{339}
"Jones! I suppose Smith, Brown, or White would have served his purpose equally as well?"
"Why do you suppose that Jones was not the man's name, my lady?"
"I do not know, only it seems to me a most improbable tale."
"Improbable! Why, the family believe it, at any rate."
"And the second son is to be established in the neighborhood?"
"Yes; he intends to occupy himself in superintending land. I have some thoughts of employing him myself."
"I thought you said he inherited considerable property."
"Yes, but he has determined to let his mother enjoy the income arising from the paternal estate, and has also promised to care for his sisters' fortunes. Dr. Brookbank died intestate, it seems, but this young man says that shall make no difference. He appears to be actuated by very high principle".
Annie did not answer. She was uneasy; especially at the idea of Alfred's managing her husband's affairs. She feared some sinister motive. Her husband noticed the discontented expression of her countenance.
"Do you not like Mr. Alfred Brookbank?" He asked.
"Well, I hardly know," said Annie; "but at least I do not consider him a man of business. He was not when I knew him; besides, he is young for an agent; an older man might suit you better, Sir Philip."
"I am not sure of that; old men are apt to be obstinate and to have plans of their own; I choose to look into my affairs myself, and to make my own arrangements; so that his inexperience signifies but little, provided he is industrious, and that his American success proves him to be."
Annie knew not what objection to offer, and a dark foreboding came over; was this in any way diminished when, some few weeks afterward, Mr. Brookbank was announced, and Sir Philip, instead of receiving him in his library according to his wont with gentlemen visitors, directed him to be shown into the parlor, in which he and Lady Conway were sitting. Annie would have escaped had it been practicable, but as her departure would have attracted Sir Philip's observation, she thought it more prudent to remain.
Alfred entered, and his bearing was so respectful, so distant, that Annie would have been reassured, had she not felt that at intervals, when Sir Philip was not looking, Alfred fixed his eyes upon her with the gaze of a basilisk; and once when she chanced to look at him she thought the expression of his features perfectly demoniacal. What she had to fear she knew not, but that she did fear something was certain.
It was not only Alfred that had come to reside in the neighborhood; his mother and two sisters accompanied him. The rectory of Estcourt had passed to another, and there was no mansion on the paternal acres suited for the refined tastes of the family, so they had come to reside with Alfred in his newly purchased dwelling. A certain degree of visiting between the families would have been necessary for old acquaintance sake, but more soon became inevitable from the ascendency which Alfred shortly obtained over the mind of Sir Philip. He flattered himself into the baronet's good graces, and made himself so agreeable that Sir Philip began to think it impossible to live without him. Annie tried in vain to stem the torrent of intimacy, that threatened almost to domesticate Alfred in her house. Sir Philip was far too wise a man to be governed by his wife, so he listened to none of her remonstrances; and at times there was a look of triumph, as well as of hatred, in Alfred's features, that made her almost tremble in his presence. Annie was naturally strong-minded, yet she could not overcome this sensation, which was almost a martyrdom, particularly as she suspected Alfred was aware of the torment she underwent. She wrote to{340}her aunt, who was still at Durimond Castle, to request that she and Euphrasie would come and spend some time with her, hoping to gain courage in their society, and perhaps protection; but the answer was unpropitious:
"The Duke of Durimond had returned home seriously unwell, and at that moment it would be improper and unkind to leave the duchess without society."
Annie must, then, endure life as best she could. Alfred found himself visiting at Sir Philip's on terms of apparent equality, and often a party was made up of such society as the neighborhood afforded, expressly for the purpose of introducing the family so obnoxious to Annie. Nay, she was in a manner compelled to take her turn in visiting them, repugnant as it was to her feelings.
On these occasions Annie behaved with condescension and politeness, but with nothing more. She received Alfred with the most formal courtesy; he returned her salute with one of apparently the most profound respect. Few more words were interchanged than were absolutely necessary.
It was the current opinion that Lady Conway liked not the society of her inferiors, and Sir Philip, participating in the idea, strove to combat it, although he was no leveller in general; but in Alfred's case he thought the prejudice she entertained ought to yield to such superior merit.
One evening a social party met at Sir Philip's. Singing and dancing were going on; but Alfred was unusually dull, he could not be prevailed upon to join in any amusement. The baronet, fancying his wife's coldness might have had some influence in producing this effect, said to her in the hearing of all the party:
"My lady, was Mr. Brookbank so dull when he visited at Estcourt Hall? Did he never sing to you there?"
"Mr. Brookbank has a very fine voice," was the reply; "I have often heard him sing beautiful melodies."
"Nay, then, call upon him, in memory of 'Auld lang syne,' to sing for you, my lady; no other has the power to arouse him to-night."
Annie turned to Alfred and said in a dignified manner, "You here Sir Philip's request, Mr. Brookbank; will you consider it mine?"
Alfred started, looked at her, and bowed. He answered in a tone so low that only she could hear its purport:
"You have asked for a madman's song, my lady; what else can memory produce?"
