ft... O 
 
 A 
 
 SERMON * 
 
 ON 
 
 HOME MISSIOISTS; 
 
 Dflivfrfd «t Fort Stroft Chorrh, on the Aniiivprsary of tho 
 
 HAWAIIAN EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION, 
 
 SABBATH EVENING, JUNE 10, 1866. 
 
 BY BEV. E. BOXD. 
 
 HONOLULU: 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE HAWAIIAN EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 1866. 
 
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SEKMON ON IKEALE MISSIONS. 
 
 Jou\ 9 ; 4. — •• 1 must work the works ol llim that sent me while it is day." 
 
 Jesus came from Heaven to redeem and save the human race. That 
 was his “ work.” He did not, however, propose to accomplish tlie 
 divinely assumed task by His own personal agency, whilst in the flesh. 
 This He left for others. 
 
 Having chosen and instructed a small band of disciples, and having, 
 in them, set forth the germinant idea of the Christian Church, to them, 
 as His earthly heirs. He committed the further prosecution of the work 
 He came to do ; promising, meantime, to be with them, even unto the 
 end of the world, and then He returned, by the way of the Cross and 
 the Sepulchre, to His higher mediatorial work at the right hand of the 
 Father. From that time to this the task which the Son of God as- 
 sumed as His own peculiar work has been equally the work of His 
 Militant Church ; and to-night the language of the text is appropriate 
 to every true disciple of Jesus, the world over. 
 
 It is not, as you see, the mere expression of a simple desire or pur- 
 pose, but the cordial acknowledgement of an imperative obligation. 
 
 “ I must work.” 
 
 To this Society therefore, organized for effective service in behalf of 
 the truth in its saving application to the population of these islands and 
 aiming at the largest measure of such service, I present, as not unsuit- 
 able for brief consideration this evening, these two topics, furnished by 
 our text, viz : 
 
 1. The wonrk to be dom. II. How to do it. 
 
 1. The work to be done. 
 
 1 . Where is it ? 
 
 The field is the entire group of these fair islands, on which, either 
 permanently or for the tune being, our lot has been cast. From Ha- 
 waii to Niihau, wherever lives a Hawaiian or foreigner of any name 
 or color, w’ho is known to be in a state of spiritual destitution, for the 
 supply of which no other means exist, there is found ready to our hand 
 the legitimate work, to do which we, as a Society, exist. 
 
 2. What is it ? 
 
 In general terms it is, as just suggested, the evangelization of the 
 spiritually needy portions of the population of these islands and the supply 
 of their religious necessities, by means of divine truth preached and other- 
 wise disseminated, a service which the lapse of time is more and more 
 imperatively demanding at our hands, and of the immediate and press- 
 ing necessity of which, those of us who occupy the more distant por- 
 tions of the land are feeling with an ever-increasing painfulness of con- 
 viction. 
 
4 
 
 From all points the current sets in towards this central metropolis, 
 leaving on every side remnants of population sparsely scattered over 
 large tracts of territory ; and, without an agency similar to that pro- 
 vided for by this Society, as there already is, so there will ineviiably 
 continue to be, a rapid retrogradation of these communities towards a 
 barbarism as ruthless as that whence, by the grace of God, the nation 
 has once been rescued. 
 
 There is no possibility of a result in any sense more cheering than 
 this, if we fail, either through a culpable supineness in duty or through 
 a narrow selfishness in providing the requisite pecuniary and other 
 means to meet the exigences of the present time and of the immediate 
 future before us. But this is our appropriate work, and, by the favor 
 of God, we would hope not to be found recreant thereto. Not only are 
 we called upon to send, or aid in sending, to every feeble Hawaiian 
 Church a pastor, and to every destitute community those who will 
 point them to the Lamb of God, but we would also see to it that the 
 foreign communities here and there gathering upon the islands — wher- 
 ever desirous of the preached Word — are supplied therewith. And if 
 possible, also, we would send the Word of Life into those social and 
 spiritual graveyards, the plantations and other great enterprises scat- 
 tered over the islands, with the hope that its saving power might be 
 once more felt by some of those connected therewith, that some at least 
 might again listen to the sweet and saving words of Jesus, which their 
 fathers, when sitting in the thick night of heathenism, heard, and in 
 simple faith receiving, awoke to a new and higher life in God. Whilst 
 the small and rapidly-diminishing remnant of those Christian heroes in 
 the Hawaiian Church is briefly tarrying beneath the droppings of the 
 Sanctuary, and rejoicing in the Word of Salvation, preparatory to their 
 final flight Heavenward, we would fain see to it that their children cry 
 not hereafter to be rescued from the worse than heathenism which is 
 seriously threatening them. 
 
 But our work lies not solely in regions remote. In the name of God 
 and by the power of His truth we should do something to save this 
 metropolis from the condition, if not from the fate, of Sodom. It is 
 indeed a task not to be lightly spoken of, nor yet to be undertaken with 
 an undue confidence in human wisdom. Nevertheless, it is one with 
 which we obviously need to grapple, if we would hope to achieve any 
 enduring success in the other department of our labor ; for, with this 
 great central crater ever pouring its death-dealing streams abroad over 
 the land, how as nothing in effect will be the sum total of our efforts 
 therefor ! 
 
