even a Presbyterian minister,—has completely exonerated the Church of Rome.

"With still greater injustice," says he, "have many authors represented the intolerating spirit of the Roman Catholic religion as the cause of exterminating the Americans, and have accused the Spanish ecclesiastics of animating their countrymen to the slaughter of that innocent people as idolaters and enemies of God. But the first missionaries who visited America, though weak and illiterate, were pious men. They early espoused the defence of the natives, and vindicated their character from the aspersions of their conquerors, who, describing them as incapable of being formed to the offices of civil life or of comprehending the doctrines of religion, contended that they were a subordinate race of men, on whom the hand of nature had set the mark of servitude. From the accounts which I have given of the humane and persevering zeal of the Spanish missionaries in protecting the helpless flock committed to their charge, they appear in a light which reflects lustre upon their function. They were ministers of peace, who endeavored to wrest the rod from the hands of oppressors. To their powerful interposition the

Americans were indebted for every regulation tending to miti gate the rigor of their fate. The clergy in the Spanish settlements, regular as well as secular, are still considered by the Indians as their natural guardians, to whom they have recourse under the hardships and exactions to which they are too often exposed."1

This passage is formal, and the more remarkable, as the Protestant divine, before he draws this conclusion, furnishes all the evidence that decided his opinion. He quotes the remonstrances of the Dominicans in behalf of the Caribbees: for it was not Las Casas alone who undertook their defence; it was his whole order and the rest of the Spanish ecclesiastics. To this the historian has subjoined the bulls of the popes, and the royal ordinances, issued at the solicitation of the clergy, to ameliorate the condition of the native Americans and to restrain the cruelty of the colonists.

The profound silence which philosophy has observed respecting

1 Robertson's America, 8vo, vol. iv. pp. 8, 9.

this decisive passage of Robertson is very strange, and deserves to be exposed. Every thing of that author's is quoted excepting the important fact which exhibits the conquest of America in a new light, and which refutes one of the most atrocious calumnies of which history was ever guilty. Sophists have assiduously endeavored to stigmatize religion with a crime which she not only never committed, but of which she felt the utmost abhorrence in this way have tyrants often accused the victims of their cruelty.1

CHAPTER III.

HÔTEL-DIEU-GRAY SISTERS.

We now come to that period when Religion designed to show, as it were, in one single point of view, that there are no human woes which she dares not encounter, that there is no wretchedness beyond the sphere of her love.

The Hôtel-Dieu was founded by St. Landry, the eighth bishop of Paris. The buildings were successively increased by the chapter of Nôtre-Dame, to whom the hospital belonged, by St. Louis, by the Chancellor Duprat, and by Henry IV.; so that it may with truth be said that this receptacle of all human ills expanded in proportion as those sufferings were multiplied, and that charity increased in an equal ratio with affliction.

The hospital was originally attended by monks and nuns

1 See note UU, where the passage from Robertson will be found in full, with an explanation of the massacre of Ireland and that of St. Bartholomew. The extract from the English historian leaves nothing to be desired, and causes those to raise their eyes in astonishment who have been accustomed to all the declamations on the massacres in the New World. The point in question is not whether monsters burned men in honor of the twelve apostles, but whether religion instigated those atrocious proceedings or denounced them to the execration of posterity. One solitary priest undertook to justify the Spaniards; but Robertson will tell how he was treated by the clergy, and what bursts of indignation he excited.

2 About the middle of the seventh century. T.

under the rule of St. Augustin; but it has for a long time been left exclusively to the latter. "Cardinal Vitry," says Helyot, "doubtless alluded to the nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu when he said that some of them did violence to their feelings, endured with joy and without repugnance the loathsome sight of all human afflictions, and that in his opinion no sort of penance could be compared to this kind of martyrdom."

"There is no one," continues the same author, "who sees the nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu not only dress the wounds of the patients, keep them clean, and make their beds, but also, in the most intense cold of winter, break the ice in the stream which runs through the hospital, and go into it up to their waists to wash their linen, impregnated with filth of the most nauseous description, but must consider them as holy victims, who, from excess of love and charity, in order to serve their fellow-creatures, voluntarily run into the jaws of death, which they defy, in a manner, amid so much infection occasioned by the great number of patients."