Declining the offer of an accompaniment, he seated himself at the piano, and drew forth notes so wild, so terrific, that the whole party were electrified; then assuming the mien and gesture of one crazed in his intellect, his loud and clear voice gave full force to the following:
Oh! bid me not recall the past,Though calm appear my features nowHid though from sight the fevered blast,That caused the spirit's overthrow.'Tis not in mortal power againYouth's buoyant transport to recall;'Tis hushed—forever hushed—the strainThat could with Schilling the heart enthral.Visions of truth have passed me by,Mocking the sense, with shapes unreal,Filling each pulse with melody,Thrilling the heart with joys ideal.And freedom, independence, love.In dreams have risen to my sight—In dreams essayed my heart to prove.They vanished at return of light.And earth is all unholy now.Venal its joys!—its highest blissTo lay that false ideal low—To crush the hope of happiness.Love gone! one wish doth yet remain—One thought the maddened brain to whet:Joy vanished! Its fell rival—pain—Forbids the spirit to forget.Pain, pain triumphant, speaks of powerTo seize the serpent's foulest sting.Therewith to bid the tyrant cower.Back to return the poisoned spring.Yes! I'll unveil those mocking forms,Those shapes of grace, all seat from hell;I will reveal the latent stormsThat 'neath the placid surface dwell.Thus proudly I'll unveil deceit;Thus fearfully I'll stifle pain—The mask torn off—made known the cheat—Ne'er shall the false one rest again!With trust destroyed, with pleasure gone,Earth yields the soul no fitting mate;But standing fearless and aloneThe vengeful spirit lives—to hate.
{341}
The emphasis that was given to this wild song struck terror to the hearts of the hearers, especially as the singer himself seemed frantic with excitement When it was finished a pause ensued, as if all present wanted to take breath; and Sir Philip found voice to say:
"Why, where on earth, Brookbank, did you learn such a ditty as that? You have absolutely frightened the young ladies; they think you half mad, yourself."
"It is the lay of a madman in good earnest," said Alfred, "he who composed it was crazed by disappointed love; I sing it now and then as a warning to young ladies not to be too cruel."
He looked round the room for Annie as he spoke; but Annie was no longer there; every line of that song had spoken volumes to her, in telling her what a bitter enemy she had raised, and as the last word vibrated on the singer's lips, she left the apartment. When she returned she was very pale. She felt conscious that Alfred was watching her every movement, and that feeling made her miserable.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Autumn is dying, alas! Sweet Autumn is near to her death;All through the night may be felt her languid scented breathComing and going in gasps long-drawn by the shivering trees,Out on the misty moors, and down by the dew-drenched leas.Autumn is dying, alas! Her face grows pallid and gray;The healthy flush of her prime is momently fading away;And her sunken cheeks are streaked with a feverish hectic red,As she gathers the falling leaves, and piles them about her bed.Autumn is dying, alas! Her bosom is rifled and bare;Gone is the grain and the fruit, and the flowers out of her hair,Whilst her faded garment of green is blown about in the lanes,And her ancient lover, the Sun, looks coldly down on her pains.Autumn is dying, alas! She lies forlorn and alone;The little chorusing birds have a broken, unhappy toneAs they fly in a crowd to the hedge when the evening mists arise,To curtain the bed of death, and shadow the closing eyes.Autumn is dying, alas! But to-night the silent cloud,Dropping great tears of rain, will come and make her a shroud,Winding it this way and that, tenderly round and around,Then catch her away in its arms from the damp, unwholesome ground.Autumn is dead, alas! Why alas? All her labor is done,Perfected, finished, complete, 'neath the wind and the rain and the sun;All the earth is enriched—the garners of men run o'er;There is food for man and beast, and the stranger that begs at the door.Look to thy life, O man! Swiftly approaches the night;Whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with all thy might.Labor right on to the end: let thy works go forth abroad;Then turn thy face to the sky, and enter the "joy of thy Lord."
{342}
[Footnote 103: 1. The Gospel in Turkey, being "the Tenth and Eleventh Annual Reports of the Turkish Missions-Aid Society." Published at the Society's Office, 7 Adam Street, W.C.; at Nisbet's; and Hatchard's, London. 1864-52. The Lebanon: a History and a Diary. By David Urquhart. London; Newby. 1860.3. Journal of a Tour in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Greece. By James Laird Patterson. M.A. London: Dolman. 1852.4. Prospectus of "the Syrian Protestant College." Issued by "The Turkish Missions-Aid Society." London. 1865.]
There are few impartial and well-informed Protestants who will not confess that their missions throughout the world have invariably proved to be utter failures. No matter to what sect or denomination they belong, or from what country or association their funds are derived, Protestant missionaries, as preachers of that gospel about which they speak so much, never have converted, and we believe never will, convert the heathen save by units and driblets, hardly worthy of mention. In India, in Turkey, in Africa, among the South-Sea Islanders, and the Red Indians of America, the result of Protestant missionary labor is the same wherever it has been tried. The people to whom their missionaries are sent may, and often do, become more or less civilized from intercourse with educated men, and often learn from those who wish to teach them higher matters, some of the arts and appliances of European life. Some few certainly embrace what their preachers deem to be Christianity; and occasionally, but very seldom, small communities of nominal Christians are formed by them. But to bring whole regions of the inhabitants to the foot of the cross—to convert whole nations to Christianity—to prove that their converts have embraced a system in which a man must do what is right as well as believe what is true—are triumphs which have hitherto been reserved for the Catholic Church, and for her alone.
