A year had passed. There was no iron on the island, consequently no means of building a vessel, which could carry the exiles back to Mexico. Their only hope lay in the possibility that some caravel, equipped as theirs had been for discovery, might sight Hawaii and explore its coasts. But this hope was so faint as rarely to form a theme of discussion; so they wisely identified themselves with the interests and welfare of their generous host, whose kindness and confidence grew with their stay.
Kiana and Juan became firm friends. The former had long since learned the origin and history of the shipwrecked party, as indeed had the more intelligent among his chiefs, but their superior knowledge, and the polite deference of the nobles towards them, continued to keep them in the same sacred relation to the common people as at first. This was the more useful, that it gave to their efforts to instruct them the sanction of religion.
To properly understand the condition of the people under the government of Kiana, it will be necessary to go more into detail. I have already observed, that their climate and soil combined that happy medium of salubrity and fertility, which gave ample returns in health and harvests, but did not dispense with care and labor. Hence, they were an active and industrious race. Nature was indeed a loving, considerate mother to them. As yet no noxious reptiles or insects infested the land; ferocious animals were equally unknown; storms were so rare as scarcely to be ever thought of, while the temperature was so even, that their language had no term to express the various changes and conditions of physical comfort or discomfort, we combine into the word weather. This, of course, was a sad loss to conversation, but no doubt a compensation for lack of this prolific topic existed somehow in their domestic circles.
The households of the chiefs were in one sense almost patriarchally constructed. “My people” had a meaning as significant as upon a slave plantation in America, with the difference that here they were only transferred with the soil. They were literally “my people;” and as with all purely despotic institutions, their welfare depended mainly upon the character of their lords.
In some respects there existed a latitude of deportment between the chiefs and their serfs, which gave rise to a certain degree of social equality. This freedom of manner is common to that state of society in which the actual gulf between the different classes is irrevocably fixed. It grows out of protection on the one hand and dependence on the other. On Hawaii there existed a partial community of property; for although all that the serf possessed belonged to his lord, yet he had the use and improvement of the property in his charge, and besides certain direct interests in it, was protected by what might be termed their “common law.” The chief was both executive and judiciary, as obtains in all rude society. Self-interest became a powerful incentive to humanity, because cruelty or injustice towards his tenantry was a direct injury to his own property, and a provocation to desert his lands. There was also the family bond, derived from direct intermingling of blood, the perpetuity of estates and the familiarity of personal intercourse between the chiefs and their dependents, fortified by a condition of society that knew no contrasts to this state. The lack of other commerce than barter and a partial feudal system, which required the people not only to furnish their own arms, but upon all occasions to follow their lords to the field, helped to develop this social union of extremes.
All lands were in reality held in fief of the supreme chief. His will was in the main the code of law, and indeed the religious creed; that is, the ultimate appeal in all questions was vested in him. But public opinion, based upon old habits and certain intuitive convictions of right and justice common to all mankind, held even him in check; so that while rarely attempting any forcible violation of what was understood to be the universal custom, he had it in his power indirectly to modify the laws and belief of his people. While to some extent the spirit of the clan existed, giving rise to devotion and attachments similar to those recorded of the Highlanders of Scotland, there prevailed more extensively the servile feeling common to Oriental despotism. Numerous retainers of every grade and rank surrounded each chief, forming courts with as varied and as positive an etiquette as those of Europe or Asia. The most trivial necessity was dignified into an office. Thus there were “pipe lighters,” masters of the pipe as they might be called, masters of the spittoon, of the plumes or “kahilis,” and so on, while there was no lack of idle clients, the “bosom friends” of the chief, his boon companions, buffoons, pimps and every other parasitical condition in which the individual merges his own identity into the caprices or policy of his ruler, or by deceit, flattery, or superior address, seeks to advance his own selfishness at the general expense.
In this arrangement the analogy to the courts of Europe is so evident as to form a striking satire upon them. Here we find amid petty, semi-naked tribes, the same masters and mistresses of royal robes and other useless paraphernalia; the same abject crowd of parasites quarrelling and intriguing for honors and riches they are too lazy or dishonest rightfully to earn; the same degrading etiquette which exalts a knowledge of its absurdities above all morality, and imposes penalties upon its infringement, not bestowed upon crime itself: in fine, a parody of all that in European monarchies tends to make human nature base and contemptible.
Justice, however, requires me to state, that while the vices of the systems were allied, their virtues were no less in common. Despotism corrupts the many, but there are a choice few in all aristocracies who receive power and homage only as in deposit for the public good. Its conditions are favorable to their moral growth, when perhaps the rugged necessities of life, in conflicts of equality, would dwarf their souls to the common level of material wants or selfish interests. Besides these exceptions, as familiar to savage as to civilized life, because founded not upon acquired knowledge, but upon natural instincts, the very superiority of position begets desire for superior manners and external advantages. Thus we find in not a few of the privileged orders, rare politeness and outward polish, and a chivalric loyalty to the institution of titled aristocracy, as if in partaking of its birthright, it brought with it a loftier and more refined standard of feeling and action than that of the masses.
