The missions-focused Concert of Prayer served as the prayer covering for the evangelical mission begun in Hawaii in 1820, as well as for the evangelical foreign missions sent from America and Great Britain that spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ around the globe to unreached nations in the nineteenth-century. The Concert of Prayer service was simple, yet proved to be world-changing. Its two-part goal was to synchronize consistent prayer for the conversion of the world through reviving the Christian church, and through that revival to effectively and consistently advance the Kingdom of Christ throughout the world.
Usually held on the first Monday evening of the month the Concert of Prayer meeting brought missions to the forefront in local churches throughout the young United States and across Great Britain. The Concert of Prayer lay behind the 1806 American foreign missions-seeding Haystack Prayer Meeting at Williams College in Massachusetts. In 1809 Haystack Prayer leader Samuel J. Mills Jr. met ‘Opükaha’ia-Henry Obookiah in a dorm room at Yale College. Mills instantly envisioned an American mission to Hawaii to reach the Hawaiian people.
In October 1819 the pioneer mission to Hawaiinamed the Sandwich Islands Mission – departed from Boston Harbor. The mission company held a monthly Concert of Pray aboard the brig Thaddeus. Three native Hawaiian students from the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut joined them and were full members of their missionary church.
Sybil: Early on the morning of the 25th we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and entered the southern temperate zone. The northern, the region of our birth, we shall probably never enter again.
But, distant climates need not look strange to us, for if we are the children of GOD, and live near to Him, we can never be far from home. [Christmas] was noticed by us as the Anniversary of the blessed Saviour’s birth. Mr. B preached from Luke 2, 14th. [Glory to God in the Highest] …It was peculiarly adapted both to the day and the circum- stances of most of the hearers,—on our way, as we are, with the glorious news of this most glorious event, to heathen sinners.
A CHRISTMAS HYMN By W. G. Conan [Sailor aboard the Thaddeus] Sung at Sea by the Mission family – Tune – “The Hermit”
May Religion’s blest Star, as we traverse the Ocean, Illumine our way, and its comforts impart, While our fond lingering thoughts, we back with emotion, To the country that holds the dear friends of each heart. JEHOVAH— assist, in the soul-trying hour, The Mission of Peace, to a far distant land, By them, may the Priests of Idolatry learn, That their Morais and Taboos and offerings are vain, Let the Nation, from Idols and violence turn, And the joy of Salvation perpetual reign. Now swell the loud anthems of praise to the Lord, From whom streams of Mercy incessantly flow, Be the Father, the Son, and the Spirit adored, By all nations, and kindreds, and realms here below.
January 11th, 1820 – What can I say to my sisters, this morning? I can tell them, could the eye glance across the great waters and catch the little bark, ascending and descending the mountainous waves, which contains their dear sister, their hands would be involuntarily extended for her relief, and their cry would be save her! The sea runs very high, while the wind roars through the naked riggings as you may have heard it, in a November’s day, through the leafless trees of a majestic forest. The dashing of the waves on deck, the frequent fall of some thing below, the violent motion of the vessel, going up and then down, would seem to conspire to terrify and distress; yet I feel my mind calm as if by a winter’s fire in my own happy land. Is it not of the mercy of GOD? I feel it is. But, O, the poor returns I make ! We are approaching Cape Horn. What terrific scenes await us there, we know not.
“Sufficient for us, our Pilot is divinely wise, divinely good.”
A key collection of published Hawaiian language materials can be found in the archives of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts.
The American Antiquarian Society has accepted for inclusion of its collection a copy of my new book Preparing the Way – A Pictorial History for the Hawai‘i Mission Bicentennial 1820-2020. This pictorial history provides an illustrated narrative of the formation and sending of the pioneer Protestant missionary company sent to Hawai‘i from Boston by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in 1819.
The American Antiquarian Society library located in Worcester, Massachusetts dates back to the Early Republic days of the United States. The Society describes itself as: “Founded in 1812 by Revolutionary War patriot and printer Isaiah Thomas, the American Antiquarian Society is both a learned society and a major independent research library. The AAS library today houses the largest and most accessible collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, music, and graphic arts material printed through 1876 in what is now the United States, as well as manuscripts and a substantial collection of secondary texts, bibliographies, and digital resources and reference works related to all aspects of American history and culture before the twentieth century.”
During a research visit in 2018 I discovered a book with perhaps the first mention of plans for an American Protestant mission to evangelize the Hawaiian Islands. In searching for unknown, obscure details about the Christian History of Hawai‘i, I will often begin with a general term like the key word “Obookiah” and see what publications show up. Through a search for “Samuel Mills” in the digital card catalog available within the AAS library an 1810 book titled A Collection of Letters on Missions turned up. A note within the card catalog notation showed the book was self-published at the Andover Theological Seminary by American Foreign Missions founder Samuel Mills Jr. and Adoniram Judson, who sailed from Salem, Massachusetts in 1812 as the leader of the first foreign Protestant mission sent from the shores of the young United States. In the rear section of the book the Sandwich Islands is mentioned. Henry ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia was in Andover with Samuel Mills at the time of the distribution of the book. One wonders if Henry helped his friend with the packing and shipping of the books, which were sold in advance by subscription to church congregations in New England to promote foreign missions. The book also gave one of the first notices of the formation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, inspired in spring 1810 by a request from Mills, Judson and two other Andover students. That took place at Bradford, Massachusetts, about eight miles north of Andover.
