Introduction: writing missionaries

Summary

On Wednesday, 14 May 1834, Reverend Robert Burns preached before the London Missionary Society, at the Tabernacle, Moorfields. His sermon, entitled The Indirect Benefits of the Missionary Enterprise, sought to explain what he saw as five ‘advantages’ which had come about through nineteenth-century missionary activity. The first advantage, Burns states, is that ‘Our views of man have been enlarged and rectified’:

Long did the Christian world remain very imperfectly informed of the real nature and effects of heathenism in regard to its blinded votaries. Misled by the theories of some over-refined speculators, and relying implicitly on the statements of certain interested voyagers or historians, we dreamed of the pagan tribes as pure in their manners, and refined in their enjoyments … It was not til the Christian world was awakened from its lethargy … that our mistakes regarding the actual state of man were rectified, and facts and illustrations, hitherto neglected, brought forward to view in all their revolting reality. A spirit of inquiry into the state of the world at large has been cherished. More accurate accounts of its real condition have been obtained. The causes of man's misery have been traced out. The theories of a false philosophy have been exploded.

(7–8)

Burns positions evangelical philosophies and the lived experiences of missionaries in opposition to Orientalist attitudes of imperial and colonial elites. No longer should Europeans regard India's ancient civilisation as ‘elegant’ or ‘wise’ or ‘venerable’: missionary activity proved that India was simply ‘heathen’.