But, even humanly speaking—and quite apart from all considerations of the truth as existing only in the ark which our Lord himself built—can we wonder at these results? Are there any who have sojourned in, or even past through the lands where missionaries of both religions work, and have not compared the Catholic priest with the Protestant minister who has come out to preach the gospel in those countries? Take, for instance, and up-country station in British India. Is there a Protestant missionary in the place? If so, he is a man with considerably more than the mere script and staff of apostolic days in his possession. As wealth goes among Englishmen in the East, he is perhaps not rich; but he is nevertheless quite at his ease, and certainly wanting for nothing. He has his comfortable bungalow; his wife and children are with him; the modest one-horse carriage is not wanting for the evening drive of himself and family; nor is the furniture of his house such as any man of moderate means need despise. He has a regular income from the society he represents; and his allowances are generally such as, with a little care, will allow of his living in great comfort. And, finally, if he falls sick, too sick to remain in the country, the means of taking him home again to England or America are forthcoming at a moment's notice. He is generally a good linguist; for having nothing else to do daring six days of the week, he devotes much of his time to the study of the vernacular.{343}He is respected by the European officers of the station; for he is often the only person they ever see in the shape of a clergyman. He is almost always an honest, upright man, with little or no knowledge of the world, and, if possible, less of the natives to whom he is sent to preach. This, however, does not matter; for, except among his own personal servants, he makes no converts, and has but few hearers. There is no positive harm in him, but as little active good. He is a fair sample of a pious-minded Calvinist, but is certainly no missionary, as Catholics understand the word. So far from having given up anything to come out to India, both he, his wife, and his—generally very numerous—offspring are much better off than if he had remained in his native Lanarkshire or Pennsylvania. If he belongs to the Church of England, he is very often a German by birth, and appears to have "taken orders" in the establishment without having for a moment abandoned his own peculiar theological views. Some few Englishmen—literates, hardly ever University men—are to be found here and there, as English Church missionaries; but these are and far between, nor do their labors often show greater results than those of their Presbyterian fellow-laborers. Even Dr. Littledale [Footnote 104] speaks of "the pitiful history of Anglican missions to the heathen;" and he might with great truth have extended his verdict to the missions of every other denomination of Protestantism.
[Footnote 104: See The Missionary Aspect of Ritualism, in the Church and the World. (London: Longmans.)]
In contrast to the Protestant, take the European Catholic missionary in the East, as apart from the native-born priest. He is invariably a volunteer for the work, either a monk or a secular priest, who aspiring to more severe labor in his Master's vineyard, has chosen the hard and rugged path of a preacher of the gospel in pagan lands. As a general rule, you will probably find him living in an humble room in the native bazaar, and depending for his daily bread upon the charity of his flock, or the contributions of any English Catholic officer or civilian who may happen to be in the neighborhood. He is Catholic in his nation as in his creed; for you may find him French, Belgian, Italian, Spanish, Irish, or English. The present writer has met a French nobleman and the son of a wealthy Yorkshire squire laboring and preaching as Jesuit Missionaries to the natives of India and the poor Irish soldiers who form so large a portion of every garrison in that country. Is it, then, to be wondered at if, notwithstanding their superior means and far greater worldly "respectability," the Protestant missionaries do not succeed as ours do; or rather, that whereas our missions are never without fruit, theirs seldom show forth even a few sickly leaves? But the simple fact is, the missionary spirit—or rather the spirit which leads a man, if he believes that duty to God calls him to abandon family, wealth, comfort, health, nay, life itself—never has, and never can be, understood by Protestants, whether climbing the heights of ritualism, or sunk in the depths of Socinianism. Catholics are often angry with Protestants, because the latter are uncharitable respecting monks, priests, and nuns. Catholics are wrong in being angry. Hardly any person who is not a Catholic can understand the spirit which moves men and women to make such sacrifices for the love of God, and counts the loss as so much gain. The very idea of these acts is to him as color to one who has been blind from his birth: he not only cannot understand it, but you cannot explain it to him. This is a truth to which every convert will bear testimony, after his eyes have been opened to the truths of God's one and only Church, and which even few of those who have been Catholic from their youth upward can realize.
But notwithstanding "the pitiful history" of Protestant missions to the heathen, the work of these gentlemen in that direction is not deserving of{344}other sentiment than that of pity. If men will labor in fields where they can bring forth no harvest, and if others will pay them for doing no good, the affair is theirs, not ours. They never can do harm to the Church in those regions, for they achieve neither good nor evil to any one, further than by giving the natives in places where there are no Catholic missionaries a very erroneous idea as to what the duties of a Christian teacher ought to be. Not so, however, in those countries where Protestantism has sent its emissaries to undermine the faith which flourished among the inhabitants centuries before the very name of Protestant was known or heard of. To help such undertakings, "The Turkish Missions-Aid Society" was established and is kept up, and it is to the two reports of that society at the head of the list of works under notice, that we would call the especial attention of Protestants, even more than Catholics, throughout England.
The "Laws and Regulations" of "The Turkish Missions-Aid Society" are divided into nine clauses, and in the second of these we are told that—
"The object of this society is not to originate a new mission, but to aid existing evangelical missions in the Turkish empire, especially the American."
What these "evangelicals" missions are, and to whom the "American" missionaries are sent, we shall see presently. As a matter of course, the society is supported by the very cream of "evangelical" Protestantism, having Lord Shaftesbury for its President, Lord Ebury as Vice-President, and Mr. Kinnaird as Treasurer. The subscriptions are very large indeed, and from the "statement" furnished by the report for 1864-65, we find that no less a sum than £24,672 5s, has been sent out to the East for "native agencies" alone, since the commencement of the society, now about eleven years ago; this, of course, being all in addition to the very heavy sums and comfortable salaries furnished by the American society, called the Board of Foreign Missions, by which these missions and missionaries are maintained.
