The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-02 00:00:00

THE PRESS OCTOBER 2 185th

tion required. If the duty were reduced to one-fourth
of its present amount, he believed the consumption
would increase so enormously, that in a very short
time the Exchequer would lose nothing whatever by
the reduction. As an instance of the effect which
the present high rate of taxation produced, he might
mention that in the United Kingdom the annual
consumption of tea was about two and a quarter
pounds per head, while in the colony of Victoria, in
ccnsequence of the absence of taxation, it was ten
pounds per head. lie had been induced to make
these observations simply because he wished to point
out how much good might result from the improved
state of our relations with China. Hitherto we had
regarded China as a barbarous country ; but he
trusted that every year, as our intercourse with that
empire extended, such a stigma would be more and
more removed. The hon. gentleman, in conclusion,
expressed a hop.- that the question of church rates
would be settled in the ensuing session.

THE EARL OF CARLISLE AND MR.
MONCKTON MILNES ON MENTAL
CULTURE.
;►r the soiree of the Leeds Mechanics' Institute on
Wednesday, which was presided over by Lord Gode•
rich, .

I called the chiefs of Sarawak together. I told them
I had sent for the missionaries, and I told them likewise
that the gentlemen who had come would endeavour, with
all charity, and in all simple and kindly feeling, to meet
their views and their feelings, slid to expound merely the
religion of Christ to them, which they might accept or
reject as it might please themselves. From that day to
this we have not had any unkindly feeling whatever; but
I must tell you this at the same time, that exactly in the
same proportion as the Christian Iles been earnest, the
Mahomedan has been earnest too. When there were only
half a dozen Christians in the country—when their deco.
(ions were necessarily in their own houses, and in private
—there was no Mahomedan mosque at all. You never saw
a Mahomedan say his prayers, which he is bound by his
religion to do five times a day, in public ; but directly our
church arose, and the bell rang to give warning th it ser•
vice time was come, directly our services were attended
upon, up started Mahomedan mosques; five times a day
did the Mahomedana pray, and the large drum, in which
they beat at service time, was sounded. And this may
all teach—l do not say it lightly, believe me—that the
earnestness in the one religion begets earnestness in the
other, and that you must look on that nut only as a good
effect, but as a difficulty also to the propagation of the
Gospel. I will venture to tell you that amongst the llyake,
whom you may approach with far greater case than the
Mahomedans—amongst the Dyaks, living among their
tribes, there is no religion save faint tradition : no super
stition, no belief, and, generally speaking, not a knowledge
of a God. That sounds very curious, because we are told
that men have instinctively had a knowledge of a God, and
that that knowledge always acts upon the heart; but, prat,-
ticallv speaking, as far as my experience goes, it is no such
thing. But they are not without their religious impressions
at times, and in the same way that the savage people—a
people in the same stage of civilization in the Pacific—
were converted in bodies, so the Pyaks, with an impres-
sion made on them, might come over to you in large
bodies, if assured of their safety, and of protection in
society. I will venture to mention to you, as giving an
instance of the impressibility of these people, an anecdote
of what took place with an old Dyak chief. An old friend
of mine, whom I knew for some years, came into my
library, and seated himself in an easy chair, and seemed
as though he wanted to converse. I took no notice of him
for some time, but ultimately asked him what WAR the
matter. He said, I have got something very particular
to tell you—something very particular indeed.' " Well,
and pray what may it be? Is there any apprehension?
Has any oppression been visited upon you? Have the
laws been broken ?" " No, no, not that; but it is some-
thing very particular. I want to ask you a question. I
know that you have got a hook 1 meaning the Mel,
and wish to ask you a question. Now, the question is,
When the Dyaks die will they he turned into firewo ?"
I explained to him that, in my opinion, moat certainly
not; that, if they were good men, doing the law of Ged
according to their own lights, I did not believe that God
would punish them. He told me lie said thatbecause some
Malays had told hint that they had got a hook, and that,
according to it, every cue •vlio did not believe in it, and
do what was rig'it, especially the Dyaks, would be turned
into firewood, after death, and horned. There wag reason
in that man, and he asked, " What sort of a God have
those Malays got? I have always dose my duty. I have
always taken care of the stranger who came to my house,
never man came to my house hut what I lodged and fed
him. I have always done my duty, and paid taxes to the
Government, but we have been murdered—our woes and
children have been taken awe} ; we have been ill-used and
driven into slavery, and yet we are to be burned ; and
the Malay, who has murdered our wives and our children,
and carried them into slavery, is to be saved ?" I
thought the poor heathen without his book had the
best of the argument, but I deemed it best, seeing some
impression had been made on his mind, to recommend
him to go to a dear friend of mine, the Bishop of Lahore,
who was then resident at Sarawak. to open the subject to
him. He went, and that man, after a month, together
with thirty other families, was converted to Christianity.
name these facts because they will give you a clearer idea
of the difficulties to be encountered in working up in the
rude minds of those men—so rude, indeed, that on
religion it is almost impossible to talk with them, because
the language does not afford words possible to enable you
to speak in the abstract. You can tell them the simple
truths of religion—the primary truths—but for the great
truths of Christianity they have not yet the language by
which to express them, and certainly not the understanding
if the language was made for them. We have a great work
in this to perform, and we have to perform it in the mode
pointed oat to us, with a most unbounded feeling of charity
to those unfoi Waste heathens amongst whom we live; and
not only to pity—for pity they will not bear any more than
we would—hut to live with them, and do our duty to them
as man ought to do his duty to man. Short ,f this. I fear
there will be little success. To live among the natives ; to
know his everyday life, even his everyday associations ; to
know his fondly, his children; to know the births, the
deaths, and the marriages in the country—this was the way
to effect good. When we mix ourselves in the social reit-
t ions of the natives so intimately as this, then we are in a
fair way, and then only, for effecting the conversion of the
people. But so long as you are divided• as long as there
is this harrier of white and black, the" coloured." as people
are pleased to call it, and the " discolonred"—which, I
suppose, we are—so long as these prejoidiees remain. go
long as we give cause for these feelings by a mere diffe-
rence) of colour, a mere difference of language, a mere
difference of civilization, it cannot he that we are in a way
to convert the natives. As lung as this separation lasts, as
long as there are barriers of black and white raised ap, the
work is but begun. lam sure, my lord, ladies, and gentle•
men, you will pardon me; in all sincerity i have given you
exactly my own experience, and those thoughts and feelings
which in,) experience has suggested to me,