io8 THE BRAZILS. 
the Portugueze in the Brazils afford but too striking an ex- 
ample of the latter. For although the Jesuits, in their govern- 
ment of Paragua}'^, 'united such a degree of prudence, skill, 
and perseverance, to the most consummate knowledge of 
human nature, as would no doubt have completed the civil- 
ization of South America ; yet, other missionaries of different 
orders, by an intemperate zeal in the same cause, destroyed 
tlie fair prospect of fruit by blighting the tree in its blossom. 
It was an invariable principle of the Jesuits to give way to 
the prevailing superstitions of the natives, to study and to 
encourage their most rooted prejudices, so as to be able, by 
meeting them on their own ground when proper occasions 
occurred, to employ the few they might have converted, as 
active instruments for l^ringing about a general turn in 
favour of the grand object of their mission. The Dominicans, 
the Franciscans, and the Benedictines aimed, on the contrary, 
to overturn at once every sacred superstition in the religious 
creed of the natives, and to force upon them an unconditional 
compliance with the novel doctrines of their own : — doctrines 
Avhich in their purest and most simple dress could not pos- 
sibly be understood, because they did not apply to the con- 
dition of savage life ; much less so, when involved in mystery 
and disguised in ceremon}^ I'hat man who thinks to convert 
a savage to Christianity, b}'' jireacliing the doctrine of a 
future state of rewards and punishments, and by endeavour- 
ing to convince him that all his time, and attention, and 
faith, must be employed to secure the salvation of his soul in 
another world, whilst his body is pining and perishing for 
want in this, betrays a most woful ignorance of the human 
jnind, and is not likely to be of much use in forwarding the 
