CHAPTER XXXVI.

CONSEQUENCES OF MISSIONARY ERRORS AND PERSECUTIONS-MISSIONARY DUTY-MISSIONARY CONTRAST.

THE Kamehamehian rule of government-arbitrary decrees and punishments-the handmaid of the American missionaries in these islands, was not restricted to the catholic clergy alone. We are told by Mr. Jarves that Kuakini, the brother of the self-willed Kaahumanu, and her governor of Oahu, being "fully equal to the task of subduing the impertinence of lawless whites, his rigorous enforcement of the letter of the law gave cause of offence to many foreigners." Briefly told, his agents rudely entered private houses, seizing and carrying off forbidden beverages. Horses were forcibly taken from owners who rode on Sunday. Armed bands paraded the streets and violently suppressed houses obnoxious to puritanical ordinances. It is not surprising that under such an enforcement of fanatical despotism, the annals of that period should present the acknowledgment "that the strong arm of Government was not capable of infusing order and sobriety into a dissolute population; that secret means of indulgence were sought out; that the governor's measures met a strong opposition, and many continued to be evaded." That it should have been declared that the apparent moral condition was entirely owing to the absolutism of the chiefs; and that the historian of the time was compelled to say, "that this was partly true, no missionary could deny. They numbered but few real converts, though they justly claimed the amelioration of manners, the desire of instruction, and much of the gradual change for the better, to be the result of their labors. Still following the example of the rulers, it had become fashionable

to be of their belief; all important offices were in their hands, and interest more than intelligence conspired to produce an outward conformity to morality. While numbers, to the best of their abilities, were Christians, thousands joined their ranks from unworthy motives; perhaps in no instances have the united cunning and mendacity of the Hawaiian character been more strikingly displayed than in their stratagems to deceive their religious teachers. By fraud, by even giving up much-loved sins, and by ready knowledge of the Scriptures, many managed to become church members, because by it their importance was increased, and their chances of political preferment bettered. This is too Christian a practice for civilized men to wonder at. Deceived by appearances the friends of the mission exaggerated their success." With the obligation of presenting such a record upon him, it is remarkable that the historian should at any time have attempted to gloss his subject. It was at this time that a condition of civil and moral anarchy is stated to have prevailed throughout the islands; schools were deserted, teachers relapsed, congregations were thinned, excesses abounded, several churches were burned, and in some places idolatry was reinstated. And this result has been referred by the apologists of missionary errors to the sweeping away by others of moral restraints and municipal regulations in a well-ordered community; and that in the face of the above-cited acknowledgments of fraud, falsehood, and hypocrisy, assuming the mantle of morality and piety for despicable and mercenary purposes; of admitted inhumanity and tyranny that could not fail to kindle a spirit of resistance; and of conceded religious persecution, the offspring of fanaticism and the parent of evil. Could it have been rationally expected that people would fall in love with the demon of alluncharitableness, equally repugnant with the idolatry they had repudiated? Rather might we suppose that they thought—If these white priests who claim to have been taught of God, can teach us no better precepts than these, no purer and nobler principles of action, nothing more deserving of reverence than that religion which we have voluntarily discarded as worthless and wicked, they cannot be reliable interpreters of what the “One Great God dwelling in the Heavens" considers pure and good.

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He cannot have revealed Himself unto them, as they profess; they are but "blind leaders of the blind." And truly was it said, that in 1836 the missionaries had carried the nation to a point when it became necessary for new influences to operate, for the accomplishment of desirable results which they had been unable to reach. And why? Because "the strenuous opposition to the progress of the Gospel was gradually changing its character, and settling into a political animosity to the chiefs; who had unfortunately and unwisely submitted to ecclesiastical control, and shaped their governmental policy according to ecclesiastical dictation." Because, as candidly confessed by the historian of Hawaii, "laws, people, and government, partook of the puritanical caste of their religious teachers."

