n the
newly created Christian community. The first problem stated came first
in the order of time, and it involved the solution of the other. It was,
how to convert the Islands into the home of the missionaries, (which the
peculiar relation of the Islands to the commercial world then rendered
possible,) and the missionaries into citizens and pastors. This was
effected, so far as the action of the Prudential Committee was
concerned, by a series of resolutions made public in the Report of the
Board for the year 1849. The response of the missionaries was in general
favorable, though it required five years was complete the arrangement.
The case was unprecedented; there was no experience; every step had to
be considered in its principles, its equity, and its expediency. The
transition was at length effected, and the mission was merged in the
general Christian community of the Islands. The meeting of the mission
in May, 1853, was its last meeting in its associated, corporate
character as a mission,--responsible, as such, to the Board,
controlling, as such, the operations of its members. The relations of
the ministry and churches of the Sandwich Islands towards the Board and
its patrons, and towards other foreign missions and the Christian
church at large, then became those of an independent Christian
community. The salaries of the native pastors, the cost of church
buildings, and the greater part of the cost of schools, were to be met
(as in fact they have been) by the natives. So was the support of
Hawaiian missionaries, whether sent to Micronesia, or to the Marquesas
Islands. It was only in _part_, however, that the natives could support
their _foreign_ pastors. The Board, in this new relation of things,
would have to sustain to the new Christian community a relation like
that, which the Home Missionary Society sustains to the Christian
community in Oregon or California; and it might be necessary to continue
this relation for some time.

_Native College at Lahainaluna._

The first important step taken at the Islands after the mission had
responded, in the year 1849, to the proposals of the Prudential
Committee, was the transfer, by the Board, of the native Seminary or
College at Lahainaluna to the Hawaiian Government. This is wholly for
natives. The transfer was made on the condition, that the institution
should continue to cultivate sound literature and science, and not allow
to be taught religious doctrines contrary t