runs after them, and, by words or signs, points at the heavens, and announces to them his wish to render them worthy of being the inhabitants of that better world. He shews them his crucifix; he informs them that the Son of God, whose image they behold on it, died on the cross for them, to free them from darkness, and to obtain for them everlasting life. He makes them little presents, or sings to them a pious canticle: by degrees, he obtains their affection and confidence. Then, he propounds to them the saving truths of the gospel; these penetrate their hearts.-Finally, like the eunuch, in the Acts of the Apostles, they pray for the sacred water of regeneration: one after another they flock to the sacred fount; by degrees, the whole community becomes christian. Their rudeness, savageness, barbarism and immorality disappear; they become mild, benevolent, humane and holy. Other communities join them.

Thus, were 300,000 Indian savages, collected in Paraguay; reclaimed from barbarism and vice, and exhibited, in the simplicity of their manners, and the purity of their minds, the mild and unpretending virtues of the primitive christians. To the happiness and piety of this fortunate portion of humanity, several writers of the first eminence, a Muratori, Montesquieu, Raynal, and Leibniz bear ample testimony.-Mr. Southey, the poet laureat, though generally hostile, in his writings, to the torments,-for propagating the faith of Christ.-The number of those who have since suffered death in the same cause, cannot be inconsiderable,

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catholic religion and to catholic institutions of every kind, observes, that, "the Indians could not contemplate without astonishment the conduct of the jesuits; their disinterested enthusiasm, their indefatigable perseverance, and the privation and danger, which they endured for no earthly reward. They, who had only heard of these wonderful men, "became curious of seeing them; but they, who "once came within the influence of such superior “minds, and felt the contagion of example, were "not long before they submitted to the gainful sa"crifice of their old superstitions*." In a subsequent part of the same work, Mr. Southey notices the pomp, with which the secular year of the foundation of the society of Jesus was solemnized in South America. "At one place," we are told by him, "six hundred triumphal arches were erected by the

Indians, and decorated with all the ornaments and "good things, which they possessed: a display of "the benefits, which they, above all men, derived "from the society: the centenary of their institu"tion could not be celebrated by these tribes with "more gratitude and joy, than were justly due t."

LXXV. 4.

Their Missions in China.

IN China their religious labours were equally successful. In 1552, St. Francis Xavier reached Macao. In 1715, the number of the christians in

* History of Brazil, vol. ii. p. 299, 300.

+ Ibid. p. 331, 332.

China amounted to 300,000, and they possessed 300 churches. In their propagation of the gospel in China, the jesuits shewed great good sense. They did every thing to conciliate public and individual favour; they carefully abstained from every thing that had a tendency to draw on them public, or individual dislike; and, so far as it could be done without trenching on the essentials of religion, they accommodated their instructions to the opinions and feelings of the country. In some instances, they were supposed to carry this spirit of accommodation too far, and by a papal bull, they were obliged to retrace some steps of their conciliating advances. Their readiness to comply with the bull did them honour.

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Between the years 1581 and 1681,-126 European jesuits were employed in the missions in China. "It must," says sir George Staunton *, appear a singular spectacle to every class of behold"ers, to see men, actuated by motives, different "from those of most human actions, quitting for "ever their country and their connections, to devote "themselves for life, for the purpose of changing "the tenets of a people, they had never seen; and, "in pursuing that object, to run every risk, suffer every persecution, and sacrifice every comfort; "insinuating themselves,-by address, by talent, 66 by perseverance, by humility, by application to "studies, foreign from their original education, or by the cultivation of arts, to which they had not "been bred,-into notice and protection ;-overEmbassy to China, vol. ii. p. 159.

"coming the prejudice of being strangers in a "country, where most strangers were prohibited, "and where it was a crime to have abandoned the "tombs of their ancestors; and gaining, at length, "establishments necessary for the propagation of "the faith, without turning their influence to any "personal advantage. Every European," sir George adds from his own experience, was greeted by "them, as countrymen, entitled to regard and ser"vice."

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All the information, which the missionaries could acquire of the learning, the arts, and the sciences of China, they transmitted to Europe. It is principally to be found in their "Lettres Edifiantes et

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Curieuses," of which Fontenelle said, that "he "had never read a work which answered better to "its title." To the general accuracy of these letters, and of the works of father du Halde and father Gaubil, the interesting account published by sir George Staunton of his embassy to China bears testimony; and the writer of these pages, has often heard him speak of them, in terms of high commendations*. La Croze mentions with praise the account given of Armenia, in the third volume of their "Nouveaux Mémoires des Missions du Lévant:" and, as Mr. Gibbon justly observest, the work of a jesuit must have sterling merit when it is praised by la Croze. Such was the conduct of the jesuits in China. May it not be confidently asked,

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* Histoire du Christianisme de PEthiope et de l'Arménie, p. 269, 402,

† Chap. xlvii. note 148.

whether history records an instance, in which science has been made more subservient to the faith of Christ?

LXXV. 5.

Their Antichristian and Anticatholic Adversaries.

SUCH have been the services rendered by the jesuits to religion, to letters, to civilized and uncivilized society. With such titles to gratitude, is it not surprising, that they should have had so many enemies? But,-such has been the general fate of benefactors to humanity!-how few of these have closed their labours, without

Among the enemies of the jesuits, several are found, whose hostility must be thought, by all christians, to reflect honour on the society. When we open the correspondence of Voltaire and his intimates, and observe their furious and determined hatred of christianity, and their schemes and efforts for its destruction, and find at the same time, their avowed enmity to the jesuits, as their most formidable opponents, surely all, who invoke the name of Christ, must think with respect and gratitude, of the jesuits, as the ablest defenders, in the opinion of its bitterest enemies, of their common christianity? By the same principle, when a catholic finds the polemic hatred, which the early disciples