Kachins are a somewhat
uncivilized and quarrelsome race, unspeakably immoral, and steeped in
every vice against which the Christian missionary has to set his face--a
most difficult people to work among. But there I saw scores and scores
of baptized Christians living a life clean and ennobling, endeavoring
honestly to break away from their degrading customs of centuries, some
of them exceedingly intelligent people.
I speak of this because I feel that in the face of untruthful and
malicious descriptions which in former years have got into print
respecting this very mission and the very missionaries on this field, it
is only fair that people in the homeland interested in the work should
know what their American brethren are doing here. I cannot praise too
highly this mission and the enthusiastic band of workers whom it was my
pleasure to meet. In Mr. Roberts, the superintendent of the field, the
American Baptist Board have a man of wonderful resource, who is not only
an ardent Christian evangelist and capable administrator, but a
gentleman of considerable business ability and a remarkable organizer. A
writer who, passing through in 1894, was indebted to Mr. Roberts for
many kindnesses, found that the only adverse criticism he could make of
the missionary was in respect to his knowledge of horses.
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