56 WARS AND REIGN OF KAMEHAMEHA. a people to rise from the dust and abominations of heathenism? While the tendencies of human nature are so decidedly and strongly downward as they are proved to be, its elevation in such circumstances must be impossible. So forcibly have thinking minds been impressed with the stereotype character of the habits and religion of the Hawaiians, that they supposed Christianity itself could not change them for the better. Even with the torch of Philosophy in their hands, and the lamp of Salvation before their eyes, they supposed the Hawaiians would refuse the offers of the Gospel as unwelcome and powerless. If, then, a radical reformation, even with good instructions, good models, and good influences, diligently employed for years, was deemed so hopeless, what possible ground of hope for it could there be, when, instead of any aid of this kind, the minds and hearts of all were continually buried in the darkness and pollution of thickest heathenism? But if it were possible, it must, to the last degree, be improbable, though the knowledge of the existence of God and of the falsity of idols is quite attainable from nature; and, therefore, all who worship creatures are without excuse. If any possible means in a single case (suppose that of Kaahumanu in her destitution) could awaken a desire, and prompt the intention, to rise from the course of superstition, sensuality, and crime in which parents, superiors, chiefs, and priests led the way; how could the intention be successfully carried into execution, without the precepts and motives of the Bible, while the soul was surrounded with ten thousand baleful influences, which pervaded the whole nation? Could a single heart become selfrefined, while affected by its own sinful habits, misled by its own conceptions, and daily subjected to the pestiferous action of the mass of corruption all around, and to the hidden snares and open assaults of the arch tempter? How difficult for one of common powers, even with enlightened conscience, in such circumstances, to withstand a foe who betrayed, and with triumphant malevolence cast down one in the full vigor of a holy and highly intellectual mind, while in fellowship with God, and in a state free from the corrupting example of a gay, sinful, fashion-loving world, and from the influence of a gloomy and crushing superstition. With this view of the helplessness of a whole nation, we can hardly fail to admire the benevolence of the injunction, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature ;" nor can we too deeply deplore the fact, that the earliest intercourse of the representatives of Christendom with the heathen should so often have a decided tendency to confirm their vices, augment their pollution and misery, and complete their ruin. CHAPTER III. PREPARATORY MEASURES FOR PLANTING A CHRISTIAN MISSION AT THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, 1809-1819. Origin of the Mission-Foreign Mission school-Death of the first Convert-Ordination of Missionaries-Appointment of assistant Missionaries-Mission Church -Instructions-Embarkation-Voyage around Cape Horn-First appearance of Hawaii and its Inhabitants-Death of Kamehaineha-Accession of his sonPolitical station of Kaahumanu-Infraction of the tabu-Suspension of public sacrifices-Rebellion-Victory of Kalanimoku-Cause of the innovation. SIMULTANEOUSLY with the first impulses of foreign missionary feeling in the breasts of American Christians, in the current century, two tawny youths of the Hawaiian race, Opukahaia (Obookiah) and Hopu, from "a boy's notion," as O. said, but led by the hand of Providence, attached themselves to an American trader, Captain Brintnel, at the islands, and sailed with him to the United States. They landed in New York, in 1809. They were early taken to the theatre "to see the curiosity," as one of them called it; and like the mass of foreign seamen who then visited our cities without being improved in their morals, were for a time exposed to the evil of being confirmed in vice and ignorance, and in utter contempt of the claims of Christianity. The two youths accompanied Captain Brintnel to New Haven, Ct., where they soon attracted the Christian sympathy of some of the students, who offered to teach them, foremost of whom was Mr. E. Dwight. Their prompt and successful efforts, their docility and grateful attention, promised soon to reward their teachers. Opukahaia represented himself as a homeless, miserable orphan, having seen both his father and mother bayoneted by a victorious party, in a bloody strife, "to see which should be the greatest." In the course of a few years' residence, at different places, among Christian friends, he found a Redeeming Friend, and a Heavenly Father, and gave evidence of true conversion. Acquaintance with these youth, and their readiness to avail themselves of Christian instruction, called attention to others who came from time to time from the same country. The friends of Christ were led to look upon these sons of Paganism, providentially brought to their doors, as having a claim for sympathy, care and instruction in the Christian doctrine, and attempting to meet this claim, they cherished the reasonable hope that suitable efforts to enlighten and convert them, would tend to the evangelization of their nation. 58 FOREIGN MISSION SCHOOL. Early in 1816, the Rev. Messrs. A. Bingham and J. Harvey drew my attention to the work of training these youths for missionary service and conducting them to the Hawaiian field. But not having finished my collegiate course of study, and wishing to prosecute uninterruptedly, a three years' theological course, I declined the service which they commended to me. Other youths, from other islands, and from several of the aboriginal tribes of the American continent, were found to be desirous of receiving instruction, giving similar promise of aid to the cause of improvement, among their respective tribes. Aiming to secure the salvation of these strangers, and to make their agency available in spreading the Gospel in heathen countries, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions established, in 1816, a school at Cornwall, Conn., for the sons of various heathen tribes, where they were taught the rudiments of an academical education and the doctrines and duties of the Christian religion, to which their superstition readily gave place. The object of this school was, in its constitution, declared to be, "The education, in our country, of heathen youths, in such a manner, as, with subsequent professional instruction, will qualify them to become useful missionaries, physicians, surgeons, schoolmasters or interpreters, and to communicate to the heathen nations such knowledge in agriculture and the arts, as may prove the