Not long ago Prof. Frederick Starr after a brief visit to the Congo published his opinions in the Chicago _Tribune_ and made many strictures upon missionary work. He wrote under the rather complacent caption, “The truth about the Congo,” quite confident that his word and hasty observations were sufficient to discredit the hundreds who had gone before him, as able and as honest as himself, and who had lived many years in the Congo. Professor Starr confesses at the outset that he personally “dislikes the effort to elevate, civilize, and remake a people,” and that he “should prefer to leave the African as he was before the white contact.” It is his opinion that civilized folk have no right to change the customs, institutions or ideas of any tribe, even with the purpose of saving their souls. Such critics regard the African, not at all with a human and sympathetic interest, as a fellow man, capable of progress, and possibly endowed with an immortal soul; but with an esthetic and historical interest, as constituting a link between us and our ape-ancestry, an object to be appraised like a piece of antique art, not for its present or future use, but for the past. To change him shows a want of good taste and historical imagination, even if the change relieve his suffering and improve his morals; that were a small compensation if we thereby impoverish the variety of human types and leave the world less interesting to the connoisseur. Incidentally, Professor Starr denied categorically the reported atrocities of the Belgians in the Congo Free State. He had asked the Belgians themselves about the matter. In seeking to explain the wide-spread criticism of missions and of missionaries it ought to be frankly admitted that among missionaries there are misfits and occasional freaks whose misconduct scandalizes the well deserving. If we have any knowledge of human nature, and realize that in every society there are unworthy and false members, we should not even expect that the ranks of missionaries alone would be exempt. By denying a palpable fact we only exasperate our critics and lead them to doubt the sincerity of all instead of a very few. It is always wholesome to admit the truth, and indiscriminate praise is as foolish and misleading as wholesale criticism.