CHRISTIANISING SAVAGES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2256, 30 July 1908, Page 1

CHRISTIANISING SAVAGES.

[To tiie Editor.] Sir,—To reply fully to “Critical” would till ouo ifisuo of your paper, and l shall not attempt ft. It is easy to propound a question on a subject of immonso extent; in a few words, ifhe reply is a labor of a serious nature, demanding corresponding space. With regard to the necessity of civilising savages, it is a. matter of making savage pooplo who are not productive commercials, turn into useful producers with sound commercial morality as a ground work, and the morality of real Christianity is the most sound. In (Melanesia the mission is necessary for other reasons also : chiefly that of teaching the natives that the white traders who have conic .to their shores are, in most cases, not Christians, though they come from countries called Christian. “Critical” makes the old old error of putting ecclosiasticism in the .place of religion. Ho asks, 'ls not all religion superstition?’ to which I reply ‘No.’ But all systems of ecclesiasticism, from ancient Egypt to Christianity, have been spoiled, .and are still spoiled, hy more or less of what is termed by popular consent “superstition.” 1 say '‘popular consent,” because the Latin derivation of the word “superstition” (I do not know' why it is not superstation, by the bye) makes its real meaning “standing on the above,” or in more definite forms, “‘relying upon that which is above or beyond on 9.” But the commonly accepted meaning is a distorted ono; .it is another good English word spoiled by wrong application, .as such words are being spoiled every day more and more, so we must take it to mean foolish tales and beliefs, etc. I decline to enter, in the columns of the public secular press, into the remarks of “Critical” upon the subject of the self-sacrifice of file Founder of Christianity; to discuss such a subject in such a place would hurt many earnest and good people, whoso spiritual .standpoint is to “Critical” utterly incomprehensible. .Religion is not ecclesiasticism, or 'theology; it is well defined by James in his epistle. A religious man is 011 c who does all the good be can to his fellow creatures and tries to heighten human burdens, and mixes freely with all people, bad .and good, yet keeps himself free from stain by the bad tilings of human .life. James puts it thus: — “Pure religion ancj undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself .unspotted from the world” (“by the world” is probably meant). As to Hie resemblances between religious beliefs of many times and people, they are all the result of a similar search, urged by a similar religious consciousness Or instinct of worship ,which is part of man’s inherent nature, and so reaching, however, in perfectly a similar end. — I am, etc., GERARD SMITH. Gisborne, July 20.