p. 560 | A Case in Point

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 13, 1883

A Case in Point.

THE Sandwich Islands are a perpetual monument of what mission work can do. The late Charles Darwin was by no means a Christian, but he was a close observer, and he always recognized good springing from agencies in whose religious phases he had no sympathy. In comparing the condition of the Sandwich Islands, when he visited Tahiti in 1842, he says of the critics who were hostile to the missionaries:—

"They forget, or will not remember, that human sacrifices, and the power of an idolatrous priesthood; a system of profligacy unparalleled in any other part of the world; infanticide, a consequence of that system; bloody wars, where the conquerors spared neither women nor children, that all these have been abolished; and that dishonesty, intemperance, and licentiousness have been greatly reduced by the introduction of Christianity. In a voyager to forget these things is base ingratitude; for should he chance to be at the point of shipwreck on some unknown coast he will most devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary may have extended thus far." This is both candid and just, and will serve to perpetuate recognition of the grand work accomplished by the missionaries in the Sandwich Islands.—Christian at Work.