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 dis¬ 
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 their 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 
