MORAL AND SPIRITUAL VIEW. 229 



inconsistency in teaching them to abandon tobacco 

 while our own ministers used it. And the mission- 

 aries in those islands begged of me to see that no 

 more tobacco-consumers be sent them as dele- 

 gates." 



This honored missionary, now gone up to his 

 reward, relates that in his labors among the people 

 of Hilo and Puna, he "was careful, in illustrating 

 the commands and prohibitions of the law and 

 Gospel, to be specific, and so to illustrate as to 

 make their untutored minds understand what was 

 right and wrong in heart and act. Our people 

 must be told how to catch the little foxes." The 

 result on the tobacco question was that hundreds of 

 little patches of the weed were rooted up and des- 

 troyed ; thousands of pipes were smashed or 

 burned. And it is probable that ten thousand na- 

 tives of this parish have promised to let the poison 

 alone. Some played the hypocrite, of course ; 

 others forsook it for a season, and, like many of 

 our educated clergymen and other professed Chris- 

 tians, returned to it when appetite overpowered 

 resolution. But many thousands of our church 

 members held out to the last, and were faithful to 

 their vows until death. Numbers are still living, 

 and they are our most reliable men in all that is 

 good. 



" But the great increase of example on the part 

 of smoking and chewing clergymen and lay pro- 

 fessors from other countries is demoralizing this 

 generation of Hawaiians, rendering church disci- 



