96 A NTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



cafe of the Indians of the miffions. Charlevoix tells us, that when 

 the Jefuits were failing upon the rivers, and for their own enter- 

 tainment finging facred hymns, numbers of Indians flocked to hear 

 them ; and the Jefuits, by explaining to them the fubjedl of thofe 

 hymns, made converts of many of them f. Nor do I believe that 

 any thing contributed more to the advancement of religion in their 

 miflions, than the choirs which, Charlevoix fays, they had in all 

 their churches J. And here the Miflionaries maybe faid to have 

 aded among the Indians the part which Amphion aded among the 

 Greeks, as Horace tells us, 



Dlftus et Amphion, Thebanas conditor arcis, 

 Saxa tnovcre fono teftudinis, et prece blanda 

 Ducere quo velkt 



Vv'here the uncivilifed Greeks, at that time as dull and ftui)id as the 

 Jefuits found the Indians when they came among them §, are not 

 unfitly imaged by Stones. Thofe MiflTionaries may likewife, in the 

 allegorical and poetical ftile, properly enough be faid to be Prorne- 

 iheufest who made men ; for the Indians, before they were civilif- 

 ed by them, were wild beafts, and the worft of wild beafts, who did 

 not defcrve the name of men. 



The laft method, I fhall mention, ufed to tame thofe Savages, 

 was to edablifti a polity and regular form of government among 

 them. For, as man is intended, by God and nature, to live in 

 civil fociety, which cannot be without government, it is evident 

 tha^, if he be not governed, he is an imperfed animal who cannot 

 anfwer the purpofe for which he is in this world. The Indians 

 therefore of the miflions were formed into regular governments, had 



property 



\ Vol. I. p 241. — 242. 

 % Ibid. 



§ Ibid. p. 240, 



