The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1869-01-02

islands renders the American claim TO them para
mount To all others, 4 they must be occupied by u
foreign power but when all other powers have con-
Sentei TO iorego and disown such claim ON condition
Ola general treaty Of neutrality and friendship being
agreed to 10y all, how can the ceaseleSs cry Of annex
alton be continually raised on these shores aud else
where, but in defiance Of every pretense to equity,
morality, or decency
There i an utter absence Of deliclcy, known only
u civilized people, in going before "A weak nation in
c~brudiug the question upon it, which has Itself made
mo sign Of desire, aud still more in making one
Of construction ior it altogether amounting 10 =
meniicity, ~repulsive to every sense Of moral propri-
ETY., rs exhibited in certain noisy, voracious annexa-
tors-some Of their culHinations amounting to threats
OF physical force!
When the first unassumiug men came here fifty
years ago, they were loaded with favors and lands
they little dceming at the time that the new aSsccia-
ton would constitute the medium of their country
men making a claim to possession Of the whole,
urged on the ground of native progress and interests
We are told that the people would be raised TO a
higher level for the action Of religious and moral
agencies and iniuences-vi4 if any escape the crush
Of the transition The doctrine is emphatically this
g let US do evil, that a fraction of possible ideal
good may come :" Il permanent ,rlr-Ship is among
the generated wants, (anI, of course others must
come TO checkmate it, to wait any lache in politics.
Is this evil, even specifically weighed in its effect,
in a small harbor, and population drawn from the
surrounding country, of the g pestilence which walk
eth in darkness, and wasteth at noon day ?"
1t may be reasonably enquired, where is the
Christian and manly protest, at any rate, dissent,
uttered by young or old, of the moral regenerators of
former times, whose stringency was then construed
excessive in every trivial point of morality-such as
occasional smoking, or taking ca glass of wine for
the stomach : sake, or often infrmities.' or as our
Savior did in social life Where is all this scrupu-
losity gone, which did battle sternly for shadows,
when an overwhelming flood of realities threatens?
or, does silence give it emphatic consent? or the
twattle of logic in their descendants, striving to
shroud the plain truth in ~palpable darkness:
Remember" says Beecher, 9 that your con-
science is not a sure guide-it is liable to be perverted
by bad company-conscience, with selishness and
pride, is inferRdl-it must keep company with
Christian emotions and sentiments to be right
The uniform graSitating tendency to possession, Of
misSions-against their first principles, through the
union of politics with religion, of which there are
plenty of secular men to take care of, has caught the
eagle native eye i'll other parts, and scandalized the
sacred cause. The following little graphic piece is
worth perusal
Naboth had n vineyard, and Ahab said to him,
ls' Give me thy vineyard that L may have it for n
garden of herbs, because IL IS near 10 my house - and
Naboth said, God forbid that l should give thee the
inheritance of my fathers )" and Jezebel said,
. Dost thou govern Israel? / will give thee the
vineyard and she directed a fast, and to exalt
NabOth, and to suborn two false witnesses to swear
that Naboth blasphemed God and the King-and
they stoned him to death ! Here religion was the
cOUer, and laD the instrument and how many
artificial suits with no better plea have succeeded by
equally fictitious means? Many n sanguinary hero
would spare n single Naboth, whose scruples would
cease when a nation of Naboths were in his way.
HONOLULU.