DR. ANDERSON'S WORK ON THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.
BY ANDREW P. PEABODY, D.D., CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
[From the Boston Review for May, 1865.]
The Hawaiia't Islands:  Their Pro,gress and  Condition under
Missionary Labors.  By RUFUS ANDERSoN, D.D., Foreign
Secretary of the Amnerican Board of Comnmissioners for For  eign iMissions.  With Illustrations.  Boston: Gould & Lin coln. 1864.
WE  may profess implicit faith in the geological theories
which adequately account for the condition and contents of the
earth's crust; yet our faith in them lacks vividness, simply because no one of the world-forming processes has taken place
under our own observation, or under the eye of witnesses who
have told us their story.   But were there at this moment an
unfinished continent or island, still the abode of Saurian reptiles,
or the laboratory of fossil coal, the fresh record of explorations
in that reg,ion would convert  our cosmogony from  a vague
or dead belief into a clearly conceived and intensely realized
system of nature.
There has been in the remote past a social, there has been a
religious cosmogony, and the greatest difficulty in the way of
correct apprehensions as to the origin of civilization, and as to
the methods of growth in the primitive church, lies in our lack
of realizing and satisfying conceptions of the elements involved
in eachi  separate problem.  The history of civilization is wrapped
in obscurity.   The veil of the Dark Ages fell upon certain savage tribes that had the mastery of Europe; it rose upon those
tribes, still, indeed, rude in many of the arts of life, but
already in an advanced condition of culture and of potential
refinement.   When we go back to the earlier civilization, we
are equally unable to ascend to its cradle and to define the first
stages of its growth.   Yet birthl and source it must have had,
heavenly or earthly, and we all have our theories of its genesis;
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I I 
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but we hold them loosely and impassively, because it is so
utterly impossible for us to conceive of the transmutation of
savage into civilized man.  Thus also, there was a creative era
of the Christian church, a period when the transition was made,
often sirmultaneously by large numbers of men  and women,
firom Paganism or from Jewish ritualism to a vital faith in the
Gospel.   Of this era we  have numerous  memorials in the
New  Testament.   The Epistles are full of the controversies,
cases of conscience, weaknesses, scandals, causes of apostasy,
incident to this infantile condition. But, though we doubt not
the inspiration of the sacred writers, we are apt to enter with
but feeble appreciation into the details of their casuistry; many
of the topics which they treat seriously seem to us too trivial for
grave animadversion; and in not a few cases they recognize as
perfectly consistent with a position in the church states of character and modes of conduct which we should regard as incompatible with the Christian name.   We thus find it hard to conceive of the earlier portions of (Christian history, and while we
devoutly acknowledge in them the divine working, we fail to
discern the phases of humanity which the record simply describes without interpreting them. But if, after an interval of
many centuries, these primitive civilizing and  Christianizing
processes have been renewed in our own time, even on-a comparatively small scale; if even in the least of the nations an
organic revolution such as had passed out of human expectation
is now nearly consummated, the spectacle has a profound inter-.
est equally for the student of history and for the expositor of
the Sacred Word.
Such a spectacle is exhibited in the book before us. On
merely philosophical grounds it is of unique value. It shows
us the means and steps of civilization, the circumstances which
favor or check its growth, the action upon it of ideas and institutions respectively, its relations of cause and effect to religious
culture. It throws essential light on even the most recondite
questions, such as that of the possibility of a nation's becoming
civilized except by aid or influence from without, that of man's
primitive condition upon the earth, that of his decline or progress
from his first estate.
Equally instructive, as we hope to show in the sequel, will
this book be found by the biblical scholar. Since reading it,
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we have understood the Epistles to the Corinthians better than
ever before, and have been led, as by no merely critical study,
to admiire the prudence, sagacity, insighlt and foresiglht of the
inspired author, no less than his ten(ler forbearance and charity
for the newly converted under their liability to the trail and soil
of the worship they had abjured.  At  the same time, we have
liere full verification of the agg,ressive power of Christianity in
circumstances in no wise favorable for its reception.   We learn
that it was not as the outgrowth of its own age that the Gospel
found reception when first promulgated, but that it is the everlasting Gospel, endowed with like life-,giving energy for all
times and nations.  We especially prize this testimony at a
period when naturalism is attempting to sap the foundations of
our faiith.  Other religions have shown themselves the congenial products of their own birthtime by the failure of all attempts to extend their emp)ire, otherwise than by force, in subsequent generations.  They  grow for a while, rapidly it may
be, because they embody and sanction ideas level with the culture of their age; but as the race advances, or changes without
advancing, they have no hold, except on the populations which
they have educated, and cramped and dwarfed in educating
them.  A divinely given religion alone can be free fromnt these
limitations of time and race, and can work in the eternal freshness of its power on minds of every grade and of every form of
culture.
But, most of all, as lovers of mankind, do we rejoice in the
evidence here given of a new Pentecost of Christian salvation,
in the assurance of the birth into the eternal life of thousands
of perishing souls, in the establishment of the reign of Christ
upon the ruins of savage fetichism, in the songs of Zion that
have replaced the cannibal's war-whoop, in the altars of redemption railed with the broken spears of fierce idolators, in the
homes that from beastly (lens have become nurseries for heaven.
WTe  should incur the charge of extravagance were we to
attempt to convey the impression made upon us by Dr. Anderson's book.  HIis tour among the Hawaiian Islands seems to us
the most imagnificeilt progress recorded in history; and his simple, modest narrative, so entirely devoid of egotism and of exa,ggeration, only makes us feel the more profoundly the greatness
of his mission and the preeiminent fitness of the agent. Dr. 
