FACTS AND PROGRESS. 457 have been almost overshadowed by the subsequent luxuriance of the olive, and how closely the soldier of Christ has tracked the footsteps of the soldier of empire; that the name of Sikh, once so formidable, is now associated with a most flourishing Mission, the Punjaub, while that of Afghan recalls to mind the interesting Mission at Peshawur, a gathering point where the wandering Tartar, the Persian, and the wild inhabitant of the Cabul district, mullah and mountaineer, Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Armenian, Mahommedan and Hindu, may and do come to hear and learn to read of the glorious Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,-we say with joy, "The Lord reigneth, blessed be his holy name." It is true, we can turn to other countries subdued by the preaching of that Gospel alone; but that has been among savages who had no religion, or nothing worthy of that name; while in every instance, where the work of evangelization has been successful among civilized nations, the way has first been opened by the sword, and the barrier broken down by conquest. And with this idea fixed on our minds, we turn with hopeful anticipation to the present disturbances in China. We confess we have not shared in the expectation of great results from the rebellion which has now for several years dragged its slow length along. We do not believe that that movement could have a blessing whose leaders assumed such relative positions in regard to the Persons of the Trinity as they did; although it might be, and in fact has been, overruled to the circulation of the Holy Scriptures: while we do think the coincidence of the adoption of such titles as the Northern King, the Eastern King, the Southern King, with Daniel's King of the North and King of the South, too singular to be overlooked. But this war is, to our minds, an indication that China is about to be opened to our missionaries. For what has been the mission work among the Chinese hitherto? Our Church of England missionaries first arrived in 1844, although Carey, Gutzlaff, Morrison, and Medhurst had long been at work; and now we have but nine ordained European missionaries and seven native catechists there. We do not know how many belonging to other denominations are labouring in the same field. And why is this? Whence does it arise? Simply and entirely, so far as man is concerned, from the inordinate self-conceit, intolerance, exclusiveness, and semi-barbarism of the ruler and good people of the Celestial Empire. And how are these barriers to be removed? "Preach the Gospel," say our Peace friends. Yes; but they cannot get into China to preach it; the systematic opposition of civilization is very remote from the barbaric hostility of cannibalism; the poor chief of some savage tribe in his filthy carosse, bedaubed with grease and mud, and living in his miserable, smoky hut, is very different, in his own estimation at least, from the Emperor of China, the Brother of the Sun and Moon, or his subjects either. And people may say what they will, there is no more impossible work than to convince a man he is ill, when he is firmly persuaded that he is perfectly well. We believe (with reverence we say so) that India never would have become such a glorious missionary field but for our previous conquests; the Brahmin would never have condescended to look down from his pedestal of pride and self-sufficiency upon, and listen to, any missionary but the missionary of a great and conquering nation. Not, of course, that we limit God's power; we are speaking simply of things that are, and have been. We therefore believe, and believing we assert it, that until China is taught a lesson, its intolerable pride and insolence humbled, its barriers of arrogant presumption broken down, the Gospel will never be fully preached there. And we look with very special interest upon the work. Our Saviour says, "This Gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all nations for a witness, and then shall the end come." And how widely has it been preached! Notwithstanding all we mourn of the lukewarmness of Christians, and the hindrances to the mission work arising from various causes, unless more islands or continents are discovered in the great Pacific or Atlantic Oceans, the "Gospel of the kingdom" has been preached in nearly all places and nations, China alone excepted. Men speak of Turkey, of Mesopotamia, of Persia, of Africa, of India, as even now great mission fields; but they forget that in nearly all of them the Gospel has been preached; but that through error and lukewarmness the candlestick has been removed out of its place; that Syria, and Egypt, and Macedonia, and the Seven Churches, Mesopotamia, Persia, and India, were early partakers of Gospel privileges; and that any work we may now do is merely in the way of resuscitation. China, however, does not appear to stand in the same category; for we have not even a tradition of the Apostles having penetrated so far eastward; while, but recently, Jews have been discovered in the interior of that vast territory, who had never heard of the name of Jesus, save only of one Jesus, the son of Sirach. This is, therefore, we believe, the FACTS AND PROGRESS. 459 work, the important work, the honourable work reserved for Protestant, for Missionary England. All mistakes and errors will be individually punished, collectively overruled; and China, by being placed at the mercy of the "barbarian English, will learn first to respect England—a lesson no truckling, no diplomacy, no High-Church, no Church-Pacific Coalition nonsense, can ever teach; and will listen first, perhaps, to the irresistible arguments of her soldiers and her men-of-war; then to the persuasive ones of her merchants; and lastly, perhaps, in consecutive order, but infinitely before all others in importance, to the glad tidings of great joy, of the humble, devoted, unappreciated, heroic missionary. We do not say that all this strengthened our Ministry in their defence of Sir John Bowring. Sir John has never shown any particular interest in Church Missions, thoroughly right as we believe him to be upon existing evidence. He has not had an idea beyond that truly English one, of upholding the honour of his country, and yet that all may be and will be so graciously and wisely overruled, that multitudes now in ignorance of the way of salvation shall be