five, because he feared their hypocrisy, and thought he could have more hold of them out of the church, but as instructed candidates for it, than when in. Since that period there has been another religious awakening in his district, from which more fruit was cautiously gathered into the church; and the Minutes of 1848 show that there have been received in all into the Kaneohe church, by profession and certificate, from the time of its formation, three hundred members. With all deference to the principles and conscientious fears of the pastor there, and of a few others who think like him, I cannot help expressing the opinion that a very close and rigid policy, as the rule of admission to Hawaiian churches, is a mistaken one. To say nothing of the propriety of using all suitable means to keep up a congregation, in order that a missionary may not preach to bare walls, we argue that if a man preach the true Gospel of Christ, and pray sincerely for a blessing, and there appear at times good evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit, it is but reasonable to believe, in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary, that this same Divine Agent completes the work of regeneration in many souls that seem earnestly feeling, it may be, groping through thick darkness after God. And when, as at all missionary stations, through ignorance and imperfections, both in him who judges, and in those whose conversion is to be judged of, the evidence of certainty cannot be had, we do not think that the fear of receiving some hypocrites should keep OPEN AND CLOSE CHURCH POLITY CONTRASTED. 249 a minister from admitting to the church a goodly number of those who seem to have been wrought upon by the Holy Spirit, who profess repentance and faith, who pray and abandon outward sins, and who desire to be taken into the fellowship of saints. Isaac Taylor very properly remarks in the History of Fanaticism, that "the duty of those, whether they be the few or the many, to whose hands are intrusted ecclesiastical powers, is not that of a Rhadamanthus. Responsibility does not stretch beyond natural powers, and it is quite certain that men have no power to search each other's bosoms; nor should they think themselves charged with any such endeavor. The pretender and the hypocrite belong always to Divine jurisdiction; the Church will be asked to give no account of them, so long as they successfully conceal the fatal fact of their insincerity. Let but a community be more or less extended in its sphere, be pure in manners-PURE, not sanctimonious; let the Scriptures be universally and devoutly read by its private members, and honestly expounded by its teachers; and in this case it will be very little annoyed by the intrusion of heretical or li centious candidates." If they are not so embraced and taken care of in the Church, they are liable, weak and unsteady as the undisciplined mind is, to wander and stumble as sheep without a shepherd, to fall at length into darkness and sin, to lose patience and hope, and cease praying together, and to fall, perhaps, into the clutches of the Man of Sin. Rather than that this should ensue with any of God's elect, or that any who are truly seeking him should be balked and lose their souls, it were better that many wolves in sheep's clothing get within the consecrated ground of the Church. The conversion of spurious professors here is by no means so doubtful or difficult a thing as when they get into the churches in America; and at the worst, they can be turned out when discovered. The state of things at Kaneohe, and at the next station of Waialua, is confirmative of these views. Many have become slack and indifferent, and have left off going to meeting, saying the way to the church is long, and have given up heart, and hope, and effort altogether. The Catholics have a priest not far from there, and he has gained some, together with the control of one hundred of their children, not because they really think the Popish way is the right way, but because, by their own confession, they are tired of waiting upon their kumu, (teacher,) and have an itching desire to be sprinkled and housed in some church, with a lurking belief-by no means unknown to wiser minds in Christian lands-that somehow they are more likely to be saved in the Church, than unbaptized out of it. It is natural there should be a difference of opinion as to how such cases are to be prevented, or treated when found, among a people with whom a profession of religion is so popular. No one can deny that the whole subject of admitting to the Church is beset with difficul TWO ASPECTS OF NATIVE CHURCHES. 251 ties. Perhaps the more conscientious and orthodox the pastor, the greater will be his quandary. It is but fair that those who are interested in and support missionaries, should be made acquainted as far as possible with their trials, and what they have to contend with, the deceit and hypocrisy of native character, the degradation and vileness of the native mind. If the dark side of native character, and the dark aspect of native churches, have been heretofore* too much withheld from the public, as some think, there is more reason that both sides should be given now, in order that erroneous views may be corrected, and the truth arrived at by comparison, so far as it can be ascertained by those who are not on the spot to see things as they are, and as no reports can possibly exhibit them. * Travellers who visit missionary establishments sometimes contribute to existing errors. If they write in favor of them, they wish to do it to some purpose; they wish, of course, to be popular, in an age which asks for new and exciting matter from the press. Hence we have seen books professing to give the state of things at the Society, Sandwich, and even Marquesas Islands, written in a style of extravagance, adapted rather to gratify than to inform the reader. There are other travellers who fall into the other extreme. It is a point with them to show that the missionary enterprise does no good; that it impoverishes and depopulates the Islands, and that the natives who survive its pestilential influence are made more idle, filthy, and vicious. The reader needs not to be informed that it is an old usage among men to comfort one's own conscience, by an effort to lay its guilt on the back of another. Neither does the public, we presume, need to be informed that if any one goes down into Egypt after the corn of scandal-the sins of missionaries--he will find the stewards of the granaries on board his craft before he can anchor, and the sack filled, and the money also returned in the sack's mouth-at so cheap a rate do they supply the wants of their brethren.-Hawaiian Spectator, Vol. i. p. 99. Therefore we have been always ready, in these pages, to state facts as they have fallen in our way, and to make it known when we differ as to how difficulties should be surmounted, and trials met; at the same time not forgetting the proverb which says of grief ironically, that every one can master it but he that hath it; nor letting slip one of those sayings of Shakspeare's heroine which I have put at the head of this chapter, I CAN EASIER TEACH TWENTY WHAT WERE GOOD TO BE DONE, THAN TO BE ONE OF THE TWENTY TO FOLLOW MINE OWN TEACHING. We can easily point out faults and errors in others, and commend them to patience and fidelity in suffering and duty; but it is quite another thing always to act in just the right way ourselves, or to be and to do what we recommend wisely to others. How finely does Leonato say to Antonio in the drama of Much Ado About Nothing Brother, men Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief, To be so moral, when he shall endure I pray thee, peace: I will be flesh and blood; |