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Anderson in his youth devoted himself in purpose to the career
of a foreign missionary, and from the time when he first found
the Gospel precious to his own soul, the needs and claims of the
unevangelized have never been absent from his thoulght.  In
the pendency of arrangements for an Eastern mission, he accepted a temporary clerical appointment on the staff of the
American Board. This appointment was soon made perinanent;  after eight years of service as Assistant Secretary, on
the death of Rev. Dr. Cornelius, in 1832, he became one of
the three Correspondiing Secretaries; and for nearly thirty years
hle has held the first place in the administration of that noble
charity. It is not easy to tell what fertility of resource, what
sagacity in the discernment  of character, what world-wide
klnowledge, what executive ability, what hold upon the confidence of good men in all lands, what extended power of influence, have been needed and developed in a life like his.  On
his prudence, patience, judgment, energy, the entire system has
depended, to a degree most fully appreciated by those who
have been most intimately conversant with his labors.   No
statesman or diplomatist has held in his hands so'many threads
of affairs, often delicate and complicated, often of decisive moment, often involving even grave national interests, demanding
with the directness and integrity that befit the servant of the
Most High a fully equal measure of the subtile skill and adroit
management, in which the children of this world are so apt to
surpass the children of the light, and for lack of which a large
portion of the philanthropy which has the purest record in
heaven leaves no enduring traces of itself on earth.
When Dr. Anderson entered on his official duties, the second
instalment of missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands had been
despatched, many of the natives were under hopeful training,
the langiuage had been reduced to its alphabetic elements, and
the first essays at printing had been successfully made.   But at
that time the mission was a still doubtful experiment. Shortly
afterward, the regent and nine of the principal chiefs were
gathered into the Christian church, vast multitudes were awakened to a lively interest in the Gospel, and the transformation
of institutions, habits, domnestic and social life took place so
rapidly as to leave no longer room for fear of the reestablishment of idolatry.  During Dr. Anderson's secretaryship more 
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than a hundred missionaries, clerical and lay, male and femnale,
have been sent to the Islands from the United States, under his
instruction and direction' while to the Home Board have been
constantly referred vital questions of policy and administration,
both civil and ecclesiastical, involving difficult relations with the
emissaries and officers of foreign governments, and with missionaries, sometimes intrusive, firom other religious bodies.
Less than the soundest discretion, the most determined vigor,
and the most watchful and persistent assiduity on the part of
the American Board would at various crises of the mission have
placed its interests at fbarful hazard, and occasioned disastrous
decline ill the religious condition of the natives.
In 1862, the Hawaiian people was deemed to hold its rightful place among Christian nations, and the question was raised
as to the gradual withdrawal of the support of the Board, with
the view of leaving the Islands to support their own religious
institutions, and to furnish their own Christian teachers. To
ascertain data for the safe and judicious settlement of this question it was thought desirable to send an officer of the Board to
the Islands, and especially fitting was it to delegate this commission to him who had for nearly forty years identified himself
with the work, and who could claim as his "children in the
Lord" those thousands of redeemed and converted savatges.
It was for him an antepast of the blessedness of heaven.
Seldom can he who sows in tears count on earth his ranks
of ripened sheaves. Even in the ordinary Christian ministry,
while the faithful servant of Christ is never without ground
for encouragement and gratitude, a collective view of vast
results is not often vouchsafed to him;  and many there are
who have effected so little to the outward eye compared with
their longing and endeavor, that they go to their rest feeling
that much of their strength has been spent for naught, and
only in the day when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed,
will they know their share in the harvest-work. But as Dr.
Anderson passed from village to village and from island to
island, he was permitted to see in great part the accumulated
fruits of his life-toil, multiplied tokens of a regeneration in
which his had been the controlling mind, evidences of a work of
grace in which he had been the favored instrument, whose magnitude is to be estimated not by past and present converts, but 
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by the unborn multitudes that shall enter on their Christian heritage.  He was everywhere received with the love and reverence due to a father in Christ; thanks tp God for lii visit were
sung, in that language so strange to his car; his (advenrt was
rapturously welcomed by immense congregations of the natives;
he united in the celebration of the Saviour's death, with larger
bodies of believers than he can often meet in his own land; his
words of faith and love, interpreted by his missionary brethren, were listened to with intense earnestness, and met with the
most fervent response;  and liberal contributions for the distribution of the Scriptures and the furtherance of the GospeI
were pressed upon himi by those so recently blrou,lght from darkness into God's marvellous light.  It was, indeed, a triumphal
march through this newly conquered province of the Red(leemer's
empire-how unspeakably blessed to one who felt so profoundlIy
that in all these offerings of affection, gratitude and veneration
he was but receiving tribute for the Kincg of kingcs!
Trusting that most of our readers have sought or will seek
for themselves the instruction and edification proffered by the
book before us, we shall enter into none of the details of Dr.
Anderson's journeyings and personal experiences, but shall confine ourselves to a brief sketch of the former and present condition of the Hawaiian people, and a discussion of a few of the
many subjects of interest treated or suggrested by the author.
The Hawaiian Islands are ten in number.  The native inl)abitants bear in color, features and language strong affinities to
the Malays, from whom they were probably derived.  The population, at the arrival of the first missionaries, was estimated at
one hundred and thirty five thousand(l, that of Hawaii, the principal island, at eighty thousand. The people were in the lowest
condition of savage life.  Their genial climate and  spoltaneously fertile soil had precluded thie development of even the
rude arts, of which in higher latitudes necessity would  have
been the teacher.  Their dwellings were utterly devoid of comfort; their clothing insufficient for decency.   The  rights of
property were hardly recognized.   Extortion on the part of the
chiefs, mutual theft and robbery among the people, seem to
have been the common law.  Poly,gamy was habitual among all
who could obtain and support a plurality of wives, and licentiousness prevailed to the very verge of promiscuous concubin 
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age. Infanticide was so prevalent as to have led to a marked
decline of the population, two thirds of the childten that were
born having been buried barely to avoid the trouble of bringing
them up. Murders and crimes of violence were perpetrated
almost without restraint; and human sacrifices were offered for
the recovery of the king when sick, and as victims at his obsequies. The natural conscience seems to have been obliterated,
and there was no trace of a recognized distinction between right
and wrong.
