Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/102

82 instruction, to implant ideas, to stir mental activity, to explain doctrines, to open arguments, was dispensed with by the priest of the Roman Church. The Protestant could not take the first step in the conversion of a native without advancing it upon a previous stage in the process of civilization. His only medium was the mind, without any help from objective teaching by ritual, picture, or observance, or any aid from sense. The hopeful convert for the Protestant was considered as making difficult progress in his discipleship just to the degree in which he changed the whole manner and habit of his life.

In general it may be said that the Franciscan and the Jesuit Fathers have found satisfaction in their mission work among the American aborigines. They set for themselves an aim, with methods and conditions for securing it; and though these, being conformed to the theory of the Roman Church, may seem altogether inadequate as viewed by Protestants, they were the rule for its priests, and the result has stood to them for success.

In the judgment of Protestants, however, without any sharp indulgence of a sectarian spirit, it is to be affirmed, that, even if all the priests had been wise and faithful in their offices, this would not relieve the invasion and administration of the Spaniards in America from the severe reproach of a most unchristian treatment of the natives. The fidelity of the priests, taken in connection with the wilful recklessness of the soldiers and marauders, would but serve to confirm in the minds of Protestants a conviction which has many other tokens to warrant it, — that in the Roman system the Church is the priesthood, the laity being only a constituency and a following. Had the disciples of the Church no responsibility in the matter?

We have to look to the theocratical commonwealth established by the Jesuits in Paraguay, with its military appliances and fortresses, its rigidity of discipline, and its minute