THE DISTINGUISHED TRAVELER'S VIEWS.
Mr. Chase dropped his pipe, as if in a great hurry, and continued:
"Now, here are three missionaries, and they will excuse me, as I am
about to present to them a great truth--each of whom has left at his
respective station from two to four colleagues. There are then from ten
to fifteen men, with as many women and more children; the difficulty is
with these women and children; they are very dear, precious objects, I
have no doubt, in their own homes and in Christian lands, but they are
only clogs and drawbacks in such an enterprise as these young men are
engaged. A man alone can dive into forests, scale mountains, swim
rivers, fight lions, eat raw birds, make his bed in caves, or on solid
rock, lie down with the Indian, rise up with the Hindostan, do any and
every conceivable wild outlandish thing that the world's nations do; but
with a woman--pshaw, that alters the case."
"But there are instances of brave women," remarked the Doctor, "Look at
Lady Hester Stanhope, and Lady ----"
"But they were unmarried women. There are the Amazons of old too, and
Amazons are not wanting at the present time--but such do not come within
my category. From the very nature of the case, a man with a wife is
fettered; he cannot be absent from home twenty-four consecutive hours.
She is afraid of the dark, afraid of dogs and lions, of robbers and
murderers, afraid the children will get sick, or that 'something or
other will be sure to happen, as always does if he is away.' He too is
as uneasy as herself, meditates all sorts of mishaps, imagines the house
on fire, Johnny in the well, Fanny with a bean in her throat or a corn
in her ear, and is on thorns and briers until his own house circles him
around again. This is all right and natural for the ordinary domestic
man; but, as I understand it, the missionary undertakes God's work; he
renounces the world, its joys, comforts, friendships; he is no longer
his own; but his will, love, obedience, and work is all for God, his
Master, and for the heathen who know Him not. The truth is, the man who
considers himself called to missionary labors should leave his wife
behind him; that is, he should have no wife."
The Doctor, who was now a man of sixty, had been thrice married, and was
now entertaining thoughts of a fourth wife, took his pipe from his lips
and said emphatically:
"You are an extremist, Mr. Chase, you speak thus perhaps because it has
been your lot to lead a single life; but, let me tell you, I think our
missionaries sacrifice enough, without being obliged to come wifeless
among negroes, Hindoos, South-sea islanders, and Cannibals. A dreary
life at best--unendurable without companionship. You wouldn't get a man
to sail under the conditions you propose."
"Did the Apostles have wives and children pulling after them?" continued
Mr. Chase. "Imprisoned, stoned, beaten, and scoffed, was their life less
dreary than should be the missionary's of to-day? What says St.
Paul--'thrice was I stoned, thrice was I beaten with rods, thrice I
suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep.' Do you
suppose it ever occurred to that mighty, God-like spirit, even in the
lowest depth of his worldly misery, that it would be a comfort to have a
wife come to weep with him, to hand him fresh gown and sandals? Never so
far fell that grand soul from its exalted repose upon the bosom of the
infinite! From that source whence he drew courage sublimer, faith
diviner, and strength irresistible, which no woman's heart or hand could
aid in evoking! Ah, that was a glorious St. Paul."
"You are eloquent, sir, as all of us might well be over such a subject,"
said the Doctor; "but you must remember that only one St. Paul has ever
lived."
"Though he has been a model for many. I don't know--only _one_ St. Paul?
I think if we look back into history--say, take the Fathers of the
Desert--there was St. Jerome, a grand old man, St. Augustine, with less
of fire, but of lofty faith, St. Ephrem, there, in him you have a St.
Paul in eloquence; you will remember that his words were wont to flow so
rapidly that his frequent exclamation was--'O Lord, stay the tide of Thy
grace.' Why, the number is countless whose labors, toils, and
self-denials were gigantic. St. Benedict, St. Wilfred, St. Bernard stand
out--"
The Doctor having thrown down his pipe and commenced walking the floor,
here interrupted his enthusiastic guest:
"O, if you go to taking up the Roman Catholic calendar of Saints, you
will find plenty of fish in illimitable waters; but that is out of our
line of coasting, you must know; and we are not in the habit of
associating St. Paul with any of these latter-day Saints."
