The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1865-01-07
PACIFIC
Commercial Advertiser.
AGAINST the Reformed Catholic ar High
Church InUasion IF The SandtCih Islands.

LIE AuISFIcdn DOdTu OF COninlsSICneTS IOI
Foreign Missions, In Its annual meeting at " or
cester, October 4th, 1861, having received Z
special report from the Prudential
concerning the so-called Reformed Catholic Mis-
sion in the Hawaiian Islands, is constrained T.
put upon record and to publish an appeal to all
Protestant Missionary Societies against the prln-
cipies on which that Mission has been established
fOrty-iVe years ago we sent forth the First mis-
siOnaries to the Sandwich Islands. The natives
of those Islands were at that time not only
heather, but sayages. They had no history and
almost no traditions. They had no letters, and
no foreigner had ever reduced their language to
writing or inquired into its forms and structure.
Their only dwellings We're huts Of grass. Their
mechanical skill was only sufficient to construct
canoes, t. fibricate fsh-hOoks and weapons Of
war, to manufacture mats from grass, and Il rude
Iaper-Ike cloth from the bark of certain trees,
and 10 decorate their persons with the pluInage
OF birds. Their religion was Il most degrading
heathenism, and their hideoUs idols were worship
ed with human sacrifices. The family institution
can hardly be said to have existed among them,
for IN their practice of polygamy not only might
the husband have many wives. but the wife might
have many husbands and children were killed
without scruple at the convenience or in the
anger or WEAKNESS Of parents. They had no
conscience that made them ashamed of fa!sahOod
or Of murder; and in licentiousness not PaphUs,
nor Corinth, nor Sodom, could surpass their uni
yersal and british degradation. From forty years
OF intercourse with the ships Of civilized and
commercial nations they had acquired nothing
but new vices, new diseases, new implements Of
mutual destruction, and the art of distilling q
fiery drink Tor the purpose of intCxicatiOn.
BY an extraordinary concurrence of events. in
which we cannot but acknowledge the ordering
OF God 5 providence, 1t came to PASS that our first
missionaries, on their arrival at the Islands, found
that the ancient idolatry, with its priesthood,
Its affairs, and its cdpricIOuS and burdensOIne
restrictions, had just been overthrown, not
at all in the progress Of new ideas, but simply
at the within OF 4 new chief succeeding to absO-
lutte power. Neither the king nor the people had
any idea of seeking a new religion, or of accept
ing it il offered to them.
With much difficulty our missionaries, having
In their company several natives who had stra yed
to this country aud had been educated by Chris
tan charity, obtained permission to remain upon
the Islands, first for a few months, and W.
for II longer period, till the beneficent character
of their work began to be appreciated both by the
chiefs and by the people. Their patient and
persevering labors, in the face of many disheart-
ening difficulties, We're rewarded with a remarka-
bic success. They studied the language and
mastered Its principles and its idioms. They
gave 1t an alphabet, and an photography so sim
pie and perfect that adults, as well as children,
could learn to read it. They established schools.
Ihey created schoOl-books they translated the
Bible they enriched the language with Christian
hymns they taught in their schools not only
reading and writing, but arithmetic and geoera-
Ply y my bAihitI IL ~ vi lilEtItI II y
to such as might require it and all the while
the one great object of their teaching was to COM
municate that knowledge of Christ as the Saviour
of sinners which is : the power of God unto sal
walton to every one that believeth.'' After years
OF labor they began 10 rejoice in the manifested
efficacy of the Gospel which they preached. They
began to see in one and another that ever-marvel-
Gus changed of character which attests the pre-
sence of the Holy Spirit, and in which the Gospel
becomes It's own witness.
AlunnGt fhTrfu IN, o.N .Ic, ox,:4&-J
to see throughout the archipelago, which was the
field OF their labors. Il most memorable victory of
the gospel over ignorance and sin. Thousands of
Hawaiian natives gave credible evidence of an in
telligent and spiritual faith in Christ, and though
some {s was to be expected) have fallen away,
the perseverance of thousands through life and in
death, has proved the reality of their conversion
to God. The result of our mission at the end of
forty years from the arrival of our first mission
aries, was that the Hawaiian Islands had become
substantially, a civilized and christian nation,
recognized as such by the leading powers of
christendom. The Bishop of Oxford has given
the sanction of his name To a book, (written by
an Englishman who never saw the islands, which
~prOnounces our mission "a failure but the
question may be fairly raised, whether in his
Lordships own diocese, the number of the agri-
cultural peasantry who can read the Bible intelli-
gently. and give an Intelligent account of what
the christian religion is, or of the difference ,
between Professionalism and Romanism, is as great
as 1t Is among the peasantry of Hawaii? We
may challenge any detractor to show, that even
IN the city of Honolulu, the political and COM
merci,l capital of the nation, where Il demoraIiz-
ing and malignant influence from foreigners is
most concentrated, the aggregate of vice and
crime Is greater in proportion to the population,
than In London, or III any commercial city of the
British Empire, or Of the United States. Our
found the natives almost as naked as
Adam ana Eve, and quite as far from being
The people whom they found in that
are now decentIy clothed. Thousands
of families are dwelling in humble but comforta-
bic homes. Native wOrkmen are busy in the
various mechanical trades, and to Il wide extent
habits of industry and thrift have superseded the
and waste of savage life. The Christian
that characteristic institution, which
British Christianity on the con-
tinent of Europe, and which we have received as
part OF our inheritance, is observed by the
people as carefully as it is observed in
or in New England. On that day 1.-THE
sound of the church going bell'' floats over the
valleys and is echoed from the mountains, and OF
the entire population, as large Il portion, as in
any christian country, answer the call 10 public
worship. In cheerful throngs. decently apparel
they Tesort-to christian temples, humble but
and in many instances substantial,
built by native hands, and paid for mostly by
native contributions.
They worship the God of the Bible in their own
language, not. indeed, with ceremonial
pomp, but according TO the simpler ritual of
Professionalism and of primitive Christianity, with
prayers offered in the name of Christ : with
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making
melody IN their hearts unto God with the
hearing of Gods word, with the admin
OF baptism and the Lords Supper. SO
great q moral and religious revolution was
naturally followed by Il corresponding revolution
IN the administration and form of government.
g.