Polynesian. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu], Hawaii) 1844-1864, 1859-07-16
No. Ill.

times, and the spirit Of the common people. There
IS public sentiment that will drown out even the
Tract Society. There is public sentiment which,
II 1t be slow, is slow only that it may be certain
and ettectual. Confidence will not be revoked
hastily. It will not be too eagerly concluded that
men once trusted have become arrogant in Office
and corrupted by power and sedueed by the blan-
dlshments of Hattery and success. But when
once that confidence as withdrawn it will never re-
turn. II, then, there is any seeming delay, it is
only such delay belongs to the steps of majesty.
hen God Is throned In clouds, and armed with
hghtnlngs, and approaches to Judgment and to
justice, sure in his heart is the day of retrbu-
ton, that he needs not to make haste. There is
no being so certain as God, and none so slow; for,
since the days of Moses and the prophets, there
has never been age when men, feeling the bitter
wants of the world, have not been compelled,
their own patience worn out, to cry, '' How long,
y Lord, how longf" To-day martyrs cry, to-day
oppressed and suffering patriots from out of dun
geon vaults do cry to-day with million voices not
suppressed, suffering slaves cry out, 20 Lord,
how long ~ And yet He dwells in eternity and
In silence, and takes to himself the infinite leisure
of eternity. But though He seems to delay, He
never fails to come, and at length it shall be said
" Our God shall come and shall not keep silence"
And believe that God will yet mark with the
most condgn punishment, those men who, under
the of religion and for the sake of screening
and the oppressed, have violated liberties and
our rights. [Applause. l do not say that these
men are not Christians. Peter, l suppose, was a
Christian when he denied his Lord. l hope these
men are Christians. But if that is Christianity
which they practice, they have another New Tes-
lament than mine.
What shall the strong do with the weakl This
is to-day the question which GOD makes Asia to
answer. With this he questions Africa. With
this he catechizes every factious nation of Eu-
rope. With this question he is shaking America.
Nor is there yet found one nation on the earth,
though their Christianity has been with them so
long that their cathedrals hoary with age, and
their affairs burned out with perpetual 6res, that
has yet learned to answer this sublime interroga-
tory Of ages
The duty of the strong to the weak Great
Britain says that the duty of the strong to the
weak is to compel them to perform remunerating
lndustriesi Europe declares that the duty of the
strong is to make the iron hand of power yet
stronger, and to hold in more absolute subsection
the now pinched and cramped masses of the people.
Africa, low, brutal, animal, hears the question,
but knows not yet enough even to comprehend its
meaning and God speaks to that benighted conti-
nent. as child might speak to the oeean-calling
out for its father, its mother, its companions
and only the ceaseless beating of the surf upon
the shore, wave laundering after wave, is its an
sWer
All the world over, the power Of Christianity
has made the more intelligent stronger and con-
tinually stronger but yet, it has left the 9TH
ers relatively weaker than before. The top of so
ciety has gone up, but the bottom has not follow
ed 1t in any due proportion.
And now, hath God answered this question
Hath he declared his own mindl or anywhere re-
corded those letters which are never to be efaced,
those letters declarative of his wil1 When God
gave the law to antiquity, he wrote it upon tables
2 oc
When he gave to the world his later law, he wrote
upon the living heart of Christ in the silent ma
iesty of Calvary And in his EXAMPLE we learn
our Duty.
| Is not this one of the many mysteries that are
| disclosing themselves from the sublime act of
| Christ's incarnation and atonement! If on earth
there be one thing memorable, which, wanting no
monument, shall lift up its undiminished head
through eternal ages, itself its monument, is
| it not that act by which the God of glory bowed
down his Almighty head, and slept beneath all
life and in the bosom of Death, that he might de-
stroy the and give eternal power to the Otherl
| No angelic head radiant with reflected glory was
that which pilowed itself upon the rock The
moral and the marvel of this sacrifice required
that men should know that the Absolute, the Ev-
erlasting, the Universal Father, lived and moved
| by law of love, which made him the willing
| minister and servant of the weakest. And by the
voice of his own life, by the voice of Calvary, by
the death, and by the resurrection of the son, by
the everything care and fostering love of Christ,
advanced to be a Prince and Savior in Heaven,
God is now teaching US, teaching mankind,
willing scholars rs they are that the duty of the
strong toward the weak is to love them, to take
care of them, educate them, to strengthen them,
| to lift them up with the might of their strength
to the very hight of their privileges! And so,
they shall be helped, and you, helping them, shall
be thrice blessed yourselves; for is blessed
10 giUe than TO receive and power gone out of you
for others returns to you again from their hearts
increased thousand fold !