Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings | Page 17

September 25, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Walter Murray Gibson

Walter Murray Gibson was born at sea, the son of English emigrants, en route to the United States (March 6, 1822.) His early years were spent in New York, New Jersey and South Carolina; and his youthful imagination was kindled into a flame of romantic ambition by tales of the East Indies. (Kuykendall)

While still a young man, he had been imprisoned by the Dutch in Java for more than a year, found guilty of plotting to stir up a rebellion against their rule. From that time in 1850-51 he had carried a dream of becoming the savior of the island races of Oceania, of gaining power to rescue them from the misrule of their white masters. (Adler – Kamins)

In 1861, he came to Hawaiʻi after joining the Mormon Church the year before; he was to serve as a missionary and envoy of the Mormon Church to the peoples of the Pacific Ocean. He landed in Lānaʻi and eventually created the title “Chief President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Islands of the Sea.” He more regularly went by the name Kipikona.

The experience with the Church was relatively short-lived; in 1864, he was excommunicated for selling priesthood offices, defrauding the Hawaiian members and misusing his ecclesiastical authority (in part, he was using church funds to buy land in his name.)

By the 1870s, Gibson focused his interests in ranching in the area called Koele, situated in a sheltered valley in the uplands of Kamoku Ahupuaʻa. As the ranch operation was developed, Koele was transformed from an area of traditional residency and sustainable agriculture to the ranch headquarters. (Lānaʻi Culture and Heritage Center)

Herds of sheep were managed from Koele, and during shipping season, wool and mutton for the meat markets in Honolulu, were shipped from the coastal village of Awalua, at the northern end of the island. (Lānaʻi Culture and Heritage Center)

In 1872, Gibson moved from Lānaʻi to Lāhainā and then to Honolulu.

He established a small bilingual newspaper, Ka Nuhou (News,) and wrote, edited and ran it for 14-months (1873-1874.) It grew in circulation to about 5,000, double the size of any other Hawaiian language periodical to and for the Hawaiian people. Its slogan was – Hawaiʻi for the Hawaiians.

Not everyone enjoyed its content. “The Nuhou is scurrilous and diverting, and appears ‘run’ with a special object, which I have not as yet succeeded in unraveling from its pungent but not always intelligible pages.” (Isabella Bird)

He denounced, as enemies of the kingdom, those who favored ceding Pearl Harbor to the US as an inducement to enter into the reciprocity treaty with Hawaiʻi so eagerly sought by the sugar planters to gain access to the American market. (Adler – Kamins)

He used the newspaper to support, first, Lunalilo, then, King Kalākaua in their election campaigns.

Following that, he ran for political office and served in the House of Representatives, representing Maui (the only haole in the 27-member Legislative Assembly – 1878-1882.)

He made his way to become as Finance Committee Chairman and under his leadership allocations of public funds showed his concern for the national pride of Hawaiians: $500 to Henri Berger, leader of the Hawaiian Band, for composing the music for Hawaii Ponoʻi, the new national anthem; $10,000 for a bronze statue of Kamehameha I; and $50,000 to begin construction of a new ʻIolani Palace, to house King Kalākaua and Queen Kapiʻolani, and all their successors. (Adler – Kamins)

Public service did not stop there. He was later Member of Privy Council and Board of Health (1880, Health President 1882;) Commissioner of Crown Lands (1882;) Board of Education, President (1883;) Attorney General (1883;) House of Nobles (1882-1886;) Secretary of War & Navy (1886;) Premier and Minister of the Interior (1886) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1882-1887.)

In his new capacities, Gibson’s first notable accomplishment was his development of a new monetary system for the island nation. The new money was printed in San Francisco and the bills featured Kalākaua. This was followed by the creation of a postal system; Gibson himself designed and printed the postage stamps for the Hawaiian kingdom. (Lowe)

Then, the good times ended. “A conspiracy against the peace of the Hawaiian Kingdom had been taking shape since early spring.” (Liliʻuokalani) In 1887, the struggle for control of Hawaiʻi was at its height as David Kalākaua was elected to the throne. But the businessmen were distrustful of him.

“So the mercantile element, as embodied in the Chamber of Commerce, the sugar planters, and the proprietors of the “missionary” stores, formed a distinct political party, called the “down-town” party, whose purpose was to minimize or entirely subvert other interests, and especially the prerogatives of the crown, which, based upon ancient custom and the authority of the island chiefs, were the sole guaranty of our nationality.” (Liliʻuokalani)

The Hawaiian League (aka Committee of Thirteen, Committee of Public Safety & Annexation Club) were unhappy with the rule of Kalākaua and used threats to force the king to adopt a new constitution. The Hawaiian League came into control of the Honolulu Rifles (made of about 200 armed men.) The Hawaiian League used the Rifles to force King Kalākaua to enact the Bayonet Constitution. (Kukendall)

On July 1, Kalākaua asked his entire cabinet to resign. Gibson, a strong and vocal supporter of the King was also an early target. He was captured by the Honolulu Rifles and almost lynched; instead, he was banished from the Islands.

