The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1866-03-03
Reply from the Bishop of Honolulu.

To the Editors Of the Ersning Post:
l replied 70 your first attack IF November 9Th.
Unable 70 meet the facts which ! then adduced,
you shifted your ground. Private character was
not safe from your asper>ions. An American
gentleman who occupies an honorable and high
position in the Hawaiian gOyernment-one who,
from being Il churchnan, incurred the enmity Of
his CongregItionalist countryInen-was yilliied.
True, he was absent from the land Of his birth.
50 much the better for his cOwardly assailant. |
naturally inferred that the private malice Of
some disappointed partisan having interests in
the islands, whose unconscious dupe YOU were,
had inspired your articles. 1t was evident nv
being an Englishman On name in which [ glorv)
was Il difficulty m Hnlne. say what | might,
which no argument in Your estimation could
overcome. For these reasons | ceased TO take
any further interest in your lucubratiOns.
Under the inputations, however. Of your
Thursdays issue. my silence might be wrongly
construed. | have again. therefore. 70 tresuass
on your space. | did not correct your misstate-
ment Of my words when | wrote on the 10Th of
November, because my denial was implicitly
stated in the general disclaimer | published, of
any intention to speak uncharitably of the early
missionaries, and because had other topics enough
to discuss. Allow Inc to correct you. II was
not : a report which you printed, rs the term
usually is understood. 1t was a leading article.
in which the writer named, among nv other
nOrmitics that OF having used the phrase in
question. Now | know what | should be likely
to say. | can generally trust my memory for
what | have said when speaking e~Ifemp0rc. Ny
friends tell Inc | was imperfectly heard. Well,
what does it all amount to? Let any one read
the Iote referred to in the Church Monthly, in
the light Of the passage which you quote from
Inv review Of the book of the Rev. DR.. Rufus
A.nder, on, and if he is not bent on perverting Ian
guage he will see what | was driving at. The
early contamination i'll the note answers 10 the
hprase The polyandry and corruption Of girls in
the RerieJC. This was the one particular in which
the morals of the two periods were compared.
And while grateful for what the missionaries
have effected, recognising fully the benefits which
Christian civilization ON the whole has conferred
on the Islands, | am yet bound 10 tell the truth,
that in this matter things are worse now than
then. Why? Because the parents were respon-
sible to the chief for the honor of their unmarried
u whom he alone could claim access.
This was horrible enough, no doubt. But how
stands the matter now? Let every Congregation
alist, every Romanist teacher there be appealed
10. | will abide by their decision. They Will
tell you that virtue among the young women of
their fOcks Is scarcely known that - professors
and = non-profrSSors'' have been in the habit Of
prostituting their daughters for money to such n
degree that the legislature last year enacted an
inter-island passport system 10 put a stop u the
Of girls from the country districts 10
the ports. | deny that there was that extensive
intercourse Of the young women
with the heather tattoo, that exists now.
And what have | ever declared 10 be the cause?
Christianity itself. Not the missionaries in
iividually. They sometimes struggled nobly
with the evil. But ID the presence Of licentious
foreigners ~ the unsuitableness OF Puritanism
As the particular form of the Christianity first
Introduced there-fning and imrrisJning for
ornication unduly forcing the religious emo
ions; sometimes Encouraging industry, sometimes
l~musements. On page III of Dr.. Anderson's
,Dok. he attributes .. the spiritual weakness of
particular district 10 " one of its former pastors
having given an undue proportion of time and
strength to the material prosperity of the peo-
de" Here Is a specimen OF Puritanism
| could relate, and your Congregationalist
racle, If he chose. could confirm. many instances
f the supericialty of the Christianity generallyas
Iow p%rolessed among the people. But | forbear.
You return TO your ~Anglophobia. The late t