 It is scarcely an indication of profound wisdom to trim the twigs of 
 the Upas, whilst leaving the huge trunk, with its giant branches, still to 
 overshadow the country. 
 
 Also, it is not to be forgotten in this brief enumeration of the work to 
 be done, that we have a large and still increasing Asiatic element in 
 our midst, of whose salvation there can scarcely be a ray of hope, unless 
 it come through the agency of this Society. Foreign in every sense it 
 is, save in this single one of domestication among us. Vicious, too, it 
 is in character, or, at best, heathen, and withal notoriously inaccessible 
 
to the moral and religious motives of the Gospel, as well as to the 
 various agencies usually employed by those who would press these mo- 
 tives upon their consideration. Yet still the stubborn fact remains, that 
 Christ has purchased them for His own, precisely as He has purchased 
 ourselves. And that other glorious fact, too — let us never forget it — 
 Chinese and Hawaiian both, equally with those more highly favored, 
 were among those irrevocably given to the Son for His everlasting in- 
 heritance. 
 
 And can we do nothing for these perishing strangers ? Shall we sit 
 down contented with the thought that they have come to a land over- 
 spread with the blessings of Christianity merely to perish in their pa- 
 ganism ? Shall the light in which we are dwelling serve but to light 
 them to death ? Or is there some one or more yet to be found, whose 
 hearts a-glow with the love of Jesus, shall with our aid give themselves 
 to the blessed work of telling the simple story of the Cross to these be- 
 nighted wanderers from their distant home ? 
 
 Such is the brief and imperfect summary of the work to be done. It 
 is not for me to say how much or how little of it our Sovereign Lord 
 shall deign to honor this Society with accomplishing. It is enough to 
 know that we are mainly to determine that point for ourselves, and 
 moreover, the issue, we are sure, is to be wrought out only by prayerful, 
 patient, self-denying toil. Scarcely an earthly crown adorns the brow 
 of royalty that has not been purchased with seas of blood and treasure 
 untold. And why should we expect to wear the trophies of a victory, 
 save as they too are won through our own unflinching devotion and 
 self-sacrificing zeal, by the blood of God’s dear Son ? VVe are not to be 
 crowned unless we first strive. Nor is our Master to be honored through 
 us if we fail to meet the issues now presented. The time has forever 
 gone by when the disciples of Jesus could fold their hands and wait 
 their Master’s will. They have now to do it. The conflict is already 
 upon us, and it never can be won save by a high and holy resolve in 
 divine strength to “fight it out on this line.” And this our Lord e.x- 
 pects of us. 
 
 II. We now pass to inquire. How is this to be done 1 
 
 We effect our purposes by the use of means adequate thereto, and so 
 does our Omnipotent God. True, the means which He uses, and which 
 also He has provided and taught us to use, are not, by the ordinary 
 calculations of human arithmetic, adequate to the results proposed and 
 actually accomplished. But then He has told us beforehand that His 
 calculations are ?wt as ours. The highest wisdom of man is foolishness 
 with Him. By the foolishness of preaching we know He has actually 
 determined to save them that believe. Just as in the Kingdom of Na- 
 ture He delights to show us what stupendous results He can efifect by 
 the most insignificant causes, so also in this Spiritual Kingdom. It is 
 true, and we should never forget it, that the Kingdom of God among 
 men has, in its inception, always been insignificant in its dimensions and 
 apparent power. It is the still small voice, the stone cut out of the 
 mountain without hands, the bit of leaven, the grain of mustard-seed. 
 And yet, though so insignificant, it was and is to fill the whole earth. 
 \N e are inquiring now how it is to be made to fill these islands, or ra- 
 
6 
 
 ther how our part of the work which is to hasten the glorious consum- 
 mation is to be done. What do we need for this end? 
 
 ]. We need a suitable organization, through whose agency our work 
 can be efficiently, and at the same time economically prosecuted. This, 
 indeed, we already have ; and if it be not particularly imposing at 
 present in the magnificence of its proportions, we find comfort in the 
 thought that it is capable of indefinite enlargement and increase of 
 working power, limited, in these particulars, only by the gifts and pur- 
 poses of its patrons. Besides, we cannot forget that the vast organiza- 
 tions for Missionary purposes, both in Europe and America, have each 
 and all passed through this period of infancy, and have attained their 
 present vastness and efficiency for good, only through the large-hearted 
 liberality and prayerful zeal of those who make them the channels of 
 their beneficence for enlightening and saving men. 
 
 If therefore, with the machinery already to our hands, and in actual 
 operation, those who are in sympathy with us will but give what is fur- 
 ther needed for bringing the Society up to itsrfull working capacity, the 
 problem with which w'e have to do is solved. Our work is as good as 
 done. 
 