He left Honolulu on July 12, 1887 on the sugar freighter JD Spreckels and arriving in San Francisco on August 6, 1887. He spent the following five months in and out of St Mary’s Hospital and died January 21, 1888 of tuberculosis of the lungs.

When his body was returned to Honolulu, he lay in state and thousands lined up to view his remains through a windowed coffin. “The place has been thronged with visitors, many of whom were natives, who expressed a kindly aloha for the departed Premier.” (Daily Bulletin, February 18, 1888)

September 17, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

United in a Song of Praise

The Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in giving instructions to the pioneer missionaries of 1819 said:

“Your mission is a mission of mercy, and your work is to be wholly a labor of love. … Your views are not to be limited to a low, narrow scale, but you are to open your hearts wide, and set your marks high. You are to aim at nothing short of covering these islands with fruitful fields, and pleasant dwellings and schools and churches, and of Christian civilization.” (ABCFM)

Their message was simple, “As ambassadors of the King of Heaven, having the most important message to communicate, which he could receive, we made to him the offer of the Gospel of eternal life, and proposed to teach him and his people the written, life-giving Word of the God of Heaven.” (Bingham)

One of the first things Bingham and his fellow missionaries did was begin to learn the Hawaiian language and create an alphabet for a written format of the language. Their emphasis was on teaching and preaching.

These missionaries taught their lessons in Hawaiian, rather than English. In part, the mission did not want to create a separate caste and portion of the community as English-speaking Hawaiians. In later years, the instruction, ultimately, was in English.

The arrival of the first company of American missionaries in Hawaiʻi marked the beginning of Hawaiʻi’s phenomenal rise to literacy. The chiefs became proponents for education and edicts were enacted by the King and the council of chiefs to stimulate the people to reading and writing.

Within five years of the missionaries’ arrival, a dozen chiefs had sought Christian baptism and church membership, including the king’s regent Kaʻahumanu. The Hawaiian people followed their native leaders, accepting the missionaries as their new priestly class. The process culminated in Hawaiian King Kamehameha III’s adoption of Christianity and a Biblically-based constitution in 1840. (Schulz)

The missionaries left many other lasting legacies in the Islands, including their songs. Some songs were translations of Western songs into Hawaiian. Some were original verse and melody.

Oli (chant) and mele (song) were already a part of the Hawaiian tradition.

“As the Hawaiian songs were unwritten, and adapted to chanting rather than metrical music, a line was measured by the breath; their hopuna, answering to our line, was as many words as could be easily cantilated at one breath.” (Bingham)

Missionaries used songs as a part of the celebration, as well as learning process. “At this period, the same style of sermons, prayers, songs, interrogations, and exhortations, which proves effectual in promoting revivals of religion, conversion, or growth in grace among a plain people in the United States, was undoubtedly adapted to be useful at the Sandwich Islands. … some of the people who sat in darkness were beginning to turn their eyes to the light”. (Bingham)

“The king (Kamehameha III) being desirous to use his good voice in singing, we sang together at my house, not war songs, but sacred songs of praise to the God of peace.” (Bingham)

One of the unique verses (sung to an old melody) was Hoʻonani Hope – Hoʻonani I Ka Makua Mau. Bingham translated it to Hawaiian and people sang it to a western melody that dates back to the 1600s.

The melody may sound familiar to many – it was originally called ‘Old 100th‘ and is attributed to Louis Bourgeois (he penned the melody in the mid-1500s.)

It was later attached to a verse of Thomas Hen’s ‘All People That On Earth Do Dwell,’ written in about 1674. It had many verses (I have been able to find a version that has 11-verses; some versions had fewer.)

While most people may not recall the initial verses, what appears as his last is likely widely remembered. Many people suggest that Bingham’s verse is merely a translation of Hen’s last verse. It appears that is not the case.

I had the opportunity to attend the Hawaiian Mission Houses’ program “Ke Ala O Ka Hua Mele” – a four-part discussion and musical series on the evolution of Hawaiian music. One part focused on Himeni (Hawaiian Hymns.)

