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REV. J. B. WHITING, M.A., ON 



from the Church, but who bravely went thrice to preach to the 

 Mahommedans, in Africa, and was finally martyred amongst them. 

 There was one other whom McLear does not mention who went all 

 the way to China. But these were the only Roman Catholic 

 missionaries through four centuries and a half. 



I cannot agree that it was part of God's plan that the monks 

 should remain in their cloisters, a few of them writing out the 

 Scriptures in Greek and Latin and none doing anything towards 

 spreading a knowledge of them. It required Wycliffe to come into 

 the world and send out his bodies of good men, two by two, over 

 the land, with copies of the Scriptures in their native language, 

 before the word of God could be spread. And what did a leader of 

 the Roman Catholic Church then say — that Wycliffe was casting 

 his pearls before swine ; and yet, as Milton remarks, if the Lollards 

 had not been crushed, we should have been the foremost nation in 

 the world in establishing the Reformation in Europe. 



Yet, while the Western Church was apathetic, and while the 

 monks in their cloisters were leading lives of little use, there 

 was a body of Christians who were preaching to the heathen world, 

 had ventured right into China, and in India and Burmah had 

 become a great power, with a multitude of converts, but who were 

 regarded by the Roman Catholics as heretics. These were the 

 Nestorians, who have left a monument in Northern China dating 

 from the sixth century. The mistake of the Nestorians, however, 

 was that they did not translate the Bible into the language of the 

 people. Had they done so, their work would have been permanent 

 everywhere. In China there is not a vestige of it left. 



Colonel Hendley has told us how Christian supremacy in India is 

 destroying evil customs. We might allude to the customs that 

 formerly prevailed and which the English government has suppressed 

 — the burning of widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands, 

 the drowning of children in the Ganges, the self-destruction of men 

 beneath Juggernaut's car. It has also hindered the very early 

 marriages of Hindus by raising the minimum of age by two years ; and 

 of course it has put down lawless crime and violence in all directions. 

 Let us hope that it will succeed in doing a vast deal more. We 

 may further allude to the fact that the English Government has 

 eucouraged and established leper hospitals and many institutions 

 for the benefit both of mind and body in India ; and undoubtedly 



