From the warfare of attack, my Reverend Antagonist passes to that of defence, as he terms it. In this he heavily complains of my not having done justice to the Protestants, particularly in the article of Foreign Missions. On this head, he enumerates the different societies, existing in this country, for carrying them on, and the large sums of money which they annually raise for this purpose. The societies, I learn from him, are the following: 1st, The society for promoting Christian Knowledge, called the Bartlett's-Buildings Society; which, though strictly of the Establishment, employs missionaries in India to the number of six, all Germans, and it should seem, all Lutherans. 2dly, There is the Society for propagating Christianity in the English colonies; but I hear nothing of its doings. 3dly, There is another for the conversion of Negro slaves, of which I can only say, ditto. 4thly, There is another for sending Missionaries to Africa and the East, concerning which we are equally left in the dark. 5thly, There is the London Missionary Society, which sent out the ship Duff, with certain preachers and their wives, to Otaheite, Tongabatoo, and the Marquesas, and published a journal of the voyage, by which it appears that they are strict Calvinists and Independents. 6thly, the Edinburgh Missionary Society fraternizes with the last mentioned. 7thly, There is an Arminian Missionary Society, under Dr. Coke, the head of the Wesleyan Methodists. 8thly, There is a Moravian Missionary Society, which appears more active than any of the others, particularly at the Cape, and in Greenland and Surinam. To these, your Visitor says, must be

added, the Hibernian Society for diffusing Christian Knowledge in Ireland; as also, and still more particularly, the Bible Society, with all its numerous ramifications. Of this last-named he speaks glorious things, foretelling that it will, in its progress, purify the world from infidelity and wickedness.

In answer to what has been stated, I have to mention several marked differences between the Protestant and the Catholic Missionaries. The former preach various discordant religions; for what religions can be more opposite than the Calvinistic and the Arminian? And how indignant would a Churchman feel, if I were to charge him with the impiety and obscenity of Zinzendorf and his Moravians? The very preachers of the same sect, on board of the Duff, had not agreed upon the creed they were to teach, when they were within a few days sail of Otaheite. (1) Whereas the Catholic Missionaries, whether Italians, French, Portuguese, or Spaniards, taught and planted precisely the same religion in the opposite extremities of the globe. Secondly, the envoys of those societies had no commission or authority to preach, but what they derived from the men and women, who contributed money to pay for their voyages and accommodations. I have not sent these prophets, says the Lord, yet they ran; I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied, Jer. xxiii. 21. On the other hand, the apostolical men, who, in ancient and in modern times, have converted the nations of the earth, all derived their mission and

(1) By the middle of January, the Committee of eight (among the thirty missionaries) had nearly finished the articles of faith. Two of the number dissented, but gave in.' -Journal of the Duff.

authority from the centre of the Apostolic Tree, the See of Peter. Thirdly, I cannot but remark the striking difference between the Protestant and the Catholic Missionaries, with respect to their qualifications and method of proceeding. The former were, for the most part, mechanics and laymen of the lowest order, without any learning infused or acquired, beyond what they could pick up from the English translation of the Bible; they were frequently encumbered with wives and children, and armed with muskets and bayonets, to kill those whom they could not convert. (1) Whereas the Catholic Missionaries, have always been Priests, or ascetics, trained to literature and religious exercises, men of continency and self-denial, who had no other defence than their Breviary and Crucifix, no other weapon than the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Ephes. vi. 17. Fourthly, I do not find any portion of that lively faith, and that heroic constancy, in braving poverty, torments, and death for the gospel, among the few Protestant converts, or even among their preachers, which have so frequently illustrated the different Catholic Missions. Indeed I have not heard of a single martyr of any kind, in Asia, Africa, or America, who can be considered as the fruit of the above-named societies, or of any other Protestant mission whatsoever. On the other hand, few are

(1) The 18 preachers who remained at Otaheite, took up arms by way of precaution.'— Ibid. It appears from subsequent accounts, that the preachers made use of their arms, to protect their wives from the men whom they came to convert. Of the nine preachers destined for Tongabatoo, six were for carrying fire-arms on shore, and three against it.-Journal.

the countries in which the Christian religion has been planted by Catholic Priests, without being watered by some of their own blood and of that of their converts. To say nothing of the martyrs of a late date in the Catholic Missions of Turkey, Abyssinia, Siam, Tonquin, Cochin-China, &c., there has been an almost continual persecution of the Catholics in the empire of China, for about a hundred years past, which, besides confessors of the faith, who have endured various tortures, has produced a very great number of martyrs, native Chinese as well as Europeans, laity as well as priests and bishops. (1) Within these two years, (2) the wonderful Apostle of the great Peninsula of Corea, to the east of China, James Ly, with as many as 100 of his converts, has suffered death for the faith. In the islands of Japan, the anti-christian persecution, excited by the envy and avarice of the Dutch, raged with a fury unexampled in the records of Pagan Rome. It began with the crucifixion of 26 martyrs, most of them missionaries. It then proceeded to other more horrible martyrdoms, and it concluded with putting to death as many as eleven hundred thousand · Christians. (3) Nor were those numerous and

(1) Hist. de l'Eglise, par Berault Bercastel, tom. 22, 23. Butler's Lives of the Saints, Feb. 5. Mém. Ecclés. pour le 18me Siècle.

(2) Namely, in 1801. While this work is in the press, namely in 1818, first edition, we receive an account of the martyrdom of Mgr. Dufresse, Bishop of Tabraca, and Vicar Apostolic of Sutchuen, in China, who was beheaded there Sept. 14, 1815, and of F. J.de Frior, missionary in Chiensi, who, after various torments, was strangled, Feb, 13, 1816. (3) Berault Bercastel says two millions, tom. 20.

splendid victories of the gospel in the provinces of South America achieved without torrents of Catholic blood. Many of the first preachers were slaughtered by the savages to whom they announced the gospel, and not unfrequently devoured by them, as was the case with the first Bishop of Brazil.-In the last place, the Protestant missions have never been attended with any great success. Those heretofore carried on by the Dutch, French, and American Calvinists, seem to have been more levelled at the destruction of the Catholic missions than at the conversion of the Pagans. (1) In later times, the zealous Wesley went on a mission to convert the savages of Georgia, but returned without making one proselyte. His companion Whitfield afterwards went to the same country on the

(1) It is generally known, and not denied by Mosheim himself, that the extermination of the flourishing missions in Japan is to be ascribed to the Dutch. When they became

masters of the Portuguese settlements in India, they endea voured, by persecution as well as by other means, to make the Christian natives abandon the Catholic religion, to which St. Xaverius and his companions had converted them. The Calvinist preachers having failed in their attempt to proselyte the Brazilians, it happened that one of their party, James Sourie, took a merchant vessel at sea with 40 Jesuit missionaries, under F. Azevedo, on board of it, bound to Brazil; when, in hatred of them and their destination, he put them all to death. The year following, F. Diaz with 11 companions, bound on the same mission, and falling into the hands of the Calvinists, met with the same fate. Incredible pains were taken by the ministers of New England to induce the Hurons, Iroquois, and other converted savages, to abandon the Catholic religion, when the latter answered them: You never preached the word to us while we were Pagans; and now that we are Christians you try to deprive us of it.'