682 Report on Shoa [No. 140. 



arouse the prejudices of the people ; God did not create the world in one 

 moment, but in six days." 



Finding secret admission into the houses of many individuals, the 

 Jesuits were beginning to gain ground, when the monks and clergy, 

 who had suffered the most severely during the former struggle, raised 

 an outcry, that the Europeans were the enemies of the Mother of God, 

 and had blasphemed her holy name. The tumult became universal, 

 and a powerful conspiracy was arranged to poison the friars, and 

 dethrone the emperor. David, a young prince of the imperial family 

 was called to the throne, and the unfortunate missionaries having been 

 dragged from their place of concealment, were condemned to forfeit 

 their lives. 



On being offered a free pardon if they would abjure the Roman faith, 

 the last martyrs to the cause indignantly rejected the proposal, and the 

 young monarch struck with their devotion and endurance under severe 

 and perilous trial, commanded that they might be banished from the 

 land ; but the monks preferred stoning them to death, and the event ac- 

 cordingly took place in the year 1718. 



So ended the ardent endeavours to substitute one superstition in the 

 room of another. Time, and life, and means, had been wantonly expend- 

 ed, that the triumphant chariot of Rome might grind over the neck of 

 the Abyssinian ; but the costly sacrifice was impotent, and the ambition 

 of binding a far country in the fetters of spiritual slavery sunk deserv- 

 edly to nought. 



Another century rolled on before the Christians of the West bestirred 

 themselves in the cause of enlightenment. The Apostolic Church had 

 fallen from her high place, and it was reserved for the members of an- 

 other faith to carry the glad tidings of salvation to the benighted people 

 of Ethiopia. 



The great traveller, Bruce, had now for ever broken the mys- 

 terious seal of ignorance which had hitherto bound the land as 

 with an iron zone, and his Abyssinian friend and companion, the 

 learned Abraham, after ten years of patient industry, had completed 

 his pious labours. A translation of the Holy Scriptures was faithfully 

 rendered into the popular language of the country, and the precious 

 document was purchased in 1818, by the Bible Society of Great 

 Britain. 



