Evening star., 1903-10-23

una ttra ctive to man of different race. me
foreigner, though an expert linguist, rarely
appreciates the delicate turns Of expression
and other rhetorical processes by winch
speech is saved from rudeness and given the
form of delicate suggestiveness and not Of
absolute assertion.
We are disposed to stand off as their crit
les from the people whom we are called to
serve. and to discuss their racial and nat
ural and personal peculiarities in letters
to newspa pers and magazines. Even our
petitions for them in intercessory prayer
sometimes take on a condescending and
patronizing air, which is particularly often
sve when it is applied to the rulers of the
forei9n land where the missionaries are in
a certain sense guests, lowering the rulers
before their own people by praying publicly
for them that they may be turned from
darkness unto light and from the power OF
satan.
For every reason the missionary should
drive himself to identify himself with the
people to whom he is sent, and avoid pre-
senting his particular. perhaps crude. views
to the heather in such way that they
seem to them as 1.-The cows fat and lard
seems to the Mussulman and SepOy.
AS part of his Identification with his pco
pie the missionary should be their confidant
on any subject pertaining to their personal
or material welfare, to their relation to
each other their relation to the authori-
ties, so far as any of the people may choose
to call him to their confidence-being very
careful. however, that he is not so ready to
garded as sort of common sewer into
which any one may dump his filth, nor so
ready to give credence to complaints and
communicate them to others as to make
himself nuisance.
At the same time missionaries should con-
fine themselves as much as possible to their
own calling and their own sphere of work,
and not consider themselves inspectors of
government officials among the Indians. any
more than a good citizen occupying the
office of a clergyman among the whites
should consider himself a universal censor
morum and judge of civil officials there
He should bear in mind that honor and obe-
dience are due to government officials, be-
cause of their Office, and that he can do no
more injurious work than to breed a spirit
of discomfort and Sedition; and remember
also this fact, that any one who stands off
and thinks how work should be done Will
always be q mere critic and hypocritic.
We always think that we can do another
mans work better than he does it. There
| is deal of wisdom in the sarcasm, "Old
| maids children are always we'll brought
up"
| Another help to Identification will be the
use of the native tongue. often a very dif-
| fcult. nay, an imp ossible thing, as many
| tribes of Indians number but few hum
! dIed, and the languages are many On
| North America alone there are sixty dis
| tinct linguistic stocks) But what is much
| dearer to a man than the native tongue in
| which he was born? The missionary is
| after the man. The mind and the heart
/ are the man. how can you reach the mind
| and the heart of men except with the Ian
guage that he knows and loves?
Some missionaries have doubtless clung to
| the native language too much and too long
Government officials. on the other hand
rarely recognize sufficiently the value of
| the native tongue-perhaps because they
! have so much to do with the outside of the
man and SO little to do with his mind and
! heart. 1t is a strange thing, certainly, when,
as sometimes happens, government Off
| cial forbids the missionary to speak to In
! dian children in their own tongue when
| gathered in church or school, and yet when
| he wishes particularly to make those very
children understand asks the missionary to
| interpret for him!
| AS another element of identification, let
| me mention the raising up and employment
| of staff of native workers. The natives
will, of course, often lack the power of in
| itiative, the sustained energy, the knowl-
| edge of the world and of affairs, and espe-
| ciaIly the mental equipoise of the Anglo
| Saxon; but they know their own people as
| no one else can and making use of them
| will bring with it many advantages.
| First, this method of working meets the
| Indians on their own plane; second, 1t iden-
| titles them with ourselves. and ourselves
with them, and shows that place" Is not