The prevalent idolatry was of the coarsest and most senseless
type, consisting in the worship of hideous images, with no idea
even of their being symbols of unseen powers.  This idolatry
was extirpated, by a unique combination of circumstances, about
the time of the embarkation of the first American missionaries.
It was a case in which Satan successfully cast out Satan, thlrough
the mysterious working of IHim  who  makes  even the wrath
and guilt of man to praise him.  Among the superstitions inseparable from the national religion was a stringent tabu system,
extending not only to sacred days, places and persons, but to
the domestic habits.   Women were forbidden to eat in the
presence of their husbands, and were debarred from many of
the choicest articles of diet, whether fruit, flesh or fish. The
violation of these interdicts was punishable  by death, and it
was supposed that the offender who escaped human vengeance
would be destroyed hy the gods.  Foreigners had introduced
ardent spirits, and to all the other sins of this degraded race
was now superadded the habit of beastly drunkenness.   The
female chiefs, when intoxicated, found courage to indulge in
prohibited food.  Their rank secured them from punishment at
the hand of man, and they were not slow in discovering that no
vindictive bolt was launched at their heads by the divinity they
had outrag,ed.  This tabu system seems to have been the fundamental doctrine, the articulus stantis vel cadentis cclesice of their
creed, and, this proved false, they found themselves atheists.
The destruction of their idols, the burning of thQir temples ensued; and the missionaries discovered, for the first time in the
world, an utterly godless people.
It can not be denied that this condition of things offered a
vantage-ground for the labors of the earliest Christian teachers,
yet less than might seem at first thought.  Had the people been 
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far enough advanced in spiritual development to feel the need of
worship or to crave objects of reverence, the rasa tubula thus
presented would hlave been easily written over with the holy
names of the Christian faith. But these conditions precedent
of religious belief seem to have been wanting. The tablet was
not there.   Yet undoubtedly it was easier, humanly speaking,
to create it, than it would  have been  to make a palimpsest.
The resistance presented by the vis ineritia of a race utterly dead
in trespasses and sins was less than miglit have been opposed
by vital and vigorous misbelief.  The seeds of faith lie in the
depraved heart, and the dew of the divine grace which alone
can make them fruitful is seldom wanting to fervent prayer and
faithful endeavor. But, this one feature excepted, the condition of the Hawaiians in 1820 presented as unpromising a field
for evangelic culture as lay anywhere beneath the sun, and,
compared with the primitive age of the church, an immieasurably less hopeful field than any of the communities to which the
apostles carried the word of life.
What are they now? In the arts of civilized life their progress has been at least equal to their conscious needs. While
the chiefs and many of the inhabitants of the towns have wellbuilt and well-furnished houses, the squalidness and misery of the
rural districts and the poorer classes have given place to habits
of decency  and self-respect.   The government has a written
Constitution, with a Bill of Rights as liberal as that of Massachusetts, and with the powers of king, legislature and judiciary
carefully defined and limited.  The laws  are wise, equitable,
and preeminently Christian, guarding the religious liberty of
the people, but providing against the desecration of the Sabbath
and against the renewal of idolatrous superstitions and observances.  The courts are admirably organized, and the judicial
offices filled by men of competent ability and proved integ,rity, in
part by native citizens, one of the three judges of the Supreme
Court being a Hawaiian. There is no country in Christendomn,
in which life and property are more secure, and none in which
the laws against intemperance and licentiousness are more vigi
lantly and rigidly executed.   In  the native language there
have been published twenty thousand  copies of the entire
Bible, twelve thousand of the New Testament, and more than
two hundred works beside, including school-books, books of re 
9.
ligious instruction, and general literature.   Three Hawaiian
newspapers are issued. The Report of 1849 gives two hundred
and eighty nine schools, with eight thousand six hundred and
twenty eight scholars. There are several boarding schools, both
for boys and girls, at which a superior education is afforded,
and a High School, which would bear comparison Wvith our
best New England academies, and which has graduated nearly
eight hundred pupils, tan of whom have been ordained as ministers of the Gospel. Algebra, Geomnetry, Trigonometry, Surveying and Political Economy are among the higher branches
of learning which have been successfully taught.  The people
manifest a singular aptness for the acquisition of knowledge,
and display an equal susceptibility for the ideas, impressions,
tastes and habits which belong of right to advancing intellectual
culture.
We can not need to say that this social renovation has been,
not only coincident with and incidental to, but commensurate with
and dependent upon, the action of Christian truth on individual
hearts, and through them on the great heart of the nation.
The history of that people for the last forty years has been a
mniultiform commentary  on the text:  "The entrance of Thy
word giveth light."  As regards domestic and social habits, we
have no evidence that the missionaries have busied themselves
especially in the details of improvement.   But the (Christian
consciousness is quick and keen in detecting incongruiities and
improprieties; the esthetic nature is stimulated, nourished and
instructed by the Divine Spirit, which is the Spirit of beauty no
less than of grace; and the consecration of the body and all
that pertains to the outward life, by purity, decency, neatness
and order, can hardly fail to accompany or follow the consecration of the soul to the service of God. This exterior reformation must needs bear a close proportion, in its extent and thoroughness, to the energy of the work of grace. In these Islands
the Gospel had from the first free course among the chiefs and
the men and women of commanding influence, and its power was
early felt through the whole people. In 1838 there was a great
awakening  throughout  the entire  nation, which resulted in
the accession of many thousands of genuine converts to the
churches. In 1843 more than a fourth part of the entire population were professing Christians; a larger proportion, it isi 
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believed, than could be found anywhere else in Christendom.
