“Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you, there is no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper; and if any man shall lift his voice against you, he shall be confounded in mine own due time.”
I have found every word of this to be true.
Napela was not frightened by what the missionary had said. He was threatened with removal from his judgeship and with being cut off from their church; but he manifested no disposition to have me leave his house.
The pressure, however, finally became so strong through the continued efforts of the preacher, that I thought it would be wiser for me to withdraw from Wailuku for awhile. I felt for Napela, for he had a heavy opposition to contend with, and I thought that if I went elsewhere, the persecution would not be so severe.
There was a place called Kula, (which means a country near the base of a mountain) where there were a few scattered villages, about eighteen miles from Wailuku, to which I was led to go. It was rather an out-of-the-way place, though just before I went there, a brisk trade in Irish potatoes, which grew spontaneously in that region, had been carried on; the people hauling them in carts, from there to a small port not far distant. These potatoes were carried in schooners to California to supply the gold diggers. But they were of a poor quality, and when the farmers of California began to raise them the trade ceased. The business had begun to fall off when I went there.
I stopped at the house of a man by the name of Pake, who had charge of Napela’s affairs in Kula, and to whom he had given me a letter of introduction when he found that I had determined to go there. He received me very kindly, also a man by the name of Maiola, whom I had met in Wailuku. He was a deacon in the Presbyterian church.
Chapter 9
Another Attack from a Missionary—Courage in Defending the Truth Always Admired—Poverty of the People
Kula, the district where I had gone to live, was visited about once in three months by the Presbyterian missionary who had it in charge. The Sunday after my arrival there was his day to make his quarterly visit, and I went down to the village where he was to hold his meeting. His name was Green, and he and I had met a few weeks previously, and had a conversation in which he grew very angry and said he would curse me.
There was a large attendance of natives at this meeting, and he took for his text the 8th verse of the first chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Galatians: