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CHAPTER VII.
INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY UPON MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF RACES

The term Christian civilization examined – Reasons for rejecting it – Intellectual diversity no hindrance to the universal diffusion of Christianity – Civilizing influence of Christian religion by elevating and purifying the morals, etc.; but does not remove intellectual disparities – Various instances – Cherokees – Difference between imitation and comprehension of civilized life.

By the foregoing observations, two facts seem to me clearly established: first, that there are branches of the human family incapable of spontaneous civilization, so long as they remain unmixed; and, secondly, that this innate incapacity cannot be overcome by external agencies, however powerful in their nature. It now remains to speak of the civilizing influence of Christianity, a subject which, on account of its extensive bearing, I have reserved for the last, in my consideration of the instruments of civilization.

The first question that suggests itself to the thinking mind, is a startling one. If some races are so vastly inferior in all respects, can they comprehend the truths of the gospel, or are they forever to be debarred from the blessing of salvation?

In answer, I unhesitatingly declare my firm conviction, that the pale of salvation is open to them all, and that all are endowed with equal capacity to enter it. Writers are not wanting who have asserted a contrary opinion. They dare to contradict the sacred promise of the Gospel, and deny the peculiar characteristic of our faith, which consists in its accessibility to all men. According to them, religions are confined within geographical limits which they cannot transgress. But the Christian religion knows no degrees of latitude or longitude. There is scarcely a nation, or a tribe, among whom it has not made converts. Statistics – imperfect, no doubt, but, as far as they go, reliable – show them in great numbers in the remotest parts of the globe: nomad Mongols, in the steppes of Asia, savage hunters in the table-lands of the Andes; dark-hued natives of an African clime; persecuted in China;⁸⁰ tortured in Madagascar; perishing under the lash in Japan.

But this universal capacity of receiving the light of the gospel must not be confounded, as is so often done, with a faculty of entirely different character, that of social improvement. This latter consists in being able to conceive new wants, which, being supplied, give rise to others, and gradually produce that perfection of the social and political system which we call civilization. While the former belongs equally to all races, whatever may be their disparity in other respects, the latter is of a purely intellectual character, and the prerogative of certain privileged groups, to the partial or even total exclusion of others.

With regard to Christianity, intellectual deficiencies cannot be a hindrance to a race. Our religion addresses itself to the lowly and simple, even in preference to the great and wise of this earth. Intellect and learning are not necessary to salvation. The most brilliant lights of our church were not always found among the body of the learned. The glorious martyrs, whom we venerate even above the skilful and erudite defender of the dogma, or the eloquent panegyrist of the faith, were men who sprang from the masses of the people; men, distinguished neither for worldly learning, nor brilliant talents, but for the simple virtues of their lives, their unwavering faith, their self-devotion. It is exactly in this that consists one great superiority of our religion over the most elaborate and ingenious systems devised by philosophers, that it is intelligible to the humblest capacity as well as to the highest. The poor Esquimaux of Labrador may be as good and as pure a Christian as the most learned prelate in Europe.

But we now come to an error which, in its various phases, has led to serious consequences. The utilitarian tendency of our age renders us prone to seek, even in things sacred, a character of material usefulness. We ascribe to the influence of Christianity a certain order of things, which we call Christian civilization.

To what political or social condition this term can be fitly applied, I confess myself unable to conceive. There certainly is a Pagan, a Brahmin, and Buddhistic, a Judaic civilization. There have been, and still are, societies so intimately connected with a more or less exclusive theological formula, that the civilizations peculiar to them, can only be designated by the name of their creed. In such societies, religion is the sole source of all political forms, all civil and social legislation; the groundwork of the whole civilization. This union of religious and temporal institutions, we find in the history of every nation of antiquity. Each country had its own peculiar divinity, which exercised a more or less direct influence in the government,⁸¹ and from which laws and civilization were said to be immediately derived. It was only when paganism began to wane, that the politicians of Rome imagined a separation of temporal and religious power, by attempting a fusion of the different forms of worship, and proclaiming the dogma of legal toleration. When paganism was in its youth and vigor, each city had its Jupiter, Mercury, or Venus, and the local deity recognized neither in this world nor the next any but compatriots.

