e in strange hands,
and the few remnants of their race the slaves or puppets of their white
masters. Although sad the picture, the results bear no comparison to the
world at large, in the benefits accruing to civilization by acquiring a
foothold on these islands, which, from their position and resources, are
shortly destined to become of vast importance to commercial enterprise
in the Pacific.

The Board of Presbyterian Missions, first in the grand work of
redemption, have done all that philanthropy could suggest, in earnest
and unceasing efforts towards reclaiming the race from barbarism--in a
spirit of the greatest liberality, expending nearly a million of
dollars, distributed through a period of thirty years--wherein, if
naught else had been adduced than the beneficial results resting upon
the simple fact, that out of a population of about a hundred thousand,
which compose the Hawaiian cluster, more than half have been taught to
read and write, instructed in the rudiments of education, and generally
conversant with the Scriptures--this is of itself sufficient to claim
the lasting gratitude of all who have the progress of civilization at
heart. But what is still more surprising, this has been begun and
completed within the space of but thirty years--a point of time
inconceivably brief in the history of a nation, even in the age of rapid
advancement in which we live.

The groundwork of Christianity has also been firmly planted, and so
long as the Hawaiians do exist, it will go on slowly but steadily to
increase. Yet the reports from the Board, detailing such immense numbers
of conversions made so miraculously of late years, under missionary
auspices, should be received _cum grano salis_. Surely they cannot be
intended purposely to mislead--but still it has the semblance of a sort
of paid-up imaginary capital, to swell and exaggerate the amount of
their labors. On all sides it was universally believed, that there are
not five hundred true converts in the group, instead of over thirty
thousand, as these reports would make out! Then why these incorrect
statements? And again, a retired missionary quoting the Honorable J. P.
Judd, another gentleman formerly attached to the Board and now at the
head of the Hawaiian government, says: "The moral condition of the
Islands may compare favorably with that of any other country."[6] Such
glaring mendacity is beneath the contempt of any visitor to the group
blessed with eyes; and a