religious efforts in their behalf. Their coming often added to our
social comforts. The very sight of the stars and stripes at their
masthead, the snowy canvas, or the weather-beaten and tempest-torn
sails, was pleasant. Many of the masters brought cultivated and pious
wives, and from time to time they, with their little children, would be
left with us for months while the ships were absent on their cruises in
the north, the south-east, and west. Not a few sailors’ boys and girls
have been born in Hilo, and several have been born in our house. We
have formed near and lasting friendships with many of these visitors.
We have nursed sick sailors under our roof, and sent them home healed,
so far as we could judge by their conduct and profession, in soul
and body. We have buried the remains of seamen in the soil of Hilo,
attended to their secular affairs, and written to parents and friends
by their request; we have found out the wandering sons of senators,
clergymen, and men of wealth and distinction, as well as of the poor
and lowly, and received the tearful thanks of parents, comrades, and
friends.
The dust of a wild young English physician lies in our cemetery. He
was the son of a clergyman, and his mother, sisters, and brothers were
all Christians, while he wandered, like the poor prodigal, into realms
unknown to his mourning friends. He was shy of the missionaries, but in
his wildness the hand of the Lord arrested him. He fell from a horse
and received a mortal injury. In his misery he sent for me; he knew
his wound was fatal, and he felt that he must be forever lost. When
I pointed him to the Lamb of God and spoke to him of the blood which
cleanseth from all sin, he exclaimed, “Can it be possible that is for
_me_--that I can be saved?” He came at last to trust, his despair fled,
and in three days he died in peace on the very day he had set for his
departure from earth. We buried him with tears, and thanksgiving to Him
who “giveth us the victory.” There was printed on the slab that marks
the repose of his mortal part this stanza from one of his own poets:
“By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed,
By foreign hands thy clay-cold limbs composed,
By foreign hands thy humble grave’s adorned;
By strangers honored and by strangers mourned.”
[Sidenote: _Judge William L. Lee._]
A tender and grateful answer was received to the letter written to his
parents.
We had, at different times, not less than five professed physicians
who offered their services to our public. But one after another four
of them died, and the fifth left the country, and shortly after, he
also died. All these were intemperate, and some of them were bitter
haters of the missionaries and opposers of the work of the Lord. The
career of four of them was very short, and their deaths were sudden and
admonitory.
Our great volcano has attracted many hundreds of visitors, and they
have come from nearly all the nations under heaven. Many have been
distinguished scientists. Statesmen and foreign officials of almost
every rank have looked in upon us, and our intercourse has been most
precious with the many Christians that we have been permitted to
entertain.
Chief-Justice William L. Lee, chancellor of the kingdom, spent many
days with us. Coming from the United States in 1846, he was a leader
in our government until his death in 1857. His chief labors were the
drafting of the Constitution of 1852, the civil and penal codes,
and his arduous and gratuitous services as President of the Land
Commission, which abolished feudalism, and gave each native his land in
fee simple. A man of high ability, integrity, and of charming personal
character, his name can never be forgotten in Hawaii.
Prof. C. S. Lyman, of Yale College, was our guest for three months,
and his scientific tastes and acquirements, and his mechanical skill,
made his visit especially interesting. We used to say that with a
jack-knife, a file, and a gimlet he could make anything. An excellent
sun-dial, a complicated rain-gauge, with a clock attachment, a
self-opening and closing valve, and a scale that marked the day, the
hour, and the moment of rain-fall, with the exact amount of water, and
a bookcase of _koa_ wood for my study, were some of the proofs of his
skill. He made, also, one of the best surveys of Kilauea crater that I
have ever seen.
He once accompanied me along the shores and over the highlands of my
missionary field, sharing with me my simple fare and my rocky beds, and
cheering me with his delightfully genial companionship.
[Sidenote: _A Trip with Professor Lyman._]
How vividly I remember one incident in our tour! We were returning
from Puna over the highlands where, for fifteen miles, there were no
inhabitants. Our trail lay through forest and jungle and open fields
of wild grasses and rushes. We heard that about midway between the
shore and an inland village there was a small grass hut built by
bird-catchers, but now abandoned. We struck for that, and reached it a
little before sundown. We entered with our two native burden-bearers,
and congratulated ourselves on having found a shelter for the coming
cold and rainy night. In less time than I can write the story we began
to jump and stamp and dance. What is the matter? we exclaimed, and
looking down upon our legs we saw them sprinkled thick with fleas,
those terrible back-biters that never talk. We ordered a hasty march
and went on at double-quick through bush and brake, scattering our
actively bloodthirsty foes by the way. After a mile’s walk we skirted
a forest, and here, sheltered from the wind, we halted and began our
works of defence from the coming rain and cold. Without axe or saw we
broke off limbs of trees and made a little booth, which we covered with
grass and leaves, and then prepared wood for a fire.
