A missionary is
allowed about L30 a year, on which he lives, in whatever country he may
be. This has two good effects. A large number of missionaries can be
employed with limited funds, and the people of the countries in which
they reside, seeing they live in poverty and with none of the luxuries
of life, are convinced they are sincere. Most are Frenchmen, and those I
have seen or heard of are well-educated men, who give up their lives to
the good of the people they live among. No wonder they make converts,
among the lower orders principally. For it must be a great comfort to
these poor people to have a man among them to whom they can go in any
trouble or distress, whose sole object is to comfort and advise them,
who visits them in sickness, who relieves them in want, and whom they
see living in daily danger of persecution and death only for their
benefit.
You will think they have converted me, but in point of doctrine I think
Catholics and Protestants are equally wrong. As missionaries I think
Catholics are best, and I would gladly see none others, rather than
have, as in New Zealand, sects of native Dissenters more rancorous
against each other than in England.
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