The Wasp — 1894 — page 126: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This three-panel cartoon satirizes missionary work and religious hypocrisy. The panels depict what appears to be a would-be missionary's fantasies about converting others in exotic or foreign settings. The humor targets the gap between missionaries' grandiose ambitions and reality. The title suggests the character is delusional about their ability or calling. The cartoon likely mocks both the pretensions of amateur missionaries and, possibly, the cultural presumptions underlying missionary work itself—a common subject for satirical publications of this era. The specific targets and cultural context are difficult to determine fully from the image quality, but the satire clearly concerns religious earnestness meeting practical absurdity.