Outalissi; a Tale of Dutch Guiana

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Chapter VI. The Missionary.

‘His warfare is within; there, unfatigued,
His fervent spirit labours, there he fights,
And there obtains fresh triumphs o'er himself;
And never-with'ring wreaths, compared with which
The laurels that a Caesar reaps are weeds.’
     Cowper.

‘You are a married man I presume, Mr. Schwartz, and have been a missionary here for several years?’ said Edward interrogatively, as they walked slowly over the sandy shore that lay between Mr. Cotton's and the military post; whilst the peace-dispensing and solemnizing beams of a nearly full moon seemed to darken the thick foliage which absorbed them on one side of their path, and lighten the glistening water which reflected them on the other.

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Schwartz, ‘I have a wife and children at Paramaribo, without whose support I must often have sunk under the weight of all the anxious responsibilities and difficulties

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that attach to the situation of a missionary in this colony, where I have endeavoured to support that character now for nearly twenty years.’

‘Are there not,’ said Edward Bentinck, ‘besides the original Indians, two considerable settlements of free and self-emancipated negroes, with whom, of course, you have occasional intercourse; have you succeeded at all in your missionary exertions with them?’

‘Here and there one,’ said Mr. Schwartz, ‘appears to have imbibed some faint notions of the doctrines of Christianity, generally however certainly not; but then our means have been of the feeblest and most inadequate kind; and ask yourself what right we could have to expect from a people who had never, literally never, received any thing but misery, circumvention, and ill usage from the whites; an act which implies the greatest of all confidence, viz. the receiving their religion from them?’

‘Why, not much, to be sure,’ said Edward Bentinck; ‘but tell me, honestly, Mr. Schwartz, your opinion on another question: When I left England, there was rather a fashionable school of infidelity, which ascribed most, if not all the miseries of life, to the refinements of civilization. From your opportunities of comparative observation here,

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(and they must have been abundant,) do you really think there is any ground for this opinion?’

‘So far from it,’ said Mr. Schwartz, ‘there is not a single misery incident to civilized life to which they are not subject, with scarcely any of our alleviations or compensations; their bones are equally fragile, their flesh and blood equally susceptible of distemper, pain, and death, and they have no surgeon, chemist, or physician. There is not a moral trespass that they don't practise against each other, and there is no law for them in this life but that of the strongest, who monopolize the women and plunder the weak; - and no supporting knowledge of retribution beyond the grave, not to mention the unspeakable amount of positive happiness and enjoyment that arises to a cultivated mind from the mere act of exercising the mental faculties and reflection upon a boundless variety of subjects, physical and metaphysical, from which the savage is entirely cut off. And so far from their bodily strength and power of enduring fatigue being greater than those of the natives of civilized countries, it is quite the reverse. But the most decisive confutation of that theory is this fact, that in savage life (the only portion of it at least with which I am acquainted, viz. that of the Indians and Bush Negroes of this

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colony,) their numbers rapidly diminish, whilst in the civilized world population as rapidly increases. The increase of population has been always found co-progressive with the increase of happiness; and, in my humble opinion, the happiness of all communities must depend upon the commensurate diffusion of intelligence and self-discipline.’^*

‘Do you,’ said Edward, ‘believe there is any essential inferiority in the Africans that incapacitates them from ever attaining the same state of civilization as the Europeans?’

‘No one, certainly,’ said Mr. Schwartz, ‘has a right to say so, until the same moral apparatus of instruction has been applied to their education, which has never yet been done. I should feel, perhaps, more difficulty in disputing the existence of some actual difference in the comparative force of their mental faculties in relation to each other, or at least the mode of exercising them, their memory sometimes seems much stronger than that of Europeans, as well of intellectual impressions as sensible objects; but their imagination is more sensual, and therefore less subservient to the elevation of their understanding and their acquisition of science; they are, in fact, (and, in truth, I doubt whether it is not the

* See Note B.

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only difference,) rather more directly under the government of their senses than Europeans, and therefore less capable of abstract reasoning or comprehending abstract principles; but whether all or any, or how much of this difference is circumstantial and accidental, or essential and proper, cannot be absolutely determined till their circumstantial degradation is removed. It is clear, however, that man's rational nature can only rise and expand as his animal one sinks and is contracted, and therefore a single degree of elevation or depression in one or the other may make the difference between a civilized and a barbarous people.’

