EDITORIAL. NEW VERNON, N. Y., JUNE 15, 1846. AN EVANGELIZED ZEAL! (Beebe)

EDITORIAL.

NEW VERNON, N. Y., JUNE 15, 1846.

AN EVANGELIZED ZEAL!

Little indeed do the contributors to the pecuniary capital of modern missionism know the wanton use that is made of their liberality by hirelings, by them employed to enlighten the dark corners of the earth. Occasionally, however, they are startled by “awful disclosures” made by individuals who have opportunity to know, and honesty to disclose the extravagance of Foreign Missionaries. Not long since, the Baptist Missionary, Weston, published an account of the missionary operations in Jamaica; in which, we were informed of the “Ticket system;” by which operation some missionaries were realizing, in addition to their salaries from their respective boards, from $6,000 to $6,500 per annum. And so far as we can learn from any responsible source, it is very little better in any other quarter. From Missionary Reports which have been constantly paraded through the papers, throughout our country, of the wonderful success of the mission, enterprise in the Sandwich Islands, of the number of converts immersed and baptized, &c., the confiding community are but illy prepared for the following disclosures which we copy from a late work, published in New York and London in two volumes which may be had at 23 cents per volume of Wiley & Putnam, 161 Broadway New York. The account is given by Herman Melville, after having resided four months in the valley of the Marquesas.

The extract which we make, shows that the disclosures made is not attributable to any hostility felt by the writer to the missionary doctrines, as he is a believer in the efficiency of missionary operations when conducted on different principles. The length of our extract, makes it inexpedient that we should accompany it with very extensive comments. It speaks for itself; and, lest those zealous missionaries, should charge us with fabricating the report, as they did that of Weston’s account of the Jamaica mission, we have in the above referred the reader to the publishing house in Broadway, New York, where the work from which we make the extract, can be procured. The following is taken from volume ii. pages 243—254. The title of the Book is “Typee: A peep at Polynesian life, during a four months residence in the Marquesas, &c.; by Herman Melville.”

“Ill-fated people! I shudder when I think of the change a few years will produce in their paradisaical abode; & probably when the most destructive vices, and the worst attendances on civilization, shall have driven all peace and happiness from the valley, the magnanimous French will proclaim to the world that the Marquesas Islands have been converted to Christianity! and this the Catholic world will doubtless consider as a glorious event. Heaven help the ‘Isles of the Sea!’—The sympathy which Christendom feels for them, has, alas! in too many instances proved their bane.

How little do some of these poor islanders comprehend when they look around them, that no inconsiderable part of their disasters originate in certain tea-party excitements, under the influence of which benevolent-looking gentlemen in white cravats solicit alms, and old ladies in spectacles, and young ladies in sober russet gowns, contribute sixpences towards the creation of a fund, the object of which is to ameliorate the spiritual condition of the Polynesians, but whose end has almost invariably been to accomplish, their temporal destruction!

Let the savages be civilized, but civilize them with benefits, and not with evils; and let heathenism be destroyed, but not by destroying the heathen. The Anglo-Saxon have exterminated Paganism from the greater part of the North American continent; but with it they have likewise extirpated the greater portion of the Red race. Civilization is gradually sweeping from the earth the lingering vestiges of Paganism, and at the same time the shrinking forms of its unhappy worshippers.

Among the islands of Polynesia, no sooner are the images overturned, the temples demolished, and the idolators converted into nominal Christians, than disease, vice, and premature death make their appearance. The depopulated land is then recruited from the rapacious hordes of enlightened individuals who settle themselves within its borders, and clamorously announce the progress of the Truth. Next villages, trim gardens, shaven lawns, spires, and cupolas arise while the poor savage soon finds himself an interloper in the country of his fathers, and that too on the very site of the hut where he was born. The spontaneous fruits of the earth, which God in his wisdom had ordained for the support of the indolent natives, mercilessly seized upon and appropriated by the stranger, are devoured before the eye of the starving inhabitant, or sent on board the numerous vessels which now touch at their shores.

When the famished wretches are cut off in this manner from their natural supplies, they are told by their benefactors to work and earn their support by the sweat of their brow! But to no fine gentleman born to hereditary opulence does the manual labor come more unkindly than to the luxurious Indian when thus robbed of the bounty of heaven. Habituated to a life of indolence, he cannot and will not exert himself; and want, disease, and vice, all evils of foreign growth, soon terminate his miserable existence.

But what matters all this? Behold the glorious result!—The abominations of Paganism have given way to the pure rites of the Christian worship—the ignorant savage has been supplanted by the refined European! Look at Honolulu, the metropolis of the Sandwich Islands!—A community of disinterested merchants, devoted self-exiled heralds of the Cross, located on the very spot that twenty years ago was defiled by the presence of idolatry. What a subject for an eloquent Bible-meeting orator! Nor has such an opportunity for a display of missionary rhetoric been allowed to pass unimproved!—But while these philanthropists send us such glowing accounts of one half of their labors why does their modesty restrain them from publishing the other half of the good they have wrought!—Not until I visited Honolulu was I aware of the fact that the small remnant of the natives had been civilized into draught-horses, and evangelized into beasts of burden. But so it is. They have been literally broken into the traces, and are harnessed to the vehicles of their spiritual instructors like so many dumb brutes.

