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Time softens grief, but He alone

Can heal a mother's stricken heart,

Who heard, above the clouds of air,

The noble sailor's dying prayer.

ETHNE.

On 9th of April Captain Kelly of the steamer" Pride of Erin," and three out of his boat's crew of six, were drowned in Dundalk Bay, while endeavouring in a raging sea to rescue the crew of a wrecked vessel.

THE JESUITS IN AMERICA.

GREAT as have been the services of the Society of Jesus, as well to the advancement of the arts and sciences as to religion, in every country to which members of that order directed their steps, in no part of the world is their history more worthy of admiration, or a better refutation of the calumnies so unceasingly uttered against them, than in South America.

In asserting this it is not meant to depreciate the honors which accrue to the order from the enterprise of its members in other quarters of the globe, as missionaires, whom no dangers could appal-no fears dissuade-from carrying out the object of the Society, which was the triumph of the Gospel; neither can it be forgotten that while so earnestly labouring for religion, they did not forget to use the opportunities which their penetrating into countries, known only to Europe by name, gave them of, extending geographical knowledge, which had hitherto been so limited, and so erroneous that imagination took the place of reason when foreign countries were being described. Travellers of Sir John Mandeville's stamp, he who has been described as having given with equal seriousness true and accurate accounts of things as they were, and "the story of Gog and Magog, the tale of men with tails, or the account of the Madagascar bird which could carry elephants through the air," having been exclusively relied on up to the sixteenth century, during which the Jesuits commenced that crusade against heresy and infidelity and ignorance, for which they have been so famous and so much maligned.

The Jesuits were mainly instrumental in dissipating these extravagant ideas by the clear and rational accounts they gave of the countries which they visited, and which have been corroborated, in almost every case, by modern travellers. Long before the vain-glorious, but brave and enterprising Bruce, had so triumphantly proclaimed his discovery of the source of the Nile, it had been visited. and accurately described by Father Peter Paez, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary. Kircher, the learned Jesuit, fixes the date of Paez's discovery as the 21st of April, 1618, while Bruce did not reach those fountains until November, 1770, or a century and a half later!

Indeed the best account of modern African discovery is to be found in the records of the Jesuits, particularly those of the Portuguese branch of the order.

VOL. I.-No. III.

N.

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In truth very little has been added to our knowledge of that mysterious continent beyond the position of places being fixed with a greater degee of certainty, by means of the better astronomical instruments invented sincethe sixteenth century. Even Dr. Livingstone, indefatigable and earnest as he is in the pursuit of African discovery, found that in much of what he proposes for the benefit of the natives, he had been anticipated by the Jesuit missionaries of 250 years ago. Dr. Livingstone says, "Coffee was introduced by the Jesuits 250 years ago," (in Angola)" and it propagated itself all over the country at different periods. This was one great good the Jesuits did in that great country. . When going down to the sea coast, I found large numbers of the people able to read and write, and I found that they had been taught by the Jesuits, who had been expelled the country by the Marquis Pombal. They keep up the practice of readin and writing to this day; and if they had the opportunity of reading other books, I have no doubt they would generally peruse them. At present they have nothing but the Lives of the Saints,' and a few other unimportant books. But all speak with the greatest respect of their teachers the Jesuits: and I believe the Jesuits must have been really good men when I see the fruits of their labours to this day."

He also confesses that when going through a region, which he believed had never before been traversed by any European, amid the rank luxuriance of the African forest he came upon the ruins of a Catholic church, amidst which lay a bell, marked with the sacred monogram I.H.S.

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Good men" indeed they were, and great was the fruit of their virtue, attested not only by many thousand conversions of the pagan inhabitants, but by numerous miracles!

In India, too, the most blessed results flowed from their exertions, and also in China, where the branch of the Church planted by them, and watered by their blood, still bears abundant fruit!

In fact in every part of the world where human efforts guided by divine grace, had a victory over the evil principle to gain, were these heroic men to be found, fighting the good fight with all their hearts and all their strength, their only reward, the saving of souls!

