I do not know why we respect missionaries. Perhaps it is because they have not intruded here from Turkey or China or Polynesia to break our hearts by sapping away our children’s faith and winning them to the worship of alien gods. We have lacked the opportunity to find out how a parent feels to see his child deriding and blaspheming the religion of its ancestors.

From “The Missionary in World-Politics” by Mark Twain. Previously unpublished, it will be included in Who Is Mark Twain?, coming in April from HarperStudio. (For more information about the book, see “First look at new book of Twain’s unpublished writings.”)