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- In all cases, they have striven hard to mitigate the evils resulting
from the commerce with the whites in general. Such attempts, however,
have been rather injudicious, and often ineffectual: in truth, a
barrier almost insurmountable is presented in the dispositions of the
people themselves. Still, in this respect, the morality of the
islanders is, upon the whole, improved by the presence of the
missionaries.
But the greatest achievement of the latter, and one which in itself is
most hopeful and gratifying, is that they have translated the entire
Bible into the language of the island; and I have myself known several
who were able to read it with facility. They have also established
churches, and schools for both children and adults; the latter, I
regret to say, are now much neglected: which must be ascribed, in a
great measure, to the disorders growing out of the proceedings of the
French.
It were unnecessary here to enter diffusely into matters connected with
the internal government of the Tahitian churches and schools. Nor, upon
this head, is my information copious enough to warrant me in presenting
details. But we do not need them. We are merely considering general
results, as made apparent in the moral and religious condition of the
island at large.
Upon a subject like this, however, it would be altogether too assuming
for a single individual to decide; and so, in place of my own random
observations, which may be found elsewhere, I will here present those
of several known authors, made under various circumstances, at
different periods, and down to a comparative late date. A few very
brief extracts will enable the reader to mark for himself what
progressive improvement, if any, has taken place.
Nor must it be overlooked that, of these authorities, the two first in
order are largely quoted by the Right Reverend M. Kussell, in a work
composed for the express purpose of imparting information on the
subject of Christian missions in Polynesia. And he frankly
acknowledges, moreover, that they are such as “cannot fail to have
great weight with the public.”
After alluding to the manifold evils entailed upon the natives by
foreigners, and their singularly inert condition; and after somewhat
too severely denouncing the undeniable errors of the mission, Kotzebue,
the Russian navigator, says, “A religion like this, which forbids every
innocent pleasure, and cramps or annihilates every mental power, is a
libel on the divine founder of Christianity. It is true that the
religion of the missionaries has, with a great deal of evil, effected
some good. It has restrained the vices of theft and incontinence; but
it has given birth to ignorance, hypocrisy, and a hatred of all other
modes of faith, which was once foreign to the open and benevolent
character of the Tahitian.”
Captain Beechy says that, while at Tahiti, he saw scenes “which must
have convinced the great sceptic of the thoroughly immoral condition of
the people, and which would force him to conclude, as Turnbull did,
many years previous, that their intercourse with the Europeans had
tended to debase, rather than exalt their condition.”
About the year 1834, Daniel Wheeler, an honest-hearted Quaker, prompted
by motives of the purest philanthropy, visited, in a vessel of his own,
most of the missionary settlements in the South Seas. He remained some
time at Tahiti; receiving the hospitalities of the missionaries there,
and, from time to time, exhorting the natives.
After bewailing their social condition, he frankly says of their
religious state, “Certainly, appearances are unpromising; and however
unwilling to adopt such a conclusion, there is reason to apprehend that
Christian principle is a great rarity.”
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