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the Introductory pages of this volume a brief reference was made to the fact that many earnest and costly efforts had been exerted by the white colonists of this continent to offset and atone for, by benefits and blessings, the injuries they had inflicted upon the natives. The subject of Christian missions for their conversion, civilization, and instruction was deferred for this more deliberate treatment. So large and comprehensive a theme as this, with all its variety of material and interest, can be dealt with here only with a conciseness hardly consistent with its importance. It will be convenient to distribute the contents of this chapter under the three sections indicated in its title.

I. General Remarks on Aims and Methods of Missions. — The severest test to which the Christian religion has ever been subjected is not that of a critical searching by scholars of its historical documents; nor that of an acute, speculative, and often irreverent philosophy; nor even that of an estimate of its practical effect upon the characters and lives of its professors. The sternest and sharpest trial of Christianity has come from the attempts made by its instrumentality to instruct, reclaim, convert, indoctrinate, and redeem a race of heathen savages. The trial on quite