brought to rejoice in the name of Jesus, we confidently predict. And if so, who shall then impugn the wisdom and the justice of God, who, out of man's evil nature, mistakes, contradictions, passions, and affections, is enabled by his Almighty power and skill so to overrule the evil as to compel it to become the instrument of good? As regards Lord Elgin's appointment, it was a concession, a necessary one we suppose, to the express will of the House of Commons; but, even on Mr. Cobden's own admission, much of what is to be done will have been done long before our plenipotentiary arrives out there. In the meanwhile we must rest in the assurance that "He that sitteth upon the throne" has said, "I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is, and I will give it Him.” AFRICA. WE have already alluded to the fact, that, while among civilized or semi-civilized nations the sword has opened the way for the Gospel, among savage tribes the simple truth has been the only weapon employed. This has been remarkably exemplified in the case of the Red Indians, of Australia and New Zealand, as also in the most interesting of all missions, West Africa. Oh! what a silent but irresistible rebuke does this administer to those who rejoice in the progress of a godless refinement-a civilization without religious principle! The despised savage receives with open arms the white man's Gospel, and the white man for its sake; but semi-civilization, without the leavening of revealed truth, erects a barrier of prejudice so strong that it must be broken down by force, ere the evangelist can proclaim his message. What one man, a great plenipotentiary armed with full powers from his sovereign, unaided by the force of arms, can accomplish, was never more strikingly evidenced than in the recent journeys of Dr. Livingstone through Central South Africa. Among nearly all the wild tribes whose territories he traversed, he was received with undisguised affection. At Linyanti, the chief, Sebitoanè, received the Doctor and his friend with the greatest kindness. It was impossible, he tells us, not to see the unbounded delight which the chief felt in the presence of his visitors, or to question the intensity of his desire for the residence of a inissionary amongst his people." Long before daylight, he was by Dr. Livingston's fire, relating the adventures and disasters of his eventful history. After the death of this chief, which occurred suddenly, shortly after the Doctor's arrival, the people gathered round him, and said, "Do not leave us; though Lebitvanè is dead, his children remain, and you must treat them as you have treated him." And who were these? What are their characteristics? "They are," he writes, "the most savage race of people we have ever seen." And yet, what an affectionate welcome he received from them? And why? because he was a missionary -a plenipotentiary from the Great King to his rebel subjects, proclaiming to them everlasting happiness upon terms utterly inconceivable and totally new. It is the fashion with some to sneer at missionaries. We would recommend all such to read Dr. Livingston's forthcoming work. Who but a missionary could have accomplished what he has done? A trader would have been robbed and murdered. A band of soldiers would have perished of perils by land, and perils by water, by famines, by pestilences, by fatigues,-but, upheld by the arm of that gracious God who was his stay and his comfort, he has surmounted them all; and, although, for four years and a-half, he was in daily and almost hourly peril, not a hair of his head has been harmed. "Oh, but," say some, "what good do missionaries do? "Sketches of the Rev Dr. Livingston's Journeys in Central South Africa." John Snow, London, 1857. FACTS AND PROGRESS. 461 They may make a few hypocritical converts, and that they had better let alone." To such we reply, "See what Dr. Livingston has done." He has penetrated from Kolobeng northward, and afterwards north-west and west through the very heart of a country hitherto utterly unknown, until he arrived at the Portuguese settlement of St. Paul di Loando. Thence, retracing his steps in order that his Makololo escort might be restored safe to their people at Linyanti, he proceeds eastward, in the direction of the river Zambese, on a branch of which the Makololo tribe was situated, accompanied by 114 of their picked men, who were all happy to entrust themselves to his guidance until he arrives at Tete; having in his travels passed through a most healthy district, exactly suited to become the great centre of missionary enterprise. Tete is on the banks of the same noble river, the Zambese, 1000 yards broad in the narrowest part, "capable of bearing fleets and merchandize up to the ports of the interior, flowing from hence 300 miles idly into the ocean. In the course of his surveys he discovered an extensive coalfield, two seams of which (one of them fifty-eight inches thick) he observed in the bank of a river, which here falls into the Zambese. At another place named Chicora, he found two other seams of coal. Silver, gold, and iron also are reported to abound; the latter of a quality equal to the finest produced in Sweden. After leaving Tete, he proceeded down the river to Quillimaine, on one of its mouths, where H.M.S. Frolic was awaiting him; having thus opened up by his enterprise, a new El Dorado to our "Men of Manchester." Nor is this all. Wherever he went he made the most accurate observations, laying down the position of every town, the points of confluence of tributary rivers, and the windings of the great Zambese. "So constant, indeed, was the use he made of the sextant and artificial horizon, that the rumour preceded him that," a white man was coming, who brought down the sun and moon, and carried them under his arm! And in what way was his work done? The astronomer-royal at Cape Town has affirmed, that, beyond the Cape district of that colony, there is no river laid down with the accuracy with which the Zambese has been laid down in the centre of Africa by his operations. Hence, then, in a scientific-geographical, as well as a mercantile point of view, Dr. Livingston has accomplished one of the greatest works of modern times. He says, "The end of the geographical feat is the beginning of the missionary enterprise;" to this we may add that, the result of missionary enterprise, is an enlarged field for mer VOL. XLI. ни |