nd very much like Samoans, except in one particular, that
they were much wiser and better at that business of fighting of which
you think so much. But the time came to them as it now comes to you, and
it did not find them ready. The messenger came into their villages, and
they did not know him; they were told, as you are told, to use and
occupy their country, and they would not hear. And now you may go
through great tracts of the land and scarce meet a man or a smoking
house, and see nothing but sheep feeding. The other people that I tell
you of have come upon them like a foe in the night, and these are the
other people's sheep who browse upon the foundation of their houses. To
come nearer; and I have seen this judgment in Oahu also. I have ridden
there the whole day along the coast of an island. Hour after hour went
by and I saw the face of no living man except that of the guide who rode
with me. All along that desolate coast, in one bay after another, we
saw, still standing, the churches that have been built by the Hawaiians
of old. There must have been many hundreds, many thousands, dwelling
there in old times, and worshipping God in these now empty churches. For
to-day they were empty; the doors were closed, the villages had
disappeared, the people were dead and gone; only the church stood on
like a tombstone over a grave, in the midst of the white men's sugar
fields. The other people had come and used that country, and the
Hawaiians who occupied it for nothing had been swept away, 'where is
weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

"I do not speak of this lightly, because I love Samoa and her people. I
love the land, I have chosen it to be my home while I live, and my grave
after I am dead; and I love the people, and have chosen them to be my
people to live and die with. And I see that the day is come now of the
great battle; of the great and the last opportunity by which it shall be
decided whether you are to pass away like these other races of which I
have been speaking, or to stand fast and have your children living on
and honouring your memory in the land you received of your fathers.

"The Land Commission and the Chief Justice will soon have ended their
labours. Much of your land will be restored to you, to do what you can
with. Now is the time the messenger is come into your villages to summon
you; the man is come with the measuring rod; the fire is lighted in
which you shall be tried, whether you are gold or dross. N