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of founding a new religious order. We shall soon see what a thorough alteration took place in the mind of Xavier, who became the devoted follower of him whom he had despised. John III. of Portugal sent to Rome, being wishful to Christianise his East Indian settlements. The Pope had just sanctioned the order of Jesus; and at first Loyola thought of despatching Bobadilla on this momentous mission, but turning quickly to Xavier, he said, "This privilege is reserved for you; proceed, Francis, to your proper destination." "I am ready,” replied his devoted disciple; and on the morrow Xavier quitted Rome for Lisbon, having but just had time to patch up his cassock and bid adieu to his friends. He sailed in April 1541, and did not reach Goa until May of the following year.

Scarcely had he saluted the bishop, when the natives began to come in crowds around him, smiting their breasts and bewailing their sins, although he was yet quite unable to speak their language. So says his biographer; and Xavier himself, in a letter to a friend, laments that he cannot be in ten places at once, so numerous are his baptisms. But then there is a secret in this which may be conveniently explained by the following incident, which is given on the authority and in the words of the Rev. M. H. Seymour. He says, "A friend of my own informed me that he was present at the baptism of a whole tribe of Indians. They were marched down to a river, where the missionary waited for them; he baptized them all, hung a little crucifix round the neck of each, told them that now they were Christians, and they, pleased at the pretty ornament they received, marched back as instructed and as wise, as naked and as savage as they came!" Xavier's baptisms were too much like these, and, therefore, our surprise at their number is ended. From Goa he went to the coast of Malabar, and here he appears to have proceeded more circumspectly, but still we cannot but believe with greater celerity than discretion. Disregarding the representations of his friends, he now sailed for Japan, and here he showed himself a disciple of Loyola.

The Japanese had a god called Xaca, who was said to be born of a virgin, and who underwent great sufferings to atone for the sins of mankind. He afterwards assembled his disciples, and commissioned them to preach his doctrines. This was too tempting a case to be passed by, and, accordingly, Xaca was made out to be Jesus Christ, and his mother the Virgin Mary. The heathens easily allowed this, and came in multitudes for baptism. Xavier

tells us, that he sent a little picture of the Virgin and Child to the emperor, who kissed it with fervour, in the belief that it was a picture of one of his own gods-a proof of the similarity between Romanism and Paganism in one respect; and the analogy was found to extend much further, for the Japanese had monasteries, and nunneries, and candles, and incense, and religious processions, so that they may be said to have been second-hand Romanists already.

Xavier left Japan in 1551, and the Jesuits, after successes which appeared to be likely to bring the country to the profession of Christianity, were expelled, we trust, for ever. It was discovered that they were interfering in political affairs, and intriguing for the subversion of the native dynasty, in order to convey the empire into the hands of Portugal.

Xavier now resolved to proceed to China, although he was told that no stranger was permitted, under pain of death or perpetual imprisonment, to set a foot in that empire. He departed from Goa in April 1552, and after surmounting great opposition, he reached Sancian, a small island not far from Canton. He bargained with a Chinese merchant, who was to convey him to Canton, and to conceal him for four days in his house. Xavier promised that no torments, however cruel, should force him to betray the name of this merchant, who, however, suddenly quitted the island on pretence of a short voyage, and left the heroic missionary behind. The shock was too great; Xavier's hopes were baffled of their object, and he languished and died. Here was a noblehearted man; and, amidst his errors, we hope that trust in the merits of his Saviour for salvation, lay safely as the foundationstone of his heroic zeal.

Another celebrated missionary was Roberti di Nobili, who was also a Jesuit. This man retreated into the recesses of India, stained his face till it bore the native hue, assumed Hindoo customs, and studied the language, the habits, and the feelings of those amongst whom he lived; and then, after persevering for years in this course, he suddenly announced himself and his companions in the heart of India as natives and Brahmans of a superior caste. When the IIindoos doubted his pretensions, he produced a venerable parchment, which was to establish his lineal descent from the god Brahma. He swore before heaven and earth to the authenticity of this document; and when doubts were still raised, he and his companions made good their claims by under

going longer fasts, austerer penances, and severer flagellations than the native Brahmans. One of these missionaries tells us, that when he preached he always wore a dress that opened behind, and that he used to draw forth a scourge when he had concluded, and scourge himself before his auditors. His flagellations produced more effect than his sermons, he tells us, and indeed we can readily suppose this.

