To peace and truth your glorious way have ploughed, Have reared God's trophies, and his work pursued! * To conquer still; peace hath her victories No less renowned than war: new foes arise, In concluding this volume, I cannot but express the just sense of indignation, which an honest man should feel, at the meanness of those persons who will belie the labors of Christian missionaries, on the very field of their operations, a field which mercantile men and officers of government are able to dwell in with safety, only because the patient missionary has been there before them, and, through God's blessing, changed in great part the character and manners of so recently depraved savages.* * The following is the disinterested testimony of a late U. S. Consul at Honolulu, the Hon. Joel Turrill, formerly a member of Congress from the State of New York: "For several years," he says, "before leaving the United States, I had been disinclined to favor the efforts that were making to send missionaries abroad, believing that such efforts otherwise directed would be productive of much more good; but during my residence in these Islands I have been an attentive observer of the effects produced by those efforts on the Hawaiian race, and I am free to confess that my feelings upon this subject have undergone a material change. I find here as missionaries, individuals who, so far as my observations have extended, are worthy of their high calling; and the result of their labors, so apparent in the vast improvement in the moral and physical condition of its people, forces the conviction on my mind, that they have devoted themselves to their arduous duties with a zeal and singleness of purpose worthy of the great work in which they are FUTURE MISSIONARY ENTHUSIASM. 301 Every effort to traduce their characters and work, or the native churches they have been instrumental of gathering, should be met at once with an irresistible array of opposing evidence and conviction. It were right for the face of Christendom to gather blackness, at such malicious attempts to weaken the faith of the Church in the conduct or results of the glorious missionary enterprise-an enterprise which is yet to attract to itself more true nobility and enthusiasm, than have ever been carried into any enterprise undertaken under the sun. The missionary enthusiasm, which until now has been confined to a few heroic spirits, shall yet pervade the ranks of the Christian Church, disarm opposition, and inspire all hearts. The very spirit of the world is tired Of its own taunting question, asked so long, Till, his exhausted quiver yielding none, He gleans the blunted shafts that have recoiled, But it is too late in the serious drama of the world's evangelization, for the blunted shafts of slander to retard its course. The testimony of unprejudiced men like the English Rear-admiral Thomas, Sir George Simpson,* Commander Wilkes and other officers of engaged. I do not believe that another instance can be found, where, with the same amount of means, so much good has been done to any people in so limited a period." *See note B. the United States Exploring Squadron, saying nothing of the concurrent reports of a host of Christian travellers, is all on file before the world; and in the chancery of public opinion it will outweigh as many anonymous sheets of calumny, as would bridge the Pacific from Panama to Oahu. If any reader be in quest of authentic Hawaiian annals, he will find his curiosity well gratified in the perusal of the late very full history, by Rev. Hiram Bingham, Hartford; or that by Mr. Jarves, issued in Boston, 1842; or a history by Rev. Sheldon Dibble, printed at the Lahainaluna mission press, Sandwich Islands. While they are each replete with information of substantial interest to the general reader, the last work is to the Christian perhaps the most valuable of the three. We regard them all as well prepared seed-beds, from which the yet formless garden of Hawaiian history will largely draw. If in this volume there has been contributed one worthy plant, to be set out by the future historian in that fair garden; and if it has helped its readers to a correct view of the Heart of the North Pacific, as it was and is, the end of its author is fulfilled, and on it he inscribes Χριστῶ Καὶ Εκκλησία. |