aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

80 AEOUND THE WORLD.
tiousness, ideality, and spirituality, is
not a wholeness, — is
not man. With these organs, he necessarily conceives of
another and superior state of existence.
His notions may be
rude ; still they are germinally bedded in truth. Under all
skies, man naturally believes in the superhuman, in the return
of departed ancestors, and the care of guardian spirits.
This
is pre-eminently true of this Hawaiian branch of the Polynesians.
Faith of this kind is so rooted in their souls' soil, that
thirty years' missionary drillings have in no way eradicated
it.
Bennett, after describing, in his historic sketches, their
mythology, and the " tabu imposed by the chiefs," says there
was always a " class among them who practiced sorcery and
conjuration, and offered prayers to the spirits." Richardson
assures us, that, in all past times, " they dealt in divination,
calling upon the spirits of their dead to assist them in war,
and bless them in peace. Their gods were the spirits of
departed heroes."
A strong effort was early made to convert Kamehameha I.
to the Christian religion. The purpose signally failed. He
listened, however, with great gravity to the churchal argument
for the "necessity of faith in Christ;" and then, says
Jarvis, he coolly replied, —
n
*' By faith in your God, you say any thing can be accomplished, and
the Chiistian will be preserved from aU harm. If so, cast yourself down
from yonder precipice ; and, if you are preserved, I will believe."
It was a clincher I
SmGTJLAR SOCIAL CUSTOMS.
Naturally trusting and affectionate, Hawaiian men, when
meeting in their more primitive times, embraced and, kissed,
as do women in civic life. Missionaries, forgetting Paul's
injunction, " Salute the brethren with a holy kiss," have
taught them a different way of salutation. Their priesthood
was hereditary. Each chief, before the consolidation in a