190 CHUECHES OR JAILS. 



the government. It sought the people, more than what they 

 had. The church was bad policy. The government could 

 receive more from jails. So the church was allowed to become 

 a ruin ; the jail was honored. It was a delusion of spiritual 

 blindness. The jail will be torn down some time or other 

 where churches are allowed to fall. People do not realize the 

 cost of jails. Larger revenues are obtained by strength of 

 authority, by measures of force ; it is ignored that the revenue 

 is consumed in creating the force, in sustaining the authority. 

 Rulers have not fully appreciated the greater wisdom of so 

 elevating the people, at any cost, that every man's conscience 

 may become a constable who shall collect the dues of govern- 

 ment and protect society. It was pleasing and painful to find 

 in the district of Ambaca some of the traces of the good but 

 mistaken men who had taught the people. It was pleasing to 

 find so many of the natives reading. It was painful to realize 

 that the long and other valuable labors of the Jesuits had left 

 no intelligent ideas of Christ. It was not their policy to com- 

 mit the word of God to their converts. The crucifixes and 

 pictures withstood too feebly the surrounding ignorance and 

 superstition. The Bible would have been powerful ; it would 

 have been the eentre of a growing light whether there were 

 priests or none. The failure or refusal of the Catholic Church 

 to employ the open Bible in their missions makes the ultimate 

 failure of them absolutely certain. There is no disposition to 

 deny that much noble benevolence and wonderful zeal has 

 characterized the labors of many of the singularly devoted 

 servants of this church ; it is only lamented that they do not 

 adopt a policy which might be more beneficent and more effec- 

 tual in the conversion of men. The simple fact that the forty 

 thousand inhabitants of the district of Ambaca are improved in 

 intelligence, and remember their teachers with respect, would 

 not satisfy the men who we trust sincerely desired their salva- 

 tion finally and their emancipation now from the bondage of 

 heathen beliefs. We will hope that a day may come speedily 

 when a wiser rule and truer agencies shall change effectually the 

 songs of the people, and engage them more truly in the service 

 of Christ. Surely it is a sad mockery of the Master's commis- 

 sion to put his name on men whose hearts continue in most 