To all these the missionary stations were centres of light, places
of familiar resort, seminaries fbr instruction in things secular no
less than in things spiritual.   The superior fitness of the habits
and appliances of civilized life was promptly perceived and felt;
and the disciples, of necessity, became imitators of the teachers
and their families in such portions of their mode of living as
were applicable to their own condition.  This last limitation is
essential to a just estimate of the degree of their civilization.
Had the missionaries themselves, with all their culture and refinement, belonged to a race for many generations domesticated
in that climate, their artificial wants would have been imuch
fewer and more simple; and it would seem to be the tendency
of the great mass of their converts to adopt from them just
such improvements as they need for decency and comfort, while
those who from their position in the state are brought into more
intimate relations with the foreign residents conform more fully
to foreign tastes and habits. With this essential qualification
the HIawaiians already merit a place among civilized nationsa much higher place than would be accorded to the Greeks
with their glorious heritage and their little more than nominal
Christianity; and they hold this position solely through the
transforming power of religious faith and culture.
It is, also, because they have so readily received the divine
word, that they have become to so extraordinary a degree an educated and a reading people.   The Bible enlarges the mental
horizon, suggests themes of thought, subjects of inquiry, gives
a sacredness and a zest to knowledge of every kind, stimulates
study, and generates mental activity. There evidently exists in
this so lately benighted community a higher type of intellectual
life, a more genuine love of learning, a surer promise of advanced and extended culture, than can be found in the mass of
any people in Europe or America which is debarred free access
to the oracles of divine truth.
As for the actual religious condition of these Islands, we
have slpoken of the proportion of church members in 1843. It
is nearly or quite as large at the present time. In the judgment
of Dr. Anderson and other equally intelligent witnesses, the evidences of sincere piety are as general and as satisfactory as
among  professed  believers in any portion of Christendom. 
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Family prayer is almost universal among the converts. The
Sabbath is kept sacred to an unusual degree, and its worship is
attended by numerous, in some places, by vast congregations.
Social prayer meetings are established in connection with every
church, and are maintained with constancy, and often with zeal.
The average moral character of the church-members is in most
respects hig,h, even by the standard of our older civilization, and
the sins which have led to frequent ecclesiastical censure and
excommunication, though more patent to rebuke, are certainly
no more inconsistent with the spirit of our religion than the
worldliness, penuriousness and meanness which pass unchallenged among the guests at our communion tables.  Indeed,
what indicates, perhaps, more clearly than all things else, the
prevalent sincerity of these islanders -is their readiness to give
largely from their scanty means for the support and propagation
of the Gospel. Their contributions average more than twenty
thousand dollars annually, and their time and labor are always
at the disposal of their teachers for the service of religion.  In
fine, though they not unfrequently show their still infantile
estate as Christians, they at the same time exhibit abundant
proof that the religion of the Gospel has wrought in thousands
of hearts its reg,enerating work, and has so far leavened the
entire community that there is no ground for apprehending a
general apostasy or permanent decline.
We have dwelt on the evidences of their civilization, mainly
with reference to the question which it was Dr. Anderson's
special purpose to investigate, namely, the expediency of treating them as an integral part of Christendom, and gradually
withdrawing from them the special tutelage of the Missionary
Board.  Their higher or lower degree of civilization or culture
may not affect their present condition as Christians; but in their
capacity to transmit that condition it is a vital element.  The
soul of the rudest savage may be converted to God  and prepared for heaven; but the light that is in himn can shed very
little radiance around him.   Christian institutions alone can
perpetuate the power of the Gospel; and they can be sustained
and extended among a population of unsettled habits and undeveloped intellect, only through the agency of a superior race.
At most of our flourishing missionary stations the withdrawal of
the missionaries would be followed by the speedy extinction of 
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all Christian life. A self-perpetuating church implies the establislhment of permanent homes and regular modes of industry, a
forethought adequate to provide for future exigencies, mutual
confidence among fellow-worshippers, the capacity of combined
and organized action, and the existence of means of education,
and habits of mental industry sufficient to ensure a well-trained
ministry and a supply of intelligent office-bearers and leaders
in church affairs.  A community -. which all this could be affirmed is to all intents and purposes civilized, and has within itself
resources for further advancement and higher attainment. And
in this sense the Hawaiians are civilized. We care not whether
they live in houses of grass or of stone, sleep on mats or beds,
sit on the ground or on chairs, eat with their fingers or with
forks. These matters have no concern with civilization, that is,
with the culture which fits men to be citizens and fellow-citizens.
Christianity always tends to civilize a community; but in order to produce this result, it must establish its control over the
ruling classes, must  permeate  the  body  politic, mould  its
institutions, preside over its legislation, govern its social intercourse, and,  above  all, give  character  to the relations
between husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant.   Where this work has been in a good measure accomplishied, its consummation  may be retarded by the prolongation of foreign influence, however beneficent. It is well
neither for individual nor collective humanity to remain in tutelage when the period of maturity has been reached. Guardianship beyond its due term cripples and dwarfs the faculties
of self-help which it has created. We must, therefore, acknowled,ge the wisdom of the action of the American Board,
in relinquishing the immediate control of the religious interests
of these Islands to their native and resident population. The
Board still provides for the maintenance of the missionaries
already established, most of whom have passed the prime of
active usefulness. The counsel and influence of these tried,
approved and trusted teachers will be of essential benefit in
the transition from  pupilage to  self-government, while  the
churches, unburthened by the necessity of contributing to their
support, will have no obstacle in the way of securing and compensating the services of native ministers. At the same tinme
those recent heathen are encouraged themselves to enter on the 
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field of missionary-enterprise, and this most wisely; for among
the means of grace giving is second only to p?rayer, as the
American church has found in its own blessed experience. The
superintendence of the Micronesian mission is to be entrusted to
an executive board chosen by the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, the American Board continuing its pecuniary aid for
such time and in such measure as nmay be found necessary.
