CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AT THE ANTIPODES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 211, 20 April 1877, Page 7

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AT THE ANTIPODES.

Some fifteen years ago a work was published by Mr. T. W. M. Marshall, entitled " Chnstion Missions ; their agents, their methods and results." The design of the author is to prove, and mainly, too, by the testimony of Protestant authorities, that the Protestant missionaries employed were unfit geneially speaking for the work from their worldly spirit, and in many instances from their immoral or dissolute habits, and that they have utterly failed in the work of converting the heathens ; while on the other hand the Catholic missionaries were apostolic in their teaching and manners, and actually succeeded to a notable and striking ei'ent in the work of converting the pagan to the faith and lore of Christ in all parts of the world. A few facts respecting the missions to the Australian Blacks and the Maoris, taken from this work, may prove interesting to the readers of the Tablet. Dr. Lang, the Presbyterian historian of New South Wales, save, in August, 1852, " There is as y«t no we! authenticated case of the conversion of one Australian Black." This is not due to the want of money. In the year 1828, when the whole popul&ti >n of the colony — European I presume — wan a little over th rty-six thousand, the cost of the Ang'ican Ecclesiastical establishment was £22,000. Twenty-two thousand pounds! But this did nut satisfy the Anglican apostles — two in number. They each presented an account for extras, one for £700 the other for £800, and got it too. Archdeacon Scott, after failing in business in England and then acting as a clerk op secretary merged at last into an ecclesiastical dignitary and was sent out on a salary of £2,000. Two thosind pounds ! What was the fruit, of the teaching of those well-paid Protestant missionaries as regards the conversion of the aborigines ? Literally nothing. Bishop Broughton told the Committee of the House of Commons that he did not believe it possible to instil into the mind of an Australian Black any adequate idea of God op Christianity —an opinion which it is oniy fair to say was repudiated by Wesleyan witne-ses before b\<e same Commit tet*. So far is this f i om being true tl at Mr. Gerstaerker, an expirienced German traveller, tells that he visited a school in which native children read the bible with a great deal more exprestion and emphasis than children in English village school* commonly do. Is it lively that Au-tralian Blacks would be incapable of receiving truths intended by God to be addressed to all men ? " Efforts prodigal indeed in zeal and money," say Col. Mundy, in his History of the Australian Colonies, "have been made lo Christianise and civili-e the Australian Blacks, but they have hitherto met with failure." From these barren Protestant missions turn now to the Roman Catholic missions. A Protestunt traveller, Mr. W. S. Bradxhaw, in his "Voyages in India and China," etc., admits tho success of the Roman C»tholic missionaries among the Australian Backs in thtse words — " Tne Roman Catholic clergy have a native mission establishment in Victoria PI 'ins where they make the natives useful by taking every means of civilising them. A very good feeling exis's between the Koman Catholics and natives." A new Benedictine monastery was in 1859 eolemnly blessed in the district of Perth. From that hour hope downed on the native of Australia. The example of the industry of the monks lias been followed by many natives, who, abandoning their wandering life, have turned their attention to tbe cultivation of the soil and now live on its produce. Moreover, three young Australian blacks have been sent from this institution to Rome to complete their education. Here is proof that the Australian blacks are not incapable of civilisation or receiving Christian instruct ion, notwithstanding that Protestant missionaries, and 1 may say Protestants generally, if not so«.e Cath lies too, have so often pronounced their case to be utterly desperate. The idea so commonly pub forward by English Protestant writers, that barbarous races like the Australian and New Zealand aborigines muse, of necessity or by an <>rder o. Providence, disappear before the march of Christum civilisation, is one which, as Lord Goderich wrote to Governor Bourk, cannot be heard without feelings of indignation and shame. But shame or no shame, it is a notion which seems to have taken firm possession of the majority of the English Protestant people. It is, moreover, a fact which Protestant travellers and others who have visited pugan countries attest, that the Protestant missionaries make Christians, or ra'her nominal Christians, of those whom they undertake to convert, only to make them worse and more unamiable characters, in many respects, than they were when living in paganism, aud before the missionary ever visited them, 'Ihey have made the unforcunite Maori what he was not before they took him in hand— inhospituble, greedy, and selfish. You shall see something more of this in a future communication with which I mean to trouble you. It is a terrible and humbling thought that England, as the high priest of Protestantism, is not only civilising noble savages like the Maori off the face of the earth, but also spoiling and coirupting the morals of such of them as may for a time survive. Those savage races which have long escaped the blighting influence of Protestantism, and have been taught by Catholic missionaries, are not disappearing but increasing in numbers, and along with the faith they adopt the habits of a real Christian. No sooner do the self-willed, wo i ldly, and luxurious English and American Protestant misssionaries appear on the field, formerly occupied by the self-denying Catholic missionary alone, than the work of real conversion is suspended, or rather goes buck. The vices of the civilised Protestant man then become engrafted on those of the savage. The fate of the latter is sealed. He begins to sink in the moral scale, and hid vices lead to the extinction of his race. His fatal Protestant friends then slip iuto his place, and enjoy his lands and his other possessions in due time. It was a dismal day for the pagan nations of the world when England renounced the Catholic faith, and the Catholic nations themselves became unfaithful to their creed, as so many of them have done. The just Judge of the nations will surely punish, in some way, such conduct as this, but Low or when wo cannot kuow. Already they have felt his scourge.