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CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS.: 


THEIR  AGENTS,  AND  THEIR  RESULTS. 


BY 

T.   W.  M.  MARSHALL 


A  FRUCTIBUS  EORUM  COGNOSCETIS  EOS.— S.  MATT.  711.  16. 


VOL  II. 


NEW   YORK: 
I)    &  J.  SADLIER   &   CO.,  31    BARCLAY    STREET. 

MONTREAL :  COR.  NOTRE-DAME  AND  ST.  FRANCIS  XAVIER  STS. 

MRS.    HICKET,    123    FEDEHAL    STUEUT,    BOSTOK. 

18G5. 


RENNIR,  SHKA  ft  LINDSAY, 

BT«BKOTYP«RS  AND  ELKCTHOTYPEKS,  QEO.  W.  WOOD,  PRiMTEft, 

81,  83  A  85  CKNTRE-STUEET,  No-  2  Dutch-st.,  N.  Y. 

NEW  YORK. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  II. 


Missions  in  the  Levant,  Syria  and  Armenia 1 

"        Mediterranean 2 

"        Greece 6 

"        European  Turkey 15 

Catholic  Missions  in  Turkey 20 

Missions  in  Asiatic  Turkey 29 

Missions  in  Jerusalem ; 43 

Kussian  Missions  and  Sclavonic  Unity 60 

The  Maronites 87 

The  Druses -. 96 

Missions  in  Armenia 99 

Protestant  Missions  in  the  Levant 110 

Georgia  and  Persia 119 

Missions  in  South  America 123 

"        in  Brazil 131 

"        in  Guyana 164 

"        in  Carthegena  and  the  Blessed  Peter  Claver 169 

"        in  Peru  and  Chili 172 

Present  State  of  the  South  American  Provinces 176 

Modern  Missionaries  in  South  America 189 

Missions  in  Paraguay ." 193 

"        in  North  America 221 

"        in  Guatemala 223 

"        in  Central  America 227 

"        in  Mexico 229 

"        in  Texas 244 

"        in  California 250 

"        in  Oregon 262 

"        in  Rocky  Mountains 268 

"        in  British  Columbia 276 

"        in  Canada 283 

"        in  Newfoundland,  Greenland,  and  Lapland 333 

"        in  United  States 339 

The  Pilgrim  Fathers ..  342 


yi  CONTENTS  OF  VOL.   II. 

Anglican  Missions  in  the  United  States 351 

The  American  Negroes 373 

The  American  Indians 387 

Conclusion 396 

Summary 401 

General  Contrast 406 

The  City  of  God  and  the  City  of  Confusion 420 

Results  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  Education 427 

Celibacy  and  Marriage 435 

Contrast  in  Social  Results 439 

The  Church  and  the  Sects 446 

The  End  of  the  Conflict 451 

Germany 452 

Switzerland 456 

France 458 

Holland 458 

England 459 

Sweden  Norway  and  Denmark 4G5 

The  Reformation  Hypothesis 469 

Conclusion 473 

Index  of  Contents. . .  481 


CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,  SYRIA,  AND  ARMENIA. 


MANY  lands  have  now  been  passed  in  review,  and  each  has 
proclaimed  in  turn  the  same  unvarying  tale.  We  have  visited 
the  Chinese  and  the  Hindoo,  the  Cingalese  and  the  Maori,  the 
Philippine  and  the  many  tribes  who  people  the  island  world  of 
the  Pacific.  We  have  interrogated  the  Moor  and  the  Copt,  the 
JS"egro  and  the  Abyssinian  ;  and  now  at  length  the  Kaffir  and 
the  Hottentot  have  added  their  voice,  and  have  told  us  that 
they  too,  in  spite  of  the  mists  which  cloud  both  heart  and 
brain,  are  learning  to  discriminate  between  the  apostles  of 
Jesus  and  the  emissaries  of  man.  All  have  bowed  in  turn  be 
fore  the  meek  but  fearless  pastors  who  went  amongst  them  bear 
ing  the  Cross,  and  have  confessed,  in  love  or  in  hate,  that  they 
indeed  came  from  God ;  while  all  have  agreed  to  spurn,  as 
only  men  like  themselves,  the  crowd  of  rival  teachers  having 
neither  the  gifts  nor  the  calling  of  apostles,  and  to  utter  the  tes 
timony  which  the  evil  spirits  have  so  often  been  forced  to  pro 
claim  by  the  mouth  of  the  heathen,  "  Jesus  I  know,  and  Paul 
I  know,  but  who  are  you  ?"* 

And  now  we  approach  the  regions  where  the  mightiest  races 
of  the  human  family  have  in  turn  reigned  or  served,  and  the 
lands,  immortal  both  in  sacred  and  profane  story,  where  Chris 
tianity  yielded  its  first  martyrs,  and  won  its  earliest  triumphs. 
They  have  changed  since  then,  yet  not  as  other  lands  have 
changed ;  for  in  this  mysterious  East,  which  still  silently  rebukes 
by  its  grave  and  solemn  mien  the  fickle  and  clamorous  races  of 
the  West,  even  error  knows  how  to  simulate  the  prerogatives 
of  truth,  and  still  wears  the  same  outward  form,  after  the  lapse 

*  Acts  xix.  32. 

YOL.  H.  2 


2  CHAPTER   VIIT. 

of  centuries,  in  which  it  defied  the  sentence  of  God  at  Ephesus 
and  Chalcedon.  The  lessons  of  a  thousand  years,  and  the 
abject  misery  of  the  last  four  hundred,  have  failed  to  admonish 
the  disciples  of  Photius  and  Eutyches  and  Kestorius  ;  until  in 
these  last  days  a  new  call  to  repentance  and  conversion  has 
been  heard  amongst  them,  of  which  we  are  about  to  trace  the 
noble  results.  We  are  going  to  speak  of  the  Greek  and  the 
Syrian,  of  the  Moslem  who  rules  over  both,  and  of  the  Kussian 
who  is  planning  in  secret  how  he  may  set  his  heel  on  them  all. 


THE    MEDITERRANEAN. 

We  have  come  from  Africa,  and  must  therefore  enter  the 
Mediterranean  through  that  famous  strait  at  whose  mouth 
England  keeps  watch  from  her  strongest  fortress.  Let  us  be 
gin  our  new  voyage  from  this  spot ;  for  even  in  Gibraltar, 
where  but  a  few  thousand  men  are  crowded  together,  we  shall 
find  one  more  example,  worthy  of  a  moment's  attention,  of  the 
eternal  contrast  between  the  children  of  the  Church  and  the 
children  of  the  world. 

An  Episcopalian  clergyman,  who  had  left  his  flock  in  America, 
hut  addressed  to  them  from  every  place  which  he  visited  pastoral 
letters,  of  which  the  main  object  seems  to  have  been  to  keep 
alive  during  his  absence  their  aversion  to  the  Catholic  Church, 
found  materials  for  an  animated  discourse  even  in  Gibraltar. 
He  visited  both  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  church  in  that 
place,  and  then  dispatched  to  his  remote  congregation  a  de 
scription  of  what  even  he  was  constrained  to  call  "the  striking 
contrast."  In  the  Protestant  church,  he  tells  them,  he  never 
saw  "  one  of  the  attending  soldiers  on  his  knees  ;"  and  then  he 
exclaims,  "  to  what  advantage  do  the  Catholics  appenr  in  this 
striking  contrast !"  "  The  hundreds  that  stood  there"  he  adds, 
when  he  had  passed  from  the  worship  to  the  preaching,  u  were 
all  eye  and  ear ;  but  here  (in  the  Protestant  church)  nothing 
could  be  seen  but  yawning,  and  drowsiness,  and  inattention."* 

This  unfavorable  report  of  an  American  minister  is  more 
than  confirmed  by  an  Anglican  writer,  who  observes  :  "  The 

*  Glimpses  of  the  Old  World,  by  the  Rev.  Jolm  A.  Clark,  D.D  ,  Rector  of  St. 
Andrew's  Church,  Philadelphia,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ii.,  pp.  56,  68.  An  Anglican  min 
ister  gives  the  same  account  of  a  church  of  the  Waldenses,  who  are  repre 
sented  on  English  platforms  as  the  most  devout  Christians  of  Italy.  '  There 
did  not  appear  to  be  much  external  reverence  among  the  congregation,  who 
went  in  and  out  incessantly,  nor  was  the  attendance  at  all  proportioned  to  the 
size  of  the  church."  The  Italian  Valleys  of  the  Pennine  Alps,  by  Rev.  S.  W. 
King,  M.A,  ch.  x.,  p.  226. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  3 

state  of  religion  when  I  was  at  Gibraltar  was  most  dishearten 
ing.  .  .  .  There  is  literally  no  Church  feeling  in  Gibraltar."* 

It  is  perhaps  worthy  of  remark,  that  a  Russo-Greek  traveller, 
the  amiable  Count  Schouvaloff,  seems  to  have  owed  the  grace 
of  conversion  to  his  continual  observation  of  the  same  u  striking 
contrast"  which  produced  only  a  transient  impression  on  Dr. 
Clark.  "  What  struck  and  edified  me  in  the  Catholic  churches," 
he  says,  "  was  the  profound  recollection  of  the  faithful  in  the 
act  of  prayer.  I  compared  their  modest  and  humble  attitude 
with  the  often  unbecoming  movements,  the  deep  ennui,  and  the 
distracted  looks,  of  a  great  number  of  my  co-religionists  during 
the  divine  office;  and  I  was  obliged  to  confess,  in  spite  of 
myself,  that  there  was  more  piety  among  the  Catholics  than 
among  the  Greeks."f 

Let  us  stay  also  for  a  moment  at  another  fortress,  also  a 
symbol  of  Anglo-Saxon  might,  which  we  shall  pass  on  our  way 
to  the  isles  of  Greece.  Malta  has  been  for  more  than  a  quarter 
of  a  century  the  headquarters  of  Protestantism  in  the  Levant. 
Nearly  forty  years  ago  Mr.  Jowett  recommended  it  to  English 
missionary  societies  as  a  centre  for  their  operations,  because,  as 
he  said,  "  it  is  verj  far  from  unhealthy,  British  protection  is 
here  fully  enjoyed,  together  with  a  degree  of  comfort  seldom  to 
be  attained  in  foreign  countries;  rendering  it  a  peculiarly 
eligible  residence  for  a  missionary  family."^:  These  character 
istic  considerations  prevailed,  and  for  thirty  years  an  eruption 
of  tracts  and  Bibles  has  flowed  out  of  Malta,  and  covered  both 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  In  the  single  year  1831,  they 
boast  to  have  issued  from  this  eligible  residence  "four  millions 
seven  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  pages,  all  in  modern  Greek.  '§ 
By  the  same  year  the  Americans  alone  had  dispersed  "  about 
three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  volumes,  containing  twenty- 
one  million  pages." |  Both  English  and  Americans  have  been 
dispersing  them  at  an  increased  rate  ever  since.  How  many 
converts  have  been  made  by  this  abundant  literature,  and  of 
what  sort,  we  shall  learn  presently. 

It  is  here  also  that  the  "  Malta  Protestant  College"  has 
been  established,  with  the  object  of  providing  suitable  instruc 
tion,  as  well  as  food  and  lodging,  for  any  orientals  who  could 
be  induced  to  enter  it.  Of  the  actual  results  obtained  in  this 
institution,  which  appears  to  have  been  hitherto  a  kind  or 

*  The  Canary  Isles,  &c.,  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Debary,  M.A.,  cli.  xviii.,  pp. 
213,  225. 

f  Schouvaloff,  Ma  Conversion  et  ma  Vocation,  ch.  iii.,  p.  209. 
\.  Christian  Researches  in  the  Mediterranean,  p.  876,  3d  edition. 
§  History  of  American  Missions,  by  the  Rev.  Joseph  Tracy,  p.  213. 


4  CHAPTER  VIII. 

hospital  for  astute  adventurers  of  every  class,  we  shall  have  a 
sufficiently  accurate  notion  when  we  have  completed  our 
review  of  missions  in  the  Levant.  It  was  here  that  Achilli 
found  refuge ;  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  any  four  walls 
in  Christendom  have  contained  within  them,  at  a  given 
moment,  so  singular  an  assemblage  of  adroit  comedians  as  the 
Malta  Protestant  College.  Even  Achilli  is  not,  as  we  shall 
see,  an  exaggerated  specimen  of  its  inmates.  The  gentleman 
who  bears  the  title  of  "  Bishop  of  Gibraltar,"  we  are  told,  "  said 
he  was  not  pleased  with  Achilli,  as  he  expected,  after  the 
friendly  intercourse  they  had  had,  knowing  the  favorable 
opinion  he  had  of  the  Church  of  England,  that  he  would  have 
joined  himself  to  our  Church,  rather  than  have  laid  the  founda 
tion  of  another."* 

ISTo  doubt  Achilli,  who  is  said  to  have  become  ultimately  a 
Swedenborgian,  had  encouraged  this  expectation,  and  found  his 
profit  in  affecting  esteem  for  the  Church  of  England.  A  person 
so  fertile  in  resources  would  find  little  difficulty  in  outwitting 
the  amiable  gentleman  of  whom  a  well-known  traveller  gives 
this  irreverent  description  :  "  Dr.  Tomlinson  acted  like  an  Epis 
copalian  tight-rope  dancer,  always  balancing  himself  between 
Puseyism  and  Evangelicalism,  and  so  distracted  the  few  Prot 
estants  at  Malta.  He  is  eminently  a  man  of  no  decision  of 
character."!  Achilli  and  his  companions  appear  to  have 
detected  this  infirmity.  But  the  Malta  College  wanted  recruits, 
and  was  willing  to  accept  them  on  their  own  terms;  and  this 
fact  becoming  known  throughout  the  Levant,  the  revenues  of 
the  College  were  constantly  dilapidated  by  ingenious  orientals, 
who  adapted  the  new  drama  of  "Achilli  and  the  Bishop  of 
Gibraltar,"  through  every  possible  modification  of  comedy  and 
burlesque,  but  always  to  their  own  advantage.  A  few  exam 
ples,  recorded  by  Protestant  writers,  deserve  attention. 

The  first  is  the  case  of  Dr.  Naudi,  reported  at  length  by 
Dr.  Clark.  Professing  to  be  a  Protestant  convert,  Naudi  was 
long  supported  by  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  to  whom  he 
forwarded  welcome  periodical  reports,  setting  forth  the  rapid 
increase  of  oriental  Protestants,  and  the  inconveniently  crowded 
btate  of  his  own  chapel  in  consequence.  The  "  spread  of  Prot 
estantism  in  the  Levant"  became  the  theme  of  many  a  glowing 
oration,  till  Dr.  Joseph  Wolff,  always  active  and  inquisitive, 
resolved  to  visit  "  Naudi's  place  of  worship,"  in  order  to  be  an 
eye-witness  of  his  evangelical  triumphs ;  and  then  was  revealed 
an  unexpected  fact.  "He  ascertained,"  says  Dr.  Clark,  "that 

*  Dr.  Achilli,  and  the  Malta  Protestant  College,  p.  9  (1851). 

f  Richardson,  Travels  in  the  Great  Desert  of  Sahara,  vol.  i.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  235. 


ETC.  5 

Dr.  Kaudi  had  never  held  service  here,  although  lie  had  for 
years  made  his  reports  in  relation  to  what  he  was  doing,  and 
received  funds  from  England  to  enable  him  to  carry  on  his 
operations  !"* 

The  next  case  is  related  by  Dr.  Wolff  himself.  "Antonio 
Fabri,  the  Cancelliere  of  the  British  Consul,  told  us  he  was 
convinced  of  the  truth  of  the  Protestant  religion."  But  An 
tonio  was  a  very  inferior  performer  to  Dr.  Naudi,  and  betrayed 
his  secret  too  soon.  "We  found  out,"  says  Dr.  Wolff,  "  that  he 
said  this  in  order  to  induce  us  to  give  our  consent  to  his 
marrying  our  English  maid-servant. "f 

Stephanos  Carapiet  was  another  of  the  same  class  of  converts. 
"  He  arrived  from  Beyrout,  and  asked  me  to  give  him  money 
to  go  to  Malta,  to  join  the  American  missionaries  there,  by 
whom  he  said  he  had  been  converted.  He  was  a  Greek  priest." 
Apparently  Dr.  Wolff  was  generous  enough  to  comply  with  the 
request,  for  he  adds,  "  after  he  had  stayed  a  few  days  lie  got 
extremely  drunk,  so  we  sent  him  away.":f 

Dr.  Game  also  tells  us,  amongst  other  examples,  of  "  two 
brothers,"  who  came  from  Mount  Lebanon. — the  fame  of  the 
Protestant  missionaries  having  evidently  spread  in  all  directions, 
— "  clever  and  designing  fellows  both  of  them,  who  agreed  to 
be  baptized  and  become  useful  agents,  on  the  promise  of  some 
hundred  pounds,  to  be  paid  them  by  a  zealous  and  wealthy 
supporter  of  the  cause."§  We  shall  hear  of  many  similar  cases 
when  we  get  into  Syria,  and  these  may  suffice  for  the  present. 
It  is  curious  that  these  playful  orientals  never  even  attempt  to 
practise  their  frauds  upon  Catholic  missionaries,  perhaps  bp- 
cause  they  have  detected  that  the  latter  do  not  pay  for  conver 
sions  ;  and  that  it  is  the  English,  who  deem  themselves  the 
most  discerning,  and  the  Americans,  who  claim  to  be  the  keen 
est  people  in  the  universe,  who  are  their  only  victims. 

Let  us  leave  Malta  and  its  college,  the  value  of  which  we 
shall  learn  to  appreciate  still  more  exactly  hereafter,  but  not 
without  noticing  words  which  it  seems  to  have  chosen  as  its 
motto  and  device.  "Here  we  are,"  says  one  of  its  officials,  and 
the  college  printed  and  circulated  the  announcement,  "  safe 
from  the  withering  influence  of  Puseyism,  Romanism,  and  all 
the  rest  of  Satan's  isms."|| 

*  Glimpses,  &c.,  di.  viii.,  p.  165. 

f  Journal,  p.  161. 

\  P.  148. 

§  Letters  from  the  East,  by  John  Came,  Esq.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  115,  3d  edition. 

I   The  Fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  Malta  Protestant  College,  p.  13  (1853). 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


GREECE. 

And  now  we  come  to  Greece,  famous  for  great  actions  which 
she  has  long  ceased  to  imitate,  more  fruitful  in  words  than  in 
works,  abounding  rather  in  poets  than  in  prophets,  and  as 
careless  in  the  nineteenth  century  as  she  was  in  the  fifteenth  of 
the  miseries  which  her  errors  have  provoked,  and  the  blessings 
which  her  crimes  have  forfeited.  If  there  be  a  people  in  the 
world  whose  history  may  be  compared  to  that  of  the  Jews,  and 
who  seem,  by  the  singularity  of  their  fate,  to  have  been  struck 
by  the  heavy  hand  of  God  before  the  face  of  all  nations,  the 
Greeks  are  that  people.  From  the  hour  in  which  the  Photian 
schism  was  accomplished,  and  Michael  Cerularius  first  uttered 
a  curse,  in  1053,  against  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  they  have  never 
ceased  to  endure  such  affliction  and  ignominy  as  no  other 
Christian  people  ever  knew.*  Again  and  again  reconciled  to 
the  Church,  it  was  only  to  relapse  into  schism.  Vainly  they 
were  warned  by  prelates  of  their  own  nation,  perpetually  af 
firming  their  allegiance  to  the  Holy  See,  or  admonished  by 
chastisements  which  their  pride  refused  to  comprehend.  But 
the  Greeks  were  fast  filling  up  the  measure  of  their  crimes,  and 
judgment  was  at  hand.  Already,  as  Pachy meres,  Gregoras, 
and  other  Greek  historians  relate,  "  there  was  scarcely  a  city  in 
the  empire  which  had  not  been  twice  or  thrice  in  the  presence 
of  an  enemy."  Already  they  had  this  in  common  with  that 
fated  race  to  whom  their  prodigious  calamities  have  caused 
them  to  be  compared,  that  every  fresh  act  of  faithlessness  was 
promptly  followed  by  some  signal  judgment.-)-  The  West  had 
sent  forth  the  avenging  hosts  which  scourged  the  one,  and  now 
the  East  was  arraying  the  more  terrible  armies  which  were  to 
crush  the  other.  The  fearful  power  which  was  destined  to 
trample  them  under  foot  was  gathering  strength  day  by  day. 
The  Ottomans  were  knocking  at  their  gates,  and,  like  raging 
lions,  "  demanding  their  prey  from  God." 

At  this  moment,  fear  and  dismay,  false  and  hypocritical  even 
in  their  deep  abjection,  urged  them  once  more  to  seek  recon 
ciliation  with  the  chair  of  Peter;  and  at  the  Council  of  Florence, 
in  1439,  all  the  prelates  of  the  Greek  and  Oriental  Churches 
again  confessed,  with  one  voice,  that  "  the  Koman  Pontiff  is 
the  true  Vicar  of  Christ  and  head  of  the  whole  Church," — and 

*  A  few  lines  are  inserted  here  from  a  paper,  written  some  years  ago,  on  the 
"  Russo-Greek  and  Oriental  Churches,"  and  printed  by  the  author  in  the  Dub 
lin  Review,  Dec.,  1847. 

f  Leo  Allatius,  De  Eccles.  Occident,  et  Orient.  Perpet.  Consens.;  Maimbourg, 
Histoire  da  fichisme  des  Grecs. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,  ETC.  7 

Joseph,  tlie  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  bequeathed  from  his 
death-bed,  as  his  last  legacy  to  his  nation  and  people,  that 
famous  exhortation  to  obedience  and  unity  of  which  he  had 
himself  given  an  immortal  example,  and  in  uttering  which  he 
yielded  up  his  soul  to  God.* 

But  Greek  perfidy  was  still  to  provoke  another  and  a  final 
judgment.  Gregory,  the  successor  of  Joseph,  after  struggling 
in  vain  against  the  new  schism,  retired  to  Rome  in  1451,  pre 
dicting  the  coming  fall  of  Constantinople.  Isidore,  the  met 
ropolitan  of  Russia,  and  delegate  of  the  Patriarch  of  Antioch; 
and  Bessarion,  once  the  ablest  champion  of  the  Greeks,  followed 
his  example.  In  vain  the  Sovereign  Pontiff,  Nicholas  the  Fifth, 
warned  the  twelfth  and  last  Constantine,  in  the  spirit  of 
prophecy,  that  "  if  before  three  years  they  did  not  repent  and 
return  to  holy  unity,  they  would  be  dealt  with  as  the  fig-tree 
in  the  Gospel,  which  was  cut  down  to  the  roots  because  of  its 
sterility. "f  The  prophecy  was  spoken  in  1451,  the  Moslem 

fathered  round  the  devoted  city,  and,  in  1453,  "  struck  by  the 
and  of  God,"  in  the  words  of  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople, 
the  schismatical  metropolis  fell.  Two  hundred  thousand  bar 
barians,  more  merciless  than  the  legions  of  Titus,  ceased  not  to 
strike  till  their  weary  arms  could  no  longer  hold  the  sword. 
Here  fell  the  last  Byzantine  emperor.  Here  the  most  gorgeous 
temple  of  the  Christian  faith,  polluted  by  incurable  schism, 
became  a  temple  of  the  Arabian  impostor.  *  "  Weep,  oh,  wreep," 
said  a  Greek  bishop,  one  of  the  captives  of  that  sorrowful  clay, 
"  weep  for  your  miseries,  and  condemn  yourselves  rather  than 
others ;  for  like  the  Jews  carried  away  captive  to  Babylon,  you 
have  despised  the  prophet  Jeremy,  foretelling  the  destruction 
and  the  captivity  of  Jerusalem.";); 

The  judgment  so  long  provoked  was  now  consummated.  From 
that  houivnisery,  contempt,  and  oppression  have  been  the  bitter 
portion  of  the  erring  communities  of  the  East.  "  Confounded 
with  barbarians,"  says  an  eminent  philosopher,  "they  bear  the 
penalty  of  their  schism,  and  remain — significant  judgment  !— 
the  only  Christian  people  subject  to  masters  who  are  not  so."§ 
The  destruction  of  Constantinople  by  Mahomet  II.,  and  the 
subsequent  fate  of  the  Greek  people,  present,  as  Montesquieu 
observed,  all  the  marks  of  a  Divine  judgment.!  And  to  this 
hour,  with  the  exception  of  those  who  have  been  reconciled  to 
unity,  and  have  recovered  by  a  noble  submission  the  freedom 

*  Maimbourg,  liv.  vi.,  ann.  1439. 

f  Gennadius,  Adv.  Gracos :  Theolog.  Curs.  Complet.,  torn,  v.,  p.  480. 

j  Leonard!  Echiensis,  Episc.  Mitylen,  Lib.  de  Captuitate  Comtantinopotia. 

§  M.  De  Bonald,  Legislation  Primitive,  tome  iv.,  sec.  v.,  p.  175. 

I  Grandeur  et  Decadence  des  Komains,  ch.  xxii. 


8  CHAPTER  VIII. 

and  dignity  which  they  had  lost,  the  Photian  sects  are  still  the 
most  degraded  of  all  Christian  races.  "  Since  they  fell  away 
from  the  centre  of  unity,"  says  one  who  has  long  dwelt  among 
them,  "  they  have  been  completely  isolated  from  the  movement 
of  civilization  and  of  science  which  is  ever  stimulating  the 
onward  march  of  the  other  people  of  Europe.  All  intellectual 
activity  has  died  away  among  them In  losing  the  ele 
vated  sense  of  Christianity,  they  have  transformed  it  into  a 
religion  of  purely  pharisaieal  ceremonies.  The  priests  have  no 
longer  the  virtue  of  the  celibate ;  all  the  bishoprics,  including 
the  patriarchate  of  Constantinople,  have  become  the  object  and 
the  prize  of  base  intrigue,  upon  which  the  temporal  powrer 
eagerly  speculates,  while  it  openly  exposes  to  auction  these  sa 
cred  dignities.  Simony  has  spread  itself  like  a  leprosy  over  the 
whole  hierarchy,  and  they  make  merchandise  of  holy  things."* 

"  The  sport  which  they  make  of  the  miserable  dignities  of 
the  Greek  Church,"  said  Edmund  Burke,  "  the  little  factions  of 
the  harem  to  which  they  make  them  subservient,  the  continual 
sale  to  which  they  expose  and  re-expose  the  same  dignity,  .  .  . 
is  nearly  equal  to  all  the  other  oppressions  together,  exercised 
by  Mussulmen  over  the  unhappy  members  of  the  Oriental 
Church."  "  The  secular  clergy,"  he  added,  "  by  being  married 

are  universally  fallen  into  such  contempt,  that  they  are 

never  permitted  to  aspire  to  the  dignities  of  their  own  Church. "f 

But  enough  upon  the  well-known  abasement  of  the  Greek 
and  other  schismatical  communities  of  the  East.  We  shall  visit 
them,  one  by  one,  in  the  course  of  this  chapter.  "  Notre  plume 
se  refuse,"  says  one  who  had  traced  their  earlier  history,  "  a 
tracer  des  tableaux  qui  ne  sont  que  trop  humiliants  pour  notre 
triste  condition  humaine."J 

The  very  Turks  themselves,  detecting  the  immense  distinction 
between  the  Latin  and  Byzantine  Christians,  denote  by  certain 
habitual  and  emphatic  designations  their  respect  for  the  one 
and  their  contempt  for  the  other ;  and  as  two  centuries  ago  they 
sjtyled  Catholics  Beysadez,  or  uthe  noble,"  and  the  Greeks 
Taif,  or  "  the  populace," — so  they  still  call  the  former  Francs, 
the  term  of  respect  and  honor,  and  the  latter  Kaffirs,  the  Mus 
sulman  synonym  for  "a  man  without  any  religion." 

The  Moslem,  we  are  told  by  a  modern  traveller,  "  is  astonished 
when  he  hears  them  classed  among  the  great  family  of  the  Chris 
tians  of  the  West."  "  They  have  preserved,"  he  adds,  "nothing 
of  Christianity  but  the  name.  The  clergy  do  not  even  compre- 

*  M.  Eugene  Bore,  Correspondance  et  Memoires  d'un  Voyageur  en  Orient, 
tome  i.,  p.  152. 

f  On  the  Penal  Laws  against  Irish  Catholics,  Works,  vol.  vi.,  pp.  285,  290. 
\  Grece,  par  M.  Pouqueville,  Membre  de  1'Institut,  p.  447. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LKVANT,    ETC.  9 

hend  the  prayers  of  the  liturgy.  We  have  seen  them  selling 
prayers  to  Turkish  women,  who  came  secretly  to  drink  the  waters 
of  some  miraculous  fountain.  We  have  seen  them  selling 
"brandy  at  the  door  of  their  church,  and  converting,  so  to  speak, 
the  sanctuary  into  a  tavern,  before  the  eyes  of  the  Mussulmen, 
justly  disgusted  by  the  profanation."  Even  woman,  who  owes 
all  her  dignity  and  influence  to  the  Christian  religion,  has  re 
lapsed,  throughout  the  schismatical  communities  of  the  East, 
into  a  kind  of  barbarism  ;  and  while  modern  Protestants,  who 
shall  be  quoted  hereafter,  notice  the  nobility  and  freedom  of 
the  Catholic  women  among  the  same  races,  sole  exceptions  to 
the  general  humiliation  because  they  alone  have  kept,  or  re 
covered,  the  faith,  "the  schismatical  Greeks  and  Armenians 
have  caused  their  social  system  and  their  families  to  retrograde 
towards  the  Mussulman  level.  Their  women  fly  from  the  sight 
of  a  Franc  with  a  barbarism  even  more  wild  and  senseless  than 
that  of  the  Turkish  females."* 

The  facts  here  indicated  are  all  confirmed,  with  ample  details, 
by  English  and  American  Protestants  of  our  own  day,  who 
have  been  eye-witnesses  of  them.  "  The  utter  desolation  of  the 
unhappy  Greeks,"  says  Dr.  Game,  "forces  itself  on  one's 
notice  every  day."f  "The  gross  ignorance  of  the  inferior 
clergy,"  observes  Mr.  Spencer,  "  not  only  in  theology,  but  in 
the  common  rudiments  of  education,  the  dissolute  habits  of  too 
many  of  the  higher  ecclesiastics,  and  the  infamous  practices 
carried  on  in  the  monasteries,  have  become  household  words 
throughout  all  Greece."  And  this  applies  to  Greece  Proper, 
of  which,  he  adds,  "  the  inhabitants  are  more  demoralized  than 
they  were  under  the  rule  of  the  Turk."J  "  To  the  Greek," 
says  Mr.  Warrington  Smyth,  in  1854,  "  a  large  proportion  of 
the  crimes  of  the  country  is  to  be  traced,"  even  within  the 
Ottoman  dominions.§  "  The  Patriarchate,"  an  American 
writer  reports,  in  1861,  "is  a  seat  of  barefaced  corruptions. 
Nine-tenths  of  the  Greek  clergy  are  ignorant,  vulgar,  drunken 

debauchees They  are,  therefore,  detested  by  a  large 

majority  of  the  hi  embers  of  that  religion. <J[  "  Divorce  is 
nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  easy,"  says  Sir  Adolphus  Slade,  "  in 
the  Greek  religion  as  in  the  Mussulman," — and  as  it  is  now  in 
the  Anglican  or  Prussian.  "  The  license  is  much  abused,  and 
the  bishops,  each  of  whom  has  the  power,  grant  it  on  the 
slightest  pretext."  And  then  he  adds,  by  way  of  contrast,  of 

*  M.  Bore.     Cf.  Ubicini,  Letters  on  Turkey,  vol.  ii.,  Letter  ii. 

f  Letters  from  the  East,  vol.  i.,  p.  87. 

^  Travels  in  European  Turkey,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xv.,  pp.  280,  289. 

§  A  Year  with  the  Turks,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  295. 

1  Constantinople  Correspondent  of  the  New  York  Herald,  April  16,  1861. 


10  CHAPTER   VIII. 

the  Catholic  population,  "Divorce  is  not  permitted  among 
them."*  But  we  reserve  the  full  exhibition  of  this  contrast  to 
a  later  period. 

Yet  there  are  not  wanting  men  in  our  own  country,  who  have 
agreed,  for  party  purposes,  to  exalt  the  Greek  as  a  convenient 
ally  of  Protestants  against  the  Catholic  Church.  It  is  true 
that  the  Greeks,  and  all  the  oriental  communities,  have  again 
and  again  anathematized  the  Anglican  religion,  and  vehemently 
declined,  in  spite  of  their  own  miseries,  even  the  semblance  of 
intercourse  with  any  of  its  professors.  Not  long  ago,  as  an 
English  writer  lamented  in  1854,  the  schismatical  Greek 
Patriarch  bluntly  described  its  emissaries  in  the  Levant,  in 
an  official  document  addressed  to  his  co-religionists,  as  "  satan- 
ical  heresiarchs  from  the  caverns  of  hell."t  But  this  does  not 
deter  Anglican  writers,  always  soliciting  a  recognition  which 
they  everywhere  implore  in  vain,  from  an  affectation  of  sym 
pathy  with  communities  which  display  such  repugnance  towards 
their  own  ;  and  whose  chiefs,  after  reciting  on  a  solemn  occasion 
—the  deposition  of  Cyril  Lucar — the  tenets  of  Anglicanism  as 
set  forth  in  the  "  Thirty-nine  Articles,"  declared  all  who  hold 
them  to  be  "  heretics  who  vomit  forth  blasphemies  against 
God,"  and  then  promulgated  their  decree,  by  the  hands  of 
Jeremy  of  Constantinople,  as  "  A  reply  to  the  inhabitants  of 
Great  Britain,"  to  whom  its  anathemas  principally  referred. £ 

It  is  a  notable  feature  in  the  oriental  communities,  that  they 
spurn  the  modern  errors  which  they  have  never  accepted,  as 
obstinately  as  they  reject  the  ancient  truth  which  they  once 
held.  When  the  advocates  of  Protestantism,  vexed  rather  than 
convinced  by  the  terrible  array  of  evidence  in  JSTicole's  cele 
brated  work,  La  Perpetuite  de  la  Foi,  appealed  in  despair  to 
the  oriental  sectaries  in  support  of  their  profane  denial  of  the 
Sacrament  of  the  Altar,  they  did  not  gain  much  by  the  appeal. 
Instructions  were  sent,  as  Prince  Galitzin  notices,  to  all  the 
ambassadors  and  consuls  throughout  the  Levant,  and  "  profes 
sions  of  faith  were  received  from  the  patriarchs,  archbishops, 
and  bishops  of  all  the  various  Churches  of  the  East,  affirming 
in  the  most  positive  terms  the  doctrine  of  the  Keal  Presence, 
and  bitterly  complaining  of  the  calumny"  which  they  thus 
effectually  refuted.g  Let  us  see  how  they  have  replied  in  our 
own  day  to  the  same  overtures  which  in  earlier  times  they  re 
jected  with  such  vehement  disdain. 

*  Records  of  Travel,  &c.,  cli.  xxiii.,  p.  444  (1854). 

f  Journal  of  a  Deputation  to  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  p.  816  (1854). 

J  Theiner,  Pieces  Justijicatives,  p.  363. 

§  Un  Missionaire  Itusse,  par  le  Prince  Augustin  Galitzin,  p.  83. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,  ETC.  11 

We  are  going  to  trace  briefly  the  efforts  which  have  recently 
been  made  by  Frotestanta  to  introduce  their  opinions  in  the 
Levant.  It  is  from  Protestants  exclusively  that  we  shall,  as 
usual,  derive  all  our  information.  For  more  than  a  quarter  of 
a  century  they  have  conducted  their  operations,  distributing  on 
every  side,  according  to  their  wont,  Bibles  and  gold,  tracts  and 
dollars.  The  Americans  boast  that  by  them  alone  "the  annual 
sum  spent  for  several  years"  is  fifteen  thousand  pounds.*  The 
English,  as  usual,  have  been  still  more  profuse  ;  and  Dr.  Wilson 
exults  in  the  fact,  that  "the  whole  sum  expended  by  Protest 
ants  in  missionary  efforts  is  annually  double  of  that  expended 
by  Rome,"t  though  the  former  have  neither  churches  nor 
flocks,  while  the  latter  numbers  its  converts  alone  by  hundreds 
of  thousands.  Thirty  years  ago,  the  active  emissaries  of  the 
United  States  were  circulating,  not  only  Bibles  and  tracts  which 
nobody  looked  at,  but  "  geographies  and  arithmetics,  apparatus 
for  lectures,  and  compendious  histories,"  which  received  a  much 
heartier  welcome.;):  Indeed,  for  many  years  the  education  of 
the  various  sectaries  of  these  regions  was  mainly  in  their  hands. 
We  should  not  perhaps  exaggerate  in  supposing  that  the  Prot 
estant  missionaries  in  the  Levant  have  consumed  already  more 
than  a  million  s'terling.  If  we  ask  them  what  has  been  the 
actual  result  of  efforts  prolonged  through  so  many  years,  they 
are  willing  to  tell  us. 

Let  us  begin  at  Athens.  The  English,  as  usual,  have  em 
ployed  only  agents  who  could  persuade  no  one  to  listen  to  them. 
An  emissary  of  the  British  and  Foreign  School  Society,  as  Dr. 
Wolff  relates,  "was  sent  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  schools, 
but  he  soon  gave  up  that  project,  and  delivered  lectures  on  polit 
ical  economy."§  The  Americans  have  been  more  successful. 
"  Our  country,"  says  an  ardent  American,  "  has  reason  to  be 
proud  of  its  missionaries  here."||  In  the  following  year,  another 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  still  writing  from  Athens,  exclaims, 
"The  cause  of  education  and  Christianity  is  making  rapid  prog- 
ress."T  It  was  not  quite  true,  as  we  shall  see,  but  it  was  hoped 
that  it  might  be  verified  later.  "In  Greece,"  says  a  third  trans 
atlantic  writer,  with  equal  complacency,  "the  only  schools  of 
instruction  are  those  established  by  American  missionaries,  and 
supported  by  the  liberality  of  American  citizens."**  Nearly 

*  Journal  of  a  Deputation,  &c.,  p.  826. 

\  Lands  of  the  Bible,  by  John  Wilson,  D.D.,  F.R.S.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  599. 
I  Excursions  to  Cairo,  &c.,  by  the  Rev.  George  Jones,  ch.  xxi.,  p.  321  (1836). 
£  Journal,  p.  97. 

j  Wanderings  in  Europe  and  the  Orient,  by  Samuel  S.  Cox,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  197 
11852). 

I  Yusef,  by  J.  Ross  Browne,  ch.  xi.,  p.  100. 
**  Incidents  of  Travel,  by  J.  L.  Stephens,  Esq.,  ch.  xxviii.,  p.  212. 


12  CHAPTER  VIII. 

twenty  years  earlier,  an  English  writer  had  noticed,  that  five 
hundred  Greek  children  already  attended  the  American  schools 
in  Athens;  and  that  in  those  which  were  taught  by  Mrs.  Hill, 
the  wife  of  a  missionary,  "  the  daughters  of  many  of  the  first 
Greek  families  of  Constantinople,  as  well  as  of  the  most  dis 
tinguished  of  Greece  Proper,"  received  their  education.*  Dr. 
King  also  rivalled  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hill  in  influence  and  in  the 
number  of  his  pupils. 

If,  however,  from  these  facts  we  infer  that  these  gentlemen 
and  their  companions  were  making  progress  as  missionaries^ 
the  real  aim  to  which  all  their  efforts  tended,  later  events  will 
dispel  the  illusion.  Like  their  brethren  in  all  parts  of  the 
world,  they  were  tolerated  for  such  benefits  as  couM  be  derived 
from  them,  but  the  moment  they  began  to  mistake  their  position, 
and  to  venture  upon  the  subject  of  religion,  grave  incidents 
occurred  to  admonish  them  of  their  error.  In  spite  of  the  influ 
ence  which  they  had  acquired  by  their  relations  with  the  higher 
classes, — in  spite  of  the  services  which  they  had  unquestionably 
rendered  as  secular  teachers,  and  of  the  active  sympathy  of  the 
Queen  of  Greece, — no  sooner  did  they  attempt  to  emerge  from 
the  humble  function  of  schoolmaster  to  assume  that  of  mission 
ary,  than  a  menacing  murmur,  which  soon  became  a  loud  and 
universal  outcry,  revealed  to  them  their  real  position.  For 
twenty-four  years  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hill  had  conducted  their  schools 
in  peace,  and  might  well  consider  their  permanence  secured  ; 
but  at  the  first  hint  they  understood  what  was  coming,  "and 
thought  it  best  to  discontinue  their  school  for  boys.";):  Dr.  King 
attempted  to  brave  the  storm,  "  in  spite  of  episcopal  and  patri 
archal  anathemas,"  but  the  resistance  was  more  energetic  than 
effectual.  The  Greeks,  though  enfeebled  by  schism,  were  at 
least  resolved  to  fall  no  lower;  and  so  intense  was  their  indigna 
tion  at  the  attempt  to  introduce  Protestantism  among  them, 
that,  as  Mr.  Irenseus  Prime  relates,  "there  were  serious  and 
deeply  concerted  schemes  for  Dr.  King's  assassination, "§ — whose 
life  was  only  saved  by  transferring  the  consular  flag  to  his  resi 
dence,  "  a  flag,"  as  a  sympathizing  fellow-countryman  observes, 
"containing  quite  a  number  of  stripes,  and  more  stars."|| 

Finally,  an  English  traveller  informs  us,  in  1854,  that  "last 
year  at  Athens,  an  American  missionary,  the  Rev.  Dr.  King, 
was  tried  by  the  civil  courts,  and  condemned  to  fifteen  days 

*  Greece  Revisited,  by  Edgar  Garston,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  101. 

f  An  English  traveller  speaks  of  one  of  them  who  "  has  named  his  four  sons 
Leonidas,  Miltiades,  Themistocles,  and  Epaminondas !"  Narrative  of  a  Yaiuht 
Voyage  in,  the  Mediterranean,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  100  (1842). 

±  Notes  of  Travel  in  the  East,l>y  Benjamim  Dorr,  D.D.,  ch.  xv.,  p.  353  (1856). 

S  Travels  in  Europe  and  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  188  (1855). 

|  Cox,  ch.  xiv. 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  13 

imprisonment,  and  to  ~be  banished  the  country ',  for  preaching  the 
Gospel  to  the  natives  in  his  own  house,  and  publishing  a 
pamphlet  opposed  to  some  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Greek 
Church."*  It  seems  that  in  his  pamphlet  he  spoke  against 
devotion  to  our  Blessed  Lady,  a  crime  which  even  Greeks  are 
not  prepared  to  tolerate,  nor  able  to  witness  with  composure. 

At  the  same  time,  a  Mr.  Buell,  also  a  missionary,  who  refused 
to  allow  a  crucifix  to  be  suspended  in  his  school  at  the  Piraeus, 
was  summoned  before  the  tribunals,  his  school  closed  by  order 
of  the  government,  and  a  fine  of  fifty  drachmas  imposed  upon 
the  profane  schoolmaster,  f 

Such  was  the  termination  of  the  educational  labors  of  a 
quarter  of  a  century.  The  Greek  conscience,  though  not  fas 
tidiously  delicate,  was  outraged  by  the  first  accents  of  Protest 
antism,  and  while  its  agents  were  branded  by  the  Patriarch  as 
"  heresiarchs  from  the  caverns  of  hell,"  the  people  answered 
its  invitations  by  a  shout,  which  came  from  the  heart  of  the 
nation,  of  "  anathema"  and  "  banishment." 

It  is  not  uninteresting  to  notice  the  effect  of  this  popular  out 
burst  upon  the  Protestant  missionaries  and  their  supporters. 
Hitherto  they  had  spoken,  always  with  respect,  often  with  a 
kind  of  reverence,  of  this  "  ancient"  and  "  venerable"  Church, 
in  the  hope  that  it  might  be  induced  to  countenance  their  own 
more  recent  institutions.  The  language  of  praise  was  now  to 
be  heard  no  more.  We  have  seen  that  in  India,  as  soon  as  the 
Nestorians,  upon  whom  so  much  courtesy  had  been  lavished, 
declined  the  respectful  overtures  of  the  Anglican  authorities, 
these  disdainful  heretics  were  consigned  to  ignominy  by  Prot 
estant  prelates,  whose  precarious  "  orders"  they  had  refused  to 
recognize,  and  even  stigmatized  as  "  worse  than  Romanists." 
The  same  thing  happened  in  Greece.  "The  Greek  Church," 
said  Dr.  Wilson,  recording  the  discomfiture  of  his  co-religion 
ists,  "  agrees  with  the  Church  of  Rome  in  most  matters  of  the 
greatest  moment.  It  has  the  essential  characteristic  of  Anti 
christ."^: 

It  was  thus  that  these  gentlemen  revenged  themselves  upon 
the  Greeks,  once  objects  of  almost  timid  eulogy.  "  I  would 
say,"  adds  Dr.  Wilson,  confessing  at  length  the  futility  of  past 
missionary  schemes,  "  that  at  present  it  seems  a  very  difficult 
matter  to  impregnate  the  Greek  Church  with  evangelical  truth 
and  influence ;  and  that  its  circumstances  are  much  less  en 
couraging  than  those  of  the  other  oriental  churches."  So  they 


*  Journal  of  a  Deputation,  &c.,  p.  590. 

f  Journal  d'un  Voyage  au  Levant,  pp.  281,  311. 

j  Lands  of  the  Bible,  vol.  ii.,  p.  466. 


14  CHAPTER  VIII. 

turned  to  these  more  promising  fields,  with  what  success,  we 
shall  see  in  the  course  of  this  chapter. 

"  In  regard  to  the  Greeks,"  says  Dr.  Hawes,  an  American 
Protestant  minister,  "the  success  of  efforts  made  in  their  behalf 
has  been  less  than  was  reasonably  anticipated  ;"  and  then,  as  if 
he  felt  that  this  was  hardly  an  adequate  account  of  the  matter, 
he  adds,  "  The  missionaries  have  felt  themselves  obliged,  for 
the  present,  to  withdraw,  in  a  great  measure,  from  this 
field."* 

Messrs.  Eli  Smith  and  Dwight,  more  emphatic  in  their  re- 
Bentment,  confound  the  Catholics  with  the  Greeks,  and  even 
seem  to  attribute  their  misadventures  to  the  influence  of  the 
former.  "A  missionary,"  they  observe,  "  can  hardly  set  his 
foot  upon  any  spot  in  that  field,  the  Mediterranean,  without 
encountering  some  sentinel  of  the  '  Mother  of  Harlots,'  ready 
to  challenge  him  and  shout  the  alarm. "f  Yet  the  Greeks  do 
not  appear  to  have  needed  any  suggestions  from  that  quarter, 
and  would  certainly  have  received  them  with  surprise  if  they 
had  been  offered. 

Lastly,  a  representative  of  English  Protestantism  swells  the 
gloomy  chorus,  and  discovers,  a  quarter  of  a  century  too  late, 
that  "  the  Greek  Church  is  opposed  to  the  general  circulation 
of  the  Bible  ;"  and  that  "  the  priests  have  always  strenuously 
opposed  the  distribution  of  the  Bible  in  modern  Greek. ";£  Yet 
the  Bible  Society  used  to  assure  its  subscribers,  as  we  have 
seen,  that  they  had  no  more  promising  sphere  of  action,  and 
that  even  the  Greek  soldiery  fortified  themselves  with  the 
Protestant  version  during  the  intervals  of  combat,  "  while  en 
camped,  and  in  expectation  of  the  enemy."  It  was,  no  doubt, 
to  gratify  this  pious  habit  of  the  Greeks,  that  the  English 
missionaries  issued  in  a  single  year  from  their  fortress  at  Malta 
"  four  million  seven  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  pages,  all  in 
modern  Greek  ;"  and  that  the  Americans  had  already  dis 
persed,  thirty  years  ago,  "about  three  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  volumes  containing  twenty-one  million  pages."  And 
of  this  enormous  but  perfectly  useless  distribution,  since  in 
creased  fifty-fold,  the  Protestants  of  these  two  enlightened 
nations  have  cheerfully,  but  not  wisely,  defrayed  the  whole 
cost. 

We  must  admit,  however,  before  we  pass  from  Greece  to 
Turkey,  that  Protestant  teaching  has  not  been  absolutely 
without  effect  in  the  former  kingdom.  Let  us  notice  a  single 


*  Travels  in  the  East,  by  J.  Hawes,  D.D.,  p.  168. 

f  Missionary  Researches  in  Armenia,  Letter  xi.,  p.  210. 

i  Journal  of  a  Deputation,  p.  594. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  15 

example  of  its  influence.  An  accomplished  Greek  lady,  of 
rare  intelligence  and  attainments,  the  eloquent  advocate  of  her 
race  and  nation,  had  the  misfortune  to  lose  her  parents,  and 
was  brought  up  by  a  Protestant  pastor.  The  result  of  his  in 
structions,  if  we  may  judge  by  her  own  writings,  has  been  to 
substitute  for  faith  a  cold  and  arrogant  skepticism,  to  engender 
a  fierce  hatred  of  the  Catholic  religion,  which  this  lady  calls 
u  Christian  Mahometanisin,"  and  to  give  her  courage  to  assert 
that  divorce,  which  has  become  a  kind  of  national  institution 
in  Greek  and  Protestant  lands,  is  not  an  evil,  but  an  engine  of 
morality  !*  There  is  a  good  deal  more  of  the  same  kind  in 
the  writings  of  this  distinguished  lady,  which  it  would  be  both 
painful  and  unprofitable  to  notice,  but  which  may  at  least  con 
firm  our  conviction  that  Greece  did  well  in  crying  "anathema" 
to  Protestant  missionaries. 

What  the  Catholic  apostles  have  done  for  the  Greeks,  by 
their  own  confession,  we  shall  see  a  little  later,  but  will  first 
follow  their  rivals  to  Turkey,  that  we  may  complete  the  his 
tory  of  their  operations  in  the  Levant. 


EUROPEAN   TURKEY. 

In  European  Turkey,  the  English  do  not  appear  to  have  or 
ganized  any  systematic  missionary  efforts  ;  and  throughout  the 
Levant  the  Anglican  Establishment  has  been  represented,  al 
most  exclusively,  as  in  India  and  elsewhere,  by  members  of 
other  communities.  Mr.  Perkins,  an  American  missionary,  to 
whom  we  shall  have  to  refer  presently,  remarks  that  the  em 
ployment  of  "so  many  men  of  a  different  religious  communion 
reveals  a  painful  deficiency  in  the  missionary  spirit  of  the 
Church  of  England,  that  men  of  devotion  to  the  cause  cannot 
be  found  in  sufficient  numbers  within  her  pale  to  go  in  person 
and  apply  her  missionary  funds."f  "  At  present,"  adds  a  Prot 
estant  historian  of  American  missions,  with  quiet  contempt, 
"  she  has  more  means  than  men."J 

Perhaps,  however,  the  Church  of  England  has  no  reason  to 
regret  this  fact,  considering  the  impression  which  her  rare 
representatives  usually  produce  upon  the  oriental  mind.  When 
Mr.  Jowett,  one  of  her  clergy,  was  asked  by  a  schismatical 
Greek  bishop,  what  was  the  doctrine  of  his  Church  about  the 
"  Double  Procession"  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  his  answer  must  have 

*  Les  Femmes  en  Orient,  par  Mme.  la  Csse.  Dora  D'Istria,  pp.  71,  84  (1860). 
f  Residence  in  Persia  among  the  Nestorian  Christians,  by  liev.  Justin  Per- 
kins,  ch.  iii.'p.  52. 

J  Tracy,  History  of  American  Missions,  p.  594. 


16  CHAPTER  VIII. 

astonished  even  such  an  inquirer.  "  It  is  a  point,  I  replied, 
which,  in  the  present  day,  has  not  been  much  controverted, 
being  considered  as  somewhat  indifferent  !"* 

But  several  years  have  elapsed  since  Mr.  Jowett's  visit,  and 
the  Greek  prelates  have  had  time  to  forget  both  him  and  his 
Church.  So  complete  has  been  the  oblivion,  that  when  Mr. 
Curzon  not  long  ago  presented  a  letter  of  introduction  from  the 
Queen's  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  to  the  Sultan's  Archbishop 
of  Constantinople,  the  following  curious  conversation  occurred. 

"  And  who,  quoth  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  the  su 
preme  head  and  primate  of  the  Greek  Church  in  Asia — who 
is  l  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  ?' 

"  What  ?  said  I,  a  little  astonished  at  the  question. 

"  Who,  said  he,  is  this  Archbishop  ? 

"  Why,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

"  Archbishop  of  what  f  said  the  Patriarch. 

"  Canterbury,  said  I. 

"  Oh  !  said  the  Patriarch.     Ah  !  yes  !  and  who  is  he  ?"f 

The  Church  Missionary  Society,  in  their  sixty-third  report, 
1862,^:  give  this  quotation  from  their  principal  agent  in  Tur 
key.  u  Dr.  Pfander  takes  this  sober  view  of  the  mission  at  the 
close  of  the  year  1861  :  'Though  there  is  no  particular  move 
ment  going  on  among  the  Mohammedans,  yet  there  is  the  fact 
that  they  continue  to  visit  the  missionaries.  .  .  .  Our  work  is 
indeed  but  small  as  yet ;  still  I  am  thankful  that  some  progress 
has  been  made  during  the  year,  and,  above  all,  that  the  trans 
lation  and  printing  of  the  Mit'tah  and  the  Mizan,  through  God's 
help,  has  been  accomplished.'"  Perhaps  some  may  think  that 
the  only  "  help"  in  such  proceedings  came  from  the  money  of 
the  Church  Missionary  Society. 

The  Americans  have  acquired  more  notoriety  in  these  regions. 
Their  operations  in  Turkey  commenced  in  1826,  and  by  1844 
they  had  already  thirty-one  missionaries  in  that  country. §  Not 
that  they  have  "attempted  any  conversion  except  of  tlie  Chris 
tians"  as  Mr.  Walpole  remarks ;  the  Turks,  he  adds,  they  are 
"afraid"  of  provoking.||  But  they  are  active  enough  amongst 
the  Armenian  sectaries,  both  here  and  in  Armenia,  as  we  shall 
see  when  we  enter  the  latter  country.  Meanwhile,  it  seems  to 
be  a  tranquil  and  jocund  life  which  these  thirty -one  mission 
aries  lead  in  Turkey.  u  Personal  trials  are  very  few,"  says  the 
candid  wife  of  one  of  them;  "many  are  the  comforts  and 

*  Christian  Researches,  &c.,  p.  17. 

f  Monaster-ies  of  the  Levant,  ch.  xxii.,  p.  336. 

i  P.  59. 

|  Baird,  Religion  in  the  U.  8.  of  America,  book  viii.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  691. 

\  The  Ansavrii.  &c.,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  366. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,   ETC.  17 

pleasant  things  about  this  life  in  the  East."*  And  she  was 
evidently  not  singular  in  her  keen  appreciation  of  them.  The 
Rev.  Justin  Perkins  tells  us  of  a  missionary  wedding  at  Constan 
tinople  in  these  terms:  "Mr.  Schauffler  was  married  to  Miss 
Reynolds,  February  25th.  I  could  not  help  feeling  that  there 
was  a  moral  sublimity  in  the  scene  presented. "f  Perhaps 
there  was;  but  another  witness,  Sir  Adolphus  Slade,  who 
knows  these  regions  even  better  than  Mr.  Perkins,  and  is 
evidently  much  less  impressed  by  the  moral  sublimity  of  mis 
sionary  nuptials,  gives  the  following  candid  account  of  the 
Protestant  missionaries  in  Turkey  and  the  Levant. 

"  To  what  purpose  do  the  missionaries  on  the  shores  of  the 
Turkish  empire  frequent  them?  to  convert  those  who  are  already 
Christiana.  The  utter  unprofitableness  of  these  gentlemen 
cannot  be  sufficiently  pointed  out.  One  comes  to  Malta,  and 
settles  there  with  his  lady.  Another  comes  to  Tino,  and  while 
learning  Greek,  to  be  enabled  to  labor  on  the  continent,  falls 
in  love,  and  marries  an  amiable  Tiniote — his  spiritual  ardor 
takes  another  course.  Another  fixes  himself  at  Smyrna,  finding 
that  demi-Frank  city  pleasanter  than  the  interior  of  Turkey, 
whither  he  was  destined.  Another  takes  a  disorder,  and  dies  of 
it  on  the  shores  of  the  Persian  Gulf.  Another  quietly  pursues 
his  own  studies  at  Alexandria,  regardless  of  others'  souls,  to 
qualify  himself  for  a  situation  in  one  of  the  London  colleges. 
All  are  living  on  the  stipends  granted  by  the  missionary 
societies,  and  occupied  in  forwarding  their  particular  views. 
Far  be  it  from  me  to  say  that  human  weakness  does  not  merit 
indulgence ;  but  they  who  embark  in  a  holy  cause  should  quit 
it  when  they  find  that  the  flesh  overpowers  the  spirit.  Religion 
is  the  last  asylum  where  hypocrisy  should  find  shelter.";): 

Admiral  Slade  adds,  "  It  will  scarcely  be  credited  that  mis 
sionaries  arrive  in  the  Levant,  to  preach,  to  convert,  knowing 
absolutely  no  other  than  their  mother  tongue!"  Yet  we  shall 
presently  hear  one  of  their  number  asserting,  with  perfect 
indifference  to  the  more  veracious  testimony  of  a  crowd  of 
Protestant  writers,  that  he  and  his  friends  had  done  more  for 
education  in  Syria  in  twenty  years  than  "all  the  Catholic 
missionaries'*  in  two  centuries ;  though  the  former  have  had 
neither  scholars  nor  disciples,  and  were  for  the  most  part  per 
fectly  incapable  of  teaching  them  if  they  had. 

A  few  words  will  suffice  on  the  final  results  of  Protestant 
missions  in  Turkey.  The  American  Episcopalians  sent  Dr. 
Southgate,  one  of  their  bishops,  to  recommend  their  form  of 

*  Memoir  of  Mrs.  Van  Lennep,  ch.  xi.,  p.  267  (1851). 
f  Residence,  &c.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  76. 
t  Ch.  xxvii.,  p.  517. 
VOL.  ii  a 


18  CHAPTER  VIII. 

religion  to  the  inhabitants.  He  seems  to  have  had  some  vague 
idea  of  ecclesiastical  principles,  and  is  even  charged  by  his  own 
countrymen,  of  other  sects,  with  supporting  the  schismatical 
oriental  bishops  in  their  resistance  to  the  proselyting  schemes  of 
the  Protestant  missionaries,  whom  he  openly  taxed  with  intro 
ducing  amongst  the  Armenians  "the  revolutionary  sentiments 
of  European  radicalism."  He  had,  too,  sufficient  courage  and 
honesty  to  confess,  after  ample  experience,  that  the  Protestant 
converts  are  "infidels  and  radicals,  who  deserve  no  sympathy 
from  the  Christian  public."* 

Dr.  Southgate  recommends  also  the  employment  of  mission 
aries  "unrestrained  by  family  ties," — though  he  does  not  suggest 
where  they  are  to  be  found, — and  after  deploring  the  activity  of 
"  our  brethren  of  other  denominations,"  predicts  this  as  the 
only  fruit  of  their  labors :  "  Horrid  schism  will  lift  itself  up 
from  beneath,  and  rend  and  scatter  the  quivering  members  of 
the  body  of  Christ."f  Yet  this  gentleman,  who  had  so  much 
distaste  for  horrid  schism  in  others,  actually  intrigued  to  get  a 
firman  issued  against  the  Catholics,  whom  he  could  only  oppose 
by  physical  force,  in  favor  of  the  Jacobite  heretics,  whose 
"  numerous  points  of  affinity"  with  his  own  sect  he  had  detected 
with  satisfaction.^; 

We  are  not  surprised  to  hear  that  Dr.  Southgate  failed.  For 
a  long  time,  he  confesses,  his  mission  at  Constantinople  received 
from  a  single  congregation  in  Philadelphia  one  thousand  dollars 
annually.  But  money  could  not  save  it.  "The  mission,"  we 
are  told  in  1852,  "  has  been  abandoned,  at  least  for  the  present, 
after  a  heavy  expenditure.  Bishop  Southgate  has  returned  to  the 
United  States,and  resigned  the  appointment  of  Missionary  Bishop 
to  Turkey."§  ^wo  .Tears  later  another  Protestant  authority 
says,  "  the  bishop  had  to  acknowledge  the  complete  failure  of 
his  mission,  and  was  recalled  by  his  society. "[  It  is  exactly  the 
tale  which  we  have  heard  in  so  many  other  lands.  Not  one  of 
the  customary  incidents  is  wanting,  and  they  follow  one  another 
in  their  usual  and  invariable  order:  first,  "horrid  schism;" 
then,  "heavy  expenditure;"  and  finally,  "complete  failure." 

Of  the  operations  of  the  other  American  sects  at  Constan 
tinople,  there  is  no  need  to  speak.  We  shall  presently  survey 
them  on  a  larger  scale  in  Syria  and  Armenia.  Mr.  Dwight,  in 
a  work  which  reveals  the  real  designs  of  his  co-religionists  in 


*  Christianity  in  Turkey,  by  Rev.  H.  G.  0.  Dwight,  ch.  x.,  p.  244  (1854). 
f  Narrative  of  a  Tour  in  Turkey  and  Persia,  by  Rev.  Horatio  Southgate, 
vol.  i.,  ch.  xxiii.,  p.  805. 

i  Mr.  Southgate  and  the  Missionaries  at  Constantinople,  p.  27  (Boston,  1844). 
§  Colonial  Church  Chronicle,  p.  896  (1852). 
j  Journal  of  a  Deputation  to  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  p.  806. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,  ETC.  19 

the  East,  declares  in  1850,  that  "at  the  capital  the  number 
of  Armenians  who  declared  themselves  Protestants  rapidly 
increased."*  Their  number  is,  in  fact,  perfectly  insignificant ; 
and  many  Protestant  writers  will  tell  us,  before  we  conclude 
this  chapter,  as  Dr.  Southgate  has  already  told  us,  what  an 
Armenian  really  becomes  when  lie  professes  to  embrace  Prot 
estant  tenets.  They  will  also  assist  us  to  comprehend  what 
even  they  consider  the  work  of  "  corruption  and  demoraliza 
tion"  in  which  the  American  missionaries  are  engaged,  though 
happily,  up  to  the  present  date,  within  a  narrow  sphere.  It  is 
true,  however,  that  they  have  succeeded,  by  lavish  expenditure 
— we  have  been  told  that  they  consume  thirty  thousand  pounds 
per  annum  in  Turkey — in  collecting  together  a  few  Jews  and 
Armenians,  who  have  more  admiration  for  their  dollars  than 
their  doctrines,  and  who  abandon  their  old  religion  without 
adopting  a  new  one ;  and  that  these  form  what  they  call  the 
"  Protestant  Church,"  or,  as  Mr.  Dwight  styles  them,  "the  people 
of  God,"  in  Constantinople.  Such  are  the  "  wild  grapes  "  of 
which  they  make  sour  wine,  to  set  their  own  teeth  on  edge. 
"  The  Protestant  Church  of  Turkey,"  says  Mr.  Cuthbert  Young, 
"  is  now  recognized  by  the  government,"  owing  to  the  ener 
getic  action  peculiar  to  this  branch  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  family, 
"  with  an  officer  of  the  Porte,  a  Turk,  as  its  temporal  head. 
This  last  circumstance  cannot  be  regarded  as  auguring  well  for 
the  interests  of  vital  Christianity,  "f 

A  few  years  later,  we  learn  from  a  competent  witness,  the 
prediction  of  Mr.  Young  was  unpleasantly  verified,  and  the 
Porte,  though  probably  quite  as  capable  of  promoting  "  vital 
Christianity  "  as  the  Hebrew  and  Armenian  Protestants  to  whom 
it  lent  a  temporal  head,  proved  to  be  only  a  Moslem  Pharaoh, 
from  whose  ungentle  sway  Mr.  Dwight's  "  people  of  God"  are 
already  desirous  to  escape.  The  Mahometan  gentleman  who 
consented  to  become  the  Caliph  of  Turkish  Protestants  has  evi 
dently  formed  a  serious  estimate  of  his  own  office.  "  All  the 
Protestants  in  the  country,"  we  are  told  by  a  missionary  in  1860, 
"must  be  enrolled  in  his  books."  And  the  enrolment  is  by  no 
means  a  mere  matter  of  form.  From  that  moment,  a  marriage, 
an  interment,  or  any  other  of  the  various  ceremonies  of  joyful 
or  sorrowing  humanity,  "  can  only  be  done  through  him?  And 
this  is  not  all.  "  For  the  support  of  this  officer,"  whose  ap 
pointment,  the  Protestant  missionaries  hailed  with  such  lively 
satisfaction,  "  the  Protestants  all  over  the  country  have  been 
called  upon  to  contribute,"  apparently  on  a  very  liberal  scale; 
and  as  this  special  tax  does  not  exempt  them  from  the  burdens 

*  Cliristianity  Revived  in  the  East,  p.  32  (1850). 
t  Ihe  Levant  and  the  Nile,  ch.  iii.,  p.  76. 


20  CHAPTER  VIII. 

common  to  the  rest  of  the  population,  "  the  Protestants  are 
deeply  in  debt,"  says  the  same  missionary,  "  and  it  has  become 
a  serious  question  with  them,  whether  they  should  not  dissolve 
their  civil  establishment  entirely.  This  would  doubtless  open 
the  way  for  a  general  persecution  of  the  Protestants  through 
out  the  empire,  the  result  of  which  none  can  foresee,"* — but 
which,  considering  the  motives  of  Jews  and  Armenians  in  pro 
fessing  Protestantism,  would  certainly  involve  the  final  disap 
pearance  of  all  the  unstable  disciples  who  have  been  the  costly 
stipendiaries  of  English  or  American  missionary  societies,  but 
who,  as  Dr.  Southgate  ascertained,  "  are  infidels  and  radicals, 
who  deserve  no  sympathy  from  the  Christian  public." 

CATHOLIC   MISSIONS   IN   TURKEY. 

And  now  let  us  speak  briefly,  before  we  enter  Asia,  of  Catho 
lic  missions  in  the  regions  which  we  are  about  to  quit.  Not 
that  we  can  hope  to  give,  within  the  limits  at  our  disposal,  even 
a  sketch  of  labors  as  distinguished  by  supernatural  patience 
and  charity  as  any  which  we  have  hitherto  narrated.  A  few 
examples  must  suffice,  but  they  will  abundantly  illustrate  the 
familiar  contrast  which  we  have  proposed  to  trace  in  all  lands. 
We  are  going  to  speak,  though  unworthy  even  to  record  their 
names,  of  a  band  of  apostles  whom  even  a  Protestant  minister 
calls,  with  honest  enthusiasm,  "  the  best  instructed  and  most 
devoted  missionaries  that  the  world  has  seen  since  primitive 
times.^  We  have  heard  what  sort  of  agents  the  Sects  employ  ; 
let  us  contemplate  for  a  moment  another  order  of  workmen, 
and  see  what  the  munificent  bounty  of  God  can  do  for  men 
whom  His  own  decree  has  called  to  the  apostolic  life.  Too 
long  we  have  listened  to  the  mean  sounds  of  earth — it  is  time 
to  open  our  ears  to  voices  from  Heaven. 

As  early  as  1610,  the  son  of  St.  Ignatius  had  begun  to  convert 
both  Jews  and  schismatics  at  Constantinople.  So  irresistible  was 
the  influence,  here  as  elsewhere,  of  men  in  whom  religion  dis 
played  its  most  fascinating  form,  and  self  was  all  but  annihilated, 
that,  as  Yon  Hammer  notices,  the  Grand  Vizir  told  de  Solignac, 
the  French  ambassador,  that  "  he  would  rather  see  ten  ordinary 
ecclesiastics  at  Pera  than  one  Jesuit.";);  A  century  later,  for 
these  men  do  not  change,  a  schismatical  Armenian  patriarch 
thus  addressed  a  Catholic  who  had  abandoned  the  schism,  and 

*  Three  Years  in  Turkey,  the  Journal  of  a  Medical  Missionary  to  the  Jews, 
by  John  Masen,  L.R.C.S.E.,  app.,  p.  373  (I860). 

f  Williams,  The  Holy  City,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  570. 

i  Histoire  de  I' Empire  Ottoman,  par  J.  Von  Hammer,  tome  viii.,  liv.  iii, 
p.  166,  ed.  Hellert, 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,   ETC.  21 

•was  about  to  be  martyred  :  "  Your  blood  be  upon  the  Jesuits 
who  have  converted  you  and  so  many  members  of  our  Church."* 

In  the  single  year  1712,  for  we  must  not  attempt  to  trace  the 
whole  history,  fere  Jacques  Cachod,  to  whom  was  given  the 
noble  title  of  "  Father  of  the  Slaves,"  reconciled  three  hundred 
schismatics  to  the  Church. f  Five  years  earlier,  nearly  one- 
third  of  the  population  of  Constantinople  died  of  the  plague ; 
and  it  was  at  that  date  that  Pere  Cachod,  compelled  by  holy 
obedience  to  give  an  account  of  actions  which  he  would  have 
preferred  to  hide,  wrote  as  follows  to  his  superior,  Pere  Tarillon: 

"  I  have  just  quitted  the  Bagnio,  where  I  have  given  the  last 
Sacraments  to,  and  closed  the  eyes  of,  eighty-six  persons.  .  .  . 
The  greatest  danger  which  I  have  encountered,  or  to  which  I 
shall  perhaps  ever  be  exposed  in  my  life,  was  at  the  bottom  of 
the  hold  of  a  ship-of-war  of  eighty-two  guns.  The  slaves,  by 
the  consent  of  their  guards,  had  obtained  my  admission  into 
this  place  in  the  evening,  in  order  that  I  might  spend  the  whole 
night  in  hearing  their  confessions,  and  say  Mass  for  them  very 
early  in  the  morning.  We  were  shut  in  with  double  locks,  ac 
cording  to  custom.  Of  fifty-two  slaves  whom  I  confessed  and 
communicated,  twelve  were  already  plague-stricken,  and  three 
died  before  I  quitted  them.  You  may  judge  what  sort  of  an 
atmosphere  I  breathed  in  this  inclosed  space,  to  which  there 
was  not  the  slightest  opening.  God,  who  by  His  goodness  has 
preserved  me  in  this  danger,  will  save  me  also  from  many 
others."  Twelve  years  later  he  perished,  struck  down  by  the 
pestilence  which  he  thought  he  might  henceforth  defy.  And 
the  only  reflection  which  such  a  narrative,  and  such  a  fate, 
suggested  to  the  other  Fathers  was  this :  "  If  we  were  more 
numerous,  how  much  more  good  we  could  do  !"J 

But  if  these  generous  apostles  displayed  a  zeal  which  knew 
not  fear,  it  was  regulated  always  by  prudence  and  forethought. 
"  During  the  seasons  of  the  plague,"  says  one  of  them,  "  as  it  is 
necessary  to  be  close  at  hand  in  order  to  succor  those  who  are 
seized  by  it,  our  custom  is  that  only  one  Father  should  enter 
the  Bagnio,  and  that  he  should  remain  there  during  the  whole 
time  that  the  pest  rages.  The  one  who  obtains  the  permission 
of  the  Superior  prepares  himself  for  his  duty  by  a  retreat  of  some 
days,  and  bids  farewell  to  his  brethren,  as  one  about  to  die. 
Sometimes  his  sacrifice  is  consummated,  at  others  he  survives 
the  danger.  The  last  Jesuit  who  died  in  this  exercise  of 
charity  was  Father  Yandermans  ....  Since  his  death,  the 


*  Histovre  de  V Empire  Ottoman,  tome  xiii.,  liv.  Ixii.,  p.  186. 
f  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tome  i.,  p.  14. 
%  Ibid.,  p.  23. 


22  CHAPTER  VIII. 

only  victim  has  been  Father  Peter  Besnier,  so  well  known  for 
his  genius  and  rare  gifts." 

It  is  impossible  to  trace  here  the  details  of  the  apostolic 
history  of  which  this  is  only  a  characteristic  episode.  The 
public  cemetery  of  Constantinople,  filled  with  the  bodies  of 
Jesuits  who  died  between  1585  and  1756,  is  their  only  monu 
ment.  Smyrna,  Aleppo,  Trebizonde,  and  many  other  oriental 
cities,  gave  a  tomb  to  missionaries  of  the  same  class.  At 
Smyrna,  where  ten  thousand  perished  by  plague  in  the  same 
year,  a  Jesuit  bishop  became  a  martyr  of  charity  at- eighty 
years  of  age.  In  Aleppo,  Father  Besson, — "who  united  to  his 
immense  labors  perpetual  mortification,  allowed  himself  but 
scanty  repose  at  night,  and  rose  long  before  the  dawn  in  order 
to  spend  many  hours  in  prayer," — "  after  having  procured  a 
holy  death  to  a  large  number  of  persons,  found  the  crown 
which  he  sought."  He  was  followed,  both  in  his  life  and 
death,  by  Father  Deschamps ;  and  almost  at  the  same  moment, 
Father  de  Clermont,  of  the  illustrious  family  of  that  name,  was 
added  to  the  company  of  martyrs.  It  was  at  this  time,  and  by 
the  labors  of  such  men,  that  the  schismatical  Patriarchs  of 
Armenia  (Erivan),  of  Aleppo,  Alexandria,  and  Damascus,  were 
all  reconciled  to  the  Church. 

In  1709,  Michael  Paleologus  becomes  the  disciple  of  Father 
Braconnier.  Father  Bernard  Couder  is  the  next  in  this  band 
of  Christian  heroes.  More  than  nine  hundred  families  in  the 
city  of  Aleppo  were  formed  by  him  to  a  life  of  piety.  Six 
times  he  solicited  and  obtained  the  coveted  permission  to  de 
vote  himself  to  the  plague-stricken;  and  so  perfect  was  his 
obedience,  that  when  ordered  by  his  superior  to  quit  a  city  in 
which  he  had  attracted  a  veneration  which  might  prove  dan 
gerous  to  his  humility,  "  he  began  on  the  instant  to  make  his 
preparations  for  departure." 

In  1719,  when  the  plague  raged  in  Aleppo  from  March  to 
September,  "I  was  often  obliged,''  says  the  celebrated  Father 
Nacehi,  u  to  bend  down  between  two  victims  of  the  pestilence, 
to  confess  them  by  turns,  keeping  my  ear  glued  as  it  were  to 
their  lips,  in  order  to  catch  their  dying  sounds."  And  when 
death  had  done  its  work,  these  apostles,  nurtured  themselves  in 
delicacy  and  refinement,  often  the  most  accomplished  scholars 
of  their  age,  and  not  unfrequently  members  of  illustrious 
houses,  would  wash  the  bodies  and  clothes  of  the  dead,  u  reek 
ing  with  a  horrible  infection,"  and  having  borne  them  with 
their  own  hands  to  the  common  cemetery,  hasten  back  to  re 
peat  the  same  oftice  of  charity  for  others. 

Such  deeds,  which  Catholics  have  learned  to  consider  natural 
in  their  clergy,  of  whatever  rank,  would  hardly  deserve  mention, 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   LEVANT,   ETC.  23 

but  that  we  are  tracing  a  contrast.  There  is  probably  not  one 
of  the  thousand  priests  in  our  own  England  who  would  not  imi 
tate  them  to-morrow,  and  few  of  their  number  who  have  not 
already  exposed  their  lives,  many  a  time,  with  the  same  tranquil 
composure.  It  is  not  many  years  since  an  English  bishop,  and 
fifty  priests,  died  within  ten  months,  ministering  to  the  victims 
of  typhus.  "  The  good  shepherd  giveth  his  life  for  the  sheep." 
But  let  us  complete  the  narrative  which  we  have  begun. 

"  Father  Emanuel  died  in  my  arms,"  says  the  learned  Nac- 
chi,  "  after  devoting  himself  incessantly  for  four  months  to  the 
victims  of  the  plague.  After  him  I  assisted  Father  Arnoudie, 
and  Brother  John  Martha,  both  destroyed  by  the  same  disease." 
Father  Clisson,  after  an  apostolate  of  thirty  years  in  Syria,  met 
the  same  death ;  and  was  followed  by  Father  Nau,  of  whom  his 
companions  used  to  say,  "he  has  received  from  heaven  all  the 
gifts  necessary  for  the  apostolic  life."  Then  came  the  noble 
brothers  de  la  Thuillerie,  Joseph  and  James,  the  elder  dying 
on  the  bosom  of  the  younger.  The  next  was  Father  Rene 
Pillon,  for  the.7  fell  fast,  whose  only  form  of  recreation  was  to 
visit  and  console  the  sick,  and  whose  daily  prayer  it  was  "that 
he  might  die  in  the  service  of  the  dying."  To  him  succeeded 
Father  Blein,  whose  humility  so  touched  the  hearts  of  the 
Greeks  that  they  flocked  to  see  his  dead  body,  and  though  he 
died  of  the  plague,  carried  away  fragments  of  his  clothes  as 
relics.  Beyrout  saw  the  last  combat  of  Father  John  Amieu, 
"  who  predicted  his  own  death  to  one  who  lay  ill  by  his  side, 
but  assured  the  latter  of  his  recovery."*  And  these  are  only  a 
few  names  out  of  a  multitude  known  to  God,  and  written  in 
the  book  of  life.  Of  them  it  may  be  truly  said  that  they  re 
sembled  one  another  so  exactly,  that  they  were  like  brothers  of 
one  family.  And  even  the  most  malignant  spirit  of  heresy 
could  not  resist  them.  "  You  seek  only  our  conversion,"  was  a 
common  saying  of  the  sectaries,  "the  others  ask  for  our  money." 
And  they  often  contrasted  their  manner  of  life  with  that  of  the 
Protestants  who  had  already  begun  to  dwell  amongst  them. 
"  The  English  and  Dutch  in  Aleppo,"  one  of  the  missionaries 
remarks,  "observe  neither  fast  nor  abstinence,  to  the  scandal  of 
everybody.  The  people  of  the  country  say  that  they  cannot  be 
Christians,  and  even  the  Turks  regard  them  as  void  of  religion/' 
And  the  results  of  a  contrast  which  even  pagans  have  noticed, 
in  every  region  of  the  world,  were  such  as  these.  In  .Damascus, 
where  there  were  only  three  Catholic  families  when  the  Jesuits' 
arrived,  there  were  in  1750  nearly  nine  thousand  converts.  In 
Smyrna  and  Aleppo,  almost  the  whole  schisrnatical  population 

*  Ibid.,  p.  200.     Cf.  Missions  du  Levant,  tome  iv.,  p.  39. 


24:  CHAPTER   VIII. 

has  been  converted;  the  work  being  continued  in  our  own  day, 
as  Protestant  travellers  will  presently  assure  us,  by  men  in 
whom  even  they  recognize  the  apostolic  virtues  of  their  prede 
cessors.  Throughout  all  Syria,  as  we  shall  learn  from  the  same 
witnesses,  the  heirs  of  the  martyrs  are  now  laboring  with  such 
fruit,  that  from  the  banks  of  the  Orontes  to  those  of  the 
Tigris  and  the  Euphrates,  the  wanderers  are  flocking  to  the 
true  fold,  and  even  Chaldea,  as  we  shall  be  told  by  men 
who  vainly  strove  to  mar  the  work,  has  become  a  Catholic 
nation. 

When  the  Society  of  Jesus  was  suppressed,  the  enemy  tri 
umphed  for  a  moment  in  Turkey  and  the  Levant,  as  in  so 
many  other  lands.  But  the  Fathers  of  the  Order  of  St.  Lazarus 
wrere  chosen  by  Providence  to  supply  their  place,  at  least  for  a 
time,  and  we  must  now  say  a  word  of  their  labors  in  the  East. 

In  1840,  there  were  already  in  Greece  Proper  four  bishops, 
one  hundred  priests,  and  twenty- three  thousand  Catholics.  At 
the  same  date,  in  the  three  principalities  of  Moldavia,  Wallachia, 
and  Servia,  there  were  three  bishops,  and  seventy-one  thousand 
Catholics.  In  the  kingdom  of  Turkey  there  were  eleven  arch 
bishops,  four  hundred  and  twenty-three  priests,  and  two  hun 
dred  arid  eighty-one  thousand  Catholics.*  This  total  of  three 
hundred  and  seventy-five  thousand  has  probably  trebled  dur 
ing  the  last  twenty  years,  so  that  Ubicini  reckons  the  whole 
number  of  Latin  Christians  in  European  Turkey  alone,  in  1856, 
at  six  hundred  and  forty  thousand,  of  whom  five  hundred  and 
five  thousand  were  natives  ;f  while  the  total  number  of  Greeks 
under  the  sceptre  of  the  Sultan  had  dwindled  twenty  years  ago 
to  one  million. ;£  It  is  even  said  that  there  is  hope  of  the  early 
reconciliation  of  the  entire  Bulgarian  nation,  though  the  influ 
ence  of  Russia  will  no  doubt  be  employed  to  prevent  it. 
^  At  the  close  of  the  year  1840,  the  celebrated  Lazarist  Fathei 
Etienne  gave  this  report  to  the  heads  of  his  Order :  "  The  chief 
obstacle  opposed  by  error  to  the  progress  of  the  Gospel  is  pro 
found  ignorance,  the  common  basis  both  of  heresy  and  Islarnism. 
The  first  means,  therefore,  of  favoring  the  triumph  of  the  Gos 
pel  is  the  education  of  youth.  The  Koran  has  still  its  disci 
ples,  but  only  because  it  proscribes  all  education.  At  present, 
however,  this  prohibition  is  no  longer  regarded  by  the  great, 
whose  contempt  for  the  law  of  Mahomet  is  only  imperfectly 
concealed  under  a  few  exterior  practices."  An  English  Prot 
estant  traveller  confirms  this  account,  when  he  says,  that 

*  Annals,  vol.  i.,  p.  406. 

f  See  Ubicini's  Letters  on  Turkey. 

\  La  Turquie  &  Europe,  par  A.  Boue,  tome  ii.,  ch.  i.,p.  21. 


MISSION'S   IN  THE   LEVANT,   ETC.  25 

the  present  religion  of  the  Turks  "  is  a  kind  of  gross  epicurean 
skepticism."* 

Father  Etienne,  however,  gives  interesting  proofs  of  the 
respect  which  they  begin  to  manifest  for  the  Catholic  religion, 
and  the  remarkable  acquaintance  which  some  of  them  display 
with  its  doctrines  ;  and  he  adds,  that  "  once  permitted  to  fre 
quent  our  schools,  the  Gospel  and  science  will  find  them 
equally  docile  to  their  instructions.  From  the  moment  the  Turks 
are  allowed  to  enjoy  liberty  of  conscience  and  the  blessings  01 
education,  the  Church  will  be  on  the  eve  of  counting  them 
amongst  the  number  of  her  children. "f 

Let  it  be  permitted,  at  this  point,  to  offer,  under  correction, 
a  consideration  suggested  by  the  present  aspect  of  Islamism. 
Perhaps  there  is  nothing  so  marvellous  in  the  annals  of  man 
kind  as  the  history  of  the  Mahometan  religion, — its  triumphant 
progress  through  the  three  continents  of  the  Old  World,  checked 
only  by  the  union  of  the  Catholic  nations  under  the  inspiration 
of  the  Holy  See, — and  its  puissant  dominion  of  a  thousand 
years.  What  providential  scheme  was  this  mystery,  strange 
and  unique  in  the  annals  of  our  race,  designed  to  serve?  The 
present  condition  of  Islamism  seems  to  suggest  the  explanation. 

When  the  East  was  enslaved  by  heresy  and  schism,  then  the 
legions  of  the  false  prophet  came  out  of  Arabia.  For  centuries 
they  have  been  permitted  to  scourge  the  oriental  Christians, 
treading  them  under  foot  as  vermin.  In  human  history  there 
are  no  such  oppressors,  no  such  victims.  "Crushed  and  de 
graded  below  the  level  of  humanity,"  in  the  words  of  Mr. 
Spencer,  "  generation  .after  generation  of  the  unhappy  Christians 
have  passed  away  like  the  leaves  of  the  forest."  Nor  is  this 
the  darkest  feature  in  their  history.  It  was  from  apostate  Greeks 
and  moriophysites  that  the  legions  of  Antichrist  were  perpet 
ually  recruited  by  tens  of  thousands.  "Mahomrnedanisrn,  as 
Von  Ilaxthausen  forcibly  observes,  "represents  the  pure  mon 
otheistic  direction  which  the  Eastern  Church^  especially  in  its 
sects,  had  already  indicated  and  followed,  one-sided  and  dog 
matical."  Even  in  our  own  day  it  continues  to  enlist  the  same 
class  of  fallen  Christians,  helpless  because  severed  from  unity 
—Copts,  Greeks,  and  Abyssinians.  At  Trebizonde,  in  1838, 
we  are  told,  "  the  Greeks  professed  Islamism  abroad,  but  lived 
as  Christians  in  the  interior  of  their  houses."  "Apostasy  is, 
in  fact,  so  obvious  a  sin  in  these  countries,"  says  an  English 
Protestant  minister,  "  that  even  little  children,  as  I  was  in 
formed  by  the  Bishop  of  Smyrna,  will  sometimes,  when  in  a 

*  Two  Years'  Residence  in  a  Levantine  Family,  by  Bayle  St.  John  :  cli.  xxiii.. 
p.  267. 
f  Annals,  vol.  ii.,  p.  71. 


26  CHAPTER  VIII. 

violent  passion,  threaten  their  mothers  that  they  will  turn 
Turk."*  Damascus,  once  wholly  Christian,  became  almost  en 
tirely  Mahometan  ;  and  the  same  fact  occurred  in  most  of  the 
cities  of  the  East.  "  Issuing  from  Arabia,  and  absorbing  in  its 
passage  the  Christianity  of  the  East,  the  Mussulman  torrent 
traversed  the  Bosphorus,  and  carried  forward  the  crescent  to 
the  European  provinces  of  the  Greek  Cresars  ;  for  it  was  no 
longer  with  the  degenerate  Christianity  of  the  East  as  with  that 
which  flowed,  full  of  life  and  strength,  from  the  apostolic 
Koman  fount.  The  latter  had  quickly  absorbed  into  itself  all 
the  conquerors  of  the  empire  ;  the  former  bowed  down  with 
out  resistance  under  the  code  of  the  Caliphs,  and  the  Christian 
populations  of  Asia,  deserting  the  faith  of  Christ,  adopted,  in 
vast  numbers,  that  of  the  false  prophet,  and  recruited  the 
armies  of  his  vicars."f 

Such  is  the  contrast  between  the  Christianity  of  Home  and 
Byzantium  ;  and  such,  for  centuries,  has  been  the  influence  of 
the  Mahometan  over  the  corrupt  and  schismatical  communities 
of  the  East.  But  Islamism  has  done  its  work,  and  may  now 
disappear.  It  came  to  chastise,  by  an  unparalleled  judgment, 
an  unexampled  offence.  And  now,  when  the  oriental  churches 
are  visibly  returning  to  unity,  and  the  voice  of  the  Supreme 
Pastor  is  once  more  heard  amongst  them,  Islamism — as  if  con 
scious  that  it  may*  no  longer  play  the  part  of  the  Avenger — ia 
hastening  to  decay.  We  seem  to  touch  already  that  great  epoch 
of  Catholic  unity, — of  which  the  recent  definition  of  the  Im 
maculate  Conception  of  the  Mother  of  God  is  the  surest  pledge 
and  precursor, — that  consolidation  of  all  believers  into  one 
household  and  family  which  Her  love  will  obtain  for  the  Church 
before  the  world  is  abandoned  to  its  final  judgment,  and  even 
the  Church  shall  plead  for  it  no  more. 

Let  us  return  for  a  moment  to  Father  Etienne,  and  to  the 
account  which  he  gives  of  religion  in  Turkey.  "At  Constan 
tinople,"  he  says,  "  the  clergy  of  our  congregation  are  at  the  head 
of  a  college,  in  which  the  children  of  the  first  families  of  the  city 
are  educated  ;  they  have  also  a  school  which  is  frequented  by  one 
hundred  and  fifty  scholars."  This  refers  to  the  state  of  things 
twenty  years  ago.  "  Three  other  schools  are  directed  by  the 
Sisters  of  Charity.  The  two  hundred  and  thirty  pupils  whom 
they  receive  are  not  all  Catholics  ;  Russians,  Arabs,  Armenian 
and  Greek  schismatics  come  to  the  same  source  to  obtain 
knowledge  and  wisdom."  The  Sisters  had  also  under  their  care 
a  hospital,  towards  the  expenses  of  which  the  Sultan  contributed 

*  Jowett,  p.  23. 

f  Persecution  et  Souffrances,  &c.,  p.  240. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  27 

one  hundred  pounds.  Even  the  Mussulmen,  he  adds,  filled 
with  admiration  for  the  charity  of  the  Sisters,  "who  neither 
will  nor  can  receive  any  recompense,"  are  accustomed  to  ask, 
"  Whether  they  came  down  thus  from  heaven  f"  "  May  we 
not  presume,"  says  M.  Etienne,  "  that  the  Sisters  of  Charity 
are  destined  by  Providence  to  effect  the  long  wished-for  union 
between  Turks  and  Christians  ?" 

An  English  Protestant  writer,  in  spite  of  customary  prejudice, 
thus  confirms  the  account  of  Father  Etienne  :  "  Short  as  the 
time  has  been  since  these  zealous  Christians  have  entered  upon 
this  new  field  of  labor,  it  must  be  owned  in  all  justice  that  the 
progress  they  have  made,  and  the  beneficial  eifects  of  their 
judicious  efforts,  are  most  surprising.  .  .  .  The  admiration,  as 
well  as  confidence,  with  which  both  they  and  the  Lazarists  have 
inspired  the  Turks  is  unbounded."*  And  this  is  confirmed 
once  more,  in  1859,  by  another  English  Protestant,  who 
considers  "  a  visit  to  the  convent  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity 
interesting  and  instructive,  as  showing  how  human  beings 
possessed  of  education  and  personal  attractions  can  leave 
every  thing  which  makes  life  dear  for  the  sake  of  God.  Here, 
as  everywhere  else,  these  ladies  do  a  great  deal  of  good,  par 
ticularly  in  education  of  the  Arab  children."  Of  their  hospital 
"  for  the  special  use  of  strangers,"  of  all  creeds,  "  who  -may 
chance  to  fall  ill  here" — Bey  rout — he  adds,  that  the  sufferers, 
"  when  tended  by  the  devoted  Sisters,  scarcely  miss  the  absence 
of  their  friends."t 

When  we  have  shown  that  the  missionaries  have  not  degen 
erated  from  their  fathers,  but  still  resemble  a  Cachod,  a  Besnier, 
and  a  Yandermans,  we  may  pass  to  other  scenes.  "  M.  Eiluin," 
says  Father  Etienne,  "  catechizes  the  poor  in  Greek,  and  with 
the  most  consoling  success;  his  instructions  are  frequented 
every  Sunday  by  three  hundred  persons,  children  and  adults. 
M.  Bonnieux,  another  missionary,  whose  indefatigable  zeal  1 
could  not  but  admire,  spends  his  life  in  hearing  the  confessions 
of  the  Catholics,  scattered  throughout  the  city  and  the  environs. 
Every  morning  he  sets  out,  taking  in  his  course  both  sides  of 
the  Bosphorus,  penetrating  into  the  interior  of  families,  dis 
tributing  consolation  and  advice,  and  often  returning  without 
having  tasted  food,  except  the  morsel  of  bread  he  had  taken 
with  him.  Often,  too,  surprised  by  the  night  far  from  his 
home,  he  passes  it  in  some  miserable  hut,  offers  there  the  Holy 
Sacrifice  in  the  morning  before  he  leaves,  and  continuing  his 
route  of  the  previous  day,  returns  at  length  to  his  brethren  full 

*  Wayfaring  Sketches  among  the  Greeks  and  Turks,  cli.  ix.,  p.  184. 
f  Two  Years  in  Syria,  cli.  xxvii.,  p.  285. 


28  CHAPTER   VIII. 

of  joy.  This  laborious  ministry  is  never  interrupted,  either 
by  the  rigor  of  the  season  or  the  ravages  of  the  plague." 

Such  are  "the  comforts  and  pleasant  things"  which  these 
men  choose  for  their  portion.  And  the  results  of  their  patient 
charity  are  such  as  the  following :  M.  Bonnieux  alone,  in  the 
course*  of  a  few  months,  reconciled  to  the  Church  one  hundred 
and  twenty-two  heretics.  The  most  conspicuous  among  his 
converts  was  Mgr.  Artin,  schismatical  Archbishop  of  Van,  in 
Armenia.  An  immense  crowd  of  the  former  disciples  of  the 
converted  prelate  assisted  at  the  ceremony  of  his  abjuration  ; 
and  after  listening1  to  the  fervent  exhortation  which,  from  a 
heart  newly  kindled  witli  Divine  charity,  he  addressed  to  them, 
"  more  than  twelve  hundred  persons  were  found  to  imitate  this 
memorable  conversion."* 

The  impulse  given  to  education  by  the  toils  of  the  same 
workmen,  is  the  only  additional  fact  which  we  need  notice.  "It 
is  very  certain,"  says  Ubicini  in  1858,  "  that  the  number  of  the 
schools  founded  by  the  Lazarists,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
Sisters  of  Charity  and  of  the  Christian  Brothers,  increases  yearly 
in  a  remarkable  degree."  And  then  he  observes,  that  already, 
in  1849,  "  the  latter  had  six  hundred  children  in  their  schools  of 
Pera  and  Galata,"  while  the  former  had,  at  the  same  date, 
eight  hundred  and  sixty  pupils.f  Other  writers  will  inform  us 
that  they  are  diffusing  the  same  benefits  in  the  principal  cities 
of  Asiatic  Turkey. 

We  have  no  space  for  further  details.  For  twenty  years  the 
work  has  progressed,  everywhere  by  the  same  agents,  and 
always  with  the  same  results.  Even  Protestants  attest  its 
power.  "The  Catholic  religion  in  the  East,"  says  Admiral 
JSlade,  in  1854,  appreciating  these  events  from  his  own  point  of 
view,  "  has  ever  offered  a  secure  asylum  for  wavering  minds 
of  the  Greek  and  Armenian  sects."  He  declares,  also,  from 
actual  observation,  "  that  it  has  made  men  live  in  peace  among 
each  other,  and  under  their  government,  whatever  that  gov 
ernment  be."J 

Dr.  Wilson, — who  has,  perhaps,  employed  more  intemperate 
language  than  any  living  writer,  and  has  been  more  abundant 
in  those  vehement  invectives  which  sound  like  imprecations, 
and  remind  one  of  the  text,  "Whoso  hateth  his  brother  is  a 
murderer," — is  constrained  by  a  Power  which  uses  such  men  to 
proclaim  the  very  truths  which  they  abhor,  to  make  the  fol 
lowing  confession.  The  Greeks,  he  says,  when  they  become 

*  Annals,  ii.,  76. 

Letters  on  Turkey,  vol.  ii.,  Letter  iii, 
Records  of  Travels,  cli.  xxvii.,  p.  511. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,  ETC.  29 

Catholics,  "  are  amongst  the  most  liberal  and  intelligent  native 
Christians  in  the  East."* 

Dr.  Kobinson,  an  American  writer  of  the  same  class, — who 
laments  that  the  movement  of  conversion  among  the  Greeks, 
after  spreading  through  Syria,  "has  now  extended  itself  into 
Egypt," — admits  with  evident  reluctance,  that  "  the  result  is  a 
certain  elevation  of  their  sect."f  Dr.  Durbin  also,  another 
American  Protestant,  declares  without  reserve  of  all  the  orien 
tal  communities,  "It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  their  intercourse 
with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  tends  to  elevate  them  in  the 
scale  of  civilization."^:  "We  shall  hear  many  similar  testimonies 
when  we  enter  Syria. 


ASIATIC   TURKEY. 

We  may  now  cross  the  Bosphorus,  and  continue  in  Asiatic 
Turkey  the  investigations  which  we  have  hitherto  confined  to 
her  European  provinces.  Let  us  begin  at  Smyrna.  If  we 
would  lind  Protestant  missionaries  in  pagan  or  nioslem  lands, 
much  experience  has  taught  us  to  look  for  them  on  the  coast. 
They  abound  in  Smyrna.  "The  number  of  missionaries  who 
have  been  sent  to  Turkey?  says  an  English  Protestant,  "and 
are  established  at  Smyrna,  is  very  considerable. "§  "They  find 
that  demi-Frank  city  pleasanter,"  we  have  been  told,  "than 
the  interior  of  Turkey  ;"  and,  as  a  matter  of  taste,  they  are 
probably  right.  M.  do  Tchihatcheff,  a  Russian  traveller,  found 
some  of  the  American  missionaries,  in  1856,  occupied  in  me 
teorological  observations ;  a  useful  and  honorable  pursuit,  for 
which  he  seems  to  think  they  had  abundant  leisure.  [  What 
else  they  have  done,  we  may  easily  learn,  either  from  them 
selves  or  their  friends. 

Two  of  the  earliest  missionaries  from  America  were  the 
Rev.  Pliny  Fisk  and  the  Rev.  Levi  Parsons.  Both  have  found 
admiring  biographers.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Bond  informs  us  that  Mr. 
Fisk  was  dispatched  to  Syria  by  "  the  Prudential  Committee  of 
the  American  Board,"  and  also  that  "  his  religious  exercises 
were  marked  for  pungency  of  conviction."  He  tarried  at 
Malta  on  his  way  to  Palestine,  and  "was  for  a  season  occupied 
iii  exploring  the  moral  desolations  which  there  prevailed,"  but 
to  which  it  is  not  suggested  that  Mr.  Fisk  applied  any  remedy. 

*  lidnds  of  the  Bible,  vol.  ii.,  p.  581. 

|  BflMcal  Researches,  vol.  iii.,  sec.  xvii.,  p.  456. 

Observations  iti  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxxiv.,  p.  287. 

Wayfanng  Sketches,  &c.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  118. 

Asie  Mineure,  par  P.  de  Tchihatcheff;  ch.  i.,  p.  5  (1856), 


30  CHAPTER  VIII. 

At  length  lie  reached  Beyrut,  and  there  "his  spirit^  was  much 
refreshed,"  apparently  by  the  society  of  his  countrymen.  That 
he  ever  made  a  convert,  from  any  class  whatever,  his  biogra 
pher  does  not  venture  to  insinuate  ;  but  his  final  retreat  from 
these  regions,  after  a  residence  which  had  been  without  a  soli 
tary  incident  for  the  pen  of  the  historian,  is  thus  described  and 
accounted  for :  "  Having  sounded  from  the  hill  of  Zion  the 
trumpet-note  of  preparation,"  says  Dr.  Bond,  "  to  awaken  the 
Church  to  the  glorious  enterprise  in  which  he  had  led  the  way, 
he  retired,  amid  the  commotion  which  his  own  efforts  had 
excited,  until  the  indignation  was  overpast."*  The  indigna 
tion,  however,  was  so  permanent,  that  Mr.  Fisk  was  never  again 
seen  near  the  hill  of  Zion.f 

The  Rev.  Levi  Parsons,  his  companion,  is  thus  sketched  by 
the  eloquent  ardor  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Squier.  "  He  was  more 
like  the  good  Samaritan  than  the  Apostle  Paul.  If  you  classed 
him  with  the  eleven  disciples,  it  would  be  with  John  rather 
than  Peter."  The  portrait  is  perhaps  deficient  in  distinctness, 
but  Mr.  Parsons  has  added  some  touches  with  his  own  hand. 
"I  was  often,"  he  says,  "in  Jerusalem,  preaching  with  great 
success,  and  once  I  reasoned  before  the  governor  of  Smyrna, 
as  Paul  did  before  Felix."  Like  Mr.  Fisk,  he  never  converted 
anybody,  Greek,  Jew,  or  Armenian,  and  least  of  all  the  gov 
ernor  of  Smyrna  ;  but  his  biographer  adds,  as  if  he  owed  this 
consolation  to  his  readers,  "  he  was  among  modern  missionaries 
what  Melancthon  was  among  the  Reformers.''^ 

The  "eminent  female  missionary,"  Mrs.  Sarah  Smith,  also 
visited  Syria.  Dr.  Hooker,  who  celebrates  her  rare  merits, 
appears  to  think  that  he  has  sufficiently  indicated  their  charac 
ter,  when  he  adds,  that  "the  Rev.  Eli  Smith,  D.D.,  invited  her 
to  the  relationship  of  a  missionary  wife."  As  this  is  the  only 
fact  in  their  joint  career  which  he  records,  the  rest  of  the  bi 
ography,  consisting  of  scripture  texts  interspersed  with  moral 
reflections,  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  Dr.  Hooker  found  nothing 
else  to  communicate. 

The  Rev.  Daniel  Temple  was  a  more  remarkable  person.  He 
took  a  printing-press,  which  did  a  great  deal  of  work,  and  two 
wives,  the  latter  at  different  dates,  to  the  Holy  Land.  His  life 
lias  been  written  by  the  Rev.  William  Goodell,  himself  a  mis- 


*  Biographical  Sketches  of  Distinguished  American  Missionaries,  p.  188. 

f  The  blunt  and  honest  Dr.  Wolff,  who  often  stumbles  on  truth  when  his 
vanity  does  not  lead  him  astray,  relates,  "without  any  invidious  spirit,"  that 
while  he  travelled  with  Fisk  and  King,  "they  occupied  themselves  chiefly  in 
examining  ruins,  and  in  collecting  antiquities  and  mummies."  Travels  and 
Adventures  of  Dr.  Wolff,  oh.  ix.,  p.  170, 

{  IHograph'ical  Sketches,  &c.,  p.  198. 


31 

sionary.  "Whoever  saw  him,"  observes  Mr.  Goodell,  "  would 
be  likely  to  think  at  once  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,  Peter,  or 
Paul."  In  spite  of  this  advantageous  personal  appearance,  Mr. 
Temple  was  as  unsuccessful  as  his  predecessors,  and  the  close 
of  his  history,  which  exactly  coincides  with  theirs,  obliges  us 
to  conclude  that  his  resemblance  to  the  Patriarchs  and  Apos 
tles  was  purely  physical.  Mr.  Goodell,  however,  of  whose  own 
qualities  we  shall  have  a  more  accurate  knowledge  before  we 
complete  this  chapter,  assures  his  readers,  that  "  Jews,  Turks, 
and  infidels,"  upon  whom  Mr.  Temple  produced  only  a  faint 
impression  while  dwelling  among  them,  "  will  some  of  them 
pronounce  his  name  with  something  of  the  same  reverence  with 
which  we  should  ever  pronounce  the  name  of  '  Our  Father  in 
heaven!"1  Mr.  Goodell  seems  to  have  felt  that  he  wronged 
his  friend  in  only  ranking  him  with  "  Abraham,  Peter,  and 
Paul."  Yet  in  spite  of  the  remarkable  similitude  by  which  he 
at  length  did  justice  to  his  merits,  Mr.  Goodell  relates  at  last, 
and  it  is  the  only  historical  fact  in  the  narrative,  that  "  he  left 
the  mission  in  1814 :"  and  lest  the  world  should  misinterpret 
so  unexpected  a  climax,  evidently  unworthy  of  a  being  who 
ranks  above  the  Patriarchs  and  only  a  little  below  their  Creator, 
Mr.  Goodell  adds  disapprovingly,  "  The  Lord  so  remarkably 
hedged  up  his  way  among  the  (j-reeks"* 

The  English,  who  have  had  representatives  at  Smyrna  for  a 
long  course  of  years,  do  not  even  claim  any  success,  either  with 
the  Greeks,  or  with  any  other  race.  A  gentleman  who  is  apt 
to  exaggerate  their  influence  candidly  admits,  in  1854,  that 
"although  Smyrna  has  long  had  the  advantage  of  resident 
missionaries,  and  of  the  faithful  ministry  of  a  devoted  clergy 
man,  in  the  Rev.  W.  B.  Lewis,  the  British  chaplain,  there  are 
few  signs  of  religious  life  among  the  native  population. "f 
There  are,  in  fact,  ample  signs  of  life,  but  not  such  as  this 
writer  could  detect  or  appreciate,  because  they  were  all  exter 
nal  to  his  own  communion.  Within  its  narrow  limits  his  de 
scription  is  apparently  accurate.  "  It  is  in  the  spirit  of  enter 
prise,"  says  Mr.  Jowett,  "  most  especially  that  the  Church  of 
Christ,"  he  means  the  Church  of  England,  "appears  defective.";): 
"  There  is  little  of  a  practical  and  active  missionary  spirit  to 
be  found  among  the  members  of  the  Church  of  England,"  said 
the  late  Mr.  Warburton.  "  When  I  was  in  Syria,  there  was 
not  an  English  missionary  who  had  taken  a  university  degree ; 
nor,  with  one  exception,  was  there  a  Christian-born  minister  of 


*  Pp.  214-218. 

f  Journal  of  a  Deputation  to  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  p.  570. 

\  P.  392. 


32  CHAPTER  VIII. 

our  Church."*  Admiral  Slade  mentions  a  single  Anglican 
clergyman,  whom  he  considers  an  exception  by  character  to 
his  companions,  and  adds,  "  Where  did  his  labors  lie  ? — Among 
the  Greeks,  and  without  effect  !"f 

The  Americans,  as  usual,  have  been,  not  more  successful,  but 
more  ambitious  and  aggressive.  Dr.  Durbin,  their  fellow- 
citizen,  informs  us,  in  1845,  that  they  had  printed  in  Smyrna 
up  to  that  date  thirty-two  million  two  hundred  and  forty-seven 
thousand  seven  hundred  and  sixty  pages.  Dr.  Wilson  records, 
in  his  account,  an  increase  of  some  twenty  millions.  What 
the  inhabitants  of  Asia  Minor  have  done  with  all  this  printed 
paper,  amounting  to  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
octavo  volumes,  does  not  appear.  Indeed,  the  only  effect  of 
the  presence  of  the  various  Protestant  sects,  in  Smyrna,  who 
distribute  pensions  which  are  much  esteemed,  and  books  which 
nobody  reads,  has  been  to  afford  amusement  to  these  languid 
Asiatics,  though  only  for  a  brief  space.  The  excitement  lasted 
a  few  months,  and  then  both  Turks  and  Greeks  decided,  as 
Protestant  travellers  assure  us,  that  the  missionaries  had  ceased 
to  be  entertaining.  "  Even  the  Armenians  themselves,"  says 
Dr.  Valentine  Mott,  with  unfeigned  astonishment,  "  though 
professing  Christianity,  joined  with  the  deluded  Turks  in  sup 
pressing  the  Protestant  schools!";):  And  Dr.  Durbin,  also,  an 
American  preacher,  relates  that  his  co-religionists,  of  various 
denominations,  were  too  much  occupied  in  their  accustomed 
pastime  of  fighting  with  one  another,  to  allow  a  combination 
of  {heir  efforts  against  the  oriental  sects.  "  It  is  to  be  re 
gretted,"  he  observes,  "that  they  have  come  into  collision  with 
each  other  in  the  midst  of  these  ancient  churches,  and  in  the 
presence  of  the  Turk.  The  chief  ground  of  collision  is  the  va 
lidity  and  authority  of  their  respective  ministries,"  a  question 
which,  he  seems  to  think,  they  might  have  discussed  more  ad 
vantageously  at  home.§ 

Another  sympathizing  writer,  who  laments  the  trivial  super 
stition  which  makes  "  keeping  the  Sabbath"  the  chief  article  of 
the  missionary  creed,  says,  "  We  draw  down  contempt  on  that 
which  we  seek  to  further,  when  we  make  it  seem  as  though 
our  religion  consisted  in  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath."] 

*  Ch.  viii.,  pp.  117-18. 

f  P.  518. 

±  Travels  in  Europe  and  the  East,  by  Valentine  Mott,  M.D.,  p.  404. 

§  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxxv.,  p.  298.  The  incessant  wranglings  of  these  gentlemen 
have  become  so  notorious,  that  when  they  wrote  a  complimentary  letter  to  Earl 
Cowley,  who  foolishly  encouraged  them,  according  to  the  deplorable  traditions 
of  English  diplomacy,  that  ambassador  advised  them  "  to  prevent  further  quar 
rels,"  and  "  to  respect  the  religious  creed  of  others,  as  they  desire  to  have 
their  own  respected."  Mason,  Three  Years  in  Turkey,  p.  241. 

|j  Wayfaring  Sketches,  ch.  viii.,  p.  170. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE   LEVANT,   ETC.  33 

Yet  the  Protestant  missionary  always  begins  and  ends  with 
this  precept. 

Both  the  English  and  Americans  have  been  especially  un 
successful  with  the  Greeks,  the  very  class  to  which  they  have 
mainly  directed  their  attention.  Mr.  Arundell,  a  man  of 
learning  and  intelligence,  who  was  for  some  years  British 
chaplain  at  Smyrna,  expresses  much  dissatisfaction  with  their 
"  ingratitude,"  as  wreli  as  with  the  levities  which  they  practised 
in  their  conduct  towards  himself.  He  sent  a  young  Greek, 
after  due  instruction,  and  an  expenditure  from  which  he  hoped 
better  results,  as  schoolmaster  to  Kirkinge.  Unfortunately  he 
paid  him  in  advance.  "He  went  to  Kirkinge,  looked  at  it, 
said  it  was  an  askemos  topos,  '  a  horrible  place,'  and  settled 
himself  in  Syria,  without  deigning  to  write  me  a  word,"  a 
discourtesy  which  Mr.  Arundell  resented  the  more  keenly, 
because  he  had  "  for  some  time  assisted  in  keeping  him  and 
his  mother  from  starving."* 

But  these  Greeks  are  incorrigible — until  they  are  brought 
within  the  influence  of  the  Church.  Anglicanism  and  Method 
ism  are  too  weak  to  hold  them,  and  only  succeed  in  inspiring 
their  ingenious  malice.  Nothing  less  mighty  than  the  Church 
can  baffle  their  intrigues,  or  rouse  them  from  their  petulant 
indifference.  "  Are  yon  acquainted  with  Ephesus?"  said  the 
Count  D'Estourmel  to  a  Greek,  whom  he  wished  to  employ  as 
a  guide  to  the  antiquities  of  the  apostolic  city.  "  Yes,"  replied 
the  luxurious  Demetrius;  "I  have  eaten  larks  there  with  M. 
de  Stackelberg,  and  drank  Chian  wine  with  Mr.  Dodwell."f 
These  were  his  recollections  of  Ephesus. 

But  there  is  a  power  in  Smyrna  which  can  stir  the  hearts 
even  of  such  men  as  these.  "The  success  which  attended  the 
Romish  missionaries,"  says  Mr.  Jowett,  "evidence  of  which 
exists  in  their  numerous  converts  throughout  every  part  of  this 
region,  should  be  an  encouragement  to  Protestants."^  He  did 
not  consider  that  if  Protestants  would  emulate  that  success, 
they  must  first  become  Catholics.  Thirty  years  later,  another 
English  writer,  though  he  is  unable  to  re-cord  any  Protestant 
progress  during  that  long  interval,  observes,  that  "  the  Roman 
ists  comprise  probably  Jive-sixths  of  the  Frank  population  at 
Smyrna.  §  In  ten  years — from  1830  to  1840 — they  more  than 
doubled  their  numbers,  though  they  have  not  been  able  to 
purchase  a  single  convert,  or 'bestow  a  single  pension,  and  are 


*  Discoveries  in  Asia  Minor,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xi ,  p.  271. 
f  Journal  d'un  Voyage  en  Orient,  tome  i..  p.  213. 
\  P.  368. 

§  Young,  The  Levant  and  the  Nile,  ch.  iii.,  p.  74. 
VOL.  ii.  4 


34:  CHAPTER   VIII. 

not  only  poor,  bat  have  sworn  before  the  altar  to  remain  pooi* 
to  the  end  of  their  lives. 

"  My  greatest  hope,"  said  the  Archbishop  of  Smyrna  some 
years  ago,  "  is  in  our  schools,  in  which  the  population  of 
Smyrna,  by  the  religious  education  imparted  to  them,  are  com 
pletely  regenerated.""  Already  the  Lazarist  Fathers  had  two 
hundred  and  fifty  pupils  in  their  male  schools,  and  the  priests  of 
the  Missions  Etrangercs  one  hundred  and  twenty  students  in 
their  college.  Twenty  native  priests,  added  to  an  equal  number 
of  European  missionaries,  attested  the  influence  of  the  education 
which  they  had  received.  Noble  institutions  have  since  then 
been  created,  and  Smyrna  now  rejoices  in  possessing  those 
Sisters  of  St.  Yincent  who  teach,  by  their  presence  and 
example,  the  charity  which  only  the  true  faith  can  inspire. 
"  In  seasons  of  sickness,"  says  Mr.  Wortabet, — whose  profession 
of  Protestantism  does  not  prevent  his  admiring  the  Sisters  of 
Charity, — "  whilst  others  flee  to  the  mountains  for  a  better 
atmosphere,  they  have  been  seen  going  from  house  to  house, 
heedless  of  contagion  from  cholera,  fever,  or  holes  steaming 
with  heat  and  stench,  enough  to  make  any  one  sick.  One  by 
one  falls  down  by  the  bedside  of  the  dying  sufferer.  They  die, 
but  their  memory  lives,  and  no  wonder  many  rise  up  to  call 
them  blessed."* 

If  any  further  proof  of  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  religion 
in  Smyrna,  and  of  the  virtues  displayed  by  its  teachers,  be 
required,  it  is  impressively  conveyed  in  the  angry  confession  of 
a  Protestant  missionary,  the  Rev.  I.  Calhoun, — a  confession 
appropriately  recorded  by  the  pen  of  Dr.  Wilson, — that  even 
"  among  the  Protestants  there  are  few  who  are  decidedly  anti- 
Roman  Catholic."f 

"The  Eev.  Messrs.  Wolters,  father  and  son,"  of  Smyrna, 
thus  report  to  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  in  1862  :  ;f  "  The 
number  of  native  Christians  connected  with  our  mission  has  not 
increased."  Their  congregation,  they  say,  "  is  mixed,  consist 
ing  of  native,  English,  and  Dutch  Protestants,  and  Greeks,  the 
latter  sometimes  entering  the  chapel,  but  mostly  standing  at  the 
open  door."  It  was  probably  this  disrespectful  attitude  which 
impelled  the  "father  and  son"  to  observe,  with  suitable 
emphasis,  "the  Greek  Church  is  dead,  dead  in  trespasses 
and  sins.  A  missionary  living  long  among  them  cannot  but 
feel  deeply  for  their  spiritual  welfare."  " Mr.  Wolters,  junior," 
adds,  "in  conversing  with  Mussulmans  it  is  impossible  to  avoid 


*  Syria  and  the  Syrians,  ch.  xv.,  p.  104  (1856). 
f  Lands  of  the  Bible,  vol.  ii.,  p.  577 
j  Report,  p.  61. 


MISSIONS    IN   THE    LEVANT,    ETC.  35 

controversy.  But  I  feel  that  this  is  not  productive^  much 
good."  Yet  these  gentlemen,  who  are  German- Anglican  min 
isters,  still  remain,  and  will  probably  long  remain,  in  the  city 
of  Smyrna,  though  the  native  disciples  "have  not  increased,'7 
the  Greeks  amuse  themselves  at  the  open  door,  and  the  Mus 
sulmans  provoke  a  controversy  in  which  the  victory  appears  to 
be  always  on  their  side. 

In  Jaffa,  Mr.  Gruhler,  another  German  exponent  of  Angli 
canism,  informs  the  same  missionary  society  that  he  has  "  six 
or  seven  boys"  in  his  Protestant  school.  He  does  not  say  how 
these  Syrian  students  were  attracted,  nor  what  progress  they 
have  made  in  abandoning  their  own  religion,  or  in  adopting  his; 
but  he  adds,  "I  think  we  could  have  a  nice  school  there,  if  the 
schoolmaster  was  as  zealous  as  he  is  avaricious."  This  intelli 
gent  schoolmaster  was  apparently  one  of  those  who  had  not 
advanced  beyond  "  the  open  door." 

Bey  rout  is  a  more  important  place,  but  not  more  consoling  to 
the  supporters  of  Protestant  missions.  "  There  are  ten  thousand 
Christians  in  Beyrout,"  says  the  Rev.  Dr.  Durbin,  "  the  great 
majority  of  whom  are  Roman  Catholics."  Yet  a  few  years  ago 
they  were  only  a  handful;  and  moreover,  "Beyrout  is  the  centre 
of  the  American  missions  in  Syria,"  and  kithe  missionaries  have 
several  presses  here," — which  consume  a  good  deal  of  paper,  but 
do  nothing  else.  Mr.  Neale  notices  "  the  superb  nunnery  in 
course  of  erection  here  for  the  Sisters  of  Charity,  whose  advent 
has  given  great  satisfaction  to  the  Catholics  of  Beyrout ;"  as 
well  as  their  "boarding-school  for  young  ladies,  day-school  for 
poor  girls  and  Arabs,  and  hospital  for  sailors."*  Mr.  Cuthbert 
Young  observes,  in  1848,  that  "the  Jesuit  establishment  at 
Beyrout  is  said  to  be  one  of  the  most  efficient,  and  many 
Maronite  and  Greek  children  are  educated  in  their  school." 
Lastly,  the  candid  Mr.  Warburton  says :  "  I  was  much  struck 
by  the  zeal,  talent,  and  tact  exhibited  by  the  monks." 

Sidon  is  no  exception  to  the  usual  rule.  It  contains,  we  learn 
from  a  Protestant  missionary  in  1862,  one  thousand  seven  hun 
dred  and  lifty  Christians,  of  whom  one  thousand  six  hundred  are 
Catholics,  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  separated  Greeks.f  Prot 
estantism  is  wholly  unfruitful. 

Aleppo  is  still  more  worthy  of  our  attention.  Even  Dr.- Wil 
son  tells  us  that  the  Jesuits  here  "  applied  themselves  to  tin 
study  of  the  Eastern  languages  with  a  devotion  seldom  sur 
passed."  And  then  he  adds  :  "  They  brought  a  considerable 
number  of  persons  within  the  pale  of  the  Romish  Church,  and 

*  Syria,  Palestine,  &c.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  241. 

\  The  Land  and  the  Book,  by  W.  M.  Thomson,  D.D.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  108. 


36  CHAPTER   VIII. 

they  paved  the  way  for  the  ultimate  establishment  of  the  papal- 
Greek,  papal-Armenian,  and  papal-Syrian  sects."  But  if  this 
gentleman  finds  nothing  to  say  against  the  earlier  missionaries, 
he  seeks  relief  by  informing  his  readers,  without  the  least  hesi 
tation,  that  as  to  the  present  Jesuits  in  this  region,  "  their 
morality  is  of  the  loosest  kind."*  Probably  he  never  saw  one 
of  them,  and  knows  nothing  whatever  about  them  ;  but  it  was 
a  safe  assertion,  and  was  sure  to  be  welcomed  by  his  readers. 

We  need  not  reply  seriously  to  such  an  assailant ;  but  here  is 
an  example  of  these  modern  Jesuits,  whose  loose  morality  Dr. 
Wilson  deplores.  Father  Riccadonna  wrote  a  few  years  ago  to 
his  superior  in  these  terms,  in  obedience  to  directions  which 
required  an  exact  account  of  his  position  :  "I  will  tell  you  in 
confidence  that  we  are  living  in  destitution,  without  clothes, 
without  shelter,  without  provisions.  What  others  cast  aside 
would  be  precious  to  us.  A  little  thread,  some  buttons,  and  a 
packet  of  needles  would  be  a  most  acceptable  gift.  For  want 
of  these  we  go  for  months  together  with  our  clothes  in  rags. 
Praise  be  to  God !  It  is  necessary  to  have  tasted  these  precious 
sufferings  to  know  their  value  and  their  sweetness.  May  it  be 
my  lot  to  suffer  them  always. "f 

Let  us  return  to  Aleppo.  In  1818,  the  British  Consul-Gen 
eral  reported  that  "Aleppo  is  gradually  drawing,  and  nearly 
drawn  over  to  the  Roman  Catholics.5':}:  In  1854,  a  zealous 
Protestant  relates,  that  of  twenty  thousand  Christians,  seven 
teen  thousand  five  hundred  are  already  Catholics.§ 

Monseigneur  Brunoni,  Archbishop  of  Taron,  and  Apostolic 
Legate  in  Syria,  gave  this  account  of  them  in  October,  1855  : 
"The  Catholic  community  in  Aleppo,  governed  by  pious  and 
zealous  pastors,  appear  docile  to  their  teaching,  and  animated 
with  religious  sentiments  in  a  manner  very  consoling  to  witness. 
I  speak  of  what  I  have  seen,  having  been  invited  to  celebrate 
the  Holy  Sacrifice  in  the  churches  of  the  different  liturgies,  on 
which  occasions  the  evident  devotion  and  fervor  observable  in 
all  was  very  edifying.  The  day  on  which  I  officiated  for  the 
Armenians,  the  pious  and  learned  Paul  Balit  delivered  an  ex 
cellent  discourse  in  reference  to  the  conversions  of  the  previous 
year,  and  on  the  majesty  and  superiority  of  the  Catholic  religion. 
His  words  made  the  truth  so  evident  that  an  inhabitant  of  the 
neighborhood,  who  was  a  schismatic,  and  happened  to  be 
present,  was  convinced  of  his  errors,  and  renounced  them  on 
the  spot."[ 

*  P.  573. 

f  Annales,  tome  vii.,  p.  241. 

t  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  vi.,  p.  503. 

S  Journal  of  a  Deputation,  vol.  ii.,  p.  822. 

|  Annals,  vol.  xvii.,  p.  137. 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   LEVANT,   ETC.  37 

"  In  Aleppo,"  says  a  Protestant  minister,  the  Rev.  G.  Badger, 
in  1852,  "where  they  once  numbered  several  hundred  families, 
not  more  than  ten  Jacobite  families  now  exist,  the  rest  having 
joined  the  Church  of  Rome."  This  unwilling  witness  adds, 
that "  the  same  secession  has  left  them  only  a  name  at  Damascus. 
The  Jacobite  community  of  Bagdad  has  followed  the  example 
set  them  by  their  brethren  at  Aleppo  and  Damascus."  And 
then  he  performs  the  usual  task  for  which  Protestant  travellers 
seem  to  be  employed  by  Providence  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 
"  If  the  truth  is  to  be  told,  it  must  be  confessed  that,  however 
much  to  be  deplored  this  secession  may  be,  the  Syrian  prose 
lytes  to  Rome  are  decidedly  superior  in  many  respects  to  their 
Jacobite  brethren."*  Yet  this  gentleman  "  deplores"  that  they 
should  cease  to  be  heretics,  sunk  in  corruption  and  ignorance, 
though  they  become  "  decidedly  superior"  as  members  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  He  does  more  ;  he  rails  at  the  Catholic 
missionaries  for  "forming  a  schism,"  and  then  proposes  to  the 
Anglican  Establishment  to  re-convert  these  neophytes  from 
their  "  Romish"  errors  !  It  seems  that  if  we  desire  to  find 
unequalled  examples  of  this  kind,  we  must  now  look  for  them 
in  the  Anglican  clergy  of  the  High  Church  school.  But  we 
shall  hear  of  Mr.  Badger  again. 

The  Turks  appear  to  discriminate  more  exactly  than  Mr. 
Badger  between  heretics  and  Christians.  Bishop  Bonamie 
reports,  that  at  the  Catholic  funerals  in  Aleppo,  "  Janissaries, 
who  are  themselves  Mahometans,  precede  the  Cross,  and  oblige 
all  whom  they  meet  on  the  way,  without  excepting  the  Turks, 
to  behave  with  respect  and  reverence  before  this  sign  of  our 

salvation."! 

Of  the  Protestants  in  Aleppo — for  they  have  there  also  their 
usual  printing  press,  which  works  night  and  day  with  the  usual 
results — an  eager  advocate  tells  us,  "  On  more  than  one  occa 
sion  have  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  ordered  all  Protestant 
books,  all  Bibles  from  Protestant  presses,  &c.,  to  be  burned, 
destroyed,  or  delivered  into  their  hands.";}:  Of  one  school  of 
missionaries  in  that  city,  Mr.  Walpole  says,  "The  Presbyterian 
mission  here  bides  its  time,  and  perhaps  I  may  say  nothing  has 
yet  been  done  by  them."  He  remarks  also  that  the  mission 
aries  do  not  even  "  kneel  at  prayers ;  which,"  he  observes, 
"  seems  a  cold  form  of  adoration. "§  Their  Moslem  neighbors 
are  probably  of  the  same  opinion. 

*  The  Nestor ians  and  their  Rituals,  by  the  Rev.  G.  P.  Badger,  vol.  i., 
pp.  63,  180. 

f  Annales,  tome  viii.,  p.  553. 

j:  Journal  of  a  Deputation,  p.  822. 

§  The  Antayrii,  vol.  i.,  cli.  xiii.,  p.  205. 


38  CHAPTER   VIII. 

Returning  towards  the  south,  let  ns  visit  Damascus.  Here 
also  we  meet  the  usual  facts.  "  The  Christians,"  says  Mr. 
Warburton,  "  for  the  most  part  belong  to  the  Latin  Church." 
Times  are  changed  since,  in  1351,  twenty-two  Catholics  were 
crucified  in  Damascus  on  the  same  day.*  "  I  believe  about 


It  was  in  1832  that  the  Syrian  Bishop  of  Damascus  was  recon 
ciled  to  the  Church,  together  with  his  numerous  household  and 
relatives.§  At  the  present  day,  Dr.  Wilson  informs  us,  the 
Catholics  have  "  the  most  splendid  church  which  Damascus 
contains;"!  and  then  he  adds,  as  if  to  counterbalance  these 
unwelcome  proofs  of  their  progress,  "  In  its  services  it  is  diffi 
cult  to  recognize  the  simplicity  of  Christian  worship." 


The   "  simplicity"   of    his   Presbyterian    co-religionists,    at 
o  and  elsewm 


here,  who  refuse  to  kneel  in  the  presence  of 
that  God  before  whom  the  archangels  hide  their  faces,  and  even 
their  Immaculate  Queen  worships  with  awful  fear,  is  more 
agreeable  to  Dr.  Wilson.  To  insult  the  Most  High,  even  while 
they  imagine  they  are  adoring  Him,  is  commendable  "  simpli 
city,"  though  Daniel  "fainted  away  and  retained  no  strength.'* 
even  before  the  presence  of  an  angel. T  If  Dr.  Wilson  had  seen 
that  other  angel,  "  having,  a  golden  censer,"  to  whom  "  was 
given  much  incense,"  that  he  might  oifer  it  "  before  the  altar 
in  heaven  ;"**  he  would  perhaps  have  suggested  to  St.  John, 
who  did  see  it,  that  it  was  a  very  "  unscriptural"  ceremony,  and 
extremely  deficient  in  simplicity.  If  he  had  entered  that 
temple,  in  which  even  the  "  nails  of  gold,"  and  the  "  wings  of 
the  cherubim,"  and  "  the  curtain  rods"  were  all  prescribed  and 
fashioned  by  Divine  inspiration,  and  where  priests,  arrayed  in 
jewelled  robes  offered  a  mystical  sacrifice  by  Divine  command, 
he  would  perhaps  have  ventured  on  the  same  criticism.  It 
would  have  been  imprudent,  for  the  Hebrews  made  short  work 
of  blasphemers.  Yet  Calvin,  the  author  of  the  Presbyterian 
religion,  pushed  the  claims  of  "  simplicity"  still  further,  and 
marvelled  that  the  Son  of  God  did  not  rebuke  the  "  supersti 
tion"  of  the  woman  in  the  Gospel,  who  was  healed  by  touching 
"  the  hem  of  His  garment !"  It  was  intolerable  that  God  should 


*  Henrion,  tome  i.,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  195. 
f  The  Land  of  the  Morning,  ch.  xv.,  p.  271. 
i  Biblical  Researches  in  Palestine,  p.  462: 
§  Annales,  tome  vi.,  p.  291. 
J_  Lands  of  the  Bible,  p.  581. 
1  Dan.  x.  8. 
**  Apoc.  viii.  3. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE   LEVANT,   ETC.  39 

thus  sanction  the  principle  of  relic  worship,  and  the  Genevan 
bade  his  disciples  take  note  of  the  error.""  Surely  the  Prus 
sian  philosopher  had  reason  to  exclaim.  "  The  Calvinists  treat 
the  Saviour  as  their  inferior,  the  Lutherans  as  their  equal,  and 
Catholics  as  their  God."f 

Let  us  return  to  Damascus.  Another  English  writer,  of  the 
same  school  as  Dr.  Wilson,  notices  in  1854.  that  "  there  are  in 
Damascus  three  Latin  monasteries ;  the  buildings  are  good,  and 
have  libraries  attached  to  them,  containing  good  collections  of 
books  in  the  oriental  and  other  languages ;  there  are  also  large 
day-schools  under  the  direction  of  the  priesthood  :":{:  and  then 
he  scoffs  at  them  as  "  concealed  Jesuits."  The  Jesuits  have 
not  the  habit  of  concealing  themselves,  and  the  objects  of  his 
dislike,  were,  in  fact,  Franciscans  and  Lazarists.  That  their 
schools  are  more  accurately  appreciated  by  the  Damascenes 
than  by  this  Protestant  tourist,  we  learn  from  Dr.  Frankl,  who 
says,  "  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  the  Jews  and  Mohammedans 
sometimes  send  their  children  to  the  schools  taught  by  the 
French  missionaries  of  the  order 'of  St.  Lazare."  Ubicini  also 
relates,  that  "their  two  schools  were  frequented,  in  1856,  by 
four  hundred  and  fifty  children," — which  perhaps  accounts  for 
the  irritation  of  their  English  visitors, — and  that  at  Beyrout, 
Salonica,  Aleppo,  and  wherever  the  Lazarist  missions  extend, 
"  hundreds  of  children  of  all  creeds  receive  elementary  instruc 
tion  freely  and  gratuitously." 

A  well-known  German  Protestant,  who  visited  the  Francis 
can  schools  at  Damascus,  expresses  surprise  and  admiration  at 
the  patient  charity  of  men  who  had  abandoned  all — they  have 
since  been  massacred  by  Turks — to  labor  in  this  field,  and  ex 
claims,  "The  natural  and  primitive  simplicity  with  which  they 
follow  their  calling  delighted  me  much."§  Yet  an  Anglican 
missionary,  who,  during  a  long  residence  in  Syria,  had  only 
learned  to  defame  the  works  which  he  knew  not  how  to  imi 
tate;  who  spent  his  time  in  sneering  at  Franciscans  and  Lazar 
ists,  and  even  at  those  Sisters  of  Charity  of  whom  the  more 
discerning  Moslem  speaks  with  affection  and  reverence  ;  affects 
to  deplore  the  miserably  defective  education  which  attracted 
scholars  of  every  class  and  creed,  and  of  which  other  Protes 
tants  will  presently  describe  to  us  the  real  character. ||  It  is 

*  "  Scimus  quam  proterve  ludat  superstitio.  .  .  .  Quod  a  veste  hcesit  potius, 
forte  zelo  inconsiderate  paululum  a  via  deflexit."  Comment,  in  Nov.  Test., 
tome  i.,  p.  220  ;  ed.  Tholuck. 

f  Dictionnaire  des  Apologistes  Involontaires,  introd.,  p.  31 ;  Migne. 

J  Journal  of  a  Deputation  to  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  p.  488. 

§  Countess  Halm-Halm,  Letters,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  Letter  xxi.,  p.  55. 

I  Five  Years  in  Damascus,  by  tlie  Rev.  J.  L.  Porter,  M.A. ;  vol.  i.,  ch.  ML, 
p.  145. 


4:0  CHAPTER   VIII. 

creditable   to   English  arid  American   travellers,  that  almost 

the  only  individuals  of  either  nation  Avho  use  such  laniruajre 

• 
are  the  missionaries  themselves. 

We  should  perhaps  not  err* in  attributing  the  exasperation 
which  betrays  itself  in  such  expressions  to  the  mortification  of 
personal  failure.  After  many  years  of  lavish  expenditure, 
they  had  so  utterly  wasted  their  time  and  money,  that  Mr. 
Wortabet  unwillingly  confesses,  in  1856,  that  the  five  Protes 
tant  missionaries  in  Damascus  had  only  secured  sixteen  pre 
carious  pensioners,  who  were  probably  all  their  servants  and 
dependents  ;*  and  Dr.  Frankl  pleasantly  adds,  "  The  mission 
ary  society  has  as  yet  thrown  out  its  golden  net  at  Damascus 
in  vain.'7^ 

On  the  other  hand,  English  and  American  travellers  attest 
in  chorus  the  contrast  to  which  they  could  not  close  their  eyes, 
and  the  continual  triumphs  of  the  Catholic  faith,  throughout 
all  Syria,  in  spite  of  the  poverty  of  its  apostles.  "  At  Diarbe- 
kir,  some  years  ago,"  says  Mr.  Badger,  "  the  whole  Greek  com 
munity  in  the  town  became  Romanists.":}:  The  Nestorians  in 
the  neighborhood  quickly  followed  their  example.  "  At  Ain- 
tab,  an  American  missionary,*'  who  had  been  distributing  Bibles, 
"  was  driven  out  of  the  town  by  the  Armenians,"  says  Mr. 
Walpole  ;  "  not,  I  believe,  without  insults  and  some  violence."§ 
4nd  so  uniform  are  these  facts,  as  we  shall  see  more  fully 
hereafter,  that  a  Protestant  witness  observes,  that  even  in, 
places  "  whereafew  years  ago  there  were  no  Roman  Catholics, 
we  now  find  a  fair  share  of  the  population  belonging  to  that 
faith."|  Mr.  Jowett  had  reason  to  say,  "  All  Syria  is  com 
paratively  occupied  by  the  Roman  Catholics." 

Before  we  quit  Syria  to  enter  Palestine,  it  seems  impossible 
to  omit  one  or  two  reflections  upon  what  we  have  already 
heard.  It  is  proved,  by  Protestant  testimony,  that  throughout 
these  regions  the  Church  is  constantly  attracting  to  herself 
great  numbers  from  the  various  dissident  communities.  "  Men 
of  virtue  and  piety,"  says  a  learned  English  writer,  familiar 
with  many  of  the  forms  of  oriental  society,  "  are  often  found 
to  pass  from  the  Eastern  to  the  Roman  Catholic  communion, 
while  no'instance,  perhaps,  or  scarcely  an  instance,  can  be  ad 
duced  even  of  an  individual  of  acknowledged  piety  and  learn 
ing  passing  over  to  the  Eastern  Church."Tf 

*  Syria  and  the  Syrians,  ch.  vii..  p.  203. 
f  The  Jews  in  the  East,  vol.  i.,  ch.  viii.,  pp.  292,  7,  9. 
J  Badger,  vol.  i.,  p.  3. 
£  Walpole,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  255. 
Wortabet,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  86. 
Palmer,  Dissertations  on  the  Orthodox  Communion,  p.  13. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,   ETC.  41 

Some  Protestant  writers  are  still  more  emphatic,  and  we  must 
not  conclude  this  portion  of  our  subject  without  noticing  their 
remarkable  language.  "Not  one  of  the  ancient  Churches," 
says  the  Rev.  George  Williams,  formerly  a  chaplain  at  Jerusalem, 
"  but  was  visited  by  missionaries  of  the  Propaganda,  or  the 
enterprising  members  of  the  Society  of  Jesus.  .  .  .  When  we 
consider  the  zeal,  ability,  and  persevering  practice  of  the  best 
instructed  and  most  devoted  missionaries  that  the  world  has 
seen  since  primitive  times,  it  is  no  matter  of  surprise  that  their 
self-denying  labors  were  crowned  with  abundant  success."* 

"  It  is  difficult,"  says  another  English  Protestant,  familiar  by 
long  experience  and  observation  with  the  East  and  its  various 
races,  "to  meet  and  converse  with  the  zealous  and  talented 
missionaries  of  the  Propaganda  in  the  East,  and  not  feel  warmly 
for  their  situation.  They  are  exposed  to  no  ordinary  trial  of 
patience.  Educated  at  Rome,  accustomed  to  Italian  refinement 
and  conversation,  then  sent  to  some  remote  spot — remote  from 
causes  of  association  rather  than  from  distance — destined  to  pass 
their  lives  with  a  people  as  far  beneath  them  in  mental  culture 
as  separated  by  habits,  they  may  be  truly  said  to  be  banished 
men  in  the  sharpest  sense  of  the  term.  Still  we  might  at  times 
rather  envy  than  pity  them.  Commiseration  is  lost  sight  of  in 
our  admiration  at  the  disinterestedness  and  perseverance  which 
they  ever  display  in  the  performance  of  their  duties — a  good 
conscience  their  reward,  heaven  their  guide.  No  shadow  of 
preferment  looms  in  the  distance,  no  hope  of  distinction  cheers 
them  on,  not  one  of  the  ordinary  inducements  to  exertion 
prompts  them.  Courteous  with  the  gentleman,  confiding  with 
the  peasant,  caressing  with  the  distressed,  they  are,  as  St.  Paul 
expressed  himself  to  be,  '  All  things  to  all  men.'  Multiply  the 
generations  since  the  Osmanleys  conquered  the  country,  and  it 
will  appear  that  millions  of  souls  have  been  saved  by  these 
advanced  sentinels  of  Christianity,  ever  at  their  post  to  reclaim 
the  wavering  and  confirm  the  steadfast."f 

Dr.  Durbin,  an  American  Protestant  minister,  who  visited 
the  same  lands,  contents  himself  with  admitting  the  facts,  "  It 
is  not  possible,"  he  says,  "to  estimate  the  success  of  the  Romish 
missions  to  the  Oriental  Churches,  but  the  general  fact  is  clear, 
that  they  have  divided  them  all ;  so  that  there  is  in  Asia  a 
Papal-Greek  Church,  a  Papal-Armenian  Church,  a  Papal 
Church  among  the  JSTestorians,  a  Papal  Church  among  the 
Syrians,  and  also  many  of  the  Copts  in  Egypt. "J 


*  The  Holy  City,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  570. 

f  Slade,  Turkey,  Greece,  and  Malta,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xx.,  p.  425. 

|  Vol.  ii.,  p.  287. 


42  CHAPTER  VIII. 

Other  Protestant  writers,  deeply  impressed,  in  spite  of 
incurable  and  fatal  prejudices,  with  the  grave  lessons  which 
they  have  brought  away  from  the  East, — and  especially  with  the 
demoralizing  influence  of  Protestant  missions, — do  not  hesitate 
to  avow  their  condemnation  of  efforts  which  lead  only  to  evil. 

"I  frankly  avow  my  opinion,"  says  the  Rev.  Mr.  Spencer, 
who  seems  to  be  a  Scotch  Episcopalian  minister,  "  that  missions 
from  the  various  religious  bodies  who  contribute  to  the  support 
of  the  gentlemen  laboring  in  Syria  can  never  l>e  productive  of 
permanent  results.  I  was  astonished  to  learn  how  little  had, 
after  all,  been  done."  And  again:  "It  deserves  to  be  well 
weighed  by  Protestants  at  home,  that  no  mission  of  theirs  to  the 
Oriental  Christians  has  succeeded  to  any  extent  commensurate 
with  the  means,  the  men,  the  time  devoted  to  their  conversion : 
may  it  not  properly  be  asked,  Are  we  ever  likely  to  succeed  any 
letter?"* 

Dr.  Wolff  says,  "I  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  Church 
Missionary  Society,  though  they  might  send  their  Lutheran 
missionaries  to  the  heathen,  ought  never  to  send  them  to  the 
Eastern  Churches.  It  is  a  gross  insult  to  them,"f — and  ap 
parently  a  very  unprofitable  one.  lie  adds,  with  characteristic 
frankness,  that  he  "is  sorry  to  make  the  declaration,  that  the 
worst  people  among  the  Eastern  natives  are  those  who  know 
English,  and  have  been  converted  to  Protestantism!1'^: 

Mr.  Williams  also  observes,  though  probably  without  much 
hope  of  obtaining  a  hearing,  "There  is  surely  an  ample  field  in 
the  East  for  the  European  and  American  missionaries,  without 
encroaching  on  other  Churches."  Jews,  Druses,  Mahometans, 
Arabs,  and  others,  are  the  avowed  enemies  of  Christianity,  as 
lie  remarks,  yet  the  luxurious  emissaries  of  Protestantism 
hardly  even  attempt  to  make  any  impression  on  them,  and 
invariably  fail  when  they  do.  "  They  are  merely  playing  at 
mission*"  adds  Mr.  Williams — and  with  this  frank  confession 
we  may  conclude — "while  they  limit  themselves  to  a  task  in 
volving  no  risk,  and  requiring  no  sacritices."§ 

It  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  by  such  unexpected  language 
as  has  now  been  quoted,  from  Protestant  writers  of  various  and 
conflicting  schools,  in  illustration  of  the  eternal  contrast  which 
even  they  discern  between  Catholic  and  Protestant  missionaries 
and  the  fruits  of  their  labor.  But  there  is  yet  another 
emotion,  more  painful  than  surprise,  which  such  testimonies 

*  Travels  in  the  Holy  Land,  by  the  Rev.  J.  A.  Spencer,  M.A.,  Letter  xxii., 
pp.  483-4  (1850). 
f  P.  232. 

±  Travels  and  Adventures,  cli.  xv.,  p.  269  (1861). 
§  The  Holy  City,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  597. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  43 

awaken.  The  witnesses  record  their  evidence,  in  spite  of 
natural  prejudice,  and  careless  of  the  resentment  of  their  less 
candid  co-religionists ;  and  this  courage  none  will  refuse  to 
applaud.  But  we  may  be  permitted  to  deplore  that  such  men, 
so  truthful  and  generous,  should  have  been  equally  successful 
in  banishing  another  kind  of  fear,  more  noble  and  legitimate 
— the  fear  of  Him  who  has  said,  "Out  of  thine  own  mouth  will 
I  judge  thee" 


JERUSALEM. 

And  now  let  us  go  to  Jerusalem.  The  project  of  the  King 
of  Prussia,  the  chief  of  the  Lutheran  communities,  was  eagerly 
adopted  by  a  Church  always  striving  to  make  alliance  with 
other  heretical  bodies,  and  always  unsuccessfully.  At  last  she 
has  succeeded.  The  Church  of  England — in  spite  of  the  un 
meaning  protests  of  a  class  who  seem  to  think,  like  Pilate,  that 
it  suffices  to  wash  their  hands  in  order  to  secure  immunity  for 
acts  which  they  invariably  make  their  own  by  acquiescence — 
consented  to  exercise,  alternately  with  a  Lutheran,  the  right  of 
nominating  a  Protestant  bishop  at  Jerusalem.  The  present 
holder  of  the  office  is  Dr.  Gobat,  of  whom  we  heard  in  Abys 
sinia.  An  English  biographer,  of  similar  religious  opinions, 
tells  us,  that  "  Gobat,  far  from  recognizing  the  Church  of 
England  as  the  sole,  or  even  the  most  Scriptural  Church  upon 
earth,  long  declined  receiving  her  ordination."*  This  writer 
plainly  intimates  that  he  would  never  have  received  it  at  all, 
but  it  was  the  turn  of  the  Establishment  to  nominate,  and  he 
was  obliged  to  submit.  The  accounts  of  the  Protestant  mission 
at  Jerusalem,  and  of  its  results,  are  so  absolutely  uniform,  with 
the  exception  of  one  or  two  writers  who  shall  be  noticed,  that 
we  may  call  our  witnesses  at  random.  The  more  serious  class 
of  Anglicans  are  ashamed  of  the  whole  proceeding,  and  would 
be  glad  to  bury  it  in  oblivion ;  we,  however,  have  no  motive 
for  declining  to  discuss  it. 

Dr.  Gobat's  biographer,  who  is  almost  indiscreet  in  his  frank 
ness,  reveals  the  secret  aim  of  his  party,  when  he  says,  "  The 
Jerusalem  episcopate  ought  to  be  a  Protestant  patriarchate." 
Let  us  inquire  how  far  this  project  has  been  realized. 

If  we  take  the  evidence  in  chronological  order,  it  will  run  as 
follows.  In  1841,  an  English  visitor  to  Jerusalem  says,  "We 
went  to  church  at  the  Consul's,  and  our  congregation  amount 
ed  to  only  ten,  including  an  American  missionary,"  and  the 

*  Evangelical  Christendom,  vol.  i.,  p.  79. 


44  CHAPTER   VIII. 

traveller's  own  party.  "As  to  the  advance  of  proselytism," 
adds  the  writer,  "Mr.  Nicholaison  does  not  consider  more  than 
five  converts  have  been  made  during  the  last  period  of  his 
residence,  nine  years."45' 

In  1842,  an  Anglican  clergyman  still  reports  the  congrega 
tion  to  consist  of  "  the  architect,  the  bishop's  family,  with  a 
portion  of  his  household,  and  two  missionaries."  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  this  gentleman  found  about  eight  hundred  Catholics 
at  Nazareth,  "  particularly  \vell  conducted  and  habited  for  the 
country ;  indeed,  the  children  who  attend  the  school  of  the 
monastery  were  quite  cleanly,  and  spoke  Italian  with  fluency."! 
And  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  the  Anglican  clergy  re 
marks  of  the  same  mission,  where  he  heard  Arab  converts  sing 
the  chants  of  the  Latin  Church,  "  There  is  no  church  in  Pales 
tine  where  the  religious  services  seem  so  worthy  of  the  sacred- 
ness  of  the  place  ;"J  while  another  observes  that  the  Catholic 
women  of  Bethlehem  are  "  as  noted  for  their  independence  and 
moral  character  as  for  their  beauty.  "§ 

In  the  same  year,  an  American  traveller,  who  omits  even  to 
allude  to  the  "  Protestant  patriarchate,"  as  if  he  had  failed  to 
discover  it,  writes  as  follows:  "Every  traveller  who  has  visited 
Jerusalem  must  have  been  struck  with  the  contrast  between  the 
intelligence,  wit,  and  learning  of  the  friars  of  the  Latin  con 
vent,  and  the  besotted  and  gross  ignorance  of  the  Greek  monks, 
whose  superstitious  fanaticism  is  but  little  removed  above  that 
of  the  Mussulmen."||  And  this  is  confirmed,  with  characteristic 
felicity  of  language,  by  the  author  of  Eothen^  when  he  says  of 
the  "  Padre  Superiore,"  and  the  "  Padre  Mission ario"  of  the 
Jerusalem  monastery,  "  By  the  natives  of  the  country,  as  well 
as  by  the  rest  of  the  brethren,  they  are  looked  upon  as  superior 
beings;  and  rightly  too,  for  nature  seems  to  have  crowned  them 
in  her  own  true  way.  The  chief  of  the  Jerusalem  convent  was 
a  noble  creature ;  his  worldly  and  spiritual  authority  seemed  to 
have  surrounded  him,  as  it  were,  with  a  kind  of  '  Court,'  and 
the  manly  gracefulness  of  his  bearing  did  honor  to  the  throne 

which  he  filled If  he  went  out,  the  Catholics  of  the  place 

that  hovered  about  the  convent  would  crowd  around  him  with 


*  Mrs.  Dawson  Darner,  vol.  i.,  p.  309  ;  vol.  ii.,  p.  33. 

f  Egypt  and  the  Holy  Lund,  by  W.  Drew  Stent,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  44 ;  ch.  vi., 
p.  148. 

i  Sinai  and  Palestine,  by  Artlitir  Penrhyn  Stanley,  M.A.,  p.  437. 

§  The  Pilgrim  in  the  Holy  Land,  by  the  Rev.  Henry  B.  Osborn,  M.A.,  ch. 
xvi.,  p.  200. 

|  Tour  through  Turkey,  Greece,  &c.,  by  E.  Joy  Morris,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  116. 
•  Dr.  Thomson  also  contra  sts  the  "  decorum  and  solemnity  of  deportment  of  the 
Latin  monks"  with  the  grossness  of  "  the  Greeks  and  Armenians."  The  Land 
and  the  Book,  ch.  xlii.,  p.  650. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,  ETC.  45 

devout  affection,  and  almost  scramble  for  the  blessing  which 
his  touch  could  give."* 

In  1843,  Mr.  Millard  arrives  at  the  gloomy  conviction,  "that 
Jerusalem  is  of  almost  all  other  places  the  least  accessible  by 
Protestant  missionary  labors. "f 

In  1844,  a  witness  of  a  different  class  appears.  The  reader 
may  possibly  remember  the  Rev.  I.Tomlin,  an  Anglican  minis 
ter,  who  visited  China  and  so  many  other  places,  always  in 
submission  to  "  calls"  which  he  had  not  courage  to  disobey. 
Mr.  Tomlin  says,  "The  labors  of  the  Protestant  Bishop  of 
Jerusalem  have  been  remarkably  blessed  of  the  Lord."  He 
says  it  quite  seriously,  and  evidently  without  forecasting  what 
later  witnesses  might  possibly  record  on  the  same  subject.  Mr. 
Tomlin  adds,  "The  Roman  legions  are  gone  forth,  and  are 
fast  preoccupying  the  ground ;"  and  then  he  exclaims,  as  if 
resenting  a  personal  wrong,  "  They  covertly  creep  in  by  the 
way  which  Protestant  Britain  has  opened  !":£  The  observation 
betrays  some  defect  of  historical  accuracy.  There  was  once  a 
Christian  "  kingdom  of  Jerusalem,"  as  Mr.  Tomlin  might  have 
remembered,  which  lasted  nearly  two  hundred  years ;  and  as 
Catholic  missionaries  have  now  been  there  for  a  good  many 
centuries,  we  may  perhaps  say,  without  too  much  severity,  that 
the  notion  of  their  recent  and  covert  arrival  under  British  pro 
tection  is  altogether  worthy  of  Mr.  Tomlin.  Protestant  Britain 
has  not  often  been  very  generous  to  "  the  Roman  legions,"  and 
has  certainly  not  hitherto  afforded  them  much  assistance  at 
Jerusalem. 

In  1847,  Dr.  Rae  Wilson,  who  had  perhaps  not  read  Mr. 
Tomlin,  and  was  evidently  unconscious  of  being  "  remarkably 
blessed"  in  his  solitude,  says,  "At  this  time  I  was  the  only 
Protestant  in  Jerusalem. "§ 

In  the  same  year,  Tischendorff  gives  this  account  of  the 
operations  of  the  "  patriarchate"  which  Dr.  Rae  Wilson  and 
Mr.  Joy  Morris  failed  to  discern :  "  With  respect  to  the 
baptism  of  converts  in  Jerusalem,  it  is,  as  far  as  I  know, 
framed  to  an  accommodation  with  the  most  modern  Judaism. 
Six  thousand  piastres  (about  tit'ty  pounds)  are  offered  to  the 
convert  as  a  premium;  other  advantages  are  said  likewise  to 
be  considerable."! 

In  spite  of  these  attractions,  the  results  could  hardly  be 
deemed  satisfactory ;  for  in  the  same  year  Lord  Castlereagh 

*  Ch.  x. 

f  Journal  of  Travels  in  Egypt,  by  D.  Millard,  ch.  xvl,  p.  262. 

|  Missionary  Journals,  &c.,  introd.,  pp.  13,  15. 

§  Travels  in  the  Holy  Land,  &c.,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  385. 

f  Travels  in  the  East,  by  Constantine  Tischendorff,  p.  159. 


46  CHAPTER  VIII. 

expressed  this  opinion,  founded  on  personal  examination : 
"The  progress  of  conversion,  and  the  interests  of  Christianity, 
do  not  at  present  seem  to  require  or  warrant  so  large  a  church 
establishment  as  is  here  maintained.  I  inquired  in  vain  for 
any  number  of  converts  that  could  be  properly  authenticated." 
And  then  he  describes  once  more  the  scanty  official  audience 
with  which  we  are  already  familiar,  "  The  bishop  has  scarcely 
a  congregation,  besides  his  chaplains,  his  doctor,  and  their 
families."* 

Dr.  Gobat,  however,  did  sometimes  make  a  convert,  as  we 
saw  in  Abyssinia,  in  the  case  of  the  "  noble  Abyssinian" 
Girgis,  who  abandoned  the  Anglican  tenets  for  Mahometanism. 
Here  is  one  more  specimen  of  Dr.  Gobat's  success.  A  certain 
"  Joseph"  was  "  acknowledged  by  the  missionaries  Gobat  and 
Mueller  as  a  sincere  convert."f  Indeed  Admiral  Slade  says, 
and  it  is  perfectly  true,  that  he  "figured  more  than  once  in  the 
reports  of  the  Bible  Society,  and  has  been  cited  as  an  instance 
of  the  success  attending  the  missionaries'  labor."  He  was 
even  "strongly  recommended  as  one  admirably  qualified  to 
preach  the  Gospel  among  the  Arabs."  The  qualifications  of 
this  favorite  of  the  Bible  Society  were  these.  Dr.  Wolff,  to 
whom  he  gave  lessons  in  Arabic,  says  that  he  was  "  the  most 
infamous  hypocrite  and  impostor  I  ever  met  with  ;"  and  he  had 

food  reason  to  say  it,  for  this  "admirably  qualified"  missionary 
roke  open  Dr.  Wolffs  trunk,  stole  all  he  possessed,  and  then 
ran  away.:):     Dr.  Gobat  is  evidently  not  happy  in  his  converts, 
nor  the  Bible  Society  in  its  heroes. 

In  1848,  we  have  an  official  account  by  Dr.  Gobat  himself. 
"Our  little  congregation,"  he  says,  "goes  its  quiet  way.  I 
regret  that  we  have  not  more  spiritual  life.  ...  I  believe  there 
is  growth  in  grace  with  some,  and  there  is  less  division" $ 
Yet  Miss  Brerner,  an  intimate  friend  of  all  the  parties,  laments 
several  years  later  the  "  bitter  schism  between  Christians  who 
attend  the  same  church,"  which  was  a  jest  among  the  English 
in  Jerusalem,  and  particularly  that  Mrs.  Gobat  and  Mrs.  Finn, 
the  Consul's  wife,  "do  not  speak  to  each  other,  because  their 
husbands  have  become  enemies!"] 

In  1852,  an  English  clergyman,  who  describes  the  singular 
use  made  of  "  the  Bibles  and  tracts  so  profusely  spread  among 
the  Eastern  nations,"  gives  this  grave  account  of  the  converts 
who  had  been  obtained  up  to  that  date:  "Their  belief  is  a 

*  A  Journey  to  Damascus,  &c..  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xix.,  p.  3. 

f  Wolff,  p.  285. 

J  Slade,  p.  521. 

^  Margoliouth,  vol.  ii.,  p.  295. 

|  Travels  in  the  Holy  Land,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  104. 


I 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,   ETC,  47 

blank,  and  their  principles  distinctly  Antinomian.  I  maintain, 
from  observation,  that  to  one  class  or  other  of  these  all  the 
proselytes  made  to  Protestantism  in  the  East  belong.  They 
are  either  worthless  persons,  or  skeptics  and  infidels.  The 
reports  of  the  missionary  societies  themselves  exhibit  the  truth 

of  these  allegations The  work  of  the  Protestant  missions 

is  simply  destructive  /  they  first  make  a  tabula  rasa  of  minds, 
on  which  they  never  afterwards  succeed  in  inscribing  the  laws 
of  a  sincere  faith  or  consistent  practice."* 

Two  years  later,  in  1854,  the  representative  of  an  English 
missionary  society  still  confesses  of  these  ambiguous  "  converts," 
that  "  they  have  not  unfrequently  some  hidden  motive  of 
worldly  advantage."f  We  shall  hear  them  presently  discuss 
ing  the  real  motive  among  themselves. 

Admiral  Slade,  in  the  same  year,  prepares  us  for  future 
revelations  by  this  statement :  "  I  will  not  say  that  any  of 
them  are  gained  by  actual  bribery,  but  they  certainly  are  by 
promises  of  employment  in  the  missionary  line,  promises  often 
not  fulfilled,  in  consequence  of  which  the  converts  are  reduced 
to  distress."^  The  Rev.  Moses  Margoliouth,  now  an  Anglican 
clergyman,  incidentally  confirms  this  unfavorable  statement. 
This  gentleman,  an  associate  of  Dr.  Gobat,  while  he  deplores 
the  exceeding  frailty  of  Hebrew  Protestants,  does  not  on  that 
account  permit  himself  to  be  discouraged.  He  even  derives 
consolation  from  an  unexpected  source.  "  I  do  not  affirm," 
he  says,  "  that  baptized  Jews  do  not  afford  instances  of 
consummate  rascality.  So  do  the  clergy  of  our  beloved 
Church."§ 

In  1855,  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor,  an  intelligent  American,  relates 
that  as  they  could  not  make  converts  at  Jerusalem,  Protestant 
Jews  "  were  brought  hither  at  the  expense  of  English  missionary 
societies,  for  the  purpose  of  forming  a  Protestant  community." 
The  process  was  costly,  for  he  adds,  that  "it  is  estimated  that 
each  member  of  the  community  has  cost  the  mission  about  four 
thousand  five  hundred  pounds ;  a  sum  which  would  have 
christianized  tenfold  the  number  of  English  heathen.  The 
mission,  however,  is  kept  up  by  its  patrons  as  a  sort  of  religious 
luxury/'  On  the  other  hand,  this  gentleman  observes,  "  Many 
others  besides  ourselves  have  had  reason  to  be  thankful  for  the 
good  offices  of  the  Latin  monks  in  Palestine.  I  have  never 
met  with  a  class  more  kind,  cordial,  and  genial. "[ 

*  Patterson,  Journal  of  a  Tour  in  Egypt,  p.  455. 

f  Journal  of  a  Deputation,  vol.  ii..  p.  351. 

J  P.  519.     ' 

§  A  Pilgrimage  to  the  Land  of  my  Fathers,  vol.  ii.,  p.  334 

f  The  Lands  of  the  Saracen,  ch.  v.,  p.  78 ;  cli.  vi.,  p.  100. 


48  CHAPTER  VIII. 

% 

"The  Latins,''  says  a  German  Protestant — for  all  the  inde- 


hospitality  of  the  Catholic  monks,  if  they  could,  for  they  see 
with  displeasure  their  co-religionists  dwelling  as  guests  within 
the  Latin  monasteries ;  but "  a  Protestant  establishment  is  quite 
out  of  the  question,"  for  the  following  reason  :  "The  several 
parties  would  not  easily  agree  to  whom  it  should  belong, 
whether  to  the  Calvinists  or  to  the  Lutherans,  to  the  Presby 
terians  or  to  the  Anglican  Church."*  A  little  later,  however, 
they  escaped  from  their  embarrassment ;  they  could  not  unite 
in  erecting  a  monastery  or  a  church,  but  they  combined  their 
resources  and  built  an  hotel. 

In  1857,  Mr.  Gibson  repeats  a  tale  which  has  now  become 
somewhat  monotonous.  "  As  yet,  few  Hebrews  have  been 
induced  here  to  profess  Christianity.  Some  even  of  these  have 
gone  lacJc  to  Judaism. "f 

The  failure,  after  twenty  years  of  prodigious  expenditure,  had 
now  become  so  evident,  and  people  at  home  were  beginning  to 
talk  of  it  so  loudly,  that  the  missionaries  seem  to  have  resolved 
that  they  must  make  a  diversion  amongst  the  Christian  sects 
rather  than  continue  to  do  nothing.  But  there  was  this  difficulty, 
that  they  were  pledged  not  to  attempt  to  proselyte  the  oriental 
sectaries.  Relief  came  to  Dr.  Gobat  in  this  perplexity  from  an 
unexpected  quarter.  The  narrator  of  the  incident  is  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Stewart,  who  tells  us,  that  "  Lord  Palmerston  has  authori 
tatively  stated  that  the  bishop  has  a  right  to  receive  those  from 
other  communions  who  apply  to  him  for  instructions."  This 
pontifical  decision  of  the  eminent  statesman  removed,  as  might 
be  expected,  all  difficulty — except  that  of  procuring  the  appli 
cants  for  instructions.  In  this  Lord  Palmerston  could  not  offer 
them  any  assistance.  They  were  left,  therefore,  to  their  usual 
methods;  and  Dr.  Stewart  sufficiently  indicates  what  they  were, 
when  he  expresses  his  regret  that  "there  is  no  way  of  making 
trial  of  a  convert's  sincerity  before  his  admission  into  the  insti 
tution  ;"  and  then  frankly  allows,  that  "the  principle  of  giving 
support  to  every  convert  I  deern  faulty.":): 

VVe  have  perhaps  heard  enough  of  the  Jerusalem  Protestant 
mission  and  its  results,  but  we  must  not  quit  the  subject  without 
a  brief  notice  of  five  important  witnesses — Dr.  Frankl,  Dr. 
"Wolff,  Dr.  Robinson,  Mr.  Williams,  and  Dr.  Thomson, — a  Jew,  a 

*  Countess  Halm-Halm,  Letter  xxix. 

+  Recollections  of  other  Lands,  by  William  Gibson,  B.A.,  ch.  xxxviii.,  p.  404. 
;  A  Journey   to  Syria  and  Palestine,  by  Robert  Walter  Stewart,    D.D. 
(Leghorn),  ch.  viii.,  pp.  294,  iI03. 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   LEVANT,  ETC.  49 

proselyte,  and  three  Protestants,  who  have  all  dwelt  in  Jerusalem, 
and  who  confirm  each  other's  testimony  in  an  unexpected  way. 

The  first  of  these  writers,  whose  work  has  been  introduced 
to  English  readers  by  Mr.  Beaton,  gives  this  account:  "  The 
Protestants  give  earnest-money,  and  demoralize  families.  When 
a  father  sternly  rebukes  his  children,  it  is  not  unusual  for  them 
to  reply  with  the  insolent  threat,  'I  will  go  to  the  mission.'" 
He  mentions  an  example  of  a  Jew  who  had  got  into  difficulties 
by  stealing  two  thousand  five  hundred  piastres,  and  who,  when 
his  co-religionists  "  refused  to  intercede  for  him,  out  of  revenge 
went  to  the  mission ;"  but  as  the  thief  still  had  some  religious 
prepossessions,  he  implored  Dr.  Frankl  to  lend  him  the  sum 
abstracted,  "  to  save  him,  his  wife,  and  six  children  from  being 
baptized  !"  Dr.  Frankl  adds,  that  this  case  "  may  serve  as  an 
example  of  the  morals  and  principles  of  those  who  are  con 
verted  ;"  and  that  so  little  importance  is  attached  to  the  mo 
mentary  profession  of  Protestantism  by  a  Jew,  that  his  family 
content  themselves  with  observing,  "  He  will  soon  come  back 
after  he  has  helped  himself."  Indeed,  we  are  told  by  a  friend 
and  countryman  of  Dr.  Gobat,  that  the  Hebrew  proselyte,  when 
he  has  exhausted  Protestant  benevolence  at  Jerusalem,  "  has 
become  more  than  ever  a  Jew  by  the  time  he  has  reached  Jaffa, 
Hebron,  or  Tiberias."* 

Dr.  Frankl  relates  also  the  curious  fact  that  "  converts"  from 
the  Jews  "  receive  baptism  in  different  cities  before  they  reach 
Jerusalem,"  where  they  are  finally  re-baptized,  with  a  fresh 
payment  for  the  operation  ;  an  account  which  is  confirmed  by 
the  amusing  authoress  of  Travels  in  Barbary,  who  is  much  de 
famed  by  Mr.  Margoliouth  for  presuming  to  say  of  one  of  his 
Jewish  converts,  "  This  is  at  least  the  twentieth  time  he  has 
been  baptized."  And  even  this  was  so  far  from  a  solitary  case, 
that  a  Polish  Jew  remarked  to  some  of  his  friends,  "  Baptism 
was  the  only  good  business  we  had,  and  who  has  spoiled  it? 
The  Jews  themselves,  by  underselling  one  another"^ 

Dr.  Wolff,  who  is  a  still  better  witness  than  Dr.  Frankl, 
gives  a  sorrowful  account  of  the  London  Society  for  the  Con 
version  of  the  Jews.  In  fifty-two  years,  he  says,  not  without 
reproaching  himself  for  his  own  pleasantry,  "they  had  spent 
eight  hundred  thousand  pounds,  and  only  converted  two  Jews 

*  Mislin.  Les  Lieux  Saints,  tome  iii.,  ch.  xxviii.,  p.  65. 

f  The  Jews  in  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  pp.  53,  54.  Yet  the  Protestant  mis 
sionaries,  knowing  what  their  employers  expect  from  them,  are  never  weary 
of  supplying  the  materials  for  perpetuating  the  delusion  of  the  home  subscri 
bers.  Thus  one  of  their  number  gravely  assures  his  readers,  on  the  authority 
of  a  Jew,  that  "in  six  years  all  the  Jews  would  become  Christians  !"  Mason, 
Three  Years  in  Turkey,  p.  137. 

VOL.  ii.  5 


50  CHAPTER   VIII. 

and  a  half  I"*  Nearly  half  a  century  ago,  the  Rev.  Lewis 
Way,  ai  Anglican  minister,  generously  discharged  all  their 
liabilities,  "  took  sixteen  Jews  into  his  own  house,  and  baptized 
several  of  them ;  but,  soon  after  their  baptism,  they  stolehis  silver 
spoons,  and  one  of  them  was  transported  to  Australia,  having 
forged  Mr.  Way's  signature." 

The  history  which  began  so  inauspiciously  never  varied. 
A  little  later,  "  a  young  man  of  extraordinary  talents,  Nehe- 
miah  Solomon,  was  ordained  by  Bishop  Burgess,  ....  and 
seemed  to  be  going  on  well,  when  he  suddenly  ran  away,  after 
having  drawn  three  hundred  pounds  from  the  society,  and  was 
never  heard  of  afterwards."  Other  examples  of  the  same  kind 
so  deeply  affected  Mr.  Way,  that  "  at  last  the  dear  man  died 
at  Leamington,  broken-hearted." 

Dr.  Wollf  himself  was  hardly  less  impressed  by  a  similar 
series  of  disasters.  "The  Jews'  Society  for  Promoting  Chris 
tianity,"  he  wrote  to  his  friend,  Mr.  Henry  Drumrnond,  "has 
been  disappointed  by  every  Jew  they  took  up.  One  became  a 
Muhammedan,  another  a  thief,  a  third  a  pickpocket,"  &c.  At 
Cairo,  "  a  Jew  of  high  talent"  visited  Dr.  Wolff,  and  confessed 
"  that  he  had  three  times  professed  himself  a  Muhainmedan,  in 
order  to  make  his  fortune,  and  had  divorced  a  dozen  wives," 
&c.  Upon  which  he  adds,  "  Wolff  preached  to  him  the  Gospel 
of  Christ,  and  exhorted  him  to  repentance."  It  does  not  appear 
that  the  exhortation  was  effectual. 

At  Damascus,  Aleppo,  Jerusalem,  wherever  lie  went,  He 
brew  "  converts"  were  uniformly  of  the  same  type,  so  that  his 
abundant  experience  constrained  him  to  observe,  "  Jews  who 
are  converted  by  societies  are  like  Eastern  fruits  cultivated  in 
green-houses  in  Europe,  and  have  not  the  flavor  of  those  which 
are  naturally  grown."  Yet  he  never  seems  to  have  suspected 
the  true  cause  of  so  many  failures,  though  he  confesses  that 
many  Jews  who  had  become  Catholics  have  been  Christians 
indeed.  "  Emanuel  Yeit,  in  Yienna,"  he  says;  "the  two 
Yeits,  step-sons  to  Friederich  Schlegel ;  Monsieur  Ratisbon,  of 
Strasbourg ;  are  all  true  lights  in  the  Church  of  Christ."  lie 
admits  too,  with  his  usual  candor,  that  Ratisbon  was  converted 
like  St.  Paul,  "  suddenly,  by  miracle," — an  apparition  of  the 
Mother  of  God  ;  and  he  adds,  "  Only  those  Jews  who  are  con 
verted  in  such  an  extraordinary  way  are  worth  any  thing.rf 

Dr.  Robinson,  the  author  of  a  well-known  work  on  the  to 
pography  of  Jerusalem,  confirms  all  the  other  witnesses.  a  The 
efforts  of  the  English  mission"  he  seems  to  think  unworthy  of 

*  Travels  and  Adventures  of  Dr.  Wolff,  ch.  xxiv.,  p.  417  (1861). 
f  Ch.  v.,  pp.  80,  85 ;  ch.  vi.,  p.  181. 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  51 

serious  notice ;  while  of  his  own  countrymen,  the  Americans, 

he  gives  the  following  account :  "  The  house  of ,"  one  of  the 

missionaries,  "was  large,  with  marble  floors,  and  had  on  one 
side  an  extensive  and  pleasant  garden,  with  orange  and  other 
fruit  trees  and  many  flowers.  It  furnished  indeed  one  of  the 
most  desirable  and  beautiful  residences  in  the  city."  We  have 
been  told  by  the  wife  of  another  American  missionary,  that 
"many  are  the  comforts  and  pleasant  things  about  this  life  in 
the  East,"  and  her  countrymen  evidently  agree  with  her.  Sur 
rounded  by  so  many  enjoyments,  to  which  they  would  probably 
have  aspired  in  vain  in  Boston  or  Philadelphia,  we  are  not 
surprised  to  learn  from  Dr.  Robinson,  that "  the  plague  and  other 
circumstances"  soon  scattered  these  opulent  missionaries,  and 
even  "  conspired  to  suspend  wholly,  for  a  time,  the  labors  of 
the  American  mission  in  Jerusalem." 

There  is  another  class  of  missionaries  whom  the  plague  some 
times  kills,  but  never  puts  to  flight.  The  Protestant  agents, — • 
who  would  undertake  at  any  moment  to  teach  a  St.  Francis,  a 
Bonnieux,  or  a  Riccadonna,  a  more  "scriptural"  and  enlight 
ened  piety, — prefer  to  run  away  when  danger  knocks  at  their 
doors;  and  so  Dr.  Robinson  relates,  as  if  the  precaution  of  his 
missionary  friends  was  too  natural  to  require  any  comment, 
that  though  on  this  occasion  the  plague  only  acted  "  mildly," 
"  the  missionaries  broke  off  their  sittings,  and  those  from  abroad 
hastened  to  depart  with  their  families  !"* 

It  was  almost  at  this  moment  that  the  author  of  a  celebrated 
English  book  published  the  following  narrative:  "It  was 
about  three  months  after  the  time  of  my  leaving  Jerusalem 
that  the  plague  set  his  spotted  foqt  on  the  Holy  City.  The 
monks  felt  great  alarm ;  they  did  not  shrink  from  their  duty. 
...  A  single  monk  was  chosen,  either  by  lot,  or  by  some  other 
fair  appeal  to  destiny ;  being  thus  singled  out,  he  was  to  go 
forth  into  the  plague-stricken  city,  and  to  perform  with  exact 
ness  his  priestly  duties.  .  .  .  He  was  provided  with  a  bell,  and 
at  a  certain  hour  in  the  morning  he  was  ordered  to  ring  it,  if 
h#  could  ;  but  if  no  sound  was  heard  at  the  appointed  time, 
then  his  brethren  knew  that  he  wras  either  delirious  or  dead, 
and  another  martyr  was  sent  forth  to  take  his  place.  In  this 
way  tioenty-one  of  the  monks  were  carried  off"^ 

Dr.  Robinson,  who  does  not  love  Catholics,  is  fain  to  confess 
that  they  do  not  much  resemble  his  own  friends.  Of  their 
inflexible  constancy,  although  surrounded  by  every  evil  ex 
ample,  he  gives  this  instance :  "  The  Christians  of  the  Latin 
rite  (native  Arabs)  are  said  to  be  descended  from  Catholic  con- 

*  Pages  327,  368. 
f  Eothen,  ch.  x. 


52  CHAPTER  VIII. 

verts  in  the  times  of  the  Crusades."  Centuries  have  left  them  un 
changed.  The  Catholic  college  in  Kesrawan,  in  which  they 
teach  Arahic,  Syriac,  Latin,  and  Italian,  "  takes  a  higher  stand," 
he  says,  "  than  any  other  similar  establishment  in  Syria." 
"What  he  relates  of  the  Maronites  we  shall  learn  hereafter. 
The  Protestants,  he  superfluously  observes,  u  do  not  exist  in 
Syria  as  a  native  sect." 

Lastly,  Mr.  Williams,  a  highly  respectable  Anglican  clergy 
man,  and  once  a  chaplain  in  Jerusalem, — who,  like  most  of  his 
order,  remains  wholly  unimpressed  even  by  the  lamentable  facts 
which  he  discloses, — gives  us  the  following  information  :  "  It 
was  an  unfortunate  circumstance  for  our  Church  that  it  was 
first  introduced  to  the  Christians  of  Jerusalem,  in  later  times, 
by  a  Danish  Lutheran  minister."  The  Church  of  Mr.  Williams 
has  usually  been  introduced  by  persons  of  the  same  class.  This 
one,  he  says,  wTas  admitted  u  to  orders  in  the  English  Church, 
on  grounds  of  convenience  rather  than  of  conviction."  But  the 
Church  of  England,  if  she  cannot  produce  missionaries  of  her 
own,  is  wealthy  enough  to  pay  for  the  services  of  others.  "  A 
church  capable  of  accommodating  four  or  five  hundred  persons 
was  commenced,"  Mr.  Williams  remarks,  "  while  as  yet  there 
were  but  eight  or  ten  individuals  for  whom  it  would  be  avail 
able,  and  even  they  were  there  simply  with  a  view  to  its  con 
struction  !"  They  were,  he  adds,  "  the  clergyman,  the  architect, 
and  his  clerk,  the  foreman  of  the  works,  the  carpenter,  an  apoth 
ecary,  and  one  other."*  For  this  professional  congregation  a 
church  was  commenced,  which,  Dr.  Durbin  says,  "  will  cost 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars." 

Mr.  Williams  next  describes  the  operations  of  the  gentlemen 
who  minister  in  this  church  :  "  The  missionary  operations  of  the 
society's  agents  have  not  been  such  as  to  exhibit  to  the  natives 
an  example  of  earnest  zeal  for  the  conversion  of  the  Jews,  nor 
the  treatment  of  the  converts  such  as  to  impress  them  with  a 
favorable  idea  of  their  discretion."  He  laments  the  "  serious 
errors  and  defects  in  the  faith,  scandalous  irregularities  and 
excesses  in  the  practice,  of  the  ill-instructed  members  of  this 
small  congregation."  Finally,  he  observes,  that  "self-sacrifices 
and  simple  trust  were  not  taught  either  by  precept  or  example 
by  the  missionaries  at  Jerusalem. "f  Yet  Mr.  Williams  has 
probably  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  system  will  continue,  at 

*  The  Ildij  City,  pp.  579,  587. 

f  P.  593.  "Mr.  Salt  complained  that  the  London  Society  for  promoting 
Christianity  among  the  Jews  had  sent  a  most  unfit  missionary  to  Jerusalem. . . 
who  was  evidently  a  mere  speculator.  He  sold  medicine  to  the  ladies,  in  order 
that  they  might  be  blessed  with  children,  and  pretended  to  know  witchcraft." 
I>r.  Wolff,  Travels  and  Adventures,  ch.  vi.,  p.  107. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,   ETC.  53 

the  same  enormous  cost,  under  the  direction  of  the  same  class 
of  men,  and  with  precisely  the  same  results. 

This  amiable  wrfter,  who  records  facts  but  seems  never  to 
draw  conclusions,  describes  also  "  the  very  unsatisfactory  native 
Protestants"  made  by  the  Americans, — during  the  intervals  of 
"  the  plague  and  other  circumstances," — and  gives  examples  of 
the  class  generally.  One,  an  unfortunate  Greek  apostate,  "  the 
most  favorable  specimen  by  far,"  after  being  first  an  Inde 
pendent,  then  an  Anglican,  "  had  fallen  into  a  state  of  listless 
indifference  and  unconcern  which  it  was  most  grievous  to  wit 
ness."  A  second,  a  Greek  monk,  "offered  himself  to  Bishop 
Gobat  as  a  Protestant  convert."  His  sole  motive  was,  "  that 
the  Patriarch  had  imposed  upon  him  some  discipline  to  which 
he  did  not  choose  to  submit."  Another,  "  a  monk  from  Mount 
Lebanon,  told  me  he  wished  to  become  a  Protestant.  'Why?' 
4 1  want  to  marry.'  c  No  other  reason  ?'  '  None.'  "* 

Lastly,  in  1862,  Dr.  Thomson  thus  records  his  candid  im 
pressions,  after  an  experience  of  twenty-five  years  as  a  mission 
ary  in  Syria  and  Palestine  :  "  Our  missionary  experience  in 
this  matter  is  most  painful,  and  I  hope  somewhat  peculiar.  It 
would  not  be  charitable — possibly  not  just — to  say  to  every 
applicant,  You  seek  us,  not  because  you  have  examined  our 
doctrines  and  believe  them,  but  for  the  loaves  and  fishes  of 
some  worldly  advantage  which  you  hope  to  obtain  ;  and  yet  it  is 
difficult  for  me  at  this  moment  to  recall  a  single  instance  in 
which  this  was  not  the  first  moving  motive."  Then  relating  an 
anecdote  of  a  pretended  disciple  of  Dr.  Chalmers,  who  "  almost 
kicked  the  mercenary  wretch  out  of  his  house"  when  he  found 
that  he  wanted  to  borrow  money  of  him,  he  adds,  that  if 
Chalmers  "had  adopted  the  same  summary  mode  in  Palestine, 
he  might  just  as  well  have  remained  at  home  in  his  mother's 
nursery  for  all  the  good  he  would  have  effected  here."f 

Such,  by  the  testimony  of  her  own  clergy,  as  well  as  of 
strangers,  is  the  history  of 'the  Church  of  England  in  Jerusalem. 
It  resembles  her  history  everywhere  else.,  but  in  the  Holy  City 
wicli  facts  seem  to  acquire  additional  gravity.  Nor  is  this  all. 
Not  only  do  Protestants  fail,  in  Jerusalem  as  elsewhere,  to 
propagate  their  own  religious  opinions,  they  appear  even  to 
lose  in  no  small  number  of  cases,  whatever  sentiment  of  re 
ligion  they  originally  possessed.  None  but  a  Catholic  can 
safely  visit  holy  places,  much  less  the  scenes  where  th,e  Spn  of 
God  passed  the  years  of  His  human  life.  ^  It  is  useless  to 
deny,"  says  Mr.  Stanley,  "  that  there  is  a  sliock  to  the  religious 

*  Pages  578,  595. 

f  The  Land  an$  the  Book,  ch.  xxvii.,  p.  408. 


54:  CHAPTER  Vlir. 

sentiment  in  finding  ourselves  on  the  actual  ground  of  events 
which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  regard  as  transacted  in 
heaven  rather  than  on  earth."*  In  other  words,  only  the  be 
liever,  whose  religion  \9>  faith  and  not  sentiment,  and  who  is 
able  to  penetrate  with  unerring  glance  all  symbolical  and  sacra 
mental  veils,  and  quick  to  recognize  the  footsteps  which  the 
instinct  of  love  alone  can  detect,  may  venture  to  put  himself 
in  contact  with  Hebron,  Gethsemane,  and  Calvary.  They,  are 
death  to  others.  So  like  do  they  look  to  other  places,  so  little 
do  they  reveal  to  the  natural  eye  their  stupendous  secrets,  that 
many  who  come  to  gaze  cease  even  to  believe.  "  The  com 
mander  of  an  English  man-of-war  told  me,"  says  a  writer  of 
our  own  country,  "  that  he  once  accompanied  a  party  of  twenty 
from  his  own  ship  to  Jerusalem,  and  that,  out  of  that  number, 
seven  returned  unbelievers,  not  merely  in  the  authenticity  of 
localities,  but  in  Christianity  itself?'f  Such  is  the  value  of 
"  religious  sentiment." 

And  even  when  the  results  of  their  visit  are  less  fatal  than 
this,  they  are  in  a  vast  number  of  cases  sufficiently  serious.  It 
is  hardly  possible  to  find  a  Protestant  writer  of  any  country 
who  does  not  apply  to  the  Holy  Places  precisely  the  same  tone 
of  criticism  in  which  he  would  discuss  the  ruins  of  Pompeii  or 
the  fossils  of  Maine  and  New  Jersey.  Indeed  he  displays,  not 
unfrequently,  a  far  deeper  interest  in  relics  of  the  latter  class 
than  of  the  former,  as  well  as  a  more  intelligent  submission  to 
the  testimonies  of  history  and  science.  In  Jerusalem  he  is 
"scandalized"  at  every  step.  "The  American,"  says  a  mis 
sionary  of  that  nation,  "  who  has  been  pointed  to  (sic)  Plymouth 
Rock,  Bunker  Hill,  or  Mount  Yernon,  and  yielded  to  the  hal 
lowed  impressions  of  certainty,  must  beware  how  he  carries 
the  same  reverential  feelings  into  the  East.":):  What,  he  seems 
to  say,  are  the  true  sites  of  the  Scourging  or  the  Anointing, 
compared  with  Bunker  Hill  and  Plymouth  Rock  ? 

But  Mr.  Perkins  is  rivalled  by  English  and  German  writers. 
"  The  one  spot,"  says  Mr.  Dawson  Borrer,  "  which  arrested 
more  especially  my  attention,"  in  that  city  which  was  to  him 
only  "  a  horrid  atmosphere  of  mockery,"  was  not  Calvary,  nor 
the  Ccenaculum,  nor  the  Hall  of  Judgment ;  but  a  certain 
"  spot,"  on  which  it  was  "probable  that  a  bridge  of  Jewish  con 
struction  once  existed  !"§ 

"  I  went  without  the  slightest  faith,"  says  Miss  Brerner,  in  a 
book  which  is  nevertheless  full  of  false  sentiment  and  artificial 

*  Stanley,  Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  426. 

f  Mrs.  Duwson  Darner,  ch.  iv.,  p.  92. 

|  Residence  in  Persia,  &c.,  by  Rev.  Justin  Perkins,  p.  275. 

§  Journey  from  Naples  to  Jerusalem,  by  Dawson  Borrer,  Esq.,  ch.  xxiv.,  p.  404. 


55 

patlios,  "  to  the  sepulchre  of  Christ — the  Church  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre."  She  confesses,  indeed,  that  she  was  somewhat 
moved  by  "  the  evidently  deep  devotion  of  the  pilgrims," 
though  she  considered  the  whole  scene  "  a  childish  spectacle," 
and  "thinks  that  "  our  rational  Protestant  Church"  may  be 
excused  for  protesting  against,  "custom  and  superstition,  by 
standing  rigid  and  stiff,  where  the  Catholic  and  Greek  Churches 
bend  their  knees  and  apply  their  ardent  adoring  lips."* 

Another  English  traveller  of  great  repute,  the  learned  Dr. 
Clarke,  tells  his  readers  that  St.  Helena  was  "  the  old  lady  to 
whose  charitable  donations  these  repositories  of  superstition 
were  principally  indebted  ;"  while  of  one  tradition,  referring  to 
the  dwelling-place  of  the  Holy  Family,  a  subject  which  only 
excited  his  merriment,  he  briefly  remarks,  "  A  disbelief  of  the 
whole  mummery  seems  best  suited  to  the  feelings  of  Prot 
estants.'^  Perhaps  he  was  right. 

It  is  certain,  at  least,  that  most  of  his  co-religionists  agree 
with  him.  "  To  Protestant  Christians,"  says  an  Anglican 
bishop,  as  if  resolved  to  show  that  men  of  his  order  could  sur 
pass  all  others  in  fanatical  impiety,  "  it  almost  seems  as  if  there 
were  more  need  for  a  crusade  to  deliver  the  sacred  scenes  of 
Palestine  from  Christian  idolaters,  than  there  ever  was  to 
rescue  it  from  the  followers  of  the  False  Prophet."^:  A  Mus 
sulman,  in  this  gentleman's  opinion,  is  far  less  obnoxious  than 
a  Catholic.  Another  highly  respectable  Anglican  minister 
considers  the  Turkish  occupation  quite  a  providential  fact, 
expressly  designed  to  check  the  growth  of  "  idolatry,"  and 
quotes,  apparently  with  approval,  the  saying  of  Mahomet  in 
the  Koran,  "The  Christians  have  forgotten  what  they  re 
ceived  from  God."§ 

And  while  some  are  content  to  revile  the  Christians,  others 
avow  their  misgivings  about  Christianity  itself.  "  As  I  toiled 
up  the  Mount  of  Olives,"  says  a  Protestant  writer  in  1855, 
"in  the  very  footsteps  of  Christ,  I  found  it  utterly  impossible 
to  conceive  that  the  Deity,  in  human  form,  had  walked  there 


*  Travels  in  the  Holy  Land,  by  Fredricka  Bremer,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iv.,  pp.  112-16. 
This  writer,  who  is  too  much  absorbed  in  self- worship  to  be  able  to  worship 
any  thing  else,  denies  the  site  of  Calvary  altogether,  doubts  "  the  miracle  of 
the  re-awakening  of  Lazarus  to  life,"  and  a  good  many  other  things  "  related 
in  the  Bible  ;"  but  on  the  other  hand  she  admires  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Gobat,  though 
she  regrets  that  not  many  of  their  converts  "  have  been  considered  as  remark 
ably  good  Christians." 

f  Travels  in  Various  Countries,  by  E.  D.  Clarke,  LL.D.,  vol.  iv.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  174. 

\.  Palestine,  or  the  Holy  Land,  by  the  llight  liev.  M.  Russell,  of  St.  John's 
College,  Oxford,  ch.  ix.,  p.  380  (I860). 

§  Scripture  Lands  in  connection  with  their  History,  by  G.  S.  Drew,  M.A., 
Incumbent  of  St.  Barnabas,  South  Kennington,  ch.  x.,  p.  357  (1862). 


56 


CHAPTER   VIII. 


before  me."  And  so,  he  adds,  "  I  preferred  doubting  the  tra 
dition."* 

Yet  there  is  perhaps  nothing  in  which  all  races  of  men,  save 
only  Protestants,  are  so  absolutely  of  one  mind,  as  in  the  tra 
ditions  which  relate  to  the  holy  sites.  "  Even  the  Mussulmans 
themselves,"  as  a  learned  archaeologist  observes,  "  have  always 
been  of  one  mind  with  the  Christians  as  to  the  authenticity  of 
our  sanctuaries. "f  "  The  voice  of  tradition  at  Jerusalem,"  says 
the  author  of  Eothen,  "is  quite  unanimous,  and  Romans, 
Greeks,  Armenians,  and  Jews,  all  hating  each  other  sincerely, 
concur  in  assigning  the  same  localities  to  the  events  told  in 
the  Gospel."  "The  Biblical  traditions,"  adds  M.  de  Saulcy, 
"  are  imperishable.  Here  nothing  alters  connected  with  the 
Bible ;  nothing  is  changed,  not  even  a  name  ;  the  memory  of 
human  transactions  alone  has  been  lost." 

But  there  is  no  admonition  in  these  facts  for  men  who  would 
trace  with  a  puerile  enthusiasm  the  path  of  some  favorite  hero 
or  national  idol,  and  even  strew  it  with  costly  monuments ;  but 
who,  when  it  is  a  question  of  One  who  is  to  them  little  more 
than  an  historical  phantom,  or  at  best  an  object  of  "religious 
sentiment,"  prefer  "doubting  the  tradition."  "Many  Prot 
estants,"  says  a  well-known  writer  already  quoted,  "  look 
upon  all  the  traditions  by  which  it  is  attempted  to  ascertain 
the  Holy  Places  of  Palestine  as  utterly  fabulous.";):  The  house 
of  Shakespeare,  the  birthplace  of  Newton,  or  the  coat  of 
Nelson,  are  relics  which  they  defend  against  all  comers,  for 
in  these  they  avow  a  personal  interest ;  but  the  house  of  Joseph, 
the  birthplace  of  Mary,  or  the  robe  of  Jesus, — these  are  only 
the  theme  of  a  jest,  or  scouted  as  "  utterly  fabulous."  It  is 
worthy  of  men  and  philosophers  to  guard  in  sumptuous  shrines 
the  mementoes  of  fellow-men,  who  no  longer  afford  nourish 
ment  even  to  worms  ;  but  it  is  only  a  feeble  superstition  which 
is  careful  about  the  despised  relics  which  the  God-Man,  or  His 
Immaculate  Mother,  have  left  on  earth.  Protestants  prefer 
"  doubting  the  tradition"  which  relates  only  to  such  memorials. § 
This  method  of  obliterating  importunate  traditions  which 

*  Bayard  Taylor,  cli.  v.,  pp.  74,  84. 

f  La  Terre  Sainte,  par  M.  1'Abbe  BourassiS,  ch.  iv.,  p.  65. 

J  Eothen,  ch.  ix. 

§  A  learned  English  traveller  observes,  without  so  much  as  the  thought  of 
criticism  in  this  case,  that  the  "  well  authenticated  relic"  of  Mahomet's  beard 
"constitutes  the  sanctity  which  Moslems  attach  to  the  city  of  Cairwaan."  Davis' 
Ruined  Cities,  &c.,  p.  273.  Of  the  supposed  Tomb  of  Hiram,  near  Tyre,  for  which 
there  is  not  a  single  authority  "  except  native  tradition,"  a  Protestant  missionary 
says,  "  As  there  is  nothing  in  the  monument  itself  inconsistent  with  the  idea,  1 
am  inclined  to  allow  the  claim  to  pass  unquestioned."  Thomson,  The  Land  and 
the  Book,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  19U.  It  is  only  the  Christian  traditions  which  are  denied, 


MISSIONS  IN  THE   LEVANT,  ETC.  57 

they  desire  only  to  discredit,  "  meets  with  much  approbation," 
we  are  told,  "  in  speculative  Germany ;"  where,  however, 
they  venerate  Luther's  inkstand,  and  other  relics  of  the  same 
value.  "I  have  undertaken,"  says  a  German  writer,  "to 
convey  to  the  American  missionaries  at  Jerusalem  the  pamph 
let  of  a  Protestant  clergyman,  who  disputes  the  locality  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre,  without  ever  having  been  at  the  place!"*  If 
he  had  been  there,  he  would  perhaps  have  disputed  the  Cruci 
fixion. 

Indeed,  these  gentlemen  are  prepared  to  dispute  any  thing. 
"Even  the  Via  Dolorosa"  Dr.  Robinson  gayly  remarks,  "seems 
to  have  been  first  got  up  during  or  after  the  times  of  the 
crusades;"  although,  as  Tischendorft'  observes,  "the  real  road 
along  which  Christ  walked  must  have  taken  this  direction." 
Dr.  Robinson  appears  in  this  case  to  have  been  guilty  at  least 
of  an  anachronism.  Half  a  century  ago,  people  used  to  accept 
language  of  this  kind  in  place  of  wit,  and  many  reputations 
were  cheaply  gained  by  such  means.  The  world  has  grown 
more  exacting,  and  no  longer  regards  a  bad  jest  as  a  substitute 
for  modesty,  wisdom,  and  learning,  f 

"Alas !  for  the  pilgrim,"  said  the  lamented  Mr.  "Warburton, — 
to  whose  soul  may  God  grant  rest — "  who  can  scoff  within  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem !"  But  there  are  men  who  can  do  worse 
than  scoff,  not  only  in  Jerusalem,  but  within  the  precincts  of 
the  Holy  Sepulchre.  In  that  spot  where  Angels  tread  with 
fear  and  awe,  but  where  schismatics  jest  and  harangue,  the 
writer  was  lately  informed  by  a  relative,  an  Anglican  clergy 
man,  that  "the  only  visitors  who  were  not  prostrate  on  their 
faces  were  Turks  and  English  Protestants,  but  that  the  former 
were  much  the  more  reverent  of  the  two."  And  this  very  rev 
erence  at  the  tomb  of  Christ,  before  which  the  holy  women  once 
watched  with  heavy  hearts,  only  moves  the  disdain  of  the  dis 
ciples  of  Luther  and  Calvin  and  Cranmer.  "I  have  never  seen 

and  this  very  writer  scoffs  at  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  finds  the  tomb  of  Lazarus 
"every  way  unsatisfactory,  and  almost  disgusting,"  and  "came  out  of  the 
Church  of  the  Ascension  with  feelings  of  utter  disgust."  Ch.  xliv.,  pp.  675,  697. 
Yet  he  is  one  of  the  most  temperate  of  his  class. 

*  Countess  Hahn-Hahn,  Letter  xxvii. 

f  How  different  is  the  temper  of  Christian  faith !  "  The  faithful  have  a 
special  light,  over  and  above  tradition,"  says  one  who  appears  to  have  been 
taught  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  "to  keep  them  right  about  the  sites  of  the  Holy 
Places."  The  same  writer  observes,  "that  devotion  to  the  Holy  Land  is  a 
hidden  support  to  Catholic  kingdoms, — that  our  Lady  prayed  that  Catholics 
might  always  have  the  sanctuary  of  Bethlehem  in  their  hands, — that  heathen 
and  misbelievers  gain  temporal  blessings  from  living  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
Holy  Places," — and  finally,  "that  the  sins  of  men  have  forfeited  the  peculiar 
custody  of  the  Holy  Places  which  our  Lady  established."  Maria  Agreda, 
quoted  by  F.  Faber,  Bethlehem,  ch.  vii.,  p.  382. 


58  CHAPTER  VIII. 

any  thing  so  abject"  says  one  of  them,  "as  the  conduct  of  the 
pilgrims  before  the  altar  in  the  Calvary  chapel.  You  can 
scarcely  recognize  them  as  men."*  To  lie  prostrate,  and  to 
weep,  at  the  tomb  of  the  Saviour,  this  gentleman  deems  abject 
degradation.  "  I  plead  guilty,"  says  a  distinguished  British 
officer,  "  to  having  neither  wept,  pulled  off  my  boots,  nor  per 
formed  any  other  antics"  in  the  Holy  Sepulchre ;  such  is  his 
rebuke  to  "pilgrims  of  another  order,  who  advanced  with  bare 
feet  and  many  tears. "f  And  this  exactly  agrees  with  the 
equally  cynical  remarks  of  an  Anglican  missionary  in  Ceylon, 
who  once  witnessed  certain  ceremonies  in  a  Catholic  church 
which  provoked  a  similar  comment:  "The  great  events  of  onr 
Lord's  conception,  birth,  and  life ;  His  last  agony,  trial,  death, 
&c.;  are  all  acted  as  upon  a  theatre.  The  poor  enthusiasts  are 
pleased  and  affected  at  these  scenes.":):  He  seems  to  marvel 
that  they  did  not  share  his  own  indifference. 

One  effect  of  the  temper  displayed,  with  rare  exceptions,  by 
Anglican  and  American  missionaries  in  the  East,  is  to  be  traced 
in  the  intense  scorn  and  indignation  which  they  have  excited 
amongst  the  oriental  races.  Thus  the  Maronites,  we  are  told, 
"now  confound  under  the  common  name  of  biblicals  all  who 
belong  to  the  British  nation,  and  the  English  tourist  can  hardly 
traverse  the  Libanus  without  peril."§ 

Mr.  Farley,  however,  while  he  patriotically  declares  that, 
without  compromising  his  personal  opinions,  he  enjoyed,  in 
every  part  of  Syria,  the  most  courteous  and  cordial  reception 
both  from  priests  and  people,  and  that  it  is  the  fault  of  every 
English  traveller  if  he  does  not  experience  the  same  hospitality, 
allows  that  the  Americans,  whom  it  was  not  his  business  to 
defend,  are  universally  detested.  "This,  I  think,  is  to  be  attrib 
uted  to  the  manner  in  which  they  speak  of  every  thing.  Sterne 
says,  'I  hate  the  man  who  can  travel'  from  Dan  to  Beersheba, 
and  say,  "Tis  all  barren;'  but  such  is  the  usual  mode  of  ex 
pression  with  American  travellers.  The  traditions  of  ages  are 
overturned,  and  the  local  prejudices  of  the  people  are  shocked 
by  the  bold  and  free  manner  in  which  they  express  their 
thoughts.  Kefr  Kenna  is  not  the  Cana  of  Galilee;  the  Grotto 
of  the  Annunciation  is  not  the  veritable  grotto ;  Mount  Tabor 
is  not  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration  ;  the  Workshop  of  Joseph 
is  a  myth ;  and  so  on.  They  would  even  deny  that  the  Fountain 
of  the  Virgin  is  the  true  fountain ;  but,  unfortunately,  there  is 

*  The  Wanderer  in  Syria,  by  G.  W.  Curtis,  ch.  xi.,  p.  211. 
•j-  Colonel  Napier,  Reminiscences,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  137. 
t  Rev.  Mr.  Clough,  quoted  in  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  i.,  p.  582. 
|  Gorrespondance  d' Orient,  par  M.  Michaud  de  1' Academic  Fransaise,  et  M. 
Poujoulat,  tome  viii.,  p.  89. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  59 

not  another  fountain  in  the  place.  What  a  pity  there  is  not  a 
fountain  at  the  other  end  of  the  town,  so  as  to  afford  some 
reason  for  doubt  !"* 

It  is  creditable  to  the  more  enlightened  class  of  Protestants, 
that  the  excesses  of  the  missionaries  are  generally  corrected  by 
the  spontaneous  testimony,  sometimes  by  the  indignant  rebukes, 
of  lay  travellers.  The  readers  of  Mr.  Farley's  work  on  Syria 
will  remember  the  case  of  "  the  Eev.  John  Baillie,  minister  of 
the  Free  Church  of  Scotland,"  whose  "vulgar  and  brutal 
bigotry"  in  the  monastery  of  Mount  Carmel  was  repudiated, 
with  such  eloquent  disgust,  by  a  multitude  of  English  and 
Scotch  tourists.  But  to  return  to  Jerusalem. 

It  is  true  that  the  Holy  City  is  the  scene  of  almost  daily 
scandals,  which  dishonor  Christianity  in  the  sight  of  the 
unbeliever;  but  this  is  only  another  of  the  bitter  fruits  of 
schism.  "II  s'y  passait  des  choses  bien  plus  convenables  a 
des  salles  de  spectacles  et  a  des  bacchantes  qu'a  des  temples  et 
a  des  coeurs  contrits."f  Yet  even  these  horrors  are  as  nothing 
to  those  which  were  enacted  on  the  same  spot  eighteen  centu 
ries  ago,  before  the  same  two  classes  of  spectators ;  of  whom, 
then  as  now,  the  one  "  wagged  their  tongues  and  shook  their 
heads,"  the  other  "smote  their  breasts,"  and  went  home  to 
weep  and  pray. 

It  is  no  doubt  with  regret  that  France,  Austria,  and  Spain, 
once  the  guardians  of  the  Sepulchre  of  Jesus,  look  on  in  silence, 
and  suffer  the  Russian  to  pollute  that  holy  place.  "  The  Greek 
Easter,"  says  Mr.  Stanley,  and  here  we  may  agree  with  him, 
"  is  the  greatest  moral  argument  against  the  identity  of  the  spot 
which  it  professes  to  honor;  considering  the  place,  the  time, 
and  the  intention  of  the  professed  miracle,  it  is  probably  the 
most  offensive  imposture  to  be  found  in  the  world. "^  Yet  it  is 
patronized  by  Russia,  and  adopted  by  the  whole  Greek  com 
munion,  although,  as  Dr.  Wilson  forcibly  observes,  "compared 
with  the  annual  miracle  of  the  Greek  Church  in  the  crypt  of 
the  Holy  Sepulchre,  the  great  festival  of  the  Aztecs,'1 — the 

*  Tnco  Years  in  Syria,  ch.  xxxiv.  It  is  impossible  to  omit  here  the  impres 
sive  admonition  suggested  in  a  recent  work  of  the  learned  De  Saul«;y,  whose 
cautious  proceedings  may  serve  as  a  lesson  to  jaunty  tourists  and  supercilious 
"  missionaries."  When  the  "  Arcade  of  the  Ecce  Homo"  was  first  pointed  out 
to  this  sagacious  observer,  its  character  and  general  appearance  induced  him 
to  "reject  the  Christian  tradition."  Some  time  after,  a  tempest,  which  over 
threw  nearly  forty  houses  in  Jerusalem,  disengaged  the  modern  coating  which 
had  previously  masked  the  House  of  Pilate,  and  revealed  the  circular  arched 
gate  behind  it.  "  From  that  moment,"  adds  M.  de  Saulcy,  "  I  ceased  to  enter 
tain  the  slightest  doubt."  Narrative  of  a  Journey  round  the  Dead  Sea,  ch. 
vii.,  p.  290,  English  edition. 

f  Palestine,  &c.,  par  S.  Hunk,  p.  646. 

J  P.  404. 


60  CHAPTER  VIII. 

"  rekindling  of  the  holy  fire," — "  was  replete  with  significance 
and  solemn  grandeur,  though  stained  with  the  blood  of  their 
hideous  sacrifices."*  But  the  nations  are  no  longer  one,  and 
with  division  has  come  scandal,  reproach,  and  dishonor.  Hence 
the  presence  of  the  Muscovite,  the  Anglican,  and  the  Calvinist 
in  the  Holy  City — hence  the  scorn  of  the  Moslem.  "  It  is 
much  to  be  deplored,"  says  Mr.  Curzon,  "  that  the  Emperor  of 
Russia,  by  his  want  of  principle,  has  brought  the  Christian 
religion  into  disrepute."  But  he  is  only  fulfilling  his  mission 
as  the  head  and  pontiff  of  a  "  national"  Church ;  nor  does  it 
concern  him  to  purify  this  defiled  temple.  His  spiritual  sub 
jects  are  only  political  agents,  and  both  he  and  they  know  it. 
He  knows,  too,  that  the  rrotestants  are  his  sure  allies ;  that 
they,  like  him,  would  rather  see  the  Turk  ruling  in  Jerusalem 
than  the  Frank ;  and  that  even  the  "  abomination  of  desola 
tion"  is  less  offensive  in  their  sight  than  the  Cross  w^ould  be, 
if  it  were  planted  again  on  Mount  Sion. 

We  have  alluded  to  the  influence  of  Russia  in  the  East,  and 
the  selfishness  of  its  aims.  It  will  not  be  out  of  place  to  notice 
briefly  her  pretensions  as  a  missionary  church. 


RUSSIAN    MISSIONS    AND    SLAVONIC    UNITY. 

A  certain  school  of  English  religionists,  now  more  inveter- 
ately  Protestant,  in  spite  of  their  frequent  use  of  Catholic  words 
and  names,  than  any  other  section  of  their  community,  profess 
a  reverence  for  the  Russian  Church  which  the  latter  is  far 
from  reciprocating.  The  motive  of  this  unrequited  homage  is 
transparent.  The  Divine  unity  of  the  Church,  which  is  the 
glory  of  her  children  and  the  despair  of  her  enemies,  which  no 
assault  can  weaken  and  no  art  counterfeit,  but  which  the  school 
in  question  have  long  ceased  to  contemplate  either  with  admira 
tion  or  desire,  now  only  provokes  them  to  anger.  Unable  to 
derive  comfort  from  the  dreary  spectacle  of  their  own  confusion 
and  disorder,  and  unwilling  to  receive  the  admonition  which  it 
suggests,  their  instincts  impel  them  to  seek  in  other  communi 
ties  the  consolation  which  their  own  refuses  to  supply.  Hence 
the  affected  admiration  which  the  organs  of  this  party  now 
display  for  what  they  take  pleasure  in  calling  "  Slavonic  Unity." 

Again:  the  fertility  of  the  missions  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
the  noble  army  of  her  martyrs,  and  the  ever-increasing  multi 
tude  of  her  neophytes,  contrasted  with  the  sterility  of  the  Sects, 

*  Prehistoric  Man,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  126. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,   ETC.  61 

and  the  incurable  earthliness  of  their  salaried  agents,  inspires 
in  the  same  men  no  higher  feeling  than  fretful  jealousy  or 
impatient  malice.  Virtues  which  even  the  savage  has  con 
fessed  to  be  Divine  leave  them  cold  and  indifferent ;  and  sacri 
fices  which  have  converted  nations  on  earth,  and  have  been 
greeted  with  hosannas  in  heaven,  only  kindle  in  their  hearts 
new  resentment  and  redoubled  hate.  They  have  fought  so  long 
against  the  Church,  that  even  her  most  beneficent  triumphs 
have  become  odious  to  them,  and  they  have  resisted  with  such 
fatal  success  the  invitations  of  her  Founder,  that  they  have 
lost  at  last  the  power  to  recognize  either  His  work  or  His  pres 
ence.  Hence  the  querulous  zeal  which  they  have  lately  man 
ifested  in  exalting  what  they  delight  to  call  the  efficacy  of 
"  Russian  Missions." 

Let  us  inquire,  then,  and  chiefly  from  Protestant  sources, 
what  is  the  nature  of  Slavonic  unity,  and  what  are  the  preten 
sions  of  the  Russian  Church  to  be  the  mother  of  apostles. 

In  many  countries,  and  notably  in  our  own,  political  does 
not  imply  religious  unity.  In  Russia,  where  so  many  races 
exist  side  by  side,  and  over  whose  illimitable  steppes  Tartar, 
Slavonic,  Mongol,  and  Hindoo  tribes  are  scattered  without 
being  amalgamated,  the  one  is  only  valued  as  an  instrument  to 
obtain  the  other.  "  We  must  gather  around  Russia,"  said 
Peter  the  Great,  who  was  as  incapable  of  a  religious  motive  as 
of  a  political  mistake,  "  all  the  Greeks  scattered  by  discords, 
who  are  spread  in  Hungary,  in  Turkey,  and  in  the  south  of 
Poland,  make  ourselves  their  centre,  their  support,  and  thus 
found  by  anticipation,  and  ~by  a  sort  of  sacerdotal  supremacy,  a 
universal  hegemony."*  Consistently  with  this  first  principle 
of  Muscovite  policy,  thus  crudely  announced  by  the  astute  bar 
barian,  the  Church  and  the  priesthood,  as  well  as  every  secular 
influence,  are  employed  with  a  tenacity  of  purpose  which 
success  does  not  relax  and  failure  does  not  discourage,  "  simply 
to  aid  and  cover  the  ever  active  ambition  of  the  house  of 
Romanoff,  "f  Yet  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  a  ruler  as  nearly 
omnipotent  as  a  human  agent  can  be,  and  of  measures  as  nearly 
unscrupulous  as  human  conscience  will  permit,  both  the  polit 
ical  and  religious  unity  of  the  Slavonic  races  have  still  no  ex 
istence,  save  in  the  mortified  hopes  of  the  Russian  Czar. 

As  respects  the  latter,  in  spite  of  ceaseless  efforts  to  obtain 
even  an  apparent  uniformity,  there  were  already,  thirty  years 
ago,  "  sixteen  millions,  or  about  one-fourth  of  the  entire  popula- 

*  Leonard  Choderko,  quoted  by  Colonel  Chesney,  The  Russo-  Turkish  Cam 
paigns,  app.,  p.  462. 

f  The  Baltic,  the  Black  Sea,  and  the  Crimea,  by  Charles  Henry  Scott ;  ch. 
xv.,  p.  245,  2d  edition. 


62  CHAPTER   VIII. 

tion,  who  did  not  profess  the  Greek  faith  ;"*  and  as  to  those  who 
do,  while  the  educated  orders,  with  hardly  an  exception,  neither 
care  nor  affect  to  care  for  the  state  religion, — so  that  "  with 
many  of  the  mercantile  classes,  with  most  of  the  employes,  and 
with  the  greater  part  of  the  landed  aristocracy,  all  faith  and 
confidence  in  their  creed  has  long  departed, "f  the  peasants  are 
divided  into  about  fifty  sects,  and  "  the  hatred  and  contempt  of 
these  sects  for  one  another,  and  the  enmity  between  all  of  them 
and  the  orthodox  church,  are  excessive.";):  And  the  evil  as 
sumes  every  year  wider  dimensions.  Since  1840,  as  Golowine 
reports,  the  number  of  Raskolniks,  or  seceders,  has  swelled 
"from  nine  to  thirteen  millions"  being  an  increase  of  four 
million  dissenters  from  the  national  church  in  twenty  years, 
or  two  hundred  thousand  per  annum  !  §  "It  is  by  religious  di 
visions,"  observes  a  well-known  writer,  "  that  the  Russian  em 
pire  will  perish."] 

"  There  is  not  at  this  day,"  says  Schouvaloff,  "  a  single  indi 
vidual,  priest  or  layman,  who  believes  in  the  unity  of  his  church." 
It  is  not  possible  that  any  Russian,  conversant  with  its  actual 
condition,  should  do  so.  "  There  are,"  as  Mr.  Kohl  observes, 
"jive  independent  heads  of  the  Greek  Church  in  Europe"  alone  ;*|[ 
viz.,  the  Archbishop  of  Karlowitz  in  Hungary,  now  an  inde 
pendent  Patriarch,  with  eleven  suffragan  bishops ;  the  Greek 
Synod ;  the  Bishop  of  Montenegro,  an  "  hereditary  metropoli 
tan  ;"**  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  ;  and  the  Emperor  of 
Russia.  And  within  the  empire,  where  no  two  of  the  Russian 
bishops  have  any  spiritual  dependence  upon  or  connection  with 
each  other,  but  are  simply  the  paid  officials  of  a  common  master, 
who  appoints,  degrades,  or  discards  them  at  his  pleasure,  the  fic 
titious  harmony  of  the  ecclesiastical  fabric,  in  which  such  for 
midable  breaches  have  already  been  made,  is  sustained  by 
exactly  the  same  machinery  which  controls  its  civil  and  mili 
tary  institutions.  So  utterly  unknown  in  Russia  is  that  re 
ligious  unity  which  binds  by  a  closer  tie  than  that  of  blood  or 
lineage  Catholics  of  every  tongue  and  race — "  a  oneness  not  to 
be  brought  about  by  human  powers,  oneness  in  believing, 
thought,  and  will."ft 

Many  delusions  have  prevailed  in  England,  and  the  supposed 

*  The  Russian  Shores  of  the  Black  Sea,  by  Laurence  Oliphant,  ch.  xxvii., 
p.  373  (1853). 

'  Revelations  of  Russia,  ch.  xi.,  p.  334  (1844). 
Russia,  by  J.  GK  Kohl,  p.  272  (1842). 

Quoted  by  Dollinger,  The  ChurcJi  and  the  Churches,  p.  141,  ed.  MacCabe. 
La  Russie  en  1839,  par  le  Marquis  de  Custine,  Lettre  xxii.,  p.  134. 
Montenegro  and  the  Slavonians  of  Turkey,  by  Count  Valerian  Krasinski, 
p.  10  (1853). 

**  Austria,  by  J.  G.  Kohl,  p.  259  (1843). 
\\  Moehler. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,  ETC.  C3 

concord  of  the  Russian,  Greek,  and  Oriental  Churches,  is  not  the 
least  notable  among  them.  There  is,  in  fact,  no  longer  any  such 
institution  as  the  "  Greek  Church,"  or  the  "  Oriental  Church," 
in  the  sense  in  which  those  terms  are  employed  by  certain 
Anglican  writers.  "When  De  Maistre  remarked  that  "  the  words 
Oriental  Church,  or  Greek  Church,  have  no  kind  of  meaning 
whatever,"*  he  stated  a  fact  which  no  Greek  or  tiussian  would 
think  of  disputing.  Indeed,  a  Russian  writer  of  our  own  day, 
in  proposing  to  the  world  what  he  considers  the  only  defence 
which  candor  can  offer  or  reason  accept  of  his  own  ecclesias 
tical  position,  begins  by  affirming,  with  great  energy,  that  the 
Russian  Church  has  never  had  any  part  or  lot  with  the  so-called 
Greek  Church,  "  in  whose  frightful  aridity,"  he  adds,  "  no  one 
can  fail  to  recognize  the  terrible  effects  of  Divine  justice."f 
"We  shall  presently  apply  the  same  test  to  his  own  communion. 

Long  ago,  Dr.  Wolff  expressed  surprise  and  sorrow  on  discov 
ering  that  the  "  Greek  Church,"  like  that  of  Russia,  "  is  no 
longer  under  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople."  It  was  Russia 
which  suggested,  from  political  motives,  the  final  separation. 
u  The  new  kingdom  of  Greece,"  we  are  told,  "  in  imitation  and  by 
the  counsels  of  Russia,  has  withdrawn  itself  from  obedience  to 
the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople;"  and  this  ^secession  "was 
accomplished  in  Greece  without  a  shock,  and  even  without  a 
rumor  !'':(:  So  utterly  extinct  is  the  conception,  or  even  the 
desire  of  ecclesiastical  unity  in  all  the  Photian  communities. 

And  Greece  is  not  the  only  country  which  Russia  has  suc 
ceeded  in  detaching  from  the  pretended  chief  of  the  Oriental 
Church,  after  abandoning  him  herself.  "  The  clergy  of  Georgia" 
observes  General  Monteith,  long  ago  negotiated  with  the  Archi 
mandrite  of  Moscow,  expressly  "  to  separate  them  from  the 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  under  whom  they  had  previously 
been."§  Bulgaria,  now  inclining  towards  Catholic  unity,  is 
nearly  lost  to  the  same  chief;  and  the  movement  of  repulsion 
is  so  general  in  the  Danubian  Principalities,  that  already  there 
is  a  project  of  a  national  and  perfectly  independent  "  Moldavo- 
Wallachian  Synod."  Roumelia  and  the  Herzegovina  are  said 
to  be  both  ripe  for  a  similar  movement,  which  has  actually  been 
accomplished  in  the  Churches  of  Cyprus  and  Montenegro. | 

The  dethroned  prelate  of  Byzantium,  who  would  no  more 
dare  to  make  his  voice  heard  in  Greece  or  Russia  than  in  France 


*  Lettre  d  une  Dame  Eusse  sur  le  Schisme  et  sur  I'  Unite  Catholique. 
\  La  Mussie,  Est-Elle  Schismatiqae?  par  uri  Russe  Ortliodoxe,  p.  21  (Paris, 
1859). 

\  Persecutions  et  Souffrances  de  VEylise  Catholique  en  Russie,  p.  386. 
§  Kars  and  Erzeroum,  by  General  Monteith,  cli.  i.,  p.  17. 
J  DSllinger,  p.  123. 


64  CHAPTER  VIII. 

or  Spain,  and  who  borrows  from  his  dependants,  or  from  Greek 
and  Armenian  merchants,  the  price  of  the  See  for  which  he  is 
obliged  to  outbid  his  rivals,  and  which  lie  is  to  repay  by  the 
spoliation  of  his  own  flock,  has  become  at  length  a  jest  and  a 
puppet.  "  His  whole  administration,"  as  the  learned  Dollinger 
observes,  "  has  now  been  for  hundreds  of  years  connected  with 
an  unexampled  system  of  extortion,  corruption,  and  simony. 
Every  patriarch  attains  by  these  means  to  his  dignity,"  and  "is 
usually  changed  every  two  or  three  years,  being  deposed  by 
the  Synod  for  bad  administration,  or  compelled  to  resign.  The 
cases  in  which  a  patriarch  dies  in  possession  of  his  dignity  are 
extremely  rare,  for  those  who  make  a  profit  by  bargains  for  the 
patriarchate  take  care  that  they  shall  be  transacted  as  often  as 
possible."*  "  The  patriarchate  at  Constantinople,"  says  Leo 
pold  Kanke,  "  forms  a  commercial  institution  or  bank,  in  which 
capitalists  are  well  disposed  to  invest  their  money.''f  Such  is 
the  last  end  of  the  so-called  Greek  Church. 

