Page images
PDF
EPUB

this may be considered as a sort of experiment; and we have as yet to see how far these converts will hold to the religion they have received, and continue in the profession of Christianity, after the individuals, whose influence has made them Christians, shall have been removed.*

There are a number of secondary missions, but of small interest to us, and the history of all which is the same. In the year 1765, a mission was founded among the Kalmucks of the Wolga, at Sarepta, under the auspices and protection of the Empress Catherine of Russia, by the Moravians. Mr. Henderson, an English missionary, who visited them in 1821, states that, after having been established fifty-six years, they have not succeeded in making one convert. All that they can boast of is a few girls, who gave encouraging hopes of the work of the Holy Spirit in their souls; but among the grown natives there has not been one conversion.† I might say same of many other of their missions; which are rather agricultural and manufacturing colonies than apostolic missions. The Moravians established many missions in the last century; in Saxony, in 1735; on the coast of Guinea, 1737; in Georgia, 1738; at Algiers, 1739; in Ceylon, 1740; in Persia, 1747; and in Egypt, 1750; of which not the slightest trace exists at the present day.

the

Before leaving the missions of the Moravians, I may mention the observation of several travellers, and, among others, of Klaproth, that the settlement at Sarepta, and, indeed al! their other missions, end in becoming mere commercial establishments, and the Chevalier Gamba, resident French Consul at Astracan, gives a singular instance of supposed degeneracy in Moravian settlements, which have apparently become

* I regret being obliged, from fear of becoming tiresome, to omit the history of attempted conversion in the West Indies, where the series of failures is as remarkable as in the other parts of the world of which I have treated.

Biblical Researches and Travels in Russia.
Voyage au Mont Caucase et en Georgie.

Lond. 1826. p. 411. Par. 1823, tom. i. p. 261.

only industrious villages, without any traces of religious principles.*

In 1802, Messrs Brunton and Paterson opened a mission among the Tartars at Karass, under an escort of Cossacks, and that also is stated by Henderson to have failed,† as well s one attempted for the conversion of the same people by Mr Blythe. The late Emperor Alexander put an end to this and other missions, and forbade their prosecution; but, even before that, they were acknowledged not to have produced any fruit.

It would be easy to collect acknowledgments of a more general character, that prove the failure of missionary attempts, conducted by these numerous societies, over all the world. Thus, the Rev. Mr Bickersteth, secretary of the Church Missionary Society, publicly declared in a speech at York, in May 1823, that," in the course of the first ten years, the society never heard of a single individual, who passed from idolatry to Christianity." The missionary register, after twenty years' labour, acknowledges, that "a present and visible success is not the criterion that their labours have been accepted by God." The Church Missionary Society confess, after the same period of attempt, that they have no proof of success to bring forward, and that small success has yet appeared in the actual conversion of the heathen. A missionary, in the same journal, speaking of a youth, who had shown symptoms of conviction, but, without being converted, apologises for his delight at such a trifle, compares himself to a poor wretch, wandering in darkness, who leaps with joy at the distant appearance of light; and hails this first example of approximation, as an augury that our children's children will, perhaps, see the result of these labours! I will close these acknowledgments with the words of a periodical to which I have before referred. "We should lay aside this * Voyage dans le Russie meridional. Par. 1826, tom. ii. p. 370. † Ubi sup. p. 420.

York Herald, May 31, 1823.

Quoted in the Catholic Miscellany, Jan. 1823.

history of the propagation of Christianity among the Heathen with some mortification and despondency, if our hopes of the diffusion of our religion depended on the success of such undertakings as the present volumes record;"* that is to say, the attempts made to propagate Christianity among the Indians of America.

