The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1869-04-18
Reliance Of PROTESTANT missionaries.


Judging by the frequency with which the
English missionaries call on their govern
ment for protection from the results of their
own acts, whether of imprudehce, folly or
infraction of local law and usage, we might
justly infer that they have small reliance
on the efficacy of the commission under
which they assume to act. The English
people are becoming FESTIVE, and appear
little inclined much longer to indulge these
gentlemen in un-Christian antics. The fol-
lowing we take from the London Uiirerse:
The Protestant missionaries seem to re-.
quire an army and navy for the propaga-
ton of their tenets. They seem To propa-
gate their doctrines like Mahomed4-at the
point of the sword. In the House of Lords
the Duke of Somerset asked in the first
place what~aight the missionary societies
had to seIfd their agents into the interior of
China. He maintained that it could not be
lawful to use our naval force for the sup
port of inland missions, each of which
would require a gunboat. Such course,
he said, was most fatal to the advance of
Christianity, which could only follow in the
wake of civilization and as an attendant on
the setting of better moral example by
resident Europeans. Lord Clarendon adj
mitted that the state of things was ex-
not with the Government but with the mis-
sionaries, who, though Jealous, were un-
doubleday imprudent. The Bishop of St.
David's, sensibly enough, said, that if mis-
sionaries dare to violate the treaties of the
| Governments, they must do SO at their oacn
risk. But Protestant missionaries have lit
tie notion of sacrificing either themselves
or their dearly beloved wives, or being ex-
posed to any risk whatever. They are
British subjects, and they trust to the pro-
lection of the British fleet when they vio-
| late the laws of the land. Let them defy
4 those ubiquitous laws, let them set them at
| naught, but let them do it at their own
peril. If they have, any faith in their mis-
| sion they will not hesitate to sacrifice their
lives for it. Missionaries ara people who
are always provoking men OF the world;
We occasionally meet them at home, and
! find them very commonplace persons, not
| very well educated, not quite gentlemen,
4 very much given to telling long stories, the
gist of which is that some native of some.
where said, "0h, sir, how happy feel
How much ann indebted to you and Mrs.
i Brown n Graphic anecdotes ofLex-cannf-
balls, who knew by heart more texts than
the most experienced Sunday school teach.
err, form an interesting part of their annual
i,reports, and duly extract the guineas OF
their habitual patrons. 1t is rigidl posi-
4 lively true. The missionaries are the most
imprudent, perhapst the most wrong headed
of men. They have gone out with perhaps
not much learning and still Tess kno wiedge
of mankind. They probably have vague
notion q that the Chinese believe in the doe
trines of Confucius, which, whatever their
4 merits, do not lead to salvation. With
some eminent exceptions, they do not seek
understand the religious system they
would suppiant.- The common places OF
the chapel and the prayer meeting form the
controversial armoTy they have prepared
before leaving home; a poor verDacular
acquaintance with the language of the peo-
pie they would convert is the amount of
their later acquisition. Theyrush into con-
troversy with perhaps the most lamentable
ignorance of the character, the attachments,
=, the tone of thought of those whom they
would convert. The result, is, that after
years of wonderfully sustained zeal and
self denial, the progress of the faith in
those distant regions is not encouraging
Yet how different are the work and the
fruit of the work of Catholic missionaries
in China