yet there arose no refuge for those who were being plucked into the grave by penury and pushed into it by disease. At last, the young father of his people and his younger wife, weary of protestations of good-will, which ended where they began, went out to beg; and the stately intimations from the throne merged into a prayer of earnest heart. One might have thought they were canvassing for some candidate in whom they had a personal interest, so pertinacious and so unavoidable was their request. It was certainly a novel sight to see a king and queen going about to gather names to a subscription list: but so it was; and day after day, and for this end, their Majesties' carriages 'stopped the way.' This episode of royalty mendicant may disarrange the ideas of some who have only seen their sovereign surrounded by the halo of a triumphal arch, or by a brilliant setting of lords and ladies, too happy and too grand (as it seemed) for every-day employments. Yet we might remember how a queen of mighty England even once begged on her knees for the lives of half a dozen burgesses, and five hundred pictures have since celebrated that pious act of love. That appeal is bright with all the colours of romance, whilst this before us appears in homespun. Queen Philippa's prayer was addressed to a king, and has a grand air about it, but this was made by a king to the people; and so prosaically, that a lawyer's office, a trader's counting-house, or a lady's parlour formed the background to the humble scene. However, the effort succeeded. Human charity, and a touch of nature, which 'makes the whole world kin,' with a fancy-fair or two, established the hospital, legislature not refusing its due assistance.

The ladies of Honolulu hemmed the sheets, and their daughters made the pillow-cases. A German gentleman-a consul in fact-volunteered a design for the building: it was erected on his plans, and there the hospital stands, solid, light, airy, clean, commodious. The King, assisted by his brother masons, laid the corner-stone; and to commemorate the woman's part, they have called the hospital after the Queen. Within its walls, already, many lives have been saved, many weary days of sickness have been shortened and sweetened by

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gentle ministrations. And well we know that those walls which often reverberate to the moaning of suffering and weakness, fail not to hear at night and morning praises to God, and blessings on their Majesties.

The last act of the King that will fall within the scope of this chapter is the request which he preferred to the Church and people of England, to establish a branch of the reformed Episcopal Church in Hawaii. On the 5th of December, 1859, Mr. Wyllie communicated to His Majesty's representative in London, the desire of the King and the Queen to have a church erected in their capital; towards the support of which the King offered on his own behalf and that of residents who desired the church's services, a certain income. His Majesty devoted a piece of land for the church, and to erect a house. The King directed his representative to confer on the subject with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the Church Societies. Subsequently, the King wrote an autograph letter to Her Majesty, and, by His Minister of Foreign Relations, to the Primate, and to Earl Russell.

In another letter it is explained that under the second article of the constitution no national or state religion. is to be adopted; but all Christian denominations are placed on an equal footing of right, and possess a perfect freedom of religious worship. Hence no special appropriation could be made by government towards the Episcopal Church. It was desired that the services. should be performed with all the rites and ceremonies sanctioned by the Church; and that all vestments, instruments, and ornaments, proper to their due celebration, should be sent from England, and that it was necessary to provide an organ, bell, font, &c.

This despatch recalls the fact of a request, already mentioned in the foregoing pages, having been made to the British Sovereign by Captain Vancouver, to send religious teachers from England to Hawaii. A similar requisition was afterwards made to George IV.; but neither of these appeals was acted upon. To show that the desire for the introduction of the English Church was not new or sudden, it is mentioned that in 1844, a subscription list was circulated and numerously signed in Honolulu for the support of an English clergyman; and other attempts for the same object were made in the years 1847, 1851, and 1858. They had failed hitherto; but the wish had long existed, and the first idea was fairly to be ascribed to the first of the royal line of Kaméhaméha.

It is written with gratitude, that the appeal made in England in 1860 has not been neglected. Men's hearts warmed with the thought that new realms invited the Church's mission, that the distant islands of the ocean waited to be embraced in that kingdom which must extend till the company of preachers who have gone abroad to the east and to the west, again meet one another; and that the craggy heights of far Hawaii might now stand up and take the morning.' The new mission has produced an additional interest, inasmuch as this invitation to our Church is the only one that has been made by an independent sovereign. The sister Church in America welcomed the opportunity of joining in the labour of love, and was prepared to go hand in hand with the Church in Great Britain in sending out clergy. The troubles which subsequently broke out in the North American continent did, for a time, interrupt the intended joint action. A committee for conducting in England the affairs of the Hawaiian church

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mission was formed; and on the 15th of December, 1861, the Rev. Thomas Nettleship Staley, D.D., late fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, was consecrated first Bishop of Honolulu, in Lambeth Chapel by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Oxford being assessors. The day was that on which Dr. Thompson, the present Archbishop of York, was consecrated Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, and the

service, at all times a solemn one, was rendered yet more memorable by the news which was spreading itself among the congregation present, of the death of the Prince Consort the previous night.

A subsequent chapter will be devoted to the establishment and progress of the English Church in the Sandwich Islands.

CHAPTER XXII.

I

HAWAIIAN CHARACTERISTICS.

HAVE visited many parts of the earth,' writes an old voyager, but nowhere in my travels have I met with more than two sorts of human beings,-men and women.'

It will seem trite, after this remark, to say that in the Hawaiian character good and ill qualities are combined; yet, because this is essentially true, it must be said in spite of its triteness. The important question is, whether the mixed ore, upon analysis, holds out the hope of reduction to a valuable metal.

The most salient points in the native race are courage, hospitality, a friendly and affable disposition, a constitutional good humour and mirthfulness. This much for good. On the other hand must be written against them, indolence, sensuality and licentiousness, improvidence, and a carelessness about life and death, apparently arising from ignorance of, or disbelief in, a future existence. In things indifferent, their natural taste is æsthetic; they have a great love of beauty, are imitative, and ambitious to copy the manners, habits, dress, and luxuries of foreigners. They have as much imagination as other Pacific tribes, but in their religion they were materialistic idolaters, and in this were strongly distinguished from the red tribes of North America, whose