Chap. IIL STATE OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE. 77 



of capturing and selling their fellow-men, our errand appears 

 quite natural ; and as they all have clear ideas of their own 

 self-interest, and are keen traders, the reasonableness of the 

 proposal is at once admitted ; and as a belief in a Supreme 

 Being, the Maker and Euler of all things, and in the continued 

 existence of departed spirits is universal, it becomes quite 

 appropriate to explain that we possess a Book containing a Re- 

 velation of the will of Him, to whom in their natural state they 

 recognise no relationship. The fact that His Son appeared 

 among men, and left His words in His Book, always awakens 

 attention ; but the great difficulty is to make them feel that 

 they have any relationship to Him, and that He feels any 

 interest in them. The numbness of moral perception exhibited, 

 is often discouraging ; but the mode of communication, either 

 by interpreters, or by the imperfect knowledge of the 

 language, which not even missionaries of talent can overcome 

 save by the labour of many years, may, in part, account for 

 the phenomenon. However, the idea of the Father of all 

 being displeased with His children, for selling or killing each 

 other, at once gains their ready assent : it harmonizes so 

 exactly with their own ideas of right and wrong. But, as in 

 our own case at home, nothing less than the instruction and 

 example of many years will secure their moral elevation. 



The dialect spoken here closely resembles that used at 

 Senna and Tette. We understood it at first only enough to 

 know whether our interpreter was saying what we bade him, or 

 was indulging in his own version. After stating pretty nearly 

 what he was told, he had an inveterate tendency to wind up 

 with "The Book says you are to grow cotton, and the 

 English are to come and buy it," or with some joke of his 

 own, which might have been ludicrous, had it not been 

 seriously distressing. 



