FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.

KEOPUOLANI, QUEEN AND CHRISTIAN.

WHEN Our American missionaries first landed at the Sandwich Islands, in 1820, they found the people without any religion. The very year before, the highpriest of Hawaii had expressed his wish to give up their system of idolatry. The chiefs had confessed their dissatisfaction with it, and it had been abolished by general consent. It was a set of senseless and cruel practices, the most inconvenient and annoying of which was the tabu, or prohibition. For instance, at certain times nobody except a priest or a chief must presume to eat a cocoanut, no fishing-canoe must be seen in the water, nor any man out of his house; men and women must not eat together, nor even from the same dish. The penalty for breaking tabu was death. Human sacrifices were offered to the gods, and when no criminal could be found, a new tabu was imposed; and perhaps it was done secretly, so that some one might break it unawares. Men on the watch would then seize the victim and hurry him away to be slain at the idol-shrine. A foreign resident told the missionaries that on one of the days of prohibition he "saw a canoe sailing out in front of some houses on the shore and upset by the surf. One of the men afterward appeared to be drowning. An old man of tender feelings sprang from his house to save the sinking man. In an instant he was seized by the servants of the priests, hurried to the idol-temple, and there sacrificed. Meantime, the man apparently drowning jumped into his canoe and rowed away."

In that entangling network of observances a prominent part was a superstitious reverence for the persons of the chiefs. Queen Keopuolani was the mother of the king reigning over the islands at the time when our missionaries arrived. She had always been considered particularly sacred. Her family had governed the island of Hawaii for many generations. She was herself born in 1778, — the year after Captain Cook was murdered there, and was brought up by her grandmother, as it was not customary for chiefs to bring up their own children. From her birth she had a train of attendants wherever she went: a nurse, a man carrying a fly-brush, another man a fan, another an umbrella, and another a pipe; besides a great company of other servants, all of whom anxiously waited the nod of the child. When she was twelve years old she had become a celebrated beauty. At that time Kamehameha, a warlike chief who had made himself king of all the ten islands, took her captive, and afterward made her his queen. She reigned with him from 1791 until his death, in 1819. In her childhood she had been held so sacred that a part of the time no one must see her. She never

walked out except at evening, and then every one who looked at her prostrated himself to the earth. As queen, she went with her husband into all his battles,

WAILUKU, ISLAND OF MAUI, SANDWICH ISLANDS. From Report on Hawaiian Volcanoes in Report of U. S. Sec. of Interior, 1883.

because her sacred presence did much to awe the enemy.

At one time ten men

were bound, in order to be slain at the idol-temple, because she was sick. She rallied quickly, and only three were really put to death.

According to the heathen custom, Keopuolani had three husbands, so that she was not left alone at the king's death. Her son Riho-riho became king, but she was still high in authority. Riho-riho had reigned a year when the missionaries. appeared at the islands. They had left America without knowing anything about the wonderful way in which God had prepared for their coming. They were kindly welcomed, as there were now no idol-worshipers to oppose them. Keopuolani was friendly, but it was two years before she devoted herself to learning the truth. She then asked to have a teacher to remain with her household, and soon accepted the good news of a Saviour, with the simplicity of a child. A high chief to whom she was greatly attached tried to hinder her, saying, "Let us two drink wine together again, as formerly. Enough of this new word. Let us cast it away and attend to it no more. But Keopuolani turned to her teacher and said: "My heart is much afraid I shall never be a Christian." He replied: "Why, what is in the way? Do you not love God?" She answered: "Oh, yes! I love - I love him very much." The teacher then explained more fully the way of salvation, and Keopuolani said, at the close of the conversation: "Your word, I know, is true. It is a good word, and now I have found, I have obtained a Saviour and a good King, Jesus Christ."

She soon asked her teacher what she should do about her two husbands. He told her that Christian women never have more than one husband. She said: "I have followed the custom of my country, but we have been a people of dark hearts. I wish now to obey Jesus Christ and to walk in the good way. Hoapiri is my husband my only husband. The other man I will now cast off." She then called him and said: "I have renounced our old religion the religion of wooden gods. I have embraced the religion of Jesus Christ. He is my King and Saviour, and him I desire to obey. Hereafter I must have one husband only. I wish you to live with me no longer. In future you must neither eat with my people nor lodge in my house."