 It is not to be supposed, however, for a moment, that the most skill- 
 fully adjusted organization gives us in itself any new forces. It has no 
 creative energy in this direction, nor should we rely upon it as though 
 it had. Associated action simply affords us, in another and more con- 
 venient form, the forces already existing; and in our estimate of avail- 
 able means, for present or future use, the unit of calculation must ever 
 be, not the organization, but the individual therein. And the aggregate 
 of the individual capacity for executive labor, or pecuniary giving, or 
 spiritual power, gives you the sum total of the means placed at your 
 disposal — neither more nor less — by the perfected organization. 
 
 That mischievous idea, floating illy-defined in the midst of many, 
 that a Society like this has in some way a sort of inherent vitality and 
 power of indefinite onward working, should be forever discarded by all 
 the true friends of God and humanity; for it need not be said that a 
 false conception like this can work nothing but injury to the individual, 
 as well as disaster to the Society, and to the cause for the furtherance of 
 which it exists. A correct, truthful idea of such an Association a.« this, 
 is rather that by its entire helplessness, aside from our individual 
 agency, it becomes a new and perpetual incentive to a more abounding 
 zeal and more fiiithful labor, rather, in behalf of our fellow-men, through 
 its good offices. 
 
 But we have other wants not provided for, for the success of our 
 undertaking. 
 
 2. We need money. 
 
 We have some, but the amount is painfully small. We need more, 
 that is, if we would be classed among live progressive agencies of 
 the time— as wide awake, both to the claims of humanity and to those 
 of God. 
 
 Located as this Society is, in the mid.st of a foreign community noted 
 for generous giving, and to a large extent certaiul}' not hostile to the 
 objects at which it aims, it has ever seemed to me that it has not yet 
 
felt impelled by a true mward conviction to that large-hearted, practical 
 recognition of its indebtedness to this wasting people which duty de- 
 mands at its hands, and which it has been wont to recognize in other 
 channels of well-doing. 
 
 That the indebtedness of which I speak is not a mere figment of 
 fancy, but e.xists as a sober fact, and rests with an imperative responsi- 
 bility upon each and every one of us residing in these islands who bears 
 the foreign name, I would fain believe is a truth honestly accepted by 
 each of those now before me. 
 
 Coming hither from other and more enlightened lands, we come in- 
 evitably as representatives of those lands. A higher civilization and a 
 more advanced Christianity are, willingly or unwillingly, impersonated 
 in us, worthily or unworthily, as the case may be. And, whilst claim- 
 ing for ourselves a superiority in those respects, which is readily con- 
 ceded, we surely cannot desire, selfishly and stingily, to monopolize the 
 blessings of our nobler birthright ! The goodly lands we represent are 
 known and read of all men, not only as opening wide their arms to re- 
 ceive the oppressed and degraded of every name, but also as generously 
 employed in sending abroad to every race the free offer of the choicest 
 privileges, social and religious, which they themselves possess. 
 
 And shall we, who have come to dwell among this kind-hearted 
 people, aim to do than that? Whilst we freely receive of theirs, 
 shall we parsimoniously hesitate to bestow upon them in return our bet- 
 ter gifts ? If, by the blessing of God, we have a richer inheritance than 
 Hawaiians, as we would answer for it in the final day, let us make them 
 so far as we may, by liberal pecuniary offerings, as well as by individ- 
 ual e.vample and by positive and persistent effort, partakers with our- 
 selves in this richer inheritance. By the love of our common Father, 
 by the redemption of our common Lord, we are bound to seek the peace 
 and prosperity of those among whom we dwell, and to do it, moreover, 
 in no stinted measure, but literally, generously, as God has dealt with 
 us and ours. And who can doubt that, even on lower grounds than 
 these, we are bound thus to contribute to the well-being of a people 
 through whose aid we come to accumulate stores of wealth ? Even as 
 a matter of shrewd business policy it should be done. “ Give alms of 
 such things as ye have and behold all things are clean unto you,” is 
 one of those simple yet far-reaching utterances of Jesus which are read 
 by many, but which few, in its intimate practical application, trouble 
 themselves to comprehend. Its meaning is nevertheless plain. If one 
 would secure the favor of God upon his business enterprises, let him 
 give, in due proportion to his gains, to the needy on every side of him. 
 This is an offering acceptable to God. And wherever it is liberally 
 provided for in the adjustment of one’s business plans, directed by or- 
 dinary soundness of judgment, by the general consent of those of large 
 experience, pecuniary disaster is rarely known to fall. And, had I the 
 persuasive eloquence of an angel, and were thus able to induce those 
 who hear me to make in their business arrangements a generous provis- 
 ion for the highest welfare of this people, wdth whom our lot has been 
 cast, through this and kindred organizations, I am sure that, as the 
 principles of God’s providential government are sound, there would 
 
8 
 
 thereby be iatroduced into the conduct of their affairs a large and posi* 
 tive element of permanent success. 
 
