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Show . ,BRAVEMEN.- Civilizing the SavageJesuits Leave a Sublime Example of Missionary Zeal Their Great Sacrifices Indians' Traits of Character Ingratitude, Inconstancy In-constancy and Idleness Plans Adopted Adopt-ed to Tame the Savage Become Mechanics and Musicians Mission- ' aries' Reward the Martyr's Crown A Divine Man Often Unknown to the World Natural Propensities Yield to the Influence of Christian Precepts. (Special Cor. Intermountain Catholic.) (Copyrighted.) The true idea of an effective religion, the idea which is formulated in the word Catholic, is that it should not merely be fully capable of adaptation to the habits of all climates and natures, but that in each locality it is able to meet the wants of all conditions of human life and of all typs f mind-. Our divine Lord and Master taught the highest; lessons of virtue and the most heroic and has exercised ex-ercised so deep an influence on human souls, that it may be truly said his active life of thnu and one-half years has done more to regenerate and humanize our race than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the discourses and writings of moralists since the world began. Among tlio believers iij the Divinity of Christ, ar.d more especially espe-cially in the church which he established to perpetuate per-petuate his doctrine and sacraments, we naturally look to find men, who by their lives and conduct furnish us examples of the influence on their souls of the grace and teaching of the divine Master. But particularly do we expect from those whom Cicero called divine men and whom we honor with the exalted title of priests lessons of sublime abnegation, ab-negation, of purity of life, and, when the occasion' occa-sion' demands it, of heroic sacrifice. To the credit of the Christian religion and for the honor of our race the centuries proclaim since the resurrection of our Lord the sanctity and heroism of vast numbers num-bers of these consecrated men who enobled their generations and died confessors and martyrs. Of these were the members of the missionary orders of the church and among them were many of tho order established by Ignatius Loyola for the conversion con-version of the heathen and the savage. The Jesuit fathers on the American missions showed to the world an example of missionary zeal, a sublirno enthusiasm, a steadness of perseverance, of suffering suffer-ing and of persecution heroically borne with a hope and resignation, which, while memory lives, will encircle their name with a halo of glory. l'Xo deeds," says Cicero, "are more laudable than those which are done without ostentation and far from the sight of men" Buried in the solitude of great wastes or amid the desolation of towering sierra, away from"the temptations of vain glory, they become be-come dead to the world and possessed their souls in unalterable peace. "Maligners may taunt the Jes uits it they will." writes I'arkman. "witn eremuiry, superstition and blind enthusiasm, but slander itself it-self cannot accuse them of hypocrisy or ambition." We have already learned something of the awful aw-ful degradation of the tribes. Allow me to anticipate antic-ipate the serious nature of the struggle the missionaries mis-sionaries were now engaged in by an extract from a sketch of the Sonora mission, written by one then laboring among the tribes. "The disposition of the Indians." writes the priest, "rests on four foundations, each one worse than the other, and they are ignorance, insrratitude. inconstancy and laziness. Their ignorance is appalling and causes them to act as children. Their ingratitude is such that whoever wishes' to do them good, must arm himself with the firm resolution of looking to God for his reward, for should he expect gratitude from them he is sure to meet with disappointment. Their laziness and horror of all kind of work, is so great that neither exhortation, nor prayers, nor the threat of punishment are sufficient to prevail upon them to procure the necessaries of life by tilling their own lands; their inconstancy and want of resolution is heart-breaking." TAMING TILE SAVAGE. And now it may interest my readers to be informed in-formed of the methods t and the discipline of reclamation re-clamation followed by the missionary fathers when dealing wtih savages either in northern Canada or on the shores of the Pacific. Religious and moral teaching naturally underlaid their system. They attached supreme importance to oral teaching and explanations of the doctrines of the church, iter- ating, reiterating and repeating till they were sat- I (Continued on page 5.) - i f t BRAVE MEN. (Continued from page 1.) isned their instructions had penetrated into the obtuse brains of their swarthy hearers, - lodged there and were partially, at least, understood. In the beginning and to attract them to the divine offices of-fices and instructions they fed them after the services serv-ices were over. They were dealing with "bearded children," as one of the fathers wrote and as there was only a child's intellect in a man's body thoy were compelled to appeal to their imagination, their emotions and affections rather than to their ! minds. Having in a measure won their good will they began to teach the children, singing, reading and writing. They composed catechisms in the native dialects, insisted on the children memorizing memoriz-ing the chapters which the fathers with heroic patience pa-tience explained and unfolded. They now established a children's choir, introduced intro-duced into the services lights, incense, processions, genuflexions, beautiful vestments, the use of banners ban-ners and flowers for the purpose " of decoration. They brought from Mexico, sacred paintings and the stations of the cross which they used not alone as incentives to devotion but as object lessons in religion. The rude and simple chapels which they built with the help of their newly made converts were not only temples where the holy sacrifice was offered and prayers said, but they became consecrated conse-crated kindergartens where the altar, the crucifix, the way of the cross and the painting