ment of their respective countries. The deeds of injustice done, the outrages committed, the crimes perpetrated by irresponsible seamen, when ten thousand of them annually frequented the islands, and when it was proverbial that "God did not rule west of America," would not bear recital. Foreigners had lent their whole influence, said Malo, who knew whereof he spake, "to make the Hawaiian Islands one great brothel."
Under such a state of things as that which prevailed generally in Hawaii, the diseases of civilization, when first introduced, made sad havoc among the careless children of nature. The pestilence of 1804 has already been mentioned. In 1848-49 measles, whooping cough, diarrhoea, and influenza carried off, it is estimated, more than ten thousand persons. And a few years later, in 1853, smallpox caused in eight months 2,485 deaths. To the inevitable evils—lack of care, poor houses, unsuitable clothing, improper food, ignorance of natural law, etc.—were added the artificial evils of civilization. These combined burdens were too much for the Hawaiian people to bear, as indeed they would have been too much for any race of human beings. Well might David Malo exclaim: "The kingdom is sick—it is reduced to a skeleton—and is near to death; yea, the whole Hawaiian nation is near to a close."
The evils of civilization, in so far as they have affected the Hawaiian people, have almost invariably been regarded as arising from commerce. This view, however, is very inadequate. Commerce and missions are the two great pioneer forces of civilization. But, while there is much good in each, there is also some evil. Each has been an instrument of progress and an instrument of decline; each, like the Levitical law, has contained blessings and cursings, bestowing life with one hand and dealing death with the other. But, while the evils of commerce have always been freely acknowledged, those of missions have invariably been ignored. To most missionaries, however, it might well be said: "Physician, heal thyself." The claim is not now made, of course, that the missions in Hawaii have been an evil, nor that they have done more harm than good; but merely that they were by no means an unmixed good; that in certain
