The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
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Those Who Believe In The Oneness Of The Invisible
Church, And That All Who Hold "One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism,"
Are Within The Pale Of Salvation, May Well Hesitate Before Expending
Energy, Men, Money, And Time On Proselytizing Efforts.
Among the whites who have sunk into the mire of an indolent and
godless, if not an openly immoral
Life, there is an undoubted field
for Evangelistic effort; but it is very doubtful, I think, whether
this class can be reached by services which appeal to higher culture
and instincts than it possesses, and, indeed, generally, the island
Episcopalians are not in sympathy with the "symbolism" and "high
ritual" which from the first have been outstanding features of this
"mission." The education of the young in the principles of the
Prayer Book is aimed at by the Bishop and his coadjutors, but in
spite of zeal and devotion, I doubt whether the English Church on
these islands can ever be anything but a pining and sickly exotic.
Kona looks supremely beautiful, a languid dream of all fair things.
Yet truly my heart warms to nothing so much as to a row of fat
English cabbages which grow in the rectory garden, with a
complacent, self-asserting John Bullism about them. It is best to
leave the islands now. I love them better every day, and dreams of
Fatherland are growing fainter in this perfumed air and under this
glittering sky. A little longer, and I too should say, like all who
have made their homes here under the deep banana shade, -
"We will return no more,
. . . . our island home
Is far beyond the wave, we will no longer roam."
I.L.B.
LETTER XXXI.
HAWAIIAN HOTEL, HONOLULU. August 6th.
My fate is lying at the wharf in the shape of the Pacific Mail
Steamer Costa Rica, and soon to me Hawaii-nei will be but a dream.
"Summer isles of Eden!" My heart warms towards them as I leave
them, for they have been more like home than any part of the world
since I left England. The moonlight is trickling through misty
algarobas, and feathery tamarinds and palms, and shines on glossy
leaves of breadfruit and citron; a cool breeze brings in at my open
doors the perfumed air and the soft murmur of the restful sea, and
this beautiful Honolulu, whose lights are twinkling through the
purple night, is at last, as it was at first, Paradise in the
Pacific, a bright blossom of a summer sea.
I shall be in the Rocky Mountains before you receive my hastily-
written reply to your proposal to come out here for a year, but I
will add a few reasons against it, in addition to the one which I
gave regarding the benefit which I now hope to derive from a change
to a more stimulating climate. The strongest of all is, that if we
were to stay here for a year, we should just sit down "between the
sun and moon upon the shore," and forget "our island home," and be
content to fall "asleep in a half dream," and "return no more!"
Of course you will have gathered from my letters that there are very
many advantages here.
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