of the Last Judgment taught their own lessons. By pictures, by music, by art and song, and symbolic represen tations they developed the stupid minds and won over the callous hearts of these benighted children of the desert. The fathers in time choose from their converts assistants known as Temastranes, who taught catechism to the children, acted as sacristans and explained from time to time the rudiments of religion to the pagan Indians. They appointed for every congregation a choir master, known as the maestro, who could read and write was commissioned to lead the singers, male and female, and teach others to play on musical instruments. in-struments. , In time they became enamoured with their work and the progress they were making, so much so indeed that one of the fathers writes: "It is wonderful how these Indians, who can neither neith-er read nor write, learn and retain two, three or four different masses, psalms, chants of the -office of the dead, chants for Holy Week, vespers for festivals, etc." . Then when the fathers succeeded in gathering them into communities and the children, chil-dren, under their fostering care, grown into young men and women, they taught them different mechanical me-chanical trades and many of the Indians became tailors, carpenters, tillers of the soil, blacksmiths, butchers,, stone cutters and masons. "I know," writes the author of the "Rudo Ensayo," "several Opatesvand Eudebes who can work at all these trades and who now play on musical instruments with no little skill." It has always taken centuries to graft upon savagery anything approaching a high civilization, yet in thirty years these devout priests had changed these children of the desert and the mountain from eaters of raw meat, stone tool users and grinders of acorn meal in rock bowls to tillers of the soil, weavers of cloth, workers work-ers in metal, players on musical instruments and singers of sacred hymns. THE ' AMBASSADORS OF TIIE CRUCIFIED The 'consecrated man who entered upon the tei ritory of a savage tribe to make to the owners of the soil a proclamation of the will of Jesus Christ, knew from the history of the past that he might be murdered while delivering his message. His mission mis-sion demanded from him unflinching courage, good health, a living consciousness that the eye of Ctod was upon him; demanded, in fact, that he clothe himself in the garments of the hero and the martyr. mar-tyr. We must remember that by nature the missionaries mis-sionaries were men like others of our race; swaved by the same impulses; animated by human hopes; agitated by the same fears; subject to the same passions. But the practice of daily self-denial and self -sacrifice; the crucifixion of the flesh with all its earthly appetites and desires; indifference to worldly honors and worldly rewards, contempt for the vanities of society, a life of hourly intercourse with heaven, and a supreme purity of intention raised them in time unto the plane of the' supernatural. super-natural. Outside of the immediate companions of their order they were unknown, they coveted obscurity ob-scurity and were satisfied to be forgotten of men. "It is possible," writes Marcus Aurelius, "at once to be a divine man, yet a man unknown to all- the world." It is impossible to study their lives and not feel that they were men eminently holy and of tender ten-der conscience, men acting under the abiding sense of the presence and omniscience of God, living in his holy fear and walking in his ways. "If ye labor only to please men, ye are fallen from your high estate," wrote Francis Xavier to the members of the order in Portugal. Preaching the precepts of self-denial to men and women given over to sensual indulgence, to carnal pleasures, and with whom freedom to think and act as they pleased was an immemorial right, these men of God came as enemies making war on the dearest traditions of the family and the established estab-lished customs and habits of the tribe. . From the cradle to the grave, this religion of the strangers forced on their savage natures a new law of conduct, ' iew habits, new conceptions of ac-1 tion and of life. It entered above .nil into that sphere within which the individual will of the savage sav-age man had been till now supreme, the sphere of his own hearth; it curtailed his power over his wife and child; it forbade infanticide, the possession posses-sion of more than one woman and commanded the abiding with that woman and . with her alone. It challenged almost al-most every social act; it denied to the brave cruelty to an enemy and the right to torture his foe; it made war on his very thoughts if they were foul. It held up gluttony and drunkenness, to which they were wedded and which alone made life worth living, liv-ing, as abominable vices; it interfered with the gratification of sexual desire and condemned killing kill-ing for revenge or gain under threat of eternal fire. It claimed to control every circumstance of life and imposed abstinences and fasts on men, at all times, ravenous for food, and drink. When reading of the martyrdom of many of these heroic priests our wonder is, not that forty-seven forty-seven of them were done to death when delivering the message of the Crucified Christ, but that anyone any-one of them escaped the horrors of the torch or the scalping knife. i Buena Yista, L. C. QUERY. A city reader asks, "How was it possible for the savages mentioned in one of Mr. Crawford's letters let-ters to be drunkards ? Where could they get their whisky to make them drunk? Has not Mr. Crawford Craw-ford made a mistake or a misquotation?" C. K. B. Whisky is not the only intoxicant beverage. A1-' , cohol is extracted from herbs as well as from vegetables veg-etables and cereals. Wood alcohol is obtained by the destructive distillation of wood. There can be no questiou of the savage instinct in securing in-! toxicants. (2) As to the "mistake or misquotation," ! that could not be possible, as Mr. Crawford stands ' in the first rank as antiquarian, historian, author Tmd scientist. We have mailed the letter to our distinguished correspondent, who will no doubt verify his statements. Ed. |