Alas! we had no matches, no lamp, no candle. What next?--One of our
natives took his pole, which they call the _auamo_-yoke, on which they
carry burdens, and by hard and rapid friction with another dry stick he
soon raised smoke, and fire followed. At nine +P.M.+ it was a roaring
fire at which we dried ourselves, and when we had eaten our scanty
supper, and offered up thanks to the Lord, we lay down to sleep--or not
to sleep--as the case might be.
Long after this Mr. Wm. T. Brigham, of Boston, spent a season with us,
and went the same rounds with me. On this occasion we visited a pulu
station upon the highlands, and in a deep forest. Here were about
thirty or forty men and women employed in gathering this soft, silky
fern-down for upholstery, and here, ten miles from Kilauea, we saw the
natives cook their food over hot steam cracks without fuel. Near the
volcano this is frequently done.
The widowed Lady Franklin was our guest for a while. The patient,
hopeful, and earnest woman was then (1861) in search of her husband,
Sir John Franklin. It was sad to see her hopes blasted.
An honored officer of the British army in India once spent a week
with us. He came an entire stranger, but by his great intelligence,
his urbanity, his noble figure, and his gentlemanly address, he made
an indelible impression upon us. And this impression was deepened by
such a frank and affecting tale of his life as filled us with interest
in his behalf. His mind was in such a state that his appetite and his
sleep often departed from him. He occupied an upper room in our house
with a door opening upon a veranda, which afforded a good and quiet
promenade. Often during many hours of the night we could hear his
foot-falls as he paced to and fro through the still watches. He was
always with us at our morning and evening hours of devotion, and he
seemed to enter earnestly into these exercises.
[Sidenote: _A Heavy-Burdened Guest._]
At length he could no longer restrain his feelings, and begged that we
would hear his tale of sorrow. He began, saying: “I was once a happy
man, but now I am miserable. I had a very dear friend, a fellow officer
in the army, and I loved him as my own soul. On a certain occasion, and
through a misunderstanding, an altercation took place between us, and
he hastily gave me a challenge. I, under a false sense of honor, as
hastily accepted. We met, and my bullet pierced his heart. I saw him
stagger, and ran to hold him up. His warm blood spurted over me. He
said, faintly, ‘You have killed me.’ He gasped, and was dead. I laid
him down; the sight of his pale, ghastly face filled me with horror.
That image haunts me everywhere. It comes to me in my dreams. It stares
at me in my waking hours; it haunts me like a ghost; it follows me like
my shadow; and I am miserable. I have attended church, have read my
Bible through and through, to find something on which to hang a hope.
I have read sermons and systems of theology; I have wept and prayed,
but no comfort comes to me. In spite of all my prayers, and tears, and
struggles for pardon and peace, the ghost of my murdered friend haunts
me. It wakes me at midnight, it confronts me by day, and what can I do?
Is there any hope for such a blood-stained sinner as I am?”
His plaintive story struck us dumb for a while; our hearts were melted
with sympathy; but presently we blessed the gracious Lord for this
opportunity. We saw his difficulty, that he was filled with “the
sorrow of the world which worketh death.” He had labored in agony to
_save himself_, and the cloud of despair grew thicker and darker over
him. I at once pointed him to “The Lamb of God who taketh away the sins
of the world.” “Yes,” said he, “but can Jesus forgive _my_ sin? It
seems too great to be forgiven.” I assured him that “the blood of Jesus
Christ cleanses from _all sin_,” and that Isaiah had told us long ago,
that if we would but listen to our God, “though our sins be as scarlet
they should be white as snow, and though red as crimson they should be
as wool.” And that Jesus “will in no wise cast out” one penitent sinner
that comes to Him. It was his duty, and it was an infinite privilege
to believe and accept pardon and peace as a free gift of God, while it
was an insult to God to doubt His call and His promises; this “treading
underfoot the blood of the Son of God” would be a greater and a more
fatal sin than to have shed the blood of his friend. He accepted the
offer of salvation, and rejoiced in hope. He found, to his joy, that
there is “a blood which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel,”
or the blood of his murdered companion.