But, with Christianity, it is otherwise. It chooses no particular people, prescribes no form of government, no social system. It interferes not in temporal matters, has naught to do with the material world, "its kingdom is of another." Provided it succeeds in changing the interior man, external circumstances are of no import. If the convert fervently embraces the faith, and in all his actions tries to observe its prescriptions, it inquires not about the built of his dwelling, the cut of his garments, or the materials of which they are composed, his daily occupations, the regulations of his government, the degree of despotism, or of freedom, which pervades his political institutions. It leaves the Chinese in his robes, the Esquimaux in his seal-skins; the former to his rice, the latter to his fish-oil; and who would dare to assert that the prayers of both may not breathe as pure a faith as those of the civilized European? No mode of existence can attract its preference, none, however humble, its disdain. It attacks no form of government, no social institution; prescribes none, because it has adopted none. It teaches not the art of promoting worldly comforts, it teaches to despise them. What, then, can we call a Christian civilization? Had Christ, or his disciples, prescribed, or even recommended any particular political or social forms,⁸² the term would then be applicable. But his law may be observed under all – of whatever nature – and is therefore superior to them all. It is justly and truly called the Catholic, or Universal.

And has Christianity, then, no civilizing influence? I shall be asked. Undoubtedly; and a very great one. Its precepts elevate and purify the soul, and, by their purely spiritual nature, disengage the mind from worldly things, and expand its powers. In a merely human point of view, the material benefits it confers on its followers are inestimable. It softens the manners, and facilitates the intercourse between man and his fellow-man; it mitigates violence, and weans him from corrosive vices. It is, therefore, a powerful promoter of his worldly interests. But it only expands the mind in proportion to the susceptibility of the mind for being expanded. It does not give intellect, or confer talents, though it may exalt both, and render them more useful. It does not create new capacities, though it fosters and develops those it finds. Where the capacities of an individual, or a race, are such as to admit an improvement in the mode of existence, it tends to produce it; where such capacities are not already, it does not give them. As it belongs to no particular civilization, it does not compel a nation to change its own. In fine, as it does not level all individuals to the same intellectual standard, so it does not raise all races to the same rank in the political assemblage of the nations of the earth. It is wrong, therefore, to consider the equal aptitude of all races for the true religion, as a proof of their intellectual equality. Though having embraced it, they will still display the same characteristic differences, and divergent or even opposite tendencies. A few examples will suffice to set my idea in a clearer light.

The major portion of the Indian tribes of South America have, for centuries, been received within the pale of the church, yet the European civilization, with which they are in constant contact, has never become their own.⁸³ The Cherokees, in the northern part of the same continent, have nearly all been converted by the Methodist missionaries. At this I am not surprised, but I should be greatly so, if these tribes, without mixing with the whites, were ever to form one of the States, and exercise any influence in Congress. The Moravians and Danish Lutheran missionaries in Labrador and Greenland, have opened the eyes of the Esquimaux to the light of religion; but their neophytes have remained in the same social condition in which they vegetated before. A still more forcible illustration is afforded by the Laplanders of Sweden, who have not emerged from the state of barbarism of their ancestors, though the doctrine of salvation was preached to them, and believed by them, centuries ago.

I sincerely believe that all these peoples may produce, and, perhaps, already have produced, persons remarkable for piety and pure morals; but I do not expect ever to see among them learned theologians, great statesmen, able military leaders, profound mathematicians, or distinguished artists; – any of those superior minds, whose number and perpetual succession are the cause of power in a preponderating race; much less those rare geniuses whose meteor-like appearance is productive of permanent good only when their countrymen are so constituted as to be able to understand them, and to advance under their direction. We cannot, therefore, call Christianity a promoter of civilization in the narrow and purely material sense of some writers.

