King Kamehameha and Queen Emma

Today (November 28) is the day of the church year for remembering King Kamehameha IV and his wife Emma, who were Christian monarchs of Hawaii and in that role built Christian schools and hospitals and spread of the Christian faith among their people. Below is a quote written by the king for the introduction to the Book of Common Prayer created for the Hawaiian Islands. In it, the king outlines his confident belief that it was the Holy Spirit working in hearts and minds over time to bring faith in Jesus to his people on the Hawaiian Islands.

There are branches of this Church in every land. How the Church has come down from the times of the Apostles to these days in which we live is not a matter about which the generality of men are ignorant. It were useless perhaps to set forth how she has taken root sooner or later all over the world. She is planted in America, in Asia, in Europe, in Africa, in the islands which stud the ocean, and now, behold! she is here with us in these islands of our own.

Let us see how she felt her way and reached us at last. Our ancient idols had been dethroned, the sexes ate together, and the prohibition upon certain articles of food was held in derision by the females to whom it had been a law; the temples were demolished, the kapu had become no more than a memory of something that was hateful before, and the priests had no longer any rites to perform—indeed, there were no priests, for their office had died out. These changes came no doubt by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, acting through blind, unsuspecting agents. These revolutions were greatly furthered and helped along by those devout and devoted men who first brought here and translated into our mother-tongue God's Holy Word: and we, whilst these lines are being written, see the complete fulfilment of what the Bible enjoins in the establishment here of Christ's Church....The Church is established here in Hawaii through the breathings of the Holy Spirit and by the agency of the chiefs...

This our Church is an off-shoot of that branch of the One true Church, established in Great Britain and called the Anglican Catholic Church, which is itself a branch of the One Apostolic and Holy Catholic Church founded for evermore by our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be all praise, power, glory and dominion for ever and ever.

Amen.