Other motives have been imputed to them, the love of power, the desire of gain and of political influence, and the mastery of men's minds, that through their weakness they might rule them. The baffled spite and malignity of the infidel and the schismatic, have been evinced by a demoniac ingenuity in discovering causes aside of the real ones, for the extraordinary abnegation of self displayed by this order, and which so successfully combated the wicked designs of those who in their pride believed that their weak imaginings were of equal value with a divine revelation.

The best refutation of these charges is to be found in the proceedings of the Jesuits in South America, while invested with almost irresponsible power, the result, as well of the extraordinary influence their virtues gave them, over the

minds of the natives, as of the extensive powers conferred on them by the European monarchs who exercised a sovereignty over that country.

The general history of the discovery and conquest of America by the Spaniards, is already sufficiently well-known, and need not here be touched on. The importance of this discovery in its effect on the people of Europe, cannot be underrated, but it would appear, that by some immutable law, great material benefits cannot result to any particular people without corresponding evils being entailed on another. Thus, England grows rich from the spoil wrung from Hindostan and from Ireland, and both Hindoos and Irish are "improved off the face of nature!" Spain, too, grew rich by her foreign discoveries and conquests, but at the same time, laid the foundation of her subsequent weakness, by her boundless ambition. England is now beginning to feel the effects of having pursued the same course in India, a course which her writers so eloquently denounced when practised by the Spaniards in America. The Spaniards in the West, and the English in the East, pursued alike the comprehensive plan of extorting by force the treasures of the conquered, which were all they sought. The lust of wealth was their only incentive in both cases.

The discoverers of America had a higher motive at the commencement than the mere desire of extending the dominions of Spain. It was not until the fall of Grenada, and the final subjection of the Moorish power, that Ferdinand and Isabella could be persuaded by Columbus to assist him in setting out on his career of discovery; even though he promised that he would confer larger possessions on them by their so doing than had ever been held by any former monarchs. The following extract from Columbus's journal, addressed to the sovereigns, and which he began to keep from the time he set forth on his first adventurous voyage, will indicate the mingled feelings that prompted him in his career as a discoverer: "Therefore your Highnesses as Catholic christians and princes, lovers and promoters of the holy Christian faith, and enemies of the sect of Mahomet, and of all idolatries and heresies, determined to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the said parts of India to see the said princes, and the people, and lands, and discover the nature and disposition of them all, and the means to be taken for the conversion of them to our holy faith." He then recapitulates the conditions upon which he was to pursue his voyage, and the reward promised him in the event of success attending his search for Cathay." From this it is evident that the desire for the conversion of the pagans whom he might discover was one of the impulses which prompted. Columbus to the discovery of unknown lands. The whole tenour of his life, which was remarkable for genuine piety, proves it, and his intention of devoting any treasure which might fall to himself for the purpose of promoting a new crusade to the Holy Land, shews the religious enthusiasm of which he was capable. But unfortunately different motives actuated the great body of the earlier American discoverers, and even Columbus himself appears to have been drawn aside from his first intentions by the magnitude of his discovery and the

great riches to which he thought it would lead. Gold became the first object of everyone's thoughts, and to obtain it cruelties as great as those practised by the English in India were executed upon the peaceful natives of the American islands. They were subjected to the most horrible tortures to wring from them the secret which the cupidity of the Spaniards led them to believe they kept possession of, namely, where immense quantities of the coveted metal were secreted. Washington Irving says, "so intolerable were the toils and sufferings inflicted on this weak and unoffending race, (the natives of St. Domingo,) that they sunk under them, dissolving, as it were, from the face of the earth. Twelve years had not elapsed since the discovery of the island, and several hundred thousands of its native inhabitants had perished, miserable victims to the grasping avarice of the white man." The voice of religion was unheard by men whose god was gold; yet the Church, ever true to humanity, was nobly represented by the venerable Las Casas, of the order of St. Dominick. He prayed and strove for those who were being subjected to such misery, and, by his exertions on behalf of the oppressed natives, himself incuried no inconsiderable danger at the hands of his own countrymen.