We call not in question the virtues which philosophy inspires; but they will appear much more striking to the vulgar when they shall have exhibited acts of self-devotion similar to those just mentioned. The simple recital of Helyot, however, is far from giving a complete idea of the daily sacrifices of these Christian females. He mentions not the abnegation of the pleasures of life, nor the loss of youth and beauty, nor the renunciation of the conjugal character and the endearments of a family. He says nothing concerning all the sacrifices of the heart, the extinction of all the tenderest sentiments except pity, which, among such varieties of wo, becomes only an additional torment.

Yet-would you believe it?-we have seen patients in the agony of death raise themselves on their couches, and muster all their strength to overwhelm with abuse the angels who attended them. And for what reason? Because they were Christians. Ah! wretches, who would attend you but Christians? Other charitable women like these, who were deserving of a religious worship, were publicly scourged. We will not disguise the word. After such a return for so much kindness, who would have again returned to the miserable? Who? Why, these same women; they flew at the first signal, or rather they never

quitted their post. Behold here religious human nature and impious human nature brought into one view, and judge between them.

The gray nun' did not confine her virtues, like the sisters of the Hôtel-Dieu, within the mansions of infection; she diffused them abroad like a fragrant odor in the fields; she went to visit the infirm husbandman in his cottage. How affecting to see a young woman, beautiful and compassionate, performing, in the name of God, the office of physician for the rustic! We were recently shown, in a meadow, a small house overhung with willows, formerly occupied by three gray nuns. From this rural abode they sallied forth at all hours of the night, as well as day, to administer relief to the country-people. They, as well as their sisters, were remarkable for the neatness of their external appearance and a look of content, indicating that body and soul were alike free from stain. They were full of tenderness, but yet were not deficient in firmness to endure the sight of human sufferings and to enforce the obedience of their patients. They excelled in setting a limb broken by a fall or dislocated by those accidents so common in the country. But a circumstance of still greater importance was that the gray nun never failed to drop a word concerning God in the ear of the husbandman; and never did morality assume forms more divine for the purpose of insinuating itself into the human heart.

While these Hospitallers astonished by their charity even those who were accustomed to their sublime acts, other wonders were occurring at Paris. Ladies of distinction exiled themselves from the city and the court and set out for Canada. They, doubtless, you would suppose, went to acquire some property, to repair a shattered fortune, or to lay the foundation of a vast estate. Such was not their object. They went in the midst of a sanguinary war to found hospitals in the forests for hostile savages.

In Europe we fire cannon to announce the destruction of

1 So called from the color of her dress. This excellent institute was founded at Montreal, Lower Canada, about the year 1747, by Madame d'Youville, who, with her companions, took charge of the Hôpital Général in that city. The sisters devote themselves to various works of mercy. T.

several thousands of men; but in new and distant settlements, where we are nearer to misfortune and to nature, we rejoice only in what is really deserving of thanks and blessings, that is to say, acts of beneficence and humanity. Three poor nuns, under the conduct of Madame de la Peltrie, land on the Canadian shores, and the whole colony is in a tumult of joy. "The day of the arrival of persons so ardently desired," says Charlevoix, "was a holiday for the whole town. All work was suspended and the shops were closed. The governor received the heroines on the shore at the head of his troops, who were under arms, and with the discharge of cannon. After the first compliments, he led them, amid the acclamations of the people, to the church, where Te Deum was sung.

"These pious nuns and their generous conductress, on their part, eagerly kissed the soil after which they had so long sighed, which they hoped to bless with their labors, and which they did not despair even of bedewing with their blood. The French intermingling with the savages, and even unbelievers with the Christians, were unwearied in the expression of their joy. They continued for several days to make the air resound with their shouts of gladness, and gave a thousand thanks to Him who alone could impart such strength and courage to the weakest persons. At the sight of the huts of the savages to which the nuns were conducted the day after their arrival, they were seized with fresh transports of joy. They were not disgusted by the poverty and want of cleanliness which pervaded them; but objects so calculated to abate their zeal tended only to increase its ardor, and they expressed the utmost impatience to enter upon the exercise of their functions.

"Madame de la Peltrie, who had never desired to be rich, and had so cheerfully made herself poor for the sake of Jesus Christ, spared no efforts for the salvation of souls. Her zeal even impelled her to cultivate the earth with her own hands, that she might have wherewith to relieve the poor converts. In a few days she had deprived herself of what she had reserved for her own use, so as to be reduced to the want even of what

1 Madame Peltrie, with three Ursuline nuns, arrived in Quebec in 1639, and founded there the convent of that order, which is still flourishing. T.