We have thus far presented only the bright and hopeful aspects of the Christian cause on these Islands. Is there not a
reverse side? That there is we could not doubt, even were our
author silent with regard to it. But, with his perfect candor,
Dr. Anderson suppresses nothing, and our readers will miss in
his pages not one of the salient facts which have been employed
with malign purpose and effect by the calumniators of the mission. We have not referred to these facts in discussing the selfsustaining capacity of the Hawaiian churches, because they are
not of sufficient magnitude to have any important bearing on
that question, any more than the short-comings, dissensions and
corruptions of our New England Christianity have on its power
to prolong its own existence, and, by aid from on high, to purify and elevate its own standard of faith and piety. But we
will now look at the shades in the picture.
In the first place, it must be admitted that there remains
among the Hawaiian Christians a certain proclivity to licentiousness and intemperance. We are grieved, but not surprised or
shocked at this. It is what is to be expected in a people separated by hardly a generation from  an utterly brutish state of
manners and morals. Aside from the theological question of
original sin, though casting essential light upon it, there can
be no doubt as to the transmission of moral tendencies in famnilies and races.  Had one of Herod's children become a disciple of Christ, he would have been a disciple of a very different
type from one of the family of Joseph of Arimathea.   He
might repeatedly, under stress of sudden and intense temptation,
have shown his sonshlip according to the flesh to the vilest of
men, yet without losing ffom his heart the evidence of his spiritual sonship. Just such is the case with a tribe or race of converts from the lower forms of paganism.   There is a heritage
of evil in their very constitution of body, mind and soul.  Ages
of slavery to the animal appetites have stimulated those appe 
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tites, and given them a natively larger influence over the active
powers of the moral nature than they have in a people whose
nature has been moulded by centuries of self-control and mental and religious culture. The Christian consciousness may be
as genuine and as strong in the recent savage as in the descendant from an ancestry of saints; yet in the former case it will have
to contend with a host of the powers of evil, which in the lattei'
were resisted and overcome in the remote past, and have since
fought only with blunted weapons and with crippled strength.
It must be remembered, too, that the social sentiments and habits of decency and propriety, which are a most essential safeguard and help to the individual Christian, at least in the early
stages of the religious life, are of gradual growth and of cuimulative efficacy, and that they have but just begun to grow in
the Hawaiian people. It is said by the Spirit of God to every
subject of renewing grace, as it was said to Abraham, "Get
thee out of thine own country, and from thy kindred, and thy
father's house, unto a land that I will show thee"; and the
reality, intensity and working power of his faith are to be tested,
not by the distance yet to be measured to the promised land,
but by his distance from his starting point.  He who moves on
his pilgrimage from an idolatrous country, from kindred steeped
in swinish sensuality, from a father's house no better than a
kennel, may find himself at the close of a long and faithful pilgrimage below the starting point of natural conscience and conventional morality, at which the child of a consecrated household hears and obeys  the same call of God; yet in the eye of
heaven he will have fought a good fight, and have finished a
noble course, and his children may commence where he closed
his career.
As  we have intimated, the details in the volume before us
at once receive light from, and reflect light upon, the apostolic
epistles. In the churches at Corinth and in Asia, St. Paul
certainly recognizes as brethren beloved, and praises for their
proficiency and good gifts as Christians, persons who needed
advice and warning as to the very rudiments of nmorality.  At
Corinth there had been gross violations of chastity among the
disciples, and it would seem that even the Lord's Supper had
been made an occasion of excess and drunkenness.   In fine, there
was in that church a condition of things incompatible, according 
15
to our modern notions, with the lowest concrete form of vital
Christianity.   Yet in his second epistle we discern manifest
traces in these frail novices of a sensitiveness to rebuke, an ac cessibleness to tlie movements of contrite sorrow, indicating all
that is implied in the apostle's words as to the depth of Christian
feeling in their hearts and the reality of their conversion to God.
For behold this self-same thing, that ye sorrowed after a
godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what
clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear,
yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal" I St. Paul, it must
be borne in mind, in view of these moral infirmities of his con verts, is slow to condemn, chary of excommunication, promnpt
and earnest in the restoration of offenders, aware all the while
that, though "the iniquity of their heels" -the sins in which
they were born and bred, yet which they have in purpose left
behind them -  may at times "compass them about," there may
yet be on their hearts the unobliterated seal of the Spirit.'We
can not but agree with some of the missionaries, as cited by Dr.
Anderson, that among these modern converts excommunication
has been too frequent, especially as the excommunicated have in
numerous instances passed from a church which would have
tolerated, not their sin, but their bitterly repented sin, to the
less discriminating mercies of Romanism, which, whatever may
be its theories, practically makes the way of transgressors easy.
Tihe same sensitiveness to rebuke, which St. Paul recognizes
among the Corinthians, may be remarked among the Hawaiians.
Says Dr. Anderson, "I was assured of cases where, after a terrible declension, the return had been with increased humility,
experience, watchfulness, and zeal, so that the lapsed recovered
ones became at length pillars in the church."
So fiar from looking, upon lapses of this kind, though frequenit, as a ground of discouragement, we rather regard them,
viewed in all their aspects, as a hopeful omen.  It is an immense
gain that the community has reached a condition in which such
cases of sin are exceptional and abnormal, are not numerous
enough to constitute a characteristic feature of the Christian society or to defy its discipline, and are already the objects of unfeigned shame and contrition amrong the guilty, and of hearty
reprobation among their associates.  Moreover, this unfortunate
liability, so far as it exists, seems to be confined chiefly to those 
16
who have been heathen and savages, and is not likely to be
transmitted to their children except in a modified and controllable form and degree. The now rising generation, trained under
the shadow of the domestic altar and the Christian sanctuary,
educated by religious teachers, imbued from their tender years
in the morality of the Gospel, and large numbers of them made
in their youth hopeful subjects of Divine grace, will grow up
under at least as favorable influences as those which surround
the young persons in our own land whom we regard as the hope
of the church.  This future is already beginning to be realized.
