720 THE BEST METHOD. 



in Mohammed, by saying, ' No, I do not : I am a child of Jesus 

 bin Miriam,' avoiding anything offensive in my tone, and often 

 adding that Mohammed found their forefathers bowing down to 

 trees and stones, and did good to them by forbidding idolatry, 

 and teaching the worship of the only One God. This, they all 

 know, and it pleases them to have it recognized. 



"It might be good policy to hire a respectable Arab to en- 

 gage free porters, and conduct the mission to the country chosen, 

 and obtain permission from the chief to build temporary houses. 

 If this Arab were well paid, it might pave the way for employ- 

 ing others to bring supplies of goods and stores not produced 

 in the country, as tea, coffee, and sugar. The first porters had 

 better all go back, save a couple or so, who have behaved espe- 

 cially well. Trust to the people among whom you live for 

 general services, as bringing wood, water, cultivation, reaping, 

 smith's work, carpenter's work, pottery, baskets, etc. Educated 

 free blacks from a distance are to be avoided : they are expen- 

 sive, and are too much of gentlemen for your work. You may 

 in a few months raise natives who will teach reading to others 

 better than they can, and teach you also much that the liberated 

 never know. A cloth and some beads occasionally will satisfy 

 them, while neither the food, the wages, nor the work will 

 please those who, being brought from a distance, naturally con- 

 sider themselves missionaries. Slaves also have undergone a 

 process which has spoiled them for life; though liberated young, 

 everything of childhood and opening life possesses an inde- 

 scribable charm. It is so with our own offspring, and nothing 

 effaces the fairy scenes then printed on the memory. Some of 

 my liberados eagerly bought green calabashes and tasteless 

 squash, with fine fat beef, because this trash was their early 

 food ; and an ounce of meat never entered their mouths. It 

 seems indispensable that each mission should § raise its own 

 native agency. A couple of Europeans beginning, and carrying 

 on a mission without a staff of foreign attendants, implies coarse 

 country fare, it is true, but this would be nothing to those who, 

 at home, amuse themselves with fastings, vigils, etc. A great 

 deal of power is thus lost in the church. Fastings and vigils, 

 without a special object in view, are time run to waste. They 

 are made to minister to a sort of self-gratification, instead of 



