Page:Colonization and Christianity.djvu/167

 that the little Tupis sometimes ran away from their parents to put themselves under the care of the Jesuits."

Fresh coadjutors arrived, and with them the celebrated Joseph de Anchieta, who became more celebrated than Nobrega himself. Nobrega now established a college in the plains of Piratininga, and sent thither thirteen of the brethren, with Anchieta as schoolmaster. If our settlers, in the different new nations where they have located themselves, had imitated the conduct of this great man, what a world would this be now! what a history of colonization would have to be written! how different to the scene I am doomed to lay open. "Day and night," says the historian, "did this indefatigable man labour in discharging the duties of his office. There were no books for the pupils; he wrote for every one his lesson on a separate leaf, after the business of the day was done, and it was sometimes day-light before his task was completed. The profane songs that were in use, he parodied into hymns in Portugueze, Castilian, Latin and Tupinamban. The ballads of the natives underwent the same travesty in their own tongue." He did not disdain to act as physician, barber, nor even shoemaker, to win them and to benefit them.

But it was not merely in such peaceful and blessed acts that the Jesuits were obliged to employ themselves. They were soon called upon to save the very colonies from their enemies. The French entered the country, and the native tribes smarting under the wrongs which the Portuguese had heaped plentifully on them, were only too glad to unite with them against their merciless oppressors. The Jesuits defended their own