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ries." The "injudicious and ineffectual attempts" are nothing but the enactment of laws prohibiting licentiousness, the importation of liquors, and intemperance!!

The true condition of a heathen tribe, in all the moral deformity and hideousness of their abominable and cruel rites, and the almost utter negation of every thing that is good, in the intelligent use of the term, and not mere instinct, can be appreciated only by those who have undertaken as missionaries to enlighten and elevate them. And although we may now go to Tahiti, and behold in it, as well as in other parts of the world, the broken fragments and dreary ruins of the old systems, and all things as in the transition state; and though we may weep over the fate of tens of thousands, we have yet reason to hope that the seed sown, will at length make her rejoice in brightness and beauty.

When Pomare, on the 30th of June, 1817, printed the first sheet of the spelling book, he was but giving the first impetus to that untold power which is to be the chief agent in the emancipation of the world. And though we may have our ears pained by the discord, and our hearts broken with grief over the wasting families of the earth, we feel cheered with the thought that there is a power which shall stem the torrent of death, or will call to judgment the guilty destroyers and their less guilty victims.

The remaining remarks of our author are fortified with quotations from Kotzebue, Beechey, and others, and are such as favor Mr. Melville's views. However agreeable it might be to expose the follies of this whole triad of superficial observers, the time and space requisite would make too large a demand upon the patience of our readers. A full examination of the legitimate topics of this discussion, the improvement in the intellectual, moral, and social condition of the Polynesians-their for

mer customs and habits, the present state of society in regard to its industrial interests, the introduction of various branches of art, manufacture, and agriculture, the establishing of codes of written laws, the recognizing of these governments as independent sovereignties, the fearful depopulation of the islands, and others which crowd before us, would protract our remarks to an ample folio. But we forbear the arduous task.

The opinions of men who after a few days of intercourse with a people whom they see for the first time, and to whom they bid farewell in a week or a month, whether they be titled noblemen or frolicking seamen, Von Kotzebues, Beecheys, or Melvilles, are all of little moment; yet, as Russell remarks of the first two, their opinions are such "as can not fail to have great weight with the public," because their position entitles them, as observers and historians, to credit, not that they make statements which are reliable

or true.

Passing by Lieut. Wilkes's Exploring Expedition, we content ourselves with a single passage from Darwin's "Voyage of a Naturalist," the modesty of whose opinions, with the enlightened character of the observer, strongly commends it to the impartial reader.

"From the varying accounts which I had had before reaching these islands, I was very anxious to form, from my own observation, a judgment of their moral cessarily be very imperfect. First im state, although such judgment would ne pressions at all times very much depend on one's previously acquired ideas. My sian Researches, an admirable and most notions were drawn from Ellis's Polyne interesting work, but naturally looking at every thing under a favorable point of view; from Beechey's Voyage, and from that of Kotzebue, which is strongly adverse to the whole missionary system. He who compares these three accounts will, I think, form a tolerably correct conception of the present state of Tahiti. from the two last authorities, was deOne of my impressions, which I took cidedly incorrect, viz. that the Tahitians

bad become a gloomy race, and lived in fear of the missionaries. Of the latter feeling I saw no trace, unless, indeed, fear and respect be confounded under one name. Instead of discontent being a common feeling, it would be difficult in Europe to pick out of a crowd half so many merry and happy faces. The prohibition of the flute and dancing is inveighed against as wrong and foolish; the more than Presbyterian manner of keeping the Sabbath, is looked at in a similar light. On these points I will not pretend to offer any opinion in opposition to men who have resided as many years as I have days on the island.

"On the whole, it appears to me that the morality and religion of the inhabitants are highly creditable. There are many who attack, even more acrimoniously than Kotzebue, both the missionaries, their system, and the effects produced by it. Such reasoners never compare the present state with that of the island only twenty years ago, nor even with that of Europe at the present day; but they compare it with the high standard of Gospel perfection. They expect the missionaries to effect that which the Apostles themselves failed to do. Inasmuch as the condition of the people falls short of this high standard, blame is attached to the missionary, instead of credit for that which he has effected. 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 influence of the missionary may have extended thus far.

"In point of morality, the virtue of the women, it has been often said, is most open to exception. But, before they are blamed too severely, it will be well distinctly to call to mind the scenes described by Captain Cook and Mr. Banks, in which the grandmothers and mothers of the present race took a part. Those who

are

most severe should consider how much of the morality of women in Europe is owing to the system early impressed by mothers on their daughters, and how much in each individual case to the precepts of religion. But it is useless to argue with such reasoners: I believe that, disappointed in not finding the field of li centiousness quite so open as formerly, they will not give credit to a morality VOL. VI.