A SACRIFICIAL FEAST.
The best of food was reserved for the nobles. Their houses, bathing places, and domestic utensils, were tabu from vulgar use. They even used a language or courtly dialect unintelligible to their subjects. Their deportment was based upon the innate consciousness of mental superiority and long inherited authority. Rank was derived from the mother as the only certain fountain of ancestry. In size and dignity of personal carriage they were conspicuous from the crowd. In short, the difference was so marked in Hawaii between the chief and his serf, as to suggest to a superficial observer the idea of two distinct races.
Hospitality was a common virtue. There was no beggary, as there was no need of begging, for the simple wants of the natives were easily supplied. The poorest man never refused food to his worst enemy, should he enter his house and demand it. Indeed so freely were presents made, that the absolute law of “meum and tuum,” as it exists among commercial races, with its progeny of judges and gaols, locks and fetters, had with them scarcely a defined meaning. Where there was so much trust and generosity, any violation of them met with prompt and severe retribution. Theft was visited upon the offender by the injured party, even if the weaker, by the seizure of every movable article belonging to him. In this wild justice they were sustained by the whole population. If the property of a high chief suffered, the thief was sometimes placed in an old canoe, bound hand and foot, and set adrift upon the ocean.
Kiana’s people were wealthy in their simple way. His reign was the golden age of Hawaii. This was owing mainly to his own character, which took delight in the happiness and prosperity of his subjects. No lands were so well cultivated as his. No rents were more ample or more cheerfully paid. His people had easy access to him. In their labors as in their sports he often mingled. If at times he was hasty or severe, it was owing rather to the quickened indignation of offended justice than to selfish passion.
A very striking reform in the rites if not in the principles of their religion had been peacefully brought about by him. In general, the savage mind is more influenced by fear than by love; that is, it seeks by worship to avoid harm from natural objects, which from ignorance of their laws he considers to be evil spirits, rather than to do homage to those whose direct beneficence is readily recognized. But Kiana, like Manco Capac with the Peruvians, taught them a less slavish ritual. Instead of sacrifices of animals to deities whose attributes solely inspired dread, he led them to rejoice in the bounteous seasons, the vivifying sun, the winds that refreshed their bodies, and the clouds that watered their thirsty soil. He taught them that the waters that bore them so pleasantly from island to island, were much more to be regarded lovingly, than the devouring shark with superstitious fear. Thus without fully, or perhaps in any degree recognizing the principles of the One God, the people were led more into harmony with those of his works, which were suggestive of good and kind attributes, which they symbolized in idols, to which they offered chiefly the fruits of the earth. They were indeed idolaters, because their minds seldom, if ever, separated the image from the ideas, but it was an idolatry that made them cheerful and truthful, and not gloomy and cruel.
Contented under their government, reposing on their religion, these islanders presented a picture of happiness, which, if we consider only the peaceful, joyous flow of the material life, we might well envy. They had no money to beget avarice, or to excite to the rivalries and dishonesties of trade. There were no more prosperous territories and bounteous soils for them to covet by arms; none of superior force to make them afraid. Their diet was simple, and their diseases few. They had nothing to fear from famine, weather, noxious animals, or poisonous insects. Their unbounded hospitality kept want from even the idler,—their agricultural games and fisheries gave ample scope for their physical energies, while their numerous festivals, the songs of the bards, and traditions and speeches of their historians and orators kept alive a national spirit, which made them proud of their origin and their country.
All their myths were connected with the great phenomena of nature, with which their island was so pregnant. Hence in their minds there was a certain grandeur of sentiment, as well as loftiness of expression and suggestive imagery, that imbued them with the more elevating influences of the great nature around them. Then their joyous dances, particularly graceful and spirited among the children, though too expressive, perhaps, in action and words of the sensual instincts with the adults, caused the gayety of their sunny skies and the passionate enjoyments of their rare climate to come home to them with a fulness of sympathy that made them truly the children of material Nature. They danced, they sang, they sported, and they feasted, as if the present hour had had no predecessor, and was to see no successor. If they labored, it was that they might enjoy. In all their exercises, whether of amusement, religion or work, the requirements of the chiefs, or the necessities of their families, there was a renunciation of all but the present moment, mingled with so full a sense of sportive humor, that no civilized spectator could have looked unmoved upon their sensuous happiness, however much he might moralize upon its affinity to mere animal life.
