98 WANDERINGS IN 



SECOND Olinda, in comparison with the former Jesuits' 



JOURNEY. X 



college, is only as the waning moon's beam to the 



sun's meridian splendour. 



When you visit the places where those learned 

 fathers once flourished, and see, with your own 

 eyes, the evils their dissolution has caused ; when 

 you hear the inhabitants telling you how good, 

 how clever, how charitable they were ; what will 

 you think of our poet laureate, for calling them, 

 in his " History of Brazil," " Missioners, whose 

 zeal the most fanatical was directed by the coolest 

 policy ?" 



Was it fanatical to renounce the honours and 

 comforts of this transitory life, in order to gain 

 eternal glory in the next, by denying themselves, 

 and taking up the cross? Was it fanatical to 

 preach salvation to innumerable wild hordes of 

 Americans ? to clothe the naked ? to encourage 

 the repenting sinner ? to aid the dying Christian ? 

 The fathers of the Society of Jesus did all this. 

 And for this their zeal is pronounced to be the 

 most fanatical, directed by the coolest policy. It 

 will puzzle many a clear brain to comprehend 

 how it is possible, in the nature of things, that 

 zeal the most fanatical should be directed by the 

 coolest policy. Ah, Mr. Laureate, Mr. Laureate, 

 that " quidlibet audendi" of yours, may now and 

 then gild the poet, at the same time that it makes 

 the historian cut a sorry figure ! 



Could Father Nobrega rise from the tomb, he 