8

which they do not wish to practice, or to a religion which they undervalue, if not despise.'

The unfinished records of the love scenes of our modern Boccaccio, which leave the reader in a state of not very uncertain surmise as to the secret incidents, we commend to the conscience of their author in connection with the foregoing passage.

When we review the condition of the South Sea islanders in all its essential features, mistaken as some of the missionaries have been in the measures they have adopted, engaged in a novel and almost untried enterprise, working upon materials the most repulsive and difficult, attempting to overturn the superstitions and systems of ages, breaking up the stubborn and rugged soil, and endeavoring to soften and purify the callous and unclean hearts of some of the most debased of all the children of our common Father, we think there is ground for the belief that very much has been done towards their regeneration and redemption. In our own civilized and Christian land, how many are there who present no better aspects of moral character than the half-reclaimed Tahitian or Hawaiian! Our refinement only conceals and hides in secret places the moral deaththe loathsome and putrid carcassthat preys upon hundreds of thousands at our very firesides, and at the thresholds of our sanctuaries. The intellectual grossness of the Polynesian, the merely animal instinct by which he had been, until recently, governed, forms the unsightly background upon which his moral condition has been drawn. To look for a high state of cultivation, or even a proximate understanding of the spiritual nature of Christianity, in a single age, would be to require more than the civilized

* Darwin's Voyage of a Naturalist, (Harper's New Miscellany,) vol. ii, p. 191–193.

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introduced: where the mariner resorted, the wildest licentiousness was encouraged. Where ignorance brooded over the nations, the missionaries have poured abroad a flood of holy light and intelligence. The war-club and spear have given place to deeds of love and peace. The bread-fruit and the cocoa-nut, once destroyed, now rear their heads over peaceful vales and undisturbed hamlets.

Honor, then, to those noble men who, burning with zeal to rescue the heathen from temporal and spiritual death, left their homes and their enjoyments, to teach them the way of and peace,

"High on the pagan hills, where Satan sat Encamped, and o'er the subject kingdoms

threw

Perpetual night, to plant Immanuel's cross, The ensign of the Gospel blazing round Immortal truth."

VOICES OF FREEDOM.*

WE have noticed with no little satisfaction for some time past, that while far the greater part of the current light literature of the day, is either positively pernicious in its influence, or is utterly insipid and useless, except to procure waste of time and want of thought, there is yet another very considerable portion coming into existence, which has a purer aim than to corrupt and destroy, and a more exalted one, than merely to relieve the tedium of an idle hour. It seems to have been discovered at last, that men can be amused and instructed at the same time; that their passions and emotions can be aroused, and yet not vent themselves in knight-errantry, nor misanthropy, nor libertinism. It is gratifying to find that in some instances, the flowery walks of literature have been trodden by

* Voices of Freedom; by J. G. Whit

tier. Fourth edition. 1846.

earnest and thinking men, whose ob. ject has been, not simply to weave garlands for sentimental maidens, whose nervous systems are shockingly out of tune, that the sickening perfume of the flowers breathed late at night in the lorn sufferers' closepent chambers, may aggravate their amiable illness; but rather to gather out from the whole kingdom of nature, whatever is best fitted to heal the diseased, and to supply additional strength and sustenance to those who are already strong to bear the burdens and to meet the conflicts of man's life. And they who, thus intent upon ministering healing and strength to diseased humanity, have sought through the many and diver. sified fields of nature, that great garden of God's planting, have found there many a tree of know. ledge, the fruit of which is not forbidden, though it be beautiful to the eye and pleasant to the taste, and to

be desired to make one wise. They have shown, and are still showing, by their productions, that not every voice of inviting melody is to be shut out from our ears at first sound, as if its very enchantment must prove it to be that of a syren, which delights and allures only to destroy. They have taught us, that not every form of beauty should warn us at first sight, to turn from beholding, as if its captivating aspect were enough of itself to prove it to be some Circean monster, which changes all who expose themselves to the influence of its magic spells, to loathsome brutes. The stern philosophy which would make truth necessarily repulsive to all not disposed to obey its dictates, has been obliged to admit as much at least as this, that if perverse and corrupting principles may find their way to the heart, under the fascinating disguise of a beautiful exterior, the maxims of sound wisdom may reach the same fountain of feeling and of action, under the same disguise. And if it be denied that there is any thing good in the disguise in the one instance, it must be admitted that there need be nothing evil in it, in the second. If a subtle and deadly poison may be administered unperceived, in a draught so pleasant as that all appetites will relish its sweetness; so the antidote which the diseased may regard as loathsome in itself, may be given in the same form. If the child, trained up in circumstances adverse to his moral improvement, under the constant influence of those who are bitterly hostile to all good, may become gradually worse and worse, till at length he knows so little of what good is, as to be insensible of the extent to which evil reigns in every desire of his soul; so, under the influence of a different training, may another become far more deeply in love with all goodness than he is aware, till rough contact with the world reveals to himself more clear

