SOUTH AMERICA. 



95 



together, and escape the wolves, after the shepherds are Second 



~ ^ Journey. 



all slam ? The Brazilians were told, that public education — 

 would go on just as usual. They might have asked 

 government, who so able to instruct our youth, as those 

 whose knowledge is proverbial ? who so fit, as those who 

 enjoy our entire confidence? who so worthy, as those 

 whose lives are irreproachable } 



They soon found that those who succeeded the fathers 

 of the Society of Jesus, had neither their manner nor 

 their abiUties. They had not made the instruction of 

 youth their particular study. Moreover, they entered on 

 the field after a defeat, where the officers had all been 

 slain ; where the plan of the campaign was lost ; where all 

 was in sorrow and dismay. No exertions of theirs could 

 rally the dispersed, or skill prevent the fatal consequences. 

 At the present day, the seminary of Olinda, in compari- 

 son with the former. Jesuits' 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 yoar own eyes the evils 

 their dissolution has caused j when you hear the inhabit- 

 ants 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 



