the native the art of liquor- 
 making. It had refined the art of murder by 
 supplying guns to hands that really wanted to kill. 
 It had proved to the simple that the greater wisdom 
 of the white man who came among them was 
 shown in loving himself much more than he loved 
 his neighbor. 
 
 The lesson had been learned, and now other white 
 men had come ; the same in kind, of course, for all 
 arrive in ships, all have pale faces, all speak a bar- 
 barous tongue. But these other beings who came 
 with them were surprising. "Women," the trader 
 called them, "foreign women," and natives were 
 astonished. How droll, how unnatural, how unfash- 
 ionable they were ! How disfigured, poor things ! 
 The heathen women were convulsed, nor did they 
 conceal their amusement more than we do ours from 
 monkeys and infants that please us. They followed 
 them in companies ; they gave them cocoanuts to eat 
 
HAWAII TO KUSAIB. 113 
 
 and cocoanut milk to drink ; they shook hands as an 
 added joke, and had a merry time. 
 
 All were not, however, thus affected, only the 
 frivolous, perhaps, for many were coolly indifferent, 
 masters of staid self-possession. Yet all these inhab- 
 itants of Butaritari were interesting ; large men, often 
 sis feet tall, and small women, brown skin for all and 
 black eyes, long black hair, tattooing that theoreti- 
 cally supplied all deficiencies in costume, and cocoanut 
 oil from head to foot — a shining mantle. 
 
 The garment worn was a pandanus leaf skirt about 
 the waist. As a foreign touch a shirt was sometimes 
 added, a hat also in the case of royalty. This the 
 missionaries discovered when an interview was granted 
 with the king. Mr. Randall, the trader, went with 
 them. The palace was a low-spreading, straw- 
 thatched roof, open on all sides, resting on posts four 
 feet high, and covering ground enough to seat five 
 hundred people — to seat them on its natural floor of 
 sand and bits of jagged coral. 
 
 The throne was in the center of this building and 
 the king upon it. All was most harmonious, for the 
 throne was a simple platfoi-m, six feet square, raised 
 a foot from the ground, and the king a lad of four- 
 teen, whose royal attire, itemized by Mrs. G-ulick, 
 was a " soiled calico shirt, coarse pantaloons, and a 
 straw hat, which he kept on through our visit." 
 
114 LUTHER HALSEY GULIGK. 
 
 Five hundred chiefs and people were assembled. 
 For the first time in Micronesia the letter from Kame- 
 hameha was read and interpreted. The missionary 
 hymn was also sung, and, whatever it meant to 
 heathen who listened, it was full of significance to 
 missionaries who had come so far and hoped so much. 
 Mrs. Gulick speaks for them all : — 
 
 ' ' Our feelings none can imagine but those who 
 have realized a similar scene. Perfect silence pre- 
 vailed, and our hearts rose in joyful hope at least. 
 ' Salvation ! O salvation ! ' " 
 
 Still, neither king nor chiefs committed themselves 
 to a permanent welcome of the missionary. The hope 
 of a better religion meant little to them. Their own, 
 a vague sense of a Supreme Being, and a mild type 
 of ancestral worship, satisfied them. " Spirit-stones " 
 stood in many places, and to these monthly offerings 
 were made. A god offended was placated by a feast. 
 Superstition was their master, though they boasted 
 neither idol, priest, nor temple. 
 
 Of this new thing and this new people they were 
 suspicious. They feared interference with their cus- 
 toms, especially with their plan for plurality of wives. 
 In any case the missionaries would visit other islands 
 before deciding where to locate. 
 
 And from the midst of human beings who swam like 
 fish about her the Caroline sailed away from the quiet 
 lagoon, out again into the Pacific. 
 
HAWAII TO KUSAIE. 115 
 
 Butaritari was but one of sixteen coral islands that 
 formed the Kingsmill or Gilbert Archipelago, a typical 
 coral group, more compact than any other in Micro- 
 nesia ; a group of wreaths that rested lightly on the 
 ocean, or better, a group of buried islands made 
 immortal by the wreaths that grace their resting place. 
 At least this they are to those who hold that each once 
 surrounded an island now buried, and that, while the 
 central island sank, the tireless coral insect kept pace 
 with it in the upbuilding of a wall about it, until, 
 passing through all the stages from fringing to encir- 
 cling reef, it stands at last complete, an island that 
 man may live upon, an atoll, the lonely representative 
 of the island it formerly guarded. 
 
 These atolls are indeed picturesque. A narrow strip 
 of land, half a mile wide, enclosing quiet water ; white 
 sands that border on the lagoon within, and sand as 
 white that faces all the Pacific outside. Between the 
 two are trees that form the wreath, cocoanuts always 
 facing the lagoon, bending slightly toward it as if in 
 greeting, and pandanus on the ocean side. One grows 
 best when shielded, the other when resisting the 
 tempest. 
 
 Under these cocoanut trees that tower thirty, forty, 
 fifty feet above the coral, and under these spreading 
 pandanus trees, forty thousand people lived upon the 
 Gilbert Islands. From birth to death their only 
 
116 LUTHEB HALSET GULICK. . 
 
 food was fish and cocoanut and pandanus ; this was 
 literally all they had to eat. Their drink was water, 
 slightly brackish, and fermented cocoanut sap that 
 intoxicated them. 
 
 Still further impoverishing them were storms that 
 sometimes destroyed their fruit trees. 
 
 Of necessity political economists on the Gilbert 
 Islands were Malthusian in their doctrines. Indeed, 
 the relation of population to food supply was here an 
 immediate and practical question. They solved it by 
 systematic infanticide. No mother was allowed more 
 than two or three living children. And war and pesti- 
 lence were welcomed as the hope of the race. 
 
 Physically contrasted to low coral reefs and their 
 depressing limitations was Kusaie, of the Caroline 
 group. This was approached on the twenty-first of 
 August. Not an atoll this time, but an island that as 
 bravely held its head among the clouds as any hopeful 
 visionary. From the deck of the Caroline they saw 
 it twenty miles away. And, drawing nearer, every 
 mile more clearly proved it a vision rising out of fairy- 
 land, nay, fairyland itself. 
 
 They anchored in what seemed a landlocked harbor. 
 High hills wrapped in green from base to summit were 
 its ancient sentinels ; and spread out beneath waters 
 clear as crystal were gardens and forests of shaded sea- 
 weed and coral. Under these forests was the beautiful 
 
HAWAII TO KUSAIE. 117 
 
 sand, while among them and over them were the 
 inhabitants of the place. Here were shells of every 
 hue and shape that slowly moved about. Here, too, 
 were crabs that scuttled around in funny sidewise 
 fashion ; starfish as blue as the skies above them, and 
 merry little fish that played in groups and watched 
 the canoe that glided above them, and darted away in 
 wildest glee among the coral branches. Here and 
 there a youthful shark lazily cut the air with its dorsal 
 fin ; and lying on the sandy bed a giant sting ray with 
 hideous face and unwinking eye gazed silently upward 
 at the sun. 
 
 As if all this were not beauty enough for voyagers 
 in a Kusaiean canoe, for half a mile there was the 
 added witchery of moving under the shadow of wide- 
 reaching mangrove trees, trees that tropic luxury in 
 growing seemed to have crowded from the land out 
 into the mouths of the streams and on to the rich basal- 
 tic mud of the coral flats. Almost the only tree that 
 grows in salt water, here it thrived luxuriantly ; at 
 high tide a noble forest walking out to sea ; at low 
 tide a discouraged forest patiently wading back on 
 stilts through the mud. For the strong, long, and 
 twisted roots were dismally exposed when high tide 
 left them. 
 
 Birds singing in branches above them ; fish sporting 
 in water below them ; the flecking of sunshine and 
 
118 LUTHEB HALSEY OULIGK. 
 
 shadow around them ; surely nature was very kind and 
 beautiful on Kusaie. No wonder Dr. Gulick felt it, 
 and, carried away by the enchantment, copied into his 
 journal : — 
 
 There \s beauty in the deep ; 
 
 The wave is bluer than the sky ; 
 
 And though the light shines bright on high, 
 More softly do the sea gems glow 
 That sparkle in the depths below. 
 
 The rainbow tints are only made 
 When on the waters they are laid, 
 
 And sun and moon most sweetly shine 
 
 Upon the ocean's level brine. 
 There 's beauty in the deep. 
 
 Two islands form the empire of Kusaie. In 1852 
 the population of the whole was fifteen hundred. 
 Their king was known as good King George, and his 
 subjects suggested the Chinese in personal appearance. 
 They were a delicate, slender people of light copper 
 color and small features. Their black eyes were 
 sunken and slightly oblique in their setting, while 
 their hair was long and fine and black, and neatly tied 
 upon itself at the side or back of the head. They 
 wore no garment for warmth in Micronesia, simply a 
 braided mat about the waist. When the Kusaiean dude 
 sighed for style a flannel shirt was added. For style, 
 too, many pretty ears were bored ; and by constant 
 
HAWAII TO KUSAIE. 119 
 
 stretching these lobes were so drawn out like rubber 
 that in time they were useful no less than ornamental. 
 In these extended ears flowers were carried instead 
 of earrings. In them, too, did the aspirant after 
 imported fashions sometimes carry his shirt when he 
 crossed a stream or swam to meet a whaler. Here, 
 too, the pipe was often stored away — pipe in one ear, 
 shirt in the other ; all that civilization had brought 
 to them packed thus conveniently in their Micronesian 
 Saratogas. 
 
 A pleasant-mannered people this was who came to 
 meet the Caroline. Many of them talked broken 
 English, as learned from whalers. The combination 
 of heathen costume with English words and manners 
 was sometimes unique ; notably so when the king's 
 son took tea with the missionaries. An evident 
 heathen, with only his shirt as a visible mark of civi- 
 lization, yet in calm self-possession he sat in a chair 
 drawn up to a table neatly spread, and with knife, 
 fork, and spoon ate the food of Western lands. With 
 a napkin he touched his lips. And in quiet dignity he 
 talked the language of the antipodes and answered 
 questions which these people from the antipodes 
 asked him. 
 
 " What do you think of missionaries ? " they 
 ventured. 
 
 There was no hesitation in the answer, shrewdly 
 
120 LUTHER HALSEY GULIGK. 
 
 noncommittal : ' ' Bad captains tell me missionaries 
 bad ; good captains tell me missionaries good." 
 
 When asked whether or not he would like to go 
 to America, he sat silent for a moment, then said 
 abruptly : ' ' What use me go America ? Me got no 
 money.'' 
 
 The golden goddess of America so large that even 
 heathen Micronesia saw it ! 
 
 By special appointment missionaries from America 
 and Hawaii soon called on good King George of 
 Kusaie. Royalty met them graciously. It proved a 
 higher type than was found on Butaritari. Indeed, 
 royalty on Kusaie was the highest type in Micronesia. 
 The palace itself proved this, and the king was its 
 explanation. With Eastern courtesy he met his vis- 
 itors at the doorway ; and with the cordial grace of 
 sixty years and the self-possession which comes from 
 assured superiority he welcomed them each with a 
 smile, a handshake, and a sincere " Good-morning." 
 
 Then he led them into his palace. This was a large 
 straw-thatched building with posts and reeds firmly 
 tied together for walls. A square fireplace was in the 
 center ; a bed raised a foot from the ground in one 
 corner ; reed matting on the floor ; and over all a 
 pervading air of neatness and order. In addition 
 visitors soon realized that there was much here in the 
 line of imported luxury, for the seats they occupied 
 
HAWAII TO KUSAIE. 121 
 
 were foreign chests, while conspicuously placed about 
 the room — the palace — were guns, saws, a lantern, 
 a few water-colored prints, and a lamp. "Exhibit- 
 ing," as Dr. G-ulick says, " King George's wealth as 
 Solomon might have exhibited his peacocks and 
 monkeys from Tarshish." 
 
 Seated on the floor, affectionately playing with 
 her grandchild, was the queen. Diminutive, old, and 
 wrinkled, she was nevertheless most youthfully clad 
 in a short-sleeved, low-necked, calico gown that came 
 to her knees. 
 
 To the king and queen presents were given : a 
 Hawaiian Bible and hymn book, Cheever's Island 
 World with its illustrations, two red flannel shirts, a 
 red blanket, red petticoat, turkey-red calico as a gown 
 for the queen, and scissors to be gracefully suspended 
 from her royal neck by the red ribbon which accom- 
 panied them. 
 
 The interview was pleasant. Its result : permission 
 that a missionary and his wife should live on Kusaie ; 
 only one white couple at first ; and the explanation 
 for this restriction was in the terse remark of the 
 king : " Like one white man come ; not many. If 
 many come, rum come, fight come." 
 
 His sentiments on the temperance question were 
 indeed manifest everywhere. Total prohibition was 
 the law of the land ; a law so strenuously enforced 
 
122 LUTHEB HALSEY GITLICK. 
 
 that he allowed no coeoanut tree to be tapped on 
 Kusaie. To tap the tree secured a pleasant drink. 
 Once fermented, this would intoxicate. People intox- 
 icated were noisy and disagreeable ; therefore the 
 prohibition. Or, in the more forceful words of King 
 George himself : " Plenty white men speak me very 
 good ; tap coeoanut tree get toddy. Me say no, no 
 good. Plenty men get drunk on shore ; too much 
 row ; me like all quiet ; no tap coeoanut tree on 
 Kusaie." 
 
 And that was the end of it. Kusaieans did not get 
 drunk. An autocrat in heathen Micronesia was able 
 to enforce temperance legislation. Poh'gamy was 
 also prohibited ; and stealing met its swift retribu- 
 tion. A thief was whipped while the missionaries 
 were there — evidently the usual treatment, for speak- 
 ing in idiomatic English, the king, turning to them, 
 said : " That is the way we treat men here who 
 steal." 
 
 In truth, good King George was a remarkable man. 
 Chosen by acclamation of the people to succeed a 
 tyrant he had helped depose, he gave up his prefer- 
 ence for fishing and ruled over the Kusaieans as a wise 
 and righteous father. And they, in turn, to show 
 their love and respect for him, spoke in lowered tones 
 when he was Dear ; they even whispered, silenced the 
 dogs, and approached him on their hands and knees. 
 
HAWAII TO KUSAIE. 123 
 
 Done voluntarily at first, this had now become so 
 much the custom of the land that even his son was 
 under its requirement. 
 
 Witness the inherent nobility of this man. Forget- 
 ting that he is only a semi-clad heathen, and that these 
 men before him are representatives of a mighty civi- 
 lization and of a religion which they have come to 
 teach him ; remembering only that he is a man, and 
 that they too are but men who seem sincere and kind 
 and helpful, when they asked him what his message 
 was to the king of Hawaii, he quietly answered in flaw- 
 less English : ' ' Tell him that I will be a father to Mr. 
 and Mrs. Snow." 
 
 And this till the end he always was. 
 
 Thus does it happen that, in the Central Pacific, 
 on an island remote since the beginning from civiliza- 
 tion and Christianity ; on an island touched only by 
 the blight which whalers often carry with them from 
 Christian lands, good King George towers in Micro- 
 nesian history as Abraham among the nations. For 
 accepting truth all that such a man needed was to hear 
 it. And this was soon possible. He gave land for a 
 mission home and promised to help in its building 
 when Mr. and Mrs. Suow should return. And when, 
 as they left Kusaie, he shook hands again and said 
 " Good-by," it was as if a patriarch had blessed 
 them. 
 
124 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 No need to speak of encouragement and thanksgiv- 
 ing and light hearts that sailed still farther westward 
 in the Caroline. Verily, for nine bright days hope 
 moved among the stars, for who could tell but larger 
 welcome yet would meet them on Ponape ? 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 REACHING PONAPE. 
 
 AS the Caroline drew near to Ponape, there first 
 -£^_ appeared the wide-encircling barrier reef, an 
 outline whitened for eighty miles by breakers that 
 dashed against it, and studded already with islets 
 formed upon it ; a coral reef that met, on one side, the 
 fury of every storm that swept the Pacific, and on the 
 other faced eternal peace. 
 
 Within the reef, an emerald gem in a white coral 
 setting, was Ponape itself, the largest of fort3 7 -eight 
 islands that formed the Caroline group, and the one 
 by which all Micronesia had been judged. Pictured 
 simply, Ponape is an island sixty miles in circumfer- 
 ence, with an average height of twenty-five hundred 
 feet. At that time it had ten thousand inhabitants. 
 Yet, as the Caroline approached, not a house was seen 
 through draping vines and shining moss and splendid 
 trees that mantled it from summit to seashore. 
 
 Missionaries aud crew were alike excited ; and 
 watching the scene with them, we too "advance 
 toward the tree-girt shore. The breeze seems by a 
 rebound from the hills to subside with the sea. We 
 
 125 
 
126 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 are evidently approaching one of nature's sanctu- 
 aries. "We glide more and more gently. The sailor 
 at his post eyes the paradise with the knowing look of 
 one who has seen the world and will be surprised at 
 nothing, while his whole soul is evidently stirred as 
 he responds to the vigorously uttered command from 
 the quarter-deck by a more than prompt ' Ay, ay 
 sir,' and a dashing obedience that spins the vessel 
 from side to side." 
 
 Soon, from the islets of the reef, from sandy beach 
 and quiet lagoon, graceful canoes glide out to meet 
 the Caroline ; some speed to the rhythmic movement 
 of paddles ; some have white triangular sails that 
 gleam like silver in the sunlight — thirty canoes in all. 
 And to the Caroline, across the hush of expectation, 
 there rolls " a swelling wave of subdued chattering." 
 Does it signify war or peace? In each canoe five 
 natives ; twelve white faces among them ; a company 
 that proves homes somewhere and humanity to fill 
 them. There is tense life in the graceful form that 
 stands erect, fearless and proud, in the quivering prow 
 of his slight canoe. Surely a fine type of island man- 
 hood this : eyes keen and black that pierce the 
 waters ahead ; skin copper-colored, neatly tattooed, 
 polished with cocoanut oil till it shines like a mirror ; 
 hair short, black, and glossy, adorned with a head- 
 dress of beads ; and for costume a skirt of young 
 
BEACHING PONAPE. 127 
 
 cocoanut leaves, a necklace of shells and beads, and 
 eardrops gorgeous with red flannel and beads. 
 
 Here too is island grace, for the belle herself has 
 come to meet the foreigner. Hands and feet are 
 saffron - stained for beauty. Turkey - red cloth is 
 wrapped about her limbs, and a bright handkerchief 
 partially covers chest and shoulders. With a gigantic 
 taro leaf she shields herself from tropic sunshine, and 
 in easy nonchalance she watches the people about her. 
 
 Pilots and chiefs and shining natives soon crowded 
 the decks of the Caroline ; and it would be difficult to 
 picture the excitement of the da} 7 s that followed. 
 Instead of war it was reiterated welcome. This, not 
 because on Ponape they hungered for righteousness, 
 but because they certainly did hunger for the trade 
 which white men had always brought them ; for riches 
 in guns, powder, and tobacco which came from that 
 mysterious land which stretched out beyond the hori- 
 zon somewhere. 
 
 But most surprising was the welcome that the mis- 
 sionaries received from " a tall, slim, bronzed man," 
 who came as a pilot to meet them. With the ease of 
 a Frenchman he touched the tortoise-shell front to his 
 close-fitting cap, and with earnest sincerity told them 
 how he had prayed for missionaries, and how he 
 thanked God that at last they had come ! 
 
 Twenty years of sinning on Ponape, followed by 
 
128 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 illness and fear and repentance and prayer, explained 
 that welcome from Mr. Corgat. Prayers in Micro- 
 nesia drawing them ; prayers in America and Hawaii 
 sending them, and Mr. Corgat waiting for them there 
 on Ponape with his childlike faith and his simple 
 welcome ! 
 
 "As the tide was low," writes Dr. Gulick, "we 
 immediately commenced that course of wading and 
 dragging and sweltering so long our privilege on this 
 heathen island ; only that, fortunately, our first expe- 
 riences were enlivened by the romance of novelty, and 
 were relieved from real labor by efficient natives. We 
 had not yet acquired that carelessness regarding the 
 immersion of shoes in salt water which soon grew upon 
 us, and were content to be handled like babes, to be 
 carried on in advance of the canoes, and to be left 
 perched on toppling stones while the natives returned 
 to drag the canoes toward us." All this was neces- 
 sary because " the waters enclosed within the barrier 
 reef were our only roads," as Dr. Gulick says, '■ and 
 our passages, ev_en for short distances, are very much 
 regulated by the tides, the observance of which is, 
 therefore, more important to us than that of our 
 clocks." 
 
 Ponape was reached on the sixth of September. 
 On the 29th the Caroline sailed away. Dr. and Mrs. 
 Gulick, Mr. and Mrs. Sturges, and Mr. and Mrs. Kaai- 
 
REACHING PONAPE. 129 
 
 kaula were left there, whileMr. and Mrs. Snow with 
 Mr. and Mrs. Opunui were taken back to Kusaie. 
 The Caroline then moved out again into the world, 
 and Christian history in Micronesia opened its first 
 chapter. Perhaps it was as well that its heroes, 
 ready for self-denial, could not know what the measure 
 of it was to be. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SMALL BEGINHINGS. 
 
 THE story of those years in Micronesia is very 
 simply told by those who lived it. It showed 
 a life of mingled threads ; study of the language, 
 preaching and teaching, medical work, physical dis- 
 comfort, mental hunger, the annual mail, disappoint- 
 ment, heartache, encouragement, and hope. These 
 were the various threads that formed the warp and 
 woof of daily living. But first of all came acquaint- 
 ance with the people. 
 
 ' ' Let the philanthropist and friend of missions but 
 vividly realize the heathen's infancy," writes Dr. 
 Gulick, "and his wonder will cease that generations 
 must lapse before a race can be civilized. 
 
 "As in the hotbeds of American democracy, that 
 latest development of modern civilization, there are 
 no children, only infants and men, so on Ponape. 
 The Ponapean passes from infantile dirt to the niceties 
 of a dandy. His head is as carefully oiled as that of 
 anyone else. He has as much to say as anyone. 
 He takes as important part in providing for the family 
 as any other individual. "Who may then obstruct his 
 
 130 
 
SMALL BEGINNINGS. 131 
 
 personal liberty ? Not but that the father commands 
 and the youth obeys, but the obedience is as optional 
 with the youth as the command with the father. 
 
 " No Solomon has taught, on Ponape, the blessings 
 of the rod, and woe to the parent who should insanely 
 attempt its application ! Indeed, no Ponapean has 
 the remotest conception of punishment from other 
 impulse than that of anger. No word in the language 
 conveys the idea of deliberate, just retribution for 
 misdeeds." 
 
 Further, of their moral character he says : — 
 
 " How difficult to sustain hope in one's heart when 
 planning for the elevation of a people whose contact 
 with the representatives of civilization serves, with 
 but few exceptions, to render their diseases more 
 deadly, their vices more vicious ! " 
 
 When foreign missionaries reached Ponape, eighty 
 foreigners were leading godless lives there, and Dr. 
 Gulick exclaimed : — 
 
 " How numerously does Satan commission his non- 
 salaried missionaries ! " 
 
 Still the new life had now begun among the Pona- 
 peans and the record of it. Over and over again we 
 read the words " Rono Kiti" and " Matalanim " until 
 we learn to know that these are the two most impor- 
 tant of the five tribes of Ponape ; that each gives its 
 name to a harbor ; that they are separated from each 
 
132 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 other by twenty-five miles of water — this their only 
 line of communication ; that they are rival tribes 
 frequently at war, and that Mr. and Mrs. Sturges 
 with Mr. and Mrs. Kaaikaula live at Rono Kiti, while 
 Dr. and Mrs. Gulick are alone at Matalanim. 
 
 Thus separated, even missionaries on the same island 
 could not often see each other. Indeed, Mrs. Gulick 
 and Mrs. Sturges seldom met more than once or twice 
 a year. Of necessity also, missionary work, though 
 similar in character, was to a large extent carried on 
 separately in the Matalanim and Rono Kiti tribes. 
 
 The year 1853 found their Micronesian life fairly 
 begun. Dr. Gulick had built for himself a home on 
 beautiful Shalong Point on the shores of Matalanim 
 harbor. A "woe-begone Englishman" helped him 
 build it. Four weeks from the day the foundations 
 were laid the young couple entered their own first 
 home and began housekeeping in Micronesia. 
 
 Curiosity speculates as to what sort of house that 
 was at Shalong, erected in four weeks and costing one 
 hundred and seventy dollars. It is easy to answer 
 the query, for we are told somewhat about it : — 
 
 ' ' The floor of our house consisted of thick poles 
 hewn on the upper surface ; the sides and partitions 
 were of reed wickerwork through which tropical 
 breezes sometimes blew quite too freely ; the roof and 
 broad veranda were thatched with sago leaves." This 
 
SMALL BEGINNINGS. 133 
 
 was the happy home of scorpions, lizards, and centi- 
 pedes, "a roofing very satisfactory, however," as 
 Dr. Gulick used to say, " so long as the leaves lay 
 down the right way. But when the wind blew them 
 up, the water poured the wrong way ; and many times 
 did I have to mount the roof in the rain to keep dry ! " 
 
 This one-story home measured twenty feet by thirty. 
 A hall through its center was reception and dining 
 room combined, and schoolroom too for a season. 
 On either side the hall were the four rooms — library, 
 bedroom, spare room, and pantry. The kitchen stood 
 apart from the house, a room by itself. 
 
 In the library, arranged on homemade, unpainted 
 shelves, were treasures more precious than gold to 
 Dr. Gulick — his books ; four hundred volumes safely 
 lodged at last in his own home. From the window of 
 this library, eyes soon learned to turn instinctively 
 beyond the green edging of the Pacific, beyond the 
 whitened barrier reef, across old ocean that stretched 
 away inimitably, eyes that watched eagerly through 
 weeks and through months for some message from the 
 world that was beyond it all. 
 
 In this work of building which they had undertaken, 
 Dr. Gulick and Mr. Sturges were from the outset met 
 by the question as to how far they were justified in 
 using tobacco as a medium of exchange with the 
 people. With it all the wealth of Ponape might be 
 
134 LUTHEll HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 purchased, food and labor, friends even and pupils. 
 Without it there was often poverty and actual suffering. 
 
 Both in the Hawaiian Islands and in the American 
 Board rooms in Boston there was strenuous opposition 
 to its use in any possible form. To use it as a medium 
 of exchange was to countenance its use as a narcotic : 
 thus to use it was a sin ; all, therefore, who had any 
 dealings with it were sinners ; so they seemed to reason. 
 
 But when, in dire extremity, neither Mr. Sturges 
 nor Dr. Gulick could secure help in building their 
 homes without it they yielded to the inevitable, bought 
 some from a whaler and used it " with consciences 
 void of offense," as Dr. Gulick wrote, " for the path- 
 way seemed and still seems very clear." 
 
 "You are aware," he further says, "that the use, 
 the morality and the religion of the use, of tobacco is 
 one that has much exercised the Hawaiian Islands 
 Mission, and that the missionaries there are, in the 
 main, on the extreme of orthodoxy. Whether in 
 Micronesia we shall, whether we can, maintain the 
 same rigidity is now the question." 
 
 Then with a smile through the writing, yet with 
 serious intent, Dr. Gulick tells the officers of the 
 American Board that " should Micronesia take the 
 extreme position and should natives there learn the 
 English language, the publications of the American 
 Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions must 
 
SMALL BEGINNINGS, 135 
 
 pass through inquisitorial censorship before they can 
 be placed in the hands of our disciples ; and that too," 
 he adds, " from their lurking heresy on this doctrine." 
 To illustrate he refers them to the April number of The 
 Dayspring for 1852 ; and with a twinkle in eyes that 
 follow his pen he tells them that it " represents a 
 missionary who is most commendatorily noticed as one 
 who has borne hardship for Christ," the Rev. Hugo 
 Hahn, who, " comfortably mounted on an ox, musket 
 in hand, has a countenance that wears the semblance 
 of holy calmness and true G-ermanic happiness. But 
 whether this comes from an ignorant or indurated con- 
 science, it is, alas, too painfully palpable that he is 
 already a guilt-condemned tobacco smoker ! ! And I 
 am at this moment obliged to hide it away lest it meet 
 the eyes of our bright-sighted Litobo, and lest she 
 should ask, 'Is that a missionary?'" 
 
 Then very seriously he begs not to be misunderstood 
 and assures the Board that he will ever ' ' oppose the 
 extravagant and general use of tobacco on physio- 
 logical and economic premises, but not, at present at 
 least, on moral and religious grounds further than as 
 physiology and economics touch on morality." 
 
 However, in deference to conservative home opinion, 
 tobacco was never used on Ponape except in cases of 
 extreme emergency — even then sparingly. Mission- 
 aries often endured the suffering of physical privation 
 
136 LTJTHEB BALSEY GULICK. 
 
 rather than bring offense to brethren' in home lands who 
 could not or would not understand the situation on 
 Ponape. Of necessity, however, tobacco had helped 
 build homes for the missionaries. 
 
 With prompt civility, neighbors filled with curiosity 
 came from far and near to call upon the strangers. 
 Interesting types the callers were sometimes. Once it 
 was a priest who " strutted up to our door dressed in 
 a flaming red flannel shirt and a cocoanut leaf skirt, 
 with an umbrella over his head " — attire as religiously 
 inspiring, perhaps, in Micronesia as enlarged borders 
 and widened phylacteries in Jerusalem. At another 
 time there came what Dr. Gulick describes as "an old 
 mummy of a priest with a leathern-skinned face, who 
 could pull the corners of his mouth almost to his eyes 
 and who could wink so forcibly as to almost obliterate 
 the space between the hairs of his head and his eye- 
 brows." 
 
 Even royalty visited them sometimes, for there were 
 two marvels now at Shalong that charmed alike the 
 earthly and the heavenly minded. Who, indeed, could 
 resist the small melodeon that stood in the hallway and 
 the fair-haired woman who played upon it ? Yet there 
 was comedy of sensation one day when the Matalanim 
 king himself brought a royal guest to hear the music. 
 
 To relieve his tired wife, Dr. Gulick made no apol- 
 ogy but courageously took her place at the melodeon, 
 
SMALL BEaiNNIXGS. 137 
 
 " the suspicion not crossing my mind," as he says, 
 " but that my performance would be as highly appre- 
 ciated as my wife's, albeit I have no knowledge of 
 either the science or the practice of music. I sat 
 down to the instrument, put my feet in proper posi- 
 tion on the pedals, placed my fingers on the keys and 
 moved them up and down on the counter, swaying my 
 body the while as musicians do, and producing sounds 
 such as I supposed were without doubt softening the 
 savage heart as music is said always to do. Imagine 
 then my surprise on hearing my greasy king apologiz- 
 ing to the still more untutored stranger chief, saying, 
 ' The foreign man knows nothing about it ; it is the 
 woman.'" 
 
 That was the end of Dr. Grulick's musical recitals. 
 Indeed, by natural division of labor Mrs. Gulick was 
 organist, housekeeper, and school-teacher, while Dr. 
 Gulick was physician, carpenter, student, and preacher. 
 