The pupils of the missionary schools are  fast establishing a
higher tone of character. Of the native ministers we are told
that not one has shown himself unworthy of his sacred trust.
The manifest tendency is toward an elevated standard of practical ethics.
In this connection we can not but attach great importance to
the laws of the kingdom, not only or chiefly in their prohibitory
or punitive function, but as declarative of the collective moral
sense, and as educating the general conscience. From all that
we can learn, we infer that in the legislation, and at the hands
of the judiciary of the Islands, purity and temperance are as
carefully guarded as they can be by human authority, and that
those who violate them can be protected only by the secrecy
of their guilt. The laws against the manufacture of intoxicating
drinks and against their sale to native residents are peculiarly
stringent and severe, and a very recent attempt to relax the
penalty for their sale has been defeated by the vote of nearly
three fourths of the legislature - a vote which, as passed after
able and thorough discussion, we feel warranted in reg,arding as
an authentic exponent of public opinion.
Does it not appear from these statements that the easily besetting sins of the Hawaiians are treated with greater severity
and present better promise of their rapid decline, than the vices
that infect the religious communities of older Christendomthe selfishness, avarice and virtual dishonesty, which are "the
abomination of desolation" in the church of God, and hold in
sordid slavery many who claim to be its very pillars?
A much more serious discouragement to missionary labor on
this field might seem to be found in the decline of the native
population. On this subject it is not easy to obtain trustworthy 
17
data, either as to the extent to which causes of depopulation
have operated in formner times, or as to the degree in which
they are now arrested. Captain Cook estimated the population
at four hundred thousand; but this was undoubtedly an over estimate. The earliest official census, in 1832, gives one hun dred and thirty thousand, three hundred and fifteen; the latest,
in 1860, sixty nine thousand, eight hundred.   But for the first
four years of these twenty eight, the decrease was at the rate of
more than four per cent. per annum, while for the last seven
years it has been less than two thirds of one per cent. per annum.   The vices introduced by foreigners held a promiuent
place among the causes of the rapid decline from the first discovery of the Islands till the arrival of the missionaries. The
passion for strong drink made fearful ravages among the people;
while the vile lusts of their visitors from civilized lands brought
-upon them even still more loathsome agencies of disease and
death, and undoubtedly weakened the vital stamina of coming
generations.   There has been also at three different periods
since the commencement of the century a visitation of devastating epidemics,  though it would seem that the liability to
diseases of this class is much less than in regions not lying under
the salubrious influence of breezes fiom the sea. Infanticide
and human sacrifices must also account in part for the diminished numbers of the people, and the former of these causes must
have very gradually ceased with the progress of Christianity.
Then too, though the rude and squalid habits of savage life are
not incompatible with a moderate growth of population, improvements in dwellings, dress, and medical treatment can hardly
fail to preserve many lives that would else have been sacrificed
in infancy, by needless exposure, or by curable disease. On
the whole, we can not but believe that future enumerations will
present results of a much more favorable character than the
past, and that through the blessing of Providence this mild,
gentle, tractable and highly improvable people may maintain its
name and place among the nations of the earth, as a monument
of Christian philanthropy, as a luculent token of the fulfilment of the promises of God, and as a centre and source of
light to populations on the islands and coasts of the Pacific still
lying under the shadow of death.
But were the case otherwise, were the gradual extinction of
2 
18
this people clearly foreseen, would there be any the less reason
to rejoice in what has been accomplished, and to extend to the
declining remnant of the nation all the offices of Christian love?
The salvation of thousands upon thousands of souls will still
have rewarded the toil and sacrifice of the church and its agents;
the national decline will have been retarded by this ministry of
mercy;  and  there will have  been written  a chapter of the
world's religious history, which we believe will be transcribed in
letters of light in the Lamb's book of life.
We refer to this last named contingency, not because we
think it probable, but because it may present itself to some of
our readers as inevitable. It is undoubtedly a. beneficent law of
the divine Providence that races of feeble vitality and capacity
shall yield place by the operation of natural causes to races of
superior physical and intellectual vigor; in fine, that the different
regions of the earth shall gradually pass into hands that cats
subdue it, avail themselves of its resources and enjoy its uses.
UTnder this law, no doubt, the aborigines of North America will
ultimately disappear, and the humane  policy which ought to
have been pursued to them from the first would not have ensured their preservation in the land, though it would have
averted the condemnation of blood-guiltiness from the European
settlers. But the Hawaiians do not seem to fall necessarily under this-law. Their constitution is adapted to their climate;
their capacity to their soil. They are amply able to develop
the resources of their territory, and to employ for the general
benefit the advantages of their position. They thus far show
themselves susceptible of cultivation, and have made more rapid
progress than has elsewhere left its record in the history of the
world. They may not, indeed, have within themselves the elements of a great people; but their cluster of islets can never become the seat of a great people. They could not, indeed, protect
themselves by arms against any of the leading powers of (hris   themslves y amagisayoftelaigpwrofhs-1
tenudom; but we trust that they will guard their modest independence by the arts and virtues that beloing to a Christian nation,
and by pacific and beneficent relations of intercourse and commerce.  Their insular and solitary position may save them from
dangerous complications with more powerful states; they can
not lie on the track of any future belligerents, or become the
victims of wars other than their own; and the time has gone by 
19
for aggression or usurpation from abroad, without shadow of
reason or pretence of right.
