The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-08-07

of Bishop Willis in the secular field
prints the following interesting letter
from him:
My Dear Friends;
II was on my way from Honolulu to
Nukualofa, more than six months ago,
that I wrote my final letter regarding
the work Of the Anglican Church in
the Hawaiian Islands, which on April
1st, 1902, became a Missionary Jurisdic-
ton of the American branch OF our
\ communion.
Now, after six months experience of
the work to which I was called, when
no longer wanted in Hawaii, venture
for two reasons to put before you a
brief sketch of the conditions that
have to be met in planting the Angli-
can Church in the Tongan group of
Islands; first, because doubt not that
many who have been interested in pro-
noting the advance of the Anglican
Church in the North Pacific will not be
less interested in the work of laying
foundations in a group of Islands in
the South Pacific; and, secondly, be-
cause the internal resources-which
will, 1 believe, in time suffice for the
maintenance of the Anglican Church in
Tonga when once firmly established
are inadequate to meet all the expenses
that the beginning of Mission neces-
sarily entails, Of building and printing,
as well as maintenance, so that a spe-
cial fund becomes a necessity.
First of all, it needs to be earnestly
impressed upon the Church at home
that, east of Fiji, our own branch of
the Church provides no ministrations
whatever, either for native or settler,
throughout the Western Pacific. Yet
throughout this vast region British in
fiuence in predominant, the commerce
is in British hands, and the English
language is spoken. Whilst Imperial
interests are looked after carefully
enough, there has been no correspond
ing zeal to provide for the spiritual
needs of the isles that stud the ocean.
Requests that have been made during
the last quarter of a century to the
Church at home for the ministrations
of an ordained ministry have been
pigeon ho1ed and neglected, and it
would almost seem as If in some quar-
tiers the Western Pacific were regard
ed as excluded from the great COM
mission to go into all the world.
This being the case, was not I'M
prepared for the coldness-and want of
with which the present hum
BILE effort to wipe away this reproach |
is being viewed in it's inception by |
some who ought to be the first to sup |
port it But I am sure that there are |
many who will rejoice. and will gladly /
extend a helping hand to this venture |
Of faith.
In 1897, on my way to the Lambeth |
Conference, spent a day in Nukua-
ola. the capital of the Tongan king
iom. and held a confirmation, those
confirmed being British, American, and
Hawaiian nationality. Through this
I was not unknown in
Tonga, and 1t was known also that L
held a commission from the Bishop of
London, under whose Jurisdiction all
British subjects in the Pacific were
to be.
1t was on this account that, at the
nd OF 1901, number of chiefs and
'thers in Nukualofa addressed a letter
o me (Which 1 received in January.
902), praying me to come over and
lelp them. Coming as it did, when
ny work in Hawaii was drawing to a |
lose, could not but regard that let
er as a direct call to be obeyed with
ut delay.
The movement from which that let
sr derived its inspiration having been
epresented as purely political in its
rfgin, arising out OF the jilting of Ola g
y the King of Tonga, let me say that Z
lch a statement has just as much g
nth in IT as the statement that used
be made by shallow people that
enry Wits divorce was the cause C
the Reformation. The divorce was a e
ctor in a movement, the springs of o
hich lay far deeper. And here in !,
onga, the Kings rejection OF Ola -
rived to add strength to a movement s.
hich. in itself, was quite independ- r.
{ OF IT. fl
To the Wesleyan body belongs the
nour of having introduced Christian b
: into Tonga, and of having translat- Il
the Old and New Testaments (not II
e Apocrypha) into the Tongan Ian
age. But no one would ever learn h
I'm reading Holy Scripture in the b'
nga version that from the Apostles" sc
ne there have been these Orders of to
nisters in Christ's Church: Bishops. W
tests, and Deacons." The belief h'
refully inculcated in the Tongan A
nd by their teachers is that the Yves ed
an body is the true representative he
the Church Of Christ from the De- tn
ming. Having no history, no litera- tv
H.