The history of the Ethiopian mission is another exemplification of Jesuitism. Loyola induced the Pope to appoint two coadjutors to the Patriarch Bermudes, who lived in Ethiopia; and at about the same time that the bull of appointment was issued, a Jesuit was sent from Goa, who was to get Bermudes to Europe. The king of Ethiopia said that he stood in no need of the friars which the king of Portugal had sent, as he was resolved never to submit to the Romish church. The Jesuit, however, took the aged patriarch to Goa, and he lived for several years a captive at Lisbon. Ultimately the Portuguese sent troops and ravaged the country.

China occupies a broad page in the annals of Jesuitism. Matthew Ricci may justly be styled the founder of the mission in this country, although not the first to commence it. At first he assumed the garb of a bonze, or priest, but he soon abandoned this for that of the literati. After he had resided in the country for about seventeen years, he was favourably received by the emperor, and other Jesuits established themselves at various places from Canton to Pekin. Their success was great; but disputes soon sprang up between the Jesuits and the other Romish orders concerning Chinese rites and ceremonies. Ricci had considered these as merely secular, but Innocent X. condemned them as idolatrous. Alexander VII. allowed them as merely civil observances; and as Popes thus differed in opinion between one another, so did papal infallibility contend with the king of Portugal about the jurisdiction of the mission-field. A mandate was issued prohibiting Chinese Christians from practising customs which the Pope had interdicted, and this roused the anger of the emperor, who, however, declared his intention to tolerate those missionaries who followed in the track of Ricci. At length these turbulent priests were formally denounced and expelled, with the exception of a few monks at Pekin, and ultimately this city was cleared of European priests. And yet we are told that there are still whole villages in China of which every inhabitant is a Romanist.

The last mission to which we shall allude, is one that has been blazoned on the standards of Jesuitism as a triumphant example of its success in missionary warfare. We allude to Paraguay. Here were settled Indian tribes that had fled from the Spanish and Portuguese invaders; and the Jesuit ingratiated himself with them by defending them, and teaching them how to defend themselves from their cruel and rapacious oppressors. He brought in European fire-arms, planted the Indians in places that could be defended, established a civil system; and, in short, founded a government, of which the general of his order was the head, and the Jesuits the chief members. For years the existence of this empire was kept a secret; and, lest it should be divulged, the Jesuits enacted that no Indian should learn Spanish or Portuguese. A remarkable event broke the shell of this secret, and then the golden egg which the Jesuits were hatching was irretrievably ruined, for this country of Paraguay was a very mine of wealth to them.

The Pope, with marvellous liberality, gave all the discovered world in the east to Portugal, and all that in the west to Spain; and, as the world is round, these two stupendous landholders met in the interior of South America, and commissioners had to be sent to draw their line of demarcation. But their labours were brought to an unexpected pause by a band of Jesuits; and in a few days after they found that the whole population was arming, with Jesuits as their officers, so they were compelled to desist. Spain and Portugal applied to the Pope, and he issued a bull dissolving the Jesuit empire, and so this artfully-managed scheme came to

an end.

Here we bring our brief glimpse at Jesuit missions to a close. We have written with no blind bigotry, that would not see the merits of a Jesuit, whilst condemning the vices of the system which he upholds. We have not brought prominently forward the charge of complicity in idolatrous worship which is laid at the door of the Jesuits, because we do not deem this an advantageous mode of exposing the evils of their system. Such a case as that of Roberti di Nobili we deem much more effective. And have we nothing to learn from the instances which have been detailed? Is Jesuitism wholly a thing of the past, a rusted and edgeless weapon that can no longer be wielded? Would that this were the case! But the system is even now in busy operation at our very doors. In Spain, in Portugal, in Austria, in Germany,

in France, in China, in Polynesia, in Australia, in India, in Canada, the cancer of Jesuitism is festering. In this country the Jesuits exist in large numbers, and we may reasonably suppose that their most subtle and strenuous attacks are directed against an island which is one of the strong fortresses of Protestantism.

THE CASTLE OF ZUM GUTTEMBERG; OR, THE LAST OF THE SULGELOCHS.

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A YOUTH, apparently about eighteen or nineteen years of age, was climbing, with the agility of a mountain goat, the steep sides of a rock, on the summit of which stood an old castle, the embattled towers of which were still distinctly visible, in spite of

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