Another danger to which this people is exposed grows out of
the influx of foreign residents.  Much of the land is peculiarly
adapted to the growth of the sugar-cane, while rice, coffee and
cotton are successfully cultivated. These commodities are most
profitably raised on large plantations, and the soil suited to their
production is already furnishing a lucrative investment for the
disposable capital of France, England and America; while the
commerce of the Islands has of necessity been hitherto conducted to a very great degree by immigrants from the older
commercial nations. To these dominant classes of foreigners
there have been recently added importations of coolies from
China for labor on the sugar-plantations.  If enterprise on the
one hand and manual labor on the other are to be permanently
usurped by imnmigrants, of course under this double pressure
the native population will inevitably decline in resources and in
energy, and will be gradually absorbed and obliterated by intermarriage with the intrusive races. But whether this shall be
the case or not must depend, we  believe, on the thoroughness
of the civilizing and Christianizing work which has been
wrought upon the natives. If considerable numbers of them
are fitted in intelligence and character to hold commanding positions, and to conduct extended operations in agriculture and
commerce, they will in the lapse of one or two generations replace the foreign residents; for, with equal ability, they will
have the advantage in physical constitution, in attachment to
the soil, in the command of the language, and in the confidence
of their fellow-countrymen. If, at thiother extremity of the
social scale, Christian culture develops habits of industry and
creates a felt need of the comforts of civilized life, the mass of
the people will not suffer the soil to be cultivated by strangers.
The labor of coolies, while on moral grounds little preferable
to that of slaves, is not much less costly and wasteful, their
nominally low wages being hardly an offset to the expense of
importation and the rapid mortality among them; and the
Hawaiians, once made aware of the duty and the privilege
of toil, will readily demonstrate the superior economy of free
labor. Much of the land planted with sugar-cane is now in the
hands of small native proprietors; and on these estates free la
I I 
20
bor is proved to be amply remunerative. On th( whole we can
not believe that a people that deserves to live can be pressed
down and crushed out on its own soil.  Foreign enterprise has
gained its ascendancy, and foreign labor its foothold  ill the
Hawaiian Islands, only while the natives are in training to take
effective possession of their birthright.  If they show themselves
mentally or morally unfit to retain the heritage, we doubt not
that Providence will bestow it on races more worthy of it.  But
in what God has done for this people, while we may not pre sume to lift the veil from his decrees, we can not but trust that
he has been training, not only souls for heaven, but a nation to
serve him in the land which he has given to them.
Another topic, to which we are bound to allude, however
unwillingly, in treating of the adverse or discouraging circum stances in connection with Hawaiian Christianity, is that of
divided religious interests.  In the older portions of Christendom, the phenomenon of rival sects is understood, and their
common appeal to the same plenary and divine authority casts
the weight of their combined testimony and influence on the
side of faith.  But those recently converted from heathenism,
accustomed to uniformity of belief and worship in their previous estate, and knowing little of the history of the Christian
church, are perplexed and often thrown into scepticism by the
antagonisms of mutually exclusive sects.   They can not comprehend the identity of religion where there is no community of
religious interest and feeling. In their view the denial of the
doctrines and the contempt of the ritual in which they have
been trained are tantamount to the rejection and contempt of
Christianity. Even in*the age of the apostles, and under the
ministry of those who had received their doctrine from the lips
or by the revelation of the Lord, it was feared lest different
modes of teaching and discipline on the same soil might be
firaught with mischief. St. Paul expresses his determination not
to enter on other mnen's labors, and laments and deprecates the
consequences of the intrusion on his own ground of teachers
not authorized or approved by himself. In the world-wide field
open to the philanthropy of the church, modern Protestant missionaries have in general recognized this principle, and have
been unwilling to present before heathendomi the spectacle of a
distracted church and a divided Gospel.  When they could not 
21
labor side by side without collision or wide dissiliency of aim or
action, they have, like Abraham and Lot, fed their flocks apart.
This Christian comity has been violated by the Mission of the
English church, or, as it styles itself, the "Reformed Catholic
Mission." The subject is one which we would gladly omit;
but we should do injustice equally to the work under review
and to the mission cause, were we to pass it over in silence.
The late king having become interested in the services of the
English church, and there being at Honolulu many English res idents who had been educated in its worship, application was
made by Rev. Dr. Armstrong, once a missionary of the Amer ican Board, and then filling the office of President of the Board
of Public Instruction, and Mr. Wyllie, an Englishman, Minis ter of Foreign Affairs, to Rev. William Ellis of London,
pledging, a moderate salary to some suitable English clergyman,
who might consent to assume the pastorate of a church at the
capital. The request was made for "a man with evangelical
sentiment, of respectable talents, and most exemplary Christian
life.  A high churchman," added Dr. Armstrong,, "or one of
loose Christian habits, would not succeed.  He would not have
the sympathy and support of the other evangelical ministers at
all, but rather opposition." This application was in entire accordance with the wishes of the missionaries and their friends,
Indeed Dr. Anderson had previously urged a bishop of the
American Episcopal church to sent out a presbyter of his diocese with reference to such a charge. Mr. Wyllie, who seems
to have been playing a double game, had previously entered
into correspondence with Mr. Hopkins, the Hawaiian consul in
London, and a plan was matured through his agency for sending to the Islands a bishop and three presbyters, under the
[high church] auspices of the Society for Propagating the Gospel. When this project became known, the American Board
instituted a correspondence with the Archbishop of Canterbury
and the Bishop of London, both of whom are understood to
have sympathized with the views of the Board, and to have
been opposed to intrusion on the field which they had made
their own. But the counsels of the high church party prevailed. Bishop Staley was consecrated in 1861, and arrived at
Honolulu, accompanied by two of his presbyters, and shortly
followed by a third, in October, 1862. 