 But I remark— 
 
 3. We need more earnest toorkers. 
 
 These are essential prerequisites to earnest work. I do not now refer 
 • to those specifically set apart to the service of Society, but to others ; 
 for in every Christian community there are always found those outside 
 of the official pale who are the most persistent and effective workers 
 both for God and man. Let us fix it in our minds, as a settled truth, 
 that the Hawaiian people is not to be saved by the single item of Mis- 
 sionary effort, distinctively such. If this is to be accomplished, the 
 friends of Jesus throughout the islands must come up to the line of their 
 high calling, and willingly, yea joyfully, bear the responsibilities laid 
 upon them by our common Lord. For their own profit as well as for 
 His honor, and for the well-being of the entire community, this respon- 
 sibility has been laid equally upon us all. Besides, there is at the 
 present time a peculiarly urgent and solemn necessity for a most pro- 
 nounced coming out and standing up for Jesus. How else are our 
 longings to behold the accumulated honors that are to crown our adora- 
 ble Lord ever to be satisfied ? How else is sin to be drawn out, and the 
 multiplied blessings of salvation to come, in an ever-increasing harvest, 
 upon this perishing population ? How else are we ourselves to attain 
 the fullness of the perfect stature of men in Christ Jesus ? 
 
 The truth is, there has too long existed in the minds of our foreign 
 commuriity — even those known as the uncompromising friends of mo- 
 rality and religion — a too great willingness to leave to Missionaries the 
 entire management and responsibility of all enterprises undertaken for 
 the spiritual good of this people. Now this is clearly an injustice 
 both to God and man. ^ 
 
 There are the weightiest reasons why all who profess to be the friends 
 of virtue and religion should be prepared, in times like the present, to be 
 known as such, not in name merely, but in deed. It cannot be right 
 that the world, the business of this life, should totally absorb the indi- 
 vidual, leaving not even a title for God and humanity. No man can 
 so wrap himself up in the triple brass of selfishness and be guiltless. 
 His Maker has claims against him which cannot be shaken oft ; and so 
 has society. Believe me, there is something more valuable than gold. 
 Accumulated wealth is not the supreme good, affirm it though some 
 may, believe it though more do. Piles of precious metal can never 
 represent more than their earthly equivalent. They can never stretch 
 away beyond and certify to any soul its title to Heaven. We need 
 something that can do this, and that something is the favor of God, se- 
 cured by a life of loving, active obedience, through faith in Jesus 
 Christ. And it is the very service that I would fain urge, in the name 
 of our gracious Lord, and in the name of those for whom He died, upon 
 the attention of all whom voice or pen can reach throughout these 
 islands. Oh, for a clarified spiritual vision ! for eyes touched by the 
 finger of Jesus and freed from this thick film of worldliness ! for the 
 gracious spirit, 
 
 “ Upon the eyeballs of the blind 
 To pour celestial day ! ” 
 
9 
 
 Atiotlior want wliicli is }>roatly felt in our work is, 
 
 4. A viore cordial sympathy xoith the people — a more practical lellow- 
 fceling with ami for Ilawaiians. 
 
 Even with tlic professedly religious and friendly element in the com- 
 munity, there is altogether too much working at arm’s length. The 
 short arm of the lever is too long for the economical expenditure of the 
 forces at our disposal. We have need to get nearer the object to be 
 moved, and to understand better its diameter and conditions. Other- 
 wise we must not leel surprise if a retrihutive Providence sufTers the 
 Man of Home to seduce from the old paths many for whose salvation 
 the Protestant Mission was established. 
 
 No amount of zeal or of pecuniary gifts can rejilace a genuine fellow- 
 feeling in any agency for drawing men to God, or even in drawing 
 them from a lower to a higher and purer social condition. A genuine 
 eflective sympathy with this people is what we pre-eminently need. I 
 repeat it. Not that of the Priest and the Levite, which can look upon 
 them, and, with an aflected sanctity, pass by on the other side ; for we 
 have had enough of that ; but that of the Good Samaritan, which can 
 not only “look ” upon their necessities, but which can go, as well, and 
 with its own hands pour in the healing balm, and, if need he, even 
 set them upon its own beast, and take them to the fold of the Good 
 Shepherd for shelter and care. 
 
 The bare recognition of the necessities of a people, or the periodical 
 bestowment of a contribution, or even personal service for their benefit 
 without the genuine sympathy that moves and opens hearts, is of little 
 practical avail. What we need is the capacity for becoming all things 
 to all men, and so show the world that we practically hold to the true 
 Apostolic succession. This alone is the spirit of Jesus. This self- 
 denying, pains-taking purpose, working out through the law of Christian 
 love, this alone, achieves miracles in penetrating the hardest hearts and 
 reforming the most hopelessly degraded lives. And this, too, is the 
 very thing which the exigences of the present demand at our hands. 
 Shall this demand be met ? 
 
 We may at least thank God that on every side there are indications, 
 not only that these demands are felt, but that in many a bosom there 
 has already been formed the high and holy purpose to meet them in 
 Jesus’ name. And to this resolve we must come, or these souls about 
 us inevitably perish, aiid we go sheafless to the great Harvest Home of 
 the world. 
 
