2I 4 



HA WAIT. 



[letter XXII. 



thousand dollars in Christianising the group, and had sent out 

 149 male and female missionaries, resolved that it should not 

 receive any further aid either in men or money. 



In the early days, the King and chiefs had bestowed lands 

 upon the Mission, on which substantial mission premises had 

 been erected, and on withdrawing from the islands, the Board 

 wisely made over these lands to the Mission families as free- 

 hold property. The result has been that, instead of a universal 

 migration of the young people to America, numbers of them 

 have been attached to Hawaiian soil. The establishment at 

 an early date of Punahou College, at which for a small sum 

 both boys and girls receive a first-class English education, also 

 contributed to retain them on the islands, and numbers of the 

 young men entered into sugar-growing, cattle-raising, store- 

 keeping, and other businesses here. At Honolulu and Hilo a 

 large proportion of the residents of the upper class are mis- 

 sionaries' children ; most of the respectable foreigners on 

 Kauai are either belonging to, or intimately connected with, 

 the Mission families ; and they are profusely scattered through 

 Maui and Hawaii in various capacities, and are bound to each 

 other by ties of extreme intimacy and friendliness, as well as 

 by marriage and affinity. This " clan " has given society 

 what it much wants— a sound moral core, and in spite of all 

 disadvantageous influences, has successfully upheld a public 

 opinion in favour of religion and virtue. The members of it 

 possess the moral backbone of New England, and its solid 

 good qualities, a thorough knowledge of the language and 

 habits of the natives, a hereditary interest in them, a solid 

 education, and in many cases much general culture. 



In former letters I have mentioned Mr. Coan and Mr. Lyons 

 as missionaries. I must correct this, as there have been no 

 actual missionaries on the islands for twenty years. When 

 the Board withdrew its support, many of the missionaries re- 

 turned to America ; some, especially among the secular 

 members, went into other positions on the group, while the 

 two first-mentioned and two or three besides, remained as 

 pastors of native congregations. 



I venture to think that the Board has been premature in 

 transferring the islands to a native pastorate at such a very 

 early stage of their Christianity. Such a pastorate must be too 

 feeble to uphold a robust Christian standard of living. As an 

 adjunct it would be essential to the stability of native Chris- 

 tianity, but it is not possible that it can be trusted as the sole 