‘I confess,’ said Edward Bentinck, ‘my doubt of their equal capacity arises front the fact of their making no advance towards actual equality with their oppressors. That they should suffer such miscreants as yonder Frenchman to pillage, slaughter, and enslave them, adlibitum, for centuries, seems to me a marvellous thing, if their utmost capacities did not under-reach his; they have the same provocation to exert them that the Britons and Gauls received from the Romans.’

‘The Romans civilized,’ said Mr. Schwartz, ‘partly by extermination and partly by intermixture. There is no reason to think that the original Gauls or Britons would have ever emerged from

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barbarism by their powers of self-elevation any more than the poor Africans. If large modern European armies were to overrun and occupy the continent of Africa, no doubt the process of civilization would soon be commenced there; the only other means are those which England is now so earnestly and disinterestedly trying, viz. those of invitation to commercial intercourse and instruction.’

‘Your undertaking, Mr. Schwartz,’ observed Edward, ‘is a very noble one, but its prosecution in such a place as this must often, I should think, be extremely disagreeable.’

‘If in this life only we had hope,’ said Mr. Schwartz, ‘we should indeed be of all men the most miserable to the world's eye; and, indeed, actually as far as the sacrifice of worldly enjoyment goes, a missionary's life is or ought to be one of great privation and suffering; but we have a recompense of accumulating value and support as we approach its realization in the promises of our Master.’

‘To be sure,’ said Edward, ‘one of the best philosophical receipts for, and definitions of, happiness, is the selection of some noble object of pursuit with the consciousness of progress towards it, your object is noble, but where is your progress?’

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‘The want of general progress,’ said Mr. Schwartz, ‘if now and then a case of incontestable reformation confirms our confidence in the saving power of Christianity individually, does us no harm; on the contrary, it only throws us more upon our internal resources, and leads us again and again to authenticate our commission by comparing its external signatures with the genuine moral inscriptions written by the finger of God in our own bosoms and consciences; and so long as our faith remains unshaken, so long as our confidence in Him, in whom we have believed, becomes more and more confirmed upon every examination, (which it will do if all is sound within,) the life even of a poor Moravian missionary, however ill appreciated and overlooked by the world, is not without great peace and joy, and aspirations at least of such sublimity

‘As give assurance of their own success,
And which infused from heaven must thither tend.’

If our visible progress was very rapid and decisive, the applause and acclamation of the world would suspend our introspection, and out of constant requisition our spiritual armoury might rust; - like the staff of a dismantled regiment, we must keep our post with fidelity and fortitude,

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recommending our Master's service to the utmost of our power, both by argument and a carriage of cheerful confidence and satisfaction in it ourselves, till he is pleased to fill our ranks, and in the mean time to remember, as the English general Wolfe used to say, that the great business of a soldier is to die; not that the surface of society is really any criterion of the progress of Christianity, - like leaven in meal, it is doing its silent subsurficial work on multitudes of spirits that are perhaps hourly passing to their reward without discernibly altering the external appearance of the mass.’

‘But,’ said Edward, ‘whilst your visible success remains so very limited, the suspicion and jealousy, if not personal violence, to which you must be subject in a place like this, must be very trying: and the taunts and sneers, and blasphemies and revilings against your faith, and some of its undeniable and inexplicable mysteries, such, for instance, as the reconciliation of the existence of any evil with infinite and Almighty benevolence, if it does not shake your allegiance to it, must proportionally shock it; to hear constantly impugned either the justice or mercy of Him you love so well, and of whose essential goodness you have such intimate conviction, although you know not always how to vindicate it, must be very dis-

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tressing if it does not gradually impair your affection.’