So decided was her stand in favor of Christianity that many of the chiefs and people were displeased. "The new teachers are not good," said they; "they bind us too close." "Our old religion is good for nothing," replied Keopuolani. "The missionaries' ways are all good and ours are bad. I will follow their instructions, and will never again take my dark heart."

The chiefs argued with her. "We find," they said, "that a part of what the missionaries tell us is true. It is well to attend to reading and writing; but prayer and preaching and Sabbaths are of no consequence. These will never increase our riches."

Keopuolani answered them with spirit: "If you wish to be heathens and live like the people of Satan, then live so, and give up the Sabbath and prayer, and when you die go to Satan and the world of misery; but trouble me no longer." She showed constant attention and kindness to the missionaries, seeking and obeying their instructions as to prayer and Christian duty, and ripening fast for the world of light, whither she was soon to go. She became slightly ill, and

vessels were sent to all the islands, that the chiefs might gather, according to their custom, and wait the result. The missionaries came too, and Keopuolani received them with a smile, saying, "I love the great God. I love Jesus Christ. I have given myself to him to be his. When I die, let none of the evil customs of this country be practised; let not my body be disturbed. Let my burial be after the manner of Christ's people. I hope he has loved me and will

receive me."

As she grew worse, the king - her son desired that she should be baptized, saying, "I know that this is only an external sign, but my mother gave herself away to Christ before her sickness." She, too, requested it; and when it was done, the king said: Surely she is no longer ours. . . . We believe she is Christ's, and will go to dwell with him."

66

Keopuolani was the first Hawaiian convert who received this sacred rite, and an hour after it was administered she fell asleep in Jesus. It was the sixteenth of September, 1823. The people collected from every quarter to join their tears and cries. Over three thousand - some said five thousand-people assembled at the funeral, and ceased their wailing while a Christian service was conducted. They listened with deep interest while Rev. Mr. Ellis preached from the words: "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Blessed, indeed, was Keopuolani, the first-fruits of Hawaii unto Christ.

1 The above cut is a reproduction from a picture in a "Memoir of Keopuolani," in pamphlet form, published by the American Board in 1825. It presents the scene at the meeting of Kuakini, Governor of Hawaii, and the relatives of Queen Keopuolani, just after her death. The figures indicate several prominent persons: (1) Kuakini; (2) Hoapiri, husband of the queen; (3) Prince Kanikeouli; (4) Prince Nahienaena.

THE

MISSIONARY HERALD.

VOL. LXXXII. MARCH, 1886. - No. III.

THE receipts, including memorial thank-offerings, for the first five months of the financial year have advanced, over those of the corresponding months of the preceding year, about $14,000. The call for a much larger advance continues, and will continue so long as the Lord of the harvest continues to bless the laborers upon the field. The call for additional men, which is growing more imperative every day, still fails to receive the prompt and hearty response: “Here am I, send me." Let the prayers of the Lord's people concentrate in this direction. For those prayers, united and sustained, Japan, China, India, Turkey, Africa, the Pacific Isles, and Papal Lands, are all waiting, more than for anything else. Whatever you do, or decline to do, during this critical hour through which the missionary work is now passing, do not fail to pray continuously and earnestly.

A VALUABLE GIFT. A complete set of the Missionary Herald from the beginning, including the Massachusetts Missionary Magazine and The Panoplist, the whole substantially and uniformly bound; also, in bound volumes, the Annual Reports and the Annual Sermons, with but one omission, preached at the Annual Meetings, about one hundred volumes in all, was the recent Christmas present to the library of the American Board from Rev. David Garland, who for thirty-seven years has been the industrious and faithful pastor of the Second Congregational Church of Bethel Maine, and who still remains in active service. The gathering together of these volumes at a considerable expense both of time and money has been on the part of the donor a labor of love, which is heartily appreciated at the Missionary Rooms. Such volumes as these increase in value every year, and will be consulted with profound interest a century hence.

WE are glad to say that many clubs of new subscribers for the Missionary Herald in various parts of the land are availing themselves of the opportunity to secure the Board's Missionary Map of the World, or the volume "Mission Stories of Many Lands." Clubs now forming will do well to complete their lists as rapidly as possible.

WITH deepest gratitude to God we refer to the tidings of revivals coming from a great number of churches throughout the United States. It is indeed a time of refreshing which should make all Christians alert, watching unto prayer. What joy will there be among missionaries in foreign lands over these tidings! The influence of this revival wave will be felt across the Atlantic and the Pacific.