If they ever thought of death, it was merely as a change to a world where their enjoyments would be still more complete. At the worst their spirits would only wander about their earthly abodes, vexed at the sight of pleasures which they could no longer participate in. The general idea the serfs had of heaven, was of some place specially given to the chiefs, into which if they entered at all, it was in the same servile and distinct relation to them as on earth. Perhaps one great cause of their contentment sprung from their implicit acquiescence in the power and privileges of their rulers, as of beings too vastly their superiors to admit even for a moment of any equality of fate or aspirations in either life.
Such in brief were the character and condition of the race among which Alvirez and his party were now domesticated, and to all appearance for life. There was much to reconcile them to their new position, as will be shown, and especially in the peaceful contrast their present homes presented to the crime and devastation which had been their experience in Mexico. True, there was no gold. But what need of gold, when all it represents was provided without price? After their long experience of perils and hardships, to the seamen their present lives seemed planted in Eden. An occasional affray with some distant tribe that sought to spoil their more fortunate countryman under Kiana’s rule, gave them opportunities to exercise their courage for the benefit of their new friends. The reputation which they soon established, and the supernatural character with which they continued in some degree, still to be regarded, especially at a distance, contributed much towards keeping the frontiers quiet. Juan and Kiana, according to Hawaiian custom, exchanged names, by which in friendship, power and property, they were viewed as one. But the better to appreciate the true position of each in reference to their new life, we must trace their individual experiences.
CHAPTER VIII.
Olmedo had not been idle during the year in his labors to convert the islanders to his faith. Nor was he without a certain degree of success, though very far from having instilled into them any definite ideas of Christianity. Indeed, strange as it may appear at the first statement, there was in the rites he wished to supersede so much analogy with those he wished to introduce, that the substitution was not easily effected. Juan, in his martial zeal for the Roman Catholic faith, would gladly have used the same arguments here as in Mexico; that is, have destroyed the idols, purified the temples, and set up crucifixes and new images, which only they should worship, whether persuaded or not of their religious efficacy. For once, however, Spanish zeal was obliged to be tempered with a respect for the force which was not now on their side. It must be confessed, also, that the easy, seductive life he had led, the absence of the worst features of heathenism, and the generous character and shrewdness of Kiana, had not a little weakened Juan’s fanaticism; so that, although conforming sufficiently to the ritual of his faith to keep himself within the pale of his church’s salvation, he had almost unconsciously imbibed the idea that some even of the virtues of Christianity might exist among pagans.
Within the walled enclosure in which Juan and his sister resided, overlooking the sea, Olmedo had built a small chapel. The rude images which native ingenuity under his direction had carved to represent the Virgin and her Son, were not so unlike their own wooden deities, as to require anything more than an enlargement of their mythology, for the simple natives to have accepted them as their own. This of course would have been only adding to the sin which Olmedo wished to eradicate. The good man, however, persevered in his rites and doctrines, and had the satisfaction to have numbers of the chiefs and their attendants come to witness his worship. Among them most frequently was Kiana, but as his eyes were oftener directed towards kneeling Beatriz, than the holy symbols of the altar, it is to be presumed that another motive beside religious conviction swayed his heart. He saw that the crucifix and the images of the gods of the white man, as he regarded them, were very dear to them. Out of respect, therefore, to his guests, in unconscious philosophical imitation of Alexander Severus, when he placed statues of Abraham and Christ among his revered images, Kiana had set up the crucifix in his domestic pantheon. How far he understood the teachings of Olmedo may be gathered from one of their not unfrequent colloquies upon religion.
Mass had just been said. Olmedo had trained some of the more tractable youths to assist him in the service, which they did the more willingly, from perceiving that it gave them a personal importance to be considered of the household of Lono. The solemn chant of the priest in a strange and sonorous tongue, the regular responses of the Spaniards, and their thorough devotion, the simple exhortations to a good life, which all present could comprehend, followed by the earnest eloquence of Olmedo, as he sought to expound in the Hawaiian tongue the mysteries of a faith which it had no terms correctly to render, all made an impressive scene. Their hearts were touched even when their minds were not enlightened.
It was the decline of day. The sun was pouring a flood of soft light over the sea, which sparkled as with the radiance of an opal. Kiana, Olmedo, and Beatriz, came out of the chapel, and reclined upon a pile of mats which their attendants had spread for them on a green knoll just beyond the reach of the waves. The trade wind fanned them with its cool breath, and sang an evening hymn amid the waving palms, high above their heads. A group of fishermen were hauling their nets, heavy with the meshed fishes, to the music of a wild chant. Numbers of both sexes were sporting in the surf. The line of breakers commenced far seaward, in long, lofty, curling swells, that came in regular succession thundering onward to the shore, which trembled under the mighty reverberation. It was not a sound of anger, nor of merriment, but the pealing forth of Nature’s mightiest organ, in deep-toned notes of praise. There was much in the commingled glories of sound and color, the beauty of the shore, and the expanse of the ocean, to suggest an Infinite Author to the most thoughtless mind.
