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the progress of knowledge were felt even in the 

 forests of America. The youngest of the capu- 

 chin monks of the last Mission * had brought 

 with him a Spanish translation of Chaptal's 

 Treatise on Chemistry, and intended to study 

 this work in the solitude, where he was destined 

 to pass the remainder of his days. I doubt 

 whether this desire of instruction would be last- 

 ing in the mind of a young monk, isolated on 

 the banks of the Rio Tigre : but what is cer- 

 tain, and highly honourable to the spirit of the 

 age is, that, during our long abode in the Mis- 

 sions of South America, we never perceived any 

 sign of intolerance. The monks of Caripe were 

 not ignorant, that I was born in the protestant 

 part of Germany. Authorised by the orders of 

 the court, I had no motives to conceal from 

 them this fact ; nevertheless, no mark of dis- 

 trust, no indiscreet question, no attempt at 

 controversy, ever diminished the value of the 

 hospitality they exercised with so much liberal- 

 ity and frankness* We shall examine in an- 

 other place the causes and limits of this tolerance 

 of the missionaries. 



* Beside the villages where the Indians are collected to- 

 gether under the government of a missionary, the name of 

 Mission is given in the Spanish Colonies to an assemblage of 

 young monks, who depart together from a Spanish port, 

 to form monastic establishments either in the New World, 

 or in the Philippine Islands. Hence the phrase > " Go to 

 Cadiz, to seek a new Mission.* 



