dying out, we will take the consolation given by the chorus in Milton's Samson Agonistes All is best, though we oft doubt, And ever best found in its close. Lahaina is one of those places which you like much better as you approach or recede from it, than when you are actually in it. A little way off it seems sweetly embosomed in bread-fruit trees, and all fresh and lovely with sunshine and verdure, calmly inclosed seaward within a fence of foam, made by the sea breaking upon the coral reef. Ride over the rollers in a whale-boat or native canoe, get to the sun-burnt, dusty land, walk up a few rods, perhaps with white pantaloons, to the mission-houses, and make acquaintance on the way to your heart's content with Lahaina dust and caloric, and you will probably by that time be saying to yourself "Twas distance lent enchantment to the view. However, dirt, fleas, mosquitoes, and heat to the contrary notwithstanding, Lahaina has so salubrious and dry a climate, and advantages for healthful seabathing all the year round, that one who is any thing of an invalid likes to be there, or, what is better, two miles above, at the seminary of Lahainaluna. It is said that the greatest observed elevation of the mercury here in Fahrenheit's thermometer, for ten years, was 86 deg.; the lowest, 54 deg. The wind is the alter HOW TO MEET A STORM OF DUST. 73 nating land and sea breeze. A steep mountainous ridge in the rear entirely breaks off the trades, and, receiving all their rain, carries it distilled below in a fertilizing stream that irrigates all the valley and vega of Lahaina, and is spent before it reaches the sea. Two or three times in a year the trades whirl over the mountain, and then woe to the man's eyes that are so luckless as to be found in it. From hill and plain there are caught up great, suffocating volumes of red dust, that envelop all the town, and even roll off to ships in the roadstead, and redden the sea. Closed doors and windows are as mere lattice-work for it. It traverses stone walls and adobes, human lungs and ears, and I know not but livers, and permeates every thing. If a man's eyes only escape being filled and getting the ophthalmia, he is well off. But the blow over, all is well again. The sea or the translucent Lahainaluna water is there to wash in, and, merrily making your ablutions within and without, you'll sing Cold water for me, cold water for me! But wine for the tremulous debauchee! The mission-house here, being the first built, and (until his embassy abroad) occupied by Mr. Richards, and the one now occupied by Mr. Baldwin, are situated in the very busiest and dirtiest part of the town. Probably it was a retired spot, surrounded by kalo patches, when selected and given by Keopuolani, in 1824. But the concourse of business and ships have so increased both the population and noise, that the place has be come a most undesirable one for residence, and especially for rearing children. Juvenal's caution can hardly be kept there: Nil dictu fœdum, visu que hæc limina tangat Intra quæ puer est Maxima debetur puero reverentia.* Somewhat more than a quarter of a mile to the southeast, within a verdant and shaded inclosure, is the large galleried Stone Church and burying-ground. It is the first stone meeting-house built at the Islands, and does credit to its architect, the Rev. Mr. Richards. When he found its steeple to have settled away a little from the main body of the house, so as to threaten a fall, he cleverly made it fast by iron clamps and chains. It will accommodate two thousand people. The Gospel preached there has been sometimes quick and powerful, and full of edification and life to good old chiefs and common kanakas. The veteran Hoapili, when unable to sit up but a few minutes, had himself carried there only ten days before his death in 1840, to be once more blessed by the ordinances of God's house. No serious blot, say the missionaries, is known to have attached to the Christian character of this chief while living, and now that he is gone, his memory is sweet. Those who saw and conversed with him while he was waiting the summons of death, were much affected with * Let nothing foul to eye or ear be ever seen or heard about those doors which inclose your boy. To eager and imitating childhood we owe a scrupulous reverence and care. DEATH AND BURIAL OF HOAPILI. 75 his deportment. He was wakeful and deeply interested in the prospect of the change that awaited him, and he longed to depart and be with Christ. "He seemed to be emptied of self, to be lowly in his own eyes, and to cast himself with much confidence on Christ. The word of God and prayer were his delight, and from these he sought solace till he was insensible to every thing earthly. His last interview with the king was said to have been tender and affecting in the extreme. After conyersing with him in a dignified manner for a time, alluding to his own dependence, and beseeching the king to abandon his sins, and become a good man, he became much affected, laid his head on the lap of the king, and burst into a flood of tears. As he lay dying, he gave a charge concerning his bones, strictly forbidding wailing on the occasion of his death, and desiring that his grave might be an humble one near the sleeping-place of Mr. McDonald, a departed missionary.” There they lie in the burying-ground, hard by together, the missionary teacher and the converted heathen chief, with a little group of baptized missionaries' children, whom Christ has taken from the care of parents to be safe with himself. "God their Redeemer lives, And ever from the skies Looks down and watches all their dust, Till he shall bid it rise." The good old chief then will come forth in his new attire, with the vigor of immortal youth, wondering at the grace of a Saviour to a dark-minded savage; and, methinks, it will be with no common energy that he will lead a file of ransomed Hawaiians in that blest song, "Worthy is the Lamb:" Loud as from numbers without number, Sweet as from blest voices uttering joy! How beautiful is that poem by Longfellow called God's-Acre, which I can never enter a Christian burying-ground without calling to mind! I LIKE that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls Into its furrows shall we all be cast, In the sure faith that we shall rise again Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom, With that of flowers which never bloomed on earth. With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod, This is the field and Acre of our God; This is the place where human harvests grow! It was of this remarkable Hawaiian chief, now peacefully sleeping in God's-Acre at Lahaina, that a story is told which well illustrates his native strength of mind. |