Human life and happiness mingle largely with the scene. The bathers shout and gambol in the water as if in their native element. The maidens and boys,—with their parents, who in the frolic become children also,—dive under the huge combers as one after another they break and foam on their way to the shore. Heads with flowing tresses and laughing eyes are continually shooting up through the yeast of waters with merry cries, then ducking again to escape the quick coming wave. Rising beyond it, each plunge carries them further seaward, till with their surf-boards they reach the line of deep water. Then poising their boards on the very crests of the heaviest rollers, they throw themselves flat upon them, and skilfully keeping their position just on its edge before it topples and breaks, they are borne with the speed of race horses towards the shore. Now is their highest glee. In revelry they scream and toss their dark arms, which strikingly contrast with the silvery gleaming wave, urging their ocean steeds to still more headlong haste. They near the rocks. Another instant, and of their gaysome forms nothing will remain but mangled flesh and broken bones. But no: the wave passes from under them, and dashes its salt spray upon the land barrier, and far away among the green bushes; the surf board is cast with violence upon the shore, but the active swimmers avoid the shock, by sliding at the latest moment from their boards and diving seaward, again emerge, challenging each other once more to mount Neptune’s car.
A more quiet scene is at the left. Here flows a gentle stream, overhung with deep foliage. On its banks, to the beating of drums and the quick chants of the musicians, young children are dancing. They wear wreaths of white or scarlet flowers, intermingled with deep green leaves, on their heads; and on their bosoms are necklaces of bright shells or finely braided hair, and feather mantles about their waists. They are yet too young to feel other instincts than the gladsome and chaste impulses which are shown in light and graceful motions. Even the groups of adults seated on the grass, watching with interest their sports, reflect their innocent gayety, and become for the moment young and innocent themselves.
In the stream itself, mothers are teaching their infants to swim. Their love for the water is apparent in every struggle. They take to it like ducklings, and almost as soon as they can walk they can be trusted alone in that element. Now they turn their smiling faces towards their parents, and kick and cry for one more plash and still another; the delighted mother encouraging its attempts with soothing voice and tender care.
Such was the spectacle on which Kiana and his friends were gazing, after leaving the chapel and seating themselves by the sea-shore.
That day Olmedo had in his discourse dwelt more earnestly than usual upon the doctrines of his creed, with the hope finally to induce Kiana to cast aside his mythology and accept the Roman Catholic Trinity. Here, indeed, was the stumbling-block. How could Olmedo hope to make an idea, which was in a great degree contradictory and incomprehensible even to many of the cultivated and theological minds of Europe, intelligible to the simple reason of the Polynesian, when by the former it was at least only received as a great mystery!
“You tell me,” said Kiana, “that there is one great God, who made heaven and earth, an all-wise, all-perfect, all-powerful Being. He has created the Hawaiian, the Spaniard, the Mexican, and all the races of men. I know this to be true. My people worship the wooden images of deities, and think they supply their wants. But those of us who have been taught the true meaning of our sacred songs, know full well that these senseless idols cannot make the taro grow,—they do not send us rain,—neither do they bestow life, nor health. My thought has always been, there is one only Great God dwelling in the heavens.”
“Your thought is indeed right,” replied Olmedo; “but God many years ago, seeing how wicked the world was, sent his only-begotten Son to teach it true religion. He was cruelly crucified by the people to whom he was sent, and he went up to heaven, where he remains to be the judge and Saviour of all men. After his ascension, he sent to his disciples, to comfort them, the Holy Ghost. Now these three persons are one God,—the God whom we Christians worship. All your images are vain idols; cast them aside, and set up in their places the image of the Son, Jesus Christ, and his holy mother, of whom he was born in the flesh, by the will of God, without a human father. Then shall you and your people be saved.”
Had Olmedo been content to have acquiesced in the simple conception of the One God, he would have had little difficulty in persuading Kiana and his people to renounce the direct worship of idols, and to trust in and pray to the Great Father. There was something in their minds that made this idea seem not wholly new to them. This was derived in part from the mystic expressions of their bards, who had dimly felt this sublime truth, and in the testimony of the universal heart of the human race, which ultimately resolves all things into One Great Cause, however much it may overshadow his glory and pervert his attributes, by multiplying the symbols of natural powers, and make to itself “graven images” of earthly passions and foibles. But when Olmedo talked dogmatically of the “Three in One,” he left only a vague impression, that he worshipped either “three male gods and one female, which made four,” or that there were absolutely three equal gods, which in time they called “Kane, Kaneloa, and Maui.”
CHAPTER IX.
