Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/835

Rh P K P R 811 established in 1841 and entrusted to the Paris seminary, which has a college in Penang for natives of China and neighbouring countries. Jesuits, Dominicans, and Fran ciscans brought the Catholic faith to Siam in the 16th century. The first vicar apostolic was appointed in 1678. A terrible persecution of Christians, causing great loss, broke out in 1772, and it was not till 1821 that the missions were restored. The vicariate was divided into two in 1841. In the missions of the Anamite empire, comprising Tong-king and Cochin China, and the missions to Cambodia and to the Laos people, Christianity may be said to have had its birth and its growth in blood, so fierce and numerous have the persecutions been. In the 14th century the faith was introduced by Dominicans and Franciscans, and the first mission established in 1550 by Gaspare della Croce. The Jesuits came in 1615, and in 1665 the Propaganda established here the priests of the seminary of foreign missions. A few years later the number of Christians in the southern provinces of Cochin China was 17,000, with 60 churches. Persecution followed persecution. The Dominican Father Francesco Gil, after nine years imprisonment, was martyred in 1745. All foreigners were driven from the kingdom in 1825, and in 1826 an edict was issued against the Christians. What seemed a war of extermination was undertaken in 1833. Missionaries sought refuge in tombs and grottos, whence they issued by night to administer the sacraments. Mgr. Delgado, vicar apostolic of Western Tong-king, Mgr. Henares his coadjutor, several Chinese priests, Mgr. Barie, vicar apostolic of Eastern Tong-king (about to be consecrated bishop), and an incredible number of lay persons of all ranks were put to death. In 1842 the cause of the beatification and sanctification of the Anamite martyrs was introduced by the Sacred Congregation of .Rites. Perse cution was renewed in 1844; the exiled missionaries and prelates returned, though a price was put upon their heads. Christianity was proscribed throughout all Anam in 1848; native priests were exiled, and European clergy cast into the sea or the nearest river. Nevertheless the vicariate of Cambodia was founded in 1850, and Eastern Cochin China was made a separate vicariate. A new edict appeared in 1851, again enjoining that European priests should be cast into the sea, and natives, unless they trampled upon the cross, severed in two. The missionaries Schaeffler and Bonnard were put to death ; the vicars apostolic perished of hunger ; the mass of Christians were imprisoned or exiled. In 1856 and 1857 whole Christian villages were burned and their inhabitants dispersed. The edict of 1862 enjoined that Christians should be given in charge to pagans, that their villages should be burned and their property seized, and that on one cheek should ba branded the words &quot;false religion.&quot; In 1863 the number of martyrs had reached forty thousand, without reckoning those driven into the woods, where they perished. Never theless, the Anamite church, steeped in blood, has in creased, and is regarded as the brightest gem of the Propaganda missions. India is one of the most extensive fields in which the mis sionaries have laboured. Previous to the founding of the Propaganda the Jesuits had established several missions in India. The introduction of vicars apostolic consolidated the basis of Christianity, and now twenty-three vicariates apostolic and a delegate apostolic direct the spiritual affairs of this great country. In Africa, Catholic missionaries were the first travellers, two centuries prior to Livingstone and Stanley. The earliest mission was that of Tunis (1624). The missions of the Cape of Good Hope were entrusted to the clergy of Mauritius ; the Reformat! and the Observants went to Egypt, the Carmelites to Mo zambique and Madagascar, the Capuchins and Jesuits to Ethiopia and Abyssinia. The spiritual affairs of Africa are directed by one metropolitan and thirty-six bishops, vicars, and prefects apostolic. The progress of Catholicism in Australia is evident from the fact that two metro politans, those of Melbourne and Sydney, with twelve suffragans direct its ecclesiastical affairs. While the missionary field of the Propaganda embraces Asia, Africa, Oceania, and both Americas, as well as England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, Germany, Norway and Sweden, Iceland. Greenland, Switzerland, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey, &c., perhaps the most splendid results of its work are to be met with in the United States and in Canada. In 1632 many Catholics settled with Lord Baltimore in Maryland. A century and a half later, in 1789, they had so increased that the Congregation of Propaganda withdrew them from the jurisdiction of the vicar apostolic of London and formed a new see in Baltimore, comprising the territory of the United States. In 1808 the sees of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Bardstown (Louisville) were erected, and Baltimore was made the metropolitan diocese. At the end of 1884 there were twelve metropolitans and seventy-six bishops and vicars apostolic in the United States. In 1659 Mgr. Fra^ois de Laval was the first vicar apostolic of Canada ; shortly afterwards the episco pal see of Quebec was established. Now Canada has four metropolitan and sixteen suffragan sees. The Italian Government, in virtue of the laws relating to ecclesi astical property of 1866, 1867, and 19th June 1873, sold the Villa Montalto, Frascati, belonging to the Propaganda, and placed the price in the Italian funds, paying interest to the Congregation. Other property of the Congregation having been sold, a law-suit was entered upon and decided in the Court of Cassation at Rome, 31st May 1881, in favour of the Propaganda. Appeal was made to the tribunal of Ancona, where, 14th December 1881, decision was given against the Propaganda. Appeal being again made, the Court of Cassation of Rome gave final judgment, 9th February 1884, against the Propaganda. This sentence empowers the Italian Government to sell the landed or immovable property of the Propaganda, place the proceeds in the Italian funds, and pay the interest to the Congregation. Protests against this act have been issued by Pope Leo XIII., by Cardinal Jacobini, secretary of state to the pontiff, by nearly all the Catholic bishops, and by innumerable thousands of lay Catholics and many Protestants. (D. J.) PROPERTIUS, SEXTUS, the greatest elegiac poet of Rome, was born of a good Umbrian family, who were con siderable landed proprietors in the fair and fertile region between Perusia and the river Clitumnus. The seat of the Propertii was at Asisium or Assisi, the birthplace of the famous St Francis ; and here also was Propertius born. The year of his birth is uncertain, and it has been vari ously placed between 57 and 44 B.C. We learn from one passage of Ovid that Propertius was his senior, but also his friend and companion ; from another that he was third in the sequence of elegiac poets, following Gallus, who was born in 69 B.C., and Tibullus, whose birth has been assigned to 54 B.C., and immediately preceding Ovid himself, who, as he tells us elsewhere, was born in 43 B.C. We shall not be far wrong in supposing he was born about 50 B.C., a date which also agrees well with the indications of the poems themselves. His early life was full of misfortune. He buried his father before his time ; and grief was closely followed by poverty. After the battle of Philippi and the return of Octavian to Rome the victorious legions had to be provided for; their clamorous need and cupidity could only be appeased by wholesale agrarian confiscation, and the north of Italy had to be surrendered. In common with his fellow poets Virgil and Horace, Propertius was de prived of his estate; but, unlike these, he had no patrons^at court, and he was reduced from opulence to comparative in digence. The widespread disaffection which these measures provoked was turned to account by Lucius Antonius, the brother of the triumvir, and his wife, the notorious Fulvia. The insurrection which is generally known as the Mlum