We were in Kawaiahaʻo Church, the Church choir sang several hymns; one was Hoʻonani Hope (Ka Buke Himeni – Bingham’s translation.) This was waaay cool.

A handout given by the Church shows Hoʻonani Hope – the Hawaiian was Bingham’s translation and the English verse was printed next to it.

Here is Bingham’s Hoʻonani Hope:
Hoʻonani i ka Makua mau
Ke Keiki me ke ka ʻUhane nō
Ke Akua mau, hoʻomaikaʻi pū
Ko kēia ao ko kēlā ao
ʻĀmene

This translates to:
Let us give praise to the eternal Father
To the Son and to the Holy Ghost
To God everlasting, let there ring praise
Both in this world as well as the kingdom beyond
Amen

“In his first efforts at translation, while still groping in the darkness of Polynesian thought patterns so foreign to his own, his mind must have fastened upon one of the shorter forms of the 100th Psalm which cannot have been very different from those used in the Bethel Chapel by the foreign congregation and appearing in 1840 in probably the earliest hymnal printed in English at the American mission press in Honolulu.” (The Friend, May 1935)

Bingham’s Hoʻonani Hope is also referred to as the ‘Hawaiian Doxology.’

Here is a rendition of Hoʻonani Hope – Hoʻonani I Ka Makua Mau, the Hawaiian Doxology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eUFK03l8MI

(It was the only rehearsal this ‘combined school choir’ had – Aaron Mahi conductor. They were students from schools associated with the Mission – Punahou, Lahainaluna, Mid-Pacific Institute and Kamehameha Schools.)

The words of the ‘traditional’ Doxology are:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him, all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heav’nly hosts;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost
Amen

Bingham did not translate the ‘Doxology’ verse we are accustomed to. (He may have even made up some or all of the English verse, in addition to the translation into Hawaiian.) (A second verse written by Haunani Bernadino was added in 2005.

September 15, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

St. Augustine by-the-sea

At the time of the arrival of Europeans in the Hawaiian Islands during the late-eighteenth century, Waikīkī had long been a center of population and political power on Oʻahu. Starting back in the end of the fourteenth century, Waikīkī had become “the ruling seat of the chiefs of O’ahu,” including Kamehameha, who resided here after conquering Oʻahu in 1795.

In 1819, Kalanimōkū was the first Hawaiian Chief to be formally baptized a Catholic, aboard the French ship Uranie. “The captain and the clergyman asked (John) Young what Ka-lani-moku’s rank was, and upon being told that he was the chief counselor (Kuhina Nui) and a wise, kind, and careful man, they baptized him into the Catholic Church” (Kamakau). Shortly thereafter, Boki, Kalanimōkū’s brother (and Governor of Oʻahu,) was baptized.

In July 1827, three Sacred Hearts priests and three Sacred Hearts brothers from France arrived in Honolulu to begin the Hawaiian Catholic Mission. The beginnings of the Mission were difficult. They were neither welcomed by the royal government nor by the Protestants already in the Islands.

France, historically a Catholic nation, used its government representatives in Hawaiʻi to protest the mistreatment of Catholic Native Hawaiians. Captain Cyrille-Pierre Théodore Laplace, of the French Navy frigate “Artémise”, sailed into Honolulu Harbor in 1839 to convince the Hawaiian leadership to get along with the Catholics – and the French. Finally, the persecution ended in June and the kingdom granted religious freedom to all.

With Catholics now free to practice their faith, a small Catholic chapel was built in 1839 in Waikīkī “in the Hawaiian style,” likely consisting of posts and thatch on the beach near the present Kalākaua Avenue.

This chapel was re-built 15 years later (in 1854) at that beach location in Western-style wooden framing (from the lumber of shipwrecked ships.) The size of this chapel was about 20 feet by 40 feet, with a steeple.

Waikīkī continued to grow and improvements to the chapel were made later by putting in flooring, galvanized roofing, and lattice walls. This church site on the beach served its purpose for many years, until the site was exchanged for a piece of land on what is now ʻOhua Avenue.

The chapel was used primarily for devotions; parishioners still had to go to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace (in downtown Honolulu) for Sunday Mass.

During the Spanish-American War, American soldiers were garrisoned at Kapiʻolani Park (at a temporary Camp McKinley – 1898-1907) and the Catholic soldiers wanted a regular Catholic Mass in Waikīkī, so permission was given for Mass every Sunday. A larger chapel was built to accommodate all the worshippers.

The soldiers left when the war ended, but by that time there was a growing Catholic community in Waikīkī. On August 28, 1901, a more permanent church with lattice-work walls reminiscent of the palm fronds of the first chapel in Waikīkī.