The good missionary, for such in truth was Olmedo, was met at every step of his argument with answers, which from their truth and good sense, he found no little difficulty in refuting, while he drew his weapons solely from the polemic armory of Rome. It matters little in what theological crucible the doctrines of Jesus may have been melted, they all become, after the process, perverted from their simplicity. They then require schools to sustain them and scholars to explain. Whereas in the few earnest and loving words of their Author, before they are petrified into creeds, they find their way readily into the hearts and minds of even children. Indeed properly to receive them we must become as little children. The polemical subtleties of Reason are wholly foreign to him who did Works in his Father’s name, that they might bear witness of Him.
As often, therefore, as Olmedo sought merely to indoctrinate Kiana, he was met with replies founded on assumptions of the same character as his own, or on the admission of similar ideas and ceremonies among the Hawaiians, which from their analogy to the rites and thoughts of his own church, a more bigoted Roman Catholic missionary of that day would have accounted for, only by the blinding devices of the devil. But Olmedo’s mind was so largely imbued with true charity, that recognizing a common brotherhood in man, he was prepared to admit that even the heathen were not left wholly without some spiritual light, which was the seed in due time destined to grow up into Christianity. His mildness and firmness were proportionate to the strength of his own convictions. He was patient also, and disclaimed forced conversions, which he well knew would only recoil into deeper error, through the avenging power of wounded liberty and reason. Moreover, he had no wish to substitute a new idol for an old one. In Mexico, humanity demanded the prompt abolition of human sacrifices and other cruel rites. Here he had no fanatical and crafty priesthood to oppose him; no barbarous customs openly to denounce; the people looked upon him as a messenger from some divinity, and listened deferentially to his exhortations. He saw plainly that the evils which he had to encounter lay deep in the temperament of the Hawaiian, and could only be eradicated by presenting to his mind moral truths, which might gradually so operate upon his sensuous character, as to give him higher motives of action, from convincing him that better results and increased happiness would be his reward both here and hereafter. Perhaps no obstacle was more fatal to his success than the easy and hospitable nature of the Hawaiian himself. Based as it was, upon the generous spontaneity of his climate, modified or directed by the individual character of the rulers and priests, it found no difficulty in adding to its mythology at the will of the latter, or in being courteous and kind to all. But this quality, dependent as it was mainly upon the healthful action of their animal natures, could not be permanently counted upon. Their passions, like the limbs of the tiger in repose, were beautiful to look at, but rouse them and they were equally fearful. In the exercise of hospitality, they freely proffered their wives and daughters to their guests, but excite their hate or jealousy, and their revenge became demoniacal. With all their external peace and happiness, there was but faint moral principle. This Olmedo saw, and endeavored to inculcate virtue as the only basis of religious reform.
On the other hand, they had often expressed much good-natured wonder at his refusal to take a wife from the most beautiful girls, which partly from pity at his continence, and partly to test its strength, they had offered him under the most seductive circumstances. His explanation of the vow of chastity required by his religion, did not aid to render it the more acceptable to them. It was beyond their comprehension that any deity should require such a mortification of the instincts he had himself created. Olmedo’s abstinence was therefore the more marvellous, but perceiving how scrupulously he fulfilled the obligations of his tabu, they gave him that respect which every sincere action, proceeding from a good motive, never fails to inspire. By degrees they began to feel in Olmedo’s life a purity and benevolence, which, overlooking his own bodily ease or enjoyment, was untiring in its efforts to do them all good. In sickness, he watched at their bedsides with herbs to heal and words to cheer. In strife he was ever active to make peace. Their children he fondled, and upon their plastic minds he was better able to impress the idea of a One Great God and his Son’s love. He told them beautiful stories of that sinless woman and mother of Judea, the Madonna, who centered in herself all the human and divine strength of her sex, and who, as the spouse of God, was ever nigh to pity, soothe, and protect. He taught them that to forgive was better than to revenge; that the law not to steal sprang from a better principle than fear of retaliation; in short, that virtue brought a peace and joy far beyond all that the fullest gratifications of their merely selfish desires could produce.
Much of this instruction fell among choking weeds. Still they were all better for having Olmedo among them; and, indeed, the very fact of their being able in any degree to appreciate his life, showed the dawnings of a new light to their minds.
Without this detail of the relative moral positions of the priest and his semi-flock, the reader would not appreciate the force of Kiana’s reply to Olmedo’s appeal, in which the latter had given a brief history of the Christian religion as derived from the Holy Scriptures and interpreted by the Roman church.
I give merely the substance of Kiana’s words, as it would be too tedious to follow them literally through the web of conversation which led to so full an enunciation of his own belief. The reader will perceive a sufficient coincidence, to suggest either a common source of knowledge in the earliest ages of human history or certain religious instincts in the human mind, that make isolated races come to practically the same religious conclusions.
“Some things that you tell me,” said Kiana, “are like our own traditions. From them we learn that there was a time when there was no land nor water, but everywhere darkness and confusion. It was then that the Great God made Hawaii. Soon after he created a man and woman to dwell on it. These two were our progenitors.
