"Sam": or The history of mystery./ By C. W. Webber.

" SAM:" OR, THE HISTORY OF MYSTERY.
them a rallying point upon the continent, then, witlh that
skillful mixture of military law and spiritual despotism which
has always constituted the phenomenon of their ascendency
in the Christian world, they pushed forward their corpse-like
trainbands of helpless devotees, in eager emulation for more
extended explorations and" Reductions," upon the wilderness
fastnesses of the north-west, in search of the sources of certain great traditionary outlets of the then boundless limits of
the New World, which they meant to claim and assert as
their own, since the old seemed passing so rapidly from
their grasp. Gold as well as souls seemed always to have
been most discreetly mingled with their aspirations for conquest in America; and the earliest delusions of gold in Acadia, which so rapidly gave way before the sterner facts of a
bleak and inhospitable reality, had been kept alive by vague
rumors of a mighty empire, drained by endless rivers flowing
through sands of gold, which held their sources far in a mysterious interior, and had fired anew immaculate ecstaticisms
wRi_ch look to their final realization in a "golden city," which,
either in heaven or on earth was to constitute their reward.
The prodigious results of the conquests of Cortez and the
Pizarros had not wanted of circulation through the right
hands-but then, although the holy Order of Jesus had not
been organized, its founders had not failed to participate in,
and comprehend the benefits of, such acquisitions-indeed, it
had been during the immediate ferment of European mind,
caused by the introduction of this new and mighty element,
that the crafty and sagacious intellect of Loyola projected
this late and most fatal organization on this the sole predominating idea of Jesuitism-though the enmity to Protestantism was the next of course, as he saw in it the mortal
antagonism of spiritual despotism!
That these apparently unselfish enterprises of the early Jesuits should have proceeded from such causes, why need we stop
to argue? But it may be well that we should give a few preliminary facts as illustrating, here and there, the condition
in which the early catholic conquest left Old and New Mexico.
First, as showing in how much the Catholic Church proper
has conserved to the preservation of the ancient literature and
arts of all countries which have been conquered by Catholic
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