There is still another mission, which may appear, at first sight, to have been attended with considerable success; that I mean, to the Islands of the Pacific, undertaken with the same or greater advantages than I have described when speaking of the native tribes of America. It is a very singular fact, that this is almost the only instance on record of a nation having been the first to desire Christianity, and, consequently, of its having been willing to receive it under whatever form it should first come. It is a known fact, that the natives of those islands, from seeing the superiority of the traders from other nations, and principally of those from America, were led to ask for missionaries to propagate Christianity among them This at once forbids our considering the establishment of Christianity there, as the result of any principle of faith, presented to the acceptance of the individuals. They conceived that Christianity was a better system than their own, because they had seen it give men a superiority of mind and character; and, with exceeding good sense, no doubt, they determined on embracing it. But it cannot be considered as a fair specimen of the success which Protestant doctrines can have, when preached to heathen and uncivilized nations. I should be sorry to enter on a history of this mission on another actount. Having conceded to it all that can be called outward success, that is to say, having granted that great numbers of the natives have embraced Christianity; and having excluded it from the object, which I have in view, which is to try the comparative strength and power of the different systems preached, I should be sorry to enter into a history of it, be cause it seems to present one of the most lamentable effects Monthly Review, Vol. 84, p. 152.

**

of misguided zeal, that probably could be conceived. I have with me extracts from writers, describing the state of these islands after they had been, not converted, but subjugated, by the missionaries: who, after having made themselves masters of the whole temporal dominion of the islands, after having made the king and his people their slaves, after having stript the natives of that simplicity of character for which they were before remarkable—and I am sure you would hardly believe it possible that men, under the shelter of the word of God, and professing to teach the doctrines of Christianity, could have so acted, have reduced the country to a state of such wretchedness, that persons who have since visited it, declare. that, instead of a blessing, the new religion has been its utter ruin. They say, that the system of Christianity enforced on the natives, has been such, as totally to change them for the worse; that, instead of an active open-hearted race, it has rendered them crafty, indolent, and treacherous: so that, immense tracts of country, which were formerly seen covered with the most beautiful crops, are now totally barren; and the cultivation of that important plant, the bread-fruit tree, has been so neglected, that it is in danger of becoming extinct in the island; —that feuds, quarrels, and disputes, have been so general, hat a prince, one of the most intelligent persons in the country, and the first to embrace Christianity, on the arrival of the missionaries, had fitted out an expedition, to emigrate from his own country, because he could not bear the severity of their yoke. These are facts which have been published in this country; but I shall perhaps have occasion to return to them, and say something more of these islands, when I come to treat of the missions established in them by the Catholics within these few years.

*

Such seems to be the result of the missionary system as

* Consult the "Voyage of H. M. S. Blonde to the Sandwich Islands." Lond. 1827. "The Quarterly Review," vol. xxxv. p. 400, and ixx. p. 609. Kotzebue's "Second Voyage round the world," and Augustus Toole's "Account of nine months residence in New Zealand."

hitherto tried, in every case; and I am not conscious of having concealed any thing, or of having overlooked any testimony that could go against me. I have carefully drawn my extracts from the original reports; but I have not given you one half the store of materials which I had brought together in examining the subject. The result, however, is satisfactory beyond any thing, that hitherto the attempts made to preach the Gospel to the heathen on the Protestant principle, that the Bible alone is sufficient-that there is no other sanction or authority in religion-has almost, without exception, everywhere failed. There is yet another point to be examined. In spite of what I have said we meet constantly, in the reports of the societies, an account of many persons being converted. Now, I have not been able to help noting certain criterions of great importance, in estimating the character of the conversions so stated.

In the first place, you must not allow yourselves to be led away by those reports, which speak of the immense number of copies of the Bible and the New Testament distributed among the natives of heathen countries,―you must not suppose that this gives any evidence of conversion,—nor that, because missionaries ask for innumerable quantities of Bibles, any thing like a proportionate number of conversions are made. For, these Bibles are sent out in cargos, and accumulated in warehouses abroad, or distributed to persons who make no use of them at all, or make them serve any purpose, as you will see by a few examples, which I will give you just now. General Hislop, in his "History of the Campaign against the Mahrattas and Pindarris," says, that "these missionaries think that this distribution of the Gospels in Chinese, Sanscrit, &c., is sufficient to obtain their purpose; and as they send out these books to English agents and magistrates, in different places, so they reckon the number of their converts, and the success of their labours, in proportion to the copies distributed." He says, that he knew several residences, where no vessel ever arrived without a case or bale of Bibles for

« PreviousContinue »