THE SANDWICH ISLANDS IN THE YEAR 1830. 95

adopted the moral law of God, with a knowledge of its purport, as the basis of its own future administration, and the Christian religion is professedly the religion of the nation. Special laws have been enacted, and are enforced, against murder, theft, licentiousness, retailing ardent spirits, Sabbath breaking, and gambling; and the Christian law of marriage is the law of the land.

Commodious houses for public worship have been erected by the principal chiefs, in the places of their residence, and when there is preaching, these chiefs regularly and seriously attend. In the island of Maui, there is said to be a house for public worship in every considerable village, from one end of that populous island to the other. Those erected at the several missionary stations, are large. That at Lahaina is built of stone, two stories high, 98 feet long and 62 broad, and, having galleries, it will seat 3000 people after the native manner. It is the most substantial and noble structure in Polynesia. The others are thatched buildings. The church at Honolulu, erected by the present king, is 196 feet long, and 63 broad, and admits 4500 persons. Another at Waiahea, in Hawaii, is 147 feet long, and 68 broad; and a fourth at Kailua, in the same island, is 180 feet long, and 78 broad. The congregations on the Sabbath, at the places in which the missionaries reside, vary from one to four thousand hearers, and are universally characterized by order, stillness, and strict attention to the preaching. The congregation at Honolulu, in Oahu, for nine months, averaged from 3000 to 4000 on Sabbath morning, from 2000 to 3000 in the afternoon, and from 500 to 1000 on Wednesday evening. A considerable number of the islanders give satisfactory evidence that they are truly pious. In the district of Honolulu a thousand natives have associated on the principle of entire abstinence from the use of intoxicating liquors. And in that same district and two others, with a united population of perhaps 40,000, a fourth part of the inhabitants have formed themselves into societies for the better understanding and keeping of God's holy law, and require unimpeachable morals as a condition of membership in their several fraternities.

All these are believed to be facts; and they are traceable wholly to the blessing of God on the establishment of a Christian mission in those islands.

The nation of the Sandwich Islanders, however, is only beginning to understand the advantages of the social state. The elements of individual improvement, and domestic happiness, and national order and prosperity, have been introduced, and the contrast between the former and present condition and character of the nation, as such, is great, in almost every respect. Yet few have done more than merely to cross the threshold of knowledge. Three-fourths of those, who are capable of learning to read, have yet to acquire the art. Copies of the books, composed in the language, have been so multiplied by the press, that every reader and learner has been supplied with one or more, and the matter they contain is selected with great judgment; but those works, the number of which is twenty-two, contain but 832 pages, 16mo., when reckoned in a continuous series. Salvation, through the Lamb that was slain, is brought within the reach of thousands, and many have fled and are fleeing to lay hold on the hope set before them; but how few are their helps, compared with those which we have, and which they ought to possess! The missionaries now on the islands, are able to preach the gospel statedly to no more than a fourth part of the peo

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DISTRESSING WEATHER AT SEA.

ple. Other missionaries, however, are on the way to them from this favored country, and there is a fair prospect that the institutions of the gospel will, ere long, be universally enjoyed by the natives, not only of those islands, but also of many other groups, in the vast Pacific.

For particular and authentic information respecting the improvements in the Sandwich Islands, see Rev. C. S. Stewart's "Residence in the Sandwich Islands in 1823 and 1825," and his "Visit to the South Seas in 1829 and 1830," and the volumes of the " Missionary Herald.".

American Editor.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Distressing Weather at Sea-Nocturnal Beauty of the Heavens-Voracity of a Shark--A Coral Island--Sperm Whales--Woman dies on Board-Burial at Sea -Arrival at Rurutu--Reception by Natives— Chapel-Coral-formations-A Village-Ingenuity of the Inhabitants. -Missionary Addresses-Adventures of a Chief at Sea-Introduction of the Gospel in Rurutu-Extracts from Missionary Letters-Idols exposed to Contempt -Raiatean Missionaries-Speeches by Natives

Friday, Aug. 23. DURING the forenoon we (the deputation, Mr. Ellis, and our ship's company) were becalmed, while a rolling cross-sea occasioned such violent pitching of our little vessel, that some of us were more disordered by it than we had been before in all our voyages since we left England. Towards evening the wind sprang up, and our ship's motion became yet more distressing. The hogs and goats were exceedingly disturbed, and plunged about in their alarm; one of the largest of the former even leaped over the bulwarks, and was lost.

Aug. 24. The high gale of last night abated towards dawn, and we should have been again becalmed, but for the turbulence of the waves. We are now making our course eastward of the islands. Yesterday evening, amidst the fading glory of sunset, and through the gathering gloom of night, the snow-topped mountains of Hawaii, at the distance of fifty miles, presented images of splendor that seemed scarcely to belong to this earth-glittering, then glimmering, then slowly disappearing, as we saw them between the flat sea and the arched sky. The rolling of our small bark, the flapping of her loose sails, the rattling of idle ropes, and the uneasiness of most of the living creatures, both human and brute, on board, made the day irksome and the night dreary. Sept. 2. The last sentence, under date of Aug. 24, suf

VORACITY OF A SHARK.

