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This attempt to awaken pity in behalf of the slave, and to produce abhorrence of slavery, was made upon these, and not upon the Gentile Christians; because, perhaps, that they, who had always possessed the Oracles of God, could bear it; and they who had just come up out of the mire of heathenism, could not.
II. God lays upon us special missionary work by the special characteristics of the times. 'Such a time as this! Was there ever such a time? Look at the condition of heathenism. It is everywhere tottering. 'The idols are on the beasts, Bel boweth down. The grim gods sit half famished already. There is a crack in every temple wall.
We will not be deterred from giving the Bible to heathenism of any kind when we remember that Sir William Jones has left these words: "The Scriptures contain more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence than could be collected from all other books that were ever composed in any age or in any idiom." Liberal religion must be as broad as Sir William Jones.
Jenkins was informed by a young man "who had renounced heathenism" that some of the more cunning women cross the sticks before lifting them, and that when they do this they invariably fall crossed to the ground.
Livingstone in his darker moments, consoling himself with the accounts of these achievements in the missionary annals, doubted his own efficacy against the deep depravity and heathenism of his black flock. The fact unknown to him was that the missionaries in Polynesia preached and prayed, doctored and taught, ten years before they made a single convert.
Try a little while; we shall not always labor in vain, or spend our strength for naught. A day is coming, and now is, when every minister of Christ shall speak with unction, when all the servants of God shall preach with power, and when colossal systems of heathenism shall be scattered to the winds. The shout shall be heard, "Alleluia! Alleluia! the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth."
The missionaries have endeavoured as much as possible to abolish all heathen customs, so that the evil-disposed may have no temptation to return to them. In this they show wisdom. Even the sports and pastimes of heathenism, though they may by some be considered harmless in themselves, are generally adverse to the spiritual life of a Christian, and therefore they have been discouraged.
Even where there are no snakes they apply the superstitions about the serpent to a large, black, poisonous lizard called Kekvau. They call it Teapolo, and women or children scream wildly at the sight of one. One of the darkest and most hideous blots on Heathenism is the practice of Infanticide.
And, in fact, the few who since the revival of letters have deserted Christianity for what they called philosophic heathenism, have in almost every case sympathised, not with the excellences, but with the worst vices of the Greek and Roman. They have been men like Leo X. or the Medici, who, ready to be profligates under any religion, found in heathenism only an excuse for their darling sins.
Thus between the barbarians and the Romans, as between the Romans and the Greeks, and in a measure also the Jews, the conquered gave laws to the conquerors. Christianity triumphed over both. This is the end of Græco-Roman heathenism, with its power, wisdom, and beauty. It fell a victim to a slow but steady process of incurable consumption.
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