Persuading Christian Lovers
(Church Missionary Society, Gettyimages)
“Let every christian who reads this, and who is himself blessed with a knowledge of the overflowing mercies of God in Jesus Christ, endeavor to picture to himself what, in such case, must be the state of an entire island, whose whole population, and that too composed for the most part of poor ignorant Africans and their offspring, and then ask, whether they need, and whether Christian love for their souls should not induce him to use every lawful means for sending them the Gospel.”
In this passage, The Church Missionary and Ladies’ Societies persuasively use the “Christian love” shared by the British to civilized and convert the natives. The description of the natives as “poor ignorant Africans” serves to represent the British as the natives’ salvation. The British are persuaded by this idea of being superior and righteous by saving those who need it (in this case, the naives).
