The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1870-08-13
The islands of the Sea.

Rev. l.. III. Gulick, NJ. D., of Honolulu, Secre-
tary of the Hawaiian Board OF Missions, spoke
last evening at the Broadway tabernacle Church
on I" Christian Missions and their results In the
Pacific Ocean" After speaking of the physical
peculiarities of the islands of the Pacific and the
number and distribution of their population, he
| stated that the chief characteristic OF the Malayan
rlce was the impossible nature OF It's members;
They first became known to the clVlllzed WORTH
about 300 wears ago, but little intercourse was
established with the islanders of the South Pacific
until within a century past. The first intercourse
was of a commercial character, and the lmPressI-
BILE natives very readily adopted the vice OF evil
lied society, and contracted Its diseases: Inc
invariable result has been a decay among !ne ui-
ferent tribes, and a very decided decrease IN their
numbers. The speaker r%ecounted many incidents
connected with the discovery OF the different
islands by the whites, and the effect when IL had
on the inhabitants. There had been many out
RACES and abuses perpetrated, ana though com
merce was necessary to open the way to eVangel-
ization. it was very doubtful whether its influence,
when not followed bya propagation OF the Gospei,
was not bad rather than good. The Sandwich
Islands, when discovered by Captain COOK, are
represented as having had 100000 inhabitants.
When first visited by American missionaries, fifty
years later. the number had decreased to about
100, 900. The effect of the spread OF Christianity
among them had been to arrest this decay, and
great progress had been made toward produclnga
sound and healthy state OF society. Nowhere
were the people so low ana degraded, out some vi
the higher traits of the human character could be
found in them. Many incidents were related IN
which the nobler feelings had been exhibited by
the sayages when in their worst state. The
| proper way to 90 to work with these heather, the
speaker said, was not to try to impress them with
our own superior knowledge and greatness, or to
controvert their harmless customs, such as sub
sisting on cocoanuts and going without clothes,
but there could always be found in them two
principles through which the teachers could work
for their conversion to Christianity and to a civ
ilized mode of life. There was a belief in a deity
or some great external power, however vague and
superstitious their ideas on this subject might be,
and a power of distinguishing right from wrong,
however feeble. On those the missionary could
work, and out of an ignorant and imbruted savage
develop a Christian, not strong and firm in the
faith, but yet far elevated above his original con-
dition. Allusion was finally made to The cheering
results of missionary labor in the Sandwich
Islands. Churches and schools have been estab-
lished, and regular mercantile and professional
pursuits are now followed by many of the natives.
There are fifty churches with native pastors, and
during the past year 81 900 were paid in minis
ters' salaries, and $50 600 raised for all religious
purposes. One-third of this latter amount, as
well as about the same proportion of the native
preachers, were devoted to the work of foreign
missions, carrying the Gospel to the surrounding
islands. The address concluded with an appeal
in favor of a liberal support Of foreign missions,
both on account of the good accomplished in the
spread of the Gospel and the inestimable blessings
which it carries with it, and in the good which
the laborer and the giyer derive from the exercise
of his zeal and benevolence.