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We pride ourselves on our superior light, and our improved civilisation, and look down on the old Roman Catholic missionaries, who converted our forefathers from heathendom in the Middle Ages. Now, I am a Protestant, if ever there was one, and I know well that these men had their superstitions and false doctrines. They made mistakes, and often worse than mistakes, for they were but men.
But there is one passage in the literature of the period which is too graphic to omit. It relates to the adventures of two of the lesser characters among the missionaries, and it illustrates both the hardships which they sometimes underwent and also the nature of the Maori mind.
The Protestant missionary societies throughout Europe and America were indignant at this conduct of a civilised nation. In consequence of the representations of England, France desisted from her attacks on the other islands, but Tahiti fell into her power in 1846. The French, however, could not turn the people from the simple faith they had learned from the English missionaries.
From the day when the little prince had been deemed old enough to leave his mother and the women's palace until the day he had entered the native artillery as a lieutenant, he had been schooled and trained by the English missionaries and the Tuan Kadi, or Mohammedan high priest, as becomes a son of so illustrious a father.
We are not among the least grateful to those foreign philanthropists who take so deep an interest in our welfare as seldom to let any republican foible pass, without applying to it, as it merits, the caustic application of their purifying pens. Numberless are the moral missionaries that the mother country, for instance, has sent among us, on these pious and benevolent errands.
Whoever has visited Hull House can see for himself the earnest effort Miss Addams has made to treat sex with dignity and joy. For Hull House differs from most settlements in that it is full of pictures, of color, and of curios. The atmosphere is light; you feel none of that moral oppression which hangs over the usual settlement as over a gathering of missionaries.
She knew the principal languages of Europe; a copy of the Pensées of Pascal, given to her by Mr. Anker before she sailed, for the first time quickened her conscience. She speedily learned English, that she might join the missionaries in public worship. The barren orthodoxy of the Lutheranism in which she had been brought up had made her a sceptic.
Before the Stamboul sailed a service was held on board, which was attended by deeply-interested friends. The missionaries, the passengers, the crew were committed to the care of God. The parting hymn rose on the breeze, echoed over the waves, and its sad strains died away on the hearts of the listeners.
I will tell them the truth, and you shall have the post for the asking." "You will go to Vincennes!" exclaimed Clark; "a hard and dangerous journey of a hundred leagues!" "Monsieur," answered the priest, simply, "the journey is nothing. For a century the missionaries of the Church have walked this wilderness alone with God. Often they have suffered, and often died in tortures but gladly."
From the Catholic missionaries at Kuldja we had obtained very accurate information about this route as far as the Gobi desert.
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