"CONVERTING" THE HEATHEN.

15

they might be given the baptism of blood with as little compunction as if they were dogs. With the awful fate of unbelievers awaiting them beyond death, a few stripes and tears more or less on this side seemed to make little difference. Severity towards many might be effectual in saving some, after this fashion of salvation. So the Spaniards may have lulled their consciences when in the name of heaven they turned earth into a hell, and "baptized a hundred with the sword for one at the font.”

We may doubt whether such notions of religious duty be more ludicrous or more lamentable; but they were not inconsistent with doctrines which blasphemously represented the Almighty as a being with the intellect of an inquisitor and the heart of a despot. Such doctrines were little likely to awaken seared consciences or to move covetous

breasts to mercy. Every mass, every offering, every formal confession and more formal absolution, only hardened the proud and orthodox lords of the New World in their accursed selfishness. Had they no sense of humour, to understand the contrast between their preaching and their practice? Surely then they must have felt the bitter unconscious sarcasm of a tale which describes how a body of these active disciples, armed to the teeth, marched forth to "convert" an Indian village, and found the frightened natives dancing frantically round a basket filled with gold, thinking thus to propitiate the Spaniards in doing honour to their god! A grimmer tale tells how Spanish prisoners were put to death by having melted gold poured down their

throats. If this tale be not true it is a just parable for so little indeed did the god avail them to whom they so madly devoted themselves. Better a thou sand times that the ocean, which swallowed up s much of it, had always concealed the gold which they wrung by tortures from kings, crushed out with the life of nations, and washed from the soil by the tears of their fellow creatures.

What was called the Christian religion had a fearful share in the guilt of these iniquities. But no church is without men who are better than their doctrines. If the doctrines of the Catholic Church of that day were false and baneful, the conduct of many of the Catholic clergy rose far above the spirit of their theology, and furnishes the brightest page in the history of the Spanish conquest. The name of Las Casas is one never to be remembered without honour. At first himself a slaveholder, he was led to a sense of the wrongs which he and his countrymen inflicted on their victims, and of his own free will became the first abolitionist. Henceforward he gave himself up to the hard task of claiming justice and mercy for the slaves. With his brothers of the order of St. Dominic he braved all opposition in this holy cause; they constantly denounced the wrath of God against the tyranny which was enacted around them; from the pulpit they asked indignantly whether it could be right that their fellow men, for whom Christ had died, should be branded like beasts with red hot irons, and gambled away at dice from one dissolute master to another. The anger of the grasping colonists

.

THE DOMINICANS.

17

did not silence them; they visited Spain again and again, to besiege the court with their claims of protection for the unhappy natives; by their writings they filled Europe with the tale of their countrymen's atrocities. They gave deeds as well as words; they went to preach among the heathen a far other gospel than that which had swords as its texts and chains as its commandments. They sought to have a country set apart, where they might expose their lives in this truly Christian mission, and where no layman might be allowed to come to undo their work by his hunger for gain and thirst for blood. Alas! the poor savages did not know their friends, but taking these visitors to be like the rest of their race, massacred them in revenge for a kidnapping foray. Too truly had the monks foreseen how their fellow believers would preach the truth! daunted, they did not yet draw back from their labour of love. There was a district in central America into which no armed force could penetrate, so fierce were the inhabitants and so strong were their retreats; it was called the Land of War. Here the brethren had free leave to carry the cross alone and at their own risk. A little band of them hastened to this post of danger; at their mild bidding the unsubdued warriors laid down their arms, and henceforth that rugged country was known as the Land of Peace. For very shame, the slayers and enslavers could not but listen at length to teachers who gave such proofs of their sincerity; and they listened the more readily, no doubt, when they began to find how their shortsighted rapacity was under

Un

mining their own interests. Humanity got a hear ing too late to save whole nations from being exter minated; but whatever amelioration was wrough in the condition of the Indians, when once the first fury of the conquest had passed away, was owing to the earnestness of these churchmen, who had come to the New World to seek no riches for themselves beyond the reward of him to whom it is given to gain souls. Their work in extending and confirming the dominion of Spain was in the end far greater than the share of the men of war. All over South America they spread their bloodless conquests, and established themselves by the force of a devotion that no dangers nor difficulties could

overcome.

The

We cannot but admire the spirit in which these men laboured, yet we must grieve that such labours have been so barren of wholesome fruit. Indians, their idols once thrown down, received easily the more superstitious part of their conquerors' religion; the yoke of Rome fitted them only too well. The lessons of submission sank but too deep into their character. With the wild freedom of the woods they have lost all energy and motive for exertion. Driven to their daily task, and secure of their daily food, they have become a listless and indolent as well as a docile flock. The monks have enslaved both body and mind, and diligently destroying the stimulating force of self reliance and free thought, have degraded rather than elevated their catechumens. So now, where the bell of the mission tinkles over cañon and monte, it speaks of