[110] This pendulum may be used by acute servants as a sort of thermo- or hygro-meter of the patience of their respective masters and mistresses.—Editor.
[111] The inhabitants themselves cannot perfectly decide which termination is the right.{*}
{*} This is a joke which will be understood only by those who are acquainted with the peculiarities of the Berlin dialect. The inhabitants continually confound verbs which govern the dative mir (to me,) with those which require the accusative mich (me); for which they are much laughed at by the rest of Germany. The first syllable of course alludes to the sandy plain in which Berlin stands.—Transl.
[112] N.B. Not to forget to ask our learned Professor Blindemann what he thinks of this interpretation.
[113] Among others, to the Commissioners of the Elbe Navigation, who have just made such a noble end of their labours, and have all received Orders for the same. I wonder whether Providence also will bestow an Order on me?
[114] To add a word in earnest: I would ask, who does not honour the humane motives which gave rise to the Bible and Missionary societies? But are these, even were they not subject, as unfortunately too often happens, to the most scandalous abuses, the right means to the end? The result in almost every case teaches us the direct contrary. It ought to be considered that God sent Christianity as the second covenant; the first was based entirely upon earthly interests and despotic power.
If I did not fear to appear to treat the matter too lightly, I should almost be inclined to say that we ought to begin by converting savages into Jews, before we attempt to make them Christians. This would also harmonize in a peculiar way with that powerful lever, commercial interest. Men would be civilized much more quickly by the business of buying and selling, than by Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians.
This might also serve as an index or guide; and the conformity of such a course with the laws of nature would be proved by repeated experience, wherever the same process were to be gone through. To try to make men Christians who are in so low a state of civilization as the almost merely animal inhabitants of parts of Africa, appears to me nearly as unreasonable as to send teachers of the European languages to the apes. To this stage of human culture two things are applicable, self-interest, and force beneficently employed: and in this point of view, even conversions by the sword are not so injudicious and absurd as those by Bible Societies; always provided, that they are accomplished without unnecessary cruelty, and undertaken from truly benevolent motives.{*}
{*} It cannot be denied that the most efficient attempts at conversion, and those which left the most permanent consequences, were those of Charlemagne, and of the Spaniards in South America. It was only a pity that the Spaniards forced their own idolatry upon men who were, in fact, better Christians than themselves.
(It is assumed, be it observed, that we have a vocation and a right to endeavour to raise people to our state of civilization without any will of theirs; but this we shall not discuss here.)