Gospel
had to borrow workers from Denmark and Germany. Indeed, Martyn's
zeal was partly lighted by Carey, though the early termination of his
labours has forced me to place his biography before that of the
longer-lived Baptist friends--both men of curious and wonderful
powers, but whose history shows the disadvantages of the Society
government, and whose achievements were the less permanent in
consequence. The Burmese branch of their work is chiefly noticeable
for the characters and adventures of Dr. Judson and his three wives, and
for the interesting display of Buddhism in contact with Christianity.
According to the statistics in an American Missionary Dictionary, the
work they founded has not fallen to the ground either at Moulmein or
Rangoon; while there has also sprung up a hopeful English Church
Mission in the same quarter. The last thing I saw about it was a
mention of the neatness and dexterity of Burmese girls as
needlewomen.
Samuel Marsden may be called the patriarch of Australasian
Christianity. There is something grand in the bravery of the
bullet-headed Yorkshireman, now contending with the brutality of the
convicts and their masters, now sleeping among the cannibals of New
Zealand. His foundations, too, have received a superstructure on which
we cannot dwell; because, happily, the first Bishop of New Zealand is
not yet a subject for biography, and the Melanesian Mission, which has
sprung out of it, has not yet seen its first generation.
The Polynesian work, of which John Williams was the martyr and the
representative man, has chiefly been carried on by the London Mission.
It has always been a principle with the Missionaries of the Anglican
Church, whose centre has been first New Zealand, then Norfolk Island,
never to enter upon any islands pre-occupied by Christian teachers of
any denomination, since there is no lack of wholly unoccupied ground,
without perplexing the spirit of the natives with the spectacle of "our
unhappy divisions;" and thus while Melanesia is for the most part left
to the Church, Polynesia is in the hands of the London Mission. Much
good has been effected. The difficulty is that, for want of supervision,
individual Missionaries are too much left to themselves, and are in
danger of becoming too despotic in their islands. At least such is the
impression they sometimes give to officers of the navy. French
aggression has much disturbed them both in Tahiti and in the Loyalty
Islands, and the introduction of Roman Catholic priests into their
territory is bitterly resented. On the whole, observers tolerably
impartial think that the civilization which these married teachers bring
with them has a happier effect as an example and stimulus to the
natives than the solitary ascetic priest,--a true, self-devoted saint indeed
but unable to win the attention of the people in their present condition.
In India, where asceticism is the test of sanctity even among the
heathen, the most self-denying preacher has the best chance of being
respected; but in those luxurious islets, poverty and plainness of living,
without the power of showing the arts of life, get despised. If the priests
could bring their pomp of worship, and large bands of brethren or
sisters to reclaim the waste, they might tell upon the minds of the
people, but at present they go forth few and poor, and are little heeded
in their isolation. Unfortunately, too, the antagonism between them and
the London Mission is desperate. The latter hold the tenets perhaps the
most widely removed from Catholicism of any Protestant sect, and are
mostly not educated enough to understand the opposite point of view,
so that each party would almost as soon see the natives unconverted as
joining the hostile camp: and precious time is wasted in warrings the
one against the other.
The most real enemies to Christianity in these seas are, however, the
lawless traders, the English and American whalers and sandal-wood
dealers, who bring uncontrolled vice and violence where they put in for
water; while they, on the one hand, corrupt the natives, on the other
they provoke them into reprisals on the next White men who fall in
their way. That the Polynesians are good sailors and not bad workmen,
has proved another misfortune, for they are often kidnapped by
unscrupulous captains to supply the deficiency of labour in some of the
Australasian settlements. Everywhere it seems to be the unhappy fact
that Christian men are the most fatal hinderers of God's word among
the heathen.
Yet most of the more accessible of the isles have a resident missionary,
and keep up schools and chapels. Their chiefs have accepted a
Christian code, and the horrid atrocities of cannibalism have been
entirely given up, though there is still much evil prevalent, especially in
those which have convenient harbours, and are in the pathway of ships.
The
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