nity has now the vantage
ground as regards all good influences, and with the divine blessing is
able to mould the literary and religious institutions of the Hawaiian
nation. Religion, just now, has a strong hold on those Islands. The
present is, therefore, a favorable time to institute a College, and put
it into a working condition.

The necessity for an institution, such as it is proposed to make of the
_Oahu College_, is one of the most obvious and interesting facts now
presented to our view in that part of the world.

1. The College is essential to the development and continued existence
of the Hawaiian nation. It is so because the missionary portion is
really the _palladium_ of the nation, and because a College is essential
to that part of the community. The religious foreign community cannot
otherwise long continue to perform its functions. It must have the means
of liberally educating its children on the ground. Without a College,
its moral, social and civil influence will tend constantly to decay.
This most precious Christian influence, now rooted on the Islands, now
no longer exotic, needs only the proper culture to perpetuate itself.
The cheapest thing we can do for the Islands and for that part of the
world, is to furnish this culture. It is better to educate our ministry
there, than to send it thither from these remote shores. Indeed we are
shut up to this, as our main policy. The providential indications are
perfectly clear. Through the grace of God and the gospel of his Son, all
the means, excepting such as are pecuniary, for perpetuating
Christianity at the Islands, are already there. Mr. Armstrong, the
Minister of Instruction at the Islands, writing to one of the
Secretaries of the American Board under date of January 2, 1856, bears
this remarkable testimony:--

"During the year 1855, just closed," he says, "I visited all the
Islands, and every missionary station, in the course of my official
duty, and had good opportunities for seeing how the brethren conduct
the affairs of their respective stations, and the success that has
crowned their labors. I found them all at their posts, hard at work,
watching for souls, and promoting the welfare of their people in various
ways. As a class, they are very laborious and self-denying, and the
advancement of their people in knowledge, industry, civilization and
religion, is the best evidence of their success. I have lived for weeks
on weeks among the natives, lodg