that he stood in no need of the friars the king of Portugal was so forward to send him, being resolved never to submit himself to the Romish church." "I was informed," he adds, "that several of the grandees had been heard to say, they would sooner put themselves under Mahommedans than turn Papists."

As the Jesuits have given only a portion of the original narrative, we must collect the fate of Bermudes from other sources. Rodriguez carried the old patriarch with him to Goa, and in 1558 they arrived at Lisbon, where the latter lived in captivity for several years.

Not satisfied with this attempt on Ethiopia, Pius IV., in 1561, despatched two Jesuits, with large sums of money, to treat with Gabriel, patriarch of Alexandria, for submitting himself and his church, to the Roman see. Gabriel took the money, but was in no haste to fulfil the treaty. In vain did the Jesuits argue and threaten. The illustrious emperor of Ethiopia" (for such was the title given him by the pope) remained unconvinced and obstinate-nay, he wrote a book against the coadjutors, who, in return, thundered out an excommunication, dated, Decome, in Ethiopia, February 2nd, 1559. But this was of no avail, without military force. The Portuguese sent troops, and ravaged the country.

The Egyptians, or Copts, were the next object of the ambitious zeal of Popery. In 1562, Christopher Roderick a Jesuit of note, was sent by Pope Pius IV, to promote his designs. He endeavoured in vain by bribes, to shake their allegiance to the patriarch of Alexandria. Clement VIII. pursued the same attempts, and the patriarch of Alexandria appeared in person at Rome. But this exhibition was considered, even by the more candid and sensible Romanists, as a mere stratagem of the Jesuits to delude the pontiff. Cer

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tain it is, the Copts have not embraced the tenets of the Romish church, either in doctrine or discipline.

But the fact which brings home to the Jesuits the many severe accusations which have been brought against their doings in India and the East, is the known aversion and horror with which they were viewed even by the Romish missionaries who were not of their order. Urban Cerri,* secretary to the congregation of the Propaganda, thus exposes to Innocent XI., A.D. 1680, their secret machinations: "The Congregation is well aware of what serious opposition the missionaries have experienced from the Jesuits on their arrival in India. They could not endure to submit to the vicars apostolic. They have lost much of their former reputation. The people have learned to contrast the sanctity and antiquity of our bishops, with the dishonesty of the Jesuits; hence they denounce them as intruders and heretics. They deny the validity of the sacraments which they administer; nay, they affirm that it would be better to go without the sacraments, than to take them from their hands. Such was the pretext for the opposition and persecutions carried on by the Jesuits against our priests and bishops. They caused some to be carried to the inquisition at Goa, and made use of the heathen rulers for banishing others."

But it is in the New World that the Jesuits have shown all the resources of their order, whether for good or evil, in the tyranny and subjugation of the human mind. The conquerors of South America acted, as if their entire object was to plunder, enslave, and exterminate the natives. The blood of Montezuma was crying aloud for vengeance, or rather for some moral and religious compensation to his unfortunate. dominions. The church of Rome, it must be granted, did at

* See Tuba, vol. i. p. 67. Morale Pratique, tom. iii. c. 23, § 17.

CHARACTER OF THE JESUITS BY ROMANISTS.

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tempt, by the early divison of Peru into ecclesiastical districts, to make some answer to this call. In the voyage of Ulloa to South America, the reader will find ample details of their numerous dioceses.

The Jesuits early appeared on this vast scene of missionary labour, and if they did not avail to spread the pure and uncorrupt doctrines of Christianity, they did much to civilize the manners of the Indians, and to instruct them in the arts of Europe. They succeeded, to a wonderful degree, in the government of Paraguay; and if any part of the world could. be selected as the scene of their triumph, it would be found in the history of this province.

But whilst we here can give them much praise as traders and merchants, we find little for which to commend them in the more fitting character of the Christian missionary. They transmitted great wealth to the treasuries of Spain and Portugal, but there is little evidence that they converted souls to the kingdom of Christ. Busied in politics, or engaged in exploring mines and minerals, they had almost forgotten that their proper vocation was the work of the Christian ministry. The discovery of what was called the Jesuit's bark, was valuable in its reference to bodily health; but it could not compensate for their ignorance and neglect of the balm of Gilead, and the atoning righteousness of the Saviour of the world. After all the eulogies which have been heaped on them by the abbé Raynal, it is evident they sacrificed the character of the missionary for that of the merchant.*

In North America, the Jesuit missionaries displayed their genuine principles. In the accounts of our early settlements in Canada they are frequently mentioned as stirring up the Indians, and exciting them to scenes of murder and plunder. They also used their utmost arts and intrigues to oppose the Tuba, vol. i. p. 176.

labours of the English missionaries sent over in 1704, to attempt the conversion of the Mohawks, and entirely defeated the enterprise. Their splendid establishments at Quebec enabled them to exercise much political influence. They devoted themselves far more to secular, than to religious pursuits.

Such is a brief retrospect of the early missions of the Jesuits in foreign parts. We have collected them chiefly from. the representations of Romish authors, lest we might be supposed to have been led astray by the natural prejudices of Protestants; and on a calm and impartial consideration, we are compelled to come to the following conclusions. First; that a Jesuit is altogether unfit for a missionary amongst the heathen, from the cunning and artifice which form the discriminating features of his order. The character of the Christian missionary should be simple and artless. Worldly deceit and fraud are altogether destructive of his aim.

Secondly; A missionary should seldom, if ever, interfere with political affairs. He should be unwilling to mix himself in the contest of parties. He comes to declare the message of Jesus Christ, and should avoid all unnecessary meddling with affairs of state.

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Thirdly The missionary should also seldom, if ever, engage in the pursuit of trade and commerce. It takes him away from his ministerial duties; it tends to render him secular and worldly-minded, and to destroy the loveliness of a soul devoted supremely to things above.

Finally; The office of a Christian missionary is to preach the gospel-to proclaim to the weary and heavy-laden sinner, that there is freely offered to him redemption through the Saviour's blood, even the forgiveness of sins—and that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. The Jesuit, however, does not preach this gos

pel; he belongs, on the contrary, to an order founded for the very purpose of uprooting that doctrine of justification by faith, which forms the essence of evangelical truth. How totally unfitted, then, he is to be a missionary of Christ! "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch," Matt. xv. 14.