The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1865-01-07

executive powers was provided for the security OF
liberty. Such was the natural result Of Protest
ant Evangelical Christianity. victorious over
hCatheuism.
Forty years after the commencement Of our
mission the Discrimination OF the Hawaiian
Islands was already SO far advanced, that We a. n
society for propagating the gospel III heather and
uneyangelized countries had already entered upon
the process OF closing our appropriate work, and
Of leaving the religious institution which, by
Gods blessing, We had planted there, to their
own selfperpetuating power, and to the activity
and zeal Of native Christians, under the Iaternal
guidance Of our surviving missionaries, most OF
whom were beyond the noon Of life. Those
native Christians were even then sending forth
their own foreign missionaries u the MarqueSas
Islands, and to the coral islands of Micronesia.
Such was the religious character and condition
Of the Hawaiian people, when a seli-constituted
committee in London, taking advantage of the
desire which the King of Hawaii had expressed
for an Episcopal clergyman to reside at honolulu.
who besides ministering TO the Jew English and
American EpiscOpalians, might become the chap
lain of the royal family, and the tutor 10 the
infant prince, organized and sent forth what calls
itself the :. Reformed Catholic Mission, consist
Ing Of Il bishop and three Presbyters, and propos-
ing to itself an indefinite enlargement, as ii the
work of annexing those islands to the invisible
kingdom of Christ, and of planting there the
Institutions of truly Catholic Christianity, were
then to be commenced.
i ne settlement Oh Il 1TOlcoldul EIIecOI dl Ili1!E-
ter at Honolulu would have been welcomed by
our missionaries and would have been TO us an
occasion not OF complaint, but Of cOngratulatiOn.
His success IN gathering a congregation OF Epls-
COpalians from among the foreign residents, and
IN minlsterlng to the moral and religious improve
ment Of the royal family, would have given Joy to
our missionaries and to us. Nor could any
complaint have arisen, if he had received ever So
many native converts into his own communion.
Whether the peculiar ritual and ecclesiastical
arrangements of Protestant Episcopacy are suited
to promote the Christian lie and progress Of the
Hawaiian people, is a question worthy to be
solved by a fair experiment, and to such an ex-
pertinent, neither We nor our missionaries would
have offered any hindrance- But this Reformed
Catholic Mission" attempts no such experiment..
1t enters the field, renouncing, In the presence of
ROmanists, the nam Protestant. 1t begins its
operations, not as an ally against Ignorance and
sin, but as an enemy. 1t practically repels all
offer OF fraternity or courtesy on the part of our
missionaries. It refuses to acknowledges their
standing as ministers Of Christi gospel. 1t makes
no account of the work which God had wrought
by his blessing on their iabors, a work SO great
and manifest that they might well say to the
cbrlstianlzed Hawaiian people, In Christ Jesus
we have begotten you through the gospel: ii we
be now apostles unto others, yet doubtless we are
to you, tor the seal of our apostleship are We in
the Lord The first lessons of its eyangeliZatiOn
arc to contradict what they have taught concern
ing the way of salvation for sinners through
Christ alone, and to put contempt upon the
Christian Sabbath.
In thus protesting against that self styled Re-
formed Catholic Mission, we impute no blame to
the Protestant Episcopal Church in our own
country nor to the authorities Of the Established
Church of England. The Archbishop Of Canter-
bury in consecratinG a bishop for Jhat enterprise,
acted simply under the force Of political necessity,
the King of Hawaii having been represented as
asking that favor of the British Government.
Nor does the enterprise proceed from either Of the
two great societies through which the members Of
the Church of England conduct their foreign
missions. 1t represents nothing more than a sect
or party in the Church of England, a sect which
happily for our common Christianity is far less
in its influence than it was twenty
years ago. Had such a measure as this intrusive
mission to Hawaii proceeded from any Protestant
missionary society, or from any recognized body
of evangelican Christians, it would have been an
inexcusable violation Of the law of comfy which
is respected spontaneously and almost universally
by Protestant missionaries and the directors of
missions. As it is, we can only appeal
TO the public opinion of Protestant Christendom
against an interference which is neither Protest
nor Christian.
This Appeal Vas unanimously adopted by the
Board.