“Two-thirds of mankind are neither Jews, Mahometans, nor Christians; and how many millions of men have never heard the name of Moses, Jesus Christ, or Mahomet?  They deny it; they maintain that our missionaries go everywhere.  That is easily said.  But do they go into the heart of Africa, still undiscovered, where as yet no European has ever ventured?  Do they go to Eastern Tartary to follow on horseback the wandering tribes, whom no stranger approaches, who not only know nothing of the pope, but have scarcely heard tell of the Grand Lama!  Do they penetrate into the vast continents of America, where there are still whole nations unaware that the people of another world have set foot on their shores?  Do they go to Japan, where their intrigues have led to their perpetual banishment, where their predecessors are only known to the rising generation as skilful plotters who came with feigned zeal to take possession in secret of the empire?  Do they reach the harems of the Asiatic princes to preach the gospel to those thousands of poor slaves?  What have the women of those countries done that no missionary may preach the faith to them?  Will they all go to hell because of their seclusion?

“If it were true that the gospel is preached throughout the world, what advantage would there be?  The day before the first missionary set foot in any country, no doubt somebody died who could not hear him.  Now tell me what we shall do with him?  If there were a single soul in the whole world, to whom Jesus Christ had never been preached, this objection would be as strong for that man as for a quarter of the human race.

“If the ministers of the gospel have made themselves heard among far-off nations, what have they told them which might reasonably be accepted on their word, without further and more exact verification?  You preach to me God, born and dying, two thousand years ago, at the other end of the world, in some small town I know not where; and you tell me that all who have not believed this mystery are damned.  These are strange things to be believed so quickly on the authority of an unknown person.  Why did your God make these things happen so far off, if he would compel me to know about them?  Is it a crime to be unaware of what is happening half a world away?  Could I guess that in another hemisphere there was a Hebrew nation and a town called Jerusalem?  You might as well expect me to know what was happening in the moon.  You say you have come to teach me; but why did you not come and teach my father, or why do you consign that good old man to damnation because he knew nothing of all this?  Must he be punished everlastingly for your laziness, he who was so kind and helpful, he who sought only for truth?  Be honest; put yourself in my place; see if I ought to believe, on your word alone, all these incredible things which you have told me, and reconcile all this injustice with the just God you proclaim to me.  At least allow me to go and see this distant land where