And  not  only  have  both  Greece  and  Russia,  after  falling 
away  from  the  Chair  of  Peter,  abandoned  at  length  the  fallen 
usurper  who  has  converted  the  sanctuary  of  St.  Chrysostom  into 
a  deri  of  thieves,  and  the  throne  of  St.  Gregory  into  a  charnel- 
house  of  simony,  but  the  solution  at  ecclesiastical  affinity  has 
become  universal  in  Asia  and  Africa,  as  well  as  in  Europe. 
There  is  now  no  other  connection  or  bond  of  union  between 
Athens  and  Constantinople,  between  Antioch  and  Jerusalem,  or 
between  Moscow  and  any  of  them,  than  the  wages  which  they  re 
ceive  in  common  from  the  Czar,  when  it  suits  his  purpose  to  em 
ploy  their  bishops  and  clergy  as  subaltern  agents  of  his  polic}7. 
"  The  most  insignificant  priest,"  we  are  told,  not  only  in  the 
great  centres  of  Kussian  propagandist!!,  but  "  in  Albania,  Corfu, 
Zante,  and  Cephalonia,  receives  a  little  yearly  income  from  the 
ecclesiastical  treasury  at  Nischnei-Novgorod."^:  And  the 
nominal  rulers  of  these  clerical  stipendaries  accept  without  re 
pugnance  a  similar  lot.  The  three  patriarchates  which  are 
supposed  to  share  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Byzantine  prelate,  and 
of  which  the  holders  do  not  even  reside  in  their  shrunken 
dioceses,  are  now  "scarcely  more  than  titular  dignitaries,  for 
the  patriarchate  of  Alexandria  has  but  five  thousand,  that  of 
Antioch  fifty  thousand,  and  that  of  Jerusalem  twenty-five  thou 
sand  souls,"§ — the  entire  population  of  the  once  famous  "  Oriental 

*  Ibid. 

f  History  of  Servia,  by  Leopold  Von  Ranke,  ch.  ii.,  p.  30  (ed.  Kerr).  They 
are  all  alike.  "  The  simoniacal  manner  in  which  every  preferment  is  obtained 
in  the  Bulgarian  Church"  is  described  by  Krasinski :  Montenegro,  &c.,  p.  143. 

\  Dollinger,  p.  138- 

§  Ibid.,  p.  126. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,   ETC.  65 

Church"  being  less  than  the  number  of  Catholics  in  either  of 
the  modern  dioceses  of  Westminster,  Salford,  Liverpool,  or 
Glasgow ! 

And  even  this  significant  fact  does  not  fairly  represent  the 
almost  incredible  humiliation  of  these  Eastern  patriarchs.  In 
1848,  when  Pins  IX.  reproached  them  with  their  "  want  of 
religious  unity,"  and  the  shameful  dissolution  of  ecclesiastical 
authority,  these  successors  of  St.  James,  St.  Mark,  and  St.  John 
replied  that,  "in  disputed  or  difficult  questions"  they  took 
counsel  with  each  other,  and  "  when  they  could  not  agree,  re 
ferred  the  matter  for  decision  to  the  head  of  the  Turkish 
government!"  And  this  singular  pontiff  of  a  Christian  Church 
did  not  refuse  the  appeal.  When  some  of  the  Armenian  clergy 
had  a  quarrel  not  long  ago  with  the  Greek  priests  about  the 
custom  of  mixing  water  with  the  sacramental  wine,  "  the  dis 
pute  was  finally  brought  before  the  Turkish  Reis-Effendi,  who 
accordingly  gave  his  decision.  '  Wine  is  an  impure  drink,'  he 
said,  'condemned  by  the  Koran;  pure  water  only,  therefore, 
should  be  made  use  of.'  ''* 

The  ecclesiastical  unity  of  the  Russian,  Greek,  and  Oriental 
Churches,  which  the  Czar  has  so  effectually  destroyed,  is  hardly 
more  fictitious  than  the  pretended  political  unity  of  the  Slavonic 
races,  which  he  has  vainly  attempted  to  promote.  Like  other 
"  scourges  of  God,"  he  has  found  it  easier  to  pull  down  than  to 
build  up.  Indeed,  the  whole  scheme  of  Panslavism  is  only  a 
transparent  artifice,  subtly  adopted  for  the  consolidation  of  the 
heterogeneous  elements  of  the  Russian  empire.  At  a  very  re 
cent  period,  as  Krasinski,  an  ardent  Protestant  advocate  of 
Panslavism,  clearly  shows,  it  proposed  "  only  a  literary  con 
nection  between  all  the  Slavonic  nations,"  and  had  no  political 
element.f  The  Russians  themselves,  who  wish  to  profit  by  it, 
have  very  little  title  to  be  considered  a  Slavonic  nation. 
"  Much  has  been  written,"  says  a  competent  authority,  "  about 
the  Slavonism  of  the  Russians.  In  blood,  however,  it  is  only  a 
few  that  are  purely  Slavonic.":):  And  if  we  examine  the  for 
tunes  of  the  Panslavist  movement,  a  multitude  of  facts  will 
convince  us  how  little  progress  it  has  made.  Even  nations 
long  incorporated  with  the  Russian  empire  are  more  than  ever 
bitterly  hostile  to  it.  Poland,  peopled  by  a  Slavonic  race, 
sinks  on  her  knees,  faint  and  exhausted  by  an  unequal  struggle, 
but  still  calls  in  her  agony  upon  Europe  for  the  recovery  of  her 
lost  liberty,  and  upon  the  Holy  See  for  the  blessing  of  which 

*  Ibid. 

f  Panslavism  and  Germanism,  ch.  ii.,  p.  111. 

JThe  Nationalities  of  Europe,  by  R.  G.  Latham,  M.A.,  M.D.,  F.R.S.,  &c., 
.  i.,  ch.  xxxvi.,  p.  363. 

VOL.   II.  6 


C6  CHAPTER  VIII. 

she  was  never  more  worthy.  Finland  was  united  to  Russia  in 
1808,  yet  an  English  writer  tells  us,  in  1854,  "We  had  some 
conversation  with  educated  Fins,  and  never  did  we  listen  to 
more  stirring  words  of  burning  hatred  towards  the  oppressors 
of  their  country."*  The  Slavonic  movement  in  Turkey,  we  are 
informed,  "is  anti-Russian  in  its  tendency,"  though  of  the 
Turkish  population  more  than  seven  millions  are  Slavonians. f 
"  The  struggle  of  the  Montenegrins"  again,  though  nominally 
of  the  same  religion,  "  was  beheld  with  indifference  by  their 
kindred  race  the  Servians. ."J  Far  from  converging  to  unity, 
religious  or  political,  the  populations  whom  Russia  desires  to 
amalgamate  for  her  own  purposes,  and  of  whom  she  wishes  to 
become  the  common  centre,  appear  only  to  regard  each  other 
with  increasing  aversion.  It  is  thus  that  Providence  confounds 
a  policy  the  success  of  which  would  be  fatal  to  religion,  and 
perhaps  to  civilization.  "The  Slavonic  nations,"  we  are  told, 
"  entertain  as  great  a  dislike  to  the  Greeks  as  the  Turks  do."§ 
The  celebrated  Servian  chief  Kara  George  rejected  a  Russian 
agent  at  Belgrade,  says  Ranke,  "because  he  was  a  Greek,  and 
the  Greeks  had  ever  been  suspected,  nay  even  hated,  by  the 
Servians,  who  were  at  that  very  time  on  bad  terms  with  the 
metropolitan,  also  a  Greek. "||  The  Moravians,  again,  though 
partly  of  Slavonic  origin,  have  no  more  sympathy  with  Russia 
than  with  Brazil,^  The  Armenians  also,  who  hate  the  Rus 
sians  even  while  accepting  their  pensions,  u  are  closely  allied 
with,  and  much  attached  to,  their  Turkish  masters."**  In  the 
Damibian  Principalities  generally,  as  well  as  in  Georgia,  while 
the  Greeks  are  detested,  connection  with  Russia  has  only  gen 
erated  a  more  profound  aversion,  except  in  the  case  of  ecclesi 
astical  and  other  agents,  paid  to  extend  Russian  influence. 
"  The  Christians  both  of  Wallachia  and  Georgia  have  been 
converted,  by  their  contact  with  the  Muscovites,  from  warm 
friends  into  sullen  and  suspicious  foes."ff  Lastly,  of  the 
Greeks  themselves  we  are  told,  on  the  one  hand,  the  singular 
fact  that  "  the  greater  part  of  the  Christians  of  European 
Turkey  have  no  affinity  with,  and  no  sympathy  for,  the 
Greeks,"  though  nominally  of  the  same  religion  ;^  and,  on  the 

*  Scott,  ch.  i.,  p.  12. 

f  The  Frontier  Lands  of  the  Christian  and  the  Turk,  by  a  British  Resident 
of  Twenty  Years  in  the  East,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  Go  (2d  edition,  1853). 
|  Anadol,  by  the  same  author,  ch.  xxviii.,  p.  356. 
§  Frontier  Lands,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  100. 
I  JIhtory  of  Scrna,  ch.  x.,  p.  127. 
*[  See  Spencer,  Travels  in  the  Western  Caucasus. 
**  Chesney,  ubi  supra. 

\\  Revelations  of  Itussia,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  340. 
ft  A  Year  itith  the  Turks,  by  Warrington  Smith,  ch.  xii.,  p.  275. 


MISSIONS   IN"   THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  67 

other,  that  "  if  the  Greeks  were  once  more  in  a  tenable  position 
as  a  free  nation,  they  would  undoubtedly  become  the  most 
violent  and  active  of  Russia's  enemies."  So  that  this  experi 
enced  observer  might  well  resume  the  facts  at  which  we  have 
now  glanced  in  this  emphatic  summary,  "  Russian  Panslavism 
was  outweighed  in  all  the  scales."* 

It  would  be  idle  to  offer  any  further  evidence  of  an  incon 
testable  truth,  disputed  only  by  a  few  English  writers  of  a  par 
ticular  school,  who  seem  to  think  that  they  can  dispense  with 
unity  in  their  own  Church,  by  affecting  to  find  it  in  another 
where  it  is  quite  as  little  known,  and  that  the  admitted  disorder 
of  one  sect  can  be  happily  repaired  by  the  suppositions  har 
mony  of  another.  It  is  no  longer  possible  to  deny  in  good  faith 
that  while,  in  the  words  of  Dr.  Dollinger,  "  the  Greek  patriarch 
ate  is  in  the  most  shameful  and  perishing  condition  to  which 
an  ancient  and  venerable  Church  has  ever  yet  been  reduced," 
the  Greek,  Russian,  and  Oriental  communities  have  long  since 
been  dissolved  into  a  number  of  perfectly  independent  Church 
es,  often  deeply  hostile  to  one  another,  constantly  engaged  in 
conflicting  aims  and  intrigues,  and  not  even  cemented  together 
by  the  precarious  tie  of  a  common  hostility  to  the  Holy  See. 
The  next  point  to  be  noticed,  and  it  is  one  which  belongs  more 
immediately  to  the  general  subject  of  these  volumes,  is  the 
character  of  the  Russian  Church  as  a  missionary  power. 

We  have  seen  that  a  Russian  advocate,  while  he  denies  that 
his  own  has  any  thing  in  common  with  the  Greek  and  Oriental 
communities,  appeals  to  the  "frightful  aridity"  of  the  latter,  as 
affording  sufficient  evidence  of  "the  terrible  effects  of  Divine 
justice."  He  admits,  therefore,  the  efficacy  of  the  test  which 
we  are  about  to  apply  to  the  Russian  Church,  after  employing 
it  to  determine  the  character  of  the  Protestant  Sects. 

"  It  is  quite^ impossible,"  observes  a  spiritual  writer  of  our 
own  land,  "  for  true  love  to  coexist  with  an  umnissionary 
spirit."f  ^  Yet  Russia,  as  Schouvaloff  remarks,  "  has  never  pro 
duced,  since  her  schism,  either  a  single  missionary,  or  one 
Sister  of  Charity  who  deserves  the  name."$  "In  the  Greek- 
Russian  Church,"  says  Mr.  Kohl,  "no  such  useful  auxiliaries 
have  ever  been  formed."§  And  not  only  does  she  neither 
possess,  nor  affect  to  possess,  any  missionary  organization,  so 
supremely  indifferent  is  she  to  all  which  does  not  concern  her 
political  interests  ;  but  even  within  her  own  territories,  if  the 


*  Anadol,  ch.  xxviii.,  p.  358. 
f  Dr.  Faber,  The  Creator  and  the  Creature,  p.  242. 
|  Schouvaloff,  Ma  Conversion  et  ma  Vocation,  p.  361. 
§  Austria,  p.  476. 


68  CHAPTER  VIII. 

consolidation  of  national  power  can  be  more  effectually  pro 
moted  by  the  agency  of  pagan  tribes,  she  condemns  them  to 
perpetual  heathenism,  and  peremptorily  forbids  all  attempts  to 
convert  them,  even  to  the  official  religion.  During  a  long 
series  of  years,  this  detestable  policy  has  been  adopted  towards 
the  captives  from  the  Caucasus.  "  If  these  young  mountain 
eers,"  we  are  told, "were  converted  to  Christianity,  they  would 
be  all  the  worse  received  by  parents,  who,  once  half  Christian, 
Lave  learned,  thanks  to  Russian  aggression,  to  view  that  faith 
with  detestation."* 

"  Not  only  do  the  Russian  government,  and  its  slave  the 
Synod,"  says  a  higher  authority,  "  remain  perfectly  indifferent 
to  the  sad  destiny  of  so  many  souls  perishing  in  ignorance;  the 
former  even  opposes  itself  systematically  and  by  policy  to 
their  conversion  to  Christianity.  The  emperor  has  formed  and 
taken  into  his  pay  several  squadrons  of  cavalry,  drawn  from  the 
populations  of  the  Caucasus.  All  these  men  are  Mahometans  ; 
they  live  in  the  midst  of  a  Christian  capital,  where  they  have 
mosques  constructed  and  ornamented  at  the  expense  of  the 
treasury.  Many  children  also  from  the  countries  of  the 
Caucasus  are  brought  to  St.  Petersburg,  and  there  receive  a 
gratuitous  education.  But  it  is  most  rigorously  forbidden  to 
admit  them  to  Christian  instruction  with  their  companions, 
or  to  attendance  at  their  church."  In  vain  they  sometimes 
"  weep  and  lament"  at  this  forced  separation.  The  motive  is 
imperious.  "  These  children  are  destined  to  return  one  day  to 
their  native  country,  where  their  office  will  be  to  preach  to 
their  compatriots  the  advantages  which  they  may  derive  from 
absolute  and  irrevocable  submission  to  Russia."  This  they 
will  do  more  effectually  if  they  profess  the  religion  of  their 
parents,  and  therefore  an  infernal  policy  forbids  their  conver 
sion.  "And  the  '  most  Holy  and  most  Orthodox  Synod'  has 
no  remonstrance  to  offer  against  measures  so  barbarous !  Dom- 
inus  horum  mndex  est"\ 

it  is  difficult  to  conceive  the  profound  degradation  to  which 
the  national  Russian  Church  must  have  fallen,  when  such  crimes 
fail  to  elicit  a  solitary  protest  from  one  end  of  the  empire  to  the 
other.  But  when  we  have  read  the  testimonies  of  men  of  all 
sects  and  orders,  to  the  actual  condition  of  the  Russian  clergy, 
there  is  no  longer  room  for  surprise.  "  Nothing,"  says  De  Hell, 
an  authority  recognized  even  by  the  late  emperor,  "can  be 
compared  to  the  demoralization  of  the  Russian  clergy,  whose 
ignorance  is  only  equalled  by  their  vice.  The  greater  part  of 

*  Revelations  of  Russia,  pref,  p.  xxvi. 
f  Persecutions  et  Souffrances,  &c.,  p.  519. 


69 

the  monks  and  priests  spent  their  lives  in  shameful  inebriety, 
which  renders  them  incapable  of  fulfilling  decently  their  reli 
gious  duties."  They  have  lost  all  idea,  he  adds,  of  a  "  sacred 
mission," — he  is  speaking,  riot  of  rare  and  exceptional  instances, 
but  of  the  whole  body  of  the  rural  clergy, — and  "  the  very  aspect 
of  the  popes,  or  parish  priests,  excites  equal  disgust  and  astonish 
ment.  To  see  these  men,  whose  uncombed  beards,  wine-bloated 
faces,  and  filthy  dress,  reveal  a  total  absence  of  human  respect, 
one  cannot  conceive  that  they  are  apostles  of  Divine  truth."* 
"  Not  possessed  of  even  the  slightest  shadow  of  influence  or 
power  in  the  empire,"  says  an  English  writer,  who  is  neverthe 
less  a  warm  advocate  of  the  Czar,  "  in  ignorance,  vulgarity,  I  may 
almost  say  degradation,  they  are  perfectly  without  parallel  in  any 
religion  throughout  the  world,  not  even  excepting  Greece,  the 
natives  of  which  country  themselves  admit  the  minor  orders  of 
their  clergy  to  be  the  most  abandoned  miscreants  in  the  world. "f 
"In  all  street  ballads  and  popular  ribaldry,"  says  a  Russian 
author  in  1850,  "  the  priest,  the  deacon,  and  their  wives,  are  al 
ways  brought  in  as  examples  of  the  absurd  and  the  despicable. ":f 
In  "four  years,  from  1836  to  1830,— as  the  so-called  "Holy 
Synod"  reported  to  its  president,  a  cavalry  officer,  and  aid-de 
camp  of  the  emperor, — thirteen  thousand  four  hundred  and 
forty-three  ecclesiastics,  or  one-sixth  of  the  whole  Russian 
clergy,  were  under  sentence  of  the  public  tribunals,  and  that, 
as  the  Supreme  Procurator  informed  his  master,  "  for  infamous 
crimes."§  The  "  Synod"  itself,  which  is  supposed  by  a  verbal 
fiction  to  rule  over  this  clergy,  is  so  avowedly  a  mere  depart 
ment  of  the  state  police,  that,  as  Dr.  Dollinger  notices,  "  it  can 
not  even  appoint  its  own  secretary  and  subordinate  officials, 
who  are  all  nominated  and  displaced  by  the  Czar." 

It  is  impossible  to  quote,  without  repugnance,  such  descrip 
tions  of  a  national  clergy,  who  are,  nevertheless,  the  spiritual 
teachers  of  some  fifty  millions  of  souls.  But  we  are  going  to 
speak  of  the  missionary  operations  of  these  very  men,  and  we 
shall  find  them  to  be  worthy,  in  every  case,  of  ecclesiastics 
whom  even  Russians  treat  with  scorn  and  outrage,  and  of  whom 
they  speak  in  exactly  the  same  terms  as  the  German,  French, 
or  English  writers.  Haxthausen,  though  a  Russian  advocate, 
confesses  that  they  have  no  qualification  "for  the  duties  of  a 
missionary,"  and  even  admits  that  the  "  sterility"  of  which  we 

*  Les  Steppes  de  la  Mer  Caspienne,  &c.,  par  Xavier  Hommaire  de  Hell, 
Chevalier  de  1'Ordre  de  S.  Wladimir  de  Russie,  tome  i.,  cli.  viii.,  p.  120  (1843;. 

f  Personal  Adventures  in  Georgia,  Circassia,  and  Russia,  by  Lieut.-colonel 
Poulett  Cameron,  C.B.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  205  (1845). 

%  Quoted  by  Dollinger,  p.  137. 

§  Theiner,  L'Eglise  Schismatique  Russe,  cli.  vi.,  p  138. 


70  CHAPTER  VIII. 

are  about  to  furnish  conclusive  evidence,  "is  undoubtedly  at 
tributable  to  their  separation  from  Rome."*  Tourgeneif,  who 
describes  their  fallen  condition,  and  the  "  haughty  disdain"f 
with  which  they  are  treated  by  all  above  the  class  of  peasants, 
is  confirmed  by  De  Hell,  who  relates  that  the  upper  classes 
often  strike  them,  and  that  they  "  bow  their  heads  humbly  to  re 
ceive  the  correction."  If  a  wealthy  proprietor,  we  are  told  by 
M.  Golovine,  himself  a  Russian  priest,  "  ask  an  archbishop  to 
make  a  sacristan  a  priest,  a  priest  he  will  be,  even  though  he 
know  not  how  to  write.":):  And  this  is  the  case  also  in  the 
churches  subject  to  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople.  "  It  might 
happen  to  any  one,"  says  a  Greek  writer,  in  letters  addressed 
in  1856  to  the  Archbishop  of  Cephalonia,  "  to  dismiss  a  servant 
one  day  for  misconduct,  and  meet  him  on  the  morrow  as  a  priest ; 
people  whom  you  have  known  as  petty  chandlers,  day-laborers, 
or  boatmen,  you  may  see  in  a  few  days  appear  at  the  altar  or 
in  the  pulpit."§  What  marvel,  if  under  such  teachers  "  the 
Russians,"  as  M.  de  Bonald  observes,  "have  a  religion  entirely 
composed  of  words,  ceremonies,  legends,  and  abstinences,  which 
is  to  genuine  Christianity  nearly  what  the  Judaism  of  the  Rabbis, 
followed  by  modern  Jews,  is  to  the  Mosaic  worship  ?"  [  What 
marvel  if  a  Church  of  which  such  men  are  the  ministers,  should 
be  described  by  Schnitzler  as  "stationary,  withered  by  the  spirit 
of  formalism,  and  deprived  of  every  principle  of  liberty  ?"T 

It  would  be  endless  to  multiply  such  testimonies.  They 
abound  in  the  writings  of  men  of  every  nation  and  every  creed. 
And  the  higher  classes  of  the  laity,  exercising  an  influence  which 
the  fallen  prelates  of  Russia  dare  not  dispute,  are  said  to  be 
themselves  perfectly  indifferent  to  the  religion  which  has  so  little 
title  to  their  respect,  and  in  whose  ministers  they  recognize  only 
an  inferior  order  of  police.  "  Noblesse  legere,"  says  a  French 
writer  in  1860,  "  superficielle,  egoiste,  corruptrice,  et  corrom- 
pue."**  "  They  show  a  strong  tendency,"  says  one  who  has 
lived  among  them,  "to  add  infidelity  to  their  immorality  ,"ff 
though  they  still  affect  the  outward  observance  of  religion, 
because,  as  Madame  d'Istria  observes,  "la  religion  est  une 
partie  de  la  consigne  militaire"  and  under  the  rule  of  the  Czar 
even  unbelief  submits  to  discipline.  Yet,  as  Golovine  remarks, 


*  Haxthausen,  Etudes  sur  la  JRussie,  tome  i.,  cli.  xiv.,  p.  441. 

f  La  Russie  et  les  Masses,  par  M.  A.  Tourgeneff,  tome  iii.,  p.  103. 

i  Memoircs  d'un  Pretre  Russe,  par  M.  Ivan  Golovine,  ch.  x.,  p.  202. 

|  Dollinger,  p.  125. 

\  Legislation  Primitive,  par  M.  de  Bonald,  tome  iv.,  p.  176. 

Tf  Histoire  Intime  de  la  llassie,  par  M.  J.  H.  Schnitzler ;  Notes,  p.  472. 

**  La  Russie,  son  Peuple  et  son  Armee,  par  M.  Leon  Deluzy,  p.  45  (1860) 

ft  Dissertations  on  the  Orthodox  Church,  by  W.  Palmer,  p.  293. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE   LEVANT,   ETC.  71 

«  every  one  knows  that  the  number  of  unbelievers  in  Russia 
continually  increases."  M.  de  Gerebtzoff  also  admits  "the 
general  tendency — entrainement — to  religious  incredulity,  and 
the  unbridled  gratification  of  brutal  passions,"*  which  began  to 
manifest  itself  in  Russia  during  the  last  century,  and  of  which 
every  capital  in  Europe  records  proverbial  examples  in  the 
present.  The  Russian  Church  has  killed  religion,  by  making  it 
impossible  to  respect  it.  And  yet,  while  corruption  spreads  like 
a  gangrene  through  all  ranks,  and  only  a  thin  varnish  of  decency 
covers  the  universal  license, — while  even  "  in  the  public  educa 
tional  establishments,"  as  the  most  competent  witnesses  report, 
"ignorance  and  immorality"  prevail  to  such  an  extent,  that,  in 
the  words  of  one  of  them,  "  respect  for  my  readers  prevents  me 
from  giving  any  detailed  account  of  them,"f  because  a  true 
account  of  Russian  society  would  be  a  picture  upon  which  no 
one  could  look  ;  the  worst  crimes  of  all  are  still  committed  in  the 
name  of  religion,  and  the  titles  of  "  Holy,  Orthodox  Russia,"  are 
invoked  with  solemn  hypocrisy  by  men  who  have  ceased  even  to 
believe  in  holiness,  and  who  might  boast  more  truly  than  the 
worst  class  of  French  sophists,  "J^ous  sommes  les  enfants  de 
Yoltaire." 

It  is  true  that  some  believe,  in  spite  of  the  facts  which  have 
now  been  noticed,  that  Russia,  convinced  at  last  that  her  schism 
has  only  defeated,  instead  of  promoting,  the  political  objects 
dearest  to  her  ambition,  will  again  be  reconciled  to  the  Holy 
See.  There  are  even  writers,  still  members  of  her  national 
church,  who  avow,  with  such  freedom  of  speech  as  a  Russian 
may  venture  to  use,  that  to  this  end  all  their  hopes  are  directed. 
They  know  that  Russia,  once  Catholic,  was  torn  from  unity 
mainly  by  the  influence  of  princes  who  made  themselves  pontiffs 
in  order  to  reign  as  kings,  and  whose  ecclesiastical  supremacy, 
sacred  in  the  eyes  of  their  subjects,  is  only  an  instrument  of 
policy  in  their  own.  "  I  recognize,"  said  Peter  the  Great,  with 
a  kind  of  savage  candor,  when  solicited  to  restore  the  Russian 
Patriarchate,  "no  other  legitimate  patriarch  but  the  Bishop  of 
Rome.  Since  you  will  not  obey  him,  you  shall  obey  me  alone. 
Behold  your  Patriarch  /"f 

Perhaps  also  the  hope  to  which  we  have  referred  is  partly 
founded  on  the  growth  of  a  new  sentiment  in  the  highest  class 
of  Russian  minds,  created  by  increasing  intercourse  with  the 
Latin  world,  and  sometimes  expressed  in  such  language  as  the 

*  Histoire  de  la,  Civilisation  en  Russie,  par  Nicolas  de  Gerebtzoff,  tome  ii., 
ch.  xii.,  p.  519. 

f  Recollections  of  Russia  during  Thirty-three  Years'  Residence,  by  a  German 
Nobleman,  ch.  ix.,  p.  321 ;  ed.  Wraxall. 

J  Theiner,  p.  46. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

following.  "The  Russian  Church,"  says  one  of  her  latest 
apologists,  "is  not,  and  never  has  been,  schismatical  of  her  own 
free  will — de  son  gre — like  the  Oriental  Church."  "  Catholic," 
he  adds,  "from  her  first  entrance  into  the  Christian  family," 
she  is  still  Catholic,  "  without  knowing  it — a  son  insu"  Her 
clergy,  and  all  but  a  few  of  her  bishops,  are  what  they  are,  he 
says,  solely  through  ignorance.  And  then  this  Russian  advocate 
— after  remarking  that  "  the  Greeks,"  with  whom  he  disclaims 
the  remotest  sympathy,  "  were  fourteen  times  reconciled  to  the 
Latins  since  the  time  of  Photius,"  and  always  upon  conditions 
prescribed  by  the  latter — continues  thus:  "But  what  must 
sensibly  afflict  the  friends  of  truth  is  to  see  that  the  Russian 
clergy  are  ignorant,  or  appear  to  be  ignorant,  that  the  liturgical 
books  of  the  Russian  Church  contain  the  pure  Catholic,  one 
may  indeed  say  Ultramontane  doctrine,  on  the  primacy  of  the 
Pope,  and  the  authority  of  the  See  of  St.  Peter."  This  doctrine, 
he  observes,  which  Russia  received  from  her  first  apostles,  is 
retained  even  in  the  liturgical  books  as  reformed  by  Nikon, 
and  as  they  still  exist  in  every  parish  church  in  Russia,  though 
the  clergy  are  too  ignorant  or  too  careless  to  reflect  upon  the 
fact.  Nay  more,  even  the  doctrine  of  the  Immaculate  Concep 
tion,  regarded  by  Anglicans  as  peculiar  to  the  Roman  obedience, 
has  always  been  held  by  the  Russian  Church,  and  is  still 
proclaimed  at  this  day  in  her  public  offices.  On  the  feast  of 
the  Nativity  of  our  Lady,  the  Church  of  Russia,  living  only  to 
bear  witness  against  herself,  sings  this  canticle :  "We  pro 
claim  and  celebrate  your  Nativity,  and  we  honor  your  Imma 
culate  Conception."  Finally,  this  writer — deploring  as  a 
mournful  calamity  what  Anglicans  affect  to  consider  a  privilege, 
repudiating  as  worthy  only  of  the  fallen  "  Greek  Church"  the 
pleas  which  they  urge  in  behalf  of  their  own,  and  seeing  only 
grounds  for  self-accusation  where  they  find  motives  of  com 
placency —  appeals  earnestly  ad  misericordiam,  and  only 
ventures  to  suggest  that  Russia,  since  she  confesses  Catholic 
truth  in  her  liturgical  books,  should  be  absolved  from  schism 
on  the  ground  of  "  invincible  ignorance."* 

But  it  is  time  to  approach,  without  further  introduction,  the 
subject  of  Russian  missions,  and  to  examine,  as  usual  by  the 
aid  of  Protestant  witnesses,  the  actual  condition  of  the  various 
provinces  of  the  Russian  empire  which  have  so  long  solicited 
missionary  zeal,  but  which  the  national  clergy  have  abandoned 
to  heathenism,  or  only  converted  after  the  same  fashion  in  which 
Anglican  missionaries  have  converted  the  pagans  of  China, 
India,  and  Ceylon. 

*  L'Efflise  Russe,  Est  Ette  Schismatiquef  pp.  21-46. 


73 

"  It  is  to  the  Russian  Church,"  says  Theiner,  ".  that  we  must 
attribute  the  disgrace  which  attaches  to  Christian  Europe,  in 
seeing  still  in  the  nineteenth  century  so  many  pagans  within 
her  bosom.  Whole  provinces,  united  during  many  ages  to  the 
linssian  empire,  are  still  filled  with  gentiles."  This  is  the  fact 
which  we  are  going  to  illustrate. 

One  observation  is  necessary  by  way  of  preface.  It  will  be 
understood  that  neither  the  Church  nor  the  government  of 
Russia  have  any  objection  that  pagan  tribes  should  embrace 
the  state  religion,  except  when  political  interests  may  be  better 
promoted  by  their  continuance  in  heathenism.  To  the  purely 
religious  side  of  the  question  both  are  perfectly  indifferent.  In 
Russia  a  man  may  be  a  Mahometan,  a  worshipper  of  the  Grand 
Lama,  a  Lutheran,  a  pagan,  every  thing  but  a  Catholic,  without 
giving  umbrage  to  the  civil  or  religious  authorities.  "  The 
Greek  Church  has  shown  toleration,"  we  are  told,  "  because 
indifferent  to  the  conversion  of  those  of  other  creeds  ;"  and 
reserves  the  lash  and  the  dungeon  chiefly  for  "  those  within  the 
pale  of  its  own  fold  who  seem  disposed  to  wander  from  the 
flock."  "Two-thirds  of  the  cabinet  ministers,"  says  the  same 
writer,  "  a  large  proportion  of  the  generals  of  the  Russian 
army,  and  of  the  immediate  courtiers  of  the  emperor,  pro 
fess  the  Lutheran  religion."*  But  these  are  all  devoted  to 
Russian  policy,  and  therefore  their  religious  belief  is  a  matter 
of  indifference.  "Religious  toleration/'  as  Krasinski  observes, 
"  had  been  a  principle  of  Russian  policy  since  Peter  the 
Great,"  and  was  first  renounced  by  the  Emperor  Nicholas,  who 
strove  to  attain  by  violence  the  unity  which  his  predecessors 
had  failed  to.  establish.  Two  exceptions  were  made  in  his  reign 
to  the  universal  toleration,  and  'both  from  the  same  political 
motive.  "  Many  hundreds  of  venerable  men,"  says  an  English 
writer  in  1844,  "lor  years  beloved  and  respected  in  their  parishes, 
are  now  with  irons  on  their  legs,  half-shaven  heads,  and  in 
coarse  party-colored  garments,  chained  two  and  two,  pursuing 
their  weary  journey  to  Siberia,  some  everyday  expiring  on  the 
road."f  These  were  Catholic  priests,  as  the  Protestant  Krasinski 
notices,^;  "  whom  an  imperial  ukase  had  united  to  the  Russian 
Church,"  and  who  were  torn  from  their  flocks,  lest  the  latter 
should  imitate  their  example  in  refusing  to  deny  their  faith. 

The  ^  other  exception  to  Russian  tolerance  consists  in  the 
prohibition  of  conversion  to  any  community  but  the  National 
Church,  and  the  punishment  of  all  who  attempt  to  do  the  work 

*  Revelations  of  Russia,  cli.  xi.,  p.  301. 

f  Ibid,  p.  308. 

\  Panslamsm  and  Germanism,  p.  90. 


74  CHAPTER   VIII. 

which  the  Russian  clergy  leave  undone.  "  Proselytism  in 
Russia,"  says  an  Anglican  writer  in  1855,  "  whether  from 
Mohammedanism  or  Lamaism,  is  not  allowed,  unless  it  be  in 
favor  of  the  Russo-Greek  Church. r*  And  now  let  us  hear 
the  witnesses  who  will  tell  us,  from  actual  observation,  what 
are  the  claims  of  that  Church  to  the  apostolic  character,  and 
what  it  has  attempted  towards  the  conversion  of  the  heathen 
nations  within  the  bounds  of  the  empire. 

From  every  province  of  the  vast  dominions  of  the  Czar, — 
from  Courland  and  Livonia,  and  all  the  eastern  shores  of  the 
Baltic  Sea ;  from  Finland  and  Laponia  ;  from  both  banks  of  the 
Volga,  throughout  its  whole  course,  to  where  it  flows  into  the 
Caspian  Sea;  from  the  sources  of  the  Don  to  the  plains  which 
border  the  Sea  of  Azov  ;  from  Tobolsk  to  the  Gulf  of  Obi ;  from 
Perm,  Orenburg,  and  Astrakhan;  from  the  White  Sea  to  the 
banks  of  the  Amur,  and  from  the  Ural  to  the  Aleutian  Isles; 
from  Georgia  and  Circassia,  and  all  the  distant  valleys  of  the 
Caucasus  ;  from  Archangel  to  Odessa,  and  from  Kamshatka  to 
the  Tauric  Chersonese,  we  have  exactly  the  same  reports.  From 
the  Kalmuks  and  Tchouwasses  of  the  Yolga,  and  the  Lapes 
of  the  White  Sea ;  from  Ostiaks  and  Samoieds ;  from  the 
Tschuktschi  of  the  north,  and  the  Ossets  of  the  south ;  from 
the  Tatars  of  Kazan,  and  those  of  Simferopol ;  from  Georgians 
and  Irneritians,  and  all  the  tribes  of  the  Caucasus ;  the  same 
cry  is  heard,  proclaiming  in  a  hundred  dialects,  that  no  sect  of 
earth,  though  it  wield  the  power  of  an  empire  and  lavish  the 
wealth  of  a  continent,  may  hope  to  snatch  a  single  soul  from 
the  powers  of  evil,  nor  do  aught  but  reveal  its  own  incurable 
impotence.  To  the  emissaries  of  the  all-powerful  autocrat  and 
his  imperial  Church,  the  barbarians  of  a  hundred  tribes,  who 
bow  their  heads  before  the  humblest  messenger  of  the  Vicar  of 
God,  reply  with  one  voice,  as  they  do  to  the  baffled  agents  of 
English,  German,  and  American  sects,  "  Jesus  I  know,  and 
Paul  1  know,  but  who  are  you  ?" 

Let  us  begin  with  the  provinces  of  the  Baltic.  The  Lcttes, 
who  inhabit  Courland  and  the  southern  half  of  Livonia,  though 
long  nominally  Christian,  and  surrounded  by  Lutherans  and 
Russo-G  reeks,  "  sacrifice  to  household  spirits,"  we  learn  from 
Mr.  Kohl,  "  by  setting  out  food  for  them  in  their  gardens  or 
houses,  or  under  old  oak-trees. "f 

Of  the  Esthoniana  the  same  Protestant  writer  says,  after 
dwelling  among  them,  u  The  old  practices  and  ceremonies  of 

*  The  Crimea,  its  Ancient  and  Modern  History,  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Milner, 
M.A.,  F.K.A.S.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  281. 
f  Russia,  p.  374. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,  ETC.  75 

heathenism  have  been  preserved  more  completely  among  them 
than  among  any  other  Lutheran  people.  .  .  .  There  are  many 
spots  where  the  peasants  yet  offer  up  sacrifices."*  Schnitzler 
adds  of  the  Lithuanians  generally,  who  are  nominally  Luther 
ans,  "  Us  sont  ignorans,  superstitieux,  routiniers,  et  ivrognes  ;"f 
and  Dr.  Latham  informs  us  that  "so  low  is  the  present  Con 
dition  of  the  small  peasantry  which  now  represents  the  Lithu 
ania  name  and  language,"  that  no  trace  remains  of  their  ancient 
character,  and  that  "no  small  amount  of  heathendom  underlies 
the  imperfect  Christianity  of  the  Lithuanians,"  so  that  "  with 
the  single  exception  of  the  Esthonians,  the  Lithuanians  are  the 
most  pagan  of  all  the  nations  of  civilized  Europe.''^  Such  has 
been  the  religious  influence  of  the  Russian  national  creed  in 
the  three  Baltic  provinces. 

If  now  we  cross  the  Gulf  of  Finland,  continuing  our  journey 
through  the  northwestern  provinces  of  the  empire,  we  come  to 
the  home  of  the  Fins,  numbering  about  two  millions,  and 
already  subject  for  more  than  half  a  century  to  the  dominion  of 
the  Czar.  "The  Russians,"  says  the  great  English  ethnologist, 
"claim  the  credit  of  having  converted  them  A.  D.  1227.  They 
may  have  done  this,  and  yet  have  done  it  ineffectually;  for  the 
special  charge  that  lay  against  the  Fins  was,  that  there  was 
nothing  real  in  their  numerous  conversions."  It  is  a  significant 
fact  that  at  the  present  day,  in  spite  of  the  threats  or  cajoleries 
of  Russia,  very  few  Fins  profess  the  national  religion,  the  great 
majority  being  nominally  Lutherans,  owing  to  their  former 
connection  with  Sweden,  "with  a  vast  mass  of  the  original 
paganism  underlying  their  present  Christianity ."§ 

Passing  out  of  Finland  into  Laponia,  we  have  this  account 
of  the  Russian  Laps,  who,  unlike  those  of  Sweden  and  Norway, 
profess  the  Greek  religion.  "They  are  indifferent  to  the 
Christianity  which  they  have  within  a  few  years  affected  to 
embrace.  .  .  .  Instructed  by  a  few  drunken  priests,  and  yield 
ing  from  fear  and  complaisance,  they  mingle  and  confound  tho 
superstitions  of  the  Russian  Church  with  tho  old  incantations 
of  witchcraft."| 

The  White  Sea  separates  the  province  of  Laponia  from  the 
government  of  Archangel,  through  which  we  enter  those  of 
Perm,  Viatka,  and  Orenburg.  In  all  we  meet  the  same  facts. 
The  Permians,  the  Zirianians  of  Vologda,  who  "retain  much 
of  their  original  paganism,"  and  in  the  south,  where  they  have 

*  Russia,  p.  388. 

f  La  Rmsie,  la  Pologne,  et  la  Finlande,  lib.  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  546. 

^  The  Nationalities  of  Europe,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  23. 

^  Latham,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  209. 

\  Revelations  of  Russia,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  350. 


76  CHAPTER   VIII. 

come  in  contact  with  the  Bashkirs,  have  even  in  some  instances 
become  Mahometans  ;*  the  Yotiaks  of  Yiatka,  who  are  hardly 
distinguishable  from  pagans,  the  Tsherimis,  Tshuvash,  and 
other  tribes,  who  are  Christians  in  name  and  pagans  in  belief, 
all  bear  witness  to  the  indifference  or  incapacity  of  the  Russian 
Church.  The  Tsherimis,  who  number  nearly  one  hundred  and 
seventy  thousand,  and  abound  chiefly  in  the  governments  of 
Kazan  and  Yiatka,  are  thus  described :  "  Some  of  them  are 
pure  pagans,  the  majority  being  but  imperfect  and  approximate 
Christians,  retaining,  under  the  surface  of  their  later  creed, 
most  of  the  essentials  of  their  original  heathendom. "f  The 
Tshuvash,  numbering  about  four  hundred  and  thirty  thousand, 
are  devil-worshippers,  in  spite  of  their  outward  profession  of 
the  Greek  religion.  "Their  Christianity  is  nominal,  and  dashed 
not  only  with  pagan  but  with  Mahometan  elements. "f  The 
Bisermans  of  Yiatka  are  avowedly  Mahometans,  and  Dr. 
Latham  thinks  they  are  "neither  more  nor  less  than  Yotiak 
converts  of  some  standing."§  Yet  the  Yotiaks  themselves  are 
supposed  to  be  disciples  of  the  Kussian  Church ! 

But  there  is  nothing  in  this  fact  to  surprise  us.  The  Russians 
themselves,  as  many  examples  will  convince  us,  often  adopt  the 
worst  pagan  superstitions,  and  practise  them  with  a  zeal  pro 
portioned  to  their  religious  earnestness.  M.  Pietrowski  relates, 
and  it  is  only  one  instance  out  of  many,  that  during  a  voyage 
on  the  Dwina,"  which  flows  through  the  governments  of  Vologda 
and  Archangel,  his  companions  being  all  religious  pilgrims  of 
the  National  Church,  visiting  sacred  places,  "every  soul  on 
board,  from  the  master  to  the  poorest  of  the  lohomolets,  threw 
a  piece  of  copper  money  into  the  stream,  to  render  the  Dwina 
propitious  to  their  course  along  its  breast."] 

Let  us  now  accompany  Mr.  Laurence  Oliphant  on  his  journey 
to  Kazan,  and  thence  down  the  Yolga  to  the  Caspian  Sea, 
Everywhere  his  experience  is  uniform.  The  Kalmuks  whom 
he  encountered  were  all  still  Buddhists.  "The  Tartar  popula 
tion,"  he  £ays,  "  is  precisely  the  same  as  it  ever  was."  Near 
the  mouth  of  the  Yolga  he  visits  "a  large  and  populous  village 
in  a  state  of  utter  heathenism,  and  apparently  destined  to  remain 
so,"  because  the  Russian  Church  neither  knows  how  to  convert 
them  herself,  nor  will  suffer  others  to  make  the  attempt.  At 
Sarepta,  near  Astrakhan,  where,  out  of  a  population  of  eleven 
hundred,  eight  hundred  are  Lutherans  or  Moravians,  a  new  fact 

*  Latham,  vol.  i.,  cli.  xix.,  p.  216. 
f  P.  218. 
\  P.  221. 
"  P  225 
Story  of  a  Siberian  Exile,  by  M.  Rufin  Pietrowski,  ch.  viii.,  p.  160  (1863). 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,   ETC.  77 

comes  under  his  observation.  The  Moravians  had  begun  to 
convert,  after  their  mode,  some  of  the  neighboring  heathen, 
for  whom  the  National  Church  had  no  care.  "  The  Greek  clergy 
interposed,  and  insisted  that  the  converts  should  be  admitted 
into  tlieir  Church."  An  appeal  was  made  to  the  government, 
which  supported  the  priests,  and  the  Moravians  gave  up  the 
contest.  "  No  effort  is  made,"  observes  Mr.  Oliphant,  "  to 
atone  for  this  wanton  bigotry,  by  the  establishment  of  missions 
by  the  Greek  Church  among  these  wandering  tribes.''* 

Mr.  Scott  traversed  in  part  the  same  ground,  and  thus  con 
firms  in  1854:  what  Mr.  Oliphant  had  reported  in  1853.  Of 
one  tribe  he  says,  "  Pagans  in  religion,  they  make  a  pretended 
adhesion  to  the  Russian  Greek  Church ;"  of  another,  "  They 
are  followers  of  the  Grand  Lama  ;"  of  a  third,  "  They  are  all 
Mahometans."  The  latter  give  no  trouble  to  the  State,  and 
therefore  nothing  would  be  gained,  according  to  Russian  ideas 
of  gain,  by  making  them  Christians.  At  Sarepta,  Mr.  Scott 
paid  a  visit  to  Mr.  Louser,  the  Moravian  minister.  "The 
emperor  stopped  at  once,"  he  writes  after  the  interview, 
"  those  noble  efforts  to  rescue  a  people  from  the  withering 
blast  of  paganism. "f 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  defend  either  the  emperor  or  hia 
ecclesiastical  agents,  who  were  bound  at  least  to  attempt  the 
work  which  they  would  not  permit  others  to  undertake ;  but  it 
is  some  satisfaction  to  know  that  in  prohibiting  Protestant 
missions  to  the  Tatars,  they  inflicted  no  injury  on  the  latter.  It 
appears  that  the  Protestant  missionaries  in  Russia,  like  so  many 
of  their  brethren  in  other  lands,  are  simply  traders.  Henderson, 
who  confesses  that  "the  Sarepta  mission  was  the  most  unpro 
ductive  of  any  they  have  established,"  discovered  that  at  Karas 
also  "  little  real  progress  has  been  made  by  the  mission,"  and 
was  shocked  to  n'nd  that  its  members  were  chiefly  busy  u  iu 
the  temporal  concerns  of  the  colony."^  Tlieir  later  history  is 
instructive.  "  It  is  to  be  feared,"  said  Julius  Yon  Ivlapruth, 
who  also  visited  them,  "  that  it  will  soon  be  nothing  but  a  linen 
manufactory,  for  it  is  known  that  all  the  establishments  of  tho 
Moravian  Brothers  in  Russia  have  n.Q  other  motive  than  tho 
love  of  gain."§  Finally,  the  last  phase  of  their  career  is  de 
scribed  by  Hommaire  de  E[eU,  who, found  that  "  at  the  present 

*  Russian  Shores  of  the  Blade  Sea,  ch.  iii.,  p.  52  ;  ch.  v.,  p.  70 ;  cli.  viii.,  p. 
119  ;  ch.  xx.,  p.  272.  '  Of.'  Oriental  and  Western  Siberia,  by  T.  W.  Atkinson, 
ch.  xxii.,  p.  383. 

t  The  Baltic,^.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  114  ;  ch.  x.,  p.  158  ;  ch.  xii.,  p,  194. 

t  BiblicaJ,  Researches  in  Itussia,  by  E.  Henderson,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  413  ;  ch.  xx., 
p.  447. 

§  Voyage  au  Mont  Caucase  et  en  Georgie,  par  M.  Jules  Kkproth,  ch,  x.>  p. 


78  CHAPTER   VIII. 

day  the  original  object  of  the  establishment  is  liardly  remem- 
"bered;"  and  that  "the  colon}7,  at  Karas,  essentially  agricul 
tural,  no  longer  thinks  of  any  thing  but  enriching  itself  at  the 
expense  of  the  strangers  whom  the  mineral  waters  attract  to 
the  Caucasus  !"*  If  the  Russians  have  not  even  a  conception 
of  the  character  of  an  apostle  missionary,  their  Protestant  rivals 
can  hardly  reproach  them  with  the  fact. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  neighborhood  of  Astrakhan  Protestant 
ism  tried  once  more  to  do  what  Panslavism  had  failed  to  effect, 
but  with  no  other  result  than  to  show  that  one  form  of  human 
religion  is  as  impotent  as  another.  "  The  reception  the  Scotch 
missionaries  met  with  from  the  Tatars,"  says  Henderson,  "  was 
far  from  encouraging.  .  .  .  Sometimes  they  treated  their  mes 
sage  with  mockery  and  scorn,  hooted  them  with  the  utmost 
rudeness,  and  ordered  them  away."f  It  is  also  a  curious  ex 
ample  of  the  pretended  religious  unity  of  Russia,  that  in  1835 
Astrakhan  already  contained,  besides  Russo-Greek  churches, 
fifteen  mosques,  two  Armenian  churches,  a  Catholic  church 
and  convent,  a  Protestant  temple,  and  a  Hindoo  pagoda.;}: 

We  have  now  reached  the  mouth  of  the  Yolga,  but  must  re 
turn  for  a  moment  to  Kazan,  once  the  capital  of  a  powerful 
nation,  before  we  continue  our  journey  towards  the  East.  Kazan, 
as  Dr.  Latham  observes,  is  "  the  great  seminary  for  missionaries 
and  for  agitators  in  behalf  of  religious  and  political  designs  of 
Russia  in  the  direction  of  the  East."  Yet  in  this  government, 
and  throughout  the  whole  course  of  the  Yolga,  Russian  mis 
sionary  projects  have  been  at  least  as  fruitless  as  in  every  other 
region  of  the  empire.  Mr.  Turnerelli  confirms  the  statements 
of  Latham,  Scott,  and  Oliphant  as  to  the  paganism  of  the 
Tsherimis,  Tshuvash,  and  other  nominal  converts,§  and  adds 
that  the  great  majority  of  these  tribes  do  not  even  affect  to 
profess  the  religion  of  their  masters,  in  spite  of  the  powerful 
inducements  proposed  to  them.  In  the  city  of  Kazan  itself 
there  are  nearly  twenty  thousand  Mahometans,  and  the  immense 
Tartar  population  of  the  entire  region,  ranging  as  far  as 
Astrakhan,  remains  either  wholly  uninfluenced  by  Russian 
teaching,  or  has  adopted,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Tshulim  Tartars, 
to  the  number  of  fifteen  thousand,  and  a  few  of  the  Nogays,  a 
horrible  compound  of  Christianity,  Islamisrn,  and  Shamanism. [ 
But  the  vast  majority,  as  all  the  witnesses  agree,  are  just  what 

*  JheQ  Steppes  fie  Iq,  Mer  Caspienne,  tome  ii.,  cli.  vii.,  p.  206. 
f  Biblical  Researches,  cli.  xviii.,  p.  431. 
\  Schi)it/ler,  Lq,  Ru^ie,  &c.,  lib.  ii.,  ch.  Hi.,  p.  699. 

§  Kazan,  the  Ancient  Capital  of  the  Tartar  Khans,  by  G.  T.  Turnerelli,  vol. 
ii.,  cli.  iv.,  p.  155. 

J  Latham,  cli.  xxiii.,  p.  258, 


MISSIONS  IN  THE   LEVANT,   ETC.  79 

their  forefathers  were  before  the  Khanat  of  Kazan  was  annexed 
to  the  Muscovite  empire. 

If  we  now  advance  eastwards,  and  cross  the  range  which 
separates  European  from  Asiatic  Russia,  we  shall  still  encounter 
invariably  the  same  facts.  The  Voguls,  numbering  about  six 
thousand,  in  the  two  governments  of  Perm  and  Tobolsk,  inhabit 
the  district  along  the  ridge  of  the  Uralian  chain.  They  invoke 
in  all  their  expeditions  the  carved  images  of  wild  beasts.*  The 
Ostiaks,  who  number  nearly  twenty  thousand,  and  are  found 
chiefly  on  the  Obi  and  the  gulf  into  which  it  flows,  are  thus 
described,  in  1852,  by  Colonel  Szyrma,  whose  work  was 
published  under  the  supervision  of  the  Russian  censorship: 
"  Up  to  the  present  day,  although  a  considerable  number  of  the 
Ostiaks  have  been  converted  to  Christianity,  the  neophytes  have 
not  discontinued  the  worship  of  ancient  larch-trees,  remnant  of 
a  sacred  grove,  which  prevailed  among  their  forefathers."  On 
one  occasion,  the  traveller  whose  notes  he  edited  surprised  a 
number  of  Ostiaks  in  a  forest,  who,  "  having  accepted,  or  rather 
been  compelled  to  accept  Christianity,  were  performing  the 
rites  of  their  idolatrous  worship  in  secret. "f 

The  Samoyeds,  the  next  great  tribe  of  this  part  of  eastern 
Siberia,  are  in  much  the  same  condition.  No  attempt  was  even 
nrade  to  convert  them  before  1830.  "They  are  to  this  day," 
says  Szyrma,  and  Latham  gives  the  same  account  of  them, 
"  idolaters,  following  the  tenets  of  their  ancient  Shamanic 
religion."  "The  Russians  themselves,5'  he  adds,  notwith 
standing  their  profession  of  Christianity,  "do  not  refuse  belief 
in  the  prognostications  of  the  Shamans ;''  and  "  Russians  of  all 
religious  sects  frequently  consult  them  about  what  is  to  happen 
to  them  in  the  most  important  proceedings  of  life,  and  never 
doubt  the  truth  of  the  revelations  made  to  them."  In  this  case, 
instead  of  pagans  becoming  Christians,  we  see  Christians  con 
verted  into  pagans.  Perhaps  the  Russian  censor  thought  this 
too  insignificant  a  fact  to  require  suppression. 

The  same  writer  speaks  of  a  couple  of  Ostiaks  who  came  to 
the  Greek  church  at  Berezov  on  the  river  of  Obi  to  be  married, 
upon  whom  the  ceremony  of  baptism  had  made  so  little  im 
pression,  that  "  they  had  actually  forgotten  their  Christian 
names."  All  these  tribes,  he  observes,  after  their  nominal 
conversion,  display  a  brass  cross  on  their  breasts,  to  indicate 
their  adhesion  to  Panslavism,  "  and  carry  the  Shaitan  in  their 
pockets."  And  the  Russian  Church,  which  is  only  the  instru- 

*  Id,  p.  231. 

f  Revelations  of  Siberia,  edited  by  Colonel  Lacli  Szyrma,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix., 
P.  147 ;  cli.  xvii.,  p.  2u2 ;  ch.  xviii.,  p.  283;  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  pp.  20-27. 


80  CHAPTER  VIII. 

raent  of  the  policy  of  its  lay  pontiff,  is  satisfied  with  converts 
of  this  class,  because  they  satisfy  its  master. 

We  have  still  to  speak  of  the  remoter  governments  of 
Yakutsk  and  Urkutsk,  the  newly-acquired  region  of  the  Amur, 
and  the  far  eastern  peninsula  of  Kamshatka.  They  have  all  the 
same  tale  to  tell.  The  Koridks,  whether  still  nomads,  or  settled 
in  villages,  "  are  either  Shamanists  or  imperfect  Christians." 
The  Parenzi  and  Kamenzi,  of  the  Gulf  of  Pendzinsk,  are 
Shamanists.  The  Pallanzi  are  partly  heathen,  partly  Chris 
tians,  if  such  a  name  can  be  applied  to  them,  of  the  Ostiak  and 
Samoyed  type.  The  Olutorians  are  still  more  un  disguised  ly 
pagan.  The  Oronchons  of  the  Upper  Amur,  as  Ravenstein 
relates  in  1861,  "  are  nominally  Christians,  but  they  resort  to 
the  practices  of  Shamanism  almost  every  night,"  and,  though 
ostensibly  members  of  the  Russo-Greek  Church,  keep  "  idols 
made  of  wood  and  fur"  in  their  dwellings.*  The  Russian 
Tungus,  composed  of  various  tribes,  "  as  a  rule  are  Shamanists, 
and  imperfect  converts  to  Christianity,  rather  than  Buddhists," 
as  the  Chinese  Tungus  are.f  The  Goldi  are  Shamanists,  as  are 
the  GiliakS)  by  whom  the  Abbe  de  la  Bruniere,  who  had  gone 
to  evangelize  the  region  of  the  Amur,  was  lately  martyred. 
The  Russian  Church  has  no  martyrs,  and  its  so-called  mis 
sionaries  undertake  the  work  of  which  we  have  now  seen  the 
results  from  the  same  motive  as  the  soldiers  who  accompany 
them,  and  in  obedience  to  the  same  authority. 

How  willingly  true  missionaries  would  preach  to  these  un 
happy  tribes,  "  without  money  and  without  price,"  the  pure 
and  holy  doctrine  which  millions  of  men  once  equally  degraded 
have  accepted,  in  many  a  land,  from  teachers  of  the  same  order, 
we  may  infer  from  the  heroic  self-devotion  of  the  four  Polish 
priests,  who,  with  the  reluctant  consent  of  the  Russian  Czar, 
carry  to  their  exiled  brethren  in  Siberia  the  consolations  of 
religion.  "  No  Christian  mind,"  says  one  who  profited  by  their 
charity,  "can  fail  to  appreciate  the  devotion  of  these  poor 
priests.  It  cannot  be  too  much  admired,  for  it  carries  them 
along  their  ceaseless  travels,  and  supports  them  as,  in  their 
sledges,  they  journey  through  the  intense  cold  of  Siberia,  from 
Tobolsk  to  Kamshatka.  and  from  Nertchinsk  to  the  Polar 


We  have  reached  the  extreme  eastern  frontier  of  the  Russian 
empire,  but  only  to  find  exactly  the  same  proofs  of  spiritual 
impotence  which  we  have  seen  in  the  provinces  of  the  west,  and 
in  all  the  wide  regions  which  lie  between  the  Gulf  of  Finland 

*  The  Russians  on  the  Amur,  ch.  xx.,  p.  351. 
f  Latham,  ch.  xxii.,  p.  243  ;  ch.  xxv.,  p.  268. 
\  Pietrowski,  ch.  v.,  p.  102 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  81 

and  Bliering  Straits,  between  the  Polar  Circle  and  the  Caspian 
Sea.  Everywhere  the  imperial  church  of  Russia  is  equally 
sterile.  Either  she  abandons  to  paganism  whole  nations,  with 
out  an  effort  to  kindle  among  them  the  light  of  the  Gospel,  or 
converts  them  into  such  "  Christians"  as  the  Tshuvash  and 
Voguls,  the  OstiaJcs  and  Tsherimis,  the  Koriaks  and  Samoyeds. 
Of  the  Tschuktshi,  who  had  all  received  baptism,  and  were 
reckoned  as  converts  by  the  Russian  Church  as  the  devil-wor 
shippers  of  Ceylon  are  by  the  Anglican,  Admiral  Wrangell 
says,  "  It  must  be  admitted  that  they'are  as  complete  heathens 
as  ever,  and  have  not  the  slightest  idea  of  the  doctrines  or  the 
spirit  of  Christianity."*  Finally,  the  Aleutians,  a  race  "  much 
more  powerful,  bodily  and  mentally,"  than  their  congeners  of 
Labrador  or  Greenland,  and  whose  "  blood  is  mixed  largely 
with  that  of  the  Russians,"  "  have  been  converted  to  an  im 
perfect  Christianity,"  faintly  differing  from  pagan ism.f 

If  now  we  turn  to  the  south,  we  receive  from  the  banks  of 
the  Don  and  the  Dneiper,  from  Georgia,  Circassia,  the  Crimea, 
and  all  the  Transcaucasian  provinces,  as  well  as  from  Russian 
Armenia,  the  same  reports  as  from  all  the  western,  northern, 
and  eastern  governments  of  the  empire.  The  Cossacks  of  the 
Don,  among  whom  De  Hell  found  evidence  of  strong  religious 
feeling,  call  themselves  "  true  believers,"  in  opposition  to  the 
members  of  the  State  Church,  "  because  a  slight  difference  in 
the  text  of  their  Bible  has  occasioned  a  very  great  one  in  their 
religious  sentiments."  So  difficult  is  it  in  Russia  to  conciliate 
religious  zeal  with  attachment  to  the  national  creed. 

The  KalmuTcs,  on  the  banks  of  the  Kouma,  are  thus  described 
by  the  same  witness.  "Russian  missionaries  endeavored  to 
convert  them  about  the  end  of  last  century,  but  these  attempts 
at  proselytism,  based  upon  force,  had  no  result,  and  only  created 
rebels."  A  few  consented  to  be  officially  baptized,  but  "  these 
pretended  Christians  are,  with  the  Turcomans,  the  most  formi 
dable  inhabitants  of  the  steppes.":): 

The  Douckoboren,  he  adds,  and  the  Molokaner — the  latter 
already  amounting  to  one  million — "  only  abandoned  the  religion 
of  their  ancestors  about  sixty  years  ago,"  and  were  violently 
transported  from  their  homes  by  the  government,  "  alarmed  at 
the  propagation  of  their  tenets,"  to  New  Russia.  They  now 
profess  the  fanatical  tenets  of  the  Mennonites,  and  belong  to 
that  dangerous  class  whose  rapid  increase  suggested  the  pre- 

*  Expedition  to  the  Polar  Sea,  by  Admiral  Wrangell  ch  vi    p  121 
f  Latham,  ch.  xxvi.,  p.  280. 

tX«i  Steppes,  &c.,  tome  i.,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  260  ;  ch.  xviii.,  p.  343 ;  tome  ii.,  ch.  iv., 
p.  Uo. 

VOL.  II.  7 


82  CHAPTER   VIII. 

diction  of  De  Custine,  "It  is  by  religions  divisions  the  Russian 
empire  will  perish." 

The  Ossets  of  the  eastern  slope  of  the  Caucasus,  numbering 
about  fifty  thousand,  and  subject  to  Russian  authority,  "have  a 
strange  mixture  of  Judaism,  Christianity,  Mahometanism,  and 
Paganism  for  a  creed. "*  The  Ossets  of  Georgia  "  have  been 
subject  to  Russia  since  the  time  Georgia  was  annexed  to  that 
empire.  A  portion  of  the  tribe  is  said  to  have  adopted  a  sort 
of  nominal  Christianity.  It  appears  that,  conversion  being  at 
tended  with  certain  advantages,  the  same  proselytes  had  been 
repeatedly  registered  under  different  appellations."f  The  Rev. 
Mr.  Percival  gave  us  exactly  the  same  account  of  the  Anglican 
baptisms  in  Ceylon.  "The  majority  of  the  Ossets  are  nominal 
ly  Christians,  and  belong  to  the  Greek  Church,"  observes 
Haxthausen  ;  "  they  are,  in  fact,  semi-pagans ;  indeed  some  are 
wholly  and  avowedly  heathens.  They  oifer  sacrifices  of  bread 
and  flesh  upon  altars  in  sacred  groves."^  Yet  the  Ossets,  whose 
connection  with  the  Russian  Church  has  only  aggravated  their 
misfortunes,  were  once,  as  Klaproth  remarks,  wholly  Christian. 

Of  the  Georgians  generally,  Bodenstedt  speaks  as  follows,  in 
a  work  commended  by  Humboldt.  "  It  is  incredible  how 
ruinous  and  demoralizing  Russian  influence  is.  The  manners 
and  the  customs  peculiar  to  the  country,  which  have  occupied 
for  centuries  the  place  of  laws,  vanish  before  the  foreign  in 
truders,  without  being  supplanted  by  any  thing  better 

The  Russians  can  only  multiply  the  primordial  ills  and  burdens 
of  the  people,  without  giving  them  a  moral  counterbalance. 
The  only  things  they  bring  with  them  into  the  conquered  lands 
are  new  coercive  measures,  new  forms  of  deceit,  of  falsehood, 
and  of  abuse  of  the  Church  for  objects  of  police."  In  Girca&sia, 
the  same  writer  remarks,  "  Christianity  has  become  hateful  to 
them  through  the  Russians."§ 

In  the  Caucasus,  Mr.  Spencer  observes,  "  the  Russians  com 
menced  their  intercourse  under  the  mask  of  proffered  protec 
tion,  friendly  commerce,  and  a  desire  to  instruct  them  in  the 
civilizing  truths  of  Christianity ;"  and  the  only  result  of  their 
presence  has  been  to  "reduce  their  once  fertile  meadows  to  a 
desert,"  and  to  excite  their  "deadly  hatred"  against  the  religion 
which  Russia  has  taught  them  to  despise  and  abhor.  |  The  fatal 

*  Latham,  ch.  xxix.,  p.  301. 

f  Life  and  Manners  in  Persia,  by  Lady  SI  iel,  p.  51. 

\  Trans-Caucasia,  p.  395. 

§  Life  in  the  Caucasus  and  the  East,  by  Friedrich  Bodenstedt,  vol.  i.,  p.  57  ; 
vol.  ii.,  pp.  163,  175 ;  ed.  Waddington. 

|  Travels  in  the  Western  Caucasus,  by  Edmund  Spencer,  Esq.,  vol.  i.,  cli. 
viii.,  p.  103  ;  ch.  xxix.,  p.  354. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,  ETC.  83 

effects  of  Russian  influence  upon  all  the  Caucasian  tribes  sub 
ject  to  it  are  attested  with  impressive  unanimity  by  various 
witnesses.  The  hioushes  acknowledge  their  power  but  detest 
their  religion.  "  Every  attempt,"  says  Mr.  Spencer,  "  of  the 
Russian  government  to  win  them  over  to  embrace  the  tenets 
of  the  Greek  Church  failed."  "  The  Kabardan  Circassians," 
we  are  told,  "  who  had  hitherto  been  Christians  (of  the  Russian 
Church),  abandoned  their  religion  to  escape  her  control,  and 
became  Mohammedans."*  These  men  are  believed  by  Klap- 
roth  to  be  descendants  of  the  Greek  colonies  of  the  Lower 
Empire,  and  Latham  remarks,  that  "ruins  of  Christian  churches 
and  monasteries  in  even  the  non-Christian  parts  of  Caucasus 
are  numerous;  yet  so  utterly  has  every  Christian  tradition  died 
away  among  them,  that  when  Colonel  Poulett  Cameron  in 
quired  of  them  the  meaning  of  the  crosses  still  found  in  many 
of  their  highways,  "  their  only  answer  was  a  careless  and  in 
different  '  Allah  bilker  /'  '  God  knows  !'  "f 

When  "  some  of  the  Lesgians  are  called  Christians,"  says 
Latham,  "  little  more  is  meant  by  the  term  than  the  suggestion 
that  they  are  indifferent  Mahometans."  The  Abazes,  as  Klap- 
roth  relates,  professed  also  in  earlier  times  the  Greek  religion, 
but  became  Mahometans  in  18104  The  Karatchai  had  al 
ready  deserted  Fhotius  for  Mahomet  in  17S2.§  Finally,  Hen 
derson  gives  the  following  summary  of  the  results  of  Russian 
missionary  influence  in  all  the  Caucasian  provinces;  "The 
Tcherkesses,  most  of  the  Lesyians,  the  principal  Abkhaeion 
tribes,  the  Tchetchenzi,  the  Nogais,  the  Kumaks,  and  the 
Karatchais?  numbering  more  than  half  a  million,  "  are  Mo- 
hammedans  ;"  while  the  rest  of  the  Caucasian  tribes,  with  the 
exception  of  the  Georgians,  Armenians,  and  Jews,  "  are  in  a 
state  of  heathenism  "\ 

But  even  these  facts,  disgraceful  as  they  are  to  the  Russian 
Church,  do  not  reveal  the  whole  truth.  Here,  as  elsewhere, 
not  content  with  driving  whole  races  into  apostacy,  by  exhibit 
ing  to  them  only  immorality,  cruelty,  and  fraud,  she  has  driven 
away  the  only  missionaries  who  could  have  won  them  to  re 
ligion  and  civilization.  As  early  as  1612,  Father  Szgoda,  of 
the  Society  of  Jesus,  allowed  himself  to  be  captured  by  the 
Tatars,  and  carried  away  as  a  prisoner  to  the  Crimea,  in  the 
hope  that  he  would  find  as  a  captive  "  the  opportunity  of  preach- 

*  The  Progress  and  Present  Position  of  Russia  in  the  East,  ch.  ii.,  p.  20 
3d  edition  (1854). 

f  Personal  Adventures,  &c.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  332. 
i  Voyage  an  Mont  Caucase,  ch.  ix.,  pp.  202-225. 
8  Ibid.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  282. 
|  Piiblical  Researches,  app.,  p.  538. 


84:  CHAPTER   VIII. 

ing  the  Gospel  to  them."*  Nearly  two  centuries  later,  Klap- 
roth  found  a  community  of  Jesuits  at  Mozdok,  prepared  to  do 
what  they  had  done  in  every  other  land,  and  already  occupied 
in  evangelizing  the  tribes  of  the  Caucasus.  One  of  them,  the 
Pere  Henri,  won  the  admiration  of  the  great  linguist  by  his 
zeal  and  talent,  of  which  he  gave  a  proof  by  preaching  fluently 
in  Armenian  when  he  had  been  only  nine  months  in  the  country. 
"  The  government,"  Klaproth  observes,  "  ought  to  have  afforded 
every  possible  facility  to  these  religious,  and  would  thus  have 
spared  itself  a  painful  and  costly  task."  But  the  authorities  at 
St.  Petersburg,  who  desired  only  to  make  Russians  and  not 
Christians,  adhered  to  their  usual  policy,  and  have  reaped  the 
usual  reward.  The  dishonor  of  religion,  the  waste  of  blood  and 
treasure,  and  the  ruin  of  whole  provinces  which  might  have 
become  the  fertile  homes  of  a  peaceful  and  Christian  population, 
such  have  been  the  fruits  of  their  unprofitable  impiety.  Had 
Russia  continued  Catholic,  she  would  perhaps  long  since  have 
attained  both  the  religious  and  the  political  unity  which  she 
has  hitherto  vainly  sought,  and  might  have  seen  her  flag  float 
at  this  day  on  the  castles  of  the  Bosphorus,  and  been  hailed  by 
all  Christian  nations  as  the  benefactor  of  Europe,  instead  of 
the  baffled  conspirator  whose  selfish  intrigues  have  made  her 
the  common  enemy  of  mankind. 

Of  the  state  of  Armenia,  now  held  in  vassalage  by  Russia, 
we  shall  have  occasion  to  supply  ample  evidence  in  a  later 
section  of  this  chapter.  Tens  of  thousands  of  Armenians,  we 
shall  see  presently,  have  been  converted  in  our  own  day  by 
Catholic  missionaries,  but  it  is  in  Russia  that  they  have  found 
their  most  implacable  enemy.  Pursuing  everywhere  a  policy 
as  profitless  as  it  is  criminal,  and  as  fatal  to  the  true  interests 
of  the  empire  as  to  those  of  religion,  Russia,  says  M.  Eugene 
Bore,  "  forbids  the  Catholic  priests  to  give  instructions  to  the 
Armenians  who  have  passed  into  its  territories,  and  interdicts 
the  approach  of  every  foreign  ecclesiastic. "f  "  The  Catholic 
priests  in  Trans-Caucasia,"  adds  Dr.  Moritz  Wagner,  "  are 
strictly  forbidden  to  make  any  proselytes.  One  of  the  Cap 
uchins  informed  me,  that  it'  they  were  allowed  free  scope,  they 
could  convert  many  hundreds  of  the  Pagan  and  Mohammedan 
mountaineers."  He  added,  that "  multitudes  of  Suanetians  and 
Abkhasians,  most  of  whom  were  genuine  heathens,  had 
announced  their  wish  to  receive  baptism  in  the  convent  of" 
Kutais,  but  they  were  ordered  away  /  for  every  priest  who 

*  Histoire  du  Royaume  de  la  Chersonese  Taurique,  par  Mgr.  de  Bohusz, 
Archeveque  de  Moliilew,  liv.  xvi.,  p.  377. 
f  Correspondance  et  Memoires  d'un  Voyageur  en  Orient,  tome  i.,  p.  401. 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   LEVANT,  ETC.  85 

endeavors  to  convert  an  idolater  into  a  Roman  Catholic  is 
threatened  with  transportation  to  Siberia,  a  specimen  of  op 
pression  and  compulsion  that,  as  far  as  I  know,  has  never  been 
devised  by  any  potentate  before."* 

We  have  reached  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea,  having  started 
from  those  of  the  Baltic,  but  only  to  receive  in  the  southern 
most  province  of  the  empire  the  same  reports  which  we  have 
gathered  in  every  other.  Even  "  the  Tatars  of  the  Crimea," 
says  Mr.  Milner,  although  educated,  as  M.  De  Dernidoff  asserts, 
by  their  masters,  f  "  have  suffered  in  manners  and  morals  by 
contact  with  the  knavish  and  notoriously  sottish  Russian 
peasantry.":):  Their  contact  wtth  the  Russian  clergy  can 
hardly  have  been  more  advantageous  to  them.  Mr.  Milner 
fully  confirms  the  account  which  De  Hell  gives  of  their 
"ignorance  and  moral  degradation,"  and  mentions,  as  an 
illustration  of  their  abject  servility,  that  the  chaplains  of  the 
Sebastopol  fleet  "  are  even  directed  respecting  the  points  to  be 
treated  in  their  religious  instructions  to  the  seamen  and  marines, 
and  an  officer  attends  their  services  to  ascertain  if  the  orders 
of  the  commander  are  obeyed !"  But,  as  De  Hell  observes, 
"  religion  has  no  influence  upon  them,"  and  they  accept  their 
degradation  without  even  being  conscious  of  it.  "  Laziness, 
intoxication,  and  fanaticism,  replace  with  them  faith,  kind 
liness,  and  charity."§  Meanwhile,  as  might  be  expected,  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Crimea  cleave  to  the  religion  of  their  fore 
fathers,  and  have  only  ceased,  under  Russian  tuition,  to  practise 
their  forgotten  virtues. 

One  more  fact  will  complete  the  tale  of  Russian  missionary 
influence  in  the  Crimea.  Dr.  Wolff,  who  preached  in  vain  to 
the  Caraite  Jews  at  Jufut-Kaleh,  observes  in  1861,  "It  is  most 
remarkable  that  though  proselytism  is  prohibited  in  Russia, 
these  Caraites  have  converted,  not  by  their  preaching,  but  by 
the  integrity,  uprightness,  and  honesty  of  their  conduct,  many 
of  the  Russians  to  the  Jewish  religion."] 

Such,  by  various  and  impartial  testimony,  has  been  the 
influence  of  the  Russian  Church  even  among  tribes  and  races 
immediately  subject  to  it.  and  such  the  gifts  which  she  has0 
imparted  to  populations  which  had  so  urgent  a  claim  upon  her 
charity,  if  she  could  have  felt  its  Divine  inspirations,  and  to 
regions  which  presented  the  most  attractive  field  for  the  apos 
tolic  ministry,  if  she  had  possessed  any  apostles  to  bear  her 

*  Travels  in  Persia,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  iii.,  p.  204. 

|  Travels  in  8.  Russia,  by  M.  Anatole  de  Demidoff,  vol.  ii.,  p.  41. 

\  The  Crimea,  &c,,  cli.  ix.,  p.  309  ;  cli.  x.,  p.  367. 

§  Lea  Steppes,  &c.,  tome  ii.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  377. 

|  Travels  and  Adventures  of  Dr.  Wolff,  cli.  xii.,  p.  228. 


86  CHAPTER  VIII. 

message  to  them.  There  is  perhaps  no  darker  page  in  the 
religious  annals  of  mankind  than  that  which  records  the  indif 
ference  of  the  official  Church  towards  the  gentile  populations 
of  Russia,  as  there  is  nothing  more  shameful  than  the  sterility, 
which  would  be  monstrous  and  incredible  if  we  did  not  know 
what  befalls  communities  deserted  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  and 
which,  as  Haxthausen  has  candidly  told  us,  "is  undoubtedly 
attributable  to  its  separation  from  Rome." 

There  are  only  two  regions  in  the  world,  China  and  Syria,  in 
which  Russia  maintains  even  the  semblance  of  a  foreign  mis 
sion,  and  with  a  few  words  on  each  of  them  we  may  pass  to 
other  themes.  In  China,  in  spite  of  her  long  residence  and 
advantageous  position,  we  have  seen  that  Russia  has  never  even 
attempted,  in  a  solitary  case,  to  win  a  soul  to  Christ.  "The 
members  of  the  Russian  mission  in  Pekin,"  we  are  told  by 
Ravenstein  in  1861,  "have  never  engaged  in  missionary  work," 
though  established  in  that  city  since  1698  !*  Once,  indeed,  her 
agents  converted  a  tribe,  not  in  China,  but  on  their  way  thither, 
and  here  is  their  own  account  of  the  event.  Laurent  Lange, 
who  was  sent  in  1715  to  Pekin,  relates  that  the  tribe  in  ques 
tion  were  summarily  baptized  by  the  order  of  Prince  Gargarin, 
and  then  frankly  adds,  "  but  they  have  not  the  slightest  con 
ception  of  the  difference  between  Christianity  and  paganism."f 

Lastly,  in  Syria,  we  have  heard  already  from  Protestant 
writers  something  of  the  character  of  Russo-Greek  Monks,  and 
of  the  contrast  which  even  such  travellers  could  detect,  between 
their  "  besotted  and  gross  ignorance,"  and  the  zeal,  learning, 
and  piety  of  the  Latin  clergy.  It  is  on  the  sacred  summit  of 
Mount  Sinai, — where  "  not  one  of  the  fraternity,"  we  are  told, 
"  can  carry  on  a  conversation  in  any  other  than  his  native 
tongue,";); — that  the  former  have  planted,  during  many  cen 
turies,  the  centre  of  Russian  propagandism.  Yet  even  here, 
where  earthly  projects  seem  out  of  place,  the  selfish  schemes 
are  rebuked  by  the  sanctity  of  undying  traditions ;  even  here, 
wrhere  every  motive  conspires  to  stimulate  them  to  religious 
fervor,  or  at  least  to  the  affectation  of  it,  the  representatives  of 
the  Russian  Church  still  remain  speechless  and  insensible,  when 
it  is  only  the  glory  of  God  and  the  salvation  of  souls  which 
invite  their  sympathy.  "The  Convent  of  Mount  Sinai," 
observes  Dr.  Stanley,  "is  a  colony  of  Christian  pastors  planted 
amongst  heathens,  and  hardly  a  spark  of  civilization,  or  of 

*  The  Itusxians  on  the  Amur,  by  E.  G.  Kavcnstein,  F.R.G.S.,  eh.  ix.,  p.  72. 

f  Journal  du  Voyage  d  la  Chine,  par  Laurent  Lange,  p.  93.  Cf.  Nouveaux 
Memoires  de  la  Moscovie,  tome  L,  p.  193. 

\  The  Golden  Horn,  &c.,  by  Charles  James  Monk,  M.A.,  vol.  i.,  p.  103, 
(1851). 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  87 

Christianity,  so  far  as  history  records,  has  been  imparted  to  a 
single  tribe  or  family  in  that  wide  wilderness.  It  is  a  colony 
of  Greeks,  of  Europeans,  of  ecclesiastics,  in  one  of  the  most 
interesting  and  the  most  sacred  regions  of  the  earth,  and  hardly 
a  fact,  from  the  time  of  their  first  foundation  to  the  present 
time,  has  been  contributed  by  them  to  the  geography,  the 
geology,  or  the  history  of  a  country,  which  in  all  its  aspects  has 
been  ^submitted  to  their  investigation  for  thirteen  centuries."* 
On  the  other  hand,  an  ardent  Protestant  traveller,  who  had 
noted  the  same  facts,  remarks  with  admiration,  that  "  for  the 
care  which  is  bestowed  upon  the  remains  of  antiquity  in  Pal 
estine,  the  whole  of  Christendom  has  to  thank  the  Pope  and 
the  propaganda  of  Rome."f 

Enough,  then,  of  Russia  and  her  National  Church  as  a  mis 
sionary  power.  Additional  information  with  respect  to  both 
might  have  been  obtained  in  abundance  from  Catholic  sources, 
but  we  have  decided  in  these  volumes  to  limit  our  appeal  to 
Protestant  witnesses.  We  have  seen,  moreover,  that  we  can 
dispense  with  any  other  testimony.  If  there  be  in  the  world  a 
community  which,  while  involuntarily  testifying  to  Catholic 
truth,  illustrates  by  its  past  history  and  actual  condition  the 
dismal  penalties  of  separation  from  the  Holy  See,  it  is  surely 
that  fallen  Church,  which,  even  among  its  nominal  members  has 
bred  only,  with  rare  exceptions,  superstition  or  incredulity,  faith 
without  virtue,  or  profession  without  belief;  which  loses  every 
year  tens  of  thousands,  whose  sincere  but  unenlightened  zeal  it 
cannot  instruct,  and  whose  distrust  and  aversion  it  cannot 
conciliate ;  and  which,  far  from  seeking  to  spread  the  light  of 
the  Gospel  in  foreign  lands,  regards  with  stupid  indifference 
the  perishing  heathen  nations  in  its  own. 


THE   MAKONITES. 

If,  now,  after  this  long  digression,  we  resume  our  journey  in 
Palestine,  and  leaving  the  Holy  City  behind  set  our  faces 
towards  the  north,  we  shall  come  to  the  forests  and  mountains 
of  Lebanon.  Here  consolation  awaits  us  and  refreshment. 
Here  we  shall  find  a  nation  profoundly  Catholic  both  in  its 
social  and  religious  life,  contrasting  in  every  feature  with  the 
less  privileged  tribes  of  the  East,  constant  in  the  faith,  steadfast 
in  filial  devotion  to  the  Holy  See,  and  recompensed  by  a  generous 
Providence  with  gifts  and  qualities  which  have  not  only  merited 

*  Sinai  and  Palestine,  by  Arthur  Penrliyn  Stanley,  M.A.,  p.  56. 
f  F.  Bremer,  Travels  in  the  Holy  Land,  vol.  ii.,  p.  166. 


88  CHAPTER   VIII. 

the  benedictions  of  the  Church,  but  extorted  the  admiration  of 
her  enemies. 

When  we  consider  the  position  of  the  Maronites,  surrounded 
on  all  sides  by  Mahometans,  idolaters,  or  heretics ;  exposed  to 
every  evil  influence  which  has  gradually  corrupted  the  other 
Christian  natives  of  this  land ;  weak,  except  by  the  nature  of 
their  country ;  owing  all  their  security  to  their  own  valor,  all 
their  prosperity  to  their  patient  and  cheerful  industry ;  we  are 
tempted  to  ask  in  surprise,  by  what  mystery  have  they  alone 
preserved  through  ages  the  dignity  of  character,  the  purity  and 
simplicity  of  life,  which  even  the  most  prejudiced  travellers 
agree  in  ascribing  to  this  favored  race?  The  answer,  which 
we  need  not  anticipate,  will  be  sufficiently  revealed  in  the  evi 
dence  which  we  are  about  to  produce. 

We  have  not  hitherto  had  recourse  to  Catholic  testimony  in 
proving  the  contrast  which  it  is  the  main  object  of  these  volumes 
to  trace,  both  because  the  controversial  value  of  such  testimony 
would  be  insignificant,  and  because  Providence,  as  we  have 
several  times  observed,  has  forced  Protestants  to  collect  every 
where,  and  to  publish  to  the  world,  all  the  facts  which  illustrate 
that  contrast.  We  shall  adhere  to  our  rule  in  this  case  also, 
though  it  would  be  pleasant  to  quote  some  few  at  least  of  the 
magnificent  eulogies  which  eminent  writers  have  pronounced 
on  the  Maronite  nation,  the  nobility  of  their  character,  and  the 
unswerving  constancy  of  their  faith.  Let  us  claim,  for  the  first 
timfe,  this  indulgence. 

"  In  spite  of  their  great  numbers,"  says  M.  Achille  Laurent, — 
they  are  estimated  by  the  French  consular  agents  at  five  hundred 
and  twelve  thousand  five  hundred  in  the  Libanus,  and  thirty 
thousand  in  the  plain, * — "  and  though  surrounded  on  every  side 
by  infidels,  heretics,  and  schismatics,  never,  in  relation  to  the 
faith,  has  the  least  difference  been  known  amongst  them  ;  never 
has  any  schism  disturbed  their  unity ;  never  has  one  individual 
amongst  them  corrupted  the  purity  of  the  Catholic  doctrine."f 
"  This  Catholic  colony,"  says  M.  Jules  David,  "  seems  to  recall 
by  its  charity,  by  the  simplicity  of  its  manners,  by  its  smiling 
industry  and  community  of  labor,  the  primitive  Christian 
society  ;  a  society  of  united  and  active  brothers,  a  society  of 
equality  before  God,  a  veritable  communion  of  which  the  Church 
is  the  sublime  centre.";):  Lastly, — for  we  may  not  linger  even 
over  testimonies  which  are  like  music  to  the  ear, — an  apostolic 
missionary,  one  of  that  noble  band  of  discalced  Carmelites  who 


*  Do  Baudicour,  ch.  vi.,  p.  246. 

f  Relation  Historique  des  Affaires  de  Syrie,  tome  i.,  p.  403. 

i  Syrie  Moderne,  p.  21. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,   ETC.  89 

havt  dared  to  imitate  their  Lord  in  His  utter  poverty,  gives  this 
account  of  them  in  1858.  After  describing  their  various  neigh 
bors, — the  barbarous  Moslem,  the  pastoral  Turcomans,  the 
reckless  Ansayrii,  the  false  and  hypocritical  Druses,  the  haughty 
Metualis, — disciples  of  the  anti-caliph  Ali,  "  of  whom  it  would 
be  difficult  to  say  whether  they  hate  a  Christian  or  a  Turk  the 
most," — and  lastly,  the  schismatical  Greeks,  "  the  ignorance  of 
whose  priests  is  only  equalled  by  the  moral  degradation  of  the 
people,"  he  continues  as  follows :  "  We  come  now  to  the 
Maronites.  The  heart  has  been  dried  up  and  the  soul  saddened 
by  the  confused  disorder  of  idolatry  and  schism.  It  is  now  our 
turn  to  rejoice.  The  ardent  faith  of  primitive  Christianity,  its 
sweet  piety,  innocence,  and  simplicity  of  manners,  is  found  re- 

Eroduced  amongst  the  Maronites.     They  appear  like  a  people 
:*esh  from  the  hand  of  the  Creator,  or  from  the  regenerating 
bath  of  the  Baptism  of  Jesus.     Oh,  blessed  people  !  how  great 
are  you  in  your  oppression  !  how  rich  in  your  poverty  !"* 

It  is  not  thus,  of  course,  that  Protestants  speak  of  them,  for 
they  have  attempted  to  creep  into  this  paradise  and  have  been 
somewhat  rudely  ejected ;  but  their  language,  though  tinged 
with  resentment  and  mortification,  abundantly  confirms  the 
reports  of  more  impartial  witnesses. 

"The  Maronites,"  says  Colonel  Churchill,  who  does  not 
share  the  petty  passions  of  the  Protestant  missionaries,  "  are 
still  the  i  fideles'  who  welcomed  Godfrey  de  Bouillon  and  his 
associates. "f  While  all  has  changed  around  them,  centuries 
have  left  them  unchanged.  They  are  "the  stanchest  Romanists 
in  the  world,"  says  the  Rev.  Mr.  Williams  ;  which  only  means 
that  they  resemble  true  Catholics  everywhere.  "  So  bigoted  is 
this  Romanist  sect,"  says  Mr.  Drew  Stent,  "  that  very  little 
can  be  effected  ;"  that  is,  they  spurned  the  heresies  of  Anglican 
and  Calvinist  teachers,  and  stoned  the  false  prophets  who  tried 
to  find  an  entrance  amongst  them.  "  The  missionaries,"  says 
Mr.  Wortabet,  alluding  to  the  Protestant  emissaries,  "  had  to 
retire  before  pelting  stones  and  an  angry  mob."  "  They  were 
driven  out,"  says  Mr.  Walpole,  "  by  the  fanatic  population,  and 
I  do  not  believe  they  ever  procured  the  satisfaction  they  ought. 
The  Maronites  are  very  proud  of  the  victory."  Pie  confesses, 
however,  in  spite  of  wounded  sympathies,  that  "  the  attempt 
was  worse  than  folly."  And  so  purely  spontaneous  was  the 
popular  movement  which  expelled  the  foreign  teachers,  because 
they  came,  with  money  in  their  hands,  blaspheming  the  Mother 
of  God,  the  Sacrament  of  the  Altar,  and  the  Communion  of 

*  Annals,  vol.  xix.,  p.  271. 

f  Mount  Lebanon,  by  Colonel  Churchill,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  66. 


90  CHAPTER  VIII. 

Saints,  so  wholly  independent  of  any  political  or  ecclesiastical 
influence,  that  a  Protestant  Association  confesses,  in  1854-,  that 
"  a  strong  proclamation  came  out  from  the  Maronite  and  Greek 
Catholic  Bishops  at  Beirut  to  all  their  people,  requiring  them 
to  guard  carefully  and  protect  all  the  members  of  the  American 
mission."* 

Let  us  hear  other  witnesses.  "  They  are  most  bigoted  adhe 
rents  of  the  Papacy,"  observes  one-writer,  "  allowing  not  merely 
the  claims  of  his  Holiness  as  Head  of  their  Church,  to  dictate 
.their  creed,  but  submitting  also  to  his  paternal  government  in 
matters  of  discipline."f  "  The  Maronites,"  says  Dr.  Robinson, 
and  all  Protestant  writers  use  the  same  language,  "  are  charac 
terized  by  an  almost  unequalled  devotion  to  the  See  of  Rome." 
They  have  lately  converted,  he  adds,  two  Emirs  of  the  Druses, 
together  with  their  families,  "so  that  now  almost  all  the 
highest  nobility  of  the  mountain  are  Maronites."J 

This  may  suffice.  No  one  will  deny,  in  the  face  of  such 
testimony,  that  the  Maronites  are  devoted  Catholics.  But  per 
haps  they  are  servile,  ignorant,  and  priest-ridden  ?  The  Eev. 
J.  L.  Porter,  of  whom  we  heard  at  Damascus,  and  who  had 
tb  avenge  both  his  personal  misadventures  and  those  of  his 
colleagues,  says  with  emphasis,  "They  are  as  ignorant  a  set  of 
priest-ridden  bigots  as  ever  polluted  a  country,  and  no  stranger," 
he  means  no  Protestant  missionary,  "  can  pass  through  their 
streets  without  meeting  insult  and  often  abuse  ;  they  are  as 
tyrannical,  as  unjust,  and  almost  as  bloodthirsty,  as  the  haughty 
Moslems."§  We  have  said  that  it  is  only  English  and  American 
missionaries,  but  chiefly  the  former,  who  soothe  their  mortiii- 
cation  by  outbursts  of  this  kind  ;  and  as  it  is  quite  true  that 
the  Maronite  nation  owes  its  character,  habits,  and  institutions 
Solely  to  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  religion,  it  may  be  well 
to  compare  Mr.  Porter's  account  of  them  with  that  of  other 
Protestants,  not  less  prejudiced,  but  having  more  respect  for 
truth,  for  themselves,  and  for  their  readers. 

"They  are,"  says  Colonel  Churchill  in  1853,  "  a  community 
of  Christians  who  are  virtually  as  free  and  independent  as  any 
state  in  Christendom. "| 

"They  are,"  exclaims  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor,  in  1855,  "the 
most  thrifty,  industrious,  honest,  arid  happy  people  in  Syria." 
"The  women,"  he  adds,  "are  beautiful,  with  sprightly,  intelli 
gent  faces,  quite  different  from  the  stupid  Mahometan  females;" 

*  American  Board  for  Foreign  Mistdom,  Reports,  p.  110  (1854). 

f  North  American  Review,  vol.  Ixxxi.,  p.  78. 

\  Biblical  Researches,  &c.,  p.  460. 

^  Fire  Years  in  Damascus,  vol.  i.,  cli.  xvi.,  p.  279. 

\  Mount  Lebanon. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE   LEVANT,  ETC.  91 

% 

and  their  home  "is  a  mountain  paradise,  inhabited  by  a  peo 
ple  so  kind  and  simple-hearted,  that  assuredly  no  vengeful 
angel  will  ever  drive  them  out  with  his  flaming  sword."* 

"They  are,"  writes  the  Countess  Hahn-Hahn,  "  that  indus 
trious  band  of  Christians  who  have  adorned  these  mountains 
with  cornfields  and  vineyards,  with  villages  and  convents."f 

"  Health  and  industry,"  says  Colonel  Napier,  "  appeared  to 
be  the  chief  characteristics  of  this  hardy  race.  The  men  were  a 
robust  and  fine-looking  set  of  fellows,  and  their  wives  and 
daughters,  availing  themselves  of  the  privileges  of  Christianity, 
were  not  ashamed  to  show  countenances  invariably  beaming 
with  smiles,  and  often  possessing  no  inconsiderable  share  of 
beauty ;"  while  the  Greek  schismatical  women  "  lead  nearly 
as  secluded  a  life  as  the  Osmanli  ladies  of  Constantinople  or 
Smyrna.":): 

Mr.  Farley  has  told  us,  in  flat  contradiction  to  Mr.  Porter, 
that  their  kindness  and  hospitality,  even  to  Protestant  travel 
lers  were  so  universal,  until  they  were  irritated  by  the  selfish 
intrigues  and  impertinent  bigotry  of  missionaries  whom  they 
would  have  been  content  to  despise  if  they  had  not  been  con 
strained  to  abhor  them,  that  any  Englishman  was  sure  of  a 
cordial  welcome  amongst  them,  and  that  he  could  never  forget 
the  "extreme  courtesy"  of  the  Maronite  clergy  towards  himself. 

Mr.  Monro,  an  intelligent  Anglican  clergyman,  who  had  the 
good  sense  not  to  insult  his  hosts,  and  had  no  personal  motive 
for  libelling  them,  not  only  contrasts  their  frank  hospitality  with 
the  suspicious  exclusiveness  of  other  Syrian  races,  but  adds, 
"The  kind  manners  and  energetic  carriage  of  these  people 
afforded  a  striking  instance  that,  where  industry  prevails,  the 
flowers  of  happiness  will  blossom,  and  abundance  ever  be  the 
fruit."§ 

Colonel  Napier,  in  1847,  and  Mr.  Monk,  in  1851,  rebuke 
with  no  less  emphasis  the  peevish  calumnies  of  the  angry  mis 
sionary  ;  the  latter  reporting  that  he  was  "  received  in  the  most 
hospitable  manner,"!  and  the  former  recording  his  experience 
in  tiiese  words :  "  Nothing  could  exceed  the  kindness  of  our 
reception  by  the  hospitable  mountaineers,  whose  cottages  were 
all  thrown  open  to  the  strangers.  ...  In  every  cottage  on 
whose  threshold  we  set  foot,  the  welcome  iFaddal>  was  pro 
nounced."  T 

*  The  Lands  of  the  Saracen,  ch.  xii.,  p.  174. 
f  Countess  Hahn-Hahn,  Letter  xxi. 

j  Reminiscences  of  Syria  and  the  Holy  Land,  by  Lieut.-Colonel  E.  Napier, 
vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  204. 

§  Travels  in  Syria,  by  the  Rev.  Vere  Monro.  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxiv.,  p.  107. 
f  The  Golden  Horn,  &c.,  by  Charles  James  Monk,  M  A.,  ch.  xx.,  p.  303. 
1[  Reminiscences,  ch.  v.,  201. 


92  CHAPTER  VIII. 

Mr.  Walpole,  in  spite  of  strong  religious  antipathies,  declares 
that  their  valor  is  as  conspicuous  as  their  industry  and  kind 
liness.  "The  Maronites  rose  against  their  oppressors,  the 
Metuali,  and  drove  them  fairly  out  of  the  district.  .  .  .  The 
Metuali  have  a  high  character  for  warriors  and  courage.  This 
shows  what  the  Catholic  population  might  become  if  united." 
The  general  prosperity,  he  says,  was  so  remarkable,  that  "  it 
exhibited  a  scene  which  made  one  feel  proud  that  at  last  the 
Christian  dared  improve."  He  observes  also,  that  the  family 
of  Sheebal,  descended  from  Mahomet,  had  just  been  converted, 
and  adopted  into  the  Maronite  nation.* 

Mr.  Keating  Kelly  cannot  speak  of  them  without  enthusiasm. 
"  The  condition  of  this  people  is  essentially  happy.  Its  religion 
is  free  and  respected  ;  its  churches  and  its  convents  crown  the 
summits  of  its  hills  ;  its  bells,  that  sound  in  its  ears  as  a  welcome 
token  of  liberty  and  independence,  peal  their  summons  to  pray 
night  and  day  ;  it  is  governed  by  its  own  hereditary  chieftains, 
and  by  the  clergy  it  loves ;  a  strict  but  equitable  system  of 
police  preserves  order  and  security  in  the  villages  ;  property  is 
respected  and  transmitted  from  father  to  son  ;  commerce  is  ac 
tive;  the  manners  of  the  people  perfectly  simple  and  pure. 
Rarely  is  there  seen  a  population  whose  appearance  more  be 
speaks  health,  native  nobility,  and  civilization,  than  that  of 
these  men  of  Lebanon. "f 

Lastly,  even  a  Syrian  Greek,  who  cordially  hates  both  their 
religion  and  their  nation,  and  who  seems  by  converse  with 
English  Protestants  to  have  become  indifferent  to  his  own 
religion  without  adopting  theirs,  makes  the  following  confession. 
u  They  are  a  most  industrious,  contented,  happy  people  .... 
and  so  manly  and  courageous  that,  until  the  year  1843,  they 
had  never  been  conquered  by  the  Mahometans ;"  and  then  he 
adds  the  most  magnificent  eulogy  which  it  was  possible  to  pro 
nounce  upon  a  Christian  people,  that,  "  owing  to  the  influence 
of  the  bishops,  crime  is  in  a  great  measure  unknown  amongst 
the  Maronites"^. 

In  reading  these  impressive  testimonies,  from  writers  of 
various  creeds  and  nations,  to  the  virtues  of  a  Catholic  people, 
we  have  almost  forgotten  Mr.  Porter.  Let  us  quote  him  once 
more,  for  the  sake  of  adding  a  new  example  of  the  language 
in  which  passion  finds  vent  while  reason  is  mute,  and  of  the 
class  of  agents  whom  Protestantism  sends  forth  into  every 

*  The  Ansayrii,  icitJi  Travels  in  the  Further  East,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  7 ;  ch. 
xviii.,  p.  434. 

•f  Syria,  and  the  Holy  Land,  by  Walter  Keating  Kelly,  ch.  viii.,  p.  97. 

;  The  Thistle  and  the  Cedar  of  Lebanon,  by  Risk  Allah  Effendi.  ch.  xvi.,  pp. 
269,  273. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,   ETC.  93 

land,  but  only  to  augment  everywhere  the  repugnance  which 
is  entertained,  by  all  races  of  men,  towards  England  and  her 
representatives. 

The  Maronite  clergy,  Mr.  Porter  says,  "  are  ignorant, 
bigoted,  and  overbearing,"  and  their  religion  "  senseless 
mummery."  It  is  of  the  Syrian  clergy,  professors  of  the 
same  faith,  that  a  more  enlightened  English  Protestant  says, 
"  It  is  a  sublime  spectacle  to  contemplate  these  men  devoting 
themselves  to  deeds  of  charity  and  mercy,  and  welcoming  a 
long  martyrdom  for  conviction's  sake."*  "  I  can  imagine  St. 
Basil  the  Great,"  says  another  educated  Englishman,  "  or  the 
Gregories,  just  such  persons  in  appearance."f  "If  Titian 
were  about  to  paint  a  Doge  of  Venice,"  says  an  accomplished 
French  traveller,  speaking  of  the  Maronite  Patriarch  of  Cilicia, 
"  he  would  ask  for  no  other  model. "^  Even  Mr.  Porter,  in  an 
access  of  involuntary  admiration,  confesses  "  their  staid  dignity 
and  noble  bearing  ;§  while  the  more  candid  Dr.  Wolff  declares 
that  "  the  monks  of  the  Maronite  nation,"  though  they  "  tried 
to  convert  him  to  the  Church  of  Rome,"  "  are  usually  men  of 
great  vigor  and  power." 

But  Mr.  Porter  speedily  resumes  his  usual  tone.  "The 
education  of  the  people,"  he  observes,  "  they  never  think  of;" 
and  as  if  even  this  statement  admitted  of  improvement,  he  adds, 
"the  idea  of  imparting  religious  instruction  is  quite  out  of  the 
question."  Presently,  as  if  the  accounts  of  other  Protestant 
travellers  suddenly  occurred  to  him,  and  suggested  the  necessity 
of  caution,  he  says,  "  It  is  true  a  few  schools  have  been  estab 
lished,  but  these  are  got  up  by  the  people,"  who,  although 
"ignorant,  bigoted,  bloodthirsty,  and  polluters  of  the  soil," 
lie  now  represents  as  going  beyond  their  pastors,  to  whom  he 
declares  they  are  slavishly  subject,  in  promoting  education  ! 

Yet  Mr.  Ubicini  has  told  us,  that  in  every  province  of  Asiatic 
Turkey,  Catholic  schools  are  multiplying  in  all  directions,  and 
are  eagerly  frequented  by  children  of  all  sects.  Dr.  Robinson 
declares  of  the  Maronite  College  of  Kesrawan,  in  which  the 
Jesuits  teach  Arabic,  Syriac,  Latin,  and  Italian,  "  that  it  takes 
a  higher  stand  than  any  other  similar  establishment  in  Syria." 
Mr.  Farley  speaks  in  the  same  terms  of  the  Lazarist  College  at 
Antoura,  "  where  some  hundreds  of  students  who  come  from 
Beyrout,  Aleppo,  Damascus,  and  other  towns  in  Syria,  as  also 
from  Persia,  Egypt,  and  even  from  Nubia  and  Abyssinia,  are 
taught,"  in  addition  to  "  the  usual  branches  of  education," 

*  Farley,  Two  Years  in  Syria,  ch.  xxxiv.,  p.  291. 

f  Patterson,  p.  322. 

±  La  Syrie  avant  1860,  par  Georges  do  Salverte,  ch.  viii.,  p.  100. 

§  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  296. 


94:  CHAPTER  VIII. 

"  tlie  Arabic,  French,  Italian,  and  Latin  languages."  M.  de 
Salverte  reports,  in  1861,  that  the  ecclesiastical  seminary  at 
Ghazir,  in  which  he  found  ninety  students,  is  so  efficient,  that 
its  excellence  dispenses  them  from  seeking  education  in  the 
colleges  of  Rome.*  Mr.  Wellsted  relates,  that  even  in  Aleppo, 
"  most  of  the  children  can  read  and  write  at  an  early  age. "7 
And  even  Risk  Allah,  though  he  affects,  in  order  to  please  his 
English  readers,  to  deplore  what  he  has  learned  to  call  the 
"  Romish  tendencies"  of  the  Maronites,  honestly  confesses  that 
"  their  schools  are  really  excellent ;"  and  whereas  the  Protesfc- 
ant  missionary  affirms  that  the  Maronite  clergy  "  never  think  of 
education,"  this  Syrian  Greek  avows,  in  spite  of  national  and 
religious  antipathies,  that  "  one  great  advantage  which  the 
Maronites  possess,  and  which  must  eventually  prove  very  bene 
ficial  to  them,  is  the  fact,  that  education  is  spreading  univer 
sally  amongst  them"'%. 

Lastly,  the  accomplished  M.  de  Saul§y  furnishes  the  following 
example  of  the  nature  of  the  education  imparted  to  all  comers 
in  the  college  at  Antoura.  A  native  pupil,  who  had  only 
attained  the  modest  position  of  assistant  dragoman  at  Beyrout, 
is  thus  described  by  this  competent  judge:  "He  speaks  and 
writes  French  very  correctly,  he  is  perfectly  well  read  in  all  our 
first-rate  authors,  and  altogether  his  education  may  vie  with 
that  of  the  lest  French  universities.  As  to  Arabic,  his  native 
tongue,  he  is  complete  master  of  it,  and  could,  if  required,  fill 
the  chair  of  the  ablest  professor. "§ 

But  in  all  this  there  is  no  lesson  for  Mr.  Porter.  He  had  a 
defeat  to  avenge,  and  after  five  years  of  unprofitable  labor  had 
convinced  even  himself  that  it  was  time  to  quit  Syria.  Arid 
BO  in  his  anger  he  forgot  prudence  as  well  as  truth.  Education 
is  so  literally  universal  among  the  Maronites,  though  their 
clergy  "  never  think  of  it,"  that  whereas,  in  the  words  of  the 
late  Mr.  Warburton,  "  there  is  not  an  Egyptian  woman  who 
can  read  and  write,  except  a  daughter  of  Mehemet  Ali  and  the 
few  who  have  been  educated  in  the  school  of  Mr.  Lieder,  the 
Maronite  women  of  the  Lebanon,  though  of  the  same  Arab 
race,  are  generally  instructed  "\  "  Education,"  says  Mr. 
Kelly,  "  though  limited  to  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  and 
the  catechism," — we  have  seen  that  for  the  class  above  the 
peasants  the  course  includes  Arabic,  Syriac,  Latin,  French, 

*  La  Syrie,  &c.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  96. 

f  Travels,  &c.,  by  J.  It.  Wellsted,  Esq.,  F.R.S.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  91. 
f  Ch.  xvi.  p.,  270. 

§  Narrative  of  a  Journey  Round  the  Dead  Sea,  by  F.  de  Saulsy,  vol.  L, 
ch.  i.,  p.  5. 
|  The  Crescent  and  the  Cross,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  100. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,   ETC.  95 

and  Italian, — "is  universal  among  them,  and  gives  them  a 
deserved  superiority  over  the  other  tribes  of  Syria."*  Whether 
such  an  amount  of  education  can  be  said  to  be  "  universal"  in 
England  we  need  not  stay  to  inquire. 

But  Mr.  Porter  had  still  something  to  add.  It  was  possible 
to  clothe  his  enmity  in  still  more  impressive  language.  The 
Maronites,  like  all  the  oriental  tribes,  severely  exacting  in 
their  estimate  of  a  Christian  apostle,  had  rejected  him  and  his 
companions,  with  an  energy  proportioned  to  the  ardor  of  their 
faith,  as  ministers  of  the  Evil  one.  Mr.  Porter  repays  the 
indignity  with  the  following  announcement,  in  which  he 
appears  to  have  uttered  his  last  farewell  to  Syria  and  the 
Syrian  mission :  "  The  Protestant  missionaries  have  done  more 
for  the  advancement  of  education  within  the  short  period  of 
twenty  years,  than  the  combined  priesthood  of  all  Lebanon  and 
all  Syria  has  done  during  centuries."  It  is  our  turn  to  bid 
farewell  to  Mr.  Porter,  to  whom  we  have  perhaps  given  an 
undue  share  of  attention,  and  we  cannot  do  so  more  litly  than 
in  the  words  of  his  co-religionists. 

From  Mr.  Williams,  himself  a  Protestant  minister,  we  have 
learned,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  Protestant  missionaries  in 
Syria  "  are  merely  playing  at  missions,"  and  that  "  self-sacrifice 
and  simple  trust"  are  not  to  be  learned  from  their  example ; 
and  on  the  other,  that  the  Catholic  Church  has  sent  to  this 
land  "the  best  instructed  and  most  devoted  missionaries  that 
the  world  has  seen  since  primitive  times."  Dr.  Southgate,  a 
Protestant  bishop,  has  assured  us  that  the  rare  disciples  of  Mr. 
Porter  and  his  colleagues  "  are  infidels  and  radicals  unworthy 
of  the  sympathy  of  the  Christian  public  ;"  while  Dr.  Wolff  has 
lately  announced,  after  an  experience  of  many  years,  that  "  the 
worst  people  among  the  Eastern  natives  are  those  who  know 
English,  and  have  been  converted  to  Protestantism."  To  these 
emphatic  statements  Sir  Adolphus  Slade  has  added,  that  many 
of  the  missionaries  themselves,  who  have  "  done  more  for 
education,"  though  they  have  neither  schools  nor  scholars,  than 
all  the  Catholic  clergy  for  centuries,  "  know  absolutely  no  other 
than  their  mother  tongue." 

Finally,  the  same  Protestant  writer,  long  resident  in  Syria, 
conversant  during  many  years  with  all  which  has  occurred  in 
that  land,  and  full  of  admiration  of  the  apostolic  men  by  whom, 
as  he  observes,  "  millions  of  souls  have  been  saved'^  in  these 
regions,  lends  us  the  following  appropriate  words  with  which 
to  take  leave  of  Mr.  Porter:  "Protestant  missionaryism  is 
much  extolled  ;  it  certainly  costs  a  great  deal ;  but  the  good  it 

*  Ubi  supra. 


96  CHAPTER   VIII. 

may  effect  is  as  a  drop  of  water,  compared  with  the  sea  of  ben 
efits  spread  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  silently  and  unos 
tentatiously,  all  over  Turkey.""* 


THE   DRUSES. 

It  is  time  to  quit  the  mountains  and  valleys  of  Lebanon, 
where  we  have  found,  in  the  heart  of  a  land  long  abandoned  to 
every  error  and  impiety,  a  picture  which  a  Christian  may  well 
love  to  contemplate:  on  the  one  hand,  deep  religious  convic 
tion,  unshaken  through  ages,  and  that  instinctive  horror  of  her 
esy  which  is  one  of  the  surest  signs  of  election ;  on  the  other, 
as  even  enemies  allow,  valor,  dignity,  purity,  gentleness,  in 
dustry,  prosperity,  and  peace.  Such,  by  Protestant  testimony, 
is  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  religion  upon  generous  natures, 
penetrated  by  its  healing  power,  and  such  its  results  even 
among  a  people  of  Arab  origin,  though  surrounded  by  races 
and  tribes  with  whom  faitli  is  a  dream,  and  virtue  a  jest. 

It  is  characteristic  of  that  singular  form  of  religion  which 
seems  instinctively  to  prefer  crime  and  ignorance  in  union  with 
heresy  to  virtue  and  enlightenment  in  connection  with  the 
Church,  that  the  only  reflection  suggested  to  another  Epis 
copalian  clergyman,  of  the  same  class  as  Mr.  Porter,  by  the 
contrast  which  we  have  just  delineated,  found  expression  in 
these  words:  "How  sad,"  exclaims  the  Rev.  George  Fisk, 
"  that  Popery  should  taint  even  the  remains  of  the  glory  of 
Lebanon  !"  Greeks  and  Armenians,  sunk  in  mental  and  moral 
decrepitude,  Mr.  Fisk  would  embrace  with  love,  because,  as  he 
seriously  observes,  they  hold  "  the  great  leading  truths  of  the 
Gospel ;"  and  though  "  in  many  respects  superstitious,  and 
manifestly  corrupt,"  they  have  this  merit,  which  amply  supplies 
the  want  of  every  other,  that  "  they  have  never  merged  in  the 
apostasy  of  Rome."f  Mr.  Fisk  has  apparently  not  read,  or 
perhaps  forgotten,  the  testimonies  of  Protestant  writers,  who 
declare — as  we  have  already  heard  and  shall  hear  again  pres 
ently — that  the  only  Greeks  and  Armenians  who  deserve  the 
name  of  intelligent  or  consistent  Christians  are  precisely  those 
who  have  derived  new  life  from  reconciliation  with  the  Catho 
lic  Church. 

Allusion  has  been  made  to  the  Druses,  the  implacable  and 
hereditary  foes  of  the  Maronites.  If  we  add  a  few  words  with 
respect  to  the  former,  it  is  only  for  the  sake  of  noticing  the 

*  Turkey,  Greece,  and  Malta,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xx.,  p.  423. 
\  A  Pastor's  Memorial,  ch.  ix.,  pp  398,  400,  410. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  97 

characteristic  relations  of  the  Protestant  missionaries  with  them. 
Banished  by  the  Maronites  with  every  mark  of  contempt  and 
disgust,  they  took  refuge  among  their  hostile  neighbors,  and 
endeavored  to  make  alliance  with  them.  The  infamy  of  their 
character,  and  their  indifference  to  any  form  of  religion,  was  no 
impediment  to  the  negotiations  which  now  ensued.  To  prot 
estantize  the  Druses,  and  to  vex  the  Maronites,  would  be  a 
double  triumph  ;  but  it  was  one  which  they  were  not  destined 
to  enjoy.  "  The  Druses,"  said  Dr.  Yates,  with  great  confidence, 
"  will  unite  with  the  Protestant  Christians,  and  the  power  of 
the  Osmanlis  will  cease."*  Mr.  Fremantle,  an  Anglican  clergy 
man,  was  of  opinion  that  they  would  become  "  independent 
Episcopalians;"  and  as  if  this  were  not  enough  to  stimulate 
the  hopes  of  his  co-religionists  at  home,  he  gravely  added — in 
a  report  which  was  actually  published  by  the  "  Society  for 
Promoting  Christian  Knowledge" — that  "they  desire  to  be 
united  to  the  English  Church. "f  Whether  Mr.  Fremantle 
really  believed  this,  we  need  not  question.  The  Druses,  as  Mr. 
Chasseaud  observed  in  1855,  are  unscrupulous  hypocrites,  and 
will  affect  to  be  of  the  religion  of  any  society  in  which  they 
happen  to  find  themselves.^  They  pretend,  says  Mr.  Paton, 
to  be  Mahometans  when  it  suits  them.§  All  European  writers 
agree  in  describing  them  as  impious,  false,  and  bloodthirsty. 
Dr.  Clarke  says,  "Some  among  them  certainly  offer  their  high 
est  adoration  to  a  calf.r\  Kisk  Allah  declares,  apparently 
from  his  own  observation,  that  '•  while  they  profess  to  be  Ma- 
hommedans,  they  have  no  hesitation  whatever  in  denouncing 
Mahommed  as  a  false  prophet ;"  and  he  adds,  that  the  Druses, 
like  the  Kurds,  have  formed  such  an  estimate  of  the  creed  of 
"  English  Protestants"  as  to  assert,  "  that  their  religion  is  a 
species  of  free  masonry,  which  very  much  resembles  their 
own  ;"  and  one  of  their  leaders  assured  him  that  "  a  tall 
English  emir"  had  told  him  so.^f 

How  surely  these  atheists  of  Syria  reckoned  upon  the  sym 
pathy  of  "  English  Protestants,"  and  how  much  reason  they 
had  for  doing  so,  is  sufficiently  revealed  in  the  comments  mado 
by  the  latter  upon  the  Turco-Druse  insurrection  of  I860.  All 
their  apologies  are  for  the  Druses,  all  their  sarcasms  for  the 
Maronites.  u  The  Maronites  are  mere  savages,"  says  one  of  the 
ablest  organs  of  intellectual  Protestantism  ;  and  as  if  this  were 


*  Modern  History  of  Egypt,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  158. 

t  The  Eastern  Churches,  pp.  44,  49. 

j  The  Druses  of  the  Lebanon,  by  George  Washington  Chasseaud. 

§  Modern  Syrians,  p.  309. 

I  Clarke's  Travels,  vol.  iv.,  p.  136. 

1  UU  Supra,  p.  292. 

VOL.  ti.  8 


98  CHAPTER   VIII. 

not  venturesome  enough,  he  gravely  adds,  that  until  "  the  hour 
of  their  triumph  the  conduct  of  the  Druses  had  been  unim 
peachable  !"*  It  is  but  a  new  version  of  the  old  cry,  Non  hunc 
seel  Baral)bain.  The  worshippers  of  a  calf  are  preferred  before 
the  disciples  of  the  Cross  ;  and  the  latter,  though  travellers  of 
all  sects  confess  with  enthusiasm  their  nobility  and  virtue,  are 
peremptorily  described,  by  that  instinct  of  hate  which  can  cor 
rupt  even  genius  into  imbecility,  as  "mere  savages." 

An  equally  eminent  authority  observes,  that  "the  great  Druse 
chief  Mohamed  En-Nasar,  the  instigator  of  these  butcheries, 
counted  on  English  support,  and  therefore  it  need  not  be  added 
on  an  English  reward. "f  His  calculation  has  been  abundantly 
justified.  "The  Druses,"  observes  a  traveller  who  has  lived 
amongst  them,  "  seek  refuge  in  the  arms  of  England,  because 
they  know  that  every  other  nation  of  Europe  has  judged  and 
condemned  them  j"J  while  another  relates  that  he  heard  an 
[Englishman  say  to  a  Maronite  shiek,  that  England  gave  her 
support  to  the  Druses  solely  in  order  to  counterbalance  the 
influence  of  France  with  the  Christians.  "  You  admit,  then," 
replied  the  Maronite  chief,  "  that  as  soon  as  France  begins  to 
labor  for  God,  England  takes  up  arms  for  the  devil. "§ 

Lord  Carnarvon,  who  represents  the  official  mind  of  England, 
and  has  composed,  with  much  ability,  an  almost  enthusiastic 
apology  for  the  Druses,  insists  that  the  u  strong  connection  of 
gratitude  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  good  offices  on  the  other, 
which  has  existed  between  the  Druses  and  England,  ought 
neither  on  moral  nor  political  grounds  to  be  lightly  severed.''! 
In  other  words,  it  is  worthy  of  England  to  become  the  patron 
of  impiety,  and  an  adversary  of  the  Christian  religion,  if  by 
accepting  this  mission  she  can  counterbalance  French  influence 
in  the  East. 

It  appears,  however,  that  in  spite  of  the  avowed  sympathy 
and  alliance  between  the  Druses  and  the  English,  the  former 
only  amused  themselves  at  Mr.  Fremantle's  expense  when  they 
encouraged  his  cheerful  expectations ;  for  Mr.  Walpole  tells  us, — 
eleven  years  after  that  gentleman's  sanguine  prediction, — "  With 
the  Druses  the  Protestant  missionaries  have  made,  I  believe,  no 
progress."  They  are  not  yet  affiliated  to  the  "  English  Church," 
nor  is  there  any  immediate  promise  of  that  event.  "  Many 
professed  themselves  converts,"  says  Mr.  Walpole,  "but  directly 
the  minister  refused  them  some  request,  turned  round  and  said, 

*  Saturday  Review,  April  20,  1861. 

f  The  Times,  September  1,  1860. 

\  La  Virite  sur  la  Syrie,  par  Baptistin  Ponjoulat,  Lettre  xliii.,  p.  489. 

§  Mislin,  Les  Lieux  Saints,  tome  i.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  156. 

§  Recollections  of  the  Druses,  by  the  Earl  of  Carnarvon,  ch.  viii.,  p.  119. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,   ETC.  99 

We  will  listen  to  you  as  long  as  you  pay  us."*  This  was  their 
view  of  the  value  of  Protestantism. 

In  1862,  the  agent  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society  reports 
thus  of  the  Druses :  "  There  does  not  as  yet  appear  an  opening 
for  the  reception  of  the  Gospel  among  them ;  on  the  contrary, 
their  hatred  of  Christians  and  Christianity  seems,  if  possible, 
to  increase:  and  direct  missionary  work  is  highly  irritating  to 
them,  and  excites  their  fanaticism. "f  Mr.  Fremantle  was  ap 
parently  too  sanguine. 

These  are  not  the  only  operations  of  Protestants  in  the 
Lebanon,  though  precisely  the  same  result  has  attended  all 
their  efforts.  We  have  heard  of  the  two  "  designing  brothers'' 
wrho  went  to  Malta,  and  "  agreed  to  be  baptized"  on  condition 
of  receiving  some  hundred  pounds.  Others  have  imitated  these 
neophytes  of  the  Lebanon  with  still  greater  success.  Dr.  Carno 
relates  the  story  of  "  the  noted  Eusebius,  Bishop  of  Mount 
Lebanon,"  who  far  surpassed,  as  became  his  more  elevated  rank, 
the  performances  of  his  ingenuous  flock.  This  Greek  prelate 
"  was  chaperoned  through  many  of  the  colleges  at  Oxford  by 
one  of  the  Masters."  In  such  society  his  anti-Roman  views 
made  him  a  welcome  guest ;  but  the  crafty  oriental  was  only 
speculating  on  the  inexhaustible  credulity  of  his  sympathizing 
hosts,  by  which  he  and  his  class  have  so  often  profited.  Eusebius 
obtained,  says  Dr.  Carne,  "  a  capital  printing  press,  and  about 
eight  hundred  pounds  in  money.  When  we  were  at  Sidon,we 
found  that  this  eastern  dignitary  was  living  in  a  style  of 
excessive  comfort,  and  to  his  heart's  content,  at  a  few  hours' 
distance.  With  this  money,  which  was  a  fortune  in  the  East, 
he  has  purchased  a  good  house  and  garden ;  not  one  farthing 
has  ever  gone  to  renovate  the  condition  of  the  Christians  of 
the  East,  and  the  printing-press,  or  some  fragments  of  it,  were 
known  to  have  found  their  way  to  Alexandria."^:  Oxford 
should  have  learned  by  this  time  to  mistrust  pseudo-converts, 
especially  when  they  come  from  the  East. 


ARMENIA. 

• 

We  may  now  take  our  departure  from  Syria,  in  order  to 
pursue  in  Armenia  the  investigations  which  we  have  almost 
completed.  It  is  in  the  latter  province  that  the  Protestant 
emissaries  from  America  boast  to  have  obtained  the  greatest 

*  The  Ansayrii,  cli.  xvi.,  p.  356. 

f  Sixty-third  Report,  p.  G6. 

j  Letters  from  the  East,  vol.  ii.,  p.  115. 


100  CHAPTER   VIII. 

numerical  results,  and  are  at  this  moment  engaged  in  operations 
which  deserve  particular  attention.  But  we  must  first  say  a  few 
words  on  Catholic  missions  to  the  Armenians. 

Nearly  twenty  years  ago,  Dr.  Joseph  Wolff  announced  to 
Europe,  that  "  about  sixty  thousand  Armenians  have  joined 
the  Church  of  Rome.""*  Since  that  date,  the  great  movement 
of  reconciliation  among  the  Armenian  nation  has  steadily 
progressed  ;  and  it  may  be  said  without  exaggeration  that,  at 
the  present  time,  hardly  a  week  elapses  without  a  fresh  instance 
of  conversions,  often  on  a  large  scale,  and  all  attesting  the  won 
derful  restoration  of  this  people  to  unity. 

And  this  remarkable  fact  is  perpetually  recurring,  in  spite 
of  that  "strong  national  bond"  which,  as  liaxthausen  notices, 
assimilates  the  Armenians  to  the  Jews,  "  whose  nationality  no 
human  power  can  destroy,''  and  which  knits  them  all  into  one 
tribe  and  family,  from  China  to  Morocco.  So  powerful  is  this 
ineradicable  instinct  of  nationality, — a  sentiment  always  more 
or  less  fatal  to  Christianity, — that  Armenians,  when  converted 
to  the  Church,  are  obliged,  like  converts  from  certain  European 
races,  to  repudiate  that  false  and  exaggerated  patriotism  which 
has  rent  Christendom  into  twenty  jealous,  selfish,  and  hostile 
bodies,  "  and  proudly  renounce  the  name  of  Armenians,  to  call 
themselves  Catholics."f 

During  the  last  two  centuries  this  consoling  movement  has 
received  a  constant  impulse  from  the  labors  of  European  mis 
sionaries.  In  1711,PereRicard  reconciled  one  bishop,  twenty- 
two  priests,  and  eight  hundred  and  seventy-five  lay  persons.^ 
Three  years  later,  in  1714,  Pere  Monier  received  the  abjuration 
of  more  than  seven  hundred,  and  shortly  afterwards,  in  com 
pany  with  Ricard,  penetrated  into  Kurdistan.  They  were  both 
chained  and  imprisoned  by  the  Pacha  of  Kars,  at  the  instigation 
of  the  Armenian  schismatics,  whose  vengeance  followed  them  to 
their  new  field  of  labor.  By  such  men,  and  witli  similar  re 
sults,  the  combat  has  ever  since  been  maintained,  the  heretics 
always  invoking  Moslem  aid,  and  seldom  in  vain.  And  these 
incidents  have  marked  the  conflict  up  to  the  present  hour. 
u  Recently,"  says  M.  Eugene  Bore,  "the  schismatical  patriarch 
purchased  from  the  vizir  for  two  thousand  purses  the  right  to 
prevent  a  member  of  his  Church  from  becoming  a  Catholic. v§ 


*  Narrative  of  a  Mission  to  Bokhara,  cli.  iii.,  p.  114. 
T  Haxtliausen,  cli.  vii  ,  p.  224. 
\  JVouveaux  Memoires  du  Levant,  tome  iii.,  p.  290. 
§  Armenie,  p.  138. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  101 

the  American  missionaries  from  the  neighborhood  of  Etch- 
miadzin. 

Even  Protestant  travellers  are  almost  unanimous  in  affirming 
two  facts, — the  worthlessness  of  the  schismatical  and  the 
superiority  of  the  converted  Armenian.  "  The  Armenians,"  says 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Dwight,  "  appear  to  hold  a  lower  place  in  the 
scale  than  either  the  Greeks  or  the  Latins,"* — after  which  he 
evidently  felt  that  he  had  nothing  more  to  say.  He  confesses, 
however,  that  even  they  are  witnesses  for  the  Church,  since  they 
hold  all  the  Catholic  doctrines  controverted  by  Protestants,  a 
fact  confirmed  by  a  Prussian  writer,  who  lived  in  intimacy  with 
the  heads  of  the  sect,  and  was  led  to  make  the  following 
important  reflections :  "The  Armenian  Church  bears  a  marked 
testimony  to  the  antiquity  of  the  Catholic  Church.  All  the 
dogmas  attacked  at  and  since  the  Reformation  are  held  by  it, — 
the  Saints,  the  Seven  Sacraments,  Transubstantiation,  the 
Sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  and  Purgatory.  The  dogmas  which  the 
Armenians  hold  in  common  with  the  Catholic  Church  must  be 
of  high  antiquity,  for  as  early  as  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  in 
451,  the  Armenian  Church  possessed  an  organization  of  its  own, 
and  jealously  guarded  itself  from  foreign  influence."!  This 
learned  writer  also  observes,  and  proves  by  well-known  ex 
amples,  that  the  "  Armenian  Church  not  only  acknowledges 
that  its  founder,  St.  Gregory  the  Illuminator,  received  the 
Armenian  Patriarchate  from  Rome,  but  it  has  several  times 
submitted  to  the  Pope,  as  the  centre  of  Unity  and  the  Supreme 
Patriarch."  He  had  reason  to. speak  with  confidence  of  the 
sentiments  of  the  highest  class  of  Armenian  prelates,  since 
JSTarses,  the  Patriarch  of  the  separated  Armenians,  gave  him 
the  following  explicit  assurance  with  his  own  lips,  when  he 
met  him  at  St.  Petersburg  in  1843  :  "  On  the  whole  we  are  in 
harmony  with  Rome;  the  Armenian  Patriarch  usually  sends 
a  notice  to  the  Pope  of  his  elevation  to  the  Patriarchate.  .  .  . 
There  is  no  essential  difference  in  doctrine  between  the  Arme 
nian  and  Latin  Churches ;  indeed,  perfect  agreement  has  been 
repeatedly  attained.  Jealousies  and  disputes  have  been  much 
more  frequent  with  the  Greek  Church."  It  was  impossible  to 
omit  testimony  so  interesting,  though  it  probably  reveals  more 
accurately  the  convictions  and  wishes  of  N arses  himself  than  of 
the  corrupt  and  ignorant  colleagues  whom  he  nominally  governs, 
and  of  whom  Haxthausen  declares  with  regret,  K  Avarice,  envy, 
hypocrisy,  and  even  gross  sensuality  are  common  amongst 
them." 

Such  are  the  penalties  of  separation  from  the  Holy  See,  even 

*  Christianity  in  Turkey t  p.  7. 
\  Haxthausen,  cli.  ix.,  p.  313 


102  CHAPTER  VIII. 

where  the  apostolic  doctrine  is  nominally  retained.  Captain 
AVilbraham  observed  at  Etclimiadzin  itself,  the  head-quarters 
of  the  schism,  and  in  the  cathedral,  the  "  want  of  attention, 
and  even  of  decorum,"  which  was  displayed  by  the  congrega 
tion  ;  and  added,  u  There  was  none  of  that  apparently  sincere, 
though  perhaps  blind  devotion,  which  I  have  so  often  remarked 
in  Roman  Catholic  chapels."  "The  Catholicos,"  he  says,  or 
Patriarch,  "  nominally  presides  over  the  synod,  but  a  Moderator 
has  been  appointed  by  the  Russian  government,  without  whose 
approval  nothing  can  be  done,  which  makes  the  emperor 
virtually  the  head  of  the  Armenian  Church  throughout  the 
world  ;"*  a  fact  of  which  Parses  bitterly  complained  to  Baron 
Yon  Ilaxthausen,  in  these  expressive  words :  "  How  undignified 
is  the  position  of  the  Patriarch  !  Every  letter  must  pass  through 
the  hands  of  the  Governor-general  of  Caucasia,  and  is  opened 
in  his  office,  where  every  clerk  may  read  it !"  Narses,  a  man 
superior  to  most  of  his  race  and  order,  might  have  reflected,  that 
this  is  the  usual  fate  of  those  who  consent  to  preside  over 
"National"  Churches,  f 

Mr.  Walpole  declares,  from  his  own  observation,  that  "  the 
falsehood  of  the  Armenian  monks  was  dreadful,  as  they  asserted 
that  so  and  so  was  the  belief  of  such  and  such  a  church." 

Dr.  Moritz  Wagner,  also  a  Protestant,  confirms  these  dismal 
statements.  "Gross  ignorance,  stupidity,  covetousness,  and 
immorality,  are  the  predominant  characteristics  of  these  eccle- 
biastics.  They  readily  assume  an  external  show  of  virtue  and 
self-denial,  whilst,  in  secret,  they  indulge  freely  in  vice.  Envy 
and  jealousy  reign  supreme  among  them.  They  do  not  appear 
to  have  a  shadow  of  brotherly  or  neighborly  love,  or  of  kindli 
ness  and  courtesy,  in  the  Christian  acceptation  of  those  terms.":): 
The  whole  community,  including  the  Patriarch  and  "his  bishops 
and  monks,"  are  described  by  Dr.  Bodenstedt,  who  lived  with 
them,  as  "  a  society  blunted  for  all  noble  purposes,  and  wasted 
by  unnatural  lusts."§  And  these  are  the  men  who  perpetuate 
the  schism. 

Dr.  Friedrich  Parrot  notices  also  the  moral  corruption  in 

*  Travels  in  the  Trans-Caucasian  Provinces  of  Russia,  ch.  ix.,  pp.  95-98. 

Dr.  D5llinger  observes  in  his  latest  work,  that  all  pagan  religions  were 
national,  and  that  while  it  is  the  special  glory  of  the  Christian  Church  to  have 
united  all  the  tribes  of  the  earth  in  one  family,  the  Sects  have  always  tended 
to  restore  the  pagan  element  of  nationality.  It  was  thus  with  the  Donatists, 
who  speedily  cast  out  the  idea  of  a  universal  communion.  "  The  whole  course 
of  the  Reformation  century,"  he  adds,  was  in  the  same  fatal  direction,  and 
"we  find  everywhere  the  victorious  (pagan)  principle  of  national  distinct 
churches.  7  he  Church  and  the  Churches,  p.  81.  In  this,  as  in  many  other 
respects.  Protestantism  was  a  return  towards  Paganism. 

|  Truccls  in  Persia,  &c.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  51  (1850). 

§  Lijc  in  the  Caucasus  and  the  East,  vol.  i.,  p.  231. 


103 

which  their  priesthood  is  sunk,"  and  gives  this  explanation  of 
their  profound  and  universal  ignorance.  "  Every  laic,  provided 
only  he  be  chosen  by  the  congregation,  and  have  passed  four 
teen  days  in  the  prescribed  fastings  and  ritual  observances  in 
a  church,  may  get  ordination  from  the  bishop,  without  either 
preparation  or  subsequent  education."  He  agrees  with  Colonel 
Drouville,  that  "  their  priests  and  bishops  are  all  as  ignorant 
as  it  is  possible  to  be;"  and  notices  the  usual  phenomenon 
in  all  heretical  bodies,  that  they  have  split  into  three  sects. 
"There  is  an  independent  Catholicos  at  Sis,  in  Cicilia,  and 
another,  who  has  maintained  himself  in  this  dignity  for  seven 
hundred  years,  in  the  island  of  Akhthamar,  in  the  lake  of 
Van."* 

Lastly,  Dr.  Wilson  observes — though  he  would  probably  have 
said  nothing  about  it  if  they  would  have  welcomed  his  friends — 
"  the  Armenians  partake  in  the  monothelite  as  well  as  the 
monophysite  heresy,"  a  statement  which  is  not  true  of  the 
whole  nation,  especially  in  Western  Asia. 

Such,  by  Protestant  testimony,  are  the  unfortunate  commu 
nities  who  are  paying  the  penalty  of  heresy  and  schism,  and 
whom  the  Church,  with  the  patience  and  zeal  of  a  mother,  has 
resolved  to  restore  to  truth,  charity,  and  obedience.  How  far 
she  has  succeeded  in  this  aim  we  may  now  briefly  state. 

We  have  already  heard  from  Dr.  Wolff  that  sixty  thousand 
had  been  reconciled  when  he  visited  them.  Captain  Wilbraham 
admits  that  "  a  considerable  proportion  have  returned  to  the 
Catholic  Church,  from  which  this  nation  seceded,  when,  in  the 
year  491,  they  rejected  the  authority  of  the  Council  of  Chalce- 
don."f  Dr.  Parrot,  though  a  Kussian  Imperial  Councillor  of 
State,  allows  that  no  small  portion  of  the  clergy  and  laity 
also  have  attached  themselves  to  the  Koman  Catholic  Church.":): 
"  Komanism,"  says  the  Rev.  Justin  Perkins,  of  whom  we  shall 
hear  more  presently,  "is  taking  root  and  extending,"  which  he 
considers  "  the  conversion  of  the  Armenians  from  bad  to  worse." 
"  Very  few  of  the  Nestorians  now  remain,"  he  adds,  "  on  the 
western  side  of  the  Koordish  mountains,  who  have  not  yielded 
to  the  intrigues  and  usurpations  of  Papal  domination. "§  This 
gentleman  is  apparently  of  opinion  that  the  operations  of  the 
Americans,  which  shall  be  described  immediately,  involve 
neither  intrigue  nor  usurpation. 

But  the  conversions  effected  by  Catholic  missionaries  have 
not  been  confined  to  Armenia  Proper.  "At  Constantinople," 

*  Journey  to  Ararat,  ch.  iv.,  p.  92;  cli.  v.,  pp.  105-110. 
f  Ch.  xxxi.,  p.  352. 
%  P.  110. 

§  Residence  en  Persia,  p.  4. 


104:  CHAPTER   VIII. 

says  Mr.  Curzon,  "  a  great  number  of  the  higher  and  wealthier 
Armenians  give  their  adherence  to  the  Kornan  Catholic  creed.'7 
Of  the  Chaldean  Catholics,  Dr.  Wilson  observes,  "  They  form, 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  a  great  portion  of  the  Nestorians  west  of  the 
mountains  of  Kurdistan."  Bagdad  and  Mosul  have  yielded  to 
the  same  beneficent  power.  "Emissaries  from  Rome,"  says 
Mr.  Perkins,  "have  been  laboring,  with  a  zeal  and  perse 
verance  worthy  of  a  better  cause,  to  effect  the  conversion  of 
the  entire  Nestorian  Church.  Mrs.  Perkins  received^  a  letter 
from  a  pious  English  lady,  who  resides  in  Bagdad,  in  which 
the  writer  says,  "  the  religious  state  of  this  city  is  very  unsatis 
factory  ;  the  Kornan  Catholics  carry  the  day  in  every  way.  .  . 
A  large  body  of  bishops  and  priests  are  going  to  Mosul  in  a 
day  or  two,  to  form  a  convention  to  endeavor  to  bring  over  all 
the  Chaldeans  to  the  Papal  faith."  Fortunately,  we  can  trace 
the  results  of  this  expedition ;  for  a  little  later  Mr.  Walpole 
tells  us,  with  an  angry  commentary  hardly  worthy  of  so  intel 
ligent  a  traveller,  that  of  the  fourteen  Christian  churches  at 
Mosul  belonging  to  the  different  sects,  several  are  now  in  the 
hands  of  Roman  Catholics ;  .  .  .  .  whether  by  right  or  other 
wise," — how  could  a  few  poor  missionaries  gain  them  except 
by  persuasion? — "the  Catholics  have  gathered  to  themselves 
many  congregations." 

The  expedition  from  Bagdad  was  evidently  successful ;  indeed 
Dr.  Southgate  was  able  to  report,  with  unfeigned  regret,  that 
"  the  whole  body  of  the  Nestorian  Church  is  now  a  branch  of 
the  Church  of  Rome,  and  with  a  sad  propriety  may  the  Papal 
Nestorians  assume  the  national  name  of  Chaldeans."*  "  The 
Nestorians  who  once  inhabited  the  Mosul  district,"  says  Dr. 
Asahel  Grant,  "have  all  embraced  the  Romish  faith."f  "The 
whole  Chaldean  nation,"  adds  an  English  traveller,  "may  now 
be  esteemed  Catholics.":); 

Finally,  the  Patriarch  of  the  Chaldeans,  writing  from  Mosul 
in  1853,  could  already  report  that  thirty-five  thousand  wanderers 
from  that  nation  alone  had  beon  restored  to  the  true  fold, 
and  that  the  "  opposition  of  the  Methodists"— he  means  the 
Anglican  and  other  missionaries — was  the  chief  impediment  to 
the  conversion  of  the  few  who  were  still  in  schism,  but  whose 
imperfect  faith  was  in  danger  from  contact  with  Protestant 
neology,  as  their  morals  were  from  the  lavish  distribution  of 
Protestant  gold.§  The  mission  of  Protestantism  seems  to  be 
everywhere  the  same.  Its  agents  cannot  make  Christians 

*  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  183. 

f  The  Nestorians,  ch.  iii.,  p.  27. 

j  Patterson,  app.,  p.  401. 

§  Revue  Orientate  et  Algerienne,  tome  iv.,  p.  357. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  105 

themselves,  but  they  can  prevent  others  doing  so.  By  the 
banks  of  the  Tigris,  as  by  those  of  the  Nile  and  the  Jordan ; 
in  the  cities  of  China,  as  in  the  villages  of  Hindostan  ;  in  the 
islands  of  the  Pacific,  as  in  those  of  the  Mediterranean  ;  their 
aim  is  to  rend  unity,  to  mar  the  work  which  they  can  neither 
understand  nor  imitate,  to  confirm  the  heathen  in  his  unbe 
lief  and  the  heretic  in  his  corruption ;  and  the  only  triumph 
to  which  they  aspire  is  to  keep  back  a  few,  when  all  around 
are  waking  to  a  new  life  of  truth  and  virtue,  from  sharing  the 
blessings  which,  but  for  their  presence,  would  perhaps  regen 
erate  the  world. 

Let  us  return  for  a  moment,  before  we  conclude  this  part  of 
our  subject,  to  Armenia  Proper.  The  movement  of  Catholic 
regeneration  of  which  Western  Asia  is  now  one  of  the  most 
conspicuous  theatres,  has  at  last  penetrated  to  the  very  heart 
and  centre  of  the  Armenian  schism.  Rumors  had  reached 
Europe  towards  the  close  of  1859  of  extraordinary  and  almost 
unprecedented  conversions  in  the  regions  which  surround 
Etchmiadzin.  An  Armenian  gentleman,  who  arrived  in  Eng 
land  in  the  month  of  September  of  that  year,  brought 
intelligence  of  the  almost  simultaneous  conversion  of  ten 
thousand  Armenians  in  the  neighborhood  of  Erzeroum.  Ap 
plication  was  made  to  the  proper  authorities  for  authentic 
information  with  respect  to  so  remarkable  an  event,  and 
through  the  intervention  of  a  venerable  prelate  a  letter  has 
been  obtained  from  the  Catholic  Armenian  Primate,  dated 
Constantinople,  October  26,  1859,  which  contains  the  follow 


ing  statement : 


"  I  willingly  communicate  to  you  the  details  of  the  conver 
sions  which  take  place  almost  every  week  from  the  schismati- 
cal  Armenian  Church  to  the  centre  of  unity  in  these  latter 
times,  and  especially  during  the  last  two  years,  in  which  so 
great  a  religious  movement  has  been  manifested  in  various 
parts  of  Asia,  that  it  might  more  fitly  be  called  a  religious 
revolution — eke  potrei  meglio  intitolare  una  ri-volusione  reli- 
yiosa.  In  Karput  and  Arabghir,  cities  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Erzeroum,  more  than  five  hundred  families  with  some  of 
their  priests  have  been  converted  to  Catholicism.  In  Tadem, 
Sartorici,  and  Garrnir,  regions  adjacent  to  Karput,  about  one 
hundred  families.  In  Malatia  and  Adjaman,  also  contiguous 
districts,  one  hundred  and  fifty  families  with  their  priest.  Last 
week  I  received  letters  from  Palo,  also  in  the  territory  of 
Karput,  and  containing  more  than  two  hundred  villages,  wliich 
inform  me  that  fifty  families  have  expressed  their  desire  to  be 
admitted  to  Catholic  unity.  In  Marasci,  near  Diarbeker,  more 
than  six  hundred  families,  with  some  of  their  clergy,  have 


106  CHAPTER  VIII. 

become  Catholics,  and  other  families  in  the  neighboring  dis 
tricts.  At  Rodosto,  near  Adrianople,  and  again  at  Bandyrma, 
in  the  diocese  of  Byrsa  in  Bithynia,  seventy  families,  besides 
others  similarly  disposed,  have  addressed  petitions  to  me  to 
be  received  into  Catholic  unity."  The  illustrious  prelate  does 
not  state  the  exact  numerical  total  of  the  converts,  which  was 
probably  unknown  to  him  ;  but  as  they  amount  already  to 
about  fifteen  hundred/amities,  besides  others  similarly  disposed, 
we  may  easily  form  an  approximate  estimate.  But  even  this  is 
not  all,  for  the  Archbishop  immediately  adds  :  "  J  omit  to  speak 
of  other  districts  in  the  like  condition,  and  especially  of  one 
vast  province,  with  respect  to  which  I  am  also  conducting  ne 
gotiations,  in  favor  of  more  than  ten  thousand  families." 

Such  is  the  work  of  God,  in  these  last  times,  among  the 
schismatical  communities  of  the  East.  Worn  out  by  the 
exactions  of  simoniacal  priests  and  bishops,  scandalized  by  the 
ignorance  and  immorality  of  their  fallen  pastors,  conversant  in 
many  cases  with  the  superior  virtue  and  dignity  of  their  country 
men  who  have  been  reconciled  to  the  Church,  and  above  all 
touched  by  the  compassionate  grace  of  God,  and  the  purity, 
wisdom,  and  goodness  of  the  apostles  whom  He  has  sent 
amongst  them, — they  begin,  in  this  eleventh  hour  of  their  his 
tory,  to  turn  wistful  eyes  towards  the  source  of  unity  and 
peace,  and  to  marvel  that  they  have  so  long  despised  the  bless 
ings  which  they  knew  not  to  be  within  their  reach. 

It  only  remains  to  show, — once  more  by  Protestant  testimony, 
—that  as  soon  as  they  enter  the  Church,  they  begin  to  acquire 
the  freedom,  virtue,  and  enlightenment  to  which  they  had  so 
long  been  strangers.  This  also,  thanks  to  the  copiousness  and 
exuberance  of  Protestant  literature,  we  shall  be  able  to  prove. 

"The  Roman  Catholics,"  said  an  Anglican  clergyman  some 
years  ago,  "  have  compassed  sea  and  land,  have  made  and  still 
retain  proselytes  to  the  Papal  Supremacy  from  every  Christian 
community  and  nation,  Abyssinia  excepted."  If  Mr.  Jowett 
had  written  a  little  later,  he  would  have  been  obliged  to  omit 
the  exception.  Other  writers,  who  share  Mr.  Jowett's  prej  udices, 
will  now  tell  us,  in  language  more  emphatic  than  could  be  ex 
pected  from  such  witnesses,  though  far  below  the  truth,  what 
influence  these  conversions  have  produced  upon  the  life  and 
character  of  their  fortunate  subjects. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  Greeks.  Of  the  converts  from  this 
nation  we  have  been  told,  by  men  who  can  hardly  speak 
with  composure  of  the  Catholic  Church,  such  truths  as  the 
following:  "They  are,"  says  Dr.  Wilson,  in  words  already 
quoted,  "amongst  the  most  liberal  and  intelligent  native 
Uhnstians  in  the  East."  They  exhibit,  since  their  conversion, 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  107 

says  Dr.  Robinson  more  cautiously,  "a  certain  elevation." 
'•their  intercourse  with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,"  adds 
Dr.  Durbin,  "  tends  to  elevate  them  in  the  scale  of  civilization." 
And  these  are  all  vehement  Protestants. 

'Of  the  Armenian  converts,  equally  hostile  witnesses  give 
exactly  the  same  account,  though  we  may  be  sure  they  speak 
with  reluctance  and  constraint.  "~  "Like  the  Christians  in  other 
parts  of  Turkey,"  says  Messrs.  Smith  and  Dwight,  eager  parti 
sans  of  Protestant  missions,  "  they  who  have  embraced  the  faith 
of  Rome  are  more  respectable  for  wealth  and  intelligence  than 
their  countrymen."  They  add,  that  "  most  of  the  native  Chris 
tians  employed  by  Protestants  in  the  Levant  are  of  the  Romish 
persuasion," — a  fact  which  they  consider  discreditable  to  the 
officials,  merchants,  and  others,  who  employ  them  solely  on 
account  of  their  superior  trustworthiness,  because  it  encourages 
"  the  Pope's  anti-Christian  power."* 

"The  Catholic  Armenians,"  says  Captain  Wilbraham,  "are 
generally  superior  in  education  and  intelligence  to  their  coun 
trymen,'' — which  this  gentleman  attributes,  "  in  some  measure, 
to  the  circulation  of  knowledge  occasioned  by  the  literary  la 
bors  of  the  Catholic  Armenian  convent  in  Venice."f  In  other 
words,  they  are  brought  by  their  conversion  into  contact  with 
Catholic  intelligence  and  learning. 

"The  Roman  Catholic  branch  of  the  Armenian  Church," 
says  Mr.  Curzon,  "  has  done  much  more  for  literature  and 
civilization  than  the  original  body."  Of  the  converts  he  says, 
"Their  minds  are  more  enlarged,  they  are  less  Oriental  in  their 
ideas,"  &c.  ;J  an  emphatic  testimony,  by  a  capable  witness,  to 
the  civilizing  influence  of  the  Catholic  religion.  Mr.  Curzon 
also  observes,  that  "  the  Armenian  monks  at  Venice  printed 
the  Armenian  Bible  in  1805 ;  and  entirely  by  their  energy,  the 
small  spark  which  alone  glimmered  in  the  darkness  of  Arme 
nian  ignorance  in  the  East  has  gradually  increased  its  lighj:." 
"The  Mechitarists,"  says  Haxthausen,  "  have  printed  Armenian 
translations  from  all  the  languages  of  Europe,  and  in  every 
department  of  literature." 

"  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,"  says  Dr.  Joseph  Wolff  in  his  latest 
publication,  "and  it  must  not  be  concealed,  that  ....  the 
native  Christians  of  the  Turkish  empire  in  general,  where 
Roman  Catholic  missionaries  have  not  penetrated,  are  ignorant, 
rude,  and  uncouth,  like  buifaloes !  Roman  Catholic  mission 
aries  have  carried  everywhere  the  light  of  civilization. "§ 

*  Missionary  Researches  in  Armenia,  Letter  i.,  p.  20. 

f  Ch.  xxxi.,  '352. 

i  Armenia  and  Erzeroum,  ch.  xv.,  p.  230. 

§  Travels  and  Adventures  of  Dr.  Wolff,  ch.  xv.,  p.  274. 


108  CHAPTER   VIII. 

Of  the  Syrians,  even  Dr.  Southgate  notices  the  pregnant 
fact,  that  "  the  adherents  of  the  Church  of  Korne  have  all  been 
themselves  converted  individually,"  and  that  "they  are  zeal 
ously  and  intelligently  attached  to  their  new  faith."* 

Of  the  Chaldeans,  we  have  heard  that  they  have  become  a 
Catholic  nation  ;  and  of  the  Maronites,  who  owe  all  the  "  de 
served  superiority"  which  even  Protestants  recognize  in  them 
to  the  influence  of  their  religion,  we  need  say  nothing  more 
than  has  been  already  related  by  English  and  American 
writers. 

Of  the  converted  Jacobites,  Mr.  Badger  confesses,  in  spite  01 
that  uneasy  dislike  and  jealousy  of  the  Catholic  Church  which 
is  now  perhaps  more  intense  in  Anglicans  than  in  any  other 
class,  "  If  the  truth  must  be  told,  they  are  decidedly  superior, 
in  many  respects,  to  their  Jacobite  brethren. "f 

Lastly,  the  eventual  triumph  of  the  Faith  in  all  the  long 
separated  communities  of  the  East  appears  so  certain  to  a 
German  philosopher  who  had  watched,  with  cold  but  intelli 
gent  impartiality,  its  irresistible  progress,  that  he  does  not 
hesitate  to  announce  in  these  emphatic  terms  the  inevitable 
issue :  "  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  theology  of  the  West  will  in 
time  penetrate  the  Eastern  Church,  with  all  its  divisions,  Greek, 
Armenian,  Nestorian,  and  Coptic. "J 

And  now  we  have  heard  enough  of  Catholic  missions  in  the 
Levant,  Syria,  and  Armenia,  of  their  uninterrupted  success,  and 
of  the  character  both  of  the  missionaries  and  their  disciples. 
The  history  exactly  agrees  with  what  we  have  heard  in  every 
other  land.  On  one  side  we  have  found  God  and  his  gifts,  on 
the  other  only  man  and  his  frailties.  The  few  Protestant  con 
verts,  attracted  only  by  offers  of  payment,  and  spurning  the 
hand  from  which  they  receive  it,  are,' as  Dr.  Southgate  admits, 
"  infidels  and  radicals ;"  or,  as  Mr.  Williams,  Mr.  Patterson, 
and  others  report,  notorious  for  "  scandalous  irregularities  arid 
excesses— either  worthless  persons,  or  skeptics  and  infidels;" 
while  even  a  Protestant  minister  not  only  confesses  the  uni 
versal  failure  of  his  co-religionists  in  Syria,  but  candidly  asks, 
"  Are  we  ever  likely  to  succeed  any  better  ?"  Such  is  one  more 
example  of  the  momentous  contrast  which  has  not  hitherto 
been  revealed  to  the  world,  because  neither  genius  nor  learning 
could  have  anticipated,  much  less  dispensed  with,  the  facts 
which  living  writers  have  collected  for  our  instruction. 

And  what  explanation  do  Protestants  offer,  in  this  case,  of  tho 

*  Narrative,  &c,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxiii.,  p.  284. 
1  Vol.  i.,  p.  63. 
Trans-Caucasia,  by  Baron  Von  Haxthausen,  ch.  iii.,  p.  67. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  109 

success  of  Catholic  missions  and  the  failure  of  their  own  ?  In 
China,  they  assure  us  that,  "  in  becoming  Papists,"  and  subse 
quently  martyrs,  "  they  give  up  nothing"*  In  India,  "  Popery 
is  'better  adapted"  to  the  illogical  Hindoo.  In  Ceylon,  and  in 
other  lands,  it  is  "  ceremonial"  which  accounts  for  the  contrast. 
And  what  is  it  in  Syria?  In  this  province,  the  explanation  is 
still  more  unexpected,  and  the  very  hypothesis  which  unites  in 
itself  the  largest  measure  of  extravagance  and  impossibility  is 
precisely  that  which  has  been  selected  for  the  occasion.  Who 
would  have  anticipated  that,  in  the  land  of  the  Moslem, 
"  where,1'  as  Mr.  Walpole  observes,  "  the  Christian  exists  only 
on  sufferance,"  it  is  by  "  cruelty  and  violence"  that  a  few 
Lazarists,  Franciscans,  and  Sisters  of  Charity  win  their  way  ? 
"  Romish  tyranny,"  says  the  Rev.  Mr.  Fremantle,  for  the  special 
instruction  of  the  Anglican  Church,  "  has  been  insulting  and 
persecuting,  and  assisting  the  Mahommedans  to  oppress  the 
fallen  churches."  And  this  account,  which  would  be  received 
with  a  shout  of  laughter  by  a  Druse  or  a  Mussulman  audience, 
is  repeated  by  other  English  writers,  with  various  modifications, 
as  the  true  history  of  Catholic  victories  in  Syria. 

Yet  as  late  as  1845,  we  find  a  competent  authority  making 
this  declaration,  in  the  form  of  an  appeal  to  Europe  :  "  I  know 
for  a  positive  fact,  that  at  this  moment  all  classes,  sects,  and 
denominations,  are  crying  aloud  for  European  protection."! 
Fourteen  years  later,  Mr.  Wingfield  still  reports,  that  "  the 
assassination  of  Christians,  even  of  the  richer  class,  is  unhappily 
of  no  very  rare  occurrence."^:  Mr.  Warrington  Smyth  relates, 
about  the  same  time,  that  he  himself  saw  a  new  church  in 
Bulgaria  wantonly  destroyed,  "crushing  in  an  hour  the  hopes 
of  years."§  "Never,"  adds  a  Protestant  minister  in  1862, 
"  were  the  Christians  throughout  Turkey  exposed  to  more 
atrocious  cruelty  than  at  the  present  day,  when  the  Mahometan 
power  is  kept  alive  merely  by  the  mutual  distrust  of  the  great 
powers  of  Europe."!  "  The  various  Christian  sects  who  occupy 
the  plains  of  Syria,"  says  Colonel  Churchill,  "  live  in  perpetual 
dread  of  some  outbreak  of  Mohammedan  fanaticism. "T  How 
reasonable  that  dread  was,  the  dismal  tragedy  of  1860  once- 
more  proved.  Even  the  Maronites,  whose  numbers  and  valor, 
as  well  as  their  geographical  position,  appeared  to  give  them 


*  The  Land  of  Sinim,  ch.  iv.,  p.  132. 

\  Memoir  on  Syria,  by  Charles  Fiott  Barker,  formerly  Secretary  to  Mr.  Consul- 
general  Barker,  p.  50. 

$  A  Tour  in  Dalmatia,  &c.,  by  W.  F.  Wingfield,  M.A.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  158. 
§  A  Year  with  the  Turks,  ch.  ix.,  p.  289. 

f  Serma  and  the  Servians,  by  the  Rev.  W.  Denton,  M.A.,  ch.  i.,  p.  15. 
1  Mount  Lebanon,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  xxvii.,  p.  387. 


HO  CHAPTER  VIII. 

an  exceptional  security,  fell,  betrayed  and  ensnared,  in  that 
cruel  conspiracy  of  Druse,  and  Turk,  and  Metuali ;  and  were 
at  all  times  so  exposed,  in  spite  of  the  nominal  protectorate  of 
France,  whose  generous  designs  were  thwarted  by  the  policy  of 
a  jealous  and  non-Catholic  nation,  that  as  one  of  their  bishops 
observed  to  Mr.  David,  "  Dieu  seul  est  Ion  pour  la  Syrie"  In 
Antioch  itself,  though  it  is,  as  Mr.  Paton  remarks,  u  nominally 
the  metropolis  of  the  orthodox  Greeks,"  "  the  Moslems  are  so 
fanatical,  that  they  do  not  allow  the  Christians  to  have  a  church 
in  the  town."*  And  it  is  in  such  a  state  of  society  as  this,  in 
which  the  Catholics  exist,  like  the  sectaries,  "  only  on  suffer 
ance,"  and  in  daily  peril  of  destruction,  that  helpless  missionaries 
and  religious  women,  who  attract  tens  of  thousands  by  the 
sweet  odor  of  their  virtues,  from  all  ranks  and  sects,  are  said 
to  do  so  by  "  insults  and  tyranny,"  and  by  "  persecuting  the 
fallen  churches  !"  Such  is  the  Protestant  explanation  of  their 
euccess,  and  it  is,  as  usual,  an  Anglican  clergyman  who  sug 
gests  it. 

PROTESTANT   MISSIONS. 

Before  we  close  this  chapter,  let  us  add  a  few  words,  in  further 
illustration  of  the  contrast,  on  Protestant  missions  in  Armenia. 
Hitherto  we  have  encountered  grave  and  earnest  men,  fit 
preachers  of  the  evangelical  truths  of  which  their  own  apos 
tolic  lives  were  the  most  impressive  illustration ;  having  the 
counsels  of  Holy  Writ  in  their  hearts  rather  than  on  their 
tongues,  and  still  more  eloquent  by  example  than  in  speech. 
Hence  their  peaceful  triumphs,  hence  their  acceptance  among 
all  the  oriental  races.  We  have  now,  in  conclusion,  to  notice 
briefly  a  class  of  men  towards  whom  we  need  not  affect  an 
esteem  which  even  their  co-religionists  have  refused  :  men  to 
whom  Holy  Scripture  appears  to  be  every  thing  except  a  teacher ; 
men  whose  mouths  are  full  of  imprecations  against  the  pure 
and  the  just,  while  they  do  not  even  attempt  to  imitate  their 
least  merits ;  whose  whole  life  is  one  unbroken  course  of 
littleness  and  self-indulgence,  united  with  irrational  contempt 
for  the  manly  virtues  which  they  hate  without  understanding  ; 
whose  mission  seems  to  consist  in  marring  the  Unity  for  which 
Jesus  prayed,  and  in  beguiling  others  to  reject  the  blessings 
which  they  have  forfeited  themselves  ;  and  whose  own  friends 
confess,  with  one  voice,  that  the  few  hearers  whom  they  entice 
are  only  ten  times  more  immoral  and  unbelieving  than  they 
were  before. 

The  principal  historian  of  Protestant  missions  in  Armenia  is 

*  Modem  Syrians,  cli.  xix.,  p.  220. 


MISSIONS   IN   THE   LEVANT,   ETC.  Ill 

the  Eev.  Justin  Perkins.  Let  us  hear  his  account  of  himself 
and  his  work. 

Mr.  Perkins  quotes  the  following  passage  from  the  "  Instruc 
tions"  to  the  American  missionaries  by  the  society  which  em 
ployed  them  :  "  You  are  not  sent  among  these  Churches  to 
proselyte.  Let  the  Armenian  remain  an  Armenian,  if  he 
will;  the  Greek  a  Greek,  and  the  Nestorian  a  Nestorian." 
"  The  object  of  the  American  missions  to  Syria,  and  other  parts  of 
the  Levant,"  says  Dr.  Robinson,  "  is  not  to  draw  off  members 
of  the  Oriental  Churches  to  Protestantism."  Such  was  perhaps 
the  original  programme,  and  for  a  time  caution  restrained  the 
American  agents.  They  offered  only  secular  education,  the  use 
of  books,  medical  treatment,  and  other  harmless  boons.  When 
they  thought  their  position  assured,  they  assumed  their  real 
character,  and  boasted,  as  we  have  seen,  of  the  very  operations 
which  their  nominal  instructions  forbade  them  to  attempt. 

They  even  claimed  to  have  the  field  all  to  themselves,  and 
warmly  resented  the  intrusion  of  other  Protestant  sects,  and 
especially  of  Anglicans.  The  report  of  the  American  Board  for 
]  8 Jrl  protests  energetically  against  the  English  for  entering  into 
communication  with  the  Nestorians,  because  such  a  proceeding 
may  "tend  to  awaken  the  thought  among  the  Nestorian 
ecclesiastics  that  there  are  rival  Protestant  sects  and  interests, 
upon  which  they  may  practice  for  the  private  gratification  of 
avaricious  desires."  As  a  financial  precaution,  in  order  to  keep 
down  the  price  of  converts  by  having  only  one  bidder,  there 
was  much  wisdom  in  this  view;  but  the  Anglicans  answered, 
by  the  mouth  of  Mr.  Badger,  an  Episcopalian  minister,  that  the 
prudent  suggestion  was  "as  presumptuous  as  it  is  ludicrous." 
Mr.  Badger  even  observed  that  his  American  rivals  "  seemed  to 
lay  claim  to  inspiration,  and  decided  what  was  truth  and  what 
was  error  with  the  assurance  of  apostles."  Meanwhile,  the  Nes- 
torians  looked  on,  and  began  to  entertain  "  avaricious  desires." 

We  have  seen  that  Mr.  Badger  was  no  less  indignant  with 
the  Catholic  missionaries  for  their  endeavor  to  draw  the  E"es- 
torians  out  of  the  pit  of  heresy,  ignorance,  and  corruption, 
which  even  Protestant  writers  of  the  most  advanced  school 
have  described  to  us.  This  Anglican  clergyman,  attracted  by 
their  sounding  titles,  and  rejoicing  in  their  separation  from 
unity,  evidently  thought  them  a  far  more  privileged  class  than 
either  Catholics  or  Protestants.  It  is  true  they  deny  the  Incar 
nation,  but  they  are  outside  the  Church,  and  were  therefore- 
welcome  allies  for  Mr.  Badger.  "The  Nestorian  Church,"  he 
says,  "abounds  in  noble  gifts  and  rightful  titles!"* 

*  The  Nestorians,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xlvi.,  p.  351. 


112  CHAPTER  VIII. 

There  was  a  time  when  even  the  most  advanced  Protestants, 
while  Catholic  traditions  still  lingered  faintly  amongst  them, 
professed  to  reverence  the  Council  of  Ephesus,  and  to  anathe 
matize  the  Nestorian  heresy.  Now,  it  seems,  they  anathema 
tize  nothing;  and  in  this  new  Pyrrhonism  they  see  only  a  sign 
of  their  own  progress  and  improvement.  Geneva  itself  once 
taught  its  students  to  say,  "  I  abhor  all  the  heresies  which  were 
condemned  by  the  first  Council  of  Nice,  the  first  of  Ephesus 
and  that  of  Cnalcedon."*  "  We  detest  &\\  sects  and  heresies,' 
said  the  French  Protestant  communities,  at  what  they  called 
<;the  Synod  of  Paris,"  in  1559,  condemned  by  the  same  Coun- 
cils.f  At  the  present  day,  even  Anglican  clergymen,  especially 
those  of  the  High  Church  school,  celebrate  the  "  noble  gifts 
and  rightful  titles"  of  Nestorianism  !  The  Rev.  Webb  Le  Bas 
calls  the  title  OeoroKog  a  blasphemy ,"$  though  even  La  Croze 
was  ashamed  to  say  less  than  that  "  the  title  has  nothing  con 
trary  to  sound  theology  ;"§  and  the  celebrated  Calvinist  Bal- 
dseus  flatly  asserted,  that  the  Nestorians  "  teach  points  con 
trary  to  salvation.r\  But  an  Anglican  clergyman,  when  he 
once  begins  to  speak  against  the  Catholic  faith,  is  pretty 
sure  to  surpass  both  Cafvinists  and  Lutherans.  The  Rev. 
Dr.  Kerr,  also  an  Anglican,  called  the  monophysites  of  Mala 
bar  "  a  precious  remnant  of  &  pure  and  valuable  people."^ 
Dr.  Southgate,  a  Protestant  bishop,  speaks  of  the  Nestorian 
heresy,  if  such  it  must  he  reputed"**  implying  that  the  Fathers 
of  Ephesus  were  the  real  heretics.  The  "Rev.  Henry  Townly 
considers  the  principal  tenet  of  Nestorianism  "  a  point  of 
orthodoxy  on  which  we  are  agreed. "ff  Mr.  Layard  says  of 
the  Chaldean  Nestorians,  "there  are  no  sects  in  the  East,  and 
few  in  the  West,  who  can  boast  of  such  purity  in  their 


enumerating 

tized  by  the  Council  of  Ephesus,  confidently  asks,  "  In  all  this 
where  is  there  any  heresy  ?"||[  Evidently  Mr.  Badger  is  not 
alone  in  his  admiration  of  the  Kestorians,  an  admiration  which, 
however,  he  would  perhaps  have  concealed,  if  he  had  read  the 

*  Ruchat,  Histoire  de  la  Reformation  de  la  Suisse,  tome  viL,  p.  291. 

t  Quick  s  History  of  the  Reformed  Churches  in  France,  vol.  i.,  p.  7  (1692). 

t  Life  of  Bishop  Middleton,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  319. 

8  Histoire  du  Ghristianisme  des  Indes,  tome  i.,  livre  i.,  p.  16. 

|  Ap.  Churchill,  vol.  iii.,  p.  576. 

I  Report  on  the  State  of  the  Christians  of  Cochin  and  Travancore,  p.  8. 

"*  Aamritw,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xix.,  p.  224. 

\\  Answer  to  the  Abbe  Dubo-is,  p.  230. 

ft  Nineveh  and  its  Remains,  vol.  i.,  p.  268. 

fT/ie  Aimtyrii,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  10. 
Travels  in  Asia  Minor,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xli.,  p.  272. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,  ETC.  113 

historian  Evagrius,  who  relates  that  the  founder  of  their 
religion,  the  heresiarch  IsTestorius,  was  not  only  anathematized 
by  an  (Ecumenical  Council,  but  that  he  died,  like  Herod,  by 
the  judgment  of  God,  his  tongue  being  gnawed  by  worms.* 

Let  us  leave  Mr.  Badger  to  accompany  Mr.  Perkins  and  his 
American  colleagues.  Here  is  a  description,  by  Dr.  Asahel 
Grant,  of  the  country  which  they  selected  for  their  residence. 
"  A  plain  of  exuberant  fertility  is  inclosed  between  the  moun 
tains  and  the  lake,  comprising  an  area  of  about  five  hundred 
square  miles,  and  bearing  upon  its  bosom  no  less  than  three 
hundred  hamlets  and  villages.  It  is  clothed  with  luxuriant 
verdure,  fruitful  fields,  gardens  and  vineyards,  and  irrigated  by 
considerable  streams  of  pure  water  from  the  adjacent  mountains. 
The  landscape  is  one  of  the  most  lovely  in  the  East."  Some 
writers  have  suggested  that  it  was  the  site  of  the  terrestrial 
paradise. 

Here  the  Americans  established  their  dwelling,  and  here 
commenced  the  operations  which  Mr.  Perkins  has  described. 
A  few  extracts  from  his  narrative,  supplemented  by  other 
witnesses,  will  explain  their  nature,  and  the  character  of  the 
missionaries. 

They  hear  that  the  Nestorian  Patriarch  at  Julamerk  is  about 
to  embrace  the  Catholic  faith.  In  a  few  hours  a  messenger  is 
bearing  across  the  plain  an  urgent  remonstrance,  in  which  they 
address  to  him,  amongst  other  inquiries,  this  question :  "  Is 
there  Paul,  or  Peter,  or  the  Pope  at  Rome,  crucified  for  us  ?"f 
It  does  not  appear  how  far  he  was  affected  by  this  interrogation. 

Mr.  Perkins  professes  much  disdain  for  his  Nestorian  friends. 
"  They  are  very  degraded,"  he  says,  and  their  religion  is  "  a 
revolting  form  of  Christianity."  On  the  other  hand,  they 
feasted  with  him,  and  jested  with  him,  and  by  his  advice  took 
wives  and  begat  children ;  and,  above  all,  they  accepted  his 
Bibles  and  tracts,  which,  as  he  observes,  "gives  us  a  glorious 
field  of  common  ground." 

Here  are  some  examples  of  his  dealings  with  the  Nestorian 
bishops  who  became  his  pensioners.  Of  one  of  them,  he  says, 
"  Under  the  influence  of  the  mission,  he  has  got  so  much  the 
better  of  his  canonical  scruples  on  the  virtue  of  episcopal  celi 
bacy,  that  he  has  married  a  young  wife,  and  is  rearing  a  fam 
ily."  Mr.  Perkins  was  much  encouraged  by  this  easy  triumph, 
and  his  companions  resolved  to  rival  his  success.  "  The 
American  missionaries,  Messrs.  Goodell  and  Bird,"  says  Dr. 
Wolff,  "  have  succeeded  in  converting  two  Armenian  bishops 

*  Hist.  Ecclesiast.,  lib.  i.,  cap.  vii. 
f  Residence  in  Persia,  p.  163. 

VOL.  TT.  9 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

from  the  established  Armenian  symbols  and  ancient  liturgy  to 
the  vague  and  uncertain  creed  of  the  Congregation alists  of 
America;  from  their  attachment  to  their  Patriarch  of  Etchmi- 
adzin  to  the  half  neological  writings  of  Professor  Moses  Stuart, 
of  Andover."*  He  adds  that  they  did  this  "  merely  for  the 
sake  of  a  wife,"  that  both  of  them  married  immediately,  and 
that  in  order  to  quiet  the  troubled  conscience  of  their  wives, 
they  frequently  expounded  to  them  "  1  Tim.  iii.  2," — with  the 
interpretation  which  their  American  friends  had  suggested. 

And  when  they  have  pulled  down  these  unfortunate  men  to 
their  own  level,  they  call  it  "  bringing  them  under  Zion's 
king ;"  and  having  collected  together  a  few  such  as  these,  by 
exciting  lust,  or  avarice,  or  both, — having  sapped  all  faith  and 
religion  in  them,  and  taught  them  to  sing  their  shame  in  texts 
of  Scripture,— they  call  them  "  God's  infant  Church  !"f  "  Woe 
to  you,"  said  our  Lord  to  such  as  these,  "  because  you  shut  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  against  men,  for  you  yourselves 'do  not  enter 

in,  and  those  that  are  going  in  you  suffer  not  to  enter For 

this  you  shall  receive  the  greater  judgment.  Woe  to  you,  be 
cause  you  go  round  about  the  sea  and  the  land  to  make  one 
proselyte,  and  when  he  is  made,  you  make  him  the  child  of 
hell  twofold  more  than  yourselves."^: 

Mr.  Perkins  took  Mar  Yohannan,  an  ex-JSTestorian  bishop,  to 
the  United  States, — just  as  Tzatzoe  and  Africaner  were  con 
veyed  to  England, — and  when  he  arrived  there,  the  Episco 
palian  Protestants  claimed  him  as  an  ally.  "You  belong  to 
us?  they  said,  in  a  formal  address,  and  they  protested  against 
the  indecency  of  his  herding  with  Methodists,  Presbyterians, 
Anabaptists,  and  other  children  of  the  "Reformation,"  from 
which  they  derived  their  own  origin.  Under  the  tuition  of  his 
American  guides,  this  poor  man,  once  a  bishop,  made  the  fol 
lowing  official  reply  :  u  I  do  not  wish  tq  hear  you  say.  You 
belong  to  us  ;  I  have  not  come  here  to  make  difference  among 
Christians."  And  then  he  expounded  his  new  ecclesiastical 
love  Episcopalians,  and  Congregation  alists,  and 
Presbyterians,  and  Dutchmen,  and  Methodists,  and  Baptists. 
....  There  is  no  difference  in  them  with  me."§ 

Such  was  the  general  result  of  the  influence  of  Mr.  Perkins. 

What  the  complexion  of  his  theology  was,  we  may  infer  from 

the  following  facts.    Of  Nestorins,  and  his  denial  of  the  BBOTOKO^ 

he  says,   '  Protestant  Christians  would  certainly  never  have 

ght  the  worse  of  him  ;"  and  then,  forgetting  the  description 

*  Journal,  pp.  148-9. 

f  Christianity  in  Turkey,  ch.  v.,  p.  180. 

\  Matt,  xxiii.,  15. 

§  Residence  in  Persia,  p.  3G7. 


MISSIONS   IN  THE   LEVANT,    ETC.  115 

which  he  had  himself  given  elsewhere,  of  "  the  revolting  form 
of  Christianity"  professed  by  Nestorians,  he  exclaims,  "Their 
belief  is  orthodox  and  scriptural !"  With  respect  to  the  sacra 
ment  of  Baptism,  he  derides  the  oriental  Christians  because 
they  "  appeared  to  suppose  that  this  rite  possessed  some  mys 
terious  charm  that  involved  the  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit."* 
Such  are  the  teachers  whom  America  sends  to  promote  the 
fortunes  of  Protestantism  in  the  East. 

Mr.  Perkins  would  perhaps  have  remained  in  Armenia  till 
the  present  hour,  but  the  care  of  his  wife  and  family,  as  usual, 
put  an  end  to  his  labors.  Armenia  was  a  pleasant  residence, 
but  did  not  offer  any  career  to  his  offspring.  "The  children  of 
missionaries,"  he  says,  "should  be  to  the  Churches  objects  of 
deep  interest,  as  well  as  of  tender  sympathy ;"  and  for  this 
reason,  because  the  promise  of  our  Lord  to  all  who  should  leave 
"  father  or  mother,  or  wife  or  children,  for  His  sake,"  applies  in 
a  special  manner  "to  the  children  of  His  missionary  servants  !"f 
It  appears,  therefore,  that  the  Divine  promise  of  special  bene 
diction  to  all  who  abandon  these  worldly  ties  means,  in  the 
opinion  of  Mr.  Perkins,  that  "  they  shall  have  a  double  blessing 
who  retain  them."  Finally,  "  Mrs.  Perkins'  health"  suggested 
a  return  to  America ;  and  as  he  seems  to  have  suspected  that 
his  retirement  from  Armenia  might  possibly  suggest  malevolent 
interpretations,  he  complains  apologetically,  and  by  way  of  pre 
caution,  that  "  there  is  a  sensitiveness  in  the  Christian  com 
munity  on  the  subject  of  the  return  of  missionaries."  It  is 
probable,  in  spite  of  the  protest  of  Mr.  Perkins,  that  this  sensi 
tiveness  will  continue. 

Perhaps  we  have  now  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  character 
of  American  missionaries ;  but  here  is  one  more,  and  it  shall 
be  the  last  illustration.  In  a  series  of  volumes,  bearing  a  grave 
title,  and  recommended  to  public  attention  by  one  of  the  scien 
tific  societies  of  America,  the  reader  will  encounter  the  follow 
ing  passage.  "  K.  is  on  her  prancing  pony  ;  Mrs.  T.  is  on  the 
lank,  thin-chested,  but  deep-chested  mountain  horse ;  Mr.  T. 
has  mounted  kicking  Sada;  and  I'm  aloft  on  tibn-devouring 
Mahjub."  This  is  not,  as  might  have  been  supposed,  a  sport 
ive  account  of  a  pic-nic  party,  addressed  by  some  Syrian  As- 
pasia  to  a  sympathizing  friend,  but  the  official  narrative  of  "  a 
missionary  tourf  extracted  from  "Notes  of  a  Tour  in  Mouni 
Lebanon,  by  a  Missionary  of  the  American  Board  in  Syria," 
and  solemnly  read  before  the  American  Oriental  Society!;): 


*  P.  247. 
t  P.  344. 
\  Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  Society,  vol.  ii.,  p.  237 


116  CHAPTER  VIII. 

Here  we  might  have  terminated  our  notice  of  Protestant 
missions  in  Armenia,  but  that  Providence  has  provided  a  witness 
to  their  real  character  and  results  whose  remarkable  evidence  it 
would  be  wasteful  to  neglect.  In  every  country  we  have  found 
Protestant  writers  to  tell  us,  from  personal  observation,  what 
the  emissaries  of  England  and  America  are  really  doing  among 
the  heathen,  and  what  are  their  relations  with  other  sects. 
Armenia  is  no  exception  to  this  rule.  If  there  is  a  country 
in  the  world  in  which  the  agents  of  Protestantism  have  been 
more  boastful  and  self-complacent  than  in  any  other,  it  is  the 
province  in  which  we  are  now  going  to  resume  their  operations. 
Catholic  travellers  could  have  told  us  how  fruitless,  except  in 
corruption  and  unbelief,  those  operations  have  been — but  we 
have  resolved  not  to  hear  Catholics  on  this  point.  It  is  from 
Protestants  alone  that  we  can  receive  such  facts,  since  only  by 
their  unsuspicious  evidence  could  they  be  adequately  proved. 

Dr.  Moritz  Wagner,  who  seems  to  profess  some  form  or 
modification  of  Anglicanism,  who  was  the  intimate  friend  and 
constant  guest  of  Mr.  Perkins  and  his  colleagues,  who  warmly 
professes  "  esteem  and  love"  for  his  hosts,  and  considers  "  their 
devotion  entitled  to  all  praise,"  is  exactly  the  witness  whom 
we  should  desire  to  interrogate.  Fortunately  that  intelligent 
naturalist  has  anticipated  our  wish,  and  here  is  his  account  of 
the  Protestant  missionaries  and  of  their  work  in  the  fertile 
plains  of  Armenia. 

Let  us  hear  first  what  he  relates  of  the  manner  of  life  of  his 
opulent  hosts.  ^  The  institution  at  Urmia,"  he  says,  "  costs 
the  North  American  missionary  societies  about  fifty  thousand 
dollars  annually ;"  and  he  will  tell  us  immediately  how  that 
substantial  revenue  is  spent.  A  writer  of  his  own  nation,  also 
a  guest  at  Urmia,  had  already  informed  the  world  that 
the  mansion  of  the  missionaries  "  is  furnished  with  so  many 
conveniences  and  comforts,  that  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  I 
were  not  under  the  roof  of  simple  followers  of  Christ  and 
teachers  of  the  Gospel,  but  in  that  of  some  wealthy  private 
gentleman.  Here  were  four  ladies,  a  whole  troop  of  children, 
&c."*  Dr.  Wagner  modestly  laments  that  he  has  not  sufficient 
power  "  to  depict  the  charms  and  features  of  this  missionary 
residence,"  of  which  he  declares  with  emotion  that  "  the  whole 
idyllic  scenery"  will  never  be  effaced  from  his  recollection.  But 
this  was  only  a  portion  of  the  missionary  delights.  They  had 
also  « a  summer  residence  at  Seir,  scarcely  four  miles  from 
Urmia,  inclosed  by  a  wall  flanked  with  four  towers,  and  covering 
the  upper  terrace  of  a  hill,  from  which  the  eye  commands  a 

*  Voyage  Round  the  World,  by  Ida  Pfeiffer,p.  221. 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,   ETC.  117 

wonderful  prospect  of  the  vast  blooming  plain  of  Urmia,  with 
its  three  hundred  and  sixty  villages."  And  these  palatial 
mansions,  with  a  suitable  income  of  more  than  ten  thousand 
pounds  per  annum,  were  the  selected  abodes  of  Jive  missionaries, 
and  of  what  Dr.  Wagner  calls,  no  doubt  justly,  "  their  amiable 
housewives."  We  are  not  surprised  to  learn  from  their  privi 
leged  guest  that  "  the  missionaries  not  only  live  comfortably, 
but  even  luxuriously,  as  was  testified  by  their  stables,  which 
were  almost  tilled  with  horses  of  all  oriental  breeds."  Dr. 
Wagner  adds,  however,  without  the  least  intention  of  jesting, 
that  bis  friends  had  generously  quitted  America,  where  both 
their  dwellings  and  their  stables  were  probably  on  a  smaller 
scale,  "  for  the  propagation  of  Christianity." 

It  was  in  these  well-furnished  halls  that  Mr.  Justin  Perkins 
held  his  court.  "All  the  gentlemen,"  says  Dr.  Wagner,  "  were 
capitally  mounted,"  but  Mr.  Perkins  was  distinguished  even 
among  his  peers.  "  I  have  never  seen  throughout  the  East  a 
finer  horse  than  the  snow-white  mare  of  Mr.  Perkins.  Each 
movement  of  the  beautiful  animal,  which  had  cost  a  considerable 
sum,  was  full  of  grace.  It  looked  to  the  greatest  advantage 
when  kneeling  down  to  drink." 

But  Mr.  Perkins  and  his  friends  had  one  trial,  in  the  midst 
of  these  fabulous  enjoyments ;  they  were  obliged  to  share  their 
wealth  with  the  needy  Armenians,  who  positively  refused  their 
proffered  alliance  on  any  other  terms.  The  "Patriarch"  led 
the  band.  "He  had  good  reasons,"  our  German  informant 
observes,  "  for  showing  civility  to  Mr.  Perkins,  and  allowing 
him  to  preach  without  interference  the  Gospel  according  to 
Presbyterian  views,  for  he  received  a  considerable  subsidy  from 
the  mission,  exceeding,  by  twice  the  amount,  the  income  he 
received  from  his  congregations.  The  same  motive  applied  to 
the  priests  of  lower  degree,  whose  cringing  politeness  to  the 
missionaries  was  sufficiently  explained  by  their  poverty,  their 
love  of  lucre,  and  their  monthly  salaries." 

And  these  were  not  the  only  classes  who  dilapidated  the  fifty 
thousand  dollars  which  annually  flowed  into  the  missionary 
treasury  from  enthusiastic  subscribers  at  home,  who  were 
perhaps  not  fully  acquainted  with  the  mode  in  which  their  con 
tributions  were  consumed.  "The  missionaries  showered  their 
gold,"  says  their  favored  guest,  "  with  a  liberal  hand,  and  not 
only  taught  the  youth  gratis,  l)ut  gave  them  a  weekly  gratuity. 

Each  bishop  receives  from  the  Americans  a  monthly 

allowance  of  three  hundred  Turkish  piastres,  and  ordinary 
ecclesiastics  from  a  hundred  and  fifty  to  two  hundred  piastres. 
On  the  condition  of  this  allowance  being  continued,  the 
Kestorian  clergy  permit  the  missionaries  to  preach  in  their 


118  CHAPTER  VIII. 

villages,  to  keep  schools,  &c.  Without  this  payment,  or 
bribery,  of  the  priests  for  a  good  end,  the  missionaries  could 
not  maintain  their  footing  in  this  country.  Even  the  peasant 
is  only  carrying  on  a  pecuniary  speculation,  in  sending  his 
child  to  school.  Each  scholar  receives  weekly,  a  sahefgeran  ; 
and  though  this  gift  is  small,  the  schools  would  become  directly 
empty  if  it  were  to  cease." 

Finally,  if  we  ask  Dr.  Wagner  to  tell  us  frankly  how  many 
converts  were  really  gained  by  this  enormous  expenditure — 
amounting,  in  thirty  years,  to  one  million  and  a  half  dollars, 
or  more  than  three  hundred  thousand  pounds  sterling — he  is 
willing  to  gratify  our  curiosity,  and  honestly  confesses  that  it 
has  converted  nobody.  Even  Nestorians,  though  willing  to 
accept  any  amount  of  American  money,  do  not  cease  to  despise 
American  doctrine.-  Amongst  the  domestic  servants  in  the 
palace  of  Mr.  Perkins  were  two,  the  one  a  Jew,  the  other  an 
Armenian,  who  professed  to  be  disciples.  Dr.  Wagner,  a  very 
amiable  man,  was  charitably  disposed  to  think  well  of  the 
Armenian,  who  constantly  expressed  an  earnest  desire  to  visit 
Europe  and  America ;  but  the  "  other  missionary  servant,  a 
converted  Jew,  who  had  been  my  guide  to  Seir,  hinted  slyly 
that  it  was  not  so  much  the  devout  impulse  of  a  pilgrim  which 
prompted  his  friend  John  to  visit  Europe  and  Christendom,  as 
selfishness  and  ambitious  aspirations.  He  implied  that  the 
shrewd  Nestorian  fancied  that,  if  he  knew  the  English  tongue 
better,  he  could  play  the  part  of  Messrs.  Perkins  and  Starking 
among  his  countrymen."  These  intelligent  "converts"  evidently 
appreciated  each  other,  and  the  acute  Dr.  Wagner  seems  at  last 
to  have  appreciated  them  all.  "As  a  missionary  servant,"  he 
says,  "John  was  a  very  unimportant  personage  in  the  land  ;  but 
as  missionary,  and  supported  by  the  mission  fund,  even  the 
higher  clergy  would  have  paid  court  to  him,  which  was  enough 
to  excite  the  ambition  of  the  Nestorian  youth."  And  then  follow 
these  grave  words,  in  which  the  true  character  of  these  costly 
missions, — always  appealing  to  the  meanest  sentiments  of  the 
human  heart,  and  openly  conducted  on  the  worst  principles  of 
human  cunning,— is  exposed  by  this  friendly  and  capable 
witness.  "  If  we  except  a  few  Jews,  won  over  from  motives  of 
&BAK,  these  expensive  establishments  have  made  no  converts" 
This  is  all  that  has  been  accomplished,  he  says,  by  "America's 
evangelical  apostles,  who  are  so  splendidly  remunerated,  and 
the  wealthy  members  of  the  societies,  who  have  never  yet  raised 
their  voices  against  negro-slavery,  and  the  hunting  down  of  the 
poor  red-skins  by  rifle-shots  and  bloodhounds,  but  who  pay 
many  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  support  their  useless  ?nissions 
in  the  East."  "The  American  mission,"  he  declares,  and  with 


MISSIONS  IN  THE  LEVANT,  ETC.  119 

this  final  testimony  we  may  close  our  Armenian  narrative, 
"cannot  boast  of  splendid  results  in  relation  to  the  improvement 
of  morality,  stimulus  by  virtuous  examples,  or  the  advancement 
of  culture.  Even  Mr.  Perkins  admitted  this."  Yet  in  his 
official  reports  that  gentleman  only  spoke  of  his  continual 
triumphs,  and  even  relates  in  his  book  such  tales  as  the  follow 
ing:  "The  Rev.  William  Goodell  dropped  a  copy  of  the  tract 
entitled  the  Dairymaids  Daughter  in  Nicomedia;"  and  this,  he 
affirms,  knowing  what  the  home  subscribers  could  bear,  created, 
without  the  aid  of  any  missionary,  "  a  considerable  number  oi 
enlightened,  spiritual  Christians !"  And  the  man  who  could 
thus  inock  the  well-meaning  contributors  to  his  own  luxury, 
privately  confessed  to  Dr.  Wagner,  who  fortunately  made  a 
note  of 'the  words,  that  "he  thought  almost  all  hope  must  be 
given  up  in  the  case  of  the  present  generation. "*  Thus,  by 
the  aid  of  a  little  patience  and  industry,  we  have  arrived  at  last, 
by  exclusively  Protestant  testimony,  at  a  full  knowledge  of  the 
character  and  results  of  all  the  Protestant  missions  in  Armenia, 
Syria,  and  Turkey. 


GEORGIA   AND   PERSIA. 

We  need  not  pause  to  offer  any  reflections  upon  the  history 
which  we  have  now  completed.  Once  more  we  have  traced  a 
contrast,  and  one  which  solicits  no  comment.  Once  more  we 
have  advanced  a  step  in  that  controversy  which,  as  we  have 
said,  God  has  already  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  men,  to  decide 
it  Himself.  He  knows  how  to  distribute  His  own  gifts,  and 
we  have  seen  upon  whom  He  confers,  to  whom  He  refuses  them. 
And  the  facts  which  we  have  now  observed  in  so  many  regions, 
and  which  contain  so  momentous  a  lesson,  are  equally  uniform 
in  every  part  of  Western  Asia. 

We  might  pursue  our  researches,  at  the  risk  of  wearying  the 
reader,  in  Georgia,  and  even  in  Persia,  and  everywhere  we 
should  find  the  same  impressive  phenomena,  everywhere  trace 
the  same  unvarying  contrast.  In  Georgia, — where,  as  early  as 
the  thirteenth  century,  Catholics  were  detected  by  being  ordered 
"to  trample  on  the  crucifix,"  and  multitudes  gained  the  crown 
of  martyrdom,! — there  are  now  German,  American,  and  Scotch 
missionaries.  Here  is  one  example  of  each  class.  An  English 
traveller,  who  visited  the  German  colony  near  Tiflis,  under  the 
Lutheran  missionary  Dittrich,  says,  "I  was  sorry  to  learn  from 

*  Travels,  &c.,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  viii.,  pp.  234-258. 

t  Histoire  de  la  Georgie,  par  M.  Brosset,  tome  i.,  p.  504. 


120  CHAPTER  viir 

Mr.  Dittricli  that  the  German  colonies  had  not  flourished.  .  .  . 
He*  told  me  that  great  disunion  prevailed  amongst  the  colonists, 
principally  from  differences  of  religious  opinion."*  Of  those  at 
Abbas  Tiiman,  whom  he  also  found  in  great  misery,  Dr. 
Bodenstedt  says,  "  What  silences  compassion  is  the  deplorable 
disharmony  in  which  they  live  with  each  other."f  Yet  they 
thought  themselves  qualified  to  convert  the  Armenians  to  one 
or  other  of  their  own  shifting  creeds,  or  to  all  of  them  at  once. 

To  the  Americans  at  Shoosha,  in  Georgia,  the  Russian 
Emperor  sent  the  following  admonition:  "Learning  by  the 
real  state  of  things  that  you,  since  the  time  of  your  settlement 
at  Shoosha,  have  not  yet  converted  anybody,  and,  deviating 
from  the  proper  limits,"  the  conversion  of  the  heathen,  "have 
directed  your  views  to  the  Armenian  youth,  which,  on  the  part 
of  the  Armenian  clergy,  has  produced  complaints,  the  conse 
quences  of  which  may  be  very  disagreeable;  his  Majesty's 
ministers  have  concluded  to  prohibit  you  all  missionary  labors, 
and  for  the  future  to  leave  it  to  your  own  choice  to  employ 
yourselves  with  agriculture,  manufactures,  or  mechanical  trades. 
It  has  pleased  his  Majesty  the  Emperor  to  confirm  this  de 
cree."} 

It  is  true  that  the  emperor  tried  to  silence  the  Catholics  also, 
not  because  they  had  failed,  like  the  Americans,  to  convert  the 
heathen,  but  because  they  would  have  converted  the  whole 
country  if  he  had  not  prevented  them.  Yet  Dr.  Wagner  found 
eight  hundred  Catholics  "  at  or  near  Kutais,"  who  all  spoke 
the  Imeritian  dialect ;  while  the  pupils  of  the  convent,  to  the 
number  of  thirty  or  forty,  "  could  read  and  write  Georgian, 
and  read  Italian  with  tolerable  facility."  He  notices  too  kt  the 
respect  and  esteem  which  the  Superior  (of  the  Franciscans) 
had  obtained  in  the  town  and  country,"  and  observes,  "  I 
frequently  witnessed  the  child-like  veneration  in  which  he  was 
held  by  the  Armenian  boys."§  Baron  Von  Haxthausen  also 
mentions  an  Italian  missionary,  who  "  died  thirty  years  ago, 
and  the  Georgians  number  him  among  their  saints."  Such 
men  were  opposed  by  the  Czar,  as  the  Americans  were,  but  for 
very  different  reasons. 

It  is  a  curious  illustration  of  the  different  policy  of  England, 
and  of  the  deplorable  influence  which  she  everywhere  exerts  in 
support  of  seditious  fanaticism  or  meddlesome  unbelief,  that 
when  Mr.  Perkins,  whose  operations  we  can  now  appreciate, 
solicited  the  sympathy  of  the  Eight  Hon.  Henry  Ellis,  British 

*  Wilbraham,  Travels  in  the  Trans-Caiaasian  Provinces,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  182. 
f  The  Caucasus,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  27. 
\  Quoted  by  Perkins,  p.  221. 
£  Travels,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  in.,  p.  202. 


121 

Ambassador  in  Persia,  in  1835,  he  received  the  following 
characteristic  reply :  "  The  proposed  introduction  of  the  pure 
doctrines  of  the  Reformed  Church  among  the  Nestorian 
Christians  in  this  country  cannot  fail  to  be  a  matter  of  deep 
and  serious  interest  to  his  Majesty's  government."*  Russia, 
with  more  discretion,  promptly  dismissed  the  friends  of  Mr. 
Ellis  as  likely  to  prove  "  very  disagreeable,"  and  suggested  to 
them  the  more  congenial  pursuit  of  manufactures  or  median 
ical  trades. 

Lastly,  for  we  need  not  stay  to  multiply  testimonies  of  which 
we  have  learned  by  this  time  to  appreciate  the  universality, 
Sir  Robert  Porter  gives  this  account  of  the  emissaries  from 
Scotland.  "  A  Scotch  colony  of  missionaries  have  established 
themselves  in  the  neighborhood  of  Konstantinogorsk  ;  but  it 
may  be  regarded  as  an  agricultural  society,  rather  than  a  theo 
logical  college."f 

In  Persia, — where  Jesuits  once  received  honors,  even  in  the 
tent  of  Nadir  Schah,  as  their  brethren  did  in  that  of  Akbar  ;:£ 
and  where  in  our  own  day  Napoleon,  comprehending  with  his 
infallible  sagacity  all  that  such  men  could  effect,  stipulated, 
by  the  treaty  of  1808,  for  protection  in  favor  of  all  Jesuits 
whom  France  might  send  to  that  land, — Catholic  missionaries, 
having  the  apostolic  graces  of  chastity  and  holy  poverty,  have 
won  the  respect  even  of  the  disciples  of  the  false  prophet,  while 
a  crowd  of  American  missionaries  dispense  on  every  side  the 
enormous  funds  intrusted  to  them.  "  The  money  they  lavish," 
says  the  Prefect  of  the  Armenian  missions  in  Persia,  "  presents 
a  strong  temptation  to  certain  Armenians,  who  follow  them 
for  a  while,  in  order  to  profit  by  their  profusion,  but  invaria 
bly  adhere  to  the  tenets  of  their  own  religion. "§  The  Armenian 
clergy,  we  are  told  by  the  wife  of  a  British  ambassador,  "  re 
ceive  salaries"  from  them,  like  their  fellows  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  Urmia.  Of  the  French  Lazarists,  the  same  lady  says, 
"  These  gentlemen  abounded  in  zeal  and  activity,  but  they 
were  poor,  and  wholly  unable  to  contend  against  the  treasures 
of  Boston. "J  Such  is  everywhere  the  influence,  when  they 
have  any,  of  Protestant  missionaries.  To  generate  corruption 
and  immorality,  without  producing  even  the  semblance  of  re 
ligious  conviction  ;  to  destroy  faith,  but  never  to  inspire  it ; 
and  to  hinder  those  who,  in  spite  of  their  poverty,  know  how 
to  kindle  the  light  of  truth  and  charity  in  all  hearts — such  is 

*  Residence  in  Persia,  &c.,  p.  219. 

f  Trawls  in  Georgia,  vol.  i.,  p.  47. 

I  Cretineau  Joly,  tome  vi.,  ch.  i.,  p.  51. 

§  Annals,  vol.  i.,  p.  95. 

\  Life  and  Manners  in  Persia,  by  Lady  Sliiel,  p.  356. 


122  CHAPTER  VIII. 

their  deplorable  work.  And  their  partisans  at  home  are  never 
weary  of  sending  them  money  to  be  employed  in  such  aims. 

They  do  not  even  attempt,  as  might  be  anticipated,  to  con 
vert  the  Persians,  who  suppose,  like  all  orientals,  that  they  are 
atheists.  Indeed,  Mr.  Perkins  incautiously  relates  an  anecdote 
which  shows  that  the  Persians  are  quite  as  likely  to  convert 
the  Protestants  as  to  be  converted  by  them.  "  A  pious  English 
family  in  Persia,"  he  says,  "  were  surprised  and  shocked  on  one 
day  finding  their  little  girl,  then  four  years  old,  kneeling  with 
her  face  towards  Mecca,  and  lisping  the  devotions  of  the  false 
prophet."* 

But  it  is  time  to  close  this  chapter,  already  extended  to  un 
due  limits,  and  we  may  conclude  it  with  an  anecdote  not  less 
curious  than  that  which  we  have  just  heard.  Not  long  ago,  a 
French  traveller,  journeying  from  Ispahan  to  Bagdad,  came 
upon  a  small  Catholic  colony  towards  the  close  of  a  sultry  day. 
They  were  assembled  together  in  the  house  of  one  of  them, 
and  having  recited  vespers,  were  engaged,  when  the  traveller 
joined  them,  not  in  asking  gifts  for  themselves,  but  in  praying 
for  the  conversion  of  England  !  They  seem  to  have  under 
stood,  even  in  their  far  home  beyond  the  Tigris,  that,  in  spite 
of  the  zeal  of  some,  and  the  good  intentions  of  many,  England 
is  still,  by  her  relentless  warfare  against  Unity,  the  great  im 
pediment  to  the  conversion  of  the  heathen  ;  and  that  the  surest 
way  to  obtain  for  them  admission  into  the  family  of  God,  was 
to  solicit  for  her  the  recovery  of  the  gifts  which  she  has  lost, 
and  of  the  faith  which  she  has  denied.  And  these  Persian 
Christians  were  right.  If  England  had  remained  Catholic,  it 
is  probable  that  at  this  hour  there  would  not  have  been  a 
pagan  altar  in  the  world. 

*  P.  343. 


CHAPTEE  IX. 


MISSIONS    IN    AMEEICA. 
PART  I. 

SOUTH     AMERICA. 

THE  gifts  and  promises  of  God,  it  lias  been  said,  have  travelled 
from  East  to  West,  from  the  rising  to  the  setting  sun.  To  each 
tribe  of  the  human  family  in  turn  the  Angel  of  the  Covenant 
has  delivered  the  message  of  peace,  then  passed  on  his  way. 
In  the  appointed  hour  he  crossed  the  great  sea,  with  his  face 
westwards.  Then,  for  the  first  time,  the  name  of  Jesus  was 
proclaimed  in  that  mighty  continent  which  stretches  almost 
from  pole  to  pole,  and  within  whose  boundless  plains  a  new 
chapter  of  man's  history  has  found  its  scenes  and  its  actors. 
Here,  among  many  tribes,  and  nations  of  various  tongues,  the 
ministers  of  light  and  darkness  have  long  contended  together 
for  the  mastery.  When  we  have  read  the  story  of  their  conflict, 
we  may  close  our  book.  Earth  has  nothing  more  to  offer  us. 
We  shall  have  visited  in  turn  all  her  provinces ;  and  having 
started  from  the  remote  eastern  sea  which  beats  against  the 
long  coasts  of  China,  we  shall  stand  at  length  on  the  opposite 
frontier  of  man's  narrow  home,  the  western  limits  of  his  wan 
derings,  and  may  once  more  look  across  the  ocean  to  the  land 
from  which  we  commenced  our  journey. 

No  portion  of  the  earth  presents  on  a  larger  scale,  none  in 
more  vivid  colors,  the  contrast  which  it  has  been  the  business 
of  these  volumes  to  trace,  than  that  whose  religious  history 
we  are  about  to  review.  When  Nature  divided  the  great 
American  continent  into  two  parts,  she  seems  to  have  prepared 
by  anticipation  a  separate  theatre  for  the  events  of  which  each 
was  to  be  the  scene,  and  for  the  actors  who  were  destined  to 
perform  in  either  a  part  so  widely  dissimilar.  The  one  was  to 
be  the  exclusive  domain  of  the  Church,  the  other  the  battle 
field  of  all  the  Sects. 

A  thousand  writers  have  related,  with  sympathy  or  regret, 
but  otherwise  with  unvarying  uniformity,  the  historical  results 
of  a  distribution  which  all  seemed  to  have  noticed,  and  in  which 


124:  CHAPTER  IX. 

may  be  traced,  on  the  broadest  scale,  and  with  a  clearness  and 
precision  which  exclude  even  the  risk  of  error,  all  the  charac 
teristic  marks  which  have  distinguished  in  every  age  the  City 
of  God  from  the  City  of  Confusion.  The  races  of  the  South, 
we  shall  see,  have  derived  both  their  religion  and  their  civili 
zation  from  the  missionaries  of  the  Cross ;  the  tribes  of  the 
North,  doomed  to  swift  destruction,  have  been  abandoned  to 
teachers  of  another  school,  and  to  prophets  of  another  faith. 
And  these  have  been  the  results  of  the  unequal  partition.  In 
the  South,  the  Church  has  united  all,  of  whatever  race,  in  spite 
of  the  ignorance  or  the  ferocity  of  the  barbarians,  in  spite  01 
the  follies  or  the  crimes  of  some  of  her  own  children,  into  one 
household  and  family.  In  the  North,  the  original  heirs  have 
been  banished  or  exterminated,  without  pity,  and  without  re 
morse,  that  the  sects  might  build  up  in  the  desert  which  they 
had  created  a  pandemonium  of  tumult  and  disorder,  so  full  of 
division  and  discord,  that  the  evil  spirits  might  well  congregate 
here  from  all  the  "  dry  places"  of  the  earth,  and  deem  that  they 
had  found  at  last  their  true  home.  Let  us  introduce  at  once  a 
few  of  the  witnesses  whom  we  are  hereafter  to  hear,  that  we 
may  understand  what  is  the  history  upon  which  we  are  about 
to  enter,  and  what  are  the  facts  which  it  will  disclose  to  us. 

The  contrast  which  we  are  going  to  trace  is  thus  indicated, 
with  frank,  outspoken  candor,  by  men  who  had  analyzed  all  its 
features.  u  More  than  a  million  and  a  half  of  the  pure  aborigi 
nal  races,"  says  the  author  of  the  Natural  History  of  Man, 
"  live  in  South  America  in  the  profession  of  Christianity."* 
"  The  history  of  the  attempts  to  convert  the  Indians  of  North 
America,"  says  the  annalist  of  Protestant  missions,  "  is  a  record 
of  a  series  of  failures."f  This  is  the  first  great  fact,  in  its 
broad  outlines,  which  will  be  presented  to  our  notice ;  and  it  is 
one,  as  an  eminent  English  ethnologist  observes,  "  which  must 
be  allowed  to  reflect  honor  on  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
and  to  cast  a  deep  shade  on  the  history  of  Protestantism."^: 

A  second  and  equally  impressive  fact,  which  has  excited  the 
attention  of  a  multitude  of  writers  of  all  nations,  is  thus 
expressed  by  a  prejudiced  traveller,  who  had  lived  among  the 
tribes  of  the  equinoctial  regions.  "  Far  from  being  diminished, 
their  number  has  considerably  increased.  A  similar  increase 
has  taken  place  generally  among  the  Indian  population  in  that 
part  of  America  which  is  within  the  tropics  ....  the  Indian 
population  in  the  missions  is  constantly  augmenting."  On  the 

*  Prichard,  sec.  xliv.,  p.  427. 

f  Quoted  in  Monthly  llevicw,  vol.  Ixxxiv.,  p.  143. 

\  Prichard,  ubi  supra. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  125 

other  hand,  "  In  the  neighborhood  of  the  United  States,  on  the 

contrary,  the  Indians  are  fast  diminishing  in  numbers 

In  the  United  States,  as  civilization  advances,  the  Indians  are 
constantly  driven  beyond  its  pale."'*  We  shall  trace  this  con 
trast  hereafter  in  all  its  details. 

Finally,  a  third  feature  of  the  prodigious  contrast  which  we 
are  about  to  examine  is  this — that  while  the  innumerable 
native  tribes  who  have  been  converted  to  Christianity  between 
the  thirtieth  parallel  of  north  and  the  thirty-fifth  of  south 
latitude,  through  a  tract  of  more  than  four  thousand  miles  in 
length  and  nearly  three  thousand  in  breadth,  have  never 
departed  from  the  Catholic  faith,  and,  as  Protestant  writers 
will  assure  us,  cleave  to  it  at  this  day  as  obstinately  as  ever : 
within  the  wide  territories  of  the  United  States,  where  the 
Indian  has  only  been  corrupted  or  destroyed,  nominal  Christians 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  have  themselves  become  divided  and 
subdivided  into  such  a  chaos  of  jarring  sects,  that,  as  their  own 
leaders  declare,  with  a  sorrow  which  comes  too  late,  there  is 
nothing  like  it  in  the  history  of  the  wTorld.  "  In  the  Western 
world,"  says  a  Protestant  minister,  "  religion  is  made  to  appear 
too  often  as  a  source  of  contention  rather  than  as  a  bond  of 
union  and  peace."f  Already,  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  the  English  governor  of  New  York  reported  of  that 
province,  that  it  swarmed  with  men  of  "  all  sorts  of  opinions, 
and  the  most  part  of  none  at  all ;"  and  a  hundred  years  later, 
an  English  clergyman  could  still  describe  the  inhabitants  of 
his  own  district  as  "  people  of  almost  all  religions  and  sects, 
but  the  greatest  part  of  no  religion."^  In  our  own  day,  it  has 
even  become  necessary  to  adopt  a  new  nomenclature,  in  order 
to  classify  divisions  and  subdivisions  which  had  elsewhere 
neither  a  form  nor  a  name.  "  Two  grand  divisions  of  the 
Baptists,"  one  of  the  innumerable  offshoots  from  the  Anglican 
Establishment,  who  already  possess  more  than  five  thousand 
churches,  are  known,  Mr.  Olmsted  says,  "  as  the  Hard  Shells 
and  the  Soft  Shells ;"  and  even  such  titles  are  perhaps  no 
greater  outrage  upon  the  religion  of  the  Gospel  than  many 
which  are  daily  uttered,  with  quiet  complacency,  in  our  own 
land.  The  relations  of  these  cognate  tribes  to  one  another,  Mr. 
Olmsted  adds,  are  marked  by  "an  intense  rivalry  and  jealousy," 
as  "persistent"  as  that  which  subsists  between  Druses  and 
Maronites,  between  the  followers  of  Ali  and  the  disciples  of 

*  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  Colombia,  by  Captain  Charles  Stuart  Coclirane, 
vol.  i.,  ch.  iii.,  pp.  218,  233. 

f  The  Western  World  Revisited,  by  the  Rev.  Henry  Caswall,  ch.  i..  p.  9  ;  ch. 
xii.,  p.  316. 

\  Documentary  History  of  New  York,  vol.  i.,  p.  186 ;  vol.  iii.,  p.  1113. 


126  CHAPTER  IX. 

Omar.*  "  The  dearest  and  warmest  friends  of  the  Bepublic," 
we  are  told,  "  look  with  fear  and  trembling  on  her  sectional 
divisions,  her  party  jealousies,  the  strange  and  anomalous 
divisions,  subdivisions,  and  minor  subdivisions  of  her  inter 
minable  and  contending  religious  denominations."-)  "Churches 
are  divided,"  observes  another  Protestant  writer,  "Presbyteries 
are  divided,  Synods  are  divided,  the  General  Assembly  is 
divided ;"  and  this  is  due,  he  considers,  to  u  extreme  looseness 
in  doctrine  and  practice  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  violent  attempt 
to  coerce  it  into  orthodoxy  on  the  other.":f  "  The  continual 
splitting  of  the  numerous  sections  of  Protestantism,"  Dr.  Schedel 
remarks,  in  1858,  still  recording  the  unwelcome  phenomena  to 
which  the  disciples  of  the  Reformation  feel  that  they  can  apply 
no  remedy,  and  using  them  as  an  argument  in  favor  of 
rationalism,  "  has  had  the  effect  of  producing  a  deep  impression 
of  its  danger  for  religion."§  "  The  clergy  complain,"  says  an 
English  traveller  of  the  same  school,  "  of  the  enormous  spread 
of  bold  books,  from  the  infidel  tract  to  the  latest  handling  of 
the  miracle  question.  There  are  schisms  among  all  the  more 
strict  of  the  religious  bodies,  and  large  secessions  and  new 
formations  among  those  which  are  bound  together  by  slight 
forms."||  Lastly, — for  there  is  no  need  to  multiply  testimonies 
to  a  fact  which  no  one  disputes,  or  to. the  real  nature  of  a  reli 
gion  of  which  these  are  so  invariably  the  fruits,  that  its  own 
professors  now  regard  all  unity  as  chimerical,  except  the 
diabolical  unity  of  evil, — Dr.  Stephen  Olin,  a  respectable  Wes- 
leyan  preacher,  exclaims  once  more,  "  Twenty  years  of  obser 
vation  have  produced  in  my  mind  a  deliberate  conviction  that 
the  sorest  evil  which  presses  upon  the  American  Churches,  the 
chiefest  obstacle  to  their  real  progress  in  holiness  and  useful 
ness,  is  the  spirit  of  sectarianism. "T 

But  even  these  three  facts  do  not  illustrate  the  whole  contrast 
which  we  are  about  to  trace  in  America,  after  proving  it  for 
every  other  land,  between  the  work  of  the  Church  and  the  work 
of  the  Sects.  The  first  has  won  a  thousand  tribes  to  the  Cross ; 
has  seen  them  increase  and  multiply  on  every  side  under  her 
gentle  rule,  and  has  preserved  them  for  two  hundred  years,  in 
spite  of  many  calamities,  in  unbroken  unity  of  faith.  The 
second  have  not  gained  so  much  as  a  single  tribe,  have  destroyed 

*  Olmsted,  Our  Slave  States. 
•f  Statesmen  of  America,  by  S.  Maury,  p.  483. 
J  Colton's  Thoughts  on  the  Religious  State  of  the  Country,  p.  66 
§  The  Emancipation  of  Faith,  by  H.  E.  Scliedel,  M.D.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  410  (Ne\V 
York,  1858). 

[Society  in  America,  by  Harriet  Martineau,  vol.  iii.,  p.  257. 
TF  Works,  vol.  ii.,  p.  451. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  12T 

without  mercy  the  races  which  they  could  not  convert,  and 
have  themselves  become  a  proverb  to  the  whole  earth  of  re 
ligious  division  and  discord.  Yet  this  also  does  not  exhaust 
all  the  facts  of  the  contrast. 

It  would  have  been  something  if  the  sects  could  have  pleaded 
that  at  least  they  had  done  their  best,  and  only  failed  after 
earnest  and  courageous  effort.  Even  this  is  a  praise  which 
they  have  not  cared  to  earn,  and  which  their  own  advocates 
refuse  to  allow  them.  We  shall  see  presently  what  Protestant 
writers  say  of  the  dauntless  courage  and  sublime  virtue  of  the 
men  who  converted  South  America ;  of  their  own  friends  they 
speak  as  follows :  "  The  pious  men  of  America,"  says  Moll- 
hausen,  with  pardonable  irony,  "  look  with  indifference  on  the 
heathen  before  their  own  doors,  but  send  out  missionaries  to 
preach  Christianity  in  the  remotest  parts  of  the  world !  When, 
through  the  covetousness  of  the  white  civilized  races,  the  free 
inhabitants  of  the  steppes  shall  have  been  ruined  and  extermi 
nated,  Christian  love  will  find  its  way  to  their  empty  wigwams, 
and  churches  and  meeting-houses  rise  over  the  graves  of  the 
poor  victimized  owners  of  the  green  prairies."*  They  leave 
them  to  perish  with  indifference,  says  another  German  Prot 
estant,  who,  like  Mollhausen,  had  lived  among  them,  because 
"  there  are  no  territories  to  be  won,  there  are  no  natives  to  be 
enticed  into  building  comfortable  houses  for  the  Christian 
teachers,  they  would  have  to  lead  a  wild  life  with  them,  no 
further  profit  in  view  as  is  the  case  with  the  South  Sea  Islands, 
but  only  the  prospect  of  being  driven  with  their  pupils  from 
one  place  to  another,  living  on  grubs,  acorns,  and  other  indi 
gestible  things ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  a  comfortable  life 
and  a  good  income  look  far  more  inviting."f  Such  language 
need  not  surprise  us,  for  we  have  seen  many  examples  in  the 
course  of  these  pages  both  of  the  contempt  which  the  more 
enlightened  Protestants  feel  for  their  own  missionaries,  and  the 
indifference  with  which  they  avow  it. 

Dr.  Moritz  Wagner,  another  German  Protestant,  who  also 
had  lived  among  American  missionaries,  has  already  told  us,  in 
the  same  tone  of  honest  reprobation,  that  "  America's  evangeli 
cal  apostles,  who  have  never  yet  raised  their  voices  against  the 
hunting  down  the  poor  redskins,  pay  many  hundred  thousand 
dollars  to  support  their  useless  missions  in  the  East" — not  be 
cause  they  love  the  orientals  more,  but  simply,  as  Dr.  Living 
stone  intimates  with  respect  to  South  Africa,  because  they 

*  Journey  from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Coasts  of  the  Pacific,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xi., 
p.  220,  ed.  Sinnett. 
•j-  Gerstaecker,  Journey  Round  the  World,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  350. 


128  CHAPTER  IX. 

cannot  bear  to  be  anticipated  or  excluded  by  the  restless 
activity  of  rival  sects.  Mr.  Buckingham,  also,  an  English 
writer,  who  had  dwelt  among  them,  notices  the  characteristic 
fact,  that  while  an  American  religious  society  ^  voted  by  accla 
mation  thousands  of  dollars  at  once  to  Persia,  Siam,  or  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  which  demanded  nothing  from  them,  and 
only  asked  to  be  left  alone,  they  allotted,  as  if  in  derision,  "for 
North  American  Indians,"  perishing  at  their  own  doors,  the 
modest  sum  of  two  hundred  !*  And  even  when  their  cautious 
emissaries,  moved  by  the  attractions  which  alone  prevail  with 
such  men,  venture  to  follow  the  native  to  his  forest  home,  it  is 
only,  as  we  shall  see,  to  abandon  after  a  brief  space  the 
unprofitable  labor ;  so  that  Humboldt  did  not  scruple  to  say. 
that  the  relics  of  the  aboriginal  races  of  North  America,  who 
have  come  into  contact  with  the  agents  of  English  or  American 
religions,  are  "sinking  into  a  lower  moral  state. than  they  oc 
cupied  before."f 

And  this  heavy  reproach  is  repeated,  in  still  more  emphatic 
language,  even  by  American  Protestants.  "  While  the  Pequods 
and  other  northern  tribes,"  says  Judge  Hall,  of  Cincinnati, 
"  were  being  exterminated,  or  sold  into  slavery,  the^more  for 
tunate  savage  of  the  Mississippi  was  listening  to  the  pious  coun 
sels  of  the  Catholic  missionaries.  They  exercised,  of  choice,  an 
expansive  benevolence,  at  a  period  when  Protestants,  similarly 
situated,  were  bloodthirsty  and  rapacious.":):  "  The  Jesuit 
mission-farms,"  says  Mr.  Law  Olmsted,  in  1857,  "  are  an  ex 
ample  for  us.  Our  neighborly  responsibilities  for  the  Lipans" 
— a  tribe  on  the  Texan  frontier — "  is  certainly  more  close  than 
for  the  Feejees,  and  if  the  glory  of  converting  them  to  decency 
be  less,  the  expense  would  certainly  be  in  proportion. "§  Last 
ly,  Mr.  Melville,  also  one  of  their  own  countrymen,  noticing 
the  vaunt  that  paganism  is  almost  extinct  in  the  United  States, 
thus  rebukes  the  hollow  and  impious  boast :  "The  Anglo-Saxon 
hive  have  extirpated  paganism  from  the  greater  part  of  the 
North  American  continent,  Imt  with  it  they  have  likewise  extir 
pated  tJie  greater  portion  erf  the  Red  race."\ 

Such,  by  German,  English,  and  American  testimony,  has 
been  the  work  of  Protestantism.  On  the  other  hand,  a  modern 
French  naturalist,  who  visited  in  person  thirty -nine  existing 
nations  of  pure  American  race  in  the  Southern  continent,  and 

•  America,  by  J.  S.  Buckingham,  Esq.,  vol.  i.,  cli.  x. 
f  Preface  to  Mollhausen's  Journey,  p.  xiii. 

i  History  of  the  lleliyious  Denominations  of  the  United  States,  by  J.  D.  Rupp, 
p.  163. 

S  Journey  through  Texas,  p.  298. 

ii   The  Marquesas  Inlands,  ch.  xxvi.,  p.  217. 