 Naturally enough, each department was full of 
 interest and also of trial. School work meant native 
 curiosity at first, a fear of foreign witchery in learn- 
 ing to read, heroism in those who first dared attempt 
 it, and a frightened king who turned almost pale when 
 a small boy wrote his name upon a slate, and later 
 read it to him. 
 
 Then, however, came the era of growing courage that 
 ended in enthusiasm. Yet fear and enthusiasm were 
 
138 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 alike most natural ; for Micronesian eyes had never 
 yet seen Micronesian words in writing. The wildest 
 Ponapean imagination had never dreamed it. As a 
 result, teachers and pupils too faced the difficulties of 
 an unwritten language and the lack of a printing press. 
 Missionaries, however, rapidly caught simple words 
 and phrases. These were written down. Gradually a 
 primer grew, one leaf at a time. Of this primer hand- 
 written copies were made. These were lent to aspiring 
 students, and these students taught each other. 
 
 Ambition spread her wings. One boy had read to 
 the bottom of the page ; another had turned the leaf. 
 Men and women joined the number. No outward 
 sign yet proved the budding erudition. Cocoanut oil, 
 tattooing, brown skins were all as before ; but earnestly 
 gathered in hall and veranda were men, women, and 
 children, bending over the whole Micronesian litera- 
 ture, a hand-written primer, and learning to read it. 
 It must have been a curious sight. 
 
 They came for instruction at any time from sunrise 
 to sunset. And why not ? What was time on Ponape ? 
 No sewing to be done ; no professional duties ; no 
 farming ; seldom any cooking ; nothing but existence 
 and acceptance of the goods that sunshine and kind 
 fortune brought them. So now, at Shalong they were 
 reading. 
 
 In due time there came the examination and the 
 
SMALL BEGINNINGS. 139 
 
 exhibition. Then, to emphasize the outward effect 
 that inward learning gives, Mrs. Gulick utilized the 
 only material she had and the school shone forth 
 resplendent, six girls in calico dresses that were blue, 
 and four boys in calico sacks that were green. The 
 aesthetic sense of Ponape was touched, and immedi- 
 ately school attendance was increased. 
 
 But this is anticipating. The exhibition was not 
 till 1854, after native women had learned to sew. 
 
 Before this, while still the people came to study at 
 irregular times, Mrs. Gulick was making the serious 
 experiment of keeping house on Ponape. In truth it 
 was a grave undertaking, this housekeeping in a land 
 where neither cook nor maid had ever used knife, or 
 fork, or spoon, or plate, or broom ; among a people 
 who, never having used vessels of metal or pottery, did 
 not know that water boiled ; who shrewdly considered 
 chairs and tables and beds as the needless luxuries 
 of a weakened humanity. Yet, such as they were, 
 Mrs. Gulick had at first no difficulty in securing 
 servants. These were always young boys ready to 
 earn a shirt or a hatchet, the reward of service. 
 What profit to them was money ? For, as they said : 
 " We can neither eat it nor wear it." 
 
 Unfortunately, however, even shirts had their draw- 
 backs. They induced worldly thoughts, demoralized 
 these Micronesian youths, made them haughty and 
 
140 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 proud, raised them " above their station." And this, 
 though in the beginning it was difficult to enforce the 
 regulation that no boy should do household duties 
 without the adornment of a shirt. Unaccustomed 
 sun-browned bodies had instinctively rebelled against 
 these fetters of civilization. Yet in time they yielded 
 so far as to inspire the following brief serio-comic 
 history of civilization : — 
 
 "Our native boy did very well till I gave him a 
 shirt. He then became of more consequence in his own 
 eyes, and avoided all outdoor work. About two weeks 
 since I gave Olel and Laiten each a pair of trowsers. 
 This seemed to throw them very nearly off their 
 balance. They began to be impudent. Yesterday 
 Laiten sold both his shirt and trowsers for a bottle of 
 grog ; and now he is striding about as destitute as 
 ever. But there is one good thing about it : he is 
 not so impudent without his trowsers." 
 
 Verily, a life of mixed necessities this was on 
 Ponape, where manners no less than morals and edu- 
 cation waited to be molded by the missionary. In 
 addition Dr. Gulick was, at different times, many other 
 things : cook, shoemaker, carpenter, blacksmith, dress- 
 maker, no less than spiritual guide and inspiration of 
 the nation ; and at Shalong each vocation seems to 
 have had its period. 
 
 In 1855 Dr. Gulick was preeminently a carpenter. 
 
SMALL BEGINNINGS. 141 
 
 During this year there sprang up near his home a 
 straw-thatched group of buildings, as potent for good, 
 as beautiful perhaps in angels' eyes as that other 
 wonderful group at Pisa. Instead of cathedral, bap- 
 tistry, and campanile, here were chapel, schoolhouse, 
 and hospital. Instead of white marble and sculptured 
 columns and hallowed earth from Palestine, here were 
 rough-hewn logs, and reeds and straw. Instead of 
 vast expense and skilled architects, here the material 
 was had for its cutting, and the bishop himself did 
 most of the work. 
 
 We follow this building from day to day and realize 
 the physical strain it was to one who had never really 
 toiled with his hands before : — 
 
 "Spent the whole day in work; erected the frame 
 of my so-called hospital." 
 
 " "Worked all the afternoon up to my knees in water 
 getting out timber for building." 
 
 ' ' I pray for grace to enable me to make even my 
 physical labors tend to missionary usefulness." 
 
 "Worked hewing out logs for washstand and 
 pulpit stand. Set up new bedstead in our room. 
 How I grudge the time ! " 
 
 Through this year there were natives to be hired 
 sometimes and trade that secured them. Tobacco 
 would always have done it ; but by the last of 1854 
 novelty and hatchets and knives and beads and shirts 
 
142 LUTHEB HAL8EY GULICK. 
 
 all failed together. Mrs. Gulick was ill for months, 
 and a new dilemma confronted the missionary enthu- 
 siasm of Dr. Gulick. Could it be that this was the 
 work to which he had been called? But there was 
 no alternative. From the carpenter's bench he moved 
 to the kitchen, and with serious face and zeal that 
 did not flinch the student who had grown up in the 
 library with his pen worked as untiringly now with 
 stove and broom and soapsuds as ever he had worked 
 with Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. 
 
 After it was all over, from a distance far enough 
 to soften hard outlines and lend proverbial enchant- 
 ment to the view, the experience was interesting. 
 At the time, however, it was hard. The journal does 
 not complain ; it simply states facts in a series of 
 laconic items. For successive months these facts 
 include very stern realities of housework, and there 
 is the monotony of sameness about them : — 
 
 " Attended to meals, to washing clothes, and to 
 getting firewood." 
 
 " So fatigued with household work and with mend- 
 ing my back veranda that I retire early." 
 
 " Last night mended my own and Louisa's shoes. 
 The next time I shall succeed more like a workman." 
 
 " I am doing very little direct missionary work. 
 Our hearts ache ; but what can we do ? Wife is sick. 
 Nearly all the household and outdoor work falls on 
 
SMALL BEGINNINGS. 143 
 
 myself alone, washing and everything. We have had 
 a nurse for a short period, otherwise we have had no 
 help for about four months." 
 
 " Washed clothes, got breakfast, and while doing 
 it read some." As sedately recorded as if reading 
 and cooking were a normal combination! Indeed, 
 there is no abatement yet to the thirsty desire for 
 thoughts and books which have ever characterized 
 Dr. Gulick. 
 
 "Wife sick. Went to Takain. Bought a canoe. 
 Got dinner. Read Gibbon. Meditated on sermon 
 for to-morrow." 
 
 " Rose before daylight, which is my habit, for the 
 purpose of securing a little time for my Greek 
 Testament and private preparation for the day." 
 
 " Not felt well. Planted bananas. Made bread 
 and"pudding. Read Father Bipa's Residence in China. 
 Wife sick." 
 
 "Would that tears of sorrow could avail against 
 these difficulties ! Prayerful tears may ; we therefore 
 pray much. The hardest labors would be easier than 
 this forced, struggling, inglorious quiescence." 
 
 "Hope ever! Good shall yet come out of this 
 apparently fruitless life." 
 
 Then again, later; — 
 
 " I do seem to need a servant. My salary will 
 hardly pay for keeping a foreigner, yet I seem tc 
 
144 LUTHER HALSET GULICK. 
 
 myself hardly the person for a cook. Mr. Sturges 
 has been in the same difficulty for over a year. He 
 is not yet delivered. Am I to remain in the same for 
 as long a time? I pray for grace." 
 
 Mrs. Gulick, from her sick bed, wrote to her 
 mother : — 
 
 " I am so weak and Halsey is all in all ; but it does 
 not seem right for such a man to spend months in 
 domestic service. Yet think not we are disheartened. 
 No, no ; we are often merry and almost forget our 
 troubles. We love to praise our heavenly Father for 
 the innumerable blessings that still abound to us." 
 
 Doubtless there were blessings, yet to us, at this 
 distance, verily life's trials overshadowed them. One 
 trial that towered high sometimes was the difficulty they 
 had in securing food. In 1853 they already suffered 
 physically from lack of fresh meat. All the meat they 
 had was salted. In 1854 when trade failed and annual 
 supplies had not yet come, they sometimes went to bed 
 hungry. For without the equivalent for money, food 
 was no more easily bought in Micronesia than in New 
 York. Indeed the missionary in Micronesia was under 
 peculiar disadvantage. He kept neither firearms nor 
 powder, nor liquor nor tobacco. These were gold on 
 Ponape always at par. The more fluctuating currency 
 was represented by beads, knives, hatchets, and red 
 flannel. "When these were gone the wolf boldly 
 
SMALL BEGINNINGS. 145 
 
 looked in at the doorway ; at times he even walked 
 into the house. 
 
 " During these seasons of enforced scarcity," writes 
 Dr. Gulick, " tropical fruit ripening over our heads 
 without our being able to buy them, we fell back on 
 our foreign supplies, consisting mainly of salted meats 
 and flour. But these were often poor or quite uneat- 
 able from the dampness of the torrid zone. The 
 flour in the barrels was often so caked by moisture 
 that we had to cut it out with hatchets, and worms 
 an inch long often developed in it numerously.'' Your 
 pardon, gentle reader, but so it is written. And this 
 was the flour they were trying to eat ! "So long as 
 we retained our health we got along very well, but 
 when health and appetite both failed we were at a 
 disadvantage." 
 
 ' ' During shipping season, which is from October to 
 May, it is difficult for us to purchase a breadfruit or 
 bunch of bananas, or to hire a native for any purpose." 
 
 This is explained by the fact that the ships bought 
 all that the natives cared to sell, and paid for what 
 they bought in tobacco and powder. At such times 
 Dr. Gulick shot wild pigeons. But his gun failed him 
 and there was nothing for it but to endure ; and then 
 we trace the touching entries : — 
 
 " We are becoming quite needy. Will not the Lord 
 soon provide and soon relieve us ? " 
 
146 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 ' ' Received the present of a leg of pork from our 
 chief. It is the first piece of fresh meat we have 
 tasted in more than three months." 
 
 "We shall soon suffer if our supplies do not 
 come." 
 
 Then Mrs. Gulick itemizes : — 
 
 "We are quite short of food now; indeed, never 
 so short before and unable to buy. We have some 
 most miserable salt beef, not a quarter of a barrel of 
 flour, some tapioca, about one pound of butter, mo- 
 lasses and sugar, tea and coffee. This with arrow- 
 root and a little preserved ginger constitutes all our 
 foreign food. We are living from hand to mouth 
 almost, but trust in our Father's care." 
 
 " Halsey brought from Rono Kiti about a pint of 
 fresh milk, which was the first I had seen since we 
 left the Hawaiian Islands nearly three years ago." 
 
 Later she adds : " We have succeeded in purchasing 
 from a captain two hundred pounds of flour and two 
 hundred pounds of hard bread, which will keep us all 
 from being hungry." Or, as Dr. Gulick expresses 
 it, " This will keep us from starvation." So once 
 more ravens fed the prophet ! 
 
 And this was Micronesia ! this the altar of his sac- 
 rifice ; this the high point of all his preparation ! 
 Did there come a sense of sweeping disappointment as 
 of sacrifice larger than was needed ? We do not know. 
 
SMALL BEGINNINGS. 147 
 
 From first to last no whisper of disappointment is 
 recorded, but the whole journal with its minutiae, its 
 pathos, its self-unconsciousness, reads like a romance 
 to hearts that realize what isolation and privation 
 sometimes meant in Micronesia. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ISOLATION AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 
 
 TO missionaries prepared to meet it, the prospect 
 of isolation had not seemed overwhelming when 
 the Caroline left, to come again once a year. Yet 
 unconsciously they centered all their hope of physical 
 and mental life upon her regular visits, and with no 
 thought of disappointment they waited for her coming. 
 
 She returned to them once, and then, after many 
 months, a whaler brought letters which told them 
 that, because it cost so much to send her every year, 
 the Caroline had been sold, and that in future both 
 mail and supplies would be sent to Micronesia by 
 whalers as the opportunity offered itself in Honolulu. 
 This was so unexpected that missionary heroism was 
 staggered for a moment ; and though in reply Dr. 
 Gulick assured the Hawaiian Missionary Society that, 
 in view of its lack of funds, he had " not the least 
 doubt but that its action was in every respect for the 
 best," still his pain could not be concealed. 
 
 "Our hearts received a stunning blow," he writes, 
 "when we heard that the only cord of connection 
 between ourselves and the Christian world was by 
 
 148 
 
ISOLATION AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 149 
 
 their act dissevered, and that, so far as the slightest 
 extra provision was made, we were left to sink or 
 swim, as God might please. Our hearts almost 
 rebelled." 
 
 This irregularity of communication continued until 
 1857, when children's pennies sent the Morning Star 
 to Micronesia. Of whalers who, in the meantime, 
 visited them, some only had touched at Honolulu ; 
 and among these but few secured and brought the 
 mail to Micronesia. 
 
 The shipping season continued from October to 
 May. Naturally, therefore, with the first of October 
 missionaries on Ponape began to look daily, almost 
 hourly, for their annual mail. Often it was late in 
 coming. At such times slow days rolled on into the 
 weeks. Six months passed without a letter from the 
 world ; ten months even ; twelve months, and still no 
 letter. Ship after ship appeared on the horizon, 
 crossed the shining, wide ocean, and reached harbor at 
 last. But to the eager inquiry for mail and supplies 
 there came, over and over agaiu, the same answer: 
 "We have nothing for you." 
 
 As months passed, the earnest desire of these mis- 
 sionaries became an almost hopeless cry for help. 
 The luxuries of life were gone ; its bare necessities 
 very low ; and who can measure their famishing 
 mental hunger? To have body and mind both starve 
 
150 LUTHER KALSEY GULICK. 
 
 on Ponape were tragic indeed, yet both were threat- 
 ened, sometimes. 
 
 Dr. and Mrs. Gulick do not speak very often of 
 the pain this isolation brought them, but we easily 
 trace it : — 
 
 ' ' My heart would hardly be quieted at night as I 
 felt that nine ships had disappointed us." 
 
 " We scan the horizon every morning with the deep- 
 est interest, and the shout of ' Chop ! chop ! ' thrills 
 through all our frame." 
 
 ' ' Thirteen ships have anchored in the harbor of this 
 island, yet only one brought us letters." 
 
 ' ' There are times in our beloved Micronesia when 
 we are put upon looking toward the unseen to keep 
 our hearts from utter failure." 
 
 " It is hard to let go our last links to the out- 
 side world. But we may erelong learn to be con- 
 tent alone with the remembrance of our heavenly 
 Father." 
 
 " Our hearts are sick, our souls faint, our eyes 
 wearied in the watching." 
 
 Then, at last, beyond the canoes and the natives that 
 frolicked in the water, beyond the fringing reef and 
 the breakers, "eyes wearied in the watching" saw 
 the outline of another sail. This time it was the ship 
 they waited for ; and when it came natives too 
 rejoiced, for they too had hopes in the annual mail. 
 
ISOLATION AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 151 
 
 Perchance it would bring to them beads and fishhooks, 
 red flannel and shirts ! 
 
 After thirteen months of such waiting once, Dr. 
 Gulick confessed to "an almost nervous fever that 
 had preyed upon them." "Day by day," he says, 
 "and many times a day, have our eyes involuntarily 
 ranged the horizon. Minute darkened clouds, to our 
 ready imagination, have assumed the appearance of 
 Ascension Island bound vessels. The peculiar shout- 
 ing of the natives when a ship was certainly in sight 
 has thrilled us like shocks of electricity. As these 
 ships have passed along our coast for one of the more 
 southern harbors of the island, with what excited 
 nerves have we attempted to perform our regular 
 routine of missionary work, till in some way we have 
 definitely learned, two or three days later, that there 
 was no mail on board. 
 
 " Nor does our excitement abate with the actual 
 arrival of the thirteen months' mail. On its first 
 announcement, how the heart leaps ! The canoe is 
 hastily launched, the paddles splash the brine regu- 
 larly, the sail almost spontaneously spreads itself ; 
 and so we speed along for perhaps twenty miles. 
 The magic package of letters is at last secured. The 
 fever is at its height. The crisis arrives. Envelope 
 after envelope is rapidly torn, its contents barely 
 skimmed- Thrills of joy and spasms of sorrow flash 
 
152 LUTHEB. HALSEY OULIGK. 
 
 through us, till at last the overstrained nerves almost 
 ceaee to react under either stimulation. The face 
 is flushed; the mind confused; the heart surcharged. 
 We return to our home to reread the budget more 
 at leisure and talk it over and dream it over. A 
 twelve months' mail is a blessed privilege, but a sad 
 shock." 
 
 Letters which whalers carried to the world from 
 Ponape were passed ou by them to others, and usually 
 / reached America via China, the Okotsk Sea, and Hon- 
 olulu ; and because the tide of snipping was all in the 
 same direction, even letters to the missionary neigh- 
 bors on Kusaie followed the same circuitous route, 
 reaching their destination at last from Hawaii. 
 
 Thus also were orders sent once a year for all the 
 foreign goods that Micronesia needed — provisions for 
 a year, material for building, tools, and trade, furniture 
 and clothing. And those orders spent a year in going, 
 the supplies a year in coming. They were used the 
 third year. 
 
 It must have taken the keenness of a prophet's eye 
 to anticipate wants in Micronesia two years before 
 they were felt ! Who could tell that a stove would 
 so rust at Shalong that a new one would be needed in 
 two years? Who could anticipate a fire that should 
 consume Mr. Sturges' home in Rono Kiti and involve 
 the cordial dividing of household goods at the other 
 
ISOLATION AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 153 
 
 home in Shalong? Verily, though there be large 
 measure of love, half a loaf divided leaves very 
 little. 
 
 Ordering supplies was certainly important, but how 
 measure the delight Dr. G-ulick felt in sending his 
 annual order for new books ? Orders of varying size 
 — • seventy-five dollars one year, one hundred the next 
 — large sums to spare from Micronesian salaries, but 
 curtailment came on other things. Physical comforts 
 they could forego ; books they must have ; therefore 
 they sent for what they thought they needed. But 
 disappointment came sometimes as a sequel ; notably 
 so after their first large order was sent. 
 
 For months, physical hunger, economy, and self- 
 denial had been easier to bear because of what they 
 thought this lack on one hand might mean of plenty on 
 the other. Two years had passed ; and now eyes 
 strained every day over the horizon were looking for 
 the annual mail and for the books. But what if 
 breathless suspense were to go unrewarded this year? 
 What if there were no mail ? What if shipwreck had 
 overtaken those books? So they questioned. And 
 then the end came. 
 
 The mail arrived ; but instead of books they 
 received an almost incredible message. Agents act- 
 ing for Dr. Gulick had refused to meet the bill for all 
 the books he ordered. By some mistake they thought 
 
154 LUTHER BALSEY GUL1CK. 
 
 he had overdrawn his salary. Older heads felt wiser 
 than the student there on Ponape, and using their 
 discretion, they sent him what they thought he needed 
 most. 
 
 No telegraph wires to summon his books ; no ship 
 to bring them ; and two more years of waiting before 
 they could reach him ! Surely this was harder to meet 
 bravely as a Christian than heathenism itself. 
 
 Though numbed by the pain of his disappointment, 
 Dr. G-ulick accepted the inevitable — what else was 
 possible in Micronesia? But he took immediate 
 action. He directed that an ox given him on Hawaii 
 be sold, the proceeds to go for books. His only watch 
 he sent to Honolulu, this also to be exchanged for 
 books. The emergency was great. 
 
 " Books," he says, " are Louisa's and my life. 
 They are more important to us than beef or pork, or 
 even red flannel and red beads." 
 
 " ¥e must have books if nothing else. To deprive 
 us of them is cruelty." 
 
 As a brighter side to the picture, it is pleasant to 
 know that Dr. G-ulick's father, hearing that the books 
 had not been sent, himself paid for them, and soon 
 had opportunity to forward them to Ponape. It is 
 also pleasant to know that friends everywhere increas- 
 ingly realized that no libraries were found in Micro- 
 nesia, and that four hundred dollars a year was small 
 
ISOLATION AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 155 
 
 measure for the maintenance alike of body and mind. 
 Remembering too that Dr. G-ulick, buried in Micro- 
 nesia, a missionary, was still human, still intellectual, 
 still filled with a restless desire to keep pace with the 
 thought of the world, they sent him books as gifts. 
 In a single year thirty-five volumes came from his 
 home church, the Broadway Tabernacle of New York 
 city. Does the hungry man welcome food? Then we 
 appreciate the welcome these books received. 
 
 " Thank you for the books," he says : " thank you 
 over and over ! My mind will be the livelier and my 
 heart the holier, I hope." 
 
 . Thus, even in Micronesia, the library grew. Four 
 hundred volumes were soon increased to six hundred ; 
 and in 1859 twenty boxes carried Dr. Gulick's 
 library of one thousand volumes from the narrow 
 doorway of the cottage at Shalong. 
 
 Reading kept pace with the growing library. Pages 
 might be filled, as they are in Dr. Gulick's journal, 
 with simple mention of the books he read, and chap- 
 ters might follow with his comments upon them. Little 
 of all this can be introduced here, yet enough perhaps 
 to show that these signs of mental life do not come as 
 an echoing voice, as a plaintive wail from buried 
 depths ; but that they are the criticisms, the appreci- 
 ation of an independent student. 
 
 "Am engaged in Biblical studies," he writes; 
 
156 LUTHEB EALSEY GULICK. 
 
 " Greek, Hebrew, and English. At intervals, also 
 am pursuing my investigations regarding New 
 England theology. Have been reading the younger 
 Edwards and Mahan, of Oberlin. The latter has 
 very little metaphysical talent, I fancy. He deals in 
 assertions rather than reasonings on all the hinge 
 questions." 
 
 " Have accomplished much in the study of Greek 
 and of modern history during the past year, for which 
 I am grateful." 
 
 Of Knox's "The Eaces," he says: "A somewhat 
 original, but not a commendable writer. He belongs 
 to the race of literary Ishmaelites. His science is 
 assertion, his argument sarcasm, his wit a grin." 
 
 At greater length is the following, to his brother 
 John, then at Williams College. It is significant of 
 the freedom his mind held for itself, for it should be 
 remembered that in 1856 theories of evolution were 
 not so readily accepted as they are to-day. 
 
 After pages of close reasoning on the subject, he 
 expresses little sympathy for ' ' the unlearned and con- 
 servative Bible readers who are too ignorant or too 
 perverse to read nature also " ; for those who ' ' with 
 frivolous fear think the devil seizes all that science 
 demonstrates to be under the operation of natural law." 
 
 As for' the creation of life itself, he finds that 
 " McCosh, like Miller, sets up a barrier very close to 
 
ISOLATION AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 157 
 
 us and thinks that because science has not yet, in 
 its very babyhood, learned how the properties of 
 matter are so adjusted as to produce life, that there- 
 fore we must rise directly ' to the only known cause 
 capable of producing it — the fiat of the Creator.' " 
 Over this he grows impatient and exclaims: "Why 
 thus put the extinguisher on our young science and 
 force it to wish a divorce from religion? " 
 
 Thus from the smallness of Micronesia did Dr. 
 Gulick reach out into the world of thought and lay hold 
 upon it. The truth is he fought for mental life as a 
 man in dire extremity fights for physical existence. 
 In part, it was the same instinct of self-preservation 
 that held him to it. Yet even here he saw danger lest 
 studies ' ' interfere with the highest efficiency of action." 
 
 "Action and study," he adds, "cannot be antago- 
 nistic. They are indispensable coadjutors ; I cannot 
 be a full-grown missionary without both." For this 
 reason he combined the two. He wrote down his 
 plans ; he followed them faithfully ; and when the 
 month or year was ended he reviewed what he had 
 done in the light of what he had intended to do. 1 
 
 1 The following is the outline planned for one month : — 
 
 I. Study of Ponape language. 1. By much conversation with the 
 nativeB. 2. By filling out my vocabulary. 3. By preparing First Les- 
 sons. 4. By writing Scripture lessons. 
 
 II. Teaching natives. 1. Our domestics in English. 2. School in 
 Ponape. 3. Religious conversations. 4. Sabbath exercises. 
 
 III. Literary occupation. 1. Missionary journals for Boston. 2. A 
 
158 LUTHER EALSEY GULICK. 
 
 After such a plan sent once to a brother, — a plan 
 to undertake through successive years, as recreation, 
 the scientific study of geology, botany, conchology, 
 ichthyology, etc., — he pauses suddenly, as if he real- 
 ized that no one else could quite understand the 
 situation, and a moment later adds a pathetic closing 
 question, the key to his ceaseless activity : " You 
 perhaps will think me planning much for the future, 
 yet how else shall I keep myself from sinking under 
 the stagnation of this Ponape life ? " 
 
 To further help him were his magazines and papers, 1 
 and his comments on the news they brought him show 
 how eagerly he followed the shifting circles of history. 
 At best, however, he felt very far off from them, for 
 all this reading and thinking and writing was slipped 
 between months that were locked away in Micronesian 
 solitude. 
 
 Like figures in a fairy tale who wake to action 
 
 few letters. 3 Medical thesis, i. Morning and evening, Hebrew Bible. 
 5. New England Theology. 6. Ichthyology. 
 
 IV. Physical labor. 1. Preparation of canoe. 2. Building school- 
 house. 3. Finishing veranda. 4. Sides of my house. 
 
 'The order foroue year was as follows : — 
 
 The Missionary Herald, New York Observer, The New York Inde- 
 pendent, The New York Weekly Tribune, Littcll's Living Age, The 
 Christian Retrospect, The Scientific Annual, Stryker's American Regis- 
 ter, The Princeton Review, The London Lancet, Braithwaite's Retro- 
 spect, The Medico-ehirurgical Review, The Colonization Journal, The 
 Peace Advocate, The American Messenger, The American Bible 
 Society Record, The Baptist Missionary paper, The Church Mission- 
 ary, The American and Foreign Christian Union, Stillman's American 
 Journal of Science, The Smithsonian Bulletin. (This last was not sent 
 to him.) 
 
ISOLATION AND MENTAL ACTIVITY. 159 
 
 at stated intervals and then fall back to sleep 
 again, so life seemed to pass on Ponape. Months 
 of quiet found their climax in days of intensity, 
 when friends and all the world drew near them at once ; 
 then the silence of utter separation shut them in again, 
 the sleep that seemed eternal " in an eternal night." 
 
 Sometimes when he felt it most Dr. Gulick turned 
 upon himself with stern questions. Sometimes there 
 was the word of pity, of encouragement, and some- 
 times, though rarely dwelt upon, he paints a graphic 
 picture of their quiet life : — 
 
 " For weeks and often for months together," he 
 writes, "I neither see nor converse with a 'white 
 face,' save my precious wife. I work in my garden, 
 read and write in my pleasant library, paddle my canoe 
 from place to place to tell of divine pardon, and occa- 
 sionally paddle to Rono KM on some errand to my 
 fellow missionary ; and thus do my days float past, 
 noiseless as unimpeded waves of air. It is with some 
 difficulty we keep correct record of our days, there 
 is so very little to distinguish one from another. We 
 often temporarily lose or gain a day, and one of my 
 fellow missionaries recently gained a whole week." 
 
 " I must bear up against the tendency of all things 
 here to listless idleness." 
 
 " I must learn to be content with this sleepy Ponape 
 life, for Providence has evidently led me into it." 
 
160 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 " In this land of sleep no life could flow more 
 quietly than mine. I can scarcely hear it ripple about 
 me and am just conscious of motion." 
 
 " "What an isolated being I am ! How even the 
 flow of my days ! Perhaps it is as well. I shall be 
 able to concentrate my mind the more." 
 
 From their loneliness they begged their praying 
 friends to remember and to help them : — 
 
 " O my Christian brothers, I pray you not forget 
 us!" 
 
 "Are we, indeed, remembered in the prayers of 
 Christians? Assure us of it and we shall be the 
 happier." 
 
 "We can scarcely realize we are remembered much 
 when we hear from you only once a year. How we 
 need your prayers ! " 
 
 "My heart is sore all over." 
 
 ' ' Do not forget us when you pray ! " 
 
 " This is a desert land and our souls are hungry. 
 Oh, my brothers, pray for us." 
 
 "Adieu; pray. Halset." 
 
 And this is no flight of imagination. No onlooker 
 can breathe into that life in Micronesia more of pathos 
 and of loneliness than was actually there, lived every 
 day by men and women who were trying to lift an 
 island world into Christian life. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 FURTHER ACQUAINTANCE WITH PONAPE AND HER 
 PEOPLE. THE EPIDEMIC. 
 
 IN spite of this extreme isolation, enhanced, indeed, 
 by it was the interest Dr. Gulick took in every 
 question relating to Ponape itself and to the whole of 
 Micronesia. He ordered and read all that he could 
 find printed about the islands of the Pacific. He 
 traced the probable course of migration as people in 
 canoes were drifted from island to island by winds 
 and by currents. He saw, too, the obscure line of 
 change in language ; the growing dissimilarity where 
 islands were more and more widely separated from 
 each other, and the increased poverty of language 
 where these islands were so low by nature as to lack 
 even a physical basis for mental outlook. He per- 
 ceived also the evident original unity of most of these 
 scattered island dialects. 
 
 So carefully did he study Micronesian geography 
 that his descriptions of mauy of the islands are now 
 incorporated in the sailing directions used by all mari- 
 ners in that part of the Pacific. And where previ- 
 ously the Micronesian page in children's geographies 
 
 lei 
 
162 LUTHER 1IALSEY GULICK. 
 
 had been a chaos of indefiniteness, obscurity, and 
 blunder, light and order were introduced through his 
 untiring efforts. 
 
 For his own satisfaction he wished to know the 
 truth about the land of his adoption, and for the 
 sake of the world, having arrived at conclusions satis- 
 factory to himself, he published them. 
 
 The closest study of conditions was of necessity 
 done on Ponape. Here he found and minutely re- 
 ported the earliest native productions and the later 
 increase of vegetable and animal wealth through 
 foreign imports. Concerniug animal life he shows 
 that, before history had made any note of their arrival, 
 there were on , Ponape birds, rats, bats, lizards, cen- 
 tipedes, scorpions, ants, fleas, and flies ; and that 
 between 1832 and 1851, pigs, dogs, ducks, fowls, and 
 cats were introduced. 
 
