LETTER III. 



An Oahu Sabbath— A State Pageant— An Abrupt Departure— Inter-Island 

 Travelling— Maui — Contradictory Statements— Windward Hawaii — 

 A Polynesian Paradise— Hilo Fascinations. 



Hawaiian Hotel, Jan. 2%tk. 



Sunday was a very pleasant day here. Church bells rang, 

 and the shady streets were filled with people in holiday dress. 

 There are two large native churches, the Kaumakapili, and the 

 Kaiwaiaho, usually called the stone church. The latter is an 

 immense, substantial building, for the erection of which each 

 Christian native brought a block of rock-coral. There is a 

 large Roman Catholic church, the priests of which are said to 

 have been somewhat successful in proselytizing operations. 

 The Reformed Catholic, or English temporary cathedral, is a 

 tasteful but very simple wooden building, standing in pretty 

 grounds, on which a useful institution for boarding and training 

 native and half-white girls, and the reception of white girls as 

 day scholars, also stands. This is in connection with Miss 

 Sellon's Sisterhood at Devonport. Another building, along- 

 side the cathedral, is used for English service in Hawaiian. 

 There are two Congregational churches : the old " Bethel," of 

 which the Rev. S. C. Damon, known to all strangers, and one 

 of the oldest and most respected Honolulu residents, is the 

 minister ; and the " Fort St. Church," which has a large and 

 influential congregation, and has been said to " run the govern- 

 ment," because its members compose the majority of the 

 Cabinet. Lunalilo, the present king, has cast in his lot with 

 the Congregationalists, but queen, Emma is an earnest member 

 of the Anglican Church, and attends the Liturgical Hawaiian 

 Service in order to throw the weight of her influence with the 

 natives into the scale of that communion. Her husband spent 

 many of his later days in translating the Prayer-Book. As is 

 natural, most of the natives belong to the denomination from 

 which they or their fathers received the Christian faith, and 



