In complete opposition to these views, passages occur in the following letters which show that Wallace thought more highly of the Roman Catholic than of the Protestant missionaries.  In one place, speaking of the former, he says:  “Most are Frenchmen ... well-educated men who give up their lives for the good of the people they live among, I think Catholics and Protestants are equally wrong, but as missionaries I think Catholics are the best, and I would gladly see none others rather than have, as in New Zealand, sects of native Dissenters more rancorous against each other than in England.  The unity of the Catholics is their strength, and an unmarried clergy can do as missionaries what married men never can undertake.”

As a sidelight on these contradictory estimates of the same work, it should be borne in mind that Darwin had but recently given up the idea of becoming a clergyman, and doubtless retained some of the instinctive regard for sincere Christian Protestantism (whether represented by the Church of England or by Nonconformists), while Wallace had long since relinquished all doctrinal ideas on religion and all belief in the beneficial effect produced by forms of worship on the individual.

Among the regions Wallace visited was Sarawak.  Of one of his sojourns here some interesting reminiscences have been sent to me by Mr. L.V.  Helmes.  He says: 

It was in 1854 that Wallace came to Sarawak.  I was there then, sent by a private firm, which later became the Borneo Company, to open up, by mining, manufacture and trade, the resources of the country, and amongst these enterprises was coal-mining on the west.  Wallace came in search of new specimens of animal and especially insect life.  The clearing of ancient forests at these mines offered a naturalist great opportunities, and I gave Wallace an introduction to our engineer in charge there.  His collections of beetles and butterflies there were phenomenal; but the district was also the special home of the great ape, the orang-utan, or meias, as the natives called them, of which he obtained so many valuable specimens.  Many notes must at that time have passed between us, for I took much interest in his work.  We had put up a temporary hut for him at the mines, and on my occasional visits there I saw him and his young assistant, Charles Allen, at work, admired his beautiful collections, and gave my help in forwarding them.

But it was mainly in social intercourse that we met, when Wallace, in intervals of his labours, came to Ku-ching, and was the Rajah’s guest.  Then occurred those interesting discussions at social gatherings to which he refers in a letter to me in 1909, when he wrote:  “I was pleased to receive your letter, with reminiscences of old times.  I often recall those pleasant evenings with Rajah Brooke and our little circle, but since the old Rajah’s death I have not met any of the party.”

Wallace was in Sarawak at the happy