No such feeling was inspired by the conditions surrounding the Roman
Catholic missionaries whom he met from time to time. In an earlier part
of the "Journal" he records an evening spent with one living in a lonely
place in South America who, "coming from Santiago, had contrived to
surround himself with some few comforts. Being a man of some little
education, he bitterly complained of the total want of society. With no
particular zeal for religion, no business or pursuit, how completely
must this man's life be wasted."

In complete opposition to these views, passages occur in the following
letters which show that Wallace thought more highly of the Roman
Catholic than of the Protestant missionaries. In one place, speaking of
the former, he says: "Most are Frenchmen ... well-educated men who give
up their lives for the good of the people they live among, I think
Catholics and Protestants are equally wrong, but as missionaries I think
Catholics are the 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. The unity of the Catholics is their
strength, and an unmarried clergy can do as missionaries what married
men never can undertake."

As a sidelight on these contradictory estimates of the same work, it
should be borne in mind that Darwin had but recently given up the idea
of becoming a clergyman, and doubtless retained some of the instinctive
regard for sincere Christian Protestantism (whether represented by the
Church of England or by Nonconformists), while Wallace had long since
relinquished all doctrinal ideas on religion and all belief in the
beneficial effect produced by forms of worship on the individual.

Among the regions Wallace visited was Sarawak. Of one of his sojourns