The Hawaiian, or Sandwich Islands, were discovered—­or rediscovered, as some say—­by Captain Cook, in January, 1778, a year and a half after our Declaration of Independence.  The inhabitants were then what we call savages—­that is to say, they wore no more clothing than the climate made necessary, and knew nothing of the Christian religion.  In the period between 1861 and 1865 this group had in the Union armies a brigadier-general, a major, several other officers, and more than one hundred private soldiers and seamen, and its people contributed to the treasury of the Sanitary Commission a sum larger than that given by most of our own States.

[Illustration:  Mrs. Lucy G. Thurston.]

In 1820 the first missionaries landed on the shores of these islands, and Mrs. Lucy G. Thurston, one of those who came in that year, still lives, a bright, active old lady, with a shrewd wit of her own.  Thirty-three years afterward, in 1853, the American Board of Missions determined that “the Sandwich Islands, having been Christianized, shall no longer receive aid from the Board;” and in this year, 1873, the natives of these islands are, there is reason to believe, the most generally educated people in the world.  There is scarcely a Hawaiian—­man, woman, or child—­of suitable age but can both read and write.  All the towns and many country localities possess substantial stone or, more often, framed churches, of the oddest New England pattern; and a compulsory education law draws every child into the schools, while a special tax of two dollars on every voter, and an additional general tax, provide schools and teachers for all the children and youth.

[Illustration:  KAWAIAHO church—­first-native church in Honolulu.]

Nine hundred and three thousand dollars were given by Christian people in the United States during thirty-five years to accomplish this result; and to-day the islands themselves support a missionary society, which sends the Gospel in the hands of native missionaries into other islands at its own cost, and not only supports more than a dozen “foreign” missionaries, but translates parts of the Bible into other Polynesian tongues.

Nor was exile from their homes and kindred the only privation the missionaries suffered.  They came among a people so vile that they had not even a conception of right and wrong; so prone to murder and pillage that the first Kamehameha, the conqueror, gave as excuse for his conquest that it was necessary to make the paths safe; so debauched in their common conversation that the earlier missionaries were obliged for years rigidly to forbid their own children not only from acquaintance with the natives among whom they lived, but even from learning the native language, because to hear only the passing speech of their neighbors was to suffer the grossest contamination.