Narrative of the Life and Travels of Serjeant B——Butler, Robert
History
Narrative of the Life and Travels of Serjeant B——
Butler, Robert
Butler, Robert, 1784- -- Travel -- India; India -- Description and travel
unhappy class, in consequence of some disease, was reduced to such a
state of decrepitude, as to be drawn about in a small cart, being
unable to walk. What a pity, and a shame it is, that ever such scenes
should be exhibited by those who bear the name of Christians; and,
particularly, in a country which we are labouring to Christianize.
Sure I am, that it operates greatly against the success of these
excellent missionaries, whose labours are carried on near any of our
regiments; for, when the natives see the shamefully inconsistent
conduct of the soldiers and other Europeans, they cannot but think
that their own religion is better than that of our countrymen, since,
generally speaking, these are much inferior to them in point of
sobriety, and some other moral habits.
It is easier for the Christian reader to conceive, than for me to
describe, my feelings for a few days previous to leaving the regiment;
but just place yourself, as it were, in my circumstances, and let the
past and the future be present to your mind: suppose yourself to have
been for seven years absent from your native country, and from all
those who were near and dear to you at home, and, above all, from the
public ordinances of divine grace, and to have been travelling in that
wilderness wherein (both literally and figuratively) there was often
no way; and also to have been as it were at the gates of death, when
there could be little rational hope entertained of ever being brought
up again, much less of having the joyful anticipation of soon being
restored to your native country, your friends, and even perhaps to a
health of which you had long been deprived; and, in a word, to pure
air, pure water, and, above all, to a pure Gospel--I say, suppose
yourself placed in these circumstances, and see if you will wonder
when I tell you my joyful feelings were excited almost to rapture upon
this occasion. But you may be ready to say, was there nothing I was
leaving behind me calculated to raise in my mind feelings of an
opposite kind? No affectionate friends with whom I had enjoyed
agreeable fellowship? No doubt there were such friends, and I bless
God I can say, that they were friends who had not only travelled part
of the weary way with me in that wilderness, but whose society I hope
to enjoy again in the promised land; and when I saw and thought on
such friends, my mind was no doubt agitated, and a conflict of joy and
grief was awakened in my breast. I will just select one solitary
individual for my present purpose, as her situation was peculiarly
trying, and consequently better calculated to touch the sympathetic
feelings, by way of illustrating what I have stated; namely, that I
was not without friends from whose social and religious fellowship I
was about to be separated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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