This ignorance is most oppressive, and I see that it
will not be easily enlightened, for among several intelligent
gentlemen who have been conversing with me, no two seem agreed on
any matter of fact.
From the hour of my landing I have observed the existence of two
parties of pro and anti missionary leanings, with views on all
island subjects in grotesque antagonism. So far, the former have
left the undoubted results of missionary effort here to speak for
themselves; and I am almost disposed, from the pertinacious
aggressiveness of the latter party, to think that it must be weak.
I have already been seized upon (a gentleman would write "button-
holed") by several persons, who, in their anxiety to be first in
imprinting their own views on the tabula rasa of a stranger's mind,
have exercised an unseemly overhaste in giving the conversation an
anti-missionary twist. They apparently desire to convey the
impression that the New England teachers, finding a people rejoicing
in the innocence and simplicity of Eden, taught them the knowledge
of evil, turned them into a nation of hypocrites, and with a strange
mingling of fanaticism and selfishness, afflicted them with many
woes calculated to accelerate their extinction, CLOTHING among
others.
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