what we really were

 

If ever there was a quarter of the globe distinguished by its quarrels, its jealousies, its everlasting wars and bloodshed, it is Europe. Since these soi-disant Christian nations have risen into any degree of strength, what single evidence of Christianity have they, as nations, exhibited? Eternal warfare!—is that Christianity? Yet that is the history of Christian Europe. The most subtle or absurd pretences to seize upon each other’s possessions,—the contempt of all faith in treaties,—the basest policy,—the most scandalous profligacy of public morals,—the most abominable international laws!—are they Christianity? And yet they are the history of Europe. Nations of men selling themselves to do murder, that ruthless kings might ravish each other’s crowns—nations of men, standing with jealous eyes on the perpetual watch against each other, with arms in their hands, oaths in their mouths, and curses in their hearts;—are those Christian? Yet there is not a man acquainted with the history of Europe that will even attempt to deny that that is the history of Europe. For what are all our international boundaries; our lines of demarcation; our frontier fortresses and sentinels; our martello towers, and guard-ships; our walled and gated cities; our bastions and batteries; and our jealous passports? These are all barefaced and glaring testimonies that our pretence of Christianity is a mere assumption; that after upwards of a thousand years of the boasted possession of Christianity, Europe has not yet learned to govern itself by its plainest precepts; and that her children have no claim to, or reliance in that spirit of “love which casteth out all fear.” It is very well to vaunt the title of Christian one to another—every nation knows in its own soul, it is a hollow pretence. While it boasts of the Christian name, it dare not for a moment throw itself upon a Christian faith in its neighbour. No! centuries of the most unremitted hatred,—blood poured over every plain of Europe, and sprinkled on its very mountain tops, cry out too dreadfully, that it is a dismal cheat. Wars, the most savage and unprovoked; oppressions, the most desperate; tyrannies, the most ruthless; massacres, the most horrible; death-fires, and tortures the most exquisite, perpetuated one on another for the faith, and in the very name of God; dungeons and inquisitions; the blood of the Vaudois, and the flaming homes of the Covenanters are all in their memories, and give the lie to their professions. No! Poland rent in sunder; the iron heel of Austria on the prostrate neck of Italy; and invasions and aggressions without end, make Christian nations laugh with a hollow mockery in their hearts, in the very midst of their solemn professions of the Christian virtue and faith.

Howitt, William "Colonization and Christianity", Chapter 1

We have now followed the Europeans to every region of the globe, and seen them planting colonies, and peopling new lands, and everywhere we have found them the same—a lawless and domineering race, seizing on the earth as if they were the firstborn of creation, and having a presumptive right to murder and dispossess all other people...The whole history of European colonization is of a piece. It is with grief and indignation, that passing before my own mind the successive conquests and colonies of the Europeans amongst the native tribes of newly-discovered countries, I look in vain for a single instance of a nation styling itself Christian and civilized, acting towards a nation which it is pleased to term barbarous with Christian honesty and common feeling. The only opportunity which the aboriginal tribes have had of seeing Christianity in its real form and nature, has been from William Penn and the missionaries. But both Penn and the missionaries have in every instance found their efforts neutralized, and their hopes of permanent good to their fellow-creatures blasted, by the profligacy and the unprincipled rapacity of the Europeans as a race. Never was there a race at once so egotistical and so terrible! With the most happy complacency regarding themselves as civilized and pious, while acting the savage on the broadest scale, and spurning every principle of natural or revealed religion.

Howitt, William "Colonization and Christianity", Conclusion