MISSIONS   IN    AMERICA.  129 

collected  statistics  from  which  we  shall  borrow  hereafter,  de 
clares,  that  he  found  indeed,  scattered  through  the  regions 
which  he  so  painfully  explored,  ninety -four  thousand  one 
hundred  and  ninety-seven  pagans ;  but  that  he  counted  also, 
within  the  same  district,  one  million  five  hundred  and  ninety 
thousand  nine  hundred  and  thirty  native  Christians.  And 
then  he  relates,  speaking  rather  as  a  man  of  science  than  as  a 
Christian,  that  these  poor  Indians,  often  robbed  of  their  pastors 
and  almost  always  wronged  by  their  rulers,  exhibit  the  same 
astonishing  inflexibility  of  faith,  even  in  cases  where  they  have 
been  enfeebled  by  ignorance  or  superstition,  of  which  we  have 
already  seen  so  many  examples ;  so  that,  as  M.  d'Orbigny 
observes,  "  they  push  their  profession  of  the  Catholic  religion 
even  to  fanaticism."*  Mendoza  could  say,  at  an  earlier  date, 
and  in  language  more  worthy  of  the  subject,  that  "  the  natural 
people  of  South  America,  never  since  they  were  converted, 
have  been  found  in  any  heresy,  nor  in  any  thing  contrary  to 
the  Koman  faith  ;"f  and  living  Protestants  will  presently 
assure  us,  not  only  that  all  attempts  to  shake  their  faith  are 
equally  vain  at  the  present  day,  but  that  in  many  parts  of 
South  America,  and  notably  in  Chili,  where  the  emissaries  of 
the  English  Bible  Society  have  made  their  appearance,  "  the 
life  of  an  Englishman  is  in  danger  among  the  peasantry,"  so 
vehement  is  their  dislike  of  heresy,  and  of  those  who  recom 
mend  it  to  them.;);  Finally,  for  we  must  not  anticipate  evi 
dence  which  will  claim  our  attention  later,  Sir  James  Mackin 
tosh  thus  attests  the  memorable  contrast  which  had  not  escaped 
his  philosophical  review,  and  of  which  the  fact  noticed  by 
Mendoza  is  not  the  least  instructive  portion.  "  The  natives  of 
America,  who  generally  felt  the  comparative  superiority  of  the 
European  race  only  in  a  more  rapid  or  a  more  gradual  destruc 
tion,  and  to  whom  even  the  excellent  Quakers  dealt  out  little 
more  than  penurious  justice,  were,  under  the  paternal  rule  of 
the  Jesuits," — he  might  have  added,  under  that  of  the  Fran 
ciscans,  the  Dominicans,  and  many  more, — "  reclaimed  from 
savage  manners,  and  instructed  in  the  arts  and  duties  of  civil 
ized  life."§  Such,  in  its  leading  features,  is  the  history  of^ 
which  we  are  now  going  to  trace  the  outlines. 

In  attempting  to  follow  the  course  of  events  of  which  the 
details  have  filled  hundreds  of  volumes,  and  which  had  for  their 
theatre  the  whole  extent  of  the  vast  American  continent, — in 

*  Voyage  dans  I'Amerique  Meridionale,  par  Alcide  d'Orbigny,  tome  iv., 
p.  252. 

f  Historic  of  the  Kingdome  of  China,  vol.  ii.,  p.  224,  ed.  Hakluyt  Society. 

t  Travels  in  Chili,  by  John  Miers,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xix.,  p.  223. 

§  Review  of  the  Causes  of  the  Revolution,  Works,  vol.  ii.,  p.  251  (1846). 

VOL.  II.  10 


130  CHAPTER  IX. 

the  North,  from  California  to  the  Gulf  of  Florida,  and  from 
the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence  to  those  of  the  Gila  and  the  Co 
lorado  ;  in  the  South,  from  Carthagena  to  Buenos  Ayres,  and 
from  the  Andes  to  the  mouths  of  the  Amazon,  the  Orinoco, 
and  the  Plata ;  it  is  not  a  history  which  the  reader  will  expect 
to  find,  hardly  even  a  sketch,  of  a  warfare  which  has  filled  the 
world  with  envy  or  admiration,  which  lasted  more  than  two 
centuries,  and  in  which  the  Church  poured  out  like  water  the 
sweat  and  the  blood  of  her  children ;  while  even  her  enemies 
have  celebrated  its  final  issue  with  an  enthusiasm  which  the 
most  inveterate  prejudice  could  not  silence,  as  one  of  the  most 
astonishing  of  her  many  triumphs.  The  story  of  American 
missions  includes  names  as  venerable  as  any  in  the  long  cata 
logue  of  apostles,  and  tells  of  the  deeds  of  a  whole  army  of 
martyrs  and  confessors, — of  Anchieta  and  Rodriguez,  of  Vieyra 
and  d'Almeida,  of  D'Aguilar  and  Venegas,  of  Herrera  and 
Ugarte,  of  Betanzos  and  Las  Casas,  of  Bracamante  and  Portillo, 
of  Lopez  and  Barzana,  of  the  Blessed  Peter  Claver  and  St. 
Francis  Solano ; — of  the  martyrs  Suarez  and  Figuerroa,  Baraza 
and  Lizardi,  Richler  and  Lucas  Cavellero;  of  Aranda  and 
Montalban,  of  Azevedo,  whom  the  Huguenots  cut  in  pieces, 
and  Henri  de  la  Borde,  whom  the  English  ensnared  and  then 
cruelly  murdered ;  of  Jogues  and  de  Brebeuf,  of  Lamberville 
and  Lallemand,  and  a  thousand  more — for,  as  M.  Cretineau 
Joly  observes,  "  the  number  of  missionaries  who  fell  is  really 
incalculable ;" — of  that  multitude  of  apostolic  warriors  of  whom 
even  American  Protestants  of  our  own  day  have  said,  that  their 
monuments  will  yet  be  raised  by  the  free  people  to  whom  they 
bequeathed  examples  of  heroism  which  Americans  know  how 
to  admire  ;  who  labored,  as  Mr.  Washington  Irving  confessed, 
"  with  a  power  which  no  other  Christians  have  exhibited;"* 
who  excelled  all  others,  as  Mr.  Schoolcraft  admits,  "  in  bold 
ness,  zeal,  and  indomitable  efficacy  ;"f  and  who  more  than  jus 
tified,  as  Professor  Walters  of  Philadelphia  remarks,  whatever 
applause  the  admiration  of  mankind  has  lavished  "upon  their 
dauntless  courage  and  their  more  than  human  charity  and  zeal.":): 
It  is  of  such  men,  and  of  their  work,  that  we  are  now  to 
speak — not  fitly,  but  according  to  the  measure  of  our  capacity. 
It  is  a  comparison  of  their  life  and  death,  of  their  labors, 
Bufferings,  and  conquests,  with  the  sterile  career  of  men  of 
another  order,  but  ostensibly  busy  in  the  same  calling,  which 
will  furnish  the  last  but  not  the  least  instructive  example  of  the 

*  Knickerbocker,  June,  1838. 

\  Notes  on  thelroquois,  by  Henry  R.  Schoolcraft,  ch.  xii.,  p.  403  (1847). 

f  Rupp,  Hist,  of  Religious  Denominations,  &c.,  p.  119. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  131 

contrast  of  which  we  have  already  produced  so  many  illustra 
tions  ;  and  to  which  the  Prophet  pointed  when  he  proposed 
this  very  contrast  as  the  infallible  test  by  which  men  should 
be  able  to  distinguish,  throughout  the  whole  Christian  era, 
between  true  and  false  apostles,  between  the  work  of  the  Church 
and  the  work  of  the  Sects. 

Let  us  begin  with  South  America,  and  the  world-famed  mis 
sions  of  Brazil  and  Peru,  of  Chili  and  Paraguay.  A  little  later 
we  shall  traverse  Mexico  in  our  way  to  the  north,  enter  Cali 
fornia  and  Oregon,  visit  the  lakes  of  the  northern  continent 
and  the  plains  of  Canada,  and  trace  the  decay  of  the  unhappy 
races  whom  the  Saxon,  unable  to  convert  them  to  God,  has 
pushed  from  their  homes,  or  violently  swept  from  the  earth, 
that  he  might  people  after  his  own  fashion  the  regions  from 
which  they  have  been  banished  forever. 

We  shall  use,  according  to  our  custom,  and  as  far  as  it  is 
available,  the  testimony  of  Protestant  writers.  They  have 
served  us  in  all  our  former  journeys,  and  will  not  refuse  to  aid 
us  in  this.  Let  us  begin  with  their  account  of  Catholic  mis 
sions  in  Brazil.  Mr.  Southey — of  whose  sentiments  towards 
the  Catholic  Church  we  shall  presently  see  abundant  tokens, 
and  who  did  not  hesitate  to  tell  his  countrymen,  "  I  deprecate 
what  is  called  Catholic  emancipation" — has  diligently  compiled 
whatever  relates  to  the  history  of  Brazil.  He  will  be  our 
principal  guide. 

BRAZIL. 

It  was  in  1549  that  John  III.  of  Portugal,  solicitous,  as  Mr. 
Southey  observes,  "  for  the  souls  of  his  Brazilian  subjects,"  re 
solved  to  dispatch  to  their  aid  missionaries  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus.  Brazil  was  not  the  only  land  which  owed  eternal 
gratitude  to  the  Christian  zeal  of  that  vigorous  and  enlightened 
monarch,  who  received  from  his  contemporaries  more  honor 
than  Mr.  Southey  is  willing  to  allow  him.  "He  was  super 
stitious  to  the  lowest  depth  of  degradation,"  says  this  English 
historian,  with  that  quiet  composure  which  his  countrymen 
usually  display  in  judging  such  men.  In  spite  of  this  defect, 
"he  was  truly  and  righteously  anxious  to  spread  his  religion, 
such  at  it  was,  among  the  heathen."*  So  he  sent  Father 
Emanuel  de  Nobrega,  and  five  others,  chosen  by  St.  Ignatius 
himself  for  this  difficult  mission  ;  and  it  was  under  their  auspices 
that  the  new  city  of  St.  Salvador,  hitherto  only  a  fortified  camp, 
began  to  assume  the  dimensions  which  made  it  afterwards  the 

*  History  of  Brazil,  by  Kobert  Southey,  vol.  i.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  214  (1817). 


132  CHAPTER   IX. 

capital  of  northern  Brazil.  "  The  Jesuits,']  says  Mr.  Son  they, 
for  Providence  employs  such  men  to  proclaim  the  truths  which 
they  wish  to  hide,  "  immediately  hegan  that  system  of  benefi 
cence  towards  the  natives  from  which  they  never  deviated  till 
their  extinction  as  an  order."  From  that  hour  the  native  of 
South  America  was  to  find,  in  every  forest  where  he  had  made 
his  home,  and  by  the  banks  of  every  river  on  which  his  frail 
bark  could  float,  a  friend,  a  father,  and  a  guide ;  who  would 
save  him  from  himself  and  from  his  oppressors,  and  teach  him 
to  love  a  religion  which  could  move  such  as  them  to  abandon 
home,  country,  and  kinsfolk,  in  order  to  make  such  as  him  a 
partaker  in  its  promises,  its  joys,  and  its  rewards. 

The  attempt  was  bold,  but  not  too  bold.  The  missionaries, 
says  Mr.  Southey,  had  to  encounter  "  obstacles  great  and  nu 
merous,"  and  of  these  the  almost  universal  practice  6f  canni 
balism  was  not  the  least  formidable.  But  the  children  of  St. 
Ignatius,  like  those  of  St.  Francis  and  St.  Dominic,  who  shared 
this  field  with  them,  knew  how  to  combat  the  enemy,  whatever 
form  he  might  assume.  They  succeeded,  therefore,  in  rooting 
out  cannibalism.  It  was  their  first  victory  ;  but  Mr.  Southey, 
who  will  presently  tell  iis  how  they  did  it,  was  so  displeased 
with  their  proceedings,  that  he  could  only  find  relief  by  ex 
claiming,  "  Nothing  is  too  impudent  for  the  audacity  of  such  a 
priesthood,  nothing  too  gross  for  the  credulity  of  their  besotted 
believers."*  Mr.  Southey,  however,  will  inform  us  hereafter, 
that  when  missionaries  of  another  faith  attempted  to  instruct 
the  same  savage  disciples,  it  was  contempt,  and  not  credulity, 
which  they  excited  among  them. 

Happily,  like  the  rest  of  his  .class,  this  historian  is  not 
rigorously  consistent.  "  These  missionaries,"  hp  says,  only  a 
few  pages  later,  "  were  every  way  qualified  for  their  office. 
They  were  zealous  for  the  salvation  of  souls  ;  they  had  dis 
engaged  themselves  from  all  the  ties  which  attach  us  to  life,  and 
Were  therefore  not  merely  fearless  of  martyrdom,  but  ambitious 
of  it."f  How  such  a  temper,  and  such  self-annihilation,  were 
consistent  with  the  grave  demerits  imputed  to  them  by  Mr. 
Southey,  he  does  not  explain.  "  They  believed  the  idolatry 
which  they  taught,"  he  says,  as  if  he  wished  to  excuse  them 
as  far  as  possible,  "  and  were  themselves  persuaded  that  by 
sprinkling  a  dying  savage,  and  repeating  over  him  a  form  of 
words  which  he  did  not  understand,"— it  is  Mr.  Southey  who 
say s  so — "they  redeemed  him  from  everlasting  torments.  . .  Nor 
can  it  be  doubted  that  they  sometimes  worked  miracles  upon 

*  History  of  Brazil,  cli.  viii.,  p.  230. 
i  ".  252, 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  133 

the  sick  ;  for  when  they  believed  that  the  patient  might  be 
miraculously  cured,  and  he  himself  expected  that  he  should  be 
so,  faith  would  supply  the  virtue  in  which  it  trusted."* 

This  singular  explanation  of  their  supernatural  power,  which 
seems  to  have  satisfied  Mr.  Southey,  has  one  inconvenience  ; 
it  leaves  the  missionaries  under  the  reproach  of  idolatry,  but  it 
makes  God  their  accomplice.  Yoltaire  once  said,  with  more 
than  his  usual  wit  and  not  more  than  his  usual  profaneness, 
"  Si  Dieu  a  fait  1'homme  a  son  image,  1'homme  le  lui  a  bien  ren- 
du."  The  ductile  divinity  imagined  by  Mr.  Southey,  who  was 
so  easily  persuaded  to  work  miracles  even  at  the  risk  of  propa 
gating  "idolatry,"  had  suffered  not  a  little  from  that  process, 
and  was  evidently  fashioned  after  a  human  type.  The  infirmi 
ties  of  such  a  god  disqualify  him  for  ruling  over  Christians. 
But  perhaps  we  may  accept  Mr.  Southey's  admission  that  the 
Catholic  missionaries  "  worked  miracles  upon  the  sick,"  with 
out  adopting  his  explanation  of  the  fact.  Let  us  inquire  of  him, 
in  the  next  place,  how  they  extirpated  cannibalism. 

"All  efforts  at  abolishing  this  accursed  custom,"  he  says, 
"  were  in  vain.  One  day  Nobrega  and  his  companions  heard 
the  uproar  and  rejoicing  of  the  savages  at  one  of  these  sacrifices ; 
they  made  their  way  into  the  area,  just  when  the  prisoner  had 
been  felled,  and  the  old  women  were  dragging  his  body  to  the 
fire  ;  they  forced  the  body  from  them,  and  in  the  presence  of 
the  whole  clan,  who  stood  astonished  at  their  courage,  carried 
it  off.  The  women  soon  roused  the  warriors  to  revenge  this 
insult.  By  the  time  the  Fathers  had  secretly  interred  the  corpse, 
the  savages  were  in  search  of  them."  The  barbarians  were 
swift  and  eager  in  pursuit,  but  by  the  aid  of  the  Portuguese 
authorities,  the  missionaries  escaped  their  fury ;  and  such  was 
the  impression  which  their  intrepidity  produced  upon  them, 
that  "  it  was  not  long,"  says  our  historian,  "  before  these  very 
savages  came  to  solicit  their  forgiveness,  and  promised  not  to 
repeat  these  feasts." 

But  Mr.  Southey  has  more  to  tell  us.  "  One  of  the  Jesuits," 
he  says,  "succeeded  in  effectually  abolishing  cannibalism  among 
some  clans  by  going  through  them  and  flogging  himself  before 
their  doors  till  he  was  covered  with  blood,  telling  them  he  thus 
tormented  ^himself  to  avert  the  punishment  which  God  would 
otherwise  inflict  upon  them  for  this  crying  sin.  They  could  not 
bear  this,  confessed  what  they  had  done  was  wrong,  and  enacted 


heavy  punishments  against  any  person  who  should  again  be 
guilty."f     It  was  thus  that  the  missionary 


missionaries  rooted  out  canni- 


*  History  of  Brazil,  p.  258. 
P.  254;    ' 


134:  CHAPTER  IX. 

balism.  It  is  true  that  the  process  involved  pain  and  suffering, 
and  that  they  encountered  every  day  the  risk  of  death  in  its  most 
intolerable  forms  ;  but,  as  Mr.  Southey  has  remarked,  "  they 
were  not  merely  fearless  of  martyrdom,  but  ambitious  of  it." 

With  more  remote  tribes,  over  whom  they  had  not  as  yet 
acquired  the  personal  influence  which  they  were  afterwards  to 
exert  throughout  the  whole  country,  the  Fathers,  we  are  told, 
"thought  themselves  fortunate  in  obtaining  permission  to  visit 
the  prisoners  and  instruct  them  in  the  saving  faith,  before  they 
were  put  to  death."  It  was  a  perilous  ministry,  which  only 
such  men  would  have  accepted;  and  on  these  occasions,  in 
order  to  escape  the  observation  of  the  savages,  while  they 
complied  with  the  Divine  precept  which  makes  Baptism  a 
condition  of  salvation,  "  they  carried  with  them  wet  handker 
chiefs,  or  contrived  to  wet  the  skirt  of  their  sleeve  or  habit, 
that  out  of  it  they  might  squeeze  water  enough  upon  the 
victim's  head"  to  administer  the  Sacrament  of  Baptism.  In 
recounting  this  proceeding,  which  excites  his  vehement  disap 
probation,  Mr.  Southey  adds  :  "  What  will  not  man  believe,  if 
he  can  believe  this  of  his  Maker  !"  As  it  was  his  Maker  who 
taught  him  the  lesson,  why  should  man  be  blamed  for  believ 
ing  it? 

When  at  length,  by  inexhaustible  patience  and  intrepid 
valor,  living  the  while  on  the  roots  of  the  earth  and  sharing 
the  rude  cabin  of  the  savage,  these  men  of  gentle  birth  and 
cultivated  tastes  had  laboriously  won  some  ferocious  tribe  from 
its  foul  superstitions,  taught  them  to  pronounce  with  reverence 
the  sweet  names  of  Jesus  and  Mary,  and  planted  in  them  the 
first  rudiments  both  of  faith  and  civilization,  "  they  made  the 
converts  erect  a  church  in  the  village,  wrhich,  however  rude, 
fixed  them  to  the  spot ;  and  they  established  a  school  for  the 
children,  whom  they  catechised  in  their  own  language.  .... 
They  taught  them  also  to  read  and  write,  using,  says  Nobrega, 
the  same  persuasion  as  that  wherewith  the  enemy  overcame 
man,  'Ye  shall  be  as  gods,  knowing  good  .and  evil ;'  for  this 
knowledge  appeared  wonderful  to  them,  and  they  eagerly 
desired  to  attain  it."  And  then  Mr.  Southey,  unmoved  "even 


by  the  touching  picture  which  he  himself  had  drawn,  haughtily 
exclaims,  "Good  proof  how  easily  such   a  race  might  have 
been    civilized!"      More    humane    and    candid    writers   will 


presently  tell  us,  indeed  he  will  tell  us   himself,   in    a   later 
volume,  when  he  had  forgotten  these  hasty  words,  that  they 


o  ,  they 

to  assist  at  Mass,"  that  is,  to  do  an  act  which  'in  itself  is  no 


MISSIONS   IN    AMERICA.  135 

mean  education,  "  and  to  sing  the  Church  service."  Here  was 
a  beginning  at  least  of  "civilization  ;"  and  it  was  so  complete 
in  its  later  effects,  so  abiding  in  its  influence,  that  three  hun 
dred  years  after  we  shall  find  even  English  writers  not  only 
celebrating  the  agricultural  and  economical  results  still  visible 
in  the  Christian  missions,  but  contrasting  the  courtesy  and  dig 
nity,  as  \vell  as  the  spiritual  fervor  of  these  children  of  the 
forest,  with  the  boorish  coarseness  and  animal  instincts  of  their 
own  countrymen. 

Mr.  Southey,  however,  was  not  satisfied,  in  this  early  portion 
of  his  work,  with  the  efforts  of  the  missionaries  to  civilize  the 
natives  of  Brazil.  Yet  even  he  could  understand,  and  he  ex 
presses  the  conviction  in  eloquent  words,  that  "  a  ritual  worship 
creates  arts  for  its  embellishment  and  support ;  habits  of  settled 
life  take  root  as  soon  as  a  temple  is  founded,  and  the  city  grows 
round  the  altar."  The  Brazilians  anticipated  Mr.  Southey  in 
appreciating  this  important  fact,  and  he  will  trace  for  us  here 
after,  in  spite  of  himself,  the  prodigious  work  of  civilization 
accomplished  among  races  even  more  barbarous  than  these  by 
the  apostles  of  the  Church  ;  while  others  will  tell  us,  that  if  to 
"  assist  at  Mass,"  and  to  "  sing  the  Church  service,"  were  the 
chief,  they  were  not  the  only  lessons  which  they  taught,  though 
they  taught  these  so  well,  that,  exactly  three  centuries  after 
Emauuel  de  Nobrega  landed  in  Brazil,  M.  d'Orbigny,  who  had 
listened  with  admiration  to  the  ecclesiastical  music  sung  by  the 
Indians  in  the  mission  of  San  Xavier,  confesses,  "  I  could  not 
but  admire  the  labors  of  the  Jesuits,  when  I  reflected  that  pre 
vious  to  their  arrival  the  Chiquitos,  still  in  the  savage  state, 
were  scattered  through  the  recesses  of  the  forest !"  During 
twelve  generations  they  have  handed  down,  from  father  to  son, 
the  lessons  which  the  Jesuits  taught  them  ;  and  d'Orbigny 
adds,  that  though  they  martyred  the  earlier  missionaries, 
uonce  Christian,  they  have  persevered,  and  at  this  day  nothing 
would  induce  them  to  return  to  the  life  of  the  woods."*  To 
what  extent  they  were  really  civilized  we  shall  learn  hereafter, 
by  the  testimony  of  Protestant  writers,  including  Mr.  Southey 
himself. 

The  first  missionaries  in  Brazil,  to  whom  we  must  now  re 
turn,  had  to  contend  not  only  with  the  ignorance  and  ferocity 
of  its  native  tribes,  but  with  the  profound  immorality  of  the 
reckless  adventurers  who  had  deserted  Portugal  to  try  their 
fortunes  in  the  New  World.  In  Brazil,  as  in  Mexico,  it  was 
from  men  of  this  stamp,  self-banished,  and  stained  with  many  a 
crime,  yet  retaining  even  in  their  fall  the  faith  which  Catholics 

,  &c.,  tome  iv.,  p.  250. 


136  CHAPTER  IX. 

BO  larely  lose,  that  the  missionaries  experienced  the  most  ob 
stinate  and  formidable  opposition.  Seeking  only  the  goods  of 
this  world,  they  resented  the  admonitions  of  men  who  valued 
only  those  of  the  next.  "As  the  Jesuits  steadfastly  opposed 
their  cruelties,"  we  are  told  by  two  Protestant  ministers,  "  the 
Portuguese  resorted  to  every  means  of  annoyance  against  them. 
As  the  Indians  were  driven  back  into  the  wilds  of  the 
interior,  through  fear  of  the  slave-hunters,  the  Jesuits  sought 
them  out,  and  carried  to  them  the  opportunities  of  Christian 
worship  and  instruction."*  Hence  the  implacable  warfare 
which  the  Portuguese  merchants  waged  against  the  mission 
aries.  But  this  was  only  an  additional  motive  with  the  latter 
for  deeds  of  charity  towards  their  enemies.  With  uncompro 
mising  firmness,  but  with  gentle  speech,  they  admonished  them 
of  their  errors,  refusing  the  Sacraments  to  all  who  maltreated 
their  slaves  or  set  them  an  unchristian  example.  "  Many  were 
reclaimed,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  "  by  this  resolute  and  Christian 
conduct."  The  immorality  of  professing  Christians  was  van 
quished,  then,  by  the  same  fervent  apostles  before  whose  pres 
ence  idolatry  had  already  begun  to  flee  away. 

In  1553,  a  reinforcement  of  seven  Fathers  arrived  in  Brazil, 
the  number  already  in  the  field  being  wholly  unequal  to  a  work 
which  was  destined  to  assume  such  vast  proportions,  and  to  re 
quire  the  co-operation  of  so  great  a  multitude  of  laborers,  that 
the  day  arrived  when  the  Jesuits  alone  in  South  America  num 
bered  seventeen  hundred,  out  of  the  thirteen  thousand  who,  at 
the  same  moment,  were  preaching  the  Faith  to  the  heathen  in 
every  part  of  the  globe.  Amongst  the  new-comers  was  one  of 
that  privileged  order  in  whom  the  effects  of  the  first  transgres 
sion  seemed  to  be  almost  effaced,  and  who  are  admitted,  while 
still  in  the  flesh,  to  that  intimate  union  with  God  which  the 
rest  of  the  elect  only  attain  in  another  life.  Joseph  Anchieta 
was  in  his  twentieth  year  when  he  arrived  in  Brazil.  Here, 
during  forty-four  years,  he  was  to  display  before  the  eyes  of 
Christians  and  Pagans  a  new  example  of  those  astonishing 
virtues  which  confirm  the  one  in  the  obedience  of  the  faith,  and 
attract  the  other,  by  the  force  of  their  irresistible  fascination,  to 
put  on  its  easy  yoke.  But  as  we  have  now  to  enter  a  region  in 
which  such  guides  will  decline  to  follow  us,  we  must  separate 
for  a  while  from  Mr.  Southey,  and  take  for  our  companions  men 
who  do  not  start  aside  with  instinctive  repugnance  from  the 
presence  of  a  saint,  nor  strive  to  reduce  all  the  creatures  of  God 
to  their  own  level,  nor  believe  that  the  supernatural  and  the 
impossible  are  one  and  the  same  thing.  We  shall  hear  indeed 

*  Brazil  and  the  Brazilians,  by  Kidder  and  Fletcher,  »h.  xx.,  p.  368. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA. 


137 


what  such  men  say  of  Anchieta,  as  we  have  already  heard  what 
they  say  of  St.  Francis,  and  de'  Nobili,  and  their  kinsmen  in 
grace  ;  but  we  must  leave  them  for  a  moment,  lest  they  disturb 
us  in  our  contemplation  of  one  to  whom  even  nature,  it  is  said, 
was  sometimes  obedient ;  whom  the  beasts  of  the  forest  attended 
as  companions,  forgetting  their  instincts  of  carnage  ;  in  whose 
presence  the  very  heathen  held  their  breath,  amazed  at  the 
works  which  God  wrought  by  his  hand ;  and  who  renewed  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic  the  triumphs  of  that  Divine 
ministry  which  had  so  often  united  heaven  and  earth  in  many 
a  province  of  the  old  world. * 

It  was  to  a  people  among  whom  the  graces  of  man's  original 
state  were  so  completely  obliterated  that  they  were  hardly 
raised  above  the  brute  creation, — "  utterly  devoid  of  modesty, 
without  any  clothing,  and  so  gross  and  inhuman  as  actually  to 
devour  one  another," — that  Anchieta,  confiding  only  in  the 
omnipotence  of  the  weapons  with  which  the  Church  arms  her 
apostles,  announced  the  law  of  Christ.  A  Saint  was  needed 
for  such  a  task,  and  a  Saint  was  at  hand. 

Employed  at  first  in  teaching  Latin  in  the  school  which 
de  Nobrega  had  founded  at  Piratininga,  Anchieta  spent  his 
earlier  years  in  patience,  humility,  and  obedience ;  yearning  for 
the  hour  when  he  might  proclaim  the  Holy  Name  to  the  tribes 
of  Brazil,  but  waiting  in  silence  for  the  permission  which  he 
was  too  meek  to  anticipate.  Meanwhile  he  composed  a  Brazilian 
Grammar,  which  became  afterwards  a  text-book  in  Portugal  for 
all  who  were  destined  for  the  American  mission.  A  little  later, 
lie  produced  a  Dictionary  of  the  same  dialect ;  then  an  Expo 
sition  of  the  whole  body  of  Christian  doctrine ;  and  soon  after, 
a  multitude  of  Canticles  and  devout  Songs,  in  four  different 
languages,  in  order  to  replace  the  profane  or  indecent  songs 
which  were  in  use  among  the  people.  His  compositions  u  were 
continually  sung,  day  and  night,"  says  his  biographer,  "in  the 
streets  and  thoroughfares,  so  that  the  praises  of  the  Christian 
doctrine  everywhere  resounded." 

At  length,  having  been  admitted  to  the  priesthood,  he  com 
menced  the  special  work  of  a  missionary.  Alone,  and  with 
naked  feet,  fearing  neither  the  pangs  of  hunger,  nor  the  viper's 
sting,  nor  the  jaw  of  the  wild  beast,  he  would  penetrate  the  vast 
forests  of  this  tropical  land.  On  one  occasion,  having  entered 
a  wood,  "  without  any  conscious  motive,  and  as  if  guided  by 
another,"  he  found  an  aged  Indian  supported  against  a  tree,  who 
greeted  him  with  the  assurance  that  he  had  for  some  time  been 
expecting  his  arrival.  He  had  journeyed  from  a  remote 

*  The  Life  quoted  is  the  Oratorian  edition  of  1849. 


138  CHAPTER   IX. 

province  on  the  borders  of  the  distant  Plata,  and  could  only 
explain  that  he  had  been  guided  by  an  impulse  which  he  could 
not  resist  to  that  spot,  where,  he  was  told,  "  he  should  be  taught 
the  right  path."  When  Anchieta,  who  comprehended  that  a 
special  grace  had  brought  to  him  this  unexpected  neophyte, 
had  unfolded  the  chief  mysteries  of  the  Catholic  faith,  he 
replied,  "It  is  thus  that  I  already  received,  but  I  knew  not 
how  to  express  them."  A  little  rain-water,  lodged  in  the 
leaves  of  some  wild  thistles,  sufficed  to  baptize  him;  and  when 
Anchieta  returned  to  his  companions,  and  related  what  had 
passed,  he  added,  that  he  had  just  buried  him,  with  his  own 
hands,  according  to  the  rites  of  the  Church. 

But  it  was  not  always  with  such  Indians  as  this  that  his 
apostolic  journeys  brought  him  in  contact.  The  tribe  of  the 
Tamuyas,  one  of  the  fiercest  and  most  warlike  in  Brazil, 
resenting  the  gradual  advance  of  the  Portuguese,  and  perhaps 
dreading  the  new  power  of  which  they  might  one  day  become 
the  victims,  fell  suddenly  on  the  colony  of  St.  Vincent,  massacred 
the  white  population,  and  ravaged  the  whole  district  with  the 
blind  and  sanguinary  fury  of  barbarians.  Father  de  Nobrega, 
touched  with  compassion  for  the  misery  of  these  Christians, 
who  were  already  preparing  to  abandon  the  country,  conceived 
a  project  which  only  the  heart  of  a  true  missionary  could  have 
entertained.  Taking  with  him  Anchieta,  fitting  companion  for 
so  perilous  a  mission,  he  boldly  entered  the  territory  of  the 
Tamuyas.  Received  at  first  with  unexpected  reverence,  the 
ambassadors  hastened  to  propose  terms  of  peace.  Two  months 
elapsed  in  fruitless  negotiations,  when  de  Nobrega  was  suffered 
to  depart,  in  order  to  concert  new  measures  at  St.  Vincent, 
leaving  Anchieta  as  a  hostage  in  the  hands  of  the  savages.  As 
they  parted  at  this  critical  moment,  "  Anchieta  manifested  to 
Father  Nobrega  three  different  circumstances  which  had  been 
revealed  to  him  in  the  same  night,  God  then  beginning  to  treat 
him  as  His  familiar  friend,  and  disclosing  to  him  the  hidden 
secrets  of  His  Divine  Providence."  The  first  was,  that  the  town 
of  Biritioca,  at  the  entrance  of  St.  Vincent,  from  which  they 
were  distant  at  that  moment  about  seventy  miles,  was  already  in 
possession  of  the  savages ;  the  second,  that  a  person  well  known 
to  Nobrega  had  been  crushed  to  death ;  the  third,  that  a  Por 
tuguese  vessel,  laden  with  supplies,  was  on  the  point  of  entering 
the  port  of  St.  Vincent.  On  the  arrival  of  Nobrega,  the  two 
first  statements  were  immediately  confirmed  ;  a  little  later,  the 
third  received  its  welcome  fulfilment. 

Meanwhile,  Anchieta  was  alone  with  the  savages,  as  calm  and 
unmoved  as  if  he  had  been  in  the  company  of  little  children. 
Outraged  by  their  intolerable  indecency,  and  his  life  perpetually 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  139 

menaced  by  their  capricious  fury,  he  had  recourse  to  the  usual 
weapons  of  apostles,  prayer  and  mortification.  "The  continence 
of  these  Fathers,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  to  whom  we  may  return  for 
a  moment,  "had  occasioned  great  admiration  in  their  hosts,  and 
they  asked  Nobrega  how  it  was  that  he  seemed  to  abhor  what 
other  men  so  ardently  desired.  He  took  a  scourge  out  of  his 
pocket,  and  said  that  by  tormenting  the  flesh  he  kept  it  in 
subjection."  Anchieta,  he  adds,  "  who  was  in  the  prime  of  man 
hood,  made  a  vow  to  the  Virgin  that  he  would  compose  a  poem 
upon  her  life,  trusting  to  preserve  his  own  purity  by  thus 
fixing  his  thoughts  upon  the  Most  Pure."  Yet  Mr.  Southey, 
true  to  his  instincts,  conld  elsewhere  call  the  prudent  austerities 
of  Catholic  missionaries,  "  the  frantic  folly  of  Catholicism." 

In  spite  of  the  difficulties  of  his  position,  Anchieta  ceased  not 
to  preach  the  Gospel  to  his  hosts,  till  "many  of  them  were  so 
well  instructed,  that  he  would  have  admitted  them  to  the  Sacra 
ment  of  Baptism,  if  he  had  not  feared  their  want  of  constancy, 
and  deemed  it  prudent  to  leave  the  gathering  of  this  harvest 
to  his  companions."  But  the  more  violent  members  of  the 
tribe,  irritated  by  the  failure  of  the  negotiations,  and  disap 
pointed  in  their  hope  of  plunder,  resolved  to  put  him  to  death 
without  further  delay.  They  announced  to  him,  therefore,  that 
he  was  to  die  at  a  certain  hour,  and  that  afterwards  they  should 
feast  on  his  body.  "With  perfect  composure  of  soul  and  coun 
tenance  he  replied  that  they  would  certainly  not  kill  him  at 
the  time  appointed ;  and  when  they  asked  him  in  amazement 
how  he  could  display  such  assurance,  he  answered, — that  he 
had  learned  from  the  Mother  of  that  God  whom  he  had 
preached  to  them  that  he  was  not  yet  to  die.  His  confidence 
was  justified,  and  after  a  captivity  of  three  months,  a  treaty  of 
peace  was  established,  and  Anchieta  was  once  more  embraced 
by  his  fellow-missionaries  at  St.  Vincent. 

A  few  words  will  indicate  his  and  their  mode  of  life.  They 
had  not  often  a  house  to  live  in,  and  when  they  had,  it  was  such 
as  Anchieta  describes  in  a  letter  to  St.  Ignatius,  written  from 
Piratininga,  while  he  acted  as  professor  under  Manuel  de  Paiva. 
"  Our  house  is  composed  of  a  number  of  long  poles,  of  which  the 
interstices  are  filled  up  with  clay.  The  principal  apartment, 
which  is  fourteen  feet  in  length  by  ten  in  width,  is  at  once  our 
school,  infirmary,  dormitory,  refectory,  kitchen,  and  store-room." 
In  fact,  it  was  a  cabin  writh  one  room,  in  which  twenty-six 
inmates  were  lodged.  "  Yet  all  our  brothers  are  delighted  with 
it,  nor  would  they  exchange  this  hut  for  the  most  magnificent 
palace.  They  remember  that  the  Son  of  God  was  born  in  a 
stable,  where  there  was  but  little  space,  and  died  on  a  cross, 
where  there  was  still  less."  Even  Mr,  Southey  acknowledges 


14:0  CHAPTER  IX. 

that  the  only  food  they  had  was  "  what  the  Indians  gave  them," 
which  was  chiefly  mandioc  flour;  and  Anchieta  liimself,  a  man 
of  noble  birth,  alluding  to  their  rude  manner  of  life,  says 
jestingly,  "  We  may  be  pardoned  for  not  using  napkins  at  a 
table  on  which  there  is  nothing  to  eat." 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  privations  which  they  hardly  deemed 
worthy  of  notice  that  these  first  apostles  of  Brazil  prosecuted 
their  work.  Anchieta  was  one  of  them,  and  here  is  a  descrip 
tion  of  his  life.  "  Barefooted,  with  no  other  garment  than  his 
cassock,  his  crucifix  and  rosary  round  his  neck,  the  pilgrim's 
staff  and  his  breviary  in  his  hand,  and  his  shoulders  laden  with 
the  furniture  requisite  for  an  altar,  Anchieta  advanced  into  the 
interior  of  the  country.  He  penetrated  virgin  forests,  swam 
across  streams,  climbed  the  roughest  mountains,  plunged  into 
the  solitude  of  the  plains,  confronted  savage  beasts,  and 
abandoned  himself  entirely  to  the  care  of  Providence.  All  these 
fatigues,  and  all  these  dangers,  had  God  alone  for  witness ;  he 
braved  them  for  no  other  motive  than  to  conquer  souls.  As  soon 
as  he  caught  sight  of  a  man,  Anchieta  quickened  his  pace ;  his 
bleeding  feet  stain  the  rocks  and  sands  of  the  desert,  but  he  still 
walks  onwards.  As  he  approached  the  savage,  he  stretched  out 
his  arms  towards  him,  and  with  words  of  gentleness  strove  to 
retain  him  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  cross,  which  to  him  was 
the  standard  of  peace.  Sometimes,  when  the  savages  rejected 
his  first  overtures,  he  threw  himself  at  their  knees,  bathing  them 
with  his  tears,  pressing  them  to  his  heart,  and  striving  to  gain 
their  confidence  by  every  demonstration  of  love.  At  first  the 
savages  made  small  account  of  this  abnegation,  but  the  Jesuit 
was  not  discouraged.  He  made  himself  their  servant,  and 
studied  their  caprices  like  a  slave;  he  accompanied  them  in  their 
wanderings,  entered  into  their  familiarity,  shared  their  suffer 
ings,  their  labors,  their  pleasures."  And  the  result  of  such  a 
ministry,  in  which  thousands  were  engaged  at  the  same  moment, 
from  Lake  Huron  to  Paraguay,  and  from  Brazil  to  California, 
was  this:  " By  degrees  he  taught  them  to  know  God,  revealed 
to  them  the  laws  of  universal  morality,  and  prepared  them  for 
civilization  after  he  had  formed  them  to  Christianity.  The 
whole  country  of  Brazil  was  the  theatre  of  Father  Anchieta's 
ardent  zeal ;  but  amidst  those  vast  solitudes,  that  of  Itannia,  the 
land  of  stones,  was  his  spot  of  predilection.  It  was  so  unculti 
vated,  so  rocky,  that  the  very  animals  seemed  to  shun  it;  yet  it 
was  here  that  Anchieta,  while  toiling  for  the  salvation  of  this 
ill-fortuned  country,  sought  repose  from  the  other  dangers  of  his 
apostleship."*  We  might  refuse  to  believe  that  a  man  like  our- 

*  Life  of  Anchieta,  p.  175. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  14:1 

selves  could  sustain  such  a  life,  and  such  labors  during  more 
than  forty  years,  but  that  every  other  land  presents  to  us, 
during  the  last  three  centuries,  a  thousand  examples  of  the  same 
virtues  and  the  same  victories. 

In  1597  Anchieta  died.  The  six  Jesuits  who  landed  with 
Nobrega  had  already  increased  to  one  hundred  and  twenty  in 
Brazil  alone,  and  a  hundred  more  now  hastened  to  fill  the 
place  of  Anchieta,  and  to  continue  the  work  which  he  had 
begun.  Before  we  pursue  the  history  of  their  labors,  let  us 
notice  briefly,  as  we  have  done  in  former  cases,  what  Protest 
ant  writers  relate  of  the  men  who  had  now  departed. 

Of  Emanuel  de  Nobrega,  even  Mr.  Southey  says,  that  he 
died,  "  worn  out  with  a  life  of  incessant  fatigue.  The  day  be 
fore  his  death,  he  went  abroad,  and  took  leave  of  all  his  friends, 
as  if  about  to  undertake  a  journey.  They  asked  him  whither 
he  was  going,  and  his  reply  was,  ''Home  to  my  own  country? 
No  life  could  be -more  actively,  more  piously,  or  more  usefully 
employed  :"* — and  then  Mr.  Southey,  who,  like  all  his  class, 
would  undertake  to  pronounce  judgment  at  any  moment  on 
saints  and  angels,  on  principalities  and  powers,  adds  conde 
scendingly,  "  the  triumphant  hope  with  which  it  terminated 
was  not  the  less  sure  and  certain,  because  of  the  errors  of  his 
belief."  Singular  belief,  to  which  alone  God  imparts  the  vir 
tues  and  the  victories  of  the  apostolic  life,  while  he  unaccount 
ably  forgets  to  purify  it  from  its  "  errors ;"  singular  con 
tradiction,  which  makes  God,  in  every  age,  the  unintelligible 
ally  of  a  "  corrupt"  religion, — so  corrupt,  in  the  judgments  of 
its  adversaries,  that  if,  as  an  American  Protestant  ingenuously 
observes,  their  estimate  of  it  were  true,  "  decomposition  and 
the  last  stages  of  decay  had  long  ago  been  passed. "f 

Yet  this  Anglican  historian  adds,  under  an  impulse  which 
even  he  could  not  resist,  uSo  well  had  JSTobrega's  system  been 
followed  by  Anchieta  and  his  disciples,  that,  in  the  course  of 
half  a  century,  all  the  nations  along  the  coast  of  Brazil,  as  far 
as  the  Portuguese  settlements  extended," — that  is,  through  a 
range  of  more  than  two  thousand  miles, — "  were  collected  in 
villages  under  their  superintendence."^:  Never  in  the  history 
of  missions  had  so  marvellous  a  triumph  been  obtained,  except 
by  the  same  class  of  men  in  the  other  provinces  of  America 
which  we  are  still  to  visit.  It  is  from  Protestant  writers  alone 
that  we  can  receive  the  evidence  of  that  unparalleled  triumph, 
since  only  by  their  testimony  will  it  appear  credible  to  their 


*  Ch.  x,  p.  310. 

f  North  American  Renew,  July,  1858,  p.  283. 
xiii  ,  p.  389. 


142  CHAPTER  IX. 

co-religionists.  Nobrega  died  at  the  close  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  "in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth,"  as  Ranke 
observes,  "  we  find  the  proud  edifice  of  the  Catholic  Church 
completely  reared  in  South  America.  There  were  five  arch 
bishoprics,  twenty-seven  bishoprics,  four  hundred  monasteries, 
and  innumerable  parish  churches."  And  even  this  does  not 
represent  the  whole  work  accomplished  in  a  land  which  had 
been  tenanted,  only  a  century  earlier,  by  savages  who  had  little 
more  of  the  nature  of  man  than  his  external  form.  "  Mag 
nificent  cathedrals  had  sprung  up,  of  which  the  most  splendid 
of  all  was,  perhaps,  that  of  Los  Angeles.  The  Jesuits  taught 
grammar  and  the  liberal  arts ;  a  complete  system  of  theologi 
cal  discipline  was  taught  in  the  universities  of  Mexico  and 

Lima, Conquests  gave  place  to  missions,  and  missions 

gave  birth  to  civilization.  The  monks,  who  taught  the  natives 
to  read  and  to  sing,  taught  them  also  how  to  sow  and  to  reap, 
to  plant  trees  and  to  build  houses  ;  and,  of  course,  inspired  the 
protbundest  veneration  and  attachment."  So  that  Ranke  might 
well  exclaim,  "  Catholicism  produced  a  mighty  effect  in  these 
countries."* 

It  was  the  contemplation  of  the  same  almost  unexampled 
work,  of  which  we  shall  better  appreciate  the  character  and 
extent  when  we  have  traced  it  in  many  provinces,  which  led 
Lord  Macaulay  to  observe,  in  more  emphatic  phraseology, 
"  The  acquisitions  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the  New  World 
have  more  than  compensated  her  for  what  she  has  lost  in  the 

Old."t 

Of  Anchieta,  the  companion  of  Nobrega,  and  partner  of  his 
apostolic  toils, — whose  supernatural  life  has  occasioned  still 
greater  perplexity  to  Protestant  historians,  they  speak  in  such 
words  as  the  following  :  "  His  self-denial  as  a  missionary,"  we 
are  told  by  two  American  preachers,  who  vainly  endeavored  to 
persuade  even  a  solitary  Brazilian  to  exchange  a  Divine  religion 
for  a  human  one,  "his  labor  in  acquiring  and  methodizing  a 
barbarous  language,  and  his  services  to  the  State,  were  sufficient 
to  secure  to  him  an  honest  fame  and  a  precious  memory."  And 
then  they  exhaust  all  the  resources  of  invective  upon  his  biog 
raphers,  by  whom,  they  are  not  ashamed  to  say,  "  his  real  vir 
tues  were  made  to  pass  for  little,"  that  they  might  magnify 
"  his  pretended  miracles."}  If  they  had  really  read  any  history 
of  the  Saint,  they  would  have  found  that  his  miracles  are 
noticed  simply  as  incidents  in  the  life  of  one  whose  virtues  were 


*  Book  vii.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  91. 

\  Essay  on  Ranke' s  History  of  the  Popt 

%  Kidder  and  Fletcher,  ch.  vii.,  p.  115. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  143 

more  wonderful  than  his  miracles,  and  perhaps  more  difficult 
to  imitate. 

Mr.  Southey,  as  might  be  expected,  uses  similar  language. 
"  That  Anchieta  could  work  miracles,"  he  says,  "  was  undoubt 
edly  believed  both  by  the  Portuguese  and  by  the  natives,  each 
according  to  their  own  superstition.  The  former  sent  volumes 

of  attestations  to  Rome  after  his  death the  Tarnuyas 

said  there  was  a  power  in  him  which  withheld  the  hands  of 
men,  and  this  opinion  saved  his  life"  In  other  words,  both 
Pagans  and  Christians  were  constrained  to  acknowledge  a 
power  of  which  they  continually  witnessed  the  exercise,  and 
which  multitudes,  of  all  ranks  and  classes,  solemnly  attested  on 
oath.  It  is  Protestants  alone,  of  all  mankind,  who  deride  the 
supernatural  as  the  dream  of  superstition  or  the  trick  of  the 
impostor ;  because  they  alone  refuse  to  believe  in  the  sanctity 
which  they  know  to  be  unattainable  by  themselves,  and  believe 
to  be  impossible  to  others.  When  Dr.  Horsley,  a  Protestant 
bishop  of  no  mean  repute,  exhorted  the  English  House  of  Lords 
to  discourage  all  attempts  to  convert  the  Hindoos,  because  "the 
religion  of  a  country  is  connected  with  its  government,"  this 
Anglican  prelate  consistently  added,  that  the  apostolic  power 
of  working  miracles  having  ceased,  "  he  .doubted  whether  the 
commission  had  not  ceased  also."  And  most  of  his  co-religionists 
appear  to  agree  with  him.  "  One  circumstance,"  say  their  re 
presentatives,  "  which  must  make  all  sensible  and  unprejudiced 
persons  suspect  very  much  the  veracity  of  the  Jesuits  in  general, 
is  the  account  they  give  of  miracles  pretended  to  be  wrought 
in  the  scenes  of  their  several  missions."*  Yet  these  men  pro 
fess  to  worship  Him  who  said  to  the  first  missionaries,  "  Ye 
shall  do  greater  things  than  these  /"  When  did  He  who  gave 
that  promise  recall  it,  or  when  did  He  first  begin  to  send  forth 
apostles  without  the  gifts  of  apostles  ?  And  what  new  God 
is  this,  who  has  neither  the  will  nor  the  power  to  interfere  in 
human  affairs,  and  who  is  as  hopelessly  fettered  by  the  "  laws 
of  nature"  as  a  plant  or  an  insect?  Is  He,  like 'the  God  of 
Baal,  "  asleep,"  or  is  he  "  on  a  journey,"  that  he  should  forget 
to  take  note  of  man  and  his  works?  Or  have  Protestants 
agreed  to  accept  the  definition  of  the  Creator  which  Kolbcn 
says  was  current  among  the  Hottentots,  who  considered  Him 
"  an  excellent  man,  who  dwells  far  beyond  the  moon,  and  does 
no  harm  to  any  one  ?" 

One  thing  is  worthy  of  remark, — that  a  religion  which  pro 
fesses  to  be  founded  on  reason  should  despise  all  the  laws  of 
evidence ;  and  that  students  of  the  Bible  should  scoff  at  miracles 

*  Lockman's  Travels  of  the  Jesuits,  preface,  p.  xiv. 


144  CHAPTER  IX. 

of  which  the  sacred  pages  contain,  according  to  human  belief, 
some  of  the  least  credible  examples.  If  Elias,  "  a  man  passible 
like  unto  us,"  forbid  dew  or  rain  to  descend  on  the  earth  save 
at  his  word,  in  order  to  admonish  a  guilty  king,  the  tale  is 
venerable  and  true;  if  St.  Francis  Solano  bring  forth  water  in 
the  deserts  of  Chili  to  save  a  perishing  multitude,  and  to  this 
hour  the  miraculous  stream  is  called  "the  fountain  of  St. 
Solano,"  it  is  an  execrable  imposture.  If  the  Eternal  "  stopped 
the  mouths  of  lions"  lest  they  should  harm  his  prophet,  let  us 
marvel  and  adore ;  if  the  panther  crouched  by  the  side  of  His 
servant  Anchieta  as  he  prayed  at  midnight  in  the  forest,  or 
the  viper  dared  not  sting  his  naked  foot  when  he  trod  upon  it 
in  the  noonday,  it  is  an  impudent  invention.  If  iron  float  at 
the  bidding  of  Eliseus,  though  only  to  save  a  woodman's  axe, 
let  us  fall  down  and  magnify  the  Lord  ;  if  Anchieta  is  upheld 
on  the  waters  of  the  San  Francisco,  that  an  apostle  might 
not  perish  out  of  the  earth,  we  should  scorn  the  superstition 
which  believes  the  fact,  and  the  impostor  who  relates  it.  If 
a  dead  man  spring  to  life  again,  as  the  Scripture  affirms,  be 
cause  his  corpse  touched  the  bones  of  a  Saint  whom  it  was  the 
will  of  God  to  honor,*  who  will  refuse  to  praise  and  admire  ? 
If  St.  Augustine  record  the  same  fact  of  the  bones  of  St. 
Stephen,  in  his  own  church,  and  before  the  very  congregation 
who  witnessed  it,  let  us  smile  at  the  despicable  fraud.  If 
Agabus  foretell  a  famine  over  the  whole  earth,  "  which  came 
to  pass  in  the  days  of  Claudius,"f  we  should  honor  the 
prophet,  though  only  a  man  like  ourselves;  if  the  Blessed 
Anchieta  predict  a  coming  storm  when  the  sky  had  been  cloud 
less  for  six  months,  and  a  vast  multitude  witness  the  miraculous 
rain-fall  which  ensued,  let  us  be  sure  it  was  only  the  crafty 
jugglery  of  a  priest,  or  the  gross  credulity  of  a  besotted  crowd. 
If  Divine  wisdom  employ  the  voice  of  an  ass  to  convey  a  warn 
ing  to  the  rebellious  prophet,  let  us  accept  without  surprise 
both  the  messenger  and  his  message ;  if  Divine  power  command 
the  jaguar  to  stop  in  full  career  at  the  feet  of  St.  Francis  Solano, 
and  humbly  kneel  before  the  servant  of  the  Most  High,  let 
us  welcome  the  improbable  tale  with  a  shout  of  derision.  If 
Elias  raise  the  dead  from  corruption,  though  only  to  comfort  a 
sorrowing  widow,  it  shall  be  the  text  of  our  songs  and  our 
meditations ;  if  St.  Francis  Xavier  open  a  grave,  in  the  presence 
of  thousands,  to  show  a  whole  nation  what  the  God  of 
Chris! ians  can  do,  it  is  a  pitiable  fiction.  If  Elias  is  fed  by 
ravens  or  by  angels,  and  then  fast  forty  days  and  nights,  let  no 

*  4  Kings  xiii.  21. 
f  Acts  xi.  28. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  145 

man  donbt  either  his  eating  or  his  abstinence  ;  if  de'  ISTobili  or 
de  Britto  instruct  thousands  unto  righteousness  by  a  whole  life 
of  austerity  and  mortification,  it  is  only  "  the  frantic  folly  of 
Catholicism."  If  the  face  of  St.  Stephen  shone  with  glory,  so 
that  all  who  stood  by  "  saw  his  face  as  it  had  been  the  face  of 
an  angel,"  let  us  acknowledge  that  grace  can  illuminate  even 
this  mortal  body  ;  if  the  blessed  Peter  Claver  was  transfigured 
before  the  eyes  of  a  hundred  witnesses,  who  saw  the  light  play 
round  his  head,  and  covered  their  eyes  with  their  hands,  let  us 
pity  the  degrading  superstition  which  can  accept  the  wretched 
tale.  If  a  "  handkerchief"  or  an  "  apron,"  which  had  only 
touched  the  body  of  St.  Paul,  could  heal  diseases  and  put 
demons  to  flight,*  what  more  natural  than  that  the  Most  High 
should  thus  sanction,  before  men  and  angels,  the  Catholic  use 
of  relics  ?  If  the  same  thing  be  told  of  St.  Bernard  or  St. 
Philip  Neri,  of  Anchieta,  or  St.  Francis  Regis,  let  us  rend  the 
heavens  with  our  cry  of  anger,  or  stop  our  ears  in  indignant 
scorn. 

Perhaps  the  true  explanation  of  the  inconsistency  which  ac 
cepts  the  one  class  of  miracles  without  question,  and  rejects  the 
other  without  inquiry,  is  found  in  the  fact  that  very  few  Prot 
estants  have  any  more  real  faith  in  the  one  than  in  the  other. 
They  would  deal  in  precisely  the  same  manner  with  both,  but 
that  they  have  no  pressing  reason  to  reject  the  first,  while  they 
have  an  urgent  personal  motive  for  denying  the  last.  Yet  even 
the  Hindoo  and  the  Mahometan,  witnesses  against  the  credu 
lous  incredulity  of  modern  sects,  have  manifested,  with  all  their 
faults,  a  deeper  insight  than  they  into  the  mystery  of  holiness, 
and  have  confessed,  in  every  age,  that  a  god  who  ceased  to 
display  the  power  which  he  had  once  exerted,  or  to  bestow  the 
gifts  which  he  had  once  conferred,  would  be  only  an  impotent' 
divinity,  unworthy  to  reign  over  immortal  men,  and  from  whose 
palsied  hand  it  would  be  lawful  to  pluck  the  feeble  and  useless 
sceptre.  The  instincts  of  the  human  heart,  of  the  Pagan  as  well 
as  of  the  Christian,  reject  such  a  god  as  Protestantism  has  in 
vented ;  and  the  only  race  of  men  on  earth  who  deny  the  won 
der-working  might  of  the  True  and  Holy  One  in  His  saints  and 
apostles,  are  they  who  acknowledge  in  their  inmost  soul,  with 
out  shame  arid  without  regret,  tlxat  it  never  has  been  and  never 
can  be  manifested  in  themselves.  Who  dreams  of  an  Anglican 
miracle,  or  a  Wesleyan  prophet,  or  a  Presbyterian  saint?'  Who 
can  imagine  Middleton  bidding  a  stream'  spring  forth  in  the 
plains  of  Bengal?  or  Buchanan  respected  by  panthers?  or  Jud- 
son  transfigured?  or  Heber  raising  the  dead? 

*  Acts  xix.  12. 
VOL.  n  11  , 


146  CHAPTER   IX. 

This  is  no  place  to  discuss  at  large  the  credibility  of  miracles. 
To  the  Christian,  who  is  wisely  familiar  with  Holy  Scripture, 
and  comprehends  that  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament  are 
not  isolated  and  abnormal,  but  typical  and  characteristic  facts, 
proper  to  the  whole  dispensation  which  they ^ adorn  and  illus 
trate,  their  cessation  would  be  more  inexplicable  than  their 
continuance.  If  they  are  rejected,  it  is  by  men  who  know 
neither  God  nor  themselves;  who,  in  spite  of  their  profession 
of  religion,  have  an  instinctive  fear  and  hatred  of  the  super 
natural,  and  who  would  rather  believe  that  God  is  eternally 
silent  than  confess  that  it  is  in  the  Church  alone  that  He 
deigns  to  speak.  They  would  not,  indeed,  believe  a  miracle, 
even  if  they  saw  one;  but  what  they  fear  in  them  is  their  ex 
hibition  of  Divine  power,  what  they  hate  is  their  testimony  to 
the  Catholic  faith.* 

Yet  modern  science,  not  always  hostile  to  revealed  truth,  has 
lately  protested,  by  the  voice  of  one  of  its  greatest  adepts, 
against  this  irrational  skepticism.  A  well-known  English 
mathematician,  refuting  by  a  scientific  process  the  infidel  for 
mula  of  Hume,  has  declared,  and  elaborately  proved,  that 
however  that  formula  be  applied,  it  will  always  be  false.  Hume 
had  said  that  no  amount  of  evidence  can  prove  the  truth  of  a 
miracle.  Mr.  Babbage,  testing  the  proposition  by  a  purely 
analytical  method,  arrives  at  exactly  the  opposite  conclusion. 
4%  If  independent  witnesses  can  be  found,"  he  says,  "  who  speak 
truth  more  frequently  than  falsehood," — surely  no  intolerable 
postulate, — "  it  is  always  possible  to  assign  a  number  of  inde 
pendent  witnesses,  the  improbability  of  the  falsehood  of  whose 
concurring  testimony  shall  be  greater  than  that  of  the  miracle 
itself."f  Yet  the  shallow  incredulity  of  the  Sects,  though  it 
^annuls  all  the  laws  of  evidence,  and  sets  aside  the  most  rigorous 
conclusions  of  science,  affects  to  be  a  protest  on  behalf  of  the 
human  intellect  against  the  thraldom  of  superstition ! \ 

"  Image  parfaite  de  Notre  Seigneur  Jesus-Christ,  TEglise  est  en  butte  aux 
]>ersecutions  du  monde,  non  pas  parce  que  le  monde  oublie  les  prodiges  qu'elle 
opyre, . .  mais  tout  au  contraire  parce  que  le  monde  a  en  ho-rreur  ces  temoignages, 
.  .  .  ces  miracles  qui  le  condamnent."  Donoso  Cortes,  (Enures,  tome  iii.,  p.  128  ; 
ed.  Veuillot.  "  The  Church  owes  her  very  existence  to  miracles,  and  without 
them  cannot  at  all  conceive  herself.  .  .  .  Our  idealists  and  spiritualists  have  no 
need  of  miracles  for  the  confirmation 'of  their  faith.  No,  truly,  for  their  faith  is 
one  of  their  own  making,  and  not  the  faith  in  Christ ;  and  it  would  indeed  be 
HI  ngular  if  God  were  to  confirm  a  faith  fabricated  by  man."  Moehler,  Symbolism, 

\  Ninth  Bridgewater  Treatise,  app.,  p.  202,  note  E. 

;  "  Miracles  are  evidently  not  only  not  impossibilities,  but  even  not  improba 
bilities.  .  .  .  Whatever  is  possible  may  occur,  and  whatever  occurs  ought,  on  the 
proper  evidence,  to  be  believed."  Hugh  Miller,  Footprint*  of  the  Creator, 
p.  242. 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA. 

If  now  we  continue  the  history  of  missions  in  Brazil,  and  take 
Mr.  Southey  once  more  as  our  guide,  we  shall  come  to  a  new 
order  of  events.  Hitherto  we  have  seen  men  gradually  con 
verting  the  savages  of  half  a  continent  by  the  display  of  super 
natural  virtues  ;  and,  except  in  a  few  instances  which  we  have 
not  stayed  to  notice,  as  in  the  case  of  the  martyrs  Soza  and 
Correa,  who  fell  in  the  very  beginning  of  this  apostolic  warfare, 
accomplishing  their  work  without  even  the  customary  tribute 
of  blood.  But  that  sacred  debt  was  sure  to  be  paid  sooner  or 
later,  and  we  are  about  to  witness  the  martyrdom  of  sixty-eight 
missionaries  at  once,  massacred,  not  by  pagan  savages,  but  by 
more  merciless  heretics,  whose  fury  110  virtues  could  disarm, 
and  who,  in  many  a  land,  have  made  a  compact  with  the 
heathen  to  slay  the  missionaries  of  the  Cross. 

In  1570,  Father  Ignatius  Azevedo,  by  the  nomination  of  St. 
Francis  Borgia,  conducted  thirty-nine  Fathers  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus  from  Madeira  to  Brazil.  Thirty  more  started  at  the 
same  moment  from  Lisbon,  in  two  other  vessels,  as  well  as  a 
number  of  postulants  who  had  still  to  prove  the  strength  of 
their  vocation.  The  day  after  the  ship  which  carried  Azevedo 
sailed  from  Madeira,  four  French  vessels,  under  the  command 
of  the  Huguenot  Jacques  Sourie,  bore  down  upon  it.  Sourie, 
says  Mr.  Southey,  "  was  a  man  as  little  disposed  to  show  mercy 
to  any  Catholic  priests,  as  they  would  have  been  to  show  it 
towards  him.  .  .  .  and  he  did  by  the  Jesuits  as  they  would 
have  done  by  him  and  all  of  his  sect — put  them  to  death.  One 
of  the  novices  escaped,  being  in  a  lay  habit,  the  rest  were 
thrown  overboard,  some  living,  some  dying,  some  dead."  So 
smoothly  does  this  English  historian  relate  a  tale  which  does 
not  even  provoke  from  him  any  other  comment  than  this,  that 
"  when  the  tidings  reached  Madeira,  the  remaining  missionaries 
celebrated  the  triumph  of  their  comrades,  a  triumph  which 
many  of  them  were  yet  to  partake."  But  this  singular  festival 
only  inspired  the  mirth  of  Mr.  Southey,  who  considers  that  the 
Te  Deum  chanted  in  honor  of  martyrs  by  men  who  in  a  few 
days  were  to  be  martyrs  themselves,  "  was  as  much  the  lan 
guage  of  policy  as  of  fanaticism."  St.  Philip  Neri  would 
rather  have  said,  as  he  was  wont  to  say  to  the  priests  depart 
ing  from  Rome  for  the  English  mission,  "  Salvete  florcs  mar- 
tyrum  /"  St.  Paul  would  have  added,  in  his  solemn  accents, 
ik  Quibus  dignus  nan  erat  mundus  /" 

•  A  few  days  later,  "  one  English  and  four  French  cruisers," 
according  to  the  tranquil  narrative  of  Mr,  Southey,  who  does 
not  mention  that  this  time  it  was  the  Calvinist  Capdeville  who 
commanded,  fell  upon  the  remainder  of  the  missionary  fleet,  and 
did  their  work  so  effectually,  that  "  of  sixty-nine  missionaries 


148  CHAPTER   IX. 

whom  Azevedo  took  out  from  Lisbon,  only  one,  who  was  left 
behind  at  one  of  the  ports  where  they  touched,  arrived  at 
Brazil." 

The  blood  of  sixty-eight  martyrs  could  hardly  fail  to  win 
new  graces  for  Brazil,  and  from  that  hour  the  work  of  conver 
sion  advanced  with  tenfold  success.  It  was  said,  as  Mr. 
Southey  records  with  indignation,  that  supernatural  incidents 
accompanied  this  holocaust  of  martyrs,  whose  fires  the  waves 
of  the  deep  sea  could  not  extinguish.  "  After  Azevedo  was 
killed,  the  heretics,*'  Mr.  Southey  merrily  observes,  "  could  not 
force  out  of  his  hand  a  picture  of  the  Virgin, "  which  the  mar 
tyr  held  in  his  dying  grasp,  and  which,  the  English  historian 
adds,  with  an  appropriate  and  well-timed  jest,  "  was  a  copy 
more  miraculous  than  its  miraculous  original."  This  picture, 
found  still  in  his  embrace  by  the  crew  of  another  ship  which 
sailed  over  the  spot  where  the  body  had  been  flung  into  the 
ocean,  "  was  shown,"  adds  Mr.  Southey,  "  by  the  Jesuits  at  St. 
Salvador,  with  heroic  impudence,  with  the  print  of  Azevedo's 
bloody  fingers  upon  it ;"  but  "  ecclesiastical  historians,"  he  re 
marks,  "  enlarge  as  they  go  on,  because  every  one  adds  his  lie 
to  the  heap."  If  a  martyrology  were  composed  by  demons,  it 
is  perhaps  thus  that  they  would  write  it. 

Sixty  years  after  the  martyrdom  of  Azevedo  and  his  com 
panions,  when  their  successors  had  reaped  the  full  harvest  of 
which  the  early  seeds  had  been  fertilized  by  their  blood,  a  second 
drama  of  the  same  kind  was  enacted,  and  once  more  the  knife 
and  the  axe  were  wielded  by  Protestants.  This  time  it  was  the 
Dutch  Calvinists  who  made  war  on  defenceless  missionaries, 
and  here  is  Mr.  Southey's  narrative  of  their  operations. 

The  unconverted  natives  of  the  district  of  Rio  Grande  had 
carried  devastation  into  the  territory  of  Pernambuco,  and  though 
chastised  by  the  troops  under  the  command  of  Manuel  Masca- 
renhas,  were  still  planning  in  their  forests  new  expeditions. 
Soldiers  could  riot  reach  these  swift-footed  marauders,  but  there 
were  men  in  Brazil  of  the  school  of  de  Nobrega  and  Azevedo 
who  could.  Mr.  Southey  will  tell  us  who  they  were.  With  no 
armor  but  prayer,  and  no  weapon  but  the  cross  which  they 
bore  on  their  bosom,  they  advanced  without  fear  into  the 
retreats  of  the  barbarians.  "  The  Jesuits  pacified  them,"  says 
the  Protestant  annalist,  "and  brought  a  hundred  and  fifty- 
hordes  into  alliance  with  the  Portuguese."  So  true  is  that 
saying  of  Sir  Woodbine  Parish,  who  lived  long  in  South 
America,  that  "  the  labors  of  the  Jesuits  were  eventually 
more  successful  than  all  the  military  forces,"  and  that,  in 
every  province  of  the  land,  on  both  sides  of  the  Andes,  and  by 
the  banks  of  all  the  rivers  which  flow  from  them,  "  these  inde- 


MISSION'S  IN  AMERICA.  149 

fatigable  missionaries  reduced  one  tribe  after  another  to  a  state 
of  comparative  civilization." 

But  the  savage  of  the  northeastern  provinces  was  now  to  find 
an  ally  more  tierce  and  cruel  than  himself,  and  by  whose 
example  he  was  to  learn,  that  if  there  were  Christians  who 
were  valiant  only  to  suffer,  to  labor,  and  to  bless,  there  were 
others  who  made  religion  itself  the  pretext  of  crimes  from  which 
even  the  savages  would  have  shrunk.  It  was  on  Good  Friday, 
in  the  year  1633,  that  the  Dutch  Protestants,  passing  at 
midnight  through  the  smoking  ruins  of  Olinda,  attacked 
Garassu  in  the  early  morn,  while  the  inhabitants  were  assem 
bled  at  the  celebration,  proper  to  that  sorrowful  day,  of  the 
Mass  of  the  Presanctified.  The  moment  was  skilfully  chosen. 
No  ignorant  Tamuya  or  Chiquito,  no  blundering  Mohawk  or 
Oneida,  could  have  matched  the  Calvinist  in  his  craft;  no 
bloodhound  could  have  torn  his  prey  with  more  pitiless  cruelty, 
when  once  he  had  fastened  his  fangs  upon  it.  "  The  men  who 
came  in  their  way,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  "  were  slaughtered ;  the 
women  were  stripped,  and  the  plunderers  with  brutal  cruelty 
tore  away  ear-rings  through  the  ear-flap,  and  cut  off  fingers  for 
the  sake  of  the  rings  which  were  upon  them.  Having  plun 
dered  and  burnt  the  town,  they  set  out  on  their  return,  taking 
with  them  as  prisoners  some  Franciscans,  whom  for  their  pro 
fession  they  especially  hated,  and  driving  in  mockery  before 
them  the  priest  in  his  vestments,  just  as  they  had  forced  him 
from  the  altar."*  It  was  thus  they  celebrated  Good  Friday. 

The  next  year  they  attacked  Paraiba,  apparently  because 
"it  contained  a  Misericordia,  a  Benedictine  Convent,  a  Carme 
lite,  and  a  Capuchin."  The  inhabitants  had  capitulated,  after 
a  gallant  defence,  on  the  promise  of  "free  exercise  of  the  Cath 
olic  religion  and  the  peaceable  enjoyment  of  their  property." 
"The  most  atrocious  cruelties,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  for  once 
taking  part  with  the  victims,  "  were  exercised  upon  these 
brave  people  by  the  conquerors,  and  they  who  possessed  any 
property  were  tortured  till  they  paid  the  full  sum  which  was 
demanded  as  a  life-ransom.  By  these  means  the  Dutch  raised 
twenty-eight  thousand  crowns,  and  it  is  by  such  means  that 
they  have  rendered  their  history  as  infamous,  and  their  names 
as  detestable,  in  the  East  arid  in  the  West,  as  in  their  own 
country  their  deeds  have  been  glorious."f 

Yet  these  men  professed  to  be  exponents  of  the  "  reformed 
religion,"  and  missionaries  of  the  Gospel.  It  is  true  that  even 
Mr.  Southey  admits,  that  it  was  only  "  for  the  sake  of  raising 

*  Vol.  i.,  ch.  xv.,  p.  486. 
f  P.  509. 


150  CHAPTER   IX. 

sugar  and  tobacco"  that  they  invaded  Brazil ;  but  they  carried 
their  religions  ideas  with  them,  and  so,  in  the  words  of  another 
historian,  "from  assassins  they  transformed  themselves  into 
missionaries."  They  were  more  successful  in  the  first  character 
than  in  the  last.  "'They  sent  out  preachers,  and  controversial 
books  in  the  Spanish  language  were  circulated;"  but  Mr. 
South ey  shrewdly  adds,  "  if  the  Brazilians  hated  their  conquerors 
as  heretics,  they  hated  heresy  still  more  because  it  was  the 
religion  of  their  oppressors.  The  Dutch  have  always  been  a 
cruel  people,  ....  and  there  is  no  nation  whose  colonial  history 
is  so  inexcusable  and  inexpiably  disgraceful  to  human  nature." 
lie  had  perhaps  read  their  history  in  Japan  and  Ceylon. 

The  Dutch  were  not  destined  to  triumph  in  Brazil,  either  as 
soldiers  or  missionaries,  but  they  were  not  finally  ejected  till  a 
later  period.  Meanwhile,  they  continued  to  exhibit  a  new 
example  of  the  nature  and  influence  of  Protestant  missions,  a 
new  proof  that  they  are  everywhere,  as  we  have  said,  the  worst 
impediment  to  the  conversion  of  the  heathen,  not  only  because 
they  obstruct  the  ministry  of  the  true  apostles,  but  because  their 
agents  teach  the  barbarian  to  despise  a  religion  of  which  they 
are  the  professors.  In  1637,  in  all  the  districts  under  their 
rule,  "  the  Catholics  were  ordered  to  confine  their  processions 
within  the  walls  of  the  churches ;  no  new  church  was  to  be  built 
without  permission  from  the  senate ;  no  marriages  celebrated 
until  the  banns  had  been  published  after  the  Dutch  manner,"  &c. 
There  was  even  a  certain  refinement  of  ingenuity  in  some 
of  their  cruelties.  Taking  advantage  of  well-known  customs 
which  piety  had  consecrated  in  Brazil,  they  ordered,  "  that 
those  persons  who,  when  they  created  new  sugar-works,  chose 
to  have  them  blessed,  were  to  have  the  office  performed" — by 
a  Protestant  minister !  The  Count  of  Nassau,  who  was  their 
supreme  ruler,  "  received  orders  to  restrict  toleration  within  the 
narrowest  bounds,  and  the  reformed  clergy  were  calling  upon 
him  to  enforce  these  imprudent  orders." 

In  1639,  "Dutch  missionaries  labored,"  we  are  still  quoting 
Mr.  Southey,  "  to  teach  a  Lutheran  instead  of  a  Popish  creed." 
They  failed  indeed,  but  this  was  only,  Mr.  Southey  considers, 
because  "implements  of  conversion  were  wanting;"  that  is, 
"Lutheran  theology  had  nothing  wherewith  to  supply  the 
deficiency  of  saints,  images,  beads,  crosses,  &c."  The  expla 
nation  seems  to  fall  below  the  gravity  of  history.  Lutheran 
theology,  which  the  Brazilians  rejected  so  decisively,  does  not 
appear  to  produce  happy  results  even  among  those  who  profess 
to  admire  it.  In  Lutheran  Prussia,  where  there  is  no  deficiency 
of  crosses  and  other  symbols,  it  has  all  but  extirpated  Chris 
tianity  ;  in  Brazil,  as  we  learn  from  two  Protestant  ministers  in 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA.  151 

185T,  its  results  have  been  of  the  same  unpleasant  character. 
In  "  the  Lutheran  community  at  Nova  Fribourgo,"  a  colony  of 
German  settlers,  they  report  that  "  there  was  but  little  Chris 
tian  vitality ;  Lutherans  of  the  old  Church  and  State  school 
are  among  the  very  last  men  to  propagate  the  Gospel."*  We 
need  not  wonder,  then,  that  the  Dutch  failed  to  propagate  such 
a  gospel  in  Brazil. 

But  if  they  could  not  convert,  they  could  destroy.  In  spite 
of  every  menace,  and  of  unceasing  cruelty  and  exactions,  the 
people  still  clung  to  their  old  pastors.  There  was  only  one 
remedy  for  this  obstinacy,  and  the  Dutch  adopted  it.  "  The 
members  of  every  monastic  order  were  commanded  within  the 
space  of  a  month  to  quit  the  Dutch  possessions  on  the  continent. 
The  needful  measure,"  it  is  Mr.  Southey  who  speaks,  "  was 
carried  into  effect  with  brutal  cruelty.  The  Dutch  stripped 
them  of  their  habits,  and  turned  them  ashore  in  their  shirts  and 
drawers,  in  such  remote  situations  that  most  of  them  perished."f 

When,  in  1642,  the  Portuguese  rose  at  last  against  the  assas 
sins,  and  recaptured  Maranham,  "  those  who  were  spared  owed 
their  lives,"  says  our  historian,  "  to  the  interference  of  a  priest." 
He  had  asserted  not  long  before  that  any  priest  "  would  have 
put  all  the  sect  to  death,"  but  now  he  relates  that  "  he  had 
borne  the  crucifix  before  his  comrades  as  a  standard  beneath 
whicli  they  were  to  march  to  victory,  and  he  stretched  out  that 
crucifix  to  protect  his  enemies  now  when  the  victory  was  won." 
But  with  all  his  efforts  he  could  only  save  the  other  foreigners, 
because  "  a  Catholic  feeling  incensed  the  conquerors  against 
the  Dutch,  more  hated  for  their  heretical  opinions  than  for 
their  cruelty  and  perfidiousness."  But  we  have  heard  enough 
of  the  Dutch,  and  it  is  time  to  return  to  the  labors  of  a  differ 
ent  order  of  missionaries. 

In  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  when  the  triumph 
of  Christianity  was  already  assured  in  Brazil,  Portugal  gave  to 
this  favored  mission  another  of  those  apostolic  workmen  of 
whom  in  that  age  she  produced  so  many.  Father  Antonio 
Vieyra,  the  friend  of  kings  and  the  counsellor  of  statesmen, 
who  had  rejected  all  the  honors  of  the  world,  and  had  told  his 
admiring  sovereign,  when  he  entreated  him  to  accept  a  bishopric 
in  Europe,  that  he  would  not  exchange  the  lowly  habit  of  a 
missionary  "for  all  the  mitres  in  the  Portuguese  monarchy," 
had  now  entered  Brazil.  During  many  years  this  accomplished 
gentleman  "ministered  among  the  Indians  and  Negroes,  for 
which  purpose  he  made  himself  master,  not  only  of  the  Tupi, 

*  Kiddcr  and  Fletcher,  ch.  xv.,  p.  29. 
t  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xx.,  p.  Go. 


152  CHAPTER  IX. 

but  also  of  the  Angolan  tongue."  He  was  one,  as  Mr.  Southey 
confesses,  who  "must  ever  hold  a  place,  not  only  amongst  the 
greatest  writers,  but  amongst  the  greatest  statesmen  of  his 
country."  It  is  nothing  new  in  the  history  of  apostles  that 
such  a  man  should  choose  to  devote  his  life  to  Indians  and 
Negroes.  The  Catholic  religion,  in  every  age,  has  been  able 
both  to  inspire  and  to  reward  such  sacrifices.  Once  he  wrote 
to  the  young  prince  of  Portugal,  who  loved  and  honored  him 
as  a  father,  to  send  fresh  laborers  to  Brazil ;  and  he  added,  "  I 
ask  no  provision  for  those  who  come,  God  will  provide ;  what 
I  ask  is,  that  they  may  come,  and  that  they  may  be  many,  and 
filled  with  zeal." 

It  is  curious  to  see  what  the  malice  of  heresy  could  force 
even  a  scholar  and  a  poet  to  say  of  such  a  man  as  this — who 
was  not  only  scholar  and  poet,  but  philosopher,  orator,  and 
statesman.  "  His  devotion,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  "  had  its  root  in 
superstition  and  madness."  Festus  estimated  in  the  same  man 
ner  the  devotion  of  St.  Paul,  because  he,  like  the  English 
writer,  could  not  understand  an  apostle.  Yet  he  adds  imme 
diately,  contradicting  himself  at  every  page,  "Yieyra  proceeded 
diligently  with  projects  worthy  of  his  order  and  of  himself." 
Fifty  Indian  villages  were  organized  by  his  labors  to  the  north 
of  Maranham,  "  along  an  extent  of  four  hundred  leagues  of 
coast."  So  wonderful  was  the  success  of  his  labors,  that  on  the 
15th  of  August,  1658,  he  celebrated  a  solemn  Mass  of  thanks 
giving  in  commemoration  of  a  treaty  then  concluded,  "  in  the 
name  of  Jesus  Christ,"  with  the  chiefs  and  representatives  of 
more  than  one  hundred  thousand  natives* 

Such  a  victory  might  have  contented  even  apostolic  ambition, 
but  for  Yieyra  it  was  only  a  motive  for  fresh  exertions.  He 
now  resolved,  therefore,  says  our  historian,  "  to  pursue  the  same 
system  of  civilization  up  the  great  rivers,  and  in  the  islands  in 
the  mouth  of  the  Orellana."  Two  Jesuits  were  sent  up  the 
river  of  the  Tocantins,  a  perilous  journey  of  nine  hundred  miles, 
"  to  reduce  a  tribe  of  Topinambazes,"  famous  for  their  courage 
and  ferocity.  "  They  were  old  enemies  of  the  Para  settlers," 
which  increased  tenfold  the  perils  of  the  mission,  but  this  did 
not  daunt  the  companions  of  Yieyra,  animated  with  his  own 
spirit ;  and  the  Protestant  historian  is  obliged  to  confess,  that 
"  these  very  enemies  followed  the  missionaries,  and  agreed  to 
send  deputies  back  with  them,  who  should  treat  concerning 
peace,  and  arrange  measures  for  their  conversion."  More  than  a 
thousand  of  these  hitherto  irreclaimable  barbarians,  "of  whom 
three  hundred  were  warriors,"  returned  with  the  Fathers  to  the 

*  Cr6tineau  Joly,  tome  v.,  p.  114. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  153 

camp  of  their  hated  foes ;  and  when  the  governor,  Yidal — a 
man  of  such  qualities  that  Vieyra  wrote  to  the  king,  "  if  he 
had  been  in  India,  it  would  never  have  been  lost  to  Portugal," 
— saw  this  multitude  of  neophytes  approaching,  "  stern  and 
inexorable  as  he  was  in  war,  he  is  said  to  have  wept  for  joy  at 
beholding  this  wild  flock  brought  within  the  fold  of  Christ." 
Vieyra  himself,  though  he  might  have  been  sitting  in  the 
courts  of  princes,  started  immediately  to  bring  in  the  remainder 
of  the  tribe. 

In  every  direction  similar  expeditions  were  undertaken,  and 
always  with  the  same  results.  No  river  was  so  broad  or  swift 
as  to  check  their  rapid  march,  no  forest  so  dark  or  impenetra 
ble  as  to  bar  their  way.  Whatever  man,  aided  by  the  might 
of  God,  could  do,  they  did.  And  the  Indians,  dazzled  by  their 
fortitude  and  valor,  could  resist  neither  the  heroic  courage 
which  far  surpassed  their  own,  nor  the  patience  which  sub 
dued  and  wore  out  their  frowardness,  nor  the  charity  which 
they  admired  before  they  understood  it.  Everywhere  and  al 
ways,  even  by  Protestant  testimony,  these  apostles  were  the 
same.  Take  a  few  examples  out  of  thousands.  When  the 
military  expedition  of  Coelho  against  the  people  of  the  Sierra 
do  Ibiapaba  had  completely  failed,  "  and  led  to  his  own  dis 
grace,"  the  missionaries,  says  Mr.  Southey,  "  prepared  a  peace 
able  expedition  in  the  hope  of  reducing  and  civilizing  its  in 
habitants.  These  mountains  extended  about  eighty  leagues  in 
length,  and  twenty  in  breadth ;  they  rise  in  waves,  one  tower 
ing  above  another.  .  .  .  To  ascend  them  is  the  hard  labor  of 
four  hours,  in  which  hands  and  knees,  as  well  as  feet,  must 
frequently  be  exerted."  And  when  the  missionaries,  often  men 
delicately  nurtured,  and  of  gentle  lineage^ had  surmounted  these 
first  difficulties,  they  found  themselves  in  presence  of  the  Ta- 
puyas,  "  the  oldest  race  in  Brazil,"  and  so  inconceivably  barba 
rous,  that  '*  they  ate  their  own  dead  as  the  last  demonstration 
of  love."*  They  had  repulsed  the  soldiers  of  Portugal,  but 
were  vanquished  by  a  few  unarmed  Jesuits. 

In  1603,  Father  Rodriguez  conducted  another  apostolic  band 
to  the  territory  of  the  cannibal  Aymores.  "  The  people  ridi 
culed  his  project,"  says  the  Protestant  historian,  "thinking  it 
impossible  that  the  Aymores,  fleshed  as  they  were  with  human 
meat,  could  be  reclaimed  from  their  habits  of  cannibalism." 
Yet  the  savages  themselves  said  of  him  arid  his  companions, 
when  they  afterwards  recounted  their  own  submission,  "The 
Fathers  were  good  men  who  had  neither  bows  nor  arrows,  nor 
ever  did  wrong  to  any  one,  and  nothing  which  they  requested 


•  Southey,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  377. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

was  to  be  denied."  And  so  "  two  villages  were  soon  formed, 
the  one  containing  twelve  hundred  Aymores,  the  other  four ; 
and  the  captaincy,  which  had  hitherto  with  difficulty  been 
preserved  from  utter  destruction  by  the  help  of  frequent  suc 
cors  from  Bahia,  was  effectually  delivered  from  its  enemies."* 

In  1657,  Fathers  Emanuel  Fires  and  Francis  Gonsalvez  were 
the  first  to  ascend  the  Rio  Negro,  as  Father  Samuel  Fritz  was 
the  first  to  trace  the  course  of  the  Orellana,  converting  the 
Omaguas  on  the  way — "  a  people,"  as  Southey  observes,  "so 
famous  in  the  age  of  adventure,  and  still,  in  his  day,  the  most 
numerous  of  all  the  river  tribes:  thirty  of  their  villages  are 
marked  upon  his  map."  Before  him,  Fathers  Christoval  d'Acuna 
and  Andres  de  Artieda,  the  one  rector  of  a  college,  the  other 
professor  of  theology  at  Quito,  had  accomplished  an  equally 
perilous  mission  at  the  request  of  the  viceroy ;  for  even  the 
military  adventurers  of  that  age  dared  not  accept,  and  refused 
to  attempt,  undertakings  which  the  missionaries  alone,  in  the 
interests  of  religion  and  science,  could  be  persuaded  to  embrace, 
since  they  "  were  not  merely  fearless  of  martyrdom,  but  am 
bitious  of  it."  We  shall  see  hereafter  how  many  found  the 
crown  which  they  sought.  After  a  voyage  of  fifteen  months, 
amid  privations  which  we  need  not  attempt  to  describe,  Pires 
and  Gonsalvez  returned,  bringing  with  them  between  six  and 
seven  hundred  disciples ;  but  Gonsalvez  died  of  his  fatigues. 
A  little  later,  two  others,  who  had  taken  another  route,  came  back 
in  their  turn,  "followed  by  more  than  two  thousand  Indians," 
who  had  consented  to  accept  Christianity  and  civilization.f 

In  every  province,  and  in  each  successive  year,  the  same 
arduous  apostolate  continued.  In  1662,  Father  Raymond  de 
Santa  Cruz  perished  by  violence  in  the  waters  of  the  Pastaza. 
"  His  was  truly  a  noble  and  well-spent  life,"  says  an  English 
Protestant.  "  His  usual  dress  consisted  of  an  old  battered  hat, 
a  coarse  cotton  shirt,  and  a  pair  of  sandals ;" — this  was  the 
" gorgeous  ceremonial"  by  which  Catholic  missionaries,  we  are 
told,  gain  their  converts ! — "  and  his  mode  of  life  was  more 
simple  than  that  of  the  Indians  who  surrounded  him  .  .  .  but 
it  should  be  remembered  that  there  were  many  other  intrepid 
and  devoted  men  on  the  banks  of  these  rivers,  at  the  same  time, 
who  were  equally  zealous  in  preaching  to  the  Indians,  and  who 
generally,  like  Father  Raymond,  met  with  a  violent  death,  as 
the  welcome  reward  of  their  exertions.";): 

As  early  as  1663,  the  fruits  of  these  patient  toils  were  so 

*  P.  388. 

f  Southey,  p.  517. 

±  Expeditions  into  the  VcMey  of  the  Amazons,  by  Clements  R.  Markham, 
F.R.U.S.,  introd.,  p.  xxx. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  155 

abundant,  that,  as  Mr.  Markham  notices,  even  on  the  banks  of 
the  upper  Maranon  "  there  were  fifty-six  thousand  baptized 
Indians;"  and  from  1640  to  1682,  no  less  than  thirty-three 
different  Christian  settlements  had  been  established  in  that 
region  by  this  company  of  martyrs  and  apostles.* 

In  1695,  Henry  Richler  obtained  the  crown  of  martyrdom. 
"The  most  heroic  devotion,"  says  Mr.  Markham,  "  could  alone 
have  enabled  him  to  face  the  difficulties  which  surrounded  him. 
During  twelve  years,  lie  performed  forty  difficult  journeys, 
through  dense  forests,  or  in  canoes  on  rapid  and  dangerous 
rivers.  He  never  took  any  provisions  with  him,  but  wandered 
bare-footed  and  half-naked  through  the  tangled  underwood, 
trusting  wholly  to  Providence  for  support.  His  efforts  were 
rewarded  with  success,  and  having  learnt  some  of  the  Indian 
languages,  he  at  last  surrounded  himself  with  followers." 

Such  were  the  men  and  such  the  toils  which  won  all  South 
America  to  the  Cross.  If  sometimes  they  failed,  or  seemed  to 
fail,  it  was  only  for  a  brief  space.  When  Soto  Mayor,  one  of 
the  most  valiant  of  this  band  of  heroes,  was  rejected  by  a  tribe 
which  refused  to  be  converted,  he  left  with  them  his  crucifix, 
assuring  them  with  accents  of  patient  love,  that  the  God  whom 
it  represented  would  yet  incline  their  hearts  to  truth.  And  when 
he  was  gone,  their  souls  were  stirred  within  them  by  the  memory 
of  his  apostolic  words  ;  and  one  day  they  arrived  in  solemn 
procession,  asking  to  be  admitted  to  baptism,  and  bringing  back 
with  all  reverence  the  crucifix,  of  which  Mr.  Southey,  true  to 
his  instincts,  observes,  "This  idol  was  deposited  in  the  church 
of  the  Jesuits'  college,  where  it  was  long  venerated  with  es 
pecial  devotion." 

In  1661,  the  corrupt  Portuguese  traders,  whose  traffic  in 
slaves  had  been  well-nigh  ruined  by  Yieyra  and  his  companions, 
stirred  up  an  insurrection,  and  cast  the  Fathers  into  prison. 
Yieyra  himself,  says  the  Protestant  historian,  "  though  treated 
more  cruelly  than  any  of  his  companions,  betrayed  not  the 

slightest  mark  of  irritation  or  impatience An  heroic 

mind,  a  clear  conscience,  and  an  enthusiastic  sense  of  duty, 
produced  in  him  that  peace  which  passeth  all  understanding." 
They  were  dragged  on  board  ship,  and  dispatched  to  Portugal, 
with  a  memorial  to  the  king,  setting  forth  their  misdemeanors, 
and  charging  them  with  having  ruined  the  prosperity  of  the 
colony.  They  were  reinstated  by  a  royal  edict  in  the  following 
year,  with  a  sharp  admonition  to  their  accusers,  but  from  that 
hour  their  enemies  took  counsel  together  to  accomplish  their 
destruction. 

*  Expeditions,  &c.,  introd,  p.  xxx. 


156  CHAPTER  IX. 

In  1676,  Brazil  being  now  divided  into  the  three  dioceses  of 
Bahia,  Pernambnco,  and  Rio  de  Janeiro,  the  first  colony  of 
Franciscan  nuns  arrived.  "  Such  institutions,"  observes  Mr. 
Southey,  who  records  the  arrival  of  these  ladies  and  the  estab 
lishment  of  their  convent,  "are  better  receptacles  than  Bedlam 
for  the  largest  class  of  maniacs."41  Presently,  as  if  the  ex 
pression  pleased  his  taste,  he  calls  even  Anchieta,  D' Almeida, 
and  Yieyra — men  adorned  with  every  highest  gift,  both  of 
nature  and  grace,  which  the  Creator  bestows  on  His  creature 
— "  harmless  maniacs."  If  we  quote  such  language,  it  is  only 
to  show  how  educated  Protestants  judge  the  men  whom  they 
cannot  comprehend,  and  the  works  which  they  dare  not 
imitate. 

In  reading  words  now  almost  habitual  with  Protestant  critics, 
and  of  which  we  have  seen  too  many  examples  in  these  pages, 
we  are  involuntarily  reminded  of  the  formidable  sentence  of 
Holy  Writ,  which  announces  the  final  lot  both  of  the  accused 
and  their  accusers.  When  the  former,  we  are  told,  shall  have 
received  their  crown,  the  latter,  "  seeing  it,  shall  be  troubled 
with  terrible  fear,  and  shall  say  within  themselves,  repenting, 
and  groaning  for  anguish  of  spirit,  These  are  they  whom  we 
had  sometime  in  derision,  and  for  a  parable  of  reproach.  We 
fools  esteemed  their  life  madness,  and  their  end  without  honor. 
Behold,  how  they  are  numbered  with  the  children  of  God,  and 
their  lot  is  among  the  saints."f 

In  1696,  Yieyra  died,  at  the  age  of  ninety.  He  had  been 
seventy-five  years  a  Jesuit,  and  Mr.  Southey  remarks,  with  real 
or  affected  surprise,  that  "his  vows  were  never  repented."  He 
adds  also,  that  "  he  had  outlived  the  vexations  as  well  as  the 
joys  of  life;  his  enemies  were  gone  before  him  to  their  account, 
and  his  virtues  and  talents  were  acknowledged  and  respected  as 
they  deserved.":}: 

We  must  hasten  to  an  end.  Twenty  provinces  still  claim 
our  attention,  and  we  have  barely  glanced  at  the  history  of  one. 
A  hundred  names  might  be  added  to  those  of  Nobrega  and 
Anchieta,  of  D' Almeida  and  Yieyra,  but  we  have  no  space  to 
recount  them.  They  will  pardon  our  silence.  They  are  our 
fathers  and  kinsmen,  but  who  can  number  all  the  links  in  such 
a  genealogy?  We  have  spoken  only  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus,  yet  the  children  of  St.  Francis  and  St.  Dominic, 
to  whom  America  owes  so  much,  might  well  have  claimed  the 
tribute  of  our  respectful  homage.  "The  Franciscans,"  says  Mr. 


*  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxviii.,  p.  571. 

f  Wisdom  v.,  2-5. 

J  Vol.  iii.,  ch.  xxxi.,  p.  34. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMEKICA.  157 

Clements  Markham,  thongli  he  appreciates  their  courage  rather 
than  the  religion  which  inspired  it,  "continued  during  a  century 
and  a  half  to  send  devoted  men  into  the  forests,  who  preached 
fearlessly,  explored  vast  tracts  of  previously  unknown  land,  and 
usually  ended  their  days  by  being  murdered  by  the  very  savages 
whom  they  had  come  to  humanize."*  In  1701,  two  Franciscan 
Fathers  were  martyred  by  the  Aruans.  Mr.  Sou  they  relates 
what  befell  their  mutilated  bodies.  "  They  found  them  in  a 
state  of  perfect  preservation,  although  they  had  lain  six  months 
upon  the  ground,  exposed  to  animals,  insects,  and  all  accidents 
of  weather,  and  although  their  habits  were  rotten."  It  was  no 
miracle,  he  adds,  for  he  did  not  believe  in  miracles,  "  but  fraud 
cannot  be  suspected."  The  evidence  was  so  conclusive,  that 
even  he  could  not  venture  to  reject  it.  "The  whole  city  of 
Belem,"  he  says,  saw  the  bodies,  which  were  ultimately  interred 
in  the  Franciscan  church  in  that  town. 

Finally,  if  we  ask  what  signs  there  are  at  this  hour  in  Brazil 
of  the  presence  of  the  apostolic  workmen  of  whose  toils  we  may 
not  offer  here  a  more  minute  account ;  if  we  inquire  how  far, 
in  this  case,  the  promise  has  been  fulfilled  which  declared  of 
old,  "  They  shall  know  their  seed  among  the  Gentiles,  and  their 
offspring  in  the  midst  of  peoples ;"  it  is  an  American  Protestant 
who  informs  us,  in  1856,  that  there  are  still,  after  all  the  calam 
ities  which  have  befallen  that  empire,  "eight  hundred  thousand 
domesticated  Indians"  who  call  upon  the  name  of  Jesus,  and 
invoke  the  protection  of  His  Mother.f 

Before  we  add  a  few  words,  in  order  to  complete  the  narrative, 
upon  the  present  state  of  Brazil,  the  fate  of  her  earlier  apostles 
claims  a  moment's  attention.  For  two  centuries  they  had 
toiled,  with  results  which  perhaps  none  but  the  Franciscans 
had  ever  rivalled,  and  having  won  the  approval  of  God  were 
now  to  receive  their  usual  reward  from  man.  St.  Ignatius  had 
dared  to  ask,  it  was  his  latest  prayer,  that  his  children  "  might 
be  always  persecuted."  The  petition,  we  know,  has  been 
heard.  In  1753,  the  brother  of  the  Marquis  de  Pombal  was 
made  Captain-general  of  Para  and  Maranham,  and  from  that 
hour  the  fate  of  the  Jesuits  was  sealed.  By  this  man  the 
requisite  pleadings  were  prepared,  and  they  were  accepted  with 
eagerness  by  the  conspirators  at  Lisbon,  as  even  Mr.  Southey 
observes,  "  notwithstanding  their  falsehood  and  palpable  incon 
sistency  ."J  "A  true  statesman,"  says  the  same  writer,  singular 
witness  in  such  a  cause,  "  would  assuredly  have  thought  that 

y 

*  Valley  of  the  Amazons,  introd.,  p.  xxi. 
f  Life  in  Brazil,  by  Thomas  Ewbank,  ch.  xxxviii.,  p.  432. 
i  Vol.  iii.,  ch.  xl.,  p.  510. 


158  CHAPTER  IX. 

the  Jesuits  in  America  were  worthy  of  his  especial  favor, 
protection,  and  encouragement."  But  Pombal,  envious  of  a 
greatness  which  lie  could  not  share,  had  resolved  to  crush 
them.  lie  knew  that  the  Brazilian  merchants  would  approve 
his  design,  for  the  Jesuits,  as  Mr.  Sonthey  remarks,  "  were  the 
only  unpopular  order,  because  they  were  the  only  missionaries 
who  uniformly  opposed  the  'tyranny  of  the  Portuguese."  Of 
the  charges  brought  against  them,  the  same  unsuspicious 
witness  says,  "All  that  are  not  absolutely  false,  are  merely 
frivolous."*  But  Pombal  was  willing  to  suborn  false  witnesses, 
and  if  these  had  not  been  forthcoming,  would  have  done  without 
them.  And  so  the  decree  went  forth  that  the  Jesuits  should  be 
banished. 

Twice  already  they  had  been  expelled  from  Brazil,  and  twice 
they  had  been  restored  amid  the  acclamations  of  the  people. 
This  time  their  exile  was  to  last  nearly  a  century.  From  Para 
one  hundred  and  fifteen  Fathers  were  deported,  from  Bahia  one 
hundred  and  sixty-eight,  from  Rio  Janeiro  one  hundred  and 
forty-five  ;  in  all  five  hundred  and  twenty-eight,  from  this 
province  alone.  "The  number  expelled  from  all  the  Spanish 
Indies  amounted  to  five  thousand  six  hundred  and  seventy- 
seven.'^  We  shall  see  hereafter  what  befell  the  Fathers  in  the 
other  provinces.  And  this  was  the  manner  of  their  deportation  : 
"They  were  stowed  as  closely  as  negro  slaves,"  says  Mr.  Southey, 
whom  we  will  quote  to  the  last,  "  and  confined  below  decks  on 
the  voyage  to  S.  Luiz."  Yet,  as  even  he  observes,  "  they  were 
men  whose  innocence  and  virtue  must  most  certainly  have  been 
known."  And  then  he  adds,  his  better  nature  triumphing  for 
once  over  the  instincts  of  heresy  and  unbelief,  "  They  were 
treated  with  extreme  cruelty  upon  the  voyage ;  when  they  wTere 
suffering  the  most  painful  thirst,  the  captain  would  not  allow, 
even  to  the  dying,  an  additional  drop  of  water,  to  moisten  their 
lips,  nor  would  he  permit  them  the  consolation  of  receiving  the 
last  sacrament  in  death.  Five  of  them  died  (in  one  ship)  under 
this  unhuman  usage." 

And  when  at  last  this  company  of  apostles  reached  Europe, 
followed  by  the  sighs  and  tears  of  a  whole  continent,  for 
eighteen  weary  years  they  languished  in  prison,  till  M.  cu 
Pombal  passed  to  his  account,  with  the  horrible  jest  on  his 
lips,  "  that  the  Jesuits  were  the  longest  lived  body  of  men 
he  ever  knew."  But  they  followed  him  to  the  judgment 
for,  as  the  historian  relates,  "in  a  few  years  thev  were  almo?( 
extinguished." 

*  P.  518. 

f  Southey,  vol.  iii.,  di.  xlii.,  p.  614. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  159 

Pombal  had  disappeared  forever,  but  not  so  the  Society  of 
Jesus.  In  1817,  the  revolted  Spanish  colonies  of  South  Amer- 
ica,  justifying  their  separation,  reproached  their  former  mis 
tress,  in  these  earnest  words :  "  You  arbitrarily  deprived  us  of 
the  Jesuits,  to  whom  we  owe  our  social  state,  our  civilization, 
all  our  instruction,  and  services  with  which  we  can  never  dis 
pense."  In  1834,  the  Argentine  Republic  recalled  them  with 
acclamation;  in  1842,  Columbia  solicited  their  return ;  in  1843, 
they  were  re-established  in  Mexico ;  in  Chili,  they  are  once 
more  the  model  and  the  admiration  of  their  brethren.  And 
where  are  their  persecutors  ?  When  the  Jesuits  returned  to 
the  province  of  Coimbra,  in  1832,  more  than  one  of  them 
hastened  to  the  town  of  Pombal,  in  order  to  offer  in  secret  the 
suffrages  of  charity  over  the  grave  of  the  Marquis.  To  their 
amazement  they  found  "that  the  once  imperious  statesman  had 
been  so  completely  forgotten  by  all  but  them,  that  his  body, 
covered  with  a  ragged  cloth,  had  remained  without  sepulture 
from  1782 !  But  there  is  nothing  in  this  fact  to  surprise  us. 
The  world,  which  pursues  them  with  its  heartless  applause, 
abandons  its  heroes  when  the  sword  or  the  staff  falls  from  their 
nerveless  hands;  and  the  Church  alone,  more  tender  than 
friends,  more  compassionate  than  kinsfolk,  is  found  weeping 
over  the  tombs  of  her  enemies,  and  praying  for  the  pardon  of 
their  sins.* 

And  now  let  us  see  what  were  the  results  of  their  expulsion. 
Only  twenty-five  years  after  their  departure,  the  noblest  colony 
which  Portugal  had  ever  possessed  was  in  ruins.  " Decay  and 
desolation,"  as  Mr.  Southey  confesses,  had  succeeded  "  the 
prosperity  which  had  prevailed  in  the  time  of  the  missionaries; 
houses  falling  to  pieces;  fields  overgrown  with  wood;  grass  in 
the  market-places  ;  the  lime-kilns,  the  potteries,  the  manufac 
tories  of  calico5' — for  the  Jesuits  had  introduced  all  these — "in 
ruins." 

Pombal,  says  the  same  writer  whom  we  have  so  often  quoted, 
while  affecting  to  care  for  the  welfare  of  the  Indians,  "removed 
the  only  persons  who  could  have  co-operated  with  him  for  this 
end ;  the  only  persons  who  would  have  exerted  themselves  dis 
interestedly  to  promote  the  improvement  and  happiness  of  the 
Indians  ;  the  only  persons  who  for  the  love  of  God  would 
have  devoted  themselves  dutifully,  cheerfully,  and  zealously  to 
the  service  of  their  fellow-creatures.  In  their  place  such  men 
as  would  undertake  the  office  for  the  love  of  gain,  were  substi- 

*  A  modern  traveller  relates  of  Joseph.  II.,  the  Julian  of  Austria,  "  Nowhere 
is  his  name  breathed  ;  it  is  as  if  he  had  never  existed,  or  as  if  a  curse  lay  on 
his  memory."  Austria,  by  J.  GK  Kohl,  p.  233  (1843). 


160  CHAPTER  IX. 

tuted,  and  the  immediate  consequences  were  injurious  in  every 
way.  The  laws  in  favor  of  the  Indians"— the  missionaries  had 
procured  the  abolition  of  slavery— "  were  infringed  more 
daringly ;  the  directors  themselves  had  an  interest  in  oppressing 
them,  because  their  profits  were  in  proportion  to  the  work  per 
formed;  they  had  the  power  of  compelling  them  to  work,  and 
they  had  neither  authority,  influence,  nor  inclination  to  check 
those  vices  which  certainly  were  not  practised  under  the  moral 
discipline  of  the  Aldeas" — the  Jesuit  Reductions.  "  That  pro 
cess  of  civilization  which  had  been  going  on  so  rapidly  and 
with  such  excellent  effect" — in  an  earlier  volume  Mr.  Southey 
had  scoifed  at  this  civilization — "  was  stopped  at  once  and  for 
ever  ;  and  a  rapid  depopulation  began,  because  free  scope  was 
now  given  to  drunkenness  and  to  every,  other  vice,  and  because 
many  of  the  Indians  fled  into  the  wilderness,  when  they  found 
that 'their  state  of  filial  subjection  was  exchanged  for  a  servitude 
which  had  nothing  either  to  sanctify  or  to  soften  it."*  And  it 
is  Mr.  Southey  who  writes  this  undesigned  panegyric  of  Catholic 
missionaries ! 

But  Mr.  Southey  is  not  the  only  writer  of  his  class  who  makes 
these  confessions.  Dr.  Kidder  and  Mr.  Fletcher,  two  Prot 
estant  ministers,  whose  eager  libels  on  the  Catholic  religion 
would  perhaps  excite  our  indignation  if  it  were  possible  to  treat 
them  seriously,  admit  that  the  virtues  of  the  Jesuits  proved 
their  ruin.  "  Their  benevolence  and  their  philanthropic  devoted- 
ness  to  the  Indians  brought  down  upon  them  the  hatred  of 
their  countrymen,  the  Portuguese."f  "  Centuries  will  not 
repair  the  evil  done  by  their  sudden  expulsion,"  says  a  candid 
English  traveller.  .  .  .  "They  had  been  the  protectors  of  a 
persecuted  race,  the  advocates  of  mercy,  the  founders  of  civiliza 
tion,  and  their  patience  under  their  unmerited  sufferings  forms 
not  the  least  honorable  trait  in  their  character. "J  Prince 
Adalbert  of  Prussia,  though  apparently  insensible  to  apostolic 
virtues,  which  he  seems  to  have  only  contemplated  with  dull 
apathy  or  peevish  dislike,  confesses  that  "  decay  commenced 
with  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits."§  Prince  Maximilian  of 
Wied-Nenwied,  another  modern  traveller  in  Brazil,  who  observes 
that  at  Villa  Nova,  which  he  visited,  "the  Jesuits  had  collected 
six  thousand  Indians,"  adds  "but  most  of  them  were  driven 
away  by  the  hard  service  exacted  by  the  crown,  and  by  the 


*  P.  534. 
f  Ch.  xx.,  p.  368. 

\  Journal  of  a  Voyage  to  Brazil,  by  Lady  Calcott,  pp.  13,  36  (1824). 
§  Travels  in  Brazil,  &c.,  by  H.  R.  H.  Prince  Adalbert  of  Prussia,  vol.  ii.,  p. 
149,  ed.  Schomburgh. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  161 

slavish  manner  in  which  they  were  treated."*  Mr.  Gardner 
also,  who  speaks,  like  these  German  princes,  from  actual  ob 
servation,  says  :  "  It  is  handed  down  from  father  to  son,  par 
ticularly  among  the  middle  and  lower  classes  of  Brazil,  that 
the  destruction  of  the  Jesuitical  power  was  a  severe  loss  to  the 
well-being  of  the  country.  There  are  of  course  but  few  alive 
now  (1846)  who  have  personal  recollection  of  the  excellent  men 
who  formed  the  Company  of  Jesus,  but  the  memory  of  them 
will  long  remain ;  I  have  always  heard  them  spoken  of  with 
respect  and  with  regret."f  Lastly,  for  we  need  not  multiply 
testimonies  which  we  shall  find  to  be  identical  for  every  province 
of  America,  another  vehement  Protestant  goes  a  step  further, 
and  contrasts  the  Jesuits,  as  Lord  Macaulay  was  wont  to  do, 
with  the  worldly  and  covetous  missionaries  of  his  own  creed. 
"  The  early  missionaries  who  ventured  into  the  prairies  and 
savannahs  of  America  gave  many  indications  of  being  animated 
by  an  apostolic  spirit.  .  .  .  Destitute  themselves,  they  had  no 
lucrative  employments  to  offer  in  the  shape  of  subaltern  offices 
in  a  richly  endowed  missionary  establishment,  to  tempt  the 
natives  to  enlist  as  retainers  in  the  household  of  Christianity. 
They  did  not  practise  the  simony  of  buying  converts."^:  "  They," 
says  another  English  traveller,  "  have  brought  nearly  the  whole 
of  the  Indian  population  of  South  America  into  the  bosom  of 
their  Church.  Notwithstanding  the  numerous  Church  and 
Sectarian  missionaries  sent  from  England,  I  never  met  with  one 
Indian  converted  by  them."§  Thus,  according  to  the  words  of 
our  Lord,  when  He  noticed  the  judgments  of  men  upon  Him 
self  and  His  disciples,  "  is  wisdom  justified  of  all  her  children." 

Before  we  finally  quit  Brazil,  to  pursue  elsewhere  the  same 
inquiry,  let  us  add,  according  to  our  custom,  a  brief  account 
of  the  character  and  fortunes  of  Protestantism  in  that  empire. 
The  Huguenots  of  France,  the  Calvinists  of  Holland,  and  the 
Episcopalians  of  England,  have  all  made  attempts  to  acquire 
influence  in  Brazil.  It  would  be  impossible  to  say  which  class 
has  failed  most  signally.  It  has  often  been  observed,  that 
heresy  always  presents  itself  under  one  of  two  aspects  ;  when 
it  does  not  act  a  tragedy,  it  performs  a  comedy  ;  when  it  is 
not  ferocious,  it  is  ludicrous.  The  Dutch  made  the  Brazilians 
groan  ;  the  English  only  made  them  smile. 

Of  the  Dutch  Protestants,   "  whose   colonial  history  is  so 

*  Travels  in  Brazil,  by  Prince  Maximilian  of  Wied-Neuwied,  cb.  vi.,  p.  150 
(1820). 

f  Travels  in  the  Interior  of  Brazil,  by  George  Gardner,  F.L.S.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  81 
(1846). 

\  Asiatic  Journal,  vol.  ix.,  p.  3. 

§  Nine  Months'  Residence  in  New  Zealand,  by  Augustus  Earle,  p.  171. 

VOL.  II.  12 


162  CHAPTER  IX. 

inexpiably  disgraceful  to  human  nature."  we  have  heard  more 
than  enough.  They  were  driven  out,  and  went  home  to  re 
ceive  the  condolence  of  their  friends.  The  French  Huguenots 
had  scarcely  a  more  brilliant  destiny.  Here  is,  their  sorrowful 
history,  narrated  by  Protestant  writers. 

"  Rio  Janeiro,"  we  are  told  by  Messrs.  Kidder  and  Fletcher, 
who  always  affect  this  florid  style,  "  is  fraught  with  interest  to 
the  Protestant  Christian,  as  that  portion  of  the  New  World 
where  the  banner  of  the  reformed  religion  was  first  unfurled." 
As  it  was  torn  from  its  staff  as  soon  as  it  was  unfurled,  these 
gentlemen  were  hardly  prudent  in  calling  public  attention  to 
this  ill-starred  banner.  It  was  in  1556  that  Villegagnon,  him 
self  an  apostate,  and  who  had  once  conducted  Mary  Stuart 
in  safety  through  the  English  cruisers  from  Leith  to  France, 
landed  at  Rio  with  an  avant  corps  of  fourteen  Calvinists,  who 
seem  to  have  been  too  much  compromised  in  their  own  country 
to  regret  their  forced  emigration  to  another.  It  was  their  ob 
ject,  as  Prince  Adalbert  sympathizingly  observes,  to  form  "  the 
establishment  of  an  asylum  for  Huguenots  beyond  the  seas." 
This  "  interesting  band,"  as  the  English  historian  of  the  Lon 
don  Missionary  Society  calls  them,  tried  to  introduce  Calvinism 
among  "  the  benighted  savages ;"  but  "  it  does  not  appear," 
Dr.  Morrison  adds,  "  that  any  of  them  were  savingly  wrought 
upon  by  the  truth  ;"*  indeed  he  presently  confesses  that  they 
were  bent  chiefly  on  finding  an  "  asylum,"  and  that  "  the  con 
version  of  the  heathen  was  a  secondary  object."  Attacked  by 
the  Portuguese,  who  wisely  objected  to  the  presence  of  these 
seditious  adventurers,  their  "  banner"  was  speedily  lowered. 
Villegagnon,  recanting  his  errors,  was  reconciled  to  the  Church, 
and  left  his  companions  to  their  fate.  It  was  not  likely  that 
thirteen  Protestant  preachers  would  long  "  dwell  together  in 
unity;"  and  accordingly,  as  the  Rev.  Dr.  Walsh  relates, 
"  weakened  by  their  intestine  dissensions,"f  they  became  an 
easy  prey.  "  Their  squabbles,"  says  Mr.  Ewbank,  "  and  the 
bitterness  of  spirit  accompanying  them,  ruined  all."^  And  so 
they  came  to  a  bad  end ;  French  Protestantism  finally  col 
lapsed,  and  Brazil  declined,  once  for  all,  to  become  "an  asylum 
for  Huguenots  beyond  the  seas." 

The  English  have  hardly  been  more  successful.  Dr.  Walsh, 
a  minister  of  their  Established  Church,  a  gentleman  whose 
integrity  and  kindly  temper  it  is  impossible  not  to  admire,  was 
honored  by  the  friendship  of  the  Bishop  of  Rio,  "  the  excellent 

i 

The  Fathers  of  tlie  London  Missionary  Society,  vol.  i.,  p.  60. 
t  Notices  of  Brazil,  by  Rev.  R.  Walsh,  LL.D.,  vol.  i.,  p.  153  (1830). 
\  Life  in  Brazil,  ch.  viii.,  p.  83. 


MISSIONS  IN"  AMERICA.  163 

Jose  Caetano  da  Silva-Coutinho,  than  whom  a  more  learned  or, 
I  believe,  a  more  amiable  man  does  not  exist."  This  prelate, 
Dr.  Walsh  says,  "  fasts  all  the  year  on  one  meal  a  day ;"  and 
he  adds,  perhaps  with  unintentional  exaggeration,  "  he  studies 
all  night."  In  1810,  this  excellent  bishop  was  consulted  by 
the  civil  authorities  about  a  demand  which  the  English  res 
idents  in  Rio  had  made  for  a  public  chapel  in  that  city.  He 
advised  that  it  should  be  conceded,  and  for  this  reason  :  "  The 
English  have  really  no  religion,  but  they  are  a  proud  and 
obstinate  people ;  if  you  oppose  them,  they  will  persist,  and 
make  it  an  affair  of  infinite  importance ;  but  if  you  concede  to 
their  wishes,  the  chapel  will  be  built  and  nobody  will  ever  go 
near  it."  "The  Brazilians  say  he  was  right,"  adds  Dr.  Walsh, 
1830,  "  for  the  event  has  verified  the  prediction."  The  chapel, 
whose  history  the  bishop  had  so  sagaciously  predicted,  "  had  an 
air  of  dirt  and  neglect,"  says  this  clergyman,  "quite  painful  to 
contemplate,  and  the  congregation  seemed  to  take  no  interest 
in  it  when  it  was  built,  notwithstanding  their  zeal  to  have  it 
established."*  Twenty-six  years  later,  in  1856,  to  bring  the 
history  down  to  the  present  hour,  Mr.  Ewbank  relates,  that 
"the  British  chapel  never  received  a  native  convert,  while 
monks  have  drawn  members  from  it."f 

One  more  anecdote  may  close  the  history  of  Anglicanism  in 
Brazil.  Dr.  Walsh  had  observed  during  his  residence  "the 
deep  impression  of  rational  piety"  among  the  Brazilians,  and 
that  "  the  great  body  of  the  people  are  zealously  attached  to 
their  religion ;"  and  then  he  attests,  with  surprising  candor, 
the  supreme  but  good-humored  contempt  which  they  mani 
fested  for  Protestantism.  "An  English  merchant  and  his 
wife,"  he  says,  "  had  incurred  the  wrath  of  the  Brazilians"  by 
sneering  at  their  processions  in  Passion  Week,  which  these 
fervent  islanders  loudly  condemned  as  "  Popish  idolatry."  The 
people  of  Eio  only  replied,  says  Dr.  Walsh,  by  adding  to  the 
images  of  Pilate,  Judas  Iscariot,  and  other  malefactors,  "  two 
figures  that  exactly  resembled  the  merchant  and  his  wife — 
nothing  could  be  more  correct  than  the  likeness." J 

Finally,  in  1S56,  an  American  Protestant — evidently  an 
amiable  man,  though  he  calls  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  "an  Italian 
devotee  of  the  twelfth  century,"  and  looks  upon  the  Catholic 
religion  only  as  an  incomprehensible  mystery  which  defies 
analysis  and  baffles  criticism — thus  announces  his  view  of  the 
actual  prospects  of  Protestantism  in  Brazil:  "The  more  I  see 


*  Vol.  i.,  p.  328. 
f  Cli.  xx.,  p.  238. 
;  Vol.  ii.,  p.  398. 


164:  CHAPTER  IX. 

of  this  people,"— whom  he  lauds  as  "hospitable,  affectionate, 
intelligent,  and  aspiring," — "the  more  distant  appears  the 
success  of  any  Protestant  missions  among  them.  .  .  .  .  The 
people  avoid  a  missionary  as  one  with  whom  association  is 
disreputable,  and  they  entertain  a  feeling  towards  him  border 
ing  on  contempt,  arising  from  a  rooted  belief  in  his  ignorance 
and  presumption."* 


'  GUYANA. 

If  we  now  quit  for  a  time  the  empire  of  Brazil  at  its  northern 
frontier,  we  shall  find,  between  the  Amazon  and  the  Oronoco, 
on  the  eastern  coast,  three  narrow  territories,  which  acknowledge 
respectively  the  dominion  of  England,  France,  and  Holland.  Of 
the  Dutch  proceedings  we  have  already  heard  more  than 
enough,  but  a  few  words  may  be  allowed  with  respect  to  the 
English  and  French. 

British  Guyana  has  found  a  capable  historian  in  Dr.  Dalton. 
Two  or  three  sentences  from  that  candid  writer  will  suffice  to 
prove  the  contrast  which  we  might  have  confidently  anticipated, 
and  which  is  not  less  conspicuous  in  this  obscure  region  than 
in  the  wider  fields  which  we  have  already  visited.  Of  the 
negroes  under  the  patronage  of  English  missionary  societies, 
he  says,  "Puritans  in  profession,  they  are  liberals  in  practice," — 
that  is,  as  he  explains,  "  they  appeared  to  think  that  faith 
alone  was  necessary,  and  that  good  works  were  superfluous." 
And  then  he  gives  one  more  example  of  the  real  influence  of 
Protestant  Bibles.  "The  lazy,  the  dissolute,  and  the  disaf 
fected  met  every  rebuke  and  remonstrance  by  some  scriptural 
phrase  or  religious  expression."  Of  the  natives,  he  says, 
"After  all,"  that  is,  after  the  usual  enormous  and  perfectly 
useless  expenditure,  "  the  native  Indian  afforded  but  poor  en 
couragement  in  the  arduous  task  of  Christianization."t 

The  negro  appears  to  have  profited  as  little  by  the  presence  of 
the  English  emissaries.  His  teachers  have  been  aided  during 
many  years  by  the  power  and  wealth  of  England,  but  with  so 
little  fruit,  as  an  English  writer  notices  in  1860,  that  though  he 
considers  the  Guyana  Protestant  negro  "  somewhat  superior  to 
his  brother  in  Jamaica,"  he  thus  describes  the  final  influence  of 
the  teaching  which  he  has  received  :  "  It  seems  to  me  that  he 

*  Ewbank,  ubi  supra. 

\  History  of  British  Guiana,  by  Henry  G.  Dalton,  M.D.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iv , 
pp.  146-8. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  165 

never  connects  his  religion  with  his  life,  never  reflects  that  his 
religion  should  bear  upon  his  conduct."  Mr.  Trollope  adds, 
that  his  information  was  mainly  derived  "  from  clergymen  of 
the  Church  of  England,"  whose  unusual  candor  is  perhaps  due 
to  the  fact  that  most  of  these  singular  "converts"  had  rejected 
their  more  tranquil  ceremonies  for  the  exciting  harangues  of 
the  Baptist  or  Wesleyan  preacher — whose  sects  have,  as  usual, 
accompanied  the  Church  of  England  to  Guyana.  "They  sing 
and  halloa,  and  scream,  and  have  revivals.  They  talk  of  their 
i  dear  brothers'  and  '  dear  sisters,'  and  in  their  ecstatic  howl- 
ings  get  some  fun  for  their  money."*  And  this  is  all  which 
the  English  have  done  in  Guyana. 

"The  implements  of  conversion,"  as  Mr.  Southey  speaks, 
appear  to  have  been  wanting  ;  and  Dr.  Dalton  does  not  conceal 
that  all  the  English  efforts  were  only  cost.y  failures.  On  the 
other  hand,  this  Protestant  writer  generously  observes  of  the 
Catholic  missionaries  in  British  Guyana,  who  do  not  receive 
much  aid  from  patrons  of  any  sort,  and  least  of  all  from  the 
government,  "  All  are  respected  for  their  piety  and  zeal.  The 
number  of  Eoman  Catholics  in  the  colony  is  about  ten  thousand." 

In  speaking  of  the  French  mission  in  Guyana,  we  are  obliged, 
for  the  first  time,  to  use  Catholic  evidence,  in  default  of  any 
other.  In  1560,  the  Spanish  missionary,  Sala,  in  company 
with  another  Dominican  Father,  entered  this  province,  but  both 
were  immediately  martyred.  In  1643,  the  French  Capuchins 
repeated  the  attempt,  with  the  same  result.  Four  years  earlier, 
the  Jesuits  entered  the  country  at  another  point,  under  Fathers 
Meland  and  Pelleprat,  and  evangelized  the  savage  tribe  of  the 
Galibis,  whose  ferocity  they  appear  to  have  disarmed  by  their 
contempt  of  suffering  and  danger,  and  whose  obedience  they 
won  by  patient  wisdom  and  charity.  In  1653,  Father  Pelleprat 
published  a  Grammar  and  Dictionary  of  their  language.  In. 
1654,  Fathers  Aubergeon  and  Gueimu,  after  converting  many 
pagans,  were  martyred,  the  one  after  twenty,  the  other  after 
fifteen  years  of  religious  life.  At  this  time  the  Dutch  seized 
Cayenne,  and  when  they  were  cast  out  it  was  found  that  "  Jews 
and  Protestants  had  everywhere  thrown  down  the  crosses,  the 
emblem  of  our  salvation. "f  This  was  the  only  effect  of  their 
presence.  At  length,  after  the  due  proportions  of  martyrdoms, 
the  work  of  conversion  in  French  Guyana  was  so  effectually 
accomplished,  in  spite  of  the  peculiar  difficulties  of  such  a  mis 
sion,  and  the  impracticable  character  of  the  natives,  that  in 

*  The  West  Indies  and  the  Spanish  Main,  by  Anthony  Trollope,  ch.  xii., 
p.  199. 

f  Mission  de  Cayenne  et  de  la  Guyane  Frangaise,  par  M.  F.  de  Montezou,  do 
la  Compagnie  de  Jesus,  introd.,  p.  x.  (1857). 


166  CHAPTER  IX. 

1674,  Fathers  Grillet  and  Bechamel  started  from  Cayenne  for 
the  interior,  with  the  intention  of  renewing  in  its  distant  soli 
tudes  the  same  patient  apostolate.  Here,  after  fifteen  years  of 
prodigious  toil,  surmounting  a  thousand  disgusts  and  disap 
pointments  occasioned  by  the  inconstancy  or  the  brutality  of  the 
savages,  the  celebrated  Father  Aime  Lombard  was  able  to  erect 
the  first  Christian  Church  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  Kourou. 
For  twenty-three  years  he  had  labored  among  these  barbarians, 
and  at  last  could  report  to  his  friend  de  la  Iseuville,  in  1733,  in 
these  words  :  "  Acquainted  as  you  are  with  the  levity  of  our 
Indians,  you  will  no  doubt  have  been  surprised  that  their 
natural  inconstancy  should  at  length  have  been  overcome.  It  is 
religion  which  has  effected  this  prodigy,  and  which  every  day 
fixes  its  roots  deeper  in  their  hearts.  The  horror  with  which 
they  now  regard  their  former  superstitions,  their  regularity  in 
frequently  approaching  the  sacraments,  their  assiduity  in  assist 
ing  at  the  Divine  office,  the  profound  sentiments  of  piety  which 
they  manifest  at  the  hour  of  death,  these  are  indeed  effectual 
proofs  of  a  sincere  and  lasting  conversion."* 

Such  were  the  fruits  of  the  blood  and  the  toil  of  men  in  whom 
even  the  most  degraded  races  of  the  earth,  hitherto  unconscious 
of  either  truth  or  virtue,  detected  the  presence  of  God.  And 
this  was  only  a  part  of  their  work.  Along  both  banks  of  the 
Oyapoch,  throughout  its  course,  missions  were  established  by 
apostles  who  seemed  to  have  been  almost  exempt  from  human 
infirmity  ;  and  who,  as  a  French  historian  relates,  "  formed  the 
gigantic  project,  which  had  no  terrors  for  the  courage  of  these 
intrepid  missionaries,  of  uniting  by  a  chain  of  evangelical 
posts,  both  extremities  of  Guyana." 

Already,  in  1711,  M.  de  la  Motte-Aigron,  lieutenant  of  the 
king,  could  report :  "  It  has  at  length  pleased  God  to  reward  by 
a  success  almost  incredible  the  constancy  of  His  servants." 
Fourteen  years  later,  Father  Arnaud  d'Ayma,  conspicuous  for 
dauntless  valor  even  among  the  one  hundred  and  eleven 
Jesuits  who  labored  in  this  difficult  field,  had  fought  his  way 
to  the  remotest  of  all  the  known  tribes  ;  and  in  that  distant 
spot,  amongst  the  nation  of  the  Pirioux, — "lodged  in  a 
miserable  cabin,  living  like  the  savages,  spending  his  day  in 
prayer,  in  the  study  of  their  language,  or  the  instruction  of 
their  children," — he  so  won  the  hearts  of  the  barbarians,  that  at 
length  "  they  resolved  to  follow  him  whithersoever  he  wished  to 
lead  them."  And  then  he  founded  the  mission  of  St.  Paul,  on 
the  Oyapoch,  where  he  collected  the  Pirioux  and  the  whole 
nation  of  the  Caranes ;  as  a  little  later  Fathet  d'Ausillac  gathered 

*  P.  328. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  167 

by  the  banks  of  the  Ouanari  the  tribes  of  the  Tocoyenes,  the 
Maourioux,  and  the  Maraones;  and  Father  Creulli  performed 
those  miracles  of  apostolic  wisdom  and  charity  which  made 
Chateaubriand  exclaim,  "  What  he  accomplished  seems  to 
surpass  the  powers  of  human  nature." 

In  1762,  the  evil  day  arrived  for  Guyana,  as  for  every  other 
land,  and  the  madness  of  an  hour  put  back  the  conversion  of 
the  heathen  world  to  a  future  and  unknown  period.  Once  more 
the  enemy  triumphed ;  and  there  was  a  sound  of  mourning  by 
the  banks  of  the  Oyapoch  and  the  Ouanari,  as  by  those  of  the 
Parana  and  the  Paraguay. 

In  1763,  the  Due  de  Choisenl,  imitating  his  compeer  the 
Marquis  de  Pombal,  formed  the  project  of  a  grand  scheme  of 
colonization  in  Guyana,  perhaps  in  order  to  show  that  he  also 
could  do  without  the  missionaries  of  the  Cross.  Fourteen 
thousand  persons  were  persuaded  by  magnificent  promises  to 
emigrate  to  this  province,  where  Choiseul  bade  them  surpass, 
by  the  aid  of  a  sounder  political  economy,  the  triumphs  of  the 
Jesuits.  They  began  by  expelling  the  venerable  Father 
O'Reilly,  the  last  survivor  and  sole  representative  of  the  Com 
pany  of  Jesus,  and  the  Christian  Indians  fled  before  them. 
Two  years  later,  the  Chevalier  de  Balzac  could  report  to 
Europe,  occupied  in  admiring  its  own  wisdom  and  enlighten 
ment,  that  only  nine  hundred  and  eighteen  of  the  colonists 
remained  alive.  More  than  thirteen  thousand  dupes  of  M.  de 
Choiseul,  who  proposed  to  eclipse  the  Jesuits  in  their  own 
triumphs  had  perished  in  two  years !  In  the  following  year, 
1766,  M.  de  Fiedrnond,  governor  of  Cayenne,  wrote  thus  to  the 
Due  de  Praslin,  who  was  probably  as  indifferent  to  this  catas 
trophe  as  to  the  acts  of  which  it  was  a  natural  sequel :  "  I  have 
already  informed  the  Due  de  Choiseul  how  necessary  it  is  to 
send  priests  to  this  colony."  And  then  he  describes  the 
destruction  of  the  once  flourishing  missions,  the  flight  of  the 
Indians,  the  growth  of  crime  amongst  the  negroes  deprived  of 
their  pastors,  and  the  rapid  ruin  of  the  colony.  Finally,  this 
officer  adds,  "Heligion  is  dying  out  among  the  whites,  as  well 
as  amongst  the  colored  races."* 

For  ten  years  he  reiterated  the  complaint,  but  always  in  vain. 
How  should  "philosophers"  condescend  to  entreat  hum  bio 
missionaries  to  repair  the  evils  of  which  they  had  been  them 
selves  the  authors?  How  should  men  in  whom  the  light  of 
faith  had  gone  out,  and  whose  intelligence  wTas  enfeebled  by 
arrogant  self-love,  confess  that  the  wide-spread  ruin  was  the 
work  of  their  own  hands  ?  At  length  the  good  King  Louis  XVI., 

*  P.  335. 


168  CHAPTER  IX. 

himself  destined  to  be  a  sacrifice  to  the  impiety  which  had 
already  devoured  so  many  victims,  sent  three  Jesuits — Fathers 
Padilla,  Mathos,  and  Ferreira — who  had  been  banished  with  the 
others  from  Brazil;  and  then  was  seen  a  touching  spectacle, 
which  has  been  described  in  the  Journal  of  Christophe  de 
Murr.  "The  poor  savages,  beholding  once  again  men  clothed 
in  the  habit  which  they  had  learned  to  venerate,  and  hearing 
them  speak  their  own  language,  fell  at  their  feet,  bathing  them 
with  tears,  and  promised  to  live  once  more  as  good  Christians, 
since  they  had  restored  to  them  the  Fathers  who  had  begotten 
them  to  Jesus  Christ." 

In  1852,  the  Jesuits  were  once  more  in  Cayenne.  It  was  not 
the  first  time  that  a  member  of  the  family  of  Napoleon  had 
understood  that  if  the  impossible  was  to  be  accomplished,  it 
was  the  Fathers  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  who  must  be  asked  to 
attempt  it.  Between  June,  1853,  and  September,  1856,  eleven 
Jesuits  died  in  the  swamps  of  Cayenne  of  yellow  fever.  "  Oh ! 
how  many  souls  has  he  delivered  from  hell !"  was  the  exclama 
tion  of  a  poor  French  outcast  over  the  body  of  one  of  them. 
But  they  have  cheerfully  accepted  this  "  crucifying  mission,"  as 
Father  D'Abbadie  called  it;  there  were  broken  hearts  to  be 
comforted,  and  they  asked  no  more.  "  Why  do  you  weep  ?"  said 
D'Abbadie  to  his  brethren  as  they  stood  round  his  death-bed,  in 
1856  ;  "  I  am  going  to  heaven !"  And  it  was  always  by  the  aid 
of  the  glorious  and  all-powerful  mother  of  God  that  he  and  his 
companions  recovered  the  unhappy  souls  committed  to  their 
care.  "What  led  you,"  said  one  of  the  Fathers  to  an  aged 
criminal  who  had  obtained  the  grace  of  a  happy  death,  uto 
seek  at  last  the  succors  of  religion?"  "I  have  done  nothing 
but  evil  during  my  whole  life,"  he  replied  ;  "  one  thing  only  I 
have  never  failed  to  do,  and  that  I  owe  to  the  councils  of  my 
mother:  every  day  I  have  said  the  Salve  Regina,  in  honor  of 
the  Holy  Yirgin."  And  that  Blessed  One,  by  her  mighty 
protection,  had  saved  him  at  last. 

It  is  time  to  leave  Guyana,  where  the  same  works  are  in 
progress  at  this  hour,  and  where  missionaries  who  have  sacrificed 
all  for  the  love  of  God,  and  do  not  repent  the  sacrifice,  still 
display  the  apostolic  virtues  which  forced  not  long  ago  from 
the  French  governor  of  Cayenne  this  cry  of  admiration,  "  You 
are  happier  than  we ;  death  itself  has  no  terrors  for  such  as 
you."* 

*  P.  460. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  169 


CAKTHAGENA    AND   THE   BLESSED   PETEK   CLAVER. 

If  now  we  continue  onr  hasty  journey  through  the  provinces 
of  South  America,  and  traverse  Venezuela,  without  halting 
by  the  banks  of  the  Cayuni  or  the  Apure,  so  often  trodden  by 
the  messengers  of  peace,  we  shall  enter  New  Grenada,  and  at 
Garth ageria  we  shall  lind  the  traces  of  one  whom  the  Church 
has  already  presented  to  the  homage  of  the  faithful,  under  the 
title  of  the  Blessed  Peter  Claver. 

Born  towards  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  an  age  in 
which  the  most  prodigious  graces  of  heaven  were  poured  out  on 
every  side,  as  if  to  counterpoise  the  irreparable  calamities  to 
which  it  also  gave  birth,  this  offspring  of  an  illustrious  Catalonian 
race  displayed  even  in  infancy  the  gifts  with  which  he  was  to  be 
more  abundantly  favored  in  his  after  career.  In  1602,  he  was 
admitted  as  a  postulant  into  the  Society  of  Jesus,  at  Tarragona. 
In  1610,  he  left  Seville,  at  the  bidding  of  Claude  Aquaviva,  for 
the  land  in  which  he  was  to  spend  thirty-nine  years  of  what 
has  been  truly  called  "a  perpetual  martyrdom."  In  1615,  he 
celebrated  his  first  Mass  at  Carthagena,  of  which  it  was  the 
will  of  God  that  he  should  become  the  apostle. 

"  Do  every  thing  for  the  greater  glory  of  God,"  was  one  of  the 
rules  found  in  a  book  containing  his  secret  thoughts ;  and  a 
second  was  this,  "Seek  nothing  in  this  world  but  what  Jesus 
Himself  sought — to  sanctify  souls,  to  labor,  to  suffer,  and  if 
necessary  to  die  for  their  salvation,  and  all  for  the  sake  of 
Jesus !"  In  these  two  rules,  as  Fleuriau  observes,  "  his  whole 
life  was  comprised." 

At  his  solemn  profession,  he  added  to  the  customary  engage 
ments  the  special  vow,  "  to  be  until  death  the  slave  of  the 
negroes."  How  well  he  kept  it,  they  know  who  have  read  the 
story  of  his  life.  As  soon  as  a  ship-load  of  negroes  arrived 
from  the  coast  of  Africa, — from  Congo,  Guinea,  or  Angola, — 
"  his  pale  emaciated  face  assumed  a  hue  of  health  quite  unusual 
to  it."  It  was  he  who  first  hurried  to  the  shore  to  greet  the 
captives,  astonished  to  receive  such  a  welcome ;  who  consoled 
them  with  loving  words  of  peace,  and  poured  into  their  seared 
hearts  the  balm  of  hope.  It  was  he  who  followed  them  with  a 
father's  love  to  their  wretched  homes,  that  by  sharing  their 
sufferings  he  might  teach  them  how  to  bear  them,  how  to  unite 
them  with  the  sufferings  of  Christ.  And  then,  in  wrords  of 
more  than  human  wisdom,  he  spoke  to  them  of  Him  whose 
name  he  could  rarely  mention  without  shedding  tears.  But 
who  can  describe  that  angelic  ministry,  unless  filled  with  his 
own  spirit  ?  Who  can  bear  to  contemplate  the  terrible  austerities 


170  CHAPTER   IX. 

with  which  it  was  accompanied,  and  of  which,  in  an  age  like 
this,  one  can  hardly  venture  even  to  speak? 

Clothed  in  a  hair  shirt  from  his  neck  to  his  feet,  and  present 
ing  such  an  aspect  as  St.  John  the  Baptist  when  he  came  out 
of  the  desert  to  preach  by  his  own  example  the  doctrine  of 
mortification,  the  man  of  God  would  sit  during  the  long  hours 
of  the  tropical  day  in  the  tribunal  of  penance,  fainting  with 
heat  and  with  the  fetid  stench  of  the  poor  Africans  who 
thronged  round  this  physician  of  souls ;  and  when  evening 
came  "at  last,  and,  nature  having  given  way,  they  were  obliged 
to  carry  him  home  in  their  arms,  his  only  refreshment,  we  are 
told,  was  to  spend  hours  in  mental  prayer.  Even  some  of  his 
companions,  though  members  of  that  Society  which  has  faced 
all  trials  and  braved  all  dangers,  sometimes  lost  their  conscious 
ness  in  the  presence  of  sights  upon  which  he  calmly  looked, 
both  in  the  huts  of  the  negroes,  and  in  the  hospitals  of  St. 
Sebastian  and  St.  Lazarus.  It  was  he  who  ministered  to  the 
most  loathsome  diseases,  and  even  kissed  the  hideous  wounds 
which  they  had  traced  in  bodies  half-devoured  by  scrofula  or 
gangrene.  .  .  *  And  in  the  midst  of  such  scenes,  at  which 
angels  are  daily  present  in  their  invisible  ministry,  the  spirit  of 
God  within  him  would  sometimes  break  forth,  so  that  the 
reflected  glory  of  his  Master  shone  around  him.  Once,  at  St. 
Sebastian's,  the  Archdeacon  of  Carthagena,  who  had  gone  to 
the  hospital  to  distribute  alms,  "  found  him  in  the  midst  of  the 
sick,  wi£h  the  look  of  a  Seraph,  his  face  shining  like  the  sun, 
and  a  circle  of  light  round  his  head."  More  than  once,  a 
company  returning  home  in  the  darkness  of  the  night  thought 
the  house  of  the  Saint  was  on  fire,  but  discovered  on  approach 
ing,  as  they  afterwards  attested  on  oath,  that  it  was  tilled,  like 
the  temple  of  old,  "  with  the  glory  of  the  Lord,"  and  saw  him 
suspended  in  the  air,  and  as  it  were  transfigured  before  them. 
Maralnlis  est  Deus  in  sanctis  ejus!  \ 

There  is  no  need  to  describe  at  length  the  works  of  this 
apostle,  nor  their  marvellous  fruits.  Row  should  such  a  mis 
sionary  not  succeed  ?  It  was  the  Mahometan  negroes  from 
Guinea  who  gave  him  the  greatest  trouble.  Yet  he  never  ceased 
to  pursue  them  with  his  cheerful  pleasant  speech,  or  sometimes 
with  terrible  menaces;  as  once  when  he  held  up  his  crucifix 
before  a  dying  and  obstinate  unbeliever,  and  exclaimed  in  accents 
which  reached  even  that  obdurate  soul,  "  Behold  the  God  who 

"Malattia  ordinaria   e  una  certa    specie  di  lebbra,   clie  loro  impiaga 
ornbilmento  la  bocca  e  le  gingive ;  indisi  stcnde  a  comprendere  tutte  le  mem 
bra  e  fame  una  sola  piaga  putrida  e  verminosa."     Compendia  delta  Vita  del 
B.  Pit-tro  Claver,  p.  25. 
f  Fleuriau,  livre  iii. 


MISSIONS    IN   AMERICA.  171 

is  about  to  judge  you  !"  Multitudes  of  Turks  and  Moors  owed 
their  salvation  to  his  ministry,  for  there  was  in  him  a  power 
which  few  could  resist.  Once  a  ship  containing  more  than  six 
hundred  English  prisoners  was  captured  in  the  bay  of  Carthagena. 
Among  the  captives  was  an  Anglican  dignitary,  with  his  wife 
and  family.  Fleuriau  calls  him  an  "  archdeacon,"  and  Boero  a 
"  bishop."  Touched,  as  the  latter  relates,  by  the  "  squisita 
affabilita  e  amorevolezza"  of  Claver,  and  rejecting  the  Catholic 
faith,  like  many  of  his  sect,  rather  through  ignorance  and 
prejudice  than  from  the  malice  of  a  disobedient  heart,  he  strove 
in  vain  to  resist  the  Saint ;  then  he  would  promise  to  abandon 
his  errors  at  some  future  period,  declare  "  that  he  was  in  heart 
a  Catholic,"  that  there  was  no  need  for  precipitation,  "  that  if 
he  were  reconciled  to  the  Roman  Church  he  would  be  deprived 
of  his  revenues  and  his  numerous  family  of  their  subsistence." 
But  grace  was  too  strong  for  him,  and  he  died  not  long  after  in 
Father  Claver's  arms,  rejoicing  that  he  had  escaped  from 
delusions  which  still  darken  in  our  own  day  many  a  generous 
heart,  and  exulting  in  the  light  of  that  truth  which  had  first 
dawned  upon  him  in  captivity.  Almost  all  the  other  prisoners 
were  converted  in  their  turn,  including  one  who  had  been 
accustomed  to  revile  the  Saint,  and  had  called  him  to  his  face 
"  a  hypocrite  and  an  impostor." 

Such  was  the  servant  of  God,  and  such  his  work.  It  was 
especially  among  the  negroes  that  he  labored,  and  with  results 
which  have  disposed  forever  of  the  popular  notion  that  this  race 
is  incapable  of  true  conversion.  "  The  authority  he  had  gained 
over  their  minds,"  says  one  of  his  autobiographers,  "  and  their 
affection  for  him,  made  them  obey  without  reply  or  hesitation  ; 
the  mere  sight  of  him  would  check  the  most  unruly,  and  even 
the  vicious,  when  they  met  him,  knelt  down  to  ask  his  blessing." 
Finally,  the  number  whom  he  gathered  into  the  fold  of  Christ, 
either  from  Paganism  or  Mahometanism,  was  so  great  as  to  bo 
incredible,  if  it  were  not  certified  by  competent  witnesses.  "A 
religious  questioned  him  on  this  subject  shortly  before  he  died, 
to  whom  he  answered,  that  he  thought  he  had  baptized  more 
than  three  hundred  thousand ;  but  as  humility  always  led  him 
to  diminish  the  number  of  his  good  works,  it  has  been  asserted 
by  persons  likely  to  be  well  informed,  that  he  had  baptized  at 
least  four  hundred  thousand." 

In  his  last  mission,  Father  Claver  penetrated  for  the  first 
time  to  the  dangerous  country  between  the  Magdalena  and  the 
Cordilleras,  "  where  the  ferocity  of  the  Indians  had  hitherto 
prevented  the  entrance  of  Christianity."  In  1654,  he  died. 
Three  years  later,  his  tornb  was  reopened;  when  Dr.  Barthol 
omew  Torrez,  an  experienced  physician,  affirmed  on  oath— 


172  CHAPTER  IX. 

that  although  the  very  coffin,  and  every  thing  in  it^was  com 
pletely  rotten  and  decayed,  "  the  body,  with  all  its  skin,  nerves, 
and  other  parts,  was  sound  and  healthy,  notwithstanding  the 
quantity  of  lime  which  had  covered  it." 


PEEU    AND   CHILI. 

It  is  not  a  formal  history  of  missions  which  we  are  writing, 
and  for  this  reason  we  have  not  attempted  to  exhaust  the  facts 
which  illustrate  that  history,  even  in  a  single  ^province  of  the 
earth.  Our  purpose  has  been  only  to  trace,  in  all  lands,  the 
contrast  between  the  work  of  the  Church  and  the  work  of  the 
Sects  ;  to  show  that  God  and  His  gifts  have  been  ever  with  the 
first,  never  with  the  last ;  and  to  prove  by  testimony  so  various, 
impartial,  and  harmonious,  that  neither  pride  nor  anger  shall 
be  able  to  gainsay  it,  that  Catholic  and  Protestant  missions  have 
differed  so  enormously,  both  in  their  agents  and  their  results, 
as  to  exclude  all  doubt  in  the  mind  of  even  the  least  thoughtful 
observer,  of  every  man  in  whom  the  instincts  of  a  Christian 
still  survive,  which  were  Divine  and  which  human.  We  are 
not  obliged,  therefore,  to  trace  with  minute  detail  the  missions 
of  Peru  and  Chili,  which  exactly  resemble,  in  every  feature, 
those  which  have  been  already  reviewed. 

A  few  words  will  suffice  with  reference  to  the  two  famous 
provinces  which  lie  between  the  Andes  and  the  Ocean.  In 
1590, — fifty-seven  years  after  the  last  Inca  perished  in  the  city 
of  Cassamarca,  by  the  order  of  Pizarro, — Fathers  Antony  Lopez 
and  Michael  IJrrea  were  martyred  in  Peru.  In  1593,  eight 
Jesuits  entered  Chili.  Aranda  and  Yaldiva  won  to  the  faith 
the  fierce  and  cruel  Araucanians,  but  a  little  later,  continuing 
their  intrepid  apostolate,  Yecchi,  Aranda,  and  Montalban  were 
martyred ;  and  when  the  Spaniards  proposed  to  revenge  their 
death,  it  was  Yaldiva  who  dissuaded  them  from  this  act  of 
human  justice,  and  afterwards  established,  by  his  own  unaided 
ministry,  four  new  missions  in  Chili.  Yainly  the  trained  soldiers 
of  Spain  tried  to  penetrate  into  the  interior,  where  every  forest 
concealed  a  hostile  army,  and  every  river  must  be  forded  in  the 
tnidst  of  a  storm  of  darts  and  arrows.  And  then  these  men  of 
war  had  recourse  to  another  order  of  warriors,  bolder  than  them 
selves,  because  fighting  in  a  nobler  cause,  and  "  missionaries 
were  employed,"  as  an  English  writer  observes,  "  to  penetrate 
into  the  retreats  of  the  Indians,  in  order  to  civilize  them  by 
converting  them  to  Christianity.  In  these  attempts,  rendered 
doubly  hazardous  by  the  exasperation  of  the  Indians,  many  of 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  173 

the  ministers  of  religion  fell  victims  to  their  zeal."  *  But  the 
work  was  never  suspended.  In  1598,  de  Medrano  and  de 
Figueroa  had  already  penetrated  the  recesses  of  the  Cordilleras. 
In  1604,  a  college  had  been  founded  at  Santa  Fe.  Imperial i, 
D'Ossat,  de  Gregorio,  and  others  carried  the  faith  to  one  tribe 
after  another,  sometimes  falling  under  the  clubs  or  the  arrows  of 
the  savages,  but  never  crying  in  vain  for  new  apostles  to  complete 
the  work  which  they  had  left  unfinished.  In  the  single  year 
1614,  fifty-six  Fathers  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  arrived  in  Peru, 
to  replace  those  who  had  fallen.  At  a  still  later  date,  Father 
Stanislas  Arlet  had  traversed  the  most  inaccessible  forests  and 
mountains  of  Western  America,  and  gathered  six  nations  into 
one  family.  Tucurnan  had  become  a  Catholic  province.  The 
Dominicans  were  spread  chiefly  through  the  northern  districts, 
the  Franciscans  were  scattered  at  one  time  from  Bogota  to 
Buenos  Ayres.  The  Jesuits  were  everywhere. 

"  From  a  corner  of  this  department  of  Peru,"  says  Dr. 
Archibald  Smith, — candid  and  generous  in  spite  of  the  preju 
dices  of  country  and  education, — "  the  voice  of  Christianity  has 
penetrated  into  vast  regions  of  heathen  and  savage  tribes,  and 
reached  the  unsettled  wanderers  among  the  thickest  entangle 
ments  of  the  woods,  which  occupy  a  great  portion  of  the  widely 
extended  missionary  territory  of  Peru.  From  Ocopa  issued 
forth  those  zealous,  persevering,  self  denying  and  enduring  men, 
the  great  object  of  whose  lives  it  has  been,  in  the  midst  of  danger, 
and  in  the  name  of  the  Saviour,  to  add  to  the  faith  of  the  Church, 
and  to  civilized  society,  beings  whose  spirits  were  as  dark  as 
the  woods  they  occupied."  f  "All  South  America,"  observes  Mr. 
Walpole,  recording  the  same  facts,  "  was  explored  under  their 
direction.  Overcoming  every  difficulty,  surmounting  toils, 
braving  unheard-of  and  unknown  dangers,  smiling  at  and 
glorying  in  wounds,  hardships,  death  itself,  these  zealous  men 
spoke  of  Jesus  and  His  love  and  mercy  in  the  remotest  nook  of 
this  vast  continent."  J  Yet  neither  of  these  Protestant  travel 
lers,  nor  any  of  their  class, — differing  in  this  respect  from  the 
more  discerning  savages,  who  were  converted  by  such  apostles, 
because  even  they  could  recognize  the  presence  of  God  in  them, 
—appear  to  have  been  in  any  degree  impressed  by  the  truths 
which  they  eloquently  narrate,  or  to  have  derived  the  slightest 
admonition  from  them. 

We  may  not  stay  to  notice  one  by  one  the  men  who  evan 
gelized  the  Peruvian  races,  redeeming  the  violence  and  cupidity 

*  Stuart  Cochrane,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  219. 

j  Peru  as  it  is,  by  Archibald  Smith,  M.  D.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  114. 

;  Four  Years  in  Jie  Pacific,  by  the  Hon.  F.  Walpole,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  25. 


174:  CHAPTER   IX. 

of  the  soldiers  of  Spain,  and  winning  the  love  and  reverence 
of  the  native  tribes  m  spite  of  the  injuries  which  they  had 
received  from  Europeans ;  but  there  is  one  of  their  number 
whom  it  is  impossible  not  to  mention,  because  to  him  was  given, 
in  a  special  manner,  the  title  of  Apostle  of  Peru.  It  was  in 
1589  that  Francis  de  Solano  sailed  for  America,  designing  to 
labor  in  the  province  of  Tucuman,  which  lies  between  the 
Cordilleras  and  Paraguay,  "  because  there  he  might  hope  to 
find  the  greatest  dangers,  and  to  suffer  most  for  the  glory  of 
God."  Father  Louis  Bolanos,  also  a  Franciscan,  had  preceded 
him,  and  having  set  out  from  Lima  had  travelled  many  a 
weary  league  on  both  banks  of  the  Plata ;  but  a  greater  than 
he  was  now  to  enter  the  same  regions. 

Perfectly  conversant,  like  most  of  his  order,  with  the  dialects 
of  the  barbarous  tribes  whom  he  resolved  to  win,  St.  Francis 
Solano  threw  himself  into  the  combat  with  all  the  ardor  of  an 
apostle.  Already  he  had  gathered  thousands  into  the  fold  of 
Christ,  when  the  remoter  eastern  tribes,  who  wandered  through 
the  country  between  the  Dulce  and  the  St.  Tome,  came  down 
in  vast  numbers,  breathing  fury  and  slaughter  against  their 
converted  brethren,  and  threatening  the  most  cruel  torments 
to  all  who  had  become  Christians.  The  neophytes  began  ^to 
fly  in  terror,  and  the  new  mission  seemed  to  be  menaced  with 
swift  and  hopeless  destruction.  Then  Solano  went  forth  alone, 
confiding  in  the  protection  of  the  Mother  of  God,  to  meet  the 
advancing  multitude.  He  was  a  servant  of  Him  who  had  said, 
"  The  good  shepherd  giveth  his  life  for  the  sheep."  The  hour 
was  come  to  die,  and  he  would  die  as  becomes  an  apostle.  But 
he  was  only  to  be  a  martyr  in  desire ;  and  "  having  by  super 
natural  power  arrested  the  advance  of  the  barbarians,  he 
addressed  to  them  so  moving  a  discourse  on  the  Passion  of 
our  Divine  Lord,  and  exhorted  them  with  such  burning  words 
to  embrace  His  holy  religion,  that  in  that  single  day  more  than 
nine  thousand  were  converted."* 

After  this  he  went  through  the  land,  preaching  everywhere 
"  Jesus  Christ  crucified  ;"  and  everywhere  he  was  accompanied, 
like  the  primitive  missionaries,  by  "  signs  following."  Even 
the  wild  beasts,  as  multitudes  were  able  to  testify,  rendered  him 
homage  after  their  kind.  And  no  marvel, — for  as  one  of  his 
biographers  observes,  "It  is  a  principle  of  theology,  that  the 
revolt  of  irrational  creatures  against  man  is  only  a  consequence 
of  man's  rebellion  against  his  Maker."  "  The  pre-eminence  of 
the  Blessed  Lord  over  inanimate  matter,  and  much  more  over 
the  animal  creation,"  says  a  living  authority,  is  the  true  cause 

*  Seo  his  Life  l>y  Courtot,  cli-  viii. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  175 

that  "  as  His  Saints  advance  in  holiness  and  in  likeness  to 
Himself,  the  animals  obey  their  words,  revere  their  sanctity, 
and  minister  to  their  wants."  * 

In  1610,  St.  Francis  Solano  died.  Three  hundred  and  four 
witnesses,  of  all  ranks  and  classes,  were  examined  on  oath,  and 
attested  the  prodigies  which  they  had  witnessed,  and  the 
heroicity  of  the  virtues  which  had  transformed  a  desert  into 
a  garden.  Through  a  tract  of  two  thousand  miles  he  was 
numbered  among  the  patrons  and  defenders  of  the  faithful,  and 
a  hundred  tribes  burned  lamps  day  and  night  in  his  honor, 
and  called  upon  him  to  advocate  their  cause  in  heaven.  Then 
Urban  YIIL,  by  his  famous  decree  of  1631,  peremptorily  for 
bade  all  public  devotion  till  the  claims  of  the  Saint  had  been 
further  examined,  and  refused  even  to  allow  the  process  to 
continue  until  the  apostolic  edict  was  obeyed.  For  twenty 
years,  the  grateful  Indians,  who  had  loved  their  Father  with  all 
their  hearts,  refused  to  submit;  till  they  comprehended  at 
length  that  it  was  not  by  disobeying  the  Vicar  of  Christ  that 
they  could  honor  one  of  His  apostles.  And  so,  with  heavy 
hearts,  they  brought  in  all  the  lamps  which  they  had  kindled 
in  his  honor ;  and  in  1656,  his  body  was  removed  from  its 
shrine,  and  carefully  hidden  from  their  sight.  Nineteen  years 
later,  the  decree  of  Beatification  was  pronounced,  and  in  1726 
he  was  canonized. 

The  faith  which  St.  Francis  Solano  preached  is  still,  in  spite 
of  many  disasters,  and  of  the  crimes  and  follies  of  successive 
rulers,  the  light  and  the  glory  of  Peru.  Here,  as  in  every  other 
province  evangelized  by  the  sons  of  St.  Ignatius,  St.  Francis, 
and  St.  Dominic,  neither  neglect  nor  oppression  have  been  able 
to  undo  that  mighty  work,  unparalleled  since  the  first  ages  of 
Christianity,  by  which  it  was  the  will  of  God  to  replace  the 
apostate  millions  of  Sweden,  Germany,  and  Britain  by  a  mul 
titude  of  new  believers  in  China,  India,  and  America.  We 
have  seen  that  in  the  two  former  countries  persecution  and 
suffering  have  only  confirmed  the  faith  planted  in  other  days 
by  the  missionaries  of  the  Cross ;  and  it  is  time  to  show,  once 
more  by  Protestant  testimony,  that  in  Brazil  and  Colombia,  in 
Chili  and  Peru,  in  the  valley  of  the  Amazon  and  the  plains  of 
La  Plata,  the  same  astonishing  stability  attests  at  this  hour  by 
Whose  power  these  nations  were  won  to  the  service  of  Christ, 
by  Whose  protection  they  have  been  maintained  in  it. 

*  F.  Faber,  The  Blessed  Sacrament,  book  iv.,  sec.  ii.,  p.  483. 


176  CHAPTER  IX. 


PRESENT   STATE   OF   THE   SOUTH:   AMERICAN    PROVINCES. 

In  Brazil,  where  de  Nobrega  and  Anchieta  once  labored, 
eight  hundred  thousand  domesticated  Indians,  as  we  have  said, 
represent,  even  at  this  day,  the  fruits  of  their  toil.  Deprived 
during  sixty  years  of  their  Fathers  and  guides,  and  too  often 
scandalized  by  the  example  of  men  who  were  Christians  only  in 
name,  the  native  races  have  not  only  preserved  the  faith  through 
all  their  sorrows  and  trials,  but  have  everywhere  rejected  the 
bribes  and  the  caresses  of  heresy.  Even  Protestant  writers,  in 
spite  of  violent  and  incurable  prejudices,  do  justice  to  the 
generous  virtues  of  this  people.  Dr.  Walsh,  an  Anglican  min 
ister,  frankly  confesses,  as  we  have  seen,  the  "  deep  impression 
of  rational  piety,"  and  "  zealous  attachment  to  their  religion," 
which  he  noticed  during  his  long  residence  among  them. 
Drunkenness  and  blasphemy,  he  says,  were  unknown  ;  though 
once  he  heard,  "  on  Sunday  evening,  at  Rio,  a  desperate  riot  of 
drunken  blasphemers,  but  they  all  swore  in  English"*  Mr. 
Gardner  also  observes,  in  1846,  after  pursuing  during  some 
years  his  scientific  researches  in  these  tropical  climes,  "  It  was 
on  a  Sunday  morning  that  I  arrived  in  Liverpool  from  Brazil, 
and  during  the  course  of  that  day  I  saw  in  the  streets  a  greater 
number  of  cases  of  intoxication  than,  I  believe,  I  observed 
altogether  among  Brazilians,  whether  black  or  white,  during 
the  whole  period  of  my  residence  in  the  country."f 

Before  England  had  begun  to  educate  her  heathen  masses, 
Brazil  had  inaugurated  an  elaborate  system  of  public  instruc 
tion.  Dr.  Walsh  notices,  not  only  the  universality  of  primary 
education  in  Brazil,  but  the  still  more  remarkable  fact,  that 
many  of  the  colored  races  have  been  conspicuous  for  their 
success  in  various  branches  of  knowledge.  Speaking  of  the 
great  public  library  at  Rio,  and  the  affluence  of  students  of  all 
ranks,  he  asks,  "Is  it  not  most  unjust  to  accuse  the  Catholics 
as  enemies  to  knowledge?  Here  is  a  noble  and  public  literary 
institution,  filled  with  books  on  all  subjects," — and  with  Bible's 
in  almost  every  language, — "  founded  by  a  rigid  Catholic  mon 
arch,  and  superintended  and  conducted  by  Catholic  ecclesiastics, 
on  a  plan  even  more  liberal,  and  less  exclusive,  than  any  similar 
establishment  in  our  own  Protestant  country.":): 

It  would  be  too  long  to  quote  his  interesting  account  of  the 
irmandadeSj  or  religious  brotherhoods ;  which  "  consist  entirely 

*  Notices  of  Brazil,  vol.  i.,  p.  381. 

f  Travels  in  the  Interior  of  Brazil,  di.  i.,  p.  18. 

t  Vol.  i,  p.  438. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA. 

of  the  laity,"  and  whose  objects  are  to  build  and  repair 
churches,  found  and  maintain  hospitals,  bury  the  deceased 
poor,  and  to  do,  cheerfully  and  well,  whatsoever  else  Christian 
charity  can  suggest.  "It  is  quite  inconceivable,"  he  says, 
"  to  an  Englishman,  what  immense  sums  of  money  these  lay 
brothers  annually  expend  in  what  they  conceive  to  be  pious 
and  charitable  uses."  Even  Messrs.  Kidder  and  Fletcher, 
though  less  capable  than  most  of  their  countrymen  of  appre 
ciating  such  works,  and  despising  the  Brazilians  because  they 
refused  to  exchange  the  doctrine  of  St.  Paul  for  the  crude 
inventions  of  'New  England  Protestantism,  speak  with  reluctant 
admiration,  in  1857,  of  "the  philanthropy  and  practical  Chris 
tianity  embodied  in  the  hospitals  of  Rio  and  Janeiro  ;"  while 
they  are  obliged  to  confess  that  the  devoted  Italian  Capuchins 
seem  to  be  ever  on  errands  of  mercy,  through  tropic  heats 
and  rains."  *  And  then  they  console  themselves  with  coarse 
abuse  of  the  "  greasy  friars."  Yet  Dr.  Walsh,  a  man  of  purer 
instincts,  commends  the  virtues  even  of  the  native  clergy,  some 
of  whom,  owing  to  the  want  of  ecclesiastical  training,  and  the 
mistaken  policy  of  the  government  towards  the  seminaries,  are 
the  least  edifying  of  their  class.  "  I  really  cannot  find,"  he 
says,  "  that  the  Brazilian  clergy  deserve  the  character  imputed 
to  them.  From  what  I  have  seen  myself  and  heard  from 
others,  they  are,  generally  speaking,  temperate  in  their  diet, 
observant  of  the  rules  of  their  Church,  assiduous  in  attending 
the  sick,  and  charitable  as  far  as  their  limited  means  permit. "f 

"The  clergy,"  says  another  English  Protestant,  speaking 
of  the  order  generally  in  South  America,  "  are  everywhere 
respected  as  friends  worthy  of  double  honor.  Friendly,  indeed, 
I  have  ever  found  them,  in  this  and  every  other  country  where 
I  have  travelled ;  and  Englishmen  of  every  denomination 
must  in  gratitude  acknowledge  as  much.  They  must  own  also, 
that  our  own  prejudices,  whether  as  a  nation  or  a  sect,  soon 
appear  to  us  as  unworthy,  inveterate,  and  unjust,  as  those  of 
any  other  under  the  sun.  They  will  admit  that  no  set  of  men 
in  their  private  character  have  been  so  injuriously  aspersed 
by  the  cankered  tongue  of  slander  as  the  Roman  Catholic 
priesthood."  $ 

Lastly,  in  spite  of  the  gold  of  England  and  America,  not  a 
solitary  Brazilian,  white  or  black,  has  ever  been  induced  to 
profess  Protestantism ;  and  Mr.  Ewbank  has  informed  us,  no 
doubt  with  regret,  that  "  the  people  avoid  a  missionary  as  one 

*  Ch.  vii.,  p.  ill. 
f  P.  374. 

;  Travels  in  various  parts  of  Peru,  &c.,  by  Edmond  Temple,  vol.  L,  ch.  xix., 
p.  418. 

YOL.  II.  13 


ITS  CHAPTER   IX. 

with  whom  association  is  disreputable,"  and  regard  him  with 
sovereign  contempt  u  from  a  rooted  belief  in  his  ignorance  and 
presumption." 

In  that  vast  region  which  stretches  from  the  month  of  the 
San  Francisco  to  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  watered  by  the 
mightiest  rivers  of  our  globe,  arid  including  the  district  of  the 
Amazon  with  its  u  forty-live  thousand  miles  of  navigable  water 
communication,"  the  natives,  who  still  find  shelter  in  its  forests 
or  ^uide  their  barks  over  its  myriad  streams,  "  push  their  pro 
fession  of  the  Catholic  religion,"  we  have  been  told,  "  even  to 
fanaticism."  Yet  it  is  a  kind  of  marvel,  considering  their  past 
history,  that  they  should  have  any  religion  at  all.  A  less 
grievous  trial  sufficed  utterly  to  destroy  the  apostolic  churches 
of  Asia ;  but  it  seems  to  have  been  the  special  privilege  of  those 
founded  in  the  sixteenth  century,  that  no  power  should  prevail 
against  them.  Of  the  modern  Indian  population  and  the  exist 
ing  missions  among  them,  many  Protestant  writers  speak  with 
admiration,  though  evidently  perplexed  by  their  obstinate 
adherence  to  the  faith,  in  spite  of  their  long  calamities.  Prince 
Maximilian  notices  the  new  mission  at  Belrnonte,  where  he 
found  "  a  race  of  civilized  Indians  converted  to  Christianity," 
who  "have  abandoned  entirely  their  ancient  mode  of  life,  and 
are  now  quite  reclaimed/'  *  Prince  Adalbert,  though  he  writes 
in  a  more  worldly  and  frivolous  tone,  speaks  of  meeting  canoes 
on  the  river  Xingu,  all  adorned  with  flags  "bearing  an  image 
of  the  Virgin  Mary," — sufficient  evidence  of  the  Christian 
instincts  of  this  people.  Where  She  is  honored,  how  should 
religion  perish?  What  marvel  if  piety  still  linger  in  tribes 
who  rejoice  to  be  Mary's  children,  and  confide  in  her  protec 
tion  whom  highest  angels  honor  with  lowly  reverence,  as  at 
once,  by  a  prodigy  of  election  and  grace,  the  Mother,  the 
Daughter,  and  the  Spouse,  of  the  Everlasting  God  ? 

From  other  Protestant  travellers  in  these  regions  we  learn 
that  respect  for  the  ministers  of  religion,  as  well  as  for  the 
mysteries  which  they  dispense,  is  also  a  characteristic  of  the 
same  race. 

Messrs.  Smyth  and  Lowe,  two  British  officers,  wrho  travelled 
by  water  from  Lima  to  Para,  from  the  Pacific  to  the  Atlantic, 
repeatedly  attest  the  powerful  influence  of  the  Franciscans  of 
the  present  day.  Thus,  at  Saposoa,  on  the  river  Huallaga, 
uthe  priest  is  treated  by  the  people  with  great  respect."  On 
the  banks  of  "  the  magnificent  Ucayali,"  the  only  Europeans 
they  met  were  "those  excellent  persons  whose  aim  had  been' 
to  rescue  its  inhabitants  from  the  most  miserable  and  horrid 

*  Trends  in  Brazil,  cli.  x.,  p.  277. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  179 

state  of  barbarism,"  in  spite  of  the  criminal  indifference  of 
"  what  is  pleased  to  call  itself  a  liberal  government."  At 
Sarayacu  they  are  hospitably  entertained  by  a  Spanish  mis 
sionary,  and  remark  "the  great  influence  his  paternal  care, 
during  the  long  space  of  thirty-four  years,  gave  him  over  the 
minds  of  all  the  civilized  Indians,  and  his  knowledge  of  their 
various  languages."  They  add  that,  "  during  the  long  interval 
of  nine  years,"  through  the  incuria  of  the  government,  "he 
had  not  received  any  salary."* 

Mr.  Wallace,  another  English  traveller,  notices,  in  1853, 
similar  facts.  Thus,  at  Javita,  on  the  Rio  Negro,  "the  girls 
and  boys  assemble  morning  and  evening  at  the  church  to  sing 
a  hymn  or  psalm,"  —  a  practice  which  is  not  usual  in  English 
villages.  On  the  Amazon  he  meets  negroes,  who  all  join  in 
the  responses  with  much  fervor,"  but,  unfortunately,  according 
to  Mr.  Wallace,  "  without  understanding  a  word."  He  does 
not  say  how  he  ascertained  the  fact,  but  he  relates  immediately 
that  some  of  them  had  just  returned  from  a  three  days'  journey 
to  have  a  child  baptized,  which  encourages  us  to  believe  that 
he  was  mistaken.  Elsewhere  he  shows  how  religion  enters  into 
and  colors  the  daily  life  of  the  Indians,  so  that  at  their  frequent 
festas,  "  which  are  always  on  a  Saint's  day  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,"  they  will  make  a  long  tour  to  the  various 
Indian  villages,  "  carrying  the  image  of  the  saint."  Like  the 
•natives  of  China  and  Ceylon,  they  willingly  spend  their  sub 
stance  also  in  token  of  their  piety.  "The  live  animals  are 
frequently  promised  beforehand  for  a  particular  saint  ;  and 
often,  when  I  have  wanted  to  buy  some  provisions,  I  have  been 
assured  'that  this  is  St.  John's  pig,'  or  'that  is,'  &c."f  It  is 
evident  that,  in  spite  of  their  misfortunes,  their  religion  is  still 
a  reality.  The  English  peasant  does  not  refuse  to  sell  his  pig 
because  it  is  promised  to  St.  John,  and  would  probably  feel 
little  respect  for  such  self-denial,  even  if  he  knew  who  St.  John 
was. 

Mr.  Campbell  Scarlett  relates  the  same  characteristic  anec 
dotes,  and  displays  the  same  incapacity  to  appreciate  them.  "At 
least  four  nights  out  of  seven,"  he  says,  speaking  of  the  Indians 
of  Panama,  —  for  they  are  every  where  the  same,  —  "  I  am  indulged 
with  a  superstitious  if  not  idolatrous  ceremony."  It  was  one 
which  he  might  have  witnessed  in  many  a  hamlet  of  Austria, 
Bavaria,  or  Spain,  and  even  of  France  or  Belgium,  with  the 
approval  of  men  not  much  addicted  to  idolatry,  and  as  rernark- 


*  Narrative  of  a  Journey  .from  Lima  to  Para,  ch.  iv.,  p.  194. 
f  Travels  on  the  Amazon  and  Bio  Negro,  by  Alfred  R.  Wallace,  ch.  iv.,  p.  93 
ch.  ix.,  p.  270  (1853). 


180  CHAPTER   IX. 

able  for  intellectual  vigor  as  any  in  Europe ;  for  it  was  simply 
a  harmless  procession^which  disturbed  Mr.  Scarlett's  repose, 
wherein  Christian  Indians  marched,  "having  on  their  heads  a 
gorgeous  image  of  the  Virgin,  under  a  canopy."  ^  But  the  same 
obnoxious  spectacle,  in  which  simple  hearts  displayed  their 
filial  affection  towards  the  Mother  of  Jesus,  met  him  every 
where.  "  Mummeries,  disgraceful  to  Christianity,"  he  angrily 
observes,  "  occur  in  these  countries  so  frequently,  that  they 
appear  to  occupy  the  greater  part  of  everybody's  time  and 
attention,"* — good  proof  of  their  being  interested  in  Christian 
ity,  though  it  might  perhaps  be  offensive  to  an  English  gentle 
man  only  anxious  to  sleep  in  peace. 

In  every  region  of  the  continent,  the  same  spontaneous  piety 
seems  to  manifest  itself.  Mr.  Markham  goes  to  Canote,  in 
Peru,  and  in  that  tranquil  valley  meets  this  phenomenon  : 
"Early  in  the  morning  one  is  roused  by  the  voices  of  the 
young  girls  and  women,  when  they  all  repair  to  the  door  of  the 
chapel  before  going  to  work,  and  chant  a  hymn  of  praise  upon 
their  knees.  This  is  repeated  at  sunset,  when  the  day's  work 
is  concluded."  Presently  he  is  at  Cuzco,  where  he  finds  the 
devout  population  "  showering  scarlet  salvias"  over  a  crucifix 
which  was  being  borne  in  procession.  Like  Mr.  Scarlett,  he  is 
offended,  and  gravely  remarks,  with  the  self-possession  of  a 
learned  Englishman,  that  "  such  exhibitions  supply  the  place 
of  the  worship  of  the  Sun.  It  is  a  question  which  is  the  most; 
idolatrons."f  We  shall  not  do  justice  to  him  without  adding, 
that  he  is  indignant  with  the  Spaniards  for  having,  as  he  says, 
"polluted  the  altars  of  the  Sun  ! "  In  another  work  he  repeats 
the  sentiment  with  greater  emphasis.  "  The  Dominican  friars," 
he  observes,  "  succeeded  in  introducing  far  grosser  and  more 
degrading  superstitions  amongst  the  Indians  than  they  had  ever 
practised,"  and  were  particularly  culpable  in  having  set  up  "  a 
picture  of  the  Virgin,"  "which  was  to  replace  their  former 
simple  worship  of  the  Sun  and  Moon  !"J 

When  Mr.  Mansfield,  also  an  English  traveller,  sees  "  the 
Peons  and  Chinas  (the  Guarani  women)  all  fall  on  their  knees 
in  the  street"  at  Corrientes,  as  Mr.  Markham  saw  others  do  at 
Yanaoca,  he  exclaims  with  solemn  complacency,  "  It  is  sad  tn 
see  such  a  power  of  devotion  thrown  away ! "  §  It  is  true  that 
he  had  detected,  with  the  unerring  sagacity  of  his  countrymen, 

*  South  America  and  ilie  Pacific,  by  the  Hon.  P.  Campbell  Scarlett,  vol.  ii., 
cli.  ix.,  p.  204. 

f  Cuzco  and  Lima,  by  Clements  R.  Markham,  F.R.G.S.,  cli.  ii.,  p.  27 ;  ch.  v., 
p.  155. 

$  Travels  in  Peru  and  India,  cli.  vii.,  p.  115. 

§  Paraguay,  Brazil,  &c.,  by  C.  B.  Mansfield,  Esq.,  M.A.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  265. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  181 

that  these  apparently  devout  people  were  in  the  habit  of 
"  worshipping  a  doll."  When  educated  Englishmen  undertake 
to  criticize  Christian  devotion,  they  not  unfrequently  attain,  as 
in  these  cases,  the  uttermost  limits  of  unreason.  Yet  there 
are  many  of  them  who  seriously  marvel,  when  they  are  told 
that,  in  all  which  relates  to  religion,  they  are  a  proverb  and  a 
jest  among  all  races  of  men  ;  and  this,  as  Mr.  Ewbank  has 
candidly  informed  us,  "from  a  rooted  belief  in  their  ignorance 
and  presumption." 

Yet  they  seem  all  eager  to  prove  that  this  estimate  of  them 
is  perfectly  just.  Dr.  Hartwig,  a  Protestant  naturalist,  goes  to 
Pern,  and  having  to  speak,  of  the  vicuna,  breaks  out  after  this 
manner :  "  The  Church  manages  to  get  the  best  part  of  the 
animal,  for  the  priest  generally  appropriates  the  skin."  In  the 
next  page,  as  if  to  enable  his  readers  to  appreciate  his  truth 
fulness  and  charity,  he  relates  that,  after  a  great  chase  in  which 
one  hundred  and  twenty-two  vicunas  were  caught,  "  the  produce 
of  their  skins  served  for  the  building  of  a  new  altar  in  the 
village  church."* 

Another  English  traveller,  this  time  a  Protestant  mission 
ary,  far  surpasses  even  Mr.  Scarlett,  Mr.  Markham,  and  Mr. 
Mansfield,  in  his  repugnance  to  such  manifestations  of  religious 
feeling.  After  observing  that  "  the  name  of  God  is  seldom  long 
out  of  the  mouth  of  any  Central  American,"  and  sternly  rebuking 
. "  a  profane  imitation  of  the  Saviour  riding  upon  an  ass,"  he 
reveals  unconsciously  in  these  curious  words  the  temper  which 
makes  Protestants  shrink  from  such  exhibitions.  "  Who  can 
compute  the  amount  of  positive  evil  which  must  result  from 
familiarizing  the  eye  of  a  whole  people  with  such  objects  as 
these  ?"f  That  persons  whose  religion  is  not  Divine  faith,  but 
simply  emotion,  and  who,  like  the  Protestant  visitors  at  Jeru 
salem,  are  only  "  scandalized"  by  familiarity  with  holy  places 
and  things,  should  dread  any  shock  to  their  capricious  and 
sentimental  belief,  is  perhaps  natural;  but  Catholics  can  bear 
to  approach,  and  even  to  represent  by  sensible  signs,  the  Divine 
mysteries  which  God  has  taught  them  both  to  know  and  to 
love. 

Another  Protestant  Christian,  also  a  witness  to  the  devotion 
which  he  could  not  comprehend,  after  noticing  the  fervor 
displayed  at  a  similar  religious  ceremony  in  Mexico,  relates 
that  he  quitted  the  scene  in  disgust,  and  relieved  his  intelligent 
piety  by  an  immediate  visit  to  some  Aztec  ruins.  "I  contem 
plated  the  old  Aztec  god,"  he  says,  "  and  could  not  'but  regret 

*  The  Tropical  World,  by  Dr.  G.  Hartwig,  ch.  iii.,  p.  31. 
f  The  Gospel  in  Central  America,  by  liev.  F.  Crowe,  p.  278. 


182  CHAPTER   IX. 

the  change  that  had  been  imposed  upon  these  imbecile  Indians."* 
This  gentleman  is  at  least  perfectly  candid  in  the  exhibition  of 
his  sympathies. 

A  learned  Protestant  professor,  who  would  no  doubt  be 
shocked  if  any  one  doubted  that  he  was  a  Christian,  openly 
laments  the  conversion  both  of  Mexico  and  Peru,  but  for  other 
reasons.  It  was  "  not  of  such  value,"  he  says,  "  as  to  reconcile  the 
student  of  that  strange  old  native  civilization  of  the  votaries  of 
Quetzalcoatl  to  its  abrupt  arrestment,  at  a^stage  which  can  only 
be  paralleled  by  the  earliest  centuries  of  Egyptian  progress." 
And  he  repeats  the  sentiment  with  great  deliberation.  "  It  is 
difficult  to  realize  the  conviction  that  either  Mexico  or  Peru 
has  gained  any  equivalent  for  the  irreparable  loss  which  thus 
debarred  us  from  the  solution  of  some  of  the  most  profoundly 
interesting  problems  connected  with  the  progress  of  the  human 
race."f  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  a  display  of  impiety  more 
bold  or  more  unconscious.  If  a  single  act  of  supernatural  faith 
or  charity  does  more  to  promote  the  glory  of  God  than  the 
solution  of  many  scientific  problems,  and  tens  of  thousands  of 
such  acts  are  now  daily  made  in  Mexico  and  Peru,  thanks  to 
their  conversion,  Christians  may  venture  to  think  that  this  is 
some  "  equivalent"  for  that  "  old  native  civilization,"  which 
was  marked,  as  Dr.  Wilson  himself  observes,  by  "  cruel  rites," 
and  abominable  demon-worship,  involving  the  immolation  of 
human  victims,  "  in  some  cases  even  to  the  number  of  thou 
sands." 

On  the  river  Magdalena,  whose  banks  were  once  trodden 
by  the  Blessed  Peter  Claver,  Captain  Stuart  Cochrane,  who 
never  mentions  the  Catholic  religion  without  a  jest  or  a  curse, 
discovers  the  same  offensive  piety  which  his  co-religionists  deem 
an  imperfect  substitute  for  Aztec  and  Peruvian  civilization. 
"Every  time  (the  native  crew)  stopped  to  take  their  meals, 
one  of  them  uttered  a  prayer,  and  invoked  riot  only  the  Virgin 
and  all  the  Saints  in  the  calendar," — which  must  have  singularly 
protracted  the  repast, — but  some,  he  is  quite  sure,  "  of  their  own 
invention."  "This  is  a  practice,"  Captain  Cochrane  naively 
adds,  "  which  they  would  think  it  wrong  to  omit,  and 
which,  no  doubt,  originated  in  piety."  When  the  meal  was 
over,  before  they  resumed  their  journey,  they  always  "  recited 
a  prayer  for  the  prosperity  of  our  voyage,"  a  habit  which 
might  have  taught  this  English  gentleman  a  useful  lesson, 
but  which  he  only  found  "highly  diverting.''^  He  confesses, 

*  Mexico  and  Us  Religion,  by  Robert  A.  Wilson,  ch.  xxi ,  p.  231. 
f  Prehistoric  Man,  by  Daniel  Wilson,  LL.D.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix.,  pp.  302,  313.' 
ch.  xi.,  p.  3(>2. 
J  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  Colombia,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iii.,  pp.  143,  150. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  183 

however,  that  education  was  spreading  universally  in  Colom 
bia,  "not  only  in  the  capital,  but  in  the  most  remote  villages 
of  the  Republic."* 

This,  however,  it  must  be  confessed,  in  justice  ^  to  the 
Spaniards,  is  only  the  perpetuation  of  fruitful  traditions  be 
queathed  by  them.  "The  prudence  of  the  clergy,"  said  an 
earlier  traveller,  "and  the  education  which  the  people  have 
received  from  the  Spaniards,  have  inspired  all  the  Colombians 
with  a  profound  respect  for  the  exercises  of  religion,  .  .  .  the 
authority  of  the  parish  priests  is  absolute,  ....  the  greatest 
decorum  prevails  in  the  churches,  and  the  devotion  of  the 
faithful  is  no  less  striking."f 

Everywhere  the  same  facts,  illustrating  impressively  the  un 
dying  ministry  of  the  first  apostles  of  America,  are  recorded 
by  Protestant  travellers,  though  usually  without  any  compre 
hension  of  their  significance.  On  the  Lake  of  Nicaragua  and 
in  the  quicksilver  mines  of  southern  California,  two  of  the 
most  unpromising  places  in  the  world,  Mr.  Julius  Froebel  finds 
American  Indians  displaying  the  same  generous  and  trustful 
piety.  "I  shall  never  forget,"  he  says,  "the  impressions  of 
one  night  and  morning  on  the  San  Juan  river.  Our  boat  had 
anchored  in  the  midst  of  the  stream.  ...  In  the  morning,  a 
sonir  of  our  boatmen  addressed  to  the  Virgin  roused  me  from 
my^sleep.  It  was  a  strain  of  plaintive  notes  in  a  few  simple 
but  most  expressive  modulations.  The  sun  was  just  rising, 
and  as  the  first  rays,  gilding  the  glossy  leaves  of  the  forest, 
fell  upon  the  bronze-colored  bodies  of  our  men,  letting  the 
naked  forms  of  their  athletic  frame  appear  in  all  the  contrast 
of  light  and  shade,  while  accents,  plaintive  and  imploring, 
strained  forth  from  their  lips,  I  thought  to  hear  the  sacred  spell, 
by  which,  unconscious  of  its  power,  these  men  were  subduing 
their  own  half-savage  nature.  At  once  the  same  song  was 
repeated  from  behind  a  projecting  corner  of  the  bank,  and 
other  voices  joined  those  of  our  crew  in  the  sacred  notes.  Two 
canoes,  covered  from  our  view,  had  anchored  near  us  during 
the  night.  The  song  at  last  died  away  in  the  wilderness.  A 
silent  prayer,  our  anchor  was  raised,  and  with  a  wild  shout 
of  the  crew,  twelve  oars  simultaneously  struck  the  water.":f 
Can  any  one  imagine  such  a  scene  on  the  Thames  or  the 
Clyde  ? 

At  another  time,  it  is  in  the  mines  of  New  Almaden  that  he 
finds  "fifteen  or  twenty  men  calling  down  the  blessing  of 

*  Vol.  ii.,  cli.  ix.,  p.  15. 

f  Travels  in  the  Republic  of  Colombia,  by  GK  Mollien,  ch.  xix.,  p.  354. 
\  Seven  Years'  Travel  in  Central  America,  by  Julius  Froebel,  ch.  ii.,  p.  20 ; 
cli.  x.,  p.  585. 


184  CHAPTER   IX. 

Heaven  on  their  day's  work  in  the  interior  of  the  mountain, 
before  a  little  altar  cut  out  of  the  natural  rock  ;"  and  singing 
the  same  hymn  to  the  Mother  of  Jesus,  to  the  same  air,  at  a 
distance  of  nearly  two  thousand  miles.  In  both  cases  the  only 
"spell"  was  that  mysterious  gift  of  faith  which  can  illumine 
the  darkness  even  of  the  Negro  and  the  Indian,  and  both  fur 
nished  an  illustration  of  the  truth  imperfectly  avouched  by  a 
travelled  Protestant,  when  he  exclaimed,  "  Catholicism  has 
certainly  a  much  stronger  hold  over  the  human  mind  than 
Protestantism.  The  fact  is  visible  and  undeniable.""* 

It  is  the  universality  of  this  fact  which  gives  to  it  its  deep 
significance.  ]STo  race  of  men  to  whom  the  incomparable  gift 
has  once  been  imparted,  however  lowly  their  social  or  intel 
lectual  position,  fail  to  bear  witness  to  its  marvellous  power.f 
Millions  of  Englishmen,  Swedes,  and  Germans,  who  have  lost 
or  never  received  it,  have  sunk  almost  to  the  level  of  animals, 
have  less  apprehension  of  Divine  things  than  the  very  pagan, 
and  neither  know  nor  care  "  whether  there  be  any  Holy 
Ghost  ;"f  yet  the  whole  life  of  the  untutored  Indian  is  an  un 
ceasing  manifestation  of  the  supernatural  principle  within 
him.  Peru  is  no  exception  to  this  rule.  "The  devotion  of 
the  population  to  Catholicism,"  says  a  well-meaning  Protestant 
missionary  after  he  had  abandoned  his  hopeless  undertaking, 
"  is  manifested  in  almost  daily  processions."§  So  vehement  is 
the  repugnance  of  the  Peruvians  to  heresy,  a  sentiment  which 
could  have  no  existence  without  deep  religious  conviction,  that 
Dr.  Archibald  Smith  mildly  complains,  "  these  good  people 
believed  we  were  but  Jews."  And  then  he  relates  that  at 
Lima,  on  the  death  of  a  certain  Englishman,  "  the  good-natured 
bishop  yielded  his  sanction  to  let  the  corpse  have  Christian 
burial;  but  subsequently  to  this  permission,  a  mob  was  collected 
in  the  night,  and  the  body  was  cast  out  from  the  church  into 
the  middle  of  the  street."!  Such  facts,  even  if  they  be  deemed 

*  Laing,  Notes  of  a  Traveller,  ch.  xxi.,  p.  430. 

f  A  striking  illustration  is  found  in  a  well-known  work.  "  If  tlie  London 
COBtennongers,"  who  have  not  even  the  piety  of  heathens,  "  had  to  profess 
themselves  of  some  religion  to-morrow,"  says  a  competent  witness, "  they  would 
all  become  Roman  Catholics,  every  one  of  them."  Even  such  men  as  these 
have  noted  the  familiar  contrast  between  the  two  religions,  and  that  while  "  tho 
Irish  in  the  courts  will  die  for  the  priest,"  the  English  of  the  same  class  treat 
their  ministers  and  their  message  with  equal  derision.  "  It  is  strange,"  adds 
this  writer,  "  that  the  regular  costermongers,  who  are  nearly  all  Londoners, 
should  have  such  a  respect  for  the  Roman  Catholics,  when  they  have  such  a 
hatred  for  the  Irish,  whom  they  look  upon  as  intruders  and  underminers." 
London  Labor  and  the  London  Poor,  by  Henry  Mayhew,  p.  21.  Cf.  p.  107. 

\  Acts  xix.  2. 

§  A  Visit  to  the  South  Seas  in  the  U.  S.  Ship  Vincennes,  by  S.  Stewart,  A.M., 
vol.  i.,  p.  197. 

H  Peru,  as  it  is,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  165. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  185 

to  indicate  excessive  zeal,  are  at  least  incontrovertible  evidence 
of  the  power  which  religion  exerts  over  the  hearts  of  these 
various  races,  and  afford  an  instructive  contrast  to  the  dull 
apathy,  or  cheerless  unbelief,  of  the  same  class  in  our  own 
country.  And  though  we  have  been  told  that  "  the  life  of  an 
Englishman  is  in  danger  among  the  peasantry,"  because  he 
has  made  himself  odious  by  his  shallow  and  presumptuous 
bigotry  ;  yet  even  Protestant  writers  confess  "  the  kindness  and 
hospitality"*  of  these  races  to  all  who  know  how  to  conduct 
themselves  with  modesty  and  good  sense.  Even  Captain 
Cochrane  says,  u  John  Bull  may  certainly  improve  his  manners 
by  imitating  those  of  the  peasants  of  South  America  ;"f  Mr. 
Kendall  and  Mr.  Olmsted  repeatedly  attest  the  universal 
charity  and  kindliness  of  the  Indians  of  Mexico ;  Mr.  Mark- 
ham  celebrates  the  unbounded  hospitality  of  the  Peruvians, 
and  not  only  acknowledges  that  the  upper  classes  are  "  highly 
educated,"  but  that  "many  Indians,  too,  have  distinguished 
themselves  as  men  of  literary  attainments ;"  while  Mr.  Iroebel, 
contrasting  "  the  unaffected  kindness,  good  breeding,  and  polite 
ness  of  the  Mexican  country  people"  with  the  manners  of  his 
own  nation,  declares,  uln  almost  every  respect  they  are  su 
perior  to  our  German  peasants." 

An  accomplished  English  writer,  who  would  think  it  no  re 
proach  to  be  called  a  vehement  Protestant,  thus  describes,  in 
1862,  the  effects  of  conversion  upon  this  once  heathen  race  :  "  I 
was  thrown  a  great  deal  amongst  the  Indians,  and  had  the 
most  excellent  opportunities  of  judging  their  character,  and  I 

was  certainly  most  favorably  impressed Crimes  of  any 

magnitude  are  hardly  ever  heard  of  amongst  them"  Their 
courtesy  was  equally  remarkable,  and  that  it  was  inspired  by 
religious  feeling  was  proved  by  the  fact  that  they  "always 
saluted  with  an  fc  Ave  JHfariaJ  and  a  touch  of  the  hat  in 
passing."  Travellers  ignorant  of  their  language  may  accuse 
them  of  want  of  intelligence,  but  "  never  was  there  a  greater 
mistake;  their  skill  in  carving,  and  all  carpenter's  work,  in 
painting  and  embroidery,  the  exquisite  fabrics  they  weave  from 
vicuna  wool,  the  really  touching  poetry  of  their  love-songs  and 
yaraviS)  the  traditional  histories  of  their  ayllus,  which  they 
preserve  with  religious  care,  surely  disprove  so  false  a  charge/^ 

Such,  by  Protestant  testimony,  have  been  the  lasting  frui.vs 
of  conversion  in  the  case  of  the  Peruvians.  And  even  this 
account,  which  contrasts  so  forcibly  with  that  which  a  thousand 

*  Gerstaecker,  vol.  i.,  cli.  x.,  p.  188. 
f  Vol.  ii.,  cli.  xii.,  p.  150. 

i  Travels  in  Peru  and  India,  by  C.  R.  Markham,  F.S.A.,  F.R.G.S.,  ch.  vi., 
p.  103  ;  ch.  ix.,  p.  178 ;  cli.  xiii.,  p.  221  ;  ch.  xviii.,  p.  811. 


186  CHAPTER   IX. 

pens  have  given  of  the  sottish  peasantry  of  England,  Holland, 
or  Prussia,  steeped  in  vice,  and  often  as  ignorant  of  religion, 
in  spite  of  myriads  of  Protestant  preachers,  as  the  brutes  of  the 
field,— does  not  reveal  all  that  St.  Francis  Solano  and  his 
successors  have  done  for  this  nation.  "  Many  Indians,"  says 
the  same  authority,  "  are  wealthy  enterprising  men,  while 
others  have  held  the  highest  offices  in  the  State."  General 
Oastilla,  a  native  Peruvian,  a  man  "of  great  military  talent 
ind  extraordinary  energy  and  intrepidity,"  became  President 
}f  the  Eepublic  in  1858,  and  still  held  the  office  in  1862. 
Greneral  San  Roman,  also  "a  pure  Indian,"  commanded  at  the 
same  date  the  Army  of  the  South.  And  wonderful  as  these 
facts  must  appear  to  men  acquainted  only  with  specimens  of 
Protestant  colonization,  always  attended  by  the  degradation 
and  destruction  of  the  aboriginal  races,  they  are  found  in  every 
part  of  the  continent.  "  Peru  is  far  from  being  the  best 
specimen  of  the  South  American  republics,  and  the  Chilians 
have  displayed  tenfold  the  ability,  in  governing,  in  commer 
cial  and  agricultural  pursuits,  and  in  literature." 

The  only  additional  fact,  in  illustration  of  the  enduring 
influence  of  religion  over  the  Peruvian  Indian,  which  we  need 
notice  here,  has  been  recorded  by  Mr.  Clements  Markham. 
Beyond  the  lofty  range  of  the  Yquicha  mountains  lies  the 
almost  inaccessible  home  of  the  tribe  of  Yquichanos.  "Dis 
tinguished  by  their  upright  gait,  independent  air,  and  hand 
some  features," — "true  lovers  of  liberty," — "an  honor  to  the 
Indian  races  of  South  America,"  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Markham, 
they  have  twice  vanquished  the  military  forces  of  the  Peruvian 
Kepublic,  and,  persisting  in  their  loyalty  to  the  Spanish  crown, 
have  defied  every  effort  to  subdue  their  independence.  "No 
tax-gatherer,"  he  says,  "  dares  to  enter  their  country."  But 
while  this  "  most  interesting  people,"  in  the  words  of  the  same 
Protestant  writer,  "  refuse  to  submit  to  the  capitation  or  any 
other  tax,  they  punctually  pay  their  tithes  to  the  priests  who 
come  amongst  them,  and  treat  a  single  stranger  with  courteous 
hospitality."* 

Perhaps  the  reader  may  be  disposed  to  ask  himself  at  this 
point,  in  the  presence  of  facts  at  once  so  uniform  and  so 
incapable  of  a  purely  human  explanation,  what  that  Power  can 
be,  everywhere  exerted  by  one  class  of  teachers,  and  by  one 
only,  which  even  in  the  souls  of  negroes  and  savages  has  pro 
duced  results  so  deep  and  so  enduring?  By  what  mysterious 
influence  have  they,  in  so  many  lands,  subdued  such  natures  to 
the  law  of  Christ '(  By  what  spell  have  they  engrafted  on  them 

*  Cuzco,  &c.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  71. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  187 

that  supernatural  faith  which  sixty  years  of  utter  abandonment 
could  not  weaken,  nor  evil  example  obliterate,  nor  bribes 
seduce,  nor  even  ignorance  corrupt,  and  which  is  as  full  of  life 
and  power  in  the  rugged  mountains  of  Peru  and  the  far- 
spreading  forests  of  Brazil,  as  in  the  mines  of  ISTew  Almaden 
and  California,  or  by  the  banks  of  the  Plata  and  the  Maranon, 
of  the  San  Juan,  the  Xingu,  and  the  Ucayali  ? 

In  Chili,  —  as  in  Brazil,  Colombia,  and  Peru,  —  a  hostile  wit 
ness  reports,  in  1840,  that  "  education  is  certainly  advancing;'1* 
and  he  fully  explains  the  progress  when  he  adds,  in  1847,  "the 
influence  of  the  Jesuits  is  gradually  increasing."f  Two  years 
later,  Mr.  "Walpole  praises  the  "  many  excellent  schools,"  and 
notices  that  those  u  attached  to  the  various  convents  teach  free 
of  expense."  There  is  even,  he  adds,  at  Santiago  a  normal 
school  for  the  training  of  teachers,  "who  are  afterwards  sent 
into  the  provinces."  "  The  priests,"  he  says,  "  mostly  taken 
from  the  higher  classes,  are  educated  at  the  university,  and  are 
a  well-informed  order  of 


Of  the  people  we  are  told,  by  various  Protestant  writers, 
that,  both  by  their  industry  and  piety,  they  are  worthy  of  their 
teachers.  Dr.  Smith  declares  that  "the  Christianized  Indians 
of  the  Inca  dynasty  are  truly  hard  laborers."  Major  Sutclifie 
relates  that  spiritual  retreats  for  this  class  "  are  held  yearly  on 
many  of  the  large  haciendas,"  at  which  they  practise  severe 
mortifications,  using  the  discipline  with  such  vigor  that  this 
gentleman,  who  judged  the  operation  with  the  feelings  of  an 
Englishman  and  a  Protestant,  observes,  "  I  frequently  heard 
them,  and  wondered  how  they  could  stand  such  a  self-flogging.  "§ 
They  must  at  all  events  have  been  in  earnest. 

Of  their  invincible  dislike  of  heresy  Mr.  Miers  offers  an  ex 
planation,  when  he  relates  the  answer  of  the  principal  author 
of  the  modern  constitution  of  Chili  to  the  objection,  apparently 
urged  by  an  Englishman,  that  religious  toleration  was  unknown 
in  Chili.  "Toleration  cannot  exist  in  Chili,"  he  replied,  in 
accounting  for  the  absence  of  that  word  from  the  civil  code, 
"  because  this  presupposes  a  necessity  for  permitting  it  ;  but 
here  we  neither  have  any  other,  nor  know  any  other  religion 
than  the  Catholic."!  Finally,  a  French  traveller,  busy  only 
with  economical  and  financial  questions,  but  filled  with  admi 
ration  of  the  resources  and  the  prosperity  of  this  profoundly 
Catholic  people,  exclaims,  "What  an  immense  future  is  in  store 

*  A  Visit  to  the  Indians  of  Chili,  by  Captain  Allen  F.  Gardiner,  ch.  vi.,p.  172. 

f  A  Voice  from  South  America,  ch.  i.,  p.  14. 

|t  Four  Tears  in  the  Pacific,  vol.  i.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  165  ;  ch.  x.,  p.  349. 

§  Sixteen  Years  in  Chili  and  Peru,  ch.  ix.,  p.  820  (1841). 

||  Travels  in  Chili  and  La  Plata,  vol.  ii.,  p.  219. 


183  CHAPTER   IX. 

for  this  nation,  which,  to  wise  institutions  and  a  prudent  liberty, 
adds  all  the  resources  of  an  incomparable  soil  !"* 

Yet  Protestant  missionaries,  chiefly  English  or  Scotch,  careless 
of  the  fact,  which  their  own  experience  has  so  often  attested, 
that  they  only  succeed  in  provoking  the  repugnance  of  these 
people  towards  themselves,  their  employers,  and  their  opinions, 
continue  to  waste,  year  after  year,  the  enormous  sums  impru 
dently  intrusted  to  them,  in  efforts  which  always  terminate  in 
failure,  and  in  operations  which  only  excite  ridicule.  We  have 
seen  that,  owing  to  such  proceedings,  the  life  of  an  Englishman 
is  precarious  in  these  regions,  while  his  dead  body  is  flung  into 
the  highway.  It  is  certainly  a  grave  question  for  the  inhab 
itants  of  the  British  Isles,  whether  the  annual  expenditure  of 
vast  revenues  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  with  no  other  result 
than  to  kindle  the  contempt  of  every  pagan,  the  disgust  and 
indignation  of  every  Christian  nation,  is  a  course  of  action 
likely  to  promote  their  own  interests,  or  worthy  of  their  pro 
verbial  sagacity.  If  England  is  abhorred,  as  is  unhappily  the 
case,  by  all  races  of  men,  from  the  White  Sea  to  the  Indian 
Ocean,  and  is  even  at  this  moment  in  considerable  peril  from 
the  gradual  accumulation  of  that  universal  hatred  which  may 
one  day  crush  her,  it  is  in  no  small  degree  to  her  foolish  and 
offensive  "  missions,"  and  especially  to  the  complacent  vanity 


and  ignorance  of  which  they  are  only  one  of  the  manifestations, 
that  the  evil  is  due. 

The  Argentine  Republic,  in  spite  of  the  crimes  of  its  rulers, 
and  the  perpetual  disorders  of  its  social  state,  still  remains  so 
immutably  Catholic,  that  all  the  overtures  of  opulent  mission 
aries,  whether  English  or  American,  have  only  been  greeted 
with  derision.  Dr.  Olin  has  told  us,  that  the  mission  to  Buenos 
Ayres  was  such  a  signal  failure,  that  it  suggested  even  to  his 
ardent  mind  only  motives  of  despair.  The  experiment,  he 
says,  "was  formally  given  up  in  1841-2,  after  an  unsuccessful 
attempt  to  make  some  impression  on  the  native  Catholic  popu 
lation  of  that  country."  "No  Protestant  missions,"  he  re 
marks,  "  have  hitherto  yielded  so  little  fruit  as  those  set  on  foot 
for  the  conversion  of  Roman  Catholics ;"  and  then  this  Wes- 
leyan  minister  adds  the  suggestion  already  quoted,  "We  will 
trust  that  it  will  inspire  the  Board  with  great  caution  in  enter- 
taming  new  projects  for  missions  among  Catholics." 

The  same  discouraging  conclusion  is  adopted  by  a  well- 
meaning  English  traveller,  who  endeavored  to  'introduce 
Protestantism  in  the  wide  plains  which  stretch  from  the 
shores  of  the  Plata  and  the  Uruguay  to  the  foot  of  the 

*  Notice  sur  le  Chili,  p,  42  (1844). 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  189 

Cordilleras,  but  with  such  disastrous  results,  that  he  also  was 
constrained  to  recognize  the  hopelessness  of  the  attempt.  "  The 
Protestant  missionary  under  the  present  arbitrary  system," — 
this  is  his  way  of  describing  the  good-humored  contempt  of 
the  people, — "  appears  to  have  little  prospect  of  extending  his 
ministerial  labors  beyond  the  members  of  his  own  Church, 
either  American  or  English."*  Yet  Mr.  Elwes  reports  in  1854-, 
that  "  there  is  one  English,  one  Scotch,  and  an  American  church, 
all  in  good  situations  in  the  main  streets  of  Buenos  Ayres,  an 
instance  of  liberality  towards  the  Protestant  religion  that  I 
never  before  saw  in  a  Catholic  country  ."f 

Such  are  the  testimonies  Protestants,  of  different  nations 
and  sects,  still  more  astonished  than  mortified  at  the  peremptory 
rejection  of  their  various  religions  by  all  the  South  American 
races  and  tribes.  Even  the  Carib  and  the  Araucanian,  the 
Peruvian  and  the  Chilian,  the  vigorous  Guacho  who  spurs  his 
wild  horse  over  the  Pampas,  and  the  milder  Indian  who  urges 
his  canoe  over  the  swift  waters  of  the  Guaviare  or  the  Ucayali, 
only  laughs  at  the  pretensions  of  a  doctrine  which  outrages  all 
his  instincts  of  the  holy  and  the  true;  which  has  banished 
every  mystery,  and,  as  far  as  the  exuberance  of  Divine  mercy 
will  permit,  suspended  every  grace;  which  displays  itself  only 
in  words  which  awaken  no  echo,  and  in  emotions  which  die 
away  with  the  words;  arid  whose  salaried  and  effeminate 
preachers,  all  contradicting  themselves  and  one  another,  so 
little  resemble  the  saints  and  martyrs  from  whom  his  fathers 
received  the  faith  which  he  still  prizes  more  than  life  itself,  that 
far  from  recognizing  them  as  teachers  of  a  Divine  religion,  he  is 
accustomed  to  ask  in  surprise,  like  his  fellows  in  other  lands, 
"  Whether  they  profess  any  religion  whatever?" 


MODERN    MISSIONARIES    IN    SOUTH  AMERICA. 


Ill 


Before  we  enter  the  last  province  which  remains  to  be  visited 
South  America,  let  us  notice  a  few  additional  examples,  not 

unworthy  of  a  moment's  attention,  of  the  language  in  which 

Protestant  travellers  speak  of  modern  missionaries  in  this  land. 

It  is  well  to   learn  from    such  witnesses   that  they  have   not 

degenerated  from  their  fathers. 

A  British  officer,  who  effected  a  few  years  ago  the  descent  of 

the  Amazon,  had  for  a  companion  during  a  part  of  his  voyage  a 

*  Captain  Gardiner,  Visit,  &c.,  p.  24. 

f  Tour  Hound  the  World,  by  Robert  Elwes,  Esq.,  cli.  viii.,  p.  107. 


190  CHAPTER  IX. 

Spanish  Franciscan,  who,  by  the  toils  of  thirty-four  years,  had 
"  founded1  many  new  missions,"  without  aid  from  ^any  human 
bein<r,  and  whose  career  included  the  following  incident: 

A  little  to  the  northeast  of  Sarayacu,  on  the  river  Ucayali, 
dwelt  the  Sencis,  a  fierce  and  warlike  tribe,  still  unconverted, 
whose  solitary  virtue  was  dauntless  courage.  With  a  courage 
greater  than  their  own,  Father  Plaza,  the  Franciscan  to  whom 
our  tale  refers,  resolved  to  enter  their  territory.  He  was  seized 
at  the  frontier,  as  he  had  anticipated  and  desired,  and  then  was 
enacted  the  following  drama.  "They  asked  him,"  says  the 
English  traveller,  "  whether  he  was  brave,  and  subjected  him  to 
the" following  trial:  Eight  or  ten  men,  armed  with  bows  and 
arrows,  placed  themselves  a  few  yards  in  front  of  him,  with 
their  bows  drawn  and  their  arrows  directed  to  his  breast;  they 
then,  with  a  shout,  let  go  the  strings,  but  retained  the  arrows  in 
their  left  hands,  which  he  at  iirst  did  not  perceive,  but  took  it 
for  granted  that  it  was  all  over  with  him,  and  was  astonished 
at  finding  himself  unhurt."  The  savages  had  taken  a  captive 
who  could  give  even  them  a  lesson  in  fortitude ;  but  they  had 
another  trial  in  store  for  him.  "  They  resumed  their  former  po 
sition,  and  approaching  somewhat  nearer,  they  aimed  their  ar 
rows  at  his  body,  but  discharged  them  close  to  his  feet."  The 
narrator  adds,  and  perhaps  no  other  comment  could  be  reason 
ably  expected  from  a  Protestant,  that  "if  he  had  shown  any 
signs  of  fear,  he  would  probably  have  been  dispatched ;"  but 
that  "  having,  in  his  capacity  of  missionary,  been  a  long  time 
subjected  to  the  caprices  of  the  Indians,  he  had  made  up  his 
mind  for  the  worst,  and  stood  quite  motionless  during  the 
proof."  Finally,  "  they  surrounded  him,  and  received  him  as  a 
welcome  guest."*  We  can  hardly  be  surprised  that  such  a 
missionary — whom  even  Mr.  Markham  calls  "a  great  and  good 
man,"  whose  "  deeds  of  heroism  and  endurance  throw  the  hard- 
earned  glories  of  the  soldier  far  into  the  shade" — should  be 
able  to  u  found  many  new  missions,"  even  in  this  nineteenth 
century. 

But  there  are  at  this  hour  many  such  as  Padre  Plaza  in  the 
South  American  missions,  as  even  the  most  prejudiced  travellers 
attest,  lie  himself,  having  recently  finished  his  apostolic  career 
as  Bishop  of  Ouenca,  was  succeeded  at  Sarayacu  by  Father 
Cimini  and  three  other  missionaries,  who  ruled  "  about  one 
thousand  three  hundred  and  fifty  souls,  consisting  chiefly  of 
Panos  Indians."t  "  The  brave  and  indefatigable  Father  Girbal" 
was  a  hero  of  the  same  order ;  and  through  every  Catholic 

*  Lieut.  Smyth,  ch.  xii.,  p.  227. 
f  Markham,  ch.  viii.,  p.  257. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  191 

pi  evince  of  America,  English  and  American  travellers  have 
discovered  apostles  who  are  ready  to  do  in  the  nineteenth 
century  what  their  predecessors  did  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth.  In  Colombia,  even  Captain  Cochrane  applauds 
"  the  excellent  Bishop  of  Merida."  Mr.  Gilliam,  a  consular 
agent  of  the  United  States,  names  "the  celebrated  and  beloved 
Bishop  of  Durango."*  Dr.  Walsh  has  assured  us  that  "a  more 
learned  or  a  more  amiable  man  than  the  Bishop  of  Rio  does  not 
exist."  Mr.  Temple  mentions  "the  Archbishop  of  La  Plata, 
whose  pious  and  benevolent  character  has  caused  him  to  be 
remembered  throughout  his  vast  diocese  with  every  sentiment 
of  veneration. "f  Mr.  Markham  celebrates, in  1859,  "  Don  Pedro 
Ruiz,  the  excellent  Bishop  of  Chachapoyas,"  in  Peru.  Sir 
George  Simpson  visits  Monterey,  and  says,  "  Father  Gonzalez  is 
a  truly  worthy  representative  of  the  early  missionaries."^  Mr. 
Stewart  is  at  Lima,  and  meets  Padre  Arrieta,  "in  extensive 
repute  for  piety  and  learning. "§  Mr.  Forbes  is  at  San  Luis 
Rey,  where  he  sees  Father  Antonio  Peyri,  who,  "after  thirty- 
four  years  of  incessant  labor,"  had  finished  his  career  by  "  vol 
untary  retirement  in  poverty  to  spend  his  remaining  days  in 
pious  exercises. "||  M.  de  Mofras  is  on  the  Pacific  shore,  and 
finds  Father  Estenega  "teaching  his  neophytes  how  to  make 
bricks;"  and  Father  Abella,  at  sixty  years  of  a«;e,  sleeping  on 
a  buffalo  skin,  and  drinking  out  of  a  horn,  refusing  to  retire,  and 
declaring  that  "he  will  die  at  his  post."!"  Mr.  Walpole  is  in 
Chili,  and  meets  one  of  whom  he  says,  "If  amenity  of  manners, 
great  power  of  conversation,  infinite  knowledge  of  men  and 
countries,  could  have  won,  his  must  have  been  a  successful 
ministry.  There  was  a  soft  persuasion,  a  seeming  deep  serenity 
in  his  words,  very  difficult  to  withstand."**  Mr.  Stephens  is  at 
Esquipnlas,  on  the  borders  of  Honduras,  and  says  of  the  Cura, 
Jesus  Maria  Guttierez,  already  worn  out  at  thirty  years  of  age, 
"  His  face  beamed  with  intelligence  and  refinement  of  thought 
arid  feeling,"  and  "the  whole  tone  of  his  thoughts  and  conver 
sation  was  so  good  and  pure  that,  when  he  retired  to  his  room, 
I  felt  as  if  a  good  spirit  had  flitted  away. "ft  Mr.  Markham 
hears  at  Andahuaylas  "  the  famous  Chilian  preacher,  Don 

*  Travels  in  Mexico,  by  Albert  M.  Gilliam,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  288  (1846). 

f  Travels  in  various  parts  of  Peru,  &c.,  by  Edmond  Temple,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xii., 

\  Narrative  of  a  Journey  Round  the  World,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  334. 
§  Vol.  i.,  p.  190.    Letter  v. 
I  California,  ch.  v.,  p.  229. 

*[  Exploration  du  territoire  de  I' Oregon,  par  M.  Duflot  de  Mofras,  tome  i., 
ch.  vii.,  pp.  352,  380. 
**  Ch.  x.,  p.  218. 
ft  Incidents  of  Travel  in  Central  America,  ch.  viii.,  p.  184. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Francisco  de  Paula  Taforo,"  and  finds  ^him  escorted  by  "one 
continued  triumphal  procession;"  while  at  Lima-tambo  he 
makes  the  acquaintance  of  the  Franciscan  Father  Esquibias, 
"  whose  good  deeds  it  was  refreshing  to  hear  from  his  parish 
ioners ;"  and  at  San  Miguel  that  of  "the  excellent  Father 
Eevello,  the  true-hearted  and  devoted  missionary  of  the  Purus," 
the  body  of  whose  companion,  a  young  monk  from  Cuzco, 
Eevello  found  pierced  with  nine  arrows,  one  of  them  passing 
right  through  his  chest."*  At  El  Paso,  many  a  league  to  the 
north  of  Pern,  Mr.  Kendall,  an  American  Protestant,  encounters 
"the  incomparable  Kamon  Ortiz,"  whose  "charity  and  manly 
virtues  adorn  the  faith  which  he  professes  and  illustrates  by  his 
life.rf  At  Ures,  in  Mexico,  Mr.  Bartlett  commends  "the 
learned  and  venerable  Padre  Encinas,"  the  apostle  of  the 
Yaquis,  and  at  Parras,  "  the  courteous  and  intelligent  Juan 
Bobadilla."^:  Lieut.  Ilerndon  is  on  the  upper  course  of  the 
Amazon,  and  finds  in  that  remote  solitude  a  Franciscan  whom 
he  thus  describes :  "  Father  Calvo,  meek  and  humble  in  personal 
concerns,  yet  full  of  zeal  and  spirit  for  his  office,  was  my  beau 
ideal  of  a  missionary  monk."§  Mr.  Wallace  is  on  the  Rio 
Negro,  and  meets  Padre  Torquato,  "a  very  well  educated 
and  gentlemanly  man,  who  well  deserves  all  the  encomiums 
Prince  Adalbert  has  bestowed  on  him."[  Lieut.  Smyth  is  at 
Chasuta,  where  he  finds  Padre  Mariana  de  Jesus,  and  notes  in 
his  journal  not  only  "the  devotion  of  the  Indians,"  but  that 
"their  submissive  obedience  to  the  Padre,  and  the  attention 
they  show  to  the  worship  of  the  Church  to  which  they  have 
been  converted,  reflect  great  credit  on  their  worthy  pastor. "T 
And  this  docility,  he  says,  is  the  more  remarkable,  because 
"they  seem  to  consider  themselves  on  a  perfect  equality  with 
everybody,  showing  no  deference  to  any  one  but  the  Padre." 
Lastly,  Mr.  Cleveland  is  at  Guadaloupe,  in  the  Pacific,  and 
observes,  "  The  more  intimately  we  become  acquainted  with 
Padre  Mariano,  the  more  we  are  convinced  that  his  was  a 
character  to  love  and  respect.  He  appeared  to  us  of  that  rare 
class,  who,  for  piety  and  love  of  their  fellow-men,  might  justly 
rank  with  a  Fenelon  or  a  Cheverus."**  We  shall  hear  a  little 
later  exactly  the  same  language  applied,  by  the  same  class  of 


*  Cli.  iv.,  p.  92  ;  ch.  viii.,  p.  275. 

f  Narrative  of  the  Texan  Santa  Fe  Expedition,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  41. 
$  Personal  Narrative  of  Explorations,  &c.,  by  John  Russell  Bartlett,  U.  S. 
Commissioner,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xix.,  p.  444;  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxxix.,  p.  488. 
§  Valley  of  the  Amazon,  ch.  x.,  p.  205. 
f  Ubi  supra,  ch.  vi.,  p.  1GO. 
II  llbi  supra,  ch.  xi.,  p.  213. 
e*  A  Narrative  of  Voyages,  by  Richard  J.  Cleveland,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  57  (1842). 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA.  193 

writers,  to  living  missionaries  in  North  America ;  let  us  close 
the  list  for  the  present  with  this  reflection, — that  everywhere 
Catholic  missionaries  are  found  having  the  graces  and  virtues 
of  their  calling,  and  everywhere  Providence  employs  Protest 
ant  travellers  to  bear  witness  to  both. 


PARAGUAY. 

One  province  only  remains  to  be  visited,  before  we  complete 
our  rapid  survey,  and  tumour  faces  towards  the  North.  Between 
the  Parana  and  the  Colorado,  and  stretching  from  Santa  Cruz 
de  la  Sierra  in  Upper  Peru  to  the  Straits  of  Magellan,  and  from 
the  frontier  of  Brazil  to  Chili,  lies  the  vast  region  which  gave 
a  name  to  perhaps  the  noblest  mission  which  the  Christian 
religion  ever  formed  since  the  days  of  the  Apostles.  Here  was 
accomplished,  amidst  races  so  barbarous  and  cruel  that  even 
the  fearless  warriors  of  Spain  considered  them  "  irreclaimable," 
one  of  those  rare  triumphs  of  grace  which  constitute  an  epoch 
in  the  history  of  religion.  Here  one  tribe  after  another,  each 
more  brutal  than  its  neighbor,  was  gathered  into  the  fold 
of  Christ,  and  fashioned  to  the  habits  of  civilized  life.  Here 
lived  and  died  an  army  of  apostles,  who  seem  to  have  been 
raised  up  at  that  special  moment,  when  whole  nations  were 
lapsing  into  apostasy,  as  if  to  show  that  the  very  hour  which 
they  chose  for  departing  from  the  Church  was  marked  in  heaven 
as  a  season  for  pouring  out  upon  her  a  flood  of  new  graces. 
Here,  as  Muratori  could  say  without  exaggeration,  amid  a 
people  so  lately  the  sport  of  demons,  "  the  sublimest  virtues  of 
Christians  are  become,  if  the  expression  may  be  used,  common 
virtues."*  Here,  as  even  Voltaire  confessed,  was  perfected  a 
work  which  "  seemed  to  be  in  some  respects  the  triumph  of 
humanity. "f  Here,  as  Sir  AVoodbine  Parish  declares  in  our 
own  day,  in  spite  of  the  prejudices  of  his  class,  "If  we  look 
at  the  good  which  (the  Catholic  missionaries)  did,  rather  than 
for  the  evil  which  they  did  not,  we  shall  find  that,  in  the  course 
of  about  a  century  and  a  half,  upwards  of  a  million  of  Indians 
were  converted  to  Christianity  by  them,  and  taught  to  be  happy 
and  contented  under  the  mild  and  peaceful  rule  of  their 
enlightened  and  paternal  pastors — a  blessed  lot  when  contrasted 
with  the  savage  condition  of  the  unreclaimed  tribes  around 
^:  Such  was  the  mission  of  Paraguay,  of  which  we  are 


*  Relat.  delle  Mmioni,  p.  3. 
f  Ap.  Cretineau  Joly. 
\.  Buenos  Ay  res,  &c.,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  260. 
VOL  ir.  14 


194:  CHAPTER   IX. 

now  to  attempt  to  speak,  though  when  we  have  said  all  which 
we  know  how  to  say,  not  the  hundredth  part  will  be  told. 