 Variety of stock increased more rapidly after mis- 
 sionaries came, and much of it was a source of aston- 
 ishment to the simple-minded natives. Cats and dogs 
 had seemed large, but how appalling was Mr. Sturges' 
 cow ! They first feared and then teased her ; and 
 when with her horns she tossed them into the bushes 
 they were surprised and wanted to stone her. 
 
 Varieties of plant life also multiplied with the com- 
 ing of the missionary. Every mail brought seeds from 
 Hawaii and America ; and these were planted with 
 
PON APE AND HEM PEOPLE. 163 
 
 varying success. In a climate whose extremes of 
 temperature were 72° and 89° a luxuriant tropical 
 growth was to be expected. Yet even this did 
 not insure success. Melon vines grew apace, "but," 
 says Dr. Gulick, "rats eat our melons before they 
 ripen. And to aggravate the matter, the natives 
 eat cats ! " Potato vines grew like splendid weeds, 
 but after two years the potatoes themselves had 
 degenerated to mere fibers. Why, indeed, should 
 roots store nourishment for vines that never could 
 need a reserve supply? Nature was thus an open 
 book, teaching many practical lessons. 
 
 On Ponape and Kusaie alike there were massive 
 architectural ruins that gave rapid wing to foreign 
 imagination. On Ponape these ruins covered fifteen 
 acres, and were so divided by canals as to seem a 
 group of artificial islands. Each island was banked 
 with stone to protect it from the wear of waves, 
 and each was a regular parallelogram. Standing as 
 part of these ruins were walls thirty feet high, six feet 
 thick at the top, eighteen at the bottom, and terraced 
 on the inside from base to summit. All were built of 
 natural basaltic prisms, four, five, and six feet sided ; 
 sometimes ten feet long and two feet thick, and with- 
 out mark of any edged tool upon them. Through 
 these massive walls there were openings large enough 
 to admit a creeping man, and within were vaults con- 
 
164 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 taining human bones. Here too a Spanish crucifix 
 had been found, some beads also, and a silver triangle. 
 But canals choked with tropic growth, broken walls 
 and growing trees, luxuriant vines and fragrant blos- 
 soms concealing the ruins, told that ages had passed 
 since they were built. 
 
 Romantic foreigners attributed the work to another 
 race and to prehistoric times, to the day, perhaps, 
 when Ponape and Kusaie were but parts of some vast 
 continent now submerged ; yet Kusaiean tradition 
 claimed the work for her own past, and tradition on 
 Ponape faintly spoke of giants who had lived and 
 wrought and died before the present race arrived. 
 
 But whether built by ancestors or by a previous 
 race, Dr. Gulick caught the meauiug of the inarticulate 
 speech of these dumb witnesses. He felt for those 
 who, having once lived, wished to be remembered ; 
 for men who "beneath cocoanut, breadfruit, orange, 
 and banyan trees have left such worthy memorials of 
 bygone ages." " No wonder," he adds, "that living 
 descendants of such worthy ancestors walk proudly 
 in the shadow of this greatness, a greatness more 
 overpowering to them than to us, but respectable to 
 any who consider with what meager appliances these 
 Micronesian Sennacheribs and Pharaohs executed 
 their despotic wills." "How interesting to find pos- 
 thumous fame as potent on an island for ages separated 
 
PONAPE AND HEP PEOPLE. 165 
 
 from the mass of humanity as in any crowded center 
 of empire ! " 
 
 All that glory was past for Kusaie. But on Ponape, 
 whatever the object in building had been, parts of 
 these ruins were hallowed places still? In one, kings 
 were buried ; in another, spirits talked through priests 
 to men ; in still another, tradition placed a sacred 
 pond, and within this pond a sacred eel that lived 
 alone and hungered ; and it was said that zealous 
 priests, to feed it, walked silently backward to the 
 spot, dropped the offering into the water, and breath- 
 lessly sped away. But with Saxon incredulity Dr. 
 Gulick one day explored the region of this mystery 
 and found neither water, pond, nor sacred eel. 
 
 Thus on Ponape did priests easily delude the 
 people. But here, as elsewhere in Micronesia, idol 
 worship was unknown. When spiritual longing 
 touched the people they worshiped spirits and the 
 shades of their ancestors. Not a graven image nor 
 a temple made with hands had ever stood on Ponape. 
 In their stead were hallowed spots where priests 
 mumbled incantations and cheerful worshipers offered 
 bloodless sacrifice. With food enough before them 
 and feasting long enough continued, spirits were will- 
 ing to speak through the priests who prophesied to 
 believing people. Religion on Ponape was little else 
 Nothing evil was forbidden by it ; yet back of all the 
 
166 LUTHEB HALSEY GULIGK. 
 
 prophesying and the sacrificing and the sinning was 
 the voice of G-od within them — the unflinching moral 
 nature that even here was recognized. 
 
 "Certainly," said the heathen when he was ques- 
 tioned ; " we know it is wrong to steal and to kill and 
 to lie. We feel it here," striking his breast. And 
 Dr. Gulick testified : — 
 
 "These people have consciences, to which I appeal 
 •without hesitation on all the cardinal points of moral- 
 ity, and they respond correctly. It may, however, 
 quite safely be said that they are destitute of pure 
 moral principle. When truthful, honest, and virtuous, 
 it is because present interest constrains ; and gener- 
 ally even the strongest of present interests will not 
 secure such high-principled action." 
 
 In pleasant human fashion the people loved their 
 neighbors when they were lovable ; and they were 
 too good-natured to murder very often. But, so far 
 as recorded, good King George of Kusaie is the 
 one example in Micronesia of a man who before the 
 advenj of Christianity did right because it was right. 
 
 Their religion was heathenism in one of its most 
 spiritual forms, and it was easy here to teach the 
 spirituality of God — so easy that the natives at once 
 found resemblance between their ideal and this God 
 that missionaries told them was very real and ever 
 present. As to a future life, however, Mrs. Gulick 
 
PONAPE AND HER PEOPLE. 167 
 
 writes: "The chiefs are offended that the common 
 people can go to the same heaven with themselves ! " 
 That seems to have been at first the extent of their 
 religious thinking. Indeed, while health and pros- 
 perity continued there was no cry in Micronesia for a 
 better faith ; but when calamity threatened there was 
 despair and awakened spiritual life. Such an awaken- 
 ing occurred for Ponape in 1854. 
 
 In April a foreign sailor, hopelessly ill with small- 
 pox, had been placed on shore to die. His ship had 
 sailed away and left him there. He died ; and in 
 spite of vigorous protest from the missionaries, 
 natives gleefully appropriated the dead man's cloth- 
 ing and proudly arrayed themselves in it. With these 
 contaminated garments the smallpox began its work. 
 Even then, however, the missionaries hoped its victims 
 might be few ; but by the middle of May the last hope 
 died. The disease was upon them with all its horror. 
 
 As if this were not enough, there was uo vaccine 
 matter on the island. Virus brought by Dr. Gulick 
 had long ago lost its power, and other, ordered later, 
 had not yet arrived. 
 
 In the line of immediate action Dr. Gulick saw 
 that his only hope of helping the nation was through 
 inoculation with the smallpox virus itself. On the 
 eighteenth of May he therefore inoculated himself 
 and five others. On the 29th he recognized in 
 
168 LTJTHEB HALSET GULICK. 
 
 himself the smallpox fever, started homeward from 
 Rono Kiti, was upset in his canoe, spent hours in 
 cold water and wet clothing, and on arriving at 
 Shalong retired alone to his small hospital — to die, 
 if God willed, to recover and be the savior of the 
 people, if he should spare. 
 
 For the safety of others he thus isolated himself ; 
 and while he watched his symptoms and waited to 
 know the will of God, his wife, in their home, with 
 aching heart and bitter tears, prayed to God for the 
 life of her husband. And who may know what the 
 agony of that praying was ? On Ponape only God 
 had power enough to help them, and he was invisible ! 
 
 After two days of suspense the fever passed. Life 
 and not death was before him ; and now for six 
 terrible months, through rain and through sunshine, 
 Dr. Gulick and his fellow missionaries struggled 
 with the pestilence. What a battle ! AVhole neigh- 
 borhoods devoted themselves to the killing of pigs 
 and dogs, to cooking, and to feasting — their reason 
 the spreading epidemic. " Eat, therefore, and drink," 
 they said, " for to-morrow we die." As a natural 
 result, they often did die on the morrow. 
 
 In half-hearted faith priests tried to propitiate 
 offended spirits ; but there was universal belief that 
 Ponapean spirits were powerless against the might of 
 this foreign disease. Better, they suggested, to give 
 
PON APE AND HEM PEOPLE. 169 
 
 Dr. Gulick himself a great feast, that he might pro- 
 pitiate the stronger God of the white man ; but even 
 without a feast Dr. Gulick promised to pray for them. 
 And how he prayed ! 
 
 Yet still the epidemic spread. Even the white 
 man's God seemed powerless against the might of his 
 own disease ; and at last priests on Ponape made 
 formal demand, in the name of their gods and their 
 afflicted people, for the life of this impotent messen- 
 ger of a relentless foreign God. They demanded that 
 he be shot. Most happily for themselves, however, a 
 friendly .king dared to defy spirits and priests alike. 
 Stronger than Pilate under similar pressure, he did 
 not surrender the young doctor to them. 
 
 Through May and June, as fast as the natives 
 allowed it, they were inoculated. And to the mis- 
 sionaries it meant everything that was worth caring 
 for on Ponape whether life or death should follow 
 this inoculation. 
 
 Mercifully, the larger part lived. Confidence in 
 missionary power and integrity revived. And by the 
 middle of June stricken people by scores and by 
 hundreds were turning to Dr. Gulick as their only 
 hope. Neighbors resigned themselves to his care ; 
 priests gave up their incantations, and with their 
 wives and children gratefully accepted the foreign 
 antidote to this appalling foreign disease. 
 
170 LUTHER HALSEY GTTLIUK. 
 
 But in spite of every effort how the smallpox swept 
 its way across the stricken island ! 
 
 " During June and July when the disease was 
 raging in our immediate neighborhood," writes Dr. 
 Gulick, " scarce a native visited our house. G-rass 
 grew in all the paths far and wide about us, and the 
 disease was the only topic of conversation the island 
 round. The incessant query was for the latest reports 
 from the various tribes as to places attacked and the 
 number of the dead. As one and another chief of 
 our own or some other tribe fell, the panic increased. 
 Whole families and neighborhoods were so prostrated 
 at once that frequently scarce an individual escaped 
 to procure water and food of the coarsest quality for 
 the sick ; thus many died of starvation. 
 
 "The propensity was to crowd houses full; and 
 there they lay, occupying frequently every square foot, 
 groaning, gasping, and sweltering in the poisoned 
 compound of air, heat, smoke, and smallpox effluvia 
 till death released the greater number." 
 
 There was so much to do and so little time 
 for writing, that journal records, during these 
 months, are often nothing more than ejaculations of 
 pity: — 
 
 " I never before was among more horrible wretch- 
 edness." 
 
 "Our hearts are rent." 
 
PON APE AND HEB PEOPLE. 171 
 
 " I have never before witnessed such wretched and 
 harrowing misery." 
 
 "Such misery I never before saw, and hope 
 never again to meet, unless I can give more efficient 
 assistance than I find it possible now to render." 
 And months after it was all over, ears could not forget 
 what they had heard : — 
 
 " We still hear but too distinctly," writes Dr. 
 Gnlick, "the groaning and screeching that echoed 
 through whole neighborhoods of breadfruit groves. 
 "We can give no adequate idea of the deadly gloom 
 that hung over us during those dreadful months." 
 
 With the pressure of such suffering bebind tbem the 
 people had naturally come in increasing numbers to be 
 inoculated ; eleven one day, thirteen the next, soon 
 twenty a day, then thirty ; forty-five in a single day ; 
 one hundred and fifty-six in a week. So many crowded 
 this surest road to life that on the fifth of August 
 Dr. Gulick met a pathetically amusing condition of 
 eagerness : — 
 
 "The scene was to me," he says, "a new one in 
 my Ponape life. I found them ready and impatient 
 to be inoculated. As I sat in the little house they 
 crowded about the side doors, waiting their turns 
 with impatience. They came of every age and size. 
 Fathers and mothers brought their infants and held 
 them firmly for me to operate on. Some of the chil- 
 
172 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 dren just old enough to be frightened shouted lustily, of 
 course. Those of the same age, yet outdoors and about 
 to be brought in, joined in the chorus ; and these baby 
 screechings, with the exceedingly vigorous vociferations 
 of twenty-five or thirty adults, made a glorious din.'' 
 
 This is the lighter touch to a picture so dark that 
 shadows do not show against it. On every hand, in 
 every degree of suffering, were more who died every 
 day than could come for inoculation ; and death from 
 smallpox in a home on Ponape meant more of pain 
 than civilization can easily picture. In truth, this 
 scourge is sad enough where soft sheets and gentle 
 hands and tender nursing and Christian hope are its 
 ministers. But on Ponape how different! Hard 
 floor and rough mats and breathless air and hunger 
 and ignorance and despair all seemed joined of hand 
 to hasten their cruel fate. 
 
 And when the people died they were buried ; but 
 so many were dying every day that it was hard to 
 bury them all ; and there was such haste in burying 
 that, half an hour after apparent death, sick bodies 
 often rested in their crowded graves. "Buried alive 
 sometimes," as Dr. Grulick believed ; "many of them, 
 no doubt, afterward reviving just sufficiently to pass 
 through all the horror of a second dying." 
 
 Through these months the pathos of heathen burial 
 appeared in each extreme ; in its heartlessness was 
 
PON APE AND HER PEOPLE. 173 
 
 the cold brutality that wrapped an unclad, unloved 
 body in discarded mats, thrust it into a shallow grave, 
 filled it speedily with leaves and with earth, and danced 
 in glee upon it ; and in its hopelessness was the bitter 
 separation from earthly clay, the newest garment 
 tenderly wrapped about it, and the precious human 
 casket borne by weeping friends to its resting place. 
 There, with treasures of powder and pipe and beads 
 and flowers, amid genuine grief and blinding tears, 
 loving hands placed the body out of sight and gently 
 pressed the earth upon it. 
 
 Surely human grief at parting is sad enough in any 
 land, but saddest where there is no hope of future 
 meeting. 
 
 Six months of dreadful history came to an end at 
 last. And thereafter for years, as the Roman empire 
 measured time from the building of its city, A. U. C, 
 so history on Ponape was in sadder memory reckoned 
 from the digging of its graves, from the era of the 
 smallpox. Before the scourge were ten thousand 
 merry people, physical and spiritual content, tolerance 
 of the missionary, indifference to his message ; after 
 it five thousand bereaved human beings, half the 
 people buried, national paralysis for a season ; then 
 spiritual restlessness, intellectual quickening, an era 
 of awakened life — a fearful ordeal for the nation, but 
 marking an epoch. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 1857. 
 
 WITH the year 1857 missionary work on Ponape 
 reached a climax in several directions. 
 
 Months of prostration had followed the epidemic. 
 The nation had been stunned, and life returned slowly. 
 It was as if, trying to forget deserted places, vacant 
 houses, and daily loneliness, the people dimly felt 
 they might best succeed by surrendering to the new 
 influences. 
 
 Whatever the philosophy of it, certain it is that a 
 turning point had been reached in Ponapean history. 
 There now sprang up an interest in reading and writ- 
 ing and religious teaching which surpassed anything 
 even suggested before. 
 
 This was inspiration to the missionaries. Their 
 efforts were redoubled. They perfected their ortho- 
 graphical system, hoping it would meet the needs 
 of all Micronesian dialects. They journeyed and 
 preached and translated, and from worn, hand-written 
 primers still taught the people to read. Then, in 
 1857, Ponapean interest and American effort alike cul- 
 minated in the arrival of a very small printing press. 
 
 174 
 
1857. 175 
 
 How beautiful it was to missionary eyes ! How 
 marvelous to the embryo book-worn intelligence of 
 Ponape ! Welcome to all ; but it was disappointing 
 too, for its font was so hopelessly defective that only 
 four small pages could be set up at a time, and this 
 seemed slow movement to enthusiasm that had waited 
 five years for its printing press. Joy enough was felt, 
 however, in that at last it -had come. For though none 
 on Ponape had learned the art of printing, still the 
 work was to be done, therefore with promptness they 
 did it ; and while eager natives waited for their primer 
 no less eager fingers set up type and folded printed 
 pages. 
 
 Enthusiasm is contagious even at this distance, and 
 we turn over and over again this thin pamphlet which 
 meant so much in 1857. Indeed, to any lover of 
 books what can be more interesting than the first 
 edition of the first book that is for a nation the 
 literary stepping-stone for all that shall come after? 
 and here it is for Micronesia: a small, blue paper- 
 covered pamphlet of sixteen pages, each page measur- 
 ing four inches by five ; eight leaves neatly stitched 
 together by hand with coarse linen thread ; edges 
 rough as modern Christmas books, but the paper 
 itself thin and yellowed by time. Even the printer's 
 ink is of harmonious yellow tone. So very unpreten- 
 tious ! Yet this small book stirred waiting Ponapeans, 
 
176 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 as a new novel by George Eliot or Balzac has seldom 
 stirred the world ; and this despite contents that are 
 to us sternly unromantic — the alphabet, a few simple 
 phonetic spelling exercises, four pages of catechism, 
 and four hymns. Among the latter are translations 
 of "To-day the Saviour calls" and "There is a 
 happy land." 
 
 This, the slender volume that trembling fingers and 
 throbbing hearts made ready, "The Primer" that 
 wakening intelligence welcomed with such childish 
 delight, the first book printed in Micronesia ! Happy 
 Ponape, that with tottering steps has entered the ranks 
 of a literary world ! Happy missionaries that have 
 materialized the intangible and made visible a lan- 
 guage only audible before ! 
 
 Native enthusiasm over the first printed page 
 increased with each page that followed, and this 
 interest was so genuine that students multiplied until 
 the whole tribe was reading. Indeed, reading on 
 Ponape in 1857 as speedily became a national enthu- 
 siasm as bicycling in the United States in 1894. It 
 hardly seems a passing fancy, though the records show 
 how contagious it was : — 
 
 "Our people all seem anxious to learn," writes Dr. 
 Gulick, "and scholars are waiting about our front 
 porch most of the time. We have now about one 
 hundred." 
 
1857. 177 
 
 " Several natives around us read everything as fast 
 as we print." 
 
 "Went with wife to teach the Wajai and family; 
 found them all well started through the teaching of 
 his child. Encouraging ! Thus shall the waves spread ! 
 Hope on ! " 
 
 " G-oliah and his three wives have commenced to 
 read." 
 
 ' ' We have now about one hundred aud twenty 
 scholars, including the wives of all our pilots." 
 
 "Many readers are in the second book, a few in the 
 third." 
 
 Whatever the cause, certain it is that a new 
 epidemic had reached Ponape. Children taught their 
 parents, and husbands their wives. A chief built a 
 house near Dr. G-ulick to be favorably located for 
 a course of advanced study ; and though just then 
 the Primer was the only text book, still others would 
 soon follow, for Dr. G-ulick had already translated from 
 the Greek into Ponapean the Gospels of Matthew and 
 John, also, separately, the Beatitudes and the Lord's 
 Prayer. 
 
 In this work of translation Joquin had helped him — 
 Joquin the Portuguese, the sailor, the Ponapean by 
 adoption, the man who came to Ponape to be beyond 
 the sound of any praying. He had been an intense 
 sufferer for years, then a reader of the Bible that 
 
178 LTJTHEM HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 Dr. Gulick gave him, a Christian, a friend of God, 
 
 a fellow worker with the missionary, and at last, in 
 
 dying, a soul that rose straight to heaven from Ponape ; 
 
 and when at his funeral they sang 
 
 " There is a happy land 
 Far, far away," 
 
 the happiness of Joquin seemed more real to those 
 who thought about it than the distance between this 
 and the better land. 
 
 In previous years Dr. Gulick had sometimes felt 
 discouraged, but with Joquin's Christian death and 
 the national movement towards higher things, hope 
 dared to breathe. And now he writes : — 
 
 ' ' It does almost seem as though better days must 
 be dawning — the interest is so great, though silent. 
 Oh for the spirit of power and grace ! "Why may not 
 souls be brought into the kingdom ? I make it a topic 
 of special prayer." 
 
 Then to Hawaii he wrote : ' ' Our work has pro- 
 gressed. Our footing is surer. But Sebastopol is 
 not yet taken. Our message to every Hawaiian 
 church is : ' Pray for your mission and Micronesia, or 
 all will fail.'" 
 
 And prayer was answered. Audiences grew. Na- 
 tives began to count the days of the week from the 
 Sabbath. They asked minutely how God was to be 
 worshiped. They admitted his sovereignty over them 
 
1857. 179 
 
 " When a Malay spoke of God as the spirit of 
 foreign lands," writes Dr. Gulick, " a native sharply 
 corrected him by asking if he were not equally the 
 God of Ponape." 
 
 At the station Tulapail natives built a chapel. 
 With roof of sago leaves and sides and floor of slen- 
 der reeds it quite resembled Ponapeau feasting 
 houses. Yet there was a vital difference, for here, 
 instead of feasting, darkened intelligence was vaguely 
 feeling after God. Indeed, this small room, fifteen 
 feet square, was the first church built by native hands 
 and native contributions on Ponape. 
 
 Of the seventy people at Tulapail, forty attended 
 church. Two alone still worshiped Ponapean spirits, 
 and though none had yet been baptized, many claimed 
 to be " missionaries," their synonym for Christian. 
 On the Sabbath they neither cooked nor fished, and 
 in their groping way they tried to keep it holy. One 
 man said he had prayed in secret two years. A young 
 girl, very conscientious, said she had prayed daily for 
 a year. In view of these cases Dr. Gulick questioned 
 the extreme conservatism of mission policy. "I 
 sometimes query," he says, " how much more we are 
 to require of a dark-minded heathen before admitting 
 him to church privilege." 
 
 As yet the privilege had been granted to none. But 
 he realized that light was shining at last. He forgot 
 
180 LUTHER HALSEX QULICK. 
 
 the sacrifice he had made, the life he had offered for 
 other lives. And standing by the scales watching 
 the weights, the balance of happiness seemed all on 
 his side. 
 
 " What occasion for gratitude I" he exclaims. "I 
 am stimulated to new consecration." 
 
 " This missionary life makes no subtraction from 
 life's happiness. It is all a superaddition, a redu- 
 plication, yes, more of life's felicity. It is a substan- 
 tial, real, eternal joy to kindle light in darkness, to 
 diffuse life amidst death, to convert a wilderness to 
 gardens, to make men of brutes, angels of men. 
 And this is nowhere so eminently possible as where 
 light and life have never come." 
 
 And now from this dawning light and the inspiration 
 of it, Dr. G-ulick showed the spirit that was in him by 
 the responsibility he felt, the added sacrifice he was 
 anxious to make for the good of Hawaiian churches. 
 Year by year he had made careful study of Hawaiian 
 adaptation to the different islands and dialects of 
 Micronesia. He had also urged a closer relation 
 between the Hawaiian churches and their foreign mis- 
 sion, even suggesting for them a possible independence 
 of the American Board. And because of the near- 
 ness of the field to Hawaii and the simplicity of its 
 language, he had urged that the Gilbert Islands be 
 made the central point for distinctively Hawaiian 
 
1857. 181 
 
 missionary work. And further, as a preparation for 
 Hawaiian work, he proposed to go thither himself as 
 a pioneer. 
 
 "It will be more self-denying," he wrote, "than 
 anything I have yet attempted, but so much the 
 better ! I need to have my selfishness more cut down." 
 
 "Both Louisa and I will be more than ready to go 
 if it be thought best. My heart bounds at the thought 
 of entering a larger field." * 
 
 "I wish to go. I almost feel as though I must go. 
 We have borne the brunt of Ponape's battle ; the day- 
 light dawns ; let ns now, if we may, go to darker 
 regions and there lay the foundations." 
 
 This, however, was not granted, for the need of it 
 ended when, in this same brilliant year, 1857, the 
 Morning Star came to Micronesia. 
 
 1 There were 40,000 people on the Gilbert group, only 5,000 on Ponape. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE MORNING STAR. 
 
 BEFORE the Morning Star reached Ponape, church 
 history in America had been made richer by its 
 chapter on the love of the children that built and sent 
 her. That history cannot wholly be omitted here. 
 
 In 1855 the Micronesian Mission had made formal 
 request for a mission schooner. In the same year 
 also, as if moved by the same impulse, Secretaries, 
 planning in Boston, decided to build a vessel of one 
 hundred and fifty tons, to cost twelve thousand dol- 
 lars, to be called the Morning Star. A happy thought 
 suggested that the children be asked to build her. 
 Shares were therefore offered at ten cents apiece ; 
 and certificates of stock were neatly engraved and 
 issued in very formal fashion. They testified that 
 Mary or Susan or James had taken a specified num- 
 ber of shares in the Morning Star. 
 
 Youthful interest was at once secured, and Christian 
 children rallied to build their missionary packet. In 
 America boys ran on errands and denied themselves 
 luxuries ; girls hemmed pocket handkerchiefs and 
 saved their dimes ; fathers and mothers were enlisted ; 
 
 182 
 
THE MORNING- STAB. 183 
 
 friends were importuned ; while multitudes of children 
 dreamed of their Morning Star and loved her. To 
 many boys and girls the height of earthly ambition 
 was a hope some day to sail, in this ship of theirs, to 
 distant mystic Micronesia. 
 
 The interest spread to other lands. Turkish chil- 
 dren saved half -cents from their poverty, and Chinese 
 children, with slender yellow fingers, tenderly counted 
 their "cash." A Sunday-school on the Hawaiian 
 Islands sent fifty dollars, " every penny of it earned," 
 as was claimed, "by the toil of the children's hands." 
 Some of that toiling was done in the fields before day- 
 light, when the moon was shining and the inspiring 
 morning star itself also glowing in the sky. 
 
 Money poured into the treasury. Shares were first 
 taken in August, 1855 ; and the figures of receipts are 
 significant of the spreading interest. In August, 
 $34.68 ; in September, $886.98 ; in October, $5,763.28 ; 
 in November, $10,710. In fact, as reported at the 
 time, " Coppers and three-cent pieces and half -dimes 
 came in by quarts if not by gallons." More than 
 enough had been raised, but still the children gave. 
 Children in Canada, in India, in Africa were soon 
 giving ; and a year after the keel was laid 285,454 
 shares had been taken. The Morning Star had cost 
 $13,000, and the remaining $15,000 were kept for 
 insurance and repairs. 
 
184 LUTHER SALSEY OJJLICK. 
 
 In November, 1856, four thousand people had gath- 
 ered to see her launched. Over half of them were 
 children who had come to see the work their pennies 
 had done ; and eyes that glistened as these young 
 stockholders walked about with an air of conscious 
 ownership showed how pleased the children were. 
 Indeed, from fore to aft, from shining keel to slender 
 mast, how the value of invested pennies revealed itself 
 to them! To cap the climax of youthful enthusiasm, 
 were four flags that floated gayly above them — two 
 from each mast. One carried the name Morning Star. 
 Under it was the white flag of peace. From the main- 
 mast streamed the Stars and Stripes, and below it was 
 the private signal — a white star on a background of 
 blue. 
 
 Childish hearts breathed a sigh of content. They 
 had certainly invested wisely ; and as their graceful 
 craft glided from the stocks into the waters of Chelsea, 
 the small shareholders shouted with delight. But 
 there were tears in the eyes of the older people. 
 
 Five months later other shareholders welcomed 
 the Morning Star with equal delight to Honolulu. 
 " Nani" they said; " nani loa" (very beautiful). 
 And they too sped her on with the breath of prayer. 
 
 And then, on the twenty-fourth of September, she 
 was welcomed, words cannot tell how welcomed, by 
 the Christians on Ponape. Perhaps no inanimate thing 
 
THE MOBNING STAR. 185 
 
 was ever more tenderly loved by human beings than 
 this Morning Star by missionaries in Micronesia. 
 Before she came they loved her ; and while, for two 
 months, they waited for her every day, their love for 
 her steadily grew ; and when she reached them a 
 broader band of sunlight followed her to Micronesia 
 than had ever been seen there before. 
 
 Dr. Gulick had gone out to meet this stranger craft 
 whose flags could surely not deceive him. As he drew 
 near to her side, his father waited upon her deck to 
 greet him. There too was his brother Orramel. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Snow were also there from Kusaie, while, 
 standing broad-shouldered and high among them, was 
 his childhood's playfellow, Hiram Bingham. He too 
 had come as a missionary to Micronesia. It was not 
 long before they were all gathered in the thatched 
 cottage at Shalong, where the first and instinctive 
 expression of their grateful hearts was in prayer. 
 The terrible isolation was at last broken. A highway 
 opened by the hands of children bound Micronesia to 
 the world again. " Easy now," as Dr. Gulick says, 
 " to forget all the loneliness of the past, when we 
 think of the ten thousand little owners following her 
 like guardian spirits with their prayers and sympathies. 
 God bless the Morning Star ! God bless her owners ! " 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Doane had come to Micronesia in 
 1855. Mr. and Mrs. Bingham had now joined the 
 
186 LVTHER HALSEY GULIOK. 
 
 mission for the Gilbert Islands. And these all, with 
 the Hawaiian missionaries and Mr. and Mrs. Sturges 
 from Rono Kiti, met at Shalong and exchanged mutual 
 help and stimulus. 
 
 But the time had come to separate. It was October 
 16, 1857. The Morning Star was about to take the 
 missionaries back to their scattered fields and to their 
 isolation. Besides the missionaries, she would take 
 from Dr. Gulick his father and his brother who had 
 come to visit him. Not only this, but, for the sake of 
 her health, there would also sail away on the Morning 
 Star his wife and his two children — ■ all the world for 
 him at Shalong Point. Where loneliness had reigned 
 before for the family, sterner loneliness than ever now 
 faced the individual. 
 
 Five o'clock in the afternoon ; the sun burning its 
 way to the horizon ; two miles outside the reef ; a sea 
 that is growing rough ; Dr. Gulick can go with them 
 no farther. Therefore with words that choke him and 
 eyes that cannot see, he leaves the Morning Star, and 
 in his frail canoe, through gathering shadows and 
 deepening twilight, he returns to wait through the 
 loneliness of another year for the coming again of his 
 dear ones. 
 
 Heathen darkness around him and no light in his 
 home ! but God still in his heaven, and a sure con- 
 viction with him still that all is wiselv ordered. Thus 
 
THE MORNING STAB. 187 
 
 he trusts the Lord as he sits alone in the empty house 
 and writes of his submission : — 
 
 " I cannot expect to see all those dear ones again 
 till this life is merged in eternal day. But we bow 
 before Him who is preeminently the bright and Morn- 
 ing Star." 
 
CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 rT~^HE following ten months passed slowly at Sha- 
 -*- long, though an old family servant from Hawaii 
 was installed in the kitchen. It were well indeed to 
 have food and a cook to prepare it for him, yet " since 
 the Morning Star left," writes Dr. Gulick, "my heart 
 has been wandering over the waste of waters without 
 a home." 
 
 But he hoped the change would do his wife good 
 and " make her," as he says, " the same brave, strong, 
 vigorous, demurely roguish girl I so unceremoniously 
 married six years ago, and with whom I have floated 
 through many a honeymoon on Ponape." Then, con- 
 tinuing about his wife, he tells us that ' ' she has great 
 physical energy and freedom from fear;" that " she 
 is one of the most heavenly minded of Christians — 
 my constant instructor and mentor. Since she left 
 me," he adds, " I have stolen the reading of her pri- 
 vate journals from early girlhood, and my soul feels 
 itself poor in the Christian life beside her." 
 
 Now, however, life moved on without her, and Dr. 
 Grulick suffered in every way. 
 
 188 
 
WAITING. 189 
 
 "I please only myself nowadays," he writes; "I 
 retire to sleep at all hours as the whim takes me, from 
 seven p.m. to one or two a.m. I usually rise at six. 
 I eat two meals a day and no lunch. Sometimes 
 I breakfast at seven, sometimes at ten o'clock, and 
 my dinner is masticated at any time from three to 
 seven p.m." 
 
 Add to this irregularity the sense of isolation which 
 seldom left him, which drove him to much overdoing, 
 and the depression that came later explains itself. 
 
 " If a man can feel thus forlorn," he wrote to his 
 wife, " what must a woman suffer! what must you 
 suffer ! It seems to grow more and more unbearable ! " 
 
 Yet after all there was nothing to do but to endure, 
 to keep busy and brave, and to wait. And while he 
 waited a new necessity came to him. 
 
 Enterprising leaders in Ponapean society had, even 
 in 1856, begun to wear imported garments and sigh 
 for imported styles. As a result Mrs. G-ulick had 
 joyfully cut out calico dresses and taught the women 
 to sew. Now during her absence, a sudden whirl of 
 desire for foreign-made garments laid hold of many 
 other women, and Dr. Gulick was called on to design 
 and cut out this clothing for them. He quietly tried 
 to influence them toward the simple Mother Hubbard 
 gown worn on Hawaii ; but to Ponapean eyes this was 
 not modern enough. They expressly desired tight- 
 
190 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 fitting dresses, such as Mrs. Gulick and Mrs. Sturges 
 wore. There was no escape and Dr. Gulick added 
 one more accomplishment to his growing list. For 
 weeks now he was a lady's tailor. 
 
 He found Mrs. Gulick's patterns — one large, the 
 other small — and by a quick mental estimate in the 
 case of each applicant decided which to use. There 
 could not well be any variation from the pattern, for 
 Dr. Gulick was not by instinct a dressmaker. 
 
 This fever was well advanced by May, 1858, and 
 lasted four months. The following are some of the 
 symptoms of its progress : — 
 
 " I was all day yesterday making dresses. We had 
 five under way at once. Strange work for a man ! " 
 
 " Making dresses all this week. I shall be curious 
 to know whether you approve the way in which they 
 fit. The set of sleeves is that in which I most com- 
 pletely fail." 
 
 " Have to-day cut out three boys' shirts, one 
 woman's sack, aud two petticoats, and superintended 
 sewing all day. I begin to feel almost ready for the 
 Morning Star. When will you come ! " 
 
 "Within two months have made about twenty 
 dresses, besides having disposed of more than as 
 many more readymade dresses and slips. When the 
 Morning Star comes we mean to make a grand dis- 
 play of our finery, for we propose having a sort of 
 
WAITING. 191 
 
 jubilee over her return, to be celebrated by all who 
 have dresses ! Our piety is fully as deep, I think, 
 as the mass of that in New York. I have sold all the 
 calico sent for sale, disposed of all the readymade 
 dresses I could find, and at last laid hold on all the 
 odd pieces and remnants and choice patterns my wife 
 had stored away in her drawers and chests. I don't 
 know what she will think about it. I only know she 
 will not scold much." 
 
 The whole tide of this mania is so amusing that one 
 almost forgets the affliction it was to Dr. Gulick. He 
 wanted to study the language more scientifically, to 
 continue his translating and his work on the Ponape 
 vocabulary. But for months he was hindered some- 
 what by this other imperative requirement. Nothing, 
 however, ever really prevented mental work. Other 
 duties simply drove him to press the harder ; to crowd 
 sleep into very small compass ; to fill days so full that 
 exercise and eating were left to chance adjustment. 
 At this time, indeed, he wrote and studied and 
 preached as seldom before. Letters to The Missionary 
 Herald were his contribution to the life of American 
 churches ; and letters to brothers and friends were the 
 more potent personal influence. 
 
 For his own sake Dr. Gulick longed for friends ; 
 and the practice of intimate letter-writing in Micro- 
 nesia emphasized his early tendencies, making still 
 
192 LUTHES HALSET GULIGK. 
 
 more fixed his habit of reticence. For thereafter, 
 through life, much to his regret, he was as a rule more 
 reserved in personal conversation with his friends than 
 in his correspondence with them. 
 
 " I have no special messages of love to write," he 
 once wrote to his mother ; "I only wish to tell you 
 I love you. I fear your heart was pained on my 
 return from the States by my coldness of exterior. 
 I am sometimes troubled by this thought, yet how 
 could I be otherwise? During all my American life 
 I had no mother ; I had no brother or sister. This 
 made me naturally reserved. I may never see you 
 again on earth, but in heaven, if I ever get there, I 
 shall be different. I shall be all you can desire." 
 
 As if by some charm of his pen, distance was ban- 
 ished when Dr. Gulick wrote his letters. The far-off 
 friend was beside him again and they talked together, 
 and this quiet talking in the library ou Ponape was 
 heard in many places. Through it his boyhood's 
 friend, Hiram Bingham, had already come to Micro- 
 nesia, and reached by it fresh life and quickened zeal 
 came to the Hawaiian churches and to the Hawaiian 
 Mission Children's Society that supported him. 
 
 " My soul glows with excitement," he wrote, " as 
 I think of the future day when the members of 
 our society shall be scattered along on all the isles 
 of Micronesia, in Malaysia, in China, in Japan, 
 
WAITING. 193 
 
 among the Indians of Kamskatka and Oregon, and 
 along the Spanish Main ! How pleasant will it be to 
 ascend from these various fields to meet about our 
 Saviour's throne ! How pleasant to feel and know 
 that we have thus fulfilled our Saviour's purpose ! " 
 
 The truth is, it had not occurred to Dr. Gulick to 
 consider his mission field as bounded by the shores 
 of Ponape or the islands of Micronesia ; and so, sit- 
 ting in the silence of Shalong, remote and alone, he 
 reached out with unflagging zeal to encourage others. 
 Thus it was that through those buried years on Ponape 
 he proved hardly less a missionary to America and 
 Hawaii than to Micronesia itself. 
 
 But while he helped his friends his own need 
 increased. This is best seen in a daily journal kept 
 for his wife alone. Too personal for large quotation 
 here, a few items must suffice to show his approaching 
 nervous prostration : — 
 
 " I have to-day had a touch of my old malady. 
 I had the same weight at my heart, the same forlorn 
 desire for sympathy that was the incubus of my 
 youth. I had forgotten what woeful sensations they 
 were. What an awful six years should I have spent 
 had you not taken pity on me ! " 
 
 " Intellectual effort of late brings on painful aching 
 in my head, which will, I fear, yet prevent my studying 
 much, an affliction I must seek grace to endure." 
 
194 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 " Do not feel strong." 
 
 " Is my relish for reading and study abating?" 
 
 " I would often like to escape from this condition 
 of existence. It seems to me at such times that I 
 should "be much better adapted to usefulness if relieved 
 of this physique. Still, the fact that life will, at the 
 longest, soon be gone, moderates this feeling ; and 
 then occasionally — occasionally — the hope that I 
 may, after all, accomplish somewhat for the cause 
 of holiness makes my whole horizon flash with a light 
 which must be akin to that irradiating heaven." 
 
 " I got so lonely this afternoon that I brought your 
 family portrait and set it up at the head of my desk." 
 
 " It horrifies me to tell you that thoughts of suicide 
 will every once and a while float through my brain. 
 Oh, this life without you is fast using me up ! Shall 
 I ever get back to where I have been in tolerable 
 degree of cheerfulness ? " 
 
 " What a whirl my head and heart are in ! Tour 
 letters arrived this morning ! Need I say more ? " 
 
 " I am sinking down, down, in mind and body 
 here. If death would only release me, how happy ! " 
 
 " Saw the Morning Star this morning in my sleep." 
 
 ' ' I often wonder whether I am ever to see you 
 again. Perhaps you are already in the spirit land ! 
 Joy for you, but inexpressible sorrow for me ! " 
 
 " I begin to wonder if some accident has not over- 
 
WAITING. ] 95 
 
 taken the Morning Star. You may be suffering. I 
 will pray for you ; it is all I can do." 
 
 "A small speck was seen this afternoon. "What 
 joy should it be the Morning Star and you and our 
 children ! What an abyss of sorrow should any of 
 you not be on the Morning Star ! I long yet dread 
 to know the whole." 
 
 It was the Morning Star. Weeks and months of 
 waiting were ended now. Once more in Shalong, in 
 the library where one alone had spent the months, 
 wife and children were again gathered to him, and 
 while Dr. Gulick poured out a thankful heart in 
 prayer, his wife, still young, kneeling beside him, 
 could not restrain her tears of joy. 
 
 But the children on land again merrily danced 
 about and wondered why their mother should cry when 
 they were so very happy. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE CLOSE OF HIS LIFE IN MICRONESIA. 
 
 THE Morning Star came and went once a year. 
 During its presence, and by means of it, the 
 mission, growing slowly, met in general meeting. They 
 discussed vital problems — the adaptability of Hawaiian 
 missionaries to tha work ; the needs of different 
 islands ; the possibility of most usefulness on each ; 
 the health of the missionaries ; the required appropri- 
 ations for the different stations. And when the con- 
 ference ended the mission kaleidoscope was often well 
 shaken. 
 
 In 1859, of American missionaries there were Mr. 
 and Mrs. Snow still on Kusaie ; Mr. and Mrs. Sturges 
 with Mr. and Mrs. Roberts on Ponape ; Mr. and Mrs. 
 Bingham on Apaiang, of the Gilbert Islands ; Mr. 
 and Mrs. Doane and Dr. and Mrs. Gulick on Ebon, 
 of the Marshall Islands ; while Dr. and Mrs. Pierson 
 were returning to America in broken health. 
 
 There was no great dissimilarity in the experiences 
 of the missionaries on the different islands. Indeed, 
 the life of Dr. Gulick on Ponape may be held fairly to 
 represent the life of other missionaries at that time 
 
CLOSE OF 1118 LIFE IX MIOliONESIA. 197 
 
 in Micronesia. Each, of necessity, was individual in 
 the line of greatest personal suffering ; but, for all, 
 there was physical discomfort, hard work, ignorant 
 people, tired nerves, isolation. And under such pres- 
 sure the more nervous failed soonest. 
 
 It had been hoped that for Dr. Gulick life on Ebon 
 might stimulate his health, worn low on Ponape. 
 Then, too, Mr. and Mrs. Doaue needed him medically. 
 
 He had gone, hoping to spend yet many years in 
 Micronesia. This, however, was not to be. 
 
 The work was now well started. Progress was 
 reported everywhere. The movement at Ponape with 
 Dr. Gulick and Mr. Sturges had been but part of 
 the whole. The regular coming of the Morning Star 
 brought new life to all. It made loneliness and hard- 
 ship easier to bear. It seemed a proof that love and 
 strength in larger places had not forgotten the small- 
 ness of Micronesia. 
 
 But there came one year an astonishment, under 
 which even missionary devotion caught its breath. 
 The Morning Star itself brought the proposition. It 
 suggested a possible sale of the Morning Star, and 
 abandonment of the work in Micronesia. The reasons 
 for this were the expense of the mission ; the small- 
 ness of the field ; the hardships endured by its mission- 
 aries ; the growing interest of the Hawaiian churches 
 in their nearer mission, the Marquesas Islands, and 
 
198 LUTSEB HALSEY GJJLICK. 
 
 last, but most real, the pecuniary embarrassment of 
 the American Board. 
 
 Fancy might easily imagine that a sigh of relief 
 would have come to tired missionaries at the prospect 
 of honorable release from this hard life, or at least 
 that their plea for Micronesia would not include any 
 suggestion of willingness to endure more of privation 
 than had already come to them ; yet not so. 
 
 The mission had gathered in its annual meeting. 
 Dr. Gulick was appointed scribe ; and as Abraham 
 pleaded once for Sodom, so he now in behalf of the 
 mission pleads for Micronesia. In watching the 
 patient courage of this man it is hard to keep back the 
 tears. Pale now and worn ; tormented by headache ; 
 older than his years, he is yet seriously offering his 
 life and the life of this mission in exchange for the life 
 of Micronesia. The argument covers many pages. 
 At its close is the summary : — 
 
 "We then turn each objection into an argument, 
 and urge the continuance of our mission because it is 
 not much more expensive than other missions ; 
 because, being small, it may be hoped it may bring 
 rapid returns ; because the field is, in the main, so 
 favorable to our health and comfort ; because the con- 
 tinuance of the American part of our mission is so 
 essential to the drawing of Hawaiian energies to 
 Micronesia ; because, notwithstanding the Board's 
 
CLOSE OF SIS LIFE IN MICRONESIA. 199 
 
 embarrassment, the abandonment will be so disastrous 
 to the cause of missions at home, to our poor people, 
 and to our own usefulness." 
 
 In addition this plea begs that the Morning Star be 
 not withdrawn from them. But if in spite of their 
 asking she should be removed, what then ? Will mis- 
 sionaries sail out over the horizon with her and never 
 come back again to Micronesia? Without wavering 
 the mission recalls that previous isolation and yet 
 answers: "Should she be removed, we beg to be 
 allowed to labor as we did before she came." And 
 this is so sincerely their wish that to make its granting 
 more possible to home Christians they add an induce- 
 ment to it. They will try, they say, to reduce ex- 
 penses, to economize more, to deny themselves things 
 that have seemed necessities heretofore . 
 
 They make no suggestion of economy to those 
 friends at home who, on soft cushions in dimly shaded 
 churches, find it difficult sometimes to drop their 
 dimes and their dollars into velvet contribution bags and 
 silver plates. Neither do they tell them that in Micro- 
 nesia missionaries already live in simplicity that would 
 appall most Christian economy at home. Without a 
 thought of the sarcasm that might have been breathed 
 into it they make this proposition of a stricter economy 
 for themselves. 
 
 But what if even this avail not ? Shall Micronesia 
 
200 LUTHER HALSMY GULICK. 
 
 then be left to perish as Sodom? Nay, of that one 
 impossibility they have no question. And therefore, 
 still writing calmly, they add : — 
 
 ' ' If the Board is unable to support even ourselves 
 without the Morning Star, we shall ask the privilege 
 of helping ourselves in what business we can, rather 
 than desert Micronesia." 
 
 Even missionary heroism had reached its limit now. 
 There was nothing more to offer. Yet in faded writ- 
 ing on the yellow pages there are still these other 
 words : " Our hearts quiver as we ask if we, our peo- 
 ple, and our cause have so lost our hold on American 
 churches as to make them wish to recall us, or even to 
 consent to it ? " 
 
 Who could resist such an appeal? Surely not Secre- 
 taries in Boston nor Christian churches that, in spite 
 of apparent coldness sometimes, did, after all, believe 
 in their missionaries, in the Morning Star, and in their 
 work in Micronesia. From that day to this the Morn- 
 ing Star has visited Micronesia once a year. Not the 
 same packet now as then, for one has been replaced 
 by another until now the fourth in line of that first 
 Morning Star is helped by steam. And missionaries 
 to-day, with reasonable hope of regularity, plan for 
 the coming of what is still the most welcome sight 
 in Micronesia — the blessed Morning Star. 
 
 The change to Ebon had effected little for Dr. 
 
CLOSE OF HIS LIFE IN MICRONESIA. 201 
 
 Guliek physically. His vitality was already too thor- 
 oughly sapped. At length even brave determination 
 yielded. Yet the thought of return to life and the 
 world again was now a dread and not a delight. 
 He shrank from its intensity. 
 
 "The idea of meeting the formalities of 'society' 
 unnerves me," he writes. " The truth is I am about 
 used up. I have lost much of my relish for society, 
 for conversation. It is with effort I maintain any 
 tolerable degree of sociability. I am nearly useless 
 as a missionary. The prostration of my nervous 
 system makes it necessary that I take a vacation ; 
 and consequently our six stations on five different 
 islands where five American and four Hawaiian fam- 
 ilies are stationed along a line of a thousand miles 
 are left without a physician.'' 
 
 In October, 1860, the Morning Star returned to 
 Honolulu ; and with her she brought Dr. Guliek, his 
 wife, his children, and his books — the things he loved. 
 Household possessions were left in Micronesia, for he 
 expected to return to them. 
 
 And now he is welcomed again to the land of his 
 birth and to his father's house. God seemed very 
 kind. But showing what those nine years in Micro- 
 nesia had done for Dr. Guliek, the simple entry is: 
 " He is so changed that no one recognizes him." 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CHANGES. 
 
 EVEN with its delight of friends and horseback 
 riding and civilized comforts again, life on 
 Hawaii did not bring health to Dr. Gulick. He was 
 sent to the' Marquesas Islands as delegate from the 
 Hawaiian churches to their mission there ; yet neither 
 did this avail. Then he went to California ; and this 
 touching again of home shores was the beginning of 
 a new era in his life. Through it he gained a 
 reputation as an electric missionary speaker which 
 never left him. At last he realized the ambition 
 of his passionate, aspiring youth. He reached 
 people and moved them by the power of his public 
 speaking. 
 
 The opening of this era was in San Francisco. 
 Through courtesy to his missionary calling he had 
 been asked to address a Sunday-school. It was a 
 simple talk about Micronesia and the Morning Star, 
 yet the children who listened to him awakened sud- 
 denly to an actual belief in foreign missions and 
 heathen people and a world which they might touch, 
 though they never saw it. 
 
CHANGES. 203 
 
 Soon he bought a California pony and on this small 
 creature visited various towns. To increase his 
 Micronesian salary and to gain practice in speaking 
 English again he sometimes gave public lectures. In 
 one place " I gave a boy a ticket and a half dollar," 
 he writes, "to go about town ringing a bell and 
 shouting about the lecture. I had an audience of 
 perhaps forty-five. I talked for an hour and a half 
 and interested all. Expenses four dollars ; receipts 
 nine dollars ; profits five dollars." 
 
 At another time he cleared forty-five dollars. Still 
 later : — 
 
 " Spoke to the children of the academy, perhaps 
 one hundred and fifty. Produced uproarious laughter 
 and some cheering. I do not please myself in this 
 matter," he adds. " It is bard for me to be inter- 
 esting without provoking laughter. I pray for grace 
 to assist me. May my sins be pardoned ! " 
 
 A touch of pathos, for his audience had probably 
 gone home and thanked the Lord for this brilliant, 
 godly, human missionary who made them laugh and 
 cry by turns. 
 
 With this power of his he stirred alike Sunday- 
 schools and churches, aroused interest, and secured 
 large pledges of help for Micronesia. But his head 
 still troubled him. Friends argued against any return 
 to foreign missionary work, and physicians declared 
 
204 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 that at least Micronesia was out of the question. 
 He was himself greatly perplexed. 
 
 "I am," he says, "at the turning point of my 
 life. By one step now I can very nearly decide for 
 all the future against continuing any form of foreign 
 missionary life. Shall I take it? My only wish is 
 to follow the indications of Providence. I care not 
 what they are." 
 
 He measured himself, indeed, when he found it 
 " harder to decide not to be a missionary than to 
 decide to be one." And for this reason, no less than 
 to postpone immediate decision, he took passage for 
 the Eastern states — took it " with almost a shudder," 
 as he says, " to think how near I came to a termina- 
 tion of my missionary life by stopping here." 
 
 With this ultimate question unanswered, therefore, 
 he reached New York. It was September, 1862. 
 
 In October he attended the meeting of the American 
 Board in Springfield, Mass., and began at once what 
 appears to have been his missionary conquest of the 
 Eastern churches. He was encouraged when mis- 
 sionary fathers whom he honored assured him "that 
 he spoke much better than the mass of returned 
 missionaries," and further strengthened when pastors 
 sent word to each other that " Dr. Gulick would 
 electrify them all." 
 
 His addresses were largely extempore, and we can 
 
CHANGES. 205 
 
 only measure them now by the effect they produced 
 then. Certain it is, however, that the enthusiasm 
 which followed them was as a rising tide, and that 
 this enthusiasm was mental and physical tonic to Dr. 
 Gulick. To appreciate this we must remember that 
 since he was twenty-four — and now he was thirty- 
 four — he had struggled for breath in the heavy 
 mental atmosphere of Micronesia, and that he was 
 now abruptly introduced into intellectual ozone. 
 
 This public speaking was continuous from October, 
 1862, until August, 1863. Sometimes he traveled and 
 spoke with other missionaries at church conventions. 
 Sometimes he went alone to Sunday-schools and 
 churches that needed him. "While " everywhere," 
 as he tells his wife, " I am the recipient of all the 
 kindness and attention I could desire. It is very 
 pleasant to find myself in demand publicly," he adds, 
 "improving to my mind and invigorating to my 
 spirits." 
 
 Audiences were at first attracted by the new topic — 
 the first missionary who had come back to them from 
 what had seemed another world. Soon, however, the 
 man himself magnetized them. .Larger numbers came 
 to hear him and meetings each day were multiplied. 
 First one and two, then two and three, and after that 
 sometimes five and six engagements in a single day ! 
 
 This was appalling, and yet it inspired him. He 
 
206 LUTHER HALSEY GULIOK. 
 
 grew tired but not exhausted. With Micronesian 
 stagnation behind him, his hunger for people and 
 for action needed much, perhaps, to satisfy it. 
 Indeed, "I dread inaction," he wrote to Mr. Treat, 
 "yet occasionally I have done a little too much." 
 Letters to his wife prove this : — 
 
 "Have spoken six times to-day, in all about three 
 hours and ten minutes. Of course I am tired, but am 
 gaining strength." " Spoke four times on Wednesday 
 in Andover." ' ' In Hartford spoke to a crowded house 
 of adults and many children, the largest missionary 
 meeting, I am told, they have had since the meeting 
 of the Board here years ago." 
 
 Sometimes tbere were rival efforts to secure him, as 
 in February, when, as he writes, " There was quite a 
 struggle between the agents of the Park Street and 
 Charlestown churches regarding me for their Sabbath- 
 school concerts next Sabbath. It is decided in favor 
 of Park Street." 
 
 And this, though he had already been there twice. 
 As a result, "Spent Saturday night in Maiden, and 
 preached there in the morning. Rode two miles to 
 Melrose and preached. A carriage came for me, and 
 I rode eight miles to Boston, and under the influence 
 of a cracking headache spoke to a crowded vestry in 
 Park Street Church with more than usual liveliness 
 and effect ! Feel Mondayish to-day ! " 
 
CHANGES. 207 
 
 Perhaps Park Street Church felt a sense of owner- 
 ship in him, for he had previously reminded them of 
 the fact that thirty-five years before, in this same 
 missionary-spirited church, his father had received 
 instruction from the officers of the Board as a mis- 
 sionary to Hawaii ; and that now, for eleven years, 
 in the foreign mission of that mission, children of 
 those missionaries and converts of that mission had 
 been working side by side as foreign missionaries in 
 Micronesia. 
 
 From Boston Dr. Gulick went to Maine. And here 
 older folks and children too came through blinding 
 snowstorms to hear him. 
 
 In truth the children always felt as if this man 
 whose prayers they had helped to answer belonged 
 peculiarly to them, this missionary who had begged 
 for the Morning Star and prayed for her, and waited 
 for her and sailed in her, and who now told them all 
 about her. What wonder that many came to hear 
 him? And what wonder that, moved by his power, 
 those children went home and drew out their certifi- 
 cates of stock in the Morning Star, and counted them- 
 selves richer than they had dreamed, and resolved that 
 they too would some day be this splendid thing, a 
 foreign missionary to Micronesia ! 
 
 And so the call was constant from church to 
 church, from town to town, until a rapid summary 
 
208 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 in March gives us a glimpse of the pressure he was 
 under : — 
 
 " In twenty -two days I have spoken forty-three 
 times in sixteen different places scattered through 
 three different states. I must rest as much as I can 
 in three or four days, and then start off for western 
 New York, to be gone a month." 
 
 While he kept thus busy, it is interesting to watch 
 his struggle towards higher ideals in speaking. Dis- 
 satisfaction came to him through a certain gift of his. 
 His audiences laughed too much ! 
 
 Laughter was well sometimes, as at that Congrega- 
 tional gathering where " Dr. Stearns, of Amherst, Drs. 
 Buddington, Beecher, several others, and I were,'' as 
 he tells us, " ' the organ grinders of fun,' " and where 
 " I believe I did my share, I, the long-faced, melan- 
 choly missionary ! " But the trouble was that even 
 church audiences were constantly wreathed in smiles. 
 In fact, the serious boy, the lonely, consecrated 
 missionary to Micronesia, suddenly surprised him- 
 self no less than his friends by being a wit now in 
 America ; and his rebuke to himself was that church 
 audiences were not left by him in more serious 
 mood. 
 
 "Preached in Chelsea, in Mr. Plumb's pulpit. 
 "Was not so solemn as I ought to have been." 
 
 ' ' Spoke once in the morning and twice in the after- 
 
CHANGES. 209 
 
 noon, quite outdoing myself in producing laughter, but 
 not leaving the best results." 
 
 " My last address at East Concord was a wonder to 
 myself in the amusement it produced. How I fail in 
 coming up to what I desire ! " 
 
 But there still remained the old power of self -con- 
 quest ; and as a result we aga.in read : — 
 
 " I am being helped to develop the spiritual aspects 
 of our mission work. The Lord guide me ! " 
 
 " My utmost desires are gratified. All the dream- 
 ings of my life are being realized." 
 
 At the same time also items of approval found their 
 way into daily papers : — 
 
 "A picture talk." "Rare descriptive power." 
 '* Thrilling sketches of original heathenism." "An 
 eloquent and impassioned speaker." il One of the 
 most eloquent men of the day." 
 
 One young man wrote to another: "For power as 
 a preacher, for plainness, point, and eloquence, I am 
 not acquainted with his equal. If he wants the world 
 to appreciate his talents, he had better turn his back 
 on Micronesia where the returns are so slow, the 
 rewards so far in the future." 
 
 Similar suggestion came often to him. 
 
 The great war of the rebellion still continued ; and 
 Dr. Gulick's letters are constantly threaded with his 
 interest in every move the armies made. Yet through 
 
210 LUTHMB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 all this, through his flashings of humor and pathos, 
 through the smiles of his audience and their tears, there 
 was never any question as to the power that moved 
 him most. It was always his devotion to the heathen 
 world — to Hawaii and to Micronesia. He counted 
 himself only a missionary at home on a furlough. 
 
 In harmony with this and by special request of Dr. 
 Anderson, who was about to visit Hawaii, Dr. G-ulick 
 made a full written statement of what the needs there 
 seemed to him to be. 1 This was approved in Boston, 
 and speaking of him at this time the venerable senior 
 Secretary of the Board said : " Dr. Gulick has better 
 views of the working of missions than any young 
 man I have ever met." 
 
 The question of return to Micronesia had by this 
 time answered itself. Dr. Gulick was not physically 
 able to undertake it. Moreover, in August, 1863, he 
 was invited to return to Honolulu as secretary of the 
 recently organized Board of the Hawaiian Evangelical 
 Association. 
 
 His cherished desire seemed to be increasingly ful- 
 filled, for now he should work most directly for foreign 
 
 1 The points he makes are the need of efficient foreign ministers in the 
 central stations ; the need of new and interesting books ; the need of a 
 native pastorate; the need of girls' schools, and the need of an efficient 
 ecclesiastical organization. He also proposed that the Hawaiian 
 churches have more responsibility ; that there be but one missionary 
 organization on the Islands and that that one be representative of 
 the churches. 
 
CHANGES. 211 
 
 missions from the vantage ground of his dearly loved 
 Hawaii. 
 
 "What occasion have I to bless the Lord!" he 
 exclaims. "Was a man ever more completely deliv- 
 ered out of all his troubles ! " For us the exclama- 
 tion is: "Ah, the blessedness of human inability to 
 peer into the future ! " Yet even for him there were 
 forebodings of trial in " the anxiety that increases 
 upon me ; " in the " shrinking from the bare anticipa- 
 tion ; " in the prayer to be " saved from indiscretion," 
 to be granted " wisdom to press into every duty." 
 
 " It sometimes seems," he says, " as though I could 
 not bear up under the great pressure of the position. 
 My shoulders and my soul ache in advance." But the 
 journey had been made. Hawaii was near to him 
 again. And now writing to his wife: — 
 
 ' ' We are rocking in a calm when my heart wishes 
 we were flying on the wings of a gale." 
 
 "You already are expecting me and every vessel 
 that comes makes you almost sick with excitement. 
 But all will be lost in joy when we meet." 
 
 Dr. Grulick reached Honolulu on the seventh of Jan- 
 uary, 1864 ; and this is his prayer : " Lord, help me in 
 the work before me. Keep me near thyself." 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE NEW WORK. 
 
 CHRISTIAN work on the Hawaiian Islands was in 
 a state of evolution when Dr. Gulick joined it 
 in 1864. The thing to be evolved was a self-support- 
 ing native ministry. 
 
 In some respects it seems cause for astonishment 
 that after forty-three years of unrelenting missionary 
 effort there should have been in 1863 but four Ha- 
 waiian pastors of the twenty-one native churches of 
 the Islands. This appears the more strange when we 
 know that, in larger proportion than in the United 
 States, the people could at that time read and write 
 and had acquaintance with the running outline of Bible 
 story. 
 
 Two facts are, however, the easy explanation of the 
 situation. In the first place, to missionaries who had 
 taught them there had not as yet seemed sufficient 
 strength of character in this childlike Hawaiian people 
 to justify the placing of any large independent respon- 
 sibility upon them. Veteran missionaries still re- 
 mained, therefore, the pastors of the people ; and their 
 
 parishes were often fifty and sixty miles in length. 
 212 
 
THE NEW WOBK. 213 
 
 In the second place, it was not the practice of the 
 American Board in any of its foreign missions to press 
 native converts rapidly into pastoral •work. 1 In fol- 
 lowing out this policy, however, the mission realized 
 in 1863 that a crisis was upon them and that, unless 
 something immediate and radical were done, the result 
 would mean sad undoing of the work into which they 
 had woven their lives. If death were not so stern a 
 master, so inexorable, the crisis might have been post- 
 poned indefinitely ; but in point of fact the missionaries 
 were already growing old, and no younger men were 
 being sent to fill their places. "What should be done 
 to supply the need when weight of years should bear 
 the older men out of sight? 
 