Such was the lesson taught by the missionary experiment up to this period that a change of programme was demanded; and such, comprehensively expressed-the puritanical character of the movement-was the cause of the failure of the work of religious civilization. It became necessary to regenerate individuals through personal conviction and purification, rather than to move the unwieldy and passive multitude through arbitrary authority; to obey the Founder of Christianity, and "seek the lost sheep of the house of Israel-to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils," instead of courting "Principalities and Powers," and devising political engines full of human conceits to move the unthinking and indifferent masses in conformity to despotic will, that the missionaries might make "Christendom resound with their triumph," and magnify their achievements.

Subsequently to these events, information having been conveyed to the banished priests that in consequence of an understanding between the king and the commanders of a French sloop-of-war and a British frigate, they could return to the islands, these clergymen in 1837 again visited Honolulu, in a vessel under English colors; but much excitement having thereupon ensued, their reëmbarkation was ordered by the governor, and a proclamation of perpetual banishment was issued. To this the priests entered formal protests before the English consul, who counselled a disregard of the edicts of Government. For

cible expulsion followed, and also a severe ordinance effectually to prevent the introduction of the Catholic faith. The historical record of those events shows that "a number of the natives were arrested and confined for their adhesion to the doctrines of the priests. They manifested a dogged obstinacy to the authorities, and a contumely which brought upon them unnecessary severities. They were few, ignorant, and powerless; the menials of the governor frequently apprehended them when they were detected in the exercise of their (religious) rites, and carried them before him,"

Soon after these occurrences, the Hawaiian rulers, now entirely under the influence of the missionaries, who unhappily considered their interests at variance with all others, and secular views and policy as necessarily of Satan, determined upon the appointment of the Rev. William Richards, one of the American missionaries, as "chaplain, teacher, and translator of the Government; " and the year 1838 marked the epoch when the missionaries emboldened by previous successes, and the rulers pleased with the executive bauble gilded with novel usages, determined to throw off the cloak which had but illy concealed previous relations of cause and effect, lay aside further disguise, and establishing an official connection, thus fearlessly proclaim the union of Church and State. Mr. Richards' act, ostentatiously proclaimed, of "dissevering himself from the mission by the advice and consent" of his missionary brethren, was a device too thinly veiled to prevent detection, if a cover were designed. It was plain to all disapproving of the step, that the relations of sectarian interest, sympathy, motive, purpose, and plan, remained the same as before; and that the ostensible disassociation but strengthened their bond, by enlarging their power, and confirming their obligation to each other. Profession is not always to be regarded as the test of sincerity. We have already seen that the missionaries were instructed by their patrons in the United States "to withhold themselves entirely from all interference and intermeddling with the political affairs and party concerns of the nation." The taking of office under Government by one of the mission, was therefore a violation of his sacred trust. Mr. Richards intended to occupy of

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fice, either true to the cause of the mission, or false to it. If the former, then he forfeited the confidence reposed in him by the lords of the vineyard, who had commanded him not to sow thistles among grapes-not to bring upon their cause the odium of moving in political matters; and that his connection with the Government was considered as bearing that complexion, is shown by the act of disseverance deemed necessary by the missionaries. And if, on the other hand, he designed to abandon the spiritual objects of the enterprise for selfish and temporal purposes, then unhappily he must be numbered among those of whom Christ said, "He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber."

We leave to others the determining of Mr. Richards' true position, after reading that page of Hawaiian history on which it is recorded that, after the missionary power became paramount, and the Rev. Mr. Richards had taken office under its modest title, "his influence on the foreign policy of the chiefs became considerable, and in it he was sustained by his brethren. Each missionary was generally the friend of some chief living in his neighborhood, and over whom he imperceptibly acquired that influence which moral confidence is sure to engender, so that without knowing exactly how it was, he felt himself powerful in his little field. The missionaries being united in policy, were thus enabled to affect the tone of the public councils, through the voices of their individual friends."

As shown by the records of the time, other members of the mission are designated as wielding great influence; but it is not necessary, beyond the general testimony already presented, to show the responsibility of the American missionaries for many errors of the Government, to do more than to name one more personal example, that of the Rev. Mr. Bingham, referred to by Mr. Jarves, as "long known by the soubriquet of King Hiram, who had acquired great prominence in the affairs of the mission, enjoyed the confidence of the chiefs, and was devoted to the cause in which he had embarked. But it must be acknowledged he possessed a tenacity of opinion and a sectarian zeal,