CHAPTER LI.—SEND NO MOKE BIBLES TO THE HEATHEN.
A recent work by a Christian writer states that there are now employed in the work of converting the heathen to Christianity fifteen thousand missionaries, and that they succeed in converting about ten thousand a year. From this statement, it appears that ten thousand missionaries make annually one convert apiece, while five thousand make none. And the cost the writer estimates to be about twenty thousand dollars for each convert. C. Wiseman estimated it, about thirty years ago, to be ten thousand dollars apiece. And, while these ten thousand converts were made, the heathen population increased in numbers five millions. Thus it appears they increase two hundred times faster than they are converted. How long will it take, at such rates, to effect the entire conversion of the world? and what will be the cost? All the gold ever dug from the mines of Golconda and California would be but a drop in the bucket compared with the requisite amount. The question naturally arises here, Do the results justify such an enormous expenditure of time and treasure, say nothing of the loss of health on the part of the missionaries? A learned Hindoo stated, in a speech made in London in 1876, that the conversions made in India are confined principally to the low, ignorant, superstitious class, who do not possess sufficient sense and intelligence to know the difference between the religion they are converted to and the religion they are converted from. Are such converts worth ten thousand or twenty thousand dollars apiece? The case suggests the story of the Hibernian who stated his horse had but two faults: "First, he is hard to catch; second, he is no account when caught." The heathen must be hard to convert if it requires an expense of ten thousand dollars apiece, and of but little account when converted if they know nothing about the nature of the religion they are converted to. There are various considerations which go to prove that the hundreds of millions of dollars expended annually in this enterprise are worse than wasted:—
1. One missionary, becoming discouraged at the prospect, once made the statement that nine-tenths of the converts have not sense enough to understand the Christian religion, nor moral principle enough to live up to its precepts, and that a considerable portion of them relapsed into heathenism. It should be borne in mind that it is not the most intelligent nor the most moral portion of the heathen who profess to embrace Christianity, but generally the credulous, ignorant, and fickle-minded class, who are ready for any change that may be offered.
2. No real good seems to be accomplished by the introduction of the Christian Bible among the heathen, but much evil. Its thousands of bad moral precepts and bad moral examples, and its sanction of every species of crime, must inevitably have the effect to weaken their moral resolutions, and deepen them in the commission of crime. And hence, as missionaries themselves indirectly confess, crime has increased in almost every nation where missions have been established. It is true, that, in those nations where the arts and sciences have been cultivated, they have operated to some extent in counteracting the bad moral lessons they learn by reading the Bible; and in some cases, in this way, some improvement has been made. But no instance can be found in the history of the missionary enterprise where any improvement has been made in the morals of the people, where their instruction has been confined to the Bible, without the arts and sciences. On the contrary, their morals have grown worse, or remained unimproved, as in Abyssinia and the Samoan Islands, where, after more than a thousand years' instruction in Bible religion, without the arts and sciences, they are still in the lowest stages of barbarism. (See Chapter 50.)