he was elected Moderator of the Association Churches.
The idea of a Biblical Museum occurred to him and he presented, not only an expanded outline of the project to the American Board, but described some preliminary steps he had taken to get it underway:
. . . Another project has occurred to me in taking up the study of the Life of Christ. I want very much a Biblical Museum to illustrate the manners and customs to which allusion is made in the Bible. Cannot your Secretaries secure from our missionaries in Turkey a collection of coins, utensils, clothing, manufactures, jewelry etc. which would be of service to me. Why not have such a collection available at the Rooms of the Board in Boston as a Loan Museum for Sunday Schools, Institutes, Conventions etc? I have written to our Hawaiian Missionaries to send a collection of such things from their various islands. When the Morning Star (steamer) comes back from her trip, she will probably bring me such a collection that I may be able to make out a duplicate set and forward to Boston.
Then if any special information is desired about the Micronesian Mission, little books could be prepared to accompany the collection for exhibition in various missionary gatherings. I have already many items gathered up which might easily be arranged into such a pamphlet illustrating life in these Pacific Islands before the Advent of the Gospel and its civilizing influences. Do you think favorably of this project?15
While nothing came of the proposed Biblical Museum, as such, it served to stimulate his conception of organizing the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum. Artifacts from the mission stations in the Pacific accumulated in the storage spaces of the Charles R. Bishop homes in Honolulu, while simultaneously a collection of materials from missions around the world piled up in the rooms of the American Board in Boston.
The two unclassified sets of Polynesian treasures were eventually absorbed in the Bishop Museum. Hyde, whether the museum would be Biblical or Bishop, was in the vanguard of museum thinking for his day.
About this time the American Board inquired if the Hawaiian churches could assume more of the Micronesian mission work. His reply was largely discouraging. He first listed the obstacles; among them: the native women were unwilling to go to Micronesia, the support of Micronesia would slow up the work in Hawaii, the pecuniary ability of the Hawaiian churches was diminishing, the population (of natives) was decreasing, the price of sugar in the world markets was down, salaries and budgets of the "foreign" churches were at too low a level, and there was added work with the newly arrived immigrants of several races. He followed this enumeration with a broad sweep across the Hawaii horizon of community income and outgo:
. . . In Honolulu, we have the various national charitable societies with expenses of $2000 a year, Free Masons and Odd Fellows with their halls and monthly dues, the Hospital, the Ladies Benevolent Society, the Stranger's Friend Society, the Sailor's Home, the Public Library, Kawaiahao Seminary, Oahu College etc etc besides daily calls to help individual cases of special need. The Bethel Church is making a heroic effort for that small handful of people to raise $2400 salary for their pastor, the Fort Street Church pays Mr. Cruzan $3200 besides a large sum for music, sexton etc. Under Mr. Cruzan's leadership that church is spending on itself and its city missionary work as much as $1500 or $1800 a year. Their sympathies are not with Foreign Missionary work, as was true of Mr. Frear. We have also to pay $1500 to the General Secretary of the YMCA and $500 to the Janitor, $200 to the Reading Room. Besides the contributions from churches and individuals to the Hawaiian Board, the Woman's Board raises annually $700 mostly for Micronesia. The Gleaners get $400 most of which goes to Rand on Ponape. Mrs. Hyde's little Hawaiian girls' sewing society supported last year 3 girls in Kawaiahao Seminary at $50 each, and gave $40 to Mrs. Lono, the wife of the returning Hawaiian missionary stationed at the Gilbert Islands mission. The Cousins Society raises annually $2000 mostly given to the Micronesian Mission, and every time the Morning Star goes, she takes individual remembrances of more or less value to every one of the Micronesian missionaries. Do you think we are now doing our part for the Micronesian Mission, generously and not neglecting either the pressing necessities of the work in our own community? What one church in the States will you find that begins to do what Fort Street Church has done for years and years, without a single member that can be called wealthy?
It ought to be considered that the total population of Honolulu [1885] is only 20,487, of this 10,853 are natives, 1164 only are Americans, 5265 are Chinese, 791 are British, 580 Portuguese. The whole white population is less than 3200. The American residents would represent a population about the same size as Brimfield, Massachusetts, where I was formerly pastor. You know the town. Think of that community doing anything like what I have shown above this community has been doing for years.16
The American Board had been reading his optimistic reports on NPMI activity, in preparing successfully its graduates for ministries in native churches in Hawaii and Micronesia. On its own side it was attempting to satisfy ever-increasing pleas from its far flung missions. It had built up the sanguinary hope that the Hawaiian Board might have by now accumulated sufficient funds to shoulder the burden of direct aid to the Micronesian cause.
This hoped-for takeover was not possible, but the Hawaiian work among the Micronesians, buffeted by the occupation forces of the French, Spanish and Germans, and also subjected to political changes under American leadership, would never cease. The propinquity trail to Micronesia would dim, but the dollars, clothes barrels and men and women of Hawaiian churches would find their way there over the years, even to this year, 1972, when this book is being written.
Dr. Hyde, ever so often in his letters to the American Board, would burst into a religious lyricism graphically depictive of his idealistic nature. One such reflection appeared in a letter to Judson Smith:
. . . Fifteen years have passed since the public celebration here of fifty years of missionary work in the North Pacific. We are making no such missionary history now as the fathers did. Our monumental stones are more likely to be like those that the disciples saw in Herod's temple, and of which the Master said, "Not one shall be left upon another." If it is true that God buries the workman but carries on the work, it is also true that our ideals are often lost in the fullness of a larger hope. This Hawaiian people may fade away, but as in growth of vegetation, the primitive gives place to the higher. The black coals of primeval forests are turning the wheels of varied industry and developed arts, that are transforming the face of the earth, and making it neglect the thought of man as well as the glory of Man. Oh for the coming of the day when every thought of man shall be holiness unto the Lord!17
He also stood on solid ground in explanation of the transfer of two church workers from plantation towns. "Rev. H. S. Jordan has given up the foreign church at Kohala, and goes to the coast on the next steamer, Feb. 20. Rev. Isaac Goodell also gives up at Honokaa, Hamakua, Hawaii. The fact is there is no possibility of building up a church on our sugar plantations. They have but few white men, and these very often are 'hard characters.' A minister's work is like a chaplain of a state prison, except that the chaplain is sure of an audience, and a minister on a plantation is not."18
Church land holdings were another problem of the Hawaiian Board. "My interest," he wrote, "in the Hawaiian Churches (Land titles) led me to prepare at the last annual meeting the appointment of a committee of investigation, and the Ass'n appointed me immediately."19 He asked the Hawaiian Board to authorize him to secure a complete record of all the land titles of the ABCFM in Hawaii.20
This was a matter plaguing the Board then. It still does. Properties were held under different kinds of grants, titles, trust deeds, provisions and much could and did happen to dissipate the ownership and controls. Hyde grasped the serious lack of orderly inventory and spent much time in gathering title data.
One result of this title search was a decision of the Hawaiian Board to create a Finance Committee, the first in its history, which "shall decide what investments shall be made of the special and permanent funds of the Board . . . have charge of the real estate held by the Board in fee simple or in trust. . . ." It was provided for on November 5, 1889 but was slow in getting under way. It had its first meeting in 1893 and Hyde picked up another secretaryship. He maintained his usual standards here: never missed a meeting, wrote the minutes longhand and signed each set. The precedent established in this modest plan of management of church properties has been followed