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On Home Missions, 79
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
are not some considerations that recommend the adoption of the plan we have now suggested . The adoption and pursuit of the plan of home missions must be in the hands of those only who measure their approbation by the amount of good effected . We make the remark , because we know that in pursuing home missions , their friends must forego nearly all the aid which the imagination lends to exertions in foreign lands . The amount of that aid it is not easy to
compute . By scenes such as foreign missions put before the eye , the imagination is jpowerfully affected . The dauntless and enterprising spirit of him who goes forth braving the perils of earth and ocean , the very distance of the scene of action , countries shrouded in darkness , or lighted only by the lurid torch of fiction , appearing to the European mind as the land of Canaan did to the spies of the Jewish army—a land of giants—a land in which all the forms , whether of good or evil , are magnified into grotesque , terrific , or sublime proportions;—all this in home missions must be foregone . No
appeal can be made in favour of their objects to the sense of curiosity ; no wonderful details given of new modes of life , new forms of superstition ; no gorgeous descriptions made of Hindoo abominations , temples seemingly coeval with the earth that they oppress ; Juggernaut and his murderous car crushing as its wheels roll on the self-devoted victims to the God ; ascetics voluntarily exposing themselves to the burning rays of an Eastern sky , or holding their bodies for days and months in a posture causing exquisite torture ; the state of wretchedness and abasement in which myriads drag on
their existence ; the infant and the sire exposed to the merciless beasts or the as merciless waters ; the widow and the lighted pile on which , with horrid cries and maddened spirit , she immolated herself in the very spring of life;—these and similar topics , true as they are fearful , must be foregone , and instead you must be content with common forms of ignorance , vice , and wretchedness—forms to which I fear their very commonness renders men insensible ; yes , their commqnness , that which ought of all things to kindle and sustain our sensibilities , which ought to open every good
man ' s mouth with words of pity and admonition , and put into every good man ' s hand the consecrated staff of the gospel , that he might , by its more than magic influence , diffuse peace and holiness among the ignorant and depraved . The aid of the imagination we have said must be , at least in part , foregone ; but if men have minds to be impressed and hearts to be touched , home missions are of a nature to secure their warmest sympathies . The sphere which they open out lies around you . The need of benevolent
exertion you can clearly ascertain with your own eyes . The nature of the evil is open to your own inspection , and an accurate knowledge of the disease may lead to the application of a suitable remedy . Whether the evil be regarded , or the success of attempts for its removal , you are in no danger of being imposed upon by vague and deceptive statements . Palpable facts , instead of loose generalities , will be in your possession . There before you is the evil , not clothed with the gaudy colours of the imagination , but in all
the vivid and fearful attributes of reality . There at your very doors is the evil—heathen vices in a Christian country , ignorance with its endless train of calamities ; there you behojd the brutal husband , the neglectful and neglected wife , the children a prey to disorder , strife , and fihh . growing up to infest society , to add the last drop to the cup of their parent ' s misery , to destroy every vestige of God ' s image in their minds , and to peril their everlasting welfare . Oh , to think of the thousands that there are in this country equally debased , miserable , wretched , as we have now described , is enough
On Home Missions, 79
On Home Missions , 79
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1831, page 79, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2594/page/7/
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