of manners and customs,-that man, though possessed of all the qualities requisite for an accurate observer, will, nevertheless, be able to gain but very superficial notions respecting people of whom he can catch only a transient glimpse as he hastens through their country.

The Jesuit had likewise the advantage of a learned education over the ordinary traveller. The superiors required various qualities in the students destined for the missions. For the Levant, it was necessary to understand the Greek, Coptic, Arabic, and Turkish languages, and to possess some knowledge of medicine; for India and China were wanted astronomers, mathematicians, geographers, and mechanicians; and America was reserved for the naturalists.1 And how many pious disguises and artifices, how many changes of life and manners, were they obliged to adopt in order to proclaim the truth to mankind! At Madura the missionary assumed the habit of the Indian penitent, submitted to all his customs, practised all his austerities, however repugnant and puerile; in China he became a mandarin and a literary character; among the Iroquois he turned hunter and savage.

Almost all the French missions were established by Colbert and Louvois, who were aware of the service they would render to the arts, sciences, and commerce. Fathers Fontenay, Tachard, Gerbillon, Le Comte, Bouvet, and Visdelou, were sent to India by Louis XIV.; they were all mathematicians, and by the king's command they were admitted members of the Academy of Sciences previously to their departure.

Father Brédevent, known for his physico-mathematical dissertation, unfortunately died while traversing Ethiopia; but the public reaped the benefit of part of his labors. Father Sicard visited Egypt with draughtsmen furnished him by M. de Maurepas. His great work, under the title of Description of Ancient and Modern Egypt, having been deposited while yet in manuscript in the profession-house of the Jesuits, was thence stolen, and no tidings have ever been heard of it since. Certainly no person was better qualified to acquaint us with the state of Persia

1 See the Lettres Édifiantes and Fleury's work on the qualities necessary for a missionary.

and the history of the renowned Thamas Kouli Khan than Bazin the monk, who was first physician to that conqueror and attended him in all his expeditions. Father Coeur-doux informed us respecting the manufactures and dyes of India. China was as well known to us as France; we had original manuscripts and translations of its history; we had Chinese herbals, geographies, and books of mathematics; and, to crown the singularity of this extraordinary mission, Father Ricci wrote moral works in the language of Confucius, and is still accounted an elegant author at Pekin.

If China is now closed against us, and we are no longer able to dispute with the English the empire of India, it is not the fault of the Jesuits, who were on the point of opening to us those vast regions. "They had succeeded in America," says Voltaire, "in teaching savages the necessary arts; they succeeded also in China in teaching a polished nation the most sublime sciences."

The services which they rendered to their country throughout the Levant are equally well established. Were any authentic proof of this required, it would be found in the following distinguished testimonial:

THE KING'S WARRANT.

"This day, the seventh of June, one thousand six hundred and seventy-nine, the king being at St. Germain-en-Laye, wishing to gratify and favor the French fathers of the Society of Jesus, who are missionaries in the Levant, in consideration of their zeal for religion, and of the advantages which his subjects, residing and trafficking in those parts, derive from their instructions, his majesty has retained and retains them for his chaplains in the church and consular chapel of the city of Aleppo in Syria, &c.

(Signed,)

LOUIS."

To these same missionaries we are indebted for the attachment to the French name still cherished by the savages in the forests of America. A white handkerchief is sufficient to insure you a safe passage through hostile tribes, and to procure you everywhere lodging and hospitality. The Jesuits of Canada and

1 Essai sur les missions chretiennes, p. 195.

2 Lettres édif. tome i. p. 129.

Louisiana discovered new articles of trade, new dyeing materials and medicines, and directed the attention of the colonists to their cultivation. By naturalizing in our country the insects, birds, and plants of foreign climes,' they added to the riches of our manufactories, to the delicacies of our table, and to the shade of our woods.

