The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-02-14
THE GREEKS WE HAVE HERE.

John Randolph once said to missionary
agent who was soliciting contributions to es-
tablish mission in Greece, '"The Greeks are
at your door" He thought there was about
as much need of missionary labor at home as
abroad. He was right, no doubt and would
Ebe right in the same inculpation Of national
savagery and iced of civilization and Christi
anity now. But for all that foreign missions,
with all their failures, have done so much to
advance civilization in the darkest regions of
the earth that we should be making poor
exchange to abandon them wholly for larg
ser ministration of converting agencies to the
'barbarians of our own kind and bloodwho remain
Ebarbarous by choice The missionary with
his Bible, and his singleness of heart and his
educated intelligence has blazed the way and
opened the road to commerce and COLOMBIA
zion in many land that without him would
be as savage to-day as it was a generation
ago. There was no colony and no trade in
the Fiji islands when Williams and Calvert
went there as missionaries, except little
barter Of 'Tsea sfugs" and edible "birds' nests
with the Chinese, or an occasional whaler,
hitch was likely to have its crew eaten if
I: hey got lost from the ship. It is not more
than thirty years, or little more, since the
were eaten on one of the islands
and our government sent vessel there to ex-
act repatriation. In this condition the mission
aries found these paradisaicalislands--a group
especially favored in all natural features-and
gradually made converts, opened schools, es-
Established little churches and cleared the way
for commerce and colonists. Now there are
civilized settlements on dozen of the islands,
populous towns with well-conducted govern
ments, and in Vita Levu is published a
daily paper, copy of which occasionally
comes to this city. Where a generation ago
wrecked sailors were eaten by the name of
'1ong pig" and decrepit parents were buried
to the neck in holes and left to die, or were
more flially knocked in the head, there are
now shops, stores, handsome residences, trad
ing ships in the harbor, newspapers, schools
and churches, all the work, principally, of mis-.
sionaries. The Fiji islands are but sample
of scores of other missionary settlements.
David Livingstone went to central Africa as a
missionary. So we say while such good work
Is done by missions abroad there should be nc
suspension sof it because there is as much to
be done at home. There is no force in the
objection of the John Randolph school that
there are Greeks at home here needing mis-
sionary attention as much as those on the
Egean sea, at least as an objection to con
tinuing foreign missionary labors. What
ever force it has goes to the Indictment Of
efforts to meet both conditions and ciyiiize
home as well as foreign savages.
There is no denying the necessity of such &
work at home. The men who burned the
negro at Gainestown, Ala, not long ago
are as complete unreclaimed savages as the
Fiiiars that Calvert found knocking their ole
fathers In the head and eating castaway sail
ors The Alabama savages are not cannibals
obe sure but. neither are the negroes on the
Upper Congo or about the head lakes Of tbs