Abyssinia and King Theodore, Part I-VI [pp. 265-281]

Abysstzia and Kintg Tlzcodore.
they refused to open the cavern for
him, maintaining that a tomb prepared for Wibe, who was still a
chained captive, could have no interest for his conqueror, Theodore suspected some plot, and caused the
stone of the sepulchre to be removed.
His surprise was great when, instead
of a coffin, he beheld a beautiful girl,
bathed in tears, and in the attitude
of prayer. Theodore forgot his first
love. He set Wibe at liberty, and
married his daughter. This union
was not happy. The y/ege, or queen,
having interceded to save the life of
a rebel whom she had known at the
court of her father, Theodore refused
at first her request, and becoming
angry, finally struck her. In order
to humiliate her the more, he made a
common camp follower his concubine.
From this moment his decree on
Christian marriage became a dead
letter, and the slave-trade was renewed. Men must have stronger
virtue than that of King Theodore,
that their good thoughts may bear
full fruit.
IV.
LET us here give some account of
the English missions in Ethiopia; for
they have helped to bring about and
inflame the war now pending. M.
Gobat, a Swiss Protestant, went as
far as Gondar about forty years ago,
and acquired a knowledge of the
language of the country. After his
return to Europe, he published a
book of such seeming good faith, that
it deceived me at first, as it must
have deceived the English projectors
of the missions. Charity obliges me
to write that M. Gobat, in giving an
account of his sermons to the people,
has rather described what he desired
to say, and the answers he would
like to hear, than what he actually
said or heard. Without citing other
witnesses of this fact, that of an edu
cated Dabtara will suffice, who was
ignorant of the existence of the Protestant missions. "Samuel Gobat,"
said he, "was a prepossessing person,
who deceived one at first. I, who
followed him, can affirm that he was
really an unbeliever, or that he pretended to be so. He proposed
frightful doubts and objections in
matters affecting the Christian religion, but under the form of hypotheses. He always began his strange
assertions by an if. Could hle express them boldly? If he had, you
know that in Gondar, at least, he
would not have been allowed to continue, and he would have been denied a residence in our city."
The missionary societies in England did not know this condition of
the Ethiopian mind, and influenced
by the specious arguments of M. Gobat, they sent him a re-enforcement
of three ministers, whom he left to
return to Europe. They preached
much more honestly and openly than
he in Adwa and Tigray, where they
were established. They were expelled in i838, fifteen days before my
arrival in the country. Two of them
then went to Suria, from which they
were also driven. With a perseverance worthy of a better cause, they
returned again to Tigray, and again
to Suria. Always exiled, they had
at last the prudence, in I855, to make
no further attempt at evangelizing
the country.
Seventeen years before this last
date I met at Cairo a young Lazarist
priest, whom I persuaded to accompany me into Ethiopia, to found a
Catholic mission. He preceded me,
went to Adwa about eight days before the first expulsion of the Protestant missionaries; and as my project
seemed to him sensible, requiring
only time and patience to realize it,
I brought letters from him to Europe
in I838. His holiness, Gregory XVI.,
275