The American Antiquarian Society collection houses rare and newspapers with a Hawai‘i tie. The family of James Hunnewell, an officer aboard the brig the Thaddeus upon which the pioneer company sailed to Hawai‘i, in recent years has donated their collection of Hawaiian language mission press publications. This includes a copy of the first Hawaiian alphabet, struck off the Mission Press in January 1822.
The Rev. Samuel Damon (February 15, 1815 – February 7, 1885) of Hawai‘i joined the American Antiquarian Society in 1869. His ancestor Samuel Damon of Holden, Massachusetts in 1836 donated a corner of the property where the AAS is today located. The Rev. Damon served as the pastor of the American Seaman’s Friend Society chapel in Honolulu from 1841 to 1869 during the height of the American whaling ship era. He founded and published The Friend, a monthly newspaper He was the editor and publisher of The Friend, a monthly newspaper printed in Honolulu. The Friend was an outreach to the thousands of sailors who arrived in Hawai‘i each year during his life in Hawai‘i and included news of ship arrivals and departures and a wide variety of news about the Hawaiian Islands.
Poai Lincoln traveled from Hawai‘i to perform at the American Antiquarian Society in October 2019 during an event organized by the Hawaiian Mission Houses for the 2019 Hawai‘i Mission Bicentennial in New England. Poai accompanied acclaimed Hawai‘i actor Moses Goodes who performed in the main room of the AAS his one-man drama My Name is ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia.
The pioneer Hawai‘i Mission company sailed aboard the brig Thaddeus, a ship known in its day as the Mayflower of the Pacific, departing for the Hawaiian Islands from the Long Wharf in Boston on October 23, 1819. This 163-day voyage taken around Cape Horn brought evangelical Christianity to Hawai‘i, changing the Islands forever.
The sending of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions company came at the request of Native Hawaiian scholar Henry ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia. Henry died of typhus fever at about the age of thirty at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut in February 1818. His dying wish was to return to Hawai‘i and to fulfill his plans to join with American missionaries in bringing the Gospel to the Hawaiian Islands.
Model of brig Thaddeus was displayed in the History Room of Mokuaikaua Church in Kailua, Kona. The Thaddeus was 85feet long, with a beam of 24 feet.
The Rev. Lyman Beecher, pastor of the Litchfield Congregational Church in Litchfield, Connecticut mentored ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia following his baptism at Torringford, Connecticut in 1814. Henry and his fellow Hawaiian scholars at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut were welcomed into the Beecher home. Beecher rose to become one of the most renowned ministers in New England in the 1820s. The Litchfield pastor preached the sermon at Henry’s funeral at the Cornwall Center Cemetery in February 1818.
Lyman Beecher presents a clear picture of the Pilgrim-Hawai‘i tie in his landmark sermon “The Memory of Our Fathers” given at Plymouth in November 1827. Beecher told the gathering, “If we look at our missionaries abroad [n.b. in Hawai‘i, Ceylon, Burma, elsewhere], and witness the smiles of heaven upon their efforts, our confidence, that it is the purpose of God to render our nation a blessing to the world, will be increased. In talents, and piety, and learning, and doctrine, and civil policy, they are the legitimate descendants of the Puritans.”
In the United States Capitol Building in Washington D.C. hangs a grand painting of the Pilgrim departure from Holland. Pilgrim leader William Bradford. In his book History of Plymouth Plantation, the first book written in New England, Bradford quoted their pastor John Robinson who declared a prophecy over the departing Pilgrims. Bradford, rather than seeing the Pilgrims as just fleeing the Old World for religious freedom, portrayed Robinson as sending off the Pilgrims as missionaries. Bradford emphasized this by quoting Robinson:
(They had) a great hope & inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for ye propagating & advancing ye gospel of ye kingdom of Christ in these remote parts of ye world; yea, though they should be but as stepping-stones unto others for ye performing of so great a work.
The Pilgrims land at Plymouth (Library of Congress)
FUTURE EVENTS
Grand plans to commemorate in April 2020 in Hawai‘i the arrival of the pioneer Mission Company, and in November 2020 in Plymouth, Massachusetts the arrival of the Pilgrims, have both been postponed due to the covid-19 epidemic.
The restored Mayflower II is featured in Sea History for Fall 2020. Click to read the news about the ship’s return to Plymouth from a three-year restoration at Mystic Seaport shipyard.
Events for the Hawai‘i Mission Departure Bicentennial were held in Boston at the Park Street Church, and across New England in October 2020.
Bicentennial events for the Hawai‘i arrival of the Sandwich Islands Mission had been planned for April 2020 in Kailua-Kona, in Honolulu, and in Waimea, Kaua‘i.
