278 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pies they fixed up in some conspicuous place the ten commandments of 

 the Jewish religion, while they rarely fixed up the two Christian com- 

 mandments which were to replace them. ' And yet,' says the reporter, 

 after dilating on these strange facts, ' though the English were greatly 

 given to missionary enterprises of all kinds, and though I sought dili- 

 gently among the records of these, I could find no trace of a society 

 for converting the English people from Judaism to Christianity.' This 

 mention of their missionary enterprises introduces other remarkable 

 anomalies. Being anxious to get adherents to this creed which they 

 adopted in name, but not in fact, they sent out men to various parts of 

 the world to propagate it one part, among others, being that subju- 

 gated territory above named. There the English missionaries taught 

 the gentle precepts of their faith ; and there the officers employed by 

 their government exemplified these precepts one of the exemplifica- 

 tions being that, to put down a riotous sect, they took fifty out of 

 sixty-six who had surrendered, and, without any trial, blew them from 

 the guns, as they called it tied them to the mouths of cannon, 

 and shattered their bodies to pieces. And then, curiously enough, 

 having thus taught and thus exemplified their religion, they expressed 

 great surprise at the fact that the only converts their missionaries 

 could obtain among these people were hypocrites and men of charac- 

 ters so bad that no one would employ them. 



" Nevertheless, these semi-civilized English had their good points. 

 Odd as must have been the delusion which made them send out mis- 

 sionaries to inferior races, who were always ill used by their sailors 

 and settlers, and eventually extirpated by them, yet, on finding that 

 they spent annually a million of their money in missionary and allied 

 enterprises, we cannot but see some generosity of motive in them. 

 They country was dotted over with hospitals and almshouses, and in- 

 stitutions for taking care of the diseased and indigent ; and their 

 towns were overrun with philanthropic societies, which, without say- 

 ing any thing about the wisdom of their policy, clearly implied good 

 feeling. They expended in the legal relief of their poor as much as, 

 and at one time more than, a tenth of the revenue raised for all 

 national purposes. One of their remarkable deeds was that, to get rid 

 of a barbarous institution of those times, called slavery, under which, 

 in their colonies, certain men held complete possession of others, their 

 goods, their bodies, and practically even their lives, they paid down 

 twenty millions of their money. And not less striking was the fact 

 that, during a war between two neighboring nations, they contributed 

 large sums, and sent out many men and women, to help in taking care 

 of the wounded and assisting the ruined. 



" The facts brought to light by these explorations are thus ex- 

 tremely instructive. Now that, after tens of thousands of years of 

 discipline, the lives of men in society have become so harmonious 

 now that character and conditions have little by little grow r n into ad- 



