t very year the American Board of Missions resolved to send to the
Sandwich Islands an efficient band of missionaries with three native
youths who had been educated in the States. Joyful and totally
unexpected news awaited them on their arrival. Idolatry was overthrown,
and the king and most of his chiefs were ready to afford them protection
and support. They had, however, an arduous task before them in their
efforts to impart instruction to a population numbering at least one
hundred thousand, dwelling in eight islands, with a superficial area of
seven thousand square miles; Owhyhee alone, now written Hawaii, being
four hundred and fifteen miles in circumference.

In 1824 there were fifty native teachers and two thousand scholars, and
so rapidly did education advance, that in 1831 there were eleven hundred
schools, in which fully seventeen hundred scholars had obtained the
branches of a common education, and were able to read, write, and sum up
simple accounts. The prime minister, seven leading chiefs, and the
regent were members of the Christian Church; and a very decided change
was manifest in the general population.

Within a few years the language was reduced to a written form, and two
printing-presses were at work at Honolulu. A large edition of the
Gospels in the Hawaii language, printed in the United States, was in
circulation and there were no less than nine hundred schools and
forty-five thousand scholars. In 1853, after a great awakening, there
were above twenty-two thousand church members, and there were chapels at
all the stations. One at Lahaina could hold three thousand persons.

In 1853 the mission of the American Board was dissolved, their object
having been fully realised in Christianising the people, planting
churches, and making them self-supporting. Kamehamea the Third, the
brother and successor of the king, who died in England, reigned well and
wisely till 1854. On his death, Prince Alexander Liholiho, a
well-educated and religiously disposed young man, became king. His wife
is the Queen Emma who once visited England. They lost their only son in
1862. This so affected the king that he never recovered from the shock.

He was succeeded by his brother who reigned over the kingdom for some
years, under the title of Kamehamea the Fifth. His uncle had
established a too democratic constitution; he has given the people one
more suited to their ideas and the state of the country. The chamber