Among a multitude of similar exhibitions that I saw, I shall never forget a robust, red-faced, and very lady-like personage, a missionary’s spouse, who day after day for months together took her regular airing in a little go-cart drawn by two of the islanders, one an old grey-headed man, and the other a roguish stripling, both being, with the exception of the fig-leaf, as naked as when they were born. Over a level piece of ground this pair of draught bipeds would jog with a shambling, ungainly trot, the youngster hanging back all the time like a knowing horse, while the old hack plodded on and did all the work.

Rattling along through the streets of the town in this stylish equipage, the lady looks about her as magnificently as any queen driven in state to her coronation. A sudden elevation, and a stony road, however, soon disturb her serenity. The small wheels become embedded in the loose soil,—the old stager stands tugging and sweating, while the young one frisks about and does nothing; not an inch does the chariot budge. Will the tender-hearted lady, who has left friends and home for the good of the souls of the poor heathen, will she think a little about their bodies and get out, and ease the wretched old man until the ascent is surmounted? Not she: she could not dream of it. To be sure she used to think nothing of driving the cows to pasture on the old farm in New England; but times have changed since then. So she remains in her seat and bawls out, “Hookee! hookee!” (pull, pull.) The old gentleman, frightened at the sound, labors away harder than ever; and the younger one makes a great show of straining himself, but takes care to keep one eye on his mistress in order to know when to dodge out of harm’s way. At last the good lady loses all patience; so “Hookee! hookee!” and rap goes the brawny handle of her huge fan over the naked skull of the old savage; while the young one skips to one side and keeps beyond its range. “Hookee! hookee!” again she cries—“Hookee tin bannaka!” (pull strong, man,)—but all in vain, and she is obliged in the end to dismount, and sed necessity, actually to walk to the top of the hill.

At the town where this paragon of humility resides, is a spacious and elegant American chapel, where divine service is regularly performed. Twice every Sabbath towards the close of the exercise may be seen a score or two of little wagons ranged along the railing in front of the edifice, with one or two native footmen of the congregation to draw their superiors home.

Least the slightest misconception should arise from anything thrown out in this chapter, or indeed in any other part of the volume, let me here observe that against the cause of missions in the abstract no Christian can possibly be opposed; it is in truth a just and holy cause. But if the great end proposed by it be spiritual, the agency employed to accomplish that end is purely earthly; and, although the object in view be the achievement of much good, that agency may nevertheless be productive of evil. To abort missionary undertakings, however it may be blessed of Heaven, is in itself but human; and subject, like everything else, to errors and abuses. And have not errors and abuses crept into the most sacred places, and may there not be unworthy or incapable missionaries abroad, as well as ecclesiastics of a similar character at home? May not the unworthiness or incapacity of those who assume apostolic functions upon the remote islands of the sea more easily escape detection by the world at large than if it were displayed in the heart of a city? An unwarranted confidence is the security of its apostles—a proneness to regard them as incapable of guilt—and an impatience of the least suspicion as to their rectitude as men or Christians, have ever been prevailing faults in the Church. Nor is this to be wondered at; for subjects as Christianity is to the mass of unexperienced men, we are naturally disposed to regard everything like an exposure of ecclesiastical misconduct as the offspring of malevolence or irreligious feeling. Not even this last consideration, however, shall deter me from the honest expression of my sentiments.

There is something apparently wrong in the practical operations of the Sandwich Islands Mission. Those who from pure religious motives, contribute to the support of this enterprise, should take care to ascertain that their donations, flowing through many devious channels, at last effect their legitimate object, the conversion of the Hawaiians. I urge this, not because I doubt the moral probity of those who disburse these funds, but because I know that they are not rightly applied. To read pathetic accounts of missionary hardships, and glowing descriptions of conversion, and baptisms taking place beneath palm-trees is one thing; and to go to the Sandwich Islands and see the missionaries dwelling in picturesque and prettily-furnished coral-rock villas, whilst the miserable natives you see committing all sorts of immorality around them, is quite another.

In justice to the missionaries, however, I will willingly admit that whatever evils may have resulted from their collective mismanagement of the business of the mission, and from the want of vital piety evinced by some of their number, still the present deplorable condition of the Sandwich Islands is by no means wholly chargeable against them. The demoralizing influence of a dissolute foreign population, and the frequent visits of all descriptions of vessels, have tended not a little to increase the evils alluded to. In a word, here, as in every case where civilization has in any way been introduced among those whom we call savages, she has scattered her vices, and withheld her blessings.

As wish a man as Shakspeare has said, that the bearer of evil tidings hath but a losing office; and so I suppose will it prove with me, in communicating to the trusting friends of the Hawaiian Mission what has been disclosed in various portions of this narrative. I am persuaded, however, that as these disclosures will by their very nature attract attention, so they will lead to something which will not be without ultimate benefit to the cause of Christianity in the Sandwich Islands.

I have but one thing more to add in connection with this subject—these things which I have stated as facts will remain facts, in spite of whatever the bigotted or incredulous may say or write against them. My reflections, however on these facts may not be free from error. If such be the case, I claim no further indulgence than should be conceded to every man whose object is to do good.”