NATIVE AND FOREIGN PIETY COMPARED.

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heart left; and the principle of spiritual life, if by bare possibility it do yet exist, is so feeble and low, that they are little better than dead.

Hence, though living in the midst of a people just emerging from heathenism, where the results of the Gospel are so benignly shown, and owing their own safety and well-being to that Gospel, they yet manifest no interest in the missionary's religious work, are never seen at the monthly concert or any prayer-meeting, give nothing for the propagation of religion among Hawaiians, have no love for the souls of natives or uncivilized humanity anywhere, and would willingly see the whole race melt away, and their place supplied by a stock they could have more complacency in.

The same is true of some visitors, and yet more transient residents at the Islands, professing piety. They do not make themselves acquainted with the nature, the trials, or the rewards of missionary work. They share in missionaries' hospitality, and avail themselves of their aid in travelling from place to place, but have little or no sympathy with them in their cares and efforts to Christianize the people.

They see them at their homes generally comfortable and happy, sometimes forming some of the happiest domestic circles in the world. But they do not enter at all into their motives as missionaries, their anxieties, harassments, responsibilities, toils, and cares. They see in the natives a great deal that is offensive, squalid, and still heathenish.

Heathenism, barbarism, and the state of nature, when

you come to be in contact with them, are stripped of all the romance that is apt to invest the life and work of a missionary afar off; and those persons not having either depth of piety, or love for souls, or sufficient of riddance from selfishness, to become interested like the missionary in the personal work of instructing and converting them, are actually, in practice, less engaged in the cause of missions than they were in America. And very likely they may go home and have less sympathy for missionaries, less charity for heathen converts, and less regard for the great enterprise of the world's evangelization, than they had before visiting this most highly favored missionary field.

But is it with good reason? No! but because having eyes they see not, having ears they hear not, neither do they understand or appreciate missionary work, native character, or the allowance that is to be made for early training, and the modifying effect even upon true experimental piety, of old bad examples, usages, habits, and polluting associations.

I write not without a meaning and a reality of fact in the mind's eye, and I cannot help recommending such persons to anoint their eyes with the eye-salve of truth and charity, that they may see; to get the crust of worldliness and vanity rubbed off from their religious sensibilities, which is so apt to form here, and to resort earnestly to the medicine of God's word and prayer, in order to work off from their systems the poison of scandal, which both travellers and residents have been heretofore wont to imbibe at the Sandwich Islands.

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I close this chapter of unique Hawaiian letters with one more from a native teacher, of whom Mr. Bond says in forwarding it, "The writer is a fine young man, one of our most promising teachers. His own entirely was the thought to write you, and, according to his request, I translate hastily the epistle."

The spirit of piety it breathes, and the vein of Christian simplicity that runs through it, make it well worth preserving. And could all my readers see the original communication, in its clear, legible handwriting, and in a vernacular which, but for the missionaries, would still have been kept sealed to all but oral expression, they would wonder, even more than men do now, at the strange misrepresentations of some persons that the Hawaiians are not a Christian people.

It is a matter of thankfulness that our honored American missionaries there resident, are too strongly rooted both in the confidence and affection of the American Church and nation, for the slanderous aspersions upon the results of their labors to be for a moment believed. The success of the Missionary enterprise, as demonstrated at the Sandwich Islands, is beyond a doubt; and there are thousands of hearts devoutly thanking God for it every day, and praying fervently that the same glorious results may be realized everywhere.

HALAULA, KOHALA.

Love to you, Cheever, who hast sent your love and good wishes to us. Your letter was received by Bond in November, and on the Sabbath after the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the brethren of

this church in Kohala heard of it. Bond declared it to us, and also the famine in Ireland and Scotland, by which men have died.

This I declare to you: it is a hot season with us in Kohala. The ground is very dry because of the sun, and has been so these seven months. Yet we are not greatly distressed for food. The water in the streams is dry. God has indeed granted us a few drops of water from the cloud-place, and the food is benefited thereby. The food, however, is scanty-very little. Even in kalo lands, where there is always water, the kalo-patches are drying up, and the potatoes near the streams.

The Chinaman's sugar-cane near Bond's house is fed up to cattle. It is entirely dry. The Chinaman thinks he shall leave Kohala. That thought is done.

Your aloha, (the bell,) here it is with us who are here. It calls us on Sabbath, Wednesdays, and Saturdays; but here is our fault: we do not obey its voice; children and parents who go to meeting. Bond said, "When the bell rings let all come in ;" but we do not so; some go in a little while after the bell has done ringing, and some stay out. For all meetings it calls us with its ringing voice. It can call us as far as three miles. Bond's scholars do not have to blow the conch-shell with their mouths now.

Your love it is that rings constantly; pulled by the hand, it sounds.

Much love to you, because of your good counsel to us in the work of the Lord. Great was my love to you when I heard from Bond this declaration, "Cheever sends love to you, brethren of Kohala. He says he shall not forget you who live here." Then this was my thought to you-Thou art sweet honey to my mind; as cool refreshing water from far among the hills.

Pray to God for us, you and the brethren, that we may not come into distressing famine and death, as we have heard about the suffering in Ireland and Scotland; but that we may prosper, as does the country of your birth. That great country aids Great Britain with love, and according to the greatness of intelligence in your

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land, in carrying to them without avaricious motives. That just consists with God's word, Matthew v. 45-"That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust;" and 1st Timothy vi. 17, 18—" Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate."

Your people have shown love for man, for the spirit-thing. Great indeed was my joy in hearing about it. Great is my love for those who are dying in such distress. We have prayed in monthly concert for the perishing, and have pledged ourselves to aid them. God will bless those whose country is distressed by famine. May he grant them a fruitful soil, that food may grow abundantly, even as the United States has contributed in behalf of Great Britain.

Love to you, my friend, in the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. Pray for us just as we do for you. With Jesus is everlasting love. Amen.

By me,

JOHN WILLIAM KAILIHALAPIA.

Now we challenge the production of any thing in the early annals of nations, more demonstrative of the genuineness of their evangelization, than such ingenuous, childlike workings of the native Polynesian mind, in the first generation after it has come forth in its graveclothes, as it were, out of the utter darkness of heathenism! The course of Divine Providence and grace, in the regeneration of the Sandwich Islands, is a subject for adoring wonder, gratitude, and praise; and the developments of the intellect, as well as of the resources of the Islands under the benignant, productive, yea,