80 BLESSINGS OF CATHOLICISM. 



toiling for the monks, without possessing any 

 property of their own. Thrice a day they are 

 driven to church, to hear a mass in the Latin 

 language ; the rest of their time is employed 

 in labouring in the fields and gardens with 

 coarse, clumsy implements, and in the evening 

 they are locked up in over-crowded barracks, 

 which, unboarded, and without windows or 

 beds, rather resemble cows' stalls than habi- 

 tations for men. A coarse woollen shirt which 

 they make themselves, and then receive as a 

 present from the missionaries, constitutes their 

 only clothing. Such is the happiness which the 

 Catholic religion has brought to the unculti- 

 vated Indian ; and this is the Paradise which 

 he must not presume to undervalue by at- 

 tempting a return to freedom in the society of 

 his unconverted countrymen, under penalty of 

 imprisonment in fetters. 



The large tract of arable land which these 

 pious shepherds of souls have appropriated to 

 themselves, and which is cultivated by their 

 flocks, is for the most part sown with wheat and 

 pulse. TJie harvest is laid up in store ; and what 

 is not necessary for immediate consumption 



