482 Voyage of the Novara. 



cliiefly figures very beautifully carved in wood, the work of a 

 Jesuit of Spanish extraction/ whose talent and enthusiasm 

 seem to have laid the foundation of this school of image- 

 carvers. In what is called the model-room are numbers of 

 figures and busts designed by the practised hand of the 

 brother alluded to. Here too are some heads of the Saviour, 

 very beautifully executed in clay by the Chinese scholars, as 

 also Madonnas, busts of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and 

 the Emperor Napoleon III. These are doubly extraordinary, 

 when we remember the slight instruction and very scanty 

 assistance bestowed on them while in course of execution ; 

 their actual value however is small, for at present, as none of 

 the Jesuits in the Mission have any very decided taste for the 

 art, instruction in it has almost entirely ceased. 



The achievements of the present members of the Society of 

 Jesus, in China, suffer greatly, measured by the standard of 

 what was accomplished by their renowned brethren in pre- 

 vious centuries ; one looks in vain for the high attainments, the 

 self-sacrificing zeal, the practical talents of other times, and 

 Sikkaw^i, with its present spiritual occupants, cannot leave a 

 very pleasing impression on any unprejudiced Catholic. 

 There is an utter lack of all those qualities which once formed 

 the renown and the title to admiration of the Jesuits in China. 

 One looks for, but fails to find, a library corresponding to the 

 dignity of the Mission, or mathematical or medical instru- 

 ments, or a chemical laboratory : in lieu of these there seem 

 to prevail a deficiency of Christian toleration for these unmis- 



