rantable as the basis of such serious charges and sweeping conclusions.

The witness most relied upon, next to Melville, is Jarves. And the reliance there is chiefly on a single passage, in which Jarves describes the awful scenes witnessed at Honolulu after the death of the good Queen Kaahumanu, in 1832, and during a brief season of lawlessness, which the young king, of ardent passions himself, was induced by interested foreigners to allow. The passage is correctly quoted, and does give a terrible picture of appetite and excess, unbridled and heathenish depravity, such as reveals the enormity of the evil to be overcome, and should temper the tone of confidence and triumph as to spiritual changes. But those who quote the passage here do not state, as they should, that these excesses were in consequence of the removal of all restraints by the youthful ruler, and were followed by a reaction of the best kind, the king himself repenting of his folly, forsaking his evil advisers (dissolute men, headed by one Charlton, who boasted that the missionaries would be sent off in the next English armed vessel, thus indicating the source and motive of all this lawlessness), and soon bringing his willing people back to order, temperance, and religious observance. The hold which religion had gained, as seen in this speedy and permanent recovery, is as remarkable as the outbreak was melancholy. Yet this is the proof, cited by the "Catholic Magazine," of the utter uselessness of the Protestant mission, during the first ten years!

The attempt is also made to convict the "Missionary Herald" of concessions to this effect, by taking broken passages from various numbers of that journal, containing honest reports of difficulty, disappointment, and slow progress; as if every number of the Herald did not likewise contain some cheering accounts. Another witness summoned by the Magazine is Daniel Wheeler, the benevolent Quaker, who, about ten years ago, made a "religious visit to the islands of the Pacific ocean," with his son, Charles Wheeler; going at his own expense, but with a commission from the Friends in England, to whom he reported in full on his return. His "Letters and Journal" make an octavo volume of great interest,* the only one we have read or heard of from such a source. As to its bearing, it is gen

* See Christian Examiner for July, 1844, p. 35.

1848.]

Catholic Charges not sustained.

439

erally favorable to the character and influence of the missionaries both in the Sandwich and the Society Islands. The exceptions, cited by the Catholic reviewer, are no more than every honest observer would make. One practice that the Wheelers saw in the islands is foolish enough, to be sure; that of "compelling " the natives to attend public worship," a man with a stick ransacking the villages for worshippers." We should be sorry to believe that such things are common, or that the missionaries ever countenance them. We find very little, however, unfavorable to the Protestant missions in this volume; but we find an account of a Catholic priest, in Tahiti, implicated in a transaction so discreditable both to him and his faith, as to induce the queen to forbid "this man, or any other of the same profession, coming to disturb the peace and tranquillity of Tahiti."* So much for the "testimony" of Daniel Wheeler. Of the other authorities given, Meyen, Kotzebue, and Beechey, we know nothing, except that the last is lightly esteemed, and from neither of them do the extracts offered prove any thing essential.

The case is not made out. The Catholic reviewer attempts too much, and is too confident, as well as flippant, in his whole tone. He speaks not truth, when he proclaims "the total failure of Protestant missionary effort in the islands of the Pacific, and the world over." He betrays

*Since that period, the unhappy queen of Tahiti, and her people, have suffered enough from the Romanists. The violent seizure of the island by a French squadron in 1842, the forcible introduction of Romish priests into a field which the London Missionary Society had occupied and successfully improved for more than forty years, the reduction of a peaceful and independent nation to a state of vassalage and warfare, — all, apparently, because of the resistance made to the licentious practices of the French, and their religious usurpations, -are among the most atrocious acts of our day. It was in the same year, and in the very same month, as if by previous concert, that the French sloop-of-war Embuscade visited the harbour of Honolulu, and demanded the exact fulfilment of all the promises which Laplace, as we have seen, obtained by force three years before; Mallet, the captain of the Embuscade, complaining particularly of the restrictions put upon the sale of French wines and brandies, which Laplace had made free. And while the French were thus invading both groups of islands, the Society and Sandwich, or at least within a year of that time, the British themselves, who loudly complained of these aggressions, committed one, through Lord George Paulet, even more inconsistent, if less violent; compelling the Hawaiian government, at the mouth of her Britannic Majesty's cannon, to make a formal "provisional cession" of the islands to Great Britain. We believe that the governments both of France and England refused to sanction these flagrant impositions; but that they have attempted any just reparation we have never seen.

either ignorance or bigotry, or something worse than either, when he says of the native Hawaiian, "We saw him, unaided by Christianity, triumphing over the bonds of superstition and idolatry; we see him, after twenty years of Protestant training, returning to his vomit." And when, further, we hear him say, that "the Catholic priest enriched the Hawaiian, whilst the Protestant parson fleeced him,” — and that "visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, are weapons rarely wielded by a Protestant mission," we are thrown back upon the fear, that the worst feature of Jesuitism has not disappeared. We turn with pleasure to the magnanimous avowal of a French nobleman, himself a Catholic, Count Agenor de Gasparin, member of the Chamber of Deputies, who, soon after the "infamous treaty," as he calls that which was forced upon Oahu through the agency of Laplace, thus speaks of the whole Protestant mission : "Where can we find in the annals of government a social transformation which can compare with that which sixty poor Americans have effected among a hundred and thirty thousand savages? Let those who accuse them examine before they attack. Let them compare, before they proclaim, as they are wont, the immense superiority of Roman Catholic missions."

