TITLE PAGE OF FIRST HYMN BOOK, 1823
Liho-liho was glad to have the chiefs instructed and took 100 copies of the first primer for his friends and attendants. Ka-ahu-manu took 40 for her friends. These probably came from this printing of 500 copies. In the latter part of September, another printing of 2,000 copies was made from the same type.
Liho-liho felt a little like the foreigners who did not want the natives instructed. He wanted the education reserved for the chiefs because, according to Mr. Bingham, “he would not have the instruction of the people in general come in the way of their cutting sandalwood to pay his debts.”
Nevertheless, the flood could not be held back and the privilege of reading and writing rapidly spread among the people. In six years there was the record—
“Oahu: Mission Press, Nov. 1828; 5 Ed.; 20,000. Total, 120,000.”
Meanwhile a great deal of other printed matter had been issued from that first press.
March 9, 1822, at the request of the king and high chiefs a handbill, entitled, “Port Regulations,” was printed, probably to aid the rulers in quieting the differences which were continually arising with sea captains. The fourth item recorded as issued in these islands was in December, 1823, and is the very rare and unique little book of 60 pages of [[187]]Hawaiian hymns prepared by Rev. Hiram Bingham and Rev. William Ellis, an English missionary from Tahiti who resided in Honolulu at the time, heartily allying himself with the American missionaries. His previous knowledge of the similar language of Tahiti made it easy for him to learn Hawaiian. The edition of this hymn book was 2,000 copies.
The most interesting part of the story of printing in the Hawaiian Islands belongs to the greatest work accomplished for the good of the people—the printing of the Bible in the Hawaiian language. This article has space for only a few facts. The first printed Bible passage was in a revised spelling book published April, 1825. This was John 3, 16–21. Then in June, 1825, a booklet, 4 pages, called—“He olelo a ke Akua,” or “Selected Scriptures,” was probably printed on the same demy with “He ui,” or “A catechism,” 8 pages—each 7,000 copies. In November, 1825, the hundredth Psalm was “printed on a card for the opening of the church built by Ka-lai-moku at Honolulu,” then in December, 1825, the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer; in July, 1826, the Good Samaritan, and in January, 1827, the Sermon on the Mount.
In December, 1827, came the first systematic attempt toward printing the Bible. Twelve pages of the Gospel of Luke were struck off—10,700 copies. Later the entire book of Luke was printed in Honolulu. [[188]]The other gospels, Matthew, Mark and John, were printed in 1828 in the United States. A copy of these three gospels, bound in an elegant and substantial cover, was presented to Ka-pio-lani, the high chiefess who defied Pele on the brink of the pit-crater of Kilauea in 1825. This volume now lies in the archives of the Hawaiian Board. The entire Bible was completed and “the finishing sheet was struck off May 10, 1839.”