False Views of History [pp. 23-48]

3S False Views of History. [July,
subject of missionaries recalls those of the Romish church,
and we are impelled by a sense of justice to pay a homage of praise to the society of Jesuits. The annals of heroism can furnish no instances of devotion equal t9 that of
their missionaries. Whatever judgment we may form
respecting the objects and ends of that celebrated society,
we must admit that the ministers in its employment exhibited the purest specimens of apostolical zeal which the
world has ever witnessed. The missionary stipulated for
no comfort-not even f~r life itself. He renounced all
dignities, except when dignity added to his dangers. He
bowed submissively, joyfully, to the will of his superior,
and addressed himself with alacrity to his task, Jesuitism has long been a term of reproach. It ought not to be
so in any portion of America. This whole continent was
long the scene of their constant efforts of disinterested
benevolence. Where will you find heroism so sublime,
mingled with benevolence, so childlike, as that of Rasles?
Where a martyrdom so courageous as those of Bubeuf
and of Vincennes? And when the imagination would
picture to itself a life of primeval innocence and simplicity, when men are under the direct teaching of heaven;
when one would describe an Utopia, in which the gentleness of the dove, on the part of the people, is guided by
the wisdom of the serpent, on that of the superior, you
have but to transport yourself to the interior of Paraguay,
and find that the Jesuits have there red need to practice
all your pleasant dreams. That peaceful society, that
realization of the poet's dream of a golden age, has been
swept away with the suppression of the society which
established it. The order was suppressed by the very
power whose authority it was created to support; and
throughout Lurope, protestant and catholic united in a
common voice of denunciation. But time will see justice
done. What compensation can he made for the destruction
of the peaceful society of Paraguay, the only instance on
record of an American people enjoying happiness under
the influence of European civilization? What have those
miserable men to show, under what is called a more liberal system, worthy of any comparison with the simple and
undisturbed happiness of the halcyon days of Jesuitical
-rule? And how dare we, in North America, yield to the
popular clamour against that society, whilst our soil is