It  was  in  1586,  'as  Charlevoix  relates,  that  Don  Francisco 
Victoria,  the  first  Bishop  of  Tucuinan,  who  had  long  labored 
like  the  humblest  missionary,  but  hitherto  almost  alone  in  the 
formidable  diocese  committed  to  his  oversight,  implored  the 
Society  of  Jesus  to  come  to  his  aid.*  He  was  himself  a 
Dominican,  "  and  this  shows,"  observes  Mr.  Southey,  whose 
evidence  we  shall  once  more  use,  "  how  highly  the  Jesuits  were 
at  that  time  esteemed."  From  the  province  of  Peru,  Barsena 
and  Angulo  were  dispatched;  from- Brazil,  of  which  Anchieta 
was  at  that  moment  the  provincial,  five  Fathers  were  sent  to 
Tucuman  by  way  of  Buenos  Ayres,  of  whom  the  most  celebrated, 
Manuel  de  Ortega,  was  to  be  associated  with  Barsena  in  that 
famous  apostolate  with  which  the  names  of  these  two  heroes  of 
the  Cross  are  inseparably  connected.  The  ship  which  carried 
Ortega  and  his  companions  was  attacked  in  the  Bay  of  Rio  by 
the  English, — at  that  time  rivals  of  the  Dutch  in  the  war 
against  "Catholic  missionaries, — and  the  Fathers,  after  being 
treated  with  the  usual  indignities,  were  carried  out  to  sea,  and 
finally  flung  into  a  boat,  without  either  oars  or  provisions,  and 
abandoned  to  the  mercy  of  the  waves.  The  boat,  drifted  to 
Buenos  Ayres,  a  distance  of  more  than  seven  hundred  miles, 
and  when  her  passengers  had  returned  thanks  to  Him  who  had 
saved  them  by  so  wonderful  a  providence,  they  crossed  the 
Pampas  to  Tucuman,  where  they  met  the  Fathers  from  Peru.f 

It  was  Barsena  and  Ortega  who  commenced  the  celebrated 
Guarani  mission,  and  afterwards  that  of  the  Chiquitos,  a  nation 
composed  of  about  thirty  tribes,  speaking  more  than  twenty 
different  languages,  all  radically  different  from  the  primitive 
Guarani  dialect.  M.  d'Orbigny  observes  that,  at  the  present 
day,  the  Guarani  has  become  the  almost  universal  language  of 
the  natives  inhabiting  these  regions  ;  arid  an  English  historian  of 
Brazil  notices  "  the  perfection  with  which  the  Jesuits  spoke  the 
Guaranitic  idiom,";):  of  which  they  published  Grammars  and 
Dictionaries,  and  which  perhaps  owes  its  prevalence  to  their 
influence.  Barsena  spoke  also  the  Tupi,  a  cognate  dialect  of 
the  Guarani,  and  the  Toconote,  of  which  he  composed  a  Gram 
mar.  Among  the  innumerable  works,  of  which  M.  Cretineau 
Joly  says  ''it  would  be  impossible  to  number  even  the  titles," 
which  the  Jesuits  produced  in  the  department  of  philology,  was 
a  Dictionary  of  the  language  of  the  Chiquitos,  in  three  volumes ; 

*  Charlevoix,  Histoire  du  Paraguay,  tome  i.,  liv.  iv.,  p.  278. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  287. 

\  Henderson's  History  of  Brazil,  ch.  vi.,  p.  135. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  195 

of  which  M.  d'Orbigny,  "  the  chief  authority,"  as  Dr.  Latham 
allows,  has  lately  declared,  "  nothing  more  complete  exists  in 
any  American  language."  But  such  works  were  hardly  more 
than  relaxations  amid  their  other  toils. 

We  do  not  propose  to  follow  Barsena,  Ortega,  and  their 
companions  through  all  the  incidents  of  their  apostolic  career, 
which  a  few  examples  will  sufficiently  illustrate.  They  find  a 
pestilence  raging  in  the  country  around  Asumpcion,  and  fling 
themselves  at  once,  according  to  their  custom,  into  the  midst  of 
the  danger.  Six  thousand  Indians  are  baptized,  and  even  Mr. 
Southey  pauses  to  acknowledge  "  the  zeal  and  the  intrepid 
charity  with  which  they  sought  out  the  infected,  and  ministered 
to  the  dying."  Barsena,  worn  out  by  labor  as  much  as  by 
age,  died  at  Cuzco  in  1596,  his  last  missionary  work  being  to 
convert  the  sole  remaining  prince  of  the  family  of  the  Incas  of 
Peru,  with  whom  he  shortly  after  departed  to  his  true  home. 

For  Ortega,  many  a  year  of  toil,  many  an  hour  of  danger  and 
Buffering,  were  still  in  store.  Some  of  the  incidents  of  his 
laborious  life  may  be  compared  with  any  thing  which  history 
records,  or  romance  has  invented,  in  the  field  of  perilous  adven 
ture.  On  one  occasion,  travelling  in  a  plain  between  the 
Parana  and  the  Paraguay,  with  a  company  of  neophytes,  they 
were  overtaken  by  one  of  those  sudden  floods  with  which  the 
lowlands  of  South  America  are  sometimes  devastated.  They 
climbed  into  trees,  but  the  flood  rose  higher  and  higher.  They 
were  without  food ;  wild  beasts  and  monstrous  serpents,  sur 
prised  by  the  deluge,  disputed  with  them  their  retreat.  For  two 
days  they  remained  between  life  and  death.  In  the  middle  of 
the  second  night,  Ortega  perceived  an  Indian  swimming  towards 
him.  He  had  volunteered  to  carry  tidings  to  the  Father  that 
three  of  his  catechumens  and  three  Christians,  lodged  in  the 
branches  of  a  neighboring  tree,  were  at  their  last  gasp ;  the 
first  implored  baptism,  the  others  absolution.  Binding  his 
catechist,  who  shared  his  own  refuge,  more  tightly  to  the  branch 
which  he  had  no  longer  strength  to  embrace,  and  having 
received  his  confession,  Ortega  leaped  into  the  flood.  A  branch 
pierced  through  his  thigh,  inflicting  a  wound  from  which  he 
never  recovered,  and  which  remained  open  for  twenty-two 
years  ;  but  he  swam  on,  baptized  the  three  Indians,  and  saw 
them  fall  one  after  another  into  the  gulf.  Their  struggle  was 
over,  but  the  three  Christians  still  remained.  Exhorting  them, 
amidst  the  darkness  of  the  night  and  the  rushing  of  the  waters, 
to  fervent  acts  of  contrition,  which  he  recited  with  them,  he 
saw  two  of  them  devoured  in  their  turn  by  the  flood.  He  had 
done  all  that  charity  could  inspire  or  heroism  perform,  and 
returned  to  his  own  tree,  in  time  to  find  his  catechist  with  the 


196  CHATTER   IX. 

water  up  to  his  neck.  Hoisting  him  up  by  a  final  effort  to  a 
higher  branch,  he  watched  with  him  during  the  remaining  hours 
of  the  night.  On  the  morrow  the  flood  abated,  and  the  sur 
vivors  pursued  their  way. 

Ortega  was  now  lamed  for  life,  yet  so  little  did  he  regard 
this  additional  obstacle,  that  on  one  occasion  he  performed  a 
missionary  journey  of  nine  hundred  miles  at  once.  Every  trial 
which  could  test  his  virtue  befell  him,  and  in  all  he  was 
victorious.  At  Lima,  the  Holy  Office  of  the  Inquisition,  to  the 
amazement,  of  the  whole  country,  condemned  him  to  prison. 
Ortega  did  not  even  ask  what  was  his  crime.  He  had  been 
slanderously  charged,  though  he  knew  it  not,  with  revealing  a 
confession. '  As  he  never  opened  his  lips,  his  silence  was 
accepted  as  an  evidence  of  guilt.  When  he  had  been  five 
months  incarcerated,  without  a  murmur  or  a  question,  his 
accuser  died ;  and  on  his  death-bed  confessed,  that  it  was 
Ortega's  refusal  to  give  him  absolution  which  tempted  him  to 
invent  the  hateful  calumny.  Released  from  prison,  with  every 
mark  of  admiration  and  reverence,  he  resumed  his  apostolic 
career;  and  having  brought  multitudes  into  the  Church,  he 
died  in  1622,  surviving  his  companion  Barsena  by  thirty  years. 

But  he  was  only  one  in  an  army  of  soldiers  as  valiant  as 
himself.  We  cannot  even  name  the  half  of  them ;  let  it  suffice 
to  attempt  a  brief  record  of  a  few,  and  of  their  works.  So  like 
were  they  in  their  fortitude,  their  boundless  zeal,  and  inex 
haustible  charity,  that  in  describing  one,  we  describe  all. 

Gaspare!  de  Monroy,  baffled  in  one  of  his  journeys  by  the 
obstinate  ferocity  of  an  Ornagua  chief,  who  not  only  rejected 
the  Gospel  himself,  but  threatened  the  most  horrible  death  to 
the  missionaries  and  to  all  who  should  embrace  their  doctrine, 
formed  one  of  those  sublime  resolutions  of  which  the  world 
applauds  with  enthusiasm  the  feeble  imitation  in  its  own  selfish 
heroes,  but  refuses  to  praise  the  execution  in  warriors  of  a 
nobler  class.  Ho  set  out  alone,  and  alone  he  entered  the  hut  of 
the  savage.  "You  may  kill  me,"  said  the  Father  with  a 
tranquil  air,  as  soon  as  he  stood  in  the  presence  of  the  bar 
barian,  "but  you  will  gain  little  honor  by  slaying  an  unarmed 
man.  If,  contrary  to  my  expectation,  you  give  me  a  hearing, 
all  the  advantage  will  be  for  yourself;  if  I  die  by  your  hand, 
an  immortal  crown  awaits  me  in  heaven."*  Astonishment 
disarmed  the  ^savage,  and  admiration  kept  him  silent.  Then, 
witl^a  kind  of  reluctant  awe,  he  offered  to  his  unmoved  visitor 
a  drink  from  his  own  cup.  A  little  later,  he  and  his  whole 
tribe  were  converted. 

*  Charlevoix,  liv.  iv.,  p.  323. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  197 

In  1604,  Marcel  Lorengana,  a  friend  of  Monroy,  and  Joseph 
Cataldino,  are  wrecked  in  the  Paraguay,  and  only  saved  by  the 
daring  of  the  Christian  Indians.  It  was  Lorencana, — "who 
was  rightly  considered,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  "an  accomplished 
missionary," — who  obtained  permission  to  go  to  the  Guaranis, 
when  their  caciques  had  publicly  announced,  "that  they 
would  never  be  satisfied  till  they  had  drunk  the  blood  of  the 
last  Mahoma,"  a  recently  converted  tribe,  "  out  of  the  skull  of 
the  oldest  missionary."  The  Guaranis  became  afterwards,  as 
we  shall  see,  a  proverb  for  their  Christian  virtues. 

But  who  shall  estimate  the  toils  by  which  these  ferocious 
savages  were  converted  into  men  and  Christians?  "The 
Guarani  race,"  says  a  prejudiced  English  traveller  in  1852, — 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  Lorencana  had  dwelt  amongst 
them,  "  are  a  noble  set  of  fellows — Roman  Catholic  the  creed."* 
It  was  no  human  power  which  wrought  a  change  so  marvellous 
and  so  enduring.  "I  was  informed  at  Quito,"  says  the  cele 
brated  navigator  Ulloa,  "  that  the  number  of  towns  of  the 
Guarani  Indians  in  the  year  1734,  amounted  to  thirty-two, 
supposed  to  contain  between  thirty  and  forty  thousand  families, 
and  that  from  the  increasing  prosperity  of  the  Christian  religion, 
they  were  then  deliberating  on  building  three  other  towns."f 
From  1610  to  1768,  seven  hundred  and  two  thousand  and 
eighty-six  Guaranis  were  baptized  by  the  Jesuits  alone,  besides 
those  who  were  admitted  into  the  Church  by  the  Franciscans.^ 

It  was  Lorencana,  for  they  were  the  same  in  all  trials,  who 
threatened  the  judgments  of  heaven  against  the  Spaniards  for 
their  cruelty  and  avarice;  and  when  commanded  by  an  official 
of  the  church  in  which  he  was  preaching  to  be  silent  and  leave 
the  pulpit,  "immediately  obeyed,  without  the  slightest  emotion 
of  anger."  "  It  is  said,"  observes  Southey,  "  that  this  modera 
tion  affected  the  Treasurer  so  much,  that  he  went  into  the 
pulpit,  and  with  a  loud  voice  confessed  his  fault,  for  having 
insulted  a  good  man  in  the  discharge  of  his  duty."  A  few 
days  after,  the  Treasurer  carne  to  a  miserable  end. 

In  1605,  Diego  de  Torrez  arrived  in  Peru  as  Provincial  of 
Chili  and  Paraguay,  bringing  with  him  seven  Fathers.  In 
1615,  when  his  term  of  office  expired,  his  successor  de  Onate 
found  that  the  ssven  had  become  one  hundred  and  nineteen. 
In  1617,  thirty-seven  more  entered  the  field  under  the  conduct 
of  Viana.  In  1628,  forty-two  arrived  under  Mastrilli.  In 
1639,  thirty  came  with  Diaz  Tano.  And  so  to  the  las,t  hour 


*  Paraguay,  Brazil,  &c.,  by  C.  B.  Mansfield,  Esq.,  M.A.,  preface,  p.  9. 
f  Ulloa,  Voyage  to  8.  America  ;  Pinkerton.  vol.  xiv.,  p.  036. 
i  Dobrizhoffer,  Accoitnt  of  the  Abypone*,  vql.  iii.,  p.  417  (18.22). 


198  CHAPTER   IX. 

they  were  recruited,  more  than  five  thousand  Jesuits  from  Spain 
alone  finding  here  their  cross  and  their  crown. 

In  1623,  Juan  Romero,  superior  of  the  mission  of  Asumpcion, 
accepted  a  task  which  the  viceroy  had  vainly  proposed  to  his 
soldiers,  that  of  tracing  the  Uruguay  to  its  source.  "  None  but 
a  Jesuit,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  "  could  make  the  attempt  with 
any  hope  of  safety,"  because  they  alone  were  not  solicitous 
about  safety.  Escorted  by  a  few  Indians,  he  had  already 
advanced  a  hundred  leagues,  when  he  was  forced  back  to 
Buenos  Ayres,  unable  to  communicate  his  own  intrepidity 
to  his  followers.  It  was  Romero  who  replied  to  some  Chris 
tians  who  wished  to  punish  the  murderers  of  Father  Gonzal- 
vez,  "  The  blood  of  martyrs  is  not  to  be  avenged  by  blood." 
In  1654,  after  a  long  life  of  apostolic  toil,  he  was  himself 
martyred. 

Almost  every  year,  from  the  beginning  of  this  mission  to  its 
close,  was  consecrated  by  a  martyrdom.  Let  us  notice  at  least 
a  few  of  these  glorious  dates.  Gonzalvez,  a  man  of  illustrious 
birth,  was  one  of  the  first.  Often  he  had  presented  himself 
alone  to  the  fiercest  tribes,  and  when  they  lifted  the  bow  or 
the  club,  he  would  say,  "  This  cross  which  you  see  me  carry 
is  more  powerful  than  the  arms  of  the  Spaniards,  and  it  is  my 
only  defence ;"  and  the  club  would  fall  harmless  to  the  ground, 
the  arrow  would  be  withdrawn  from  the  bow.  In  1615,  he 
was  ascending  the  Parana  without  any  companion.  "  No 
European,"  said  an  Indian  cacique,  who  met  him  on  his  way, 
"  has  ever  trodden  this  shore  without  dyeing  it  with  his  blood." 
"  Think  not,"  answered  Gonzalvez,  "  to  alarm  me  with  your 
threats.  I  am  a  servant  of  the  only  true  God,  whose  ministers 
count  it  the  greatest  happiness  which  can  befall  them  to  shed 
their  blood  for  Him."  A  hundred  times  he  encountered,  and 
survived,  the  same  perils,  but  his  hour  came  at  last.  In  1628, 
on  the  15th  of  November,  just  as  he  had  finished  the  Holy 
Sacrifice,  and  had  quitted  the  church,  the  savages  rushed  upon 
him :  "  One  blow  from  a  macana  laid  him  lifeless  upon  the 
ground,  and  a  second  beat  out  his  brains."*  Father  Rodriguez, 
running  out  of  the  church  at  the  cry  of  the  savages,  found  the 
same  end ;  and  two  days  later,  Del  Castillo,  the  companion  of 
both,  was  also  martyred. 

Mr.  Southey,  who  recounts  these  events  after  Charlevoix  and 
other  historians,  admits  that  the  barbarians  were  "  impressed 
with  astonishment,"  not  only  by  the  miracles  which  are  said 
to  have  followed  the  triple  sacrifice,  but  especially  by  "  the 
public  rejoicings  in  which  all  classes  of  men  partook,"  in 

*  Southey,  ii.,  294. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  199 

celebration  of  the  triumph  of  the  martyrs.  "  ISTor  could  they 
contemplate,"  says  the  English  writer,  "without  astonishment 
the  conduct  of  the  Jesuits,  their  disinterested  enthusiasm,  their 
indefatigable  perseverance,  and  the  privations  and  dangers 
which  they  endured  for  no  earthly  reward."  They  became 
anxious,  he  adds,  "to  see  these  wonderful  men,"  as  of  old 
the  people  of  Lystra  and  Derbe  thronged  round  Paul  and 
Barnabas,  "  saying  in  the  Lycaonian  tongue,  the  gods  are 
come  down  to  us  in  the  likeness  of  men  ;"*  and  when  they 
"  once  came  within  the  influence  of  such  superior  minds," 
even  they  discerned  Whose  messengers  they  were,  and  from 
murderers  became  disciples. 

Montoya,  whom  Southey  calls  one  of  the  most  learned  men 
of  his  age,  and  who  was  the  author  of  a  Grammar  of  the 
Guarani  language,  was  a  missionary  of  the  same  class  as 
Gonzalvez  and  Rodriguez.  A  Guarani  chief,  Tayaoba,  "  who 
had  long  been  the  dread  of  the  Spaniards,"  and  whose  tribe 
were  some  of  the  fiercest  of  their  race,  had  resolved  to  kill  him. 
The  nation  of  which  this  man  was  the  leader  was  so  ferocious 
in  its  habirs,  that  "their  arrows  were  headed  with  the  bones  of 
those  whom  they  had  slain,  and  in  weaning  their  children  the 
first  food  which  was  substituted  for  the  mother's  milk,  was  the 
ilesh  of  an  enemy."  To  this  tribe,  with  the  more  than  human 
intrepidity  which  marked  his  order,  Montoya  presented  himself; 
and  when  he  told  them  that  he  had  come  to  teach  them  how 
they  might  be  saved  from  eternal  torments,  "  they  replied  that 
lie  was  a  liar  if  he  said  they  were  to  be  eternally  tormented, 
and  then  let  fly  a  volley  of  arrows  upon  him  and  his  attendants." 
Seven  of  the  latter  were  killed,  but  Montoya,  who  seems  to 
have  been  on  this  occasion  miraculously  preserved,  retired  with 
the  rest ;  and  when  the  savages  had  devoured  the  seven,  "  they 
expressed  their  sorrow  that  they  had  not  tasted  priest's  flesh  at 
the  feast,  and  had  the  Jesuit's  skull  for  a  cup."  Another  chief, 
Pindobe,  "laid  in  wait  for  Montoya,  for  the  purpose  of  eating 
him."  Yet  even  Tayaoba  and  his  horrible  crew  were  so  im 
pressed,  as  Mr.  Southey  relates,  with  the  astonishing  valor  and 
dignity  of  the  missionaries,  that  "this  fierce  warrior  sent  two 
of  his  sons  secretly  to  the  Reduction  of  St.  Francis  Xavier,  to 
see  whether  what  he  had  heard  of  these  establishments  was 
true."  A  little  later,  Tayaoba  was  instructed  and  baptized  by 
Montoya,  "with  twenty-eight  of  his  infant  children. "f 

We  have  mentioned  Cataldino,  the  companion  of  Lorencana, 
and  the  friend  of  Montoya.  In  1623,  he  was  one  day  super- 

v 

*  Acts  xiv.  10. 
t  Southey,  p.  290. 


200  CHAPTER   IX. 

intending  the  erection  of  a  forest  church,  when  Montoja  sud 
denly  appeared  before  him  with  the  announcement,  that  a 
tribe  of  hostile  savages  were  at  his  heels.  "  The  will  of  God 
be  done,  my  dear  Father,"  said  Cataldino,  and  then  quietly 
resumed  his  work,  without  even  turning  his  head  towards 
the  yelling  crowd,  who  were  rushing  upon  him.  Amazed  at 
his  calm  indifference,  or  restrained  by  an  unseen  power,  they 
gazed  upon  him  for  a  while,  and  then  disappeared  in  the 
forest. 

In  1632,  Christoval  de  Mendoza,  the  grandson  of  one  of  the 
conquerors  of  Peru,  was  martyred  by  a  tribe  to  whom  he  had 
been  preaching.  "  It  was  his  hope  and  faith,"  we  are  told  by 
Mr.  Southey,  "that  his  life  and  death  might  atone  for  the 
offences  of  his  ancestors  against  those  Indians  for  whose  salva 
tion  he  devoted  himself."  "  He  is  said,"  observes  Dobrizhoffer, 
"  to  have  baptized  ninety-five  thousand  Indians."  In  1634, 
Espinosa,  who  had  been  the  companion  of  Montoya,  Suarez, 
and  Contreras,  in  all  their  toils,  and  whose  own  life  had  been 
a  long  series  of  dangers  and  sufferings,  was  martyred  by  the 
Guapalaches.  He  was  on  his  road  to  Santa  Fe,  whither  he 
was  going  to  beg  food  and  to  buy  cotton  for  his  neophytes, 
suffering  from  the  barbarity  of  the  unconverted  Indians.  He 
knew  his  danger,  but  the  famine  was  urgent,  and  he  hurried 
on  to  fall  into  the  snare  which  the  savages  had  laid  for  him. 

In  1636,  Osorio  and  Ripario,  who  had  founded  a  new  Re 
duction  in  the  country  of  the  Ocloias,  were  tortured  to  death 
by  the  Chiriguanes.  the  former  appears  to  have  received  a 
revelation  of  the  death  by  which  he  was  to  glorify  God,  since 
lie  had  himself  announced  it  beforehand  in  a  letter  to  the  cele 
brated  Cardinal  de  Lugo.* 

In  1639,  Alfaro  gained  in  his  turn  the  crown  of  martyrdom  ; 
and  the  death  of  so  many  victims  had  already  been  so  prolific, 
according  to  the  law  of  Christian  missions,  in  graces  to  the 
heathen,  that  even  at  this  early  date  there  were  already  twenty- 
nine  separate  Reductions  in  the  two  provinces  of  Parana  and 
Uruguay,  in  which  more  than  three  hundred  thousand  Indians 
had  learned  to  practice  all  the  virtues  of  the  Christian  life. 

Let  us  pass  at  once  to  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  take  up  the  narrative  from  the  year  1683,  in  which  Ruiz 
and  Solinas,  accompanied  by  a  secular  priest,  Don  Ortiz  de 
Zarate,  who  aspired  to  the  crown  of  martyrdom,  entered  the 
mountain  region  of  Chaco.  Already  they  had  formed  a  new 
Reduction,  under  the  title  of  St.  Raphael,  in  which  four  hundred 
families  were  assembled,  and  Ruiz  had  departed  for  Tucuman, 

*  Charlevoix,  liv.  ix.,  p.  377. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  201 

when  Solinas  and  Zarate  were  attacked  by  the  Tobas  and 
Macobis,  and  on  the  17th  of  March,  1686,  fell,  under  their 
arrows  and  clubs. 

In  1690,  Mascardi  and  Quilelmo,  who  had  penetrated  almost 
to  the  southern  extremity  of  the  continent,  were  martyred  by 
the  Patagonians,  that  so  the  blood  of  apostles  might  sanctify 
the  land  throughout  its  length  and  breadth  ;  while  Father 
Joseph  Cardiel  "was  reduced  to  such  straits  as  to  be  obliged  to 
feed  on  grass,  unless  he  preferred  dying  of  emptiness."* 

In  1694,  some  of  the  best  and  bravest  of  this  company  01 
preachers, — de  Arce,  Centeno,  Hervas,  de  Zea,  d'Avila,  and 
others, — formed  new  Reductions  on  every  side,  amid  perils 
which  bad  no  terrors  for  such  men,  though  most  of  them  were 
destined  to  lose  their  lives  in  the  work.  Twice  de  Arce  attempt 
ed  in  vain  to  subdue  the  lierce  Chiriguanes,  "  one  of  the  most 
numerous  and  formidable  of  all  the  South  American  nations." 
They  are  supposed,  Mr.  Southey  relates,  to  have  killed  in  the 
course  of  two  centuries  "  more  than  one  hundred  and  tifty 
thousand  Indians."  When  the  missionary  sought  to  arrest 
their  attention  by  warning  them  of  the  fire  of  hell,  they  replied 
disdainfully,  "that  they  should  find  means  of  putting  it  out." 
So  his  superiors  removed  him  for  a  time,  and  sent  him  with 
Ignatius  Chome,  "one  of  the  most  intelligent  and  most  merito 
rious  of  the  Jesuits,"  to  the  Chiquitos.  Chome  had  composed 
a  Grammar  and  a  Dictionary  of  both  the  Zamuco  and  Chiquito 
tongues;  had  translated  Thomas  a  Kempis  into  the  latter,  and 
written  a  history  of  their  nation.  It  is  a  circumstance  worthy 
of  remark,  that  of  the  seven  companions  who  accompanied 
de  Arce  in  this  attempt,  not  two  were  of  the  same  race.  They 
were  a  Sardinian,  a  Neapolitan,  a  Belgian,  an  Austrian,  a 
Bohemian,  a  Biscayan,  and  a  Spaniard  of  La  Mancha.  "  So 
curiously,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  "  was  this  extraordinary  society 
composed  of  men  of  all  nations.  And  what  a  pre-eminent 
knowledge  of  mankind  must  the  Jesuits  have  possessed  from 
this  circumstance  alone  ;  this  knowledge,  of  all  others  the  most 
difficult  of  acquisition,  was  thus  acquired  by  them  as  a  mother 
tongue,  and  they  were  fitted  for  missionaries  and  statesmen 
almost  without  study."  Yet  this  gentleman,  intoxicated  with 
self-love,  thought  himself  qualified  to  pass  sentence  upon  them 
all,  and  to  rebuke  their  " superstition"  and  "idolatry!" 

De  Arce  was  now  amongst  the  Chiquitos.  Abandoned  to 
the  most  extraordinary  and  eccentric  superstitions,  which  it 
would  be  unprofitable  to  describe  in  detail,  and  brutalized  by 
almost  perpetual  intoxication,  they  had  killed  the  first  mission- 

*  Dobrizhoffer,  p.  150. 


202  CHAPTER   IX. 

aries  who  went  amongst  them,  and  flattered  themselves  that 
they  were  now  delivered  forever  from  their  importunate  pres 
ence.  But  they  were  saved  by  the  very  blood  which  they  had 
shed,  as  Saul  owed  his  conversion  to  the  martyrdom  of  St. 
Stephen.  "From  their  first  establishment,"  says  the  English 
historian,  "  the  Chiquito  missions  were  uniformly  prosperous  in 
all  things.  Here,  as  in  other  parts  of  America,  the  Jesuits  were 
usefully,  meritoriously,  and  piously  employed ;  ready,  at  all 
times,  to  encounter  sufferings,  perils,  and  death  itself,  with 
heroic  and  Christian  fortitude."  And  so  they  converted  the 
whole  nation  ;  and  with  such  lasting  results,  that  as  M.  d'Or- 
bigny  observes,  the  Chiquitos,  "happier  than  other  tribes,  all 
live  to  this  day  in  the  missions,  under  the  old  form  of  govern 
ment  established  by  the  Jesuit  Fathers."*  It  was  amongst  the 
Chiquitos  that  this  traveller  heard  the  ecclesiastical  music 
which  filled  even  his  fastidious  ear  with  admiration. 

De  Arce,  to  whom  we  must  return  for  a  moment,  aspiring 
after  new  dangers  and  more  arduous  toils,  now  entered  for  the 
third  time  the  territory  of  the  Chiriguanes.  It  was  almost 
certain  death,  but  he  was  one  of  those  missionaries  who  can 
say  with  St.  Paul,  who  finished  his  career  by  martyrdom  as 
they  did,  "The  charity  of  Christ  constraineth  me."  We  have 
no  space  to  relate  his  labors  and  tribulations,  which  were  so 
fruitful,  that  when,  at  a  later  period,  the  enemies  of  these 
apostolic  warriors  caine  to  count  the  final  results  of  their  war 
fare,  they  found  forty  thousand  Chiriguanes,  now  fervent  and 
docile  Christians,  collected  together  in  a  single  mission.  De 
Arce  died  as  he  had  lived,  and  as  it  was  fitting  that  such  a  man 
should  die,  martyred  by  the  Payaguas,  in  1717,  together  with 
his  fellow-missionaries,  Maco,  Sylva,  and  de  Blende. 

Lucas  Cavallero,  also  destined  for  martyrdom,  was  laboring 
at  the  same  time  amongst  the  Puraxis.  'Unable  to  resist  his 
fearless  charity,  and  captivated  by  his  preaching  and  example, 
they  also  are  won  to  Christianity  and  civilization.  It  would 
have  been  reasonable  that  he  should  have  reposed,  at  least  for 
a  ^time,  amongst  these  now  peaceful  neophytes  ;  but  he  was 
willing  to  postpone  thoughts  of  ease  to  another  life,  and  once 
inure  plunged  into  the  thick  of  the  battle.  In  vain  the  Puraxis 
implore  him  not  to  expose  himself  to  the  fury  of  the  barbarians. 
He  leaves  them  his  blessing,  and  confiding  them  to  other 
pastors,  hastens  to  the  Manacicas.  They  also  are  subdued  by 
his  word,  and  he  is  next  among  the  Sibacas.  Everywhere  he 
is  victorious ;  and  as  the  Quiriquicas  had  now  become  the  most 
implacable  enemies  of  his  neophytes,  and  were  thirsting  for 

*  Voyage  dans  VAmtrique  Meridionale,  tome  iv.,  p.  260. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  20!$ 

his  own  blood,  he  presents  himself  among  them.  Such  were 
the  simple  tactics  of  these  soldiers  of  the  Cross.  They  ask 
where  danger  is  to  be  found,  only  to  confront  it.  Four  other 
tribes  in  succession  are  evangelized  by  the  same  indomitable 
missionary,  and  still  he  survives.  But  such  a  career  could  not 
last  forever.  His  brethren,  who  knew  how  to  judge  apostolic 
gifts,  were  accustomed  to  say  of  him,  "  that  St.  Francis  Xavier 
had  no  more  perfect  imitator  than  Lucas  Cavallero."  On  one 
occasion  he  was  saluted  by  a  shower  of  arrows,  but  they  in 
flicted  no  wound,  though  they  rained  on  him  from  every  side. 
At  length  his  hour  arrived,  and  he  found  amongst  the  Puy- 
zocas,  in  1711,  the  crown  of  martyrdom  for  which  he  had  so 
long  and  so  patiently  labored. 

Let  us  notice  also  Father  Falconer,  an  English  Jesuit,  "  of 
great  skill  in  medicine,"  w»ho  succeeded  in  founding  a  mission 
in  the  Pampas,  which  he  called  Kuestra  Senora  del  Pilar,  and 
whose  manner  of  life  is  thus  described  by  the  writer  from 
whom  Maria  Theresa  of  Austria  used  to  delight  to  hear  such 
narratives,  when  he  had  been  banished  from  America.  "Wan 
dering  over  the  plains  with  his  Indians  to  kill  horseflesh, 
] laving  no  plate,  either  of  pewter  or  wood,  he  always,  in  place 
thereof,  made  use  of  his  hat,  which  grew  at  length  so  greasy, 
that  it  was  devoured,  while  he  slept,  by  the  wild  dogs  with 
which  the  plains  are  overrun."* 

Cyprian  Baraza,  says  Mr.  Southey,  "  was  perhaps  the  most 
enlightened  Jesuit  that  ever  labored  in  South  America."f  He 
had  set  out  from  Lima  with  the  martyr  del  Castillo,  and 
ascended  in  a  canoe  the  river  Guapay.  For  twelve  days  they 
urged  on  their  frail  boat,  till  they  reached  the  camp  of  the  tribe 
whom  they  sought.  It  was  among  the  Moxos,  in  the  country 
to  the  south  of  the  Portuguese  territory  of  Mato  Grosso,  that 
Baraza  was  destined  to  toil  for  twenty-seven  years.  Recalled 
lor  a  moment  to  Santa  Cruz  by  his  superiors,  in  consequence  of 
a  fever  which  had  reduced  h'im  to  what  appeared  incurable 
debility,  he  spent  the  long  days  of  his  convalescence  in  learning 
the  art  of  weaving,  that  he  might  introduce  it  among  his  future 
disciples.  At  length  he  was  able  to  resume  the  apostolate 
which  had  been  interrupted,  and  found  himself  amongst  a 
people  so  ignorant  and  barbarous  that  they  had  not  even  any 
chiefs,  lived  only  for  rapine  and  murder,  and  hunted  men 
instead  of  beasts  for  food.  Among  these  degraded  savages 
this  man  of  profound  learning  and  elegant  tastes  consented  to 
spend  his  life;  sharing  their  filthy  lodgings;  studying  all 

*  Dobrizhoffer,  p.  145. 

f  Vol.  iii.,  ch.  xxxiv.,  p.  198. 


204:  CHAPTER   IX. 

their  caprices  ;  imitating  their  habits  ;  and  descending  himself 
almost  to  the  condition  of  a  savage,  in  order  to  raise  them  to 
the  dignity  of  Christians.  And  this  life,  for  the  love  of  God, 
he  led  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  ;  till  on  the  16th  of 
September,  1702,  being  then  in  his  sixty-first  ^  year,  he  was 
martyred  by  the  Baures,  whom  he  had  visited  in  the  hope  of 
converting  them,  and  who  by  his  death  were  won  to  Christ. 

Like  all  his  fellows,  he  had  not  only  planted  but  reaped, 
even  in  this  rugged  soil.  At  his  death,  fifteen  colonies  of 
Christian  Moxos  had  been  formed,  from  twenty  to  thirty  miles 
apart  from  each  other.  "  With  his  own  hand,"  observes  Mr. 
Markliain,  "  he  baptized  one  hundred  and  ten  thousand  hea 
thens.  He  found  the  Moxos  an  ignorant  people,  more  savage 
and  cruel  than  the  wild  beasts,  and  he  left  them  a  civilized 
community,  established  in  villages,  and  converted  to  Chris 
tianity."*  The  churches,  of  which  he  was  often  himself  the 
architect,  "  were  large,  well  built,  and  richly  ornamented," 
says  Mr.  Southey.  The  Moxos,  once  so  barbarous,  had  become, 
as  the  same  writer  relates,  not  only  excellent  workmen,  but  even 
skilful  artists.  "  Cotton  was  raised  in  all  the  settlements,"  an 
active  commerce  created,  and  habits  of  intelligent  industry 
formed.  "  More  comforts,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  "  were  found  in 
the  missions  of  the  Moxos  and  Baures  than  in  the  Spanish 
capital  of  Santa  Cruz  de  la  Sierra."f  And  the  apostle  who  had 
accomplished  this  amazing  work,  and  who,  during  many  years, 
had  permitted  himself  no  other  couch  than  the  bare  ground  or 
the  steps  of  his  church,  was  deemed  happy  and  glorious  by  all 
his  companions,  because  in  his  old  age  he  attained  to  martyr 
dom,  and  after  devoting  all  his  faculties  for  forty  years  to  the  ser 
vice  of  his  Master,  was  beaten  to  death  by  the  clubs  of  savages. 

A  century  after  his  martyrdom,  they  were  still,  says  Mr, 
Markham,  "a  thriving,  industrious  people, famous  as  carpeii 
ters,  weavers,  and  agriculturists  ;"  and  an  Anglo-Indian  writer, 
alluding  in  1857  to  this  prodigious  and  lasting  work  of  civiliza 
tion  throughout  the  whole  southern  continent,  asks  how  it  can 
be  explained  that  even  "  the  slaves  and  mestijos  of  South 
America  should  be  able  to  purchase  of  one  single  class  of 
English  manufactures,  twenty-four  times  as  much  as  the  free, 
enlightened,  and  happily  guided  Hindus  ?"^ 

Such  as  Baraza,  and  Cavallero,  and  Espinosa,  they  continued 
to  the  end.  Dobrizhotfer,  the  apostle  of  the  Abipones,  "  was 
contented,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  though  he  hated  and  reviled  the 


*  Introd.,  p.  xli. 

f  Vol.  iii.,  ch.  xlii.,  p.  606. 

\  Mead,  The  Sepoy  Revolt,  ch.  xxvii.,  p.  347. 


MISSIONS    IN    AMERICA.  205 

very  men  whom  he  was  forced  to  applaud,  "to  .employ,  in 
laboring  among  these  savages,  under  every  imaginable  circum 
stance  of  discomfort  and  discouragement,  talents  which  would 
have  raised  him  to  distinction  in  the  most  enlightened  parts  of 
Europe."  Henart,  once  a  page  of  honor  in  the  court  of  Henri 
IY.,  was  a  man  of  the  same  school,  and  chose  the  "riches  of 
Christ"  before  the  favor  of  the  most  popular  of  earthly  kings  ; 
and  Herrera,  in  whom  the  most  learned  men  of  Europe  would 
have  recognized  a  master,  but  whom  the  Abipones  slew  ;  and 
Hervas,  who  died  of  fatigue,  after  all  his  immense  labors,  by 
the  banks  of  an  obscure  stream ;  and  d'Aguilar,  who  governed 
the  Reductions  of  the  Parana,  and  at  the  head  of  seven  thou 
sand  Christian  Indians  saved  Peru  to  the  crown  of  Spain  ;  and 
Martin  Xavier,  a  kinsman  of  St.  Francis,  who,  with  Father 
Balthazer  Sena,  was  cruelly  starved  to  death ;  and  Sylva  and 
]Sriebla,  both  martyred  by  the  Payaguas ;  and  Arias  and  de 
Arenas,  who -won  the  same  crown;  and  Ugalde,  whom  the 
Mataguyos  killed.  Not  inferior  to  these  were  Machoni  and 
Montijo,  the  apostles  of  the  Lulles ;  and  Julian  di  Lizardi,  who 
was  martyred  by  the  Chiriguanes,  his  body  being  found  pierced 
with  arrows,  and  his  breviary  lying  open  by  his  side  at  the 
office  for  the  dead,  as  if  he  had  chanted  his  own  requiem  ;  and 
Castanarez,  who  converted  the  Zamucos,  when  they  had  mar 
tyred  Albert  Romero,  and  was  slaughtered  himself,  in  1TM,  by 
the  Mataguyos,  after  forty  years  of  toil ;  and  Joseph  de  Quiroga, 
one  of  the  most  famous  seamen  of  Spain  before  he  put  on  the 
habit  of  St.  Ignatius ;  and  Juan  Pastor,  who  at  seventy-three 
years  of  age  presented  himself  alone  in  the  camp  of  the  Mata 
guyos  ;  and  Juan  Yaz,  perhaps  a  kinsman  of  that  other  Yaz, 
of  whom  we  heard  in  Ceylon,  who  died  in  old  age  of  pestilence 
while  ministering  to  the  sick ;  and  Alvarez,  who  dwelt  alone 
among  the  fierce  Caai'quas,  wThom  the  Spaniards  could  never 
reduce,  and  dared  not  provoke  ;  and  Philip  Suarez,  the  mar 
tyr  ;  and  Altamirano,  and  Bartholomew  Diaz,  and  a  thousand 
more,  whom  we  can  neither  name  nor  praise  —  whom  God 
made  what  they  were,  who  did  all  their  works  for  His  sake 
alone,  and  who  found  in  Him  their  eternal  reward. 

We  have  still  to  show,  in  conclusion,  and  we  shall  be  able  to 
do  so  by  the  testimony  of  enemies,  what  were  the  actual  and 
final  results  accomplished  in  Paraguay  by  the  labors  at  which 
we  have  now  glanced.  But  first  let  it  be  permitted  to  add  a 
word  upon  the  men  themselves,  of  whom  we  have  noticed  only 
an  inconsiderable  number,  because  their  lives  sufficiently  repre 
sent  and  illustrate  those  of  their  companions,  and  because  thou 
sands  in  that  age  left  no  other  memorial  on  earth  by  which 
their  passage  may  now  be  traced  than  the  multitude  of  disci' 


206  CHAPTER  IX. 

pies  from  Canada  to  China,  and  from  Paraguay  to  Abyssinia, 
who  by  their  ministry  were  "  renewed  in  the  spirit  of  their 
minds,'"  and  gathered  into  the  fold  of  Christ. 

It  would  be  a  mere  indiscretion  to  suggest  reflections  which 
the  deeds  of  this  great  company  of  apostles,  who  will  be  imitated 
by  Catholic  missionaries  to  the  end  of  time,  will  awaken  in  every 
Christian  soul,  and  which  they  kindled  even  in  the  breast  of 
the  cannibal  savage,  half  beast  and  half  idiot,  who  wandered 
by  the  banks  of  the  Parana  and  the  Uruguay,  guided  only,  till 
these  men  stood  before  him,  by  the  instincts  of  an  animal,  and 
the  passions  of  a  demon.  But  it  is  well  to  observe,  in  contem 
plating  the  supernatural  virtues  of  which  we  have  witnessed 
the  action,  that  they  were  the  natural  fruit  of  gifts  and  graces 
which  were  not  only  fair  to  look  upon,  and  mighty  to  subdue 
the  arts  of  the  wicked  one,  and  to  unbind  in  every  land  the 
fetters  of  his  victims,  but  which  had  a  yet  deeper  and  more 
awful  significance,  as  even  the  barbarians  of  Asia  and  America 
understood,  inasmuch  as  they  revealed  the  immediate  and  in 
timate  presence  of  God,  as  surely  as  the  golden-fringed  cloud 
tells  of  the  great  orb  behind,  wThose  rays  it  obscures  but  cannot 
hide.  These  men  were  mighty,  but  evidently  not  by  their  own 
strength  ;  valiant,  because  they  feared  nothing  but  sin  ;  patient, 
for  they  walked  in  the  steps  of  the  Crucified  ;  and  wise,  beyond 
the  wisdom  of  the  children  of  Adam,  because  to  them  it  had 
been  said,  by  Him  who  once  gave  the  same  assurance  to  earlier 
missionaries,  "  It  is  not  you  mat  speak,  but  the  Spirit  of  your 
Father  that  speaketh  in  you"* 

Yet  it  was  at  the  very  moment  in  which  the  loving  providence 
of  God  was  sending  forth  into  all  lands,  from  the  crowded  cities 
of  the  furthest  East  to  the  solitudes  of  the  unknown  West,  such 
a  multitude  of  apostles  as  the  world  had  never  before  seen  ;  arid 
that  His  Spirit,  with  a  mighty  inspiration,  was  filling  thousands 
at  once  with  such  graces,  and  leading  them  to  such  victories,  as 
men  had  almost  begun  to  reckon  among  the  impossible  glories  of 
an  earlier  age  ;  that  a  people  of  Saxon  origin,  newly  separated 
from  the  Church  to  which  they  owed  all  their  past  happiness,  all 
their  noblest  institutions,  all  their  knowledge,  and  all  their  civili 
zation,  were  filling  the  air  with  imprecations  against  the  very 
religion  upon  which  the  Almighty  was  once  more  impressing, 
before  the  face  of  the  gentiles  now  entering  into  their  forfeited 
inheritance,  the  seal  of  His  august  sanction.  It  was  at  this  time, 
when  every  pagan  land  was  being  newly  fertilized  with  the  blood 
of  apostles,  who  died  for  the  name  of  Jesus,  and  would  have 
died,— as  More  and  Fisher,  Campion  and  Parsons,  and  many 

*  S.  Matt.  x.  20. 


MISSIONS    IN   AMERICA.  207 

more,  died  in  England, — as  joyously  and  exultingly,  for  the 
Church  which  He  illumined  with  His  presence,  or  for  the  least 
of  her  doctrines ;  that  the  founders  and  promoters  of  the 
Anglican  schism,  less  discerning  than  the  pagans  of  India  or 
China,  more  blind  and  perverse  than  the  savages  of  Brazil  and 
Paraguay,  were  blaspheming  the  faith  which  the  Hindoo  and 
the  Omagua  could  no  longer  resist,  when  they  had  once  heard 
the  more  than  human  wisdom  which  proclaimed  it  to  them.  It 
was  in  the  very  age  in  which  St.  Francis  began  that  immortal 
apostolate,  and  those  stupendous  labors,  which  were  to  be  con 
tinued  during  two  centuries,  and  in  which  his  brethren  and 
kinsmen  -w ere  to  win  to  the  Church  more  souls  than  all  the 
powers  of  hell  were  about  to  snatch  from  her;  that  Cranmer,  in 
language  which  none  but  an  apostate  could  use,  was  stirring  up 
the  English  against  the  Church  which  he  called  "  the  cursed 
synagogue  of  Antichrist  ;""*  that  Kidley  was  reviling  her,  with 
the  accents  of  an  energumen,  as  "  the  Beast  of  Babylon,  that 
devilish  drab,  whore,  and  beast  ;"f  that  Bacon,  the  intimate  of 
Cranmer,  was  shrieking  like  a  maniac  against  "  the  pestiferous 
and  damnable  sect  of  the  papists ;"  and  declaring,  in  hideous 
words,  that  "  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  came  from  hell  ;":£  that 
Jewel,  as  if  the  powers  of  darkness  used  his  mouth  for  a 
trumpet,  was  calling  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  "the  Man  of  Per 
dition;'^  that  Grindal,  who  was  called  "Archbishop  of  Can 
terbury,"  was  commanding  all  the  altars  in  England,  upon 
which  the  adorable  Sacrifice  of  the  New  Law  had  once  been 
offered,  "  to  be  utterly  taken  down,  broken,  defaced,  and  'be 
stowed  to  some  common  use  ;"\  that  Sandys,  who  was  styled 
"Archbishop  of  York,"  was  raving  like  one  possessed  against 
"  that  synagogue  of  Satan,  that  man  of  sin,  that  triple-crowned 
beast,  that  double-sworded  tyrant,  that  thief  and  murderer,  that 
adversary  unto  Christ ;"  ^[  and  lastly,  that  the  Anglican  Church, 
the  creation  of  these  very  rnen,  was  exhorting  all  her  ministers 
diligently  to  teach  the  people  of  England,  whether  they  would 
hear  or  no,  that,  till  Cranmer  and  Beza  arose,  "  the  whole  world 
had  been  sunk  in  the  pit  of  damnable  idolatry,  by  the  space  of 
nine  hundred  years  and  odd,"** — or,  in  other  words,  that  Satan 
had  dethroned  the  Author  of  Christianity,  and  brought  to 
naught,  in  the  early  dawn  of  its  strength  and  beauty,  the 

*  Against  Transubstantiation,  book  ii.,  p.  238 ;  ed.  Parker  Society, 
f  Piteous  Lamentation,  p.  50 ;  Letters,  p.  409. 
%  The  Jewel  of  Joy,  p.  449  ;  Cf.  pp.  264,  380. 
|  Zurich  Letters,  pp.  33,  47. 
\  Remains,  p.  134 ;  App.,  p.  480. 
1  Sermon  xx.,  p.  389. 
**  Homily  on  Peril  of  Idolatry. 


208  CHAPTER   IX. 

dearest,  the  most  costly,  and  the  most  perfect  work  of  His 
baffled  love  and  unstable  power ! 

We  have  heard  the  blasphemy,  and  have  seen  how  God 
rebuked  it.  It  was  at  this  moment,  long  expected  by  the 
heathen  world,  but  which  England  had  chosen  for  the  hour  of 
her  apostasy,  that  He  resolved  to  create  twice  ten  thousand 
apostles,  who  should  gather  from  East  and  West,  from  lands 
hitherto  unknown,  a  new  company  of  guests  to  that  Divine 
banquet  which  "they  who  were  invited"*  might  never  more 
taste,  and  preach  in  His  name  to  nations  lying  in  the  shadow 
of  death  the  mystery  of  salvation  which  England  was  now 
rejecting,  and  build  up  among  them  the  very  Church  which 
England  was  vainly  striving  to  uproot.  And  that  all  men 
might  surely  know  whose  messengers  they  were,  He  clothed 
them  in  armor  brought  out  of  the  innermost  sanctuary  of 
heaven,  and  endowed  them  with  gifts  which  the  Seraphim 
might  have  consented  to  share.  Once  again  the  world  saw  an 
army  of  apostles,  filled  with  the  zeal  of  St.  Paul,  the  tenderness 
of  St.  Peter,  and  the  charity  of  St.  John  ;  austere  as  the  Baptist, 
who  fed  on  locusts  and 'wild  honey,  yet  merciful  to  the  weak 
and  infirm  ;  ready  to  die,  like  St.  Stephen,  at  the  word  of  their 
Master,  and  rewarded  in  death  with  the  same  beatific  vision 
which  consoled  his  agony  and  theirs.  England  had  begun,  for 
the  first  time  in  her  history,  to  invoke  maledictions  on  the 
Church,  and  this  was  God's  answer.  The  missions  of  the  six 
teenth  century  were  God's  Protest  against  Protestantism. 

It  is  time  to  bring  our  account  of  the  missions  of  Paraguay  to 
a  close.  In  estimating  the  actual  fruits  of  those  missions,  it  is 
not  the  evidence  of  Catholic  writers  which  we  shall  interrogate. 
Protestant  authorities,  many  of  whom  would  read  with  sympa 
thy,  even  if  they  hesitated  to  repeat,  the  horrible  language  of 
the  authors  of  the  Anglican  religion,  will  tell  us  what  the  mis 
sionaries  really  effected  in  South  America,  and  even,  as  far  as 
such  men  could  understand  them,  by  what  means  they  obtained 
their  success.  Mr.  Southey,  who  uses  such  "  intemperate  lan 
guage,"  as  an  English  Protestant  remarks,  that  "the  general 
circulation  of  his  book  is  rendered  impossible  ;"f  who  declares 
that  Vieyra,  and  Baraza,  and  Cavallero,  and  the  rest,  "  never 
scrupled  at  falsehood  when  it  was  to  serve  a  pious  purpose ;" 
who  relates  that  Paraguay  exhibited  "  the  naked  monstrosity 
of  Romish  superstition ;"  and  who  describes  the  sacred  mysteries 
of  the  Christian  Altar  in  terms  which  it  would  be  profanation 
to  repeat,  and  which  the  evil  spirits  would  not  dare  to  employ, 

*  S.  Luke  xiv.  24. 

f  Voyage  to  Brazil,  by  Lady  Calcott,  p  13. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  209 

because  they  "  believe  and  tremble ;  will  be  our  most  appro 
priate  witness.  Here  is  his  summary  of  the  labors  of  the  mis 
sionaries,  as  respects  their  geographical  limits. 

"  A  chain  of  missions  has  now  been  established  in  all  parts 
of  this  great  continent.  Those  of  the  Spaniards  from  Quito 
met  those  of  the  Portuguese  from  Para,"  thus  connecting  the 
Pacific  with  the  Atlantic.  "  The  missions  on  the  Orinoco  com 
municated  with  those  of  the  Negro  and  the  Orellana.  The  Moxo 
missions  communicated  with  the  Chiquito,  the  Chiquito  with 
the  Reductions  in  Paraguay,  and  from  Paraguay  the  indefati 
gable  Jesuits  sent  their  laborers  into  the  Chaco,  and  among 
the  tribes  who  possessed  the  wide  plains  to  the  south  and 
west  of  Buenos  Ayres.  Had  they  not  been  interrupted  in 
their  exemplary  career,  by  measures  equally  impolitic  and  in 
iquitous,  it  is  possible  that  ere  this  they  might  have  completed 
the  conversion  and  civilization  of  all  the  native  tribes;  and 
probably  that  they  would  have  saved  the  Spanish  colonies  from 
the  immediate  horrors  and  barbarizing  consequences  of  a  civil 
war/'* 

Let  us  hear  next  what  he  says  of  their  converts,  who  once 
wandered  naked  through  the  woods,  fed  on  human  flesh,  and 
had  almost  lost  the  instincts  of  humanity.  "  At  the  close  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  the  Indians  of  these  Reductions  were 
a  brave,  an  industrious,  and  comparatively  a  polished  people. 
They  were  good  carvers,  good  workers  in  metal,  good  handi 
crafts  in  general,  and  the  women  manufactured  calico  of  the 
finest  quality,  &c.  &c."f 

Again :  "  Considerable  progress  had  been  made  both  in  the 
useful  and  ornamental  arts.  Besides  carpenters,  masons,  and 
blacksmiths,  they  had  turners,  carvers,  printers,  and  gilders  ; 

they  cast  bells  and  built  organs They  were  taught  enough 

of  mechanics  to  construct  horse-mills,  enough  of  hydraulics  to 
raise  water  for  irrigating  the  lands  and  supplying  their  public 
cisterns.  A  Guarani," — we  know  what  he  had  been  in  his  un 
converted  state, — "  however  nice  the  mechanism,  could  imitate 
any  thing  which  was  set  before  him.";); 

Once  more.  So  universal  was  the  industry  of  these  populous 
communities,  once  disdainful  of  all  toil  but  that  of  the  chase, 
that  the  commerce  of  South  America  received  a  development 
under  the  prudent  direction  of  their  paternal  guides,  which 

*  Vol.  iii.,  p.  372.  "  In  fatto  non  v'ha  in  tutta  1'America  meridionale  terra 
alcuna,  dove  non  sieno  penetrati  i  missionarii,  e  quasi  nessuna  tribu,  a  cui  non 
sia  stato  bandito  il  Vangelo."  Storia  Uhiversale  delle  Cattoliche  Missioni,  voL 
i.,  chap,  iv.,  p.  162. 

f  P.  842. 

\  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxiv.,  p.  350. 

VOL.  II. 

15 


210  CHAPTER  IX. 

even  the  political  economists  of  our  own  day  might  contemplate 
with  admiration — if  such  philosophers  could  applaud  a  state  of 
society  in  which  none  were  poor  and  none  rich  ;  in  which  each 
worked  for  all ;  where  there  was  labor  without  hardship  and 
obedience  without  oppression ;  and  in  which  was  exhibited 
on  a  vast  scale  that  wonderful  spectacle  which  made  even 
Mr.  Southey  exclaim,  "Never  has  there  existed  any  other 
society  in  which  the  welfare  of  the  subjects,  temporal  and 
eternal,  has  been  the  sole  object  of  the  government !"  and 
which  forced  from  such  a  man  the  confession  that  "  the  in 
habitants,  for  many  generations,  enjoyed  a  greater  exemption 
from  physical  and  moral  evil  than  any  other  inhabitants  of 
the  globe."* 

We  might  stop  here,  dismissing  all  further  details  as  super 
fluous,  at  least  in  such  a  sketch  as  this  ;  but  the  educational  and 
religious  aspects  of  these  communities  claim  also  a  moment's 
attention.  "In  every  Reduction,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  "not 
only  was  the  knowledge  of  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic 
literally  universal,  but  there  were  some  Indians  who  were  able 
to  read  Spanish  and  Latin  as  well  as  their  own  tongue."  And, 
as  at  Carthagena  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  "continent,  a 
university  was  founded  under  the  immediate  sanction  of  the 
Sovereign  Pontiff,  so  at  Cordoba,  as  Mr.  Southey  observes,  "  the 
university  became  famous  in  South  America." 

Lastly,  the  influence  of  religion  among  this  vast  population 
of  converted  savages  was  so  powerful  and  all-prevailing,  so 
utterly  was  vice  in  all  its  forms  banished  from  among  them, 
that,  in  1721,  the  Bishop  of  Buenos  Ayres,  Don  Pedro  Faxardo, 
could  report  to  Philip  V.  of  Spain,  "Their  innocence  is  so  uni 
versal,  that  I  do  not  believe  a  mortal  sin  is  committed  in  these 
Reductions  in  the  course  of  a  year."f 

Mr.  Southey  offers  an  explanation,  after  his  manner,  of  this 
almost  fabulous  innocence.  "  Few  vices,"  says  this  gentleman 
with  apparent  seriousness,  "  could  exist  in  such  communities. 
Avarice  and  ambition  were  excluded;  there  was  little  room 
for  envy,  and  little  to  excite  hatred  and  malice."  He  forgets 
that  there  was  human  nature,  with  all  its  frailties;  and  that 
the  enemy  of  man,  who  found  an  entrance  even  into  Paradise, 
had  probably  free  access  to  Paraguay.  "  Drunkenness,"  he 
continues,  in  order  to  prove  that" even  the  virtues  of  these 
Catholic  Indians  were  not  merits,  "  was  effectually  prevented 
by  the  prohibition  of  fermented  liquors."  Yet  he  relates  in  his 
next  volume,  forgetting,  as  such  witnesses  are  apt  to  do,  what 


*  Vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxiv.,  p.  300. 
f  Charlcvoix,  liv.  v.,  p.  94. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  211 

he  had  previously  said,  that  "  the  Indians  of  these  Eeductions 
cultivated  the  cane,  both  for  sugar  and  rum  ;  and  distilleries, 
which  in  most  places  produce  little  but  evil,  may  be  regarded 
with  complacency  there,  because  the  moderate  use  of  ardent 
spirits  appears  to  counteract  the  ill  effects  of  marshy  situa 
tions."* 

Finally,  as  the  absence  of  avarice,  ambition,  envy,  and 
drunkenness,  were  perfectly  natural  in  vast  communities  of 
many  thousand  persons,  recently  recruited  from  utter  barba 
rism,  and  cannot  reasonably  be  deemed  Christian  virtues ;  so 
the  crowning  grace  of  purity  was  also,  according  to  this  Prot 
estant  authority,  a  mere  result  of  "precaution,"  and  of  "the 
spirit  of  monachism."  Besides,  as  he  gravely  observes,  "their 
idolatry  came  in  aid  of  this  precautionary  system  ;"  which 
means,  it  appears,  that  "  no  person  who  had  in  the  slightest 
degree  trespassed  against  the  laws  of  modesty  could  be  deemed 
worthy  to  be  accounted  among  the  servants  of  the  Queen  of 
Virgins."  And  so,  in  all  these  great  communities,  thanks  to 
"  monachism"  and  "  idolatry,"  the  law  of  chastity  was  kept 
inviolate. 

And  now  we  have  heard  enough.  For  two  hundred  years 
this  work  had  been  in  progress,  and  these  were  its  fruits.  Once 
more  the  promise  had  been  fulfilled  which  said  of  the  apostles 
of  the  Church,  "  They  shall  build  the  places  that  have  been 
waste  from  of  old.  And  they  shall  know  their  seed  among  the 
gentiles,  and  their  offspring  in  the  midst  of  peoples."  Once 
more  the  missionaries  of  the  Cross  had  glorified  their  Master  by 
orue  of  those  victories,  of  which  the  philosophers  and  the  phi 
lanthropists  of  this  world  are  always  dreaming,  always  an 
nouncing  the  future  promise  to  their  credulous  disciples,  but 
always  abandoning  in  impotent  despair.  Once  more  the 
Church  had  perfected  one  of  those  seemingly  impossible  tri 
umphs  which  man  may  never  compass  or  achieve  by  his  own 
power  ;  and  of  which  all  the  stages — the  first  conception,  the 
gradual  progress,  and  the  final  execution — are  traversed  only 
by  the  succor  and  the  inspiration  of  the  Most  High.  But  even 
the  Church  does  not  always  triumph,  or  how  would  she  imi 
tate  the  life  of  her  Lord  ?  Like  Him,  to-day  she  is  saluted  with 
Hosannahs,  to-morrow  she  puts  on  the  Crown  of  Thorns.  It 
was  now  the  enemy's  turn  to  triumph.  Here,  as  in  other  lands, 
he  understood,  that  if  he  would  scatter  the  sheep,  he  must  first 
smite  the  shepherds.  While  they  watched  the  fold,  no  irrep 
arable  evil  could  befall  the  flock.  Often,  during  those  two 
hundred  years,  the  Evil  One  had  tried  to  force  an  entrance. 

*  Ch.  xliv.,  p.  843. 


212  CHAPTER   IX. 

At  one  time,  his  agents  massacred  the  pastors  who  kept  such 
careful  watch,  but  a  moment  after  their  place  was  supplied  by 
others  as  vigilant  and  undaunted.  At  another,  he  employed 
corrupt  Europeans — filled  with  jealousy  and  malice,  furious 
because  the  Indian  had  found  a  refuge  from  ^ their  oppression, 
or  smarting  with  the  shame  of  baffled  cupidity — to  plot  their 
destruction.  In  the  single  year  1630,  the  infamous  Paulistas 
— Portuguese  and  other  slave-traders,  of  various  nations — 
carried  off  by  force  fifteen  hundred  Indians  from  the  Reduc 
tions.  Fathers  Mansilla  and  Manceta,  as  Mr.  Southey  relates, 
"  had  the  courage  to  follow  them  as  close  as  they  could,  trust 
ing  to  what  they  might  find  in  the  woods  for  subsistence,  and 
administering  such  consolation  as  they  could  to  the  dying,  with 
whom  the  road  was  tracked."  But  these  ravages,  formidable 
as  they  were,  could  not  mar  the  work  of  the  missionaries,  who 
during  two  centuries  were  affectionately  supported  in  all  their 
conflicts  by  the  sovereigns  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  and  often 
led  their  Indian  soldiers  to  victory  against  the  enemies  of  religion 
and  monarchy,  when  no  other  power  in  America  could  have 
saved  either.  The  day  was  now  at  hand  when  the  same  troops 
would  have  fought  with  equal  valor  to  save  their  Fathers  from 
outrage,  if  the  latter  had  not  refused  to  use  in  their  own  de 
fence  the  forces  which  they  had  constantly  employed  with  suc 
cess  in  that  of  others.  "  Upwards  of  a  hundred  thousand 
civilized  Indians,"  says  a  Protestant  author,  "  were  ready  to 
take  arms  in  defence  of  their  spiritual  leaders,  and  it  was  only 
by  their  own  earnest  entreaties  to  their  flocks  that  tranquillity 
was  preserved."* 

We  have  seen  in  the  earlier  chapters  of  this  history  how  the 
Christian  missions,  just  when  they  seemed  about  to  embrace  the 
whole  heathen  world,  were  suddenly  overthrown  in  every  land  ; 
not  by  the  failure  of  apostolic  laborers, — who  were  never  so 
numerous  as  at  that  hour, — but  by  a  conspiracy  which  had  its 
agents  in  every  court  of  Europe,  and  which  enlisted  the  eager 
sympathies  of  statesmen,  philosophers,  and  infidels,  who  attack 
ed  the  Church  through  the  Society  of  Jesus,  and  who  despaired 
of  executing  the  selfish  or  criminal  projects  which  they  had 
formed,  so  long  as  they  were  confronted  on  all  sides  by  an  army 
of  indomitable  warriors — more  sagacious  than  the  statesman, 
more  subtle  than  the  philosophers,  more  courageous  than  the 
infidels — whom  they  could  neither  divide  by  policy,  nor  bribe 
by  favor,  nor  terrify  by  threats.  And  so  these  puritans  of  a  pan 
theistic  civilization,  invoking  with  cynical  hypocrisy  the  names 
of  liberty,  justice,  and  progress,  and  despairing  of  victory  by  any 

*  Mansfield,  p.  443. 


MISSIONS   IN    AMERICA.  213 

other  means  over  their  patient  and  accomplished  adversaries, 
had  recourse  at  last  to  vulgar  and  ignoble  violence,  the  strategy 
of  the  bandit,  and  the  craft  of  the  highwayman.  It  was 
the  only  weapon  in  their  armory,  and  they  used  it  without 
remorse. 

"The  Jesuits  were  hurried  into  exile,"  says  Mr.  Southey, 
"  with  circumstances  of  great  barbarity ;"  and  then  he  shows, 
that  even  aged  men,  who  had  grown  infirm  in  the  work  of  the 
missions,  actually  died  in  the  arms  of  the  soldiers,  as  they  were 
dragged  along  the  road.  And  the  same  scenes  occurred  in 
overy  part  of  America.  "Throughout  Chili,"  says  another 
English  Protestant,  "in  deep  midnight,  the  military  governor 
of  every  town,  attended  by  a  military  guard,  took  possession  of 
every  convent.  The  manner  of  performing  the  act  was  dis 
graceful  to  those  who  ordered  its  execution ;  it  bore  the  ap 
pearance  of  performing  an  act  of  which  they  were  ashamed."* 
Out  of  thirty,  who  were  dispatched  in  one  vessel  from  Buenos 
Ayres,  "  only  five,"  says  Dobrizhoifer,  "  reached  Cadiz  half 
alive."f 

Let  us  add,  in  conclusion,  a  few  additional  testimonies 
from  Protestant  writers,  who  have  honestly  confessed  not 
only  the  virtues  of  the  missionaries,  but  the  iniquity  of 
the  charges  brought  against  them,  the  malignity  of  the 
treatment  which  they  received,  and  the  woeful  results  of  their 
exile. 

They  were  charged  with  amassing  riches,  and  even  Southey 
says,  "  that  the  Jesuits  accumulated  nothing  from  Paraguay  is 
most  certain."  They  were  libelled  for  excluding  the  Spanish 
language  from  the  missions,  though,  as  Chateaubriand  notices, 
"  all  the  converts  could  read  and  write  Spanish  correctly,"  and 
Southey  observes,  "  malice  has  seldom  been  more  stupid  in  its 
calumnies."  They  were  taunted  with  making  converts  "by 
violence,"  though  they  were  every  hour  at  the  mercy  of  their 
own  disciples,  and  the  same  unfriendly  writer  replies,  "  per 
suasion  was  their  only  weapon."  They  were  accused  of 
seeking  to  form  a  "  principality,"  and  of  governing  it  inde 
pendently  of  Spain,  and  of  their  own  Order  in  Europe,  and 
even  Mr.  Southey  answers,  "  The  charge  will  in  itself  appear 
incredible  to  those  who  reflect  upon  the  character  and  con 
stitution  of  the  Company."  They  were  all  linked  together, 
he  observes,  by  "perfect  unity  of  views  and  feelings;"  whereas 
the  very  design  imputed  to  them,  "  if  successful,  would  in  its 
inevitable  consequences  have  separated  the  province  from  the 

*  Miers,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  208. 
t  Vol.  ill,  p.  415. 


214:  CHAPTER   IX. 

general  system,  and  deprived  the  Jesuits  there  of  those  supplies 
without  which  their  Order  in  that  country  would  in  one 
generation  have  been  extinct.  They  had  their  root  in  Europe ; 
and  had  the  communication  been  cut  off,  it  would  have  been 
barking  the  tree."* 

Yet  a  respectable  Anglican  clergyman,  reviving  the  very 
calumnies  which  even  a  Southey  despised,  and  which  the 
remorse  of  their  original  authors  long  since  retracted  and 
disavowed,  was  not  ashamed  to  say  a  few  years  ago  before 
the  University  of  Oxford,  as  if  sure  of  the  sympathetic  applause 
of  such  an  audience,  that  "  it  was  not  the  Church  that  was 
planted  among  the  natives  of  Paraguay,"  though  that  mission 
was  governed  by  Bishops  and  constituted  by  an  Ecclesiastical 
Council,  "  but  a  principality  of  Jesuits  !"f  So  true  it  is  that, 
in  our  days,  the  clergy  of  this  particular  school,  living  only  for 
their  own  theories  and  loving  only  their  own  inventions, 
abandoning  even  the  pretence  of  reverence  which  they  once 
affected  for  the  Mother  of  Saints,  and  surpassing  in  intemper 
ance  the  most  thoughtless  of  their  sect,  have  been  willing, 
out  of  hatred  to  the  Church  which  has  only  compassion  for 
them,  to  catch  up  the  abandoned  weapons  of  the  infidels  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  of  the  very  men  upon  whose  malignant 
fables  the  contempt  of  civilized  Europe  has  long  ago  done 
justice. 

Let  us  continue  the  chain  of  testimony  which  this  digression 
has  interrupted.  "The  King  of  Spain,"  says  Mr.  Prichard, 
"yielding  to  the  advice  of  the  enemies  of  religion  and  of 
monarchy,  ordered  their  expulsion  from  Paraguay,  and  left 
one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  converts  from  one  single 
aboriginal  nation  destitute  of  the  advice  and  guidance  of  their 
spiritual  and  temporal  instructors."^: 

Sir  Woodbine  Parish,  who  ridicules,  like  Mr.  Southey,  the 
hollow  pretexts  of  their  enemies,  and  eloquently  describes  the 
true  aim  and  character  of  the  missions,  says :  "  This  was  that 
imperium  in  im.perw  which  once  excited  the  astonishment  of  the 
world,  and  the  jealousy  of  princes.  How  little  cause  they  had 
to  be  alarmed  by  it  was  best  proved  by  the  whole  fabric  falling 
to  pieces  on  the  removal  of  a  few  poor  old  priests.  A  more 
inoffensive  community  never  existed."  And  then  he  generously 
adds,  "  It  was  an  experiment  on  a  vast  scale,  originating  in 
the  purest  spirit  of  Christianity,  to  civilize  and  render  useful 
hordes  of  savages  who  otherwise  would,  like  the  rest  of  the 

*  Vol.  iii.,  ch.  xx.,  p.  501. 

f  Grant's  Bampton  Lectures,  v.,  152. 

\  Section  xlvii.,  p.  466. 


MISSIONS  IN"  AMERICA.  215 

aborigines,  have  been  miserably  exterminated  in  war  or 
slavery."  He  even  confesses,  that  "  its  remarkable  success 
excited  envy  and  jealousy,  and  caused  a  thousand  idle  stories 
to  be  circulated  as  to  the  political  views  of  the  Jesuits  in 
founding  .such  establishments  ;"  and  that  these  very  rumors, 
invented  by  malice  and  propagated  by  selfish  cupidity, 
"  contributed,  there  is  no  doubt,  to  hasten  the  downfall  of  their 
Order."* 

"It  is  not  easy,"  is  the  confession  of  a  more  prejudiced 
writer,  "  to  find  a  parallel  in  history  to  the  act  of  gigantic  self- 
abnegation,  so  to  speak,  by  which  the  Order  renounced  with 
out  a  blow  a  dominion  so  vast,  and  seemingly  so  firmly  founded, 
as  that  which  they  exercised  in  Paraguay."f 

Even  Robertson,  though  incapable  of  appreciating  such  men 
or  their  works,  vindicates  them  from  the  calumnies  of  their 
implacable  persecutors.  "It  is,"  he  observes,  "in  the  new 
world  that  the  Jesuits  have  exhibited  the  most  wonderful  dis 
play  of  their  abilities,  and  have  contributed  most  effectually  to 
the  benefit  of  the  human  species.  .  .  .  The  Jesuits  alone  made 
humanity  the  object  of  their  settling  there. "^ 

Sir  James  Mackintosh,  a  man  who  better  deserved  the  title 
of  philosopher,  and  who  was  able  to  admire  "the  heroic  con 
stancy  with  which  they  suffered  martyrdom,"  declares,  in  his 
turn,  that  "  the  Jesuits  alone,  the  great  missionaries  of  that 
age,  either  repaired  or  atoned  for  the  evils  caused  by  the 
misguided  zeal  of  their  countrymen ;"  and,  after  quoting  the 
well-known  eulogy  of  Lord  Bacon,  he  adds,  "  Such  is  the 
disinterested  testimony  of  the  wisest  of  men  to  the  merits  of 
the  Jesuits."§ 

A  multitude  of  American  writers  of  our  own  day  have 
delivered  the  same  verdict ;  let  the  testimony  of  one  suffice. 
"Their  missionary  zeal  among  the  Indians  in  the  remotest 
provinces,"  says  a  Secretary  of  Legation  in  Mexico,  "  was 
unequalled.  The  winning  manners  of  the  cultivated  gentle 
men  who  composed  this  powerful  Order  in  the  Catholic  Church 
gave  them  a  proper  and  natural  influence  with  the  children  of 
the  forest,  whom  they  had  withdrawn  from  idolatry  and  par 
tially  civilized."  And  then,  denying  "that  there  was  just 
cause"  for  the  affected  "  alarm"  of  the  King  of  Spain,  and 
hinting  that  "he  and  his  council  were  willing  to  embrace  any 
pretext  to  rid  his  colonial  possessions  of  the  Jesuits;"  this 


*  Buenos  Ay  res,  ch.  xxii.,  p.  256. 

f  Mansfield,  ubi  supra. 

±  Charles  V.,  book  vi.,  vol.  vi.,  p.  203  (1817). 

§  Works,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  250,  1. 


216  CHAPTER  IX. 

gentleman  notices,  with  just  indignation,  that  "  all  expression  of 
public  sentiment,  as  well  as  amiable  feeling,  at  this  daring  act 
against  the  worthiest  and  most  benevolent  clergymen  of  Mex 
ico  was  effectually  stifled."*  Sir  Woodbine  Parish,  an  English 
diplomatic  agent,  repeats  the  same  reproach,  when  he  quotes 
the  touching  protest  addressed  by  the  Christian  Indians  of  San 
Luis  to  the  Governor  of  Buenos  Ayres,  in  1768.  "  Our  children, 
who  are  in  the  country  and  in  the  towns,  when  they  return  and 
find  not  the  sons  of  St.  Ignatius,  will  flee  away  to  the  deserts 
and  to  the  forests  to  do  evil."  The  only  reply  of  the  sycophant 
Bucarelli  was  to  send  troops  against  them,  but,  adds  Sir  Wood 
bine,  "  he  found  them  not  in  arms,  but  in  tears."f 

Lastly,  another  English  writer  of  our  own  day,  retracting 
with  a  noble  candor  earlier  language,  thus  estimates  the  Society 
whose  labors  he  had  once  misjudged.  "  I  have  formerly  ranked 
its  operations  in  Paraguay  and  Brazil  amongst  those  of  its 
worst  ambition  ;  but  more  extended  inquiry  has  convinced  me 
that,  in  this  instance,  I,  in  common  with  others,  did  them 
grievous  wrong.  .  .  Their  conduct  in  these  countries  is  one  of 
the  most  illustrious  examples  of  Christian  devotion — Christian 
patience — Christian  benevolence  and  disinterested  virtue  upon 
record."  And  then  he  adds,  in  words  which  he  seems  to  have 
adopted  from  another,  and  which  may  fltly  conclude  these 
impressive  confessions :  "  No  men  ever  behaved  with  greater 
equanimity,  under  undeserved  disgrace,  than  the  last  of  the 
Jesuits ;  and  the  extinction  of  the  Order  was  a  heavy  loss  to 
literature,  a  great  evil  to  the  Catholic  world,  and  an  irreparable 
injury  to  the  tribes  of  South  America." J 

The  evil  was  consummated,  and,  as  Sir  Woodbine  Parish 
observes,  "  upwards  of  a  million  of  Indians"  were  now  deprived 
of  the  pastors  and  guides  by  whom  they  had  been,  as  it  were, 
created  anew  ;  and  whose  gentle  rule  they  obeyed  with  such 
docile  and  loving  confidence,  that,  as  Ulloa  relates,  "even  if 
they  had  been  punished  unjustly,  they  would  have  believed  that 
they  deserved  it."  We  have  seen,  by  the  unsuspicious  testimony 
of  Protestant  writers,  to  what  degree  of  civilization  they  had 
attained.  No  longer  dwelling  in  huts  composed  of  branches,  or 
lying  naked  on  the  untilled  earth,  from  which  they  gathered 
only  the  fruits  which  it  spontaneously  offered,  the  Fathers  had 
taught  them  to  build  stone  houses,  and  to  roof  them  with  tiles  ; 
agriculture,  directed  by  science  and  aided  by  an  effective  system 
of  irrigation,  gave  birth  to  new  products  of" which  they  had  not 

*  Mexico,  Aztec,  Spanish,  and  Republican,  by  Brantz  Mayer,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xiii.. 
p.  243  (1852). 
f  Ubi  supra. 
$  Howitt,  Colonization  and  Christianity,  ch.  x.,  pp.  121,  141. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  217 

suspected  the  existence;  their  wide  pastures  nourished  vast 
herds  of  cattle  ;  public  magazines  afforded  a  safeguard  against 
famine,  and  carefully  organized  hospitals  a  refuge  against  dis 
ease  or  accident ;  noble  churches,  decorated  with  no  mean  skill 
by  their  own  art,  displayed  treasures  of  silk  and  jewels  and 
gold  which  only  their  own  intelligent  industry,  and  the  profits 
of  a  well-regulated  commerce,  had  enabled  them  to  procure ; 
they  had  troops  and  arsenals,  ever  at  the  service  of  the  king, 
never  employed  against  him  ;  they  had  become,  by  the  pru 
dent  cultivation  of  their  own  resources,  almost  independent  of 
foreign  productions  ;  they  grew  their  own  sugar,  and  their  own 
tea,  and  distilled  enough  alcohol  for  the  wise  uses  to  which 
they  applied  it ;  they  were  artists  and  manufacturers,  as  well 
as  soldiers  and  herdsmen  ;  they  made  all  kinds  of  musical  in 
struments,  even  the  organs,  whose  tones  filled  their  vast 
churches,  and  sung  with  a  sweetness  and  precision  which 
modern  travellers  still  attest  with  admiration  ;  and  lastly, 
though  the  ecclesiastical  Council  of  Lima — mindful,  perhaps, 
that  they  had  but  lately  been  hunters  of  men,  and  eaters  of 
human  flesh — prescribed  the  most  rigorous  precautions  in  ad 
mitting  the  Indians  to  the  Sacraments,  even  refusing  Holy 
Communion  till  after  seven  years  of  blameless  life,  so  great 
was  their  purity  and  devotion  that  these  injunctions  had  be 
come  well-nigh  superfluous,  and  the  Bishop  of  Buenos  Ayres, 
who  had  minutely  examined  them  by  virtue  of  his  office  as 
"  apostolic  visitor,'"  could  report  to  astonished  Europe,  "  They 
form,  perhaps,  the  most  precious  portion  of  the  flock  of  Jesus 
Christ." 

And  now  the  apostles,  who  out  of  such  rude  materials  had 
built  up  so  fair  an  edifice,  were  taken  from  them.  "  Here 
ended,"  says  Mr.  Southey,  whom  we  quote  for  the  last  time, 
"  the  prosperity  of  these  celebrated  communities.  The  '  admin 
istrators'  " — who  now  supplanted  the  missionaries — "  hungry 
ruffians  from  the  Plata,  or  fresh  from  Spain,  neither  knew  the 
native  language,  nor  had  patience  to  acquire  it." 

Before  these  "  rapacious  and  brutal"  agents,  emissaries  of 
rapine,  fraud,  and  obscenity,  the  Indian  sunk  down  in  despair, 
or  fled  away  in  dismay.  The  administrators  were  appointed, 
as  the  new  authorities — apt  representatives  of  Pombal,Choiseul, 
and  Aranda* — gravely  announced,  "  to  purify  the  Deductions 

*  Even  English  Protestants  have  sometimes  appreciated  these  men  and  their 
fellows.  "  Well  read  in  Voltaire,  D'Alembert,  and  Helvetius,"  says  the  late  Lord 
Holland,  speaking  of  Aranda,  "jealous  of  the  Church,  inveterate  against  the 
Jesuits,  who  had  been  suppressed  during  his  first  ministry,  and  not  insensible 
to  the  somewhat  exaggerated  praises  lavished  upon  him  for  that  measure  by 
those  who  had  rendered  infidelity  fashionable  in  Paris."  And  the  school  has 
continued  the  same  to  the  present  day.  The  "ignorant,  rash,  and  presumptu- 


218  CHAPTER   IX. 

from  tyranny ;"  and  the  immediate  result  of  their  presence 
was,  that  "  the  arts  which  the  Jesuits  had  introduced  were 
neglected  and  forgotten  ;  their  gardens  lay  waste,  their  looms 
fell  to  pieces  ;  and  in  these  communities,  where  the  inhabitants, 
for  many  generations,  had  enjoyed  a  greater  exemption  from 
physical  and  moral  evil  than  any  other  inhabitants  of  the 
globe,  the  people  were  now  made  vicious  and  miserable.  Their 
only  alternative  was,  to  remain  to  be  treated  like  slaves,  or 
fly  to  the  woods,  and  take  their  chance  as  savages." 

Such  is  the  last  chapter  of  a  history  more  full  of  sadness  than 
any  in  the  modern  annals  of  our  race.  Out  of  "  a  population 
of  one  hundred  thousand  persons,  inhabiting  thirty  towns  under 
the  control  of  the  Jesuits,"  by  the  borders  of  the  Parana  and 
the  Uruguay,  which  were  more  exposed  than  remoter  districts  to 
the  arts  of  the  "  hungry  ruffians"  who  now  devastated  them, 
"  not  a  thousand  souls,"  observes  Sir  Woodbine  Parish,  "  re 
mained  in  1825!"  "Upwards  of  four  hundred  towns •,"  says 
DobrizhofFer,  "  which  formerly  stood  around  Guadalcazar,  a 
city  of  Tucuman  now  destroyed,  utterly  perished."  Other 
tribes,  it  is  true,  suffered  less,  because  the  agents  of  European 
infidelity  could  not  reach  them  ;  but  these  also  were  deprived  of 
their  Fathers  and  teachers,  and  left  to  find  their  way  in  darkness. 
And  yet  they  have  kept  the  faith,  by  that  special  privilege  which 
""distinguishes  every  church  founded  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
have  survived  a  trial  hardly  paralleled  in  ecclesiastical  story  ; 
nay  more,  their  number  is  again  steadily  increasing,  and  "  many 
of  the  missions  at  this  day,"  as  M.  d'Orbigny  has  told  us,  "push 
the  Catholic  religion  even  to  fanaticism," — which  probably 
means  no  more,  in  the  mouth  of  such  a  witness,  than  that  they 
are  fervent  Christians.  The  same  writer, — who  seems  to  belong 
to  that  class,  of  which  France  unhappily  produces  so  many,  who 
classify  the  phenomena  of  religious  life  with  the  same  frigid 
composure  with  which  they  arrange  the  statistics  of  the  animal 
or  vegetable  world, — furnishes  in  his  elaborate  work  many 
deeply  interesting  proofs  of  that  marvellous  inflexibility  of  faith 
of  which  the  history  of  Catholic  missions  supplies  examples  in 
every  land,  and  which,  to  a  Christian  reader,  are  the  most 
valuable  portion  of  his  remarkable  volumes.  All  the  Chiquitos, 
he  has  already  told  us,  "  have  persevered,  and  at  this  day 
nothing  would  induce  them  to  return  to  the  life  of  the  woods." 

ous"  Urquijo  is  thus  described  by  the  same  critic.  "  So  fanatically  hostile  was  he 
to  the  Church  of  Rome,  that  when,  being  Charge  d' Affaires  in  London,  he  first 
heard  that  General  Bonaparte,  by  the  peace  of  Tolentino,  had  spared  the  Papal 
Government,  he  ran  like  a  maniac  from  his  house  for  more  than  a  mile,  on  the 
Uxbridge  roa,d,  and  threw  himself  in  despair  into  a  pond."  Foreign  Remi 
niscences,  by  Henry  Richard  Lord  Holland,  pp.  75,  100  (1851). 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA.  219 

Amongst  other  nations,  he  observes,  the  customs  introduced  by 
the  missionaries  "  are  still  maintained ;"  and  he  relates  that 
whenever  an  old  sermon  of  one  of  the  Jesuit  Fathers  is  read  to 
them,  they  eagerly  assemble,  and  listen  with  profound  attention. 
"  The  old  men  still  remember  with  sorrow  the  expulsion  of  the 
Fathers  in  1767,  and  all  repeat,  '  By  them  we  were  made 
Christians;  by  them  we  were  brought  to  the  knowledge  of 
God,  and  the  possession  of  happiness.' " 

"Wherever  he  goes,  and  he  went  everywhere,  M.  d'Orbigny 
says  :  "  I  am  never  weary  of  admiring  the  unparalleled  results 
which  the  Jesuits  obtained  in  so  short  a  time  amongst  men  who 
had  so  lately  quitted  the  savage  state."  And  then  he  contrasts 
their  social  and  religious  condition  before  and  after  the  sup 
pression  of  the  Society.  "  Under  the  Jesuits  a  severe  morality 
was  observed ;  their  present  rulers  are  themselves  examples  to 
the  Indians  of  misconduct."  "The  epidemics  which  now  afflict 
them  were  unknown,"  he  says,  "  in  the  time  of  the  Jesuits," 
being  kept  at  a  distance  by  rigorous  sanitary  arrangements. 
Besides,  the  Jesuits  nursed  them  in  all  their  sickness,  and  now 
they  are  left  to  die  like  the  beasts  of  the  field.  Finally,  con 
trasting  the  economical  and  agricultural  statistics  under  the 
Religious  and  under  the  Civil  administration,  he  declares,  in 
eloquent  words,  that  "  Nature  herself  seems  to  have  resumed 
her  original  aspect."f 

Sir  Woodbine  Parish  also,  who  speaks,  like  M.  d'.Orbigny, 
after  personal  experience,  gives  examples,  which  would  be 
surprising  if  the  fruits  of  such  apostolic  toils  could  excite 
astonishment,  of  the  abiding  power  and  influence  of  the  mis 
sionaries.  Thus  at  Cordoba,  which  was  a  sort  of  metropolis  of 
the  missions,  "  the  effects  of  the  preponderating  influence  of 
the  monastic  establishments  are  still  visible  in  the  habits  of  the 
generality  of  the  people  "\ 

Lastly,  for  it  is  time  to  bring  this  sketch  to  a  close,  an  official 
French  writer,  who  was  attached  to  the  diplomatic  mission  to 
the  Plata,  confirms,  in  1850,  all  the  other  witnesses.  M.  de 
Brossard  is  not  wholly  exempt  from  the  vulgar  prejudices  of  his 
day,  and  has  not  shaken  off  the  superstition,  which  makes  the 
Jesuits  a  bugbear  and  a  scarecrow  in  the  eyes  of  so  many 
shallow  and  half -educated  Frenchmen  ;  but  he  was  capable  of 
expressing  with  energy  the  generous  impressions  which  actual 
observation  produced  in  his  mind.  "  One  thing  is  certain,  and 
ought  to  be  declared  to  the  praise  of  the  Fathers,  that  since  their 

*  Tome  ii.,  p.  606. 
Tome  i.,  p.  281. 
Part  iii.,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  281. 


220  CHAPTER   IX. 

expulsion  the  material  prosperity  of  Paraguay  has  diminished ; 
that  many  lands  formerly  cultivated  have  ceased  to  be  so;  that 
many  localities  formerly  inhabited  present  at  this  day  only 
ruins.  What  ought  to  be  confessed  is  this, — that  they  knew 
how  to  engrave  with  such  power  on  their  hearts  reverence  for 
authority,  that  even  to  this  very  hour,  the  tribes  of  Paraguay, 
beyond  all  those  who  inhabit  this  portion  of  America,  are  the 
most  gentle,  and  the  most  submissive  to  the  empire  of  duty."* 

*  Les  Repiibliquea  de  la  Plata,  par  M.  Alfred  de  Brossard,  ch.  iv.,  p.  31. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  221 


PAKT  II. 


NOETH    AMERICA. 


IT  is  time  to  quit  South  America,  that  we  may  search  in  the 
northern  continent  for  the  last  and  most  notable  example  which 
the  world  offers  of  the  contrast  between  the  work  of  the  Church 
and  the  work  of  the  Sects.  In  tracing  this  final  chapter  of  a 
history  which  we  have  now  almost  completed,  we  shall  once 
more  use,  as  we  have  done  throughout  these  volumes,  the 
testimony  of  Protestant  authorities ;  and  if  we  have  had  reason 
to  feel  surprise  at  the  vigor  with  which  they  have  denounced 
the  operations  of  their  co-religionists  in  all  other  lands,  the 
astonishing  candor  and  truthfulness  which,  with  rare  excep 
tions,  are  the  honorable  characteristic  of  American  writers, 
including  the  eminent  names  of  Washington  and  Franklin,  of 
Irving  and  Channing,  will  be  found  to  supply  evidence  at  least 
as  valuable  as  any  hitherto  produced,  and  perhaps  still  more 
remarkable  than  any  for  copiousness,  precision,  and  emphasis. 
It  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  by  the  fact,  that  while,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States  have  pushed  the 
right  of  religious  division,  and  the  sovereign  independence  of 
the  individual,  to  results  which  have  appalled  even  the  boldest 
thinkers  among  them,  and  have  generated  at  last  that  chaos 
of  spiritual  confusion  which  their  own  writers  have  partly 
described  to  us ;  on  the  other,  a  large  portion  of  their  literature, 
since  they  became  a  distinct  nation,  is  a  protest  against  the 
unappeasable  jealousies,  the  eager  malice,  and  fierce  resent 
ments,  which  breathe  in  every  line  of  the  polemical  writings  of 
British  Protestants.  In  refusing  to  transplant  to  her  free 
shores  the  effete  feudalism  of  England,  America  has  declined 
also  to  become  the  heir  of  her  arrogant  and  superstitious 


222  CHAPTER  IX. 

bigotry.*  Almost  the  only,  certainly  the  most  conspicuous, 
exceptions  to  this  rule  are  found,  as  we  might  have  anticipated, 
among  the  members  of  the  American  Episcopalian  sect;  as 
enamored  at  this  hour  of  their  dull  and  frigid  forms,  as  inca 
pable  of  generous  and  expansive  life,  as  when  they  first  pro 
voked  the  disgust  of  the  Virginians  by  their  petty  tyranny, 
ignoble  greed,  and  querulous  self-love.  Imitating  the  model 
which  they  had  left  behind,  they  have  attempted  to  restore  it 
in  their  new  home,  but  without  success ;  and  while  the  majority 
of  American  sects,  wisely  allowing  the  echoes  of  sectarian  fury 
to  die  away,  and  refusing  the  heritage  of  cruel  traditions  and 
implacable  hatred  which  have  given  a  special  tone  both  to  the 
literature  and  the  legislation  of  England,  have  frankly  acknow 
ledged  that  the  Church  wears  as  noble  a  front  in  a  Republic  as 
in  an  Empire,  and  have  even  been  willing  to  draw  their  own 
ranks  closer  together,  not  to  oppose,  but  to  make  room  for  her ; 
the  Episcopalians,  affecting  to  be  neither  wholly  Catholic  nor 
frankly  Protestant,  but  doomed  in  all  lands  to  restless  jealousy 
and  the  pangs  of  that  unfruitful  labor  in  which  "  there  is  not 
strength  to  bring  forth,"  still  repeat  the  fretful  maledictions 
which  seem,  with  them  as  with  others,  to  be  the  sole  positive 
element  of  their  religion. 

In  the  United  States,  whose  religious  phenomena,  as  far  as 
they  relate  to  the  history  of  missions,  we  shall  presently  review, 
there  is  hardly  room,  except  in  one  sect,  for  that  peculiar  form 
of  the  passion  of  hate  which  is  begotten  by  the  memory  of 
wrongs  inflicted  but  not  repented.  The  Americans  never 
decapitated,  in  the  interests  of  a  new  religion,  a  More  or  a 
Fisher,  nor  tortured  a  Campion,  nor  tore  out  the  bowels  of  a 
Lacy ;  and  being  guiltless  of  the  blood  of  the  righteous,  have 
no  motive  for  cherishing  hatred  against  them.  Hence  the 
marked  contrast  between  their  controversial  writirtgs  and 
those  of  British  Protestants.  What  the  English  can  say  of  the 
Church  of  God,  and  of  her  works,  we  have  seen;  the  Americans 
will  tell  us,  in  their  turn,  how  they  have  learned  to  estimate 
both. 

*  A  single  example  will  serve  to  illustrate  effectively  the  absence  of  mean 
and  fretful  passions  which  distinguishes  the  American  people  from  their 
English  co-religionists.  In  1862,  the  authorities  of  Harvard  University,  who 
are  Protestants  of  an  advanced  school,  spontaneously  offered  their  highest 
academical  degree  to  the  Catholic  Bishop  of  Boston,  and  being  trustees  of  a 
plot  of  land  in  that  city  which  the  Prelate  desired  to  purchase,  afforded  him 
every  facility  in  completing  his  design,  which  included  the  conversion  of  a 
Protestant  into  a  Catholic  church.— Boston  Pilot,  October  25,  1862. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  223 


GUATEMALA. 

The  first  province  which  we  must  traverse  in  our  way 
towards  the  North  after  passing  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  is 
Guatemala.  If  we  stay  here  for  a  moment,  we  have  at  least 
a  sufficient  apology  to  offer  for  what  might  otherwise  be 
deemed  a  needless  delay.  The  history  of  the  early  missions  in 
this  comparatively  obscure  province  has  been  recently  sketch 
ed,  by  an  English  Protestant  writer,  with  such  rare  fidelity  of 
research  and  humanity  of  temper,  that  it  would  be  unpardon 
able  to  neglect  altogether  his  interesting  record.  "  It  will  be 
a  pleasure,"  he  says,  and  his  readers  will  confirm  the  declara 
tion,  "  to  recount  the  proceedings  of  the  Dominican  monks 
of  Guatemala,  instinct  with  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent,  as  well 
as  the  harailessness  of  the  dove." 

It  was  by  Pedro  de  Alvarado,  one  of  the  most  famous  of  the 
conquistadores  of  the  New  World,  that  this  province  had  been 
annexed  to  the  crown  of  Spain,  in  1523.  Animated,  like  all 
the  warriors  of  his  age  and  class,  by  a  burning  religious  zeal 
which  even  their  many  faults  never  quenched,  he  had  an 
nounced  to  the  natives  of  Guatemala  that  he  "  came  to  show 
the  Indians  the  way  to  immortality."  The  promise  was  to  be 
abundantly  fulfilled,  though  not  by  himself.  In  1529,  the  cele 
brated  Dominican,  Domingo  de  Betanzos, — of  whose  life  and 
character  Mr.  Helps  gives  an  account  almost  as  remarkable  for 
elevation  of  sentiment  as  for  purity  of  style, — set  outfrom  Mexico 
for  the  scene  of  Alvarado's  conquest.  It  was  a  weary  journey  of 
four  hundred  leagues,  but  he  went  on  foot,  "eating  little,  and 
that  only  of  wild  fruits,  and  sleeping  in  the  open  air."  He 
had  scarcely  reached  the  new  city  of  Santiago,  when  he  was 
summoned  back  to  Mexico  to  attend  a  Council  of  his  Order. 
In  the  spirit  of  patient  obedience  he  retraced  his  steps,  though 
not  till  he  had  commenced  the  building  of  a  humble  monastery, 
which  was  to  be  governed  a  little  later  by  a  disciple  of  his  own, 
who  became,  as  often  happens,  more  illustrious  than  his  master. 

It  was  in  1532  that  Las  Casas,  also  a  Dominican,  arrived  in 
Nicaragua,  on  his  return  from  Peru.  Four  years  later  he 
entered  Guatemala,  and  "  took  up  his  abode  in  the  convent 
which  Domingo  de  Betanzos  had  built."  With  him  went  Luis 
Cancer,  Pedro  de  Angulo,  and  Rodrigo  de  Ladrada,  "  all  of 
whom,"  observes  the  English  historian,  "  afterwards  became 
celebrated  men."  "These  grave  and  reverend  monks,"  he 
continues,  "might  any  time  in  the  year  1537  have  been  found 
sitting  in  a  little  class  round  the  Bishop  of  Guatemala  (Francisco 
de  Marroquin),  an  elegant  scholar,  but  whose  scholarship  was 


224:  CHAPTER    IX. 

now  solely  employed  to  express  Christian  doctrines  in  the 
Utlatecan  language,  commonly  called  Quiche.  As  the  chroni 
cler  says,  'It  was  a  delight  to  see  the  bishop,  as  a  master  of 
declensions  and  conjugations  in  the  Indian  tongue,  teaching 
the  good  Fathers  of  St.  Dominic.'  This  prelate  afterwards 
published  a  work  in  Utlatecan,  in  the  prologue  of  which  he 
justly  says,  l  It  may,  perchance,  appear  to  some  people  a  con 
temptible  thing  that  prelates  should  be  thus  engaged  in  trifling 
things  solely  fitted  for  the  teaching  of  children ;  but,  if  the 
matter  be  well  looked  into,  it  is  a  baser  thing  not  to  abase 
one's  self  to  these  apparent  trifles,  for  such  teaching  is  the 
marrow  of  our  Holy  Faith.'  The  bishop  was  quite  right.  It 
will  soon  be  seen  what  an  important  end  this  study  of  the 
language  led  to  ;  and,  I  doubt  not — indeed  it  might  almost  be 
proved — that  there  are  territories,  neighboring  to  Guatemala, 
which  would  have  been  desert  and  barren  as  the  sands  of  the 
sea  but  for  the  knowledge  of  the  Utlatecan  language  acquired 
by  these  good  Fathers — an  acquisition,  too,  it  must  be  recollect 
ed,  not  easy  or  welcome  to  men  of  their  age  and  their  habits."* 

In  the  neighborhood  of  Guatemala,  on  its  northeastern 
frontier,  was  the  province  of  Tuzulutlan,  called  by  the  Span 
iards,  "  The  Land  of  War,"  because  they  had  thrice  invaded 
and  been  thrice  repulsed  from  it.  Las  Casas,  whose  whole 
life  was  a  struggle  in  favor  of  the  Indian  against  his  oppres 
sors,  engaged  on  behalf  of  the  Dominican  Fathers  to  attempt 
the  conversion  of  this  formidable  people,  "  whom  no  Spaniard 
dared  to  go  near,"  but  only  on  a  condition  that  the  battle 
should  be  waged  with  spiritual  weapons  alone,  and  that  no 
Spaniard  should  be  suffered  to  enter  the  province  for  the  space 
of  five  years.  The  Governor  of  Guatemala  accepted  the  "com 
pact,"  and  then  they  made  their  missionary  preparations, 
u  using,"  says  Mr.  Helps,  "  all  the  skill  that  the  most  accom 
plished  statesmen,  or  men  of  the  world,  could  have  brought 
to  bear  upon  it."  It  is  probable  that  the  Fathers  themselves 
relied  still  more,  as  St.  raul  was  wont  to  do,  upon  "  the  most 
fervent  prayers,  severe  fasts,  and  other  mortifications,"  which, 
as  he  relates,  preceded  their  perilous  attempt. 

It  would  be  pleasant  to  transcribe  the  whole  narrative  of  Mr. 
Helps,  in  which  he  traces,  with  rare  refinement  of  language 
and  feeling,  the  gradual  progress  of  the  Fathers  and  the  means 
by  which  it  was  effected.  One  of  the  points,  he  says,  to  which 
"the  cautious  Cacique''  of  the  province  directed  the  most 
careful  attention,  in  order  to  test  the  real  character  of  the  new 
teachers,  was  "  to  observe  whether  they  had  gold  and  silver 
* 

*  Helps,  book  xv.,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  331. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  225 

like  the  other  Christians,  and  whether  there  were  women  in 
their  houses."  The  Dominicans,  as  we  might  have  anticipated, 
endured  with  success  an  investigation  which  would  have  been 
fatal  to  certain  "  missionaries"  of  whom  we  have  read  in  these 
pages  ;  and  so,  when  this  point  was  sufficiently  cleared,  the 
prudent  Cacique  "  was  the  first  to  pull  down  and  burn  his 
idols  ;  and  many  of  his  chiefs,  in  imitation  of  their  master, 
likewise  became  iconoclasts."* 

"The  mission  was  extremely  successful,"  says  Mr.  Helps, 
as  such  missions  are  apt  to  be  ;  and  Las  Casas,  who  was  always 
looking  ahead,  and  providing  with  all  his  might  against  possi 
ble  dangers,  was  gladdened  by  the  arrival  of  a  brief  from  Paul 
III.,  pronouncing  "  a  sentence  of  excommunication  of  the  most 
absolute  kind  against  all  who  should  reduce  the  Indians  to 
slavery,  or  deprive  them  of  their  goods."  And  then  "  the 
great  Protector  of  the  Indians,"  as  Mr.  Helps  justly  styles  Las 
Casas,  passed  through  Tuzulutlan,  and  penetrated  to  Coban. 
Being  well  received,  he  hastened  to  inform  the  other  Fathers, 
"  and  they  all  commenced  with  great  vigor  studying  the  lan 
guage  of  Coban.  Each  success  was  with  these  brave  monks  a 
step  gained  for  continued  exertion." 

After  a  while  the  converted  Cacique  of  Tuzulutlan  came  on 
a  visit  to  the  monastery  at  Santiago,  and  was  presented  by  the 
learned  bishop  to  the  governor  Alvarado. '  "  Now  Alvarado," 
says  our  eloquent  historian,  "  though  a  fierce  and  cruel  per 
sonage,  knew  (which  seems  to  have  been  a  gift  of  former  days) 
when  he  saw  a  man.  When  the  bold  Adelantado  met  the 
Cacique,  the  Indian  chieftain's  air  and  manner,  his  repose, 
the  gravity  and  modesty  of  his  countenance,  lils  severe  look 
and  weighty  speech,  won  so  instantaneously  upon  the  Spaniard, 
that,  having  nothing  else  at  hand,  he  took  off  his  own  plumed 
hat,  and  put  it  on  the  head  of  the  Cacique."  The  soldiers 
who  stood  round  murmured  when  they  saw  the  great  captain 
pay  honor  to  an  Indian  ;  but  Alvarado  was  a  better  judge 
than  they  of  the  qualities  of  the  new  Christian,  and  continued 
to  treat  him  with  the  same  distinction  during  his  stay  in 
Guatemala.  By  this  specimen  also  he  understood  what  sort  of 
converts  the  Fathers  had  won  in  that  "  Land  of  War,"  which 
his  own  troops  once  dared  not  enter,  "  but  which  now,"  as  Mr. 
Helps  observes,  "  deserved  that  name  less  than  any  part  of  the 
Indies."f 

Indeed,  the  once  dreaded  province  had  already  received  from 
Charles  Y.  the  significant  name  which  it  bears  to  this  day  of 

*  Ch.  vii.,  p.  350. 
t  P.  369. 
VOL.  n  16 


226  CHAPTER   IX. 

Yera  Paz  •  and  Mr.  Helps  remarks  that  it  is  a  notable  instance 
"  of  an  aboriginal  tribe  being  civilized  and  enlightened  by 
their  conquerors,  and  not  being  diminished  in  numbers  nor  re 
stricted  in  territory."  Its  prosperity  has  lasted  during  nearly 
three  hundred  years ;  and  the  English  historian,  alluding  to 
the  final  success  of  the  great  undertaking  of  Las  Casas,  ob 
serves,  in  words  worthy  of  himself  and  of  the  subject,  "  It  seems 
something  wondrous  when  any  project  by  one  man  really  does 
succeed  in  the  way  and  at  the  time  that  he  meant  it  to  succeed. 
We  feel  as  if  the  hostile  Powers,  always  lurking  in  the  rear  of 
great  and  good  designs,  must  have  been  asleep,  or,  in  the  mul 
tiplicity  of  their  evil  work,  have,  by  some  oversight,  let  pass  a 
great  occasion  for  the  hindrance  of  the  world. "* 

Of  the  four  great  and  good  men  who  accomplished  this 
noble  work,  and  by  their  wisdom  and  fortitude  added  provinces 
to  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  two  will  meet  us  again  in  Mexico ; 
let  us  add  a  word  upon  the  other  two,  Luis  Cancer  and  Pedro 
de  Angulo.  The  latter  was  appointed  Bishop  of  Vera  Paz,  in 
155&,  but  "  did  not  live  to  enter  his  diocese."  His  memory 
long  survived,  says  Mr.  Helps,  who  has  carefully  studied  all 
the  original  records,  and  never  begins  to  write  till  he  has 
examined  every  thing  relating  to  his  subject,  and  "the  Indians 
forty  years  afterwards  were  wont  to  quote  things  which,  they 
had  heard  him  say  in  the  pulpit.  He  gained  their  love,  it  is 
said,  so  much,  that  4  they  did  not  know  where  they  were 
without  him.'  '  One  of  them,  "  giving  an  account  of  the 
effect  which  his  preaching  produced,  used  an  expressive  meta 
phor — especially  expressive  in  that  country — comparing  the 
excitement  in  the  hearts  of  his  Indian  audience  to  that  of  ants 
in  an  ant-heap  when  some  one  comes  to  disturb  it  with  a 
stick." 

Luis  Cancer,  the  first  of  the  four  to  enter  the  province  of 
Yera  Paz,  was  the  only  one  honored  with  the  crown  of  mar 
tyrdom.  He  was  put  to  death  by  the  Indians  of  Florida,  who 
knew  not  how  to  distinguish  him  from  the  violent  and  unjust 
Spaniards  whom  they  feared  and  hated.  "  How  seldom,"  says 
Mr.  Helps,  in  allusion  to  this  martyrdom,  "  do  men  recognize 
their  true  friends  !" 

It  is  time  to  pursue  our  journey.  Three  provinces  more  had 
been  won  to  religion  and  civilization,  and  this  time  the  work 
was  done  by  Dominicans.  But  if  they  succeeded,  and  the  fruits 
of  their  apostolic  toils  remain  to  this  day, — for  paganism  is 
almost  unknown  in  these  regions, — it  was  not  because  they  were 
Dominicans,  not  because  they  were  learned,  patient,  and  wise, 

*  Ch.  ix.,  p.  398. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  227 

but  because  they  had  received  from  God  a  special  vocation  to 
this  work,  and  had  been  sent  forth  by  the  Church  to  accomplish 
a  task  which  none  but  her  chosen  apostles  have  ever  under 
taken,  and  in  which  none  but  they  may  ever  hope  to  triumph. 
This  is  the  only  reflection  which  we  rniss,  and  which  we  could 
hardly  expect  to  find,  in  the  graceful  and  learned  pages  of 
Mr.  Helps. 


CENTRAL    AMERICA. 

It  would  detain  us  too  long  to  speak  in  detail  of  the  various 
provinces  of  Central  America.  If  we  refer  to  them  for  a 
moment,  it  is  with  the  object  of  recording  the  experience  of  an 
English  Protestant  missionary,  who  was  not  indeed  of  the  school 
of  Angulo  or  Las  Casas,  but  should  not  on  that  account  be 
passed  over  in  silence.  It  is  our  business  to  trace  a  contrast. 
This  gentleman  announces,  then,  in  1850,  after  a  somewhat 
disastrous  career  in  these  regions,  and  in  language  which  his 
English  friends  would  perhaps  applaud,  that  "  Romanism  is  the 
putrescent  heart  of  Central  America."  The  rest  of  his  book  is 
in  the  same  style.  He  observes  with  displeasure  that  even  "  the 
Carif  women,"  who  are  not,  socially  speaking,  a  high  class, 
"  have  been  seen  joining  in  the  prostrate  adoration  of  an  image 
of  the  Virgin, "  and  that  he  and  his  companions  tried  in  vain 
"  to  preserve  them  from  these  calamities." 

From  his  own  account,  the  state  of  the  Protestant  mission 
was  not  consoling.  All  its  members  were  fighting  together, 
within  hearing  of  "the  Carif  women,"  and  with  the  uWtal% 
lavish  expenditure  of  Scripture  texts.  One  of  them  retired 
"  for  want  of  a  congregation,"  a  trial  which  the  rest  endured 
with  greater  fortitude.  The  narrator  himself  got  into  jail,  and 
seems  to  have  stayed  there  a  good  while.  Finally,  the  "  mission 
house"  was  sold,  and  converted  into  a  lunatic  asylum.  Such 
was  the  issue  of  Protestant  efforts  in  this  region. 

But  this  is  not  the  most  important  information  which  we  derive 
from  this  gentleman,  whose  "  violent  extramission"  from  Guate 
mala  was  related  in  an  earlier  chapter,  and  may  perhaps  account 
for  his  lively  resentment.  The  people  of  Brazil,  Mr.  Ewbank  has 
told  us,  despise  a  Protestant  missionary,  "  from  a  rooted  belief 
in  his  ignorance  and  presumption  ;"  in  Guatemala,  as  Mr.  Crowe 
relates  with  indignation,  "  a  Jew  is  something  akin  to  a  demon, 
and  a  Protestant  is  something  lower  and  more  dangerous  than  a 
Jew."  He  adds,  however,  as  if  to  excuse  this  misconception  on 
the  part  of  the  Guatemalans,  that  "  the  general  deportment  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  visitors,  or  residents,  has  not  been  such  as  to 


223  CHAPTER  IX. 

raise  the  respect  of  the  inhabitants  for  the  Protestantism  which 
they  profess,"  and  that  his  own  attempts  to  apply  a  remedy 
"  have  signally  failed."  And  so  lie  returned  to  England,  and 
the  people  of  Central  America  still  rank  him  and  his  co-relig 
ionists  below  the  Jew.* 

It  was  apparently,  as  we  have  said,  the  memory  of  his  own 
discomfiture  which  inspired  Mr.  Crowe's  volume.  Other  Prot 
estant  travellers,  who  had  a  much  more  extensive  knowledge  ot 
Central  America,  thus  correct  his  unfavorable  report.  Mr. 
Stephens,  unconsciously  reproving,  like  so  many  of  his  candid 
and  intelligent  countrymen,  the  ignoble  malice  of  mortified  mis 
sionaries,  gives  a  very  different  account,  in  his  well-known  work, 
both  of  the  inhabitants  of  these  tropical  regions  and  of  their 
pastors.  Of  a  large  tribe  of  Carib  Indians,  dwelling  within  the 
British  territory,  on  the  Gulf  of  Honduras,  he  says,  "  Though 
living  apart,  as  a  tribe  of  Caribs,  they  were  completely  civilized. 

In  every  house  was  a  figure  of  the  Virgin,  or  of  some 

tutelary  saint ;  and  we  were  exceedingly  struck  with  the  great 
progress  made  in  civilization  by  these  descendants  of  cannibals, 
the  fiercest  of  all  the  Indian  tribes  whom  the  Spaniards  en 
countered." 

A  little  later,  he  assists  at  a  religions  service  in  the  same 
tribe,  conducted  by  a  strange  priest,  an  Irishman,  whose  total 
ignorance  of  their  language  "  led  to  confusion  ;  but  all  were  so 
devout  and  respectful,  that,  in  spite  of  these  tribulations,  the 
ceremony  was  solemn." 

"From  the  moment  of  my  arrival,"  says  the  same  writer,  "I 
was  struck  with  the  devout  character  of  the  city  of  Guatemala," 
gfyfahich  Mr.  Crowe  retained  such  unpleasant  recollections. 
***  Every  house  had  its  figure  of  the  Virgin,  the  Saviour,  or 
some  tutelary  saint,  and  on  the  doors  were  billets  of  paper  with 
prayers."  One  of  these,  which  Mr.  Crowe  perhaps  failed  to 
notice,  was  as  follows :  "  May  the  true  blood  of  Christ  our 
Redeemer  deliver  us  from  pestilence,  war,  and  sudden  death. 
Amen." 

Mr.  Stephens  visited  every  part  of  Central  America,  and  was 
constantly  the  guest  of  the  clergy  in  every  province.  Speaking  of 
44  the  whole  Spanish-American  priesthood,"  he  says,  in  spite  of 
Protestant  sympathies,  exactly  what  Mr.  Temple  and  others  have 
already  told  us  of  the  same  class.  "  They  were  all  intelligent 
and  good  men,  who  would  rather  do  benefits  than  an  injury  ;  in 
matters  connected  with  religion  they  were  most  reverential, 
labored  diligently  in  their  vocations,  and  were  without  reproach 

*  The  Gospel  in  Central  America,  by  Rev.  F.  Crowe,  ch.  xii.,  p.  242  :  ch.  xiv., 
pp.  294,  306,  457. 


MISSIONS  IN   AMERICA.  229 

among  their  people."  He  remarks  that  he  "had  an  oppor 
tunity  of  seeing  throughout  all  Central  America  the  life  of 
labor  and  responsibility  passed  by  the  cura  in  an  Indian  village 

looked  up  to  by  every  Indian  as  a  counsellor,  friend, 

and  father,"  and  declares,  after  coming  out  on  one  occasion 
from  a  church  in  which  all  the  Indians  had  assisted  at  Vespers, 
"  I  could  but  think,  what  subsequently  impressed  itself  upon 
me  more  and  more  in  every  step  of  my  journey  in  that  country, 
Blessed  is  the  village  that  has  a  padre."* 

Perhaps  we  may  now  cease  to  wonder  that  Mr.  Crowe  and 
his  companions  only  succeeded  in  getting  into  jail,  and  that 
their  mission-house  was  converted  into  a  lunatic  asylum. 


MEXICO. 

And  now  let  us  enter  Mexico.  The  conquest  of  Mexico  by 
Spain  has  been  compared  by  Lord  Macaulay  with  that  of 
Hindostan  by  the  English.  Only  one  point  of  contrast  between 
the  two  events  was  left  unnoticed,  perhaps  because  unheeded, 
by  the  great  Essayist.  Pie  nowhere  reminds  either  himself  or 
his  readers  that  Mexico  became  a  Christian  nation,  while  India 
has  only  been  confirmed  in  her  worship  of  demons.  Such  is 
the  familiar  contrast  which  history  records,  for  the  admonition 
of  mankind,  between  the  fruits  of  a  Catholic  and  a  Protestant 
conquest. 

Mexico  is  Christian.  Count  up  all  the  misdeeds  of  the  vio 
lent  men  who  subdued  the  Aztec  race, — exaggerate,  if  it  be 
possible,  all  their  faults,  and  add  a  darker  shade  to  their 
crimes, — still,  when  all  is  told,  the  fact  remains,  which  you  will 
never  be  able  to  obliterate,  that  paganism  is  extinct  in  Mexico, 
and  triumphant  in  India. 

And  how  was  this  conversion  of  a  whole  people,  hitherto 
abandoned  to  a  dark  and  bloody  superstition,  brought  to  a  pros 
perous  issue  ?  How  was  this  mighty  work  of  renovation  accom 
plished,  the  contemplation  of  which  forced  an  eminent  American 
writer  of  our  own  day  to  exclaim,  "  How  easily  has  the  Indian 
element  in  Mexican  nationality  been  developed  into  civilized 
and  productive  co-operation  !"f  By  what  mysterious  and  per 
suasive  arts  was  this  new  triumph  of  Christianity  effected,  of 
which  a  French  writer  epitomizes  the  whole  history  in  a  few 
emphatic  wrords,  wrhen  he  says,  "The  progress  of  religion  in 


*  Incidents  of  Travel  in  Central  America,  by  John  Lloyd  Stephens,  ch.  ii., 
pp.  13,  15  ;  ch.  viii.,  pp.  104,  108  ;  ch.  xxxv.,  p.  443  (1854). 
\  Texas,  by  F.  Law  Olmsted,  p.  297. 


230  CHAPTER    IX. 

America,  by  the  preaching  of  a  few  poor  religious,  notably  of 
the  order  of  St.  Francis,  was  so  universal,  that  in  the  space  of 
forty  years,  six  thousand  monasteries  and  six  hundred  bishoprics 
were  founded  in  that  land  ?"* 

It  is  only  a  brief  answer  which  we  can  give  to  this  question. 
No  doubt  it  was  to  the  labors  of  apostolic  men, — such  as 
Betanzos  and  Motolinia;  Martin  de  Valencia  and  Peter  of 
Ghent ;  Francisco  de  Soto,  Las  Casas,  and  Zumarraga ;  such, 
in  a  word,  as  that  great  company  of  valiant  and  gifted  men  who 
at  the  same  hour  were  toiling  for  God's  glory  in  every  land,  from 
Lake  Huron  to  the  Gulf  of  Siam — that  this  magnificent  conquest 
was  chiefly  due.  But  justice  claims  even  for  the  mailed  war 
riors  of  Spain,  who  fought,  like  Cortez,  with  the  sword  in  one 
hand  and  the  cross  in  the  other,  some  share  in  the  noble  work  to 
which  it  is  their  glory,  and  almost  their  justification,  to  have 
contributed.  It  has  been  the  fashion,  with  all  but  a  few  cautious 
and  patient  students  of  history,  to  load  with  undiscriminating 
obloquy  the  men  who  overthrew,  by  a  prodigy  of  valor  and 
policy,  the  throne  of  Montezuma.  Yet  something  may  be  said 
in  their  behalf.  It  is  not,  indeed,  to  such  red-handed  warriors, 
impetuous  as  Jehu  and  resolute  as  Joab,  that  we  can  point  as 
types  of  the  Christian  character.  Yet  even  these  imperious 
soldiers,  who  shouted  from  morning  till  night  their  war-cry  of 
''Santiago," — Cortez  and  Alvarado,  Sandoval  and  Pizarro, — 
will  be  monuments  to  the  end  of  time  of  the  power  and  majesty 
•of  that  Faith  from  which,  in  spite  of  their  errors,  they  derived 
all  their  strength,  and  without  whose  inspirations  they  would 
neither  have  attempted  nor  accomplished  the  immortal  enter 
prise  with  which  their  names  are  forever  associated. 

A  tardy  justice  has  begun  to  recognize  in  our  own  day  the 
truth  of  this  allegation.  Even  Protestant  writers  will  tell  us, 
that  it  was  not  a  thirst  for  gold  which  was,  or  could  be,  the  sole 
spring  of  action  with  a  man  so  truly  great  as  Cortez.  "There 
is  much  to  blame,"  says  one  of  the  most  elegant  and  discerning 
historians  of  this  memorable  epoch,  "  in  the  conduct  of  the  first 
discoverers  in  Africa  and  America;  it  is,  however,  but  just  to 
acknowledge  that  the  love  of  gold  was  not  by  any  means  the 
only  motive  which  urged  them,  or  which  could  have  urged  them, 
to  such  endeavors  as  theirs. "f  They  were  penetrated,  he  adds, 
with  the  most  profound  conviction  of  "  the  fatal  consequences 
of  not  being  within  the  communion  of  the  Church."  He  does 
not,  of  course,  share  their  belief,  but  he  is  keen  enough  to  see 
that  it  affords  the  only  rational  explanation  of  their  conduct. 

*  Migne,  Dictionnaire  des  Conversions,  introd.,  p.  18  (1852). 
\  Helps,  vol.  i.,  ch.  i.,  p.  28. 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA.  231 

A  French  writer,  equally  devoid  of  partial  sympathies,  detects 
also  the  same  motive  in  all  their  actions.  "  They  redeemed," 
says  M.  de  Brossard,  in  words  which  we  cannot  accept  without 
modification,  "  the  disorders  of  their  private  life  by  deeds  of 
charity  and  an  ardent  faith."  And  this  was  especially  true  of 
Cortez.  "An  object  which  Cortez  never  lost  sight  of,"  says 
Mr.  Helps,  "was  the  conversion  of  the  natives."  It  was  Cortez 
who  first  requested  that  religious  might  be  sent  from  Spain. 
"I  supplicate  your  Imperial  Majesty,"  he  says  in  one  of  his 
letters,  alluding  to  the  possibility  of  converting  the  natives, 
"that  you  would  have  the  goodness  to  provide  religious  persons, 
of  good  life  and  example,  for  that  end."  And  when  the  Fran 
ciscans  arrived,  it  was  in  the  following  words  that  he  presented 
them  to  the  people  of  Mexico.  "These  are  men  sent  from  God, 
and  ardently  desiring  the  salvation  of  your  souls.  They  ask 
neither  your  gold  nor  your  lands,  for  despising  all  the  goods 
of  this  world,  they  aspire  only  after  those  of  the  next."* 

It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  Cortez,  a  man  filled  with  tender 
and  generous  thoughts,  was  cruel  by  nature,  or  that  he  \vas  as 
careless  of  the  blood  of  others  as  he  was  of  his  own.  He  never 
slew  for  the  sake  of  slaying,  and  was  as  calm  in  victory  as  he 
was  terrible  in  battle.  He  deplored,  with  perfect  sincerity,  the 
very  actions  in  which  he  took  part,  and  only  inflicted  death 
upon  those  who  refused  mercy.  It  must  be  remembered  too, 
that  he  had  entered  with  Montezuma  that  infernal  shrine  in 
which  the  hearts  of  men  smoked  in  golden  platters  before  the 
idols  of  the  nation,  and  that  he  quitted  it  trembling  with 
religious  horror  and  indignation,  and  became  thenceforward  as 
truly  the  minister  of  the  Most  High  in  chastising  the  demon- 
worship  of  this  guilty  race,  as  Joshua  was  when  he  led  the 
armies  of  Israel  across  the  Jordan.  Nor  let  it  be  forgotten 
that  to  him  is  due,  at  least  in  part,  the  significant  and  atoning 
fact  that  the  noblest  temple  which  has  ever  been  reared  in  the 
New  World  stands  on  the  very  site  of  that  foul  and  impious 
den,  from  which  Cortez  hurled  with  his  own  hand  both  the 
blood-stained  priests  who  were  lodged  within  it,  ayd  the  idols 
which,  but  for  him,  might  perchance  have  been  worshipped  at 
this  hour.f 

Lastly,  it  is  evident  that  Cortez  was  otherwise  appreciated, 
both  by  the  Mexicans  themselves  and  by  the  prelates  and  mis- 

*  Henrion,  tome  i.,  ch.  xxxvi.,  p.  390. 

f  "  On  the  same  lofty  platform,  where  Cortez  converted  the  half-burned  tem 
ple  of  the  great  '  teocalli'  to  the  purposes  of  a  Christian  church,  now  stands  a 
more  modern  ecclesiastical  structure,  dedicated  to  Our  Lady  de  los  Remedios, 
whose  shrine  is  tended  ly  an  Indian  priest  of  the  blood  of  the  ancient  Choi  u- 
lans."  Prehistoric  Man,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  483. 


232  CHAPTER   IX. 

sionaries  who  were  their  most  courageous  and  devoted  pro 
tectors,  than  by  the  crowd  of  careless  or  half-informed  critics 
who  have  neither  done  justice  to  the  merits  nor  rightly  dis 
criminated  the  faults  of  this  illustrious  man.  When  he  re 
turned  from  his  first  visit  to  Spain,  "he  was  received,"  we  are 
told,  "  with  vivid  demonstrations  of  delight  by  great  numbers 
of  the  people  in  "New  Spain,  both  Spaniards  and  Indians."* 
Zumarraga,  the  first  bishop  of  Mexico,  and  Domingo  de  Be- 
tanzos,  men  as  valiant  as  himself  though  in  another  cause,  and 
always  strenuous  protectors  of  the  Indians,  were  not  only  his 
personal  friends,  but  the  chosen  executors  of  his  will ;  while 
another  prelate  of  the  same  class,  Sebastian  de  Fuenleal,  who 
would  have  refused  homage  to  any  mortal  potentate,  unless  he 
could  offer  it  with  a  good  conscience,  chose  him  for  his  coun 
sellor.  "Far  from  looking  upon  Cortez  as  an  enemy,"  says 
Mr.  Helps,  "  the  wise  bishop  acted  entirely  in  concert  with  the 
Captain-General.  It  was  Don  Sebastian's  practice  to  take 
counsel  with  many  persons  as  to  what  ought  to  be  done,  but 
with  the  Marquis  alone,  or,  at  least,  with  very  few  persons,  as 
to  the  mode  of  executing  what  had  been  resolved  npon."f 

Cortez  was  a  warrior  who  had  something  of  the  temper  of  St. 
Louis,  and  more  of  Kichard  Coeur  de  Lion.  Like  the  last,  he 
turned  aside  neither  to  right  nor  left,  but  clove  a  straight  path 
through  all  that  barred  his  way  ;  like  the  first,  every  blow  he 
dealt  was,  a  defiance  to  the  pagan,  a  victory  for  the  Cross.  He 
was  inconsistent,  as  men  of  war  are  wont  to  be ;  but  he  was  no 
vulgar  swordsman,  battling  only  for  wealth  and  honors.  His 
great  heart  was  filled  to  the  brim  with  that  faith  which  meaner 
men  call  "  fanaticism,"  but  which  alone  made  him  what  he 
was,  which  gave  lustre  to  all  his  actions,  and  which  he  assisted 
to  plant  so  deeply  in  the  soil  of  Mexico,  that,  in  after  days,  it 
overshadowed  all  the  land. 

Even  Alvarado  and  Pizarro,  men  far  inferior  to  Cortez,  were 
no  such  graceless  ruffians  as  modern  critics,  possessing  neither 
their  heroic  valor  nor  their  religious  instincts,  would  have  us 
believe.  It,  is  no  small  praise  to  the  first,  that,  with  all  his 
faults,  he  was  honored  with  the  friendship  of  the  learned  and 
saintly  Bishop  of  Guatemala.  His  last  will  remains  to  prove 
that  he  knew  at  least  how  to  deplore  his  injustice  and  violence, 
and  desired  to  atone  for  them ;  and  when  he  lay  on  his  death 
bed,  mangled  by  that  avenging  rock  which  had  crushed  his 
stalwart  limbs,  and  was  asked  where  his  pain  was  sorest,  the 
spirit  within  him  broke  forth  in  the  sorrowing  cry,  "  My  soul ! 
mv  Ronl  f" 


my 


*  Helps,  vol.  in.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  198. 
f  Ch.  viii.,  p.  218. 


MISSIONS  IN"  AMERICA.  233 

Pizarro,  too,  an  adventurer  and  an  outcast  from  his  youth, 
whether  he  was  starving  in  the  island  of  Gorgona,  with  his 
fourteen  dauntless  followers,  or  leading  on  his  handful  of  com 
rades  to  battles  in  which  they  were  one  against  a  thousand,  or 
plucking  the  Inca  with  his  own  hand  from  his  litter  in  the  great 
square  of  Cassamarca,  was  ever,  after  his  kind,  a  soldier  of  the 
Cross.  "  In  the  midst  of  all  their  misery,"  says  a  Protestant 
historian,  "  they  did  not  forget  their  piety."  In  Gorgona,  where 
they  spent  three  heavy  months  of  doubt  and  suffering,  while 
"  subsisting  upon  shell-fish,  and  whatever  things,  in  any  way 
eatable,  they  could  collect  upon  the  shore ;"  "  every  morning, 
they  gave  thanks  to  God :  at  evening-time  they  said  the  Salve 
and  other  prayers  appointed  for  different  hours.  They  took 
heed  of  the  feasts  of  the  Church,  and  kept  account  of  their 
Fridays  and  Sundays."*  And  when  the  decisive  hour  arrived, 
and  Pizarro  stood  face  to  face  with  Atahuallpa,  it  was  Father 
Vicente  de  Valverde  who,  at  the  conqueror's  request, "  advanced 
towards  the  Inca,  bearing  a  cross  in  one  hand,  and  holding  a 
breviary  in  the  other,"  and  explained  to  the  Peruvian  prince, 
still  at  the  desire  of  Pizarro,  the  mysteries  of  "  the  true  Catholic 
Faith,"  and  "  the  history  of  Jesus  Christ."  Finally,  when  this 
intrepid  warrior  came  to  his  end,  and  the  violent  man  fell  under 
the  swords  of  assassins,  he  drew  the  sign  of  the  cross  on  the 
floor  with  his  own  blood,  kissed  with  his  dying  lips  the  emblem 
of  salvation,  and  with  that  supreme  act  of  love  and  contrition 
Pizarro  passed  to  his  account. 

Compare  these  men,  who  in  every  case  won  kingdoms  for 
their  Divine  Master,  and  who  banished  paganism  from  every 
land  which  they  entered,  with  the  English  captains  who  scattered 
the  hosts  of  the  Mogul  or  the  Mahratta.  Little  recked  they  of 
the  glory  of  God,  or  of  the  progress  of  the  Faith.  Fanaticism, 
as  they  would  have  called  the  sublime  enthusiasm  of  a  St.  Paul 
or  a  Las  Casas,  was  riot  their  line.  ~No  word  did  their  tongues 
ever  utter  in  honor  of  the  Cross,  no  hymn  did  they  chant  in 
praise  of  the  Crucified.  "  JSTot  a  temple  'has  been  thrown  down 
by  the  English"  says  a  Protestant  writer,  "  not  a  single  deity 
removed  by  proclamation  from  the  calendar."f  To  live  as  the 
heathen  blushed  to  live,  and  sometimes  to  die  as  even  the 
heathen  would  have  been  ashamed  to  die ;  to  smile  compla 
cently  on  the  foul  superstitions  which  they  neither  rebuked  them 
selves,  nor  would  suffer  others  to  rebuke ;  to  "  discountenance 
Christianity  as  a  most  dangerous  innovation"  while  they  at 
tended  banquets  in  honor  of  Ganesa,  fired  royal  salutes  to  do 

*  Helps,  vol.  iii.,  p.  447. 

t  Mead,  The  Sepoy  liewlt,  cli.  xix.,  p.  245. 


234  CHAPTER  IX. 

homage  to  Sivah,  or  gathered  wealth  from  the  worship  of  Jug 
gernaut  ;  such,  as  their  own  historians  have  told  us,  were  the 
tactics  of  the  English  conquerors  of  Hindostari.  And  they 
were  the  same  from  first  to  last.  The  hero  of  Plassy,  almost  as 
great  a  soldier  as  Cortez,  found  an  exit  from  life  through  the 
shameful  gate  of  suicide ;  the  victor  of  Assaye  and  Seringapatam 
died  as  his  own  war-horse  died,  and  with  scarcely  more  thought 
of  the  Unseen.  No  province  did  they,  or  such  as  they,  ever 
win  to  Christ.  They  found  India  pagan,  and  they  left  it  pagan. 
One  lesson  only  they  imparted  to  Hindoo  or  Mahometan,  which 
•he  learned  but  too  well.  They  taught  him,  by  their  own  ex 
ample,  to  hate  and  despise  the  religion  of  which  they  were  pro 
fessors,  and  to  deride  a  doctrine  the  very  preachers  of  which, 
when  at  last  they  arrived  in  India,  were  so  manifestly  types  of 
woiidliness  and  self-indulgence,  that,  far  from  producing  any 
impression  upon  the  mocking  pagans  who  doubted  "  whether 
they  believed  their  own  Scriptures,"  a  conspicuous  member  of 
their  order  ingenuously  confessed,  "  Your  profession  of  religion 
is  a  proverbial  jest  throughout  the  world.' 

There  is  no  need,  even  if  we  had  space,  to  recount  the  toils 
by  which  men  of  another  faith,  and  other  gifts,  won  Mexico 
to  the  cross  of  Christ.  Here,  as  in  every  other  land  in  which 
they  encountered  only  such  impediments  as  were  common  to 
St.  Paul  or  St.  James,  they  did  the  work  for  which  God  raised 
them  up,  and  for  which  He  endowed  them  with  adequate  gifts. 
They  failed  only,  where  St.  Paul  or  St.  James  would  perhaps 
have  equally  failed,  in  countries  where  the  heathen  have  been 
fatally  prejudiced  against  Christianity,  by  the  divisions  and 
contradictions,  the  irrational  precepts  or  the  effeminate  habits, 
of  Protestant  teachers.  Against  such  obstacles  even  apostles 
contend  in  vain,  or  only  at  a  fearful  disadvantage. 

In  Mexico  they  had  a  fair  field,  and  had  to  fight  only  against 
the  corruptions  of  the  human  heart,  and  the  devices  of  the  Evil 
One.  They  overcame  both.  All  South  America,  from  the 
Isthmus  of  Panama  to  the  frontiers  of  Patagonia,  and  from  the 
valleys  of  Peru  to  where  the  floods  of  the  Amazon  and  the 
Orinoco  mingle  with  those  of  the  Atlantic,  was  converted  by 
them  ;  and  then  they  spread  their  conquests  in  the  North, 
through  Guatemala,  Nicaragua,  Mexico,  Texas,  and  California. 
They  had  done  all  that  apostles  could  do.  Canada  and  the 
United  States,  which  would  have  shared  the  same  privilege, 
were  snatched  from  them  ;  because  t/iere,  as  we  shall  see,  a 
hundred  spurious  forms  of  Christianity,  stripped  of  every  Divine 
element,  and  each  battling  against  every  other,  had  inspired 
only  the  disdain  of  the  barbarian,  who  formed  such  an  estimate 
of  the  doctrine  and  its  teachers,  that  he  not  unfrequently  went 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  235 

down  to  his  untimely'  grave,  imprecating  with  his  latest  breath 
a  malediction  upon  both. 

One  special  trial  beset  the  apostles  of  Mexico,  and  it  should 
be  noticed,  because  there  is  perhaps  nothing  in  their  career 
more  admirable  than  the  struggle  by  which  they  overcame  it. 
It  was  not  from  such  men  as  Cortez  or  Pizarro  that  they  ever 
encountered  opposition  in  their  holy  work,  but  from  a  later 
generation  of  ignoble  adventurers,  vulgar  soldiers  or  greedy 
lawyers,  who  soon  swarmed  in  the  fair  regions  which  the  great 
Marquis  had  added  to  the  crown  of  Spain.  Against  these 
men,  whose  crimes  were  often  unredeemed  by  a  single  virtue, 
Las  Casas  and  Zumarraga,  and  all  their  brethren,  fought  with 
a  patient  but  unyielding  courage  which  even  the  most  pre 
judiced  writers  have  celebrated  with  applause.  "The  Roman 
Catholic  clergy  in  America,"  says  the  unbelieving  Robertson, 
"  uniformly  exerted  their  influence  to  protect  the  Indians,  and 
to  moderate  the  ferocity  of  their  countrymen-."*  "  We  must 
express  our  admiration,"  says  an  English  naturalist,  "  for  the 
exalted  piety  of  the  Roman  Catholic  missionaries,  who,  in  these 
countries,  inhabited  by  human  beings  in  the  lowest  state  of 
degradation,  endured  poverty  and  misery  in  all  forms,  to  win 
the  Indians  to  better  habits  and  a  purer  faith. "f  • "  The  learned 
and  thoughtful  men,"  says  Mr.  Helps — "  for  such  the  monks 
and  ecclesiastics  must  be  held  to  be,  looking  before  and  after, 
knowing  many  of  the  issues  of  history,  and  often  appealing  to 
great  and  general  principles,  are  steadily  arrayed  against  the 
mere  conquering  soldier, — the  good  Bishop  Zumarraga  and  his 
confraternity,  against  Nuno  de  Guzman  and  his  followers.":): 

Sometimes  the  civil  authorities,  who  wished  to  employ  the 
Indian  only  as  a  beast  of  burden,  cunningly  affected  in  their 
appeals  to  Spain  to  defend  "the  prerogatives  of  the  State" 
against  "  the  encroachments  of  the  Church ;"  but  Charles  Y. 
was  too  sagacious  a  monarch  to  be  much  moved  by  arguments 
of  which  he  appreciated  the  real  character,  but  which  the  same 
class  of  statesmen  use  in  our  own  day  to  frighten  feebler  po 
tentates. 

On  the  other  hand,  notable  examples  are  found  of  active  and 
generous  co-operation  with  the  clergy  on  the  part  of  the  lay 
Auditors  of  Mexico.  In  1531,  when  there  were  only  a  hundred 
Dominicans  and  Franciscans  in  the  whole  country,  the  Auditors 
"  sent  to  the  Emperor,  beseeching  him  to  send  out  more  monks, 
being,  doubtless,  of  the  same  mind  with  a  subsequent  Yiceroy 

*  Charles  V.,  notes,  vol.  x.,  p.  400. 

f  Narrative  of  the  Voyage  of  H.M.S.  Herald,  by  Bertliold  Seemann,  F.L.S., 
vol.  ii.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  153  (1853). 
t  Book  xiv.,  ch.  v.,  p.  186. 


236  CHAPTER   IX. 

of  Mexico,  who,  when  there  was  much  question  about  building 
forts  throughout  the  country  (a  suggestion  urged  upon  him  by 
the  authorities  at  home),  replied,  that  towers  with  soldiers  were 
dens  of  thieves,  but  that  convents  with  monks  were  as  good  as 
walls  and  castles  for  keeping  the  Indians  in  subjection."* 

Again  :  when  a  new  generation  of  Auditors  "  made  the  noble 
endeavor  to  provide  homes  and  instruction  for  the  numerous 
orphans  who  had  lost  their  parents  by  reason  of  the  cruel  work 
imposed  upon  them  in  the  mines,"  Quiroga,  one  of  their  num 
ber, — "  who,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  a  lawyer,  and  there 
fore  less  likely  to  be  led  away  by  a  love  for  monastic  institu 
tions," — urgently  recommended  the  Council  of  the  Indies  "  to 
make  a  settlement  of  the  young  Indians  in  each  district,  at  a 
distance  from  other  pueblos,  and  in  each  settlement  to  place  a 
monastery  with  three  or  four  religiosos^  who  may  incessantly 
cultivate  these  young  plants  to  the  service  of  God."  And  so 
perfectly  did  these  shrewd  men  of  the  world  of  that  age  com 
prehend,  what  the  same  class  affect  to  doubt  in  our  own,  that 
monasteries  are  both  cheaper  and  more  potential  institutions 
than  prisons  or  workhouses,  that  Quiroga,  filled  with  admira 
tion  at  what  the  monks  had  already  done,  exclaims,  "  I  offer 
myself,  with  the  assistance  of  God,  to  undertake  to  plant  a 
kind  of  Christians  such  as  those  were  of  the  primitive  Church ; 
for  God  is  as  powerful  now  as  then.  I  beseech  that  this 
thought  may  be  favored. "f 

Nor  was  this  the  language  of  mere  enthusiasm.  What  the 
Religious  could  do  had  been  already  sufficiently  proved  in  many 
a  province  of  America,  and  Mexico  was  not  destined  to  be  an 
exception.  Already  the  Indian,  refusing  to  see  in  them  the 
emissaries  of  a  foreign  power,  had  learned  to  regard  the  Fathers 
first  with  astonishment,  and  then  with  veneration.  "Their 
poverty,  their  temperance,  their  simplicity  of  life,"  says  a 
Protestant  writer,  "  recommended  them  at  once  to  the  Indian."  J 
And  as  time  went  on,  and  fresh  colonies  of  Dominicans  and 
Franciscans  arrived,  all  filled  with  the  same  charity,  and 
displaying  the  Christian  religion  in  its  noblest  and  most 
attractive  form,  the  Mexican  understood  that  these  men  came 
to  him  with  hands  filled  only  with  gifts  and  blessings.  It 
was  they  who  obtained  from  the  Holy  See  the  menace  of 
excommunication  against  his  selfish  oppressors,  and  from  the 
royal  authority  such  decrees  as  the  following:  "That  no  Indian 
should  carry  any  burdens  against  his  will,  whether  he  was  paid 
for  it  or  not ;"  that  "  when  they  were  sent  to  the  mines  they 

*  Helps,  book  xiv.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  200. 

f  Id.,  p.  208. 

;  Id.,  ch.  xv.,  p.  313. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  237 

were  to  be  provided  with  clergy  there ;"  that  the  "  Protectors," 
of  whom  the  noble  and  generous  Las  Casas  was  one,  should 
"  cause  that  the  Indians  be  well  treated,  and  taught  in  secular 
things,  and  instructed  in  the  Articles 'of  the  Holy  Catholic 
Faith."* 

What  marvel  if  the  Indian  abandoned  himself  with  love  and 
confidence  to  such  teachers  as  a  bountiful  Providence  had  now 
provided  for  him?  How  should  men  who  are  thus  described 
even  by  Protestant  writers  fail  to  win  his  heart  ?  Of  the 
Bishop-President  of  Mexico,  Don  Sebastian  Ramirez  de  Fuen- 
leal,  who  arrived  in  1531,  Mr.  Helps  gives  the  following  por 
trait:  "JSTo  single  subject  of  government  occupied  his  attention 
to  the  exclusion  of  others.  He  founded  churches  ;  he  divided 
Mexico  into  parishes ;  he  established  a  college,  and  was  the 
first  man  to  propose  that  a  learned  education  should  be  given  to 
the  Indians.  His  efforts  in  this  matter  were  successful ;  and 
it  is  curious  that  one  of  the  best  chroniclers  of  the  bishop's 
proceedings  (Torquemada)  was  instructed  in  the  Mexican 
language  by  a  most  accomplished  Indian,  who  had  been 
educated  at  this  college."f 

"  The  clergy,"  says  the  same  careful  and  conscientious  his 
torian,  "  not  only  taught  spiritual  things,  but  temporal  also. 
They  converted,  they  civilized,  they  governed ;  they  were 
priests,  missionaries,  schoolmasters,  kings.  A  considerable 
share  in  the  credit  of  this  good  work  must  be  given  to  the  un 
wearied  labors  of  the  Franciscan  and  Dominican  monks.  That 
the  missionary  spirit  in  that  age  was  so  potent  and  so  success 
ful  as  it  was  must  in  some  measure  be  attributed  to  the  intense 
belief  which  the  missionaries  entertained  of  the  advantage  to 
be  derived  from  outward  communion  of  the  most  ordinary 
kind." 

St.  Paul  seems  to  have  shared  the  same  "  intense  belief,"  if 
we  may  judge  from  his  summary  exhortation  to  Titus  how  to 
deal  with  "  a  man  that  is  a  heretic""^  or  his  equally  emphatic 
warning  to  the  Philippians,  "Beware  of  dogs."§  u  Earth  has 
no  privilege,"  is  in  every  age  the  confession  of  loving  faith, 
"  equal  to  that  of  being  a  member  of  His  Church ;  and  they 
dishonor  both  it  and  Him  who  extenuate  the  dismal  horrors  of 
that  outer  darkness  in  which  souls  lie  that  are  aliens  from  the 
Church."  Only  they  who  have  received  this  "  royal  grace"  can 
understand  their  unutterable  calamity  who  possess  it  not,  or  the 
"  appalling  difficulties  of  salvation  outside  the  Church.  This 

*  Helps,  book  xiv.,  ch.  xiv.,  pp.  175-177. 
f  Id.,  p.  219. 
i  Tit.  iii.  10. 
§  Philip,  iii.  2. 


238  CHAPTER  IX. 

is  the  reason  why  the  saints  have  ever  been  so  strong  in  the 
instincts  of  their  sanctity,  as  to  the  wide,  weltering,  almost 
hopeless  deluge  which  covers  the  ruined  earth  outside  the  ark. 
Harsh,  to  unintelligent  uncharitable  kindness  intolerably  harsh, 
as  are  the  judgments  of  stern  theology,  the  saints  have  even 
felt  and  spoken  more  strongly  and  more  peremptorily  than  the 
theologians.  The  more  dear  to  the  soul  the  full  light  and  sac 
ramental  life  of  Jesus,  the  more  utter  the  darkness,  the  more 
dismal  the  death,  of  those  who  are  without  that  light  and  life, 
in  their  fulness  and  their  sacramentality.  The  eternal  posses 
sion  of  Mary's  Immaculate  Heart,  together  with  all  the  intel 
ligences  of  the  countless  angels,  would  not  suffice  to  make  one 
act  of  thanksgiving  for  the  single  comprehensive  mercy  of 
being  Catholics,  and  of  acknowledging  St.  Peter's  paternal 
supremacy."* 

But  this  ardent  conviction,  of  the  "  advantage  to  be  derived 
from  communion"  with  the  Catholic  Church,  wrhich  alone  has 
inspired  all  apostolic  works,  and  which  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul, 
St.  James  and  St.  Jude,  expressed  in  such  startling  words, 
"  would  not  alone  have  caused  the  rapid  progress  of  these 
missionaries,"  Mr.  Helps  truly  observes,  "  had  there  not  been 
to  back  it  the  utmost  self-devotion,  supreme  self-negation, 
and  also  considerable  skill  in  their  modes  of  procedure." 
Was  not  the  "  supreme  self-negation"  a  result  of  the  "  intense 
belief,"  and  were  not  both  the  fruit  of  Divine  grace,  which 
during  some  twenty  centuries  has  always  lavished  these  noblest 
gifts  upon  one  class  of  men,  and  always  refused  them  to  every 
other  ? 

Sometimes  the  same  English  historian  whom  we  have  so  often 
quoted,  and  always  with  pleasure,  gives  individual  examples  of 
that  great  company  of  preachers  by  whom  Mexico  was  evan 
gelized.  Of  the  Franciscan  Martin  de  Valencia,  head  of  the 
Order  in  Mexico,  he  speaks  thus  :  "  When  he  arrived  in  Mex 
ico,  he  maintained  the  most  rigid  mode  of  life.  He  went  bare 
foot,  with  a  poor  and  torn  robe,  bearing  his  wallet  and  his 
cloak  on  his  own  shoulders,  without  permitting  even  an  Indian 
to  assist  in  carrying  them.  In  this  fashion  he  used  to  visit  the 
convents  under  his  jurisdiction.  Being  already  an  old  man 
when  he  arrived  in  Mexico,  he  could  not  learn  the  language 
with  the  same  facility  as  his  companions;  so  that  what  he  most 
devoted  himself  to  was  teaching  the  little  Indian  boys  to  read 

Spanish He  sang  hymns  with  the  little  children,  and, 

as  we  are  told,  did  great  good  in  the  Indian  villages  where  he 
resided."  Like  Moses,  he  would  sometimes  go  apart  from  the 

*  Father  Faber,  The  Blessed  Sacrament,  book  iv.,  sec.  5,  p.  502. 


MISSIONS   IN    AMERICA.  239 

world  to  draw  nearer  to  God,  for  whose  sake  lie  lived  this  life, 
and  was  accustomed  to  "retire  to  an  oratory  on  a  mountain, 
where  he  might  enjoy  the  most  profound  contemplation." 

Francisco  de  Soto,  "  a  man  of  singular  piety,  who  afterwards 
refused  the  bishopric  of  Mexico,"  was  a  missionary  of  the  same 
class  ;  and  Toribio  Motolinia,  who  wore  out  his  life  in  "  teaching, 
catechizing,  and  baptizing  the  Indians  ;"  and  of  whom  it  is  said, 
that  "  he  baptized  no  less  than  four  hundred  thousand  of  them." 

But  it  was  Peter  of  Ghent,  Mr  Helps  assures  us,  "  who 
perhaps  did  most  service."  He  was  a  Flemish  lay  brother, 
"  who,  in  his  humility,  never  would  be  any  thing  but  a  lay 
brother."  From  him  the  Mexicans  learned  "  to  read,  to  write, 
to  sing,  and  to  play  upon  musical  instruments.  He  contrived 
to  get  a  large  school  built,"  in  which,  besides  more  elementary 
matters,  he  taught  them  painting,  carving,  and  other  arts. 
"  Many  idols  and  temples  owed  their  destruction  to  him,  and 
many  churches  their  building.  He  spent  a  long  life — no  less 
than  fifty  years — in  such  labors,  and  was  greatly  beloved  by 
the  Indians,  amongst  whom  he  must  have  had  thousands  of 
pupils.  The  successor  of  Zumarraga  one  day  generously 
exclaimed,  4I  am  not  the  Archbishop  of  Mexico,  but  brother 
Peter  of  Ghent  is!" 

Of  Domingo  de  Betanzos,  who  became  "the  principal  Do 
minican  in  New  Spain,"  we  have  already  heard  in  Guatemala. 
It  was  a  sharp  life  which  he  and  his  brethren  led,  following  the 
strictest  rule  of  their  ascetic  Order,  and  "  so  versed  in  self- 
denial,"  as  our  historian  observes,  that  "  the  sternest  duties  of 
a  missionary  were  easy  to  them."  They  were  men  thoroughly 
penetrated  with  the  maxim  of  St.  Paul,  "No  man  being  a 
soldier  of  God  entangleth  himself  with  secular  business."* 
They  could  be  merciful  to  the  poor,  for  none  were  so  poor  as 
they.  They  could  rebuke  the  rich,  for  they  had  often  resigned 
wealth  and  honors  in  order  to  have  the  right  to  do  so.  The 
very  sight  of  them  suggested  thoughts  of  penance,  hope,  and 
manly  effort.  Of  Betanzos,  to  whom  "his  brethren  were 
attached  beyond  measure," — for  monks  have  more  loving  hearts 
than  the  egotistical  votaries  of  pleasure,  who  are  too  feeble  even 
to  love  in  earnest, — we  read  as  follows :  "  The  principal  men  in 
New  Spain  held  him  in  high  estimation ;  the  Indians  were 
delighted  with  his  disinterestedness ;  and  the  whole  country 
reverenced  him,  and  looked  up  to  him  as  a  father."f  When  he 
had  done  his  work  in  Mexico,  the  brave  old  man,  "  moved  by 
a  desire  for  martyrdom,"  wanted  to  go  to  China,  and  so  kindled 

*  2  Tim.  ii.  4. 
f  Helps,  ix.  407. 


24:0  CHAPTER   IX. 

the  heart  of  the  noble  Bishop  Zumarraga,  says  Mr.  Helps— 
though  he  only  considers  it  a  proof  of  "  high-souled  fanaticism," 
— that  he  was  ready  to  resign  his  bishopric  to  go  with  him. 
The  Pope,  however,  refused  permission,  and  they  both  died  in 
the  land  for  which  they  had  done  so  much. 

Ortiz,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Santa  Martha,  was  of  the  same 
school,  and  Julian  Garces,  "  a  very  learned  man  and  an  elegant 
Latin  writer,"  who  was  the  first  Bishop  of  Los  Angelos  in 
Tlascala;  and  Antonio  de  Montesino,  subsequently  martyred  in 
India,  and  Lorenzo  de  Bienvenida,  who  boldly  admonished 
Philip  II.  not  to  peril  his  own  soul  by  tolerating  the  injustice  of 
the  Spaniards  ;*  and  a  hundred  more,  who  displayed  in  Mexico 
the  same  virtues,  waged  the  same  battles,  and  gained  the  same 
victories,  as  their  fellow-laborers  in  other  lands. 

And  now  if  we  inquire,  without  attempting  to  enter  into 
impossible  details,  what  was  the  final  result  of  all  this  apostolic 
toil,  the  kindly  and  accomplished  historian  whom  we  have  fol 
lowed  will  tell  us.  "  Two  important  letters,"  he  observes, — the 
one  addressed  by  Bishop  Zumarraga,  in  1551,  to  a  General 
Chapter  of  the  Franciscan  Order,  held  at  Toulouse ;  the  other 
by  Bishop  Garces  a  }rear  or  two  later  to  Pope  Paul  III., — 
afford  information  from  which  "  we  are  able  to  form  something 
like  a  complete  picture  of  the  state  of  this  early  Church  in 
relation  to  the  Indians." 

The  Bishop  of  Mexico  relates,  that  already  more  than  a 
million  Indians  had  been  baptized  by  the  Franciscans  alone ; 
"  five  hundred  temples  have  been  thrown  down,  and  twenty 
thousand  idols  broken  in  pieces,  or  burnt.  In  place  of  these 
temples  have  arisen  churches,  oratories,  and  hermitages.  But, 
as  the  good  bishop  says,  that  which  causes  more  admiration  is, 
that  whereas  they  were  accustomed  each  year  in  this  city  of 
Mexico  to  sacrifice  to  idols  more  than  twenty  thousand  hearts  of 
young  men  and  young  women,  now  all  those  hearts  are  oifered 
up,  with  innumerable  sacrifices  of  praise,  not  to  the  Devil,  but 
to  the  Most  High  God."f 

Both  the  venerable  writers  speak  with  enthusiasm  of  the  piety 
and  docility  of  the  Indian  children,  and  the  Bishop  of  Tlascala 
says  of  those  in  his  own  diocese,  "  they  not  only  imbibe  but 
exhaust  the  Christian  doctrines' — 'non  hauriunt  modo,  sed  ex- 
hauriunt,  ac  veluti  ebibunt.'"  Of  their  exactness  in  frequenting 
the  Divine  office,  and  in  the  practice  of  confession,  as  well  as  of 
"  the  dove-like  simplicity"  with  which  they  accused  themselves 

*  Voyages,  &c.,  pour  sermr  d  I'histoire  de  la  Decouverte  de  VAmerique,  par  H. 
Ternaux  Company  tome  ii.,  p.  307.  See  also  the  letter  of  Juan  de  Zumarraga 
in  tome  v. 

f  Helps,  iii.,  300. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA. 

of  their  faults,  they  speak  with  equal  admiration  ;  while  "  the 
Bishop  of  Mexico  mentions  that  the  children  steal  away  the 
idols  from  their  fathers,  for  which,  he  says,  some  of  them  have 
been  inhumanly  put  to  death  by  their  fathers;  but  they  live 
crowned  in  glory  with  Christ." 

Lastly,  the  English  writer  whom  we  have  so  often  quoted, 
referring  to  that  linal  victory  of  the  Faith  which  was  accom 
plished  in  Mexico  by  "the. untiring  efforts  of  such  men  as  Las 
Casas,  Betanzos,  Zumarraga  .  .  .  and  the  various  prelates  and 
monks  who  labored  with  or  after  these  good  men,"  not  only 
declares  with  a  noble  frankness  that  "  it  is  a  result  which  Chris 
tians  of  all  denominations  may  be  proud  of  and  rejoice  in," — 
an  excessive  statement,  since  only  one  "denomination"  has  ever 
had  the  smallest  share  in  producing  such  results, — but  is  led  to 
make  the  following  weighty  reflection  upon  the  whole  history : 
"  We  are  told  that  in  the  sixteenth  century  there  was  a  revi 
val  throughout  Europe  in  favor  of  the  Papacy,  which  set  the 
limits  to  Protestantism — those  limits  which  exist  even  in  the 
present  day ;  but  we  cannot  say  that  any  such  revival  appears 
to  have  been  greatly  needed,  or  to  have  taken  place  in  Spain. 
The  fervent  and  holy  men,  whose  deeds  have  been  enumerated, 
were  in  the  flower  of  their  youth  or  their  manhood  before  the 
Reformation  had  been  much  noised  abroad ;  and  it  is  evident, 
from  the  whole  current  of  the  story,  that  the  spirit  of  these 
men  was  not  a  thing  developed  by  any  revival,  but  was  in  con 
tinuance  of  the  spirit  with  which  they  had  been  imbued  in 
their  respective  monasteries.  All  honor  to  their  names !" 

Let  us  conclude,  according  to  our  custom,  with  a  few  Prot 
estant  testimonies  to  the  fact,  which  we  have  noticed  in  every 
other  land,  that  neither  suffering,  nor  neglect,  nor  lapse  of 
years,  have  been  able  to  shake  the  faith  of  the  converted  Mex 
ican.  Las  Casas  and  Zumarraga,  Betanzos  and  Peter  of  Ghent, 
are  no  longer  among  them ;  the  disorders  of  Europe  have 
reached,  arid  sometimes  convulsed,  even  their  remote  dwellings; 
profligate  rulers,  whom  their  want  of  political  education  obliges 
them  to  accept,  have  involved  their  nation  in  shameful  disor 
der;  but  the  Mexican  people,  innocent  of  the  crimes  which 
scandalize  without  corrupting  them,  are  still  Catholic  in  their 
inmost  heart,  still  preserved  by  the  Mother  of  God,  who  always 
guards  her  own,  from  the  taint  of  heresy. 

A  few  witnesses  will  suffice ;  and  that  we  may  take  extreme 
oases,  they  shall  include  an  agent  of  the  Bible  Society,  an 
English  lawyer,  two  American  Protestants,  and  a  Scotch  Pres 
byterian.  u  Every  man,"  says  the  Rev.  Mr.  ."Norris,  whose 
Bibles  and  discourses  the  Mexicans  seern  to  have  rejected  with 
amused  contempt,  "  professes  himself  a  Catholic,  and  is  very 
VOL.  n.  17 


242  CHAPTER   IX. 

devout  and  religious  in  his  way ;  in  some  respects  they  are 
worthy  of  imitation  by  enlightened  Christians."*  It  is  true 
that  elsewhere  Mr.  Korris  calls  their  religion  "idolatry;"  but 
men  whose  own  "  worship"  hardly  equals  the  decent  courtesy 
which  one  civilized  man  offers  to  another,  and  who  have  still 
to  learn  in  what  the  union  of  the  creature  with  his  Creator 
consists,  may  well  deem  that  homage  idolatrous  which  is  so  far 
deeper  and  more  tender  than  their  own,  even  when  the  objects 
of  it  are  only  the  Saints  in  heaven.  Of  worship  in  its  true 
sense,  that  which  is  due  to  God  alone,  such  men  would  speak 
with  more  profit  if  they  had  any  personal  experience  of  it. 

Of  one  Mexican  province,  Mr.  Brantz  Mayer  speaks  as  fol 
lows,  in  1852.  "The  aborigines  of  Jalisco,  formerly  warlike 
and  devoted  to  a  bloody  religion,  are  most  generally  tillers  of 
the  ground,  adhering  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Catholic  Church"\ 

Even  the  most  frivolous  writers  suspend  the  jibe  or  the  jest 
to  notice  the  deep  religious  feeling  of  the  Mexicans,  in  spite  of 
neglect  or  scanty  instruction.  An  American  traveller  of  this 
class,  who  confesses  that  he  drew  his  knife  on  a  priest,  and 
scoffs  at  the  "ridiculous  mummeries"  of  processions  and 
prayers,  notices  with  a  sneer  that  "  the  Mexicans  are  jealous  of 
their  churches,  and  do  not,  willingly,  allow  a  heretic  to  enter 
alone;"  and  then  he  sums  up  his  impressions  in  these  words: 
u  The  religious  feeling  which  pervades  all  classes,  young  and 
old,  is  remarkable.  STever  do  you  see  any  of  them  pass  a 
church  without  uncovering  their  heads,  and  turning  their  faces 
thitherwards ;  while,  at  the  sound  of  the  bell,  every  hat  is  re 
moved  and  all  stand  uncovered  where  they  are,  until  the  sound 


is  over.";); 


Dr.  Lempriere  relates  that  "funciones  solemnes,  or  other  re 
ligious  performances,  may  be  witnessed  in  the  principal  towns 
and  cities  almost  daily"  in  which  fact  his  legal  education 
might  have  taught  him  to  see  at  least  a  proof  of  the  influence 
of  religion ;  but  it  suggests  to  him  quite  another  comment. 
Superbly  ignorant  of  religion  in  general,  and  of  the  Christian 
religion  in  particular,  this  ornament  of  the  Inner  Temple  goes 
on  thus :  "  You  enter  a  church  and  invariably  encounter  a 
motley  crowd,  exhaling  unseemly  odors,  and  dispensing  small 
vermin  on  every  side."  A  few  "well  dressed,  well-appearing 
individuals"  he  encountered,  but  not  enough  to  leaven  the 
mass,  and  so  he  adds,  "It  is  impossible  for  an  individual  ot 
respectable  education  and  ordinary  delicacy  of  feeling  to  join  a 

*  Strickland,  Hist,  of  American  Bible  Society,  cli.  xx.,  p.  175. 

f  Mexico,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vni.,  p.  295. 

j  A  Campaign  in  New  Mexico,  by  Frank  S.  Edwards,  ch.  vi  ,  p.  93. 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA.  243 

crowd  in  one  of  these  pagodas  or  jos  temples,  called  churches •, 
without  feeling  ineffable  disgust."*  Witnesses  of  this  class 
should  always  be  allowed  to  speak  for  themselves.  Alas  !  for 
Lazarus,  if  *he  should  venture  to  display  his  sores  at  Dr. 
Lempriere's  gate. 

A  more  humane  writer,  Madame  Calderon  de  la  Barca, 
speaks  thus  of  modern  Mexico:  "There  exists  no  country  in 
the  world  where  charities,  both  public  and  private,  are  practised 
on  so  noble  a  scale ;  generally  speaking,  charity  is  a  distinguish 
ing  attribute  of  a  Catholic  country."  And  this  is  confirmed  by 
an  American  Protestant,  who  visited  Mexico  as  a  prisoner,  and 
had  some  reason  to  speak  of  its  rulers  with  resentment.  "  It  is 
not  in  Mexico  alone,"  says  Mr.  Kendall,  after  describing  "  the 
institutions  for  relieving  the  distresses  of  the  unfortunate,  and 
the  different  orders  of  Sisters  of  Charity,  those  meek  hand 
maidens  of  benevolence,  whose  eyes  are  ever  seeking  the 
couch  of  sickness,"  "  that  this  holy  feeling  of  charity  exists ; 
but  wherever  the  religion  of v  Rome  is  known,  there  do  we  find 
the  same  active  benevolence  exerted,  the  same  attention  to  the 
wants  of  the  suffering."f 

Of  the  existing  race  of  monks,  usually  the  butt  at  which 
every  witless  traveller  aims  his  shafts,  Madame  de  la  Barca,  in 
spite  of  the  prejudices  of  her  Scotch  training,  candidly  observes: 
"  I  firmly  believe  that  by  far  the  greater  number  lead  a  life  of 
privation  and  virtue."  "  Throughout  the  whole  country," 
this  lady  adds,  "  at  every  step  you  see  a  white  cross  gleaming 
among  the  trees  .  .  .  here  every  thing  reminds  us  of  'the  triumph 
of  Catholicism"  Of  the  Indians  themselves,  their  " super 
stitions,"  and  perpetual  "religious  processions,"  she  gives 
much  the  same  account,  though  with  less  bitterness  of  lan 
guage,  as  we  received  from  Mr.  Scarlett,  Mr.  Mansfield,  and 
others,  with  respect  to  their  brethren  in  the  south ;  she  adds, 
however,  while  vehemently  disapproving  such  external  mani 
festations,  which  are  usually  dramatic  representations  of  facts 
in  the  life  of  our  Lord  or  of  the  Saints :  "  It  is  singular,  that, 
after  all,  there  is  nothing  ridiculous  in  these  exhibitions ;  on 
the  contrary,  something  rather  terrible.";): 

If  it  be  true  that  "  out  of  the  abundance  of  the  heart  the 
mouth  speaketh,"  and  that  national  customs  represent  national 
feelings,  we  may  perhaps  conclude,  that  a  people  who  spend  a 
large  part  of  their  lives  in  devout  processions  and  religious 

*  Mexico  in  1861  and  1862,  by  Charles  Lempriere,  D.C.L.,  of  the  Inner  Tem 
ple,  and  Law  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  Oxford,  ch.  iii.,  p.  103  ;  ch.  v.,  p.  175. 

f  Narrative  of  the  Texan  Santa  Fe  Expedition,  by  George  Wilkins  Kendall, 
vol.  ii.,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  340. 

$  Life  in  Mexico,  by  Madame  C.  de  la  Barca,  Letter  xxiii.,  pp.  177,  288. 


2:14  CHAPTER   IX. 

exhibitions,  can  hardly  be  indifferent  to  religion.  Such, 
spectacles  are  not  indeed  witnessed  in  England  or  Holland, 
and  no  man  expects  to  see- them.  The  Mexicans,  who  have 
received  the  gift  of  Faith,  may  fitly  represent  the  scenes  of 
the  Nativity,  the  Passion,  or  the  Resurrection,  for  these  events 
are  to  them  realities.  Such  sights  are  familiar  to  the  eye  and 
heart,  and  kindle  the  sad  or  joyous  sympathies  of  every 
inhabitant  of  the  land.  If  any  one  should  attempt  to  introduce 
them  in  any  village  of  England,  the  incongruous  spectacle 
would  be  speedily  suppressed,  and  perhaps  with  reason ;  for 
every  one  would  feel  that  it  awakened  only  uneasiness  and 
repugnance,  by  forcing  them  out  of  their  habitual  train  of 
thought,  and  rudely  disturbing  the  ordinary  current  of  their 
life.* 


TEXAS. 

If  now  we  once  more  pursue  our  journey  northwards,  we 
shall  find  two  provinces,  one  on  the  eastern,  the  other  on  the 
western  frontier  of  Mexico,  which  deserve  a  moment's  atten 
tion.  Texas  and  California,  both  lately  absorbed  by  that 
energetic  and  all-devouring  race  which  is  perhaps  destined  one 
day  to  overrun  the  whole  continent,  will  introduce  us,  not  only 
to  that  order  of  missionaries  with  whose  labors  and  successes 
we  are  now  sufficiently  familiar,  but  also,  for  the  first  time  in 
America,  to  the  agents  of  another  religion,  who  have  already 
nearly  completed  the  work  of  ruin,  violence,  and  demoraliza 
tion  which  has  marked  their  presence  in  every  other  land.  A 
few  words  must  suffice  for  each  province. 

A  well-known  American  writer,  who  published  in  1857  an 
account  of  the  present  state  of  Texas,  will  give  us,  in  two  or 
three  pregnant  sentences,  all  the  information  we  need  in 
illustration  of  the  contrast  which  we  have  so  often  traced. 
Speaking  of  the  work  of  the  Catholic  missionaries,  he  says, 
"The  missions  bear  solid  testimony  to  the  strangely  patient 
courage  and  zeal  of  the  old  Spanish  Fathers."f  Yet  one  hun- 

*  Dr.  Lempriere  scoffs,  as  becomes  "  an  individual  of  respectable  education," 
because  "  the  people  take  off  their  hats,"  not  only  to  every  ecclesiastic,  but 
"  whenever  they  pass  an  image,  and  also,  whenever  the  bells  indicate  that 
Borne  performance  is  going  on  inside  any  one  of  the  churches  they  happen  to 
be  passing."  Mexico,  ch.  ii.,  p.  04.  English  Protestants,  he  rejoices  to  think, 
do  nothing  of  the  kind.  Why  should  they  ?  To  them,  a  clergyman  is  only 
a  gentleman  witli  a  fair  income,  while  the  "  performance"  in  their  churches  is 
more  apt  to  create  drowsiness  than  reverence. 

f  Olinsted,  Texas,  p.  154. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  245 

dred  and  thirty  years  have  passed  away  since  the  latest  mission 
of  San  Antonio  was  founded  by  the  Franciscans,  in  which, 
after  so  long  an  interval,  such  evident  traces  of  their  wisdom 
and  goodness  are  still  apparent  even  to  Protestant  eyes. 

It  is  certainly  a  notable  fact,  which  even  the  political  economist 
may  contemplate  with  interest,  that  the  very  ruins  of  Catholic 
missions  present  tokens  of  the  mighty  civilizing  power  which 
created  them,  such  as  no  Protestant  effort  of  the  same  kind  has 
ever  exhibited,  though  sustained  by  the  co-operation  of  civil 
and  military  officials,  and  aided  by  temporal  resources  which 
Catholic  missionaries  neither  desire  nor  enjoy.  "  A  noble 
monument  of  the  skill  of  the  Fathers,"  says  an  American  writer, 
"  and  of  the  improvement  of  their  neophytes,  remains  in  the 
many  churches,  aqueducts,  and  other  public  works,  'built  ~by 
Indian  hands,  which  still  remain  on  Texan  soil."* 

Of  the  Indians  themselves,  Mr.  Olmsted  says,  "  We  were  in 
variably  received  with  the  most  gracious  and  beaming  polite 
ness  and  dignity.  Their  manner  towards  one  another  is  enga 
ging,  and  that  of  children  and  parents  most  affectionate."  And 
then  follows  the  usual  account  of  the  woful  results  of  their  un 
willing  contact  with  a  Protestant  people.  "Since  1853  the 
diminution  has  been  rapid.  .  .  .  At  aM  points  of  contact  with 
the  white  race  they  melt  gradually  away"\  There  is,  then,  no 
exception  to  the  universal  law.  Wherever  the  Anglo-Saxon 
sets  his  foot,  bringing  in  his  train  selfishness,  arrogance,  and 
insatiable  cupidity,  the  aboriginal  races  disappear;  and  if  he  is 
accompanied,  as  sometimes  happens,  by  the  ministers  of  his 
religion,  they  disappear  so  much  the  quicker.  A  little  later  we 
shall  find  the  Indians  themselves  noticing  this  invariable  fact. 

Nor  can  this  doom  surprise  us,  as  respects  Texas,  when  we 
learn  from  Protestant  evidence  how  the  natives  are  treated  by 
their  new  masters.  "It  is,"  says  Mr.  Olmsted,  in  expressive 
language,  "  the  mingled  puritanism  and  brigandism"  of  his 
fervid  countrymen  which  make  it  impossible  for  them  "  to 
associate  harmoniously"  with  the  mild  and  courteous  Mexican. 
"  Inevitably  they  are  "dealt  with  insolently  and  unjustly.  They 
fear  and  hate  the  ascendant  race."  Mr.  Froebel  also  notices 
"  the  injustice  and  overbearing  with  which  the  Anglo-Americans 
everywhere  treat  the  Hispano-American  and  Indian  popula 
tion  ;"  and  Mr.  Russell  Bartlett,  one  of  their  countrymen,  not 
only  describes  "  their  shameful  and  brutal  conduct,"  but  de 
plores  their  participation  in  "  outrages  which  make  one  who 
has  any  national  pride  blush  to  hear  recited.";]: 

*  Shea,  Missions  among  the  Indian  Tribes,  &c.,  cli.  v.,  p.  87. 

f  P.  296. 

\  Personal  Narrative,  &c.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  423, 


216  CHAPTER   IX. 

Yet  the  Mexicans,  of  all  ranks,  could  teach  their  rude  guests 
a  lesson  of  charity  and  courtesy,  if  the  latter  were  capable  of 
profiting  by  it.  When  the  Americans  who  invaded  Mexico 
from  Texas,  most  of  whom  were  brigands  of  the  vilest  class, 
were  happily  captured,  and  marched  as  prisoners  through  the 
whole  country  to  the  capital,  Mr.  Kendall,  who  shared  their 
fate  without  deserving  it,  gives  this  account  of  "  the  Mexican 
population  generally,"  through  whom  the  lawless  adventurers 
were  conducted.  "They  seldom  manifested  any  feelings  of 
exultation  in  our  presence.  On  the  contrary,  the  mild  and 
subdued  eyes  of  the  poor  Indians  were  turned  upon  us  invaria 
bly  in  pity,  while  the  crowds  through  which  we  passed,  in  all 
the  large  cities,  appeared  rather  to  be  actuated  by  commisera 
tion  than  triumph  or  hatred,  Jews  and  heretics  though  they 
thought  and  termed  us."* 

The  lesson  appears  to  have  been  unfruitful.  At  Bexar,  Mr. 
Olmsted  relates  how  the  Mexican  householders,  using  a  right 
which  American  institutions  are  supposed  to  guarantee,  voted 
at  a  certain  election  against  "  the  American  ticket,"  and 
apparently  against  the  introduction  of  slavery,  which  Catholic 
Mexico  has  suppressed.  For  this  act  of  citizenship  they  were 
publicly  assailed,  in  terms  which  may  suffice  to  warn  us  that 
we  are  once  more  coming  into  the  presence  of  Protestantism, 
as  "  political  lepers,  voting  at  the  bidding  of  a  rotten  priest 
hood.'^  We  may  easily  anticipate  the  fate  of  the  Mexican  in 
Texas. 

But  he  will  not  perish  without  an  effort  to  save  him.  There 
are  missionaries  at  this  hour  in  Texas  whom  the  best  and 
bravest  of  other  days  would  have  welcomed  as  brothers.  .  Even 
Zumarraga  and  Las  Casas  might  have  rejoiced  to  claim  for  a 
colleague  Bishop  Odin,  the  Vicar  Apostolic  of  Texas ;  even 
Betanzos  and  Peter  of  Ghent  would  have  recognized  as  fellow- 
laborers  such  men  as  Timon  and  Domenech,  Dubuis  and 
Chazelle,  Calvo  and  Estany,  Clark  and  Chanrion,  Fitzgerald 
and  llennessy ;  who  now  toil,  or  have  recently  finished  their 
course,  in  that  arduous  field.  The  Abbe  Domenech  has  lately 
described  their  labors,  their  sufferings,  and  their  patience.  If 
we  refer  for  a  moment  to  his  well-known  pages,  it  is  for  the 
sake  of  adding  one  more  proof  that  the  Church  still  produces 
the  same  class  of  missionaries — Spanish,  French,  English,  or 
-Irish — as  have  borne  her  message  to  all  lands  from  the  time 
of  St.  Paul  to  our  own. 

When  Bishop  Odin  visited  Europe  in  1815,  and  appealed  in 

*  Narrative,  &c.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  131. 
t  P.  499. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  247 

the  city  of  Lyons  to  the  Levites  of  France  to  follow  him,  for 
the  love  of  Christ,  to  the  banks  of  the  Brazos,  the  Kueces,  and 
the  Rio  Grande,  these  were  the  attractions  which  he  offered 
to  their  zeal.  "  You  will  not  always  find  any  thing  to  eat  or 
drink ;  you  will  be  without  ceasing  in  travels  through  un 
known  regions,  where  the  distances  are  immense,  the  plains 
boundless,  and  the  forests  of  vast  extent.  You  will  pass  your 
nights  on  the  moist  earth,  your  days  under  a  burning  sun. 
You  will  encounter  perils  of  every  kind,  and  will  have  need  of 
all  your  courage  and  all  your  energy."* 

The  invitation  was  accepted  as  frankly  as  it  was  given. 
Amongst  those  who  embraced  the  proposed  career  was  the 
Abbe  Emanuel  Domenech,  who  arrived  in  Texas  in  1846. 
From  the  window  of  his  humble  dwelling  in  Castroville  he 
looked  out  upon  the  tomb  of  his  predecessor  the  Abbe  Chazelle. 
Excessive  labor,  and  the  want  of  all  nourishing  food,  had  re 
duced  the  latter,  as  well  as  his  companion  the  Abbe  Dubuis, 
to  that  mortal  languor  and  exhaustion  for  which  in  their 
utter  poverty  they  could  find  no  remedy.  The  one  lay  on  the 
ground,  the  other  on  a  table,  both  stricken  with  typhus 
fever.  They  had  none  to  succor  them,  and  water,  of  which 
a  neighbor  placed  every  morning  a  pailful  at  their  door, 
was  their  only  medicine.  On  the  tenth  day  of  their  illness, — 
it  was  the  great  Feast  of  the  Assumption, — the  Abbe  Dubuis 
resolved  to  make  an  attempt  to  offer  once  more  the  Holy 
Sacrifice.  "  Let  us  confess  for  the  last  time,"  he  said  to  his 
dying  companion ;  "  the  strongest  of  the  two  shall  then  say 
Mass,  and  give  Holy  Communion  to  the  other."  With  diffi 
culty  Dubuis  accomplished  the  pious  design,  and  then  Chazello 
fell  to  rise  no  more.  He  was  in  his  last  agony,  when  his  com 
panion  staggered  to  his  side,  and  in  a  feeble  whisper  pronounced 
over  him  the  final  blessing  of  the  Church.  A  little  later,  he 
bore  him  with  tottering  steps  to  a  grave  in  the  garden,  and  there 
"  the  dying  interred  the  dead."f 

The  Abbe  Dubuis  recovered.  You  think,  perhaps,  that  he 
now  abandoned  a  scene  so  full  of  sorrowful  memories  in  the 
past,  of  formidable  anticipations  in  the  future?  But  men  who 
have  received  the  apostolic  vocation  accept  all  that  it  imposes. 
At  the  close  of  the  year  1847,  we  find  the  Abbe  Dubuis  writing 
from  Castroville  to  his  friend  the  Cure  of  Fontaines,  near 
Lyons,  a  letter  which  concludes  with  these  words :  "  To  this 
hour  I  have  never  known  one  moment  of  disgust  or  regret ; 


0  Journal  d'un  Missionaire  au  Texas  et  au  Mexique,  par  1' Abbe  E.  Domenech. 
eh.  i.,  p.  2. 
f  Ch.  ii.,  p.  50. 


248  CHAPTER   IX. 

and  if  I  were  still  in  France,  I  would  quit  it  immediately  for 
the  mission  of  Texas,  which  I  shall  only  abandon  when  strength 
and  life  are  taken  from  me."* 

Yet  it  was  a  hard  life  which  these  brave  missionaries  led  in 
Texas.  Salary  they  had  none,  not  even  the  traditional  twenty 
pounds  a  year  which  their  brethren  receive  in  India  and 
China.  They  lived  on  alms,  when  alms  were  offered,  and 
dispensed  with  them  when  they  were  not.  Sometimes  they 
dined  on  a  rattle-snake,  sometimes  on  a  cat,  and  oftener  still 
they  did  not  dine  at  all.  Once  the  Abbe  Dnbuis  failed  to  say 
Mass,  though  the  congregation  were  assembled ;  he  could  not 
speak,  not  having  tasted  food  for  forty-eight  hours.  He  and 
the  Abbe  Domenech  were  joint  proprietors  of  a  single  cassock, 
— for  as  they  sometimes  galloped  eighty  miles  to  administer  a 
sick  person,  their  vestments  were  subject  to  dilapidation, — so 
that  while  one  said  Mass,  the  other  stayed  at  home  in  his  shirt 
sleeves. 

Nor  does  their  bishop,  whom  the  Holy  See  subsequently 
raised  to  the  dignity  of  Archbishop  of  New  Orleans,  seem  to 
have  fared  much  better  than  his  clergy.  The  Abbe  Hennessy 
relates  to  a  friend  in  Paris  the  manner  of  living  in  the  Episcopal 
Palace.  u  To  give  you  an  idea  of  the  comfort  and  luxury  of 
our  life,  let  it  suffice  to  say,  that  here,  in  Galveston,  the  whole 
amount  of  our  weekly  expenditure,  for  the  Vicar  Apostolic  and 
the  three  priests  who  live  with  him,  is  four  dollars,  or  about 
sixteen  shillings.  Monseigneur  Odin,  choosing  poverty  and 
straitness  for  himself,  is  only  rich  and  lavish  towards  the  poor."f 
In  a  letter  which  this  apostolic  bishop,  who  lived  upon  four 
shillings  a  week,  addressed  to  his  parents,  he  says,  "  Sometimes 
discouragement  almost  seizes  me,  when  I  know  not  what  means 
to  adopt  to  procure  even  the  most  indispensable  provisions ; 
but  God  is  so  good  a  Father  that  He  always  comes  to  our 
help."} 

We  are  not  surprised  to  learn  from  the  Abbe  Domenech  that 
the  Protestant  clergy  in  Texas  had  no  sympathy  with  such  a 
mode  of  existence.  Each  of  them,  he  says,  had  five  hundred 
pounds  a  year,  besides  what  he  could  earn  by  the  ingenious 
operations  in  which  such  men  are  skilled.  One  of  them,  who 
had  three  marriageable  daughters,  announced  to  his  flock, — 
he  had  chosen  for  his  text  the  appropriate  words,  "  Increase 
and  multiply," — that  he  would  give  three  thousand  piastres 
with  each  of  the  young  ladies  to  any  eligible  suitor ;  and  his 

*  App.,  p.  471. 

f  P.  465. 

i  Annales  de  la  Propagation  de  la  Foi,  tome  iii.,  p.  533. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  249 

congregation  probably  saw  nothing  unusual  or  incongruous 
in  this  form  of  paternal  solicitude.* 

But  if  the  Protestant  ministers  lived  in  Texas  as  they  are 
wont  to  live  everywhere  else,  carefully  limiting  their  prudent 
operations  to  the  principal  cities,  and  diligently  avoiding 
even  the  remote  possibility  of  unwelcome  perils  ;  the  Catholic 
missionaries  would  have  taught  them,  if  they  could  have  com 
prehended  the  lesson,  what  men  can  do  who  have  forsaken  all 
for  Christ's  sake.  The  Abbe  Domenech,  amongst  others,  was 
familiar  with  startling  scenes.  He  is  on  one  of  his  ordinary 
errands  of  mercy,  journeying  from  Dhanis  to  La  Leona,  and 
comes  suddenly  upon  the  bodies  of  seven  Mexicans,  pierced 
with  arrows,  scalped  and  mutilated.  The  still  smouldering 
embers  of  their  camp-fire  showed  how  recent  the  massacre 
had  been.  A  few  miles  beyond  La  Leona, — for  he  had  boldly 
continued  his  way  where  charity  called  him, — he  finds  a 
woman  suspended  to  a  tree,  still  living,  though  her  scalp  had 
been  torn  off;  and  at  her  feet  three  Mexicans,  just  slaughtered 
by  a  party  of  marauding  Indians.  The  missionary  pursued 
his  course  unhurt. 

At  another  time  the  house  of  the  Abbe  Estany  is  attacked 
by  the  Comanches.  He  makes  his  way  through  a  storm  of 
arrows,  and  receives  no  wound ;  but  all  he  possesses,  clothes, 
books,  and  church  vessels,  are  carried  oif  or  destroyed. 

The  Abbe  Dubuis,  who  had  braved  a  hundred  deaths,  is 
surprised  in  his  turn  by  a  party  of  savages.  There  is  no 
escape,  and  he  quietly  advances  to  meet  them.  "  Do  me  no 
harm,"  he  says,  with  a  calm  voice:  "I  am  a  captain  of  the 
Great  Spirit,  and  a  chief  of  prayer."  They  leave  him  in 
peace. 

But  death  had  no  terrors  for  such  men  as  these  ;  it  was 
but  the  passage  to  eternal  life.  Once  the  Abbe  Domenech 
received  an  express,  bidding  him  hasten  to  the  assistance  of 
Father  Fitzgerald,  dying  at  Victoria.  He  sets  out  at  a  gallop, 
almost  leaps  over  a  panther  lying  in  his  path,  and  at  length 
stands  by  the  bedside  of  his  friend.  "  I  spoke  to  him,"  he  says, 
"  but  he  did  not  answer.  I  wished  to  embrace  him  ;  -his  lips 
were  rigid.  He  was  just  dead.  At  twenty-six  years  of  age, 
far  from  his  family,  his  country,  and  his  friends,  without  even 
the  succors  of  religion  at  his  departure  out  of  the  world,  he  had 
breathed  his  last.  In  beholding  this  youthful  victim  of  Chris 
tian  charity,  my  heart  was  oppressed  ;  I  fell  on  my  knees,  and 
being  unable  to  pray,  I  wept.  .  .  .  But  in  spite  of  the  sad  end 
of  my  poor  friend,  1  envied  his  lot ;  for  him  no  doubt  any 

*  Domenecli,  ch.  iii.,  p.  281 ;  3d  voyage. 


050  CHAPTER  IX. 

longer  existed  about  the  future ;  he  had  died  in  the  midst  of 
his  work."* 

But  it  is  time  to  leave  Texas,  where  missionaries  of  the  same 
class  continue  at  this  hour  the  same  valiant  and  patient  apos- 
tolate,  calmly  expecting,  amid  all  their  toils,  sufferings,  and 
dangers,  the  hour  when  they  shall  be  joined  to  their  brethren 
who  have  gone  before,  and  receive  the  recompense  to  which  St. 
Paul  looked  forward  during  all  the  vicissitudes  of  his  ministry, 
—the  bonds  and  scourging,  the  hunger  and  thirst,  the  perils 
and  contradictions, — and  which  such  as  they  have  earned  a 
right  to  share  with  him. 


CALIFORNIA. 

The  history  of  California,  a  land  which  effectively  illustrates 
the  peculiar  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century,  has  been 
written  by  Yenegas  and  others.  Here  the  same  facts  meet  us, 
which  we  have  noticed  in  every  other  region  of  the  earth.  Not 
one  of  the  usual  phenomena  is  wanting.  The  zeal  and  devo 
tion  of  the  Catholic  missionaries  ;  their  unbounded  success  ; 
the  love  and  veneration  which  the  converted  natives  displayed 
towards  them  ;  the  commercial  and  agricultural  prosperity 
which  existed,  as  Humboldt  observes,  under  "  the  strict  though 
peaceful  rule  of  the  monks  ;"  and  finally,  the  swift  havoc  and 
ruin  introduced  by  men  of  the  Saxon  race  ;  all  recur  in  their 
accustomed  order,  and  all  are  eagerly  attested,  as  usual,  by 
Protestant  writers. 

"  The  name  of  California,"  says  Mr.  Berthold  Seemann,  in 
1853,  "is  forever  united  with  the  unselfish,  devotion  of  the 
Franciscan  friars."f  Yet  the  children  of  St.  Francis  had  been 
preceded  by  men  of  whom  another  Protestant  traveller  thus 
speaks  :  "  The  Jesuits,  before  they  were  supplanted  by  the 
Franciscans,"  observes  Sir  George  Simpson,  "  had  covered  the 
sterile  rocks  of  Lo\ver  California  with  the  monuments,  agricul 
tural,  architectural,  and  economical,  of  their  patience  and 
aptitude ;  not  only  leaving  to  their  successors  apposite  models 
and  tolerable  workmen,  but  also  bequeathing  to  them  the 
invaluable  lesson,  that  nothing  was  impossible  to  energy  and 
perseverance.''*  We  shall  presently  hear  what  the  same  im 
partial  writer  says  of  the  Protestant  missionaries  in  the  same 
regions,  and  the  results  of  their  apparition. 

*  Ch.  vi.,  p.  176. 

f  Voyage  of  H.M.8.  Herald,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  153. 

;  Journey  Hound  the  World,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  334. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  251 

Mr.  Forbes, — who  celebrates  with  frank  admiration  "  the 
pure  and  disinterested  motives  of  the  Jesuits,"  whom  he  gen 
erously  lauds  as  "  true  soldiers  of  the  Cross,"  and  contrasts  in 
snergetic  terms  with  the  "  illiterate  fanatics"  whom  the  Sects 
have  sent  to  take  their  place, — records  also,  like  Sir  George 
Simpson,  "  the  minute  but  not  uninteresting  warfare  which 
they  maintained  for  so  many  years  against  the  rude  natives 
of  California  and  its  still  ruder  soil,  until  at  length  they  tri 
umphed  over  the  former,  and  as  much  over  the  latter  as  was 
possible."* 

He  describes,  too,  the  work  of  their  successors,  after  careful 
observation  of  it.  "The  best  and  most  unequivocal  proof  of  the 
good  conduct  of  the  Franciscan  Fathers  is  to  be  found  in  the 
unbounded  affection  and  devotion  invariably  shown  towards 
them  by  their  Indian  subjects.  They  venerate  them  not 
merely  as  friends  and  fathers,  but  with  a  degree  of  devoted- 
ness  approaching  to  adoration."  And  then  he  exclaims,  as  if 
he  found  it  impossible  to  restrain  the  unwelcome  confession, 
"  Experience  has  shown  how  infinitely  more  successful  the 
Catholic  missionaries  have  been  than  the  Protestant."  He 
even  becomes  enthusiastic  in  tracing  the  contrast,  and  adds, 
"Nor  can  there  be  agents  more  fitting  than  the  persevering  and 
well-disciplined  friar,  whose  whole  life  and  studies  have  been 
directed  to  this  end;  whose  angry  passions  no  injury  can  rouse, 
whose  humility  and  patience  no  insult  or  obstacle  can  overcome. 
With  him  our  missionaries  can  hear  no  comparison"^ 

Sir  George  Simpson  is  more  cautious,  for  he  was  a  British 
official,  yet  he  also  relates  how  the  Protestant  missionaries 
abandoned  in  despair  their  attempts  on  the  natives  of  Colombia, 
because  "  they  soon  ascertained  that  they  could  gain  converts 
only  by  buying  them  ;"  and  he  adds,  almost  resentfully,  "  The 
Church  of  Rome  is  peculiarly  successful  with  ignorant  savages." 
Yet  so  intelligent  a  person  can  hardly  suppose  that  these  were 
the  easiest  class  of  disciples  to  win — much  less,  that  they  wero 
the  easiest  to  retain. 

Let  us  hear  other  eye-witnesses,  but  all  Protestants.  "  We 
visited  the  missions,"  says  Dr.  Coulter,  in  1847,  "making  a  few 
days'  stay  at  each,  enjoying  the  lively,  humane,  and  agreeable 
conversation  of  the  padres,  who  were,  without  an  exception,  a 
pleasant  set  of  men The  padres  now  have  perfect  con 
trol  over  the  Indians  of  the  missions.";}: 

Captain  Beechey  had  made  exactly  the  same  observation  a 
few  years  earlier.  "  The  converts  are  so  much  attached  to  the 

*  California,  ch.  i.,  p.  17. 

f  Ch.  v.,  pp.  230,  242. 

\  Western  Coast  of  South  America,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xv.,  p.  154 ;  ch.  xvi.,  p.  1 70. 


252  CHAPTER  IX. 

padres,  that  I  have  heard  them  declare  they  would  go  with 
them  if  they  were  obliged  to  leave  the  country."* 

Mr.  Walpole,  writing  two  years  after  Dr.  Coulter,  and  with 
scant  sympathy  for  Catholics,  says,  "  To  me  the  Catholic  mis 
sionaries  of  America  always  appeared  far  superior  to  all  other 
Catholics  ;  under  their  fostering  rule  the  rude  savage  ceased 
his  wars,  settled  down  and  tilled  the  land  in  peace, — witness 
Paraguay  and  California  l"f 

These  witnesses  are  all  English  Protestants;  let  us  hear  what 
Americans  say  on  the  same  subject.  Captain  Benjamin  Morrell 
visits  the  mission  of  St.  Antony  of  Padua,  near  Monterey,  and 
this  is  his  report :  "  The  Indians  are  very  industrious  in  their 
labors,  and  obedient  to  their  teachers  and  directors,  to  whom 
they  look  up  as  to  a  father  and  protector,  and  who  in  return 
discharge  their  duty  towards  these  poor  Indians  with  a  great 
deal  of  feeling  and  humanity.  They  are  generally  well  clothed 
and  fed,  have  houses  of  their  own,  and  are  made  as  comfortable 
as  they  wish  to  be.  The  greatest  care  is  taken  of  all  who  are 
affected  with  any  disease,  and  every  attention  is  paid  to  their 
wants.":):  Such  testimonies  are  instructive,  yet  every  one  must 
feel  that  they  deal  only  with  the  surface  of  things,  and  do  not 
lay  bare  the  hidden  sources  from  which  all  these  blessings 
spring. 

Captain  Morrell  finds  one  thousand  two  hundred  Christian 
Indians  in  the  mission  of  St.  Clara.  "  ~No  person  of  unprejudiced 
mind,"  he  exclaims,  "could  witness  the  labors  of  these  Catholic 
missionaries,  and  contemplate  the  happy  results  of  their  philan 
thropic  exertions,  without  confessing  that  they  are  unwearied 
in  well-doing."  And  then  he  adds,  that  although  "the  Mex 
icans  and  Spaniards  are  very  indolent,  and  consequently  very 
filthy,"  "  the  converted  Indians  are  generally  a  very  industri 
ous,  ingenious,  and  cleanly  people."§ 

Mr.  Russell  Bartlett,  who  notices  in  1854  that  at  the  mission 
of  Cocopera,  in  Sonora,  "  the  increase  of  cattle  in  a  single  year 
amounted  to  ten  thousand  head,"  adds  that  in  that  of  San 
Ignacio,  founded  in  1687,  "though  abandoned  for  many  years, 
the  results  of  Jesuit  industry  are  still  apparent."  "The  mission 
of  San  Gabriel,"  he  says,  "  at  one  time  branded  fifty  thousand 
calves,  manufactured  three  thousand  barrels  of  wine,  and 
harvested  one  hundred  thousand  fanegas  (two  hundred  and 
sixty-two  thousand  bushels)  of  grain  a  year.  The  timber  for 
a  biigantine  was  cut,  sawed,  and  fitted  at  the  mission,  and  then 

*  Voyage  to  the  Pacific,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  21. 

t  Four  Years  in  the  Pacific,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  25. 

%  A  Narrative  of  Four  Voyages,  ch.  vi.,  p.  208  (1832). 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.     *  253 

transported  to  and  launched  at  San  Pedro.  Five  thousand  In 
dians  were  at  one  time  collected  and  attached  to  the  mission. 
They  are  represented  to  have  been  sober  and  industrious,  well- 
clothed  and  fed They  constituted  a  large  family,  of  which 

the  padres  were  the  social,  religious,  and,  we  might  almost  say, 
political  heads."  Then  noticing  the  ruin  which  other  men  and 
other  principles  have  wrought  among  thorn,  this  candid  Protest 
ant  adds :  "  Humanity  cannot  refrain  from  wishing  that  the 
dilapidated  mission  of  San  Gabriel  should  be  renovated,  and  its 
broken  walls  be  rebuilt,  its  roofless  houses  be  covered,  and  its 
deserted  halls  be  again  filled  with  its  ancient  industrious, 
happy,  and  contented  population." 

But  Mr.  Bartlett  appears  to  have  understood,  from  his  own 
observations,  and  from  converse  with  the  unhappy  survivors  of 
these  tribes,  that  the  Power  which  made  them  what  they  were 
is  withdrawn,  and  that  his  co-religionists,  incapable  of  emu 
lating  such  triumphs,  will  infallibly  complete  the  work  of 
destruction  which  they  have  commenced.  At  the  great  mission 
of  Los  Angeles,  once  a  proverb  throughout  the  whole  region, 
"  the  Indians  have  now  no  means  of  obtaining  a  living,  as  their 
lands  are  all  taken  from  them.  .  .  .  No  care  seems  to  be  taken 
of  them  by  the  Americans ;  on  the  contrary,  the  effort  seems  to 
be,  to  exterminate  them  as  soon  as  possible !"  Such  is  the 
contrast  between  Catholic  and  Protestant  colonization.  At  the 
modern  mission  of  San  Luis  Hey  he  converses  with  an  aged 
chief.  "  On  inquiring  as  to  the  state  of  things  when  the  padres 
were  here,  the  old  man  heaved  a  deep  sigh.  He  said  his  tribe 
was  large,  and  his  people  all  happy,  when  the  good  Fathers  were 
here  to  protect  them.  That  they  cultivated  the  soil,  assisted  in 
rearing  large  herds  of  cattle,  were  taught  to  be  blacksmiths  and 
carpenters,  as  well  as  other  trades,  and  were  happy.  .  .  .  He 
spoke  with  much  affection  of  Father  Peyri,  its  original  founder, 
who  had  resided  here  for  thirty-four  years."  Now  his  tribe 
were  scattered,  "  without  a  home  or  protectors,  and  were  in  a 
miserable  starving  condition." 

In  a  few  places,  not  yet  overwhelmed  by  the  Anglo-Saxon 
flood, 'the  Fathers  still  linger,  and  here  is  the  result  of  their 
presence,  attested  by  the  same  official  witness:  The  Yaqm 
Indians  of  Sonora,  he  says,  are  "invariably  honest,  faith 
ful,  and  industrious.  They  are  also  the  fishermen  and  the 
famous  pearl-divers  of  the  Gulf  of  California."  They  were 
"  among  the  first  to  be  converted  by  the  Jesuits."  Originally 
"  extremely  warlike,  on  being  converted  to  Christianity,  their 
savage  nature  was  completely  subdued,  and  they  became  the 
most  docile  and  tractable  of  people.  They  are  now  very  pop 
ulous  in  the  southern  part  of  Sonora." 


254:  CHAPTER  IX. 

Finally,  the  Opate  Indians,  whom  he  also  visited,  though 
"  noted  for  their  bravery,  being  the  only  ones  who  have  success 
fully  contended  with  the  savage  Apaches,"  "  have  ever  remained 
faithful  to  their  religion.  Of  their  attachment  to  law,  order, 
and  peace,  they  have  given  the  most  unequivocal  proofs."'34' 

One  exception  there  is  to  these  candid  testimonies,  and  it  is 
found,  as  might  be  anticipated,  in  the  writings  of  a  Protestant 
minister.  The  Rev.  Joseph  Tracy  gravely  informs  his  readers, 
in  the  face  of  all  the  evidence  which  Protestant  travellers  of 
various  classes  have  offered  on  this  subject,  that  the  Jesuits  and 
Franciscans  in  California  taught  only  the  "  forms  of  religion," 
"  without  improving  their  intellects,  their  morals,  or  their  habits 
of  life  /"f  Perhaps  there  are  no  two  works,  in  the  whole  range 
of  Protestant  literature,  at  once  so  trivial  and  so  profane, — so 
full  of  false  and  idle  words,  childish  vaunts,  and  iravrok/wp 
'a/uadia, — as  Mr.  Tracy's  history  of  American  missions,  and 
the  "  Reports  of  the  American  Board  for  Foreign  Missions." 

Once  more  we  have  noticed  one  of  those  peaceful  triumphs, 
rich  in  blessings  to  suffering  humanity,  and  which  have  extorted 
the  admiration  even  of  men  whose  unhappy  prejudices  they  fail 
to  correct,  and  whose  conscience  they  leave  unawakened.  The 
poor  Indians  were  wiser.  They  could  discern  Whose  ministers 
such  workmen  were,  and  that  it  was  only  by  the  communica 
tion  of  His  Spirit  that  they  found  strength  to  lead  such  lives, 
or  accomplish  such  victories. 

But  the  history  of  California  does  not  end  here.  The 
Catholic  missionaries  had  done,  in  this  land  as  in  every 
other,  all  that  men  having  the  gifts  and  the  calling  of  apostles 
could  do.  They  had  forced  the  rugged  soil  to  yield  ample 
harvests,  they  had  fertilized  the  yet  more  barren  heart  of  the 
eavage  with  the  dew  of  heavenly  graces.  Two  other  classes 
were  now  to  enter  these  regions, — Mexicans  who  had  forfeited 
their  birthright  as  Catholics,  and  Protestants  who  had  never 
possessed  it.  Both  have  inflicted  irreparable  injury  upon  the 
tribes  of  the  Northwest. 

Let  us  speak  of  the  Mexicans  lirst.  Affecting  to  follow  the 
precedents  of  modern  European  policy,  of  which  the  chief 
maxim  seems  to  be  the  exclusion  of  all  ecclesiastical  influence  in 
the  government  of  human  society,  the  civil  authorities  resolved 
to  secularize  all  the  missions.  The  result  has  been,  as  in  every 
land  where  the  same  experiment  has  been  tried,  a  swift  relapse 
into  the  barbarism  from  which  the  Church  alone  has  saved  the 


*  Personal  Narrative  of  Explorations  in,  Texas,  New  Mexico,  California,  &c. 
vol.  i.,  cli.  iix.,  pp.  442-4;  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxv.,  pp.  82,  92. 
f  History  of  American  Missions,  p.  197. 


MISSIONS  IN   AMERICA.  255 

world,  the  immediate  decay  of  material  prosperity,  and  a  vast 
augmentation  of  human  suffering.  History  might  have  taught 
the  Mexicans  to  anticipate  these  inevitable  fruits.*  When 
England  laid  her  hand  on  the  possessions  of  the  Church,  which 
had  been  for  centuries  the  patrimony  of  the  poor,  she  took  her 
first  step  towards  her  present  social  condition.  Prisons  and  work 
houses  became  the  dismal  substitutes  for  monasteries,  and  jailers 
supplanted  monks.  England  has  not  profited  much  by  the 
change.  The  new  institutions  are  at  least  ten  times  more  costly 
than  the  old,  and  the  benefits  derived  from  them  have  been  in 
inverse  proportion.  They  now  receive  only  prisoners,  and  dis- 

forge  only  criminals,  while  a  whole  nation  of  heathen  poor,  a 
urden  on  the  present  resources  of  the  country  and  a  menace 
for  her  future  destiny,  have  sunk  down,  as  even  English  writers 
will  tell  us,  to  the  level  of  the  most  degraded  tribes  of  Africa  or 
America,  and  are  as  utterly  void  of  religion  or  of  the  knowledge 
of  God,  as  the  Sioux,  the  Carib,  or  the  Dahoman. 

Here  is  the  history  of  the  same  proceedings  in  California. 
"In  1833,"  says  Mollhausen,  "the  government  of  Mexico, 
jealous  of  the  great  influence  of  the  clergy,  secularized  the 
missions,  and  confiscated  their  property  to  the  State."  It  was 
Gomez  Farias  who  devised  the  felony,  and,  as  Mr.  Brantz 
Mayer  relates,  ruined  in  a  single  province  twenty-four  missions, 
inhabited  by  twenty-three  thousand  and  twenty-five  Christian 
Indians.  We  will  quote  immediately  the  exact  statistics  of  the 
operation  and  of  its  results. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  spoilers  were  ejected  in  their  turn 
by  the  Americans,  a  more  energetic  race,  who,  not  content 
with  destroying  the  missions,  have  proceeded  to  destroy  the 
Indians  also.  They  would  have  been  ashamed  not  to  surpass 
so  pusillanimous  a  criminal  as  Gomez  Farias,  who  contented 
himself,  like  a  mean  robber,  with  appropriating  the  property 
of  others.  "  When  California  became  attached  to  the  United 
States,"  says  Mollhausen,  "  the  former  property  of  the  missions 
of  course  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  American  government, 
arid  their  dwellings  are  now  lonely  and  desolate,  and  falling 
rapidly  to  decay ;  the  roofs  have  fallen  in,  the  stables  are 
empty,  the  once  blooming  gardens  and  orchards  are  choked  by 
a  wild  growth  of  Aveeds,  and  it  will  probably  not  be  long 
before  the  waves  of  commercial  activity  will  sweep  over  them 
and  obliterate  the  last  traces  of  their  existence."! 

"  I  asked  what  they  thought  of  the  abolition  of  tithes,  and  confiscation  of 
Church  property  ?  (in  Spain.)     The  answer  was,  '  The  poor  man  pays  more, 
and  the  rich  less.' "     The  Pillars  of  Hercules,  by  David  Urquhart,  Esq.,  M.P., 
vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  77. 
f  Journey  from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Coasts  of  the  Pacific,  ch.  xv.,  p.  334. 


256  CHAPTER  IX. 

A  few  merchants  may  perhaps  improve  their  fortunes  by  the 
change,  but  it  will  be  at  the  expense  of  the  whole  Indian 
population,  whom  they  are  now  busy  in  exterminating,  and 
who,  at  no  remote  day,  will  have  ceased  to  exist.  Already, 
except  in  a  few  of  the  missions,  where  the  Franciscans  still 
linger,  starving  amid  ruins,  but  protecting  the  Indian  to  the 
last,  they  begin  to  be  "  brandy-drinking,  wretched  creatures," 
says  Mollhausen  ;  and  then  lie  adds,  "  It  is  impossible  not  to 
wish  that  the  missions  were  flourishing  once  more,  or  to  see 
without  regret  the  fallen  roofs  and  crumbling  walls  of  their 
abode,  a  mere  corner  of  which  now  serves  as  a  shelter  for  a  few 

Catholic  priests The  energetic  and  heroic  sacrifices  of 

such  missionaries  as  the  Padres  Kino,  Salvatierra,  and  Ugarte, 
obtained  their  reward;  and,  up  to  1833,  when  three  new 
missions  had  been  founded,  they  enjoyed  the  fruits  of  their 
labors." 

"The  spoliation  of  the  missions,"  says  Sir  George  Simpson, 
"  excepting  that  it  opened  the  province  to  general  enterprise, 
has  directly  tended  to  nip  civilization  in  the  bud."  And  even 
the  new  "  enterprise"  to  which  it  has  furnished  a  field  is  so 
unfruitful,  as  he  admits,  except  in  unprincipled  speculations, 
which  enrich  a  few  and  ruin  many,  that  whereas  in  the  time  of 
the  missions  the  province  exported  wool,  leather,  soap,  wheat, 
beef,  and  wine,  the  policy  of  its  actual  possessors  has  annihi 
lated  almost  all  these  branches  of  commerce. 

Before  we  notice,  in  conclusion,  the  effect  of  the  American 
conquest  upon  the  Indians,  and  the  characteristic  operations  of 
American  missionaries,  let  us  show  what  have  been  the  admit 
ted  results,  up  to  the  present  date,  of  the  suppression  of  the 
missions.  In  1844,  M.  Duflot  de  Mofras  published  his  work 
on  Oregon  and  the  Northwestern  provinces  of  Mexico.  Here 
is  the  evidence  of  this  intelligent  and  impartial  writer. 

It  was  not  till  1842  that  Santa  Anna  robbed  the  Bishop  of 
California  of  all  the  religious  funds  which  still  remained  from 
former  spoliations,  and  committed  their  administration  to  a 
coarse  and  greedy  soldier  of  his  own  class.  "  You  see,"  said 
an  Indian  Alcalde  to  M.  de  Mofras,  "  to  what  misery  we  are 
brought ;  the  Fathers  can  no  longer  protect  us,  and  the  author 
ities  themselves  despoil  us."*  The  Indians  have  learned  once 
more  to  regard  the  white  man  as  their  natural  enemy,  and,  as 
M.  de  Mofras  observes,  "  since  the  destruction  of  the  missions" 
it  has  become  dangerous  to  travel  from.  Sonora  to  California. 
A  few  Fathers  still  linger  in  the  scene  of  their  once  happy 
labors ;  the  rest  have  been  driven  from  the  country,  carrying 

*  Exploration  du  Territoire  de  I' Oregon,  tome  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  345. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  257 

with  them  for  all  their  wealth  the  humble  robe  of  their  order. 
In  1838,  Father  Sarria  died  of  exhaustion  at  the  foot  of  the 
altar,  at  the  mission  of  St.  Soledad,  when  about  to  say  Mass, 
after  an  apostolate  of  thirty  years.  Father  Guttierrez  received 
a  daily  but  insufficient  ration,  dispensed  by  a  man  who  had 
formerly  been  a  domestic  servant,  but  who  was  now  civil 
administrator  of  the  mission  !  The  Father  President  Sanchez 
died  of  grief,  when  he  beheld  the  havoc  and  ruin  to  which  he 
could  apply  no  remedy. 

The  mission  of  San  Francisco  Solano  was  only  founded  in 
1823  by  Father  Amoros.  It  increased  so  rapidly,  that  at  the 
time  of  the  suppression  it  contained  one  thousand  three  hundred 
Christian  Indians,  and  possessed  eight  thousand  oxen,  seven 
hundred  horses,  and  other  property  in  proportion.  Don  Mariano 
Yallejo,  the  new  civil  administrator,  seized  every  thing  which 
it  was  possible  to  carry  away  or  sell,  and  pulled  down  the 
mission  house  to  build  himself  a  dwelling  out  of  the  materials.* 

Yet  some  of  the  missions  still  remain,  perhaps  because  neither 
Mexicans  nor  Americans  have  yet  found  time  to  destroy  them, 
and  still  present  something  of  their  former  aspect.  "  We  cannot 
express  the  surprise,''  says  M.  de  Mofras,  "with  which  the 
traveller  is  struck,  on  seeing,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Indian 
villages,  where  the  land  is  cultivated  with  extreme  care,  and 
there  exists  a  perfect  system  of  irrigation,  the  pueblos  of  the 
whites  in  a  state  of  profound  misery,  under  the  free  government 
of  most  of  the  so-called  Republics !"  The  common  salutation, 
he  says,  of  a  Dominican  or  a  Franciscan  to  an  Indian  is  still 
"  Arnar  a  Dios,  hijo  !"  and  the  answer,  "  Amar  a  Dios,  padre  !" 
The  Americans  will  probably  introduce  another  language. 

Perhaps  it  would  be  impossible  to  indicate  more  briefly  or 
more  impressively  the  historical  results  of  the  secularization  of 
the  missions,  after  their  long  career  of  peace  and  prosperity, 
than  M.  de  Mofras  has  done  in  his  interesting  pages.  Even 
men  who  are  careful  only  about  financial  success  can  appreciate 
such  statistics  as  are  exhibited  in  the  following  table.  It  has 
sometimes  been  said  in  jest  that  there  is  nothing  so  eloquent  as 
figures ;  let  the  reader  consider,  in  sober  earnest,  what  lesson  he 
may  derive  from  these. 

UPPER  CALIFORNIA. 

UNDER   THE   ADMINISTRATION   OP  THE   RELIGIOUS,   IN   1834. 

Christian  Indians, 30,650 

Horned  Cattle 424,000 

Horses  and  Mules 62,000 

Sheep 321,500 

Cereal  Crops 70,000  hectares. 

*P.445. 

VOL.  II  18 


258  CHAPTER  IX. 


UNDER  THE  CIVIL  ADMINISTRATION,  IN  1842. 

Christian  Indians 4,450 

Horned  Cattle 28,220 

Horses  and  Mules 3,800 

Sheep 31,600 

Cereal  Crops* 4,000  hectares. 

It  appears,  then,  that  in  the  brief  space  of  eight  years,  the 
secular  administration,  which  aifected  to  be  a  protest  against 
the  inefficiency  of  the  ecclesiastical,  had  not  only  destroyed 
innumerable  lives,  replunged  a  whole  province  into  barbarism, 
and  almost  annihilated  religion  and  civilization,  but  had  so 
utterly  failed  even  in  that  special  aim  which  it  professed  to 
have  most  at  heart, — the  development  of  material  prosperity, — 
that  it  had  already  reduced  the  wealth  of  a  single  district  in 
the  following  notable  proportions  :  Of  horned  cattle  there 
remained  about  one-fifteenth  of  the  number  possessed  under 
the  religious  administration  ;  of  horses  and  mules  less  than  one- 
sixteenth ;  of  sheep  about  one-tenth ;  and  of  cultivated  land 
producing  cereal  crops  less  than  one-seventeenth.  It  is  not  to 
the  Christian,  who  will  mourn  rather  over  the  moral  ruin 
which  accompanied  the  change,  that  such  facts  chiefly  appeal ; 
but  the  merchant  and  the  civil  magistrate,  however  indifferent 
to  the  interests  of  religion  and  morality,  will  keenly  appreciate 
the  cruel  and  blundering  policy  of  which  these  are  the  admitted 
results,  and  will  perhaps  be  inclined  to  exclaim  with  Mr. 
Mollhausen,  "  It  is  impossible  not  to  wish  that  the  missions 
were  flourishing  once  more  !" 

And  these  facts,  which  even  worldly  craft  may  teach  men 
to  deplore,  are  everywhere  the  same.  Far  away  to  the  South, 
in  the  plain  where  the  Lake  of  Encinillas  lies,  on  the  borders 
of  Chihuahua,  is  "  one  of  the  richest  and  most  valuable  localities 
in  the  world  for  cattle-grazing,  in  times  past  supporting  innu 
merable  herds.  Noiv  it  is  almost  a  desert  /"f  It  is  the  history 
of  Paraguay  on  a  smaller  scale. 

Yet  there  are  American  writers,  whom  no  official  rebuke 
has  ever  disavowed,  who  appear  almost  to  exult  in  this  universal 
ruin.  Lieutenant  Whipple,  a  highly  respectable  officer  of  the 
United  States,  from  whom  Mr.  Schoolcraft  derived  some  of 
the  materials  for  his  great  work  on  the  Indian  nations,  after 
noticing,  in  1849,  that  the  Lligunos,  converted  by  the  Fran 
ciscans,  still  number  eight  thousand,  continues  as  follows : 
"  They  profess  the  greatest  reverence  for  the  Church  of  Home, 

*  P.  821. 

f  Froebel,  ch.  ix.,  p.  840. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  259 

and,  glorying  in  a  Christian  name,  look  with  disdain  upon  their 
Indian  neighbors  of  the  desert  and  the  Rio  Colorado,  calling 
them  miserable  gentiles."  He  confesses,  too,  speaking  of  the 
single  mission  of  San  Diego,  that  "  for  many  miles  around,  the 
valleys  and  plains  were  covered  with  cattle  and  horses  belong 
ing  to  this  mission  ;  yet  the  only  reflection  which  the  Christian 
zeal  of  the  Indians  and  the  skilful  administration  of  their 
pastors  suggested  to  him  is  expressed  in  the  silly  taunt,  that 
they  were  "  slaves  of  the  priests,"  and  the  worse  than  silly 
boast,  that  "  now  they  are  freed  from  bondage  to  the  Francis 
cans,"  his  countrymen  will  teach  them  "  their  duties  as  Chris 
tians  and  men  !"*  We  shall  see  immediately  what  they  have 
really  taught  them. 

The  Americans,  whom  Mr.  Whipple  dishonors  by  such  indis 
creet  advocacy,  are  in  fact  completing  the  work  of  destruction 
with  characteristic  energy ;  arid  here  is  an  account  of  their 
proceedings.  After  emptying  every  other  province  of  the 
United  States,  they  are  now  rapidly  effecting  the  same  process 
in  California.  On  the  15th  of  March,  1860,  the  Times  news 
paper  contained  the  following  extract  from  the  San  Francisco 
Overland  and  Ocean  Mail  Letter:  "Never,  as  journalists, 
have  we  been  called  upon  to  comment  on  so  flagrant  and 
inexcusable  an  act  of  brutality  as  is  involved  in  General 
Kibbe's  last  Indian  war — a  scheme  of  murder  conceived  in 
speculation  and  executed  in  most  inhuman  and  cowardly 
atrocity.  If  the  account  of  Mr.  George  Lount,  a  resident  of 
Pitt  river,  be  true,  General  Kibbe  and  all  the  cowardly  band 
of  cut- throats  who  accompanied  him  should  be  hung  by  the 
law  for  murder;  for  murder  it  is,  most  foul  and  inexcusable. 
Sixty  defenceless  Indian  women  and  children  killed  in  their 
own  r.jncheria  at  night,  by  an  armed  band  of  white  ruffians ! 
The  massacre  of  Glencoe  does  not  aiford  its  parallel  for  atrocity. 
This  band  of  Indians  were  friendly,  had  committed  no  outrage, 
were  on  their  own  lands,  in  their  own  homes."  But  this  was 
only  a  beginning  ;  later  operations  are  thus  narrated  by  the 
same  witness. 

u  The  Indians  have  been  driven  from  their  hunting-ground 
by  the  white  man's  stock.  Their  fishing  racks  have  been  de 
stroyed  by  the  caprice  or  for  the  convenience  of  the  white  man. 
Their  acorns  are  exhausted  by  the  white  man's  hog,  and,  driven 
to  desperation  by  actual  want  and  starvation,  they  have  stolen 
the  white  man's  ox."  This  was  the  pretext  for  another  onslaught. 
"  When  Governor  Weller  authorized  W.  J.  Jarboe  to  organize  a 


*  Historical  and  Statistical  Information  respecting  the  Indian  Tribes  of  the 
U.  8.,  by  H.  R.  Schoolcraft,  LL.D.,  part  ii.,  p.  100  (1851). 


260  CHAPTER  IX. 

company  to  make  war  on  the  Indians  ...  in  seventy  days  they 
had  fifteen  battles  (?)  with  the  Indians ;  killed  more  than  four 
hundred  of  them ;  took  six  hundred  of  them  prisoners,  and  had 
only  three  of  their  own  number  wounded,  and  one  killed.  .  .  . 
Under  the  licence  of  the  law  ;  under  the  cover  of  night ;  in  the 
security  of  your  arms  ;  in  the  safety  of  your  ambush  ;  you  have 
murdered  in  cold  blood  more  than  four  hundred  sleeping, 
unarmed,  unoffending  Indians — men,  women,  and  children. 
Mothers  and  infants  shared  the  common  fate.  Little  children 
in  baskets,  and  even  babes,  had  their  heads  smashed  to  pieces 
or  cut  open.  It  will  scarcely  be  credited  that  this  horrible  scene 
occurred  in  Christian  California,  within  a  few  days'  travel  from 
the  State  capital."  And  not  only  were  the  actors,  or  promoters, 
of  this  enormous  crime  a  General  of  the  United  States  army 
and  a  Governor  of  a  province,  but  "  a  bill  of  nearly  seventy 
thousand  dollars  is  now  'before  the  Legislature  awaiting  payment, 
to  be  distributed,  in  part,  among  these  crimsoned  murderers !" 