 This question was met and answered at the annual 
 meeting of the Evangelical Association of 1863, 
 Dr. Anderson being present as Secretary from the 
 American Board. 
 
 Under the circumstances there would seem to have 
 been but one answer possible, which by common con- 
 sent was promptly given. Church responsibility must 
 be thrown at once upon the Hawaiians themselves, and 
 this while American missionaries still lived to help them 
 with their counsel. The Hawaiians were certainly 
 neither so strong nor so able as their fathers in Israel, 
 
 1 " Nor was this peculiar to the Sandwich Islands. At that time only 
 thirty -eight of the one hundred and seventy churches connected with 
 the American Board had native pastors." — Dr. Anderson. 
 
214 LUTHER HALSEY OULIOK. 
 
 the missionaries ; but, since the matter had practically 
 reduced itself to a choice of evils, the wisdom of the 
 mission decided in favor of having the Hawaiians 
 practice walking alone in church work while older 
 pedestrians could still be summoned for emergencies. 1 
 
 To accomplish this, various revolutionary measures 
 were adopted, as the admission of Hawaiian pastors, 
 delegates, and missionaries to full membership with the 
 American missionaries in the Evangelical Association ; 
 the use of the Hawaiian instead of the English lan- 
 guage in its meetings ; the formation of Island Asso- 
 ciations 3 which "were to organize churches, define 
 territorial limits, ordain and install pastors," etc. 
 
 But reaching the matter most vitally perhaps was 
 the resolve to urge Hawaiian young men to prepare for 
 pastoral work ; 3 the missionaries practically pledging 
 themselves to a division and subdivision of their fields 
 as fast as Hawaiians should be found to take the 
 churches. 
 
 Now all this was in some respects as a grant of 
 
 1 Though weakness appeared among the native pastors, as had been 
 anticipated, still when the fathers died their places were better filled 
 than If during their lifetime Hawaiians had not already borne full 
 church responsibility. As one who has spent his life on Hawaii has 
 expressed it : •■ We should have been wrecked long since but for those 
 changes. The new era brought the only possible salvation." 
 
 2 These organizations were called Associations or Presbyteries, 
 according to the will of the majority in each place. The work they 
 did was the same. One only was called a Presbytery — that on Maui. 
 
 s With no churches to be supplied, Hawaiians had in the past neither 
 sought nor in general been urged to seek full preparation for this work. 
 
THE NEW WOBK. 215 
 
 suffrage to the people. Heretofore they had been as 
 children in church government. Mission fathers had 
 answered all difficult problems for them ; but now 
 these same fathers seemed to say : ' ' To-day you are 
 men. To-day you begin to vote. Acquit you like 
 men, and let us always help you when we can." 
 
 To further .share responsibility with them, a Board 
 was appointed by this same epoch-making Association 
 of 1863 called ' ' The Board of the Hawaiian Evangel- 
 ical Association." It comprised eighteen members, 
 six of whom were Hawaiians. It was to meet twice 
 a month, and here too the Hawaiian and not the 
 English language was used. This Hawaiian Board 
 was of necessity the heart of the General Association. 
 In it were centered all church and benevolent inter- 
 ests whether at home or abroad ; and through it the 
 American Board did its work both on Hawaii and in 
 Micronesia. Indeed, in a real sense the American 
 Board, so far as this work in the Pacific was involved, 
 made itself at this time auxiliary to the Hawaiian 
 Board. It was eagerly helping Hawaii to walk alone 
 as a mission. 
 
 The new craft was certainly well laden. Practically 
 the first of Hawaiian mission children to become a 
 foreign missionary had been called to be its captain. 1 
 
 'William Richards, who died on reaching China, was the first one to 
 go out under appointment as a missionary. 
 
216 LUTHER HALSEY GULIOK. 
 
 Enough of introduction, that, with Micronesia behind 
 him, Dr. Gulick was not in danger of bringing added 
 burdens to Hawaiian foreign missionaries by experi- 
 mental application of homemade theories. He was 
 not to try the strange experiment of unfastening 
 heathen chains with hands which had not been quite 
 brave enough to touch the heathen themselves. A 
 Hawaiian ; a missionary ; a man who thought problems 
 through and, regardless of self, tried to do his part in 
 answering them, — this was Dr. Gulick who had come 
 back to the help of Hawaii. 
 
 Yet the very fact of his Hawaiian birth and intimacy 
 with mission questions had served to heighten his 
 appreciation of the difficulties before him. He knew 
 that even consecrated humanity is, after all, human, 
 and that it would be a hard thing for veteran leaders 
 in large parishes to resign the work of their lives to 
 the hands of natives who were, at best, inferior to 
 themselves in strength of character, in mental disci- 
 pline, in experience ; and that when it came to the 
 actual point of parish division godly men might hesi- 
 tate and seriously question whether the interests of 
 Zion did not demand the continued resting of their 
 hands upon the ark. But Dr. Gulick had come to 
 Hawaii with all this in view. 
 
 A special meeting of the Board was held on the 
 twelfth of February, 1864, to welcome him to his 
 work. 
 
THE NEW WOBK. 217 
 
 "Pleasant, satisfactory," he says, "my initiation. 
 The Lord be praised ! The Lord guide and direct ! " 
 
 Then the practical work of organization began ; 
 and at once he found himself " swimming in deep 
 waters without a precedent" to guide him. "Yet 
 much seems to be expected of me," he writes. In 
 truth, what the Board was to the association, that was 
 its executive officer to the Board — its heart and soul. 
 It was for him to start movements which should carry 
 out its large plans ; and, once started, he was to see 
 that these plans were executed. Besides this there were 
 the multiplied routine duties which fell to him as both 
 Home and Foreign Secretary — annual reports, statis- 
 tical tables, and constant communication with Secre- 
 taries in Boston, with all parts of Hawaii, and with 
 each missionary in Marquesas and the Micronesian 
 Islands. 
 
 Such were the requirements of his office, and how 
 can one even outline the effort he made to fulfill them 
 all ! For months at first he was traveling and counsel- 
 ing with the missionaries and organizing Island Asso- 
 ciations and meeting the natives ; then there were 
 native pastors to be ordained, large parishes to be 
 made smaller, churches to be organized, and through 
 it all the hearty cooperation of most of those for 
 whom he acted. 
 
 But as in all radical movements, so in this : there 
 
218 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 was the conservative balance wheel in constant revolu- 
 tion. Thus it appears, for he tells us that " the 
 radical independence of Congregationalism stands 
 among us with swords drawn ready to slash and 
 shout to New England sectarianism for help against 
 the iniquitous ecclesiastical system into which the 
 Hawaiian churches fell in 1863." 
 
 In face of its own previous action this same con- 
 servative wheel revolved in some dismay over the 
 question of parish division. Indeed, it appears as a 
 curious fact that a certain few of the older mission- 
 aries seem to have believed strenuously in the prin- 
 ciple of a native pastorate for the parish of their 
 neighbor, while as strenuously resisting the applica- 
 tion of the same principle to their own fields. 
 
 " For me to enter these fields in my capacity of 
 Home Secretary," writes Dr. Gulick, " would be the 
 signal for the exercise of the severest of broomsticks. 
 Between all these elements therefore," he adds, " I 
 have to step carefully." For him, however, careful 
 stepping did not mean the ceasing to walk altogether. 
 On the contrary, he took such rapid steps that by the 
 last of 1864 he had been "received with kindness 
 by all," was "greatly encouraged," and was able to 
 report : — 
 
 ' ' The associations of the island of Hawaii have 
 arranged for twenty-four evangelical church organiza- 
 
THE NEW WOBK. 219 
 
 tions, nineteen of them to be under native ministers. 
 Eight of these nineteen are already organized with 
 pastors, while four others are for the present year 
 supplied with licensed pastors." 
 
 However important his own share in this work, 
 Dr. Gulick nevertheless claimed little for himself. 
 "For years," he tells us, "the fathers of Hawaii 
 have been preparing the way for this very step ; we 
 are now but seeing the fruit." 
 
 Still we to-day realize, as his co-workers did, that 
 results so suddenly in advance of all anticipation 
 signify the presence of one who was a genius in 
 organizing forces and marshaling men. In point of 
 fact, this gift as a leader seems to have been increas- 
 ingly through life the possession of Dr. Gulick ; so 
 much so that in speaking of him twenty years later an 
 aged missionary said : " Yes ; we all worked together 
 with him. No, not together ; he was a king among 
 us." 
 
 As for the Hawaiians themselves, they were devot- 
 edly his friends, both because of frequent tours 
 among them and even more perhaps through the 
 growing interest of his newspaper, The Kuokoa, or 
 Independent — so independent sometimes that it soon 
 brought much trial with it ! Of this Kuokoa Dr. 
 Gulick became proprietor and editor 1 on the first of 
 
 1 For a season the Rev. H. H. Parker was a fellow editor with him. 
 
220 LUTJEEB EALSEY GULICK. 
 
 January, 1865, and the undertaking proved what he 
 had anticipated — - " a post of great and incessant 
 labor." He assumed it "because it is in the line of 
 my official duties aud because it will greatly increase 
 my influence and contact with the natives." 
 
 Nor had he overestimated either the toil involved 
 in editing it or the influence which this paper would 
 exert. It was for the Hawaiians both a missionary 
 and a literary magazine, no less than a religious news- 
 paper and political bulletin ; and this because there 
 was, when it first appeared, no other weekly newspaper 
 printed in the native language. In it, therefore, all 
 varieties of interest were, centered. Here were asso- 
 ciation reports ; accounts of installations ; news from 
 foreign missions, from America and the world ; dis- 
 cussion of v vital home questions ; advice, warning, 
 and encouragement. 
 
 Through it all pastors no less than other people 
 recognized one avowed high purpose — the good of 
 Hawaii. When, therefore, The Kuokoa came to them 
 once a week they welcomed it as a personal friend ; 
 and when the editor himself took them by the hand 
 and said " Aloha" 1 their love for him was very real. 
 
 They often proved this by their hospitality, for no 
 hotels waited near the scattered churches when he 
 toured among them. The home of the missionary 
 
 1 " Love to you." 
 
-y i^^L^<^ 
 
THE NEW WORK. 221 
 
 was often far away, but Kauka Kulika l was always 
 welcomed by the native pastor. When he came, sun- 
 browned children with coal-black eyes scampered off 
 to tell their friends that Kauka Kulika had come, 
 while the quiet hostess spread her simple meal of 
 poi and fish with much apology. But poi and fish 
 were feast enough for Hawaiian of any shade. There- 
 fore before it there was the blessing and after it the 
 sermon — he always preached when he visited the 
 churches, and the people always came to hear him. 
 After the sermon there was added cheer for Dr. 
 Gulick in the musical " Aloha, Aloha, Aloha" of this 
 warm-hearted people. 
 
 1 Their pronunciation for Dr. Gulick. 
 
CHAPTER XXn. 
 
 POLITICS. 
 
 INTENSITY of life was vastly increased after 
 1864 by the projection of active politics into 
 the life of Hawaii. History tells us. that in 1855, at 
 the age of twenty-one, Kamehameha IV became king 
 of the islands ; that as a man he was highly educated, 
 brilliant, courteous, and as a king bent on carrying 
 into effect the noble constitution given to bis people 
 by Kamehameha III. It also tells us that progress 
 was made while he lived ; that he died in 1863 ; that 
 many hopes were buried with him ; and that his elder 
 brother Lot succeeded him as Kamehameha V. 
 
 Now the contrasting portraits of these two kings 
 are indicative of their real character, for while the 
 younger brother has a quiet, thoughtful face and eyes 
 that look directly into ours, the elder brother reminds 
 us of a Lot unwaveringly determined to abide in 
 Sodom — a gross neck and heavy features, full cheeks, 
 thick lips, unkindly expression, and eyes which, 
 though looking down, seem to say : " Here I am and 
 you cannot move me." 
 
 On the whole, this represents him well, for he 
 
 222 
 
politics. 223 
 
 proved to be a strong, resolute, unscrupulous, unyield- 
 ing man, who, by the power of his single personality, 
 was soon able to overthrow the constitution of 1852 
 and replace it with another. 
 
 Differing from his brother, he believed that the 
 people had too many rights and the king too few. 
 He objected to the liberal constitution of Kame- 
 hameha III and resolved to take no oath to maintain 
 it until he had changed it. By proclamation, there- 
 fore, on the seventh of May, 1864, he called upon 
 the people for an election of delegates who should 
 meet in Honolulu for the revision and amendment of 
 the constitution. 
 
 At once there was surprise and indignation every- 
 where. This looked like " a step toward absolutism ; " 
 yet the king made a tour of the islands in its 
 advocacy, and the election was ordered for the 
 thirteenth of June. 
 
 As it happened, the annual meeting of the Evan- 
 gelical Association, which drew to Honolulu the 
 strongest men from the entire group, was to open 
 on the first of June. Now because in so small a 
 place no department of life could stand in isola- 
 tion, because, in fact, religious life and political life 
 throbbed with their hearts too close to each other to 
 be easily separated, a significant step was promptly 
 taken by the Hawaiian Board. By special action it 
 
224 LUTHER HALSEY GULIGK. 
 
 postponed the opening of the Evangelical Association 
 from the first to the twenty-seventh of June, and 
 this for the sake of leaving at their posts men who 
 should instruct the people in the dangers involved 
 and guide them in the choice of men. 
 
 It was a wise move. Satisfactory men were elected. 
 At twelve o'clock, July 7, 1864, the constitutional 
 convention was opened by the king ; it met in the 
 great historic Kawaiahao church. Sixteen nobles and 
 twenty-seven delegates were there, and among them 
 six sons of missionaries. The whole scene was so 
 novel in the annals of Hawaii that history was 
 written that day with an exclamation point. In a 
 building erected by the missionary ; guided by intel- 
 ligence nurtured by the missionary ; associated as 
 equals with the sons of the missionary ; summoned 
 by a king who owed all his personal education to a 
 missionary, — the Hawaiian people had been called 
 to yield to this king some of the freedom and strength 
 that had come to them through the missionary ! 
 
 The situation itself is explained by the fact that 
 righteousness had not entered the heart of Kame- 
 hameha V and that men from foreign lands who 
 were anti -missionary, anti-Christian, and surprisingly 
 pro-self were the men of whom he sought counsel. 
 
 Yet, even among these men, one acknowledged at the 
 time that "the American missionary had brought all 
 
politics. 225 
 
 the rights the natives ever had." Appreciating this 
 for themselves the people were not ready voluntarily 
 to relinquish these rights ; and among others they 
 had sent the sons of their missionaries to wage the 
 constitutional battle for them. 
 
 After a week of debate nobles and representatives 
 were seated together as a single voting body, " a 
 great loss for the opposition," said Dr. G-ulick, 
 "since in the presence of hereditary chiefs scarce 
 a native can assert anything contrary to their known 
 or supposed wish or thought." Another struggle 
 resulted in the vote that the convention had the right 
 to make a new constitution. 
 
 In August, nobles and representatives were still in 
 session. Revision was being attempted ; and the intelli- 
 gence of the Islands was almost breathless as it waited 
 for results. The king's first desire was to limit suf- 
 frage by a property qualification. He assured the 
 people that in a monarchy there simply could not be 
 universal suffrage. Native delegates were greatly 
 stirred. " 
 
 "More than one," says Dr. G-ulick, "have this 
 week told his majesty that instead of kindness he 
 is treating his people with unkindness. An English- 
 man said the other day that ' the American mission- 
 aries have certainly taught the natives to think, but 
 that they have learned to think a little too much ! ' 
 
226 LUTHEB HALSEY QTJLICK. 
 
 "Yesterday the matter came to a vote," he con- 
 tinues, " and nearly two thirds of the delegation, most 
 of them natives, in the very face of royalty, calmly 
 stood in the negative while the king with fiery looks 
 counted them one by one. It gives one's blood a new 
 impulse ! Immediately the king, instead of having 
 the question of adjournment put as usual, merely dis- 
 missed them, bidding them come together on the 13th." 
 
 They came, and for five hours again the question 
 was discussed. Again those delegates, in behalf of 
 the very slender purses of their constituents, voted 
 agaiast it, but the king did not yield ; a man with that 
 sort of face never does. His action, however, was 
 simple enough ; he abrogated the constitution of 1852, 
 prorogued the convention of 1864, and told the nation 
 that in a few days he would proclaim a new constitu- 
 tion ! With a thought perhaps of protest from the 
 people, it is recorded that "The police force was at 
 once increased by eighteen men and one man 
 went about with a pistol in his pocket .' " A tempest 
 in a teapot, perhaps, but none the less truly a tempest 
 for Hawaii. 
 
 On the twentieth of August the new constitution 
 was published. Various natives refused to cheer for 
 it, saying that " it was not for them, but for the 
 chiefs and the foreigners." Dr. G-ulick himself felt 
 that " the dial of constitutional liberty has gone back." 
 
politics. 227 
 
 Among other changes, this constitution provided 
 for " the imprisonment of any editor or public speaker 
 expressing himself improperly against a law under 
 debate in the House." " Thus is our press muzzled," 
 wrote Dr. Gulick, " and public opinion parried." 
 How little he anticipated the latter personal pressure 
 of this measure upon himself ! 
 
 Thus did the will of one man overturn the constitu- 
 tion of a nation, and the act had far-reaching results. 
 That was indeed a solemn day for Hawaii : for as a 
 natural outcome of the instability introduced by Kame- 
 hameha V, there arose at last so strong a desire for 
 righteous legislation and a constitution beyond the reach 
 of any one man that in 1893 Hawaii deposed her queen, 
 established a provisional government, and seriously 
 offered herself to the United States for annexation. 
 
 In November, 1864, the immediate excitement of 
 Hawaiian politics was swept aside for a moment by 
 the thrilling news that Abraham Lincoln had been 
 reelected President of the United States. Indeed, 
 such enthusiasm and such cheering followed it on 
 Hawaii that " for days afterward some of our best citi- 
 zens were hoarse." In multiplied numbers the Stars 
 and Stripes floated at once over Honolulu and its 
 harbor, while Americans walked the streets with 
 radiant faces, and Hawaiians as they met each other 
 said : " We feel like Americans to-day." 
 
228 LUTBEB HALSEY GULTOK. 
 
 But all this was only as sunlight piercing a cloud. 
 
 The cloud remained for Hawaii and the new era 
 which had now been fairly introduced by Kameha- 
 meha V. 
 
 At this distance, and to us as to others, the political 
 unrest of those years from 1864 to 1870 is indeed 
 blended now as a picturesque cloud. It overhangs 
 the Islands of Hawaii and serves to heighten the 
 effect of light and shadow resting upon them. And 
 wherefore analyze it to-day ? It is enough at this dis- 
 tance to say it was a cloud, that good inen shivered 
 under it, that righteousness seemed to stagger, that 
 swayed by the will of royalty, as in other lands, 
 humanity both white and brown did those things that 
 were not expected of them. Through it all, however, 
 good men were unitedly praying for the welfare of 
 Hawaii, and Hawaiians were being educated politically. 
 
 "Now I see how it is," said a shrewd anti-mission- 
 ary observer ; ' ' the churches are governed by the 
 membership in a way that is educating the people in 
 democratic principles, and from the church model they 
 have learned how to conduct political affairs.'' 
 
 Those who watched passing events through these 
 years perceived two currents of influence moving 
 across the Hawaiian Islands. On the one hand, in 
 larger numbers than ever before, young men were 
 entering the ministry and turning to the help of their 
 
politics. 229 
 
 own people ; noble missionaries were trying to fit their 
 large mantles to narrower shoulders ; churches were 
 multiplying, church membership increasing, and, in 
 proportion to the population, benevolent contributions 
 were growing larger every year. This was the crystal 
 half of that slow-moving mer de glace. 
 
 The other half was as unsightly as the rock-covered 
 surface of the Talefre. It had its rise in the corrup- 
 tion that reigned in high places. Intemperance and 
 immorality were making headlong progress. Super- 
 stition was revived and its accompanying heathen 
 rites. With a king who towered among his people as 
 a promoter of wrongdoing, it is not strange that for 
 a season spiritual blight rested upon them. "Where 
 Kaahumanu and Kapiolani had once stood and pointed 
 the people heavenward, Kamehameha V and his friends 
 now stood and beckoned them downward. 
 
 In view of the situation two courses were advocated 
 by those who loved Hawaii. One urged " conciliatory 
 measures," an effort to secure the good of the nation 
 without much show of hostility to the government ; an 
 attempt to guide without alienating royal favor lest 
 displeasure bring the greater evil. Certain members 
 of the community even thought "it would be better 
 to follow our Saviour's example, and the example 
 of Paul by keeping aloof from political matters 
 altogether." 
 
230 LUTB.ES, HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 The other party, in the front ranks of which Dr. 
 Gulick had now cast himself, claimed that ' ' Christ 
 came not at all times to bring peace, but sometimes 
 the sword, "and that "this constant effort to abate strife 
 for the right often works incalculable mischief." It 
 cried: "Our 'lost cause' will yet be won again, and 
 by a force more potent than powder and ball. Stern, 
 steady demand for right, educating the people and 
 daunting wicked rulers are the only means we know." 
 Stern, steady demand was therefore made every week, 
 and its voice to the people was The Kuokoa. 1 
 
 During 1865 The Auokoa had been started as a 
 purely governmental paper. It represented anti- 
 missionary sentiments. 
 
 Perhaps it would hardly have been in the natural 
 order of things if The Kuokoa, with its avowed senti- 
 ments, had wholly escaped the wrath of the govern- 
 mental party. In point of fact it did not escape. 
 
 It was May, 1866. The Legislature was in session 
 
 1 One of the most vital questions at this time was concerning the 
 common schools of the country. Even so early as June, 1S66, a start- 
 ling series of charges against "those who have direction of the schools," 
 the government, was made to the Evangelical Association by its 
 committee on schools. It was asserted that they had appointed as school 
 superintendent with exclusive power over school-teachers, " a man 
 who for a series of years had shown hostility to the Americans" ; that 
 " the wishes of parents arc utterly disregarded "in the appointment of 
 teachers; that "religious influences" are to be excluded from the 
 schools and the" Bible disallowed" ; that Catholic teachers are placed 
 over Protestant schools, " men of immoral character appointed to the 
 office of teacher and trustee," and " schoolhouscs sold in districts 
 where there are enough children to sustain a school." 
 
POLITICS. 231 
 
 in Honolulu ; and in the progress of its business it 
 was moved ' ' that the Assembly order the sergeant-at- 
 arms to bring the person of L. H. G-ulick before the 
 House to answer for the publication of a certain arti- 
 cle in The Kuokoa of May 12, in which thirteen mem- 
 bers of the House by name are called parasites of the 
 Ministers because they voted against the bill to reduce 
 the horse tax from one dollar to fifty cents, stating 
 that these men had no regard for the wishes of the 
 people." 
 
 One member was promptly on his feet in favor of 
 the resolution "because The Kuokoa was unanimously 
 respected," he said "and because the people had 
 great confidence in its editor, Dr. Gulick. The 
 people believed The Kuokoa," he added, " and did not 
 believe the government organ, The Auokoa. The 
 Kuokoa's influence was so great that it very nearly 
 prevented elections from being held in certain districts, 
 and therefore this House ought to take notice of the 
 insult." Yet another member did not like to be called 
 a parasite because, though it was false, " the natives 
 in the outer districts would point at him and say : 
 ' There is the member from Honolulu who is hoopili- 
 meaai 1 to the Ministers.'" 
 
 Other members, however, protested that "the 
 House should be above sensitiveness for such 
 
 1 Parasite. 
 
232 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 attacks " ; that, if Dr. Gulick were brought before 
 them, " he would have the opportunity of saying he 
 was a victim on the altar of the people." 
 
 The motion, nevertheless, was carried, and a warrant 
 was signed and issued " for the production of Dr. 
 Gulick before the House at eleven a.m. to-morrow, or 
 as soon thereafter as possible." 
 
 Though it is thirty years since The Kuokoa printed 
 the "communication" which so disturbed the House 
 in 1864, yet its closing words still burn with the fire 
 with which they were written : — 
 
 "There, you people of Hawaii, Maui, Molokai, 
 Lanai, Oahu, and Kauai, you can see the faithlessness 
 of your chosen representatives who come here and join 
 hands to that side, leaving you in the hindermost 
 canoe ! Look out for the year 1868 ! It is yours to 
 watch the right ! " 
 
 Ever its friend, The Commercial Advertiser, now 
 stanchly defended The Kuokoa. It examined Article 
 Fifty-two of the Constitution, 1 and it maintained that 
 there had been no violation of that article ; that " the 
 
 1 Article Fifty-two. — The Legislative Assembly shall have author- 
 ity to punish by imprisonment not exceeding thirty days, every person 
 not a member who shall be guilty of disrespect to the Assembly, by 
 any disorderly or contemptuous behavior in its presence; or who, 
 during the time of its sitting, shall publish any false report of its pro- 
 ceedings, or insulting comments upon the same : or who shall threaten 
 harm to the body or estate of any of its members for anything said or 
 done in the Assembly, in his way going or returning; or who shall 
 rescue any person arrested by order of the Assembly. 
 
politics. 233 
 
 representatives are making themselves ridiculous to 
 the whole people " ; that ' ' The Kuokoa might say that 
 the members are a pack of fools and ignoramuses -with- 
 out violating the letter or the spirit of the article." 
 
 "When, therefore," it continued, "Minister 
 
 says ' the public have a right to comment on the laws, 
 but not on the men who make the laws,' he sets up an 
 issue for which he has no authority to support him. He 
 attempts to erect a bulwark, and getting behind that 
 structure shouts : ' There is no power between us and 
 God ! ' There is a power between him and God, and 
 he will live to witness it." 
 
 These were stern words ; but the warrant had been 
 issued, and on the eighteenth of May ' ' the return 
 of the sergeant-at-arms was read, stating that the 
 body of L. H. Gulick was in readiness to be brought 
 before the House." 
 
 What a day that was for the family of children 
 in the large white house under the algaroba trees ! 
 They only knew that their father had been arrested, 
 and they waited through the hours with a shivering 
 expectancy that something far more dreadful yet 
 was sure to happen. Perhaps they prayed about it, 
 though as yet they were not very pious children. No 
 question, however, as to the praying of their mother ; 
 not prayer for deliverance alone, but prayer that 
 wisdom might be given to her husband. 
 
234 LUTHMK, HALSEY QULIGK. 
 
 He was brought before the Assembly and replied 
 laconically to the questions of the Vice-President. 
 
 "Are you editor and publisher of the newspaper 
 Kuokoa, published in Honolulu?" 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " Do you hold yourself responsible for articles 
 published in it?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 Then he was remanded and the members discussed 
 his case. There was much excitement. 
 
 " I was the member," said one, " who moved that 
 this person be brought before this House, and I now 
 move that he be punished according to Article Fifty- 
 two of the Constitution." 
 
 Two or three others were on their feet at once. 
 One asked for the law that could punish a man for 
 saying certain representatives were parasites. He 
 moved that the resolution be tabled and Dr. Gulick 
 set free. Others supported this. Yet ano'ther moved 
 that the manuscript of the article be brought into 
 the .House. Still another said: " Having in mind the 
 dignity of this people, I demand that this person 
 be punished, else he may go away and do worse." 
 Another desired authority first, precedent. " I don't 
 think a person from Hawaii to Niihau," he said, 
 " was ever punished for calling another Jioopilimeaai." 
 
 In the midst of these differing expressions of 
 
politics. 235 
 
 opinion a line was brought in from Dr. Gulick 
 himself : — 
 
 To His Highness, M. Kektjanaoa, President of the 
 Legislative Assembly. 
 Sir, — Before the Assembly pass to any resolution 
 of condemnation in my case, allow me to crave the 
 common right of a criminal of speaking in my own 
 defense. Yours respectfully, 
 
 L. H. Guliok. 
 
 This was not allowed, however, and after further 
 discussion a motion was made and seconded, amended, 
 amended again, and passed, that — 
 
 " The Rev. L. H. Gulick be brought again before 
 the bar and be admonished that this House do consider 
 the article a contempt to this Assembly, and with 
 this intimation to him we do dismiss the further 
 consideration of his case." 
 
 Promptly, therefore, he was "brought again," and 
 the President said : — 
 
 " I do hereby inform you that you have committed 
 a contempt of this Assembly, and would say, Do so no 
 more ; and with this say to you, Go from this House." 
 
 So he went quietly away ; but the old flash was 
 in his eye and his love for Hawaii had grown stronger 
 and not weaker through this trial for her. " I feel 
 so indifferent as to anything but duty," he wrote, 
 " that I think it alone gives me vantage ground." 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 TANGLED THREADS. 
 
 KEENLY sensitive as he was to adverse criticism, 
 Dr. Gulick remained nevertheless uninfluenced 
 by it. His hand still guided The Kuokoa. Though 
 the friction of it often bruised him, still he neither 
 flinched nor left half undone what duty seemed to him 
 to require. And this because, as he said, " We have 
 fallen on times when there is need of manhood, when 
 cringing and weakness only defeat our cause." 
 
 " To one thing I am pledged," he adds, " and that 
 is not to err on the side of extreme lukewarmness 
 to the interests of the Hawaiian race. I know the 
 danger, and I propose being careful ; but I am a man, 
 and I am an American, and I desire that America's 
 influence should be more directly felt for the good of 
 the monarchy and for the people's sake and for the 
 cause of evangelical religion." 
 
 Thus was he an American ; but he was so joined to 
 both countries that it is somewhat difficult to tell 
 which was dearer to him. In truth, he belonged to 
 both, for on another page he says: "We beg you 
 to remember that we younger men are not foreign 
 
 236 
 
TANGLED THREADS. 237 
 
 missionaries, but to all practical purposes native 
 Hawaiians, only claiming for our darker-skinned 
 fellow citizens what has been ruthlessly filched from 
 them by the help of foreign talent and foreign 
 wickedness." 
 
 Because of this double allegiance Dr. Grulick 
 welcomed the annexation discussions of 1868. He 
 saw at once the faintly outlined answer to various 
 Hawaiian problems and dared thus to prophesy : — 
 
 " The time will come when we shall be ready for 
 absorption by the Great 'Republic if they desire it. 
 At present we are not ready, but these discussions are 
 preparing the way." And further: " Be assured that 
 the time will come when manhood, suffrage, and a 
 truly representative government will be secured for 
 Hawaii." 
 
 In doing what he could to hasten this time, Dr. 
 Gulick walked constantly and swiftly under a very 
 heavy load. For, in addition to his duties as Corre- 
 sponding Secretary and his personal charge of the 
 whole publication department of the mission, 1 he 
 carried for years " the entire editorship and pecuniary 
 responsibility of the newspaper Kuokoa. I do not 
 at all regret having thus far done the work," he- 
 writes, " but it is too much for one man." 
 
 1 " Which includes the supervision of the press and the charge of the 
 distribution and sale of the publications, and the keeping of all the 
 book and newspaper accounts with our ministry throughout the group." 
 
