form. They seemed to see before them an immense country, stretching from the lava-plain at their feet, varied by hills and dales, upon whose slopes flocks of sheep were grazing, whilst cities and villages. studded this land of faëry. "The adventurous travellers next descended about one hundred feet, through fissures and by ledges, till they stood beside some small pools of molten elements-detached outposts of the great central unbroken sea of fire.* Enduring a good scorching, and covering their faces, they were able to dip the ends of their staves into these pools, and the green wood was reduced instantly to ashes. The two great cones, rising high and dark amidst the fiery turmoil, excited their extremest interest. Seeking some means of approaching nearer to them, and proceeding along the edge of the firm lava, they arrived at a sort of natural bridge or inclined causeway across the gulf, connecting the ledge with one of the cones. They commenced traversing the ascending causeway, the upper part of which was, in places, a thin brittle crust, separated from one to five feet from the more solid matter below, and through which upper lamina one of the party fell. When halfway across they paused to contemplate the terrible scene. At a great depth beneath boiled the fiery pool, above them appeared a huge conduit of unchained fire; and on all sides a region of frightful desolation. The two travellers and their native guide had not long recommenced climbing when their course was suddenly arrested. The infirm lava-crust beneath their feet began to shake ominously, whilst frightful unearthly sounds from the mouth of the cone pierced their As soon as they were released from the first panic, which transfixed them, they commenced the most rapid retreat in their power along the causeway; but before they had advanced many paces towards the lava-plain, the prelude of mighty blasts changed to cracks of near thunder, and immense masses of hot lava were thrown to a great height. The travellers' immediate danger was that of being crushed by the falling lava, and from this there was no shelter. At first the blocks, issuing perpendicularly, fell back into the crater; but they then began to fall beyond the cone, plunging into the gulf on both sides the causeway, or rolling past the travellers with a terrible impetuosity. Some even fell on their frail bridge, broke through, and were lost beneath it. Through the wild uproar and confusion, Mr. Hill and his companions finally reached the firm ledge in safety." ears. The reader will not be surprised to hear that one of the most dread deities in the Hawaiian mythology was the goddess Pele, who presided over the subterranean fires. The popular superstition, not without a touch of gloomy poetic grandeur in the notion, believed * It is proper to say that the descent has been frequently made by ladies. that the crater of Kilauea was the abode and temple of the goddess. When the rest of the islands had joyfully abandoned their national superstition, the belief in Pele, riveted on the imagination by the constant presence of the awful sights and sounds of the volcano-the lake of fire, the clouds of vapour, the torrents of lava, the internal noises and occasional tremors of the earth-continued to maintain its hold upon the inhabitants of this mountain region. There the people still deprecated the wrath of the terrible deity; while her priests occasionally wandered into the more civilized districts, denouncing awful retribution for the general apostacy. Kapiolani, one of the female chiefs, in her zeal for the new and better faith which she had embraced, visited this lofty and rugged region to rebuke the priests and people for their idolatry. In return they threatened her with the vengeance of the deity whose precincts she thus invaded, and whose worship she set at nought. Kapiolani replied that the mountain and the volcano were the handiwork of the God whom she adored, and that she would abide the test of daring Pele in her very sanctuary. Accordingly, in the presence of priests and people, she descended into the crater, taking with her some of the mountain berries, which were held sacred to the goddess. Some of these she ate, others she cast into the fire— an act of utter sacrilege and most daring defiance; then, lifting up her voice, she sang the praises of Jehovah; and returned unharmed, in spite of the denunciations of the priests and the wrath of their goddess, to reprove the astonished people for their superstitious fears, and to exhort them to forsake these idols and serve the living God. Surely the action deserves to rank high among the records of female heroism and Christian faith. We know how much of unreasoning superstition lurks in our own hearts; how the foolish stories told us as children make us even now tremble in the dark, in spite of faith and reason. We e can imagine how difficult it must be for the sincerest convert from heathenism to overcome the superstitious fears which have been studiously implanted by early education, and have grown into the very constitution of the mind; we have seen how the natural horrors of the scene are enough to shake the physical courage, and to excite superstitious awe; and we cannot but reverence the faith and courage of Kapiolani, which thus controlled natural fear and triumphed over superstitious terrors. In 1823 the king gave proof of the energy and enterprise of his race by the resolve to visit America and Europe with his favourite wife, and a suite of attendants for the purpose of making himself acquainted with their institutions, and of entering into relations with their governments. They reached England in May, 1824; and some of our readers may not be too young to remember how they became for a time the object of general interest. The print-shop windows KAMEHAMEHA THE THIRD. 277 were full of their portraits; and, unless we mistake, the song of "The King of the Cannibal Islands," once so popular, and not yet forgotten, was the ode in which some Grub Street laureate celebrated the visit of their Hawaiian majesties. Unhappily both king and queen caught the smallpox in London, and died. Their bodies, with a kind and wise policy, were sent, under charge of the remnant of the embassy in a ship of war, to be interred in their island home. Kaukeouli, the brother of the last king, succeeded to the vacant throne under the title of Kamehameha III. He was only a boy, and for years the government was really carried on under the regency of Kaahumanu. When he arrived at his majority, in 1833, an incident occurred which has several parallels in our own country. When Ethelbert, the first Christian king of Kent died, when Sebert died in Essex, and Edwin in Northumbria, the new kings apostatized, and their people returned to their old idolatry; so the young king of Hawaii threw off the authority which had hitherto restrained the indulgence of his passions, abrogated all the recent laws, and restored the old regime. The people, recoiling from the strictness with which. their licentiousness had been restrained, broke out into a saturnalia of lawless riot and foulest debauch; the heathen worship even was in some places restored. Happily both king and people soon grew wearied of their excesses, and ashamed of the degradation into which the islands had relapsed; and during a subsequent reign of many years, the king