How many millions of human beings of all creeds and colors does
she control? Are they or their descendants to embrace our faith?
- that is, I are we the divine instrument for accomplishing the
vast change that we expect by the universal acknowledgement of
Christianity? or are we - I pause before the suggestion - are we
but another of those examples of human insignificance, that, as
from dust we rose, so to dust we shall return? shall we be but
another in the long list of nations whose ruins rest upon the
solitudes of Nature, like warnings to the proud cities which
triumph in their strength? Shall the traveler in future ages
place his foot upon the barren sod and exclaim, "Here stood their
great city!"
The inhabitants of Nineveh would have scoffed at such a
supposition. And yet they fell, and yet the desert sand shrouded
their cities as the autumn leaves fall on the faded flowers of
summer.
To a fatalist it can matter but little whether a nation fulfills
its duty, or whether, by neglecting it, punishment should be
drawn down upon its head. According to his theory, neither good
nor evil acts would alter a predestined course of events. There
are apparently fatalist governments as well as individuals,
which, absorbed in the fancied prosperity of the present,
legislate for temporal advantages only.
Thus we see the most inconsistent and anomalous conditions
imposed in treaties with conquered powers; we see, for instance,
in Ceylon, a protection granted to the Buddhist religion, while
flocks of missionaries are sent out to convert the heathen. We
even stretch the point so far as to place a British sentinel on
guard at the Buddhist temple in Kandy, as though in mockery of
our Protestant church a hundred paces distant.
At the same time that we acknowledge and protect the Buddhist
religion, we pray that Christianity shall spread through the
whole world; and we appoint bishops to our colonies at the same
time we neglect the education of the inhabitants.
When I say we neglect the education I do not mean to infer that
there are no government schools, but that the education of the
people, instead of being one of the most important objects of the
government, is considered of so little moment that it is
tantamount to neglected.
There are various opinions as to the amount of learning which
constitutes education, and at some of the government schools the
native children are crammed with useless nonsense, which, by
raising them above their natural position, totally unfits them
for their proper sphere. This is what the government calls
education; and the same time and expense thus employed in
teaching a few would educate treble the number in plain English.
It is too absurd to hear the arguments in favor of mathematics,
geography, etc., etc., for the native children, when a large
proportion of our own population in Great Britain can neither
read nor write.