They, too, were the writers of those simple or elegant annals which we possess in relation to our colonies. What an admirable history is that of the Antilles by Dutertre, or that of New France by Charlevoix! The works of those pious authors are fraught with every species of science; learned dissertations, portraitures of manners, plans of improvement for our settlements, the mention of useful objects, moral reflections, interesting adventures, are all to be found in them. You there find the history of an acacia or Chinese willow, as well as that of an emperor reduced to the necessity of stabbing himself; and the account of the conversion of a Paria in the middle of a treatise on the mathematics of the Bramins. The style of these narratives, sometimes rising to the sublime, is often admirable for its simplicity. Lastly, astronomy, and chiefly geography, were annually enriched by our missionaries with new information. A Jesuit in Tartary meets with a Huron woman whom he had known in Canada; from this extraordinary circumstance he infers that the American continent approached at the northwest to the Asiatic coast, and thus he conjectured the existence of that strait which long afterward conferred glory on a Behring and a Cook. Great part of Canada and all Louisiana were explored by our missionaries. In calling the savages of Nova Scotia to Christianity, they transferred to us those coasts which proved a mine of wealth for our commerce and a nursery for our seamen. Such is a small part of the services which these men, now so despised, found means to render to their country.9

1 Two monks, during the reign of Justinian, brought the first silkworms from Serinda to Constantinople. For the turkey-fowl, and several foreign trees and shrubs, naturalized in Europe, we are indebted also to the missionaries.

2 There can scarcely be a doubt that, if a band of missionaries were employed to Christianize the savages of Florida, New Mexico, and California, the United States government would be spared a vast amount of treasure and the sacrifice of many valuable lives. T.

CHAPTER II.

MISSIONS OF THE LEVANT.

EACH of the missions had a character and a species of sufferings peculiar to itself. Those of the Levant presented a spectacle of a very philosophical nature. How powerful was that Christian voice which resounded amid the tombs of Argos and the ruins of Sparta and Athens! In those same islands of Naxos and Salamis which gave birth to the brilliant theories that turned the heads of the Greeks, a poor Catholic priest, disguised as a Turk, throws himself into a boat, lands at some wretched cabin formed among the broken shafts of columns, administers consolation to a descendant of the conquerors of Xerxes extended on a couch of straw, distributes alms in the name of Jesus Christ, and-doing good, as others do evil, under the veil of darknessreturns in secret to his desert.

The man of science who goes to measure the relics of antiquity in the solitudes of Europe and Asia has undoubtedly some claim to our admiration; but there is a man who commands still higher respect, some unknown Bossuet expounding the words of the prophets on the ruins of Tyre and Babylon.

It pleased the Almighty that there should be an abundant harvest on so rich a soil: ground like that could not be unfruitful. "We left Serpho," says Father Xavier, "more cheered than I am capable of expressing here; the people loading us with benedictions, and thanking God a thousand times for having inspired us with the design and the resolution of visiting them among their rocks!"1

The mountains of Lebanon, as well as the sands of Thebais, witnessed the self-devotion of these missionaries. They are inexpressibly happy in giving a lively interest to the most trifling. circumstances. If, for example, they are describing the cedars of Lebanon, they tell you of four stone altars which are seen at

1 Lettr. édif., tome i. p. 15.

the foot of those trees, and where the Maronite monks performed a solemn mass on the anniversary of the Transfiguration. Their religious voices seem to mingle with the murmur of those woods celebrated by Solomon and Jeremias, and with the noise of the torrents falling from the mountains.

Are they speaking of the valley where flows the holy river, they say, "In these rocky hills are deep caverns which formerly served as so many cells for a great number of recluses, who had chosen these retreats as the only witnesses upon earth of the severity of their penance. It was the tears of these pious penitents that gave to the river just referred to the name of the holy river. Its source is in the mountains of Lebanon. The sight of those caverns and that river in this frightful desert excites compunction, a love of penance, and compassion for those sensual and worldly souls who prefer a few days of enjoyment and pleasure to an eternity of bliss." In our opinion, this passage is a perfect model both in regard to style and sentiment.

These missionaries possessed a wonderful instinct for tracking out misfortune and pursuing it even to its last hiding-place. The slave-prisons and the galleys infected with the plague could not escape their ingenious charity. Hear what Father Tarillon says in his lettter to Pontchartrain :

"The services which we render to these poor creatures (the Christian slaves at Constantinople) consist in keeping them in the fear of God and in the faith; in procuring them relief from the charity of the faithful; in attending them during illness; and, lastly, in assisting them to die the death of the righteous. If in the performance of these duties we encounter many hardships and difficulties, I can affirm that God rewards it with great consolations..

“In times of pestilence, as it is necessary to be close at hand to attend such persons as are infected, and as we have here only four or five missionaries, our custom is to let only one of our number go into the prison and remain there as long as the disease continues. He who obtains permission for this of the superior prepares himself for the task during a few days of retreat, and takes leaves of his brethren as if he were soon to die. Some

1 Lettr. édif., tome i. p. 288.