steadily supported the influence of the missionaries, and permitted them to exercise a very powerful influence in civil as well as religious matters. In truth the American missionaries organized a regular constitution, drew up a code of laws, and themselves carried on the government as the king's ministers. It is a little remarkable that these Americans did not attempt to introduce the political institutions of their own Republic, but went to England for their model; and induced the king to give his people a constitution which made his government a limited monarchy. One curious portion of the native institutions they retained, and it still lies like a carved relic of the civil fabric of the great founder of the nation, used up in the modern platform on which the new state is built. Kamehameha associated Kaahumanu with the young king his son; and the constitution still requires that there shall be associated with the king a female official, to whom it gives the title of premier, without whose signature no matter of internal government can be transacted; and as the name of the great Kamehameha has been assumed by all successive kings, so all the premiers call themselves Kaahumanu. This curious duality has hitherto not only worked smoothly, but has frequently been productive of the best positive results. It was during the reign of this king, in the year 1827, that the French Romish priests first arrived. Leave to remain was refused, and considerable difficulty arose owing to the persevering efforts on one side to make good a footing on the island, and the determination on the other side not to admit the holders of a different creed. The history of this conscientious attempt on the part of Americans and Dissenters to prevent the faith of their converts from being disturbed, and the reasons which they gave for so doing, are worthy of the attention of those who find it so impossible to understand the unwillingness of the late government of Tuscany, or the present government of Spain, to tolerate the proselytizing efforts of Protestants. However, in the year 1839, the French priests were forced upon the unwilling people, under the threatening broadside of a French frigate; and the Hawaiian government was coerced into the adoption of the principle of religious toleration. During the remainder of this reign the American missionaries continued to enjoy a great influence in the councils of the king, which they exercised, on the whole, with great wisdom and moderation, and a sincere desire for the welfare of the people. In 1854 the king died, and was succeeded by his cousin, Alexander Liholiho, under the title of Kamehameha IV., now reigning. The present king is a well-educated and able man; in manners and mode of life, an English gentleman. He has seen the world, having travelled, before he came to the throne, in France, England, and the United States. As soon as he ascended the throne, the influence of the American missionaries in the affairs of the government, and over the conscience of the king, ceased. Neither did the French Romanists obtain the influence which they had sought with their usual perseverance and tact. The present king has recurred to the attachment for England which marked the policy of the first and second kings of his dynasty, and which has always been the inclination of the people. He called Englishmen to his councils, and signalized his reign by the renewal of the great Kamehameha's request for English teachers of religion. It is this latter event which has renewed our interest in the far-off kingdom. It is the first time in the history of the Church of England that any foreign sovereign has made such a request of us. Our own history does, indeed, supply a parallel; but then it was a barbarous prince of Britain who requested teachers of the Church and nation which then led the van of civilization and religion.* The compliance of our Queen and the Archbishop with this request forms another point of interest, for it marks an era in the rapid development of our own missionary policy. From the Reformation down to the end of the 17th *If, that is, we may assume the traditional story which Bede has preserved—that Lucius, king of Britain, in the year 156, wrote to Pope Eleutherius to send him teachers—to have some foundation in fact, notwithstanding the palpable anachronisms and historical blunders of the story. PROSPECTS OF THE MISSION. 279 century, the Church of England was taken up with the preservation of her own life against Papist and Puritan, against rebellion and revolution. In 1701 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was founded chiefly to supply clergy to our own "plantations" in America. For a long time our colonists begged in vain to have bishops of their own, that the Church of Christ, in all the completeness of its apostolic organization, and all its fulness of grace and power, might be set up among them. This was at length granted, and the thirty-eight dioceses of the American Church are the existing result. Then the Church relapsed for a long time into the habit of sending out only presbyters and lay-agents as missionaries; but within the present century a wiser policy has asserted itself, and forty-two colonial bishoprics have been established. Quite lately the Church of England has entered upon a new development of her missionary work, in sending out missionary bishops, as pioneers of the Gospel among the heathen. And now this sending forth of a graft of our sacred vine, to be transplanted into a foreign soil, there to grow into an independent church, yet in full communion with our own, is still another step in advance. We ought not, either, to be insensible to the independent testimony thus borne to the excellence of our Church. The king of Hawaii, we have said, is an educated and able man; he has travelled in France, England, and the United States, and examined their religions; he has seen at home the teaching of Dissent and its results, and is equally well acquainted with Romanism, and what it can do for his people; and his deliberate judgment is in favour of the English Church. Not that the English mission goes out there in an antagonistic attitude: it goes not only because it is invited, but because there is room. It is true that a nominal Christianity is very generally spread, but it is equally true that it has penetrated to a very little depth into the hearts of the people. Both French Romanists and American Dissenters confess frankly the smallness of their success in producing a real vital change in the people. Even while the preceding portion of this paper has been going through the press, news has come of the arrival of our mission in Hawaii, and of its prospect of success. The news fully sustains the remarkable interest which has all through characterized this enterprise. The disciples of the American missionaries, we are told, have been thoroughly alienated by the ungenial Puritanism of the religion which has been presented to them, and are ready to revolt from its yoke. The mass of the people look upon the English mission as their own church, the church which their national hero Kamehameha I. so long since asked, and which has been sent at length by the great Queen of England, their friend. The services of the mission are crowded by natives, who are charmed with the beauty and dignity of the English ritual, and |