resented, not only in a nation of idolaters, but
elsewhere, without one allusion being made to such crying sins as
slavery, lewdness, and intemperance.

In the same connexion, Professor Hodge makes the remark "We do not
expect them (our missionaries) to refrain from denouncing the
institutions of the heathen as sinful, because they are popular, or
intimately interwoven with society." If he means by this language, that
it is the duty of missionaries on going into a heathen nation, to array
themselves against the civil government, and to make direct and specific
attacks on its wicked nature and wicked administration, then is he at
issue, on this point, with the whole Christian public; and, if he does
not mean this, or what amounts to this, I do not see how his remark will
avail any thing, in his attempt to show that the Apostles made such
attacks on whatever sinful institutions came under their observation.

What I have said on a former page shows sufficiently how fit it is for
missionaries to the heathen, more especially in the first years of their
efforts among them, to labor to instruct their ignorant pupils in the
elementary principles of Christianity, rather than to call their
attention to the institutions of civil government, the sinfulness of
which they would not be able to perceive until they had been grounded in
those elementary principles; and the sinfulness of which, more than of
any thing else, their prejudices would forbid them to suspect. Another
reason why the missionary to the heathen should not directly, and
certainly not immediately, assail their civil governments, is that he
would thereby arouse their jealousies to a pitch fatal to his influence,
his usefulness, and most probably his life; and another reason is, that
this imprudence would effectually close the door, for a long time,
against all efforts, even the most judicious, to spread the gospel
amongst a people so needlessly and greatly prejudiced against it by an
unwise and abrupt application of its principles. For instance, what
folly and madness it would be for our missionaries to Burmah, to make a
direct assault on the political institutions of that country! How fatal
would it be to their lives, and how incalculably injurious to the cause
entrusted to their hands! And, if this can be said of them, after they
have spent ten, fifteen, and twenty years, in efforts to bring that
portion of the heathen world to a knowledge and love of the truth, how