JESUIT AND PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES. 2$ 



Wherever a missionary lives, traders are sure to come ; 

 they are mutually dependent, and each aids in the work 

 of the other ; but experience shows that the two employ- 

 ments cannot very well be combined in the same person. 

 Such a combination would not be morally wrong, for 

 nothing would be more fair, and apostolical too, than 

 that the man who devotes his time to the spiritual welfare 

 of a people should derive temporal advantage from up- 

 right commerce, which traders, who aim exclusively at 

 their own enrichment, modestly imagine ought to be left 

 to them. But though it is right for missionaries to trade, 

 the present system of missions renders it inexpedient to 

 spend time in so doing. No missionary with whom I 

 ever came in contact, traded ; and while the traders* 

 whom we introduced and rendered secure in the country, 

 waxed rich, the missionaries have invariably remained 

 poor, and have died so. The Jesuits, in Africa, at least, 

 were wiser in their generation than we ; theirs were 

 large influential communities, proceeding on the system 

 of turning the abilities of every brother into that channel 

 in which he was most likely to excel ; one, fond of natural 

 history, was allowed to follow his bent ; another, fond of 

 literature, found leisure to pursue his studies ; and he 

 who was great in barter was sent in search of ivory and 

 gold-dust ; so that while in the course of performing the 

 religious acts of his mission to distant tribes he found the 

 means of aiding effectually the brethren whom he had 

 left at the central settlement.* We Protestants, with 

 the comfortable conviction of superiority, have sent out 

 missionaries with a bare subsistence only, and are un- 

 sparing in our laudations of some for not being worldly- 

 minded whom our niggardliness made to live as did the 

 prodigal son. I do not speak for myself, nor need I to do 

 so, but for that very reason I feel at liberty to interpose 

 a word in behalf of others. I have before my mind at 

 this moment facts and instances which warrant my 



* The Dutch clergy, too, are not wanting in worldly wisdom. A 

 fountain is bought, and the lands which it can irrigate parcelled out 

 and let to villagers. As they increase in numbers the rents rise and 

 the church becomes rich. With ^200 per annum in addition from 

 government, the salary amounts to ^400 or ^500 a year. The clergy- 

 men then preach abstinence from politics as a Christian duty. It is 

 quite clear that, with ^400 a year, but little else except pure spirit* 

 uality is required. 