After he left us he remained some time in Honolulu, and we there met
him again on our annual visit, just before he embarked to return to
India.
[Sidenote: _Admirals DuPont and Pearson._]
We have heard from him several times since, and learned that he had
been promoted in the army and in civil life, and that he was happy.
He was, I think, six feet four inches tall, weighing some 225 pounds,
well formed, a man of great physical power, of superior strength of
intellect, and excellent executive ability. With a heart and conscience
of tender sensibilities, he was “bold as a lion” in all he felt to be
right, but he quailed before what he believed to be wrong.
We have not only enjoyed the privilege of entertaining men of rank, but
also men of low estate, for poor and friendless strangers came to our
distant shores as well as the rich and the noble, and we feel it to
be no less, and often a greater, privilege to care for the neglected
and needy than for the honorable. The lessons of Christ are plain,
practical, and personal. “_I was hungry_ and ye gave me meat,” “When
thou makest a feast--call the poor,” “Remember the stranger” and “Be
careful to remember the poor.” And we have sometimes entertained angels
unawares.
I should like to speak of many more of those whose acquaintance we have
made, and who have been our guests in our Hilo home; as Admiral S. F.
DuPont, the gallant officer, the accomplished gentleman and the sincere
Christian, whose dearly-cherished friendship we enjoyed until the day
of his death; or of Admiral Pearson, who with his wife and daughter
spent a season in our family. On our visit to the United States in
1870 both Mrs. DuPont and Mrs. Pearson spared no pains to see us in
their homes.
But time would fail me to speak of the visits of the venerable Dr.
Anderson and his wife, of Boston; the gifted Dr. Boyd and his estimable
wife, of Geneva, with whom we held sweet converse; the “Friends”
Wheeler, of London; Joel and Hannah Bean, of Iowa; President Moore,
of Earlham College, through whom we have been brought into Christian
fellowship with many of his denomination; of Dr. Thompson, of Detroit,
who in his advanced years came to look upon this distant missionary
field, and was almost enamored with the beauties of Hilo; of the Rev.
Mr. Hallock, who with glowing heart went back to tell his people of
what he had seen in these isles of the sea; and of many others whose
visits of Christian love and fellowship were cheering and refreshing in
this far-off land.
If these brief seasons of communion on earth are so sweet, what will
the reunion of kindred spirits be in the eternal world where love
forever reigns?
Of one other guest I would speak somewhat more fully, for from our
humble abode she went up to the palace of the King in heaven. In the
midst of earnest missionary work with her husband, the Rev. J. D.
Paris, located on the southern shores of Hawaii, she was stricken down
with consumption. They came to our house and were our guests until
she died; and here on the borders of the unseen world, while she
still lingered, she spoke words of such triumphant faith that I would
transcribe them anew.
[Sidenote: _Mrs. J. D. Paris._]
When told that no one thought it probable that she would recover,
she was silent for several minutes; then calling her husband to her
bedside, she said: “Do not be anxious about me; I commit all to the
Lord, to live or to die. I have had a strong desire to be spared for
your sake and that of our little ones. I have hoped that I might live
to see the image of Christ impressed upon their hearts. They will
need a mother’s care, a mother’s watchfulness; but let His will, not
mine, be done. He has always been good to me, infinitely better than I
deserve. Let us leave all with Him; His time is best.”
To the question how she felt in regard to her spiritual state, she
replied: “I have no distressing fears. I know that I love the Saviour
and that He loves me. I sometimes shrink from the thought of death and
the cold grave; but when I look beyond all is calm, all is peace.”
Hearing one speak of “the dark valley and shadow of death,” she asked,
“What does that mean? I do not understand it. I look upon death very
differently. Jesus will come and take the soul to Himself. It will
be released from its house of clay and wafted to immortal glory. The
valley does not look dark to me now, perhaps it may; but I think it
will not be dark to me anywhere if my Saviour is with me, and He will
never, no, never leave me.”
One night when her end was near, she urged her husband to seek rest. He
objected, as her hands were cold and her pulse feeble and irregular,
and he feared she would swoon away and awake no more.
“You ought not to say so,” she replied. “It would be a blessed end
to swoon away into the arms of my Saviour and awake in His image. Do
not be afraid. If Jesus should take me away from your side without a
struggle or a groan, would you grieve?”
