42 
SCENES IN THE PACIFIC 
sand savages have been brought within the pale of civiliza¬ 
tion and Christianity through the instrumentality of the 
Americans. 
Twenty-five years ago a nation occupied the kingdom of 
Hawaii which sought its happiness from a systematic viola¬ 
tion of the fundamental laws of Creation. Their food was 
under the tabu , or ban; so that the powerful in civil and 
religious affairs appointed the best edibles for their own use, 
and made death the penalty to their wives, daughters and 
inferiors, if they tasted them. The fire kindled to cook the 
food of the men was tabued; it was death for woman to 
kindle hers from it, or cook or light a pipe at it. The per¬ 
son of the king was tabued. It was death to touch him, or 
any article which he had used, or to step on his shadow, or 
the shadow of his house. And at the hour of midnight hu¬ 
man victims were slaughtered, and piled on scaffolds with 
dogs and hogs, around the temples which they would con¬ 
secrate to their deities !! 
Here human nature had been forced from its true appe¬ 
tencies to the material and spiritual Universe. Its misery 
followed as an inevitable consequent. But the Hawaiians 
were thinkers. The violated ordinances of the world recoil¬ 
ing on them at every tread of life, forced on them the thought 
of obedience and its blessings. And they rose in their power; 
ate from the full hand of Heaven; prostrated their ancient 
temples; burned their hideous gods ; made the civil power 
subservient to the common good ; and restored themselves, 
after immemorial ages of degradation, to the quiet reign of 
the natural laws. It is most remarkable that the American 
missionaries were on their voyage to the islands while these 
things were being done! 
The law of relationship between these people and their 
Maker had been lost among the crude follies of idol-worship 
and civil tyranny. These they had broken down by a mighty 
blow. The fragments of their temples, altars and gods, were 
strewn over the land. An entire nation looked on the flowers, 
the stars, the rivulet, the ocean, the birds and themselves, 