“Ages afterwards a flood came and drowned all the land, except the top of Mauna Kea, which you see yonder,” continued the chief, pointing to its snowy summit. “A few only of the people were saved in a great canoe, which floated a long while on the waters, until it rested there, and the people went forth and again built houses and dwelt in the land.
“One of our Gods also stopped the sun, as you say Joshua did, not to slay his enemies, but to give light to his wife to finish her work.
“We have a hell, but it is not one of torturing flames, but of darkness, where bad men wander about in misery, having for food only lizards and butterflies. Our heaven is bright like yours, and those who are admitted are forever happy. You tell me of a Purgatory, where the souls of those who go not directly to heaven or hell, remain in temporary punishment. Our priests tell us that the spirits of those who have been not very good or bad, remain about the earth, and that they visit mortals to protect or harm according to their dispositions.
“We pray with our faces and arms extended towards heaven, as you do. We have our fasts and our feasts, in memory of our good men, who have gone before us to happiness. We venerate their relics and the people worship them.
“You believe in One Great God and worship many. We do the same. What matters it by what names they are called. You declare a man whom you call Pope, to be the representative of God on earth; that he can bind or loose for hell or heaven; that only through belief in his church can any one be saved; that his authority is derived from dreams and visions, and prophesies and traditions written in a Holy Book.
“Our priests too have visions and dreams. Their gods visit them. They claim authority from the same sources of inspiration. Your Pope is no doubt right to govern you as he does. His book is a good book for you white men; but we red men have no need of a book, while our priests still talk with their gods, as you say yours once did.
“If no one can be saved except in believing in the Pope, what becomes of all the races you tell me of who have never heard of him? Would a good God punish his creatures for not knowing what they cannot know? No! I do not believe in this! The Great Spirit has given us Hawaiians some truth. Perhaps he has given you white men more. This I can believe, as I see you are so superior to us in knowledge, but that he created those only who acknowledge the Pope, to be saved, I do not believe!
“Our priests when they quarrel talk in the same way. Each claims to be the favorite and inspired of his God, but it is because they are selfish and ambitious. They wish to control men by pretending to hold the gate of Heaven. My thought is, that God hears and sees all men, whether they pray through priests or not. I am the Pope of my people, but I know that I cannot shut or open heaven to any one. I have no right to give away the lands of other people, because they do not believe as I do. Some prefer one God and some another.
“You have what you call an Inquisition to punish those who do not assent to your faith. We too have our ‘tabus’ which permit the same, when sacrilege is done or our laws broken. If we adopted your laws and customs, how should we be better off than now, when they are so alike?
“If your Jesus was the Supreme God, how could his creatures put him to death? How could he have been a man like us? If he were only a great prophet, then I can understand how these things happened and why he has since been worshiped as a God?
“Have you not heard our priests say, that among the doctrines that have come down to us from the earliest time, is one almost the same as you tell us of Jesus, ‘to love our neighbor as ourself, to do to him what we wish done to us?’ They also tell us to keep peace with all. God who sees will avenge, the same as you say, only that you constantly preach and practise it, which our priests have long since forgotten to.”
After this manner did Kiana reply to Olmedo. The words of the pagan were a prolific theme of reflection to him. In some things he found himself a scholar where he would have been a teacher. There was then a light even to the Gentiles. How vain was force, how wicked compulsion in matters of faith! Mankind all sought one common end, happiness here and hereafter. God had left none so blind as not to have glimmerings of truth. He would adjudge them according to their gifts, and not by an arbitrary rule of priestcraft. God’s laws were uniform and universal. All creation was penetrated with their essence. Sin brought its own punishment, and virtue its own reward, whether within or without the pale of the church. Was the Roman Church, after all, but one form of religious expression? An imperfect one, too! At this thought he shuddered as the force of theological dogmas recoiled upon him. It was but a transient emotion. Truth was not so easily subdued. The idea flashed through his mind, “Does not pure religion diminish in proportion as a stony theology flourishes? Is not that a science of words and forms of man’s creation, destined gradually to pass away, as the kingdom of God, which is only of the Spirit, shall increase until all men are baptized into it through Love and not through Fear?”
Olmedo’s heart swelled at these thoughts. As he gazed upon the scene before him, so in harmony with the joyousness of nature, so penetrated with her beauty, so choral with her melodies, the mere scholastic theologian died from within him. His face lighted into a glow of thankfulness, that God had created Beauty, and given man senses to enjoy it. Was there any good thing of his to be refused? Was not every gift to be accepted with gratitude, and used to increase his enjoyment? Was not the rule Use, and the denial Abuse? Was not the immolation of correct instincts a sacrifice of self to Belial? Were not the heathen themselves reading a lesson to him from Nature’s Bible, wiser than those he had studied from the Law and the Prophets? There was opened to him a new revelation. Not of Rome! Not from Geneva! God’s world in all its fulness flowed in upon him. He was inspired with the thought. Out from his eyes as he stood erect and felt himself for once wholly a man, there, shone a light that made those who looked upon him feel what it was for man to have been created in His Image. But beware monk! Beware priest! There is either salvation or ruin in this! Salvation, if Duty holds the helm,—ruin if Desire seizes the post.