More  than  forty  years  ago,  an  American  Protestant  clergy 
man,  alluding  to  the  early  atrocities  of  his  Protestant  country 
men  against  the  Indian  race,  exclaimed,  "Alas!  what  has  not 
our  nation  to  answer  for  at  the  bar  of  retributive  justice  !"*  If 
this  writer  had  lived  to  hear  of  the  scenes  just  described,  he 
would  perhaps  have  felt  that  his  nation  has  done  little  as  yet  to 
propitiate  the  justice  of  God,  and  that  it  would  have  been  well 
for  California  to  have  been  left,  as  of  old,  to  the  Jesuits,  the 
Franciscans,  and  the  Dominicans. 

We  have  been  told  that,  at  least  in  one  case,  the  victims  were 
"  friendly  and  unoffending."  In  the  early  history  of  North 
America,  as  we  shall  see  when  we  come  to  speak  of  the  Atlantic 
States,  this  was  almost  invariably  the  case.  The  Catholic 
colonists  on  both  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  as  well  as  those  in 
Maryland  under  Lord  Baltimore,  were  always  on  the  best  terms 
witli  the  natives.  Even  Penn,  who  was  admonished  by  the 
religious  maxims  of  his  society  to  eschew  rapine  and  war,  had 
no  difficulty  in  making  amicable  treaties  with  the  Indians  in  his 
neighborhood,  though  he  appears  to  have  always  made  them 
to  his  own  advantage.  It  was  not  till  Protestants  had  robbed 
and  murdered  them,  and  had  repaid  their  good  offices,  as  the 
Indians  afterwards  reminded  them,  with  horrible  outrage  and 
ingratitude,  that  the  latter  swore  eternal  enmity  against  them. 
They  became  cruel  and  vindictive,  because  the  white  man  had 
set  them  the  example.  If  North  America  had  been  colonized 
by  Catholics  alone,  there  would  have  been  at  this  day,  as  in  the 
Southern  continent,  whole  nations  of  native  Christians. 

*  A  Star  in  me  West,  by  Ellas  Boudinot,  LL.D.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  255  (1816). 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  261 

But  it  was  the  doom  of  the  red  man  to  perish  before  the  face 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon.  He  might  be  friendly  and  unoffending, 
but  this  could  not  save  him.  "  I  never  found,"  says  Mr.  Ger- 
staecker,  speaking  of  the  Wynoot  Indians  of  California,  "  a 
more  quiet  and  peaceable  people  in  any  country  than  they 
were."  "While  of  the  tribes  of  this  region  generally  he  adds, 
"They  are  really  the  most  harmless  nations  on  the  American 
continent,  let  white  people,  who  have  driven  them  to  desper 
ation,  say  what  they  please  against  them."  And  then  he 
quotes  Mr.  Wozencraft,  United  States  Indian  agent,  who  made 
this  official  report.  "  A  population  perfectly  strange  to  them 
has  taken  possession  of  their  former  homes,  destroyed  their 
hunting-grounds  and  fisheries,  and  cut  them  off  from  all  those 
means  of  subsistence  a  kind  Providence  had  created  for  their 
maintenance,  and  taken  away  from  them  the  possibility  of  ex 
isting.  But  not  satisfied  with  that,  these  men  deny  them  even 
the  right  we  have  granted  to  paupers  and  convicts — the  right 
of  working  and  existing."*  "Goaded  by  hunger,"  says  a 
Wesleyan  writer,  "  and  stimulated  by  revenge,  they  have  begun 
to  trespass  on  the  lands  of  the  colonists,"f  because  they  can  no 
longer  find  subsistence  on  their  own.  Yet  Mr.  Kirkpatrick  re 
ported,  in  1848,  of  the  Oregon  Indians,  "Long  before  a  mis 
sionary  went  into  that  country,  these  people  were  as  honest, 
kind,  and  inoffensive  as  any  I  have  ever  met  with,  either  civil 
ized  or  savage."  Mr.  Townshend  declared  the  same  thing  of 
the  Chinook  and  Walla-Walla  tribes,  whose  "honesty  and  up 
rightness,"  as  well  as  friendly  and  cordial  hospitality,  he  satir 
ically  compares  with  "  the  habits  and  conduct  of  our  Christian 
communities  ;"J  and  Dr.  Rattray  reports,  in  1862,  of  those  in 
British  Columbia,  "  the  natives  are  quiet  and  inoffensive  to  a 
degree,  unless  provoked  or  made  victims  of  intemperance."§ 

And  now  a  word,  in  conclusion,  on  the  Protestant  mission 
aries.  There  are  not  many  of  them  here,  because,  as  Mr.  Ger- 
staecker  has  told  us,  "  there  is  no  profit  in  view ;"  but  there  are 
a  few,  and  of  the  usual  class.  The  same  writer  tells  us  that  he 
encountered  two  of  them,  of  rival  sects,  "  but  as  we  find  in  the 
present  age  only  very  few  men  who  really  teach  the  gospel  for 
Christ's  sake" — he  means  among  his  co-religionists — "  the 
two  pious  brethren  had  long  given  up  preaching  to  the  heathen. 
With  the  natives  they  would  have  nothing  at  all  to  do.  Should 
they  live  upon  acorns  and  young  wasps,  and  sleep  in  the  wet 

*  Journey  Round  the  World,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vi.,  pp.  343-7. 
f  Colonization,  by  Kev.  John  Beecham,  p.  7. 
j:  Rocky  Mountains,  ch.  xi.,  p.  272. 

§  Vancouver  Island  and  British  Columbia,  by  Alexander  Rattray.  M.D. 
B.  N.,  ch.  x.,  p.  172. 


262  CHAPTER   IX. 

woods  all  for  nothing  ?  They  did  not  find  sufficient  encourage- 
ment."*  Yet  some  of  them  appear  to  have  remained  there, 
for  Mr.  Chandless  observes,  in  185T,  "  Religious  freedom,  I 
suppose,  exists  ;  there  seemed  to  be  a  sort  of  Protestant  Church 
there  (in  South  California),  with  a  bishop,  self-ordained,  and 
pretending  to  some  direct  revelation  from  heaven,  "f 

Few  men,  we  may  believe,  are  so  undiscerning  as  to  need 
any  assistance  in  reflecting  upon  the  contrast  between  the 
Catholic  and  Protestant  history  of  California."^:  Yet  it  is  im 
possible  to  omit  the  following  observations  of  a  distinguished 
American  official,  who  presided  over  the  commission  for  the 
settlement  of  the  Mexican  boundary,  and  who  sums  up  the  facts 
of  that  history  in  terms  scarcely  less  honorable  to  himself  than 
to  the  subjects  of  his  candid  and  generous  eulogy. 

"  Christian  sects  may  cavil  about  their  success  among  the 
Indian  tribes,  but  it  is  an  undeniable  fact,  that  the  Jesuits 
during  their  sway," — he  probably  counts  the  Franciscans  with 
them — "  accomplished  more  than  all  other  religious  denomina 
tions.  They  brought  the  tribes  of  Mexico  and  California  under 
the  most  complete  subjection,  and  kept  them  so  until  their 
order  was  suppressed.  And  how  was  this  done  ?  Not  by  the 
sword,  nor  by  treaty,  nor  by  presents,  nor  by  Indian  agents, 
who  would  sacrifice  the  poor  creatures  without  scruple  or  re 
morse  for  their  own  vile  gains.  The  Indian  was  taught  Chris 
tianity,  with  many  of  the  arts  of  civilized  life,  and  how  to  sus 
tain  himself  by  his  labor.  By  these  simple  means  the  Society 
of  Jesus  accomplished  more  towards  ameliorating  the  condition 
of  the  Indians  than  the  United  States  have  done  since  the  set 
tlement  of  the  country.  The  Jesuits  did  all  this  from  a  heart 
felt  desire  to  improve  the  moral  and  social  as  well  as  the 
spiritual  condition  of  this  people,  and  at  an  expense  infinitely 
less  than  we  now  pay  to  agents  alone,  setting  aside  the  millions 
annually  appropriated  for  indemnities,  presents,  &c."§ 


OREGON. 

Let  us  pass  from  California  to  Oregon.  We  will  speak  of 
the  Protestant  missionaries  first,  and  all  our  information  will  be 

*  Vol.  ii.,  p.  10. 

f  A  Visit  to  Salt  Lake,  by  William  Chandless,  ch.  x.,  p.  316. 

|  It  is  an  instructive  fact,  that  when  the  Fathers  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  were 
banished  from  Piedmont,  the  exiles  immediately  resumed  their  apostolic 
labors  in  California !  In  1857,  they  had  already  one  hundred  and  fifty-one  stu 
dents  in  their  college  at  San  Francisco,  under  the  direction  of  thirteen  Fathers 
and  five  lay  professors.  Prospectus  of  Santa  Clara  College,  San  Francisco,  1858. 

§  Bartlett,  Personal  Narrative,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxxix.,  p.  432. 


MISSIONS    IN  AMERICA.  263 

derived,  as  in  other  cases,  from  themselves  or  their  friends. 
When  Oregon  was  annexed  to  the  United  States,  the  various 
sects  endeavored,  according  to  their  wonted  policy,  to  get  the 
start  of  each  other  in  appropriating  the  promising  field.  The 
very  first  missionaries,  however,  who  arrived,  and  whose  instruc 
tions  were  to  labor  amongst  the  Flatheads,  positively  declined, 
after  a  brief  trial,  to  execute  their  mission.  Mr.  Townshend, 
who  travelled  with  them,  discovered  that  they  had  "  arrayed 
themselves  under  the  missionary  banner,  chiefly  for  the  grati 
fication  of  seeing  a  new  country,  and  participating  in  strange 
adventures."*  The  motive  of  their  retreat  was  characteristic. 
"  The  means  of  subsistence,"  we  are  told  by  two  of  their  num 
ber, — for  as  they  see  no  dishonor  in  the  confession,  they  are  not 
ashamed  to  make  it, — "  in  a  region  so  remote  and  so  difficult 
of  access,  were,  to  say  the  least,  very  doubtful."!  The  doubt 
was  enough  to  put  them  to  flight.  Yet  these  gentlemen  were 
probably  familiar  with  certain  words  of  St.  Paul,  in  which  he 
thus  describes  the  life  of  a  true  missionary  :  "  Even  unto  this 
hour  we  both  hunger  and  thirst,  and  are  naked,  and  are  buf 
feted,  and  have  no  fixed  abode.":):  We  shall  presently  meet 
with  missionaries  of  the  school  of  St.  Paul  who  did  stay  with 
the  Flatheads,  in  spite  of  "  the  doubtful  means  of  subsistence," 
and  who  will  tell  us  what  was  the  result  of  their  residence 
among  them. 

One  of  the  most  influential  of  the  American  sects  is  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  body.  Here  is  an  account,  by  an  eminent 
Methodist  preacher,  of  their  proceedings  in  Oregon.  It  exactly 
resembles  their  proceedings  everywhere  else. 

"  No  missionary  undertaking  has  been  prosecuted  by  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  with  higher  hopes  and  a  more 
ardent  zeal.  That  the  results  have  fallen  greatly  below  the 
usual  average  of  missionary  successes,  and  inflicted  painful 
disappointment  upon  the  society  and  its  supporters,  none,  we 
presume,  any  longer  hesitate  to  confess."  This  particular  mis 
sion,  he  adds,  "involved  an  expenditure  of  forty-two  thousand 
dollars  in  a  single  year /"  nor  can  we  be  surprised  even  at  such 
enormous  prodigality,  when  we  learn  how  it  was  composed. 
"At  the  end  of  six  years,  there  were  sixty-eight  persons  con 
nected  with  this  mission,  men,  women,  and  children,  all  sup 
ported  by  this  society!  How  such  a  number  of  missionaries 
found  employment  in  such  a  field,  it  is  not  easy  to  conjecture, 
especially  as  the  great  body  of  the  Indians  never  came  under 

*  Townshend's  Rocky  Mountains,  vol.  i.,  ch.  i.,  p.  29  (1848). 

f  Ten  Tears  in  Oregon,  by  D.  Lee  and  J.  H.  Frost,  missionaries,  ch.  xii.,  p.  127. 

\  \  Cor.  iv.  11. 


264:  CHAPTER   IX. 

the  influence  of  their  labor."  And  then  follows  this  curious 
narrative  :  "  They  were,  in  fact,  mostly  engaged  in  secular 
affairs — concerned  in  claims  to  large  tracts  of  land,  claims  to 
city  lots,  farming,  merchandizing,  blacksmithing,  grazing,  horse- 
keeping,  lumbering,  and  flouring.  We  do  not  believe  that  the 
history  of  Christian  missions  exhibits  another  such  spectacle." 
We  have  seen  that  it  exhibits  a  good  many  such,  and  in  every 
land.  "  The  mission,"  he  continues,  "  "became  odious  to  the 
growing  population  .  .  .  irreconcilable  differences  arose  among 
the  missionaries,  which  led  to  the  return  of  several  individuals 
to  the  United  States,  and  to  a  disclosure  of  the  real  state  01 
the  mission."  Finally,  he  adds,  that  of  all  the  Indians  who 
had  ever  held  relations  of  any  kind  with  these  men,  "none  now 
remain"* 

Another  American  writer  gives  the  same  account  of  the  Wes- 
leyan  operations,  especially  at  the  Great  Dalles  of  Columbia. 
After  describing  a  murder  of  a  very  atrocious  kind,  committed 
in  the  very  presence  of  the  preacher,  while  surrounded  by  his 
nominal  flock,  and  by  one  of  his  own  congregation,  he  adds, 
44  The  occurrence  is  but  a  type  of  a  thousand  atrocities  daily 
occurring  among  these  supposed  converts  to  the  merciful  pre 
cepts  of  Christianity Yet  these  men  had  been,  and  still 

are,  represented  as  evangelized  in  an  eminent  degree  !"f 

Another  Wesleyan  mission  was  established  in  the  Wallamette. 
Here  an  English  Protestant  traveller  found  one  hundred  fami 
lies,  "  by  far  the  greater  part  Catholics,  a  very  regular  congre 
gation,  ministered  to  by  M.  Blanchette,  a  most  estimable  and 
indefatigable  priest  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith."  The  Wes 
ley  ans,  he  adds,  consisted  of  four  families,  "  a  clergyman,  a 
surgeon,  a  school-master,  and  an  agricultural  overseer  !*'J  But 
if  they  had  no  disciples,  they  had  their  salaries,  an  arrange 
ment  which  they  probably  considered  quite  satisfactory. 

The  Rev.  C.  J.  Nicolay,  apparently  an  English  Episcop'alian 
minister,  gives  exactly  the  same  account  of  the  other  sects  in 
Oregon.  "It  has  ever,"  he  says,  "  been  thought  a  just  ground 
of  complaint  against  men  whose  lives  are  devoted  to  the  service 
of  God,"  if  they  try  to  make  u  a  gain  of  godliness."  But  this 
reproach,  he  remarks,  u  will  appear,  by  their  own  showing,  to  lie 
at  the  door  of  the  American  missionaries  who  have  established 
themselves  in  Oregon.  In  their  settlements  at  Okanagan,  &c., 
<fec.,  this  charge  is  so  far  true,  that  their  principal  attention  ia 
devoted  to  agriculture,  but  in  the  Wallamette  they  sink  into 


*  The  Works  of  Stephen  Olin,  LL.D.,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  427-8. 
f  Traits  of  American  Indian  Life,  ch.  x.,  p.  174  (1853). 
\  The  Oregon  Territory,  by  Alex.  Simpson,  Esq.,  p.  38. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  265 

political  agents  and  would-be  legislators."  Presently  lie  adds, 
after  quoting  the  statement  of  the  American  navigator  Wilkes, 
that  "  their  missionary  intentions  have  merged  in  a  grea"t 
measure  in  others  more  closely  connected  with  ease  and  com 
fort  ;" — that  "  the  missionaries  had  made  individual  selections 
of  lands  to  the  amount  of  a  thousand  acres  each."  Finally,  this 
gentleman  cautiously  observes,  "  It  appears  that  the  Roman 
Catholic  missionaries  were  placed  in  advantageous  contrast  to 
their  Protestant  brethren."* 

The  same  familiar  contrast  is  thus  indicated  by  another 
Protestant  traveller,  at  the  same  date,  with  more  emphasis 
than  could  be  fairly  expected  from  an  Anglican  clergyman : 
"  There  are  at  this  time  between  thirty  and  forty  semi-religious 
semi-political  pioneers.  The  religious  mission  of  too  many  has 
been  adopted  merely  as  the  means  of  securing  snug  locations 
for  themselves  and  families  in  this  western  paradise  .  .  Several 
French  priests  are  also  laboring  in  this  wilderness,  and  putting 
to  shame  their  efforts  after  self-aggrandizement  by  a  singleness 
of  purpose,  which  purpose  is  propagandisrn,  and  entire  devo 
tion  thereto."f  The  heathen  make  the  same  observation,  but 
comprehend,  unlike  Protestants,  the  lessons  which  such  facts 
inculcate.  God,  they  argue,  must  be  witli  those  upon  whom 
alone  He  confers  His  gifts.  And  they  hasten  to  seek  com 
munion  with  Him  and  them. 

But  if  the  candid  narratives  of  Messrs.  Lee  and  Frost,  Olin 
and  Nicolay,  Wilkes  and  Simpson,  reveal  the  true  character 
and  results  of  all  the  Protestant  missions  in  this  region,  we  must 
not  suppose  that  the  missionaries  themselves  admitted,  as  long 
as  they  had  any  hope  of  concealing  them.  Their  commercial 
and  agricultural  pursuits  ;  their  dealings  in  "  city  lots  ;"  their 
"horsekeeping,  lumbering,  and  flouring  ;"  were  too  importantly 
aided  by  their  ample  salaries  to  permit  them  to  indulge  in 
such  imprudent  candor.  They  sent  home,  therefore,  exactly 
the  same  periodical  reports  which  missionaries  of  the  same 
class  were  constantly  forwarding  from  every  other  land,  and 
which  the  societies  at  home  expected  and  required,  as  the  only- 
means  of  obtaining  a  fresh  stream  of  subscriptions.  Their 
employers  were  willing  to  forgive  them  any  thing,  even  the 
cupidity  which  had  made  them  "  odious  to  the  growing  popu 
lation,"  so  long  as  they  abstained  from  the  additional  and  un 
pardonable  crime  of  confessing  their  failure.  And  so,  in  1814, 
these  well-instructed  agents  wrote  home  thus  :  "  A  gradual  ad 
vance  in  Christian  knowledge  is  perceptible  !"J  They  knew 

*  The  Oregon  Territory,  by  Rev.  C.  J.  Nicolay,  ch.  vii.,  pp.  155,  177,  183,  184 
(1846). 

f  The  Oregon  Territory,  by  Alexander  Simpson,  Esq.,  p.  31  (1816). 
\  U.  S,  American  Board  for  Foreign  Missions,  Reports,  p.  212  (1844). 


266  CHAPTER   IX. 

it  was  untrue,  and  when  they  had  nothing  more  to  gain,  they 
crudely  confessed  it.  "  It  is  acknowledged  on  all  hands,"  we 
are  told  in  this  very  year,  by  two  of  their  number,  who  were 
candid  because  they  were  abandoning  the  hopeless  work, 
u  that  the  present  prospects  in  respect  to  civilizing  and  chris 
tianizing  these  natives  are  exceedingly  gloomy."*  But  this 
lid  not  prevent  the  missionary  societies  from  publishing  re 
ports  which  they  knew  to  be  false,  in  order  to  raise  fresh  means 
for  perpetuating  the  same  lamentable  schemes,  in  which  the 
agents,  as  they  had  already  ascertained,  were  only  sordid 
speculators,  merchants,  and  horse-dealers,  who  had  adopted  for 
a  season  the  title  of  missionaries.  Let  us  notice  a  few  examples 
of  their  inexhaustible  ingenuity. 

In  1843,  only  a  few  months  before  their  own  agents  confessed 
the  whole  truth, — it  is  by  a  careful  collation  of  dates  that  we 
learn  to  appreciate  the  fidelity  of  Protestant  missionary  reports, 
—the  bait  held  out  to  languid  subscribers  at  home  was  contained 
m  the  published  statement,  that  "  Mr.  Spalding,"  one  of  the 
Oregon  missionaries,  "  believes  a  considerable  number  have 
experienced  the  renewing  grace  of  God."f  Mr.  Spalding  be 
lieved  nothing  of  the  kind,  as  they  very  well  knew,  and  had 
such  excellent  reasons,  as  we  learn  from  American  writers,  for 
repudiating  the  opinion  imputed  to  him,  that  he  was  himself 
only  saved  by  tae  influence  of  a  Catholic  missionary,  at  the 
risk  of  his  own  life,  from  being  slaughtered  by  the  homicidal 
fury  of  these  "  renewed"  savages."  "  For  this,"  we  are  told, 
"  he  was  indebted  to  the  timely  aid  and  advice  of  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Brouillet,  of  the  Roman  Catholic  mission.  .  .  his  Catholic 
friend  assisting  him  from  his  own  small  stock  of  provisions. "J 
For  two  days  the  Indians  appear  to  have  pursued  him,  but 
without  success,  Father  Brouillet  having  nobly  exposed  his  own 
life  by  putting  them  on  a  wrong  scent,  a  trick  which  only  their 
respect  for  him  induced  them  to  pardon.  But  he  was  too  late 
to  prevent  the  massacre  of  Dr.  Whitman  and  his  wife,  by  the 
Cayoux  Indians,  and  "the  entire  destruction  of  Wai-let-pu 
mission,"  consisting  of  fourteen  members,  over  which  that 
unfortunate  gentleman  presided.  AIL  he  could  effect  was  to 
rescue  their  bodies  from  further  dishonor  ;  and  Mr.  Paul 
Kane,  who  had  been  the  guest  of  Dr.  Whitman  just  before  thia 
lamentable  event,  relates  that  "  the  Catholic  priest  requested 
permission  to  bury  the  mangled  corpses,  which  he  did," — here 
Air.  Kane  is  certainly  mistaken, — u  with  the  rites  of  his  own 


*  Lee  and  Frost,  ch.  xxiii.,  pp.  215,  311. 

\  Reports,  p.  171  (1843). 

J  Traits  of  American  Indian  Life,  ch.  vi.,  p.  121. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  267 

Church.  The  permission  was  granted  the  more  readily,  as 
these  Indians  are  friendly  towards  the  Catholic  missionaries."* 
"This  terminated  the  mission,"  says  the  Rev.  Dr.  Brown, 
"  among  the  Indians  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  "f  Such 
is  the  instructive  history  from  which  we  may  appreciate,  not 
only  the  relative  influence  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  mission 
aries,  but  the  immoral  fictions  by  which  the  revenues  of  Prot 
estant  "  societies"  are  annually  recruited. 

Eighty  miles  from  the  Dalles,  by  the  banks  of  the  A  tin  am, 
another  mission  is  thus  described  by  a  Protestant  traveller 
from  Boston,  who  had  learned  to  despise  what  he  calls  "  the 
crude  and  cruel  Hebraism"  of  his  Puritan  forefathers.  "  The 
sun  was  just  setting  as  we  came  over  against  it  on  the  hill 
side.  We  dashed  down  into  the  valley,  that  moment  aban 
doned  by  sunlight.  My  Indians  launched  forward  to  pay  their 
friendly  greeting  to  the  priests.  But  I  observed  them  quickly 
pause,  walk  their  horses,  and  noiselessly  dismount. 

"As  I  drew  near,  a  sound  of  reverent  voices  met  me, — ves 
pers  at  this  station  in  the  wilderness!  Three  souls  were  wor 
shipping  in  the  rude  chapel  attached  to  the  house.  It  was 
rude,  indeed, — a  cell  of  clay, — but  a  sense  of  the  Divine  pres 
ence  was  there,  not  less  than  in  many  dim  old  cathedrals,  far 
away,  where  earlier  sunset  had  called  worshippers  of  other 
race  and  tongue  to  breathe  the  same  thanksgiving  and  the 

same  heartfelt  prayer Never  in  any  temple  of  that 

ancient  faith,  where  prayer  has  made  its  home  for  centuries, 
has  prayer  seemed  so  mighty,  worship  so  near  the  ear  of  God, 
as  vespers  here,  at  this  rough  shrine  in  the  lonely  valley  of 
Atinam." 

A  friendly  welcome  greeted  the  Protestant  traveller,  who 
thus  sums  up  his  reflections  on  this  church  in  the  wilderness : 
"A  strange  and  unlovely  spot  for  religion  to  have  chosen  for 
its  home  of  influence.  It  needed  all  the  transfiguring  power 
of  sunset  to  make  this  desolate  scene  endurable.  The  mission 
was  a  hut-like  structure  of  adobe  clay,  plastered  upon  a  frame 
of  sticks.  It  stood  near  the  stony  bed  of  the  Atinam."  Here 
dwelt  two  Fathers  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  "  cultivated  and 
intellectual  missionaries,"  who  had  forsaken  all  to  labor  among 
the  Yakimah  Indians.  "The  good  Fathers  were  lodged  with 
more  than  conventual  simplicity.  Discomfort,  and  often  pri 
vation,  were  the  laws  of  missionary  life  in  this  lonely  spot. 
Drearily  monotonous  were  the  days  of  these  pioneers.  There 

*  Wanderings  of  an  Artist  among  the  Indians  of  North  America,  cli.  xxi., 
p.  320. 
f  Hist.  Prop.  Christianity,  vol.  iii.,  p.  155. 


268  CHAPTER   IX. 

was  little  intellectual  exercise  to  be  had,  except  to  construct 
a  vocabulary  of  the  Yakimah  dialect."  .  .  .  And  the  traveller, 
familiar  with  missionaries  of  another  order,  marvelled  greatly 
that  such  men  could  accept  such  an  existence.* 

But  there  were  many  other  missions  in  these  distant  regions, 
conducted  like  that  on  the  Atinam,  by  men  who  were  not 
anxious  about  "  means  of  subsistence,"  knew  nothing  of  "lum 
bering"  or  "  city  lots,"  and  who  have  succeeded,  after  long 
and  patient  toil,  in  converting  multitudes  of  the  very  tribes 
with  whom  the  Protestant  agents,  as  their  own  friends  have 
told  us,  would  have  .nothing  at^all  to  do."  We  have  seen,  by 
their  own  confession,  how  speedily  the  latter  abandoned  the 
Flatheads ;  let  us  inquire  how  the  Catholic  missionaries  fared 
amongst  them. 


KOOKY   MOUNTAINS. 


The  Fathers  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  entered  twenty  years  ago 
the  territories  which  lie  to  the  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains 
Here  such  men  as  de  Smet  and  Hoecken,  Dufour  and  Ver- 
haegen,  have  emulated  the  courage  and  fortitude  which  for 
more  than  three  centuries  have  been  a  tradition  in  their 
Society.  When  Father  de  Smet,  a  name  honored  throughout 
Christendom,  presented  himself  to  the  Flatheads,  they  had 
already  acquired  some  knowledge  of  Christian  truth  from  a 
band  of  Catholic  Cherokees,  who  had  been  driven  from  their 
own  hunting-grounds,  and  found  a  refuge  with  the  Flatheads. 
The  hospitality  of  the  latter  was  to  be  nobly  recompensed. 
"  During  twenty  years,"  says  Father  de  Smet,  "  according  to 
the  counsel  of  the  poor  Cherokees^  who  had  established  them 
selves  amongst  them,  they  had  approached,  as  much  as  possible, 
towards  our  "articles  of  belief,  ojnr  morals,  and  even  our  religious 
practices.  In  the  course  of  ten  years,  three  deputations  had 
the  courage  to  travel  as  far  as  St.  Louis,  that  is  to  say,  to  cross 
more  than  three  thousand  miles  of  valleys  and  mountains, 
infested  with  Black-Feet  and  other  enemies.  At  length  their 
prayers  were  heard,  and  beyond  their  hopes."f 

The  Christian  Cherokee's,  solicitous  to  impart  their  own 
blessings  to  others,  had  done  what  they  could,  and  their  work 
was  now  to  be  completed.  In  October,  1841,  Father  de  Smet 

*  Advejitures  among  the  NortJi-Weste™  Rivers  and  Forests,  by  Theodore 
Winthrop ;  ch.  xi.,  pp.  225,  232  (Boston,  1803). 
\  Annals,  vol.  iv.,  p.  231. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  269 

could  already  give  the  following  report :  "  All  that  is  passing 
before  our  eyes  in  the  Rocky  Mountains  strengthens  us  in  the 
hope,  which  we  have  long  since  conceived,  of  seeing  once  more 
a  new  Paraguay,  flourishing  under  the  shadow  of  the  Cross, 

with  all  its  marvels  and  affecting  recollections What 

proves  to  me  that  this  pleasing  imagination  is  not  merely  a 
dream,  is,  that  at  the  moment  while  I  write  these  lines,  the 
noisy  voices  of  our  carpenters,  and  the  smith  whose  hammer 
is  ringing  on  the  anvil,  announces  to  me  that  we  are  no  longer 
projecting  the  foundations,  but  fixing  the  roof,  of  the  house  of 
prayer.  This  very  day,  the  representatives  of  twenty-four  dif 
ferent  tribes  assisted  at  our  instructions ;  while  three  savages, 
of  the  tribe  of  the  Occurs-d"* Alene,  who  had  heard  of  the  hap 
piness  of  the  Flatheads,  came  to  entreat  us  to  have  compas 
sion  upon  them  also."  In  spite  of  these  successes,  and  of  still 
greater  ones  to  be  noticed  presently,  there  will  be  no  new 
Paraguay  in  Oregon,  for  a  reason  which  the  course  of  this  nar 
rative  will  sufficiently  indicate. 

Of  the  converted  Flatheads,  the  same  missionary  gives  an 
account,  full  of  interest  and  importance,  but  which  we  are 
compelled  to  abbreviate,  and  which  shall  be  confirmed  imme 
diately  by  Protestant  evidence.  "  They  never  attack  any  one," 
he  says,  "but  woe  to  him  who  unjustly  provokes  them."  In 
other  words,  in  becoming  good  Catholics  they  have  not  ceased 
to  be  valiant  warriors.  On  one  occasion  they  were  assaulted 
by  a  band  of  a  thousand  Black-Feet.  "  Already  the  enemy 
poured  down  upon  them,  while  they  were  on  their  knees, 
offering  to  the  Great  Spirit  all  the  prayers  they  knew,  for  the 
chief  had  said,  'Let  us  not  rise  until  we  have  well  prayed."1 
The  fight  lasted  five  successive  days,  when  the  Black-Feet 
retired,  leaving  the  ground  strewed  with  their  dead  and 
wounded. 

And  these  brave  Flatheads,  whose  chief,  says  Father  de 
Srnet,  "considered  as  a  warrior  and  a  Christian,  might  be 
compared  with  the  noblest  characters  of  ancient  chivalry," 
are  as  remarkable,  in  his  judgment,  for  their  virtues  as  for  their 
valor.  "I  have  spoken  of  the  simplicity  and  courage  of 
the  F  lathe  ads ;  what  more  shall  I  say?  that  their  disinter 
estedness,  generosity,  and  rare  devotedness  towards  their 
brethren  and  friends,  their  probity  and  morality,  are  irre 
proachable  and  exemplary ;  that  quarrels,  injuries,  divisions, 
enmities,  are  unknown  amongst  them.  I  will  add,  that  all 
these  qualities  are  already  naturalized  in  them  through  mo 
tives  of  faith.  What  exactness  do  they  show  in  frequenting 
the  offices  of  religion !  What  recollection  in  tto  house  of 
prayer !  What  attention  to  the  catechism !  What  fervor 


270  CHAPTER   IX. 

in  prayer!  What  humility,  especially  when  they  relate  actions 
which  may  do  them  honor!"*  The  Protestant  governor  of 
the  State  will  presently  give  us  his  testimony  on  the  same 
subject. 

Elsewhere  he  says :  "Often  we  remark  old  men,  even  chiefs, 
seated  beside  a  child  ten  or  twelve  years  old,  paying  for  hours 
the  attention  of  a  docile  scholar  to  these  precocious  instructors, 
who  teach  them  the  prayers,  and  explain  to  them  the  principal 
events  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament."  And  once  more.  On 
Christmas  Eve,  1843,  "Fathers  Mengarini  and  Zertinati  had 
the  happiness  of  seeing,  at  the  midnight  Mass,  almost  the  whole 
nation  of  the  Flatheads  approach  the  Holy  Table.  Twelve 
little  musicians,  trained  by  Father  Mengarini,  performed  with 
admirable  precision  several  pieces  of  the  best  German  and 
Italian  composers.  The  history  of  this  tribe  is  known  to  you  ; 
its  conversion  is  certainly  well  calculated  to  show  forth  the 
inexhaustible  riches  of  the  Divine  mercy.*'f  Such  was  the 
work  of  Catholic  missionaries  among  a  tribe  whom  the  Prot 
estants  had  abandoned,  because  "  the  means  of  subsistence  were, 
to  say  the  least,  very  doubtful." 

It  is  not  uninteresting  to  learn  how  the  apostles  who  had 
once  more  accomplished  such  a  triumph  as  this  were  content  to 
live,  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  mission,  among  their  wild  flock. 
The  "  means  of  subsistence,"  about  which  our  Lord  enjoined 
His  disciples,  and  principally  such  as  were  to  teach  others,  to 
"  take  no  thought,"  were  meagre  and  precarious.  The  Prot 
estant  ministers,  who  loved  not  this  distasteful  precept,  had 
promptly  made  the  discovery,  and  fled  away  to  more  genial 
regions.  Father  de  Smet,  who  might  have  been  taking  his 
ease  in  his  own  fair  land,  gayly  describes  what  he  calls  "  a  sup 
per,"  which  he  ate  with  his  disciples,  and  which  "  consisted 
of  a  little  flour,  a  few  roots  of  camash" — a  species  of  wild 
onion, — "  and  a  bit  of  buffalo  grease.  The  whole  was  flung 
together  into  the  cauldron,  to  form  a  single  ragout.  A  long 
pole,  for  the  heat  kept  us  at  a  respectful  distance,  was  trans 
formed  into  a  ladle,  which  it  was  necessary  to  turn  continually, 
until  the  contents  of  the  kettle  had  acquired  the  proper  thick 
ness.  We  considered  the  dish  delicious!  We  had  but  one 
porringer  for  six  guests.  But  necessity  makes  man  industrious. 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  my  Indians  were  ready  for  the 
attack  on  the  cauldron.  Two  of  them  provided  with  bits  of 
bark,  two  others  with  bits  of  leather,  the  fifth  armed  with  a 
tortoise-shell,  plunged  again  and  again  into  the  cauldron  with 

*  IV.,  353. 
f  VII,  360. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  271 

the  skill  and  regularity  of  a  smith  beating  on  his  anvil.  It  was 
soon  drained." 

At  another  time,  by  way  of  varying  their  delicacies,  it  was 
"  wild  roots  and  moss-cakes,  as  hard  as  dried  glne,"  which 
furnished  their  table,  and  of  which  a  broth  was  composed 
"  which  has  the  appearance  and  taste  of  soap."  But  enough  of 
these  trivial  hardships,  to  which  the  missionaries  rarely  refer, 
and  then  only  by  way  of  jest. 

The  Flatheads  were  not  the  only  tribe  won  to  Christianity 
by  the  Jesuits  in  this  remote  western  world.  When  they  had 
been  gathered  into  the  fold,  Father  de  Smet  started  for 
Columbia ;  where,  as  Sir  George  Simpson  has  told  us,  the 
Protestant  missionaries  "soon  ascertained  that  they  could  gain 
converts  only  by  buying  them."  The  Jesuits,  like  St.  Peter, 
had  "  neither  silver  nor  gold  ;"  but  they  worked,  as  he  did,  "  in 
the  name  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,"  and  with  similar  fruits. 
"During  the  journey,"  says  Father  de  Smet,  "which  lasted 
forty-two  days,  I  baptized  one  hundred  and  ninety  persons, 
twenty-six  of  whom  had  arrived  at  extreme  old  age.  I  announced 
the  word  of  God  to  more  than  two  thousand  Indians,  who  will 
not  delay,  I  hope,  to  place  themselves  under  the  standard  of 
Jesus  Christ."  And  then  he  relates  an  anecdote  of  a  certain 
Protestant,  a  Mr.  Parkers,  one  of  that  class  who  have  inflicted 
so  much  injury  upon  the  heathen  in  every  land.  This  gentleman 
had  wilfully  broken  a  cross,  erected  over  the  grave  of  an  Indian 
child,  and  had  announced  that  he  did  it  "because  lie  did  not 
wish  to  leave  in  this  country  a  monument  of  idolatry,  set  up  in 
passing  l>y  some  Catholic  C/ierokees"  "  Poor  man !"  says 
Father  de  Smet,  "  if  he  now  returned  to  these  mountains,  he 
would  hear  the  praises  of  the  Holy  Name  of  Jesus  resounding 
on  the  banks  of  the  rivers  and  lakes  ;  in  the  prairies  as  well  as 
in  the  bosom  of  the  forests ;  he  would  see  the  Cross  planted 
from  shore  to  shore,  over  a  space  of  three  hundred  leagues, 
commanding  the  loftiest  summits  of  the  Cceurs-cVAlene,  and 
the  principal  chain  which  separates  the  waters  of  the  Missouri 
from  those  of  the  Columbia  ;  and  saluted  with  respect  in  the 
valleys  of  Wallamette,  of  Cowlitz,  and  of  the  Bitter-Root.  At 
the  moment  that  I  write,  Father  Demers  has  gone  to  carry  it 
to  the  different  nations  of  Caledonia ;  everywhere  the  word  of 
Him  who  has  said  that  this  glorious  sign  would  attract  men  to 
Him  begins  to  be  verified  in  favor  of  the  poor  sheep  so  long 
wandering  over  the  vast  American  continent.  Would  that  this 
cross-breaker  might  pass  again  through  these  same  places.  He 
would  see  the  image  of  Jesus  suspended  from  the  necks  of 
more  than  four  thousand  Indians;  and  the  youngest  child, 
who  is  but  learning  the  catechism,  would  tell  him,  '  Mr. 


272  CHAPTER    IX. 

Parkers,  it  is  God  alone  whom  we  adore,  and  not  the  cross;  do  not 
break  it,  for  it  reminds  us  that  a  God  has  died  to  save  us.'  "* 

Father  de  Srriet,  whom  we  must  now  quit,  has  been  joined 
since  that  date  by  many  fellow-laborers  of  his  own  school. 
In  1852,  lie  could  already  report,  speaking  only  of  his  per 
sonal  toils  amongst  the  Indians  west  of  the  Rocky  Mount 
ains,  "  The  total  number  of  baptisms  administered  by  me  in 
the  different  tribes  amounts  to  one  thousand  five  hundred 
and  eighty-six."  And  he  was  then  contemplating  a  still 
more  perilous  ministry.  "  The  account  which  I  receive  of 
the  dispositions  of  the  Black-Feet"  he  says  in  one  of  his 
letters,  "  is  frightful.  ...  I  place  all  my  confidence  in  the 
Lord,  who  can  change,  at  His  good  pleasure,  and  soften  these 
implacable  hearts.  My  business  is  to  carry  the  Gospel  to  the 
very  places  where  the  excursions  of  these  marauders  are  most 
frequent.  No  consideration  can  turn  me  aside  from  this 
project."f  It  appears  to  have  been  at  least  partially  executed, 
as  we  learn  incidentally  from  the  following  statement  in  an 
English  journal :  "  An  interesting  marriage  ceremony  has  been 
recently  performed  at  Illinois.  The  parties  were  Major  Culbert- 
son,  the  well-known  Indian  trader  and  agent  of  the  American 
Fur  Company,  and  Natowista,  daughter  of  the  chief  of  the 
Blackfoot  Indians.  .  .  .  They  were  married  a  few  days  since 
by  Father  Scanden,  of  St.  Joseph's,  Missouri,  according  to  the 
ritual  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Mrs.  Culbertson  is  said  to  be  a 
person  of  fine  native  talent,  and  has  been  at  times  a  very 
successful  mediator  between  the  American  government  and  the 
nation  to  which  she  belongs."^ 

The  Potawattomies  are  another  tribe  who  have  accepted  in 
great  numbers  the  teaching  of  the  Catholic  missionaries.  At 
the  request  of  their  chiefs,  Father  Yerhaegen  did  not  hesitate  to 
present  in  person  to  the  government  at  Washington  the  petition 
which  they  had  intrusted  to  him.  Fortified  by  the  generous 
co-operation  of  General  Clark,  agent  for  Indian  affairs  in  the 
district  west  of  the  Mississippi,  this  missionary  commenced  his 
labors  among  them,  accompanied  by  Father  lioecken.  They 
had  peremptorily  rejected,  like  the  Omahas,  and  many  other 
tribes,  th,e  Protestant  teachers  offered  to  them  by  the  govern 
ment.  They  had  detected,  as  Father  de  Smet  observes,  that 
"  the  chief  solicitude  of  the  ministers  is  reserved  for  their  com 
mercial  speculations,  and  when  they  have  amassed  large  profits, 
they  return  to  their  native  country,  under  pretence  that  there  is 
nothing  to  be  done  among  the  savages." 

*  IV.,  367. 

f  An.  vii.,  382  ;  xiii.,  319. 

%  Weekly  Register,  October  15,  1850. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  273 

Twelve  months  after  Father  Hoecken  had  entered  the  ter 
ritory  of  the  Potawattomies  lie  could  give  this  description  of 
them  :  "  They  are  sincerely  attached  to  the  practices  of  reli 
gion,  respectful  towards  the  missionaries,  assiduous  in  approach 
ing,  at  least  every  three  weeks,  the  sacred  tribunal' (of  penance) 
arid  the  Holy  Table.  Scarcely  a  day  passes  that  some  one  of 
them  is  not  seen  approaching  one  of  those  sacraments.  On 
festivals,  the  number  of  those  who  receive  Holy  Communion 
varies  from  twenty  to  thirty."  Already  more  than  a  thousand 
Potawattomies  professed  the  Catholic  faith  ;  and  the  same  mis 
sionary  adds,  that  they  manifest  "  an  entire  obedience,  not 
only  to  the  commands  of  the  priest,  but  to  the  slightest  intima 
tion  of  his  wishes.""* 

Yet  these  missionaries  were,  if  possible,  poorer  than  the 
savages  themselves,  willingly  accepted  their  humble  food  and 
lodging,  and  abased  themselves  to  share  their  daily  life.  "  For 
myself,"  says  Father  Hoecken,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  a  member 
of  the  same  society,  "  I  have  no  other  wish  than  to  live  among 
the  Indians,  and  to  find  on  the  other  side  of  the  Rocky  Mount 
ains  the  spot  from  which  I  am  to  rise  at  the  last  day." 

The  same  apostolic  missionary,  though  he  would  have  dis 
played  only  charity  and  courtesy  towards  the  men  who  had 
abandoned  in  disgust  the  work  to  which  he  had  devoted  his  life, 
gives  this  account  of  the  reception  which  they  experience  from 
the  Indians:  "The  Protestant  ministers  have  endeavored  to 
obtain  followers  among  these  savages,  but  their  efforts  have 
not  been  attended  with  success.  Instead  of  listening  to  them, 
they  are  questioned,  and  put  to  a  severe  examination.  'Where 
is  your  wife?'  said  an  Indian  to  one  of  them;  a  gesture  was 
the  only  answer  of  the  minister,  who  pointed  with  a  finger  to 
his  residence  where  his  wife  was.  '  Your  dress,  no  doubt,' 
continued  the  savage,  'is  a  black  robe?' — 'jSTo,'  replied  the 
minister,  'I  do  not  wear  one.'  'Do  you  say  Mass?' — 'Oh, 
never,'  answered  the  minister  eagerly.  *  Do  you  wear  the  ton 
sure?' — 'No.'  'Then,'  they  all  exclaimed  together,  'you  may 
go  back  from  whence  you  came.'"')' 

The  Winnebagoes  display  the  same  dispositions.  Father 
Cretin  relates  that  they  have  repeatedly  petitioned  the  govern 
ment  authorities  to  send  them  Catholic  priests,  but  that  their 
prayer  was  always  answered  by  an  embassy  of  Protestant 
ministers.  When  a  treaty  was  negotiated  in  1845  between 

*  An  English  gentleman  who  lately  visited  a  large  Potawattomie  village, 
several  days'  journey  beyond  the  Missouri,  found  that  "  they  were  all  of  them 
educated  in  the  Roman  Catholic  faith."  The  English  Sportsman  in  the  West 
ern  Prairies,  by  the  Hon.  Grantley  F.  Berkeley,  ch.  xix.,  p.  320  (1861). 

f  II,  40. 

VOL.  II  19 


274:  CHAPTER   IX. 

this  tribe  and  the  United  Spates,  a  solemn  assembly  was  con 
vened,  and  the  Governor  of  Wisconsin  unfolded  the  terms 
which  he  was  commissioned  to  offer  them.  Their  territory 
consisted  of  two  million  three  hundred  thousand  acres  of  ex 
cellent  land,. watered  by  six  considerable  rivers.  This  magnifi 
cent  tract  they  were  asked  to  abandon,  the  invitation  being 
equivalent  to  a  command,  for  a  recompense  which  they  neither 
wished  to  accept  nor  dared  to  refuse.  After  a  day's  delibera 
tion,  the  Indians  again  met  the  governor,  prepared  to  give  a 
reply  to  his  proposals.  Wdkoo^  an  aged  chief,  the  most  cele 
brated  orator  of  the  tribe,  rose  to  speak  in  the  name  of  his 
nation,  "  a  large  crucifix  glistening  on  his  breast."  From  his 
noble  address  we  extract  the  following  words : 

"  If  I  alone  speak  to-day,  far  be  it  from  you  to  suppose  that 
I  am  the  only  one  able  to  express  the  feelings  of  my  tribe. 
All  the  chiefs  here  present  know  how  to  make  known  their 
thoughts,  but  being  accustomed  from  my  youth  to  speak  in  the 
councils  of  my  nation,  I  have  been  chosen  as  the  eldest  to 
defend,  in  the  name  of  all,  our  common  interests.  Thou  comest 
on  the  part  of  our  great  father  (the  President)  to  demand  the 
cession  of  our  territory.  But  can  he  have  forgotten  the  mag 
nificent  promises  which,  on  two  different  occasions,  he  gave 
me  at  Washington  ?  I  remember  them,  for  my  part,  as  if  they 
had  been  spoken  only  to-day.  .  .  .  '  Depend  upon  me,'  said 
our  great  father,  '  I  will  always  defend  you.  You  shall  be  my 
children.  If  any  wrong  be  done  to  you,  address  yourselves 
always  to  me.  Your  causes  of  complaint  shall  cease  so  soon 
as  they  shall  be  known  to  me,  and  I  will  defend  you.'  And  I, 
a  child  of  nature,  who  have  but  one  tongue,  believed  in  the 
sincerity  of  these  promises.  Yet,  m  spite  of  our  remonstrance, 
all  our  affairs  have  been  arranged  without  our  being  even  con 
sulted.  They  have  sent  away  agents  whom  we  loved,  to  give 
us  others,  without  asking  our  opinion.  We  have  forwarded 
petitions,  to  which  no  attention  has  been  paid.  They  promised 
us  that  they  would  leave  us  always  the  lands  which  we  occupy, 
and  already  they  wish  to  send  us  I  know  not  where.  My 
brother,  thou  art  our  friend.  Tell  our  great  father,  that  his 
children  require  a  longer  halt  here,  before  they  enter  on  the 
path  of  a  new  exile.  The  tree  which  is  continually  trans 
planted  must  quickly  perish" 

Here  the  orator  interrupted  himself,  to  notice  the  charges 
brought  against  his  tribe  as  a  pretext  for  "dispensing  with 
justice  towards  them,"  and  for  palliating  the  tyranny  of  which 
they  were  to  be  victims.  "Why,"  said  he,  "reproach  us  with 
vices  which  you  have  yourselves  encouraged  ?  Why  come  to 
the  very  door  of  our  tents  to  tempt  us  with  your  fire-water  ?" 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  275 

And  then  he  went  on  thus :  "  Our  great  father  has  said  to  us, 
4 1  will  send  to  you  men  who  will  teach  you  how  to  live  well.' 
These  men  have  come,  but  though  they  are  tolerably  good,  our 
young  men  do  not  listen  to  them  any  better  than  to  ourselves ; 
we  wish  for  Catholic  priests.  They  will  make  themselves 
heard,  be  assured  of  it.  I  take  God  to  witness  that  what  I  say 
expresses  the  wishes  of  my  nation."  And  then  he  sat  down  amid 
the  applause  of  the  assembled  chiefs.* 

We  have  seen,  in  every  chapter  of  this  work,  the  triumphs 
of  Catholic  missionaries  attested  by  the  unsuspicious  evidence 
of  Protestant  witnesses.  Here  is  their  testimony  to  the  same 
order  of  facts  in  the  valleys  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  In  1855, 
Governor  Stephens  forwarded  to  the  President  of  the  United 
States  an  official  report  on  the  territory  committed  to  his 
charge,  to  which  the  President  himself  referred  in  his  annual 
"  Message  to  Congress."  Of  the  Flatheads  he  speaks  as  fol 
lows  :  "  They  are  the  best  Indians  in  the  territory,  honest, 
brave,  and  docile.  They  profess  the  Christian  religion,  and  I 
am  assured  that  they  live  according  to  the  precepts  of  the 
Gospel."  After  describing  their  manner  of  life,  the  same 
authority  adds,  that  they  are  "sincere  and  faithful,"  and 
"strongly  attached  to  their  religious  convictions"-^ 

Of  the  tribe  called  Pend-(T Oreilles,  Governor  Stephens 
observes,  that  the  mission  established  among  them  has  been 
in  existence  nine  years,  and  that  for  a  long  time  the  mission 
aries  lived  in  huts,  and  fed  on  roots.  "They  have  now  a 
church,"  he  says,  "of  which  all  the  ornaments  are  so  well 
executed,  that  one  is  tempted  to  suppose  they  must  have  been 
imported  ;"  yet  they  are  entirely  the  work  of  the  missionaries 
and  their  neophytes.  "  When  the  missionaries  arrived,"  he 
adds,  "  these  Indians  were  impoverished,  wretched,  and  almost 
destitute  of  clothes.  They  were  in  the  habit  of  burying  alive 
both  the  aged  and  infant  children.  At  this  day  almost  the 
entire  tribe  belongs  to  the  Saviour's  fold.  I  have  seen  them 
assembled  at  prayer,  and  it  appears  to  me  that  these  savages 
are,  in  every  respect,  in  the  way  of  true  progress.  These 
Indians  have  a  great  veneration  for  their  Fathers,  the  Blabk 
Kobes.  They  say  if  the  missionaries  were  to  leave  them,  it 
would  certainly  cause  their  death."  He  then  praises  their 
habits  of  industry,  and  adds,  that  while  the  Fathers  have 
brought  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  under  cultivation,  "the 
produce  of  the  harvest  belongs  to  the  Indians,  because  very 

*  VI.,  364. 

f  Quoted  in  the  work  entitled,  Oinquante  Nouvettes  Lettres  du  J?.  P.  de  8mett 
i-p  293  ct  seq.  (Paris,  1858). 


276  CHAPTER  IX. 

little  suffices  for  the  wants  of  the  missionaries."  Finally,  after 
noticing  their  "pious  fervor,"  the  Governor  remarks,  that  "re 
ligion  has  destroyed  the  state  of  slavery  in  which  woman 
groans  in  all  the  unbelieving  tribes." 

Of  the  Cmurs-cPAUtie,  of  whom  there  are  five  hundred 
Christians,  the  same  official  reports  thus:  "Thanks  to  the 
labors  of  these  good  Fathers,  they  have  made  great  progress 
in  agriculture.  Instructed  in  the  Christian  religion,  they  have 
abandoned  polygamy ;  their  morals  have  become  pure,  and 
their  conduct  edifying.  The  work  effected  l>y  the  missionaries 
is  really  prodigious.  There  is  a  magnificent  church,  almost 
finished,  entirely  built  by  the  Fathers,  the  Brothers,  and  the 
Indians." 

Lastly,  he  declares  of  the  Potawattomies,  among  whom 
Father  Iloecken  desired  to  live  and  die,  and  who  are  one 
of  the  latest  conquests  of  the  children  of  St.  Ignatius,  "  they 
are  hardly  Indians  now  /"  Such,  by  Protestant  testimony,  are 
the  works  of  men  by  whom  the  Most  High  delights  to  display 
His  power,  and  whom  He  fills  with  the  abundant  graces  by 
which  alone  apostolic  victories  are  gained.  And  as  this 
favored  tribe  has  found  in  the  Fathers  of  the  Society  of 
Jesus  masters  and  doctors,  from  whom  they  have  received 
"  the  promise  of  the  life  that  now  is,  as  well  as  of  that  which  is 
to  come ;"  so  their  daughters,  once  half-naked  savages,  doomed 
to  bondage  and  degradation,  have  become  the  pupils  of  those 
Sisters  of  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus,  who  have  not  feared  to 
traverse  an  ocean  and  a  continent,  that  they  might  carry 
religion  and  civilization  to  the  most  hidden  recesses  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  and  dispense  in  their  obscure  valleys  the 
same  instruction  which  the  noblest  of  other  races  receive  at 
their  hands  in  all  the  capitals  of  Europe. 


BRITISH    COLUMBIA. 

In  the  year  1862,  two  British  officers,  whose  frank  but  inof 
fensive  Protestantism  colors  every  chapter  of  their  works, 
assist  us  to  trace,  in  Vancouver's  Island  and  British  Columbia, 
the  contrast  which  witnesses  of  the  same  class  have  detected  in 
the  other  provinces  of  Western  America.  It  is  right  to  add 
that  nothing  was  further  from  their  intention  than  to  do  what 
they  have  unwittingly  done. 

"The  close  contiguity  of  the  Songhies  Indians  to  Victoria," 
says  Commander  Mayne,  "  is  seriously  inconvenient ;"  and  the 
sentiment  was  so  universal  among  the  English  authorities,  that 


MISSIONS   IN    AMERICA.  277 

the  colonial  legislature,  he  adds,  has  already  devised  "  various 
plans  for  removing  them  to  a  distance."  To  get  the  natives  out 
of  their  way  was,  therefore,  the  first  thought  of  these  British 
colonists. 

"  In  consequence  of  their  intercourse  with  the  whites,"  con 
tinues  the  same  authority,  "  this  tribe  has  become  the  most 
degraded  in  the  whole  island,"  or,  as  he  observes  in  another 
place,  "  the  most  debased  and  demoralized  of  all  the  Indians." 
In  these  two  reports  he  unconsciously  records  the  prompt  and 
invariable  results  of  Protestant  colonization.*" 

"  The  Cowichens,"  we  learn  from  this  gentleman,  "  are  rather 
a  fine  and  somewhat  powerful  tribe,  numbering  between  three 
thousand  and  four  thousand  souls;"  but  "  the  Nanaimo  Indians, 
who  at  one  time  were  just  as  favorably  spoken  of,  have  fallen 
off  much  since  the  white  settlement  at  that  place  has  increased." 
Now  the  Nanaimos  have  sunk  morally  by  contact  with  Prot 
estants,  while  the  superiority  of  the  Cowichens,  we  are  told  by 
Captain  Barrett  Lennard,  is  owing  to  their  conversion  to  the 
Catholic  faith.  "  The  missionaries  of  the  Romish  Church," 
says  that  officer,  "have  long  labored  assiduously  among  these 
different  Indian  tribes,  and  with  considerable  apparent  success, 
in  some  instances,  especially  among  the  Cowichens,  a  good 
many  of  whom  attend  Mass  in  the  little  chapel  of  the  mission." 
lie  adds,  indeed,  that  u  there  is  now  a  very  effective  staff  of 
Protestant  missionaries  in  Vancouver,"  but  his  sympathy  with 
their  projects  does  not  impel  him  to  say  a  word  about  their 
disciples,  nor  even  to  inform  us  if  they  have  any.f 

At  the  mouth  of  the  Harrison  River,  Captain  Lennard  found 
the  tribe  of  the  Skaholets.  "These  Indians,"  he  observes,  in 
reluctant  and  somewhat  ungenerous  phrase,  "make  a  great 
profession  of  their  adherence  to  the  Roman  Catholic  faith," — a 
sufficient  proof  that  at  least  they  are  not  indifferent  to  it. 
They  were  very  exact,  he  confesses,  in  the  due  observance  of 
Sunday,  earnest  in  rejecting  "any  kind  of  intoxicating  drink," 
and  both  brave  and  industrious,  as  his  own  account  of  their 
habits  sufficiently  indicates. J 

Near  Fort  Hope  he  visits  the  Turn-Sioux  Indians,  and, 
though  no  missionary  was  then  with  them,  he  finds  "  a  party 
of  Indians,  to  the  number  of  thirty  or  forty,  engaged  in  bowing 
and  crossing  themselves  in  the  intervals  of  chanting."  Most 
Protestants  would  probably  give  much  the  same  account  of  a 

*  Four  Tears  in  British  Columbia  and  Vancouver  Island,  by  Commander 
R.  C.  Mayne,  R.N.,  F.R.G.S.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  30  (1862). 

f  Travels  in  British  Columbia,  by  Capt.  C.  E.  Barrett  Lennard,  ch.  iv.,  p.  57 
(1862). 

\  Ch.  x.,  p.  143. 


278  CHAPTER   IX. 

Catholic  congregation  in  Paris  or  London.  "  I  doubt,"  he 
adds,  "  whether  these  poor  savages  attached  any  particular 
meaning  or  significance  to  any  of  the  rites  and  ceremonies  in 
the  performance  of  which  they  were  engaged."*  It  was  per 
haps  only  to  pass  away  the  time  that  they  were  secretly  occu 
pied  in  chanting  hymns,  and  in  what  Captain  Lennard  calls 
"  bowing  and  crossing  themselves,"  though  it  was  certainly  an 
unusual  mode  of  recreation  for  savages.  Protestant  witnesses  of 
this  school  are  invaluable.  Their  utter  inability  to  comprehend 
the  most  impressive  phenomena,  and  their  diligent  perversion  of 
the  simplest  facts,  only  lend  additional  force  to  their  testimony. 

Commander  Mayne,  who  is  more  copious  in  details,  gives  us 
the  following  information.  "While  in  Henry  Bay  we  witnessed 
the  arrival  of  some  Roman  Catholic  priests,  which  caused  the 
greatest  excitement  among  the  natives.  They  were  scattered 
in  all  directions,  fishing,  &c.,  many  on  board  and  around  the 
ship" — that  is,  the  ship  of  Commander  Mayne — "when  a  canoe 
with  two  large  banners  flying  appeared  in  sight."  Both  profit 
and  curiosity,  the  strongest  passions  of  the  uncivilized  man, 
were  overpowered  in  a  moment  by  a  deeper  sentiment.  "  Im 
mediately  a  shout  was  raised  of  'Le  Pretre!  Le  Pretre!'  and 
they  all  paddled  on  shore  as  fast  as  they  could  to  meet  them. 
There  were  two  priests  in  the  canoe,  and  in  this  way  they  trav 
elled,  visiting  in  turn  every  village  on  the  coast.  A  fortnight 
afterwards,  when  I  was  in  Johnstone  Strait  with  a  boat-party, 
I  met  them  again.  It  was  a  pouring  wet  day,  cold,  and  blow 
ing  hard,  and  they  were  apparently  very  lightly  clothed,  hud 
dling  in  the  bottom  of  their  canoe,  the  Indians  paddling 
laboriously  against  wind  and  tide  to  reach  a  village  by  night, 
and  the  sea  washing  over  them,  drenching  them  to  the  skin. 
I  never  saw  men  look  in  a  more  pitiable  plight.  .  *.  .  Certainly 
if  misery  on  this  earth  will  be  compensated  hereafter,  those 
two  priests  were  laying  in  a  plentiful  stock  of  happiness."f  We 
cannot  be  surprised  when  this  officer  goes  on  to  observe  that 
these  missionaries,  who,  he  says,  are  "  thorough  masters"  of  the 
native  language,  "  undoubtedly  possess  considerable  influence 
over  the  Indians." 

"  I  remember  one  Sunday  in  Port  Harvey,"  says  the  same 
gentleman,  "  when  we  were  all  standing  on  deck,  looking  at 
six  or  eight  large  canoes  which  hung  about  the  ship,  they 
suddenly  struck  up  a  chant,  which  they  continued  for  about 
ten  minutes,  singing  in  beautiful  time,  their  voices  sounding 
over  the  perfectly  still  water  and  dying  away  among  the  trees 

*  P.  149. 

t  Ch.  xiii.,  p.  175. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  270 

with  a  sweet  cadence  that  I  shall  never  forget."  And  the 
singers  were  Vancouver  Indians  !  "  I  have  no  idea,"  he  adds, 
"  what  the  words  were,  but  they  told  us  they  had  been  taught 
them  by  the  priests.  The  Roman  Catholic  priest  has  indeed 
little  cause  to  complain  of  his  reception  by  the  Indians."* 

Once  more.  "  At  Esquimalt  all  the  Indians  attend  the  Romish 
mission  on  Sunday  morning,  and  at  eight  o'clock  the  whole 
village  may  be  seen  paddling  across  the  harbor  to  the  mission- 
house,  singing  at  the  top  of  their  voices."  For  a  moment  the 
contemplation  of  these  scenes  puts  to  flight  national  and  religious 
prejudices,  and  he  goes  on  thus.  "  Certainly  the  self-denying 
zeal  and  energy  with  which  the  priests  labor  among  them 
merit  all  the  success  they  meet  with.  To  come  upon  them,  as 
I  have  done,  going  from  village  to  village,  alon.e  among  the 
natives,  in  a  dirty  little  canoe,  drenched  to  the  skin,  forces 
comparisons  between  them  and  the  generality  of  the  laborers  of 
other  creeds  that  are  by  no  means  flattering  to  the  latter."f 

We  have  seen  so  many  examples  in  these  volumes  of  inveterate 
prepossessions  conquered  by  the  same  irresistible  influence,  and 
have  read  so  many  similar  confessions  of  unwilling  sympathy 
and  admiration,  that  this  particular  instance  claims  no  special 
comment.  But  we  must  not  conclude  without  a  few  details  in 
further  illustration  of  the  contrast  which  this  officer  attests. 

'•  Before  1857,"  he  observes,  "  no  Protestant  missionary  had 
ever  traversed  the  wilds  of  British  Columbia,  nor  had  any 
attempts  been  made  to  instruct  the  Indians."  The  statement  is 
not  quite  exact,  as  he  seems  to  have  felt,  for  he  adds  immedi 
ately,  "  I  must  except  the  exertions  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
priests."  They  had  not  waited  till  forts  were  built,  commerce 
established,  and  a  military  police  organized.  Before  even  the 
trapper  or  the  hunter,  they  had  tracked  the  streams  and  pene 
trated  the  forests  of  Columbia,  without  protection,  and  without 
salary,  except  from  Him  who  "  rewardeth  in  secret."  They 
were  now  to  be  jostled  on  every  side  by  men  of  another  order. 
By  1859,  u  eleven  missionaries  of  different  denominations," 
of  whom  four  were  Wesleyans,  each  receiving  the  annual  stipend 

*  Ch.  xi.,  p.  274. 

f  P.  275.  Commander  Mayne  makes  an  exception  in  favor  of  "  Mr.  W  illiam 
Duncan,"  a  Protestant  missionary,  of  whose  energy  and  perseverance  he  speaks 
in  terms  which  the  conduct  of  that  gentleman  appears  to  merit.  Mr.  Duncan 
has  judiciously  labored  for  their  "  temporal  welfare,"  and  endeavored  to  estab 
lish  schools  for  their  instruction  ;  but  we  can  see  little  more  in  Commander 
Mayne's  account  of  his  work  than  the  skilful  adaptation  of  natural  means  to  a 
natural  end.  We  are  so  far,  however,  from  questioning  Mr.  Duncan's  merits, 
that  we  should  be  glad  to  be  forced  to  recognize  them  in  all  his  co-religionists. 
When  Protestants  can  be  found,  who,  from  supernatural  motives,  are  willing 
to  devote  themselves  without  reserve,  and  without  salary,  to  the  service  of 
God,  they  will  soon  cease  to  be  Protestants. 


280  CHAPTER  IX. 

which  was  deemed  an  appropriate  recompense  of  his  labors, 
had  entered  this  region  ;  but ''  their  mission,"  says  Commander 
Mayne,  "  like  that  of  our  own  Church,  has  ~been  more  to  the 
whites  than  the  Indians"*  The  Anglican  bishop  "  reached 
Esquimalt  in  1860,"  bringing  "  an  iron  church  which  had  been 
sent  from  England,"  but  which  had  cost  so  much  money  that 
"  the  edifice  was  not  free  from  debt  when  I  left  the  island." 
What  this  Protestant  functionary  will  do  for  the  natives  in 
general  we  may  judge  from  the  operations  of  his  colleagues  in 
other  lands  ;  what  he  will  accomplish  at  Esquimalt  in  partic 
ular,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  already  recorded,  that  "  at 
Esquimalt  all  the  Indians  attend  the  Romish  mission." 

But  we  are  not  without  information  as  to  the  proceedings  of 
this  gentleman.  Mr.  Macdonald,  who  speaks  of  him  with 
warm  friendship,  relates  in  1862  such  facts  as  the  following. 
"  Although  the  magnificent  gift  of  twenty-five  thousand  pounds 
by  that  most  estimable  Christian  lady,  Miss  Burdett  Coutts,  is  a 
fit  foundation,  nevertheless  more  money  is  urgently  required.1' 
Yet  the  immensre  sums  already  expended  seem  to  have  been 
utterly  fruitless  as  far  as  the  heathen  are  concerned  "  It  is 
well  known,"  says  Mr.  Macdonald,  "  that  the  Rev.  Mr.  Cridge 
has  labored  zealously  amongst  these  Indians  for  years,  without 
even  the  shadow  of  a  hope  of  success.  The  Rev.  W.  Clark  and 
family  also  failed,  and  have  left  the  country  ;  and  another  highly 
esteemed  clergyman  has  likewise  left."  These  facts,  he  adds, 
are  so  notorious,  that  "  it  does  seem  rather  marvellous  that  Dr. 
Hill,"  the  Anglican  bishop,  "  should,  in  a  few  days  after  his 
arrival  in  the  colony,  produce  the  following  effect  upon  some 
Indian  children."  The  words  quoted  are  from  an  official  report 
by  Dr.  Hill  himself.  "  We  sang  heartily,  .  .  .  and  when  we 
finished,  we  found  a  remarkable  impression  to  be  produced. 
All  were  reverently  hushed  in  a  fixed  and  thoughtful  manner  /" 
It  is  probably  the  fatal  necessity  of  producing  a  sensation  at 
home,  and  the  fact  that  "  more  money  is  urgently  required," 
which  alone  compel  a  man  of  education  thus  to  expose  himself 
to  the  satire  of  his  own  friends  and  adherents.f 

Mr.  Macdonald,  differing  in  this  particular  from  Captain 
Lennard  and  Commander  Mayne,  insinuates  that  the  Catholic 
missionaries  have  had  only  feeble  success.  But  in  this  case  his 
testimony  is  no  longer  founded  on  personal  observation.  Pere 
Cheroux,  he  observes,  "  is  said  to  have  exclaimed,  '  He  who 
would  sow  the  seed  of  instruction  in  the  heart  of  these  savages 
has  selected  a  soil  truly  sterile ;' "  while  Pere  Lamfrett  is 

*  Cli.  xii.,  p.  341. 

\  British  Columbia  and  Vancouver's  Island,  by  Duncan  G.  F.  Macdonald, 
C.E.,  ch.  v.,  pp.  162-9  (1862). 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  281 

reported  to  have  remarked,  that  "  they  were  spoiled  by  their 
intercourse  with  the  white  man."  If  it  be  so,  it  is  only  a  fresh 
example  of  the  fact  which  we  have  encountered  in  every  land, 
that  Protestants  not  only  fail  to  convert  the  heathen  them 
selves,  but  make  it  almost  impossible,  by  their  presence,  for 
Catholics  to  remedy  the  evil. 

Yet  we  have  reason  to  hope  that  the  remarkable  instances 
cited  by  Captain  Lennard  and  Commander  Mayne,  in  spite  of 
their  religious  prepossessions,  are  found  throughout  a  wider 
region  than  they  were  able  to  explore.  Father  Demers,  we 
have  been  told  by  Father  de  Smet,  quitted  him  a  few  years 
ago,  to  preach  the  Gospel  in  these  very  provinces.  He  does 
not  seem  to  have  preached  in  vain.  "  On  the  15th  of  October 
(1861),"  says  a  Californian  Protestant  journal,  "  the  Right  Rev. 
Bishop  Demers  left  here  (San  Francisco)  for  British  Columbia, 
to  attend  a  muster  meeting  of  Indians  in  that  colony.  The 
bishop  is  known  by  all  the  Indians,  and  has  great  influence 
over  the  tribes.  When  the  news  reached  the  camp  that  the 
bishop  had  arrived,  one  hundred  Indians  in  forty  canoes  were 
sent  to  escort  him.  .  .  .  The  Indians  know  a  great  deal  about 
religion.  It  must  have  been  grand  and  solemn  to  hear  in  the 
wilderness  of  the  far  North  one  thousand  five  hundred  Indians 
praying  and  singing  together."* 

It  is  not  expedient  to  pursue  with  further  detail  the  history 
of  missionary  labors  in  these  remote  western  regions,  nor  to 
multiply  the  illustrations  which  it  affords  both  of  the  character 
of  the  missionaries  and  the  results  of  their  toil.  We  have  suf 
ficiently  traced,  here  as  elsewhere,  the  contrast  which  it  is  the 
main  object  of  these  volumes  to  exhibit.  One  remark,  how 
ever,  may  be  added,  before  we  enter  those  more  famous  prov 
inces  of  the  East  which  lie  between  the  frozen  wastes  of 
Hudson's  Bay  and  the  sun-lit  waters  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

We  have  read  the  words  in  which  Father  de  Smet  avows  the 
noble  ambition,  worthy  of  himself  and  his  order,  of  reviving  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  the  glories  of  Paraguay. 
Would  that  it  were  possible  for  us  to  share  his  generous  hopes. 
If  such  a  triumph  could  indeed  be  accomplished  in  Oregon  or 
Columbia,  Father  de  Smet  and  his  colleagues  sufficiently  re 
semble  their  illustrious  predecessors  of  the  Society  of  Jesus 
both  to  attempt  and  to  effect  it.  Even  Protestant  writers  have 
recognized  this  fact.  "There  is  an  unseen  element  at  work," 
says  one  of  those  candid  witnesses  of  whom  we  have  quoted  so 
many,  "in  the  remote  wilderness  of  the  Oregon,  whose  success 
is  guaranteed  by  all  the  precedents  of  history ;  it  is  the  agency 

*  San  Francisco  Monitor,  quoted  in  Weekly  Register,  January  4,  1862. 


282  CHAPTER  IX. 

of  the  Catholic  Churc/i."*  But  the  conditions  of  her  warfare 
are  no  longer  the  same.  In  Paraguay,  the  enemy  whom  the 
missionaries  of  the  Cross  fought  and  vanquished,  rescuing  more 
than  a  million  victims  from  his  grasp,  had  no  such  army  of 
auxiliaries  as  are  now  doing  his  fatal  work  on  the  shores  of  the 
Pacific.  The  apostles  who  converted,  one  after  another,  the 
ferocious  hordes  of  South  America,  and  built  up  whole  nations 
of  peaceful,  civilized,  and  Christian  men,  where  before  their 
coming  only  bloodthirsty  savages  dwelt,  owed  their  astonishing 
success,  not  only  to  their  own  patient  valor  and  invincible 
charity,  but  to  the  oneness  of  the  faith  and  the  unalterable 
harmony  of  the  doctrine  which  they  carried  with  them.  Never 
during  two  centuries  was  the  half-awakened  pagan  of  the 
Southern  continent  embarrassed  by  the  divisions,  the  contradic 
tions,  or  the  worldly  lives  of  another  order  of  teachers,  who 
have  made  Christianity  hateful  to  his  brethren  in  so  many 
other  lands,  both  in  the  east  and  west.  And  thus  it  came  to 
pass,  as  we  have  seen,  that  even  the  brutal  Omagua  or  the  can 
nibal  Chiri guana  confessed,  at  first  with  reluctant  admiration, 
a  little  later  with  loving  reverence,  that  men  who  were  always 
pure,  meek,  and  just,  came  forth  from  God,  and  that  the  mes 
sage  which  they  brought,  since  it  never  varied,  must  have 
come  from  Him  also.  This  is  an  advantage  which  the  less  for 
tunate  tribes  on  the  other  side  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  are  now 
losing  forever.  Twenty  sects  will  soon  be  fighting  together 
before  their  eyes.  The  Anglicans  have  recently  entered  Co 
lumbia,  carrying  with  them  the  two  weapons  which  they  have 
used  in  other  lands, — unlimited  pecuniary  resources,  and  un 
dying  hatred  of  the  Church.  They  cannot  convert  the  heathen 
themselves,  but  they  can  prevent  others  doing  so.  This  is 
their  mission.  And  therefore  there  will  be  no  new  Paraguay 
to  the  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  "I  am  fully  impressed 
with  the  belief,"  is  the  official  report  of  Mr.  Nathaniel  Wyefth, 
"  that  these  Indians  must  become  extinct  under  the  operation 
of  existing  causes."f  There  are  indeed  laborers  in  that  distant 
field  who,  if  they  had  fair  play,  could  convert,  as  their  fathers 
did,  the  inhabitants  of  a  whole  continent ;  but  even  hope  hides 
her  face  in  the  presence  of  the  deadly  evils  which  Protestant 
ism  generates  in  every  pagan  land.  The  inevitable  fate  of  the 
Indian,  when  once  lie  comes  in  contact  with  its  emissaries,  is 
to  perish  from  the  face  of  the  earth.  We  are  about  to  consider 
the  last  and  most  afflicting  proof  of  this  fact  in  the  sorrowful 
history  of  Canada  and  the  United  States. 


*  The  Statesmen  of  America  in  1846,  by  S.  Mytton  Maury,  p.  309. 
f  Schoolcraft,  part  i.,  p.  226. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  283 


CANADA. 

The  first  European  settlements  in  Canada,  as  in  India,  were 
made  by  a  company  of  merchants ;  in  the  former  country  by 
French  Catholics,  in  the  latter  by  English  Protestants.  The 
usual  significant  contrast  marked  the  proceedings  of  the  two 
classes.  "  "The  stockholders  and  directors  of  the  East  India 
Company,"  says  an  English  writer,  "  never  gave  education  or 
religion  a  thought  in  their  earliest  enterprises ;  and  when  they 
had  attained  to  sovereign  power  in  the  East,  the  use  they  made 
of  it  was  to  prohibit  both  the  one  and  the  other  for  a  long 
period.  .  .  .  The  French  Company  for  trading  to  Canada  were, 
on  the  contrary,  so  impressed  with  the  duty  of  providing 
instruction  and  religion  for  the  Indians  among  whom  they 
were  going  to  place  settlers,  that  they  undertook" — and  then 
he  describes  at  length  the  noble  efforts  which  they  made,  and 
of  which  we  are  going  to  examine  the  results.* 

The  Canadian  Company  established  under  the  auspices  of 
Cardinal  Richelieu,  who  wisely  prohibited  the  admission  of 
Protestant  colonists  as  sure  to  be  fatal  to  the  welfare  of  the 
heathen,  bound  themselves  by  a  solemn  compact,  "to  maintain 
missionaries  for  the  conversion  of  the  savages. "f  The  pledge 
was  faithfully  observed,  in  the  same  religious  spirit  which  made 
Cham  plain  exclaim,  "  The  salvation  of  one  soul  is  of  more  value 
than  the  conquest  of  an  empire."  "The  principal  design  of 
French  settlements  in  Canada,"  says  Mr.  Alfred  Hawkins, — 
we  shall  quote,  as  usual,  only  Protestant  authorities, — "  was 
evidently  to  propagate  the  Christian  religion."  With  this 
object,  they  sent  the  agents  whom  the  Catholic  Church  always 
provides  for  such  labors,  and  it  is  in  the  following  words  that 
Mr.  Hawkins  attempts  to  describe  them. 

"The  early  history  of  Canada  teems  with  instances  of  the 
purest  religious  fortitude,  zeal,  and  heroism  ;  of  young  and 
delicate  females  relinquishing  the  comforts  of  civilization  to 
perform  the  most  menial  offices  towards  the  sick,  to  dispense 
at  once  the  blessings  of  medical  aid  to  the  body,  and  of  religions 
instruction  to  the  soul,  of  the  benighted  and  wondering  savage." 
He  alludes,  no  doubt,  though  he  does  not  name  them,  to  such 
ministers  of  consolation  as  Marguerite  Bourgeoys,  Marie  Barbier, 
Marguerite  Le  Moine,  Marie  Louise  Dorval,  and  a  hundred 
more,  "  renowned  for  their  piety,"  as  the  Swedish  traveller 

*  J.  S.  Buckingham,  Canada,  ch.  xv.,  p.  203 

f  Histoire  du  Canada  et  de  ses  Missions,  par  M.  1'Abbe  Brasseur  de  Bour- 
bourg,  tome  i.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  33  (1852). 


284:  CHAPTER   IX. 

Kalm  observed  in  the  last  century,*  and  of  whose  labors  Mi- 
Hawkins  thus  speaks:  "They  must  have  been  upheld  by  a 
strong  sense  of  duty.  But  for  such  impressions,  it  would  have 
been  beyond  human  nature  to  make  such  sacrifices  as  the 
Ilospitalieres  made,  in  taking  up  their  residence  in  New 
France.  Without  detracting  from  the  calm  philosophic  de 
meanor  of  religion  at  the  present  day," — it  is  a  Protestant  who 
speaks, — "  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  pious  persons  could  be 
found  willing  to  undergo  the  fatigues,  uncertainty,  and  per 
sonal  danger,  experienced  by  the  first  missionaries  of  both 
sexes  in  New  France.  Regardless  of  a  climate  to  whose  horrors 
they  were  entirely  unaccustomed,  of  penury  and  famine,  of 
danger,  of  death,  of  martyrdom  itself;  sustained  by  something 
more  than  human  fortitude,  by  Divine  patience,  they  succeeded 
at  length  in  establishing,  on  a  firm  foundation,  the  altars  and 
the  faith  of  their  country  and  their  God."f 

We  shall  see  them  presently  at  their  work,  but  a  preliminary 
consideration  claims  a  moment's  attention.  Before  we  examine 
their  labors,  it  is  necessary  to  show,  by  a  few  examples,  what 
kind  of  reception  the  new  teachers  met  with  from  the  Indians, 
before  the  latter  were  finally  estranged  by  actions  which  would 
have  embittered  a  more  forgiving  temper  than  theirs.  In  the 
South,  we  know  what  greeting  awaited  the  missionaries  of  the 
Cross ;  let  us  see  how  they  were  welcomed  in  the  North. 

"  The  untutored  Indians,"  says  Mr.  Hawkins,  "  treated  the 
first  Europeans  with  true  Christian  charity.  The  eiforts  of  the 
Jesuits  for  the  conversion  and  instruction  of  the  savages,  the 
universal  kindness  and  benevolence  of  the  missionaries  wherever 
they  ..succeeded  in  establishing  themselves,  perpetuated  this 
friendly  spirit  towards  the  French  "$ 

When  the  Ursulines  arrived  at  Quebec  in  1639,  "as  the 
youthful  heroines  stepped  on  shore,"  observes  Mr.  Bancroft, 
"  they  stooped  to  kiss  the  earth  which  they  adopted  as  their 
country,  and  were  ready,  in  case  of  need,  to  tinge  with  their 
blood.  The  governor,  with  the  little  garrison,  received  them 
at  the  water's  edge.  Hurons  and  Algonquins,  joining  in  the 
shouts,  filled  the  air  with  yells  of  joy.  Is  it  wonderful  that 
the  natives  were  touched  by  a  benevolence  which  their  poverty 
and  squalid  misery  could  not  appal  ?"§ 

A  little  later  Mr.  Bancroft  will  tell  us,  that  the  sympathy  of 
the  Indians  towards  the  French  never  waned,  and  that  as  the 

*  Travels  in  North  America,  Pinkerton,  vol.  xiii.,  p.  658. 
f  Picture  of  Quebec,  with  Historical  Recollections,  ch.  x.,  p.  177. 
i  Ibid.,  ch.  i.,  p.  5. 

§  History  of  the  United  States,  by  George  Bancroft,  vol.  ii.,  p.  787 ;  ed. 
Routledge. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  285 

latter  "  made  their  last  journey"  down  the  valley  of  the  Missis 
sippi,  after  the  English  conquest,  "they  received  on  every  side 
the  expressions  of  passionate  attachment  from  the  many  tribes 
of  red  men."  In  the  last  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when 
Chateaubriand  visited  them,  they  still  remembered  the  flag  of 
France,  and  "  a  white  handkerchief,"  says  theillustrious  traveller, 
"  is  sufficient  to  insure  you  a  safe  passage  through  hostile  tribes, 
and  to  procure  you  everywhere  lodging  and  hospitality."* 
Familiarity,  therefore,  had  only  confirmed  the  love  which  they 
had  inspired  on  their  first  arrival,  and  which  had  been  deepened 
by  an  intercourse  of  more  than  a  century.  It  is  not  easy  to 
exaggerate  the  importance  of  this  fact,  from  which  impartial 
writers  have  justly  concluded,  that  if  the  French  alone  had 
colonized  America,  conversion,  and  not  extermination,  would 
have  been  the  lot  of  its  native  tribes. 

But  a  welcome  as  sincere,  though  less  enthusiastic,  had 
greeted  the  Protestant  emissaries  from  England  and  Holland. 
They  confessed  it  themselves.  "To  us,"  said  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Cushman,  one  of  the  early  Protestant  missionaries,  "  the 
Indians  have  been  like  lambs;  so  kind,  so  submissive  and 
trusty,  as  a  man  may  truly  say,  many  Christians  are  not  so 
kind  or  sincere. '?f 

From  every  part  of  the  Eastern  States  came  the  same  reports. 
"The  Virginia  tribes,"  destined  to  be  repaid  with  merciless 
cruelty  and  ingratitude,  "literally  sustained  the  colony  planted 
at  Jamestown  with  supplies  of  Indian  corn  from  their  own 
fields.";}:  Of  those  in  New  England  an  Anglican  minister 
gave  this  account :  "  The  Indians  doe  generally  professe  to 
like  well  of  our  comming  and  planting  here."§  When  the 
English  first  arrived  at  Pokanoket,  where  they  afterwards 
massacred  men,  women,  and  helpless  children,  leaving  not  a  soul 
alive,  u  the  native  inhabitants  received  them  with  joy,  and 
entertained  them  in  their  best  manner."!  Even  the  so-called 
"  Pilgrim  Fathers,"  though  they  made  not  so  much  as  an 
attempt  to  convert  them,  reported  soon  after  their  arrival,  "We 
have  found  the  Indians  very  faithful  in  their  covenant  of  peace 
with  us,  very  loving,  and  ready  to  pleasure  us."lf 

In  the  Carolinas,  the  same  tacts  occurred,  though  we  learn 
from  a  public  petition  presented  to  "  the  Lords  Proprietors  of 

*  Genius  of  Christianity,  p.  561  ;  ed.  White. 
f  Schoolcraft,  part  i.,  p.  25. 
\  Id.,  part  ii.,  p.  29. 

§  New  England's  Plantations,  by  a  Reverend  Divine  now  there  resident,  p. 
13  (1630). 

I  History  of  the  Town  of  Plymouth,  by  James  Thacher,  M.D.,  p.  39  (1835). 
t  The  Pilgrim  Fathers,  by  George  B.  Cheever,  D.D.,  p.  73. 


286  CHAPTER  IX. 

Carolina,"  that  "  the  Indian  nations  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  said  province  had  been  so  inhumanly  treated,  that  they 
were  in  great  danger  of  revolting  to  the  French."*  Lastly,  in 
that  region  which  was  more  than  any  other  exclusively  English 
in  its  character,  laws,  and  traditions,  but  of  which  the  injured 
natives  learned  to  cherish  a  more  deadly  hostility  towards  their 
guests  than  in  any  other  part  of  America,  Mr.  Howison  relates, 
that  on  their  first  arrival,  "  a  friendly  interchange  of  courtesies 
took  place."  In  the  Isle  of  Roanoke,  where  the  English 
landed,  "  the  wife  of  the  chief  ran,  brought  them  into  her 
dwelling,  caused  their  clothes  to  be  dried,  and  their  feet  to 
be  bathed  in  warm  water  ;  and  provided  all  that  her  humble 
store  could  afford  of  venison,  fish,  fruits,  and  hominy  for  their 
comfort."  And  when  "  the  English,  in  unworthy  distrust, 
seized  their  arms,  this  noble  Indian  woman  obliged  her  fol 
lowers  to  break  their  arrows,  in  proof  of  their  harmless 
designs" — so  that  the  colonists  themselves  described  them,  in 
letters  to  England,  as  "  gentle  and  confiding  beings."t 

We  shall  see  hereafter  more  ample  and  affecting  illustrations 
of  the  same  truth,  and  these  may  suffice  for  the  present. 
Enough  has  been  said  to  indicate  the  contrast  which  we  shall 
presently  exhibit  in  all  its  details,  and  to  prepare  us  for  the 
future  consideration  of  these  two  impressive  facts, — that  while 
in  the  South^  where  the  preachers  of  the  Gospel  were  every 
where  received  with  clubs  and  arrows,  and  everywhere  dyed 
the  soil  with  their  blood,  they  converted  the  whole  continent ; 
in  the  North,  where  a  simple  and  confiding  hospitality  greeted 
the  emissaries  of  Protestantism,  they  have  only  created  a  desert. 
This  is  the  lesson  which  we  shall  learn  from  the  history  upon 
which  we  are  about  to  enter. 

It  was  not  at  the  same  date,  nor  in  the  same  spot,  that  the 
English  and  Dutch  began  to  arrive  in  America,  but  they 
brought  with  them  the  same  religious  ideas,  as  well  as  the 
same  motives  and  aims ;  and  as  their  sole  object  was  to  acquire 
territory  and  amass  wealth,  they  began  by  deliberately  bribing 
the  unconverted  tribes,  after  stimulating  them  with  strong 
liquors,  to  make  war  on  the  Christian  Indians  in  alliance  with 
France.  Even  Gookin,  a  fierce  adversary  of  the  Catholic 
religion,  who  vehemently  deplored  the  rapid  success  of  the 
early  missionaries  among  the  natives,  confessed,  that  "  this 
besetting  sin  of  drunkenness  could  not  be  charged  upon  the 
Indians  before  the  English  and  other  Christian  nations  came 

*  An  Histoi*ical  Account  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  South  Caro* 
Una,  by  Frederick  Ualcho,  M.D.,  p.  83. 

f  History  of  Virginia,  by  Robert  K.  Howison,  ch.  i.,  p.  53. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  287 

to  dwell  in  America."*  He  had  reason  to  say  it.  When  lien' 
drick  Hudson  was  received  by  the  Indian  tribe  with  whom  ho 
came  in  contact  on  landing,  his  first  act  was  to  intoxicate  them 
all  with  whiskey,  which  they  drank  with  repugnance,  and  only 
to  show,  by  an  admirable  courtesy,  their  confidence  in  their 
new  visitors.f  Monseigneur  de  Laval,  Bishop  of  Quebec,  who 
anticipated  the  terrible  effects  which  intemperance  would  pro 
duce  among  the  inhabitants  of  North  America,  denounced  the 
penalties  of  mortal  sin  upon  all  who  should  give  spirits  to  the 
Indians ;;{:  and  Mr.  Bancroft  will  tell  us  hereafter  that  the  admo 
nition  was  entirely  successful ;  but  the  English  and  Dutch  were 
not  subject  to  his  authority,  and  would  have  laughed  at  his 
censures.  And  the  natives  quickly  distinguished  the  different 
policy  of  their  Catholic  and  Protestant  guests.  "You  your 
selves,"  they  said  to  the  Dutch,  "  are  the  cause  of  this  evil  ; 
you  ought  not  to  craze  the  young  Indians  with  brandy.  Your 
own  people,  when  drunk,  light  with  knives,  and  do  foolish 
things ;  you  cannot  prevent  mischief,  till  you  cease  to  sell  strong 
drink  to  the  Indian. "§  To  the  English  they  addressed,  again 
and  again,  still  more  earnest  reproaches.  "It  is  the  English," 
they  were  accustomed  to  say,  "  who  corrupt  us."||  When  their 
chiefs  implored  that  the  traders  might  not  be  permitted  to 
bring  rum  into  their  villages,  the  English  officials,  incapable 
of  any  higher  ambition  than  commercial  success,  haughtily 
replied,  "  that  the  traders  could  not  be  prevented  from  going 
where  they  might  best  dispose  of  their  goods."*[  And  the 
natives  appreciated  the  brutality  which  did  not  even  affect  any 
disguise.  When  the  English  governor  of  Boston,  striving  to 
alienate  the  natives  from  the  French,  made  them  enticing  offers, 
on  condition  that  they  should  consent  to  admit"  an  English 
minister,"  the  answer  which  he  received  from  their  representa 
tives  is  perhaps  as  worthy  of  record  as  any  which  the  Indian 
annalists  have  preserved. 

"  Your  speech  astonishes  me,"  said  the  orator  whom  they 
deputed  to  speak  on  their  behalf.  "  I  am  amazed  at  your 
proposal ;  you  saw  me  long  before  the  French  did  ;  yet  neither 
you  nor  your  ministers  ever  spoke  to  me  of  prayer,  or  of  the 
Great  Spirit.  They  saw  my  furs,  and  my  beaver-skins,  and 
they  thought  of  them  only.  These  were  what  they  sought. 

*  Gookin's  Historical  Collections,  sec.  3,  p.  7  (1772). 

f  Schoolcraft,  part  ii.,  p.  24. 

\  Brasseur  de  Bourbourg,  tome  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  140.  Cf.  Relations  des  Jesuites 
dans  la  Nowcelle  France,  Annee  1671. 

£  Bancroft,  vol.  ii.,  p.  563. 

I  Henrion,  tome  ii.,  2de  partie,  p.  609. 

1  An  Inquiry  into  the  Causes  of  the  Alienation  of  the  Delaware  and  Shawanese 
Indians  from  the  British  Interest,  p.  32. 


288  CHAPTER   IX. 

When  I  brought  them  many,  I  was  their  great  friend.  That 
was  all.* 

"On  the  contrary,  one  day  I  lost  my  way  in  my  canoe,  and 
arrived  at  last  at  an  Algonquin  village  near  Quebec,  where  the 
Black  Robes  taught,  t  had  hardly  arrived  when  a  Black  Robe 
came  to  see  me.  I  was  loaded  with  peltries.  The  French 
Black  Robe  disdained  even  to  look  at  them.  He  spoke  to  me 
at  once  of  the  Great  Spirit,  of  Paradise,  of  Hell,  and  of  the 
Prayer  which  is  the  only  path  to  heaven.  I  heard  him  with 
pleasure.  I  stayed  long  in  the  village  to  listen  to  him.  At 
length  prayer  was  pleasing  to  me.  I  begged  him  to  instruct 
me.  I  asked  for  baptism,  and  I  received  it.  Then  I  returned 
to  my  own  country  and  told  what  had  happened  to  me.  They 
envied  my  happiness,  and  wished  to  share  it.  They  set  out  to 
find  the  Black  Robe,  and  asked  him  to  baptize  them.  This  is 
how  the  French  behaved  to  us.  If  when  you  first  saw  me,  you 
had  spoken  to  me  of  prayer,  I  should  have  had  the  misfortune 
to  learn  to  pray  like  you,  for  I  was  not  then  able  to  find  out  if 
your  prayer  was  good.  But  I  have  learned  the  prayer  of  the 
French.  I  love  it,  and  will  follow  it  till  the  earth  is  consumed 
and  comes  to  an  end.  Keep,  then,  your  money  and  your  min 
ister.  I  speak  to  you  no  more."f 

The  Swedish  traveller  Ivalm  appears  to  allude  to  this,  or  to 
some  similar  oration,  when  he  says,  to  the  great  displeasure  of 
his  editor,  Pinkerton,  '-The  English  do  not  pay  so  much  atten 
tion  to  a  work  of  so  much  consequence  as  the  French  do,  and  do 
not  send  such  able  men  to  instruct  the  Indians  as  they  ought 
to  do.":J:  Mr.  Talvi,  also,  an  American  author,  but  contrasting 
unpleasantly  with  the  candid  and  generous  writers  of  that 
country, — his  solitary  allusion  to  the  Catholic  missionaries 
being  a  vulgar  and  heartless  jest, — confesses,  that  "  the  Indians 
themselves,  now  that  the  Christianity  was  to  be  enforced  upon 
them  which  the  whites,"  he  means  the  English,  "  had  not 
taught  them  to  love,  asked,  why  the  latter  had  been  silent  about 
it  twenty-six  years,  when  the  matter  was  so  weighty  that  their 
salvation  depended  upon  it?"§  And  lastly,  Mr.  Halkett  forcibly 
observes,  "  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  Indians,  for  successive 
generations,  have  looked  upon  the  whites  as  a  fraudulent, 
unjust,  and  immoral  race,  preaching  what  they  did  not  practice. 

*  In  one  of  the  earliest  excursions  of  the  so-called  ''Pilgrim  Fathers"  into 
the  interior  of  Massachusetts,  the  same  sordid  temper  was  displayed.  "Some 
few  skins  we  got  there,"  is  the  characteristic  entry  in  the  Puritan  journal, 
"  but  not  many."  Of  any  attempt  to  convert  the  natives,  they  make  no  men 
tion.  The  Pilgrim  Fathers,  by  George  B.  Cheever,  D.D.,  p.  60. 

f  Lcttres  Edifiantcs  et  Curieuses,  tome  vi.,  p.  211. 

\  Pinkerton,  vol.  xiii.,  p.  588. 

§  Talvi's  History  of  America,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  xix.,  p.  78. 


MISSIONS  IN   AMERICA.  289 

We  need  not,  therefore,  be  surprised  to  find  that  the  Indians  do 
not  scruple,  even  at  the  present  day,  to  express,  through  their 
chiefs,  their  decided  reluctance  to  receive  the  instructions  of 
the  missionaries."* 

We  shall  see  presently  further  examples,  both  of  the  con 
trast  and  of  the  native  comments  upon  it ;  meanwhile,  let  us 
endeavor,  by  the  aid  of  Protestant  writers,  to  sketch  the  out 
lines  of  the  history  of  missions  in  Canada,  and  of  the  fortunes 
of  its  aboriginal  tribes. 

The  first  mission  to  the  Hurons  was  commenced  in  1615,  by 
one  whom  Mr.  Bancroft  calls  "  the  unambitious  Franciscan,  Le 
Caron,"  who,  "years  before  the  Pilgrims  anchored  within  Cape 
Cod,  had  penetrated  the  land  of  the  Mohawks,  had  passed  to 
the  north  into  the  hunting-grounds  of  the  Wyandots,  and,  bound 
by  his  vows  to  the  life  of  a  beggar,  had,  on  foot,  or  paddling  a 
bark  canoe,  gone  onward  and  still  onward,  taking  alms  of  the 
savages,  till  he  reached  the  rivers  of  Lake  Huron."  "It  was 
neither  commercial  enterprise,"  says  the  same  distinguished 
writer,  "  nor  royal  ambition  which  carried  the  power  of  France 
into  the  heart  of  our  continent ;  the  motive  was  .Religion ;" 
and  he  adds,  the  only  "policy"  which  inspired  the  French 
conquests  in  America  "  was  congenial  to  a  Church  which 
cherishes  every  member  of  the  human  race  without  regard  to 
lineage  or  skin."f 

By  the  year  1636,  fifteen  Fathers  of  the  Society  of  Jesus 
had  entered  Canada,  and  commenced  that  astonishing  warfare, 
celebrated  with  honest  enthusiasm  by  American  writers,  of 
which  the  fruits  were  long  ago  described  by  Father  Bressany, 
who  had  himself  no  mean  share  in  producing  them.  "  Whereas 
at  the  date  of  our  arrival,"  he  says, — writing  with  the  hand 
which  the  savages  had  cruelly  mutilated,  after  tormenting  him 
for  a  whole  month, — "  we  found  not  a  single  soul  possessing 
a  knowledge  of  the  true  God;  at  the  present  day,  in  spite  of 
persecution,  want,  famine,  war,  and  pestilence,  there  is  not  a 
single  family  which  does  not  count  some  Christians,  even  where 
all  the  members  have  not  yet  professed  the  faith.  Such  has 
been  the  work  of  twenty  years.";):  A  little  later,  as  is  well 
known,  the  whole  Huron  nation  was  Christian. 

It  was  in  June,  1611,  that  Fathers  Biart  and  Masse  arrived 
in  Canada ;  and  it  is  a  notable  fact  that  the  first  Jesuit  slain  in 
America,  in  1613,  fell  by  the  hands,  riot  of  the  savages,  but  of 

*  Notes  on  North  American  Indians,  by  John  Halkett,  Esq.,  cli.  xiii., 
p.  305. 

f  Vol.  ii.,  p.  783. 

i  Missicns  dans  la  Nomelle  France,  par  le  R.  P.  F.  G.  Bressany,  S.J.,  p.  109 ; 
ed.  Martin  (1852). 

VOL.  ir. 

20 


290  CHAPTER  IX. 

the  English.*  American  Protestants  have  described  the  labors 
of  these  first  missionaries  and  of  their  successors.  A  few  exam 
ples  of  the  language  which  they  employ  will  fitly  introduce 
the  history  which  we  are  briefly  to  trace. 

"  Long  before  the  consecration  of  Plymouth  Rock,"  observes 
Mr.  Bartlett,  an  official  of  the  United  States  government,  "the 
religion  of  Christ  had  been  made  known  to  the  Indians  of  New 
Mexico  ;  the  Rocky  Mountains  were  scaled  ;  and  the  Gila  and 
Colorado  rivers,  which  in  our  day  are  attracting  so  much  in 
terest  as  novelties,  were  passed  again  and  again.  The  broad 
continent,  too,  to  cross  which,  with  all  the  advantages  we 
possess,  requires  a  whole  season,  was  traversed  from  ocean  to 
ocean,  before  Raleigh,  or  Smith,  or  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  had 
touched  our  shores."* 

"  Within  thirteen  years,"  says  professor  Walters,  "  the  wil 
derness  of  the  Htirons  was  visited  by  sixty  missionaries, 
chiefly  Jesuits."  One  of  them,  Claude  Allouez,  discovered 
Lake  Superior.  Marquette,  of  whom  Mr.  Bancroft  says,  "  the 
people  of  the  West  will  yet  build  his  monument,"  "embarks 
with  his  beloved  companion  and  fellow-missionary,  Joliet,  upon 
the  Mississippi,  and  discovers  the  mouth  of  that  king  of  rivers, 
the  Missouri.  A  third  member  of  this  devoted  band,"  continues 
Mr.  Walters,  "  the  fearless  Menan,  settles  in  the  very  heart  of 
the  dreaded  Mohawk  country,  on  the  banks  of  the  river  which 
still  bears  that  name.  The  Onondagas  welcome  the  missionaries 
of  the  same  illustrious  society.  The  Oneidas  and  Senecas 
likewise  lend  an  attentive  ear  to  the  sweet  tidings  of  the  Gospel 
of  peace.  When  we  consider  that  these  missionaries  were 
established  in  the  midst  of  continual  dangers  and  life-wasting 
hardships,  that  many  of  the  Jesuits  sealed  with  their  blood  the 
truth  of  the  doctrines  they  preached,  and  the  sincerity  of  their 
love  for  these  indomitable  sons  of  the  American  forest,  we 
are  not  surprised  at  the  eloquent  encomiums  which  have  been 
passed  upon  their  dauntless  courage  and  their  more  than  human 
charity  and  zeal."  And  then  he  adds,  with  that  singular 
freedom  from  peevish  bigotry  and  irrational  prejudice  which  is 
the  characteristic  of  so  many  American  Protestants,  "  We  have 
sufficient  data  to  prove,  that  there  is  not  a  State  of  our  Union 
wherein  Catholicity  has  obtained  a  footing,  whose  history  does 
not  exhibit  many  interesting  traits  of  heroic  self-denial,  of 
dangers  overcome,  of  opposition  meekly  borne,  of  adversaries 
won  to  our  faith  by  the  Catholic  missionaries."^: 


*  Charlevoix,  Hixtoire  de  la  Nouxelle  France,  tome  i.,  liv.  iii.,  p.  211  (1744). 
f  Personal  Narrative  of  Explorations  in  Texas,  New  Mexico,  &c.,  by  John 
Russell  Bartlett,  U.  S.  Commissioner,  vol.  i.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  183  (1854). 
%  Rupp,  £Rst.  of  lid.  Denominations  of  U.  S.,  pp.  119-20. 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA.  291 

Mr.  "Washington  Irving  is  not  less  emphatic  in  his  generous 
admiration  of  the  same  great  company  of  apostles.  "  All  per 
sons,"  he  observes,  "  who  are  in  the  least  familiar  with  the 
early  history  of  the  West,  know  with  what  pure  and  untiring 
zeal  the  Catholic  missionaries  pursued  the  work  of  conversion 
among  the  savages.  Before  a  Virginian  had  crossed  the  Blue 
Ridge,  and  while  the  Connecticut  was  still  the  extreme  frontier 
of  New  England,  more  than  one  man  whose  youth  had  been 
passed  among  the  warm  valleys  of  Languedoc,  had  explored 
the  wilds  of  Wisconsin,  and  caused  the  hymn  of  Catholic 
praise  to  rise  from  the  prairies  of  Illinois.  The  Catholic  priest 
went  even  before  the  soldier  and  the  trader ;  from  lake  to  lake, 
from  river  to  river,  the  Jesuits  pressed  on  unresting,  and, 
with  a  power  which  no  other  Christians  have  exhibited,  won 
to  their  faith  the  warlike  Miamis  and  the  luxurious  Illinois."* 

Even  Protestant  ministers,  forgetting,  in  presence  of  so  much 
heroism  and  virtue,  their  conventional  phraseology,  which  they 
seem  to  have  agreed  to  suspend  over  the  graves  of  martyrs, 
have  caught  up  the  strain.  "  How  few  of  their  number,"  ex 
claims  the  Rev.  Mr.  Kip,  "  died  the  common  death  of  all  men  !" 
And  then,  after  enumerating  the  various  kinds  of  death  by 
which  they  finished  their  course,  he  continues  thus  :  "  But  did 
these  things  stop  the  progress  of  the  Jesuits?  The  sons  of 
Loyola  never  retreated.  The  mission  they  founded  in  a  tribe 
ended  only  with  the  extinction  of  the  tribe  itself.  Their  lives 
were  made  up  of  fearless  devotedness  and  heroic  self-sacrifice. 
Though  sorrowing  for  the  dead,  they  pressed  forward  at  once 
to  occupy  their  places,  and,  if  needs  be,  share  their  fate. 
'Nothing,'  wrote  Father  Le  Petit,  after  describing  the  mar 
tyrdom  of  two  of  his  brethren,  'nothing  has  happened  to  those 
two  excellent  missionaries  for  which  they  were  not  prepared 
when  they  devoted  themselves  to  the  Indian  missions.'  If  the 
flesh  trembled,  the  spirit  seemed  never  to  falter.  Each  one 
indeed  felt  that  he  was  '  baptized  for  the  dead,'  and  that  his 
own  blood,  poured  out  in  the  mighty  forests  of  the  West,  woiild 
bring  down  perhaps  greater  blessings  on  those  for  whom  he 
died,  than  he  would  win  for  them  by  the  labors  of  a  life.  He 
realized  that  he  was  'appointed  unto  death.'  ' Ibo,  et  non 
redibo?  were  the  prophetic  words  of  Father  Jogues,  when  for 
the  last  time  he  departed  for  the  Mohawks.  When  Lallemand 
was^  bound  to  the  stake,  and  for  seventeen  hours  his  excru 
ciating  agonies  were  prolonged,  his  words  of  encouragement  to 
his  brother  were,  '  Brother !  we  are  made  a  spectacle  unto  the 
world,  and  to  angels,  and  to  men.'  When  Marquette  was 

*  Ibid.,  Knickerbocker,  June,  1838. 


292  CHAPTER   IX. 

setting  out  for  the  sources  of  the  Mississippi,  and  the  friendly 
Indians  who  had  known  him  wished  to  turn  him  from  his  pur 
pose,  by  declaring  'Those  distant  nations  never  spare  the 
stranger,'  the  calm  reply  of  the  missionary  was,  'I  shall  gladly 
lay  down  my  life  for  the  salvation  of  souls.'  "  * 

Yet  these  candid  men,  who  could  thus  applaud  in  all  sincerity 
the  gifts  and  graces  which  they  recognize  in  the  missionaries  of 
the  Cross,  and  sometimes  confess  in  glowing  words  the  super 
natural  "constancy  and  patience  which,"  as  Mr.  Hawkins 
observes,  "  must  always  command  the  wonder  of  the  historian 
and  the  admiration  of  posterity,"  were  content  to  utter  barren 
applause !  Less  impressed  by  actions  which  they  often  attrib 
ute  only  to  enthusiasm,  or  peculiarity  of  temperament,  than 
the  more  discerning  Huron  or  Oneida,  who  knew  how  to  trace 
them  to  their  true  source,  and  who  quickly  comprehended  that 
only  the  "  Master  of  Life"  could  form  such  men  or  inspire  such 
actions,  these  Protestant  historians  derive  no  lessons  from  deeds 
which  they  record  without  comprehending,  and  of  which  their 
own  annals  contain  not  even  a  solitary  example,  and  deem 
their  task  fully  accomplished  when  they  have  elaborated  the 
unprofitable  panegyric  which  they  would  apply,  with  hardly 
the  variation  of  a  phrase,  to  the  prowess  of  a  Hannibal  or  the 
constancy  of  a  Regulus. 

One  advantage,  however,  we  derive  from  their  unsuspicious 
testimony,  that  it  renders  all  Catholic  evidence  superfluous; 
one  inference  we  draw  from  the  facts  which  they  proclaim,  that 
the  missionaries  would  have  done  in  the  Northern  what  they  did 
in  the  Southern  continent,  if  they  had  not  been  hindered  in  the 
former  by  a  fatal  impediment,  from  which  they  were  delivered 
in  the  latter.  If  Canada  and  the  United  States  had  belonged 
to  France  or  Spain,  instead  of  to  England  or  Holland,  no  one 
can  doubt,  with  the  history  of  Brazil  and  Paraguay  in  his 
hands,  that  the  inhabitants  of  both  would  have  remained  to 
this  day ;  and  that  the  triumphs  of  Anchieta  and  Vieyra,  of 
Solano  and  Baraza,  would  have  been  renewed  by  the  banks 
of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  Ohio,  in  the  forests  of  Michigan, 
the  prairies  of  Illinois,  and  the  savannahs  of  Florida  and 
Alabama. 

In  both  fields  of  apostolic  warfare,  the  agents  were  exactly 
the.>same.  "  Every  tradition,"  says  the  most  laborious  historian 
of  the  United  States,  "bears  testimony  to  their  worth.  They 
had  the  faults  of  ascetic  superstition," — they  shared  them  with 
St.  Paul  and  St.  Francis  Xavier, — "  but  the  horrors  of  a 

*  The  Early  Jesuit  Missions  in  North  America,  by  the  Rev.  Wm.  Ingraham 
Kip,  M.A. ;  preface,  p.  8. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  293 

Canadian  life  in  the  wilderness  were  resisted  by  an  invincible 
passive  courage,  and  a  deep  internal  tranquillity.  Away  from 
the  amenities  of  life,  away  from  the  opportunities  of  vain-glory, 
they  became  dead  to  the  world,  and  possessed  their  souls  in 
unalterable  peace.  The  history  of  their  labors  is  connected 
with  the  origin  of  every  celebrated  town  in  the  annals  of 
French  America ;  not  a  cape  was  turned,  not  a  river  entered, 
but  a  Jesuit  led  the  way."*  Let  us  see  through  what  perils 
and  sufferings  it  conducted  them. 

In  1641,  a  bark  canoe  left  the  Bay  of  Penetangushene,  for 
the  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  at  the  invitation  of  the  Chippewas,  who 
had  heard  of  the  messengers  of  the  Great  Spirit.  "  There,  at 
the  falls,  after  a  navigation  of  seventeen  days,  they  found  an 

assembly  of  two  thousand  souls Thus  did  the  religious 

zeal  of  the  French  bear  the  Cross  to  the  banks  of  the  St.  Mary 
and  the  confines  of  Lake  Superior,  and  look  wistfully  towards 
the  homes  of  the  Sioux  in  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  five 
years  before  the  New  England  Eliot  had  addressed  the  tribe  of 
Indians  that  dwelt  within  six  miles  of  Boston  harbor!"  Raym- 
bault  and  Jogues  travelled  in  that  canoe.  The  former  perished 
by  the  rigor  of  the  climate,  the  latter  was  destined  to  a  more 
tragical  fate.  Returning  by  the  Ottawa  and  the  St.  Lawrence 
to  Quebec,  with  "  the  great  warrior  Ahasistari"  and  a  party  of 
Christian  Hurons,  he  was  attacked  by  a  band  of  Mohawks. 
The  llurons  leaped  ashore,  to  hide  in  the  thick  forest.  "Jogues 
might  have  escaped  also  ;  but  there  were  with  him  converts 
who  had  not  yet  been  baptized  ;  and  when  did  a  Jesuit  mis 
sionary  seek  to  save  his  own  life,  at  what  he  believed  the  risk 
of  a  soul?  Ahasistari  had  gained  a  hiding-place;  observing 
Jogues  to  be  a  captive,  he  returned  to  him,  saying,  '  My 
brother,  I  made  oath  to  thee  that  I  would  share  thy  fortune, 
whether  death  or  life:  I  am  here  to  keep  my  vow.'"f 

Ahasistari  was  burned  alive.  He  had  been  baptized,  after 
due  trial  of  his  sincerity,  Mr.  Bancroft  relates,  "  and  enlisting 
a  troop  of  converts,  savages  like  himself,  '  Let  us  strive,'  he  ex 
claimed,  i  to  make  the  whdle  world  embrace  the  faith  in 
Jesus!'"  The  noble  barbarian  accepted  martyrdom  with  ex 
ultation,  and  sang  at  the  stake,  not  his  own  warlike  deeds,  but 
the  praises  of  Jesus  and  Mary.  Rene  Goupil,  a  novice,  in  the 
act  of  reciting  the  rosary  with  Father  Jogues,  was  killed  by 
the  blow  of  a  tomahawk,  "  lest  he  should  destroy  the  village  by 
his  charms."  Jogues  was  not  yet  to  die.  They  allowed  him, 
because  of  his  infirmities,  to  wander  about,  and  often  "he  wrote 

*  Bancroft,  ?'.,  783. 
1  Ibid,  791. 


294:  CHAPTER  ix. 

the  name  of  Jesns  on  the  bark  of  trees,  as  if  taking  possession 
of  these  countries  in  the  name  of  God."  His  torments  were 
long  and  horrible,  but  his  martyrdom  was  to  be  postponed  for 
four  years.  They  tore  out  his  hair  and  nails  by  the  roots,  cut 
off  his  lingers  by  one  joint  at  a  time,  and  only  suspended  his 
tortures  when  they  seemed  likely  to  deprive  him  of  life.  Yet 
he  never  wavered!  Uansomed  at  length  by  the  Dutch,  he  was 
released,  and  having  visited  Rome  to  obtain  a  dispensation  to 
say  Mass  in  spite  of  his  mutilated  hands,  the  Sovereign  Pontiff 
replied,  "  Indignum  esset  Christi  martyrem  Christi  non  bibere 
sangiiincm"  Having  obtained  the  permission  which  he  so 
licited,,  instead  of  seeking  the  repose  which  his  sufferings 
seemed  to  have  earned,  he  returned  immediately  to  America, 
and  being  recaptured  by  the  Iroquois  in  1646,  was  again 
cruelly  tortured,  and  finally  obtained,  on  the  18th  of  October, 
the  crown  of  martyrdom.*  His  actual  murderer  was  burned 
to  death  in  the  following  year  by  the  Algonquins,  "  but  the 
holy  martyr  seems  not  to  have  abandoned  him  in  his  last  hour," 
says  Charlevoix,  "  for  he  died  a  Christian." 

'On  the  4th  of  July,  1648,  Father  Antoine  Daniel,  while 
laboring  in  a  Huron  village,  was  surprised  in  his  turn  by  the 
Mohawks.  His  flock  was  cut  down  on  every  side,  while  he 
moved  amongst  them,  calm  and  fearless,  baptizing  the  cate 
chumens  and  absolving  the  Christians,  and  when  his  task  was 
done,  quietly  advanced  to  meet  his  murderers.  "Astonishment 
seized  the  barbarians,"  says  Mr.  Bancroft,  who  thus  describes 
the  closing  scene:  "At  length,  drawing  near,  they  discharge 
at  him  a  flight  of  arrows.  All  gashed  and  rent  by  wounds,  he 
still  continued  to  speak  with  surprising  energy,  now  inspiring 
fear  of  the  Divine  anger,  and  again,  in  gentle  tones,  yet  of  more 
piercing  power  than  the  whoops  of  the  savages,  breathing  the 
affectionate  messages  of  mercy  and  grace."  At  last  they  slew 
him,  "  the  name  of  Jesus  on  his  lips."  The  whole  Huron  na 
tion  mourned  him,  and  some  of  them  related,  as  Mr.  Bancroft 
notices,  "  that  he  appeared  twice  after  his  death,  youthfully 
radiant  in  the  sweetest  form  of  celestial  glory."f 

On  the  16th  and  17th  of  March,  1649,  Fathers  Jean  de 
Brebeuf  and  Gabriel  Lallemand,  both  apostles  of  the  Hurons, 
passed  to  their  eternal  reward  through  one  of  the  most  appalling 
trials  which  man  ever  inflicted  or  endured.  The  first  had  been 
twenty  years  in  the  mission,  and  had  converted  more  than 
seven  thousand  Indians  ;  the  last  was  weak  and  delicate,  and 
had  only  just  commenced  the  apostolic  career.  Among  his 

*  Charlevoix,  tome  i.,  liv.  vi.,  p.  390.  "  Verissimum  patientiae  et  in  proximuin 
cliaritatis  portentum."    Tanuer,  Vita  et  Mon.  Martyr.  Soc.  Jesu,  p.  510. 
f  Bancroft,  ii.,  790. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  295 

private  papers  was  found,  after  his  death,  a  writing  in  which 
he  devoted  himself  to  martyrdom.  "  Oh,  my  Jpsus,  sole  object 
of  my  love,"  he  had  written,  "  it  is  necessary  that  Thy  blood, 
shed  for  the  savages  as  well  as  for  us,  should  be  efficaciously 
applied  to  their  salvation.  It  is  on  this  account  that  I  desire 
to  co-operate  with  Thy  grace,  and  to  immolate  myself  for 
Thee."* 

They  were  both  captured  by  the  Iroquois,  allies  of  the 
English,  and  implacable  enemies  of  the  Hurons,  after  a  battle 
in  which  every  combatant  of  the  latter  tribe  was  either  killed 
or  taken.  Occupied  during  the  conflict  in  baptizing  the  dying, 
and  in  exhorting  all  u  to  have  God  alone  in  view,"  they  only 
ceased  to  teach  and  console  when  there  was  no  longer  a  Huron 
left  to  need  their  ministry.  De  Brebeuf  was  first  led  to  the 
stake,  and  as  he  continued  to  proclaim  with  a  loud  voice  the 
faith  for  which  he  was  about  to  die,  "  the  savages,  unable  to 
silence  him,  cut  off  his  lower  lip  and  his  nose,  applied  burning 
torches  to  all  parts  of  his  body,  burned  his  gums,  and  at 
length,''  for  he  still  continued  to  admonish  them,  "plunged  a 
red  hot  iron  into  his  throat."  And  then  they  brought  forth 
his  young  companion,  stripped  him  naked,  and  covered  him 
with  sheets  of  bark  that  he  might  be  slowly  roasted.  It  was 
at  this  moment,  when  he  saw  the  horrible  condition  of  his 
venerable  friend,  that  he  cried  out,  "  We  are  made  a  spectacle 
to  the  world,  to  angels,  and  to  men !"  De  Brebeuf  replied  to 
him  by  a  gentle  inclination  of  the  head,  when  Lallemand, 
whose  fetters  had  been  consumed  by  the  h're,  ran  to  him,  cast 
himself  at  his  feet,  and  respectfully  kissed  his  wounds.  Shortly 
after  De  Brebeuf  was  scalped,  while  still  living,  and  then 
Lallemand's  agony  began.  They  poured  boiling  water  on  his 
head,  in  mockery  of  baptism  ;  they  plucked  out  one  of  his  eyes, 
and  placed  a  burning  coal  in  the  empty  socket ;  the  smoke  from 
the  burning  sheets  of  bark  filled  his  mouth  so  that  he  could  no 
longer  speak,  but  as  the  flame  had  again  burst  his  bonds,  he 
lifted  up  his  hands  to  heaven.  Finally,  after  an  agony  which 
was  skilfully  protracted  during  seventeen  hours,  the  victim  was 
immolated,  and  the  sacrifice  complete.  "  The  lives  of  both," 
says  Mr.  Bancroft,  "had  been  a  continual  heroism;  their 
deaths  were  the  astonishment  of  their  executioners."  The 
Protestant  historian  omits  to  add  the  impressive  fact,  that 
many  of  their  murderers  were  afterwards  converted,  and  that 
it  was  from  their  voluntary  account  that  the  details  of  their 
martyrdom  were  collected. f 

*  Bressany,  p.  258. 

f  Charlevoix,  tome  ii.,  liv.  vii.,  p.  18  ;  Bressany,  eh.  v.,  p.  251. 


296  CHAPTER   IX. 

"  It  may  be  asked,"  adds  Mr.  Bancroft,  "  if  these  massacres 
quenched  enthusiasm  ?  I  answer,  that  the  Jesuits  never 
receded  one  foot."  Father  Bressany,  who  wrote  his  own 
history  with  his  mutilated  hand,  has  described,  as  if  speaking 
of  another,  the  tortures  which  made  him  say,  "  I  did  not  think 
it  possible  for  man  to  survive  such  an  ordeal."  Yet  he 
lived  to  return  to  Europe,  where  he  had  professed  literature, 
philosophy,  and  mathematics,  before  he  devoted  himself  to  the 
conversion  of  the  heathen ;  and  it  was  a  common  remark  of 
those  who  heard  him  preach  in  the  churches  of  Italy,  "  lie 
has  no  need  to  say,  '  I  bear  in  my  body  the  marks  of  the  Lord 
Jesus.' "  Even  the  Indians  used  to  say  to  him,  "  Show  us 
your  wounds,  they  speak  to  us  of  Him  for  whom  you  received 
them." 

In  the  same  year  which  saw  the  death  of  De  Brebeuf  and 
Lallemand,  Father  Gamier  was  also  martyred.  He  had  already 
been  pierced  through  the  breast  and  stomach,  and  was  dragging 
himself  along  the  ground  in  order  to  give  absolution  to  a  dying 
Huron,  when  he  was  cut  in  two  by  a  hatchet.  On  the  18th  of 
December,  still  in  the  same  year,  Father  Noel  Chabanel  met  a 
similar  fate.  Leonard  Garreau,  Nicolas  Viel,  and  "  the  fearless 
Rene  Mesnard  ;"  Buteux  and  Poncet ;  Le  Maistre  and  Vignal ; 
Souel  and  Constantine ;  Du  Poisson  and  Doutreleau  ;  all  gave 
their  lives  for  the  faith,  after  toils  which  only  Divine  charity 
could  inspire  or  support.  Besides  these,  the  historian  of  the 
United  States,  as  if  a  moment  of  transient  enthusiasm  made  him 
almost  a  partaker  in  their  faith,  celebrates  Pinet,  "  who  became 
the  founder  of  Cahokia,  preaching  with  such  success  that  his 
chapel  could  not  contain  the  multitude  that  thronged  to  him ;" 
and  Binrietau,  "  who  left  his  mission  among  the  Abenakis  to 
die  on  the  upland  plains  of  the  Mississippi ;"  and  Gabriel 
Marest,  "  who,  after  chanting  an  ave  to  the  cross  among  the 
icebergs  of  Hudson's  Bay,"  was  captured  by  the  English,  but 
found  his  way  back  to  America  ;  and  Mermet,  "  whose  gentle 
virtues  and  fervid  eloquence  made  him  the  soul  of  the  mission 
at  Kaskaskia,"  far  away  in  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi ;  and 
Marquette,  "still  honored  in  the  West;"  and  Guignes,  who 
had  travelled  six  hundred  leagues  from  Quebec  to  the  territory 
of  the  Sioux,  and  when  on  the  point  of  being  burned  alive  by 
the  Kickapoos,  was  saved  by  an  aged  chief  who  adopted  him  as 
his  son  ;*  and  Pierron,  of  whom  the  Mohawks  said, "  this  French 
man  has  changed  our  hearts  and  souls,  his  desires  and  thoughts 
are  ours:"  and  Du  Jan  nay,  whose  memory  is  still  preserved  at 
Detroit,  and  his  name  dear  to  the  Ottawa's ;  and  Milet,  whom 

*  Lettrt*  Edif  antes,  tome  vii.,  p.  67. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  297 

the  Onondagas  called  "  the  one  who  looks  up  to  heaven  ;"  and 
Etienne  de  Carheil,  "  revered  for  his  genius  as  well  as  for  his 
zeal,"  and  "  who  spoke  the  dialects  of  the  Huron-Iroquois 
tribes  with  as  much  facility  and  elegance  as  though  they  had 
been  his  mother  tongue ;"  and  Dmillettes,  whom  even  the 
English,  after  plotting  his  death,  extolled  for  his  incomparable 
charity  ;*  and  Ficquet,  who  for  more  than  thirty  years  labored 
amongst  the  savages,  and  in  three  years  gathered  round  him 
three  hundred  and  ninety-six  heads  of  families, — of  whom  the 
Marquis  du  Quesne  used  to  say,  "The  Abbe  Ficquet  is  worth 
more  than  ten  regiments," — whom  de  Bougainville  eulogized 
as  "  theologian,  orator,  and  poet," — and  whom  Amherst  tried 
to  conciliate,  after  the  conquest  of  Quebec,  though  the  English 
had  often  set  a  price  on  his  head.f 

To  these  let  us  add  one  whom  Mr.  Bancroft  calls  "the  faithful 
Senat,"  who,  "  when  D'Artaguette  lay  weltering  in  his  blood, 
might  have  fled,"  but  "  remained  to  receive  the  last  sigh  of  the 
wounded,  regardless  of  danger,  mindful  only  of  duty  ;"  and 
Lamberville,  who,  as  an  English  writer  observes,  captivated 
even  the  hereditary  enemies  of  the  Christian  Huron s,  and  "  so 
won  the  confidence  of  the  Iroquois  by  his  unaffected  piety,  his 
constant  kindness,  and  his  skill  in  healing  their  differences  and 
their  bodily  ailments,"  that  even  these  irreclaimable  savages, 
hired  by  the  English  to  fight  against  their  Christian  brothers, 
"  looked  upon  him  as  a  father  and  a  friend  ;";£  and  Marest, 
who,  after  travelling  many  weeks  to  the  distant  home  of  the 
Potawattomies,  "  carrying  with  him  only  a  crucifix  and  a 
breviary,"  found  himself  clasped  in  the  arms  of  a  brother  whom 
he  had  not  seen  for  fifteen  years,  but  who,  in  the  interval,  had 
become  a  Jesuit  like  himself,  and  whom  he  was  destined  to 
meet  for  the  first  time  in  an  Indian  cabin  more  than  two  thou 
sand  miles  from  the  sea. 

Lastly,  let  us  allude  to,  though  we  cannot  name  them,  that 
multitude  of  generous  apostles  who,  like  Anne  de  JSToue,  tasted 
the  martyrium  sine  sanguine,  drowned,  starved,  or  frozen  to 
death,  and  "whose  fate,"  as  Mr.  Ilalkett  observes,  "was  not 
ascertained,  and  who  were  never  afterwards  heard  of."§ 

Yet  their  labor  was  not  in  vain,  and  its  fruits  survive  even 
to  this  hour,  in  spite  of  the  multiplied  disasters  of  every  kind 
which  have  concurred  to  blight  them.  "  If  any  Indians  still 
remain  in  Canada,"  says  M.  Brasseur  de  Bourbourg,  "  it  is  to 

*  Relations  des  Jesuites  dans  la  Nouxelle  France,  Annee  1652  ;  ch.  viii.,  tomo 
li.,  p.  29. 

f  Bancroft,  ii.,  838,  916,  964  ;  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tomo  xxvi.,  pp.  18-63. 
\  Howitt,  Colonization  and  Christianity,  ch.  xx.,  p.  821. 
^  Notes  on  N.  American  Indians,  ch.  ii.,  p.  43. 


298  CHAPTER   IX. 

the  Catholic  Church  alone  that  their  preservation  is  due." 
We  shall  see  presently  how  much  reason  he  had  to  say  it. 
The  whole  Huron  nation  was  converted,  and  Protestant 
writers  will  tell  us  that  its  survivors  still  do  honor  to  their 
apostolic  teachers.  Abenakis  and  Algonquins,  Ottawas  arid 
Onondagas,  received  the  message  of  peace,  "  and  in  the  heart 
of  the  State  of  New  York  the  solemn  services  of  the  Roman 
Church  were  chanted  as  securely  as  in  any  part  of  Christen 
dom."*  The  Cayugas  and  Oneidas,  the  Senecas  and  Miamis, 
welcomed  the  preachers  of  the  Gospel ;  and  a  single  missionary, 
Claude  Allouez,  u  lighted  the  torch  of  faith  for  more  than 
twenty  different  nations."f  "  To  what  inclemencies,  from 
nature  and  from  man,"  says  the  Protestant  historian,  "  was 
each  missionary  among  the  barbarians  exposed  !  He  defies 
the  severity  of  climate,  wading  through  water,  or  through 
snows,  without  the  comfort  of  fire ;  having  no  bread  but 
pounded  maize,  and  often  no  food  but  the  unwholesome  moss 
from  the  rocks ;  laboring  incessantly  ;  exposed  to  live,  as  it 
wrere,  without  nourishment,  to  sleep  without  a  resting-place, — • 
to  carry  his  life  in  his  hand,  or  rather  daily,  and  oftener  than 
every  day,  to  hold  it  up  as  a  target,  expecting  captivity,  death 
from  the  tomahawk,  tortures,  fire."  And  yet,  as  he  judiciously 
adds,  these  heroes  had  abundant  consolation.  "  How  often 
was  the  pillow  of  stones  like  that  where  Jacob  felt  the  presence 
of  God !  How  often  did  the  ancient  oak  seem  like  the  tree 
of  Mamre,  beneath  which  Abraham  broke  bread  with  angels!'':): 
One  reflection  only  he  fails  to  make, — that  the  doctrine  which 
such  men  delivered  in  every  land  was  the  same  which  St.  Paul 
or  St.  Philip  preached,  by  the  same  method,  and  which  they 
also  illustrated  by  the  same  actions,  and  sealed  by  the  same 
death. 

The  men  who  preached  the  faith  in  Canada  continued  to 
the  end  such  as  its  first  apostles  had  been.  One  after  another 
they  displayed  the  same  supernatural  character,  and  even  their 
enemies  acknowledged  in  them  the  marks  of  the  same  apostolic 
vocation.  But  they  were  now  to  encounter  that  peculiar 
obstacle,  unknown,  as  we  have  several  times  observed,  in  the 
age  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  and  which  has  proved  fatal  in 
so  many  lands  to  the  salvation  of  the  heathen.  They  were 
rapidly  converting  one  tribe  after  another,  as  their  brethren  had 
done  in  the  South,  and  would  not  have  rested  from  their  labor 
till  they  had  converted  them  all ;  but  a  price  was  now  to  be 
set  on  their  heads,  by  men  calling  themselves  Christians,  and 

*  Bancroft,  ii.,  799. 
f  Id.,  804. 
\  Id,  806. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  299 

representing  the  government  and  the  religion  of  England ! 
"In  1700,  the  legislature  of  New  York  made  a  law  for  hang 
ing  every  Popish  priest  that  should  come  voluntarily  into  the 
province;"*  and  Lord  Bellamont,  the  English  governor,  de 
clared  his  intention  to  execute  the  law  immediately  upon 
every  Jesuit  whom  he  could  seize. f  They  had  tried  every 
other  plan  ;  they  had  surpassed  even  the  Mohawk,  whom  they 
made  their  ally  in  hunting  down  the  missionaries  of  the  Cross ; 
and  now  they  announced  to  the  world,  by  a  solemn  legislative 
enactment,  that  they  were  prepared  to  murder  every  Catholic 
priest,  upon  whom  they  could  lay  hands.  Their  success,  it 
must  be  admitted,  was  complete ;  but  in  accomplishing  it,  they 
not  only  destroyed  Christianity  and  those  who  alone  could 
propagate  it,  but  extirpated  by  the  same  fatal  policy  the  nations 
whom  they  could  neither  convert  themselves,  nor  would  suffer 
others  to  convert. 

The  conduct  of  Lord  Bellamont,  who  only  executed  faith 
fully  the  instructions  of  his  masters,  was  thus  noticed  by  Mr. 
Talbot,  an  Anglican  missionary  in  America,  in  1702.  After 
expressing  generally  his  reluctant  admiration  of  the  "zealous 
and  diligent  papists,"  the  Protestant  preacher  continued  as 
follows.  "  'Tis  wonderfully  acted,  ventured,  and  suffered  upon 
that  design  ;  they  have  indeed  become  all  things,  and  even 
turned  Indians,  as  it  were,  to  gain  them.  One  of  their  priests 
lived  half  a  year  in  their  wigwams  without  a  shirt;  and  when 
he  petitioned  my  Lord  Bellamont  for  a  couple,  he  was  not  only 
denied  hut  banished;  whereas  one  of  ours,  in  discourse  with 
my  Lord  of  London,  said,  Who  did  his  Lordship  think  would 
come  hither  that  had  a  dozen  shirts?":): 

The  Dutch,  though  they  twice  humanely  ransomed  a  Catholic 
missionary,  were  not  in  other  respects  superior  to  their  co 
religionists  of  England.  As  early  as  1657,  they  were  established 
at  Orange,  now  the  city  of  Albany,  where  they  lived  after  a 
fashion  which  provoked  such  comments  as  the  following.  Of 
one  preacher,  who  was  sent  out  by  the  "  Lutheran  Consistory 
at  Amsterdam,"  his  Dutch  Calvinist  colleagues  gave  the  follow 
ing  graphic  account.  "  This  Lutheran  parson  is  a  man  of  a 
godless  and  scandalous  life,  a  rolling,  rollicking,  unseemly  carl, 
who  is  more  inclined  to  look  into  the  wine-can,  than  to  pore 
over  the  Bible,  and  would  rather  drink  a  can  of  brandy  for  two 
hours  than  preach  one."  He  and  his  flock  were  accustomed, 
"  when  full  of  brandy,  to  beat  each  other's  heads  black  and 

*  Bancroft,  ii.,  835. 

f  Brasseur  de  Bourbourg,  tome  i.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  216. 

j  Missions  of  the  Church  of  England  in  the  JV.  American  Colonies,  by  Earnest 
Hawkins,  B.D.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  33  (1845). 


300  CHAPTER   IX. 

blue,"  their  pastor  being  "  excessively  inclined  to  fight  whom 
soever  he  meets."*  The  disciples  of  the  Dutch  clergy  generally 
are  thus  described,  in  1710,  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Barclay,  an 
Episcopalian  minister,  in  an  official  report  on  the  "  State  of  the 
Church  in  Albany."  "  There  are  about  thirty  communicants 
of  the  Dutch  Church,  but  so  ignorant  and  scandalous,  that  they 
can  scarce  be  reputed  Christians."f  It  is  fair,  however,  to 
add,  that  we  shall  hear  exactly  the  same  account,  by  their  own 
friends,  of  the  Episcopalian  clergy  and  their  flocks.  It  was 
probably  their  experience  of  such  teachers  and  such  congrega 
tions  which  made  the  neighboring  Indian  tribes  reason  as 
follows.  "  What  a  difference  between  the  Christians  and  the 
Dutch !  They  say  that  they  all  acknowledge  the  same  God, 
but  how  unlike  are  they  in  their  conduct !  When  we  go  to 
visit  the  French,  we  always  come  back  with  a  desire  to  pray. 
At  Albany  they  never  say  any  thing  to  us  about  prayer.  We 
do  not  even  know  whether  they  pray  there  at  all.";]: 

Yet  at  this  very  date,  the  Indians  collected  in  the  island  of 
Montreal  had  been  so  effectually  converted  to  God, — and  in 
many  of  the  fixed  missions,  notably  at  the  Sault  Ste.  Marie, 
the  same  thing  was  true, — that  European  visitors  could  report, 
"  The  whole  island  of  Montreal  resembles  a  religious  com 
munity;"!  or?  as  tiie  Bishop  of  Quebec  observed  in  1688, 
"  You  would  take  this  village  for  a  monastery,  so  extraordinary 
is  their  daily  life."||  At  Kaskaskia,  far  away  in  the  valle}^  of 
the  Mississippi,  Mr.  Bancroft  says,  "  the  success  of  the  mission 
\vas  such,  that  marriages  of  the  French  emigrants  were  some 
times  solemnized  with  the  daughters  of  the  Illinois  according  to 
the  rites  of  the  Catholic  Church ;"  while  the  Indians,  he  allows, 
were  so  thoroughly  converted,  that  not  only  did  they  all  assemble 
"  at  early  dawn"  to  assist  at  Mass,  and  again  "  at  evening  for 
instruction,  for  prayer,  and  to  chant  the  hymns  of  the  Church," 
but,  as  the  Protestant  historian  adds,  "every  convert  confessed 
once  in  a  fortnight,"  and  "  at  the  close  of  the  day,  parties  wTould 
meet  in  the  cabins  to  recite  the  rosary,  in  alternate  choirs,  and 
sing  psalms  into  the  night. "T  By  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  as  Mr.  Owen  observes,  "the  total  of  the  Confederacy 
(Six  Nations)  who  professed  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  was 
computed  to  exceed  eight  thousand.'***  And  this  was  only  one 

*  Documentary  History  of  New  York,  vol  iii..  p.  105. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  898 

i  Charlevoix,  tome  ii.,  liv.  viii.,  p.  80. 

§  Ibid.,  liv.  ix.,  p.  163. 

I  Lett  res  Edifiantes,  tome  vi.,  p,  126. 

1  Bancroft,  ii.,  839. 

**  History  of  the  Bible  Society,  vol.  i.,  p.  128. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  301 

example  of  their  success.  "  The  whole  Abenakis  nation,"  the 
martyr  Rasles  could  say  in  172-2,  "  is  Christian,  and  full  of  zeal 
for  their  religion."  "  Among  the  Five  Nations,"  as  a  bitter 
Puritan  lamented,  "  there  is  a  great  number  of  French  Jesuits, 
and  the  chief  of  the  poor  silly  Indians  do  entirely  confide  in 
them."*  As  early  as  1670,  Roger  Williams,  a  famous  Prot 
estant  preacher,  confessed  to  Mason,  in  the  frightful  language 
of  his  class,  that  "  the  French  and  Romish  Jesuits,  the  fire 
brands  of  the  world  for  their  god-belly  sake,  are  kindling  at 
our  back  in  this  country  their  hellish  fires,  with  all  the  natives 
of  this  country  T\  So  that  Judge  Hall  could  truly  observe, 
"  The  French  Catholics,  at  a  very  early  period,  were  remark 
ably  successful  in  gaining  converts,  and  conciliating  the  confi 
dence  and  aifection  of  the  tribes ;"  while,  as  he  adds,  with  singu 
lar  candor,  "  Protestants,  similarly  situated,  were  bloodthirsty 
and  rapacious.":); 

In  truth,  as  respects  the  fruits  of  their  labors,  it  was  the  his 
tory  of  Brazil  and  Peru  in  another  clime.  In  many  a  mission, 
from  the  Mohawk  to  the  Genesee,  and  from  the  Hudson  to  the 
Mississippi,  were  gathered  Christian  Indians,  who,  as  one 
whom  Mr.  Bancroft  styles  "  the  honest  Charlevoix"  has  re 
corded,  "  would  have  done  honor  to  the  first  ages  of  Chris 
tianity."  "I  give  my  life  willingly,"  said  Tegananokoa,  a 
native  martyr,  "  for  a  God  who  shed  all  His  blood  for  me." 
When  his  fingers  had  been  cut  off  by  the  heathen,  because  he 
lifted  them  up  in  prayer,  and  he  was  scoffingly  bidden  to  con 
tinue  his*  supplications,  "  Yes,"  he  replied,  u  I  will  pray,"  and 
then  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  with  his  mutilated  hand.  But 
men  who  could  defy  all  the  arts  of  the  pagan,  and  who  were 
once  more  converting  a  continent,  wrere  vanquished  by  the 
more  subtle  wickedness  of  so-called  Christians.  The  Iroquois, 
a  nation  remarkable  for  their  natural  gifts,  so  that  even  Dr. 
Timothy  Dwight  compares  them  with  "  the  Greeks  and  Ro 
mans,"  appear  to  have  become  perfectly  demoniacal  after  inter 
course  with  their  white  allies,  by  whom  they  were  paid  to 
fight  against  the  French.  They  were,  says  a  Protestant  ethnol 
ogist,  '•  a  people  advancing  in  many  ways  towards  the  full" 
initiation  of  a  self-originated  civilization,  when  the  intrusion  of 
Europeans  abruptly  arrested  its  progress,  and  brought  them  in 
contact  with  the  elements  of  a  foreign  civilization  pregnant 
only  with  the  sources  of  their  degradation  and  final  destruc 
tion.'^  "  I  have  often,"  says  Charlevoix,  "  asked  some  of  our 

*  Discoveries  of  the  English  in  America,  Pinkerton,  vol.  xii.,  p.  410. 
f  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  1st  series,  vol.  i.,  p.  283. 
J  Rupp,  Hist.  Eel.  Denom.,  p.  163. 
§  Dr.  Wilson,  Prehistoric  Man,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  235. 


302  CHAPTER   IX. 

Fathers,  with  many  of  whom  who  labored  longest  in  this  part 
of  the  Lord's  vineyard  I  had  the  happiness  of  living,  what  had 
hindered  the  seed  of  the  Word  from  taking  root  amongst  a 
people  whose  intelligence,  good  sense,  and  noble  feelings  they 
so  much  praised.  All  gave  me  the  same  reply, — that  the  chief 
cause  of  this  evil  was  the  neighbor  hood  of  the  English  and 
Dutch,  whose  want  of  piety,  though  professing  to  be  Christians, 
had  induced  these  savages  to  regard  Christianity  as  a  mere  re 
ligion  of  caprice — comme  une  religion  arbitraire" 

But  we  have  not  been  accustomed  in  these  volumes  to  rely 
upon  Catholic  evidence,  however  weighty,  and  the  testimony 
of  Charlevoix,  as  we  shall  see  immediately,  is  amply  confirmed 
from  other  sources.  On  the  10th  of  August,  1654,  at  a  general 
council  of  all  the  Iroquois  nations,  as  we  read  in  the  Documen 
tary  History  of  New  York  they  solemnly  invited  the  Catholic 
missionaries,  in  a  moment  of  freedom  from  English  influence, 
to  take  up  their  abode  amongst  them.  "  It  is  you"  they  said, 
"  who  ought  to  possess  our  hearts."  And  it  was  from  Chris 
tian  Huron  captives,  the  very  race  whom  they  had  most  hated 
and  injured,  that  they  had  learned  "the  great  value  of  the 
Faith,  and  to  prize  without  being  acquainted  with  it."  They 
had  seen  the  Catholic  Indian  suffer,  and  they  had  seen  him 
die,  and  the  lesson  had  not  been  lost  upon  them.  ISTor  can  it 
be  reasonably  doubted  that,  but  for  the  counsels  and  example 
of  the  English,  these  noble  tribes  would  all  have  been  won  to 
Christianity  and  civilization.  It  was  not  till  they  had  learned 
to  despise  the  religion  of  their  Saxon  allies,  and  to  inritate  their 
vices,  that  they  closed  their  hearts  forever  against  the  message 
of  peace.  It  has  been  the  mission  of  the  English,  in  all  lands, 
to  make  the  conversion  of  the  heathen  impossible.  Here  are 
fresh  examples,  recorded  by  themselves,  of  their  mode  of  pro 
ceeding  in  the  Atlantic  provinces  of  America.  * 

In  1687,  Governor  Dongan  of  New  York,  after  reporting 
officially  to  the  Lords  of  the  Committee  of  Trade,  that  the 
Iroquois  were  "a  bulwark  between  us  and  the  French,"  added 
these  characteristic  words,  "/  suffer  no  Christians  to  converse 
with  them  anywhere  but  at  Albany,  and  that  not  without  my 
licence."  It  was  more  advantageous  to  English  interests  that 
they  should  continue  pagans,  because  if  they  embraced  Chris 
tianity  they  were  sure  to  be  Catholics.  He  even  avowed,  with 
crude  brutality,  the  odious  treachery  which  he  knew  the  English 
government  would  approve  and  reward.  "  The  French  Fathers 
have  converted  many  of  them, — Mohawks,  Senecas,  Cayugas, 
Oneidas,  and  Onondagas, — to  the  Christian  Faith,  and  doe  their 
utmost  to  draw  them  to  Canada,  to  which  place  there  are 
already  six  or  seven  hundred  retired,  and  more  like  to  doe,  to 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  303 

the  great  prejudice  of  this  government,  if  not  prevented;"  and 
then  he  tells  his  masters  how  he  had  induced  some  to  return 
by  fraud,  promising  "to  furnish  them  with  priests," — a  promise 
kept,  thirteen  years  later,  by  enacting  a  law  "  to  hang  every 
Popish  priest  that  should  come  into  the  province. v*  It  was 
against  such  deadly  influences  that  the  apostles  of  North 
America  contended,  till  both  they  and  their  flocks  were  anni 
hilated. 

Yet  not  a  few  even  of  the  Iroquois  had  proved  how  powerfully 
grace  could  work  in  them,  when  they  were  suffered  to  come 
within  its  reach.  All  the  early  Canadian  records  speak, 
amongst  others,  of  the  Iroquois  Saint,  Catherine  Teguhkouita. 
Born  "in  1656,  and  converted  in  early  youth  by  the  missionaries 
from  Montreal,  she  led  until  her  death,  in  1680,  a  hidden  life 
of  prayer,  seeking  by  her  austerities  to  make  atonement  for  the 
errors  of  her  tribe.  "  She  had  placed  a  cross  in  the  trunk  of  a 
tree,  by  the  side  of  a  stream,  and  this  solitary  spot  served  her 
for  an  oratory.  There  in  spirit  she  placed  herself  at  the  foot  of 
the  altar,  united  her  intention  to  that  of  the  priest,  and  implored 
her  angel  guardian  to  assist  at  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass  in  her 
place,  and  to  apply  to  her  the  fruit  of  it."  Accustomed  to 
practise  in  secret  the  most  painful  mortifications,  and  making 
her  bed  of  rough  thorns,  a  Christian  companion  suggested  to 
her  that  this  was  an  error  in  the  sight  of  God,  who  does  not 
approve  austerities  performed  without  the  sanction  of  author 
ity,  and  not  consecrated  by  obedience.  "  Catherine,  who 
dreaded  even  the  appearance  of  sin,"  says  Father  Cholenec, 
"came  immediately  to  search  for  me,  to  acknowledge  her  fault, 
and  ask  pardon  of  God.  I  blamed  her  indiscretion,  and  directed 
her  to  throw  the  thorns  into  the  fire.  This  she  instantly  did." 
When  she  died,  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  the  same  missionary 
relates  that  the  very  sight  of  her  corpse  filled  the  spectators 
with  surprise  and  edification :  "  It  might  be  said  that  a  ray  of 
glory  illuminated  even  her  body."f 

Margaret,  another  of  these  Indian  virgins,  was  martyred  by 
the  pagan  members  of  her  own  tribe,  and,  amidst  the  greatest 
tortures  which  savage  cruelty  could  inflict,  "  continued  to  in 
voke  the  holy  names  of  Jesus,  Mary,  and  Joseph."  The  agony 
of  thirst  made  her  crave  for  water,  yet  when  they  offered  it  to 
her,  she  refused,  saying,  "  My  Saviour  thirsted  for  me  on  the 
cross;  it  is  just  that  I  should  suffer  the  same  torment."  She 
survived  so  long  under  her  tortures,  that  her  murderers  ex 
claimed  with  surprise,  u  Is  this  dog  of  a  Christian  unable  to 
die  ?" 

*  Documentary  History  of  New  York,  vol.  i.,  pp.  41,  154. 
f  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tome  vi.,  pp.  67,  97. 


304  CHAPTER  IX. 

The  apostles  who  had  raised  up  to  God,  in  many  an  Indian 
tribe,  such  worshippers  as  these,  would  not  have  failed  in  due 
time  to  renew  the  triumphs  which  their  brethren  had  effected  in 
Brazil,  Peru,  and  Paraguay.  They  had  begun,  and  would  have 
completed,  the  same  work.  The  Indian  of  the  North,  until 
brutalized  by  drink  and  maddened  by  cruelty,  was  at  least  as 
capable  of  appreciating  Christian  heroism  and  sanctity  as  his 
fellow-barbarian  of  the  South ;  and  when  he  saw  both  displayed 
before  his  eyes,  did  homage  after  his  kind.  "  The  North 
American  Indian,"  says  an  eminent  English  writer,  "  is  of  a 
disposition  peculiarly  religious,"*  though  the  emissaries  of 
Protestantism  could  riot  turn  the  disposition  to  account. 
When  the  tribes  of  Kentucky  had  declared  implacable  war 
against  the  seed  of  the  oppressor,  they  still  respected,  even  in 
the  paroxysm  of  their  rage,  one  class,  and  one  alone.  The 
French  Trappists,  far  from  all  human  succor,  dwelt  without 
fear  in  the  midst  of  them  ;  and  u  the  monks  themselves," 
though  blood  was  flowing  all  around  them,  "were  never 
molested  in  their  own  establishment.  The  savages  seemed 
even  to  be  awed  into  reverence  for  their  sanctity;  and  often 
did  they  pause  in  the  vicinity  of  the  rude  Trappist  chapel,  to 
listen  to  the  praises  of  God  chanted  amidst  the  bones  of  their 
own  fathers."f 

Such  is  the  spell,  as  we  have  seen  in  many  lands,  which 
Catholic  holiness  exerts  even  over  the  rudest  natures.-  "So 
wide,"  says  Mr.  Bancroft,  with  his  usual  candor,  "  was  the  in 
fluence  of  the  missionaries  in  the  West,"  that  when  Da  Buisson, 
defending  Fort  Detroit  with  only  twenty  Frenchmen  against 
the  forces  of  the  English,  "  summoned  his  Indian  allies  from 
the  chase;  Ottawas,  and  Hurons,  and  Potawattomies,  with  one 
branch  of  the  Sacs,  Illinois,  Menomonies,  and  even  Osages  and 
Missouris,  each  nation  with  its  own  ensign  came  to  his  relief. 
'Father,'  said  they,  'behold!  thy  children  compass  thee  round. 
We  will,  if  need  be,  gladly  die  for  our  father.' "if  Multitudes, 
no  doubt,  would  have  shared  the  fate  of  Jogues  and  Lallemand 
and  De  Brebeuf,  before  the  victory  was  finally  accomplished  ; 
but  others  would  immediately  have  taken  their  place,  until 
Mohawk  and  Sioux,  Shawnee  and  Delaware,  subdued  by 
their  invincible  courage,  and  won  by  their  surpassing 
charity,  would  have  imitated  the  Moxos  and  Chiquitos  of 
the  southern  continent,  and,  like  them,  would  have  survived 

*  Lectures  on  Colonization,  by  Herman  Merivale,  A.M.,  Professor  of  Political 
Economy  ;  lect.  xix.,  p.  526. 

f  Sketches  of  the  Early  Catholic  Missions  of  Kentucky,  by  M.  J.  Spalding,  D.D., 
ch.  x.,  p,  173. 

\  II.,  858. 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA.  305 

to  tins  day,  dwelling  in  the  land  of  their  fathers,  and  praising 
the  God  of  Christians.  But  an  enemy  had  now  entered  the 
field,  before  whom  both  the  missionary  and  his  flock  disap 
peared,  and  whose  operations  it  is  time  to  notice.  Two  or 
three  examples,  out  of  many,  will  sufficiently  indicate  their 
scope  and  character. 

<k  On  the  banks  of  the  Kennebec,"  says  the  historian  whom 
we  have  so  often  quoted,  "  the  venerable  Sebastian  Easles,  for 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  the  companion  and  instructor 
of  savages,  had  gathered  a  flourishing  village  round  a  church 
which,  rising  in  the  desert,  made  some  pretensions  to  magnifi 
cence.  Severely  ascetic, — using  no  wine,  and  little  food  except 
pounded  maize, — he  built  his  own  cabin,  tilled  his  own  garden, 
drew  for  himself  wood  and  water,  prepared  his  own  hominy 
and,  distributing  all  that  he  received,  gave  an  example  of  re 
ligious  poverty.  .  .  .  Following  his  pupils  to  their  wigwam, 
he  tempered  the  spirit  of  devotion  with  familiar  conversation 
and  innocent  gayety,  winning  the  mastery  of  their  souls  by  his 
powers  of  persuasion.  He  had  trained  a  little  band  of  forty 
young  savages,  arrayed  in  cassock  and  surplice,  to  assist  in  the 
service  and  chant  the  hymns  of  the  Church,  and  their  public 
processions  attracted  a  great  concourse  of  red  men."'51 

The  apostolic  labors  of  Father  Rasles,  and  their  success, 
made  him  odious  to  the  English.  They  tried  two  plans  for  his 
destruction,  of  which  Mr.  Bancroft  mentions  only  one.  u  The 
government  of  Massachusetts,"  he  says,  "  attempted,  in  turn, 
to  establish  a  mission  ;  and  its  minister  made  a  mocking  of 
purgatory  and  the  invocation  of  saints,  of  the  cross  and  the 
rosary.  .  .  .  Thus  Calvin  and  Loyola  met  in  the  woods  of 
Maine.  But  the  Protestant  minister,  unable  to  compete  with 
the  Jesuit  for  the  affections  of  the  Indians,  returned  to 

Boston."f 

Their  first  project  having  failed,  they  adopted  a  second  ;  and 
the  English  authorities  now  offered  by  proclamation  one  thousand 
pounds  sterling  for  the  head  of  the  too  successful  missionary  ! 
u  The  English  regard  me,"  said  the  venerable  man  who  was 
soon  to  be  their  victim,  "  as  an  invincible  obstacle  to  the  design 
which  they  have  formed  of  acquiring  all  the  lands  of  the  Abena- 
kis.";f  His  crime  was  unpardonable,  but  it  will  be  well  to  learn  by 
Protestant  testimony  how  it  was  avenged.  "  After  vainly 
soliciting  the  savages,"  says  Mr.  Bancroft,  "  to  surrender  Rasles, 
in  midwinter,  Westbrooke  led  a  strong  force  to  Norridgewock, 
to  take  him  by  surprise."  They  had  often  hunted  him  before, 

*  Bancroft,  ii.,  938. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  939. 

J  Lettres  Edifiantes,  tome  vi.,  p.  148. 

VOL.  II  21 


306  CHAPTER   IX. 

but  tliis  time  they  were  to  be  successful.  In  vain  his  flock  had 
implored  him  to  fly  betimes.  "The  aged  man,  foreseeing  the 
impending  ruin  of  Norridgewock,  replied,  '  I  count  not  my  life 
dear  unto  myself,  so  I  may  finish  with  joy  the  ministry  which 
I  have  received.' ':  When  the  English  arrived,  "  Rasles  went 
forward  to  save  his  flock,  by  drawing  down  upon  himself  the 
attention  of  the  assailants  ;  and  his  hope  wras  not  vain."  Many 
of  them  escaped,  "  while  the  English  pillaged  the  cabins  and 
the  church,  and  then,  heedless  of  sacrilege,  set  them  on  fire."* 
Mr.  Bancroft  omits  to  add,  what  we  learn  from  another  source, 
that  they  "  horribly  profaned  the  sacred  vessels,  and  the  adora 
ble  Body  of  Jesus  Christ."f 

And  what  was  the  fate  of  one  who  for  thirty-seven  years  had 
devoted  himself,  in  poverty  and  suffering,  to  the  welfare  of  the 
natives  ?  Mr.  Bancroft  has  recorded  it.  "  After  the  retreat  of 
the  invaders,  the  Abenakis,"  to  whom  the  generosity  of  the 
missionary  had  given  time  to  save  their  women  and  children, 
"  returned  to  nurse  their  wounded  and  bury  their  dead.  They 
found  Kasles  mangled  by  many  blows,  scalped,  his  skull  broken 
in  several  places,  his  mouth  and  eyes  filled  with  dirt ;  and  they 
buried  him  beneath  the  spot  where  he  used  to  stand  before  the 
altar."  Such  was  the  work  of  a  British  military  force  con 
ducted  by  three  British  officers. 

The  vengeance  of  England  wras  complete,  and  from  that  hour 
the  fate  of  the  red  man  in  all  the  Eastern  States  was  sealed.  It 
is  Mr.  Bancroft  who  draws  the  conclusion.  "  Thus  died  Sebas 
tian  Rasles,"  he  says,  "  the  last  of  the  Catholic  missionaries  in 
New  England  ;  thus  perished  the  Jesuit  missions  and  their 
fruits, — the  villages  of  the  semi-civilized  Abenakis  and  their 
priests.":):  Is  it  wonderful  that  there  has  been  no  new  Para 
guay  in  Canada  or  the  United  States  ?§ 

One  hundred  and  eight  years  after  the  martyrdom  of  Sebastian 
Rasles,  Dr.  Fenwick,  Bishop  of  Boston,  purchased  the  land 
which  had  been  dyed  with  his  blood,  to  build  a  church  on  the 
spot  consecrated  by  his  death.]  In  the  following  year,  1833, 

*  II.,  859. 

f  Charlevoix,  tome  iv.,  p.  12. 

i  II.,  941. 

§  Let  it  be  observed,  too,  that  the  English  never  faltered  in  their  crusade 
against  religion  and  its  ministers  Thirty-five  years  later,  Amherst  led  a  force 
against  the  Indian  village  of  St.  Francis.  The  inhabitants  were  all  Catholics. 
"  These  Indians,"  we  are  told,  "  had  a  handsome  Catholic  chapel,  with  plato 
and  ornaments."  Taken  by  surprise,  they  were  almost  all  slain.  "  The  vil 
lage,  as  had  happened  so  often  in  New  England,  was  first  plundered,  and  then 
burned."  Hildreth,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxvii.,  p.  487.  If  the  natives  of  North  America 
have  remained  unconverted,  it  is  to  English  Protestants  alone  that  this  result 
is  due. 

1  Annales  de  la  Propagation  de  la  Foi,  tome  vi.,  p.  274. 


MISSIONS  IN   AMERICA.  807 

the  same  bishop  met  the  grandson  of  one  of  the  English  who 
had  slain  him,  by  whom  the  prelate  was  informed,  that  to  the 
hour  of  his  death  his  grandfather  ceased  not  to  shed  tears  at 
the  thought  of  that  sorrowful  day  ;  and  often  called  to  mind 
that,  having  been  wounded,  he  had  been  charitably  nursed  by 
one  of  Father  Kasles'  disciples,  though  her  own  husband  had 
been  killed  by  his  English  companions.  It  is  worthy  of  notice, 
too,  that  a  century  after  his  death,  a  deputation  of  the  Abenakis 
brought  to  Dr.  Carroll,  Archbishop  of  Baltimore,  the  crucifix  of 
the  martyr,  a  relic  which  they  only  agreed  to  transfer  to  his 
custody,  "  on  condition  that  he  would  send  them  a  priest.'-* 
So  well  had  they  kept  the  faith,  during  that  long  interval,  that 
when  Sir  Guy  Carleton  sent  to  them  Protestant  ministers  in 
1785,  "  they  drove  them  out  of  their  village ;"  and  the  governor, 
generously  appreciating  their  constancy,  not  only  dispatched 
to  them  a  Catholic  priest,  but  offered  him  a  stipend  of  fifty 
pounds  a  year.f 

The  action  of  the  Indian  woman  noticed  above,  whose  charity 
would  perhaps  be  rarely  imitated  by  European  Christians, 
affords  an  interesting  example  of  the  influence  of  religion 
among  the  disciples  of  the  martyred  missionary ;  a  still  more 
striking  case,  in  which  the  hand  of  the  Indian  warrior  was 
restrained  in  the  very  heat  of  battle  by  the  power  of  Catholic 
sympathy  deserves  notice.  Nearly  a  century  after  the  death 
of  Father  Kasles,  in  the  war  of  1812-13,  an  Irish  Catholic, 
fighting  with  a  body  of  American  troops  against  a  native  tribe, 
was  about  to  be  overtaken  by  a  chief.  Falling  on  his  knees, 
"he  made  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  endeavored  as  well  as 
he  could  to  prepare  himself  for  death.  The  warrior  suddenly 
stopped,  dropped  his  tomahawk,  and  falling  likewise  on  his 
knees,  embraced  the  white  man,  exclaiming,  "You  are  my 
brother!"  It  is  Bishop  Fenwick  who  records  this  touching 
anecdote,  which  he  received  from  the  very  man  who  owed  his 
life  to  the  forbearance  suggested  to  a  savage  by  a  religious 
sentiment,  which  taught  him  to  recognize  a  brother  even  in  an 
enemy,  whose  hand  had  just  been  raised  against  him.  J 

The  fate  of  the  venerable  Sebastian  Rasles  overtook  many  an 
apostle  in  the  midst  of  his  toils,  and  would  have  been  shared 
by  all  if  the  English  could  have  laid  hands  on  them.  The 
celebrated  Abbe  ricquet,  who  united  rare  energy  and  ability  to 
the  higher  virtues  of  his  calling,  was  also  tracked  by  the  English 


*  Brasseur  de    Bourbourg,  Histoire  du  Canada,   &c.,   tome  i.,  ch.  xxi., 
p.  85. 

f  Id.,  ch.  xxii.,  p.  88. 
j:  Spaldfoig,  cli.  ii.,  p.  30. 


308  CHAPTER   IX. 

as  a  wild  beast,  and  a  price  set  on  his  head.*  Yet  he  was  one 
who  could  have  converted  half  the  tribes  of  the  North.  In 
1749,  he  commenced  his  mission  at  Ogdensburgh  with  six 
heads  of  families;  in  1750,  he  had  eighty-seven  round  him; 
in  1751,  three  hundred  and  ninety-six.  "  People  saw  with 
astonishment  several  villages  start  up  almost  at  once  ;  a  con 
venient,  habitable,  and  pleasantly  situated  fort ;  vast  clearances 
covered  almost  at  the  same  time  with  the  finest  maize."  This 
was  the  system  by  which  the  Jesuits  and  Franciscans  had  con 
quered  South  America,  but  it  was  only  a  small  part  of  his  work. 
At  the  mission  of  la  Presentation,  "  the  most  distinguished  of 
the  Iroquois  families  were  distributed  in  three  villages."  The 
Bishop  of  Quebec,  "  wishing  to  witness  and  assure  himself 
personally  of  the  wonders  related  to  him,"  visited  la  Presenta 
tion,  "  and  spent  ten  days  examining  and  causing  the  catechu 
mens  to  be  examined.  He  himself  baptized  one  hundred  and 
thirty-two,  and  did  notcease  during  his  sojourn  blessing  Heaven 
for  the  progress  of  religion  among  these  infidels."  Yet  Picquet 
was  hunted  by  the  English,  after  gaining  the  illustrious  title  of 
"  Apostle  of  the  Iroquois,"  and  finally,  in  1760,  was  obliged  to 
quit  Canada  forever,  in  consequence  of  the  death  of  Montcalm 
and  the  capture  of  Quebec.f 

But  he  has  not  been,  as  we  shall  see  more  fully  hereafter, 
without  successors  of  his  own  school.  Thirty-two  years  after 
Picquet  was  driven  from  Canada,  an  illustrious  traveller 
described  the  following  incident.  "  I  myself  met  one  of  these 
apostles  of  religion  amid  the  solitudes  of  America.  One  morning, 
as  we  were  slowly  pursuing  our  course  through  the  forests, 
we  perceived  a  tall,  venerable  old  man,  with  a  white  beard, 
approaching  us.  He  proved  to  be  a  missionary  of  Louisiana, 
on  his  way  from  New  Orleans,  returning  to  the  country  of  the 
Illinois.  He  accompanied  us  for  several  days,  and  however 
early  we  were  up  in  the  morning,  we  always  found  the  aged 
traveller  risen  before  us  and  reading  his  breviary  while  walking 

in  the  forest.     This  holy  man  had  suffered  much He 

seemed  to  possess  great  attainments  of  many  kinds,  which  he 
scarcely  suffered  to  appear  under  his  evangelical  simplicity. 
Like  his  predecessors,  the  Apostles,  though  knowing  every 
thing,  he  seemed  to  know  nothing.":]: 

*  We  are  not  surprised  to  learn  that  lie  revenged  himself  in  a  manner  wor 
thy  of  an  Apostle.  When  an  English  officer,  who  was  actually  in  search  of 
him,  was  captured  by  the  Indians,  and  their  clubs  were  already  raised  to  beat 
him  to  death,  Picquet  forbade  them  to  harm  the  baffled  assassin.  Memoir e 
sur  la  Vie  de  M.  Picquet,  par  M.  do  Lalande,  del'Academie  des  Sciences  ;  Pan 
theon  Litteraire,  tome  i.,  p.  742  (1838). 

j-  Documentary  History  of  New  York,  vol.  i.,  p.  432. 

|  Chateaubriand,  Genius  of  Christianity,  p.  592 ;  ed.  White. 


MISSIONS    IN  AMERICA.  309 

We  have  now  perhaps  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  men  who 
announced  the  Gospel  in  Canada,  and  of  the  policy  by  which 
their  work  was  frustrated.  The  English  became  masters  of  all 
the  lands  which  lie  between  Cape  Gaspe  and  the  western  shores 
of  Lake  Superior,  and  the  same  fate  awaited  the  doomed  native 
which  has  crushed,  under  the  same  masters,  the  aborigines  of 
South  Africa,  of  Australia,  of  Tahiti,  and  New  Zealand.  It- 
only  remains  to  show,  by  a  few  characteristic  examples,  how 
complete  the  ruin  has  been. 

It  may  be  allowed,  however,  in  noticing  the  condition  to 
which  Protestantism  has  reduced  the  natives  of  British  America, 
to  indicate,  as  usual  by  the  aid  of  Protestant  witnesses  alone, 
the  traces  which  still  exist  of  the  Catholic  missions,  and  the 
character  of  those  who  conduct  them.  In  spite  of  murder, 
fraud,  and  oppression,  English  writers  will  assure  us,  both  that 
the  Catholic  Indians  of  Canada  are  the  only  Christians  who 
deserve  the  name,  and  that  their  teachers  at  this  hour  exactly 
resemble  those  who  died  to  save  their  fathers. 

The  evidence  is  copious,  but  shall  be  confined  within  narrow 
limits.  Exactly  a  century  ago,  the  Rev.  John  Ogilvie,  an 
Anglican  missionary  agent  in  America,  thus  addressed  his  em 
ployers  :  "  Of  every  nation,  I  find  some  who  have  been  instructed 
by  the  priests  of  Canada,  and  appear  zealous  Roman  Catholics, 
extremely  tenacious  of  the  ceremonies  and  peculiarities  of  that 

Church How  ought  we  to  blush  at  our  coldness 

and  shameful  indifference  in  the  propagation  of  our  most 
excellent  religion.  The  Indians  themselves  are  not  wanting  in 
making  very  pertinent  reflections  upon  our  inattention  to  these 
points.  * 

Other  witnesses  notice  the  same  invariable  facts  at  the  pres 
ent  day.  The  Chippeways,  Sir  George  Simpson  relates,  met 
him  at  Fort  William,  and  represented  to  him  that,  "being  all 
Catholics,  they  should  like  to  have  a  priest  among  them."f 
Like  the  Christian  natives  of  Hindostan,  of  China,  and  of 
Paraguay,  they  had  preserved  their  faith,  though  separated 
for  more  than  half  a  century  from  those  who  had  declared  it  to 
them. 

It  is  related  of  Cardinal  Cheverus,  whose  character  excited  so 
much  admiration  in  America,  to  whom  the  State  of  Massa 
chusetts  voted  a  subsidy,  and  the  first  subscriber  to  whose 
church  at  Boston  was  John  Adams,  President  of  the  United 
States,  that  when  he  visited  the  Penobscot,  he  found  an  Indian 
tribe,  who  had  not  even  seen  a  priest  for  half  a  century,  but 

*  Ernest  Hawkins,  Missions,  &c.,  ch.  xii.,  p.  289. 
t  Journey  Round  the  World,  vol.  i.,  ch.  L,  p.  35. 


810  CHAPTER  IX. 

were  still  zealous  Catholics,  carefully  observed  the  Sunday,  and 
"  had  not  forgotten  the  catechism  !"* 

In  1831,  Bishop  Fenwick  found  a  whole  tribe  of  Passama- 
quoddies,  constant  in  the  faith,  and,  as  he  observed,  "  a  living 
monument  of  the  apostolic  labors  of  the  Jesuits."*)* 

Of  the  Hurons,  the  beloved  disciples  of  the  early  mission 
aries,  Mr.  Buckingham,  an  English  traveller,  speaks  as  follows  : 
"  They  are  faithful  Catholics,  and  are  said  to  fulfil  their  religious 
duties  in  the  most  exemplary  manner,  being  much  more  im 
proved  by  their  commerce  with  the  whites  than  the  Indian 
tribes  who  have  first  come  into  contact  with  Protestants  usually 
are."  Of  the  Indians  in  the  neighborhood  of  Montreal,  the 
same  Protestant  writer  says,  "  They  are  always  sober,  a  rare 
occurrence  with  Indians  of  either  sex."  "This  difference,"  he 
candidly  observes,  "is  occasioned  by  the  influence  of  Chris 
tianity,  as  the  Caghnawaga  Indians  are  Catholics""^ 

Of  the  Abenakis,  whose  fathers  listened  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  ago  to  the  voice  of  Sebastian  Rasles,  Protestant 
missionaries  angrily  relate,  in  1841,  after  vainly  attempting  to 
subvert  them,  that  they  could  do  nothing  against  the  "  con 
trolling  influence  of  the  Romish  priesthood.  "§ 

Of  the  Indians  at  VArbre  Croche,  on  the  east  shore  of  Lake 
Michigan,  "for  sixty  years  or  more  the  seat  of  a  Jesuit  mission," 
Dr.  Morse,  a  Protestant  minister,  reported  thus  to  the  United 
States  government :  u  These  Indians  are  much  in  advance,  in 
point  of  improvement,  in  appearance,  and  in  manners,  of  all 
the  Indians  whom  I  visited."]  Do  we  not  say  with  reason  that 
in  Catholic  missions,  we  see  everywhere  the  power  of  God 
rather  than  of  man  ? 

Of  the  Wyandots,  the  same  official  witness  reported,  "  nearly 
all  the  aged  people  still  wear  crucifixes." 

Of  the  Onondagas,  Mr.  Schoolcraft  observes,  "  They  were 
ever  strongly  opposed  to  all  missionaries  after  the  expulsion  of 
the  Jesuits."!" 

"The  Ottawa- Chippewa  mission,"  in  Upper  Michigan,  we 
are  told,  "  is  greater  than  it  ever  was  in  the  most  flourishing 
time  of  the  old  Jesuit  Fathers."** 

Of  the  Micmacs,  in  Prince  Edward's  Island,  Colonel  Bou- 
chette  says,  "  They  are  all  still  Catholics ;"  of  the  tribes  in 

*  Vie  du  Cardinal  de  Cheverus,  liv.  ii.,  p.  68  (4me  edition), 
f  Annales,  tome  v.,  p.  449. 
±  Canada,  &c.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  151 ;  ch.  xvii.,  p.  251. 

§  History  of  American  Missions,  by  Rev.  Joseph  Tracy,  ch.  xxxiii.,  p.  331. 
1  A  Report  to  the  Secretary  of  War  of  the  United  States  on  Indian  Affairs, 
b;r  the  Rev.  Jedidiah  Morse,  D.D.,  app.,  pp.  24,  91,  327. 
*f  Notes  on  the  Iroquois,  ch.  xii.,  p.  443. 
**  Shea,  ch.  xxi.,  p.  392. 


MISSIONS  IN   AMERICA.  311 

New  Brunswick,  "  the  greater  part  of  the  Indians  profess  the 
Romish  religion  ;"  of  those  at  Cape  Breton,  "All  the  Acadians 
are  Roman  Catholics;"  and  of  the  Indians  generally,  who  are 
in  communion  with  the  Church,  "  they  are  a  quiet,  temperate 


"  The  Micmacs  of  Restigouche,"  says  a  Protestant  professor 
at  Toronto,  "  are  a  highly  civilized  band  of  the  Micmac  nation 
.....  industriously  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  staves, 
barrel-hoops,  axe-handles,"  &c.f 

Of  the  great  mission  in  the  Manitouline  islands,  the  gentle 
man  who  is  Protestant  bishop  at  Toronto  cautiously  says,  in 
1842,  "  A  considerable  portion  consists  of  half-breeds,  of 
French  and  Indian  extraction,  and  these  being  all  Romanists, 
possess  a  good  deal  of  influence  among  the  natives.":): 

More  ingenuous  witnesses  give  a  less  meagre  account  of 
them.  "There  are  upwards  of  two  thousand  natives  in  the 
island,"  says  Mr.  Kingston  in  1856,  "the  greater  proportion 
of  whom  profess  the  Romish  faith.  At  a  settlement  on  the 
other  side,  a  considerable  number  reside  under  four  Jesuit 
Fathers"  —  the  Jesuits  re-entered  Canada  in  1842,  —  "  and  they 
are  said  to  be  a  very  obedient,  industrious,  and  intelligent  set, 
and  superior  to  the  Protestants  ;  but  of  the  truth  of  the 
assertion  I  have  no  means  of  judging.v§  Yet  in  a  later  portion 
of  his  work,  when  he  had  perhaps  acquired  ampler  experience, 
Mr.  Kingston  frankly  describes  the  so-called  Protestant  Indians 
as  "  a  very  inferior  race,"  and  observes  that  the  only  effect  of 
their  pretended  conversion  is,  "that  now  they  wear  blanket 
coats,  weave  mats,  receive  alms  from  the  white  man,  and  get 
drunk  whenever  they  can."|| 

Let  these  details  be  pardoned,  for  the  sake  of  the  lesson 
wThich  they  teach,  and  which  is  certainly  of  sufficient  im 
portance  to  merit  ample  illustration.  We  have  seen  in  every 
other  land  the  same  contrast  between  the  work  of  God  and  the 
work  of  man,  and  it  is  our  business  to  trace  it  here  also.  For 
this  reason,  at  the  risk  of  repetition,  we  will  continue  the 
subject. 

"  The  whole  body  of  these  Indians,"  said  a  respectable 
American  Puritan,  some  years  ago,  speaking  of  the  Pequods, 
"  are  a  poor,  degraded,  miserable  race  of  beings.  The  former 

*  British  Dominions  in  North  America,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  85  ;  ch.  x.,  p.  148  ; 
ch.  xi.,  p.  178. 

f  Wilson,  Prehistoric  Man,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxii.,  p.  373. 

\  The  Church  in  Canada;  Journal  of  a  Visitation  by  the  Lord  Bishop  of 
Toronto  in  1842,  p.  10. 

§  Western  Wanderings,  by  W.  H.  G.  Kingston,  vol.  i.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  180. 

(I  Western  Wanderings,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  314. 


312  CHAPTER  IX. 

proud  heroic  spirit  of  the  Pequod  is  shrunk  into  the  torpor  of 
reasoning  brntism.  All  the  vice  of  the  original  is  left :  all  its 

energy  has  vanished Their  children,  when  young,  they 

place  in  English  families  as  servants.  In  the  earlier  parts  of 
life  these  children  frequently  behave  well,  but,  when  grown  up, 
throw  off  all  that  is  respectable  in  their  character,  and  sink  to 
the  level  of  their  relatives,"* — a  proof  of  the  impotence  of  Prot 
estantism  which  we  have  seen  in  every  other  land. 

Sometimes  we  are  told,  not  of  tribes  or  nations,  bat  of 
selected  individuals,  who  had  enjoyed  every  advantage,  in 
cluding  a  liberal  education,  which  Protestantism  could  offer 
them  ;  but  the  result  was  always  the  same.  Dr.  Timothy 
D wight  admits  that  even  Indians  who  had  taken  academical 
degrees  in  the  Protestant  colleges  of  New  England  "  returned 
to  the  grossnoss  of  savage  life  !"f  Mr.  Kingston  tells  us  of  one 
Indian,  brought  up  "in  the  house  of  a  clergyman,"  married 
to  an  American  woman,  and  finally  employed  as  an  assistant 
missionary.  "  He  saved  a  good  deal  of  money,  built  himself  a 

house,  and  furnished  it  nicely but  he  was  not  content. 

He  was  ambitious  of  becoming  a  chief,  and  of  forming  a  settle 
ment  of  his  own."  The  spiritual  influence  of  Protestantism 
never  seems  to  go  beyond  this  point. 

Mr.  Buckingham  also  notices  the  case  of  "  Peter  Jones," 
another  Indian  Protestant,  who  has  been  exhibited  in  England 
as  a  preacher,  and  married  an  English  woman.  In  spite  of 
much  acuteness,  and  a  superior  education,  he  not  only  "met 
with  no  success,"  but  even  flatly  denied  "  that  any  who  had 
passed  the  middle  period  of  life  would  ever  be  prevailed  upon 
to  change  their  religion. '*;{: 

Jones  was  a  Methodist,  and  one  of  the  leaders  of  that  denomi 
nation  thought  it  expedient  to  write  his  life.  "  He  ever  sought 
to  promote  the  glory  of  God,"  says  Dr.  Osborn,  who  seems  to 
have  made  the  same  use  of  him  as  others  made  of  Tzatzoe  and 
Macomo,  and  pretended  converts  of  the  same  class.  Thus  he 
quotes  from  him  a  statement  that  the  "  River  Credit  Indians" 
were  devout  Protestants,  and  bright  ornaments  of  the  Wesley  an 
body.  Fortunately,  a  well-known  English  writer,  who  actually 
visited  his  flock,  has  published  her  impressions  of  them.  "  The 
Indians  whom  I  saw  wandering  and  lounging  about,"  says 
Mrs.  Jameson,  "filled  me  with  compassion"  Three  or  four 
half-caste  women,  she  observes,  and  some  of  the  young  children, 
showed  signs  of  intelligence,  "  but  these  are  exceptions,  and 
dirt,  indolence,  and  drunkenness  were  but  too  prevalent." 

*  Dr.  Dwight,  Travels  in  New  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  20. 

f  Vol.  ii,  p.  99. 

j  Canada,  ch.  iv.,  p.  46. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  313 

Then  contrasting  them  with  the  sober  and  prosperous  Catholic 
Indians,  of  whom  she  candidly  says,  "I  heard  them  sing  Mass 
with  every  demonstration  of  decency  and  piety,"  this  accom 
plished  writer  adds,  that  the  very  different  behavior4' of  the 
Methodist  Indians,  as  they  lie  grovelling  on  the  ground  in  their 
religious  services,  struck  me  painfully."*  Yet  Dr.  Osborn,  nine 
years  later,  deliberately  asserts,  and  quotes  Jones  in  proof  of 
the  assertion,  that  "the  Wesleyan  missionaries  have  never  yet 
failed  to  introduce  Christianity  among  a  body  of  Indians  !"f 

And  these  cases,  bad  as  they  are,  represent,  not  the  average 
results  of  Protestant  teaching,  but  its  choicest  examples.  The 
mass  of  the  fallen  and  degraded  Indians  who  have  come,  rather 
as  pensioners  than  as  "  converts,"  under  its  fatal  influence,  are 
described  by  travellers  of  all  classes  in  the  same  terms.  The 
Catholic  Indians  invariably  refuse  to  associate  with  them,  and 
consider  them  the  most  abject  of  mankind.  And  Protestant 
witnesses  freely  confess  that  their  estimate  is  perfectly  just. 
Thus  Mr.  Kane,  one  of  the  latest  writers  on  the  western 
continent,  while  he  lauds  "the  agricultural  skill  and  industry'" 
of  the  Catholic  Indians  near  Manitouline,  candidly  describes 
the  Protestant  mission  at  Norway  House  in  these  words :  "  It 
is  supported  by  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  with  the  hope  of 
improving  the  Indians,  but,  to  judge  from  appearances,  with 
but  small  success,  as  they  are  decidedly  the  dirtiest  Indians  I 
have  met  with,  and  the  less  that  is  said  about  their  morality 
the  better.'^ 

Miss  Harriet  Martineau,  who  is  both  a  capable  and  an 
impartial  witness,  and  who  speaks,  like  all  the  rest,  from  actual 
observation,  indicates  the  same  contrast  with  her  usual  candor 
and  emphasis.  The  most  vaunted  of  the  Protestant  establish 
ments  is  at  Mackinaw,  and  here  is  Miss  Martineau's  account  of 
it :  "  There  is  reason  to  think  that  the  mission  is  the  least 
satisfactory  part  of  the  establishment.  A  groat  latitude  of 
imagination  or  representation  is  usually  admitted  on  the  subject 
of  missions  to  the  heathen.  The  reporters  of  this  one  appear  to 
be  peculiarly  imaginative."  And  then  follows  the  usual  con 
trast  :  "  The  Indians  have  been  proved,  by  the  success  of  the 
French  among  them,  to  be  capable  of  civilization.  Near  Little 
Traverse,  in  the  northwest  part  of  Michigan,  within  easy  reach 
of  Mackinaw,"  as  if  to  make  the  invariable  contrast  more 
impressive,  "  there  is  an  Indian  village,  full  of  orderly  and 
industrious  inhabitants,  employ*  ed  chiefly  in  agriculture.  The 


*  Sketches  in  Canada,  by  Mrs.  Jameson,  part  i.,  p.  40  ;  part  ii.,  p. 
f  History  of  the  Qbjfoway  Indians,  by  the  Rev.  E.  Osborn,  D.  D., 


seq.  (1861). 

f  Wanderings  of  an  Artist,  cli.  viii.,  p.  105. 


i.  287  (1852). 
pp.  228  eft 


314:  CHAPTER   IX. 

English  and  Americans  have  never  succeeded  with  the  aborigi 
nes  so  well  as  the  French  ;  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the 
clergy  have  been  a  much  greater  blessing  to  them  than  the 
traders."*  Mrs.  Jameson  also*,  in  spite  of  religions  prejudices, 
uses  the  same  frank  expressions.  The  Ottawas,  she  says,  under 
the  care  of  Father  Crue,  "have  large  plantations  of  corn  and 
potatoes,  and  have  built  a  chapel  for  their  religious  services, 
and  a  house  for  their  priest."  And  then,  although  the  relative 
and  associate  of  Protestant  ministers,  she  thus  announces  the 
tinal  result  of  all  her  observations :  "  One  thing  is  most  visible, 
certain,  and  undeniable,  that  the  Roman  Catholic  converts  are 
in  appearance,  dress,  intelligence^  industry,  and  general  civili 
sation,  superior  to  all  the  others"^ 

Other  Protestant  writers  go  still  further,  and  do  not  hesitate 
to  avow  that,  like  all  other  barbarians  under  Protestant  masters, 
the  natives  are  doomed  to  inevitable  destruction.  Where 
Divine  charity  is  absent,  and  the  sacraments  of  the  Precious 
Blood,  mere  human  benevolence,  however  active,  only  reveals 
its  own  impotence.  "  Our  system  of  trade  and  intercourse 
with  the  Indian  tribes,"  says  Governor  Chambers  in  an  official 
report,  "is  in  this  r  egion  of  country  rapidly  destroying  them"  \ 
"  They  hardly  dare  cultivate  the  soil,"  observes  Mr.  Beecham, 
even  on  the  nominally  "reserved"  lands,  "lest  some  reason 
should  be  found  for  dispossessing  them  !"§  Dr.  Shaw  declares, 
in  1856,  that  "  the  authorities  frequently  swindled  the  poor 
Indians."!  "I  am  satisfied,"  adds  Mr.  Bradford,  "that  at 
least  one  quarter  of  the  annuity  paid  to  the  Menominis  is 
collected  by  traders,  at  the  annuity  payment,  for  whiskey. "^f 
"Many  an  Indian,"  says  Mr.  Kane,  from  actual  observation, 
"  returns  to  his  wigwam  poorer  than  he  left  it ;"  and  he  relates 
that,  at  a  distribution  of  the  government  bounty  which  he 
personally  witnessed,  "  there  was  scarcely  a  man,  woman,  or 
child  old  enough  to  lift  the  vessel  to  its  mouth,  that  was  not 
wallowing  in  beastly  drunkenness."**  Yet  the  Protestant 
clergy,  incapable  of  dealing  with  evils  which  can  only  be 
alleviated  by  another  ministry  than  theirs,  do  nothing  what 
ever,  either  here  or  in  the  United  States,  to  mitigate  these 
disasters;  so  that  Mr.  Bradford,  with  a  candor  not  unusual 
in  Americans,  contrasts  them  with  "  the  pious,  peaceful,  and 

*  Society  in  America,  by  Harriet  Martinean,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  i.,  p.  18. 
f  Sketches  in  Canada,  part  ii.,  p.  287. 

t  Notes  on  the  North,  West,  by  Wm.  J.  A.  Bradford,  part  ii.,  p.  195  (1846). 
§  Colonization,  p.  9. 

I  A  RamUe  through  the  United  States,  &c.,  by  John  Shaw,  M.D.,  F.G.S., 
F.L.S..  ch.  iii.,  p.  67  (1856). 
^f  Ubi  supra. 
**  Ch.  ii.,  p.  41. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  315 

zealous  disciples  of  the  Cross,"  as  he  styles  the  Catholic  mis 
sionaries,  surmounting  "  with  comparative  ease"  the  compli 
cated  evils  to  which  their  rivals,  with  all  the  aid  of  opulence 
and  of  government  support,  despair  of  applying  a  remedy. 
"  The  Frenchman,"  says  this  American  writer,  "forgets  not  that 
the  uncivilized,  as  well  as  civilized  man.  is  his  brother,  and 
he  deports  himself  as  man  to  man.  The  sturdy  Saxon  treats 
the  Indian  like  a  dog.  The  American  thinks  every  thing  is  to 
be  accommodated  to  him."* 

It  would  he  idle  to  attempt  to  exhaust  the  Protestant  wit 
nesses,  who  record,  from  actual  observation,  the  contrast  which 
these  passages  illustrate  between  the  influence  of  Catholic  and 
Protestant  agency  upon  the  life  and  fortunes  of  the  Indian. 
Let  us  close  the  series  with  these  statements  by  two  venerable 
prelates,  whose  testimony  we  may  well  accept,  after  what  we 
have  already  heard,  as  conclusive :  "  These  Indians,"  says 
Monseigneur  Gaulein,  Bishop  of  Kingston,  in  1838,  "  are  all 
excellent  Catholics,  and  seem  to  me  industrious  and  fond  of 
labor ;  a  large  number  of  savages  have  been  recently  baptized." 
"  I  had  often  been  told,"  observes  Monseigneur  Loras,  Bishop 
of  Dubuque,  in  1839,  "  that  the  savages  when  converted  make 
excellent  Catholics,  and  having  become  acquainted  with  them, 
have  had  occasion  to  admire  their  fervor. "f 

Such  are  the  disciples,  by  the  testimony  both  of  friends  and 
enemies,  and  such  the  inflexible  constancy  of  their  faith,  even 
where  every  influence  has  combined  to  destroy  it.  And  now  a 
word  on  the  missionaries*.  "  They  are  not  inferior,"  says  Mr. 
Buckingham,  "  in  zeal  and  devotion  to  the  first  founders  and 
propagators  of  the  Faith  on  this  continent;"  while  of  their 
efforts  to  convert  the  pagan  savages,  in  spite  of  the  cruel  dis 
advantages  which  attend  them  in  a  country  under  Protestant 
domination,  he  observes,  "  Of  late  years  they  are  more  than 
usually  successful."  And  then  he  contrasts  the  dignity  of 
these  apostolic  teachers  with  the  "inferiority"  of  the  Epis 
copalian  ministers,  and  laments  to  notice  in  that  opulent 
body  "more  than  the  usual  portion  of  formality  in  the 
ministers,  and  coldness  in  the  congregations. "J  A  more  dis 
tinguished  Anglican  writer,  after  quoting  the  observation  of 
"one  of  our  most  intelligent  Indian  agents,"  that  "the  Eng 
lish  Church  either  cannot  or  will  riot,  certainly  does  not,  sow, 
and  therefore  cannot  expect  to  reap,"  asks,  "  what  she  is 
about?"  and  gives  this  reply:  "Here,  as  in  the  old  country, 

*  Notes  on  the  North  West,  part  ii.,  p.  89. 

t  Annals,  vol.  i.,  pp.  470-79  ;  English  edition. 

j  Ch.  xv.,  p.  220. 


316  CHAPTER   IX. 

quarrelling  about  the  tenets  to  be  inculcated,  the  means  to  be 
used!"* 

Mr.  Sullivan,  another  British  traveller,  of  no  mean  capacity, 
frankly  declares  of  the  Catholic  missionaries,  "  They  exercise 
extraordinary  influence  amongst  their  proselytes,  and  also 
amongst  several  tribes  of  Indians. "f 

Mr.  Halkett,  also  an  eye-witness,  observes  as  follows.  "  There 
is  one  point  which  cannot  be  disputed,  that  the  Indians  of 
British  North  America  are  treated  by  their  present  Roman 
Catholic  instructors  with  great  kindness  and  consideration.  So 
far  as  benevolence,  charity,  and  paternal  care  can  afford  comfort 
to  the  Indian,  he  receives  it  at  their  hands.":);  In  other  words, 
they  still  display  the  same  patient,  unwearied  charity  by  which, 
two  centuries  ago,  their  predecessors  first  subdued  the  froward- 
ness  and  captivated  the  aifections  of  their  wild  flock  ;  when,  as 
Nicolini  allows,  "  they  visited  daily  every  house  in  which  lay 
a  sick  person,  whom  they  served  as  the  kindest  nurse,  and  to 
whom  they  seemed  to  be  ministering  genii.  By  such  conduct 
they  brought  this  primitive  population  to  idolize  them."§ 

The  Honorable  Charles  Murray,  after  noticing,  in  the  gener 
ous  language  which  might  be  expected  from  him,  "  the  zeal 
and  enterprise  with  which  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  inspires 
its  priests  to  toil,  travel,  and  endure  every  kind  of  hardship," 
continues  thus :  "  In  this  labor,  especially  among  the  Negroes 
and  Indians,  they  put  to  shame  the  zeal  and  exertions  of  all 
other  Christian  sects ;  nor  do  they  labor  without  effect. 
During  my  stay  in  Missouri,  I  observed  that  the  Romish  faith 
was  gaining  ground  with  a  rapidity  that  outstripped  all  com 
petition."! 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  these  confessions  of  Protestant 
travellers,  but  surely  we  have  heard  enough.  One  witness 
only  shall  be  cited  in  addition,  because  a  peculiar  interest 
attaches  to  his  evidence,  with  which  we  may  fitly  terminate 
this  series. 

In  1860,  Mr.  Kohl  published  his  journal  of  travels  on  the 
shores  of  Lake  Superior.  "  I  may  take  it  on  myself,"  says  this 
gentleman,  in  eulogizing  "those  excellent  men,  the  learned 
pastors  of  the  Canadian  mission,"  "  to  speak  on  this  subject, 
for  I  have  read  all  the  old  journeys  of  the  early  messengers  of 

*  Jameson,  Sketches  in  Canada,  part  i.,  p.  116 ;  part  ii.,  p.  287. 

|  Rambles  in  North  and  South  America,  ch.  iii.,  p.  GO. 

\  Notes  on  North  American  Indians,  ch.  x.,  p.  232. 

§  History  of  the  Jesuits,  by  G.  B.  Nicolini,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  302  (Bohn). 

|  Travels  in  North  America,  by  the  Hon.  C.  A.  Murray,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  309. 

In  1851,  the  "  Vicariate  of  the  Indian  territory"  was  established,  and  the  bish 
op,  aided  by  such  men  as  Father  Van  Quickenborne,  counted  in  a  few  years 
more  than  five  thousand  Catholic  Indians  in  his  Vicariate. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  317 

the  Church,  and  followed  them  with  sympathizing  zeal.  In 
our  day,  when  religious  martyrdom  no  longer  nourishes,  it  is 
especially  refreshing  to  travel  in  a  country  where  this  epoch 
has  not  entirely  died  out,  and  to  associate  with  men  who  en 
dure  the  greatest  privations  for  lofty  purposes,  and  who  would 
be  well  inclined  even  to  lay  down  their  lives  for  their  Church. 
In  fact,  every  thing  I  heard  here  daily  of  the  pious  courage, 
patience,  and  self-devoting  zeal  of  these  missionaries  on  Lake 
Superior,  caused  me  to  feel  intense  admiration.  They  are  well 
educated  and  learned  men, — many  better  educated,  indeed,  than 
the  majority, — and  yet  they  resign  not  only  all  enjoyments  and 
comforts,  but  also  all  the  mental  inspiration  and  excitement  of 
polished  society.  They  live  isolated  and  scattered  in  little  log 
huts  round  the  lake,  often  no  better  off  than  the  natives.  They 
must  draw  their  inspirations  entirely  from  their  own  breast,  and 
prayer.  Only  the  thought  of  the  great  universal  Church  to 
which  they  belong  keeps  them  connected  with  society  and  the 
world.  It  is  true,  however,  that  they  find  in  this  an  incitement 
to  exertion  which  our  Protestant  missionaries  lack.  The  latter, 
broken  up  into  sects,  labor  only  for  this  or  that  congregation, 
while  the  former  are  animated  by  a  feeling  that,  as  soldiers  of 
the  Church,  they  are  taking  part  in  a  mighty  work,  which  in 
cludes  all  humanity,  and  encircles  the  entire  globe."* 

Mr.  Kohl  lived  much,  during  his  wanderings,  with  the  men 
whom  he  thus  describes,  and  whose  labors  appear  to  have 
excited  his  astonishment.  Even  a  baptism,  a  wedding,  or  a 
funeral,  he  observes,  involves  in  such  a  climate  almost  the 
privations  and  sufferings  "  of  an  Arctic  expedition."  He  is 
lodging  on  one  occasion  in  the  hut  of  a  Jesuit  Father,  who  had 
retired  after  the  toils  of  the  day.  It  was  "  the  blessed  cold 
Christmas  season,"  and  the  missionary  was  sitting  over  the 
evening  fire  with  his  guest.  "  All  at  once  there  was  a  knock 
at  the  door,  and  a  breathless  stranger,  covered  with  snow  and 
icicles,  walked  in."  His  message  was  soon  told.  Forty  miles 
away,  through  swamps  and  forests,  his  mother  lay  ill,  and 
implored  the  succors  of  religion.  On  the  instant  the  Father 
rose  and  left  the  hut,  "  the  missionary  and  the  Indian  walking 
side  by  side  in  their  snow-shoes."  They  cross  a  frozen  river, 
the  ice  parts  asunder,  and  they  fall  through  "  up  to  their 
waists."  "  At  the  end  of  the  third  day,"  adds  Mr.  Kohl,  "  the 
missionary  was  enabled  to  give  the  poor  dying  Indian  woman 
extreme  unction,  and  to  see  her  eyes  gently  close  in  death, 
Would  an  Oxford  gentleman  reioice  at  being  presented  to  such 
a  living?" 

*  Wanderings  Round  Lake  Superior,  by  J.  G.  Kohl,  ch.  xix.,  p.  306. 


318  CHAPTER  IX. 

And  these* missionaries,  he  says,  are  all  of  the  same  class.* 
Of  one,  whom  he  calls  his  "  honored  friend,"  and  who  was 
the  author  of  an  Ojibbeway  Lexicon,  Mr.  Kohl  remarks, 
"  There  is  hardly  a  locality  on  Lake  Superior  which  is  not 
connected  with  the  history  of  his  life,  either  because  he  built 
a  chapel  there,  or  wrote  a  pious  book,  or  founded  an  Indian 
parish,  or  else  underwent  dangers  and  adventures  there,  in 
which  he  felt  that  Heaven  was  protecting  him."  And  then  he 
relates  a  tale,  which  he  received  from  a  Canadian  voyageur, 
and  which  he  did  well  to  communicate  to  his  readers.  A  mes 
sage  had  been  brought  from  the  other  side  of  Lake  Superior  to 
one  of  these  martyrs  of  charity  with  whom  Mr.  Kohl  dwelt. 
It  was  night,  a  tempest  was  raging,  and  seventy  miles  of  water 
must  be  crossed,  for  to  go  round  the  lake  would  occupy  many 
days ;  but  the  case  was  urgent,  and  the  missionary  did  not 
hesitate.  In  an  open  canoe,  paddled  by  a  Canadian,  who  only 
consented  to  brave  the  perilous  voyage  on  the  Father's  reiter 
ated  assurance  that  God  would  protect  them,  the  darkness  ot 
night  resting  on  the  waters  which  the  storm  had  lashed  into 
fury,  the  missionary  encouraged  his  faithful  companion  to 
strain  every  nerve.  The  weary  hours  of  the  night  were  passed 
in  prayer  and  toil,  and  when  the  Canadian  approached  the 
long  line  of  foaming  breakers  which  beat  against  the  opposite 
shore,  with  a  cry  of  anguish  he  exclaimed,  "  Your  Reverence, 
we  are  lost!"  "  Paddle  on,  dear  Dubois,"  said  the  calm  voice 
of  the  missionary,  "  straight  on.  We  must  get  through,  and  a 
way  will  offer  itself."  "  My  cousin  shrugged  his  shoulders," 
said  the  narrator  to  Mr.  Kohl,  "  made  his  last  prayers,  and 
paddled  straight  on  he  hardly  knew  how.  .  .  .  All  at  once  a 
dark  spot  opened  out  in  the  white  edge  of  the  surf,  which  soon 
widened,"  and  they  were  saved.  "  Did  I  not  say,  Dubois," 
was  the  only  remark  of  the  missionary,  "  that  I  was  called, 
that  I  must  go,  and  that  thou  wouldst  be  saved  with  me  ?  Let 
us  pray."  And  then  they  knelt  down  by  the  shore  of  the  lake, 
and  gave  thanks  to  God. 

On  the  very  spot  where  they  landed,  Mr.  Kohl  adds,  a  large 
cross  has  since  been  erected  by  a  rich  merchant,  "  which  can 
be  seen  a  long  distance  on  the  lake,"  and  is  known  throughout 

*  They  never  change,  of  whatever  nation  they  may  be.  In  1840,  the  American 
mission  lost  one  of  whom  we  have  this  account.  "  In  1799,  a  young  priest  took 
up  his  abode  among  the  most  rugged  summits  of  the  Alleghanies."  For  forty 
years  lie  labored  alone,  and  "  after  expending  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars  of  his  fortune  in  this  admirable  work,  he  died,  leaving  ten  thousand 
Catholics  in  the  mountains,  where  he  had  found  only  twelve  families."  He  was 
known  in  life  as  the  "  Rev.  Mr.  Smith,"  but  when  his  humility  could  no  longer  be 
wounded,  the  world  learned  that  this  solitary  apostle  was  the  Prince  Demetrius 
Gallitzin,  a  convert  from  the  llusso-Groek  Church.  De  Courcy,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  12*3. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  310 

the  region  as  "  the  Cross  of 's  Traverse."     "When  Mr. 

Kohl  had  heard  the  tale,  he  says,  "  I  laid  myself  down  on  the 
knotted  flooring,  by  the  side  of  this  excellent,  gently  slumber- 

.  ,.  w  T 

ing  man.  H 

"Such  are  the  missionaries  who  still  labor,  as  Lallemand  and 
De  Brebeuf  once  labored,  among  the  North  American  Indians. 
Two  centuries  have  passed  away  since  the  first  martyrs  of  this 
land  entered  into  their  reward,  and  not  a  single  grace  has  been 
withdrawn,  not  a  single  gift  diminished,  which  Divine  bounty 
once  lavished  upon  them,  and  still  confers  upon  their  successors. 
It  is  no  grateful  task  to  compare  them  with  their  Protestant 
rivals,  but  we  are  tracing  a  contrast,  and  must  needs  go  on  with 
it.  An  amiable  Anglican  minister,  very  superior  to  many  of 
his  colleagues,  has  published  to  the  world  in  what  manner  he 
set  out  upon  his  mission  in  Canada,  and  with  what  appliances. 
"  Our  own  carriage,"  he  says,  "  a  sort  of  double  denuet,  drawn 
by  my  own  horses,  brought  up  the  rear,"  the  van  being  formed 
by  wagons  of  furniture  and  provisions.  "  This  contained 
myself,  my  wife,  and  our  eldest  son,  every  corner  being  filled 
up  with  trunks,  bandboxes,  and  endless  et  ceteras."  After  this 
description  of  his  going  forth,  the  writer,  who  had  evidently 
good  feelings  and  intentions,  gravely  observes,  "  I  may  not 
presume  to  class  myself  with  those  heroic  and  warlike  church 
men  of  old,"  but  the  disclaimer  appears  to  betray  a  lurking 
hope  that,  in  spite  of  his  equipage  and  his  bandboxes,  his 
readers  might  be  of  a  different  opinion. f 

The  same  clergyman  informs  us  that  his  missionary  colleagues 
in  Canada  "absolutely  ridiculed  the  idea"  of  baptism  conferring 
grace ;  while  from  higher  authorities  of  the  same  sect  we  learn, 
that  all  the  other  religious  phenomena  which  characterize  the 
present  state  of  England  are  being  successfully  reproduced  in 
Canada.  "  We  remark,  far  arid  wide,"  says  the  gentleman  who 
is  Protestant  bishop  at  Toronto,  "the  prevalence  of  religious 
division,  and  its  attendant  is  too  frequently  in  this  diocese  a 
feeling  of  hostility  to  the  Church  of  England, "J — a  statement 
confirmed,  with  ample  details,  by  his  colleague  at  Quebec,  and 
by  the  Itev.  J.  P.  llincks,  who  also  laments  "  a  general  coldness 
towards  the  Church."  Another  Protestant  bishop,  in  Huron, 
reports  in  1862,  that  "many  of  the  emigrants  are  almost  as 
destitute  of  religious  knowledge  as  if  they  came  from  a  heathen 
country."  In  the  so-called  diocese  of  Ontario,  only  one-fifth  of 
the  population  even  profess  to  belong  to  the  Establishment,  the 

*  Pages  182,  183,  307,  309. 

f  Memoirs  of  a  Church  of  England  Missionary  in  the  North  American  Colo 
nies,  ch.  xii.,  p.  73 ;  cli.  xxii.,  p.  141. 
J  The  Church  in  Canada,  p.  37. 


320  CHAPTER   IX. 

rest  being  divided  into  a  multitude  of  jarring  sects,  or  "having 
relapsed  into  a  state  which  may  well  be  called  infidelity."*  It 
is  to  be  observed  also,  as  an  example  of  the  influence  of  Prot 
estantism  which  we  have  found  in  all  the  British  colonies,  that 
in  the  census  of  1861,  eighteen  thousand  five  hundred  of  its 
nominal  disciples  were  returned  as  of  "  no  religion."! 

On  the  other  hand,  the  episcopal  officer  of  the  Anglican 
community  at  Montreal  sorrowfully  recognizes,  amongst  the 
Catholics  of  Canada,  amounting  to  nine  hundred  and  forty-two 
thousand  seven  hundred  and  twenty-four  in  the  lower  province 
alone,  "the  order,  unity,  discipline,  habitual  and  unquestioning 
conformity  to  rule,  common  and  fraternal  feeling  of  identity 
with  the  religious  institutions  of  the  whole  race,"  which,  as  he 
had  detected,  "  attaches  to  the  system  of  the  Eoman  Catholic 
Church,"  and  which,  he  considers,  "carries  with  it  a  great 
lesson  to  the  Protestant  world. "^  And  this  statement  is  more 
than  confirmed  by  Lord  Durham,  when  he  says,  "In  the  general 
absence  of  any  permanent  institutions  of  civil  government,  the 
Catholic  Church  has  presented  almost  the  only  semblance  of 
stability  and  organization,  and  furnished  the  only  effectual 
support  for  civilization  and  order."§ 

On  the  whole,  when  wre  combine  the  facts  which  have  now 
been  hastily  reviewed, — when  we  compare  the  admissions  of 
Mr.  Buckingham  and  others,  that  the  Catholic  Indians  "fulfil 
their  religious  duties  in  the  most  exemplary  manner"  and  "are 
always  sober,"  with  the  confessions  of  Mr.  Kingston  and  Mr. 
Kane,  that  the  Protestant  natives  are  "  a  very  inferior  race," 
and  "  get  drunk  whenever  they  can ;"  when  we  find  English 
writers  admitting  that  the  Catholic  missionaries  are,  even  at  this 
day,  "more  than  usually  successful"  in  converting  the  heathen, 
while  the  most  competent  Protestant  agents  freely  confess  that 
adult  Indians  "can  never  be  prevailed  upon  to  change  their 
religion ;"  when  we  note,  on  the  one  hand,  the  peaceful  and 
industrious  progress  of  the  natives  under  their  Catholic  guides, 
in  spite  of  the  coldness  of  the  civil  authorities,  and  on  the  other, 
the  squalid  misery  of  the  pensioners  under  an  official  patronage 
which,  as  Mr.  Bradford  laments,  "  is  rapidly  destroying  them  ;" 
when  we  consider  the  frank  declaration  of  such  witnesses  as  Miss 
Martineau  and  Mrs.  Jameson,  that  the  "superiority"  of  the 
Catholic  Indians  is  "  most  visible,  certain,  and  undeniable ;" 
and  lastly,  when  we  compare  "  the  order,  unity,  and  fraternal 
feeling"  which  cements  the  one,  with  "the  prevalence  of 

*  Report  of  8.P.G.F.P.,  pp.  77,  83,  88  (1862). 

\  The  Times,  February  12,  1862. 

\  Church  in  the  Colonies,  No.  ix.,  p.  12. 

§  Report  and  Despatches  of  the  Earl  of  Durham  in  Canada,  p.  97  (1839). 


MISSIONS    IN   AMERICA.  321 

religious  division"  which  dissolves  and  scatters  the  other,  and 
contrast,  by  the  aid  of  Protestant  witnesses,  the  character  and 
mode  of  life  of  the  two  orders  of  missionaries,  of  whom  the 
one  are  destitute  strangers,  scowled  upon  by  the  rulers  of  the 
land,  the  others  opulent  representatives  of  British  power  and 
influence ;  we  may  surely  accept  without  surprise  the  conclusion 
announced  by  an  English  traveller,  whose  scrutiny  of  all  these 
facts  compelled  the  reluctant  avowal,  "  It  appears  to  me  that 
Roman  Catholicism  is  best  adapted  for  civilizing  the  Indians."* 

We  might  now  quit  Canada,  to  examine  in  the  wide  terri 
tories  of  the  American  Union  the  final  example  of  the  contrast 
which  we  have  traced  in  every  other  region,  but  a  special 
motive  compels  us  to  linger  for  a  moment  among  the  people 
who  have  found  a  home  by  the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence. 
The  religious  history  of  the  French  Canadians  is  perhaps  only 
indirectly  connected  with  the  immediate  subject  of  this  work, 
yet  there  are  sufficient  reasons  for  a  brief  allusion  to  it.  Like 
some  other  races  of  whom  we  have  read  in  these  volumes, — 
like  the  Maronites  in  Syria,  the  Chinese  in  Corea  and  Annam, 
and  the  Indians  in  Paraguay, — the  Canadians  are  what  they 
are  solely  by  the  power  of  the  Catholic  religion.  By  it  they 
have  been  created  and  sustained.  To  its  penetrating  influence 
their  whole  social  and  individual  life  bears  witness.  Take 
away  the  faith  which  has  been  the  light  of  their  homes  and 
hearts,  and  the  Canadians  would  have  no  place  on  earth. 
They  would  be  absorbed  in  the  dull,  inert  mass  of  semi-pagan 
life  by  which  they  are  surrounded. 

The  resistance  which  the  Catholics  of  British  America,  and 
especially  the  Canadians,  have  opposed  to  the  deadly  influences 
which  threatened  for  more  than  a  century  to  destroy  their 
peaceful  communities,  and  to  dry  up  the  fountains  of  their  life, 
forms  one  of  those  chapters  of  modern  history  at  which  the 
statesman  glances  with  indifference  or  disgust,  but  in  which 
the  Christian  loves  to  trace  the  providence  of  God.  Subject 
to  masters  of  an  alien  race  and  creed,  who  could  neither  appre 
ciate  their  virtues  nor  respect  their  independence,  every  tiling 
has  been  tried  which  eager  malice  could  invent,  or  unscrupu 
lous  fraud  devise,  or  shameless  violence  execute,  to  exhaust 
their  constancy.  In  a  single  year,  as  Haliburton  relates, 
nearly  fifteen  thousand  Catholics  were  forcibly  deported  from 
the  province  of  Nova  Scotia,  and  their  goods  confiscated,  by 
the  authority  of  the  British  government.-)*  And  the  policy 

*  Letters  from  the  United  States,  Cuba,  and  Canada,  by  the  Hon.  Amelia  M. 
Murray,  letter  ix.,  p.  127. 

f  History  of  Nova  Scotia,  quoted  by  Brasseur  de  Bourbourg,  tome  i., 
cli.  xvi.,  p.  290. 

VOL.  ii.  22 


322  CHAPTER   IX. 

which  suggested  this  crime  prevailed  in  Canada,  as  Burke  in 
dignantly  reminded  his  nation,  until  the  fear  of  rebellion  pro 
voked  a  tardy  and  calculating  justice.  "All  the  laws,  customs, 
and  forms  of  judicature,"  says  Mr.  Bancroft,  "of  a  populous 
and  long-established  colony  were  in  one  hour  overturned,  by 
the  ordinance  of  the  17th  of  September,  1764;  and  English 
laws,  even  the  penal  statutes  against  Catholics,  all  unknown 
to  the  Canadians,  and  unpublished,  were  introduced  in  their 

stead In  the  one  hundred  and  ten  rural  parishes 

there  were  but  nineteen  Protestant  families !  The  meek 
and  unresisting  province  was  given  over  to  hopeless  oppres 
sion.  The  history  of  the  world  furnishes  no  instance  of  so 
rash  injustice."*  Mr.  Bancroft  appears  to  have  forgotten 
Ireland. 

The  same  acts  occurred  throughout  all  the  regions  then  ac 
quired  by  England  on  the  American  continent.  "  The  council 
at  Halifax  voted  all  the  poor  Red  Men  that  dwelt  in  the  penin 
sula  to  be  '  so  many  banditti,  ruffians,  or  rebels  ;'  and  by  its 
authority,  Cornwallis,  '  to  bring  the  rascals  to  reason,'  offered 
for  every  one  of  them  i  taken  or  killed,'  ten  guineas,  to  be  paid 
on  producing  the  savage  or  his  scalp?  The  Catholic  inhabit 
ants  of  Acadia  were  treated  even  worse  than  those  of  Canada. 
Under  the  French,  says  the  Protestant  historian,  "they  formed, 
as  it  were,  one  great  family.  Their  morals  were  of  unaffected 
purity."  But  this  did  not  save  them.  The  possession  of  virtue 
and  innocence  was  a  slender  title  to  the  esteem  of  the  English ; 
and  so,  continues  our  authority,  u  the  Acadians  were  despised 
because  they  were  helpless.  Their  papers  and  records,  the 
titles  to  their  estates  and  inheritances,  were  taken  away  from 

them When  they  delayed  in  fetching  fire-wood  for 

their  oppressors,  it  was  told  them  from  the  governor,  ;  if  they 
do  not  do  it  in  proper  time,  the  soldiers  shall  take  their  houses 
for  fuel."' 

Finally,  as  these  too  lenient  measures  failed  to  destroy  their 
faith,  or  to  exhaust  their  patience,  all  their  remaining  property 
was  seized  by  the  crown  officers,  and  they  were  banished  en 
masse.  "  Some  were  charitably  sheltered  from  the  English," 
says  Mr.  Bancroft,  "in  the  wigwams  of  the  savages!""  But 
even  this  did  not  satisfy  their  new  masters.  "To  prevent 
their  return,  their  villages,  from  Annapolis  to  the  isthmus, 
were  laid  waste.  The  live-stock  was  seized  as  spoils,  and  dis 
posed  of  ~by  the  English  officials The  Lords  of  Trade, 

more  merciless  than  the  savages,  wished  that  every  one  of  the 
Acadians  should  be  driven  out ;  and  when  it  seemed  that  the 

*  IV.,  151. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  323 

work  was  done,  congratulated  the  king  that  {the  zealous 
endeavors  of  Governor  Lawrence  had  been  crowned  with  an 
entire  success.'  I  know  not  if  the  annals  of  the  human  race 
keep  the  record*  of  sorrows  so  wantonly  inflicted,  so  bitter  and 
so  perennial,  as  fell  upon  the  French  inhabitants  of  Acaclia."* 

Long  years  after,  the  successors  of  Cornwallis,  and  Lawrence, 
and  the  Earl  of  Loudoun,  still  resembled  their  predecessors,  still 
imitated  their  example  as  closely  as  they  dared  ;  and  Lord 
Durham,  whose  fretful  but  honest  temper  was  soothed  by  the 
simple  virtues  of  a  people  whom  he  learned  to  love,  and  strove 
to  defend,  could  tell  his  government,  with  a  warmth  which  he 
did  not  care  to  subdue,  that  "  they  had  done  nothing  to  promote 
education,  though  they  had  applied  the  revenues  of  the  Jesuits, 
destined  for  educational  purposes,"  and  whose  college  the  Eng 
lish  converted  into  a  barrack,  to  the  miserable  schemes  of 
official  patronage ;  and  reminded  them,  that  with  cynical 
contempt  of  truth  and  honor,  they  gave  a  large  annual  stipend, 
out  of  these  very  revenues,  to  an  Anglican  preacher,  as  "  chap 
lain  of  the  Jesuits!" 

The  fate  of  the  once  famous  college  of  the  Jesuits  at  Quebec, 
now  tenanted  by  the  military  police  of  the  province,  will  be 
regretted  by  all  who  appreciate  the  objects  which  it  was 
destined  to  promote.  "  From  this  seat  of  piety  and  learning," 
says  a  Protestant  writer,  "issued  those  dauntless  missionaries 
who  made  the  Gospel  known  over  a  space  of  six  hundred 
leagues,  and  preached  the  Christian  faith  from  the  St.  Lawrence 
to  the  Mississippi. "f 

Yet  the  Canadians,  who  received  from  England,  until  the 
time  of  Lord  Durham,  only  coarse  insult  or  heartless  oppression, 
have  steadfastly  maintained,  by  the  counsels  of  their  spiritual 
guides,  a  sincere  and  manly  loyalty  to  their  foreign  rulers.  In 
1755,  Canada  would  have  been  lost  to  England,  but  for  the 
vigilant  action  of  the  Catholic  clergy.  Half  a  century  later,  as 
Colonel  Sleigh  remarks,  "  the  Canadian  population"  once  more 
displayed  a  "  chivalrous  devotion  and  faith  which  find  not  in 
the  records  of  the  past  a  more  noble  example.  In  1812,  the 
defence  of  the  country  mainly  depended  upon  the  French 
Canadians.  A  second  time  they  proved  their  loyalty  ;  the 
Americans  were  repulsed  on  all  sides,  and  Canada  was  saved. "J 
"England  holds  the  Canadas,"  observes  another  Protestant 
writer,  "by  the  influence  of  the  Roman  Catholic  hierarchy 


*  III.,  138, 146. 

f  Hawkins,  Quebec,  &c.,  ch.  x.,  p.  193. 

\.  Pine  Forests  and  Hacmatack  Clearings,  by  Lieut.-Col.  Sleigh,  ch.  xi.,  p.  275 
2d  edition  (1853). 


324:  CHAPTER   IX. 

alone.  The  Sulpicians  of  Montreal  are  her  vicegerents."*  "A 
large  part  of  the  Catholic  clergy,"  said  Lord  Durham,  "  support 
the  government  against  revolutionary  violence."f  But  if  the 
Catholic  people  of  Canada  have  hitherto  refused,  though  often 
urged  by  agents  from  the  United  States,  to  rebel  against  their 
hard  and  unsympathizing  rulers,  they  have  rejected  with  inex 
pressible  repugnance  both  their  religion  and  their  habits,  while 
they  have  jealously  preserved  their  own  distinctive  life,  their 
language,  their  faith,  and  their  traditions.  Let  us  see  what 
Protestants  say,  in  spite  of  religious  and  national  prejudices,  of 
a  people  whom  they  have  so  deeply  wronged,  but  whom  they 
are  constrained  to  praise,  even  when  they  wish  to  revile. 

"  The  French  Canadians,"  says  Sir  Francis  Head,  "  retain  all 
the  social  virtues  of  the  French,  without  their  propensity  to 
war.";f  "They  are  mild  and  kindly,"  observes  Lord  Durham, 
"  frugal,  industrious,  and  honest,  very  sociable,  cheerful,  and 
hospitable,  and  distinguished  for  a  courtesy  and  real  politeness 
which  pervades  every  class  of  society. "§  "  They  vastly  surpass," 
observes  Dr.  Shaw,  in  1856,  "the  people  of  England  in  the 
same  rank  of  life  ;"  and  then,  alluding  to  the  religion  which  has 
made  them  what  they  are,  he  adds,  "  I  have  seen  them  flocking 
in  great  numbers,  as  early  as  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
have  been  informed  that  they  frequently  assemble  as  early  as 
four  A.M.,  proving  one  thing  at  least,  that  they  are  not  indo 
lently  religious."}  "  I  confess,"  says  Mr.  Godley,  an  Anglican 
Protestant,  "I  have  a  strong  sympathy  for  the  French  Cana 
dians  ;  they  are  si  bons  enfants — contentment,  gaitie  de  eo&ur, 
politeness  springing  from  benevolence  of  heart,  respect  to  their 
superiors,  confidence  in  their  friends,  attachment  to  their  re 
ligion," — these  are  among  the  qualities  which  he  detected  in 
them.^f  "  Every  thing  we  saw  of  the  French  Canadians,"  writes 
Mr.  Buckingham,  "  induced  us  to  believe  that  they  are  amongst 
the  happiest  peasantry  in  the  world.  ...  I  think  the  Cana 
dian  more  sober,  more  virtuous,  and  more  happy  than  the 
American."** 

Such  are  the  Canadians,  in  the  judgment  of  upright  Prot 
estants,  willing  to  acknowledge,  even  when  slow  to  imitate,  the 
virtues  of  the  simple  and  winning  race  whom  they  describe. 
But  these  frank  and  cordial  eulogies  of  amiable  and  discerning 

*  The  Statesmen  of  America,  p.  305. 
Despatches,  p.  11. 

Sir  Francis  Head's  Narrative,  p.  194. 
Despatches,  p.  17. 

