Page:Catholic Magazine And Review, Volume 3 and Volume 4, 1833.djvu/132

118 at the court of China, being an eye witness of the devotedness of our missionaries, could not withhold from them this high but just eulogium. "It is a singular spectacle (he writes) to see men animated by motives so different from those which usually actuate human actions, quitting for ever their country and friends, and consecrating their lives to the task of changing the religion of a people they have never seen. In the pursuit of this object they incur dangers of every kind, suffer all sorts of persecution, and renounce all the comforts of life. By means of their address, talents, perseverance and humility they triumph over every obstacle and succeed in making establishments necessary for the propagation of their faith, without using their influence to procure for themselves any personal advantage."

Such has been, and such is to this day the character of our Catholic missionaries. The above is a general outline of the picture which the recital of the labours of these Apostolic men will unfold to the pious curiosity of the reader.—The future detail will shew him thousands of Christians, who compose that interesting portion of the Catholic church, flying from the penal laws of the sanguinary emperors, wandering through unknown forests, and hiding themselves in rocks and caverns without the means of subsistence. It will shew him, too, the zealous missionaries, their fathers in the faith, living in concealment, worn out with labours and tedious journeys, and hastening to premature death through the ardour of their charity for their dear neophytes. What a picture will this be! How sad, yet how consoling! What food will it furnish for meditation no less than for active and beneficent charity!—

—In these days of enlightenment, when men pride themselves on their superior knowledge, and the march of intellect which is now abroad, they are too apt to neglect solid principles, and to mistake superficial knowledge and superficial learning for that which is more useful and more so-