PAST AND PEESENT. 233 



sole purpose of propagating his faith. His very begin- 

 ning is earnest, and this at once strikes home to the 

 native. He not only is the priest whose duty it is to 

 spread certain views of religion, but he is the friend, 

 and often physician as well, of the poor. His life, his 

 mode of carrying on his duty — for duty it certainly 

 must be to them — is all earnestness from beginning 

 to end. He has no dreams of promotion or advance- 

 ment. He generally has said a long farewell to relatives 

 and friends, and does not look forward to meeting them 

 again, until he does so in heaven. He expects — nay, 

 intends — to die among his converts, and to do God's 

 work is his sole reason for trying to keep alive at all. 

 That there have been Protestant missionaries, self- 

 sacrificing and earnest men, I will not deny; but in 

 my experience I have not found that earnestness which 

 alone can carry success with it, was ever the leading 

 characteristic of our Protestant missionaries. Some 

 men might go so far as to say that they fail to see that 

 we have any right to introduce missionaries into these 

 countries ; but this is a subject on which I decline to 

 enter here. I have never observed that natives become 

 kinder, gentler, more truthful or honest, or more sober. 

 Drunkenness and civilisation — of course I do not mean 

 Christianity — in these cases run side by side. The 