It would appear that the "fields" occupied by these American missions are five in number, and the present condition of them is thus summarized in the eleventh, the latest, annual report, now before us:
[Transcriber's note: The column titles areabbreviated as follows:MS.—MissionariesNA.—Native assistanceSAOS.—Stations and OutstationsCH.—ChurchesCM.—Church MembersSCH.—SchoolsASA.—Average Sabbath AttendanceSMF.—Scholars male and female]
These "missions" have been at work, some more, some less time; but a fair average for the whole would be about twenty-five years. It will be observed that in the five "fields" there are but 2,642 "church members," or what, among Catholics, would be termed communicants. The individuals who come under the head of "Average Sabbath Attendance," can no more be termed Protestant then his grace the duke of Sutherland can be called a Catholic because he was present at the funeral of Cardinal Wiseman. But we will grant, for the sake of argument, that the 2,642 "church members" are earnest, consistent Protestants. If so, and taking into calculation only the funds furnished by the Turkish Missions-Aid Society, as quoted above, these converts I'm not very valuable, for they have only cost something less than ten pounds each. But if to the £24,672 5s., we add all that the American Board of Missions has paid in the same period as salaries for missionaries, for "native assistants," for schoolmasters, rents, building of churches, printing, books, and the passage-money of missionaries and their families to and from the East, we shall find that there is not one of these individuals whose conversion has not one way and another cost around three thousand pounds. At this price{345}they ought to be staunch anti-papists, for their religion has been a very high-priced article.
Let us turn for a moment to the second book on the list at the head of this article. No one who has read a line of the well-known Mr. Urquhart's many writings on political questions, will ever accuse him of Catholic tendency on any subject. He is not a bigot, indeed; nor, again, does he ever defendant the past history of Protestantism, for he is too well read to uphold what every honest man, with the knowledge of an ordinary school-boy, must condemn. In oriental matters, moreover, Mr. Urquhart has his peculiar views; but as these have nothing whatever to do with the questions of Protestant and Catholic, missionary or non-missionary, we may fairly accept what he says on the subject as the testimony of an impartial witness. Here, then, is what he writes respecting the Catholic clergy and the sectarian missionaries in Syria and Mount Lebanon:
"The Roman Catholic regular and secular clergy are established here as in any other Roman Catholic country; that is to say, they are pastors of flocks, and not missionaries, The Protestants have no flocks, andthey are sent with a view to creating them. TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS are yearly subscribed in the United States for that object, and the missionaries come here having to justify the salaries they receive."—The Lebanon, vol. ii. p. 78.
The italics in the above quotation are our own, and we have thus marked the words in order to draw attention to what every traveller in the East, not that with the "pure gospel" media, has borne testimony. But let us return once more to the "statement" of the five missionary "fields" occupied by the Americans in the East. Mr. Urquhart would never make an assertion like the above without chapter and verse for what he says; and when the writes that TWENTY-FIVE THOUSANDS POUNDS are yearly subscribed in the United States to support their missionaries in the East, we may very safely consider the statement to be true. We cannot, however, suppose that for this enormous sum the missions in Syria only are meant, for then each one of the two hundred "church members" with which that land is blessed would cost a small fortune in himself. But at the same time it is impossible not to allow that he must mean the American missionary establishments in the East generally—the five "fields," of which a "statement" has been copied above, and the total of whose "church members" amounts to 2,642. And even with this calculation it will be seen that every Protestant communicant costs the pretty littleannualsum of about £9 10s. for his conversion, and subsequent religious instruction. We are given to finding fault, and not unnaturally so, with the cost of the Established Church in Ireland; but what is this when compared with the price of the "Gospel in Turkey"? It is doubtful whether—apart, perhaps, from some other Protestant missionary "field" of which we are yet ignorant—the religious instruction of any people in the known world costs as much. It is as if each ten individuals had a curate entirely to themselves, and each hundred "church members" a very well-paid private Anglican rector of their own. No wonder that we are told the Syrian Protestant converts think highly of their new creed, "the Gospel of Christ," as it is modestly called. In a country where everything is more or less measured by a monetary standard, a convert for whose spiritual well-being £9 10s. per annum is paid must believe himself to be in a state of exaltation, considering that had he remained in his own church, his Maronite, Greek, Greek Catholic, or Armenian priest—having to say mass every day, to attend to some one or two thousand parishioners probably scattered over a large district—would consider himself very fortunate indeed if he had a stipend of two thousand piastres a year, or about £20, of which more than half would be paid in corn, oil, or fruits.{346}The fathers of the Jesuit mission in Syria are allowed a thousand francs, £40, for the travelling expenses, clothing, table, etc., of each priest when engaged on missionary work away from the house of his community; how, then, is it that the American missionaries cost so very much more? We will take up our quotation from Mr. Urquhart again, at the point where we left off:
"They (the American missionaries) have town-house and country-house, horses to ride and an establishment and a table which speaks well for the taste of the citizens of the United States. These are results obtained by exertion and combination, and which, affording enjoyment in their possession, prompt to efforts for their retention. The persons thus raised to affluence and consideration in a fine and luxurious climate would have to sink back to hard conditions of life, if not to want and destitution. This relapse presents itself as the consequence of failing in the creating of congregations, or at least of supplying to those who subscribe the funds plausible grounds for expecting that the consummation was near. Looking at the country, nothing can be more painful and more hopeless than the contest: nowhere is an ear open. As to converting the Turks, they might just as well try to convert the Archbishop of Canterbury.