"As

nated in the following sentence, translated into the Portuguese language, that the prisoners might fully understand it. for you four, who are foreigners, the king orders that you shall be beheaded, for coming to preach the Christian law which he has proscribed throughout his dominions." This cruel sentence was carried into execution, amidst an immense concourse of people, and in the presence of the mandarins and other judges of the criminal tribunal. The sacrifice of these martyrs was followed by that of several neophytes and catechists ; and the same cruel persecutions of the remaining proselytes extended to Cochin-china.

From this period we may likewise date the decline of the Roman Catholic religion in China; for the emperor Kien Long continued and confirmed the general prohibition against preaching the gospel in his dominions. But still he permitted a few Jesuits to reside at Pekin, to perform their functions in the three churches belonging to the French, Portuguese, Italian and German Jesuits, and a great number of proselytes frequented them without molestation; because he well knew that if they were denied this privilege, the skilful artists whom he wished to retain in his service, would soon leave him. At length in the year 1748, the persecution extended to the environs of Pekin, where the proselytes chiefly resided, who were commanded to renounce Christianity. Upon their refusal they were put to the torture; their property was confiscated; and their images, chaplets, relics, crosses, and other idolatrous objects of their devotion, were publicly trampled upon, and afterwards burnt.

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The mission in the province of Nanking which had been the most flourishing of all the Roman Catholic establishments in China, under the auspices of the bishop of Nanking and eight Jesuit missionaries, and which at the commencement of the secution in 1748, embraced sixty thousand professors of Christianity, was, in the course of the year 1750, totally subverted. Father Henriques superior of the Jesuits, and father Athemis his companion, were arrested, put in irons, thrown into prison, and carried before the viceroy, who constituted a new tribunal consisting of three mandarins to sit in judgment upon a frivolous accusation of rebellion brought against them by an apostate Chinese. Amongst other interrogatories, they were asked if the pope and their king knew that they were in China? To which having answered in the negative, they were sentenced to be strangled. This sentence was confirmed by the emperor, and they were executed in the prison, in the presence of the mandarins their judges. At the same time, several proselytes were condemned; some to suffer the bastinade, and others to

perpetual exile. The following year closes the correspondence of the French Jesuits remaining at Pekin, with their brethren in France, contained in the xxviiith volume of Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses.

Having given this general sketch of the early promulgation of the gospel in the heathen world, it may not be improper briefly to state some of the principal causes of the failure of the Roman Catholic missions.

We shall not here endeavour to penetrate those secret providences of God, which he has been pleased to cover with shade; and to determine how far the idolatrous worship and dangerous errors of the church of Rome might have induced him to give up to destruction missions once so illustrious and flourishing. We shall confine ourselves to particulars, on which we may calculate with greater accuracy.

The Dominicans, Franciscans, and friars of other orders, who were first engaged in the mission to China, appear to have been men of a meek and quiet character, of great simplicity of manners, unadorned piety, and a self-denying mortified spirit. They so conformed their lives and conduct to the morals which they taught, that the pagan priests had no charge to bring against them but that of an attachment to the idolatrous rites of their church, and that of propagating doctrines which were evidently contrary to the common sense of mankind.

But no sooner had the Jesuits commenced that religious monopoly, which they afterwards maintained in all the kingdoms of Europe that professed the Roman Catholic faith, than the missionary establishments in parts beyond the seas assumed a different aspect. And though the number of proselytes, in the course of a few years, increased considerably; yet it was very soon perceived, that this rapid success could not be permanent; for ambition, worldly interest, temporal dignities, and political intrigues, were the tares which sprang up, and choked the seed which had been sown by their zealous predecessors. Permitted to build churches, they erected such magnificent edifices as astonished the sensible Chinese mandarins; they decorated them with such superb and costly ornaments, and covered their altars with such images and massy vessels of gold and silver, of the finest workmanship sent from France, Spain and Portugal, that the internal splendour of these sanctuaries surpassed in ostentation the palaces of the Chinese empeTheir crucifixes, and the shrines in which the host, that is to say, the consecrated wafers, were exposed to be adored by the people, in the service of the mass, were beset with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones; and the vestments of the officiating Jesuits vied in richness and external

rors.

appearance with the kingly and imperial robes of the temporal sovereigns of the earth.

Some ostensible austerities, mortifications, and self-denials, were the veils, which concealed a life of luxury, secret gratifications in sensual pleasures, and an unbounded ambition. Skilled in the polite and liberal arts, they availed themselves of their superior knowledge to ingratiate themselves with the statesmen and grandees of the court, and intermeddled with the political concerns of the Chinese government. And as religion was but a secondary motive with the ministers of Louis XIV. for sending a French mission to China, they visited the Chinese manufactories, seduced the workmen, and clandestinely transmitted, or carried to France some of their finest arts, such as the art of dying certain colours, and making the porcelain called china; which has been carried to such perfection in France, that the Séve china far exceeds the Chinese, both for the elegance of the patterns, the superiority of the painting and enamel, and the strength, clearness and beauty of the whole composition. The art of painting and printing of calicoes for female dresses and furniture, known by the denomination of chintz, was likewise secretly obtained by the French Jesuits at Pekin and in the frontier provinces, it is ascertained beyond a doubt, that the missionaries of their order, instead of confining themselves to the functions of the religion they were to propagate, carried on a clandestine commerce with the traders of the Philippine Islands and with Europe, by means of their connexions with the merchants and factors of Macao and Canton.