Many of my readers, while admitting my observations in the main to be correct, will object that the modifying influence of religion upon the manners must produce a corresponding modification of the institutions, and finally in the whole social system. The propagators of the gospel, they will say, are almost always – though not necessarily – from a nation superior in civilization to the one they visit. In their personal intercourse, therefore, with their neophytes, the latter cannot but acquire new notions of material well-being. Even the political system may be greatly influenced by the relations between instructor and pupil. The missionary, while he provides for the spiritual welfare of his flock, will not either neglect their material wants. By his teaching and example, the savage will learn how to provide against famine, by tilling the soil. This improvement in his condition once effected, he will soon be led to build himself a better dwelling, and to practise some of the simpler useful arts. Gradually, and by careful training, he may acquire sufficient taste for things purely intellectual, to learn the alphabet, or even, as in the case of the Cherokees, to invent one himself. In course of time, if the missionaries' labors are crowned with success, they may, perhaps, so firmly implant their manners and mode of living among this formerly savage tribe, that the traveller will find among them well-cultivated fields, numerous flocks, and, like these same Cherokees, and the Creeks on the southern banks of the Arkansas, black slaves to work on their plantations.

Let us see how far facts correspond with this plausible argument. I shall select the two nations which are cited as being the furthest advanced in European civilization, and their example will, it seems to me, demonstrate beyond a doubt, how impossible it is for any race to pursue a career in which their own nature has not placed them.

The Cherokees and Creeks are said to be the remnants or descendants of the Alleghanian Race, the supposed builders of those great monuments of which we still find traces in the Mississippi Valley. If this be the case, these two nations may lay claim to a natural superiority over the other tribes of North America.

Deprived of their hereditary dominions by the American government, they were forced – under a treaty of transplantation – to emigrate to regions selected for them by the latter. There they were placed under the superintendence of the Minister of War, and of Protestant missionaries, who finally succeeded in persuading them to embrace the mode of life they now lead. Mr. Prichard,⁸⁴ my authority for these facts, and who derives them himself from the great work of Mr. Gallatin,⁸⁵ asserts that, while all the other Indian tribes are continually diminishing, these are steadily increasing in numbers. As a proof of this, he alleges that when Adair visited the Cherokee tribes, in 1762, the number of their warriors was estimated at 2,300; at present, their total population amounts to 15,000 souls, including about 1,200 negroes in their possession. When we consider that their schools, as well as churches, are directed by white missionaries; that the greater number of these missionaries – being Protestants – are probably married and have children and servants also white, besides, very likely, a sort of retinue of clerks and other European employees; – the increase of the aboriginal population becomes extremely doubtful,⁸⁶ while it is easy to conceive the pressure of the white race upon its pupils. Surrounded on all sides by the power of the United States, incommensurable to their imagination; converted to the religion of their masters, which they have, I think, sincerely embraced; treated kindly and judiciously by their spiritual guides; and exposed to the alternation of working or of starving in their contracted territory; – I can understand that it was possible to make them tillers of the earth.

It would be underrating the intelligence of the humblest, meanest specimen of our kind, to express surprise at such a result, when we see that, by dexterously and patiently acting upon the passions and wants of animals, we succeed in teaching them what their own instincts would never have taught them. Every village fair is filled with animals which are trained to perform the oddest tricks, and is it to be wondered at that men submitted to a rigorous system of training, and deprived of the means of escaping from it, should, in the end, be made to perform certain mechanical functions of civilized life; functions which, even in the savage state, they are capable of understanding, though they have not the will to practise them? This were placing human beings lower in the scale of creation than the learned pig, or Mr. Leonard's domino-playing dogs.⁸⁷ Such exultation on the part of the believers in the equality of races is little flattering to those who excite it.

