During the forty years between 1778 and 1818, the population
had decreased from 400,000 to 150,000--nearly two-thirds; so
that the Christian enterprise which evangelized the Hawaiians
saved a nation from extinction, for in twenty years more, at the
same rate of decrease, the Hawaiian Islands would have been an
uninhabited waste.--PIERSON, “The Miracles of Missions.”
(2826)