* * * * * *"As to converting the Jews, it would be much better for the United States to send missionaries to Monmouth-street. There remain, then, but the Maronite, the Greek, the Greek Catholic, Armenian, and Nestorian churches, that is to say Christians, to convert. From the pre-existing animosities among the Christians, the missionaries could not so much as open their mouths to any of the members of these communities on the subject of religion, and therefore it is a totally different course that they have adopted. They have offered themselves as schoolmasters; not as persons depending for remuneration on their claims to the confidence of parents, and on their proficiency; but supplying instruction gratuitously, and adding thereto remuneration to the scholars in various shapes. Their admission in this form has been forced upon the people by the Turkish government. The condition, however, has been appended to it, that they should not attempt to interfere with the religious belief of the pupils. This has been going on for years; the money continuing to be supplied on the grounds that Protestant congregations are being created, and the proceeds enjoyed by the missionaries on their undertaking that they shall not create them."The statistical under-current is, however, veiled or disguised from the men (the missionaries) themselves. The one generation has, so to say, succeeded the other. The new men come out occupied with their zeal, not caring critically to examine the position in which they stand, in entering at once on a contest already engaged. They are filled with contempt for everything around them; and to religious zeal, itself a sufficiently active impulse, is superadded the necessity of furnishing reports for public meetings and periodicals in America—reports which, failing to contain statements proselytes secured, have at last to supply narratives of contests undertaken and martyrdom endured."—The Lebanon, vol. ii. pp. 79, 80.
Our author has, in the foregoing paragraph, certainly touch most of the weak points of Protestant missionary working. Even a cursory analysis of the reports before thus confirm every word of this quotation from his book. Like every Protestant account of missionary work, the Turkish Missions-Aid Society's Reports are interlarded with scriptural quotations, having always the same significance—that the time for seeing the results of the labor has not yet come, but soon will be; or, as Mr. Urquhart puts it, they supply to those who subscribe the funds, plausible grounds for expecting that the consummation is near.
Some years ago, a grand case ofquasimartyrdom was reported that Exeter Hall, and must have been worth much money to the societies who furnish missionary funds for the East, both in England and America. It was the cause of many questions being asked, and much correspondence being furnished, in both Houses of Parliament. Dispatches were written, the Turkish Government threatened, and the life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who was then our representative at the Porte, made a burden to him for a time with extra work. The story was that some American Protestant missionaries, when "preaching the Gospel" on Mount Lebanon, were stoned and otherwise ill-treated, being finally turned out of the village in which they resided; some of them being badly wounded. The tale was well told, but, like other histories of the kind, was allowed to the forgotten{347}as soon as it had served its purpose. Here is Mr. Urquhart's version of the affair, gathered as it was in the country itself, is not unlikely to prove the true version of the story:
"The missionaries arriving at Eden (a village not far from the celebrated cedars of Lebanon, the inhabitants consisting entirely of Maronite Catholics) entered a house, and disposed themselves to occupy it. The master of the house told them that he would not and could not receive them. They persisted, threatening him in the name of the Turkish authorities. A great commotion ensued, and the people, with the fear of the Turkish authorities before their eyes, devised a plan for dislodging the missionaries by unroofing the house. A roof in the Lebanon is not composed of tiles and rafters; to touch a roof is a very serious affair, not to be undertaken in wantonness. The people had the satisfaction of seeing the missionaries mount and depart without any act on their part which would expose them to after-retribution."—The Lebanon, vol ii. p. 82.
I said before, Mr. Urquhart is one of the very last men who could be accused of any leaning toward Catholicism, still less of any affection toward the native Christian population of Syria and Lebanon. Of this his volumes bear witness in every chapter. But in a dozen instances he proves what we have so often heard asserted by travellers returned from these regions, that the people do not want, and do not wish for, the American missionaries, and would far rather be without them. Also that wherever these Protestant apostles are located, their presence is a continual source of trouble and annoyance, by causing quarrels among the people, and that their sojourn in the land is most certainly not conducive either to the glory of God on high, or of peace on earth to men of good will. That their so-called mission has been a most complete religiousfiasco, is pretty well proved by the returns which at page 308 we copy from these reports. If the reader will but turn back to it, he will find that with twenty-four missionaries and thirty-seven native assistants, the number of "church members" in the Syrian "field" amounts to no more than two hundred, and this after the Americans have worked as missionaries in this "field" for the last quarter of a century or more. Surely no clearer proof than this is wanting for endorsing what Mr. Urquhart has said above respecting the way and the reason why these religious undertakings are puffed up, and "plausible grounds" given for expecting that the consummation of "gospel" triumph is at hand.
There is, perhaps, no Christian population in the world more united as a body, more attached to their clergy, more faithful in their holding to the See of Peter, or more orthodox in every particle of their faith, than the Maronites of Mount Lebanon. To illustrate, even in the most superficial manner, the history and ritual of this singular people would extend this paper far beyond our limits. Suffice it to say that upward of ONE THOUSAND years before the discovery of America, the holy sacrifice of the mass was offered up in their churches, and matins, lauds, vespers, and complins sung every morning and evening in their sanctuaries, just as at the present day. Their name is derived from that of St. Maroun, a holy hermit, who, in the fourth century, when the heresies of Eutyches and the errors of Monothelism were so common throughout the East, preserved the inhabitants of Lebanon and the adjacent parts from those influences. "The Maronites," says Mgr. Patterson, in his work, which is the third on our list at the head of this paper,—
"The Maronites maintain that they have never swerved from the Catholic faith, and love to assert that their Patriarch is the only one whose spiritual lineage from St. Peter, in the see of Antioch, has been unbroken by the taint of heresy or schism." (P. 389.)
