Ghastly living forms of boys and girls, with dull dead
eyes, were crouching beside some of the huts. A few more miserable
days of their terrible hunger, and they would be with the dead.
Oppressed with the shocking scenes around, we visited the Bishop's
grave; and though it matters little where a good Christian's ashes
rest, yet it was with sadness that we thought over the hopes which
had clustered around him, as he left the classic grounds of
Cambridge, all now buried in this wild place. How it would have torn
his kindly heart to witness the sights we now were forced to see!
In giving vent to the natural feelings of regret, that a man so
eminently endowed and learned, as was Bishop Mackenzie, should have
been so soon cut off, some have expressed an opinion that it was
wrong to use an instrument so valuable MERELY to convert the heathen.
If the attempt is to be made at all, it is "penny wise and pound
foolish" to employ any but the very best men, and those who are
specially educated for the work. An ordinary clergyman, however well
suited for a parish, will not, without special training, make a
Missionary; and as to their comparative usefulness, it is like that
of the man who builds an hospital, as compared with that of the
surgeon who in after years only administers for a time the remedies
which the founder had provided in perpetuity.