 Our foreign communities are supposed to know little about the social 
 or religious interests of Hawaiians, and hence to care little. I speak 
 generallJ^ And, were the whole truth to be told, probably little dispo- 
 sition would be found to penetrate deeper into the conditions of society 
 as it now exists around us. There are cogent reasons, I am aware, for 
 such a feeling. Yet to yield to this feeling is not Christian, nor is it 
 humane. Would there were abroad among us more of the large-hearted 
 sentiment so nobly expressed by the heathen Homan : “ Nothing per- 
 
 taining to human welfare but interests me.” A sentiment noble, in- 
 deed, not because it came from heathen lips, but because, even coming 
 from such lips, its genuine philanthropy is so broad and far-reaching. 
 
10 
 
 Let it incite us, who bear the Christian name, to a more thorough prac- 
 tical appreciation of the nobler and more authoritative injunctions of our 
 great Leader : 
 
 “ Love thy neighbor as thyself.” 
 
 “ Do good to all, as ye have opportunity.” 
 
 “ Bear ye one another’s burdens.” 
 
 “ As ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.” 
 
 Our Hawaiian neighbor may be poor, socially degraded, and morally 
 corrupt. Nevertheless he is a man^ and for him, not less than for the 
 honorable and highly favored. Heaven stooped to earth, and Jesus, its 
 First Born, was nailed upon the Cross. 
 
 Let it not, I pray you, be accepted as a foregone conclusion that the 
 less-favored race is, by some stern law of necessity, to be ruthlessly 
 swept from the earth by the advance of the more favored. I know it 
 is easy to generalise from the accumulated facts of the past, and to re- 
 gard it as a fixed rule that the aborigines must give way before the ad- 
 vancing tread of civilization ; meaning thereby that they may be pes- 
 tered and pushed from their own rightful inheritance, till the sod has, 
 without a tear, been laid over the last remnant of the race ; and all this 
 without compunction, because, forsooth, fate has decreed it ! 
 
 But let us not so narcotise our consciences. For humanity’s sake — 
 yea, for the sake of our common Father and our reedeeming Lord, let us 
 not be too ready thus to generalise that dark and shameful chapter of 
 facts which has been gathering ever since Columbus first stepped foot 
 upon American soil, and which, sad to say, is not yet concluded. 
 Kightly used, those records would indeed tell us of that insatiate greed 
 of gold, which, in the service of the dominant races, has pitilessly tram- 
 pled its untold myriads to a hopeless death. But surely no fixed law 
 of Providence, or of a true civilization, is here indicated. An infinitely 
 benevolent Father has not thus unfealingly left his helpless ones to be 
 cruelly crushed under the heel of a diabolical selfishness. 
 
 Whatever causes of decrease are or have been operative among this 
 people, are easily comprehended; and as those from other lands gave 
 birth to these causes, and have mainly endowed them with perpetuity, 
 there is a special fitness in the demand that through their agency, too, 
 they should be checked or eradicated. It is easy to say that this is an 
 impossible undertaking, lam well aware, and thus excuse one’s self from 
 active effort, if not from all outworking sympathy for the people. But 
 faith and facts arc both against us. The monstrous licentiousness of 
 the Corinthians,'notorious the world over, cultivated as a shameless art, 
 yielded to the preaching of the Cross. And Komau pollution, too, (an 
 unfathomable abyss, the extent of which history partially discloses, and 
 which the revelations of Pompeii arc but too faithfully giving us afresh,) 
 sustained, as it was, by the entire power of Paganism, quailed before 
 the early approach of the Gospel, and was vanquished in the contest 
 which ensued. 
 
 It was the pebble and the sling against the giant, over again ; and so 
 it has ever been, is, and will ever be, to a steadfast faith. It is tliis 
 faith only, grounded upon the divine promises, and the Holy Spirit 
 nuule clfectual through a genuine sympathy with this people, that will 
 
11 
 
 now give us success in the work, which in tlic name and strengtii of 
 God, we have upon our hands. We need, too, just now, an obstinate 
 pertinacity of faith, that tcill not yield the day, or for a moment indulge 
 the thought of giving over the remnant ol the Hawaiian nation to the 
 power of hell. If the welfare is stubborn and desperate, so it is every- 
 where in this sin-cursed world. The conditions of life and character 
 are evervwhere the same, and the same tried and trusty weapon with 
 which those before ns have wrought e.vploits for the truth, even the 
 Gospel of God’s crucified Son, we, also, still wield, or may wield for 
 the salvation of the Hawaiian race ; and shame on us, if from any cause 
 we fail to achieve victory therewith! • 
 
 And this brings me to mention, as another of our wants — 
 
 5. A more specific and positive faith in God, and in divine truth as 
 the single instrument of human salvation. 
 
 Not that human eloquence, learning and skill are to be rejected, pro- 
 vided, always, that as subordinates, they can be made to hold up every- 
 where and always “the only name under Heaven whereby they can be 
 saved.” Still, it is not to be denied that, as a saving agency, the wis- 
 dom of the world is “ foolishness ” with God. And the great Apostle 
 counts it all as dung, that he may, for himself and for others, win 
 Christ pnd be found in Him. He gloried in but one single thing. That 
 was in the vicarious sacrifice of the Cross. 
 
