VI HOW TO CIVILIZE SAVAGES 113 



knowledge and morality and civilization have gained some 

 influence over him ; and he will then be in a condition to 

 receive and assimilate whatever there is of goodness and 

 truth in the religion of his teacher. 



Unfortunately, the practices of European settlers are 

 too often so diametrically opposed to the precepts of 

 Christianity, and so deficient in humanity, justice, and 

 charity, that the poor savage must be sorely puzzled to 

 understand why this new faith, which is to do him so 

 much good, should have had so little eifect on his 

 teacher's own countrymen. The white men in our Colonies 

 are too frequently the true savages, and require to be 

 taught and Christianized quite as much as the natives. 

 We have heard, on good authority, that in Australia a 

 man has been known to prove the goodness of a rifle he 

 wanted to sell, by shooting a child from the back of a 

 native woman who was passing at some distance ; while 

 another, when the policy of shooting all natives who came 

 near a station was discussed, advocated his own plan of 

 putting poisoned food in their way, as much less trouble- 

 some and more effectual. Incredible though such things 

 seem, we can believe that they not unfrequently occur 

 wherever the European comes in contact with the savage 

 man, for human nature changes little with times and 

 places ; and I have myself heard a Brazilian friar boast, 

 with much comjDlacency, of having saved the Government 

 the expense of a war with a hostile tribe of Indians, by 

 the simple expedient of placing in their way clothing in- 

 fected with the smallpox, which disease soon nearly exter- 

 minated them. Facts, perhaps less horrible, but equally 

 indicative of lawlessness and inhumanity, may be heard of 

 in all our Colonies ; and recent events in Japan and in 

 New Zealand show a determination to pursue our own 

 ends, with very little regard for the rights, or desire for 

 the improvement, of the natives. The savage may well 

 wonder at our inconsistency in pressing upon him a 

 religion which has so signally failed to improve our own 

 moral character, as he too acutely feels in the treatment 

 he receives from Christians. It seems desirable, therefore, 

 that our Missionary Societies should endeavour to exhibit 



VOL. II. T 



