The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-12-25

lar congregation has dwindled to seven
attendants and the contribution in the
collection box last Sunday amounted to
but fifteen cents. On the whole the
cause of Christ in this camp leaves very
much to be desired
AkA
What a Christmas dinner we shall
all eat today! What a country we
shall eat it in! What a people we shall
eat it among! To tell the story of our
achievements as a nation in letters,
arts and arms, our mighty moral and
material growth during even the last
fifty years, would be the task of the
historian rather than the paragraph
list
How much of it all do we not owe
to the religion preached by Christ Je-
sus? Christianity unfetters the ener-
gies, uplifts the souls and illumines
the brains of its votaries. The Ro-
man mythology produced a Caesar, In
fidelity produced a Napoleon, but ii
was the Spirit of the Christian colony
w 4
gave US the heroes and patriots of the
revolution. Buddhism never developed
a Mackay who single handed perform
ed the task of girdling a world. Ma
hometanism never produced an Edi-
son. He was Gods gift to a Christian
Republic. Not under any religion ex-
cept that of Jesus has there been de-
veloped Stanford-toiling and plan
ming for a lifetime to give help to
generations unborn.
Our domain extends southwark to
the Southern Cross, eastward to with
in sight of Asia, and northward to the
eternal icebergs. If roads are "the
measure of a nations civilization" we
are the most highly civilized nation
upon earth. We have fettered the wa
terfalls, and we light and warm cities,
and run furnaces and factories with
their power. Our manufactures of cot
ton and wool, steel and lumber are
found in all the markets of the world.
Our locomotives drawing trains filled
with the products of our industry are
dashing through the passes of the
Alaskan Mountains, and filing their
boilers with water from Siberian
streams. They are climbing to the
clouds up both slopes of the Andes.
They are acclimated in Africa from
the Cape of Good Hope to the Congo,
and we can paraphrase the language
of the First Napoleon and say, to them
as they sound their shrill notes of
peaceful triumph in the very face of
the Sphinx, American locomotives.
from the. heights of yonder pyramids
forty-one centuries look down upon
you.
And the greatest development of all
is to come. In that ancient pictorial
Geography of our childhood; that book
with defaced covers and dogs-eared
corners, where the mythical mael-
strom is depicted with frightful ac-
curacy, and the country west of the
Missouri river is described as an "Un-
explored region there is a picture of
Vasco Nunez de Balboa, standing upon
the brow of the mountain which over
hangs the Bay of Panama, and gazing
upon the softly swelling Pacific
A mighty panorama unrolled before
him. He saw a new ocean, washing
races of men. He saw field for high
emprise, a grand future for himself
and his followers, and with bright
blade uplifted to the Equator's heat,
he knelt and solem1y dedicated the
lands washed by the sea before him
to Christianity and civilization for
ever.
AAA
Delayed. but not disproven, unaccom-
plished but not abandoned, the pro-
phetie dedication of the Span;ard lives
in history and in song. The mimosa
trails itself unshrinkingly over the site
of old Panama, the tall palms wave
over the long mouldered bones of Bal
boa's comrades, and the land he look
ed upon has slept in semi-barbarism
through the centuries, and now again
the figure of that Pacific pioneer
stands in the foreground of the picture,
Waiting for the fulfIlment of his proph-
ecy.
AAA
At last the Saxon bugles are sound
ing the long delayed advance, and
they will never sound a retreat.
Through the barriers of Latin inca
pacity and South American ignorance
and greed, and the tricks and plottings
of railroad lobbyists, the project for an
isthmian canal has crashed triumph
antly at last. and within five years
we may, if we will, eat our Christmas
dinners practically il not actually I'M