228 EFFECT PRODUCED BY THE MISSIONARIES. 



and instructing the several families who receive 

 him with smiles, and hear him with reverence — 

 we will ask him by what influence he withdrew 

 them from lawlessness, and formed them into a 

 happy and well-disciplined community ? Did he 

 begin with essays on the constitution of society ; on 

 the undeveloped resources of the country ; on the 

 advantages derivable from the division of labour ; 

 or on those modes of civilization which might be 

 thought worth the patronage of some scientific 

 board? No, the Missionary will not tell you of 

 such modes of assaulting the degradation of cen- 

 turies : he will tell you that he departed from his 

 distant home, charged with the Gospel of Christ ; he 

 will tell you that he preached Jesus to the savages, 

 and that he found, as the heart melted at the tidings 

 of redemption, the manners softened, and the cus- 

 toms were reformed ; he will tell you that he did 

 nothing but plant the cross in the waste, and that it 

 proved that beneath its shadow all that is ferocious 

 was withered, and all that is gentle sprang up and 

 ripened ; and whatever your previous feeling in re- 

 gard to Christianity may have been, however dis- 

 posed to shrink from its avowal, as though it ac- 

 corded not with an high degree of intelligence, oh ! 

 we would have you observe how the proclamation of 

 the Gospel hath clothed the mountain side with 

 smiling cottages, and brought out and directed the 

 energies of industry, and introduced the comforts 

 of civilized life." 