As Waikīkī grew, so did the church; it was expanded twice, in 1910 and then in 1925; but time, a growing population and termites took their toll and by the early-1960s a larger church was needed.

In 1962, the present church was blessed. Designed by local architect George McLaughlin, the design reflects hands folded in prayer. The 20-side stained glass windows depict 15-mysteries of the rosary, the arrival of the missionaries, the first lay catechists (Catholic teachers of the faith) in Hawaiʻi, Father Damien and the bishop receiving the current church.

Today, St Augustine-by-the-Sea Church sits within urban Honolulu at the eastern end of the Waikīkī resort area. It is surrounded by modem urban development and high-rise hotels.

St. Augustine by-the-sea has not undergone any major exterior renovations or improvements since its construction in 1962. The church recently published a Master Plan and Environmental Assessment for a new multi-purpose Parrish Hall, as well as other improvements.

St. Augustine features a small museum dedicated to the life and times of St. Damien of Molokaʻi. In 1863, his brother, who was to leave for the Hawaiian Islands, became ill and Damien took his place. He arrived in Honolulu on March 19, 1864, and was ordained at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace (in downtown Honolulu) on May 21, 1864.

For the next nine years he worked in missions on the big island, Hawaiʻi. In 1873, he went to the leper colony on Molokaʻi, after volunteering for the assignment. He announced he was a leper in 1885 and continued to build hospitals, clinics and churches, and some six hundred coffins. He died on April 15 1885, on Molokaʻi. (Lots of information and images from St. Augustine website and related reports.)

September 9, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kaiopihi

Reverend Elias and Ellen (Howell) Bond sailed with the Ninth Company of Missionaries from Boston. The Bonds arrived in Honolulu in May of 1841. They were then assigned to Kohala.

Reverend Isaac Bliss, an elderly missionary in Kohala, had already completed a main house of what is known as the Bond Homestead compound when Bond arrived in Kohala in June 1841.

The compound eventually included the Bond Homestead (1841) Kalāhikiola Church (completed in 1855) and Kohala Seminary (Kohala Girl’s School – complex founded in 1872.)

The area was described in an 1849 account (in ‘The Island World of the Pacific’) as follows: “It stands in the center of an area of some five or six acres, enclose with a neat stone wall, and having a part of it cultivated as a garden, adorned with flowering shrubs and trees, as the pineapple, guava, acacia, mimosa, tamarind, kukui, mulberry, geranium, banana, Pride of China, sugar cane, etc.”

“The house is thatched with long leaves of the hala-tree (Pandanus), and has a very pretty, neat appearance, in connection with that tasteful keeping of the walks and grounds, like the pictures we have of thatched cottages and rural scenes of Old England.”

To provide employment to the people in the region and support his church and schools, Reverend Bond founded Kohala Sugar Company, known as “The Missionary Plantation,” in 1862.

“On December 23rd, 1876 there arrived for the Kohala plantation thirty Christian Chinese, four with their wives, and two children. The following year the little Oriental colony had increased to forty-five, the second company of Christian Chinese arriving in January.”

“How eagerly Father Bond welcomed them to his fold and how he rejoiced in the greater freedom of action furnished by plantation dividends, may be seen in a letter of October 17, 1877:”

“‘I sent in August for a minister to preach to our English speaking population. …. Now I write to see if we can obtain from the coast a Chinese Evangelist for these growing numbers of Chinese among us with no possible medium through which we may speak to them of Jesus.’”

“‘The Master has wonderfully helped us in all our plans and I will trust Him. I think I have learned more and more to trust Him, of late.’”

“And soon the long anticipated arrival and labors of Kong Tet Yin were announced: ‘March, 1878. … My errand to Honolulu was to get a Chinese, Colporteur and Evangelist. It was an unexpected opening, the man with highest testimonials from China and Australia.’”

“‘The Master favored my errand. I secured the man, and secured from the Kohala Sugar Company the means for paying his salary. Thanks to God for all.’”

“‘April, 1879. …. Our Chinese work is gradually getting into shape. I am much pleased with the Evangelist, though I sorely feel the difficulty involved in our inability to communicate freely, he having no knowledge of the English. ‘He is a good speaker and manifestly a man of character.’”

“‘We have just arranged for an independent Chinese service on the Sabbath, excepting on Communion and Monthly Concert Sabbaths when they will meet with us. This arrangement will probably draw in more of the pagan element among our Chinese population.’”

“‘My idea was to have them meet with us only on Communion Sabbaths, but they wished to meet also on Monthly Concerts, and probably, till they attain to a somewhat enlarged measure of the habit and grace of giving for religious purposes, it will do them no harm to meet with our native congregation on such Sabbaths.’”