ly the governing principles of his own mind. And the means which shall contribute to this happy result in the one case, and this unhappy one in the other, may not be parental example and instruction alone. If a bad book, drawn up in a fascinating style, both of language and of conception, may do its reader more harm than he is aware, so a good book with the same pleasing address, may do its reader more good than he is aware. It is well that some are beginning to see this. And when they attempt to set forth truth, adorned with the gorgeous colors which imagination showers upon its own creation, and the cautious critic insinuates that there must be an insidious poison lurking beneath so much beauty; they may well dare to say of their own, and similar productions, as the shrewd John Wesley said in defense of himself, for having employed some of the gayer airs of the festive hall, to set forth the raptures of religious emotion-"It is a pity that the devil should have all the best music." It is also a pity, that the devil should have all the best literature. It is a most mournful pity, in the estimation of one who has a mind to perceive and a heart to feel whatever is most beautiful and glorious in God's creation, that the power of evil should claim the most just representation of that beauty, that glory, as the instrument of accomplishing its own dark purposes of wretchedness and ruin to man. It is a subject for the deepest regret that this is, and has long been, so far true, as that many readers of pure and elevated moral sentiments, have been accustomed to associate intellectual beauty with moral deformity, so invariably, as to suspect that wherever the former is exhibited, the latter must be a necessary accompaniment. Thus, whenever they are told, on the publication of a new work in some department of fictitious or imaginative literature, that it may be

safely placed in the hands of the young; they insensibly begin to regard that statement as equivalent to one, that the new production has too little life, beauty, richness of thought and imagery, to secure the attention of the young, who have already had a taste of the forbidden fruit, which the tempter urges upon them with disguised and prevailing earnestness. Thus too, many an honest hearted guardian or instructor of youth, feels compelled to warn his charge to shrink from entering what he himself regards as the most brilliant and inviting fields of literature, as they would shrink from the touch of contagion, or from the instigations of the foul fiend.

among readers of magazines and literary weeklies, for something which has strength and reality and a noble aim, is becoming stronger and louder. He who looks for nothing beyond popular success, as a writer for such publications, is taught from many sources, that no small part of the reading world is beginning to turn its patronage in favor of those who speak out, most truthfully and nobly, the genuine emotions of humanity, groaning and sighing for release from the heavy bondage of error, and depravity, and injustice. Thus he is convinced that he, or those soon to come after him, must expect a lot of shame and neglect if, in the face of such a demand for what is earnest, and real, and refor matory, they can exhibit themselves in no higher character than that of inventors and vendors of elegant trifles.

In the department of poetry, (and it is to that principally, that we refer in these observations,) it would be easy to specify instances, both in England and in this country, showing that a single fugitive piece, ap

It is however, as has been already stated, a subject for hope and congratulation, that the exceptions to the general rule of perversity in aim, or inanity in substance, or both, among mere literary writers, are becoming more and more frequent. Occasionally we find one giving to his thoughts a gayer and more diversified coloring than absolute reality would warrant, and yet show-parently thrown off by its author in ing himself to be in earnest in toiling for the improvement and happiness of his fellow men. While the teeming and licentious imagination of French feuilletonists, has not ceased to invent "all monstrous and prodigious things" to gratify the diseased appetite of their million readers, there is yet not entirely wanting among all of these, the evidence of an honest purpose to expose and break down false theories and old abuses, however little skill they may possess to build up better upon the ruins they make. In Paris itself, the world's emporium of literary, as well as of every other species of trifling, it has been found that mere vivacity of description, and fertility of aimless and useless invention, will no longer ensure an author the sale of a new volume, each return ing week. And in England, and in our own country, the demand, even

a few happy moments, when nature and humanity, in defiance of art and selfishness, both prompted and guided his effort, has done more to awaken a healthy and strong action in the great heart of the Saxon people, than a lengthened and labored poem, with nothing to commend it, but a soulless and classical beauty, or the revelings of a prodigal imagination, in the misty realm of the ideal. The recent effect of such effusions upon the minds of millions, whose taste for the beautiful and imaginative, had been fed only by affected conceits, or monstrously exaggerated real sentiments, or the reeking garbage of sensualists; has been similar to the impression produced upon the same minds, by the singing of one worthy and justly admired family. People had been accustomed to expect, as a matter of course, at concerts, to hear unintel

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