Ramble  through  the  United  States,  &c.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  90. 
Godley 's  Letters  from  America,  vol.  i.,  letter  v.,  p.  89. 
**  Canada,  &c.,  pp.  211-18-20,  264,  270.  Cf.  Lieut.-Col.  Cunynghame's  Glimpse 
at  the  Great  Western  Republic,  ch.  xx.,  p.  252. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA. 

witnesses  have  not  been  allowed  to  pass,  and  the  fact  is  worthy 
of  notice,  without  the  protests  of  that  uneasy  rancor  which 
heresy  inspires,  and  which  could  a\vaken  even  in  a  woman's 
heart  the  thoughts  expressed  in  the  following  words :  "  The 
enslaving,  enervating,  and  retarding  effects  of  Koman  Catho 
licism  are  nowhere  better  seen  than  in  Lower  Canada,  where  the 
priests  exercise  despotic  authority."  And  as  if  this  were  too 
weak  to  do  justice  to  her  feelings,  this  English  lady  presently 
adds,  that  all  the  evils  of  that  country,  whatever  they  may  be, 
are  dne  to  the  "ignorance  and  terrorism  caused  by  the  success 
ful  efforts  of  the  priests."*  Her  book  was  intended  for  English 
readers,  and  she  appears  to  have  anticipated  that  they  would 
welcome  such  statements.  Yet  in  the  next  page  she  confesses, 
that  "  there  are  in  Lower  Canada  upwards  of  eleven  hundred 
schools"  of  which,  it  may  be  added,  nearly  one  hundred  are  at 
this  moment  under  the  direction  of  Christian  Brothers  ;f  and 
Mr.  Buckingham  informs  us,  speaking  of  the  religious  schools 
in  Quebec,  "  So  highly  is  the  tuition  given  here  prized  by  all 
classes,  that  Protestant  families  send  their  daughters  quite  as 
freely  to  the  Ursuline  convent  for  education  as  Catholics." 

Elsewhere,  the  lady  whom  we  quote,  forgetting  her  own 
gloomy  picture  of  the  "  enslaved"  Canadians,  gives  the  follow 
ing  account  of  these  victims  of  a  "  despotic  priesthood."  "The 
peasants  of  Lower  Canada  are  among  the  most  harmless  people 
under  the  sun  ;  they  are  moral,  sober,  and  contented,  and  zeal 
ous  in  the  observance  of  their  erroneous  creed.  They  strive 
after  happiness  rather  than  advancement,  and  who  shall  say 
that  they  are  unsuccessful  in  their  aim  ?  On  Sundays  and 
Saints'  days  they  assemble  in  crowds  in  their  churches.  Their 
wants  and  wishes  are  few,  their  manners  are  courteous  and 
unsuspicious,  they  hold  their  faith  with  a  blind  and  implicit 
credulity," — she  neither  knows  what  their  faith  is,  nor  how 
they  hold  it, — "  and  on  summer  evenings  sing  the  songs  of 
France  as  their  fathers  sang  them  in  bygone  days  on  the  smi 
ling  banks  of  the  rushing  Rhone.";):  Yet  after  this  description 
of  a  charming  people, — whom  she  calls,  in  various  places, 
"  moral,  sober,  contented,  amiable,  courteous,  not  ambitious, ' 
sincere,  and  devout," — she  scoffs  complacently  at  the  Divine 
religion  which  has  generated  these  very  virtues  as  "  the  great 
antidote  to  social  progress."  All  her  own  ideas  of  an  unexcep 
tionable  religion  appear  to  be  connected  with  railroads,  steam 
boats,  much  commerce,  and  a  diligent  police.  Unfortunate 
Canadians,  who  refuse  to  say  to  such  objects  of  worship,  "These 


*  The  Englishwoman  in  America,  ch.  xiv.,  p.  312. 
The  Metropolita 
Ch.  xiii.,  p.  284. 


f  The  Metropolitan  Catholic  Almanac,  Baltimore,  1860,  p.  278. 


326  CHAPTER   IX. 

are  thy  gods !"  "  With  them"  says  an  English  Protestant  of  a 
higher  class,  "churches  come  first,  railroads  afterwards,  which 
appears  to  us  a  very  paradoxical  arrangement.  They  make  the 
church  the  first  object,  and  we  the  last"*  And  for  this  reason 
it  is, — because  their  souls  are  penetrated  with  the  Divine  admo 
nition,  "  Unum  necessarium"  and  Christian  faith  counsels 
them  not  to  be  "troubled  about  many  things  "\  that  the  Cana 
dians  have  found  grace  to  remain  what  they  are  ;  for  this  reason 
their  life  contrasts  so  visibly,  in  purity  and  dignity,  in  true 
wisdom  and  enlightenment,  in  familiar  knowledge  of  God  and 
of  holy  religion,  with  the  feverish  "  progress"  and  restless 
greed  of  the  American,  or  the  dismal  sottishness  of  the  English 
boor. 

Yet  it  is  simply  untrue  that  the  material  progress  of  this 
Catholic  province  is  unworthy  to  be  compared  with  that  of  its 
non-Catholic  neighbors.  On 'the  26th  of  September,  1862,  the 
Hon.  A.  T.  Gait,  late  Finance  Minister  of  Canada,  announced 
the  following  facts  in  the  Town  Hall  of  Manchester  :  In  1852, 
the  population  of  Lower  Canada  was  eight  hundred  and  ninety 
thousand ;  in  1861,  it  was  one  million  one  hundred  and  eleven 
thousand,  being  an  increment  of  25  per  cent,  in  nine  years. 

In  1852,  the  quantity  of  land  held  by  lease  or  freehold  was 
eight  million  one  hundred  and  thirteen  thousand  acres  ;  in  1861, 
ten  million  two  hundred  and  twenty-three  thousand,  or  27|  per 
cent.  more. 

In  1852,  the  number  of  bushels  of  grain  other  than  wheat, 
for  the  cultivation  of  which  the  climate  and  soil  of  the  Lower 
are  less  favorable  than  those  of  the  Upper  province,  was  twelve 
million  one  hundred  and  forty-seven  thousand;  and  in  1861, 
twenty-three  million  five  hundred  and  thirty-four  thousand — 
an  increase  of  93|  per  cent.,  "or  very  nearly  as  much  as  was 
shown  by  the  whole  British  population  of  Upper  Canada." 
And  these  facts  have  a  tenfold  significance,  as  Mr.  Gait  re 
marked,  inasmuch  as  "  the  French  Canadians  had  not  had  the 
advantages  of  a  fresh  influx  by  emigration,  and  all  their  advances 
had  proceeded  from  themselves." 

Mr.  Gait  did  not  add,  though  this  fact  was  also  revealed  by 
the  census  of  1861,  that,  in  spite  of  the  constant  influx  of 
Protestant  emigrants,  the  proportion  of  the  Catholic  inhabit 
ants  of  Canada  to  the  Protestants  was  higher  than  in  1852. 
He  did,  however,  observe  that,  "  as  there  was  a  school  in  every 
•parish,  where  every  child  received  a  free  education,  they  were, 
or  ought  to  be,  beyond  the  reach  of  any  stigma.";): 

*  Godley,  letter  iv.,  p.  71. 

f  S.  Luke  x.  42. 

\  The  Times,  September  27,  1862. 


MISSIONS    IN    AMERICA.  327 

Colonel  Bouchette,  who  knows  more  of  the  Canadians  than 
the  English  tourist  whom  we  have  quoted,  and  who  observes 
that  neither  the  crimes  nor  the  social  misery  of  England  exist 
among  them,  declares  with  energy,  that  "  the  Catholic  religion 
is  in  Canada  no  more  the  instrument  of  the  people's  degradation 
than  is  the  Quaker  religion  in  Pennsylvania  ;"  and  he  not  only 
confesses  that  English  destitution  is  as  little  known  in  Canada 
as  English  unbelief,  but  that  "  a  bold  spirit  of  independence 
reigns  throughout  the  conduct  of  the  whole  population,"  and 
that  "its  priesthood  use  only  the  influence  of  the  understanding, 
are  merely  the  advisers,  and  not  the  rulers  of  their  flocks."* 

As  Canada  is  often  referred  to  by  English  writers  as  an 
example  of  the  social  stagnation  of  a  Catholic  people,  it  may 
be  permitted  to  add  a  few  words  on  this  familiar  theme. 
Catholic  States,  we  are  told,  rarely  emulate  the  material  prog 
ress  of  their  Protestant  rivals.  Yet  nothing  is  more  incontest 
able  than  this,  that  in  Canada,  as  in  every  other  Catholic  land, 
neither  social  misery  nor  social  crime  have  ever  attained  the 
proportions  which  distinguish  England,  Prussia,  and  other 
non-Catholic  nations.  As  respects  Great  Britain,  a  Protestant 
authority  affirms  the  notorious  fact,  that  "  in  no  country  is  so 
large  a  proportion  of  the  inhabitants  sunk  in  pauperism  and 
wretchedness."!  In  Prussia,  the  same  experienced  writer, 
honestly  comparing  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  districts  to 
gether,  affirms  as  follows  with  respect  to  the  Rhine  provinces  : 
"  The  people  are  Roman  Catholic  ;  and  in  manufactures,  trade, 
capital,  and  industry,  are  very  far  in  advance  of  any  other 
portion  or  people  of  the  Prussian  dominions.":):  Belgium,  the 
most  Catholic  province  of  Northern  Europe,  is  also  the  most 
prosperous.  In  France,  where  the  products  of  the  so-called 
Reformation  are  held  in  lower  esteem  than  in  almost  any 
country  of  the  world,  successive  revolutions,  which  would  have 
utterly  destroyed  the  financial  equilibrium  of  England  or 
Holland,  have  scarcely  inflicted  a  shock  either  on  the  national 
credit  or  the  public  welfare,  so  solid  is  the  basis  of  her 
prosperity.  And,  lastly,  whereas  it  is  usual  to  point  to  Spain 
and  Portugal  as  notable  instances  of  the  decay  of  Catholic 
States,  they  are,  in  fact,  pregnant  examples  of  exactly  the 

*  British  Dominions,  &c.,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  414. 

f  Laing,  Residence  in  Norway,  ch.  iv.,  p.  156. 

J  Laing,  Observations  on  Europe,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  316  (1850).  A  vehement  German 
Protestant,  consenting  to  refute  one  of  the  popular  libels  of  his  co-religionists, 
says  of  the  Neapolitans  between  the  gulfs  of  Naples  and  Salerno,  "  the  diligence 
of  our  vine-growing  peasants  on  the  Rhine,  whose  laborious  cultivation  has 
become  proverbial,  is  nothing  compared  to  that  of  the  Neapolitans  on  theso 
mountains  ;  and  yet  they  have  become  proverbial  for  indolence !"  Wanderings 
through  the  Cities  of  Italy,  by  A.  L.  Von  Rochau,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  222 ;  ed.  Sinnett. 


328  CHAPTER   IX. 

opposite  truth.  It  is  history  which  teaches  us,  that  hoth 
those  kingdoms  attained  the  summit  of  their  opulence  and 
might  precisely  at  the  moment  when  Catholic  principles  and 
traditions  most  powerfully  influenced  their  rulers  and  people, 
and  that  they  began  to  decay  only  when  their  degenerate 
statesmen  first  adopted  the  political  maxims  which.  Protestant 
ism  introduced  into  the  world,  and  broke  that  intimate  alliance 
with  the  Catholic  Church  to  which  they  owed  all  their  glory 
and  renown.  If  Portugal,  once  so  illustrious  in  arms  and  in 
commerce,  has  become  contemptible  in  Europe,  it  is  because 
she  has  suffered  her  religious  life  to  ebb  away,  and  though  of 
old  she  filled  the  world  with  her  apostles,  has  now  hardly 
vigor  enough  to  produce  even  a  domestic  clergy  ;  while  the 
great  Spanish  nation,  after  a  temporary  eclipse,  is  resuming 
at  the  same  moment,  amid  the  applause  of  Christendom,  both 
the  Catholic  instincts  which  made  her  in  other  days  the 
mightiest  empire  in  the  universe,  and  the  material  prosperity 
which  she  knew  how  to  create  under  Ferdinand  and  Isabella, 
to  develop  under  Charles  the  Fifth,  to  preserve  under  Philip 
the  Second,  and  to  restore  once  again  under  the  daughter  of 
Ferdinand  the  Seventh.* 

Let  us  return  for  a  moment  to  Canada,  and  to  the  English 
lady,  who,  as  a  specimen  of  the  singular  pertinacity  of  British 
prejudice,  deserves  additional  notice.  The  Canadian  clergy, 
whose  despotic  influence,  she  informs  us,  creates  "  ignorance 
and  terrorism,"  but  who  "  only  use  the  influence  of  the  under 
standing,"  as  Colonel  Bouchette  observes,  and  number  among 
them,  as  Mr.  Kohl  has  told  us,  the  most  learned  men  on  the 
western  continent,  and  "  are  a  most  gentlemanly  and  enlight 
ened  class,"  as  Colonel  Sleigh  observes,  are  thus  described  by 
Lord  Durham  :  "  The  Catholic  priesthood  of  this  province  have 
to  a  very  remarkable  degree  conciliated  the  good-will  of  persons 
of  all  creeds  ;  and  I  know  of  no  parochial  clergy  in  the  world 

*  It  is  not,  of  course,  denied  that  the  influence  of  religion,  in  proportion  to  its 
energy,  will  generate  indifference  to  the  material  progress  which  the  world 
esteems  so  highly.  It  was  the  doctrine  of  St.  Paul,  and  the  world  has  always 
resented  it,  that  Christians  should  use  this  world  "  as  if  they  used  it  not."  "  The 
world,"  says  an  eminent  writer,  "  is  a  counterfeit  of  the  Church  of  God,  and  in 
the  most  implacable  antagonism  to  it.  .  .  The  view  which  the  Church  takes 
of  the  world  is  distinct  and  clear,  and  far  from  flattering  to  its  pride.  It  con 
siders  the  friendship  of  the  world  as  enmity  with  God.  It  puts  all  the  world's 
affairs  under  its  feet,  either  as  of  no  consequence,  or  at  least  of  very  secondary 
importance.  .  .  It  provokes  the  world  by  looking  on  progress  doubtingly,  and 
with  what  appears  a  very  inadequate  interest,  and  there  is  a  quiet  faith  in  its 
contempt  for  the  world  extremely  irritating  to  this  latter  power."  Dr.  Faber, 
The  Creator  and  the  Creature,  ch.  iii.,  p.  378.  It  is  perhaps  only  an  incidental 
and  subordinate,  but  still  a  startling  illustration  of  the  mortal  apathy  of  our 
countrymen,  that  this  wonderful  book  should  exist  in  their  own  language, 
and  remain  utterly  unknown  to  them. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  329 

whose  practice  of  all  the  Christian  virtues  is  more  universally 
•admitted,  and  has  been  productive  of  more  beneficial  conse 
quences."*  And  if  this  be  not  a  sufficient  rebuke  to  the  lady 
whom  we  are  quoting,  perhaps  her  own  words  will  supply 
whatever  is  wanting.  She  is  noticing  the  ravages  of  the  cholera 
at  Toronto,  and  these  are  the  reflections  which  she  makes  : 
"The  priests  of  Koine  then  gained  a  double  influence.  Armed 
with  what  appeared  in  the  eyes  of  the  people  supernatural 
powers,  they  knew  no  rest  either  by  day  or  night ;  they  held 
the  Cross  before  many  a  darkening  eye,  and  spoke  to  the  be 
reaved  of  a  world  where  sorrow  and  separation  are  alike  un 
known,  "f  But  no  virtues  could  soothe  her  enmity,  instruct 
her  prejudice,  nor  inspire  the  thought  of  imitating,  however 
feebly,  the  charity  which  these  priests  could  have  taught  her  ; 
and  so,  after  exhausting  the  vocabulary  of  disdain  and  reproof, 
she  finishes,  as  she  began,  by  a  general  defiance  to  all  Catholic 
people  and  nations,  and  by  the  peremptory  declaration,  ad 
dressed  to  humanity  at  large,  that  "  America  and  Scotland  are 
the  two  most  religious  countries  in  the  world  !" 

If  we  accept  the  imprudent  challenge  conveyed  in  these 
wrords,  we  shall  hardly  be  led  into  a  digression,  for  we  shall 
still  be  illustrating  one  of  the  facts  proper  to  our  subject. 
"  Scotland,"  says  Dr.  Shaw,  contrasting  her  expressly  with 
Canada,  "  claims  the  honor  of  standing  pretty  near  first  in 
the  catalogue  of  crime. "$  "Nearly  every  tenth  Scotsman," 
says  another  local  witness,  "  is  a  bastard  ;"§  and,  speaking  of 
the  country  districts,  it  is  the  exception  and  not  the  rule  if  a 
master  has  not  been  chargeable,  some  time  or  other,  with 
corrupting  those  under  him."[  The  latest  Report  of  the 
Scottish  .Registrar- General  (1860)  reveals  once  more,  with 
almost  unofficial  candor,  "  the  excessive  incontinence"  of  this 
Presbyterian  nation,  and  deplores  that  "  the  immorality  is 
not  confined  to  the  humbler  classes."^  A  well-known  Pres 
byterian  writer  attests  with  equal  frankness  the  enormous  ine 
briety  of  the  same  people,  and  records  the  characteristic  fact, — 
indicating,  as  he  observes,  "  the  moral  and  religious  condition 
of  Edinburgh," — that  the  sum  of  two  thousand  one  hundred 
and  seventy  pounds  is  spent  every  Sunday  in  that  metropolis 
of  Calvinism  "  in  drinking  whiskey  or  other  spirits."**  Dr. 
Barclay  registers  the  popular  proverb,  "  As  besotted  and  as 

*  Despatches,  p.  97. 

f  Ch.  xii.,  p.  203. 

\  The  United  States,  &c.,  cli.  iv.,  p.  106. 

§  Quoted  in  The  Times,  July  17,  1858. 

|  Banffshire  Journal,  quoted  in  the  Times,  February  24,  1859. 

f  The  Times,  November  26,  1860. 

**  Laing,  Observations  on  Europe,  ch.  ii.,  p.  37. 


330  CHAPTER   IX. 

Pharisaical  as  Glasgow ;"  and  another  authority  adds,  "  If 
Scotland  is  the  most  Sabbatarian  and  Calvinistic  country  upon 
earth,  its  town  populations  at  least  are  the  most  drunken  of 
drunkards."*  "  Drunken,"  says  one  of  her  own  children,  "  in 
a  greater  measure  than  other  countries,  fiercer  in  crime,  surely 
Scotland  can  scarcely  point  to  the  success  of  her  theories  in. 
the  evidence  of  her  training,  "f 

Lastly,  the  decaying  influence  of  religion,  in  spite  of  the 
fierce  and  peremptory  tone  of  its  self-confident  teachers,  is  thus 
attested  by  two  eminent  Scotchmen,  wTho  were  perhaps  better 
qualified  than  most  of  their  countrymen  to  speak  with  authority. 
"  If  we  are  to  believe  one-half  of  what  some  religious  persons 
themselves  assure  us,"  says  Lord  Cockburn,  "  religion  is  now 
almost  extinct,"  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact,  which  he  notices 
in  the  same  sentence,  that  "  it  is  certainly  more  the  fashion 
than  it  used  to  be.rj  "A  people  sunk  into  an  abyss  of  degra 
dation  and  misery,"  says  Mr.  Hugh  Miller,  "  and  in  which  it 
is  the  whole  tendency  of  external  circumstances  to  sink  them 
yet  deeper,  constitute  the  weakness  and  shame  of  a  country  ;" 
and  this  fact,  he  adds,  is  being  more  and  more  plainly  revealed 
by  "  the  ominous  increase  which  is  taking  place  among  us  in 
the  worse  class. "§  "  It  is  not  fashionable,"  says  the  same 
writer  in  another  work,  "  in  the  present  age  openly  to  avow 
infidelity,  save  in  some  modified  rationalistic  or  pantheistic 
form,  but  in  no  age  did  the  thing  itself  exist  more  extensively.''! 

America,  where  the  disintegrating  power  of  Protestantism 
has  never  been  resisted,  as  in  England,  by  lingering  Catholic 
traditions,  is  thus  described  by  a  competent  witness,  Dr. 
Onderdonck,  a  Protestant  bishop.  "  A  spirit  of  misrule,  of 
impiety,  of  infidelity,  of  licentiousness,  is  stalking  through  the 
length  and  breadth  of  our  land,  threatening  ruin  to  every 
interest  connected  with  individual,  domestic,  social,  and  civil 
welfare.  It  must  be  resisted,  it  must  be  kept  at  bay,  it  must 
be  crushed,  or  we  are  a  ruined  people. ,"T  "I  greatly  fear,"  says 
another  American  preacher,  at  a  still  later  date,  "  that  we  are 
advancing  by  certain,  and  by  no  means  slow  steps,  in  the  direc 
tion  of  complete  absence  of  religion,  and  moral  ruin."**  This  is 
not  a  cheerful  description  of  "the  most  religious  country  in  the 
world  ;"  in  which,  we  are  further  informed,  "  nearly  four-fifths 

*  Saturday  Review,  April  20,  1861. 
'  The  Times,  November  5,  1862. 

Memorials  of  his  Time,  by  Henry  Cockburn,  ch.  i.,  p.  44  (1856). 

liambles  of  a  Geologist,  by  Hugh  Miller,  ch.  viii.,  p.  135  (1858). 

The  Testimony  of  the  Hocks,  lecture  ix.,  p.  345  (1862). 

•  Sermon  preached  at  the  Consecration  of  Ghristchurch. 
**  Quoted  by  Dollinger,  p.  248. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  331 

of  the  children,  and  two-thirds  of  the  male  population,  are  un- 
baptized  !"*  "  There  is  not  a  country,"  adds  Mr.  Francis 
Wyse,  "  where  infidelity  is  more  generally  diffused  amidst  the 
bulk  of  the  population  ;"f  and  this  infidelity,  an  American 
writer  will  presently  assure  us,  "is  the  usual  recoil"  of  his 
countrymen  "  from  the  Puritanism  of  their  childhood  :"  another 
proof  that  atheism  is  the  logical  result  of  a  religion  which,  in 
its  best  form,  can  only  appeal  to  emotion  and  sentiment,  and 
when  these  are  exhausted,  dies  away  in  apathy  and  gloom. 
"  A  great  portion  of  our  country,"  observes  an  Episcopalian 
minister,  in  1858,  "  is  witness  to  the  most  alarming  theological 
progress  towards  the  Rationalism  of  Germany."}  In  other 
words,  the  mass  have  no  religion  at  all,  and  the  few  have  a 
religion  which  is  either  a  profitless  rehearsal  of  dead  forms,  or 
an  explicit  denial  of  the  principal  truths  of  revelation. §  Again  : 
the  total  absence  of  any  moral  result  from  Protestant  educa 
tion  in  America,  the  universality  of  which  has  been  so  much 
vaunted,  is  so  notorious,  as  to  force  from  candid  and  experi 
enced  observers  the  following  avowals :  "  It  trains  up  men," 
says  an  American  theological  periodical,  "  to  make  them  cold, 
calculating  scoundrels."!  "  Many  well-judging  persons,  of  dif 
ferent  religious  persuasions,  have  assured  me,"  says  another, 
u  that  the  only  really  useful  and  corrective  education  is  that  of 
the  Catholic  schools  and  colleges.  So  far  as  I  have  known, 
these  seminaries' are  crowded,  not  only  with  pupils  of  their  own 
creed,  but  with  those  of  other  sects.  And  I  have  high  official 
authority  for  saying,  that  the  ministers  and  missionaries  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  are  at  this  moment  doing  more  good 
for  the  cause  of  virtue  and  morality  throughout  the  whole  con 
tinent  of  America,  than  those  of  any  other  religious  denomina 
tion  whatever.'*]" 

And  if  we  ask,  in  conclusion,  what  have  been  the  fruits  of 
that  peculiar  system  which  America  has  borrowed  from  Scot 
land,  for  reawakening  religious  emotion  where  it  has  ebbed 
away  or  become  extinct,  every  witness,  of  whatever  creed,  ex 
cept  those  who  trade  in  that  form  of  hysterical  mania,  will 

*  Godley,  Letters  from  America,  vol.  ii.,  p.  102. 

f  America,  Its  Realities  and  Resources,  vol.  i.,  cli.  ix.,  p.  270. 

\.  Rev.  A.  C.  Coxe,  Statements  and  Documents  concerning  the  Board  of  Man 
agers  of  the  American  Bible  Society,  p.  28  (New  York,  1858). 

§  A  recent  traveller  observes  that  "  to  such  an  extent  does  oblivion  of  the 
Sabbath  day  go,  that  for  want  of  one  day  of  rest  to  distinguish  from  the  other 
six  days,  not  one  man  in  ten  of  the  Far  West  settlers  can  tell  you,  if  you  ask 
him,  the  day  of  the  week.  All  days  are  alike,  and  not  one  of  them  is  set  apart 
for  rest  and  worship."  The  English  Sportsman  in  the  Western  Prairies,  by 
the  Hon.  Grantley  Berkeley,  ch.  xxii.,  p.  373. 

I  Quoted  by  Dollinger,  The  Church  and  the  Churches,  p.  223. 

11  The  Statesmen  of  America  in  1846,  p.  491. 


332  CHAPTER  IX. 

give  us  the  same  reply.  "  If  a  victorious  army,"  says  a  con 
spicuous  American  preacher,  "  should  overflow  and  lay  us 
waste,  or  if  a  fire  should  pass  over  and  lay  every  dwelling  in 
our  land  in  ashes,  it  would  be  a  blessing  to  be  coveted  with 
thanksgiving,  in  comparison  to  the  moral  desolation  of  one 
ungoverned  '  revival'  of  religion."*  "  Had  the  inhabitants  of 
Bedlam  been  let  loose,"  observes  Mr.  Fearon,  in  describing  one 
of  these  orgies,  "  they  could  not  have  exceeded  it."f  Yet  this 
is  the  mode  by  which  Protestant  ministers,  of  many  sects,  en 
deavor  to  acquire  a  transient  influence  over  souls  from  which 
Divine  faith  is  absent,  and  which  can  therefore  only  be  reached 
through  the  medium  of  disorderly  sentiment  and  fluctuating 
emotion.  This  is  their  remedy  for  evils  which  their  unblessed 
ministry  can  only  aggravate.  The  physical  excitement  of  an 
hour  is  followed  by  furious  impiety  or  cold  despair  ;  and 
"  neither. revivals,  nor  cholera,  nor  any  thing,":):  can  again  stim 
ulate  even  the  spasmodic  life  which  the  rude  experiments  of  an 
unhallowed  art  have  quenched  forever. 

It  does  not  appear,  then,  that  Canada,  to  which  we  will  now 
return,  has  much  reason  to  envy  the  condition  of  Scotland  or 
America.  Even  the  writer,  whose  idle  words  have  suggested 
these  remarks,  and  who  does  not  seem  to  affect  consistency, 
deplores  "  the  obliquity  of  moral  vision  which  is  allowed  to  exist 
among  a  large  class  of  Americans,"  declares  that  "  Mammon  is 
the  idol  which  the  people  worship  ;"  and  confesses  that  "  the 
most  nefarious  trickery  and  bold  dishonesty  are  invested  with  a 
spurious  dignity  if  they  act  as  aids  to  the  attainment  of  that 
object.  Children  from  their  earliest  years  imbibe  the  idea,  that 
sin  is  sin — only  when  found  out."§  And  this  is  "  the  most 
religious  country  in  the  world  !"  Perhaps  we  may  conclude, 
either  that  this  writer  attaches  no  meaning  whatever  to  her  own 
words,  and  neither  believes  them  herself  nor  wishes  others  to 
believe  them  ;  or  that  the  energy  of  her  religious  tastes  induces 
her  to  prefer  the  immoral  and  impure  Scotchman,  or  the  "  ne 
farious  and  Mammon  worshipping  American,"  to  the  "  sober, 
moral,  courteous,  and  devout  Canadian,"  so  long  as  the  former 
consents  to  revile  what  the  latter  reverently  esteems — the  Faith 
which  was  preached  in  America  by  Vieyra  and  Monroy,  by 
Lallemand  and  De  Brebeuf,  and  of  whose  influence  the  Cana 
dian  nation  is  one  of  the  noblest  monuments. 

*  Quoted  in  Visit  to  the  American  Churches,  by  Andrew  Reed,  D.D.,  vol.  ii.. 
pp.  41,  49. 

f  Sketches  of  Amei^ica,  by  Henry  Bradshaw  Fearon,  p.  164. 
±  Dr.  Reed,  vol.  ii.,  p.  187. 
§  Ch.  xv.,  pp.  326,  433. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  333 


NEWFOUNDLAND,    GREENLAND,    AND    LAPLAND. 

The  events  of  which -we  have  thus  far  attempted  to  trace  the 
outlines,  but  which  it  would  have  been  beside  our  purpose  to 
review  with  the  minute  precision  of  historical  detail,  have  con 
ducted  us  over  a  wide  field,  and  have  demanded,  even  in  so 
rapid  a  survey,  a  large  and  conspicuous  place  in  this  too  meagre 
and  crowded  narrative.  Yet  we  have  suppressed  at  every  page 
illustrations  which  our  limits  warned  us  to  exclude,  and  have 
altogether  omitted  several  provinces,  of  which  the  religious 
history  would  have  furnished  exactly  the  same  facts  which  we 
have  gathered  elsewhere. 

Thus  in  Newfoundland,  where  the  Faith  was  once  proscribed, 
and  the  Catholic  population  harassed  by  every  torment  and 
vexation  which  the  agents  of  Anglicanism  could  inflict  upon 
them,  the  result  has  been  the  same  as  in  every  other  land.  Far 
from  persuading  the  Catholics  to  apostatize,  it  is  their  own 
disciples,  as  the  Anglican  clergy  sorrowfully  report,  who  have 
deserted  them  by  hundreds.  "  It  is  a  lamentable  fact,"  says  the 
Rev.  G.  M.  Johnson,  in  1862,  "  that  the  whole  shore  between 
Petty  Harbor  and  Cape  Race,  originally  settled  by  numerous 
English  colonists,  has  fallen  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  that  of 
all  the  large  population,  most  of  whom  once  were  members  of  our 
Church,  scattered  along  that  fifty  miles  of  coast,  the  small 
remnant  kept  together  by  the  presence  of  your  missionary  at 
Ferryland  are  all  who  remain  steadfast  to  the  Church  and  reli 
gion  of  their  country/'* 

Everywhere  there  is  the  same  conflict  between  the  apostles  of 
Divine  truth  and  the  agents  of  human  systems,  and  everywhere 
the  issue  is  the  same.  From  Rupert's  Land  and  the  Red  River 
district  the  reports  of  Anglican  misadventures,  faintly  qualified 
by  vague  predictions  of  possible  future  success,  are  identical 
with  those  from  every  other  region.  "  In  reviewing  the  past 
year,"  say  the  Rev.  "W".  Stagg  and  the  Rev.  J.  Settee,  "  there 
has  been  very  little  done."  And  then  they  explain  their  failure. 
"  We  could  have  done  more  for  the  instruction  of  the  Indians 
than  what  has  been  done,  had  they  come  forward  to  obtain 
Christian  knowledge:  but  they  stand  away  from  the  truth." 
This  means,  it  appears,  that  they  prefer  to  become  Catholics. 
"  A  Chipewyan  chief,"  the  Rev.  R.  Hunt  reports,  informed  him 
that  his  tribe  "had  been  given  over  to  ministers  (the  Romanists) 

*  Report  of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts, 
p.  45  (1862). 


334:  CHAPTER  IX. 

who,  we  told  them,  were  not  ministers  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ."* 
Apparently  they  told  them  in  vain. 

But  it  is  not  only  the  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England  who 
record  these  incidents.  The  Rev.  S.  Maudsley,  a  W  esleyan 
missionary,  reports  thus  from  his  sphere  of  labor:  "In  some 
localities  the  Romanist  majorities  tell  with  an  unhappy  influence 
on  isolated  Protestants,  inasmuch  as  several  families  have  been 
drawn  within  the  coils  of  the  Man  of  Sin."f  And  this  was  not 
his  greatest  trial,  for  he  adds,  "  the  past  ecclesiastical  year  has 
been  one  of  unexampled  scarcity  of  cash." 

Of  another  place  the  Methodists  say,  "  This  mission  might 
well  be  compared  to  an  island  in  the  sea,  with  this  difference, 
instead  of  cooling  water,  it  is  surrounded  with  Romanism."  Of 
a  third  the  missionary  despondingly  observes,  "  The  battle  is  a 
hard  one ;  Romanism  on  one  side,  and  Dippers  on  the  other." 
The  Dippers,  or  Baptists,  are  in  all  lands  particularly  odious 
to  Wesley ans. 

From  St.  Armand  another  missionary  writes,  "  The  past 
year  has  not  been  a  year  of  so  much  prosperity  as  I  had  desired, 
owing  to  the  great  exertions  of  the  Roman  priests."  But  he 
assures  his  society  that  there  is  not  the  smallest  doubt  of  his 
ultimate  victory.  From  Pierreville,  a  name  of  evil  augury  for 
Protestantism,  another  reports  that  "  some  persons  have  ceased 
to  have  confidence  in  Popish  ceremonies,"  which  would  prob 
ably  have  been  much  more  consoling  to  his  employers  if  he 
had  not  added,  "  but  the  ceaseless  efforts  of  the  Romish  priests 
to  destroy  Protestantism  retard  the  work  of  evangelization." 

From  the  Mackenzie  River  district,  the  Rev.  W.  Kirby,  a 
Church  of  England  missionary,  writes  as  follows :  "  You  will 
gather  from  my  journal  that  the  Romanists  are  endeavoring  to 
concentrate  their  efforts  for  the  conversion  of  the  Indians  of  this 
district.  When  I  came  they  were  just  establishing  their  first 
mission  in  it ;  now  they  have  Fort  Resolution,  Fort  Rae,  Good 
Hope,  and,  I  fear,  will  have  Liard  also  !"J  He  had  seen  them 

*  Church  Missionary  Society's  Report,  p.  222.  Such  is  everywhere  the  action 
of  Anglican  Missionaries.  Incapable  of  imitating  the  apostolic  works  of  the 
Catholic  evangelists,  they  are  content  to  revile  them.  Thus  a  person  who  calls 
himself  "  Bishop  of  Mauritius,"  and  who  represents  the  Church  of  England 
in  that  island,  claims  additional  "  contributions"  from  his  co-religionists,  be 
cause  he  is  "  bearing  the  witness  of  the  Church  of  England  against  Roman 
assumption  and  error."  Report  ofS.P.  G.F.P.,  p.  135.  One  should  have  thought 
the  Church  of  England  might  be  sufficiently  occupied  just  now  in  bearing 
witness  againsi  her  own  members. 

f  Report  of  Wesleyan  Missionary  Society,  1862,  pp.  174  et  seq. 

|  Captain  Palliser,  who  commanded  the  British-America  exploring  expedi 
tion  in  1859,  speaks  also  of  Fort  Edmonton,  on  the  Saskatchewan,  where  "  two 
French  priests"  had  acquired  their  usual  influence,  so  that  the  natives,  to 
whom  they  have  taught  agriculture,  "  sometimes  realize  very  fair  crops  of 
barley  and  potatoes."  Journal  of  Royal  Geographical  Society,  vol  xxx.,  p.  309 


MISSIONS  IN  AMEKICA.  335 

at  their  Work,  had  ascertained  "  their  perfect  knowledge  of  the 
language,"  sometimes  travelled  with  them,  and  received  from 
them  only  compassionate  courtesy.  For  a  moment  he  is  con 
strained  to  confess  the  truth.  "  They  possess  in  a  great  degree 
the  sympathy  of  the  Indians  ....  They  are  really  heart  and 
soul  in  their  work,  and  would  verily  compass  sea  and  land  to 
make  one  proselyte."  And  then,  untouched  by  virtues  which 
even  savages  learn  to  admire  and  strive  to  imitate,  the  poor 
sectary,  knowing  nothing  of  Christianity  but  a  few  names  and 
words,  throws  his  cap  into  the  air,  and  shouts,  "  Great  is  Diana 
of  the  Ephesians !"  "  The  worst  is,"  he  cries,  "  their  zeal  so 
completely  overleaps  all  sense  of  truth  and  justice,  that  the 
most  unscrupulous  means  are  used  to  accomplish  their  purposes. 
The  most  extravagant  falsehoods  and  frauds  are  freely  laid 
under  tribute,  but  of  this  the  poor  Indians  are  at  present  too 
ignorant.  .  .  .  Little  else  is  to  be  heard  but  the  praises  of  Mary. 
Oh,  my  country,  what  a  rebuke  is  this  to  thee !  .  .  .  Britain, 
why  is  this?"  &c.,  &c.* 

It  is  a  curious  commentary  upon  this  gentleman's  observation, 
that  in  the  next  page  of  the  same  report,  his  colleague,  the  Rev. 
J.  Horden,  thus  describes  his  disciples  at  Rupert's  House,  where 
he  was  located  with  "  his  wife  and  four  children."  "Two  pro 
fessedly  Christian  Indians,  forgetting  all  the  instructions  they 
had  received  on  the  matter,  strangled  their  poor  infirm  mother 
during  last  winter."  By  this  summary  process  these  Indian 
Protestants,  fruits  of  Anglican  missionary  skill,  economized  the 
cost  of  her  food.  "This,"  adds  Mr.  Horden,  "  hurt  me^Jeeply." 

In  the  frozen  regions  which  lie  between  the  St.  Lawrence  and 
the  Arctic  Circle,  we  find,  by  the  testimony  of  Protestant  writers, 
missionaries  of  the  same  class  as  we  have  encountered  in  the 
valley  of  the  Amazon  and  the  mountains  of  Peru,  in  the  forests 
of  Michigan  and  by  the  shores  of  the  Canadian  lakes.  We 
learn  also,  by  the  same  evidence,  what  manner  of  men  the  Sects 
have  dispatched  to  these  gloomy  wastes,  and  what  has  been  the 
fruit  of  their  unwilling  sojourn  in  the  tents  of  Greenland  and 
the  huts  of  Labrador. 

Every  Protestant  traveller  seems  unconsciously  to  attest  the 
same  truth,  and  to  lend  his  aid  in  tracing  the  same  contrast. 
Mr.  Loring  Brace  visits  Norway  in  1857,  and  meets  Father 
Etienne,  a  missionary  in  Iceland.  "  I  heard  him  speak  five 
languages,"  he  says,  and  then  he  gives  his  history.  In  the 
world  he  had  been  the  Baron  Djunkowsky,  a  Russian  iioble- 
man,  deprived  of  his  estates  for  becoming  a  Catholic.  And  now, 
possessing  nothing  but  the  robe  of  his  order,  and  being,  accord- 

*  Church  M.  S.  Report,  pp.  226-8. 


336  CHAPTER  IX. 

ing  to  this  American  Protestant,  "such  a  man  as-  the  holy 
Xavier  was,"  he  had  devoted  his  life  to  the  conversion  of  the 
Icelanders.  Nor  does  he  appear  to  have  labored  in  vain.  A 
young  Icelander  accompanied  the  missionary,  of  whom  Mr. 
Brace  says,  "  He  spoke  German  and  French  as  well  as  he  did 
English ;"  and  that  he  had  learned  better  things  also  was 
proved  by  the  fact  that  he  had  forsaken  all  to  follow  Christ  in 
the  same  religious  order  as  his  master.* 

The  facts  are  everywhere  and  always  the  same.  A  learned 
Protestant  ethnologist  observes,  in  1862,  that  the  ecclesiastical 
ruins  in  the  Arctic  regions,  "  are  memorials  alike  of  the  pious 
zeal  and  the  architectural  skill  of  the  first  Norse  colonists." 
But  these  zealous  and  devout  sea-rovers  were  Catholics.  The 
mortuary  tablet,  bearing  a  Runic  inscription,  which  was  found 
at  Igalikko  in  1829,  "  indicates  the  recognition  of  the  Christian 
faith,  and  the  presence  of  Christian  worshippers  in  Greenland, 
certainly  not  later  than  the  twelfth  century."f  And  the  mis 
sionaries,  even  at  that  early  date,  appear  to  have  shared  the 
zeal  for  science  as  well  as  for  religion  which  their  successors 
have  so  often  displayed.  "In  1266,"  says  Professor  Rain, 
"  some  priests  at  Gardar,  in  Greenland,  set  on  foot  a  voyage  of 
discovery  to  the  Arctic  regions  of  America.  An  astronomical 
observation  proves  that  this  took  place  through  Lancaster  Sound 
and  Barrow's  Strait  to  the  latitude  of  .Wellington's  Channel."  J 
Six  centuries  have  made  no  change  in  the  character  of  Catholic 
missionaries,  either  in  Greenland  or  elsewhere.  Let  us  inquire 
what  the  Protestant  emissaries,  to  whom  these  northern  regions 
have  been  abandoned  for  eighty  years,  have  done  for  their  in 
habitants. 

In  a  recent  work  by  Dr.  Rink,  Danish  Superintendent  of 
South  Greenland,  which  is  said  to  have  excited  much  attention 
in  Stockholm,  and  throughout  the  Scandinavian  peninsula,  the 
results  of  Protestant  teaching  amongst  Finns,  Greenlanders, 
and  other  northern  races,  appear  to  be  revealed  with  unusual 
candor.  Dr.  Morrison  had  admitted,  at  an  earlier  date,  the 
futility  of  all  the  Lutheran  projects  in  these  regions,  and  had 
confessed,  in  guarded  phrase,  that  "the  moral  and  spiritual 
results  of  this  mission  were  not  such  as  to  warrant  any  glowing 
picture  of  its  successful  issue."  The  Danish  Superintendent 
seems  to  have  spoken  with  less  reserve.  In  a  letter  from  Stock 
holm,  dated  the  5th  of  September,  1858,  and  published  in 
English  Protestant  journals,  Dr.  Rink's  unwelcome  revelations 
are  thus  noticed. 

*  Home  Life  in  Norway  and  Sweden,  by  Charles  Loring  Brace,  ch.  vii.,  p.  57. 

f  Quoted  by  Wilson,  Prehistoric  Man. 

Jld. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  337 

"  During  tlie  last  few  years,  religious  movements  have  taken 
place  amongst  the  half-civilized  Lappanian  and  Finnish  tribes, 
which  excited  their  minds  to  so  great  a  degree,  and  animated 
them  to  such  tumultuous  excesses,  that  the  Swedish-Norwegian 
government  found  it  necessary  to  send  troops  to  that  distant 

region  in  order  to  restore  peace The  excitement  of  the 

public  mind  is  still  so  great,  that  measures  have  been  taken  to 
suppress  any  possible  new  outbreak  at  its  very  birth." 

The  source  of  these  "  tumultuous  excesses,"  it  appears,  was  a 
monstrous  kind  of  religious  fanaticism,  generated  by  the  rival 
schemes  of  Lutheran  missionaries.  "  There  can  be  no  doubt," 
says  the  Swedish  narrative,  "that  these  commotions  have  arisen 
from  a  gross  misunderstanding  between  the  Christian  teachers.  .  . 
So  far  has  been  proved  from  the  most  minute  investigations,  that 
Christianity,  as  yet,  is  by  no  means  deeply  rooted  amongst  these 
tribes," — although  the  missionaries,  we  are  told,  have  been  at 
work  "more  than  a  century!"  "Remains  of  heathenism, 
gross  superstition,  credulity,  as  well  as  inclination  to  religious 
fanaticism  and  enthusiasm,  have,  on  the  contrary,  shown  them 
selves  as  fully  developed.  Here  is  ground,  the  working  of  which 
would  yield  a  rich  harvest  to  different  religious  sects.  The 
Roman  Catholic  missionaries  who  are  settled  at  Quananberfjore, 
and  amongst  whom  are  several  Jesuits,  were  doubtless  aware 
of  this  state  of  affairs  before  their  arrival,  and  will  assuredly 
not  fail  to  draw  from  it  every  possible  advantage." 

The  account  then  proceeds  to  furnish  examples  of  the  effects 
of  Protestant  religious  instruction  upon  the  Greenlanders,  con 
stantly  exhibiting  the  same  phenomena  during  the  last  seventy 
years.  "  Disturbances  have  in  former  times  repeatedly  broken 
out  amongst  the  Greenlanders,  the  origin  of  which  is  alone  to 
be  found  in  their  misconceived  religious  views.  In  1790,  and 
in  1803,  several  women  gave  themselves  out  as  holy;  and  one 
who  was  called  Mary  Magdalene  declared  herself  to  be  a 
prophetess,  spoke  of  the  visions  and  revelations  she  had  had, 
and  gained  a  considerable  number  of  followers.  She  took  ad 
vantage  of  the  activity  of  her  disciples  to  bring  about  a  blind 
obedience  to  her  commands,  and  had  two  of  her  enemies  killed. 
Some  bad  deeds  of  her  husband,  to  whom  she  had  given  the 
name -of  Jesus,  brought  her  after  a  few  months  so  glaringly 
into  notice,  that  the  missionaries  endeavored  to  bring  the  lost 
sheep  back  into  the  bosom  of  the  Church."  Whether  they 
succeeded,  does  not  appear;  but  these  events  induced  them 
"  to  carry  out  the  plan  of  training  the  most  able  and  intelligent 
among  the  natives  as  catechists,"  a  project  which  led  to  un 
pleasant  results.  "It  is  from  one  of  these  Greenland  pupils 
that  the  last  excitement  has  proceeded In  the  summer 

VOL.  n.  23 


338  CHAPTER   IX. 

of  1854,  a  young  man  of  Frederikstal,  who  had  been  selected 
as  catechist,  became  unusually  still,  and  sought  retirement. 
Shortly  afterwards,  unusual  meetings  were  held  by  the  Green- 
landers  of  this  place  and  its  neighborhood,  and  soon  the  usual 
religious  services  were  obliged  to  be  discontinued  for  want  of 
worshippers"  The  next  event  was  that  "  the  catechist  declared 
himself  to  be  a  prophet,  and  that  it  was  his  intention  to  form  a 
new  company  entirely  distinct  from  the  Europeans.  He  pre 
tended  to  have  had  revelations  and  interviews  with  the  Saviour; 
assumed,  in  consequence,  the  name  of  Gabriel,  and  gathered 
together  many  followers,  all  of  whom  promised  him  implicit 
obedience.  The  falling  away  was  so  universal,  that  but  few 
Greenlanders  remained  true  to  the  missionaries." 

But  this  was  not  the  end.  "  The  new  Gabriel  performed 
religious  ceremonies,  married  several  couples  amongst  the  new 
believers,  and  sent  people  to  the  next  mission  station  in  order 
to  gather  followers  thence.  Then  other  Greenlanders  pretended 
to  have  had  visions,  and  a  feverish  madness  possessed  the  whole 
population.  Some  pricked  their  hands,  and  allowed  others  to 
suck  out  the  flowing  blood  in  order  to  taste  the  sweetness  of 
the  Saviour's  blood  !  Some  were  commanded  to  open  their 
mouths,  when  Gabriel  breathed  into  them  the  Holy  Ghost." 
The  madness  lasted  a  year,  and  then  seems  to  have  died  out. 
u  But  who,"  says  the  Scandinavian  writer,  "  can  answer  for 
it  that  no  mishap  will  arise  in  future  from  the  same  religious 
delusions  ?  It  is  by  no  means  impossible  that  the  safety  of  the 
Europeans  may  be  by  such  cases  endangered," — this  is  what 
they  seem  to  have  felt  most  acutely  in  Sweden, — "  and  the 
usefulness  of  the  missionaries  brought  into  question." 

The  same  facts  are  related  both  of  Norway  and  Lapland. 
Professor  Kooslef  informed  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor,  in  1858,  that 
u  through  the  preaching  of  Lestadius  and  other  fanatical  mis 
sionaries,  a  spiritual  epidemic,  manifesting  itself  in  the  form 
of  visions,  trances,  and  angelic  possessions,  broke  out  among 
the  Lapps."  They  committed  murder  and  other  crimes  to 
force  their  countrymen  "  to  acknowledge  their  Divine  mission." 
u  Those  missionaries  have  much  to  answer  for,"  adds  Mr. 
Taylor,  "  who  have  planted  the  seeds  of  spiritual  disease  among 
this  ignorant  and  impressible  race."* 

The  peculiarity  in  the  Protestant  missions  of  Greenland 
and  Lapland  appears,  then,  to  consist  in  this ;  that  while  in 
every  other  land  they  have  encountered  only  apathy,  indiffer 
ence,  or  aversion,  here  they  have  engendered  h'erce  religious 

*  Northern  Travel;  Sweden,  Lapland,  and  Norway,  by  Bayard  Taylor,  en 
xl,  pp.  115-122  (1858). 


MISSIONS  IN"  AMERICA.  339 

mania.  In  the  torrid  climes  of  Asia,  or  of  Central  and 
Southern  America,  they  hardly  attract  attention,  or  at  most 
provoke  a  smile ;  in  the  icy  wastes  of  the  North  they  breed 
"religious  delusions,"  "feverish  madness,"  and  "tumultuous 
excesses."  The  Chinese  may  rob  or  the  Hindoo  revile  them  ; 
the  wily  Armenian  may  become  their  pensioner  and  the  Red 
Indian  sink  under  their  patronage  to  a  lower  depth  of  shame ; 
but  the  Greenlander,  refusing  to  imitate  such  examples,  takes 
a  line  of  his  own,  and  learns  from  them  just  enough  of  Chris 
tianity  to  burlesque  its  doctrines  and  profane  its  mysteries,  to 
usurp  the  titles  of  the  Saviour,  and  to  parody  the  functions  of 
His  archangels.  It  is  satisfactory  to  know  that  a  better  day 
has  dawned  for  him,  and  that  the  Jesuits  have  arrived  in 
Greenland. 


UNITED   STATES. 

And  now  we  approach  the  final  scene  of  that  long  series 
which  we  have  contemplated  in  so  many  lands,  from  where  the 
sun  rises  in  the  furthest  East  to  where  it  sinks  in  the  distant 
West,  and  in  which  we  have  recognized  everywhere  the  same 
unvarying  forms,  and  have  read  the  same  eternal  truth — how 
great  man  becomes  when  upheld  by  the  might  of  God,  how 
'little  when  abandoned  to  his  own. 

In  that  famous  Republic,  now  as  conspicuous  for  social  as  for 
religious  schism,  and  whose  almost  unrivalled  prosperity  only  a 
political  and  moral  corruption  still  more  unexampled  could  have 
so  grievously  menaced,  we  find  the  last  and  saddest  example 
of  the  contrast  which  we  have  reviewed  in  other  lands.  Yet 
here  dwells  a  people  from  whom  we  might  have  hoped  better 
things.  Capable,  in  the  natural  order,  of  the  most  arduous  efforts 
which  man  can  conceive  or  sustain,  it  is  only  in  that  which  touch 
es  the  life  of  the  soul  that  they  are  feeble,  uncertain,  and  per 
plexed.  Vigorous  beyond  all  other  races  in  the  pursuit  of 
material  goods,  they  are  blind  and  impotent  only  in  spiritual 
things.  The  gift  of  Divine  faith,  without  which  man  is  only  an 
intellectual  animal,  they  have  lost,  or  never  possessed.  Hence 
the  weakness  of  the  supernatural  element  in  all  classes  of 
Americans :  whose  religion  oscillates  between  a  pretentious  but 
shallow  infidelity  and  a  coarse  and  sensual  fanaticism, — between 
the  impiety  of  the  mass,  to  whom  religion  is  only  a  name,  and 
the  degrading  man-worship  of  the  few,  who  have  put  away 
Christian  liberty  to  become  the  serfs  of  smooth-tongued  preach 
ers,  or  the  captives  of  mercenary  zealots.  "In  the  United 
States,"  said  a  Protestant  bishop,  in  September,  1862,  before  a 


340  CHAPTER  IX. 

"  General  Convention"  of  his  community  in  New  York,  "  there 
is  less  religion,  with  more  pretence,  than  in  any  other  country 
in  the  world  professedly  Christian."* 

The  story  of  Protestant  missions  in  the  United  States  is  told 
in  a  single  sentence  by  an  American  writer,  from  whom  we 
have  already  learned  that  paganism  is  nearly  extinct,  because 
the  pagans  are  nearly  annihilated.  That  is  the  history  of 
religion  in  North  America,  as  far  as  the  natives  are  concerned. 
But  the  reproach  of  this  unexampled  catastrophe  does  not  rest 
with  Americans.  The  causes  which  produced  it  were  already 
in  operation  a  century  before  the  Union  existed.  The  destruc 
tion  of  the  red  man,  like  the  institution  of  slavery,  was  a  legacy 
bequeathed  by  England.  It  was  by  British  colonists,  and 
British  officials,  that  the  Indian  was  first  provoked  to  deeds  of 
blood,  and  then  hunted  to  death*  like  a  wild  beast  when  he  had 
yielded  to  the  temptation.  It  would  have  been  easy  to  make 
him  a  friend,  as  was  proved  by  Lord  Baltimore  in  Maryland, 
by  Penn  in  Virginia,  and  by  the  French  everywhere.  But  the 
friendship  of  the  credulous  savage  would  only  have  been  impor 
tunate  to  men  who  coveted  his  lands  and  not  his  alliance.  The 
Indian  soon  discovered  that  he  was  doomed,  and  resolved,  since 
he  was  tracked  as  a  beast  of  prey,  to  die  like  one.  And  there 
fore  he  fell,  rending  and  tearing,  with  teeth  and  claws,  the 
hunter  who  had  brought  him  to  bay.  This  was  the  explanation 
which  he  often  gave,  with  an  energy  of  language  peculiar  to 
himself,  of  the  atrocities  which  the  white  man  had  taught  him 
to  commit.  "When  you  iirst  arrived  on  our  shores,"  said  an 
Indian  sachem  of  Long  Island  to  the  masters  of  New  York, 
"you  were  destitute  of  food;  we  gave  you  our  beans  and  our 
corn ;  we  fed  you  with  oysters  and  fish ;  and  now,  for  our 
recompense,  you  murder  our  people.  The  traders  whom  your 
first  ships  left  on  our  shore  to  traffic  till  their  return,  were 
cherished  by  us  as  the  apple  of  our  eye ;  we  gave  them  our 
daughters  for  their  wives;  among  those  whom  you  have  mur 
dered  were  children  of  your  own  hlood"\  And  the  greatest 
historian  of  the  United  States  justifies  the  argument  of  the 
Indian,  when  he  shows  that  from  all  classes, — from  Puritans, 
from  Dutch  Calvinists,  and  from  English  Episcopalians, — they 
received  the  same  treatment.  "New  England,"  he  says,  and 
we  shall  see  presently  how  true  it  was,  "  waged  a  disastrous 
war  of  extermination ;  the  Dutch  were  scarcely  ever  at  peace 
with  the  Algonquins;  the  laws  of  Maryland  refer  to  Indian 
hostilities  and  massacres  which  extended  as  far  as  Richmond. 


*  Dr.  M'Croskey,  quoted  in  the  Times,  October  16, 1862. 
f  Bancroft,  ii.,  564. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMEKICA.  341 

Perm  came  without  arms  ;  he  declared  his  purpose  to  abstain 
from  violence  ;  he  had  no  message  but  peace ;  and  not  a  drop 
of  Quaker  blood  was  ever  shed  by  an  Indian?  Elsewhere  the 
same  writer  notices,  in  words  already  quoted,  the  impressive 
fact,  that  the  French  authorities,  who  had  treated  the  native  as 
a  brother,  "  as  they  made  their  last  journey  through  Canada, 
and  down  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  on  every  side  received 
the  expressions  of  passionate  attachment  from  the  many  tribes 
of  red  men." 

Such  was  the  influence  of  Catholic  colonists,  here  as  in  othei 
lands.  "  To  this  day"  says  General  Cass,  "  the  period  ot 
French  domination  is  the  era  of  all  that  is  happy  in  Indian 
reminiscences."  "  When  the  Frenchmen  arrived  at  these  Falls," 
said  a  Chippewa  chief,  in  1826,  to  the  American  agent  at  the 
Sanlt  Ste.  Marie,  "  they  came  and  kissed  us.  They  called  us 
children,  and  we  found  them  fathers.  "We  lived  like  brethren 
in  the  same  lodge.  They  never  mocked  at  our  ceremonies, 
and  they  never  molested  the  jjjaces  of  our  dead.  Seven 
generations  of  men  have  passed  away,  but  we  have  not  forgotten 
it.  Just,  very  just,  were  they  towards  us."*  "The  French,"  Mr. 
Bancroft  observes,  "  had  won  the  affection  of  the  savages,  .  .  . 
and  retained  it  by  religious  influence.  They  seemed  to  be  no 
more  masters,  but  rather  companions  and  friends.  More 
formidable  enemies  now  appeared,  arrogant  in  their  pretensions, 
scoffing  insolently  at  those  whom  they  superseded,  driviny  away 
their  Catholic  priests,  and  introducing  the  traffic  in  rum,  which 
till  then  had  been  effectually  prohibited. "f  Surely  we  had 
reason  to  say,  that  if  the  French  had  retained  possession  of 
America,  her  aboriginal  tribes  would  have  survived  to  this  day 
to  worship  the  God  of  Christians  ;  and  we  may  add,  that  if  they 
had  not  lost  India,  Buddhism,  as  Hanke  and  others  more  than 
insinuate,  would  have  been  vanquished  by  the  religion  of  the 
Cross. 

The  present  condition  of  the  Indians  of  North  America  is, 
then,  the  direct  and  inevitable  result  of  the  proceedings  in 
augurated  nearly  two  centuries  ago,  and  constantly  renewed, 
by  the  Protestants  of  England  and  Holland.  They  have 
perished  because  the  English  could  make  more  profit  by  their 
death  than  by  their  life ;  and  they  have  perished  without  leaving 
a  trace  behind.  "  All  the  Indian  tribes,"  says  M.  de  Tocqueville, 
"  which  formerly  inhabited  the  territory  of  New  England,  the 
ISTarragansets,  the  Mohicans,  the  Pequods,  no  longer  exist  but  in 
memory  ;  the  Lenape,  who  received  Penn  one  hundred  and  fifty 

*  Jameson,  part  ii.,  p.  148. 
f  Bancroft,  iv.,  79. 


342  CHAPTER   IX. 

years  ago  on  the  banks  of  the  Delaware,  have  at  this  day  dis 
appeared.  I  myself  saw  the  last  of  the  Iroquois  ;  they  were 
begging  alms  !  ....  These  savages  have  not  simply  retreated; 
they  have  been  destroyed"*  It  was  in  allusion  to  such  facts 
that  a  Protestant  minister  already  quoted,  and  who  had  dwelt 
amongst  the  Delawares,  was  led  to  exclaim,  "Alas!  what  has 
not  our  nation  to  answer  for  at  the  bar  of  retributive  justice !" 
The  three  classes,  as  we  have  said,  who  made  war  on  the 
Indian,  were  the  Dutch,  the  Puritans  of  New  England,  and  the 
English  Royalists.  The  operations  of  the  first  we  need  not  stay 
to  notice,  but  a  few  words  may  be  allowed  with  respect  to  the 
other  two. 


PILGEIM   FATHERS. 

The  "Pilgrim  Fathers"  of  New  England  have  been  the 
heroes  of  many  a  romance^which  has  been  accepted  by  the 
world  as  history.  Even  Mr.  Bancroft,  though  he  reveals  some 
thing  of  their  real  character,  avows  the  customary  sympathy 
with  their  supposed  "love  of  freedom,"  maintenance  of  "  indi 
vidual  rights,"  and  defence  of  '*  intellectual  liberty."  Yet  the 
annals  of  mankind  contain,  perhaps,  no  such  example  of 
unrelenting  tryanny  on  the  one  hand,  of  abject  bondage  to 
human  traditions  on  the  other,  as  that  which  is  displayed  in 
the  acts,  the  laws,  and  the  literature  of  the  Puritans  of  New 
England.  Professing  to  frame  their  daily  life  by  the  maxims  of 
the  New  Testament,  it  may  be  affirmed  without  exaggeration, 
that  no  race  of  men,  since  the  Gospel  was  first  preached  on 
earth,  have  ever  violated  its  spirit  with  such  remorseless  con 
sistency.  They  were  not,  perhaps,  conscious  hypocrites,  for 
most  of  them  had  deceived  themselves  before  they  deceived 
others  ;  but  this,  if  we  judge  them  by  the  narratives  of  their 
own  historians,  is  nearly  the  only  crime  of  which  these  Arabs 
of  the  Reformation  were  guiltless.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find 
in  them  so  much  as  one  lineament  of  the  true  Christian 
character.  Humility,  modesty,  meekness,  patience,  forbear 
ance,  obedience,  charity — against  these,  and  all  the  kindred 
graces  of  the  disciples  of  the  Cross,  every  word  and  deed  of  their 
life  was  an  unvarying  protest.  Never  were  they  so  utterly 
unchristian,  in  every  thought,  feeling,  and  desire,  as  when  they 
were  preaching  what  they  called  "  the  Gospel ;"  never  were 
they  so  full  of  cruel  arrogance,  haughty  defiance,  bitter  menace, 
and  incurable  self-righteousness,  as  when  they  vehemently 

*  De  la  Democratic  en  Amerique,  tome  iii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  115. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  343 

called  God  to  witness  that  they  were  His  peculiar  people. 
They  had  fled  from  England  to  enjoy  "  liberty  of  conscience," 
and  they  proved  their  love  of  liberty  by  refusing  it  to  all  who 
dared  to  interpret  a  text  otherwise  than  themselves.  "  I  came 
from  England,"  said  Blackstone,  an  ex- Anglican  minister,  "be 
cause  I  did  not  like  the  Lord  Bishops  ;  and  I  cannot  join  with 
you,  because  I  would  not  be  under  the  Lord  Brethren."*  But 
they  quickly  punished  his  temerity.  "  To  say  that  men  ought 
to  have  liberty  of  conscience,"  exclaimed  one  of  their  oracles, 
"  is  impious  ignorance"-\  And  they  proceeded  forthwith  to 
chastise  what  they  called,  in  their  singular  jargon,  "  the  pro- 
f an  en  ess  of  poly  piety?  It  would  almost  seem  as  if  they  had 
bound  their  souls  by  a  vow  to  abhor  and  revile  all  creatures  of 
God,  save  only  themselves.  At  one  moment  they  rejoiced  to 
have  placed  an  ocean  between  themselves  and  "  the  iron  yoke 
of  wolvish  bishops  ;"  at  another  to  have  broken  asunder  u  the 
chains  of  Presbyterian  tyrants."  Baptists  were  mulcted  in 
heavy  fines,  and  when  they  failed  to  pay,  "  were  unmercifully 
whipped."  Quakers  they  branded  with  a  hot  iron,  or  lopped 
off  their  ears,  or  hung  up  by  the  neck.  Every  male  Quaker 
"  was  to  lose  one  ear  on  the  first  conviction,  and  on  a  second 
the  other ;  and  both  males  and  females,  on  the  third  conviction, 
were  to  have  their  tongues  bored  through  with  a  red-hot  iron.":]: 
u  Witches,"  a  title  which  included  all  their  opponents  for 
whom  they  could  find  no  other,  and  especially  rival  ministers 
of  religion,  were  executed  in  troops.  "  'There  hang  eight  fire 
brands  of  hell,5  said  Noyes,  the  minister  of  Salem,  pointing  to 
the  bodies  swinging  on  the  gallows."§  When  Burroughs,  an 
obnoxious  preacher,  was  hanging  from  the  gibbet,  and  the 
spectators  showed  symptoms  of  tardy  regret,  "  Cotton  Mather, 
on  horseback  among  the  crowd,  addressed  the  people,  cavilling 
at  the  ordination  of  Burroughs,  as  though  he  had  been  no 

true  minister  ! and  the  hanging  proceeded."     "  By 

what  law,"  said  Wenlock  Christison,  a  Quaker,  "  will  ye  put 
me  to  death  ?"  "  We  have  a  law,"  it  was  answered,  "  and  by 
it  you  are  to  die."  "  So  said  the  Jews  to  Christ."  "  But  who 
empowered  you  to  make  that  law  ? — We  have  a  patent,  and 
may  make  our  own  laws."  "  I  appeal  then,"  said  their  victim, 
'•  to  the  laws  of  England."  It  was  a  luckless  appeal,  and  only 
provoked  the  prompt  reply,  "  The  English  banish  Jesuits  on 
pain  of  death,  and  with  equal  justice  we  may  banish  Quakers. 
The  jury  returned  a  verdict  of  guilty;  the  vote  was  put  a 

*  Cheever,  The  Pilgrim  Fathers,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  243. 

f  Bancroft,  i.,  336. 

\  Hildreth,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xii ,  p.  405. 

§  Bancroft,  ii.,  762. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

second  time,  and  there  appeared  a  majority  for  the  doom  of 
death.]'* 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  seventy-seven  of  the  !N"ew 
England  Puritans  "were  in  orders  in  the  Church  of  England, "f 
and  that,  as  Burke  notices,  "several  who  had  received  episcopal 
ordination"  joined  them  ;  yet,  as  he  adds,  "  The  truth  is,  they 
had  no  idea  at  all  of  freedom.  The  very  doctrine  of  any  sort  of 
toleration  was  so  odious  to  the  greater  part,  that  one  of  the  first 
persecutions  set  up  was  against  a  small  party  which  arose 
amongst  themselves.  .  .  .  The  persecution  which  drove  the 
Puritans  out  of  England  might  be  considered  as  great  lenity 
and  indulgence  in  the  comparison."  Then  describing  some  of 
their  unrelenting  atrocities,  he  adds,  "  Things  of  this  nature 
form  the  greater  part  of  the  history  of  New  England  for  a  long 
time.  In  short,  this  people,  who  in  England  could  not  bear 
being  chastised  with  rods,  had  no  sooner  got  free  from  their 
fetters  than  they  scourged  their  fellow  refugees  with  scorpions, 
though  the  absurdity,  as  well  as  the  injustice,  of  such  a  proceed 
ing  in  them  might  stare  them  in  the  face."  Lastly,  referring 
to  the  charges  of  "witchcraft"  which  these  ex-Anglican 
ministers  brought  against  their  rivals,  Burke  says,  "  A  uni 
versal  terror  and  consternation  seized  upon  all.  The  prisons 
were  crowded  ;  people  were  executed  daily  ;  yet  the  rage  of  the 
accusers  was  as  fresh  as  ever/'  A  magistrate,  he  adds,  who  has 
just  committed  forty  persons  for  sorcery,  and  then  refused  to 
go  on  with  his  disgusting  task,  "  was  himself  immediately 
accused  of  sorcery,  and  thought  himself  happy  in  leaving  his 
family  and  fortune,  and  escaping  with  his  life  out  of  the 
province."  "  Several  of  the  most  popular  ministers,  after 
twenty  executions  had  been  made,  addressed  Sir  William 
Phips,"  the  Anglican  governor,  "  with  thanks  for  what  he 
had  done,  and  with  exhortations  to  proceed  in  so  laudable  a 
work.'':);  The  exhortation  was  hardly  needed.  "  To  such  a 
degree  did  the  frenzy  prevail,"  says  one  who  deliberately  defends 
all  their  acts,  "  that  in  a  single  month  the  grand  jury  indicted 
almost  fifty  persons  for  witchcraft."§  A  child  under  five  years 
was  imprisoned  on  such  a  charge.  An  Indian  woman,  "  after 
lying  some  time  in  prison,  escaped  without  any  further  punish 
ment,"  says  Dr.  Dwight,  4i  except  being  sold  to  defray  the  ex 
pense  of  her  prosecution  !"  "  At  Andover,  a  dog  was  accused 
of  bewitching  several  human  beings,  and  put  to  death."  Giles 

*  Bancroft,  i.,  342. 

f  Rupp,  Hist.  Bel.  Denominations,  p.  271. 

i  An  Account  of  the  European  Settlements  in  America,  pp.  151, 159, 160, 
(1758). 

§  Dwiglit,  Travels  in  New  England,  vol.  i.,  p.  417. 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA.  3-15 

Corey  "  was  pressed  to  death  for  refusing  to  plead."  "  Neither 
age  nor  sex  .  .  .  furnished  the  least  security.  Multitudes 
appear  to  have  accused  others  merely  to  save  themselves." 
Yet  this  writer,  two  hundred  years  after  these  events,  could 
formally  defend  the  Puritans,  on  the  ground  that  "the  exist 
ence  and  power  of  witches  has  been  the  universal  belief  of 
man,"  and  was  not  afraid  of  avowing  that  their  spirit  still 
lingers  among  their  New  England  descendants  by  declaring, 
with  reference  to  their  most  arbitrary  enactments  against 
"  Quakers,  Ranters,  and  such  like  notorious  heretics*,"  "lean 
find  no  justification  either  for  the  Anabaptists  or  for  the 
'Quakers.'"* 

Even  Mr.  Bancroft,  beguiled  by  that  bastard  philosophy 
which  puts  words  in  the  place  of  things,  could  commend  in 
swelling  phrase  the  attachment  to  freedom,  to  intellectual 
vigor,  and  to  the  great  principles  of  human  progress  and 
enlightenment,  displayed  by  the  New  England  Puritans! 

This  is  not  the  place  to  examine  the  whole  history  of  the 
"  Pilgrim  Fathers,"  with  which  indeed  we  are  not  immediately 
concerned  ;  yet  something  we  may  learn  from  it  incidentally, 
in  considering  the  fortunes  of  the  unhappy  Indian  tribes  who 
dwelt  within  their  reach.  It  was  not  likely  that  zealots  who 
spared  neither  man  nor  woman  in  their  cruel  vanity,  and  who, 
as  Mr.  Bancroft  observes,  "  would  not  bow  at  the  name  of 
Jesus,  nor  bend  the  knee  to  the  King  of  kings,"  would  learn 
mercy  in  dealing  with  Indians,  much  less  that  they  would 
sacrifice  themselves  in  order  to  labor  for  their  salvation.  "  No 
one,"  says  Dr.  Wilberforce,  "had  so  much  as  a  thought  of 
attempting  to  convey  to  the  unhappy  tribes  around  them  the 
blessed  message  of  salvation. "f  So  easily  does  fanaticism 
coexist  with  utter  godlessness  ;  so  wide  is  the  gulf  between 
Sectarian  zeal  and  Christian  charity.  "  It  is  requisite  to  rec 
ollect,"  says  a  recent  Protestant  writer,  "that  the  Puritans, 
although  burning  with  religious  zeal,  did  little  for  the  con 
version  of  the  American  Indians.";):  Little  in  truth  !  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  they  did  more  than  any  of  their  contemporaries, 
perhaps  more  than  all  of  them  put  together,  to  kindle  the  fires 
of  that  inextinguishable  hate  which  made  the  Eastern  States 
a  field  of  blood,  and  which  only  the  utter  annihilation  of  their 
primitive  inhabitants  could  appease.  "The  Puritans,"  says 
Mr.  Howitt,  "  gave  at  length  as  much  as  one  thousand  pounds 


*  Vol.  iv.,  p.  243. 

j-  A  History  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  America,  by  Samuel 
Wilberforce,  cli.  iii.j-p.  82. 
\  Dr.  Thomson,  New  Zealand,  vol.  L,  part  ii.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  303. 


346  CHAPTER   IX. 

for  every  Indian  scalp  that  could  be  brought  to  them  !"*  The 
very  first  "Pilgrims"  who  landed  rifled  the  Indian  graves, 
stole  their  corn, — which  might  have  been  excused  on  the  plea 
of  necessity, — and  when  they  resented  the  indignity,  massacred 
them  ;  and  then,  with  their  hands  still  red  with  blood,  they 
gravely  recorded  in  their  journal,  "  Thus  it  pleased  God  to 
vanquish  our  enemies. "f  "  O  how  happy  a  thing  had  it 
been,"  said  Robinson,  with  reference  to  this  slaughter,  "  that 
you  had  converted  some  before  you  killed  any  !"  Yet  he  him 
self  had  preached  to  them  at  the  moment  of  their  departure,  as 
Dr.  Cheever  approvingly  observes,  "  from  the  appropriate  text, 
'  I  will  deliver  the  Philistines  into  thine  hand.''  "J 

"  They  seized  without  scruple,"  says  the  Protestant  bishop 
of  Oxford,  "  the  lands  possessed  of  old  times  by  the  Indians, 
and  it  is  calculated  that  upwards  of  one  hundred  and  eighty 
thousand  of  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  were  slaughtered  l>y 
them  in  Massachusetts  Bay  and  Connecticut  alone. "§  This 
was  their  mode  of  effecting  conversions ;  and  these  men  were 
not  Spanish  soldiers,  nor  Portuguese  slave-dealers,  but  "  Min 
isters  of  the  Gospel,"  and  champions  of  the  "  Reformation !" 
These  were  the  Vieyras,  the  Clavers,  and  the  Las  Casas  of 
Protestantism.  "  As  long  as  slavery  was  profitable,"  says  a 
living  American  writer,  the  Puritans  not  only  enslaved  both 
the  Indians  and  the  Negroes,  making  them  '  taxable  property,' 
but  carried  on  a  brisk  traffic  in  their  flesh,  selling  them  in  the 
best  markets  to  the  highest  bidder."!  As  late  as  1810,  there 
were  more  than  fifteen  thousand  slaves  in  the  State  of  New 
York.! 

Cotton  Mather,  who  ruled  among  them  as  prophet  and 
pontiff,  and  who  was  ready  at  any  moment  to  prove  or  dis 
prove  any  thing  which  any  other  man  could  affirm  or  deny  by 
a  torrent  of  Scripture  texts,  not  only  hounded  on  his  fierce 
sectaries  to  thirst  for  their  blood,  but  publicly  offered  thanks 
to  the  God  of  heaven  when  it  covered  the  land  as  with  an 
inundation.  In  a  book  which  he  entitled  Prepotency  of 
Prayer,  exulting,  like  some  Mexican  hierophant,  as  he  counted 
with  gleaming  eyes  and  dripping  hands  the  reeking  hearts 
which  he  had  piled  around  him,  the  Puritan  leader  exclaims, 
without  pity  and  without  remorse,  "God  do  so  to  all  the 
implacable  enemies  of  Christ,  and  of  his  people  in  New 

*  Colonization  and  Christianity,  ch.  xx.,  p.  317. 

1  The  Pilgrim  Fathers,  by  George  B.  Cheever,  D.D.,  pp.  23-81. 

Ibid.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  140. 

Ubi  supra. 

New  York  Herald,  January  20,  1861. 

Dwight,  Travels  in  New  England,  pref.,  p.  xvii. 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA.  34:7 

England  !"*  "  The  efficacy  of  prayer  for  the  destruction  of  the 
Indians,"  we  learn  from  Dr.  Thacher,  was  a  favorite  topic  also 
with  Dr.  Increase  Mather,  who  told  his  hearers  not  to  "  cease 
crying  to  the  Lord  against  Philip,"  the  chief  of  the  New  Eng 
land  Indians,  "  until  they  had  prayed  the  bullet  into  his  heart." 
Yet,  as  Thacher  admits,  "  Philip  possessed  virtues  which  ought 
to  have  inspired  his  enemies  with  respect,  "f  But  this  could 
not  save  him.  Apostles  have  shed  their  own  blood,  during 
eighteen  centuries,  that  by  dying  they  might  purchase  life  for 
their  enemies ;  but  it  was  reserved  for  Protestant  ministers  to 
shed  the  blood  of  the  heathen,  and  then  claim  the  approval  of 
heaven  for  doing  it. 

It  would  be  only  too  easy  to  multiply  illustrations  of  the  de 
moniacal  spirit  of  the  New  England  ministers.  Their  only 
thought  towards  the  heathen  was  to  slay  them.  "  Many 
heathens  have  been  slain,"  cries  one  of  them ;  and  then  he  adds 
with  exultation,  "  Another  expedition  is  about  to  set  out !"  The 
letter,  addressed  to  sympathizing  colleagues,  which  announces 
this  view  of  the  relations  of  Puritans  to  the  Indian  nations,  con 
cludes  with  these  words :  "  May  we  see  each  other  hereafter  in 
our  bridegroom's  chamber,  securely  sheltered  behind  the  blue 
curtains  of  the  heavens,  in  the  third  heaven  of  Abraham's 
bosom.  "J 

One  of  the  many  tribes  annihilated  by  men,  who,  in  spite  of 
their  profession  of  Christianity,  were  far  more  cruel  and  im 
placable  than  the  ill-fated  barbarians  whom  they  massacred, 
was  the  Pequods.  In  a  single  battle  against  these  naked  and 
half-armed  Indians,  who  might  easily  have  been  won  to  religion 
and  civilization,  as  the  fiercer  Chiquitos  and  Ornaguas  of  the 
South  had  been  won,  between  eight  and  nine  hundred  were 
killed  or  taken,  while  the  colonists  lost  only  two  men.  Such 
of  the  Indians  as  were  spared  were  immediately  sold  as  slaves. 
"When  Underbill,  one  of  the  leaders  of  this  expedition,  was 
taxed  with  cruelty,  he  answered,  "  We  had  sufficient  light 
from  the  "Word  of  God  for  our  proceedings."§  Others  com 
pared  themselves  to  David,  and  claimed  the  approval  of  the 
Most  High  in  language  which  would  make  one  blush  for 
Christianity,  if  it  were  possible  to  admit  that  such  men  were 
Christians.| 

*  History  of  the  Indians  of  North  America,  by  Samuel  G.  Drake,  book  ii., 
ch.  vii. 

f  Thacher,  Hint,  of  Plymouth,  p.  391. 

i  Documentary  History  of  New  York,  vol.  iii.,  p.  964. 

§  Hildreth,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  252. 

i  It  deserves  to  be  noticed,  as  an  illustration  of  the  mental  as  well  as  moral 
obliquity  of  these  men,  that  when  some  fossil  bones,  probably  of  the  mastodon, 
»*^re  found  in  New  England  in  ^.712,  Dr.  Increase  Mather  K  ported  to  the  Royal 


348  CHAPTER   IX. 

There  is  no  need  to  examine  more  minutely  the  dealings  of 
the  Puritans  with  the  natives,  nor  to  trace  the  history  of  the 
furious  dissensions  which  raged  amongst  themselves.  In  spite  of 
banishment,  tortures,  and  death, — in  spite  of  enactments  only 
matched  in  the  penal  code  of  Great  Britain, — new  sects  con 
tinually  sprang  into  being,  equally  confident  and  imperious,  by 
whom  the  peculiar  and  exclusive  religious  polity  of  the  New 
England  pulpit  oligarchy  was  finally  stifled  and  quenched.  It 
was  a  marvel  that  it  lasted  so  long.  Every  innocent  joy,  the  fruit 
and  blossom  of  true  religion,  was  suppressed  by  the  founders  of 
Salem,  "  because  their  followers  regarded  gayety  as  sinful."* 
"All  those  that  weare  long  locks,"  was  one  of  their  judicious 
rules  for  their  Indian  victims,  "shall  pay  five  shillings. "f  And 
this  hideous  burlesque  of  Christianity,  which  substituted  for 
grace  and  virtue  fierce  animal  excitement  or  hysterical  delusions, 
and  that  blasphemous  arrogance  to  which  the  Prussian  monarch 
alluded  when  he  said,  "The  Calvinists  treat  the  Saviour  as  their 
inferior,"  perished  at  last,  devoured,  like  a  putrid  corpse,  by  the 
worms  which  it  had  bred.  "  If  the  account  given  by  Dr.  Mather 
of  the  colony  of  Rhode  Island  be  correct,"  says  Mr.  Ilalkett, 
"  its  red  aborigines  must  have  been  somewhat  bewildered  with 
the  variety  of  Protestant  sectaries  who  had  planted  themselves 
among  them."  It  was  truly  a  singular  exhibition  of  Chris 
tianity,  by  Mather's  own  account.  "  It  has  been,"  he  confessed, 
when  his  reign  was  over,  "a  collumes  of  Antinomians, Familists, 
Anabaptists,  Antisabbatarians,  Arminians,  Socinians,  Quakers, 
Ranters, — every  thing  in  the  world  except  Roman  Catholics  and 
real  Christians,"  by  which  latter  phrase  he  designated  himself 
arid  his  diminished  flock,  "  so  that  if  a  man  had  lost  his  religion, 
he  might  find  it  at  that  general  muster  of  Opinionists."^:  Well 
might  Mnigret,  a  celebrated  Indian  sachem,  reject  Mayhew's 
offer  to  preach  to  his  tribe,  with  the  scornful  reply,  "  If  my 
people  should  have  a  mind  to  turn  Christians,  they  could  not  tell 
what  religion  to  ~be  of."§  And  even  Mather  himself,  after  his  long 
career  of  pride  and  cruelty, — "  an  example,"  as  Mr.  Bancroft 
admits,  "  how  far  selfishness,  under  the  form  of  vanity  and 
ambition,  can  stupify  the  judgment,  and  dupe  consciousness 

Society  of  London,  that  they  were  remains  of  extinct  giants,  "  particularly  a 
tooth,  weighing  five  pounds  and  three  quarters,  with  a  thigh-bone  seventeen 
feet  long !  To  have  doubted  the  New  England,  philosopher's  conclusions  might 
have  been  even  more  dangerous  then,  than  to  believe  them  now."  Dr.  Wilson, 
P  e'listoric  Man,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  113. 

*  Chalmers,  History  of  the  Revolt  oftlie  American  Colonies,  vol.  i.,  p.  40. 

\  The  Day-Breaking  of  the  Gospel  with  the  Indians  in  New  England,  Mass. 
Hist.  Coll.,  3d  series,  vol.  iv.,  p.  20.  Of.  Hutchison  Papers,  vol.  i. 


i  Halkett,  ch.  xii.,  p.  281. 

§  Drake,  book  ii.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  82. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  349 

itself," — betrayed  at  last  the  hollowness  of  the  earth-born  creed 
which  he  had  once  imposed  with  such  terrible  penalties,  fell 
headlong  into  the  abyss  prepared  for  those  who  mistake  blind  self- 
confidence  for  Christian  faith,  and  "  had  temptations  to  atheism, 
and  to  the  abandonment  of  all  religion  as  a  mere  delusion."* 

Such  was  the  beginning  and  end  of  one  of  the  most  hateful 
sects  to  which  the  Church  of  England,  the  cradle  of  almost 
every  modern  heresy,  ever  gave  birth.  And  its  fruits  were 
confessed,  even  by  the  cruel  sectaries  who  had  watched  their 
growth.  A  general  decay  of  all  religious  sentiment  followed 
the  fierce  animal  excitement  which  they  had  mistaken  for  the 
meek  spirit  of  holiness,  until  Cotton  Mather,  repeating  language 
which  was  then  universal  in  New  England,  could  say,  in  1706, 
"  It  is  confessed  by  all  who  know  any  thing  of  the  matter,  that 
t\iQre*is  a  general  and,horrible  decay  of  Christianity^  among  the 
professors  of  it."f  The  monstrous  delusion  revealed  itself  at  last. 
The  h'rst  Anglican  church  in  Boston  became  the  first  Socinian 
temple,:):  and  this  was  only  a  presage  of  what  was  to  come. 
"  Latitudinarianism  continued  to  spread,"  says  an  historian  of 
the  United  States ;  "  some  approached  even  towards  Socinianism, 
carefully  concealing,  however,  from  themselves  their  advance  to 
that  abyss."§  Concealment  has  long  ceased  to  be  necessary. 
"  The  university  of  Boston,"  we  are  told  in  1853,  "  is  attended 
by  about  five  hundred  students  yearly.  It  is  wholly  a  Unitarian 
establishment,  and  belongs  to  the  Unitarian  Church."]  "Infi 
delity,"  says  an  American  Protestant,  "  has  made  rapid  strides 
in  New  England  ;  and  at  present,, not  one-half  of  the  adult  pop 
ulation  are  in  the  habit  of  attending  any  religious  worship, 
or  even  belong  to  any  Christian  sect.  *f  And  even  they  who 
profess  some  corruption  of  Christianity,  some  human  doctrine 
which  has  its  roots  deep  in  the  earth,  and  shoots  upwards  with 
rank  luxuriance  only  to  shut  out  the  pure  light  of  heaven,  are 
for  the  most  part  avowed  or  concealed  Unitarians,  blaspheming 
the  Incarnate  God,  and  enemies  of  the  Cross  of  Christ.  "  They 
are  introducing  themselves,"  we  are  told,  "into  every  village  ;"** 
so  that,  "of  all  the  Congregational  ministers  in  New  England, 
there  are  not  probably,  at  this  day,  twenty-five  who  believe  the 

*  Bancroft,  ii.,  766. 

f  Gillies,  Hist.  Collections,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  ii.,  p.  19. 

j  Wilberforce,  ch.  xii.,  p.  446. 

§  Hildreth,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxiii.,  p.  309. 

Ii  F.  Bremer,  Homes  of  the  New  World,  vol.  i.,  letter  vii.,  p.  144. 
1  New  York  Churchman,  vol.  ix.,  No.  25. 

**  First  Annual  Report  of  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  American  Unitarian 
Association,  1827.  Cf!  Church  ^Advocate,  vol.  i.,  p.  90 ;  Colton's  Church  and 
State  in  America,  p.  39  ;  Remarks  on  the  Moral  and  Religious  Character  of  th6 
United  States,  p.  51. 


350  CHAPTER  IX. 

doctrines  of  the  Nicene  Creed !  "  Boston,"  says  a  capable 
witness,  "  is  the  headquarters  of  cant There  is  an  extra 
ordinary  and  most  pernicious  union,  in  more  than  a  few  scat 
tered  instances,  of  profligacy  and  the  worst  kind  of  infidelity 
with  a  strict  religious  profession,  and  an  outward  demeanor  of 
remarkable  propriety."*  "Infidelity,"  says  another  witness, 
in  1858,  "  has  been  cultivated.  Young  America's  usual  poor 
recoil  from  the  Puritanism  of  its  childhood. "f  Yet  there  are 
men  who  believe  that  New  England  theology  was  one  of  the 
most  auspicious  products  of  Anglicanism,  and  that  the  "  Pil 
grim  Fathers"  were  benefactors  of  mankind.^ 

That  the  Puritans  should  have  exterminated,  instead  of  con 
verting,  the  Indian  tribes  of  the  northeastern  States,  can  hardly 
surprise  us.  The  savage  had  sufficient  intelligence  to  comprehend, 
and  sufficient  wit  to  express  his  conviction,  that  the  professors 
of  a  religion  which  formed  such  characters  and  produced  such 
fruits,  must  be  as  hateful  in  the  eyes  of  the  "  Great  Spirit"  as 
they  were  mean  and  odious  in  his  own.  "  It  is  very  remark 
able,"  says  Hubbard,  speaking  of  Massasoit,  the  famous  sachem 
of  the  Narragansetts,  who  for  forty -five  years  was  the  constant 
associate  and  firm  ally  of  the  English,  "  that  how  much  soever 
he  affected  the  English,  he  was  never  in  the  least  degree  well 
affected  to  their  religion. "§  The  unhappy  barbarian,  whose 
whole  nation  was  afterwards  to  be  destroyed  by  them,  knew  it 
too  well  by  its  fruits.  He  knew  also,  by  a  sorrowful  experience, 
that  in  spite  of  their  grim  affectation  of  integrity  and  contempt 
for  earthly  goods,  none  were  so  greedy  and  insatiable  as  they. 
Winthrop  was  one  of  the  most  famous  among  them,  and  Gorton 
hardly  of  lower  repute  ;  yet  both  these  preachers,  to  say  nothing 
of  others,  had  learned  the  profitable  art  which  Anglican  mis 
sionaries  were  to  practise  elsewhere,  at  a  later  date  and  on  a 
larger  scale.  "In  the  records  of  the  United  Colonies  for  the 
year  1647,"  observes  an  American  writer,  "  it  is  mentioned 
that  '  Mr.  John  Winthrop  making  claim  to  a  great  quantity  of 
land  at  Niantic  by  purchase  from  the  Indians, '" — have  we  not 
reason  to  say  that  these  men  are  always  and  everywhere  the 
same  ? — "  although  he  was  a  famous  4  saint'  among  his  party, 

*  H.  Martineau,  Society  in  America,  vol.  iii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  31. 

\  The  Life  and  Times  of  Aaron  Burr,  by  J.  Parton,  ch.  iv.,  p.  63. 

|  It  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  America  owes  to  Great  Britain  Mormonism 
as  well  as  Puritanism.  "  It  is  to  Protestantism  that  we  must  look  for  the  origin 
of  the  New  Faith,"  says  Mr.  Burton,  "  which  we  find  to  be  in  its  origin  English, 
Protestant,  anti-Catholic."  Great  Britain  supplies  to  this  newest  form  of 
Protestantism  "  five  times  more  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  except  Denmark." 
The  City  of  the  Saints,  by  Richard  F.  Burton,  ch.  vi.,  p.  359  ;  ch.  ix.,  p.  440 
(1861). 

§  Indian  Biography,  by  B.  B.  Thatcher,  Esq.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  139. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  351 

*  the  commissioners  set  aside  his  claim,  with  considerable 
appearance  of  independence.'  r  Four  years  earlier,  the  Rev. 
Samuel  Gorton  obtained  lands  in  the  same  manner  from  Mian- 
tunnomoh,  "which  was  grievous  to  the  Puritan  Fathers  of 
Massachusetts,"  not  because  they  condemned  a  proceeding 
which  they  would  gladly  have  imitated,  but  because  Gorton 
had  collected  disciples  of  his  own,  and  presumed  to  set  them  at 
noughtf  And  this  acquisitiveness,  which  clung  like  a  garment 
to  their  limbs,  marked  their  proceedings  to  the  end.  As  late 
as  1 768,  we  still  find  Sir  William  Johnson  indignantly  com 
plaining  to  General  Gage  of  certain  "New  England  ministers" 
in  these  expressive  words :  "  I  was  not  ignorant  that  their  old 
pretensions  to  the  Susquehanna  lands  was  their  real,  though 
religion  was  their  assumed,  object.";}:  And  once  more,  in  1746, 
the  Council  of  New  York  informed  Governor  Clinton  that 
"Whitfield,  the  celebrated  preacher,  "had  purchased  several 
thousand  acres  of  land  at  the  forks  of  the  river  Delaware,"  and 
requested  his  attention  to  the  transaction.  "This  scheme," 
the  council  added,  "  was  carried  on  by  Whitfield  till  he  had 
gulled  a  sufficient  sum  out  of  the  deluded  people,  under  color 
of  charity  for  the  orphan  house  at  Georgia  and  this  Negro 
Academy,  but  as  most  rational  to  suppose,  with  real  design 
under  both  pretexts  to  till  his  own  pockets  ;  and  when  he  had 
carried  on  the  farce  so  far  as  he  could  well  expect  to  profit  by, 
he  sells  this  estate  at  Delaware  to  Count  Zinzendorf."§  But 
we  have  heard  enough  of  the  "Pilgrim  Fathers"  and  of  their 
kindred,  and  it  is  time  to  speak  of  the  operations  of  the  Church 
of  England  in  the  same  land,  and  of  the  agents  by  whom  they 
were  conducted. 


ANGLICAN   MISSIONS. 

The  history  of  Anglican  missions  in  the  American  colonies 
has  been  written  by  the  Rev.  Ernest  Hawkins,  a  highly  respect 
able  minister  of  the  Establishment.  It  does  not  take  a  wide 
range,  is  somewhat  barren  of  incident,  and  will  not  detain  us 
long.  "The  Church  of  England  is  not  rich  in  missionary 
annals,"  says  this  gentleman,  just  three  centuries  after  she  had 
come  into  existence ;  and  his  own  account  does  not  permit  us 
to  believe  that  change  of  climate  has  removed  her  sterility,  or 

*  Drake,  book  ii.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  108. 
f  Id.,  book  iii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  73. 
i  Doc.  Hist.  N.  York,  vol.  iv.,  p.  398. 
§  Ibid.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  1024. 


352  CHAPTER  IX. 

that  she  has  enjoyed  a  more  fruitful  career  in  the  New  world 
than  in  the  Old.  There  is  indeed  some  reason  for  surprise 
that  Mr.  Hawkins  should  have  thought  it  necessary  to  write 
a  history  which  has  neither  a  plot  nor  a  hero,  and  which  con 
tains  absolutely  nothing,  from  the  first  page  to  the  last,  except 
the  continual  repetition  of  the  same  statement,  that  the  Angli 
can  missionaries  had  no  success  in  America,  and  sincerely  re 
gretted  the  fact.  Here  is  a  list  of  some  of  them,  whom  we 
reasonably  infer  to  have  been  the  most  conspicuous  of  their 
number,  since  they  occupy  the  most  prominent  place  in  the 
pages  of  Mr.  Hawkins. 

The  reader  will  observe  how  exactly  they  resemble  one 
another  in  this  particular,  that  they  all  visited  America  and  al] 
ran  away  again.  Mr.  Urrnston,  he  says,  after  "vainly  demand 
ing  the  payment  of  his  dues,"  returned  to  England.  Mr. 
Rainsford  "abandoned  his  mission,"  "being  unable,"  says  Mr. 
Hawkins, — whose  dramatis  personce  are  constantly  escaping 
from  him, — "  to  undergo  the  fatigues  of  an  itinerant  mission." 
Mr.  Gordon  only  stayed  a  year,  being  driven  away  "  by  the 
distractions  of  the  people,  and  the  other  inconveniences  in  that 
colony."  Mr.  Adams  was  just  going  to  "  set  out  for  Europe," 
but  died  before  he  could  start.  Mr.  Wesley  stayed  one  year 
and  nine  months,  and  then  "  shook  off  the  dust  of  his  feet,  and 
left  Georgia."  Mr.  Neil  complained,  as  late  as  1766,  "  Few 
Englishmen  that  can  live  at  home  will  undertake  the  mission." 
Mr.  Moor,  however,  stayed  three  years  before  he  ran  away. 
Mr.  Barton  announced  his  opinion  about  the  same  time,  that 
"  in  the  conversion  of  Indians  many  difficulties  and  impedi 
ments  will  occur  which  European  missionaries" — he  meant  to 
say  English — "  will  never  be  able  to  remove  ;"  and  then  he  re 
counts  the  "hardships"  which  such  a  work  entailed,  and  which 
always  put  his  Anglican  friends  to  flight.  Mr.  Talbot  wrote  a 
little  earlier  to  the  "  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel 
in  Foreign  Parts"  this  characteristic  tale :  "  All  your  mission 
aries  hereabouts  are  going  to  Maryland,  for  the  sake  of  them 
selves,  their  wives,  and  their  children."  We  shall  see  presently 
what  they  did  in  Maryland.  Lastly,  Mr.  Hawkins  adds,  "  Nor 
must  it  be  concealed  that  cases  occurred  of  clergymen  dishon 
oring  their  holy  calling  by  immorality,  or  neglect  of  their 
cures."*  And  this  is  about  the  sum  of  the  information  which 
we  derive  from  his  book. 

In  reading  such  a  narrative,  two  conclusions  appear  to  sug 
gest  themselves ;  the  first,  that  the  Anglican  clergy  would  hardly 

*  Missions  of  tJie  Ch.  of  Eng.  in  the  N.  A.  Colonies,  ch.  iv.,  pp.  72,  86 ;  ch.  v., 
p.  97 ;  ch.  vi.,  pp.  125,  131 ;  ch.  vii.,  p.  146  ;  ch.  xi.,  p.  265. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA. 

condemn  their  colleague  who  candidly  observed  to  "  my  Lord  of 
London,"  "  Who  did  his  lordship  think  would  come  hither  that 
had  a  dozen  shirts?" — and  the  second,  that  if  Mr.  Hawkins  has 
not  succeeded  in  producing  a  "  history,"  it  was  only  for  want  T>f 
materials. 

Yet  he  might  have  indefinitely  swelled  the  catalogue  of 
fugitive  ministers,  if  he  had  not  deemed  his  own  sufficiently 
ample.  He  might  even  have  assisted  his  readers  to  form  a  more 
exact  estimate  of  their  real  character,  if  that  had  been  his  object. 
Colonel  Heathcote,  an  ardent  Protestant,  informed  the  Society 
for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel,  in  1705,  that  Mr.  Talbot, 
whom  Mr.  Hawkins  would  fain  represent  as  a  true  missionary, 
ran  away,  "  having  not  thought  it  worth  the  while  to  stay  at 
Albany."  The  Rev.  Thomas  Barclay  deserved  also  a  conspicuous 
place  in  the  same  series  of  missionary  portraits.  This  gentleman 
informed  the  English  society  in  1710,  that  his  Dutch  colleague 
at  Albany  was  "  a  hot  man,  and  an  enemy  to  our  Church,  but  a 
friend  to  his  purse,  for  he  has  large  contributions  from  this 
place."  And  then  he  added,  with  that  admirable  self-possession 
with  which  most  English  people  are  familiar,  "  As  for  myself, 
/  take  no  money,  and  have  no  kind  of  perquisite."  Yet  two 
years  later,  this  ascetical  Anglican  minister,  to  whom  money  was 
an  offence,  was  publicly  tried  before  the  commissioners  at  Albany, 
for  employing  a  person  "  to  get  fifty  pounds  for  him  upon  interest 
to  pay  his  debts,  which  his  wife  was  to  know  nothing  of,"  and 
then  sorely  libelling  his  agent  because  he  failed  to  get  the  loan.* 
Mr.  Hawkins  might  have  filled  his  volume  with  equally  dramatic 
incidents.  He  might  also,  if  that  had  been  his  design,  have 
informed  his  readers  that  the  congregations  of  these  Anglican 
ministers  were  worthy  of  such  pastors.  As  late  as  the  eighteenth 
century,  Colonel  Morris,  another  sympathizing  correspondent  of 
what  is  called  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel, 
gave  this  description  of  the  English  in  America:  "Whereas 
nine  parts  in  ten  of  ours  will  add  no  credit  to  whatsoever  Church 
they  are  of,  nor  can  it  be  well  expected  otherwise  ;  for  as  New 
England,  excepting  some  families,  was  the  scum  of  the  Old,"- 
though  the  teaching  class  was  mainly  composed  of  ex-Anglican 
ministers, — "  so  the  greatest  part  of  the  English  in  this  province 
was  the  scum  of  the  New,  who  brought  as  many  opinions  almost 
as  persons,  but  neither  religion  nor  virtue,  and  have  acquired 
very  little  since."f 

Another   Anglican  writer,  deservedly  esteemed,   like   Mr. 
Hawkins,  for  character  and  ability,  has  applied  himself  to  the 

*  Doc.  Hist.  N.  York,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  125,  898,  904. 
f  Ibid.,  p.  247. 
VOL.  ii.  24 


354:  CHAPTER   IX. 

production  of  a  much  larger  work  on  the  same  subject.  He 
also  tells  us  of  Mr.  Morrell,  who,  after  spending  a  year  in  New 
England,  "was  compelled  to  retire  baffled  and  discomfited."* 
Mr.  Bancroft  has  described  to  us  another  class  of  missionaries, 
"  who  never  receded  one  foot;"  and  Mr.  Washington  Irving  has 
added,  that  "  they  pressed  on  unresisting,  with  a  power  which  no 
other  Christians  have  exhibited."  Mr.  Hawkins,  having  other 
matters  to  discuss,  dismisses  this  class  briefly  as — "French 
Romanists  /"  This  is  what  an  educated  Anglican  clergyman 
deems  a  suitable  description  of  men  whom  St.  Paul  would  have 
greeted  with  the  kiss  of  charity,  and  whom  the  God  of  St.  Paul 
endowed  with  gifts  and  graces  which  American  Protestants  have 
celebrated  with  respectful  enthusiasm,  and  of  which  even  the 
American  savage  recognized  the  supernatural  beauty.  Mr. 
Hawkins,  however,  reserving  his  sympathy  for  the  hirelings 
whose  career-  he  has  described,  appears  to  approve  the  verdict  of 
Dr.  Selwyn — who,  as  we  have  seen,  is  so  little  impressed  by  the 
ministry  of  apostles  such  as  Lallemand  and  De  Brebeuf,  St. 
Francis  and  De  Britto,  Schaal  and  Yerbiest,  that  he  cannot 
endure  even  the  sound  of  their  names,  forgets  even  self-respect 
in  his  eagerness  to  defame  them,  and  deems  their  very  existence 
"  a  blot  on  the  mission  system  !"f 

Mr.  Anderson  concludes  from  his  researches,  that  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  "the  vital  energies  of  the  whole  body  of 
the  Church  throughout  the  colony  were  rapidly  sinking  beneath 
the  baneful  influences  which  oppressed  her."  He  relates  also, 
from  original  records,  that  the  worst  influence  of  all  was  that  of 
the  clergy,  of  whom  he  quotes  this  animated  description. 
"  Many  came,  such  as  wore  black  coats,  and  could  babble  in 
a  pulpit,  roar  in  a  tavern,  exact  from  their  parishioners,  and 
rather  by  their  dissoluteness  destroy  than  feed  their  flocks.":): 
If  Mr.  Anderson  and  Mr.  Hawkins  could  have  found  more 
cheerful  topics,  we  may  assume  that  they  would  have  selected 
them. 

When  so  distinguished  a  person  as  Mr.  Anderson  undertakes 
to  write  a  "  History  of  the  Colonial  Church,"  we  may  be  sure 

*  History  of  the  Colonial  Church,  by  the  Rev.  J.  S.  M.  Anderson,  vol.  i.,  ch. 
xii.,  p.  457. 

f  "  There  are  many,"  says  a  spiritual  writer,  whose  words  are  not  without 
application  in  this  case,  "  to  whom  the  perfections  of  God  are  not  so  much  ter 
rible  as  they  are  odious.  When  they  come  in  sight  of  some  manifestation  of 
His  sovereignty,  or  even  some  beautiful  disclosure  of  His  tenderness,"  as  in 
the  supernatural  lives  of  Catholic  missionaries,  "  they  are  like  possessed  per 
sons.  They  are  so  exasperated  as  to  forget  themselves,  until  their  passion 
hurries  them  on  to  transgress,  not  only  the  proprieties  of  language,  but  even 
the  decorum  of  outward  behavior."  F.  Faber,  The  Creator  and  the  Creature, 
ch.  iv.,  p.  231. 

J  Vol  ii,  ch.  xiv,  p.  132. 


MISSIONS   IN    AMERICA.  355 

that  nothing  will  be  omitted  which  industry  could  detect,  or 
art  embellish,  to  adorn  and  illustrate  the  theme.  It  is  probable, 
however,  that  in  spite  of  the  attraction  of  his  name,  few  persons 
would  attempt,  without  a  special  motive,  the  continuous  perusal 
of  volumes  of  such  dimensions,  and  that  fewer  still  would 
succeed  in  the  attempt.  The  impossibility  of  accomplishing 
such  a  task  is  due,  not  to  the  incapacity  of  the  writer,  but  to 
the  weariness  and  aridity  of  the  subject.  Never,  perhaps,  was 
so  vast  a  collection  of  pages  illumined  by  so  slender  an  array  of 
facts.  In  reading  Mr.  Anderson's  immense  volumes,  which 
profess  to  trace  the  fortunes  of  Anglicanism  in  the  colonies,  we 
seem  to  be  invited  to  examine  a  history  in  which  there  are 
neither  scenes  nor  actors,  neither  agents  nor  events ;  wherein 
much  is  said,  but  nothing  is  done;  and  in  which  the  solitary 
truth  which  straggles  to  the  surface,  but  which  might  have 
found  adequate  expression  in  fewer  words,  consists  in  the 
patient  iteration  of  one  fact — that  the  Church  of  England  was 
always  going  to  do  something  worthy  of  record,  and  never  did 
it.  So  absolutely  void  are  these  endless  pages,  not  only  of  any 
semblance  of  incident  or  vestige  of  action,  but  even  of  any 
definite  character  by  which  one  chapter  may  be  distinguished 
from  another ;  so  fall  of  words  which  reveal  nothing  and 
suggest  nothing,  of  sentences  which  incessantly  resolve  them 
selves  into  mist ;  that  the  reader  can  only  ascertain  by  diligent 
reference  to  notes  and  index  where  he  is,  whither  he  is  going, 
and  to  what  point  of  the  narrative  he  is  supposed  to  be  giving 
his  attention. 

There  are  certain  regions,  described  by  American  writers, 
the  interminable  prairies  which  stretch  many  a  league  along 
the  northern  frontier  of  Mexico,  in  which,  as  they  relate,  the 
eye  discovers  neither  tree,  nor  shrub,  nor  hillock,  to  serve  as 
guide  or  landmark,  but  only  one  dead  level,  which  has  every 
where  the  sky  for  its  boundary,  and  in  which  any  living 
form,  though  it  were  the  meanest  of  God's  creatures,  would 
be  welcomed  with  enthusiasm.  Here  the  hapless  traveller 
wanders,  without  aim  and  almost  without  hope,  tracing  again 
to-day  the  path  which  he  vainly  followed  yesterday,  and  ever 
returning  to  the  spot  from  which  he  set  out ;  moving  in  a  fatal 
circle,  which  grows  less  and  less,  as  strength  fails  and  courage 
ebbs  away;  till  he  falls  in  despair  on  the  earth  which  refuses 
to  aid  his  baffled  sense,  or  to  give  him  so  much  as  a  hint  which 
way  lies  the  road  that  leads  to  the  haunts  of  men.  In  reading 
Mr.  Anderson's  illimitable  volumes  we  seem,  about  to  share 
the  fate  of  this  doomed  traveller ;  but  a  movement  breaks  the 
spell,  and  closing  his  book,  we  find  that  we  have  already 
quitted  the  desert  into  which  he  had  beguiled  us,  and  which, 


356  CHAPTER  IX. 

by  the  prescriptive  rights  of  prior  discovery,  he  has  chosen  to 
call,  "The  History  of  the  Colonial  Church.5' 

What  the  Anglican  Church  really  did  in  America,  and  what 
sort  of  agents  she  employed,  there  as  elsewhere,  we  learn  only 
imperfectly  from  Mr.  Anderson  and  Mr.  Hawkins ;  but  other 
writers,  of  similar  religious  persuasions,  will  supply  the  in 
formation  which  they  thought  it  prudent  to  withhold. 

Berkeley,  a  Protestant  bishop,  filled  with  generous  but 
unfruitful  designs  for  the  welfare  of  the  American  colonies, 
detected,  by  actual  observation,  that  the  clergy  who  possessed 
"  a  dozen  shirts,"  and  the  position  which  such  an  estate 
implies,  rarely  crossed  the  Atlantic.  "The  clergy  sent  over 
to  America,"  says  this  celebrated  person,  "have  proved,  too 
many  of  them,  very  meanly  qualified,  both  in  learning  and 
morals,  for  the  discharge  of  their  office.  And,  indeed,  little 
can  be  expected  from  the  example  or  instruction  of  those  who 
quit  their  country  on  no  other  motive  than  that  they  are  not 
able  to  procure  a  livelihood  in  it,  which  is  known  to  be  often 
the  case."*  The  Church  of  England,  however,  sent  such 
representatives,  in  default  of  others,  and  continued  to  send 
them,  during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries. 
Berkeley,  who  seems  to  have  understood  that  the  character 
of  the  missionaries  "  hath  hitherto  given  the  Church  of  Rome 
great  advantage  over  the  Reformed  Churches,"not  only  deplored 
the  fact,  but  indicated  its  probable  results.  "  In  Europe,  the 
Protestant  religion  hath  of  late  years  considerably  lost  ground," 
he  says ;  and  then,  looking  across  the  sea,  he  anticipates  still 
more  unwelcome  events.  "  The  Spanish  missionaries  in  the 
South,  and  the  French  in  the  North,  are  making  such  a 
progress  as  may  one  day  spread  the  religion  of  Rome  through 
out  all  the  savage  nations  in  America,  "f  We  have  seen  that 
in  the  South  the  work  which  he  dreaded  is  done ;  and  if  in  the 
North  they  failed  to  convert  all  the  savage  tribes,  it  was  only 
because  England  massacred  both  them  and  their  flocks,  till 
she  left  them  none  to  convert. 

The  principal  scene,  as  is  well  known,  of  the  operations  of 
Anglicanism  in  America  lay  between  Cape  Cod  and  the 
Chesapeake  Bay  ;  though  the  great  majority  of  its  agents  con 
fined  their  wanderings  to  the  still  narrower  tract  between  the 
mouth  of  the  Hudson  and  the  mouth  of  the  Potomac.  English 
soldiers  and  traders  carried  their  arms  and  their  strong  liquors 
to  the  foot  of  the  Alleghanies  and  the  shores  of  Lake  Erie  and 

*  A  Proposal  for  the  better  supplying  of  Churches  in  our  Foreign  Plantations, 
Works,  vol.  ii.,  p.  422  (1784). 
P.  432. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  357 

Lake  Michigan ;  but  English  missionaries  preferred  to  spend 
their  stipends  in  the  cities  of  the  coast,  and  left  the  wilderness 
to  the  savage  and  the  apostles  of  France.  Massachusetts,  Mary 
land,  and  Virginia  were  the  chief  fields  of  English  enterprise ; 
and  with  a  few  words  upon  each  of  them, — upon  Boston, 
Baltimore,  and  Richmond, — we  may  sufficiently  indicate  both 
the  method  of  their  operations  and  their  effect  upon  the  abo 
riginal  tribes. 

There  is  not  a  State  of  the  Union  which  has  not  found,  and 
merited,  at  least  one  historian,  and  there  is  not  a  difference  of 
opinion  among  them  all  as  to  the  character  of  the  English  pro 
ceedings.  But  it  would  be  a  mere  ostentation  of  research  to 
affect  to  quote  the  original  records,  when  all  have  been  collected 
in  one  work,  and  all  cited  by  the  same  author.  Mr.  Bancroft's 
voluminous  history,  supplemented  by  English  witnesses,  will 
furnish  all  the  facts  which  in  such  a  sketch  as  this  demand  our 
attention,  or  which  our  limits  will  permit  us  to  notice. 

Beginning  at  the  extreme  northern  point  of  the  country 
which  we  are  now  to  visit,  and  selecting  the  least  dishonorable 
epoch  of  the  English  sway, — when  Eliot,  an  exile  from  England 
and  a  fugitive  from  her  National  Church,  by  whose  officers  he 
had  been  "  deprived,"  had  gathered  together  a  certain  number 
of  "  praying  Indians,"  soon  to  be  dispersed  and  annihilated, — 
we  find  this  account  of  the  actual  and  final  result  of  all  which 
had  been  accomplished  at  that  date  among  the  Indians. 
"  Christianity  hardly  spread  beyond  the  Indians  of  Cape  Cod, 
Martha's  Vineyard,  and  Nantucket,  and  the  seven  feeble 
villages  round  Boston.  The  Narragansetts,  a  powerful  tribe, 
counting  at  least  a  thousand  warriors,  retained  their  old  belief; 
and  Philip  of  Pokanoket,  at  the  head  of  seven  hundred  warriors, 
professed  with  pride  the  faith  of  his  fathers."*  While  the  few 
scattered  villages,  scanty  in  number  and  exhausted  in  strength 
and  vigor,  which  nominally  accepted  the  religion  of  their  mas 
ters,  are  thus  described  by  the  same  historian.  "The  clans 
within  the  limits  of  the  denser  settlements  of  the  English, 
especially  the  Indian  villages  round  Boston,  were  broken- 
spirited,  from  the  overwhelming  force  of  the  English.  In  their 
rude  blending  of  new  instructions  with  their  ancient  super 
stitions — in  their  feeble  imitations  of  the  manners  of  civilization 
• — in  their  appeals  to  the  charities  of  Europeans,  they  had 
quenched  the  fierce  spirit  of  savage  independence.  They  loved 
the  crumbs  from  the  white  man's  table." 

So  well  was  the  character  of  these  unwilling  "converts," 
sorrowful  pensioners  of  a  niggard  bounty,  understood  even  on 

*  Bancroft,  i.,  431. 


358  CHAPTER  IX. 

this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  that  a  distinguished  English  writer 
did  not  scruple  thus  to  describe  them  and  their  pastors.  "The 
missionaries  always  quarrelled  with  their  flocks,  and  made  but 
few  converts ;  nor  among  them  produced  any  real  improve 
ment."  And  again  :  "  The  instruction  of  the  Indians  in  schools, 
among  the  Europeans  settled  in  great  towns,  was  another 

method  which  was  adopted,  and  with  no  better  success 

These  pupils  returned  to  their  naked  and  hunting  brethren  the 
vnost  profligate  and  the  most  idle  members  of  the  Indian  com 
munity"* 

But  their  end  was  at  hand.  A  little  later,  Pokanoket,  who 
asked  only  permission  to  live,  and  "  who  is  reported  to  have 
wept  when  he  heard  that  a  white  man's  blood  had  been  shed," 
consented  at  length  to  a  war  which  might  relieve,  but  could 
hardly  augment,  the  sufferings  of  the  Indians,  and  the  last 
remains  of  the  New  England  tribes  hurried  to  their  doom. 
"  The  Indian  cabins  were  soon  set  on  fire.  Thus  were  swept 
away  the  humble  glories  of  the  Narragansetts ;  the  winter's 
stores  of  the  tribe,  their  curiously  wrought  baskets,  full  of  corn, 
their  famous  strings  of  wampum,  their  wigwams  nicely  lined 
with  mats, — all  the  little  comforts  of  savage  life  were  consumed. 
And  more — their  old  men,  their  women,  their  lobes,  perished  by 
hundreds  in  the  fire.  Then,  indeed  was  the  cup  of  misery  full 
for  these  red  men."f  "  Sad  to  them,"  adds  the  historian,  "had 
been  their  acquaintance  with  civilization.  The  first  ship  that 
came  on  their  coast  kidnapped  men  of  their  kindred,  and  now 
the  harmless  boy,"  the  only  son  of  Philip,  that  had  been  cher 
ished  as  the  future  sachem,  of  their  tribes,  the  last  of  the  family 
of  Massasoit,  was  sold  into  bondage  to  toil  as  a  slave  under  the 
sun  of  Bermuda  !"J  Such  were  the  deeds  of  Englishmen  in 
America.  When  the  inevitable  hour  of  England's  reckoning 
arrives,  the  cry  of  the  American  native  will  surely  mount  up 
to  heaven,  and  add  a  heavier  burden  to  the  maledictions  already 
registered  against  her. 

But  we  have  as  yet  no  adequate  conception  of  the  patient 
cruelty  with  which  England  uprooted  Christianity  in  every 
part  of  America  where  Tier  power  was  felt.  In  Florida,  as  a 
French  writer  observes,  "  the  ardent  zeal  of  several  generations 
of  martyrs,"  Jesuits,  Dominicans,  and  Franciscans,  "  received 

*  Edinburgh  Review,  vol.  viii.,  p.  444. 

t  Bancroft,  i.,  427. 

j  P.  430.  Dr.  Wilson  notices  the  characteristic  fact,  that  "  after  a  discussion 
as  to  his  fate,  in  which  Increase  Mather  pleaded  against  mercy,  the  boy's  life 
was  spared.  The  New  England  divine  urged  the  case  of  Hadad,  of  the  king's 
seed  in  Edom,"  and  insisted  upon  the  death  of  the  unoffending  child.  Prehis 
toric  Man,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xix.,  p.  152. 


MISSION'S   IN   AMERICA.  359 

its  recompense,  and  the  natives  embraced  Christianity.  Villages 
and  neophytes  gathered  round  the  Spanish  posts."  At  length 
the  English  arrived  from  Carolina.  "In  1703,  the  valley  of 
the  Appalachicola  was  ravaged  by  an  armed  body  of  covetous 
fanatics;  the  Indian  towns  were  destroyed,  the  missionaries 
slaughtered,  and  their  forest  children  hurried  away,  and  sold 
as  slaves  in  the  English  West  Indies."*  But  the  work  of  de 
struction  was  not  yet  complete.  Sixty  years  later,  by  the 
treaty  of  Paris,  1763,  Florida  was  ceded  by  Spain  to  England. 
"  This  was  the  death-blow  of  the  missions.  The  Indians  were 
expelled  from  the  grounds  cultivated  by  their  toil  for  years, 
and  deprived  of  their  church,  which  they  had  themselves  erected. 
All  was  given  by  the  governor  to  the  newly  established  English 
church.  In  ten  years  riot  one  was  left  near  the  city."  From 
that  hour  the  natives  of  Florida  took  the  name  of  Seminoles, 
or  Wanderers,  and  being  deprived  of  all  guidance  and  instruc 
tion,  gradually  lost  the  faith,  but  retained  an  implacable  hatred 
against  the  race  which  had  robbed  them  both  of  their  lands 
and  their  religion.  When  General  Jackson  tried  to  deport 
them  beyond  the  Mississippi,  "  the  Seminoles,  so  gentle  under 
the  paternal  care  of  the  Franciscans,  had  become  ungovern 
able."  The  "  Florida  war"  cost  the  United  States  twenty 
thousand  men,  and  forty  million  dollars,  lasted  for  seven  years, 
and  "  produced  no  result."  "  The  Seminoles  are  a  striking 
monument  of  the  different  results  obtained  by  the  Catholic 
government  of  Spain,  and  the  Protestant  government  of 
England.  The  one  converted  the  savages  into  Christians,  a 
quiet,  orderly,  industrious  race,  living  side  by  side  with  the 
Spaniards  themselves,  in  peace  and  comfort ;  the  other  re- 
plunged  the  same  tribes  into  barbarism  and  paganism,  and 
converted  them  into  a  fearful  scourge  of  her  own  colonies. "f 

Let  us  turn  again  to  the  North,  and  come  to  Maryland. 
Here  dwelt  a  Catholic  colony,  under  a  Catholic  lawgiver,  and 
Protestants  will  tell  us  how  the  one  governed  and  the  other 
throve.  "Within  six  months,"  says  Mr.  Bancroft,  "  the  colony 
of  Maryland  had  advanced  more  than  Virginia  had  done  in  as 
many  years.  .  .  .  But  far  more  memorable  was  the  character 
of  the  Maryland  institutions.  Every  other  country  in  the 
world  had  persecuting  laws :  '  I  will  not,' — such  was  the  oath 
of  the  governor  of  Maryland, — '  I  will  not,  by  myself  or  any 
other,  directly  or  indirectly,  molest  any  person  professing  to 

*  The  Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States,  by  H.  de  Courcy  de  Laroche 
Heron,  ch.  i.,  p.  15. 

f  Catholic  Missions  among  the  Indian  Tribes  of  the  United  States,  by  Jolm 
Gilmary  Shea,  ch.  iii.,  p.  75.  A  multitude  of  similar  examples  will  be  found 
in  this  valuable  work. 


360  CHAPTER   IX. 

believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  for  or  in  respect  of  religion.'  Under 
the  mild  institutions  and  munificence  of  Baltimore,  the  dreary 
wilderness  soon  bloomed  with  the  swarming  life  and  activity 
of  prosperous  settlements  ;  the  Roman  Catholics,  who  were 
oppressed  by  the  laws  of  England,  \vere  sure  to  find  a  peace 
ful  asylum  in  the  quiet  harbors  of  the  Chesapeake ;  and  there, 
too,  Protestants  were  sheltered  against  Protestant  intolerance. 
Such  were  the  beautiful  auspices  under  which  the  province  of 

Maryland  started  into  being Its  history  is  the  history 

of  benevolence,  gratitude,  and  toleration."* 

Fenimore  Cooper,  and  a  multitude  of  eminent  American 
writers,  have  noticed  the  relations  which  were  quickly  formed 
between  the  Catholics  of  Maryland  and  the  Indian  tribes. 
They,  as  an  English  Protestant  observes,  "  fairly  paid"  the 
natives  for  their  land,  and  "  their  generosity  won  the  hearts  of 
their  new  Indian  friends."f  But  let  us  continue  Mr.  Ban 
croft's  account. 

"  The  happiness  of  the  colony  was  enviable.  The  persecuted 
and  the  unhappy  thronged  to  the  domains  of  the  benevolent 
prince.  If  Baltimore  was,  in  one  sense,  a  monarch,  his  mon 
archy  was  tolerable  to  the  exile  who  sought  for  freedom  and 
repose.  Numerous  ships  found  employment  in  his  harbors. 
....  Emigrants  arrived  from  every  clime ;  and  the  colonial 
legislature  extended  its  sympathies  to  many  nations,  as  well 
as  to  many  sects.  From  France  came  Huguenots ;  from  Ger 
many,  from  Holland,  from  Sweden,  from  Finland,  the  children 
of  misfortune  sought  protection  under  the  tolerant  sceptre  of 
the  Roman  Catholic.  Bohemia  itself,  the  country  of  Jerome 
and  of  Huas,  sent  forth  its  sons,  who  at  once  were  made  citizens 
of  Maryland  with  equal  franchises."^: 

Such  was  Catholic  Maryland,  the  solitary  oasis  of  the 
northern  desert,  and  the  refuge  for  all  who  found  elsewhere 
only  cruelty  and  oppression.  Lord  Baltimore  died,  and  "  im 
mediately  on  the  death  of  the  first  feudal  sovereign  of  Mary 
land,  the  powerful  influence  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
had  been  solicited  to  secure  an  establishment  of  the  Anglican 
Church,  which  clamored  for  favor  in  the  province  where  it 
already  enjoyed  equality.  The  prelates  demanded,  not  free 
dom,  but  privilege ;  an  establishment  to  be  maintained  at  the 

common  expense  of  the  province The  English  ministry 

soon  issued  an  order,  that  offices  of  government  in  Mary 
land  should  be  intrusted  exclusively  to  Protestants.  Roman 


*  Bancroft,  i.,  188. 

f  Buckingham,  America,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xx.,  p.  388. 

\  Bancroft,  i.,  523. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  361 

Catholics  were  disfranchised  in  the  province  which  they  had 
planted  !"* 

"It  is  a  striking  and  instructive  spectacle  to  behold,  at  this 
period,"  says  Professor  Walters  of  Philadelphia,  "  the"  Puritans 
persecuting  their  Protestant  brethren  in  New  England,  the 
Episcopalians  retorting  the  same  severity  on  the  Puritans  in 
Virginia,  and  the  Catholics,  against  whom  all  others  were 
combined,  forming  in  Maryland  a  sanctuary  where  all  might, 
worship,  and  none  might  oppress,  and  where  even  Protestants 
might  find  refuge  from  Protestant  intolerance."  Yet  these 
very  men,  he  adds,  "  with  ingratitude  still  more  odious  than 
their  injustice,  projected  the  abrogation  not  only  of  the  Catholic 
worship,  but  of  every  part  of  that  system  of  toleration  under 
whose  shelter  they  were  enabled  to  conspire  its  downfall  !"f 

If  any  thing  be  wanting  to  complete  the  picture,  it  is  supplied 
in  the  fact,  noticed  by  Mr.  Baird,  an  American  minister,  that 
the  character  of  many  of  the  Anglican  clergy  who  were  now 
dispatched  to  Maryland  to  supersede  the  Catholic  missionaries, 
was  notorious  for  "  shocking  delinquency  and  open  sin.":):  "A 
great  part  of  them"  was  the  confession  of  the  Protestant 
Bishop  of  London  to  the  celebrated  Dr.  Doddridge,  "  can  get 
no  employment  at  home,  and  enter  into  the  service  more  out 
of  necessity  than  choice.  Some  others  are  willing  to  go  abroad 
to  retrieve  either  lost  fortunes  or  lost  character."^  "  Ruffians, 
fugitives  from  justice,"  adds  Mr.  Bancroft,  "  men  stained  by 
intemperance  and  lust  (I  write  with  caution,  the  distinct 
allegations  being  before  me),  nestled  themselves  in  the  parishes 
of  Maryland. "||  And  it  was  to  procure  an  "  Establishment," 
on  the  Anglican  model,  for  men  who  are  thus  described  by 
those  who  knew  them  best,  but  who  sent  them  in  spite  of  this 
knowledge,  that  religious  liberty  was  suppressed,  and  Catholics 
disfranchised,  in  the  English  colony  of  Maryland.  "  In  the 
land  which  Catholics  had  opened  to  Protestants,"  says  Mr. 
Bancroft,  "  the  Catholic  inhabitant  was  the  sole  victim  to 
Anglican  intolerance."^ 

Not  that  this  was  an  exceptional  incident  in  the  history  of 
Anglicanism,  for,  as  the  historian  observes,  it  displayed  exactly 
the  same  character  in  Ireland.  Here  also,  in  the  words  of 
Edmund  Spenser,  the  Anglican  ministers  who  supplanted  the 
pastors  of  the  ancient  faith,  "  were  generally  bad,  licentious, 

*  Bancroft,  p.  528. 

f  Rupp,  p.  115. 

\  Baird,  Religion  in  the  U.  8.  of  America,  book  ii.,  ch.  xx.,  p.  210. 

§  Ibid.,  ch.  xx.,  p.  211. 

1  III.,  98. 

1  n.,  717 


362  CHAPTER    IX. 

and  most  disordered  ;"  "  men  of  no  parts  or  condition,"  as  Mr. 
Bancroft  adds,  "  and  as  immoral  as  they  were  illiterate.''* 

Let  us  hear  a  single  witness  from  our  own  country,  and  then 
pass  on  to  Virginia.  "  While  the  Catholics  of  Maryland,"  says 
Mr.  Buckingham,  who  visited  America  twenty  years  ago,  "acted 
with  so  much  liberality  to  their  Protestant  brethren,  these  last, 
who  had  many  of  them  come  to  seek  refuge  from  Protestant 
persecution  in  the  north,  returned  this  liberality  with  the  basest 
ingratitude,  and  sought  by  every  means  to  crush  those  by  whom 
they  had  been  so  hospitably  received."  And  finally,  when  "the 
Church  of  England  was  declared,  by  law,  to  be  the  constitution 
of  the  State  of  Maryland,  Catholics  were  prohibited  under  the 
severest  penalties  from  all  acts  of  public  worship,  and  even 
from  exercising  the  profession  of  teachers  in  education. "f 

It  is  satisfactory  to  learn  from  the  same  witness  the  ultimate 
result  of  this  conflict  between  cruel  bigotry,  workirigby  profligate 
agents  and  distrustful  of  its  own  power,  and  the  unquenchable 
life  of  faith,  surviving  injustice  and  barbarism,  and  accomplishing 
in  weakness  what  all  its  combined  enemies  could  not  effect  in 
their  pride  of  strength.  We  shall  see  that,  in  the  words  of  Mr. 
Bancroft,  "  persecution  never  crushed  the  faith  of  the  colonists." 
Of  all  the  religious  bodies  who  inhabit  Baltimore  at  this  day, 
"first  come  the  Roman  Catholics,"  says  Mr.  Buckingham,  "  who 
far  outstrip  any  other  separate  sect,  in  numbers  and  in  zeal. 
....  The  Catholic  Archbishop,  and  all  the  subordinate  priest 
hood,"  who  now  serve  nineteen  churches  within  the  city  itself, 
"  are  learned,  pious,  and  clever  men  ;  the  Sisters  of  Charity 
have  amongst  their  number  many  intelligent  and  devoted 
women  ;  and  these,  with  the  seminary  for  the  education  of 
Catholic  youth," — there  are  now  seven  seminaries  and  six 
colleges, — "  secure  not  merely  the  permanence  of  the  present 
supremacy  of  Catholic  numbers  and  Catholic  influence,  but  its 
still  further  steady  and  progressive  increase."^: 

It  only  remains  to  speak  of  Virginia,  the  special  domain  of 
Anglicanism  as  long  as  Virginia  was  English,  and  whose  his 
tory  is,  perhaps  on  that  account,  more  full  of  reproach  to  its 
former  masters  than  that  of  any  other  State  in  the  Union. 

The  accounts  of  the  Anglican  clergy  in  Virginia,  even  as  late 
as  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  appear  to  sur 
pass  every  thing  in  the  annals  of  Church  of  England  missions, 
and  throw  even  New  Zealand  into  the  shade.  Sir  William 
Berkeley,  Governor  of  Virginia,  used  to  ask,  with  a  not 
unreasonable  curiosity,  "  Why  the  worst  are  sent  to  us  ?" 

*  Bancroft,  iv.,  45. 
f  America,  oh.  xx.,  p.  387. 
Ibid. 


MISSIONS  IN"  AMERICA.  363 

"  In  Yirginia,"  says  Mr.  Bancroft,  who  had  examined  all  the 
original  records,  u  some  of  the  missionaries,  of  feeble  minds  and 
uncertain  morals,  prodigious  zealots,  from  covetousness,  sought, 
by  appeals  to  England,  to  clutch  at  a  monopoly  of  ecclesiastical 
gains.  .  .  .  The  "crown  incorporated  and  favored  the  Society 
for  Propagating  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts."*  Under  the 
patronage  of  that  society,  as  the  Protestant  historian  relates, 
44  the  benefices  were  filled  by  priests  ordained  in  England,  and 
for  the  most  part  of  English  birth,  too  often  ill-educated  and 
licentious  men,  whose  crimes  quickened  Yirginia  to  assume  the 
advowson  of  its  churches."f  Yet  the  people  of  Yirginia  could 
have  endured  a  good  deal  in  this  way,  if  the  crimes  of  their 
clergy  had  not  exceeded  what  prescription  permitted ;  but  it 
was  one  effect  of  their  enormity  that  the  Episcopalian  Sect 
finally  sunk  into  contempt  in  Yirginia.  "  The  Episcopal  Church 
in  Yirginia,"  says  Dr.  Reed,  u  became  slothful  and  impure 
under  its  exclusive  privileges,  so  as  to  have  made  itself  despised 
by  the  people."^:  "  For  want  of  able  and  eonscionable  min 
isters,"  was  the  joint  confession  of  a  multitude  of  Anglican 
witnesses,  "  they  of  the  Reformed  religion  themselves  are  be 
coming  exceeding  rude,  more  like  to  turne  heathen,  than  to  turne 
others  to  the  Christian  faith."§  And  it  is  admitted  that  this 
state  of  things,  characteristic  of  Anglican  missionary  operations, 
continued  for  two  centuries.  Between  1722  and  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  observes  Dr.  Samuel  Wilberforce, 
"  instead  of  any  growth  throughout  an  extent  of  country  one 
hundred  miles  long  and  fifteen  broad,  every  church  and  chapel 
had  been  forsaken.  .  .  .  Such  was  the  deadly  trance  which  had 
fallen  on  the  Church."  And  then  this  English  prelate,  unwil 
ling,  perhaps,  to  avow  the  real  causes  of  the  decay,  and  the 
mingled  avarice  and  sensuality  which  had  made  episcopalian 
ministers  hateful  throughout  the  colony,  refers  it  all  to  "the 
absence  of  endowment,"  of  which  he  had  learned  to  appreciate 
the  importance  in  his  own  community,  but  the  want  of  which 
in  America,  he  adds,  with  a  naivete  remarkable  in  so  acute  a 
person,  "  impairs  its  character  and  moral  weight."!  Yet  it  was 


*  II.,  769. 

t  HI.,  95. 

i  Visit  to  the  American  Churches,  by  Reed  and  Matheson,  vol.  ii.,  p.  100. 

^  A  Petition  exhibited  to  the  High  Court  of  Parliament,  by  William  Castell, 
Parson  of  Courtenhall,  which  Petition  is  approved  by  seventy  able  English 
Divines  (16-il ;  ed.  Force). 

|  Ch.  viii.,  p.  276;  ch.  xii.,  p.  436.  Dr.  Wilberforce  no  doubt  agrees  with 
the  following  announcement  of  a  great  authority.  "  The  Church  of  England 
deprived  of  its  estates  would  become  merely  an  episcopal  sect  in  this  country, 
and  it  is  not  impossible  in  time  might  become  an  insignificant  one."  The 
Times,  October  81,  1862. 


364  CHAPTER   IX. 

at  this  very  time  that  men  of  another  faith,  already  apostles, 
and  soon  to  be  martyrs,  were  traversing  in  hunger  and  poverty, 
utterly  unmindful  of  "the  absence  of  endowment,"  the  shores 
of  Lake  Superior,  the  banks  of  the  Mohawk,  and  the  valley  of 
the  Mississippi,  and  showing  the  wondering  savage  what  was 
the  religion  of  St.  Paul,  and  how  men  trained  in  his  school 
could  live  and  die. 

The  Anglican  missionaries  in  America  appear  to  have  taught 
them  a  different  lesson,  and  sometimes  by  a  method  which 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  ever  adopted  by  any  other  class  of 
religious  teachers  but  themselves.  On  the  18th  of  May,  1725, 
as  an  American  annalist  relates,  a  British  officer  shot  a  poor 
unoffending  Indian,  who  was  actually  scalped  on  the  spot  by 
the  Rev.  Jonathan  Frye,  a  military  chaplain,  whose  prowess  is 
appropriately  celebrated  by  another  missionary,  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Symmes.  We  learn,  without  excessive  regret,  that  Frye  was 
killed  the  same  day  by  the  tribe  of  the  murdered  man,  after  a 
battle  which  was  one  of  the  great  events  of  the  epoch,  and 
which  was  recorded  in  a  popular  song  described  by  Mr.  Drake 
as  "for  several  years  afterwards  the  most  beloved  song  in  all 
New  England.'1  The  following  verse,  as  an  illustration  of  the 
character  of  English  missionaries  in  America,  deserves  particu 
lar  notice.  We  may  hope,  for  the  honor  of  humanity,  that  no 
such  action  was  ever  celebrated  in  similar  language.  Here  is 
the  triumphal  dirge : 

"  Our  worthy  Captain  Lovewell  among  them  there  did  die ; 
They  killed  Lieutenant  Robins,  and  wounded  good  young  Frye, 
Who  was  our  English  Chaplain  ;  he  many  Indians  slew, 
And  some  oft/iem  he  scalped,  when  bullets  round  him  flew."* 

American  Protestants  have  observed,  and  the  fact  is  worthy 
of  note,  how  strangely  the  history  of  the  Anglican  colony  of 
Virginia  contrasts,  from  its  earliest  origin  and  in  every  par 
ticular,  with  that  which  was  formed  by  Lord  Baltimore.  Even 
at  the  first  moment  of  their  arrival,  "the  emigrants  themselves 
were  weakened  by  divisions  and  degraded  by  jealousy."  A 
large  proportion  of  them  perished  by  sickness  or  famine,  and 
"  disunion  completed  the  scene  of  misery. "f  Unlike  the  Catho 
lics  of  Maryland,  they  soon  made  the  Indians  their  enemies, 
and  reaped,  during  many  years,  till  they  had  created  a  desert 
around  them,  the  fruits  of  their  own  want  of  charity. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  an  English 
colonist,  explaining  how  the  "  Virginians,  Susquehaniaiis,  and 

*  Drake,  book  iii.,  ch.  is  ,  p.  130. 
f  Bancroft,  i.,  95. 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA.  365 

Maryjanders,  of  friends  became  engaged  enimyes,"  relates,  that 
u  the  English  had  (contrarie  to  the  law  of  arms)  beate  out  the 
braines  of  six  grate  men  sent  out  to  treate  a  peace  /  an.  action  of 
ill  consequence,  as  it  proved  after."*  "  It  has  been  to  many  a 
source  of  wonder,"  says  another  writer,  more  than  half  a  century 
later,  who  gives  innumerable  examples  of  the  savage  cruelty  of 
his  countrymen,  "  how  it  comes  to  pass  that  riie  English  have 
so  few  Indians  in  their  interest,  while  the  French  have  so  many 
at  command  ;"  and  that  u  those  neighboring  tribes  in  particu 
lar,  who,  at  the  first  arrival  of  the  English,  showed  every  mark 
of  affection  and  kindness,  should  become  our  most  bitter  ene 
mies."  And  then  he  explains  the  mystery  from  his  own  point 
of  view,  omitting  altogether  the  question  of  religious  influence. 
"  The  English,  in  order  to  get  their  lands,  drive  them  as  far 
from  them  as  possible,  nor  seem  to  care  what  becomes  of  them, 
provided  they  can  get  them  removed  out  of  the  way  of  their 
present  settlements;  whereas  the  French  use  all  the  means  in 
their  power  to  draw  as  many  into  their  alliance  as  possible,  and, 
to  secure  their  affections,  invite  as  many  as  can  to  come  and  live 
near  them,  and  to  make  their  towns  as  near  the  French  settle 
ments  as  they  can."f 

Mr.  Howison,  the  historian  of  Virginia,  who  records  touching 
examples  of  the  generous  confidence  and  hospitality  with  which 
the  Indians  welcomed  the  English  settlers,  notices,  that  a  poor 
native  having  stolen  a  silver  cup,  of  which  he  probably  did  not 
know  the  value,  "  for  this  enormous  offence  the  English  burned 
the  town,  and  barbarously  destroyed  the  growing  corn.  Had 
the  unhappy  savage  stolen  the  only  child  of  the  boldest  settler, 
a  more  furious  vengeance  could  not  have  followed !  To  such 
conduct  does  America  owe  the  undying  hatred  of  the  aboriginal 
tenants  of  her  land,  and  the  burden  of  infamy  that  she  must 
bear  when  weighed  in  the  scales  of  immaculate  justice." J  The 
whole  history,  he  says,  "is  a  dark  record  of  injuries  sustained, 
and  of  insult  unavenged. "§ 

But  no  misfortunes  could  instruct  either  the  insatiable  avarice 
or  the  cruel  bigotry  of  the  Anglican  colonists.  The  fee  of  their 
clergy  for  a  funeral  sermon,  we  are  told  by  Mr.  Hildreth,  was 
"  four  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco ;"  and  for  a  marriage  by 

*  An  Account  of  our  late  Troubles  in  Virginia,  by  Mrs.  Ann  Colton  (1676). 

f  An  Inquiry  into  the  Causes  of  the  Alienation  of  the  Delaware  and  Shawanese 
Indians,  written  in  Pennsylvania,  p.  48  (1759). 

|  History  of  Virginia,  ch.  i.,  p.  57. 

^  Ch.  v.,  p.  260.  As  late  as  1763,  "a  company  of  Presbyterians"  murdered 
a  band  of  Conestoga  Indians,  though  they  were  descendants  of  the  very  men 
who  had  welcomed  Penn  with  so  much  hospitality,  and  this  without  the 
slightest  provocation.  Events  in  Indian  History,  ch.  xxi.,  p.  492  (1842).  Cf. 
He€kewelder's  Narrative, 


366  CHAPTER   IX. 

licence,  half  that  amount  of  the  same  weed.  It  was  natural 
that  such  men  should  light  for  what  Mr.  Ernest  Hawkins  calls 
"  the  payment  of  their  dues."  And  so  in  1643,  "  it  was  specially 
ordered,  that  no  minister  should  preach  or  teach,  publicly  or 
privately,  except  in  conformity  to  the  constitutions  of  the 
Church  of  England,  and  non-conformists  were  banished  from  the 
colony."  "The  government  of  Virginia,"  says  Mr.  Bancroft, 
'•feared  Dissenters  more  than  Spaniards;"*  and  yet  so  incapable 
was  the  Anglican  Church  of  performing  the  functions  which  she 
had  violently  usurped,  and  which  she  sent  u  ill-educated  and 
licentious  men"  to  perform,  that  "  there  were  so  few  ministers 
that  a  bounty  was  offered  for  their  importation  !"  St.  Paul  had 
said,  "The  charity  of  Christ  constraineth  me;"  but  the  Angli 
can  clergy  could  only  be  attracted  by  a  "  bounty."  And  they 
never  varied,  either  in  their  character  or  in  their  operations,  till 
the  day  of  their  downfall.  "The  English  Episcopal  Church 
became  the  religion  of  the  State ;  and  though  there  were  not 
ministers  in  above  a  fifth  part  of  the  parishes,  yet  the  laws  de 
manded  strict  conformity,  and  required  of  every  one  to  contrib 
ute  to  the  support  of  the  Established  Church ...  no  non-conform 
ist  might  teach,  even  in  private,  under  pain  of  banishment ; 
no  reader  might  expound  the  catechism  or  the  Scriptures.  The 
obsolete  severity  of  the  laws  of  Queen  Elizabeth  was  revived 
against  the  Quakers.  Absence  from  church  was  for  them  an 
offence  punishable  by  a  fine  of  twenty  pounds  sterling."")*  "  So 
late  as  the  year  1748,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Rogers,  of  New  York,  was 
sent  out  of  Virginia  by  the  General  Court  of  that  province,  for 
preaching  to  some  Presbyterians  who  had  invited  him  into  the 
country  for  that  purpose.  ^  "  Virginia,"  says  Mr.  Howison,  "is 
the  proper  field  for  those  who  wish  to  study  one  of  the  closing 
pages  of  American  intolerance."§ 

Yet  England  pursues  exactly  the  same  policy  at  the  present 
day,  wherever  she  can  do  so  with  safety.  Thus  in  Prince  Ed 
ward's  Island,  the  Established  religion  is  that  of  the  Church  of 
England,  though  it  has  perhaps  fewer  professors  than  any  denomi 
nation  known  there !"|  We  are  not  surprised  to  learn  that  the 
religious  condition  of  this  colony  is  worthy  of  the  "  Church  of 
England."  The  population,  says  a  British  official  in  1853, 
"  are  generally  a  very  ignorant  race,"  immorality  is  almost 
universal,  and  u  the  sight  of  a  book  or  a  newspaper  in  the  house 
of  a  yeoman  is  a  rare  and  exceptional  occurrence  ;  the  only 

*  I.,  1028. 

f  I.,  497. 

i  Dwiglit,  Travels  in  New  England,  vol.  ix.,  p.  241. 

8  Ch.  vii.,  p.  431. 

I  Bouchette,  British  Dominions,  &c.,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xi.,  p.  178. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  367 

literature  to  be  seen  consists  of  a  few  musty  theological  works 
of  dissenting  divines,  or  some  temperance  tracts."*  In  1862, 
the  "  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel"  inform  their 
subscribers,  that,  in  spite  of  emigration,  and  general  increase  of 
the  population,  "  the  whole  Church  population  is  only  seventy- 
one  more  than  in  1855. f 

The  same  contrast  which  distinguished  the  clergy  marked  the 
conduct  of  the  civil  rulers  in  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  colony. 
Under  Lord  Baltimore,  "  the  virtues  of  benevolence  and  gratitude 
ripened  together,"  and  "  the  people  held  it  a  duty  themselves  to 
bear  the  charges  of  government,  and  they  readily  acknowledged 
the  unwearied  care  of  the  proprietary  for  the  welfare  of  his 
dominions.  .  .  .  The  colony  which  he  had  planted  in  youth, 
crowned  his  old  age  with  its  gratitude."*  Very  different  were 
the  rulers  of  Virginia.  "  The  illegal  grants  favored  by  Sir 
John  Harvey  had  provoked  the  natives  into  active  hostility."! 
His  successors  surpassed  him.  Berkeley  was  greedy,  selfish, 
and  cruel.  When  they  had  captured  an  Indian  sachem,  more 
than  a  hundred  years  old,  and  exposed  him  in  Jamestown, 
mortally  wounded,  to  die  amidst  the  jeers  of  the  English, 
"  Had  I  taken  Sir  William  Berkeley  prisoner,"  was  the  rebuke 
of  the  savage,  "  I  would  not  have  exposed  him  as  a  show  to  my 
people."  Culpepper,  the  confederate  of  Arlington,  was  still 
worse.  "  He  valued  his  office  and  his  patents  only  as  property. 
Clothed  by  the  regal  clemency  with  power  to  bury  past  contests, 
he  perverted  the  duty  of  humanity  into  a  means  of  enriching 
himself,  and  increasing  his  authority.  Nothing  but  Lord  Cul- 

pepper's  avarice  gives  him  a  place  in  American  history 

All  accounts  agree  in  describing  the  condition  of  Virginia,  at 
this  time,  as  one  of  extreme  distress.  Culpepper  had  no  com 
passion  for  poverty — no  sympathy  for  a  province  impoverished 
by  perverse  legislation — and  the  residence  in  Virginia  was  so 
irksome,  that  in  a  few  months  he  returned  to  England."  He 
was  succeeded,  in  his  turn,  by  Lord  Howard  of  Effingham,  a 
man  as  shameless  as  himself.  "It  is  said  he  did  not  scruple  to 
share  perquisites  with  his  clerks.  In  Virginia,  the  avarice  of 
Effingham  was  the  public  scorn ;  in  England,  it  met  with  no 
severe  reprobation.''!  The  governors  of  Virginia,  then,  were 
worthy  of  its  clergy ;  and  both  continued  to  represent  with  equal 
dignity  the  Crown  and  the  Church  of  England,  till  the  colonists, 
weary  of  the  cruelty  of  the  one  and  the  immorality  of  the  other, 

*  Pine  Forests,  &c.,  by  Lieut.-Col.  Sleigh,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  383. 

f  Report  for  1862,  p.  40. 

i  Bancroft,  i.,  525. 

§  Howison,  ch.  v.,  p.  285. 

1  Bancroft,  p.  533. 


368  CHAPTER   IX. 

gave  the  signal  of  that  righteous  revolution  out  of  which  sprang 
the  great  American  Union.  It  was  surely  a  fitting  retribution, 
that  V irginia,  once  a  proverb  for  its  royal  ism,  should  be  the  first 
to  shake  oif  the  yoke  which  English  bigotry,  injustice,  and 
cupidity  had  made  intolerable ;  and  the  national  historian  might 
well  relate,  with  honest  exultation,  that  "  Virginia  rang  the 
alarum  bell — Virginia  gave  the  signal  for  the  continent!"* 

It  is  a  characteristic  fact,  which  should  not  be  omitted  even 
in  this  hasty  sketch,  that  the  only  remonstrants  against  the 
American  Revolution  were  a  few  of  the  Episcopalian  clergy, 
dreading  the  loss  of  their  incomes  and  privileges,  and  warring  to 
the  last  against  the  liberties  of  their  fellow-creatures.  "  The 
present  rebellion,"  says  Dr.  Inglis  of  New  York,  in  17T6,— 
and  the  sentiment  appears  to  have  gained  for  him  the  Protestant 
bishopric  of  Nova  Scotia, — "  is  certainly  one  of  the  most 
causeless,  unprovoked,  and  unnatural  that  ever  disgraced  any 
country  ;"  and  then  he  ventured  upon  a  prediction  equally 
creditable  to  his  discernment,  and  exclaimed,  "  I  have  not  a 
doubt  that,  with  the  blessing  of  Providence,  his  Majesty's  arms 
will  be  successful,  and  finally  crush  this  unnatural  rebellion."! 

One  or  two  names  there  are,  in  the  dark  religious  annals  of 
British  America,  which  contrast  favorably  with  those  of  the 
adventurers  whose  career  we  have  traced,  and  whose  misdeeds 
hindered  the  conversion  of  a  hundred  tribes,  and  lost  half  a 
continent  to  the  crown  of  ^England.  Eliot  and  Brainerd,  both 
witnesses  against  British  oppression,  appear  to  have  been 
animated  by  a  real  desire  for  the  improvement  of  the  heathen, 
and  to  have  done  their  best  to  promote  it.  So  far  as  they  were 
sincere  in  their  good  intentions  they  deserve  our  sympathy 
and  respect.  Eliot  had  collected  at  one  time,  apparently  by 
the  kindness  of  his  deportment,  and  frequent  relief  of  their 
necessities,  a  considerable  number  of  "  praying  Indians."  "  I 
never  go  unto  them  empty,"  he  says  himself,  "  but  carry  some 
what  to  distribute  among  them  ;";£  which  he  was  enabled  to  do 
by  a  subsidy  of  three  thousand  dollars  annually  from  England. 
Naturally  attracted  by  conduct  which  contrasted  so  strongly 
with  the  usual  habits  of  his  countrymen,  they  came  to  consider 
him  as  their  friend,  and  had  good  reason  to  do  so.  Yet  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  he  ever  produced  even  a  superficial 
impression  upon  their  conscience.  Often  they  perplexed  him 
with  questions  to  which  his  barren  theology  could  suggest  no 
reply.  An  Indian  sachem,  as  we  are  told,  having  embarrassed 


*  Bancroft,  iv.,  196. 

t  Doc.  Hist.  ofN.  York,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  1052,  1064. 

j  Dr.  Morrison,  Fathers  of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  vol.  i.,  p.  82. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  369 

him  with  such  inquiries,  "the  good  man  seemed  at  a  loss  for 
an  answer,  and  waived  the  subject  by  several  Scripture  quota 
tions  !"*  He  has  been  called,  writh  the  usual  unreality  of 
Protestants,  "  the  apostle  of  the  Indians ;"  yet,  as  Mr.  Hildreth 
candidly  remarks,  there  was  an  army  of  Catholic  missionaries 
"  not  less  zealous  than  Eliot  and  far  more  enterprising,"  and, 
as  the  same  historian  observes,  "  Eliot's  scheme  for  civilizing 
and  Christianizing  the  Indians  proved  in  the  end  an  almost 
total  failure."f  "  The  natives  of  our  forests,"  says  his  American 
biographer,  "derived  no  permanent  benefit  from  the  exertions 
of  Mr.  Eliot  and  others.":):  He  confessed  himself,  just  before 
his  death,  "There  is  a  dark  cloud  upon  the  work  of  the  Gospel 
among  the  poor  Indians."§  Even  of  his  nominal  disciples, 
Mr.  Drake  admits,  "there  is  not  the  least  probability  that 
even  one-fourth  of  them  were  ever  sincere  believers  in  Chris 
tianity  ;"||  and  Mr.  Conyers  Francis  relates,  that  among  the 
English  themselves,  "  there  was  little  or  no  confidence  in  their 
sincerity."!"  When  "  Philip's  war"  broke  out,  his  whole  work 
came  to  an  end  ;  and  whereas  the  Catholic  Indians,  until  they 
were  slain  by  the  English,  would  always  prepare  for  battle  by 
the  reception  of  the  sacraments,  and  fight  in  the  name  and  the 
defence  of  their  religion,  "  many  that  had  been  at  the  head  of 
the  'praying'  towns,  the  Indian  ministers  themselves,  were 
found  in  arms  against  their  white  Christian  neighbors,"  and 
flung  off  altogether  the  disguise  of  Christianity.  Lastly,  it  is 
an  unpleasant  fact,  which  one  would  have  gladly  missed  in  the 
history  of  such  a  man  as  Eliot,  who  was  "at  least  superior  to 
his  contemporaries,  that  one  of  his  grandchildren  claimed  "  a 
tract  of  one  thousand  acres  of  land  at  a  place  called  the  Allom 
Ponds,  ^iven  by  the  Indian  proprietors  to  the  late  Rev.  John 
Eliot."** 

Brainerd,  who  seems,  like  Henry  Marty n,  to  have  been  de 
voured  by  melancholy,  and  who  was  never  of  the  same  mind 
many  hours  together,  confesses  his  own  failure,  and  others 
account  for  it.  "The  prevailing  defect  of  his  character," 
says  Dr.  Morrison,  was  a  tendency  to  deep  brooding  and 
melancholy  depression."  But  he  seems  to  have  had  other 
infirmities  quite  as  little  suited  to  the  office  of  a  missionary, 

*  Drake,  book  iii.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  85. 

f  The,  History  of  the  United  States  of  America,  by  Richard  Hildreth,  vol.  i., 
ch.  xii.,  p.  412 ;  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xviii.,  p.  85. 

\  Life  of  John  Eliot,  in  Library  of  American  Biography,  by  Jared  Sparks, 
vol.  v.,  ch.  xv.,  p.  301. 

§  Ibid.,  ch.  xvii.,  p.  335. 

«  Ch.  viii.,  p.  115. 

1  Life  of  John  Eliot,  by  Conyers  Francis,  ch.  xiv.,  p  272. 

**  Jared  Sparks,  Appendix,  p.  354. 

VOL.  ii.  25 


370  CHAPTER   IX. 

"Mr.  Bramerd  acknowledges,"  said  Dr.  Boudinot  half  a 
century  ago,  "  tliat  he  dared  not  go  among  them.''*  And 
when  he  did,  but  always,  like  Eliot,  in  the  immediate  neigh 
borhood  of  the  English,  it  was  not  with  much  profit.  "  II  is 
account  of  the  Delawares,"  observes  Mr.  Bancroft,  "  is  gloomy 
and  desponding:  'they  are  unspeakably  indolent  and  slothful,' 
he  says;  '  they  discover  little  gratitude;  they  seem  to  have  no 
sentiments  of  generosity,  benevolence,  or  goodness.'  "f  Yet 
we  have  heard  Catholic  missionaries  commending  tribes  less 
happily  endowed  than  the  Delawares  as  "  industrious  and  fond 
of  labor,"  and  Protestants  confirming  their  report.  Even  the 
few  whom  Brainerd  employed  as  assistants  appear  to  have 
exactly  resembled  the  same  class  in  China,  and  one  for  whom 
he  procured  "  ordination,"  and  who  became  his  own  successor 
"in  the  charge  of  his  congregation,"  is  thus  described  by  Dr. 
Smith :  "  Whatever  professions  this  man  might  have  made, 
or  whatever  opinion  might  have  been  formed  of  him,  it  is 
too  evident  that  he  was  a  stranger  to  the  vital  influence  of 
religion.":): 

So  uniform  were  these  results  of  Protestant  missionary  labor, 
here  as  elsewhere,  even  in  cases  where  the  agents  employed  were 
men  of  pure  intentions,  that  an  American  writer  confessed,  as 
late  as  1792,  "  There  never  was  an  instance  of  an  Indian 
forsaking  his  habits  and  savage  manners,"  under  the  influence 
of  Protestantism ;  and  then  he  cited  the  case  of  the  Rev. 
Samuel  Kirkland,  a  well-known  missionary,  "  who  has  taken 
all  the  pains  that  man  can  take,  but  his  whole  flock  are  Indians 
still  !"§  Mr.  Kirkland  himself  declared  to  Sir  William  John 
son,  "In  general  they  treat  me  with  no  more  respect  than  they 
would  show  to  a  dog."||  Yet  these  same  Indians  clung  to  mis 
sionaries  of  another  creed  with  so  much  love  and  reverence, 
that  they  willingly  exposed  their  own  lives  to  save  them,  and 
even  displayed  such  delicacy  and  refinement  in  their  respect, 
as  they  continue  to  do  at  this  hour,  that,  as  one  of  the  latter 
relates,  when  a  Father  knelt  down  in  their  tents  to  recite  his 
office,  they  not  only  suspended  every  occupation,  but  "  hardly 
moved  or  breathed  lest  they  should  interrupt  him."l~ 

Lastly,  the  Quakers,  in  spite  of  their  temperance  and 
humanity,  were  as  unsuccessful  as  the  rest.  "The  Quakers," 
Mr.  Bancroft  observes,  "came  among  the  Delawares  in  the 

*  Star  in  the  West,  ch.  vi.,  p.  227. 
Bancroft,  ii.,  916. 

Histoi^y  of  the  Missionary  Societies,  \>j  Rev.  Thomas  Smith,  introd.,  p.  16. 
Documentary  History  of  New  York,  vol.  ii.,  p.  1110. 
Ibid.,  vol.  iv.,  p.  358. 
Annales,  tome  iii.,  p.  558. 


MISSIONS   IN   AMERICA.  371 

spirit  of  peace  and  brotherly  love,  and  with  sincerest  wishes  to 
benefit  the  Indian  ;  but  the  Quakers  succeeded  no  better  than 
the  Puritans — not  nearly  as  well  as  the  Jesuits."  In  1822, 
Dr.  Morse  could  still  report  of  this  tribe,  who  seemed  worthy 
of  a  better  lot,  "  They  are  more,  opposed  to  the  Gospel  and  the 
whites  than  any  other  Indians  with  whom  I  am  acquainted." 
It  is  exactly  the  same  history  as  in  China,  Ceylon,  Africa,  and 
everywhere  else;  the  more  familiar  they  become  with  Prot 
estant  missionaries,  the  deeper  is  their  hatred  of  Christianity. 
"  It  cannot  be  denied,"  said  Dr.  Timothy  Dwight,  in  1823, 
"  that  the  attempts  which  have  been  made  in  modern  times  to 
spread  the  influence  of  the  Gospel  among  the  Indians  have  in 
a  great  measure  been  unsuccessful  ;"*  and  long  after,  for  every 
chapter  of  this  sad  history  resembles  that  which  preceded  it, 
when  Mr.  Elisha  Bates  was  examined  by  a  parliamentary 
committee,  and  was  asked  what  had  been  effected  among  the 
heathen  by  the  well-intentioned  efforts  of  the  Society  of 
Friends,  he  candidly  confessed,  "  I  do  not  know  that  we  could 
say  that  we  have  brought  them  to  a  habit  of  prayer;  I  know 
of  no  instance  that  would  warrant  me  in  saying  so."f 

In  1861,  an  English  traveller  once  more  says,  "The  Euro- 
peanization  of  the  Indian  generally  is  as  hopeless  as  the  Chris- 
tiariization  of  the  Hindoo.  The  missionaries  usually  live  under 
the  shadow  of  the  different  agencies.  .  .  I  do  not  believe  that 
an  Indian  of  the  plains  ever  became  a  Christian.";):  Finally, 
an  English  society,  which  has  done  perhaps  more  than  any 
other  to  make  Christianity  an  object  of  decision,  by  depriving 
it  of  all  truth  and  robbing  it  of  all  dignity,  confesses  unwil 
lingly,  and  in  terms  which  suggest  rather  than  announce  a 
falsehood,  that  the  failure  applies  equally  to  all  the  tribes, 
"  Cherokees,  Choctaws,  Pawnees,  Oregons,  Sioux,  and  others." 
And  then  they  explain,  for  the  instruction  of  their  subscribers, 
the  cause  of  the  failure.  It  was,  they  inform  them,  with  im 
perturbable  assurance,  "the  opposition  of  Papists"§  which 
alone  prevented  the  success  of  Protestant  missions, — and  prob 
ably  their  subscribers  believe  them. 


AMERICAN   PROCEEDINGS. 

We  have  now  perhaps  reviewed  with  sufficient  detail  the 
history  of  Protestant  missions  in  North  America,  fitly  described 

*  Travels  in  New  England,  vol.  iii.,  p.  71. 

f  Parliamentary  Papers,  vol.  vii.,  p.  545  (British  Museum). 

t  Burton,  The  City  of  the  Saints,  ch.  ii.,  p.  140. 

\  The  Indians  of  North  America,  by  the  Religious  Tract  Society,  p.  295. 


372  CHAPTER   IX. 

by  a  partial  annalist  as  "the  record  of  a  series  of  failures" 
We  have  seen  also,  by  sufficient  testimony,  why~Jogues  and 
Lallemand  and  de  Brebeuf  labored  in  vain,  and  why  the 
apostolic  triumphs  of  their  brethren  in  the  South — in  Brazil, 
Peru,  and  Paraguay,  in  Guatemala,  Mexico,  and  California — 
were  not  renewed  in  Canada  and  the  United  States.  It  was 
not  that  the  English  massacred  the  apostles  who  were  already 
rapidly  effecting,  among  various  tribes  and  nations,  the  same 
supernatural  work  which  their  brethren  had  accomplished  in 
the  South,  for  this  was  a  trial  which  they  had  encountered  and 
overcome  in  every  other  land,  and  which  would  only  have 
contributed  to  their  final  success.  They  would  have  offered 
their  heads  to  the  English,  as  they  did  to  the  Baures  or  the 
Chiquitos,  and  the  victims  would,  sooner  or  later,  have  worn 
out  their  executioners.  But  in  British  America  it  was  not  the 
pastors  only  who  were  slain.  This  was  a  loss  which  could  have 
been  repaired.  But  what  power  could  gather  together  or 
summon  back  to  new  life  the  flocks  whom  the  persecutor  had 
maddened  by  oppression,  or  driven  far  away  from  the  graves 
of  their  fathers,  or  exterminated  by  fire  and  sword  ?  A  new 
race  of  apostles  might  indeed  have  entered  the  land,  but  it 
would  have  been  only  to  find  a  desert. 

We  have  said  that  for  this  calamity,  without  parallel  in  the 
history  of  pagan  lands,  and  which  overwhelmed  the  inhab 
itants  of  a  continent  in  hopeless  ruin,  Americans  are  not  re 
sponsible.  It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  if  the  crime 
was  not  theirs,  they  have  done  little  to  repair  it.  It  was  an 
evil  legacy  which  the  English  bequeathed  to  them,  but  they 
have  made  an  evil  use  of  it.  Nearly  forty  years  ago,  Dr.  Morse 
implored  the  government  to  "  provide  an  asylum  for  the  remnant 
of  this  depressed  and  wretched  people,  who  have  long  been  in 
sulated,  corrupting  and  wasting  away  in  the  midst  of  us;"  but 
the  Americans  have  shown  more  zeal  to  complete  their  ruin, 
and  to  deprive  them  of  their  remaining  lands,  than  to  grant 
them  the  "unmolested  home"  which  Morse  foresaw  they  would 
never  enjoy.*  A  few  testimonies  will  suffice  to  prove,  that 
their  present  masters  have  dealt  almost  as  hardly  with  the 
scattered  fragments  of  the  Indian  nations  as  the  English  did 
with  their  yet  unbroken  masses,  while  they  wandered  in  thou 
sands,  ignorant  of  their  coming  doom,  by  the  rivers  and  lakes 
where  God  had  given  them  a  home.  If  the  English  left  a  curse 
behind  them,  the  Americans  have  not  substituted  a  blessing. 

When  that  Union  of  many  States  was  formed  by  the  patient 
valor  of  a  generation  which  nobly  refused  to  accept  the  fate  of 

*  Morse,  Report  on  Indian  Affairs,  pp.  24,  30. 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA.  373 

Canada  or  Ireland,  but  whose  unwilling  fault  it  was  that  it  left 
no  heirs  of  its  virtue,  its  genius,  or  its  patriotism,*  two  races  of 
suffering  men  asked  from  the  children  of  the  new  Republic  the 
humblest  lot  which  misery  ever  consented  to  implore  or  charity 
to  concede — the  right  to  labor  and  live.  And  they  asked  it  in 
vain.  "  The  African  race,  bond  and  free,  and  the  aborigines, 
savage  and  civilized,  being  incapable  of  assimilation  and  ab 
sorption,"  says  a  well-known  American  statesman  of  our  own 
day,  with  almost  brutal  frankness,  "  remain  distinct,  and  may 
be  regarded  as  accidental,  if  not  disturbing,  political  forces."f 
Negroes  and  Indians,  both  victims  of  English  cupidity  and 
violence,  were  refused  from  the  beginning,  and  are  still  refused 
wherever  Protestant  principles  prevail,  even  the  smallest 
measure  of  the  rights  which  their  vigorous  masters  had  known 
how  to  win  for  themselves.  Let  us  inquire  what  has  been  their 
fate  in  this  paradise  of  freedom  and  independence,  and  what 
American  Christianity  has  attempted  or  achieved  to  improve 
their  lot.  We  will  speak  of  the  Negro  first. 


AMERICAN   NEGROES. 

Let  it  be  permitted,  however,  in  alluding  briefly  to  this  grave 
subject,  which  will  afford  a  new  test  of  the  relative  power  of 
the  Church  and  the  Sects,  to  disclaim  all  sympathy  with  the 
professional  advocates  of  Negro  emancipation.  Wherever  the 
Church  exercises  her  civilizing  influence,  the  Negro  tends 
towards  complete  liberty,  and,  while  still  in  bondage,  is  being 
wisely  prepared  for  it ;  but  though  she  utterly  condemns  the 
traffic  in  human  flesh,  in  the  words  of  Gregory  XVI.,  "  as  in 
jurious  to  salvation,  and  disgraceful  to  the  Christian  name," 
she  tolerates,  like  St.  Paul,  while  she  everywhere  strives  to 
abolish,  the  state  of  slavery.  She  knows  that  the  negro  has 
no  worse  enemy  than  the  partisan  of  unconditional  emancipa 
tion.  She  knows  also,  that  however  little  may  have  been  done , 
for  his  soul,  the  American  negro  has  both  more  happiness  and 
more  liberty  in  his  bondage  than  he  would  have  possessed  in 
his  native  land ;  that,  with  rare  exceptions,  he  is  better  fed, 
better  clothed,  more  lightly  tasked  in  his  strength,  and  more 

*  "  Few  things  have  more  surprised  the  world  than  the  deterioration  of  the 
political  men  of  America.  .  .  Few  of  their  public  men  would  pass  in  Europe 
for  tolerable  second-rates."  Slavery  in  the  United  States,  by  Nassau  W.  Senior, 
Esq.,  p.  15. 

f  Speech  of  Mr.  Seward,  1850,  quoted  by  D.  W.  Mitchell,  Ten  Years  in  the 
United  States,  ch.  viii.,  p.  115  (1862). 


374  CHAPTER   IX. 

mercifully  tended  in  his  old  age,  than  any  class  of  white  labor 
ers,  in  any  country  whatever ;  and  finally,  that  the  colored 
man  is  the  object  of  far  more  charity  in  the  slave  than  he  is  in 
the  free  States.  In  the  former,  he  generally  receives  only  be 
nevolence  and  consideration  ;  in  the  latter,  in  spite  of  the  hol 
low  professions  of  men  who  trade  even  in  philanthropy  and 
religion,  he  always  encounters  contumely  and  neglect.  "  As  a 
slave,"  says  an  American  authority,  with  full  knowledge  of  all 
the  facts,  "  he  is  happy  and  contented  ;  as  a  free  man,  despised 
and  contemned."*  "The  thoughtfulness  of  masters,  mistresses, 
and  their  children  about,  not  only  the  comforts,  but  the  indul 
gences  of  their  slaves,  was  a  frequent  subject  of  admiration 
with  me,"f  observes  an  English  writer ;  while  in  the  free 
States,  and  especially  in  those  which  are  the  abode  of  the 
Abolitionist  party,  even  "  the  schools  for  the  colored  children 
are,  unless  they  escape  by  their  insignificance,  shut  up,  or 
pulled  down,  or  the  school-house  wheeled  away  upon  rollers 
over  the  frontier  of  a  pious  State,  which  will  not  endure  that 
its  colored  citizens  should  be  educated  !"^  "  I  have  sometimes 
thought,"  says  one  who  has  recently  marked  the  contrast  be 
tween  the  tenderness  of  the  Southern  slave-owner  and  the  mer 
ciless  brutality  of  the  Northern  abolitionist,  "  that  there  is  no 
being  so  venomous,  so  bloodthirsty,  as  a  professed  philanthro 
pist  ;  and  that  when  the  philanthropists'  ardor  lies  negro-wards, 
it  then  assumes  the  deepest  venom  and  bloodthirstiness."§ 

Haifa  century  ago,  a  Protestant  missionary,  who  had  assured 
the  Delawares  that  the  religion  which  he  taught  would  secure 
their  happiness,  received  from  them  a  reply  which  he  records 
in  these  words :  "They  had  determined,"  they  told  him,  with 
solemn  irony,  "  to  wait,  in  order  to  see  whether  all  the  black 
people  among  us  were  made  thus  happy  and  joyful,  before  they 

would  put  confidence  in  our  promises  ; that  therefore 

they  had  sent  back  the  two  missionaries,  with  many  thanks, 
promising  that  when  they  saw  the  black  people  among  us  re 
stored  to  freedom  and  happiness,  they  would  receive  our  mis 
sionaries."  Dr.  Boudinot  adds,  that  this  was  "close  reasoning," 
and  considers  the  incident  "  too  mortifying  a  fact  to  make 
further  observations  upon."] 

It  was  England,  as  is  well-known,  who  introduced  slavery 
into  the  United  States.  "  English  ships,"  says  Mr.  Bancroft, 
"  fitted  out  in  English  cities,  under  the  special  favor  of  the 

*  New  York  Herald,  January  25,  1861. 

f  Martineau,  Society  in  America,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  v.,  p.  314. 

%  Id.,  vol.  i.,  ch.  iii.,  p.  194. 

§  North  America,  by  Anthony  Trollope,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xvi.,  p.  354  (1862). 

j  Star  in  the  West,  ch.  viii.,  p.  234. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  375 

royal  family,  of  the  ministry  and  of  parliament,  stole  from 
Africa,  in  the  years  from  1700  to  1750,  probably  a  million  and 
a  half  souls,  of  whom  one-eighth  were  buried  in  the  Atlantic, 
victims  of  the  passage ;  and  yet  in  England  no  general  indig 
nation  rebuked  the  enormity,  for  the  public  opinion  of  the  age 

was  obedient  to  materialism Protestantism  itself  had,  in 

the  political  point  of  view,  been  the  triumph  of  materialism 
over  the  spiritual  authority  of  the  Church."* 

But  Protestantism,  having  substituted  the  material  for  the 
spiritual,  was,  at  least  in  this  case,  consistent  with  itself,  as  the 
negro  found  to  his  cost.  "  From  New  England  to  Carolina," 
we  are  told  by  Mr.  Bancroft,  "  the  notion  prevailed,  that '  being 
baptized  is  inconsistent  with  a  state  of  slavery  f  and  this  early 
apprehension  proved  a  main  obstacle  to  the  culture  and  con 
version  of  these  poor  people. "f  Apparently  the  obstacle  has 
never  been  removed,  or  only  to  give  place  to  others  equally 
fatal.  Governor  Dongan,  of  New  York,  reported  officially,  at 
the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  that  while  the  English 
colonists  generally  wished  "  to  bring  up  their  children  and 
servants  in  that  opinion  which  themselves  profess,  I  observe  that 
they  take  no  care  of  the  conversion  of  their  slaves.":):  Their 
American  descendants  have  not  rebuked  them  by  a  display  of 
greater  charity.  The  immense  majority  of  the  American  negroes, 
amounting  to  four  millions,  confessedly  remain,  as  respects 
their  spiritual  development,  in  much  the  same  position  as  their 
kinsfolk  in  Dahomey  or  Ashantee.  "  They  exist  among  us," 
says  Mr.  Howison,  the  historian  of  Virginia,  "  a  huge  mass  of 
mind,  almost  entirely  unenlightened"  And  even  in  exceptional 
cases,  in  which,  by  the  connivance  of  benevolent  owners,  and 
in  spite  of  legal  prohibitions,  they  receive  some  sort  of  religious 
instruction,  there  is  too  much  reason  to  believe  that  it  has  only 
generated  that  terrible  malediction  to  which  Holy  Scripture 
points,  when  it  tells  us  of  men  whose  "  last  state  is  worse  than 
the  first."  Two  modes  of  dealing  with  negroes  are  recorded  by 
Mr.  Law  Olmsted,  and  other  American  writers,  both  of  which 
deserve  our  attention. 

One  of  them  is  described  by  Mr.  Olmsted,  in  quoting  u  Bishop 
Meade,  of  the  Church  of  England  in  Virginia,"  whose  compo 
sitions  the  author  of  Our  Slave  States  judiciously  selects,  as 
affording  the  fairest  specimen  of  "the  most  careful  kind  of 
preaching  ordinarily  addressed  by  the  white  clergy"  to  negro 
audiences.  When  we  have  seen  how  Dr.  Meade  appreciates  the 


*  Bancroft,  ii.,  997. 

f  P.  994. 

J  Doc.  Hist.  JV.  York,  vol.  i.,  p.  187. 


376  CHAPTER   IX. 

relations  of  that  class  to  Christianity,  we  shall  have  no  reason 
for  surprise  at  the  estimate  furnished  by  Mr.  Howison  of  their 
actual  condition  in  the  State  of  Virginia.  The  extracts  cited 
from  this  Protestant  bishop  by  Mr.  Olmsted  are  taken,  he  tells 
us,  "from  a  published  volume  of  his  sermons,  recommended 
by  him  to  masters  and  mistresses  in  his  diocese,  for  use  in 
their  households  /"  and  of  which  the  contents,  as  Mr.  Olmsted 
appears  to  intimate,  resemble  rather  the  menaces  of  a  turnkey 
than  the  exhortations  of  a  Christian  minister.  "  Your  bodies, 
you  know," — it  is  thus  that  Dr.  Meade  counsels  masters  and 
mistresses  to  address  their  slaves, — "are  not  your  own ;  they 
are  at  the  disposal  of  those  you  belong  to."  And  the  rest  is  in 
harmony  with  this  beginning.  "  Poor  creatures !  you  little 
consider  when  you  are  idle,  when  you  are  saucy  and  impudent 
....  that  what  faults  you  are  guilty  of  towards  your  masters 
and  mistresses  are  faults  done  against  God  Himself."  And  so 
he  goes  droning  on,  page  after  page,  without  one  tender  word, 
one  accent  of  Divine  charity;  unmindful  of  the  Apostle  who 
sent  back  Onesimus  to  his  master,  "  not  now  as  a  servant,  but  a 
most  dear  brother,"  and  entreating,  "  if  he  hath  wronged  theo 
in  any  thing,  put  that  to  my  account ;"  unmindful,  too,  as  Mr. 
Olmsted  happily  observes,  of  the  admonition  of  St.  Gregory, 
that  "  slaves  should  be  restored  to  that  liberty  in  which  they 
were  born."*  But  Dr.  Meade  was  content  to  take  a  lower 
model  than  St.  Paul  or  St.  Gregory,  and  to  resemble  a  jailer 
rather  than  an  apostle.  If  his  language,  as  we  are  informed, 
be  a  specimen  of  the  "  most  careful  kind  of  preaching"  to 
negroes,  we  may  easily  understand  what  notions  they  form  of 
the  religion  of  the  Gospel,  as  presented  to  them  by  Protestant 
teachers. 

But  the  Episcopalians, — the  majority  of  whose  clergy,  we  are 
told  by  one  of  their  own  members,  u  may  be  seen  ministering 
at  the  altar  of  slavery,"f — are  not  the  only  monitors  of  the 
American  negro.  Baptists,  Methodists,  and  others,  dispute 
their  influence ;  and  if  the  latter  refuse  to  choose  as  their 
solitary  text,  "  Your  bodies  are  not  your  own,"  it  does  not  ap 
pear  that  the  fruits  of  their  instruction  are  more  advantageous 
to  the  welfare  of  the  slave.  "  It  is  evident,"  says  Mr.  Olmsted, 
"  of  the  greater  part  even  of  those  received  into  the  fellowship 
of  the  churches,  that  their  idea  of  religion,  and  of  the  standard 
of  morality  which  they  deem  consistent  with  a  profession  of  it, 
is  very  degraded  ;" — another  proof  of  the  impotence  of  Protest 
antism  to  deal  with  those  fallen  races  whom  it  is  the  special 

*  Our  Slave  States,  by  Frederick  Law  Olmsted,  cli.  ii.,  p.  122. 

f  Quoted  by  Helper,  The  Impending  Crisis  of  the  South,  ch.  v.,  p.  262. 


MISSIONS    IN   AMERICA.  377 

glory  of  the  Church,  as  we  have  seen  in  these  pages,  to  raise  to 
the  dignity  of  men  and  Christians. 

"The  testimony  of  slaveholders,"  says  Miss  Martin eau,  "  was 
most  explicit  as  to  no  moral  improvement  having  taken  place 
in  consequence  of  the  introduction  of  religion  ;"*  while  another 
eye-witness  gives  the  following  description  of  their  public 
worship  :  "  They  leaped  aloft,  they  twisted  their  bodies  round 
in  a  sort  of  corkscrew  fashion,  and  were  evidently  in  a  state  or 
convulsion.  .  .  .  Whichever  way  we  looked  in  the  church,  we 
saw  somebody  leaping  up  and  fanning  the  air;  the  whole 
church  seemed  transformed  into  a  regular  Bedlam,  and  the 
noise  and  the  tumult  was  horrible."f  One  "we  saw  walking 
about  by  himself  and  breathing  hard  ;  he  was  hoarse,  and 
sighing  he  exclaimed  to  himself,  '  Oh  !  I  wish  I  could  hollo  !' ' 

Of  the  use  made  by  negroes  of  the  Bible,  which  a  certain 
class  of  missionaries  seem  to  spend  their  lives  in  exposing  to 
derision,  Mr.  Olmsted  gives  such  examples  as  the  following: 
A  baptized  negro,  addicted  to  "certain  immoral  practices," 
being  admonished  by  a  preacher,  the  following  discussion 
ensued  :  "Don't  de  Scriptur  say,'  rejoined  the  backslider,  'Dem 
as  bleve  and  is  baptize  shall  be  saved  ?  Want  to  know  dat." 

"  Yes,  but—" 

"  Dat's  all  I  want  to  know,  Sar ;  now  wat's  de  use  o'  talking 
to  me  ?  You  aint  a  going  to  make  me  bleve  wot  de  blessed 
Lord  says  aint  so,  not  if  you  trie  forever." 

The  minister  attempted  to  remonstrate,  but  was  finally 
silenced  as  follows :  "  De  Scriptur  say,  if  a  man  bleve  and  is 
baptize,  he  shall — he  shall  be  saved.  Now,  massa  minister,  I 
done  bleve,  and  I  done  baptize,  and  I  shall  be  saved  sure. 
Dere's  no  use  talking,  Sar." 

During  his  researches  into  the  religion  of  Protestant  negroes, 
—who  only  faintly  resemble  the  fancy  type  which  Mrs.  Beecher 
Stowe  untruthfully  drew,  in  order  to  promote  the  selfish  designs 
of  a  political  party, — Mr.  Olmsted  once  asked  a  black  clergy 
man  if  he  was  a  preacher.  "  '  Yes,  rnassa,'  he  replied,  '  Kordin 
to  der  grace.7  He  commenced  to  reply  in  some  scriptural 
phrase,  soberly;  but  before  he  could  say  three  words  reeled  off 
like  a  drunken  man,  entirely  overcome  with  merriment.'^ 

The  white  teachers  of  the  same  unfortunate  race  sometimes 
fall  below  even  this  specimen.  Thus  Mr.  Buckingham  notices 
the  case  of  a  female  slave,  solicited  to  sin  by  her  master's  son, 
to  whose  earnest  entreaty  for  succor  in  this  emergency  "  her 


*  Society  in  America,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  i.,  p.  160. 

f  F.  Bremer,  Homes  of  the  New  World,  vol.  iii.,  p.  38. 

i  Our  Slaw  Stales,  ch.  ii.,  p.  123 ;  ch.  vi.,  p.  377. 


378  CHAPTER   IX. 

religious  teacher,  the  minister  of  the  church  she  had  joined,'1 
replied,  "  that  her  duty  as  a  slave  was  clearly  passive  submis 
sion,  and  that  resistance  or  refusal  could  not  be  countenanced 
by  him."* 

On  the  whole,  the  colored  people  of  Protestant  America  may 
be  ranged  into  three  classes :  the  multitude,  who  have  learned 
nothing,  and  whom  Mr.  Howison  describes  as  "  a  huge  mass  of 
mind  almost  entirely  unenlightened;"  the  few,  who,  as  a  capa 
ble  witness  affirms  in  the  New  York  Times,  "join  the  church, 
perhaps  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  with  no  idea  of  religion," 
and  only  display,  as  Mr.  Ohnsted  observes,  "  maniacal  excite 
ment,"  and  "  a  miserable  superstition,  the  more  painful  that  it 
employs  some  forms  and  words  ordinarily  connected  with  true 
Christianity ;"  and  lastly,  the  free  negroes  of  the  North,  whose 
lot  is  perhaps  still  more  full  of  ignominy,  whose  liberty  is  a 
mockery  and  a  delusion,  and  who  display  so  little  capacity  of 
social  progress  that  they  have  actually  decreased  in  numbers, 
during  the  decennial  period  ending  in  I860,  even  in  the  cities 
of  Boston  and  New  York. 

In  the  island  groups  of  the  Atlantic,  where  perhaps  a 
majority  of  the  negroes  have  been  induced  to  accept  various 
modifications  of  Christianity,  the  same  facts  recur.  It  may 
seem  ungracious  to  find  fault  with  an  act  upon  which  England 
prides  herself  so  much  as  the  emancipation  of  her  West  Indian 
negroes,  yet  it  seems  to  be  her  fate,  even  when  she  strives  to 
do  a  good  work,  to  do  it  in  the  wrong  way.  "This  English 
negro  emancipation,"  observes  Dr.  Waitz,  u  will  remain  to  all 
time  as  one  of  the  most  stupendous  moral,  economical,  and 
political  follies  which  the  history  of  human  culture  has  to  point 
to."f  And  then  he  proves,  by  arguments  of  which  it  is  impos 
sible  to  deny  the  force,  the  "  utter  irrationality"  of  the  mode  in 
which  this  act  of  sentimental  but  short-sighted  and  blundering 
benevolence  was  effected.  The  result  of  abandoning  to  the 
difficult  task  of  self-government,  without  an  hour's  previous 
discipline,  a  population  so  absolutely  void  of  foresight  or  self- 
control,  has  been  in  every  way  deplorable,  and  not  a  few  of  the 
negroes,  who  have  quitted  the  towns  for  the  interior,  are  said 
to  have  already  retrograded  into  utter  barbarism.  "  A  race  has 
been  freed,"  said  Lord  Harris  in  an  official  report,  "  but  a 
society  has  not  been  formed  ;  they  are  only  capable  of  enjoying 
its  vices."  In  the  French  colony  of  La  Martinique,  where 
emancipation  was  proclaimed  with  equal  folly  by  the  Provis 
ional  Government  of  1848,  ruin  and  chaos  have  ensued.  Mr. 

*  America,  vol.  i.,  ch.  xix.,  p.  361. 

f  Quoted  in  The  Rambl&r,  vol.  iii.,  p.  323. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  379 

McLeod  has  recently  described  the  singular  condition  of  the 
,  free  blacks  at  Mauritius,  and  the  virtual  slavery  of  the  white 
population.*  The  solitary  exception  is  said  to  be  found  in  the 
Danish  island  of  Santa  Cruz,  where,  although  the  negroes  were 
emancipated,  they  were  wisely  left  under  the  action  of  a  special 
code,  which  forces  them  to  labor,  while  it  permits  them  to 
labor  for  their  own  advantage. 

There  is  a  remarkable  concurrence  of  opinion  as  to  the  reli 
gious  condition  of  the  free  blacks,  in  the  islands  as  well  as  on 
the  mainland.  Dr.  Dalton  has  told  us  that  the  Protestant 
negro  considers  "  good  works  superfluous,"  and  Mr.  Trollope 
that  "  he  never  connects  his  religion  with  his  life."  Like  his 
white  co-religionists  in  other  climes,  he  bursts  into  violent  reli 
gious  excitement  on  Sunday,  but  is  apt  to  relapse  into  some 
thing  worse  than  forgetfulness  during  the  rest  of  the  week. 
Mr.  Coleridge  adds  the  following  information. 

"  The  evil  which  the  Methodists  have  done  upon  the  long 
run  is  but  scantily  counterpoised  by  a  certain  sobriety  of  ex 
terior  which  they  have  inflicted  on  their  sect."  "  The  minis 
ters,"  he  adds,  always  true  to  this  ineradicable  instinct,  "  sell 
to  the  poor  negroes  what  are  called  '  tickets  of  membership,'  a 
sort  of  certificates  of  the  purchaser's  righteousness  ;"  by  which 
ingenious  plan  one  of  them  confessed  that  he  had  amassed,  in 
the  course  of  twelve  months,  and  from  a  single  congregation, 
six  hundred  and  twenty-four  pounds,  f  Of  the  Baptists,  the 
most  active  rivals  of  the  Wesleyans,  Lord  Metcalfe  reported 
officially,  as  Sir  Benjamin  D'Urban  reported  from  South 
Africa,  "  Instead  of  being  ministers  of  peace,  they  are  mani 
festly  fomenters  of  discord. ''J  Of  the  native  preachers,  who 
are  often  represented  in  English  missionary  reports  as  models 
of  zeal  and  piety,  Mr.  Knibb,  a  Protestant  minister,  informed 
the  House  of  Commons  that  "the  majority  lead  very  unholy 
lives,  and  allow  sins  of  various  kinds  in  their  different  church 
es."  It  is  true  that  Mr.  Wildman  gave  much  the  same  account, 
before  the  same  committee,  of  "  the  immorality  among  the 
ministers  of  the  Established  Church. "§ 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  neither  the  past  history  nor  the 
present  condition  of  religion  among  the  classes  referred  to  are 
pleasant  subjects  of  reflection.  Protestantism  has  failed  as 
completely  with  the  Negro  as  with  the  Chinese,  the  Hindoo, 
and  the  Sioux.  And  with  all  it  seems  to  have  employed  the 
same  class  of  emissaries.  A  Protestant  minister  informs  us,  in 

*  Travels  in  Eastern  Africa,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  v.,  pp.  162-5. 

f  Six  Months  in  the  West  Indies,  by  Henry  Nelson  Coleridge,  p.  172. 

\  Papers  of  Lord  Metcalfe,  edited  by  J.  W.  Kaye,  p.  337. 

§  Parliamentary  Reports,  16  July,  1832 ;  vol.  xx.,  pp.  278,  535. 


380  CHAPTER   IX. 

a  recent  work,  that  in  the  island  of  St.  Thomas,  speaking  of  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  "concubinage  at  that  period, 
and  afterwards,  was  not  looked  upon  as  a  sin,  and  in  no  way 
detracted  from  the  standing  and  moral  estimation  even  of 
clergymen."  We  need  not  ask  him,  therefore,  what  was  the 
character  of  their  congregations.  He  even  names  some  of  the 
clergy  whose  irregularities  were  most  notorious,  and  then  adds, 
apparently  as  a  melancholy  illustration  of  the  fact,  that  whereas 
"  the  Roman  Catholics,  in  1701,"  were  too  few  to  be  counted 
as  an  element  in  the  population,  "the  congregation  for  many 
years  has  embraced  at  least  a  fourth  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
island,  and  is  therefore  very  large."* 

Perhaps  the  Anglican  operations  in  the  West  Indies  may  be 
thought  to  deserve  special  mention.  It  is  true  that  the  negroes 
have  very  little  share  in  the  enormous  expenditure  which  dis 
tinguishes,  here  as  elsewhere,  the  barren  labors  of  the  parlia 
mentary  church.  M.  Victor  Schcelcher  notices  with  astonish 
ment,  that  the  annual  cost  of  the  "Establishment  in  Jamaica  is 
fifty  thousand  pounds,"f  and  Mr.  Underbill  relates  that  it  once 
reached  a  still  higher  sum,  and  that  in  a  single  year  "  seventy- 
four  thousand  pounds  was  expended  on  the  Church  of  Eng 
land.":):  In  spite  of  this  vast  revenue,  and  as  a  proof  of  the 
worthlessness  of  such  machinery  in  promoting  religion,  we  are 
assured  in  1862,  that  "  if  the  cities  of  the  Dead  Sea  were  half 
as  bad  as  Port  Royal  in  the  way  of  morals,  they  richly  de 
served  their  fate."§ 

Of  Barbadoes,  Mr.  Coleridge  frankly  reports,  that  "the 
Codrington  College  is  at  present  all  but  useless."  Though  it 
oifers  the  Principal  "  one  of  the  most  delectable  houses  in  the 
Antilles,"  he  considers  it  "  quite  monstrous  that  the  object  of 
so  magnificent  a  charity,  and  such  large  actual  funds,  should 
be  the  support  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  boys,  who  might  be  edu 
cated  much  better  elsewhere  in  the  island What  is  done 

there  is  not  done  well,  and  yet  done  at  an  enormous  expense." 
It  is  just  the  history  of  the  Protestant  colleges  at  Malacca, 
Calcutta,  Hong-Kong,  and  elsewhere ;  they  consume,  but 
never  produce. 

Of  Dominica,  Mr.  Coleridge  gives  the  usual  account,  in 
speaking  of  his  co-religionists,  and  then  adds,  in  spite  of  violent 
prejudice,  "I  am  bound  to  say  that  a  general  good  report  was 
given  of  the  sobriety  and  temperate  zeal  of  the  Romish  priests 

*  Historical  Account  of  St.  Thomas,  by  John  P.  Knox,  Pastor  of  the  Re 
formed  Dutch  Church,  ch.  x.,  pp.  139,  141  (1852). 
f  Colonies  Etrangcres,  p.  59  (1843). 
±  The  West  Indies,  by  E.  B.  Underbill,  p.  220. 
§  The  Cruise  of  the  tit.  George,  by  N.  B.  Dennys,  R.N.,  ch.  v.,  p.  76. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  381 

in  the  colony."*  Of  Bermuda,  another  English  writer  records 
the  characteristic  fact  that  when  Dr.  Field,  an  Anglican  bishop, 
visited  the  island  to  open  a  new  church  at  Hamilton,  and  took 
the  opportunity  of  mildly  recommending  "  Church  principles," 
he  had  scarcely  departed,  before  the  Colonial  Assembly  voted 
— for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  Bermuda — a  respectable 
stipend  to  the  Presbyterian  minister  at  Hamilton  !"f  This 
was  their  answer  to  his  appeal. 

But  if  the  Anglican  authorities  in  these  islands  can  only 
spend  money,  .without  attracting  the  sympathy  either  of  the 
colored  races  or  their  own  nominal  disciples,  other  sects  exert 
a  more  energetic  if  not  a  more  beneficial  influence.  "  Com 
pletely  organized  espionage,"  Mr.  Coleridge  says,  "  is  a  fun 
damental  point  in  the  system  of  the  Methodists;  the  secrets 
of  every  family  are  at  their  command ;  parent  and  child  are 
watches  on  each  other ;  sister  is  set  against  sister,  and  brother 
against  brother;  each  is  on  his  guard  against  all,  and  all 
against  each."  "  The  Baptist  and  Methodist  clergy,"  accord 
ing  to  Mr.  Olmsted,  "spend  most  of  their  force^in  arguing 
against  each  other's  doctrines,"  so  that  the  amused  negroes 
acquire  "  a  great  taste  for  theological  controversy."  The 
Methodists,  however,  are  generally  worsted  by  the  Baptists, 
because  "immersion  strikes  the  fancy  of  the  negroes."  Mr. 
Cartwright,  a  celebrated  American  preacher  of  the  Methodist 
denomination,  whose  "  autobiography"  appears  to  have  found 
a  larger  number  of  readers  than  the  Memoirs  of  Guizot  or  the 
History  of  Macaulay,  is  particularly  severe  on  the  Baptists. 
They  were  always  opposing  him,  Mr.  Cartwright  complains, 
"  and  would  try  to  take  our  converts  off  into  the  water ;  indeed 
they  made  so  much  ado  about  baptism  by  immersion,  that  the 
uninformed  world  would  suppose  that  heaven  was  an  island, 
and  that  there  was  no  way  to  get  there  but  by  diving  or 
swimming '."J  But  Mr.  Cartwright,  who  has  probably  had  a 
larger  number  of  hearers  than  any  living  man,  and  has  been  a 
celebrity  in  Boston  and  Philadelphia  as  well  as  in  the  wilds  of 
Illinois,  was  a  formidable  opponent,  aod  rarely  mentions  a 
conflict  with  the  Baptists  without  adding  cheerfully,  that  they 
were  "  annihilated,"  or  "  finally  evaporated  and  left  for  parts 
unknown."  His  own  preaching,  on  the  other  hand,  was  fol 
lowed  by  results  which,  though  not  witnessed  in  the  apostolic 
age,  are  certainly  impressive.  His  hearers,  he  tells  us,  and  it 
is  perfectly  true,  sometimes  "  fell  in  every  direction,  right  and 

*  Six  Months,  &c.,  p.  153. 

f  Bermuda,  by  a  Field  Officer,  ch.  v.,  p.  93  (1857). 

\  The  Kackwoods  Preacher ;  <m  Autobiography  of  Peter  Cartwright,  ch.  xi., 
p.  71 ;  31st  edition  (1858). 


3 82  CHAPTER  IX. 

left,  front  and  rear.  It  was  supposed  that  not  less  than  three 
hundred  (after  one  sermon)  fell  like  dead  men  in  a  mighty 
battle ;  they  were  strewed  all  over  the  camp-ground."*  <;  The 
power  of  God,"  he  says  on  one  occasion,  "  fell  upon  the  people 

gloriously.  I  kept  my  eye  on  "William  P ,  and  suddenly 

he  fell  at  full  length,  and  roared  like  a  bull  in  a  net,  and  cried 
aloud  for  mercy.  .  .  .  Just  about  daybreak,  Monday  morning, 

William  P raised  the  shout  of  victory,  after  struggling 

hard  all  night."f  William  P had  "got  religion." 

It  is  fair  to  hear  the  Baptists  in  their  turn.  In  1862  the 
Baptist  Missionary  Society  sent  Mr.  Underhill  to  visit  their 
congregations  in  the  West  Indies.  Two  main  facts  may  be 
gathered  from  his  story, — the  one,  that  the  Negro  Baptists  were 
originally  attracted  to  that  sect  by  the  unpopularity  of  its 
preachers  both  with  the  government  and  the  planters ;  the 
other,  that  as  soon  as  the  first  excitement  of  emancipation  had 
subsided,  their  brief  religious  fanaticism  gave  place  to  indif 
ference  and  immorality.  "  Three  years  after  emancipation,  in 
1841,"  says  Mr.  Underhill,  speaking  of  Trinidad,  "  the  condi 
tion  of  the  island  was  most  deplorable ;"  while  twenty  years 
later  he  found  that  they  "stood  aloof  from  the  missionary,"  in 
consequence  of  "  the  introduction  of  fanatical  excesses  among 
them."  Mr.  Dennys  relates  in  the  same  year,  speaking  of  Ja 
maica,  that  it  is  impossible  to  "  conceive  the  horrible  state  of 
society  to  which  the  so-called  revivals  gave  rise,  or  the  awfully 
blasphemous  language  made  use  of  by  their  promoters." 

From  Mr.  Underhill  we  learn  that,  in  a  multitude  of  places 
they  oscillate  between  this  loathsome  fanaticism,  generated  by 
a  form  of  religion  which  can  only  appeal  to  the  feelings  without 
illuminating  the  soul,  and  its  natural  sequel,  apathy  and  vice. 
At  Old  Harbor  Bay,  the  Baptist  agent  "lamented  the  decay  of 
piety  among  the  people ;  said  that  they  were  not  so  attentive  to 
religious  duties  as  in  years  past,  and  that  many  of  the  young 
people  were  very  careless  and  irregular  in  attendance  at  public 
worship.  The  Wesleyan  congregation  also  has  much  declined." 

At  another  place,  the  "  Deacon"  "  lamented  the  degeneracy  of 
the  people,  and  their  inattention  to  religion.  '  They  have  got 
no  heart  in  it,'  he  said." 

At  Clarksonville,  "  backsliders  do  not  return  to  the  Church 
in  such  numbers  as  is  to  be  desired." 

At  Bethany,  "  the  Church  is  weak  .  .  .  there  are  few  candi 
dates  for  fellowship." 

In  another  town,  "  they  complained  of  a  general  want  of 

*  Ch.  viii.,  p.  46. 
f  Ch.  xii.,  p.  77. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  383 

life  in  religion ;  there  did  not  appear  any  real  love  for  public 
worship." 

In  another,  "  There  has  been  a  very  large  diminution  in  the 
number  of  members  since  1845." 

Finally,  of  the  native  preachers,  who  are  a  great  majority  in 
the  Baptist  community,  Mr.  Underbill  gives  this  candid  account. 
"  Instances  were  related  to  me  where  such  had  been  the  vanity, 
the  ridiculous  assumptions,  the  extravagance,  and  the  instability 
of  the  native  ministers,  that  confidence  in  their  usefulness,  and 
in  their  fitness  for  an  employment  so  grave  and  responsible, 
was  utterly  destroyed."  Yet  they  do  not  cease  to  employ  them. 

On  the  whole,  it  does  not  appear  that  Mr.  Cartwright  had 
much  reason  to  envy  the  success  of  the  Baptists,  nor  even  their 
theory  that  "  heaven  was  an  island"  only  to  be  reached  by 
swimming.  One  triumph,  however,  they  seem  to  have  enjoy 
ed,  which  it  is  due  to  Mr.  Underbill  to  notice.  That  gentleman 
assures  his  society,  as  a  counterpoise  to  much  gloomy  informa 
tion,  that  the  best  results  may  be  anticipated  from  the  exten 
sive  circulation  of  the  "  Gospel  Trumpet"  a  periodical,  "  por 
tions  of  which  are  read  at  each  meeting"  in  the  West  Indies, 
though  it  is  probably  less  widely  known  in  colder  climes.* 

The  Methodists  in  the  West  Indies  have  invented,  perhaps 
to  counterbalance  the  superior  attractions  of  the  Baptists,  an 
entirely  new  sect,  under  a  certain  Mr.  Penwick  ;  of  which  M. 
Schcelcher  lightly  observes,  "  If  God  grants  life  to  this  sect, 
which  has  already  fourteen  chapels,  before  half  a  century 
England  will  have  its  Penwickians,  as  it  has  already  its  Wes- 
leyans."  He  notices  also  that  the  Baptists,  whom  he  calls 
"  the  radicals  of  Christianity,"  "  attack  without  mercy  the 
Established  Church,  which  revenges  itself  by  discrediting  them 
without  pity."  And  thus  the  Negro  learns  Christianity. 

But  there  is  a  happier  class  of  negroes,  who  have  Catholic 
masters,  who  have  received  the  faith  in  its  fulness,  and  whose 
condition  has  been  thus  described  even  by  those  Protestant 
witnesses  whom  alone  we  have  determined  to  hear  in  this 
controversy.  "  The  Roman  Catholic  Church,"  says  Professor 
Merivale,  in  spite  of  vehement  prejudice,  u  has  always  proved 
a  protector  and  a  friend  to  these  unfortunates."*)*  In  Spanish 
South  America,  says  Sir  Woodbine  Parish,  "  slavery  was  always 
more  a  name  than  a  reality.  The  negroes  were  treated  with 
even  more  consideration  than  the  hired  servants  of  the  country. 
The  laws  protected  them  from  ill  usage,  and  religious  feeling, 


*  The  West  Indies,  by  Edward  Bean  Underbill,  pp.  58,  229,  250,  303,  309 
346,  430  (1862). 
f  Lectures  OP,  Colonization,  lect.  ii.,  p.  49. 


384  CHAPTER   IX. 

in  a  state  of  society  over  which  the  priests  had  paramount 
influence,  operated  still  more  in  their  favor."*  And  the  same 
contrast  is  noticed,  even  by  American  writers,  in  every  other 
region.  In  Brazil,  where  nearly  half  of  the  slave  population 
have  already  acquired  freedom,  Dr.  Ividder,  an  American 
preacher,  who  vainly  recommended  to  them  his  own  religious 
ideas,  confesses,  in  1857,  that  "  some  of  the  most  intelligent, 
and  best  educated  men  I  met  in  Brazil  were  of  African  descent;" 
and  that  "fuit  will  be  written  against  slavery  in  this  empire 
before  another  century  rolls  round."  He  even  adds,  "Some  ot 
the  closest  students  are  Mulattoes."f  Mr.  Gardner,  an  English 
Protestant,  declares  that  "  the  condition  of  the  domestic  slave 
in  Brazil  is  perhaps  even  better  than  that  of  others ;  ....  on 
estates  where  there  has  been  no  medical  attendant,  I  have  often 
found  the  lady  of  the  proprietor  attending  to  the  sick  in  the 
hospital  herself.";):  Their  masters,  says  Mr.  Walpole,  "  with  an 
eye  to  the  everlasting  welfare  of  their  slaves,  always  have  them 
baptized  on  their  arrival  in  the  Brazils."§ 

"  If  what  we  see  here,"  says  Mr.  Mansfield,  "  is  any  thing 
like  a  fair  specimen  of  slavery,  my  opinion  is  that  the  cry 
against  slavery,  as  raised  in  England,  is  a  vile  sham,  and  lip 
worship ;"  while  he  observes  of  the  negroes  themselves,  "  I 
only  wish  such  cheerful  faces  were  to  be  seen  among  our 
English  poor."||  '*  Any  comparison,"  adds  Mr.  Anthony  Trol- 
lope,  referring  to  another  part  of  the  same  continent,  ubetwreen 
the  material  comfort  of  a  Kentucky  slave  and  an  English  ditcher 
and  delver  would  be  preposterous."!" 

At  Bogota,  we  learn  from  Captain  Cochrane,  "  the  emanci 
pation  of  slaves  has  been  very  great,  and  but  few  remain  ;  the 
course  of  time  will  see  them  all  set  at  liberty."**  In  Central 
America,  the  negroes  are  all  free,  slavery  having  been  declared 
"  illegal."  In  Peru,  negroes  imported  as  slaves  at  once  acquire 
their  freedom,  without  injury  to  themselves  in  a  society  which 
is  profoundly  Catholic. 

u  Avoiding  on  the  one  hand  the  precipitate  measure  of  the 
English  reform  ministry,  and  on  the  other  the  ribald  effrontery 

*  Buenos  Ayres,  part  ii.,  ch.  ix.,  p.  115. 

\  Brazil  and  the  Brazilians,  ch.  viii.,  p.  133.  "  As  a  proof  that  the  Brazil 
ians  have  thoroughly  abandoned  the  traffic  in  human  flesh,  it  may  be  stated, 
that  a  slaver  taken  in  January,  1856,  into  Bahia,  and  condemned,  had  touched 
at  five  places  along  the  coast  previous  to  her  detection,  but  had  not  succeeded 
in  selling  a  single  slave."  Lempriere,  Mexico  in  1861,  ch.  i.,  p.  15. 

\  Travels  in  the  Interior  of  Brazil,  ch.  i.,  p.  19. 

§  Four  Years  in  the  Pacific,  vol.  i.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  47. 

I  Paraguay,  Brazil,  &c.,  by  C.  B.  Mansfield,  Esq.,  M.A.,  ch.  ii.,  p.  29. 

^  North  America,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  iv.,  p.  117. 

**  Residence  in  Colombia,  vol.  ii.,  p.  38. 


MISSIONS   IN    AMERICA.  385 

of  the  slave  statesmen  of  North  America,"  says  Mr.  Markhara, 
"  the  Peruvians  have  steered  a  middle  course  between  the  ex 
tremes."  and  while  the  slave  population  is  "becoming  gradually 
accustomed  to  liberty,"  they  are  treated  with  such  charity  and 
consideration  that  "  it  is  anticipated  that  few  on  receiving  their 
liberty  will  leave  their  masters,  to  whom  they  are  endeared  by 
their  almost  paternal  kindness  and  the  recollections  of  their 
earliest  childhood."* 

In  Chili,  they  "  are  treated  with  a  degree  of  tenderness  and 
humanity,"  says  Mr.  Hill,  an  ardent  Protestant,  "that  greatly 
alleviates  their  servitude.  A  law  has  been  passed  declaring 
that  no  slave  can  henceforth  be  born  in  Chili,  so  that  slavery 
may  be  regarded  as  virtually  abolished  in  this  fine  country. "f 
In  the  province  of  La  Plata,  some  of  the  Mulattoes  have 
already  become  "  professors  and  teachers  of  the  liberal  arts," — 
a  wonderful  example  of  the  civilizing  influence  of  the  Catholic 
religion.  In  Venezuela,  slavery  was  abolished  in  1854.  "The 
Mexicans,"  observes  Mr.Featherstonhaugh,for  in  every  Catholic 
province  the  facts  are  uniform,  "stand  at  a  proud  moral  distance 
from  the  Americans  in  regard  to  slavery,  which  is  abolished  in 
their  Republic." \  Even  in  Cuba — where  the  culpable  effeminacy 
of  a  wealthy  and  luxurious  class  diminished  in  some  degree,  iu 
former  years,  the  beneficial  operation  of  the  excellent  code 
which  regulates  slavery — Mr.  Olmsted  notices  that  "  every 
slave  has  the  liberty  of  emancipating  himself,  by  paying  a  price 
which  does  not  depend  upon  the  selfish  exactions  of  masters.  .  . 
The  consequence  is,  that  emancipations  are  constantly  going  on, 
and  the  free  people  of  color  are  becoming  enlightened,  culti 
vated,  and  wealthy /"  while  "  in  no  part  of  the  United  States 
do  they  occupy  the  high  social  position  which  they  enjoy  in 
Cuba."§  "  There  are  circumstances  of  great  superiority,"  ob 
serves  another  American  writer,  with  equal  candor,  "  in  the 
condition  of  the  Cuban  over  that  of  the  American  slave.  "j| 

"  Here,"  says  Miss  Bremer,  in  illustration  of  the  same  contrast, 
"the  judges  'are  commanded  to  watch  over  the  rights  of  the 
slave.  Here  a  mother  may  purchase  the  freedom  of  her  child,  be 
fore  its  birth,  for  fifteen  dollars ;  and  after  its  birth,  for  double 
that  sum,  she  may  emancipate  her  child"  "  These  laws  of  eman 
cipation  have  caused  the  negro  population  of  Cuba  to  amount 
to  nearly  five  hundred  thousand  souls,  about  one-half  of  the 
whole  population  of  the  island,  and  near  one-third  free  negroes. 

*  Cuzco  and  Lima,  ch.  ii.,  p.  28. 

f  Quoted  in  The  Rambler,  vol.  iii.,  p.  330. 

J  Excursions  Through  the  Slave  States,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  xxxiv.,  p.  188. 

|  Our  Slave  States,  ch.  vi.,  p.  445. 

I  Gan-Eden,  or  Pictures  of  Cuba,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  189  (1854). 

VOL.  II.  26 


386  CHAPTER   IX. 

And  the  free  negro  of  Cuba  is  the  happiest  of  all  created 
beings."*  We  know  what  the  free  negro  is  in  the  Protestant 
States  of  America — an  object  of  contempt  even  to  the  slave. 

Long  ago  Burke  remarked,  "As  to  the  negroes  (in  the  French 
colonies),  they  are  not  left,  as  they  are  with  us,  wTholly,  body 
and  soul,  to  the  discretion  of  the  planter.  Their  masters  are 
obliged  to  have  them  instructed  in  the  principles  of  religion.rf 
At  Ceuta,  says  Mr.  Urquhart,  "  the  Spaniards  allow  them  pro 
gressively  to  repurchase  their  liberty,  and  when  they  have 
done  so,  admit  them  to  perfect  equality  of  consideration  with 
the  white  men."J  Lastly,  Mr.  Sullivan  dares  to  indicate  dis 
tinctly  the  pregnant  contrast  which  Mr.  Olinsted  and  others 
only  venture  to  insinuate.  In  Catholic  Cuba,  he  says,  "  the 
slaves  are  allowed  to  be  instructed  in  their  Bible,  and  are  not 
kicked  out  of  the  cathedrals  and  churches,  like  so  many  dogs, 
as  they  are  in  America  ;''§  he  means  in  the  cities  where  Prot 
estantism  reigns,  for  in  New  Orleans,  Mr.  Olinsted  relates, 
apparently  with  admiration,  that  in  the  Catholic  cathedral  the 
negro  and  white  man  knelt  side  by  side,  a  spectacle  which  the 
writer  of  these  pages  has  often  witnessed  in  the  Catholic 
churches  of  New  York. 

Such,  in  its  outlines,  is  the  contrast  between  the  lot  of  the 
negro  under  Catholic  and  Protestant  masters  respectively.  A 
blessing  and  a  curse  represent,  in  this  as  in  every  other  field, 
the  relative  action  of  the  Church  and  the  Sects.  In  Protestant 
America,  we  know  what  has  been  the  history  of  the  African  ; 
in  every  Catholic  State,  even  on  the  same  continent,  he  has 
found  either  prompt  and  complete  liberty,  or  a  constant  and 
rapid  approximation  towards  it,  not  by  a  violent  and  irrational 
emancipation  following  hard  upon  a  debasing  servitude,  but  by 

fradual  culture  and  wise  discipline;  and  even  while  still  a 
ondsman,  "  religious  feeling,"  as  Sir  Woodbine  Parish  ob 
serves,  secures  for  him  such  tender  care  and  wakeful  solicitude 
as  is  rarely  conceded  in  England  or  America  to  free  laborers. 
But  if  we  have  now  sufficient  evidence  with  respect  to  the 
fortunes  of  this  section  of  American  society,  we  have  still  to 
show,  in  conclusion,  what  Protestantism  has  done  for  the  origi 
nal  tenants  of  the  land,  after  slaughtering  the  pastors  who  were 
gathering  them  by  thousands  into  the  fold  of  Christ,  and  what 
has  been  its  final  influence  upon  races  whom  the  missionaries 
of  the  Cross  would  have  everywhere  converted  into  a  generous, 
a  civilized,  and  a  believing  people. 

*  Homes  of  the  New  World,  letter  xxxiii.,  p.  Ill ;  letter  xxxvii.,  p.  244. 

f  European  Settlements  in  America,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  47. 

\  The  Pillars  of  Hercules,  ch.  vi.,  p.  104. 

§  Rambles  in  J¥.  and  S.  America,  ch.  iii.,  p.  60. 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA.  387 


AMERICAN   INDIANS. 

"The  Europeans,"  says  M.  de  Toequeville,  and  Humboldt 
has  used  almost  the  same  words,  "  after  having  banished  the 
Indian  tribes  to  remote  deserts,  have  condemned  them  to  a 
wandering  and  vagabond  life  full  of  inexpressible  miseries. 
European  tyranny  has  rendered  them  more  disorderly  and  less 
civilized  than  they  were  before."  We  have  seen  that  in  South 
America,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  savages  were  raised  to  such 
a  degree  of  virtue,  civilization,  and  prosperity,  that  "  they 
enjoyed,  for  many  generations,"  even  by  the  confession  of  a 
Southey.  "  a  greater  exemption  from  physical  and  moral  evil 
than  any  other  inhabitants  of  the  globe."  "  The  moral  and 
physical  condition  of  this  people,"  continues  M.  de  Toequeville, 
u  has  not  ceased  to  degenerate  in  equal  measure,  and  their 
barbarism  has  increased  in  proportion  to  their  sufferings." 
And  then,  contrasting  their  woful  decay  with  the  unparalleled 
material  progress  of  their  Protestant  lords,  he  adds  this  cry 
of  righteous  indignation  :  "  Never  has  there  been  witnessed  in 
any  nation  either  so  prodigious  a  development  or  so  rapid  a 
destruction  !"'* 

The  story  of  that  destruction  is  soon  told.  The  Atlantic 
States  had  already  been  emptied  of  their  inhabitants  by  the 
English ;  but  many  a  tribe  still  remained,  though  in  diminished 
numbers,  by  the  banks  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi,  as  well 
as  in  the  wide  regions  which  lie  between  the  confluence  of  the 
latter  river  with  the  Missouri  and  the  far  distant  provinces  of 
Oregon  and  California.  In  these  remote  tribes  was  vested  the 
possession  of  lands  of  vast  extent  and  incalculable  value.  As 
the  flood  of  emigration  rolled  onwards,  and,  bursting  one  barrier 
after  another,  sought  an  issue  in  the  wide  plains  of  the  West, 
the  Indian  found  himself  once  more  in  the  presence  .of  men 
stronger  and  fiercer  than  himself,  and  able  to  wrest  from  him 
the  lands  which  he  was  unable  to  guard. 

We  have  learned  from  American  authorities  how  his  race  has 
been  exterminated, — men,  women,  and  helpless  babes, — that 
Anglo-Saxon  lords  might  the  sooner  divide  his  inheritance;  and 
Mr.  Julius  Froebel  assures  us,  in  1859,  that  they  have  found 
still  more  expeditious  modes  of  removing  tribes  who  could  have 
taught  them  a  lesson  in  humanity,  if  they  had  been  willing  to 
profit  by  it.  "  It  is  a  fact,"  he  says,  "  that  the,  whites  have 
attempted  to  poison  whole  tribes  of  Indians,  and  I  have  myself 
often  heard  the  question  discussed  how  this  could  be  effected 

*  De  la  Democratic,  &c.,  tome  iii.,  cli.  v.,  p.  109. 


388  CHAPTER  IX. 

in  the  best  manner.  A  story  of  the  designed  introduction  of 
the  small-pox  amongst  a  remote  Indian  tribe  is  current  in  the 
west,  and  I  have  heard  it  related  with  every  particular."* 

If  the  Indians,  provoked  by  such  atrocities,  have  begun  to 
retaliate,  this  can  hardly  excite  surprise.  In  1862,  Commander 
Mayne  relates,  that  u  scarcely  a  paper  reaches  Victoria  from 
Oregon  or  Washington  States  that  does  not  contain  an  account 
of  some  brutal  murder  of  whites  by  the  Indians,  or  some  re 
taliatory  deed  of  blood  by  the  troops  of  the  United  States.  So 
confirmed,  indeed,  has  this  enmity  become,  that  what  is  little 
short  of  a  policy  of  extermination  is  being  pursued  towards  the 
aborigines."t 

It  was  not,  however,  always  by  open  violence,  but  more  often 
by  the  fiction  of  a  simulated  purchase,  that  the  Indian  was 
deprived  of  his  hunting-grounds,  and  driven  to  wander  again 
towards  the  setting  sun.  In  vain  he  sometimes  affected  to 
adopt  the  nominal  religion  of  his  encroaching  guests,  in  the 
hope  of  snatching  from  their  sympathy  the  respite  which  their 
avarice  denied.  "I  was  struck  with  amazement,"  said  Dr. 
"Wolff,  fifteen  years  ago,  "  to  find  in  the  United  States  of  North 
America,  that  many  of  the  Indians,  especially  among  the 
Cherokees,  adopted  outwardly  the  Protestant  religion,  in  order, 
as  they  hoped,  to  prevent  Congress  from  sending  them  further 
into  the  interior.  :{  Feeble  device !  which  did  not  postpone 
even  for  an  hour  their  inevitable  doom.  There  was  no  Vicar 
of  Christ  here,  as  of  old  in  Mexico  and  Brazil,  to  launch  the 
sentence  of  excommunication  against  all  who  should  wrong  the 
Indian,  nor  would  such  a  sentence  have  had  any  terrors  for 
those  who  were  now  gathering  round  him.  There  was  no  Las 
Casas  to  defend,  no  Yieyra  to  instruct,  no  Baraza  to  die  for  him. 
The  sons  of  St.  Francis  and  St.  Ignatius  were  far  away,  and  the 
Indian  was  left  to  struggle  alone.  And  so,  in  his  own  touching 
words,  "  the  tree  which  was  continually  transplanted  quickly 
perished."  "The  Americans  acquired,"  says  M.  de  Tocqueville, 
u  almost  for  nothing — a  ml  prix — whole  provinces  which  the 
richest  sovereigns  of  Europe  are  too  poor  to  purchase."  Mr. 
Everett  reminded  Congress  on  the  19th  of  May,  1830,  that  they 
had  already  seized,  by  pretended  treaty  with  the  Indians,  two 
hundred  and  thirty  millions  of  acres, — an  amount  increased, 
when  Mr.  Schoolcraft  compiled  his  statistical  tables,  to  more 
than  four  hundred  millions.  The  Osages  alone  gave  up  twenty- 
nine  million. acres  for  an  annuity  of  a  thousand  dollars — which 


*  Seven  Tears  in  Central  America,  ch.  v.,  p.  272. 

•j-  Four  Tears  in  British  Columbia,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  356. 