“Thus, all went well, if slowly, with the little ‘Chinese Zion’ in Kohala. February of 1883 saw a plot of ground given by the plantation and set off for a church building for the Chinese [a chapel called Kaiopihi] the first in the Islands.”

“In May of the same year a visit was recorded from ‘Father Damon’, who shared to the full Mr. Bond’s interest in the Chinese and was one of the first to organize Christian work among them in Honolulu. On July 29th of this same year the Chinese church body of Kohala was formally organized.” (Damon, Father Bond)

Kohala is a good example of the development of churches in a plantation community. Kalahikiola Church was the Hawaiian church where Father Elias Bond was pastor.

When the plantation was started, a Chinese church soon came. Later Kohala Union Church came into being for English-speaking residents, followed by a Japanese church in 1894 and a Filipino church in 1933.

By 1942 all churches except the Filipino church were having services in English. The Japanese and Chinese churches merged, and a few years later all except the Filipino church merged with Kalahikiola. (Mulholland)

September 5, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Interdenominational

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) held its first meeting on September 5, 1810.

Initially an organization of Massachusetts and Connecticut Congregationalists, the ABCFM shunned the term Congregationalist in its title and recruited Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed members (until they established their own foreign mission boards.)

The ABCFM was the first foreign mission board founded in the US, as well as being the largest in the nineteenth century. It served as an interdenominational foreign mission society for Congregationalists, Presbyterians and for some Reformed churches. (Dogan)

In 1812, a ship sailing from Salem to Calcutta, India would take the ABCFM’s first missionaries (five missionaries, three with wives.) As the first American missionaries sailed from America to British India, the US declared war on England (War of 1812.)

That year, the ABCFM was transformed from a Congregational agency subject to two state Associations, into an independent and interdenominational body with members distributed from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania.

As the first “national” benevolent society, the ABCFM supported the development of a network of cooperative national benevolent societies, including American Bible Society (1816) and American Education Society (1816) to provide financial aid for “pious young men” preparing for the ministry – including missionary service. (Maxfield)

Here’s a link to a prior post on the ABCFM.
http://wp.me/p5GnMi-fb

The Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in giving instructions to the Pioneer Company headed to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiʻi) in 1819 said:

“You are to aim at nothing short of covering these islands with fruitful fields, and pleasant dwellings and schools and churches, and of Christian civilization.” (The Friend)

Here’s a link to a prior post on the Instructions from the ABCFM.
http://wp.me/p5GnMi-bg

The points of especial and essential importance to all missionaries, and all persons engaged in the missionary work are four:
• Devotedness to Christ;
• Subordination to rightful direction;
• Unity one with another; and
• Benevolence towards the objects of their mission

On October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries from the northeast US set sail on the Thaddeus for the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawai‘i.) There were seven American couples sent by the ABCFM to convert the Hawaiians to Christianity in this first company.

Here’s a link to a prior post on the Pioneer Company.
http://wp.me/p5GnMi-hg

When the Pioneer Company of missionaries arrived, the kapu system had been abolished; the Hawaiian people had already dismantled their heiau and had rejected their religious beliefs – and effectively weakened belief in the power of the gods and the inevitability of divine punishment for those who opposed them.

Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863) (the “Missionary Period”,) about 180-men and women in twelve Companies served in Hawaiʻi to carry out the mission of the ABCFM in the Hawaiian Islands.

“A Democratic or a Republican Government can never be strong, and pure, and permanent unless the people who create it and hold the power are intelligent and moral. And the same law holds true in church polity.”

“Our Hawaiian churches are not called Episcopal, Presbyterian, or Congregational, or by any other name than that of the Great Head, the Shepherd and Bishop of souls. We call them Christian churches.” (Titus Coan)

Kamehameha III incorporated traditional customary practices within the western laws – by maintaining the “land division of his father with his uncles” – which secured the heirship of lands and succession of the throne, as best he could outside of “politics, trade and commerce.” (Yardley)

By the time of its centenary in 1910, the Board was responsible for 102 mission stations and a missionary staff of 600 in India, Ceylon, West Central Africa (Angola), South Africa and Rhodesia, Turkey, China, Japan, Micronesia, Hawaii, the Philippines, North American native American tribes, and the “Papal lands” of Mexico, Spain and Austria. (Global Ministries)

While the ABCFM began as an inter-denominational society, after 1870, it became a Congregationalist body. United Church of Christ is the successor of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM.)

ABCFM-Annual_Report-1812-Interdenominational