The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-01-05
RECLAIMING THE HEATHER.
MOncure ID. COnway's Heterodox Views as to
the Work of Missionaries.

the Work of Missionaries.
Correspondence san Francisco Chronicle.
Portugal is claiming the lions share of the
country Immediately under discussion on fhe
ground that she discovered / it in the last century
and has been civiliZing 1t for 100 years, but It ap-
pears that neither Stanley nor any of the eX-
plorers have discovered the fruits of the alleged
civilization. That much abused word, '~civiliza-
ton" makes me conscious of the cynicisrn re-
CURED for dealing with this situation as a digni-
fed one involving high matters of International
equity and Importance. If that Baltimore negro
whom my friend met on the Congo has any
knowledge of what is going on here, he may tell
his dusky friends the fable OF the cook and the
chickens. The cook asks the chickens: with
what sauce would you prefer to be servedgs
W don't want to be served at all" say the
chickens. "You wander from the point" re-
marks the cook. There is no question whether
these poor Africans shall be served or not for the
royal tables of Europe, but only whether the
other national palate. Cooked and dressed
they must be. They must be stepped in
alcohol; they must be inoculated with
zymotic diseases; they must be made to wear
clothing which arrests the secretions of their
skin-that is, their natural clothing-and con-
sumes them like a Nessus shirt with fever,
until the last of them shall perish, as the last
TasmaEian recently persisted, with a tract in his
hand and a missionary praying him out OF the
world. The Tasmanians persisted OF clothes.
Our American forefathers have been severely
judged for giving the red Indians glass beads
and other cheap inery for their acres, but it
would have been far better If the English had
done the same for the tribes that have persisted,
or are perishing, under their blankets and dry
goods.
If aboriginal tribes are really civilized by
European colonists, it will be when the mis-
sionary has been replaced by the anthropologist.
as an attendant upon commercial progress.
The missionary never really converts a savage.
The poor creature may call his Mumbo-Jumbo
by the name of Jehovah. but it is Mumbo-Jumbo
he worships still. and will worship, under what
ever new christening, until he is surrounded by
a new physical and mental environment. The
only missionaries / have observed in
foreign lands who appeared to me be doing any
good were those of the Established Church of
England, and the good they do is not by their
preaching and piety, but by their worldliness.
These Oxford and Cambridge cricketers turned
clergymen reveal to many priesE ridden tribes
turnouts, that in powerful and cultured England
religion does not require aseetic sufferings, but
is consistent with enjoying the world and attend
ing to ones family. However, now that has
ceased to be the creed of educated Christians
that the heather will be damned for not obeying
q Gospel they never heard of, propagation of
Christianity has steadily fallen into inferior
hands. When, as is nearly certain, the. Inter-
national African Association is recognized by
the European powers, those green fields around
the swelling floods of the Congo will be the scene
Of an active competition in the soul-saving bust
ness, and probably between the NEST ignorant
and f~anatical wing Of every sect Salvation
armies will ''procesh,' as Artemus used to say,
ard the poor Congoese will be lucky if they do
not draw after them armies of a more harmful
kind.