333 MORALITY. 



apostles to the early Churches. We, too, find strange incon- 

 sistencies and inequalities of character among our Christian 

 converts. And when we first engage in mission work, we 

 often feel strangely shocked and pained by finding what a 

 low moral sense exists among our professedly Christian 

 people. We are surprised to find men and women who are 

 capable at times of rising to a sublime elevation of self-denial 

 for Christ's sake, sometimes descending to very low and un- 

 worthy actions ; we occasionally detect them in lying, cheat- 

 ing, and falling back into sins of impurity, in a way that is 

 intensely disappointing and perplexing to us. And therefore 

 superficial observers, especially those who have little or no 

 sympathy with any Christian work, are exceedingly quick to 

 point out these inconsistencies, and from them to infer that 

 the religion of such weak brethren is a piece of hypocrisy and 

 deceit from beginning to end. But such a conclusion is as 

 untrue as it is unfair and short-sighted. Such severe critics 

 judge these newly Christianised converts by a standard only 

 rightly applicable to people who have been long under the 

 purifying influence of the gospel. They forget, and even we 

 their missionaries are apt to forget, the heathen influences to 

 which the Malagasy people have been exposed for long past 

 ages, and which are still very strong all around them. In 

 their heathen state there was no stigma attached to such sins 

 as impurity, or deceit, or fraud ; these latter indeed were 

 rather admired as proofs of superior cunning, as things to be 

 imitated, so far at least as they would not bring the offender 

 within the penalties of the native laws. We forget that time 

 is required to form a purified public opinion, an enlightened 

 " Christian conscience," in a people ; and while we strive, 

 and not unsuccessfully' to raise the whole tone of feeling 

 about morals, we can make allowances for those who occa- 

 sionally sin flagrantly against our higher standard of right and 

 wrong. And we come to perceive that although some of our 

 people do at times fall into gross moral offences, they yet are 

 not hypocrites and deceivers when they profess to love the 

 Lord Jesus Christ; they do really believe in and serve Him, 

 although not as yet fully " purged from their old sins." In 

 this, as in numerous other instances, light is thrown upon the 



