"THE BIBLE AS A MORAL NECESSITY."
3. It is a policy that must be deplored by every true philanthropist, that the Christian world expends millions of dollars every year to convert the heathen to a religion that can neither improve their morals or their intellect, but inculcates bad lessons in morals and science, and, in many cases, is a worse religion than that already established in those countries. (For evidence, see Chapter 50.)
4. And this policy becomes still more reprehensible when coupled with the fact that there are sixty thousand Christians living in a state of want, beggary, destitution, and suffering, in Christian cellars in New-York City; and two hundred thousand, including Boston and Philadelphia, who are in a state of degradation and suffering almost beyond description, who might be relieved and placed in a situation to improve their morals and their physical condition comfortably if the millions of money, time, and labor were spent on them which are uselessly expended on foreign missions. Think of two hundred thousand church-members living in dark, damp, dreary, sickly cellars, with grim starvation daily staring them in the face, while their purse-proud Christian landlords are living in luxury over their heads. No such cruel, inhuman religion can be found in any heathen nation.
5. And then the missionary enterprise inflicts physical evils, as well as moral, upon the foreign heathen. It introduces habits and customs amongst them, which, in some cases, destroy their health, as well as corrupt their morals. Look, for example, at the Sandwich Islands. Since the establishment of Christian missions amongst them, the population has decreased thirty per cent. Twenty thousand children in schools in 1848 are dwindled down to eleven thousand. Marriages have decreased, and divorces have increased. Nine hundred divorces took place in four years, while previous to the introduction of Christianity, we are told, divorces were almost unknown. Missionaries, ignorant of physiology and the laws of mental science, and in total disregard of natural law, establish habits among the heathen which destroy both their health and their happiness.
6. The people in several heathen countries have proved to be sharp-sighted and intelligent enough to detect the errors in the Bible and religious system presented to them by the missionaries. Bishop Colenso states, that, while serving as missionary among the Zulus tribe, some of the natives started objections to statements found in the Bible which had not occurred to his own mind. And this fact made him resign his mission and return home, and read his Bible with more care, which resulted in detecting hundreds of errors in the Holy Book, which he has published to the world in a large volume. We are informed that the Hindoos told some of the missionaries while among them, that such a God as the Christian Bible describes would not be allowed to run at large in their country. He would be taken up as a criminal.
7. The natives in several countries where the missionaries have been operating, on becoming acquainted with the character of the teachings of the Christian Bible, have raised objections to its being circulated amongst them, and, in some cases, have besought the missionaries to leave. The Rev. Mr. Hall, a missionary in India, states that a public meeting was called at Madras by the natives to draw up a petition to Lord Stanley of England to send no more missionaries, and also entreat him to withdraw those then operating there; and such was the interest manifested that the meeting called out ten thousand people. The Chinese, also, have manifested strong opposition to the movements of the missionaries among them; while the Japanese have kept out from amongst them both Bible and missionaries by positive law until a recent period.
8. The inhabitants of the Friendly Isles, of Honolulu, of India, and also of Japan, have all discussed the subject of sending missionaries to this country to improve the morals of the Christians; and it is certain that some of them are practically acquainted with a better system of morals than that which prevails in this country.
Here we will note the remarkable circumstance that a learned Hindoo has recently held a two days' debate with a Christian missionary, which excited such an interest that it drew together from five to seven thousand of the natives, who desired to see the missionary beat in the debate. A writer states that the Hindoo handled the missionary's arguments as a cat would a mouse, thus intimating that the missionary was completely vanquished in the logical contest; and yet this Hindoo is called a "heathen." Pshaw! It would be a blessing to Christian countries to be supplied with a few millions of such heathen. It would improve both their morals and their intelligence.
Note.—Many anecdotes are afloat tending to prove the superior moral honesty of the Hindoos and other "heathen." As a traveler was walking the streets of an Asiatic city with one of the natives, he proposed to step into a store and purchase some article. "No," said the native: "see that chair in the door to let us know the merchant is absent."—"What!" exclaimed the traveler: "do merchants go away and leave their goods exposed in that way?"—"Yes," responded the honest native, "where there are no Christians about."