SOUTH AMERICA. 



97 



good principles of my order were called into action, and Second 



o L r Journey. 



still, in most absolute contradiction to this, you remark 

 we believed the idolatry we taught in Brazil. Thus we 

 brought none but good principles into action, and still 

 taught idolatry! 



" Again, you state there is no individual to whose 

 talents Brazil is so greatly and permanently indebted as 

 mine, and that I must be regarded as the founder of that 

 system so successfully pursued by the Jesuits in Paraguay ; 

 a system productive of as much good as is compatible 

 with pious fraud. Thus you make me, at one and the 

 same time, a teacher of none but good principles, and a 

 teacher of idolatry, and a believer in idolatry, and still 

 the founder of a system for which Brazil is greatly and 

 permanently indebted to me, though, by the by, the 

 system was only productive of as much good as is 

 compatible with pious fraud! 



" What means all this? After reading such incom- 

 parable nonsense, should your countrymen wish to be 

 properly informed concerning the Society of Jesus, there 

 are in England documents enough to show that the 

 system of the Jesuits was a system of christian charity 

 towards their fellow-creatures, administered in a manner 

 which human prudence judged best calculated to ensure 

 success ; and that the idolatry which you uncharitably 

 affirm they taught, was really and truly the very same 

 faith which the Catholic church taught for centuries in 



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