PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS. 125 
light and darkness, truth and error, order and 
anarchy, benevolence and barbarism, had never 
appeared more intense and conspicuous than at 
this time. The little band of scholars in the 
Mission school, and worshippers in the chapel, 
unwilling to enjoy their privileges alone, employed 
every proper and persuasive means to induce their 
friends and relatives to attend to these things ; at 
least to make a trial of the school, and to hear 
what was said about the true God. The latter, 
however, frequently became indignant at the very 
proposal, charging the God of the foreigners with 
all the maladies under which they suffered, and 
the disturbances that agitated the country; ac¬ 
cusing them also of bringing down the vengeance 
of their own gods upon the family, by deserting 
their altars, and worshipping with the strangers. 
Frequently, however, they answered their entrea¬ 
ties only with ridicule and scorn, tauntingly 
inquiring, Where is the good of which you speak 
so much—the salvation of which you tell us ? the 
foreigners themselves die, their pupils die, or 
suffer the same pain that we do; and what good 
have you derived from going to their schools ? 
Let us see—if you go this week, and bring home 
a good bundle of cloth, or scissors, or knives, or 
any thing else worth having, then we will go too ; 
if not, we will have nothing to do with such profit¬ 
less work. The state of things resembled greatly 
that described by the Saviour, when speaking of 
the results that should follow the promulgation of 
his gospel. In many a family, the husband was 
an idolater, and the wife a Christian,—or the 
reverse; the parents addicted to the gods of their 
ancestors, and the child a disciple of Jesus Christ; 
and many a wife was beaten by her husband, and 
