CHAPTER XXXV.

NOTICES OF PERSONS.

Death of

MISSIONS.

1867-1868.

HIS Excellency M. Kekuanaoa, father of the fourth and fifth Kamehamehas, and President of Kekuanoa. the Board of Education; died in the year 1868. His death occurred on the 26th day of November, twenty-nine years after the death of his wife, the excellent Kinau, and five years after that of Kamehameha IV. His character was in keeping, on the whole, with his fine physical form. Bishop Staley represented him as forming part of his ecclesiastical establishment, and.no doubt the king did all in his power to make it so, but the brave old chieftain remained to the last a of principle. member of the. First Church in Honolulu, and firmly attached to its interests. Nor was his friendship for the missionaries, and his grateful recognition of his own and his nation's obligation to them, ever shaken. His daughter, Victoria, who was heir presumptive to the throne, died two years before him. Her character was not like his; though, like him, she retained her connection with the Protestant community. My recollections of the old governor are of a very pleasing character.

His firmness

The Rev. John S. Emerson, whose death occurred

MEMORIAL OF MR. EMERSON.

He was

son.

311

March 28, 1867, was a member of the mission nearly thirty-five years, having arrived at Hono- Mr. Emerlulu on the 17th of May, 1832. born at Chester, New Hampshire, December 28, 1800, and was consequently in his sixty-seventh year at the time of his decease; which was the result of a sudden attack of apoplexy.

Mr. Emerson was educated at Dartmouth College and the Andover Theological Seminary. His missionary life was spent at Waialua, with the exception of four years passed as an instructor in the seminary at Lahainaluna, from 1842 to 1846. An apoplectic stroke in 1859, and another in 1863, made it necessary for him to resign the pastoral care of his station in 1864; in which he was succeeded by Mr. Kuaea, a native pastor. His funeral brought together a large assembly, which manifested an affectionate interest in the occasion. In no part of the Islands had the people been more in the habit of reading the Scriptures. Mr. Emerson had so arranged their reading, that they were accustomed to read the entire Bible through once in three years. An old Hawaiian, belonging to the Waialua church, on being asked, said he had read the Bible through nine times.

Mr. Emerson had an efficient coadjutor in his wife. For years, she conducted the singing in the church, and was unwearied in administering to the wants of the people in sickness and health; as she continues still to do.

The Rev. Asa Thurston, one of the first missionaries, finished his course on the 11th of Mr. ThursMarch, 1868, after a residence at the ton.

Islands of forty-eight years. During all this time,

312

MEMORIAL OF MR. THURSTON.

he never visited his native land. His labors at Kailua have been frequently mentioned in this history, and were unremitted until the expiration of forty years, when his mind failed under the pressure of long and arduous service. Then, after visiting a married daughter in, California, he took up his abode in Honolulu.

Mr. Thurston was a native of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and was born October 12, 1787; consequently he (as well as his associate Mr. Bingham) reached the good old age of fourscore. He was a graduate of Yale College, and of the Andover Seminary. His wife who survives him, and is a resident at Honolulu, was Miss Lucy Goodale, of Marlborough, Massachusetts. Mr. Thurston is entitled to a high rank among missionaries. With physical powers perhaps unsurpassed in his day by those of any other resident upon the Islands, whether native or foreign, he was indefatigable in his labors. His letters to the Corresponding Secretary of the Board were excelled in fullness and accuracy by none from his associates, and show a noble work performed by him for Christ, in what was once the favorite abode of the Hawaiian kings. His knowledge of the native language and character was thorough. As a preacher, he was much esteemed by the people. In the labor of preparing the Hawaiian version of the Scriptures, it fell to him to translate parts of Genesis, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and the whole of Samuel, and Second Kings. Only when repeated strokes of paralysis had rendered him incapable of further service, did he consent to retire from his beloved charge.

I saw him in California, on my return from the

MISSION TO MICRONESIA.

313

Islands. His step was still elastic, and his flowing white beard gave him a venerable appearance, but his mental powers were clouded. There was a constant serenity of manner, which showed that with him the conflicts of life were over.

ian foreign

Though so many of the missionary fathers have passed away, and the few that remain must The Hawaiin the ordinary course of nature soon fol- missions. low, their works will testify concerning them. Among these are the missions to Micronesia and the Marquesas Islands.

The mission to Micronesia, commenced, in the year 1852, by Messrs. Snow, Sturges, L. H. Mission to Gulick, and their wives, with two married Micronesia. Hawaiian assistants, has proved a success.1 The groups nearest the Sandwich Islands, though two thousand miles distant, are called the Gilbert (also Kingsmill) and Marshall Islands. They are coral formations, low, and covered with cocoa-nut groves. Passing beyond these, westward, the first missionary station was established on Kusaie, or Strong's Island, between four and five hundred miles from the Gilbert group. The second station was on Ponape, . or Ascension Island, three hundred miles still farther west. These islands belong to the Caroline group, and are both mountainous, with a rich soil, and healthful climate. Mr. Snow occupied the former, and Mr. Sturges and Dr. Gulick the Begun in the latter, and each station had one of the Ha- group. waiian missionaries. Mr. Snow's Hawaiian associate.

Caroline

1 For a somewhat extended account of the groups of islands in Micronesia first occupied, and the incipient events in this mission, see Missionary Herald for 1853, pp. 81–90.

314

THE “MORNING STAR”

died the next year. Mr. and Mrs. Doane reached Ascension in 1855, accompanied by a married Hawaiian assistant; and in October of the same year, Mr. Snow's seclusion was relieved by the arrival of Dr. and Mrs. Pierson, with Kanoa and his wife, natives of Hawaii. Dr. Pierson had opportunity, on his way, to visit seven of the sixteen islands in the Gilbert group, and five of the thirty Marshall Islands. The last named group is composed of two chains, perhaps a hundred miles apart. Dr. Pierson strongly recommended Apaiang, on the Gilbert, and Ebon, on the Marshall Islands, for new stations.

In 1856, a brigantine of one hundred and fiftysix tons, at the expense of Sabbath-school children, The Morning was built for the especial use of the MicroStar nesia mission, and named the Morning Star. She arrived at Honolulu in April, 1857, with Mr. and

Mrs. Bingham as passengers. In her first voyage

to Micronesia, she took them and a married Hawaiian helper to Apaiang, and removed Messrs. Doane and Pierson and their wives from

The Gilbert and Marshall Islands.

their former station to Ebon.

able prepara

tion.

It was a remarkable preparation for the safe ocA remark- cupation of this latter station, that, while Dr. Pierson was residing on Kusaie, five canoes, with ninety people from the western chain of the Marshall Islands, being driven off their course, were providentially guided, after fifteen days, to that island. It was well known to these natives, that their lives, and also their means of returning to their native islands, were owing to the friendly influence of the missionaries. They reached their home safely in their canoes, in the favoring monsoon; and as some of them had seen Dr. Pierson on