On another occasion, when Mr. Paris read
“On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,”
and spoke of Bunyan’s river of death, remarking that she now stood
on the verge of this river, she replied: “I do not like that view of
death. Our blessed Saviour has told us that He will come again for His
own and receive them to Himself. I love to believe His words and to
commit myself to Him. If He takes me to Himself death is swallowed up
in victory. What are all the dark valleys and rivers if Jesus is with
us?”
I said, “Do you see your way clear?”
“Yes,” she answered promptly, “it is all clear; there is no cloud, no
darkness; all is light up to the heavenly hills.”
[Sidenote: _A Peaceful End._]
Morning was breaking upon the mountains of Hawaii, while a morning of
unending brightness was dawning on her soul. Her mortal powers gently
gave way; “the silver cord was loosed,” and she quietly left us in our
tears for the bosom of her Saviour.
XII.
_Seedling Missions--Hawaii sends out Missionaries--Need of a
Missionary Packet--The Three “Morning Stars.”_
In the prosecution of our work on the Hawaiian Islands, an active
missionary spirit was developed in great strength. This was of course
one of the legitimate fruits of a faithfully preached and truly
accepted Gospel.
We sent a mission to the Marquesas Islands, which for years we
conducted under great disadvantages. We had no packet to communicate
with that group, but were obliged to charter small and uncomfortable
vessels, at high prices, to carry out our missionaries with their
supplies and to send out our annual delegates to look after and
encourage them.
Then as our funds and men increased we thought that the Marquesan field
was too small for our energies, and the idea sprang up in the minds of
some of our brethren that we might “lengthen our cords” by exploring
among the numerous islands to the west, and establishing a mission in
Micronesia in conjunction with the American Board.
[Sidenote: _The “Morning Star” No. 1._]
This thought ripened into action, and American and Hawaiian
missionaries were sent out. Still we had no vessel at command and were
obliged to look to others to supply this want. Hence arose the thought
of securing the needed packet.
I proposed that we should request the Board to call on the children
of the United States to contribute in shares of ten cents for such a
vessel, and that her name be _The Day Star_. This was agreed to, and
the mission appointed me to write to the Board at Boston on the subject.
The proposal met with favor, with only one amendment, viz., that the
name should be _The Morning Star_. The call on the children to take
shares in this enterprise was popular, and it spread over many States.
The needed sum was raised, and the _Morning Star_ (No. 1) was built,
manned, and provided. In due time she sailed from Boston with the
prayers and benedictions of a multitude and with the old song,
“Waft, waft, ye winds, his story,
And you, ye waters, roll.”
On the 24th of April, 1857, having braved the billows of the Atlantic,
swept round the stormy Cape Horn, and sped half way over the Pacific,
the beautiful schooner reached Honolulu. Thence she sailed for the
Marquesas Islands with supplies; and on her return, early in July, she
appeared off the entrance of Hilo harbor, dressed in all her white
sails with her flag fluttering in the breeze and with her star shining
in the center.
Hilo was jubilant. We had heard of her sailing, had counted on her
time, and had been watching for her arrival. Arrangements had been made
to give her a hearty welcome. Parents and children came hasting in from
all quarters, winding over the hills and along their footpaths and
filling our streets.
Captain Moore came on shore with his officers and passengers, and was
met by the well-dressed and decorated children in double file, bearing
a flag prepared for the occasion. With songs of welcome they were
waited upon to the great church, which was soon filled to its entire
capacity. Prayers were offered, hymns and an original ode to the _Star_
were sung, addresses made, and all went off with a hearty good-will.
We were happy on this occasion to welcome the Rev. Hiram Bingham, Jr.,
with his young wife, bound to Micronesia, and little knowing what
sufferings awaited them in those dark and distant islands.
Afterward the natives were invited on board the vessel, and as our
children had given freely for the vessel, they inspected her with
many expressions of admiration and delight, feeling their importance
as joint owners of the beautiful packet. The people, old and young,
brought liberal gifts of fruits and vegetables, fishes and fowls.
[Sidenote: _The “Morning Star” No. 2._]
The _Star_ remained two days and then sailed for Honolulu with the good
wishes of all Hilo.
This packet, after years of service in the Pacific, was sold for a
merchant vessel, fitted out and left the islands for China, but has
never been heard from since her departure.
