Page:The Overland Monthly, volume 1, issue 1.djvu/70



those who did not, is in the course of nature. Perhaps the practical observer, however, could have told just where to refuse, and would have refused, to give any counsel in matters somewhat out of the sphere of his experience; but what if not? To have resolved comeliness and completeness of sovereignty out of the chaos of heathendom, would have demanded that the missionaries should also have been statesmen, which they were not—else they would never have been missionaries. Their idea was rather to build a church than a state. They were inexperienced, fresh from the schools, clergymen, teachers, physicians, civilizers, in so far as each might be, of a savage people, but not learned in creating civil governments. With theories of how to live nobly and a burden of high resolve, they knew nothing of the cunning alchemy by which experience tempers the harshness of impracticable rules of right. Before them was a field rich in labor, but not fertile in the highest results. Grafting something of sweetness into the barbaric life, they had themselves to learn something of action in their contact with a common human nature.

The Hawaiian, as every other man, needs something more than religious culture, although combined with such moral and intellectual development as comes from schools, to make him anew, thoroughly out of heathendom and thoroughly into christendom. Although Paul plants, if Apollos does not water, we shall be over-hopeful if we look illogically for the increase. And so for a higher position, this nation must rely much upon its own energy and capacity, not in isolation, but in fullness of intercourse with civilization in its best phases, if possible; if not always its best, then the best that can be. Its contrasts are not without their teaching.

It is not half a century since the representatives of civilization first sought to plant its seeds in the heathen

fields. We know "the mills of God grind slowly," and that the story of mental unfolding and growth is the story of eternal patience. The history of civilization has been, after barbarism, first the poetic impulse, then the philosophic reason, then the christian man. We find our virtue resting upon a mental texture inherited from the early nations of Europe; but how much better than barbarian were our Saxon ancestors? Better, perhaps, than these cannibals and image-worshippers fifty years ago; but centuries have passed in the blooming and maturing of our civilization, which is not yet perfect; and the analogies of history afford us no hope of anything substantial or worthy coming from this people, till after centuries of contact with a superior race. If they were left to weave the fine fabric of civilization from the native product alone, we should soon see how much easier "the descent to Avernus," than the ascent to any higher place, of which they have now no real conception. If they are sustained by their present religious support, they will doubtless hold their own place, such as it is, among the nations, for the limited period which, judging from the past, they are likely to remain a distinct people. It would almost seem, however, as if the determination of that period were an easy problem in mathematics.

It is believed that at the time of Capt. Cook's visit, the population was 300,ooo. In 1823 it was estimated at 140,000. This decrease may be attributed to the diseases brought on by the terrible excesses of the nation, to infanticide, to wars, to comparative cessation of any natural increase during such a period, to the prevalence of epidemics—the small-pox, measles and whooping-cough. The promiscuous intercourse of the natives among themselves has tended to engender the worst form of sensual diseases, and the