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Fifteen years passed away in exertions ihe most energetic and well-sustained , and produced not one true convert . All the servants of the Missionary Society were , not , indeed , equally persevering . Some withdrew from the vineyard on account of the difficulty of working the soil , and the absolute want of any reward . In the Greenland Missions also the Moravian
brethren laboured for five or seven years patiently and diligently , without making the least favourable impression on their hearers . Nor are instances wanting of persons who entered on the work not having fully counted the cost , and who soon therefore withdrew from it in disappointment and disgust . Nay , in a few cases , missionaries have become profligates . Were it our object to heap together cases of failure , we could easily effect it . But we merely wish to make this general allusion to the subject in order to remind those who triumph over the withdrawal of Mr . Adam from the missionary work , that they are challenging an investigat on which may turn out to their disadvantage . We have no satisfaction in exhibiting the failure of our Christian brethren in their honourable labours . We wish they could say the same of us . But we must not , we will not , allow the cause of truth to suffer in our hands by reason of the implication which they labour to propagate , that all the failures are with us , and all the triumphs with them , and that , therefore—such is the inference—our cause is radically bad , and the hand of Heaven against us . There has of late been no little sneering at the cause of Unitarian Christianity in India . A sneer is not a Christian grace ,
and there is in all cases a danger of its turning into tokens of vexation and regret . Let us look at facts . Rammohun Roy informs us , in the year 1824 , that * ' the Baptist missionaries in Calcutta confess openly that the number of their converts , after the hard labour of six years , does not exceed four , and " the Independent missionaries of this city , whose resources are much greater than those of Baptists , candidly acknowledge that their exertions for seven years have been productive only of one convert . ' * Let us turn from him to Mr . Adam . ** The result of my own observations , of my examination of the different missionary accounts to which I have had access , and of my inquiries from those who , in some cases , have had better means of knowing or of being informed than myself , is , that the number of native converts , properly so called , now living , and in full communion with one or other of the Protestant Missionary churches , does not exceed three hundred . It will give me pleasure to see it proved that there are nearly a thousand baptized natives ; but it will not surprise me if an accurate investigation should shew that the number of such persons is even less than that which I have stated . " Three hundred native converts then are the only actual fruit of all the labours of all the rnissionarirs of ail the Protestant churches , except the Unitarians . And how many have they ? William Roberts has a congregation of not less than fifty native and adult converts , and there are as many more in the vicinity of Madras , who , from the distance of their abode from the chapel , are able to attend at the services only occasional ) v , and
some , perhaps , hardly at all . At Secunderabad , Chiniah is the minister , and much the same may be said of him and his district . We offer these as approximations to the exact truth . They are made on the authority of William Roberts' son , now in England . Waiting for accurate details , we are content to take the sum-total at one hundred and fifty , and then the Unitarian bod y with only two missionaries , both natives , neither possessed of learning , or riches , or power , have one half as many actual native converts as are possessed by all the Protestant Missionary churches in India . This astounding fact may well stop the mouth of gainsayers , and lead Unitarians to hope
Untitled Article
92 Elites Polynesian Researches
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1831, page 92, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2594/page/20/
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