238 LUTHER SALSEY GULICK. 
 
 This we realize. Yet there was still the added 
 weight of frequent pulpit supply for the unusually 
 intelligent foreign audience of Fourth Street Church ; 
 Fourth of July and other orations for the same 
 foreign audience, and once that thrilling memorial 
 address, still remembered, when Hawaii no less than 
 America mourned the tragic death of Abraham 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Surely those were busy years ; but the upper and 
 nether millstones of political life and church life never 
 spared him ; and we are not surprised that his " spirits 
 sometimes sank," that he " longs sometimes to be out 
 of these complications, to go to Micronesia or Mar- 
 quesas." But this was only the discouragement of a 
 moment. 
 
 Encouragement came in the line of immediate 
 church work. Annual reports mark the steps of its 
 progress ; and a note with a touch of humor in it 
 shows the large cooperation of those who were work- 
 ing together for Hawaii : — 
 
 " The native ministry is stepping on even faster 
 than we radicals had expected, and our conservative 
 fathers are pushing the wheels where even we shrink. 
 .The world moves somewhat, even if a little one- 
 sidedly. We will rejoice." 
 
 No question as to cause for rejoicing, for the sum- 
 marized results of this cooperation showed in 1869 
 
TANGLED THREADS. 239 
 
 fifty-sis organized churches, thirty-six ordained Hawai- 
 ian pastors and eight licentiates ; thirteen Hawaiian 
 foreign missionaries ; a church membership of twelve 
 thousand four hundred and ninety-seven, and benevo- 
 lent contributions of $29,386 for that year alone. 1 
 
 Where, in 1863, but four churches had Hawaiian 
 pastors, the case was now reversed. In 1869 " but 
 four missionaries of the American Board had pastoral 
 charge of the Hawaiian Islands — all on the island of 
 Hawaii." 
 
 As part of the work of the Hawaiian Board, larger 
 provision had been desired for the education of 
 Hawaiian girls. Miss Ogden still carried on her 
 school at Makiki. In 1865 Mr. and Mrs. Orramel 
 Gulick moved to Waialua their girls' school started 
 on Hawaii. This grew rapidly. But Honolulu was 
 
 1 This seems small as compared to the larger numbers of earlier 
 years. But the fact should he borne in mind that the race itself was 
 passing rapidly away. A Hawaiian population estimated by the first 
 missionaries to be 130,000 had dwindled to 84,000 in 1850. The excess of 
 deaths over biiths du:ing the same years 2,890. Through 1867, 1868, and 
 1869 the average annual decrease was 1,154. Indeed, the population of 
 the Islands diminished so rapidly that by 1872 it numbered but 56,800. 
 Concerning this fact Dr. Gulick wrote at the time : — 
 
 " But for the conserving effects of the gospel during the last half 
 century, there would have been now scarce a Hawaiian left to tell the 
 story of the extinction of the race through foreign vices grafted upon 
 native depravity. That the race still continues to decrease is no won- 
 der, but that it is in existence to-day, with any manifestations of true 
 Christianity, is one of the modern miracles of grace. That there is so 
 much vice and immorality should astonish no one, but that there is any 
 virtue, any piety, any civilization should cause us to shout over the 
 triumphs of redeeming mercy." 
 
240 LUTHEB HALSET GULICK. 
 
 ill need. Dr. Gulick was already overworked, and his 
 wife was not very strong. She had five young 
 children of her own and had welcomed as her own 
 the children sent to Honolulu by her " missionary 
 sisters " in Micronesia, yet Mrs. Gulick felt that her 
 opportunity had come. No one else could begin the 
 school. She had been " longing for more missionary 
 work to do, praying for open doors." On the sixth 
 of March, 1865, we find the sequel to her prayer : — 
 
 "Opened school this morning with eight scholars. 
 Our cook is sick, Mrs. B. still in bed, and our friendu 
 from Micronesia are here. We are twenty-one in the 
 family." 
 
 That day school of eight was Kawaiahao Seminary 
 in its infancy. Through succeeding months numbers 
 increased, boarders were accepted, neighbors helped 
 Mrs. Gulick in the teaching, until at last the need 
 of permanent help was imperative. Miss Lydia 
 Bingham was then called to the work and reached it 
 in 1867. 
 
 In the meantime, however, Kawaiahao Seminary 
 remained in every sense a family school, which 
 studied and played and created much confusion and 
 needed much employment; all of it to be devised and 
 the machinery of it to be kept in motion by the one 
 busy brain of the mother of them all — the precious, 
 prayerful woman whose life was so full of active 
 
TANGLED THREADS. 241 
 
 kindnesses to others that her children never heard her 
 gossip or say unkind things about her neighbors. 
 
 There were so many children in this family school, 
 and they did things so in flocks, that names are seldom 
 mentioned. We simply know from Mrs. Gulick's 
 journal that " most of our sixteen children have had 
 colds," that "on Sunday six were sick," that "on 
 Saturday I went with nine children to the woods " ; 
 that on another Saturday " we had carriages to take 
 nineteen of us and horses for three more " ; that " five 
 rode while fifteen walked to church"; that "we all 
 went out to Manoa to bathe." 
 
 Instead of groaning in spirit under the turmoil of 
 such a life Mrs. Gnlick is exultant. ' ' Oh, how won- 
 derful," she exclaims, " is the goodness of God and 
 his minute care over his children ! " 
 
 Though the central abiding place of this family was 
 the home in Honolulu where the I^awaiahao Seminary 
 stiil stands, yet in charming Manoa valley there was 
 a small painted cottage bought with money earned 
 by Mrs. Gulick in teaching before she was married. 
 Hither they hied for their holidays and their vacation 
 times. Such a paradise it seemed to them all ! Sweet 
 jasmine and roses, and vines in profusion, and guava 
 trees and pasture lands, and a short exciting cut across 
 lots over the stone walls to that spot of all enchant- 
 ment — their bathing place in the beautiful stream ! 
 
242 LUTHER HAL8EY GULICK. 
 
 Here too Dr. Gulick often went with them, and 
 there is a tradition that he lay awake one night plan- 
 ning the location of garden spots for his own and the 
 other children to cultivate. More likely, however, he 
 lay awake under his own increasing weariness and 
 perplexity. Gradually he had realized that there were 
 those who felt that, as Secretary of the Hawaiian 
 Board, he should be less pronounced in his politics, 
 less radical in his demands, more conservative, more 
 silent; that, with skirts drawn judiciously aside from 
 political touch and with quiet upturned face and finger 
 pointing heavenward, he should make no very audible 
 protest, though his countrymen were being charmed 
 and chained and dragged past him to their destruc- 
 tion ; that, in other words, he should attend to what 
 seemed to them more legitimately the affairs of the 
 heavenly kingdom, leaving earthly politics to those not 
 so officially situated. 
 
 But it is certain that Dr. Gulick had no moment of 
 doubt as to his own duty in the matter. " I make in 
 my mind a very important distinction," he says, 
 " between the proper neutral political position of a 
 foreign missionary and one like myself to the ' manor 
 born.' I should as soon think of changing my course 
 as of being silent regarding theft or murder." 
 
 No one ever questioned Dr. Gulick's loyalty to 
 Hawaii, his courage or his ability. Those who differed 
 
TANGLED THREADS. 243 
 
 from him, the conservatives and a few of the older 
 missionaries, did certainly assert that he was "too 
 radical"; but they also testified to his "executive 
 ability," to his "faithfulness" and "effectiveness as 
 a worker." 
 
 Since his own conviction remained unchanged, how- 
 ever, and since there also existed this other expressed 
 conviction as to the political duties of a Secretary, 
 Dr. Gulick saw with increasing distinctness that his 
 next great step must accomplish for him a withdrawal 
 from his position as Secretary of the Hawaiian Board : 
 for he could not consent .to be a divisive element in it. 
 The thought dawned slowly but fully upon him. 
 
 " I am willing to leave my office and my country for 
 my country's good and to disembarrass the cause of 
 Christ," he wrote, "but I cannot recede from my 
 position of antagonism to what I consider wrong." 
 
 ' ' Thanks f or your kindly exhortation to keep up a 
 'brave heart.' It is just what I intend to do, the 
 Lord helping me, even if necessary to the point of 
 standing one side as soon as it shall appear that my 
 portion of the work is done ; and it requires more 
 nerve, I fancy, to do this than to cling to office under 
 the impression that my services in this particular sphere 
 are indispensable to the Lord ! " 
 
 The decision was seriously made, and on the twenty- 
 seventh of January, 1870, by letter to the Hawaiian 
 
244 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 Board, Dr. Gulick asked for three months' leave of 
 absence and declined reelection as its Secretary. 
 
 Of necessity there was protest. Even those who 
 differed from him in politics were anxious to retain 
 his help for mission work. They wrote to the Secre- 
 taries in Boston about it and said : — 
 
 " There is probably not one of the missionaries who 
 will not cordially and earnestly sustain Dr. Gulick, 
 nor one" who has not done so in his proper work as a 
 Secretary of the Mission Board. He has had and still 
 has the cooperation of his brethren in his missionary 
 labors in an unusual degree. He is a good and diligent 
 officer, prompt in business and devoted to the cause. 
 I hope you may persuade Dr. Gulick and his brother 1 
 to listen to the voice of their brethren in continuing 
 their missionary work, even though they may not be 
 sustained in political matters or any other outside of 
 what some of us esteem to be their proper sphere 
 of labor." 
 
 Then too there were tender words of appreciation 
 from his friends. 
 
 " Your years of faithful service here," one of them 
 wrote, " have been productive of greater and far more 
 important results than you certainly can estimate — or 
 I either. Our entire work has been modified by the 
 agency to which, under God, you have been called — 
 
 1 Rev. O. H. Gulick was leaving Hawaii at the same time. 
 
TANGLED THREADS. 245 
 
 savingly modified ; nor will the impress you have been 
 privileged to put upon it ever be lost." 
 
 " Personally, dear brother," he continues, " I should 
 not like to trust myself to tell you how these years 
 of earnest toil and precious companionship with you 
 in the Master's work here loom up in the history of 
 my life, as above all other portions thereof — years of 
 warm-hearted, constant, effective work under God for 
 this poor people. And now all around me, go where 
 I may, my thoughts find you, and my heart as well 
 as my mind perceives your tracks ineffaceable on all 
 departments of our work. G-od honored you much, 
 though in a comparatively obscure sphere, to do a great 
 service for him." 
 
 In spite of protest and appreciation, however, the 
 path of duty seemed very clear to Dr. Gulick, and his 
 work for Hawaii ended in February, 1870. 
 
 For a minute account of all he attempted and all he 
 succeeded in doing for the land of his birth one must 
 turn to the multitudes of letters and reports which 
 were written at the time. Some of these are gathered 
 in Honolulu, while several hundred other letters have 
 found their way to the American Board Department 
 of the Congregational Library in Boston. 
 
 The signatures of these letters are as signboards 
 along the course of Dr. G-ulick's life on Hawaii : — 
 
 " For the cause of evangelical religion yours.'' 
 
246 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 " Yours for right and freedom and the triumph of 
 Christ's kingdom." " Yours hopefully." " Yours in 
 Christian bonds." "Yours in solicitude and hope." 
 "Yours in sadness." "Yours in perplexity." 
 "Yours in the furnace." 
 
 But the last letter had been written. He had parted 
 again from wife and children and aged parents ; 
 and now, in the gloaming, he stood alone behind the 
 pilot house and once more watched with dimmed 
 eye the fading outline of the land he passionately 
 loved. He was returning to Boston to talk about the 
 future missionary course of his life. And while his 
 heart ached, he could not anticipate the earnest voice 
 that should, years after, try to call him home again ; 
 nor realize that his life on Hawaii had prepared him 
 to enter a wider door and a larger work in other lands. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 PAPAL LANDS. 
 
 FROM what had sometimes seemed the furnace 
 there was abrupt change of atmosphere when 
 Dr. G-ulick found himself quietly seated in the cordial 
 serenity of the Mission Rooms in Boston. Indeed, 
 the sort of intensity which gave peculiar interest to 
 his Hawaiian experiences was never repeated for him. 
 Necessarily, therefore, the year 1870 marked a turn- 
 ing point in his life. The subsequent steps in its 
 course were, however, in harmonj 7 with the strength 
 of character which life in Micronesia and Hawaii had 
 already demonstrated. For years these steps forced 
 their way through strangely new and varied scenes. 
 
 Though early appointed by the Prudential Commit- 
 tee to act as district secretary for New England, the 
 arrangement was temporary. And this because, as he 
 says : " I pressed sojiard to go abroad again, even to 
 Micronesia if there were no other door open, that I 
 am still to be considered a foreign missionary at home 
 to get ready for another stage of labor. Indeed, the 
 idea is quite distinct that we go to Micronesia by and 
 by if Providence favors." 
 
 247 
 
248 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 Until the last of 1871 he therefore acted as district 
 secretary, " flying about like a shuttlecock," he says, 
 " on the Master's business, as I suppose." 
 
 DuriDg this time his family joined him. During 
 this time also it came to pass that " five brothers of 
 us were together for about fifteen minutes." A nota- 
 ble event in a family whose living members had never 
 yet been all together at any time. 
 
 Charles Finney Gulick had died during his student 
 life in America ; and of the remaining six brothers 
 three ' were already engaged in foreign missionary 
 work, while two others 2 were soon to enter upon it. 
 Later yet the sixth brother 3 and the sister 4 joined the 
 same service. 
 
 In their devotion to duty, though it led to this world- 
 wide sort of separation, the need of a new kiud of 
 courage came suddenly to Dr. and Mrs. Gulick. 
 While still in Hawaii they had lent their youngest son 
 to their bereaved brother Orramel and his wife, who 
 petitioned for him ; a loan of a few weeks at first, but 
 one that was lengthened into months. 
 
 Both families had come to America. The brother 
 and his wife were assigned to Japan. And because 
 
 1 Orramel Hinckley, soon to sail for Japan, John Thomas in China, 
 and Luther Halsey. 
 
 2 William Hooker, who accompanied his brother Halsey to Spain, and 
 Thomas Lafon, who joined them a year later. 
 
 3 Theodore Weld. 
 
 1 Julia Ann Eliza, , 
 
PAPAL LANDS. 249 
 
 " the Prudential Committee did not advise my going 
 to Micronesia," writes Dr. Gulick, " and because I 
 wished to remain either in or on the Pacific Ocean, at 
 my own request I go to Japan too, and with the cor- 
 dial approval of the committee." 
 
 The two families were to be together. And since, 
 under this arrangement, the child would still feel the 
 nearness of his mother and share the companionship 
 of his brothers, with characteristic unselfishness he 
 was lent again to the home which was desolate without 
 him. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Oframel Gulick preceded the others 
 to Japan, and the little boy of three went with them. 
 His parents were to follow soon. "Weeks passed. 
 Their boxes had been shippedto San Francisco. Final 
 preparations had all been made, and the next steamer 
 that sailed was to take them to Japan. At this point 
 there was a sudden reversal of decision. The Ameri- 
 can Board accepted a call to work in Roman Catholic 
 countries, and wished to have the experience of Dr. 
 Gulick in the establishment of its work in Spain. 
 
 " It is hard," says Mrs. Gulick, " to refuse to listen 
 to the combined wisdom of such honored men as the 
 secretaries of the Board and Dr. Anderson, so we 
 have consented to go. The severe trial is that in not 
 going to Japan we cannot join our precious little one 
 there. Indeed, the thought of not being able soon to 
 
250 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 see my darling child is very hard to bear. Yet we do 
 it for Christ, and willingly, as so much less than he 
 has done for us." It was well perhaps that the brave 
 mother could not know just then that she should never 
 see her little son on earth again. 
 
 " I acquiesce," writes the father, " though my heart 
 is in the Pacific Ocean." 
 
 In the mean time the friends who had already 
 reached Japan were preparing to welcome them. 
 
 " Ollie 1 plans everything now with reference to 
 Luther's 2 coming," writes Mrs. Orramel Gulick ; " has 
 a bamboo gun and other things all ready for him. He . 
 thinks his crib is not large enough for both himself 
 and Luther to sleep in, and yesterday morning prayed 
 that God would teach us how to make the crib larger 
 when Luther comes. Only two weeks from to-morrow 
 the steamer will be here ! " 
 
 "When it reached them, instead of the friends whom 
 they expected, and for Ollie, his small brother, there 
 were letters which told them that those dear ones were 
 not coming at all : that they were going to Spain 
 instead. 
 
 Thus it came about that twenty years after they 
 first left Boston for Micronesia, and with heroism 
 as real now as that which moved them then, Dr. and 
 
 1 Orramel, named for his uncle. 
 
 2 His next older brother. 
 
PAPAL LANDS. 251 
 
 Mrs. Gulick set out again from the same port in an 
 opposite direction. 
 
 Soon after that it was Spain, but Spain without her 
 fabled "castles." Far more real, indeed, was the 
 poverty which appalled them as they met it in public 
 places, and the pitiful begging for " charity, madam, 
 for the love of God." " Such pinched and wan faces 
 that followed us everywhere," writes Mrs. Gulick. 
 " Such rags and tatters that fluttered in the breeze, 
 and told of such suffering and such want ! " Such old, 
 old civilization and poverty handed down for so many 
 generations ! All this was to be seen while the memory 
 was still fresh of well-oiled, well-fed, physically com- 
 fortable MicroneSia. 
 
 And now, though Europe was both historically and 
 geographically separated from the heathen world, yet 
 living there did by no means indicate a separation 
 from other mission fields. China, Japan, Micronesia, 
 Hawaii, America, and Spain were linked together by 
 the letters which each member of the family wrote and 
 received, and which, by prearrangement, each for- 
 warded to the next in order. This signified large 
 drafts on slender purses, for, says Dr. Gulick, "I 
 paid about fifty dollars postage on private matter 
 during six months in 1872." ' Yet it was an invest* 
 
 1 In this connection he begged that family letters should be folded 
 with the first page outward, claiming that " this rule followed would 
 save about a month's time in the Gulick family per year." 
 
252 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 ment with a purpose. Because of it a family other- 
 wise divided by oceans and by continents stood as 
 a unit in its purposes and convictions. And so far as 
 intimacy with mission fields was concerned this corre- 
 spondence secured for the brothers not simply a broad- 
 ened outlook, but the practical removal of horizon 
 limits. 
 
 Spain offered much to write about, for her towering 
 history and its monuments ranged themselves as a 
 gorgeous background to her faded present life. 
 
 "Yesterday I visited ancient Saguntum," writes 
 Dr. Gulick, " founded (so Murray says, and Murray 
 knows !) 1384 years before Christ. I am vexed with 
 myself for having gaped so often over paltry places 
 and objects five hundred and one thousand years old ! 
 1 sat me down on the steps of the Roman amphi- 
 theater, saw the inscription of P. Scipio two hundred 
 years before Christ, saw the gate called Hannibal's, 
 and at last I began to have a realizing sense that there 
 may have been such people as Greeks, Eomans, 
 Carthaginians, and such individuals as Scipio, Hanni- 
 bal, and the Caesars." 
 
 After all, however, the present was even more real 
 to him than this vivid past. And being settled in 
 their home in Barcelona, while he studied the language 
 he also taught in the small girls' school which they 
 opened at once, arranged for the permanent establish- 
 
PAPAL LANDS. 253 
 
 ment of their work at different points in northern 
 Spain, and did much toward the advancement of unity 
 among the Christians of Barcelona. He furthermore 
 studied the foreign workers throughout the country, 
 their theories, their methods, and the practical outcome 
 of the combination of the two. Eesults followed. 
 He soon stood as a general on an eminence. His eye 
 ranged the whole field. 
 
 Contrasts were necessarily drawn between all that 
 pertained to humanity in Europe and in the Pacific.^ 
 This did not always place Europe in the light : neither 
 did it always shadow the Pacific. It appeared, 
 indeed, that in methods of work and in types of Chris- 
 tian character developed, Spain herself often suffered 
 by the contrast. The cloud which cast this shadow 
 upon her in 1872 was the apparent lack of all attempt 
 to develop self-supporting churches. It was a con- 
 trast to the zeal with which Christians worked for them- 
 selves and others in the Pacific. England, Germany, 
 and France had each sent missionaries to Spain ; 
 but their policy was not of the self-supporting type 
 which is held as the ideal in the missions of the 
 American Board. On the contrary, Dr. Culick found 
 that almost everything was done for the Spanish 
 converts. 
 
 "Foreign money builds or hires the churches," he 
 says, " pays the sexton, buys the melodeon, pays the 
 
254 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 whole of the salaries of the native preachers and 
 teachers, and, in fact, does everything for them but 
 their eating and their sleeping. They are in conse- 
 quence about ruined for Christian work. To become 
 a Protestant is to be saved by grace and emancipated 
 from all work. The idea of Protestantism is, indeed, 
 so strongly that of ' free grace ' here that the fact 
 of its requiring 'good works' is forgotten, and we 
 shall have hard work in teaching it." 
 
 On the other hand, there were cheering conditions 
 even in 1872: "From three to four thousand who 
 profess to be evangelical Christians, over twenty -five 
 reported church organizations, and two thousand chil- 
 dren under evangelical instruction daily." 
 
 Of necessity these figures involved the vital ques- 
 tion as to the true missionary position to take toward 
 Spanish Christians and their churches. Meeting this 
 query, Dr. Gulick recommended that "the foreign 
 missionary clearly apprehend the distinction between 
 missionary and ecclesiastical questions," and that, 
 while retaining " unflinching control of the former," 
 he should " avoid more than an advisory position 
 toward ecclesiastical matters. If the missionary tries 
 by voting to control the action of the native churches, 
 they will, by voting, attempt to control his missionary 
 action." 
 
 Two and a half years were spent in this work of 
 
PAPAL LANDS. 25 : "> 
 
 beginnings. 1 The mission to Spain was fairly on its 
 feet, and the Prudential Committee now asked Dr. 
 Gulick to join its work in Italy. 
 
 "Just the man we want for that field," writes the 
 Secretary, Dr. Clark, " to take special oversight of 
 our developed work, to bring the young churches into 
 line. You will of course go to Florence : that is our 
 Italian headquarters." 3 
 
 " From Micronesia to Italy ! " exclaims Dr. Gulick. 
 " Could contrasts be greater? From the negation of 
 all Art to the very mother of all the fine arts ! From 
 the center of the Pacific to the center of Europe ! " 
 
 And then in August, 1873: "In Italy! It seems 
 like romance ! I can hardly realize it." 
 
 Though it looked as if all previous experience had 
 been but preparation for this new work ; and though 
 Dr. and Mrs. Gulick greatly desired to be rid of pack- 
 ing, and moving, and house hunting, and to find for 
 themselves a permanent home at last ; and though no 
 land could have been more charming and no friends 
 more cordial than those whom they found in Italy, 
 yet, as it happened, the stay there was not for many 
 months. It ended because of their honest adherence 
 
 1 Rev. William H. Gulick was located at Santander, since removed to 
 San Sebastian, and Rev. Thomas L. Gulick spent seven years of his 
 nine years in Spain, in Zaragoza. 
 
 2 Rev. Mr. Alexander was already a, missionary of the American 
 Board in Italy. " He will devote himself specially," wrote Dr. Clark, 
 " to the training school we desire to start." 
 
256 LUTHEB HALSET GULICK. 
 
 to conviction regardless of personal sacrifice. Sum- 
 marized, the following was the situation : — 
 
 The work of the American Board was in conjunc- 
 tion with the Free Church of Italy. 1 Unfortunately, 
 to a certain extent, the same defects characterized 
 work in Italy as in Spain. And in Dr. Gulick's 
 thought two of these were most prominent : — 
 
 First : the indefiniteness of the idea that "the church 
 must consist only of those who hope they have under- 
 gone a change of heart and give evidence of it." 
 
 Second : the lack of organization, " with special ref- 
 erence to assuming all possible responsibility specially 
 regarding their own work." For example, " the Free 
 Church has had," he continues, " a year of unusual 
 prosperity : that is, they have had very large receipts 
 of money from England and America, and have, con- 
 sequently, done less for themselves than they did last 
 year." 
 
 As weeks passed, he was increasingly convinced, as 
 he says, that " the work of the Board in Italy will be 
 the most unsatisfactory of all their missions and the 
 most expensive." And also that "there will not be 
 
 1 In this organization, thirty -five churches were " associated under 
 a rather indefinite church government which savored partly of Con- 
 gregationalism and partly of Presbyterlanism." Ten of these churches 
 were placed under the care of the American Board. And judging the 
 Free Church by a meeting of its Assembly in Pisa, Dr. Gulick early 
 pronounced many of" their ideas of business definite and on the whole 
 good though different somewhat from the Anglo-American style." 
 
PAPAL LANDS. 257 
 
 any great success in their work here on any true basis 
 for indefinite years to come." 
 
 At this point the American Board experienced 
 serious financial embarrassment. Curtailment was 
 necessary somewhere ; and Dr. Gulick's judgment 
 indicated that the place for it was in Italy. 
 
 "But I need hardly tell you," he writes to Dr. 
 Clark, " that it requires some nerve on my part to 
 give you thus fully what I conceive to be the unhope- 
 ful side of things." And later : — 
 
 " I am increasingly doubtful of the wisdom of hold- 
 ing on in Italy. But I cannot tell you how much I 
 dread another removal." 
 
 It ended as he felt was best. The decision was 
 made, and the withdrawal of the Board from Italy 
 took place " because our financial necessities compel 
 us to retrenchment." 
 
 There was rapid movement of events for Dr. Gulick 
 through the closing four months of 1874. A visit to 
 Turkey was permitted. And Greece with its history 
 and its classic suggestions lay on his course. "What 
 a contrast to Micronesia with no history ! As he 
 sailed, he was "reminded of Homer and of the 
 exploits of Ulysses." He passed Actium, saw " the 
 mountains of Peloponnesus dim in the east ; " realized 
 that " not far to the southeast, though it could not be 
 seen, was ancient Olympia ; '.' crossed the Gulf of 
 
258 LUTHEK HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 Messina ; touched at Cerijo and wished it had not 
 been smoky that he "might have seen Crete, where 
 Paul was wrecked." After Milo, and Paros, and 
 Syra, with " Delos the sacred " in the distance, they 
 reached Athens. 
 
 "I might have whizzed up in ten minutes on the 
 railroad," he says, '* but thought it more respectful to 
 the shades of Demosthenes, Socrates, Plato, and 
 Aristotle to ride in the light of a full moon, in a car- 
 riage that offered itself. An unexpected flash of 
 sentimentality," he adds, " and my financial necessi- 
 ties were more nearly reconciled than usual ! " 
 
 Yet no delight iu the wonders of the place served 
 to draw him from his purpose to study Christian work- 
 ers everywhere and their methods of working. This 
 occupied more time in Athens than his sight-seeing. 
 In Constantinople it was the same. 1 While constantly 
 there was inspiration for him in " crossing and recross- 
 ing the track of St. Paul and all the ancient gods." 
 
 At last, however, with his friend Mr. Bliss for a 
 companion ; with worldly possessions of cot-beds "on 
 which to sleep out of the reach of bugs, fleas, rats, 
 etc.," with a tea-pot, a tea-kettle, a coffee-pot, a 
 skillet, a spirit-lamp, knives and forks, spoons, plates, 
 cups, all of tin ; with various sorts of food to nourish 
 
 •"As yet I have done almost no sight-seeing, but I am laying up 
 grand stores of missionary knowledge. I am wonderfully favored." 
 
PAPAL LANDS. 259 
 
 them and huge leathern bags to carry all this property, 
 he started on his journey of eleven hundred miles 
 through Central Turkey. A servant accompanied 
 them on one horse, the goods went upon another, and 
 each traveler had his patient little beast to carry him. 
 Thus the small caravan visited the eastern churches 
 and was warmly welcomed everywhere. In truth it 
 seemed to Dr. Gulick as if " the missionary families 
 rivaled each other in doing all they could for us." 
 
 He of the newest visited these of the oldest of the 
 missions of the American Board. And wherever he 
 went he was urged to tell them of his Micronesian 
 and Hawaiian life. An interpreter was always needed ; 
 and once, at a very small town, two were required 
 because there was no one there who understood both 
 Arabic and English. 
 
 " My words were, therefore, first interpreted into 
 Armenian," he says, " and then into Arabic. It was 
 rather interesting for me to fire off my gun, then wait' 
 for the fire to run along Mr. Bliss and Shimas before 
 I could see the result. There was a long interval 
 between the flash and the final report ! " 
 
 After one of these talks one day, there came to 
 see him an Armenian woman whose thrilling life story 
 told of conversion, persecution, and faithfulness. It 
 furthermore appeared that, years before, she had made 
 a contribution of her golden ornaments toward the 
 
260 LUTHER HALSET GULIGK. 
 
 building of the Morning Star. For this reason, it 
 was. not strange, perhaps, that when the visit was over 
 neither Dr. Gulick nor the Turkish lady felt that 
 Turkey and Micronesia were very far apart. 
 
 The travelers had spent thirty-five days on horse- 
 back, had journeyed eleven hundred miles, and had 
 visited Constantinople, Thessalonica, Samakov, Sam- 
 soon, Marsovan, Csesarea, Sivas, Harpoot, Diarbekr, 
 Mardin, Urfa, Aintab, Marash, and many smaller 
 towns. They had also crossed the Tigris and 
 Euphrates. "Thoughts have crowded wonderfully," 
 writes Dr. G-ulick, " as I have looked on at least a part 
 of the land where Abraham lived, and from whence 
 he started for the promised land of Canaan." 
 
 After that it was Europe again, and Italy with the 
 question of future location still to be decided. 
 
 The mission to Austria begged for him there. He 
 therefore visited them and submitted the question to 
 the Prudential Committee. They felt, however, that 
 the need of help was greater just then in Boston than 
 in Austria, and sent the decision to him by a cable 
 dispatch. Yielding to their wish, Dr. Gulick turned 
 at once toward America. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 TO THE PACIFIC AGAIN. 
 
 DR. GULICK had taken steamer to cross the 
 Atlantic. 1 "My last act," he says, "was to 
 go to "Westminster and drop my tears — literally — on 
 Livingstone's tomb — the noblest shrine in England.'' 
 The work to which Dr. Gulick was primarily called in 
 Boston was that of raising money for nominally 
 Christian lands. In addition to this, however, and 
 because of Dr. Clark's illness, he was temporarily 
 pressed into the duties of the Foreign Secretary and 
 the consultations of the Prudential Committee. 
 
 In July, 1875, he was " taxed to the utmost and 
 taking medicines constantly." He was preparing for 
 the Annual Meeting of the American Board. " I am 
 specially busy these days," he says, " writing up the 
 annual reports of various missions. Have finished 
 those of Papal Lands, and am engaged on that of 
 Japan and Micronesia. Next week I take hold of the 
 Turkish missions." In August he was tired, indeed, 
 but " about through with the entire foreign part of 
 the Annual Report." 
 