 Putting all else beneath his feet, he concentrated the entire forces of 
 his being to this one resolute purpose, of proclaiming the crucified and 
 risen Jesus as the one only sacrifice for all the spiritual maladies of our 
 race. He knew, indeed, that “ to the Jews it was a stumbling-block 
 and the Greeks foolishness.” Yet by this very “ foolishness of preach- 
 ing ” he also knew it pleased God to save them that believe. Thus 
 “knowing in whom he believed,” and assured that the “foolishness of 
 God was wiser than men,” we see how it was that he determined, even 
 among the highly-cultivated and fastidious Corinthians, to know noth- 
 ing save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. He could not dally with 
 outside considerations, but opened up at once the power and glory of 
 the Gospel, in its individual application to the hearts of men. And 
 now it is just this resolute faith of the Apostle in the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ, as the sole specific for all human necessities, that we need to- 
 day, to fire anew our zeal and give assurance of the coming victory. 
 
 Let it be, therefore, our glory, as it was His, to know nothing but 
 Christ, and Him crucified for the salvation of men. Tell us not of im- 
 posing rites or a pompous ceremonial, neither of salvation flowing from 
 consecrated finger-ends, nor yet of priestly offices, which, shutting out 
 the broad and blessed Sun of Kevelation, would stupidly send us to 
 God by candle-light. Away with these borrowed baubles of heathenism! 
 Give us a pure Christianity, and in beautiful apostolic simplicity let us 
 point this people to the Lamb of God that takelh away the sin of the 
 world. 
 
 And let it be our constant joy to know that one of the crowning glo- 
 ries of the Gospel which we labor to bestow upon this people is out and 
 out individuality. For the mere accidents of human character it has 
 no partiality. It knows nothing of authoritative monopolies through 
 
12 
 
 whose officious agency alone its grace may be vouchsafed to the spirit- 
 ually needy ; nor with aggregations of men has it anything to do. To 
 corporations or organizations it lias not one word to say, save, indeed, 
 as they may be the proper and healthful outgrowth of individual men. 
 To the man it speaks directly — to the individual man. Abject and de- 
 spised he may be, morally corrupt and undone he certainly is ; never- 
 theless, he is a child of God, and by the sign manual of Hea'ven he has 
 in reversion a celestial birthright. A Lazarus in rags, repulsive to 
 sight, he may be now, and thankful for the kindly sympathy and com- 
 panionship of dogs, but to-morrow’s sun shall find him entered upon his 
 promised inheritam;e, a child of glory reposing in Abraham’s bosom. 
 This, I repeat, is one of the crowning glories of the Gospel, and with 
 what fixedness of hope and faith should it not inspire us ! By divine 
 authority we offer its wealth of blessing directly to the living soul, and 
 upon that soul also we lay its solemn and weighty responsibilities. It 
 is what he needs, for it is his Father’s provision for its extremest neces- 
 sities. With his political relations it may not, perhaps, directly, med- 
 dle, nor with his social standing. It is enough that he was made in 
 the image of his Creator; enough that, as such, he is a subject of God’s 
 moral government. For him, as such, the Cross on Calvary was 
 reared. For him atoning blood was shed. To him conies the offer of 
 life or death, and, as the steward of this manifold grace of God, naked 
 and alone shall he come at length to the final Judgment Seat. 
 
 Divide this heirship to the bounteous gifts and res])onsibi!itios of the 
 Gospel you cannot, neither the one nor the other. Each individual of 
 the race is personally heir to the whole. Mo Church can interdict it, 
 no priest circumscribe it, no Bishop lay his finger upon it. Such is the 
 Gospel committed to us : such its relations and dealings with man. 
 Outside of it there are no motives thajt can touch the conscience, or sav- 
 ingly affect the life, spiritual or material. This can; and we should 
 never forget it. It is well to recur often to what it has done, that sight, 
 as well as faith, may be assured, and stagger not at the promise of what 
 it is surely to do. Think of that first quarter of a century after Jesus 
 hung upon the Cross ! Bun your eye over the Epistles. Homans, 
 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Pliilipians, Colossians, Thessalo- 
 nians. A marvelous catalogue ! They indicate to us, in the briefe!«t 
 possible terms, not a world conquered by some proud earthly monarch, 
 but by the simple story of the Cross; and that, too, against the com- 
 bined powers of civil and religious despotism, of earth and hell. 
 Again, turn your thoughts to the conquests of the truth within the 
 present century. Time would fail us even to run through the cata- 
 logue of territories and peoples won for Christ, both from I’opery and 
 from Paganism, on continent and on island. And it is worthy of re- 
 mark, in passing, that not one trophy thus won for Christ has again re- 
 verted to the foe. Recall, too, in this connection, what the Go.spel has 
 done for these islands. We are sometimes inclined to underrate the 
 magnitude of the work actually accomplished. In this we are wrong. 
 When our foes exultingly tell us that a fox running upor. the wall 
 which the Gospel has erected among the Hawaiian people would break 
 it down, it is not perhaps surprising that, for the moment, in the midst 
 
i;{ 
 
 ol g;rcat discounigcmciits, too, we arc lialt’ inclined to believe them. 
 But is it so ? 
 
