340 COST OF THE MISSION. tive inhabitants alone; and these institutions will doubtless remain, and give character to the long future, whatever form the civil government shall assume. But the native element must rapidly disappear with the loss of independence; and the prospect of such an event is exceedingly painful to an observer from the missionary stand-point. Cost of the mission. Value of its results. The cost of the Sandwich Islands mission, up to the year 1869, was one million two hundred and twenty thousand dollars; and that of the Micronesian mission, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Should we compare this cost of an enterprise extending through half a century, with that of railroads, steamships, iron-clad vessels, naval expeditions, or a single active week in our late civil war, the sum total would not appear large. The actual value of the results of this expenditure indeed is inestimable. It is vain for an objector to state the good this money might have done, if expended in some other quarters, or for other purposes. It could not have been obtained for other purposes. Its contribution was the result of the interest awakened by this very mission. And the mission, by its reacting influence on the sympathies and faith of the Christian community, has far more than supported itself. The Isles of the Pacific have been a productive working capital, both in this country and Great Britain, by reason of the early and great success of missions among them at the outset of the mighty enterprise for the world's conversion. They were missions to the more accessible and plastic portions of the heathen world, - pioneer, and in some sense tentative, missions; and we may well doubt whether, without them, missions would have been INDEBTEDNESS OF ISLANDS TO MISSION. 341 soon prosecuted on a large scale among the less accessible people of India and China, whatever may be the popular estimate as to the relative importance of those countries. The providential call to the churches has been most distinctly heard from the Pacific isles, from the wilds of Southern Africa, from the Karens of Burmah, from the Pariahs of India, and recently from the island of Madagascar. The value of the work of God's grace at the Islands through the gospel of his Son, as set forth in the pages of this volume, is beyond the reach of human calculation. The salvation of a single soul is declared by the Divine Saviour to be worth more than the world; and the gathering of hopeful converts into the churches of those Islands, for the space of fifty years, has averaged more than a thousand a year; and among these converts have been some of the highest and best exhibitions of true piety. Missions a conserving power for the Islands. Nor will it be any the less true, that the Hawaiian nation has been evangelized, and that the foreign mission work has therefore been completed, should the nation cease to exist at no distant day. The transfer of the arable lands on the Islands into the hands of foreigners, carried much farther, would insure this result. To God's blessing on the Christian mission is it mainly owing, that such a result has not been reached already, and the conserving power of the future will mainly exist in the evangelical churches and the schools. Recent events encourage the hope, that the king and his ministers will see, that the national life depends on the same causes which originally gave it vitality and force. Yet it may ultimately appear, that the na 342 AN IMPERISHABLE TRUTH. tional constitution was so fatally impaired by vices before the arrival of the mission, that not even Christianity will prevent the continually recurring fact, that the number of deaths exceeds the number of births. An imperish ; The nation may, and probably will, fade away. But the facts will remain concerning the able truth. success of the gospel. It will be forever true, that the Sandwich Islands were Christianized by evangelical missionaries from the United States and that, as a consequence of this, the people were recognized, by the leading powers of Christendom, as entitled to the rank and privileges of a Christianized and civilized nation. There is inestimable worth in such a work, with such results. It is not for the present time only, but for all time. Nor will it stand alone. But taking its place beside other missionary efforts in the north and west Pacific, resulting in like wondrous triumphs of the gospel, it will still rank as among the most successful, when all the myriad isles of that ocean shall be won over, as they will be at no distant day, to the kingdom of our blessed Lord. "Already," says Dr. Mullens, "in more than three hundred islands of eastern and southern Polynesia, the gospel has swept heathenism entirely away. The missionaries of the four great Societies have gathered four hundred thousand people under Christian influences, of whom a quarter of a million are living still, and fifty thousand of these are communicants.' CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE JUBILEE. 1870. Origin of the IT was fitting, at the close of the half century from the landing of the mission on the Sandwich Islands, that there should be a formal recognition of God's signal blessing on the enterprise. A Jubilee celebration was accordingly planned by the Hawaiian Board for some time in the month of June, 1870, the usual time for the annual meeting of the mission; and the Prudential Committee of the American Board, and the English missions in the South Pacific, were invited to be present by their representatives. The difficulty of access for the South Sea missionaries was such as to prevent their coming; and the Prudential Committee did not see their way clear to promise a representative. But in the spring of 1870, the health of Dr. N. G. Clark, Foreign Secretary of the Board, becoming somewhat impaired, a brief visit to the Islands was deemed expedient for him; and he arrived at Honolulu on the 19th of May, in season for the Jubilee. Uniting his efforts with those of brethren on the ground, efficient committees were appointed, composed partly of native gentlemen, to make the needful arrangements. The aim was to secure for the Jubilee a national recogni- Assumes a tion; and the king kindly consented to character. national 344 JUBILEE SERMONS. make the 15th of June a national holiday, and to be present at the public celebration. He also directed a national salute to be fired on that day in honor of the occasion, and made liberal contributions for a grand collation. Jubilee sermons. On Sabbath morning, June 12th, the two native congregations in Honolulu united, in the Kawaiahao or great Stone Church, to hear the Rev. Mr. Kuaea, the distinguished native pastor, preach the Jubilee sermon.1 It was of course in the Hawaiian language. Every seat in the church was occupied, and benches were brought in till all available space was filled. As many as twenty-five hundred persons were seated. At half past ten, the officiating clergymen, seven in number, entered the pulpit; when there was a voluntary skillfully played, by Mrs. Governor Dominis, on the powerful organ belonging to the church. After a short prayer by the Rev. B. W. Parker, a hymn in the native language, composed for the occasion, was sung by a choir of fifty Hawaiian singers. Mr. Kuaea's text was Lev. xxv. 11: "A Jubilee shall the fiftieth year be to you." The discourse was not less noticeable for its orderly arrangement, than for its matter, and occupied an hour in the delivery, during which the preacher is said not to have referred to note or memorandum of any kind. In the course of his sermon, he called attention to the wonderful change that had been brought about in the short space of half a century. The Ha 1 My account of this celebration is substantially what I find in The Pacific Commercial Advertiser of June 18th, The Friend of the same date, both published at Honolulu; and a communication from Honolulu to the Boston Daily Journal. |