 1 His family joined him six months later. 
 261 
 
262 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 "While he worked thus intimately at the headquar- 
 ters in Boston, various methods pleased him, and 
 various other methods did not please him in the line of 
 home policy. Very little can be said here on either 
 side. Very little ought to be said in the line of criti- 
 cism ; for, in his personal relations, nothing could 
 have been kinder or more appreciative than the con- 
 stant attitude of the Board toward himself and toward 
 his judgment of mission affairs. In fact, so far as 
 investigation of manuscript proves any point, we learn 
 that of his many suggestions made to the Board 
 through his twenty-five years' connection with it, all 
 but one were followed. 1 
 
 Much as he enjoyed the work which he did in 
 Boston and in New England, the current of his life 
 seemed broken in upon. He was doing that which 
 others, he felt, could do as well as he, and for which 
 they might easily be secured. The foreign field 
 seemed still to call him. Then, too, there was with 
 him an instinct for maintaining, at whatever cost, the 
 continuity of his life. Or, as he expressed it : — 
 
 " My fixed determination has always been to work 
 abroad, in one land if not in another, rather than give 
 up altogether. So now, while there are reasons for 
 my giving up my lifelong course, and while to many 
 
 1 This was in their appointment of a man, whom he sincerely believed 
 to be unworthy, to the position as Trustee of Oahu College. 
 
TO THE PACIFIC AGAIN. 263 
 
 my determination to go to foreign fields again may 
 seem strange, yet my own understanding of the case 
 is that it comes from a wish to preserve the unity of 
 my life. With characteristic self-abnegation my wife 
 has encouraged my going even without her. 1 And 
 there is another thought which tends to keep me 
 abroad as long as possible, the hope that it will make 
 the foreign work more attractive to my children than 
 it might otherwise be. It will be a proud and happy 
 day when I can welcome them to mission service. I 
 hope and pray that I may be permitted to hold on till 
 then ! " 
 
 This was his desire. And though at forty-seven he 
 was too old to begin a new language, and though 
 Micronesia was still inexpedient for him, and though 
 for these reasons he could not very well go out as 
 a foreign missionary in connection with the American 
 Board, another way was, nevertheless, opened to him. 
 He received a call from the American Bible Society. 
 In their behalf, China and Japan were offered to him 
 as a field. 9 
 
 This stood on one hand to choose if he wished, 
 while, on the other, was a position with the American 
 Board as "District Secretary for South New England, 
 
 1 It was necessary for Mrs. Guliek to remain in the country for the 
 sake of the children. 
 
 2 In their work it was not necessary for him to have intimate knowl- 
 edge of the languages of the two countries. 
 
264 LUTHER HAL8EY GULICK. 
 
 with center in Boston and seat in the Prudential Com- 
 mittee." It did not take him many hours to make the 
 choice. And the officers of the Board could only bid 
 him Godspeed ; for they loved the heathen world only 
 as much less than he as their sacrifices for it had been 
 less than his. 
 
 " Japan, after all ! " he exclaims again. 
 
 This time it was Japan in very truth, the Japan 
 which all the world knows so much about to-day, but 
 which, in 1876, was full of its mysteries and its 
 interests, its queer Oriental civilization with all that 
 was charming about it, and its new civilization of the 
 West which was unfolding itself before the bright, 
 almond eyes of the astonished people. 
 
 Mrs. Gulick, with three sons and a daughter, had 
 remained in California. A fourth son had already 
 been welcomed to the home of Dr. and Mrs. S. P. 
 Leeds in Hanover, New Hampshire, while a second 
 daughter accompanied her father to Japan. 
 ** The City of Pekin, with its roominess and its 
 luxury, was a pleasanter place for worldly comfort 
 than the Morning Star had been when father and 
 daughter first sailed together upon this same Pacific. 
 Yet the splendid steamer lacked the halo of the 
 children's prayers ! 
 
 After twenty days of sailing, they landed at Yoko- 
 hama, telegraphed the news to Rev. Orramel H. 
 
TO THE PACIFIC AGAIN. 265 
 
 Gulick, in Kobe, and received by return message the 
 crushing news that the precious child whom they all 
 loved had died two days before. Gone back to God 
 before the mother, whose heart still ached for her little 
 son, had had a chance to see him and hold him in her 
 arms again ! The blow seemed almost cruel. But in 
 the thought of the mother herself, no cruelty ever 
 comes to his children from their heavenly Father. To 
 her it was only a mystery, and through the tightened 
 pain about her heart she simply drew nearer to God 
 and thanked him for the confidence with which she 
 still could trust him. 
 
CHAPTER XXyi. 
 
 ADJUSTMENT. 
 
 THOUGH Dr. Gulick never regretted the step 
 which carried him from the American Board 
 to the American Bible Society ; though, on the con- 
 trary, the same situation repeated would have resulted 
 always in the same decision of adherence to foreign 
 missionary work, still, with so strong a nature as his, 
 pain necessarily accompanied this transfer of intimate 
 relations from one great missionary body to another. 
 He calls it "the wrench of his life," his "divorce- 
 ment." 
 
 This was not strange, for his heart and his life 
 were part of the living tissue of the American Board. 
 Her arms had been about him in his cradle ; he had 
 lisped childish petitions for her welfare when he first 
 began to pray ; the strength of his manhood had been 
 spent in her service ; while her officers were his friends 
 and her missionaries his kin. For twenty-five years 
 he had spoken to them through The Missionary Herald, 
 and now to be silent there ; to belong suddenly to 
 another organization and to another kind of work; 
 to reach his world through other channels, — all this 
 
 •206 
 
ADJUSTMENT. 267 
 
 combined to make a cross which grew heavier for 
 months as he carried it. 
 
 This proved to be a transitional period of his life, 
 and the pain which marked it was the more intense 
 because he was nervously exhausted when the need 
 of the adjustment came to him. 
 
 " I have no doubt the divine plan is being and will 
 be worked out regarding me," he writes; "but it 
 will not be without suffering on my part, which is 
 inevitable." 
 
 ' ' You little know the sense of loneliness which 
 often comes and remains over me. All my missionary 
 connections are broken. There is no mission that 
 claims me as its own. I am a stranger even to the 
 missions of the American Board." 
 
 "A sense of isolation surges in upon me and 
 threatens to drown every other emotion. I begin to 
 feel that I am hereafter to look back rather than for- 
 ward. Yet such a life of breaks is hard to gather 
 up ; hard to collect into a useful whole. I don't like 
 the retrospect particularly, and yet from step to step 
 I have tried to do the best." 
 
 " My spirits are depressed. It is a dense, suffo- 
 cating cloud resting down upon me which I have 
 simply got to endure till it lifts. The only way I 
 know is to shut one's lips and let the nervous system 
 twang itself into silence." 
 
268 LUTMEB HALSET OULICK. 
 
 For months this sense of loneliness was the sad- 
 dened undercurrent of his life. It was the harder to 
 bear because Mrs. Gulick was detained in California a 
 year by the needs of their children, and because in the 
 mean time his days were necessarily spent in traveling 
 alone and in making new acquaintances. The truth 
 is that traveling, for its own sake, had lost its 
 fascination for him. 
 
 " I am loth to strike out again into the cold ocean 
 of traveling and isolation," he says; "but I will 
 nerve myself up, hold my breath, and plunge in. 
 I shall get through somehow, and then it will not 
 seem so dreadful." 
 
 " I don't quite see how it is," he writes at another 
 time, " that one so dependent on family life and love 
 is so tossed away from it. Though my exterior does 
 not betray the fact, I believe I am more dependent on 
 a wife than most men. We G-ulicks are as cold as 
 ice outside ; as hot as fire within." 
 
 ' ' It has been hard enough in the past — much 
 harder than anybody has known — to tear myself 
 away from wife and children ; so hard this time that 
 it seemed as though I should succumb under it." 
 
 ' ' I long for you so that I sometimes feel as if I 
 could not endure it." 
 
 But having set his teeth together and nerved him- 
 self to meet it, he stepped through this inevitable 
 
ADJUSTMENT. 269 
 
 pain and loneliness into happiness and work which 
 was increasingly full of satisfaction to him. With 
 it there was the exhilaration which comes when every 
 faculty is strained to the utmost. His personal experi- 
 ence, his grasp of practical methods, his power as 
 an organizer, his acquaintance with the missionary 
 work of the world were all joined for his success. 
 
 Furthermore, in the rush of pressing duties his 
 thoughts were carried more and more constantly 
 away from himself. Enthusiasm was aroused and full 
 contentment was coming to him. 
 
 His wife and younger children joined him in 1877. 
 While he waited for them he had himself been rather 
 amused at the volume of his writing. 
 
 "I don't believe that husband ever wrote to wife 
 much more faithfully," he says, "by day and by 
 night, abroad and at home, when busy and when at 
 leisure, when wakeful and when sleepy, when receiv- 
 ing letters and when receiving none ! " But at last 
 she was coming, and he writes : — 
 
 " I tremble as I hope and plan. It seems as if I 
 could not wait six days to see you. My heart never 
 yearned so toward absent loved ones as at the present 
 moment. God keep you safely ! Words are tame ! " 
 
 Thus he waited as eagerly for his family among the 
 millions of Japan as he had waited once before quite 
 alone on Ponape. And when they arrived in safety 
 
270 LUTHER SAL SET GULIGK. 
 
 the final, and on the whole the most joyful, era of his 
 life was fairly entered upon. • 
 
 "I find my work very congenial," he says, "and 
 I have been received with kindness by the American 
 missionaries of all denominations. Already large 
 responsibilities are on my hands." 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE AGED PARENTS. 
 
 NO sketch of Dr. G-ulick's life would be complete 
 without referring to the closing years of the 
 lives of his parents. They were seventy-six and 
 seventy-seven years old respectively when they left 
 Hawaii for Japan. The reason for the move was the 
 fact that they were growing feeble ; that in fulfillment 
 of their prayers their six sons were engaged in foreign 
 missionary work, while their daughter was also sum- 
 moned to it, and that rather than permit any child to 
 leave his work for the sake of caring for them in their 
 old age, they preferred to go to their children instead. 
 It therefore came to pass that their son Orramel had 
 gone to Hawaii to take his parents and his sister back 
 to Kobe 1 with him. 
 
 Almost half a century had passed since Grandfather 
 Gulick, as he was affectionately called, had even seen 
 the outline of his native land. From the energy and 
 ambition of young manhood, the years had changed 
 him into an old man. His shoulders were bent now, 
 and his hair was white. But his thin, keen face and 
 his eyes, still as blue as the sky, beamed with pleasure 
 
 271 
 
272 LUTHER HALSEY 0ULIGK. 
 
 at the sight of San Francisco. In truth, Rip Van 
 Winkle himself did not return to greater changes, for 
 steam and electricity had acted the part of magicians 
 siuce he left the world almost fifty years before. And 
 now, for the first time in his life, the venerable man 
 rode upon a railroad train and sent his thoughts over 
 telegraph wires. 
 
 From San Francisco they went to Japan. And 
 thereafter, until the aged saints went to heaven, the 
 Kobe 1 home seemed a gateway to Beulah Land. 
 
 Grandfather G-nlick himself was the first to pass 
 through it. And in his private memorandum book 
 there are foreshado wings of the change. On the 
 twelfth of March, 1877, he reached the pinnacle of 
 his eighty years, and his entry made that day is a 
 characteristic retrospect. 
 
 " The clos^ •■' this day," he writes, " will complete 
 my fourscore years in this world — twenty-nine thou- 
 sand two hundred and twenty days. Solemn thought ! 
 And how little have I done for Him who created me, 
 died to redeem me, and has preserved me so long and 
 blessed me so abundantly ! If, as is believed, one 
 person dies every second, then since I was born, two 
 billion, five hundred and thirty-four million, two hun- 
 dred and eight thousand fellow mortals have gone to 
 their eternal estate. Alas ! how few of them have I 
 helped to secure a blessed immortality ! " 
 
THE AGED PARENTS. 273 
 
 Six months after this he traced the last words that 
 were ever written in the little memorandum book — 
 a series of quotations : — 
 
 FOR MY BREAST IN THE COFFIN. 
 
 " By the grace of God I am what I am." 
 
 " Into thy hand I commit my spirit." 
 
 " Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth." 
 
 " Hallelujah 't is done. I believe in the Son, 
 I am saved by the blood of the crucified one I " 
 
 " Jesus alone can help. Jesus is mine. 
 Farewell mortality. Jesus is mine. 
 Welcome eternity. Jesus is mine." 
 
 " To lay down my burden at Jesus' feet, 
 And cease from my toiling and laboring, is sweet." 
 
 " I wish the above printed or written very legibly and laid on 
 my shroud as I lie in a very plain, cheap coffin." 
 
 He drew the attention of his daughter to this written 
 desire of his and said : "I wish it to be my last ser- 
 mon." A month later the sermon was preached as he 
 had wished, for the gate had opened and he had passed 
 triumphantly through it. 
 
 "There was no marked disease," writes Dr. Gulick, 
 who with his wife was with him at the time ; " no pain, 
 only weakness ; but he said he thought his feelings 
 indicated a ' breaking up of the old shell.' He 
 suffered little save as weakness is suffering. And 
 though he steadily failed, he was so comfortable that 
 
274 LUTHEB BALSEY GULICK. 
 
 neither he nor we could realize he was so near his end. 
 At three oYl< .k Saturday afternoon he rose with 
 assistance and sat in his easychair. In doing so he 
 nearly fainted away ; and as he recovered from the 
 swoon he spoke of the ' Sun of Righteousness, his 
 only joy and hope,' which he doubtless intended as 
 his last testimonial to the Lord in whom he trusted. 
 
 " At seven in the evening he folded his hands upon 
 his breast and a few moments later was sinking in 
 death. He simply stepped across the rill and was 
 gone. His life was finished, his work was done, his 
 words all said. 
 
 " On Monday we laid his body to rest in the ceme- 
 tery of the Foreign Concession under the evergreen 
 pines, near the shores of the Pacific whose billows he 
 daily saw for fifty years, and in whose people, first on 
 the Hawaiian Islands, and then in Japan, he for half 
 a century took such continued interest. And standing 
 about the grave where he rested we sang : — 
 
 ' Asleep in Jesus ! Oh, how sweet 
 To be for such a slumber meet, 
 With holy confidence to sing 
 That death hath lost its venomed sting.' " 
 
 After that, the other world seemed to overlap the 
 bounds of Kobe. And dear grandmother waited for 
 the call that should take her into it. Since childhood 
 she had dreaded the physical part of dying. But 
 
THE AGED PAREXTS. 275 
 
 after her husband left her, the fear of it was gone. 
 Being alone one day, she was heard to clap her hands, 
 and when they asked her about it she said she did it 
 because she was so very happy ; that at last her 
 prayers were answered, for now she had no fear of 
 death at all. 
 
 As a result her thoughts were often on the other 
 side. Most of her friends were there, she said. And 
 with paper and pencil and trembling fingers she made 
 a list one day of those she hoped to recognize when 
 she should join them. 
 
 Six years seemed long to wait, while she grew more 
 feeble every day. But at last the angels and the final 
 summons seemed very near. She was ill. She heard 
 faint music in the distance, and as she listened, she 
 hoped it came from heaven, but the delicate, quaint 
 humor of her thinking did not leave her even then. 
 She whispered to her daughter that she should not 
 believe it was the angels unless they sang a little 
 louder. After that, one day, a whispered prayer of 
 hers was overheard. " Dear Jesus," the sweet old 
 lady prayed, " please send the angels to carry me 
 home. I am so tired." 
 
 In 1883 her prayer was answered, for the angels 
 came very quietly and carried her with them to heaven. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 BIBLE WORK. 
 
 THOUGH special grants of money had already 
 been made by the American Bible Society for 
 work in Japan, still the Society had no personal organ- 
 */ izing agent there till Dr. Gnlick arrived. In China, 
 however, the same Society had been active for years 
 and had appropriated something like $220,000 to the 
 needs of that country between 1833 and 1876. Hence, 
 conditions in the two empires were not the same. 
 
 "In Japan," writes Dr. Grulick, "everything is 
 initiatory. Here it will be safe for me to be radical, 
 progressive. In China, Bible affairs are already in 
 deep ruts and I must be very careful and conservative 
 and fortified by precedents." 
 
 He realized that there was danger of a little friction 
 in the work he had been set to do ; and that this 
 danger lay in the sensitiveness of corporations no less 
 than of individuals. He feared lest some one should 
 feel that past efforts were not appreciated because new 
 methods were adopted, lest the old should feel crowded 
 out by the new. 
 
 Bearing this in mind, his effort was to avoid the 
 
 276 
 
BIBLE WORE. 277 
 
 infliction of any pain to sensitive souls by the way he 
 organized his work and gradually set the wheels within 
 the wheels to moving. As a result his relation to 
 societies and individuals was cordial from the begin- 
 ning and increasingly satisfactory to him as time 
 passed by. 
 
 In its primary divisions the work of the Bible 
 Society covered the three departments of translation, 
 publication, and distribution of the Scriptures. The 
 Society itself stood as a great auxiliary to every 
 denomination of Protestant American missionaries 
 in China and Japan. When necessary, it paid the 
 salaries of those missionaries who devoted themselves 
 exclusively to Bible translation. It paid for the 
 publication of these translations and supplied each 
 American mission station with all that was desired of 
 the whole or of special parts of the Bible. 1 
 
 These missionaries were, in turn, the natural centers 
 of circulation. There was great dissimilarity in the 
 methods they adopted. Some gave the Bible to all 
 who would accept it ; some charged a few cents for it, 
 while others decided in each case as to the wisest 
 course. Furthermore, some stations were exact and 
 some were inexact in their annual reports to the Bible 
 Society, and some sent no reports at all. 
 
 1 English and Scotch Bible Societies did the same work for the repre- 
 sentatives oi their countries. 
 
278 LUTHER HALSET GULICK. 
 
 It had, indeed, been difficult to require reports, or 
 uniformity of action in the past. Bat now it was 
 needed. And in this effort after reorganization, in 
 this replacing of chaos by method, there was satisfac- 
 tion for most, though a few felt hampered by it. 
 
 The requirement was nevertheless imperative, and 
 Dr. Grulick moved quietly on with what he had to do. 
 He sent to each missionary catalogues of the Bible as 
 printed in different forms and sections with the prices 
 attached, with blanks also for annual book and cash 
 reports, and simple directions for their use. It was 
 for him to gather into one pair of hands the many 
 strands which connected the American missions in 
 >/ Japan and China with the American Bible Society in 
 America. 
 
 Through the cordial support of Dr. Oilman, the 
 Secretary of the Bible Society, and the hearty 
 cooperation of the missionaries this was accomplished. 
 It was soon possible to begin the work of rapidly 
 increasing the circulation of the Bible in the two 
 empires. Everything favored this movement in 
 Japan. In the first place, Dr. Gulick himself was 
 stationed there, his home being in Yokohama. In the 
 second place, the Japanese were just entering that era 
 of national excitement when everything foreign was 
 welcome to them. In a sense, therefore, the Bible 
 also shared their curiosity. This fact may explain, in 
 
BIBLE WOBK. 279 
 
 part, the phenomenal sales made in 1880. A foreign 
 colporter was the immediate agent, while his Bible 
 carriage drawn by a horse, his Bible cart drawn by a 
 man, his magic lantern and his singing were his instru- 
 ments. For a season hundreds of copies were sold 
 each day. 
 
 "Mr. G-oble has been in Tokio this week," writes 
 Dr. Grulick, " selling Scriptures from our new and 
 beautiful Bible handcart at an average of over five 
 hundred portions a day ! ! ! The cart sold during its 
 first few days in Tokio over three thousand portions. 
 A new era has dawned in Bible work for Japan." At 
 the same time he adds : " The proprietors of eighteen 
 little steamers plying on the rivers about Tokio have 
 accepted copies of the New Testament which are kept 
 in the cabins for the use of passengers." 
 
 Copies were also allowed in railway waiting rooms. 
 Indeed, it appears that during 1880, after the comple- 
 tion of the translation of the New Testament, "We 
 printed and distributed more Scriptures than had been 
 printed and distributed during all the previous years' 
 of Bible work in Japan — over eleven million pages 
 printed, and over ten million sold." 
 
 "We now have a Bible house in Yokohama," he 
 says, ' ' built for our use and rented for a term of 
 years. And this Bible house of ours is a grand suc- 
 cess, one of the successes of my life." 
 
280 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 In 1881 business is reported as having " increased 
 about fourfold in six months." The beginning of 
 these enterprises had required more thought and labor 
 than can easily be comprehended without full exposi- 
 tion of the details. 
 
 "There is little to tell about myself," he wrote at 
 the close of 1878. " I have been staggering under 
 heavy burdens of work which have almost crushed me, 
 so that my health threatened to give way altogether, 
 but I am pulling through. 
 
 "I am gradually getting my heterogeneous and 
 scattered work into shape and can begin to see day- 
 light ; that is, to see a possible execution of my duties 
 as Bible agent. I now address myself with new vigor 
 to my work. There is ample field for enlargement. 
 No pent-up Utica ! " 
 
 This plan for enlargement was so seriously followed, 
 and the movement in each country was so rapid during 
 the first five years of his connection with it, that by 
 1881 the Bible Society concurred with him in the 
 judgment that his field should be divided. 
 i He was allowed to choose the larger country. After 
 that his work was in China and his home in Shanghai. 
 
 For China this was a happy arrangement, for in 
 whichever country he had previously spent his time 
 there the progress had been most rapid. It was as if 
 the engineer were present with a strong hand upon the 
 
BIBLE WOBE. 281 
 
 throttle of his engine. He knew how to add steam to 
 the movement, and he knew how fast it was safe to let 
 the engine go. Some notion of this work in China 
 may be gathered from the statement of a few facts 
 about it. 
 
 The heaviest part of Bible translation had already 
 been done. The Bible as a whole, as New Testament 
 and Old Testament, as separate gospels and epistles, 
 was published in seven different languages, and cata- 
 logued as ninety-one different volumes. In China, 
 therefore, the burden of effort was to provide the 
 straightest channels through which to reach three 
 hundred million people with these translations. 
 
 For Dr. G-ulick native and foreign colporters were 
 these channels. When he first went to China but five 
 natives were thus employed for the whole of the north 
 and middle region. But by 1884 forty-eight Chinese 
 and nine foreign men were employed by him for prac- 
 tically the same service. And by 1886 his figures 
 proved that five sixths of his whole work of circula- 
 tion was done by these Christian men, and that two 
 thirds of this was through the Chinese themselves. 
 In many cases these colporters were the pioneers of 
 the missionary. And for the sake of helping them 
 Dr. Gulick not infrequently accompanied a foreign 
 colporter on an extended tour into the heart of 
 China. 
 
282 LXJTHEB HALSEY GULIGK. 
 
 These journeys were the most intimate kind of in- 
 troduction to the traveling facilities of the country. 
 For six hundred miles sometimes he steamed up the 
 Yang-tse-Kiang River in a large paddle-wheel steamer. 
 
 "As we look along the river on which a mighty 
 commerce comes and goes," he says, " it is mortifying 
 to And so conspicuous among river steamers and ocean 
 steamships, gallant sail vessels and clumsy junks, also 
 those unsightly covered hulks in which the opium of 
 /English India is stowed, because the Chinese will not 
 allow its being otherwise than surreptitiously kept on 
 Chinese soil." 1 
 
 At other times he was on a junk or a flat-bottomed 
 house boat. Instead of steam there would now be a 
 sail or the current to help them, or men with long 
 poles to propel, or men upon the shore with tow-line 
 fastened to the mast to draw them along. All this 
 was the method upon the great rivers and upon the 
 canals which cover central China as railroads lace 
 New England. 
 
 By land there were horses and donkeys aDd spring- 
 less carts, and palanquins with porters, and jinrikishas 
 
 '"How affecting," he says, "to find the stolid Chinaman iu his 
 government relations steadily refusing any complicity with this de- 
 stroying item of commerce. And how sad to know that opium is 
 forced upon China by nominally Christian guns and bayonets. (Jod 
 speed the day when truly Christian England, by continued appeals to 
 its Bible-educated conscience, shall have raised such a sentiment as to 
 sweep this trade, so far as enactments can do it, from both land and 
 sea." 
 
BIBLE WOBK. 283 
 
 drawn by men and mule litters. But most amusing 
 of all were the wheelbarrows, with a donkey to draw 
 them and a sail to help the donkey along. Yet, 
 whether the methods were one or many, whether the 
 conveyances were few or numberless, the progress was 
 always slow. Why, indeed, hasten in a country whose 
 authentic history outdates the flood and whose future 
 has the whole of time before it ! 
 
 During these journeys all kinds of fair weather and 
 dreadful tempests overtook them, and every sort of 
 physical discomfort. At the mouth of the Peiho River 
 Dr. Gulick once wrote : " It is now seventy -two hours 
 that we have lain here — stranded and waiting for the 
 tide to rise." 
 
 A few months later on the same river and for an 
 opposite reason there was cause for delay quite as 
 great and far more serious. 
 
 "We are to-day sailing over ricefields and corn- 
 patches, and over the tops of houses on our way back 
 to Kiukiang. The bund is under water and the streets 
 are traversed with boats. One of the great overflows 
 of this great land and these mighty waters. We 
 travel the streets in boats, and kingfishers dart down 
 upon the fish among the flowerbeds of the garden." 
 With these floods there also came terrible famine for 
 millions of people. "Five or six million who have 
 starved to death," he says, "but who, after a little, 
 
284 LUTHEB EALSEY QULIGK. 
 
 will hardly be missed, for lives and suffering are 
 superabundant already and always in China." 
 
 Beginning his missionary life with the consecration 
 of Luther he carried it on like Paul. In journeyings 
 oft, in storms by sea and by land, in comfort and dis- 
 comfort, with friends sometimes, in loneliness often, 
 but rejoicing always that the privilege was still given 
 him of helping to carry the gospel to those who have 
 it not. 
 
 Being gray at fifty-two, the Chinese paid him a 
 certain sort of deference, though the expression of 
 it was sometimes novel. They asked him whether 
 he were eighty or ninety years old, and distinguishing 
 him from others whom they called " Foreign Devils," 
 they called him the " Old Devil." But it may be, as 
 he himself said, " The element of oldness probably 
 balanced somewhat the disadvantage of being a for- 
 eign devil ! " In any case they were more ready to 
 take foreign books from the older than from the 
 younger man. There was certainly an advantage in 
 gray hairs in this land, where instinctive honor is paid 
 to aged people. 
 
 In journeying as he did, and in studying the move- 
 ment of the nation, he was increasingly impressed by 
 the magnitude of the work and by the power which 
 China seemed to hold as a mighty storage battery of 
 human force which should yet be drawn upon. 
 
BIBLE WORK. 285 
 
 "It is thirty years this fall," he writes, "since we 
 left Boston for Micronesia, but it looks to me as if I 
 had just entered my life's great work. It is a great 
 privilege to be here to have a part ; and China moves ! 
 A new nation is being born, and what it will be we 
 tremble to think. I pity the soul that turns away 
 with a want of interest in China." 
 
 ' ' It seems to me that this is the grandest mission 
 field in the world. I don't understand the reluctance 
 and fear of many young people." 
 
 "China is circling toward a maelstrom, and now 
 is the time to work for her. Ten years hence the 
 relations of things will be changed and then Congre- 
 gationalism will probably come puffing and blowing 
 into the field, too late to take its proper place." 
 
 " China will be a mighty nation long after America 
 and Japan have ' progressed ' into oblivion." 
 
 Thus from the smallness of Micronesia Dr. Gulick 
 had moved step by step to the largeness of the Orient. 
 There were millions now for the hundreds then ; but 
 the spirit that moved him remained the same. It still 
 led him to unsparing devotion of himself even in lines 
 of effort that were wholly uncongenial to him. 
 
 In China extensive bookkeeping was the uncongenial 
 duty. The enlargement of the work there was so 
 rapid that the expenditure of the Bible Society in that 
 country alone soon reached the large sum of twenty- 
 
286 LUTHEB HALSET GULICK. 
 
 five thousand dollars a year. This meant mathematics 
 in earnest. And in this connection it is interesting 
 to know that when Dr. Gulick was a small boy of 
 five no one could confuse him on the multiplication 
 table under the twelve-times-twelve, but that through 
 the whole of his later life figures in any shape were 
 a weariness to him. No pleasure in the work itself 
 ever led him to undertake anything mathematical. 
 Now, however, the necessity had come to him as a 
 duty. In serious earnest he therefore studied book- 
 keeping as he had never studied it before, and lay 
 awake at night over the peculiar difficulties which 
 accompanied the inevitable complexity of his book 
 accounts. 
 
 Of necessity these accounts were kept with each 
 <J separate denomination of Americans in China ; with 
 many of the two hundred and eighty individual mem- 
 bers of these denominations ; with forty-seven colpor- 
 ters ; with publishing houses, and with various other 
 organizations and individuals who were more or less 
 directly connected with Bible Society moneys ; and 
 though before many months he mastered the science 
 of bookkeeping and narrowed it down to a very fine 
 point of exactness, yet he never enjoyed it. It was 
 always drudgery to him and he cried out against it 
 sometimes, even as he had cried out against cooking 
 in Micronesia years before. 
 
BIBLE WOBK. 287 
 
 " I was not cut out for a bookkeeper ! " he exclaims. 
 " Why should we be put to work for which we have 
 no fitness ? " 
 
 "I am at work every evening till ten and eleven 
 o'clock, and last night till half-past one at my books." 
 
 "I have closed up my 1885 accounts without any 
 assistance, and yesterday the auditors examined and 
 approved them. I consider it quite a feat to foot up 
 a balance sheet involving over twenty thousand dollars 
 without an error of one cent in the most scientific 
 methods of double entry ! " 
 
 " Is it not a singular ordering that gives me, who 
 have no aptitude for figures, the bookkeeping incident 
 to an expenditure of twenty-five thousand dollars? 
 Something not well arranged somewhere ; but as it is 
 given me to do, I put my strength into it." 
 
 This faithfulness was in harmony with the full 
 investment of himself which he had made and there 
 were rapid returns. Through increased organization 
 and enlargement of his agencies the pages of the 
 Bible were finding their way into many parts of 
 previously unreached, conservative China. From a 
 circulation of 74,800 volumes in 1878, the number 
 distributed every year rose by jumps until, during 
 1887, there was an actual distribution through the 
 American Bible Society alone of 252,875 copies. 
 The significance of these figures was emphasized in 
 
288 LUTHEB SALSET GULICK. 
 
 1891, when a successor in the work, Dr. Wheeler, 
 wrote of Dr. Gulick : — 
 
 "I find everywhere traces of his master hand in 
 the formation and shaping of the operations of the 
 American Bible Society in these ends of the earth." 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 OVERWORK. 
 
 IN addition to the pressure of Bible work, Dr. 
 G-ulick was constantly tempted to assume other 
 responsibilities. The strongest of these temptations 
 came with the frequent invitation to preach in English. 
 In 1880, while yet in Japan, he says : — 
 
 "My powers have been taxed to the utmost in 
 meeting the demands of my agency alone. And 
 besides this, I have preached twice almost every 
 Sabbath of the year to the Union Church of Yoko- 
 hama, 1 and done what little I could of pastoral work. 
 Consequently this has been a busy year. And now, 
 the more I rest, the more I want to." 
 
