Page:Colonization and Christianity.djvu/148

 as many as eight thousand inhabitants; the smallest fifteen hundred; the average was about three thousand. To preserve that purity of morals which was inculcated, it was found necessary to obtain a royal mandate, that no Spaniard should enter these Reductions except when going to the bishop or superior. "And one thing," says Charlevoix, "greatly to their honour, was universally allowed by all the Europeans settled in South America: the converted Indians inhabiting them, no longer exhibited traces of their former proneness to vengeance, cruelty, and the grosser vices. They were no longer, in any respect, the same men they formerly were. The most cordial love and affection for each other, and charity for all men, delighted all who visited them, the infidels especially, whom their behaviour served to inspire with the most favourable opinion of the Christian religion." "It is," he adds, "no ways surprising that God should work such wonders in such pure souls; nor that those very Indians, to whom some learned doctors would not allow reason enough to be received into the bosom of the church, should be at this day one of its greatest ornaments, and perhaps the most precious portion of the flock of Christ."

There is nothing more wonderful in all the inscrutable dispensations of Providence, than that this beautiful scene of innocence and happiness should have been suffered to be broken in upon by the wolves of avarice and violence, and all dispersed as a morning dream. But the Jesuits, by their advocacy and civilization of these poor people, had raised up against them three hostile powers,—the Spaniards—the man-hunters of Santo Paulo—and political demagogues.