Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 5.9.7

5.9.7

Some unhappily there are who disgrace the Christian profession by notoriously profligate conduct, and who ought, therefore, to be immured in their convents instead of being invested with the sacred character of missionaries. Their religion is a mere mummery, and so far from aiding the cause of Christianity, they become stumbling-blocks in the way of those whom they were sent to enlighten and reclaim ; but these are merely the exceptions to a general rule which affect not the main argument. I am decidedly favourable to this establishment of missions, and the sending forth of learned and pious missionaries. They are absolutely necessary ; and it is the honour as well as the peculiar prerogative of Christians to supply every part of the world with men bearing the same character and following the same benign object as did the Apostles. You are not, however, to conclude that I am so deluded by my love of missions as to expect the same mighty effects to be produced by the exertions of modern missionaries as attended the preaching of a single sermon in the days of the Apostles. I have had too much intercourse with infidels, and am become too well acquainted with the blindness of the human heart to believe we shall hear of the conversion, in one day, of two or three thousand men. I despair especially of much success among Mahometan Kings or Mahometan subjects.