The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1895-07-08


great help to the fathers. They were
men of authority in their districts.
They were much respected and readily
Obeyed by the people. What the chief
commanded to be done was done.
They were, in many cases, men OF
piety. They stood by the missionary.
They exercised in the church strong
conservative influence.
Influence OF tn. Chiefs.
One of the first Sundays my father
spent in his parish at Waialua he was
accompanied by DIR. Judd. The crowd
was so great that when they were to
be seated it was done simultaneously,
by the order of the Laanui, the chief.
Each was ordered to sit down in his
tracks.
Mlsled by the stirring scene of the
muItitudes before them, the mission
aries took il as the sign of the begin
ming of q work of grace. They after
wards learned that the coming OF the
people had been by order of the chief.
He had told them that the houses of
absentees from church should be
nailed up. When the missionary ex-
postulated with him for the issuing of
such an order, he told the people that,
though thereafter no force should be
used to get them out to church, yet it
would be best for them to be actuated
by the desire to come.
Now when we come to the later
history of the native churches-t to the
time when the experiment of the
native pastOrate was tried-we find
no chiefish authority exercised in be
half of their work, for the chief had
passed away.
And with the chiefs had also gone
Of hn oil q
proved themselves sturdy helpers dur
ing the first forty years of the mission.
These were the men who had been
trained under the hand of the mis-
sionary-men who were imbued with
the spirit OF respect and loyalty to the
constituted authority, and who upheld
the higher ideals of the chiefs and
earlier kings, such as Kaahumanu and
Kekuanaoa and Kamehamehast third
and fourth.
These men stood before the people
as the representatives of good govern
ment. But when the native pastor
came they had mostly passed away.
The pastor of Kaumakapili Church
told me that when he came to his first
parish he was badly handicapped for
the lack of just such men. He was
left to deal with new material under
very changed circumstances.
AS one remarked, "the change to
the native pastorate took place at the
time when implicit obedience to con-
stituted authority was giving place to
the preference and personal choice of
the Individual" and this sense of an
enlarged individuality, coming as it
did at q time when there were most
corrupt influences abroad, operated
disastrously.
Nor can it be forgotten that this was
the time of increased sectarian activ-
ity marked by the growth of the
Anglican influence and the Mormon
element. These bodies drew some
away from the churches founded by
the fathers.
Furthermore, the passing away of
the chiefs and their associates in the
Government, unfortunately for the
native pastors, was accompanied by
the uprising of the kahuna power.
1t was during the premiership and
reign of Kamehameha V, just as the
native pastor was about entering upon
his work, that very general dealing
out of licenses was begun to be made
to these Irresponsible, evil-minded
men.
In the early days the chief exercised
a restraining influence over the hula
master and the kahuna. Whatever
thcJ ulu Hdu " 10 uOAo HI SACoC
secrecy.
Those considerable kings, Kameha-
mehas third and fourth, gave no en-
couragement to idolatry. They kept
it down and out of sight. In the keep
ing of order in the parishes, and in the
restraining of evil practices, their vast
power was felt from one end of the
group to the other.
1t was not so with Kamehameha Y.
Though in many ways strong ruler,
he was apparently without religious
feeling, and heather at heart. Under
his patronage the kahuna and the
hula master began very soon to ope-
rate. well remember the revival of
these things in my fathers parish.
The time was in the premiership and
afterwards durlug the reign of ka-
mehameha V.
Even before the missionary fathers
had withdrawn from the full charge
of the work they began To note indi-
cations of change. There were
marked signs that reaction bad set
in The evil influence at first wrought
very secret V and the missionary did
not understand ii. As one said, in
speaking of a certain reg ZION, al do not
understand the people of this district.
There seems to be malign influence
operating among them"
Superstition Among Natives.
Afterwards, when the missionary
father had passed away, the native
pastor who had succeeded him, found
IN that fishing village, set up on one
of its points of land, out of sight among
the rocks, a large coral boulder looking
Off to sea, which was being worshipped
as the fisherman's god. This famous
stone HKaneaukai,D is still wOr-
shipped. Twice have helped to top
pie it over, and once, am told, it was
toppled over by students from the
Kamehameha school, and as often has
it been set up again. AS one of the
pastors said to me, "The supersti-
tious element was in the makeup of
the people and required only the OPP
portunity for it to become open idola-
try. But while the good kings
reigned and the chiefs were alive it
was easily suppressed