The rapid disappearance of the American race, when brought into contact with the white man, it is true, is referable to other causes as well as to oppression. The discoverers of America found various degrees of civilization existing on their arrival. Some of the nations, such as the Mexicans and the Peruvians, having made important progression in the arts and even sciences, yet still one general character was strongly impressed on the whole aboriginal race of the American continent. One who knew the race well says that "the Red Man appears to have received from nature every quality which contributes to greatness except tameability; he has shewn in many remarkable instances intellectual capacity, talents for government, eloquence, energy, and self-command.

is something noble and striking-something that commands respect and admiration in the Indian character. The Indian avoids his conqueror while the Negro bows at his feet." Las Casas records that, to escape the Spanish yoke, many killed themselves, and mothers destroyed their children that they might not live to be slaves: nor were they content with passive resistance, for they permitted no opportunity to pass without retaliating on the Spaniards with desperate but unavailing bravery, so superior in arms and in skill were their enemies.

A contest, such as this, could only be ended by the extinction of either of the opposing races, for the Spaniards were determined that the Indians should only exist as slaves, while the Indians would not or could not so exist, and so a few generations, but for the intervention of the Jesuits, would have seen the race swept from the earth in Catholic South America, as, from the operation of similar causes, has occurred in the Northern and Protestant portion of that continent.*

This paper being exclusively devoted to the efforts of the Jesuits in South America, we are obliged to omit all notice of their still more extraordinary exertions in the Northern part of the Continent.

In a sketch like this it would be out of place to enter into any details of the proceedings of the associates and successors of Columbus in their career of discovery and conquest. It is enough to say that one common character distinguished their whole conduct towards the native American. Nothing short of a special interposition on behalf of the oppressed Indians could save them from complete destruction. But this interposition was granted! In 1586, the Jesuits entered Paraguay. This was not the same country which has since excited so much attention from the system adopted by its dictator, Francia, of exclusion of all foreign intercourse.

The country known as the Paraguay of the Jesuits now includes La Plata or the Argentine Republic, and a considerable portion of Brazil. It extended along the whole course of the Pazana and the Rio de la Plata to the east, and as far as the straits of Magellan on the south, and embraced an immense tract of land watered by large rivers, and containing innumerable lakes and swamps which gave forth, in many places, the most deadly miasmas to infect the air. A portion of it is covered with impervious forests, while great plains, the Pampas, or Prairies of South America, are completely divested of trees. Many long chains. of mountains intersect it, some of them among the greatest in the world. Great variety of temperature exists, of course, in so large an extent of country, and there were considerable differences existing between the various tribes who inhabited it. But in general, according to Charlevoix, they were “dull, cruel, and inconstant; treacherous, and excessively voracious, and cannibals, given to drunkenness, void of forethought or precaution, even in the most indispensible concerns of life; lazy and indolent beyond the power of expression; and except a few whom the love of plunder or revenge rendered furious rather than brave, most of them arrant cowards; and those who preserved their liberty, were entirely indebted for it to the situation of the inaccessable places where they had taken refuge. It was to this people, so unanimable and without any interesting traits of either mildness, bravery or intelligence, and accordingly so much inferior to the Indians of North America, of the American Islands, or of Peru, that the heroic society of Jesus, determined to devote all their energies, so that they might be preserved from that extincton which threatened all their race when brought into contact with Europeans. Here too was a splendid harvest for their still higher labour of saving souls; for where were their efforts likely to be more acceptable to God than in a region where he was so little known?

It was in 1516, that the Spaniards first entered the port which they called Rio Genero,* gold alone their object. The same year they reached the mouth of the Rio Plata, where the expedition was surprised by the natives who put the commander de Solis to death.

As it is with the Jesuits we have to do, it is needless to touch on the various expeditions which followed, or to describe the sanguinary reprisals and barbarous slaughters that preceded the foundation of the city of Nuessa Senora de Buenos

The Rio Janeiro of the Portuguese,

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