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In the East Indies, the failure of the missions was, in all probability, chiefly owing to the insuperable attachment of the natives to the Bramins, and the then unlimited power of those pagan priests, whose menaces, and the punishments they inflicted on the proselytes to Roman Catholicism, operated as a preventive with the majority; and occasioned the apostasy of the few proselytes, to whom the missionaries had preached, and who had been baptized, and had also brought their children to be baptized. At Pondicherry, however, through the influence of the French government there, and of the French merchants and factors residing in that city, a numerous and flourishing settlement of neophytes, under the ministry of the Dominicans, was very early established, and became per

manent.

On the continent of North America, notwithstanding the amazing zeal and indefatigable diligence and exertions of the missionaries, chiefly Dominicans and Franciscans, who were afterwards succeeded by a few Jesuits, an unconquerable habit

of drunkenness, and an invincible attachment to a wandering life, which prevailed among the Indians, impeded their success with some tribes, and produced shameful apostasy in others; which was carried to such a degree of savage brutality, that the missionaries were treated by them not only with contempt, but with utter neglect. And some of these zealous men, having with the best intentions conformed to their uncivilized manners and customs, and followed them to their encampments and removals from place to place, fell victims to the want of those necessaries of life, and other accommodations to which they had been accustomed in civilized societies.

An unconquerable adherence to those customs which their ancestors had adopted, and transmitted to them, outweighed in the estimation of these Indians the inconveniencies which attended their uncomfortable mode of life. To induce them to take up their abode in any fixed habitation, and to forsake the wandering life of their countrymen, was on all occasions extremely difficult. It was a task which required constant exertion, and was never attended with any thing more than partial success. Even in those cases in which the success appeared to be secure, the prospect only flattered to betray; it lulled asleep suspicion, while the door was opening to a general apostasy. To reclaim them from wandering required much labour, and to prevent their return, in many cases, was absolutely impossible. A sudden impulse would occasionally seize them without any apparent cause; and, acting upon them with all the imaginary force of magic, would urge them to re-assume their former modes of life.

Among many others, a remarkable instance has been given by a respectable author, of a whole tribe of these savages, who with their families and children had been proselyted by the zealous labours of some Roman Catholic missionaries, and comfortably settled in the neighbourhood of Montreal, They there supported themselves by selling to the Canada traders the fish and furs they procured by fishing and hunting, and had become in many respects a civilized people. But all at once they deserted in a body, returning to their former wandering life, to their old savage customs, and to the idolatrous religion of their forefathers.

Before we take leave of the Roman Catholic missions, justice requires that we should correct the errors of Guthrie and other modern writers, who have asserted that after the expulsion of the Jesuits from the provinces of the Chinese empire, and the suppression of their order in Europe, Roman Catholicism either made no figure in China, or was totally abandoned; whereas it appears by Sir George Staunton's account of the British

embassy to China, that they found French missionaries at Pekin, and those of other European countries at Macao and Canton; and that the Society de Propaganda Fidei, at Rome, constantly maintained a succession of twelve young Chinese, who were educated at Naples, and sent back to China at a proper age, to preach the gospel to their countrymen. But their ministry was limited to the places where Europeans reside, and carry on an extensive commerce with the Chinese; for the same emperor, who proscribed the general exercise of the Christian religion, was still living, and would not suffer them to penetrate into the interior parts of the empire.

Happier circumstances and fairer prospects of success attended the first Protestant missions from England. A select number of private gentlemen in London, associated, and formed themselves into a society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, in the year 1698; by which title they were incorporated in 1701, 13th Will. III. by letters patent under the king's privy seal; and in virtue of the authorities and privileges granted in this patent, the first missionaries from the established church of England were sent to the then British colonies of North America, at present constituting the Independent United States.

It may not be improper in this place, to state from the charter the absolute want at that time of some public establishment for the encouragement of the Christian religion in those remote dependencies on the crown of England.

Recital of article the first, "Whereas we are credibly informed, that in many of our plantations, colonies and factories beyond the seas, belonging to our kingdom of England, the provision for ministers is very mean, and many others of our said plantations, colonies and factories are wholly destitute and unprovided of a maintenance for ministers and the public worship of God; and for lack of support and maintenance for such, many of our loving subjects do want the administration of God's word and sacraments, and seem to be abandoned to atheism and infidelity; and also for want of learned and orthodox ministers to instruct our said loving subjects in the principles of true religion, divers Romish priests and Jesuits are the more encouraged to pervert and draw over our said loving subjects to Popish superstition and idolatry, &c. Therefore his majesty, considering it as his duty to promote the glory of God by the instruction of his people in the Christian religion, ordains certain provisions to be made for the sufficient maintenance of orthodox clergy, to reside in such colonies, and for the propagation of the gospel in those parts.

VOL. I.

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