THE SANDWICH ISLANDS 539 



sidered to be due in part to the missionaries, who, in their 

 zeal to rescue the uncivilised natives, have not always 

 gone to work with the necessary discretion. The re- 

 pressive measures alluded to on a former page have 

 entirely altered the life and customs of the native, and 

 have been instrumental in depriving him of his former 

 light -heartedness and freedom, which, among an un- 

 developed, child -like race, is no small matter. The 

 Hawaiian Consul-General, Mr. Manley Hopkins, considers 

 that " the oppressive system of government, the cUs- 

 continuance of ancient sports, and consequent change in 

 the habits of the people, have been powerful agents in 

 this work of depopulation ; and the ill-judged enforcement 

 of cruel punishments and heavy penalties for breaches of 

 chastity have much aided it, by giving an additional 

 stimulus to the practice — always too common among 

 Polynesian females — of causing abortion, of which prac- 

 tice sterility is the natural result." And again : " The 

 missionaries have not attained the measure of success 

 which might have been expected from the long and 

 strenuous efforts they have made. They have not truly 

 Christianised or regenerated the nation. They have pre- 

 sented Christianity as a severe, legal, Jewish religion, 

 deprived of its dignity, beauty, tenderness, and amiability. 

 They have not made the people love religion. In their 

 rigorous Sabbatarian view of the Lord's day, in then- desire 

 to enforce a Maine liquor law, and in some other matters, 

 they have attempted to infringe on the natural rights of 

 men, and have, in native eyes, reproduced the detested 

 tabu system — the nightmare from which the nation 

 escaped in 1820." The missionaries to whom these 

 remarks apply are those of the Congregational denomina- 

 tion of the United States, who, for nearly forty years, 

 from 1820 to 1860, had almost undisputed possession of 



