advance to the front of the battle, side by side with their husband, bearing a calabash of water in one hand, and poising a dart or holding a stone with the other. If their warrior was killed, they seldom thought it worth while, themselves, to survive.

Mr. Ellis visited the site of the battle of Kuamoo. He found the place thickly studded with small piles of stones, marking the graves of those who died in the conflict. A tumulus larger than the rest, indicated the spot where the chief and his heroic wife died together. A few yards nearer the sea, a tomb ten feet long and six wide, formed of piled stones, covered the grave where Kekuaokalani and Manona were interred. Many lovely flowering bushes grew around it, and a beautiful convolvulus in fullest bloom covered the tomb with its foliage and blossoms.

0

SOME

KING AND QUEEN ΤΟ

OME young Hawaiians had been taken to the United States, and there educated. The blessings of Christianity, which they valued in their effects on themselves, they desired to impart to their fellow-countrymen, by returning to the islands. This desire, and an interest relating to the Sandwich Islands, which had sprung up in the minds of the religious community in America, determined the sending of some missionaries to Hawaii. No intelligence had at that time been received of the events which have just been narrated. When the missionaries went forth, therefore, it was with the belief that the idolatrous system which had hitherto prevailed would be opposed to them.

The courageous pioneers of Christianity despatched from Boston by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, were accompanied by several native youths, among whom was George Kaumaulii, son of the former King of Kauai, and who, having acquired the English tongue, were able to render the important assistance of acting as interpreters. On the 4th of February, 1820, according to Ellis,* they arrived in

By Jarves's account, the day was the 20th of March.

ARRIVAL OF AMERICAN MISSIONARIES.

195

Hawaii; and by a striking coincidence, if we may not say by a directing providence, landed at Kairua, the very scene of the last battle of idolatry. Instead of those difficulties which they had every right to suppose awaited them, they found the laws of tabu abolished; the priesthood, as a body, dissolved; the nation set free. from its degrading superstitious system; and, religionless, lying ready, like a fallow ground, to receive the seed of a new husbandry. The difficulties which awaited the missionaries were of another kind.

They were visited on board their vessel, the 'Thaddeus,' by Kaliamoku and the two dowager queens, by whom they had previously been kindly received. Hewahewa, too, the ex high-priest, welcomed them cordially, calling them his brother priests.' We must respect this man, who, without law, was a law unto himself, and acted faithfully to the extent of the light he possessed. He could not, of course, intuitively precognise the system of Christianity; but he was able, before that system was revealed to him, to discover by reason the falsity of his national idolatry, and, with a noble self-sacrifice, assist in the overthrow of the religion which upheld him in a position only a little inferior to the King's. He had publicly renounced heathenism, and had apprehended Monotheism, proclaiming his belief in the One Supreme Being. I knew,' he said, 'that the wooden images of our deities, carved by our own hands, were incapable of supplying our wants; but I worshipped them, because it was the custom of our fathers. My thoughts have always been, that there is one only great God, dwelling in the heavens.'*

*The conduct of the High Priest, Hewahewa, on this occasion recalls to mind a parallel in the history of our own land, when at the preaching of Paulinus, Edwin of Northumbria was converted to Christianity.

Some practical difficulties and prejudices had to be overcome before the missionaries were allowed to land permanently; and now was the occasion of that question which, as we have mentioned, had been asked previously, --whether they were the white teachers whom Vancouver promised to send to them. For a fortnight, the Congregationalist ministers had to remain on board the vessel; and then, after a council of chiefs had been held, they were permitted to settle on the islands for one year, with the understanding that on misconduct they would be sent away. They were not to send for an increase to their number, for fear that they might become a burthen to the community. Among the Bostonians who landed in Hawaii, were a physician, a farmer, a printer, and a mechanic; and the three missionary ministers, as well as their lay associates, brought with them their wives and families.

Wordsworth, in a note to his fine sonnet on this occurrence, thus translates from Bede:-

"Who," exclaimed the King, when the council was ended, "shall first desecrate the altars and the temples?" "I," answered the Chief Priest; "for who more fit than myself through the wisdom which the true God hath given me, to destroy for the good example of others, what in foolishness I worshipped?" Immediately, casting away vain superstition, he besought the King to grant him what the laws did not allow to a priest,-arms and a courser; which mounting, and furnished with a sword and lance, he proceeded to destroy the Idols. The crowd, seeing this, thought him mad:-he, however, halted not, but approaching, he profaned the temple, casting against it the lance which he held in his hand, and exulting in acknowledgment of the worship of the true God, he ordered his companions to pull down the temple, with all its enclosures. The place is shown where those idols formerly stood, not far from York, at the source of the river Derwent, and is at this day called Gormund Gaham.'

The remarkable difference between the two events is that the Hawaiian Pontifex was not impelled by the motive of a knowledge of the true God, in his work of destruction.

AN UNEXPECTED WELCOME.

197

The propagandists of Christianity commenced their work at once, and it proceeded rapidly. In Kauai, which was still under the authority of a separate king, though dependent on the general government, two of the missionaries were placed, and they took with them the young Christian, George, son of the King, who was delighted to receive him and his white protectors. George's arrival was hailed by a salute of twenty-one guns, and the King continued till his death a steady friend to the missionaries. In Hawaii the two exqueens and the minister Kalaimoku were the chief patrons of the new religion; nor was Kaméhaméha II. unfriendly to them; but his personal habits and his personal associates were not such as would make him a consistent follower of the Great Example of purity, temperance, and self-denial.

The facile natives had few prejudices to oppose to the new religion. Mentally, they were in a condition to accept as readily that or any other faith which should be proposed, as their bodies were to receive any new epidemic. The chiefs eagerly espoused the cause, and begged that the important subsidiary benefits which were connected with the religious teaching might be given to their people. They requested more artisans, whom they offered to support liberally. The King himself was very sensible of the importance of gaining knowledge. He applied himself so diligently, that by July he could read intelligibly, and several of the chiefs made rapid progress in learning. It was characteristic of their previous ideas, that at first these would not allow the common people to learn to read, as they considered that knowledge, like the other good things of life, was the exclusive right of the governing class. Money, too, was given, both by natives and foreigners,