THE MELANESIAN MISSION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2253, 27 July 1908, Page 1

THE MELANESIAN MISSION.

[To the Editor.] Sir, —Will you kindly allow mo space to analyse some of the logic of your correspondent, Dr. Gerard Smith, on the Christianising of the black mail. Ho writes: “A savago may bo perfectly civilised, which means, or should mean, Christianisedas its first principle,” and yet proceeds a little further down to say that tho white man, i.e., tho European, the finished product of Christianity, “Carries to these primative people all kinds of disease, the Just for money, every possible example of wickedness, sensuality, greed, cruelty, commercial immorality, and the rest.” Very well then: If that is tho result upon primitive man of contact with the whito man, why interfere with the black man at all ? Surely in ibis primitive ignorance and innocence ho /could npt'commit greater crimes than tlieso. Yet Europe was at ono time the mission field of the adopted religion. of the Roman Empire, and Christianity forced out of worship tho tribal Gods of tho Celts, the Huns, Franks, Gauls, Druids and other peoples, and out of their cherished beliefs have arisen what? All* the crimes and immorality that tho doctor tells us tho whito man. is capable of carrying to Melanesia. The question is: Are the Melanesian natives any worse under their .own moral code, mental development, and simple beliefs than tho European with his complex systems and uncountable diseases. The Islanders are happy in their own happiness, so why seek to disturb it by introducing to them a civilisation that is crowded with all the terrible crimes man can commit? Mr. Coates told his audience that the islanders were cannibals and .head-hunters, but surely such instincts are no worse than tho covering of a negro with oil and burning him alive as is done to-day in Christian Amorica, or tho wholesale us© of bombs and massacre of Jews .as is done in that greatest of all Christian countries —Russia. Your correspondent also says that “It is our obvious duty to remove superstitions, suffering, and unhappiness from these poor primitive people.” How? By substituting others in their place. What is all religion but superstition? Surely Dr. Gerard Smith, as a studient of Egyptology and archaeology knows that every cardinal 1 point in Christian belief had its origin in some myth or superstition. What is tho difference between Idolatry, Angelatry, or Mariolatry? Dr. Smith would remove the primitive superstitions and substitute a system of complex theology manufactured in Europe. Ho would tell them that it .is wrong to offer human sacrifices (as Mr. Coates says they have done) and yet tell them in the same breath that the white man’s God required a human saerificq, and was barbarous enough to offer his own Soil as a sacrifice to himself. Of course the savago man would not ho a trained logician and the idea might seem to his simple mind, good logic, but there is only a distinction without a difference. Surely Dr. Gerard Smith will not say tlio Christian religion (using the wide meaning of the term) us free from superstition. But I would ask him, as an Egyptologist, did not - Egypt believe in a resurrected God, tlie virgin birth, baptism, the intercession, the subdieties anthropomorphic worship, Heaven, Hell, and confession of sins, centuries before the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine, whose Popes propounded the Christian doctrines, and whose armies became missionaries armed with tlie sword, the stake, and the gallows, all over Europe. Will Dr. Gerard Smith state what Christian belief had not a heathen superstition as its starting point, and what sins primitive man commits that are not out-dono by his Christian brother? —I am, etc., “CRITICAL.”