The _Morning Star No. 2_ was built by the funds received from the sale
of the old one, supplemented by further gifts from the children. She
was a larger, better built, and more convenient boat than the first and
did good service. But her end came all too soon. After a successful
cruise among the islands of Micronesia, and on leaving the little islet
of Kusaie, or Strong’s Island, when all seemed propitious, she drifted
upon the rocks and was broken in pieces. All on board escaped to the
land to wait an opportunity to return to their homes.
This event seemed sad, and some of us have not ceased to think that
we need, and ought to have, steam as an auxiliary motor to help our
packet in calms, in adverse currents, and when in danger on entering
and leaving dangerous harbors. All the important secular interests of
the world employ steam and other discoveries and improvements in all
the departments of science, art, and industry. We harness the lightning
to our cars; our thoughts flash under deep oceans, over towering
mountains, and through mid-air. The business of this world challenges
all the forces of nature to its aid, and why should the Gospel move
so slowly? Why should the angel that flies through the midst of heaven
with the Gospel message move with clipped wings? The artillery of war
moves on swift wheels to shake the nations and pour out human blood,
while the old sails flap, and the lazy boom squeaks mournfully in the
doldrums, as our vessels are driven hither and thither by the squalls
and storms of capes that obstruct their way to the lost tribes of men.
If the Lord will, I hope to hear the whistle of a missionary steamer in
our waters before I go hence.
Two Stars have set in the West, and here comes the _Morning Star No.
3_, fairer and brighter than those which have disappeared, well built,
larger and better than the other two.
The insurance money on No. 2, with another lift from the children, had
soon brought her keel into the waters, raised her well-shaped spars,
set up her standing, and arrayed her running rigging, clothed her with
a white cloud of canvas, and run up her beautiful flag to wave in the
breezes of heaven. Well furnished, with a well-appointed crew, with an
excellent captain and good officers, she is now (1880) on her tenth
voyage to Micronesia, taking out supplies to the laborers in that
widening field, and a reinforcement, long waited for, for the Gilbert
Islands.
XIII.
_The Marquesas Islands--Early English and French Missions--The
Hawaiians Send a Mission to Them--My Visit in 1860--The Marquesan
Tabu System._
The Marquesas Archipelago consists of thirteen islands, only six of
which are inhabited, viz: Nuuhiva, Uahuna, Uapou, Hivaoa, Tahuata, and
Fatuiva. Seven are small islets or rocky piles of little importance.
The group is divided into two chains, trending N. W. and S. E., between
the latitudes 7° 50′ and 10° 30′ south, and longitude 138° 30′ and 140°
50′ west.
The windward group was discovered in 1595 by Mendaña de Neyra, the
commander of a Spanish squadron bound from Peru to colonize the Solomon
Islands during the reign of Philip II. of Spain, and was named Las
Marquesas de Mendoza in honor of the Viceroy of Peru.
The leeward islands, though but a short distance off, were not
discovered until 1791, nearly 200 years later, when they were seen
by Capt. Ingraham, of Boston, and named Washington Islands. But the
term Marquesas now embraces both groups, as it properly should, the
inhabitants being one in language, manners, and race.
The origin of the group, like that of the Hawaiian, is distinctly
igneous. All the islands give evidence of having been raised up from
the depths of the ocean by volcanic fires. The surface is mountainous
and exceedingly broken. The coasts rise from the water like walls.
Deep gorges, lofty promontories, bold bluffs, serrated ridges,
perpendicular buttresses, sea-walls plunging thousands of feet into
the sea, turrets, towers, cones pointed and truncated, rocky minarets,
needles, spires, with confused masses of rocks, scoria, tufa, and other
volcanic products, testify to the terrific rage of Plutonic agencies in
unknown ages past. Many of the ridges are so precipitous and lofty that
they can not be crossed by man. And many of the rocky ribs come down
laterally from the lofty spine, or dividing ridge, on an angle of 30°,
and form submarine and subaerial buttresses, leaving no passage except
in canoes. The lowest of these inhabited islands reaches a height of
2,430 feet above the level of the sea, and the highest, of 4,130. Most
of them have fertile valleys half a mile to three miles deep, and from
one-tenth of a mile to a mile wide, with rills of pure water falling
from the high inland cliffs, and rippling along rocky and shaded beds
to the ocean.
[Sidenote: _The Marquesans._]
The valleys are also filled with luxuriant shrubs, vines, and
magnificent trees.