‘Our affection is uphold, perhaps, by an unseen hand,’ said Mr. Schwartz, ‘but an object once dearly beloved is not often displaced from the affection by abuse; the pain it gives, indeed, is excessive, but this will be more than requited when He, whom we have presumed to love, in the confidence of his goodness that no impeachment of it by others has materially weakened, no adversity or sufferings of our own extinguished or reduced, shall vindicate his own ways to the moral apprehensions of an assembled world. How often in a human court of justice have I seen the friend, or child, or brother of the person arraigned, who have been writhing with agony whilst the counsel for the prosecution were inveighing against the latter, when an advocate in his defence repelled every slander, and sent him with unsullied honour out of court, burst into tears of joy and gratitude from the triumph of his unshaken affection, and the sudden relief of his own honest sympathy. Think, then, with what exultation and rapture the meanest of God's faithful and affectionate servants (not to say children) who through every shape of trial have retained their allegiance unto death, will join the final anthem of triumphant adoration,

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‘Holy! holy! holy! Lord God of Sabaoth, just and true are thy ways, O King of Saints!' But I am tiresome, Mr. Bentinck,’ said he, as Edward seemed to be abstractedly playing with and rubbing the lapel of his coat.

‘No,’ said Edward, ‘I listen to you with great pleasure; but I was thinking you made this Waterloo medal of mine look rather dull.’

‘The most painful incident to our duty here,’ continued Mr. Schwartz, ‘is, that in exact proportion to the earnestness of the interest in Christianity which we excite in the unhappy slaves is the severity, I had almost said cruelty, of the struggle we impose upon them; besides the perpetual taunts and spite with which their fellow-slaves are often encouraged, by the directors, in galling them. Not only are no facilities afforded, but every possible obstruction is generally interposed to their compliance with the ordinance of marriage; and some masters positively forbid their slaves being baptized. Even of the doctrine of equality with their masters in the next world, so prominent on every page of the Gospel, and indeed so obvious a feature of its very essence (although one should think it a doctrine rather likely to allay their impatience of their inequality in this) I have heard the greatest jealousy expressed by one of the

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first official men in the colony. In such a state of things, therefore, where the whole social edifice is not only not Christian, but violently anti-Christian from turret to foundation-stone, I often feel, that to call for Christian duties from the poor inmates in the double fetters of heathen ignorance and atheistical or infidel owners, is to call upon them for a task surpassing human strength, and all ordinary and unpresumptuous expectation of divine aid. I am not contending that the status or condition of slavery in the abstract is incompatible with Christianity, because Christianity does not interfere with the external relations of society, so long as they do not actually obstruct its work, which is not with the body, but the soul; but I'm afraid that Dutch slavery is incompatible, because it does so, which often involves us here in the most painful embarrassments. But I will illustrate this by a most distressing catastrophe, which occurred here not very long ago, when a fine young man of about thirty, who had been nearly ten years a member of our society, cut his throat; his Christian names were John Christian February, but before he was christened his master used to call him Quashee Sambo, and Quashee Sambo therefore every body else continued to call him to the day of his death. Quashee, at the time he was christened, lived with

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a negress about his own age, whom we made him put away, till they could both obtain their freedom, without which the obstacles to domiciliation, and therefore to all the moral duties of marriage in Surinam (my present observations are confined to this colony) are insurmountable, and that then we should gladly and lawfully re-unite them. Quashee said, he was afraid he could not bear it; and we thought ourselves authorised, perhaps injudiciously, to tell him that we trusted God would support him, and that he had promised compensation even in this world for all such sacrifices. His master also, a man of great benevolence, and of whom Quashee was a particular favourite, for he was a steady, faithful, docile, good lad, encouraged him by promising his freedom at his death at the latest, if he behaved well. Strange as it may seem, under these encouragements, Quashee regularly attended our communion, and persisted in a state of honest celibacy, as far as any thing is known to the contrary, for ten years, during which time he had saved money enough to purchase the freedom of his sweetheart, who was equally faithful to him, and he meant upon his master's removal to heaven, as he said, for he was much attached to him, to go back to Africa, and try to find his father and mother, from whom he had

