PROTESTANT MISSIONARY EFFORTS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 179, 1 September 1876, Page 8

PROTESTANT MISSIONARY EFFORTS.

Ik the items of mail news telegraphed from Adelaide, it is said that < at a meeting of the Royal Colonial Institute, held on June 13, < " Lieutenant Cameron gave an address on African colonisation, ' and created a storm of remonstrances by abusing the missionaries.'' 1 It was certainly a very hazardous venture on the explorer's part, ' and that, along with the abuse he is said to have got, his head was ' not made a target for a shower of tracts and a volley of bibles, is surprising. To have dared such a thing so close to Exeter Hall, and within easy range of its light and heavy guns, was an act of unparalleled effrontery, for which he will have to pay dearly. Yet the only offence the imprudent lieutenant committed, was in his being too frank and honest, for we dare say he found it a very easy matter to justify his disparaging observations. These, we assume, referred to Protestant missions, for in any other case, his remarks would not have called forth "a storm of remonstrances." So far as truth is concerned he might have gone much wider afield, and as the subject has become one for discussion we shall deal with it in a broader aspect than he did. But in the first place we would have it understood that if the Lieutenant did indulge in abuse we should be quite willing to join in a condemnation of such misconduct, for we are quite certain that though Protestant missionary efforts are, and, from the nature of things, must be unsuccessful, there is not much of life, grace, or sanctity left in Protestantism that does not belong to its missions. Lieutenant Cameron will, of course, have to reply to numerous correspondents, who are certain to have already challenged his statements. But he did not, we venture to say, rely altogether on his own observations. At least he need not have done so ; for in the Foreign Office there is a dispatch to Earl Kimberly that would go very far towards bearing out his statements so far as they may have disparaged the results of the missionary enterprise in Africa. In this paper Governor Hennessy said of the condition of Sierra Leone that only 35,000 of the 313,370 inhabitants were returned as professing Christians, and of that number very few were real Christians, because, he said — "It has been the invariable practice of the Protestant missionaries to enrol as membeis of the Church of England all the liberated Africans who have been brought for many years to Sierra Leone. The native Christians are confined to the towns along the coast, while the interior is rapidly becoming Mahommedan. In one year the Mahommedans are said to make more converts than the Christians do in ten. Beyond the settlement, no educational or religious influence is exercised by the English, and even in Sierra Leone the great majority of the inhabitants who are Christianised by the State, do not continue to profess Christianity for more than two generations." From Mr. Hennessy's report we must conclude that Protestantism is as effectual to convert the Africans as it is the Chinese, the natives of India, or the American Indians. It is certainly a painful comment on British civilisation that it is more favorable to the extension of Mahommedanism than to "the religion of the Bible," on which her Majesty once said, " Eagland's prosperity is built." Mr. Cameron may also quote Dr. Livingtone in his defence. That great African explorer had a very low opinion of Protestant missionaries and missions as compared with those of Catholics. This is seen from letters written by him to the late J. Gordon Bennett, of the 'New York Herald.' In one of these Livingstone said: — " It is a sad pity that our good Bishop of Central Africa, albeit ordained in Westminster Abbey, preferred the advice of a colonel in the army, to remain at Zanzibar, rather than proceed to his diocese, and take advantage of the friendliness of the still unspoilt interior tribes to spread our faith. The Catholic missionaries lately sent from England to Maryland might have obtained the advice of half-a-dozen army colonels to remain at New York, or even at London. But the answer, if they had any Irish blood in them, might been, "take your advice and yourselves off to the battle of Dorking ; we will fight our own fight." The Venerable Archbishop of Baltimore told these brethren that they might get chills and colds, but he did not add — when you do get the shivers, then take to your heels, my hearties." In another place Livingstone says : — " Some eight years have rolled on, and good Christian people have contributed their money annually for Central Africa, and the Central African Diocese is occupied by the Lord of All Evil. It is with sore heart I say it, but recent events have shown that those -who have been so long playing at being missionaries, and peeping across from the sickly island to their diocese on the mainland with telescopes, might have been turned to far better account." — « Advocate.'