HEALTH INHALED FROM THE OCEAN. 283 CHAPTER XIII. RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF A QUARTER CENTURY IN THE HEART OF THE PACIFIC. God be with thee, gladsome Ocean! I cannot die, if life be love. S. T. COLERIDGE. We join ship and weigh anchor-Life and the world seen from below and from aloftDifferences in the view made by differences in the position and personal estate of the beholder-Light from eternity colored by the stained glass of the mind-Hope for the convalescent-Holding a telescope to the past-The great landmarks-Astonishing statistics of progress-Consecutive review of civilization and Christianity in the Heart of the Pacific-Detail of results and fruits, economic, literary, and religiousWork to be done projected-True relation and uses of the Sandwich Islands to America-Necessary leaning of the one upon the other for years to come-Disastrous effects to be apprehended if the prop should be withdrawn-The true policy of the Christian Church in the missionary enterprise-Purposes of Providence in the Island World-Chain of events-Outlook upon the future-Probable type of society-Transplanted Puritanism-Strict Sabbath-keeping-Anecdote of the governor of OahuFacts illustrative of national habits--First law the Decalogue-A change too great to be credited-To whom and what the people ascribe it-Unbounded confidence reposed in their religious teachers-First experiments by the chiefs-Fruits of the trial-Unparalleled instance of a moral ascendency-Illustrative anecdote of the present king-Traducers silenced and put to shame-Position of dignity and eminenceHow attained and the ends to be answered by it-Relations of the Hawaiian Islands to China, California, Mexico, and South America-Vista of futurity opened-Conjectures ventured-Ground of their fulfilinent--Falsehoods met-Shafts of calumny repelled-Counter testimony-Historians noticed-Volume concluded. He who has had much experience of suffering and sorrow, who has walked thoughtfully a while in the valley of humiliation and adversity, after treading with eager hope and ambition the heights of prosperity, or the broad table-land of ordinary success, has learned. how differently human life and the world look, from the contrasted points of elevation and depression. The difference is not greater between a wide midsummer landscape, viewed from some commanding eminence, stretching away on one side into the distant mellow haze of noon-tide, and on the other half hidden, but its beauty not marred, by interposing drifts of vapor; and a part of that landscape seen close at hand from some exposed nook in the same, where the clouds are dropping a drizzling rain, where distance, that lent to the view its enchantment, has passed into plain reality, and things appear barren and bare as they are, under all the circumstances of discomfort and disadvantage that invest the place of the beholder. There are few thinking men who have lived long, that are so happy as not to know what a change is made in the aspect of things outward, by changing spirits, feelings, health, and moods of mind. There are few who have not sojourned a while both in the lights and shades of human life. Invisibilia non decipiunt; but the things of time and sense, plans and prospects of life, the aspects and colors of the world, all the dear objects of human pursuit, continually change and delude. Even the best of men, whose faith in eternal realities. is constant, whose hope is steadfast in God, who have learned to put under feet the lying vanities of time, and to walk by a light from eternity, whose eye is cast up ASSIMILATING POWER OF THE SOUL. 285 ward and onward, and their habitual aim is to please God-even they find the hues of feeling tinging the objects of faith, much more giving color to all earthly prospects, like light falling through stained glass; and those hues often changing with variations of bodily health and outward circumstances. "The soul hath power, through God's mysterious plan, To mould anew and to assimilate The outward incidents that wait on man, And make them like his hidden, inward state. If there's a storm within, then all things round If but the soul be right, submissive, pure, It stamps whate'er takes place with peace and bliss; If fierce, revengeful, and unjust, 'tis sure From outward things to draw unhappiness." I call to mind those remarkable lines of Shelley, worthy of a place with some of the best in Shakspeare or Milton, for the extraordinary combination of delicacy and vastness in this imagination: Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, The difference between my own feelings while leaving Honolulu now, in improved health and spirits, and those with which I approached it more than a year ago, a weary, sea-tossed invalid, is greater than can be told. Depressed and anxious, I was then saying— Ah! what avails all other earthly good! God be praised, from whose blessing it comes, that now heart, and hope, and brighter prospects all hanging upon that pregnant old Saxon word HEALTH, give a new face to every thing. Brightening the eye, and investing with its cheerful green even things external, it makes those frowning old craters and barren hill-sides in the vicinity of Honolulu, fairly look verdant, as I gaze on them for the last time, while our anchor is weighing, and recall the propitious providences and friends I have there found. The gentle readers who may perchance have followed me with pleasure in these wanderings through the Heart of the Pacific, will now take a retrospective glance at facts, through the telescope I hold to them in this chapter, in order that we may see what has been done, and is now doing for the improvement of the Sandwich Island kingdom, and to consider what remains to be done in order to complete the work of Christianizing and civilizing the Hawaiian race. We have spent some time at all of the nineteen missionary stations but one where there are resident missionaries, except on the island of Kauai. We have surveyed missionary and native life under various aspects, and have become somewhat acquainted with the modes and means of operation upon the native mind, and their results; and with the trials and difficulties which the missionary has to contend with. We have mingled with the people in the house and by the way, in the field and the school, at their work and their play, in the meeting for religious inquiry and STATISTICAL REVIEW OF THE MISSION. 287 at the public sanctuary. We have seen by observation what they now are, and we have heard from others what they once were. And in instituting our final comparison between the Heart of the Pacific as it was and is, or between times now and times that were, when the first missionaries landed at Kailua, we will take the state of progress found at the lapse of just one quarter of a century, as indicated by a careful survey and comparison of statistics derived on the spot. In the first place, there labored at the Sandwich Islands from 1820 to 1844, at different times, sixty-one male and sixty-seven female missionaries, who performed in all ten hundred and eighty-eight years of missionary service. By these there were expended $608,865 in their outfit, support, and missionary work. After twenty-five years from the first settling of missionaries among a race of the very lowest savages, there were to be seen erected forty permanent dwelling-houses, two printing-offices and binderies, with which were connected.four printing-presses; four commodious seminary and school buildings, all which, together with large and valuable lands attached to them, were the property of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Besides these results of Christian industry and perseverance, permanent stone Meeting-houses were found erected at almost every station, by the united skill and resources of missionary and people, giving and laboring voluntarily; and about three hundred and seventyfive school-houses. The Hawaiian tongue had been |