This knowledge can only be gained by the young when such schools
are established as I have described.
Our missionaries should therefore devote their attention to this
object, and cease to war against the impossibility of adult
conversion. If one-third of the enormous sums hitherto expended
with little or no results upon missionary labor had been employed
in the establishments as proposed, our colonies would now possess
a Christian population. But are our missionaries capable? Here
commences another question, which again involves others in their
turn, all of which, when answered, thoroughly explain the
stationary, if not retrograde, position of the Protestant Church
among the heathen.
What is the reader's conceived opinion of the duties and labors
of a missionary in a heathen land? Does he, or does he not
imagine, as he pays his subscription toward this object, that the
devoted missionary quits his native shores, like one of the
apostles of old, to fight the good fight? that he leaves all to
follow "Him?" and that he wanders forth in his zeal to propagate
the gospel, penetrating into remote parts, preaching to the
natives, attending on the sick, living a life of hardship and
self-denial?
It is a considerable drawback to this belief in missionary labor
when it is known that the missionaries are not educated for the
particular colonies to which they are sent; upon arrival, they
are totally ignorant of the language of the natives, accordingly,
they are perfectly useless for the purpose of "propagating the
gospel among the heathen." Their mission should be that of
instructing the young, and for this purpose they should first be
instructed themselves.
