All tariffs are relics of barbarism. Would that the American people were civilized enough to know that. But the Chinaman does not like our religion. Neither do I like the brand that is usually exported for his consumption. The more benighted a man's religion the more anxious he is to bestow it upon others.
Missionary zeal seems to bear an inverse ratio to religious enlightenment.
The natural method for the religious regeneration of a country would seem to be a reformation of the native faith by natives, not the imposition of a foreign faith by foreigners. To send missionaries to the heathen when we have such an abundance of paganism at home seems as much like impertinence as benevolence. We are shocked at the wicked ancestor-worship. We have never thought that some of the effort spent in destroying the ancestor-worship in China might be spent with profit inculcating respect for parents in the American youth. If, instead of exporting our Christianity, we should apply some of it to a solution of the problems of poverty, we would render a greater service to civilization than by converting the Chinese to the medieval elements of our theology.