"Please allow me, Dr. Adams, you know I am a privileged person. My
last-named Saint, Bernard, lived at least four hundred years before
Luther and John Knox, and Wilfred and Benedict much nearer to Christ
than to us, the latter having been separated in time but four centuries
from his Lord; but let us not contend upon this point; I cheerfully
admit my own superior admiration for the converted persecutor of the
Christians."
"If his like has not been seen through eighteen hundred years, we may
not look for it in the nineteenth century," remarked the Doctor.
"I still insist, however," said the indomitable Mr Chase, "that he has
had many imitators; and that brings us back to the subject whence we
have strayed, and upon which I have not said all that I had intended. I
was going to remark, after asserting that missionaries should leave
their wives at home, that the success of Catholic missionaries
illustrates the truth of this."
"I beg you to remember," interposed the Doctor, testily, "that we do not
wish to be compared in any way, shape, or manner with the Catholic
missionaries. You might just as well compare us to the heathen who
worship idols."
Mr. Chase continued, a little more mildly than before:
"The question is not, my dear Doctor, a comparison between your religion
and theirs. I understand very little indeed about their religion. But
their object and yours is the same; by every means in your power to
induce souls ignorant of the Saviour to believe and accept the truths
you hold out; this is your mission, and this is theirs. You come with
your families, you make a home--you stay there--waiting for the heathen
to come to you; your wife is nervous, she likes not the uncouth looks
and ways of your barbarians; she is neat and she does not like her white
floor to be soiled by the dirty feet of your savages. Nervous, neat, and
timid herself, she meets their gaze anything but smilingly--even savages
are human, and know well enough how to take a hint. Her involuntary
dislike is returned with interest, and her husband's influence and
usefulness is at an end, even before being established."
"You judge us harshly," complained Dr. Adams, glancing at the
dissatisfied countenances of his younger friends, "some missionaries
have most excellent wives."
"Do not understand me as saying one word against any missionary's wife;
far be it from me. As a class, I have no doubt they are most estimable.
But women are women all the world over, and experience convinces me that
in the place they occupy as wives of missionaries they are only greatly
in the way. Now the Roman Catholics--and I am no friend to their
religion, as you very well know--as missionaries, are those only who
have met with success. _They_ attribute it to the grace of God following
their efforts, in accordance with the divine promise, 'Go teach all
nations, and lo, I am with you to the end of the world.' I have visited
their missions in every part of the world; in North and South America,
in Africa, Europe, Asia, and many islands of the sea--and in fact this
really did confound me, though I have been almost everywhere under the
sun, these missionaries were already there, working away as for dear
life--well, as I was saying, I have been in many a place where, to get
the least comfort at all, I was compelled to put up with them; and, I
always went away soothed, refreshed, and consoled. I assure you it is
wonderful; they go among the natives, and to a certain extent become one
of them; they win their confidence, treat them kindly, share with them
food and drink, sleep in their houses and tents, and by and by
insensibly have become their masters. Then how easy to teach them
anything! Now they couldn't do this with troops of women and children
along; so I came to the conclusion that their remarkable success in the
conversion of heathen nations was to be attributed to the absence of
these hindering appendages."
"But you must have found nuns as missionaries in some places."
"You know they are invisible to us profane people. They do have charge
of schools in some missions--but then, cannot you perceive that a dozen
of nuns, independent and self-supporting, is a very different
institution from a dozen of married women and half a dozen dozen small
responsibilities?"
The Doctor laughed good-humoredly.
"You stick to your point like the bark to a tree," he said. "What do you
say, young gentlemen," addressing his silent, but ill-pleased guests,
"are you convinced that you have made a blunder, and are you ready to
set about retrieving it?"
St. Leger answered, with a voice that slightly trembled with
indignation:
"I am convinced, Dr. Adams, that the learned gentleman who is so
conversant with the subject of missions, should seek and find his true
and proper position in the bosom of those successful idolaters he so
greatly admires."
"Why, you take it to heart," said the Doctor. "Had you known Mr. Chase
as long and well as I have, you would make a different estimate of his
remarks;" and he turned the subject, for, in truth, he was not at all
pleased with these plainly spoken views, deeming them entirely uncalled
for and inapropos. He hastened to call out the distinguished traveler
upon a less distasteful theme.