“(O)ur mission was providentially favored with a visit from Mr. Ellis, a missionary from (the London Missionary Society), and Messrs. Tyreman and Bennet, who had been sent thither as the deputed agents of the London Missionary Society.”
“Without their contrivance or ours, they, while seeking to convey and accompany teachers from the Society to the Marquesas Islands, found an opportunity to touch at the Sandwich Islands in their course.” (Bingham)
“Four or five hymns having been prepared in Hawaiian by Mr. Ellis, were introduced into public worship with manifest advantage. On the 4th of August, these were read and sung, and I addressed the throne of grace in the language of the country.”
“In my early efforts to do this, it seemed that an invisible power granted the needed assistance. The language was found to be favorable to short petitions, confessions, and ascriptions of praise and adoration.”
“On the next day, while many of our friends, over oceans and continents, were remembering us at the monthly concert, the king and his attendants applied themselves to then new books.”
“A number of natives, already able to teach them, joined with the missionaries as teachers, and we rejoiced to see the king’s thatched habitation, under the guns of the fort at Honolulu, become a primary school for the highest family in the land. Naihe, Kapiolani, Nāmāhāna, and La‘anui, at then own houses in the village, were endeavoring to learn to read and write.” (Bingham)
“The London Missionary Society’s “talents, experience, kindness, and courtesy, rendered the Christian intercourse of these brethren with our missionaries, so isolated and secluded from civilized society, a peculiar privilege, long to be remembered with pleasure. Prejudices had been allayed, and the confidence of the rulers in our cause, increased.”
“Mr. Ellis, being some four years in advance of us, in acquaintance with missionary life, among a people of language and manners so similar to those whom we were laboring to elevate, and being peculiarly felicitous in his manner of communication with all classes …”
“… greatly won our esteem, awakened a desire to retain him as a fellow laborer, and made us grateful for the providence that kindly made the arrangement, for a season, by which the language was sooner acquired, and our main work expedited.” (Bingham)
“On the 4th of February, 1823, the Rev. Mr. Ellis and family from the Society Islands, as had been expected, arrived at Honolulu on board a small vessel, the Active, Richard Charlton master, and were kindly welcomed both by the missionaries and the rulers.”
“They were accompanied by three Tahitian teachers, Kuke, and Taua, having their wives with them, and Taamotu, an unmarried female.”
“Mr. Ellis entered at once into the labors of the mission, and with much satisfaction, we could unitedly say, ‘Let us see the great work done in the shortest possible time.’” (Bingham)
“(The) hymn He Akua Hemolele originated on the arrival of Mr. Ellis in Honolulu harbor. A canoe from the shore brought Mr. Bingham out to the vessel.”
“Mr. Ellis called down to him ‘He Akua Hemolele,’ God is good, or perfect. Mr. Bingham replied, ‘Ke Akua no kakou,’ He is our God.”
“And so in the typical fashion of a Hawaiian ki’ke, this dialog of greeting continued for several phrases which were later worked over into the four short stanzas of the hymn.”
“And a member of the Green and Parker families reminds us that this old hymn was a lullaby often hummed in Hawaiian by the first Mother Rice, in the days before cradles went out of style and mothers still took time to sing their babies to sleep.” (Damon; Ululoa)
“As early as 1823 a small hymn-book of 60 pages (Na Himeni Hawaiʻi; He Me Ori Ia Iehova, Ke Akua Mau) was prepared by the Revs. H. Bingham and W. Ellis.” (Julian)
“It had been my privilege to labour in harmonious cooperation with the able and devoted American missionaries first sent to the Sandwich Islands.”
“Having a knowledge of the language of Tahiti, which varies but slightly from that of Hawaii, I had assisted in forming the Hawaiian alphabet, and fixing the orthography of the native language, as well as in other departments of missionary labour.”
“More than thirty years had passed away since I had left those islands, and it was an unexpected satisfaction to my own mind to find that the Christian sentiments embodied in a simple hymn …”
“… which had been prepared chiefly with a view to implanting seeds of truth in the minds of the young, had afforded consolation and support to the mind of a native of those islands in the lonely solitude of a distant ocean, amidst the perils of shipwreck, and the prospect of death …”
“… and I mention this circumstance for the encouragement of other labourers in the cause of humanity and religion, that they may cast their bread upon the waters and labour on, in the assurance that no sincere effort will be altogether in vain, though its results should never be known. (Ellis) Lorenzo Lyons later penned the hymn He Akua Hemolele.)
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