 I’oint to whetever valualile institutions or conditions of life yon will, 
 now existing among ns, civil, social, religions or political, and every 
 jtarticniar one of them has romething more than a poor dumb month 
 with which to sjteal; for our Immanuel and the power of His Cro.ss. It 
 is both well and wise to strengthen onr faith in this survey. We have 
 neotf thus to be prepared for what the immediate future is yet to reveal 
 to us, and need also to assure ourselves that the sword of tlie Lord and 
 of Gideon is yet in our hands. And with tliis trusty weapon, in the 
 Name of Names, the Church of God on these fair Islands shall yet cut 
 her way to victory through all her gathered foes. 
 
 But 1 hasten to tlie last of ouf wants which lime will allow to be 
 named, viz : 
 
 (5. A more practical C/iristiamty. 
 
 In other words, a Christianity embodied in the every-day man, and 
 not simply in the sleek and pious church-goer on the Sabbaih. 
 
 Our religion is too ethereal and delicate to bear the coaise scrutiny 
 •> and test of this ordinary business life of ours. We need something 
 
 ^ with more tangible substance to it ; something that can better “ rough it” 
 
 in the world. No mere theory ol Christianity, apart from its actual 
 ada|)tedness to the common necessities of life, is for us worth a mo- 
 ment’s thought. That which solely attracts our interest to-night is — 
 Religion as a reforming and saving agency, both, in its actual perform- 
 ance and in its known capacity for effective work among men. It mat- 
 ters little to us, even though its indicated capacity as a system be infi- 
 nite, so long as its actual workins: is partial and imperfect. The skill- 
 ful engineer is never satisfied until he can work up his engine to its 
 given capacity ; and if he gets but half the indicated power therefrom, 
 he is sure that there is a defective working of it. And so we, in work- 
 ing the system of means which God has given for reforming and saving 
 men, whilst painfully conscious of the imperfect resul's actually at- 
 tained, are sure that our working of the system is defective. 
 
 Now, it is manifestly absurd in us to expect to accomplish the vast 
 work which we have in hand, with forces so painfully inadequate as we 
 find them. The children of this world exhibit no such stupidity ; why 
 should the children of light? Is it written in the book of God's de- 
 crees that the former shall be wiser in their generation than the latter ? 
 Or is this the mere statement of a humiliating fact, whose existence is 
 conditioned upon no fixed necessity, but simply upon a defective spirit- 
 ual economy, persistently believed in and pushed laboriously on to its 
 meagre results 1 Can we doubt which ? And we know, too, where the 
 great defect lies. 
 
 Give us, therefore, not a new religion — we are right there — but a 
 new system of spiritual economy, vitalized by the fresh element of power 
 to be found in the honest application of Christianity to the ordinary busi- 
 ness of life. 
 
 We are told that the results of forty-five years of Christian toil 
 among this people are not commensurate with their cost in treasure and 
 human energies ; and, vast as these results are, I am far from disputing 
 
14 
 
 liie allegation. Considering (lie large numbers, in ever}' department of 
 life, who have borne the Christian name, and still bear it, in these 
 islands, the results are indeed unsatisfactory, and it is by no means diffi- 
 cult to tell why. Our religion, instead of occupying its rightful posi- 
 tion as the controlling power in the conduct of life, has been made far 
 too generally to dance attendance upon our worldly interests ; and so 
 accustomed have we become to this method of Christian life, that not 
 only the world — the outside sinners — but many even of the baptised 
 children of the Kingdom have come to accept it as an established truth 
 that worldly business cannot be successfully conducted if under the 
 control of religion ! 
 
 And this is precisely the debasing idea that is now being diffused 
 throughout the native community, viz., that there can be no joint agency 
 of the Divine with the earthly principle in conducting the every-day 
 affairs of life! as though religion were a Utopian scheme, and the Bible 
 a book of impracticable precepts ! And so, when one takes to business 
 of any sort, he feels that he follows high precedents in eschewing the 
 Divine law as his guiding light, and following what he supposes to be 
 his own wiser and better judgment. “ Not slothful in business, fervent 
 in spirit, serving the Lord,” is to him, as to others, an unmeaning in- 
 congruity. 
 
 Now, can any people ever be Christianized on grounds so low and 
 unworthy as these '{ 1 do not ask if they can be brought into the 
 
 Chu'ch thereby, for they may be, as others have been, both in this and 
 other lands. But we do not hold to baptismal regeneration. Heathen- 
 ism baptised is heathenism still, and baptised worldliness is worldline.ss 
 still, call it by what name you please. 
 
 But this people have long since been able to comprehend the discrep- 
 ancy that e.xists everywhere among them, between the religion of the 
 Bible, as read and as preached to them, and that which is thus prac- 
 tised. With their religious teachers, they approve the former and ac- 
 knowledge, as readily as we do, its divine excellence, whilst, as human 
 nature is, they naturally and almost inevitably content themselves with 
 practising the latter, and think they do as well as their employers and 
 acknowledged superiors. And is this to be disputed ? 
 