We regret to see in Protestant journals, as sometimes in the "Missionary Herald," the terms "Man of Sin,' and "horn of the Beast," applied to the Church of Rome. There is neither victory nor charity in calling hard names. Romanism has done a great work, an heroic work; and was not sent for naught. It is still busy in the Pacific, though less effectively since it was let alone. It is extending itself in Oceanica, China, and the East Indies, according to its own account, most rapidly. It is enlarging its force in our own country, though chiefly by emigration, exaggerating greatly the amount of its gains from Protestant ranks, and saying nothing of its many losses. Let Protestants be true to their own calling, both in temper and action, and they have nothing to fear. They, too, have done a great work; why stop to compare it with any other? Compare it rather with that which they should have done and have yet to do. Let others boast and assail, if they must; let us confess, repent, and press manfully on. Let us remember the great commission of Christ, and remember also his spirit. Let our love of Christ exceed our fear of Antichrist. Let our

1848.]

Rev. Jason Whitman.

441

own heathenism have an end, our revilings, our wars, our slavery, intemperance, licentiousness, grasping ambition, and consuming avarice. Can a corrupt fountain send forth life? The last ship from Boston carrying out missionaries, the Catalpa for Smyrna, is said to have carried also forty thousand gallons of rum. If so, and the missionaries knew it, and consented, (not that we believe the last,) we should fear for their salvation, and that of the rum-owners, as well as for the salvation of the benighted heathen. So have we fear for all among us who give nothing and do nothing for the heathen abroad or at home. "Covetousness is idolatry,"worse, as Christian, than the worst worship of the pagan. To believe in the impossibility of salvation for those whom God has made heathen is infidelity, if not impiety. But to be

lieve in the certain salvation of those whom Christ has called to be Christian, but who are not, nor strive to be, nor help in any way to make others Christian, or to bless the world, is a perversity and peril for which we have no name.

Let Christians become Christian, and the earth will be illumined. Let Catholic and Protestant hate sin as cordially as they hate heresy, and truth will advance. Let Christ come, and idols, at Rome and at home, in India, Africa, and the isles of the ocean, will fall. O that all denominations of believers our own not least, nor last — would consider the magnitude, the solemnity, and the infinite issues of the Master's words, "Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required"!

E. B. H.

ART. VIII. REV. JASON WHITMAN.*

IT has been for many years a source of regret, that so many of our churches need men in the pulpit, and that we have so few men to give them. Never was there a greater need of strong and warm-hearted pastors than now, more need of strong and warm-hearted men in all places

never

A Discourse on the Life and Character of Rev. Jason Whitman: delivered in the First Congregational Church in Lexington, Feb. 27, 1848. By THEODORE H. DORR, Minister of the Second Congregational Society in Lexington. Boston: B. H. Greene. 1848. 8vo. pp. 39.

VOL. XLIV.

4TH S. VOL. IX. NO. III.

39

among us. We speak not, then, of a private grief, nor of one which affects simply the societies to which he has ministered, when we record the death of the Rev. Jason Whit

man.

We speak rather of a loss felt among all our churches, and throughout the community in general.

For he was such a man, such a pastor, and such a preacher, as we most need. He was a man. The integrity of his character was impaired neither by deficiencies in his heart nor in his head. He was zealous and enthusiastic in every good cause, wise and of sound judgment in regard to action. To deep feelings and sensibilities he joined so deep and calm a faith, that he was ever cheerful and ever trusting. To a practical good sense, and practical habits of thought, he added a devout spirit; with all his earnestness of action and eagerness to produce outward improvement, he ever felt the worth of the things of the spirit, and was, indeed, as distinguished for earnestness of spirituality as for earnestness of action.

Thus, and in almost all respects, he showed the completeness, the wholeness of his character; and it was this, his manhood, that gave his words and his example weight among his fellow-men. Nobly were those words uttered, that example shown. In good deeds he was always foremost to act, in good words always foremost to speak. A frequent contributor to our periodicals, a frequent lecturer at our lyceums, his writings were so marked with good sense, so aimed at good ends, that they had no inconsiderable effect upon the public mind. He spoke in behalf of freedom, in behalf of truth, of righteousness, of education, of good order, and respect for law. He has done a good work by his strenuous and successful efforts in behalf of temperance; and made his name known as a friend of freedom by his Christian testimony against slavery, especially since his winter's residence in the regions of that shadow of death. His lectures and writings have also made glad the hearts of our common-school teachers, and his faithful and active services as a member of school-committees have been a public benefit in the towns which have enjoyed his presence.

Nor are his exertions in aid of the Sunday school unworthy of notice. Both in his own parishes, and, for the last year or more, in the Middlesex Sunday School Association, he was ever ready to labor, and his labor was also effective.