22
These men of lofty apostolic pretensions have taken precisely
the course which might have been anticipated, and will undoubtedly succeed in creating schism and animosity among the native
Christians. They ignore the ministerial character and office of
the American missionaries.   They  avail themselves of every
opportunity of baptising  children, without reference to the
ecclesiastical relations of the parents. They have established
the most showy  and Romeward  tending modes of  worship,
"with surplice and stole, with alb, and cope, and crosier; with
rochet, and mitre, and pastoral staff; with Episcopal ring and
banner; with pictures, altar-candles, robings, intonations, processions and attitudes."   Meanwhile Bishop  Staley has been
preaching the most extreme and offensive doctrines of his
party in the church, doctrines diametrically opposed to those
taught by the missionaries, patristical tradition, baptismal regeneration, the gift of the IHoly Spirit in confirmation, confession to the priest, and priestly absolution. At the same time he
has stultified himself, while he has no doubt mystified his serious
hearers, and encouraged the undevout in the desecration of holy
time, by declaring that Sunday is "most falsely and mischievously called the Sabbath," and intimating that the daily service
of the church and the observance of its solemn festivals fitly
supersede the special reverence with which the people had been
taught by the missionaries and required by the law of the land
to regard the one day in seven. He has stultified himself, we
say; for, unless the high church "has changed all this," the
precept,  Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day," is
read constantly in the ante-comtnunion service, with the re spouse, " Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to
keep this law."  If Sunday is "most falsely and mischievously
called the Sabbath," to what observance does this portion of the
Etiglish liturgy have reference? Or does Bishop Staley require
his adherents, in the most sacred service of the altar, to perform
an act of solemn mockery, to offer a prayer which is arrant
blasphemy, to beg of the divine mercy that they may be inclined
to practice "falsehood and mischief'"?   Candles at noonday are
a harmless folly; this is gross impiety.
The success of this mission has as yet been very limited. Its
cong,reg,ations are small. The modes of worship repel the sim ple tastes of such as have been sincerely attached to the minis 
23
trations of their earlier teachers; and those who want to be
addressed through the senses, and gravitate toward the old
idolatry, can find more that is congenial among the Roman
Catholics than among their imitators. Yet under the patronage
of the court and of some of the more influential foreign resi dents this superstition must needs grow. It can hardly fail to
create a diversion from the interests of a simple faith and wor ship, which is especially to be deprecated at the present crisis,
when the autonomy of the native church is just beginning, and
needs the combined zeal, effort and liberality of all who love the
cause of Christ and seek the prosperity of Zion.
We have spoken freely and warmly of this intrusion; but we
believe that we have said no more than candid Episcopalians
would readily admit and endorse.   For the English church and
its American sister we cherish all due reverence, gratitude and
affection; and because we feel this, we can not think or write
with easy tolerance of the stilted and popinjay caricatures of its
solemn order and majestic ritual.
There is also on the Islands a Roman Catholic Mission, numbering as proselytes,  (including all baptized persons,) more
than twenty thousand souls. The Mormons have, too, a small
settlement on the island of Lanai, and reckon, (including children,) not far from four thousand members. It does not appear that either of these forms of belief is making rapid progress, or presents any active hostility to the success of Protestant Christianity.
While we should be gratified to see this new-born people
united in faith and worship, we can conceive that this diversity
of ministration, these forms of error, these tares growing with
the wheat, may be made subservient to their better proficiency
in divine things. Inquiry, comparison, mental activity on reli,(ious subjects wil be aroused and guided; the native pastors
will feel the more intense need of taking heed to themselves,
their doctrine and their flocks, because they are in the midst of
gainsayers; private Christians will have added inducements to
be loyal to the Master who can receive no wounds so deep as in
the house of his friends; and thus a more intelligent fiaith and
a more fervent piety may spring from the present division,
and may prepare the way for the ultimate triumph of the truth
over all obstacles and hindrances. 
24
We have foreborne making extracts from the work under review, because we are unwilling that any of our readers should
become acquainted with it in scraps or fragments. We have
not even given an analysis of it, though our materials have
been chiefly derived from it.  Besides, there are no especially
interesting extracts. The whole, from the Preface to the Appendix, is full of intense interest for all who love their Saviour
anid their race.  The narrative flags not for one moment on the
-eager attention of the reader, nor can it fail to lift the devout
heart as with a continuous anthem of praise to Him who has
" given such power unto men," as is shown forth in this regenerated people.
One thought suggests itself in conclusion.   Much of the science of our day busies itself, with a depraved ingenuity, in detaching manes hold on the ancestral tree by which he traces his
descent from God, and of which, among the progeny of the second Adam, he may become a living branch.    The true answer
to these speculations is not to be found in ethnology or in physiology.  No race can make out an unbroken pedigree; nor yet
can we deny that there are strong analogies between the higher
orders of quadrupeds and the lower members of the human fa,mily, not only in physical structure, but in mental capacity.
Fifty years ago, the half-reasonilng, elephant or the tractable
and troth-keeping dog might have seemed the peer, or more, of
the unreasoning and conscienceless Hawaiian.   From that very
race, from that very generation, with which the nobler brutes
mnight have scorned to claim kindred, have been developed the
peers of saints and angels. Does not the susceptibility of re generation, the capacity for all that is tender, beautiful and glo rious in the humanity of the Lord fromn heaven- inherent in
the lowest types of our race-of itself constitute an impassable
line of demarcation between the brute and man? Has physical
science a right to leave " the new man in Christ Jesus," which
the most squalid savage may become, out of the question in its
theories of natural  selection or  spontaneous  development?
When the modern Lucretianism can account for the phenomena
of Christian salvation, without the intervention of miracle, rev elation, or Redeemer, and not till then, can it demand our
respect as a tenable theory of the universe.
t