On Tuesday Lord Salisbury addressed a speech to the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts marked by a great deal of feeling. The subject of his address was, in effect, the need for discretion among missionaries. He quoted the Eastern proverb, "First the missionary, then the Consul, then the General," and pointed out what a terrible hindrance to missionary work was this notion that political expansion and missionary work went hand in hand. " Just look at this Chinese matter. You observe that all the people who are slaughtered are Christians. Do you imagine that they are slaughtered simply because the Chinese dislike their religion ?—there is no nation in the world so indifferent on the subject of religion as the Chinese—it is because they and other nations have got the idea that missionary work is a mere instrument of the secular Government in order to achieve the objects it has in view. That is a moat dangerous and terrible snare." In dealing with missionary work among Mahommedan populations, Lord Salisbury urged special care. They must remember " that in these Mahommedan countries you are not dealing with men who are wholly evil; you are dealing with men who have religions motives, earnest in many respects, terribly mutilated in others, but a religion that has portions of our own embodied in its system. You are dealing with a force which a pure, though mistaken, Theism gives to a vast population." The whole tone of the speech was wise, temperate, and religious, and without any touch of cynicism or hopelessness.
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