LESSONS FROM HEATHEN LANDS.
In 1844, four years after Christian England had, by force of arms and by the most bloody and hideous atrocities, compelled the Chinese to open their ports to the opium trade, thus admitting a poison which destroys the lives of more than one thousand Chinese every day, and that by the most horrible degradation and torture imaginable,—the Chinese emperor was urged to collect duties upon the opium and thus increase his revenue. He gave this noble answer:—“It is true, I cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing poison. Gain-seeking and corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality, defeat my wishes; but nothing will induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of my people.” Would that civilized nations which disgrace the name of Christ, whose religion has not yet expelled their primeval heathenism, might learn a morality as high and pure as this. The following sound temperance document is from the Queen of Madagascar, where, until quite recently, heathenism has reigned supreme, but which now seems in a position to send to so-called Christian lands missionaries whose teachings, if heeded, would greatly profit their inhabitants:—“I, Ranovalomanjaka, by the grace of God and will of my people Queen of Madagascar, defender of the laws of my kingdom. And this is what I say to you, my subjects. God has given me this land and kingdom, and concerning the rum, O my subjects, you and I have agreed that it shall not be sold in Antananarivo or in the district in which it was agreed it should not be sold [Imerina, the central province]. Therefore I remind you of this again, because the rum does harm to your persons, spends your possessions in vain, harms your wives and children, makes foolish the wise, makes more foolish the foolish [literally gives heart to the foolish], and causes people not to fear the laws of the kingdom, and especially makes them guilty before God. “All this shows rum to be a bad thing to have at Antananarivo, for at night [under its influence] people go about with clubs to fight, and they fight each other without cause, and stone each other; therefore, why do you love it, O my people? But I tell you that trade in good things, by which you can earn money, makes me very glad indeed, O my people. This, then, is what I say to you, O my people: If you trade in rum or employ people to trade in it here in Antananarivo, or in the district spoken of above, then, according to the laws which were made formerly, I consider you to be guilty, because I am not ashamed to make laws in my kingdom which shall do you good. Therefore, I tell you that if there are people who break my laws then I must punish them. Is not this so, O my people? Says Ranovalomanjaka, Queen of Madagascar, August 8th, 1876.”—Sel.