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been torn when quite a child, and make Christians of them and his brothers and sisters, if he had any, or some of his countrymen at all events, if he could not discover his relations; and he was looking to the full reward of his constancy when his master was killed by a fall from his horse, before he had time to make his will, and his affairs were found so insolvent, that the administrators were compelled to order Quashee to be sold by auction, which had no sooner been done, to a man of notorious hostility to every shape and form of religion, but especially disdainful and derisive of any that imposed the slightest restraint upon sexual intercourse, than our poor hapless convert, for I will still call him so, went home to his negro-house and cut his throat. We had taught him to read and write a little, and in the fly-leaf of his Testament was found a note, addressed to one of my brother missionaries, stating in effect that he had hitherto supported the restraints of Christianity from the hopes which his master's sudden death had indefinitely postponed and disappointed; but as his fear of God's anger would now make it impossible for him ever to enjoy the unconsecrated renewal of his intercourse with Africana, and all hopes were gone of any other, he felt that life was no longer supportable, and that although suicide

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might perhaps be wrong, yet as he did not see it so expressly forbidden in God's book, as unmarried intercourse with the other sex, he hoped the former was at all events the least offence of the two, and that the Christian's God would fulfil to him in the next world the promises upon which he had too much depended in this; that he had endeavoured since his baptism to act up to the Christian direction of doing to others as he would be done by, and was not conscious of any obliquity in the general sincerity and earnestness of his intentions and efforts to act right and discharge his duty both to God and man, although he might not always have succeeded; that as he was sure his Christian father had meant kindly by him, he wished him every good and sincerely thanked him for the pains he had taken with him, and prayed that he might never know the agony which his heart was then sustaining; but before he made any more proselytes, hoped that he would consider well if he was not himself deceived; that, finally, he begged us all to forgive him, and not to be sorry for him (as he was afraid we should), as since his separation from Africana, he had never in fact had an hour's happiness in this world, and now between Christianity and slavery he felt that he never could.’

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‘But,’ said Edward, ‘where marriage is rendered actually impossible (as it appears to me generally in this colony) by the irreligion, tyranny, and forcible prevention of others, over whom the parties wishing to marry have no controul; do you insist upon the ceremony as a sine qua non of conjugation?’

‘Since the occurrence I have mentioned,’ said Mr. Schwartz, ‘we have not always done so, but as much as we can, we make such parties consider themselves as man and wife; but you see all the misrepresentation to which we expose ourselves by this, and the mischief to which such a relaxation of religious discipline is open from the liability of the parties (where there is no legal sanction of their union) to separation. How can Christianity ever be grafted upon such a system as this?’

‘Curse the system!’ said Edward. ‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Schwartz; but I almost wish you had not told me so much about it. I shall be thinking of poor Quashee Sambo all night.’

By this time the two spiritual and temporal soldiers having arrived at the barracks of the latter, the former, having no time to accept his companion's invitation to supper, pursued his way to the adjacent plantation, and left Edward reflecting so deeply upon what he had heard, that he did

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not go to bed before he had turned poor Quashee Sambo's testamentary epistle into the following verses: -

In vain I backward search life's stream,
On memory's page imprinted,
To find with mercy's golden beam
One single hour that's tinted.

O Christian, wherefore, in this sea
Of struggle overbearing,
Hast plung'd my soul, that but for thee,
Life's joys might still be sharing.

Your promis'd heaven still mocks my reach,
And slavery's here my lot;
Within me now's the hell you teach
In thousand worms that die not.

You've wronged me, Christian, well you know,
That nature's joys you've banished,
And all your promises in woe,
And doubt, and death have vanish'd.

Where is the hundred fold reward,
The spirit which you told me,
my efforts from defeat would guard
And in your faith uphold me?

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Since I embrac'd it - life has pass'd

 

In struggle and privation,

 

And still in homeless exile cast

 

Denies me compensation.

 

 

 

O father, like a juggling seer,

 

In double sense you've palter'd,

 

Who keeps the promise to the ear

 

Which to the hope is alter'd.

 

 

 

But weep'st thou at the soul's dread waste

 

To which thou see'st me driven,

 

Of every human hope out-cast

 

And still repell'd from heaven?

 

 

 

Then if (yourself deceived) sincere,

 

The pains by which you won me,

 

Good e'en to thee, tho' bleeding here,

 

Your kindness has undone me.

 

 

 

Yet, yet, in breaking the sweet spell

 

Untutor'd Indians sleep in,

 

Pause, lest again my bosom's hell

 

Another breast you steep in.