HISTOEY OF PAEAGUAY. 293 



still hope to mould at pleasure the docile savages of South America, and in the 

 seclusion of that region, far from the jealous gaze of a perverted society, consti- 

 tute a new world obedient to the disciplinary laws introduced by them. The 

 scheme embraced the whole continent. Stationed at first in their college of S. 

 Paulo on the edge of the Brazilian plateau, and constantly recruited by zealous 

 missionaries drawn from all Christendom, the}- gradually subdued the vast inland 

 regions as far as the foot of the Andes and the entrance to the Amazonian 

 plains. 



Historic Retrospect. 



But the Jesuits had not arrived alone in these new lands, and they soon found 

 their work hampered by the presence of restless and unsympathetic white neigh- 

 bours. The Portuguese adventurers, the first to arrive, aspired to other things 

 besides creating model empires, and thought of little except enriching themselves 

 by the capture of slaves and the quest of gold. Hence endless conflicts with the 

 " Fathers," who were gradually pressed back to that part of the continent of which 

 the Paraguayan republic now occupies the centre. Here they at last found the 

 material suitable for their purpose, meek and pious neophyte*, whose daily existence 

 might be regulated by the sound of the church bells. The whole nation was 

 transformed to a devout flock, telling their beads and bending in worshijj before 

 the altar. 



But the modern spirit continued to dog their steps, and they were fain to 

 abandon these Paraguay missions, as they had to fly from those of Guayra. 

 Nevertheless their impress was left on the nation whom they had reduced, and 

 even on the surrounding populations who had not been brought directly under 

 their sway. By constituting these sequestered communities, cut off from all 

 intercourse with a profane world, they had roused a feeling of antagonism, which 

 led to the inevitable conflict. A section of mankind cannot keep aloof from their 

 kindred, and the wider the gap produced by education and pursuits, the more 

 unavoidable becomes the clash. 



A recent illustration of this truth is supplied by the history of the North 

 American Mormons, who fell back from wilderness to wilderness before the steady 

 advance of the backwood settlers in the Far West. At last they established them- 

 selves in a basin enclosed by lofty mountains, and defended from invasion by 

 saline tracts, rugged gorges and waterless ravines. Here the " Latter-Day Saints" 

 thought themselves secure, and here, like the Jesuits, they realised that vision of 

 their dreams, a perfect conmiunity modelled on the heavenly Jerusalem. But one 

 day their implacable enemies, the " Gentiles," burst upon their seclusion, tore their 

 laws to shreds, and profaned their temples. 



Even after the expulsion of the Jesuits, the Spanish colony of Paraguay kept 

 apart from the Buenos Ayres government, of which it was an official dependency. 

 Hence when the Hispano -American provinces separated from the mother-country, 

 the city of Asuncion, which had already revolted in 1811, refused to group itself 

 with the other Argentine colonies under the hegemony of the former capital. 