Their secular clergy number about 1,200, and the regulars, inhabiting sixty-seven monasteries, comprise some 1,400 monks, priests, and lay brothers. They have besides fifteen convents, in which there are about 300 nuns.
{348}
"The blessings of education (continues the same author) are widely diffused among the Maronites. Almost all are able to read and write; and though few even of the clergy can be called learned, they are all sufficiently instructed in the most necessary things, and especially in the practical knowledge of their faith. Offences are rare among them, crimes almost unknown. The number of the Maronites of Lebanon appears to be about 250,000. In 1180, William of Tyre estimated them at more than 40,000; in 1784 Volney placed them at 115,000; and Perrier, in 1840, at 220,000. Elsewhere they are hardly to be found; the largest number I know of is at Cyprus, where there are about 1,500. A few also are found at Aleppo and Damascus, and some at Cyprus.* * * * *"There are (among the Maronites of Lebanon) four principal colleges for the education of the clergy. The most ancient is that of Ain Warka, in which between thirty and forty pupils are educated. They are taught Arabic (their vernacular), Syriac, which is the liturgical language of this rite; logic, moral theology, Italian, and Latin. Six exhibitions for the maintenance of as many scholars at the College of Propaganda were attached to this college. At the time of the first French occupation of Rome, the funds which provided for them were seized, and have never been restored; but the pupils still go to Rome, and many of them are to be met with in the higher ranks of the Maronite clergy." (P. 388.)
It is then to turn this people, and these priests, from the faith which they have so long and so honestly held, and from the spiritual paths in which they have walked for at least fifteen hundred years, that respectable black-coated American gentlemen, whose experience of life has been confined to Boston or New York, are sent over and maintained by the funds furnished by the zealous evangelicals of England and the United States. No wonder if those to whom they come would rather be without them. With the people whom they are sent to "convert" they have not a single idea in common. The very vernacular of the country has to be studied and learnt by them (an undertaking of at least two or three years, as Arabic is perhaps the most difficult language in the world for an adult to acquire a proficiency in), before they can preach or even converse with those whom they wish to teach what they themselves deem, the truths of eternal life. Without the most remote approach to a thing like a ritual, and without even the barest liturgy to recommend them, they come among a people who from very very infancy are perhaps more familiar with the meaning and teaching of earnest ritualism than any nation on earth. Mr. Urquhart, in the quotation we have given elsewhere, says of the American missionaries, that "as to converting the Turks, they might just as well try to convert the Archbishop of Canterbury;" might he not have said the same as to the converting of the Maronites? From the 200 "church members," which the returns of the Turkish Missions-Aid Society state as the result of the "missionary" labor on the Syrian "field" during the quarter of a century and more which the work has been going on, if we deduct the personal servants of the twenty-four missionaries, and of thirty-seven native assistants, how many will then be left as real, true, and earnest converts from their own faith to that which the American missionaries would teach them? "It has to be observed," says Mr. Urquhart, "that the proselytism carried on is not, as is supposed in Europe, against unbelievers, but between Christians;" [Footnote 105] and surely here is proselytism of the kind forced upon a people against their will, by the inhabitants of another far-off country, who would do very much better if they spent their yearly £25,000 among themselves, in "converting" the thousands of worse than pagans to be seen daily in the streets of every great town of England and America, and whose "faith" is from time to time shown in their "works."
[Footnote 105: The Lebanon, vol ii. p.79.]
We have no desire to hold up to the ridicule they deserve the absurd canting sentences and so-called scriptural ejaculations with which the of the Turkish Missions-Aid Society is interlarded. All who have perused similar documents must be well acquainted with the way in which{349}verses from Holy Writ are made to serve£. s. d.by the writer. Nor do we wish to make our readers laugh I reproduce some of the "pious" anecdotes which are to be met with in these pages. Thus it may, or may not, be true that at Nicomedia "a few years ago all was darkness and bigotry;" but it can hardly be taken what the French would call "au sérieux" that two Armenian priests in this locality were "awakened" by reading an Armeno-Turkish translation of The Dairyman's Daughter, and that, since the conversion of these gentlemen, a flourishing church, with a large congregation, has been gathered together, and a home mission formed to carry the Gospel to the towns and villages around. [Footnote 106] Also, from a personal knowledge of the facts, we permit ourselves to doubt whether the so-called "missionary" work in Constantinople has been, to say the least of it, judiciously carried on; and whether, about two years ago, the zeal without knowledge on the part of the missionaries did not very nearly cause a rising of the whole Mahometan population, and a general massacre of all the Christian population in that city. Nor—on the testimony of Anglicans, Presbyterians, and other Protestants—can we subscribe to the eulogium sung in praise of "the excellent Bishop Gobat." We have far more serious matters to deal with as regards the American missions in Syria and the East, and of which, if they are in the least degree consistent, Protestants more than Catholics whom it really does does not concern, would do well to take heed.
[Footnote 106: See Tenth Annual Report of the Turkish Missions-Aid Society. p. 10.]
