The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1868-07-04

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sand dollars .S,
The thousands upon thousands who have lived :!
deyout. earnest, humble, self denying CHRISTIAN
life; the thousands upon thousands who have
died a triumphant christian death, are all compe-
tent witnesses to the genuineness of that great
spiritual revolution which has here, by divine
grace, been wrought. And in this great moral
revolution there has necessarily been involved an
overturning of manners and customs, OF tastes
and habits, of ideas and aspirations. And so,
without any violent resolution, the mission has
been accessory to the securing of a constitutional
government, 10 the curbing and curtailing OF ar
bitrary and irresponsible power, TO the substitu-
ton of Reputable laws administered in well organic
ed courts, for the word of a chief or the whim of a
naughty oppressor. Thus quietly yet effectively
has christianity been working like a leayen for
the securing of many radical changes in the civil
and social structure of this Island Kingdom.
a common school system grew up under the
fostering care of missionaries to be the glory of
the land. One political right after another was
conceded to the people, without the sacrifice of
aught that was essential to the stability OF the
throne or the true dignity of the rulers.
Thus without making state craft their study
or the political emancipation of the people their
primary aim they have helped incidentally and
indirectly to modify and mollify the existing form
of government; Just as Christ and his apostles
while rendering into Caesar the things that We're
Caesars, incidentally aimed TO root out every
wrong and to molify every element of oppression,
~ oeDsh e'N
unto God the things that are Gods. True relig-
ion is neither the ally of anarchy nor of oppres-
sion, but tends to right every wrong, and, under
every form of government, to secure the peace
and progress OF society and the highest welfare OF
the ruler and the ruled.
Again, incidentally and in conjunction with
many able and worthy physicians in this city and
elsewhere the missionaries have helped to %overturn
that diabolical system of doctoring which has
done, and alas is still doing, so much to extermin-
- IL Ill., I--- l.,~l tIA ,-..a
command to heal the SICK, as well as to cast Out
deriLs and to instruct the ignorant. And if there
lis a remnant of that old system of devil worship
and heathenish doctoring still fostered contrary
to law, or under cover of authority, it is not be
cause of the connivance of the missionaries or the
medical faculty, nor is it because of their neglect
often and earnestly TO protest against it.
Nor can they ever truthfully be charged with
conniving at a rernicious traffic in intoxicating
drinks or n still more destructive opium trade,
which is destined, if continued, to waste the rem
nant of the Hawaiian race as well as to cut short
the stupefed and embittcred lives of laborers i'm
ported from other lands. So far from censuring
our rulers for any loss of revenue through failure
to extend such licenses to the utmost limit of the
law, they deserve the thanks of the mission and
of the whole nation for any arbitrary restriction
of this death-dealing traffic.
Incidentally also the missionary work on these
islands has tended to overturn and abolish the odd
heather sports of the people. Not because these
50 rigid puritans'' substituted a new tabu system
for the one already abolished, but because the
converts to the new faith instinctively and of their
own accord cast away those sports which had
been the adjuncts and accessories of idol worship.
Those sports pertained to that darkness which
was ~dispelled by the incoming light. They van
ished as the mists before the morning sun. The
indecent dances and the yet more shameless songs
could afford enjoyment no longer to those who
had learned that the pure in heart are blessed,
and that every vile thought is itself a curse. The
hula was n vile heather dance and it were quite
rs absurd to attempt to ciIristianize it as TO chris
tianize prolane swearing and make it a part of
religious worship.
In this great revolutionary work of turning up
side down what was wrong side up the missiona-
ries have been helped by many fareign residents
in various callings in life. They have been help
ed by many christian sailors, sea captains and
ship owners, from whom they have received
countless favors. They have been helped by in
telligent tourists from various lands, protesting
diverse creeds, who have We'd with one another
in doing honor to those toll worn veterans, who
the light of christian civilization upon these
Islands and have been permitted to see the work
Of evangelising the nation SO far accomplished
that the Islands are transformed from a Foreign to
Home Missionary field. They have been helped
by kings, queens, chiefs and good men in every
department of the government who have recog-
niZed in them the best benefactors of the nation.
They Lave been helped by all who have set an ex-
ample of integrity, industry, virtue and piety be-
the native population. And best of all, they
have been helped and honored of God by those all
efficient spiritual influences without which their
mission must have been a lamentable failure in
stead of a marked success. And now, as one af-
ter another ofthese venerable Fathers reach the al
lotted limit of lie and pass away to their reserv-
ed reward, to what active duties and increased res
possibilities are their successors called if they
would complete the work 50 we'll begun. Let us
fatter ourselves that our work is easy and
that we have less occasion for vigilance, prudence
and untiring zeal than had they who here laid the
foundations of a civilized society and sowed the
seeds of truth which have transformed this moral
waste into n spiritual Eden. The old serpent is in
The garden still. The enemy is as cunning and
malignant as ever. IF vainly priding ourselves
lpon what has already been done, as though it
were the work Of lrail, feeble. fallible man, we
become self confident, we shall be left to spiritu-
;. barrenness and retrogression, till we are tho
humbled and learn how dependent we are
Ipon Him who is the only source of all spiritual
bower. 1t is only as the almighty ioOrkS through
.hese feeble human forces that the ,cedk things of
he toorM confound the things that are mighty.
No post must be left unguarded, no waste place
Insupplied. Let us not subject ourselves to the
,urse, We unto you when all men speak well of
by selfishly seeking popularity as an end, by
our principles, by renting our
or by lowering our standard of piety. 1t is
,ur mission to meet the wants but not the wishes
If the world.
The church is a mighty moral force for the rem
walton of society and for the turning upside down
II all that is wrong side up, only when it is radi-
nj IN Its aims, Christ-like In spirit, apostolic in
is zeal and positive in it's testimony against every
of sin. Let pure religion here abide as the
influence in all the affairs of this Island
Kingdom, and God himself shall evermore delight
N the transcendent beauty of these gems of the
Ell not merely because these reef grit isles, these
meralds in a setting of coral, are choice samples
# his latest and yet unfinished work of creation,
mt chiefly because he is ON them still carving
onward to a glorious contamination n great work
f grace which has made them conspicuous in the
history of Christian Missions.
mote. - The contributions of the Hawaiian
for all religious objects, as reported in
sol, was S27.43l. and for the year ending May
9Th. lS6S, about S26, 600. The total membership
n good and regular standing in 1868. was about
800. In the meeting of the Hawaiian Evangeli-