“It may very truly be said that the story of the Hawaiian Mission is the ‘old, old story of Jesus and his love.’ Using the words of St. Paul, it may be said that the Love of Christ ‘constrained’ a certain number of men and women in New England and States near by …”
“…to sail for a group of Islands in the far off Pacific whose people were in spiritual darkness. and in bondage to a system of idolatry which in many respects was peculiarly hard.”
“From stories which they had heard the Missionaries expected, as one of them wrote, ‘sacrifice, trials, hardships and dangers.’ It certainly was a great venture of faith to sail away in 1820 on the Brig ‘Thaddeus’ for Islands more distant from the mainland than any other group in the world.”
“But the love of Christ constrained them for service as it constrained those companies of men and women which came around the Horn in 1822, 1827 and so on to the last group in 1848.”
“We do not say that there were no mistakes made, nor that the strict requirements of the Puritan representation of Christianity were not hard on a primitive people, nor that they did not lead to hypocrisy on the part of many, a hiding of their real lives that they might not be turned out of the Church.”
“The missionaries had not only to contend with old superstitions and habits of life but with the licentiousness and intemperance of the men of the whaling fleet, whose ships in these waters often numbered a hundred or more.”
“Then there were the difficulties arising with the representatives of certain powers who accused the missionaries of interfering and who often considered themselves above the native. laws.”
“There was also the hindrance arising from teachers of other religious organizations who entered the field later and who undoubtedly told the Hawaiians that they were being taught falsehood. But still the work went on.”
“One body, whose men go two by two, lived with the Hawaiians, gained their confidence, and took many. White priests of another body devoted in self-sacrificing work, often in lonely places where no one else would live, won hundreds.”
“As to values in character: There were Hawaiians of whom the older missionaries’ children speak in high terms. It is true that workers in the past and present have often been saddened by seeing young people who gave promise in the mission schools tum out indifferent, negligent or bad.”
“The number of schools which are directly as well as indirectly the result of missionary foundation and influence is very great in proportion to the population.”
“These include not only private schools, such as Hilo Boarding School, Lahainaluna, Kawaiaha‘o Seminary, Mills Institute, the Kamehameha Schools, the Punahou Schools, Kohala Seminary, Maunaolu Seminary …”
“… but also all the excellent public schools which were in their inception, the special charge of the mission. And all these schools have behind them records of which they may well be proud.”
“The value of the Hawaiian Mission has been not only in producing strong Christian character in individual cases, but also in the steady improvement in the moral conditions of the Islands despite all drawbacks.”
“The ideas of women as to sexual morality have changed wonderfully in the past twenty years … As a matter of fact, from a somewhat wide knowledge of three continents I affirm that in this respect these Islands, to say the least, need not fear comparison with most countries of older civilization.”
“One chief reason to my mind is that while now if a girl makes a false step there is a sense of shame on the part of the girl and her relatives, yet she is not treated as an outcast by them and others and usually she settles down later to a decent home life.”
“In manners, courtesy, kindliness and racial comity there is no place which compares with Hawaii. The preponderance of Japanese has lately somewhat disturbed this, but only as affecting them.”
“This brotherliness, this idea of a family whose members are of different ideas and manners but who are relations, has been one remarkable feature of the value of this missionary work which treated all as children of God who had value as individuals.”
“Today when tourists come to the Islands they are told by those ignorant of the facts, that the missionaries were received kindly by the Hawaiians and then took their country away from them and got rich.”
“These tourists do not learn that by the term missionary as used in Hawaii the descendants of the missionaries are not alone meant.”
“The word since the overthrow of the monarchy and to some degree before included all who stood for good government, whether they were Christians or not.”
“As a matter of fact, by far the greater part of the land of the Islands belongs to the government or to estates left and held in trust for Hawaiian families or institutions for the benefit of Hawaiians.”
“The plantations, all except a few small ones, are held by stock companies, in some of which the descendants of the missionaries hold a large interest, but in many of which they have little or none.”
“The missionaries introduced industries in order to give work to their converts who lived in a primitive way. By force of circumstances and their ability some of their children grew wealthy.”
“One value of the Hawaiian Mission is the industries of the group, without which the natives must have remained primitive children of the soil, as they are on many nominally Christianized Islands of the Pacific.”
“This we can say from personal knowledge – that nowhere are employers more interested in the welfare of the employees than in Hawaii. Laborers who came here as coolies make every sacrifice to educate their children, and if they do not stay here, they go away to become leaders of their people.”
“But if the Hawaiians gained from the Americans, the descendants of the missionaries and other white residents gained much from the Hawaiians.”
“They gained a forgiving spirit, a generous way of looking at faults, and a helpfulness to those in need. In no place in the world has there been more done for education, relief of distress and in late years in scientific helpfulness, and if the list of names of those prominent in bringing this about and supporting it, is gone over, the value of the mission will be seen.”
“The story of the Hawaiian Mission has not passed into history – it is going on. It has gone out into the Islands of the Pacific, into countries bordering on that great Ocean, and into other far distant lands …”
“… and the influence of those twelve companies and their children and grand-children is potent not only in Hawaii, but East and West, North and South.” (Restarick, Episcopal Bishop, First American Bishop of Honolulu; he presided over the funeral of Queen Liliuokalani in 1917)
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