Kiana regarded Olmedo in amazement. His was not the soul to enter into such a sanctuary. There was one, however, whose nature penetrated his inmost thoughts. Nay, more, it instinctively infused itself into his and the two made One Heart; intuitively praising Him. Their eyes met. One deep soul-searching gaze, and these two were for ever joined.
CHAPTER X.
The situation of Beatriz alone, so far as companionship of her sex was concerned, was peculiar. She was not one readily to give or seek confidence. Were she surrounded with her equals in race and cultivation, she would not have disclosed her inmost self, and least of all to a female. This was instinct rather than reason. Those about her thought they knew her in all points, because they saw how good and true she was to them. They loved her, because her vast capacity of love drew all lesser loves towards it. They came readily to her with their trials, because in her large heart and womanly perceptions there was an inexhaustible fountain of sympathy and a foresight truer than a sybil’s. Thus daily, wherever she was, whoever among, she received a constant tribute of devotion and confidence. The character of those about her grew better by her presence. But with all this power, of which each word or look could not but make her conscious, she was often inexpressibly sad.
Whence this sadness? Beatriz had never analyzed her own heart. While all others were open to her, her own had remained a mystery. She felt within it deep, broad currents of emotion, which led, she scarcely knew whither. That their waters flowed from a clear spring was self-evident, because her desires were pure and high. She loved her brother warmly, and he returned her love; still there was a wide gulf between them. With other men the gulf was wider. With women she had never been intimate. Hence, while she seemed so easily read by all about her, there still remained a mystery of which none had been able to lift the veil.
Her sympathy, self-sacrificing spirit and generosity; her indignation at the mean or base; her approving glance at the noble and true; her quiet courage and patient endurance; her piety, her quick perception, which so often anticipated man’s slower judgment; her passions even, for she had shown, when roused, a force and decision, that awed armed men and controlled rude hearts; all this was intelligible to her companions, and commanded their love and esteem. But there still remained a depth to her nature, that theirs could never have sounded, and would have remained fathomless to herself, unless stirred by a depth answering to her own.
All God-filled souls experience this. With all that rank, position and the ordinary affections of kindred can confer, with, as it were, every earthly wish gratified, there still remains, underlying the calm exterior of social cultivation, a gnawing and restlessness, that unmasks the skeleton at the feast. Something is ever wanting.
What is this want?
It is not Reason. The book of Nature is ever open, and the mind has but to look thereon to find always something new,—truths to lead it upward and onward, daily convincing it that its heritage is Infinity.
What is it then?
It is Love!
Yes, with all the resources of Reason, without Love, we are indeed widowed. Like Rachel we refuse to be comforted. No love will satisfy our hearts, however much we may cling to the phantoms of sentiment or passion, however strong may be the demands of duty, however implicit our obedience, unless the measure of our hearts is filled. We must have all that we can contain of all that we are and all that we are not. Then only dual souls become One.
It is right that it should be thus. The very misery arising from uncongenial unions or unsatisfied desires, springs from a benevolent law, which says, like pain to the diseased limb, “you are wrong.” Be dutiful but not satisfied. Although you now see through a glass darkly, in time light and harmony will be your portion. Cultivate your soul so as to receive a better inheritance.
Beatriz had never married. Her nature had kept her from the great error of mistaking a little for the whole. She who had so much to give, was too wise to fling herself away upon a single impulse. Her love for all was the result of an unconscious superiority of soul, which increased by what it gave. It was, more properly speaking, kindness or benevolence, and flowed from her as naturally and as sweetly as fragrance from the rose.
All great natures have in them a vein of sadness. This springs from the consciousness of the little they are, in contrast with the much they would be. With man it is an active want. He would know all things. He grasps the reins of the chariot of the sun, and falls headlong because he tries to fly before his wings are unfolded. Woman is more patient. She passively awaits her destiny. If it be long in coming, she may find solace in apathy, but she rarely, wilfully commits a wrong to hasten her right. Yet when her moral nature does become disordered, as the foulest decay springs from the richest soil, so she becomes so wanton as to cause even fallen man to shudder.
Love had remained passive in the soul of Beatriz. Its might was all there, but the torch that was to kindle the flame had not yet reached it. She only knew its power for joy by the pleasure she felt in seeing its effects in others. Thus she welcomed within herself all that she saw in another that was noble and lovable, while she shrank instinctively from every base action or degrading thought.