;  Narrative  of  a  Mission  to  Bokhara,  vol.  i.}  ch.  ii.,  p.  54. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  389 

would  hardly  pay  for  the  strong  drinks  by  which  the  treaty  was 
consecrated.*  Many  cases  were  still  more  flagrant  in  their 
mockery  of  justice.  During  the  whole  period  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
rale  the  same  policy  was  pursued,  and  for  nearly  two  hundred 
years  men  bearing  the  name  of  Christians  have  scandalized  the 
pagan  tribes  of  America  by  their  unscrupulous  fraud.  "  Your 
people,"  said  the  orators  of  the  Six  Nations  to  Sir  William 
Johnson,  in  1755,  "  when  they  buy  a  small  piece  of  land  from 
us,  by  stealing  they  make  it  large  ;"  and  Sir  William  confessed 
that  it  was  true.  The  Delawares,  he  told  the  English  authorities, 
"  wrould  never  leave  off  killing  the  English  ;"  for  "  they  were 
determined  to  drive  all  Englishmen  oif  their  lands  which  the 
English  had  cheated  them  out  of."f 

The  Americans  have  imitated  the  English,  and  defraud  the 
Indian,  now  at  their  mercy,  without  even  the  affectation  of 
justice.  The  second  article  of  the  "Treaty  with  the  Winni- 
bagoes,"  in  1846,  imposes  upon  them  the  resignation  "of  all 
lands,  wherever  situated,  now  or  heretofore  occupied  by  said 
Indians,"  and  assigns,  "as  their  home,"  a  tract  west  of  the 
Mississippi,  "provided  such  land  can  be  obtained  on  just  and 
reasonable  terms. "J  Twelve  treaties,  we  learn,  "have  been 
made  by  the  United  States  with  the  Muskogee  nation  (Creeks), 
and  each  of  them  has  been  a  treaty  of  cession  ;"  while  the 
remnant  of  their  lands  was  "  in  each  case  solemnly  guaranteed 
to  them  by  the  United  States."  At  length,  they  were  slain  to 
the  last  man,  not  by  hunters  or  pioneers,  whose  lawlessness 
might  have  found  an  apologist,  but  by  an  organized  military 
force,  under  the  command  of  General  Jackson,  afterwards 
President  of  the  United  States  !§ 

The  Cherokees  also,  though  their  territory  had  been  guaran 
teed  to  them  "  forever"  by  a  formal  act  of  the  United  States 
government,  were  ordered,  in  spite  of  their  comparative  prog 
ress  in  civilization,  to  be  sent  to  a  district  west  of  the  Arkansas, 
which  Major  Long  had  reported  to  be  "  uninhabitable,"  being 
"  nearly  all  a  boundless  prairie,  and  destitute  of  running  water 
during  a  part  of  every  year."| 

The  treatment  of  the  Senecas  was  of  the  same  kind.  They 
had  already  been  banished  from  the  homes  of  their  fathers, 
but  still  possessed  more  than  one  hundred  thousand  acres  of 
"  reserved"  land,  secured  to  them  by  solemn  treaties.  In  the 

*  De  Tocqueville,  tome  iii.,  ch.  v.,  p.  123. 
f  Doc.  Hist.  N.  York,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  750-52. 

;  The  Statutes  at  Large  and  Treaties  of  the  U.  8,  of  America,  1846-7  ;  ed. 
Minot. 

§  Featherstonhaugh,  yol.  |i.,  ch,  4J. 

|  Rights  of  the  Indianst  a  Memorial  to.  Congress,  p.  9  (Boston,  1830). 


390  CHAPTER   IX. 

lapse  of  time  tliis  land  had  increased  in  value,  and  the  "Land 
Company,"  an  association  of  speculators,  resolved  to  rob  them 
of  it.  "  The  United  States  Commissioner,"  we  are  told, 
"  entered  into  the  scheme."  Ashamed  to  appear  openly  as  a 
party  to  a  nefarious  fraud,  this  officer  hid  himself  in  a  tavern 
at  Buffalo,  and  directed  his  operations  from  that  place  of  conceal 
ment.  The  design  was  to  bribe,  cajole,  or  compel  the  Senecas 
to  resign  their  inheritance.  "  Runners  were  hired  to  scour  the 
forests,  and  bring  in  every  chief  who  could  be  prevailed  upon, 
by  fair  means  or  foul,  to  sign  the  assent.  Spirituous  liquor  was 
employed  to  intoxicate  them,  false  representations  to  deceive 
them,  threats  to  intimidate  them,  and  vain  hopes  to  allure 
them."  But  after  every  effort,  only  thirty-one  out  of  eighty- 
one  chiefs  could  be  induced  to  sign,  and  finally  they  were  forced 
to  remove,  as  American  witnesses  complain,  "by  deception  and 
fraud  perhaps  without  parallel  in  the  dark  history  of  oppression 
and  wrong  to  which  the  aborigines  of  our  country  have  been 
subjected."* 

And  even  these  facts  do  not  complete  the  contrast  which 
marks  the  history  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  colonization  on 
this  continent ;  for  in  the  rare  cases  in  which  a  tribe  is  permitted 
for  a  season  to  occupy  some  remote  tract,  insufficient  for  their 
wants  unless  they  till  the  soil,  and  which  their  rulers  are  not 
yet  prepared  to  utilize,  the  niggard  concession,  as  even  American 
writers  complain,  is  only  made  a  pretext  for  new  frauds.  "The 
governmental  philanthropy,"  says  Mr.  Olmsted  in  1857,  "is  in 
practice  only  a  job,  in  which,  as  usual,  the  least  possible  is  done, 
and  the  utmost  possible  is  paid."f  The  annuity  system,  which 
the  most  eminent  authority  calls  "that  delusive  means  of 
Indian  subsistence,"  is  in  practice  only  profitable  to  the  agents 
employed  under  it,  while  "  few  of  the  annuitants  reach  their 
home  with  a  dime.  Most  of  them  have  expended  all,  and  lost 
their  time  in  addition.";): 

A  few,  indeed,  such  as  the  Kikapoos,  live  as  yet  on  the 
reserved  lands  of  the  "  Indian  territory,"  but,  as  an  English 
traveller  informs  us,  they  "  are  greatly  demoralized,"  precisely 
because  they  are  "in  the  vicinity  of  civilization!"  The  men 
are  addicted  to  intoxication,  and  the  women  to  unchastity  ; 
"  both  sexes  and  all  ages  are  inveterate  beggars,  whose  principal 
industry  is  horse-stealing."§ 

The  Americans,  then,  by  their  own   confession,  have  only 

*  The  Case  of  the  Seneca  Indians,  p.  7  (Philadelphia,  1840).     Cf.  Plea  for  the 
Indians,  addressed  to  Congress,  by  the  Citizens  of  Hartford,  Connecticut,  p.  8. 
I  Texas,  p.  298. 

i  Schoolcraft,  Notes  on  the  Iroquois,  ch.i.,  pp.  12-13. 
§  Burton,  ch.  i.,  p.  25. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  391 

pursued  in  their  dealings  with  the  Indians  the  cruel  policy  be 
queathed  to  them  by  the  English.  Refusing  to  adopt  from 
them  other  precedents,  they  have  imitated  them  too  well  in  this. 
And  the  inevitable  result  has  been  to  add  a  deeper  intensity  to 
the  scorn  and  disgust  which  the  savage,  not  without  cause,  had 
already  conceived  for  a  religion  which  he  was  told  was  Chris 
tianity,  and  for  the  agents  who  were  presented  to  him  as  its 
teachers.  Such  a  religion,  and  such  teachers,  seemed  to  him  so 
little  Divine,  that  he  scarcely  deemed  them  human.  "  By 
Christians,"  observes  Mr.  Mollhausen,  "  they  have  been  cheated 
and  betrayed — driven  from  the  grounds  of  their  fathers,  and  cut 
down  like  wild  beasts — and  for  this  reason  they  have  repelled 
missionaries  with  displeasure  and  contempt."  They  saw  in 
such  missionaries  only  traders  and  speculators,  whose  largest 
conception  of  purity,  justice,  and  self-denial  only  consisted  in 
constantly  violating  the  two  first  in  their  own  practice,  and 
never  recommending  the  last  save  to  their  victims.  In  1821, 
the  Indians  had  seen  a  band  of  so-called  missionaries  appro 
priate  '*  a  tract  of  land,  consisting  of  about  fifteen  thousand 
acres,  from  the  Osage  Indians."*  Ten  years  later,  when  a 
tribe  in  Indiana  spontaneously  offered  land  to  the  governor  of 
the  State  for  the  maintenance  of  Catholic  missionaries,  their 
petition  was  answered  by  an  embassy  of  Protestant  ministers, 
attracted  by  the  prospect  of  gain,  and  who  contrived  to  filch 
from  them  by  fraud  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  twenty 
acres.f  "  Genuine  religion  has  suffered  much,"  says  Professor 
li.  Bishop,  the  historian  of  The  Sects  in  Kentucky,  from 
"  the  money-making  and  speculating  spirit"  of  these  singular 
"  missionaries."^: 

There  is  something  terrible  in  the  disdain  which,  in  our  own 
as  in  other  times,  the  Indian  manifests  towards  the  emissaries  of 
Protestantism.  "  They  treat  me,"  Mr.  Kirkland  has  candidly 
told  us,  "  with  no  more  respect  than  they  would  show  to  a 
dog."  Many  years  after,  in  1821,  a  famous  chief  thus  expressed 
to  the  Governor  of  Ne.w  York  his  opinion  of  the  same  class:  "I 
have  observed  that  whenever  they  came  among  the  Indians,  they 

*  Fathers  of  the  London  Missionary  Society,  vol.  ii.,  app.,  p.  604. 

f  Annales,  tome  vi.,  p.  158. 

j:  Quoted  by  Spalding,  ch.  vi.,  p.  88.  Considering  the  character  which  a 
multitude  of  witnesses  give  of  the  American  clergy,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
the  so-called  missionaries  of  the  same  nation  should  be  what  an  English  writer 
calls  "  itinerant  livelihood  seekers."  Mr.  Tilley  mentions  that  he  heard  one  of 
them  lecture  at  St.  Francisco.  "  His  lecture  commenced,  secundem  artem,  by 
well  abusing  the  Romanists.  He  then  proceeded  to  a  relation  of  his  own  '  call.' 
He  had  been  a  common  sailor  and  a  vagabond,  but  had  become  a  Protestant 
missionary.  His  logic  was  sublime.  '  I  waited,'  said  he,  '  till  I  received 
promises  of  support  to  the  amount  of  one  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  then  I 
started  oiF.' "  Japan,  the  Amoor,  &c.,  ch.  x.,  p.  185. 


392  CHAPTER  IX. 

always  excited  enmities  and  quarrels  amongst  them,  .  .  .  and 
that  the  Indians  were  sure  to  dwindle  and  decrease  in  proportion 
to  the  number  of  preachers  that  came  among  them.''  And  then 
he  noticed  a  recent  case  :  "  We  have  been  threatened  by  Mr. 
Hyde,  that  unless  we  listen  to  his  preaching  and  become  Chris 
tians  we  shall  be  turned  off  our  lands.  We  wish  to  know  from 
the  governor  if  this  is  to  be  so  ;  and  if  he  has  no  right  to  say 
so,  we  think  he  ought  to  be  turned  off  our  lands,  and  not 
allowed  to  plague  us  any  more.  We  shall  never  be  at  peace 
while  he  is  among  us."*  Mr.  Hyde  was  removed. 

Ten  years  later,  the  celebrated  Black  H'awk  accepted  a 
treaty  with  the  United  States  at  Prairie  du  Chien,  and  in  the 
presence  of  the  American  officials  the  noble  savage  spoke  as 
follows  of  the  colleagues  of  Mr.  Hyde :  "  The  white  men  are 
bad  schoolmasters.  They  smile  in  the  face  of  the  poor  Indians, 
to  cheat  them,  to  deceive  them,  and  ruin  their  wives.  They 
poisoned  us  by  their  touch.  We  were  not  safe.  We  were  be 
coming  like  them,  hypocrites  and  liars,  adulterers,  lazy  drones, 
all  talkers,  and  no  workers,  "f  Is  it  wonderful  if  the  chiefs 
sometimes  said,  in  words  which  have  already  been  quoted, 
"  Our  young  men  do  not  listen  to  them  any  better  than  to  our 
selves  ;  we  wish  for  Catholic  priests  ?" 

Almost  at  the  same  moment  the  chief  of  the  Kansas  went  to 
St.  Louis  to  obtain  a  missionary.  A  Protestant  minister  offered 
to  return  with  him  to  his  tribe.  "  The  chief,  eyeing  him,  said 
with  a  smile,  '  This  is  not  what  I  ask ;  this  man  apparently 
has  a  wife  and  children,  like  myself  and  other  men  of  my  tribe. 
I  do  not  wish  him.  Whenever  I  come  to  St.  Louis  I  go  to  the 
great  house  (church)  of  the  French.  There  I  see  Blackrobes 
who  have  no  wives  or  children.  These  are  the  men  I  ask.'  "J 
A  few  hours  later,  Father  Lutz  was  descending  the  Mississippi 
with  the  Kansas  chief.  "  Brother,"  said  the  most  famous  of  ail 
the  Seneca  chiefs,  at  a  great  meeting  held  at  Buffalo  by  the  re 
quest  of  the  missionaries,  "  you  say  you  have  not  come  to  get 
our  land  or  our  money,  but  to  enlighten  our  minds.  I  will 
now  tell  you  that  I  have  been  at  your  meetings,  and  saw  you 
collecting  money  from  the  meeting.  I  cannot  tell  what  this 
money  was  intended  for,  but  suppose  it  was  for  your  minister  ; 
and  ii'  we  should  conform  to  your  way  of  thinking,  perhaps  you 
may  want  some  from  us."§ 

"  My  friends,"  replied  an  Ojibbeway  chief  not  long  ago  to 
the  invitation  of  some  English  ministers,  "  we  believe  that 

*  Drake,  book  v.,  ch.  vi.,  p.  103. 

fid.,  ch.  x.,  p.  161. 

±  Shea,  Catholic  Missions,  &c.,  ch.  xxv.,  p.  457. 

§  Id.,  ch.  vi.  p.  103.    Cf.  Events  in  Indian  History,  ch.  vi.,  p.  246  (1842) 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  393 

the  white  people  have  two  tongues."  And  then  he  gave  the 
following  reason  for  thinking  so :  "A  black  coat  came  amongst 
us  in  the  town  where  I  live,  and  told  us  the  same  words  as  you 
have  spoken  this  morning.  He  said  that  the  religion  of  the 
white  men  was  the  only  good  religion  ;  and  some  began  to 
believe  him,  arid  after  a  while  a  great  many  believed  him,  and 
then  he  wanted  us  to  help  him  to  build  a  house,  and  we  did  so. 
We  lifted  very  hard  at  the  logs,  and  when  it  was  done  many  sent 
their  children  to  him  to  learn  to  read,  and  some  girls  got  so  as 
to  read  the  good  Book,  and  their  fathers  were  very  proud  of  it; 
and  at  last  one  of  these  girls  had  a  baby,  and  not  long  after 
another  had  a  baby,  and  then  the  black  coat  ran  away,  and  we 
have  never  seen  him  since.  My  friends,  we  do  not  think  this 
right.  I  believe  there  is  another  black  coat  now  in  the  same 
house.  Some  of  the  Indians  send  their  boys  there  to  learn  to 
read,  but  they  dare  not  let  their  girls  go.  My  friends,  this  is 
all  I  have  to  say."* 

The  estimate  which  the  Indians  have  formed,  after  an  un 
varying  experience  of  two  centuries,  of  the  habits  and  character 
of  the  Protestant  emissaries,  has  naturally  created  in  them,  as 
in  the  pagans  of  every  other  land,  the  invincible  repugnance 
which  their  sullen  attitude  attests,  and  has  aggravated  tenfold 
their  passionate  aversion  to  Christianity.  If  preachers  of 
another  order,  men  of  austere  virtue,  admirable  patience,  and 
unwearied  charity,  could  only  win  them  to  the  Cross  at  the 
price  of  prodigious  labors  and  sufferings,  and  often  at  the  cost 
of  life  itself,  we  may  easily  comprehend  the  failure  of  another 
class,  who  only  excite,  as  we  have  seen,  their  contempt  and 
abhorrence.  uThe  American  Indian,''  says  a  late  report  of 
one  of  the  most  opulent  missionary  associations  of  the  western 
continent,  "  are,  for  the  most  part,  yet  unblessed  with  the 
knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ  !"f  What  more  effective  proof  can 
we  desire  of  the  monstrous  contrast  which  we  have  traced  in 
these  volumes,  and  of  which  the  history  of  missions  in  North 
and  South  America  supplies  the  last,  and  perhaps  the  most 
impressive  example  ? 

There  might  still  be  hope  of  the  effectual  conversion  of  the 
few  remaining  tribes,  though  the  task  becomes  more  difficult 
every  year,  if  Catholic  missionaries  were  the  sole  representatives 
of  Christianity.  It  is  by  the  presence  of  the  agents  of  Protest 
antism,  and  not  by  the  indifference  or  obduracy  of  the  Indian, 
that  their  labor  is  now  frustrated.  When  Father  Laverlochere 


*  Catlin,  vol.  i.,  p.  165  ;  2d  edition. 

f  Western  Foreign  Missionary  Society  ;  see  Foreign  Missionary  Chronicle, 
p.  01  (Pittsburgh). 


394:  CHAPTER  IX. 

visited  the  Sioux  at  Fort  Albany,  in  1849,  amongst  whom  a 
Protestant  missionary  had  dwelt  for  many  years,  and  urged  them 
to  embrace  the  Faith,  this  was  their  reply  :  "  The  prayer-man 
who  has  been  with  us  is  only  a  rogue  and  a  pretender.  You, 
too,  may  be  the  same."  And  they  refused  to  listen  to  him.* 
Such  is  the  fatal  result  of  the  presence  of  Protestant  mission 
aries.  They  make  the  conversion  of  the  heathen  impossible.-^ 
Yet  it  is  in  this  point  alone  that  the  American  government, 
rarely  unjust  to  Catholics,  uses  all  its  influence  on  the  side 
of  evil.  When  the  Ottawas  applied,  in  1829,  for  Catholic 
missionaries,  their  petition  was  answered,  as  usual,  by  a  prompt 
dispatch  of  Protestant  ministers.  It  is  true  that  the  Indians 
drove  them  away,  with  this  emphatic  admonition :  "  Keep 
your  errors  for  yourselves ;  our  nation  does  not  want  missionaries 
with  wives  and  children,  but  the  Blackrobes,  like  those  who 
visited  our  grandfathers.":):  And  three  years  later,  Father  Reze 
could  say,  writing  from  ISTew  York,  "  It  is  truly  admirable  to 
see  these  good  Ottawas  all  converted  in  the  space  of  three  years, 
and  become  excellent  Christians."§  We  have  seen  that  Mrs. 
Jameson  confirms  this  account  of  the  Ottawas,  from  her  own 
observation,  in  1852.  But  the  executive  authorities, — and  this 
is  perhaps  the  heaviest  reproach  which  they  have  incurred, — 
though  all  these  facts  are  known  to  them,  and  have  been 
confessed  without  reserve,  still  neglect  too  often  the  prayer  of 
the  Indian,  even  while  admitting  that  it  is  just.  They  know 
that  Catholic  missionaries  alone  can  win  him  to  Christianity, 
and  they  continue  to  send  him  men  who  bind  his  neck  with 
chains  while  they  talk  of  liberty,  who  create  a  desert  and  call  it 
civilization.  The  Winnebagoes  were  not  only  refused  the  services 
of  Father  Petiot,  but  forced  to  pay  for  a  Protestant  missionary 
whom  they  despised ;  and  this  although  Mr.  McGregor,  the 
agent,  reported  in  1844,  that  "it  was  questionable  policy  to 
force  them  to  receive  instruction  from  a  class  to  whom  they 
objected."!  When  the  chief  of  the  Kansas  nation  wrote  to 
General  Clark  for  a  Blackrobe,  the  agent,  though  a  Protestant, 
reported  officially  in  forwarding  the  application,  that  "  only 
Catholic  priests  can  succeed  in  these  missions."  When 

*  Annals,  xii.,  163  (English  edition). 

t  It  is  worthy  of  observation  that  the  Sioux  nation,  originally  capable  of  a 
high  degree  of  civilization,  are  described  by  a  well-known  writer  in  1853,  as 
"  degraded  by  their  intercourse  with  the  whites,"  and  that  in  1862  they  showed 
their  appreciation  of  the  latter,  by  massacring  five  hundred  of  them  at  once 
in  the  State  of  Minnesota.  Homes  of  the  New  World,  by  Frederika  Brerner, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  291,  letter  xxvii. 

±  Annales,  tome  iv.,  p.  475. 

|  Tome  vi.,  p.  180. 

I  Shea,  ch.  xxi.,  p.  400. 


MISSIONS   IN  AMERICA.  395 

Monseignenr  Dubourg,  the  venerated  Bishop  of  New  Orleans, 
visited  the  President  and  his  ministers  at  Washington,  "it  was 
readily  admitted  that  Catholic  priests  were  fitter  for  the  work 
than  Protestant  ministers;"  and  the  Minister  for  War,  frankly 
confirming  the  admission,  said  to  the  bishop,  "Above  all,  try 
to  procure  Jesuits."* 

It  is  confessed,  then,  by  all  that  is  noble  and  high-minded  in 
the  United  States, — though  the  confession  comes  many  years 
too  late, — that  while  the  influence  of  Protestantism  has  only 
tended,  during  two  hundred  years,  to  propagate  corruption, 
disorder,  and  death  among  the  native  tribes,  the  Catholic  mis 
sionary,  alone  and  unaided,  as  destitute  of  all  material  re 
sources  as  his  Indian  disciple,  but  tilled  with  the  power  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  has  never  failed  to  win  him,  by  the  force  of  his 
own  example,  and  the  Divine  gifts  of  which  he  is  the  steward 
and  minister,  to  peace,  contentment,  industry,  and  virtue. 
What  Protestantism  has  done  for  the  Red  Man  is  written  in 
history.  Even  its  professional  advocates  confess  the  truth 
which  they  dare  not  deny.  "Alas!"  exclaimed  one  of  them 
fifty  years  ago,  "what  has  not  our  nation  to  answer  for  at  the 
bar  of  retributive  justice!" 

Nearly  half  a  century  later,  the  same  confession  was  once 
more  repeated,  in  presence  of  the  American  Senate,  with  especial 
reference  to  the  Florida  war,  and  its  disastrous  results.  "  The 
origin  of  this  war  is  the  same  with  all  our  Indian  wars.  It  lies 
deep,  beyond  the  power  of  eradication,  in  the  mighty  wrongs 
we  have  heaped  upon  the  miserable  nations  of  these  lands. 
Three  hundred  years  have  rolled  into  the  bosom  of  eternity 
since  the  white  man  put  his  foot  on  these  shores,  and  every 
day  and  hour,  and  every  moment,  has  been  marked  with  some 

act  of  cruelty  and  oppression I  consider  the  fate  of  the 

Indian  as  inevitably  fixed.  He  must  perish.  The  decree  of 
extermination  has  long  since  gone  forth,  and  the  execution  of 
it  is  in  rapid  progress.  Avarice,  Sir,  has  counted  their  acres 
and  their  power ;  force  and  avarice  march  on  together  to  their 
destruction. "f 

Finally,  in  the  year  1861,  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  reli 
gious  teachers  of  Protestant  America  thus  estimates,  once 
more,  in  the  presence  of  his  congregation,  the  unrepented  guilt 
of  which  the  final  reckoning  is  still  to  come.  "  Our  nation  has 
more  sins  than  one.  Its  criminal  treatment  of  the  Indians  is  a 
fit  subject  for  shame.  Every  crime  in  the  calendar  has  been 

*  Henri  on,  tome  ii.,  2de  partie,  p.  664. 

f  Speech  of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Hopkinson,  quoted  by  Macdonald,  British  Colum 
bia,  &c.,  ch.  v.,  p.  133. 


396  CHAPTER  IX. 

committed  against  them :  slow  persecution  ;  the  breaking  of 
every  treaty  made  with  them  when  found  convenient;  and  the 
robbery  of  their  lands."*  He  only  omits  the  worse  crime  of 
all — the  cruelty  which  deprived  them  of  the  very  teachers  who 
had  proved  a  thousand  times,  that  they,  and  they  alone,  could 
have  done  for  them  exactly  what  their  fellow-apostles  had  done 
for  their  more  favored  brethren  in  the  South. 

Such  is  the  contrast,  immense  and  irreparable,  which  may  be 
resumed  in  these  two  admitted  results — that  while  in  the 
South,  nearly  sixteen  hundred  thousand  Indian  Catholics  are 
found  at  this  day,  though  robbed  for  sixty  years  of  their  pastors, 
still  inflexible  in  the  faith,  and  proof  against  the  assaults  of 
heresy  and  unbelief,  besides  whole  nations  in  Central  America, 
Mexico,  and  California ;  in  the  vast  territories  of  the  North, 
from  Oregon  to  Florida,  and  from  Boston  to  Santa  Fe,  barely 
three  hundred  thousand  Indians,  remnant  of  a  thousand  tribes, 
now  survive,  of  whom  nearly  all  who  are  not  Catholics  are 
pagans.  In  1851,  the  total  number  of  Indians  in  the  territory 
of  the  United  States  was  three  hundred  and  eighty-eight  thou 
sand  two  hundred  and  twenty-nine.f  In  1858,  they  had 
dwindled  to  three  hundred  and  fourteen  thousand  six  hundred 
and  twenty-two,  being  a  diminution  of  nearly  seventy-four 
thousand  in  seven  years!  while,  "in  Mexico  and  South 
America,"  as  one  of  the  latest  writers  on  the  Western  Conti 
nent  observes,  "  they  still  thrive,  or  increase,  and  amalgamate 
and  intermarry  with  the  European  races. "J  Such,  once  more, 
is  that  prodigious  contrast  between  the  work  of  the  Church 
and  the  work  of  the  Sects  which  we  have  now  traced  in  every 
region  of  the  earth,  and  which,  while  it  has  everywhere  re 
vealed  to  us  the  incurable  impotence  of  human  Sects,  has  dis 
played  in  their  incomparable  beauty  those  apostolic  triumphs 
of  the  Christian  Church,  "  to  which,"  by  the  confession  of  a 
hostile  witness,  "nothing  similar  has  occurred  in  the  whole 
course  of  history  ."§ 


CONCLUSION. 

And  now  we  may  conclude  this  long  but  imperfect  history, 
of  which  all  the  phases  were  sufficiently  known  to  an  English 

*  Rev.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  quoted  in  New  York  Evening  Express,  Janu 
ary  5,  1861. 

f  Schoolcraft,  Historical  and  Statistical  Information,  &c.,  part  i. 

\  Life  and  Liberty  in  America,  by  Charles  Mackay,  LL.D.,  ch.  xii.,  pp.  145, 
123. 

§  Professor  Merivale,  Colonization,  &c.,  lect.  x.,  p.  280. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  397 

writer,  familiar  with  men  and  their  works  in  the  United  States, 
to  elicit  the  most  remarkable  confession  ever  wrung  from  a 
Protestant  conscience,  and  to  constrain  the  unbought  avowal, 
"  The  Catholic  Faith  is  the  Shield  of  America"*  It  was, 
not  possible  that  enlightened  men,  capable  of  distinguishing 
between  good  and  evil,  should  fail  to  mark  the  contrast 
between  the  Catholic  and  Protestant  teachers  in  America. 
Hence  the  declaration  of  Mr.  Washington  Irving,  too  strong 
and  free  to  be  caught  in  the  meshes  of  sectarian  bigotry,  that 
the  former  labored  "with  a  power  that  no  other  Christians 
have  exhibited."  Hence  the  homage  of  Dr.  Channing  to  the 
Catholic  Church,  when  he  said,  without  deriving  instruction 
from  his  own  words,  "  Her  missionaries  who  have  carried 
Christianity  to  the  ends  of  the  earth ;  her  Sisters  of  Charity 
who  have  carried  relief  and  solace  to  the  most  hopeless  want 
and  pain ;  do  not  these  teach  us,  that  in  the  Komish  Church 
the  Spirit  of  God  has  found  a  home?"f  Hence  also  the 
sympathy  of  the  just  and  upright  Washington,  when  he  ex 
claimed,  in  his  "Address  to  the  Catholics  of  the  United 
States,"  "May  the  members  of  your  Society  in  America, 
animated  alone  by  the  pure  spirit  of  Christianity,  enjoy  every 
temporal  and  spiritual  felicity  !"J  Hence  too  those  later  con 
fessions  of  American  Protestants,  disdaining  the  peevish  malice 
of  their  English  co-religionists,  and  frankly  expressing  the 
honest  admiration  which  they  cherished,  not  only  for  the 
martyred  apostles  who  have  long  since  finished  their  career, 
but  even  for  some  of  their  latest  successors.  "  In  seeing  such 
men  as  Cheverus  and  Matignon,"  said  a  Boston  writer,  when 
his  city  hardly  knew  the  Catholic  religion  but  by  their  labors, 
"  who  can  doubt  that  it  is  possible  for  human  nature  to  ap 
proach  and  to  imitate  the  God-Man  ?"§  "  Who  can  forget,'' 
says  Professor  Walters  in  our  own  day,  with  equally  generous 
enthusiasm,  "  Father  Farmer,  still  venerated  by  all  who  knew 
him;"  or  "John  Carroll,  the  first  Roman  Catholic  Bishop  of 
Baltimore,  the  model  of  prelates,  Christians,  and  scholars," 
who  was  sent  by  Congress  to  Canada,  in  1776,  as  joint 
commissioner  with  Franklin;]  or  "Bishop  England,  beloved 
and  honored  by  men  of  every  religious  denomination,  and  even 
now  lamented  in  the  South  as  one  of  her  best  and  noblest 
sons  ?"  Such  are  the  testimonies  of  men  convinced,  by  actual 

*  Englishwoman  in  America,  ch.  iii.,  p.  95. 
f  Works  of  W.  E.  Channing,  p.  275 ;  People's  edition  (1843). 
jf.  Quoted  by  Rupp,  p.  165. 

§  Boston  Monthly  Magazine,  June,  1825 ;  quoted  in  Vie  du  Cardinal  de 
Cheverus,  liv.  ii.,  p.  52. 

||  Franklin's  Works,  vol.  viii.,  p.  178 ;  ed.  Sparks. 


398  CHAPTER  IX. 

observation,  of  the  truth  of  that  judgment  proclaimed  by  a 
Protestant  writer,  in  words  of  almost  astonishing  candor, 
"  The  priesthood  of  the  Catholic  Church  bear  the  griefs  and 
carry  the  sorrows  of  their  infirm  and  ignorant  neighbors, 
and  assuredly  come  nearer,  in  their  walk  through  life,  to  the 
Saviour's  model,  than  any  clergy  of  any  religion  whatever  ;"* 
an  opinion  avowed  with  equal  energy  by  one  who  had  also 
dwelt  in  America,  and  who  was  constrained  by  experience  to 
exclaim,  "  Catholicism  seems  to  me  at  this  time  to  go  beyond 
Protestantism  in  the  living  imitation  of  Christ  in  good  works."f 

It  is  not  in  vain,  then,  that  men  of  God,  filled  with  their 
Master's  presence,  and  living  only  for  His  glory,  have  evan 
gelized  America.  The  harvest  of  which  they  planted  the  seed 
has  been  blighted  as  far  as  the  natives  are  concerned,  and 
has  still  to  be  reaped  and  garnered  by  the  race  which  has  cast 
them  out;  but  already  men  predict  its  golden  fulness.  "If 
religion,  with  its  immortal  hopes,"  says  one  of  the  leading 
organs  of  Protestantism  in  New  York,  "  is  to  be  preserved  in 
the  world,  and  cold  infidelity  is  not  to  overrun  all  Europe  and 
America,  there  is  nothing  left  but  a  return  to  the  Catholic 
Church.^ 

It  is  after  a  journey  which  has  led  us  through  many  climes, 
and  carried  us  into  the  presence  of  many  nations,  that  we 
arrive  at  length  at  the  close  of  our  long  travel.  But  if  we  have 
left  far  behind,  and  well-nigh  forgotten,  such  men  as  Nobrega 
and  Azevedo,  Ortega  and  Baraza,  Betanzos  and  Las  Casas,  the 
Blessed  Peter  Claver  and  St.  Francis  Solano, — the  evangelists 
of  Brazil  and  Peru,  of  Paraguay  and  Mexico, — it  may  be 
permitted  to  turn  once  more  a  parting  glance  of  love  and 
reverence  towards  the  heroes  and  apostles  whom  other  men 
and  other  scenes  have  almost  pushed  from  our  memory.  What 
words  can  express,  what  judgment  measure,  the  immense  and 
indelible  contrast  between  the  religious  history  of  Brazil  and 
New  England,  of  Paraguay  and  Virginia,  of  Peru  and  Canada  ? 
Who  but  God  shall  judge  between  the  two  classes  of  men 
who  lived  to  glorify  Him  in  the  one,  to  dishonor  Him  in 
the  other?  What  less  unerring  and  deep-searching  eye  can 
penetrate,  in  all  their  details,  the  secret  motives,  unpublished 
thoughts,  and  unrevealed  desires,  which  we  can  only  judge  in 
part  by  their  exterior  signs?  Who  shall  estimate,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  martyr's  love,  the  apostle's  toil,  the  disciple's  faith, 
victorious  in  suffering  and  triumphant  in  death;  or  take  note, 

*  Englishwoman  in  America,  ch.  ii.,  p.  78. 

f  Bremer,  Homes  of  the  New  World,  vol.  ii.,  p.  344. 

\  New  York  Herald,  quoted  in  Morning  Star,  August  23, 1859. 


MISSIONS  IN  AMERICA.  399 

on  the  other,  without  partiality  or  excess,  of  the  cowardice 
which  trembled  even  in  its  safe  retreats,  the  luxury  which  cried 
piteously  for  more  delicate  fare,  the  avarice  which  cheated  the 
pagan  of  his  lands,  and  the  cruelty  which  robbed  him  of  his 
life?  Who  shall  recompense  the  labor  which  won  a  thousand 
tribes  to  the  Cross,  and  converted  the  waste  places  of  the  earth 
into  a  smiling  garden  ;  or  chastise  the  sloth,  the  meanness,  and 
the  treachery  which  could  turn  a  paradise  into  a  desert,  uproot 
the  fair  plants  which  gentler  hands  had  reared,  and  make  the 
conversion  of  the  heathen  impossible  even  while  pretending  to 
secure  it  ?  Lastly,  who  but  God  who  gave  it  shall  assay 
the  almost  omnipotent  charity  which  could  knit  together  ten 
thousand  savages  in  mutual  love,  and  in  the  bonds  of  that 
indissoluble  unity  which  two  centuries  of  trial  could  not  rend ; 
who  but  He,  the  supremely  Just,  shall  compare  with  His  own 
gifts  to  His  apostles,  the  vanity,  fickleness,  and  caprice  of 
another  order  of  men,  who  were  so  little  able  to  devise  a 
definite  and  uniform  doctrine,  that  they  could  only  invent 
new  forms  of  error  in  which  there  was  nothing  permanent  but 
the  pride  which  conceived  and  the  malice  which  begot  them, 
and  which  moved  even  the  derision  of  the  mocking  savage, 
and  forced  from  him  at  last  the  bitter  taunt,  "  If  I  should 
have  a  mind  to  turn  Christian,  I  could  not  tell  what  religion 
to  be  of!" 

Such  is  the  contrast  which  we  have  attempted  to  trace,  in 
every  state  and  province  of  this  vast  continent,  and  which  may 
again  be  summed  up  in  this  pregnant  conclusion — that  in 
America,  the  Church  has  created  a  hundred  Christian  nations, 
while  the  Sects  have  not  only  failed  to  build  up  one,  but  have 
destroyed  even  those  which  the  missionaries  of  the  Cross  had 
begun  to  form,  and  have  made  a  waste  and  a  desert  where  they 
would  have  planted  a  paradise. 

In  reviewing  such  a  history,  which  has  conducted  us  by  a 
gradual  progress  from  the  glories  of  Brazil  and  Colombia,  of 
Peru  and  Paraguay,  to  the  shameful  annals  of  Virginia  and 
Maryland,  of  New  England  and  California, — from  the  fruitful 
toils  of  the  apostles  of  Jesus  to  the  sordid  and  sterile  schemes 
of  human  sects, — we  have  exhausted,  within  the  compass  of  a 
single  continent,  every  proof  which  history  can  furnish  of  the 
momentous  truth  which  it  has  been  our  purpose  to  illustrate 
in  these  volumes.  The  story  of  American  missions,  even  if  it 
borrowed  no  light  from  the  exactly  parallel  records  of  every 
other  land,  would  constitute  a  revelation  of  the  Divine  mind  as 
clear  and  distinct  as  that  which  was  delivered  amid  the  thunders 
of  Mount  Sinai,  or  announced  in  softer  accents  from  the  summit 
of  Mount  Thabor.  It  tells  us,  as  plainly  as  if  the  voice  wer*. 


400  CHAPTER  IX. 

that  of  Moses  or  Elias,  of  St.  Luke  or  St.  John,  that  in  our  own 
age,  as  in  every  other,  the  God  of  Christians  works  by  the 
Church  and  not  by  the  Sects ;  and  it  does  this  with  such  an 
overwhelming  array  of  evidence,  that  while  the  barbarians  of 
a  hundred  tribes  have  attained  to  eternal  life  by  joyfully  con 
fessing  it,  men  whose  prejudices  are  deeper  and  more  incurable 
than  theirs  have  at  least  been  so  far  impressed  by  it  as  to 
declare,  but  only  with  barren  and  unavailing  regret, — "  It  must 
be  allowed  to  reflect  honor  on  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and 
to  cast  a  deep  shade  on  the  history  of  Protestantism."* 

*  Pilchard,  ubi  supra. 


CHAPTER  X. 


SUMMARY. 


WHEN  our  Lord  would  instruct  His  children  how  to  distin 
guish,  in  every  age,  between  true  and  false  apostles,  He  gave 
them  this  precept — By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.  It  is 
by  this  test  that  we  have  estimated  the  work  of  Catholic  and 
Protestant  missionaries  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  it  is  time 
to  review  the  conclusions  to  which  it  has  brought  us.  This 
shall  be  our  present  attempt. 

Two  classes  of  men  have  appeared  before  us  in  the  history 
which  we  have  now  completed.  Both  claimed  to  be  ambassadors 
from  God  to  the  lands  of  the  heathen.  Brothers  in  outward 
form,  and  kinsmen  in  the  order  of  nature,  in  all  else  they  have 
differed  so  widely,  that  we  might  almost  deem  them  beings  of  a 
separate  race.  Every  thing  in  them  exists  only  in  contrast, — 
faith  and  works,  motive  and  action,  life  and  death.  The  one, 
models  of  sanctity,  of  prudence,  and  heroism,  have  run  through 
all  lands  like  tongues  of  fire,  kindling  every  dry  branch,  bidding 
the  sleeper  awake,  subduing  the  fierce  and  bowing  down  the 
strong;  the  others,  often  profoundly  immoral,  and  in  their 
highest  mood  only  patterns  of  domestic  propriety,  have  moved 
even  the  pagan  to  doubt  whether  they  professed  any  religion 
whatever.  Yet  both  were  children  of  a  common  parent,  subject 
to  the  same  infirmities,  and  filled,  at  the  outset  of  their  career, 
with  the  same  natural  gifts.  In  spite  of  this  common  nature 
and  origin,  the  one  became  apostles  and  martyrs,  the  others 
only  tourists  and  merchants. 

Whence  this  prodigious  contrast  between  men  otherwise 
equally  endowed  ?  What  is  that  mysterious  gift  which  has  been 
imparted  to  the  one,  arid  refused  to  the  others?  What  but  the 
call  and  election  of  Him  whom  both  profess  to  serve,  but  who 
has  said  to  the  first,  "  Go,  teach  all  nations  f  while  He  has 
declared  of  the  last,  4  1  did  not  send  them,  yet  they  ran:  I  have 
VOL.  ii.  27 


402  CHAPTER  X. 

not  spoken  to  them^  yet  they  prophesied"*  Herein  lies  the  in 
terpretation  of  the  mystery.  Let  us  consider,  then,  what  is  the 
vocation  to  the  apostolate,  and  what  are  its  fruits. 

There  was  one  of  old,  in  the  very  beginning  of  Christianity, 
whose  claim  to  the  title  of  Apostle  no  man  has  ever  doubted. 
In  the  broad  light  of  day,  in  the  midst  of  his  companions,  the 
hand  of  God  fell  upon  him.  From  that  hour,  blind  and  stunned, 
but  soon  to  be  filled  with  a  heavenly  light,  the  persecutor  began 
to  be  an  apostle.  And  what  were  the  marks  of  his  vocation  ? 
He,  who  best  knew,  has  told  us.  Though  "  the  least  of  the 
apostles"  in  the  order  of  election,  he  could  offer,  when  provoked 
to  compare  himself  with  others,  these  proofs  of  his  calling. 
"  Are  they  ministers  of  Christ?  lam  more.  In  many  more 
labors,  in  prisons  more  frequently,  in  stripes  above  measure,  in 
deaths  often.  Of  the  Jews  five  times  I  received  forty  stripes 
save  one.  Thrice  was  I  beaten  with  rods,  once  I  was  stoned  ; 
.  .  .  ."  and  then  this  man — already  eight  times  scourged  to 
blood ;  perpetually  imprisoned;  expelled  by  force  from  Antioch  ; 
cruelly  assaulted  at  Iconium ;  let  down  in  a  basket  by  night 
from  the  walls  of  Damascus,  because  the  Jews  "  watched  the 
gates  that  they  might  kill  him ;"  mangled  with  stones  at  Lystra, 
and  dragged  out  of  the  city  by  a  furious  rabble,  "thinking  him 
to  be  dead ;"  brutally  flogged  at  Philippi,  where  a  jailer  washed 
his  bleeding  back ;  hardly  escaping  with  life  from  Thessalonica ; 
almost  torn  to  pieces  in  Jerusalem  ;  bound  again  with  fetters  in 
Csesarea ;  always  in  perils,  in  vigils,  and  labors ;  "  in  hunger 
and  thirst,  in  fastings  often,  in  cold  and  nakedness ;"  and  at 
last,  after  long  years  of  suffering,  to  be  cut  asunder  by  a  pagan 
sword — could  venture  to  say,  "  Let  no  man  trouble  me  :  I  bear 
in  my  body  the  marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus." 

Such,  in  the  judgment  of  St.  Paul,  are  the  signs  of  an  apos 
tle.  To  labor,  to  suffer,  to  die;  to  "fill  up  those  things  that  are 
wanting  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ;"  yet  in  suffering  to  rejoice, 
and  in  dying  to  overcome;  these  are  the  fruits  of  his  vocation. 
And  for  this  reason  it  is  that  the  history  of  the  evangelization  of 
the  heathen  in  every  land,  and  in  every  age,  is  simply  a  martyr- 
ology.  The  path  of  the  true  apostle,  like  that  of  his  Master, 
is  a  path  of  blood.  Everywhere  you  may  track  his  steps  by  that 
sign.  At  Jerusalem  as  at  Rome,  at  Smyrna  as  at  Antioch,  at 
Lyons  as  at  Corinth,  by  the  rivers  of  Germany  as  in  the  plains 
of  Poland,  in  the  forests  of  Hindostan  as  in  the  cities  of  China, 
by  the  mountains  of  Brazil  and  Peru  as  by  the  frozen  lakes  of 
Canada — everywhere  there  is  blood.  Xavier  and  de  Britto, 
Sanz  and  Dufresse,  Ortega  and  Baraza,  Brebeuf  and  Lallemand, 

*  Jeremias  xxiii.  21. 


SUMMARY.  403 

and  a  thousand  more,  what  are  they  but  heirs  of  St.  Paul,  dis 
playing  the  same  vocation,  accepting  the  same  torments,  and 
able  to  affirm  with  him,  "  Are  they  ministers  of  Christ  ?  I  am 
more." 

And  it  is  by  virtue  of  this  vocation  alone  that  they,  and  such 
as  they,  "wrought  justice,"  and  "conquered  kingdoms."  Yet 
who  can  tell  us  all  which  that  vocation  includes  ?  Evidently, 
if  we  would  attempt  to  describe,  or  even  to  comprehend,  a  state 
and  calling  so  far  above  our  own, — to  know  what  it  is  to  be 
summoned  by  God  to  the  sublime  dignity  of  the  apostolate, — 
we  must  interrogate  that  illustrious  company  upon  whom  the 
lot  has  fallen.  From  them  we  learn  how  the  apostle  of  Jesus 
Christ  has  received,  often  from  his  earliest  youth,  sometimes 
even  in  childhood,  a  vocation  to  the  immediate  service  of  the 
King  of  kings.  And  this  first  call,  they  tell  us,  is  only  the 
beginning  of  that  supernatural  career  to  which  the  chosen  one 
is  now  destined.  The  gift  of  God  is  not  barren,  but  a  very 
fountain  of  power  and  life.  "With  the  vocation,  therefore,  He 
confers,  in  due  season,  all  which  it  implies  and  presupposes ; 
death  to  self  and  the  world,  boundless  charity,  and  invincible 
fortitude.  Then  follow,  in  their  harmonious  order,  the  spirit 
of  wisdom,  of  counsel,  and  of  strength ;  until  at  length  the 
elect  messenger,  docile  to  every  inspiration  of  grace,  and  armed 
with  the  whole  panoply  of  apostolic  gifts,  begins  his  appoint 
ed  work.  From  that  hour  he  no  longer  knows,  except  in  God, 
father,  or  mother,  or  kinsfolk ;  for  he  can  say  with  St.  Paul, 
"  Henceforth  we  know  no  man  according  to  the  flesh," — and 
with  the  first  apostle  of  China,  "  We  have  God  for  our  Father, 
all  mankind  for  brothers,  and  the  world  for  a  home."  Charged 
to  offer  henceforth  a  sacrifice  of  expiation,  suffering  is  not  the 
object  of  his  dread,  but  of  his  ardent  desire  ;  and  death,  no 
matter  in  what  form,  so  it  be  that  of  martyrdom,  is  now  the 
prize  which  he  covets,  the  destined  crown  of  all  his  toil.  "  I 
have  specially  solicited  this  grace,"  says  one  of  whom  we  have 
read  in  these  pages,  "  every  time  I  elevated  the  Precious  Blood 
in  the  holy  sacrifice  of  the  Mass."  To  "  die  daily"  is  hence 
forth  the  very  condition  of  his  life,  and  this  he  consents  to  do, 
by  virtue  of  that  mighty  interior  grace,  without  which  the  exist 
ence  of  the  Catholic  missionarywould  be  simply  impossible  to 
human  nature. 

Such  is  the  vocation  to  the  apostolate,  the  highest  to  which 
mortal  man  can  aspire,  and  compared  with  which  regal  or 
imperial  state  is  paltry  and  obscure.  To  God  alone  it  belongs 
to  choose  those  who  shall  be  admitted  to  this  superhuman  life, 
because  He  alone  can  give  the  wisdom  and  strength  which 
make  such  a  life  possible  to  a  fallen  race.  "  Woe  to  the  priest," 


404:  CHAPTER  X. 

Bays  one  who  evangelized  India,  "  who  comes  to  this  land 
without  being  called  of  God.  He  would  be  the  most  unfor 
tunate  of  men,  and  would  provoke  his  own  downfall  and  that 
of  many  others."*  But  if  he  be  called  indeed,  then  the  apostle 
may  set  forth  on  his  journey,  for  the  hand  of  God  is  upon  him, 
and  he  must  go  whithersoever  it  shall  lead  him.  Whether  his 
path  be  over  the  burning  sands  of  India,  or  along  the  ice-bound 
shores  of  northern  climes,  or  in  the  far-off  islands  of  the  great 
sea,  his  mission  is  sure.  He  may  succeed,  or  he  may  seem  to 
fail ;  but  if  he  triumph,  the  glory  belongs  to  his  Master;  if  he 
fall,  as  sooner  or  later  he  will  do,  his  fall  shall  win  an  eternal 
crown  for  himself.  Such  is  the  vocation,  such  the  destiny,  of 
the  apostle  of  Christ. 

And  now  if  we  inquire,  on  the  other  hand,  by  whom  the  false 
apostles  are  commissioned,  and  under  what  auspices  they  set 
out,  a  monstrous  contrast  is  revealed.  If  we  would  interrogate 
these  men,  or  watch  them  at  their  work,  we  must  quit  the 
paradise  of  holy  thoughts  and  pure  desires,  and  descend  to  the 
dismal  regions  of  vanity,  covetousness,  and  caprice.  Speak  not 
to  them  of  that  dread  apostolic  vocation  which  to  their  appre 
hension  is  only  a  fiction,  and  which  Protestant  missionaries  are 
so  far  from  asserting,  that  they  would  be  the  first  to  disclaim 
it,  some  with  fear,  others  with  passionate  contempt.  "  The 
very  notion  of  a  call  to  the  ministry,"  their  advocates  now 
admit,  "seems  to  have  died  out  in  English  society."f  "Our 
clergy,"  says  another,  "  as  a  sacred  order  or  class,  have  ceased 
to  exist"\  Ask  them  not,  therefore,  who  called,  or  who  sent 
them  ?  If  they  bear  in  their  body  "  the  marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus?" 
If  they  have  "  made  themselves  eunuchs  for  the  kingdom  of 
heaven's  sake  ?"  With  fluent  jest,  or  angry  taunt,  they  will 
mock  you ;  perhaps  even  defame  the  gifts  and  graces  which 
such  as  they  neither  possess  nor  understand.  In  accepting  the 
wages  of  some  "  missionary  society''  they  have  only  chosen  a 
craft  or  calling,  like  any  other;  they  have  secured  a  livelihood, 
and  usually  a  more  luxurious  one  than  they  could  have  obtained 
at  home.  It  is  their  own  employers  who  declare  it.  Many  of 
them,  we  have  been  told  by  Berkeley,  "  quit  their  country  on 
no  other  motive."  "It  is  only  a  certain  kind  of  business  with 
most  of  them,"  says  a  living  writer  who  had  watched  their  pro 
ceedings  in  many  lands,  "  a  calling  by  which,  as  in  commerce 
and  trade,  to  make  a  living."§  Accordingly,  before  they  set  out, 
bound  and  fettered  in  every  limb  with  worldly  ties,  they  have 

*  Aimales,  iv.,  p.  155. 

\  Saturday  Remeic,  January  21,  1860. 

±  Laing,  Notes  of  a  Traveller,  ch.  xxi.,  p.  433. 

§  Gerstaecker,  vol.  ii.,  ch.  vii.,  p.  234. 


SUMMARY.  405 

carefully  arranged,  with  minutest  detail,  the  salary  which  they 
are  to  receive,  and  the  mode  of  payment ;  perhaps  even,  like 
the  Anglican  clergy  in  India,  the  exact  allowance  upon  which 
they  are  to  retire — for  they  have  learned  from  the  "  Bishop  of 
Calcutta"  that  "  asceticism  is  no  part  of  the  Gospel  system." 
Plague  and  pestilence  are  excluded  by  the  terms  of  their 
contract ;  and  if.  in  spite  of  every  precaution,  the  unwelcome 
visitor  appears,  they  flee  before  it.  The  sickness  of  a  wife  or  a 
child  terminates  their  mission  at  once.  They  are  only  men, 
fathers  of  a  family,  or  solicitous  to  become  so,  and  do  not  pro 
fess  to  be  apostles.  To  be  pensioners  of  God, — to  hunger  and 
thirst, — to  be  scourged  or  imprisoned, — this  is  an  enthusiasm 
which  only  excites  their  disdain.  To  be  "in  fastings  often," 
to  "endure  hardness,"  to  have  "no  fixed  abode,"  not  even 
"  where  to  lay  the  head," — this  is  an  "  asceticism"  which  they 
condemn,  a  "fanaticism"  which  they  despise,  though  it  be  the 
asceticism  of  St.  Paul,  the  fanaticism  of  the  Son  of  God.  It 
would  evidently  be  irrational  to  talk  of  a  "vocation"  here. 
God  does  not  take  counsel  in  heaven  about  the  going  forth  of 
such  men  as  these.  «They  have,  like  the  birds  of  the  air  and 
the  beasts  of  the  field,  the  protection  of  His  ordinary  provi 
dence  ;  more  they  do  not  desire  or  expect. 

This,  then,  is  the  first  point  of  contrast  which  the  facts 
reviewed  in  these  pages  have  disclosed  to  us  between  Catholic 
and  Protestant  missionaries  to  the  heathen.  The  one  have  a 
vocation  from  God,  the  others  have  not.  And  both  the  tenor 
of  their  life  and  the  fruits  of  their  labor  reveal  the  influence  of 
this  original  disparity.  They  are  Protestant  witnesses  who 
have  told  us,  in  every  land,  what  is  the  character  of  either; 
how  the  servants  of  the  Church  show  the  marks  of  vocation, 
how  the  agents  of  the  Se^ts  display  the  absence  of  it.  They 
are  Protestants  who  have  unconsciously  described  to  us  the 
phases  of  that  conflict,  in  which,  though  all  human  means 
were  on  one  side  and  none  on  the  other,  the  issue  was  always 
the  same ;  and  in  which  we  seem  to  witness  in  our  own  day, 
but  on  a  larger  scale  and  with  more  impressive  results,  the  ap 
plication  of  that  terrible  test  which  Elias  dared  to  propose,  long 
ages  ago,  to  the  servants  of  Baal,  when  he  said,  "  Call  ye  on 
the  names  of  your  gods,  and  I  will  call  on  the  name  of  my 
Lord  :  and  the  God  that  shall  answer  by  fire,  let  him  be  God."* 
Once  more  wre  have  heard  the  false  prophets  calling,  "  from 
morn  even  till  noon,"  for  the  fire  from  heaven  which  will  not 
descend  at  their  cry.  Once  more  we  have  listened  to  the  prayer 
of  the  true  apostle,  sure  of  his  own  vocation,  and  venturing  to 

*  3  Kings  xviii.  24. 


4:06  CHAPTER  X. 

deluge  the  sacrifice,  the  altar,  and  the  trench  round  about  it, 
with  floods  of  water ;  but  at  whose  word  "  the  fire  of  the  Lord 
fell,  and  consumed  the  holocaust,  and  the  wood,  and  the  stones, 
and  the  dust,  and  licked  up  the  water  that  was  in  the  trench." 
They  are  enemies,  more  implacable  than  the  ministers  of  Baal, 
who  have  unwittingly  recounted  for  us  this  memorable  scene, 
not,  as  of  old,  in  the  solitudes  of  Mount  Carmel,  but  in  every 
continent  of  the  earth,  and  every  island  of  the  sea.  Let  us 
review  again,  for  the  last  time,  a  few  of  the  testimonies  which 
we  have  heard,  and  visit  once  more,  but  only  for  a  moment, 
the  lands  which  we  have  already  traversed. 


GENERAL   CONTRAST. 

I.  During  half  a  century,  Protestant  writers,  filled  with  the 
same  involuntary  admiration  which  the  pagans  had  often  mani 
fested  with  greater  energy,  have  not  ceased  to  celebrate  the 
courage,  devotion,  and  charity  of  the  Catholic  missionaiies  in 
China.  From  Ricci  to  the  latest  martyr  who  gained  his  crown 
only  yesterday,  they  have  recognized,  without  understanding, 
the  same  tokens  of  a  supernatural  calling.  Even  Morrison 
was  constantly  comparing  them  with  himself,  though  apparently 
without  deriving  instruction  from  the  contrast.  "  He  is  willing 
to  sacrifice  himself — he  oifers  himself  up  to  God,"  is  his  account 
of  one  whom  he  could  agree  to  admire,  at  a  safe  distance. 
"  They  will  be  equalled  by  few,  and  rarely  exceeded  by  any," 
is  the  joint  confession  of  Mr.  Milne  and  Mr.  Medhurst,  "  for 
they  spared  not  their  lives  unto  the  death,  but  overcame  by  the 
blood  of  the  Lamb."  "  That  they  were  holy  and  devoted  men," 
says  Mr.  Malcolm,  in  spite  of  rooted  antipathies,  "is  proved  by 
their  pure  lives  and  serene  martyrdom."  "They  appeared  to 
me,"  observes  Mr.  Power,  "  to  surpass  any  men  I  ever  met 
with,  they  were  so  forgetful  of  self,  so  full  of  pity  and  com 
passion  for  others."  "Their  self-denying  hard  labor  is  truly 
wonderful,"  says  Mr.  D'Ewes.  "  It  is  a  pity  that  all  mission 
aries  are  not  equally  self-sacrificing,"  adds  Mr.  Scarth.  "  We 
cannot  refuse  them  our  respect,"  says  Colonel  Mountain.  "To 
such  men,"  observes  Captain  Blakiston,  "is  due  praise  which  I 
am  unworthy  to  proclaim."  "  They  regard  neither  difficulties 
nor  discouragements,"  writes  Mr.  Sirr,  who  vainly  sought  the 
same  qualities  in  their  luxurious  rivals.  "I  cannot  refrain," 
exclaims  Mr.  Robertson,  "from  admiring  the  heroism,  the 
devotedness,  and  the  superiority  of  the  Catholic  missionaries." 
And  the  pagans  repeat,  but  with  deeper  emphasis  and  more 
exact  discrimination,  the  reluctant  eulogies  of  Protestants, 


SUMMARY.  40  T 

humbly  begging  forgiveness  of  the  apostles  whom  they  torment, 
or  asking  a  blessing  from  those  whom  they  murder. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  same  impartial  witnesses,  who  had 
seen  them  at  their  work,  speak  only  with  sorrow  or  disgust  of 
the  Protestant  missionaries  in  China,  in  spite  of  active  sym 
pathy  with  their  religious  opinions.  Morrison,  they  tell  us, 
"  never  ventured  out  of  his  house,"  preached  only  "  with  the 
doors  securely  locked,"  gave  books  with  such  precautions  that 
"  it  conld  not  be  traced  to  him,"  and  only  ventured  on  opera 
tions  which  were  "  not  of  a  dazzling  or  heroic  order."  Milne 
"found  preaching  the  Gospel  difficult  in  China,"  and  ran 
away.  GutzlafF  made  his  fortune,  and  then  "ceased  to  call 
himself  a  missionary."  Med hurst  could  only  repeat,  "  Why 
are  we  not  successful  in  conversions  ?"  Tomlin  abandoned  the 
work  to  "  the  Pope,  Mahomed,  and  Brahma."  Smith  was 
content  to  revile  the  men  whom  he  dared  not  imitate,  to  fling 
Bibles  on  "  dry  banks,"  and  to  provoke  the  scornful  rebukes  of 
his  own  flock.  The  rest  "listened  to  far-off  tidings  of  what 
was  happening  in  the  interior,"  or  "drank  wine  and  played  at 
cards  on  Sunday,"  or  "  refused  to  visit  the  sick  in  the  hos 
pitals,"  or  accepted  "  a  skulking  and  precarious  sojourn  in 
obscurity  and  disguise."  Such  is  the  Protestant  account  of 
them.  "They  surround  themselves  with  comforts,"  says  Mr. 
Power,  "  squabble  for  the  best  houses,  higgle  for  wares,  and  pro 
voke  contempt  by  a  lazy  life."  "  We  are  grieved  to  the  heart's 
core,"  writes  Mr.  Sirr,  "  to  see  too  many  of  the  Protestant 
missionaries  occupy  their  time  in  secular  pursuits,  trading  and 
trafficking."  "  They  are  mere  stipendiary  agents  of  a  company," 
says  one  Protestant  writer.  "  They  will  not  encounter  risks  or 
hazard  dangers  like  the  Catholics,"  reports  a  second.  "  They 
adopt  a  low  tone  of  morality  and  bring  humiliation  on  their 
order,"  writes  a  third.  "They  have  no  more  devotion  than  a 
boot-jack,"  says  a  fourth.  And  the  pagan  Chinese,  quite  as 
discerning  as  these  English  and  American  Protestants,  and 
much  more  exacting  in  their  estimate  of  religious  teachers, 
speak  of  them  in  their  houses,  and  greet  them  in  the  streets, 
with  the  title  of  " Lie-preaching  devils" 

The  contrast  exhibited  in  these  testimonies  need  not  surprise 
us.  How  should  even  Protestants  consent  to  employ  milder 
terms  in  describing  the  two  classes,  of  whom  the  one  consists  of 
such  men  as  Ricci  and  Schaal,  Yerbiest  and  Parennin,  de 
Rhodes  and  de  Fontaney,  Borie  and  Imbert,  Jaccard  and 
Gagelin,  de  Maistre  and  Chapdelaine,  Marette  and  Perboyre, 
Sanz  and  Dufresse,  Melchior  and  Diaz,  and  hundreds  like  them; 
and  the  other  of  such  as  Morrison  and  Gutzlaff,  Tomlin  and 
Kidd,  Gillespie  and  Williams,  Edkins  and  Smith? 


408  CHAPTER  X. 

The  converts,  as  we  have  seen, — of  whom  a  million  belong 
to  the  Church,  and  "five,"  by  a  sanguine  estimate,  to  the 
Sects, — display  the  same  difference  of  character  as  their  teachers. 
What  the  Catholic  Chinese  were,  from  the  sixteenth  to  the 
nineteenth  century,  we  know;  what  they  have  been  since  1805, 
hostile  witnesses  have  told  us.  In  spite  of  torments  never 
exceeded  in  duration  and  intensity,  more  than  seven  hundred 
thousand  have  been  added  to  the  Church  since  Timkowski 
visited  Pekin,  and  found  that  "many  thousand  persons  had 
embraced  Christianity,  even  among  the  members  of  the  imperial 
family ;"  and  that  the  President  of  the  Criminal  Tribunal  in 
that  city  was  obliged  to  relax  his  severity,  because  "nearly  all 
his  relations  and  servants  were  Christians."  And  so  exactly 
have  these  Chinese  neophytes,  in  every  province  of  the  empire, 
resembled  the  primitive  disciples  by  the  ardor  of  their  faith, 
the  lustre  of  their  piety,  and  their  constancy  in  torture  and 
death,  that  even  the  mandarins,  yielding  to  involuntary  enthu 
siasm,  have  been  forced  to  confess  from  their  judgment-seats, 
in  presence  of  so  much  virtue  and  heroism,  "Truly  this  Chris 
tian  religion  is  a  good  religion  !"  while  the  incessant  conversion 
of  their  heathen  neighbors,  in  all  parts  of  the  empire,  has  been 
due,  not  only  to  the  apostolic  zeal  of  the  missionaries,  but  per 
haps  still  more  to  the  fascination  of  the  unwonted  heroism  dis 
played  by  their  own  countrymen,  and  of  the  sanctity  which 
revealed  even  to  their  gross  perceptions  the  mystery  of  Divine 
grace,  of  which  they  were  in  turn  to  become  examples. 

The  rare  Protestant  converts,  on  the  other  hand,  the  scum  of 
a  Chinese  seaport,  dishonest  pensioners  of  an  immoral  bounty, 
objects  of  suspicion  to  those  whose  wages  they  consented  to  re 
ceive,  and  of  ridicule  to  those  whose  religion  they  affected  to 
adopt ;  who  at  one  time  "  run  off  with  the  communion  plate," 
at  another  with  "  cases  of  type,"  or  whatsoever  else  they  can 
lay  their  hands  upon ;  have  been  everywhere  of  such  a  class, 
that,  in  the  words  of  a  candid  witness,  "  anxiety  to  obtain  them 
has  been  converted  into  anxiety  about  those  who  were  obtained." 
And  even  the  "  teachers"  and  "  catechists"  employed  by  English 
or  American  missionaries,  brutalized  by  opium,  and  quite  as 
willing,  as  Dr.  Berncastle  observes,  to  teach  Buddhism  as 
Anglicanism  or  Methodism  for  the  same  wages,  only  accept 
Protestant  baptism  as  a  condition  of  their  employment,  and 
appreciate  it  so  warmly,  that,  as  we  have  been  told,  their  whole 
care  thenceforth  is  to  prevent  others  from  sharing  the  baptism 
with  them,  lest  they  should  share  their  wages  also. 

II.  The  contrast  revealed  to  us  in  the  fians-Gangetic  prov 
inces  is  not  less  complete  in  those  which  lie  to  the  west  of  the 
Himalays.  To  compare  St.  Francis  Xavier  with  Dr.  Thomas 


SUMMARY.  409 

Middleton, — de'  Nobili  with  "  the  rich  and  fashionable"  Kiern- 
ander, — the  martyr  de  Britto,  who  won  tens  of  thousands  to 
Christ,  with  Schwartz,  whose  salaried  converts  "  were  proverbial 
for  their  profligacy," — Laynez,  majestic  as  the  patriarchs  of  old, 
with  the  love-sick  and  tearful  Marty n, — Borghese,  who  smiled 
at  torture,  with  the  ex-minstrel  Buchanan, — Martin,  "  the 
martyr  of  charity,"  with  the  vain  and  flippant  Khenins, — 
Bouchet,  whom  men  compared  to  St.  Gregory  Thaumaturgus, 
with  the  refined  but  semi-pagan  Ileber, — Belrnonte,  the  martyr, 
and  Bouttari,  the  "  penitent  without  spot,"  and  Carvalho, 
beaten  to  death,  and  Beschi,  at  whose  feet  the  wisest  Hindoo 
was  content  to  sit  as  a  scholar ;  and  hundreds  more,  who  lived 
like  St.  Paul  or  St.  John  the  Baptist,  with  Corrie,  or  Wilson, 
or  Cotton,  respectable  fathers  of  families,  who  consider  that 
"  asceticism  is  no  part  of  the  Gospel  system,"  and  live  in 
harmony  with  their  creed — this  would  be  both  irksome  and 
unprofitable.  By  the  first  the  Gospel  was  preached  in  India 
with  such  irresistible  power,  in  spite  of  the  absence  of  all  human 
aids,  that  but  for  the  events  in  Europe  which  tore  away  the 
apostles  from  their  unfinished  work,  even  Protestants  have 
frankly  confessed,  "  the  whole  land  would  probably  have  been 
converted."  As  late  as  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
they  were  still  laboring  with  such  astonishing  success,  still 
fascinated  the  Hindoo  with  such  persuasive  holiness,  that  "  no 
missionary  converted  less  than  a  thousand  pagans  annually," 
while  some  gained  almost  as  many  eve.ry  month.  And  if  the 
work  of  these  sublime  preachers  of  the  Cross,  which  survived 
the  combined  neglect  and  oppression  of  sixty  years,  has  been 
suspended  or  only  imperfectly  resumed,  it  is  not  that  the  race 
of  heroes  and  martyrs  is  extinct,  but  because  the  Hindoo  has 
learned,  from  the  example  of  his  English  teachers,  to  regard 
Christianity  with  such  ever-deepening  contempt  and  abhor 
rence,  that,  as  he  has  often  declared,  he  "  would  rather  go 
down  into  hell"  than  accept  such  a  religion  or  consort  with  its 
professors.  When  the  English  are  driven  out  of  India,  an 
event  which  we  may  anticipate  from  the  justice  of  God,  the 
apostles  of  the  Church  will  contend  a  second  time,  on  more 
equal  terms,  with  the  evil  spirits  who  rule  her.  Then  the 
Hindoo  will  have  before  him  once  more  only  teachers  whose 
lives  illustrate  their  doctrines,  and  manifest,  even  to  his  dull 
gaze,  the  presence  of  God  ;  then  he  will  have  seen  the  last, 
both  of  the  so-called  missionaries  whose  luxury  shocks  and 
whose  contradictions  revolt  him,  and  of  their  wretched  disciples, 
atheists  and  outcasts,  who  only  "  become  worse  and  worse,"  as 
one  witness  has  told  us,  whom  the  Anglo-Indians  themselves 
refuse  to  admit  into  their  houses,  "  whose  lax  morality,"  as 


410  CHAPTER  X. 

English  writers  have  honestly  proclaimed,  "  shocks  the  feelings 
of  even  their  heathen  countrymen,"  and  whom  the  missionaries 
are  often  obliged  to  dismiss,  "  lest  they  should  ruin  all  their 
pagan  workmen." 

III.  The  Island  of  Ceylon  fills  but  a  small  place  on  the  earth's 
surface,  yet  if  we  seek  a  demonstration  that  God  works  by 
the  Church,  and  not  by  the  Sects,  we  may  find  it  here.  There 
is  no  need  to  compare  again  the  two  classes  of  missionaries,  but 
who  can  be  insensible  to  the  contrast  in  their  disciples  ?  How 
uniformly  they  display  their  respective  characteristics  !  What 
history  is  more  noble,  more  suggestive  of  Divine  gifts  and 
influences,  than  that  of  the  Catholic  Cingalese,  as  narrated  by 
Protestant  writers  ?  "  Neither  corruption  nor  coercions,"  says 
Sir  Emerson  Tennent, —  and  we  know  how  freely  both  were 
used, — "  could  induce  them  to  abjure  their  faith."  For  three 
hundred  years  these  feeble  Asiatics,  by  nature  effeminate  and 
pusillanimous,  have  endured  every  imaginable  trial ;  first  the 
fierce  opposition  of  their  pagan  countrymen,  which  they  soon 
wore  out  by  joyful  martyrdom  ;  then  the  merciless  cruelty,  or 
more  demoralizing  bribery,  of  the  Dutch  ;  and  finally,  during 
the  present  century,  the  patient  artifices  of  the  English  and 
Americans,  lavishing  gold  on  every  side,  setting  traps  for  them 
at  one  time  in  the  shape  of  a  school,  at  another  of  a  hospital,  and 
always  beginning  again  to-day,  with  fresh  resources,  the  project 
which  they  tried  in  vain  yesterday.  Yet  the  Cingalese,  even 
peasants  and  fishermen,  only  smile  at  the  policy  which  costs 
BO  much  and  effects  so  little.  Filled,  like  their  fathers,  with 
that  supernatural  faith  which  outlives  all  assaults,  they  compel 
their  most  cruel  adversaries  to  confess  their  inflexible  stability, 
religious  zeal,  and  unbroken  unity,  while  even  their  pagan 
neighbors  openly  compare  their  loving  obedience,  generosity, 
and  devotion,  with  the  dissensions,  incredulity,  and  indifference 
of  their  English  rulers. 

And  what  has  Protestantism  effected,  with  its  gold  and  its 
tracts,  its  government  patronage  and  missionary  pensions, 
among  the  natives  of  Ceylon  ?  It  has  gathered,  as  its  own 
advocates  tell  us,  at  enormous  cost,  and  after  the  incessant 
efforts  of  half  a  century,  a  handful  of  degraded  followers,  whose 
allegiance  is  never  secure  for  twenty-four  hours,  who  worship 
devils  in  secret,  hurry  from  the  Protestant  temple  to  purify 
themselves  in  their  own,  and  wrhen  sickness  or  sorrow  comes 
upon  them,  abandon  in  all  haste  the  impotent  religion  which 
they  had  affected  to  adopt,  but  which  has  made  no  impression 
on  their  heart,  has  left  their  conscience  untouched,  their  intellect 
uninformed,  and  their  will  unsubdued. 

IT-  In  the  Antipodes,  England  and  Protestantism  found  three 


SUMMARY.  411 

nations  expecting  their  rule :  two  they  have  already  destroyed, 
and  the  third  is  making  haste  to  disappear.  Nothing,  we  learn 
from  official  authority  in  I860,  can  now  save  "  a  population 
which  has  once  readied  such  a  state  of  decrepitude."  And 
their  moral  corresponds  with  their  physical  condition.  "  Un- 
cleanliness,"  says  one  of  their  Protestant  teachers,  "  outwardly 
and  inwardly,  in  body  and  mind,  in  all  their  thoughts,  words, 
and  actions,"  is  as  rottenness  in  the  bones  of  this  doomed  peo 
ple.  "  Their  spiritual  declension,"  also,  says  another  mission 
ary,  in  1862,  "is  general;"  so  that,  in  the  words  of  Archdeacon 
Brown,  "  the  wheels  of  our  missionary  chariot  drag  heavily." 
After  the  efforts  of  fifty  years,  and  an  expenditure  which  baf 
fles  computation,  this  is  their  condition,  by  the  confession  of 
the  missionaries  themselves,  who  confess  in  their  latest  reports 
not  only  "  the  nominal  Christianity"  of  those  who  still  profess 
it,  but  the  still  graver  fact  of  "  the  return  of  many  individuals 
to  the  native  customs,"  and  their  refusal  to  hold  any  further  in 
tercourse  with  the  missionaries  ;  while  the  religion  of  their  ill- 
fated  disciples,  though  educated  by  them  from  infancy,  is 
frankly  described  by  still  more  competent  witnesses  as  "# 
mere  name"  or,  at  best,  "  a  rude  mixture  of  paganism  and  the 
Cross."  When  sick  or  afflicted,  "  they  appeal,"  says  Dr. 
Thomson,  like  the  Protestant  Cingalese,  "  to  their  old  gods  for 
health ;"  while  in  the  hour  of  prosperity,  they  still  secretly 
honor  them  with  prudent  foresight,  u  lest  they  should  punish 
them  with  sickness!"  Yet  New  Zealand,  to  which  Protestantism 
has  proved  so  deadly  a  malediction,  enjoys  the  presence  of  five 
Anglican  bishops,  besides  a  multitude  of  preachers  of  various 
sects;  whose  combined  labors  have  been  so  utterly  barren  of  all 
but  woe  to  this  once  noble  and  vigorous  race,  that  a  Protestant 
writer  could  unwittingly  publish  in  1859  this  bitter  satire  : 
"  The  work  of  Christianity  in  New  Zealand  is  only  begun  !" 
It  will  be  finished,  we  may  anticipate,  when  the  last  New  Zea- 
lander  has  sunk  into  the  grave  which  is  already  yawning  for  him. 
Such,  by  Protestant  testimony,  has  been  the  conclusion  of  all 
missionary  labors  in  these  islands,  as  far  as  the  natives  are  con 
cerned  ;  while  the  British  colonists  themselves,  we  are  told  by 
those  who  know  them  best,  "  have  no  religious  character,"  ex 
cept  what  Mr.  Cholmondeley  considers  peculiar  to  his  Anglican 
co-religionists,  and  which  he  briefly  describes  as  "  the  pretence 
and  hypocrisy  of  the  whole  thing."  These  offshoots  of  the 
English  Establishment  are  destined,  he  fears,  to  become 
"  either  Roman  Catholics,  or  atheists  and  materialists;"  while 
other  writers  deplore  that  they  are  so  incurably  apathetic  or 
perfidiously  insubordinate,  that  not  only  "no  interest  was  taken 
by  the  public"  in  any  of  the  projects  by  which  Dr.  Selwyri 


412  CHAPTER  X. 

vainly  essayed  to  stimulate  their  languid  zeal,  but  the  iteration 
of  fervent  appeals  to  their  "  Church  principles"  only  led  to 
their  ostentatiously  sharing  their  funds  with  "  the  ministers  of 
different  religions  bodies."  Such  is  the  appropriate  conclusion 
of  a  history  which  began,  as  Dr.  Lang  has  informed  us,  by 
adultery,  drunkenness,  and  fraud  in  the  "heads  of  the  mis 
sion  ;"  and  which  has  exhibited  to  us  Protestant  missionaries, 
during  thirty  successive  years,  stumbling  over  one  another  in 
their  hot  haste  to  amass  gold,  and  to  rob  the  unsuspecting  na 
tive  both  of  his  hind  and  its  produce;  while  it  displayed  the 
same  class  to  the  astonished  New  Zealand er  as  chiefly  occupied 
"in  neutralizing  each  other's  labors,"  or,  in  the  words  of  Dr. 
Selwyn,  "in  inflicting  upon  them  the  curses  of  disunion,"  and 
introducing  "a  counterpart  of  our  own  divided  and  contentious 
church."  Is  it  wonderful  that  the  sagacious  Maori,  more  im 
pressed  by  these  phenomena — the  only  results  of  Protestantism 
which  are  absolutely  uniform — than  Dr.  Selwyn,  perhaps  be 
cause  less  familiar  with  them,  should  decide  at  last,  that  "Hea 
thenism  with  love  is  better  than  Christianity  without  it?" 

"What  Bishop  Pompallier  and  his  colleagues  would  have  done 
for  these  noble  savages,  now  corrupted  almost  beyond  cure,  we 
may  easily  infer  from  the  triumphs  of  missionaries  of  the  same 
order,  in  many  a  land,  among  aboriginal  tribes  immeasurably 
more  ferocious  and  degraded.  The  Omagua  was  more  brutal, 
the  Guarani  more  bloodthirsty,  the  Huron  less  intelligent,  than 
the  savage  of  New  Zealand ;  yet  these  and  a  hundred  other 
tribes  accepted  Christianity  and  civilization  when  offered  to 
them  by  Monroy  or  Cavallero,  by  Rasles  or  Mesnard,  and  with 
such  fruit,  that  in  vast  communities  of  men  so  lately  sunk  in 
barbarism  "  not  a  single  mortal  sin  was  committed  in  twelve 
months,"  and  that  at  the  present  hour  their  piety  and  docility 
are  still  scoffingly  attested  by  Protestant  travellers.  But  the 
Catholic  missionary  in  these  less  favored  islands,  encountered 
by  weapons  more  fatal  than  the  knife  or  the  axe,  has  struggled 
with  only  partial  success  against  the  more  terrible  martyrdom 
of  universal  corruption  which  he  came  too  late  to  heal,  of  sordid 
avarice  which  even  his  example  failed  to  admonish,  and  of  the 
incessant  religious  dissensions  which  had  already  reared  the 
pinnacles  of  the  City  of  Confusion,  before  he  had  time  to  lay 
the  foundations  of  the  City  of  God. 

V.  There  is  no  need  to  trace  again  the  contrast,  noticed  by 
De  la  Graviere  and  Laplace  between  the  natives  of  the  Philip 
pines  and  of  Tahiti,  of  Wallis  and  liarotonga,  of  Futuna  and 
Hawaii, — between  Christians  exulting  in  the  faith,  and  willing 
to  die  in  its  defence,  and  savages,  robbed  even  of  their  nat 
ural  virtues,  abhorring  ihe  human  religion  which  they  were 


SUMMARY.  413 

paid  to  profess,  and  flinging  it  away  with  disgust  when  the 
power  to  control  them  was  lost.  "Why  should  we  compare  again 
such  men  as  Medina  and  Sanvitores,  Chevron  and  Bataillon, 
Chanel  and  Epaille,  Grange  and  Bachelot,  all  martyrs  in  fact 
or  desire;  with  such  as  Cheever  and  Bingham,  Henry  and 
Williams,  Lawry  and  Bicknell, — traders  and  adventurers,  with 
hardly  an  exception,  hateful  to  the  barbarians  whom  they 
oppressed,  as  well  as  to  the  English  and  American  merchants, 
who  found  in  them  their  keenest  rivals?  What  is  there  in 
common  between  missionaries  who  are  described  by  the  same 
Protestant  witnesses,  on  the  one  hand,  as  "  men  of  learning 
and  agreeable  manners,"  "  exemplary  in  all  their  actions,"  who 
"  astonished  the  natives  by  their  enthusiasm  in  the  cause  of 
Christ,"  and  won  such  universal  sympathy,  that,  as  Dr.  Rae  has 
candidly  told  us,  "  I  never  encountered  any  one  who  did  not 
Bpeak  in  terms  of  respect  of  the  Catholic  priesthood  ;"  and,  on 
the  other,  according  to  Sir  Edward  Belcher  and  Mr.  Forbes, 
Sir  George  Simpson  and  Mr.  Melville,  Dr.  Ruschenberger  and 
Mr.  Wheeler,  Dr.  Meyen  and  Captain  Erskine,  and  twenty 
more,  as  "  tyrannical  fanatics,"  or  "  madly  intolerant,"  or 
defiled  by  "  monetary  dirtinesses,"  or  blind  with  "  greedy  cupid 
ity,"  or  fornicators  like  Lewis  and  his  companions,  or  apostates 
like  Veeson  and  Broom  hall,  or,  at  best,  as  intent  only  upon 
"enjoying  their  rich  farms," — so  that,  as  Dr.  Rae  testifies, 
"  either  a  sneer,  a  sarcasm,  or  a  reproach"  was  always  con 
nected  with  their  names  in  every  Protestant  society,  while 
their  Catholic  rivals  were  held  in  such  esteem,  that,  as  Mr. 
Walpole  unwillingly  confessed,  "  between  the  men  themselves 
no  comparison  could  be  dared  ?" 

What  marvel  if  the  difference  in  the  final  results  obtained  by 
Catholic  and  Protestant  missions  respectively  in  the  islands  of 
the  Pacific,  and  recorded  by  Protestant  witnesses,  correspond 
exactly  with  that  which  the  same  writers  detected  with  sorrow 
in  those  by  whom  they  were  conducted  ?  During  a  quarter  of 
a  century  the  Society  Islands  were  held  in  lease  by  an  army  of 
Protestant  missionaries.  Every  temporal  advantage,  including 
an  enormous  annual  revenue,  amounting  as  early  as  1832  to 
one  hundred  thousand  pounds,  was  on  their  side,  and  there 
were  none  to  contest  their  influence  or  dispute  their  sway. 
And  what  were  the  fruits  of  their  long  reign?  It  is  their 
own  associates  and  advocates  who  have  assured  us  that,  while 
they  grew  rich  themselves  at  the  expense  of  their  disciples, 
whose  most  fertile  lands  they  appropriated,  and  whose  humble 
commerce  they  wrested  from  them, — "  all  being  engaged  in 
trade,"  as  their  friend  Captain  Waldegrave  discovered,  some 
having  seized  "  the  monopoly  of  cattle,"  others  dealing  "  in 


CHAPTER  X. 

cocoa-nut  oil  and  arrowroot,"  others,  like  "Williams,  "  specula 
ting  largely  in  tobacco,"  and  struggling,  as  even  the  London 
Missionary  Society  complained,  "  in  invidious  and  degrading 
competition  with  their  own  people," — the  only  legacies  which 
they  bequeathed  at  their  departure  to  this  once  happy  and 
contented  population  were,  as  Mr.  Bennett  relates  in  1840, 
"riot  and  debauchery  that  would  have  disgraced  the  most 
profligate  purlieus  of  London  ;"  "  nothing,"  as  Mr.  "VValpole 
reports  in  1849,  "but  many  of  the  vices  of  civilization,  and 
most  of  the  follies  of  the  savage;"  "little,"  as  Mr.  D'Ewes 
adds  in  1855,  "except  in  name  and  outward  observances,  of 
the  real  spirit  of  Christianity."  At  length  they  were  ejected, 
amid  the  acclamations  of  the  "haggard  and  diseased"  remnant 
of  the  population,  among  whom,  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Pridham, 
they  had  only  "  added  by  their  own  presence  a  new  plague  fro 
the  evils  they  had  come  to  cure ;"  and  whereas,  as  Mr.  Wilkes 
and  Mr.  Melville  noticed,  they  had  "  kept  their  own  children 
aloof"  from  all  intercourse  with  the  natives,  because  of  the 
universal  immorality  of  which  the  worst  examples  had  been 
given  by  Protestant  "missionaries,"  such  as  Lewis,  Veeson, 
and  Broomhall,  so  prompt  was  the  regenerating  influence  of 
Catholic  France,  that,  in  1861,  Mr.  Tilley  found  amongst  the 
once  degraded  women  of  Tahiti  refined  and  educated  mothers, 
"  admirable  specimens  of  the  commingled  European  and 
Tahitian  blood,"  while  Mr.  Therry  ascertained  in  1863,  that 
"  this  important  island  is  now,"  in  spite  of  all  which  had  been 
done  to  pollute  and  destroy  it,  "  a  civilized  and  prosperous 
community  !" 

The  Sandwich  Islands,  again,  to  take  but  one  other  example, 
have  been  for  nearly  half  a  century  the  spoil  and  prey  of 
missionaries  of  the  same  class.  In  vain  during  thirty  years 
they  strove  to  hide  both  their  own  proceedings  and  the  real 
condition  of  their  disciples,  by  describing,  in  ofticial  reports 
addressed  to  the  English  and  American  societies,  "  the  extensive 

S-evalence  of  piety  among  them,"  and  "  the  signal  triumphs  of 
ivine  grace."  At  length  the  veil  was  torn  away,  and  the 
heartless  fiction  exposed.  Mr.  Olmsted,  Mr.  Ilines,  and  Mr. 
Dana  revealed,  one  after  the  other,  "  the  astonishing  depopu 
lation  without  a  parallel  in  the  history  of  nations."  Others 
recorded  with  surprise  the  luxurious  lives  and  unblushing  greed 
of  the  missionaries,  "  seeking  wealth  diligently,"  in  the  words 
of  Mr.  Manley  Hopkins,  in  spite  of  their  ample  salaries,  "and 
investing  it  in  very  remunerative  securities;"  a  proverb,  as 
Mr.  Walpole  discovered,  for  "  undenied  monetary  dirtiness ;'' 
abandoning  mission  work,  as  Dr.  Seemann  remarked,  to  seize 
upon  official  positions,  and  "  reducing  the  natives  to  penury,"  as 


SUMMARY.  415 

Dr.  Meyen  observed,  "  by  their  detestable  frauds."  And  though 
it  is  just  to  admit  that  such  men  would  be  cast  out  as  a  re 
proach  and  a  scandal  by  conscientious  Protestants,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  they  were  the  confidential  agents,  during  a 
long  series  of  years,  of  missionary  societies  composed  of  lead 
ing  clergymen  and  influential  laymen,  who  willingly  augmented 
their  revenues  by  propagating  the  shameless  "  reports"  of  these 
very  men,  and  even  when  compelled  to  denounce,  from  motives 
of  worldly  prudence,  their  greedy  speculations,  still  continued 
to  employ  them,  and  pointed  to  their  fictitious  successes  with 
a  dishonesty  at  least  equal  to  theirs,  in  justification  of  their 
annual  appeal  for  fresh  contributions  to  their  own  exhausted 
treasury. 

Yet  their  employers  were  not  ignorant,  as  we  have  seen,  of 
the  narratives,  which  had  been  multiplying  during  many  years, 
of  a  crowd  of  impartial  Protestant  travellers,  ardently  sympa 
thizing  with  the  missionaries  whose  career  they  described.  As 
early  as  1831,  Captain  Beechey  had  observed  "what  little  effect 
the  exertions  of  the  missionaries  had  produced."  In  1832,  as 
we  learn  from  the  British  Consul-general,  though  the  official 
reports  spoke  only  of  "  the  triumphs  of  Divine  grace,"  "  moral 
anarchy  prevailed  throughout  the  group  ;  schools  were  deserted, 
the  teachers  themselves  falling  away ;  buildings  for  worship 
were  burned  ;  the  dark  habits  of  heathenism  sprang  up  again." 
A  little  later  Captain  Sherard  Osborn  heard  so-called  Protest 
ant  natives  "singing  the  sixty -fourth  Psalm  to  soothe  the 
heathen  goddess  who  presides  over  their  volcano."  In  1840, 
Commodore  Read  reported  that  the  nominal  Christians  were 
"  still  licentious,  and  quite  ignorant  of  the  term  virtue."  In 
1843,  Sir  Edward  Belcher  recorded  his  own  observation,  that 
"the  greatest  excesses  are  committed  within  the  missionary 
circle,  which  includes  the  king  and  chiefs."  In  1850,  Dr.  See- 
mann  confirmed  his  report.  In  1851,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Hines  as 
certained  the  hopeless  degradation  of  the  whole  people,  "  from 
the  hut  of  the  menial  to  the  royal  palace,"  and  quoted  the 
private  confessions  of  missionaries,  that  "none  gave  evidence 
of  being  Christian."  Lastly,  in  1862,  Mr.  Manley  Hopkins  de 
clared  with  sorrow  that  the  long  reign  of  Protestantism  had 
only  produced  "a  nation  of  hypocrites;"  Mr.  Wyllie  added 
that  it  was  u  impossible  to  preserve"  a  people  so  universally 
demoralized;  the  Polynesian  and  other  authorities  publicly 
declared  that  the  most  assiduous  frequenter  of  the  Protestant 
church  on  Sunday  would  sell  his  wife  or  daughter  on  Monday  ; 
and  Dr.  Rae  asserted  in  the  government  journal,  without 
challenge  or  reply,  that  the  missionaries  were  everywhere 
objects  of  disgust  or  derision. 


416  CHAPTER  X. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  missionaries  themselves  confessed 
that  their  disciples  were  deserting  them  by  thousands  to  be 
come  Catholics;  Mr.  Walpole  and  Sir  George  Simpson  ex 
pressed  their  reluctant  admiration  of  the  latter,  ventured  to 
avow  that  they  were  "  strongly  prepossessed  in  their  favor," 
and  related,  with  natural  surprise,  that  they  resisted  "  even  to 
death"  every  attempt  to  force  them  to  apostasy ;  while  Mr. 
Dana,  commissioned  by  the  Protestant  societies  to  visit  and  re 
port  upon  all  the  facts,  gave  such  an  account  of  the  success  of 
the  Catholic  missionaries,  of  their  overflowing  churches,  and  the 
universal  esteem  which  they  had  acquired  among  all  ranks  of 
Protestants,  that  his  employers,  less  candid  and  truthful  than 
their  agent,  suppressed,  as  Mr.  Hopkins  has  told  us,  all  these 
passages  of  his  unwelcome  report  as  "  unsatisfactory  to  the 
supporters  of  the  mission  !" 

V I.  What,  again,  is  the  history  of  African  missions  but  a 
contrast  from  the  first  page  to  the  last?  Who  is  so  blind  as  not 
to  behold  God  on  one  side,  with  all  His  gifts ;  and  on  the  other, 
only  man,  naked  and  feeble,  busy  in  a  work  which  always  fails, 
and  sowing  the  seeds  of  a  harvest  which  he  never  reaps  ?  See 
in  North  Africa  the  sons  of  St.  Francis  and  St.  Dominic,  gladly 
dying  by  hundreds,  that  so,  by  this  sacrifice  of  propitiation,  the 
wrath  of  God  may  one  day  be  appeased,  a  Christian  nation  rule 
from  the  sea  to  the  foot  of  the  Atlas,  and  light  dawn  again  over 
the  land  where  once  St.  Augustine  preached.  In  the  East,  see 
the  same  apostolic  workmen  braving  all  dangers  and  enduring 
all  afflictions, — in  Egypt  and  in  Nubia,  in  the  mountains  of 
Abyssinia  and  by  the  shores  of  the  White  Nile, — passing  through 
Gondar  and  Sennar,  Enarea  and  Kaffa,  and  daring  to  penetrate 
even  to  Darfour  and  the  distant  Soudan, — patient  in  all  temp 
tations,  returning  to-day  to  the  spot' from  which  they  were  driven 
yesterday,  doing  battle  with  Pagan,  Moslem,  or  Monophysite, 
and  deeming  the  toils  of  a  life  too  richly  recompensed  if  they 
can  gather  together  a  few  hundreds  here,  a  few  thousands  there, 
first-fruits  of  a  richer  harvest,  and  presage  of  greater  victories 
to  come.  And  in  this  warfare  of  heroes,  too  often  "  victims," 
as  an  English  writer  has  told  us,  "  to  the  excessive  austerity  of 
their  lives,"  but  "  leaving  a  memory  venerated  even  by  the 
pagans,"  let  us  note  once  more  what  men  can  become  whom 
God  has  raised  to  the  dignity  of  apostles,  and  "  whose  funeral 
chant  is  sung,"  as  Mr.  Hamilton  relates,  by  the  Negro  and  the 
Nubian,  kindled  to  love  and  admiration  by  virtues  which  they 
justly  deemed  more  than  human,  and  by  sacrifices  which  are 
precious  enough  to  win  a  blessing  even  for  the  race  of  Cham. 
Who  among  modern  missionaries  comes  nearer  to  the  old  heroic 
type  than  Jacobis,  anointed  on  the  rock  of  Dhalac  by  a  prelatw 


SUMMARY.  417 

a  fugitive  like  himself,  yet  winning  homage  from  German 
savans  and  English  tourists  as  well  as  from  the  kings  of  Tigre 
and  Shoa,  and  enthroned  at  last  in  Gondar  as  high-priest  of 
God,  and  delegate  of  the  Yicar  of  Christ ;  or  Massaia,  for  fifteen 
years  a  wanderer  between  the  Arabian  Gulf  and  the  mountains 
of  Ethiopia,  insensible  to  pain  and  want,  "sorrowful  yet  always 
rejoicing,  needy  yet  enriching  many,  having  nothing  yet  possess 
ing  all  things,"  and  willing  to  live  thus  to  the  end,  that  so,  in 
his  own  words,  he  may  u  plant  the  Cross  and  kindle  the  evan 
gelical  fire"  in  that  rudeGallas  nation,  whose  fierce  tribes  have 
already  yielded  to  the  service  of  God  five  priests,  and  twice  as 
many  aspirants  to  the  ecclesiastical  state. 

Compare  this  history,  which  begins  with  St.  Francis  of  Assisi, 
and  ends  with  Massaia  and  Jacobis,  with  those  records  of  weak 
ness  and  shame,  of  strife  and  impurity,  which  make  up  the 
tale  of  Protestant  missions  in  Africa,  as  related  by  Protestant 
historians.  It  is  from  them  that  we  have  learned,' for  we  have 
used  no  other  testimony,  what  their  co-religionists  are,  and  what 
they  have  done,  in  Africa.  In  Morocco  you  will  hear,  not  of 
martyrs  or  confessors,  but  of  the  solitary  Protestant  minister, 
who  scattered  Bibles  which  were  thrown  into  the  fire,  and  then 
ran  away  amid  the  hisses  of  the  people;  in  Algeria,  of  Mr. 
Ewald,  whose  operations  were  of  the  same  nature,  and  led  to 
the  same  result;  in  Tunis,  of  the  Scotch  mission,  "since 
abandoned,"  and  of  certain  pretended  converts  whom  the 
British  Consul  briefly  described  as  "  those  wretches."  In 
Egypt  you  will  find  the  English  engaged  in  their  usual  work, 
and  avenging  their  own  religious  misadventures  by  intriguing 
to  prevent  the  reconciliation  of  the  Coptic  nation  with  the 
Catholic  Church,  content  to  mar  in  all  lands  what  they  imitate 
in  none  ;  or  educating  a  few  Egyptians  and  Arabs  at  Cairo,  who, 
as  Dr.  Durbin  has  told  us,  u  resume,"  when  they  quit  the 
school, — like  the  Protestant  students  in  China,  India,  Ceylon, 
and  everywhere  else, — the  habits  and  principles  which  their 
unfruitful  education  was  designed  to  correct.  In  Abyssinia  you 
will  meet  Dr.  Gobat  and  Dr.  Krapf,  both  now  reposing  amid 
other  scenes,  of  whom  the  first  failed  to  attract  the  sympathy  of 
the  Abyssinians,  who  refused  to  believe  that  he  was  not  a 
"  Mussulman,"  and  the  last  has  left  nothing  more  notable  on 
record  than  the  prodigious  statement,  which  would  have  sur 
prised  the  disciples  of  St.  Paul,  that  '•  an  unmarried  missionary 
cannot  eventually  prosper  ;"  while  each  gained  a  solitary  con 
vert,  of  whom  one  "  turned  Muhammedan  at  Cairo,"  and  the 
other  was  "  the  unrenewed  and  unregenerate  Wolda  Gabriel." 
In  the  West,  where  the  sons  of  St.  Ignatius,  before  they  were 
banished,  won  whole  nations,  who  still  strive,  after  the  lapse  of 

TOL.  II.  28 


418  CHAPTER  X. 

three-quarters  of  a  century,  to  repeat  their  half-forgotten  lessons, 
—Mr.  Murray  tells  us  of  "  the  flagrant  misconduct"  of  the  first 
Protestant  emissaries,  and  of  Mr  Horn  em  an  who  developed  into 
"  a  highly  respectable  marabout,  or  mussulman  saint ;"  and 
Mr.  Moister  celebrates  the  Anglican  chaplain  who  never  made 
a  convert  in  fifty  years,  and,  unmindful  of  Oxford  theology, 
worshipped  thefetis/i  on  his  death-bed ;  and  Mr.  Walker  com 
memorates  the  Anglican  "  communicants,"  who  "  obstinately 
adhered  to  their  superstitious  usages ;"  and  Mr.  Cruickshank 
the  "  converts,"  who  "  exhibited  a  uniformity  of  weakness  truly 
humiliating  and  deplorable;"  and  Mr.  Duncan  the  "  scholars,1' 
whose  knowledge  only  made  them  "  more  perfect  in  villany  ;" 
and  Captain  Ilewett  the  "missionary  proteges,"  brought  up 
under  their  own  eye,  but  "invariably  found  to  be  lying,  cunning, 
and  utterly  worthless."  Lastly,  Dr.  Armstrong  and  Mr.  Calder- 
wood  lament  that  "  the  Caffres  have  refused  the  Gospel,"  with 
the  exception  of  a  very  small  number  of  nominal  disciples,  who, 
as  a  multitude  of  eye-witnesses  declare,  "  are  the  worst  behaved 
of  the  whole  tribe;"  while  the  Protestant  Hottentots, in  whom 
Mr.  MofFat  detected  "  the  unction  of  the  Spirit,"  are  described 
by  the  same  authorities  as  "  notoriously  the  most  idle  and  worth 
less  of  their  nation  ;"  and  even  their  teachers  are  said  to  be  so 
incurably  addicted  to  agricultural  and  trading  pursuits,  in  pref 
erence  to  missionary  toils,  that  Mr.  Merriman  reproachfully 
observes,  "  I  meet  with  examples  of  this  wherever  I  go."  They 
are  Protestants,  once  more,  from  whom  we  learn  these  facts, 
and  without  whose  testimony  it  would  have  been  impossible  to 
prove  them. 

VII.  In  the  Levant,  where  "British  protection  is  fully  en 
joyed,"  we  have  seen  the  usual  enormous  and  perfectly  useless 
expenditure,  by  agents  whose  "  utter  unprofitableness,"  as  Ad 
miral  Slade  relates,  "cannot  be  sufficiently  pointed  out."  We 
have  witnessed  the  customary  distribution  of  thousands  of  books, 
during  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  which  nobody  read, 
and  which  it  was  discovered  too  late,  when  half  a  million 
volumes  had  been  printed,  that  nobody  was  allowed  to  read. 
We  have  seen  American  missionaries  courting  their  Athenian 
hosts  with  flattering  speech,  till  the  latter  cast  them  out  as 
"  heresiarchs  from  the  caverns  of  hell,"  and  then  repaying  the 
unexpected  affront  by  reviling  the  contemptuous  Greeks  as 
"  worse  than  Romanists."  We  have  visited  the  Malta  College, 
with  its  ardent  professors  and  ingenious  lodgers,  speculating 
with  unfailing  success  upon  the  well-known  qualities  of  their 
English  benefactors,  and  always  repeating  with  quiet  assurance 
the  artifices  which  experience  had  taught  them  would  never 
be  practised  in  vain.  We  have  seen  too  its  choicest  guests, — 


SUMMARY.  419 

Acbilli,  who  fascinated  the  too  credulous  Anglican  with 
dexterous  hints  "  that  he  would  join  himself  to  our  church,"  but 
who  chose  at  last,  when  English  benevolence  decayed,  the 
church  of  Mr.  Swedenborg ;  and  Naudi,  instructing  an  imagin 
ary  congregation  of  ideal  converts,  and  repaying  the  bounty  of 
the  Church  Missionary  Society  with  "  annual  reports,"  till 
Dr.  Wolff  discovered,  many  years  too  late,  that  Levantine  Prot 
estantism  was  a  pleasant  fable,  and  E~audi  a  prosperous  cheat. 

In  Turkey,  we  have  found  the  missionaries  from  beyond  the 
Atlantic  attracted  in  crowds  by  "the  comforts  and 'pleasant 
things  about  this  life  in  the  East,"  and  celebrating  the  "  moral 
sublimity"  of  missionary  nuptials ;  but  not  even  attempting,  as 
Mr.  Walpole  remarks,  "  any  conversion  except  of  the  Christians." 
We  have  been  introduced  also  to  their  "converts,"  a  few  score 
of  shrewd  Armenians,  "  inh'dels  and  radicals,"  as  one  of  their 
own  preachers  has  assured  us,  "  who  deserve  no  sympathy  from 
the  Christian  public,"  but  who  never  ask  it  in  vain  from  men 
who  are  too  much  in  want  of  disciples  not  to  judge  their  frailties 
with  indulgence,  even  when  they  are  so  notorious  that,  in  the 
candid  words  of  Dr.  Joseph  Wolff,  "  the  worst  people  among 
the  Eastern  natives  are  those  who  have  been  converted  to  Prot 
estantism."  In  Syria,  as  Dr.  Durbin  deplores,  "  they  have 
come  into  collision  with  each  other,"  disputing  before  the  Turk 
and  the  Greek  about  "  the  validity  of  their  respective  minis 
tries."  In  Jerusalem,  where  they  inhabit  palaces  with  "  marble 
floors,"  and  bid  against  one  another  for  Hebrew  catechumens, 
who  have  learned  to  consider  Christian  baptism  "  the  only 
good  business  they  have,"  they  run  away,  as  Dr.  Robinson 
notices,  at  the  first  rumor  of  pestilence,  and  leave  the  mis 
sionaries  of  the  Cross  to  die  amidst  the  sick  whom  they  have 
abandoned.  Lastly,  in  Armenia,  where  Mr.  Perkins  and  his 
opulent  colleagues  disposed  of  about  twice  the  revenue  which 
the  great  Republic  allots  to  its  President,  and  rode  forth  on 
"  horses  of  every  breed"  of  which  a  monarch  might  have  envied 
the  possession,  though  half  the  hierarchy  of  Armenia  accepted 
their  pensions,  "  their  expensive  establishments,"  as  their  friend 
Dr.  Wagner  detected,  "  have  made  no  converts."  Such,  as 
their  own  witnesses  relate,  is  the  history  of  Protestant  missions 
in  the  Levant,  Syria,  and  Armenia, — of  what  even  their  warmest 
advocates  call  in  derision  "  their  useless  missions  in  the  East." 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  seen  missionaries  of  a  different 
class,  more  solicitous  to  abide  in  poverty  than  their  rivals  to 
secure  luxury  and  ease,  toiling  during  three  centuries  in  the 
same  lands, — dying  in  the  galleys  of  Constantinople,  or  in  the 
plague-stricken  cities  of  Syria, — spreading  far  and  wide  the 
blessings  of  education,  from  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorus  to  the 


420  CHAPTER   X. 

mouth  of  the  Euphrates,  and  from  the  coasts  of  Palestine  to 
the  borders  of  the  Caspian  Sea, — attracting  scholars  "from 
Beyrout  and  Damascus,  from  Persia  and  Egypt,  and  even  from 
Nubia  and  Abyssinia," — "saving  millions  of  souls,"  as  a 
generous  English  writer  has  told  us,  and  "  spreading  a  sea  of 
benefits,  silently  and  unostentatiously,"  wherever  Mussulmans 
rule  and  Christians  suffer ;  till  at  length  they  have  won  to  the 
faith,  and  are  daily  winning  out  of  every  eastern  nation,  that 
multitude  of  disciples  whose  "  liberality  and  intelligence," 
"  decided  superiority,"  and  "  elevation  in  the  scale  of  civiliza 
tion,"  even  the  most  hostile  witnesses  reluctantly  attribute  to 
their  reconciliation  with  the  Catholic  Church.  Already,  as  we 
have  seen,  "  nearly  all  Syria,"  the  whole  of  Chaldea,  and  the 
greater  part  of  Armenia,  have  accepted  their  message,  or 
announced  their  willingness  to  do  so  ;  while  every  oriental  tribe, 
easily  discriminating  between  the  lowly  ambassadors  of  the 
Church  and  the  worldly  and  contentious  prophets  of  the  Sects, 
draws  nearer  to  them  year  by  year ;  and  even  the  Turk,  moved 
by  the  exceeding  charity  of  those  ministering  angels  who  labor 
with  them,  and  rebuking  by  a  purer  instinct  the  insatiable 
malice  which  can  revile  even  such  as  these,  asks  in  astonish 
ment,  "  whether  they  came  down  thus  from  heaven  ?" 

VIII.  Lastly,  in  America, — but  why  should  we  resume  a 
history  so  lately  reviewed,  in  which  there  is  all  on  one  side, 
and  nothing  on  the  other  ?  Why  should  we  compare  again  the 
Divine  ministry  which  has  added  millions  of  Indians  to  the 
fold  of  Christ,  with  the  unblest  efforts  of  men  who  have  out 
raged  many,  but  converted  none ;  have  depopulated  regions 
wider  than  the  empires  of  the  old  world  ;  and  have  left  at  last, 
as  a  record  and  monument  of  their  work,  only  a  miserable  rem 
nant  alive,  till  they  have  time  to  destroy  them,  also,  through 
out  the  whole  vast  continent  where  the  Anglo-Saxon  reigns? 


THE    CITY    OF    GOD    AND    THE    CITY    OF    CONFUSION. 

It  has  been  our  attempt  in  these  volumes,  neglecting  the 
familiar  controversies  of  other  days,  to  display  the  Church  and 
the  Sects  in  action,  in  every  land  where  there  were  gentiles  to 
be  converted ;  nor  can  that  be  deemed  a  partial  or  inadequate 
test  of  both  which  has  had  three  centuries  for  its  period,  and 
the  world  for  its  sphere.  The  general  results  of  its  application 
are  now  sufficiently  manifest,  but  there  are  still  certain  points 
of  detail  which  claim  a  moment's  attention,  even  in  this  rapid 
summary. 


SUMMARY.  421 

That  the  agents  of  the  Sects,  having  neither  the  gifts  nor  the 
calling  of  apostles,  should  have  failed  to  convert  the  heathen, 
will  surprise  none  who  believe  that  such  a  work  can  be  accom 
plished  only  by  the  co-operation  of  God.  But  the  results  of 
their  intrusion  into  the  apostolic  office  have  not  been  simply 
negative.  This  would  be  an  imperfect  estimate  of  their  failure. 
It  is  to  their  presence  in  every  pagan  land  that  their  own  dis 
ciples  attribute,  in  moments  of  candor,  what  even  they  call  the 
growing  hatred  of  the  pagan  world  Unvards  Christianity  and  its 
professors.  Protestantism,  we  have  said,  is  the  last  scourge  of 
Heathenism  ;  and  this  is  true  in  many  ways,  but  especially  in 
this, — that  it  has  everywhere  set  up,  not  only  a  spurious  type 
of  Christian  life,  indolent,  effeminate,  and  luxurious,  which 
even  the  barbarian  has  ridiculed  as  scarcely  less  earthly  than 
his  own  ;  but  a  miserable  caricature  of  the  Christian  Church,  in 
which  he  has  detected  only  weakness  and  confusion,  ceaseless 
strife  and  unappeasable  disorder.  Everywhere,  therefore,  he 
has  confounded  in  a  common  disdain  the  few  whose  natural 
gifts  might  have  merited  his  respect,  with  the  crowd  of  adven 
turers  who  accompanied  them.  Marty  n  and  Schwartz,  like 
Tomlin  and  Gutzlan,  were  equally  in  his  eyes  the  salaried  agents 
of  some  impure  sect ;  Heber  and  Selwyn,  no  less  than  Morrison 
or  Edkins,  only  amused  him  by  the  incoherence  of  their  doctrine 
and  the  inconsistency  of  their  practice,  or  revolted  him  by  the 
effeminacy  of  their  domestic  life.  They  were  too  like  himself 
to  suggest  the  belief  that  they  had  a  mission  from  heaven,  and 
too  eagerly  solicitous  about  common  joys  to  encourage  the  idea 
that  they  had  divorced  themselves  from  earth.  He  perceived 
also  that  even  these  few,  in  spite  of  their  higher  qualities,  came 
to  him,  like  all  the  rest,  with  a  "  Protest"  written  on  their  fore 
heads  against  the  only  Church  which  lie  could  have  venerated  ; 
and  when  he  saw  these  men,  the  chiefs  of  their  sect,  tearing 
the  Seamless  Kobe  into  a  thousand  fragments,  and  running  to 
him  with  the  pieces  in  their  hands  to  show  him  what  they  had 
done, — can  we  marvel  if  he  turned  his  back  upon  them,  or  an 
swered  with  scorn,  like  the  Jews  of  old,  Quid  ad  nosf  What 
is  that  to  us?  or  if,  as  we  have  been  told,  the  subtle  Hindoo, 
keenly  appreciating  the  mingled  folly  and  violence  of  their 
anti-Catholic  harangues,  satirically  asks,  "  Why  should  we  be 
come  Christians,  when  you  tell  us  that  three-fourths  of  the 
Christian  world  have  adopted  a  creed  no  way  superior  to  our 
own  ?3'  Let  us  see,  then,  once  more,  how  the  heathen  have 
judged  the  Sects,  and  the  incessant  mutual  conflicts  which  even 
they  can  trace  to  their  true  source,  and  in  what  language  they 
have  expressed  their  judgment. 

I.  It  was  an  observation  of  Leibnitz,  that  "  the  want  of  union 


422  CHAPTER   X. 

among  Protestants"  would  always  suffice  to  ruin  any  work 
which  they  might  undertake.  If  he  had  lived  to  mark  their 
attempts  to  convert  the  heathen,  he  would  have  seen  his  pre 
diction  fulfilled.  "  The  existence  ^profound  divisions  among 
ourselves"  Lord  Elgin  observed  during  his  residence  in  China, 
"  is  one  of  the  first  truths  which  we  Christians  reveal  to  the 
heathen."  "There  is  no  greater  barrier,"  says  an  intelligent 
British  official  in  that  country,  "  to  the  spread  of  the  Gospel 
than  the  division  and  splitting  which  have  taken  place  among 
the  various  orders  of  Christians  themselves."  "The  great  and 
fatal  error,"  adds  a  third  witness,  "is  the  rivalry  of  religious 
sects,  and  the  attempt  to  gain  followers  at  the  expense  of  each 
other's  tenets."  We  have  seen  that  Mr.  Medhurst  could  only 
explain  his  own  failure  and  that  of  his  colleagues  by  the  "  sad 
disunion"  which  prevailed  among  them.  The  Chinese,  who 
contemplates  this  singular  spectacle  with  a  sentiment  of  com 
passion  for  the  "  outer  barbarian"  who  cannot  even  agree  about 
his  religion,  judiciously  remarks,  as  Mr.  Colledge  relates,  "that 
Europe  and  America,"  which  have  already  sent  him  more  than 
twenty  different  sects,  "  must  have  as  many  Christs  as  China 
has  gods"  Yet  the  Catholic  Chinese,  united  in  every  province 
of  the  empire  in  the  same  unvarying  faith,  have  displayed  dur 
ing  three  centuries  such  inflexible  unity,  and  such  ardent  chari 
ty,  that  while  the  pagans  themselves,  as  Commander  Brine  re 
lates,  have  learned  to  contrast  their  "  great  unanimity"  with 
the  "  variety  of  sentiment"  which  excites  their  contempt  for 
Protestantism,  one  of  the  most  cruel  of  their  emperors  declared 
in  a  public  proclamation,  "  All  who  become  Christians,  whether 
rich  or  poor,  directly  they  embrace  this  religion  have  such  an 
affection  for  one  another,  that  they  seem  to  be  of  one  bone  and 
one  flesh."  Never,  since  the  primitive  ages,  was  that  word  of 
our  Lord  more  impressively  fulfilled,  "  By  this  shall  all  men 
know  that  you  are  My  disciples,  if  you  have  love  one  for  an 
other." 

II.  "The  discordant  tenets  of  the  missionaries"  in  India  was 
deplored  long  ago  by  Dr.  Middleton  with  unavailing  regret ; 
and  in  our  own  day,  Mr.  Russell  still  notes  "  the  astonishment 
of  the  Asiatics"  at  the  implacable  divisions  of  the  various  sects, 
"  all  claiming  to  be  of  one  religion."  "  Their  observation  uni 
formly  is,"  says  Mr.  Le  Bas,  "  that  they  should  think  much 
better  of  Christianity,  if  there  were  not  quite  so  many  different 
kinds  of  it."  It  is  a  well-known  jest  among  the  Brahmins, 
who  have  contemplated  the  various  English,  German,  and 
American  religions  in  the  cities  of  Bengal  and  Madras,  and 
have  watched  with  amusement  their  fretful  jealousies  and  eager 
rivalry,  that  "  their  professors  would  do  far  better  to  agree 


SUMMARY.  423 

among  themselves  what  Christianity  is,  before  they  pretend  to 
teach  it  to  others  ;"  while  men  of  lower  caste  find  in  the  same 
portent  only  a  motive  for  deriding  the  Gospel,  and  "  many  of 
the  Hindus,"  we  are  told,  "  knowing  the  differences  amongst 
Christians,  ask,  '  To  which  Sect  would  you  have  me  adhere  ?"* 

III.  In  Ceylon,  we  have  learned  from  Sir  Emerson  Tennent, 
"the  choice  of  sects  leads  to  utter  bewilderment."  "The 
native,"  says  another,  "  is  perfectly  aghast  at  the  variety  of 
choice."  Can  we  blame  him  if  he  concludes  that  Christianity 
is  a  mere  imposture,  unworthy  of  his  serious  attention  ;  until 
he  comes  in  contact  with  that  ancient  form  of  it  which,  like 
God,  "  is  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever,"  and  which 
has  already  captivated  the  allegiance  of  so  many  of  his  country 
men?  "The  Protestant  Church,"  says  an  Anglo-Cingalese 
writer,  who  had  heard  the  pagan  comments  upon  "  her  multi 
tudinous  sects  and  schisms,"  "  has  no  chance  in  competition 
with  the  Roman  Catholic ;"  but  he  does  not  appear  to  have 
asked  himself,  like  the  more  discerning  pagan,  why  the  one  is 
a  very  symbol  of  confusion  and  disorder,  while  the  other  remains 
eternally  unchanged  ? 

IY.  The  bitter  fruits  of  Protestantism  in  ISTew  Zealand  have 
been  described  to  us  by  Dr.  Selwyn.  "  The  spirit  of  contro 
versy,"  he  says,  "  is  everywhere  found  to  prevail,  in  many 
cases  to  the  entire  exclusion  of  all  simplicity  of  faith."  We 
have  seen  what  was  his  own  mode  of  dealing  with  the  evil. 
"  The  spirit  of  Christianity,"  observes  the  Eev.  Elijah  Iloole, 
"  is  lost  in  the  form,  and  the  very  form  itself  has  become  the 
subject  of  incessant  and  angry  dispute."  "  We  have  the  awful 
sight,"  adds  the  Rev.  Mr.  Turton,  "of  father  and  son,  mother 
and  daughter,  hating  each  other  with  a  mortal  hatred."  Such 
is,  in  all  the  earth,  the  deadly  influence  of  Protestantism,  the 
observation  of  which  forced  one  New  Zealand  chief  to  say,  in 
reply  to  the  overtures  of  a  missionary,  "  When  you  have  agreed 
amongst  yourselves  which  is  the  right  road,  I  may  perhaps  be 
induced  to  take  it ;"  and  suggested  to  another,  whose  experi 
ence  of  Protestant  Christianity  had  only  occasioned  a  speedy 
relapse  into  heathenism,  the  ingenious  taunt,  "  One  beehive  is 
good,  but  many  are  troublesome." 

V.  In  the  islands  of  the  Pacific,  where,  as  Mr.  Walpole  ob 
serves,  "  every  variety  of  Dissenters  exists  among  the  teachers," 
who,  as  Dr.  Ruschenberger  adds,  "deal  damnation  in  a  peculiar 
slang  to  all  whose  opinions  differ  from  their  own,"  the  poor 
savage  makes  the  usual  reflections,  "  as  one  sect  succeeds 
another ;"  but  as  he  is  perfectly  indifferent  to  all  of  them,  and 

*  Ancient  and  Modern  India,  p.  520. 


424:  CHAPTER  X. 

only  estimates  them  according  to  their  relative  wealth,  the 
varieties  of  their  chameleon  creed  add  nothing  whatever  to  the 
contempt  which  he  feels  for  the  worldliness,  cupidity,  and  in 
justice  which  is  common  to  them  all. 

VI.  In  Africa,  which  abounds,  as  Dr.  Armstrong  and  his 
companions  lamented,  in  "church  troubles,"  where  "the  com 
petition  between  the  Church  and  the  rival  sects  of  Dissenters," 
as  Captain  Hewett  observes,  "miist  militate  against  the  success 
of  missionaries,"  and  where  Mr.  Merrirnan  deplores  the  constant 
ineffectiveness  of  English  operations,  "  in  consequence  of  their 
religious  divisions,"  Dr.  Livingstone  has  told  us,  that  "the 
mission  stations  are  mere  pauper  establishments"  unlike  "the 
self-supporting  primitive  monasteries,  pioneers  of  civilization 
and  agriculture,  from  which  we  even  now  reap  benefits ;"  and 
that  one  result  of  "  such  a  variety  of  Christian  sects,"  each 

-  maintaining  a  pauper  establishment  for  the  disciples  whom  they 
would  never  attract  without  it,  is  this — "  that  converts  of  one 
denomination  are  eagerly  adopted  by  another,"  to  the  great 
detriment,  as  he  intimates,  of  their  spiritual  progress.  The 
Presbyterian  Hottentot,  whatever  his  frailties,  knows  that  the 
rival  Wesleyan  "  Establishment"  is  always  open  to  him  ;  the 
disorderly  Baptist  is  sure  of  a  hearty  welcome  among  the 
Anglicans;  the  refractory  Anglican  is  embraced  with  joy  by  the 
American  Congregationalists;  the  United  Brethren  dispute  the 
honor  of  entertaining  him  with  the  Rhenish  Missionary 
Society ;  and  the  Hottentot  himself,  solicitous  only  about  his 

•  next  meal,  rejoices  in  the  multiplicity  of  institutions  where  a 
new  profession  of  faith  will  at  least  allay  the  pangs  of  hunger, 
perhaps  even  secure  the  luxury  of  a  change  of  diet.  Yet  he 
uses  these  advantages  without  an  emotion  of  gratitude,  and 
"  the  moment  the  food  and  lodging  are  discontinued,  he  does 
not  scruple,"  says  Mr.  Andersson,  "  to  treat  his  benefactor  with 
ingratitude,  and  to  load  him  with  abuse."  So  that  even  the 
savage  of  South  Africa,  gross  and  irrational  as  he  is,  takes 
exactly  the  same  view  of  his  relation  to  the  various  Protestant 
sects  as  the  more  subtle  Chinese  or  Hindoo ;  while  his  rival 
hosts,  unable  to  heal  what  even  they  call  their  "  accursed 
divisions,"  make  ineffectual  attempts  to  hide  them,  like  the 
Anglican  archdeacon  who  humbly  suggested  &  joint  service  to 
the  Wesleyan  preacher,  lest  the  barbarians  should  detect  the 
discord  which  he  devised  this  characteristic  mode  of  concealing. 

VII.  In  Syria,  as  Dr.  Durbin  has  informed  us,  the  Protestant 
missionaries,  doomed   to   eternal  warfare,   "  have  come   into 
collision   with    each    other   in    the    midst    of  these    ancient 
churches," — for  it  is  the  will  of  the  imperious  master  whom 
they  unwittingly  serve,  that  they  should  display  his  banner 


SUMMARY.  425 

in  all  lands.  In  Turkey,  as  Dr.  Sonthgate  angrily  records,  they 
are  only  busy  in  promoting  "horrid  schism,"  though  he  has  no 
rebukes  for  the  schism  which  he  vainly  struggled  to  establi&h 
himself,  till  his  expensive  failure  led  to  his  recall.  In  Armenia, 
as  Mr.  Badger  relates,  the  Americans  proposed  to  veil  the  un 
welcome  fact  "  that  there  are  rival  Protestant  sects  and  inter 
ests,"  by  warning  the  Anglicans  off  the  field — a  suggestion 
which  was  perfectly  unnecessary,  as  they  never  thought  of 
entering  it,  but  which  Mr.  Badger  warmly  resented,  and  which 
he  considered  "as  presumptuous  as  it  is  ludicrous." 

VIII.  Lastly,  America  exhibits,  on  a  still  larger  scale,  and 
with  the  same  fatal  results  which  we  have  witnessed  in  every 
other  land,  the  phenomena  which  mark  the  presence  of  Prot 
estantism,  and  which  make  Christianity  a  laughing-stock  among 
all  the  races  of  the  earth ;  so  that  one  Indian  sachem  observed, 
"  If  there  is  but  one  religion,  why  do  white  men  differ  so  much 
about  it?" — and  another  exclaimed,  with  a  feeling  of  superiority 
which  he  did  not  attempt  to  conceal,  "If  I  should  have  a  mind 
to  turn  Christian,  I  could  not  tell  what  religion  to  be  of."  A 
third  displayed  a  still  keener  irony,  when  he  retorted  upon  a 
Protestant  missionary  the  lesson  which  he  had  taught  him  too 
well,  and  positively  declined  to  become  a  Protestant,  on  the 
Protestant  ground,  that  "  Every  man  should  paddle  his  canoe 
his  own  way."  Finally,  a  fourth,  the  chief  of  the  Cree  nation, 
after  noticing  the  varieties  of  doctrine  proposed  to  his  tribe, 
lately  assured  Mr.  Kane,  that  "  as  he  did  not  know  which  was 
right,  he  thought  they  ought  to  call  a  council  amongst  them 
selves,  and  that  then  he  would  go  with  them  all;  but  that  until 
they  agreed,  he  would  wait."*  Yet  we  have  seen  Catholic  In 
dians,  of  many  nations  arid  climes,  steadfastly  adhering,  gen 
eration  after  generation,  under  all  difficulties  and  temptations, 
to  one  unvarying  doctrine,  and  rejecting  with  vehement  repug 
nance  all  the  bribes  and  seductions  of  error ;  we  have  found 
Catholic  Cherokees  converting  the  Pagan  Flatheads  without 
the  assistance  of  a  missionary,  and  Christian  Huron  captives 
performing  the  same  office  for  their  Mohawk  masters ;  nay 
more,  we  have  seen  the  Indian  warrior,  in  the  fierce  excitement 
of  battle,  embrace  as  a  brother  the  fallen  foe  who  had  just 
aimed  at  his  own  life,  because  the  sign  of  the  cross  had  re 
vealed  to  him  that  his  enemy  was  a  Catholic  like  himself. 

Yet  Protestant  controversialists  assure  us,  that  this  marvel 
lous  unity — which  links  in  one  brotherhood  the  savages  of  a 
hundred  tribes,  which  suffering  cannot  rend  nor  corruption 
dissolve,  and  which  looks  so  like  the  mysterious  unity  of  the 

*  Wanderings,  &c.,  by  Paul  Kane,  ch.  xxiii.,  p.  393. 


426  CHAPTER   X. 

disciples  of  St.  John  and  St.  Paul — is  only  a  trick  of  priest 
craft,  the  result  of  some  subtle  organization,  some  deep  device 
of  human  policy !  If  it  were  so,  we  might  be  permitted  to  ask, 
why  they,  who  boast  of  reason  as  if  it  were  a  gift  peculiar  to 
themselves,  have  never  been  able  to  imitate  it? — why  a  purely 
human  art,  as  they  deem  it,  should  baffle  their  most  skilful 
analysis? — why  the  Church  can  so  easily  unite  all  hearts, 
whether  of  bond  or  free,  savage  or  civilized,  in  China  and 
Peru,  as  easily  as  in  France  or  Ireland,  in  one  immense  har 
mony  of  faith,  love,  and  adoration;  while  the  Sects,  a  portent 
to  themselves  and  a  jest  among  the  heathen,  cannot  so  much 
as  persuade  the  members  of  the  same  household  to  be  "  of  one 
mind?" 

It  is  true  that  Protestants  have  anticipated  this  inquiry, 
which  does  not  occasion  them  a  moment's  embarrassment. 
Unity,  they  reply,  is  a  chimera,  and  truth  itself  mutable  and 
progressive.  "  Emulations,  quarrels,  dissensions,  and  sects," 
which  St.  Paul  classed  as  "works  of  the  flesh,"  they  commend 
as  both  good  and  expedient — though  they  admit  that  they 
somewhat  impede  the  diffusion  of  the  Gospel  among  the 
heathen.  "  The  diversity  of  our  sects,"  says  M.  Coquerel,  a 
conspicuous  French  minister,  "is  our  most  honorable  dis 
tinction."*  "Far  from  blushing,"  exclaims  another,  "  at  these 
variations  of  creed,  Protestants  expect  to  derive  glory  from 
them."f  The  Germans,  we  are  told,  "  boast  of  it  as  their 
very  highest  privilege,  and  the  very  essence  of  a  Protestant 
Church,  that  its  opinions  should  constantly  change."^;  "  The 
Protestant  Church,"  says  M.  de  Sismondi,  "  admits  that  she 
herself  may  be  mistaken ;  she  claims  only  that  liberty  of 
thought  which  the  Catholic  Church  renounces."§  "  Scotland 
and  England,"  observes  a  British  Protestant,  deeply  impressed 
with  the  advantages  of  disunion,  "without  their  seceders  and 
dissenters,  would  have  been  countries  in  which  the  human 
njind  slumbered."!  Lastly,  the  Swiss,  speaking  by  the  mouth 
of  their  supreme  ecclesiastical  organ,  frankly  proclaim,  that 
"  the  right  of  examination  is  the  only  element  of  fixedness 
which  ^belongs  to  the  Protestant  religion."!"  Is  it  possible  to 
admit  more  candidly  that  Protestantism  is  the  negation  of  the 


*  L'Ami  de  la  Religion,  tome  xxii.,  p.  208. 

f  Melanges  de  la  Religion,  tome  i.,  p.  84. 

\  See  The  State  of  Protestantism  in  Germany,  by  Rev.  II.  J.  Rose. 

§  Progress  of  Religious  Opinion  during  the  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  79 ;  Eng 
lish  edition. 

|  Laing,  Residence  in  Norway,  ch.  xi.,  p.  447. 

1  Defense  de  la  Venerable  Gompagnie  des  Pasteurs  de  Geneve,  d  I'oocasion 
d'un  ecrit  intitule  "Veritable  Ilistoire  des  Momiers." 


SUMMARY.  427 

work  of  Christ,  and  that  the  pagan  world  has  reason  to  ask  its 
representatives,  "  whether  they  profess  any  religion  whatever  f ' 


RESULTS    OF   CATHOLIC   AND    PEOTESTANT   EDUCATION. 

There  is  nothing  to  which  the  Sects  have  professed  to  attribute 
so  much  value,  among  all  the  means  by  which  they  seek  to 
extend  their  influence,  as  the  diffusion  of  knowledge.  One 
might  suppose,  in  listening  to  their  orators,  that  the  history  of 
those  long  ages  during  which  the  Church  alone  cultivated  human 
science,  and  was  the  sole  sanctuary  both  of  learning  and  holiness, 
found  no  place  in  their  ungrateful  memory.  Yet  even  enemies 
have  confessed,  that  u  law,  learning,  education,  science,  all  that 
we  term  civilization  in  the  present  social  condition  of  the 
European  people,  spring  from  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman 
Pontiffs  and  the  Catholic  priesthood  over  the  kings  and  nobles 
of  the  middle  ages."*  Guizot,  Haxthausen,  and  other  writers 
of  their  class,  men  of  vigorous  intellect  and  inexorable  candor, 
have  declared,  that,  but  for  the  humanizing  influence  of  the 
Church,  mind  must  have  been  everywhere  beaten  down  by 
brute  force,  and  have  freely  confessed,  that  when  we  thank  God 
for  all  the  treasures  of  knowledge  and  art  which  we  now  possess, 
we  should  thank  Him  also  for  the  wakeful  and  generous  provi 
dence  of  the  Church  to  which  we  owe  them.  It  is  true  that  the 
Protestant  revivers  of  pagan  literature  in  the  sixteenth  century 
affected,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  world,  to  regard 
Catholics  as  obscurantists,  though  the  revival  was  chiefly  due  to 
the  ceaseless  activity  of  the  latter,  and  the  classical  court  of 
Leo  X.  welcomed  with  almost  as  much  enthusiasm  the  discovery 
of  a  new  manuscript  as  that  of  Pius  IX.  does  the  triumph  of 
a  new  martyr.  Yet  even  the  most  eminent  of  their  own 
teachers  have  avouched,  that,  in  spite  of  their  eager  self-lauda 
tion,  the  Church  beat  them  out  of  the  field  with  their  own 
weapons ;  and  that  not  only,  in  the  words  of  Ranke,  "  Rome 
continued  to  be  a  metropolis  of  civilization,  unrivalled  in  minute 
and  various  erudition,"  but  that  the  Jesuit  schools  throughout 
Europe,  as  Bacon  easily  discovered,  were  so  immeasurably 
superior  to  those  of  their  complacent  rivals,  that  "  it  was  found 
that  their  scholars  learned  more  in  one  year  than  those  of  other 
masters  in  two,  and  even  Protestants  recalled  their  children 
from  distant  gymnasia,  and  committed  them  to  their  care."f 

*  Laing,  Observations  on  Europe,  ch.  xv.,  p.  394. 

f  Ranke,  book  v.,  vol.  i.,  p.  37i) ;  book  viii.,  vol.  ii.,  p.  208. 


428  CHAPTER   X. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  the  higher  spheres  of  intellectual  culture 
that  men  who  received  their  noblest  inspirations  from  that  illu 
minating  faith  which,  while  marking  the  limits,  has  indefi 
nitely  extended  the  domain  of  reason,  have  served  as  models 
to  the  ungrateful  rivals  who  affected,  often  with  powers  ludic 
rously  disproportioned  to  their  claims,  a  universal  supremacy. 
Even  in  lower  fields  of  mental  toil,  the  vain  clamor  of  her 
boastful  accusers  has  been  perpetually  rebuked  by  the  calm 
but  sleepless  energy  of  the  Church,  as  their  costly  but  sterile 
efforts  have  been  surpassed  by  her  silent  and  peaceful  triumphs. 
"  In  Catholic  Germany"  says  a  well-known  Presbyterian 
writer,  "  in  France,  in  Italy,  and  even  in  Spain^  the  education 
of  the  common  people  is  at  least  as  generally  diffused,  and  as 
faithfully  promoted  by  the  clerical  body,  as  in  Scotland.  .  .  . 
Education  is  in  reality  not  only  not  repressed,  but  is  encour 
aged,  by  the  Popish  Church,  and  is  a  mighty  instrument  in  its 
hands,  and  ably  used."  At  this  hour,  he  adds,  "  Eome  has 
above  a  hundred  schools  more  than  Berlin,  for  a  population 
little  more  than  half  of  that  of  Berlin  ;"  and  "  if  it  is  asked 
what  is  taught  to  the  people  of  Eome  by  all  these  schools — 
precisely  what  is  taught  at  Berlin  !"* 

And  the  same  thing  is  equally  true  of  every  other  Catholic 
land.  "Neither  in  England,  nor  even  in  Prussia,"  says  an 
English  traveller  in  Amtria,  "  is  education  more  universally 
and  strictly  attended  to  among  the  poor  ;"f  while  Mr.  Kohl 
observes,  that  not  only  are  there  schools  in  every  village,  but 
that  even  on  the  remote  Transylvanian  frontier  "  the  school- 
buildings  are  not  only  good,  but  excellent,"  and  the  instruction 
also.J  So  little  reason  or  modesty  is  there  in  the  insular  conceit 
of  Englishmen,  who  themselves  entered  later  into  the  field  of 
public  education  than  any  other  people  of  Europe,  and  who 
have  been  obliged  to  confess,  in  1862,  after  immense  expendi 
ture,  directed  by  unquestionable  administrative  skill,  that  their 
own  tardily  devised  national  system,  though  it  deals  only  with 
a  fraction  of  the  primary  schools,  and  these  the  most  efficient 
of  their  class,  has  issued  in  such  lamentable  failure,  that  a 
"  new  Code"  is  imperatively  needed  to  secure  an  improved 
teaching  of  the  barest  elements  of  human  knowledge  ! 

"  It  is  now  half  a  century,"  says  a  competent  witness,  "  since 
education  became  one  of  the  great  objects  of  social  and  political 

enterprise  in  this  country.  What  is  the  result  ? Our 

agricultural  population  .  .  .  are  still  generally  so  ignorant,  that 


*  Notes  of  a  Traveller,  cli.  vi.,  p.  167  ;  ch.  xxi.,  pp.  439-41. 

f  Vienna  and  the  Austrians,  by  F.  Trollope,  vol.  ii.,  letter  Ivii.,  pp.  267,  339 

t  Austria,  by  J.  G.  Kolil,  p.  300  (1843). 


SUMMARY.  429 

no  reasonable  being,  for  pity's  sake,  would  ask  them  a  question 
of  history  or  geography  out  of  their  own  village,  or  more  than 
fifty  years  back.  They  are  still  a  prey  to  the  first  fanatic  or 
impostor  that  chooses  to  work  upon  them.  .  .  .  This  is  the 
case  of  our  now  educated  peasantry.  When  we  turn  to  the 
artisan  the  case  is  certainly  worse."*  Yet  the  very  men  who 
make  these  confessions  not  only  discourse  with  an  air  of  com 
placent  superiority  on  the  civilization  of  Protestant  Britain, 
but  aifect  to  disparage  the  peasantry  of  France  or  Austria,  of 
Spain  or  Canada,  ten  times  better  instructed  even  in  the  arts  of 
common  life,  and  illuminated  moreover  by  that  Divine  faith  of 
which  the  English  peasant  is  as  void  as  the  herd  of  which  he 
seems  to  form  a  part,  or  the  plough  which  is  scarcely  more  in 
animate  than  himself,  f 

Such  facts,  which  we  cannot  pursue  further  in  this  place, 
would  acquire  tenfold  gravity,  if  we  were  to  investigate  them 
in  relation  to  the  moral  results  of  education,  as  dispensed  by 
the  Church  and  the  Sects  respectively,  whatever  field  we  might 
select  for  the  comparison.  Prussia  and  Holland,  with  their 
systems  of  compulsory  education,  and,  still  more,  Sweden  and 
Denmark,  have  reached,  as  we  shall  learn  presently,  the  lowest 
moral  condition  to  which  nominally  Christian  nations  can  sink  ; 
while  in  America,  where  universal  education  is  said  to  have 
created  among  Protestants  a  generation  of  "  cold,  calculating 
scoundrels,"  we  have  been  told  that  "  the  only  really  useful  and 
corrective  education  is  that  of  the  Catholic  schools  and  col 
leges."^:  It  is,  however,  with  the  education  of  the  heathen  that 
we  have  been  concerned  in  these  volumes,  and  which  appears, 
by  the  confession  of  adversaries,  to  have  accomplished  such  re 
sults  as  the  following. 

I.  In  China,  where  Mr.  Oliphant,  Mr.  D'Ewes,  Mr.  Minturn, 
and  other  Protestant  travellers,  could  not  but  admire  "  the  able 
and  distinguished  masters"  who  taught,  not  only  the  highest 
Chinese  classics,  but  European  languages,  and  the  arts  of  music, 
painting,  and  sculpture,  with  a  success  which  was  "  truly  ivon- 

*  The  Times,  October  15,  1862. 

f  Some  Englishmen  were  present  a  few  years  ago,  at  the  International  Cattle 
Show  in  Paris.  They  saw  the  herdsman  or  the  drover  of  France,  Belgium, 
Austria,  or  Spain,  advance  with  easy  self-possession  and  manly  grace,  to  receive 
his  prize,  and  they  marked  in  his  face  what  they  knew  not  to  be  the  light  of 
the  life-giving  Sacraments,  by  which,  in  the  language  of  St.  Peter,  he  had  be 
come  a  "  partaker  of  the  Divine  nature." 

They  saw  also  the  English  peasant  present  himself,  with  downcast  eyes  and 
shambling  gait,  less  comely  than  his  own  animals,  and  brutalized  by  the  in 
fluence  of  a  purely  human  religion  ;  and  as  the  sorry  troop  advanced,  in  dismal 
contrast  to  their  Catholic  competitors,  they  heard  the  whisper  which  passed 
from  mouth  to  mouth,  on  all  the  benches  where  the  spectators  sat,  and  it  said, 
"  Comme  c'est  brute  le  peuple  Anglais." 

\  See  page  331. 


430  CHAPTER  X. 

derfulf  where  even  women,  like  the  French  Sisters  of  Charity, 
had  no  need  of  native  aid ;  and  where  the  compositions  of  native 
pupils,  "  who  evidently  regarded  their  spiritual  masters  with 
feelings  of  affection  and  gratitude,"  won  the  applause  of  the 
pagan  professors  in  the  Imperial  Academy  of  Pekin :  the  edu 
cational  efforts  of  two  hundred  Protestant  missionaries,  almost 
all  of  whom  were  obliged,  from  lack  of  knowledge,  to  teach 
only  by  the  aid  of  salaried  Chinese,  whose  success  they  could 
not  appreciate,  and  whose  defects  they  could  not  correct,  are 
thus  estimated  by  the  same  friendly  witnesses.  "The  children 
are  taught  only  the  most  rudimentary  works  in  their  own 
classics.  Their  education  seems  likely,  therefore,  to  be  of  little 
service  to  them,  either  amongst  their  own  countrymen  or 
foreigners."  They  only  learn  English,  says  Dr.  Ball,  the  soli 
tary  accomplishment  which  their  masters  can  dispense,  "to  turn 
it  afterwards  to  their  own  advantage  for  trading  purposes." 
"In  too  many  instances,"  adds  the  candid  Mr.  Oliphant,  "the 
knowledge  they  have  acquired  only  serves  to  increase  their  evil 
influence."  The  sole  effect  of  their  "  English  education,"  says 
another,  is  "  to  qualify  them  for  hypocrites  or  sharpers"  Finally, 
the  fruits  of  Protestant  education  in  China,  upon  a  large  scale, 
and  in  their  latest  development, — the  ultimate  results  of  half  a 
century  of  "  bible-teaching,  essentially  Protestant  in  its  princi 
ples  and  tendency," — have  been  the  mental  cultivation  and 
Christian  virtues  of  the  Tae-ping  rebels ! 

II.  In  India,  the  effects  of  Protestant  education,  conducted 
by  a  thousand  agents,  during  successive  generations,  and  at 
prodigious  cost,  have  been  simply  appalling.  The  scholars,  we 
are  told  by  one  English  authority,  "  reject  heathenism  without 
embracing  Christianity,  and  become  conceited  infidels,  worse 
to  deal  with  than  pagans."  They  may  have  "  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  Holy  Scripture,"  and  "  explain  in  the  clearest 
manner  the  cardinal  point  of  justification;"  they  may  even  re 
buke  "  Popish  idolatry"  by  a  suitable  array  of  texts ;  but  in 
spite  of  these  accomplishments,  derived  from  missionary  pre 
ceptors,  "  they  have  no  more  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,"  we  are 
told,  "  than  in  their  own  religion.  They  believe  the  Jesus  oi 
the  English,  and  the  Krishna  of  the  Hindus,  to  be  alike  impos 
tors."  Lastly, — for  it  would  be  idle  to  recapitulate  testimonies 
which  we  have  found  to  be  absolutely  uniform, — "  the  educated 
native  is  either  a  hypocrite  or  a  latitudinarian,  with  the  heart 
of  an  atheist  under  the  robe  of  an  idolater.  The  greater  body 
are  but  too  surely  tending  to  a  state  morally  lower  than  that 
from  which  education  rescued  them."* 

*  A  still  later  testimony  is  given,  in  March,  1863,  by  the  Calcutta  correspond- 


SUMMARY.  431 

III.  In  Ceylon,  we  have  been  told  by  Sir  Emerson  Tennent, 
"  the  moral  results  of  education  have  been  limited  and  unsatis 
factory."  The  Americans  alone  are  said  to  have  had  more  than 
one  hundred  thousand  pupils  in  their  schools ;  and  though  they, 
like  the  other  sects,  have  had  supreme  control  over  this  vast 
mass  of  scholars  from  infancy  to  manhood,  they  cannot  touch 
their  hearts !  "The  schools  have  done  little  good,"  says  Dr. 
Brown  ;  "  even  the  children  educated  in  them,  when  they  grew 
up,  frequented  the  idol  temples,  and  scarcely  a  youth  was  to  be 
seen  at  chapel,  unless  he  was  still  a  scholar."  We  have  been 
informed  on  the  other  hand,  by  Protestant  witnesses,  how  uni 
formly  the  Catholic  pupils  illustrate  their  belief  by  their  prac 
tice,  and  that  "  neither  corruption  nor  coercion  could  induce 
them  to  abjure  their  religion." 

IY.  In  Australia,  we  have  heard  of  natives  who  had  been 
"educated  at  the  mission,"  not  only  living  naked  in  the  woods, 
but "  murdering  their  children  in  after  years."  In  New  Zealand, 
where  multitudes  have  been  the  apt  and  intelligent  pupils 
of  Protestant  missionaries,  an  official  report  affirms,  in  1859, 
that  simultaneously  with  "  a  remarkable  activity  of  mind 
directed  to  the  development  of  political  ideas,"  their  education 
has  only  made  them  worse,  morally,  socially,  and  physically, 
than  they  were  fifty  years  ago ;  while  it  has  rather  stimulated 
than  repressed  the  universal  impurity  and  corruption  which 
they  now  display,  "  in  body  and  mind,  in  all  their  thoughts, 
words,  and  actions." 

Y.  In  the  islands  of  the  Pacific, — where  Catholic  missionaries 
have  educated  even  the  barbarous  tribes  of  the  Philippines 
with  such  success,  that  a  Protestant  traveller  notices  with  admi 
ration  "  that  there  are  very  few  Indians  who  are  unable  to 
read," — the  emissaries  of  another  faith  print,  in  a  single  group, 
and  in  every  successive  year,  more  than  twenty  thousand  vol 
umes  ;  yet  we  know,  by  their  own  confession,  what  their  scholars 
have  become,  "from  the  hut  of  the  menial  to  the  royal  palace  ;" 
and  a  native  authority  assures  us  that,  in  spite,  or  as  he  seems 
to  think  because,  of  this  educational  process,  "  every  thing 
that  concerns  the  native  race  is  both  physically  and  morally 
retrograde" 

YI.  In  Africa,  we  have  seen  the  Protestant  scholars  at  Cairo 
resuming  their  original  habits  as  soon  as  their  education  was 
finished";  in  the  West,  it  only  "enables  them  to  become  more 

ent  of  the  Times,  in  describing  the  ceremony  of  conferring  academical  degrees 
upon  the  native  graduates  in  the  Calcutta  University.  "  The  youths  so  edu 
cated,"  he  says,  "become  Deists.  .  .  .  This  Deistical  state  is  marked  by  no  lit  tie 
immorality  ;  English  vices  are  fashionable  as  well  as  English  literature.  Their 
fathers  bewail  the  errors  of  the  rising  generation."—  The  Times,  April  27, 1863. 


4:32  CHAPTER  X. 

perfect  in  villany,"  while,  as  Mr.  Cruickshank  laments,  "  the 
best  educated  men,  who  some  years  ago  were  distinguished  for 
zeal  for  Christianity,  are  now  living  without  its  pale,"  and 
"the  missionary  proteges,"  as  Captain  Hewett  records,  are  so 
"  invariably  found  to  be  lying,  cunning,  and  utterly  worthless, 
that  no  dwellers  in  the  colonies  wish  to  employ  as  servant  a 
native  educated  in  the  missionary  schools,"  and  the  Governor 
of  Sierra  Leone  reported  officially,  that  "  the  children  turned 
out  of  missionary  schools  are  vagabonds."  In  the  South — but 
we  have  heard  enough  of  the  Protestant  Hottentot,  who,  as  an 
English  writer  has  told  us,  "  can  sing  all  day  long  about  '  the 
sufferings  of  the  Lamb,'  but  knows  no  more  about  the  Lamb, 
or  His  sufferings,  than  one  of  the  lower  animals ;"  so  utterly 
unprofitable  is  the  instruction  of  missionaries  who  can  only 
succeed,  as  a  crowd  of  impartial  witnesses  attest,  after  the 
labors  of  three-quarters  of  a  century,  in  making  their  disciples 
"  the  most  idle  and  worthless  of  their  nation" 

VII.  In  Greece,  Protestant  education  appears  to  have  collapsed 
as  soon  as  the  schoolmasters  began   to   be   missionaries.     In 
Syria,  as  Dr.  Yalentine  Mott  reports,  "  even  the  Armenians, 
though  professing  Christianity,  joined  with  the  deluded  Turks 
in  suppressing  Protestant  schools ;"  but  he  does  not  seem  to 
have  understood  that  it  was  their  profession   of  Christianity 
which  inspired  the  act,  and  that  even  Armenians  might  reason 
ably  combine  to  reject  what  Dr.  Wolff  calls  "the  vague  and 
uncertain  creed"  proposed  for  their  acceptance,  and  doubt  the 
value  of  instruction  of  which  the  recipients,  as  the  same  witness 
has  told  us,   become  "the  worst  people  among  the  Eastern 
natives."     In  Armenia,  in   spite  of  the  attractive  bribes  dis 
tributed  by  missionaries  of  the  school  of  Mr.  Justin  Perkins, 
not  only  was  every  effort  to  protestantize  the  natives  perfectly 
fruitless,  but  they  admit,   by  the  mouth   of   their  friend  Dr. 
Wagner,  that  if  they  ceased  to  pay  the  scholars  their  weekly 
tribute,  "  the  schools  would  become  directly  empty." 

VIII.  Lastly,  a  great  English  authority  has  recorded  the  same 
uniform    result   of  Protestant   education    in    the   case  of  the 
American  Indians,  who,  when  their  pupilage  was  over,  "re 
turned  to  their  naked  brethren   the  most   profligate  and  the 
most  idle  members  of  the  Indian  community."     It  was  the 
observation  of  these  invariable  facts  which  provoked  a  famous 
Seneca  chief  to  remind  certain  missionaries,  who  urged  him  to 
adopt  their  religious  opinions,  that  "  such  of  the  Senecas  as 
they  nominally  converted  from  heathenism  to  Christianity  only 
disgraced   themselves  by  attempts  to  cover  the  profligacy  of 
the  one  with  the  hypocrisy  of  the  other  ;"*  and  of  which  the 

*  Indian  Biography,  by  B.  B.  Tliatclier,  Esq.,  vol.  ii.,  cli.  xvi.,  p.  290. 


SUMMARY.  433 

universality  was  candidly  admitted  by  the  Kev.  Dr.  Wheelock, 
even  with  respect  to  his  own  Indian  pupils,  who  so  far  sur 
passed  all  others  that  they  "  had  made  considerable  progress  in 
Latin  and  Greek."  "  Some  who  on  account  of  their  parts  and 
learning,"  says  this  missionary,  "  bid  the  fairest  for  usefulness, 
are  sunk  down  into  as  low,  brutish,  and  savage  a  manner  of 
living  as  they  were  in  before."*  Yet  "  several  of  them,"  as 
Dr.  Dwight  confesses,  "  were  placed  in  colleges,  and  received 
the  usual  degrees.  Almost  all  of  them,  however,  renounced 
ultimately  the  advantages  which  they  had  acquired,  and  re 
turned  to  the  grossness  of  savage  life"\  Two  Dutch  ministers 
also  relate,  for  all  the  sects  record  the  same  unwelcome  facts, 
that  after  carefully  educating  an  Indian,  so  that,  besides  other 
accomplishments,  "he  could  read  and  write  good  Dutch,"  and 
manifested  his  piety  by  "  answering  publicly  in  the  church," 
they  "  presented  him  with  a  Bible,  in  order  to  work  through 
him  some  good  among  the  Indians;  but  it  all  resulted  in  noth 
ing.  He  has  taken  to  drinking  of  brandy;  he  pawned  the 
Bible,  and  became  a  real  beast,  who  is  doing  more  harm  than 
good  among  the  Indians.":): 

There  is  a  strange  uniformity  in  fhese  disastrous  results  of 
Protestant  teaching,  attested  by  Protestant  writers,  upon  all 
classes  of  scholars,  and  in  every  region  of  the  world,  which 
might  almost  provoke  mirth,  if  such  an  emotion  were  possible 
in  the  presence  of  evils  so  enormous.  When  we  consider  that 
millions  of  money  are  being  expended  by  the  various  Sects, 
with  ostentations  disdain  of  the  Church,  and  expressly  to  impede 
her  work  in  the  world  ;  and  that  after  all  their  clamorous  boasts 
and  anticipations  of  triumph,  after  all  their  complacent  eulogies 
of  their  own  skill  and  enlightenment,  they  have  succeeded  at 
last  in  educating  a  few  Chinese,  whose  knowledge  "  only  in 
creases  their  evil  influence ;"  or  Hindoos,  only  to  render  them 
"  conceited  infidels,  worse  than  pagans  ;"  or  Cingalese,  that 
when  they  quit  school,  they  may  with  greater  zest  "  frequent 
their  idol  temples ;"  or  Maoris,  that  they  may  become  utterly 
deh'led,  "  in  mind  and  body,  in  all  their  thoughts,  words,  and 
actions ;"  or  Hawaiians,  that  they  may  "  plunge  voluntarily 
into  every  species  of  wickedness  and  excess  ;"  or  Africans,  that 
they  may  "  become  more  perfect  in  villany,"  and  unn't  to  be 
employed  even  as  domestics  ;  or  Americans,  that  they  may 
surpass  in  vileness  "the  most  profligate  and  the  most  idle"  of 
their  uneducated  brethren  ;  we  should  be  more  blind  and 

*  Documentary  History  of  New  York,  vol.  iv.,  p.  506. 

f  Travels  in  New  England,  by  Timothy  Dwight,  LL.D.,  letter  ix.,  vol.  ii., 
p.  99. 

J  Ibid.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  108. 

VOL.  IT.  29 


434:  CHAPTER  X. 

undiscerning  than  even  these  unfortunate  pupils  if  we  failed  to 
derive  instruction  from  such  facts.  That  Protestant  mission 
aries  have  neither  vocation  nor  mission,  though  it  may  explain 
many  points  of  the  contrast  which  we  have  been  tracing,  hardly 
accounts  for  such  phenomena  as  these.  A  certain  number  of 
them  are  at  least  very  superior,  both  in  morals  and  intellectual 
power,  to  their  scholars.  Some  of  them  are  even  sincere  and 
zealous  men,  honestly  purposing  to  improve  those  whom  they 
instruct.  Yet  every  humane  effort  is  baffled,  every  benevolent 
aim  intercepted  ;  and  they  educate  whole  generations,  with 
every  appliance  which  experience  can  suggest  or  wealth  accu 
mulate,  but  always  with  these  results !  They  can  only  turn 
pagans  into  atheists,  and  honest  men  into  rogues,  and  it  is  from 
themselves  that  we  receive  the  confession.  Whence  this  frightful 
uniformity  of  disaster  ?  If  they  are  without  apostolic  gifts,  and 
do  not  even  claim  them,  yet  by  purely  natural  means  alone 
they  might  have  been  expected  to  accomplish  something  better 
than  this!  Whence  then,  let  us  ask  once  more,  this  immense 
and  universal  blight,  which  pursues  them  everywhere  like  the 
cloud  of  darkness  which  hung  over  the  Egyptians,  and  withers 
every  flower  and  plant  which  their  hands  have  touched  ?  Is  it 
not  that  in  denying  them  all  supernatural  gifts,  God  has  re 
solved  to  suspend  and  neutralize  even  those  natural  powers 
which,  as  they  confess  with  dismay,  they  everywhere  employ 
only  to  inflict  upon  the  heathen  world  a  deeper  curse,  a  more 
irreparable  woe  ? 

The  special  advantage  of  the  investigation  which  we  have 
pursued  in  these  pages,  and  which,  as  we  have  said,  it  would 
have  been  impossible,  for  want  of  materials,  to  conduct  with 
success  at  an  earlier  date,  consists  in  this, — that  it  has  led  us 
out  of  the  region  of  speculative  controversy  into  that  of  historical 
facts.  We  have  not  debated  claims  or  doctrines  which  a  text 
may  prove  or  disprove,  but  we  have  contemplated  the  Church 
and  the  Sects  in  action.  This  is  the  test,  complete  and  decisive, 
which  was  indicated  by  our  Lord  Himself,  and  we  have  seen 
what  it  has  revealed.  Everywhere  He  has  manifested,  by 
manifold  and  persuasive  tokens,  His  unceasing  presence  with 
the  Church  ;  everywhere  He  has  refused  so  much  as  to  recog 
nize  the  barren  ministry  of  the  Sects.  In  presence  of  such  facts, 
uniform  in  their  character  and  universal  in  their  range,  we  may 
not  unreasonably  ask  our  Protestant  adversaries,  whether  they 
expect  us  any  longer  to  treat  seriously  pretensions  which  history 
has  disposed  of,  and  which  God  has  judged  before  our  eyes? 
Even  they  can  hardly  feel  surprise  if  henceforth  we  decline  an 
unprofitable  and  monotonous  discussion  which  has  lost  all 
meaning,  because  a  Divine  sentence  has  closed  it  forever; 


SUMMARY.  435 


even  they  can  no  longer  complain,  if  when  they  affect  to  teach 
us,  we  are  now  content  to  smile ;  when  they  provoke,  to  keep 
silence;  when  they  revile,  to  pardon;  when  they  blaspheme, 
to  pray  for  them. 


CELIBACY   AND   MAKEIAGE. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  notice,  one  by  one,  all  the  points  of 
contrast  between  Catholic  and  Protestant  missionaries,  and 
having  sufficiently  illustrated  throughout  these  volumes  those 
of  greatest  moment,  it  may  seem  superfluous  to  speak  of  some 
which  have  less  gravity.  Yet  there  are  still  two  which  claim 
a  few  words. 

When  St.  Paul,  the  great  exemplar  of  Christian  missionaries, 
exhorted  all  men  to  whom  effectual  grace  was  given  to  abstain 
from  marriage,  because  it  was  fitting,  since  the  Creator  assumed 
the  nature  of  His  creature,  to  aspire  to  a  more  angelic  life  than 
was  possible  under  the  earlier  dispensation,  the  Church,  though 
proclaiming  it  one  of  the  Sacraments  of  the  New  Law,  naturally 
proposed  the  higher  state  of  celibacy  to  all  who  should  aspire  to 
the  dignity  of  the  Christian  priesthood.  If  Protestants  were  con 
tent  to  plead  that  this  is  no  Divine  command,  but  only  an  eccle 
siastical  precept,  we  might  regret  their  inability  to  comply  with 
it,  but  could  not  justly  reproach  them  with  preferring  the  lower 
calling  which  they  instinctively  appropriate  as  most  suitable  to 
themselves.  That  Almighty  God  should  always  refuse  them 
the  special  grace  which  he  always  grants  to  His  own  ministers, 
would  still  be  a  significant  fact ;  but  a  married  clergy,  though 
utterly  unable  to  do  the  work  of  God  in  the  world,  would  only 
be  a  humiliating  spectacle,  not  a  denial  of  any  revealed  truth. 
But  if  the  "  counsel"  of  St.  Paul  concerning  "  virgins"  refers 
to  all  who  would  "attend  upon  the  Lord  without  impediment," 
and  in  a  special  manner  to  ministers  of  religion  ;  much  more  to 
those  who,  like  himself,  are  set  apart  for  the  perilous  toils  of  the 
apostolate,  and  charged  to  display  before  the  eyes  of  the  heathen 
the  loftiest  type  of  Christian  perfection.  The  disciples  of  St. 
Paul  knew  nothing  of  Protestant  missions,  nor  of  the  principles 
upon  which  they  are  conducted,  nor  of  that  "strange  compound 
of  piety  and  irreligion"  which,  as  one  of  their  own  agents  has 
said,  they  everywhere  present  to  the  pagan  world.  They  knew, 
however,  that  even  soldiers  were  not  accustomed  to  take  their 
wives  and  children  into  the  battle-field  ;  and  the  proposal  to 
send  apostles  to  the  heathen  attended  by  such  companions 
would  have  seemed  to  them  an  unseemly  jest  on  a  grave  subject, 


436  CHAPTER  X. 

It  would  not  perhaps  be  impossible  to  fill  a  considerable 
volume  with  impressive  examples,  recorded  by  Protestant 
writers,  of  the  inconveniences  which  even  they  have  detected 
in  the  employment  of  married  missionaries.  The  enormous  and 
perfectly  useless  cost  which  such  a  system  involves  will  occur 
to  every  one,  but  this  is  not  the  chief  objection  to  it.  The 
married  missionary,  as  St.  Paul  intimates,  is  simply  incapable, 
even  with  the  best  intentions,  of  performing  duties  which  al 
ways  demand  the  sacrifice  of  ease  and  comfort,  and  often  of  life 
itself.  "  He  is  divided,"  as  the  apostle  says,  and  is  too  "  so 
licitous  for  the  things  of  the  world,"  to  have  much  leisure  for 
other  thoughts,  or  to  preach  Christian  virtue  and  heroism,  upon 
which  his  own  life  affords  such  an  ambiguous  commentary, 
without  the  risk  of  exciting  laughter  even  in  a  pagan  auditory. 
Indeed,  he  is  very  apt  to  give  up  preaching  altogether  for  less 
toilsome  recreations.  Even  Dr.  Krapf,  of  whom  we  heard  in 
Abyssinia,  tells  us,  that  "  the  wish  to  settle  down  as  comfort 
ably  as  possible,  and  to  marry,  entangles  a  missionary  in  many 
external  engagements  which  may  lead  him  away  from  his 
Master  and  his  duty ;"  and  then  he  enumerates  not  only  "house 
building,"  but  other  "  irrelevant  and  subordinate  matters." 
Dr.  Morrison  found  it  necessary  to  recommend  "  a  committee 
(in  England)  to  attend  to  the  petty  wants  of  young  missionaries." 
Dr.  Colenso,  speaking  from  experience,  deplores  the  fact  that 
"  wives  often  ruin  a  mission  by  their  tempers  and  animosities." 
Sometimes  they  produce  the  same  effect  without  displaying 
such  moral  infirmities.  "  For  nearly  three  months,"  says  an 
amiable  missionary,  "  I  was  confined  almost  exclusively  to  the 
sick-chamber  of  Mrs.  S.," — a  duty  which  he  did  well  to  per 
form,  but  which  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  promoted  his  effi 
ciency  as  a  preacher  of  religion ;  indeed,  he  adds  that  he 
abandoned  the  work,  because,  for  the  lady's  sake,  "  medical 
advisers  interdicted  any  future  exposure  to  the  privations  of  a 
missionary  life."*  We  need  not  multiply  such  examples  ;  they 
occur  at  almost  every  page  of  Protestant  missionary  annals. 

Yet  the  disciples  of  the  so-called  Reformation,  though  they 
admit  and  deplore  such  results,  have  adopted  other  maxims 
than  those  of  St.  Paul,  and  not  satisfied  with  choosing  the  least 
excellent  calling,  always  proceed  to  defame  that  which  they 
have  not  grace  to  adopt.  Celibacy,  mortification,  and  confession 
are  repugnant  to  mere  human  nature,  and  therefore  the  most 
convenient  process  is  to  condemn  them  at  once.  The  Bible, 


*  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  by  Rev.  C.  S.  Stewart, 
p.  394,  2d  edition.  Visit  to  the  South  Seas  in  the  If.  S.  Ship  Vincennes,  by  the 
same  author ;  introd. 


SUMMARY.  437 

which  Protestantism  has  skilfully  converted  into  a  huge  code  of 
self-indulgence,  will  easily  furnish  a  pretext.  Like  the  pagans 
of  old,  who  deified  their  own  vices,  and  consecrated  their  favor 
ite  crimes  by  dedicating  each  to  a  particular  demon,  Protest 
ants  first  reject  some  evangelical  truth,  and  then  worship  the 
opposite  error  in  its  place.  If  they  cast  away  the  healing  Sac 
rament  of  Penance,  one  of  the  most  precious  fruits  of  the  inef 
fable  tenderness  of  Jesus,  they  do  so  in  a  lofty  spirit  of  moral 
ity,  for  "  the  practice  of  confession  is  immoral  and  degrading." 
If  they  shrink  from  mortification,  and  even  their  missionaries 
occupy  sumptuous  dwellings,  battle  for  augmented  salary,  and 
fare  delicately  every  day,  it  is  only  by  way  of  manly  and  intel 
ligent  protest,  for,  as  their  bishops  considerately  remind  them, 
"  asceticism  is  no  part  of  the  Gospel  system."  If  they  refuse 
all  filial  love  and  honor  to  the  most  Blessed  Mother  of  God, 
they  are  not  content  without  adding, — if  we  may  without  defile 
ment  repeat  words  actually  employed  by  a  well-known  Anglican 
dignitary, — that  "She,"  who  once  "covered  with  kisses  the  lips 
which  shall  pronounce  the  doom  of  all  men,"  "  is  expecting  her 
judgment  like  any  other  woman  !"  If  they  take  away  the 
Daily  Sacrifice,  and,  surpassing  all  human  ingratitude,  scoff 
even  at  that  Sacramental  Presence  which  constitutes  the  most 
amazing  excess  of  Divine  love,  and  converts  this  dreary  wrorld 
into  a  true  paradise,  they  presently  cry  out  with  the  Church  of 
England,  that  the  Adorable  Mystery  "is  a  blasphemous  fable." 
They  do  not  do  things  by  halves.  Abyssus  dbyssum  invocat — 
"one  deep  calls  to  another" — and  they  are  bent  on  sounding 
them  all.  If  St.  Paul  says,  without  limitation  or  reserve,  "It 
is  good  for  a  man  not  to  touch  a  woman  ;"*  they  answer  with 
one  voice,  "  It  is  evil !"  Nay  more,  fulfilling  the  sacred  proverb, 
and  resolved  to  justify  the  mode  of  life  which  they  choose  for 
their  portion,  they  assert,  with  a  perversity  which  even  the 
savage  rebukes,  that  a  married  is  a  more  acceptable  servant  of 
God  than  an  unmarried  minister.  Who  can  estimate,  they  say, 
the  advantage  of  teaching  the  heathen  the  sober  joys  of  domestic 
life  ? — even  at  the  risk  of  teaching  them  at  the  same  time,  as 
Kicci  observes,  that  "  conjugal-  "fidelity"  is  the  summit  of 
Christian  perfection.  "  The  wives  of  missionaries,"  one  Prot 
estant  clergyman  has  assured  us,  "  exalt  the  dignity  of  the 
pastoral  character !"  "An  unmarried  missionary,"  says  another, 
as  if  he  thought  Christianity  began  with  such  men  as  Cranmer 
and  Beza,  "  cannot  eventually  prosper."  And  though  all  Prot-r 
estant  missionaries  are  not  so  enamored  of  hnrnan  infirmity, 
and  would  not  so  openly  deify  it,  yet  almost  all  haye 

*  \  Cor.  vii.  1.    Of.  Apoc.  xiv.  4, 


4:38  CHAPTER  X. 

by  actions  more  impressive  than  words,  how  extravagant  they 
deem  the  injunction  of  St.  Paul,  how  fastidious  his  example.* 
It  is  true,  as  we  have  seen,  that  they  sometimes  bear  witness 
against  themselves.  All  the  non-Catholic  communities  which 
have  lost  the  grace  of  celibacy,  and  especially  the  Greek  and 
Russian,  still  render  homage  to  it  after  their  manner.  The 
latter,  despairing  of  the  continence  of  her  ministers,  yet  ab 
horring  the  incongruity  of  priestly  nuptials,  compels  all  her 
secular  clergy  to  marry  before  they  enter  the  ecclesiastical  state. 
"  Is  not  this,"  asks  Mr.  Ivan  Golovine,  himself  a  Russian 
priest,  "  an  explicit  recognition  of  celibacy  as  the  more  perfect 
calling  ?"f  Is  it  not  also,  we  may  ask  in  our  turn,  an  equally 
explicit  confession  of  inability  to  attain  it  ?  The  Russian 
Church  has  no  missionary  organization,  or  she  would  have 
learned,  by  actual  experience,  that  even  the  instincts  of  the 
pagan  world  reject  with  scorn  a  married  priesthood.  "Directly 
the  savage  hears,"  says  an  apostolic  missionary  in  America, 
"  that  a  teacher  of  religion  has  a  wife,  he  regards  him  as  on  a 
level  with  himself."  When  a  Protestant  missionary  told  a 
Chinese  shopkeeper,  in  answer  to  an  inquiry,  that  he  was  "a 
priest," — "  a  priest,"  said  the  Chinaman,  "and  yet  married !"J 
Even  the  heathen  witnesses  against  the  uxorious  effeminacy  of 
the  Sects,  and  has  a  deeper  sympathy  with  the  ethics  of  St. 
Paul  than  the  most  refined  and  educated  Anglican,  who  now 
confesses  that  the  grace  of  celibacy,  without  which  missionary 
success  is  a  pure  chimera,  is  so  wholly  beyond  his  reach,  that 
the  very  pretence  of  it  ought  to  be  discouraged.  "  The  mere 
declaration"  of  an  Anglican  minister,  says  a  conspicuous  organ 
of  the  Establishment,  "  that  he  intends  to  lead  a  celibate  life 
is  worth  nothing. "§  Yet  one  of  the  ablest  advocates  of  Prot 
estantism  in  its  most  intellectual  form,  has  lately  announced, 
not  as  a  religious  truth,  but  as  a  postulate  of  common  sense, 
that  "  one  of  the  very  first  requisites  for  the  ministry  is  a 
capacity  for  celibacy."]  How,  then,  shall  we  be  indifferent  to 
the  fact,  that  our  Blessed  Lord,  who  expressly  declared  this  to 
be  a  special  gift,  which  "  all  men  take  not,  but  they  to  whom  it 
is  given^  has  always  conferred  this  necessary  grace  upon  the 
Catholic  missionary,  and  always  refused  it  to  the  Protestant  ? 


*  "  Sed  quid  mirum,  si  tarn  perverse  ratiocinentur  haeretici,  quos  impuritas 
exccecavit.  Adeo  verum  est  haereticum  vix  fuisse  qui  non  fuerit  impudicus." 
Bernardinus  a  Piconio,  in  1  Cor  vii. 

f  Memoires  d'un,*Pretre  Busse,  ch.  x.,  p.  167. 

I  Tradeseant  Lay,  The  Chinese  as  they  are,  cli.  ix.,  p.  100. 

§  Christian  Remembrancer,  vol.  xxxvii.,  p.  241. 

|  Saturday  Review,  January  21,  1860. 
1  S.  Matt.  xix.  11. 


SUMMARY.  439 

or  how  shall  we  doubt,  with  the  history  of  Christianity  before 
us,  that  where  His  gifts  are  always  found,  there  He  is 
Himself?* 


CONTRAST   IN    SOCIAL    RESULTS. 

If  it  were  still  possible  to  doubt,  in  presence  of  the  facts 
which  have  now  been  reviewed,  whether  God  works  by  the 
Church  or  the  Sects,  there  is  yet  a  final  consideration  which 
will  perhaps  be  accepted  as  conclusive.  When  we  have  stated 
it,  we  shall  have  completed  our  task. 

In  the  first  ages  of  Christianity,  while  that  battle  was  raging 
which  deluged  Western  Asia  and  the  Southern  provinces  of 
Europe  with  blood,  the  victims  were  always  and  everywhere 
of  one  class.  Not  a  pagan  fell  during  three  centuries  by  the 
hand  of  a  Christian.  The  new  Faith  produced  martyrs,  but 
not  a  single  assassin.  And  even  when  its  preachers  were  able 
to  remind  Consuls  and  Senates  that  their  disciples  had  become 
a  mighty  multitude,  and  a  Roman  army  saw  with  astonishment 
in  its  ranks  a  Legion  composed  of  Christians,  not  a  hand  was 
lifted  in  anger  against  the  persecutor,  even  in  self-defence. 
Such  is  the  history  of  the  first  three  centuries.  Everywhere 
blood  was  shed,  but  it  was  the  blood  of  apostles  and  martyrs. 

In  later  ages,  when  the  Church  and  the  world  were  no  longer 
two  distinct  camps,  except  in  the  sight  of  the  Angels,  and  the 
corruptions  of  the  last  had  overflowed,  like  a  sea  of  mire,  and 
left  their  stain  even  on  the  steps  of  the  temple,  the  preachers 
and  confessors  were  still  the  same,  but  the  heathen  saw  them 
accompanied  by  men,  also  calling  themselves  Christians,  who 
brought  reproach  on  the  name  of  Christ.  "  Take  away  your 
Spanish  soldiers,"  said  Las  Casas,  "  or  we  will  not  go  among  this 
people,  for  we  should  fail  to  persuade  them."  In  spite  of  this  new 
difficulty,  the  heathen  world  was  converted ;  and  if  blood  was 
shed,  it  was  still,  as  of  old,  the  blood  of  preachers  and  confessors. 
Everywhere,  as  we  have  seen,  the  native  races  grew  and 
multiplied,  as  they  continue  to  do  at  this  hour,  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Cross.  It  was  not  spiritual  blessings  only  which 
the  messengers  of  the  Church  bore  to  them,  but  temporal  also  ; 
and  as  the  soul  of  the  savage  was  renewed  by  grace,  so  the  very 

*  "  It  is  a  vulgar  prejudice,"  observes  a  Presbyterian  traveller,  "  to  suppose 
that  the  Catholic  clergy  of  the  present  times  are  not  as  pure  and  chaste  in  their 
lives  as  the  unmarried  of  the  female  sex  among  ourselves.  Instances  may 
occur  of  a  different  character,  but  quite  as  rarely  as  among  an  equal  number 
of  our  unmarried  females  in  Britain  of  the  higher  educated  classes."  Laing, 
Notes  of  a  Traveller,  ch.  xxi.,  p.  432. 


440  CHAPTER  X. 

% 

land  in  which  he  dwelt  seemed  to  blush  at  its  former  barrenness, 
and  "  the  wilderness  blossomed  as  the  rose." 

They  are  enemies  who  have  attested  these  facts.  There  were 
even  cases,  when  the  apostolic  laborers  had  been  removed  by 
violence,  in  which,  as  they  relate,  "  Nature  herself  resumed  her 
original  aspect."  The  very  earth  seems  to  have  mourned  their 
absence,  and  once  more  hid  her  face  from  the  sun  under  a  robe 
of  briers  and  thorns.  In  every  pagan  land,  wre  have  been 
assured  by  Protestants,  the  presence  of  the  Catholic  missionary 
has  been  fruitful  only  in  benefits  to  its  native  tribes.  Every 
where  they  increase  under  their  Christian  pastors,  in  numbers, 
in  intelligence,  and  in  prosperity.  Everywhere  also  they 
mingle  harmoniously  with  their  Catholic  rulers,  and  are  amal- 

famated  with  them,  not  only  by  the  bonds  of  a  common  faith, 
ut  even  by  the  ties  of  marriage,  and  by  community  of  social 
habits  and  interests. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  same  witnesses  avouch,  that  there 
is  not  so  much  as  a  solitary  example  of  a  Protestant  conquest, 
leading  to  the  introduction  of  Protestant  ministers,  which  has 
not  \yzQ\\fatal  to  the  aboriginal  tenants  of  the  land.  If  there 
be  an  exception,  let  it  be  named.  In  China  and  India  they 
could  not  indeed  wholly  destroy  the  natives,  because  they  were 
themselves  only  a  handful  in  the  midst  of  millions ;  but  even 
here  they  have  succeeded  in  inspiring  them  with  that  mingled 
aversion  and  contempt  to  which  the  lapse  of  every  successive 
year  only  adds  new  intensity.  The  Chinese,  shocked,  like  their 
European  co-religionists,  by  their  worldliness  and  cupidity, 
and  by  the  too  evident  contrast  between  their  profession  of 
ardent  piety  and  the  actual  tenor  of  their  daily  life,  still  calls 
them,  after  an  acquaintance  of  fifty  years,  "  Lie-preaching 
devils."  Nor  has  this  unfavorable  estimate  of  the  teachers 
been  modified  by  his  observation  of  their  disciples.  He  has 
seen  that  in  the  cases  in  which  they  have  acquired  a  temporary 
influence  over  a  few  individuals,  it  has  only  tended  to  lower 
their  moral  character,  and  "  to  qualify  them,"  as  even  Prot 
estant  witnesses  complain,  "  for  hypocrites  or  for  sharpers  ;" 
while  their  most  conspicuous  followers,  brought  up  under  their 
own  eye  and  in  their  own  dwellings,  and  long  employed  by 
them  as  paid  catechists  or  assistant  missionaries,  have  recruited 
the  ranks  of  the  Tae-pings,  and  have  attained  an  infamous 
notoriety  even  in  that  worse  than  pagan  rabble  of  incendiaries 
and  assassins.  Such  have  been  the  social  results  of  Protestant 
ism  in  China. 

How  widely  different  the  influence  of  Catholic  teachers 
upon  the  same  people  has  been,  we  learn,  not  only  from  the 
testimony  of  their  own  actions  and  of  the  virtues  which  have 


SUMMARY.  441 

so  often  attracted  the  admiration  of  their  pagan  countrymen, 
but  also  from  the  generous  admissions  of  intelligent  English 
travellers,  such  as  Dr.  Barton  and  Captain  Blakiston,  Mr. 
Oliphant  and  Mr.  D'Ewes,  and  many  others.  From  them  we 
learn  the  impressive  fact  that,  as  Mr.  Oliphant  observes, 
"  habits  foreign  to  the  Chinese  domestic  character"  have  been 
formed  among  them ;  that  woman  has  gained  the  dignity  with 
which  the  progress  of  Christianity  always  invests  her;  and 
that  all  the  other  social  phenomena  which  accompany  a  healthy 
civilization  are  now  witnessed  in  many  a  Chinese  household. 
What  the  Catholic  religion  is  destined  to  accomplish  ultimately 
in  this  land,  from  which  the  latest  accounts  report  fresh  and 
almost  unprecedented  conversions  wherever  order  prevails,  we 
may  judge  from  the  peaceful  triumphs  which  it  has  already 
secured  in  so  many  provinces  of  the  empire.  Meanwhile,  it  is 
needless  to  insist  further  upon  this  feature  of  a  contrast  which, 
if  all  other  evidence  were  wanting,  would  be  sufficiently  proved 
by  the  emphatic  verdict  of  the  pagans  themselves. 

Every  land,  as  we  have  seen,  furnishes  the  same  examples, 
of  which  a  brief  recapitulation  may  not  be  deemed  superfluous. 

In  India,  where  the  missionaries  themselves  complain  that 
many  of  their  disciples  "are  more  depraved  even  than  the 
heathen  around  them,"  and  that  "  instruction  appears  to  have 
rendered  them  '  twice  dead  ;' "  while  Rammohun  Roy  declares 
that  "  they  are  not  only  idle,  debauched  reprobates,  but  gross 
railers  against  the  truths  of  Christianity ;"  where  they  are 
obliged  to  "  suspend"  such  establishments  as  the  Santipore 
Training  Institution  because  of  peculation  and  immorality,  and 
maintain  other  colleges  only  to  create  atheists,  devoid  even  of 
natural  religion,  the  linal  results  of  English  rule  have  been  thus 
appreciated  by  various  witnesses.  "  Were  we  to  be  driven  out 
of  India,"  said  Edmund  Burke  long  ago,  "nothing  would 
remain  to  tell  that  it  had  been  possessed  by  any  thing  better 
than  the  ourang-outang  or  the  tiger."  "  Few  vestiges  would 
remain,"  an  ardent  Protestant  adds  once  more  in  1860,  "as 
evidence  of  its  ever  having  been  under  Christian  rule."  The 
natives,  Mr.  Gibson  has  told  us,  "are  uninfluenced  to  the 
slightest  extent  by  European  dominion  and  enlightenment." 
"We  have  lowered,"  says  another,  "instead  of  raising  the 
standard  of  morality."  "Far from  having  effected  any  serious 
change  in  the  manners  or  customs  of  the  East  Indians," 
observes  Mr.  Warburton,  "  we  have  rather  assimilated  ours  to 
theirs.  Were  the  English  rule  over  India  suddenly  cast  off,  in 
a  single  generation,  the  tradition  of  our  Eastern  Empire  would 
appear  a  splendid  but  baseless  dream."* 

*  The  Conquest  of  Canada,  by  T.  Warburton,  introd.,  p.  17 


442  CHAPTER   X. 

In  Ceylon,  as  Dr.  Scherzer  remarks,  English  industry  and 
enterprise  have  been  profitable  to  the  colonists  themselves,  but 
"  productive  of  small  results  as  a  civilizing  element."  In 
Australia,  while  the  aborigines  "  have  persistently  withstood," 
as  Dr.  Jobsori  observes,  "all  attempts  to  civilize  them,"  and 
are  almost  extinct  within  the  bounds  of  the  original  colony,  a 
committee  of  the  Colonial  Council,  in  recommending  uthe 
abolition  of  the  Protectorate,"  as  a  proved  failure,  urgently 
advise  the  adoption  of  instant  measures  "  to  promote  the  inter 
ests  of  religion  and  education  among  the  white  population," 
lest  they  should  retrograde  into  barbarism,  since  they  already 
"  live  and  die,"  as  Mr.  Henderson  has  told  us,  "  without 
education  or  any  degree  of  religious  instruction."  In  the  new 
English  colony  of  Victoria,  nine- tenths  of  the  whole  native 
population  perished,  as  Mr.  Westgarth  relates,  in  twenty  years. 
In  Van  Diemen's  Land,  a  nation  went  down  into  the  grave 
within  the  same  period,  literally  hunted  to  death,  as  Mr.  Lloyd 
lias  told  us,  by  British  soldiers  and  settlers.  The  later  accounts 
from  New  Zealand  speak  of  the  decay  even  of  the  "  nominal 
Christianity"  which  had  hitherto  prevailed,  and  of  "  the  return 
of  many  individuals  to  the  native  customs,"  after  an  uninter 
rupted  intercourse  of  tifty  years  with  Anglican  missionaries, 
superintended  by  five  bishops  and  a  crowd  of  archdeacons  ;  and 
an  official  document  discloses  the  customary  fact,  that  even 
"  their  social  condition  is  inferior  to  what  it  was  five  years  ago," 
notwithstanding  the  benefits  of  English  rule,  "  their  houses 
worse,  their  cultivation  more  neglected,"  and  that  nothing  can 
now  save  what  Mr.  Cholmondeley  calls  the  "  mean,  squalid,  and 
sickly"  remnant  of  "  a  population  which  has  once  reached  such 
a  state  of  decrepitude,"  in  spite,  as  Dr.  Dieifenbach  notices,  of 
their  "  disposition  for  assuming  a  high  degree  of  civilization." 
In  every  island  of  the  Pacific  which  has  found  Protestant 
masters,  the  same  ruin  and  demoralization  have  overwhelmed 
the  natives.  The  depopulation  in  the  various  groups  of  Eastern 
and  Western  Oceanica  is  declared  by  Protestant  writers  to  be 
"  as  ominous  as  it  is  unaccountable."  In  the  Society  Islands, 
two-thirds  of  the  whole  population  disappeared  in  thirty  years, 
while  their  English  teachers  were  busy  in  depriving  them  of 
their  lands  and  their  commerce,  "  to  possess  themselves  of  it." 
In  the  Sandwich  Islands,  the  natives  perish  so  rapidly  that,  as 
Mr.  Hines  observes,  "Anglo-Saxons  will  convert  them  into 
another  West  Indies,"  or,  as  Mr.  Olmsted  adds,  "the  total 
extinction  of  the  nation  is  inevitable"  Everywhere,  the  abori 
ginal  races,  once  models,  as  Lisiansky  and  Yon  Langsdorff 
noticed,  of  athletic  beauty,  melt  away  by  thousands,  as  if 
Bniitten  by  some  destroying  angel,  before  the  face  of  "  mission- 


SUMMARY.  413 

aries,"  who,  as  their  own  friends  bitterly  complain,  can  only 
teach  them  new  vices,  and  when  they  have  plundered  them  of 
all  they  possess,  inform  them  in  their  sermons,  that  "  offended 
Heaven  is  about  to  cut  them  utterly  off  from  the  land."  A  few 
years  hence,  as  all  the  Protestant  witnesses  agree  in  predicting, 
the  natives  of  every  island  under  English  or  American  rule, 
having  passed  through  all  the  successive  grades  of  degradation 
and  ruin,  will  be  extinct.  Protestantism  will  have  created  a 
desert. 

On  the  other  hand,  wherever  Catholic  influence  has  prevailed, 
material  has  advanced  pari  passu  with  spiritual  progress.  In 
the  Philippines,  as  Mr.  Crawford,  Sir  Henry  Ellis,  and  others 
have  told  us,  "  an  immense  improvement  in  their  social  condi 
tion"  has  attended  the  conversion  of  millions  of  barbarians 
to  the  Christian  faith.  "Joyous  and  free  to  this  hour,"  as 
Admiral  Jurien  de  la  Graviere  observes,  "  under  the  yoke  of 
the  law  which  they  confess,"  they  are  still  living  monuments  of 
the  civilizing  power  of  true  religion  ;  while  another  French 
writer,  contrasting  the  effects  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  mis 
sions,  refers  to  this  impressive  example:  "The  natives  of  the 
Philippines,  converted  to  Catholicism,  furnish  devoted  soldiers  to 
Spain ;  the  natives  of  India,  still  Pagan  or  Mussulman,  revolt 
in  the  name  of  their  religion,  and  declare  a  war  of  extermina 
tion  against  England."* 

Iii  the  Gambier  Archipelago  and  the  Marquesas,  also 
converted  by  Catholic  missionaries,  "the  control  they  have 
acquired,"  an  English  Protestant  has  told  us,  "  must  be  seen 
to  be  believed."  In  the  Lobos  Islands,  Mr.  Bennett,  who  has 
recorded  the  prodigious  immorality  and  sordid  avarice  of  the 
same  class  in  the  Protestant  groups,  found  the  Catholic  natives 
"  contented  and  happy,  courteous  and  hospitable,  notable  and 
modest."  In  Wallis,  Futuna,  and  New  Caledonia,  where  a 
few  years  ago  their  barbarism  was  a  proverb,  the  heathen,  after 
slaying  their  first  apostles,  have  accepted  both  Christianity  and 
civilization,  and  are  steadily  increasing,  not  only  in  religious 
fervor,  but  in  material  prosperity.  In  the  Sandwich  Islands, 
a  multitude  of  Protestant  witnesses  have  proclaimed  the  same 
invariable  contrast.  Lastly,  in  Tahiti,  known,  during  the 
reign  of  the  Protestant  missionaries,  by  the  shameful  designa 
tion  of  "  the  brothel  of  the  Pacific,"  Catholic  influence  has  in 
a  few  years  been  so  fruitful  in  healing  power,  that  while  many 
of  its  women,  as  one  English  writer  has  told  us,  have  become 
"admirable  specimens"  of  their  sex,  the  island  itself,  in  the 

*  La  Cochin  Chine  et  le  Tonquin,  par  Eugene  Veuillot,  preface,  p.  14, 
(1859). 


4:4:4:  CHAPTER    X. 

words  of  another,  "is  now  a  civilized  and  prosperous  com 
munity." 

Of  Western  Africa,  we  receive,  in  1862,  from  Captain  Napier 
Hewett,  a  report  founded  on  careful  observation,  of  which  the 
following  may  be  taken  as  the  summary.  "  Have  missionary 
labors  produced  any  beneficial  effect  in  the  colonies  them 
selves?  They  have  not?"  "Most  of  the  so-called  converts 
have  relapsed  into  barbarism."  "  Though  the  country  exhibits 
a  teeming  fertility,  unsurpassed  by  any  thing  on  earth,  the 
greater  part  lies  an  uncultivated  waste ;  the  lands  once  tilled 
are  abandoned,  and  the  houses,  except  those  inhabited  by  the 
missionaries,  desolate  and  decaying.  It  seems  as  though,  like 
some  of  the  West  India  islands,  a  blight  had  fallen  on  the 
place" 

In  South  Africa, — where  another  pagan  race  has  enjoyed  for 
nearly  a  century  the  advantages  of  English  rule,  while  witnesses 
of  every  rank  and  class  declare  that  the  natives  have  only 
become  more  and  more  depraved,  that  the  worst  cases  of  all 
are  found  in  those  who  have  been  in  closest  contact  with  the 
missionaries  themselves,  and  that,  in  the  words  of  Dr.  Living 
stone,  u  the  mission  stations  are  mere  pauper  establishments," — 
the  Rev.  W.  Ellis  was  brought,  no  doubt  unwillingly,  to  this 
conclusion  :  "  Without  a  change,  they  must  either  become  mere 
hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water  to  others,  or,  as  a  race, 
gradually  melt  away." 

In  Syria  and  Armenia,  where  the  sole  influence  of  Prot 
estantism,  as  we  have  learned  from  so  many  witnesses,  has 
been  to  create  a  few  worthless  and  immoral  pensioners,  full  of 
trickery  and  fraud,  "  infidels  and  radicals,"  as  Dr.  Southgate 
admits,  "  the  worst  natives  of  the  East,"  as  Dr.  Wolff  deplores, 
Mr.  Curzon  and  Captain  Wilbraham,  Dr.  Durbin  and  Dr. 
Robinson,  Dr.  Wolff  and  Admiral  Slade,  and  even  such  vehe 
ment  Protestant  writers  as  Messrs.  Smith  and  Dvvight  among 
American,  and  Mr.  Badger  among  English  travellers,  confess 
the  "  decided  superiority"  of  all,  from  whatever  sect,  who  have 
been  reconciled  to  the  Church,  that  "  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that 
their  intercourse  with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  tends  to 
elevate  them  in  the  scale  of  civilization,"  and  that  while  "  the 
native  Christians  of  the  Turkish  empire  in  general,  where  Ro 
man  Catholic  missionaries  have  not  penetrated,  are  ignorant, 
rude,  and  uncouth,  like  buffaloes,  Roman  Catholic  missionaries 
have  carried  everywhere  the  light  of  civilization" 

Finally,  in  America,  the  same  contrast  assumes  dimensions 
which  have  arrested  the  attention  even  of  the  tourist  and  the 
idler.  Even  they  have  noted  with  amazement  that,  under 
Catholic  rulers,  not  a  tribe  has  perished ;  under  Protestant,  not 


SUMMARY.  445 

a  tribe  has  survived  ;  that  in  the  Catholic  provinces  men  of 
pure  Indian  blood,  whose  fathers  were  converted  two  centuries 
ago,  rival  those  of  European  descent,  as  Mr.  Markham  notices, 
in  mental  cultivation,  and  sometimes,  as  in  Peru  and  Central 
America,  rule  armies  and  govern  States ;  that  wherever  the 
Catholic  religion  prevails,  the  natives,  as  Dr.  Mackay  and  others 
observe,  "still  thrive  or  increase  /"  while  in  the  territory  of  the 
United  States,  as  Mr.  Schoolcraft  shows,  they  have  diminished 
by  seventy-four  thousand  in  seven  years,  and  are  doomed,  as 
all  the  authorities  agree,  to  final  extinction  ;  that  whereas  the 
Indian,  under  Protestant  patronage,  has  become  everywhere  a 
beggar  and  a  sot,  even  the  occupants  of  the  "  reserved  lands," 
who  have  some  tincture  of  civilization,  being  described  by  Mr. 
Burton  and  others  as  drunken,  squalid,  and  unchaste  ;  and  the 
residents  in  the  "  missions,"  in  the  words  of  Mrs.  Jameson,  as 
"  objects  of  compassion,"  and  in  those  of  Mr.  Kingston  and 
Mr.  Kane  as  "  a  very  inferior  race,"  and  "  wallowing  in  beastly 
drunkenness  ;"  "  the  work  effected  by  the  Catholic  mission 
aries,"  as  Governor  Stephens  reports  to  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  "is  really  prodigious."  Hindered  rather  than 
assisted  by  the  civil  authorities,  and  destitute  of  temporal  re 
sources,  the  latter  have  employed  the  higher  gifts  which  they 
are  able  to  dispense  with  results  which  this  official  might  well 
call  prodigious  ;  and  the  fiercest  tribes  of  the  West,  subdued  by 
their  persuasive  charity,  are  thus  described  by  the  same  com 
petent  and  impartial  witness  :  The  Flatheads,  he  says,  once 
brutal  and  sanguinary,  "  are  the  best  Indians  in  the  territory, 
honest,  brave,  and  docile,  and  strongly  attached  to  their  re 
ligious  convictions ;"  the  Oceurs  d  Alene,  polygamists  and 
steeped  in  barbarism,  have  not  only  learned  to  cultivate  the 
soil  and  live  on  its  produce,  but  "  their  morals  have  become 
pure  and  their  conduct  edifying ;"  while  the  Potawottomies, 
destined  under  other  masters  to  speedy  destruction,  have  been 
so  effectually  converted  and  civilized,  that,  according  to  the 
same  authority,  "  they  are  hardly  Indians  now."  It  would  be 
barely  credible,  if  we  did  not  learn  it  from  the  same  official  re 
port,  that  all  these  tribes,  aided  only  by  their  spiritual  teachers, 
build  churches  in  these  far  distant  solitudes,  "  of  which  all  the 
ornaments  are  so  well  executed,  that  one  is  tempted  to  suppose 
they  must  have  been  imported." 

Lastly,  on  the  opposite  frontier  of  the  same  continent,  nearly 
three  thousand  miles  from  the  western  regions  just  referred  to, 
while  all  the  witnesses  agree  in  describing  the  nominally  Prot 
estant  Indians  as  the  most  abject  of  their  race,  and  predict 
their  inevitable  annihilation,  Miss  Martineau  tells  us  of  Indian 
villages  "full  of  orderly  and  industrious  inhabitants;"  and 


446  CHAPTER   X. 

Mr.  Buckingham  that  the  missionaries  are  at  this  day  even 
"  more  than  usually  successful ;"  and  Mr.  Kane  praises  "  the 
agricultural  skill  and  industry"  of  their  disciples ;  and  Mr. 
Kingston  unwillingly  reports  that  "  they  are  said  to  be  a  very- 
obedient,  industrious,  and  intelligent  set,  and  superior  to  the 
Protestants ;"  and  Miss  Murray  regrets  that "  Eoman  Catholicism 
is  best  adapted  for  civilizing  the  Indians ;"  and  Mrs.  Jameson 
honestly  declares,  after  minute  examination,  "  One  thing  is  most 
visible,  certain,  and  undeniable,  that  the  Roman  Catholic  con 
verts  are  in  intelligence  and  general  civilization  superior  to  all 
the  others." 

Even  in  Central  America,  and  among  tribes  once  so  ferocious 
and  degraded  as  the  Caribs,  Mr.  Stephens  has  told  us,  not  only 
of  their  piety,  and  of  their  reverence  both  for  the  offices  and 
the  ministers  of  religion,  but  that  "  we  were  exceedingly  struck 
with  the  great  progress  made  in  civilization  by  these  descend 
ants  of  cannibals,  the  fiercest  of  all  the  Indian  tribes."** 

Thus,  in  every  region  of  the  earth,  by  the  testimony  of  hostile 
or  prejudiced  witnesses,  the  same  mysterious  contrast  is  revealed. 
The  Church,  they  confess,  has  brought  to  all  lands  unity,  prog 
ress,  and  peace ;  the  Sects,  the  same  annalists  avouch,  have 
sown  only  discord,  corruption,  arid  death.  Which,  shall  we 
deem,  has  been  the  work  of  God  ? 


THE   CHTJKCH    AND    THE    SECTS. 

Such,  in  its  general  outlines,  is  the  contrast  between  the  work 
of  the  Church  and  the  work  of  the  Sects,  between  the  fruitful 
ministry  of  apostles,  lifted  by  omnipotent  love  above  human 
infirmity,  and  the  sterile  craft  of  "  mere  stipendiaries,"  who 
have  failed,  by  the  testimony  of  their  co-religionists,  in  every 
object  which  they  undertook,  except  the  promotion  of  their  own 
temporal  fortunes.  But  if  these  latest  adversaries,  like  the 

*  It  is  usual,  among  Protestants,  to  point  to  the  history  of  Spanish  coloni 
zation  as  an  exception  ;  "  yet  to  Spain,"  as  an  ardent  Protestant  observes,  *'  the 
credit  is  due,  in  spite  of  numerous  shortcomings,  and  notwithstanding  the  op 
pression  of  her  subordinates,  of  having  endeavored  to  establish  the  wisest,  the 
most  humane,  and  the  only  successful  system  of  treating  natives  of  an  inferior 
race.  .  .  The  Indians,"  in  her  colonies,  "  have  continued  to  form  the  laboring 
class  ;  amalgamation  has  taken  place,  to  a  very  large  extent,  with  Eiiropeans, 
and  the  native  race  has  thus  been  preserved  from  extinction.  In  the  English 
colonies,  on  the  other  hand,  owing  to  the  influx  of  settlers  of  the  laboring 
class," — he  omits  all  the  more  important  and  influential  points  of  contrast, — 
"  the  aborigines  have  either  been  exterminated,  or,  through  a  system  of  isola 
tion,  are  rapidly  and  inevitably  advancing  on  the  melancholy  road  to  final 
annihilation.'"  Travels  in,  Peru  and  India,  by  Clements  R.  Markham,  F.S.A., 
F.R.G.S.,  ch.  viii.,  p.  132  (1862). 


SUMMARY.  447 

Arian  and  Nestorian  missionaries  of  earlier  times,  have  vainly 
disputed  with  the  Church  her  office  as  Teacher  of  the  Nations, 
and  have  not  even  snatched  the  transient  successes  which  they 
contrived  to  obtain,  there  has  been  another  conflict,  waged  not 
in  pagan  but  in  Christian  lands,  which  seemed  once  to  promise 
a  different  issue,  and  of  which  we  must  attempt,  in  conclusion, 
to  trace  the  beginning  and  the  end. 

More  than  two  centuries  before  the  missionary  schemes  of 
Protestant  communities,  of  which  we  have  now  investigated 
the  results,  and  which  owed  their  tardy  origin  to  the  rivalry  of 
conflicting  sects  rather  than  to  religious  zeal,  had  made  their 
flrst  appeal  to  Protestant  sympathy,  a  more  momentous  struggle, 
which  had  the  whole  of  Europe  for  its  fleld,  and  sucked  into  its 
vortex  one  after  the  other  all  the  civilized  nations  of  the  earth, 
threatened  to  subvert  the  whole  existing  order  of  things,  to 
annihilate  at  one  blow  all  the  religious  institutions  of  the  past, 
and  even  to  reconstitute  the  foundations  of  civil  society.  Certain 
names  have  been  always  associated  with  this  famous  struggle, 
as  if  it  had  been  due  solely  to  the  influence  and  energy  of  those 
who  bore  them.  But  this  is  probably  an  error.  The  age  in 
which  Luther  and  his  companions  appeared  was  already  ripe 
for  the  movement  which  their  followers  regarded  as  a  triumph, 
and  the  rest  of  the  world  as  a  catastrophe.  The  relaxation  of 
discipline  and  the  decay  of  virtue,  which  at  that  time  found  a 
home  chiefly  in  the  cloister,  beyond  which,  as  St.  Bernard  had 
said,  with  a  lawful  exaggeration,  it  could  hardly  be  found  ;  the 
intrusion  of  worldly  and  even  licentious  men,  generally  of  high 
birth,  into  the  offices  of  the  Church,  which  they  coveted  only 
for  the  wealth  and  power  of  which  they  were  the  too  copious 
sources;  the  neglect  of  preaching  arid  catechetical  instruction, 
and  all  that  long  catalogue  of  abuses  against  which  theologians 
had  written  and  saints  had  supplicated  during  two  centuries, 
and  which  the  Council  of  Trent  was  to  reform  with  such 
masterful  severity,  that  hardly  the  faintest  vestige  of  them  has 
been  apparent  from  that  date ;  these,  and  not  the  talent  of  a  few 
individuals,  were  the  true  causes  of  that  deplorable  revolution 
which  without  them  would  have  had  neither  meaning  nor  pos 
sibility  of  success. 

It  was  from  this  vantage  ground  that  Protestantism  com 
menced  its  warfare  against  the  Catholic  Church.  For  a  mo 
ment  it  appeared  about  to  triumph,  but  in  the  very  hour  in 
which  victory  seemed  most  assured,  and  Europe  resounded 
with  the  acclamations  of  a  hundred  exulting  sects,  the  world 
was  to  witness  the  apparition  of  that  awful  Power  which  alone 
survives  all  human  vicissitudes,  and  whose  seeming  inaction  is 
as  the  brief  slumber  of  Jesus  in  the  vessel  of  Peter,  from  whick 


448  CHAPTER  X. 

He  is  sure  to  awake,  at  the  prayer  of  the  Church,  to  the 
confusion  of  His  enemies  and  hers.  Once  more,  in  the  hour 
of  her  greatest  need,  she  was  to  gain  one  of  those  Victories 
which  are  never  so  near  at  hand  as  when,  to  human  eyes,  she 
seems  about  to  perish.  The  new  religion,  like  Arianism  and 
Islamism,  had  already  overrun  Christendom,  but  only  to  give 
place  to  the  Church  against  whose  life  it  conspired,  and  to 
show  that,  strong  in  her  union  with  God,  she  could  both  van 
quish  heresy  in  its  strongholds,  and  kindle  the  light  of  faith 
simultaneously  in  new  worlds,  in  China  and  India,  in  Canada, 
Brazil,  and  Paraguay.  Let  us  contemplate  for  a  moment  this 
latest  victory  of  the  Church,  of  which  even  the  facts  recorded 
in  these  volumes  leave  more  than  half  untold. 

In  Germany,  as  early  as  1558,  "  only  a  tenth  part  of  the  in 
habitants,"  as  Ranke  observes,  "  had  remained  faithful  to  the 
old  religion."  Twenty  years  later,  "  Protestantism  was  the 
dominant  creed  of  all  the  Austrian  provinces,  whether  of  the 
German,  Slavonic,  or  Hungarian  tongues."  Before  the  end  of 
the  century,  "  nearly  the  whole  nobility  of  Austria,  and  even 
of  Styria,  had  embraced  the  reformed  faith."* 

In  France,  so  general  was  the  movement,  that  "for  some 
time  the  whole  people  seemed  to  lean  towards  the  Protestant 
confession."  As  late  as  the  year  1600,  "  there  were  seven  hun 
dred  and  sixty  parish  churches  belonging  to  the  Protestants  of 
France,  all  in  good  order;  four  thousand  of  the  nobility  be 
longed  to  that  confession." 

Poland  and  Saxony,  Belgium  and  Holland,  Sweden  and 
Denmark,  England  and  Scotland,  were  swallowed  up  in  the 
same  vortex,  and  of  all  the  nationalities  of  Europe,  only  Spain, 
Italy,  and  Ireland  remained  wholly  faithful,  in  this  universal 
apostasy,  to  the  Catholic  Church. 

The  victory  seemed  complete  and  final ;  yet  men  had  hardly 
begun  to  count  its  gains  before  it  was  converted  into  hopeless 
and  irretrievable  defeat.  In  Germany,  as  early  as  1622, 
"  Catholicism  poured  in  a  mighty  torrent,"  says  a  well-known 
Protestant  writer,  "  from  the  south  to  the  north,  and  the  work 
of  conversion  advanced  with  resistless  force"^  First  Austria 
cast  out  the  unclean  spirit  which  had  entered  into  her.  One 
after  another  all  the  provinces  of  that  great  empire  returned 
to  the  faith.  In  1620,  "all  Bohemia,"  as  the  Protestant  Kra- 
sinski  notices,  "  was,  with  the  exception  of  some  nobles  and 
monks,  Protestant;  in  1637,"  only  seventeen  years  later, 
"it  was  entirely  Roman  Catholic  !''J  So  utterly  was  heresy 

*  Ranke,  i.,  364,  412 ;  Kohl,  p.  413. 

f  Ranke,  ii.,  77. 

i  Panslansm  and  Germanism,  by  Count  Valerian  Krasinski,  ch.  ii.,  p.  160. 


SUMMARY.  449 

vanquished,  and  so  effectual  was  the  reconversion  of  all  the 
Austrian  races,  after  the  momentary  frenzy  of  delusion  had 
passed  away,  that  in  our  own  day,  even  in  Bohemia  and 
Moravia,  once  entirely  Protestant,  the  new  religion  claims  in 
the  latter  only  six,  and  in  the  former  only  two  and  a  quarter 
per  cent,  of  the  whole  population  !* 

In  Hungary,  which  had  become  the  spoil  of  the  destroyer, 
the  apostles  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  filled  with  the  might  of 
God,  scourged  the  evil  spirits  from  the  land,  and  preached  with 
such  irresistible  unction  and  power  the  ancient  faith,  that, 
after  the  lapse  of  two  centuries,  a  German  Lutheran  thus 
describes  the  relative  power  of  the  two  confessions  :  "There  is 
a  great  difference,"  says  Mr.  Kohl,  "  between  the  Catholic  and 
Reformed  clergy  in  Hungary ;  the  former  are  incomparably 
more  learned  and  more  imbued  with  the  Western  European 
civilization  than  the  latter."  "The  great  convents  and  abbeys 
in  Austria,"  he  adds,  content  to  adopt  a  human  explanation  of 
the  contrast,  "have  been  at  all  times  the  nurses  and  cherish  era 
of  science  and  art.  .  .  Each  boasts  its  celebrated  names,  either 
of  those  who  have  long  departed  from  this  world,  and  live  only 
in  the  affection  and  respect  of  posterity,  or  of  those  still  living 
and  actively  engaged  in  the  service  of  their  order."  Then 
ridiculing  "  the  notions  which  Protestants  entertain"  of  these 
sanctuaries  of  labor,  science,  and  virtue,  he  gives  this  charac 
teristic  proof  of  the  universality  of  their  influence.  "  I  asked," 
he  says,  while  travelling  in  Hungary,  "whether  Catholics  were 
not  sometimes  converted  to  the  reformed  faith.  '  JV0,  never ^ 
was  the  answer;  but  the  contrary  sometimes  happens.  A 
reformed  nobleman,  when  he  is  on  his  death-bed,  will  some 
times  send  of  a  sudden  for  a  Catholic  priest,  but  it  never  occurs 
to  a  Catholic  that  a  Protestant  minister  can  be  of  any  service 
to  him."f 

In  Poland,  where  the  reformed  doctrine  developed  almost  at 
its  birth  into  Socinianism,  and  a  once  faithful  nation  seemed 
forever  lost  to  God,  the  exorcism  was  equally  swift  and  potent. 
So  completely  has  heresy  died  out,  in  spite  of  its  early  triumphs, 
that  while  an  English  writer  observes  that  "  the  great  body  of 
the  Polish  nation  consists  of  Catholies"  he  adds,  that  even  "of 
the  remainder  the  majority  consists  of  Jews"$  Count  Kra- 
sinski,  though  a  Protestant,  confesses  that  this  reconversion  of 
a  whole  nation  was  effected  by  the  same  apostolic  ministry 
which  triumphed  in  so  many  other  lands,  and  that  owing  to 

*  Kohl,  p.  70. 

f  Kohl's  Austria,  pp.  98,  875. 

i  An  Inquiry,  &c.,  by  Herbert  Marsh,  D.D.,  p.  67. 


VOL.  II. 


4:50  CHAPTER  X. 

the  influence  of  the  Jesuits,  whom  the  Spirit  of  God  inspired  to 
reconquer  kingdoms  and  to  add  to  the  Church  more  souls  than 
she  had  lost,  "  domestic  life  in  Poland,"  as  soon  as  heresy  was 
cast  out,  "  was  graced  by  truly  patriarchal  virtues."* 

Everywhere  the  snare  was  broken  in  which  the  enemy  had 
captured  the  nations,  and  millions  of  souls  awoke,  at  the  voice 
of  this  new  company  of  apostles,  from  the  trance  which  had 
surprised  for  a  moment  the  conscience  of  mankind.  From  one 
end  of  Europe  to  the  other,  rose  up,  in  every  city  and  village, 
preachers  who  emulated  the  austerity  of  St.  John  the  Baptist, 
and  the  fiery  zeal  of  St.  Paul.  In  obedience  to  their  word, 
Saxony,  Bavaria,  and  half  Prussia  returned  to  the  Church. 
Belgium,  which  had  been  half  Protestant,  "  was  transformed," 
as  Ranke  observes,  "  into  one  of  the  most  Catholic  countries  of 
the  world."  Even  Holland,  which  had  been  so  completely 
subjugated  by  the  enemy  that  her  recovery  might  well  be 
deemed  hopeless,  was  destined,  by  a  miracle  of  Divine  grace, 
to  wrelcome  once  more  her  sacred  hierarchy ;  and  after  losing, 
by  a  religious  revolution,  Flanders  and  Brabant,  and  every 
thing  south  of  the  Scheldt  and  the  Rhine,  has  seen  fully  one- 
half  of  the  shorn  remnant  of  her  population  embrace  in  their 
turn  the  Catholic  faith. 

In  France,  in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  says  Ranke,  "the 
number  of  Protestants  decreased  seventy  per  cent.;"  and  only 
twenty  years  after  the  new  religion  had  devastated  the  land 
with  civil  war,  and  sent  forth  its  armed  hosts  under  the  com 
mand  of  kings  and  princes,  men  were  already  predicting,  what 
has  long  since  been  accomplished,  "  the  inevitable  and  final 
downfall  of  Protestantism  in  France." 

In  every  land,  except  Sweden  and  England, — where  the 
civil  authority  prohibited  the  freedom  of  conscience  which  Prot 
estantism  was  supposed  to  guarantee,  and  where  the  rack  or 
the  gibbet  supplanted  reason,  and  for  a  time  extinguished 
faith, — the  same  swift  decay  commenced  which  from  that  hour 
no  effort  has  been  able  to  arrest,  and  of  which  Macaulay  wrote 
the  pregnant  summary  when  he  said :  "  Fifty  years  after  the 
Lutheran  separation,  Catholicism  could  scarcely  maintain  itself 
on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  ;  a  hundred  years  after  the 
separation,  Protestantism  could  scarcely  maintain  itself  on  the 
shores  of  the  Baltic  ""\ 

Such  was  the  latest  of  that  long  series  of  victories,  renewed 
in  every  successive  age,  of  which  the  all-sufficient  explanation 
is  found  in  the  magnificent  promises  of  the  Eternal  Word: 

*  The  Religious  History  of  the  Slavonic  Nations,  cli.  ix.,  p.  197. 
f  Essay  on  llanke's  History  of  the  Popes. 


SUMMARY.  451 

"  Every  tongue  that  resisteth  thee  in  judgment  thou  shall  con 
demn?  "  Behold,  I  am  with  you  all  days,  even  to  the  con 
summation  of  the  world"  And  even  this,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  only  the  half  of  her  triumph.  It  was  not  enough  that  she 
should  recover  millions  from  the  apostate  races  over  whom  the 
enemy  had  begun  to  reign,  and  restore  repentant  nations  to 
the  family  of  God.  A  more  perfect  satisfaction  was  due  both  to 
Him  and  to  her ;  and  therefore  she  received  power,  while 
baffling  the  most  formidable  conspiracy  which  had  ever  assailed 
her  life,  to  add  at  the  same  moment  to  her  communion,  by  an 
effort  not  too  great  for  this  mighty  Mother,  such  a  multitude  of 
new  believers  in  the  East  and  West,  of  every  people  and  tongue, 
as  to  fulfil  once  more  in  the  face  of  the  world  that  double  pro 
phecy,  "  The  nation  and  kingdom,  that  will  not  serve  thee  shall 
perish"  and  "  the  strength  of  the  gentiles  shall  come  to  thee" 
This  was  the  last  and  greatest  of  her  triumphs.  Ten  thousand 
apostles  rose  up  to  do  her  bidding  in  the  Old  World,  and  twice 
ten  thousand  to  carry  her  message  to  the  New.  In  the  very 
hour  of  her  sorest  need,  while  her  Lord  seemed  to  sleep  in  the 
vessel  round  which  the  storm  was  raging,  a  double  victory  over 
her  enemies  was  preparing  for  her,  a  double  confusion  for  them ; 
for  wrhile  they  could  neither  recruit  a  solitary  disciple  in  the 
other  hemisphere,  nor  maintain  their  brief  conquests  in  this, 
she  did  both  at  once ;  and  as  Moses  with  one  hand  gave  the 
Covenant  to  his  people,  and  lifting  up  the  other  "put  Amalec 
to  flight"  so  she  presented  at  one  moment  to  a  thousand  pagan 
tribes  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  and  the  next  drove  back  from  the 
Mediterranean  to  the  Baltic  the  swarming  legions  who  were 
arrayed  against  her.  Once  more  the  word  came  to  her,  "  The 
Lord  will  fight  for  you,  and  you  shall  hold  your  peace,"  and  in 
patience  and  confidence  she  awaited  the  issue. 


THE   END    OF   THE    CONFLICT. 

It  is  not  at  the  close  of  a  work  already  extended  to  extrava 
gant  dimensions  that  we  can  attempt  to  review  all  the  phases  of 
that  new  combat  to  which  the  Church  was  now  challenged,  nor 
to  trace  the  gradual  decay  and  present  condition  of  the  Sects 
which  from  that  hour  conspired  against  her.  Yet  without  a 
few  words  on  both  points  this  summary  would  be  incomplete. 
Founded  on  the  common  basis  of  hostility  to  the  Catholic 
Church,  and  breathing  out  destruction  against  her,  the  Sects 
had  already  lost  all  cohesion  before  they  had  been  ten  years  in 
the  world,  and  were  busy  even  at  that  date  in  those  implacable 
mutual  conflicts  by  which  God  devoted  them  to  destruction,  and 


4:52  CHAPTER  X. 

which  at  a  later  period  they  were  to  renew,  to  the  dishonor  of 
Christianity,  before  the  face  of  the  heathen.  A  brief  array  of 
testimonies  will  suffice  to  convince  us  how  exactly  their  later 
fortunes  have  accorded  with  this  beginning,  and  that  the 
domestic  history  of  Protestantism,  always  "divided  against 
itself,"  is  at  least  as  significant  a  revelation  of  its  inability  to 
maintain  religious  life  in  its  own  disciples,  as  its  failure  among 
the  heathen  is  of  its  incapacity  to  communicate  it  to  others 
Three  centuries  have  passed  away  since  they  commenced  their 
career,  arid  not  one  promise  which  the  Sects  made  to  a  foolish 
generation  has  been  kept,  even  in  part.  They  boasted  that 
they  would  restore  Christian  doctrine  to  its  primitive  purity, 
and  have  only  destroyed  the  faith  of  whole  nations,  reducing 
their  masses  to  a  condition  almost  below  that  of  the  heathen, 
while  they  have  everywhere  revived  blasphemies  against  the 
Blessed  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation  which  had  been  well-nigh 
unknown  for  a  thousand  years.  "  The  ancient  controversies 
on  the  Trinity,"  as  Mr.  Hallam  observes,  "  had  long  subsided, 

and  Erasmus,  when  accused  of  Arianism,  might  reply 

with  apparent  truth,  that  no  heresy  was  more  extinct"*  With 
the  new  religion  it  revived,  under  various  names  and  disguises, 
in  every  land,  was  diffused  like  a  deadly  plague  wherever  the 
Reformation  found  disciples  ;  and  now  at  the  end  of  three  cen 
turies,  the  Church  is  found  to  be  defending  in  all  Protestant 
lands,  against  the  contemptuous  mockery  of  the  Sects,  those 
very  truths  of  revelation  of  which  their  founders  claimed,  with 
eager  imprecation  and  clamorous  taunt,  to  be  the  exclusive  ad 
vocates  !  They  have  failed  to  teach  the  Gospel  to  the  heathen, 
but  they  have  failed  not  less  signally  to  preserve  it  from  the 
outrages  of  their  own  friends.  This  is  their  twofold  shame. 
"  Men  are  doubting,"  said  Melancthon,  with  real  or  affected 
horror,  "  about  the  most  fundamental  truths  !"f  Even  in  that 
early  day  he  foresaw  what  the  end  would  be.  It  has  come  at  last. 


GERMANY. 


In  Germany, — where  the  Reformation  found  its  earliest 
advocates,  and  where  it  has  been  so  fruitful  of  enmity  and 
division,  that  "there  are  now  about  thirty-eight  Protestant 
churches,  each  of  which  is  independent  of  every  other," — so 

*  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe,  vol.  i.,  ch.  v.,  p.  507. 
f  Quoted  by  Starck,  Tlieodul's  Gctfttmahl,  p.  246  ;  ed.  Kentzinger.     "  Vides 
quo  tondat  petulantia  multorum."    Homes,  Matthice  Epist.,  p.  252. 


SUMMARY.  553 

notorious  is  the  decay  of  all  positive  religion,  and  so  universal 
the  extinction  of  Christian  faith  and  piety,  that  while  one 
German  writer  declares  of  its  empty  and  prayerless  temples, 
"  one  could  not  bring  a  heathen  inside  of  them  without  blush 
ing  for  shame,"  another  has  lately  announced,  in  the  face  of  his 
co-religionists,  and  in  allusion  to  phenomena  with  which  they 
are  familiar,  "  it  must  be  plainly  seen  that  the  days  in  which 
we  live  are  ripe  for  the  great  apostasy"* 

In  1825,  a  German  theologian,  "  in  recounting  the  professors 
who  could  any  how  be  considered  orthodox,  that  is,  those  who 
in  any  way  contended  for  the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel,  or  its 
very  truth,  counted,  in  all  Protestant  Germany,  seventeen"^ 
What  farther  proof  do  we  need  that  Protestantism  has  been  in 
Germany  the  destroyer  of  Christianity  ? 

And  what,  meanwhile,  have  been  in  the  same  land  the 
fortunes  of  that  Church  which  Protestantism  undertook  to 
reform  or  supplant,  and  whose  downfall  it  predicted  three 
centuries  ago  as  just  at  hand  ?  Teaching  at  this  hour  the  same 
doctrines  which  she  taught  before  the  Sects  came  into  being, 
and  which  she  will  still  be  teaching  when  they  have  vanished 
from  the  world,  she  has  not  only  reconverted  a  majority  of  the 
German  race,  including  even  in  Prussia  one-half  of  the  entire 
population,  and  recovered  the  filial  homage  of  such  men  as 
Stolberg  and  Schlegel,  and  others  hardly  less  illustrious ;  but 
has  heard  at  last  the  sorrowful  confession  of  her  adversaries 
that  she  alone  can  now  illumine  the  darkness  which  hangs  like 
a  pall  around  them,  or  save  them  from  the  deluge  of  unbelief 
which,  as  Messner  observes  in  1861,  "  is  filtering  through  and 
wasting  away  those  protecting  dykes,  the  Family,  the  State, 
and  the  Church.";): 

Prom  every  quarter  the  same  cry  of  alarm  is  heard,  and  the 
partisans  of  a  religion  once  so  arrogant  and  menacing  no  longer 
blush  to  declare,  while  they  contemplate  the  ruins  around  them, 
that  the  Church  alone  can  now  save  society  from  dissolution 
and  chaos.  "  Two  of  the  most  determined  political  opponents  of 
Catholic  interests,"  we  learn  from  Dr.  Dollinger,  "  both  zealous 
friends  and  supporters  of  the  Evangelical,"  or  official  Church  of 
Prussia,  are  the  well-known  President  of  the  Council  Yon 
Gerlach,  and  the  Privy  Councillor  Eilers.  "  We  daily  see," 
says  the  former,  whose  whole  public  life  has  been  an  attack 
upon  the  authority  of  the  Yicar  of  Christ,  "how  small,  in 
comparison  with  the  power  of  the  Catholic  Church,  is  the 

*  Quoted  by  Dollinger,  The  Church  and  the  Churches,  pp.  275,  308,  330. 
f  A  Letter  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  by  Dr.  Pusey,  p.  123. 
j  Dollinger,  p.  204. 


554:  CHAPTER  X. 

influence  which  the  Evangelical  has  upon  the  enlightenment 
and  sanctification  of  the  mass  of  the  population,  and  upon  the 
majority  of  its  own  members."  "  I  have  made  it  my  study,"  adds 
the  latter,  who  has  founded  three  journals  to  perpetuate  the 
opposition  to  the  Catholic  Church,  "  to  ascertain  the  connection 
that  exists  between  what  is  the  Christian  life  of  the  Catholic 
population,  and  its  institutions  and  practices ;  and,  with  an 
unwilling  heart,  I  am  compelled  to  admit  that  in  general  a  far 
more  Christ-like  life  is  led  by  those  who  belong  to  the  Catholic 
than  to  the  Evangelical  Church."* 

Whoever  desires  to  obtain  an  exact  conception  of  the  actual 
condition  of  Protestant  Germany,  which  appears  even  to  such 
men  as  Rudelbach  significant  of  the  coming  Antichrist,  will 
find  in  the  latest  work  of  Dr.  Dollinger  at  once  the  most 
minute  and  the  most  authentic  narrative  which  has  ever 
been  published.  The  facts  recorded  in  that  remarkable  work 
are  entirely  derived,  and  to  this  they  owe  their  special  value, 
from  the  spontaneous  testimony  of  a  multitude  of  writers  whose 
names  are  eminent  in  the  ranks  of  those  who  still  affect  to  deem 
the  Reformation  a  benefit  to  mankind.  It  is  impossible  to 
repeat  them  here.  Yet  there  is  one,  curiously  illustrating  the 
real  nature  of  Protestantism,  which  must  be  briefly  noticed. 