means of promoting Christianity and civilization." This school embraced Opukahaia and several other Hawaiians, eight Cherokees, three Stockbridges, two Choctaws, two Oneidas, two Caughnowagas, one Tahitian, one Marquesan, and one Malayan. Here the hopes of the churches were encouraged by the progress of the pupils under the instruction of the Rev. H. Daggett, and especially by the evidences of piety and of mental capacity exhibited by Opukahaia, Hopu, Honolii and others from the Sandwich Islands. The generous heart of Opukahaia, touched by Divine grace, glowed with gratitude to God and his people for the Christian privileges which he was allowed to enjoy, and melted in compassion for his heathen brethren, at his dark home, though their violence had made him an orphan. His ardent, growing desire to use his improved powers in conveying the Gospel to his perishing countrymen, gave high promise of his usefulness among them, if, in the providence of God, he should return to his native shores. While all was uncertain as to his return, and the sending forth of a mission to that dark field, Opukahaia, in his newly acquired and imperfect English, expressed feelings of confidence in God and of compassion for his countrymen, which drew the hearts of Christians more and more closely to him and his distant dying tribe. In a manner apparently childlike, he said,— "God will carry through his work for us. I do not know what will God do for my poor soul. I shall go before God and also before Christ. I hope the Lord will send the Gospel to the heathen land, FOREIGN MISSION SCHOOL. 59 where the words of the Savior never yet had been. Poor people! worship the wood and stone, and shark and almost everything their god. The Bible is not there, and heaven and hell, they do not know about it . . . O what a wonderful thing it is that the hand of the Divine Providence has brought me from that heathenish darkness where the light of Divine truth never had been. And here I have found the name of the Lord Jesus in the Holy Scriptures, and have read that his blood was shed for many. "O what a happy time I have now, while my poor friends and relations at home, are perishing with hunger and thirsty, wanting of the Divine mercy and water out of the wells of salvation. My poor countrymen who are yet living in the region and shadow of death, without knowledge of the true God, and ignorant of the future world, have no Bible to read, no Sabbath. I often feel for them in the night season, concerning the loss of their souls. May the Lord Jesus dwell in my heart, and prepare me to go and spend the remaining part of my life with them. But not my will, O Lord, but thy will be done."* He spent a little time among the Theological students at Andover, by whom he was instructed, and to whom he evinced a strong desire to understand the Word of God. But the high hopes entertained by the friends of missions, that Opukahaia might be an humble apostle to his idolatrous countrymen, were soon buried with him in his early grave at Cornwall, Ct., and many felt the affliction. Great as were the disappointment and grief at his departure, there were consolations in the reflection that the dear youth had himself been plucked as a brand from the burning, and made a trophy of redeeming mercy; and in the hope that his timely conversion, his missionary zeal, his brief and consistent Christian life, and his affecting death, would fan the missionary spirit and hasten the promulgation of the Gospel on the shores that gave him birth. Deeply as his unexpected death was felt, and loudly as we were called on by it "to cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils," it had no tendency to diminish the little ardor of the writer of this narrative, for evangelizing the Hawaiians, who had now lost such a friend and intended teacher. Visiting the Foreign Mission school, during a vacation of the Theological Seminary, at Andover, and feeling a new impulse to become a pioneer in the enterprise of spreading the Gospel in that dark portion of the Pacific Isles, I freely offered myself to the American Board for that purpose, and was accepted by their Prudential Committee, in the summer of 1819; and soon after, Mr. Thurston, my class-mate, offered himself for the same work, and was likewise readily accepted. We completed our course of Theological studies, at Andover, Massachusetts, in September, 1819. On the 29th of the same month, we were, at the request of the Prudential Committee, solemnly set apart, at Goshen, Connecticut, for the work of this ministry. An unusual degree of * Memoir of Obookiah. 60 MISSIONARY CHURCH. enthusiasm prevailed there among the friends of the Hawaiian race, as many remember, and the missionary zeal of many was awakened or greatly increased. The language of the impulses of the Spirit seemed to be, "Go quickly to the rescue of the dying heathen, and I will go with you," and the Church responded, "Go quickly." Nearly simultaneously, twelve others, sons and daughters of the Church, offered themselves, and were accepted as assistant missionaries for that field. Their earnest language was," Here are we,-send us." Within two weeks after the ordination in Goshen, the missionary company assembled in Boston, to receive their instructions and embark. There, in the vestry of Park Street Church, under the counsels of the officers of the Board, Dr. S. Worcester, Dr. J. Morse, J. Evarts, Esq., and others, the little pioneer band was, on the 15th of Oct., 1819, organized into a Church for transplantation. The members renewed their covenant, and publicly subscribed with their hands unto the Lord, and united in a joyful song. "O happy day that fixed my choice 'Tis done the great transaction's done, High Heaven that heard the solemn vow, Till in life's latest hour I bow, And bless in death a bond so dear." In these solemn and memorable transactions, the parties cherished the delightful expectation, that the prayer then offered by one of the Missionaries, "that this vine might be transplanted and strike its roots deep in the Sandwich Islands, and send forth its branches and its fruits till it should fill the land," would not only be heard in Heaven, but ere long, be graciously answered to the joy of the Hawaiian people, and of their friends throughout Christendom. The object for which the missionaries felt themselves impelled to visit the Hawaiian race, was to honor God, by making known his will, and to benefit those heathen tribes, by making them acquainted with the way of life,-to turn them from their follies and crimes, idolatries and oppressions, to the service and enjoyment of the living God, and adorable Redeemer,-to give them the Bible in their own tongue, with ability to read it for themselves, to introduce and extend among them the more |