rebuke to the skeptical critics who sneered about missionaries
and declared the adequacy of civilization without them:--


``When the microscopic search of skepticism, which has hunted the
heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a Creator, has
turned its attention to human society and has found a place on this planet
ten miles square where a decent man can live in decency, comfort and
security, supporting and educating his children unspoiled and unpolluted;
a place where age is reverenced, manhood respected, womanhood honoured,
and human life held in due regard; when skeptics can find such
a place ten miles square on this globe where the gospel of Christ has
not gone and cleared the way, and laid the foundation and made decency
and security possible, it will then be in order for the skeptical literati
to move thither and there ventilate their views.''


But we may add Darwin's conjecture that ``should a voyager
chance to be at the point of shipwreck on some unknown
coast, he will devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary
may have extended thus far.'' Bishop Thoburn says that no
nation without Christianity has ever advanced a step, and that
while in Washington there are 6,000 models of plows invented
by Americans, India is using the same plow as in the days of
David and Solomon. But wherever Christ's gospel goes, true
civilization appears. ``A better soul will soon make better
circumstances; but better circumstances will not necessarily make
a better soul.''[34]