 We cannot now stop to speak of the domestic and more private rela- 
 tions which we hold to Hawaiians; but look abroad over the Islands if 
 you will, and in all fairness say, if, in the mariagement of our great 
 plantations, for example, and other important enterprises which absorb 
 and control all the native labor available, there is practical Christianity 
 enough — I will not say humanity enough — to make the faintest appre- 
 ciable show. I mean, of course, as seen by Hawaiian and other em- 
 ployes. 
 
 Let us not deceive ourselves. Hawaiians are not slow in estimating 
 the sort of Christianity that simply treats them as beasts of burden, 
 w'ithout the slightest actual provision for their wants as immortal be- 
 ings. A Christianity that works them incessantly for six days of the 
 week — not to say more, even, than that — and then torus them adrift on 
 the Sabbath, without even the care bestowed upon the cattle, and so 
 drawing them down by an inevitable process of demoralizing (and by 
 
15 
 
 * 
 
 no lics^nting process either) towards barbarism and death. Tliis cari- 
 catured Christianity is not, nor was it ever designed to be, in any 
 land, the power of God, nor tlie wisdom of God, for tlie salvation of 
 men. 
 
 Now, we need a religion better than this, if our work is ever to be 
 done ; a religion from which are eliminated all these unnatural excres- 
 ences, and in which these fatal defects are remedied. In short, we 
 need the sort of Christianity that God gives us in His Word, heavenly 
 in its aspect as well as in its origin, human as well as divine in its 
 practical teachings, regarding man ever in his two-fold nature and rela- 
 ations, and striving to bless him in both. Give us this sort of (iliris- 
 tianity, ?wt as n beautiful ideal, but us a tangible substance, touching and 
 blessing this actual Hawaiian life at every conceivable point, and our 
 work — God’s wotk — on these islands shall be speedily accomplished, 
 and the top stone shall be brought forth with shoutings of grace, grace 
 unto it ! 
 
 But, at this stage of human progress, of what conceivable avail is the 
 religion that, either doubtful or ashamed, sneaks away from the marts 
 of trade — from the ship’s deck, the dock, the counting-room, the planta- 
 tion — whilst m the prayer-meeting and on the Sabbath, when secular 
 business is safely in abeyance, it can zealously exhort to faithfulness to 
 Him who reedeemed them with His blood, and who said, too, He that is 
 ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of him ? 
 
 Out upon the Christianity that, in the last half of the nineteenth 
 century, and in the light of the last hfty years, can read the second 
 Psalm, and still hesitate and apologise in putting its foot significantly 
 forward for Christ. Fools and fanatics there may be danger of our be- 
 coming, as the world goes, but is it not better to be fools and do some- 
 thing for our blessed Lo#l and for our race, than weak-backed and 
 fearful worldly-wise ones, whose noblest aim is to sit astride the fence 
 which divides His Kingdom from the world, and vainly strive to serve 
 them both ? 
 
 It is a bootless task to aim at the regeneration of any people by such 
 an agency as this. As a working power, without a fresh baptism from 
 on high, it is well-nigh played out ; and hence it is that our work 
 hangs so heavily on our hands^ What adequate triumphs has the 
 Cross won through our agency within the last half-score of years? 
 What new trophies have these years given us, which to-night we may 
 lay at Jesus’ feet ? . Nay, Satan is not thus easily to be bruised under 
 our lea^. In this conflict Christ indeed is to win, but He is to win 
 through the unstinted devotion of the Church He has purchased Avith 
 l#His own blood. * 
 
 Again, I repeat, a new religious life is what we perishingly need ; 
 that, conscious„®f the abiding presence of Jesus, shall always and every- 
 where stand up for Him. And, whilst art and science gird themselves, 
 as noAA’, for the cqnquest of the material world, is Religion, which alone 
 gives beauty and significance to both, with careless mien and folded 
 arms to sit idly by ? Has she, too, no conquest to win for Him whose 
 name she bears ? No trophies for Christ! And this, too, in the year 
 when expectation stands on tiptoe, and faith beholds the millenial dawn 
 
Hi 
 
 already streaking tlio hill-tops with coming glory ! It cannohisiirely, 
 he ! It inust not be ! The Master says it. Our faith and love both 
 forbid it. We must work the work of Him that sent us whilst it is 
 day ! 
 
 And how solemn as eternity are the motives which urge us onward 
 to our work, to a quickened zeal and a stronger "faith — to a new and 
 higher religious life in and for our adorable Lord ! 
 
 The time is short. Soon our work will have come to an end, and 
 the grave will have closed over us forever. Forever, did 1 say? No. 
 Christ is the Resurrection and the Life. In Him toiling and not faint, 
 in H*m trusting and not ashamed— yet a little while, and He will come 
 and take us to our waiting thrones on high ; and — cheering, glorious 
 thought — not us onhj. Multitudes of these despised ones for whom He 
 died and we toil, shall through atoning grace, there i^ign with us too ; 
 and together we shall sing, in sweetest harmony, the Song of Moses 
 and the Lamb. 
 
 
 
 
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