I am aware that this exaggeration of the intellectual capacity of certain races is in a great measure provoked by the notions of some very learned and distinguished men, who pretend that between the lowest races of men, and the highest of apes there was but a shade of distinction. So gross an insult to the dignity of man, I indignantly reject. Certainly, in my estimation, the different races are very unequally endowed, both physically and mentally; but I should be loath to think that in any, even in the most degraded, the unmistakable line of demarcation between man and brute were effaced. I recognize no link of gradation which would connect man mentally with the brute creation.

But does it follow, that because the lowest of the human species is still unmistakably human, that all of that species are capable of the same development? Take a Bushman, the most hideous and stupid of human families, and by careful training you may teach him, or if he is already adult, his son, to learn and practise a handicraft, even one that requires a certain degree of intelligence. But are we warranted thence to conclude that the nation to which this individual belongs, is susceptible of adopting our civilization? There is a vast difference between mechanically practising handicrafts and arts, the products of an advanced civilization, and that civilization itself. Let us suppose that the Cherokee tribes were suddenly cut off from all connection with the American government, the traveller, a few years hence, would find among them very unexpected and singular institutions, resulting from their mixture with the whites, but partaking only feebly of the character of European civilization.

We often hear of negroes proficient in music, negroes who are clerks in counting-rooms, who can read, write, talk like the whites. We admire, and conclude that the negroes are capable of everything that whites are. Notwithstanding this admiration and these hasty conclusions, we express surprise at the contrast of Sclavonian civilization with ours. We aver that the Russian, Polish, Servish nations, are civilized only at the surface, that none but the higher classes are in possession of our ideas, and this, thanks to their intermixture with the English, French, and German stock; that the masses, on the contrary, evince a hopeless inaptitude for participating in the forward movement of Western Europe, although these masses have been Christians for centuries, many of them while our ancestors were heathens. Are the negroes, then, more closely allied to our race than the Sclavonic nations? On the one hand, we assert the intellectual equality of the white and black races; on the other, a disparity among subdivisions of our own race.

There is a vast difference between imitation and comprehension. The imitation of a civilization does not necessarily imply an eradication of the hereditary instincts. A nation can be said to have adopted a civilization, only when it has the power to progress in it unprompted, and without guidance. Instead of extolling the intelligence of savages in handling a plough, after being shown; in spelling and reading, after they have been taught; let a single example be alleged of a tribe in any of the numerous countries in contact with Europeans, which, with our religion, has also made the ideas, institutions, and manners of a European nation so completely its own, that the whole social and political machinery moves forward as easily and naturally as in our States. Let an example be alleged of an extra-European nation, among whom the art of printing produces effects analogous to those it produces among us; where new applications of our discoveries are attempted; where our systems of philosophy give birth to new systems; where our arts and sciences flourish.

But, no; I will be more moderate in my demands. I shall not ask of that nation to adopt, together with our faith, all in which consists our individuality. I shall suppose that it rejects it totally, and chooses one entirely different, adapted to its peculiar genius and circumstances. When the eyes of that nation open to the truths of the Gospel, it perceives that its earthly course is as encumbered and wretched as its spiritual life had hitherto been. It now begins the work of improvement, collects its ideas, which had hitherto remained fruitless, examines the notions of others, transforms them, and adapts them to its peculiar circumstances; in fact, erects, by its own power, a social and political system, a civilization, however humble. Where is there such a nation? The entire records of all history may be searched in vain for a single instance of a nation which, together with Christianity, adopted European civilization, or which – by the same grand change in its religious ideas – was led to form a civilization of its own, if it did not possess one already before.

On the contrary, I will show, in every part of the world, ethnical characteristics not in the least effaced by the adoption of Christianity. The Christian Mongol and Tartar tribes lead the same erratic life as their unconverted brethren, and are as distinct from the Russian of the same religion, who tills the soil, or plies his trade in their midst, as they were centuries ago. Nay, the very hostilities of race survive the adoption of a common religion, as we have already pointed out in a preceding chapter. The Christian religion, then, does not equalize the intellectual disparities of races.