In the appendix to his "Tour," Mgr. Patterson has, with a fairness and impartiality of judgment which cannot the too highly praised, investigated the question as to what it is that the native Protestants in the East really believe with the process of their so-called "conversion" is complete. And it may not be out of place here to that mention that the present writer, who has lately returned from a residence of nearly ten years in those countries, entirely and to the letter agrees with what this author has stated. Were it allowable to mention names, he could also adduce the authority of many Englishmen who have resided in Smyrna, Constantinople, Beyrout, Damascus, the Lebanon, and other parts of the East, all of them Protestants, most of them attending every Sunday the English ministrations of the American missionaries, and some of them even communicants in their churches. The evidence of these is varied in different points, but, as a whole, certain pages of Dr. Patterson's appendix might serve as a precis of the various opinions which these gentlemen have spoken, and which the writer himself has formed during his prolonged residence in the East. Be it, however, noted, that the objections here raised are not against the American missionaries themselves, but against the result of their labors, as well as against those of other Protestant missionaries— wherever throughout these lands their labors have produced any fruit whatever in the shape of "converts."
"Most true it is," says Mgr. Patterson, "that though large sums are expended yearly by Protestants for their missions, the result is nevertheless small indeed; but yet a great work is being done (I sincerely think unintentionally) by those establishments.The faith of hundreds and thousands in their own religion is being shaken, without any other faith being substituted for it. [Footnote 107] The missionaries' reports are full of expressions to the effect that many persons come to them, declaring their readiness to hear what they had to say, and their disbelief of their own national or common faith; and yet the 'converts' registered by themselves may be told in units, or at most by tens. Accordingly, I never came in contact with 'liberals' in politics or religion, whether Jew, Christian, or Gentile, who did not commence the conversation (on the supposition that I was a Protestant) by declaring their disbelief of this or that current dogma of their faith; and in all such cases I found I was expected, at aProtestantto applaud{350}and admire their lamentable condition of mind. I repeat, most emphatically, that I never saw a single person of this description who had one doctrine toaffirm. The work of the Protestant missions is simply descriptive. In Turkey it is detaching Mohammedan subjects from their allegiance to their spiritual and temporal head; in Greece it is introducing the mind of youth to the conceit of private judgment; in Egypt it does the same for the Copts; and in Mesopotamia for the Nestorians. The missionaries report that, among the Jews, they prefer to have to do with the rationalists rather than with the Talmudists; and acting on that principle everywhere, they first make atabula rasaof minds, on which they never afterward succeed in inscribing the laws of sincere faith or consistent practice." (P. 456.)
[Footnote 107: The italics an our own, and we give them to mark the pith of the whole question, with which nearly all Protestants, as well as every Catholic we have met, that have inhabited Syria, Palestine, or the Holy Land for any time, most fully concur.]
Here, then, we have, in a few words, an account of what the teachings of the Protestant missionaries in the East result in. They take away the faith that is in these people, and give them nothing in return. [Footnote 108] In other and plainer words, the end of all this teaching, and preaching, and denouncing of "popish" doctrines, is simple unbelief or infidelity, embellished with Scriptural verses and the current cant of the evangelical school. Do the subscribers to the Turkish Missions-Aid Society contemplate this as one of the results of their liberal donations? Isthiswhat the society put forth so boldly as the "Gospel in Turkey?" Is it for such a change that the traditions mounting to within less than four hundred years of our Lord's sojourn on earth, preserved as they are by a people living in the land which he inhabited, are to be cast off? Surely, even from the most enthusiastic of the evangelical school, these questions can have but one answer. [Footnote 109]
[Footnote 108: An English official who had resided upward of twenty-five years in Syria, and who is a very earnest Protestant, told the present writer exactly the same. "The American missionaries," he said, "destroy the faith these native Christians had, but give them no other in return. The consequence is, that they invariably become more rationalists."][Footnote 109: About four years ago, a party of English travelers were journeying over Mount Lebanon. While halting at a roadside "khan," they were accosted by a native who spoke English very well. They asked him who he was, and where he had learnt their language. He said he was, or had been, servant to one of the American missionaries, naming the gentleman, and that he was "a good Protestant." One of the ladies present put a few questions to him, and among others, asked him what he now believed of the Virgin Mary? "Thatfor the Virgin Mary," said the miscreant, spitting at the same time, and using an Arabic gesture indicating the utmost contempt. The lady—an Anglican, not a Catholic—of course dropped the conversation, feeling too disgusted to continue it. Some days afterward she related that anecdote to the wife of an American missionary; but the latter was not at all shocked, merely making the remark. "I guess the the man had got rid of his old superstitions." Is this what they call evangelizing the native Christians?]
And let not the subject be either misunderstood or blinked. Take any dozen Englishmen really conversant with the ways of the country and the ideas of the inhabitants; let them all the Protestants, and even be of those who, finding no other Protestant ministration, attend the chapels of the American missionaries. Of the twelve, certainly nine will tell you that, although well-meaning and honest made in their way, the preaching of the Protestant missionaries in the East holes down but never builds up belief, and that in sober truth the native Protestant "converts" are but so many free-thinkers—theoretical Christians, but practical infidels. There is, with respect to this part of our subject, one more extract from Mgr. Patterson's book, [Footnote 110] which, although somewhat lengthy, we find so much to the purpose, with respect to some of the questions of the day, that we copy it entire:—
[Footnote 110: No one interested in the present spiritual state of the East should be without this volume, and every traveller to Palestine—Catholic or Protestant—should take it with him.]