Of  all  the  promises  which  the  leaders  of  the  Reformation  gave 
to  their  followers  in  every  land,  the  most  attractive  perhaps  was 
that  which  offered  them  liberty  of  thought  and  opinion,  and 
complete  emancipation  from  ecclesiastical  control.  Protestants 
will  tell  us  how  they  have  kept  this  promise.  "  The  whole  of 
the  northern  people  of  Protestant  countries,"  says  Lord 
Molesworth,  u  have  lost  their  liberties  ever  since  they  changed 
their  religion  for  a  better."  "  Sweden,  Denmark,  Prussia,  and 
all  the  Protestant  States  of  Germany,"  adds  a  well-known 
Presbyterian  writer,  "are  at  this  day,  in  all  that  regards 
freedom  in  social  action,  freedom  of  mind  and  opinion,  more 
enslaved  than  they  were  in  the  middle  of  the  middle  ages."f 
Such  is  the  destiny  of  those  who  sell  their  birthright  to  the 
teachers  described  by  St.  Peter,  "  who  bring  in  sects  of  per 
dition,  promising  them  liberty? 

From  the  hour  in  which  Protestantism  acquired  supremacy 
in  any  land,  there  has  been  more  audacious  tyranny,  more 
arrogant  and  oppressive  u  priestcraft,"  in  the  most  odious  sense 
of  the  word,  than  was  ever  possible  in  the  Catholic  Church,  or 
ever  tolerated  in  any  human  society,  pagan  or  Christian.  In 


*  Dollinger,  p.  334. 

f  Laing,  Observations  on  Sweden,  ch.  i.,  p.  11.    Observations  on  Europe,  ch.  xv., 
p.  394. 


SUMMARY.  455 

the  State  Churches  of  Germany,  where  Protestantism  began  its 
career,  the  civil  power,  to  which  it  transferred  the  religious 
supremacy  once  exercised  by  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  has  never 
thought  it  necessary  to  flatter  its  subjects  with  even  the  sem 
blance  of  ecclesiastical  liberty.  "  The  Protestant  princes,"  as 
Moehler  observes,  "  thought  they  were  bound  to  decide  for 
their  subjects  all  religious  controversies,  and  to  make  their  own 
individual  opinions  the  property  of  all."  When  Frederic  III., 
Count  Palatine  of  the  Ehine,  abandoned  the  Lutheran  for  the 
Calvinistic  doctrines,  in  1562,  he  compelled  his  people  to  do 
the  same.  Eight  years  later,  his  son  Louis  banished  all  the 
Calvinist  preachers  and  reinstated  the  Lutherans.  Six  years 
after,  Frederic  IY.  restored  the  Calvinists,  and  dealt  with  their 
rivals  just  as  his  ancestors  did  with  the  partisans  of  Geneva. 
The  people  of  the  Palatinate  were  not  even  consulted,  and 
would  probably  have  been  surprised  if  they  had  been. 

It  was  stated  at  the  Westphalian  Peace  Congress,  that  the 
city  of  Oppenheim,  pawned  to  the  Palatinate,  has  been  forced 
to  change  its  religion  ten  times  since  the  Reformation.  In 
Anhalt  and  in  Hesse  Cassel,  the  preachers  were  silenced,  de 
posed,  or  restored  at  the  pure  caprice  of  the  Landgrave.  In 
Prussia,  and  at  the  present  hour,  the  same  almost  ludicrous 
commentary  on  the  so-called  Reformation  is  still  displayed. 
The  Prussians,  says  Mr.  Laing,  "  are  morally  slaves,  of  enslaved 
minds."  In  1834,  a  Prussian  monarch,  without  even  the  affec 
tation  of  consulting  the  nation,  peremptorily  suppressed,  by  a 
stroke  of  the  pen,  both  the  Lutheran  and  Calvinistic  Churches, 
in  order  to  substitute  a  new  one  of  his  own  invention.  When 
the  people  of  Silesia  hesitated  to  obey  the  royal  edict,  or  to 
"fall  down  and  worship  the  golden  image  which  the  king  had 
set  up,"  with  the  usual  accompaniment  of  "  harp,  and  sackbnt, 
and  all  kinds  of  music,"  they  were  promptly  instructed  in  the 
nature  of  the  "liberty"  which  the  Reformation  had  acquired 
for  them.  "Coercion,  imprisonment,  military  force,  and  quar 
tering  of  troops  on  the  recusant  peasants,  were  resorted  to,  in 
order  to  force  the  ministers  and  people  to  receive  this  new 
service."  The  process  was  characteristic,  and  uto  resist  this 
monstrous  tyranny  and  persecution,"  adds  the  Protestant  ob 
server,  "  there  was  no  Rome,  no  Vatican,  no  Pope  or  head  of 
the  Church  to  appeal  to.  How  different,  in  the  same  country, 
at  the  same  period,  was  the  exertion  of  the  autocratic  power  of 
the  same  Prussian  monarch  over  his  Roman  Catholic  subjects  ! 
They  had  protection  at  Rome,  and  consequently  in  the  whole 
Catholic  world,  against  such  arbitrary  violence.  He  could  not 
even  appoint  to  any  clerical  office  independently  of  Rome, 
although  he  could,  and  actually  did,  imprison  and  dismiss 


456  CHAPTER   X. 

Protestant  clergymen,  for  refusing  to  adopt  a  new  Church 
Service,  which,  as  head  of  the  Church  and  State,  he  composed 
and  promulgated  by  royal  edict !" 

Is  it  possible  to  confess  more  frankly,  that  true  religious 
liberty  has  no  existence  out  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  that 
the  Vicar  of  Christ,  after  defending  the  weak  against  the  strong 
for  nearly  two  thousand  years,  is  still  the  solitary  bulwark 
against  spiritual  oppression  ?  "  Catholicism  is,  in  fact,"  adds 
this  Presbyterian  witness,  "  the  only  barrier  at  present  in 
Prussia  against  a  general  and  debasing  despotism  of  the  State 
over  mind  and  action,"* — an  admission  that  Protestants  still 
derive  a  partial  protection  from  the  very  authority  which  they 
once  attempted  to  destroy,  while  it  illustrates  the  remark  of 
M.  Guizot,  that  "people  who' aspire  to  liberty  run  the  risk  of 
deceiving  themselves  as  to  the  nature  of  tyranny,"  and  jus 
tifies  the  reproach  of  Father  Faber,  that  "  men  would  rather  be 
enslaved  by  the  State  than  owe  their  emancipation  to  the 
Church." 


SWITZERLAND. 

» 

In  Switzerland,  the  second  conquest  of  the  Reformation,  the 
Gospel  was  finally  ejected  more  than  a  century  ago,  and  the 
Holy  Name  delivered  by  apostate  preachers  to  the  derision  of 
the  people.  "  O  Bossuet,"  said  the  infidel  D'Alembert,  exulting 
in  the  impieties  which  had  made  Geneva  the  Sodom  of  Chris 
tendom,  "  where  art  thou  ?  Eighty  years  have  passed  away 
since  you  predicted  that  the  principles  of  the  Protestants  would 
conduct  them  to  Socinianism :  what  gratitude  do  you  not  owe 
to  an  author  who  has  attested  before  all  Europe  the  truth  of 
your  prophecy  !"f 

The  Redeemer  of  the  world  is  now  declared  by  the  University 
of  Geneva  to  be  "  a  mere  man,"  and  the  students  for  the  min 
istry,  the  future  teachers  of  a  Protestant  people,  are  told  by 
their  masters  and  professors,  "Make  any  thing  you  like  of  Jesus 
Christ,  so  that  you  do  not  make  him  God.":j:  So  universal  is 
the  apostasy,  that  the  "  Berne  Synod"  could  lately  report,  "  Of 
every  ten  householders  there  is  scarcely  to  be  found  one  who 
now  believes  in  God  and  Christ,  or  makes  any  use  of  the  Scrip- 

*  Laing,  Notes  of  a  Traveller,  ch.  vi.,  pp.  171,  212. 

f  Ouvres  de  D'Alembert,  tome  v.,  p.  272. 

|  SketcJi  of  the  Religious  Discussions  which  have  lately  taken  place  at  Geneva, 
pp.  4-5.  Cf.  Considerations  SILT  la  Diviniet  de  Jesus  Christ,  par  H.  L.  Em- 
paytaz. 


SUMMARY.  457 

tures."  "There  no  longer  exists  in  the  Protestant  Borne," 
said  de  Lamennais,  "I  do  not  say  any  Christian  faith,  but  any 
faith  whatever."*  "  The  earthly  source,  the  pattern,  the  Rome 
of  our  Presbyterian  doctrine  and  practice,"  adds  Mr.  Laing, 
"  has  fallen  lower  from  her  own  doctrine  and  practice  than  ever 
Rome  fell.  Rome  has  still  superstition  ;  Geneva  has  not  even 
that  semblance  of  religion. "f 

But  perhaps  the  Swiss  Protestants,  though  they  have  aban 
doned  the  Gospel,  still  retain  the  "  liberty"  for  which  their 
fathers  deserted  the  Catholic  Church?  Thirty  years  ago,  a  few 
ministers  in  the  Canton  de  Yaud,  who  labored  under  this  de 
lusion,  ventured  to  criticise  the  statement  of  the  "  Venerable 
Company  of  Pastors,"  that,  "  to  reject  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
is  necessary  on  our  principles."  They  were  committed  to 
prison  4 

Perhaps  the  clergy  retain  the  power  and  influence  which  they 
once  possessed,  and  which  they  exercised  with  a  fierce  and  in 
solent  intolerance  never  matched  except  in  Scotland  and  in 
the  Puritan  hierarchy  of  New  England  ?  So  complete  is  the 
degradation  of  this  once  rampant  class,  that  it  was  lately  dis 
cussed  in  the  public  journals,  "  Whether  it  was  proper  that 
clergymen's  daughters  should  be  publicly  advertised  for  as 
housemaids."§ 

Perhaps,  at  least,  they  have  the  consolation  of  knowing  that 
they  have  effectually  rooted  out  the  ancient  faith,  and  that  their 
victory  over  the  Catholic  Church  is  complete  and  undisputed  ? 
In  1860,  the  Protestant  population  of  Switzerland  only  exceeded 
the  Catholic  by  one-fifth !  In  the  city  of  Geneva,  the  metropolis 
of  Calvinism,  where  once  a  Catholic  was  hunted  as  a  wild  beast, 
and  St,  Francis  de  Sales  was  an  object  of  fear  and  aversion, 
while  there  are  forty-two  thousand  two  hundred  and  sixty-six 
infidels  or  Arians,  there  are  forty-two  thousand  three  hundred 
and  fifty-five  zealous  Catholics.]  In  the  ten  years  from  1850  to 
1860  nearly  thirteen  thousand  were  added  to  their  number  in 
this  one  city,  in  which  they  at  length  form  a  majority  of  the 
population.  On  the  other  hand,  a  Protestant  minister,  who  still 
professes  to  believe  the  Gospel  while  he  rails  at  the  Church, 
the  solitary  advocate  of  that  doctrine  which  Servetus  was  burned 
for  denying,  counts  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  followers ! 

*  Histoire  des  Momiers,  p.  391. 

f  Notes  of  a  Traveller,  ch.  xiii.,  p.  325. 

\  Defense  de  la  Venerable  Gompagnie  des  Pasteurs,  &c.  Cf.  Feuille  d'Avis  de 
Geneve,  Octobre  7,  1818 ;  Melanges  de  Religion,  tome  ix.,  p.  342  ;  Geneve  Re- 
ligieuse,  par  M.  A.  Bost,  p.  12  ;  Ouvres  de  M.  de  Lamennais,  tome  viii.,  p.  392  ; 
Halda  e's  Letter  to  M.  J.  J.  Ohenemere. 

§  Dollintrer,  p.  219. 

]  Id.,  p.  214 


458  CHAPTER  X. 


FRANCE. 

In  France,  we  have  been  already  told  that  u  hardly  twenty 
pasteurs  confess  the  doctrines  of  theTrinity  and  the  Atonement ;" 
and  even  the  few  who  think  themselves  entitled  to  defend  the 
Christian  religion  do  so  in  language  so  full  of  arrogance  and 
malice,  that  their  writings  are,  if  possible,  more  odious  than 
those  of  its  professed  adversaries.  "Christianity,"  says  an 
English  Protestant  traveller,  "  must  appear  to  the  great  majority 
of  French  Protestants  to  have  in  it  nothing  positive  or  detined 
at  all.  ...  On  entering  a  French  temple,  one  experiences  the 
same  sensation  as  on  entering  a  Jewish  synagogue.  Its  services 
appear  like  a  wretched  effort,  not  to  serve,  but  to  keep  up  the 
memory  of  an  abolished  religion."* 


HOLLAND. 

"  Religion  in  Holland,"  says  Huber,  "  has  never,  since  the 
Reformation,  continued  the  same  for  thirty  years  together,  "f 
As  early  as  1655,  an  English  traveller  reported  that  "  the  sect 
of  Socmianism  bears  great  sway,  and  is  assented  to  by  most 
there.":):  "  At  present,"  says  a  Dutch  writer  in  1856,  "  every 
one  teaches  and  preaches  what  he  likes."§  Of  its  fifteen 
hundred  ministers,  fourteen  hundred  are  said  to  deny  the  In 
carnation. 

"The  Dutch  Reformed  Church,"  says  Niebuhr,  and  we  have 
had  in  these  volumes  sufficient  evidence  of  the  truth  of  his 
statement,  "  has  always,  wherever  it  was  free,  become  coarsely 
tyrannical,  and  has  never,  either  for  the  spirit  it  manifested, 
or  the  good  dispositions  of  its  teachers,  deserved  any  great 
esteem.'f||  Yet  this  coarse  tyranny,  which  is  the  characteris 
tic  of  "  reformed"  communities,  has  not  prevented  half  of  its 
population  from  becoming  Catholic,  nor  preserved  among  the 
remaining  moiety  even  the  barest  elements  of  Christianity. 

*  Blackwood's  Magazine,  April,  1836,  p.  470. 

f  BiUiothtque  Universelle,  tome  xxiv.,  p.  181. 

i  Thurloe's  State  Papers,  vol.  i.,  p.  508  ;  vol.  iii.,  p.  50.  Cf.  Winwood's 
Memorials,  vol.  iii.,  p.  340  ;  Gerard  Brandt,  History  of  the  Reformation  in  the 
Low  Countries,  vol.  iv. ;  Grotius,  Ordin.  Hollandice  et  Westfrisiw  Pietas,  p.  123 ; 
Encydopedie  Methodique,  Art.  Sociniens;  Vedelius,  De  Arcanis  Arminianisme, 
lib.  i. ;  Pluquet,  Dictionnaire,  tome  1.,  p.  78 ;  Bossuet,  Histoire  ties  Variations, 
&c.,  tome  iv.,  p.  510. 

$  Do! linger,  p.  201. 

I  Quutcd  by  Dollinger,  p.  100. 


SUMMARY.  459 

"  There  has  been,"  says  Dr.  Candlish,  a  well-known  Presby 
terian  preacher,  "a  grievous  declension  and  departure  from  her 
first  faith  in  the  Dutch  Church."*  "  The  death-waters  of  un 
belief,"  adds  Messner  in  1861,  "of  Rationalism,  Pantheism, 
and  Materialism  are  in  Holland,  as  in  Germany,"  sweeping  all 
before  them ;  while  Groen  freely  confesses  that  "  the  Dutch 
Church  is  a  chaos,  and  should  not  any  longer  be  called  a 
Church."t 


ENGLAND. 

It  is  not  within  the  compass  of  a  few  pages  that  we  can  ap 
preciate  the  phenomena  which  betray  the  real  influence  of  the 
Reformation  in  England.  One  of  her  own  clergy,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Pusey,  described  her  population,  a  few  years  ago,  as  "a  numer 
ous  nation  of  heathens."  A  little  later,  an  official  census, 
which  revealed  the  fact  that  five  millions  "  profess  no  religion 
whatever,"  confirmed  his  account,  and  added,  that  in  spite  of  a 
religious  Establishment  which  has  at  least  one  representative  in 
every  village  in  the  land, — in  Leeds  and  Liverpool  forty)  in 
Manchester  fifty-one,  in  Birmingham  fifty-four,  in  Lambeth 
sixty-one,  and  in  Sheffield  sixty-two  per  cent,  of  the  inhabitants 
neither  have  nor  profess  to  have  any  religion  whatever;  so  that, 
speaking  generally,  u  heathenism  is  fast  prevailing  over  Chris 
tianity,"  or,  as  the  Bishop  of  Exeter  expressed  it  in  one  of  his 
Charges,  "  a  fierce  hatred  against  the  Christian  faith  rages  in 
many  parts  of  England." 

It  is  in  England,  again,  that  the  masses  have  sunk  into  such 
a  condition  of  purely  animal  existence,  that  the  official  descrip 
tions,  including  those  of  the  Assistant  Commissioners  employed 
during  the  late  Education  Inquiry,  are  almost  incredible.  "  In 
this  great  Christian  nation,"  we  are  told,  "  vice  exists  to  an  ex 
tent  utterly  unknown  in  pagan  countries?^  And  the  proofs 
of  this  statement  are  found,  not  only  in  the  rural  and  mining 
districts,  but,  as  an  eminent  advocate  of  the  Establishment 
admits,  "  in  the  fairest  portions  of  this  magnificent  city."  "A 
frightful  amount  of  infidelity,"  says  the  Rector  of  one  of  the 
most  important  London  parishes,  in  which  Exeter  Hall  is  a 
conspicuous  monument,  "  infidelity  in  all  its  shapes,  extending 
not  only  to  the  denying  of  the  Christian  revelation,  but  even  to 
the  grossest  and  darkest  heathenism"  prevails  among  the  lower, 

*  The  Scottish  Christian  Herald,  vol.  iii.,  pp.  199,  504 ;  3d  Series. 

f  Dollinger,  p.  204. 

i  Tlie  Times,  April  11,  1862. 


460  CHAPTER  X. 

"and  actually  extends  among  the  better  classes."*  "We  could 
name  entire  quarters,"  observes  a  great  authority,  and  this 
"  within  easy  walk  of  Charing  Cross,"  "  in  which  it  seems  to  be 
a  custom  that  men  and  women  should  live  in  promiscuous  con 
cubinage — where  the  very  shopkeepers  make  a  profession  of 
atheism,  and  encourage  their  poor  customers  to  do  the  same." 
In  more  obscure  districts,  he  adds,  "  there  are  whole  streets, 
nay  miles  and  miles,  where  the  people  live  literally  without 
God  in  the  world."f 

In  1856,  a  learned  English  traveller  described  in  these  words 
the  impression  which  he  had  formed  of  the  comparative  civil 
ization  of  the  mass  of  the  British  population  and  "of  the  black 
African,  or  the  red  American  Indian."  "  I  was  compelled  to 
come  to  the  conclusion,  after  fairly  investigating  the  question, 
that  the  physical,  moral,  intellectual,  arid  educational  state  of 
the  lower  orders  in  England  was  the  lowest  on  the  scale  I  had 

ever  witnessed quite  on  a  par  with  that  of  the  savage,  and 

sometimes  even  below  it."J  "  Bad,"  says  an  Anglican  clergy 
man,  who  had  also  gathered  knowledge  from  foreign  travel, 
"  as  the  moral  effects  of  the  Jewish  and  Mohammedan  religions 
are,  it  must  strike  every  traveller  that  the  people  are  under  the 
influence  of  religion,  such  as  it  is,  more  than  they  seem  to  be 
in  the  great  towns  of  England."§ 

And  what,  meanwhile,  is  the  condition  of  that  so-called 
National  Church,  which,  after  a  reign  of  three  centuries,  has 
brought  to  this  pass  a  land  once  known  as  "  the  Isle  of  Saints?" 
"  Half  the  inhabitants  of  this  island,"  we  are  told,  "  are  Dis 
senters,  and  of  the  rest  the  greater  part  take  the  Establishment 
simply  as  it  comes,  with  very  mixed  feelings,  and  certainly  not 
loving  it  as  the  thing  of  their  choice.7'!  After  fighting  during 
BO  long  a  period  for  supremacy,  and  refusing  to  all  others,  while 
she  had  the  power,  the  smallest  liberty  of  conscience,  the  so- 
called  Church  of  England  has  accepted,  says  an  official  organ, 
"  a  servitude  which  the  lowest  sect  of  Jumpers  would  not  sub 
ject  itself  t(5,"T  and  the  only  religious  freedom,  as  Dollinger 
observes,  which  has  survived  so  many  conflicts,  is  "the  liberty 
of  not  belonging  to  the  State  Church !" 

In  the  Sects  which  have  separated  from  its  communion, 
though  their  members  are  in  bondage  to  their  own  conceits  or 
enslaved  by  human  traditions,  they  persuade  themselves  that 

*  Quarterly  Review,  April,  1861,  pp.  432-63. 
f  Ibid. 

\  Tlie  United  States,  &c.,  by  John  Shaw,  M.D.,  F.G.S.,  F.L.S.,  ch.  x.,  p.  244. 
§  The  Canary  Isles,  &c.,  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Debary,  M.A.,  ch.  xxi.,  p.  255. 
I  The  Times,  February  28,  1862. 
1|  The,  Globe,  quoted  by  Dollinger,  p.  156. 


SUMMARY.  461 

they  still  retain  their  freedom,  because  they  can  exchange  one 
crude  opinion  for  another,  whenever  they  have  a  mind  to  do  so  ; 
but  the  Church  which  they  have  quitted  has  lost  even  the  right 
to  determine  its  own  confession  of  faith,  and  is  content  to  solicit 
from  a  lay  tribunal  the  solution  of  the  gravest  questions  which 
can  agitate  the  conscience  of  mankind.  The  Russian  Church 
has~a  "  Synod,"  of  which  it  cannot  even  appoint  the  secretary 
and  subordinate  officials,  "  who  are  all  nominated  and  displaced 
by  the  Czar,"  while  its  president,  a  Lutheran  and  a  cavalry 
officer,  "  presents  to  benefices,  decides  upon  the  degradation  of 
a  clergyman,  or  submits  to  the  Emperor  subjects  for  canoniza 
tion  !"*  The  Church  of  England,  whose  bishops  are  selected 
by  the  Minister  of  the  day,  has  also  a  "  Convocation,"  of  which 
the  members  hardly  dare  open  their  mouths,  lest  they  should 
betray  to  the  world  that  no  two  of  them  are  of  the  same  mind, 
and  which  assembles  only  when  a  lay  voice  permits  it  to  meet, 
and  retires  with  equal  docility  when  it  bids  it  depart.  Unable 
to  decide  even  the  most  fundamental  points  of  faith,  its  mem 
bers  who  are  curious  to  know  what  is  its  doctrine  of  Baptism  or 
of  the  Inspiration  of  Scripture,  or  of  the  Eucharistic  Sacrifice^ 
must  now  address  their  inquiries  to  a  learned  gentleman,  who 
decides  on  Monday  whether  an  Anglican  minister  is  a  heretic, 
and  on  Tuesday  whether  a  patent  has  been  infringed  or  a 
charter-party  violated.  So  completely  has  the  Established 
Church  lost  the  character  of  a  teacher,  that,  as  an  organ  of  the 
government  contemptuously  observes,  "  the  thousands  of  its 
declared  adherents  laugh  aloud  whenever  its  ministers  over 
step  their  humble  sphere  as  officers  of  a  national  institution. "f 
The  clergy  of  the  Establishment  know  their  position,  and  ac 
cept  it. 

It  is  true  that  the  official  Church,  unlike  that  of  Holland  or 
Prussia,  has  nominally  maintained  its  original  formularies ;  but 
this  is  only  because  they  are  a  burden  to  nobody,  and  because 
experience  has  shown  that  even  its  clergy  are  at  liberty  to  in 
terpret  their  vague  and  contradictory  phrases  almost  at  pleasure, 
while  among  its  lay  members  every  one  is  free  to  commend  or 
revile,  to  accept  or  suppress  them,  according  to  his  private 
humor.  "There  is  scarcely  a  form  of  religious  imposture," 
says  one  of  the  chief  authorities  recognized  by  Englishmen, 
u  and  perhaps  no  set  of  religious  or  irreligious  opinions,  that 
does  not  number  among  its  adherents  some  priest  or  deacon  of 
the  English  Church."!  Differing  in  this  respect  from  every 

*  The  Russo-Turkish  Campaigns,  by  Colonel  Cliesney,  D.C.L.,  F.R.S.,  cli.  x., 
p.  313. 

The  Globe,  ubi  supra. 
The  Times,  April  9, 1862. 


4:62  CHAPTER  X. 

other  religious  community  which  has  hitherto  appeared  in  the 
world,  the  outward  profession  of  membership  with  this  Church 
implies  absolutely  nothing  as  to  the  belief  of  those  who  make 
it.  The  titles  of  "  "Wesley  an,"  or  "  Unitarian,"  or  "Baptist," 
indicate  at  least  something  of  the  religious  opinions  of  those 
who  bear  them  ;  not  so  that  of  a  member  of  the  Establishment, 
who  may  hold  the  same  opinions  as  either  of  the  classes  named, 
or  their  contraries,  or  any  conceivable  modification  of  them, 
without  injury  to  his  profession  as  an  Anglican.  There  is 
probably  less  difference  of  sentiment  between  any  two  mem 
bers  of  any  religious  community  in  the  world  than*is  every  day 
announced,  not  only  between  the  laity,  but  between  the  clergy 
and  the  bishops  of  the  Anglican  body.  The  Church  of  Eng 
land — which  neither  teaches  nor  rebukes,  neither  approves 
nor  condemns,  neither  canonizes  nor  excommunicates,  and  is 
represented  at  the  same  moment,  and  with  equal  confidence,  by 
Gorham  and  Philpots,  by  Hampden  and  Keble,  by  Jowett  and 
"Wilberforce,  by  Whately  and  Denison,  that  is,  by  men  whose 
respective  creeds  are  the  formal  negation  of  one  another, — 
confessedly  numbers  within  her  undefined  pale  partisans  of 
every  religious  tenet,  theory,  or  opinion,  however  opposite  and 
contradictory,  which  Protestantism  has  at  any  time  or  by  any 
agency  introduced  into  the  world.  The  history  of  Christianity 
records  no  parallel  case.  "  The  religion  of  the  Church  of  Eng 
land,"  said  Lord  Macaulay,  "is,  in  fact,  a  bundle  of  religious 
systems  without  number;  .  .  .  .  a  hundred  Sects  battling  within 
one  Church."* 

It  is  to  be  observed,  moreover,  that  however  significant  may 
be  the  lessons  which  we  derive  from  the  past  history  and  present 
condition  of  a  Church  which,  in  spite  of  its  pretensions  to  be 
"  National,"  is  probably,  if  tried  by  any  rational  test  of  Church 
membership,  one  of  the  smallest  Sects  in  the  kingdom,  a  new 
and  more  formidable  era  than  any  which  it  has  hitherto  traversed 
is  now  about  to  begin.  Neither  the  past  nor  the  present  of  this 
Church  are  cheerful  subjects  of  contemplation,  but  the  future 
is  more  gloomy  still.  Scientific  discoveries,  which  constitute  a 
real  intellectual  difficulty  for  all,  and  perhaps  a  fatal  one  for 
those  who  have  only  private  and  traditional  interpretations  of 
Scripture  to  fall  back  upon,  are  claiming  to  correct  and  readjust 
the  popular  belief  in  the  Mosaic  record.  To  such  an  enemy,  a 
religion  founded  solely  on  the  capricious  and  fallible  interpre 
tation  of  the  Bible,  and  already  losing  its  hold  on  the  minds  of 
its  professors,  can  offer  but  a  feeble  resistance.  The  Catholic 
alone,  to  whom  the  infallibility  of  the  Church  is  as  certain  aa 

*  Essay  on  Church  and  State. 


SUMMARY.  463 

\ 

the  attributes  of  God,  has  independent  proofs  of  the  truth  of 
Christianity,  which,  though  moral  rather  than  scientific,  no 
assault  can  destroy  nor  even  impair ;  and  moreover,  he  can 
always  propose  to  the  unbeliever  far  greater  difficulties  than 
any  which  science  can  urge  against  himself.  To  say  nothing 
of  the  long  history  of  the  Church,  with  all  its  magnificent  dis 
closures  of  the  sleepless  tenderness  and  irresistible  power  of 
God,  the  life  of  a  single  saint,  or  even  of  a  consistently  good 
Catholic  steadfastly  growing  in  grace  by  the  use  of  the  Sacra 
ments,  and  perhaps  still  more  of  a  penitent  recalled  by  the 
creative  voice  of  the  Church  from  the  grave  of  sin,  is  to  the 
Christian  an  immeasurably  more  convincing  evidence  of  the 
truth  of  his  religion  than  any  researches  in  geology  or  palaeon 
tology  can  be  of  its  falsehood.  Except  for  their  probable  effect 
upon  others  and  their  deep  scientific  interest,  such  researches 
would  be  to  a  Catholic  simply  indifferent.  The  very  Scriptures 
whose  authority  they  menace,  and  which  a  majority  of  the 
Protestant  world  have  already  begun  to  treat  with  contempt, 
have  sufficiently  prepared  him  for  a  controversy  which  they 
clearly  predict,  and  which  seems  to  have  been  fitly  reserved  for 
an  epoch  like  this,  and  for  "  the  infidelity  of  an  age  so  largely 
engaged  as  the  present  in  physical  pursuits."*  Here  is  their 
warning  against  the  snare  in  which  it  is  too  probable  that  many 
of  this  generation  will  be  caught. 

"  Seek  not  the  things  that  are  too  high  for  thee,  and  search 
not  into  things  above  thy  ability ;  but  the  things  that  God  hath 
commanded  thee,  think  on  them  always,  and  in  many  of  His 
works  be  not  curious." 

"  For  it  is  not  necessary  to  see  with  thine  eyes  those  things 
that  are  hid." 

"  In  unnecessary  matters  be  not  over  curious,  and  in  many  of 
His  works  thou  shalt  not  be  inquisitive." 

"  For  many  things  are  shown  to  thee  above  the  understand 
ing  of  men." 

uAnd  the  suspicion  of  them  hath  deceived  many,  and  hath 
detained  their  minds  in  vanity."f 

Such  a  warning,  coupled  with  the  illumination  of  Divine 
faith,  and  the  teaching  of  a  Church  which  can  neither  deceive 
nor  be  deceived,  suffices  to  the  Catholic.  Difficulties  may  re 
main,  of  which  the  solution  must  be  deferred  for  a  time,  but 
they  will  be  harmless  to  him  who  can  say,  "  I  know  whom  I 
have  believed."  With  the  Protestant, — whose  faith  is  a  jumble 
of  unstable  opinions,  and  whose  Church  can  only  deal  with  two 

*  Hugh  Miller,  Footprints  of  the  Creator,  p.  18. 
f  Ecclesiasticus  iii. 


464:  CHAPTER   X. 

contradictory  doctrines  by  deciding,  as  in  the  case  of  Baptism, 
that  both  are  equally  true, — the  case  is  far  otherwise.  Already 
some  of  the  ablest  partisans  of  theories  fatal  to  the  popular 
religion  are  found  among  those  who  hold  high  office  in  the 
Established  Church.  Their  number  is  increasing,  and  the  poor, 
to  whom  that  Church  has  been  so  cruel  a  stepmother,  are  said 
to  be  catching  the  infection.  Even  in  circles  where  their  prin 
ciples  are  still  faintly  condemned,  their  influence  becomes  more 
and  more  visible.  One  result  of  it,  as  we  learn  from  the  pub 
lic  press,  is  the  growing  disinclination  among  Protestant  gen 
tlemen  to  become  ministers  of  the  Established  Church.  "  The 
dearth  of  clergymen,"  we  are  told,  "is  loudly  proclaimed  from 
the  Episcopal  Bench,  and  wherever  clergymen  assemble,  as  a 
grave  and  growing  evil.  The  speculative  questions  that  have 
been  stirred  within  the  last  twenty  years  have  directly  tended 
to  bring  about  a  result  which  every  churchman  must  de 
plore.  It  is  not  only  that  the  faith  of  many  has  been 
shaken,  but  that  a  still  larger  number  shrink  from  the  re 
sponsibility  of  teaching  dogmatically  that  which  others 
doubt"*  If  Rudelbach  could  say  of  Protestant  Germany, 
"  the  day  is  ripe  for  the  great  apostasy,"  others  may  soon 
be  saying  of  Protestant  England,  "  the  day  has  come."  The 
Church  can  still  save  her,  but  her  people  must  choose,  and 
choose  quickly.  While  they  hesitate,  eternity  lies  in  wait  for 
them. 

One  class  indeed  remains,  already  endowed  with  many  vir 
tues,  and  capable  of  aspiring  to  the  highest,  whose  attitude 
suggests  hope  in  the  midst  of  the  general  discouragement. 
Unconscious  that  God  has  devised  for  His  creatures  any  better 
thing  than  the  human  religion  which  they  profess,  they  have 
only  to  entertain  more  worthy  thoughts  of  His  majesty  and  of 
their  own  destiny,  to  discover  that  they  have  judged  too  mean 
ly  of  both.  The  Church  is  not  the  lamentable  caricature  with 
which  alone  they  are  familiar.  There  is  a  paradise  even  in 
this  world  for  the  children  of  God,  of  which  they  may  easily 
liud  the  entrance.  Their  danger  lies  in  continuing  to  accept  a 
counterfeit  after  having  begun  to  suspect,  even  for  a  moment, 
its  true  character.  That  momentary  doubt  may  suffice  to  con 
demn  them.  They  need  also  to  be  reminded  that  the  good 
which  they  discern  in  non-Catholic  communities,  and  which 
their  ignorance  of  higher  good  leads  them  to  exaggerate,  is 
nothing  but  the  fruit  of  Catholic  traditions  not  yet  extinguished, 
and  of  those  fragments  of  Catholic  truth  which  have  not  wholly 
disappeared  in  Protestant  lands.  In  every  sect,  however 

*  The  Times,  April  7,  1863. 


SUMMARY.  465 

deeply  tainted  with  error,  the  real  source  of  such  religious 
life  as  its  members  display  is  found,  not  in  their  human  tradi 
tions,  but  in  the  power  of  some  Catholic  doctrine  which  heresy 
has  obscured  or  distorted,  but  has  not  entirely  defaced.  If 
they  "  wrest  the  Scriptures  to  their  own  destruction,"  they  still 
owe  to  the  Church  both  the  Scriptures  themselves,  and  the 
pious  thought  that,  to  the  pure  in  heart,  a  special  and  almost 
sacramental  blessedness  attends  the  study  of  them.  If  they 
affect,  in  rare  cases,  to  imitate  Catholic  rites,  and  even  the 
Sacraments  of  Penance  and  the  Altar  are  represented  in  their 
external  forms  by  men  whose  act  would  be  a  sacrilege  if  it 
were  not  a  delusion,  this  playing  with  shadows,  though  it  too 
often  leads  the  principal  actors  to  spiritual  blindness  and  death, 
engenders  in  others  an  insatiable  longing  for  realities,  of  which 
the  final  grace  of  conversion  is  not  unfrequently  the  blessed 
sequel.  So  true  it  is  that  all  the  evil  which  exists  in  heretical 
communities  is  due  to  their  own  errors,  while  the  good  which 
struggles  with  it  is  the  alien's  portion  of  those  lavish  benedic 
tions  which  the  Church  scatters  with  Divine  prodigality  over 
the  whole  earth.  She  is  a  savor  of  life  even  to  those  who  know 
her  not.  In  that  last  hour  of  His  agony,  says  one  who  was 
privileged  to  know  some  of  its  bitter  details,  when  the  lot  of 
every  creature  whom  He  was  yet  to  call  into  being  was  present 
to  His  omniscient  gaze,  "  Jesus  beheld  them  all :  He  wept  over 
those  whom  He  saw  wandering  with  closed  eyes  outside  the 
garden  of  the  Church,  and  only  living  on  the  perfumes  which 
were  diffused  beyond  it"* 


SWEDEN,    NORWAY.    AND    DENMARK. 


Iii  Sweden,  whose  religious  history  so  closely  resembles  that 
of  England,  we  discover  once  more  all  the  characteristic  phe 
nomena  of  "  reformed"  communities,  ecclesiastical  serfdom, 
extinction  of  faith,  and  prodigious  immorality.  The  State 
Church  has  no  existence  apart  from  the  sovereign.  The 
"  House  of  Clergy,"  which  is  supposed  by  a  legislative  fiction 
to  regulate  its  affairs,  has  as  much  independence  and  vitality 
as  the  Russian  Synod  or  the  Anglican  Convocation.  "The 
king,"  a  Protestant  writer  observes,  "has  the  power  of  absolute 
veto  on  all  bills  which  affect  the  change  or  the  forming  of  ecclesi- 

*  La  Douioureme  Passion  de  N.  8.  Jesus  Christ,  d'apres  les  Meditations 
d'Anne  Catherine  Emmerich,  p.  71,  3me  edition. 

VOL.  II.  31 


4:66  CHAPTER   X. 

astical  laws."  "  The  first  conception  of  religious  freedom,"  he 
adds,  "has  scarcely  entered  the  Swedish  mind."* 

Of  the  decay  of  all  positive  doctrine,  which  has  given  way  to 
blank  indifferentism,  Liebetrut  says,  "The  Swedish  Church 
is  a  Church  desolate !  dead  !  lying  under  the  anathema  of  God. 
The  Church's  unity  is  the  unity  and  peace  of  the  graveyard. "f 
"  It  lies  in  the  nature  of  -things,"  Dr.  Dollinger  remarks,  "  that 
a  State  Church,"  which  is  a  revival  of  the  pagan  notion  of 
National  in  opposition  to  Christian  unity,  "  can  no  longer  in  its 
isolation  inspire  piety,  or  evoke  veneration."  "  I  found/'  says 
Mr.  Loring  Brace  in  1857,  in  illustration  of  this  fact,  "the 
Bame  feeling,  which  seems  almost  universal  through  the  middle 
and  upper  classes,  of  utter  distrust  and  dissatisfaction  towards 
their  religious  teachers."  "  The  Swedish  Church,"  Mr.  Bayard 
Taylor  repeats  in  1858,  "is  slowly  ossifying  from  sheer 
inertia.''^ 

The  only  signs  of  life  are  found  among  a  section  of  the 
peasants,  over  whom,  as  Mr.  Brace  observes,  "  the  formalism 
of  the  Church  has  lost  its  hold,"  and  who,  in  spite  of  severe 
penalties,  are  beginning  to  substitute  Lasarne,  a  kind  of  Meth 
odism,  for  the  State  religion.  This  new  "  reformation,"  he  says, 
"has  already  produced  sad  results  physically,"  including  hys 
teria,  and  raging  madness. 

Lastly,  as  to  the  moral  state  of  this  Protestant  land,  in  which 
the  profession  of  the  faith  of  its  first  apostles  is  still  punished 
by  confiscation  and  exile,  we  have  the  following  accounts  by 
Protestant  writers :  "  In  no  Christian  community,"  says  Mr. 
Laing,  "has  religion  less  influence  on  the  state  of  public 
morals."  As  you  stand  in  the  streets  of  Stockholm,  this 
witness  adds,  you  may  make  this  unusual  reflection :  "  One 
out  of  every  three  persons  passing  me  is,  on  an  average,  the 
offspring  of  illicit  intercourse  ;  and  one  out  of  every  forty -nine 
has  been  convicted  within  these  twelve  months  of  some  criminal 
offence.  "§ 

An  American  traveller  reported  in  1857,  that  so  common  are 
the  retributive  forms  of  disease  which  accompany  crime,  that, 
"  it  was  rare  to  see  a  tall,  strong,  well-made  man  unflecked 
with  sickness,  and  without  some  kind  of  deformity."  In 
England  the  Assistant  Commissioners  under  the  Education 
Inquiry  reported  that,  in  certain  counties,  "  adultery  is  made 

*  Home  Life  in  Norway  and  Sweden,  by  Charles  Loring  Brace,  ch.  xxiii., 
p.  184;  ch.  xxxix.,  p.  311  (1857). 

f  Ap.  Dollinger,  p.  259. 

;  Nortliern  Travel ;  Sweden,  Lapland,  and  Norway,  by  Bayard  Taylor,  ch. 
xxviii.,  p.  285. 

§  Tour  in  Sweden,  ch.  iv.,  pp.  115,  125. 


SUMMARY.  467 

a  mere  matter  of  jest,  and  incest  also  is  frightfully  common  ;" 
in  Sweden,  where  Mr.  Brace  noticed  the  universality  of  the 
same  facts,  he  adds,  yet  they  all  take  what  they  call  "  the 
Sacrament,"  "as  a  sort  of  business"  at  the  periods  prescribed 
by  law.  uThe  number  of  broken-down  young  men,  and  blear- 
eyed  hoary  sinners,"  says  another  Protestant  observer,  "  is  as 
tonishing.  I  have  never  been  in  any  place  where  licentious 
ness  is  so  open  and  avowed,  and  yet  where  the  slang  of  a  sham 
morality  was  so  prevalent."*  Even  Miss  Fredericka  Bremer, 
herself  a  Swedish  Protestant,  relates,  in  confirmation  of  these 
dismal  facts,  that  while  in  America  she  "  heard  it  lamented 
that  Scandinavian  immigrants  not  unfrequently  come  hither 
with  the  belief  that  the  State  Church  and  religion  are  one  and 
the  same  thing,  and  when  they  have  left  behind  them  the 
former,  they  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  latter.  Long 
compulsion  of  mind,"  in  a  country  which  boasts  of  Protestant 
freedom,  "  has  destroyed  to  that  degree  their  powers  of  mind, 
and  they  come  to  the  west  very  frequently  in  the  first  instance 
as  rejecters  of  all  Church  communion,  and  every  higher 
law."} 

On  the  whole,  we  can  hardly  be  surprised  if  Protestant  wri 
ters,  familiar  with  this  exclusively  Protestant  land,  sum  up  in 
such  words  as  the  following  their  impressions  of  its  actual  con 
dition  :  u  The  Reformation/'  says  Mr.  Laing,  "  as  far  as  regards 
the  moral  condition  of  the  Swedish  people,  has  done  harm  rather 
than  good."  " The  Reformation,"  Mr.  Taylor  observes,  "needs 
to  be  reformed  again."  "  This  century,"  Mr.  Brace  declares, 
"  will  see  the  disruption  and  convulsion  of  the  Swedish  State 
Church." 

It  might  seern  impossible  to  draw  a  darker  picture  of  a 
"  reformed"  community  ;  yet  Mr.  Inglis,  another  Protestant 
traveller,  advances  the  remarkable  proposition  that,  vile  as  is 
the  condition  of  Sweden,  "  the  standard  of  morals  is  consider 
ably  higher  than  in  Norway  !"  In  the  latter  country,  he  adds 
from  personal  observation,  ''  general  indifference  is  manifested 
for  religion.";); 

Finally,  Denmark  is  no  exception  to  the  other  lands  in  which 
the  Reformation  has  preserved  its  fatal  dominion.  Barthold 
confesses,  in  energetic  language,  "  the  dog-like  servitude"  of  the 
Danish  peasantry  which  followed  immediately  upon  its  intro- 

*  Bayard  Taylor,  ubi  supra. 

f  Homes  of  the  New  World,  vol.  ii.,  letter  xxiv.,  p.  219.  Cf.  Chromque  22* 
ligieuse,  tome  ii.,  p.  495  ;  Memorial  Catholique,  tome  vi.,  p.  130,  De  I  Mat  tie, 
liyieux  de  la  Suede. 

\  Norway,  Sweden,  and  Denmark,  by  II.  D.  Inglis,  part  u.,  ch.  i.,  p.  142  , 
4th  edition. 


4:68  CHAPTER   X. 

duction  ;*  and  an  English  traveller  adds,  "  to  this  day  it  ia 
often  amusing,  or  rather  deplorable,  to  witness  the  overbearing 
behavior  of  some  wealthy  noblemen  towards  the  poor  fellow 
who  officiates  in  the  church,  and  the  latter's  obsequiousness."f 
"  Bishop"  Pontoppidan  declared,  in  one  of  his  pastorals,  that, 
by  the  eighteenth  century,  there  reigned  in  the  land  "an  almost 
heathen  blindness."  "  Towards  the  close  of  the  last  century," 
says  Mr.  Hamilton  in  1852,  "the  progress  of  stupor  was 
complete,  and  vital  Christianity  seemed  to  have  departed  from 
the  land."  "  According  to  Danish  accounts,"  observes  Dr. 
Dollinger,  "  the  great  majority  of  the  clergy  have  fallen  as 
completely  into  the  infidel  new  theological  views  as  their 
Lutheran  brethren,  the  clergy  of  Germany ;"  while  the 
Schleswig  preacher,  Petersen,  reports  that  "  among  the  Danish 
cleriry  religious  and  moral  conduct  is  the  exception,  not  the 
rule1?'';!: 

Attempts  have  been  lately  made  to  restore  this  dead  body  to 
life,  chiefly  hy  Grundtvig,  a  man  of  zeal  arid  talent,  but  un 
fortunately  on  principles  which  must  inevitably  be  fatal  to  his 
project.  The  only  appreciable  result  of  his  labors,  Mr.  Hamil 
ton  confesses,  is  this,  that  "  the  whole  intellectual  world  is  split 
up  into  opposing  sections,"  and  that  "  they  hate  one  another 
heartily."§ 

Such  have  been,  in  every  country  of  Europe,  by  Protestant 
testimony,  the  results  of  the  so-called  Reformation.  Everywhere 
it  has  generated,  by  the  confession  of  its  own  advocates,  sterile 
fanaticism  in  the  few,  hopeless  unbelief  in  the  many  ;  and 
while  the  Church  was  able  in  the  same  hour  to  convert  whole 
nations  of  barbarians  to  God,  and  to  recover  Christian  king 
doms  from  the  bondage  of  heresy,  the  Sects  have  not  only  failed 
to  propagate  Christianity  in  a  single  heathen  land,  but  have 
everywhere  taught  the  pagan  world  to  hate  and  despise  the 
religion  of  Jesus,  while  they  have  been  powerless  to  maintain, 
even  among  their  own  disciples,  its  most  fundamental  truths. 

*  Ap.  Dollinger,  p.  84. 

f  Sixteen  Months  in  the  Danish  Isles,  by  Andrew  Hamilton,  vol.  i.,  cli.  xxiii., 
p.  390. 

|  Dollinger,  pp.  253-5. 

|  The  case  of  the  United  States  has  been  omitted,  having  been  sufficiently 
considered  in  a  previous  chapter.  "  The  state  of  Christianity  in  America,"  as 
Dr.  Dollinger  has  lately  observed,  "is  an  awful  and  serious  warning,  and  will 
in  future  become  still  more  so."  In  that  country  every  blasphemous  and 
heretical  opinion  has  found  a  home,  but  the  mass  of  the  people  may,  perhaps, 
be  mosi  truly  described  as  having  no  religious  opinions  whatever.  "  The 
doctrines  of  materialism,"  says  one  who  knows  them  well,  "  are  perhaps  more 
widely  embraced  at  this  day  than  almost  any  other  religious  error."  ThQ 
Religion,  of  Geology,  by  Edward  Hitchcock,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  President  of  Amherst 
College,  pref.,  p.  11 


SUMMARY.  469 

Such,  once  more,  has  been  the  double  infamy  of  the  Protestant 
Sects.* 


THE   REFORMATION   HYPOTHESIS. 

Yet  the  religion  which  has  proved  so  fatal  at  home,  so  im 
potent  abroad,  is  still  declared  by  .its  professors  to  be  some 
thing  higher  and  holier  than  primitive  Christianity.  It  is 
nothing  less,  they  everywhere  proclaim,  than  a  second  revela 
tion  ,  designed  to  correct  the  failure  of  the  first;  a  reformation 
of  that  marred  and  tainted  Gospel  which,  according  to  the  Lu 
theran  or  Anglican  hypothesis,  its  unsuccessful  Author  vainly 
strove  to  preserve  from  corruption  and  decay  ;  a  new  Ark  for 
perishing  souls,  constructed  to  replace  one  which  foundered 
long  ages  ago  ;  a  more  perfect  redemption^  to  remedy  that  which 
Jesus  wrought  and  Peter  announced,  but  which,  according  to 
the  Anglican  Re  formers,  had  miserably  lost,  "5y  the  space  of 
nine  hundred  years  and  odd"  its  power  and  efficacy. 

It  was  to  remedy  the  failure  of  this  earlier  religion,  which 
nevertheless  was  still  professed  by  all  the  civilized  nations  of 
the  earth,  and  to  gather  the  remaining  gentiles  into  the  fold  of 
Christ,  that  the  Lutheran  and  Anglican  communities  were 
called  into  being.  The  Author  of  Christianity,  according  to 
the  Reformation  hypothesis,  had  proved  either  unable  or  un 
willing  to  fulfil  His  promises  to  the  Christian  Church.  The 
last  and  most  cherished  work  of  His  redeeming  love,  for  which 
His  prophets  had  anticipated  so  magnificent  a  destiny,  was 
abandoned  as  soon  as  formed.  The  Church  was  suifered  to 
lapse,  almost  at  the  moment  of  her  creation,  into  shameful 
apostasy.  The  gates  of  hell  prevailed  against  her.  Her  pre 
tended  Supreme  Pontiff  was  only  a  self-elected  impostor.  Her 
bishops  and  priests,  without  exception,  had  meanly  conspired 
to  sell  their  birthright  to  a  mitred  usurper,  whom  the  weakest 
of  them  could  have  defied  with  impunity,  since  he  appealed 
only  to  the  ordinance  of  God,  and  the  conscience  of  Christian 
men.  Her  doctrines,  as  the  new  Anglican  Church  loudly  de- 

*  Every  student  of  ecclesiastical  history  knows  that  the  history  of  the  Prot 
estant  communities,  of  which  we  have  noticed  only  the  final  chapter,  exactly 
corresponds  with  that  of  earlier  sects,  which  invariably  lapsed,  one  after 
another,  into  the  same  shameful  disorder  and  impiety.  When  the  great  Sir 
Thomas  More  replied  to  one  of  those  frantic  libels  of  Luther  which  Mr.  Hallam 
described  as  "  bellowing  in  bad  Latin,"  he  reminded  the  apostate  monk,  that 
"  not  only  there  never  was  an  enemy  to  the  Christian  faith  who  did  not  at  the 
same  time  declare  war  against  the  Holy  See,  but  also  that  there  never  has 
been  one  who  professed  himself  an  enemy  of  that  See,  without  shortly  after 
declaring  himself  signally  a  capital  foe  and  traitor  of  Christ  and  our  religion." 
Quoted  by  Allies,  St.  Peter,  His  Nwne  and  Office,  ch.  ix.,  p.  263. 


4:70  CHAPTER  X. 

clared,  were  "blasphemous  fables,"  and  her  worship  had  de 
generated  into  "  damnable  idolatry."  "  The  theology  of  the 
Reformers,"  as  Dollinger  obserres,  "  established  the  idea  that 
God  had  withdrawn  Himself  from  the  Church  after  the  death 
of  the  apostles ;  that  He  had  resigned  His  place  to  Satan,  and 
so  established  a  diabolical  millennium."  When  the  reign  of 
Satan  came  to  an  end,  Luther,  Zwingle,  and  Cranmer  appeared, 
to  inaugurate  a  new  Dispensation. 

Such  is  the  theory  which  the  Protestant  Churches  rightly 
maintain,  because  it  is  the  only  one  which  can  explain  or  jus 
tify  the  rebellion  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Yet  if  it  be  true, 
wre  shall  be  compelled  to  admit,  in  presence  of  the  facts  re 
viewed  in  these  pages,  that  the  God  of  Moses  and  St.  Paul  has 
utterly  failed,  in  a  second  attempt  as  feeble  and  fruitless  as  the 
first,  to  found  a  stable  religion,  or  to  build  up  a  permanent 
Church,  by  whose  ministry  the  Incarnation  should  be  glorified 
in  Christian  lands,  and  the  pagan  world  brought  to  a  knowledge 
of  its  Creator.  For  they  are  Protestant  witnesses  who  have 
convinced  us,  by  testimony  which  is  equally  copious  and  decisive 
to  whatever  region  of  the  earth  it  applies,  that  while  the  Incar 
nation  has  been  exposed  to  impious  derision  in  the  majority  of 
Protestant  communities,  and  barely  saved  from  oblivion  in  the 
rest,  the  efforts  of  the  same  communities  to  propagate  their 
opinions  in  heathen  lands  have  had  no  other  result  than  to 
make  Christianity  the  scorn  of  the  gentile  world,  and  to  inspire 
the  "  growing  hatred"  of  all  pagan  races  towards  both  the 
doctrine  and  its  professors,  whose  incessant  divisions  provoke 
them  to  contemptuous  mirth,  and  whose  effeminate  lives  tempt 
them  to  inquire,  "whether  they  believe  their  own  Scriptures?" 

The  second  revelation,  then,  has  proved  as  unsuccessful  as  the 
first.  And  this  is  not  all.  In  spite  of  the  new  Dispensation  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  its  supposed  Author  still  permits  the  Old 
and  "  corrupt"  Faith,  which,  according  to  the  hypothesis,  it  was 
His  purpose  to  reform,  to  gain  victories,  both  in  the  old  and 
new  world,  which  all  His  efforts  cannot  secure  for  the  New ! 
Not  only  is  the  Catholic  Church  defending  at  this  hour  the 
Scriptures,  the  Incarnation,  and  the  whole  blessed  Gospel, 
against  the  ribald  assaults  of  the  "reformed"  communities, 
but  her  missions  to  the  heathen,  as  her  worst  enemies  confess, 
are  still,  both  in  their  agents  and  their  results,  absolutely 
identical  with  those  which  subdued  the  Roman  empire  to  the  law 
of  Christ,  and  carried  the  Cross  in  triumph  from  Jerusalem  to 
Rome  and  Constantinople,  and  from  the  shores  of  the  Euphrates 
and  the  Nile  to  the  forests  of  Scandinavia  and  the  isles  of 
Britain.  Nay  more,  the  work  which  she  has  accomplished 
during  the  last  three  centuries,  beginning  from  the  very  date  of 


SUMMARY.  471 

the  so-called  Reformation,  actually  surpasses  all  which  she  had 
done  in  earlier  ages,  even  in  those  which  witnessed  her  first 
combats  with  the  powers  of  evil.  It  would  seem  that,  quickly 
abandoning  the  new  religion,  just  as  He  is  represented  to  have 
formerly  abandoned  the  old,  and  repenting  of  the  project  of  a 
tardy  Reformation,  the  Almighty  began  from  this  hour  to  lavish 
in  more  abundance  than  ever  upon  the  ministers  of  the  Ancient 
Church  the  apostolic  gifts  which  He  peremptorily  refused  to 
their  rivals  ;  resolved  to  make  the  first  types  in  every  land  of 
the  supernatural  life,  and  the  last  everywhere  monuments  of 
incorrigible  humanism  ;  and  while  in  the  one  He  ceased  not  to 
fulfil  the  word  of  His  prophet,  "  They  shall  know  their  seed 
among  the  gentiles,  and  their  offspring  in  the  midst  of  peoples," 
He  left  the  other  so  entirely  void  of  all  but  purely  natural  gifts, 
that  they  became  a  jest  even  to  the  Chinese  and  the  Kaffir. 
The  "  diabolical  millennium,"  as  the  Anglican  Church  teaches 
her  members  to  regard  the  reign  of  the  Vicar  of  Christ,  gave 
place  to  a  still  more  lamentable  era  ;  and  the  Most  High,  if  the 
Protestant  theory  be  true,  having  made  a  Church  which  brought 
only  evil  into  the  world,  first  retired  in  disgust  from  His  own 
work  for  a  thousand  years,  and  then  attempted  an  abortive 
Eeformation  which  only  served  to  discredit  Christianity  in  all 
pagan  lands,  and  to  introduce  far  more  grievous  calamities, 
wherever  it  prevailed,  than  those  which  it  was  designed  to 
remedy. 

Sucli,  once  more,  is  the  hypothesis  on  wThich  the  Lutheran 
and  Anglican  communities  are  formed.  If,  therefore,  that 
hypothesis  be  true,  and  it  was  really  the  Divine  purpose,  on  a 
certain  day  and  hour  of  the  sixteenth  century,  to  supersede  the 
Church  by  the  Sects,  and  henceforth  to  save  Christians  and  to 
ransom  heathens  by  the  agency  of  the  latter,  we  are  brought  to 
this  inevitable  conclusion, — that  there  is  nothing  more  infirm 
and  impotent,  nothing  more  inconstant  and  vacillating,  than  the 
imaginary  Potentate  from  whom  Protestants  profess  to  derive 
their  religion,  but  whom  they  represent  as  Always  stumbling 
from  one  failure  to  another  ;  who  is  perpetually  planning  some 
good  thing  for  the  sons  of  men,  and  as  often  abandoning  the 
project  in  despair ;  who  can  create  but  cannot  sustain,  can 
resolve  but  never  accomplish  ;  who  projected,  as  they  teach,  for 
the  salvation  of  believers,  a  Church  which  should  last  through 
all  time,  whose  unfading  triumphs  were  announced  by  a  long 
line  of  Hebrew  prophets,  and  whose  laws  were  framed  by  a 
glorious  company  of  apostles,  but  whose  virgin  lustre,  in  spite 
of  prophets  and  apostles,  was  marred  by  a  hideous  leprosy,  and 
whose  bridal  hour  was  expiated  by  ten  centuries  of  such  un 
utterable  shame,  that  the  Bridegroom  turned  away  his  eyes, 


4:72  CHAPTER  X. 

that  he  might  not  even  look  upon  the  ruin  which  he  could 
neither  avert  nor  repair.  Protestantism,  which  takes  all  this 
for  granted,  and  finds  in  it  the  sole  explanation  of  its  own  being, 
can  only  be  admitted  to  be  true  on  the  supposition  that  there 
is  no  God. 

It  might  seem  impossible  that  any  one  acquainted  with  the 
actual  state  of  Protestant  Europe,  and  the  history  of  Protestant 
Sects,  or  familiar  in  any  degree  with  the  work  of  the  Catholic 
Church  during  the  last  three  centuries,  should  still  believe  the 
so-called  Reformation  to  be  the  product  of  omnipotent  wisdom 
and  love.  It  would  indeed  be  absolutely  impossible,  if  we  did 
not  know  that  neither  the  most  attractive  natural  virtues,  nor 
the  rarest  mental  gifts,  suffice  to  preserve  men  from  almost  in 
credible  errors, — that  Aristotle  believed  in  the  eternity  of 
matter,  and  Pericles  offered  sacrifice  to  Minerva,  and  Cicero 
wrote  a  treatise  on  "  The  nature  of  the  gods."  But  whatever 
may  have  been  the  religious  chimeras  of  past  ages,  there  is  not 
a  pagan  absurdity  ridiculed  in  the  Stromata  of  St.  Clement, — 
neither  the  copious  banquets  of  Olympus,  nor  the  infirmities  of 
Jupiter,  nor  the  turpitudes  of  Venus  Genetrix, — which  reveals 
more  of  the  abysses  of  human  credulity,  or  the  possible  depths 
of  human  delusion,  than  the  modern  fable  of  the  Reformation. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  believe  with  St.  Francis  and  St. 
Bernard,  with  Bossuet  and  Fenelon,  with  Peter  Claver  and  Las 
Casas,  with  De  Brebeuf  and  Lallemand,  with  the  doctors  and 
evangelists,  the  saints  and  martyrs,  of  every  age  and  every 
land,  that  it  is  by  the  Church  and  not  by  the  Sects  that  the 
God  of  Christians  seeks  His  own  glory  and  man's  salvation  ; 
if  we  confess  that  He  who  is  Truth  cannot  lie,  nor  the  Immuta 
ble  break  His  promise  ;  then  we  shall  judge  more  worthily  of 
the  majesty  of  the  Creator,  and  the  dignity  of  the  creature. 
We  shall  perceive,  on  this  supposition,  that  every  contradiction 
disappears,  and  every  difficulty  is  removed  ;  that  God  has  ac 
complished  every  purpose,  and  fulfilled  every  promise ;  that 
the  so-called  Reformation,  which  has  annihilated  the  Gospel  in 
so  many  Christian  and  stopped  its  progress  in  so  many  pagan 
lands,  was  only  a  fresh  conspiracy  of  the  powers  of  evil  which 
God  has  baffled  and  confounded,  and  that  His  love  still  broods 
over  the  Bride  of  whom  He  once  said,  and  has  now  again 
proved,  "  No  weapon  that  is  formed  against  thee  shall  prosper, 
and  every  tongue  that  resisteth  thee  in  judgment  thou  shalt 
condemn." 


SUMMARY.  473 


CONCLUSION. 

Three  classes  of  men,  we  may  perhaps  anticipate,  will  pro 
nounce  judgment  upon  the  facts  which- we  have  reviewed  in 
these  pages,  and  upon  the  argument  which  we  have  founded 
upon  them.  The  first, — of  whom  a  well-known  Anglican 
clergyman  has  observed,  "  their  existence  depends  on  the  suc 
cess  of  the  system"  by  which  they  profit  so  largely, — making, 
as  St.  Paul  says,  "  a  gain  of  godliness/'  and  finding  in  heathen 
lands  the  livelihood  which  they  could  not  obtain  in  their  own ; 
incapable  of  accepting  the  lesson  which  the  barbarians  of  Asia 
and  America,  less  blinded  by  prejudice  and  self-love,  have 
derived  from  facts  of  which  even  barbarians  could  appreciate 
the  gravity ;  vexed  and  irritated,  but'  not  instructed,  by  the 
shameful  contrast  which  their  co-religionists  have  reluctantly 
revealed  ;  will  only  espouse  more  passionately  the  earthly  cause 
with  which  their  interests  are  associated,  and  nourish  a  deeper 
malice  towards  the  apostles  whom  God  has  filled  with  His 
Spirit,  but  whose  virtues  they  hate  and  whose  triumphs  they 
envy,  without  so  much  as  the  wish  to  emulate  the  one,  or  the 
hope  of  rivalling  the  other.  To  such  men  it  will  be  simply 
intolerable  that  their  carnal  ministry  should  be  "  reputed  for 
nothing,"  and  their  lucrative  craft  "in  danger  to  be  set  at 
naught ;"  nor  may  we  reasonably  expect  from  them  any  other 
argument  than  that  of  the  silversmiths  of  Ephesus,  "  Sirs,  you 
know  that  our  gain  is  by  this  trade."* 

A  second  class,  more  impartial  because  less  interested,  but 
profoundly  indifferent  to  the  supernatural  character  of  actions 
which  confound  their  reason  while  they  leave  their  conscience 
untouched,  will  smile  with  lenient  contempt  at  the  tale  of 
Protestant  missions,  confess  with  a  kind  of  peevish  applause 
the  sublimity  of  the  Catholic,  and  then,  "  caring  for  none  of 
those  things,"  will  presently  forget  both  the  one  and  the  other. 

But  there  is  a  third  which,  it  is  permitted  to  hope,  will 
discern  at  length,  by  the  light  of  history,  the  truth  which  they 
have  often  suspected,  but  have  hitherto  been  reluctant  to  con 
fess.  Halting  between  two  opinions,  and  neither  frankly 
Protestant  nor  effectually  Catholic ;  urged  by  a  secret  instinct. 

*  Acts  xix.  25.  A  clerical  officer  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  and  a 
suitable  champion  of  the  class  referred  to,  has  justified  this  anticipation  by  a 
work  which  prudently  ignores  the  whole  history  of  Christian  missions,  while 
it  has  scandalized  even  his  co-religionists  by  an  appreciation  of  the  life  and 
character  of  St.  Francis  Xavier  which  a  moderately  virtuous  pagan  would  fear 
to  write,  and  blush  to  avow. 


474:  CHAPTER  X. 

to  cast  in  their  lot  with  the  Church,  yet  constrained  by  lingering 
prejudice,  or  the  tyranny  of  habi£,  or  the  fascination  of  domestic 
ties,  or  haply  by  less  venial  motives,  to  waste  their  gifts  in  the 
service  of  a  Sect ;  they  may  comprehend  at  last  on  which  side 
is  God,  and  hasten  to  seek  in  the  Church  Him  who  has 
announced,  by  acts  which  even  savages  have  understood,  that 
they  shall  not  find  Him  elsewhere.  Hitherto  they  have  been 
blind  to  the  truth,  because  they  have  closed  their  eyes,  or  be 
cause  they  have  misused  graces  which  were  designed,  not  to 
adorn  a  Sect,  but  to  lead  them  out  of  it.  "  Comparing  them 
selves  with  themselves,"  and  carefully  adjusting  their  vision  to 
the  narrow  field  of  their  own  interests  and  occupations,  they 
have  refused  to  turn  one  glance  towards  that  mournful  desert 
which  hems  them  in  on  every  side,  and  which  represents,  more 
truly  than  their  own  imperceptible  spheres  of  action,  the  real 
work  of  their  Sect,  and  the  iinal  issue  of  its  unblest  career, 
against  which  their  own  is  often  an  insincere,  and  always  an 
unavailing  protest.  Busy  with  some  local  scheme,  large  enough 
for  their  narrow  sympathies,  but  which  the  next  hour  may 
subvert  and  destroy ;  insensible  to  signs  which  God  submits 
to  their  investigation,  and  attentive  only  to  those  which 
come  not  from  Him,  but  are  full  of  deceit  and  illusion ; 
waiting  always  for  more  light,  and  losing,  while  they  wait,  the 
light  which  they  already  possessed ;  slow  to  reason  when  the 
Church  invites  them  to  ponder  her  message,  but  swift  to 
dispute  when  she  adjures  them  not  to  despise  it ;  borrowing 
her  doctrines  to  "  adapt"  them  to  their  private  conceits,  but 
always  converting  them  into  heresies  before  they  make  them 
their  own ;  boasting  of  "  Orders"  which  even  Indo-Syrians 
disdain  to  recognize,  and  which,  if  they  were  as  genuine  as  they 
are  spurious,  would  only  put  them  on  a  level  with  Arians  and 
Monophysites,  who  possessed  them  to  their  greater  condemna 
tion  ;  playing  at  consecrations  which  consecrate  nothing,  and  re 
hearsing  absolutions  which  absolve  nobody  ;  claiming  to  hold 
truths  which  their  Sect  abhors,  but  only  to  use  them  against  the 
Authority  which  delivered  them  to  the  world,  and  often  more 
self-willed  in  maintaining  than  their  co-religionists  in  rejecting 
them ;  never  so  incurably  Protestant,  in  all  their  thoughts, 
words,  and  actions,  as  when  most  they  affect  to  be  Catholic ; 
fretfully  subject  to  "  bishops"  whose  heresies  they  profess  to 
deplore,  but  always  make  their  own  by  submission,  and  meanly 
loyal  to  rulers  who  endure  only  because  they  cannot  eject  them, 
but  whose  forbearance  they  purchase  by  hiding  the  truth,  and 
whose  judgments  they  avert  by  betraying  it ;  differing  from 
other  Protestants  chiefly  in  this,  that  while  the  rest  follow  false 
teachers  supposing  them  to  be  true,  they  willingly  communicate 


SUMMARY.  475 

with  the  same  teachers  proclaiming  them  to  be  false ;  content 
to  whisper  a  hollow  protest  against  their  companions  who 
deny  the  most  fundamental  truths,  but  not  to  cry  anathema  for 
the  love  of  God  upon  the  Sect  which  refuses  to  defend  them  ;* 
burdening  their  souls  with  the  guilt  of  others  as  well  as  their 
own,  with  the  heresies  which  they  privately  disclaim  as  well  as 
those  which  they  publicly  avow,  and  accountable  before  God  for 
every  impiety  which  is  uttered  around  them,  and  most  of  all 
for  the  impiety  which  they  ostensibly  condemn,  but  which  they 
do  more  to  confirm  by  their  voluntary  acts  than  to  discourage 
by  their  unmeaning  words ;  such  men,  unless  their  day  of  grace 
be  already  closed  forever,  may  perhaps  learn  at  length  from 
the  history  which  we  have  reviewed  the  lesson  which  their  own 
failures  and  calamities,  the  phenomena  of  their  age  and  country, 
and  even  the  admonitions  of  conscience,  have  hitherto  taught 
them  in  vain.f 

It  is  not  indeed  a  new  truth  which  the  events  of  the  last 
three  centuries,*and  the  intimate  union  of  God  with  the  Church 
and  her  ministry  have  taught  the  world,  though  perpetually 
confirmed  by  a  new  series  of  facts.  A  thousand  years  ago,  our 
fathers  were  already  proclaiming  it  with  admiration,  for  they 
detected  on  little  evidence  what  has  been  announced  to  ourselves 
by  greater.  The  first  victories  of  the  Church  had  hardly  been 
gained,  and  paganism  was  still  a  mighty  power  in  the  world, 
when  St.  Augustine  was  telling  the  faithful  in  Africa  that 
Christians  of  his  age  had  this  advantage  over  the  disciples  of 
St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  that  whereas  the  latter  could  only  look 
forward  to  the  promised  glories  of  the  Bride  of  Christ,  the 
former  could  already  look  back  to  their  partial  fulfilment. 
Fifteen  centuries  have  passed  away  since  then,  and  each  has 
only  accumulated  fresh  evidence  of  the  same  truth.  For  what 
additional  testimony  are  men  waiting  ?  What  fresh  proof  do 
they  require  of  her  indefectibility  ?  What  new  snare  can  they 
devise  for  the  Church  which  she  has  not  already  broken  ?  What 

*  When  the  highest  tribunal  recognized  by  the  Anglican  Church  decided 
that  the  doctrine  of  baptism  was,  within  the  limits  of  her  communion,  "  an 
open  question,"  a  solemn  protest,  which  bore  the  names  of  Mr.  Keble,  Dr. 
Pusey,  and  other  leaders  of  the  same  school,  announced  the  conviction  of  the 
subscribers  that,  unless  the  impious  decision  was  annulled,  the  Church  of  Eng 
land  would  forfeit  all  claim  to  be  considered,  in  any  sense  whatever,  a  part  of 
the  Church  of  God.  Of  those  who  signed  that  protest,  one-half  have  become 
Catholics,  one  is  dead,  and  the  rest  are  still  ministers  of  the  Established  Church ! 

f  How  should  they  not  be  taught  in  vain,  to  whom  the  Tempter  has  artfully 
suggested,  that  it  is  their  duty  to  abstain  from  all  inquiry  ?  "  There  is  an  essen 
tial  irreverence,  similar  to  that  false  devotion  which  the  prophet  rebuke.i  in 
Achaz,  when  he  refused  to  ask  a  sign  of  God,  though  God  through  His  prophet 
bade  him  do  so ;  the  irreverence  of  not  investigating  the  signs  which  God  gives 
us  for  the  purpose  of  Icing  investigated,  as  if  we  knew  better  than  He,  and  were 
more  delicate  and  circumspect  in  our  operations."  Bethlehem,  ch.  vi.,  p.  324. 


476  CHAPTER   X. 

new  adversary  can  they  bring  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  whom 
she  has  not  already  overcome  ?  Perpetually  assaulted,  she  has 
outlived  every  enemy,  and  though  they  have  predicted,  one  after 
another,  her  approaching  end,  she  has  chanted  her  deprofundis 
over  them  all.  "  When  we  reflect,"  said  the  great  English  es 
sayist,  suggesting  truths  which  bore  no  fruit  in  his  own  soul, 
"on  the  tremendous  assaults  which  she  has  survived,  we  find 
it  difficult  to  conceive  in  what  way  she  is  to  perish."  What 
indeed  is  the  history  of  the  world,  for  well-nigh  two  thousand 
years,  but  the  history  of  her  combats  and  triumphs?  Arian 
and  Nestorian,  Yandal  and  Donatist,  Hun  and  Goth,  Greek 
and  Moslem,  vainly  leagued  together  against  her.  Every  assault 
which  could  menace,  at  one  time  her  faith,  at  another  her  exist 
ence,  has  only  served  to  show,  again  and  again,  that  "whosoever 
shall  fall  upon  this  stone  shall  be  broken."  Yainly  the  enemy 
arrayed  against  her  the  hosts  of  northern  barbarians,  merciless 
and  sanguinary  as  beasts  of  prey,  trusting  to  overwhelm  by 
brute  force  what  all  the  subtle  heresies  of  Greece,»Egypt,  or  Syria 
had  failed  to  undermine ;  they  came  only  to  lay  their  spoils  at 
her  feet,  and  finished  by  adoring  the  Cross  which  they  had  been 
sent  to  destroy  !  Yainly  the  armies  of  the  false  prophet  blotted 
out  the  corrupt  churches  of  the  East,  made  Greece  their  prey, 
and  set  up  a  throne  in  Byzantium,  the  metropolis  of  the  oriental 
schism,  for  these  were  the  bounds  beyond  which  they  might 
not  pass.  From  that  hour  the  Moslem,  checked  in  mid  career  by 
the  invincible  legions  whom  the  Yicar  of  Christ  had  sent  forth 
against  him,  understood  that  faith  was  more  than  a  match  for 
fanaticism,  that  Catholic  unity  was  a  more  impenetrable  barrier 
than  human  or  satanical  confederacy,  and  that  it  was  time  to  sue 
for  peace  with  a  Power  which  neither  might  nor  artifice  could 
hope  to  subdue,  and  with  a  Church  whose  supreme  Pontiff 
could  predict  in  the  same  breath,  and  with  equal  confidence,  the 
triumph  of  Rome  and  the  captivity  of  Constantinople.  In  vain, 
lastly,  did  the  enemy,  baffled  in  so  many  encounters,  head  the 
most  formidable  revolt  against  which  she  has  ever  contended  ; 
for  in  that  sixteenth  century,  in  which  the  gates  of  hell  were 
thrown  wide  open,  and  a  legion  of  unclean  spirits  received 
permission  to  make  war  upon  her,  in  the  very  hour  in  which 
their  loud  cry  of  triumph  was  heard  in  half  the  kingdoms  of 
Europe,  a  new  army  of  apostles  came  out  of  the  sanctuary, 
clothed  in  the  armor  of  God,  and  charged  by  Him  to  reconquer 
at  the  same  moment  the  apostate  races  of  the  North,  and  to 
gather  in  the  East  and  West,  out  of  all  nations  and  people,  that 
vast  company  of  new  believers  to  whom  He  resolved  to  transfer 
the  inheritance  which  Swedes  and  Saxons,  drunk  with  the  en 
chanter's  cup,  were  now  casting  away. 


SUMMARY.  477 

^ 

Such  was  the  latest  victory  of  the  Church,  of  which  we  have 
attempted  to  trace  the  details  in  these  pages.  Three  centuries 
have  elapsed  since  the  conflict  began,  and  while  the  Sects  have 
putrified,  filling  the  air  with  the  odor  of  death,  she  has  remained 
unmoved  upon  her  eternal  foundations ;  teaching  everywhere 
the  same  unalterable  faith  ;  u  spreading  everywhere,"  as  one  of 
her  enemies  has  told  us,  "  the  light  of  civilization ;"  "  diffusing," 
as  another  has  confessed,  "  a  sea  of  benefits,"  and  "  saving  mil 
lions  of  souls,"  by  a  ministry  so  full  of  truth  and  power,  that 
even  the  most  degraded  races  of  the  human  family, — the  An- 
namite,  the  Huron,  and  the  Guarani, — have  confessed  that  God 
was  with  her,  and  have  found  in  her  communion  a  light  to  their 
feet,  "  the  promise  of  the  world  that  now  is,  and  of  that  which 
is  to  come. 

What  further  evidence  do  we  seek?  What  sign  can  we  ask 
or  conceive  of  the  presence  and  the  power  of  God  which  is  not 
found  in  the  long  history  of  the  Catholic  Church  ?  There  are, 
as  St.  Leo  said  in  his  generation,  mysterious  workings  of  Prov 
idence  of  which  man  cannot  penetrate  the  secret  plan;  and 
there  are  more  intelligible  operations,  clear  as  the  lightning 
which  shines  out  of  heaven,  which  even  a  child  can  mark  and 
interpret.  Such  have  been  the  works  of  God  by  the  Church. 
"  Noil  intelligimus  judicantem,"  said  the  same  Saint,  "  sed 
vidimus  operantem."  This  is  the  truth  which  it  has  been  our 
purpose  to  illustrate  in  these  pages.  Vidimus  operantem! 
We  have  seen  Him,  who  knows  how  to  dispense  His  own  gifts, 
pouring  out  in  all  lands  the  most  precious  graces  on  one  class, 
and  constantly  refusing  them  to  every  other.  We  have  seen 
Him,  when  the  enemy  seemed  about  to  triumph,  summoning 
His  apostles  by  thousands,  to  declare  in  all  the  world  the  very 
message  against  which  the  apostate  had  closed  his  ears.  We 
have  seen  Him,  so  openly  has  He  wrought  this  work,  send  forth 
a  new  Paul  or  Barnabas,  filled  with  their  spirit,  and  preaching 
their  doctrine  to  every  province  of  the  earth,  from  the  populous 
homes  of  the  East  to  the  scattered  tents  of  the  savage  in  the 
distant  West.  And  everywhere  He  has  made  the  disciples 
worthy  of  such  teachers.  We  have  seen  the  weak  become 
valiant  and  the  timid  strong,  so  that  they  could  smile  at  torture 
and  rejoice  in  death,  because  His  grace  was  in  their  hearts, 
kindling  both  the  apostle's  courage  and  the  martyr's  hope.  We 
have  seen  in  the  cities  of  China  and  India,  in  the  islands  of  the 
Southern  Ocean,  and  by  the  banks  of  the  Plata  and  the  Uru 
guay,  of  the  Mohawk,  the  Huron,  and  theGenesee,  the  same  mys 
terious  sacrifices  by  which  nations  live  and  kingdoms  are  won 
to  Christ,  and  which  once  crimsoned  at  the  same  hour  the  waters 
of  the  Rhone  and  the  Tiber,  of  the  Abana  and  the  Orontes,  and 


47 S  CHAPTER  X. 

* 

\vere  offered  for  the  same  end  in  the  streets  of  Lyons,  Rome, 
and  Jerusalem,  and  in  the  capitals  of  Lydia,  Pontus,  and  Syria. 
Lastly,  we  have  seen  all  these  marvels,  which  are  "  the  work 
of  the  right  hand  of  the  Most  High,"  renewed  in  our  own  day, 
by  our  own  brothers  and  kinsmen,  still  filled  with  the  Holy 
Ghost  as  their  fathers  were,  still  accepting  the  same  almost 
incredible  sacrifices,  and  accomplishing  the  same  Divine  vic 
tories.  And  while  the  emissaries  of  the  sects, — salaried  apostles 
of  a  mutilated  Gospel,  from  which  they  have  excluded  all  which 
might  disturb  their  repose  or  restrain  their  earthly  appetites ; 
to  whom  even  Divine  bounty  refuses  all  but  purely  natural 
gifts,  and  deprives  even  these  of  their  efficacy, — are  every 
where  making  Christianity  a  proverb,  its  cruel  dissensions  a 
by-word,  and  its  ministers  a  jest  among  the  heathen ;  the 
Church  is  still  sending  forth,  as  she  did  in  the  beginning, 
apostles  upon  whom  God  is  never  weary  of  lavishing  a  father's 

fifts,  and  of  whom  He  still  lovingly  proclaims,  "  They  shall 
now  their  seed  among  the  gentiles,  and  their  offspring  in  the 
midst  of  peoples :  All  that  shall  see  them  shall  know  them, 
that  these  are  the  seed  which  the  Lord  hath  blessed." 

Vidimus  operantem  !  What  our  fathers  saw  we  have  seen, 
but  with  clearer  evidence,  and  in  a  more  dazzling  light.  The 
counsels  of  God  are  hidden,  but  his  works  are  plain,  and 
wrought  for  our  instruction.  They  teach  what  they  have  ever 
taught.  It  is  still  in  the  Church  that  He  lives  and  acts.  We 
have  seen  that  it  is  there  He  dwells.  She  is  still  the  sole  sanc 
tuary  which  He  illumines  with  His  presence.  She  is  still  "the 
Bride  adorned  for  the  Bridegroom,"  "  the  City  which  the  glory 
of  God  hath  enlightened."*  Search  not  for  Him  elsewhere,  for 
He  has  shown  in  a  hundred  lands,  by  signs  which  even  pagans 
have  understood,  how  vain  the  search  would  prove.  As  well 
might  the  followers  of  Moses  have  returned  to  seek  light  in 
Egypt,  over  which  Divine  wrath  had  spread  a  supernatural 
darkness;  as  wisely  might  the  companions  of  Josue  have 
sought  teachers  among  the  Amorites,  already  devoted  to  de 
struction,  as  Christians  forsake  the  Church  to  find  God  in  the 
midst  of  perishing  Sects, — Lutheran,  Anglican,  or  Calvinist, — 
which  He  abandoned  from  the  first  moment  of  their  existence 
to  mutual  hate  and  shameful  disorder,  and  which  have  at  length 
reached  that  final  stage  of  corruption  from  which  even  Prot 
estants  recoil  with  dismay,  while  they  cry  out,  with  a  sorrow 
which  conies  too  late,  "  The  days  in  which  we  live  are  ripe  for 
the  great  apostasy !" 

On  the  eve  of  that  conflict  of  which  so  many  voices  herald 

*  Apoc.  xxi.  2,  23. 


SUMMARY.  479 

the  approach,  and  in  which,  though  we  may  be  sure  only  for  a 
moment,  Science  is  to  be  arrayed  against  Revelation  ;  at  a 
moment  of  which  the  gravity  is  apparent,  even  to  men  not 
easily  interested  in  questions  of  the  soul,  and  which  seems  to 
presage  a  still  more  rapid  decomposition  of  the  Protestant 
Sects  than  that  of  which  we  have  already  traced  the  progress ; 
it  is  more  than  ever  evident  that  only  one  refuge  remains  for 
the  human  communities  which  have  lost  all  power  of  resistance 
from  within,  and  which  appear,  even  to  their  own  members,  to 
be  swaying  to  and  fro  in  the  first  throes  of  approaching  disso 
lution.  They  must  choose  between  the  Church  and  chaos,  for 
they  may  soon  have  no  other  choice.  Happy  they  who  have 
already  chosen,  and  chosen  aright.  The  winds  may  blow  and 
the  floods  rage,  but  their  house  will  stand,  for  it  is  built  upon  a 
rock.  As  to  the  rest,  who  have  never  known  the  Church,  and 
seem  to  ask,  before  the  final  catastrophe  is  upon  them,  for  fresh 
proofs  that  she  is  indeed  the  true  Spouse,  the  appointed  ark  of 
refuge,  the  "  garden  inclosed"  whicn  is  watered  by  the  river  of 
life, — to  them  she  addresses  once  more,  it  may  be  for  the  last 
time,  her  gentle  expostulation.  Calm  and  unmoved,  sure  of 
God  and  of  herself,  she  will  still  save  them,  if  they  will  consent 
to  be  saved.  She  bids  them  ponder  her  history  and  their  own. 
She  rehearses  again  for  their  admonition  all  which  she  has  done 
among  men  since  the  hour  when  the  Son  of  God  committed 
them  to  her  charge,  and  chiefly  what  He  has  done  in  and  by 
her  during  the  last  three  centuries,  all  the  nations  she  has 
begotten  to  Him,  all  the  apostles  she  has  nurtured,  all  the 
martyrs  she  has  blessed.  She  reminds  them  of  their  own  his 
tory  during  the  same  period,  full  only  of  malediction  both  to 
themselves  and  to  the  heathen  who  have  caught  the  infection 
from  them  ;  and  then,  comparing  with  it  that  healing  ministry 
of  power  and  love  upon  which  God  has  set  visibly  the  seal  of 
Ilis  acceptance,  using  it  in  all  lands  for  the  salvation  of  His 
creatures  and  the  manifestation  of  His  own  glory,  she  leaves 
judgment  to  Him,  and  only  borrows  words  which  Pie  has  put 
into  her  mouth,  to  say  to  those  who  still  affect  to  doubt, — "  If 
you  believe  not  my  words,  'believe  the  works  that  I  do" 


THE   END. 


INDEX  OF  CONTENTS 


Anglicanism,  Hindoo  estimate  of;  I.  317,  18. 
Anglican  Establishment  in  India ;  I.  327. 

Missionaries  in  America  ;  II.  356  361  365 
Asceticism,  "  part  of  the  ignominy  of  the  Cross  :"  I.  315 
Aleppo,  Catholic  Missions  in  ;  II.  35-37. 
Achilli,  Dr.,  his  esteem  for  the  Church  of  England  ;  II  4 
Armenia,  Catholic  Missions  in ;  II.  84,  99,  105. 

Protestant        "  II.  110-119. 

Armenians,  Catholic,  their  superiority ;  II  107 
Algeria,  conduct  of  French  soldiers  in  ;'  I.  553.  * 

Government  in ;  I.  554  5 
Arabs,  predict  the  downfall  of  Islamism  ;  I.  558. 

their  submission  to  France ;  I.  560 
Arab  Christians  ;  II.  44,  96. 
Algeria  and  India  compared  ;  I.  560. 
Abyssinia,  early  Missions  in ;  I.  573. 
present  state  of ;  II  582. 
failure  of  Protestant  Missions  in  ;  I.  589. 
Atnca,  Eastern,  Protestant  Missions  in  ;  I.  585-591 
Airica,  Western,  Protestant  Missions  in  ;  I.  591-3. 
"  Catholic  "  1.603-10. 

Africa,  Southern,  Sects  in  "  I.  617. 

.     !'  Results  of  Protestant  Missions  in  ;  I.  641. 

Atrican  Protestant  Con  verts,  specimens  of;  1. 562, 85, 86, 95  99  601  14  15  20-39 
Africaner,  character  of;  I.  628. 

Armstrong,  Dr.,  his  experience  fei  Africa ;  I.  617  637 
Atheism  of  pagans,  a  result  of  Protestant  Education ;  I  348-55 
Australia,  no  Protestant  converts  in ;  I.  414-16. 
Anglican  Clergy  in  ;  I.  410. 
Catholic  Missions  in  ;  I.  420-22. 

Australian  Natives,  their  belief  in  immortality  ;  I.  411. 
Aborigines,  their  extermination  in  Protestant  colonies ;  I.  416, 17,  495,  510, 514  ; 

Aoquisitiveness  of  Protestant  Missionaries;  I.  163,  181,  312,  13,  425,  495  513, 

516,  524,  633 ;  II.  350,  351,  369,  391. 
Anchieta,  his  labors  in  Brazil ;  II.  137-140. 
Azevedo,  and  the  sixty-eight  Martyrs  ;  II.  147. 
Amoy,  Protestant  Missions  in  ;  I.  168. 

Anouilh,  Bishop,  on  the  Chinese  conversions  in  1862 ;  I.  139. 
American  Protestants,  their  general  candor ;  II.  221. 

"          its  explanation  ;  II.  222. 
Anglican  Reformers,  impieties  of;  II.  207,  8. 

1 


11  INDEX    OF   CONTENTS. 

Alvarado ;  II.  232. 

Arctic  regions,  early  Missions  in  ;  II.  331. 

American  Indians,  their  actual  condition;  II.  387-91. 

their  prosperity  in  the  Catholic  provinces  ;  II.  396. 
"  "         their  contempt  for  Protestant  Missionaries  ;  II.  391-4. 

America,  contrast  between  Catholic  and  Protestant  Missions  in ;  II.  398-400. 
Anderson,  Rev.  J.  S.  M.,  on  Anglo-American  Missions ;  II.  353-6. 
Athens,  American  Missions  at ;  II.  11-14. 


B. 

Bibles,  how  used  by  the  heathen  in  China  ;  I.  20. 

"  India  ;  I.  26. 
"    Africa  ;  I.  35. 

"       effects  of  their  dispersion  in  European  lands  ;  I.  40-2. 

•'       best  versions  Catholic  reprints  ;  I.  53. 
Bossuet,  his  opinion  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  ;  I.  94. 
Beuth,  Martyr ;  I.  83. 
Berneux,  Bishop  and  Confessor  ;  I.  117. 
Burke,  Edmund,  on  English  in  India ;  I.  208. 

state  of  Greek  Church  ;  II.  8. 
Bonnard,  Martyr ;  I.  133. 

Bo  wring,  Sir  John,  on  Catholic  Missionaries  ;  I.  161,  480,  482. 
Bettelheim,  Dr.,  his  operations  in  Loo-Choo ;  I.  176,  7. 
Bang-kok,  Catholic  and  Protestant  Missions  at ;  I.  161. 
Bagdad,  Catholic  success  in  ;  II.  104. 
Brazil,  Catholic  Missions  in  ;  II.  131-141. 

"       Anglican          "  II.  103. 

Huguenot         "  II.  1(>2. 

Brazilians,  their  estimate  of  Protestant  Missionaries ;  II.  164. 
Baraza,  Cyprian,  Martyr ;  II.  203. 

Brooke,  Sir  James,  on  Anglican  Missions  in  India ;  I.  345. 
Benyowski,  Count,  on  Dutch  Missions  ;  I.  361. 
Baptism,  sacrilegiously  administered ;  I.  369,  375,  379,  380  ;  II.  49. 
Broughton,  Dr.,  his  despair  of  converting  the  Australians  ;  I.  411. 

Protestant  estimate  of  him  ;  I.  412. 
Bathurst,  anecdote  of  Missionaries  at ;  I.  615. 

Belcher,  Sir  Edward,  his  opinion  of  Protestant  Missionaries ;  I.  519. 
Borneo,  Missions  in  ;  I.  544. 

Blakesley,  Rev.  Mr.,  on  French  Mission  in  Algeria ;  I.  555. 
Bonar,  Rev.  Dr.,  his  remarkable  fanaticism ;  I.  564-6. 
Beke,  Dr.,  his  candor  ;  I.  574,  8. 
Bore,  Eugene,  on  state  of  Greeks  ;  II.  9. 
Beyrout,  Missions  in  ;  II.  85. 

Badger,  Rev.  G.  P.,  his  admiration  of  Nestorians  ;  II.  Ill,  112. 
Broomhall,  Rev.  J.,  his  conduct  in  Tahiti ;  I.  485. 
Bread-fruit,  Protestant  use  of;  I.  491. 
Bennett,  Mr.,  his  account  of  Tahiti ;  I.  501. 

"  "  the  Sandwich  Islands ;  I.  518. 

Bingham,  Mr.,  his  conduct  in  the  Sandwich  Islands  ;  I.  512,  531. 
Britto,  Venerable  John  de,  Martyr ;  I.  231. 
Borghese,  Xavier,  Confessor ;  I.  239. 
Beschi,  Hindoo  admiration  of ;  I.  240. 
Buchanan,  Dr.  Claudius,  his  career ;  I.  293-6. 
Buchanan,  Dr.  Francis,  on  Indian  Catholics ;  I.  255. 
Burmah,  Missions  in  ;  I.  297. 
Baptist  Missions  in  India  ;  I.  319. 
Baptist  Converts,  specimens  of ;  I.  321-3,  388. 
Bombay,-failure  of  Anglican  Missions  in  ;  I.  336. 


INDEX   OF   CONTENTS.  iii 

Baltic  Provinces,  influence  of  Russo-Greek  Church  in  ;  II.  74. 

Beechey,  Captain,  on  Protestant  Missions  in  Tahiti ;  1  494. 

Borie,  Bishop  and  Martyr  ;  I.  124. 

Betanzos,  Domingo  de  ;  II.  239. 

British  Columbia,  Missions  in  ;  276-281. 

Brebeuf,  Jean  de,  his  martyrdom ;  II.  295. 

Bressany,  Confessor  ;  II.  296. 

Bellamont,  Lord,  his  treatment  of  Catholic  Missionaries  ;  II.  299. 

Bancroft,  Mr.,  on  character  of  Catholic  Missions  in  America  ;  II.  300. 

Buckingham,  Mr.,  on  contrast  between  Catholic  and  Protestant  Missionaries 

in  Canada ;  II.  315. 
Brainerd,  his  character ;  II.  369,  70. 
Barbadoes,  Anglican  College  in  ;  II.  380. 

Bermuda  Colonial  Assembly,  its  view  of  "Church  principles  ;"  II.  381. 
Beecher,  Rev.  Henry  Ward,  on  treatment  of  American  Indians  :  II.  395  6 
Baltimore,  Lord ;  II.  360. 


C. 

Colleges,  Missionary,  Protestant ;  their  cost  and  failure ;  I.  154, 155,  178,  179, 

Church  Missionary  Society,  its  wealth,  I.  4 ;  its  defence  of  the  luxury  of  its 

agents,  I.  374  ;  its  untruth  fulness,  I.  471. 
Chinese  Women,  their  constancy ;  I.  128,  136,  137. 
Religious ;  I.  138. 
Pagans,  arguments  of ;  I.  128. 
Chapdelaine,  Martyr ;  I.  135. 
Chinese  Treaty  of  1860,  effects  of;  I.  139. 
Caste  ;  I.  219,  229. 

Conversion  of  the  Gentiles,  a  mark  of  the  true  Church ;  I.  57. 
China,  early  preaching  of  the  Faith  in  ;  I.  61.    Stability  of  Missions  in  ;  I.  65. 
Canghi,  his  relations  with  the  Catholic  Missionaries  ;  I.  72. 
Chinese,  heathen,  their  testimony  to  the  truth  ;  I.  32,  97. 
Chinese  Christians,  constancy  of ;  I.  84,  87. 
"        their  innocence  ;  I.  89. 

Christian  exiles ;  I.  89,  103,  160,  162. 
Martyrs,  letters  of;  I.  109,  122,  123. 
Corea,  Missions  in  ;  I.  113. 
Cornay,  Martyr ;  I.  121. 
Cuenot,  Bishop  and  Confessor ;  I.  125. 
Chanel,  Abbe,  his  martyrdom  ;  I«531. 
Copts,  their  degradation  ;  I.  563. 
Cairo,  failure  of  Protestant  Missions  in  ;  I.  567,  568. 

Specimen  of  Protestant  converts  ;  I.  569. 
Congo,  Missions  in  ;  I.  605. 
Colenso,  Dr. ;  I.  634,  5. 
Calderwood,  Rev.  H.,  the  Kaffirs ;  I.  640. 
Ceylon,  Martyrs  in  ;  I.  358. 

"       Anglican  Missions  in  ;  I.  380,  381,  3,  386. 
Cingalese  Converts,  devil-worshippers  ;  I.  377,  8,  9. 

^  Catholics,  their  zeal  and  fervor ;  I.  392. 
Ceremonial,  not  an  instrument  in  converting  the  heathen ;  I.  398. 

Catholic  use  of ;  I.  402,  3. 

Carnarvon,  Lord,  his  defence  of  the  Druses ;  II.  98. 
Chaldea,  wholly  Catholic  ;  I.  104. 
Cayenne,  Jesuits  in  ;  II.  168. 
Claver,  Blessed  Peter ;  II.  169-172. 
Chili,  Religion  in  ;  II.  186-7. 
Ch4quitos,  the  ;  II.  201,  2. 


IV  INDEX   OF   CONTENTS. 

Cavallero,  Lucas,  Martyr  ;  II.  202. 

Crawfurd,  Mr.,  account  of  the  Philippines  ;%  I.  479. 

Campbell,  Dr.,  on  Polynesian  Missions  ;  I.*484. 

Cruickshank,  Brodie,  on  West  African  Missions  ;  I.  600. 

Close,  Dr.,  on  English  rule  in  India  ;  I.  261-3. 

Cotton,  Dr.,  his  Gospel ;  I.  314. 

Carey,  Dr.,  his  translations  of  the  Bible ;  I.  320. 

Campbell,  Mr.,  on  Protestant  Missions  in  India ;  I.  331. 

Converts,  Protestant ;  conversion  makes  them  "twice  dead  ;"  I.  331. 

Clarkson,  Rev.  W.,  failure  of  Anglo-Indian  Missions  ;  I.  333. 

Calcutta,  Anglicanism  in  ;  I.  317,  18. 

Carne,  Dr.,  Syrian  Protestants  ;  II.  5,  99. 

Constantinople,  Patriarchate  of.  actual  condition ;  II.  9. 

Cached,  R,  P.,  "Father  of  the  Slaves;"  II.  21. 

Castlereagh,  Lord,  on  Jerusalem  Mission  ;  II.  46. 

Caucasus,  Russian  influence  in ;  II.  82,  83. 

Crimea,  Religion  in  ;  II.  85. 

Christian  Remembrancer,  its  admission  of  Anglican  failures ;  I.  7,  339,  346. 

"  "  its  opinion  of  Anglican  celibacy  ;  II.  438. 

China,  Nestorian  Missions  in  ;  I.  61. 
Cart wright,  the  Backwoods  preacher  ;  II.  381. 
Cuba,  Negroes  in  ;  II.  385. 

Cheverus,  Cardinal,  American  esteem  for  ;  II.  309,  397. 
Chateaubriand,  his  journey  with  a  Catholic  Missionary  ;  II.  308. 
Canadians,  French,  their  character ;  II.  3£4. 
Cortez,  his  character  ;  II.  231,  2. 
Cancer,  Luis,  Martyr  ;  II.  226. 

Crowe,  Rev.  F.,  his  misadventures  in  Central  America;  II.  227. 
California,  Missions  in  ;  II.  250. 

destruction  of,  by  the  Americans  ;  II.  253,  259. 
results  of  their  secularization  ;  II.  254-258. 

"          character  of  Indians  ;  II.  261. 

Protestant  Missions  in  ;  II.  261. 
Canada,  Catholic  Missions  in  ;  II.  283. 

Disunion  of  Protestants  in  ;  II.  319,  20. 
Social  state  of;  11.326. 


D. 

Daniel,  Antoine,  his  martyrdom  in  Canada ;  II.  294. 
D  wight,  Dr.  Timothy,  on  Protestant  Indian^;  II.  311,  12. 
Durham,  Earl  of,  on  Canadian  clergy ;  II.  320. 
Duff,  Missionary  voyage  of ;  I.  484. 
Divorce,  among  Greeks  and  Anglicans  ;  II.  9,  15. 
De  Hell,  Hommaire,  on  Russian  clergy ;  II.  69,  85. 
Diaz,  Bishop  and  Martyr  ;  I.  136. 

Dominicans,  their  controversy  with  the  Jesiiits  ;  I.  141. 
Dominicans,  their  missions  in  Mexico  ;  II.  238. 
Du  Chaillu,  on  West  African  Missions ;  I.  612. 
Desveaux,  General,  his  way  of  converting  the  Arabs ;  I.  554. 
Dupuch,  Bishop,  his  work  in  Algeria  ;  I.  555. 
D'Abbadie,  on  the  Abyssinians  ;  I.  575. 
Druses,  their  opinion  of  Protestantism  ;  II.  97. 
English  sympathy  with  the  ;  II.  97,  8. 
Donoso  Cortes,  on  the  Miracles  of  the  Church ;  II.  146. 
Dutch,  character  of  their  missionaries ;  I.  360. 

"       cruelties  of  II.  149,  150,  151. 

"       their  proceedings  in  Japan  ;  I.  362. 

hr>Ceylon ;  I.  360-69. 


INDEX   OF    CONTENTS.  •*• 

Dutch,  their  proceedings  in  South  America  ;  II.  149-51 

D'Orbigny,  on  the  Catholic  Indians  in  South  America  ;  II.  129  219 

Dieffenbach,  Dr.,  on  New  Zealand  Missions  ;  I.  431. 

Damascus,  Catholic  Missions  in  ;  II.  3$. 

Denmark,  state  of  religion  in  ;  II.  467^ 

Dana,  Mr.,  on  the  success  of  Catholic  Missions  in  the  Sandwich  Islands  ;  I.  524. 

E. 

Elias,  his  challenge  to  the  priests  of  Baal ;  II.  405. 
Eliot,  Rev.  John,  his  preaching  in  America ;  II.  368,  9. 
England,  effects  of  the  Reformation  in ;  II.  459-65.  ' 
Edkins,  Rev.  Joseph,  his  observations  in  China ;  I.  193. 
Ellis,  Sir  Henry,  his  account  of  the  Philippines  ;  I.  481. 
Ellis,  Rev.  William,  his  proceedings  in  Tahiti ;  I.  491. 

his  real  history  in  Madagascar ;  I.  543. 
English,  conduct  of,  in  India ;  I.  269,  275. 

in  Australia ;  I.  418,  19. 

in  America ;  II.  302,  305,  358,  365,  372. 

Education  of  the  heathen,  by  Catholics  ;  I.  178,  9, 180  420  22  533  72  •  II  28 
39,  93,  94,  210,  427-431. 

by  Protestants ;  I.  178,  180,  348,  355,  385,  413,  414   418 

568,  599,  600  ;  II.  427-435. 
Education,  character  of,  in  Catholic  lands ;  II.  428. 

results  of,  in  England  ;  II.  428. 

Earl,  Mr.  Windsor,  his  account  of  Protestant  Missions ;  I.  155. 
Ewald,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  misadventures ;  I.  561. 
Egypt,  Missions  in  ;  I.  563. 
"      Martyrs  in  ;  I.  569. 


F. 

"  Feelings,"  religious  ;  I.  598-II.  54. 
Fisk,  Rev.  Pliny,  his  history  in  Palestine ;  II.  29. 
Frankl,  Dr.,  character  of  Hebrew  Protestants ;  II.  49. 
Farley,  Mr.,  his  account  of  Syria ;  II.  59. 
Finland,  religion  in  ;  II.  75. 
Fox,  Mr.,  his  account  of  New  Zealand ;  I.  445. 
Feejee  Islands  ;  I.  508,  541. 
Fontanier,  Pondicherry  Mission  ;  I.  257. 
Pulo  Pinang        "  I.  162. 

Fdnelon,  on  the  Society  of  Jesus  ;  I.  94. 
Feron,  Abbe,  his  account  of  Corea  ;  I.  116. 
Forbes,  Alexander,  on  Californian  Missions ;  II.  251. 
Fenwick,  Bishop  of  Boston  ;  anecdote  of  an  Indian  Catholic ;  II.  307. 
French,  love  of  American  Indians  towards  the;  II.  284,  304,  341. 
Florida,  Missions  in  ;  II.  358. 

Frye,  Rev.  Mr.,  specimen  of  an  Anglo-American  Missionary ;  II.  364. 
Francis,  Conyers,  English  opinion  of  Protestant  Indians ;  II.  369. 
France,  Protestantism  in  ;  II.  458. 

influence  of,  in  Society  Islands  ;  I.  510. 

in  Sandwich  Islands  ;  I.  531. 
Futuna,  Conversion  of;  I.  531. 
Falkland  Islands  ;  I.  542. 

Fasting,  Heathen  comments  on  Protestant  neglect  of ;  I.  590. 
Franciscan  Missions  in  the  Holy  Land ;  I.  553. 


VI  INDEX   OF    CONTENTS. 


a. 

Gambler  Islands  ;  I.  537. 

Guiseppe,  R.  P.,  his  work  in  Algeria ;  I.  559. 

Guizot,  on  the  Society  of  Jesus  ;  I.  94. 

"       on  the  Christianity  of  the  sixth  century ;  I.  565. 
Gallas,  Missions  among  the ;  I.  582. 
Gobat,  Dr.,  in  Abyssinia  ;  I.  584,  5. 

"  in  Jerusalem  ;  II.  46. 

Gagelin,  Venerable  Francois,  his  martyrdom  ;  I.  106. 
Gutzlaff,  Dr.,  his  history  in  China  ;  I.  159-163. 
Grant,  Archdeacon,  on  Luthero-Anglican  Missionaries  ;  I.  277. 
Guyana,  Missions  in  ;  II.  164. 
Guaranis,  Conversion  of ;  II.  197. 
Gonsalvez,  Martyr  ;  II.  198. 
Golownin,  on  Dutch  Missions  ;  I.  360. 
Gerstaecker,       "  I.  361. 

Gibraltar,  Anglicanism  in  ;  II.  2. 
Greeks,  their  religious  condition ;  II.  6-9. 

"        their  feelings  towards  Protestantism  ;  II.  12-15. 
Greek  Monks,  their  character ;  II.  44,  86. 
Greek  Easter,  imposture  of  the  "  holy  fire ;"  II.  59,  60. 
Georgia,  Russian  influence  in  ;  II.  82. 

"         Catholic  Missions  in  ;  II.  119. 
Galton,  Mr.  Francis,  quoted ;  I.  632. 
Gamier,  Martyr  ;  II.  296. 

Greenland,  results  of  Protestant  Missions  in  ;  II.  337-9. 
Germany,  present  state  of  religion  in  ;  II.  452-4. 

Graviere,  Admiral  Jurien  de  la,  on  contrast  between  Catholic  and  Protestant 
Missions ;  I.  525. 


H. 

Holy  City,  conduct  of  Protestants  in  ;  II.  54-58. 

Heber,  Reginald,  his  life  in  India ;  I.  310-316. 

Hobson,  Dr.,  his  invention  of  a  Sacrament ;  I.  492. 

Hill,  Dr.,  his  proceedings  in  British  Columbia  ;  II.  280. 

Heki,  specimen  of  a  New  Zealand  "  convert ;"  I.  444. 

Harvard,  Rev.  W.,  his  account  of  Cingalese  Protestants  ;  I.  377. 

"  "  his  account  of  Cingalese  Catholics  ;  I.  391. 

Heathens,  their  estimate  of  Protestants  ;  I.  167,  258,  269,  270,  272,  274,  275, 

353,  393,  402,  453 ;  II.  348,  391. 

Humboldt,  moral  degradation  of  American  Indians ;  II.  128. 
Holland,  Lord,  quoted  ;  II.  217. 
Hindoos,  piety  of;  I.  221. 

Horneman,  Fredrick,  his  "  great  courage ;"  I.  593. 
Havard,  Bishop  and  Martyr  ;  I.  124. 

Hopkins,  Manley,  on  religion  in  the  Sandwich  Islands ;  I.  516,  522. 
Hines,  Rev.  Gustavus,  on  Anglican  Missionaries  in  China  ;  I.  190. 

"         "  "  on  religion  in  Hawaii ;  I.  521,  2. 

Hewett,  Captain  Napier,  West  African  Missions  ;  I.  613. 
Haxthausen,  success  of  Catholic  Missions  in  China ;  I.  90. 
Henarez,  Bishop  and  Martyr  ;  I.  124. 
Hurons,  character  of  the  ;  II.  310. 
Holland,  state  of  religion  in  ;  II.  488. 

Hall,  Judge,  on  contrast  between  Catholic  and  Protestant  Missionaries  ;  II.  301. 
Hawkins,  Rev.  Ernest,  on  Anglo-American  Missions ;  I.  351-4. 


INDEX    OF   CONTENTS.  YU 

Howison,  on  the  true  causes  of  the  enmity  of  Red  Indians  towards  the  Eng 
lish  ;  II.  365. 
Heaven,  Protestant  view  of ;  I.  404. 


I.  &  J. 

Ignorance,  effects  of,  in  Missionaries ;  I.  197,  328,  329  ;  II.  17. 

Irving,  Washington,  his  eulogy  of  Catholic  Missionaries ;  II.  291. 

Iroquois,  ruined  by  the  English  ;  II.  301,  2. 

Indians,  American,  their  reverence  for  Catholic  Missionaries  ;  II.  304. 

Iceland,  Missions  in  ;  II.  335. 

India,  character  of  Protestant  converts  in  ;  I.  343,  4. 

Indo-Syrians,  their  rejection  of  Anglicanism ;  I.  295. 

Indian  Catholic  Mission,  present  state  of ;  I.  247-258. 

Islamism,  its  victory  over  the  Greek  schismatics ;  II.  25. 

Johnson,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  autobiography ;  I.  597. 

Judd,  Rev.  Dr.,  anecdote  of;  I.  521. 

Jacobis,  Bishop,  his  toils  in  Abyssinia ;  I.  577-80. 

Jaccard,  Martyr  ;  I.  108. 

Japan,  Missions  in  ;  I.  241,  2. 

Judson,  Dr.,  his  life  and  character ;  I.  296-303. 

Jowett,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  intercourse  with  the  Greeks  ;  II.  15. 

Jerusalem,  Luthero-Anglican  Missions  in  ;  II.  43-53. 

Jones,  Peter,  Protestant  Indian  Missionary ;  II.  312. 

Jameson,  Mrs.,  on  contrast  between  Catholic  and  Protestant  Indians ;  II.  314. 

Jogues,  Martyr ;  II.  293,  4. 

Jesuits,  effects  of  their  suppression  ;  I.  244,  5,  481 ;  II.  157,  166, 167,  212,  219. 


K. 

Rlaproth,  on  worldliness  of  Moravian  Missionaries  ;  II.  77. 

"          on  Russian  intolerance ;  II.  84. 
King,  Dr.,  his  adventures  at  Athens ;  II.  12. 
Kiernander,  the  "  fashionable  missionary ;"  I.  278. 
Kaye,  J.  W.,  his  intemperance  ;  I  227,  8. 
Khoan,  Father  Paul,  his  discourse  and  martyrdom ;  I.  129. 
Kien  Long,  persecution  by  ;  I.  177. 
King,  Father  Thomas,  Martyr;  I.  113. 
Krapf,  Dr.,  his  proceedings  in  Abyssinia  ;  I.  585-8. 
Kicherer,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  ingenuity ;  I.  621. 
Kohl,  Mr.,  on  Catholic  Missioiis'in  Canada  ;  II.  316-19. 
Kirkby,  Rev.  W.,  on  Anglican  Missions  in  British  America ;  II.  334,  5. 
Kurds,  their  opinion  of  Protestants  ;  I.  585. 
Kirkland,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  account  of  his  own  failure ;  II.  370. 


Laing,  Major  Gordon,  his  experience  of  Protestant  Missionaries  ;  I.  594. 
Livingstone,  Dr.,  his  testimony  to  Catholic  Missionaries ;  I.  603-6. 

"     his  account  of  Protestant  I.  638-40. 

"  "     his  own  failure  and  recall ;  I.  639. 

Lichtenstein,  on  African  Missions  ;  I.  620. 
Le  Comte  ;  I.  92. 

"  Lie-preaching  Devils,"  Chinese  name  for  Protestant  Missionaries  ;  I.  167. 
Lahore,  Missions  in  ;  I.  231. 
Lombard,  R.  P.,  his  labors  in  Guyana ;  II.  166- 
Lang,  Dr.  J.  D.,  on  Protestant  Missions ;  I.  418,  423. 


Till  INDEX   OF    CONTENTS. 

Lawry,  Rev.  Walter,  his  commercial  activity ;  I.  429,  30. 

Ladrone  Islands,  conversion  of ;  I.  478. 

Lewis,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  way  of  converting  heathens ;  I.  485. 

Las  Casas  ;  II.  225. 

Laplace,  Captain,  his  liberation  of  the  Hawaiian  Catholics ;  I.  530. 

Laynez,  Francis,  Bishop  and  Confessor;  I   237. 

Luthero-Anglican  Missionaries  ;  I.  276,  7  ;  II.  34,  5. 

Dr.  Wolff's  opinion  of;  I.  278. 
American  comments  on  ;  II.  15. 
Ludlow,  English  irreligion  in  India  ;  I.  209. 
Liberty,  destroyed  by  the  Reformation ;  II.  454-6. 
Lempriere,  Dr.,  his  views  of  Christianity  ;  II.  242,  244. 
Lallemand,  Gabriel,  his  martyrdom  ;  II.  295. 

Luxury  of  Protestant  Missionaries;  I.  181, 182, 190,  313,  314,  373,  374  ;  II.  116. 
"    '  "  "  remarks  on,  by  the  Church  Missionary 

Society ;  I.  374. 


M. 

Malta,  Protestant  College  of ;  II.  3-5. 

Montesquieu,  condition  of  the  Greeks  a  Divine  judgment ;  II.  7. 

Margoliouth,  Rev.  Moses,  on  frailty  of  Hebrew  Protestants ;  II.  47. 

Mount  Sinai,  Greek  Monks  at ;  II.  86. 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  on  Jesuit  Missions  ;  II.  129. 

"  "        his  opinion  of  Henry  Marty n  ;  I.  289. 

Martyn,  Henry,  his  life  and  character  ;  I.  286-92. 
Middleton,  Dr.,  his  career  in  India  ;  I.  303. 
Marshman,  Dr.,  state  of  his  Mission;  I.  321. 
Madras,  Anglican  Mission  in ;  I.  335. 
Mass,  the  only  true  worship  ;  I.  401. 
Menzel,  on  the  character  of  Protestantism  ;  I.  401. 
Man,  the  only  object  in  Protestant  worship  ;  I.  404. 
Melbourne,  state  of ;  I.  419. 

Marsden,  Rev.  J.,  his  proceedings  in  New  Zealand  ;  I.  424. 
Maronites,  their  character;  II.  87-95. 
Miller,  Hugh,  miracles  "  not  impossibilities  ;"  II.  146. 
Modern  missionaries  in  South  America ;  II.  189-192. 
Monroy,  Gaspard  de,  his  heroism  ;  II.  196. 
Moxos,  their  conversion  ;  II.  204. 
Medical  Missionaries,  their  failure  ;  I.  196. 
Minh,  Father  Philip,  his  martyrdom ;  I.  135. 
Mongolia,  Christians  in  ;  I.  137. 
Melckior,  Bishop  and  Martyr;  I.  138. 
Morrison,  Dr.,  his  life  in  China  ;  I.  153-6. 
Malcolm,  Rev.  Howard,  his  confessions  ;  I.  154,  5,  9. 
Missions,  unexampled  stability  of ;  I.  95. 

"          fruitless  without  martyrs  ;  I.  9. 

"          useless  without  vocation  ;  II.  401,  2. 
Marsh,  Dr.,  his  testimony  against  the  Bible  Society ;  I.  51. 
Marette,  Martyr;  I.  103.  123,  125. 
Miracles ;  I.  105,  140,  233  ;  II.  133,  143,  146. 
Minh-Menh,  his  cruelty  ;  I.  110. 
Marchant,  Abbe,  his  martyrdom  ;  I.  111. 
Meyen,  Dr.,  on  Protestant  Missionaries  ;  I.  516. 
Mofras,  Duflot  de,  on  Sandwich  Islands  Missions  ;  I.  519. 
Mangareva,  conversion  of;  I.  587. 
Marquesas  ;  I.  542. 
Madagascar ;  I.  543 
Morocco ;  I.  550. 


INDEX   OF   CONTENTS. 

Mussulman  sympathy  with  Protestants  ;  I.  562. 
Massaia,  Bishop  ;  I.  579-581. 
Moffat.  Rev.  Robert ;  I.  619,  625,  629. 
Moravians,  traders  and  mechanics;  I.  621. 

their  conduct  in  Abyssinia ;  I.  588. 

their  cupidity  ;  II.  77,  8. 

Moodie,  Mr.,  his  account  of  South  Africa  ;  I.  625-627. 
Merriman,  Archdeacon,  on  Anglican  Missions  in  South  Africa  •  I.  622. 
MacMicking,  Mr.,  account  of  the  Philippines  ;  I.  481. 
Melville,  Herman,  Polynesian  Missions  ;  I.  503,  513. 
Maistre,  Abbe  de,  Ms  labors  in  Corea ;  I.  113. 
Manitouline  Islands,  Mission  in;  II.  311. 
Martineau,  Miss,  on  Missions  in  Canada  ;  II.  315. 
Mather,  Cotton ;  II.  343,  346,  8,  9. 
Mather,  Increase  ;  II.  347. 
Maryland,  infamy  of  Anglican  Clergy  in  ;  II.  361. 

present  state  of  Catholics  in  ;  II.  362. 
Meade,  Dr.,  his  way  of  evangelizing  Negroes  ;  II.  375,  6. 
Marriage,  inconsistent  with  missionary  labors  ;  I.  455  ;  II.  436. 
Mexico,  conversion  of;  II.  229-243. 


N. 

Nukahiva,  failure  of  Protostant  Mission  at ;  I.  630. 

Navigator  Islands,  Catholic  Mission  at ;  I.  542. 

Napier,  Colonel,  his  opinion  of  Protestant  Missionaries  ;  I.  630. 

Neale,  Mr.,  his  account  of  Bang-kok  ;  I.  161. 

Narses,  Armenian  Patriarch,  his  confessions  ;  II.  101,  107. 

Nestorian  heresy,  Anglican  sympathy  with;  I.  295;  II.  Ill,  112. 

Nobrega,  his  Mission  in  Brazil ;  II.  131. 

Negroes,  capable  of  conversion  ;  II.  171. 

comparison   of  their  state  in  Catholic  and  Protestant  lands ;    Ilk 

373-386. 

Neel,  Martyr ;  I.  140. 
Norbert ;  I.  226,  7. 

New  Zealand,  first  Missions  in  ;  I.  423. 
actual  state  of;  I.  470,  71. 
degradation  of  natives  ;  I.  438,  448. 

Nobinkissen,  Hindoo  testimony  to  Catholic  Missions  ;  I.  258. 
Neilgherries,  Mission  in  the  ;  I.  324. 

Naudi,  Dr.,  his  services  to  the  Church  Missionary  Society  ;  II.  4. 
Nazareth,  Catholic  Arabs  ;  I.  44. 
Nobili,  Robert  de  ;  I.  218. 

Nacchi,  R.  P.,  his  ministry  in  Aleppo  ;  II.  22,  3. 
North  American  natives,  their  friendly  reception  of  the  first  Missionaries  ;  II 

284,  5,  340. 

their  cruel  treatment  by  the  English  ;  II.  285-8. 
"  "  their  appreciation  of  Catholics  and  Protestants ;  II. 

273,  7,  287,  8,  370. 
Newfoundland,  decay  of  Anglicanism  in  ;  II.  333. 

"  present  Anglican  Missions  in  ;  II.  333. 

Narragansetts,  destruction  of,  by  the  English  ;  II.  358. 
Norway,  state  of  religion  in  ;  II.  467. 

0. 

Orleans,  Archbishop  of,  his  life  in'  Texas  ;  IL  248. 
Ortega,  his  labors  in  South  America ;  II.  195. 


X  INDEX   OF    CONTENTS. 

Oregon,  failure  of  Protestant  Missions  in  ;  II.  263-7. 

success  of  Catholic          "  II.  267-276. 

Oriental  Church,  its  actual  state ;  II.  64,  5. 
Ostiaks,  how  converted  ;  II.  79. 
Oseets,  "  II.  82. 

Oceanica,  final  result  of  Protestant  Missions  in  ;  I.  546. 
Ouvea,  complete  conversion  of ;  I.  536. 
Osborn,  Captain  Sherard,  on  Sandwich  Islands  Protestants ;  I.  515. 


P. 

Parennin,  R.  P.,  his  labors  in  China ;  I.  76. 
Perboyre,  Martyr ;  I.  126. 
Pompallier,  Bishop  ;  I.  466. 
Polynesian  ethnology ;  I.  475. 
Philippine  Islands,  Martyrs  in  ;  I.  477. 

present  state  of ;  I.  479. 
Perrin,  on  the  Society  of  Jesus  ;  I.  236. 
I^ossevin,  on  the  Indian  Mission  ;  I.  243. 
Perrone,  on  result  of  Missions  ;  I.  326. 
Porte,  the,  its  relations  with  Protestants ;  II.  19. 
Parsons,  Rev.  Levi ;  II.  30. 
Palmerston,  Lord,  his  pontifical  decree ;  II.  48. 
Panslavist  movement,  motive  of ;  II.  65. 
Paraguay,  Missions  in  ;  II.  193-220. 
Pridhain,  Mr.,  on  Cingalese  Missions  ;  I.  359. 
Pilgrim  Fathers,  their  character ;  II.  342. 

"        results  of  their  influence ;  II.  349. 
Prussia,  religious  bondage  in  ;  II.  455. 
Pizarro ;  II.  233. 

Peter  of  Ghent,  his  work  in  Mexico  ;  II.  239. 
Picquet,  Abbe,  his  character  and  labors  ;  II.  297,  307,  8. 
Prince  Edward's  Island,  Anglicanism  in  ;  II.  366. 
Portugal,  her  former  missionary  zeal ;  I.  217. 

"          her  present  degradation ;  I.  604 ;  II.  328. 
Protestantism,  fatal  to  the  conversion  of  the  heathen;  I.  449,  611;   II.  304, 

421. 

Philip,  Dr. ;  I.  622,  4. 
Polygamy,  Protestant  defence  of ;  I.  634. 
Paris,  Rev.  Mr.,  specimen  of  his  preaching ;  I.  518. 
Polynesian  Religious  ;  I.  537,  8.  - 
Parkyns,  Mansfield,  on  Abyssinian  Missions  ;  I.  588. 
Porter,  Rev.  D.  L.,  how  he  resented  his  failure  ;  II   90-96. 
Perkins,  Rev.  Justin,  his  palace  and  stables ;  II.  113-119. 
Persia,  Missions  in  ;  II.  119-122. 

Parish,  Sir  Woodbine,  his  testimony  to  the  Jesuits ;  II.  148,  214. 
Pombal ;  II.  158,  9. 
Peru,  Missions  in  ;  II.  172-5. 
Patagonia,  Jesuit  martyrs  in  ;  II.  201. 
Puritans,  American,  their  cupidity  ;  II.  350. 
Protestant  disunion,  Pagan  comments  on  ;  I.  195,  307,  308,  394,  395,  396,  444, 

453,  633  ;  II.  348,  425. 
Poverty  of  Catholic  Missionaries ;  I.  399. 

Q. 

Queen  of  Hawaii,  her  view  of  Christianity  ;  I.  515. 
Quake,  story  of ;  I.  592. 


INDEX   OF   CONTENTS. 

Quakers,  never  molested  by  the  Indians  ;  II.  341. 

failure  of  their  efforts  in  America ;  II.  370. 


R. 

Retord,  Bishop;  I.  131. 

Ranke,  on  Indian  Missions ;  I.  229,  30,  42. 

"        on  American   "  II.  142. 

Robinson,  Dr.,  on  Jerusalem  Missions  ;  II.  51. 
Russian  Missions  ;  II.  74-87. 

Dissenters  in  ;  II.  61,  62,  81. 

Church,  state  of ;  II.  68-71 ;  teaches  Ultramontane  doctrine ;  II.  72. 
Russell,  Dr.,  on  English  support  of  idolatry  ;  I.  267. 
Rhenius,  his  services  to  the  Anglican  Church  ;  I.  280. 
Rammohun  Roy,  on  Protestant  converts  ;  322,  342. 
Rauperaha,  his*con  version  ;  I.  445. 
Religious  dissensions  in  New  Zealand  ;  I.  450. 
Richler,  Henry,  his  work  in  South  America ;  I.  55. 
Race,  Missionaries  of  every  ;  II.  201. 
Robertson,  on  the  Jesuits  ;  II.  215. 
Ricci,  his  labors  in  China ;  I.  63-66. 
Rhodes,  Alex,  de,  his  ministry ;  I.  85. 
Ruschenberger,  Dr.,  on  Polynesian  Missions ;  I.  517. 
Rae,  Dr.,  comparison  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  Missionaries  ;  I.  524. 
Ravignan,  de,  R.  P.,  his  petition  to  preach  to  the  Arabs ;  II.  555. 
Reade,  Sir  Thomas,  on  Algerian  converts  ;  I.  562. 
Rebmann,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  "  Ebenezer ;"  I.  586. 
Reformation,  early  triumphs  of ;  II.  448. 

their  rapid  decay ;  II.  448,  451. 

final  results  of ;  II.  451-69. 
Reformation  hypothesis  ;  II.  469-72. 
Rocky  Mountains,  Catholic  Missions  in ;  II.  268-276. 
Rasles,  Sabastian,  his  martyrdom  by  the  English ;  II.  805-6. 
Rupert's  House,  Anglican  Mission  in  ;  II.  335. 


S. 

Switzerland,  state  of  religion  in  ;  II.  456,  7. 

Sweden,  state  of  religion  in  ;  II.  465-7. 

Stephens,  J.  L.,  Central  America ;  II.  228. 

Stephens,  Governor,  his  report  on  Catholic  Missions  in  the  Far  West;  II. 

275. 
Scotland,  moral  state  of;  II.  329. 


decay  of  religion  in  ;  II.  330. 
3,  Protestant  influence  up 


Seminoles,  Protestant  influence  upon  ;  II.  359. 

Sierra  Leone,  failure  of  Protestant  Missions  ;  I.  615. 

Simpson,  Sir  Q  eorge,  character  of  Protestant  Missionaries ;  I.  514. 

Seeman,  Dr.,  on  Sandwich  Islands  Missions  ;  I.  520. 

Samoan  Group  ;  I.  539,  540. 

Snow,  Captain  Parker,  on  Falkland  Island  Mission ;  I.  542. 

St.  John,  Spenser,  account  of  Borneo ;  I.  544,  5. 

Sfcaoueli,  monastery  ;  I.  557. 

Sicard,  Claude  ;  I.  570. 

Samuel,  Rev.  J.,  his  fictions ;  I.  44. 

Schaal,  Adam,  his  labors  in  China ;  I.  68. 

Sanz,  Bishop  and  Martyr  ;  I.  81. 


Staunton,  Sir  George,  on  Catholic  Missions  in  China ;  I. 
Shoolcraft,  Mr.,  his  opinion  of  Catholic  Missionaries ;  II. 


122. 


Xll  INDEX   OF   CONTENTS. 

Santa  Cruz,  Eaymond  de,  Martyr ;  II.  154. 
Southey,  Mr.,  liis  intemperance ;  II.  156,  208. 
Smith,  Dr.,  on  Peruvian  Missions  ;  II.  173. 
Solano,  St.  Francis  ;  II.  174. 

Scarlett,  Hon.  Campbell,  his  rest  disturbed;  II.  179. 
Smith,  Dr.,  his  travels  in  China ;  I.  167. 

"          Protestant  estimate  of  him ;  I.  176. 
Siam,  Missions  in  ;  I.  159. 
Singapore,  Missions  in  ;  I.  1 02. 
Scripture,  study  of,  among  Hindoos  ;  I   351. 
Selkirk,  Rev.  James,  on  Missions  in  Ceylon ;  I.  378,  9. 
Sterility  of  Missions  due  to  conflicts  of  sects  ;  I.  307. 
Speculations  of  Anglican  Missionaries  ;  I.  429. 
Shortland,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  account  of  New  Zealand  ;  I.  444. 
Selwyn,  Dr.,  his  life  in  New  Zealand ;  I.  453-4G2. 
Society  Islands,  Missions  in  ;  I.  483. 
Sandwich  Islands,  cost  of  Missions  in  ;  I.  511. 

final  state  of;  I.  521,  227,  29. 

"          Islanders,  Catholic  virtues  of ;  I.  528 

"  "          persecutions  of ;  I.  529,  30 

Schwartz,  his  life  in  India  ;  I.  282. 

failure  in  Ceylon  ;  I.  369. 
Sabat,  his  conversion  and  apostasy ;  I.  291. 
Serampore  College,  state  of ;  I.  323. 
Santipore  Training  College,  its  failure  ;  I.  331 
Serampore  Missions,  failure  of ;  I.  323,  334. 
Sects  in  China  ;  I.  194. 

"      India  ;  I.  307. 

"      Ceylon ;  I.  395. 

"      Antipodes  ;  I.  420,  450. 
Satan,  power  of,  in  heathen  lands  ;  I.  224. 
Schouvaloff,  Catholic  devotion  and  Greek  levity  ;  II.  3. 
Slade,  Sir  A.,  his  account  of  Protestant  Missionaries  in  the  Levant ;  II.  17, 
Southgate,  Dr.,  his  failures  in  Turkey ;  II.  18. 
Sisters  of  Charity  in  Turkey ;  II.  26. 
in  Beyrout ;  II.  27. 
in  Smyrna  ;  II.  34. 
Smyrna,  Protestant  Missions  in ;  II.  29,  32,  34. 

Catholic  "  II.  33, 34. 

Sidon,  Missions  in  ;  II.  35. 
"  Simplicity"  of  Protestant  worship ;  II.  38. 
Society  for  the  conversion  of  the  Jews,  its  history ;  II.  49,  50. 
Samoyeds,  nominal  Christians  ;  II.  79. 
Siberia,  Catholic  priests  in  ;  II.  80. 
Schoeffer,  Martyr  ;  I.  133. 

Scherzer,  Dr.,  resources  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  Missions  ;  I.  532. 
Stowe,  Mrs.  Beecher,  her  political  romance  ;  II.  377. 
Seward,  Mr.,  his  view  of  Negroes  and  Indians ;  II.  373. 
St.  Paul,  on  the  signs  of  an  apostle ;  II.  402. 
Social  results  of  Missions  ;  II.  439-446. 


T. 

Tocqueville,  de,  fate  of  American  Indians ;  II.  341,  387. 
Texas,  Missions  in  ;  II.  244-250. 

"        conduct  of  Americans  in  ;  II.  245. 

Talbot,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  account  of  Catholic  Missions  in  America ;  II.  299. 
Turks  distinguish  between  Catholics  and  Greeks  ;  II.  8. 
Tuikey  :n  Europe,  Protestant  Missions  in  ;  II.  15  20. 


INDEX   OF   CONTENTS.  xiil 

Turkey,  Americans  in  ;  II.  16.     Catholics  ;  II.  20,  29. 

Taylor,  Bayard,  character  of  Latin  Monks  ;  II.  47. 

Taeping  rebels,  their  religion  derived  from  Protestant  Missionaries  •  I  99-205 

Thomas,  St.,  the  Apostle  of  India  ;  I.  210. 

Torrette,  Martyr  ;  I.  126. 

Thibet,  Christians  in  ;  I.  137. 

Tanjore,  Protestant  Missions  in  ;  I.  337. 

Tinnevelly,    "  "  I.  837,  8. 

Tupper,  Rev.  W.  G.,  on  Ceylon  Missions  ;  I.  381. 

Tennent,  Sir  Emerson,  Ceylon  Missions  ;  I.  382,  396. 

Taylor,  Rev.  Richard,  his  fortunes  in  New  Zealand;  I.  427 

Temlin,  Rev.  T.,  his  account  of  his  own  labors  ;  I.  163. 

Trollope,  Anthony,  on  the  Negroes;  II.  165. 

Tong-King,  Missions  in  ;  I.  85. 

Timskowski,  constancy  of  Chinese  ;  I.  98. 

Turner,  Rev.  George,  history  of  Samoan  Group  ;  I.  539. 

Tunis,  Missions  in  ;  I.  561,  62. 

Tristram,  Rev.  Mr.,  on  Algerian  Protestants  ;  I.  562. 

Tzatzoe,  his  comedy  at  Exeter  Hall  ;  I.  622. 

Thompson,  Mr.,  his  revelations  ;  I.  625. 

Tinh,  Father  Paul,  Martyr  ;  I.  136. 

Tahiti,  original  state  of;  I.  487.     Catholic  Missions  in  ;  506.     Final  state  of; 

oo«Jj  TO. 

Therry,  Mr.,  account  of  Tahiti  in  1863  ;  I.  510. 
Tabert,  Bishop,  his  labors  and  writings  ;  I.  103. 
Thomas,  St.,  Protestant  clergy  in  ;  II.  380. 
Temple,  Rev.  Daniel,  his  likeness  to  Abraham  ;  II.  31. 
Thomson,  Rev.  Dr.,  on  motives  of  Hebrew  converts  ;  II.  53. 

U.  &V. 

Unity  of  Catholics,  Heathen  comments  upon  ;  I.  97,  195,  394. 

Protestant      "  "        II.  425,  6. 

Unitarianism  in  the  United  States  ;  II.  349. 
United  States,  state  of  religion  in  ;  II.  339. 

Underbill,  Rev.  Mr.,  on  Baptist  Missions  in  the  West  Indies  •  H.  382,  3. 
Virginia,  history  of  Anglicanism  in  ;  II.  363. 

"         cradle  of  American  Revolution  ;  II.  368. 
Voltaire,  on  Paraguay  Mission  ;  II.  193. 
Vieyra,  Antony,  his  apostolate  in  Brazil  ;  II.  151,  3,  6. 
Victoria,  fate  of  natives  in;  I.  417. 


,  .        . 

Vaz,  Joseph,  his  labors  in  Ceylon  ;  I.  359. 
Valentia,  Lord,  on  Indian  Missions  ;  I.  283. 


Veeson,  Rev.  Mr.,  his  crimes  ;  I.  486. 

Von  Kotzebue  ;  I.  488,  493. 

Verbiest,  F.,  his  labors  in  China ;  I.  70. 

Vera  Paz,  origin  of  the  name  ;  II.  225. 

Virtues  of  Catholics  confessed  by  the  heathen ;  I.  98,  101,  125,  6,  7    132,  3, 

189. 
Vocation,  its  effects  ;  II.  403. 

not  recognized  by  Protestants ;  II.  404,  5. 

W. 

Wolff,  Dr.  Joseph,  his  fictions  ;  I.  45,  6. 

Wilks,  Mark,  his  view  of  apostles  ;  I.  526. 

White  Nile,  Mission  on  the ;  I.  571. 

Wilson,  Rev.  Leighton,  on  West  African  Missions ;  I.  611. 


XIV  INDEX   OF   CONTENTS. 

Worship,  real ;  I.  401. 

Williams,  Archdeacon,  his  history  in  New  Zealand ;  I.  426,  7,  433. 

Wilson,  Dr.  Daniel,  his  experience  in  India  ;  I.  316. 

Wilkes,  Commodore,  account  of  Protestant  Missions  ;  I.  441,  2,  488,  502. 

Waldegrave,  Lord,  "  I.  489, 493. 

Williams,  Rev.  John,  his  real  history  in  Polynesia ;  I.  496-500. 

Wheeler,  Mr.,  Polynesian  Missions ;  I.  501,  513. 

Walpole,  Hon.  F. ;  I.  503,  520. 

Wallis  Island,  Missions  in  ;  I.  507,  535,  6. 

Williams,  Rev.  George,  his  opinion  of  Protestant  Missionaries  in  Syria ;  II. 

42,  52. 

West  Indies,  Anglican  Church  in  ;  II.  380. 
Washington,  his  address  to  American  Catholics ;  II.  397. 
Wilberforce,  Dr.  Samuel,  on  American  Puritans  ;  II.  345. 

on  Anglicanism  in  Virginia ;  II.  363. 
"  "          on  the  value  of  endowments ;  II.  363. 


Y. 

Yong-Tching,  persecution  by ;  I.  73. 

Yate,  Rev.  Mr.,  on  New  Zealand  Missions  ;  I.  428. 

"         specimen  of  his  converts  ;  I.  439. 
Youns:,  Cuthbert,  Protestantism  in  Turkey ;  II.  19. 
Young,  Rev.  Mr.,  Australian  Missions ;  I.  412. 


INDEX   OF  AUTHOEITIES. 


Annales  dc  la  Propagation  de  la  Foi 

Annuaire  Historique  Universel. 

Asseman  ;  Dissert,  de  Syris  Nestorianis. 

Allatius,  Leo  ;  De  Eccles.  Occident,  et  Orient.  Perpet.  Conseensu. 

Ami  de  la  Religion. 

Augustini  Opera. 

Asiatic  Journal. 

Asiatic  Researches. 

Argensola,  B.  L.  de  ;  Discovery  and  Conquest  of  the  Molucca  and  Philippine 

Islands. 

Anderson,  C.  ;  Annals  of  the  English  Bible. 
Angas,  George  French  ;  Savage  Life  in  Australia. 
Atkinson,  T.  W. ;  Oriental  and  Western  Siberia. 
Ainsworth,  H. ;  Travels  in  Asia  Minor. 
Adalbert,  Prince  of  Prussia  ;  Travels  in  Brazil,  &c. 
Acts  of  the  Government  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope. 
Alexander,  Sir  James  ;  Voyage  among  the  Colonies  of  Western  Africa, 
Andersson,  Charles  John ;  Lake  Ngami,  &c. 

The  Okavango  River. 

Arundell,  Rev.  J. ;  Discoveries  in  Asia  Minor. 
Aspinall,  Clara ;  Three  Years  in  Melbourne. 
Auber,  Rev.  Peter  ;'  China. 

Abeel,  Rev.  David  ;  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  China. 
Addison,  Lieut.-Colonel ;  Traits  of  Anglo-Indian  Life. 
A  Glance  at  the  East ;  by  a  retired  Bengal  Civilian. 

Arnold,  Edward  ;  The  Marquis  of  Dalhousie's  Administration  of  British  India. 
A  Voyage  to  the  Island  of  Ceylon  in  1747. 
Anderson,  Rev.  Philip ;  The  English^n  Western  India. 
Anadol ;  by  the  Author  of  "  Frontier  Lands." 
Achilli,  and  the  Malta  Protestant  College. 
Adam,  Rev.  John ;  Memoir  of. 
Allies,  T.  W. ;  St.  Peter,  His  Name  and  Office. 
Astley  ;  Voyages  and  Travels. 
Anderson,  Rev.  J.  S.  M. ;  History  of  the  Colonial  Church. 

B. 

Brasseur  de  Bourbourg  ;  Histoire  du  Canada  et  de  ses  Missions. 
Bressany,  R.  P. ;  Missions  dans  la  Nouvelle  France. 
Bertolacci,  A. ;  View  of  Ceylon. 

Bjornstjerna,  Count ;  The  Theogony  of  the  Hindoos. 
Blumhardt ;  Christian  Missions. 

"  Histeire  Generate  de  1'Etablissement  du  Christianisme. 


XVI  INDEX   OF  AUTHORITIES. 

Bernoulli! ;  Description  de  1'Inde. 
Bost,  M.  A. ;  Geneve  Religieuse. 
Bertrand,  R.  P. ;  Histoire  de  la  Missiop  t  a  Madura*. 
Baudicour,  Louis  de  ;  La  Colonisation  *./..  I'Algerie. 
Baude,  Baron ;  L'Alge'rie. 

Beke,  C.  J.,  Ph.  D. ;  Memoire  Justifies  J  en  rehabilitation  des  Peres  Paez  et 
Jerome  Lobo. 

"        "         "      ,    Statement  of  Fact/,  r;lati  veto  the  British  Mission  to  Shoa. 

"        "        "          Christianity  amorj,;'  the  Gallas. 
Biographic  Universelle. 
Boue",  A. ;  La  Turquie  d'Europe. 
Bourasse',  1'Abbe  ;  La  Terre  Sainte. 
Bonald,  M.  de  ;  Legislation  Primitive. 
Bore,  Eugene ;  Correspondance  et  Memoires  d'un  Voyageur  en  Orient. 

"  "  Armenie. 

Brosset,  M. ;  Histoire  de  la  Georgie. 
Brossard,  Alfred  de ;  Les  Republiqvies  de  la  Plata. 

Bohusz,  Mgr.  de,  Archeveque  de  Moliilew ;  Recherches  Historiques  sur  1'Origine 

des  Sarmates,  des  Esclavons,  et 
des  Slaves. 

"          "  "  "  Histoire  du  Royaunie  de  la  Cher 

sonese  Taurique. 

Bodenstedt,  Friedrich  ;  Life  in  tl/e  Caucasus  and  the  East. 
Bossuet ;  CEuvres. 
Bridgman  ;  Chinese  Chrestomathy. 
Benyowski,  Comte ;  Travels. 
Bancroft,  George  ;  History  of  +ie  United  States. 
Beecham,  John  ;  Ashantee  and  the  Gold  Coast. 
Burchell,  William  J. ;  Travels  in  the  Interior  of  Southern  Africa. 
Bannister,  S. ;  Memoir  respecting  the  Colonization  of  Natal. 
Backhouse,  James  :  Visit  io  the  Mauritius  and  South  Africa. 
Bunbury,  Charles  J.  F. ;  Journal  of  a  Residence  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope. 
Baldwin,  W,  C. ;  African  Hunting  from  Natal  to  the  Zambesi. 
Browne,  J.  Ross  ;  Yusef. 

Badger,  Rev.  G.  P. ;  The  Nestorians  and  their  Rituals. 
Bremer,  Fredericka ;  Travels  in  the  Holy  Land. 
Homes  of  the  New' World. 

Borror,  Dawson  ;  Journey  from  Naples  to  Jerusalem. 
Barrow,  Sir  George  ;  Ceylon,  Past  and  Present. 
Brace,  Charles  Loring  ;  Home  Life  in  Norway  and  Sweden. 
Brown,  Rev.  William  ;  History  of  the  Propagation  of  Christianity  among  the 

Heathen. 
Bowring,  Sir  John ;  The  Kingdom  and  People  of  Siam. 

"  "  A  Visit  to  the  Philippine  Islands. 

Bradshaw,  W.  S. ;  Voyages  to  India,  China,  &c. 
Bidwill,  John  Carne  ;  Rambles  in  New  Zealand. 

Brodie,  Walter  ;  Remarks  on  the  Past  and  Present  State  of  New  Zealand. 
Bright,  John  ;  A  History  of  New  Zealand. 
Bligh  ;  Voyage  to  the  South  Sea. 

Byron,  Lord ;  Voyage  of  H.M.S.  Blonde  to  the  Sandwich  Islands. 
Bennett,  F.  Debell ;  Narrative  of  a  Whaling  Voyage. 
Belcher,  Sir.  Edward  ;  Narrative  of  a  Voyage  round  the  World. 
Barth,  Dr.  ;  Travels  in  Africa. 
Blofeld,  J.  H. ;  Algeria,  Past  and  Present. 
Blakesley,  Rev.  J.  W. ;  Four  Months  in  Algeria. 
Broughton,  Mrs.  ;  Six  Years'  Residence  in  Algiers. 
Bonar,  Rev.  H.,  D.D. ;  The  Desert  of  Sinai. 
Burton,  James  ;  First  Footsteps  in  East  Africa. 
Bruce  ;  Travels,  &c. 
Blackiston,  Captain  Thomas  W. ;  Five  Months  on  the  Zang-Teze. 


INDEX   OF   AUTHORITIES. 

Bingliam,  Commander  Eliot ;  Narrative  of  the  Expedition  to  China. 

Barrow  ;  Travels  in  China. 

Bernard  ;  Services  of  the  Nemesis. 

Berncastle,  Dr. ;  A  Voyage  to  China. 

Burke,  Edmund ;  Works. 

Bartoli  and  Maffei ;  Life  of  St.  Francis  Xavier. 

Binning,  Kobert  B.  M. ;  Two  Years'  Travel  in  Persia,  &c. 

Buchanan,  Dr.  Claudius  ;  Christian  Researches  in  Asia. 

The  Star  in  the  East. 

Brine,  Commander  Lindesay  ;  The  Taeping  Rebellion  in  China. 
Ball,  B.  L.,  M.D. ;  Rambles  in  Eastern  Asia. 

Bartlett,  John  Russell ;  Personal  Narrative  of  Explorations  in  Texas  &c. 
Boston  Pilot. 

Bradford,  William  J.  A.  ;  Notes  on  the  North  West. 
Barker,  Charles  Fiott ;  Memoir  on  Syria. 
Buckingham,  J.  S. ;  America. 

"       Canada. 

Babbage  ;  Ninth  Bridgewater  Treatise. 
Brown,  William  ;  New  Zealand  and  its  Aborigines. 
Braim,  T.  H. ;  History  of  New  South  Wales. 
Brief  View  of  the  operations  of  the  B.  and  F.  Bible  Society,  1862. 
Baird,  Rev.  Robert ;  Religion  in  the  United  States  of  America. 
Burton,  Lieutenant ;  Sindh. 
Bennett,  J.  W. ;  Ceylon  and  its  Capabilities. 
Beechey,  Captain ;  Voyage  to  the  Pacific. 
Buchanan,  Dr.  Francis  ;  Journey  through  Mysore,  &c. 
Barrett,  Joseph  ;  The  Duty  of  Britons  to  promote  Christianity  in  India. 
Bell,  Captain  Evans  ;  The  English  in  India. 
Bellew,  H.  W. ;  Journal  of  a  Mission  to  Afghanistan. 
Be  van,  Major ;  Thirty  Years  in  India. 
Bateman,  Rev.  Josiah  ;  Life  of  Daniel  Wilson. 
Briggs,  Lieut.-General ;  India  and  Europe  compared. 
Bowen,  John  ;  Missionary  Incitement  and  Hindoo  Demoralization. 
Baker,  Lieutenant ;  Rifle  in  Ceylon. 

Eight  Years'  Wanderings  in  Ceylon. 
Burton,  Judge  ;  State  of  Religion  in  N.  S.  Wales. 
Bennett,  George  ;  Wanderings  in  N.  S.  Wales. 
Byrne,  J. ;  Twelve  Years'  Wanderings,  &c. 
British  Colonization  of  New  Zealand. 
Barca,  Madame  Calderon  de  la  ;  Life  in  Mexico. 
Boudinot,  Elias,  LL.D.  ;  A  Star  in  the  West. 
Beecham,  John ;  Colonization. 

Berkeley,  Hon.  Grantley  F. ;  The  English  Sportsman  in  the  Western  Prairies. 
Bouchette,  Colonel ;  British  Dominions  in  North  America. 
Bradford,  Win.  J.  A.  ;  Notes  on  the  North  West. 
Baltimore  Metropolitan  Catholic  Almanac. 

Burke,  E. ;  An  Account  of  the  European  Settlements  in  America. 
Burton,  Richard  F. ;  The  Qty  of  the  Saints. 
Berkeley ;  A  Proposal  for  the  better  supplying  of  Churches  in  our  Foreign 

Plantations,  Works,  1784. 
Bermuda  ;  By  a  Field  Officer. 
Brandt,  Gerard ;  History  of  the  Reformation  in  the  Low  Countries. 

C. 

Compans,  H.  Terneaux ;  Voyages,  &c.,  pour  servir  a  I'HJbstoire  de  la  Decouverte 

de  1'Amerique. 
Chronique  Religieuse. 
Charlevoix  ;  Histoire  du  Paraguay. 

I* 


XV111  INDEX   OF   AUTHORITIES. 

Charlevoix,  Histoire  du  Japon. 

Histoire  de  la  Nouvelle  France. 

Chabrol,  M.  de  ;  Essai  sur  les  Mceurs,  &c.,  ap.  Pane*  ncke. 
Cortes,  Donoso ;  (Euvres. 
Casalis,  E. ;  Les  Bassoutos. 
Compendio  della,  Vita  del  B.  Pietro  Claver. 
Chateaubriand  ;  Ge'nie  du  Christianisme. 
Cordara  ;  Historia  Societatis  Jesu. 
Cochin,  Augustin  ;  L'Abolition  de  1'Esclavage. 
Carette,  M.  E. ;  Algerie. 
Callander  ;  Terra  Australia  Cognita. 
Calvin  ;  Comment,  in  Nov.  Test. 
Custine,  Marquis  de ;  La  Russie  en  1839. 
Cruickshank,  Brodie  ;  Eighteen  Years  on  the  Gold  Coast. 
Colenso,  J.  W.,  D.D. ;  Ten  Weeks  in  Natal. 
Calderwood,  Rev.  H.  ;  Caffres  and  Caffre  Missions. 
Clark,  J.  A.,  D.D. ;  Glimpses  of  the  Old  World. 
Coleridge,  S.  T. ;  Literary  Remains. 
Crowe,  Rev.  F. ;  The  Gospel  in  Central  America. 

Cochrane,  Captain  Charles  Stuart ;  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  Colombia, 
Oolton,  Rev.  Walter  ;  Incidents  of  a  Cruise  to  California. 
Chinese  Repository. 

Christmas,  Rev.  H. ;  The  Hand  of  God  in  India. 
Campbell,  Colonel ;  Excursions  in  Ceylon. 
Cordiner,  Bev.  James  ;  A  Description  of  Ceylon. 
Caldecott,  R.  M. ;  Life  of  Baber,  Emperor  of  Hindostan. 
Close,  Dr. ;  An  Indian  Retrospect. 

Cameron,  Charles  Hay  ;  The  Duties  of  Great  Britain  to  India. 
Clarkson,  Rev.  William  ;  India  and  the  Gospel. 
Cormack,  Rev.  John  ;  Abolition  of  Female  Infanticide  in  Guzerat. 
Charlesworth,  Miss  ;  Africa's  Mountain  Valley. 
Carter,  Rev.  T.  T. ;  Memoir  of  Bishop  Armstrong. 
Cole,  Alfred  W. ;  The  Cape  and  the  Kafirs. 
Chase,  John  C. ;  The  Cape  of  Good  Hope. 
Carne,  John  ;  Letters  from  the  East. 
Cox,  Samuel ;  Wanderings  in  Europe  and  the  Orient. 
Curzon,  Hon.  F. ;  Monasteries  of  the  Levant. 

Armenia  and  Erzeroum. 

Castlereagh,  Viscount ;  A  Journey  to  Damascus,  &c. 
Clark,  E.  D.,  LL.D. ;  Travels  in  Various  Countries. 
Cheever,  George  B.,  D.D. ;  The  Pilgrim  Fathers. 
Curtis,  G.  W. ;  The  Wanderer  in  Syria. 
Chesney,  Colonel ;  The  Russo-Turkish  Campaigns. 
Cameron,  Lieut.-Colonel  Poulett ;  Personal  Adventures  in  Georgia,  Circassia, 

and  Russia. 

Chamerovzow,  Louis  ;  The  New  Zealand  Question. 
Church  in  the  Colonies. 
Cruise,  Captain  ;  Journal. 
Cholmondeley,  Thomas  ;  Ultima  Thule. 

Campbell,  Rev.  John,  D.D. ;  Maritime  Discovery  and  Christian  Missions. 
Coulter,  John,  M.D. ;  Adventures  on  the  Western  Coast  of  South  America. 

".          "  Adventures  in  the  Pacific. 

Cheever,  Rev.  Henry  T. ;  The  Island  World  of  the  Pacific. 
Caswall  Rev.  H. ;  The  Western  World  Revisited. 
Churton,  Rev.  H.  B.  W. ;  The  Land  of  the  Morning. 
Crawford,  M.  S. ;  Through  .Algeria. 
Churchill,  Colonel ;  Mount  Lebanon. 

Chasseaud,  George  Washington  ;  The  Druses  of  the  Lebanon. 
Carnarvon,  Earl  of ;  Recollections  of  the  Druses. 
Col  ton  C.  •  Thoughts  on  the  Religioxis  State  of  America. 


INDEX   OF   AUTHORITIES 


XIX 


Oalcott,  Lady  ;  Journal  of  a  Voyage  to  Brazil. 

Courtot ;  Life  of  St.  Francis  Solano. 

Cleveland,  Richard  J. ;  A  Narrative  of  Voyages. 

Campbell,  George  ;  India  as  it  may  be. 

Crawfurd ;  Embassy  to  Siam  and  Cochin  China. 

China  and  the  Missions  at  Amoy. 

Colonial  Church  Chronicle. 

Colledge  ;  Suggestions  with  regard  to  employing  Medical  Practitioners  as  Mis- 
sionaries  in  China. 

Cobbold,  Rev.  R.  H. ;  Pietuves  of  the  Chinese. 

Cunynhame,  Colonel  Arthur ;  Recollections  of  Service  in  India. 

Calcutta  Review. 

Callery  and  Yvan  ;  History  of  the  Insurrection  in  China. 

Churchill ;  Collection  of  Voyages. 

Christian  Remembrancer. 

Cuningham,  Rev.  J.  W. ;  Christianity  in  India. 

Chinese  and  General  Missionary  Gleaner. 

Cape  and  Natal  News. 

Causes  of  the  Indian  Revolt ;  by  a  Hindu  of  Bengal. 

China,  Last  year  in  ;  by  a  Field  Officer. 

Chandless,  William  ;  A  Visit  to  Salt  Lake. 

Church,  the,  in  Canada. 

Cockburn,  Henry  ;  Memorials  of  his  Time. 

Coxe,  Rev.  A.  C. ;  Statements  and  Documents  concerning  the  Board  of  Man 
agers  of  the  American  Bible  Society. 

Chalmers  ;  History  of  the  Revolt  of  the  American  Colonies. 

Church  Advocate. 

Colton  ;  Church  and  State  in  America. 

Castell,  William  ;  A  Petition  exhibited  to  the  High  Court  of  Parliament,  1641. 

Colton,  Mrs.  Ann  ;  An  Account  of  our  late  Troubles  in  Virginia,  1676. 

Coleridge,  Henry  Nelson  ;  Six  Months  in  the  West  Indies. 

Cartwright,  Peter ;  The  Backwoods  Preacher. 

Catlin  ;  American  Indians. 

Channing,  W.  E. ;  Works. 


D. 

D'Orbigny,  Alcide ;  Voyage  dans  1'Amerique  Meridionale. 

Duflot  de  Mofras  ;  Exploration  du  Territoire  de  1'Oregon. 

Didier,  Charles  ;  Cinq  Cents  Lieues  sur  le  Nil. 

David,  Jules  ;  Syrie  Moderne. 

D'Hericourt,  Rochet ;  Second  Voyage  dans  le  Pays  des  Adels  et  le  Royaumo 

de  Shoa. 

D'Istria,  Comtesse  Doria  ;  Les  Femmes  en  Orient. 
Daumas,  General  E. ;  Les  Mceurs  du  Desert,  &c. 
De  Maistre ;  Lettre  a  une  Dame  Russe  sur  le  Schisme  et  sur  1'Unite  Catho- 

lique. 

Deluzy,  Leon ;  La  Russie,  son  Peuple  et  son  Annee. 
Desvergers,  A.  N. ;  Abyssinie. 
D'Orleans,  R.  P. ;  Vie  du  Pere  Ricci. 
Du  Halde  ;  Description  de  1'Empire  de  la  Chine. 

Domenech,  1'Abbe  Emanuel ;  Journal  d'un  Missionaire  au  Texas  et  au  Mexiquo, 
De  Guignes ;  Voyages  a  Pekin,  Manille,  &c. 
Defense  de  la  Venerable  Compagnie  des  Pasteurs  de  Geneve. 
Divers  Voyages  de  la  Chine. 
D'Herbelot ;  Bibliotheque  Orieiitale. 
D'Alembert  ;  (Euvres. 
Davis,  Sir  John  ;  Sketches  of  China. 
"  "  China  since  the  Peace. 


XX  INDEX   OF  AUTHORITIES. 

Duyckink  ;  Cyclopaedia  of  American  Literature. 

Davidson,  F. ;  Trade  and  Travel  in  the  Far  East. 

Downing,  H. ;  The  Fan  Qui  in  China. 

Dallas,  Rev.  Alexander ;  The  Missionary  Crisis. 

Dublin  Review. 

De  Bults,  Lieut. ;  Rambles  in  Ceylon. 

Dorr,  Benjamin,  D.D. ;  Notes  of  travel  in  the  East. 

D wight,  Rev.  H.  G.  O. ;  Christianity  in  Turkey. 

"  "  "  Christianity  Revived  in  the  East. 

Drew,  G.  S. ;  Scripture  Lands  in  Connection  with  their  History. 
Dalgairns,  Rev.  F. ;  The  Holy  Communion. 
Duncan,  W.  ;  Travels  in  Western  Africa. 

Drayson,  Captain  Alfred  ;  Sporting  Scenes  among  the  Kaffirs  of  South  Africa. 
Du  Chaillu,  Paul  B.  ;  Equatorial  Africa. 
Durbin,   Rev.  J.  P.,  D.D. ;  Observations  in  the  East. 
Drake,  Samuel  G.  ;  History  of  the  Indians  of  North  America. 
Dollinger,  Dr.  ;  The  Church  and  the  Churches. 
Dibble,  Rev.  Sheldon  ;  History  of  the  Sandwich  Islands. 
Dieffenbach,  Dr.  Ernest ;  Travels  in  New  Zealand. 

Dillon,  Captain  P. ;  Narrative  of  the  Discovery  of  the  Fate  of  La  P  Arouse. 
D'Ewes,  J. ;  China,  Australia,  and  the  Pacific  Islands. 
Dana ;  Two  Years  before  the  Mast. 
Debary,  Rev.  Thomas  ;  The  Canary  Isles,  &c. 
Davies,  Rev.  E.  W.  L. ;  Algiers  in  1857. 

Davis,  N. ;  Ruined  Cities  within  Numidian  and  Carthaginian  Territories. 
Demidoff,  Anatole  de  ;  Travels  in  S.  Russia. 
Denton,  Rev.  W. ;  Servia  and  the  Servians. 
Documentary  History  of  New  York. 
Dalton,  Henry  G. ;  History  of  British  Guiana. 
Darner,  Mrs.  Dawson  ;  Tour  in  Greece. 
Dobrizhoffer  ;  Account  of  the  Abipones. 
Dalcho,  Frederick,  M.D.  ;  An  Historical  Account  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 

Church  in  South  Carolina. 

Dwight,  Rev.  Timothy,  D.D. ;  Travels  in  New  England. 
Durham,  Earl  of;  Report  and  Despatches. 
Dennys,  N.  B. ;  The  Cruise  of  the  St.  George. 


E. 

Evagrius ;  Hist.  Ecclesiast. 

Epistolae  Indica?. 

Encyclopedic  Methodlque. 

Epistolae  Praepos.  General,  ad  Patres  et  Fratres  Soc.  Jesu. 

Empaytaz,  H.  L. ;  Considerations  sur  la  Divinite  de  Jesus  Christ. 

Emmerich,  Anne  Catherine ;  La  Douloureuse  Passion  de  N.  S.  Jesus  Christ. 

Ewbank,  Thomas  ;  Life  in  Brazil. 

Elwes,  Robert ;  Tour  Round  the  World. 

Ewald,  Rev.  F.  C. ;  Journal  of  Missionary  labors. 

Earle,  Augustus  ;  Nine  Months'  Residence  in  New  Zealand. 

Excursion  in  New  Zealand. 

Ellis,  H.  T. ;  Hong-Kong  to  Manilla. 

Ellis,  Rev.  William  ;  Polynesian  Researches. 

Three  Visits  to  Madagascar. 
"  Brief  Notice  of  China  and  Siam. 

Ellis,  Sir  Henry ;  Journal  of  an  Embassy  to  China. 
Erskine,  J.  Elphinstone  ;  The  Islands  of  the  Western  Pacific. 
East,  J.  D. ;  Western  Africa. 
Essay  on  the  Religious  Prej  adiccs  of  India. 
Eclectic  Review. 


INDEX   OF   AUTHOEITIE.  Xxi 

Edinburgli  Review. 

Edinburgh  Christian  Instructor. 

Earl,  George  Windsor  ;  The  Eastern  Seas. 

Elwood,  Mrs.  Colonel ;  Narrative  of  a  Journey  to  India. 

Edkins,  Rev.  Joseph  ;  The  Religious  Condition  of  the  Chinese. 

Evangelical  Christendom. 

Elphinstone,  Hon.  Mountstewart ;  History  of  India. 

Edwards,  Frank  S  ;  A  Campaign  in  New  Mexico. 

Englishwoman,  The,  in  America. 

Events  in  Indian  History. 


F. 

Frank,  Dr.  Louis  ;  Description  de  la  Regence  de  Tunis. 
Fontanier,  V. ;  Voyage  dans  1'Archipel  Indien. 
Narrative  of  a  Mission  to  India. 
Fe'nelon  ;  (Euvres. 

Fardoonjee  Nowrosjee  ;  The  Civil  Administration  of  the  Bombay  Presidency 
Froebel,  Julius  ;  Seven  Years'  Travel  in  Central  America. 
Fowler,  George  ;  Three  Years  in  Persia. 
Ferrier,  General ;  Caravan  Journeys  in  Persia,  &c. 
Fletcher,  Rev.  J.  C.,  and  Kidder,  Rev.  D.  P. ;  Brazil  and  the  Brazilians. 
Fox,  W. ;  The  Six  Colonies  of  New  Zealand. 
Farley,  J. ;  Two  Years  in  Syria. 
Frankl,  Dr. ;  The  Jews  in  the  East. 
Frontier  Lands  of  the  Christian  and  the  Turk. 
Foote,  Commander ;  Africa  and  the  American  Flag. 
Forbes,  Commander  ;  Dahomey  and  the  Dahomans. 
Forbes,  James  ;  Oriental  Memoirs. 
Forbes,  Colonel ;  Recent  Disturbances  in  Ceylon. 
Forbes,  Major  ;  Eleven  Years  in  Ceylon. 
Forbes,  Lieutenant ;  Five  Years  in  China. 
Forbes,  Alexander ;  California. 
Forbes,  J. ;  Unrefuted  Charges,  &c. 
Faber,  F.  W.,  D.D. ;  The  Creator  and  the  Creature. 
"  "  The  Blessed  Sacrament. 

Bethlehem. 

Freeman,  Rev.  J.  J. ;  Tour  in  South  Africa. 
Fisk,  Rev.  George  ;  A  Pastor's  Memorial. 
Flanagan,  Roderick  ;  History  of  New  South  Wales. 
Fitton,  Edward  Brown  ;  New  Zealand. 
Fletcher,  Rev.  Joseph ;  A  Voice  from  New  Zealand. 
Fitzroy,  Robert ;  Remarks  on  New  Zealand. 
Fuller,  Francis  ;  Five  Years'  Residence  in  New  Zealand. 
Fanning,  R. ;  Voyages  round  the  World. 
Fremantle,  Rev.  W. ;  The  Eastern  Churches. 
Fast  Day  Sermons. 

Fuller,  Andrew ;  Apology  for  the  Christian  Missions  in  India. 
Foreign  Missionary  Chronicle. 

Fraser,  James  B. ;  Travels  in  the  Persian  Provinces. 
Fifteen  Years  in  India,  by  an  Officer,  &c. 
Fleuriau  ;  Life  of  B.  Peter  Claver. 
Finlayson  ;  Mission  to  Siam. 

Fonblanque,  Edward  Harrington,  de ;  Niphon  and  Pe-che-li. 
Frontier  Lands  of  the  Christian  and  the  Turk. 
Fishbourne,  Captain  ;  Impressions  of  China. 
Fearon,  Henry  Bradshaw  ;  Sketches  of  America. 
Francis,  Conyers  ;  1  tfe  of  Rev.  John  Eliot. 
Featherstonhaugb     Excursions  through  the  Slave  States. 


XXli  INDEX   OF   AUTHORITIES. 


Franklin  ;  Works,  ed.  Sparks. 
FeuiJle  d'Avis  de  Geneve. 


G. 


Gironiere,  P.  de  la ;  Vingt  annees  aux  Philippines. 
Golovine,  Ivan ;  M6moires  d'un  Pretre  Russe. 
Gerebtzoff,  Nicolas  de ;  Histoire  de  la  Civilisation  en  Russie. 
Guizot ;  Histoire  de  la  Civilisation  en  Europe. 
"  "  "  en  France. 

Gennadius ;  Adversus  Graecos. 

Galitzin,  le  Prince  Augustin  ;  Un  Missionaire  Russe. 
Grotius  ;  Ordin.  Hollandia3  et  Westfrisae  Pietas. 
Godard,  Leon  ;  Le  Maroc. 
Giesler ;  Ecclesiast.  Hist. 
Grosier  ;  Voyage  en  Chine. 
Golownin,  Captain  ;  Recollections  of  Japan. 
Gardner  ;  Travels  in  the  Interior  of  Brazil. 
Gardiner,  Captain  Allen ;  A  Voice  from  South  America. 

"  "  "         A  Visit  to  the  Indians  of  Chili. 

Gilliam,  Albert  M. ;  Travels  in  Mexico. 
Grant,  Asahel,  M.D. ;  The  Nestorians. 
Grey,  Sir  George  ;  Overland  Expedition  from  Auckland  to  Taranaki. 

"  "          Journals  of  Two  Expeditions  in  Australia. 

Gobat,  Samuel,  D.D. ;    Journal  of  a  Three  Years'  Residence  in  Abyssinia. 
Graham  ;  Letters  on  India. 

Gouger,  Henry  ;  Two  Years'  Imprisonment  in  Burmah. 
Garston,  Edgar  ;  Greece  Revisited. 
Gibson,  William  ;  Recollections  of  other  Lands. 
Godlonton,  R. ;  Narrative  of  the  Kaffir  War. 
Galton,  Francis  ;  Tropical  South  Africa. 
Grant,  Rev.  Anthony,  D.C.L. ;  Bampton  Lectures  for  1843. 
Gibbon  ;  Decline  and  Fall. 

Gibson,  Walter ;  Glance  at  the  East  Indian  Archipelago. 
Gillespie,  Rev.  William  ;  The  Land  of  Sinim. 
Geddes,  Rev.  Michael ;  History  of  the  Church  of  Malabar. 
Gerstaecker,  F. ;  Voyage  round  the  World. 
Gutzlaff,  Rev.  Charles  ;  China  Opened. 
"  "          History  of  China. 

Journal  of  Three  Voyages  along  the  Coast  of  China 
Gookin ;  Historical  Collections. 
Godley  ;  Letters  from  America. 
Gillies ;  Historical  Collections. 
Gan-Eden,  or  Pictures  of  Cuba. 


H. 

Hoefer,  F.  ;  Afrique  Australe. 

Hammer,  J.  Von  ;  Histoire  de  1'Empire  Ottoman. 

Hell,  Xavier  Hommaire  de ;  Les  Steppes  de  la  Mer  Caspienne. 

Hoornbeek,  De  Conversione  Indorum  et  Gentilium. 

Haafner,  M.  J. ;  Voyages  dans  la  Peninsule  Occidentale  de  1'Inde. 

Hogendorp,  Comte  de ;  Coup  d'oeil  sur  Java. 

Hue ;  L'Empire  Chinois. 

Le  Christianisme  en  Chine. 
Humboldt ;  Asie  Centrale. 

Henrion  ;  Histoire  Generale  des  Missions  Catholiques. 
Haxthausen  ;  Etudes  sur  la  Bassie. 


INDEX   OF   AUTHORITIES.  xxiil 

Haxthausen  ;  Transcaucasia. 

Histoire  Apologetique  de  la  Conduite  des  Jesuites  de  la  Chine. 

Histoire  des  Moiniers. 

Hausmann  ;  Voyage  en  Chine 

Histoire  de  ce  qui  s'est  passe  au  Royaume  d'Ethiopie. 

Hong-Kong  Daily  Press. 

Hamberg,  Rev.  Thomas  ;  The  Chinese  Rebel  Chief,  Hung-Siu-Tsuen. 

Hough,  Rev.  James  ;  History  of  Christianity  in  India. 

History  of  the  Tartar  Conquerors  of  China. 

Hamilton,  Rev.  James  ;  China  and  the  Chinese  Mission. 

Holmes ;  American  Annals. 

Hodgson,  Pemberton  ;  Residence  in  Japan. 

Hines,  Rev.  Grustavus  ;  Life  on  the  Plains  of  the  Pacific. 

Henderson,  John  ;  Excursions  in  New  South  Wales. 

Heaphy,  Charles  ;  Narrative  of  a  Residence  in  various  parts  of  New  Zealand. 

Hursthouse,  Charles ;  New  Zealand,  the  Britain  of  the  South. 

Hodder,  E. ;  Memories  of  New  Zealand  Life. 

Hodgkinson,  S. ;  A  Description  of  the  Province  of  Canterbury 

History  of  the  Mutiny  of  the  Bounty. 

Hopkins,  Manley  ;    ;  Hawaii,  an  Historical  Account  of  the  Sandwich  Islands. 

Hamilton,  James  ;  Sinai,  the  Hedjaz,  and  Soudan. 

Henderson,  E. ;  History  of  Brazil. 

Holland,  Lord  ;  Foreign  Reminiscences. 

Helps,  A. ;  Mexico. 

Hopkins,  David  ;  The  Dangers  of  British  India. 

Hoffmeister,  Dr. ;  Travels  in  Ceylon  and  Continental  India. 

Hudson,  Major  ;  Memoir  of 

Hartwig,  Dr.  G. ;  The  Tropical  World. 

Hendon,  Lieut. ;  Valley  of  the  Amazon. 

Hooker,  Sir  William  ;  Himalayan  Journals. 

Hood,  John  ;  Australia  and  the  East. 

Hervey,  Captain  Albert ;  Ten  Years  in  India. 

Head,  Rev.  Erskine  ;  The  Right  of  a  Clergyman  to  Opppse  the  Errors  of  his 

own  Church. 

Heber,  Reginald  ;  Indian  Journal. 
Hamilton.  J. ;  Letters  of  a  Hindoo  Rajah. 
Hawes,  J.,  D.D. ;  Travels  in  the  East. 
Hahn-Hahn,  Countess  ;  Letters,  &c. 
Harris,  Major  Cornwallis  ;  The  Highlands  of  ^Ethiopia. 
Hewett,  Captain  J.  F.  Napier ;  European  Settlements  on  the  West  Coast  of 

Africa 

Holden,  Rev.  W.  C. ;  History  of  the  Colony  of  Natal. 
Hawker,  Rev.  Robert,  D.D  ;  'Works. 
Haole,  A. ;  Sandwich  Island  Notes.     • 
Hoole,  Rev.  Elijah  ;  Year  Book  of  Missions. 
Howitt,  W. ;  Colonization  and  Christianity. 
Ilislop,  Sir  Thomas  ;  Summary  of  the  Mahratta  Campaign. 
Hill,  S.  S. ;  Travels  in  the  Sandwich  and  Society  Islands. 
Hawks,  Francis  L.,  D.D. ;  American  Expedition  under  Commodore  Perry. 
Harvard,  Rev.  William  ;  Narrative  of  the  Mission  to  Ceylon. 
Henderson,  E. ;  Biblical  Researches  in  Russia. 

"  The  Turkish  New  Testament  Incapable  of  Defence. 

Hawkins,  Alfred  ;  Picture  of  Quebec,  with  Historical  Recollections. 
Hawkins,  Rev.  Ernest;    Missions  of  the  Church  of  England  in  the  North 

American  Colonies. 

Howison,  Robert  R. ;  History  of  Virginia. 
Halkett,  John  ;  Notes  on  North  American  Indians. 
Hildreth,  Richard  ;  The  History  of  the  United  States  of  America. 
Head,  Sir  Francis  ;  Narrative,  &c. 
Hutchison  Papers ;  New  York. 


XX :v  INDEX   OF   AUTHORITIES. 

Heron,  H.  de  Courcy,  de  Laroche ;  The  Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States, 

ed.  Shea. 

Heckewelder ;  Narrative,  &c. 
Helper  ;  The  Impending  Crisis  of  the  South. 
Hallam,  Henry  ;  Introduction  to  the  Literatiire  of  Europe. 
Haldane  ;  Letter  to  S.  J.  Cheneviere. 
Hamilton,  Andrew ;  Sixteen  Months  in  the  Danish  Isles. 
Hitchcock,  Edward,  D.D. ;  The  Religion  of  Geology. 


T  &J. 

Jancigny ;  Ceylon. 
Journal  d'un  Voyage  au  Levant. 
Journal  d'un  Voyage  en  Orient. 

Joly,  Cretineau  ;  Histoire  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus 
Jacquenet,  Abbe  ;  Vie  de  M.  1'Abbe  Gagelin. 
Jouvency  ;  Hist.  Soc.  Jesu. 
Journal  Asiatique. 

Jobson,  Rev.  F.,  D.D. ;  Australia,  with  Notes  by  the  Way. 
Johnson,  George  W. ;  The  Stranger  in  India. 
John,  C.  S.  ;  On  Indian  Civilization. 
Jones,  Rev.  George ;  Excursion  to  Cairo. 
Journal  of  the  Royal  Geographical  Society. 
Journal  of  the  Asiatic  Society  of  Bengal. 
Journal  of  the  American  Oriental  Society. 
Jocelyn,  Lord  ;  Six  Months  in  China. 
Jones,  Rev.  H.  Berkeley  ;  Adventures  in  Australia. 
James,  James  J. ;  History  of  the  Sandwich  Islands. 

Jacobs,  Thomas  Jefferson ;  Incidents  and  Adventures  in  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
Johnston,  Charles  ;  Travels  in  Southern  Abyssinia. 
Journal  of  a  Deputation  to  the  East. 

Jowett,  Rev.  W. ;  Christian  Researches  in  the  Mediterranean. 
Indian  Mutiny,  Thoughts  and  Facts. 
Isaacs,  Nathaniel ;  Travels  in  Eastern  Africa. 
Irving,  Washington  ;  Knickerbocker. 
Irving,  B.  A. ;  The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Caste. 
Indian  Religions,  The ;  by  an  Indian  Missionary. 

Inquiry  into  the  Causes  of  the  Alienation  of  the  Delaware  and  Shawanese  In 
dians  from  the  British  Interest. 
Jameson,  Mrs. ;  Sketches  in  Canada. 

Indians  of  North  America ;  by  the  Religious  Tract  Society. 
Indians,  Plea  for  the  ;  by  the  Citizens  of  Hartford,  Connecticut. 
Inglis,  H.  D. ;  Norway,  Sweden,  and  Denmark. 

* 

K. 

Keroulee,  Georges  de  ;  Un  Voyage  a  Pekin. 
Klaproth,  Jules  ;  Voyage  au  Mont  Caucase  et  en  Georgie. 
Krasinski,  Count  Valerian  ;  Montenegro  and  the  Slavonians  of  Turkey. 
"  "  "  Panslavism  and  Germanism. 

"  "  "  The  Religious  History  of  the  Slavonic  Nations 

Kohl,  J.  G. ;  Russia. 

"         "         Austria. 

"         "        Wanderings  round  Lake  Superior. 
Krapf,  Rev.  Lewis  ;  Travels  in  Eastern  Africa. 
King,  Rev.  S.  W. ;  The  Italian  Valleys  of  the  Pennine  Alps. 
Kennedy,  Captain  J.  Clark  ;  Algeria  and  Tunis. 
Kotzebue  ;  New  Voyage  round  the  World. 


INDEX   OF   AUTHORITIES.  XXV 

Krusenstern  ;  Voyage  round  the  World. 

Kesson,  J. ;  Tlie  Cross  and  the  Dragon. 

Kidd,  Samuel ;  Critical  Notices  of  Dr.  Morrison's  Literary  Labors. 

Kaye,  J.  W. ;  Christianity  in  India. 

"         "  Life  of  Sir  John  Malcolm. 

"         "          History  of  the  Administration  of  the  East  India  Company. 

"         "  Papers  of  Lord  Metcalfe. 

Kipp,  Rev.  W.  Iiigraham  ;  The  Early  Jesuit  Missions  in  North  America. 
Knighton,  William  ;  Tropical  Sketches. 

"  "  Forest  Life  in  Ceylon. 

Knox,  Captain  ;  Captivity  in  Ceylon. 
Kolff,  D.  H. ;  Voyages  of  the  Dourga. 
Kerr,  Rev.  Dr. ;  Report  on  the  State  of  the  Christians  of  Cochin  and  Travan- 

core. 

Kelly,  Walter  Keating  ;  Syria  and  the  Holy  Land. 
Kinglake  ;  Eothen. 

Kendall,  George  Wilkins  ;  Narrative  of  the  Texan  Santa  Fe  Expedition. 
Kane,  Paul ;  Wanderings  of  an  Artist  among  the  Indians  of  North  America. 
Kingston,  W.  H.  G. ;  Western  Wanderings. 
Knox,  Rev.  John  P. ;  Historical  Account  of  St.  Thomas. 


Lettres  Edifiantes  et  Curieuses. 

Labat,  R.  P. ;  Nouvelle  Relation  de  1'Afrique  Occidentale. 

Lamennias ;  (Euvres. 

Leonardus  Echiensis  ;  De  Captivitate  Constantinopolis. 

La  Russie,  Est-elle  schismatique  ? 

L'Univers  Pittoresque. 

Lange,  Laurent ;  Journal  du  Voyage  a  la  Chine. 

Laurent,  Achille ;  Relation  Historique  des  Affaires  de  Syrie. 

Laplace ;  Campagne  de  Circumnavigation  de  la  Fregate  l'Artemise. 

La  Croze  ;  Histoire  du  Christianisme  des  Indes. 

Levaillant ;  Voyage  dans  1'Interieur  de  1'Afrique. 

Livingstone,  Dr. ;  Missionary  Travels  in  Southern  Africa. 

Lay,  G.  Tradescant ;  The  Chinese  as  they  are. 

Lang,  John  ;  Wanderings  in  India. 

Le  Bas,  Rev.  C.  Webb ;  Life  of  Bishop  Middleton. 

Letters  from  Wanganui. 

Lancelott,  F. ;  Australia  as  it  is. 

Lang,  John  Dunmore,  D.D. ;    New  Zealand  in  1839. 

History  of  New  South  Wales. 
Lawry,  Rev.  W. ;  Friendly  and  Feejee  Islands. 
Latham,  Dr. ;  The  Ethnology  of  the  British  Colonies. 

"  Ethnology  of  India. 

"  The  Nationalities  of  Europe. 

"  The  Natural  History  of  the  Varieties  of  Man. 

Lee,  Dr. ;  History  of  the  Church  of  Abyssinia. 
Le  Comte ;  The  Present  State  of  China. 
Life  of  St.  Dominic. 

Lockhart,  William  ;  The  Medical  Missionary  in  China. 
Lyell,  Sir  Charles  ;  The  Antiquity  of  Man. 
Ludlow,  John  Malcolm  ;  British  India. 

"  "          Policy  of  the  Crown  towards  "jidia. 

Laing,  S. ;  Notes  of  a  Traveller. 
Residence  in  Norway. 
Observations  on  Europe. 
"  Observations  on  Sweden. 

Layard  ;  Nineveh  and  its  remains. 


XXVI  INDEX   OF   AUTHORITIES. 

Life  ot  Ancliieta. 

Lockman  ;  Travels  of  the  Jesuits. 

Latrobe,  Rev.  J.  0. ;  Letters  on  the  Nicobar  Islands. 

Life  in  Bombay. 

Lewin,  Malcolm  ;  The  Way  to  lose  India. 

Lloyd,  George  Thomas  ;  Thirty-three  years  in  Tasmania  and  Victoria. 

Laurie,  W.  F.  13. ;  Orissa, 

Laing,  Major  Alexander  Gordon  ;  Travels  in  Western  Africa. 

Leyden,  Dr.  J. ;  Discoveries  and  Travels  in  Africa. 

Lichtenstein  ;  Travels  in  Southern  Africa. 

Life  of  Africaner. 

Locke,  Captain  Granville ;  The  Campaign  in  China. 

Lempriere,  Charles,  D.C.L. ;  Mexico  in  1861  and  1862. 

Lee,  Rev.  D.,  and  Frost,  Rev.  J.  H. ;  Ten  Years  in  Oregon. 

Lennard,  Barrett,  Captain  C.  E. ;  Travels  in  British  Columbia. 


M. 

Montezou,  F.  de  ;  Mission  de  Cayenne  et  de  la  Guyane  Francaise. 

Mohl ;  Rapports  faits  a  la  Societe  Asiatique. 

Mission  de  la  Cochin-Chine  et  du  Tonquin. 

Moges,  Marquis  de  ;  Souvenirs  d'une  Anibassade  en  Chine  et  au  Japon. 

Memorial  Catholique. 

Muratori ;  Relat.  delle  Missioni. 

Maimbourg  ;  Histoire  du  Schisme  dcs  Grecs. 

Montesquieu  ;  Grandeur  et  Decadence  des  Remains. 

Missions  du  Levant. 

Melanges  de  la  Religion. 

Michaud  et  Poujoulat ;  Correspondance  d'Orient. 

Melancthon ;  Epistolae. 

Munk,  S. ;  Palestine. 

Marcel,  J.  J. ;  Histoire  de  1'Egypte. 

Mislin,  Mgr. ;  Les  Lieux  Saints.  * 

Mosblech  ,-  Notice  sur  la  Langue  de  1'Oeeanie  Orientale. 

Merolla  ;  Voyage  to  Congo. 

Menzel ;  German  Literature. 

Mendoza ;  Historie  of  the  Kindome  of  China. 

Minturn,  Robert  B. ;  From  New  York  to  Delhi. 

Moseley,  William  ;  Memoir  on  Sending  the  Scriptures  to  China. 

Madras  Catholic  Directory. 

McGhee,  Rev.  R.  J.  L. ;  How  we  got  to  Pekin. 

Mountain,  Colonel  Armine  ;  Memoirs  of. 

Missionary  Records  of  the  Religious  Tract  Society. 

Morriman,  Archdeacon  ;  Journals  of. 

Malan,  Rev.  S.  C. ;  Who  is  God  in  China. 

Macfarlane,  Charles  ;  The  Chinese  Revolution. 

Macfarlane,  Rev.  James,  D.D. ;  Indian  Missions  of  the  Church  of  Scotland. 

Macfarlane,  Charles  ;  History  of  British  India. 

Morrison,  Dr. ;  The  Fathers  of  the  London  Missionary  Society. 

Markham,  Clements  ;  Travels  in  Peru  and  India. 

"  "  Expeditions  into  the  Valley  of  the  Amazon. 

"  "  Cuzco  and  Lima. 

Mullens,  Rev.  Joseph ;  Missions  in  S.  India. 
Missionary  Herald. 
Morell,  J.  Reynell ;  Algeria. 

Margoliouth,  Rev.  Moses  ;  A  Pilgrimage  to  the  Land  of  my  Fathers. 
Murray,  Hugh ;  Discoveries  in  Africa. 

"  '•        Historical  Account  of  Discoveries  in  Asia. 

"  "        Descriptive  Account  of  China. 


INDEX   OF   AUTHOKITIES.  XXV14 

Morrell,  Abby  Jane ;  Narrative  of  a  Voyage. 
Melville,  Herman  ;  The  Marquesas  Islands. 

"  Omoo. 

Mac  Micking,  Robert ;  Recollections  of  Manilla  and  tlie  Philippines. 
Missionary  Voyage  to  the  South  Sea. 

Missionary  Transactions  of  the  London  Missionary  Society. 
Merivale,  Professor  Herman  ;  Lectures  on  Colonization,  &c. 
Monk,  Charles  James  ;  The  Golden  Horn,  &c. 
Marsh,  Herbert,  D.D. ;  An  Inquiry  relative  to  the  B.  &  F.  Bible  Society. 

"  History  of  the  Translations  of  the  Scriptures. 

Marshman,  J.,  D.D  ;  Chinese  Grammar. 

Milner,  Rev.  Thomas  ;  The  Crimea,  its  Ancient  and  Modern  History. 
Martin,  Montgomery  ;  British  India. 

"  "  China,  Political,  Commercial,  and  Social. 

Malcolm,  Rev.  Howard ;  Travels  in  S.  Eastern  Asia. 
Moehler;  Symbolism. 

Medhurst,  Rev.  W.  H. ;  China,  its  State  and  Prospects. 
Morrison,  Dr. ;  Memoir  of,  by  his  Wife. 
Mackintosh,  Sir  James  ;  Works. 
Milne,  Rev.  W.  C. ;  Life  in  China. 
Meadows,  Taylor ;  The  Chinese  and  their  Rebellion. 

"  "  Desultory  Notes  on  the  Government  and  People  of  China, 

Monthly  Review. 

Montauban,  Mrs.  Eliot ;  A  Year  and  a  Day  in  the  East. 
Mackenzie,  Mrs.  Colin  ;  Six  Years  in  India. 

Mollhausen,  B. ;  Journey  from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Coasts  of  the  Pacific. 
Macdonald,  Colonel ;  The  Civilization  and  Instruction  of  the  Natives  of  India, 
Mills,  Arthur,  M.P. ;  India  in  1858. 
Mansfield,  C.  B. ;  Paragiiay,  Brazil,  &c. 
Mollien,  G. ;  Travels  in  the  Republic  of  Colombia. 
Mayhew,  Henry  ;  London  Labor  and  the  London  Poor. 
Mayer,  Brantz  ;  Mexico*,  Aztecs,  Spanish  and  Republican. 
Monro,  Rev.  Vere  ;  Travels  in  Syria. 
Maury,  S.  M. ;  Statesmen  of  America. 
Miers,  John  ;  Travels  in  Chili. 
Macaulay,  Lord ;  Essays. 
Marco  Polo  ;  Travels.  * 

Maximilian,  Prince  of  Wied-Neuwied  ;  Travels  in  Brazil. 
Miller,  Hugh  ;  Footprints  of  the  Creator. 

"          "          The  Testimony  of  the  Rocks. 

"          "          Rambles  of  a  Geologist. 

Moister,  Rev.  William  ;  Memorials  of  Missionary  Labor  in  W.  Africa. 
Moodie,  Lieut.  J.  D.  W. ;  Ten  Years  in  South  Africa. 
Moffat,  Rev.  Robert ;  Missionary  Labors  in  Southern  Africa. 
Mason,  John  ;  Three  Years  in  Turkey. 
Mott,  Valentine,  M.D. ;  Travels  in  Europe  and  the  East. 
Morris,  E.  Joy  ;  Tour  through  Turkey,  Greece,  &c. 
Millard,  D. ;  Journal  of  Travels  in  Egypt. 
Monteith,  General ;  Kars  and  Erzeroum. 
Martineau,  Harriet ;  Suggestions  towards  the  future  Government  of  India. 

"  "  Society  in  America. 

Marjoribanks,  Alexander ;  Travels  in  N.  S.  Wales. 
Mundy,  Colonel ;  Australasian  Colonies. 
Mead,*  Henry  ;  The  Sepoy  Revolt. 
Marshall,  Henry ;  Ceylon. 

Mackenzie,  Kennett ;  Burmah  and  the  Burmese. 
McKillop,  Lieut.  H.  F. ;   Reminiscences  of  Twelve  Months'  Services  in  New 

Zealand. 
Minge,  Abbe  ;  Dictionnaire  des  Apologistes  Involontaires. 

"          "         Dictionnaire  des  Conversions. 


XXV111  INDEX    OF  AUTHORITIES. 

Macartney,  Lord  ;  Embassy  to  China. 

Morelle,  Captain  ;  A  Narrative  of  Four  Voyages. 

Mayne,  Commander,  R.  C. ;  Four  Years  in  British  Columbia  and  Vancouver 

Island. 

Macdonald,  Duncan,  G.  F. ;  British  Columbia  and  Vancouver's  Island. 
Massachusetts  Historical  Collections. 
Morse,  Rev.  Jedidiah,  D.D. ;  A  Report  to  the  Secretary  of  War  of  the  United 

States  on  Indian  Affairs. 

Murray,  Hon.  Charles  A. ;  Travels  in  North  America. 

Murray,  Hon.  Amelia ;  Letters  from  the  United  States,  Cuba,  and  Canada. 
Memoirs  of  a  Church  of  England  Missionary  in  the  North  American  Colonies. 
Mitchell,  D.  W. ;  Ten  Years  in  the  United  States. 
McLeod,  W. ;  Travels  in  Eastern  Africa. 
Mackay,  Charles,  LL.D. ;  Life  and  Liberty  in  America. 


N. 

Nettement,  Alfred  ;  Histoire  de  la  Conquete  d'Alger. 

Nouveaux  Memoires  du  Levant. 

Nouveaux  Memoires  de  la  Moscovie. 

Nouvelles  Lettres  Edifiantes. 

Norbert ;  Memoires  Historiques  sur  les  Missions  des  Malabaree. 

Notice  sur  le  Chili ;  par  un  Voyageur  Francais. 

Newbold,  T.  J. ;  British  Settlements  in  the  Straits  of  Malacca. 

Neale,  J. ;  Residence  in  Siam. 

North  American  Review. 

Naval  and  Military  Gazette. 

Narayan  Sheshadri ;  A  Sermon  by. 

Norton,  Bruce  ;  Topics  for  Indian  Statesmen. 

Narrative  of  a  Yacht  Voyage  in  the  Mediterranean. 

Neale,  E. ;  Syria,  Palestine,  &c. 

Napier,  Lieut.-colonel  E.  Elers  ;  Excursions  in  Southern  Africa. 

Napier,  Colonel ;  Reminiscences  of  Syria,  &c. 

Neander  ;  History  of  the  Christian  Religion  and  Church. 

New  Glories  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

Nicholas,  J.  L. ;  New  Zealand. 

New  York  Herald. 

New  York  World. 

New  York  Evening  Express. 

New  York  Churchman. 

Nicolay,  Rev.  C.  J ;  The  Oregon  Territory. 

New  England's  Plantations  ;  by  a  Reverend  Divine  now  there  resident,  1630. 

Nicolini,  G.  B. ;  History  of  the  Jesuits. 


O. 

Orateurs  Sacres. 

(Mich,  Leopold  von  ;  Travel  in  India. 

Olmsted,  Francis  ;  Incidents  of  a  Whaling  Voyage. 

Olmsted,  F.  Law  ;  Our  Slave  States. 

"  "  Journey  through  Texas. 

Olin,  Stephen,  LL.D. ;  Works. 
Oakeley,  Canon  ;  Life  of  Sir  Charles  Oakeley. 
Osborn,  Rev.  Henry  ;  The  Pilgrim  in  the  Holy  Land. 
Oliphant,  Laurence  ;  Lord  Elgin's  Mission. 

"  "  The  Russian  Shores  of  the  Black  Sea. 

Oliphant,  Sir  Oscar ;  China,  a  Popular  History. 
Osborne,  Captain  Sherard  ;  The  Past  and  Future  of  British  Relations  in  China 


INDEX   OF   AUTHORITIES.  XXIX 

Overland  Bombay  Times. 

Owen,  Robert  Dale  ;  Footfalls  on  the  Boundary  of  another  World. 
Observations  on  India ;  by  a  Resident  there  many  Years. 
Owen,  Rev.  J. ;  History  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society. 
Osborn,  Rev.  E.,  D.D. ;  History  of  the  Objibway  Indians. 

Onderdonck,  Dr. ;  Sermon  preached  at  the  Consecration  of  Christchurch,  New 
York. 


P. 

Perrone ;  Prselect.  Theolog. 

Proyart ;  Histoire  de  Loango,  Kakongo,  &c. 

Pantheon  Litteraire. 

Pouqueville ;  Grece. 

Pluquet ;  Dictionnaire. 

Persecutions  et  Souffrances  de  1'Eglise  Catholique  en  Russie. 

Pauthier ;  La  Chine. 

Ponhoen,  Baron  Barchou  de  ;  L'Inde  sous  la  Domination  Anglaise. 

Prat,  R.  P. ;  Histoire  du  Bienheureux  Jean  de  Britto. 

Perrin  ;  Voyage  dans  1'Indostan. 

Poujoulat,  Baptistin  ;  La  Verite  sur  la  Syrie. 

Poitou,  Eugene  ;  Un  Hiver  en  Egypte. 

Ponlevoy,  R.  P ;  Vie  du  R.  P.  Xavier  de  Ravignan. 

Pelissier,  E. ;  La  Colonisation  Militaire  en  Algerie. 

Parkyns,  Mansfield  ;  Life  in  Abyssinia. 

Putnam,  G. ;  American  Facts. 

Percival,  Rev.  Peter  ;  The  Land  of  the  Veda. 

Periodical  Accounts  of  the  Serampore  Mission. 

Parliamentary  Papers. 

Patagonian  Missionary  Society. 

Porter,  Captain  David ;  Cruise  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  in  the  U.  S.  frigate 

Pulszky,  Francis  ;  The  Tricolor  in  the  Atlas. 

Patterson,  J.  Laird  ;  Journal  of  a  Tour  in  Egypt,  &c. 

Petherick,  John  ;  Egypt,  the  Soudan,  &c. 

Paul,  R.  B. ;  Australia,  Tasmania,  and  New  Zealand. 

Puseley,  D. ;  Australia  and  Tasmania. 

Polack,  J.  S. ;  Manners  and  Customs  of  the  New  Zealanders. 

Power,  W.  Tyrone  ;  Sketches  in  New  Zealand. 

Prichard ;  Natural  History  of  Man. 

Purchas ;  Pilgrims. 

Palmer,  Aaron  H. ;  Letter  to  the  Hon.  C.  J.  Ingersoll. 

Prout,  Ebenezer ;  Life  of  Rev.  John  Williams. 

Philalethes  ;  History  of  Ceylon. 

Pearson  ;  Memoirs  of  Swartz. 

"  Memoirs  of  Buchanan. 

Peggs,  John  ;  Pilgrim  Tax  in  India. 
Pinkerton  ;  Collection  of  Voyages. 
Pfeiffer,  Ida ;  Voyage  round  the  World. 

"  Last  Travels  of. 

Pridham,  Charles  ;  Ceylon  and  its  Dependencies. 
Percival,  Captain  ;  Account  of  the  Island  of  Ceylon. 
Pringle,  R. ;  Narrative  of  a  Residence  in  S.  Africa. 
Philip,  Rev.  John,  D.D. ;  Researches  in  S.  Africa. 
Prime,  Samuel  Irenseus  ;  Travels  in  Europe  and  the  East. 
Perkins,  Rev.  Justin  ;  Residence  in  Persia  among  the  Nestonan  Christians. 
Pietrowski,  Rufin  ;  Story  of  a  Siberian  Exile. 
Porter,  Rev.  J.  L. ;  Five  Years  in  Damascus. 

Pierson,  Rev.  H.  W. ;  Biographical  Sketches  of  Distinguished  American  Mis 
sionaries. 


XXX  INDEX   OF    AUTHORITIES. 

Power,  T. ;  Residence  in  China. 

Points  about  China  and  the  Chinese. 

People  of  China,  The  ;  by  the  Religious  Tract  Society. 

Parish,  Sir  Woodbine  ;  Buenos  Ayres,  &c. 

Parker  Society  ;  Works  of  the  English  Reformers. 

Progress  and  present  Position  of  Russia  in  the  East. 

Paton,  G.  ;  Modern  Syrians. 

Parrot,  Dr. ;  Journey  to  Ararat. 

Porter,  Sir  Robert ;  Travels  in  Georgia. 

Parlby,  Major-general ;  The  Establishment  of  the  Anglican  Churcfc  in  India. 

Palmer,  William  ;  Dissertations  on  ihe  Orthodox  Church. 

Proceedings  of  the  South  India  Missionary  Conference. 

Parton,  J. ;  The  Life  and  Times  of  Aaron  Burr. 

Pusey,  Rev.  E.  B.,  D.D. ;  A  Letter  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 


Quick  ;  History  of  tho  Reformed  Churches  in  Prance. 
Quarterly  Review. 


Relations  des  Jesuites  dans  la  Nouvelle  France. 

Richarderie  ;  Bibliotheque  Universelle  des  Voyages. 

Revue  Orientale  et  Algerienne. 

Revue  des  Deux  Mondes. 

Rienzi,  G.  L.  Domeny  de  ;  Oceanic. 

Ruchat ;  Histoire  de  la  Reformation  de  la  Suisee. 

Rorhbacher  ;  Histoire  de  1'Eglise  Catholique. 

Rozet,  P. ;  Alger. 

Reynolds  ;  Voyage  of  the  Potomac. 

Refutation  of  the  Charges  brought  by  the  Roman  Catholics  against  the  Ameri 

can  Missions  at  the  Sandwich  Isles. 
Richardson,  James  ;  Narrative  of  a  Mission  to  Central  Africa. 

Travels  in  the  Great  Desert  of  Sahara. 
Russell,  Rt.  Rev.  M. ;  Nubia  and  Abyssinia. 

Polynesia  and  New  Zealand. 
"  "  Palestine,  or  the  Holy  Land. 

Rights  of  the  Indians  ;  A  Memorial  to  Congress. 
Russell,  Joshua  ;  Missionary  Tour  in  Ceylon  and  India. 
Rovings  in  the  Pacific ;  by  a  Merchant  long  resident  at  Tahiti. 
Rough,  David  ;  Narrative  of  a  Journey  through  part  of  the  North  of  New 

Zealand. 

Rochfort,  John  ;  Adventures  in  New  Zealand. 
Reed,  Andrew,  D.D. ;  Visit  to  the  American  Churches. 
Robinson,  Dr. ;  Biblical  Researches  in  Palestine. 
Rochau,  A.  L.  von  ;  Wanderings  through  the  Cities  of  Italy. 
Rose,  Rev.  H.  J. ;  The  State  of  Protestantism  in  Germany. 
Revelations  of  Russia. 
Ranke,  Leopold  von  ;  History  of  Servia. 

<f  '*  History  of  the  Popes. 

Recollections  of  Russia  ;  by  a  German  Nobleman. 
Robinson,  Rev.  Edward  ;  Romanism  in  Ceylon. 
Russell,  W.  II. ;  Diary  in  India. 

Raikes,  Charles  ;  Notes  on  the  N.  W,  Provinces  of  India. 
Ross,  Charles  ;  The  Cornwallis  Correspondence. 
Eammohun  Roy ;  Defence  of  the  Precepts  of  Jesus. 
"      Letter  to  Rev.  H.  Wade. 


INDEX   OF   AUTHORITIES. 

Risk,  Allah  Effendi ;  The  Thistle  and  the  Cedar  of  Lebanon. 

Hupp,  J.  D. ;  History  of  the  Religious  Denominations  of  the  United  States. 

Robertson ;  Works. 

Ripa  ;  Residence  at  the  Court  of  Pekin. 

Rickards ;  India. 

Roberts ;  Hindostan. 

Ruschenberger,  W.  S.,  M.D. ;  Voyage  round  the  World. 

Ravenstein  ;  The  Russians  on  the  Amur. 

Reports  of  the  (United  States)  American  Board  for  Foreign  Missions. 

"        Malta  Protestant  College. 

"        Debates  of  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  State  of  New  Zealand. 

"        Directors  of  the  New  Zealand  Company. 

"        Church  Missionary  Society. 

"        Baptist  Missionary  Society. 

"        London  Missionary  Society. 

Wesleyan  Methodist  Missionary  Society. 

"        Foreign  Aid  Society. 

"        Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel. 

"        Society  for  Missions  to  Africa  and  the  East. 
"          "        British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society. 

"        Executive  Committee  of  the  American  Unitarian  Association. 
Ritchie,  Leigtch  ;  The  British  World  in  the  East. 
Rhodes,  Alexandre  de  ;  Voyages  et  Missions  de. 
Rose,  Cowper  ;  Four  Years  in  Southern  Africa. 

Rattray,  Alexander,  M.D. ;  Vancouver  Island  and  British  Columbia. 
Remarks  on  the  Moral  and  Religious  Character  of  the  United  States. 


S. 

Schnitzler,  J.  H. ;  La  Russie,  la  Pologne,  et  la  Finlande. 

"  "         Histoire  Intiine  de  la  Russie. 

St.  Sauveur,  J.  Grasset  de  ;  Encyclopedic  de  Voyages. 
Salvado,  Mgr.  Rudesindo  ;  Memoires  Historiques  sur  1'Australie. 
Schoelcher,  Victor ;  Colonies  Etrangeres. 
SchouvalofF,  R.  P. ;  Ma  Conversion  et  ma  Vocation. 
Starck ;  TheoduFs  Gastmahl. 
Saint  Cyr,  Louis  ;  La  Mission  de  Madure. 
Sainte-Foi,  Charles  ;  Vie  du  R.  P.  Ricci. 
Salverte,  Georges  de  ;  La  Syrie  avant  1860. 
Smet,  R.  P.  de ;  Cinquante  Nouvelles  Lettres. 
Szyrma,  Colonel  Lach  ;  Revelations  of  Siberia. 
Schedel,  Dr.  H.  E. ;  The  Emancipation  of  Faith. 
Schlegel,  F.  von  ;  Philosophy  of  History. 
Scherzer,  Dr.  Carl ;  Voyage  of  the  Novara. 
Saulcy,  F.  de  ;  Narrative  of  a  Journey  round  the  Dead  Sea. 
Stanley,  Rev.  Arthur  Penrhyn,  D.D  ;  Sinai  and  Palestine. 
Southgate,  Rev.  Horatio  ;  Narrative  of  a  Tour  in  Turkey  and  Persia. 
Southgate,  Mr.,  and  the  Missionaries  at  Constantinople. 
Swinhoe,  Robert ;  Narrative  of  the  N.  China  Campaign  of  1860. 
Speir  ;  Life  in  Ancient  India. 

Sleeman,  Lieut.-colonel ;  Rambles  and  Recollections  of  an  Indian  Official. 
Sleeman,  Sir  William  ;  Journey  through  the  Kingdom  of  Oude. 
Sargent,  Rev.  H. ;  Memoir  of  Rev.  H.  Martyn. 
Staunton,  Sir  George?  Laws  of  China. 
Smith,  Rev.  George  ;  Visit  to  the  Consular  Cities  of  China. 
Sirr,  Henry  Charles  ;  China  and  the  Chinese. 
Shuck,  Henrietta  ;  Scenes  in  China. 
Scarth  ;  Twelve  Years  in  China. 
Shiel,  Lady  ;  Life  and  Manners  in  Persia. 


XXX11  INDEX    OF  AUTHORITIES. 

Sutcliffe,  Major  ;  Sixteen  Years  in  Chili  and  Peru. 

Spencer,  Edmund  ;  Travels  in  the  Western  Caucasus. 

Southey,  Robert ;  History  of  Brazil. 

Scottish  Christian  Herald. 

Smith,  Dr.  Archibald ;  Peru  as  it  is. 

Schoolcraft,  Henry  R. ;  Notes  on  the  Iroquois. 

Historical  and  Statistical  Information  respecting  the 

Indian  Tribes  of  the  United  States. 

Scarlett,  Hon.  P.  Campbell ;  South  America  and  the  Pacific. 
Strictures  on  the  Present  Government  of  India. 
Speid,  J.  B. ;  Our  Last  Years  in  India. 
Seely,  Captain  J.  B. ;  A  Voice  from  India. 

The  Wonders  of  Elora, 

Strickland,  Rev.  William  ;  Present  Position  of  Catholics  in  India. 
Smith,  Captain  Thomas  ;  Five  Years  at  Nepaul. 
Smith,  Rev.  Thomas  ;  History  of  the  Missionary  Societies. 
Schomberg,  Baron  Eric  von ;  Travels  in  India  and  Kashmir. 
Sketches  of  India. 
Stocqueler ;  Handbook  of  India. 
Sullivan,  Edward ;  A  Visit  to  Ceylon. 

Smyth,  Lieutenant ;  Narrative  of  a  Journey  from  Lima  to  Para. 
St.  John,  Bayle ;  Two  Years'  Residence  in  a  Levantine  Family. 
Strzelecki,  P.  E.  de ;  Physical  Description  of  N.  S.  Wales. 
Statement  of  the  Society  for  Exploring  Central  Africa. 
Sparrman,  Dr. ;  Voyage  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope. 
Sketches  of  the  Caffre  Tribes. 

Shooter,  Rev.  Joseph  ;  The  Kafirs  of  Natal  and  the  Zulu  Country. 
Spencer,  Rev.  J.  A. ;  Travel  in  European  Turkey. 

Smith,  Rev.  Eli,  and  Dwight,  Rev.  H. ;  Missionary  Researches  in  Armenia. 
Smyth,  Warrington  ;  A  Year  with  the  Turks. 
Swainson,  William  ;  New  Zealand. 

Stephens,  J.  Lloyd  ;  Incidents  of  Travel  in  Central  America. 
Slade,  Sir  Adolphus  ;  Records  of  Travel  in  Turkey,  &c. 
Samuel,  Rev.  Jacob  ;  Missionary  Tour  through  Arabia  to  Bagdad. 
Strickland,  W.  P. ;  History  of  the  American  Bible  Society. 
Spalding,  J.  W.  ;  The  Japan  Expedition. 
Shore,  Hon.  F.  J. ;  Notes  on  Indian  Affairs. 
Selkirk,  Rev.  James  ;  Recollections  of  Ceylon. 
Stewart,  Rev.  C.  S. ;  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  the  Sandwich  Islands. 

A  Visit  to  the  South  Seas  in  the  U.  S.  Ship  Vincennes. 
Spry,  Henry,  M.D. ;  Modern  India. 
Storrow,  Rev.  Edward ;  India  and  Christian  Missions. 
Struthers,  Rev.  Gavin;  Memoirs  of  American  Missions. 
Stent,  W.  Drew  ;  Egypt  and  the  Holy  Land. 

Stewart,  Robert  Walter,  D.D. ;  A  Journey  to  Syria  and  Palestine. 
Scott,  Charles  Henry  ;  The  Baltic,  the  Black  Sea,  and  the  Crimea. 
Shaw,  John,  M.D. ;  "Notes  of  a  Ramble  in  Australia  and  New  Zealand. 
Sclwyn,  G.  A.,  D.D.  ;  The  Melanesian  Mission. 

The  Work  of  Christ  in  the  World. 

Shortland,  Rev.  Edward ;  The  Southern  Districts  of  New  Zealand. 
Strachan,  Rev.  A. ;  Life  of  the  Rev.  S.  Leigh. 
Simpson,  Sir  George  ;  Narrative  of  a  Journey  round  the  World. 
Seeman,  Berthold  ;  Voyage  of  H.M.S.  Herald. 

"  "          Viti,  an  Account  of  a  Government  Mission  to  the  Figian 

Islands. 

Simpson,  Alexander ;  The  Sandwich  Islands. 
"  "  The  Oregon  Territory. 

Snow,  Captain  Parker  ;  Two  Years'  Cruise  off  Tierra  del  Fuego. 
Spenser,  St.  John  ;  Life  in  the  Forests  of  the  Far  East. 
St.  Marie,  Comte  ;  Algeria  in  1845. 


INDEX    OF   AUTHORITIES.  XXxiii 

Spenser,  Rev.  J.  H. ;  Travels  in  the  Holy  Land. 

Sharpe,  Samuel ;  History  of  Egypt. 

Salt ;  Travels  in  Abyssinia. 

Shea,  John  Gilmary  ;  Catholic  Missions  among  the  Indian  Tribes  of  the  United 

States. 

Spalding,  M.  J.,  D.D. ;  Sketches  of  the  Early  Catholic  Missions  of  Kentucky. 
Shaw,  John,  M.D. ;  A  Ramble  through  the  United  States,  &c. 
Sullivan,  E. ;  Rambles  in  North  and  South  America. 
Sleigh,  Lieut.-colonel ;  Pine  Forests  and  Hacmatack  Clearings. 
Sparks,  Jared  ;  Library  of  American  Biography. 
Senior,  W.  Nassau ;  Slavery  in  the  United  States. 

Statutes  at  large  and  Treaties  of  the  United  States  of  America ;  ed.  Minot. 
Seneca  Indians,  the  Case  of. 

Sismondi,  M.  de  ;  Progress  of  Religious  Opinion  during  the  Nineteenth  Century. 
Sketch  of  the  Religious  Discussions  which  have  lately  taken  place  at  Geneva 

T. 

Tocqueville,  M.  de  ;  De  la  Democratic  en  Amerique. 

Temminck,  C.  J. ;  Possessions  Neerlandalses  dans  1'Inde  Archipelegique. 

Tourgeneff,  M.A.  ;  La  Russie  et  les  Russes. 

Theiner,  R.  P. ;  Annales  Ecclesiastiques. 

"        L'Eglise  Schismatique  Russe. 
Tanner,  Vita  et  Monument.  Martyrum  Soc.  Jesu. 
Tchihatcheff,  P.  de  ;  Asie  Mineure. 
Tischend'orff,  Constantino  ;  Travels  in  the  East. 
Tennent,  Sir  Emerson  ;  Christianity  in  Ceylon. 
Turnbull ;  Voyage  round  the  World. 

Tilley,  Henry  Arthur  ;  Japan,  the  Amoor,  and  the  Pacific. 
Tracy,  Rev.  Joseph  ;  History  of  American  Missions. 
Turner,  Rev.  George  ;    Nineteen  Years  in  Polynesia. 
Thomson,  Rev.  W.  M.,  D.D. ;  The  Land  and  the  Book. 
Tomlin,  Rev.  J. ;  Missionary  Journals  and  Letters. 
Tristram,  Rev.  H.  B. ;  The  Great  Sahara. 
Townley,  Rev.  H. ;  An  Answer  to  the  Abbe  Dubois. 
Tupper,  Rev.  H. ;  Out  and  Home. 

Taylor,  Rev.  Richard  ;  New  Zealand  and  its  Inhabitants. 
Tobin,  C. ;  Shadows  of  the  East. 
Taylor,  Bayard ;  Journey  to  Central  Africa. 

"  "  The  Lands  of  the  Saracens. 

"  "  Northern  Travel ;  Sweden,  Lapland,  and  Norway. 

Tracy,  J. ;  Colonization  and  Missions. 

Historical  Examination  of  the  State  of  Society  in  W.  Africa. 
Thompson,  George  ;  Travels  in  Southern  Africa. 
To  the  Mauritius  and  back. 

Terry,  Charles ;  New  Zealand,  its  Advantages  and  Prospects. 
Thompson,  Arthur,  M.D. ;  The  Story  of  New  Zealand. 
Tumour,  Hon.  George ;  The  History  of  Ceylon. 
Tucker,  Miss  ;  The  Gospel  in  New  Zealand. 
Thornton,  Edward  ;  Gazetteer  of  India. 
Thornton,  Thomas  ;  History  of  China. 

Tucker,  Henry  St.  George  ;  Memorials  of  Indian  Government. 
Teignmouth,  Lord ;  Life  of,  by  his  Son. 

Townsend,  Joseph  Phipps  ;  Rambles  and  Observations  in  New  South  Wales. 
Therry,  R, ;  Reminiscences  of  New  South  Wales  and  Victoria. 
Turnerelli,  G.  T. ;  Kazan,  the  Ancient  Capital  of  the  Tartar  Khane. 
Trollope,  Anthony ;  The  West  Indies  and  the  Spanish  Main. 

"  "  North  America. 

Temple,  Edniond  ;  Travels  in  various  parts  of  Peru,  &c. 


XXXIV  INDEX   OF    AUTHORITIES. 

Tiffany,  Osmund  ;  The  Canton  Chinese. 

Townshend,  J. ;  Rocky  Mountains. 

Traits  of  American  Indian  Life. 

Thacher,  James,  M.D. ;  History  of  the  Town  of  Plymouth,  II.  S 

Talvi ;  History  of  America. 

Thatcher,  B.  B. ;  Indian  Biography. 

Trollope,  F. ;  Vienna  and  the  Austrians. 

Thurloe ;  State  Papers. 


U.&V. 

Vie  du  Cardinal  de  Cheverus. 
Valbezen,  E.  de  ;  Les  Anglais  et  1'Inde. 
Vedelius ;  De  Arcanis  Arminianismi. 
Voyage  de  la  Favorite. 
Ventura,  R.  P. ;  La  Bellezza  della  Fede. 
Veuillot,  Louis  ;  Les  Francais  en  Algerie. 
Veuillot,  Eugene  ;  La  Cochin  Chine  et  le  Tonquip.. 
Urquhart,  David  ;  The  Pillars  of  Hercules. 
Underbill,  Rev.  Edward  Bean  ;  The  West  Indies. 
Ullathorne,  W.,  D.D. ;  A  Reply  to  Judge  Burton. 

The  Catholic  Mission  in  Australia. 
Valentia,  Lord ;  Travels. 
Van  Lennep,  Mrs. ;  Memoir  of. 

Venn,  Rev.  H. ;  The  Missionary  Life  and  Labors  of  Francis  Xavier. 
Valdez,  Francisco  Travassos  ;  Six  Years  in  Western  Africa. 
Universal  History. 
Ubicini ;  Letters  on  Turkey. 
Vaux,  W.  S. ;  Nineveh  and  Persepolis. 


W. 

Wittman  ;  Storia  Universale  delle  Cattoliche  Missioni. 

Wadstrom,  C.  B. ;  Precis  sur  Sierra  Leona. 

Warren,  Comte  Edouard  de  ;  L'Inde  Anglaise. 

Werne,  F. ;  Expedition  to  discover  the  Sources  of  the  White  Nile. 

Warburton  ;  The  Crescent  and  the  Cross. 

Wilson,  Rev.  J.  Leighton  ;  Western  Africa. 

Ward,  Mrs. ;  Five  Years  in  Kaffir  Land. 

Westgarth  ;  Victoria  and  the  Australian  Gold  Mines 

Wilson,  Daniel,  D.D. ;  Prehistoric  Man. 

Wheeler,  Daniel ;  Memoirs. 

Wilks,  Mark  ;  Tahiti,  &c. 

Walmsley,  Colonel ;  Sketches  of  Algeria; 

Wilkinson,  Sir  Gardner ;  Modern  Egypt. 

Wilson,  John,  D.D. ;  Lands  of  the  Bible. 

West,  Rev.  D.  ;  Life  and  Journals  of. 

Walker,  Rev.  S. ;  The  Church  of  England  Mission*  ?n  Sierra  Leone. 

Wilson,  Dr.  Rae  ;  Travels  in  the  Holy  Land. 

Wortabet,  G. ;  Syria  and  the  Syrians. 

Waring,  Major  Scott ;   Observations  on  the  Present  State  of  the  East  India 

Company. 

"  Letter  to  the  Rev.  John  Owen. 

Wilkinson,  Rev.  M. ;  Sketches  of  Christianity  in  India. 
Wayland,  Francis  ;  Memoir  of  the  Rev.  Adoniram  Judson. 
Wilson,  John,  D.D. ;  The  Darkness  and  the  Dawn  in  India. 
Williams,  Rev.  John ;  Narrative  of  Missionary  Enterprises  in  the  South  Sea 
Islands. 


INDEX    OF    AUTHORITIES.  XXXV 

Williams,  Dr.  Wells  ;  The  Middle  Kingdom. 

Wakefield,  E.  Jerningham  ;  Adventures  in  New  Zealand. 

Widdrington,  Captain  ;  Spain  and  the  Spaniards  in  1843. 

Walsh,  Rev.  R.,  LL.D. ;  Constantinople,  &c. 

Wilbraham,  Captain  Richard ;  Travels  in  the  Trans-Caucasian  Provinces  of 

Russia. 
Walpole,  Hon.  F. ;  Four  Years  in  the  Pacific. 

The  Ansayrii,  &c. 

Walsh,  Rev.  R.,  LL.D. ;  Notices  of  Brazil. 
Williams,  Rev.  George  ;  The  Holy  City. 

Whitehead,  Rev.  Edward  ;  Sketch  of  the  Established  Church  in  India 
Wilks,  Colonel  Mark  ;  Historical  Sketches  of  the  South  of  India 
Wilkes,  Commodore  ;  U.  S.  Exploring  Expedition. 
Wellsted,  J.  R. ;  Travels,  &c. 
Wolff,  Dr.  Joseph ;  Travels  and  Adventures  of. 

Journal. 

Mission  to  Bokhara. 

Wagner,  Dr.  Moritz ;  Travels  in  Persia,  &c. 
Wingfield,  W.  F. ;  A  Tour  in  Dalmatia. 
Wallace,  Alfred  R. ;  Travels  on  the  Amazon  and  Rio  Negro. 
Ward,  Rev.  F.  de  W. ;  India  and  the  Hindoos. 
Wilson,  Robert ;  Mexico  and  its  Religions. 
Wylie,  M. ;  Bengal  as  a  Field  of  Missions. 
Weitbrecht,  J.  T. ;  Missions  in  Bengal. 
Win throp,- Theodore;   Adventures  among  the  North- Western  Rivers  and 

Forests. 

Wyse,  Francis  ;  America,  its  Realities  and  Resources. 
Wilbejforce,  Samuel,  D.D. ;  A  History  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in 

America. 

Warburton,  T. ;  The  Conquest  of  Canada. 
Winwood ;  Memorials. 


Yanoski,  Jean  ;  L'Afrique  Chretienne. 

Histoire  de  la  Domination  des  Vandales  en  Afrique. 
Yates,  W.  Holt,  M.D. ;  Modern  History  of  Egypt. 
Yate,  Rev.  William  ;  An  Account  of  New  Zealand. 
Young,  Rev.  R. ;  The  Southern  World. 
Young,  Cuthbert ;  The  Levant  and  the  Nile. 


N.  B.  Of  eleven  hundred  works  cited  in  these  v<  lames,  nine  hundred 
and  forty-seven  are  by  non-Catholic  writers. 


Ivlarshall 
Christian  missions 


BQT 
3236 
.M37 
v.2   ,