"
observed the Major, "which is the position of the missionaries during
this scene of terror. You passed it slightly over, but it must have been
most trying."

"Most surely it was."

"And yet I have not only read but heard much said against them, and
strong opposition made to subscriptions for their support."

"I grant it, but it is because people know that a great deal of money
has been subscribed, and do not know the uses to which it is applied.
They hear reports read, and find perhaps that the light of the Gospel
has but as yet glimmered in one place or another; that in other places
all labor has hitherto been thrown away. They forget that it is the
grain of mustard-seed which is to become a great tree, and spread its
branches; they wish for immoderate returns, and are therefore
disappointed. Of course I can not give an opinion as to the manner in
which the missions are conducted in other countries; but as I have
visited most of the missions in these parts, I can honestly assert, and
I think you have already yourself seen enough to agree with me, that the
money intrusted to the societies is not thrown away or lavishly
expended; the missionaries labor with their own hands, and almost
provide for their own support."

"There I agree with you, Swinton," replied Alexander; "but what are the
objections raised against them? for now that I have seen them with my
own eyes, I can not imagine what they can be."

"The objections which I have heard, and have so often attempted to
refute, are, that the generality of missionaries are a fanatical class
of men, who are more anxious to inculcate the peculiar tenets of their
own sects and denominations than the religion of our Saviour; that most
of them are uneducated and vulgar men--many of them very intemperate and
very injudicious--some few of them of bad moral character; and that
their exertions, if they have used them--whether to civilize or to
Christianize the people among whom they are sent--have not been followed
by any commensurate results."

"And now let us have your replies to these many objections."

"It is no doubt true that the missionaries who are laboring among the
savages of the interior are, many, if not most of them, people of
limited education. Indeed, the major portion of them have been brought
up as mechanics. But I much question whether men of higher attainments
and more cultivated minds would be better adapted to meet the capacities
of unintellectual ba