 But having once started in the line of overwork, it 
 was increasingly difficult to secure release from it. 
 For, after Japan, there was China. And from the 
 Union Church of Yokohama, how refuse the urgency 
 of the other union church, in the still more enterpris- 
 ing city of Shanghai ? 2 There again he therefore 
 
 •The first thousand dollars paid toward the erection of this first 
 Protestant church in Japan was given by the Christians in Hawaii. 
 
 2 He thus pictures the city: "Just outside and to the north of the 
 mediaeval city, along the low bank and the muddy, sluggish river, is 
 
290 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 preached. His supply of the pulpit was irregular at 
 first, but it resulted in a continuous pastorate of the 
 church from 1887 to 1889. And in Shanghai, as in 
 Yokohama, the audience increased in size as he 
 remained connected with it. 
 
 The building itself was new and had cost thirty-five 
 thousand dollars. It seated three hundred people, 
 and numbered among its members eleven different 
 denominations. 
 
 "Of necessity, there is no very compact organiza- 
 tion," Dr. G-ulick says, "the machinery of church life 
 being left at a minimum for the sake of avoiding 
 every possibility of friction. But no church in any 
 part of the world is more united in the matters on 
 which it unites." 
 
 It was a pleasure to minister to such an organiza- 
 tion. And yet the men and women who listened to 
 him every Sabbath little realized how much this 
 preaching signified to their pastor himself. Through 
 it he entered the citadel of his lifelong enthusiasm, 
 the " castle in Spain " which he had dreamed about in 
 his boyhood, and the gleaming of whose towers had 
 
 i the foreign city of Shanghai, resplendent with banks, hotels, and com- 
 mercial houses. Its Btreets are wiile and smooth as the most perfect 
 macadam can mako them ; and they overflow with life : — a vast portion 
 of it being the stalwart, almond-eyed, flowing-robed, and shrewdly 
 industrious Celestial. But the vitalizing element of it is the short- 
 haired, unpicturesquely clothed, yet tremendously energetic European, 
 mainly, English." 
 
OVERWORK. 291 
 
 been his inspiration ever since. His thought was that 
 in preaching every Sabbath he would gain enough 
 mental reinvigoration to compensate him for the 
 nervous force expended. 1 
 
 The audience itself was not large, but it was 
 thoughtful and appreciative. It included business 
 men of such energy that they had gone halfway 
 round the world to make their fortune ; sea captains, 
 officers, and crew, who never went to church from 
 sense of duty ; missionaries, also, and teachers who 
 had practically expatriated themselves for the sake of 
 China. Besides these, there was the literary tramp, 
 and the ministerial tramp, and the wealthy tramp ; 
 all of whom, either in the pursuit of fame, or to 
 satisfy a morbid curiosity to see "the heathen," or 
 to spend superfluous time and money, formed a rest- 
 less current of eager humanity moving round the world 
 together. 
 
 In addition to his preaching, there was sometimes a 
 lecture, or an address, or a temperance talk to be 
 given. Of one of these, he writes: "A daily paper 
 calls it ' a witty speech,' the other says it was ' a 
 spirited address,' from which you will gather about 
 what it was." 
 
 The evident brightness of the address but points 
 
 1 In deciding the matter he wrote .- " If 1 can serve the church and 
 the Bible Society, I may think of it; otherwise, I give up the church." 
 
292 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 his cheerful mental condition during these years. It 
 is easy, indeed, to recognize the satisfaction he felt in 
 having, as he says, "found his niche." He was 
 working, it is true, as never before in his life. Yet 
 the work itself was a delight to him. He was touch- 
 ing many people. His thoughts were drawn away 
 from himself. For years now introspective musings 
 had been laid aside, and the more normal attitude of 
 religious life had taken its place. 
 
 Those were happy years in China, yet they were 
 overcrowded. First there was his Bible work. Then 
 there was the burning of nervous force iu preaching, 
 and besides was the tax which came in 1885, when he 
 consented to be the literary editor of The Chinese 
 Kecorder. This was a magazine of high literary 
 grade, printed in the English language in Shanghai. 
 It was issued once in two months. Later yet, but at 
 the same time that he carried all his other duties, 
 Dr. Gulick was chosen business editor of The Chinese 
 Medical Journal, a quarterly magazine. And though 
 he groaned somewhat in protest he did not refuse the 
 position. 
 
 The truth is that words of encouragement and 
 appreciation always acted upon him as a tonic, and 
 that, at this time, so many kind and cordial remarks 
 were made to him about the methods of his work, and 
 the help he was to others, that a certain sort of 
 
OVERWORK. 293 
 
 strength came with them which he failed to recognize 
 as fictitious. He was simply stimulated to yet larger 
 effort. 
 
 "I enjoy preaching more, I think, than ever," he 
 writes, " for the church is very cordial and it is 
 pleasant work." 
 
 "Within a few weeks I have received more expres- 
 sions of appreciation than in all my life before. It 
 is very pleasant." 
 
 " I am impressed with the delights of my present 
 form of work. Never before have I had everything 
 so satisfactory. ' It is of the Lord." 
 
 ' ' I seem to myself to have taken a new lease of 
 life. New vistas of pleasure and usefulness are 
 opening before me." 
 
 "I am beginning to receive commendations from 
 many parties here about The Recorder. The fact is, 
 it puts me on a vantage ground for Bible work such 
 as nothing else could give me. It is as The Kuokoa 
 was to me on the Hawaiian Islands in my work as 
 Secretary." 
 
 "I am receiving many commendations and the 
 circulation is going up steadily." 
 
 ■' I am almost too nicely fixed in almost every way 
 — in my business and in my home. I wonder how 
 long it will last ! I have a hope and a feeling that I 
 am to be more permanent in the present work than I 
 
294 LUTHER HALSEY aULICK. 
 
 have been in any other, and that I have made my last 
 great change in life's activities." 1 
 
 Projected as pebbles into the hurrying current of 
 this life were various other events that produced more 
 or less disturbance of the surface. Of least impor- 
 tance, perhaps, was the honorary degree of D.D. 
 conferred upon him by Knox College. This drew 
 ' bright comments from his pen as he begged his friends 
 not to use it. 
 
 "Please do not address me as D.D.," he writes to 
 one. " The semi-lunar fardels are well enough, but it 
 would be far better if they could be arranged symmetri- 
 cally, one before and one after the name. To put them 
 both after it acts something like a leaden sinker to a 
 fish-line." 
 
 And to another : " It is nothing to be specially jubi- 
 lant over. They did not know me or they would-not 
 have done it. It was a sort of accident. I must take 
 it as Dr. Thompson, of Roxbury, says. Dr. Anderson 
 took his D.D., knowing that, like the rain from heaven, 
 they fall on the just and on the unjust. Please address 
 me as heretofore." 
 
 Clearly enough, titles of honor meant little. But 
 Dr. and Mrs. Gulick felt that honor itself had come to 
 
 1 During the summer of 188J he had visited America, joining his wife, 
 who had previously returned for her health. Both parents were pres- 
 ent at the graduation of their sons Sidney and Edward from Dartmouth 
 College. 
 
VEB WORK. 295 
 
 them when two of their children turned to foreign 
 missionary work. This occurred in 1887. A daugh- 
 ter with her husband l then went to Japan via San 
 Francisco, while a son 2 and his wife also joined the 
 same mission of the American Board, reaching it via 
 Europe and China. It was a great day for the home 
 in Shanghai when the parents there waited to welcome 
 their oldest son and his young wife. " We are in a 
 high state of excitement for two such old people," 
 wrote Dr. Gulick to his brother. ' ' Thank God and 
 rejoice with us." On the twenty-second of December, 
 1887, a very brief note was hurried through the mail. 
 
 " Dear Orramel. They have come. Halsey." 
 
 Other pebbles that created small eddies for a season 
 were the different calls that came to him. One begged 
 him to join the Chinese mission work as a regular 
 physician. Another wished him to accept the presi- 
 dency of a college in China. Still another asked for 
 the use of his name as director of a university pro- 
 posed for Shanghai. 
 
 But moving him most was an earnest call from 
 the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, emphasized by 
 request from the American Board and by urgent per- 
 sonal letters from his friends on Hawaii, that he return 
 to his old position as Secretary of the Hawaiian Board. 
 
 1 Rev. Cyrus A. Clark. 
 
 2 Rev. Sidney L. Gulick. 
 
296 LUTHER JSALSEY GULIOK. 
 
 This call gratified him more than any other that ever 
 came to him. "You cannot know how moved I am 
 in this matter," he writes. "Did I suppose that I 
 were indispensable to the good cause among you, I 
 should return as soon as possible." 
 
 But because the Bible Society now had prior claim 
 upon him, and because he seemed peculiarly adapted 
 to his work iu China, he thought it would not be right 
 to accept the invitation . It was hard to decide against 
 it, for he loved Hawaii as tenderly now as in his 
 earlier years. His best judgment guided him, how- 
 ever, and he remained where he was. "My last 
 opportunity of spending my remaining days among 
 the friends of younger years thus passes," he says. 
 " My heart is moved." 
 
 There was yet another call for immediate help 
 which Dr. Gulick answered in the affirmative without 
 a moment's hesitation. This came from his old fel- 
 low worker, Mr. Doane, in Micronesia. 
 
 It appears that, even in 1885, troubles had begun 
 for Micronesia in the counter-claims of Germany and 
 Spain for possession of the microscopic Caroline 
 Islands. These islands were worth something to 
 commerce now, for thirty-five years of, American 
 Christianity had borne their legitimate fruit. To 
 large extent, heathenism had given place to Chris- 
 tianity, and Ponape herself was sending foreign mis- 
 
OVEBWOBK. 297 
 
 sionaries to the more distant and degraded Mortlock 
 Islands. 
 
 The transformation was so complete that it was no 
 more strange than it was unjustifiable that two great 
 Christian powers on the other side of the world, in 
 their wish to own the beautiful, helpless islands, should 
 have been willing to rob them of their manhood : two 
 powers, which since the beginning had never, by the 
 slightest word or act, helped them to secure their civ- 
 ilization. The question of right was submitted to the 
 Pope for decision. "And thus a Christian minister 
 decides which of two thieves shall have the property 
 they have stolen ! " is the indignant comment which 
 Dr. G-ulick made. 
 
 In March, 1887, the end came to Ponapean inde- 
 pendence. A Spanish gunboat arrived with "gov- 
 ernor, troops, convicts, and Capuchin monks." 
 
 " The natives take it quietly but sorrowfully," writes 
 Mr. Doane. "I advise the truest submission. It is 
 our only safety. And I am happy to say they obey." 
 
 After that, events moved rapidly until, on the 
 thirteenth of April, the Spanish governor imprisoned 
 Mr. Doane on a series of false charges ; kept him 
 a prisoner on his man-of-war in Ponapean waters for 
 three months, and finally deported him two thousand 
 miles to Manila " for trial," as he said. Arriving 
 there, Mr. Doane was not prevented from mailing his 
 
298 LUTHER HAL SET GULTCE. 
 
 letters. Dr. Gulick was filled with indignation when 
 he read them. With characteristic energy, however, 
 he went at once to the Consul General of the United 
 States to China ; wrote to Rear Admiral Ralph 
 Chandler, commanding the Asiatic Squadron ; vigor- 
 ously reviewed the case for him, and showed to him 
 the interest America necessarily had in her American 
 citizens on Ponape. 
 
 " It is not for me to say," he wrote," what assistance 
 may be rendered Mr. Doane by your department of 
 authority, but I should evidently be derelict in my 
 duty to the United States government, no less than to 
 you and to my friend Mr. Doane, and to the interests 
 of the missionary society with which he is connected, 
 did I not give you the information which, probably, 
 I alone possess in all this region, and which I should 
 hope might seem to you to render it advisable that 
 a United States vessel of war be ordered with dispatch 
 to Manila." 
 
 Further than this, he sent three hundred dollars to 
 Mr. Doane at once by telegram, and in writing to him 
 urged that he have " as clear and full a written state- 
 ment of the case as possible — statements that will be 
 available in America and Spain." 
 
 " You must plan to come up to China," he adds, 
 " and make us a good long visit ; it will do us good." 
 
 Happily the authorities in Manila were not willing 
 
OVER WORK. 299 
 
 to support the extreme policy of the Catholic governor 
 of Ponape ; and without time for a visit to Shanghai, 
 Mr. Doane was returned to Ponape. 1 
 
 Official word soon came from mission societies in 
 America thanking Dr. Gulick for the promptness of 
 his action. But the truth is, that, in behalf of his 
 own love for Micronesia, he could not have done less 
 than he did. For, until he passed away, the most real 
 and central point of his life seems to have been those 
 early years on Ponape. And references to them are 
 constant through all that he wrote. 
 
 Once in voyaging he passed an atoll. " And I 
 could not but ascend the rigging of the mainmast," 
 he says, " to look down as I often did in Micronesian 
 waters upon the long line of cocoanut and pandanus, 
 the straggling reef, the outer line of sand, the inner 
 peaceful lagoon and the few huts on the outer reef. 
 None of my fellow passengers knew, or could have 
 appreciated had they known, the thoughts that surged 
 
 1 In 1894, after the annual return of the Morning Star to Honolulu, 
 Rev. O. II. Gulick thus reports the latest news from Ponape: "King 
 Paul of the Matalanim tribe is a Christian apostle of power in his tribe. 
 He urges his people to serve the Prince of Peace with all their heart, 
 and to fight the Spanish invader with all their might. That is the tribe 
 in which Halsey and Louise lived when I visited them in 1857, thirty- 
 seven years ago! Twice in bloody battle have the Spaniards been 
 driven defeated from the bounds of this plucky little tribe, whose 
 members, under the lead of their God-fearing King Paul, are deter- 
 mined to sell their lives dear, and their liberties deai'er than their live-. 
 For five long years this valiant tribe has held the Spaniard at bay. 
 God bless them and help them ever to stand to their purpose." 
 
300 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 within me. I often wonder why, with such a com- 
 mencement to our missionary life, we have led such 
 lives as we have. Were we not adapted, or were we 
 not worthy ? 
 
 " And yet my prevailing feeling is that of thank- 
 fulness that, as we could not return to those silent seas, 
 we have been permitted to have some part in foreign 
 missionary work in foreign lands. But how little 
 missionary fruitage compared with what we had 
 hoped, and with what we should have had, had we 
 continued in Micronesia ! But we only ' followed 
 on.'" 
 
 Dr. Gulick seemed still to be following on. Yet it 
 is doubtless true that editorship and preaching added 
 to the great work which he did as agent of the Bible 
 Society for the whole of China, with Siam finally 
 added to it, were shortening his days. But who 
 questions what his choice would have been? — the 
 shorter life with the delight of preaching and writing 
 crowded into it, or the weary adding of figures and 
 the practice of double entry carried on through the 
 unillumined length of a few added years. 
 
 Still, whether he would have chosen it or not, the 
 fact remains that the zeal for work which was his 
 master was driving him rapidly toward a master yet 
 more inexorable, and that from him there would soon 
 be no escape. Dr. Gulick himself did not realize 
 
OVERWORK. 301 
 
 how swift this movement was. For us, however, 
 various passages make distinct prophecy. 
 
 1882. "I am beginning to find that my headaches 
 are ceasing to yield to the medicines I have been 
 accustomed to use." 
 
 1883. "I am so pressed I hardly have a minute 
 to breathe save in the evening sometimes, when I am 
 tired out." 
 
 " I am too tired to read even, I can only write ! 
 Pretty far gone you see ! " 
 
 "On the tenth I was taken down with the most 
 serious attack of spasmodic asthma I ever experi- 
 enced. It had been coming on for eighteen hours. 
 At last, I left my office, took to my lounge, sent for 
 the doctor, and did not stir from my sitting position 
 for forty-eight hours. I am left very weak and sore." 
 
 1884. "How we whirl! ... I am hard at work 
 writing. I suppose when I have ceased to write my 
 life will end ! . . . I spent a part of last night in bed ; 
 the first time in ten or more nights because of asthma. 
 ... I am troubled with asthma so much that I find 
 it most convenient not to go to bed, but to sleep on 
 the lounge, which I do very comfortably. ... I am 
 under a tearing headache. I can hardly see my 
 pen." 
 
 1885. "I am, after two days, slowly recovering 
 from one of the most terrific headaches I ever had. 
 
302 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 My head very nearly failed me notwithstanding all the 
 medicines I took — one hundred and twenty-five grains 
 of bromide of potassia and forty grains of hydro- 
 chloral in five hours ! . . . The Recorder, my annual 
 accounts and reports, my speech for resigning the 
 Presidency of the Evangelical Alliance on the first 
 day of the week of prayer, all make me very busy. 
 . . . What with my office business, my Recorder, and 
 my lecture on the Caroline Islands, 1 am busy enough." 
 
 1886. "I am rushing every moment and shall be 
 loth to get back into the heavy strain of the last two 
 years. Indeed, it does not seem to me that I ought 
 to subject myself to such a strain again. . . . Fifty- 
 eight years old ! Hard at work all day with not a 
 leisure moment till this evening. No time for excite- 
 ment. ... I never have done more than during the 
 past year. Up till half-past one preparing sermon 
 because there had been no time before." 
 
 1887. "I have had the busiest year of my life. 
 I have put on all steam so as not to let any of the 
 interests suffer, and now that all is getting along so 
 satisfactorily I shall take matters less nervously 
 though I shall still be busy." 
 
 1888. "I have delivered a lecture on recent dis- 
 coveries in the Holy Land this week, and preached 
 two sermons last Sabbath and am to preach two next 
 Sabbath." 
 
OVEBWOBK. 303 
 
 " My digestive system is giving way." 
 
 "I am taking business quite easily, though most 
 people would think themselves overpressed with what 
 I am still doing." 
 
 " Pray for me that these closing years, this last 
 stage of my life's work may be usefully spent — spent 
 in a way and with results that may finally justify my 
 having entered this work." 
 
 " I should enjoy several months of entire relaxa- 
 tion." 
 
 ' ' A Happy New Year to you all ! The wish is a 
 heartless sort of thing, and I seldom repeat the 
 formula without a chill. And soon the chill will be 
 in death. But how little it will matter save to our- 
 selves ! " 
 
 " God bless you all, and grant that we may find 
 one another out after death." 
 
 " How soon may it be before we shall be measuring 
 the lapse of eternity rather than time ; and who of 
 us knows what that means ? " 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 THERE was no radical lessening of the work he 
 did and no marked increase of suffering through 
 headache and asthma until the early part of 1889. 
 Then, without any announcement of it, the crisis of 
 his life of overwork reached him suddenly. It showed 
 itself first in a sense of utter prostration and weari- 
 ness. Absolute rest was essential. This involved at 
 least a temporary absence from China. Japan was 
 the nearest point and they went to their children in 
 Kumamoto. Here his prostration was so extreme that 
 for days death seemed imminent. 
 
 He rallied somewhat, but the best of medical aid 
 was imperative, and once more Dr. and Mrs. Gulick 
 crossed the Pacific together — the last time that he 
 ever sailed upon the ocean. 
 
 The headache of past years came to him now in 
 spasms: " tempests of pain" he called them. But to 
 those who were with him the pain seemed agony, for 
 he grew white even to the lips at such times and could 
 not speak. 
 
 When they reached San Francisco, there had already 
 
 304 
 
THE END. 305- 
 
 come to him the feebler step of old age and the uncer- 
 tain walk. Weary months followed. Physicians were 
 full of kindness and they helped him for a season. 
 Sanitarium life in California and New York seemed to 
 give temporary aid, while the unwearied devotion of 
 his wife Was the anchor which held him most firmly to 
 life. On the whole, however, those slow mouths from 
 1889 to 1891 were an inclined plane down which he 
 was steadily moving. By the first of 1891 the end 
 seemed very near. There was such weakness that 
 even his pain was conquered by it. For many weeks 
 he did not even touch his pen. 
 
 He was in New York city again, and skillful physi- 
 cians there were agaiu doing all they could to help 
 him. Yet no man, however gifted in the art of heal- 
 ing, can create new wheels for the machinery of life 
 when the old ones have passed all hope of repairing. 
 At best he can only hope to add a few revolutions to 
 the halting movement. And so the worn-out man 
 tarried for a while in this city from which, forty years 
 before, he had looked out with eager expectation on 
 all that life might bring to him. He was back again 
 in it with all that life had brought to him — with all 
 that was left of life ! 
 
 At fourteen he had been older than his years. And 
 though in the number of them he was now only sixty- 
 two, still in the measure of what he had accomplished, 
 
306 LUTHEB HALSEY GULICE. 
 
 in his crowded life of thought, in the height and depth 
 and intensity of his varied experiences, he was older 
 than sixty-two by many years — a shock of corn fully 
 ripe. His hair was white, his face was thin, while his 
 form, from the energy and the strength of a vigorous 
 prime, had within two years taken on the shrunken 
 outlines of an aged man. Weakness was added to 
 weakness, and I who am his daughter had gone to 
 help our mother for a season in her care of him. No 
 one understood his need quite so well as she did, so he 
 told us, but for her sake he gently acquiesced when 
 others tried to help him. 
 
 It was Sabbath morning, and the sound of chimes 
 in the distance and the quiet of the street brought a 
 touch of holiness even to the metropolis. For the 
 sake of change in position I had raised our father in* 
 his bed with many pillows. Then I stood behind him, 
 and while I stroked his head we talked a little very 
 quietly. It was not often that he spoke of death; 
 more often, indeed, he spoke of plans to be carried 
 out when he should be stronger, and very often of his 
 hope to visit Hawaii once more. For " those islands 
 seem more like home to me," he said, " than any place 
 on earth." But for several days he had questioned 
 its possibility. 
 
 " If there is n't a change pretty soon," he said, " I 
 think there never will be. I am growing very weak." 
 
THE END. 307 
 
 Once or twice he had also said : "I think we '11 have 
 to give it up, Fanny. It 's a pretty hard pull, and 
 two years of it. Don't you think I have had a hard 
 time?" 
 
 "0 father," I would answer, "if any of us could 
 bear it for you, how gladly we would do it ! " 
 
 On this Sabbath we had been talking about studies 
 and reading, and father said : " Fanny, try to avoid the 
 mistake I have made. Emphasize the spiritual part 
 of your life. My danger has always been my tempta- 
 tion to pay most attention to the intellectual. But 
 the spiritual must not be neglected. It cannot grow 
 if neglected." Then, after a pause, he added : " You 
 will remember this when I am gone, will you not? 
 Remember this is my dying message to you all." 
 
 The promise made was very solemn. And standing 
 
 as I did he could not see my tears, but I told him that 
 
 he must not leave us yet, that all his past life had 
 
 been but preparation for what he yet would do. He 
 
 » 
 only answered: "I am not sure. I am growing 
 
 weaker every day." 
 
 After that he spoke of some one who had recently 
 died. And in my great desire to hear him testify about 
 it I almost whispered my abrupt question : ' ' Father, 
 do you wholly believe in a personal immortality ? " 
 
 And lie answered instantly, in a voice that had a 
 note of triumph in it : "I believe it wholly." 
 
308 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 How blessed the peace of dying in this great assur- 
 ance ! And our father had it. 
 
 For the sake of being nearer to Iris children 1 the 
 last weeks of his life were spent in Springfield, Massa- 
 chusetts, and they were very peaceful weeks. No 
 physical suffering marked them and no apparent men- 
 tal unrest. The storm of life, its noise and its confu- 
 sion lay behind him, and heaven was nearer every day. 
 
 "What do you think about most of the time, Hal- 
 sey ? " his wife asked one day. 
 
 "Nothing," he answered. "I don't seem to have 
 strength enough to think. I just lie here." 
 
 Everything gentle and beautiful pleased him, and 
 his eyes brightened always when delicate flowers were 
 sent to him. The mute things, the silent, restful 
 things, were perhaps most in harmony with the quiet 
 harbor which he seemed to have entered even now. 
 Many times when he could not sleep a-t night he found 
 comfort in the gentle singing of his wife, and in the 
 Psalms and Bible chapters, which at his request she 
 recited to him. 
 
 On the eighth of April, 1891, at one o'clock in the 
 afternoon, the greater peace came to him. There was 
 
 i Hev. Edward Leeds Gulick was at the time pastor of the Congrega- 
 tional church of Groton, Massachusetts. Luther Halsey Gulick, Jr., 
 M.D., was the director of the gymnasium department o f the Y. M. C. A. 
 Training School located in Springfield. Pierre Johnson Gulick, the 
 youngest son, was also in Springfield preparing for college. 
 
Dr. and Mrs. Gulick. 
 
THE END. 309 
 
 no moment of warning nor time for parting words. 
 His breath simply fluttered for a moment and then 
 was gone. The gate had opened noiselessly, and one 
 more brave soul had joined ' ' the choir invisible whose 
 music is the gladness of the world." 
 
 Two days later the precious earthly part of him was 
 laid to rest under the whispering pine trees of the 
 Springfield cemetery. A partially smoothed block of 
 gray granite marks the spot, and on it the history of 
 his life is very simply told. 
 
 LUTHER HALSEY GULICK. 
 
 BORN, HONOLULU, HAWAII, 1828. 
 DIED, SPRINGFIELD, 1891. 
 
 FOR FORTY YEARS A FOREIGN MISSIONARY. 
 
CHAPTEK XXXI. 
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF MRS. GTJLICK. 
 
 SINCE the preceding chapters were written, Mrs. 
 G-ulick too has passed away. It seems fitting, 
 therefore, that some record of the closing of her beau- 
 tiful life should bring this volume to a close. 
 
 From Springfield she returned to Japan to join her 
 children in their mission work. Four other children 
 were iu the United States ; and filial love, therefore, 
 claimed her alike for America and Japan. But the 
 devotion of her life drew her to what seemed to her 
 the more need}' land. Her children themselves no 
 longer required her care. "And I am afraid," she 
 said, " that I am not very brave, not brave enough to 
 be willing to stay in America and add one more to the 
 multitude of idle Christians." 
 
 The decision was accordingly made. She was to 
 sail from Vancouver during the summer of 1891. 
 But, before she went, we again visited the cemetery in 
 Springfield together. 
 
 It was at sunset; and as we walked the heated 
 street, flying clouds of dust sometimes almost blinded 
 us. But as the bee wings its straight course to the 
 
 310 
 
THE LAST DATS OF MBS. GULICK. 311 
 
 hive, its home, so our mother went straight and swift 
 through the lonely place, toward the spot where her 
 husband lay. 
 
 Once more she was near to him, and the world was 
 forgotten. She remembered only the hours by day 
 and by night when her singing had soothed him. So 
 now, in the twilight among the pine trees, while he 
 lay beneath in dreamless sleep, she sang for the last 
 time near him. Her voice sometimes quavered and 
 almost failed, but her soul believed the words she 
 sang. 
 
 " Asleep in Jesus ! blessed sleep ! 
 From which none ever wake to weep ; 
 A calm and undisturbed repose, 
 Unbroken by the last of foes. 
 
 Asleep in Jesus! peaceful rest ; 
 Whose waking is supremely blest ; 
 No fear, no woe shall dim that hour 
 Which manifests the Saviour's power. 
 
 Asleep in Jesus ! oh, for me 
 
 Mny such a blissful refuge be! 
 
 Securely shall my ashes lie, 
 
 And wait the summons from on high." 
 
 Even the crickets were silent as she sang, and the 
 angels drew near and comforted her. So it seemed, 
 for her voice grew a little stronger, and there was 
 growing peace. Then she almost whispered : "How 
 he loved to hear me sing ! He said it comforted him. 
 
312 LUTHER HAL SET GULICK. 
 
 Oh, why should I allow myself to suffer so? It is well 
 with him I know. All his weakness and suffering 
 ended ! Heaven for him now, and I shall join him 
 soon. Oh, my dear one ! my dear one ! it will be 
 heaven next time we meet ! " 
 
 Six weeks later she had reached Japan. 
 
 To a large extent the succeeding two and a half 
 years of her life were spent in the home of her daugh- 
 ter, Mrs. Clark. This home was in Miyazaki, in the 
 province of Hiuga. And in this remote, interior 
 town, where no other foreigners lived, but where the 
 natives were willing to listen, Mrs. G-ulick devoted her 
 time, her thought, and her prayers, by day and by night, 
 to the instruction of the people. Especially did she 
 work among the women and the children. "With a 
 trained Japanese girl whom she taught, she made 
 extended tours among the towns of the neighborhood ; 
 and, speaking through her interpreter, she held the 
 attention and won the hearts of the people. 
 
 The pressing thought of her life was that opportu- 
 nity was still given to her, and that souls about her 
 were dying with no knowledge of Christ. 
 
 In the midst of busy activity illness came to her 
 suddenly, accompanied by terrible physical suffering. 
 Her son Sidney was summoned by telegraph. It was 
 soon apparent that her only hope of recovery was 
 through a surgical operation. But the Japanese phy- 
 
THE LAST VATS OF MMS. QULICK. 313 
 
 sician had not the needed instruments, and the mission 
 doctor could not at once secure a passport permitting 
 him to come to her. There was, therefore, no alterna- 
 tive. She must, if possible, go to him. 
 
 She knew how near death might be, and in speaking 
 about it, said that she " was glad to die if it were the 
 Lord's will, but that there were so many people still 
 unsaved that she had thought she was still to work 
 for them many years." 
 
 For the journey she was placed upon a cot-bed, and 
 kindly Japanese jinrikisha men carried her as gently 
 as they could upon their shoulders. All hoped that 
 she might at least reach Kobe, but heaven was nearer 
 to her than Kobe, though they did not know it. 
 
 As they approached the town of Takanabe, her 
 pulse grew gradually weaker. Death was very near ; 
 and for several miles before they reached the place, 
 both son and daughter walked beside the cot and 
 watched their mother. A sad procession ! She was 
 unconscious, but they wanted to be near her through 
 what might prove to be the closing moments of her 
 life. She lived, however, till the town itself was 
 reached, and she was gently laid in the pleasant 
 Japanese room with its soft, white mats. Then, while 
 she was still unconscious, her release came. The 
 mystery of pain was ended and the mystery of peace 
 begun. This was on the fourteenth of June, 1894. 
 
314 LUTHER HAL8EY GULICK. 
 
 From Takanabe they moved on to Kobe, for the 
 burial of the precious body. Friends were at the 
 landing place to meet them, with the hearse and beauti- 
 ful flowers ; and they went at once from the small 
 steamer to the burial place. 
 
 One more grave had been made in the heavy, sandy 
 soil of the foreign cemetery. And here, as near to 
 her little son Ollie as they could place her, with Grand- 
 father and Grandmother Gulick beside her, the brave, 
 worn body was laid to rest. Perhaps her freed spirit 
 was near enough to hear them as they sang of her the 
 words she loved : — 
 
 " Asleep In Jesus I oh, how sweet 
 To be for such a slumber meetl 
 With holy confidence to sing 
 That death has lost its venomed sting." 
 
 Ten thousand miles of land and water divide for- 
 ever all that is mortal of our father and our mother, 
 but, for all time to come, their spirits are united in 
 God. 
 
.,:,„!,»:., IV... ,. 
 
 '•ll'>< " '• ■\-'-'-'" : :, '.":!'•!:!, 
 
 |! 
 
 
 .WfiMM'liM'rXW 
 
 ■■ • ■ ■