"The Protestant sects of the West (says our author) are represented in the East by missions of several denominations; but since they all represent but one principle, namely the denegation of spiritual authority as the basis of belief, it is unnecessary to to distinguish them here. At first sight it might appear that the Episcopalians, or representatives of the Anglican establishment, should command a distinct notice, since they have one point (that of episcopal superintendence) in common with the Eastern sects; but when is considered, not merely that the fact of their having real bishops is denied by all sects of the East, [Footnote 111] as well as by the Catholic Church,{351}but that they themselves entirely repudiate any claims which might be founded on their supposed possession of an apostolic commission and authority through the episcopate; and when, moreover, it is remembered that a few persons who think differently on these points are wholly unrepresented in the East, it seems evident that the distinction would be unreal. Further, the Protestant missions in the East are mainly supplied by ministers in the communion of the Establishment in England, but often not episcopally appointed or ordained, and in all cases a perfect the equality is admitted between such as are so appointed and those who are not. Hence the Anglo-Lutheran 'Episcopalians,' the independents, the American Congregationalists, etc., act in unison, and on one principle. They teach that the belief they advocate in certain doctrines is to be acquired by each individual through a perusal of certain writings, and must be held by him as the result of convictions proceeding from his own investigation of those writings, which they assert to be the inspired word of God. This procedure they call 'the right of private judgment.'
[Footnote 111: This, be it remembered, was written in 1852, ten years before the recent attempt at union on the part of certain Anglicans with the Greek Church. What Mgr. Patterson says is the simple truth, and is confirmed by numerous conversations which the present writer had, during a ten years' residence with several patriarchs and numerous bishops, priests, and deacons of the Greek, Armenian, Nestorian, Copt, and Jacobite sects. All these clergy hate the very name of Rome, but they acknowledge she has real bishops and a real priesthood; while one and all deny that the Anglican Church as neither. The English Book of Common Prayer, translated into Arabic, is very often met with throughout the East, but it does not appear to have impressed the Oriental Churches, whether in communion with the See of Peter or not, very favorably respecting the Established Church of this country. The Thirty-nine Articles they regard with especial horror, as showing the church to be heretical at core. Nor have the members of the Anglican Church and Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem done much to remove this impression, but rather the contrary.]
"But the very terms of the Protestant principle, thus represented, involve, not merely a disregard of existing authorities, but also of that which presents that system for the acceptance of Eastern Christians. Those, however, who advocate its claims are not usually to be bound by the laws of consistency in logic. Though they will have every man to read the Sacred Scriptures (that is,theirversion of them) and to judge for himself, they have also a few doctrines, built on them, as they suppose, to which they attach an importance equal to that ascribed by Catholics to the dogmas of faith. Of these, the chief is what they term 'justification by faith only' the doctrine which teaches that man is accounted (but not made) fit for eternal life in the divine presence, by asubjectiveact or sentiment of the mind, called by them 'faith.' This 'faith' is not the 'faith' of theological writers, but a persuasion, or enthusiastic feeling, on the part of the individual, that he is saved from eternal death by sacrifice of the cross. Laying such stress as this view does on a persuasion, or feeling of the mind, it might be expected that other acts of the mind would be regarded by those teachers as of cognate importance. With singular inconsistency, however, they regard all such acts, whether of love, hope, or fear, or the like, as not only unimportant or indifferent, but even sinful in fact or tendency. The one operation of the soul to which they attach salvation is that of persuasion that itself is saved. To account for so arbitrary a distinction, they allege that this persuasion is not a natural gift, but a divine grace—or, rather, the divine grace; for in it are contained, and from it flow, all those good results which Catholic writers call 'graces;' such as humility, charity, hope, etc. This extraordinary and almost inexplicable doctrine, they consider not only conveyed in Holy Scripture, but the whole sum and substance of its teachings; and they allege portions of the epistles of St. Paul, in which he declares that man is not justified by works, done irrespectively of the divine sacrifice of the cross, to prove that all works or acts of the mind (saving always the one act of persuasion, which they call 'faith') are valueless and ineffectual to work out salvation. The teachers of this view among us are often pious persons, who act morally from natural good feelings; but the Eastern mind is too consistent and too voluptuous to imitate them. If it is possible, they say, to attain salvation by means of a sentiment so pleasant, we regard it as quite unnecessary to add to it supererogatory performances disagreeable to our inclinations." (P. 453.)
Here, in sober fact, and if we will only give things their right names, is one of the chief reasons of such "conversions" as take place in the East to Protestantism. An oriental mind is difficult to fathom at once; but take any of the professed Protestants in Syria or other parts of Turkey, clear away all the rubbish they have learnt to talk in imitation of their new teachers—separate if you can (and it is merely a matter of time and patience) all the prating about "the Lord Jesus," and "the blessed Scriptures," the "teaching of the Spirit," and suchlike spiritual mouthings, from what are the actual thoughts of the individual and the real reasons for his change, and you will invariably find at the bottom of his mind the all-prevailing idea, that of what use are confession, penance, private prayer, fasting, giving alms, and other good works, when salvation can be accomplished by the far more easy and pleasant process of a mere sentiment of the mind, which any man can train his understanding into believing when he wishes to do so. And these, be it understood, are the best of the converts. As Mgr. Patterson says of them:—