Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/145



The promotion of religious meetings in Harderwyck, on behalf of the Colonial Enlistment-Depot. The writing of sermons and religious hymns, suitable for soldiers and sailors to read and sing to the Javanese. The formation of a society of influential men, whose task will be to petition our revered King: 1. Only to appoint such Governors, oficers and officials as may be considered to stand firm in the true faith.

2. To have permission granted to the Javanese to visit the barracks, and also the men-of-war and merchantmen lying in ports, so that by intercourse with Dutch soldiers and sailors they may be brought up for the Kingdom of God.

3. To prohibit the taking in payment of Bibles or religious tracts in public houses.

4. To make it a provision in the conditions of the opium-concession in Java, that in every opium house there shall be kept a stock of Bibles, in proportion to the probable number of visitors to the institution, and that the concessionary shall undertake to sell no opium without the purchaser taking a religious tract with it.

5. To command that the Javanese shall be led to God by labour. Giving liberal contributions to the Union of Missions. 

I am aware that I have already given the last item under No. 1, but he repeated it, and in the heat of his discourse such superfluity appeared to me quite explicable.

But, reader, have you noticed No. 5 e? Well, it was just that proposal which reminded me so strongly of the coffee-sales, and of the pretended unsuitability of the soil in Lebak, that it will now no longer seem so strange to you when I assure you that since Wednesday night the matter has not been out of my thoughts for a single moment. The Reverend Twaddler read out the Reports of the missionaries, so nobody can deny him a thorough knowledge of these matters. Well then, if he, with those Reports before him,