Note 114 — LETTER XXV.

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.)

The other method, namely, to work upon savages by their own present and obvious interest, can be accomplished only by trade, and appears to be the most just and mild of all; but it must also be accompanied by a certain degree of compulsion and constraint, to produce any rapid and permanent results. The worst effect of the attempts to hasten on the universality of Christianity is doubtless this; that as soon as the savage comes in collision with Christians, they must perceive that the latter,—whether governments, corporations, or individuals—while they preach benevolence, do in fact, in almost every case, act hostilely both to each other and to them. Their simple understandings, which are not rectified by higher culture, can in no way reconcile this contradiction. And as they, like children, take in little of a new faith but the mythos, it is not much to be wondered at if the liberals or free-thinkers among them exclaim, “Fable for fable, murder for murder, slave-dealing for slave-dealing, where is the difference?” Had the Christian powers really abolished the slave-trade, and destroyed the nest of robbers which, to the shame of Europe, still exist on the coast of Africa; had England, instead of sending one solitary traveller after another (men who made themselves ridiculous and contemptible by displaying their Anglo-Christian arrogance without the means of supporting it,) to be assassinated by the natives, or to die of the climate,—sent into the interior an expedition fitted to command respect, and seasoned by previous residence on the coast;—had this expedition been so constituted as, by its dignity and by beneficent compulsion, to give a more humane character to trade; and had it sought to remove all obstacles to this object, even were it sometimes by force of arms;—it is indubitable that a great part of Africa would at this moment be infinitely more civilized than it will be by centuries of missions and Bible importations. Some may ask, ‘A quoi bon tout cela?’ others, what right have we to meddle in other people’s affairs? The answer to these questions would lead us too far. For my own part, I confess I so far agree with the Jesuits, that I acknowledge that a noble end,—that is, a project calculated for the greatest possible advantage of others, and united with the power of carrying it into effect,—sanctifies all appropriate means which are, in the same sense, noble, so far at least as open force is concerned; for deceit, treachery, and dishonesty can never lead to good.—Edit.