Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/535

Rh MISSIONS 513 and a Slavonic Liturgy ; thence to Bohemia, and so onwards to the Scythian wilds and level steppes, where arose the Russian kingdom of Ruric the Northman, and where about the close of the 10th century the Eastern Church &quot; silently and almost unconsciously bore into the world her mightiest offspring.&quot; l But, though the baptism of Vladimir and the flinging of the triple and many-headed idols into the waters of the Dnieper was a heavy blow to Slavonic idolatry, mission work was carried on with but partial success ; and it taxed all the energies of Albrecht, bishop of Bremen, of Vicilin, bishop of Oldenburg, of Bishop Otto of Bamberg the apostle of the Pomeranians, of Adalbert the martyr-apostle of Prussia, to spread the word in that country, in Lithuania, and in the territory of the Wends. It was not till 1168 that the gigantic four- headed image of Swantevit was destroyed at Arcona, the capital of the island of Riigen, and this Mona of Slavonic superstition was included in the advancing circle of Christian civilization. As late as 1230 human sacrifices were still being offered up in Prussia and Lithuania, and, in spite of all the efforts of the Teutonic Knights to expel by force the last remains of heathenism from the face of Europe, idolatrous practices still lingered amongst the people, while in the districts inhabited by the Lapps, though successful missions had been inaugurated as early as 1335, Christianity cannot be said to have become the dominant religion till at least two centuries later. (e) Moslem Missions. The mention of the order of the Teutonic Knights reminds us how the crusading spirit had affected Christendom, and exchanged the patience of a Boniface or an Anskar for the fiery zeal of the warrior of the cross. Still it is refreshing to notice how even now there was found the famous Raymond Lully to protest against propagandism by the sword, to urge on pope after pope the necessity of missions amongst the Moslems, and to seal his testimony with his blood outside the gates of Bugiah in northern Africa (June 30, 1315). Out of the crusades, however, arose other effects to bear the banner of the cross into the lands of the East, and to develop the work which Nestorian missionaries from Baghdad, Edessa, and Nisibis had already inaugurated along the Malabar coast, in the island of Ceylon, and in the neighbourhood of the Caspian Sea. In 1245 the Roman pontiff sent two embassies, one to charge the Mongol warriors to desist from their desolating inroads into Europe, the other to attempt to win them over to the Christian faith. The first, a party of four Dominicans, sought the commander-in-chief of the Mongol forces in Persia ; the second, consisting of Franciscans, made their way into Tartary, and sought to convert the successor of Oktai-Khan. Their exertions were seconded in 1253 by the labours of another Franciscan whom Louis IX. of France sent forth from Cyprus, 2 while in 1274 the celebrated traveller Marco Polo, accompanied by two learned Dominicans, visited the court of Kublai-Khan, and at the commencement of the 14th century two Franciscans penetrated as far as Peking, and kept alive a flickering spark of Christianity in the Tartar kingdom, even translating the New Testament and the Psalter into the Tartar language, and training youths for a native ministry. 3 (/) Missions to India and the New World. These ten tative missions in the East were now to be supplemented by others on a larger scale. In 1486 the Cape of Good Hope was rounded by Dias, and in 1508 the foundations of the Stanley, Eastern Church, p. 294. 2 Xeander, vii. 69; Hakluyt, 171; Hue, i. 207. 3 Neander, vii. 79; Gicseler, iv. 259, -GO; Hardwick, Middle Ayes, 235-337. Portuguese Indian empire were laid by Albuquerque. Columbus also in 1492 had landed on San Salvador, and the voyages of the Venetian Cabot along the coast of North America opened up a new wo::!d to missionary enterprise. These bold discoverers had secured the countenance of the pope on the condition that wherever they might plant a flag they should be also zealous in promoting the extension of the Christian faith. Thus a grand opportunity was given to the churches of Portugal and Spain. But the zeal of the Portuguese, even when not choked by the rising lust of wealth and territorial power, took too often a one-sided direction, repressing the Syrian Christians on the Malabar coast, and interfering with the Abyssinian Church, 4 while the fanatic temper of the Spaniard, maddened by his prolonged conflict with the infidel at home, betrayed him into methods of propagating his faith which we cannot contemplate without a shudder, consigning, in Mexico and Peru, multitudes who would not renounce their heathen errors to indiscriminate massacre or abject slavery. 5 Their only defender for many years was the famous Las Casas, who, having sojourned amongst them till 1516, has drawn a terrible picture of the oppression he strove in vain to prevent. 6 Some steps indeed were taken for disseminating Christian principles, and the pope in granting territory to the crowns of Spain and Portugal had specially urged this duty, and had been instrumental in inducing a band of missionaries, chiefly of the mendicant orders, to go forth to this new mission field. 7 But the results were scanty. Only five bishoprics had been established by 1520, and the number of genuine con verts was small. In settling, however, his realm the conqueror of Mexico evinced no little solicitude for the spiritual welfare of his charge; and the labours of the devoted men whom he begged the emperor to send out were successful in banishing every vestige of the Aztec worship from the Spanish settlements. 8 (//) The Jesuit Missions. It was during the period at which we have now arrived that the great organization of the Jesuits came into existence, and one of the first of Loyola s associates, Francis Xavier, was also one of the greatest and most zealous missionaries of his or any other era. Encouraged by the joint co-operation of the pope and of John III. of Portugal, and strongly tinged like Loyola with ideas of chivalry and self-devotion, he disem barked at Goa on the 6th of May 1542, and before his death on the Isle of St John (Hiang-Shang), December 2, 1552, he had roused the European Christians of Goa to a new life, laboured with singular success amongst the Para- vars, a fisher caste near Cape Comorin, gathered many converts in the kingdom of Travancore, visited the island of Malacca, made his way to and founded a mission in Japan, thence revisited Goa, and impelled by the quenchless desire to unfurl the banner of the cross in China, had set out thither to fall a victim to malignant fever at the early age of forty -six, within sight of that vast empire whose conversion had been the object of his holy ambition. The immediate successor of Xavier, Antonio Criminalis, was regarded by the Jesuits as the first martyr of their society (1562). Mattheo Ricci, an Italian by birth, was also an indefatigable missionary in China for twenty-seven years, while the peculiar methods of unholy compromise with Brahmanism in India followed by Robert de Nobili drew down the condemnatory briefs of pope after pope, and were fatal to the vitality of his own and other missions. 4 Geddes, History of the Church of Malabar, p. 4 ; Ncale, Eastern Church, ii. 343. 5 Prescott, Conquest of Mexico,. 318, iii. 218. 6 Relation de la Deftruycion de las Indias. 7 Prescott, Mexico, iii. 218 n 8 Prescott, iii. 219. XVI. 6$