97

ficiently describes the circumstances and feelings by which our patience was exercised during the intervening days. A comfortless calm, occasionally interrupted with a brief brisk gale, or diversified with heavy showers, continued all this while, and we made comparatively little way. A few tropical birds visited us, from time to time. These, when they came towards the vessel, or receded from it, were always welcomed or regretted, as inhabitants of shores invisible to us, which they could reach in a few hours on their wings of surpassing swiftness, while we were ever moving, yet never perceived ourselves nearer, by any way-marks, to the island-harbors which we sought. The evenings, during this interval, were often gorgeous with the array of clouds, intensely brilliant, dark or flecked with every hue the setting sun could shed upon their skirts, and modified in every form, fantastic, flimsy, or sublime, the varying winds could give them, as they came, and were, and went, we knew not whence, or how, or whither. The nights, too, after these twilight apparitions, were correspondingly serene and beautiful with stars; while frequent meteors, as we looked upon the figured firmament, startled us out of silent thought into sudden ejaculations.

Sept. 7. A shark gave us a singular proof of pertinacious voracity. In bolting at a bait, he ran off with a large hook, which we saw hanging in his snout. He also received five or six horrid gashes on his back from a harpoon, which shared off large flakes of skin where it struck, and yet the reckless animal returned with desperate instinct to his prey, which he followed for several hours close to the stern of the vessel. Both he and we were disappointed when he escaped with life, but without the prize for which he had so long hazarded it.

Sept. 9. The wind has been steady and favorable for several days. The sky-light of the cabin having been taken off, a sudden lee-lurch precipitated poor Tommy, our favorite goat, through the opening. Happily his horns caught in the windsail which hung down, otherwise he must have fallen, with all his weight, headlong upon the captain, who lay asleep on a box below.

Sept. 19. Squalls, breezes, calms, and showers, alternately have helped or hindered us, during the last ten days. In the evening the man at the mast-head announced land, southwest, about fifteen miles off. Next morning (20th) we passed

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A WOMAN DIES ON BOARD.

it within three miles. It proved a coral-lagoon island, on which we discerned cocoa-nut trees, towering above the thick underwood, but no inhabitants, except birds, of which several kinds were flying to and fro. We could not find this island in the chart. By lunar observation it lies south lat. 15° 51', west long. 154° 43′. When we consider that not a sparrow can fall to the ground without the knowledge of our "Father which is in heaven,"-a solitary coral-rock, growing through ages into land, though never trod by human foot, yet peopled by innumerable myriads of insects, reptiles, and fowls, pre sents a province of God's universal empire, not for one mo ment forgotten or overlooked, in respect to its meanest ephemeral inhabitant, amidst the cares of the whole creationso wise, so good is He; and, oh! the delight to think, that, in grace as well as in providence, He is " our Father in heaven."

Sept. 21. We have been carried several leagues past the latitude of Huahine, 16° 42', which we hoped to have reached by this time, but have little prospect of soon doing so, at present. A shoal of sperm whales has been going parallel to our course, and not quicker than our vessel, about two miles to windward, in the same direction. There must have been many, as we repeatedly saw seven or eight of them spouting at the same time.

Sept. 23. The wind has been boisterous, and our vessel is rocked like a cork upon the water. We have been driven much out of our course, beyond the latitude of Huahine, and we can make no point eastward upon this tack.

The wife of the native missionary Mattatore died in the night. She had been seized with an inflammation of the bowels some days ago, but had passed the crisis and was recovering, when she insisted on being taken on deck this morning. There she got wet with the flashing of the spray over the sides of the ship, and refused to be removed, till she was at length carried below by force. The dangerous symptoms soon returned, and she expired at midnight. Mr. Ellis, who conversed with her in her last hours, hopes that she, like the ". woman who was a sinner," sought and found mercy. Her conduct at Oahu had brought disgrace upon herself, and occasioned much grief to her Christian relatives and friends.

Sept. 24. The remains of the deceased were this day sewed up in a strong canvass, weighted with two eighteen-pound

balls, and committed to the deep, after suitable religious addresses had been delivered by Mr. Ellis, in the Tahitian, and by Mr. Tyerman, in the English, language, to the islanders and the crew, respectively. It is but a small circumstance among the things that have been done under the sun, yet, as connected with the destiny of an immortal spirit, the record may hereafter awaken solemn thought in the minds of many living, and of some unborn,—that on the 24th day of September, 1822, S. lat. 18° 25′, and W. long. 150° 51', the corpse of Mattatore Vahine, a heathen by birth, when all her people were heathen, and who died professing faith in the gospel, when all her people had renounced idolatry, was thus buried, with Christian rites, no more to be seen on earth, till the sea shall give up its dead, in the resurrection, at the sound of the last trumpet. From what point of the earth's surface, or the ocean's bed, each of us may wake up, in that great and terrible day of the Lord, is of small import, though the anticipation may make flesh and spirit fail, in speculating upon it; but to "wake up" in his " likeness," and "be satisfied," is verily the consummation of " the hope" of "his calling;" for then we shall "know what are the riches of his inheritance in the saints."

"A life in heaven! Oh! what is this?
-The sum of all that faith believed;
Fullness of joy, and depths of bliss,

Unseen, unfathomed, unconceived!"

Sept. 28. We have lately had several glimpses of land, but have been prevented from making it. We calculate that we are sixty-nine miles from Rurutu, which is to the northward of us; consequently we have been carried far southward of the Society group; but, in fact, from the lightness of our vessel, and the variableness of the weather, since we left the Sandwich Islands, we may say that we have been at the mercy of the winds and the waves all the way, though never in apparent peril from the fury of tempests. Our trust, however, has been in Him "who hath gathered the winds in his fists; who hath bound the waters in a garment."-Prov. xxx. 4.

Sept. 30. At day-break we plainly distinguished an island, about seven miles in length, of which we had caught an imperfect view yesterday evening. It reminded us so much of the lovely spots with which our eyes had been formerly famil