Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 7).djvu/318

 gospel tidings, and commences his official duties; the young and the old are catechised, baptism is administered, and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper follows—and all these different glimpses of evangelical light succeed each other in such rapid succession as to stamp the whole proceeding with the character of a miracle. The calm and reflecting observer is confounded, and the pious Christian is struck with astonishment at the hurried and precipitate manner in which the wild and untutored savage is thus washed from all his sins, and received into the bosom of the Christian church. In all this, however, there is nothing real; on the contrary, it is utterly impossible for the missionary, or any other man alive, to cultivate the soil, sow the seeds of gospel vegetation, and bring forth the matured fruits of regeneration in so short a time. {333} The missionary, in all this, no doubt follows his instructions.

But this is not all: the missionary's journal goes home, more labourers are required for the vineyard, periodicals circulate the marvellous success, and all the world, except those on the spot, believe the report. Yet the picture is delusive: the savage is still a savage, and gross idolatry and barbarism have not yielded inwardly a hair's-breadth to the influence of civilization, far less is he made sensible of the obligations imposed upon him by his new creed. It is but a treacherous calm before a storm: the tree is known by its fruit.

These reports are no sooner laid before the public, than a pious interest is again excited, and the liberal hand of charity is again cheerfully held out to aid in civilizing mankind. Other missionaries are sent forth, who, to prove their own zeal and success, heighten if possible the colouring of the former picture, by the addition of still