Kiana’s ardent, generous nature, had from the first been her captive. This she saw; but it inspired in her no deeper sentiment than the respect due his qualities. He, however, unlike most men, did not fancy that to love, implied of necessity to be loved. His passion was open and honorable. To the praise of the Hawaiian race, be it recorded, that no white woman ever received other than courtesy at their hands. Rich or poor, alone among thousands of natives, they and theirs with no other protection than their own virtue, have ever been, not only respected, but cared for, and to a certain extent venerated. White men, it is true, have in general been as hospitably received. But by their passions they speedily place themselves upon the level of the native. The white woman, on the contrary, from the first went among them as a missionary,—a being superior in virtue as in knowledge to themselves,—and by the affinity of respect which human nature everywhere shows for the truly good, she has ever maintained over this semi-barbarian race an ascendancy more real than hostile fleets have ever effected.[1]
Beatriz had nothing to fear from Kiana. It was not in her power to refuse his gifts for they reached her indirectly, through the thousand channels ever open to a despotic will. Kiana’s passion, like his nature, was princely. The rarest flowers, fresh every morning, were placed by unseen hands about her house. All that Hawaii could produce that was beautiful or delicate, found its way thither; she could not tell how, though she felt from whom it came. The choicest fruits were served to her by the fairest and best of Hawaii’s maidens. No wanton curiosity was allowed to intrude upon her retirement. If she walked out, not an eye gazed rudely upon her, not a glance questioned her motives. Amid a populous district, she was as retired, at her own choice, as if it were her pleasure grounds. The gallantry of Kiana had even provided for her a bathing place in a crystalline pool, so nicely shaded by nature and screened by art, as to form a retreat that Diana might have coveted. When he visited her, it was with the state of a Hawaiian noble. Rarely, unless specially invited by Juan, did he approach her in an informal manner. Savage though he was, he possessed a tact and an intuitive perception of the delicacy of Beatriz’s character, which led him to adopt the only course that could in any wise make him personally acceptable to her.
One day not long after the scene described in the last chapter, Beatriz, sadder than usual, was alone in her garden, looking at the ocean without seeing it, when Kiana came up to her and in a low voice said, “Does the white maiden mourn her Spanish home?”
“No, chief,” said Beatriz, “my home is with my brother. We are orphans.”
“Juan loves Hawaii,” replied Kiana, “and will stay with us. He is my brother, my Hoapili, ‘close adhering companion,’ my people now call him. But my heart is lonely. Will not his sister be my wife?”
The abruptness of the proposal, although so long foreshadowed by attentions that only an honorable love could have suggested, at first startled Beatriz, and for a moment she was at a loss for a suitable reply. Decided in her own feelings, she wished to spare him unnecessary pain, and at the same time preserve a friendship so important to the welfare of her brother. Perhaps she thought too of Olmedo. Her hesitation encouraged Kiana to plead his suit still farther.
“Kiana loves only the white maiden. Since his eyes first saw her, all other loves have left him. His heart grows feeble when she speaks. He trembles at her voice, but it is music to his ears. When she smiles the sun looks brighter, the birds sing more sweetly and the flowers grow more fragrant. My people see in her a deity. To me, she is my soul, my life. Be mine, maiden, and rule Hawaii, as you now rule me,” and the haughty chief, who had never before bent the knee in prayer to God or mortal, knelt to Beatriz.
Her resolution was at once taken. With a nature like his, frankness and firmness would, she felt, be appreciated.
“Rise, chieftain,” said she, “this must not be. White maidens give their hands only with their hearts. You are generous, noble, proud. Would you wed one who cannot return your love? No! Kiana could not stoop to that.”
“But thou wilt love. Thou art formed for love. Does not each bird seek a mate? Wilt thou, of all thy sex, be always alone? Look around. All nature smiles; thou only art ever sad. Let my love be thy smile, and Hawaii shall ever rejoice that ‘the pearl of the sea-wave,’ for so thou art called among us, was found upon her shore.”
“You speak truly, chief, when you call me sad, but were I to wed you without love, you too would soon grow sad. The white maiden respects you,—is grateful to you,—would serve you all in her feeble power, but she cannot do so great a wrong to herself and to you, as to say yes, when her heart speaks no.”
Kiana shook like an aspen leaf. His voice grew tremulous, but the pride and passion of his race were subdued before the truth and beauty of Beatriz. There had always been something in her deportment, which as decisively forbade hope where hope was not to be, as it would have invited love where love was to be. So he turned from her more in sorrow than in anger, but had gone but a few steps, when returning, he said, “Kiana loves you, and ever will. He seeks a companion, not a captive. You are right not to say yes, when you feel no; fear not. Kiana can love, even if not loved. All that he possesses is yours. Never shall it be said of Kiana that his love changed to dishonor, because he could not win the white maiden.”
Tears started to her eyes as she gave him her hand. She dared not trust her speech to express the gratitude she really felt, for fear it might revive his passion. And so they parted, each remaining true to their last words.